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As Dennis Duncan’s charming book shows, though today they suggest fusty libraries, indexes were once a novelty.
正如丹尼斯·邓肯这本引人入胜的书所显示的那样，索引曾经是一种新奇的事物，尽管如今它们会让人想起老式图书馆。
A book seems such a simple structure that it feels less invented than self-evident, the innovations behind it hard to see.
一本书的结构看起来如此简单，让人觉得与其说它是创作出来的，不如说它是不言自明的，很难看到其背后的创新。
Yet every chapter in its progress was slow, bound on either side by centuries of sluggishness.
然而，这一进程的每一章都是缓慢的，两边都被几个世纪的迟缓所束缚。
Turnable pages didn’t really arrive until the first century BC; the book form didn’t take off properly until the fourth century AD.
直到公元前1世纪，可翻阅的书页才真正问世；直到公元4世纪，书本这种形式才真正流行起来。
The separating of words with spaces didn’t get going until the seventh — verylateforsomethingsouseful.
直到公元7世纪才开始使用空格来分隔单词——“对于这么有用的东西来说，这太晚了”。
Finally things accelerated: first came the index, in the 13th century, then Gutenberg, then, in 1470, the first printed page number.
最后，一切都加速进展：13世纪出现了索引，然后是古腾堡，而后在1470年出现了第一个印刷页码。
You can still see it in a book in the Bodleian Library.
你仍然可以在牛津大学图书馆的一本书中看到它。
People have struggled with the speed of literary production ever since.
自那时起，人们就一直在为文学产出的速度而挣扎。
“Is there anywhere on Earth exempt from these swarms of new books?” grumbled Erasmus.
“地球上有什么地方能幸免于这一堆堆的新书吗？”伊拉斯谟抱怨道。
The index was both an aid and a problem of its own.
索引本身既是一种帮助，也是一个问题。
“Many people read only them,” tutted the hard-to-please Erasmus.
“很多人只读这些索引，”难以取悦的伊拉斯谟嘟囔道。
An anxiety has always hung about them — that, while they enhance convenience, they threaten serendipity.
一种焦虑一直笼罩着它们——索引在增加便利的同时，也威胁到了意外发现珍宝的机会。
To claim to have read a book when you have only read the index is, said Jonathan Swift, like a traveller claiming to describe a palace when “he had seen nothing but the Privy”.
乔纳森·斯威夫特说，只看过索引却声称读过一本书，就像一个“除了厕所什么都没看到”的旅行者说要描述一座宫殿。
But indexes could and can be fun.
但是索引可能并且可以很有趣。
Brevity is the soul of wit, and what is briefer than an index?
简洁是智慧的灵魂，还有什么比索引更简洁呢？
Consider this takedown of a British politician: “Aitken, Jonathan: admires risk-takers, 59; goes to jail, 60”.
想想这个对英国政客的拆解：“艾特肯，乔纳森：敬佩冒险者，59岁；入狱，60岁。”
At times they were astonishingly ambitious: the Victorians strove to produce a “key to all knowledge”.
有时人们雄心勃勃，令人震惊：维多利亚时代的人致力于创造出一把“通向所有知识的钥匙”。
Like railways, an author rhapsodised, indexes have “cleared the way; they have levelled mountains and straightened the most tortuous paths…What a timesaver!…this is electricity!”
一位作家热情地写道，索引就像铁路一样“扫清了道路；它们夷平了高山，拉直了最曲折的小路……真省时！……令人激动！“。
They are still saving time.
索引仍然在帮人们节省时间。
Where Victorian keys to everything failed, Google has succeeded, says Mr Duncan.
邓肯先生说，在维多利亚时代的那把通往一切的钥匙失败后，谷歌却成功了。
For what is the search engine but a giant, electronic index?
搜索引擎不就是一个巨大的电子索引吗？
Type in the word, and everything appears instantly — gluttony/God/shame/shite/Angola/Ascot/Aitken and all the rest.
输入单词，所有的东西都会立即出现——暴食/上帝/耻辱/屎/安哥拉/阿斯科特/艾特肯等等。
What a timesaver! What electricity!
多么节省时间啊！多么令人激动！
And yet it is hard not to feel, like Erasmus, that something has been lost.
然而，人们很难不像伊拉斯谟那样，感到自己失去了什么。
The mountains have been levelled, the paths straightened.
高山被夷平，道路变得笔直。
The serendipity has gone.
意外发现珍宝的机会已不复存在。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
