Perhaps it is unfair to pull all the responsibility on one luckless cat. Had such a thing happened anywhere else in the country, it would have been talked about, believed by a few, disbelieved by most, and forgotten. But it happened in Los Angeles. There, and probably only there, the event was anything but forgotten; the principles it revealed became the basis of a hugely successful business.
也許把全部責任都歸咎于一只不幸的貓是不公正的。如果這件事發生在國內其它任何地方,它會引起人們的一番議論。少數人相信,大多數人不相信,隨后就被忘卻。可是,這件事偏偏發生在洛杉磯。在那個地方,或許也只有在那個地方,這件事一點也沒有被人遺忘。它所揭示的原理構成了利潤極為豐厚的生意的基礎。
How shall we regard the Zeritsky Brothers? As archvillains or pioneers? In support of the latter view, it must be admitted that the spirit of inquiry and the willingness to risk the unknown were indisputably theirs. However, their pioneering — if we agree to call it that — was, equally indisputably, bound up with the quest for a fast buck.
我們該怎么看齊里茨基兄弟呢?是元兇還是開拓者?要支持后一種看法,就得承認,探索的精神和心甘情愿到未知領域去冒險的精神,無疑是非他們莫屬。然而,他們的開拓精神——如果我們同意這么稱呼它的話——同樣無疑是與想方設法快快發財聯系在一起的。
Some of their first clients paid as high as $15,000 for the initial freezing, and the exorbitant rate of $1,000 per year as a storage charge. The Zeritsky Brothers owned and managed one of the largest quick freezing plants in the world, and it was their claim that converting thefreezing equipment and storage facilities to accommodate humans was extremely expensive, hence the high rates.
他們的第一批顧客,有的為初次冷凍付了高達一萬五千美元的費用,此外每年還得付一千美元昂貴的儲藏費。齊里茨基兄弟擁有并經營著的快速冷凍廠是世界上最大的該類工廠之一。他們聲稱,將冷凍設備和儲藏設施改裝來儲存人,所花的費用極高,因此收費也得高。