三天读完经典小说《世界的最后一晚》(中)

《世界的最后一晚》

The Last Night of the World

by 雷·布莱伯利

Ray Bradbury

内容简介

布莱伯利最有名的是他的《华氏451度》（Fahrenheit 451），这本书是有关焚书的反乌托邦（dystopian）故事。但书迷们对他的短篇小说应该也很熟悉，比如《纹身人》（The Illustrated Man）和《火星纪事》（The Martian Chronicles）。

《世界的最后一晚》是个温柔、简单的故事。文章的第一句话就引人入胜：“如果这是世界的最后一晚，你会做些什么？”

今天是熊叔配陪伴你的第1196天

They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.

"Do we deserve this?" she said.

"It's not a matter of deserving, it's just that things didn't work out. I notice you didn't even argue about this. Why not?"

"I guess I have a reason," she said.

"The same reason everyone at the office had?"

She nodded. "I didn't want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block are talking about it, just among themselves." She picked up the evening paper and held it toward him. "There's nothing in the news about it."

"No, everyone knows, so what's the need?" He took the paper and sat back in his chair, looking at the girls and then at her. "Are you afraid?"

"No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I'm not."

"Where's that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?"

"I don't know. You don't get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we've lived."

"We haven't been too bad, have we?"

"No, nor enormously good. I suppose that's the trouble. We haven't been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things."

The girls were laughing in the parlor as they waved their hands and tumbled down their house of blocks.

"I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this."

"I guess not. You don't scream about the real thing."

"Do you know, I won't miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you three. I won't miss a thing except my family and perhaps the change in the weather and a glass of cool water when the weather's hot, or the luxury of sleeping. Just little things, really. How can we sit here and talk this way?"

"Because there's nothing else to do."

"That's it, of course, for if there were, we'd be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has really known just what they were going to be doing during the last night.