“It’s marvellous though,” he rattled on, “to see so many of you here tonight no isn’t it though? Yes, absolutely marvellous. Because I know that so many of you come here time and time again, which I think is really wonderful, to come and watch this final end of everything, and then return home to your own eras… and raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight terrible wars for what you know to be right… it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except of course,” he waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them, “that we know it hasn’t got one…”
Arthur turned to Ford he hadn’t quite got this place worked out in his mind.
“Look, surely,” he said, “if the Universe is about to end… don’t we go with it?”
Ford gave him a three-Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blaster look, in other words a rather unsteady one.
“No,” he said, “look,” he said, “as soon as you come into this dive you get held in this sort of amazing force-shielded temporal warp thing. I think.”
“Oh,” said Arthur. He turned his attention back to a bowl of soup he’d managed to get from the waiter to replace his steak.
“Look,” said Ford, “I’ll show you.”
He grabbed at a napkin off the table and fumbled hopelessly with it.
“Look,” he said again, “imagine this napkin, right, as the temporal Universe, right? And this spoon as a transductional mode in the matter curve…”
It took him a while to say this last part, and Arthur hated to interrupt him.
“That’s the spoon I was eating with,” he said.
“Alright,” said Ford, “imagine this spoon…” he found a small wooden spoon on a tray of relishes, “this spoon…” but found it rather tricky to pick up, “no, better still this fork…”
“Hey would you let go of my fork?” snapped Zaphod.
“Alright,” said Ford, “alright, alright. Why don’t we say… why don’t we say that this wine glass is the temporal Universe…”
“What, the one you’ve just knocked on the floor?”
“Did I do that?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” said Ford, “forget that. I mean… I mean, look, do you know do you know how the Universe actually began for a kick off?”
“Probably not,” said Arthur, who wished he’d never embarked on any of this.
“Alright,” said Ford, “imagine this. Right. You get this bath. Right. A large round bath. And it’s made of ebony.”
“Where from?” said Arthur, “Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Listen.”
“Alright.”
vt. 除,除外
prep. & conj.