I couldn’t believe it. I had been arrested and I was going to be punished, and nobody was going to tell me why? I was used to not being able to face my accuser in prison. Was he telling me now that I wasn’t going to be told what I was being accused of?
That’s what he was telling me.
我简直不敢相信，自己竟被逮捕了，且即将受到惩罚，没有人会告诉我为什么?我习惯了不能在监狱里直面指控我的人。他正在讲述的是，我将不会被告知，被指控的为何罪?
这就是全部，他能告诉我的。

The isolation tier was on the top floor of a completely segregated area. The only way you could get there was in an elevator which was guarded top and bottom. After I had been there for a day the officer in charge told me, “You’re the first one ever sent up here assigned to isolation. Everybody else has come up sentenced to do a certain amount of time and then they get out. You’re going to spend the rest of your sentence here.” They were going to allow me commissary privileges and writing privileges, he said, and so the only advice he could give me was to write to the warden and ask whether I was ever going to get out.

隔离层位于一个完全隔绝区域的顶层。到那里的唯一方法就是乘坐电梯，电梯上下都有人把守。我在那儿呆了一天后，负责那的主管人员对我说：“你是被派到此处永久隔离的第一人。”其他的所有人都被只被判处在此一定的时间，之后他们就离开了。而你将在此度过余生。但会给我享用军粮和写作的特权，所以他能的唯一建议就是我可以给监狱长写信，是否我还有机会能出去。

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “I’m going to write to the Commissioner of Corrections in Albany.”

It seemed to me to be a very strange thing, I wrote, when neither the warden nor the deputy warden would assume responsibility for punishing me. “So evidently you are going to have to take the responsibility, and I want to know why I am being isolated.” There was no answer.
“我有一个更好的主意，”我说，“我要给奥尔巴尼的惩教署署长写信。”

于我看来，这是件非常吊诡的事，我写道，正副监狱长都不负承担进行惩罚我的责任。“所以很明显，你要承担责任，必须知道为什么只有我被孤立了。”但我没有得到任何回答。

Four months later, I got a visit from Warden Walter B. Martin. Doctor Martin, a psychiatrist. It was the second time he had called on me. He had come to see me early in my incarceration to tell me he was going to grant me every possible privilege and concession, and all I was going to have to do in return was “keep in touch” with him. In short, he wanted me to become his personal informer. All I did was look at him. In addition to which, he added hastily, he would recommend that I be released on parole as soon as the opportune moment arose. I still didn’t say a word. I just kept looking until he turned around and walked out.
四个月后，瓦尔特·B·马丁狱长来看我，他也是精神病方面的医生。这是他第二次来看望我（call on 短语，除了有号召、请求的意思之外，还有拜访、看望之意）。在我被关禁闭的早期，他来看过我，告之我，他将准许一切可能的特权以及让步作为回报，我所要做的就是“与他保持联系”。简而言之（in short），想让我成为他的私底线人。我只看着他，啥都没说。除此之外，他又急忙补充说，建议我等待时机，一有机会就给我假释。我仍然不言不语，只是看着他，直到他转身而去。

This time he had come up to let me know that I was being taken out of isolation. He didn’t know why Albany had ordered me in. He didn’t know why Albany was ordering me out.

Somebody knew. Shortly after I got out, a fellow inmate in the laundry slipped me a clipping from Zeltner’s “Over the River” column in the Daily News. A fellow named Augie, who had been in Attica a number of years for a contract murder, had been brought back to Brooklyn to testify against his partner. When he got there and discovered that the DA wasn’t offering him any deal for his testimony, he tried to do himself some good by telling him that Willie Sutton had succeeded in having a couple of pistols smuggled into Attica for a mass bust-out.

这一次他是为了告之，我已获准结束隔离。他既不知道奥尔巴尼为什么让我开始隔离，也不知他为何又让我结束。

但确实有人知道原因。我出来不久后，洗衣房的一个狱友给我剪了一张泽特纳在《每日新闻》上的“过河”专栏的剪报。一个名叫奥吉(Augie)的家伙，因为一单合约谋杀案在阿提卡待了好几年，已经被带回布鲁克林指控他的同伙。当他到了那里，发现地方检察官没有为他的证词提供任何好处。他试图为自己捞点好处，于是他说，威利·萨顿(Willie Sutton)已成功地将两支手枪，偷运到阿提卡准备进行了大规模越狱（bust 为破产、爆裂之意，加上out在此语境，翻译成越狱）。

During the four months, they had me in isolation they had ripped my cell apart, dug up the ground all around the laundry, sifted through the coal piles, and lifted, turned up, or gone through every nook and corner where it would be remotely possible to hide a couple of guns.
他们在隔离我的四个月间，几乎把我原来的牢房翻了底朝天，甚至在洗衣房的周边掘地三尺，移开、搬起每块煤堆，将所有可能隐匿枪支的角落都找了。

They still weren’t letting me go anywhere without a guard, though. Not even to church. In the history of the penal system of the United States I must have been the only prisoner who was never allowed to go to church without a guard at his side. Not that I did, of course. After the first week or so, I had simply stopped going. You see, a lot of prisoners go to church in order to pass notes to their friends from the other blocks. Unless they could arrange to meet in the hospital line, church was the only place in Attica where two friends who were locking in different blocks could ever expect to see each other. There was already one guard assigned to the church to keep an eye on things. If I kept bringing another one in, I was going to make myself about as popular as Lucifer. From time to time, Father Gene, the Catholic chaplain, would ask me why I wasn’t attending services, and when I would answer by asking him why he wasn’t backing my protest he would say, “Well, I can’t interfere with prison policy, Bill. There have to be rules and regulations.”

他们任然不敢冒然让我，在没有警卫的情况下到任何地方。甚至不让单独上教堂。在美国的刑罚制度史上，我一定是唯一 一个不允许在没有卫兵陪伴的情况去教堂的囚犯。如此一来，我就不愿干这事了，约摸过了一星期，我就不再去了。显而易见，许多犯人去教堂只是为了给其他街区的朋友传纸条。除了能安排朋友在医院排队的时照面外，教堂是阿提卡监狱，唯一能让关在不同区朋友相见的地方。教堂已经派了一名卫兵来看守一切。如果我再随身带一个进来，会显得自己像路西法(Lucifer是西方宗教里的堕落天使，以前冰封王座游戏的一位著名不死族的韩国选手，就曾用过此名——Lucifer)一样受欢迎。天主教吉恩神父(Father Gene)会时不时地问我，为什么不去做礼拜。我反问，为何他不支持我的抗议，他答道，“比尔，我不能干涉监狱政策。”那儿必须有规章制度。

“In the footsteps of the Master,” I’d mutter.

After many years had passed, I was called down to the dep’s office, always a matter of some concern to me. This time, he smiled at me beatifically and asked whether I had noticed the change that had come over him.

“No,” I said.

“Haven’t you noticed the peaceful expression on my face during the last month?”

“No,” I said, squinting.

“这只是跟随你主人的脚步罢了，”我低声说。
许多年过去后，我被叫到副监狱长的办公室，这一直是我关心的事情。这一次，他对我笑得很开心，问我是否注意到他身上发生的变化。
“没有,”我说。
“你没有注意到上个月我脸上平静的表情吗?”

“Willie,” he said, looking peaceful. “For years my wife has been after me to read the Bible and for years I resisted. She finally got me to do it, thank the Lord, and do you know I’m a much better person for it. I read a chapter or two every morning before I leave for work, and I’m in such a happy frame of mind these days that I find I can dispense justice in the true spirit of Christian humility and charity when I hold court.”
“威利，”他平静地说。“多年来，我的妻子一直追着我，要求我读《圣经》，但我总是拒绝，然而她最终于还是让我做到了，感谢上帝，你一定知道我因此变得更好了。每天早上班前，都会读一到两个篇章，然后心情就很好了，我发现可以在法庭上，以一个基督徒的谦逊和慈爱精神主持正义。