有一天（约翰后来算出那难是他十二岁生日后不久），他回家发现寝室地上有一本他从来没有见过的书。

　　It was a thick book and looked very old. The binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled.

　　那书很厚，样子很古老；书脊叫耗子咬坏了；有些书页散了，皱了。

　　He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

　　他拣了起来，看了看书名页，那书叫做《威廉·莎士比亚全集》。

　　Linda was lying on the bed, sipping that horrible stinking mescal out of a cup.

　　琳妲躺在床上，从一个杯子里暖着一种非常难闻的美似可。

　　"Popé brought it," she said. Her voice was thick and hoarse like somebody else's voice.

　　“哪书是波培拿来的。”她说。她的嗓子又粗又吸，仿佛是别人的声音。

　　It was lying in one of the chests of the Antelope Kiva.

　　原放在羚羊圣窟的一个箱子里。

　　It's supposed to have been there for hundreds of years.

　　据说已经放了好几百年。

　　I expect it's true, because I looked at it, and it seemed to be full of nonsense.

　　我觉得说得对，因为我看了看，认为满是废话。

　　Uncivilized. Still, it'll be good enough for you to practice your reading on.

　　木文明，可是用来训练你读书还是可以的。

　　She took a last sip, set the cup down on the floor beside the bed,

　　她喝完最后一口，把杯子放在床边地面上，

　　turned over on her side, hiccoughed once or twice and went to sleep.

　　转过身子，打了一两个嗝，睡着了。

　　He opened the book at random.

　　他随意翻开了书。

　　Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty …

　　不，而是生活在油渍斑斑汗臭薰人的床上。浸渍在腐败、调情和做爱里，下面是恶心的猪圈……

　　The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder;

　　那些奇怪的话在他心里翻腾，有如滚滚雷霆说的话；

　　like the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried;

　　有如夏令的舞会上的大鼓——若是鼓声也能表达意思的话；有如唱玉米之歌的男声，很美，很美，美得叫你想哭；

　　like old Mitsima saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and stone–kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.Kiai silu silu, tsithl–but better than Mitsima's magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda; about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed; about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

　　有如老米季马摇晃着羽翎。雕花手杖和石头和骨头物件时所念的咒语——佳特拉、其录、喜洛亏、喜洛亏、凄哀、喜卢、喜卢、其托——但比那咒语好，因为它有更多的意思，因为那是说给他听的；说得好极了，而且叫人听得似懂非懂，那是一种美丽得慑人的咒语，是关于琳妲，关于琳妲躺在那儿打呼喀，床前地上摆着空杯子的。是关于琳妲与波培，琳妲与波培的。