Chapter 1

 "Oh, he is dead!" my mind cried out.

Novna, my dear, I am writing this as a release for my conscience. Those things which trouble me are not such as one exchanges with vigil companions, or indeed with anyone not bound by ties like ours.

If I were at home with you I would exchange with your soul in a moment the feeling of my own, but distance permits no such consolation¹ and it is not suitable for me to exchange so familiarly with my colleagues.

I find myself questioning the value of our customary refusal to communicate thoughts of a delicate and sensitive nature. The Earth people, who speak their thoughts, perhaps are less primitive² than we like to imagine. They seem to have no sense of the danger of overwhelming the soul of another with unwanted confidences. The purely³ vocal⁴ nature of their communication does not admit an excessive degree of emotion to their relationships. They do not have to erect⁵ any artificial barriers between each other, as we must who exchange on a mental level.

These doubts of mine never could have arisen if we men of Hainos had not presumed to observe the alien ways of those creatures on the third Earth, so like ourselves and yet so remote, though we have hovered⁶ above them, listening and watching, for twelve of their generations.

This vigil, though it is to last but one journey around the sun, has seemed longer and less fruitful than all the others. I think I shall not come again, but leave such work to those who can remain efficient and disinterested⁷ Observers, unmoved by doubt and anxiety. Novna, you must begin to think what we two shall do with the rest of our eternity⁸, for now that I have spent some small portion of mine in fifty vigils, I find they have become distasteful. We might go to the Palace of Art and study to be poet-priests. My last vigil has convinced me that I am more fitted for that life than this.

When our mission left Hainos for the third Earth, there was aboard our ship the poet-priest Gven. You must remember the many nights we sat beneath the rocks by the ocean, listening as his soul gave ours his songs. Innocent they were, and filled with talk of purity and light, though Gven is as old as the rest of us, even if he is as different from you and me as the Earth child is from its parents.

You have never seen him, I think. He is smaller than I, slight of build and tender-faced. How out of place he looked among the ship's sturdy men of science, with their ages of discipline and austerity written indelibly into their features. They did not want him. They told the commissioner⁹ that they did not want him.

"Let him stay at home," they said, "and sing his songs to those who wish to listen."

But the commissioner himself, and, I suspect, the commissioner's wife, was as fond as any of Gven and his songs, so he said Gven was to come if he liked.

Poor Gven tried hard enough to make us like him. He offered us the only gift he had, that of his songs, but no one cared to hear them except me, and I was ashamed to say so. In the end he was reduced to sitting for hours, looking out into the night through which the ship bore us, saying nothing to anyone, for fear of our scorn. He would have liked us to tell him about the Earth people, for his studies at the Palace fitted him sadly for a scientific expedition.

Of the Earth people, however, we hesitated to speak freely, even among ourselves, for all of us feel strongly about them, in one way or another. Our exchanges on the matter have always been burdened with emotion; and we find we cannot share easily our thoughts about Earth people, unless we banter¹⁰ lightly and say little of what we really feel.

When our long-ship drew near the third Earth, we were transferred into the round-ship in which we were to carry on our observations. I could see Gven was limp with excitement, but as always, I would not exchange with him for fear of the others, not even to drain off that excess of feeling which was to prove so dangerous to him.

Perhaps he thought it would be different, once we had established ourselves in our designated area of observation. Then we might warm toward him, giving him the comforts of our experience. If such were his expectations, he was disappointed. Whatever he gathered from us was purely accidental, information that we exchanged among ourselves as we worked. Only in this way did he learn of those few bonds we had forged with the Earth people.

It is our custom, as you know, for each man to select one of the Earth people as his subject. This is not part of our work, it is only a device to drive away the tedium¹¹ that descends¹² upon men far from home and bound to exacting¹³ work in a confined place. We begin to feel quite passionately¹⁴ concerned with our subjects, and occasionally find it difficult to return to our primary concerns.

1 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

• The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
• This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。

2 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

3 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

4 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

5 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

6 hovered   

鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
• A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。

7 disinterested   

adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的

参考例句：

• He is impartial and disinterested.他公正无私。
• He's always on the make,I have never known him do a disinterested action.他这个人一贯都是唯利是图，我从来不知道他有什么无私的行动。

8 eternity   

n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷

参考例句：

• The dull play seemed to last an eternity.这场乏味的剧似乎演个没完没了。
• Finally,Ying Tai and Shan Bo could be together for all of eternity.英台和山伯终能双宿双飞，永世相随。

9 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

10 banter   

n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑

参考例句：

• The actress exchanged banter with reporters.女演员与记者相互开玩笑。
• She engages in friendly banter with her customers.她常和顾客逗乐。

11 tedium   

n.单调；烦闷

参考例句：

• We played games to relieve the tedium of the journey.我们玩游戏，来解除旅行的沉闷。
• In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium. 从我自己身上，我所观察到的烦闷的根源有下列一些。

12 descends   

v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜

参考例句：

• This festival descends from a religious rite. 这个节日起源于宗教仪式。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The path descends steeply to the village. 小路陡直而下直到村子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 exacting   

adj.苛求的，要求严格的

参考例句：

• He must remember the letters and symbols with exacting precision.他必须以严格的精度记住每个字母和符号。
• The public has been more exacting in its demands as time has passed.随着时间的推移，公众的要求更趋严格。

14 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。