经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第3章12

“You go swanning your way round the Galaxy with your…” the ancestor waved a contemptuous hand, “with your disreputable friends, too busy to put flowers on my grave, plastic ones would have done, would have been quite appropriate from you, but no. Too busy. Too modern. Too sceptical – till you suddenly find yourself in a bit of a fix and come over suddenly all astrally-minded!”
He shook his head – carefully, so as not to disturb the slumber of the other one, which was already becoming restive.
“Well, I don’t know, young Zaphod,” he continued, “I think I’ll have to think about this one.”
“One minute ten,” said Ford hollowly.
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth peered at him curiously.
“Why does that man keep talking in numbers?” he said.
“Those numbers,” said Zaphod tersely, “are the time we’ve got left to live.”
“Oh,” said his great grandfather. He grunted to himself. “Doesn’t apply to me, of course,” he said and moved off to a dimmer recess of the bridge in search of something else to poke around at.
Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn’t just jump over and have done with it.
“Great Grandfather,” he said, “It applies to us! We are still alive, and we are about to lose our lives.”
“Good job too.”

“你成天在银河系里游荡，和你的”——这位祖先挥了挥手，充分表示出他的轻蔑——“和你的这些邋遢朋友们在一起，忙得没有时间在我的坟前献花，这可是连塑料做的机器人也会记得的事啊。对你来说当然更有意义，但你却没有做。太忙了。太新潮了。太无神论了——直到你突然发觉自己陷入了某种困境，于是突然发疯似的关心起我来！”
他晃了晃脑袋——很小心，免得打扰另外一个脑袋的睡眠，后者已经有点睡不安生了。
“好吧，我不知道，年轻的赞福德，”他继续道，“我想我必须考虑一下这个问题。”
“一分十秒。”福特毫无表情地念道。
赞福德·毕博布鲁克斯四世好奇地打量着他。
“为什么这家伙不停地念叨数字？”他问。
“这些数字，”赞福德简洁地回答说，“是我们还能活命的时间。”
“喔，”他的曾祖父说，自言自语地咕哝着，“对我不起作用，毫无疑问。”于是他走到一个更昏暗的角落，开始寻找别的东西来摆弄。
赞福德感到自己已经处于疯狂的边缘了，他不知自己是否应该跨出这一步，干脆彻底疯掉。
“曾祖父，”他说，“可这对我们起作用啊！我们还活着，但现在马上就要失去我们的生命了。”
“好。”