介绍:
(点击右边黑三角下拉有中英配文）
In the arboured bedroom the burned patient views great distances. The way that dead knight in Ravenna, whose marble body seems alive, almost liquid, has his head raised upon a stone pillow, so it can gaze beyond his feet into vista. Farther than the desired rain of Africa. Towards all their lives in Cairo. Their works and days.
在树木围绕的卧室里，烧伤的病人凝视着远方，就像拉韦纳那个死去的骑士一样，他的大理石雕像栩栩如生，身躯几乎显出温润之感，那骑士仿佛从石枕上抬起头，凝视着脚下的远景。英国病人想得很远。他想到的不只是非洲令人渴望的甘霖，他还想到他们在开罗的生活，还有他们的工作和所有的一切。
Hana sits by his bed, and she travels like a squire beside him during these journeys. The English patient begin speaking again. In 1930 we had begun mapping the greater part of the Gilf Kebir Plateau, looking for the lost oasis that was called Zerzura. The City of Acacias.
哈纳坐在他的床边，像个侍女一样待在他的身边，随着他的思绪，像他一样遨游远方。“一九三零年，我们已开始绘制基尔夫 克尔比尔高地更重要的部分，寻找着那块叫作泽祖拉的绿洲——刺槐之城。
We were desert Europeans. John Bell had sighted the Gilf in 1917. Then Kemal el Din. Then Bagnold, who found his way south into the Sand Sea. Madox, Walpole of Desert Surveys, His Excellency Wasfi Bey, Casparius the photographer, Dr. Kadar the geologist and Bermann. And the Gilf Kebir— that large plateau resting in the Libyan Desert, the size of Switzerland, as Madox liked to say—was our heart. It rose out of the desert four hundred miles west of the Nile.
“我们是来自欧洲的沙漠人。约翰贝尔曾于一九一七年发现了基尔夫，之后是卡莫尔艾尔丁。再往后是巴格诺尔德，他曾发现了向南通往沙海的道路。然后是马多克斯、国际沙漠勘探会的沃尔波、瓦斯非贝阁下、摄影师加斯巴利厄斯、地质学家卡达尔博土和伯曼。而基尔夫克尔比尔——那沉睡在利比亚沙漠中的广大高地，据马多克斯说，有瑞士那么大——是我们的心脏，它的悬崖峭壁从东到西都是陡峭的，高地渐渐地向北倾斜。它突出于尼罗河西部四百里外的沙漠之中。
For the early Egyptians there was supposedly no water west of the oasis towns. The world ended out there. The interior was waterless. But in the emptiness of deserts you are always surrounded by lost history. Tebu and Senussi tribes had roamed there possessing wells that they guarded with great secrecy. There were rumours of fertile lands that nestled within the desert’s interior. Arab writers in the thirteenth century spoke of Zerzura. “The Oasis of Little Birds.” “The City of Acacias.”
“早期埃及人推测在这些绿洲小镇的西边是没有水的，那儿是世界的尽头。整片内陆均是无水之境。但是，在这片沙漠中，不知流传着多少失落的历史。德布和塞努西的部落在此徜徉，守护着他们的水井，不让外人知道。传说沙漠里有着肥沃的土地。十三世纪的阿拉伯作家说到泽祖拉，说它是‘小鸟的绿洲’、‘刺槐之城’。
Look at a map of the Libyan Desert and you will see names. Kemal el Din in 1925, who, almost solitary, carried out the first great modern expedition. Bagnold 1930-1932. Almasy-Madox 1931-1937. Just north of the Tropic of Cancer.
“看看利比亚沙漠的地图，你可以看到这些名字，卡莫尔 艾尔 丁于一九二五年，几乎是独自进行了首次伟大的现代化探索，巴格诺尔德从一九三零年到一九三二年，奥尔马希和马多克斯从一九三一年到一九三七年，仅到了北回归线北部。
We were a small clutch of a nation between the wars, mapping and re-exploring. We gathered at Dakhla and Kufra as if they were bars or cafes. An oasis society, Bagnold called it. We knew each other’s intimacies, each other’s skills and weaknesses. We forgave Bagnold everything for the way he wrote about dunes. “The grooves and the corrugated sand resemble the hollow of the roof of a dog’s mouth.” That was the real Bagnold, a man who would put his inquiring hand into the jaws of a dog.
“我们这一小群人，身处在战火中的异国，不断地绘制地图和重新勘探。我们聚集在达卡拉和库法，好像那儿就是酒吧或咖啡馆。一个绿洲协会——巴格诺尔德就是这样称呼它的。我们彼此熟悉，知道彼此的能力和弱点。我们原谅巴格诺尔德所写的那些乱七八糟的东西。‘沟壑和沙脊就像狗嘴上的皮毛一样。’这就是真正的巴格诺尔德，他就是这样一个人，他探索的手甚至会伸向狗的下巴。
Sometime in 1931 I joined a Bedouin caravan and was told there was another one of us there. Fenelon-Barnes, it turned out. I went to his tent. He was out for the day on some small expedition, cataloguing fossil trees. I looked around his tent, the sheaf of maps, the photos he always carried of his family, et cetera. As I was leaving I saw a mirror tacked up high against the skin wall, and looking at it I saw the reflection of the bed. There seemed to be a small lump, a dog possibly, under the covers. I pulled back the djellaba and there was a small Arab girl tied up, sleeping there.
“一九三一年，我偶尔参加贝都因人的旅行队，人们告诉我还有一个像我这样的人在他们队里，后来知道那是芬纳龙 巴恩思。我到他的帐篷去，他这天正巧出去做一些研究，替树木化石编目录。我环视他的帐篷，看见捆着的地图卷和他时常带在身边的家人照片等等。当我正要离去时，我看见皮墙上方有一面镜子，从镜子里，我看到了那张床。被子下好像有一团东西，也许是条狗。我一把拉开那件阿拉伯带帽斗篷，一个阿拉伯小姑娘被捆着，睡在那里。
By 1932, Bagnold was finished and Madox and the rest of us were everywhere. Looking for the lost army of Cambyses. Looking for Zerzura. 1932 and 1933 and 1934. Not seeing each other for months. Just the Bedouin and us, crisscrossing the Forty Days Road. There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans I’ve met in my life. We were German, English, Hungarian, African—all of us insignificant to them.
“到了一九三二年，巴格诺尔德完成了他的研究工作，而马多克斯和其余成员分散到四处，寻找冈比西斯的 lost army，寻找泽祖拉。一九三二、一九三三年和一九三四年都过去了，有几个月的时间互相没有见面。只有贝都因人和我们在四十天的路程上往返奔波。那儿有沙漠部落的河流，那儿有我今生所遇见最美丽的人们。我们是德国人、英国人、匈牙利人、非洲人——我们对他们来说都是微不足道的。
We disappeared into landscape. Fire and sand. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. I wanted to erase my name and the place I had come from. By the time war arrived, after ten years in the desert, not to belong to anyone, to any nation.
我们消失在火与沙的景色中。渐渐地，我们变成了没有籍贯的人。我开始憎恨。我不想说出我的姓名和我来自何方。By the time war arrived，我已在沙漠里待了十年，对我来说，跨界易如反掌，我不属于任何地方，任何人。
----每周一/三/五晚更---- 【文本翻译均为电台英伦好声音读给你听所有，转载请联系播主并注明】
大家还在听
