1. For a long time, Henry Bemis had had an ambition: To read a book. Not just the title or the preface, or a page somewhere in the middle. He wanted to read the whole thing, all the way through from beginning to end. A simple ambition perhaps, but in the cluttered life of Henry Bemis, an impossibility. Henry had no time of his own. There was his wife, Agnes who claimed all his time after work. Also, Henry’s eyes were very bad. Poor Henry literally couldn't see his hand in front of his face. So, it looked as though Henry's ambition would never be realized. Then something strange happened.
長久以來，亨利·貝米斯一直有一個志向：讀一本書。不只是讀一讀標題或序言，也并非中間的某一頁。他想要從頭到尾完整地讀完一本書。也許這不算什么難以實現的志向，但在亨利·貝米斯雜亂的生活中，這就是一件不可能實現的事情。亨利完全沒有自己的時間。他的妻子艾格尼絲把他下班后的時間安排得滿滿當當的。而且，亨利的眼睛非常不好。不夸張地說，可憐的亨利把自己的手伸在自己的面前都看不到。因此，看起來亨利的志向永遠不會實現。直到有一天，奇怪的事情發生了……
2. Henry was down in the vault of the Eastside Bank & Trust, his workplace, when it happened. He had stolen a few moments to try to read a few pages of the magazine he had bought that morning. He'd made an excuse to his boss, Mr. Carsville, and then, safe inside the vault he had opened his magazine. He had just started reading, when all the noise in the world crashed in upon his ear-drums. The concrete floor was rising up and the ceiling came slanting down toward him, and suddenly all was darkness and quiet and unconsciousness.
當時，亨利正躲在他工作的地方東區信托銀行的金庫里，試圖忙里偷閑看上幾頁他早晨剛剛買的雜志。他跟他的老板卡斯維爾先生請了會兒假，然后安安穩穩地，在這個金庫里打開了他的雜志。他剛剛開始閱讀，世界崩塌的噪聲便全部砸向了他的耳鼓。水泥地板開始上升，天花板開始朝他的方向傾斜。與此同時，一切都變得昏暗、安靜——他失去了知覺。
3. When Henry awoke, he knew that something was very wrong with the Eastside Bank & Trust. The heavy steel door of the vault was twisted and the floor tilted up, while the ceiling had collapsed. Henry got to his feet, and tenderly raised a hand to his eyes. His precious glasses were intact, thank God! He would never have been able to find his way out of the shattered vault without them. He made a mental note to have a spare pair made. He suddenly realized that something momentous had happened, something worse than the boiler blowing up, something worse than gas exploding, something worse than anything that had ever happened before. He felt that way because it was so quiet. There was no whine of sirens, no shouting, no running, just silence.
亨利醒來時知道東區信托銀行出了問題。金庫沉重的鋼制門已扭曲，地板向上傾斜，且天花板已經坍塌。亨利站了起來，輕輕地抬起一只手到自己雙眼的位置。感謝上帝，他那副珍貴的眼鏡完好無損！沒有它，他將永遠無法在這支離破碎的金庫中找到出去的路。他心里盤算著要再準備一副備用眼鏡。他突然意識到有大事發生了，這事比鍋爐爆炸還要糟糕，比煤氣爆燃還要糟糕，比以前發生過的任何事都要糟糕。他之所以有這種感覺，是因為一切都是如此的安靜——沒有警報的哀鳴聲，沒有喊叫聲，沒有人們奔跑的聲音，只有一片寂靜。

4. Henry walked across the slanting floor. Slipping and stumbling he made his way to the elevator. There was nobody left. All was quiet. There was no one to say what was to be done about the Eastside Bank & Trust except Henry Bemis, and if he was honest to himself, Henry wasn't worried about the bank. Suddenly, he remembered Agnes. He should be trying to get to Agnes, shouldn't he? She had been a pretty good wife. It wasn't exactly her fault if people didn't have time to read nowadays. It was just that there was the house, and the bank, and the yard. And the television, the television Agnes loved to watch, but would never watch alone. He never had time to read even a newspaper. He was actually thinking about that yesterday.
亨利穿過傾斜的地板，一步一滑、跌跌撞撞地走到電梯處。沒有人留了下來。一切都很安靜。除了亨利·貝米斯自己，沒有人要對東區信托銀行究竟發生了什么說點兒什么，而且如果亨利對自己完全坦誠的話，他其實并不為這家銀行擔心。突然間，他想起了艾格尼絲。他應該試著去到艾格尼絲身邊，不是嗎？她一直是一位美麗又賢惠的妻子。人們現在沒時間閱讀，完全不是她的錯。錯誤只能歸咎于房子、銀行和院子，還有電視，艾格尼絲喜歡看但永遠不會獨自看的電視。他甚至從來沒時間讀讀報紙。實際上，他昨天剛剛思考過這個問題。
5. Henry had settled into his chair, quietly. He had unfolded the newspaper slowly and carefully, so that Agnes did not notice he was going to be occupied with something else than her. He had glanced at the headlines of the first page. He didn't have time to read the articles on it. He turned to the second page. Then, he flipped through the pages faster, afraid to spend too much time on any one item. Then it came, Agnes' voice. "Henrrreee!" She lightly flicked the paper out of his hands and into the fireplace. Agnes continued, "Henry, tonight is the Jones' bridge night. They'll be here in thirty minutes and I'm not dressed yet, and here you are ... reading." She had emphasized the last word as though it were an unclean act. "Hurry and shave, you know how smooth Jasper Jones' chin always looks, and then straighten up this room. Don't just sit there, Henry, hurrreeee!"
當時，亨利正安靜地坐在椅子上，緩慢且小心翼翼地打開了報紙，生怕艾格尼絲注意到他要被她以外的東西所占據。他瀏覽了第一頁的頭條新聞，沒有時間閱讀其中的文章。他翻到第二頁。然后，他開始以更快的速度翻閱，害怕在任何一項內容上花費太多的時間。艾格尼絲的聲音傳了過來：“亨利~~！”她輕快地將手中的報紙丟進了壁爐。艾格尼絲繼續說道：“亨利，今晚瓊斯一家要來咱家打橋牌。還有三十分鐘他們就到了，而我還沒穿著打扮，你還在這里……看報紙！”她著重強調了“看報紙”三個字，好像這是什么不道德的行為。“快去刮刮胡子，你知道賈斯珀·瓊斯的下巴總是看上去有多么光滑，然后把這個房間清理干凈。別只是坐在那里，亨利，亨利~~！”
6. Henry was hurrying now, but hurrying too much. In his mind, he saw the fire again, licking across the pages of last night's newspaper. He thought that now, he would have time to read all the newspapers he wanted to, only now there might not be any newspapers anymore. It was terrible to think nothing was left of the world but ruins. Tears of helplessness welled in his eyes as he painfully fought his way over and through the twisted fragments of the city. He was determined to reach his destination, whether it was in ruins or not.
此時的亨利真的非常匆忙，但有些匆忙過頭了。他的腦海中再次浮現出壁爐中的火焰正舔食著昨晚那份報紙的畫面。他覺得現在他應該有時間去讀他想要讀的所有報紙，只是現在可能報紙都不復存在了。想到世界上除了廢墟什么也沒剩下，真是太可怕了。當他痛苦地掙扎著穿越城市的殘垣斷壁時，無助的淚水浸濕了他的雙眼。他決心要到達他的目的地，無論那里是否已變成廢墟。
7. He thought of the building when it had been whole. He remembered the many nights he had paused outside its wide and welcoming doors. He thought of the warm nights when the doors had been thrown open and he could see the people inside, see them sitting at the big wooden tables with the stacks of books beside them. He used to think then, what a wonderful thing a public library was, a place where anybody, anybody at all could go in and read. He had been tempted to enter many times, but had never gone in. He had started up the steps once, got almost to the door, but then he remembered Agnes, her questions and shouting, and he had turned away. He was going in now though, almost crawling, his breath coming in stabbing gasps, his hands torn and bleeding. Henry didn't care. He had reached his destination.
他想到了那棟建筑還完好時的樣子。他記得許多個夜里，自己在它那寬闊而溫馨的門外短暫逗留的場景。他想到了那些溫暖的夜晚，那扇門被打開時，他可以看見里面的人，看到他們坐在大木桌旁，他們的旁邊就是疊放整齊的書籍。當時他曾經這樣想過：公共圖書館是多么奇妙的存在，任何人都可以進去閱讀。他曾很多次忍不住要進去，但從未真正進去過。有一次他甚至踏上了臺階，幾乎走到了門口，但就在那時想起了艾格尼絲，以及她的問題和喊叫聲，于是他轉身離開了。但是，他現在要真的進去了，幾乎是以爬行的方式，他的呼吸開始變成劇烈的喘息，雙手已撕裂并流淌著鮮血。但這些對于亨利并不重要。重要的是，他已經到達了他的目的地。
8. Part of the inscription was still there, P-U-B—C L-I-B-R—-. The rest had been torn away. The place was in shambles. The shelves were overturned, broken, smashed, tilted, their precious contents spilled upon the floor. A lot of the books though, Henry noted, were still intact, still whole, still readable. He literally wallowed in books. He picked one up. The title was "Collected Works of William Shakespeare." Yes, he must read that, sometime. He laid it aside carefully. He picked up another, seized another, and another, and still another. Which to read first ... there were so many. Finally, he stopped gathering books, sat comfortably down on an overturned shelf, and opened a book. Henry Bemis smiled.
圖書館匾額上的部分文字尚存——“公共圖---”，其余部分已不知去向。這地方一片混亂。書架傾翻、折斷、破碎、傾斜，上面貴重的書籍四散在地板上。亨利注意到，很多書仍然未受到損傷，仍然完整，仍然可以閱讀。他完全沉溺于樹叢中。他拾起了一本。書的名字叫《威廉·莎士比亞精選集》。是的，他必須改天讀讀它。他小心地把它放在一旁，然后拾起了另一本，又抓起了另一本，又一本，再一本。首先要讀哪一本……選擇太多了。最終，他停止了收集書籍，舒服地坐在一個翻倒的書架上，打開了一本書。亨利·貝米斯露出了微笑。
9. Seconds later though, there was a rumbling sound. The shelf he sat on, moved and threw him off balance. The glasses slipped from his nose and fell. He bent down, clawing blindly and found, finally, their smashed remains. A minor destruction compared to the smashing of an entire city you would think, but the only one that greatly affected Henry Bemis. He stared down at the blurred page of the book he wanted to read before him. He began to cry.
幾秒鐘后，一陣隆隆聲響起。他所坐的書架移動了一下，讓他失去了平衡。眼鏡從他的鼻梁上滑落下來。他彎下腰 ，開始胡亂摸索，終于找到了他那副已經被砸碎的眼鏡。你可以想象，與整個城市被摧毀相比，這樣小的毀損簡直不值一提，但只有它給亨利·貝米斯帶來了重大的影響。他低頭凝視著他面前這個他要閱讀的模糊的書頁，然后開始大哭起來。