Dear Avis, we finished packing today,
亲爱的Avis,我们今天把东西都打包整理好了
and tomorrow we leave beloved Paris for Marseilles.
而明天我们就要离开亲爱的巴黎去马赛了
Paul has been appointed Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the South of France.
Paul被任命为南法兰西文化事务部理事
I’m having a hard time pretending to be anything but devastated.
我要难过好长一段时间了
I’m going to go buy some bread.
我要去买点面包
The advantage of Marseilles is that it won’t have the distractions of Paris.
马赛这个地方的好处在于它不会像巴黎那样让人分心
So we’ll be able to finish the book.
所以我们就能写完这本书了
Although not on deadline.
虽然还是不能按期完成
At least we’re still in France.
但至少我们还在法国
Dear Avis, I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve it
亲爱的Avis,我不知道我们所做的事 你会怎么评价
but here we are in Germany.
但是我们现在在德国
Actually in a suburb of Bonn called Plittersdorf on the Rhine,
实际上是在波恩的郊区 在莱茵河畔一个叫Plittersdorf的地方
which sounds much more picturesque than it is.
这名字听起来比它本身要生动的多
By the way, there is no chance we’ll meet our new deadline.
顺便说一下,书的完稿日期又要推迟了
We’ll be at least two more years.
我们还要至少再两年的时间
Meanwhile, Paul has been called to Washington.
与此同时,Paul又被叫去华盛顿
We have no idea why.
我们真不知道是为什么
Well, they’re going to promote you, finally. They have to.
反正他们肯定是要提拔你了,他们必须得这么做
Well, I don’t know why they have to call me back to Washington to tell me that.
我不知道他们为什么叫我回华盛顿跟我说这个
They could just send a telex. It’d be a lot cheaper.
他们发一封电报就完全可以了 那样还更便宜呢
Well, they’re going to reassign you, then.
到那时,他们要再次任命你的