介绍:
(点击右边黑三角下拉有中英配文）
THE FIRST TIME she dreamed of him she woke up beside her husband screaming.
In their bedroom she stared down onto the sheet, mouth open. Her husband put his hand on her back.
“Nightmare. Don’t worry.”
“Yes.”
“Shall I get you some water?”
“Yes.”
她第一次梦见他，惊叫着在丈夫身边醒来。
在他们的卧室里，她两眼紧盯着床单，张大着嘴，她丈夫把手放在她的背上。
“是个噩梦，别怕。”
“是的。”
“我去倒点水给你喝?”
“好吧。”
She wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t lie back into that zone they had been in.
The dream had taken place in this room—his hand on her neck (she touched it now), his anger towards her that she had sensed the first few times she had met him. No, not anger, a lack of interest, irritation at a married woman being among them.
她无法动弹，她不能再躺回到他们曾经躺过的那块地方了。 ．
这个梦就发生在这间屋里——他的手放在她的脖子上(此刻她正抚摸着自己的脖子)。在她最初几次约会的时候，她能感觉到他的怒气。不，不是怒气，是对他们当中有个有夫之妇感到无趣和恼怒。
They had been bent over like animals, and he had yoked her neck back so she had been unable to breathe within her arousal.
他们像野兽一样纠缠在一起，他扼住她的脖子，以致于她被自己的激情燃烧得不能呼吸。
Her husband brought her the glass on a saucer but she could not lift her arms, they were shaking, loose. He put the glass awkwardly against her mouth so she could gulp the chlorinated water, some coming down her chin, falling to her stomach. When she lay back she hardly had time to think of what she had witnessed, she fell into a quick deep sleep.
她的丈夫倒来一杯水，放在茶托上，但是她的手臂抬不起来，只是无力地垂着，颤抖着。他手脚笨拙地把水递到她的唇边，使她能喝下一点这氯化过的水。有一些水流到她的下巴上，淌到她的身上。她又躺下，还没来得及想想她梦见了什么，就又沉沉睡去了。
That had been the first recognition. She remembered it sometime during the next day, but she was busy then and she refused to nestle with its significance for long, dismissed it; it was an accidental collision on a crowded night, nothing more.
那是他们初次在梦中相见。她第二天似乎还能记起些什么，但是她太忙了，所以不愿花太多时间去想那个梦有什么意义。不再去想它了，它不过是在一个夜晚偶然做的一个梦，仅
此而已。
A year later the other, more dangerous, peaceful dreams came. And even within the first one of these she recalled the hands at her neck and waited for the mood of calmness between them to swerve to violence.
一年多以后，她又做了些更危险而又平静的梦。在这些梦境之初，她都能回忆起那双手放在她脖子上的感觉，等待着他们之间的情绪平静下来之后，再突然燃起激情。
Who lays the crumbs of food that tempt you? Towards a person you never considered. A dream. Then later another series of
dreams.
是谁用诱饵诱惑你?对于一个你从未在意过的人，一个梦，而后是一连串的梦。
He said later it was propinquity. Propinquity in the desert. It does that here, he said. He loved the word—the propinquity of water, the propinquity of two or three bodies in a car driving the Sand Sea for six hours. Her sweating knee beside the gearbox of the truck, the knee swerving, rising with the bumps. In the desert you have time to look everywhere, to theorize on the choreography of all things around you.
他后来说这是一种接近，一种在沙漠里的接近。他说，它就是存在于此。他喜欢那个词——跟水的那种接近，与两三个人同车在沙海里奔驰六个小时的那种接近。她汗湿的膝盖靠着卡车的齿轮箱，随着汽车的颠簸而摆动起伏。在沙漠里，你有的是时间观察一切，为周围一切事物的跳动建立合理的解释。
When he talked like that she hated him, her eyes remaining polite, her mind wanting to slap him. She always had the desire to slap him, and she realized even that was sexual. For him all relationships fell into patterns. You fell into propinquity or distance. Just as, for him, the histories in Herodotus clarified all societies. He assumed he was experienced in the ways of the world he had essentially left years earlier, struggling ever since to explore a half-invented world of the desert.
当他以那种姿态和她说话的时候，她恨透了他。她的眼神还是保持着礼貌，内心却想要掴他一记耳光。她经常想着要给他一记耳光。她甚至认为那样做是性感的。对他而言，所有的关系都变成了种种模式——不是接近就是保持距离。就像他对希罗多德的认识一样，他认为，希罗多德的历史著作阐明了所有的社会形态。他以为从这个本质上他多年来早已离开了这个世界，他已看透了其中的人情世故。多年来，他一直在挣扎着，努力探索沙漠中的半虚幻世界。
At Cairo aerodrome they loaded the equipment into the vehicles, her husband staying on to check the petrol lines of the Moth before the three men left the next morning. Madox went off to one of the embassies to send a wire. And he was going into town to get drunk, the usual final evening in Cairo, first at Madame Badin’s Opera Casino, and later to disappear into the streets behind the Pasha Hotel. He would pack before the evening began, which would allow him to just climb into the truck the next morning, hung over. So he drove her into town, the air humid, the traffic bad and slow because of the hour.
在开罗机场，他们把仪器设备装上飞机。在第二早上他们三个男人离开之前，她的丈夫将忙着检查那架蛾式飞机的巡逻路线。马多克斯到一个大使馆去拍电报，而他正打算到城里去喝一杯。通常他们在开罗的最后一顿晚餐，往往是先到葆琳太太的歌剧赌场，然后消失在帕夏饭店后面的街道。他要在夜晚来临之前离开，第二天早上才能爬进那辆卡车。于是他开车带她去城里。空气潮湿，加上这个时间的交通状况很差，车子开得很慢。
“It’s so hot. I need a beer. Do you want one?”
“No, I have to arrange for a lot of things in the next couple of hours. You’ll have to excuse me.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I don’t want to interfere.”
“I’ll have one with you when I come back.”
“In three weeks, right?”
“About that.”
“I wish I were going too.”
“天气这么热，我想喝点儿啤酒，你想要吗?”
“不，剩下的时间里我还得安排许多事呢，你可别见怪。”
“那好吧，”她说，“我不想干涉你。”
“我回来后再跟你喝一杯吧。”
“三个星期后，对吗?”
“差不多。”
“我希望我也能去。”
He said nothing in answer to that. They crossed the Bulaq Bridge and the traffic got worse. Too many carts, too many pedestrians who owned the streets. He cut south along the Nile towards the Semiramis Hotel, where she was staying, just beyond the barracks.
他没有答话。他们驶过布莱克桥后，交通状况变得更糟。道路上挤满了运货车和行人。他取道向南沿着尼罗河，驶向塞米拉米斯饭店，她住在那里，就在营地的对岸。
“You’re going to find Zerzura this time, aren’t you.”
“I’m going to find it this time.”
He was like his old self. He hardly looked at her on the drive, even when they were stalled for more than five minutes in one spot.
“这次你要去找泽祖拉，是吗?”
“这次我要找到它。”
他还是老样子，开车的时候几乎不看她一眼，甚至当他们因车子引擎熄火而在一个地方待了五分钟时，他仍然这样。
At the hotel he was excessively polite. When he behaved this way she liked him even less; they all had to pretend this pose was courtesy, graciousness. It reminded her of a dog in clothes. To hell with him. If her husband didn’t have to work with him she would prefer not to see him again.
在饭店里，他特别客气。当他这样做时，她对他的喜欢便少了几分。他们都得假装礼貌优雅，这使她想到一只穿了衣服的狗。见他的鬼。要不是因为她的丈夫得和他一起工作，她才不要再见到他。
He pulled her pack out of the rear and was about to carry it into the lobby.
“Here, I can take that.” Her shirt was damp at the back when she got out of the passenger seat.
他从车厢把她的行李拎出来，打算帮她扛进大厅去。
“放这儿吧，我拿得动。”当她从乘客座上下来时，她背苦的上衣已经湿了。
The doorman offered to take the pack, but he said, “No, she wants to carry it,” and she was angry again at his assumption. The doorman left them. She turned to him and he passed her the bag so she was facing him, both hands awkwardly carrying the heavy case in front of her.
门口服务生想帮她拎行李，但是他说：‘‘不她想自己拿。”因此她对他的自以为是感到很生气。服务生离开了。她转向他，他递给她一个袋子。她现在面对着他了。她笨拙地拎起两件沉重的行李。
“So. Good-bye. Good luck.”
“Yes. I’ll look after them all. They’ll be safe.”
She nodded. She was in shadow, and he, as if unaware of the harsh sunlight, stood in it.
“再见，祝你好运。”
“好的，我会照顾他们的，他们会平安无事的。”
她点点头。她站在阴凉处，他则站在太阳下，仿佛不觉得阳光酷热。
Then he came up to her, closer, and she thought for a moment he was going to embrace her. Instead he put his right arm forward and drew it in a gesture across her bare neck so her skin was touched by the whole length of his damp forearm.
他走向她，靠得更近了，她几乎以为他就要拥抱她了。但是他没有这样做，而是向她伸出右臂，擦过她的颈间。他整个汗湿的前臂掠过了她的肌肤。
“Good-bye.”
He walked back to the truck. She could feel his sweat now, like blood left by a blade which the gesture of his arm seemed to have imitated.
“再见。”
他走向那辆卡车。她现在仍能感觉到他的汗。他的手臂像是在模仿劈刀的姿势，而他的汗就像刀劈之后，流出的鲜血一样。
She picks up a cushion and places it onto her lap as a shield against him. “If you make love to me I won’t lie about it. If I make love to you I won’t lie about it.”
She moves the cushion against her heart, as if she would suffocate that part of herself which has broken free.
她拎起一个垫子，把它放在大腿上，像是防御他的盾牌：“如果你和我上床，我不会对此撒谎。如果我和你上床，我也不会撒谎。”
她把垫子挪到胸口，好像要让她那已经解放的部位感到窒息。
----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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