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Broadway! Was it possible? The change was absolutely appalling! In place of the roaring thoroughfare that I had known, this silent, moss-grown desolation. Great buildings had fallen into ruin. The place was soundless. Not a vehicle moved. There were no wires overhead—no sound of life or movement except, here and there, there passed slowly to and fro human figures dressed in the same asbestos clothes as my acquaintance, with the same hairless faces, and the same look of infinite age upon them.
百老匯！這怎么可能？這變化也太讓人吃驚了！我記得以前這是一條車水馬龍的通衢大道，可現在卻成了沉寂無聲、長滿青苔、一片荒涼的地方。那些大樓都倒塌了，成為堆堆瓦礫。整個地方鴉雀無聲。沒有一輛在移動的車子。頭頂上方的電線也都不見了——沒有任何生命的跡象和會動的東西。只有三三兩兩來回慢慢走動、穿著和我剛認識的那個人一樣的石棉衣服的一些人影，一個個臉上也都沒有毛發，都顯出同樣一種經歷過無窮歲月的樣子。
Good heavens! And was this the era of the conquest that I had hoped to see? I had always taken for granted that humanity was destined to move forward. This picture of desolation rendered me almost speechless.
我的天哪！難道這就是我朝思暮想、期盼能見到的人類征服一切以后的新時代？我一直以為，人類總是會不斷向前進步。可是現在眼前這幅荒涼的圖景使我簡直啞口無言了。
I gasped out a question.
我喘著氣問了一個問題。
"Where are the streetcars and the motors?"
“請問那些電車和汽車到哪里去了？”
"Oh, done away with long ago," he said.
“哦，早就打發掉了，”他說。
"But how do you get about?"
“那你們怎么出行呢？”
"We don't," he answered. "Why should we? It's just the same being here as being anywhere else."
“我們不出行，”他回答說，“我們為什么要出行？在這里和在其他地方沒有什么區別。”
A thousand questions surged into my mind at once. I asked one of the simplest.
這時，我腦中一下涌起千百個問題。我先問了個最簡單的。
"But how do you get back and forth to your work?"
“那你們怎么上下班工作呢？”
"Work!" he said. "There isn't any work."
“工作！”他說，“工作已經不存在了。”
I looked at him a moment open-mouthed.
我張大了嘴朝他看了一會兒。
