在本周之初,一连几天到处都在传说着这个消息,但鲍普一点也不知道。他从来也没见过报纸,只有在他每星期六早晨上弗兰克斯顿买东西时看到过用来包零碎的旧报纸。他有一架破旧的、发音嘰嘰喳喳的收音机,靠干电池开动,但他也很少开它,更从来也没有收听过新闻广播。所以到了这个星期五的晚上,他对那个正在半岛上进行的尽人皆知的军事演习所了解的程度,和他对他一向认为早已完全发疯的社会中的其他活动的了解,大体上差不多。 At the beginning of the week, the news was stabbing around for days, but Bob did not know at all. He had never seen a newspaper before, and he had seen the old newspapers used to pack up pieces every time he bought something at Frankston on a Saturday morning. He had a shabby, twittering radio that started with a dry battery, but he seldom started it and never listened to news broadcasts. So Friday night he knew about that well-known military exercise on the peninsula to a greater extent than he knew about other activities in a society he had always thought completely already crazy.