遗情书 by ＜the time traveler's wife＞

                
                
早上读里面遗书的时候忍不住哭了，总觉得这样的文字一定要自己亲手翻一遍。翻的过程中一直在流泪，好像写遗书的那个是我自己。期间有些语序用词作了调整，部分内容作了添加。
As I write this, I am sitting at my desk in the back bedroom looking out at your studio across the backyard full of blue evening snow, everything is slick and crusty with ice, and it is very still. It’s one of those winter evenings when the coldness of every single thing seems to slow down time, like the narrow center of an hourglass which time itself flows through,but slowly, slowly. I have the feeling, very familiar to me when I am out of time but almost never otherwise, of being buoyed up by time, floating effortlessly on its surface like a fat lady swimmer. I had a sudden urge, tonight, here in the house by myself (you are at Alicia’s recital at St. Lucy’s) to write you a letter. I suddenly wanted to leave something, for after. I think that time is short, now. I feel as though all my reserves, of energy, of pleasure, of duration, are thin, small. I don’t feel capable of continuing very much longer. I know you know.
写这封信的时候，我正坐在后卧室的书桌旁望着你的工作室，后院夜色中是幽蓝的积雪。万物都披上光洁的冰衣，寂静无声。这是无数个冬夜中的一个，每个事物上都包裹了严寒，时光仿佛慢了下来，仿佛是在沙漏狭小的缝隙中穿越，那么那么缓慢。一种很熟悉的感觉，一种离开正常时间时才能体会到的感觉。身体被时间托起来，像是一个正在夏日里游泳的肥妇人，轻而易举地漂浮到水面上。今夜，独我一人（你正在圣路丝教堂，听爱丽西亚的独奏音乐会），突然有种冲动，想要给你写封信。我想为你留下些什么，在离开后。时间越来越少了，我所有的精力、快乐、耐性，都变细了，变少了。恐怕，我无法维持太久了。我想，你是明白的。
If you are reading this, I am probably dead. (I say probably because you never know what circumstances may arise; it seems foolish and self-important to just declare one’s own death as an out-and-out fact.) About this death of mine—I hope it was simple and clean and unambiguous. I hope it didn’t create too much fuss. I’m sorry. (This reads like a suicide note.Strange.) But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have clutched every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins.
当你读到这封信的时候，只怕我已经死了（说只怕，是因为谁都不知道还会发生什么，你明白的，直截了当地宣告死亡，看起来愚蠢又狂妄）。说到死亡，我希望它干净简单，毫无悬念，太多的纷乱非我所愿。我很抱歉（奇怪了，这看上去像是自杀者的呢喃）。可是，你是知道的，如果还有一线希望，如果还能继续留在这个世界上，我会死死抓住每一秒。只是，这一次，死亡真的来了，它要带走我，就像妖怪要掳走孩子，我无力反抗。
Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you.
克莱尔，我想再一次对你说，我爱你。我们的爱，是苍茫苦海中指航的明灯，是钢索步行者身下的安全网，是我怪诞生活中仅存的真实，是我唯一能够交付的信任。就在今夜，我想，我对你的爱，比我自己本身更深的贪恋着这世界。我的爱仿佛可以超越生死，可以被留下来，包围你，追随你，抱紧你。
I hate to think of you waiting. I know that you have been waiting for me all your life,always uncertain of how long this patch of waiting would be. Ten minutes, ten days. A month. What an uncertain husband I have been, Clare, like a sailor, Odysseus alone and buffeted by tall waves, sometimes wily and sometimes just a plaything of the gods. Please,Clare. When I am dead. Stop waiting and be free. Of me—put me deep inside you and then go out in the world and live. Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element. I have given you a life of suspended animation. I don’t mean to say that you have done nothing. You have created beauty, and meaning, in your art, and Alba, who is so amazing, and for me: for me you have been everything.
After my mom died she ate my father up completely. She would have hated it. Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn’t understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.　
你知道吗，我最恨想起你的等待。你一生都在等我，一次又一次，你从来不知要等多久，十分钟，十天，还是一整个月。克莱尔，一直以来，我都不是个可靠的丈夫，像神话里那独自一人去远航的奥德赛，海浪是那么狂暴，我只能被他肆意蹂躏，有时面对的是人类狡诈的诡计，有时只是众神寂寞时的小把戏。克莱尔，我请求你，恳求你。当我离去后，别再等我，请你，自由的生活。至于我，就把它埋在心灵的深处吧，然后去外面的世界，好好生活，好好爱这个世界，爱活在这个世界里的自己。请你自由的、毫无阻力的穿梭在这个世界，仿佛它和你原本就是一体的。一直以来，我带给你的都是毫无生气的日子。我并不是说你无所作为，恰恰相反，你在艺术上走了那么远，你的双手创造出各种美丽，你亲自赋予它们灵魂；你给我们带来了了不起的爱尔巴。对于我，你就是我的一切。
母亲去世以后，父亲被她吞噬成了一副空壳。如果她能够知道，她也会恨自己的。他生活中的每分每秒都被她离开后的空缺烙下印记，他的一举一动都失了标准，因为她不在那儿作他衡量的依据。小的时候，我并不明白，可是现在，我知道了，有些人他们一直不曾离去，就像受损的神经，就像死神之鸟，缺失却深深存在。
If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it. But I hope, I have this vision of you walking unencumbered, with your shining hair in the sun. I have not seen this with my eyes, but only with my imagination, that makes pictures, that always wanted to paint you,shining; but I hope that this vision will be true, anyway.
我知道我很任性，因为如果没有你，恐怕我也不知道该怎么活。但是，我希望看见你无拘无束的在阳光下漫步，你的长发绚烂生辉。我没有幸运到可以亲眼看见这样的你，全凭想象，这样的画面，它自然而然存在于脑海里，挥散不去，我一直想照着它画下灿烂的你，但我是如此希望，这一切终能成真。
Clare, there is one last thing, and I have hesitated to tell you, because I’m superstitiously afraid that telling might cause it to not happen (I know: silly) and also because I have just been going on about not waiting and this might cause you to wait longer than you have ever waited before. But I will tell you in case you need something, after.
　克莱尔，还有最后一件事情，我一直犹豫是否要告诉你。我知道我很愚蠢，可是我很怕泄漏天机反倒会阻碍它的发生。何况，我刚刚告诉你别再等待，只是，恐怕这次你的等待会比任何一次都要漫长。可是我还是想要告诉你（即便有些自私），也许你会需要它。
Last summer, I was sitting in Kendrick’s waiting room when I suddenly found myself in a dark hallway in a house I don’t know. I was sort of tangled up in a bunch of galoshes, and it smelled like rain. At the end of the hall I could see a rim of light around a door, and so I went very slowly and very quietly to the door and looked in. The room was white, and intensely lit with morning sun. At the window, with her back to me, sat a woman, wearing a coral-colored cardigan sweater, with long white hair all down her back. She had a cup of tea beside her, on a table. I must have made some little noise, or she sensed me behind her...she turned and saw me, and I saw her, and it was you, Clare, this was you as an old woman, in the future. It was sweet, Clare, it was sweet beyond telling, to come as though from death to hold you, and to see the years all present in your face. I won’t tell you any more, so you can imagine it, so you can have it unrehearsed when the time comes, as it will, as it does come. We will see each other again, Clare. Until then, live, fully, present in the world, which is so beautiful.
去年夏天，我坐在肯德里克的候诊室，突然之间，自己到了一间陌生的屋子里，漆黑的过道，脚边是一小堆橡胶靴子，嗅上去有雨的味道。在过道的尽头，有道门，门边闪着依稀的微光。我慢慢走到门边，朝里张望一切都是那么安静。早晨的阳光是那样激烈，房间里一片亮白。窗边上，一位女士背对我坐着，她身上是珊瑚色的开襟衫，一头白发散在背上，身边的桌子上放着一杯茶。我想一定是我发出了声响，或者她已感觉到我在她身后……她转过身，看见了我，我也看见了她。那是你，克莱尔，是年老的你，是未来的你。一切多么甜美，克莱尔，比我形容的还要美。就好像我自己从死神手里挣脱出来，抱着你，看着你脸上岁月落下的痕迹。我不能说再多了，这样你就可以去想象它，当那刻到来的时候，它会如同最甜蜜的惊喜，相信我，那一定会到来的。克莱尔，我们还会再见的。在那之前，好好的活在这个世界上，活在一切美丽中。
It’s dark, now, and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.　
现在，天黑了，我也疲了。我爱你，永永远远。时间，微不足道。