“……做不做全由自己的便；那作品，像太阳的光一样，从无量的光源中涌出来，不像石火，用铁和石敲出来，这才是真艺术。
“He writes only when inspired, and his works are like the rays of the sun, welling up out of an infinite source of light-not fleeting sparks struck from a stone.
江苏浙江天天防要开仗；福建更无须说。
Jiangsu or Zhejiang?
Trouble is people are worried about a civil war breaking out down there any day.
And things are even worse in Fujian.
都正在打。〔３〕
No, there's fighting going on there this very minute.
山东河南之类？
Shandong, then, or Henan?”
――阿阿，要绑票〔４〕的，倘使绑去一个，那就成为不幸的家庭了。
Oh, oh . . . wait a minute, they'd get kidnapped there, and if one of them got kidnapped, I'd end up with a very unhappy family.
上海天津的租界上房租贵；……假如在外国，笑话。
The foreign concessions in Shanghai and Tianjin are too expensive ...
I can't have them live abroad, ridiculous idea.
云南贵州不知道怎样，但交通也太不便……。”
How about Yunnan or Guizhou then?
No, they'd have a problem with transportation there.”
他想来想去，想不出好地方，便要假定为Ａ了，但又想，“现有不少的人是反对用西洋字母来代人地名的〔５〕，说是要减少读者的兴味。
He racked his brains but, unable to think of a good place, decided to fix tentatively on A ―Then, however, he thought, “Nowadays many people object to the use of the Western alphabet to represent the names of people and places, saying it lessens the readwith the present-
我这回的投稿，似乎也不如不用，安全些。
Probably be better if I don't do it on this one-safer that way.
那么，在那里好呢？
Okay then, where will I put them?
――湖南也打仗；大连仍然房租贵；察哈尔〔６〕，吉林，黑龙江罢，――听说有马贼，也不行！……”
There's fighting in Hunan, too, rents are too high in Dalian, yet more bandits in the northeast...”
他又想来想去，又想不出好地方，于是终于决心，假定这“幸福的家庭”所在的地方叫作Ａ。
On he went, frustrated by the search for a place, until he settled, eventually, back on 'A―'.
“总之，这幸福的家庭一定须在Ａ，无可磋商。
Fine, A― it is.
家庭中自然是两夫妇，就是主人和主妇，自由结婚的。
The family naturally consists of a husband and wife ― the master and mistress ― who married for love.
他们订有四十多条条约，非常详细，所以非常平等，十分自由。
Their marriage contract contains over forty terms going into great detail, so that they have extraordinary equality and absolute freedom.
而且受过高等教育，优美高尚……。
What's more, they'll both be highly educated, glamorous, and refined.
东洋留学生已经不通行，――那么，假定为西洋留学生罢。
Japanese-returned students are no longer the fashion, so let them be Western-returned students.
主人始终穿洋服，硬领始终雪白；主妇是前头的头发始终烫得蓬蓬松松像一个麻雀窠，牙齿是始终雪白的露着，但衣服却是中国装，……”
The master of the house will wear a Western suit with a stiff collar that's always white as snow.
The wife's hair will always be freshly waved, light and fluffy as a swallow's nest.
Her teeth will be locked in a perpetual ivory-white smile.
But her clothes will be Chinese. ”
那作者，也才是真的艺术家。
And such a writer alone is a true artist....
以先他早已想过，须得捞几文稿费维持生活了；投稿的地方，先定为幸福月报社，因为润笔似乎比较的丰。
Previous to this, he had thought things over and had decided that he would have to write a potboiler in order to bring in enough money to make ends meet.
He had also decided that he would submit it to the publishers of Happiness Monthly, since their rates were fairly generous.
但作品就须有范围，否则，恐怕要不收的。
But he needed a big idea to get them interested.
范围就范围，……
All right, let it be limited.
现在的青年的脑里的大问题是？……
What are the youth of today thinking about?” ...
大概很不少，或者有许多是恋爱，婚姻，家庭之类罢。……
Well there's probably a lot more than one.
No doubt there's a whole string of them.
Seems likely, though, that a lot of those problems ought to have something to do with love, marriage, and the family...