經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第15章1

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of… it will be built on the fragmented… that is to say it will have been built by this time, and indeed has been –
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history – the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term “Future Perfect” has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.
To resume:
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

宇宙盡頭餐館是整個餐蝕業歷史上最非凡的商業冒險之一。它建在破碎的廢墟上，它將建在破碎的也就是說，今後，等它建成的時候其實它的的確確已經——
時間旅行中遇到的主要問題之一，並非你碰巧變成了你自己的父親或者母親。其實，對一個思想開明、適應性強的家庭來說，變成你自己的父親或母親這種問題不難解決。改變歷史進程這樣的問題同樣容易解決——歷史進程不會改變，因爲它就像一塊拼板一樣，各部分早就拼好了，契臺得嚴絲合縫。所有重要的改變都早巳發生了，你能改變的只不過是一些小細節而已。到頭來，歷史進程自會料理好自己，把一切安排得妥妥貼貼的。
主要的問題其實很簡單，只是一個語法問題。這方面主要的學術著作是—一唐，史崔特門擻內爾博士的《時間旅行者的1001種時態構成手冊》。比方說，某件事本來應該在過去發生在你身上。爲了避開這件事，你通過時間旅行向前跳躍了兩天。那麼，應該用什麼時態描述這件事呢，這本書就會告訴你。這件事的時態會有許多變化，變化依據就是：你是基於你目前所處的自然時間點來談論這件事，還是基於將來的將來的一個時問點，或是將來的過去的一個時間點。如果你在談論這件事的同時正進行一次時間旅行－－從一個時間段跳躍到另一個時間段，試罔變成你自己的母親或者父親——那麼，它的時態還會更加複雜化。。
攻讀這部學術專著的大部分讀者都會讀到論述“將來半條件性修飾亞倒裝變格過去式虛擬語氣意向性時態”的章節，此後纔會放棄自己的努力。所以，這本書的再版本中，這一章節之前都是空白，以節約印刷成本。
《銀河系漫遊指南》輕巧地跳過了這一糾纏不清的學術性抽象概念，只是蜻蜒點水地提了一句：“將來完成時”這個術語因爲被發現不可能存在，所以已經被拋棄掉了。
言歸正傳：
宇宙盡頭餐館是整個餐飲業歷史上最非凡的商業冒險之一。