Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute --- I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as a chemist's scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And - think of it! - I was only eighteen.
我这个人逻辑性很强。我敏捷，精于计算，有洞察力，敏锐。我的大脑像个发动机，像化学家的刻度一样标准，像解剖刀一样敏锐。而且你瞧，我才18岁。
It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Burch my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swe pt up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doin g it - this to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
像这样年少多智的并不常见。比如，我在梦奈斯特大学的室友比特’波次就不这样。一样的年纪，一样的背景，却像牛一样愚笨。你也知道，他是个好哥们，却是完全不上档次的那种。他情绪化，不，喋喋不休，最糟糕的是，他追求时尚。在我看来时尚是一件很荒诞的事。疯狂卷入每次袭来的时尚，愚蠢地丛众只因人人如此。对我来说，这是愚蠢之至。但是对比特来说则不是这么一回事。
One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. "Don't move," I said, "Don't take a laxative. I'll get a doctor."
那天下午，我发现比特躺在床上，面带一副痛苦的表情，我立即推测到是阑尾炎发作。“别动，”我说，“别吃泻药，我去医生。”"浣熊," 他反复嘀咕着.
"浣熊?"我疑惑道，随即停了下来。
"我想要个换熊皮外套," 他哀嚎着。
I perceived that his trouble was not physical but mental. "Why do you want a raccoon coat?"
我意识到这不是身体而是精神上的问题。“你为什么想要浣熊外套？”
"I should have known it," he cried, pounding hie temples.
“我早就该知道的，”他哭道，捶打着太阳穴。
"I should have known it they'd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbook, and now I can't get a raccoon coat."
查尔斯顿收复时我就该知道他们会回来。我竟然像个傻子一样把所有的钱花在买书上，现在都不能得到一件浣熊皮外套。
"Can you mean," I said incredulously," that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?"
“你是说，”我疑惑道，“人们又开始穿换熊皮外套了吗？”
"All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where've you been?"
“学校里所有大人物都穿着呢，你到底是不是这里的人啊。”
"In the library," I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
“我在图书馆”，我说，那是一个学校大人物不常去的地方。
He leaped from the bed and paced the room. "I've got to have a raccoon coat," he said passionately. "I've got to!"
他跳下床在屋里来回踱步。“我要换熊皮外套，”他激昂地说，“我必须要！”
"Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They wei
gh too much. They're unsightly. "
比特，为什么？理智一点。浣熊皮外套不卫生、脱毛、太重、不好看......
"Y ou don't understand," he interrupted, impatiently. "It's the thing to do. Don't you want to be in the swim?"
“你不明白，”他不耐烦地打断我。“必须这样。你不想跟随潮流吗？”
"No," I said truthfully "Well, I do," he declared. "I'd give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!"
“不,”我老实回答道。”“嗯，可是我想。”他声明。“为了浣熊皮外套，我愿付出任何代价。任何代价！”
My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. "Anything?" I asked, looking at him narrowly.
我的大脑，这个精密仪器，进入高速运转。“任何代价？”我仔细打量着他问道。
"Anything," he affirmed in ringing tones.
“任何代价。”他高声肯定道。
I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn't have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
我摸着下巴思索着。突然我想到从哪里可以得到换熊皮外套。我父亲在他的大学期间有过一件浣熊皮外套；它现在正躺在我家后院的阁楼上。恰好我需要某件东西，这件东西在比特那里，而比特并不真正拥有它，但是他至少有优先获得权。这件东西是指他的女朋友，宝丽.艾斯比。
I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly For a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.
我觊觎宝丽.艾斯比很久了。我要强调的是，我对这个年轻女士的觊觎本质上并不是出于情感。准确的说，她是一个能够激发情感的女孩，但我不是一个被感情所左右的人。对宝丽的觊觎完全出于理智的精算。
I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer's career. The successful lawyers I had observ
ed were, almost without exception, married to beauti ful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
我是法学院新生。几年后会走出去接受锻炼。我很清楚地知道什么样的妻子对一名律师的事业大有帮助。据我观察，成功的律师几乎无一例外地娶美丽谦和聪明的女人为妻。除去一点，宝丽完全符合这个标准。
Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings. 她美丽，但达不到迷人的程度。
Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clear ly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house - a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut - without even getting her fingers moist.
Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
"Petey," I said, "are you in love with Polly Espy?"
"I think she's a keen kid," he replied, "but I don't know if you call it love. Why?"
"Do you," I asked, "have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?"
"No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?"
"Is there," I asked, "any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
I nodded with satisfaction. "In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?"
"I guess so. What are you getting at?"
"Nothing , nothing," I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.
"Where are you going?" asked Petey.
"Home for weekend." I threw a few things into the bag.
"Listen," he said, clutching my arm eagerly, "while you're home, you couldn't get some money from your old man, could you , and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?"
"I may do better than that," I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
"Look," I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
"Holy Toledo!" said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. "Holy Toledo!" he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
"Would you like it?" I asked.
"Oh yes!" he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. "What do you want for it?"
"Y our girl" I said, mincing no words.
"Polly?" he said in a horrified whisper. "Y ou want Polly?"
"That's right."
He shook his head.
I shrugged. "Okay. If you don't want to be in the swim, I guess it's your business.
I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. T hen he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn't turn away at all; he just stood and sta red with mad lust at the coat.
"It isn't as though I was in love with Polly," he said thickly. "Or going steady or anythin g like that."
"That's right," I murmured.
"What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
"Not a thing," said I.
"It's just been a casual kick - just a few laughs, that's all."strcmp was not declared in
"Try on the coat," said I.
He compiled. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. "Fits fine," he said happily.
I rose from my chair. "Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand. He swallowed. "It's a deal," he said and shook my hand.
I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey. I wanted to find out just how much work I had to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner.
"Gee, that was a delish dinner," she said as we left the restaurant.
And then I took her home. "Gee, I had a sensaysh time," she said as she bade me good night.
I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl's lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught to "think". This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey.
But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.
I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was ta king a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. "Polly,: I said in to Her when I picked her up on our next date, tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.
"Oo, terrif," she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. "What ar e we going to talk about?" she asked.
"Logic."
She thought this over for a minute and decided s he liked it. "Magnif," she said.
Logic," I said, clearing my throat, "is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight."
"Wow-dow!" she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
I winced, but went bravely on. "First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter."
"By all means," she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
"Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise."
"Polly," I said gently, "the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you h ave heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Therefore exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. Y ou must qualify the generalization. Y ou must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise yo u have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?"
"No," she confessed. "But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!"
"It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve," I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. "Next we take up a fall acy called
Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: Y ou can't speak French. Petey Burch can't speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French."
"Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?"
I hid my exasperation. "Polly, it's a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instance to support such a conclusion."
Know any more fallacies?" she asked breathlessly. "This is more fun than dancing, even."
I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting no where with this girl, absolutely no where. Still, I am nothing, if not persistent. I continued. "Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let's not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take it out with us, it rai ns."
"I know somebody just like that," she exclaimed. "A girl back home - Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on "
"Polly," I said sharply, "it's a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn't cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. Y ou are gu ilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker."
"I'll never do it again," she promised contritely. "Are you mad at me?"
I sighed deeply. "No, Polly, I'm not mad."
"Then tell me some more fallacies."
"All right. Let's try Contradictory Premises."
"Y es, let's," she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.
I frowned, but plunged ahead. "Here's an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won't be able to lift it?"
"Of course," she replied promptly.
"But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone," I pointed out.
"Y eah," she said thoughtfully. "Well, then I guess He can't make the stone."
"But He can do anything," I reminded her.
She scratched her pretty, empty head. "I'm all confused," she admitted.
"Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovabl
e object, there can be no irresistible force. Ge t it?"
"Tell me more of this keen stuff," she said eagerly.
I consulted my watch. "I think we'd better call it a night. I'll take you home now, and you go over all the things you've lea rned. We'll