雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第2章:下一個星期(15)
I hope he takes his confirmation seriously. If he does, he will not be content to neglect obvious duties in order to indulge his own tastes, however good in themselves.
我希望他能認真對待堅定禮，如果他真的認真了，他就不應該只顧滿足自己，而忽視明確的義務。
To Alan, the 'duties' to translate silly sentences into Latin, polish the buttons on his Corps tunic, and suchlike, were far from 'obvious'. He had his own kind of seriousness. The headmaster's words would more appropriately have been directed at the outward conformity that Alec Waugh had written about:
但是，對艾倫來說，把一堆可笑的句子翻譯成拉丁語，擦亮軍服上的扣子，這些義務，遠遠算不上「明確的」，他根本無法理解這些是爲什麼。艾倫並不是不認真，他只是對「認真」有他自己的定義。而校長的話，實際上更符合艾力克.沃所寫的：
As is the case with most boys, Confirmation had very little effect on Gordon. He was not an atheist; he accepted Christianity in much the same way as he accepted the Conservative party. All the best people believed in it, so it was bound to be right; but at the same time it had not the slightest influence over his actions. If he had any religion at this time it was House football. …
就像對大多數男孩一樣，堅定禮對高登的影響很小。他不是無神論者，他相信基督教，只是因爲所有優秀的人都相信它，所以它應該是正確的。但同時，這對他的行爲並沒有什麼影響，如果說他這時有什麼真正的信仰，那恐怕只有室內足球……
These were strong words for a book which had appeared in 1917 when Shirburnians were being sacrificed at the rate of one a week. It was because of such remarks that The Loom of Youth was forbidden at Sherborne, and any boy found with it was subject to an immediate beating.
這段話在1917年是很犯忌的，《青春織機》在舍爾伯尼也是禁書，如果有人被發現私藏此書，常常會立刻遭到暴打。舍爾伯尼的學生們，基本上每週都會有一個人因此捱打。
