这是篇短篇浪漫小说。一开始可能不觉得它浪漫。文中甚至一个LOVE字都没出现过。文章用了很大的篇幅描写环境，着力描绘一种寂静而孤独的氛围。（这些描写翻译起来真让人晕！）大篇幅的环境描写也是浪漫小说的一个特色。
在每个人的生命中，都有或多或多的东西引起你的感慨或遗憾。它们能激起心中最浪漫的情怀和回忆。文中孤独的老妇人在独处时经常翻阅她收藏的三封信，三封没有寄出的信。作者没有说明是寄给谁的，对老妇人也没有作详细的说明，甚至连她的名字也没出现过。但作者给我们描述了一种情怀，一种心情。在文中我们可以看到老妇人怎样把这三封信包了一层又一层。她在回忆，回忆她跟他的故事。她或许在想象，如果她把信寄了出去，她现在的生活会是怎么样。或许她曾尝试寄出去，但她没有勇气。我们很多的人都或多曾经因一时的犹豫或自卑或懦弱而不敢吐出自己的心声，从而失去一个美好的机会，成为心的永远的遗憾。
看着如烟的往事，真想发出一生长叹！
Apr. 12th
(this translation piece is originally posted in tianyaclub last April which is under the name \"一辈子\")
Three Letters
By Nels Schifano
<1>It was autumn. Although still afternoon the journey had been spent peering at slowly moving red lights through clouds of condensing exhaust and the intermittent slip-slip of wipers. Now as she turned off the ignition darkness gathered silently around her. She walked head down, hood up, feeling plastic handles moulding themselves around her fingers, the carrier bag spinning one way then the next as it clipped against her leg. The pavement was thick with the slippery brown mulch of fallen leaves and the smell of bonfires wafted across the common. A thin mist clung around the streetlights producing a shifting yellow gas. Sounds were muffled 压抑and movements lethargic Cars slipped slowly by on a film of dirty water. At her gate she delayed, unwilling to break the stillness with squeaking hinges; not yet teatime and the city was being put to sleep.
已是秋天了。虽然还是下午，但行程还是在注视透过凝聚废气的缓慢移动的红灯以及摆动的雨刷中度过的。现在她熄了火，黑幕渐渐笼罩住她。她低头下了车，打开车盖，用手指摸索到塑料把手让它们合上，腿边的手提袋不时地摆动。人行道上铺了厚厚的一层褐色的落叶，篝火的气味飘送过那块公地。薄薄的雾气笼罩着街灯，让它散发出流动着的黄光。声音是压抑的，行动是混混欲睡的。那些汽车缓缓地驶过，溅起薄薄的一层污水。在门口她犹豫了一下，不想因为开门的声音打破这寂静。尚未到喝茶的时间，这城市还在睡梦中。
The terrace before her hugged the curve of the road tumbling erratically down the hill and into the gloom. Bending around the edges of her vision she was conscious of curtains being swished closed, stone faces bathed by the grey light of televisions, broken roof tiles, satellite dishes, bay windows, the whole higgledy-piggledy collection of guttering and skylights. For a moment her home was a stranger, a simple compartment in this huge connected structure.
斜坡上的阶梯不规则地向下延伸，一直到那阴暗处。在视野的尽头她意识到被嗖嗖拉紧的窗帘，沐浴在电视发出的灰白的光线下的砌石护面，破裂的屋顶，碟形卫星天线，凸窗，整一堆排水材料和天窗。突然她觉得她的家变的很陌生，只是一大片连在一起的建筑物中的简单一部分。
She rattled the key into the lock, tilting it to the particular angle that would allow it to catch. She stepped inside, her hand brushing the light switch as she closed the door behind her. The softly lit warmth of the interior walls were a welcome contrast to the dark slimy surfaces of the outside. Two elderly neighbors warmed the house from the sides and soon she would hear the comforting noises of the boiler rousing itself into life.
她把钥匙插进锁里，发出卡嗒卡嗒声，然后向一定的方向扭动，开了门。她迈进屋里，关门时顺手打开了灯。相对于外面黑暗的屋墙，屋内墙上温柔的灯光让她感到温馨。两个年老的邻居在墙的那边起火烧开水暖和了屋子，不久她就听到锅炉欢快地热腾起来，发出令人欣慰的声音。
She kept her mind occupied by these happy details of returning home as she walked along the hall and into the kitchen. She lifted the carrier bag onto the worktop and reached for the kettle. Standing in the centre of the room, still in her anorak， she listened to the sound of the water boil and felt the house adjust itself to her presence. Now she returned at all times of the day she sometimes sensed she had caught it unawares. What ghosts that had been running through rooms were now slipping reluctantly back into walls? While its inhabitants had moved the house stayed still, preserving pockets of time in dusty corners. The blue-tak tears on bedroom walls, a water-colour sun and stick man hiding behind a fitted wardrobe, a dent in a table, a crack in a mirror, were all passing moments etched into the physical world, like voices pressed into vinyl.
< 2 >在从大厅走到厨房的时候她的脑子里一直在想着回家路上的开心事。她把纸袋放在厨柜上，然后去拿水壶。站在厨房中央，仍穿着风衣的她听着水被煮沸的声音，感觉到房子是为她一个人而存在的。现在她重新回到那些日子，那些她常常无意识感觉到的日子。那些曾在屋子里出现的幽灵现在都不自觉地消失在墙上了么？它们的存在让这屋子变的停滞，把时间打了包放在那个满是灰尘的角落。卧室墙上的那条裂口，水彩画的太阳和藏在衣柜的握着手仗的男人，桌子上的凹痕，镜子上的裂痕，都是镶在这个有形世界里短暂的瞬间，就如声音被压缩在磁带里。
<2>Steam began to rise vertically to the ceiling where it changed direction aware of the presence of some subtle draft (or draft of some subtle presence). Through the window she could see the outline of the narrow garden, the fuzzy grey shapes of a rusting climbing frame and overflowing compost heap Along one side a scruffy fence lent drunkenly one way then the other, while a brutally straight line of six-foot high boards marked the other side of the territory. What further anti-cat measures (minefields, tripwires perhaps) lay waiting beyond? As if summoned by her thoughts Rahel, green eyes and a flicking tail, appeared on the window ledge, her silent meows making small circles of condensation. Smiling, she unlocked the door. The cat padded in, figures of eight around her feet represented by muddy paw prints on the kitchen floor. The kettle worked itself towards a crescendo beads of perspiration appeared on its sides and it shook violently unable to contain the bubbling pressure inside. Abruptly it finished, sat back on the filament and turned itself off.
水汽开始垂直上升到天花板上，然后当它意识到某些稀薄的气流的存在（或是存在着某些稀薄的气流）后改变了方向。透过窗户她可以看到那个狭窄院子的轮廓，看到那些生锈的架子的模糊灰白的轮廓以及那些溢出的化肥堆。一旁的破旧的栅栏歪倒一旁，而一排直直的六英尺高的木板无情的把另一边隔了开来。后边还藏着什么防猫的措施么（或许是陷阱或绊网）？她正聚精会神的想着的时候，蓝眼猫Rahel出现在窗户边缘，摇动着它的尾巴，它低声的叫声凝聚成一团团。微笑着，她开了窗门。那猫跳了进来，在她的脚下绕着八字蹭她的脚，在厨房地板上留下一串脚印。水壶里发出的声音越来越强，水汽开始在壶变凝成水珠。它经不住壶内滚烫的气泡的滚动，开始激烈地抖动起来。突然它静止了下来，自动关闭了。
She reached up to the top cupboards for the coffee jar and bent down for those that contained the mugs. Here she paused, confused by the vast number of assorted cup, mugs and beakers that stared blankly back at her. Why did she have so many? Where had they come from? She sighed as she straightened pulling out a standard shaped mug with handle; colour - light blue; design - three letters emblazoned in gold, S U E.
她踮起脚在碗橱的最上曾拿了咖啡罐，然后弯腰拿杯子。在那里她停了一下，那些成套的酒杯 ，有柄大杯及那些大口杯好像都在茫然的盯着她，她感到迷茫。为什么她会有那么多杯子？这些杯子从何而来？她叹了口气，拿出一个高脚有柄的杯，淡蓝色的设计，用金镶了三个字母S U E。
She took off her coat and laid it over the back of the oak kitchen chair and sat down. She let her feet slip out of her shoes and raised them onto the fitted bench across the other side of the table. Above the bench were shelves supporting decorative plates in wire stands, a Charles and Diana mug (more mugs!), and a collection of photographs showing either madly grinning or defiantly sulky children (both on the verge of crying). As she looked the image of a growing family seemed to slowly recede to reveal the image of a shrinking woman.
她脱了她的外套，把它放在厨房里那张橡木椅的靠背上，然后坐下。她把鞋蹭掉，然后靠在桌子另一旁的长上。在长凳上方是一排架子，摆着那些装饰用的盘子，一个印着查尔斯和黛安娜像的杯子（又是杯子！），还有一些孩子疯狂大笑或不服从时生气的相片（都差不多到了要哭的程度）当她看着这些家庭成长的相片的时候，似乎它们不能让人立即联想到眼前这个瘦小的母亲。
There was the sudden sound of water flooding into a drain as somewhere nearby a plug was pulled from a sink, a toilet was flushed or maybe a washing machine emptied itself and she realised that her coffee had gone cold. She moved to the sink and ran the hot water. Staring out into darkness she listened to the succession of far-off bangs and shudders from the network of pipes. Bathed in yellow light hovering over the gloom of the garden she looked in at a woman repeatedly working a tea towel around the inside of a mug. Who was she? Why was she so miserable?
突然间，随着附近的水槽的塞子被揭开，有人冲厕所或洗衣机自动排水，一阵冲水声响起，让她意识到她的咖啡凉了。她走到水槽接了点开水。凝视着周围的黑暗，她静听着远处水管传来的持续的砰砰声震颤声。她看到在花园里昏黄的灯光下一个妇人在重复地用毛巾擦着杯子的里面。她是谁？她为什么那么可怜？
< 3 >
She shook herself and took out the plug. Slipped away again into nothing time (that time that flowed into the gaps between the things you did). Wouldn\'t a wasted minute become a wasted hour, wasted hours become wasted days? Where could she be now if she hadn\'t been doing, what? - making tea, sitting in traffic jams, reading the local paper, standing in a supermarket queue. Best avoided, the thought of her life draining into these moments.
<3>她抖了抖然后拔出水槽的塞子。然后重新地对那些无聊的时光发起呆（就是那些你什么事也没做的时光。）浪费的每一分钟会不会变成小时，变成一整天？如果她没有沏茶，没有碰到交通阻塞，没有读当地的报纸，没有在超市排队等候，她现在将会在哪里？最好不要去想。因为生命就耗在这些琐事上面。
She unpacked the carrier bag. She put away the milk, the orange, the biscuits and the cat food, then struggled to slide the two pizza\'s into an already crowded freezer spraying tiny shards of ice across the floor. An overflowing collection of polythene bags scrunched inside other polythene bags in the bottom of a cupboard was her commitment to recycling. When it was opened a white plastic avalanche slid towards her. She threw in the latest addition and slammed the door. A lone bag made a break for freedom and buoyed by the swish of air it lifted across the room like a jellyfish. Two pairs of eyes followed its progress over the spice rack and breadboard until it was caught on a bottle of olive oil.
她打开纸袋。她放好那些牛奶，橙子，饼干和猫食，然后试图把两块比萨饼塞入已经满满的冒着冷气的冰箱里。在食橱的下面那堆溢出的胶袋是她收集起来，用于循环使用。她打开那个胶袋，那些袋子就雪崩似地向她散开。她把最新的那个塞了进去然后砰地关上橱子。一条袋子没关好，随着透过房间的风像水母一样飞了起来。两双眼睛望着它越过调味料的架子和擀面板一直到它被一瓶橄榄油瓶栓住。
The oak bench was not just a foot rest. She had made this discovery during a rigorous cleaning session one New Year. Under the lip of the removable cushioned seat she had found a small catch, rusty enough to break two nails. Eventually it yielded and raised to reveal a dark, hollow chest. Despite a few moments when her heartbeat seemed to fill the house, it proved to contain nothing more exciting than a pile of old newspapers - more dirtiness to clean. It was, she decided, an ideal place to store tablecloths and tea towels, but steadily it began to swallow bedding, pillowcases and blankets of various sorts. Really, it was ridiculous to think that no one else was aware of its existence (was she the only one ever to change a bed, lay a table?) Still, she always thought of it as hers, and, when alone in the house, she opened it, she experienced a flush of childish excitement. She felt it rise now as her fingers fumbled beneath soft layers of folded cotton searching for the sharp cold of a shiny metal toffee tin.
这张橡木长凳并不只是用来放脚。这是她在一次新年大清洁时发现的。移开那个可移动的垫子后在边缘她发现了一个生锈的小钩，已经断了两截。最后它被揭开，露出一个黑乎乎的空柜。尽管她为此心跳了一阵，但后来发现里面只不过是一堆旧报纸，肮脏难以清洁。她认为那是个放桌布和毛巾的好地方，但渐渐地，各种被褥，枕头以及毯子都放了进去。真的，很奇怪没有人会注意到它的存在。尽管那样，她总是认为它是她的，当她独自一人在屋子里的时候她就会打开它，体验着一股孩子般的激动。随着她的手指在软垫下面摸索到感觉到那个咖啡罐的那股冰冷时，她感觉到了这种激动。
< 4 >
She put the tin on the table. Inside lay a medal from the Polish Airforce; a commemorative coin; a pebble taken from Ilfracomb beach in 1978 (could she really remember the heavy heat of that day or did she need the proof of the pebble to tell her she had been there); a present bought but never given; and inside a neatly folded bag, three envelopes. She glanced around the room, from somewhere inside a wall a pipe clanked - the house clearing its throat - and took out the top envelope.
< 4 > 她把那个罐放在桌子上。罐里面放着一块波兰空军奖章，一枚纪念币，一块在1978年从Ilfracomb海滩拾回的鹅卵石（她还能记得那天的高温或者她需要这块石头来提醒她曾到过那里么），一个买回来却没有送出去的礼物，还有一个精心包着的小包。她环顾了一下屋子，某个地方的墙上发出了发叮当声－是屋子在清－然后她掏出最上面的那个信封。
An antelope leapt across a colourful stamp. It looked startled as antelopes often do caught in the sights of the black postmark. The paper inside was thick and cream-coloured, it had a blue letterhead and the date in the top right hand corner was July 2000. As she let her eyes wander over the page she noticed it was just a little crumpled折皱, stiff in places, as if it had been wetted then dried.
一头羚羊飞跃过那枚艳丽的的邮票。它看起来让人震惊因为羚羊通常都是被黑色的邮戳盖住的。信封里面奶油色的信纸很厚实，纸上印有蓝色的信头。在右上角写着的日期是2000年七月。当她的眼光掠过的时候她发现它有点皱，有些地方显得僵硬，就像被弄湿后吹干的痕迹。
*
This must be something of a surprise. If, that is, this letter gets to you. I remembered your address, of course, but then it suddenly struck me that maybe you had moved and I didn\'t know and anyway the post round here isn\'t exactly reliable. So perhaps I am only writing a letter to myself.
如果你能收到这封信，这肯定是一个意外。我记得你的地址，当然，但我突然想到你或许搬到另一个我不知道的地方，另外这里的邮递服务也并不完全可靠。所以我想我只是在给自己写信。
Really now that I\'ve started I can\'t think what it was I wanted to say. I think it was just the act of writing that was important, just to feel as if I was still in contact with things, although I guess a blank piece of paper in an envelope would have seemed a little strange.
真的现在我开始写了但我不知道我该写些什么。我想只是写信本身才是重要的，让我知道我还于人联系着。虽然我想在信封里放张白纸会让人觉得奇怪。
I\'ve really no need to ask how things are with you. It all seems to have worked out pretty much as you planned. But still I hope you are both healthy and happy.
我真的不必问你先在过的怎么样了。一切看起来都如你计划的那样顺利。但我还是希望你健康幸福。
I am afraid I\'ve done nothing very exciting to tell you about. Here is just an endless succession of long boring tasks, and then there\'s the heat and the clouds of flies that rise from the river and make everything twice as hard. But this evening as I washed and dried my clothes suddenly there was this feeling of satisfaction. Strange, five months of toil and worry then calm descends as welcome and unexpected as an ice-cream van clattering through the bush.
我很抱歉我没有什么激动人心的事告诉你。我所做的只是没有尽头漫长的烦琐事，高温和从河里飞来的成群的苍蝇更是糟透了。但今晚当我洗完衣服时我突然感到一种满足。很奇怪，五个月的幸苦和担心后平静下来，就如在丛林中听到卖冰激灵货车的格格响声
< 5 >
Maybe that\'s why I am writing this letter. Perhaps it\'s thinking about England in the summer, perhaps it\'s the sounds of the river at night but my mind wandered back to the place of long afternoons, listening to Pink Moon and Lay Lady Lay. Can you still find a way back to the taste of cheap wine, the feel of grass between your fingers and a world that was all shimmering)微微发亮 reflections?
< 5 >或许这就是我写这封信的原因。或许是想起英格兰的那个夏日，抑或是夜晚河里传来的响声。但我的思绪回到那个漫长的午后，那个听着Pink Moon 和 Lay Lady L的午后。你还会想起品尝廉价酒的味道，青草漫过你的手指感觉和整个世界都在微微发亮的倒影吗？
All those people disappeared into the world. How would they be recognised now - perhaps only by the sound of their laughter?
那些人全部消失在这个世界里。现在怎么才能认出它们？－或许只能通过他们的笑声了？
I\'m afraid I once damaged the environment in your name and took a penknife to the willow we used to sit by. I can remember wondering if the bark would ever grow back. If you ever find yourself driving past one weekend . . . Well perhaps not, it\'s probably so sadly different. But I know your name will still be there, carved in the memory of a tree.
我想我曾经用小刀在我们过去经常坐的地方的那棵柳树上刻下你的名字。我曾想那块树皮会不会重新长回去。如果某天你路过时－或者不会，很有可能它变了样。但我知道你的名字依然会在那里，刻在了树的记忆之中。
*
She re-folded the letter and tapped it several times against her top lip. From the hall the clock calling out the quarter hour, then a moment of stillness - time stalling - before, faintly, the clock in her study responded.
她重新包好那封信，在上唇轻轻地碰了几下。走廊里的钟响起了刻钟报时，然后就是静止－时间停止－在钟做出微软的反应之前。
She took out the next envelope. While her fingers searched for the flap she looked at the Queen\'s silver silhouette. The letter was written on paper so white and thin that as her gaze fell across it she saw it as a shade of blue. The date was April 1976.
* 她拿出另一个信封。在她用手指摸索信封口盖时她看到了女王银色的侧面像。信纸很薄很白以致当她凝视的时候她觉得像是个蓝色的影子。日期是1976年四月。
Do I remember that September afternoon when I first met you? Is it possible to remember the slide into sleep or the hypnotist\'s fingers on your eyelids? I only know that it happened because at some stage I awoke
我还记得当我第一次见到你的那个九月的下午吗？还记得催眠士把手指滑过你的眼敛让不知不觉地入睡么？我记得这些因为我醒过几次。
Some things are clear, the lucid fragments of a dream, a conversation over the phone one Easter. We both felt down because I was working in a stuffy shop and you in a sorting office. I hated it and asked you how it was that time moved so slowly. It\'s okay, you said, it doesn\'t matter, because it will end and time passed is all the same, and anyway, in the end it\'s not time that you\'re left with.
有些事是清晰的，如某些梦的片断，复活节时在电话里的一段对话。我们都情绪低落因为我当时在一间乏味的店里工作而你也在一间无聊的信件分拣室里做。我恨这些，我问你怎么看到那时的漫长的时间的。没问题，你说，没关系，因为它会有尽头而时间是一如既往的流逝的，最后留给你的不是时间。
You told me to go look for happiness and bring some back when I found it. But you can\'t bank happiness. You can\'t keep it for when you need it and you cannot give to someone else simply by having it yourself.
你告诉我去寻找幸福，当我找到的时候带一些回来。但你不能储藏幸福。你不能把你放起到需要的时候才用，你也不能因为仅仅自己拥有就可以把它送给别人。
< 6 >
I thought I would be content to watch the river flow past and drift away on the scent of water lilies. I watched days become nights and nights gently give way to days, believing I was shedding 流my cares when really I was storing regrets. Now I know that reading is dreaming, that dreaming is sleeping and thought inaction. When I wake I find that all I have left is thoughts of you.
*我想我会满足于看那些河流在水百合的香味中流过。我看着白天变成了黑夜，然后黑夜慢慢地变成了白天，我相信我的烦恼在消失但同时我也感到越来越多的遗憾。现在我知道了，读书就是在做梦，做梦就是在睡觉和思想停止。当我醒来的时候我发觉唯一剩下的就是关于你的一切。
The noise of the cat jumping clumsily onto her lap, the feeling of her pressing up and down with alternate paws, claws snagging loops of cotton.
猫跳到她的大腿上叫着，用前爪轮流蹭着她，后爪子则把她的棉裤钩破
This time the silhouette is not the Queen\'s but that of Nehru, a white head against an orange background. The stamp is stuck on at an odd angle (but still stuck after all this time!) and he stares down at the scraggly参差的 lines of a familiar address. The letter itself is written on a school child\'s lined paper, as her eyes run down the page they linger on the date, Nov. 1968 and the dappling of yellow blotches污斑. What were they? Had they always been there?
* 这一次的侧面像不是女王的了，而是尼赫鲁的。白色的头像印在橙色的信封上。邮票贴的角度很奇怪（但那么久了还贴在那里！）头像下面是熟悉的参差的地址。信纸用的是学生用的单行本纸。她的眼神停留在那些黄色的斑点和日期上面，那是1968年十二月。
I still can\'t believe you decided to go. Why go back to the grey, the dirt, the noise, the rush? There is a lifetime to do those things. I know you chase that dream of yours, but the dream is so sweetly deferred here. Here I feel as if I am absorbing the sunshine and serenity平静.
我还是不能相信你选择去那里。为什么不回到这里过平常的生活？有一辈子的时间去做那些事。我知道你追求你的梦想，但梦想在这里更甜美。在这里我感到我被这里的阳光和宁静吸引住了。
Since you left we moved further east where the earth here has a reddish tinge and so does the food. Today we met a group of Americans. We got a ride on the roof of their van and helped them collect firewood. They say there is an old man who sells the beads you wanted from the front of his hut, and eight miles of white sand.
你走后我们搬到了更东的地方，那里的土地有着淡淡的红色气息，食物也一样。几天我们碰到了一群美国人。他们让我们在他们的车顶上搭了一段路，我们则帮助他们采集柴火。他们说在八里沙地外有个老人在他的小屋前卖珠子，其中有你想要的那些珠子。
I am writing this in a flickering of orange and blackness. This is the best time, talking and reading, the world melting away into words, although sometimes a phrase is so beautiful I have to walk around a little just to let them settle in. One of these made me think of you. \'Do that which makes you happy to do, and you will do right.\'
我是在摇曳着的黄色的灯光下写这封信的。现在是闲谈和读书的最好时光，整个世界融化在字里行间，虽然有时候一些措词太美丽了以致我不得不踱上几圈让它们有头绪。其中的一句让我想起了你“做你喜欢做的事，你会做的很好的。”
*
The freezer\'s cooling mechanism rattled, then fell silent, and she realised that she hadn\'t been aware of the noise it was making. In its absence the air in the house seemed to hang with that same question; how would her life have been if she had managed to send just one of them? But the air received no answers and went back to its lazy circulation.
冰箱的制冷机制发出卡嗒卡嗒声，然后静了下来，她觉察到她没注意它发出来的那些响声。屋里的空气也凝聚了起来，像是在想同样一个问题：如果她曾经把这些信其中的一封信寄出去，她的生活将会是怎么样？但空气没有得到任何答案，继续着它那悠闲的循环。
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In time she would fold the letter away and place it back in the envelope, place the envelopes back into the bag, the bag back into the tin and the tin into the trunk. She would cover it with layers of cloth and place down the seat and lock the catch. But now she just sat for a moment, the noise of the cat\'s contented breathing filling the house.
是时候了，她小心翼翼地叠好信装回信封，然后把那些信封放进包里，再把包放进那个箱子里的那个咖啡罐里。她想用布把它盖好放到长凳下然后锁在那个柜子里，但现在她只是坐在那里发了阵呆，猫发出了惬意的呼吸声，充满了整个屋子。
（翻译中有很多的错误，欢迎网友们指出，谢谢） |
发表于 2004-1-11 00:00:00
