The Radiance
The narrator of The Radiance shares Akhtar’s name and much of his life.
《光辉》的叙述者与阿赫塔尔有着相同的名字和他的大部分生活。
After leaving New York for a small Hudson Valley town, he ends up getting hit by a pickup truck during a bike ride.
离开纽约前往哈德逊河谷的一个小镇后，他在骑自行车时被一辆皮卡车撞倒。
When he awakens from the subsequent coma, something is different: things appear lit from within and bathed in silence; and he’s impotent.
当他从随后的昏迷中醒来时，有些东西有所不同：事物似乎从内部被照亮并沐浴在寂静之中；他无能为力。
The luminous state has since deepened after an evening during which his cousin, Tanveer, disclosed a terrible family secret about his father.
一天晚上，他的表弟坦维尔透露了一个关于他父亲的可怕的家庭秘密，此后，这种发光状态进一步加深。
Lucie Neroponte, the friend who calls him in the passage below, teaches at a local college; an essay about the affair she had with her own professor when she was twenty made her name.
露西·尼罗蓬特（Lucie Neroponte）是下面段落中称呼他的朋友，在当地一所大学任教。一篇关于她二十岁时与自己的教授有染的文章使她名声大噪。
Like Lucie, I had qualms about teaching, though mine had nothing to do with eros.
和露西一样，我对教学也有疑虑，尽管我的疑虑与爱欲无关。
Rather, I worried that the security of a job in the academy might dull me as a writer.
相反，我担心学院工作的保障可能会让我作为一名作家变得迟钝。
By my mid-twenties, I’d begun to see a pattern: an inclination toward fantasy over fact, a tendency to cling to illusion long past the point any evidence could justify.
到了二十五岁左右，我开始看到一种模式：倾向于幻想而不是事实，倾向于坚持幻想，远远超过任何证据可以证明的程度。
Reality always won—usually after the painful humiliations to which my delusions led.
现实总是会获胜——通常是在我的妄想所导致的痛苦羞辱之后。
I was too compelled by the comforts of my imagination—which was, of course, why I wanted to be a writer in the first place.
我太被自己的想象力所吸引——这当然是我最初想成为一名作家的原因。
But those same attachments, I came to see, kept my work from feeling real.
但我发现，同样的执着让我的作品感觉不真实。
Early experiences in the theater proved salubrious.
事实证明，早期在剧院的经历是有益的。
Humiliation was a reliable corrective, and I found that the ruthless impersonality of a paying audience made the shame bearable.
羞辱是一种可靠的矫正方法，我发现付费观众的冷酷无情使羞耻变得可以忍受。
I learned from jokes that didn’t work and story threads that didn’t track.
我从不起作用的笑话和没有追踪的故事线索中学习。
Mid-show walkouts and anemic applause hurt, yes, but not so much that I couldn’t learn to heed them.
是的，演出中途的退场和乏力的掌声让我很受伤，但还没有严重到我无法学会留意它们。
My skits and plays got better.
我的短剧和戏剧变得更好了。
I grew as a writer.
我成长为一名作家。
As my peers took on teaching jobs with health care, pension plans, and just enough to live on, I was tempted to follow.
当我的同龄人从事教学工作，提供医疗保健、养老金计划和勉强维持生计的工作时，我很想效仿。
But I worried about what I might lose in finding protection from the forced encounter with audiences.
但我担心在被迫与观众接触时寻求保护可能会失去什么。
Plying my trade in front of paying crowds without a safety net, I concluded, was the only way forward.
我的结论是，在没有安全网的情况下在付费人群面前进行交易是唯一的出路。
It was a path that would be protracted and painful, and all the “usual words,” to quote James Baldwin, applied to my struggles too: “discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.” I endured—and in my case, it was only by the grace of what I gleaned from audiences that I found my way.
这是一条漫长而痛苦的道路，用詹姆斯·鲍德温的话来说，所有“常用词”也适用于我的挣扎：“纪律、爱、运气，但最重要的是，耐力。”我忍受了——就我而言，只是凭借从观众那里收集到的信息，我才找到了自己的出路。
The value of crowdsourced wisdom, then, was the only lesson I felt qualified to share when I finally accepted an offer to teach young playwrights at a university in St. Louis.
当我最终接受在圣路易斯一所大学教授年轻剧作家的邀请时，众包智慧的价值是我觉得有资格分享的唯一一课。
It was the summer Michael Brown was shot; a few miles north of campus, Ferguson was ablaze.
那是迈克尔·布朗被枪杀的那个夏天；校园以北几英里处，弗格森着火了。
I sublet a place within walking distance of Dred Scott’s grave.
我转租了一个距离德雷德·斯科特的坟墓步行即可到达的地方。
Twice a week, I rode the bus to a dim room, barely larger than the table around which my students and I sat reading aloud from their work.
每周两次，我乘公共汽车去一个昏暗的房间，房间只比我和我的学生们坐在周围大声朗读作业的桌子大一点。
I couldn’t get past how managed and opaque our responses were compared to the clarifying disinterest of a paying audience.
我无法理解与付费观众澄清的不感兴趣相比，我们的反应是多么的管理和不透明。
Without the help of an audience, we all discovered how little I actually knew about what I did.
没有观众的帮助，我们都发现我对自己所做的事情实际上知之甚少。
When the workshop ended, my parting remarks were an apology by way of exhortation: My weaknesses as a teacher, I explained, were perhaps best seen as extensions of my strength as a writer: my trust in the public.
研讨会结束时，我的临别致辞是一种歉意和劝告：我解释说，我作为一名教师的弱点也许最好被视为我作为一名作家的优势的延伸：我对公众的信任。
I urged them to dispense with the class critiques and get their work in front of paying crowds.
我敦促他们放弃阶级批评，把他们的作品展示在付费人群面前。
The paying part was essential.
付费部分至关重要。
Our art was not a gift but a form of commerce.
我们的艺术不是礼物，而是一种商业形式。
To know the audience’s truth, I told them, it had to feel owed pleasure for what it had paid.
我告诉观众，要了解真相，他们必须为自己所付出的代价感到高兴。
When I left St. Louis at the summer’s end, I didn’t see myself teaching again.
当我在夏末离开圣路易斯时，我没有想到自己会再次教书。
More than a half dozen years later, and just a month after that dark and miraculous evening with my cousin Tanveer, Lucie called to ask if I might be interested in teaching a newly orphaned section of creative writing at the college.
六年多后，也就是与我表弟坦维尔度过的那个黑暗而神奇的夜晚之后一个月，露西打电话来问我是否有兴趣在学院教授一个新孤儿的创意写作部分。
I was surprised to hear myself tell her that I was—and embarrassed to admit it.
我很惊讶地听到自己告诉她我是这样的——而且又不好意思承认。
“Who’d want to teach after listening to you talk about it?” I heard how harsh it sounded.
“听你说完，谁愿意来教书？”我听到这声音听起来多么刺耳。
“Sorry—that came out wrong.”
“抱歉——结果是错误的。”
“No, I get it.
“不，我明白了。
I complain too much.
我抱怨太多了。
But it’s the closest thing I’ve ever felt to a calling.” She paused.
但这是我所感受到的最接近召唤的事情。”她停了下来。
“A good student, a really good student, that’s still the best part.
“一个好学生，一个真正的好学生，这仍然是最好的部分。
It happens.
它发生了。
Not often, but it does.
不常见，但确实如此。
So don’t take me too seriously.”
所以别把我太当回事了。”
“Seminar in autofiction.
“自传小说研讨会。
Which is how you came up at lunch with the college president.
这就是你在与大学校长共进午餐时想到的。
But I’m sure you can teach whatever you want.” She said that the original instructor, a memoirist I admired, was in the hospital after what sounded like a mental breakdown.
但我相信你可以教你想教的任何东西。”她说原来的导师是一位我敬佩的回忆录作家，在经历了听起来像是精神崩溃后住院了。
Lucie wasn’t supposed to know, which meant I wasn’t supposed to know either.
露西不应该知道，这意味着我也不应该知道。
“Did you read her last memoir?
“你读过她的最后一本回忆录吗？
About her Hashimoto’s?”
关于她桥本的？”
“My guess?
“我的猜测？
She’ll get a memoir out of this too.”
她也会从中得到一本回忆录。”
Lucie went on: “So here they are, a week from winter break and no one to take over the section next semester.
露西继续说道：“距离寒假还有一周，他们就在这里，下学期没有人接管这个部分。
The president’s gotten involved.
总统介入了。
When I brought you up, he got excited.
当我提起你时，他很兴奋。
I told him I thought there was a chance you might consider it.
我告诉他我认为你有机会考虑一下。
You’ve seemed bored lately.”
你最近好像很无聊。”
“And still dealing with some trouble……
“而且还在处理一些麻烦……
down there?” In keeping Stanford apprised of my urological issue—no nerve damage; the doctor believed the problem was psychological—I hadn’t necessarily expected Lucie would be in the loop.
在下面吗？让斯坦福大学了解我的泌尿系统问题——没有神经损伤；医生认为问题是心理问题——我没想到露西也会参与其中。
“Okay, so maybe boredom ’s not the right word.
“好吧，也许“无聊”这个词不太合适。
De-cathected ?”
去导管了吗？
“I feel like this is confirmation I was right to be embarrassed,” I said.
“我觉得这证实了我感到尴尬是对的，”我说。
“I’m so de-cathected I’ve got nothing better to do than take up the thing you complain about all the time.”
“我已经没有精力了，除了处理你一直抱怨的事情之外，没有什么更好的事情可做。”
“If it gets you to try something new, it’s a good thing, right?
“如果它能让你尝试新事物，那是一件好事，对吧？
Let me put you in touch with Mischa.
让我帮您联系米莎。
Is that okay?
可以吗？
He’s going to want to meet—get a feel for you.”
他会想见见你——感受一下你。”
“Which I know is unlikely—even if you were better cathected .
“我知道这不太可能——即使你看得更清楚……”
But the only real problems Mischa’s had of late have come from semester replacements.
但米莎最近遇到的唯一真正的问题来自于学期的更换。
An art teacher who unknowingly hooked up with a student on Grindr.
一位美术老师在 Grindr 上不知不觉地勾搭上了一名学生。
And a Muslim biology prof who married one of the undergrads.”
还有一位与一名本科生结婚的穆斯林生物学教授。”
“Apparently her parents proposed the match when she talked about how much she liked his class.”
“显然，当她谈到她多么喜欢他的课时，她的父母提议了这场婚姻。”
“They both left school, so you probably won’t.
“他们都离开了学校，所以你可能不会。
I told Mischa you were a real Boy Scout, but I’m sure he’s still going to want to sound you out.”
我告诉米沙你是一名真正的童子军，但我确信他仍然想试探你的情况。”
“Bored cisgender straight Muslim Boy Scout—if we’re being precise.”
“无聊的顺性别异性恋穆斯林童子军——如果我们准确的话。”
“On the contrary.
“恰恰相反。
He said he could really use a ‘Moslem’ in creative writing.”
他说他真的可以在创意写作中使用‘穆斯林’。”
“I know, I know.
“我知道，我知道。
Still, he’s an interesting guy.”
尽管如此，他还是一个有趣的人。”
“Still living in the nineteenth century.
“仍然生活在十九世纪。
At least when it comes to Moslems .”
至少对于穆斯林来说是这样。”
“Eighteenth.
“十八号。
When it comes to most things.”
当涉及到大多数事情时。”
“Just don’t ask him about Mozart.
“只是不要问他有关莫扎特的事情。
Unless you’re not in a hurry.”
除非你不着急。”
Where Lucie spied boredom, my experience was something closer to the opposite.
当露西发现无聊时，我的经历却恰恰相反。
For three days after that evening with my cousin Tanveer, everything had been enveloped in a luminous, self-evident flawlessness.
那天晚上和我表弟坦维尔在一起之后的三天里，一切都笼罩在一种明亮的、不言而喻的完美之中。
No things were wrong; each thing was right—even the blight on the dying ash trees by the pond, even the political tumult on the radio.
没有什么事情是错的；每件事都是对的——甚至是池塘边垂死的白蜡树的枯萎，甚至是广播中的政治骚乱。
The mind, too, was a thing, and no less unblemished than the purple finch I found perched atop the back of the porch Adirondack chair on most mornings as I made coffee.
心灵也是一个东西，与我大多数早晨煮咖啡时在门廊阿迪朗达克椅背上发现的紫雀一样完美无缺。
To see the mind as a thing was to feel the endless motion inside it—like the finch, who, perched and still, lived by the flutter of the heart racing in its breast.
将心灵视为一个物体，就是感受它内部无尽的运动——就像雀鸟一样，栖息在静止的地方，靠胸腔里的心跳来生活。
That I was not this endless movement through my mind had never been so clear to me, but I could see why I had confused myself with it all my life.
我从未如此清楚地意识到，我的头脑并不是这种无休无止的运动，但我也能明白为什么我一生都对此感到困惑。
Even this confusion, in its way, felt correct.
即使是这种混乱，就其本身而言，也感觉是正确的。
During my last year of coursework in college, I encountered a paper by British psychoanalyst D.
在大学课程的最后一年，我遇到了英国精神分析学家 D.
W.
W.
Winnicott, enigmatically titled “The Mind and Its Relation to the Psyche-Soma.” It contained a passage whose meaning neither I nor anyone else in class—including the professor—could convincingly decipher.
温尼科特，神秘的标题是“心灵及其与心灵-躯体的关系”。其中包含的一段话的含义无论是我还是课堂上的其他人（包括教授）都无法令人信服地解读。
And yet it compelled me, and I read and reread it until I could quote it verbatim:
然而它迫使我，我读了又读，直到我能逐字引用它：
The question has to be asked why the head should be the place inside which the mind tends to become localized by the individual, and I do not know the answer.
必须要问的问题是，为什么头部应该是个体思维趋于本地化的地方，而我不知道答案。
I feel that an important point is the individual’s need to localize the mind because it is an enemy, that is to say, for control of it.
我觉得很重要的一点是，个人需要将思想定位，因为它是敌人，也就是说，需要控制它。
It was true.
这是真的。
My mind had always felt synonymous with my head.
我的思想一直是我的头脑的同义词。
And further: I’d always assumed “I” was that mind in that head.
更进一步：我一直认为“我”就是那个头脑中的那个头脑。
To me, these were one and the same.
对我来说，这些都是一回事。
Why Winnicott found this localization strange—and why it led him to label the mind an enemy—was confounding.
为什么温尼科特觉得这种定位很奇怪——以及为什么这导致他给心灵贴上敌人的标签——令人困惑。
But rather than dismiss it as evocative nonsense, as some classmates did, I sensed in these two sentences a hidden promise that drew me back thirty years later, once the brightness of my post-Tanveer fever dream finally began to dim.
但我并没有像一些同学那样将其视为令人回味的胡言乱语，而是在这两句话中感受到了一个隐藏的承诺，三十年后，当我的后坦维尔狂热梦想的亮度终于开始黯淡时，它把我拉回了现实。
For even as that miraculous half-week faded, one thing lingered: the curious seeing with my chest, which soon deepened into a sense of an “I” residing not in my head but just above my sternum—in something like a lightless incandescence around the heart.
因为即使那神奇的半周过去了，有一件事仍然挥之不去：我胸口的好奇心，很快就加深了一种“我”的感觉，它不在我的头脑中，而是在我的胸骨上方——就像心脏周围无光的白炽灯一样。
This new center brought with it a suite of affects that apparently signaled boredom to Lucie but which I experienced as a new emotional register: greater pliancy, patience, openness to others, slowness with myself, an availability I feared might seem sentimental.
这个新中心带来了一系列的影响，显然对露西来说是无聊的信号，但我体验到了一种新的情感记录：更加柔顺、耐心、对他人开放、对自己缓慢，我担心这可能显得多愁善感。
I’d played no part in these changes.
我没有参与这些变化。
And I worried (not just medically) what other uncertainties they presaged.
我担心（不仅仅是医学上的）他们预示的其他不确定性。
Rereading Winnicott, I found myself wondering: Did this new localization in the chest denote a different kind of mind than before?
重读温尼科特时，我发现自己在想：胸部的这种新定位是否代表了一种与以前不同的思维？
Or was it the same mind, displaced?
或者是同样的想法，只是被取代了？
Did it mean the mind was no longer an enemy—or merely one of a different sort?
这是否意味着心灵不再是敌人——或者仅仅是另一种敌人？
Two days later, I drove north to meet Mischa Morris, the college president.
两天后，我开车北上去见学院院长米莎·莫里斯。
At an Italian restaurant across the river from campus where he’d suggested we meet for a late lunch, a grizzled hostess—her hand already reaching for a menu—heard his name and shoved the card back into its bin as she told me gruffly to follow.
在校园河对岸的一家意大利餐厅里，他建议我们一起吃一顿晚午餐，一位头发花白的女主人——她的手已经伸向菜单——听到了他的名字，把卡片塞回了垃圾桶，同时粗声地叫我跟上。
Through a long room lined with empty tables she led me, up a staircase, through another dining area where the furniture had been pushed to the walls, to a table hidden behind a five-panel screen, where Morris sat hunched over a musical score, frowning, his thick, white hair, unruly, swept to one side of a head that was much larger than the rest of his lean body.
她领着我穿过一间摆满空桌子的长房间，走上楼梯，穿过另一个用餐区，那里的家具都被推到了墙上，来到一张隐藏在五块屏风后面的桌子前，莫里斯坐在桌子上，弓着背，看着乐谱，皱着眉头，他浓密的白发不规则地掠到头部的一侧，而头部比他瘦弱的身体的其他部分大得多。
Lucie had mentioned he was almost ninety years old, but he didn’t look it.
露西提到他已经快九十岁了，但他看起来并不这样。
He was dressed exactly as I’d expected from his pictures online: a patterned silk cravat clashing cheerfully with a dark sport coat and a louder madras shirt.
他的穿着和我在网上看到的照片一模一样：一条有图案的丝绸领带与一件深色运动外套和一件花哨的马德拉斯衬衫相得益彰。
Seeing us arrive, he looked up, removed the readers perched at the end of his meaty nose, and smiled.
看到我们到达，他抬起头，移开放在他肉鼻子末端的读卡器，微笑着。
“Thank you, Hope,” he purled in a mellifluous baritone to the hostess.
“谢谢你，霍普，”他用悦耳的男中音对女主人说道。
As I sat, Morris gathered his pages: “Apologies for the mess—I lost track of time, as I’m wont to do when preparing a concert.”
当我坐下来时，莫里斯收起他的书页：“对混乱表示歉意——我忘记了时间，就像我在准备音乐会时惯常做的那样。”
“Cherubini, Lodoïska .
“凯鲁比尼、洛多伊斯卡。
I’m teaching a seminar in the rescue operas.
我正在教授救援歌剧研讨会。
Lodoïska is the first that matters.
Lodoïska 是第一个重要的。
After Seraglio , of course.”
当然是在塞拉利奥之后。”
“Sorry—I’m not great with opera.
“抱歉——我不太擅长歌剧。
Not that I don’t love it.
并不是说我不喜欢它。
Seraglio is?”
瑟拉格里奥是吗？
“ Abduction from the Seraglio ,” he replied with a graceful flick of his hand, dismissing my apology.
“从后宫绑架，”他优雅地挥了挥手，回答道，对我的道歉不屑一顾。
“Mozart’s first real public triumph.
“莫扎特第一次真正的公开胜利。
You remember the scene from Amadeus when the emperor tells him there are too many notes?”
你还记得《阿玛迪斯》中皇帝告诉他笔记太多的场景吗？”
“A memorable scene, though probably apocryphal,” he said.
“一个令人难忘的场景，尽管可能是杜撰的，”他说。
I smiled, remembering Lucie’s warning to me about Morris and Mozart.
我笑了，想起露西对我关于莫里斯和莫扎特的警告。
“A wonderful opera, performed less often now, alas, for reasons—well.” He stopped himself.
“一部精彩的歌剧，现在演出次数减少了，唉，出于某种原因——好吧。”他停了下来。
“You see, the Viennese were finally free of the Turks at their gates.
“你看，维也纳人终于摆脱了家门口的土耳其人。
The culture was awash with the usual Moslem tropes: the veil, the harems, and so on.” I saw him, I thought, register whatever passed across my face at hearing that word again.
这种文化充斥着常见的穆斯林比喻：面纱、后宫等等。”我看到了他，我想，再次听到这个词时，我记下了我脸上掠过的一切。
“But the opera’s final dramatic gesture is a powerful counter-stereotype; no cruel despotic Turk was the pasha to Mozart.
“但是这部歌剧最后的戏剧性姿态是一个强有力的反刻板印象；没有一个残酷专制的土耳其人是莫扎特的帕夏。
But , as his act of mercy doesn’t come until act three, it might as well not come at all, given the moral impatience of today’s audiences.
但是，由于他的仁慈之举直到第三幕才出现，鉴于当今观众的道德不耐烦，它也可能根本不会出现。
Which reminds me–” He reached into a bag on the chair beside him, pulled out a copy of a book I recognized as my own, and opened it to a marked page.
这让我想起了——”他把手伸进旁边椅子上的一个袋子里，拿出一本我认出是我自己的书，然后打开它，翻到了有标记的一页。
“Mm-hmm.
“嗯嗯。
Yes, that’s it,” he said and began to read aloud:
是的，就是这样，”他说，并开始大声朗读：
Like everything else, art, too, was drowning in ubiquitous anger.
和其他一切一样，艺术也淹没在无处不在的愤怒之中。
Every word, every gesture read as a pledge of allegiance to some community or creed.
每句话、每一个动作都被解读为效忠某个社区或信条的誓言。
The politics of representation were ascendant, increasingly confused with the poetics of narrative craft.
再现政治方兴未艾，与叙事技巧的诗学日益混淆。
“Well put.
“说得好。
So well put, indeed.” He looked at me as he shut the book and set it on the table.
说得真好，确实如此。”他看着我，合上书并将其放在桌子上。
“My dear man, you seem startled.”
“亲爱的朋友，你看起来很吃惊。”
“Or not sure how to react to being read to from my own work.”
“或者不确定当别人读我自己的作品时该如何反应。”
Again, that graceful, dismissive toss of his fingers—the gesture, I now realized, of a conductor: “You put the matter with admirable sang-froid .
再次，他优雅地、轻蔑地甩动手指——我现在意识到，这是一个指挥的手势：“你以令人钦佩的冷静来表达这件事……”
Your passage is about the theater, of course, but you could have been writing about opera, about music .
当然，你的文章是关于戏剧的，但你本来可以写关于歌剧、关于音乐的文章。
.
。
.”
”。
He paused again, wagging his index finger—not at me, I thought, but at some invisible interlocutor he’d placed in my general vicinity: “Not that some real good hasn’t come of the pressure to be more cautious of what we say, how we think.”
他又停了下来，摇着食指——我想，不是对着我，而是对着他放在我附近的某个看不见的对话者：“并不是说，我们在对自己的言论和想法更加谨慎的压力下，并没有带来真正的好处。”
From behind the screen, a stooping server emerged with a notepad.
从屏幕后面，出现了一个弯腰的服务员，手里拿着一个记事本。
“The food here is wonderful,” Morris said, shifting.
“这里的食物棒极了，”莫里斯一边说，一边移动。
“Better than it has any right to be, honestly.
“老实说，比它应该有的更好。
The cacio e pepe is not to be missed, if that is your sort of thing.”
如果你喜欢黑胡椒奶酪酱，那你一定不要错过它。”
“Yes?” He seemed delighted.
“是的？”他看上去很高兴。
“Francis, cacio e pepe for my guest.”
“弗朗西斯，为我的客人准备了黑胡椒奶酪酱。”
Francis nodded.
弗朗西斯点点头。
“The usual piccata for you, Maestro?”
“大师，你平常吃的皮卡塔是吗？”
“But lighter on the salt today than usual, if you’d let Hannah know.
“但是如果你让汉娜知道的话，今天的盐比平时少一些。
And maybe a dash fewer capers?”
也许少一点刺山柑？”
I was eyeing the ribbed screen between us and the rest of the dining room.
我盯着我们和餐厅其他部分之间的肋状屏风。
Morris explained it was a sound-absorbing barrier.
莫里斯解释说，这是一个吸音屏障。
The restaurant’s owner, an opera lover and friend, had created the quiet corner for him during the height of the pandemic.
这家餐厅的老板是一位歌剧爱好者和朋友，在疫情最严重的时候为他创造了一个安静的角落。
Morris hadn’t been able to work at home while the campus was closed, and even now, with things getting back to normal, he still worked better here than in his office, despite its “truly fabulous” view of the river.
校园关闭期间，莫里斯无法在家工作，即使是现在，随着一切恢复正常，他在这里仍然比在办公室工作得更好，尽管办公室的河景“确实很棒”。
As he gathered his score and stuffed it into a large leather satchel, Morris inquired about my experience teaching.
当莫里斯收集乐谱并将其塞进一个大皮包时，他询问了我的教学经验。
I told him about the summer I spent as an uninspired instructor of playwriting in St. Louis, which happened to be where Morris was born, two streets over from the house where T.
我告诉他我在圣路易斯担任剧本创作讲师的那个夏天，他没有什么灵感，那里恰好是莫里斯出生的地方，距离 T.
S.
S。
Eliot had grown up.
艾略特已经长大了。
Morris brushed away my self-doubts as a teacher, but showed keen interest when I spoke about my reliance on the audience.
莫里斯消除了我作为一名教师的自我怀疑，但当我谈到我对观众的依赖时，他表现出了浓厚的兴趣。
Once again, Mozart came up—this time in the form of a disquisition I considered relegating to a footnote here, given the digression it would pose to a narrative still wending toward the main event.
莫扎特再一次出现了——这一次是以一篇论文的形式，我考虑将其归为脚注，因为它会给仍在走向主要事件的叙述带来离题。
But because my moved response to Morris’s fanciful speech would be the seed of a bond between us, one relevant (however humbly) to the story ahead, I’ve kept the detour—if somewhat pruned:
但因为我对莫里斯异想天开的演讲的感动回应将成为我们之间联系的种子，与接下来的故事相关（尽管谦虚），所以我保留了绕道——如果有所修剪的话：
“It can be a dangerous thing,” Morris began, “depending too much on the audience; I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.
“这可能是一件危险的事情，”莫里斯开始说，“过于依赖观众；我相信我不需要告诉你。
Thirty-five—he was thirty-five when he died, divine Mozart.
三十五岁——他死时三十五岁，神圣的莫扎特。
So sudden, so breathless a death: that brief coma—and then gone.
死亡如此突然、如此令人窒息：短暂的昏迷——然后就消失了。
How could it be?
怎么可能呢？
After seasons of impossible energy, scarcely interrupted by illness—and then this ?
经过几个季节的令人难以置信的精力充沛，几乎没有被疾病打断——然后这个？
Limping into the end, bereft of all will to live?
一瘸一拐地走到最后，失去了所有的生存意志？
“Rheumatic fever ailed the body, or bloodletting, or what have you.
“风湿热使身体生病，或者是流血，或者是什么。
Pick your biographer and you’ll have your illness.
选择你的传记作者，你就会得病。
Fine.
美好的。
But what was the immaterial cause?
但非物质原因是什么？
Loss of love.
失去爱。
So said Elias, and so say I.
埃利亚斯如此说，我也如此说。
Loss of a woman’s love he could believe in, and loss of the love Vienna once had for his music.
失去了他可以相信的女人的爱，也失去了维也纳曾经对他的音乐的热爱。
Because, mind you, there has perhaps never been an artist more aware of the supernal nature of his gifts.
因为，请注意，也许从来没有哪个艺术家比他更了解自己天赋的超凡本质。
He knew.
他知道。
Mozart knew what he was passing down to us.
莫扎特知道他要向我们传递什么。
But tomorrow had no meaning for him.
但明天对他来说没有任何意义。
Only distinction today .
今日才有区别。
He’d stepped away from court patronage into a market not able to support him—leaving him to rely on fickle Vienna, where the truly unpardonable sins were a useful book, a sensible discussion, and a bad meal.
他离开了宫廷赞助，进入了一个无法支持他的市场——让他只能依赖变化无常的维也纳，在那里，真正不可原谅的罪过是一本有用的书、一次明智的讨论和一顿糟糕的饭菜。
Where a man of quality was judged on his knowledge of the best dogs at the baiting ring.
一个人的素质是根据他对诱饵场上最好的狗的了解来判断的。
These were the capricious, shallow people to whom divine Mozart turned for the sustenance he needed.
神圣的莫扎特向这些反复无常、肤浅的人寻求他所需要的生计。
For a time he had both, the adoration of the capital and Constanze’s fidelity.
有一段时间，他同时拥有了首都的崇拜和康斯坦兹的忠诚。
I’m saying nothing novel in linking the loss of her love with Vienna’s rejection, crowded houses for Zauberflöte notwithstanding.
尽管《魔笛》的房子里挤满了人，但我把失去她的爱与维也纳的拒绝联系起来并不是什么新鲜事。
She confessed—once he was dead—that she’d always admired her husband’s talent more than his person.
她承认——在他死后——她一直更欣赏她丈夫的才华，而不是他的人品。
“But here’s the rub.
“但这就是问题所在。
This is why I caution you, my new friend—and I do hope we’ll be friends.
这就是为什么我警告你，我的新朋友——我确实希望我们能成为朋友。
It’s dangerous to put too much faith in the audience; even Constanze’s view of her own husband’s immeasurable talent rose and fell with the regard of others.
过于相信观众是危险的。就连康斯坦丝对自己丈夫的不可估量的才华的看法也随着其他人的尊重而起伏。
When they believed in him, she did too.
当他们相信他时，她也相信他。
When they moved on, her heart did the same.
当他们继续前行时，她的心也在做着同样的事情。
A broken heart!
一颗破碎的心！
That was the fatal ailment, I say—and all of it from faith mislaid in an audience unworthy of him.
我说，这就是致命的疾病——而这一切都源于对不值得他的观众的信仰。
Of course, it’s foolish to compare ourselves to Mozart—yet the greatest artists can be lessons to us all.
当然，将自己与莫扎特进行比较是愚蠢的，但最伟大的艺术家可以为我们所有人提供教训。
And the lesson I draw from Mozart’s heartbroken, untimely death is this: Though we must live by the grace, as you called it, of the public, we cannot, and must not, let them define us.”
我从莫扎特伤心欲绝、过早去世的经历中得到的教训是：尽管我们必须靠公众的恩典（正如您所说的那样）生活，但我们不能、也不应该让他们来定义我们。”
From The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar.
摘自阿亚德·阿赫塔尔的《光辉》。
Used with permission of the publisher, Summit Books.
经出版商 Summit Books 许可使用。
Copyright © 2026 by Ayad Akhtar.
版权所有 © 2026 阿亚德·阿赫塔尔。