It was stiff and had to be jiggled and persuaded a little because the frame was slightly rotten and the hinges had at some time in its life been rather sensibly painted over, but eventually it was open. A strut was found to prop it and a figure struggled out into the narrow gully between the opposing pitches of the roof. It stood and watched the sky in silence. The figure was completely unrecognizable as the wild-looking creature who had burst crazily into the cottage a little over an hour ago. Gone was the ragged threadbare dressing gown, smeared with the mud of a hundred worlds, stained with junk food condiment from a hundred grimy spaceports, gone was the tangled mane of hair, gone the long and knotted beard, flourishing ecosystem and all. Instead, there was Arthur Dent the smooth and casual, in corduroys and a chunky sweater. His hair was cropped and washed, his chin clean shaven. Only the eyes still said that whatever it was the Universe thought it was doing to him, he would still like it please to stop. They were not the same eyes with which he had last looked out at this particular scene, and the brain which interpreted the images the eyes resolved was not the same brain. There had been no surgery involved, just the continual wrenching of experience. The night seemed like an alive thing to him at this moment, the dark earth around him a being in which he was rooted. He could feel like a tingle on distant nerve ends the flood of a far river, the roll of invisible hills, the knot of heavy rainclouds parked somewhere away to the south. He could sense, too, the thrill of being a tree, which was something he hadn’t expected. He knew that it felt good to curl your toes in the earth, but he’d never realized it could feel quite as good as that. He could sense an almost unseemly wave of pleasure reaching out to him all the way from the New Forest. He must try this summer, he thought, and see what having leaves felt like. From another direction he felt the sensation of being a sheep startled by a flying saucer, but it was virtually indistinguishable from the feeling of being a sheep startled by anything else it ever encountered, for they were creatures who learned very little on their journey through life, and would be startled to see the sun rising in the morning, and astonished by all the green stuff in the fields. He was surprised to find he could feel the sheep being startled by the sun that morning, and the morning before, and being startled by a clump of trees the day before that. He could go further and further back, but it got dull because all it consisted of was sheep being startled by things they’d been startled by the day before. He left the sheep and let his mind drift outwards sleepily in developing ripples. It felt the presence of other minds, hundreds of them, thousands in a web, some sleepy, some sleeping, some terribly excited, one fractured. One fractured. 窗子很緊，必須得搖一搖勸一勸才能打開，因爲窗框已經有些腐爛，而且鉸鏈的日子也不多了。但是最終窗子還是開了。 有一根柱子撐着天窗，一個身影掙扎着爬出來，走到兩個屋頂斜面中間狹窄的檐槽上。 身影站着，靜靜地望着天空。 我們完全認不出來那個身影了，儘管它就是一個多小時前瘋狂衝進小房子的那個有着狂野外表的生物。粗糙破舊的睡衣不見了，來自一百個世界的泥污不見了，來自一百個骯髒空港的垃圾食品調味料污漬不見了，糾結的頭髮不見了，又長又亂的鬍子不見了，身上覆雜的生態系統不見了，一切的一切全都不見了。 取而代之的，是乾淨整潔輕鬆安詳的阿瑟.鄧特。他穿着燈芯絨褲子和肥大的毛線衫。他的頭髮被清理了，下巴被刮乾淨了。只有眼神似乎在說：無論宇宙怎麼看待它對他所做的事，他仍然很希望宇宙能歇一歇。 還是同樣的場景，但眼睛已然不是當年的眼睛，處理眼睛捕捉到的圖像的大腦也已然不是當年的大腦了。這並不是外科手術造成的，而是生活不斷磨鍊的結果。 此時此刻，天空對他來說好像是個活物，他似乎紮根在周圍黑暗的大地中。 他可以像感受神經末梢的刺激一樣感受一切。他可以感受到遠處河流的洪水，感受到看不見的羣山在搖動，感受到一大團厚重的雨雲在南邊的某處停留。 他也可以感知，感知到一棵樹的興奮，他以前可沒料到過這種興奮。他知道把腳趾頭伸進土裏感覺很爽，但他從未意識到會有這麼爽。他可以感知到一波快感一路從新森林（注一）傳來。他今年夏天一定得試試，他想，瞭解一下長葉子是什麼滋味。 他從另一個方向感知到了一隻棉羊碰到飛碟時的震驚，但其實這跟綿羊碰到其它任何東西的震驚沒有什麼差別，因爲它們這種生物對自己的生命旅程瞭解的相當少，而且會被每天早上的日出所震驚，被田間所有的綠色東西給嚇到。 他很驚訝自己能夠感受到這個早上綿羊被太陽驚嚇的感覺，以及前一個早上綿羊被太陽驚嚇的感覺，以及再前面一天綿羊被一片樹林驚嚇的感覺。他可以回溯得更遠更遠，但這變得很無聊，因爲永遠都是綿羊被前一天驚嚇過東西再驚嚇一次的感覺。 他不再理會綿羊，而讓心靈波動飄向更遠的地方。它感受到了其它心靈，成百上千的心靈處在一個網絡中，一些心靈想睡覺，一些心靈已經睡了，一些心靈相當亢奮，一個心靈斷裂了。 一個心靈斷裂了。
