Gerald Durrell, a respected conservationist wrote a love letter to his future wife, and then one of his students taking her PhD at Duke University, Lee McGeorge.
傑拉德達雷爾，英國物種保護學家，給未來妻子的一封信。
對這封著名的情書，我曾做過一個節選版，見《沒有你，萬般精彩皆枉然》。
偶遇抖森在Letters Live 節目中朗讀此信的全文，又忍不住要做一個完整注釋版。
董卿朗誦了其中最美的部分，附於文末。
July 31st, 1978
My darling McGeorge,
You said that things seemed clearer when they were written down. Well, herewith is a very boring letter in which I will try and put everything down so that you may read and re-read it in horror at your folly in getting involved with me. Deep breath.
【注釋: 寫這封信的初衷:文字寫下來的事情才會更清晰。
herewith adv. 隨同此信
folly 蠢行，或許因為年齡的差距，作者戲稱愛上他可能是令人害怕的蠢行。】
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. Not I hasten to say, because you are not worth loving. Far from it. It’s just that, first of all, I swore I would not get involved with another woman. Secondly, I have never had such a feeling before and it is almost frightening. 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.
【注釋:我深切地愛著你，如果這使你吃驚，這也同樣使我吃驚。不是你不值得愛，而是我不知道我還能這樣忘我地愛著一個人。
astonish v. 使吃驚;
hasten v. 趕緊，（趕緊解釋）】
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.
【注釋: 沒想到，我找到了一日不見如隔三秋的趕腳。
besot v.使沉醉，迷戀。】
Fifthly, I never hoped, aspired, dreamed that one could find everything one wanted in a person. I was not such an idiot as to believe this was possible. 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. 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 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… 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.
【注釋: 我曾認為不可能在另一個人身上能找到我所渴望的一切，但這一信念在你身上被顛覆。
坦白來說，我認為我是神話傳說之外唯一的一個在彩虹盡頭發現了金瓦罐的人。
mythology n.神話，crock n.瓦罐 】
But — having said all that — let us consider things in detail. Don’t let this become public but… well, I have one or two faults. Minor ones, I hasten to say. For example, I am inclined to be overbearing. I do it for the best possible motives (all tyrants say that) but I do tend (without thinking) to tread people underfoot. You must tell me when I am doing it to you, my sweet, because it can be a very bad thing in a marriage.
【注釋: overbearing a.專橫的; tyrant n.專治者;
坦承自己是個專橫之人，儘管並無惡意，犯病時請告訴我，因為這有害婚姻。】
Right. Second blemish. This, actually, is not so much a blemish of character as a blemish of circumstance. Darling I want you to be you in your own right, and I will do everything I can to help you in this. But you must take into consideration that I am also me in my own right and that I have a headstart on you… what I am trying to say is that you must not feel offended if you are sometimes treated simply as my wife. Always remember that what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts. But I am an established 『creature』 in the world, and so — on occasions — you will have to live in my shadow. Nothing gives me less pleasure than this but it is a fact of life to be faced.
【注釋: "缺點": "自我"，希望你做你自己，也允許我做我自己，如果有時因此怠慢了你，不要氣惱。
blemish 缺點。headstart n. 搶先，領先，更勝一籌。
swings n.鞦韆，roundbout n.旋轉木馬
what you lose on swings, you gain in roundabouts. 失之東隅，得之桑榆 】
Third (and very important and nasty) blemish: jealousy. I don’t think you know what jealousy is (thank God) in the real sense of the word. I know 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. What I have got is a black moster that can pervert my good sense, my good humour and any goodness that I have in my make-up. It is really a Jekyll and Hyde situation… my Hyde is stronger than my good sense and defeats me, hard though I try. As I told you, I have always known that this lurks within me, but I couldn’t control it, and my monster slumbered and nothing happened to awake it. 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. You will never know how terribly corrosive jealousy is; it is a physical pain as though you had swallowed acid or red hot coals. It is the most terrible of feelings. But you can’t help it — at least I can’t, and God knows I』ve tried. I don’t want any ex-boyfriends sitting in church when I marry you. On our wedding day, I want nothing but happiness, for both you and me, and I know I won’t be happy if there is a church full of your ex-conquests. 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. Remember I am jealous of you because I love you. You are never jealous of something you don’t care about. OK, enough about jealousy.
【注釋: 缺點:嫉妒，嫉妒是我的一個討厭的缺點，但我嫉妒你，是因為我愛你。你不會嫉妒任何你不關心的事。
jealousy n.嫉妒，羨慕 pervert v. 侵蝕，敗壞 Jekyll and Hyde situation n.俚.善惡雙重人格】
Now, let me tell you something… 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 multi-coloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans』 feathers.
【注釋: 分享生命中的美妙。我見過千般日出日落，千般明月…
harvest moon: 滿月
winter moon:寒月
new moon: 新月】
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.
【注釋:我見過的大海…
kingfisher n.翠鳥
crumpled adj. 弄皺的
ponderously adv.沉重地
murderously adv. 兇殘地 】
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. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten.
【注釋: 我感受過不同的風…
bleak adj. 寒冷的，刺骨的
wailing adj. 哀嚎的
astringent adj. 收斂的
churn v.攪拌
yeast n.酵母
lap v. 舔，輕拍 】
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 hypnotized and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.
【注釋: 我見識過不同的寧靜，…
earthy adj.土質的，樸實的
stony adj. 多石頭的，冷酷的
drugged adj. 被麻醉了的
hyponotized adj. 被催眠了的 】
I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. 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. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red Howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes.
【注釋: 我聽過的各種聲音，…
cicada n.蟬
stitch v&n 針刺
orchestration n. 管弦樂
emerald n.綠寶石
firefly n. 螢火蟲
kea n. 食肉鸚鵡
hoarse a. 嘶啞的
seal n.海豹
sleek adj. 有光澤的，光彩照人
rattlesnake n. 響尾蛇
crisp staccato 清脆但不連貫
squeak n.吱吱的叫聲
belling roar 警鈴般的咆哮
heather n. 石楠(植)
bay v.吠，叫
red howler 紅吼猴
purr and grunt 吱吱咕咕聲
reef n. 礁，暗礁 】
I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things…
【注釋: 我見過的千種生靈和千般美景，…
hummingbird n.蜂鳥
opals n.貓眼石，寶石
top n. 陀螺
skitter v. 掠過水麵
quicksilver n. 水銀
spoonbills n.琵鷺，一種有扁平長嘴的鳥
roost v.棲息
cornflower blue sea 矢車菊般藍色的海洋
Versailles 凡爾塞宮
dive-bomb v. 俯衝襲擊 】
but –
All this I did without you. This was my loss.
All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.
All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, 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.
【注釋: 所有這些，我都願欣然放棄，只要能換來一分鐘你的陪伴。】
董卿朗誦其中的片段：