英文版來源： http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitude
這是一篇《天天用英語》推薦的文章，當(dāng)時(shí)我翻譯的時(shí)候，留下了深刻的印象。這里面有我想要的生活，或者說我遐想中的生活，文字很質(zhì)樸平淡，但是我很感動(dòng)。
At eighty-seven, I am solitary. I live by myself on one floor of the 1803 farmhouse where my family has lived since the Civil War. After my grandfather died, my grandmother Kate lived here alone. Her three daughters visited her. In 1975, Kate died at ninety-seven, and I took over. Forty-odd years later, I spend my days alone in one of two chairs. From an overstuffed blue chair in my living room I look out the window at the unpainted old barn, golden and empty of its cows and of Riley the horse. I look at a tulip; I look at snow. In the parlor’s mechanical chair, I write these paragraphs and dictate letters. I also watch television news, often without listening, and lie back in the enormous comfort of solitude. People want to come visit, but mostly I refuse them, preserving my continuous silence. Linda comes two nights a week. My two best male friends from New Hampshire, who live in Maine and Manhattan, seldom drop by. A few hours a week, Carole does my laundry and counts my pills and picks up after me. I look forward to her presence and feel relief when she leaves. Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.
在87歲時(shí)，我是獨(dú)居的。我一個(gè)人住在1803農(nóng)舍的一樓，從南北戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)以來我們家一直住在那里。在我祖父死后，我的祖母Kate獨(dú)自一人居住。她的3個(gè)女兒會(huì)回來拜訪她。1975年，97歲的Kate死了，然后我接管了這里。之后的四十幾年，我在兩張椅子中間生活。在我的起居室，從墊得又軟又厚的藍(lán)色椅子上，我看著窗外未上漆的老的谷倉(cāng)，它是金色的，沒有牛和叫Riley的馬。我看著郁金香；我看著雪。在客廳的手工椅上，我寫下這些段落和口述的信。我也看電視新聞，經(jīng)常不聽，在這個(gè)巨大的舒適的房子里背靠在椅子上。人們想要來拜訪，但是大多數(shù)我都拒絕了，保留我持續(xù)的沉默。琳達(dá)一周來兩個(gè)晚上。我最好的兩個(gè)男性朋友來自新罕布什爾州，他們住在緬因州和曼哈頓，很少順便拜訪。一周就幾個(gè)小時(shí)，卡羅爾來幫我洗衣服并且支付賬單并且收拾我。當(dāng)她走的時(shí)候，我盼望她來并且感覺很安慰。有的時(shí)候，特別在晚上，房子失去了它柔軟的力量，被寂寞接管了。當(dāng)孤獨(dú)回來時(shí)我就很高興。
Born in 1928, I was an only child. During the Great Depression, there were many of us, and Spring Glen Elementary School was eight grades of children without siblings. From time to time I made a friend during childhood, but friendships never lasted long. Charlie Axel liked making model airplanes out of balsa wood and tissue. So did I, but I was clumsy and dripped cement onto wing paper. His models flew. Later, I collected stamps, and so did Frank Benedict. I got bored with stamps. In seventh and eighth grade, there were girls. I remember lying with Barbara Pope on her bed, fully clothed and apart while her mother looked in at us with anxiety. Most of the time, I liked staying alone after school, sitting in the shadowy living room. My mother was shopping or playing bridge with friends; my father added figures in his office; I daydreamed.
我生于1928年，只是個(gè)小孩。在大蕭條期間，春天格倫小學(xué)8個(gè)年級(jí)我們大部分是沒有兄弟姐妹的孩子。有的時(shí)候，我在童年時(shí)期交了一個(gè)朋友，但是友誼從來不會(huì)維持很長(zhǎng)。查理喜歡用軟木和薄紗來制作模型飛機(jī)。我也是，但是我很笨拙，會(huì)把膠水弄在機(jī)翼上。他的模型可以飛。之后，我集郵，弗蘭克也集郵。我厭倦了郵票。在7年級(jí)和8年級(jí)，有女孩子了。我記得我挨著芭芭拉躺在她的床上，穿著衣服，并且在她母親驚恐看著我們的時(shí)候，我們馬上保持距離。大多數(shù)時(shí)候，放學(xué)后我喜歡單獨(dú)待著，坐在暗黑的起居室里。我的母親與朋友購(gòu)物或者玩橋牌；我的父親在他的辦公室里補(bǔ)充數(shù)據(jù)；我做白日夢(mèng)。
In summer, I left my Connecticut suburb to hay with my grandfather, on this New Hampshire farm. I watched him milk seven Holsteins morning and night. For lunch I made myself an onion sandwich—a thick slice between pieces of Wonder Bread. I’ve told about this sandwich before.
在夏天，我離開了康奈迪克州的鄉(xiāng)下去和我的祖父割草曬干，在這個(gè)新罕布什爾州的農(nóng)場(chǎng)。我看著他從早到晚給乳牛擠奶。中午我給自己做了一個(gè)洋蔥三明治-在兩塊面包之間有一塊薄片。我之前就說這是三明治。
At fifteen, I went to Exeter for the last two years of high school. Exeter was academically difficult and made Harvard easy, but I hated it—five hundred identical boys living two to a room. Solitude was scarce, and I labored to find it. I took long walks alone, smoking cigars. I found myself a rare single room and remained there as much as I could, reading and writing. Saturday night, the rest of the school sat in the basketball arena, deliriously watching a movie. I remained in my room in solitary pleasure.
在15歲，我去了愛珂賽特上了高中最后兩年。愛珂賽特在學(xué)術(shù)上很難，使得上哈佛變簡(jiǎn)單了，但是我恨它——500個(gè)相同的男孩2個(gè)人一間房間。寂寞是很可怕的，我不自然地發(fā)現(xiàn)了它。我長(zhǎng)時(shí)間單獨(dú)走路，抽煙。我為自己找了一個(gè)稀有的單人房間并且待在那里，閱讀和寫作。周六晚上，學(xué)校剩下的人坐在籃球場(chǎng)里，極其興奮地看一場(chǎng)電影。我呆在房間里享受孤獨(dú)的快樂。
At college, dormitory suites had single and double bedrooms. For three years, I lived in one bedroom crowded with everything I owned. During my senior year, I managed to secure a single suite: bedroom and sitting room and bath. At Oxford, I had two rooms to myself. Everybody did. Then I had fellowships. Then I wrote books. Finally, to my distaste, I had to look for a job. With my first wife–people married young back then; we were twenty and twenty-three–I settled in Ann Arbor, teaching English literature at the University of Michigan. I loved walking up and down in the lecture hall, talking about Yeats and Joyce or reading aloud the poems of Thomas Hardy and Andrew Marvell. These pleasures were hardly solitary, but at home I spent the day in a tiny attic room, working on poems. My extremely intelligent wife was more mathematical than literary. We lived together and we grew apart. For the only time in my life, I cherished social gatherings: Ann Arbor’s culture of cocktail parties. I found myself looking forward to weekends, to crowded parties that permitted me distance from my marriage. There were two or three such occasions on Friday and more on Saturday, permitting couples to migrate from living room to living room. We flirted, we drank, we chatted–without remembering on Sunday what we said Saturday night.
在大學(xué)，宿舍套房有單間和雙人間。有三年時(shí)間，我一個(gè)人住，堆滿了我的東西。在我大四期間，我設(shè)法弄到一個(gè)單人套房：臥室和客廳和衛(wèi)生間。在牛津大學(xué)，我有兩個(gè)房間。每個(gè)人都是這樣。然后我獲得獎(jiǎng)學(xué)金。然后我寫書。最終，我很厭惡的是，我必須要去找工作。我的第一個(gè)妻子——人們總是年輕時(shí)結(jié)婚；我們20歲和23歲——我遷入安阿伯市，在密歇根大學(xué)教英國(guó)文學(xué)。我喜歡走上和走下講堂，討論葉芝和喬伊斯或者大聲朗讀托馬斯哈代和安德魯馬維爾的詩(shī)歌。這些快樂一點(diǎn)不孤獨(dú)，但是在家，我在小的閣樓花一整天和詩(shī)在一起。我的極度聰明的妻子比起文學(xué)更喜歡數(shù)學(xué)。我們住在一起并分開成長(zhǎng)。在我生活中獨(dú)有的時(shí)光，我喜歡聯(lián)誼會(huì)：安阿伯市的雞尾酒會(huì)文化。我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己很期待周末，去擁擠的聚會(huì)，允許我遠(yuǎn)離我的婚姻。偶爾在周五更多是在周六有偶爾兩三次，夫妻從一個(gè)起居室遷移到另一個(gè)起居室。我們調(diào)情，我們喝酒，我們聊天——在周日不會(huì)記得我們周六晚上談了什么。
After sixteen years of marriage, my wife and I divorced.
16年的婚姻后，我和我妻子離婚了。
For five years I was alone again, but without the comfort of solitude. I exchanged the miseries of a bad marriage for the miseries of bourbon. I dated a girlfriend who drank two bottles of vodka a day. I dated three or four women a week, occasionally three in a day. My poems slackened and stopped. I tried to think that I lived in happy license. I didn’t.
我單身了5年，但是沒有孤獨(dú)的舒適。我用波旁威士忌酒的悲慘交換了一段壞婚姻的悲慘。我約了一個(gè)一天喝兩瓶伏特加酒的女朋友。我一周約會(huì)3-4個(gè)女人，偶爾一天3個(gè)。我的詩(shī)松懈了并且停止了。我試著去想我住在快樂的境地。我做不到。
Jane Kenyon was my student. She was smart, she wrote poems, she was funny and frank in class. I knew she lived in a dormitory near my house, so one night I asked her to housesit while I attended an hour-long meeting. (In Ann Arbor, it was the year of breaking and entering.) When I came home, we went to bed. We enjoyed each other, libertine liberty as much as pleasures of the flesh. Later I asked her to dinner, which in 1970 always included breakfast. We saw each other once a week, still dating others, then twice a week, then three or four times a week, and saw no one else. One night, we spoke of marriage. Quickly we changed the subject, because I was nineteen years older and, if we married, she would be a widow so long. We married in April, 1972. We lived in Ann Arbor three years, and in 1975 left Michigan for New Hampshire. She adored this old family house.
珍妮是我的學(xué)生。她聰明，她寫詩(shī)，她在課堂上很有趣和直率。我知道她住在我房子旁邊的一個(gè)宿舍，因此一有一天晚上我叫她待我照看下房子，正當(dāng)我參加一個(gè)1小時(shí)的會(huì)議。（在安阿伯市的那年會(huì)有人強(qiáng)行入侵他人住處）。當(dāng)我回到家，我們睡覺了。我們享受彼此，肉體的歡愉與放蕩的自由一樣多。之后我叫她來吃晚飯，在1970年總是也包含早飯。我們一周見一次，仍然和其他人約會(huì)，然后一周兩次，然后一周三四次，然后不再見其他人。一天晚上，我們談到結(jié)婚。馬上我們改變了主意，因?yàn)槲冶人狭?9歲，如果我們結(jié)婚，她將長(zhǎng)時(shí)間成為寡婦。我們?cè)?972年4月結(jié)婚了。我們住在安阿伯市3年，在1975年離開了密歇根到新罕布什爾。她喜歡這個(gè)破舊的家庭房子。
For almost twenty years, I woke before Jane and brought her coffee in bed. When she rose, she walked Gus the dog. Then each of us retreated to a workroom to write, at opposite ends of our two-story house. Mine was the ground floor in front, next to Route 4. Hers was the second floor in the rear, beside Ragged Mountain’s old pasture. In the separation of our double solitude, we each wrote poetry in the morning. We had lunch, eating sandwiches and walking around without speaking to each other. Afterward, we took a twenty-minute nap, gathering energy for the rest of the day, and woke to our daily fuck. Afterward I felt like cuddling, but Jane’s climax released her into energy. She hurried from bed to workroom.
大約20年，我在安妮之前醒來并且在床上為她拿咖啡。當(dāng)她起身后，就和叫沃斯的狗散步。然后我們倆撤退到工作室寫作，在我們兩層樓房子的另一端。我在底層的前面，靠近線路4。她的在二樓的后面，靠近洛基山的老的草地。早上在雙份孤獨(dú)的分離中，我們各自寫詩(shī)。我們午飯，就吃三明治和沉默地散步。之后，我們有20分鐘的小睡，為一天剩余的時(shí)間集聚能量，醒來就做愛。之后我想擁抱，但是珍妮的高潮讓她放松重獲能量，從床上匆忙起來去工作室。
For several hours afterward, I went back to work at my desk. Late in the afternoon, I read aloud to Jane for an hour. I read Wordsworth’s “Prelude,” Henry James’s “The Ambassadors” twice, the Old Testament, William Faulkner, more Henry James, seventeenth-century poets. Before supper I drank a beer and glanced at The New Yorker while Jane cooked, sipping a glass of wine. Slowly she made a delicious dinner—maybe veal cutlets with mushroom-and-garlic gravy, maybe summer’s asparagus from the bed across the street—then asked me to carry our plates to the table while she lit the candle. Through dinner we talked about our separate days.
在之后幾個(gè)小時(shí)，我回到我的工作臺(tái)工作。下午，我大聲面對(duì)珍妮閱讀。我閱讀華茲華斯的《前奏》，亨利詹姆斯的《大使》兩遍，《舊約》，威廉·福克納，更多的亨利·詹姆斯，17世紀(jì)的詩(shī)歌。在晚餐之前，我喝一杯啤酒然后看一下《紐約人》，當(dāng)珍妮在煮飯時(shí)，啜飲一杯紅酒。慢慢地她做了一頓豐盛的晚飯—可能小牛排加蘑菇加大蒜，可能是來自街對(duì)面的河底的夏天的蘆筍——然后當(dāng)她點(diǎn)蠟燭的時(shí)候，要我拿盤子到桌上。通過晚餐我們談?wù)撐覀儶?dú)處的那段時(shí)光。
Summer afternoons we spent beside Eagle Pond, on a bite-sized beach among frogs, mink, and beaver. Jane lay in the sun, tanning, while I read books in a canvas sling chair. Every now and then, we would dive into the pond. Sometimes, for an early supper, we broiled sausage on a hibachi. After twenty years of our remarkable marriage, living and writing together in double solitude, Jane died of leukemia at forty-seven, on April 22, 1995.
夏天午后我們?cè)谝粮隊(duì)柍嘏赃叾冗^，在一個(gè)很小的海邊，周圍有青蛙，貂和海貍。珍妮躺在夕陽下，曬太陽，我在帆布的椅子上讀書。常常的，我們把手伸進(jìn)池塘。有的時(shí)候，為了早一點(diǎn)的晚飯，我們?cè)诳净馉t上烤香腸。我們非凡婚姻的20年，住在一起，在一起寫作，在雙倍的孤獨(dú)中，珍妮在47歲的時(shí)候死于白血病，在1995年4月22日。
Now it is April 22, 2016, and Jane has been dead for more than two decades. Earlier this year, at eighty-seven, I grieved for her in a way I had never grieved before. I was sick and thought I was dying. Every day of her dying, I stayed by her side—a year and a half. It was miserable that Jane should die so young, and it was redemptive that I could be with her every hour of every day. Last January I grieved again, this time that she would not sit beside me as I died.
現(xiàn)在是2016年的4月22日，珍妮已經(jīng)死了超過20年。在今年早些時(shí)候，我87歲，我以從來沒有過的方式哀悼她。我生病了，我想我快要死了。她接近死亡的每一天，我都在她身邊——一年半。這是很痛苦的，珍妮這么年輕就要死，這是可以贖回的，我能夠每天每小時(shí)和她在一起。在過去的1月，我再次悲傷，這次當(dāng)我死的時(shí)候她將不會(huì)在我身邊。
