I have sympathy for the butler in The Big Sleep. Marlowe detects him in a contradiction and asks him aggressively, "You made a mistake, didn't you?" To which the man replies, sadly and sweetly, "I make many mistakes, sir." And so do I. I am, by instinct and training, a very specific writer, and so my errors are numerous. Recent ones include misspelling Geoffrey Madan's name —I phoned the printers with a correction but my page had already gone to press — and crediting Richard Tauber with Donald Peers's signature-tune, "By a babbling brook" (Tauber's, of course, was "You are my heart's delight"). I apologise for these mistakes, and for others in the past, and for those to come.

我同情《長(zhǎng)眠》這部影片中的男管家。馬洛探長(zhǎng)發(fā)現(xiàn)了他講話前后有矛盾，就逼問(wèn)道：“你犯了一個(gè)錯(cuò)，對(duì)不?”管家傷感而乖巧地答曰：“我犯下的錯(cuò)可多去啦，先生。” 我又何嘗不是如此呢?我有點(diǎn)靈氣并且訓(xùn)練有素，寫起東西來(lái)旁征博引，力求翔實(shí)，自然就言多語(yǔ)失嘍。最近犯下的錯(cuò)誤包括把杰弗瑞·馬丹的名字拼寫錯(cuò)了——我給印廠打了個(gè)電話，把更正告訴他們，可是我的那頁(yè)已經(jīng)開(kāi)印了;我把唐納德·皮爾斯的信號(hào)曲“在潺潺的小溪旁”安到了理查德·陶波的頭上(陶波的信號(hào)曲自然是“你是我心中的喜悅”。)對(duì)于這些錯(cuò)誤，以及過(guò)去犯的錯(cuò)誤和今后會(huì)犯的錯(cuò)誤，在下這廂有禮啦。