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04 The Endless Parade
04沒有盡頭的隊列
Did you ever see a parade—a very long one? I once saw a parade of soldiers that took all day to pass by. Tramp, tramp—tramp, tramp—tramp, tramp, hour after hour, all day long. I never had seen so many men in my whole life. There must have been a hundred thousand of them. It didn't seem possible that there were so many people in the World. But if all the people there are in the World should pass by in one long parade, it would take not one day but a lifetime for them to pass by, for there are over two billion people in the world.
你看過閱兵隊伍嗎？非常長的那種？我曾經看過一次閱兵隊 伍，隊伍走了一整天才走完。噔噔，噔噔—噔噔，噔噔— 噔噔，噔噔，一個鐘頭又一個鐘頭，走了整整一天。我一生中從沒見過這么多人，肯定有十萬人那么多。世界上居然有那么多的人，這似乎不可能。但是如果讓世界上所有的人都排起來 進行一次大閱兵，那么不是走一天，而是要走一輩子的時間才 能走完，因為整個世界上一共有20多億人。
A hundred new people—babies—are born every minute of the day and of the night; many are born while you are reading this, and with every tick of the clock some one has died. But more people are born than die each day, so that the World is getting fuller and fuller of people all the time.
每天每夜的每分鐘，都有100個新人—新生嬰兒—來到這個世界；就在你讀這本書的時候，許多孩子又出生了；在時 鐘的每一次滴答聲中又有人死去。但是每天出生的人比死去的 人更多，所以世界上的人越來越多。
The people on the World are all about the same size and shape. Only in fairy-tales are people as small as your thumb or as tall as a church-steeple. None have wings instead of arms or wheels instead of legs. They all have one head, one nose, one mouth; they all have two ears, two eyes, two arms, and two legs. And yet in all these two billion people there are no two alike, there is not a single person exactly like any other one. Even twins are not exactly alike.
世界上的人基本上個頭和體形都差不多。只有在童話故事中 才有像拇指般大的小人兒或是像教堂的尖塔那么高的巨人。沒 有哪個人上身不長手臂而長著翅膀，也沒有哪個人下身不長腿 而長著輪子。他們都有一個頭、一只鼻子、一張嘴；他們都有 兩只耳朵、兩只眼睛、兩個手臂、兩條腿。然而在世界的全部 人口中，沒有兩個人長得是一樣的，沒有哪一個人長的和別人一模一樣。即使是雙胞胎也不是完全一樣的。
The chief difference in people is their color. Most of the two billion are white, but a great many are black and a larger number are halfway between white and black— they are sort of yellow-brown. These three colors of people we call “races.” “It‘s a good day for the race,” my father used to say. I thought he was talking of a horse-race or a boat-race, but when I asked, “What race?” he would smile and say, “It's a good day for the white race, the black race, all the races.”
人與人之間的最主要區別是膚色的不同。全世界人中大多數 是白色的，也有大量的人是黑色的，還有更多的人是介于白色 和黑色之間的—近似黃褐色。我們把這三種膚色的人叫 做“種族”。“這是全民族的好日子。”我爸爸經常這么說。我認為他是在說賽馬比賽或是劃船比賽，但是當我問他“什么比賽”的時候，他會笑著說：“是白色人種、黑色人種、所有種族的好日子。” [2]
Each race used to live by itself in its own part of the World, but many have wandered away to other parts. Most of the people in our part of the World are white, but there are also many black and a few yellow-brown. Suppose you had been born black. Suppose you'd been born yellow or red. Suppose you had been born in Africa or Asia or Australia. Suppose you had been born with another father and mother. Suppose you had been born in another world instead of this World.Suppose you hadn't been born at all—where would you be now?
每個種族原來都是住在世界上他們自己那塊地方，但是很多種族游蕩到了其他地方。在世界上我們這塊地方人大都是白種 人，但是也有很多黑種人和一些黃褐種人。 假如你生來就是一個黑種人。 假如你生來就是一個黃種人或者紅種人。 假如你生在 非洲 或者是亞洲 或者是澳洲。 假如你是別的爸爸媽媽所生。 假如你生在另一個世界而不是這個世界上。 假如你根本沒有出生—你現在會是在哪兒呢？
