经典科幻文学:《 基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第9章4

She turned to peer at him, myopically, then turned back, swiped at a fly and missed.

她扭头眯着近视眼瞅瞅他，然后又转回去，朝一只苍蝇挥拍，没打中。

‘What about?’ she said.

“关于什么的？”她问。

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

“抱歉？”

‘I said, what about?’ she almost screeched.

“我说，关于什么的？”她几乎是在尖叫。

‘Well,’ said Arthur. ‘Just sort of general advice, really. It said in the brochure—’

“唔，”阿瑟说，“就是比较概括的那种，其实。旅游手册上说……”

‘Ha! Brochure!’ spat the old woman. She seemed to be waving her bat more or less at random now.

“哈！旅游手册！”那女人啐了一口。现在她挥拍的动作看上去或多或少有些漫无目的。

Arthur fished the crumpled-up brochure from his pocket. He wasn’t quite certain why. He had already read it and she, he expected, wouldn’t want to. He unfolded it anyway in order to have something to frown thoughtfully at for a moment or two. The copy in the brochure wittered on about the ancient mystical arts of the seers and sages of Hawalius, and wildly over-represented the level of accommodation available in Hawalion. Arthur still carried a copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with him but found, when he consulted it, that the entries were becoming more abstruse and paranoid and had lots of x’s and j’s and {’s in them. Something was wrong somewhere. Whether it was in his own personal unit, or whether it was something or someone going terribly amiss, or perhaps just hallucinating, at the heart of the Guide organisation itself, he didn’t know. But one way or another he was even less inclined to trust it than usual, which meant that he trusted it not one bit, and mostly used it for eating hissandwiches off when he was sitting on a rock staring at something.

阿瑟从口袋里摸出那本皱巴巴的旅游手册。他也不大确定自己为什么这么干。他已经读过了，而她，他猜，并没有想读的意思。不过他还是把它展开，好让自己可以对着什么东西若有所思地皱会儿眉头。小册子没完没了地絮叨着夏威流斯的预言家和智者们古老神秘的艺术，毫无节制地夸大夏威流斯人的接待能力。阿瑟随身带着《银河系漫游指南》，可最近他发现，里头的条目常常发神经，越来越深奥难懂，而且还多出了好多x,y和{。有什么地方出了问题，但阿瑟不知道毛病是出在自己这一本还是出在整个《指南》公司；没准是公司内部有什么东西或者什么人不大对头，也可能他们干脆产生了幻觉。但无论如何，他比平常更不信任它了。换句话说，他如今半点也不相信上头的鬼话，只有坐在石头上盯着什么东西发呆的时候才拿它垫着吃三明治。

The woman had turned and was walking slowly towards him now. Arthur tried, without making it too obvious, to judge the wind direction, and bobbed about a bit as she approached.

那女人已经转过身，正往他这边走。阿瑟试图不着痕迹地判断风向，并且在她接近时稍微调整了自己的位置。

‘Advice,’ she said. ‘Advice, eh?’

“建议。”她说，“建议，呃？”

‘Er, yes,’ said Arthur. ‘Yes, that is—’

“额，是的。”他说，“是的，我是说……”