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What a list! Something old and something new, something cosmic yet something trivial too, for the creative worrier must forever blend the pedestrian with the immemorial. If the sun burns out, will the Mets be able to play their entire schedule at night? If cryogenically frozen human beings are ever revived, will they have to re-register to vote? And if the little toe disappears, will field goals play a smaller part in the National Football League?
一份多么可觀的憂愁單！有舊愁，也有新憂，有事關宇宙者，也有小到不足掛齒者，因為創造性的發愁人必須永遠將普通的憂愁與古老的憂愁融為一體。如果太陽燒光了，梅茨棒球隊還能在夜里打完全部賽程嗎？如果低溫冷凍的人體復活了，他們還得重新登記參加選舉嗎？如果小腳趾消失了，三分球在全國橄欖球聯賽中所起的作用會不會減少？
Actually, I've never had a worry as worrisome as the universe-destroying black holes. I mean, the universe is where I do all my worrying, and if it suddenly disappears I may not be able to relocate. My only hope comes from a first principle of worry that I have learned in a lifetime of anxiety; i.e., some of the biggest problems are half of a self-cancelling pair. A nice example is that dreaded polar ice cap, which some scientists say isn't starting to melt at all but instead will shortly begin to enlarge rapidly, giving birth to a new ice age that soon will cover the entire United States. I worried about this ice layer formlast February 9th until about Labor Day, by which time my worry about the price of bottom round had reduced it to the size of a rink. Lately, however, I have turned my mind back to the ice again, and I have been worrying about the fact that you cannot have ice that is growing and melting at the same time. One of these terrors is a dud, and the job of the dedicated worrier is to find out which one it is.
事實上，我還從來沒有遇上一件憂愁的事，像可能摧毀宇宙的黑洞這么令人憂心如焚。我的意思是說，宇宙是我發愁的地方，如果它突然消失了，我可能沒法重新安家。我唯一的希望，就只有那我憂慮了一輩子而學得的關于發愁的第一準則了，這就是，一些最大的問題往往存在對立面，兩者正好形成自相抵消的一對。那個令人生畏的地極冰帽就是一個絕好的例子。一些科學家說，它根本沒有開始融化，相反，不久將開始迅速增大，從而造成一個新的冰河時期，且不久將覆蓋整個美國。我從2月9日開始，就為這一冰層發愁，直到勞動節。那個時候，我對底部圓腿牛肉價格的擔憂已將冰層減縮到只有一個溜冰場那么大。然而，近來我又為冰河期發起愁來，我愁的是，冰層不可能同時既在增大又在融化。兩種可怖的情況之中，有一種必定是假的，一個獻身憂愁的人的任務是找出來哪一種是假的。
Applying this principle to the black holes, I wonder if there may not be some white holes in space as well —— pretty, glowing things that won't digest a universe but may prefer to spit it out again. All I need is a new flash from the Institute about one of these, and then perhaps I will be able to start worrying about chinch bugs and the male menopause and all the other gentle terrors my grandfather could endorse.
把這一原理應用到黑洞上，我在想，在宇宙空間會不會也存在某種白洞——一些漂亮的發光的東西，它們不會吃掉宇宙，而是寧愿將宇宙吐將出來。我唯一需要的是，高級研究院能就某一白洞發條新的簡短報道。然后，說不定我就可以開始為麥長蝽、男性更年期以及其它一切我祖父能夠贊同的溫和恐怖犯愁了。
Is that the right way to spell "chinch bugs"?
"麥長蝽"是這么個寫法嗎？
