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I forged more notes and my trips to the library became frequent. Reading grew into a passion. My first serious novel was Sinclair Lewis's Main Street. It made me see my boss, Mr. Gerald, and identify him as an American type. I would smile when I saw him lugging his golf bags into the office. I had always felt a vast distance separating me from the boss, and now I felt closer to him, though still distant. I felt now that I knew him, that I could feel the very limits of his narrow life. And this had happened because I had read a novel about a mythical man called George F. Babbitt.
我又偽造了一些便條，我到圖書館也去得頻繁了。讀書成了一種嗜好。我讀的第一本嚴肅的小說是辛克萊·劉易斯的《大街》。它使我了解了我的老板杰拉爾德先生，發覺他是一種典型的美國人。每當我看到他吃力地提著他的高爾夫球袋走進辦公室的時候，我就要發笑。過去我一直感到我和老板之間相隔千里，現在我覺得離他近了，盡管我們之間還有一定的距離。我現在覺得我理解他了，我能感覺到他狹隘生活的種種局限性。這個變化的發生，是因為我讀了一部寫一個叫喬治·F·巴比特的虛構人物的小說。
I read Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt and Sister Carrie and they revived in me a vivid sense ofmy mother's suffering; I was overwhelmed. I grew silent, wondering about the life around me.It would have been impossible for me to have told anyone what I derived from these novels,for it was nothing less than a sense of life itself. All my life had shaped me for the realism, the naturalism of the modern novel, and I could not read enough of them.
我讀了德萊塞的《珍妮·格哈特》和《嘉莉妹妹》，它們重新使我真切地感受到我母親遭受到的痛苦。我完全被感動了。我變得沉默寡言，對我周圍的生活感到疑惑不解。那時，我不可能告訴別人我閱讀這些小說有何收益，因為我所獲得的就是對生活自身的感受。我一生的經歷造成我喜歡現代小說的現實主義、自然主義，這些小說我怎么也讀不夠。
Steeped in new moods and ideas, I bought a ream of paper and tried to write; but nothing would come, or what did come was flat beyond telling. I discovered that more than desire and felling were necessary to write and I dropped the idea. Yet I still wondered how it was possible to know people sufficiently to write about them? Could I ever learn about life and people? To me, with my vast ignorance, my Jim Crow station in life, it seemed a task impossible of achievement. I now knew what being a Negro meant. I could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate. But to feel that there were feelings denied me, that thevery breath of life itself was beyond my reach, that more than anything else hurt, wounded me. I had a new hunger.
我完全沉浸在新的情緒和思想之中，我買了一令紙，試著寫作。但我什么也寫不出來，即使勉強寫出來，也是極其平淡無味。我發現要寫作，只有愿望和感情是不夠的。于是我放棄了寫作的念頭。然而我仍然想知道，怎樣才能充分了解人們，進而描寫他們？我到底能不能做到理解生活、理解人呢？對我來說，由于我極端無知，由于作為黑人的我在現實生活中所處的地位，這似乎是一個不可能達到的目標。我現在知道了做一個黑人意味著什么。我可以忍受饑餓，我學會了容忍仇恨。但有一點比其他任何東西都更傷我的心。那便是，我覺得我被拒之于感情的某些方面之外，我感到就連生活中必不可少的東西，對我來說，也是可望而不可即的。我產生了一種新的饑餓。
