介绍:
（下拉有中英配文）
Who are you?
I don’t know. You keep asking me.
You said you were English.
At night he is never tired enough to sleep. She reads to him from whatever book she is able to find in the library down stairs. The candle flickers over the page and over the young nurse’s talking face, barely revealing at this hour the trees and vista that decorate the walls. He listens to her, swallowing her words like water.
“你是谁?”
“我不知道。你老是问我。”
“你说过你是英国人。”
夜里，他从来都不会累得想要入睡。她总是从楼下的书房随手拿出一本书，然后读给他听。蜡烛照亮了打开的书页，映亮了年轻护士动人的面容，隐约地照出了装饰墙壁的那片树木和景观。他听着她念书，像喝水一样吞下她的话。
She would sit and read the book under the waver of light. She would glance now and then down the hall of the villa that had been a war hospital, where she had lived with the other nurses before they had all transferred out gradually, the war moving north, the war almost over.
她会坐在那里读书，书本则被摇曳的灯光映照着。她不时会打量一下别墅的走廊。这里曾是一家战时医院，她曾与别的护士住在这里，后来她们陆续走了。战火就这样向北边蔓延，而如今战争几乎已经要结束了。
The book lay on her lap. She realized that for more than five minutes she had been looking at the porousness of the paper, the crease at the corner of page 17 which someone had folded over as a mark. She looked down the hall, though there was no one else living there now, no one except the English patient and herself in the Villa San Girolamo. She had enough vegetables planted in the bombed-out orchard above the house for them to survive, a man coming now and then from the town with whom she would trade soap and sheets and whatever there was left in this war hospital for other essentials. Some beans, some meats.
那本书摊在她的腿上。她意识到自己五分多钟以来，一直看着书上渗过水的地方，以及有人为了做记号而在第十七页边角留下的折痕。她朝长廊那头望去，尽管那里现在没有住着任何人——除了她和这名英国病人，圣吉洛拉莫别墅没有别人。房子那头的果园被炸得坑坑洼洼，她在里面种了蔬菜，足够他们食用。每隔一阵子，会有一个人从城里过来，她就会拿肥皂、床单和这个战时医院剩下的东西，与其交换别的日常用品——一些豆子，一些肉。
Between the kitchen and the destroyed chapel a door led into an oval-shaped library. The space inside seemed safe except for a large hole at portrait level in the far wall, caused by mortar-shell attack on the villa two months earlier. The rest of the room had adapted itself to this wound, accepting the habits of weather, evening stars, the sound of birds.
在厨房和被炸毁的小教堂之间，有个门通往椭圆形的书房。那里似乎是个安全的地方，只是在悬挂肖像的墙壁上有一个大洞，那是炮弹炸的——两个月前迫击炮对别墅炸了一阵。
房间其余的地方已习惯了这个大大的“伤口”，承受着天气的转换，星光的照耀，还有小鸟的歌唱。
At the far end were French doors that were boarded up. If they had been open she could have walked from the library to the loggia, then down thirty-six penitent steps past the chapel towards what had been an ancient meadow, scarred now by phosphorus bombs and explosions. The German army had mined many of the houses they retreated from, so most rooms not needed, like this one, had been sealed for safety, the doors hammered into their frames.
对面是已被木板钉死的落地窗。如果落地窗开着，她就可以从书房走到凉亭，然后带着一颗忏悔的心迈出三十六步，经过小教堂，来到—一片已被炸得千疮百孔而不存在昔日青翠模样的草地。撤离的时候，德军在许多房子里埋了地雷，所以闲置不用的房间—就像这一间——为了安全起见都被封了，房门与门框被钉在一起。
She knew these dangers when she slid into the room, walking into its afternoon darkness. She stood conscious suddenly of her weight on the wooden floor, thinking it was probably enough to trigger whatever mechanism was there.
她蹑手蹑脚溜进屋里，走进了午后的幽暗之中。她心中清楚存在着危险。她站住不动，突然意识到自己的重量正压在木质地板上，心想这份重量很可能引发某个机关。
She pulled out The Last of the Mohicans and even in this half-light was cheered by the aquamarine sky and lake on the cover illustration, the Indian in the foreground. And then, as if there were someone in the room who was not to be disturbed, she walked backwards, stepping on her own footprints, for safety, but also as part of a private game, so it would seem from the steps that she had entered the room and then the corporeal body had disappeared. She closed the door and replaced the seal of warning.
她抽出了《大地英豪》，在半明半暗中，看到封面上的蔚蓝天空、湖泊，以及前景的那个印第安人，她的心中一阵激动。然后，仿佛屋里有个人不能惊动，她倒着往回走，为了安全起见踩着自己的脚印—这也是一个不为人知的游戏。从这些脚步来看，似乎她进了房间之后，整个血肉之躯就不知去向了。她关上房门，重新弄好警告的封条。
Their Italian hill town, sentinel to the northwest route, had been besieged for more than a month, it was the last stronghold of the German army. When the Allies finally took over the building and made it a hospital. 这个意大利小镇是西北通道的要塞，曾被围困了一个多月，轰炸集中于周围分布着果园的两座别墅和修道院。像城堡般的城垛建筑使它成了德军的最后一个据点，盟军最后接收了这个房子，把它改成了医院。
She and the Englishman had insisted on remaining behind when the other nurses and patients moved to a safer location in the south. During this time they were very cold, without electricity. Some rooms faced onto the valley with no walls at all. She would open a door and see just a sodden bed huddled against a corner, covered with leaves. Doors opened into landscape. Some rooms had become an open aviary.
她和英国人则坚持留了下来。在这一段时间里，他们因为断了电觉得很冷——有些面朝山谷的房间还没了墙壁。她只要打开一道门，就可能会看到墙边放着一张潮湿的床，上面盖着树叶。房门大开，户外景致清晰可见，有些房间已经成了敞门的鸟舍。
There were few beds left. She herself preferred to be nomadic in the house with her pallet or hammock, sleeping sometimes in the English patient’s room, sometimes in the hall, depending on temperature or wind or light. She was twenty years old and mad and unconcerned with safety during this time, having no qualms about the dangers of the possibly mined library or the thunder that startled her in the night. She entered rooms that had been soiled by soldiers, rooms whose furniture had been burned within them. She cleared out leaves and shit and urine and charred tables. She was living like a vagrant, while elsewhere the English patient reposed in his bed like a king.
床只剩下几张。她本人喜欢在房子里面居无定所，打地铺睡吊床，有时睡在英国病人的房间，有时睡在走廊，一切取决于气温、风向和光线。到了清晨，她卷起被褥，用绳子绑好。现在的天气暖和了些，她打开了更多的房间，好让黑暗的角落通风，并让阳光照在潮湿的地方。有时到了夜间，她打开房门，睡在墙壁倒塌的房间。她睡在房间边缘的小床上，面对飘移的星辰和移动的云彩，在雷电的怒吼声中醒来。她年方二十，年少轻狂，毫不顾及安危，毫不惧怕书房可能埋着地雷，也不在意夜晚把她惊醒的雷声。严冬过后，她有许多事要忙，因此时常待在黑暗的屋里。她走进了曾被士兵们弄脏的房间，里面的家具已被烧掉了。她清走了树叶、粪便和烧焦的桌子。她生活得像一个流浪汉，而在另一个地方，英国病人却像一个国王，安睡在床上。
From outside, the place seemed devastated. An outdoor staircase disappeared in midair, its railing hanging off. Their life was foraging and tentative safety. They used only essential candlelight at night because of the brigands who annihilated everything they came across. They were protected by the simple fact that the villa seemed a ruin. But she felt safe here, half adult and half child. Coming out of what had happened to her during the war, she drew her own few rules to herself. She would not be ordered again or carry out duties for the greater good. She would care only for the burned patient. She would read to him and bathe him and give him his doses of morphine her only communication was with him.
从外观看来，这个地方似乎已被炸毁了。室外的楼梯被炸掉了半截，栏杆悬挂在半空。他们过着饱一顿饥一顿的生活，时刻都有危险。到了夜里，他们不会多点上一支蜡烛，害怕土匪途经这里毁坏了一切。他们安然无恙，仅仅因为别墅似乎已经成了废墟。经历了这场战争，她给自己立下了几条原则。她再也不会听任别人发号施令，也不会为任何伟大的目的尽什么义务。她只打算照顾那位烧伤患者。
----每周一/三/五晚更----
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