Chapter 3-6

In fact, the people did not mind so very much. It is a rule in the Seven Kingdoms that anything you do not need is collected and shared. Empty bottles are washed and reused. Cardboard and paper is collected, mashed up and made into new paper. Even potato peelings, bits of vegetables and food are collected and fed to the herds of

其实大家并没有那么介意。 七国有个规矩：所有你用不着的东西都会被收起来共享给大家。 空瓶子洗干净就能重复使用。 硬纸板和废纸被收走，捣碎之后就能造成新纸。 就连土豆皮、碎菜叶和剩饭菜都会被收起来，喂给那群

pigs, cows and horses. If someone has a bicycle they don't use, they just paint it yellow and leave it outside their door. When someone else wants a ride, they take it and then leave it outside their door. When someone has a baby and it grows out of the pram, they give it to someone who has a new baby. Once people got the idea that there were plenty of bicycles, and prams, and toys around, they forgot all about keeping them for their own. And everybody shared their food and sometimes cooked in a neighbourhood kitchen. So the idea that since the whole kingdom had a problem with the giant, the whole kingdom had to do something about it, was not a great shock. Everyone saw at once that one window each was a small price to pay to help the giant. And, anyway, the summer was very fine with no rain, so they did not miss their windows as much as they would have done had it been winter. Everyone who had fancy iron gates cut the knobs and twiddly bits off the top and brought them to a great heap of scrap iron beside the royal

猪、牛和马吃。 要是谁家有闲置的自行车，他们只要把它刷成黄色，放在家门口就行。 其他要是有人想骑车，就把车骑走，用完再停到自己家门口。 要是谁家的宝宝长大了，用不上婴儿车了，他们就会把车送给刚生了宝宝的人家。 大家一旦意识到周围有好多自行车、婴儿车和玩具，就再也不会想着要把这些东西占为己有了。 每个人都会分享自己的食物，有时候大家还会在邻里公用厨房里一起做饭。 所以既然整个王国都被巨人的问题困扰，那所有人都得为此出份力，这个想法对大家来说一点也不意外。 所有人马上就明白，为了帮助巨人，每家贡献一块窗户，不过是很小的代价。 而且话说回来，夏天天气特别好，一点雨也不下，所以比起冬天，没了窗户也没那么难熬。 家里有精致铁艺大门的人家，都把门上的圆疙瘩和花纹装饰从顶上割下来，放到王室旁的大废铁堆里

camp on the Plain Green Plains. They were sorry for the short-sighted giant. But more than anything else they all hoped that the plan to make him spectacles would work so that he could go home and grow his own crops, instead of eating so much of the food belonging to the Land of the Seven Kingdoms. The royal surveyor had surveyed both the giant, and the dry bottom of the pool at the edge of Great Valley Lake. "It's perfect," he said. "The glass in spectacles helps people to see because it is made slightly curved. The picture of the outside world is bent by the glass before the eye even sees it. The bottom of the lake is exactly the right curve. When the glass is melted by the fire and then cools and sets hard, it will be exactly the right curve for the giant's eyesight." All of the members of the court and the royal guard and the people of the Plain Green Plains piled half the windowpanes into the lake, and half the wood on top. Then they lit the wood and let it burn and burn for two whole days and nights. All

营地就在青青平原上。 大家都很同情这个近视的巨人。 但最重要的是，他们都希望给巨人做眼镜的计划能成功，这样他就能回家种自己的庄稼，不用再吃掉七国这么多粮食了。 皇家测量员已经量好了巨人的尺寸，也测过大谷湖边上那个水池的干池底。 “太完美了。”他说。 “眼镜的镜片能帮人看清东西，是因为它被做成了微微弯曲的形状。 外界的影像在进入眼睛之前，就会先被镜片弯折调整。 这个湖底的弧度刚好合适。 等玻璃被火烧化，再冷却凝固之后，形状就会刚好贴合巨人的视力需求，弧度完全合适。” 所有朝臣、皇家护卫还有青青平原的居民们，把一半的窗玻璃堆进湖里，再在上面堆了一半的木柴。 然后他们点燃木柴，就让火一直烧了整整两天两夜。 所有

the children from Great Valley Lake School took another couple of days off without asking and had a barbecue round the lakeside that went on for two and a half days. They had never had a summer like it. After two days and two nights, the fire burned down and the glass, which had melted under the heat, started to set again in the shape of the pool– flat on top and perfectly curved on the bottom. When the royal surveyor brushed the grey wood ash away, the glass had melted into a smooth surface like ice on a pond. Very carefully, without breaking it, they levered the glass from the bed of the pool and laid it on the soft grass of the Plain Green Plains. Then they put in the rest of the windowpanes and melted those too– and all the children from Great Valley Lake School took another couple of days off without permission. When they had finished, they had two giant

大谷湖学校的孩子们没打招呼就又多放了两天假，他们在湖边办了个烧烤派对，足足热闹了两天半。 他们从来没经历过这么有意思的夏天。 两天两夜之后，火渐渐熄灭了，被高温烤化的玻璃开始按照水池的形状重新凝固——顶面平平的，底面的弧度完美极了。 等皇家测量员把灰色的木灰扫开，玻璃已经熔成了一块光滑的表面，就像池塘上结的冰一样。 大家小心翼翼地把玻璃从池底撬出来，没弄坏它，然后把它放到青青平原柔软的草地上。 接着他们把剩下的另一半窗玻璃放进去，也全部熔化——大谷湖学校的所有孩子们又没打招呼，多放了两天假。 等全部完工的时候，他们做出了两块巨大的

lenses for spectacles so big and so thick that it took ten men to carry each one. All that was left to do then was for the nearby blacksmiths to come with their fire and their forges, and heat and hammer the twiddly bits from the fancy garden gates into a smart but simple pair of frames for the spectacles. Six blacksmiths rolled up in their blackened and dirty wagons and put all their forges together to make one really big hot fire. And all the blacksmiths" sons and daughters– who also should have been in school– puffed on the bellows and made the charcoal glow a bright and brilliant red. Then the blacksmiths took all the old scrap metal and hammered and bashed it, cooled it down and heated it up, twisted it and forged it, knotted it together and smoothed it out until…

眼镜镜片又大又厚，每一块都得要十个壮汉才抬得动。 接下来剩下的活儿就交给附近的铁匠了：他们带着炉火和锻炉赶来，把那些精美花园大门上的花纹零件加热、捶打，做成一副简洁又好看的大眼镜框。 六个铁匠坐着他们沾着黑渍的脏兮兮的马车赶来，把所有锻炉拼到一起，生起了一大团滚烫的烈火。 铁匠家的儿子女儿们——本来也该在学校上课的——使劲拉着风箱，把木炭烧得通红发亮。 接着铁匠们把所有旧金属废料拿过来，捶啊打啊，一会儿冷却一会儿加热，拧来拧去反复锻造，把它们拼接结实再打磨光滑，直到……

"That is really great," said Princess Florizella with enormous relief. It had been nearly a week since they'd first met the giant, and in all that time Florizella had been riding Jellybean up to the lake, and back to the royal camp, then off around the countryside to find more blacksmiths and more metal, as well as finding more food for the giant. That was the bit that Samson liked the best. He always sat beside the giant at meal-times. He had never eaten so well in his life. Crumbs of bread and cake the size of boulders fell around him.

“那可真是太棒了。”弗洛里泽拉公主大大松了口气说道。 距离他们第一次遇见巨人已经快过去一周了，这段时间里，弗洛里泽拉骑着果冻豆往返于湖边和王室营地，还要在乡间四处奔波，找更多的铁匠、收集更多的金属，另外还要给巨人找更多食物。 这部分是萨姆森最喜欢的事了。 每次吃饭的时候，他都坐在巨人旁边。 他长这么大，从来没吃得这么好过。 面包屑和蛋糕屑掉得他周围都是，每块都跟大石头一样大。