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I forged more notes and my trips to the library became frequent. Reading grew into a passion. My first serious novel was Sinclair Lewis's Main Street. It made me see my boss, Mr. Gerald, and identify him as an American type. I would smile when I saw him lugging his golf bags into the office. I had always felt a vast distance separating me from the boss, and now I felt closer to him, though still distant. I felt now that I knew him, that I could feel the very limits of his narrow life. And this had happened because I had read a novel about a mythical man called George F. Babbitt.
我又伪造了一些便条，我到图书馆也去得频繁了。读书成了一种嗜好。我读的第一本严肃的小说是辛克莱·刘易斯的《大街》。它使我了解了我的老板杰拉尔德先生，发觉他是一种典型的美国人。每当我看到他吃力地提着他的高尔夫球袋走进办公室的时候，我就要发笑。过去我一直感到我和老板之间相隔千里，现在我觉得离他近了，尽管我们之间还有一定的距离。我现在觉得我理解他了，我能感觉到他狭隘生活的种种局限性。这个变化的发生，是因为我读了一部写一个叫乔治·F·巴比特的虚构人物的小说。
I read Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt and Sister Carrie and they revived in me a vivid sense ofmy mother's suffering; I was overwhelmed. I grew silent, wondering about the life around me.It would have been impossible for me to have told anyone what I derived from these novels,for it was nothing less than a sense of life itself. All my life had shaped me for the realism, the naturalism of the modern novel, and I could not read enough of them.
我读了德莱塞的《珍妮·格哈特》和《嘉莉妹妹》，它们重新使我真切地感受到我母亲遭受到的痛苦。我完全被感动了。我变得沉默寡言，对我周围的生活感到疑惑不解。那时，我不可能告诉别人我阅读这些小说有何收益，因为我所获得的就是对生活自身的感受。我一生的经历造成我喜欢现代小说的现实主义、自然主义，这些小说我怎么也读不够。
Steeped in new moods and ideas, I bought a ream of paper and tried to write; but nothing would come, or what did come was flat beyond telling. I discovered that more than desire and felling were necessary to write and I dropped the idea. Yet I still wondered how it was possible to know people sufficiently to write about them? Could I ever learn about life and people? To me, with my vast ignorance, my Jim Crow station in life, it seemed a task impossible of achievement. I now knew what being a Negro meant. I could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate. But to feel that there were feelings denied me, that thevery breath of life itself was beyond my reach, that more than anything else hurt, wounded me. I had a new hunger.
我完全沉浸在新的情绪和思想之中，我买了一令纸，试着写作。但我什么也写不出来，即使勉强写出来，也是极其平淡无味。我发现要写作，只有愿望和感情是不够的。于是我放弃了写作的念头。然而我仍然想知道，怎样才能充分了解人们，进而描写他们？我到底能不能做到理解生活、理解人呢？对我来说，由于我极端无知，由于作为黑人的我在现实生活中所处的地位，这似乎是一个不可能达到的目标。我现在知道了做一个黑人意味着什么。我可以忍受饥饿，我学会了容忍仇恨。但有一点比其他任何东西都更伤我的心。那便是，我觉得我被拒之于感情的某些方面之外，我感到就连生活中必不可少的东西，对我来说，也是可望而不可即的。我产生了一种新的饥饿。
