Clippings

Needless to say, the manufacture of elephants is no easy matter. They’re big, first of all, and very complex. It’s not like making hairpins or colored pencils. The factory covers a huge area, and it consists of several buildings. Each building is big, too, and the sections are color-coded. Assigned to the ear section that month, I worked in the building with the yellow ceiling and posts. My helmet and pants were also yellow. All I did there was make ears, The month before, I had been assigned to the green building, where I wore a green helmet and pants and made heads. We moved from section to section each month, like Gypsies. It was company policy. That way, we could all form a complete picture of what an elephant looked like. No one was permitted to spend his whole life making just ears, say, or just toenails.

「どうして納屋を焼くんだろう？」
「変ですか？」
「わからないな。君は納屋を焼くし、僕は納屋を焼かない。そのあいだにはいわば歴然とした違いがあるし、僕としてはどちらが変かというよりは、まずその違いがどういうものはっきりさせておきたいんだ。それに納屋の話は君が先に持ち出したんだよ」

“Why do you burn barns?”
“Do you think its weird?”
“I don’t know. You burn barns. I don’t burn barns. There’s this glaring difference, and to me, rather than say which of us is strange, first of all I’d like to clear up just what that difference is. Anyway, you were the one who brought the subject up in the first place.”