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793: The Problem with Ghosts - This American Life

793:鬼魂的问题
793  ·  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 #793 | March 10, 2023 793: The Problem with Ghosts 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 793 集 | 2023 年 3 月 10 日 793:鬼魂问题 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: Prologue Ira Glass Chaunte is not somebody who believed in ghosts.

序言:序言 Ira Glass Chaunte 并不是一个相信鬼魂的人。

When her mom died this past May, she remembered seeing her lying there and feeling the finality of it.

今年五月,当她妈妈去世时,她记得看到她躺在那里,感受到了这一切的终结。

Like, she's gone.

就像,她走了。

It felt real.

感觉很真实。

But three days later, this thing started happening.

但三天后,事情就开始发生了。

I was just laying on the bed, scrolling on my phone, and it felt like somebody was suddenly there.

我躺在床上,刷着手机,感觉突然有人出现了。

Like, it was a surprise.

就像,这是一个惊喜。

I was like, oh.

我当时想,哦。

Oh, hi.

哦,嗨。

It was her mom.

是她妈妈。

Chaunte And my mom was like, oh, sorry.

Chaunte 我妈妈说,哦,抱歉。

Sorry to scare you, but just make sure you get to the funeral early so you get a good parking spot.

抱歉吓到你了,但请确保你早点去参加葬礼,这样你就能找到一个好的停车位。

And I was like, oh, OK.

我当时想,哦,好吧。

Thanks.

谢谢。

That was it.

就是这样。

No important messages from the other side, not even an I love you.

对方没有发来重要的信息,连一句“我爱你”都没有。

Yeah, that would have been great.

是的,那就太好了。

But then, she did always really care about good parking spots.

但后来,她确实非常关心好的停车位。

She lived in Las Vegas.

她住在拉斯维加斯。

You want to get a spot that's in the shade.

你想要找一个阴凉的地方。

That's key.

这是关键。

And not saying, I love you?

也不说,我爱你?

Typical.

典型的。

She wasn't a particularly mushy person, so if she had said something more emotional, it wouldn't have been her.

她本来就不是一个特别脾气暴躁的人,如果说的话比较情绪化的话,就不是她了。

And this was her just completely being herself.

这就是她完全做自己。

No, it was more funny than anything else.

不,这比什么都有趣。

I was like, you're going to use all of your energy and power from the beyond to tell me about parking.

我当时想,你会用你所有的能量和力量来告诉我关于停车的事情。

To be clear, Chaunte didn't actually see her mom.

需要明确的是,尚特实际上并没有见过她的妈妈。

She just felt her presence, like a person sitting beside her, she says.

她说,她只是感觉到她的存在,就像一个人坐在她旁边。

She didn't think too hard about whether it was real or not.

她并没有去想这到底是真是假。

Mostly, she just liked it, her mom dropping in like that.

大多数情况下,她只是喜欢这样,她妈妈就这样过来。

She and her mom always really enjoyed each other, made each other laugh, liked hanging out.

她和她妈妈总是很享受彼此,让彼此开怀大笑,喜欢出去玩。

And her mom died relatively young, 61 years old, from a degenerative disease.

她的母亲在 61 岁的时候就因退行性疾病去世了。

She was struggling to speak.

她很难说话。

She was in a lot of pain.

她非常痛苦。

It was nice to think of her past all that.

想起她过去的一切真是太好了。

And then it happened a second time a few weeks later.

几周后又发生了第二次。

Chaunte was back home in New York City, over 2,500 miles from Vegas where her mom lived and died.

尚特回到了纽约市的家中,距离她母亲生活和去世的拉斯维加斯有 2,500 多英里。

How a ghost would get from one part of the country to another is a question that I certainly would have if I believed in ghosts.

如果我相信有鬼的话,我肯定会问一个问题:鬼魂如何从这个国家的一个地方到达另一个地方。

Does it just jump on a commercial jet?

它只是跳上商用飞机吗?

In any case, Chaunte was on her couch.

无论如何,尚特坐在她的沙发上。

I was, again, scrolling on my phone.

我再次滚动手机。

I'm just shopping for shoes or something.

我只是去买鞋子什么的。

And again, she just pops up like, oh, you know?

再一次,她突然出现,哦,你知道吗?

And it startled me, and it almost startled her that I saw her, that I recognized her.

我看到了她,认出了她,这让我吃了一惊,她也几乎吃了一惊。

And she apologizes for startling me.

她为让我吃惊而道歉。

And I'm like, it's OK.

我想,没关系。

Just figure out what you want to say.

只要弄清楚你想说什么就可以了。

And she says, I don't want your dad to be sad.

她说,我不想让你爸爸伤心。

And I said, why don't you tell him that you don't want him to be sad?

我说,你为什么不告诉他你不想让他伤心呢?

And she says, but he doesn't listen like you do.

她说,但他不像你那样听。

And then I thought about how even in life, I was the translator between my parents.

然后我想,即使在生活中,我也是父母之间的翻译者。

Oh, is that true?

哦,是这样吗?

Chaunte I was the mediator between them.

尚特一世是他们之间的调解人。

She would give you messages to take to your dad?

她会给你留言给你爸爸吗?

Yeah, yeah.

是啊是啊。

Ira Glass Did you get a chance to ask any other questions?

Ira Glass 您还有机会问其他问题吗?

No, I just said, OK, you know, I'll carry the message.

不,我只是说,好吧,你知道,我会传达这个信息。

No problem.

没问题。

Wait, didn't you have questions like, what happens to us after we die?

等等,你没有这样的疑问吗,我们死后会发生什么?

Where are you?

你在哪里?

What is this experience like?

这是怎样的体验?

OK, if she visits again, I'll make sure to ask.

好的,如果她再来,我一定会问一下。

It did not even occur to me at the time.

当时我什至没有想到这一点。

You know all of humanity would want to know the answer.

你知道全人类都想知道答案。

I mean, I'm speaking on behalf of myself, but also on behalf of all other living people.

我的意思是,我代表我自己,也代表所有其他活着的人。

This is true.

这是真实的。

This is true.

这是真实的。

OK, if she comes again, I will ask her and get back to you.

好的,如果她再来,我会询问她并回复您。

Chaunte did deliver the message to her dad, who told Chaunte, yeah, her mom's right.

尚特确实将这个信息传达给了她的父亲,父亲告诉尚特,是的,她妈妈是对的。

He doesn't listen so well sometimes.

他有时不太听话。

The third and last time her mom showed up, again, Chaunte was sitting on the couch.

她妈妈第三次也是最后一次出现时,尚特坐在沙发上。

This time I was watching TV.

这次我正在看电视。

And then she decided to appear while I was watching TV, so I had to pause it.

然后她决定在我看电视的时候出现,所以我不得不暂停。

And I was like, OK, what is it this time?

我当时想,好吧,这次是什么?

And she's like, oh, I just wanted to show you what I've been up to and why I haven't been talking to you.

她说,哦,我只是想告诉你我一直在做什么以及为什么我没有和你说话。

I'm taking care of this girl.

我正在照顾这个女孩。

She always liked taking care of kids, and so that's what she said she's doing right now in the other realm is she's taking care of another kid.

她一直喜欢照顾孩子,所以她说她现在在另一个领域所做的就是照顾另一个孩子。

And I was like, OK, so you're hanging out with another daughter.

我当时想,好吧,所以你和另一个女儿一起出去玩了。

I'm here.

我在这儿。

You can hang out with me.

你可以和我一起出去玩。

Wait, did you say that?

等等,你是这么说的吗?

Chaunte I wasn't going to say it to her.

尚特 我本来不想对她说的。

OK, all right.

好吧,好吧。

Chaunte I just thought it.

尚特 我只是这么想的。

Wait, did you have the feeling of, in some ways, she wanted you to give her permission to do that?

等等,你有没有感觉到,在某些方面,她希望你允许她这样做?

Yes.

是的。

She wanted to show me why she hadn't been around, and so that's a little bit permission, but it's also, I'm doing this, so.

她想告诉我为什么她不在身边,所以这是一种许可,但也是我正在这样做,所以。

But it's actually how her mom was often in life, off busy doing her own thing.

但实际上她妈妈在生活中经常这样,忙着做自己的事情。

And can I say, this is not what Chaunte wants to hear from her dead mother.

我可以说,这不是昌特想从她死去的母亲那里听到的话。

And she does know what she wants.

而且她确实知道自己想要什么。

She wants her mother to say something about her, what she meant to her mom.

她想让她妈妈说一些关于她的事情,她对她妈妈意味着什么。

I'm super curious.

我超级好奇。

She was such an independent person, and she wasn't particularly expressive with emotion or affection.

她是一个非常独立的人,并没有特别表达情感或感情。

And so you always wonder like, who am I to you?

所以你总是想知道,我对你来说是谁?

Yeah, you're saying, you want one more sign from her that she really loved you.

是的,你是说,你希望她再发出一个信号,表明她真的爱你。

Yeah.

是的。

Ira Glass Yeah.

艾拉·格拉斯 是的。

And she just is not delivering.

而她就是没有交付。

She is not delivering.

她不送货。

Ira Glass This is a well known psychological phenomenon that after somebody dies, they appear in some form that seems very real to the people who are closest to them.

艾拉·格拉斯(Ira Glass) 这是一种众所周知的心理现象,即某人死后,他们会以某种对最亲近的人来说似乎非常真实的形式出现。

They'll see them.

他们会看到他们。

They'll hear their voice.

他们会听到他们的声音。

They'll feel their presence.

他们会感觉到他们的存在。

This is a well known thing going back to the 19th century.

这是一件众所周知的事情,可以追溯到19世纪。

Freud wrote about it and called it wishful psychosis.

弗洛伊德对此进行了描述,并将其称为一厢情愿的精神病。

And there's a study in the 1970s.

20 世纪 70 年代有一项研究。

It was of 293 Welsh widowers and widows, and it found that nearly half of them said their spouse had returned.

该调查对 293 名威尔士鳏夫和寡妇进行了调查,发现其中近一半的人表示自己的配偶已经回来。

Yeah, that seems to be what has happened.

是的,这似乎就是发生的事情。

I'm like, is this some sort of self-soothing?

我想,这是某种自我安慰吗?

Is this some kind of glitch in my brain, glitch of grief, or something like that?

这是我大脑的某种故障,悲伤的故障,还是类似的东西?

Like we want to be haunted.

就像我们想要被闹鬼一样。

Chaunte Oh, yeah.

尚特 哦,是的。

But if this is you trying to comfort yourself in some way, you're doing such a bad job.

但如果你试图以某种方式安慰自己,那你就做得很糟糕。

I mean, she's not saying the thing you want her to say to comfort you.

我的意思是,她说的并不是你想让她说的话来安慰你。

Well, this is the problem with ghosts is that they don't do what we want them to.

嗯,这就是鬼魂的问题,他们不做我们想让他们做的事。

No, she's not at all.

不,她根本不是。

Ira Glass Today on our program, "The Problem with Ghosts." We expect such specific things from them, and they so rarely deliver.

艾拉·格拉斯今天在我们的节目“鬼魂问题”中。我们对他们抱有如此具体的期望,但他们却很少兑现。

We really do want them to be something they are not, which, frankly, is so unfair.

我们确实希望他们成为他们不是的人,坦率地说,这是非常不公平的。

They're dead, and still they're supposed to put up with other people's expectations?

人都死了,还要承受别人的期待吗?

Don't we at least get relief from that in the great beyond?

难道我们至少不能在遥远的彼岸得到解脱吗?

Today on our program, we have stories of all kinds of ghosts, ghosts who've been ignored and misunderstood, famous ghosts, and ghosts who have ghosted those who love them.

今天在我们的节目中,我们有各种各样的鬼魂的故事,有被忽视和误解的鬼魂,有名的鬼魂,还有鬼魂袭击爱他们的人的鬼魂。

Yes, they ghosted.

是的,他们幽灵了。

Why do you think they call them ghosts?

你认为他们为什么称他们为鬼魂?

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.

来自芝加哥 WBEZ 的《This American Life》。

I'm Ira Glass.

我是艾拉·格拉斯。

Stay with us.

留在我们身边。

Act One, The Ghost Industrial Complex.

第一幕,幽灵工业园区。

What people want from ghosts in Savannah, Georgia couldn't be clearer.

佐治亚州萨凡纳的人们想从鬼魂那里得到什么再清楚不过了。

They want a good scare.

他们想要好好吓一跳。

Ghost tours are a thriving part of the tourism business there.

幽灵之旅是那里旅游业蓬勃发展的一部分。

Still till this day, people passing by her window late in the evening can occasionally still spot her ghost sitting there.

直到今天,深夜经过她窗前的人们偶尔仍能看到她的鬼魂坐在那里。

Every night in Savannah, the historic district is packed with ghost tours, guides taking people around with ridiculous ghost-detecting equipment, tours in open-top hearses.

萨凡纳的每个晚上,这个历史街区都挤满了幽灵之旅,导游带着可笑的幽灵探测设备带着人们四处游览,乘坐敞篷灵车进行游览。

There's a lot of drinking on these tours.

这些旅行中会有很多酒。

The journalist and podcaster that a bunch of us here at the radio show know, Chenjerai Kumanyika, recently heard from a friend of his, George, who's an eighth generation Savannahan, that something weird is happening on these ghost tours.

我们广播节目中的一些人都认识的记者兼播客 Chenjerai Kumanyika 最近从他的朋友乔治(第八代萨凡纳人)那里听说,这些幽灵之旅中发生了一些奇怪的事情。

George told Chenjerai that the guides actually talk about the brutal reality of slavery.

乔治告诉陈杰莱,导游实际上谈论了奴隶制的残酷现实。

Chenjerai thought, really?

陈杰莱心想,真的吗?

On these tours?

在这些旅行团中?

They're going for that?

他们要这么做吗?

Chenjerai was the co-host of the podcast, Uncivil, which documented the typical ways that white Southerners present the history of the South and what they usually leave out, like the violence of slavery.

Chenjerai 是播客 Uncivil 的共同主持人,该播客记录了南方白人呈现南方历史的典型方式以及他们通常忽略的内容,例如奴隶制的暴力。

So he wanted to see for himself what was happening and went down to Savannah.

所以他想亲眼看看到底发生了什么,就去了萨凡纳。

I went on a bunch of these ghost tours.

我参加了很多这样的幽灵之旅。

My friend, George, told me to be sure that I went on one called The Spirits and Scoundrels Tour.

我的朋友乔治告诉我一定要参加一项名为“精神与恶棍之旅”的活动。

I pulled up on it at about 10:00 PM on a Saturday night.

周六晚上 10:00 左右,我把车停了下来。

It was being led by an older white dude dressed like a pirate with baggy pants and a black scarf around his head, silver rings and daggers hanging from his waist.

领头的是一位年长的白人男子,他穿着宽松的裤子,头上围着黑色围巾,腰间挂着银戒指和匕首,打扮得像个海盗。

He jingled when he walked.

他走路时叮当作响。

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Spirits and Scoundrels Tour.

好吧,女士们先生们,欢迎来到《鬼魂与恶棍之旅》。

I guarantee you we will be walking on the dead this evening.

我向你保证今晚我们将在死人身上行走。

And as far as I know, we may well be standing on some as I'm speaking.

据我所知,在我发言时我们很可能站在某些立场上。

As we walked, every once in a while, he would stop our group in front of one of these large mansions and tell us about a murder and some kind of ghost sighting.

当我们走路时,每隔一段时间,他就会在其中一栋大宅邸前停下我们的队伍,告诉我们一起谋杀案和某种鬼魂目击事件。

All of this was totally predictable on a ghost tour and also part of why I'm not into ghost tours.

所有这一切在幽灵之旅中都是完全可以预见的,也是我不喜欢幽灵之旅的部分原因。

But then the pirate pointed down to these bricks and said they were sunken down in the sidewalk because there were bodies of people buried beneath us.

但随后海盗指着这些砖块说,它们沉入人行道上,因为我们下面埋着人的尸体。

I told you I was going to have us walking on the dead this evening, didn't I?

我告诉过你今晚我会让我们在死人身上行走,不是吗?

And by golly, I didn't monkey around by getting you on them either.

天哪,我也没有胡闹让你穿上它们。

These bricks we're walking on are the original bricks handmade by the enslaved folks in Savannah.

我们行走的这些砖块是萨凡纳被奴役者手工制作的原始砖块。

You'll see these all over the historic district.

您会在整个历史街区看到这些。

And when you do, take a moment to look at them closely because you can often find the indentations of the fingers of the brickmaker.

当你这样做时,花点时间仔细观察它们,因为你经常可以发现制砖匠手指的凹痕。

You can see the pinky finger, the index finger, the you-know-what finger.

你可以看到小指、食指、你知道的手指。

The small size of these indicates the brickmaker was either a woman or a child.

这些小尺寸表明制砖工人要么是女人,要么是孩子。

Suddenly, we weren't just talking about ghosts anymore.

突然间,我们不再只是谈论鬼魂了。

The pirate had snatched us into this kind of weird Black history archaeology moment.

海盗把我们带入了这种奇怪的黑人历史考古时刻。

Honestly, it caught me off guard.

老实说,这让我措手不及。

Keep in mind, people are walking past us with beers in their hands.

请记住,人们从我们身边走过时手里拿着啤酒。

It's not quite New Orleans, but it's definitely a downtown drinking vibe.

这里虽不完全是新奥尔良,但绝对是市中心的饮酒氛围。

The pirate knelt down and held his fingers above the indentations in the bricks.

海盗跪下来,将手指放在砖块的凹痕上。

When I find them, I always like to put my fingers in them.

当我找到它们时,我总是喜欢把手指伸进去。

I feel like it gives me a connection with the brickmaker.

我觉得它让我与制砖匠建立了联系。

When white people acknowledge slavery, I'm not going to tell them, don't do that.

当白人承认奴隶制时,我不会告诉他们不要这样做。

But at this moment, I'm not sure I'm buying this connection.

但此时此刻,我不确定我是否会购买这种连接。

This was a tour guide dressed like a pirate, leading mostly white folks who were here to find ghosts.

这是一位打扮得像海盗的导游,带领着大部分白人来这里寻找鬼魂。

The only other Black guy on the tour was this dude who was maybe in his 30s, and I couldn't help but notice him.

巡演中唯一的另一个黑人是这个大约 30 多岁的家伙,我忍不住注意到了他。

Clearly, we were not the target demographic for this tour.

显然,我们不是这次旅行的目标人群。

When we saw each other, he gave me the nod.

当我们见面时,他向我点了点头。

I walked over to him.

我走到他身边。

How you feel, bruh?

你感觉怎么样,兄弟?

You feel like you just learned some Black history?

你觉得你刚刚了解了一些黑人历史吗?

[LAUGHS]

[笑]

Come on, man.

来吧,伙计。

Come on, man.

来吧,伙计。

Chenjerai Kumanyika He looked directly at me and scrunched up his face.

Chenjerai Kumanyika 他直视着我,皱起脸。

If you looked up, "seriously, bruh?" in the dictionary, this guy's face would be there.

如果你抬起头来,“认真的吗,兄弟?”字典里就有这个人的脸。

I couldn't help but laugh.

我忍不住笑了。

We both did.

我们都这么做了。

His name was Greg.

他的名字叫格雷格。

Soon enough, we had another weird slavery moment on the tour.

很快,我们在巡演中又经历了另一个奇怪的奴隶时刻。

We stopped in front of a big mansion called the Mercer-Williams House.

我们在一座名叫默瑟-威廉姆斯之家的大宅子前停了下来。

According to the story, the former owner of the property, Hugh Mercer, told eight of his enslaved people to stand in the front of the house, and then--

据报道,该房产的前主人休·默瑟(Hugh Mercer)告诉他的八名奴隶站在房子前面,然后——

Ordered them to face to the east, kneel down.

命他们面向东方,跪下。

And before anybody knew what was happening, is alleged to have pulled his pistol from his pocket, walked behind them-- pop, pop, pop, pop-- shot all eight of them in the back of the head.

据称,在任何人都知道发生了什么事之前,他从口袋里掏出手枪,走到他们身后——啪、啪、啪、啪——朝八个人的后脑勺开了一枪。

As the pirate imitated the sound of the gun, he also acted out the whole thing, pointing his fingers at imaginary Black heads in front of us.

海盗在模仿枪声的同时,也表演了整件事,用手指指着我们面前想象中的黑头。

He then is alleged to have taken two bodies and put them on each corner of the mansion, their heads coming together at the corner, and the foundation stones laid on top of them.

据称,他随后将两具尸体放在豪宅的每个角落,他们的头在角落处靠在一起,并将基石放在他们的上面。

This was likely some type of voodoo ritual.

这可能是某种巫毒仪式。

After that horrifying detail, he's on to the next thing, like that was just another fun little story.

在那个可怕的细节之后,他开始讲下一件事,就像那只是另一个有趣的小故事一样。

I fell back from the group to walk next to Greg.

我从人群中退后,走到格雷格身边。

Hey, man, hold on.

嘿,伙计,坚持住。

So what'd you think about that, man?

那么你对此有何看法,伙计?

He skipped over a whole lot of [BLEEP] just now.

他刚才跳过了很多[BLEEP]。

You know he did.

你知道他做到了。

I'm still stuck on who built the house, the groundwork.

我仍然不知道是谁建造了这座房子,谁建造了地基。

And that story about all them enslaved people?

还有那个关于所有被奴役的人的故事吗?

They have names.

他们有名字。

Who were they?

他们是谁?

Why were they shot?

他们为什么被枪杀?

That's worth investigating.

这值得研究一下。

I wondered the same thing.

我也想知道同样的事情。

I wanted to hear more about the Black folks in these stories, not just their deaths.

我想更多地了解这些故事中的黑人,而不仅仅是他们的死亡。

And in every tour I went on, this happened over and over.

在我参加的每一次巡演中,这种情况都一遍又一遍地发生。

Guys would breeze through these violent stories of enslaved people getting killed for pure shock value or laughs.

人们会轻松地浏览这些被奴役的人被杀的暴力故事,纯粹是为了震惊或笑。

Like when the pirate took us to what he said was a slave burial ground, he said the bodies were pretty much just thrown in the dirt, and then he capped that off with a joke.

就像当海盗带我们去他所说的奴隶墓地时,他说尸体几乎只是被扔在泥土里,然后他用一个笑话结束了这一切。

And that's why we think we have such lush, beautiful green grass here.

这就是为什么我们认为这里有如此茂盛、美丽的绿草。

Other graphic moments of terror or trauma got other punch lines.

其他恐怖或创伤的生动时刻也有其他妙语。

One tour guide told us about four runaway slaves who were beheaded and joked that their ghosts haunt the square.

一位导游向我们讲述了四名逃跑的奴隶被斩首的故事,并开玩笑说他们的鬼魂经常出没在广场上。

And if you listen close, you can hear them singing, "I Ain't Got No Body."

如果你仔细听,你可以听到他们唱着“我没有身体”。

I think I was expecting these tours to acknowledge slavery in a way that would check a woke box or something, a few somber sentences acknowledging that slavery was bad before they got back to ghosts.

我想我期待这些旅行以一种会检查唤醒框或其他东西的方式承认奴隶制,在他们回到鬼魂之前承认几句阴沉的句子承认奴隶制是坏的。

But this was more than that.

但这还不止于此。

They were really going in.

他们真的要进去了。

A lot of this stuff was cartoonish and stereotypical.

其中很多东西都是卡通化的和刻板的。

But intentionally or unintentionally, they were doing something I've called for many times, getting groups of white people to confront the violence and cold-bloodedness of slavery.

但有意无意地,他们正在做我多次呼吁的事情,让白人群体面对奴隶制的暴力和冷血。

And why were Southern, mostly white people paying to go on these tours in their time off?

为什么南方人(主要是白人)在休息时间付费参加这些旅行?

It's almost like if you turn critical race theory into a book of ghost stories, all the white folks who hate it would love it.

这几乎就像如果你把批判性的种族理论变成一本鬼故事书,所有讨厌它的白人都会喜欢它。

I talked to someone who had an explanation for why this is happening.

我和一个人交谈过,他对为什么会发生这种情况有解释。

Tiya Miles is a historian at Harvard, and she stumbled onto a tour like this kind of on a whim.

蒂亚·迈尔斯是哈佛大学的历史学家,她一时兴起偶然参加了这样的旅行。

I was visiting Savannah.

我当时正在访问萨凡纳。

It happened to have been a rainy set of days that I walked by a home called the Sorrel-Weed House.

碰巧是一个下雨天,我路过一所叫酸模屋的房子。

As I walked by, I was called and beckoned in by a woman who was standing outside, trying to encourage people to come take a tour.

当我走过时,站在外面的一位女士叫我进去,试图鼓励人们来参观。

This tour is presented to Tiya as a historical tour, not a ghost tour.

这次旅行对蒂亚来说是一次历史之旅,而不是幽灵之旅。

Tiya loves going on history tours.

蒂亚喜欢参加历史之旅。

I had never heard of this house before, and I was curious.

我以前从未听说过这所房子,我很好奇。

So I went in, I took the tour, and that's where I learned about Molly.

所以我进去了,我参观了,这就是我了解莫莉的地方。

Molly is the person at the center of what's probably the most popular ghost story down in Savannah.

莫莉是萨凡纳最受欢迎的鬼故事的中心人物。

Her story is the spooky climax of nearly all the tours.

她的故事几乎是所有巡演的怪异高潮。

The tour guides all stop in front of a big orange mansion with palm trees and Spanish moss.

导游们都停在一座种有棕榈树和西班牙苔藓的橙色大宅前。

And the way they tell it, this Black woman, Molly, who lived and died in the house, was owned by a wealthy and influential businessman named Francis Sorrel and his wife, Matilda.

据他们所说,这位黑人妇女莫莉(Molly)在这所房子里生活和去世,她的主人是一位富有而有影响力的商人弗朗西斯·索雷尔(Francis Sorrel)和他的妻子玛蒂尔达(Matilda)。

Molly is caught up in a love triangle.

莫莉陷入了三角恋。

Francis is having an affair with her.

弗朗西斯与她有染。

That's the word they use.

这就是他们使用的词。

Only Matilda, his wife, has no idea.

只有他的妻子玛蒂尔达不知道。

Then one night, Matilda walks in on Francis and Molly and catches them in the act.

一天晚上,玛蒂尔达走进弗朗西斯和莫莉,当场抓住了他们。

Matilda is so distraught to learn that her husband is cheating that she walks out on the balcony and jumps to her death.

玛蒂尔达得知丈夫出轨后悲痛欲绝,她走到阳台上跳楼自杀。

Some even believe she was pushed.

有些人甚至认为她是被推的。

A few weeks later, Molly is found dead, hanging from the rafters in the slave quarters.

几周后,莫莉被发现吊死在奴隶宿舍的房梁上。

Francis is a suspect in both deaths.

弗朗西斯是两起死亡事件的嫌疑人。

Tours all over the city exploit this tragedy by claiming Molly still haunts the house where she was murdered.

全城各地的旅游团都利用这一悲剧,声称莫莉仍然在她被谋杀的房子里出没。

And remember, because these are ghost stories, they get told with a whole bunch of embellishments, and there are slightly different versions on different tours.

请记住,因为这些都是鬼故事,所以它们的讲述有一大堆修饰,并且不同巡演的版本略有不同。

I will say, though, what's interesting is, Matilda, she was actually really close to Molly.

不过,我要说的是,有趣的是,玛蒂尔达,她实际上和莫莉非常亲近。

Molly was kind of like an unofficial therapist for her, like a confidante.

莫莉对她来说有点像一位非正式的治疗师,就像一位红颜知己。

In some tours, Molly and Matilda come off as if they were lesbian lovers.

在一些巡演中,莫莉和玛蒂尔达表现得就像是女同性恋恋人。

Here's a letter Molly supposedly wrote.

这是莫莉写的一封信。

"My beloved sister, Matilda, how I yearn for just the slightest whiff of your exquisite perfume."

“我心爱的妹妹玛蒂尔达,我多么渴望闻一闻你精致的香水味。”

And one guide went as far as to add a detail about Matilda holding a hot bowl of soup when she walked in on Molly and Francis.

一位导游甚至添加了一个细节,当玛蒂尔达走进莫莉和弗朗西斯时,她端着一碗热汤。

Goes up the stairs of the carriage house, opens the door with a bowl of chicken noodle in her hand--

走上马车房的楼梯,打开车门,手里端着一碗鸡肉面——

And there's Francois and Molly getting it on.

弗朗索瓦和莫莉正在努力。

The next thing anyone knew, they heard a terrible cracking noise, and they rushed to the courtyard to go see what it was.

接下来,所有人都听到了可怕的破裂声,他们冲到院子里去看那是什么。

And they found Matilda lying dead in the courtyard with a broken neck.

他们发现玛蒂尔达死在院子里,脖子折断。

Molly was found hung in her room a week later.

一周后,莫莉被发现吊死在自己的房间里。

There was only one tour guide who talked about it differently, not coincidentally, the only non-white tour guide we had, a Latina guide named Sarah.

只有一位导游以不同的方式谈论这件事,这并非巧合,他是我们唯一的非白人导游,一位名叫莎拉的拉丁裔导游。

Because of the power structure, that this was someone who was owned by Francis, this was not consensual for both people.

由于权力结构的原因,这是弗朗西斯拥有的人,这并不是双方都同意的。

This was definitely a rape.

这绝对是一起强奸案。

That's how Tiya saw it, too.

蒂亚也是这么看的。

Tiya Miles Everyone uses this word affair.

蒂亚·迈尔斯 每个人都用“事情”这个词。

To my mind, the way I interpret it was, she had been exploited, she had been abused, and she had experienced terrible pain and suffering.

在我看来,我的解释是,她被剥削,她被虐待,她经历了可怕的痛苦和磨难。

After that first daytime tour where Tiya learned about Molly, she came back for a nighttime tour, which takes you to the room where Molly died.

在蒂亚第一次白天游览了解了莫莉之后,她回来进行夜间游览,带你到莫莉死亡的房间。

And so the tour guide described-- my goodness, as I tell you this, I feel my stomach tightening.

导游这样描述——我的天啊,当我告诉你这个的时候,我感觉我的胃在收紧。

The tour guide described that she had been found hanging from the rafters of the slave quarters of this particular room.

导游描述说,她被发现吊在这个特定房间的奴隶宿舍的椽子上。

And he took us to this room, and he invited us to go inside.

他带我们来到这个房间,并邀请我们进去。

Tiya stands frozen at the threshold of the door, while the other tourists brushed by her.

蒂娅站在门口,一动不动,其他游客从她身边擦身而过。

They just went on in as if this was just any kind of story.

他们继续往前走,就好像这只是一个故事一样。

But there was no way I was going inside.

但我没办法进去。

These were white dudes?

这些是白人?

The other participants were white folks?

其他参与者是白人?

Everybody was but me.

除了我之外,每个人都是。

Chenjerai Kumanyika And they didn't seem to be having the same sense of the gravity of where we were were in the slave quarters of what occurred.

Chenjerai Kumanyika 他们似乎并没有像我们在奴隶区那样意识到所发生的事情的严重性。

They just went in.

他们刚进去。

They didn't have a sort of reverence for the space or anything like that?

他们对空间或类似的东西没有某种敬畏?

No one seemed to blink an eye.

似乎没有人眨眼睛。

And the tour guide was so charismatic.

而且导游很有魅力。

He was always kind of joking, and he was certainly making light of the story.

他总是在开玩笑,而且他确实是在轻视这个故事。

And he was narrating it as if it were some kind of horror show that people had entered into for fun to get a Halloween scare by choice.

他的叙述方式就好像这是某种恐怖秀,人们为了好玩而自愿参加万圣节惊吓。

At this point, the tour guide takes out a phone and plays this audio clip that he says was featured on the TV show, Ghost Hunters.

此时,导游拿出手机播放这段音频片段,他说该音频片段出现在电视节目《幽灵猎人》中。

They filmed an episode in the Sorrel-Weed House.

他们在酸模草屋拍摄了一集。

What Tiya heard was a woman's voice screaming, help, oh, God, help, and the muffled sounds of her crying.

蒂雅听到的是一个女人的尖叫声,救命,哦,上帝,救命,还有她低沉的哭泣声。

Part of me was shocked and appalled at what I was hearing.

我的一部分对我所听到的感到震惊和震惊。

And that same part of me that was shocked and appalled felt just a rush of a sense of protectiveness for Molly, for this young woman who really was a teenager, who was just exploited, abused, used, and then blamed and then killed.

我内心感到震惊和震惊的那部分,对莫莉,对这个真正十几岁的年轻女子,感到一种强烈的保护感,她只是被剥削、虐待、利用,然后被指责,然后被杀害。

But another part of me-- and this is, I think, the scholar inside-- had a series of questions running the whole time, questions about, how does this person know what it is that he's telling us?

但我的另一部分——我想,这就是内心的学者——一直在思考一系列问题,问题是,这个人如何知道他在告诉我们什么?

How does he know about Molly?

他怎么知道莫莉的事?

How does he know about the affair?

他怎么知道这件事?

How does he know about the suicide?

他怎么知道自杀的事?

What is the evidence behind the story?

故事背后的证据是什么?

So what did you decide to do about all of this?

那么你决定对这一切做什么呢?

I decided that I had to research Molly's story and the Sorrel family and this house, and to find out who she was.

我决定必须研究莫莉的故事、索雷尔家族和这座房子,并找出她是谁。

If a double death had happened related to a sexual scandal, related to an interracial sexual relationship in the 19th century, the white family would not have been happy to disclose it, right?

如果双重死亡事件与性丑闻有关,与19世纪的异族性关系有关,白人家族一定不会乐意透露,对吧?

They would have tried to keep that quiet.

他们会尽力保持沉默。

So she started with the more accessible records and tracked down Francis and Matilda and found evidence suggesting she did kill herself, though not in that house.

因此,她从更容易获取的记录开始,找到了弗朗西斯和玛蒂尔达,并找到了证据表明她确实自杀了,尽管不是在那所房子里。

But to confirm that they owned someone named Molly or anyone in that age range, Tiya started out by going to state and local historical collections.

但为了确认他们拥有一个名叫莫莉的人或这个年龄段的任何人,蒂亚首先查阅了州和当地的历史收藏。

She combed through purchase records of people the Sorrels enslaved, dug through national archives and census records of enslaved folks in Georgia, scoured local newspapers from that time, found letters from neighbors.

她梳理了索雷尔被奴役者的购买记录,挖掘了佐治亚州被奴役者的国家档案和人口普查记录,搜查了当时的当地报纸,找到了邻居的信件。

She even discovered a memoir by one of the Sorrels' sons.

她甚至发现了索雷尔的一个儿子的回忆录。

And at the end of a year of exhaustive research?

经过一年的详尽研究后?

There was no Molly.

没有莫莉。

Chenjerai Kumanyika Well, hold up.

Chenjerai Kumanyika 好吧,等等。

We got to stop there because, I mean, after-- I mean, you just described to me this whole drama about Molly.

我们必须停在那里,因为,我的意思是,之后——我的意思是,你刚刚向我描述了关于莫莉的整出戏剧。

And now you're looking in these records, and you don't see any record.

现在您正在查看这些记录,但没有看到任何记录。

Like not--

就像不是——

No. Chenjerai Kumanyika --like no name of Molly?

不。Chenjerai Kumanyika——就像没有莫莉的名字一样?

No. No, not a single trace, not a single crumb, nothing.

不,不,没有一丝痕迹,没有一点面包屑,什么都没有。

Nothing.

没有什么。

If Tiya had told me that Molly's story was exaggerated in certain ways, I don't think I would have been surprised.

如果蒂亚告诉我莫莉的故事在某些方面被夸大了,我想我不会感到惊讶。

But no Molly?

但没有莫莉?

It's actually a fiction that somebody had created.

这实际上是某人编造的小说。

And when I realized that, I felt enraged.

当我意识到这一点时,我感到愤怒。

I felt enraged about the notion that someone had made all of this up.

我对这一切都是有人编造的想法感到愤怒。

Tiya was so appalled that she decided to find out if this was happening anywhere else.

蒂娅非常震惊,她决定看看其他地方是否也发生过这种情况。

Turns out plantations and old mansions all around the South give tours like this, and she went on as many as she could.

事实证明,南方各地的种植园和古老宅邸都提供这样的旅行,她尽可能多地参加。

She discovered a whole industry built around fabricated stories, historical sites ginned up with fake tales of murder and torture.

她发现整个行业都是围绕捏造的故事和历史遗迹建立起来的,这些历史遗迹充斥着谋杀和酷刑的虚假故事。

And she wrote a book exposing this part of the tourism industry called Tales from the Haunted South.

她还写了一本书,名为《来自闹鬼的南方的故事》,揭露了旅游业的这一部分。

Hearing this, I thought back to my tour with the pirate and that story he told about the shooting of eight enslaved people by Hugh Mercer.

听到这个,我回想起我与海盗的旅行,以及他讲述的关于休·默瑟枪杀八名奴隶的故事。

There's no evidence that happened.

没有证据表明这件事发生过。

And those fingerprints of the enslaved in the bricks we walked on?

还有我们走过的砖块上被奴役的人的指纹吗?

Bricks like that do exist in Savannah but probably not in that location.

像这样的砖块确实存在于萨凡纳,但可能不在那个地方。

But it's not just that so much of this stuff is made up.

但这不仅仅是这些东西的大部分都是虚构的。

The closer Tiya looked at these ghost tours, the more she saw a disturbing pattern in the kinds of stories the tour guides told.

蒂娅越仔细地观察这些幽灵之旅,就越发现导游讲述的故事中存在令人不安的模式。

They were stories where enslaved folks betrayed their masters or poisoned their masters or seduced their masters.

这些故事讲述的是被奴役的人们背叛他们的主人,或者毒害他们的主人,或者引诱他们的主人。

The gore and sensationalism of stuff like this actually hides the realities of slavery by turning the victimizers, their masters, into victims.

像这样的血腥和耸人听闻的事情实际上通过将受害者、他们的主人变成了受害者,从而掩盖了奴隶制的现实。

If you look at them as little moral fables, the message of these stories is that everything would be fine if everyone just stayed in their place.

如果你把它们视为小小的道德寓言,那么这些故事传达的信息是,如果每个人都呆在自己的地方,一切都会好起来的。

Tiya's book debunking Molly came out in 2015.

蒂亚 (Tiya) 揭穿莫莉 (Molly) 真相的书于 2015 年出版。

But when we took the Sorrel-Weed House night tour, Molly's story was still presented as fact, and it was the focus of the tour.

但当我们参加Sorrel-Weed House夜游时,莫莉的故事仍然被当作事实来呈现,这也是这次旅行的焦点。

I wanted to know how they could justify it.

我想知道他们如何证明这一点。

Why are they still telling this lie?

为什么他们仍然说这个谎言?

The manager of the Sorrel House agreed to talk.

栗色屋的经理同意谈话。

His name is Calvin Parker, and I was surprised to learn that he's Black.

他的名字叫卡尔文·帕克,我很惊讶地得知他是黑人。

He's worked at the Sorrel House on and off for 10 years and gives tours himself.

他断断续续地在 Sorrel House 工作了 10 年,并亲自带游客参观。

But they're the historical tours that happen during the daytime, and they don't mention Molly.

但他们是在白天进行的历史之旅,他们没有提到莫莉。

These days, he says, Molly only gets mentioned in the nighttime tours.

他说,如今,莫莉只在夜间旅行中才会被提及。

After we discussed some basics about the house, I got right to the point.

在我们讨论了一些关于房子的基本知识之后,我就进入正题了。

When I took the tour, the stuff y'all are dealing with was so-- really some sensitive and intense stuff.

当我参加这次旅行时,你们所处理的事情确实是一些敏感而激烈的事情。

But I got to say, man, it seems like this story about Molly that was a huge part of the tour I took is not true.

但我不得不说,伙计,这个关于莫莉的故事似乎是我旅行的重要组成部分,但它并不是真的。

What tour did you take?

你参加了什么旅游?

Chenjerai Kumanyika I mean, I took the night tour, is the one I'm talking about.

Chenjerai Kumanyika 我的意思是,我参加了夜游,这就是我所说的。

OK, well, I deal with more of the history portion of the business.

好吧,我处理更多的业务历史部分。

We don't mention that whole story, because we don't think it's as factual as most people think it is.

我们没有提及整个故事,因为我们认为它并不像大多数人认为的那样真实。

Hold on.

坚持,稍等。

Just so I'm clear, you agree that the Molly story that I heard at the tour is a lie?

我想澄清一下,你同意我在巡演中听到的莫莉的故事是谎言吗?

I don't know if it's a lie or not.

我不知道这是不是谎言。

I think it's something that's been said so many times, it's just stuck.

我想这句话已经说过很多次了,只是被卡住了。

At this point, I realized that this conversation was going to go very differently from what I had expected because I thought Calvin was going to defend the Molly story.

此时,我意识到这次谈话的进展与我的预期非常不同,因为我认为卡尔文会为莫莉的故事辩护。

Like cite evidence and show me documents.

比如引用证据并向我展示文件。

In fact, I'd spent the night before preparing counter evidence, like we were going to trial.

事实上,我在准备反证之前花了一晚上的时间,就像我们要开庭一样。

Calvin told me he's changed the scripts of the daytime tour so they're factual.

卡尔文告诉我,他已经改变了白天巡演的剧本,因此它们是真实的。

But he insisted that, even as the manager, he has no control over what happens in the house at night.

但他坚称,即使作为经理,他也无法控制房子里晚上发生的事情。

He says he was promoted to run the daytime tours four years ago and only the daytime tours.

他说,四年前他被提升为白天旅游团的负责人,而且只负责白天旅游团。

The ghost tour portion of this business has always been ran and managed by outside parties.

该业务的幽灵之旅部分一直由外部团体运营和管理。

He says, this year, for the first time, they haven't had people from these outside companies running that business.

他说,今年,他们第一次没有来自这些外部公司的人员来运营该业务。

So for now, guides have continued giving the ghost tours with no one really supervising them.

所以目前,导游们仍在继续进行幽灵之旅,但没有人真正监督他们。

Calvin says, he's de facto in charge and hoping for a big overhaul.

卡尔文说,他是事实上的负责人,并希望进行重大改革。

I have to say, I feel for Calvin.

我不得不说,我对卡尔文有感觉。

As a Black man, he's in a tough spot as someone stuck navigating a situation created by other people's lies.

作为一名黑人,他处境艰难,因为有人陷入了别人谎言造成的境地。

But I still have this very real feeling that what's going on here is wrong, and I couldn't hold this back.

但我仍然有一种非常真实的感觉,这里发生的事情是错误的,我无法克制。

If I'm being told that someone was hung in a room in a house, I believe that they should have some verification for that.

如果我被告知有人被吊死在房子的一个房间里,我相信他们应该对此进行一些核实。

And I agree with you.

我同意你的观点。

But what I'm asking you is, how many tours have you taken in this city?

但我想问你的是,你来过这座城市多少次?

I lost count, maybe five.

我数不清了,也许是五个。

Calvin Parker And how much of those tours you believe is factual?

Calvin Parker 您认为这些旅行中有多少是真实的?

Because you have to understand tourism.

因为你必须了解旅游。

You have to understand how these tour guides are trained and how they work.

你必须了解这些导游是如何培训的以及他们是如何工作的。

There's a lot of tours in this city that will say things that are not 100%.

这个城市有很多旅行团都会说一些不是100%的事情。

A lot of the tours in the South are folklore.

南方的很多旅游都是民间传说。

A lot of the tours in the South were hand down, passed down several times, and sometimes those stories stick with people.

南方的很多旅游都是流传下来的,多次流传,有时这些故事会让人印象深刻。

If those stories stick with people, I can't help what they say.

如果这些故事让人们印象深刻,我就无法控制他们所说的话。

I can help what I say.

我说的话我可以帮忙。

I hear what you're saying, Calvin, about your role, where you're at, how you approach history.

卡尔文,我听到你所说的关于你的角色、你所处的位置以及你如何对待历史。

But I just wonder if you can understand that it feels like folks have been making money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, off of a lie about a Black woman who was, they're saying, is sexually assaulted for entertainment.

但我只是想知道你是否能理解,人们感觉人们一直在通过关于一名黑人女性的谎言赚钱,数十万美元,他们说,这名黑人女性为了娱乐而受到性侵犯。

And now there's no accountability.

现在没有责任了。

I don't know what you want me to say to that because there is a lot of stories.

我不知道你想让我说什么,因为有很多故事。

There's a lot of tourism.

有很多旅游业。

This is what happens in this business.

这就是这个行业中发生的情况。

And all I can say is, I don't do it, and I can try and change it.

我只能说,我不这样做,我可以尝试改变它。

But, bruh, we're talking about the Sorrel House.

但是,兄弟,我们谈论的是栗色屋。

Do you think there should be some accountability at the Sorrel House for the lie that they've been telling and making money off to sell it to white people?

你认为索雷尔之家应该对他们一直在撒谎并赚钱将其卖给白人负责吗?

I don't think that's the-- I don't know.

我不认为那是——我不知道。

I mean, that's a good question.

我的意思是,这是一个好问题。

Next year, the good thing is, I'm going to be taking control of a lot of that part of the business, and a lot of things will definitely change with me at the helm.

明年,好的事情是,我将掌控这部分业务的很多部分,在我的掌舵下,很多事情肯定会发生变化。

Are you going to change that part of the-- are you still going to tell the Molly story?

你会改变那部分吗——你还会讲莫莉的故事吗?

Oh, no. No, not while I'm there.

哦,不。不,当我在那里的时候不会。

I can't.

我不能。

Why not?

为什么不呢?

Calvin Parker I can't find factual things about the story.

卡尔文·帕克 我找不到关于这个故事的事实。

It's so weird that any of the ghost tours are making this stuff up to shock people because there's no shortage of real horror in Savanna's history, and it's hiding in plain sight.

奇怪的是,任何幽灵之旅都在编造这些东西来震惊人们,因为萨凡纳的历史上不乏真正的恐怖,而且它隐藏在众目睽睽之下。

Slavery used to be the city's main business, and you can still see the infrastructure around you.

奴隶制曾经是这座城市的主要产业,现在你仍然可以看到周围的基础设施。

The boats came in at the dock.

船到了码头。

Negro marts where enslaved people were sold are throughout the city.

出售奴隶的黑人集市遍布整个城市。

Don't picture an auction block.

不要想象拍卖区。

These were just stores whose merchandise was human beings, and there were brokers and bankers that funded all of this.

这些只是商店,其商品是人,并且有经纪人和银行家为这一切提供资金。

People came to Savannah from all over the South to buy enslaved people.

人们从南方各地来到萨凡纳购买奴隶。

The problem with these tours is not just that tourists don't get a sense of the actual lives led by real Black people hundreds of years ago.

这些旅行的问题不仅仅是游客无法了解数百年前真正的黑人的实际生活。

It's also that they don't get any picture of the economic machine that built Savannah, that built this country and made so much of what we live in today.

而且他们对建立萨凡纳、建立这个国家并创造了我们今天的生活的经济机器没有任何了解。

They tell us we're haunted, but they don't say what's really haunting us.

他们告诉我们我们被困扰,但他们没有说出真正困扰我们的是什么。

Chenjerai Kumanyika.

陈杰莱·库曼伊卡。

He teaches podcasting and audio reportage at NYU's journalism school.

他在纽约大学新闻学院教授播客和音频报道文学。

His story was produced by Elna Baker with Valerie Kipnis, Esther Blessing, and George Dawes Greene.

他的故事由埃尔娜·贝克、瓦莱丽·基普尼斯、埃丝特·布莱辛和乔治·道斯·格林共同制作。

George writes about the ghost tours in his new novel, a surprisingly funny thriller called The Kingdoms of Savannah.

乔治在他的新小说中讲述了幽灵之旅,这是一部令人惊讶的有趣惊悚小说,名为《萨凡纳王国》。

Coming up, one of the most famous people on the planet tries to get in touch with his mother, who is dead.

接下来,这个星球上最著名的人物之一试图与他去世的母亲取得联系。

That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

芝加哥公共广播电台一分钟后我们的节目仍在继续。

It's This American Life.

这就是美国生活。

I'm Ira Glass.

我是艾拉·格拉斯。

Today's program, "The Problem with Ghosts," the problem being, of course, that we expect all kinds of things from ghosts, and they usually do not deliver.

今天的节目“鬼魂的问题”当然,问题在于我们对鬼魂抱有各种各样的期望,但它们通常不会实现。

We have arrived at Act Two of our program, Act Two, Wedding Crasher.

我们已经到了节目的第二幕,第二幕,《婚礼破坏者》。

So this next ghost story takes place at a wedding where an uninvited guest shows up.

因此,下一个鬼故事发生在一场婚礼上,一位不速之客出现了。

Elna Baker explains.

埃尔娜·贝克解释道。

The wedding took place on a cold night in February, just one month ago.

婚礼是在二月的一个寒冷的夜晚举行的,就在一个月前。

It was big, celebratory.

这是一场盛大的庆祝活动。

There was an hour of light food and drinks, and then everyone walked out into the courtyard for the ceremony.

有一个小时的清淡饮食,然后大家走到庭院里参加仪式。

The door opens, these double doors, and the first people walking out is my dad holding the groom, and they are holding-- not even holding hands directly.

门打开了,这些双门,第一个走出去的人是我爸爸抱着新郎,他们握着——甚至没有直接牵手。

They are holding their elbows intertwined.

他们手肘交叉在一起。

This is Abby.

这是艾比。

It was her younger sister's wedding, the last of the kids to get married, so it felt like the end of an era.

这是她妹妹的婚礼,她是最后一个结婚的孩子,所以感觉就像一个时代的结束。

This wedding would be the grand family finale.

这场婚礼将成为家庭的压轴戏。

You have the whole family, the immediate family, the extended family, the grandparents.

你有整个家庭,直系亲属,大家庭,祖父母。

It's like the closest people of my life as a child are all there.

就像我小时候生命中最亲近的人都在那里一样。

But Abby doesn't say hi to any of them.

但艾比没有向他们中的任何人打招呼。

She can't.

她不能。

Abby is standing behind a fence, a little over 50 feet away, on the sidewalk.

艾比站在栅栏后面,距离 50 英尺多一点,在人行道上。

The uninvited guest, it's her.

这个不速之客,就是她。

Abby was disowned by her parents seven years ago.

七年前,艾比被父母断绝关系。

She grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the Hasidic community there.

她在布鲁克林威廉斯堡的哈西德社区长大。

It's a tightly knit world of Orthodox Jews in long dresses and black suits and hats, it's own little cultural ecosystem tucked inside New York City.

这是一个穿着长裙、黑色西装、戴着帽子的东正教犹太人紧密相连的世界,它在纽约市内有自己的小文化生态系统。

Abby was standing pretty far from the ceremony, but just in case, she wore a face mask, a big coat, and a hat so no one would recognize her.

艾比站在离仪式很远的地方,但为了以防万一,她戴着口罩、一件大衣和一顶帽子,这样就不会有人认出她了。

She thought the distance would make it feel less intense, but standing there made her feel like she was at the wedding.

她以为距离会让感觉不那么强烈,但站在那里让她感觉自己就像在婚礼上。

It totally threw her off guard.

这完全让她措手不及。

You can hear the music playing.

您可以听到音乐播放。

You can hear the person who is running the ceremony singing in the microphone and so on.

你可以听到主持仪式的人用麦克风唱歌等等。

So everything is very familiar.

所以一切都很熟悉。

But at the same time, I know very consciously that I can't just go down there and be part of it.

但与此同时,我非常清楚地知道我不能只是去那里参与其中。

When Abby first questioned and then left the Hasidic community at 21, it seemed like things would be OK.

当艾比 21 岁时第一次提出质疑并离开哈西德派社区时,一切似乎都会好起来。

Her parents stood by her, which was rare at the time, but also made sense.

她的父母支持她,这在当时很少见,但也在情理之中。

Her family was really close.

她的家人关系非常亲密。

She'd still come home on weekends.

周末她还是会回家。

But then a few years later, Abby came out as trans.

但几年后,艾比出柜了。

It was a concept so foreign, she says it took over an hour for her father to grasp what she was telling him.

这是一个非常陌生的概念,她说她的父亲花了一个多小时才明白她告诉他的内容。

But the second he understood, he stopped making eye contact with her.

但他一明白过来,就不再与她目光接触。

Looking over her shoulder, he said, this means I'm never going to be able to talk to you ever again.

他越过她的肩膀说道,这意味着我再也不能和你说话了。

Abby says she asked if she could at least say goodbye to her mother.

艾比说她问她是否至少可以和她的母亲道别。

He forbade it.

他禁止这样做。

Not talking to her mother was unfathomable.

不和她母亲说话是不可思议的。

Before, they'd spoken almost every day.

以前,他们几乎每天都会说话。

Even though Abby's one of 13 kids, her mom took a special interest in her.

尽管艾比是 13 个孩子之一,但她妈妈对她特别感兴趣。

And when Abby broke away from Judaism, her mom loved hearing about her life in the outside world.

当艾比脱离犹太教时,她妈妈很喜欢听她在外面世界的生活。

In the weeks and years after Abby was cut off, Abby would call and call trying to reach her mother.

在艾比被切断联系后的几周乃至几年里,艾比不断地打电话试图联系她的母亲。

One time, her mom picked up the phone.

有一次,她妈妈接起了电话。

And I called, and I said, hi, I just want to call you and wish you a Happy New Year and whatever.

我打电话说,嗨,我只是想给你打电话,祝你新年快乐之类的。

And then she just asked me, are you coming back?

然后她就问我,你回来吗?

Are you coming home?

你要回家吗?

Which didn't mean physically coming home.

这并不意味着实际回家。

It meant spiritually and religiously.

它意味着精神上和宗教上。

And I said, I didn't call to argue.

我说,我打电话不是为了争论。

She's like, if you're not coming home, I can't talk to you.

她说,如果你不回家,我就不能和你说话。

And she kept repeating that, almost like a tape recorder, like someone told her to say that.

她不断重复这句话,就像录音机一样,就像有人告诉她那样说。

Abby was later told that her father consulted a rabbi about his decision to cut her off, and that this rabbi told him, your child is dead now.

艾比后来被告知,她的父亲就与她断绝关系的决定咨询了一位拉比,这位拉比告诉他,你的孩子现在死了。

When she actually dies, you don't need to sit shiva.

当她真的死了时,你不需要坐湿婆。

Now, standing outside the wedding, Abby was being forced to watch all the people she'd lost parade in front of her.

现在,艾比站在婚礼场外,被迫看着所有她失去的人在她面前游行。

She studied her father's face.

她端详着父亲的脸。

His hair and beard were finally turning white, but she knew that.

他的头发和胡须终于变白了,但她知道。

She'd seen pictures of him online.

她在网上看到过他的照片。

It's this moment of recognizing that I recognize my dad from photos.

正是在这一刻,我从照片中认出了我的父亲。

My dad, who is alive, I recognize how he looks not because I know him or that I have seen him, but because I've seen photos of him.

我的父亲还活着,我认出他的样子不是因为我认识他或我见过他,而是因为我看过他的照片。

It is the moment of seeing a person, who, in my head, has this personality of a dad in my childhood, I can't really grasp it.

那是看到一个人的那一刻,在我的脑海里,他有我童年时父亲的性格,我无法真正抓住它。

There's this person who is there but isn't.

有一个人在那里,但并不存在。

I am here, but I'm not.

我在这里,但我不在。

I am seeing him, but I'm not.

我看到他了,但我没有。

I'm there, but I'm not there.

我在那儿,但我不在那儿。

And what is happening?

发生了什么?

Even though Abby knew going to the wedding would be painful, she felt compelled to go because she'd always imagined being there.

尽管艾比知道去参加婚礼会很痛苦,但她还是觉得有必要去,因为她一直想象着在那里。

For years, after they cut her off, she told herself, by the time my youngest sister gets married, we'll have worked through this.

多年来,在他们与她断绝联系后,她告诉自己,等我最​​小的妹妹结婚时,我们就会解决这个问题。

I'll be back in the family.

我会回到家庭的。

Throughout the ceremony, Abby kept waiting for her mom to come out with the bride.

在整个婚礼过程中,艾比一直在等待妈妈带着新娘出来。

She knew about when it would happen.

她知道什么时候会发生。

She'd been to many weddings.

她参加过很多场婚礼。

But still, the moment they actually walked out, it caught Abby by surprise.

但当他们真正走出去的那一刻,还是让艾比吃了一惊。

Suddenly, there she was-- her mom, with her sister.

突然,她就在那里——她的妈妈和她的妹妹。

They start to circle the groom, and my mom is walking towards me, so to speak.

他们开始围着新郎转,可以说,我妈妈正在向我走来。

And that was the moment when I remember crying.

那是我记得哭的那一刻。

So she's standing to the right of my sister, holding my sister with her left hand, and in the right hand, holding this candle, almost like imagine a Statue of Liberty moment.

所以她站在我妹妹的右边,左手握住我妹妹,右手拿着这根蜡烛,几乎就像想象自由女神像的时刻。

It almost felt like she-- thinking back in my head, it wanted to be that moment where she is holding the candle to me or something like that.

几乎感觉就像是她——在我的脑海里回想,它希望是她为我举着蜡烛的那一刻或类似的事情。

And to me, that was the most-- that was the most intense moment.

对我来说,那是最——那是最紧张的时刻。

Can I play that video, by the way?

顺便问一下,我可以播放那个视频吗?

Because I think the sound gives a sense.

因为我认为声音给人一种感觉。

Will you hold it up?

你会坚持下去吗?

They play this song that's been in the family for generations.

他们演奏这首家族世代相传的歌曲。

The moment of standing there, looking in to my-- looking on the outside to my closest family, listening to a song composed by my great-great-whatever grandfather, I am suddenly feeling like I am a fly on the wall at the moment where you are supposed to be next to the bride and the groom.

站在那里,看着我的——看着外面我最亲密的家人,听着我的曾曾祖父创作的歌曲,我突然感觉自己就像是墙上的一只苍蝇,而你应该在新娘和新郎旁边。

The most important people at the wedding are their parents and their siblings.

婚礼上最重要的人是他们的父母和兄弟姐妹。

It's not like I'm not there.

我又不是不在那儿。

I'm there, but I don't have a body.

我在那里,但我没有身体。

We have a belief, a teaching based on a mystic teaching of the 13th century, that all the ancestors, specifically if they were holy, come down to their weddings as souls, as ghosts, for the lack of a better term, and they're all there.

我们有一种信仰,一种基于13世纪神秘教义的教义,即所有的祖先,特别是如果他们是神圣的,都会以灵魂、鬼魂的形式来到他们的婚礼上,因为没有更好的术语,他们都在那里。

I am suddenly feeling like I am one of those dead ancestors that is coming, that we believe, that we're told is coming to the wedding.

我突然觉得我是那些即将到来的死去的祖先之一,我们相信,我们被告知即将参加婚礼。

I am the ghost.

我是幽灵。

So she watches through this chain link fence.

所以她透过铁丝网围栏观看。

It's this literal thing separating them, but even if it weren't there, there'd be no crossing from where she is to where they are.

正是这种字面意义的东西将他们分开,但即使它不存在,从她所在的地方到他们所在的地方也不会有交叉。

My life in general, my parents live seven miles away from me, and it feels like they're so close, but they're so far away.

总的来说,我的生活,父母住的地方离我七英里,感觉好像很近,但又很远。

And my dad, frankly, whatever.

还有我爸爸,坦白说,无论如何。

We're not going to-- yeah.

我们不会——是的。

But with my mom, there are so many days I wake up where I just want to ask her what to do about my headache.

但和妈妈在一起时,有很多天我醒来时只想问她该怎么治疗我的头痛。

Or what's a good dish that you think I can make for this holiday?

或者你认为我这个假期可以做什么好吃的菜?

Or I'm having friends over, and I know she would have some great ideas.

或者我邀请朋友过来,我知道她会有一些好主意。

And all of that comes to the forefront at that moment where I wish I wasn't a ghost.

在那一刻,所有这些都浮现出来,我希望自己不是鬼魂。

I wish I was seen, not just seeing her.

我希望别人看到我,而不仅仅是看到她。

The way you just said, when I wake up, I imagine talking to her, I imagine asking her what I should cook tonight, that's a thing I've felt about people I love who've died.

就像你刚才说的那样,当我醒来时,我想象着和她说话,我想象着问她今晚应该做什么,这是我对死去的我所爱的人的感受。

I don't want to talk to people-- I don't want to talk over people who have literally lost a parent.

我不想与人交谈——我不想谈论那些真正失去父母的人。

But to me, it feels worse.

但对我来说,感觉更糟。

I think that's the part where people use ghosts sometimes because it explains-- it talks about something more intense than being dead.

我认为这就是人们有时使用鬼魂的部分,因为它解释了——它谈论了比死亡更强烈的事情。

The fact that they are alive and I can't talk to them, the fact that they are-- it's like that moment of being so close to them, that would have no doubt been easier if I didn't go.

事实上,他们还活着,而我无法与他们交谈,事实上,他们——就像离他们如此之近的那一刻,如果我不去,这无疑会更容易。

If I wasn't that close to them, it's so much easier.

如果我离他们不那么近,事情就会容易得多。

Why?

为什么?

Abby Stein Because I don't have to face it.

艾比·斯坦因为我不必面对它。

Abby brought her girlfriend to watch the wedding with her.

艾比带着她的女朋友一起观看婚礼。

It was a strange moment for them both, a kind of bizarro meet the family.

这对他们俩来说都是一个奇怪的时刻,就像一家人的奇怪见面一样。

These are the people from all the stories I tell you.

这些是我告诉你的所有故事中的人物。

This was once my life.

这曾经是我的生活。

What was the last moment of the wedding like?

婚礼的最后一刻是什么样的?

How did you leave it?

你是怎么离开的?

After the ceremony is over, the bride and groom hold hands and walk back into the venue.

仪式结束后,新郎新娘手牵手走回会场。

And this is the only time that Hasidic couples hold hands in public is at the wedding as they walk off from the ceremony and never again.

这是哈西德派夫妇唯一一次在公共场合牵手,是在婚礼上,当他们离开仪式时,再也没有了。

Abby takes one last look at her family, and then she walks away with her girlfriend.

艾比最后看了她的家人一眼,然后带着女朋友离开了。

I don't know if it was right away or if, I think-- no, we waited until we left the Hasidic area because we didn't want to hold hands, two women, in the Hasidic area.

我不知道是不是马上,或者,我想——不,我们等到离开哈西德地区,因为我们不想在哈西德地区牵手,两个女人。

But once we left, we did, and I remember thinking that I have something none of my siblings do.

但我们一离开,我们就这么做了,我记得我当时想,我有一些我的兄弟姐妹没有的东西。

I can hold the hands of the people I love in public.

我可以在公共场合握住我所爱的人的手。

And I love that for me.

我喜欢这样。

They walk down into the subway together and get on the M train, each stop taking them further and further away from Abby's old life and closer to the place she now calls home.

他们一起走进地铁,登上 M 列车,每一站都让他们离艾比以前的生活越来越远,也越来越接近她现在称之为家的地方。

Elna Baker.

埃尔娜·贝克。

Abby Stein has a memoir, Becoming Eve, about leaving the Hasidic community and transitioning.

艾比·斯坦因有一本回忆录《成为夏娃》,讲述了离开哈西德派社区和过渡的故事。

Act Three, Seance Fiction.

第三幕,降神小说。

So this last story happens at a moment in history when lots of people were believing in ghosts.

所以最后一个故事发生在历史上很多人相信有鬼魂的时刻。

This was the early 1920s.

那是 20 年代初。

The 1918 flu pandemic had just killed some 50 million people worldwide.

1918 年的流感大流行刚刚导致全球约 5000 万人死亡。

Just for scale, that is way more than the number of people who've died of COVID so far, and the number of people on Earth was just a fourth then of what it is now.

仅就规模而言,这远远超过了迄今为止死于新冠病毒的人数,而地球上的人数仅为现在的四分之一。

Add to that the millions of deaths in World War I, and, well, chances are pretty good that if you lived in America or Europe, you were mourning somebody you loved.

再加上第一次世界大战中数百万人死亡,而且,如果你住在美国或欧洲,你很有可能正在哀悼你所爱的人。

All that loss led to this peculiar moment that seems kind of unfathomable now, where the idea that ghosts are around us just within reach wasn't some far-fetched or fringy kind of thing.

所有这些损失导致了这个现在看来有点不可思议的特殊时刻,鬼魂就在我们周围触手可及的想法并不是什么牵强或边缘的事情。

It was mainstream.

这是主流。

Sean Cole explains.

肖恩·科尔解释道。

Do you know about Spiritualism?

你了解招魂术吗?

It's this religion, basically, that surged during this period.

基本上,正是这种宗教在这一时期蓬勃发展。

Believers thought that it's possible to talk to the dead.

信徒们认为可以与死者交谈。

They attended seances, lots and lots of seances, sit in darkened rooms, often pitch black, holding hands.

他们参加降神会,很多很多的降神会,坐在黑暗的房间里,通常漆黑一片,手牵着手。

Furniture would move.

家具会移动。

You heard voices from beyond.

你听到了来自远处的声音。

I can't really even begin to describe how pervasive this spiritualist rage was.

我什至无法描述这种唯心主义的愤怒是多么普遍。

This is David Jaher, history writer, wrote a book that delves deep into this whole world.

这是大卫·贾赫,历史作家,写了一本深入研究这个世界的书。

You had all these great American scientists who were trying to substantiate proof of psychic phenomenon, proof of an afterlife.

所有这些伟大的美国科学家都在试图证实灵异现象的证据,来世的证据。

The Harvard psychology department were all a bunch of ghost chasers at that time.

哈佛心理学系当时都是一群追鬼的人。

Really?

真的吗?

David Jaher I mean, the head of Harvard psychology was also the head of the American Society for Psychical Research.

大卫·贾赫(David Jaher)我的意思是,哈佛心理学系的负责人也是美国心理研究学会的负责人。

Charles Richet was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who coined the term "ectoplasm."

查尔斯·里奇特 (Charles Richet) 是诺贝尔奖获得者、物理学家,他创造了“外质”一词。

Ectoplasm, like that stuff in the Ghostbusters movies.

灵质,就像《捉鬼敢死队》电影中的那种东西。

Richet was actually a physiologist.

里奇特实际上是一位生理学家。

And while you may not have heard of Charles Richet or any of the scientists who were spiritualists or who ran with spiritualists, there were these two guys you definitely have heard of, both incredibly famous back then, and even today, who got swept up in this movement in a way that came to really define their lives.

虽然你可能没有听说过查尔斯·里奇特(Charles Richet)或任何一位唯心论者或与唯心论者同行的科学家,但你肯定听说过这两个人,他们在当时甚至在今天都非常出名,他们以一种真正定义了他们生活的方式卷入了这场运动。

The first is the world-renowned magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini.

第一个是世界著名的魔术师和逃脱艺术家哈利·胡迪尼。

At the time of our story, he was grieving the loss of his dearly departed mother.

在我们写故事的时候,他正在为失去深爱的母亲而悲伤。

And this was no ordinary mother-son relationship.

这不是普通的母子关系。

He wrote romantic letters to her, used to rest his head on her bosom when he was anxious and when he was 35 years old.

他给她写浪漫的信,在他焦虑时和35岁的时候,常常把头靠在她的怀里。

This, by the way, was before the whole world was talking about the whole Oedipal complex thing.

顺便说一句,这是在全世界都在谈论整个恋母情结之前。

And he would never refer to her as his mother.

他永远不会称她为他的母亲。

He would always refer to her as his sainted mother or his beloved mother.

他总是称她为他神圣的母亲或他亲爱的母亲。

E.L.

E.L.

Doctorow called Houdini the last of the great mother lovers.

多克托罗称胡迪尼为最后一位伟大的母爱人。

So Houdini identified with all the bereaved who were seeking contact with dead loved ones.

因此,胡迪尼认同所有寻求与已故亲人联系的失去亲人的人。

Identified with, but he had a really hard time believing in spiritualism in the same way and for very, very good reason.

认同,但他很难以同样的方式相信唯灵论,而且理由非常非常充分。

Houdini, before he became a magician, he actually made a living as a fraud medium.

胡迪尼在成为魔术师之前,其实是靠诈骗媒介谋生的。

Oh, no kidding.

哦,别开玩笑了。

David Jaher So he knew all the tricks.

大卫·贾赫(David Jaher) 所以他知道所有的技巧。

He was, in a sense, the world's expert on psychic fraud.

从某种意义上说,他是世界上精神欺诈方面的专家。

But yet, he was also seeking that one psychic who he could believe was generally in touch with the spirit of his mother.

然而,他也在寻找一位他可以相信的通灵者,他总体上与他母亲的灵魂有联系。

And this is when he befriends Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

就在这时,他与阿瑟·柯南·道尔爵士成为了朋友。

Yes, the guy who wrote all the Sherlock Holmes stories.

是的,就是所有福尔摩斯故事的作者。

He's the other famous-y mcfamous guy in our story.

他是我们故事中另一个著名的人物。

Conan Doyle lost his son, his brother, lots of the men in his family, either in some World War I battle or in the flu pandemic.

柯南·道尔在第一次世界大战或流感大流行中失去了他的儿子、兄弟和许多家庭成员。

And during the war, he believed he was in contact with the spirits of his lost loved ones through his children's nanny, who supposedly had psychic powers.

在战争期间,他相信自己通过孩子们的保姆与失去亲人的灵魂取得了联系,而保姆据说拥有超能力。

And she would hold these seances, and he became a believer.

她举行了这些降神会,他就成了信徒。

And not just a believer, but really the de facto leader of the spiritualism movement.

而且不仅仅是一个信徒,而且是招魂术运动事实上的领导者。

You might be familiar with this part.

您可能熟悉这部分。

He traveled all over the place giving presentations and lectures about the virtues of spiritualism, which lent the movement a lot of credibility.

他走遍各地,发表关于招魂术优点的演讲和讲座,这给该运动带来了很大的可信度。

Here was this guy who had invented this character who was the pinnacle of rationality and deductive reasoning.

这个人发明了这个角色,他是理性和演绎推理的顶峰。

Of course, you were going to give him the time of day.

当然,你要把一天中的时间留给他。

And Conan Doyle acknowledged, yeah, there are a lot of fake mediums out there, but there were legitimate ones, too.

柯南道尔承认,是的,那里有很多假媒介,但也有合法的媒介。

Houdini's mom had already been dead for the better part of a decade when he met Conan Doyle.

当胡迪尼遇见柯南·道尔时,他的母亲已经去世近十年了。

He presented himself to Conan Doyle as a seeker after the truth, and Conan Doyle thought he could help him talk to his dead mother.

他向柯南道尔展示自己是一位追求真理的探索者,柯南道尔认为他可以帮助他与死去的母亲交谈。

They came to really like each other.

他们开始真正喜欢对方。

In 1920, Houdini traveled to the UK to do some shows, and Conan Doyle sent him around to all these mediums that he trusted.

1920年,胡迪尼前往英国做一些演出,柯南·道尔派他去接触所有他信任的媒体。

But with every one of them, Houdini could see the puppet strings because, again, he had pulled the same stunts himself once upon a time.

但对于每一个人,胡迪尼都能看到木偶线,因为他自己也曾经表演过同样的特技。

And he claimed to have attended 100 seances in England.

他还声称自己在英格兰参加了 100 场降神会。

Right.

正确的。

Like one a day or something like that?

比如一天一个或者类似的?

Houdini had a tendency to exaggerate.

胡迪尼有夸大其词的倾向。

I doubt very much if he attended 100 seances, but he did see a number of these mediums that Conan Doyle recommended, and he struck out.

我非常怀疑他是否参加了 100 场降神会,但他确实看到了柯南·道尔推荐的一些灵媒,然后他就放弃了。

And he told Conan Doyle that, and Conan Doyle thought it was because Houdini's mental state was so turbulent that he basically blocked any kind of possibility of psychic communication when he participated in these seances.

他把这件事告诉了柯南道尔,柯南道尔认为这是因为胡迪尼的精神状态非常动荡,以至于他在参加这些降神会时基本上封锁了任何一种心灵交流的可能性。

And he told Houdini, you can't pursue a spirit the way a terrier pursues a rat.

他告诉胡迪尼,你不能像小猎犬追逐老鼠那样追逐精神。

You know, you've got to come in quiet and receptive.

你知道,你必须保持安静并乐于接受。

And so he thought Houdini was to blame for this.

所以他认为胡迪尼应该为此负责。

Which, of course, is a conversation you hear in a lot of spiritual houses.

当然,这是你在许多灵修院中听到的对话。

If you can't get in touch with the spirit, whether divine or just your cousin, it's because you don't believe well enough.

如果你无法与灵魂取得联系,无论是神圣的还是你的表弟,那是因为你的信仰不够好。

Fast forward a couple of years, 1922, Conan Doyle comes to the states to give some spiritualism lectures, brings his wife along.

时间快进几年,1922 年,柯南·道尔带着他的妻子来到美国进行一些招魂术讲座。

And they hang out with his new best bud, Houdini, and Houdini's wife.

他们和他的新好友胡迪尼以及胡迪尼的妻子一起出去玩。

And toward the end of the Conan Doyles' time here, the four of them are at a resort in Atlantic City, just hanging out at the beach or whatever.

柯南·道尔夫妇在这里的时光快结束时,他们四个人在大西洋城的一个度假胜地,只是在海滩或其他地方闲逛。

And the Conan Doyles surprised their magician friend with a suggestion.

柯南道尔夫妇提出了一个让他们的魔术师朋友感到惊讶的建议。

Conan Doyle's wife, Jean Doyle, is also a psychic medium, and--

柯南·道尔的妻子让·道尔也是一位通灵者,而且——

Of course.

当然。

David Jaher --she has an inspiration this weekend that Houdini's mother is going to come through and present a manifestation of her presence.

大卫·贾赫——这个周末她有了一个灵感,胡迪尼的母亲将会出现并展示她的存在。

Apparently.

显然。

She's hit with this psychic bolt.

她被这道心灵闪电击中了。

OK.

好的。

David Jaher And so Conan Doyle invites Houdini for a seance.

大卫·贾赫 因此柯南·道尔邀请胡迪尼参加降神会。

And unbeknownst to the Doyles, this weekend was Houdini's mother's birthday.

多伊尔夫妇并不知道,这个周末是胡迪尼母亲的生日。

Sort of an eerie coincidence already.

这已经是一个令人毛骨悚然的巧合了。

And Houdini, he's agreeable, actually eager.

而胡迪尼,他很和蔼可亲,而且实际上很热心。

He wrote about this saying, quote, "I was willing to believe, even wanted to believe." They go up to the Conan Doyle's hotel room.

他写道,引用这句话,“我愿意相信,甚至想要相信。”他们上楼来到柯南道尔的旅馆房间。

Sir Arthur closes the curtains and puts a writing tablet and pencils on the table.

阿瑟爵士拉上窗帘,把写字板和铅笔放在桌子上。

This was to be Lady Doyle's mode of mediation, automatic writing.

这就是道尔夫人的调解方式,自动写作。

So the idea is she's in a trance, and she's spontaneously possessed by the spirit that takes hold of her hand, and she's just writing unconsciously.

所以这个想法是她处于恍惚状态,她自发地被握住她手的灵魂所附身,她只是无意识地写作。

Oh, it's like a Ouija board where the spirit takes your hand and moves it.

哦,它就像一块显灵板,灵魂握住你的手并移动它。

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.

是的,这是一个很好的看待问题的方式。

It's a very intimate scene.

这是一个非常亲密的场景。

Conan Doyle says a prayer.

柯南道尔做了祈祷。

They're holding hands.

他们手牵手。

It's just complete silence.

周围一片寂静。

Then Lady Conan Doyle starts writhing around, making all these jerky movements.

然后柯南道尔夫人开始扭动,做出所有这些急促的动作。

She pounds on the table, which is the sign that the spirit is present.

她敲击桌子,这是灵魂存在的标志。

Lady Conan Doyle asks the spirit, do you believe in God?

柯南道尔夫人问灵魂,你相信上帝吗?

And then pounds the table three times, which means yes.

然后敲桌子三下,表示可以。

So she puts a cross at the top of one of the pads.

所以她在其中一个垫子的顶部画了一个十字。

She asks, are you the spirit of Houdini's mother?

她问,你是胡迪尼母亲的灵魂吗?

Again, she pounds the table three times.

她再次敲击桌子三下。

And then Houdini lets out this gasp and says, Mama, are you here?

然后胡迪尼喘着气说,妈妈,你在吗?

Just thinking about Houdini saying, Mama, are you here?

只是想着胡迪尼说,妈妈,你在吗?

It's really moving.

真的很感动。

It's really moving, and I think-- I don't know.

这真的很感人,我想——我不知道。

I can't picture him saying that in any other seance.

我无法想象他在任何其他降神会上会说出这样的话。

I think that's expressly something that he was vulnerable enough to say at that moment.

我认为这显然是他当时很脆弱才说出的话。

Lady Conan Doyle starts writing furiously.

柯南·道尔夫人开始疯狂地写作。

Every time she gets to the end of the page, Sir Arthur tears it off the tablet and hands it to Houdini.

每次她读到页面末尾时,阿瑟爵士都会将其从平板电脑上撕下来,然后交给胡迪尼。

Luckily, Houdini held on to the pages after all of this, so we know what's on them.

幸运的是,胡迪尼在这一切之后保留了这些书页,所以我们知道上面有什么。

I asked David to read some of what Houdini's dead mother had to say.

我请大卫读一些胡迪尼已故母亲所说的话。

"Oh, my darling, thank God.

“噢,亲爱的,感谢上帝。

Thank God at last I'm through.

感谢上帝,我终于完成了。

I've tried, oh, so often.

我已经尝试过很多次了。

Now I am happy.

现在我很高兴。

Why, of course, I want to talk to my boy, my own beloved boy.

为什么,当然,我想和我的儿子说话,我自己心爱的儿子。

Friends, thank you with all my heart for this.

朋友们,我衷心感谢你们。

You have answered the--"

你已经回答了——”

How is Houdini seeming through all of this?

胡迪尼在这一切中看起来怎么样?

Is he emotional during it?

期间他情绪激动吗?

Is he--

他是不是——

According to Conan Doyle, he was completely silent.

据柯南道尔说,他完全沉默了。

He seemed on the verge of tears.

他看上去快要哭了。

He looked like somebody who had finally found what they were looking for, to having just beheld a miracle.

他看起来就像一个终于找到了自己想要的东西的人,就像刚刚看到了一个奇迹。

"In this life of mine, it is so different over here, and we see our beloved ones on Earth.

“在我的这一生中,这里是如此不同,我们在地球上看到了我们所爱的人。

That is such a joy and comfort to us.

这对我们来说是多么的喜乐和安慰。

Tell him, I love him more than ever.

告诉他,我比以前更爱他。

The years only increase--"

岁月只会增加——”

That's Conan Doyle's version of the story.

这是柯南道尔版本的故事。

Houdini is left pale and trembling, a new believer.

胡迪尼脸色苍白,浑身颤抖,成了一个新信徒。

Houdini's feelings about it become evident about four months later.

大约四个月后,胡迪尼对此的感受变得明显。

He writes an article for The New York Sun, saying he's never seen any evidence that anyone can communicate with the dead.

他为《纽约太阳报》写了一篇文章,称他从未见过任何证据表明任何人可以与死者沟通。

Quote, "I don't know of any medium who has not, at some time, been detected in some fraud."

引用:“据我所知,没有哪家媒体没有在某些时候被发现存在过欺诈行为。”

Conan Doyle sees the article and writes a letter to his friend, Houdini, saying-- I'm paraphrasing here-- dude, what the hell?

柯南·道尔看到这篇文章,给他的朋友胡迪尼写了一封信,信中说——我在这里解释一下——伙计,到底是什么?

I watched you tear up in front of me.

我看着你在我面前流泪。

Also, my wife is not a fraud.

而且,我的妻子也不是骗子。

Houdini writes him back like, dude, that was not my mom.

胡迪尼给他回信说,伙计,那不是我妈妈。

The fact that his mother could only read, write, and speak in German, Houdini can't understand how the message from his mother could sound like some Victorian platitude.

事实上,他的母亲只能用德语读、写、说,胡迪尼无法理解他母亲发出的信息怎么听起来像维多利亚时代的陈词滥调。

It's not her voice.

这不是她的声音。

In English.

用英语。

And there's also, it sounds like a spiritualist sermon.

还有,这听起来像是一场唯灵论的布道。

"God bless you, too, Sir Arthur, for what you're doing for us, for us over here who so need to get in touch with our beloved ones on the Earth plane.

“上帝也保佑你,亚瑟爵士,感谢你为我们所做的一切,为我们这里如此需要与地球上所爱之人取得联系的人所做的一切。

If only the world knew this great truth, how different life would be for men and women.

如果全世界都知道这个伟大的真理,男人和女人的生活将会多么不同。

Go on.

继续吧。

Let nothing stop you.

不要让任何事情阻止你。

Great will be your--" There's no biographical reference to anything between Houdini and his mother.

你会很棒的——”没有任何关于胡迪尼和他母亲之间的传记。

Including no reference to the fact that it was her birthday.

包括没有提及今天是她的生日这一事实。

I think she would have mentioned that.

我想她会提到这一点。

Plus, that cross that Lady Conan Doyle put at the top of the page when she started channeling, Houdini is like, ahem, we're Jewish.

另外,柯南·道尔夫人开始通灵时在页面顶部放置的十字架,胡迪尼就像,咳咳,我们是犹太人。

Now, Conan Doyle has responses to all this stuff.

现在,柯南道尔对所有这些事情都有了回应。

First off, there's no language in the afterlife, he says.

首先,来世没有语言,他说。

Maybe a trance medium would come through uttering the exact words of your loved ones in their native tongue, but automatic writers are more translating their thoughts and feelings.

也许一种恍惚的媒介是通过用你所爱的人的母语说出他们的确切话语来实现的,但自动作家更多的是翻译他们的想法和感受。

We're not taking dictation.

我们不接受听写。

And as far as the cross goes--

就十字架而言——

Conan Doyle says his wife does that before she presents any kind of spirit writing because it's to protect from lower influences.

柯南道尔说,他的妻子在呈现任何形式的精神写作之前都会这样做,因为这是为了免受较低的影响。

I always put a cross on top of the page.

我总是在页面顶部画一个十字。

Well, of course.

嗯,当然。

I mean, you don't want dark spirits infiltrating your seance and taking hold of the medium.

我的意思是,你不希望黑暗的灵魂渗透到你的降神会并控制媒介。

No, that'd be terrible.

不,那太可怕了。

David Jaher No. The cross prevents that.

大卫·贾赫 不。十字架阻止了这一点。

And Conan Doyle maintains, look, you told me you were walking on air.

柯南道尔坚称,看,你告诉我你正在空中行走。

You told me you were deeply moved.

你告诉我你被深深感动了。

I can't reconcile what you're saying now with what I saw with my own eyes at the time, how you responded and the things that you told me since which indicated that you were convinced.

我无法将你现在所说的话与我当时亲眼所见、你的反应以及你告诉我的那些表明你被说服的事情相一致。

Conan Doyle was very hurt.

柯南道尔很受伤。

Sean Cole The Atlantic City seance was the last straw for Houdini.

肖恩·科尔 大西洋城的降神会是压垮胡迪尼的最后一根稻草。

From then on, he wasn't just a skeptic of spiritualism, he was an all out crusader against spiritualism.

从那时起,他不仅仅是唯心论的怀疑论者,他还是一个全力反对唯心论的斗士。

He would sneak into darkened seances in disguise, shine a flashlight on huckster mediums as they pushed furniture around that was supposed to be moving on its own.

他会乔装打扮潜入黑暗的降神会,当小贩推着本应自行移动的家具时,他会用手电筒照射他们。

He devoted a big chunk of his touring show to just bashing spiritualists, demonstrating exactly how shysters pretended to channel your dead relatives.

他在巡回演出中用了很大一部分时间来抨击唯心论者,准确地展示了骗子如何假装引导你死去的亲人。

He even testified before Congress in favor of a bill that would outlaw fortune-telling for hire.

他甚至在国会作证,支持一项禁止雇用算命的法案。

It didn't go anywhere, but the hearing devolved into total mayhem.

事情没有任何进展,但听证会却演变成一片混乱。

Mediums and other spiritualists flooded the Capitol, jeering Houdini as he gave his testimony.

通灵者和其他通灵者涌入国会大厦,在胡迪尼作证时嘲笑他。

Security was called in to keep them from laying into each other.

保安被叫来阻止他们互相冲撞。

He screamed at them, tell me the name my mother called me when I was born.

他对他们尖叫,告诉我我出生时我妈妈叫我的名字。

The way Houdini saw it, these so-called psychics, they were just fleecing money from the bereaved, people who were so grief-stricken, of course they were ready to believe anything.

在胡迪尼看来,这些所谓的通灵者,只是从失去亲人的人那里骗取钱财,那些悲痛欲绝的人,当然愿意相信任何事情。

It wounded him because he knew how they felt.

这让他受伤,因为他知道他们的感受。

Sean Cole is one of the producers of our show.

肖恩·科尔是我们节目的制片人之一。

David Jaher's book about Houdini's war against people who claim to speak with the dead is called The Witch of Lime Street.

大卫·贾赫(David Jaher)的书《莱姆街的女巫》讲述了胡迪尼与那些声称能与死者交谈的人的战争。

Our program was produced today by Elna Baker.

今天我们的节目由埃尔娜·贝克制作。

People who put together today's show include Phia Bennin, Zoe Chace, Aviva DeKornfeld, Tobin Low, Alaa Mostafa, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Naida Reiman, Charlotte Sleeper, Ike Sriskandarajah, Laura Starcheski, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, Nancy Updike, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.

今天节目的制作人包括 Phia Bennin、Zoe Chace、Aviva DeKornfeld、Tobin Low、Alaa Mostafa、Stowe Nelson、Katherine Rae Mondo、Naida Reiman、Charlotte Sleeper、Ike Sriskandarajah、Laura Starcheski、Frances Swanson、Christopher Swetala、Matt Tierney、Nancy Updike、Julie Whitaker 和 Diane Wu。

Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman.

我们的总编辑是萨拉·阿卜杜拉赫曼 (Sarah Abdurrahman)。

Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.

我们的高级编辑是大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆。

Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry.

我们的执行编辑是 Emanuele Berry。

Special thanks today to Dr. Jamal Toure, Clyde Washington, Brad Dilling, Jessica Osbourne, Joe Posnanski, David Eagleman, the folks at 1790 in Savannah, and all the tour guides in Savannah who helped us understand the ghost scene there.

今天特别感谢 Jamal Toure 博士、Clyde Washington、Brad Dilling、Jessica Osbourne、Joe Posnanski、David Eagleman、萨凡纳 1790 的工作人员以及萨凡纳的所有导游,他们帮助我们了解了那里的鬼魂场景。

Our website, thisamericanlife.org.

我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org。

You can listen to our archive of over 700 episodes for absolutely free.

您可以完全免费收听我们存档的 700 多集节目。

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

《This American Life》由 PRX(公共广播电台交易所)向公共广播电台播出,该广播电台正在庆祝成立 20 周年。

Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia.

一如既往地感谢我们项目的联合创始人 Torey Malatia 先生。

Last weekend, I took him to his first rave.

上周末,我带他去参加他的第一次狂欢派对。

He was so excited to finally try MDMA.

他非常兴奋终于尝试了摇头丸。

And then we got there, and he was so disappointed.

然后我们到了那里,他非常失望。

There was no Molly.

没有莫莉。

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。

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。