介绍:
(点击右边黑三角下拉有中英配文）
English patient holds out his arm, the bruised veins horizontal, facing up, for the raft of m0rphine. As it floods him he hears Caravaggio drop the needle into the kidney-shaped enamel tin. He sees the grizzled form turn its back to him and then reappear, also caught, a citizen of m0rphia with him. He begin speaking again.
英国病人伸出手臂，抚平青肿的血管，抬起脸。他刚刚注射了大量的马啡。就在药力发作时，他听到卡拉瓦焦把针头扔进肾形搪瓷罐之中。他看到那个灰色的身影背对着他，然后又转过身来，也注射了马啡，一个与他住在一起的马啡公民。
I PROMISED to tell you how one falls in love.
A young man named Geoffrey Clifton had met a friend at Oxford who had mentioned what we were doing. He contacted me, got married the next day, and two weeks later flew with his wife to Cairo. They were on the last days of their honeymoon. That was the beginning of our story.
“我曾答应告诉你人是如何坠人情网的。
“一个名叫杰弗里•克利夫顿的年轻人在牛津见到了一位朋友，那人提到了我们目前的工作。他与我取得了联系，在第二天结婚，两个星期后与他的妻子一起飞往开罗。他们的蜜月快结束了。这是我们这个故事的开头。
When I met Katharine she was married. A married woman. Clifton climbed out of the plane and then, unexpected, for we had planned the expedition with just him in mind, she emerged. Khaki shorts, bony knees. In those days she was too ardent for the desert. I liked his youth more than the eagerness of his new young wife.
“在我遇到凯瑟琳时，她已经结了婚——一个有夫之妇。杰弗里•克利夫顿爬出飞机，她的出现出乎我们的意料，因为我们在计划勘探时，只考虑了杰弗里•克利夫顿的加入。她穿着卡其短裤，露出膝盖。在那些日子里，她对沙漠表现出无比的热情。我喜欢杰弗里•克利夫顿的青春活力，胜于喜欢他那年轻妻子的热忱。
He was our pilot, messenger, reconnaissance. He was the New Age, flying over and dropping codes of long coloured ribbon to advise us where we should be. He shared his adoration of her constantly. Here were four men and one woman and her husband in his verbal joy of honeymoon. They went back to Cairo and returned a month later, and it was almost the same.
他是我们的飞行员、通讯员和侦察员。他象征着新世纪——在天空中驾机而过，投下长彩带作标记，指点我们该往何处去。他对她赞不绝口。这里有四个男人、一位女士及其丈夫，身为丈夫的人不断用言语表达蜜月的快乐。他们返回开罗，一个月后又回来了，一切几乎都和上次一样。
She was quieter this time but he was still the youth. She would squat on some petrol cans, her jaw cupped in her hands, her elbows on her knees, staring at some constantly flapping tarpaulin, and Clifton would be singing her praises. We tried to joke him out of it, but to wish him more modest would have been against him and none of us wanted that.
她这一次安静多了，但他仍然充满青春活力。她会蹲在汽油桶上，双手撑着下巴，手肘撑着膝盖，盯着老是飘动的帆布，而杰弗里•克利夫顿便会在旁边赞美她。我们因而开他的玩笑，但是要他不过分赞美她无疑是和他唱反调，而我们都不愿意这样。
After that month in Cairo she was muted, read constantly, kept more to herself, as if something had occurred or she realized suddenly that wondrous thing about the human being, it can change. She did not have to remain a socialite who had married an adventurer. She was discovering herself. It was painful to watch, because Clifton could not see it, her self-education. She read everything about the desert. She could talk about Uweinat and the lost oasis, had even hunted down marginal articles.
“在开罗过了那一个月后，她变得沉默了，不停地看书，总是一个人独处，好像发生了什么事，或是她突然认识到人类的奇妙之处，即人是会变的。她不必再扮演一个嫁给勘探家的社交界人士。她正在认识自己。这让人看了心痛，但是杰弗里•克利夫顿没有察觉到她的自我教育。她阅读了所有关于沙漠的书籍，她能够谈论乌怀拿德和消失的绿洲，甚至搜集到鲜为人知的文章。
I was a man fifteen years older than she, you understand. I had reached that stage in life where I identified with cynical villains in a book. I don’t believe in permanence, in relationships that span ages. I was fifteen years older. But she was smarter. She was hungrier to change than I expected.
“我是个大她十五岁的男人。有一本书说活到了我这年纪，人就成了愤世嫉俗的坏蛋。我就是这样的人。我不相信永远，不相信超越年龄的感情。我比她大十五岁，但是她比我聪明，她比我更渴求改变。
What altered her during their postponed honeymoon on the Nile estuary outside Cairo? We had seen them for a few days — they had arrived two weeks after their Cheshire wedding. He had brought his bride along, as he couldn’t leave her and he couldn’t break the commitment to us. To Madox and me. We would have devoured him. So her bony knees emerged from the plane that day. That was the burden of our story. Our situation.
“在开罗郊外的尼罗河三角洲，他们度过了延期的蜜月。在这一段时间里，是什么改变了她?我们见到他们已有好几天了——他们在柴郡举行了婚礼，两个星期后到达这里。他带来了他的新娘，因为他既离不开她，又不能违反与我们的约定。要是违反了与马多克斯和我达成的约定，我们会活活吞下他。于是，她的双膝在那天露出了飞机。我们多难的故事由此开始。
Clifton celebrated the beauty of her arms, the thin lines of her ankles. He described witnessing her swim. He spoke about the new bidets in the hotel suite. Her ravenous hunger at breakfast.
“杰弗里•克利夫顿赞美了她优美的手臂，极细的脚踝。他描述了她游泳的情形。他提到了宾馆套房的新浴盆。她在早餐时狼吞虎咽。
To all that, I didn’t say a word. I would look up sometimes as he spoke and catch her glance, witnessing my unspoken exasperation, and then her demure smile. There was some irony. I was the older man. I was the man of the world, who had walked ten years earlier from Dakhla Oasis to the Gilf Kebir, who charted the Farafra, who knew Cyrenaica and had been lost more than twice in the Sand Sea. She met me when I had all those labels. Or she could twist a few degrees and see the labels on Madox. Yet apart from the Geographical Society we were unknown; we were the thin edge of a cult she had stumbled onto because of this marriage.
“对于这一切，我一语未发。他说话时，我偶尔会抬起头，与她的目光相遇。她瞥见了我的恼怒，继而露出矜持的一笑。略带嘲讽。我是个年长的男人，我是个见多识广的人。在十年前就从达卡拉绿洲徒步走到基尔夫•克尔比尔高地，我标绘了法拉夫拉，我了解昔兰尼加，并且不止两次在沙海中迷路。在她见到我的时候，我就有了这些经历。或者她也可以在马多克斯身上发现这些经历。可是，除了地理协会，没人知道我们。我们不值得崇拜。由于婚姻，她才得以与我们结识。
The words of her husband in praise of her meant nothing. But I am a man whose life in many ways, even as an explorer, has been governed by words. By rumours and legends. Charted things.
她丈夫赞美她的话毫无意义。我虽然是一个勘探家，语言却从各方面限制了我的生活。我的生活受制于谣言和传说。
Our expedition was about forty miles from Uweinat, and Madox and I were to leave alone on a reconnaissance. The Cliftons and the others were to remain behind. She had consumed all her reading and asked me for books. I had nothing but maps with me.
“That book you look at in the evenings?”
“Herodotus. Ahh. You want that?”
“I don’t presume. If it is private.”
“I have my notes within it. And cuttings. I need it with me.”
“It was forward of me, excuse me.”
“When I return I shall show it to you. It is unusual for me to travel without it.”
“我们的勘探地距乌怀拿德大约四十英里，我和马多克斯准备先行前往侦察情况。杰弗里•克利夫顿夫妇和其他人留在后面。她读完了她所有的书，于是找我借书。除了地图，我身上什么也没有带。”
“‘你晚上看的那本书呢?’
“‘希罗多德。噢，你想看吗?’
“‘我不敢贸然借阅。如果是你珍藏的书，那就算了。’
“‘里面有我的笔记，还有剪报。我常把它带在身边。”
“‘那我太冒昧了。对不起。’
“‘等我回来，我会给你看。对我来说，旅行的时候不带着它会不习惯。’
All this occurred with much grace and courtesy. I explained it was more a commonplace book, and she bowed to that. I was able to leave without feeling in any way selfish. I acknowledged her graciousness. Clifton was not there. We were alone. I had been packing in my tent when she had approached me. I am a man who has turned my back on much of the social world, but sometimes I appreciate the delicacy of manner.
“她自始至终非常客气有礼貌。我解释说那更像是一本札记，她信了。我离开时并不觉得自己很自私，我感激她的通情达理。杰弗里•克利夫顿不在，我们单独在一起。我正在我的帐篷里收拾行李，这时她走了进来。我这个人不太喜欢参与社交应酬，但有时也会欣赏优雅的举动。
----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
