the--merely--very--good课文翻译及原文

1、精选优质文档倾情为你奉上精选优质文档倾情为你奉上专心专注专业专心专注专业精选优质文档倾情为你奉上专心专注专业the merely very good课文翻译及原文The Merely Very Good第八单元 仅仅不错Jeremy Bernstein杰里米伯恩斯坦Early in 1981 I received an invitation to give a lecture at a writers conference that was being held someplace on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, just across from

2、New Jersey. I dont remember the exact location, but a study of the map convinces me that it was probably New Hope. My first inclination was to say no. There were several reasons. I was living in New York City and teaching full time. My weekends were precious and the idea of getting up before dawn on

3、 a Saturday, renting a car, and driving across the entire state of New Jersey to deliver a lecture was repellent. As I recall, the honorarium offered would have barely covered the expense. Furthermore, a subject had been suggested for my lecture that, in truth, no longer interested me. Since I both

4、wrote and did physics, I had often been asked to discuss the connection, if any, between these two activities. When this first came up, I felt obligated to say something, but after twenty years, about the only thing that I felt like saying was that both physics and writing, especially if one wanted

5、to do them well, were extremely difficult.早在1981年，我收到过一份请柬是邀请我在一个作家年会上做讲座，这次会议会在在宾夕法尼亚州特拉华河沿岸过新泽西不远的某个地方召开。确切的地点我已记不太清了，但仔细查看地图后我觉得应该是在新望市。我一开始的意向是拒绝它。拒绝的理由有很多。首先我在纽约居住，并担负着一份全职的教学工作，周末对我来说是很宝贵的。一想到要在周六天不亮的时候就要起床，然后还得租车，并且驾车穿越整个新泽西州去会议上做个讲座，实在是烦得很。我回想起这场讲座所付的酬金几乎还不足以支付我这段行程所需的这些花费。此外，它建议我讲的主题实际上我已经没

6、有什么兴趣了。我在写作的同时又从事物理学研究，因此人们经常让我去讨论这两者之间的联系。在这个议题第一次提出的时候，我觉得还有必要谈一谈。但二十年过去了，我现在唯一想说的就是搞物理学和搞写作都是极其困难的事，尤其是在你想将这两者做得尽善尽美的时候。The conference seemed to be centered on poetry, and one of the things that came to mind was an anecdote that Robert Oppenheimer used to tell about himself. Since Oppenheimer wil

7、l play a significant role in what follows, I will elaborate. After Oppenheimer graduated from Harvard in 1925, he was awarded a fellowship to study in Europe. Following a very unhappy time in England, where he seems to have had a sort of nervous breakdown, he went to Germany to get his Ph.D.这个大会的中心议

8、题似乎在诗歌上，由此我想起罗伯特奥本海默过去讲述的关于他自己的一件事。因为奥本海默下面的故事中会扮演一个重要的角色，我会比较详细地去讲述他。奥本海默在1925年从哈佛毕业以后，被授予研究员的资格到欧洲继续学习。在英国时他似乎有些神经衰弱的症状，在那里度过了一段不怎么愉快的经历之后，他转去德国攻读博士学位。He studied with the distinguished German theoretical physicist Max Born in Gottingen and took his degree there in 1927 at the age of twenty-three.

9、Borns recollections of Oppenheimer, which were published posthumously in 1975, were not sympathetic. Oppenheimer, he wrote, was a man of great talent and I was conscious of his superiority in a way which was embarrassing and led to trouble. In my ordinary seminar on quantum mechanics, he used to int

10、errupt the speaker, whoever it was, not excluding myself, and to step to the blackboard, taking the chalk and declaring: this can be done much better in the following manner. In fact, it got so bad that Oppenheimers fellow students in the seminar petitioned Born to put a stop to it.在哥廷根，他跟随著名的德国理论物理

11、学家马克思伯恩一同搞研究，并于1927年他23岁时在那里获得了博士学位。但1975年伯恩去世后出版的对奥本海默的回忆录中对其毫无赞同之词。“奥本海默，”他写道，“是伟大的天才，我是在一种令人尴尬并频惹麻烦的方式上意识到他是一个多么优秀的人。在上我的量子力学的常规研讨课时，他经常打断发言者，不管他是谁，也包括我在内，然后跨上讲台，拿起粉笔，宣称：用下面的方式可以把这做得更好。”虽然实际上，这样做的效果很糟糕，以至于他的同学恳求伯恩制止这样事情的再度发生。Quantum mechanics had been invented the year before by Erwin Schrodinger

12、, Werner Heisenberg and Paul A. M. Dirac. The next year, Dirac came as a visitor to Gottingen and, as it happened, roomed in the large house of a physician named Cario where Oppenheimer also had a room. Dirac was twenty-five. The two young men became friendsinsofar as one could have a friendship wit

13、h Dirac. As young as he was, Dirac was already a great physicist, and I am sure he knew it. He probably just took it for granted. However, he was, and remained, an enigma. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it was always with extraordinary precision and often with devastating effect. This must have h

14、ad a profound effect on Oppenheimer. While Oppenheimer was interrupting Borns seminars, announcing that he could do calculations better in the quantum theory, Dirac, only two years older, had invented the subject.量子力学在此前一年由埃尔温薛定谔、沃纳海森堡和保罗A.M狄拉克创造。第二年，狄拉克到哥廷根做客，碰巧的是他下榻在一位名叫加里奥的物理学家的大房子里，奥本海默正好也住在那里。狄

15、拉克当时25岁。两个年轻人成了朋友当然迄今为止他是唯一能和狄拉克建立友谊的人。狄拉克如此年轻，可已经是个伟大的物理学家了，我确信他知道这一点。也许他觉得无所谓。然而，他从前，直至现在仍然是个谜。他很少说话，但一旦他开始说话，他的话往往特别精确，而且通常具有压倒一切的威力。这一定对奥本海默产生了深刻的影响。当奥本海默还在打断伯恩的讲座，声称他能运用量子理论把计箅做得更好的时候，只比他大两岁的狄拉克已经将这个课题设置好了。In any case, in the course of things the two of them often went for walks. In the version

16、 of the story that I heard Oppenheimer tell, they were walking one evening on the walls that surrounded Gottingen and got to discussing Oppenheimers poetry. I would imagine that the “discussion was more like an Oppenheimer monologue, which was abruptly interrupted by Dirac, who asked, How can you do

17、 both poetry and physics? In physics we try to give people an understanding of something that nobody knew before, whereas in poetry./ Oppenheimer allowed one to fill in the rest of the sentence. As interesting as it might have been to hear the responses, this did not seem to be the sort of anecdote

18、that would go over especially well at a conference devoted to poetry.无论如何，那时他们两个人经常一块去散步。在我听说足奥本海默所讲述的那个故事的版本中，某一天傍晚他们正在哥廷根周围的城墙上散步，讨论着奥本海默的诗歌。我可以想象，这种“讨论”几乎更像奥本海默的个人独白。狄拉克有时会突然打断他，问道：“你怎么能够又写诗又搞物理学？在物理学的领域里我们尽力让人们明白从前没人知道的事情，可是诗歌”。奥本海默意在用后半句未填的内容留去给人们更大的想象空间。尽管听听人们对此的反应可能会十分有趣，但这似乎并不是一个适合在以诗歌为主题的年会

19、上讲的话题。Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were two others that finally carried the day. In the first place, I was in the beginning stages of a love affair with a young woman who wanted very much to write. She wanted to write so much that she had resigned a lucra

20、tive job with an advertising agency and was giving herself a year in which, living on her savings, she was going to do nothing but write. It was a gutsy thing to do, but like many people who try it, she was finding it pretty rough going. In fact, she was rather discouraged. So, to cheer her up, I su

21、ggested attending this conference, where she might have a chance to talk with other people who were in the same boat. This aside, I had read in the tentative program of the conference that one of the other tutors was to be Stephen Spender. This, for reasons I will now explain, was decisive.尽管我找了这些不去

22、参加会议的冠冕堂皇的理由，但最终还是另外两个原因占了上风。首先，便是因为我刚刚同一位极其热衷于写作的年轻女士坠入爱河。她对写作是如此热切以至于为此她甚至为了写作辞掉了一家广告公司的报酬丰取的工作，给了自己一年时间，在此期间她仅仅靠积蓄生活，除了写作之外什么也不做。这么做当然勇气可嘉，可也像许多如此尝试的人一样，她逐渐开始觉得这事异常艰难，而且毫无进展。事实上，她已经开始泄气了。因此，为了让她高兴起来，重新，我建议参加这个会议，在会上她也许有机会同与她处于相同困境的人谈谈。这个原因暂且按下不提，在我读到会议的暂定议程，得知其中有一位导师是斯蒂芬斯彭德。这才是决定了我最终的行程的原因，原因我会马上

23、解释。This was the directors mansion. Spender did not notice that, because of Oppenheimers western connections, there was also the odd horse on the grounds. He continues: “He has beautiful paintings. As soon as we came in, he said: Now is the time to look at the van Gogh. We went into his sitting room

24、and saw a very fine van Gogh of a sun above a field almost entirely enclosed in shadows. At the end of my first interview with Oppenheimer, immediately after I had driven cross-country from Los Alamos in a convertible with a large hole in the roof and had been summoned to the interview while still c

25、overed in grime, he said to me that he and his wife had some pictures I might like to look at sometime. I wondered what he was talking about. Some months later I was invited to a party at the Oppenheimers, and realized that he was talking about a van Gogh. Some years later, I learned that this was p

26、art of a small collection he had inherited from his father to which he had never added.这就是研究院主管的公寓。斯彭德没有注意到，由于奥本海默的西方情结，他的庭院里还有一匹古怪的马。斯彭德接着写道：“奥本海默有很多漂亮的油画。我们刚一进来，他就说，现在是欣赏梵高的时候了。我们走进他的起居室，看到一幅优秀的梵高作品，在画上太阳髙髙地悬挂在几乎完全被阴影所笼罩的田地上空。”在我驾着篷顶露个大洞的折篷汽车，翻山越岭从洛斯阿拉莫斯风尘仆仆赶来赴约的这次与奥本海默的首次见而结束的时候，他对我说他和他妻子有些画，也许我什

27、么时候愿意看看。当时我不太明白他说的是什么样的画，几个月以后我受邀来到一个在奥本海默家里举办的晚会，才意识到他说的是一幅梵高的画。几年以后，我了解到这是他从他父亲那儿继承的小规模收藏品中的一部分，他自己从来没有再增添过。In his journal entry, Spender describes Oppenheimers physical appearance: Robert Oppenheimer is one of the most extraordinary-looking men I have ever seen. He has a head like that of a very

28、small intelligent boy, with a long back to it, reminding one of those skulls which were specially elongated by the Egyptians. His skull gives an almost eggshell impression of fragility, and is supported by a very thin neck. His expression is radiant and at the same time ascetic., Much of this descri

29、ption seems right to me except that it leaves out the fact that Oppenheimer did have the sunwrinkled look of someone who had spent a great deal of time outdoors, which he had.斯彭德在日记中对奥本海默的相貌做了描述：“罗伯特奥本海默是我见过的样貌最奇特的人之一。他的头就像一个聪明的小孩的头，后脑勺很长，让人想到被埃及人特意拉长的那些脑壳。他的脑壳给人的感觉像脆弱易碎的鸡蛋壳，撑在一根细细的脖子上面。他的表情看起来总是神采奕

30、奕，但同时又像苦行僧一般。”在我看来这是一个大部分都是准确的描写，只是他遗漏了这样一个事实：奥本海默有一张像一个大量时间在户外度过的人那样满布晒纹的相貌，当然事实也是如此。Spender also does not seem to have remarked on Oppenheimers eyes, which had a kind of wary luminescence. Siamese cats make a similar impression. But more important, Oppenheimer appears in Spenders journal as a dise

31、mbodied figure with no contextual relevance to Spenders own life.斯彭德似乎也没有对奥本海默的那双总是闪着一种谨慎的寒光的眼睛进行评论。暹罗猫的眼睛也可以给人一种类似的感觉。但是更更重要的是，出现在斯彭徳的日志中的奥本海默更像是一个游离于斯彭德本人的生活环境之外的脱离实体的人物。There is no comment about the fact that, three years earlier, Oppenheimer had been tried for disloyalty to this country and that

32、 his clearance had been taken away. One of the charges brought against him was that his wife, Katherine Puening Oppenheimer, was the former wife of Joseph Dallet, who had been a member of the Communist Party and who had been killed in 1937 fighting for the Spanish Republican Army. In 1937, Spender w

33、as also a member of the Communist Party in Britain and had also spent time in Spain. Did Oppenheimer know this? He usually knew most things about the people who interested him. Did Kitty Oppenheimer know it? Did this have anything to do with the fact that, during Spenders visit, she was upstairs ill

34、? Spender offers no comment. What was he thinking? There were so many things the two of them might have said to each other, but didnt. They talked about the invasion of the Suez Canal.日记中也没有评论这样一个事实：三年前奥本海默曾因被疑为对国家不忠而受到“审讯”，其接触国家机密文件的权利被剥夺。不利于他的一项指控是他的妻子凯瑟琳普宁奥本海默也是约瑟夫戴勒特的前妻。约瑟夫戴勒特曾是一名共产党员，在1937年与西班牙

35、共和军的战斗中牺牲。同一年，斯彭德也是英国共产党员，当时也在西班牙。奥本海默知道这件事吗？他总是知道他所感兴趣的人的大多数事情。“基蒂”奥本海默知道这件亊吗？这与斯彭德来访期间她正在楼上养“病”避而不见的事实是否有关？斯彭德在日记里没有任何评述。他那时在想什么？他们两人明明有许多可以互相倾诉的事情，却什么都没谈，谈的只是关于苏伊士运河的入侵。In the fall of my second year at the institute, Dirac came for a visit. We all knew that he was coming, but no one had actually

36、encountered him, despite rumored sightings. By this time, Dirac, who was in his mid-fifties, had a somewhat curious role in physics. Unlike Einstein, he had kept up with many of the developments and indeed from time to time commented on them.我在研究院的第二年的秋天，狄拉克来到这里访学。我们都知道他要来，却从来没有人真的遇到过他，尽管谣言中有人看到他在远处

37、的身影。当时已经50多岁的狄拉克，在物理学界仍然占据游有点奇怪的一席之地。与爱因斯坦不同的是，他能够紧跟研究领域的发展形势，还能不时地品头论足一番。But, like Einstein, he had no school or following and had produced very few students. He had essentially no collaborators. Once, when asked about this, he remarked that the really good ideas in physics are had by only one pers

38、on. That seems to apply to poetry as well. He taught his classes in the quantum theory at Cambridge University, where he held Newtons Lucasian chair, by, literally, reading in his precise, clipped way from his great text on the subject. When this was remarked on, he replied that he had given the sub

39、ject a good deal of thought and that there was no better way to present it.但是跟爱因斯坦一样，他既没有建立学派，也没有追随者，甚至没有培养出几个学生。基本上也没有合作者。有一次被问及此事时，他说：“物理学上真正有价值的见地，只属于个人。”这个说法其实对诗歌也挺合适。他曾经在剑桥大学教授量子理论课程，在那里他坐着牛顿曾经执掌过的卢卡斯教授的席位，在教授课程时他以一种梢确的、掐头去尾的方式念着与课题有关的他本人的著作中的东西。当有人对此质疑时，他回答说他对该课题钻研至深，但没有更好的方式演示出来。At the instit

40、ute we had a weekly physics seminar over which Oppenheimer presided, often interrupting the speaker. Early in the fall we were in the midst of one of thesethere were about forty people in attendance in a rather small roomwhen the door opened. In walked Dirac. I had never seen him before, but I had o

41、ften seen pictures of him. The real thing was much better. He wore much of a blue suittrousers, shirt, tie, and, as I recall, a sweaterbut what made an indelible impression were the thigh-length muddy rubber boots. It turned out that he was spending a good deal of time in the woods near the institut

42、e with an ax, chopping a path in the general direction of Trenton. Some years later, when I had begun writing for The New Yorker and attempted a profile of Dirac, he suggested that we might conduct some of the sessions while clearing this path. He was apparently still working on it.在研究院有一个每周一次由奥本海默主

43、持的物理学研讨会，他还是不停地打断发言者。初秋的一天，其中一个研讨会正在进行，当时那个小房间容纳了大约有40余位与会者。这时门开了，狄拉克走了进来。我以前从来没有见过他，不过经常看到他的照片。他本人比照片好多了。他大致穿的是蓝色的套装西裤、衬衫、领带，还有，我记得他还穿着一件毛衫。但是真正给人留下刻骨难忘的印象的是他的那双过膝的、粘满污泥的橡胶靴。后来证明他是在离研究院不远的树林里用了很长的时间手持板斧朝特顿大致的方向开辟一条小路。几年以后，当我开始给纽约人杂志撰稿时，试图得到一个狄拉克的个人简介，他建议我们可以一边淸理那条小路一边找一些时间来谈这件事。很明显他仍然在从事着这项工作。Now i

44、t is some twenty-five years later. The sun has not yet come up, and I am driving across the state of New Jersey with my companion. We have left New York at about 5 A.M. so that I will arrive in time for a midmorning lecture.而到现在大约25年过去了。太阳还没有升起，我正驾车和我的女友穿越新泽西州。我们大约在早晨五点钟就离开纽约出发了，只有这样我才能及时到会做一个安排在上午的

45、讲座。I have cobbled something together about physics and writing. Neither of us has had a proper breakfast. As we go through the Lincoln Tunnel I recall an anecdote my Nobelist colleague T. D. Lee once told me about Dirac. He was driving him from New York to Princeton through this same tunnel. Sometim

46、e after they had passed it, Dirac interrupted his silence to remark that, on the average, about as much money would be collected in tolls if they doubled the toll and had tollbooths only at one end. A few years later the Port Authority seems to have made the same analysis and halved the number of to

47、llbooths. We pass the turnoff that would have taken us to Princeton. It is tempting to pay a visit. But Oppenheimer is by then dead and Dirac living in Florida with his wife, the sister of fellow physicist Eugene Wigner. Dirac used to introduce her to people as Wigners sister, as in I would like you

48、 to meet Wigners sister. Dirac died in Florida in 1984.我胡乱拼凑了一些关于物理学与写作之间的关系的东西。我们俩都没好好地吃一顿早饭。当我们穿越林肯隧道时，我想起我的同伴诺贝尔奖获得者李政道曾经讲的一件关于狄拉克的轶事。他当时正开车穿过这座隧道送狄拉克从纽约去普林斯顿。已经通过隧道的某个时候，狄拉克打破沉默说道：平均起来，如果把通行费提高一倍而只把收费站建在隧道的一端，收上来的钱其实是一样多的。而在几年以后，口岸管理部门似乎做了同样的分析，然后把收费站的数量减半。我们经过了通向普林斯顿方向的岔道。突然很想去拜访一下。可是那时奥本海默已经去世

49、，狄拉克和妻子住在佛罗里达。他的妻子是他的物理学家同伴尤金维格纳的妹妹。狄拉克过去常常把妻子以维格纳的妹妹的身份介绍给人们，比如：“我想让你们认识一下维格纳的妹妹。”狄拉克后来也于1984年在佛罗里达去世。We arrived at the conference center a few minutes before my lecture was scheduled to begin. There was no one, or almost no one, in the lecture room. However, in midroom, there was Spender. I recogn

50、ized him at once from his pictures. Christopher Isherwood once described Spenders eyes as having the violent color of blue-bells. Spender was wearing a dark blue suit and one of those striped British shirtsTurnbull and Asser?the mere wearing of which makes one feel instantly better. He had on a club

51、 tie of some sort. He said nothing during my lecture and left as soon as it was over, along with the minuscule audience that I had traveled five hours by car to address.我们到达会议中心的时候距离我做讲座的预定时间只剩下几分钟了。讲堂里没有任何人，或者可以说几乎没有人。但是在屋子的中央斯彭德正坐在那里。因为我见过他的照片，所以立刻就认出他来。克里斯托弗伊舍伍德曾描绘斯彭德的眼睛里如同有“蓝铃花般狂热的色彩”。斯彭德身着一套深蓝色

52、的西装和一件英式的条纹衬衫或者是特恩布尔-阿瑟品牌？仅仅穿上就立即让人赏心悦目的那种。他还系着一条某个俱乐部的领带。在我的整个讲座中他一句话也没说，一结束他就立即起身离去，随之离开的还有那些我驾车奔波了五个小时给他们做讲座的一小撮听众。My companion and I then had a mediocre lunch in one of the local coffee shops. There seemed to be no official lunch. I was now thoroughly out of sorts and was ready to return to New

53、York, but she wanted very much to stay for at least part of Spenders poetry workshop, and so we did.然后我和我的女友在当地的一家咖啡馆吃了顿不入流的午餐，会议方也好像没有准备正式的午餐。此时我情绪不佳，觉得厌烦透顶，很想马上启程回纽约去，但是我的女友非常想多待一阵，至少要等到看看部分斯彭德的诗歌讲习班，因此我们留了下来。I had never been to a poetry workshop and couldnt imagine what one would consist of. I ha

54、d been to plenty of physics workshops and knew only too well what they consisted of: six physicists in a room with a blackboard shouting at one another. The room where Spender was to conduct his workshop was full, containing perhaps thirty people. One probably should not read too much into appearanc

55、es, but these peoplemostly womenlooked to me as if they were clinging to poetry as if it were some sort of life raft. If I had had access to Spenders journals (they came out a few years later), I would have realized that he was very used to all of this. In fact, he had been earning his living since

56、his retirement from University College in London a decade earlier by doing lectures and classes for groups like this. I would also have realized that by 1981 he was pretty tired of it, and pretty tired of being an avatar for his now dead friendsAuden, C. Day Lewis, and the rest. He had outlived them

57、 all, but was still under their shadow, especially that of Auden, whom he had first met at Oxford at about the same age and same time that Oppenheimer had met Dirac.在此之前我从未参加过这种诗歌讲习班，所以无法想象其中会有些什么内容。我倒是去过很多物理学讲习班，因此太知道它们都做什么：六个物理学家在一个带有黑板的房间里互相叫嚷。斯彭德要举行诗歌讲习班的房间里挤得满满的，容纳了大约有三十个人。一个人也许不应该过于以貌取人，可是这些人大

58、多数是女士在我看来好像过于迷恋诗歌，视它为救命稻草一般。如果那时我能有幸接触到斯彭德的日记的话(这些日记几年以后才出版），我就会知道他对所有的这一切已经习以为常了。事实上，自从十年前他从伦敦的大学学院退休以后就以给这样的人群做讲座和开讲习班维持生计。我还得知，1981年的时候他对此已经十分厌倦了，他也厌倦了做他如今已经过世了的朋友奥登、C戴刘易斯以及其他人的替身。他比他们每个人都长寿，可是却活在他们的阴影里，尤其是奥登，那个他在牛津初次结识的人，刚好和奥本海默遇到狄拉克是同一年龄，也是同一时期。Spender walked in with a stack of poems written by

59、 the workshop members. He gave no opening statement, but began reading student poems. I was surprised by how awful they were. Most seemed to be lists: sky, sex, sea, earth, red, green, blue, and so forth.斯彭德带着一叠讲习班成员写的诗走了进来。他没做任何开场就开始读起学员们的诗来。我惊讶于那些诗竟然会写得如此糟糕，大多数都像一串清单，什么“天空、性爱、海洋、大地、红色、绿色、蓝色”等等。Spe

60、nder gave no clue about what he thought of them. Every once in a while he would interrupt his reading and seek out the author and ask such a question as, Why did you choose red there rather than green? What does red mean to you? He seemed to be on autopilot.斯彭德没有露出任何想表达对这些诗的看法的蛛丝马迹，只是偶尔间断朗读，找到作者问问类似