Too early and too late
原文
Lesson 60
Too early and too late
Why did the young girl miss the train?
Punctuality is a necessary habit in all public affairs in civilized society.
Without it, nothing could ever be brought to a conclusion; everything would be in a state of chaos.
Only in a sparsely-populated rural community is it possible to disregard it.
In ordinary living, there can be some tolerance of unpunctuality.
The intellectual, who is working on some abstruse problem, has everything coordinated and organized for the matter in hand.
He is therefore forgiven if late for a dinner party.
But people are often reproached for unpunctuality when their only fault is cutting things fine.
It is hard for energetic, quick-minded people to waste time,
so they are often tempted to finish a job before setting out to keep an appointment.
If no accidents occur on the way, like punctured tyres, diversions of traffic, sudden descent of fog, they will be on time.
They are often more industrious, useful citizens than those who are never late.
The over-punctual can be as much a trial to others as the unpunctual.
The guest who arrives half an hour too soon is the greatest nuisance.
Some friends of my family had this irritating habit.
The only thing to do was ask them to come half an hour later than the other guests.
Then they arrived just when we wanted them.
If you are catching a train, it is always better to be comfortably early than even a fraction of a minute too late.
Although being early may mean wasting a little time,
this will be less than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour or more for the next one;
and you avoid the frustration of arriving at the very moment when the train is drawing out of the station and being unable to get on it.
An even harder situation is to be on the platform in good time for a train and still to see it go off without you.
Such an experience befell a certain young girl the first time she was travelling alone.
She entered the station twenty minutes before the train was due,
since her parents had impressed upon her
that it would be unforgivable to miss it and cause the friends with whom she was going to stay to make two journeys to meet her.
She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him her ticket.
To her horror he said that she was two hours too soon.
She felt in her handbag for the piece of paper on which her father had written down all the details of the journey and gave it to the porter.
He agreed that a train did come into the station at the time on the paper and that it did stop, but only to take on mail, not passengers.
The girl asked to see a timetable, feeling sure that her father could not have made such a mistake.
The porter went to fetch one and arrived back with the station master,
who produced it with a flourish and pointed out a microscopic 'o' beside the time of the arrival of the train at his station;
this little 'o' indicated that the train only stopped for mail.
Just as that moment the train came into the station.
The girl, tears streaming down her face, begged to be allowed to slip into the guard's van.
But the station master was adamant: rules could not be broken.
And she had to watch that train disappear towards her destination while she was left behind.
译文
第60课
太早与太晚
为什么那个小女孩错过了火车？
在文明社会的所有公共事务中，守时是一种必不可少的习惯。
没有它，任何事情都无法办成；一切都将陷入混乱。
只有在人口稀少的农村社区，人们才可能忽视它。
在日常生活中，对于迟到这种行为，人们通常可以有一定的宽容度。
这位正在研究某个复杂问题的学者，已经将自己手头的工作所需的一切资料和信息都整理得井井有条、有条不紊了。
因此，如果他赴宴迟到，也是可以被原谅的。
但是，人们常常因为不守时而受到指责，而他们唯一的过错只是把时间算得太紧。
对于那些精力充沛、思维敏捷的人来说，浪费时间是一件很难做到的事情。
因此，他们常常会忍不住在赴约之前先把工作完成。
如果途中没有发生任何意外（比如轮胎爆裂、交通延误、雾突然变浓等情况），他们就能准时到达。
他们通常比那些从不迟到的人更勤奋、更有用。
过分守时和迟到一样，都可能让人难以忍受。
那位提前半小时就到的客人真是最让人烦恼的人了。
我家的一些朋友有个让人很恼火的习惯。
唯一可行的办法就是让他们比其他客人晚半小时到达。
然后他们正好在我们需要的时候到了。
如果你要赶火车，宁可从容地早到，也绝不迟到哪怕一秒钟。
虽然提前行动可能会浪费一些时间，
这总比你错过火车、然后不得不等待下一班火车（一个小时或更长时间）要好吧。
这样你就避免了那种令人沮丧的情况：当你赶到车站时，火车正好已经启动离开，而你却无法上车。
更糟糕的情况是：你虽然及时赶到了站台，却还是眼睁睁看着火车开走，把你丢下。
这样的经历发生在一个年轻女孩第一次独自旅行的时候。
她在火车预定到站前二十分钟进了车站。
因为她的父母一直向她灌输这样的观念（或：因为她的父母让她明白了这一点）。
错过这班火车是不可原谅的，因为这会让要来接她的朋友们不得不跑两趟。
她把行李交给搬运工，并给他看了车票。
令她惊恐的是，他说她来得太早了——比预定的时间早了两个小时。
她在手提包里寻找那张纸，上面写着父亲记录的所有旅行细节，然后把纸交给了行李员。
他承认，根据记录，当时确实有一列火车驶入了车站并且停了下来，但那列火车只是来取邮件的，并没有搭载乘客。
女孩要求查看时刻表，因为她确信她的父亲不可能犯这样的错误。
搬运工去取时刻表，回来时带着站长。
站长拿着时刻表，夸张地一挥，指出了他车站火车到站时间旁边一个极小的'o'；
这个小小的“O”符号表示火车只是为了取邮件而停靠的。
就在那一刻，火车驶进了车站。
女孩泪流满面，恳求允许她溜进列车员车厢。
但站长态度坚决：规定不能违反。
她只能眼睁睁看着火车驶向目的地，而自己却被留在了车站。