193: Stories of Loss - This American Life
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Sign up for a free Life Partners trial, and you can watch the video “A Night of Stories and Improv.”
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #193 | September 14, 2001 193: Stories of Loss Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 193 集 | 2001 年 9 月 14 日 193：失去的故事 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass This American Life.
序言艾拉·格拉斯的美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
This week we had planned originally on doing a show that would be kind of light and funny.
This week we had planned originally on doing a show that would be kind of light and funny.
But with the news on Tuesday, we all lost heart for that, and set about looking for material that would, in some way, reflect and illuminate what I think most of us are feeling in the wake of the destruction at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
但随着周二的消息，我们都为此失去了信心，并开始寻找材料，以某种方式反映和阐明我认为我们大多数人在世贸中心和五角大楼遭到破坏后的感受。
We're going to have a show of news stories on these things for you next week, hopefully.
希望下周我们将为您播放有关这些事情的新闻报道。
Until then, we put together this hour of stories in which people reflect on loss, and try to make sense of things that don't exactly make sense.
在那之前，我们将这一小时的故事放在一起，在这些故事中，人们反思损失，并试图理解那些不完全有意义的事情。
For instance, this story.
比如这个故事。
When Mark was 15, his father was shot and killed, and Mark reacted like a 15-year-old.
马克 15 岁时，他的父亲被枪杀，马克的反应就像一个 15 岁的孩子。
He went up to each of his relatives-- to anybody who would listen, actually-- and he declared that someday when he grew up he would become a pro football player, and he would find the man who shot his father.
他去找他的每一位亲戚——实际上是任何愿意听的人——他宣称有一天当他长大后，他会成为一名职业橄榄球运动员，他会找到枪杀他父亲的人。
It's really-- when I look back at that kid, that 15-year-old kid making that promise, it's pathetic in a way.
It's really-- when I look back at that kid, that 15-year-old kid making that promise, it's pathetic in a way.
Well, it's such a particular vision of what a pro football player is.
Well, it's such a particular vision of what a pro football player is.
Which is to say, as a kid you're trying to conjure the notion of somebody who's very powerful, but also pure somehow.
Which is to say, as a kid you're trying to conjure the notion of somebody who's very powerful, but also pure somehow.
Yes.
是的。
And I remember even then some friends saying, now Mark, pro football is kind of a lofty goal.
我记得当时就有一些朋友说，现在马克，职业足球是一个崇高的目标。
Maybe high school football.
也许是高中橄榄球。
Years later, when I reflected back on that, I thought, jeez, the kid's dad just was killed.
Years later, when I reflected back on that, I thought, jeez, the kid's dad just was killed.
Why disabuse him of some vision he's got?
为什么要消除他的某些愿景呢？
Mark's dad was a bar owner in Fresno, California.
Mark's dad was a bar owner in Fresno, California.
Two men came into the bar, played a game of pool, ordered two beers, then came into the back room and shot him.
两名男子走进酒吧，打了一场台球，点了两瓶啤酒，然后走进后面的房间，开枪射杀了他。
They didn't take any money.
他们没有拿任何钱。
It was a gangland-style hit.
这是一部黑帮风格的热门作品。
And there was talk that Mark's father must be caught up with organized crime.
有人说马克的父亲肯定卷入了有组织犯罪。
So at 15 Mark started calling around until his mother made him stop.
于是，15 岁的时候，马克开始到处打电话，直到他妈妈让他停下来。
17 years later, he moved back to Fresno.
17年后，他搬回弗雷斯诺。
By this time he was a reporter for the LA Times.
此时他是《洛杉矶时报》的记者。
And he wanted to write a book investigating his dad's murder.
And he wanted to write a book investigating his dad's murder.
He was so skittish that he and his wife got their home under assumed names, did not tell people where they lived.
他非常不安，以至于他和妻子以化名居住，没有告诉人们他们住在哪里。
It's hard to make sense of all that.
很难理解这一切。
But there was a great deal of paranoia.
但也存在很多偏执。
I didn't want family to really know what I was doing.
我不想让家人真正知道我在做什么。
And I thought that if there was some way to-- if someone got nervous about the questions I was asking, I wanted to make it difficult for them to try to find me.
我想，如果有什么办法——如果有人对我提出的问题感到紧张，我想让他们很难找到我。
And I remember changing my sleep patterns, so that I was awake all through the night, and I was guarding the house.
And I remember changing my sleep patterns, so that I was awake all through the night, and I was guarding the house.
I had, actually, a gun that I had under the couch.
I had, actually, a gun that I had under the couch.
I was sleeping on the couch.
我睡在沙发上。
In a way, I became very childlike again.
在某种程度上，我又变得很孩子气了。
I really had to become a 15-year-old again in some ways to get at this thing.
在某些方面我真的必须回到 15 岁才能完成这件事。
Like how do you mean?
比如你的意思是？
Mark Arax Well, I think it wasn't terribly adult to try to think that you could come back to your hometown and try to hide your identity.
马克·阿拉克斯（Mark Arax）：好吧，我认为尝试认为你可以回到家乡并试图隐藏你的身份，这并不是很成熟。
I don't think that was really adult.
我不认为那是真正的成年人。
When somebody close to us dies, part of us can remain suspended there at the moment it happened.
当我们身边的人去世时，我们的一部分可能会在事情发生的那一刻保持悬浮状态。
And we stay there.
我们就留在那里。
Part of us stays there, turning the whole thing over and over in our heads.
我们的一部分留在那里，在脑海中一遍又一遍地思考整个事情。
Mark spent three years talking to informants about his father's murder.
马克花了三年时间与线人谈论他父亲的谋杀案。
He went through police files, analyzed phone records, and in the end found credible evidence that his father was murdered just as he was about to blow the whistle on a drug ring, one with local police on its side, Mark believes.
马克相信，他查阅了警方档案，分析了电话记录，最终找到了可靠的证据，证明他的父亲在他准备举报一个贩毒团伙时被谋杀了，而当地警方也站在这一团伙的一边。
He wrote his book about it.
他就此写了一本书。
It's called In My Father's Name.
它的名字叫《以我父亲的名义》。
And still that was not enough.
但这还不够。
He's still not at peace.
他还是不安宁。
And have I been liberated by some of those answers?
And have I been liberated by some of those answers?
I don't know if liberation's the right word.
我不知道解放这个词是否合适。
But why?
但为什么？
What would it take?
需要什么？
Mark Arax I think there is a part of me that wants to sit across from the men who set this whole thing up and talk to them about it.
马克·阿拉克斯（Mark Arax）：我想我内心有一部分想要坐在那些策划这一切的人对面，并与他们谈论这件事。
Yeah, that's right.
是的，没错。
That's what I want them to do.
这就是我希望他们做的。
I have played over that encounter with the killers so many times.
我已经多次回忆起与凶手的遭遇。
And one of the things that I would tell them going in is it goes no further than you and me.
我要告诉他们的一件事是，它不会比你和我更远。
This is it.
就是这样。
I just want to ask you one question.
我只想问你一个问题。
Were you responsible for the murder of my father?
你对我父亲的谋杀负有责任吗？
And so, actually, you've actually imagined this over and over to yourself?
And so, actually, you've actually imagined this over and over to yourself?
Well, from WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International, it's This American Life.
嗯，来自芝加哥 WBEZ 和国际公共广播电台，这就是《美国生活》。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today on our program, people trying to make sense out of things for which they'll never get answers or real peace.
今天在我们的节目中，人们试图弄清楚他们永远无法得到答案或真正平静的事情。
All three stories on our program today are about people facing the idea of death, and telling themselves one thing about it or another.
All three stories on our program today are about people facing the idea of death, and telling themselves one thing about it or another.
And is there anything that can be said?
还有什么可以说的吗？
Is there anything that can comfort us in that situation?
在这种情况下，有什么可以安慰我们吗？
Act One of our program, The Disappearance, trying to comprehend what it means when people are there, alive in your life one day, and the next gone.
我们节目的第一幕“消失”，试图理解当人们存在于你的生活中，某一天还活着，第二天就消失了，这意味着什么。
Act Two, Look for the Union Label.
第二步，寻找联盟标签。
A father and daughter sit down together for no real reason, just a whim really, to write his obituary, not really thinking about what it means.
一对父女毫无缘由地坐在一起写他的讣告，并没有真正思考这意味着什么。
And then at some point someone starts to think about what it means.
And then at some point someone starts to think about what it means.
Act Three, Ashes.
第三幕，灰烬。
David Sedaris talks about the death of his mother.
大卫·塞达里斯谈到他母亲的去世。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, The Disappearance.
第一幕，失踪。
One of the most remarkable books that I've read in a while is by a woman named Genevieve Jurgensen, about her husband Laurent and she lost their two daughters, Elise and Mathilde, at the ages of four and seven.
我最近读过的最引人注目的书之一是一位名叫吉纳维夫·尤尔根森 (Genevieve Jurgensen) 的女士写的，讲述了她的丈夫洛朗 (Laurent) 和她在四岁和七岁时失去了两个女儿埃莉斯 (Elise) 和玛蒂尔德 (Mathilde) 的故事。
The book is a series of letters that she wrote to her friend 12 years after their deaths.
这本书是她在朋友去世 12 年后写给她的一系列信件。
And one of the things that's so remarkable about it is how she still struggles.
其中最引人注目的事情之一就是她仍然在挣扎。
She doesn't want to keep suffering over their deaths.
She doesn't want to keep suffering over their deaths.
But suffering over them is the last way that she has to love them.
But suffering over them is the last way that she has to love them.
She's also keenly aware that she wants them to seem, in these letters, to be more than just names.
她还敏锐地意识到，她希望这些信件在这些信件中不仅仅是名字。
You know, when you tell a story about somebody, it's sometimes hard for them to seem more like just a character in a story.
你知道，当你讲述某人的故事时，有时很难让他们看起来更像故事中的一个角色。
And she keeps trying over and over to find ways to make it real, that in fact they were alive.
她不断地一遍又一遍地尝试寻找方法来证明他们确实还活着。
They are more than can be expressed on the page.
它们的内容超出了页面上所能表达的范围。
You never knew our daughters.
你从来不了解我们的女儿。
Neither did you know me as I was when they were alive.
你也不了解他们活着时的我。
I will have to tell you everything.
我必须告诉你一切。
Can one really tell someone about very young children?
一个人真的可以告诉别人关于很小的孩子的事情吗？
I will not even show you photographs of them.
我什至不会给你看他们的照片。
All they show are two little girls barely distinguishable from each other, just like all the little blond children which people primary school classes and the beaches along the Atlantic coast in the summer.
他们所展示的只是两个几乎无法区分的小女孩，就像小学班级和夏季大西洋沿岸海滩上所有的金发小孩子一样。
On the 29th of April, 1980, the official photographer for the school which my daughters attended came to take some class photographs.
1980年4月29日，我女儿就读的学校的官方摄影师来拍摄一些班级照片。
They were both dead the next day.
第二天他们都死了。
Indeed, we did not receive these photographs until several weeks after the news of our solitude.
事实上，直到我们孤独的消息传出几周后，我们才收到这些照片。
Mathilde's class is in uniform.
玛蒂尔德的班级穿着制服。
So it is a picture of a little girl in navy blue in a row, stifling her giggles in between her best friends.
So it is a picture of a little girl in navy blue in a row, stifling her giggles in between her best friends.
Elise, who was still in the nursery class, is wearing the dress with the sailor collar that my mother gave her.
还在上幼儿园的伊莉丝穿着妈妈送她的水手领连衣裙。
She's sitting in the first row, looking solemnly at the lens.
她坐在第一排，表情严肃地看着镜头。
I think that in this picture she's really very like me.
我觉得这张照片里的她真的很像我。
In Mathilde's satchel I still have her school overall with her name embroidered on it, with its ink stains and biscuit crumbs in the pockets.
在玛蒂尔德的书包里，我还放着她的学校校服，上面绣着她的名字，口袋里还有墨迹和饼干屑。
In her exercise book, in her childish but careful handwriting, she has written the date which will be the date of her death and the death of her little sister, Wednesday, the 30th of April, 1980.
在她的练习本上，她用幼稚但仔细的笔迹写下了她和她妹妹的去世日期，即1980年4月30日星期三。
What else can I tell you?
我还能告诉你什么？
I would like you to have heard me talking to them just once, even if only on the telephone.
我希望你只听过我和他们交谈过一次，即使只是通过电话。
I feel powerless in trying to make you accept this evidence they were here, I was their mother.
我无力让你接受他们在这里的证据，我是他们的母亲。
I went to pick them up at school.
我去学校接他们。
We stopped at the supermarket to buy two cheap waxed coats, one in red, one in blue.
我们在超市停下来买了两件便宜的打蜡外套，一件是红色的，一件是蓝色的。
And I dropped them off with my mother, not before playing a practical joke on her on the landing.
我把它们交给了我的母亲，然后在楼梯平台上对她开了个恶作剧。
I bundled my daughters up in the coats with the hoods up, pulled tightly over their noses and tied under their chins.
我把女儿们裹在外套里，把兜帽拉起来，紧紧地盖住她们的鼻子，绑在她们的下巴下面。
They rang the bell and I hid.
他们按响了门铃，我就躲了起来。
And my mother pretended not to recognize them.
我妈妈假装不认识他们。
Then I went home, because I was a speech therapist at the time, and I had patients waiting.
然后我就回家了，因为我当时是一名言语治疗师，还有病人在等我。
My sister-in-law came, as intended, to pick Mathilde and Elise up to take them to their other grandmother.
我的嫂子按计划来接玛蒂尔德和埃莉斯，带她们去见她们的另一位祖母。
But they never arrived, because they died toward the end of the afternoon about 10 meters from each other on the side of the Northern Highway.
但他们从未到达，因为他们在下午快结束时死在北部高速公路边，彼此相距约 10 米。
I'm hesitating about what to write next.
我正在犹豫接下来要写什么。
There is no common ground between before and after, or at least what they have in common strikes me as just as painful to excavate as the most deeply-buried relics of before.
之前和之后之间没有共同点，或者至少在我看来，它们的共同点就像挖掘之前埋藏最深的遗迹一样痛苦。
Yes, I'm hesitating.
是的，我正在犹豫。
I'm afraid of failing.
我害怕失败。
I'm afraid that you will believe more readily in their death than in their lives.
我担心你会更相信他们的死而不是他们的生。
A few years ago, I still used to drive out into the countryside and bellow at the top of my lungs, Mathilde.
几年前，我仍然常常开车去乡下，大声喊叫，玛蒂尔德。
I was really calling her.
我真的是在给她打电话。
Of course, she did not come.
当然，她没有来。
At least I had spoken her name once more.
至少我再次说出了她的名字。
Sometimes I meet a little girl who has the same name as her, and I speak it.
有时我遇到一个和她同名的小女孩，我就会说这个名字。
I say, hello, Mathilde, goodbye, Mathilde, with a smile.
我微笑着说，你好，玛蒂尔德，再见，玛蒂尔德。
And I think, help.
我想，帮忙吧。
On the eve of that May Day holiday, we were not expecting anyone to call, and the ringing of the telephone awakened no feelings in us.
五一假期前夕，我们没想到会有人打来电话，电话铃声也没有唤醒我们的任何感情。
We lifted the receiver without curiosity.
我们毫无好奇地拿起听筒。
A slight rustling on the line indicated that the call was being made from outside Paris.
电话线上轻微的沙沙声表明电话是从巴黎以外的地方打来的。
My sister?
我的姐妹？
No, I knew she was on her way to Paris.
不，我知道她正在去巴黎的路上。
An unfamiliar man's voice checked that we were indeed the people he was looking for.
一个陌生男人的声音证实我们确实是他要找的人。
Then he told us to hold the line.
然后他告诉我们保持阵线。
The next voice was that of our brother-in-law, Christian, who had left with his wife, their baby, and our two girls.
下一个声音是我们姐夫克里斯蒂安的声音，他带着妻子、孩子和我们的两个女儿离开了。
We asked him how he was.
我们问他怎么样。
He said that he was not good at all, that they had had a very serious car accident.
他说他一点都不好，他们出了一场很严重的车祸。
We said, yes, and?
我们说，是的，然后呢？
He told us our two little girls were dead.
他告诉我们我们的两个小女孩死了。
We thought he was playing a joke on us, and then thought no one would play a joke in such poor taste.
我们以为他是在跟我们开玩笑，后来又觉得没有人会开这么低俗的玩笑。
Laurent said, but Christian, it's not true.
洛朗说，但是克里斯蒂安，这不是真的。
He fell to his knees, calling his children.
他跪倒在地，呼唤着他的孩子们。
I asked for news of the others.
我询问了其他人的消息。
Everyone was fine.
每个人都很好。
Where did we have to go?
我们必须去哪里？
To the hospital at Peronne.
去佩罗尼医院。
I did not know where it was.
我不知道它在哪里。
Christian give us a few directions.
克里斯蒂安给我们一些指示。
Laurent knew.
洛朗知道。
We hung up.
我们挂断了电话。
I immediately felt how impossible it was to raise myself to the scale of this event.
我立即感到自己要达到这样的规模是多么不可能。
The terror mounted in me out of all proportion to my own dimensions.
我心中的恐惧与我自身的规模完全不成比例。
I could not contain it all.
我无法控制这一切。
I was still this little woman in her little apartment next to a little man in the same little apartment.
我仍然是她小公寓里的这个小女人，旁边是同一个小公寓里的一个小男人。
The terror targeted us exclusively.
恐怖分子专门针对我们。
We were its only prey, its only destination, the terminus.
我们是它唯一的猎物，它唯一的目的地，终点站。
It was a giant, and we were dwarves.
它是巨人，而我们是矮人。
Laurent took me by the wrists and asked me not to scream.
洛朗抓住我的手腕，让我不要尖叫。
He said, to think we're going to have to get over this.
他说，想想我们必须克服这个问题。
A big part of us has stayed there forever.
我们中的很大一部分人永远留在那里。
I will tell you what happened next, everything you want to know about what happened next.
我会告诉你接下来发生了什么，以及你想知道的关于接下来发生的一切。
But at the moment I can not.
但目前我不能。
Just as then, I am looking for the link between my daughters and that news.
就在那时，我正在寻找我的女儿们和那个新闻之间的联系。
We arrived at the door of the hospital.
我们到达了医院门口。
Jean-Bernard asked where we had to go.
Jean-Bernard asked where we had to go.
And the porter replied, in surgery.
搬运工回答说，在手术中。
Then I thought that my daughters had been operated on before they died.
然后我想到我的女儿们死前已经接受过手术。
And everything expanded into infinity again.
And everything expanded into infinity again.
Corridors.
走廊。
It was difficult to walk.
走路很困难。
My sister-in-law at the end of the corridor, arms circling around her, a room.
我的嫂子在走廊的尽头，手臂环绕着她，一个房间。
My brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, a stranger.
我的姐夫，我的嫂子，一个陌生人。
They ask us if we would like to see them, if we wanted to see our daughters.
他们问我们是否想见他们，是否想见我们的女儿。
You would have had to drag me there with a tractor.
你得用拖拉机把我拖到那里。
They ask us if we would like to ring anyone to let them know.
他们问我们是否愿意打电话告诉他们。
I then understand that this horror does not stop at us, that we have to tell my mother.
然后我明白，这种恐怖并不止于我们，我们必须告诉我的母亲。
No, it's the evening.
不，现在是晚上。
She is not expecting any news this evening.
她预计今晚不会有任何消息。
Let her sleep one more time.
让她再睡一会吧。
I was right.
我是对的。
They need the family record book.
他们需要家庭记录簿。
When they ask for it, and I reply, yes, we've brought it with us, I feel proud for a moment.
当他们索要它时，我回答说，是的，我们把它带来了，我有一瞬间感到自豪。
We are good parents.
我们是好父母。
We thought of everything.
我们想到了一切。
Aline and Christian are going to spend the night in hospital near their baby, Aude.
艾琳和克里斯蒂安将在他们的孩子奥德身边的医院过夜。
All three are kept under observation.
三人均处于观察状态。
We are taken back.
我们被带回来了。
In fact, we came for nothing.
事实上，我们是无缘无故而来的。
Right from the first instant, death is this nothing.
从第一刻起，死亡就毫无意义。
Mrs. L suggests that we stay the night at her house.
L 太太建议我们在她家过夜。
I agree readily.
我欣然同意。
She lost a son long ago.
她很久以前就失去了一个儿子。
At the Ls' house, we eat what we are given, food and sleeping pills.
在L家，我们吃什么就吃什么，食物和安眠药。
It is not so much in words that I'm lacking to tell you all this, but in courage.
我之所以向你们讲述这一切，并不是缺乏言语，而是缺乏勇气。
When I realize that I have forgotten something, and I have to retrace my steps, I say to myself, is it really worth it?
当我意识到自己忘记了什么，不得不折返时，我对自己说，这真的值得吗？
Before taking the sleeping pill, we thought that over at La Haye their grandparents were waiting for our daughters.
在服用安眠药之前，我们以为他们的祖父母正在拉哈耶等待我们的女儿。
Laurent's parents.
洛朗的父母。
Have I told you that they were attending the coronation of Queen Beatrix of Holland?
我有没有告诉过你他们正在参加荷兰女王贝娅特丽克丝的加冕典礼？
Have I told you that on the 30th of April, 1980, this young woman was rising to the throne, and that ever since, this date has been celebrated there as a joyful anniversary of an event whose secondary effect was the death of the girls?
我有没有告诉过你，1980 年 4 月 30 日，这位年轻女子即将登上王位，从那以后，这个日子就被当作一个快乐的周年纪念日来庆祝，而这个事件的次要影响是女孩们的死亡？
That my father-in-law, the French ambassador, and my mother-in-law were attending the festivities?
我的岳父、法国大使和我的岳母都参加了庆祝活动？
That all the embassy staff were busy, so we had found no one to go and fetch the girls at the airport?
大使馆的工作人员都很忙，所以没有人去机场接女孩吗？
That resigned only at the very last minute, I had canceled the places reserved for them on the Air France flight?
那个最后一刻才辞职的，我已经取消了为他们保留的法航航班座位？
Have I told you that at my mother's house, before they were picked up by their aunt, they had watched the coronation ceremony on television, as I had done out of the corner of my eye at home?
我有没有告诉过你，在我母亲家里，他们在被姨妈接走之前，都在电视上看过加冕仪式，就像我在家里用眼角余光做的那样？
Have I told you that, seeing my father-in-law's very characteristic form and gait, I telephoned my mother to ask whether everyone had spotted him?
我有没有告诉过你，看到我岳父非常有特色的身材和步态，我打电话给我母亲，问大家是否都发现了他？
And I can still hear in the background Mathilde's voice full of disappointment, no, I didn't see him.
我仍然能听到背景中玛蒂尔德充满失望的声音，不，我没有看到他。
The very, very last time.
非常非常最后一次。
My mother told me that at the time Elise was turned away from the television, absorbed in her drawing, but that that had not stopped her from affirming energetically, but I did.
我母亲告诉我，当时埃莉斯没有看电视，全神贯注于她的绘画，但这并没有阻止她积极肯定，但我做到了。
I saw him.
我看到他了。
Since then, I have not called Mathilde nor Elise.
从那时起，我就没有给玛蒂尔德和埃莉斯打电话。
Or if I have called my eldest daughter, it was without the hope that she would reply.
或者，如果我给我的大女儿打电话，我也不希望她会回复。
It was to feel the vibration in my larynx of those syllables chosen when I was 25 years old.
是为了感受我25岁时所选择的那些音节在我喉咙里的振动。
The arrangement of clear vowels and aquatic consonants which were to name the first of my children, to accompany her all her life, to act as her passport, announce her arrival, to be said with only a hint of shyness, and finally in the mouth of the one who would love her, to betray all the emotions that this girl would one day elicit, that she alone would arouse in one young man, a young man who will never know her, who lives and who does not live to love her.
清晰的元音和水生辅音的排列，为我的第一个孩子命名，陪伴她一生，充当她的护照，宣布她的到来，只带着一丝羞涩地说出来，最后在爱她的人的嘴里，背叛了这个女孩有一天会引起的所有情感，只有她一个人才能在一个年轻人身上激起的情感，一个永远不会认识她的年轻人，他活着，也没有活着爱她。
After the funeral, I went over to my mother to see my aunt and uncle, who would soon be returning to Haute-Savoie.
葬礼结束后，我去看望母亲和叔叔，他们很快就要返回上萨瓦省。
The concierge came out of her lodge to see me as I went into the building.
当我走进大楼时，礼宾员从她的小屋里出来见我。
Mathilde often used to go over to play with her daughter.
玛蒂尔德经常去和她女儿一起玩。
She said, you will see.
她说，你会看到的。
You can get used to anything.
你可以习惯任何事情。
It is certainly the most simple, true, brutal, and perceptive thing that anyone said to me at the time.
这无疑是当时任何人对我说的最简单、最真实、最残酷、最有洞察力的话。
You could interpret it either as a message of hope or of crushing contempt for human nature.
你可以将其解读为希望的信息，也可以解读为对人性的极度蔑视。
It is very strange, this double rhythm that I have with you.
我和你的双重节奏很奇怪。
I write to you, forcing myself to clarify a period of my life that I've done everything I can to understand, but which has always been out of my grasp.
我写信给你，强迫自己澄清我生命中的一段时期，我已尽我所能去理解它，但它始终超出了我的掌握。
It is said that reality outstrips fiction, but this is something else.
都说现实胜于雄辩，但这又是另外一回事了。
The reality remains inaccessible.
现实依然遥不可及。
Since the death of the girls-- 12 years in 16 days' time-- I have honestly and constantly tried to unveil this reality without success.
自从女孩们去世后——16天过去了12年——我一直诚实地、不断地试图揭露这个现实，但没有成功。
Perhaps I've already told you, sometimes I believe in them alive, my darling children, my darling little girls.
也许我已经告诉过你，有时我相信他们还活着，我亲爱的孩子们，我亲爱的小女孩们。
These words which are so light and yet so burdensome cut through me then.
这些话如此轻松，却又如此沉重，让我感到无比沉重。
And sometimes I believe in their death on the edge of the motorway, 10 or so meters from each other, their legs in dungarees, their arms and heads on the side of the motorway.
有时我相信他们死在高速公路边上，彼此相距十米左右，他们的腿穿着工装裤，他们的手臂和头在高速公路的一侧。
There is never a link between the two.
There is never a link between the two.
The other rhythm constitutes things I do in my current life, as if nothing had happened.
另一种节奏是我现在的生活中所做的事情，就好像什么也没发生过一样。
Conversations, laughter, mutual friends, a double rhythm like a double life.
对话、欢笑、共同的朋友，双重的节奏就像双重的生活。
You do not know whether they struggle against each other or enrich each other.
你不知道他们是互相斗争还是互相致富。
Have I already mentioned Yasser Arafat to you?
我已经向你提到过亚西尔·阿拉法特了吗？
This is what made me think of him.
这就是让我想起他的原因。
When Elise was born, I found myself battling with a huge, hungry baby.
当埃莉斯出生时，我发现自己正在与一个巨大而饥饿的婴儿作斗争。
The few odd ounces of milk that I was able to supply in the first 24 hours of her life in hospital were definitely not enough for her, and she screamed constantly.
在她住院的最初24小时里，我能提供的几盎司牛奶对她来说绝对不够，她不断地尖叫。
With Mathilde crying down the telephone because she felt lost without me, I quickly lost my patience.
玛蒂尔德在电话里哭泣，因为没有我她感到失落，我很快就失去了耐心。
I found myself brutally grasping Elise's cradle, which was on casters, and furiously pushing it away from my bed, so that it was in danger of banging into the far wall.
我发现自己粗暴地抓住了埃莉斯带有脚轮的摇篮，猛烈地把它从我的床上推开，这样它就面临着撞到远处墙壁的危险。
A second of silence, and then the crying started up again.
沉默了一秒，然后哭声又开始了。
On the third day, my mother came to see me.
第三天，妈妈来看我了。
She sat at the end of the bed and chatted.
她坐在床尾聊天。
We were cheerful.
我们很高兴。
We, the adults, were talking to each other, but I was looking at my daughter, who was looking back at me.
我们，大人，正在互相交谈，但我看着我的女儿，她也在看着我。
Drawn by her gaze, I leaned over her and rubbed my nose on hers.
被她的目光所吸引，我靠在她身上，用鼻子蹭着她的鼻子。
She said, huh, huh.
她说，呵呵。
I stared at my mother to reassure myself that I had not dreamed it.
我盯着妈妈，让自己确信我没有做梦。
It had quite knocked the breath out of her.
这让她喘不过气来。
I did the same thing again, and Elise replied again.
我又做了同样的事情，艾莉丝又回复了。
Third attempt, third exchange.
第三次尝试，第三次交流。
And that was it, she was my child, my treasure, my stupefaction.
就是这样，她是我的孩子，我的宝藏，我的迷惑。
For logistical reasons, it was my mother who came with Mathilde to pick me up from the hospital.
由于后勤原因，是我母亲和玛蒂尔德一起来医院接我。
I went down one of the big staircases.
我走下其中一个大楼梯。
At the end of one of the ground-floor corridors, I saw Mathilde in her little green loden coat.
在一楼走廊的尽头，我看到玛蒂尔德穿着她的绿色罗登呢小外套。
She was watching silently, motionless, her nose pointing up another staircase.
她静静地看着，一动不动，鼻子指向另一个楼梯。
My mother pointed me out to her, and Mathilde started to walk towards me slowly.
我母亲把我指给她看，玛蒂尔德开始慢慢地向我走来。
I handed Elise to my mother so that I could lift Mathilde into her rightful place in my arms.
我把伊莉丝交给了母亲，这样我就可以把玛蒂尔德抱到我怀里的正确位置。
I can still feel to the nearest ounce the pressure of her legs around my waist.
我仍然可以精确地感受到她的双腿对我腰部的压力。
She did not say anything, but she slowly and silently felt my face with her hands like a blind girl.
她没有说话，只是像个盲人女孩一样，慢慢地、默默地用手摸着我的脸。
During this rediscovery, this tender and cautious reunion, my mother was smiling and whispering sweet nothings to Elise.
在这次重新发现的过程中，在这次温柔而谨慎的团聚过程中，我的母亲微笑着，对伊莉丝低声说着甜言蜜语。
She had brown hair, olive skin, and huge eyes ringed with black kohl.
她有一头棕色的头发，橄榄色的皮肤，一双大眼睛上画着黑色的眼影。
And to confront the October weather, she was wearing a woolen hat which was a bit too big for her, which skewed sideways over her ear.
为了应对十月的天气，她戴着一顶对她来说太大了的羊毛帽子，帽子歪到了耳朵边。
She could be Yasser Arafat's daughter, my mother laughed.
她可能是亚西尔·阿拉法特的女儿，我母亲笑道。
The other day, the radio announced that Yasser Arafat's plane had disappeared in a sandstorm in the Libyan desert.
前几天，电台宣布亚西尔·阿拉法特的飞机在利比亚沙漠的沙尘暴中失踪。
A few hours later, although the members of his entourage were killed or injured, he himself was found alive and grinning.
几个小时后，尽管他的随从死伤惨重，但他本人却被发现还活着，而且还咧着嘴笑。
Every time that a tragic event affects him but spares him-- the murder of an adviser, all sorts of attempts on his life, or an airplane crash-- I feel that hug again.
每当发生一件悲惨事件影响到他却又让他幸免于难时——顾问被谋杀、对他生命的各种尝试，或者飞机失事——我都会再次感受到那个拥抱。
When I think of the life he leads and the life that Elise led, when I think of the life expectancy they each had on that October day when my mother teased me about my daughter, to think that she is dead, and he is here.
当我想到他和埃莉斯过的生活时，当我想到十月的那一天，当我母亲取笑我的女儿时，他们各自的预期寿命，想到她已经死了，而他却在这里。
I've been careful.
我一直很小心。
I've never watched the home movies in which my two daughters appear, nor have I listened to their voices on the answering machine tapes that my mother kept.
我从来没有看过我的两个女儿出现的家庭电影，也没有听过我母亲保存的答录机录音带上她们的声音。
The messages to Granny are at her house, accessible, but I do nothing about it.
给奶奶的信息在她家里，可以访问，但我没有采取任何行动。
How many catastrophes have there been since I began this correspondence with you?
自从我开始和你写这封信以来，已经发生了多少次灾难？
Football stadiums collapse, young motorbikers kill each other at the 24-hour race in Le Mans, and here I am with the children and you.
足球场倒塌，年轻的摩托车手在勒芒 24 小时耐力赛中互相残杀，而我和孩子们以及你们在一起。
And I tug at my net, which has plunged so deep in the water.
我用力拉我的网，它已经深深地扎进水里了。
Last week, I spent a long time looking at a car exactly like the one in which my daughters fell asleep, from which they were thrown, in which, leaving their parents to go to their grandparents, they left Paris never to return.
上周，我花了很长时间看着一辆和我女儿们睡着的那辆车一模一样的车，她们被从车里扔了出去，离开了父母，去了祖父母身边，离开了巴黎，再也没有回来。
I was there looking at the back seat, the seat belts that we had not done up, the right-hand window out of which they would have both been thrown.
我在那里看着后座，我们没有系好安全带，还有右边的窗户，他们俩都会被扔出窗外。
The letters on the number plate confirmed that this Renault 5 was from the same year as my sister-in-law's.
车牌上的字母证实了这辆雷诺5与我嫂子的是同一年的。
They're still on the road, those cars.
那些汽车仍然在路上。
When there are none left, I will no longer be able to ask questions of them.
当没有剩下的时候，我就不能再问他们问题了。
Someone will have to keep one somewhere for me.
必须有人在某个地方为我保留一个。
After the impact, when my sister-in-law managed to bring her car to a halt, she and her husband turned with relief to smile at the children, but only their baby was there, sitting in her little seat, stupefied with some fragments of glass spread over her.
撞击发生后，当我的嫂子设法把车停下来时，她和她的丈夫松了口气，转过身来对孩子们微笑，但只有他们的孩子在那里，坐在她的小座位上，被一些玻璃碎片覆盖在她的身上，惊呆了。
Have I already told you that?
我已经告诉过你了吗？
I tell it to myself so many times.
我对自己说过很多次。
When I was near that Renault 5 the other day, I wanted to lie down on the rear seat and wait for the end of time.
那天，当我靠近那辆雷诺5时，我想躺在后座上，等待时间的结束。
In short, back to square one.
简而言之，回到第一个方面。
I have some work to hand in, a lot, but nothing will get done until I've written to you.
我有很多工作要交，但除非我写信给你，否则什么也做不了。
At first it was the other way around.
起初情况恰恰相反。
Everything came before writing these letters.
一切都在写这些信之前发生。
I used to tell myself, why suffer?
我曾经告诉自己，为什么要受苦？
What's the point of this artificial rendezvous with these long-lost children?
与这些失散多年的孩子们进行人工会合有何意义？
I always had something happier to do.
我总是有更快乐的事情去做。
Now, even as I get up, I am carried by the things I want to write to you.
现在，即使我起床，我仍被我想写给你的事情所困扰。
I should have gone to see in that room in the hospital where they put my daughters.
我应该去医院里安置我女儿的那个房间看看。
I knew as soon as they suggested it to me.
他们一向我建议我就知道了。
I knew that by refusing I was setting a precedent for a future of weakness because I was not worthy of-- I do not know what, just not worthy.
我知道，通过拒绝，我为未来的软弱开了一个先例，因为我不值得——我不知道是什么，只是不值得。
So I did not go to see them dead.
所以我没有去看他们死。
They were there, and Mummy did not come.
他们在那里，妈妈却没有来。
They were only one or two rooms away.
他们之间只有一两个房间的距离。
They remained alone.
他们仍然孤身一人。
Mummy did not cross the doorway.
妈妈没有跨过门口。
I know nothing of their faces as they were at the end.
我对他们最后的表情一无所知。
They had the strength to die, and I could not match their strength.
他们有求死的力量，而我却敌不过他们的力量。
I know nothing of their last great achievement.
我对他们最后的伟大成就一无所知。
Wherever they went, they went alone, together or apart.
无论他们去哪里，他们都是独自一人，或一起或分开。
And I'm inclined to believe it was apart.
我倾向于相信它是分开的。
Ignorant of their own heroism, they went to the places dictated by their violent trajectory at more than 100 kilometers per hour over the safety barrier.
他们不知道自己的英雄主义，以每小时100多公里的速度越过安全屏障，前往暴力轨迹所规定的地方。
I stayed on my chair like a lump.
我像个肿块一样坐在椅子上。
And since then, people have not stopped congratulating me for my courage as a mother, to such an extent that many friends, including you, hesitated before talking to us about the difficulties and hardships they were facing.
从那时起，人们就没有停止过对我作为一个母亲的勇气的祝贺，以至于包括你在内的很多朋友在向我们讲述他们所面临的困难和磨难之前都犹豫不决。
They did not seem worthy in comparison.
相比之下，他们似乎不值得。
Laurent and I sat enthroned on a pedestal, hoisted there by the annihilation of our two little girls.
劳伦特和我坐在一个基座上，我们的两个小女孩被消灭了，基座被升起。
But we still knew what real life was, like a weather map of constantly changing skies, and we needed people to tell us about it, because the air was thin for our two statues.
但我们仍然知道现实生活是什么，就像一张不断变化的天空的天气图，我们需要人们告诉我们，因为对于我们的两座雕像来说，空气很稀薄。
The only stance that I battle against is to threaten suicide, to keep those around you on tenterhooks because you claim you're going to die.
我唯一反对的立场是威胁自杀，让你周围的人因为你声称你会死而提心吊胆。
Watch out, I'm going to kill myself.
小心点，我要自杀了。
My goodness, the living can make a fuss with their moods, and their other half running all over the place trying to stop them.
我的天啊，活着的人都可以闹情绪，而另一半却满地跑去阻止。
I'm going to kill myself, watch out, watch out.
我要自杀了，小心，小心。
Oh no, that is not how you do it.
哦，不，你不是这样做的。
I will explain to these maniacs how Mathilde and Elise managed to die.
我将向这些疯子解释玛蒂尔德和埃莉斯是如何死的。
If I can, that is, because they did the whole thing by themselves.
如果可以的话，那是因为他们自己完成了整件事。
And when the adults came to their senses and began to realize that they were no longer in the car, not even under the front seats, where they looked once they realized the rear seat was empty, when they had to resign themselves to getting out of the car to look for them-- they had to be found wherever they might be.
当大人们醒悟过来，开始意识到他们已经不在车里了，甚至不在前排座位下面，当他们意识到后座是空的时候，他们就不得不下车去找他们——无论他们在哪里，都必须被发现。
When it was done, and they had been found dozens of meters from the car and dozens of meters apart, they had actually already gone without a word to a place that no man can see.
等完事后，发现他们距离车子几十米，相距几十米，其实已经二话不说，走到了一个无人能见的地方。
All of this brings me back to that moment of weakness on my chair when-- even though two children, my two children, two very young children, had known how to die and were waiting to be presented to me one last time in their truthfulness-- I had not even gone those few meters along the corridor that separated them from me.
所有这一切都让我想起坐在椅子上的那一刻的虚弱——尽管两个孩子，我的两个孩子，两个非常年幼的孩子，已经知道如何死亡，并等待着最后一次诚实地出现在我面前——我什至没有沿着将他们和我分开的走廊走那几米。
They had known how to die.
他们知道如何死。
I no longer knew how to walk.
我不再知道如何走路。
There has been nothing glorious about the way I live my life.
我的生活方式没有什么光荣的。
I love the living in all their miasma.
我爱那些充满瘴气的生命。
I love the dead for their temerity.
我爱死者，因为他们的鲁莽。
There is nothing in between.
两者之间没有什么。
Our children now, Elvire and Gauthier, have asked us 100 times whether they would have been born if their sisters had not died.
现在，我们的孩子埃尔维尔和戈蒂尔已经问我们一百次了，如果他们的姐妹没有死的话，他们是否会出生。
I really hope so, but I just can not say.
我真的希望如此，但我就是不能说。
The girls' death allowed me to be pregnant again, which I wanted anyway, to have other children, which I wanted anyway.
女孩们的死让我再次怀孕，这也是我想要的，也让我能够生下其他孩子，这也是我想要的。
Even so, at the square with the children, I was not like other mothers, sitting on the bench or on the side of the sand pit.
即便如此，在广场上带着孩子们，我并没有像其他妈妈一样，坐在长凳上，或者坐在沙坑边上。
I would watch my Elvire making mud pies, and I would let Gauthier suck on his biscuit.
我会看着我的埃尔维做泥馅饼，我会让高蒂尔吮吸他的饼干。
If another woman wanted to talk to me, I had only two options: a bright facade, which devastated me.
如果另一个女人想和我说话，我只有两个选择：光明正大的外表，这让我心碎。
"Yes, mine's already three and 1/2, but she's still frightened of the slide.
“是的，我的已经三又1/2了，但她仍然害怕滑梯。
I can't believe your little scrap.
我简直不敢相信你的小废话。
He's so brave up at the top of the ladder." Or a truth that was socially unacceptable.
他在梯子的顶端非常勇敢。”或者是社会不可接受的事实。
"These are my younger two children.
“这是我年幼的两个孩子。
The elder ones died four years ago."
老人们四年前就去世了。”
I would always be out of place.
我总是格格不入。
The working class, immigrants, the self-taught cranks, the handicapped, the unemployed, and grieving parents are more alike than people think.
工人阶级、移民、自学成才的怪人、残疾人、失业者和悲伤的父母比人们想象的更加相似。
They have at least one thing in common.
他们至少有一个共同点。
They have to make herculean efforts to hold a normal, banal, bouncy conversation.
他们必须付出巨大的努力才能进行正常的、平庸的、充满活力的谈话。
They can think of only one thing, the moment when they might introduce a sentence about their misfortune.
他们只能想到一件事，那就是他们可以对自己的不幸发表一句话的那一刻。
13 years have passed, and I still cannot last half a day without evoking my daughters.
13年过去了，我仍然不能半天不想起我的女儿们。
Elvire has received a postcard from a friend announcing the death of a classmate.
埃尔维尔收到了一位朋友寄来的明信片，宣布了一位同学的去世。
I was having a siesta.
我正在午睡。
In my drowsy state I could hear the voice of my 12-year-old daughter talking to her father, respecting her mother's sleep.
在我昏昏欲睡的状态下，我能听到我 12 岁的女儿和她父亲说话的声音，尊重她母亲的睡眠。
I'm going to have to tell Gauthier, aren't I?
我得告诉戈蒂尔，不是吗？
He was playing with his cousin.
他正在和他的表弟一起玩。
Gauthier does not want to hear about anything to do with death.
高蒂尔不想听到任何与死亡有关的事情。
So when Elvire told him, he hid his feelings and hardly broke off from his game.
因此，当埃尔维尔告诉他时，他隐藏了自己的感受，几乎没有停止游戏。
And Elvire was left alone with this news, which she had just learned from one of those holiday cards that should never give you that sort of news.
埃尔维尔独自一人得知了这个消息，她刚刚从一张永远不应该给你带来这种消息的节日贺卡上得知这一消息。
What's going on, I asked, pretending to have heard nothing and feeling sure that Elvire would want to tell me everything herself.
“发生了什么事？”我假装什么也没听到，并确信埃尔维尔会亲自告诉我一切。
She joined me on the bed, buried herself against me, sighed, and then cried.
她和我一起躺在床上，埋在我身上，叹了口气，然后哭了。
She had been telling me about this friend's illness since the beginning of the school year.
从学年开始，她就一直告诉我这位朋友的病情。
I knew that Lauren came to school sporadically, that she had changed physically, that her mother, who was always cheerful, came to pick her up from school with her two younger children, asking her whether she had forgotten anything in her locker as you would to a child who still has 10 or 15 years of school ahead of them.
我知道劳伦偶尔会来学校，她的身体发生了变化，她的母亲总是很高兴，带着两个年幼的孩子来接她放学，问她是否在储物柜里忘记了什么，就像对待一个还有 10 或 15 年学业的孩子一样。
Then that was it.
然后就这样了。
Lauren sank into a coma.
劳伦陷入昏迷。
Elvire had told me about that too.
埃尔维尔也告诉过我这件事。
But now, as she cried, she realized she had never imagined that Lauren would actually die.
但现在，当她哭泣时，她意识到她从未想过劳伦真的会死。
And this death, this end to everything, this earthly truth which meant that the child who had been told not to forget anything in her locker would not begin the next academic year in three weeks time, this was so harsh and so invincible that Elvire had only her tears to link the two realities, that of a life, yesterday, which was complete even in a state of coma and death, which was eternal right from the first moment.
而这个死亡，这个一切的终结，这个尘世的真理，意味着那个被告知不要忘记储物柜里任何东西的孩子将不会在三周后开始下一个学年，这是如此残酷，如此不可战胜，埃尔维尔只有她的眼泪将这两个现实联系起来，昨天的生命，即使在昏迷和死亡的状态下也是完整的，从一开始就是永恒的。
Now, even as she struggled with the sharp pain, she already knew that soon, very soon, this pain would soften.
现在，尽管她在剧烈的疼痛中挣扎，但她已经知道，很快，很快，这种疼痛就会减轻。
And despite her sobs, her shuddering little frame, her puffy red face, she was already missing the purity of this revolt before it had even begun to fade.
尽管她抽泣着，她那颤抖的小身躯，她浮肿的红脸，但她在这种反抗开始消退之前就已经怀念它的纯粹性了。
And she refused to accept that this sorrow would become integrated into her life.
她拒绝接受这种悲伤会融入她的生活。
When I tell my children about this one day, they won't understand how horrible it was, she told me.
她告诉我，当有一天我告诉我的孩子们这件事时，他们不会明白这是多么可怕。
And then, maybe even tomorrow there will already be moments when I don't think about it.
然后，也许明天就已经有我不去想它的时刻了。
This idea redoubled her anger.
这个念头让她更加愤怒。
Far from hoping to suffer less, she never wanted the freshness of the pain to deaden.
她绝不是希望少受点苦，而是从来不希望新鲜的痛苦消失。
This was the only acceptable response to a disappearance that every part of her refused to accept.
这是对她的每一部分都拒绝接受的失踪的唯一可接受的反应。
As I listened to her, I loved her for having already understood everything.
当我听她说话时，我爱她，因为她已经明白了一切。
And I thought of these letters, in which, so many years later, I try to discover exactly what has become of all those feelings.
我想起了这些信，多年后，我在信中试图弄清楚所有这些感受到底变成了什么样子。
Genevieve Jurgensen's book is called The Disappearance.
吉纳维芙·尤尔根森的书名叫《失踪》。
It's published by Norton.
它由诺顿出版。
Excerpts were read by actress Felicity Jones.
Excerpts were read by actress Felicity Jones.
Coming up, more people trying to make sense of the senseless, including a story by David Sedaris.
接下来，会有更多人试图理解那些毫无意义的事情，其中包括大卫·塞达里斯 (David Sedaris) 的故事。
In a minute, from Public Radio International, when our program continues.
稍后，国际公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
We have arrived at Act Two of our program.
我们已经进入了计划的第二幕。
Act Two, Look for the Union Label.
第二步，寻找联盟标签。
In this act, two people, father and daughter-- we'll hear from them both-- start to compose a story about death before anybody has died.
在这一幕中，父亲和女儿两个人——我们将听到他们俩的消息——在任何人去世之前开始谱写一个关于死亡的故事。
Well, it simply began by sitting in the kitchen of my home, reading the Boston Globe.
嗯，一切都是从坐在我家的厨房里阅读《波士顿环球报》开始的。
And I looked out on a beautiful fall day, looking out at a maple tree in front of my yard, and suddenly it occurred to me that I should write my obituary, or begin working on it.
在一个美丽的秋日，我望着窗外院子前的一棵枫树，突然我想到我应该写我的讣告，或者开始写它。
No special reason.
没有什么特别的原因。
It must have been probably over the Christmas holidays, probably last year.
大概是在圣诞节假期期间，大概是去年。
And you were visiting your parents' house?
你去你父母家拜访了吗？
My parents.
我的父母。
Around that time.
大约在那个时候。
And I was on the telephone.
And I was on the telephone.
And I was just looking for a pad of paper to write something down.
我只是想找一张纸来写下一些东西。
And I just noticed on a yellow legal pad that my father had started writing his obituary.
我刚刚注意到在黄色便笺簿上我父亲已经开始写他的讣告了。
But it wasn't labeled obituary at the time?
But it wasn't labeled obituary at the time?
No. No. It just said born in 1917 to Albany.
No. No. It just said born in 1917 to Albany.
And it just was incredibly straightforward and standard.
而且它非常简单和标准。
And I just couldn't believe it.
我简直不敢相信。
I didn't actually have an emotional response to the obituary part at all.
事实上，我对讣告部分根本没有任何情感反应。
I was just sort of-- I guess I was amused in a way, because he is such an interesting person.
我只是——我想我在某种程度上被逗乐了，因为他是一个非常有趣的人。
And the writing was just sort of the most basic details about his family.
书中写的只是有关他家庭的最基本的细节。
And it didn't really say anything about him.
而且它并没有真正说任何关于他的事情。
In other words, he's a more interesting person than the writing, itself.
换句话说，他是一个比写作本身更有趣的人。
Right.
正确的。
And I don't know.
我不知道。
And I didn't really process the thought.
我并没有真正处理这个想法。
I just went straight to him.
I just went straight to him.
And I said, Dad, my god, this is so boring.
And I said, Dad, my god, this is so boring.
I said, you've lived a much more interesting life than this.
我说，你的生活比这有趣多了。
And he said, well, then help me write it.
他说，好吧，那就帮我写吧。
You're a writer.
你是一名作家。
Help me write it.
帮我写一下。
And all he knew was what the headline should be.
他只知道标题应该是什么。
That was sort of the one very clear thing that he knew.
这是他所知道的一件非常清楚的事情。
The headline should be-- I'm named after him.
The headline should be-- I'm named after him.
And it should say Adrian LeBlanc, comma, Product of the Working Class.
它应该说阿德里安·勒布朗（Adrian LeBlanc），逗号，“工人阶级的产物”。
That was what he saw.
这就是他所看到的。
Well, to me, that's very important, because when I say the working class, I'm talking about workers.
嗯，对我来说，这非常重要，因为当我说工人阶级时，我指的是工人。
Throughout my history, from the first factory job, first learning what a union was, and then being a committee man and president of local unions wherever I worked.
在我的整个经历中，从第一份工厂工作，首先了解什么是工会，然后成为我工作的地方工会的委员会成员和主席。
And from there on, I gravitated toward becoming a full-time field representative.
从那时起，我就倾向于成为一名全职现场代表。
I tend to take positions, you know?
我倾向于采取立场，你知道吗？
I do this every day of my life.
I do this every day of my life.
And I think that the obituary was like saying there are still union guys around.
我认为讣告就像是说周围仍然有工会成员。
You follow?
你跟着吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Adrian L.
阿德里安·L。
Leblanc I don't know if that's clear.
勒布朗 我不知道这是否清楚。
But that was pretty much it, just like saying, look, 82 years later, from 16 to 82, there are still guys who are making a pitch.
但差不多就是这样了，就像说，看，82 年后，从 16 岁到 82 岁，仍然有人在投球。
And so we sit down.
于是我们坐下来。
I'm pretty sure that first day we sat down.
I'm pretty sure that first day we sat down.
I opened my portable computer, and I said OK.
I opened my portable computer, and I said OK.
And he said, so how do we do this?
And he said, so how do we do this?
What do we do?
我们该怎么办？
And I said, well, I just need you to tell me about your life.
我说，好吧，我只需要你告诉我你的生活。
I've actually tried to do this with my dad before, not in the context of the obituary but in those moments where I felt, oh, I need to learn about my family history.
事实上，我以前曾尝试过和我父亲一起这样做，不是在讣告的背景下，而是在那些我觉得，哦，我需要了解我的家族史的时刻。
But he was not very responsive.
但他的反应不是很灵敏。
He would be very vague.
他会说得很含糊。
But for some reason, when he was thinking of his life in terms of an obituary, a lot of details came out that I don't feel I could've-- well, I wasn't able to get when I was trying to just have straight conversations with him about his biography, daughter to father.
但出于某种原因，当他从讣告的角度思考自己的生活时，很多细节出现了，我觉得我无法——好吧，当我试图与他就他的传记（从女儿到父亲）进行直接对话时，我无法理解。
I was wondering if it was an enjoyable process for you, talking to your daughter.
我想知道与您女儿交谈对您来说是否是一个愉快的过程。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
She's got a-- I find her to be a searcher and a prober with good instincts, and caring.
我发现她是一位具有良好直觉和关怀的探索者和探索者。
So I don't know.
所以我不知道。
It was just interesting, and it came very easily.
这很有趣，而且来得很容易。
I learned so much about him.
我对他了解很多。
Since it was an obituary you were writing, did the two of you talk about his death?
既然是写讣告，你们两个有没有谈论过他的死？
No. That's something that I think is-- I don't know.
不，我认为这是——我不知道。
It's funny.
很有趣。
In preparing for this, several of my friends were asking me about it.
在准备这件事的过程中，我的几个朋友向我询问了这件事。
And it just sort of shocked me a little bit that they were thinking about it in that way.
他们以这种方式思考这件事，这让我有点震惊。
And then, of course, I realized it is an obituary.
然后，当然，我意识到这是一篇讣告。
I wonder if he understands it more the other way, that as far as he's concerned, it really is about his death.
我不知道他是否有更多的另一种理解，即对他而言，这确实是关于他的死。
I think he must.
我认为他必须如此。
And I think over the years he's known how anxious my brother and I have been about him dying.
我想多年来他知道我和我的兄弟对他的死亡有多焦虑。
So I think he often tries, in his way, to help us cope with it.
所以我认为他经常尝试以他的方式帮助我们应对这个问题。
He doesn't seem sort of nervous or frightened.
他看起来并不紧张或害怕。
So I don't know.
所以我不知道。
When I go to visit, I find leaving my parents sometimes quite difficult, because they are older.
当我去看望父母时，我发现有时很难离开父母，因为他们年纪大了。
And I'm very busy.
而且我很忙。
And I don't get back as often as I'd like to.
And I don't get back as often as I'd like to.
And I think he knows how hard it is for me to say goodbye.
我想他知道我说再见有多难。
And he'll say, I'm always with you.
他会说，我永远和你在一起。
And I'll always be with you.
And I'll always be with you.
That kind of thing.
那种事。
I wonder if this whole process, you think you're doing it for him in a way, but maybe it's for you.
我想知道这整个过程，你是否认为你在某种程度上是为了他，但也许是为了你自己。
He's doing this all for you.
He's doing this all for you.
I believe that's very possible.
我相信这是很有可能的。
I think that's very possible, which is probably why he was a good union organizer.
我认为这很有可能，这可能就是为什么他是一名优秀的工会组织者。
Because I'm feeling like I'm helping him do something.
因为我觉得我正在帮助他做某事。
He was good at what he did.
他很擅长他所做的事情。
Is one of the reasons that you've agreed to talk to your daughter about the obituary, and work with her on the obituary, is to help her prepare for the thought that you might die?
您同意与女儿谈论讣告并与她一起撰写讣告的原因之一是帮助她为您可能会死的想法做好准备吗？
It could be.
可能是。
I haven't stayed with that thought.
I haven't stayed with that thought.
But it could very well be, Ira.
但很可能是这样，艾拉。
Maybe you're clueing in.
也许你正在寻找线索。
I think that thought has crossed my mind, but I haven't stayed with it.
我想这个想法已经闪过我的脑海，但我并没有坚持下去。
I haven't stayed.
我没有留下来。
But you could be partially right.
但你可能是部分正确的。
Is there a way to ever-- I'm not sure I would want it to be easier.
有没有办法——我不确定我是否希望它变得更容易。
But I wonder if it's possible.
但我想知道这是否可能。
Is it possible to even know what that could be like?
有可能知道那会是什么样子吗？
You're saying that no matter how we try to prepare for the death of somebody so close to us, there really is nothing we can do.
你是说，无论我们如何努力为我们如此亲近的人的死亡做好准备，我们都无能为力。
We can think about it all we want.
我们可以随心所欲地思考。
Yeah, I definitely feel that with it.
是的，我确实有这样的感觉。
I mean, because obviously I've been working on an obituary, not really thinking at all about my father dying, not thinking that it's about death, just thinking that it's about talking to my father, and that I have all the time to sort of figure this out.
我的意思是，因为显然我一直在写讣告，根本没有真正考虑过我父亲的去世，没有想到这是关于死亡的，只是认为这是关于和我父亲交谈的，而且我一直有时间来解决这个问题。
I don't know.
我不知道。
It's part of my relationship with him will be what happens when it's over, when he's physically gone.
这是我和他关系的一部分，当一切结束、当他离开时会发生什么。
I mean, my brother-in-law passed away.
I mean, my brother-in-law passed away.
And he was quite sick before he died.
而且他死前病得很重。
And he was in a coma right up to the moment that he actually did die.
他一直处于昏迷状态，直到他真正死亡的那一刻。
And there was such a vast difference between him.
而他之间，却有着如此巨大的差距。
Even though he wasn't available as the person we'd known, his physical life was so immense.
尽管他不再是我们认识的那个人，但他的物质生活却如此丰富。
And when it was gone, the loss of it was just huge.
而当它消失时，它的损失是巨大的。
It was huge, and it happened in just a minute.
这是巨大的，而且只发生在一分钟之内。
And I just was so shocked by that, because I was so ready for him to die.
我对此感到非常震惊，因为我已经做好了让他死去的准备。
We knew that he was going to die.
我们知道他快要死了。
He wasn't really with us anymore.
他已经不再真正和我们在一起了。
And I was glad that I was able to at least understand how little I actually knew about it.
我很高兴我至少能够了解我实际上对它知之甚少。
So how far are the two of you on the obit?
那么你们两个在讣告上还有多远呢？
Have you finished it?
你完成了吗？
No. No, I haven't actually-- I can't figure out how to write it except in the past tense.
不，不，我实际上没有——除了过去时之外，我不知道如何写它。
And it just seems completely bizarre to speak of him in that way.
以这种方式谈论他似乎很奇怪。
So I understand she hasn't finished writing it.
所以我知道她还没有写完。
Do you feel like she's taking too long getting this done?
你是否觉得她花了太长时间才完成这件事？
Yeah.
是的。
Adrian L.
阿德里安·L。
Leblanc No, I didn't feel there was any-- there's no great rush that I know of.
勒布朗：不，我没觉得有什么——据我所知，没有什么急事。
Do you have a feeling there should be a timetable?
您觉得应该有一个时间表吗？
No, I don't.
不，我不。
Adrian L.
阿德里安·L。
Leblanc Are you rushing the process, Ira?
勒布朗 你是不是太着急了，艾拉？
That's not very--
这不太——
No. No, I have no intention to rush the process.
不，不，我无意加速这个过程。
I'm not going anywhere.
我哪儿也不去。
I'm still bowling on Fridays with the senior citizens.
每周五我仍然和老年人一起打保龄球。
Adrian LeBlanc and his daughter, also named Adrian LeBlanc.
阿德里安·勒布朗和他的女儿，也叫阿德里安·勒布朗。
[MUSIC - "THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME" BY BILLIE HOLLIDAY]
[音乐 - BILLIE HOLLIDAY 的“他们不能把它从我身边夺走”]
When somebody dies we can be haunted by the thought of them.
当有人去世时，我们可能会被对他们的思念所困扰。
And we can also be haunted by the way that we acted ourselves toward them.
我们对待他们的方式也会困扰我们。
This next story is a story of both kinds of haunting.
下一个故事是关于两种困扰的故事。
Several years ago, three weeks before his sister Lisa's wedding, David Sedaris got a phone call from his mom, back home in Raleigh, North Carolina.
几年前，在他妹妹丽莎婚礼前三周，大卫·塞达里斯接到了他妈妈在北卡罗来纳州罗利家中打来的电话。
She had lung cancer.
她患有肺癌。
She was a lifelong, unrepentant smoker.
她是一个终生不悔的烟民。
My sister Amy was with me when my mother called.
当我妈妈打电话时，我姐姐艾米和我在一起。
We passed the phone back and forth across my tiny New York kitchen, and then spent the rest of the evening lying in bed, trying to convince each other that our mother would get better, but never quite believing it.
我们在纽约的小厨房里来回传递电话，然后整个晚上都躺在床上，试图让对方相信我们的母亲会好起来，但从未完全相信这一点。
I had heard of people who had survived cancer, but most of them claimed to get through it with the aid of whole grains and spiritual publications that encouraged them to sit quietly in a lotus position.
我听说过有人从癌症中幸存下来，但他们中的大多数人声称在全谷物和鼓励他们安静地盘腿坐的精神出版物的帮助下度过了难关。
They envisioned their tumors and tried to reason with them.
他们想象了自己的肿瘤并试图与它们推理。
Our mother was not the type to greet the dawn or cook with oats and barley.
我们的母亲不是那种迎接黎明或用燕麦和大麦做饭的人。
She didn't reason, she threatened.
她没有推理，而是威胁。
And if that didn't work, she chose to ignore the problem.
如果这不起作用，她选择忽略这个问题。
We couldn't picture her joining a support group or trotting through the mall in a warm-up suit.
我们无法想象她会加入互助小组或穿着热身服在商场里小跑。
62 years old, and none of us had ever seen her in a pair of slacks.
62岁了，我们都没见过她穿休闲裤。
I'm not certain why, but it seemed to me that a person needed a pair of pants in order to defeat cancer.
我不确定为什么，但在我看来，一个人需要一条裤子才能战胜癌症。
Just as important, they needed a plan.
同样重要的是，他们需要一个计划。
They needed to accept the idea of a new and different future free of crowded ashtrays and five-gallon jugs of wine and Scotch.
他们需要接受一个新的、不同的未来的想法，没有拥挤的烟灰缸和五加仑的葡萄酒和苏格兰威士忌。
They needed to believe that such a life might be worth living.
他们需要相信这样的生活可能是值得的。
I didn't know that I'd be able to embrace such an unrewarding future, but I hoped that she could.
我不知道我能拥抱这样一个没有回报的未来，但我希望她能。
If she'd had it her way, we would have never known about the cancer.
如果她按照自己的方式行事，我们就永远不会知道癌症的事。
It was our father's idea to tell us, and she had fought it, agreeing only when he threatened to tell us himself.
告诉我们是我们父亲的主意，但她一直反对，直到他威胁要亲自告诉我们时才同意。
Our mother worried that once we found out, we would treat her differently, delicately.
我们的母亲担心一旦我们发现了，我们就会以不同的方式对待她，小心翼翼地对待她。
We might feel obliged to compliment her cooking and laugh at all of her jokes, thinking always of the tumor she was trying so hard to forget.
我们可能会觉得有必要称赞她的厨艺，并嘲笑她所有的笑话，总是想着她极力想要忘记的肿瘤。
And that is exactly what we did.
这正是我们所做的。
The knowledge of her illness forced everything into the spotlight and demanded that it be memorable.
对她患病的了解迫使一切都成为人们关注的焦点，并要求它令人难忘。
We were no longer calling our mother.
我们不再打电话给我们的母亲。
Now we were picking up the telephone to call our mother with cancer.
现在我们拿起电话给患有癌症的母亲打电话。
We realized that any conversation might be our last, and because of that, we wanted to say something important.
我们意识到任何谈话都可能是我们的最后一次，因此，我们想说一些重要的事情。
But what could one say that hadn't already been printed on millions of greeting cards and helium balloons?
但我们还能说什么呢？还没有被印在数百万张贺卡和氦气球上呢？
I love you, I said at the end of one of our late night phone calls.
我爱你，我在一次深夜通话结束时说道。
I am going to pretend that I didn't hear that, she said.
“我会假装没有听到，”她说。
I heard a match strike in the background, the tinkling of ice cubes in a raised glass, and then she hung up.
我听到背景中划过一根火柴，还有升起的玻璃杯中冰块的叮当声，然后她挂断了电话。
I had never said such a thing to my mother.
我从来没有对妈妈说过这样的话。
And if I had it to do over again, I would probably take it back.
如果我能重来一次，我可能会收回它。
It was queer to say such a thing to someone unless you were trying to talk them out of money or into bed.
对某人说这样的话是很奇怪的，除非你试图说服他们要钱或上床。
Our mother had taught us this when we were no taller than pony kegs.
当我们还没有小马桶高的时候，我们的母亲就教了我们这一点。
I had known people who said such things to their parents.
我认识一些对父母说过这样的话的人。
"I love you." But it always translated to mean, I'd love getting off the phone with you.
“我爱你。”但它总是翻译成意思是，我很乐意和你挂断电话。
We gathered together for the wedding, which took place on a crisp, clear October afternoon.
我们聚在一起参加婚礼，婚礼在十月一个清爽、晴朗的下午举行。
I took my mother's arm and led her to a bench beyond the range of the other guests.
我拉着母亲的手臂，把她带到其他客人无法触及的长凳上。
The thin mountain air made it difficult for her to breathe, and she moved slowly, pausing every few moments.
山间的空气稀薄，让她呼吸困难，她的动作很慢，每隔一会儿就会停下来。
The families had taken a walk to a nearby glen, and we sat in the shade, eating sausage biscuits and speaking to one another like well-mannered strangers.
一家人散步到附近的一个峡谷，我们坐在阴凉处，吃着香肠饼干，像礼貌的陌生人一样互相交谈。
The sausage is good, she said.
她说，香肠很好吃。
It's flavorful, but not too greasy.
味道鲜美，但又不会太油腻。
Not too greasy at all.
一点也不油腻。
Still though, it isn't dry.
尽管如此，它还不干燥。
Neither are the biscuits, she said.
她说，饼干也不是。
They're light and crisp, very buttery.
它们又轻又脆，非常黄油。
Very.
非常。
These are some very buttery biscuits.
这些是一些非常黄油的饼干。
They're flaky, but not too flaky.
它们是片状的，但不是太片状。
Not too flaky at all, she said.
一点也不脆弱，她说。
We watched the path, awkwardly waiting for someone to release us from the torture of our stiff and meaningless conversation.
我们注视着小路，尴尬地等待有人将我们从僵硬而毫无意义的谈话的折磨中释放出来。
I had always been afraid of sick people, and so had my mother.
我一直害怕生病的人，我母亲也是如此。
I think it was their fortitude that frightened us.
我认为正是他们的毅力让我们感到害怕。
Sick people reminded us not of what we had but of what we lacked.
病人提醒我们的不是我们拥有什么，而是我们缺乏什么。
Everything we said sounded petty and insignificant.
我们所说的一切听起来都很琐碎、微不足道。
Our complaints paled in the face of theirs.
我们的抱怨在他们面前显得苍白无力。
And without our complaints there was nothing to say.
没有我们的抱怨就没有什么可说的。
My mother and I had been fine over the telephone.
我和妈妈在电话里聊得很好。
But now, face to face, the rules had changed.
但现在，面对面，规则发生了变化。
If she were to complain, she risked being seen as a sick complainer, the worst kind of all.
如果她要抱怨，她就有可能被视为病态的抱怨者，这是最糟糕的一种。
If I were to do it, I might come off sounding even more selfish than I actually was.
如果我这样做，我可能会显得比实际上更自私。
This sudden turn of events had robbed us of our common language, leaving us to exchange the same innocuous pleasantries we'd always made fun of.
这突如其来的变故剥夺了我们的共同语言，让我们只能交换那些我们一直取笑的无伤大雅的寒暄。
I wanted to stop it, and so, I think, did she.
我想阻止它，我想她也是如此。
But neither of us knew how.
但我们都不知道怎么做。
After the gifts had been opened, we returned to our rooms at the Econo Lodge, the reservations having been made by my father.
礼物打开后，我们回到了伊克诺旅馆的房间，这是我父亲预订的。
We looked out the windows past the freeway and into the distance, squinting at the charming hotels huddled at the base of other finer mountains.
我们向窗外望去，越过高速公路，眺望远方，眯着眼睛看着挤在其他美丽山脚下的迷人酒店。
This would be the last time our family was all together.
这将是我们一家人最后一次在一起。
It's so rare when one knowingly does something for the last time.
当一个人在知情的情况下最后一次做某事时，这是非常罕见的。
The last time you take a bath.
上次洗澡的时候。
The last time you have sex or trim your toenails.
上次做爱或修剪脚趾甲时。
If you knew you'd never do it again, it might be nice to really make a show of it.
如果你知道你永远不会再这样做，那么真正表现出来可能会很好。
This would be it as far as my family was concerned.
就我的家人而言，就是这样。
And it ticked me off that our final meeting would take place in such a sorry excuse for a hotel.
我们的最后一次会面竟然以如此糟糕的借口在酒店举行，这让我很生气。
What more do you want out of a hotel, he shouted, stepping out onto the patio in his underpants.
“你还想从酒店得到什么？”他喊道，穿着内裤走到露台上。
It's clean.
很干净。
They've got a couple of snack machines in the lobby.
大堂里有几台小吃机。
The TVs work, and it's near the interstate.
电视可以用，而且靠近州际公路。
Who cares if you don't like the damn wallpaper?
谁在乎你是否不喜欢那该死的壁纸？
You know what your problem is, don't you?
你知道你的问题是什么，不是吗？
We're spoiled, we shouted in unison.
我们被宠坏了，我们异口同声地喊道。
My parents retired to their room, and the rest of us hiked to a nearby cemetery, a once ideal spot that now afforded an excellent view of the newly-built Pizza Hut.
我的父母回到了他们的房间，我们其余的人徒步去了附近的一个墓地，那里曾经是理想的地点，现在可以欣赏到新建的必胜客的美景。
Over the years, our mother had repeatedly voiced her desire to be cremated.
多年来，母亲曾多次表达过要火化的愿望。
We would drive past a small forest fire or observe the pillars of smoke rising from a neighbor's chimney, and she would crush her cigarette, saying, that's what I want right there.
我们会开车经过一场小森林大火，或者观察邻居烟囱升起的烟柱，她会捏碎香烟，说，这就是我想要的。
Do whatever you like with the remains.
对遗骸做任何你想做的事。
Sprinkle them into the ashtrays of a fine hotel.
将它们撒入高级酒店的烟灰缸中。
Give them to smart-ass children for Christmas.
圣诞节时把它们送给聪明的孩子们。
Hand them over to the Catholics to rub into their foreheads.
将它们交给天主教徒，让他们擦在额头上。
Just make sure I'm cremated.
只要确保我被火化就可以了。
Oh, Sharon, my father would groan.
哦，莎伦，我父亲会呻吟。
You don't know what you want.
你不知道自己想要什么。
He'd say it as though he, himself, had been cremated several times in the past, but had finally wised up and accepted burial as the only sensible option.
他说得好像他自己过去曾被火化过几次，但最终醒悟并接受土葬是唯一明智的选择。
We laid our Econo Lodge bedspreads over the dewy grass of the cemetery, smoking joints and trying to imagine a life without our mother.
我们把伊克诺旅馆的床罩铺在墓地沾满露水的草地上，抽着大麻烟，试图想象没有母亲的生活。
If there was a heaven, we probably shouldn't expect to find her there.
如果有天堂，我们也许就不会指望在那里找到她。
Neither did she deserve to roam the fiery tar pits of hell, surrounded for all eternity by the same [BLEEP] heads who brought us strip malls and theme restaurants.
她也不值得在地狱般的焦油坑中漫步，永远被那些给我们带来购物中心和主题餐厅的[BLEEP]头包围。
There must exist some middle ground, a place where one was tortured on a daily basis but still allowed a few moments of pleasure, taken wherever they could find it.
一定存在某种中间立场，一个人们每天都遭受折磨但仍然允许片刻快乐的地方，无论他们能找到什么。
That place seemed to be Raleigh, North Carolina, so why the big fuss?
那个地方似乎是北卡罗来纳州的罗利，那为什么要大惊小怪呢？
Why couldn't she just stay where she was and not have cancer?
为什么她不能留在原来的地方而不得癌症呢？
Ever since arriving at the motor lodge, we'd gone back and forth from one room to another, holding secret meetings and exchanging private bits of information.
自从到达汽车旅馆后，我们就从一个房间到另一个房间来回，举行秘密会议并交换私人信息。
We hoped that by preparing ourselves for the worst, we might be able to endure the inevitable with some degree of courage or grace.
我们希望，通过为最坏的情况做好准备，我们也许能够以某种程度的勇气或优雅来忍受不可避免的事情。
Anything we forecasted was puny compared to the future that awaited us.
与等待我们的未来相比，我们预测的任何事情都是微不足道的。
You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.
如果你从未了解过饥饿，你就无法为饥荒做好准备。
It is foolish even to try.
即使尝试也是愚蠢的。
The most you can do is eat up while you still can, stuffing yourself, shovelling it in with both hands and licking clean the plates, recalling every course in vivid detail.
你能做的最多就是趁还能吃的时候吃完，自己填饱肚子，用双手铲进去，把盘子舔干净，生动地回忆起每一道菜的细节。
Our mother was back in her room and very much alive, probably watching a detective program on television.
我们的母亲回到了她的房间，而且非常活跃，可能正在看电视上的侦探节目。
Maybe that was her light in the window, her figure stepping out into the patio to light a cigarette.
也许那是她窗外的灯光，她的身影走到露台上点烟。
We told ourselves she probably wanted to be left alone.
我们告诉自己她可能想一个人呆着。
That's how stoned we were.
我们就是这样被石头砸死的。
We'd think of this later, each in our own separate way.
我们稍后会以各自不同的方式考虑这个问题。
I, myself, tend to dwell on the stupidity of pacing a cemetery while she sat, frightened and alone, staring at the tip of her cigarette and envisioning herself, clearly now, in ashes.
我自己则倾向于在墓地里踱来踱去，而她则坐着，害怕而孤独，盯着香烟的尖端，想象着自己现在已经化为灰烬，这是多么愚蠢的事。
David Sedaris.
大卫·塞达里斯。
His story "Ashes" is in his book called Naked.
他的故事《灰烬》收录在他的书《裸体》中。
My god, this is so boring.
天哪，这太无聊了。
Ira Glass I'm Ira Glass.
艾拉·格拉斯 我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
下周我们将带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
I'm still bowling on Fridays with the senior citizens.
每周五我仍然和老年人一起打保龄球。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。