What They Did There

他们在那里做了什么

· American Heritage · 原文

An 1857 12-pound Napolean cannon still guards the battlefield at Gettysburg.

一门 1857 年 12 磅拿破仑大炮仍然守卫着葛底斯堡战场。

Photo by Craig M.

克雷格·M 摄

Fildes.

菲尔德斯。

The sun goes down every evening over the muzzle of a gun that has been a museum piece for nearly a century, and where there was a battlefield there is now a park, with green fields rolling west under the sunset haze to the misty blue mountain wall.

每天傍晚，太阳都会从枪口落下，这把枪已经成为博物馆藏品近一个世纪了，曾经的战场现在变成了公园，绿色的田野在夕阳的薄雾下向西延伸到雾蒙蒙的蓝色山墙。

You can see it all just about as it used to be, and to look at it brings up deep moods and sacred memories that are part of our American heritage.

你可以看到这一切就像过去一样，并且看着它会唤起深深的情绪和神圣的记忆，这是我们美国传统的一部分。

Yet the moods and the memories are not quite enough, for Gettysburg battlefield — like any other historic site — is memorable not for its scenic and evocative qualities but because it symbolizes the struggles and the sacrifices and the terrible hopes of people in a great moment of crisis.

然而，情绪和记忆还不够，葛底斯堡战场与任何其他历史遗迹一样，令人难忘，不是因为它的风景和令人回味的品质，而是因为它象征着人们在伟大危机时刻的斗争、牺牲和可怕的希望。

The men who fought at Gettysburg are all gone now but once they were very much alive, contending desperately with a fate which was almost more than they could cope with; and as Mr. Lincoln remarked, the world can never forget what they did there.

那些曾在葛底斯堡战斗过的人现在都已经离开了，但他们曾经还活着，拼命地与几乎超出他们承受能力的命运作斗争。正如林肯先生所说，世界永远不会忘记他们在那里所做的一切。

It is precisely that question — What did men do there?

这正是这个问题——人们在那里做了什么？

— that animates every worthwhile examination of the American past.

——这激发了对美国过去每一次有价值的审视。

For history after all is the story of people: a statement that might seem too obvious to be worth making if it were not for the fact that history so often is presented in terms of vast incomprehensible forces moving far under the surface, carrying human beings along, helpless, and making them conform to a pattern whose true shape they never see.

因为历史毕竟是人的故事：如果不是因为历史经常以巨大的难以理解的力量来呈现，这些力量在地表深处移动，带着人类无助地前行，并使他们遵循一种他们从未见过的真实形态，那么这种说法似乎太明显了，不值得做。

The pattern does exist, often enough, and it is important to trace it.

这种模式确实存在，而且经常存在，追踪它很重要。

Yet it is good to remember that it is the people who make the pattern, and not the other way around.

但最好记住，是人创造了模式，而不是相反。

The editors of any magazine calling itself A MERICAN H ERITAGE must begin by stating the faith that moves them; and the faith that moves us is, quite simply, the belief that our heritage is best understood by a study of the things that the ordinary folk of America have done and thought and dreamed since first they began to live here.

任何自称为“美国遗产”的杂志的编辑都必须首先阐述推动他们的信仰；推动我们前进的信念很简单，就是相信通过研究美国普通民众自从开始生活在这里以来所做、所想、所梦想的事情，就能最好地理解我们的遗产。

They have done and thought and dreamed some rather extraordinary things, as a matter of fact, whose true significance does not always appear on the surface.

他们做过、思考过、梦想过一些相当非凡的事情，事实上，其真正意义并不总是表现在表面上。

For a great many of the things people do seem rather unimportant, at first glance.

人们所做的很多事情乍一看似乎并不重要。

They sing tinkly little songs, or they give way to queer enthusiasms about race horses or steamboats or carved figureheads for sailing ships; they fall victim to fear and suspicion, and so work hardship on some of their fellows who are doing the best they can according to the lights that were given them; they paint pictures of Indians, or of fire engines, or of landscapes that seem to carry some important message in their play of light and shade and color: they dig for precious metals in forsaken pockets of dangerous mountain ranges, they drowse lazily about the cracker barrel in a crossroads grocery store, and sometimes a few of them strive frantically to get people to buy one brand of soap rather than another, or grow snobbish and form clubs so that they can live comfortably on a plane above their fellows.

他们唱着叮当作响的小歌，或者对赛马、汽船或帆船船首雕像表现出奇怪的热情；他们成为恐惧和怀疑的牺牲品，因此对一些根据给予他们的亮光尽力而为的同伴工作很辛苦；他们画印第安人、消防车或风景画，这些画似乎在光影和色彩的运用中传递着一些重要的信息：他们在危险山脉的废弃地带挖掘贵重金属，他们在十字路口杂货店的饼干桶上懒洋洋地打瞌睡，有时他们中的一些人疯狂地努力让人们购买一种品牌的肥皂而不是另一种品牌，或者变得势利并成立俱乐部，以便他们可以舒适地生活在他们的飞机上。各位。

These things are not very important, probably, except that each one contributes its own bit to the heritage by which we live — and each one, therefore, is worth looking at, because in each one we see the enthusiasms, the foibles, the impelling drives or the wistful dreams of the men and women who have made America.

这些事情可能并不是很重要，只是每一件事情都为我们赖以生存的遗产做出了自己的贡献——因此，每一件事情都值得一看，因为在每一件事情中我们都看到了创造美国的男男女女的热情、缺点、推动力或渴望的梦想。

So we propose to look into all such things; and because the infinite drama of human life can come out most clearly when people are least conscious of drama, trying to handle the prosaic business of making a living on a day-to-day basis, we believe that we do not always need to go to what are supposed to be the great moments of history in order to show American history in the making.

因此，我们建议对所有此类事情进行调查；因为当人们最没有意识到戏剧性、试图处理日常谋生的平庸事务时，人类生活的无限戏剧性可以最清晰地展现出来，所以我们相信，我们并不总是需要去那些被认为是历史的伟大时刻才能展示正在形成的美国历史。

The fearful climax of Gettysburg compels the attention, to be sure.

毫无疑问，葛底斯堡的可怕高潮吸引了人们的注意。

But Gettysburg would not have been what it was if there had not been generations of plain folk beforehand, laying out farms and working in shops and stores, quite unaware that they were on the high road to destiny but somehow living and working in such a way that when destiny came along they could meet it without batting an eye.

但是，如果没有几代普通人事先布局农场、在商店和商店工作，葛底斯堡就不会是现在这个样子，他们完全没有意识到自己正走在通往命运的大道上，但以某种方式生活和工作，当命运来临时，他们可以毫不眨眼地迎接它。

Our beat, in other words, is anything that ever happened in America.

换句话说，我们的节奏是在美国发生的任何事情。

Our principal question is: What did men do there?

我们的主要问题是：人们在那里做了什么？

Our chief requirement as we set out to tell about it all is that the things we talk about must be interesting.

当我们开始讲述这一切时，我们的首要要求是我们谈论的事情必须有趣。

The games men have played and the songs they have sung, the delusions they have had and the victories and defeats they have experienced, the homes they have built and the clothing they have worn, the aberrations from which they have suffered and the soaring, inexpressible ideals they have served—all of these, in one way or another, go to make up the heritage which we as Americans have today, and all of these make up the field which we propose to cover in this magazine.

人们玩过的游戏、他们唱过的歌曲、他们曾经的幻想、他们经历过的胜利和失败、他们建造的家园和他们穿过的衣服、他们所遭受的畸变以及他们所服务的高涨、难以言喻的理想——所有这些，以某种方式构成了我们作为美国人今天所拥有的遗产，所有这些构成了我们打算在这本杂志中涵盖的领域。

The fabric of American life is a seamless web.

美国生活的结构是一个无缝的网络。

Everything fits in somewhere.

一切都适合某个地方。

History is a continuous process; it extends far back into the past, and it will go on—in spite of today’s uneasy qualms—far into the future.

历史是一个连续的过程；它可以追溯到很久以前，而且尽管今天存在令人不安的疑虑，它仍将持续到遥远的未来。

As editors of this magazine we can think of no more eternally fascinating task than that of examining this continuous process on a day-to-day basis.

作为这本杂志的编辑，我们认为没有什么比每天检查这个连续的过程更令人着迷的任务了。

Sometimes we shall talk about great men and what they did, and sometimes we shall talk about the doings of wholly obscure people who made the great men possible.

有时我们会谈论伟人和他们的所作所为，有时我们会谈论那些使伟人成为可能的完全默默无闻的人的所作所为。

But always we intend to deal with that great, unfinished, and illogically inspiring story of the American people doing and being and becoming.

但我们始终致力于讲述美国人民的作为、存在和发展的伟大的、未完成的、不合逻辑的鼓舞人心的故事。

Our American heritage is greater than any one of us.

我们的美国传统比我们任何人都更伟大。

It can express itself in very homely truths; in the end, it can lift up our eyes beyond the glow in the sunset skies.

它可以用非常朴素的真理来表达自己。最终，它可以让我们的目光超越夕阳天空的光芒。

For over 75 years, American Heritage has chronicled our nation's history like no other publication.

75 年来，《美国遗产》以无与伦比的方式记录了我们国家的历史。

Please support our trusted, non-partisan historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

请通过今天的捐赠来支持我们值得信赖的、无党派的历史写作以及维持它的志愿者。

We rely on contributions from readers like you to survive.

我们依靠像您这样的读者的贡献才能生存。

Donate

捐赠

For 75 years, American Heritage has been the leading magazine of U.S. history, politics, and culture.

75 年来，《美国遗产》一直是美国历史、政治和文化的领先杂志。