1932年大作家亨利?米勒写给他的情人古巴日记作家阿奈兹?宁的情书一封。

 In 1932, months after first meeting in Paris and despite both being married, Cuban diarist Ana?s Nin and hugely influential novelist Henry Miller began an incredibly intense love affair that would last for many years and, along the way, generate countless passionate love letters. Below, in my humble opinion, is one of the most powerful examples, written by Miller in August of 1932 shortly after a visit to Nin's home in Louveciennes.(Submitted by Laura Dillon — originally from A Literate Passion: Letters of Ana?s Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953; Images: Ana?s Nin & Henry Miller via here & here.)

1932年，古巴日记作家阿奈兹·宁【1】和影响力巨大的小说家亨利·米勒（Henry Miller）在巴黎初次见面。数月后，尽管双方都已婚嫁，他俩还是开始了一段激情四射的恋爱关系。这一种关系持续了很多年，其间产生了数不胜数炽热的情书。以下这封米勒在1932年8月写就的情书就是一个极好的例子。该信写于米勒到宁在卢浮香纳【2】的家作客过后不久。

August 14, 1932

Anais:

Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't let's be sensible. It was a marriage at Louveciennes—you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled and poisonous. Everything I do and say and think relates back to the marriage. I saw you as the mistress of your home, a Moor with a heavy face, a negress with a white body, eyes all over your skin, woman, woman, woman. I can't see how I can go on living away from you—these intermissions are death. How did it seem to you when Hugo came back? Was I still there? I can't picture you moving about with him as you did with me. Legs closed. Frailty. Sweet, treacherous acquiescence. Bird docility. You became a woman with me. I was almost terrified by it. You are not just thirty years old—you are a thousand years old.

1932年8月14日

阿奈兹：

别指望我继续保持理智。我们不必管什么是明智的态度。毋庸置疑，在卢浮香纳我们过的是一种婚姻生活。我走了，但你的影子跟着我，如影随形；我在你那提纯过、散发毒性的安达卢西亚【3】血海里漫步、游泳。我做的一切、说的一切和想的一切都和这一段婚姻有关。在我看来，你是自己家中的女主人，一个面容阴郁的摩尔人【4】，一个有着白色躯体的女黑人；我的视线在你全身的肌肤上游走，女人，女人，女人。我不理解离开你我如何能继续活着：这些间隙对我而言无异于死亡。当雨果【5】回来的时候，你会怎么样？ 我还在你心里吗？我不能想象你在他身上动来动去做那些你和我做过的事儿。你紧紧并拢的双腿。你的柔弱。你甜蜜但不怀好意的默许。你鸟儿般的驯良。和我在一起，你成为一个女人。对此我几乎惊呆了。你决不止三十岁，你有一千岁。

Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger. I read the paper about suicides and murders and I understand it all thoroughly. I feel murderous, suicidal. I feel somehow that it is a disgrace to do nothing, to just bide one's time, to take it philosophically, to be sensible. Where has gone the time when men fought, killed, died for a glove, a glance, etc? (A victrola is playing that terrible aria from Madama Butterfly—"Some day he'll come!")

我回到家中，激情依然在我心里灼烧，仿佛冒烟的葡萄酒。不再是对你的血肉之躯的激情，而是完完全全的对你的渴求，一种想要吞掉你的饥饿感。我读报读到自杀、谋杀；我完全能够理解。我觉得我想要杀人，我想要自杀。不知何故，我觉得：什么都不做是可耻的，只是等待时机是可耻的，从哲学的角度理解它是可耻的，保持明智的态度是可耻的。那些男人们为了某个女子的一只手套或看上一眼而决斗、杀人、身亡的时代哪里去了？（一架手摇留声机播放着《蝴蝶夫人》中那支可怕的咏叹调：“有一天他会来到！”）

I still hear you singing in the kitchen—a sort of inharmonic, monotonous Cuban wail. I know you're happy in the kitchen and the meal you're cooking is the best meal we ever ate together. I know you would scald yourself and not complain. I feel the greatest peace and joy sitting in the dining room listening to you rustling about, your dress like the goddess Indra studded with a thousand eyes.

我依然听见你在厨房唱歌，某种不成调、反反复复的古巴灵歌。我知道下厨之于你是一件快乐的事，你煮的饭是我们一起吃过的饭中最棒的。我知道：你会被烫伤但你毫无怨言。坐在餐厅听你忙里忙外的声音，看见你的裙子仿佛千眼女神在翩翩起舞，我感到极度的平静与快乐。
Anais, I only thought I loved you before; it was nothing like this certainty that's in me now. Was all this so wonderful only because it was brief and stolen? Were we acting foreach other, to each other? Was I less I, or more I, and you less or more you? Is it madness to believe that this could go on? When and where would the drab moments begin? I study you so much to discover the possible flaws, the weak points, the danger zones. I don't find them—not any. That means I am in love, blind, blind. To be blind forever! (Now they're singing "Heaven and Ocean" from La Gioconda.)

阿奈兹，我本以为我只是曾经爱过你；但是没有什么比我心中此刻的确信更有把握的了。这一切如此美妙是否完全因为其短暂和偷来的特点？我们是否在为对方表演、演给对方看？我是更不像我了？还是更像我了呢？而你呢？相信这段感情会继续下去是不是疯子的想法？在什么时候、在什么地方我们会开始觉得无聊？为了发现你的缺陷、弱点和雷区，我研究你。我什么也没发现，一无所获。这说明我深陷爱河：盲目啊、盲目。我将永远盲目！（现在他们在唱《乔康达》【6】中的《天与海》。）

I picture you playing the records over and over—Hugo's records. "Parlez moi d amour." The double life, double taste, double joy and misery. How you must be furrowed and ploughed by it. I know all that, but I can't do anything to prevent it. I wish indeed it were me who had to endure it. I know now your eyes are wide open. Certain things you will never believe anymore, certain gestures you will never repeat, certain sorrows, misgivings, you will never again experience. A kind of white criminal fervor in your tenderness and cruelty. Neither remorse nor vengeance, neither sorrow nor guilt. A living it out, with nothing to save you from the abysm but a high hope, a faith, a joy that you tasted, that you can repeat when you will.

我想象你一遍遍放那些唱片——雨果的唱片。《和我说说爱情【7】》。这双重的生活、双重的品味、双重的快乐与哀伤。你一定被它所苦所困。我什么都知道，却无法阻止这一切的发生。我但愿是由我来忍受这一切。我知道你现在眼界大开。某些事你不会再相信，某些手势你不会再重复，某些悲哀、疑惧你不会再经历。在你的柔情和残酷中有一种善意的罪犯般的热情：既不是懊悔也不是报复，既不是悲哀也不是内疚。一种存在的状态。没有什么能够把你从深渊中拯救出来，除了某种高期望、某种信念、某种你体验过的——如果你想要就能重新获得的——快乐之外。

All morning I was at my notes, ferreting through my life records, wondering where to begin, how to make a start, seeing not just another book before me but a life of books. But I don't begin. The walls are completely bare—I had taken everything down before going to meet you. It is as though I had made ready to leave for good. The spots on the walls stand out—where our heads rested. While it thunders and lightnings I lie on the bed and go through wild dreams. We're in Seville and then in Fez and then in Capri and then in Havana. We're journeying constantly, but there is always a machine and books, and your body is always close to me and the look in your eyes never changes. People are saying we will be miserable, we will regret, but we are happy, we are laughing always, we are singing. We are talking Spanish and French and Arabic and Turkish. We are admitted everywhere and they strew our path with flowers.

整个上午我都在做笔记，仔细审视我的生活记录，想着从哪里下笔，如何下笔；我看到的不再是随便一本书，而是书本的一生。但是我没有开始写作。四壁空空如也：在见你之前，我把墙上所有的东西都拿下来了。就仿佛我已经做好了永远离开的准备。墙上那些我俩的头靠过的地方显露出来。电闪雷鸣的时候我躺在床上体验最狂野的梦境：我们去了塞尔维尔【8】，然后去了非斯【9】、卡普里岛【10】，最后到了哈瓦那。我们到处旅行，总有一台打字机和许多书相伴；你总在我身边；你看我的眼神始终如一。人们说我们会很惨，我们会后悔；但是我们很快乐，我们总是放声大笑，我们纵情高歌。我们说着西班牙语、法语、阿拉伯语和土耳其语；到处都有人接纳我们；他们在我们的道路上撒满鲜花。

I say this is a wild dream—but it is this dream I want to realize. Life and literature combined, love the dynamo, you with your chameleon's soul giving me a thousand loves, being anchored always in no matter what storm, home wherever we are. In the mornings, continuing where we left off. Resurrection after resurrection. You asserting yourself, getting the rich varied life you desire; and the more you assert yourself the more you want me, need me. Your voice getting hoarser, deeper, your eyes blacker, your blood thicker, your body fuller. A voluptuous servility and tyrannical necessity. More cruel now than before—consciously, wilfully cruel. The insatiable delight of experience.

我说了，这是一个狂野的梦。但这才是我想要实现的梦。我的生活和文学都算上，爱是唯一的发电机。你用你那善变的灵魂给了我一千种爱，成为我狂风暴雨中坚定的锚，成为我天涯海角温暖的家。在早晨，我们继续昨夜未尽的。一次又一次的醒来，你坚持自我，坚持过自己想要的那种丰富多彩的生活。你越坚持自我就越想要、需要我。你的嗓音更为沙哑，深沉，你的眼睛变得更黑，你的血更浓，你的身体更为圆润。你的低眉顺眼如此撩人；你的迫切需要如此专横。你比以前更为残忍——一种有意识的、任性的残忍。而我对这种欢乐贪得无厌。

【译注】
1. 阿奈兹?宁（Ana?s Nin，1903年 – 1977年）是生于西班牙裔古巴家庭的美国作家，出生成长于法国。她出版了长达六十多年的日记（从她11岁开始直至去世前不久）、小说、批判性研究、散文、短篇小说和情色艺术作品。
2.卢浮香纳（ Louveciennes）是法国一个公社，位于巴黎西郊。
3. 安达卢西亚（西班牙语：Andalucía）是组成西班牙的17个自治区之一。首府为塞维利亚。
4. 摩尔人是中世纪伊比利亚半岛(今西班牙和葡萄牙)、马格里布和西非的穆斯林居民。历史上，摩尔人主要指在伊比利亚半岛的伊斯兰征服者。 摩尔人（西亚及北非地区穆斯林的统称）曾统治过西班牙的一个省并命名为安达卢斯，安达卢西亚由此得名。
5. 雨果（Hugo，即伊恩?雨果 Ian Hugo， 原名Hugh Parker Guiler，1898年 – 1985年）是阿奈兹?宁的丈夫。他是一位技艺娴熟的雕刻家和电影人。
6.《乔康达》（La Gioconda）是意大利剧作家庞开利（Ponchielli）的四幕歌剧。
7.《和我说说爱情》（Parlez moi d amour）是法国作曲家让·勒努瓦（Jean Lenoir）写于1930年的名曲。
8. 塞尔维尔（Serville）是法国厄尔-卢瓦尔省的一个市镇。
9. 非斯（Fès）是摩洛哥王国第四大城市，位于该国首都拉巴特以东的萨伊斯平原内，是该国著名古都。该城的卡鲁因大学是世界上现存最古老的大学，是阿拉伯和伊斯兰世界的高等学府。
10. 卡普里岛（Capri），意大利那不勒斯湾南部一个小岛，自从罗马共和国以来就以风景秀丽闻名，是著名的旅游胜地。