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| Chapter 15 | 15. |
| (Excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, page 634784, section 5a. Entry: Magrathea) | (Odlomak iz Vodiča kroz Galaksiju za autostopere, stranica 634.784, odeljak 5 a. Naziv: Magratea). |
| Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. | Daleko iza nas, u maglama pradavnih vremena, u danima sjaja i veličine bivšeg galaktičkog carstva, život beše divalj, bogat i uglavnom neoporezovan. |
| Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before—and thus was the Empire forged. | Moćni međuzvezdani brodovi neprekidno su se kretali između egzotičnih sunaca u potrazi za pustolovinama i bogatstvom po najdaljim zabitima Galaksije. U tim danima duhovi su bili hrabri, ulozi su bili visoki, muškarci su bili pravi muškarci, žene prave žene, a mala dlakava stvorenja s Alfe Kentaura bila su prava mala dlakava stvorenja s Alfe Kentaura. Svi su se usuđivali da prkose neznanim užasima, da čine hrabra dela, da ponosito brode bezdanim ponorima kojima nikada nijedan čovek nije brodio - i tako je carstvo cvetalo. |
| Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor— at least no one worth speaking of. And for all the richest and most successful merchants life inevitably became rather dull and niggly, and they began to imagine that this was therefore the fault of the worlds they’d settled on. None of them was entirely satisfactory: either the climate wasn’t quite right in the later part of the afternoon, or the day was half an hour too long, or the sea was exactly the wrong shade of pink. | Mnogo ljudi, razume se, postalo je neizmerno bogato, ali bilo je to potpuno prirodno i ništa čega bi se trebalo stideti, jer niko nije bio stvarno siromašan - u svakom slučaju, niko vredan pomena. Ali za sve najbogatije i najuspešnije trgovce život postade prilično tmuran i nezanimljiv, pa su počeli da misle da je krivica do svetova na kojima su živeli - nijedan od njih nije u potpunosti zadovoljavao njihove prohteve: ili nije odgovarala klima tokom razdoblja poznog popodneva, ili je dan bio za pola sata predugačak, ili je more imalo baš onaj pogrešan preliv ružičastog. |
| And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of specialist industry: custom-made luxury planet building. The home of this industry was the planet Magrathea, where hyperspatial engineers sucked matter through white holes in space to form it into dream planets—gold planets, platinum planets, soft rubber planets with lots of earthquakes—all lovingly made to meet the exacting standards that the Galaxy’s richest men naturally came to expect. | I tako su stvoreni uslovi za novi oblik specijalizovane industrije: izrada luksuznih planeta po narudžbi. Sedište ove industrije bila je planeta Magratea, na kojoj su hipersvemirski inženjeri usisavali materiju kroz bele rupe u svemiru, da bi je uobličili u planete snova - planete sačinjene od zlata, planete od platine, planete od meke gume na kojima je bilo mnogo zemljotresa - sve predivno napravljene da bi zadovoljile izuzetno visoke standarde koje su najbogatiji ljudi Galaksije, sasvim prirodno, očekivali. |
| But so successful was this venture that Magrathea itself soon became the richest planet of all time and the rest of the Galaxy was reduced to abject poverty. And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, and a long sullen silence settled over a billion hungry worlds, disturbed only by the pen scratchings of scholars as they labored into the night over smug little treatises on the value of a planned political economy. | Ali taj posao bio je toliko uspešan, da je sama Magratea uskoro postala najbogatija planeta svih vremena, a ostatak Galaksije spao je na prosjački štap i tako se sistem raspao, a carstvo srušilo i na milijardu gladnih svetova spustila se tuga, tmurna tišina koju je remetilo samo škripanje pera učenih ljudi, koji su do kasno u noć radili na izradi svojih naučnih radova o važnosti planiranja političke ekonomije. |
| Magrathea itself disappeared and its memory soon passed into the obscurity of legend. | Sama Magratea nestala je, a sećanja na nju potonula su u tminu legendi. |
| In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. | Jasno, u ovim prosvećenim danima niko ne veruje ni reč od svega toga. |