美丽新世界Brave New World 第8章(5)

 　　He had often seen it before. "When you're bigger," she had said, "you can read it." Well, now he was big enough.

　　那书他以前常看见。“你长大以后，”她说，“就可以读了。”好了，现在他长大了。

　　He was proud. "I'm afraid you won't find it very exciting," she said.

　　他觉得骄傲。“我担心你不会觉得这书能叫你太激动，”她说。

　　"But it's the only thing I have." She sighed.

　　“但那是我唯一的东西，”她叹了一口气。

　　"If only you could see the lovely reading machines we used to have in London!" He began reading.

　　“你要是能够看见那些可爱的朗读机就好了！我们在伦敦常用的。”他读了起来。

　　The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo¹.

　　《胚胎的化学和细菌学条件设置》。

　　Practical Instructions for Beta Embryo-Store Workers.

　　《胚胎库比塔人员实用说明书》。

　　It took him a quarter of an hour to read the title alone.

　　光是读那标题就花了他一刻钟。

　　He threw the book on the floor. "Beastly, beastly book!" he said, and began to cry.

　　他把书扔到了地上。“讨厌，讨厌的书！”他哭了起来。

　　The boys still sang their horrible song about Linda.

　　孩子们仍然唱着那支关于琳妲的可怕的歌。

　　Sometimes, too, they laughed at him for being so ragged².

　　有时他们又嘲笑他穿得太破烂。

　　When he tore his clothes, Linda did not know how to mend them.

　　他的衣裳破了琳妲不知道怎么补。

　　In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away clothes with holes in them and got new ones.

　　她告诉他在那另外的地方，衣服有了洞就扔掉，买新的。

　　"Rags, rags!" the boys used to shout at him.

　　“破烂儿，破烂儿！孩子们对他喊。

　　"But I can read," he said to himself, "and they can't. They don't even know what reading is."

　　“可是我会读书，”他想，“他们不会，连什么是读书都不知道。”

　　It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about the reading, to pretend that he didn't mind when they made fun of him.

　　他们嘲笑他时，他努力想着读书，就很容易对付了。

　　He asked Linda to give him the book again.

　　他可以装着不在乎。于是他又要求琳妲把书给他。

　　The more the boys pointed³ and sang, the harder he read. Soon he could read all the words quite well.

　　孩子们越是唱歌，指指戳戳，他越是用功读书。那些字他很快就读得很好了。

　　Even the longest. But what did they mean?

　　就连最长的字也一样。但那是什么意思呢？

　　He asked Linda; but even when she could answer it didn't seem to make it very clear.

　　他问琳妲，她一般是答不上来。

　　And generally she couldn't answer at all.

　　即使能答得上来，她也解释不清楚。

　　"What are chemicals?" he would ask.

　　“什么叫化学药品？”他有时间。

　　Oh, stuff like magnesium⁴ salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas⁵ and Epsilons small and backward;

　　哦，比如镁盐，比如保持德尔塔和爱扑塞隆们瘦小落后的酒精；

　　and calcium⁶ carbonate for bones, and all that sort of thing.

　　比如制造骨头的碳酸钙和诸如此类的东西。

　　But how do you make chemicals, Linda? Where do they come from?

　　可是化学药品怎么制造呢，琳妲？化学药品是从哪里来的呢？

　　Well, I don't know. You get them out of bottles.

　　我不知道，是从瓶子里取出来的。

　　And when the bottles are empty, you send up to the Chemical Store for more.

　　瓶子空了就打发人到药品仓库去要。

　　It's the Chemical Store people who make them, I suppose.

　　是药品仓库的人制造的，我估计。

　　Or else they send to the factory for them.

　　或者是由他们打发人到工厂去取来的，我不知道。

　　I don't know. Inever did any chemistry. My job was always with the embryos⁷.

　　他问她其他问题也都一样。琳妲好像从来就不知道。

　　It was the same with everything else he asked about. Linda never seemed to know.

　　我从来没有搞过化学。我一向只搞胚胎。

　　The old men of the pueblo⁸ had much more definite answers.

　　印第安村的老年人的回答却要确切得多。

　　The seed of men and all creatures, the seed of the sun and the seed of earth and the seed of the sky —Awonawilona made them all out of the Fog of Increase.

　　人和一切生物的种子，太阳的种子，大地的种子，天的种子都是阿沃纳微罗那用繁衍神雾创造出来的。

　　Now the world has four wombs; and he laid the seeds in the lowest of the four wombs.

　　现在世界有四个子宫，他把种子放进了最低的子宫里。

　　And gradually the seeds began to grow …

　　种子渐渐成长……

1 embryo   

n.胚胎，萌芽的事物

参考例句：

• They are engaging in an embryo research.他们正在进行一项胚胎研究。
• The project was barely in embryo.该计划只是个雏形。

2 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

3 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

4 magnesium   

n.镁

参考例句：

• Magnesium is the nutrient element in plant growth.镁是植物生长的营养要素。
• The water contains high amounts of magnesium.这水含有大量的镁。

5 deltas   

希腊字母表中第四个字母( delta的名词复数 )； （河口的）三角洲

参考例句：

• Tidal channels, deltas, and washover fans are characteristically associated with offshore bars. 潮汐水道、三角洲和冲刷扇典型地与滨外砂洲伴生在一起。
• I know many of the early civilizations prospered on deltas. 我知道很多古老的文明都是在三角洲上蓬勃发展起来的。

6 calcium   

n.钙(化学符号Ca)

参考例句：

• We need calcium to make bones.我们需要钙来壮骨。
• Calcium is found most abundantly in milk.奶含钙最丰富。

7 embryos   

n.晶胚；胚，胚胎( embryo的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Somatic cells of angiosperms enter a regenerative phase and behave like embryos. 被子植物体细胞进入一个生殖阶段，而且其行为象胚。 来自辞典例句
• Evolution can explain why human embryos look like gilled fishes. 进化论能够解释为什么人类的胚胎看起来象除去了内脏的鱼一样。 来自辞典例句

8 pueblo   

n.（美国西南部或墨西哥等）印第安人的村庄

参考例句：

• For over 2,000 years,Pueblo peoples occupied a vast region of the south-western United States.在长达2，000多年的时间里，印第安人统治着现在美国西南部的大片土地。
• The cross memorializes the Spanish victims of the 1680 revolt,when the region's Pueblo Indians rose up in violent protest against their mistreatment and burned the cit