53: Valentine’s Day ‘97 - This American Life

53：97年情人节

53 · This American Life · 原文

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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 #53 | February 7, 1997 53: Valentine’s Day ‘97 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 53 集 | 1997 年 2 月 7 日 53：情人节 '97 注：《This American Life》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 story happens in a movie theater.

序言艾拉·格拉斯这个故事发生在一家电影院。

On screen, it's a Sunday afternoon, June 12, long ago.

屏幕上显示的是很久以前的 6 月 12 日，一个周日下午。

And my father is walking down the quiet streets of Brooklyn on his way to visit my mother.

我的父亲正沿着布鲁克林安静的街道走去拜访我的母亲。

His clothes are newly pressed.

他的衣服是新熨烫过的。

His tie is too tight in his high collar.

他的高领领带太紧了。

He jingles the coins in his pockets, thinking of the witty things he's going to say.

他把口袋里的硬币叮当作响，想着他要说的俏皮话。

He arrives at my mother's house.

他到达我母亲家。

He's come too early and so is suddenly embarrassed.

他来得太早了，所以突然感到尴尬。

My aunt, my mother's sister, answers the loud bell with her napkin in her hand, for the family's still at dinner.

我的姨妈，我母亲的妹妹，手里拿着餐巾来应响铃声，因为一家人还在吃晚饭。

As my father enters, my grandfather rises from the table and shakes hands with him.

当我父亲进来时，祖父从桌子上站起来并与他握手。

Finally, my mother comes downstairs, all dressed up.

终于，妈妈穿戴整齐下楼了。

And my father, being engaged in conversation with my grandfather, becomes uneasy, not knowing whether to greet my mother or continue the conversation.

而我的父亲正在和我的祖父交谈，他变得不安，不知道是该向我的母亲打招呼还是继续谈话。

He gets up from the chair clumsily and says hello gruffly.

他笨拙地从椅子上站起来，粗声粗气地打招呼。

Well, in 1937, the same year that Django Reinhardt recorded this song, this very song, Delmore Schwartz published this story, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." Its originality and its beauty, its stunning beauty, was immediately and widely recognized.

好吧，在 1937 年，也就是姜戈·莱因哈特 (Django Reinhardt) 录制这首歌的同一年，德尔莫·施瓦茨 (Delmore Schwartz) 发表了这个故事，《在梦中开始责任》(In Dreams Begin Responsibilities)。它的原创性和美丽，令人惊叹的美丽，立即得到了广泛的认可。

It was the lead story in the first issue of the influential magazine Partisan Review and we take it as the inspiration for our radio program today.

这是颇具影响力的杂志《党派评论》第一期的头条新闻，我们将其作为我们今天广播节目的灵感来源。

It's This American Life from WBEZ Chicago.

这就是 WBEZ 芝加哥的《美国生活》。

I'm Ira Glass.

我是艾拉·格拉斯。

And with Valentine's Day nearly upon us, we at This American Life , we wanted to do a show about romance.

随着情人节的临近，我们《This American Life》想要制作一部关于浪漫的节目。

And we figured with all the writing about love and romance and dating and the rules, there are really only two romances any of us really want to hear about, really.

我们认为，在所有关于爱情、浪漫、约会和规则的文章中，我们真正想听的实际上只有两种浪漫，真的。

And those are our own and our parents'.

这些是我们自己的和我们父母的。

And we're sick-- we are sick of hearing about our own and talking about our own.

我们厌倦了听到和谈论我们自己的事情。

So we thought we'd spend an hour talking about our parents.

所以我们想花一个小时谈论我们的父母。

As this Delmore Schwartz story continues, it's pretty much one disturbing scene after another.

随着德尔莫·施瓦茨故事的继续，这几乎是一个又一个令人不安的场景。

The story isn't romantic in the usual way that we use the word romantic.

这个故事并不像我们通常使用“浪漫”这个词那样浪漫。

These parents do not seem to be falling in love.

这对父母看起来并不相爱。

They don't really seem to be in love.

他们看起来并不是真的相爱。

Instead, it's romantic in the way that great tragedy is romantic.

相反，它的浪漫就像伟大的悲剧的浪漫一样。

All through the story, you can just feel the hand of fate moving in on their lives.

在整个故事中，你都能感受到命运之手在他们的生活中移动。

We see their sad destiny, though they do not.

我们看到了他们悲惨的命运，但他们却没有。

They walk down the street.

他们沿着街道走。

My mother is holding my father's arm and telling him of the novel which she has been reading.

我母亲挽着父亲的手臂，向他讲述她正在读的小说。

And my father utters judgments of the characters as the plot is made clear to him.

当我父亲清楚地了解情节时，他就会对人物做出判断。

This is a habit which he very much enjoys, for he feels the utmost superiority and confidence when he approves and condemns the behavior of other people.

这是他非常喜欢的一个习惯，因为当他赞同和谴责别人的行为时，他会感到极大的优越感和自信。

My mother feels satisfied by the interest which she's awakened.

我母亲对她所唤起的兴趣感到满意。

She's showing my father how intelligent she is and how interesting.

她向我父亲展示了她是多么聪明，多么有趣。

My father tells my mother how much money he's made in the last week, exaggerating an amount which need not have been exaggerated.

我父亲告诉我母亲他上周赚了多少钱，夸大了一个本来不应该夸大的数额。

But my father has always felt that actualities somehow fall short.

但我父亲总觉得现实有些不足。

Suddenly I begin to weep.

突然我开始哭泣。

The parents, all through this story, they're vain, they seem unfeeling, they have pretensions.

在整个故事中，父母都是虚荣的，他们看起来无情，他们有自负。

They go to Coney Island, but they avoid the rides and the shows as being beneath their dignity.

他们去了康尼岛，但他们避免乘坐游乐设施和表演，因为这有损他们的尊严。

At one point, they decide to get their picture taken.

有一次，他们决定拍照。

And the photographer looks through the camera at them, and he just feels that something is wrong.

摄影师透过相机看着他们，他只是觉得有些不对劲。

And he poses them this way and that way.

他这样或那样地摆出它们的姿势。

But nothing he tries makes it look right.

但他所做的任何努力都使它看起来不对劲。

Something is wrong.

有问题。

And finally, the father gets impatient and makes him snap the picture.

最后，父亲不耐烦了，让他拍了张照片。

When it's developed, the picture shows the father's smile turned to a grimace.

冲洗后，照片中父亲的微笑变成了鬼脸。

And the mother's smile bright and false.

母亲的笑容灿烂而虚假。

The parents go to eat dinner at the best place on the boardwalk.

父母去木板路上最好的地方吃晚饭。

There's a live band playing a waltz.

有一支现场乐队在演奏华尔兹。

The father in the story starts talking about his plans for the future, and the mother shows with an expressive face how interested she is and how impressed.

故事中的父亲开始谈论他对未来的计划，母亲表情丰富，表现出她的兴趣和印象。

The father talks more and more excitedly about his future, and the waltz is playing.

父亲越来越兴奋地谈论着他的未来，华尔兹正在演奏。

And then there comes this moment.

然后这一刻到来了。

I'll read.

我会读。

And then as the waltz reaches the moment when all the dancers swing madly, then, then with awful daring, then he asked my mother to marry him, although awkwardly enough and puzzled, even in his excitement, at how he arrived at the proposal.

然后，当华尔兹到达所有舞者疯狂摇摆的那一刻，然后，然后，然后，他以可怕的大胆，向我母亲求婚，尽管他很尴尬，也很困惑，即使在他兴奋的情况下，他是如何得出这个求婚的。

And she, to make the whole business worse, begins to cry.

而她，让整个事情变得更糟，她开始哭泣。

My father looks nervously about, not knowing at all what to do now.

父亲神色紧张，完全不知道现在该怎么办。

And my mother says, "It's all I wanted from the moment I saw you," sobbing.

我母亲抽泣着说：“从我见到你的那一刻起，这就是我想要的一切。”

And he finds all this very difficult, scarcely to his taste.

他发现这一切都非常困难，几乎不合他的口味。

Scarcely as he thought it would be, on his long walks over the Brooklyn Bridge, in the reverie of a fine cigar.

与他想象的完全不同，他在布鲁克林大桥上漫步，沉思着一支精美的雪茄。

And it was then that I stood up in the theater and shouted, "Don't do it."

就在那时，我在剧院里站起来大喊：“不要这样做。”

And then the people in the theater shush the guy.

然后剧院里的人就让那家伙闭嘴。

You know, shush him up.

你知道的，让他闭嘴。

The story of our parents' romance is mesmerizing because it contains everything that we are.

我们父母的浪漫故事令人着迷，因为它包含了我们的一切。

And when we hear it, there's a part of us that wants the lovers to get together.

当我们听到这句话时，我们内心深处都希望这对恋人能聚在一起。

As we do with any romantic TV show or movie, you root for the people to fall in love.

就像我们对待任何浪漫的电视节目或电影一样，你支持人们坠入爱河。

But there's another part of us that knows the consequences of that love, that knows how complicated things will get after years.

但我们的另一部分知道这种爱的后果，知道多年后事情会变得多么复杂。

And we pause.

我们暂停一下。

Well, today on our program, a variety of people tell stories about their parents' romances.

嗯，今天在我们的节目中，各种各样的人讲述了他们父母的浪漫故事。

Act One, a more cheerful take on this whole subject.

第一幕，对整个主题的看法更加欢快。

Act Two, parents, childhood, and bats.

第二幕，父母、童年和蝙蝠。

Act Three, Julie Showalter's dad puts his hand onto her mother's lower back and leads her into the bedroom while the kids watch TV and eat popcorn.

第三幕，朱莉·修沃尔特的父亲把手放在她母亲的后腰上，带她走进卧室，孩子们则一边看电视一边吃爆米花。

Act Four, Hilton Als' mom comes to America for his father.

第四幕，希尔顿·阿尔斯的妈妈为他的父亲来到美国。

Act Five, can children really understand their parents' lives?

第五幕，孩子真的能理解父母的生活吗？

Scott Carrier and his own 11-year-old daughter talk about his marriage.

斯科特·卡里尔 (Scott Carrier) 和他 11 岁的女儿谈论他的婚姻。

Stay with us.

留在我们身边。

Act One, Lighten Up.

第一幕，放轻松。

Let's change the pace a little.

让我们稍微改变一下节奏。

Shall we?

我们可以？

Hello, America.

你好，美国。

I'm Brett Leveridge.

我是布雷特·莱弗里奇。

I'll be reading to you today from a series of columns that I've written for Might magazine entitled "Men My Mother Dated." Let's start with Bob Petronick.

今天我将向你们朗读我为《Might》杂志撰写的一系列专栏文章，题为“我母亲约会过的男人”。让我们从鲍勃·佩特尼克开始吧。

Mom's one date with Bob Petronick in her freshman year of college was an eventful evening of firsts.

妈妈在大学一年级时与鲍勃·佩特尼克的一次约会是一个多事之夜，也是第一次。

He escorted her to her first fraternity party, a semi-formal affair at which she imbibed the very first beer of her young life.

他护送她参加她的第一次兄弟会聚会，这是一场半正式的聚会，她在会上喝了她年轻时的第一杯啤酒。

One beer led to another and then a third.

一杯啤酒带来了另一杯，然后是第三杯。

And in short order, she was pretty tight.

很快，她就变得非常紧张。

Another female partygoer bumped into her there in the crowded ballroom, and before anything could be done, she and mom became embroiled in a hair-pulling, eye-gouging cat fight, the first such row Mom had ever been involved in.

另一个参加派对的女性在拥挤的舞厅里撞到了她，还没来得及做任何事情，她和妈妈就卷入了一场揪心、挖眼的猫战，这是妈妈第一次卷入这样的争吵。

The fight was broken up by the campus police.

打斗被校园警察驱散。

Mom's arrest, her first, on drunk and disorderly charges led to her first night in jail.

妈妈因醉酒和扰乱治安罪名首次被捕，这导致她入狱的第一个晚上。

Bob, much to his credit, took up a collection around the fraternity house and posted her bail the next morning, but he never called for another date.

值得赞扬的是，鲍勃在兄弟会会所周围筹集了一笔善款，并在第二天早上将她保释，但他再也没有打电话约过她。

Mom garnered 30 hours community service, six months probation, and a reputation.

妈妈获得了 30 小时的社区服务、六个月的缓刑和声誉。

Vince Skankly.

文斯·斯坎克利.

The summer after her junior year, Mom met a man who led her on an exciting, if frightening, adventure.

大三结束后的那个夏天，妈妈遇到了一个男人，他带领她踏上了一段激动人心但又令人恐惧的冒险之旅。

His name was Vince Skankley.

他的名字叫文斯·斯坎克利。

He was the knife thrower at a small regional circus called Blitzstein Brothers.

他是一个名为“闪电兄弟”的小型地区马戏团的投刀者。

Mom, accompanied by her friend Lois, attended each of the troop's four performances.

妈妈在朋友路易斯的陪同下观看了乐队的四场演出。

It was after the Saturday matinee that she met Vince.

周六日场演出结束后，她遇到了文斯。

He was standing near the performers' entrance to the lone Blitzstein Brothers tent, smoking a Lucky Strike.

他站在靠近表演者入口处的闪电兄弟帐篷里，抽着幸运好彩。

Darkly handsome and quite a bit older than Mom, he had a worldly quality about him.

他肤色黝黑，英俊潇洒，比妈妈年长一些，身上有一种世俗的气质。

He seemed cut of different cloth than any male she'd ever encountered in Okemah.

他似乎与她在奥基玛遇到的任何男性都不同。

They chatted a few minutes, and just before she left, he asked her to meet him following that evening's performance at the coffee shop in the town square, just a few blocks away.

他们聊了几分钟，就在她离开之前，他邀请她在几个街区外的城镇广场的咖啡店演出结束后与他会面。

Mom, surprising herself, agreed.

妈妈自己都惊讶地同意了。

Over several cups of Joe, Vince regaled Mom with tales of the places he'd been, the things he'd seen.

喝了几杯乔酒后，文斯给妈妈讲了他去过的地方、见过的事情的故事。

Blitzstein Brothers covered four states on their touring-- Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri.

Blitzstein Brothers 的巡演覆盖了四个州：俄克拉荷马州、堪萨斯州、阿肯色州和密苏里州。

So Vince had been as far as Kansas City and St. Louis, towns Mom had only dreamed of seeing.

所以文斯最远去了堪萨斯城和圣路易斯，这些都是妈妈梦想着去的城镇。

Mom was enraptured, swept away by this man.

妈妈欣喜若狂，被这个男人迷住了。

As they stepped outside the cafe, Vince revealed that his assistant, Zora, was leaving him after the next day's matinee.

当他们走出咖啡馆时，文斯透露，他的助手佐拉将在第二天的日场演出后离开他。

Taking mom in his arms and kissing her, he implored Mom to come with him on the road and be his partner.

他把妈妈抱在怀里，亲吻她，恳求妈妈陪他一起上路，做他的伙伴。

Mom agreed.

妈妈同意了。

They decided she would meet him the following weekend in Tulsa, where the Blitzstein Brothers were next booked.

他们决定下周末在塔尔萨与他会面，布里茨斯坦兄弟的下一次预定也在那里。

Vince met her at the bus station and took her to the room he had booked for the duration of the circus's two-week stay in Tulsa at a downtown boarding house.

文斯在公交车站接她，带她去了他在塔尔萨市中心的寄宿处预订的房间，该房间是马戏团在塔尔萨停留两周的时间。

He carried with him, while on the road, a fold-up cork board which he used to keep his throwing skills finely honed.

在路上，他随身携带一块折叠式软木板，用它来磨练自己的投掷技巧。

And he wanted to get in a little rehearsal time with Mom before that evening's performance.

他想在那天晚上的表演之前和妈妈一起排练一下。

As mom stood with her back to the cork, facing this man she hardly knew as he took aim with his knife, her knees began to tremble.

当妈妈背对着软木塞站着，面对这个她几乎不认识的男人，他用刀瞄准时，她的膝盖开始颤抖。

Before she had time to protest, however, the first blade whizzed through the air towards her.

然而她还没来得及抗议，第一把剑就从空中呼啸而至。

It stuck in the cork firmly, just above her head.

它牢牢地卡在软木塞里，就在她头顶上方。

A second followed shortly thereafter, firmly embedding itself in the cork board just an inch or two away from her left shoulder.

此后不久，第二个也紧随其后，牢牢地嵌入软木板上，距离她的左肩仅一两英寸。

When she felt the cold steel of the third blade at her right shoulder, she knew she had made a horrible mistake.

当她感觉到第三把刀刃冰冷的钢铁抵在她的右肩时，她知道自己犯了一个可怕的错误。

She screamed at Vince to stop and stepped quickly away from the cork board.

她尖叫着让文斯停下来，然后迅速离开软木板。

The cut on her shoulder was a small one, but it bled profusely.

她肩膀上的伤口很小，但血流得很厉害。

And mom was trembling.

而妈妈则在颤抖。

Mom never had contact with Vince again.

妈妈再也没有和文斯联系过。

Gordon Kiley.

戈登·凯利.

If you had asked Mom on her 21st birthday if later that year she'd become involved with a man almost three times her age, she would have laughed in your face.

如果你在妈妈 21 岁生日那天问她，那年晚些时候她是否会和一个年龄几乎是她三倍的男人交往，她一定会当面嘲笑你。

But that's exactly what happened.

但这正是发生的事情。

Mom had just left college, accepting a position as a secretary in Oklahoma City.

妈妈刚刚大学毕业，接受了俄克拉荷马城秘书的职位。

She scoured the classifieds for an apartment she could afford on her tiny salary.

她在分类广告上搜寻自己微薄的薪水能买得起的公寓。

She finally decided to take the upstairs in an older home owned by a widower, Gordon Kiley.

她最终决定搬到鳏夫戈登·凯利 (Gordon Kiley) 拥有的一栋老房子的楼上。

Mr. Kiley was 59, an accountant who had lost his wife of 36 years only the year before.

凯利先生现年 59 岁，是一名会计师，一年前刚刚失去了结婚 36 年的妻子。

He had decided the house was just too quiet without her now, so he cleared out the upper floor and placed an ad.

他觉得现在没有她，房子太安静了，所以他清理了楼上并贴了一个广告。

Mom was the first person to look at it.

妈妈是第一个看到它的人。

It became a habit for the two of them to spend Sunday evenings together.

周日晚上一起度过已经成为两人的习惯。

Mom would cook a meal, and they would often take a stroll, sometimes stopping for a movie at the Center Theatre a few short blocks away.

妈妈会做饭，他们经常散步，有时会在几个街区外的中心剧院停下来看电影。

Some evenings, they would stay in, though.

不过，有些晚上，他们会留在家里。

Gordon would talk about his Emma, and he and Mom would listen to his Rudy Vallee 78s.

戈登会谈论他的艾玛，他和妈妈会听他的鲁迪瓦利 78。

Though Mom initially thought of Gordon as sort of a second father, gradually, she began to experience deeper feelings for him.

虽然妈妈最初认为戈登是第二个父亲，但渐渐地，她开始对他产生更深的感情。

One Sunday night as Rudy Vallee sang, they danced a foxtrot.

一个周日晚上，鲁迪·瓦利唱歌时，他们跳起了狐步舞。

Without speaking a word, Gordon, ever so gently, kissed Mom's lips.

戈登一言不发，轻轻地吻了妈妈的嘴唇。

She returned the kiss but instantly regretted it, feeling something just wasn't right.

她回吻了一下，但立刻就后悔了，感觉有些不对劲。

She feigned a headache and excused herself, retreating to the bedroom upstairs.

她假装头疼，告辞退到楼上的卧室。

The next morning, both Gordon and Mom tried to behave as if nothing had happened, but the tension between them was palpable.

第二天早上，戈登和妈妈都试图表现得好像什么都没发生过一样，但他们之间的紧张气氛是显而易见的。

They continued this way for 10 or 12 days, at which point Mom told Gordon she felt she must find another place to live.

他们这样持续了 10 或 12 天，此时妈妈告诉戈登，她觉得她必须找到另一个住处。

Within a week, she had moved out, and two months later, Gordon sold the home he had shared with Emma and moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his son and daughter-in-law lived.

一周之内，她就搬走了，两个月后，戈登卖掉了与艾玛合住的房子，搬到了爱荷华州的锡达拉皮兹，他的儿子和儿媳住在那里。

Mom never spoke to Gordon again.

妈妈再也没有和戈登说过话。

Brett Leveridge's column, "Men My Mother Dated," appears in Might magazine.

布雷特·莱弗里奇的专栏“我母亲约会过的男人”出现在《力量》杂志上。

Brett, does the woman in these stories seem like the same woman you think of as your mom?

布雷特，这些故事中的女人看起来像你心目中的妈妈吗？

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah, I mean it's sort of a larger-than-life version of her, a sort of a mythological version of my mom.

是的，我的意思是，这有点像她的传奇版本，有点像我妈妈的神话版本。

Was your mom very popular?

你妈妈很受欢迎吗？

Brett Leveridge Yeah.

布雷特·莱弗里奇是的。

She went to see The Eddie Cantor Story six times with six different men.

她和六个不同的男人去看了六次《埃迪·坎托的故事》。

My father does not know which he was, and that just tells you right there that this is someone that a lot of men were asking out.

我父亲不知道他是谁，但这只是告诉你，这是很多男人都在约的人。

Now, why in the world she didn't along about number three or four, say, "You know, I've seen that.

现在，为什么她没有在第三或第四点上说：“你知道，我已经看到了。

Could we see something else?"

我们还能看到别的东西吗？”

And with each one, she pretended she hadn't seen it?

而且每一件，她都假装没看见？

She pretended she hadn't seen it with each one of them, yeah.

她假装没有看到他们每一个人，是的。

Wow.

哇。

Brett Leveridge I don't know if that was sort of a little sign of the era that she was living in and that a more assertive '90s woman might say, "Sorry numbers four, five, six, and seven, I've seen that."

Brett Leveridge 我不知道这是否是她所生活的时代的一个小标志，一个更自信的 90 年代女性可能会说，“对不起，数字四、五、六和七，我已经看到了。”

What does your mom have to say about The Eddie Cantor Story?

你妈妈对埃迪·坎托的故事有什么看法？

She probably tried to put it out of her mind as much as possible.

她可能试图尽可能地把这件事抛在脑后。

But I'm guessing she could recite dialogue from it, even now.

但我猜她现在就能背诵其中的对话。

I bet there's pretty much anything we want to know about Eddie Cantor, she's ready to answer.

我敢打赌，关于埃迪·坎托，我们想知道的事情几乎都有，她已经准备好回答了。

Or at least the Hollywood version of it.

或者至少是好莱坞版本。

She could probably recite lines from it, I'm guessing.

我猜她可能会背诵其中的台词。

What do you think the fascination is with this kind of story?

您认为这种故事的魅力在哪里？

I think that most of us have an interest in our parents' lives before they were our parents.

我认为我们大多数人都对父母在成为父母之前的生活感兴趣。

It's sort of hard to imagine them where we are, in our 20s or 30s or teens, dating and struggling with all that and deciding what to do with our lives.

很难想象他们在我们20多岁、30多岁或十几岁的时候，正在约会并与这一切作斗争，并决定如何处理我们的生活。

And so any stories that reveal the classic "Mom" at an earlier stage in her life, when she was going through some of the travails that we all face, I think are sort of attractive.

因此，任何揭示经典“妈妈”在她生命早期阶段的故事，当她经历我们所有人都面临的一些痛苦时，我认为都是有吸引力的。

See, I wonder if part of it is people need an origin myth, especially secular people.

看，我想知道其中一部分是否是人们需要起源神话，尤其是世俗的人。

You need a myth of "Where did I come from?" to explain who you are.

你需要一个关于“我从哪里来？”的神话。解释你是谁。

True enough.

确实如此。

I think that's probably very true.

我想这可能是真的。

It's a little glimpse into the world before "me."

这是对“我”之前的世界的一瞥。

More stories of Brett Leveridge's mom as our program continues.

随着我们的节目的继续，更多关于布雷特·莱弗里奇妈妈的故事。

Act Two, Mom, Dad, Bats.

第二幕，爸爸，妈妈，蝙蝠。

Well, if in fact the story of our parents' romance is part creation myth, we offer this story from Bia Lowe.

好吧，如果事实上我们父母的浪漫故事有一部分是创世神话，那么我们提供比亚·洛的这个故事。

It's 1962, and I will soon be 12 years old.

现在是 1962 年，我很快就 12 岁了。

Thus far, I have lived in fear of little but vampires.

到目前为止，我一直生活在除了吸血鬼之外的恐惧之中。

My father drinks, my parents fight, the bleak house trembles, but I fear only Dracula.

我的父亲喝酒，我的父母打架，荒凉的房子在颤抖，但我只害怕德古拉。

In these olden days, the story of Dracula is a bedtime waking nightmare, a drama in which I stockade myself against the dark powers of annihilation.

在过去的日子里，德古拉的故事是一场睡前醒来的噩梦，一场我将自己围困起来对抗毁灭的黑暗力量的戏剧。

All children are fundamentalists, and every cell in my body is zealous to win the fight against the night, my small ego trying to sustain itself against the forces I cannot name.

所有的孩子都是原教旨主义者，我体内的每一个细胞都热衷于赢得与黑夜的斗争，我小小的自我试图维持自己，对抗那些我无法命名的力量。

In 1962, my parents travel through the Mediterranean.

1962 年，我的父母穿越地中海。

They are in their mid-40s, and looking back on it, I'm sure they were trying to rekindle the romance in their troubled marriage.

他们已经40多岁了，回想起来，我确信他们正试图在陷入困境的婚姻中重新点燃浪漫的火花。

Under the lax supervision of my grandmother, I spent hours alone in the woods.

在祖母宽松的监管下，我独自在树林里度过了几个小时。

One day, I explore an old chicken shack, a derelict chicken coop.

有一天，我探索了一个古老的鸡舍，一个废弃的鸡舍。

The timbers are weathered to a pewter, and lichen, as finely laced as antimacassars, have grafted themselves to the siding.

木材被风化成白镴，地衣像反黑檀木一样精细地镶嵌在壁板上。

At first, there is little inside to sustain my intrigue, some ancient straw and a few daddy longlegs.

起初，里面几乎没有什么可以支撑我的好奇心，只有一些古老的稻草和一些长腿爸爸。

Then I notice something furry in a crack near the door jamb.

然后我注意到门框附近的裂缝里有一个毛茸茸的东西。

I poke it with my finger, but nothing happens.

我用手指戳它，但什么也没发生。

I poke again.

我又戳了一下。

This time, a small claw strikes back, calling my bluff.

这一次，一只小爪子反击了我，挑战了我的虚张声势。

It feels silly to be reprimanded by such a small creature, but I don't push my luck.

被这么一个小生物训斥感觉很傻，但我不会碰运气。

Though I've never seen one before, there's no mistaking it's a bat.

虽然我以前从未见过，但毫无疑问这是一只蝙蝠。

The little foot shredding the air between us has permanently marred the membrane between the real and the make-believe.

撕碎我们之间空气的小脚永久地破坏了真实与虚构之间的隔膜。

From that day forward, I try to strike a compromise between the tiny creature in the door jamb and the emblem of my dread.

从那天起，我尝试在门框上的小生物和我恐惧的象征之间达成妥协。

Bats were sprinters on the evolutionary track, and while our forebearers were still small as lemurs, still clinging to branches, their ancestors looked remarkably like themselves.

蝙蝠是进化道路上的短跑运动员，虽然我们的祖先还像狐猴一样小，仍然紧贴在树枝上，但他们的祖先看起来却非常像他们自己。

Our limbs took painstaking millennia to grow beyond a childhood of rodentia, while their fingers already extended, Nosferatu-like, to support the open umbrella of their wings.

我们的四肢经历了数千年的艰苦成长，才超越了啮齿类动物的童年，而它们的手指已经像诺斯费拉图一样伸展开来，支撑着翅膀张开的伞。

No wonder we fear them.

难怪我们害怕他们。

In the presence of bats, we sense the occurrence of time before us.

当有蝙蝠在场时，我们能感觉到时间在我们面前发生。

In their impossible faces, we see a life that eludes us, centuries of caves, forests of unfamiliar trees, Edens buried under rubble.

在他们不可思议的面孔上，我们看到了一种难以捉摸的生活，几个世纪的洞穴，陌生的树木森林，埋在瓦砾下的伊甸园。

We are like Nabakov's friend who, upon seeing a home movie taken before his birth, realized to his horror he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence.

我们就像纳巴科夫的朋友，当他看到一部在他出生前拍摄的家庭电影时，他惊恐地意识到他根本不存在那里，也没有人为他的缺席而哀悼。

One morning in 1962 after my parents have returned from their trip, I enter their bedroom to have my mother sign my blue books.

1962 年的一天早上，我父母旅行回来后，我走进他们的卧室，让母亲在我的蓝皮书上签名。

She's disappeared from her half of the bed, but my father, propped on his elbow, volunteers his signature.

她从她那半张床上消失了，但我父亲用手肘撑着，自愿签名。

I reach across the bed and offer up my exams, which are the color of robins' eggs.

我把手伸到床边，递上我的检查单，检查单的颜色是知更鸟蛋的颜色。

As he autographs them, and I smell the spice of his skin, I notice my mother's form concealed under the covers behind him.

当他在签名上签名时，我闻到了他皮肤上的香料味，注意到母亲的身影隐藏在他身后的被子下。

Later that day, I'm sent home from school with my first menstrual cramps.

那天晚些时候，我因第一次月经来潮而被放学回家。

I lay in bed and savor my morning's discovery, the only time I ever suspected my parents of having sex.

我躺在床上，细细品味早上的发现，这是我唯一一次怀疑父母发生性关系。

Recently, I was sitting with my mother in the house she has shared for 20 years with a new husband I've come to think of as a father.

最近，我和母亲坐在她与一位新丈夫共同生活了 20 年的房子里，我逐渐将她视为父亲。

We rest our feet among piles of magazines on a small wooden coffee table.

我们把脚搁在小木咖啡桌上的成堆杂志之间。

It's the oldest thing in this house that bears the stamp of my history.

这是这所房子里最古老的东西，带有我的历史印记。

I remember the sour taste of its varnish, how my four-year-old tongue once traced the carved bodies that ran on all sides.

我记得清漆的酸味，记得我四岁的舌头曾经如何追踪四面八方的雕刻尸体。

I'd always thought they were the bodies of flying men or dogs in capes.

我一直以为它们是飞人或披着斗篷的狗的尸体。

"Yes.

“是的。

It's the first piece of furniture your father and I ever bought.

这是我和你父亲买的第一件家具。

We were living in a little flat in Chinatown.

我们住在唐人街的一间小公寓里。

The Chinese believe bats bring happiness." I imagine my parents then, smooth-skinned, thinner, little to live on but love.

中国人相信蝙蝠能带来幸福。”我想象着当时的父母，皮肤光滑，瘦弱，除了爱之外几乎没有什么生活来源。

Their room is furnished with the donations of well-wishing relatives, a hooked rug, mismatched chairs, a creaky four-poster.

他们的房间里摆满了好心亲戚捐赠的物品、钩形地毯、不匹配的椅子和一张吱吱作响的四柱海报。

I can't help thinking my mother likes being on top.

我情不自禁地想，我妈妈喜欢居高临下。

But in those young days, their sex is playful, their smell mingling with the smoke and ginger of the street.

但在那些年轻的日子里，他们的性爱很有趣，他们的气味与街上的烟雾和姜味混合在一起。

Near the bed, at the center of their new lives, is the table bought for hope and a toss at the future.

在床边，在他们新生活的中心，是一张为希望和对未来的抛掷而购买的桌子。

The bats draw back the seam of night like coverlets for my parents to fall into and sew that seam back up at dawn, like the last good-luck kiss before rising for work.

蝙蝠像被子一样拉开黑夜的缝隙，让我的父母落入其中，并在黎明时将缝隙缝合起来，就像起床上班前最后的好运之吻。

These lovers are strangers to me, un-parents, animals not yet flexing around the beginning of my life.

这些恋人对我来说是陌生人，没有父母，是在我生命之初还没有活动的动物。

Their cells mingle hundreds of times before a fluke will yank me from the void.

在一次侥幸将我从虚空中拉出来之前，它们的细胞混合了数百次。

An excerpt from Bia Low's essay, "Bats," which appears in her book Wild Ride.

摘自 Bia Low 的文章“蝙蝠”，该文章出现在她的《狂野骑行》一书中。

She's working on another book of essays.

她正在写另一本散文集。

Act Three, It's Not the Heat.

第三幕，这不是炎热。

Julie Showalter For a long time, when asked if my parents loved each other, I would arch my eyebrow and say, "Love?

很长一段时间，当被问到我的父母是否相爱时，我都会皱起眉毛说：“爱？

Well, I guess by their standards," thereby implying that I knew more about love, neurotic dependency, and the difference between the two, than they ever did.

嗯，按照他们的标准，我猜”，这意味着我比他们更了解爱、神经质依赖以及两者之间的区别。

Julie Showalter's parents were married in 1944, high school sweethearts from Dimmitt, Texas.

朱莉·肖沃尔特 (Julie Showalter) 的父母于 1944 年结婚，他们是来自德克萨斯州迪米特的高中恋人。

When her father died 41 years later, they were still married.

41年后，当她父亲去世时，他们仍然保持着婚姻关系。

In between, they had three daughters and divorced each other twice.

其间，他们育有三个女儿，并两次离婚。

This is our program, of course, about our parents' romances, and Julie remembers hers this way.

当然，这是我们的节目，讲述我们父母的浪漫史，朱莉也是这样记住她的。

Because she was beautiful, he wanted her to be glamorous.

因为她漂亮，所以他想让她变得光鲜亮丽。

When we were the poorest we ever were, living on a turkey farm in a four-room house with linoleum floors, he bought her a silver tea and coffee service for Christmas.

当我们最穷的时候，住在火鸡农场的一栋铺着油毡地板的四居室房子里，他给她买了一份银茶和咖啡作为圣诞节礼物。

We'd just gotten television then, and I think he saw her as Bess Myerson, floating in mink on The Big Payoff or Arlene Francis pouring coffee for her guests on The Home Show .

那时我们刚刚上电视，我想他在《大回报》中看到了她穿着貂皮漂浮的贝丝·迈尔森，或者在《家庭秀》中阿琳·弗朗西斯为客人倒咖啡。

Another year, he did buy her mink, a cape from Sears.

还有一年，他给她买了一件来自西尔斯的貂皮斗篷。

She exchanged it for a gas range.

她把它换成了煤气灶。

They were hot, an embarrassment to growing daughters.

She'd put her hand flat against his cheek after he had shaved and just hold it there while he moved his lips against her thumb.

他刮完胡子后，她把手平放在他的脸颊上，当他的嘴唇抵住她的拇指时，她就把手放在那儿。

When guiding her into a room, he put his hand on the small of her back, and you could see his fingers flex, see him feeling her back under the dress, see her responding.

当引导她进入房间时，他把手放在她的后背上，你可以看到他的手指弯曲，看到他在裙子下摸索她的背部，看到她的反应。

Sometimes in the evening, they'd have a drink, put on an old record, and dance to Glenn Miller.

有时晚上，他们会喝一杯，放一张旧唱片，跟着格伦·米勒跳舞。

My sisters and I would watch them, handsome, graceful, sex-charged.

Then they'd go to bed early, leaving us trying to concentrate on TV and popcorn.

When I was 11, I saw her reach up from where she was sitting and zip his trousers.

Then she patted him just below the belt.

然后她拍了拍他的腰带下方。

This is marriage, I thought.

我想，这就是婚姻。

This is sex.

这就是性。

This is knowing another body.

Drinking was his weakness, and sometimes when he was drinking, there'd be a woman.

"A certain kind of woman finds your father very attractive," Mother told us.

“某种类型的女人会觉得你的父亲非常有吸引力，”母亲告诉我们。

Their second divorce may have been the shortest in Missouri history.

他们的第二次离婚可能是密苏里州历史上最短的一次。

The day after it was final, a week after she'd sent her diamond rings out to be reset-- rings, by the way, that she was still paying off, another one of his flamboyant gifts-- the next day, she took him back.

最终确定的第二天，也就是她将钻戒寄出去重设一周后——顺便说一句，她还在还清戒指，这是他的另一件华丽的礼物——第二天，她把他带了回来。

Literally took him.

从字面上看，带走了他。

I was 19, the oldest, so she made me drive.

我当时 19 岁，是最大的，所以她让我开车。

"We're going to get your father," she said.

“我们要去救你父亲，”她说。

We knew where he was.

我们知道他在哪里。

He was with Lorna, one of those women.

他和洛娜在一起，洛娜是那些女人之一。

When we pulled up, Mother shook her head at the degradation.

当我们停下来时，母亲对这种状况摇了摇头。

Lorna's house had no grass in the yard, just hard-packed dirt.

洛娜的房子院子里没有草，只有坚硬的泥土。

And old wringer washer that someone had tried to make into a platter sat on the sagging front porch.

下垂的前廊上放着一台旧绞水机，有人试图把它做成盘子。

Mother sent me ahead.

妈妈让我先走。

"Make sure he's in there."

“确保他在里面。”

Through the screen door, I could see half a dozen men playing cards.

透过纱门，我可以看到六个人在打牌。

My eyes adjusted enough to pick out Daddy.

我的眼睛已经适应了，可以认出爸爸了。

He looked loose, happy, drinking, but not drunk.

他看起来轻松、快乐，喝了酒，但没有喝醉。

Lorna came in from the kitchen carrying a bowl of potato chips.

洛娜端着一碗薯片从厨房进来。

"Julie," she said, "come on in.

“朱莉，”她说，“进来吧。

Look Bill," she turned to Daddy, "Julie's come to see us."

看比尔，”她转向爸爸，“朱莉来看我们了。”

He started to get up, but his attention was drawn to the front porch.

他正要站起来，但他的注意力却被前廊吸引了。

Mother stood in the open screen door with the sunlight behind her.

母亲站在开着的纱门里，阳光在她身后。

She was wearing a white summer dress, cut straight and close to her body, and high heels that showed her long, slim calves.

她穿着一件白色的夏装，剪裁笔直，贴身，脚踩高跟鞋，露出修长纤细的小腿。

The sun made her red hair seem almost to vibrate.

阳光照得她的红发几乎要颤抖起来。

She looked cool, beautiful, elegant, like Suzy Parker, the model in the ads for Revlon's Fire & Ice.

她看起来酷、美丽、优雅，就像露华浓火与冰广告中的模特苏西·帕克一样。

All the men in the room stared at her without talking.

房间里的所有男人都盯着她，没有说话。

I looked from her to Lorna, a blousy woman with ink-black hair and mascara smeared under her eyes.

我看看她，又看看洛娜，她是一位身材臃肿的女人，有着墨黑的头发，眼睛下面涂着睫毛膏。

Mother walked over and put her hand on Daddy's shoulder.

妈妈走过去，把手放在爸爸的肩膀上。

"Come on, sweetie," she said.

“来吧，亲爱的，”她说。

"We're taking you home."

“我们送你回家。”

Julie Showalter.

朱莉·肖沃尔特。

Her parents' remarriage lasted until her father died 18 years after this.

她父母的再婚一直持续到18年后她父亲去世。

Much of this story is told in Julie's novel, Needlework, which is looking for a publisher.

这个故事的大部分内容都在朱莉的小说《针线活》中讲述，该小说正在寻找出版商。

[MUSIC - "I'VE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU" BY JENNY MAGNUS]

[音乐 - 珍妮·马格纳斯的《我迷恋上你》]

Jenny Magnus.

珍妮·马格纳斯。

Her first solo album comes out this May on Eighth Day Records.

她的第一张个人专辑今年五月在第八天唱片公司发行。

Coming up, reporter Scott Carrier's 11-year-old daughter explains his marriage.

接下来，记者斯科特·卡里尔 11 岁的女儿解释了他的婚姻。

And Hilton Als' in a minute when our program continues.

当我们的节目继续进行时，希尔顿阿尔斯很快就会来。

It's This American Life .

这就是美国生活。

I'm Ira Glass.

我是艾拉·格拉斯。

Each week, of course, we choose a theme on our program and invite a variety of writers and performers to tackle that theme.

当然，每周我们都会在节目中选择一个主题，并邀请各种作家和表演者来解决该主题。

Today's program, as Valentine's Day approaches, our parents' romances.

今天的节目，随着情人节的临近，我们父母的爱情故事。

Hello America.

你好美国。

It's time again for another episode of "Men My Mother Dated." Here's the man with the mom, Brett Leveridge.

又到了《我妈妈约会的男人》的另一集时间了。这是与母亲布雷特·莱弗里奇在一起的男人。

Bob Wills.

鲍勃·威尔斯.

My parents hadn't been together very long when they were invited to join their friends Don and Dorothy for an evening at the Trianon Ballroom in downtown Oklahoma City.

我的父母在一起没多久，他们就被邀请与他们的朋友唐和多萝西一起在俄克拉荷马城市中心的特里亚农舞厅度过一个晚上。

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the headliners on that evening's bill, and their special brand of Western swing kept the dance floor packed the whole night long.

鲍勃·威尔斯 (Bob Wills) 和他的德克萨斯花花公子乐队是当晚账单上的头条新闻，他们独特的西部摇摆风格让舞池整晚都挤满了人。

From Mom's initial turn around the dance floor, Wills couldn't take his eyes off of her.

从妈妈第一次在舞池里转来转去，威尔斯的目光就无法从她身上移开。

He'd tipped his huge Stetson hat every time she turkey trotted by, and winked whenever he managed to catch her eye.

每当她的火鸡小跑经过时，他都会把巨大的斯泰森帽倾斜起来，每当他设法引起她的注意时，他就会眨眼。

Mom, a young woman at the peak of her beauty, certainly had no desire to encourage Wills, who was well into his 50s.

妈妈，一个正值美丽巅峰的年轻女子，当然不想鼓励已经 50 多岁的威尔斯。

But Don and my father, having a good time at Mom's expense, kept swinging her right up stage-side, and turning Mom so that she was forced to face the winking Wills.

但唐和我父亲却以妈妈为代价玩得很开心，不断地把她摇到舞台边，并把妈妈转过来，这样她就被迫面对眨着眼睛的威尔斯。

Mom, finally fed up, refused for a while to dance.

妈妈终于受够了，有一段时间拒绝跳舞。

But when, after a bit, she heard the orchestra strike up the opening strains of "Faded Love," her favorite Bob Wills tune, she gave in and accompanied my father to the dance floor.

但过了一会儿，当她听到管弦乐队演奏出她最喜欢的鲍勃·威尔斯的歌曲《褪色的爱》的开场曲时，她屈服了，陪着我父亲来到了舞池。

Soon, Dad felt a tap, tap, tap upon his shoulder, signifying that someone was seeking to cut in to take a turn around the floor with Mom.

很快，爸爸就感觉到有人在他的肩膀上拍、拍、拍，这表明有人想插进来和妈妈一起在地板上转一圈。

By now, you must surely have guessed that it was Wills.

现在，你一定猜到是威尔斯了。

Dad stepped aside, and Mom found herself firmly in Wills' clutches.

爸爸退到一边，妈妈发现自己牢牢地落入了威尔斯的手中。

Mom felt there was little she could do but to grit her teeth and behave in gracious fashion until song's end.

妈妈觉得她无能为力，只能咬紧牙关，表现得和蔼可亲，直到歌曲结束。

But as the orchestra, missing nary a beat, segued right into "San Antonio Rose," Mom felt, as he pulled her into an even tighter embrace, Wills' right hand slowly but steadily creeping downward along her spine until it came to rest upon her left-- well, let us say, her left hip.

但当管弦乐队毫无节拍地继续演奏《圣安东尼奥玫瑰》时，妈妈感觉到，当他把她拉得更紧时，威尔斯的右手缓慢而稳定地沿着她的脊椎向下移动，直到停在她的左边——好吧，我们说，她的左臀部。

Uttering not a word, Mom fixed upon Wills an angry glare of an intensity that few have experienced, and fewer still have survived.

妈妈一言不发，用愤怒的目光盯着威尔斯，眼神中的怒火很少有人经历过，而幸存下来的人也更少。

Having wilted under the heat of this glare a number of times myself, believe me when I say, gentle listener, it can make a strong man weep.

我自己也曾多次在这种强光的灼热下萎靡不振，请相信我，温柔的听众，它可以让一个坚强的人哭泣。

Wills was not up to the challenge.

威尔斯无法应对挑战。

He quickly removed his hand, cleared his throat, tipped his hat, said, "Excuse me, ma'am," and hurriedly made his way back to the stage, whereupon he immediately called out for "Take Me Back to Tulsa" in double time.

他迅速收回手，清了清嗓子，歪了歪帽子，道：“对不起，女士。”然后匆匆走回舞台，随即双声喊了一声“带我回塔尔萨”。

Throughout the remainder of the evening, whenever Mom came within 10 yards of the stage, Wills managed somehow to look busy, sorting through the musical charts on the bandstand, attending to an out-of-tune string on his fiddle, conducting the orchestra on a number they had played hundreds of times.

整个晚上，每当妈妈来到离舞台不到 10 码的地方时，威尔斯都会设法让自己看起来很忙碌，整理演奏台上的乐谱，注意小提琴上的走调弦，指挥管弦乐队演奏他们已经演奏了数百遍的曲目。

During the next intermission, the waitress brought a round of beers to Mom and Dad's table and explained that they came compliments of the King of Western Swing himself, Bob Wills.

在下一次中场休息时，女服务员给爸爸妈妈端来了一轮啤酒，并解释说这些啤酒是来自西部摇摆之王鲍勃·威尔斯本人的赞美。

Terry Plimpton.

特里·普林顿。

Terry has remained a real mystery to Mom.

特里对妈妈来说仍然是一个真正的谜。

They dated for five months during her sophomore year of college, even talked a bit of a future together.

在她大学二年级的时候，他们约会了五个月，甚至还一起谈论了一些未来。

Terry was, in many ways, Mom's dream man.

从很多方面来说，特里都是妈妈的梦中情人。

A perfect gentleman, a terrific dancer with a wonderful voice, a gourmet cook.

一位完美的绅士，一位拥有美妙声音的出色舞者，一位美食厨师。

Their shared interests were many.

他们的共同兴趣有很多。

They liked the same movies, the same music, though he was a bigger Judy Garland fan than she.

他们喜欢同样的电影，同样的音乐，尽管他比她更喜欢朱迪·加兰。

Without warning, though, he left school and took off for San Francisco, where he remains to this day.

然而，在没有任何警告的情况下，他离开了学校，前往旧金山，至今仍留在那里。

Terry never married.

特里从未结婚。

Kathy Simpkins.

凯西·辛普金斯。

This would-be suitor was not a man, and Mom never really dated her.

这位潜在的追求者不是男人，而妈妈也从未真正和她约会过。

Still, the story will be told.

尽管如此，故事还是会被讲述。

After her sophomore year of college, Mom decided to take a very difficult course load in summer school.

大学二年级结束后，妈妈决定在暑期学校学习非常难的课程。

She knew that she would have to be terribly focused to pull this off, so she swore off dating for the duration.

她知道自己必须高度集中才能实现这一目标，所以她发誓在此期间不再约会。

Not that it was easy.

但这并不容易。

The phone rang often, but Mom spoke with these gentlemen callers just long enough so as not the seem uncivil.

电话经常响，但妈妈和这些绅士打电话的时间要足够长，以免显得不礼貌。

The answer was always the same.

答案总是一样的。

"I'm sorry, I'm concentrating on my studies this summer, and I'm not interested in going out.

“抱歉，今年暑假我一心扑在学业上，没兴趣出去。

Thanks for calling."

谢谢你的来电。”

Mom's roommate for the summer was an older woman of 25, Kathy Simpkins.

妈妈的暑假室友是一位 25 岁的老妇人凯西·辛普金斯 (Kathy Simpkins)。

Kathy had just begun her studies as a physical education major that spring, after serving a stint in the Air Force.

凯西在空军服役一段时间后，那年春天刚刚开始体育专业的学习。

Mom and Kathy got along fine.

妈妈和凯西相处得很好。

They often cooked dinner together on those summer evenings, but they were not particularly close.

那些夏日的夜晚，他们经常一起做饭，但关系并不特别亲密。

In fact, Kathy knew nothing of Mom's romantic or sexual proclivities.

事实上，凯西对妈妈的浪漫或性倾向一无所知。

All she knew was that every man who called for Mom was firmly, if politely, rebuffed.

她只知道，每个打电话给妈妈的男人都会被坚决地、礼貌地拒绝。

So it's not so hard to understand how Kathy might have reached some misbegotten conclusions regarding Mom's orientation.

因此，不难理解凯西如何就妈妈的取向得出一些错误的结论。

It all came to a head after one of those home-cooked meals.

在一顿家常饭菜之后，这一切都达到了紧要关头。

Mom and Kathy had gone shopping together that afternoon and splurged on a leg of lamb and a bottle of Beaujolais.

那天下午，妈妈和凯西一起去购物，花了一大笔钱买了一条羊腿和一瓶博若莱葡萄酒。

Once the food was finished and the plates placed in the kitchen sink, Kathy, emboldened by her third glass of wine, sat right beside Mom on what was rather a large and roomy davenport and, much to Mom's surprise, transformed into an octipus di amore.

吃完饭，把盘子放进厨房水槽后，凯西喝了第三杯酒，勇气十足，坐在妈妈旁边的一张相当大、宽敞的达文波特沙发上，令妈妈惊讶的是，她变成了一只爱之章鱼。

Mom, caught more than a little off-guard, extracted herself from Kathy's clutches, excused herself, and hurriedly sped off to her bedroom, quickly locking the door behind her.

妈妈措手不及，从凯西的手中挣脱出来，说了声抱歉，然后匆匆跑回卧室，并迅速锁上了门。

Things were a little awkward for a day or two afterwards.

之后的一两天，事情变得有点尴尬。

Only a few words were exchanged between the two, but eventually they sat down and talked things over.

两人只说了几句话，但最终还是坐下来商量了事情。

Mom explained that her moratorium on men was a temporary one, and Kathy apologized for her aggressive behavior.

妈妈解释说，她暂时禁止与男性接触，凯西为自己的攻击性行为道歉。

The rest of the summer went by without incident.

夏天剩下的时间平安无事地过去了。

Today, Kathy resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she enjoyed a long career as a physical education instructor.

如今，凯西居住在密歇根州大急流城，在那里她长期担任体育教练。

She retired only last year.

She and Mom still exchange Christmas cards.

Brett Leveridge's column, "Men My Mother Dated," is in Might magazine and on the net at www.brettnews-- that's B-R-E-T-T-N-E-W-S-- .com.

Brett Leveridge 的专栏“Men My Mother Dated”刊登在《Might》杂志和 www.brettnews（即 B-R-E-T-T-N-E-W-S--.com）上。

Act Four.

第四幕。

Hilton Als' mother called herself a Negress.

希尔顿·阿尔斯的母亲称自己为黑人。

In Als' book, The Women , he writes about how she used the word.

在阿尔斯的书《女人》中，他描述了她如何使用这个词。

He says the word usually conjures certain stereotypes-- single mother, public aid, low-paying jobs, like his mother.

他说这个词通常会让人联想到某些刻板印象——单身母亲、公共援助、低薪工作，就像他的母亲一样。

The stoic mom, selfless to a fault, who takes life as it comes, like his mother.

这位坚忍的母亲，无私到了极点，像他的母亲一样，顺其自然地对待生活。

But he says in reality his mother was really not much like these stereotypes.

但他说实际上他的母亲并不像这些刻板印象。

That's part of his story.

Another part is about her long illness.

He says that she was sick for years, sick in a way that got a lot of attention from everyone around her.

他说她病了很多年，病的程度引起了周围每个人的关注。

She lost a leg to diabetes, lost a kidney, lost vision in one eye.

她因糖尿病失去了一条腿，失去了肾脏，一只眼睛失去了视力。

Here's how his memoir begins.

Until the end, my mother never discussed her way of being.

直到最后，我母亲从未讨论过她的存在方式。

She avoided explaining the impetus behind her emigration from Barbados to Manhattan.

她避免解释她从巴巴多斯移民到曼哈顿的动机。

She avoided explaining that she had not been motivated by the same desire for personal gain and opportunity that drove most female immigrants.

她避免解释说，她的动机并不是大多数女性移民对个人利益和机会的渴望。

She avoided recounting the fact that she had immigrated to America to follow the man who eventually became my father and whom she had known in his previous incarnation as her first and only husband's closest friend.

她避免讲述这样的事实：她移民到美国是为了跟随那个最终成为我父亲的男人，她在他的前世中认识他，他是她丈夫第一个也是唯一一个最亲密的朋友。

She avoided explaining how she had left her husband, by whom she had two daughters, after he returned to Barbados from England and the Second World War addicted to morphine.

她避免解释她的丈夫从英国回到巴巴多斯并在第二次世界大战期间对吗啡上瘾后，她是如何离开她的丈夫的，她和他育有两个女儿。

She was silent about the fact that, having been married once, she refused to marry again.

她对结过一次婚、拒绝再婚的事实保持沉默。

She avoided explaining that my father, who had grown up relatively rich in Barbados, and whom she had known as a child, remained a child, and emigrated to America with his mother and his two sisters, women whose home he never left.

她避免解释说，我的父亲在巴巴多斯长大，相对富裕，她小时候就认识他，但他仍然是个孩子，与他的母亲和两个姐妹一起移民到美国，他从未离开过她们的家。

She never mentioned that she had been attracted to my father's beauty and wealth partially because those were two things she would never know.

她从未提到过她被我父亲的美貌和财富所吸引，部分原因是因为这是她永远不会知道的两件事。

She never discussed how she had visited my father in his room at night and afterward, crept down the stairs stealthily to return to her own home and her six children, four of them produced by her union with my father, who remained a child.

她从来没有谈论过她是如何晚上到我父亲的房间看望他，然后偷偷溜下楼梯回到她自己的家和她的六个孩子，其中四个是她与我父亲结合所生的，我父亲还是个孩子。

She avoided explaining that my father, like most children and like most men, resented his children, four girls, two boys, for not growing up quickly enough so that they would leave home and take his responsibility away with them.

她避免解释说，我的父亲像大多数孩子和大多数男人一样，怨恨他的孩子，四个女孩，两个男孩，因为他们没有足够快地长大，以至于他们会离开家并带走他的责任。

She avoided recounting how my father, because he was a child, tried to distance himself from his children and his resentment of them through his derisive humor, teasing them to the point of cruelty.

她避免讲述我的父亲，因为他还是个孩子，如何试图通过他的嘲弄幽默来与他的孩子们保持距离，以及他对他们的怨恨，将他们戏弄到残忍的地步。

She also avoided recounting how her children, in order to shield themselves against the spittle of his derisive humor, absented themselves in his presence and eventually in the presence of any form of entertainment deliberately aimed at provoking laughter.

她还避免讲述她的孩子们为了保护自己免受他嘲笑的幽默的唾沫，在他面前缺席的情况，并最终在任何形式的故意引起笑声的娱乐活动中缺席。

She avoided explaining that in response to this resentment, my father also vaunted his beauty and wealth over his children as qualities they would never share.

她避免解释说，为了回应这种怨恨，我的父亲也向他的孩子们吹嘘他的美丽和财富，这是他们永远不会分享的品质。

She was silent about the mysterious bond she and my father shared, a bond so deep and volatile that their children felt forever diminished by their love and forever compelled to disrupt, disapprove, avoid, or try to become a part of the love shared between any couple, specifically men and women.

她对她和我父亲之间的神秘纽带保持沉默，这种纽带如此深厚且不稳定，以至于他们的孩子感到永远被他们的爱所削弱，永远被迫破坏、反对、回避或试图成为任何夫妻之间，特别是男人和女人之间所共享的爱的一部分。

She avoided mentioning the fact that my father had other women, other families, in cities such as Miami and Boston, cities my father roamed, like a bewildered child.

她避免提及我父亲在迈阿密和波士顿等城市还有其他女人、其他家庭的事实，我父亲像一个困惑的孩子一样在这些城市漫游。

She was silent about the fact that my father's mother and sisters told her about the other women and children my father had, probably as a test to see how much my mother could stand to hear about my father, whom his mother and sisters felt only they could understand and love, which is one reason my father remained a child.

她对我父亲的母亲和姐妹向她讲述我父亲的其他妇女和孩子的事实保持沉默，这可能是为了测试我的母亲能在多大程度上忍受听到我父亲的事情，他的母亲和姐妹认为只有她们才能理解和爱我的父亲，这就是我父亲仍然是个孩子的原因之一。

She avoided explaining that she created a position of power for herself in this common world by being a mother to children and childlike men as she attempted to separate from her parents and siblings by being nice, an attitude they could never understand since they weren't.

她避免解释说，她通过成为孩子和孩子气的男人的母亲，在这个共同的世界中为自己创造了权力地位，同时她试图通过友善来与父母和兄弟姐妹分开，而他们永远无法理解这种态度，因为他们不是。

Negress was one of the few words she took with her when she emigrated from Barbados to Manhattan.

当她从巴巴多斯移民到曼哈顿时，“黑人”是她随身携带的少数几个词之一。

As a Negress, her passport to the world was restricted.

作为一名黑人，她通往世界的护照受到限制。

The world has its limits.

Shortly after arriving in New York in the late '40s, my mother saw what her everyday life would be.

四十年代末抵达纽约后不久，我母亲就看到了她的日常生活。

Being bright, a high school graduate, and practical, she'd looked at the world she had emigrated to, picked up her servants' cap, and began starching it with servitude.

她聪明、高中毕业、务实，她看着自己移民到的世界，拿起仆人的帽子，开始用奴役的方式给它上浆。

In her new country, my mother noticed that some New Yorkers retain the fantasy that in writing or speaking about the underclass or the oppressed silent woman or the indomitable stoic, they were writing about the kind of Negress she was.

在她的新国家，我母亲注意到，一些纽约人保留着一种幻想，即在写作或谈论下层阶级、受压迫的沉默妇女或不屈不挠的坚忍者时，他们写的是她是什么样的黑人。

But they weren't.

但他们没有。

I think my mother took some pleasure in how harsh the word Negress seemed to the citizens in her adopted home.

我想我的母亲很高兴看到“黑人”这个词对于她第二故乡的居民来说是多么严厉。

I think my mother took pleasure in manipulating the guilt and embarrassment white and black Americans alike felt when she called herself a Negress, since their view of the Negress was largely sentimental, maudlin, replete with suffering.

我认为我的母亲乐于操纵美国白人和黑人在称自己为黑人时所感受到的内疚和尴尬，因为他们对黑人的看法大多是多愁善感的、伤感的、充满痛苦的。

When my mother laughed in the face of their deeply presumptive view of her, one of her front teeth flashed gold.

当我母亲面对他们对她的深以为然的看法而大笑时，她的一颗门牙闪闪发光。

For years before and after my mother's death, I refer to myself as a Negress.

在我母亲去世前后的几年里，我一直称自己为黑人。

It was what I was conditioned to be.

I have expressed my Negressity by living fully the prescribed life of an anti-man, what Barbadians call a faggot.

我通过完全过着反人类（巴巴多斯人所说的基佬）规定的生活来表达我的消极性。

Which is a form of kinship, really, given that my being an anti-man is based on greed for romantic love with men temperamentally not unlike the men my mother knew.

这确实是一种亲属关系，因为我是一个反男人的人，是基于对浪漫爱情的贪婪，而这些男人在性情上与我母亲认识的男人没有什么不同。

I socialized myself as an anti-man long before I committed my first act as one.

早在我第一次做出反人类行为之前，我就将自己定位为反人类者。

I also wore my mother's and sisters' clothes when they were not home.

当妈妈和姐姐不在家时，我也穿她们的衣服。

Those clothes deflected from the pressure I felt in being different from them.

这些衣服缓解了我因与他们不同而感受到的压力。

As a child, this difference was too much for me to take.

作为一个孩子，这种差异让我无法接受。

Those women "killed me," as comedians say, when they describe their power over an audience.

正如喜剧演员在描述她们对观众的影响力时所说的那样，这些女人“杀了我”。

I wanted them to kill me further by fully exploiting the attention I afforded them.

我希望他们充分利用我给予他们的关注来进一步杀死我。

But they couldn't, being women.

My mother killed herself systematically and not all at once.

我母亲有计划地自杀，而不是一下子自杀。

Perhaps that is because, as a Negress, she had learned stamina, a stamina that consisted of smiling and lying and maintaining the hope that everything would eventually be different, regardless of the facts.

也许这是因为，作为一个黑人，她学会了耐力，这种耐力包括微笑、撒谎和保持希望一切最终都会有所不同，而不管事实如何。

Until the end, my mother avoided the facts.

直到最后，我母亲都回避了事实。

She was polite.

她很有礼貌。

She imposed her will by not telling anyone what was really wrong.

她通过不告诉任何人真正的问题来强加自己的意志。

This kept everyone poised and at her service.

She would not speak of the facts contributing to her death, nor would she speak of the facts that contributed to her wish to die in the first place.

她不会谈论导致她死亡的事实，也不会谈论最初导致她希望死亡的事实。

Not for the world would she have forfeited the will she applied to disappearing her own body, since it took her so many years to admit to her need for attention.

她绝不会放弃让自己的身体消失的意愿，因为她花了很多年才承认自己需要关注。

And being ill was one way to get it.

生病是获得它的一种方式。

My mother first became ill at the end of her love affair with my father.

我母亲第一次生病是在她与父亲的恋情结束时。

As with most aspects of my parents' relationship, it is unclear whether or not my father dictated the course their relationship would take.

与我父母关系的大多数方面一样，目前还不清楚我父亲是否决定了他们关系的发展方向。

The difference between my mother and the woman he became involved with after my mother was significant.

我母亲和他在我母亲之后交往的女人之间的差异是巨大的。

She consented to live with my father, whereas my mother had not.

她同意和我父亲住在一起，但我母亲不同意。

After my mother refused to marry him, my father never asked her to again.

自从我母亲拒绝嫁给他之后，我父亲就再也没有向她求过婚。

I know my mother encountered my father's girlfriend once on the street.

我知道我妈妈有一次在街上遇到了我爸爸的女朋友。

My father's new girlfriend was in the company of one of my father's sisters.

我父亲的新女友和我父亲的一位姐妹在一起。

My mother saw a certain resemblance between my father's new girlfriend and herself.

我母亲发现我父亲的新女友和她自己有一定的相似之处。

They were both homely but spirited, like Doris Day.

她们虽然相貌平平，但却充满活力，就像多丽丝·戴一样。

It was clear to my mother that his new girlfriend was capable of withstanding my father's tantrums, his compulsive childishness, and his compulsive lying.

我母亲很清楚，他的新女友能够忍受我父亲的发脾气、他强迫性的孩子气和他强迫性的谎言。

I think the resemblance my mother saw between herself and my father's new girlfriend shattered any claim to originality my mother had.

我认为我母亲在她自己和我父亲的新女友之间看到的相似之处粉碎了我母亲所声称的独创性。

And being a woman, she chose to be critical of the similarity rather than judge my father.

作为一名女性，她选择批评这种相似性，而不是评判我的父亲。

Shortly afterward, she was made sick by a mysterious respiratory illness.

不久之后，她患上了一种神秘的呼吸道疾病。

In the end, I think my mother's long and public illness was the only thing she ever felt she experienced as an accomplishment separate from other people.

最后，我认为我母亲的长期公共疾病是她唯一感受到的与其他人不同的成就。

And it was.

确实如此。

She was in love with my father until the end.

They spoke every day on the telephone.

They amused and angered one another.

She called him Sip, which was short for Siprian, his given name.

她叫他西普（Sip），这是他的名字西普里安（Siprian）的缩写。

When he said her name, Marie, he said it in a thick Bajan accent, so that the 'A' was very flat.

当他说出她的名字玛丽时，他用浓重的巴巴多斯口音说，所以“A”很平。

In his mouth, her name sounded like this-- "Ma-rie."

在他嘴里，她的名字听起来是这样的——“玛莉。”

For years, I wanted to be part of a narrative as compelling to me as my mother's was, a narrative in which I too would be involved with a bad man resulting in heartache that would eventually lead to depression and endless suicide and the attention that can be garnered from all that.

多年来，我一直想成为像我母亲那样对我有吸引力的故事的一部分，在这个故事中，我也会与一个坏人卷入，导致心痛，最终导致抑郁和无休止的自杀，以及由此引起的关注。

I was dwarfed by my mother's spectacular sense of narrative and disaster.

与母亲惊人的叙事感和灾难感相比，我显得相形见绌。

She could have been a great writer.

I've never been comforted by the idea that writing her narrative down in fragments is at all equal to the power of her live-while-trying-not-to experience.

我从来没有因为这样的想法而感到安慰：把她的叙述分成碎片写下来，与她在试图不经历的情况下生活的力量完全相等。

She is so interesting to me as a kind of living literature.

她对我来说非常有趣，就像一种活生生的文学。

I still envy her allure.

我还是很羡慕她的魅力。

And I still envy her ability to love, no matter how terrible, no matter how coarse, and to allow that love to consume her, or literally parts of herself.

我仍然羡慕她的爱能力，无论多么可怕，无论多么粗俗，并让这种爱吞噬她，或者她自己的一部分。

I stand back from the model of her courage, just as I stand back from my desire to be taken in by love, even as I fear its power.

我对她的勇气典范敬而远之，就像我对被爱所吸引的渴望退却一样，尽管我害怕它的力量。

I avoid all of this even though I have considered myself a Negress in the tradition of my mother.

尽管按照我母亲的传统，我认为自己是黑人，但我还是避免了这一切。

Time has not changed my point of view, nor has the knowledge that what divide people are not the dreary, marginal issues of race or class or gender, but this-- those who believe friendship and love dispel our basic aloneness and those who do not.

时间并没有改变我的观点，也没有改变我的认识，即分裂人们的不是种族、阶级或性别等沉闷的边缘问题，而是那些相信友谊和爱的人驱散了我们基本的孤独感，而那些不相信友谊和爱的人则驱散了我们基本的孤独感。

This was the difference that divided me from my mother.

这就是我和母亲的区别。

Maybe all I can say in support of my difference from her is that she never missed herself while I was around.

也许我能说的所有话来支持我与她的不同之处就是，当我在身边时，她从未想念过自己。

An excerpt from Hilton Als' book, The Women.

Act Five.

第五幕。

What can we really understand about our parents' romances?

对于父母的爱情，我们能真正理解什么？

Well, all this hour, we've heard from grown children talking about their parents.

嗯，这一个小时里，我们一直听到成年孩子谈论他们的父母。

Now, we hear from a parent.

Reporter Scott Carrier in Salt Lake City and one of his children.

盐湖城记者斯科特·卡里尔和他的一个孩子。

I think you were working on an antelope story and Mom was doing filming, or something.

我想你正在写一个羚羊的故事，而妈妈正在拍摄，或者其他什么。

You met each other and then you liked each other and then you married each other.

你们认识了对方，然后互相喜欢，然后就结婚了。

I remember sitting on my front steps in the morning, waiting for her to ride up the hill on her bicycle.

我记得早上我坐在门前的台阶上，等着她骑自行车上山。

It was in the spring, late April, and it had been raining, steam coming up off the street and sidewalks.

那是在春天，四月底，一直在下雨，街道和人行道上冒着蒸汽。

I was waiting on the steps, and I realized that I was in love with her and that everything was going to be different now.

我在台阶上等着，我意识到我爱上了她，现在一切都会不同了。

She'd ride up the hill and set her bike down on the grass, and we'd go inside and she'd live with me there for a long time, maybe forever.

她会骑上山，把自行车停在草地上，然后我们进去，她会和我一起住在那里很长一段时间，也许永远。

I knew it.

我就知道。

I saw the whole thing coming, just like I see everything now.

我看到了整个事情的发生，就像我现在看到了一切一样。

The only thing missing is the ending.

唯一缺少的是结局。

I remember lots of times you were nice to Mom.

我记得很多时候你对妈妈很好。

I mean, she told me once that for her birthday or for Christmas or something, you bought her perfume and you wanted to get her the right one.

我的意思是，她曾经告诉我，为了她的生日或圣诞节或其他什么，你给她买了香水，你想给她买一款合适的。

And so you went around and you had a sample of each, and you were smelling it.

所以你四处走动，拿到了每一种的样本，然后闻了闻。

And you couldn't decide which one to give her.

而你却无法决定该送哪一个给她。

And then when you come home, you hug her.

然后当你回到家时，你拥抱她。

My house inside had no furniture other than two chairs and a table.

我的房子里面除了两把椅子和一张桌子之外没有任何家具。

I made some coffee and moved the table over by the window so she could sit in the sun.

我煮了一些咖啡，把桌子移到窗边，这样她就可以坐在阳光下。

She was a modern dancer, small and thin, wearing a white, cotton blouse, no bra-- no need for a bra-- shorts and sandals, and sweating a bit from the ride.

她是一位现代舞者，身材矮小，瘦削，穿着白色棉质衬衫，没有胸罩——不需要胸罩——短裤和凉鞋，骑行时有点出汗。

Her skin was dark tanned, already so early, lovely legs, but with lots of scars on the knees and shins, and feet that were like little creatures unto themselves, beautiful and frightening.

她的皮肤晒黑了，已经这么早了，双腿很可爱，但膝盖和小腿上有很多疤痕，脚本身就像小生物一样，美丽而可怕。

They had the structure of the Golden Gate Bridge, a high, sinewy arch with built-in springs and pulleys and long toes, stretching out for perches.

它们具有金门大桥的结构，一个高而有力的拱门，内置弹簧和滑轮，还有长长的脚趾，可以伸展以供栖息。

Do you feel like anything's a mystery between Hillary and me that you don't understand?

你觉得我和希拉里之间有什么事情是你不明白的吗？

[SILENCE] This week, when I ask our 11-year-old daughter Jesse this question, she pauses for at least a half a minute.

[沉默] 本周，当我问我们 11 岁的女儿杰西这个问题时，她停顿了至少半分钟。

I've asked maybe a million questions in my reporting career, but this has got to be the longest pause I've ever heard.

在我的报道生涯中，我可能问过一百万个问题，但这一定是我听过的最长的停顿。

I don't really think about it much.

我真的没有想太多。

And it's a hard thing to think about.

这是一件很难思考的事情。

Why?

为什么？

Jesse Carrier Because I usually don't pay much attention to what you and Mom are doing between each other.

杰西·卡里尔：因为我通常不太注意你和妈妈之间所做的事情。

But kind of, I do.

但有点，我愿意。

And I don't really wonder anything.

我真的不奇怪什么。

I don't think that there's something that I don't know that I really want to know, like a mystery or anything.

我不认为有什么我不知道但我真正想知道的事情，比如神秘之类的。

I'd seen her dance the night before in front of a small audience downtown, and her style was wrapped around the idea, her idea, that she really weighed nothing at all and that her body was only there to tell little jokes, her little jokes, whatever might come to mind.

前一天晚上我看到她在市中心的一小群观众面前跳舞，她的风格围绕着这样一个想法，她的想法，她真的没有任何重量，她的身体只是在那里讲小笑话，她的小笑话，无论你想到什么。

I asked her if she liked my house, and she said she liked the view.

我问她是否喜欢我的房子，她说她喜欢这里的景色。

She asked me what I thought about her concert, and I said, "I thought it was funny."

她问我对她的演唱会有何看法，我说：“我觉得这很有趣。”

She said, "Funny?

她说：“有趣吗？

Only funny?"

只是搞笑吗？”

"Funny and beautiful," I said.

“有趣又美丽，”我说。

And she said, "That's better."

她说：“这样好多了。”

Yeah.

是的。

I mean, because you sometimes have fights.

我的意思是，因为你们有时会吵架。

I think people who love each other have to have fights sometimes, otherwise they don't understand each other very well.

我觉得相爱的人有时候是要吵架的，不然就不太了解对方。

Not everybody is exactly the same.

并非每个人都完全相同。

And so people might disagree about something, but two people who love each other have to understand each other.

所以人们可能会在某些事情上意见不一致，但是两个相爱的人必须互相理解。

And to understand each other, they have to know what they're thinking.

为了互相理解，他们必须知道他们在想什么。

Up until this time, I had been living alone and was not unhappy.

直到此时，我一直一个人生活，过得并不快乐。

I had a house and a dog and a car.

我有房子、狗和车。

No job.

没有工作。

No need for a job.

不需要工作。

I had money from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce a radio story about chasing antelope, which, as far as I could tell, only required a wholehearted effort to live as much like a primitive hunter as possible.

我从国家艺术基金会得到了资金，制作了一个关于追逐羚羊的广播故事，据我所知，只需要全心全意地努力，尽可能像原始猎人一样生活。

It was a problem I was working on by myself.

这是我自己正在解决的一个问题。

And really, I had no idea how to go about it, other than by trying to live simply and by trying to stay outside and cover as much ground as possible.

事实上，我不知道该怎么做，除了尝试简单的生活，尝试留在外面并尽可能多地覆盖之外。

But there she was, finally arrived, come to stay.

但她终于来了，留下来了。

When you get married-- you ever thought about getting married?

当你结婚的时候——你有没有想过结婚？

Not really.

并不真地。

Not much.

不多。

Scott Carrier You haven't thought about it at all?

Scott Carrier：你根本就没有想过这个问题吗？

You've never thought, well, when I get married, it'll be like this?

你有没有想过，好吧，当我结婚的时候，会是这样？

No. I never thought, like, "When I get married I will have," or, "It will be exactly like this," or something like that.

不，我从来没有想过，“当我结婚的时候，我会结婚”，或者，“事情就会像这样”，或者类似的事情。

Maybe a little bit.

也许有一点。

Jesse Carrier I don't know.

杰西·开利我不知道。

I mean, I don't believe we can never guess the future.

我的意思是，我不相信我们永远无法猜测未来。

I can hope, but I don't like saying what I want to be when I grow up because you never know.

我可以希望，但我不喜欢说出我长大后想做什么，因为你永远不知道。

She asked me why I only had one fork in the kitchen.

她问我为什么厨房里只有一把叉子。

I said it was all I needed and then asked her how many she had in her kitchen.

我说这就是我所需要的，然后问她厨房里有多少。

"Eight," she said, "and at least 10 spoons.

“八个，”她说，“至少十个勺子。

And I have some glasses, different kinds.

我有一些眼镜，不同种类的。

Even wine glasses.

甚至酒杯。

I like to have friends over.

我喜欢有朋友过来。

I like to cook and have friends over to eat.

我喜欢做饭，也喜欢请朋友来吃饭。

Don't you have any friends?"

你没有朋友吗？”

"Yeah, I have a friend.

“是的，我有一个朋友。

But he doesn't have any hands," I said, looking over at my dog.

但他没有手。”我看着我的狗说道。

"You know," she said, "I've been dreaming about you.

“你知道吗，”她说，“我一直在梦见你。

I think I'm in love with you."

我想我爱上你了。”

She doesn't wish-- I mean, she doesn't say to us that she regrets that she married you, and maybe not having a job sometimes.

她不希望——我的意思是，她没有对我们说她后悔嫁给了你，也许有时没有工作。

And so she still appreciates what she has.

所以她仍然很珍惜自己所拥有的。

I went downstairs and brought up the pieces of a wooden bed frame that had been left there by a previous tenant.

我下楼，把前房客留下的木床架碎片拿了上来。

I had the mattress and everything, and I asked where she'd like to have it.

我有床垫和所有东西，我问她想要去哪里。

She said, "I like to sit in bed in the morning and drink coffee." So I moved the table and put the bed there in the sunlight.

她说：“我喜欢早上坐在床上喝咖啡。”于是我搬了桌子，把床放在阳光下。

When you get married, if your marriage turns out like our marriage-- you know, between your mom and me-- would that be good enough for you, or would you want more than that?

当你结婚时，如果你的婚姻像我们的婚姻一样——你知道，你妈妈和我之间的婚姻——这对你来说足够好，还是你想要更多？

I think it would be fine.

我想这样就可以了。

I mean, you guys seem pretty happy.

我的意思是，你们看起来很高兴。

And I think that if my marriage-- if I got married-- was like yours, I would be pretty happy too.

我想，如果我的婚姻——如果我结婚了——像你的那样，我也会很幸福。

And I think I would try to make a little more money.

我想我会尝试多赚一点钱。

But otherwise, getting along like that, I think that would be-- it would be a very-- it would be a good marriage.

但除此之外，像这样相处，我认为那将是——这将是一段非常——这将是一段美好的婚姻。

Scott Carrier and his daughter Jesse in Salt Lake City.

斯科特·卡里尔和他的女儿杰西在盐湖城。

He's been married for 11 years.

他已经结婚11年了。

Our program was produced today by Nancy Updike and myself, with Peter Clowney and Alix Spiegel.

今天我们的节目由南希·厄普代克和我、彼得·克劳尼和阿利克斯·斯皮格尔共同制作。

Contributing editors, Sarah Vowell, Paul Tough, Jack Hitt, and Margy Rochlin.

特约编辑：莎拉·沃威尔 (Sarah Vowell)、保罗·托夫 (Paul Tough)、杰克·希特 (Jack Hitt) 和玛吉·罗克林 (Margy Rochlin)。

If you'd like a tape of our program, you can call us at WBEZ in Chicago, the phone number 312-832-3380.

如果您想要我们节目的磁带，您可以致电芝加哥的 WBEZ，电话号码 312-832-3380。

[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight by Torey Malatia.

[资金来源] WBEZ 管理由 Torey Malatia 监督。

I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.

我是艾拉·格拉斯，下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。

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。

中文为机器翻译，仅供参考。