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相约星期二|Tuesdays with Morrie

The Third Tuesday We Talk About Regrets

属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 米奇-艾尔邦] 阅读:[16144]
The Second Tuesday We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself
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接下来的一个星期二,我同往常一样带了几袋食品--意大利玉米面食,土豆色拉,苹果馅饼--来到了莫里家。我还带了一样东西:一只索尼录音机。

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我想记住我们的谈话,我对莫里说。我想录下你的声音,等……以后再听。

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"等我死后。"

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别说死。

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他笑了。"米奇,我会死的,而且很快。"

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他打量着这台新机器。"这么大,"他说。我顿时有一种冒犯的感觉,这是记者们常有的,我开始意识到,朋友之间放上一台录音机确实会令人觉得异样和不自然,现在有那么多人想分享莫里的时间,我这么做是不是索取得太多了?

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听着,我拿回录音机说,我们不一定要使用这玩艺。如果它让你感到不自在--

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他拦住我,摇摇手指,又从鼻梁上取下眼镜,眼镜由一根绳子系着挂在脖子上。他正视着我说,"把它放下。"

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我放下了机器。

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"米奇,"他接着说,语气柔和了些,"你不明白。我想告诉你我的生活。我要趁我还能讲的时候把一切都告诉你。"

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他的声音变得更弱了。"我想有人来听我的故事。你愿意吗?"

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我点点头。

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我们静静地坐了片刻。

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"好吧,"他说,"按下录音了?"

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实情是,这台录音机不仅仅起着怀旧的作用,我即将失去莫里,所有的人都即将失去他--他的家庭,他的朋友,他以前的学生,他的同事,和他十分有感情的时事讨论小组的伙伴,他从前的舞友,所有的人。我想这些磁带或许能像照片或影带那样,不失时机地再从死亡箱里窃取到一些东西。

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但我也越来越清楚地意识到一他的勇气。他的幽默。他的耐心和他的坦然告诉了我--莫里看待人生的态度是和别人不一样的。那是一种更为健康的态度,更为明智的态度。而且他即将离我们而去。

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第一次在"夜线"节目中见到莫里时,我不禁在想,当他知道死亡已经临近时他会有什么样的遗憾。他悲叹逝去的友人?他会重新改变生活方式?暗地里我在想,要是我处在他的位置,我会不会满脑子都是苦涩的念头,抱憾即将失去的一切?抱憾没有吐露过的秘密?

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当我把这些想法告诉莫里时,他点点头。"这是每个人都要担心的,不是吗?如果今天是我的死期,我会怎么样?"他审视着我的脸,也许他看出了我难以作出选择的心理。我想到有那么一天,我在写新闻稿时突然倒在了工作台上,当救护人员把我抬走时,主编们却急着拿我的稿子。

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"米奇?"莫里问。

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我摇摇头,没吱声。莫里看出了我的矛盾心理。

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"米奇,"他说,"我们的文化不鼓励你去思考这类问题,所以你只有在临死前才会去想它。我们所关注的是一些很自私的事情:事业,家庭,赚钱,偿还抵押贷款,买新车,修取暖器--陷在永无止境的琐事里,就为了活下去。因此,我们不习惯退后一步,审视一下自己的生活问,就这些?这就是我需要的一切?是不是还缺点什么?"

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他停顿了一下。

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"你需要有人为你指点一下。生活不会一蹴而就的。"

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我知道他在说什么。我们在生活中都需要有导师的指引。

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而我的导师就坐在我的对面。

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好的,我暗想。如果我准备当那个学生,那我就尽力当个好学生。

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那天坐飞机回底特律时,我在黄拍纸簿上列出了一份目录,都是我们要涉及到的话题,从幸福到衰老,从生育到死亡,当然,这类题材的自助书有成千上万种,还不包括有线电视里的节目和九十美元一小时的咨询课。美国早已成了兜售自助玩艺的波斯集市了。

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但好像还是没有一个明确的答案,该去关心他人还是关心自己的心灵世界?该恢复传统的价值观还是摈弃传统?该追求成功还是追求淡泊?该说不还是该去做?

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我所知道的是:我的老教授莫里并没有去赶自助的时髦。他站在铁轨上,听着死亡列车的汽笛,心中十分清楚生活中最重要的是什么。

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我需要这份醒豁。每个感到困惑和迷惘的人都需要这份醒豁。

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"向我提问题,"莫里一直这么说。

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于是我列出了这份目录:

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死亡

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恐惧

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衰老

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欲望

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婚姻

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家庭

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社会

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原谅

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有意义的人生

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当我第四次回到西纽顿时,这份目录就在我的包里。那是八月下旬的一个星期二,洛根机场的中央空调出了故障,人们打着扇子。忿忿地从额头上擦去汗水,我看见的每一张脸都像吃人一般的可怕。

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大学的最后一年刚刚开始时,我已经修完了好几门社会学课程,离拿学位只差几个学分了。莫里建议我写一篇优等生毕业论文①。

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①论文通过后可获得荣誉学位。

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我?我问道。写什么?

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"你对什么感兴趣?"

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我们讨论来讨论去,最后决定写体育。我开始了为期一年的论文课程,写美国的橄榄球如何成为了一种仪式、成了大众宗教和麻醉剂。我没想到这是对我今后事业的一次实习和锻炼。我当时只知道它为我提供了与莫里一星期见一次面的机会。

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在他的帮助下,我到了春天便写出了一份长这一百十二页的论文,论文有资料,有注释,有引证,还用黑皮子作封面,装订得十分漂亮。我带着一个少年棒球手跑出他第一个本垒打后的那份自豪和得意,把它交到了莫里的手里。

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"祝贺你,"莫里说。   他在翻看我的论文时我好不得意。我打量着他的办公室:书橱、硬木地板、地毯、沙发。我心里在想,这屋里凡是能坐的地方我都坐过了。

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"米奇,"莫里扶正了一下眼镜,若有所思地说。"能写出这样的论文,也许我们该叫你回来读研究生。"

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好啊,我说。

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我暗暗在发笑,但这个建议一时倒也挺有诱惑力的。我既怕离开学校,又急着想离开它。反向力。我望着在看论文的莫里,心里忖度着外面的大千世界。

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I came back the next Tuesday. And for many Tuesdays that followed. I looked forward to these visits more than one would think, considering I was flying seven hundred miles to sit alongside a dying man. But I seemed to slip into a time warp when I visited Morrie, and I liked myself better when I was there. I no longer rented a cellular phone for the rides from the airport. Let them wait, I told myself, mimicking Morrie.

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The newspaper situation in Detroit had not improved. In fact, it had grown increasingly insane, with nasty confrontations between picketers and replacement workers, people arrested, beaten, lying in the street in front of delivery trucks.

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In light of this, my visits with Morrie felt like a cleansing rinse of human kindness. We talked about life and we talked about love. We talked about one of Morrie’s favorite subjects, compassion, and why our society had such a shortage of it. Before my third visit, I stopped at a market called Bread and Circus-I had seen their bags in Morrie’s house and figured he must like the food there-and I loaded up with plastic containers from their fresh food take-away, things like vermicelli with vegetables and carrot soup and baklava.

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When I entered Morrie’s study, I lifted the bags as if I’d just robbed a bank.

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"Food man!" I bellowed.

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Morrie rolled his eyes and smiled.

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Meanwhile, I looked for signs of the disease’s progression. His fingers worked well enough to write with a pencil, or hold up his glasses, but he could not lift his arms much higher than his chest. He was spending less and less time in the kitchen or living room and more in his study, where he had a large reclining chair set up with pillows, blankets, and specially cut pieces of foam rubber that held his feet and gave support to his withered legs. He kept a bell near his side, and when his head needed adjusting or he had to "go on the commode," as he referred to it, he would shake the bell and Connie, Tony, Bertha, or Amy-his small army of home care workerswould come in. It wasn’t always easy for him to lift the bell, and he got frustrated when he couldn’t make it work.

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I asked Morrie if he felt sorry for himself.

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"Sometimes, in the mornings," he said. "That’s when I mourn. I feel around my body, I move my fingers and my hands-whatever I can still move-and I mourn what I’ve lost. I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I’m dying. But then I stop mourning."

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Just like that?

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"I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear. On you-if it’s Tuesday. Because we’re Tuesday people."

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I grinned. Tuesday people.

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"Mitch, I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all."

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I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day. And if Morrie could do it, with such a horrible disease . . .

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"It’s only horrible if you see it that way," Morrie said. "It’s horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye."

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He smiled. "Not everyone is so lucky."

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I studied him in his chair, unable to stand, to wash, to pull on his pants. Lucky? Did he really say lucky?

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During a break, when Morrie had to use the bathroom, I leafed through the Boston newspaper that sat near his chair. There was a story about a small timber town where two teenage girls tortured and killed a seventy-three-year-old man who had befriended them, then threw a party in his trailer home and showed off the corpse. There was another story, about the upcoming trial of a straight man who killed a gay man after the latter had gone on a TV talk show and said he had a crush on him.

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I put the paper away. Morrie was rolled back insmiling, as always-and Connie went to lift him from the wheelchair to the recliner.

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You want me to do that? I asked.

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There was a momentary silence, and I’m not even sure why I offered, but Morrie looked at Connie and said, "Can you show him how to do it?"

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"Sure," Connie said.

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Following her instructions, I leaned over, locked my forearms under Morrie’s armpits, and hooked him toward me, as if lifting a large log from underneath. Then I straightened up, hoisting him as I rose. Normally, when you lift someone, you expect their arms to tighten around your grip, but Morrie could not do this. He was mostly dead weight, and I felt his head bounce softly on my shoulder and his body sag against me like a big damp loaf.

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"Ahhhn," he softly groaned.

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I gotcha, I gotcha, I said.

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Holding him like that moved me in a way I cannot describe, except to say I felt the seeds of death inside his shriveling frame, and as I laid him in his chair, adjusting his head on the pillows, I had the coldest realization that our time was running out.

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And I had to do something.

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It is my junior year, 1978, when disco and Rocky movies are the cultural rage. We are in an unusual sociology class at Brandeis, something Morrie calls "Group Process." Each week we study the ways in which the students in the group interact with one another, how they respond to anger, jealousy, attention. We are human lab rats. More often than not, someone ends up crying. I refer to it as the "touchy -feely" course. Morrie says I should be more open-minded.

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On this day, Morrie says he has an exercise for us to try. We are to stand, facing away from our classmates, and fall backward, relying on another student to catch us. Most of us are uncomfortable with this, and we cannot let go for more than a few inches before stopping ourselves. We laugh in embarrassment. Finally, one student, a thin, quiet, dark-haired girl whom I notice almost always wears bulky white fisherman sweaters, crosses her arms over her chest, closes her eyes, leans back, and does not flinch, like one of those Lipton tea commercials where the model splashes into the pool.

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For a moment, I am sure she is going to thump on the floor. At the last instant, her assigned partner grabs her head and shoulders and yanks her up harshly.

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"Whoa!" several students yell. Some clap. Morrie _finally smiles.

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"You see," he says to the girl, "you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too-even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling. "

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