The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation, and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago, and there has been no follow-up.

史上最为冗长、最具破坏性的派对，如今已进入其第四个世代，且依然无人愿意离开。虽然有人看过表——那是十一年前的事了，从那以后再也没人看过。

The mess is extraordinary, and has to be seen to be believed, but if you don’t have any particular need to believe it, then don’t go and look, because you won’t enjoy it.

那真是巨大的灾难，若非亲眼见到，简直难以相信。但是，如果你不是真想相信的话，还是别去见吧。真的不好受。

There have recently been some bangs and flashes up in the clouds, and there is one theory that this is a battle being fought between the fleets of several rival carpet-cleaning companies who are hovering¹ over the thing like vultures, but you shouldn’t believe anything you hear at parties, and particularly not anything you hear at this one. 有时，云层里会传出轰隆隆的声音，还有闪光。有人说，那是几个相互竞争的地毯清洁公司在打仗，他们平时就在天上盘旋。当然，派对上的话是信不得的；而这个派对上的话，尤其信不得。

One of the problems, and it’s one which is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn’t leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes² and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both. 有一种现象日趋严重：派对上的所有人，要么是第一代参加者的儿子，要么是孙子，要么是曾孙。考虑到选择性繁殖和基因退化的原因，我们有理由相信，现在派对上的人们要么是狂热的派对迷，要么是夸夸其谈的白痴，要么——可能性越来越大——两者皆是。

Either way, it means that, genetically³ speaking, each succeeding generation is now less likely to leave than the preceding one.

一句话，这意味着：总的来讲，每一代人都比上一代更不想离开这儿。

So other factors come into operation, like when the drink is going to run out.

于是其他问题接踵而至。比如酒快喝完了。

Now, because of certain things which have happened which seemed like a good idea at the time (and one of the problems with a party which never stops is that all the things which only seem like a good idea at parties continue to seem like good ideas), that point seems still to be a long way off.

于是，有些事情，就因为听起来是不错的主意（对于一个永无止境的派对来讲，一个重要问题就是：那些仅仅在派对上听起来还不错的主意，到了这儿，却永远会被认为是不错的主意），就掩盖了一些更重要的东西。

One of the things which seemed like a good idea at the time was that the party should fly not in the normal sense that parties are meant to fly, but literally⁴.

比如，有个听起来还不错的主意是：派对应该飞起来——不是通常所说的“快乐得像飞起来”，而是真正的飞起来。