經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第3章15

“No, you listen to me, you see-through old bat,” said Zaphod leaping out of his chair, “A – thanks for stopping time and all that, great, terrific, wonderful, but B – no thanks for the homily, right? I don’t know what this great think I’m meant to be doing is, and it looks to me as if I was supposed not to know. And I resent that, right?
“The old me knew. The old me cared. Fine, so far so hoopy. Except that the old me cared so much that he actually got inside his own brain – my own brain – and locked off the bits that knew and cared, because if I knew and cared I wouldn’t be able to do it. I wouldn’t be able to go and be President, and I wouldn’t be able to steal this ship, which must be the important thing.
“But this former self of mine killed himself off, didn’t he, by changing my brain? OK, that was his choice. This new me has its own choices to make, and by a strange coincidence those choices involve not knowing and not caring about this big number, whatever it is. That’s what he wanted, that’s what he got.
“Except this old self of mine tried to leave himself in control, leaving orders for me in the bit of my brain he locked off. Well, I don’t want to know, and I don’t want to hear them. That’s my choice. I’m not going to be anybody’s puppet, particularly not my own.”
Zaphod banged the console in fury, oblivious to the dumbfolded looks he was attracting.
“The old me is dead!” he raved, “Killed himself! The dead shouldn’t hang about trying to interfere with the living!”
“And yet you summon me up to help you out of a scrape,” said the ghost.
“Ah,” said Zaphod, sitting down again, “well that’s different, isn’t it?”
He grinned at Trillian, weakly.

“不，你聽我說，你這個把一切都看穿了的老傢伙。”贊福德從座位上跳了起來，“第一……感謝你停止了時間以及所有這些鬼東西。好極了，太棒了，簡直美妙。但第二——我不會感謝你那些說教，懂嗎？我不知道那件所謂我註定要去做的偉大事情是什麼，看起來我似乎是被註定了不知道。這讓我感到憤怒，明白嗎？
“過去的那個我知道那件事，過去的那個我很在意那件事。好，一切都好，除了一件事：過去的那個我是如此在意，以至於他進入他自己的大腦——也就是我的大腦——把知道和在意的那些部分鎖閉起來，因爲如果我知道、在意的話，我是做不成那件事的。我當不了總統，也沒辦法偷走這艘飛船。這一定是非常重要的一步棋。
“但是，我原來的那個自我把他自己給消滅了，不是嗎？通過改變我的大腦。好吧，這畢竟是他的選擇。但是，目前這個全新的我需要做出自己的選擇，另外，不知怎麼回事，我現在選擇了不去知道、不去在意那件大事，無論它是什麼。這就是我所要求的，也是我所得到的。
“除了一件事，我原來的那個自我還留下了一些殘餘，這些殘餘部分想控制現在的我，他在我大腦裏那些被他鎖閉的部分中保留了一些指令。好吧，但我並不想知道，也不想聽見這些指令。這是我自己的選擇。我不會做任何人的傀儡，尤其是我自己的。”
狂怒中，贊福德重重地一拳砸在控制檯上，完全沒有注意到他所引來的一片目瞪口呆。
“原來的那個我已經死了！”他咆哮道，“他殺死了自己！死人不應該到處遊蕩，干涉活着的人！”
“可是，是你把我召喚出來，幫助你擺脫困境的啊。”鬼魂說。
“哦，”贊福德重新坐下來，“這是兩回事兒，不是嗎？”
他朝崔莉恩微微咧嘴笑了笑。