丹·史蒂文斯 | 朗读《伤心咖啡馆之歌》

The Ballad of Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers is a short story about unrequited love. In this scene, we hear about the love between Miss Amelia, an independent lonely woman who runs a small store and the hunchback Cousin Lymon. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

由卡森·麦卡勒斯著作的《伤心咖啡馆之歌》讲述了一个单相思的故事。在这一节选中，我们会听到艾米莉亚小姐，一个经营着一家小商铺，独立而孤独的女人和她驼背表哥李蒙之间的爱情故事。你舒服地坐好了吗？那我就开始了。

The time has come to speak about love. For Miss Amelia loved her cousin Lymon, so much was clear to everyone. They lived in the same house together and were never seen apart. Therefore, according to Mrs. Macphail, a warty-nosed old busybody who is continually moving her sticks of furniture from one part of the front room to the other. According to her and to certain others, these two were living in sin. If they were related, they were only a cross between first and second cousins, and even that could in no way be proved.

是时候得讲一下恋爱的这个问题了，因为艾米莉亚小姐爱上了李蒙表哥，这事在每个人眼里都已经一清二楚了。他们住在同一座房子里，形影不离。因此，按照麦克菲尔太太，一个鼻子上长着疣子的爱管闲事的老太太——没事就愿意把她那几件破家具从前房搬到这儿搬到那儿，以及别的几个人的说法，这两个人是生活在罪恶之中了。如果他们真的是亲戚，那顶多是远表兄妹之间苟合关系。何况连这一点都无法得到证实。

Now, of course, Miss Amelia was a powerful blunderbuss of a person, more than six feet tall. And cousin Lymon, a weakly little hunchback, reaching only the her waist. But so much the better for Mrs. Stumpy Macphail and her cronies. For they and their kind glory in conjunctions which are ill-matched and pitiful. So let them be. The good people thought that if those two had found some satisfaction of the flesh between themselves, then it was a matter of concerning them and God alone. All sensible people agreed in their opinion about this conjecture. And their answer was a plain, flat no.

当然了，艾米莉亚小姐是个健壮，莽撞的人，有六英尺多高。而李蒙表哥却是个病弱的小罗锅，身高直到她的腰部。不过，对于胖墩麦克菲尔那口子和她那群狐朋狗友，这就更有意思了。因为越是不般配和让人瞧见这可怜的婚姻，她们越是感兴趣。就让他们去说吧。至于那些善良的人，他们认为如果这两个人在彼此的肉体接触中能得到满足，那么这仅仅是他们自己和上帝的事情。一切有头脑的人对这种猜测的看法倒是一致的，他们直截了当的认为这是无稽之谈。

What sort of thing then was this love. First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons— but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries.

我们所说的爱是什么？首先，爱情是发生在两人之间的一种共同的经验。不过说它是共同的经验并不意味着，它在有关的两个人身上所引起的反响是同等的。世界上有爱者，也有而被爱者，这是截然不同的两类人。

Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer.

往往，被爱者新地平境地蕴积了好久，那种爱情的触发剂。每一个恋爱的人都多少知道这一点，她在灵魂深处感到他的爱恋是一种很孤独的感情；他逐渐体会到一种新的陌生的孤寂，这是这种发现使他痛苦。

So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world— a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.

因此，对于恋爱着来说，只有一件事可做：他必须尽可能深入地把他的爱强禁锢在心中；他必须为自己创造一个全然是新的内心世界，一个认真的、奇异的，完全为他单独拥有的世界；我还得添上一句，我们所说的这样的恋爱者倒不一定得是，一个正在攒钱准备买结婚戒指的年轻人，这个恋爱者可以是男人、女人、儿童，总之，可以是世界上任何一个人。

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit.

至于被爱者，也可以是任何一种类型的人。最最粗野的人，也可以成为爱情的触发剂。一个颤巍巍的老爷子，可能仍然钟情于他见过的某个陌生姑娘；在二十年前，某个下午的街头，牧师也许会爱上一个堕落的女人。被爱的人可能人品很坏,油头滑脑，染有不良恶习。是的，恋爱者也能像别人一样对一切认识得清清楚楚，可是这丝毫也不影响他的感情的发展。

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

一个最普通平庸的人可以成为一次恋爱对象，炽烈、狂放、美丽，宛如沼泽地里有毒的罂粟；一个好人也能成为一次，放荡堕落的恋爱触发剂；或者，一个絮絮叨叨的疯子没准能使某人头脑里出现一曲温柔、淳美的牧歌。因此，任何一次恋爱的价值与质量纯粹取决于恋爱者本身。

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.

正因如此，我们大多数人都宁愿爱而不愿被爱，几乎每一个都愿意充当恋爱者。道理非常简单，人们朦朦胧胧地感到,被人爱的这种处境，对于许多人来说是无法忍受的。被爱者惧怕而且憎恨爱者，这也是有充分理由的。因为爱者总是想把他的所爱剥夺得，连灵活都裸露出来，爱者疯狂地苛求与被爱者发生任何一种可能的关系，纵使这种经验只能给他自身带来痛苦。