The Rewards of Living a Solitary Life

　　The other day an acquaintance of mine, a gregarious and charming man, told me he had found himself unexpectedly alone in New York for an hour or two between appointments. He went to the Whitney and spent the empty time looking at things in solitary bliss. For him it proved to be a shock nearly as great as falling in love to discover that he could enjoy himself so much alone.

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　　獨自生活的報償

　　前些日子，我的一個熟人，一位熱愛交際并很受歡迎的男士告訴我，他在紐約的兩個約會之間偶然有一兩個小時的空閑，他便去了惠特尼博物館，四處瀏覽著展品，無比幸福的度過了那些時光。發現自已獨自一人，也能如此的幸福，他感覺像墜入愛河那般震驚。

　　What had he been afraid of, I asked myself? That, suddenly alone, he would discover that he bored himself, or that there was, quite simply, no self there to meet? But having taken the plunge, he is now on the brink of adventure; he is about to be launched into his own inner space to the astronaut. His every perception will come to him with a new freshness and, for a time, seem startlingly original.

　　參考譯文：

　　他一直在害怕什么呢？，我問自已。 怕突然一個人呆著會發現自已厭煩自己，或者怕會失去自我？但是有了這次償試，他便要開始探險了。他就要發射到自已內心的宇宙之中。他的所見所感對他來說將會是全新的，一度會新穎的讓人驚奇。