LuLu譯想世界

可愛。說不清自己對情人的愛慕究竟是怎麼回事，戀人只好用了這麼個呆板的詞兒：「可愛！」
 

不知為什麼在幾百萬可能是我的候選人當中，挑上的還是昨天入睡的那個我？ ──摘自《星空中的普魯斯特》p4

有一天早晨，我起床後，覺得心情陰鬱憂傷；感到一種無所事事的疲憊，並且覺得被迫要做一種不尋常的事情，一個驚人的舉動；於是，我打開了窗戶，唉！ 他終於出現了。我好奇地察看著他所有的玻璃，對他說，「怎麼，你沒有彩色玻璃？粉的、紅的、藍的，沒有？沒有富於魔力的玻璃，沒有天堂裡的玻璃？你真是做事不慎！你敢在貧困的街區散步，可你卻沒有讓人看到美好人生的玻璃！」 摘自《巴黎的憂鬱》(Le Spleen de Paris) 亞丁 譯 (p.46-7)

Part I: January 1976
CHAPTER ONE
On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back. 
If he had been more analytical, he might have calculated the approximate time of their arrival; but he still used the lifetime habit of judging nightfall by the sky, and on cloudy days that method didn’t work. That was why he chose to stay near the house on those days. 
He walked around the house in the dull gray of afternoon, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, trailing threadlike smoke over his shoulder. He checked each window to see if any of the boards had been loosened. After violent attacks, the planks were often split or partially pried off, and he had to replace them completely; a job he hated. Today only one plank was loose. Isn’t that amazing? he thought.
In the back yard he checked the hothouse and the water tank. Sometimes the structure around the tank might be weakened or its rain catchers bent or broken off. Sometimes they would lob rocks over the high fence around the hothouse, and occasionally they would tear through the overhead net and he’d have to replace panes.