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Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Barrett III request the pleasure of your company at a dinner in celebration of Mr. Barrett's sixtieth birthday Saturday, the sixth of March at seven o'clock
兹订于三月六日星期六下午七时在马萨诸塞州伊普斯威奇镇多佛宅邸设宴庆贺巴雷特先生六十寿辰，恭请届时拨冗光临。
Dover House, Ipswich,Massachusetts
奥利佛·巴雷特第三夫妇鞠躬
R. S. V. P.
请赐回复
"Well?" asked Jennifer.
“怎么样?”詹妮弗问。
"Do you even have to ask?" I replied. I was in the midst of abstracting The State v. Percival, a very important precedent in criminal law. Jenny was sort of waving the invitation to bug me.
“这你还用问吗?”我反问了一句。我正忙于摘录刑法上一起非常重要的判例——“珀西瓦尔公诉案”的要点。詹尼微微摆动着请柬，不让我安宁。
"I think it's about time, Oliver, she said.
“我想是时候了，奥利佛，”她说。
"For what?"
“是什么的时候了?”
"For you know very well what, she answered. "Does he have to crawl here on his hands and knees?"
“你明明知道我说的是什么，”她回答说，“难道你非要他跪着爬到这儿来?”
I kept working as she worked me over.
我继续干我的事，任她肆意攻击我。
"Ollie — he's reaching out to you!"
“奥利——他在主动向你伸手呢!”
"Bullshit, Jenny. My mother addressed the envelope."
“胡扯，詹妮，信封是我母亲开的。”
"I thought you said you didn't look at it!" she sort of yelled.
“我想你说过你连看都没看一眼呢!”她有点儿扯开嗓子嚷嚷了。
Okay, so I did glance at it earlier. Maybe it had slipped my mind. I was, after all, in the midst of abstracting The State v. Percival, and in the virtual shadow of exams. The point was she should have stopped haranguing me.
好吧，就算我刚才瞅过一眼吧。也许我已经忘了。不管怎么说，我正在专心做“珀西瓦尔公诉案”的摘要，忙着对付迫在眉睫的考试。问题在于她不该跟我唠叨个没完。
"Ollie, think, she said, her tone kind of pleading now. " Sixty goddamn years old. Nothing says he'll still be around when you're finally ready for the reconciliation."
“奥利，好好想想，”她说，她现在的口吻近乎恳求了。“已经是六十岁的人了。等你最终回心转意想要和解的时候，谁能担保他还活在世上呢?”
I informed Jenny in the simplest possible terms that there would never be a reconciliation and would she please let me continue my studying. She sat down quietly, squeezing herself onto a comer of the sofa where I had my feet. Although she didn't make a sound, I quickly became aware that she was looking at me very hard. I glanced up.
我用最简单明了的话告诉詹妮，决不会有和解的一天，能不能请她让我继续学习下去。她一声不响地坐了下来，收紧身子，缩在我搁脚的那张沙发的一角。虽然她没吱声，但我很快便意识到她正紧紧地盯着我。我抬起头来。
