93: Valentine’s Day ’98 - This American Life
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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 #93 | February 8, 2002 93: Valentine’s Day ’98 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 93 集 | 2002 年 2 月 8 日 93：98 年情人节 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 From WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International, it's This American Life .
序言 来自 WBEZ 芝加哥和国际公共广播电台的 Ira Glass，这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Love, love, love, love.
爱，爱，爱，爱。
Love.
爱。
What do we talk about when we talk about love?
当我们谈论爱情时，我们在谈论什么？
Well, since the 13th century, this is what we talk about, this very moment.
嗯，自 13 世纪以来，这就是我们此时此刻所谈论的内容。
A coup de foudre.
致命一击。
Coup de foudre, in French, means a bolt of lightning.
Coup de foudre，法语，意思是闪电。
Seeing someone and in an instant, you've fallen in love.
看到一个人，瞬间，你就爱上了。
Love which happens in a moment of a flash.
爱情发生在一瞬间。
This is Richard Klein of Cornell University.
我是康奈尔大学的理查德·克莱因。
In the 13th century, he says, Petrarch was walking by a fountain in the south of France.
他说，13 世纪时，彼特拉克在法国南部的一个喷泉边散步。
Turns a corner, sees Laura.
转过拐角，看到了劳拉。
Petrarch looks into her eyes and in an instant, his life is transformed.
彼特拉克看着她的眼睛，刹那间，他的生活发生了变化。
And he writes the first lyric love poems ever written.
他写下了有史以来第一首抒情爱情诗。
He says before this moment, one lives in a state of distraction.
他说，在这一刻之前，人们生活在一种心烦意乱的状态中。
And things come and go, experiences fragmentary and chaotic.
事物来来去去，经历支离破碎且混乱。
And all of a sudden, at the moment in which you encounter the eye of the other, it turns you into something else.
突然之间，当你遇到对方的目光的那一刻，你就变成了另外一个东西。
Suddenly you become-- your whole being becomes focused on that experience.
突然间，你变得——你的整个存在都集中在那种体验上。
And all you want to do, once you've had that experience, is to return over and over to that.
一旦你有了这样的经历，你想做的就是一遍又一遍地回到那样的经历。
30 years later, in Florence, Dante goes through the same thing when he sees, at the top of a flight of stairs, Beatrice.
30 年后，在佛罗伦萨，当但丁在楼梯顶上看到贝阿特丽斯时，他也经历了同样的事情。
He writes about it.
他写了这件事。
And the idea of this moment, the bolt of lightning, gets repeated in literature and song and theater all through the Renaissance, up through the 19th century, and into the present day, today.
整个文艺复兴时期，一直到 19 世纪，一直到今天，这一时刻的想法，即闪电，在文学、歌曲和戏剧中不断重复。
People who have not experienced that bolt of lightning in years.
人们已经很多年没有经历过那道闪电了。
People who have been married for decades go to the movies, watch TV, to see it reenacted over and over.
结婚几十年的人们去看电影、看电视，一遍又一遍地观看它的重演。
This is what we talk about, when we talk about love.
当我们谈论爱情时，这就是我们谈论的内容。
In ancient Greek, the Greeks had two verbs for seeing.
在古希腊语中，希腊人有两个动词来表示“看”。
[SPEAKING GREEK] and [SPEAKING GREEK].
[说希腊语]和[说希腊语]。
[SPEAKING GREEK] is a way of seeing what we ordinarily understand as observation.
[说希腊语]是我们通常理解的观察的一种方式。
[SPEAKING GREEK] refers to the look that eyes can flash, like lightning, like dragon breath, that not only illuminates the eye, but sends out a kind of fire that penetrates the eye of the other.
[说希腊语]指的是眼睛能闪烁的神情，如闪电，如龙息，不仅照亮眼睛，而且散发出一种穿透对方眼睛的火焰。
And they had specifically a separate word for that.
他们专门用一个词来形容这一点。
That's right, for the moment when the eyes flash.
没错，就在眼神闪烁的那一瞬间。
And flash in a way which implies some kind of fateful encounter.
并以某种方式闪现，暗示着某种命运的邂逅。
I was struck looking at those tapes of Monica Lewinsky embracing the president on those rope lines.
看着莫妮卡·莱温斯基在绳索上拥抱总统的录像，我感到震惊。
The thing that's most compelling about those images is the way her eyes flash at him.
这些照片中最引人注目的是她的眼睛向他闪烁的方式。
One can't help but be struck by the light that's coming from those eyes.
让人忍不住被那双眼睛里射出的光芒所震撼。
OK, now here's the crazy thing.
好吧，现在最疯狂的事情来了。
Everybody knows that that moment of initial rapture, that instant when your eyes meet and you're obsessed with the other person, thinking about them all the time.
每个人都知道那最初的狂喜时刻，就是当你们四目相对的那一刻，你着迷于对方，无时无刻不在想着他们。
Everybody knows that that feeling doesn't usually last, that in some way it's just a dream.
每个人都知道这种感觉通常不会持久，在某种程度上这只是一个梦。
That over time, it changes into something different.
随着时间的推移，它会变成不同的东西。
Here's the thing.
事情是这样的。
Even on the day that this romantic myth of love was born, that day in the 13th century when Petrarch saw Laura, even on that day, it was clear that it was just a myth, it was just a dream.
即使在这个浪漫的爱情神话诞生的那一天，在13世纪彼特拉克见到劳拉的那一天，即使在那一天，很明显这只是一个神话，这只是一个梦。
Petrarch doesn't get the girl.
彼特拉克没有得到这个女孩。
You know, the usual story is that the guy doesn't get the girl.
你知道，通常的故事是男孩得不到女孩。
But maybe you never get the girl.
但也许你永远得不到那个女孩。
Maybe that's the condition of falling in love, that it always remains something sort of inaccessible.
也许这就是坠入爱河的条件，它总是让人难以接近。
The moment that desire is fulfilled, desire dies.
当欲望得到满足的那一刻，欲望就消失了。
Psychologists have estimated that you can only stay in love for 18 months.
心理学家估计，爱情只能维持18个月。
That's the limit.
这就是极限。
After that, it becomes something else.
之后，它就变成了别的东西。
It becomes admiration, respect, affection, but--
它变成了钦佩、尊重、喜爱，但是——
The dream of it dissolves and becomes something else.
它的梦想消失了，变成了别的东西。
Something else.
还有别的事。
Ira Glass I wonder if you would be saying this and explaining this in these terms if you yourself were falling in love right now.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass） 我想知道如果你自己现在坠入爱河，你是否会这么说并用这些术语解释这一点。
Well, as a matter of fact, I think I am.
嗯，事实上，我想我是。
Well then, you're going to get in trouble when this goes on the radio, aren't you?
那么，当这件事出现在广播中时，你就会遇到麻烦，不是吗？
Oh, I'm going to be in so much trouble, You have no idea.
哦，我会遇到很多麻烦，你不知道。
So you're falling in love right now, and you're holding to the idea that this is an illusion-- a sort of an illusory experience?
所以你现在正在坠入爱河，并且你坚持认为这是一种幻觉——一种虚幻的体验？
Oh, but all I want is more illusion.
哦，但我想要的只是更多的幻觉。
More illusion.
更多的幻觉。
So today, beloved listener, we come to you with a mission.
所以今天，亲爱的听众，我们带着使命来到你们这里。
Sing stories of love.
唱响爱情故事。
In fact our whole idea of love.
事实上我们对爱的全部看法。
These things are usually about how it feels during those first moments of falling in love.
这些事情通常是关于坠入爱河的最初时刻的感受。
Today for Valentine's Day, as a public service, we make an attempt to understand another side of what love means.
今天是情人节，作为一项公共服务，我们尝试了解爱的另一面含义。
We bring you stories of couples that all take place decades after the moment their eyes meet.
我们为您带来情侣的故事，这些故事都发生在他们目光相遇的那一刻几十年后。
Act One, Before and After.
第一幕，之前和之后。
The beginning of love as viewed from a moment near its ending.
从接近结束的那一刻来看，爱情的开始。
Act Two, I Met Him at the Yogurt Store, But I Do Not Call Him Leader of the Pack.
第二幕，我在酸奶店遇见了他，但我不称他为领袖。
Flirtation during marriage, a fable that could save your relationship, no kidding.
婚姻期间的调情，一个可以挽救你们关系的寓言，不是开玩笑。
Act Three, Without.
第三幕，没有。
Donald Hall documents a relationship whose most intense, most romantic moments came not at the beginning, but at the end.
唐纳德·霍尔记录了一段关系，其最激烈、最浪漫的时刻不是在开始时，而是在结束时。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, Before and After.
第一幕，之前和之后。
As a kid growing up on the East Coast, in the 1970s, for me, the most romantic songs in the world-- and this is kind of a corny thing to admit now, years later with retrospect-- the most romantic songs in the world were Bruce Springsteen's.
作为一个在 20 世纪 70 年代在东海岸长大的孩子，对我来说，世界上最浪漫的歌曲是布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀 (Bruce Springsteen) 的歌曲，多年后回想起来，现在承认这有点老套了。
Songs about falling in love in run-down beach towns on the Jersey Shore, songs about hitting the road together to, you know, who knows where.
关于在泽西海岸破败的海滩小镇坠入爱河的歌曲，关于一起上路去往，你知道，谁知道去哪里的歌曲。
But once Bruce hit a certain age, he stopped writing songs about that moment when lightning flashes between people, when their eyes meet.
但一旦布鲁斯到了一定年龄，他就不再写关于人们之间闪电闪烁、目光相遇那一刻的歌曲。
And he wrote a series of songs where basically every song takes place long after the couple fell out of love.
他写了一系列歌曲，基本上每首歌都发生在这对情侣失恋很久之后。
And the narrator, the singer of these songs, is remembering that exhilarating moment of falling in love, and then describing the moment he's in now, the drudgery of his marriage now.
叙述者，这些歌曲的演唱者，正在回忆那令人兴奋的坠入爱河的时刻，然后描述他现在所处的时刻，他现在婚姻的苦差事。
And he's laying these two moments side by side, trying to make sense of how one of them has any connection in the world to the other.
他将这两个时刻并排放置，试图弄清楚其中一个时刻与另一个时刻在世界上有何联系。
How one of them led to the other.
其中之一如何导致另一个。
Well, this next story is something like that.
嗯，下一个故事就是这样的。
It's by Richard Bausch.
这是理查德·鲍什的作品。
It's exactly 20 minutes to midnight on this, the eve of my 70th birthday.
距离午夜正好 20 分钟，也就是我 70 岁生日的前夕。
And I've decided to address you, for a change, in writing, odd as that might seem.
我决定以书面形式向您提出改变，尽管这看起来很奇怪。
I'm perfectly aware of how you're going to take the fact that I'm doing this at all, so late at night with everybody due to arrive tomorrow in the house, still unready.
我完全知道你会如何看待我在深夜做这件事，每个人明天都会到达房子，但还没准备好。
I haven't spent almost five decades with you without learning a few things about you that I can predict and describe with some accuracy.
我和你在一起近五年来，没有一次没有了解到一些关于你的事情，我可以准确地预测和描述这些事情。
Though I admit that, as you put it, lately we've been more like strangers than husband and wife.
虽然我承认，正如你所说，最近我们更像是陌生人，而不是夫妻。
Well, so if we are like strangers, perhaps there are some things I can tell you that you won't have already figured out about the way I feel.
好吧，所以如果我们就像陌生人一样，也许我可以告诉你一些事情，但你不会已经了解我的感受。
Tonight, we had another one of those long, silent evenings after an argument.
今晚，我们在一场争吵后又度过了一个漫长而寂静的夜晚。
Remember?
记住？
Over pepper.
过胡椒。
We had been bickering all day, really, but at dinner, I put pepper on my potatoes, and you said that about how I shouldn't have pepper because it always upsets my stomach.
我们真的吵了一整天，但是晚餐时，我在土豆上放了胡椒，你说我不应该吃胡椒，因为它总是让我胃不舒服。
I bothered to remark that I used to eat chili peppers for breakfast, and if I wanted to put plain old ordinary black pepper on my potatoes, as I had been doing for more than 60 years, that was my privilege.
我不厌其烦地说，我以前早餐吃辣椒，如果我想在土豆上放普通的黑胡椒，就像我 60 多年来一直做的那样，那是我的特权。
Writing this now, it sounds far more testy than I meant it.
现在写这篇文章，听起来比我的意思要暴躁得多。
But that isn't really the point.
但这并不是重点。
In any case, you chose to overlook my tone.
无论如何，你选择忽视我的语气。
You simply said, John, you were up all night the last time you had pepper with your dinner.
你只是说，约翰，上次你在晚餐时吃胡椒粉时你整夜没睡。
I said, I was up all night because I ate green peppers.
我说，我一夜没睡，因为吃了青椒。
Not black pepper, but green pepper.
不是黑胡椒，是青胡椒。
A pepper is a pepper, isn't it?
辣椒就是辣椒，不是吗？
You said.
你说。
And then I started in on you.
然后我就开始关注你了。
I got, as you call it, legal with you, pointing out that green peppers are not black pepper.
正如你所说，我对你来说是合法的，指出青椒不是黑胡椒。
And from there we moved on to an evening of mutual disregard for each other that ended with your decision to go to bed early.
从那时起，我们就度过了一个互相无视的夜晚，最终你决定早点上床睡觉。
The grandchildren will make you tired, and there's still the house to do.
孙子们会让你很累，而且还有家务要做。
You had every reason to want to get some rest.
你有充分的理由想要休息一下。
And yet I felt that you were also making a point of getting yourself out of proximity with me, leaving me to my displeasure, with another ridiculous argument settling between us like a fog.
但我觉得你也在刻意远离我，让我很不高兴，我们之间又一场荒谬的争吵像迷雾一样笼罩在我们之间。
So after you went to bed, I got out the whiskey and started pouring drinks, and I had every intention of putting myself into a stupor.
所以你上床睡觉后，我拿出威士忌，开始倒饮料，我真想让自己陷入昏迷状态。
It was also my birthday after all and, forgive this, it's the way I felt at the time, you had nagged me into an argument and then gone off to bed.
毕竟那天也是我的生日，请原谅，这就是我当时的感受，你跟我吵架，然后就去睡觉了。
The day had ended as so many of our days end now and I felt, well, entitled.
这一天结束了，就像我们许多日子现在结束一样，我觉得，好吧，我有权利。
I had a few drinks, without any appreciable effect, though you might well see this letter as firm evidence to the contrary.
我喝了几杯，没有任何明显的效果，尽管你很可能将这封信视为相反的确凿证据。
And then I decided to do something to shake you up.
然后我决定做点什么来震撼你。
I would leave.
我会离开。
I'd make a lot of noise going out the door.
我出门时会发出很大的噪音。
I'd take a walk around the neighborhood and make you wonder where I could be.
我会在附近散步，让你想知道我会在哪里。
Perhaps I'd go check into a motel for the night.
也许我会去一家汽车旅馆过夜。
The thought even crossed my mind that I might leave you all together.
我什至想到我可能会离开你们大家。
I admit that I entertained the thought, Marie.
我承认我有这个想法，玛丽。
I saw our life together now as the day to day round of petty quarreling and tension, that it's mostly been over the past couple of years or so.
我认为我们现在的生活就是日复一日的小争吵和紧张，这主要是在过去几年左右的时间里发生的。
And I wanted out as sincerely as I ever wanted out of anything.
我真诚地想要摆脱任何事情。
And I got up from my seat in front of the television, and walked back down the hall to the entrance of our room to look at you.
我从电视机前的座位上站起来，沿着走廊走回我们房间的入口处，看着你。
I suppose I hoped you'd still be awake so I could tell you of this momentous decision I felt I'd reached.
我想我希望你还醒着，这样我就可以告诉你我觉得我已经做出的这个重大决定。
And maybe you were awake, one of our oldest areas of contention being the noise I make.
也许你是醒着的，我们最古老的争论领域之一就是我发出的噪音。
The feather thin membrane of your sleep that I'm always disturbing with my restlessness in the nights.
你睡眠的羽毛般的薄膜，我总是在夜间不安地打扰它。
All right?
好的？
Assuming you were asleep and don't know that I stood in the doorway of our room, I will say that I stood there for perhaps five minutes looking at you in the half-dark, the shape of your body under the blanket.
假设你睡着了，不知道我站在我们房间的门口，我会说我在那里站了大约五分钟，在半明半暗的光线中看着你，看着你毯子下身体的形状。
You really did look like one of the girls when they were little and I used to stand in the doorway of their rooms.
你看起来确实很像小时候的女孩之一，而我曾经站在她们房间的门口。
Your illness last year made you so small again and, as I said, I thought I had decided to leave you, for your peace as well as mine.
去年你的病让你又变得如此渺小，正如我所说，我以为我已经决定离开你，为了你和我的平安。
I know you have gone to sleep crying, Marie.
我知道你已经哭着睡着了，玛丽。
I know you've felt sorry about things and wished we could find some way to stop irritating each other so much.
我知道你对一些事情感到抱歉，并希望我们能找到一些方法来停止互相激怒。
Well of course, I didn't go anywhere.
当然，我哪儿也没去。
I came back to this room and drank more of the whiskey and watched television.
我回到这个房间，喝了更多的威士忌，然后看电视。
It was like all the other nights.
就像其他所有的夜晚一样。
The shows came on and ended, and the whiskey began to wear off.
演出开始又结束，威士忌的酒味也开始消散。
There was a little rain shower.
下了一点阵雨。
I had a moment of the shock of knowing I was 70.
当我知道自己已经 70 岁的时候，我感到非常震惊。
After the rain ended, I did go outside for a few minutes.
雨停后，我确实出去了几分钟。
I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the house.
我站在人行道上，看着房子。
The kids, with their kids, were on the road somewhere between their homes and here.
孩子们和他们的孩子正在从他们家到这里之间的路上。
I walked up to the end of the block and back, and a pleasant breeze blew and shook the drops out of the trees.
我走到街区的尽头，然后又回来，一阵宜人的微风吹来，抖落了树上的水珠。
My stomach was bothering me some and maybe it was the pepper I put on my potatoes.
我的胃有些不舒服，也许是我在土豆上放了辣椒的缘故。
It could just as well have been the whiskey.
也可能是威士忌。
Anyway, as I came back to the house I began to have the eerie feeling that I had reached the last night of my life.
不管怎样，当我回到家时，我开始有一种怪异的感觉，好像我已经到了生命的最后一晚。
There was this small discomfort in my stomach and no other physical pang or pain, and I am used to the small ills and side effects of my ways of eating and drinking.
我的胃部有轻微的不适，没有其他身体上的疼痛或疼痛，而且我已经习惯了我的饮食方式带来的小病和副作用。
Yet I felt a sense of the end of things more strongly than I can describe.
然而，我对事情终结的感觉比我所能描述的更强烈。
When I stood in the entrance of our room and looked at you again, wondering if I would make it through to the morning, I suddenly found myself trying to think what I would say to you if indeed this were the last time I would ever be able to speak to you.
当我站在我们房间的门口，再次看着你，想知道我是否能坚持到早上时，我突然发现自己在思考，如果这真的是我最后一次能够和你说话，我会对你说什么。
And I began to know I would write you this letter.
我开始知道我会给你写这封信。
At least words in a letter aren't blurred by tone of voice, by the old aggravating sound of me talking to you.
至少信中的文字不会因语气、因我与你说话时那种令人恼火的声音而变得模糊。
I began with this and with the idea that, after months of thinking about it, I would at last try to say something to you that wasn't colored by our disaffection.
我从这个开始，带着这样的想法：经过几个月的思考，我最终会尝试对你说一些不被我们的不满所影响的事情。
What I have to tell you must be explained in a rather roundabout way.
我要告诉你的事情必须以相当迂回的方式解释。
I've been thinking about my cousin Louise and her husband.
我一直在想我的表弟路易丝和她的丈夫。
When he died and she stayed with us last summer, something brought back to me what is really only the memory of a moment.
去年夏天，当他去世、她和我们在一起时，有件事让我回想起了那一刻的记忆。
Yet it reached me, that moment, across more than 50 years.
然而，那一刻，跨越了 50 多年，它却降临到了我的脑海里。
As you know, Louise is nine years older than I and more like an older sister than a cousin.
如你所知，路易丝比我大九岁，更像是姐姐而不是表妹。
I must have told you at one time or another that I spent some weeks with her back in 1933 when she was first married.
我一定曾经告诉过你，1933 年她第一次结婚时，我和她一起度过了几个星期。
The memory I'm talking about comes from that time, and what I have decided I have to tell you comes from that memory.
我所说的记忆来自于那段时间，而我决定要告诉你的事情也来自于那段记忆。
Father had been dead four years.
父亲去世已经四年了。
We were all used to the fact that times were hard and that there was no man in the house, though I suppose I filled that role in some titular way.
我们都已经习惯了生活艰难、家里没有男人的事实，尽管我想我以某种名义上的方式填补了这个角色。
In any case, when Mother became ill, there was the problem of us, her children.
无论如何，当母亲生病时，我们——她的孩子们——就面临着问题。
Though I was the oldest, I wasn't old enough to stay in the house alone or to nurse her either.
虽然我是最大的，但我还没有大到可以独自留在家里或照顾她。
My grandfather came up with a solution and everybody went along with it, that I would go to Louise's for a time and the two girls would go to stay with grandfather.
我的祖父想出了一个解决方案，大家都同意了，我去路易丝家住一段时间，两个女孩去和祖父住在一起。
So we closed up the house, and I got on a train to Virginia.
所以我们关闭了房子，我坐上了去弗吉尼亚的火车。
I was a few weeks shy of 14 years old.
我还差几周就满14岁了。
I remember that I was not able to believe that anything truly bad would come of Mother's pleurisy and was consequently glad of the opportunity it afforded me to travel the 100 miles south to Charlottesville, where cousin Louise had moved with her new husband only a month earlier after her wedding.
我记得我无法相信母亲的胸膜炎会带来真正的严重后果，因此很高兴有机会向南行驶 100 英里，前往夏洛茨维尔，表弟路易丝在结婚一个月前才与她的新婚丈夫搬到那里。
Because we traveled so much at the beginning, you never got to really know Charles when he was young.
因为一开始我们旅行了很多次，所以你永远无法真正了解年轻时的查尔斯。
In 1933 he was a very tall, imposing fellow with bright red hair and a graceful way of moving that always made me think of athletics and contests of skill.
1933 年，他是一个身材高大、威风凛凛的小伙子，一头鲜红的头发，动作优雅，总是让我想起田径运动和技能比赛。
He had worked at the Navy Yard in Washington and had been laid off in the first months of Roosevelt's New Deal.
他曾在华盛顿海军造船厂工作，并在罗斯福新政的头几个月被解雇。
Louise was teaching in a day school in Charlottesville so they could make ends meet, and Charles was spending most of his time looking for work and fixing up the house.
路易丝在夏洛茨维尔的一所走读学校教书，这样他们就可以维持生计，查尔斯大部分时间都在找工作和修理房子。
I had only met Charles once or twice before the wedding, but already I admired him and wanted to emulate him.
婚礼前我只见过查尔斯一两次，但我已经很钦佩他并想效仿他。
The prospect of spending time in his house, of perhaps going fishing with him in the small streams of central Virginia, was all I thought about on the way down.
在下山的路上，我满脑子想的就是在他家里度过一段时光，也许能和他一起去弗吉尼亚州中部的小溪里钓鱼。
And I remember that we did go fishing one weekend, that I wound up spending a lot of time with Charles, helping to paint the house and to run water lines under it for indoor plumbing.
我记得有一个周末我们确实去钓鱼了，结果我花了很多时间和查尔斯在一起，帮助粉刷房子，并在房子下面铺设水管以安装室内管道。
Oh, I had time with Louise too, listening to her read from the books she wanted me to be interested in, walking with her around Charlottesville in the evenings and looking at the city as it was then.
哦，我也有时间和路易丝在一起，听她读她想让我感兴趣的书，晚上和她一起在夏洛茨维尔散步，看看当时的城市。
Or sitting on her small porch and talking about the family, Mother's stubborn illness, the children Louise saw every day at school.
或者坐在她的小门廊上谈论家庭、母亲的顽疾、路易丝每天在学校见到的孩子们。
But what I want to tell you has to do with the very first day I was there.
但我想告诉你的是我来这里的第一天。
I know you think I use far too much energy thinking about and pining away for the past.
我知道你认为我用了太多的精力去思考和憔悴于过去。
And I therefore know that I am taking a risk by talking about this ancient history and by trying to make you see it.
因此，我知道我谈论这段古老的历史并试图让你们看到它是在冒险。
But this all has to do with you and me, my dear, and our late inability to find ourselves in the same room together without bitterness and pain.
但这一切都与你和我有关，亲爱的，以及我们最近无法在同一个房间里没有痛苦和痛苦。
That summer, 1933, was unusually warm in Virginia and the heat, along with my impatience to arrive, made the train almost unbearable.
1933 年的那个夏天，弗吉尼亚异常温暖，炎热的天气加上我迫不及待地想要到达，让火车几乎难以忍受。
I think it was just past noon when it pulled into the station at Charlottesville, with me hanging out one of the windows looking for Louise or Charles.
我想当车驶入夏洛茨维尔车站时，正午刚过，我在其中一扇窗户外寻找路易丝或查尔斯。
It was Charles who had come to meet me.
是查尔斯来接我的。
He stood in a crisp looking seersucker suit, with a straw boater cocked at just the angle you'd expect a young, newly married man to wear a straw boater, even in the middle of economic disaster.
他穿着一套清爽的泡泡纱套装，头上的草帽翘起的角度恰到好处，就像一个年轻的新婚男子即使在经济灾难中也会穿着草帽一样。
I waved at him and he waved back.
我向他挥手，他也向我挥手。
And I might have jumped out the window if the train had slowed even a little more than it had, before it stopped in the shade of the platform.
如果火车在停在站台阴凉处之前稍微慢一点，我可能就会跳出窗外。
I made my way out, carrying a cloth bag my grandfather had given me for the trip.
我拎着祖父送给我的布袋出去了。
Mother had said through her room that I looked like a carpetbagger.
母亲在她的房间里说我看起来像个偷东西的人。
And when I stepped down to shake hands with Charles, I noticed that what I thought was a new suit was tattered at the ends of the sleeves.
当我下台与查尔斯握手时，我注意到我以为是一套新西装的袖子末端已经破烂不堪。
Well, he said, young John.
好吧，他说，年轻的约翰。
I smiled at him.
我对他微笑。
I was perceptive enough to see that his cheerfulness was not entirely effortless.
我很敏锐地看出他的快乐并非完全是毫不费力的。
He was a man out of work, after all, and so in spite of himself there was worry in his face, the slightest shadow in an otherwise glad and proud countenance.
毕竟，他是一个失业的人，所以他的脸上不由自主地流露出忧虑，原本快乐而自豪的脸上出现了一丝阴影。
We walk through the station to the street and on up the steep hill to the house, which was a small clapboard structure, a cottage really, with a porch, at the end of a short sidewalk lined with flowers.
我们穿过车站走到街上，爬上陡峭的山坡，来到了那所房子，那是一座小隔板结构，实际上是一座小屋，有一个门廊，位于一条种满鲜花的短人行道的尽头。
They were marigolds, I think.
我想它们是万寿菊。
And here was Louise, coming out of the house, her arms already stretched wide to embrace me.
路易丝从房子里走出来，她的双臂已经张开来拥抱我。
Lord, she said, I swear you've grown since the wedding, John.
主啊，她说，我发誓自从婚礼以来你已经成长了，约翰。
Charles took my bag and went inside.
查尔斯拿着我的包走了进去。
Let me look at you, young man, Louise said.
“让我看看你，年轻人，”路易丝说。
I stood for inspection.
我站着接受检查。
And as she looked me over, I saw that her hair was pulled back, that a few strands of it had come loose, that it was brilliantly auburn in the sun.
当她打量我时，我发现她的头发向后梳着，有几缕头发散开，在阳光下呈现出耀眼的赤褐色。
I suppose I was little in love with her.
我想我对她还是有点爱的。
She was grown and married now.
现在她已经长大并结婚了。
She was a part of what seemed a great mystery to me even as I was about to enter it.
即使我正要进入这个谜团，她仍然是我觉得这个谜团的一部分。
And of course, you remember how that feels, Marie, when one is on the verge of things, nearly adult, nearly old enough to fall in love.
当然，你记得那种感觉，玛丽，当一个人处于事情的边缘时，几乎成年，几乎已经到了坠入爱河的年龄。
I looked at Louise's happy, flushed face and felt a deep ache as she ushered me into her house.
当她把我带进她的房子时，我看着路易丝幸福、红润的脸，感到一阵深深的疼痛。
I wanted so to be older.
我想变得更老。
Inside, Charles had poured lemonade for us and was sitting in the easy chair by the fireplace already sipping his.
里面，查尔斯已经为我们倒了柠檬水，他坐在壁炉旁的安乐椅上，已经在喝着他的了。
Louise wanted to show me the house and the backyard, which she had tilled and turned into a small vegetable garden.
路易丝想带我参观房子和后院，她已经耕种了后院，把它变成了一个小菜园。
But she must have sensed how thirsty I was.
但她一定感觉到我有多渴了。
And so she asked me to sit down and have a cool drink before she showed me the upstairs.
所以她让我坐下来喝一杯冷饮，然后她带我上楼。
Now, of course, looking back on it, I remember that those rooms she was so anxious to show me were meager indeed.
当然，现在回想起来，我记得她急于带我去看的那些房间确实很简陋。
They were not much bigger than closets really, and the paint was faded and dull.
它们实际上比壁橱大不了多少，而且油漆已经褪色，暗淡无光。
The furniture she'd arranged so artfully was coming apart.
她精心布置的家具快要散架了。
The pictures she put on the walls were prints she'd cut out, magazine covers mostly.
她挂在墙上的照片是她剪下来的照片，大部分是杂志封面。
And the curtains over the windows were the same ones that hung in her childhood bedroom for 20 years.
窗户上的窗帘和她儿时卧室里挂了20年的窗帘是一样的。
Recognize these?
认识这些吗？
She said with a deprecating smile.
她带着不以为然的笑容说道。
Of course the quality of her pride had nothing to do with the fineness, or lack of it, in these things, but in the fact that they belonged to her, and that she was a married lady in her own house.
当然，她的骄傲与这些东西的精美与否无关，而是与这些东西属于她这一事实有关，而且她是自己家里的已婚女士。
On this day in July in 1933, she and Charles are waiting for the delivery of a fan they had scrounged enough money to buy from Sears through the catalog.
1933 年 7 月的今天，她和查尔斯正在等待一把扇子的送货，他们是通过商品目录从西尔斯那里凑够了钱买的。
There were things they would rather have been doing, especially in this heat, and especially with me there.
有些事情他们宁愿一直做，尤其是在这么热的时候，尤其是和我在一起。
Monticello wasn't far away.
蒙蒂塞洛就在不远处。
The university was within walking distance.
大学就在步行距离之内。
And without too much expense, one could ride a taxi to one of the lakes nearby.
而且无需花费太多费用，您可以乘坐出租车前往附近的一个湖泊。
They had hoped that the fan would arrive before I did.
他们原本希望粉丝能在我之前到达。
But since it hadn't, and since neither Louise nor Charles was willing to leave the other alone while traipsing off with me that day, there wasn't anything to do but wait around for it.
但既然没有，而且那天路易丝和查尔斯都不愿意在和我一起出去的时候留下对方，所以除了等待之外没有什么可做的。
Louise had opened the windows and shut the shades, and we sat in her small living room and drank the lemonade, fanning ourselves with folded parts of Charles's morning newspaper.
路易丝打开了窗户，关上了百叶窗，我们坐在她的小客厅里，喝着柠檬水，用查尔斯晨报的折叠部分给自己扇风。
From time to time an anemic breath of air would move the shades slightly, but everything grew still again.
时不时地，一股贫血的空气会轻微地移动窗帘，但一切又恢复了静止。
Louise sat on the arm of Charles's chair and I sat on the sofa.
路易丝坐在查尔斯的椅子扶手上，我坐在沙发上。
We talked about pleurisy and, I think, about the fact that Thomas Jefferson had invented the dumbwaiter, how the plumbing at Monticello was at least a century ahead of its time.
我们讨论了胸膜炎，我想，还讨论了托马斯·杰斐逊发明了升降机的事实，以及蒙蒂塞洛的管道系统如何领先于时代至少一个世纪。
Charles remarked that it was the spirit of invention that would make a man's career in these days.
查尔斯说，当今正是发明精神成就了一个人的事业。
That's what I'm aiming for, to be inventive in a job, no matter what it winds up being.
这就是我的目标，在工作中发挥创造力，无论结果如何。
When the lemonade ran out, Louise got up and went into the kitchen to make some more.
柠檬水用完后，路易丝起身去厨房再做一些。
Charles and I talked about taking a weekend to go fishing.
查尔斯和我讨论过周末去钓鱼。
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, looking satisfied.
他靠在椅子上，双手枕在脑后，看上去很满意。
In the kitchen Louise was chipping ice for our glasses and she began singing something low, for her own pleasure.
厨房里，路易丝正在为我们的杯子削冰块，她开始低声唱着歌，以取悦自己。
A barely audible lilting.
几乎听不见的轻快声。
And Charles and I sat listening.
查尔斯和我坐着听。
It occurred to me that I was very happy.
我突然觉得我很高兴。
I had the sense that soon I would be embarked on my own life as Charles was, and that an attractive woman like Louise would be there with me.
我有预感，很快我就会像查尔斯一样开始自己的生活，并且像路易丝这样有魅力的女人会和我在一起。
Charles yawned and said, god listen to that.
查尔斯打了个哈欠说，上帝听着。
Doesn't Louise have the loveliest voice?
路易丝的声音不是最可爱的吗？
And that's all I have from that day.
这就是我从那天起所拥有的一切。
I don't even know if the fan arrived later, and I have no clear memory of how we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening.
我什至不知道风扇是否晚到，我也不清楚我们是如何度过下午和晚上的。
I remember Louise singing a song, her husband leaning back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head, expressing his pleasure in his young wife's voice.
我记得路易丝唱着一首歌，她的丈夫靠在椅子上，双手交叉放在脑后，用年轻妻子的声音表达了他的喜悦。
I remember that I felt quite extraordinarily content just then.
我记得当时我感到非常的满足。
And that's all I remember.
这就是我所记得的一切。
But there are, of course, the things we both know.
但当然，有些事情我们都知道。
We know they moved to Colorado to be near Charles's parents.
我们知道他们搬到科罗拉多州是为了靠近查尔斯的父母。
We know they never had any children.
我们知道他们从未有过孩子。
We know that Charles fell down a shaft at a construction site in the fall of 1957 and was hurt so badly that he never walked again.
我们知道，1957 年秋天，查尔斯从一个建筑工地的竖井上摔下来，受了重伤，从此再也没有走路。
And I know that when she came to stay with us last summer, she told me she learned to hate him.
我知道，当她去年夏天来和我们住在一起时，她告诉我她学会了恨他。
And not for what she'd had to help him do all those years.
而不是因为这些年来她不得不帮助他做的事情。
No, it started earlier and was deeper than that.
不，它开始得更早，也更深。
She hadn't minded the care of him, the washing and feeding, and all the numberless small tasks she had to perform each and every day, all day.
她不介意照顾他、洗澡、喂食，以及她每天必须完成的无数小任务。
She hadn't minded this.
她并不介意这一点。
In fact, she thought there was something in her makeup that liked being needed so completely.
事实上，她认为她的妆容中有某种东西让人如此完全地被需要。
The trouble was simply that whatever she had once loved in him, she had stopped loving.
问题在于，无论她曾经爱过他什么，她都不再爱了。
And for many, many years before he died, she'd felt only suffocation when he was near enough to touch her.
在他去世之前的很多很多年里，当他离她足够近，可以触碰她时，她只感到窒息。
Only irritation and anxiety when he spoke.
他说话的时候只有恼怒和不安。
She said all this and then looked at me, her cousin, who had been fortunate enough to have children and to be in love over time, and said, John, how have you and Marie managed it?
她说了这一切，然后看着我，她的表弟，她很幸运地有了孩子，并且随着时间的推移也相爱了，她说，约翰，你和玛丽是怎么做到的？
And what I wanted to tell you has to do with this fact.
我想告诉你的就是这个事实。
That while you and I had had one of our whispering arguments only moments before, I feel quite certain of the simple truth of the matter, which is that whatever our complications, we have managed to be in love over time.
虽然你和我刚刚刚刚发生过一次窃窃私语的争吵，但我对事情的简单事实感到非常确定，那就是，无论我们的复杂程度如何，随着时间的推移，我们已经成功地相爱了。
Louise, I said.
路易丝，我说。
People start out with such high hopes, she said, as if I wasn't there.
她说，人们一开始就抱有很高的期望，就好像我不在那里一样。
She looked at me.
她看着我。
Don't they?
不是吗？
Yes, I said.
是的，我说。
She seemed to consider this a moment and she said, I wonder how it happens.
她似乎考虑了一下，然后说，我想知道这是怎么发生的。
I said, you ought to get some rest, or something equally pointless and admonitory.
我说，你应该休息一下，或者做一些同样毫无意义和警告性的事情。
As she moved away from me, I had an image of Charles standing on the station platform in Charlottesville that summer, the straw boater set at its cocky angle.
当她从我身边走开时，我脑海中浮现出那年夏天查尔斯站在夏洛茨维尔车站站台上的画面，稻草船摆在了它傲慢的角度。
It was an image I would see most of the rest of that night, and on many another night since.
那天晚上剩下的大部分时间里，以及此后的许多夜晚，我都会看到这样的景象。
I can almost hear your voice as you point out that once again I've managed to dwell too long on the memory of something that's passed and gone.
我几乎可以听到你的声音，当你指出我再次设法在对已经过去的事情的记忆中停留太久时。
The difference is that I'm not grieving over the past now.
不同的是，我现在不再为过去感到悲伤。
I am merely reporting a memory, so that you might understand what I'm about to say to you.
我只是报告一个记忆，以便你能明白我要对你说的话。
The fact is, we aren't the people we were even then, just a year ago.
事实上，我们已经不再是一年前的我们了。
I know that.
我知道。
As I know things have been slowly eroding between us for a very long time.
据我所知，很长一段时间以来，我们之间的关系一直在慢慢恶化。
We are a little tired of each other.
我们彼此都有点厌倦了。
And there are annoyances and old scars that won't be obliterated with a letter, even a long one written in the middle of the night in desperate sincerity, under the influence, admittedly, of a considerable portion of bourbon whiskey.
还有一些烦恼和旧伤疤是无法用一封信抹去的，即使是在半夜写下的一封长信，诚恳地，不可否认，是受到了相当一部分波本威士忌的影响。
But nevertheless with the best intention and hope that you may know how, over the course of this night, I came to the end of needing an explanation for our difficulty.
但尽管如此，我还是怀着最好的意图并希望你能知道，在今晚的过程中，我终于不需要对我们的困难做出解释了。
We have reached this place.
我们已经到达这个地方了。
Everything we say seems rather aggravatingly mindless and automatic, like something one stranger might say to another in one of the thousand circumstances where strangers are thrown together for a time, and the silence begins to grow heavy on their minds and someone has to say something.
我们所说的一切似乎都相当无意识和自动，就像在陌生人聚集在一起的一千种情况下，一个陌生人可能会对另一个陌生人说的话，沉默开始在他们的脑海中变得沉重，有人不得不说些什么。
Darling, we go so long these days without having anything at all to do with each other.
亲爱的，这些天我们走了这么久，彼此却没有任何关系。
And the children are arriving tomorrow, and once more we'll be in the position of making all the gestures that give them back their parents as they think their parents are.
孩子们明天就会到来，我们将再次采取一切行动，让他们回到他们认为自己父母的样子。
And what I wanted to say to you, what came to me as I thought about Louise and Charles on that day so long ago, when they were young and so obviously glad of each other.
我想对你说的话，当我想起很久以前的那天路易丝和查尔斯时，我想到了什么，当时他们还年轻，显然彼此很高兴。
And I looked at them and knew it and was happy.
我看着他们，就知道了，并且很高兴。
What came to me was that even the harsh things that happened to them, even the years of anger and silence, even the disappointment and the bitterness and the wanting not to be in the same room anymore.
我想到的是，即使是发生在他们身上的严酷的事情，即使是多年来的愤怒和沉默，甚至是失望、痛苦和不想再呆在同一个房间里的感觉。
Even all that must have been worth it, for such loveliness.
为了如此可爱，即使这一切也一定是值得的。
At least I am here at 70 years old hoping so.
至少我在 70 岁时希望如此。
Tonight, I went back to our room again and stood gazing at you asleep, dreaming whatever you were dreaming.
今晚，我又回到自己的房间，站着看着熟睡的你，做着你梦里的事。
And I had a moment of thinking how we were always friends too.
我有一瞬间想到我们怎么也一直是朋友。
Because what I wanted finally to say, was that I remember well our own sweet times, our own old loveliness.
因为我最后想说的是，我清楚地记得我们自己的甜蜜时光，我们自己古老的可爱。
And I would like to think that even if at the very beginning of our lives together, I had somehow been shown that we would end up here, with this longing to be away from each other, this feeling of being trapped together, of being tied to each other in a way that makes us wish for other times, some other place, I would have known enough to accept it all freely for the chance at that love.
我想，即使在我们共同生活的一开始，我就以某种方式被告知，我们最终会来到这里，带着这种对彼此分离的渴望，这种被困在一起的感觉，一种以一种让我们希望在其他时间、其他地方的方式彼此束缚的感觉，我也会足够清楚地自由地接受这一切，以获得那种爱的机会。
And if I could, I would do it all again, Marie.
如果可以的话，我会再做一遍，玛丽。
All of it.
所有这一切。
Even the sorrow.
甚至悲伤。
My sweet, my dear adversary, for everything that I remember.
我亲爱的，我亲爱的对手，感谢我所记得的一切。
Richard Bausch's story, "Letter to the Lady of the House," is in his book, Selected Stories from Richard Bausch.
理查德·鲍什的故事“给女主人的信”收录在他的书《理查德·鲍什的故事精选》中。
That's from the Modern Library.
这是来自现代图书馆的。
His newest book is called In The Night Season.
他的最新书名为《夜间季节》。
Coming up, not leaving your husband for the guy in the yogurt store, despite his nose job.
来吧，不要为了酸奶店里的那个人而离开你的丈夫，尽管他做了鼻子手术。
That's in a minute from Public Radio International, when our program continuous.
就在国际公共广播电台一分钟后，我们的节目仍在继续。
It's This American Life , I'm Ira Glass.
这就是美国生活，我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week, of course, we choose a theme, invite a variety of writers and reporters and performers to tackle that theme.
当然，每周我们都会选择一个主题，邀请各种作家、记者和表演者来解决这个主题。
Today, for Valentine's Day, we wanted to bring you stories about love, but not the usual kind of love stories which try to capture that moment when your eyes meet and your heart sings, and you fall, fall, fall, fall, fall.
今天，在情人节，我们想给你们带来关于爱情的故事，但不是通常那种试图捕捉你们目光相遇、心在歌唱、你们跌倒、跌倒、跌倒、跌倒、跌倒的那一刻的爱情故事。
No, no, no. We have a different mission.
不，不，不。我们有不同的使命。
Today, as a public service, we are bringing you love stories about people who have been in the same relationship for years.
今天，作为一项公共服务，我们为您带来多年来一直处于同一关系中的人的爱情故事。
Stories of love years after the lightning has already struck.
闪电袭击多年后的爱情故事。
We have arrived at Act Two of our show.
我们已经到了节目的第二幕了。
Act Two, I met him in the yogurt store, and now he is not my leader of the pack.
第二幕，我在酸奶店遇见了他，现在他不再是我的领袖了。
In this act we bring you a true fable of love, a true story.
在这一幕中，我们为您带来一个真实的爱情寓言，一个真实的故事。
A tale of moral instruction with a lesson for everyone, that happened in the ninth year of marriage between Linda Howard and Richard Bloom, who live in Boca Raton, Florida.
这是一个道德教育的故事，给每个人上了一堂课，故事发生在住在佛罗里达州博卡拉顿的琳达·霍华德和理查德·布鲁姆结婚第九年。
After we were married I would say-- was Nicole born yet?
我们结婚后我会问——妮可出生了吗？
Yeah, we had both kids, we had a boy and a girl.
是的，我们有两个孩子，一个男孩和一个女孩。
And we were-- took the kids out for frozen yogurt one night.
一天晚上我们带孩子们出去吃冷冻酸奶。
And we're in Huntington, where we lived at the time.
我们在亨廷顿，我们当时住的地方。
And we're sitting down, we're ordering, and there's this guy, very good-looking guy standing there, and all of a sudden--
我们坐下来点菜，有一个非常英俊的家伙站在那里，突然——
He wasn't that good-looking.
他长得没那么好看。
Linda Howard All of a sudden, it dawned on me that this was David, this guy who I dated in high school and then years later, had another relationship with, which was kind of a hot and heavy relationship several years later, when we were already out of school for a number of years.
琳达·霍华德 突然间，我意识到这是大卫，这个我在高中约会过的人，几年后，又和他有了另一段关系，几年后，当我们已经离开学校好几年时，这是一种热烈而沉重的关系。
And here he was.
他就在这里。
He had had his nose fixed, and his hair was all white, and to me he looked absolutely gorgeous.
他修复了鼻子，头发全白了，在我看来，他看起来非常漂亮。
And I said, David?
我说，大卫？
Now, his whole family's there.
现在，他的全家都在那里。
He says, Linda?
他说，琳达？
And it was like everything stopped in my mind at that moment.
那一刻我的脑海里仿佛一切都停止了。
And it was kind of like we were trying to be very nonchalant with each other here.
有点像我们试图在这里彼此表现得非常冷漠。
Oh, this is my husband and these are my kids, and dah dah dah.
哦，这是我的丈夫，这些是我的孩子，哒哒哒。
Meanwhile, the heart is going, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.
与此同时，心脏在跳动，ba-boom，ba-boom，ba-boom，ba-boom。
And I know it's an old boyfriend, I could just tell.
我知道这是一个老男友，我看得出来。
And I go, hi, I'm the husband.
我就说，嗨，我是丈夫。
Hi.
你好。
And my kids, hi.
还有我的孩子们，嗨。
So he and I have this nice little chat while we're standing there, and I'm saying to myself in the car, I know that he is thinking exactly the same thing about me.
所以我和他站在那里聊了一会儿，我在车里对自己说，我知道他对我的想法完全一样。
I know it.
我知道这。
There's not a doubt in my mind.
我心中毫无疑问。
And I can't believe that we've just left now and we're not going to each other again.
我不敢相信我们现在就离开了，而且我们不会再见面了。
I ask him, what is he doing?
我问他，他在做什么？
And he tells me that he's a psychoanalyst in the city, and this is completely a shock to me.
他告诉我他是城里的一名精神分析师，这让我完全震惊。
And I tell them that I'm a clinical psychologist.
我告诉他们我是一名临床心理学家。
We have so much in common and blah blah blah.
我们有很多共同点，等等等等。
Well, anyway.
好吧，无论如何。
The next day I go into my office and there's this-- I press the button on my answering machine-- and there's this long message.
第二天，我走进办公室，按下答录机上的按钮，收到一条很长的消息。
And I'm thinking, who could have left me a message that long?
我在想，谁能给我留言那么久呢？
And I play it back.
我回放它。
Somebody needed help.
有人需要帮助。
Linda Howard And it's David and he said-- I can't do that-- when I got in the car, I couldn't stop thinking about you and all of this kind of stuff.
琳达·霍华德：是大卫，他说——我不能这么做——当我上车时，我无法停止思考你和所有这些事情。
And I was just astounded and I had this big smile on my face, and I'm thinking, well there's no way I'm going to call him back.
我很惊讶，脸上露出灿烂的笑容，我想，我不可能给他回电话。
So I don't call him back and a few days later he calls.
所以我没有给他回电话，几天后他又打来了。
And he had been saying to me that it was so wonderful to see me and he'd love to get together, and he was kind of reminiscing and so forth.
他一直对我说，见到我真是太好了，他很想聚在一起，他有点怀旧等等。
And I didn't call him back.
我也没有给他回电话。
And he called back and he left another message, saying that he was sorry that he had gotten so carried away, and I probably have my own life now and a whole thing, and it's probably difficult for me to call and he understands, and just wanted me to know how great it was to see me and--
他回了电话，又留下了一条信息，说他很抱歉自己这么得意忘形，我现在可能已经有了自己的生活和一整套事情，我可能很难打电话，他理解，只是想让我知道见到我是多么高兴，而且——
Probably have your own life, with the husband, the two kids.
可能有自己的生活，和丈夫、两个孩子在一起。
I wonder what gave it away.
我想知道是什么泄露了它。
So anyway, at that point, when he said that, I waited a few days and it was just-- I just really wanted to talk to him.
所以无论如何，当他这么说时，我等了几天，然后我真的很想和他谈谈。
So I called him and he said, why don't we meet for-- we had this fabulous, fabulous conversation-- and why don't we meet for coffee.
所以我打电话给他，他说，我们为什么不见面——我们进行了一次非常棒的谈话——为什么我们不见面喝杯咖啡呢。
And I got that old feeling.
我有那种古老的感觉。
That old feeling of having that rush, you know.
那种匆忙的感觉，你知道。
And somebody's going to think I'm fabulous all over again.
有人会再次认为我很棒。
So I started thinking about him and thinking about him.
于是我开始想他，想他。
And he said, can we go for coffee?
他说，我们可以去喝咖啡吗？
So I said I would think about it.
所以我说我会考虑一下。
So I said to Richard that night, oh I heard from David.
所以那天晚上我对理查德说，哦，我收到了大卫的消息。
And he said, oh yeah, what did he say?
他说，哦，是的，他说什么？
And I said, well, we just had a nice talk, and do you mind if we go for coffee?
我说，好吧，我们刚刚聊得很愉快，你介意我们去喝杯咖啡吗？
And he said, do I mind?
他说，我介意吗？
Well, I wouldn't like it.
好吧，我不喜欢它。
But if that's what you'd like to do, go ahead.
但如果这就是你想做的，那就继续吧。
So I thought about it.
所以我想了想。
And now, in the meantime, he's leaving me messages now.
而现在，与此同时，他正在给我留言。
And he's saying, I didn't think of you when I got up this morning, I just wanted you to know that I'm not thinking of you when having a coffee break, and these very seductive messages.
他说，今天早上我起床时我没有想到你，我只是想让你知道我在喝咖啡休息时没有想到你，以及这些非常诱人的信息。
And I'm just getting obsessed with him, and I'm thinking oh my god I want to see him.
我简直被他迷住了，我想天哪我想见他。
Well, it got to a point where I wanted to see him so badly that I was upset.
好吧，我非常想见他，以至于我很沮丧。
I could not look Richard in the eye.
我无法直视理查德的眼睛。
And he came home one Saturday afternoon and I was just terribly upset.
一个星期六下午他回到家，我感到非常沮丧。
I said, Rich, I have to talk to you.
我说，里奇，我得和你谈谈。
He said, what's the matter?
他说，怎么了？
And I told him the whole story.
我告诉了他整个故事。
And he was amazing.
他太棒了。
He put his arms around me-- I told him I'm obsessed with him-- he put his arms around me and he just held me.
他用双臂搂住我——我告诉他我对他很着迷——他用双臂搂住我，他只是抱着我。
And he said to me, oh honey, I'm so sorry I can't do that for you anymore.
他对我说，哦亲爱的，我很抱歉我不能再为你这样做了。
And that was all he said.
他就说了这么多。
I couldn't believe it.
我简直不敢相信。
I waited for some kind of a lecture, why didn't you tell me?
我在等一场讲座，你为什么不告诉我？
Something, some sign of jealousy.
某种东西，某种嫉妒的迹象。
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
没什么，没什么，没什么。
Just held me.
只是抱着我。
I was jealous, because-- but what's it going to do?
我很嫉妒，因为——但是它会做什么呢？
I mean once you've got two kids and you've been with each other for quite a while, before and after marriage, you can't get the thunder and lightning back.
我的意思是，一旦你有了两个孩子，而且你们已经在一起很长一段时间了，无论是婚前还是婚后，你都无法恢复雷电。
It's now-- it's different.
现在——情况不同了。
Needless to say, I went downstairs to my office and I called David immediately, and I said, this is what just happened.
不用说，我下楼到办公室，立即给大卫打电话，我说，这就是刚刚发生的事情。
I've been obsessed with you.
我已经对你着迷了
I told my husband the whole story from beginning to end and this is what he did.
我把整个故事从头到尾告诉了我丈夫，他就是这么做的。
He put his arms around me and held me, and I told him what he said.
他用双臂搂住我，抱着我，我告诉他他说的话。
And I said, this is the most amazing man in the world.
我说，这是世界上最了不起的人。
And David said, you're married to one helluva guy.
大卫说，你嫁给了一个了不起的家伙。
I said, yes he is.
我说，是的，他是。
Don't ever call me again.
永远不要再给我打电话。
And that was it.
就是这样。
Linda Howard and Richard Bloom have been married for 11 years.
琳达·霍华德和理查德·布鲁姆已经结婚 11 年了。
They spoke with Stephanie Howard.
他们与斯蒂芬妮·霍华德进行了交谈。
[SINGING] Here's our story, it's sad but true.
[唱歌] 这是我们的故事，虽然悲伤但却真实。
[SINGING] I don't know the rest of the song.
[唱歌] 我不知道这首歌的其余部分。
[SINGING] I almost took his love and ran around.
[唱歌]我几乎夺走了他的爱并四处奔走。
Act Three, Without.
第三幕，没有。
Donald Hall says that when he first got together with his wife, Jane Kenyon, the earliest years were not so very intense.
唐纳德·霍尔 (Donald Hall) 说，当他第一次与妻子简·凯尼恩 (Jane Kenyon) 在一起时，最初的日子并不那么紧张。
They didn't have that big lightning moment.
他们没有那个闪电般的时刻。
It was the '70s, he says, by way of explanation.
作为解释，他说那是 70 年代。
They saw each other while they also saw other people.
他们看到了彼此，同时也看到了其他人。
And then they slowly decided that they had no interest in the other people.
然后他们慢慢决定对其他人不感兴趣。
And then they got married.
然后他们结婚了。
And then, three years into the marriage, they moved to a farm in New Hampshire that had been in Donald's family for generations.
然后，结婚三年后，他们搬到了新罕布什尔州的一个农场，这个农场已经属于唐纳德家族几代人了。
And it was only then, Donald Hall says, that they entered their most intimate time together.
唐纳德·霍尔说，直到那时，他们才进入了最亲密的时光。
They got closer every year of their marriage, he says, and the closest time of all between them came at the end of their marriage, when after 22 years together, Jane Kenyon got leukemia and he took care of her.
他说，他们的婚姻一年比一年亲密，而他们之间最亲密的一次是在婚姻结束时，当时在一起 22 年后，简·凯尼恩得了白血病，他照顾了她。
During this time, he started to document what was happening between them in his writing.
在此期间，他开始在写作中记录他们之间发生的事情。
And his newest book of poems, called Without, is all work he began during her illness and after her death in 1995.
他最新的诗集《Without》是他在她生病期间和 1995 年她去世后开始的所有作品。
The poems include sad moments and funny moments, and a million little details of everyday life during a life-threatening crisis.
这些诗包括悲伤的时刻和有趣的时刻，以及危及生命的危机期间日常生活的一百万个小细节。
In one poem, Jane stares at the mirror at her bald head and her face, swollen from the drugs that she's taking, and she declares, I am Telly Savalas.
在一首诗中，简盯着镜子看她的光头和因服用药物而肿胀的脸，她宣称，我是特利·萨瓦拉斯。
In another, Donald asked, why were they not contented four months ago?
在另一封邮件中，唐纳德问道，为什么他们四个月前还不满意？
Because Jane did not have leukemia?
因为简没有得白血病？
A year hence, would he question why he was not contented now?
一年后，他会问为什么现在不满足吗？
Therefore, he was contented.
因此，他很满足。
He writes about the dog Gus reacting to their illness, about Jane trying to finish her own book of poems called Otherwise , and about small moments when they both realize once again, all over again, what's happening to them.
他写了狗格斯对他们的疾病的反应，简试图完成她自己的诗集《否则》，以及他们再次意识到发生在他们身上的事情的小时刻。
Alone together a moment on the 22nd anniversary of their wedding, he clasped her as she stood at the sink, pressing into her backside, rubbing his cheek against the stubble of her skull.
在他们结婚 22 周年纪念日上，当她站在水槽边时，他单独在一起，紧紧地抱住她，压在她的屁股上，用脸颊摩擦着她的头骨胡茬。
He gave her a ring of pink tourmaline with nine small diamonds around it.
他给了她一枚粉色碧玺戒指，周围镶嵌着九颗小钻石。
She put it on her finger, and immediately named it Please Don't Die.
她把它戴在手指上，并立即给它起名为“请不要死”。
They kissed and Jane whispered, timor mortis conturbat me.
他们接吻了，简低声说，“尸王扰乱了我”。
That last bit, of course, is Latin and Jane was not a Latin scholar, but that's a refrain line of a wonderful medieval Scots' poem about dead poets, and it translates more or less, the fear of death shakes me.
当然，最后一点是拉丁语，简不是拉丁学者，但这是一首精彩的中世纪苏格兰诗中关于已故诗人的副歌，它或多或少地翻译了，对死亡的恐惧震撼了我。
Usually when we think about romance, the moment that we think about is the beginning of the romance as the most intense time.
通常，当我们想到浪漫时，我们想到的时刻就是浪漫开始的时刻，也是最激烈的时刻。
And in fact one of the things that happens in these poems is it's just the two of you going through a time that's just as intense.
事实上，这些诗中发生的事情之一是，只有你们两个人正在经历一段同样紧张的时光。
Oh, more intense.
哦，更激烈了。
More intense.
更强烈。
Really, we had a very good marriage.
确实，我们的婚姻非常美好。
We were very fortunate.
我们非常幸运。
We loved the same things.
我们喜欢同样的东西。
And then we began to be sick.
然后我们开始生病。
I had cancer a couple of times and then Jane had leukemia, beginning at the age of 46 and dying at 47.
我曾患过几次癌症，然后简又得了白血病，从 46 岁开始，到 47 岁时去世。
Jane was 19 years younger than me.
简比我小19岁。
But when you think you're going to lose what you love, when you know it's probably going to happen, then the sweetness of the intensity and the pain of the intensity is greater than ever, I do think
但是，当你认为你将失去你所爱的东西，当你知道这可能会发生时，那么强度的甜蜜和强度的痛苦就会比以往任何时候都更大，我确实认为
I think it was beautiful.
我觉得那很漂亮。
I often say that obviously the worst thing in my life is Jane dying.
我经常说，显然我一生中最糟糕的事情就是简的去世。
But one of the best things in my life was taking care of her.
但我一生中最好的事情之一就是照顾她。
There's a line in one of the poems actually, where you say, he felt shamed to understand that he would miss the months of sickness and taking care.
实际上，其中一首诗中有一句话，你说，他为了解自己会怀念生病和照顾的几个月而感到羞愧。
And I had that thought literally.
我确实有这个想法。
It's all right to tell lies in books, but this was not a lie.
在书本上说谎是可以的，但这不是谎言。
I had that thought and wrote down something like that line the day before we found out that she was going to die.
我有这个想法，并在我们发现她即将去世的前一天写下类似的话。
I was optimistic.
我很乐观。
And I thought, with guilt, I'll be sorry when I can't take care of her anymore.
我心怀愧疚地想，当我不能再照顾她时，我会感到抱歉。
So explain this poem, "Last Days," to me.
请向我解释一下这首诗《最后的日子》。
Well "Last Days" is the poems that I wrote or began to write during the last days of her life.
嗯，“最后的日子”是我在她生命的最后几天写的或开始写的诗。
One day in April we had her blood checked, which we did once a week, and it was just fine.
四月的一天，我们每周检查一次她的血液，结果很好。
And a week later, the leukemia had come back and there was nothing to do.
一周后，白血病复发，无计可施。
She was going to die.
她快要死了。
This is after also she went through very intensive chemotherapy and radiation treatment, a bone marrow transplant--
这是在她经历了非常密集的化疗和放射治疗、骨髓移植之后——
Everything.
一切。
Yeah, 15 months of a lot of suffering.
是啊，15个月的痛苦。
So this was what we came home with the doctor saying, it might be a month.
这就是我们回家后医生说的，可能需要一个月。
But it actually took just 11 days.
但实际上只用了11天。
And here are poems out of those 11 days.
以下是这 11 天里写的诗。
OK.
好的。
Donald Hall Home that afternoon, they threw her medicines into the trash.
那天下午，唐纳德·霍尔回家后，他们把她的药品扔进了垃圾桶。
Jane vomited.
简吐了。
He wailed, while she remained dry-eyed, silent, trying to let go.
他嚎啕大哭，而她却双眼干涩，一言不发，试图放手。
At night, he picked up the telephone to make calls that brought a child or a friend into the horror.
晚上，他拿起电话拨打电话，这让孩子或朋友陷入了恐怖之中。
The next morning, they worked choosing among her poems for Otherwise , picked hymns for her funeral, and supplied each other words as they wrote and revised her obituary.
第二天早上，他们在她为《否则》写的诗中挑选，为她的葬礼挑选赞美诗，并在撰写和修改她的讣告时互相提供文字。
The day after, with more work to do on her book, he saw how weak she felt and said, maybe not now.
第二天，她的书还有更多工作要做，他看到她感到多么虚弱，并说，也许不是现在。
Maybe later.
也许以后吧。
Jane shook her head.
简摇了摇头。
Now, she said.
现在，她说。
We have to finish it now.
我们现在必须完成它。
Later, as she slid exhausted into sleep, she said, wasn't that fun?
后来，当她精疲力竭地睡着时，她说，这不是很有趣吗？
To work together.
一起工作。
Wasn't that fun?
那不是很有趣吗？
He asked her, what clothes should we dress you in when we bury you?
他问她，埋葬你的时候应该给你穿什么衣服？
I hadn't thought, she said.
我没想到，她说。
I wondered about the white salwar kameez, he said, her favorite Indian silk they bought in Pondicherry a year and a half before, which she wore for best or prettiest afterward.
我想知道白色的萨尔瓦卡米兹，他说，这是一年半前他们在本地治里买的她最喜欢的印度丝绸，后来她穿得最好或最漂亮。
She smiled.
她笑了。
Yes, excellent, she said.
是的，很好，她说。
He didn't tell her that a year earlier, dreaming awake, he had seen her in the coffin in her white salwar kameez.
他没有告诉她，一年前，当他醒着的时候，他曾在棺材里看到她穿着白色的萨尔瓦卡米兹。
They talked about their adventures, driving through England when they first married, and excursions to China and India.
他们谈论了自己的冒险经历，第一次结婚时开车穿越英国，以及去中国和印度的旅行。
Also they remembered ordinary days, pond summers, working on poems together, walking the dog, reading Chekhov aloud.
他们还记得平凡的日子，池塘里的夏天，一起写诗，遛狗，大声朗读契诃夫的作品。
When he praised thousands of afternoon assignations that carried them into bliss and repose on this painted bed, Jane burst into tears and cried, no more [BLEEP]ing.
当他称赞数千个下午的作业让他们进入幸福并在这张彩绘床上休息时，简突然泪流满面，哭了起来，再也没有[哔]声。
No more [BLEEP]ing.
不再有[BLEEP]ing。
Incontinent three nights before she died, Jane needed lifting onto the commode.
简去世前三个晚上失禁，需要扶到马桶上。
He wiped her and helped her back into bed.
他给她擦干净，扶她回到床上。
At 5:00 he fed the dog and returned to find her across the room, sitting in a straight chair.
5:00，他喂了狗，回来时发现她坐在房间另一边的一把直椅上。
When she couldn't stand, how could she walk?
当她站不起来的时候，她怎么能走路呢？
He figured she would fall and called for an ambulance to the hospital.
他估计她会摔倒，于是叫了救护车去医院。
But when he told Jane, her mouth twisted down and tears started.
但当他告诉简时，她的嘴角弯了下来，泪流满面。
Do we have to?
我们必须这样做吗？
He canceled.
他取消了。
Jane said, Perkins, be with me when I die.
简说，帕金斯，当我死的时候，请和我在一起。
Dying is simple, she said.
她说，死亡很简单。
What's worst is the separation.
最糟糕的是分离。
When she no longer spoke, they lay alone together, touching, and she fixed on him her beautiful enormous round, brown eyes, shining, unblinking, and passionate with love and dread.
当她不再说话时，他们单独躺在一起，互相碰触，她用那双美丽的、巨大的、棕色的眼睛盯着他，一眨不眨地闪闪发光，充满了爱和恐惧的热情。
One by one, they came, the oldest and dearest, to say goodbye to this friend of the heart.
他们一一来，最年长、最亲爱的，向这位挚友道别。
At first she said their names, wept and touched, then she smiled.
一开始她说出了他们的名字，哭了，感动了，然后她笑了。
Then turned one mouth corner up.
然后嘴角上扬。
On the last day, she stared silent goodbyes, with her hands curled and her eyes stuck open.
最后一天，她蜷缩着双手，睁着眼睛默默地告别。
Leaving his place beside her, where her eyes stared, he told her, I'll put these letters in the box.
他离开了她身边的位置，她的目光注视着他，他告诉她，我会把这些信放进盒子里。
She had not spoken for three hours.
她已经三个小时没有说话了。
And now Jane said her last words, OK.
现在简说了最后一句话，好吧。
At 8:00 that night, her eyes open as they stayed until she died, brain-stem breathing started.
当晚8：00，她睁开眼睛，一直呆到死，脑干呼吸开始。
He bent to kiss her pale cool lips again and felt them one last time gather and purse and peck to kiss him back.
他再次弯下腰去吻她苍白冰凉的嘴唇，最后一次感觉到它们合拢、抿嘴、啄吻以回吻他。
In the last hours, she kept her forearms raised with pale fingers clenched at cheek level, like the goddess figurine over the bathroom sink.
在最后的几个小时里，她一直举着前臂，苍白的手指紧握在脸颊处，就像浴室水槽上的女神雕像一样。
Sometimes her right fist flicked or spasmed toward her face.
有时她的右拳会向她的脸猛击或痉挛。
For 12 hours until she died, he kept scratching Jane Kenyon's big bony nose.
直到简·凯尼恩去世前的12个小时里，他一直在抓挠简·凯尼恩瘦骨嶙峋的大鼻子。
A sharp, almost sweet smell began to rise from her open mouth.
一股尖锐的、几乎是甜甜的气味开始从她张开的嘴里升起。
That's a line from her, by the way.
顺便说一句，这是她的台词。
She wrote a wonderful poem called Gettysburg.
她写了一首美妙的诗，名叫葛底斯堡。
And she says a sharp, almost sweet smell began to rise from his open mouth.
她说，他张开的嘴里开始散发出一种刺鼻的、几乎是甜甜的气味。
And nobody has noticed that yet.
目前还没有人注意到这一点。
I'm ripping her off as she dies.
当她死的时候我就剥夺了她的权利。
She wouldn't mind.
她不会介意的。
She'd be amused.
她一定会觉得好笑的。
Do you feel like going through the process of revising and finishing this book, and publishing it, has kept you suspended in that period of mourning for her longer than perhaps you would've otherwise?
你是否觉得修改、完成这本书并出版这本书的过程让你在为她哀悼的时间里停留的时间比其他情况下更长？
No, I don't think so.
不，我不这么认为。
I think that it has been very helpful to me in my mourning.
我认为这对我的哀悼非常有帮助。
I don't think I would have straight away.
我不认为我会立即这么做。
But I had something to do about it.
但我有事要做。
I really understand that.
我真的明白这一点。
I think that one of the most common things when somebody is mourning somebody else, is you're not exactly sure what to do with the feeling.
我认为，当一个人哀悼另一个人时，最常见的事情之一就是你不确定如何处理这种感觉。
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
Ira Glass It's like, they're unreachable.
Ira Glass：就像，他们遥不可及。
And then you have all this feeling, and it's like, well, where do you even put it?
然后你就有了所有这些感觉，就像，好吧，你把它放在哪里？
Where do you put it, yeah.
你把它放在哪里，是的。
I had a place to put it.
我有地方放它。
I had a reason to wake up in the morning.
我早上有一个起床的理由。
And especially the first year, when it was very acute, and I screamed a lot and scared the dog.
尤其是第一年，情况非常严重，我经常尖叫，吓到了狗。
But I had a reason to get up in the morning.
但我早上有一个起床的理由。
Let me ask you about the set of poems, which happens after she dies.
让我问你关于她死后发生的那套诗的事情。
And you set about writing a set of letters to her.
你开始给她写一组信。
Did you actually write her letters every day after she died?
她死后你真的每天都给她写信吗？
No. I began-- oh, I found out that Maggie Fisher was pregnant.
不，我开始——哦，我发现玛吉·费舍尔怀孕了。
Maggie was one of Jane's nurses.
玛吉是简的护士之一。
And the first thought you have is-- everybody does this-- something happens and you think, oh, I can't wait to tell Jane.
你的第一个想法是——每个人都会这样做——发生了一些事情，你想，哦，我迫不及待地想告诉简。
Uh, I can't do that.
呃，我不能这么做。
And I did what I think probably a lot of people have done.
我做了我认为可能很多人都做过的事情。
I began to write her letters.
我开始给她写信。
And the letter form just took me over.
信函的形式就让我接管了。
The fact that in the letter I could wander around, I could reminisce, I could look out the window and tell her about the weather.
事实上，在信中我可以漫步，我可以回忆，我可以看着窗外，告诉她天气。
I could tell her about things that she was particularly interested in.
我可以告诉她她特别感兴趣的事情。
This was the first one, "Letter With No Address."
这是第一封“没有地址的信”。
Your daffodils rose up and collapsed in their yellow bodies on the hillside garden above the bricks you laid out in sand, squatting with pants pegged and face masked like a beekeeper's against the black flies.
你的水仙花在你铺在沙子上的砖块上方的山坡花园里，以黄色的身躯升起又倒下，蹲着，裤子钉着，戴着面具，像养蜂人一样，抵御黑色的苍蝇。
Buttercups circle the planks of the old wellhead this May, while your silken gardener's body withers or moulds in the Proctor graveyard.
今年五月，毛茛在旧井口的木板上盘旋，而丝质园丁的尸体则在普罗克特墓地里枯萎或发霉。
I drive and talk to you crying, then come back to this house to talk to your photographs.
我一边开车一边哭着与你交谈，然后回到这所房子与你的照片交谈。
There's news to tell you.
有消息要告诉你。
Maggie Fisher's pregnant.
玛吉·费舍尔怀孕了。
I carried myself like an egg at Abigail's birthday party a week after you died, as three-year-olds bounced uproarious on a mattress.
你死后一周，我在阿比盖尔的生日聚会上表现得像鸡蛋一样，三岁的孩子在床垫上吵闹。
Joyce and I met for lunch at the mall and strolled weepily through Sears and B.
我和乔伊斯在商场共进午餐，然后泪流满面地在西尔斯百货 (Sears) 和 B.
Dalton.
道尔顿。
Today it's four weeks since you lay on our painted bed and I closed your eyes.
今天，距离你躺在我们的彩绘床上、我闭上你的眼睛已有四个星期了。
Yesterday I cut irises to set in a pitcher on your grave.
昨天我把鸢尾花切下来插在你坟墓上的一个水罐里。
Today I brought a carafe to fill it with fresh water.
今天我带了一个水瓶来装满淡水。
I remember bone pain, vomiting, and delirium.
我记得骨痛、呕吐和谵妄。
I remember pond afternoons.
我记得池塘边的下午。
My routine is established.
我的日常安排已经确定。
Coffee, The Globe , breakfast, writing you this letter at my desk.
咖啡，环球报，早餐，在我的办公桌上给你写这封信。
When I go to bed to sleep after baseball, Gus follows me into the bedroom as he used to follow us.
当我打完棒球后上床睡觉时，格斯跟着我进卧室，就像他以前跟着我们一样。
Most of the time he flops down in the parlor, with his head on his paws.
大多数时候他会在客厅里倒下，头枕在爪子上。
Once a week I drive to Tilton to see Dick and Nan.
我每周一次开车去蒂尔顿看望迪克和南。
Nan doesn't understand much, but she knows you're dead.
楠不太明白，但她知道你已经死了。
I feel her fretting.
我感觉到她的烦躁。
The tone of Dick and me talking seems to console her.
迪克和我说话的语气似乎在安慰她。
You know now whether the soul survives death or you don't.
你现在知道灵魂是否能在死亡后幸存下来。
When you were dying, you said you didn't fear punishment.
当你临死的时候，你说你不怕惩罚。
We never dared to speak of paradise.
我们从来不敢谈论天堂。
At 5:00 AM when I walk outside, mist lies thick on the hay fields.
凌晨 5:00，当我走到外面时，干草田上笼罩着厚厚的薄雾。
By 8:00 the air is clear, cool, sunny with the pale yellow light of mid May.
到了 8:00，空气清新、凉爽，阳光明媚，伴随着五月中旬的淡黄色阳光。
Kearsarge rises huge and distinct, each birch and balsam visible.
Kearsarge 拔地而起，巨大而独特，每一棵桦树和香脂都清晰可见。
To the west the waters of Eagle Pond waver and flash through popples just leafing out.
西边，鹰池的水波荡漾，闪过刚长出叶子的水杨树。
Always the weather, writing its book of the world, returns you to me.
天气总是在写下它的世界之书，把你带回我身边。
Ordinary days were best, when we worked over poems in our separate rooms.
当我们在各自的房间里研究诗歌时，平凡的日子是最好的。
I remember watching you gaze out the January window into the garden of snow and ice, your face rapt as you imagined burgundy lilies.
我记得看着你凝视着一月的窗外冰雪覆盖的花园，你的脸全神贯注地想象着勃艮第百合花。
Your presence in this house is almost as enormous and painful as your absence.
你在这所房子里的存在几乎和你不在这所房子里一样巨大和痛苦。
Driving home from Tilton, I remember how you cherished that vista with its center the red door of a farmhouse against green fields.
从蒂尔顿开车回家时，我记得你是多么珍惜那片景色，中心是农舍的红门，映衬着绿色的田野。
Are you past pity?
你已经不再怜悯了吗？
If you have consciousness now, if something I can call "you" has something like consciousness, I doubt you remember the last days.
如果你现在有意识，如果我可以称之为“你”的东西有类似意识的东西，我怀疑你还记得最后的日子。
I lift your wasted body onto the commode, your arms looped around my neck, aiming your bony bottom so that it will not bruise on a rail.
我把你瘦弱的身体抱到马桶上，你的手臂搂着我的脖子，瞄准你瘦骨嶙峋的屁股，这样它就不会在栏杆上擦伤。
Faintly, you repeat, Momma, Momma.
你微弱地重复着，妈妈，妈妈。
You lay astonishing in the long box while Alice Ling prayed and sang "Amazing Grace" a capella.
当爱丽丝·林（Alice Ling）祈祷并无伴奏合唱《奇异恩典》时，你令人惊讶地躺在长包厢里。
Three times today I drove to your grave.
今天我三次开车去你的坟墓。
Sometimes coming back home to our circular driveway, I imagine you've returned before me, bags of groceries upright in the back of the Saab, its trunk lid delicately raised, as if proposing an encounter, dog fashion, with the Honda.
有时回到家，回到我们的环形车道，我想象你已经在我之前回来了，一袋袋的杂货直立在萨博的后座上，它的后备箱盖轻轻地抬起，仿佛在提议与本田来一次邂逅，狗的时尚。
That's like one of my favorite points in all the poem.
这就像整首诗中我最喜欢的点之一。
Good, good.
好，好。
She would have howled, she would have howled.
她会嚎叫，她会嚎叫。
I mean, that's, you know, I'm really addressing her sort of, when I make a joke like that.
我的意思是，你知道，当我开这样的玩笑时，我实际上是在对她说话。
She would have loved it.
她会喜欢的。
Do you find that you're still writing her letters, writing her poems as letters even now?
你是否发现你现在还在给她写信，把她的诗当作信来写？
I'm writing-- actually what happened after this, still I've continued to write a lot about Jane, but I'm no longer addressing "you." I'm talking about Jane and "her" and "she." She has receded.
我正在写——实际上在这之后发生了什么，我仍然继续写很多关于简的事情，但我不再写“你”。我说的是简和“她”和“她”。她已经退去。
This is horrible and inevitable and necessary.
这是可怕的、不可避免的、也是必要的。
I can't talk to her in the second person anymore.
我不能再用第二人称和她说话了。
Donald Hall.
唐纳德·霍尔.
His book of poems about his wife Jane Kenyon is called Without.
他关于妻子简·凯尼恩的诗集名为《Without》。
Man.
男人。
Our program produced today by Julie Snyder and myself with Alix Spiegel and Nancy Updike.
我们今天的节目由朱莉·斯奈德和我本人以及阿利克斯·斯皮格尔和南希·厄普代克制作。
Senior editor for this show Paul Tough.
该节目的高级编辑保罗·托夫（Paul Tough）。
Contributing editors Jack Hitt, Margy Rochlin, and consigliere Sarah Vowell.
特约编辑 Jack Hitt、Margy Rochlin 和顾问 Sarah Vowell。
Production help from Rachel Day.
Rachel Day 提供制作帮助。
Special thanks today to New Hampshire Public Radio.
今天特别感谢新罕布什尔州公共广播电台。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight by Torey Malatia, who told me this week it's OK if I have coffee with other program directors.
[资金来源] WBEZ 管理由 Torey Malatia 监督，他本周告诉我，如果我与其他项目主管一起喝咖啡就可以了。
He said it's OK if I can't get other program directors out of my mind.
他说如果我不能忘记其他项目主管就没关系。
He was amazing.
他太棒了。
He put his arms around me and he just held me.
他用双臂搂住我，就这样抱着我。
And he said to me, oh, honey, I'm so sorry I can't do that for you anymore.
他对我说，哦，亲爱的，我很抱歉我不能再为你这样做了。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Back next week with more stories of This American Life
下周将带来更多《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。