Chapter 6

Hari Seldon was fighting off melancholy¹. He was lectured in turn by Dors, by Raych, by Yugo, and by Manella. All united to tell him that sixty was not old.
    They simply did not understand. He had been thirty when the first hint of psychohistory had come to him, thirty-two when he delivered his famous lecture at the Decennial Convention, following which everything seemed to happen to him at once. After his brief interview with Cleon, He had fled across Trantor and met Demerzel, Dors, Yugo, and Raych, to say nothing of the people of Mycogen, of Dahl, and of Wye.
    He was forty when he became First Minister and fifty when he had relinquished² the post. Now he was sixty.
    He had spent thirty years on psychohistory. How many more years would he require? How many more years would he live? Would he die with the Psychohistory Project unfinished after all?
    It was not the dying that bothered him, he told himself. It was the matter of leaving the Psychohistory Project unfinished.
    He went to see Yugo Amaryl. In recent years they had somehow drifted apart, as the Psychohistory Project had steadily³ increased in size. In the first years at Streeling, it had merely been Seldon and Amaryl working together-no one else. Now-
    Amaryl was nearly fifty-not exactly a young man-and he had somehow lost his spark. In all these years, he had developed no interest in anything but psychohistory: no woman, no companion, no hobby, no subsidiary activity.
    Amaryl blinked at Seldon who couldn't help but note the changes in the man's appearance. Part of it may have been because Yugo had had to have his eyes reconstructed. He saw perfectly⁴ well, but there was an unnatural⁵ look about them and he tended to blink slowly. It made him appear sleepy.
    "What do you think, Yugo?" said Seldon. "Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?"
    "Light? Yes, as a matter of fact," said Amaryl. "There's this new fellow, Tamwile Elar. You know him, of course."
    "Oh yes. I'm the one who hired him. Very vigorous and aggressive. How's he doing?"
    "I can't say I'm really comfortable with him, Hari. His loud laughter gets on my nerves. But he's brilliant. The new system of equations fits right into the Prime Radiant and they seem to make it possible to get around the problem of chaos⁶."
    "Seem? Or will?"
    "Too early to say, but I'm very hopeful. I have tried a number of things that would have broken them down if they were worthless and the new equations survived them all. I'm beginning to think of them as `the achaotic equations.' "
    "I don't imagine," said Seldon "we have anything like a rigorous demonstration⁷ concerning these equations?"
    "No, we don't, though I've put half a dozen people on it, including Elar, of course." Amaryl turned on his Prime Radiant-which was every bit as advanced as Seldon's was-and he watched as the curving lines of luminous⁸ equations curled in midair-too small, too fine to be read without amplification⁹. "Add the new equations and we may be able to begin to predict."
    "Each time I study the Prime Radiant now," said Seldon thoughtfully, "I wonder at the Electro-Clarifier and how tightly it squeezes material into the lines and curves of the future. Wasn't that Elar's idea, too?"
    "Yes. With the help of Cinda Monay, who designed it."
    "It's good to have new and brilliant men and women in the Project. Somehow it reconciles me to the future."
    "You think someone like Elar may be heading the Project someday?" asked Amaryl, still studying the Prime Radiant.
    "Maybe. After you and I have retired-or died."
    Amaryl seemed to relax and turned off the device. "I would like to complete the task before we retire or die."
    "So would I, Yugo. So would I."
    "Psychohistory has guided us pretty well in the last ten years."
    That was true enough, but Seldon knew that one couldn't attach too much triumph to that. Things had gone smoothly¹⁰ and without major surprises.
    Psychohistory had predicted that the center would hold after Cleon's death-predicted it in a very dim and uncertain way-and it did hold. Trantor was reasonably quiet. Even with an assassination¹¹ and the end of a dynasty, the center had held.
    It did so under the stress of military rule-Dors was quite right in speaking of the junta¹² as "those military rascals¹³." She might have even gone farther in her accusations¹⁴ without being wrong. Nevertheless, they were holding the Empire together and would continue to do so for a time. Long enough, perhaps, to allow psychohistory to play an active role in the events that were to transpire¹⁵.
    Lately Yugo had been speaking about the possible establishment of Foundations-separate, isolated¹⁶, independent of the Empire itself serving as seeds for developments through the forthcoming dark ages and into a new and better Empire. Seldon himself had been working on the consequences of such an arrangement.
    But he lacked the time and, he felt (with a certain misery), he lacked the youth as well. His mind, however firm and steady, did not have the resiliency and creativity that it had had when he was thirty and with each passing year, he knew he would have less.
    Perhaps he ought to put the young and brilliant Elar on the task, taking him off everything else. Seldon had to admit to himself, shamefacedly, that the possibility did not excite him. He did not want to have invented psychohistory so that some stripling could come in and reap the final fruits of fame. In fact, to put it at its most disgraceful, Seldon felt jealous of Elar and realized it just sufficiently¹⁷ to feel ashamed of the emotion.
    Yet, regardless of his less rational feelings, he would have to depend on other younger men-whatever his discomfort¹⁸ over it. Psychohistory was no longer the private preserve of himself and Amaryl. The decade of his being First Minister had converted it into a large government-sanctioned and -budgeted undertaking²⁰ and, quite to his surprise, after resigning from his post as First Minister and returning to Streeling University, it had grown still larger. Hari grimaced²¹ at its ponderous-and pompous-official name: the Seldon Psychohistory Project at Streeling University. But most people simply referred to it as the Project.
    The military junta apparently²² saw the Project as a possible political weapon and while that was so, funding was no problem. Credits poured in. In return, it was necessary to prepare annual reports, which, however, were quite opaque²³. Only fringe matters were reported on and even then the mathematics was not likely to be within the purview²⁴ of any of the members of the junta.
    It was clear as he left his old assistant that Amaryl, at least, was more than satisfied with the way psychohistory was going and yet Seldon felt the blanket of depression settle over him once more.
    He decided²⁵ it was the forthcoming birthday celebration that was bothering him. It was meant as a celebration of joy, but to Hari it was not even a gesture of consolation-it merely emphasized his age.
    Besides, it was upsetting his routine and Hari was a creature of habit. His office and a number of those adjoining had been cleared out and it had been days since he had been able to work normally. His proper offices would be converted into halls of glory, he supposed, and it would be many days before he could get back to work. Only Amaryl absolutely refused to budge¹⁹ and was able to maintain his office.
    Seldon had wondered, peevishly²⁶, who had thought of doing all this. It wasn't Dors, of course. She knew him entirely²⁷ too well. Not Amaryl or Raych, who never even remembered their own birthdays. He had suspected Manella and had even confronted her on the matter.
    She admitted that she was all for it and had given orders for the arrangements to take place, but she said that the idea for the birthday party had been suggested to her by Tamwile Elar.
    The brilliant one, thought Seldon. Brilliant in everything.
    He sighed. If only the birthday were all over.

1 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

2 relinquished   

交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃

参考例句：

• She has relinquished the post to her cousin, Sir Edward. 她把职位让给了表弟爱德华爵士。
• The small dog relinquished his bone to the big dog. 小狗把它的骨头让给那只大狗。

3 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

4 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

5 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

6 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

7 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

8 luminous   

adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的

参考例句：

• There are luminous knobs on all the doors in my house.我家所有门上都安有夜光把手。
• Most clocks and watches in this shop are in luminous paint.这家商店出售的大多数钟表都涂了发光漆。

9 amplification   

n.扩大，发挥

参考例句：

• The voice of despair may be weak and need amplification.绝望的呼声可能很微弱，需要扩大。
• Some of them require further amplification.其中有些内容需进一步详细阐明。

10 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

11 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

12 junta   

n.团体；政务审议会

参考例句：

• The junta reacted violently to the perceived threat to its authority.军政府感到自身权力受威胁而进行了激烈反击。
• A military junta took control of the country.一个军政权控制了国家。

13 rascals   

流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人

参考例句：

• "Oh, but I like rascals. "唔，不过我喜欢流氓。
• "They're all second-raters, black sheep, rascals. "他们都是二流人物，是流氓，是恶棍。

14 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

15 transpire   

v.(使)蒸发，(使)排出 ；泄露，公开

参考例句：

• We do not know what may transpire when we have a new boss.当新老板来后，我们不知会有什么发生。
• When lack of water,commonly plants would transpire as a way for cool.在缺乏水分时，植物一般用蒸发作为降温的手段。

16 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

17 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

18 discomfort   

n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便

参考例句：

• One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
• She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。

19 budge   

v.移动一点儿；改变立场

参考例句：

• We tried to lift the rock but it wouldn't budge.我们试图把大石头抬起来，但它连动都没动一下。
• She wouldn't budge on the issue.她在这个问题上不肯让步。

20 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。

21 grimaced   

v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He grimaced at the bitter taste. 他一尝那苦味，做了个怪相。
• She grimaced at the sight of all the work. 她一看到这么多的工作就皱起了眉头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

23 opaque   

adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的

参考例句：

• The windows are of opaque glass.这些窗户装着不透明玻璃。
• Their intentions remained opaque.他们的意图仍然令人费解。

24 purview   

n.范围；眼界

参考例句：

• These are questions that lie outside the purview of our inquiry.这些都不是属于我们调查范围的问题。
• That,however,was beyond the purview of the court;it was a diplomatic matter.但是，那已不在法庭权限之内；那是个外交问题。

25 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

26 peevishly   

adv．暴躁地

参考例句：

• Paul looked through his green glasses peevishly when the other speaker brought down the house with applause. 当另一个演说者赢得了满座喝彩声时，保罗心里又嫉妒又气恼。
• "I've been sick, I told you," he said, peevishly, almost resenting her excessive pity. “我生了一场病，我告诉过你了，"他没好气地说，对她的过分怜悯几乎产生了怨恨。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

27 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。