雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第2章:下一個星期(11)

Alan was not what Brewster called a 'proper boy', whose instincts, inherited from thousands of years of warfare, made him want to throw things at other people. In this respect he was more like his father, who had managed to escape games as a boy in Bedford.

艾倫不是布魯斯特說的那種，繼承了原始人類的本能，喜歡向其他人投擲東西的男孩。在這方面，他更像他的父親，他父親小時候在貝德福德時，就不喜歡玩那些東西。

Mr Turing, who lacked his wife's excessive respect for schoolmasters, made a special request for Alan to be excused from cricket, and he was allowed by O'Hanlon to play golf instead. But he made himself 'a drip' by letting down his house contingent at the gym with his 'slackness'. He was also called dirty, thanks to his rather dark, greasy complexion, and a perpetual rash of ink stains. Fountain pens still seemed to spurt ink whenever his clumsy hands came near them. His hair, which naturally fell forward, refused to lie down in the required direction; his shirt moved out of his trousers, his tie out of his stiff collar. He still seemed unable to work out which coat button corresponded to which buttonhole. On the Officers Training Corps parade on Friday afternoons, he stood out with cap askew, hunched shoulders, ill-fitting uniform with puttees like lampshades winding up his legs. All his characteristics lent themselves to easy mockery, especially his shy, hesitant, high-pitched voice – not exactly stuttering, but hesitating, as if waiting for some laborious process to translate his thoughts into the form of human speech.

圖靈先生沒有像他妻子那樣，對校長過度尊重，他提出特殊要求，使艾倫免於打板球。後來奧漢蘭允許艾倫玩高爾夫球，於是艾倫迅速地把體育館搞得和他的屋子一樣亂七八糟，這使艾倫成了一個討厭的人。因爲他本來膚色就比較黑，再加上總是抹得到處都是墨水，所以大家都覺得他很髒。他的笨手一伸出來，就彷彿是他自制的鋼筆一樣，隨時都有可能噴出墨水。他的頭髮永遠都不能倒在他想要的方向，襯衫從褲子裏耷拉出來，領帶纏在僵硬的領子外面，而且他好像還不知道哪個釦子該對應哪個眼兒。在星期五下午的軍事訓練營，他站在那裏，帽子戴歪了，肩膀隆起來，穿着像燈罩一樣的奇怪制服，還把褲腿捲了起來。這些特點，使他經常受到嘲笑，更不用說他那種怯懦、抑鬱、尖細的嗓音――他不是真的結巴，而是猶豫，他好像需要用一套笨重的程序，費力地把自己的想法翻譯成人類語言。

Mrs Turing saw the fulfilment of her worst fear, which was that Alan would not adapt to public school life. Nor was he the kind of boy who was unpopular in the house but pleased the masters in class. He failed there too. In his first term, he had been placed in a form called 'the Shell', with boys a year older than himself who were not good at the work. Then he was 'promoted', but only to the entrance form for those supposed of average ability. Alan took little notice. The masters streamed past – seventeen in those first four terms – and none understood the dreaming boy in a class of twenty-two. According to a classmate of the period:17

圖靈夫人看到，她最擔心的事情發生了，那就是艾倫無法適應公學生活。他也不是那種只跟老師親近，而不受同學歡迎的學生，他連這一點也做不到。第一學期，他被分在一個叫作「貝殼」的班級，這個班級的其他學生，全都比他大一歲，而且都是能力很差的那種。後來他被提拔了，但也只不過是調到了正常能力的年級。艾倫自己倒不在乎這些。老師們像流水一樣更迭着，前四個學期一共有17個老師，但他們中卻沒有一個，能夠理解這個做夢的男孩。據這個時期一位同學說：