英文版来源： http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitude
这是一篇《天天用英语》推荐的文章，当时我翻译的时候，留下了深刻的印象。这里面有我想要的生活，或者说我遐想中的生活，文字很质朴平淡，但是我很感动。
At eighty-seven, I am solitary. I live by myself on one floor of the 1803 farmhouse where my family has lived since the Civil War. After my grandfather died, my grandmother Kate lived here alone. Her three daughters visited her. In 1975, Kate died at ninety-seven, and I took over. Forty-odd years later, I spend my days alone in one of two chairs. From an overstuffed blue chair in my living room I look out the window at the unpainted old barn, golden and empty of its cows and of Riley the horse. I look at a tulip; I look at snow. In the parlor’s mechanical chair, I write these paragraphs and dictate letters. I also watch television news, often without listening, and lie back in the enormous comfort of solitude. People want to come visit, but mostly I refuse them, preserving my continuous silence. Linda comes two nights a week. My two best male friends from New Hampshire, who live in Maine and Manhattan, seldom drop by. A few hours a week, Carole does my laundry and counts my pills and picks up after me. I look forward to her presence and feel relief when she leaves. Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.
在87岁时，我是独居的。我一个人住在1803农舍的一楼，从南北战争以来我们家一直住在那里。在我祖父死后，我的祖母Kate独自一人居住。她的3个女儿会回来拜访她。1975年，97岁的Kate死了，然后我接管了这里。之后的四十几年，我在两张椅子中间生活。在我的起居室，从垫得又软又厚的蓝色椅子上，我看着窗外未上漆的老的谷仓，它是金色的，没有牛和叫Riley的马。我看着郁金香；我看着雪。在客厅的手工椅上，我写下这些段落和口述的信。我也看电视新闻，经常不听，在这个巨大的舒适的房子里背靠在椅子上。人们想要来拜访，但是大多数我都拒绝了，保留我持续的沉默。琳达一周来两个晚上。我最好的两个男性朋友来自新罕布什尔州，他们住在缅因州和曼哈顿，很少顺便拜访。一周就几个小时，卡罗尔来帮我洗衣服并且支付账单并且收拾我。当她走的时候，我盼望她来并且感觉很安慰。有的时候，特别在晚上，房子失去了它柔软的力量，被寂寞接管了。当孤独回来时我就很高兴。
Born in 1928, I was an only child. During the Great Depression, there were many of us, and Spring Glen Elementary School was eight grades of children without siblings. From time to time I made a friend during childhood, but friendships never lasted long. Charlie Axel liked making model airplanes out of balsa wood and tissue. So did I, but I was clumsy and dripped cement onto wing paper. His models flew. Later, I collected stamps, and so did Frank Benedict. I got bored with stamps. In seventh and eighth grade, there were girls. I remember lying with Barbara Pope on her bed, fully clothed and apart while her mother looked in at us with anxiety. Most of the time, I liked staying alone after school, sitting in the shadowy living room. My mother was shopping or playing bridge with friends; my father added figures in his office; I daydreamed.
我生于1928年，只是个小孩。在大萧条期间，春天格伦小学8个年级我们大部分是没有兄弟姐妹的孩子。有的时候，我在童年时期交了一个朋友，但是友谊从来不会维持很长。查理喜欢用软木和薄纱来制作模型飞机。我也是，但是我很笨拙，会把胶水弄在机翼上。他的模型可以飞。之后，我集邮，弗兰克也集邮。我厌倦了邮票。在7年级和8年级，有女孩子了。我记得我挨着芭芭拉躺在她的床上，穿着衣服，并且在她母亲惊恐看着我们的时候，我们马上保持距离。大多数时候，放学后我喜欢单独待着，坐在暗黑的起居室里。我的母亲与朋友购物或者玩桥牌；我的父亲在他的办公室里补充数据；我做白日梦。
In summer, I left my Connecticut suburb to hay with my grandfather, on this New Hampshire farm. I watched him milk seven Holsteins morning and night. For lunch I made myself an onion sandwich—a thick slice between pieces of Wonder Bread. I’ve told about this sandwich before.
在夏天，我离开了康奈迪克州的乡下去和我的祖父割草晒干，在这个新罕布什尔州的农场。我看着他从早到晚给乳牛挤奶。中午我给自己做了一个洋葱三明治-在两块面包之间有一块薄片。我之前就说这是三明治。
At fifteen, I went to Exeter for the last two years of high school. Exeter was academically difficult and made Harvard easy, but I hated it—five hundred identical boys living two to a room. Solitude was scarce, and I labored to find it. I took long walks alone, smoking cigars. I found myself a rare single room and remained there as much as I could, reading and writing. Saturday night, the rest of the school sat in the basketball arena, deliriously watching a movie. I remained in my room in solitary pleasure.
在15岁，我去了爱珂赛特上了高中最后两年。爱珂赛特在学术上很难，使得上哈佛变简单了，但是我恨它——500个相同的男孩2个人一间房间。寂寞是很可怕的，我不自然地发现了它。我长时间单独走路，抽烟。我为自己找了一个稀有的单人房间并且待在那里，阅读和写作。周六晚上，学校剩下的人坐在篮球场里，极其兴奋地看一场电影。我呆在房间里享受孤独的快乐。
At college, dormitory suites had single and double bedrooms. For three years, I lived in one bedroom crowded with everything I owned. During my senior year, I managed to secure a single suite: bedroom and sitting room and bath. At Oxford, I had two rooms to myself. Everybody did. Then I had fellowships. Then I wrote books. Finally, to my distaste, I had to look for a job. With my first wife–people married young back then; we were twenty and twenty-three–I settled in Ann Arbor, teaching English literature at the University of Michigan. I loved walking up and down in the lecture hall, talking about Yeats and Joyce or reading aloud the poems of Thomas Hardy and Andrew Marvell. These pleasures were hardly solitary, but at home I spent the day in a tiny attic room, working on poems. My extremely intelligent wife was more mathematical than literary. We lived together and we grew apart. For the only time in my life, I cherished social gatherings: Ann Arbor’s culture of cocktail parties. I found myself looking forward to weekends, to crowded parties that permitted me distance from my marriage. There were two or three such occasions on Friday and more on Saturday, permitting couples to migrate from living room to living room. We flirted, we drank, we chatted–without remembering on Sunday what we said Saturday night.
在大学，宿舍套房有单间和双人间。有三年时间，我一个人住，堆满了我的东西。在我大四期间，我设法弄到一个单人套房：卧室和客厅和卫生间。在牛津大学，我有两个房间。每个人都是这样。然后我获得奖学金。然后我写书。最终，我很厌恶的是，我必须要去找工作。我的第一个妻子——人们总是年轻时结婚；我们20岁和23岁——我迁入安阿伯市，在密歇根大学教英国文学。我喜欢走上和走下讲堂，讨论叶芝和乔伊斯或者大声朗读托马斯哈代和安德鲁马维尔的诗歌。这些快乐一点不孤独，但是在家，我在小的阁楼花一整天和诗在一起。我的极度聪明的妻子比起文学更喜欢数学。我们住在一起并分开成长。在我生活中独有的时光，我喜欢联谊会：安阿伯市的鸡尾酒会文化。我发现自己很期待周末，去拥挤的聚会，允许我远离我的婚姻。偶尔在周五更多是在周六有偶尔两三次，夫妻从一个起居室迁移到另一个起居室。我们调情，我们喝酒，我们聊天——在周日不会记得我们周六晚上谈了什么。
After sixteen years of marriage, my wife and I divorced.
16年的婚姻后，我和我妻子离婚了。
For five years I was alone again, but without the comfort of solitude. I exchanged the miseries of a bad marriage for the miseries of bourbon. I dated a girlfriend who drank two bottles of vodka a day. I dated three or four women a week, occasionally three in a day. My poems slackened and stopped. I tried to think that I lived in happy license. I didn’t.
我单身了5年，但是没有孤独的舒适。我用波旁威士忌酒的悲惨交换了一段坏婚姻的悲惨。我约了一个一天喝两瓶伏特加酒的女朋友。我一周约会3-4个女人，偶尔一天3个。我的诗松懈了并且停止了。我试着去想我住在快乐的境地。我做不到。
Jane Kenyon was my student. She was smart, she wrote poems, she was funny and frank in class. I knew she lived in a dormitory near my house, so one night I asked her to housesit while I attended an hour-long meeting. (In Ann Arbor, it was the year of breaking and entering.) When I came home, we went to bed. We enjoyed each other, libertine liberty as much as pleasures of the flesh. Later I asked her to dinner, which in 1970 always included breakfast. We saw each other once a week, still dating others, then twice a week, then three or four times a week, and saw no one else. One night, we spoke of marriage. Quickly we changed the subject, because I was nineteen years older and, if we married, she would be a widow so long. We married in April, 1972. We lived in Ann Arbor three years, and in 1975 left Michigan for New Hampshire. She adored this old family house.
珍妮是我的学生。她聪明，她写诗，她在课堂上很有趣和直率。我知道她住在我房子旁边的一个宿舍，因此一有一天晚上我叫她待我照看下房子，正当我参加一个1小时的会议。（在安阿伯市的那年会有人强行入侵他人住处）。当我回到家，我们睡觉了。我们享受彼此，肉体的欢愉与放荡的自由一样多。之后我叫她来吃晚饭，在1970年总是也包含早饭。我们一周见一次，仍然和其他人约会，然后一周两次，然后一周三四次，然后不再见其他人。一天晚上，我们谈到结婚。马上我们改变了主意，因为我比她老了19岁，如果我们结婚，她将长时间成为寡妇。我们在1972年4月结婚了。我们住在安阿伯市3年，在1975年离开了密歇根到新罕布什尔。她喜欢这个破旧的家庭房子。
For almost twenty years, I woke before Jane and brought her coffee in bed. When she rose, she walked Gus the dog. Then each of us retreated to a workroom to write, at opposite ends of our two-story house. Mine was the ground floor in front, next to Route 4. Hers was the second floor in the rear, beside Ragged Mountain’s old pasture. In the separation of our double solitude, we each wrote poetry in the morning. We had lunch, eating sandwiches and walking around without speaking to each other. Afterward, we took a twenty-minute nap, gathering energy for the rest of the day, and woke to our daily fuck. Afterward I felt like cuddling, but Jane’s climax released her into energy. She hurried from bed to workroom.
大约20年，我在安妮之前醒来并且在床上为她拿咖啡。当她起身后，就和叫沃斯的狗散步。然后我们俩撤退到工作室写作，在我们两层楼房子的另一端。我在底层的前面，靠近线路4。她的在二楼的后面，靠近洛基山的老的草地。早上在双份孤独的分离中，我们各自写诗。我们午饭，就吃三明治和沉默地散步。之后，我们有20分钟的小睡，为一天剩余的时间集聚能量，醒来就做爱。之后我想拥抱，但是珍妮的高潮让她放松重获能量，从床上匆忙起来去工作室。
For several hours afterward, I went back to work at my desk. Late in the afternoon, I read aloud to Jane for an hour. I read Wordsworth’s “Prelude,” Henry James’s “The Ambassadors” twice, the Old Testament, William Faulkner, more Henry James, seventeenth-century poets. Before supper I drank a beer and glanced at The New Yorker while Jane cooked, sipping a glass of wine. Slowly she made a delicious dinner—maybe veal cutlets with mushroom-and-garlic gravy, maybe summer’s asparagus from the bed across the street—then asked me to carry our plates to the table while she lit the candle. Through dinner we talked about our separate days.
在之后几个小时，我回到我的工作台工作。下午，我大声面对珍妮阅读。我阅读华兹华斯的《前奏》，亨利詹姆斯的《大使》两遍，《旧约》，威廉·福克纳，更多的亨利·詹姆斯，17世纪的诗歌。在晚餐之前，我喝一杯啤酒然后看一下《纽约人》，当珍妮在煮饭时，啜饮一杯红酒。慢慢地她做了一顿丰盛的晚饭—可能小牛排加蘑菇加大蒜，可能是来自街对面的河底的夏天的芦笋——然后当她点蜡烛的时候，要我拿盘子到桌上。通过晚餐我们谈论我们独处的那段时光。
Summer afternoons we spent beside Eagle Pond, on a bite-sized beach among frogs, mink, and beaver. Jane lay in the sun, tanning, while I read books in a canvas sling chair. Every now and then, we would dive into the pond. Sometimes, for an early supper, we broiled sausage on a hibachi. After twenty years of our remarkable marriage, living and writing together in double solitude, Jane died of leukemia at forty-seven, on April 22, 1995.
夏天午后我们在伊戈尔池旁边度过，在一个很小的海边，周围有青蛙，貂和海狸。珍妮躺在夕阳下，晒太阳，我在帆布的椅子上读书。常常的，我们把手伸进池塘。有的时候，为了早一点的晚饭，我们在烤火炉上烤香肠。我们非凡婚姻的20年，住在一起，在一起写作，在双倍的孤独中，珍妮在47岁的时候死于白血病，在1995年4月22日。
Now it is April 22, 2016, and Jane has been dead for more than two decades. Earlier this year, at eighty-seven, I grieved for her in a way I had never grieved before. I was sick and thought I was dying. Every day of her dying, I stayed by her side—a year and a half. It was miserable that Jane should die so young, and it was redemptive that I could be with her every hour of every day. Last January I grieved again, this time that she would not sit beside me as I died.
现在是2016年的4月22日，珍妮已经死了超过20年。在今年早些时候，我87岁，我以从来没有过的方式哀悼她。我生病了，我想我快要死了。她接近死亡的每一天，我都在她身边——一年半。这是很痛苦的，珍妮这么年轻就要死，这是可以赎回的，我能够每天每小时和她在一起。在过去的1月，我再次悲伤，这次当我死的时候她将不会在我身边。
