Amintirile unui operator de bursă

Aku mulai bekerja begitu lulus sekolah dasar.

I went to work when I was just out of grammar school.

Aku mendapat pekerjaan sebagai anak penulis papan kurs di sebuah kantor pialang saham.

I got a job as quotation-board boy in a stock-brokerage office.

Aku cepat berhitung.

I was quick at figures.

Di sekolah aku menuntaskan pelajaran berhitung tiga tahun dalam satu tahun.

At school I did three years of arithmetic in one.

Aku terutama pandai berhitung di luar kepala.

I was particularly good at mental arithmetic.

Sebagai anak papan kurs, aku menuliskan angka-angka di papan besar di ruang

As quotation-board boy I posted the numbers on the big board in the customers’

nasabah.

room.

Salah seorang pelanggan biasanya duduk di dekat mesin tiker dan menyerukan harga-harganya.

One of the customers usually sat by the ticker and called out the prices.

Secepat apa pun datangnya, tak pernah terlalu cepat bagiku.

They couldn’t come too fast for me.

Aku selalu ingat angka.

I have always remembered figures.

Sama sekali tidak sulit.

No trouble at all.

Ada banyak pegawai lain di kantor itu.

There were plenty of other employes in that office.

Tentu saja aku berteman dengan para pemuda lainnya,

Of course I made friends with the other fellows,

tetapi pekerjaanku,

but the work I did,

kalau pasar sedang ramai,

if the market was active,

membuatku terlalu sibuk dari pukul sepuluh pagi

kept me too busy from ten A.M.

sampai pukul tiga sore

to three P.M.

untuk banyak mengobrol.

to let me do much talking.

Aku memang tidak suka mengobrol,

I don’t care for it,

bagaimanapun juga,

anyhow,

selama jam kerja.

during business hours.

Namun pasar yang sibuk tidak menghalangiku memikirkan pekerjaan itu.

But a busy market did not keep me from thinking about the work.

Kurs-kurs itu bagiku tidak mewakili harga saham,

Those quotations did not represent prices of stocks to me,

sekian dolar per lembar.

so many dollars per share.

Semua itu angka.

They were numbers.

Tentu saja,

Of course,

angka-angka itu ada artinya.

they meant something.

Angka-angka itu selalu berubah.

They were always changing.

Hanya itu yang perlu menarik perhatianku —

It was all I had to be interested in —

perubahannya.

the changes.

Mengapa angka-angka itu berubah?

Why did they change?

Aku tidak tahu.

I didn’t know.

Aku tidak peduli.

I didn’t care.

Aku tidak memikirkannya.

I didn’t think about that.

Aku hanya melihat bahwa angka-angka itu berubah.

I simply saw that they changed.

Hanya itulah yang harus kupikirkan lima jam setiap hari dan dua jam pada hari Sabtu:

That was all I had to think about five hours every day and two on Saturdays:

bahwa angka-angka itu selalu berubah.

that they were always changing.