The error was simple and enormous. A change to the billing system had charged six thousand households twice for the same week of water, and the authority had discovered it on a Friday, which meant that the first letters went out before anyone had decided what to say. Nils, who was twenty-six and wrote the newsletter, was handed a paragraph of facts and asked for an apology by four o'clock. He had been in the job for five months. He opened the software the office had licensed that spring, pasted in the facts, and pressed the button marked draft.
这个错误简单而巨大。计费系统的一次改动，让六千户人家同一周的水费被扣了两次，而水务局是在星期五发现的——这意味着第一批信在任何人想好该说什么之前就寄了出去。二十六岁、负责写通讯稿的尼尔斯拿到了一段事实说明，被要求在四点前写出一封道歉信。他入职五个月。他打开办公室那年春天刚买的软件，把事实粘贴进去，按下了标着“草稿”的按钮。
The result arrived in four seconds and was, by every measure the office used, excellent. It was clear, apologetic and correctly spelled. It contained the phrase “we understand the frustration this may cause” and the phrase “we are committed to doing better”, and it explained the refund process in three numbered steps. Nils read it twice. Something about it bothered him, though he could not have said what, and because it was four o'clock he sent it, and by Monday it had been printed, posted and quoted in the local paper under the headline WATER AUTHORITY SAYS SORRY.
结果四秒钟就出来了，用办公室采用的任何标准衡量都很好。它清楚、诚恳、拼写无误。里面有“我们理解这可能造成的困扰”这句话，也有“我们致力于做得更好”这句话，还用三个编号步骤说明了退款流程。尼尔斯读了两遍。有什么地方让他不舒服，可他说不清是什么；因为已经四点了，他就发了出去。到了星期一，它已经被打印、寄出，并被地方报纸引用，标题是《水务局致歉》。
The letter that arrived the following Thursday was handwritten on lined paper and addressed to Nils by name, which meant that the writer had looked him up. Her name was Mrs. Oyelaran. She was seventy-eight and had been charged twice, and she did not want a refund explained to her in three numbered steps. She wanted to know whether anyone at the authority had noticed the error before the software did. “Your letter,” she wrote, “apologises very well. But it apologises the way a person apologises when they are sorry they were caught.”
下个星期四寄到的那封信写在横线纸上，是手写的，而且指名写给尼尔斯——这说明写信的人查过他。她叫奥耶拉兰太太，七十八岁，也被重复扣了款。她不需要别人用三个编号步骤向她解释退款。她想知道的是，水务局里到底有没有人在软件之前发现这个错误。“你的信，”她写道，“道歉道得很好。可它道歉的方式，就像一个被抓到之后才觉得抱歉的人在道歉。”
Nils read it at his desk and then, because the office was empty, read it again aloud. He tried to draft a reply and found that every sentence he wrote sounded like the machine. He tried to explain that the letter had been produced with assistance, and found that this sounded like an excuse. In the end he wrote four lines: that she was right, that a person had not noticed, that he had sent a letter he had not really read, and that he would be at the Tuesday meeting if she wished to say any of it to his face.
尼尔斯在办公桌前读了一遍，然后因为办公室没人，又出声读了一遍。他试着起草回信，发现写下的每一句都像那台机器。他试着解释那封信是在工具协助下写成的，又发现这听起来像借口。最后他写了四行：她是对的；确实没有人发现；他寄出了一封自己并没有真正读过的信；如果她愿意当面把这些话都说出来，他星期二会到场。
Forty-one people came to the Tuesday meeting, which was more than the authority had expected and fewer than it feared. Mrs. Oyelaran sat in the front row with the letter on her lap. Nils read a statement he had written himself, badly, with crossings-out, and it took him four minutes instead of the ninety seconds the machine's version would have taken. He said that the refund would be automatic, that the letters had been sent too quickly, and that the fault was not the software's, because software does not decide what to send.
星期二来了四十一个人，比水务局预期的多，比他们害怕的少。奥耶拉兰太太坐在第一排，信放在膝上。尼尔斯念了一份他自己写的声明，写得很糟，有涂改，念了四分钟，而机器那一版只需要九十秒。他说退款会自动办理；那些信寄得太急了；过错不在软件，因为软件并不决定要寄什么。
There was no applause. There were questions, most of them about the refund, a few about the next bill, one about whether the authority would keep using the tool at all. Nils said that it would, for the newsletter and the notices, and that every apology would from now on be read by a person whose name was on it. Afterwards Mrs. Oyelaran shook his hand and told him the statement had been clumsy. He agreed. She said that this was the first honest thing the authority had sent her in eleven years, and then she asked him to walk her to the bus stop.
没有掌声。有人提问，多数关于退款，几个关于下一张账单，还有一个问水务局到底还会不会继续用那个工具。尼尔斯说会用，用于通讯稿和通知；而从今以后，每一封道歉信都要由一个署名的人读过。散会后，奥耶拉兰太太和他握了手，说那份声明写得很笨拙。他同意。她说，这是十一年来水务局寄给她的第一件诚实的东西，然后请他送她走到公交站。