1. Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders - a book critic known for his elegant savagery with which he reviewed.
安德斯来到银行时，银行快要关门了，所以窗口前自然已经排起了长长的队。他排在两个女人身后，她们之间大声而愚蠢的交谈令他极为厌烦。不过，他从来就没有过什么好脾气，毕竟，他是安德斯，一位以他那优雅而又粗暴的观点而闻名的书评家。
2. With the line still very long, one of the tellers stuck a "POSITION CLOSED" sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders watched the teller with hatred. "Oh, that's nice," one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident: "One of those little human touches that keep us coming back for more."
排队的人依旧很多。此时，其中一名银行柜员在她的窗口前挂起了“暂停服务”的牌子，然后走到银行的后面，靠在一张桌子上，开始和一个男子一起翻弄着桌子上的文件，以此来打发时间。排在安德斯前面的那两个女人用恶狠狠的目光盯着这名柜员。“哦，太棒了，”其中一个人说道。然后，她转向安德斯，自信地补充说：“这种缺乏人情味的服务态度，又得让咱们白来一趟。”
3. Anders felt his own towering hatred of the teller, but he immediately turned it to the cry-baby in front of him. "Damned unfair," he said. "Tragic, really." She stood her ground. "I didn't say it was tragic," she said. "I just think it's a very lousy way to treat your customers." "Unforgivable," Anders said. "Heaven will take note." She simply stared past him and said nothing. Anders saw that the other woman, her friend, was looking in the same direction. And then the tellers stopped what they were doing, and the customers slowly turned, and silence came over the bank.
安德斯内心对这个柜员的厌恶已经到了极点，但他这种厌恶的感觉立刻转移到了在他前面爱发牢骚的人身上上。“可恶，这太不公平了，”他说。 “真够惨的。”她坚持自己的立场。 “我并不是说这件事很惨，”她说，“我只是觉得这种对待顾客的方式很糟糕。” “不可原谅，”安德斯说，“相信老天会长眼的。”她没有作答，目光从他身边经过，直勾勾朝一个方向看去。安德斯看到另一个女人（那个跟她交谈的朋友）也正朝着同一个方向看去。然后，柜员们也停止了他们手头的工作，顾客们慢慢转过身来，一片死寂蔓延至银行的每个角落。
4. Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits were standing to the side of the door. One of them had a pistol pressed against the guard's neck. The other man had a shotgun. "Keep your big mouth shut!" the man with the pistol said, though no one had spoken a word. "One of you tellers hits the alarm, you're all dead meat. Got it?"
两名身着蓝色西装，戴着黑色滑雪面罩的男子此时正站在银行大门的一侧。其中一人用手枪顶在一名保安的脖子上，另一个人手持一杆猎枪。“闭嘴！”拿手枪的男子说，尽管此时并没有人说话。“你们这些柜员中，如果有一个人按下报警按钮，你们就都死定了，知道吗？”
5. The tellers nodded. "Oh, bravo, " Anders said. "Dead meat." He turned to the woman in front of him. "Great script, eh?" The man with the shotgun went over to the tellers, handing each of them a hefty bag. When he came to the empty position he asked: "Whose slot is that?" Anders watched the teller. She turned to the man pointing at herself with a trembling finger. "Mine," she said. "Then get your ugly feet in action and fill that bag." "There you go," Anders said to the woman in front of him. "Justice is done." "Hey! Bright boy! Did I tell you talk?" "No," Anders said. "Then shut your trap." "Did you hear that?" Anders said. "'Bright boy.' Right out of 'The Killers'."
柜员们纷纷点头。 “哦，好极了，”安德斯说，“死定了。”他转向身前的那个女人。“很棒的剧本，是吧？”拿猎枪的男子走向柜员，给他们每人一个大袋子。当走到那个空窗口时，他问道：“这是谁的位置？”安德斯看着那个柜员。她转向那个正用颤抖的手指指着自己的男子。“我的，”她说。“那就动动你那双丑脚，过来把袋子装满。” “老天终于开眼了，”安德斯对他身前的那个女人说，“正义得到了伸张。” “嘿！聪明的男孩！我说过让你说话了吗？” “没有，”安德斯回答说。“那就闭上你的臭嘴！” “你听到他说什么了吗？”安德斯说，“聪明的男孩。这可是出自杀手之口哦。”
6. "Please be quiet," the woman said. "Hey, you deaf or what?" The man with the shotgun walked over to Anders. He poked the weapon into Anders' gut. "You think I'm playing games?' "No," Anders said, staring into the man's eyes, which were clearly visible behind the holes in the mask: pale blue, and rawly red-rimmed. The man's left eyelid kept twitching. He breathed out a piercing, ammoniac smell that shocked Anders more than anything that had happened.
“您还是别说话了，”那个女人说。“嘿，你是聋了，还是怎么着？”手持猎枪的男子走向安德斯。他用猎枪戳在安德斯的肚子上。 “你以为我在跟你闹着玩吗？” “不，”安德斯说，与此同时盯着那个男子的面罩上那两个孔后面的那双清晰可见的眼睛：它们是淡蓝色，眼眶有些泛红。男子的左眼睑在不停地抽搐。他呼出了一股安德斯从来没闻过的刺鼻的氨气味。
7. "You like me, bright boy?" he said. "No," Anders said. "Then stop looking at me." Anders fixed his gaze on the man's shiny shoes. "Not down there. Up there." He stuck the pistol under Anders' chin and pushed it upward until Anders was looking at the ceiling. "You think you can mess with me?" "No." "mess with me again, you're history. Capiche?" Anders burst out laughing. He covered his mouth with both hands and said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, " Capiche - oh, God, capiche," and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shot Anders right in the head.
“你喜欢我，聪明的男孩？”他问道。“不，”安德斯说。“那就别再盯着我看。”安德斯把目光锁定在那个男子闪亮的鞋子上。“别低头，抬起头来。”他把手枪顶在安德斯的下巴上，然后向上推，直到安德斯看向天花板。“你觉得你可以找我麻烦？” “不是的。” “再找我麻烦，你就没命了，懂吗？”安德斯突然大笑起来。他用双手捂住嘴说：“对不起，对不起，”然后，没忍住，从手指间发出了一个轻蔑的哼声，并继续说道：“没命了——哦，上帝，没命了。”就在此时，那个拿手枪的男子举起手枪，正对着安德斯的头部扣下了扳机。
8. The bullet smashed Anders' skull and ploughed through his brain and exited behind his right ear. Once in the brain, the bullet made Anders suddenly think of a scene that "passed before his eyes." It brought back memories of one summer afternoon some forty years ago.
子弹打碎了安德斯的头骨，钻进了他的脑袋，然后从他的右耳后飞了出来。就在子弹进入他脑袋的那一刹那，一个他曾经目睹的场景突然闪过他的脑海，给他带回了大约四十年前一个夏日午后的记忆。
9. It is worth noting what Anders did not remember. He did not remember his first lover, Sherry, or what he had most madly loved about her, before it came to irritate him. Anders did not remember his wife, whom he had also loved before she exhausted him with her predictability, or his daughter, now a sullen professor of economics. He did not remember standing just outside his daughter's door as she lectured her bear about his naughtiness and described the truly appalling punishments ‘Paws’ would receive unless he changed his ways.
值得注意的是安德斯没记起什么——他没记起他的初恋情人雪莉，没记起他为什么当时那么疯狂地爱着她，也没记起这些令他疯狂地爱着她的理由之后又是如何激怒他的；他没记起他的妻子，那个他同样曾经爱过，但之后因为太缺乏神秘感而令他感到疲惫乏味的女人，也没记起他那已成为整天阴沉着脸的经济学教授的女儿； 他没记起他曾经站在女儿的门外，偷看她训诫她的淘气的玩具熊，并向他讲述如果他不知错就改，就会真的对他使用那可怕的“打熊掌”惩罚。
10. Anders did not remember his dying mother saying of his father, "I should have stabbed him in his sleep." He did not remember deliberately crashing his father's car in to a tree, or waking himself up with laughter. He did not remember when he began to dread the heap of books on his desk with boredom and dread, or when he grew angry at writers for writing them. He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else.
安德斯没记起他垂死的母亲提到他父亲的那句话：“我应该在他睡觉时捅他一刀。”他没记起自己开着父亲的汽车故意撞向一棵树，也没记起这件事曾让他从睡梦中笑着醒来；他没记起自己从什么时候开始害怕书桌上那无聊且可怕的书堆，也没记起从什么时候开 始对写这些书的作者变得愤怒；他没记起从什么时候开始每件事都在提醒他这件事还有着另外一面。
11. This is what he remembered: heat. A baseball field. Yellow grass, the whirr of insects, himself leaning against a tree as the boys of the neighbourhood gather and start to quarrel about their positions in a ball game. He looks on as the others argue. It has become tedious to Anders: an oppression, like the heat. "Shortstop," the boy says. "Short's the best position they is." Anders turns and looks at him. The others will think he's being a jerk, ragging the kid for his grammar. But that isn't it, not at all - it's that Anders is strangely roused by those final two words, by their pure unexpectedness. He starts repeating them to himself.
他只记得：炎热的天气、棒球场、黄色的草地、昆虫发出的呼呼声、自己靠在一棵树上，与此同时，邻居的男孩们聚集在一起，开始争吵他们在球赛中的位置。当其他人争吵时，他只是在一旁观看。对安德斯来说，这一切都已变得非常乏味——就像炎热的天气一样沉闷。“三垒手，”一个男孩说，“三垒手是他们的最佳位置。”安德斯转过身来，看着他。其他人会认为他是一个蠢货，并用他那糟糕语法戏弄他。但这并不是原因所在，完全不是——而是因为安德斯不可思议地被那个男孩最后说出的那两个单词激起了兴趣，这纯粹是个意外。然后，他开始一遍遍地自言自语那两个单词。
12. The bullet is already in the brain; it will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind. That can't be helped. But for now Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in the field to softly chant, “They is, they is, they is”.
子弹已经进入了大脑；然后，它将完成自己的使命，并留下被它扰乱的头颅。这一切已无济于事。不过，现在安德斯仍然有时间做点儿什么——有时间看着自己的身影在草地上变长；有时间看着带着牵引绳的狗朝着飞在空中的球吠叫；有时间听着那个男孩在球场上轻轻地哼唱： “They is, they is, they is”。 |