介绍:
(点击右边黑三角下拉有中英配文）
In 1936 a young man named Geoffrey Clifton had met a friend at Oxford who mentioned what we were doing. He contacted me, got married the next day, and two weeks later flew with his wife to Cairo.
“一九三六年，一个叫杰弗里•克利夫顿的年轻人在牛津遇到了一位朋友，他的朋友向他提到我们正在做的事。他与我联系的第二天他结了婚，两个星期后，他和他的太太飞到了开罗。
The couple entered our world—the four of us, Prince Kemal el Din, Bell, Almasy and Madox. He met us in El Jof, north of Uweinat. He sat in his two-seater plane and we walked towards him from the base camp. He stood up in the cockpit and poured a drink out of his flask. His new wife sat beside him.
这对夫妻加入了我们的世界——我们四个人，凯摩尔•丁王子、贝尔、奥尔马希和马多克斯。他在乌怀拿德北部的艾乔夫与我们相会。他坐在他的双人座飞机里，我们从营地向他走去。他站在驾驶舱里，倒了一杯酒。新婚妻子则坐在他身边。
“I name this site the Bir Messaha Country Club,” he announced.
I watched the friendly uncertainty scattered across his wife’s face, her lion like hair when she pulled off the leather helmet.
They were youth, felt like our children. They climbed out of the plane and shook hands with us.
That was 1936, the beginning of our story....
“‘我给这儿取个名字，叫比尔•麦斯色哈乡村俱乐部。’他宣布道。
“我看见一丝友好的怀疑神情从他妻子脸上一闪而过，当她脱下皮头盔时，露出她那像狮毛一样金黄色的头发。
“他们是年轻人，感觉上他们就像我们的孩子。他们爬出飞机，和我们握手。
“那是一九三六年，我们的故事这才开始……
They jumped off the wing of the Moth. Clifton walked towards us holding out the flask, and we all sipped the warm alcohol. He was one for ceremonies.
“他们从蛾式飞机的机翼上跳下来。杰弗里•克利夫顿拎着那小瓶酒向我们走来。我们都小口地喝着那温热的酒。他是个讲究繁文缛节的人。
I don’t think he loved the desert, but he had an affection for it that grew out of awe at our stark order, into which he wanted to fit himself—like a joyous undergraduate who respects silent
behaviour in a library. We had not expected him to bring his wife, but we were I suppose courteous about it. She stood there while the sand collected in her mane of hair.
我不认为他真的热爱沙漠，但是他对我们的坚定决心十分敬畏，使他对沙漠也产生一种感情。他想使自己和这里的一切相称，就像一个快乐的大学生遵守图书馆要保持安静的规定似的。我们并没有想到他会带妻子来，但是我想我们表现得还算礼貌。她在那儿站了没多久，那头长而茂密的头发就积满了沙子。
What were we to this young couple? Some of us had written books about dune formation, the disappearance and reappearance of oases, the lost culture of deserts. We seemed to be interested only in things that could not be bought or sold, of no interest to the outside world. We argued about latitudes, or about an event that had happened seven hundred years earlier. The
theorems of exploration.
在这对年轻夫妇的眼中，我们是什么样子的人呢?我们当中有的人已经写了一些书，讨论沙丘的形成、绿洲的消失以及重新出现和沙漠失传的文化等等问题。我们似乎只对那些不以买卖的东西感兴趣，丝毫不关心外面的世界。
The Cliftons were on the last days of their honeymoon. I left them with the others and went to join a man in Kufra and spent many days with him, trying out theories. I returned to the base camp at El Jof three nights later.
杰弗里•克利夫顿夫妇还在度蜜月。我离开了他们和其他同伴，去库法找另一个人共同进行研究，并和他在一起待了几天，试行我对队里其他人保密的理论。我待了三个晚上之后，又回到艾乔夫的基地。
The desert fire was between us. The Cliftons, Madox, Bell and myself. Katharine Clifton began to recite something, and my head was no longer in the halo of the camp’s twig fire.
沙漠营火在我们之间燃烧。有杰弗里•克利夫顿夫妇、马多克斯、贝尔和我。凯瑟琳•杰弗里•克利夫顿开始背诵着什么，而营火的火光已照不到我的头了。
There was classical blood in her face. Her parents were famous, apparently, in the world of legal history. I am a man who did not enjoy poetry until I heard a woman recite it to us. And in that desert she dragged her university days into our midst to describe the stars—the way Adam tenderly taught a woman with gracious metaphors.
“由她的容貌，看得出她出身高贵，她的父母似乎在法律史界很有名望。我是个不喜欢诗歌的男人，可是这次我听到一个女人向我们背诵诗歌，心里却有了不同的感觉。在沙漠里，她忆起了大学时代的生活。她描绘那些星星——就像亚当用优美的隐喻来温柔地教导一个女人。
These then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain, nor think, though men were none,
That Heaven would want spectators, God want praise;
Millions of spiritual Creatures walk the Earth
Unseen, both when we -wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night: how often from the steep
Of echoing Hill or Thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other’s note
Singing their great Creator...
群星，没有平白无故地闪烁，
虽然夜里没有人能看见它们，
也不会想天上需要人间的观望者，
或上帝想听见颂扬它至高无上。
在我们醒着的时候，或熟睡的时候，
千百万生灵在地球上行走，
只是没有被看见，
所有的人仰望上帝的业绩，
日日夜夜，心里充满敬爱，
我们常常在深夜里听见群山和森林里回荡
神圣的声音，
单独的或互相呼应，
歌颂伟大的造物主。
That night I fell in love with a voice. Only a voice. I wanted to hear nothing more. I got up and walked away.
那一夜，我爱上了一个声音，我再也不想听到别的声音了，我站起身走开了。
A few months later, she waltzed with me, as we danced as a group in Cairo. Though slightly drunk she wore an unconquerable face. Even now the face I believe that most revealed her was the one she had that time when we were both half drunk, not lovers.
“几个月后，我们在开罗，她和我跳华尔兹。尽管有些微醺，她的脸上依然带着那副不可征服的神情。直到现在我仍相信，最能呈现她自己的容颜，就是她那时的容颜。当时我们都醉了，还不是情人。
In the street of imported parrots in Cairo one is hectored by almost articulate birds. The birds bark and whistle in rows, like a plumed avenue. I knew which tribe had travelled which silk or camel road carrying them in their petite palanquins across the deserts. Forty-day journeys, after the birds were caught by slaves or picked like flowers in equatorial gardens and then placed
in bamboo cages to enter the river that is trade. They appeared like brides in a mediaeval courtship.
在开罗专售进口鹦鹉的大街上，争鸣的鸟儿吵得人受不了。成排的鸟儿在争吵中又叫又唱，让人看来像是一条用羽毛装饰起来的街。我知道是哪一个部落沿着哪一条丝路或骆驼路，载运坐在小巧轿子内的它们穿越沙漠。四十天的旅行，在鸟儿或被奴隶逮到，或在热带花园里像花朵似的被采集起来，放进竹笼，来到贸易活动所赖以进行的河流中之后，它们出现时的姿态就像中世纪接受求爱的新娘一样。
We stood among them. I was showing her a city that was new to her.
Her hand touched me at the wrist.
“If I gave you my life, you would drop it. Wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“我们站在他们中间，我正指给她看一座对她来说是新的城市。
“她的手碰到了我的手腕。
“‘如果我把一生交给你，你不会好好珍惜的，对吗?’
“我什么也没说。
----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】
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