6. Discussing the question, some time ago, with an old friend, she gave me her never-failing remedy for sleeplessness, which was to imagine herself performing some trivial action over and over again, until, her mind becoming disgusted with the monotony of life, sleep drew the curtain. Her favourite device was to imagine a picture not hanging quite plumb upon the wall, and then to proceed to straighten it. This I tried -- though putting pictures straight is no habit of mine -- but it was of no avail. I imagined the picture on the wall without difficulty, and gave it a few deft touches, but this set me thinking of pictures in general, and then I remembered an art exhibition I had attended with my friend T. and what he said, and what I said, and I wondered how T. was faring these days, and whether his son was still at school. And so it went on, until I found myself meditating on cheese, or spiritualism, or the Rocky Mountains -- but no sleep! Somewhere in that limbo which Earth describes in Prometheus Unbound, that vague region filled with

    Dreams and the light imaginings of men,

    is the dreary phantom of an unstraightened picture upon a wall. And there it shall stay, for I have no further use for it.

    6)不久前我和一个老朋友讨论这个问题时，她给了我一个包治她失眠的良方，就是想像她自己不断重复做某个毫无意义的动作，直到她在心里对生活之单调感到极度厌恶，睡眠便来结束一切。她最喜爱的办法是想像一幅画在墙上挂得不太正，于是便着手把它弄正。我试了试这办法——尽管把画挂正并不是我的习惯——但毫无效果。我毫不困难地想像出了墙上挂的画，在行地搡了几下子，可这么一来使我想到一般的画，然后又记起我和友人T君一同参观的一个画展，他当时说了些什么，我又说了些什么，我又捉摸开不知T君近来如何，他的儿子是不是仍在上学。就这样不停地想下去，直到我发现自己陷入关于奶酪、招魂术或落基山的冥想之中——但是仍无睡意! 在《解放了的普罗米修斯》中地神所描绘的那边缘状态的某处，那充满了
    梦与人们轻快的想像
    的模糊地带，有着一幅歪挂在幻影般的墙上的画的阴沉的幽灵。它将继续留在那里，因为我再也用不着它了。