Madness, Melancholy, or Murder: An Ancient English Farm’s 50-Year-Old Mystery
Devon is a truly beautiful swath of land.
德文郡是一片真正美丽的土地。
Bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north and the English Channel to the south, the sandy beaches full of surfers and tourists—or “grockles” as we used to call them—soon turn to rolling green farmland.
北边是布里斯托尔海峡，南边是英吉利海峡，沙滩上挤满了冲浪者和游客——我们过去称他们为“小鹩莺”——很快就变成了连绵起伏的绿色农田。
The cascading hills and woods are punctuated by two barren and bleak moors, Dartmoor and Exmoor, where my parents would take us on long Sunday drives to see the rutting stags.
连绵起伏的山丘和树林中点缀着两个贫瘠而荒凉的荒原，达特穆尔和埃克斯穆尔，我的父母会在周日带我们长途跋涉去那里观看发情的雄鹿。
Between the moors, hundreds of hamlets, villages, and church spires dot the land.
在荒原之间，数百个小村庄、村庄和教堂尖顶星罗棋布。
The soil is so fertile here that grass grows through the asphalt down the county’s ancient lanes; tracks so narrow, with hedgerows so high, some corners never see the sun.
这里的土壤非常肥沃，县城古老小巷的柏油路上长满了青草。轨道如此狭窄，树篱如此高，有些角落永远见不到阳光。
The farm where I grew up sits on a hill, many miles from any city, near a place called St. Giles-in-the-Wood.
我长大的农场坐落在一座小山上，距离任何城市都有数英里，靠近一个叫圣贾尔斯林的地方。
The village dates back to the early 1300s and is named after St. Giles the Hermit, an antisocial monk who lived alone in the woods and suckled milk from a young deer—or so the tale goes.
该村庄的历史可以追溯到 1300 年代初期，以隐士圣吉尔斯 (St. Giles the Hermit) 的名字命名，他是一位反社会的修道士，独自住在树林里，从一只小鹿那里吸奶——故事是这样的。
The wind on our hill barrels in from the Atlantic Ocean so relentlessly that the copper beech in our garden bends away from the west in a futile attempt to escape its blast.
我们山上的风从大西洋吹来，如此无情，以至于我们花园里的铜山毛榉都向西弯曲，试图躲避狂风，但徒劳无功。
From my bedroom window, the view past that magnificent, windswept tree reveals combes, hedgerows, and woodland folding over each other as far as the eye can see, ending at the purple-gray rise of Dartmoor.
从我卧室的窗户望去，越过那棵被风吹过的雄伟的树，放眼望去，梳子、树篱和林地相互重叠，一直延伸到达特穆尔的紫灰色高地。
On one of those hidden hillsides sits the village of Winkleigh.
温克利村坐落在其中一处隐蔽的山坡上。
I don’t remember who first told me about the killings.
我不记得是谁第一个告诉我有关杀戮的事情的。
It may have been my dad, one day when we were out counting the cows or mending a fence.
可能是我父亲，有一天我们出去数牛或修补栅栏时。
It was around harvest time, 1975, when a butcher visited a small dairy farm, about eight miles south of ours, and saw what he thought was a scarecrow lying in the yard.
1975 年，正是收获季节，一位屠夫参观了我们农场以南约 8 英里处的一个小奶牛场，看到院子里躺着一个他认为是稻草人的东西。
It turned out to be a body; a man in pajamas and Wellington boots, with the top of his head blown off.
原来是一具尸体；一个穿着睡衣和威灵顿靴子的男人，他的头顶被炸飞了。
Two more bodies were found in the orchard behind the 400-year-old farmhouse, among some rotten cider apples, also killed by shotgun blasts.
在这座有 400 年历史的农舍后面的果园里，又发现了两具尸体，其中还有一些腐烂的苹果，也被猎枪炸死。
Two brothers and a sister: Alan Luxton, 54; Robbie Luxton, 64; and Frances Luxton, 67.
两个兄弟和一个姐妹：艾伦·拉克斯顿 (Alan Luxton)，54 岁；罗比·勒克斯顿，64 岁；和弗朗西斯·勒克斯顿，67 岁。
Frances was found on all fours with her nightgown pulled up around her waist.
弗朗西斯被发现时趴在地上，睡衣拉在腰间。
They thought she had been praying.
他们以为她一直在祈祷。
I remember the tales, told in whispers on the school playground.
我记得那些在学校操场上低声讲述的故事。
It was said that the siblings worked the old family farm with horses, Victorian plows, and no electricity; a century out of step with modern life.
据说，兄弟姐妹在古老的家庭农场里耕作，使用的是马匹、维多利亚时代的犁，而且没有电。与现代生活格格不入一个世纪。
There were mutterings of betrayal and madness.
有人议论着背叛和疯狂。
One version said that the youngest, Alan, executed his controlling brother and sister in a revenge-fueled frenzy in the garden, before turning the shotgun on himself.
一个版本称，最小的艾伦在花园里出于复仇的疯狂中处决了他控制欲强的兄弟姐妹，然后用猎枪指着自己。
Another suggested a three-way suicide pact after Alan lost his mind on learning Frances and Robert were locked in an incestuous relationship.
在艾伦得知弗朗西斯和罗伯特陷入乱伦关系后失去理智后，另一个人建议达成三方自杀协议。
Their ghosts walk the fields and cobblestone farmyard to this day—or so the tale goes.
直到今天，他们的鬼魂仍然在田野和鹅卵石铺成的农舍里行走——至少故事是这样的。
Frances was found on all fours with her nightgown pulled up around her waist.
弗朗西斯被发现时趴在地上，睡衣拉在腰间。
They thought she had been praying.
他们以为她一直在祈祷。
“I remember vague mentions about this terrible thing that had happened at Winkleigh when I was growing up,” Oliver Balaam, a distant relative to the Luxtons, recently told me.
“我记得在我成长过程中，模糊地提到过在温克利发生的这件可怕的事情，”拉克斯顿一家的远亲奥利弗·巴兰最近告诉我。
“In the village, everyone says ‘I’ve heard the story,’ but with a degree of separation from reality, as if it were a ghost story.
“在村子里，每个人都说‘我听说过这个故事’，但与现实有一定程度的脱离，就好像这是一个鬼故事一样。
It’s like folklore.”
就像民间传说一样。”
I always knew, of course, that a real, grim truth lay at the heart of all the muddled fiction surrounding the Luxtons.
当然，我一直都知道，围绕拉克斯顿一家的所有混乱小说的核心都是一个真实而残酷的事实。
Still, I didn’t look more closely at the case until decades later, by which point I had moved thousands of miles away—from Devon to California, where I became a journalist.
尽管如此，直到几十年后我才更仔细地研究这个案子，那时我已经搬到了数千英里之外——从德文郡搬到了加利福尼亚州，在那里我成为了一名记者。
There’s a scruffy romanticism to working as a journalist in San Francisco.
在旧金山当记者有一种邋遢的浪漫主义。
I write in the same newsroom where the Zodiac ciphers were sent over half a century ago and pass Herb Caen’s typewriter down the hall.
我在半个多世纪前发送黄道十二宫密码的同一个新闻编辑室里写作，并把赫伯·卡昂的打字机递到了大厅里。
In the last decade, I’ve reported on several prominent crimes on the West Coast: murders, kidnappings, and disappearances.
在过去的十年中，我报道了西海岸的几起重大犯罪事件：谋杀、绑架和失踪。
A world away from rural Devon.
远离德文郡乡村的世界。
When I lived on the farm, I heard police sirens maybe once or twice—no doubt on their way to investigate a stolen chainsaw, perhaps a sheep rustling.
当我住在农场时，我可能听到警察的警报声一两次——毫无疑问是在调查被盗的电锯的路上，也许是羊群的沙沙声。
But when I was back on the farm last summer visiting my parents, I passed by the narrow lane that leads to West Chapple Farm and remembered the extraordinary mystery that had happened just a few miles from my childhood home.
但去年夏天，当我回到农场看望父母时，我路过通往西查普尔农场的狭窄小巷，想起了距离我童年的家仅几英里的地方发生的非同寻常的谜团。
This story is deeply rooted in my upbringing, and not just through proximity: I’ve seen the solitude in the hills of Devon up close.
这个故事深深植根于我的成长过程中，而不仅仅是因为距离近：我近距离地看到了德文郡山上的孤独。
I’ve stared for hours at the stark rise of Dartmoor.
我已经盯着达特穆尔的崛起好几个小时了。
I’ve fired shotguns in the fields.
我在田野里用猎枪射击过。
I’ve walked the muddy hills at night in the unrelenting wind.
我曾在夜里顶着无情的风走过泥泞的山丘。
Poring through old newspaper archives on the case, it was clear the journalists—and even some of the detectives flown in from the city—didn’t know Devon.
翻阅有关此案的旧报纸档案，很明显，记者们——甚至一些从城里飞来的侦探——并不认识德文郡。
The countryside where I grew up was painted as another sinister character in the story.
我长大的乡村被描绘成故事中的另一个险恶人物。
Writers breathlessly described Devon’s lonely and isolated farms as a land of tyrannical puritanism.
作家们气喘吁吁地把德文郡孤独而偏僻的农场描述为一片残暴清教主义的土地。
Dispatches from London told of cursed families and the slow, backward way of life in the villages.
来自伦敦的电讯讲述了被诅咒的家庭和村庄里缓慢、落后的生活方式。
Those raised in the cities have had this fear of the deepest corners of England’s countryside.
那些在城市长大的人对英格兰乡村的最深处都有这种恐惧。
In culture, this can be seen in films like Straw Dogs, The Wicker Man, or even Withnail and I; the wayward belief that the parochial reaches and darkest corners of Britain are walked by unearthly souls and miserly locals.
在文化方面，这可以在《稻草狗》、《柳条人》甚至《我和钉子》等电影中看到。一种任性的信念，认为英国的狭隘地区和最黑暗的角落里都是超凡脱俗的灵魂和吝啬的当地人。
As Sherlock Holmes once told his confidant, “It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
正如夏洛克·福尔摩斯曾经对他的密友所说的那样：“华生，根据我的经验，我相信，伦敦最卑鄙、最卑鄙的小巷并不比微笑而美丽的乡村更可怕地记录着罪恶。”
But for me as a child, this land was a comfort, it was the city that scared me.
但对于小时候的我来说，这片土地是一种安慰，是这座城市让我感到害怕。
I slept while the sound of wind rustled through the trees and cows lowed in the field.
我睡着了，风吹过树林，牛群在田野里哞哞叫，沙沙作响。
I couldn’t fathom the teeming life and density of a place like London.
我无法理解像伦敦这样的地方的拥挤生活和人口密度。
In one of my earliest memories, I’m in an airport hotel near Heathrow, staring at the traffic on the motorway outside, wondering where all those people were going and where they came from.
在我最早的记忆中，我在希思罗机场附近的一家机场酒店里，盯着外面高速公路上的车流，想知道这些人要去哪里、从哪里来。
My memories of Devon are not of the quiet, foggy gloom of the moors, or desolate farmers wandering the hills.
我对德文郡的记忆不是荒野的安静、雾气弥漫的阴郁，也不是在山上漫步的荒凉农民。
I remember going to Hatherleigh cattle market with my dad to sell a cow—the same market the Luxtons used—where hundreds of farmers were gathered, eating pasties, and hollering as the auctioneer rattled off the numbers.
我记得和父亲一起去哈瑟利牛市场卖一头牛——拉克斯顿使用的也是这个市场——那里聚集了数百名农民，他们一边吃着馅饼，一边在拍卖师喋喋不休地报出数字时大喊大叫。
I remember late summer nights with friends staring at the Atlantic Ocean from the Pebble Ridge at Westward Ho!
我记得夏末的夜晚，和朋友们在 Westward Ho 的 Pebble Ridge 凝视大西洋！
I remember drinking cheap beers and playing music with my friends in a barn.
我记得在谷仓里和朋友们喝着廉价啤酒、演奏音乐。
I remember the Devon County Show, where children would chase piglets around a pen and we’d eat strawberries and cream as spitfire planes flew by.
我记得德文县表演，孩子们会围着猪栏追逐小猪，当喷火式飞机飞过时，我们会吃草莓和奶油。
I remember waking up at 6 a.m.
我记得早上六点就醒了。
on the morning of the May Day carnival and heading into town to eat a “champagne breakfast” with my friends before a day of revelry.
在五一节狂欢节的早上，在一天的狂欢之前，我和朋友们进城去吃一顿“香槟早餐”。
I am sure the Luxtons also loved this beautiful place—their home.
我确信拉克斯顿一家也喜欢这个美丽的地方——他们的家。
The reporters who helicoptered in to write about the ghoulish siblings had no understanding of the realities of their plight.
乘直升机来报道这对残忍的兄弟姐妹的记者们并不了解他们的困境的现实。
I know this land is far from sinister, I know it is appreciated by those who live here, but I also see that the life of a dairy farmer is often a hard, unforgiving existence.
我知道这片土地一点也不险恶，我知道生活在这里的人们都很欣赏它，但我也看到奶农的生活往往是艰苦、无情的。
And no family saw that solitude and struggle more than the Luxtons.
没有哪个家庭比拉克斯顿一家更能感受到这种孤独和挣扎。
Like many dairy farming families in Devon—my own included—the Luxton siblings were part of a centuries-long lineage.
像德文郡的许多奶牛养殖家庭一样（包括我自己的家庭），拉克斯顿兄弟姐妹有着数百年的血统。
Their ancestry dates back to Robert Luggesdon, who worked a homestead near Winkleigh in the 14th century.
他们的祖先可以追溯到 14 世纪温克利附近的一个宅基地罗伯特·拉格斯登 (Robert Luggesdon)。
Over the centuries, the family name, and land, spread across Devon to over 100 farms, with some branches reaching aristocracy; and by the 19th century a Robert George Luxton was living at a manor named Brushford Barton complete with a foxhunting stable, 2,000 acres, and 10 servants.
几个世纪以来，这个家族的名字和土地在德文郡传播到 100 多个农场，其中一些分支到达了贵族阶层；到了 19 世纪，罗伯特·乔治·卢克斯顿 (Robert George Luxton) 住在一座名为布拉什福德·巴顿 (Brushford Barton) 的庄园里，庄园内有一个猎狐马厩，占地 2,000 英亩，并有 10 名仆人。
But in the late 1800s, British farming fell into a depression, largely due to the rise of steamships and the influx of cheap American grain.
但在 1800 年代末，英国农业陷入萧条，很大程度上是由于轮船的兴起和廉价的美国谷物的涌入。
These economic woes—and Robert George Luxton’s fondness for gambling—meant the Luxton family’s large county footprint was decimated.
这些经济困境以及罗伯特·乔治·拉克斯顿对赌博的喜爱意味着拉克斯顿家族在县内的庞大足迹被摧毁。
Entire branches of the family left Devon, and much of the land was sold off.
整个家族的分支都离开了德文郡，大部分土地都被卖掉了。
Around 200 fertile acres, however, in the same valley as Luggesdon’s original 14th century homestead, stayed in the family: West Chapple Farm.
然而，与 Luggesdon 原来的 14 世纪宅基地位于同一山谷中的约 200 英亩肥沃土地，仍属于该家族：西查普尔农场 (West Chapple Farm)。
After World War II and the death of their puritanical father, Robert John, and mother, Wilmot, Frances, Robert, and Alan remained at the West Chapple farmhouse.
第二次世界大战后，清教徒式的父亲罗伯特·约翰和母亲威尔莫特去世后，弗朗西斯、罗伯特和艾伦仍留在西查普尔农舍。
The three siblings lived a simple farming life: a dairy herd grazed in the fields, sheep were reared for wool, and clotted cream and cider were made in the outhouses surrounding the cobbled farmyard.
三兄弟过着简单的农耕生活：奶牛群在田野里放牧，饲养绵羊以获取羊毛，在鹅卵石农舍周围的外屋里酿造凝脂奶油和苹果酒。
None of the siblings ever lived elsewhere, married, or had children.
兄弟姐妹中没有人曾在其他地方居住、结婚或生过孩子。
The stories about the Luxtons often portrayed three recluses hidden away in their derelict farmhouse, living in fear of the outside world as madness descended upon them.
关于拉克斯顿一家的故事经常描绘三个隐士隐藏在他们废弃的农舍里，当疯狂降临到他们身上时，他们生活在对外界的恐惧之中。
But while seclusion and paranoia did grow toward the Luxtons’s final, fateful days, talking to people who remember them, I learned they weren’t always hideaways.
然而，尽管在拉克斯顿一家最后的决定性日子里，隐居和偏执确实有所增长，但通过与记得他们的人交谈，我了解到他们并不总是隐秘的地方。
In fact, in their younger years, the Luxtons were much like my family and countless others, spending time in the village and enjoying the social side of the farming community.
事实上，在他们年轻的时候，拉克斯顿一家很像我的家人和无数其他人，在村庄里度过时光，享受农业社区的社交活动。
“They came to the shops in the village.
“他们来到村里的商店。
They came to the church.
他们来到了教堂。
The harvest service,” retired glassworker Andrew Ware, who was 21 at the time of the deaths, told me.
收获服务，”死亡时 21 岁的退休玻璃工人安德鲁·韦尔 (Andrew Ware) 告诉我。
The youngest brother, Alan, was an active member of the Young Farmers’s Club in the village and would often lead speeches at social gatherings—dances, cattle contests, and the like.
最小的弟弟艾伦是村里青年农民俱乐部的活跃成员，经常在社交聚会上发表演讲——舞会、赛牛比赛等。
Some remember him as the “life and soul” of these shindigs.
有些人记得他是这些盛事的“生命和灵魂”。
Robbie, the oldest brother, is often remembered as controlling, with a streak of his father’s Puritanism, but others recall a kind man.
罗比是长兄，人们常常认为他控制欲很强，带有他父亲的清教主义特征，但其他人却认为他是一个善良的人。
The last time a neighbor saw Robbie alive, he was donating a pound note to the church.
邻居最后一次看到罗比还活着时，他正在向教堂捐赠一张英镑。
Frances was an austere woman, but she was also a common presence at village events.
弗朗西斯是一位严肃的女人，但她也经常出现在乡村活动中。
“She would bring in her nice silver teapot and serve tea at the harvest service,” Ware told me.
“她会带上漂亮的银茶壶，在收获仪式上端茶，”韦尔告诉我。
“They were quite well-to-do people.” Piles of Frances’s Home Notes magazine, a monthly women’s publication full of recipes and decorating ideas, were later found in a shed—something denied to her by her strict father in her youth.
“他们都是相当富裕的人。”后来在一个棚子里发现了成堆的弗朗西斯《家庭笔记》杂志，这是一本充满食谱和装饰创意的女性月刊，而她年轻时严厉的父亲却拒绝了她的要求。
She even traveled the world, visiting Italy, Israel, and America, unusual for a Devon farmer at the time.
她甚至环游世界，访问了意大利、以色列和美国，这对于当时的德文郡农民来说是不寻常的。
(My grandad, a dairy farmer and bell ringer in North Devon, didn’t once leave England his entire life.)
（我的祖父是北德文郡的一名奶农和敲钟人，他一生都没有离开过英格兰。）
Frances did have what some saw as a ghoulish habit: spending hours at the cemetery near her forefather’s manor at Brushford Barton, writing down details from the dozen or more Luxton gravestones there.
弗朗西斯确实有一些被一些人认为是残忍的习惯：在她祖先位于布拉什福德巴顿的庄园附近的墓地里呆上几个小时，写下那里的十几个或更多的拉克斯顿墓碑的细节。
But I see her as curious, proud of her heritage, and even ahead of her time.
但我认为她充满好奇心，为自己的传统感到自豪，甚至走在时代的前面。
Like the three-and-a-half million subscribers to Ancestry.com, I have also spent days tracking my family tree.
与 Ancestry.com 的 350 万订阅者一样，我也花了几天时间追踪我的家谱。
Though none of the Luxtons married or had children, it wasn’t necessarily for lack of trying.
尽管拉克斯顿一家都没有结婚生子，但这并不一定是因为他们缺乏尝试。
In her youth, Frances would “go courting,” wandering the meadows and country lanes with potential suitors from the village (though her father had a habit of following her at a distance on a pony).
年轻时，弗朗西斯会“去求爱”，与村里的潜在追求者一起在草地和乡村小路上漫步（尽管她的父亲习惯骑着小马远远地跟着她）。
But it was Alan who came closest to marriage.
但最接近婚姻的是艾伦。
The Young Farmers, a nationwide society of rural youth in the UK, was a lively scene in the mid-20th century.
英国青年农民协会（Young Farmers）是英国农村青年的全国性社团，在 20 世纪中叶曾是一片热闹景象。
My parents, who both grew up on dairy farms in North Devon, met on a Young Farmers’s trip and soon married and settled on the farm where my dad was born, where they still live and work today.
我的父母都在北德文郡的奶牛场长大，他们在一次青年农民之旅中相识，很快就结婚了，并在我父亲出生的农场定居下来，至今他们仍然在那里生活和工作。
Just like my dad, in 1946, Alan Luxton met the woman he wanted to marry through the club.
就像我父亲一样，1946 年，艾伦·勒克斯顿 (Alan Luxton) 通过俱乐部认识了他想娶的女人。
Her name was Myrtle Standbury, a girl from nearby Hatherleigh.
她的名字叫默特尔·斯坦德伯里，是一位来自附近哈瑟利的女孩。
Frances took Alan to the city of Exeter to buy an engagement ring for Myrtle.
弗朗西斯带着艾伦到埃克塞特市为默特尔购买订婚戒指。
He hoped to take out his share in the farm business, some £6,000, and buy a smallholding with his new wife, away from West Chapple.
他希望拿出自己在农场生意中的股份（大约 6,000 英镑），并与他的新婚妻子一起在远离西查普尔的地方购买一块小土地。
But it was not to be.
但事实并非如此。
The three siblings were the last tendril of a farming history dating back to the Middle Ages, and with money tight, Robbie was not prepared to let either Alan—or the funds—go.
这三个兄弟姐妹是中世纪农业历史的最后一部分，由于资金紧张，罗比不准备让艾伦或资金离开。
Fred Lyne, a farmhand at West Chapple who worked there from 1950 to the tragedy in 1975, told reporters that the brothers would argue night after night over Alan’s plans to marry Myrtle.
弗雷德·莱恩 (Fred Lyne) 是西查普尔 (West Chapple) 的一名农场工人，从 1950 年一直在那里工作到 1975 年悲剧发生，他告诉记者，兄弟俩会为了艾伦与默特尔结婚的计划夜夜争论。
Alan pleaded to be freed from the farm with the cash he was owed, Robbie refused to entertain it, and Frances often mediated.
艾伦请求用所欠的现金离开农场，罗比拒绝接受，弗朗西斯经常进行调解。
The arguments even came to late-night fistfights.
争论甚至发展到深夜打架。
“Alan wanted to get married, but they wouldn’t let him do that,” Andrew Ware remembered.
“艾伦想结婚，但他们不让他这么做，”安德鲁·韦尔回忆道。
“He had to break off the engagement.”
“他不得不解除婚约。”
Myrtle moved on, eventually moving to Exeter and marrying another man.
默特尔继续前进，最终搬到埃克塞特并与另一个男人结婚。
Alan Luxton would never be the same.
艾伦·拉克斯顿再也不会像以前那样了。
Money had always played a large part in the Luxton siblings’s struggles.
在拉克斯顿兄弟的挣扎中，金钱一直扮演着重要角色。
Born from a lineage of farmers who barely held on to the land, Robbie—referred to as “the mister” by Alan and Frances—was a frugal man.
罗比出身于勉强保有土地的农民家庭，被艾伦和弗朗西斯称为“先生”，他是一个节俭的人。
One retired farmworker, who asked not to be named, said that he often worked out at the farm during harvest time, but was warned off from ever working any overtime, as Robbie wouldn’t pay it.
一位不愿透露姓名的退休农场工人说，他经常在收获季节在农场锻炼，但被警告不得加班，因为罗比不付钱。
Robbie kept meticulous ledgers and notes on the farm’s finances, showing he paid some workers in cider.
罗比对农场的财务状况进行了细致的分类帐和记录，显示他用苹果酒支付了一些工人的工资。
This threadbare life may seem stark, but it wasn’t unusual.
这种破旧的生活可能看起来很荒凉，但这并不罕见。
In good years an abundant harvest and healthy herd of cattle could provide profit at the market, but in hard years, particularly after the ravages and rationing of World War II, many farms made just enough to feed themselves.
在丰收的年份里，丰收和健康的牛群可以在市场上带来利润，但在困难的年份，特别是在第二次世界大战的破坏和配给之后，许多农场的收入只够养活自己。
It’s a fraught way of earning a living to this day.
直到今天，这仍然是一种令人担忧的谋生方式。
Under the constant threat of uncontrollable factors like the price of milk, the weather, and infectious diseases, profits can vary wildly from year to year.
在牛奶价格、天气和传染病等不可控因素的持续威胁下，每年的利润可能会有很大差异。
In the spring of 2001, when I returned to the farm after my first year at university, the foot-and-mouth outbreak—a highly infectious viral disease—had ravaged British farming communities.
2001 年春天，当我大学一年级结束后回到农场时，口蹄疫疫情（一种高度传染性的病毒性疾病）席卷了英国农业社区。
Looking out across the valley from our garden I saw a pyre of burning cows one hundred yards long, sending plumes of acrid black smoke into the heavy clouds.
从我们的花园望向山谷对面，我看到一百码长的燃烧牛的柴堆，向厚重的云层中喷出一缕缕辛辣的黑烟。
Due to a technicality, based on the location of the small river at the bottom of our hill, our dairy herd was spared from the government-mandated cull, but many neighbors were not so lucky.
由于技术原因，根据我们山脚下小河的位置，我们的奶牛群没有受到政府强制扑杀，但许多邻居就没那么幸运了。
Six million livestock were slaughtered and burned in the UK that summer.
那年夏天，英国有 600 万头牲畜被屠宰和焚烧。
Many farmers lost everything.
许多农民失去了一切。
Stories of Alan’s behavior after his failed engagement veer between reclusiveness and madness.
艾伦订婚失败后的行为故事在隐居和疯狂之间摇摆不定。
“He went off the rails,” Ware said.
“他偏离了轨道，”韦尔说。
He was seen roaming around the farmland wearing nothing but a filthy burlap sack.
有人看到他在农田里闲逛，只穿着一个肮脏的麻袋。
Neighbors remember hearing him “shouting and groaning” in the yard.
邻居们记得听到他在院子里“喊叫和呻吟”。
On his rare visits to the post office in Winkleigh, he barked obscenities at old friends.
在他罕见地造访温克利的邮局时，他对老朋友大骂脏话。
It’s clear that while Alan may have once been a normal, even social, young man, by the 1970s he was a shell of his former self.
很明显，虽然艾伦曾经是一个正常的、甚至是社交的年轻人，但到了 20 世纪 70 年代，他已经是一个空壳了。
He had a strange tendency to cut grass in the fields in the dead of night and disappear into his room through the days, sometimes peeking between the curtains when people came by.
他有一种奇怪的倾向，喜欢在夜深人静的时候去田里割草，然后白天就消失在自己的房间里，有时当人们经过时，他会从窗帘里偷看。
Meanwhile, Robbie and Frances became closer.
与此同时，罗比和弗朗西斯变得更加亲密。
As Fred Lyne told reporters at the time, the older siblings were “like hen and chicken, where she’d go, he’d go.”
正如弗雷德·莱恩当时告诉记者的那样，哥哥姐姐们“就像母鸡和小鸡一样，她去哪里，他就去哪里”。
During the last year on the farm, Robbie grew sick and lost weight, and his doctor told him to take time off from farm work.
在农场的最后一年，罗比生病了，体重减轻了，他的医生告诉他要暂时停止干农活。
In the spring of 1975 Frances and Robbie explored a way out: A handshake agreement was made with a farmer and his son in Kent to buy the property in the autumn for £90,000.
1975 年春天，弗朗西斯和罗比寻找出路：与肯特郡的一位农民及其儿子签订了握手协议，在秋天以 9 万英镑的价格购买了这处房产。
Frances and Robbie found a bungalow in the nearby town of Crediton where the three could retire.
弗朗西斯和罗比在附近的克雷迪顿镇找到了一间平房，三人可以在那里退休。
But, by that summer, it seemed fear had taken hold of the siblings.
但是，到了那个夏天，恐惧似乎占据了兄弟姐妹的心。
Two decades after he was told he couldn’t leave the farm, it was Alan who refused to move on from West Chapple.
在他被告知不能离开农场二十年后，艾伦拒绝离开西查普尔。
“He did a strange one-eighty,” Balaam said.
“他打出了奇怪的一八十，”巴兰说。
“Alan is the one who then sticks his heels in and refuses to budge.
“艾伦就是那个固执己见、拒绝让步的人。
He’s convinced that there’s no other place for him.”
他确信没有其他地方适合他。”
Farmhand Fred Lyne also told reporters that in the last months on the farm, Alan would rarely appear beyond wandering the barns at night with a lantern and arguing with his brother about the farm sale.
农场帮工弗莱德·莱恩还告诉记者，在农场的最后几个月里，艾伦除了晚上提着灯笼在谷仓里闲逛，和弟弟争论农场出售事宜之外，很少出现。
Robbie contracted a skin disease that made it painful to put his feet in his boots.
罗比感染了一种皮肤病，导致他把脚放进靴子里会很痛苦。
Meanwhile, Frances seems to have fallen into almost a fugue state at times.
与此同时，弗朗西斯有时似乎陷入了神游状态。
Lyne said he would see her sitting on a bench for hours on end some days, or else pottering around the graveyard at Brushford Barton, scribbling down her notes.
莱恩说，有时他会看到她连续几个小时坐在长凳上，或者在布拉什福德巴顿的墓地里闲逛，记下她的笔记。
“They belonged in the past,” Lyne said.
“它们属于过去，”莱恩说。
“Like some old tree, they just couldn’t survive being uprooted.”
“就像一些老树一样，它们被连根拔起就无法生存。”
Farmers in rural England are more susceptible to suicide than almost any other profession.
英格兰农村的农民比几乎任何其他职业都更容易自杀。
Reliant on the weather, alone on the hills, the solitude and physical strain of dairy farming can take its toll.
依赖天气，独自在山上，奶牛养殖的孤独和体力压力可能会造成损失。
Alongside isolation, and a stigma around mental health issues, a recent government study listed the “lack of work-life balance” as a key factor contributing to the high suicide rate among farmers in England.
除了孤立和围绕心理健康问题的耻辱之外，最近的一项政府研究将“工作与生活缺乏平衡”列为导致英格兰农民高自杀率的一个关键因素。
But in rural Devon, where the wind howls and the rain sweeps in from the west, life is work.
但在德文郡的乡村，风在呼啸，雨从西边袭来，生活就是工作。
There’s both a purity and a burden to anchoring your entire being to the fields and livestock.
将你的整个生命锚定在田野和牲畜上既是一种纯洁，也是一种负担。
For fifty years my dad woke before dawn and headed out with a dog over the damp hills to bring in 100 cows to be milked.
五十年来，我父亲在黎明前醒来，带着一只狗翻越潮湿的山丘，带 100 头奶牛来挤奶。
At the end of the day, after dinner, he would head out again into the dark with a raincoat and torch to count the animals before bed.
一天结束时，晚饭后，他会穿着雨衣和手电筒再次走进黑暗中，在睡觉前数动物的数量。
Some nights, he would head out over the fields after midnight to help a cow to calf her young—or otherwise wake to a stillborn and a loss of revenue.
有些晚上，他会在午夜后前往田野帮助一头母牛产下幼崽，否则醒来时会发现死产和收入损失。
While back on the farm reporting this story, I asked my parents why they thought depression appeared to be so common in the community.
当我回到农场报道这个故事时，我问我的父母为什么他们认为抑郁症在社区中如此普遍。
My dad believes modern technology led to much of the loneliness.
我父亲认为现代科技导致了很多孤独感。
“At harvest time we’d have gangs out in the fields,” he said, remembering a time before combine harvesters made threshing wheat a one-man job.
“在收获季节，我们会在田里派出一帮人，”他回忆起联合收割机使脱粒小麦成为一项单人工作之前的时光。
We looked at a photo of my dad’s dad, Alfred Chamings, in the ʼ40s, taking a break during harvest.
我们看了一张我父亲的父亲阿尔弗雷德·查明斯 (Alfred Chamings) 四十多岁的照片，当时他在收割期间休息。
In the black and white photo, he is resting on a bale of hay, a friend beside him smoking a rolled-up cigarette.
在这张黑白照片中，他躺在一捆干草上，旁边有一个朋友抽着卷烟。
Across the picnic blanket sits my gran, Gwendoline Chamings, and another young woman.
野餐毯对面坐着我的奶奶格温多兰·查明斯和另一位年轻女子。
I asked my parents if they had known any farmers who had taken their own lives.
我问父母是否认识自杀的农民。
My mum quietly started to list the names, starting with a childhood friend who lived on the farm next door to hers.
我妈妈悄悄地开始列出名字，从住在她隔壁农场的一个儿时朋友开始。
She started counting more names on her fingers and put her cup of tea down to use her second hand.
她开始用手指数着更多的名字，然后放下茶杯，用另一只手。
West Chapple Farm is even more remote than ours.
西查普尔农场比我们的还要偏远。
It sits at the dead end of a narrow lane so rarely used that the grass is taking it over.
它坐落在一条狭窄小巷的尽头，很少有人使用，以至于草丛占据了它。
Alan escaped from the pressure of his controlling brother and his lonesome existence down that lane through walks across the fields to the village pub and his Young Farmers gatherings.
艾伦沿着那条小巷，穿过田野，前往乡村酒吧和青年农民聚会，摆脱了控制欲强的哥哥的压力和孤独的存在。
But when that went away, and the walls closed in, he made a final decision all too common in the rural West Country.
但当这种情况消失、围墙围拢时，他做出了一个在西部乡村很常见的最终决定。
The inquest into what happened on September 23rd, 1975, is gone.
对 1975 年 9 月 23 日发生的事件的调查已经结束。
“The records for this particular case have unfortunately not survived,” someone at the South West Heritage Trust told me over email.
“不幸的是，这个特殊案件的记录没有保存下来，”西南遗产信托基金会的某人通过电子邮件告诉我。
“The case was dealt with by a regional office that only existed for a few years, and it seems that the records were not retained—they were certainly never deposited with us.” The only information we have left of the inquest comes from the handful of journalists and writers who attended in person.
“这个案件是由一个只存在了几年的地区办事处处理的，而且似乎记录没有被保留——它们肯定从未存放在我们这里。”我们所掌握的有关这次调查的唯一信息来自少数亲自出席的记者和作家。
There are also no police records, forensic records, autopsy results, or crime scene photographs.
也没有警察记录、法医记录、尸检结果或犯罪现场照片。
“There’s nothing,” Oliver Balaam, who has been researching the case for an upcoming documentary, informed me.
“什么都没有，”奥利弗·巴兰（Oliver Balaam）告诉我，他一直在为即将上映的纪录片研究此案。
“I was told that there is one notebook which belonged to Proven Sharpe, the lead detective, which described his first impressions of the crime scene.” If that notebook exists, it is not available to journalists, or the public.
“有人告诉我，有一本笔记本是首席侦探 Proven Sharpe 的，上面描述了他对犯罪现场的第一印象。”即使该笔记本存在，记者或公众也无法使用它。
My mum quietly started to list the names, starting with a childhood friend who lived on the farm next door to hers.
我妈妈悄悄地开始列出名字，从住在她隔壁农场的一个儿时朋友开始。
She started counting more names on her fingers and put her cup of tea down to use her second hand.
她开始用手指数着更多的名字，然后放下茶杯，用另一只手。
In Devon villages, gossip moves faster than the wind, and this dearth of surviving evidence led to many rumors circulating on how that morning of the deaths played out.
在德文郡的村庄里，流言蜚语传播得比风还快，而现存证据的缺乏导致了许多关于那天早上死亡事件的谣言流传。
Here’s what we know for sure: Alan woke early, picked up the farm’s old French shotgun, which hung from a beam in the kitchen, and walked into the farmyard wearing untied boots, blue and white pajama trousers, and a burlap sack around his top.
我们确信的事情是这样的：艾伦很早就醒了，拿起挂在厨房横梁上的农场旧法国霰弹枪，穿着解开的靴子、蓝白相间的睡裤、上身裹着一个粗麻袋走进农场。
He took the gun to an elevated part of the farmyard, right in front of the bedroom windows.
他把枪带到农家院子的高处，就在卧室窗户前面。
Some have suggested he chose this spot, not some distant woods or barn, to make a show of what he was about to do.
有人建议他选择这个地方，而不是远处的树林或谷仓，来展示他即将要做的事情。
“He seems to have been aiming for visibility right in front of their bedroom windows on this raised section of land,” Balaam said.
巴兰说：“他的目标似乎是在卧室窗户前的这块凸起的土地上看到他们的视野。”
Former neighbor Andrew Ware implied a similar motivation in our conversation.
前邻居安德鲁·韦尔在我们的谈话中也暗示了类似的动机。
“He got his own back,” Ware said.
“他自己回来了，”韦尔说。
On that raised spot, Alan positioned the gun at a similar angle to how you may hold a golf putter, pointing it at his head.
在那个凸起的地方，艾伦将枪以与握高尔夫球推杆相似的角度放置，将其指向他的头部。
He held a stick with a forked end in his right hand and used it to depress the trigger.
他右手握着一根末端有叉的棍子，用它来扣动扳机。
This stick was later found by Alan’s body.
这根棍子后来在艾伦的尸体上被发现。
His scalp was blown off from below his eyes and parts of his brain matter were found across the yard.
他的头皮从眼睛下方被炸飞，院子的另一边还发现了他的部分大脑物质。
As head of the Devon & Cornwall police, Sharpe had come across numerous farm shotgun suicides in his career, and was not particularly surprised at what the evidence showed, referring to the use of a forked stick to fire the gun as “quite common.”
作为德文郡和康沃尔郡警察局长，夏普在他的职业生涯中遇到过多起农场霰弹枪自杀事件，他对证据显示的情况并不特别惊讶，他称使用叉状棍子开枪“相当常见”。
Shotguns are part of farming life in Devon.
霰弹枪是德文郡农业生活的一部分。
At our farm, we had four or five long-barreled guns and a sackful of cartridges under the stairs in a locked metal cabinet.
在我们的农场，我们在楼梯下一个上锁的金属柜子里有四五把长管枪和一袋子弹。
At age 13, I would take a lightweight .410 bore gun out over the fields alone, to shoot starlings that could damage the crops.
13 岁时，我会带着一把轻型 0.410 口径枪独自在田野上空射击可能损害庄稼的椋鸟。
A boy at school was doing the same on a frosty day, slipped on the ice, and blew his leg off with a double-barrelled shotgun.
学校里的一名男孩在寒冷的一天也做了同样的事，在冰上滑倒，并用双管猎枪打断了他的腿。
He returned to class a month later with a cage screwed into his femur and shin bones, and life carried on.
一个月后，他回到课堂，股骨和胫骨上拧入了笼子，生活仍在继续。
At the farmhouse, the front door was locked from the inside.
农舍的前门从里面反锁了。
Police broke in and crept through the building, into the orchard behind the kitchen.
警察破门而入，潜入大楼，进入厨房后面的果园。
There they found the bodies of Robbie and Frances.
他们在那里发现了罗比和弗朗西斯的尸体。
Next to Robbie’s body, the double-barreled shotgun and another forked stick.
在罗比的尸体旁边，有双管猎枪和另一根叉形棍子。
The gun contained a spent cartridge and one live one; another spent cartridge was found in Robbie’s pocket.
枪中装有一颗用完的子弹和一颗未爆炸的子弹；在罗比的口袋里发现了另一个用过的弹药筒。
“The blood which had been discharged from the skull had obviously been quickly absorbed into the soft earth,” Sharpe is reported to have said at the inquest.
据报道，夏普在审讯中表示：“从头骨中排出的血液显然很快就被软土吸收了。”
Many of the peculiarities around the case involve Frances.
该案的许多特殊之处都与弗朗西斯有关。
She was found wearing only a nightgown, and no shoes.
被发现时，她只穿着睡衣，没有穿鞋。
From the location of the gunshot wound and the position of her body, Sharpe concluded that she did not kill herself.
从枪伤位置和她身体的位置来看，夏普断定她不是自杀。
She had been shot in the center of her forehead “at very close range” and was found with her nightgown pulled up around her midriff, her knees drawn under her.
她的前额中央在“非常近距离”处中弹，被发现时她的睡衣被拉到腹部，膝盖被拉在身下。
Every door in the house was locked from the inside, and every window closed except for Frances’ bedroom, which was open, swinging on its hinges.
房子里的每扇门都从里面锁上，每扇窗户都关着，除了弗朗西斯的卧室，卧室开着，铰链摇晃着。
One hushed rumor surrounding the case, relayed to me by two people, is that Frances was found with a broken leg, implying some kind of struggle, or a jump from height, in her last moments.
两个人向我转述了围绕此案的一个秘密谣言：弗朗西斯被发现时腿部骨折，这意味着她在生命的最后时刻经历了某种挣扎，或者是从高处跳下。
“This apparently came from the mouth of Proven Sharpe himself,” Balaam told me.
“这显然出自普罗文·夏普本人之口，”巴兰告诉我。
With Sharpe dead and no surviving autopsy or inquest, outside of exhumation this curious detail will forever remain speculation.
由于夏普已死，尸检或调查均无幸存，除了挖掘之外，这个奇怪的细节将永远成为猜测。
Next to Robbie’s body, the double-barreled shotgun and another forked stick.
在罗比的尸体旁边，有双管猎枪和另一根叉形棍子。
The gun contained a spent cartridge and one live one; another spent cartridge was found in Robbie’s pocket.
枪中装有一颗用完的子弹和一颗未爆炸的子弹；在罗比的口袋里发现了另一个用过的弹药筒。
Another oddity found at the crime scene was a series of knife cuts on Robbie’s cheek.
犯罪现场发现的另一个奇怪之处是罗比脸颊上有一系列刀伤。
The body temperatures taken of the three bodies pointed toward an approximate four-hour window between Alan’s death and that of his siblings.
对三具尸体测量的体温显示，艾伦的死亡与他的兄弟姐妹的死亡之间大约有四个小时的时间间隔。
What happened in those hours, between the gunshot at dawn waking Robbie and Frances and their final moment in the garden must have been pure hell.
从黎明时分的枪声吵醒罗比和弗朗西斯到他们在花园里的最后一刻，这几个小时里发生的事情一定是纯粹的地狱。
Maybe the two siblings sat at the kitchen table in their 400-year-old farmhouse, their younger brother’s mangled body on the raised yard outside, blood and flesh strewn across the cobbles.
也许两兄妹坐在他们有 400 年历史的农舍里的厨房桌子旁，弟弟血肉模糊的尸体躺在外面高高的院子里，血肉散落在鹅卵石路上。
Robbie’s anguish, I suppose, made him cut his own face with an old kitchen knife.
我想，罗比的痛苦让他用一把旧菜刀割伤了自己的脸。
Maybe they fought, maybe they made a pact, maybe they prayed.
也许他们战斗过，也许他们签订过契约，也许他们祈祷过。
We will never know if Frances wanted to die that day, or was murdered.
我们永远不会知道弗朗西斯那天是想死还是被谋杀了。
As Alan Mulcahy of the Winkleigh Historical Society told me plainly, “The story of the Luxton deaths at West Chapple may never be satisfactorily be known, as there were no witnesses.”
正如温克利历史学会的艾伦·马尔卡希（Alan Mulcahy）坦率地告诉我的那样，“西查普尔勒克斯顿死亡事件的故事可能永远不会令人满意，因为没有目击者。”
The idea that Frances let her brother shoot her is not unfathomable.
弗朗西斯让她哥哥开枪射杀她的想法并非不可理解。
According to Fred Lyne, during that last tortuous summer at West Chapple, he found her one day standing in the rain in just a light summer dress repeating the words, “We should die here.
据弗雷德·莱恩说，在西查普尔最后一个曲折的夏天，有一天，他发现她穿着一件浅色夏装站在雨中，重复着这样的话：“我们应该死在这里。
We were born on the farm and we should die here.”
我们出生在农场，也应该死在这里。”
In the days following the tragedy, numerous journalists drove west and poured into the small village of Winkleigh.
悲剧发生后的几天里，无数记者驱车向西，涌入温克利小村庄。
Dispatches wired back to Fleet Street were sensational, with headlines like “Riddle of Deaths on Farm” and “Night of Horror at Winkleigh.” A police constable in the village told journalists that the case “had all the marks of an Agatha Christie thriller.”
传回舰队街的电讯轰动一时，头条新闻包括“农场死亡之谜”和“温克利的恐怖之夜”。村里的一名警员告诉记者，此案“具有阿加莎·克里斯蒂惊悚片的所有特征”。
In London, writer John Cornwell was alerted to the story by a friend, who mailed him a copy of an article in The Observer headlined, “Tragic Farm Where Time Stood Still.” The following day Cornwell made the long drive to the West Country.
在伦敦，作家约翰·康威尔（John Cornwell）的一位朋友向他邮寄了《观察家报》上一篇文章的副本，标题为“时间静止的悲剧农场”。第二天，康威尔长途驾车前往西部乡村。
Cornwell’s resulting book, Earth to Earth, contains some incredible on-the-ground reporting but also suffers from the outsider trait of fetishizing the trope of the quaint village with a dark underbelly.
康威尔的最终著作《地球到地球》包含了一些令人难以置信的实地报道，但也受到局外人特征的影响，即迷恋这个古朴村庄的阴暗面。
His evocative writing paints Devon as almost mythic.
他令人回味的写作将德文郡描绘成近乎神话的人物。
“The country here is secretive,” he wrote of his first impressions of the land.
“这里的国家很神秘，”他在谈到对这片土地的第一印象时写道。
“Cut off by their hidden combes and valleys, and their traditional reserve towards all outsiders, the inhabitants are thrown to their own resources.”
“由于隐藏的蜂巢和山谷以及对外来者的传统保留，居民们只能依靠自己的资源。”
One of the first villagers Cornwell met in Winkleigh had love and hate tattooed on his knuckles and told the curious London journalist about how much blood erupts from a chicken’s neck when you chop its head off.
康威尔在温克利遇到的第一批村民之一的指关节上纹有爱与恨，他告诉好奇的伦敦记者，当你砍掉鸡的头时，它的脖子会喷出多少血。
“One of them giggled darkly,” Cornwell wrote of the hostile young men.
“其中一个人阴暗地咯咯笑，”康威尔在描述这些充满敌意的年轻人时写道。
“He wore a denim waistcoat but no shirt.” The next man Cornwell met threatened him with “a boot in the face.”
“他穿着牛仔背心，但没有穿衬衫。”康威尔遇到的下一个人威胁他“用靴子踢脸”。
An unnamed person the author met at a hospital while trying to track down evidence of Alan’s psychiatric treatment described the madness he’d seen in mid-Devon, exemplified by a man who rode his bike on the road near my farm and dragged his wife behind him by the neck.
作者在一家医院试图寻找艾伦接受精神病治疗的证据时遇到了一位不愿透露姓名的人，他描述了他在德文郡中部看到的疯狂行为，其中一个例子就是一个男人在我农场附近的路上骑着自行车，把他的妻子拖到身后。
I asked my parents but they had never heard this story, or seen this man.
我问过我的父母，但他们从未听说过这个故事，也从未见过这个人。
There are others that we do remember: One old man would walk miles every day, and into our farmyard, with ferrets in his trousers.
还有其他一些我们确实记得的：一位老人每天都会步行数英里，走进我们的农场，裤子里藏着雪貂。
Another lady, who lived on the road to Winkleigh, had no electricity and let her farm animals wander into her cottage with her.
另一位女士住在去温克利的路上，没有电，她让农场里的动物和她一起漫步到她的小屋里。
(We too, sometimes cared for animals in our family kitchen.) But these people were not sinister, the community thought of them warmly, just colorful threads in the rich fabric of Devon life.
（我们有时也会在家里的厨房里照顾动物。）但这些人并不险恶，社区对他们的看法很温暖，只是德文郡生活丰富结构中的彩色丝线。
It’s a strange feeling reading about the place where I spent a carefree, joyous youth as though it were Joseph Conrad’s deadly banks of the Congo.
读到我度过无忧无虑、快乐的青年时代的地方时，有一种奇怪的感觉，仿佛那里是约瑟夫·康拉德笔下致命的刚果河岸。
The Luxtons, particularly Alan, can be considered eccentrics by the end.
拉克斯顿一家，尤其是艾伦，到最后可能会被认为是怪人。
But as a result of money worries, struggles to keep their way of life afloat, and mental health issues—not an intrinsic strangeness to the people of this land.
但由于对金钱的担忧、维持生活方式的努力以及心理健康问题——这对这片土地上的人们来说并不陌生。
Cornwell sat on his reporting for five years but was finally ready to publish in 1982.
康威尔等待了五年的报道，最终于 1982 年准备发表。
An advanced proof of the Earth to Earth manuscript made its way around the village.
一份地球对地球手稿的高级证明在村庄里流传。
“There was a spectacular campaign to ban the book involving outlandish accusations, lawyers, the lot,” Cornwell told me.
“有一场轰轰烈烈的禁书运动，涉及古怪的指控、律师等等，”康威尔告诉我。
“All hell broke loose.”
“一切都乱了。”
The backlash came from locals who saw the London writer as an interloper sharing the village gossip.
当地人对此表示强烈反对，他们认为这位伦敦作家是一个散布乡村八卦的闯入者。
An official rebuttal to the book, signed by 13 people Cornwell had interviewed, was printed in The Times Literary Supplement.
《泰晤士报文学增刊》刊登了康威尔采访过的 13 个人对这本书的正式反驳。
The letter pushed back on some villagers quoted in the book who pointed toward incest in the Luxton home.
这封信反驳了书中引用的一些村民的观点，他们指出拉克斯顿家中存在乱伦行为。
“Only speculation and rumor,” Cornwell told me.
“只是猜测和谣言，”康威尔告诉我。
“Which I felt at the time to be somewhat malicious.” Nonetheless, one villager in his book remarked the talk was widespread through Winkleigh.
“我当时觉得这有点恶意。”尽管如此，一位村民在他的书中表示，这种说法在温克利很普遍。
“We have our own ideas about her and Robbie,” the neighbor said of the Luxtons.
“我们对她和罗比有自己的看法，”邻居谈到勒克斯顿一家时说道。
“You’ve never known so much intermarrying, one after the other marrying cousins and aunts and nephews and what have you, and carrying on with each other.”
“你从来没有经历过如此多的通婚，一个接一个地与表兄弟、阿姨、侄子结婚，还有什么，然后彼此相处。”
Incest has always been a part of the rumor mill surrounding the Luxton case.
乱伦一直是围绕拉克斯顿案的谣言的一部分。
It’s true that the marrying of two first cousins (although certainly not siblings) in rural England was not uncommon in the mid-20th century.
确实，20 世纪中叶，两个表兄弟（尽管肯定不是兄弟姐妹）在英格兰乡村结婚并不罕见。
But in the case of the Luxtons, outside of the village gossip about the weird folks down the lane, there is no evidence that Frances and Robbie’s relationship was sexual.
但就拉克斯顿一家而言，村外关于巷子里怪人的八卦，没有证据表明弗朗西斯和罗比的关系是性关系。
One of the first villagers Cornwell met in Winkleigh had love and hate tattooed on his knuckles and told the curious London journalist about how much blood erupts from a chicken’s neck when you chop its head off.
康威尔在温克利遇到的第一批村民之一的指关节上纹有爱与恨，他告诉好奇的伦敦记者，当你砍掉鸡的头时，它的脖子会喷出多少血。
One surprising figure who told Cornwell not to publish his book was one of England’s most famed modern poets, and widower to Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes.
一位令人惊讶的人物告诉康威尔不要出版他的书，他是英国最著名的现代诗人之一、西尔维娅·普拉斯的鳏夫泰德·休斯。
Hughes owned a farm neighboring West Chapple and knew Robbie Luxton personally, going to the farm to use Robbie’s sheep dip.
休斯在西查普尔附近拥有一个农场，并且认识罗比·勒克斯顿，他去农场使用罗比的羊酱。
At first, Cornwell told me, Hughes was supportive of the book, but he later took a strange turn into some mystical thinking about the West Country, talking about a warning from the earth.
康威尔告诉我，休斯一开始很支持这本书，但后来他奇怪地转变为对西方国家的一些神秘思考，谈论来自地球的警告。
Hughes saw Devon as a “troglodyte,” a sentient cave dweller with its own nervous system that shouldn’t be provoked.
休斯将德文视为“穴居人”，是一个有感知能力的穴居人，拥有自己的神经系统，不应该被激怒。
“He believed that when an outsider is odd or strange, the immune system of the troglodyte makes life uncomfortable for them and attacks them with killer cells,” Cornwell said.
康威尔说：“他相信，当外来者感到奇怪或奇怪时，穴居人的免疫系统会让他们的生活变得不舒服，并用杀伤细胞攻击他们。”
“And they either have a breakdown, get out, or something more catastrophic, like killing themselves.” Hughes warned Cornwell that publishing the book may lead to more bloodshed.
“他们要么崩溃、逃走，要么发生更灾难性的事情，比如自杀。”休斯警告康威尔，出版这本书可能会导致更多流血事件。
“He put himself in this position too, that all the woes of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were due to this troglodyte of Devon,” Cornwell said of the poet.
“他也把自己置于这样的位置，认为泰德·休斯和西尔维娅·普拉斯的所有不幸都是由于德文郡的穴居人造成的，”康威尔谈到这位诗人时说。
On a recent visit to Winkleigh, red, white, and blue bunting criss-crossed the old village square.
最近一次访问温克利时，红、白、蓝彩旗在古老的村庄广场上纵横交错。
A family ducked into the Kings Arms pub to escape the summer rain, while across the street the butcher took a break from hacking a pig into gammon joints, to sell some sausages and eggs to a tattooed bricklayer.
一家人躲进 Kings Arms 酒吧躲避夏日的大雨，而街对面的屠夫则在把猪砍进火腿肠后休息一下，把一些香肠和鸡蛋卖给一个有纹身的瓦匠。
Beside the butcher shop a narrow alley leads to the graveyard of All Saints Church, built 600 years ago, around the time Robert Luggesdon worked his homestead over the hill.
肉店旁边有一条狭窄的小巷通向诸圣教堂的墓地，该教堂建于 600 年前，大约是罗伯特·拉格斯登 (Robert Luggesdon) 在山上耕作他的家园的时候。
Alan’s and Robert Luxton’s ashes are buried here, but with no gravestone to mark them.
艾伦和罗伯特·卢克斯顿的骨灰埋在这里，但没有墓碑来标记他们。
Instead, a small marble plinth added to their father’s grave years after they died simply states their names.
相反，在他们父亲去世多年后，在他们父亲的坟墓上添加了一个小大理石基座，上面简单地写着他们的名字。
Somewhat strangely, Frances Luxton’s grave is nowhere to be found in Winkleigh.
有点奇怪的是，弗朗西斯·拉克斯顿的坟墓在温克利找不到。
It is, instead, three miles away at the Brushford Barton cemetery, where she spent so many of her days.
相反，它位于三英里外的布拉什福德巴顿公墓，她在那里度过了很多日子。
From the village, I drove out to West Chapple.
从村里出来，我开车去了西查普尔。
It was one of those humid summer days in Devon that my mum calls “muggy,” where your clothes stick to you and any flashes of sunlight are soon shadowed by dark clouds rolling in from the west.
那是德文郡那些潮湿的夏日之一，我妈妈称之为“闷热”，你的衣服粘在身上，任何阳光的闪光很快就会被从西方滚滚而来的乌云遮住。
I drove in, parked on the old cobbled yard, and stepped out.
我开车进去，把车停在古老的鹅卵石院子里，然后走出去。
The farmhouse and surrounding buildings have barely changed in the last half-century, though some scaffolding and tall ladders covered part of the house where it appeared a chimney had recently been fixed.
农舍和周围的建筑在过去的半个世纪里几乎没有变化，尽管一些脚手架和高梯子覆盖了房子的一部分，烟囱似乎最近被修好了。
The paint on the windowsills was peeling, and rusty tools were propped against the old walls.
窗台上的油漆剥落了，生锈的工具靠在旧墙上。
No curtains were drawn, but why would they be, the house is so sheltered that no other homes are within eyeshot in any direction.
没有拉上窗帘，但为什么要拉上窗帘呢，房子是如此隐蔽，从任何方向都看不到其他房屋。
Like any farm in Devon, muddy Wellington boots sat by the front door.
就像德文郡的任何农场一样，泥泞的惠灵顿靴子放在前门旁边。
I knocked, hoping to speak with John Gledhill, the man who bought the farm after the killings, but if anyone was home, they didn’t answer, so I slipped a letter through the same door the police had broken through years before.
我敲了敲门，希望能与约翰·格莱德希尔（John Gledhill）交谈，他是杀戮发生后买下农场的人，但如果有人在家，他们不会回应，所以我从警察多年前破门而入的那扇门里塞了一封信。
I walked up to the elevated part of the yard where Alan killed himself.
我走到院子的高处，艾伦就是在那里自杀的。
My macabre mind glanced down, but, of course, there was no decades-old bloodstain on the ground.
我的恐怖意识往下扫了一眼，但是，当然，地上并没有几十年前的血迹。
In the autumn of 1975, much of the talk in the village was the version that “mad” Alan had killed his brother and sister, and then himself, in a burst of bloody revenge.
1975 年秋天，村里的议论大多是这样的：“疯狂的”艾伦在一场血腥复仇中杀死了他的兄弟姐妹，然后又杀死了自己。
This assumption is still the leading memory of many Devonians today.
这个假设至今仍然是许多泥盆纪人的主要记忆。
Two people I asked about the case gave a pretty confident version of that narrative.
我询问了有关此案的两个人，他们对这一叙述给出了相当自信的版本。
Others have suggested that Robbie killed both his brother and sister.
其他人则认为罗比杀死了他的兄弟和姐妹。
“So many details are in dispute,” Balaam told me.
“很多细节都存在争议，”巴兰告诉我。
“There are rabbit holes in every direction.”
“每个方向都有兔子洞。”
But Alan did not kill his siblings.
但艾伦并没有杀死他的兄弟姐妹。
He was driven to suicide by the struggles of farming life—the financial problems, the isolation, the loneliness, the lost love—like many Devon farmers before and after him.
与他之前和之后的许多德文郡农民一样，他因农业生活的挣扎而自杀——经济问题、孤立、孤独、失去的爱。
Despite all their sacrifices and hard work, the Luxtons were still about to lose their farm.
尽管做出了种种牺牲和辛勤工作，拉克斯顿夫妇仍然即将失去他们的农场。
Alan could not bear that.
艾伦无法忍受这一点。
Neither could Robbie: As the last remaining head of the family, Robbie wanted nothing more than to keep the 600-year lineage alive, but without any children or the necessary finances, and facing the cruel realities of the modern world, he ended the last of the Luxtons, forever.
罗比也不能：作为家族中仅存的最后一位族长，罗比只想维持 600 年的血统，但没有孩子，也没有必要的经济来源，面对现代世界的残酷现实，他永远结束了拉克斯顿家族的最后一个成员。
The brothers were not drawn to death by some evil spirit under the Devon soil, they died by their own hands, alone at the end of that lane.
兄弟俩并不是被德文土地下的恶灵吸引而死的，而是亲手死在了那条小巷的尽头。
My macabre mind glanced down, but, of course, there was no decades-old bloodstain on the ground.
我的恐怖意识往下扫了一眼，但是，当然，地上并没有几十年前的血迹。
Perhaps Frances wanted to die.
也许弗朗西斯想死。
Perhaps she wanted to live.
也许她想活下去。
We can’t know.
我们不知道。
But her murder was not because of an incestuous affair with Robbie, as some have said.
但正如一些人所说，她的谋杀并不是因为与罗比乱伦。
It was because her brother was desperate.
这是因为她的哥哥绝望了。
As the coroner, Colonel D.
作为验尸官，D 上校。
F.
F。
Brown, concluded at the inquest, “In their depressed state of mind, Robert could have shot his sister with or without her consent.”
布朗在调查中总结道：“在他们沮丧的精神状态下，无论是否同意，罗伯特都可以射杀他的妹妹。”
Of all the stories surrounding the Luxtons, it’s the image of Frances that haunts me, wandering the cemetery in the rain like Eleanor Rigby, staring out at the moors.
在所有关于拉克斯顿一家的故事中，弗朗西斯的形象一直困扰着我，她像埃莉诺·里格比一样在雨中漫步在墓地，凝视着荒野。
“The tragedy was that they isolated themselves.
“悲剧在于他们孤立了自己。
And there’s an irony in it, they were isolating themselves in order to survive.” Cornwell told me.
讽刺的是，他们为了生存而孤立自己。”康威尔告诉我的。
“But she is a truly tragic figure.”
“但她确实是一个悲剧人物。”
After leaving West Chapple I had one more stop to make: the graveyard at Brushford Barton.
离开西查普尔后，我还有一站要去：布拉什福德巴顿的墓地。
As I was nearing the old manor, once lived in by the aristocratic branch of the Luxton family and their 10 servants, I pulled over to check directions.
当我接近这座古老的庄园时，我把车停在路边，询问路向，这座庄园曾经是拉克斯顿家族的贵族分支和他们的 10 名仆人居住的地方。
In the field next to the road hundreds of stooks of wheat stood.
路边的田野里长着数百株小麦。
These same wheat stooks, primarily now harvested for thatching houses, were used as an example of the Luxtons’ antiquated farming techniques by reporters back in 1975.
这些相同的麦秆，现在主要用于茅草屋，早在 1975 年就被记者用作展示拉克斯顿家族过时农业技术的例子。
But here they stood, 50 years later.
但 50 年后，他们还站在这里。
My view of the harvest in that gateway near the graveyard would have looked almost identical—save for the odd telegraph pole dotting the landscape—100, even 200 years before.
100 年前，甚至 200 年前，我对墓地附近那个入口处的收成的看法几乎是一样的——除了点缀在景观中的奇怪的电线杆。
This timelessness in Devon is at the heart of its wonder.
德文郡的永恒是其奇迹的核心。
Brushford Barton is just a speck on the landscape, the old manor, and just three other homes, lining the dead end road that leads to the little church and graveyard where Frances is buried, miles from her brothers’ remains.
布拉什福德·巴顿只是这片风景中的一个小斑点，这座古老的庄园和另外三栋房屋排列在一条死胡同里，这条路通向弗朗西斯埋葬的小教堂和墓地，距离她兄弟的遗体有几英里远。
Her granite gravestone is more conspicuous than her brothers’ plinth back at Winkleigh.
她的花岗岩墓碑比她兄弟在温克利的基座更显眼。
Her date of death is followed by two italicized words: At Rest.
她的死亡日期后面有两个斜体字：安息。
I walked under the oak trees and through the thick grass in that small cemetery, as Frances used to every day.
我在那个小墓地的橡树下漫步，穿过茂密的草地，就像弗朗西斯每天所做的那样。
I thought about how she was considered mad when seen alone on that bench taking in the landscape for hours, and then thought about how much time I spent alone by the river in my youth, or climbing the hay bales in the field and staring across the land.
我想到当人们看到她独自坐在长凳上几个小时欣赏风景时，她会被认为是疯了，然后想到我年轻时独自在河边度过了多少时间，或者爬上田野里的干草堆，凝视着大地。
Before returning to America I looked out of my bedroom window at our farm one last time and tried to see what Ted Hughes saw: the county as a sentient being, a serpentine spine burrowing under its ancient farmland and church spires.
在返回美国之前，我最后一次从卧室的窗户向外看了看我们的农场，试图看看特德·休斯所看到的是什么：这个县是一个有感知的存在，一根蜿蜒的脊椎在古老的农田和教堂的尖顶下挖洞。
As my dad mowed the lawn and mum prepared a roast duck downstairs, all I saw beyond the windswept copper beech was the country’s astounding beauty—what Samuel Coleridge called the “many-steepled tract, magnificent / Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea.” While outsiders who step onto this land may find it unwelcoming, it’s the enemy within that can pinch a nerve through the deep lanes and lonely hearts of Devon.
当我爸爸修剪草坪、妈妈在楼下准备一只烤鸭时，我所看到的，除了被风吹拂的铜山毛榉之外，就是这个国家令人惊叹的美丽——塞缪尔·柯勒律治称之为“多尖峰的大片，壮丽的/丘陵田野、草地和大海”。虽然踏上这片土地的外来者可能会觉得这里不受欢迎，但内部的敌人却能刺痛德文郡幽深的小巷和孤独的心。
Andrew Chamings is a British writer in California.
安德鲁·查明斯是一位居住在加利福尼亚州的英国作家。
He is Editor-at-large at SFGate and has written for The Atlantic, Vice, McSweeney’s and many other places.
他是 SFGate 的特约编辑，并为《大西洋月刊》、《Vice》、《McSweeney’s》和许多其他杂志撰稿。
Editor: Carolyn WellsFact-checker: Julie Schwietert CollazoCopyeditor: Krista Stevens
编辑：卡罗琳·威尔斯事实核查：朱莉·施维特特·科拉佐文案编辑：克里斯塔·史蒂文斯