July 31st, 1978
1978年7月31日
My darling McGeorge,
親愛的麥克喬治：
You said that things seemed clearer when they were written down.
你曾說過把事情寫下來，他們就會變得更清楚。
Well, here with a very boring letter in which I will try and put everything down so that you may read and re-read at horror at your folly in getting involved with me.
那麼這恐怕是一封很無聊的信，在信裡我會試著把所有的東西都寫下來，因此你會在恐懼中反覆閱讀，為愛上我而感到愚蠢。
Deep breath.
深呼吸。
To begin with I love you with a depth and passion that I have felt for no one else in this life and if it astonishes you it astonishes me as well.
首先，我如此深切熱烈的愛你，以至於我此生不會再愛上其他人，如果這讓你吃驚，它同樣讓我覺得不可思議。
Not, I hasten to say, because you are not worth loving.
我必須要說，並不是你不值得去愛。
Far from it.
遠不是如此。
It's just that, first of all, I swore I would not get involved with another woman.
只是，首先我發誓我不會再愛上另外一個女人。
Secondly, I have never had such a feeling before and it is almost frightening.
其次，我從未有過這樣的感覺，因而感到害怕。
Thirdly, I would never have thought it possible that another human being could occupy my waking (and sleeping) thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.
第三，我從未想過會有一個人會佔據我所有的時間（包括睡覺的時候）讓我無時無刻不在想她。
Fourthly, I never thought that – even if one was in love – one could get so completely besotted with another person, so that a minute away from them felt like a thousand years.
第四，我從未想過會有人，即使是處於戀愛中的人，會如此迷戀對方，以至於分開哪怕一分鐘都像相隔千年。
Fifthly, I never hoped, aspired, dreamed that one could find everything one wanted in one person.
第五，我從未希望、渴求、幻想過能在另外一個人身上得到我想要的一切。
I was not such an idiot as to believe this was possible.
我還沒有愚蠢到認為這是可能的。
Yet in you I have found everything I want: you are beautiful, gay, giving, gentle, idiotically and deliciously feminine, sexy, wonderfully intelligent and wonderfully silly as well.
但是在你身上我找到了我想要的一切：你不但溫柔美麗，還性格隨和樂於助人，你性感撩人、聰明機靈中還帶著點傻裡傻氣的天真。
I want nothing else in this life than to be with you, to listen and watch you (your beautiful voice, your beauty), to argue with you, to laugh with you, to show you things and share things with you, to explore your magnificent mind, to explore your wonderful body, to help you, protect you, serve you, and bash you on the head when I think you are wrong …
我這輩子只想和你在一起，聆聽你的動人聲音，欣賞你的美麗容顏，與你同甘共苦，分享生活點滴，探索你的浩渺思緒和曼妙身姿，幫助你，保護你，服務你，在我認為你犯錯了的時候念叨你……
Not to put too fine a point on it I consider that I am the only man outside mythology to have found the crock of gold at the rainbow's end.
坦白來說，我認為我是唯一一個在神話中的彩虹盡頭發現了金匣子的人。
But – having said all that – let us consider things in detail.
但是說完這些，讓我們從細節角度考慮。
Don't let this become public but … well, I have one or two faults.
不要公開這件事……但是確實，我會犯一回兩回錯。
Minor ones, I hasten to say.
甚至更多小錯誤，我必須承認。
For example, I am inclined to be overbearing.
比如說，我有時候會有些蠻橫。
I do it for the best possible motives (all tyrants say that) but I do tend (without thinking) to tread people underfoot.
我這麼做的目的是好的（所有的暴君都這麼說），但是我確實容易（不加思考）忽略別人的想法。
You must tell me when I am doing it to you, my sweet, because it can be a very bad thing in a marriage.
親愛的，當我對你這麼做的時候你一定要告訴我，因為這會是一段婚姻中非常糟糕的事情。
Right. Second blemish.
那麼，第二個缺點。
This, actually, is not so much a blemish of character as a blemish of circumstance.
這其實是一個形勢的瑕疵而不是一個人性格上的瑕疵。
Darling I want you to be you in your own right and I will do everything I can to help you in this.
親愛的我希望你有做自己的權利，為此我會盡我所能來幫助你。
But you must take into consideration that I am also me in my own right and that I have a headstart on you …
但同樣的你也要考慮到我也有做自己的權利，而且我比你有優勢……
What I am trying to say is that you must not feel offended if you are sometimes treated simply as my wife.
我想說的是，如果有的時候我怠慢了你，你千萬不要氣惱。
Always remember that what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
要時刻記住失之東隅，收之桑榆。
But I am an established 'creature' in the world, and so – on occasions – you will have to live in my shadow.
然而我在世界上算是一個"知名"人物，有時你可能會活在我的光環之下。
Nothing gives me less pleasure than this but it is a fact of life that has to be faced.
這是讓我最不開心的一件事，但是我們卻都要面對。
Third (and very important and nasty) blemish: jealousy.
第三個缺點（非常重要和嚴重）：嫉妒。
I don't think you know what jealousy is (thank God) in the real sense of the word.
我認為你並不知道嫉妒的真正含義（感謝上帝）。
I know that you have felt jealousy over Lincoln's wife and child, but this is what I call normal jealousy, and this – to my regret – is not what I've got.
我知道你肯定羨慕過林肯的妻子和孩子，這種是我所說的一般嫉妒，但這很遺憾也是我沒能得到的。
What I have got is a black monster that can pervert my good sense, my good humour and any goodness that I have in my make-up.
我得到的是一個能夠扭曲我的想法、幽默和善良的邪惡怪物。
It is really a Jekyll and Hyde situation … my Hyde is stronger than my good sense and defeats me, hard though I try.
這是一個雙重人格的情況……我的邪惡面要比我的善良面更強，並且打敗了我，儘管我盡力反抗也於事無補。
As I told you, I have always known that this lurks within me, but I could control it, and my monster slumbered and nothing happened to awake it.
正如我告訴你的一樣，我一直知道這些潛伏在我心中，我能控制它，我內心的怪物正蟄伏，卻沒有任何事物能夠喚醒它。
Then I met you and I felt my monster stir and become half awake when you told me of Lincoln and others you have known, and with your letter my monster came out of its lair, black, irrational, bigoted, stupid, evil, malevolent.
之後我遇見了你，我心中的怪物甦醒了，並且在你告訴我林肯以及其他你認識的人的時候就已經半醒了，隨著你的信，我心中那黑暗的、不理性的、偏執的、愚蠢的、邪惡的怪物走出了它的獸穴。
You will never know how terribly corrosive jealousy is; it is a physical pain as though you had swallowed acid or red hot coals.
你不會知道惡毒的嫉妒會有多麼糟糕，那像是喝下迷幻藥或者是燒紅煤塊帶來的痛。
It is the most terrible of feelings.
這是最糟糕的感覺。
But you can't help it – at least I can't, and God knows I've tried.
但是你卻無能為力——至少我不行，上帝知道我嘗試過了。
I don't want any ex-boyfriends sitting in church when I marry you.
當我迎娶你的時候，我可不想有任何一位男朋友坐在教堂裡面。
On our wedding day I want nothing but happiness, both for you and me, and I know I won't be happy if there is a church full of your ex-conquests.
在我們結婚的那天，我只希望你我都幸福，但是我知道，如果教堂裡都是你的前任，我是不會高興的。
When I marry you I will have no past, only a future: I don't want to drag my past into our future and I don't want you to do it, either.
當我娶你的時候，我們就忘掉過去，只看到未來：我不想我的過去介入我們的未來，我同樣不希望你的過去介入。
Remember I am jealous of you because I love you.
記住，我嫉妒你，是因為我愛你。
You are never jealous of something you don't care about.
你不會嫉妒任何你不關心的事。
O. K. enough about jealousy.
好了，關於嫉妒就到這裡。
Now let me tell you something.
現在我要告訴你一些事情。
I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean.
我看過無數次日出日落，在大地上，森林和群山都被籠罩在光芒之中，在大海上，為五彩的雲朵增添上一抹血橘色，在無垠的大海上划進劃出。
I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans' feathers.
我看過無數次月亮：滿月如金幣，寒月潔白似冰屑，新月宛如小天鵝的羽毛。
I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously.
我看過大海平靜如止，顏色如緞，或藍如翠鳥，或如玻璃般透明，抑或如烏黑褶皺的泡沫，沉重而危險的翻動著。
I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover's breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers.
我感受過來自南極的烈風，寒冷呼嘯著像一個走失的兒童；感受過如愛人呼吸般的柔風；摻雜著苦澀的鹹味和海草死亡氣息的海風；彌散著森林大地肥沃土壤氣息和千萬種花香的山風。
Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten.
狂風濤海如同酵母發酵起沫，或使海水輕拍海岸像小貓一般。
I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.
我了解寧靜：一口新井中寒冷又樸實的寧靜；一個深洞中無情冷酷的寧靜；炎熱迷離的午後萬物被炎炎烈日催眠的寧靜；一曲美妙音樂結束的寧靜。
I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones.
我聽過夏日蟬鳴如芒在骨。
I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies.
我聽過樹蛙在無數螢火蟲點亮的森林中演奏著如巴赫管弦樂般美妙複雜的旋律。
I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea.
我聽過啄羊鸚鵡飛躍冰川叫喊著，像老人呻吟著走向大海。
I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather.
我聽過聲嘶力竭的街道商販成交皮草生意的叫嚷，好像是對他們鎏金妻子的讚美；響尾蛇清脆卻不連貫的警告聲；成群結隊的蝙蝠的刺耳叫聲；馬鹿在齊膝的紫石楠中的咆哮。
I have heard Wolves baying at a winter's moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries.
我聽過狼群在冬夜對月長嚎，紅吼候嘯震山林。
I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes.
我聽過珊瑚群中異彩斑斕的魚群發出的吱吱、呱呱和呢喃。
I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top.
我見過蜂鳥如同寶石一般圍繞著開紅花的樹閃爍，如陀螺一般哼鳴作響。
I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails.
我見過飛魚如水銀一般穿越藍色海浪，用他們的尾翼在海面上劃下銀色痕跡。
I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky.
我見過琵鷺像朱紅的旗幟從鳥巢飛往鳥群。
I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath.
我見過漆黑洳焦的鯨魚，在如矢車菊般的藍色海洋中停留，呼吸間創造了一個凡爾賽宮的噴泉。
I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth.
我見過陽光熨展蝴蝶的翅膀，它浮現、停頓、又扇動。
I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass.
我見過鮮如火焰的老虎在長草之中親暱。
I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil's hoof.
我曾被憤怒的烏鴉俯衝攻擊，如魔鬼的爪牙黑暗順滑。
I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins.
我曾躺在溫暖如牛奶、柔順如絲綢的水中，任一群海豚在我身邊嬉戲。
I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things …
我曾遇到過無數生靈，曾看過無數美景……
All this I did without you.
這一切卻未與你共度。
This was my loss.
這都會是我的損失。
All this I want to do with you.
這些事情我都想與你共度。
This will be my gain.
這一切才會是我的收穫。
All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company,
為了有你一分鐘的陪伴，我願放棄這一切，
for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.
為你的笑聲，你的聲音，你的眼睛，頭髮，嘴唇，身體，尤其是你善良又令人驚喜的心，那是只有我有權利開採的寶藏。