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On Monday, without saying anything, Bryan slid two folders across the table towards her as if he did not want to come near her, did not want to talk to her. She wanted to say, "I won't take them till you hand them to me politely." But smarting, she said, "Thank you very much." She had manners. She was well brought up.
周一，布萊恩什么都沒說，就把兩個文件夾從桌子上滑給了她，好像他不想要靠近她，不想和她說話一樣。她想說：“如果你不禮貌地把它們遞到我的手上，我就不接它們。”但她足夠聰明，她說：“非常感謝。”她很有禮貌，很有教養(yǎng)。
Back in her room, at her desk, the clearest handwriting she had ever seen. Sparse on the pages, clean. Clear and rounded like a child's, the tidiest notes. She cried over them, wept for no reason. She cried until she wetted pages, smudged the ink, blurred one of the formulas. She dabbed at it with a tissue but the paper flaked and became transparent. Should she apologize about the stain, say she was drinking water, say that it was rain? Or should she just keep quiet, hope he wouldn't notice? She chided herself for all that concern. He wasn't concerned about wearing the same shirt every day. She was giving him too much attention thinking about him. He was just an immature and closed-in sort of character. He probably came from a small town, his parents were probably poor, low-class. In Khartoum she never mixed with people like that. Her mother liked her to be friends with people who were higher up. How else were she and her sisters going to marry well? She must study the notes and stop crying over this boy's handwriting. His iting had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with her at all.
莎迪雅回到家，在她的桌子上，她看到了迄今為止最為清晰的筆記，字跡清晰，也是最整潔的筆記。她一直在哭，直到她的淚水弄濕了一頁紙，墨水變成了污痕，一個方程式因此變得模糊不清。她用紙巾輕輕地擦拭，結(jié)果，紙被蹭薄了，變得透明了。應(yīng)不應(yīng)該為筆記上的污痕道歉呢？說她在喝水，或者因為下雨？又或者她干脆保持緘默，寄希望于他沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)？她孩子般地考慮了所有的可能。他從來都沒有意識到他每天都穿著同一件襯衫。她總是很關(guān)注他。他就是一個幼稚且自我封閉的人。他可能來自于一個小地方，他的父母可能很窮，是下層社會的人。在喀土穆，她從未和這樣階層的人打過交道。她媽媽希望她結(jié)交社會地位高的朋友。希望她和她的姐妹們都能嫁得很好。她必須好好研究筆記，停止對著這個男孩的筆記哭泣。他的筆記和她一點關(guān)系都沒有，對她來說什么都不是。
Understanding after not understanding is fog lifting, pictures swinging into focus, missing pieces slotting into place. It is fragments gelling, a sound vivid whole, a basis to build on. His notes were the knowledge she needed, the gap filled. She struggled through them, not skimming them with the carelessness of incomprehension, but taking them in, making them a part of her, until in the depth of concentration, in the late hours of the nights, she lost awareness d place, and at last, when she slept she became epsilon and gamma, and she became a variable.
不理解之后的理解猶如云開霧散，圖片搖搖擺擺地終于聚焦了，找不到的碎片也都一一歸位了。碎片凝聚成一個完整而生動的整體，一個能夠建造建筑的地基。他的筆記是她所需要的知識，是她需要填補(bǔ)的空白。她努力地閱讀那些筆記，不是粗枝大葉不求甚解地略讀，而是完全徹底地吸收，把筆記變成自身的一部分，直到在最深層的精神集中點，在深沉的夜里，她完全失去了時空概念，全然不知身處何時何地，最后，當(dāng)她睡著了時，她自己變成了統(tǒng)計學(xué)中的符號和變量。
It felt natural to talk to him. As if now that she had spent hours and days with his handwriting, she knew him in some way. She forgot the offence she had taken when he had slid his folders across the table to her, all the times he didn't say hello.
現(xiàn)在和他說話感覺自在了一點。正如她已經(jīng)花費(fèi)了幾天的時間研讀他的筆記，她稍微對他有了一些了解。她忘記了他把筆記從桌子上滑給她時的冒犯，以及從來都不對她打招呼。
