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Peggy Noonan lives in New York and writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal. This piece is taken from one of them. In it she reflects on her week and on life in the city. Writing less than a year away from the destruction of the World Trade Center, her thoughts are inevitably affected by that terrible event.
佩吉·諾南住在紐約，每周為《華爾街時報》撰寫專欄文章。本文即其中一篇。她在文章中反思了自己的一周以及這個城市的生活。撰寫此文時，離世貿(mào)中心被毀還不到一周年，她的思考不可避免地帶有這一可怕事件的陰影。
The Nightmare and the Dreams
-- How has Sept. 11 affected our national unconscious?
PEGGY NOONAN
1 It is hot in New York. It is so hot that once when I had a fever a friend called and asked me how I felt and I said, "You know how dry and hot paper feels when it's been faxed? That's how I feel." And how I felt all day yesterday. It is hot. We feel as if we've been faxed.
夢魘與夢想
――9·11事件如何影響了國民的潛意識？
佩吉·諾南
紐約真熱。天氣如此炎熱，因此，有一次我發(fā)高燒，朋友打電話來問候我感覺如何時，我就說，“你知道發(fā)傳真時紙張有多干燥多燙手嗎？那就是我的感覺。”昨天整整一天我都是這種感覺。太熱了。我們覺得自己被傳真過似的。
2 I found myself fully awake at 5 a.m. yesterday and went for a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. Now more than ever the bridge seems like a great gift to my city. It spans. In the changed landscape of downtown it is our undisturbed beauty, grown ever more stately each year. People seem to love it more now, or at least mention it more or notice it more. So do I. It's always full of tourists but always full of New Yorkers, too.
昨天清晨5點(diǎn)我就完全醒了，便去布魯克林大橋散步。如今這座大橋越發(fā)像是賜予我們這個城市的一件貴重禮物。它跨河而立。在業(yè)已改變的市區(qū)景觀中，它依舊是一道美麗的景致，年復(fù)一年，越發(fā)顯得氣勢非凡。如今，人們似乎更喜歡它，至少是更多地提到它、注意到它。本人也一樣。橋上總是擠滿游客，也總是擠滿紐約居民。
3 I am struck, as I always am when I'm on it, that I am walking on one of the engineering wonders of the world. And I was struck yesterday that I was looking at one of the greatest views in the history of man's creation, Manhattan at sunrise.
我在這座橋上行走時總是深感驕傲，因?yàn)樽约郝皆谑澜绻こ碳夹g(shù)一大奇跡之上；今天踏上這座橋，我同樣深感驕傲。昨天我深受感動，因?yàn)槲以谟^看有人類創(chuàng)造史以來最輝煌的景象之一：曼哈頓日出。
4 And all of it was free. A billionaire would pay billions to own this bridge and keep this view, but I and my jogging, biking and hiking companions have it for nothing. We inherited it. Now all we do is pay maintenance, in the form of taxes. We are lucky.
而且那是分文不花的。億萬富翁要想擁有這座橋，將這一景致占為己有，那得付出億萬錢財(cái)，而我以及那些或慢跑、或騎車、或徒步的同行者卻能免費(fèi)享用。我們繼承了這座大橋。如今我們所要做的只是以納稅的方式支付維修費(fèi)用。我輩實(shí)屬有幸。
5 As I rounded the entrance to the bridge on the Brooklyn side, a small moment added to my happiness. It was dawn, traffic was light, I passed a black van with smoked windows. In the driver's seat with the window down was a black man of 30 or so, a cap low on his brow, wearing thick black sunglasses. I was on the walkway that leads to the bridge; he was less than two feet away; we were the only people there. We made eye contact. "Good morning!" he said. "Good morning to you," I answered, and for no reason at all we started to laugh, and moved on into the day. Nothing significant in it except it may or may not have happened that way 30 or 40 years ago. I'm not sure the full charge of friendliness would have been assumed or answered. 我從布魯克林一邊上橋時，一件小事更增添了我的快樂。天剛亮，車輛稀少，我與一輛車窗熏黑的黑色面包車擦肩而過。窗開著的駕駛座里坐著一個30歲左右的黑人，帽子低低地壓在眉檐上，戴著一副厚厚的黑色太陽鏡。我走在通往大橋的人行道上，他距我不到兩英尺；周圍只有我們兩個人。我們目光對視。“早上好！”他說。“早上好，”我回答著，兩人隨即無緣無故地大笑起來，笑罷各人繼續(xù)各人的生活。這事并沒有什么特別的意義，只是30年或40年前是不是會發(fā)生這樣的事。我不知道那時會不會有這種完全友好的表示，又會不會得到回應(yīng)。
6 It made me think of something I saw Monday night on TV. They were showing the 1967 movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" with Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier and Spencer Tracy, about a young white woman and a young black man who fall in love, hope to marry and must contend with disapproving parents on both sides. It's held up well, and parts of it seemed moving in a way I didn't remember, and pertinent.
這讓我想起星期一晚上看的電視節(jié)目。他們播放的是1967年的影片《猜猜誰來赴晚餐》，由凱瑟琳·赫本、辛尼·普瓦提艾和斯潘塞·特雷西主演，講的是一個白人姑娘與一個黑人小伙子相愛，想要結(jié)婚，不得不與持反對態(tài)度的雙方父母做斗爭。影片拍得不錯，故事的部分細(xì)節(jié)似乎很感人，如何感人我記不清楚了，反正很切題。
7 There was a bit of dialogue that packed a wallop. Spencer Tracy as the father of the would-be bride is pressing Mr. Poitier on whether he has considered the sufferings their mixed-race children might have to endure in America. Has he thought about this? Has his fiancée? "She is optimistic," says Mr. Poitier. "She thinks every one of them will grow up to become president of the United States. I on the other hand would settle for secretary of state." Those words, written 35 years ago may have seemed dreamy then. But in its audience when the movie came out would likely have been a young, film-loving Army lieutenant named Colin Powell who, that year, was preparing for a second tour of duty in Vietnam. And now he is secretary of state. This is the land dreams are made of. Does that strike you as a corny thing to say and talk about? It is. That's another great thing.
有幾段對話讓人為之震動。飾演未來新娘父親的斯潘塞·特雷西質(zhì)問普瓦提艾先生，他是否想過他們混血的孩子在美國將會承受多少痛苦。他考慮過這點(diǎn)嗎？他的未婚妻考慮過這點(diǎn)嗎？“她很樂觀，”普瓦提艾先生說。“她認(rèn)為他們每個人都能長大成人當(dāng)上美國總統(tǒng)。而我則覺得他們能當(dāng)國務(wù)卿也就可以了。”這些寫于35年前的話當(dāng)時聽上去或許就像是癡人說夢。但影片上映時，觀眾中可能就有愛看電影的年輕的陸軍中尉科林·鮑威爾，當(dāng)年他正準(zhǔn)備第二次到越南去服役。如今他正擔(dān)任著國務(wù)卿一職。這是個夢想成真的國度。這么說你是否覺得有點(diǎn)老生常談？這又是一件美妙的事情。
