Chapter 20 The Tenth Tuesday - We Talk About Marriage (35)

The Tenth Tuesday
第十个星期二
We Talk About Marriage
我们聊了聊婚姻

I brought a visitor to meet Morrie.
我带了一个客人去见莫瑞。
My wife.
是我的妻子。

He had been asking me since the first day I came.
从我第一天来的时候莫瑞就一直在问这件事。

"When do I meet Janine?"
“什么时候能让我见见珍妮？”

"When are you bringing her?"
“你什么时候带她来？”

I'd always had excuses until a few days earlier, when I called his house to see how he was doing.
我都一直在找各种借口，直到几天前我打电话给莫瑞询问他最近怎么样了。

It took a while for Morrie to get to the receiver.
莫瑞花了不少时间才来到了听筒前。

And when he did, I could hear the fumbling as someone held it to his ear.
当他过来的时候，我能听到仿佛有人在把听筒举到他耳边的笨拙的摸索声。

He could no longer lift a phone by himself.
莫瑞已经无法自己拿起电话了。

"Hiiiiii," he gasped.
“嗨…” 莫瑞喘着气。

You doing okay, Coach?
你还好吧？教练？

I heard him exhale. "Mitch . . . your coach . . . isn't having such a great day... "
我听到他呼出一口气。“米契… 你的教练我…最近过的不太好…”

His sleeping time was getting worse.
他的睡眠变得更糟糕了。

He needed oxygen almost nightly now, and his coughing spells had become frightening.
他几乎每晚都需要吸氧，而且他的咳嗽也变得厉害得吓人。

One cough could last an hour, and he never knew if he'd be able to stop.
咳一下可能就会持续一小时，而且他永远也不知道他咳得还能不能停下来。

He always said he would die when the disease got his lungs.
他一直说当疾病占领他的肺部的时候他就会死。

I shuddered when I thought how close death was.
想到死亡离他如此之近我不禁浑身巨震。

I'll see you on Tuesday, I said. You'll have a better day then.
星期二我去看你，我对莫瑞说。到那会儿你会好起来的。

"Mitch."
“米契”

Yeah?
怎么啦？

"Is your wife there with you?"
“你的妻子在你身边吗？”

She was sitting next to me.
她正好在我身边坐着呢。

"Put her on. I want to hear her voice."
“让她接电话。我想听听她的声音。”

Now, I am married to a woman blessed with far more intuitive kindness than I.
现在，我已经和一个相比于我，有幸拥有更多天生善良的女人结了婚。

Although she had never met Morrie, she took the phone — I would have shaken my head and whispered, " I'm not here! I'm not here! " — and in a minute, she was connecting with my old professor as if they'd known each other since college.
尽管她从来没有见过莫瑞，她还是接过了电话 —— 要是我的话会一边摇着头一边悄悄低声说着，“就说我不在！就说我不在！” —— 然后也就一分钟不到，她已经和我的老教授熟络起来了，仿佛他们已经在大学里就认识了似的。

I sensed this, even though all I heard on my end was "Uh-huh ... Mitch told me... oh, thank you ...
即便我这边只能听到“是的…米契告诉我…哦，太谢谢您了…”但我依然能感觉到。

When she hung up, she said, "I'm coming next trip.” And that was that.
当我妻子挂了电话之后，她说，“下次我也要去看莫瑞。”就是这么干脆利落。

Now we sat in his office, surrounding him in his recliner.
转眼我们俩就一起坐在了莫瑞的办公室，围绕着莫瑞坐在他的躺椅上。

Morrie, by his own admission, was a harmless flirt, and while he often had to stop for coughing, or to use the commode, he seemed to find new reserves of energy with Janine in the room.
莫瑞，据他自己所承认，是一个会无伤大雅的调戏别人的人，在他常常不得不停下来咳嗽或者上厕所时，有珍妮在房间里，他似乎找到了“新储存的能量”。

He looked at photos from our wedding, which Janine had brought along.
他看着我们婚礼的照片，是珍妮一同带过去的。

"You are from Detroit?" Morrie said.
“你来自底特律吗？“莫瑞问。

Yes, Janine said.
是的，珍妮回答。

"I taught in Detroit for one year, in the late forties. I remember a funny story about that."
“我在底特律教过一年书，大约在我40多快50岁的时候。我还记得关于那会儿的一个有意思的小故事。”

He stopped to blow his nose.
他停下来擤鼻涕。

When he fumbled with the tissue, I held it in place and he blew weakly into it.
见他笨拙地弄着纸巾，我帮助他把纸巾拿到合适的位置，他虚弱地把鼻涕擤在里面。

I squeezed it lightly against his nostrils, then pulled it off, like a mother does to a child in a car seat.
我轻轻地挤压莫瑞的鼻孔，然后拉出纸巾，就像妈妈给车后座的孩子擦鼻涕一样。

"Thank you, Mitch." He looked at Janine. "My helper, this one is."
“谢谢你，米契。“莫瑞看向珍妮。”这位一向是我的好帮手。“

Janine smiled.
珍妮笑了。

"Anyhow. My story. There were a bunch of sociologists at the university, and we used to play poker with other staff members, including this guy who was a surgeon.
“不管怎么样。继续我的故事。那时候在大学里有一帮社会学教授，然后我们经常和其他教职工成员一起打扑克牌，其中包括这样一个家伙，他是个外科医生。”

"One night, after the game, he said, 'Morrie, I want to come see you work.' I said fine. So he came to one of my classes and watched me teach."
“有一天晚上，打完牌之后，他对我说，‘莫瑞，我想去看看你是怎么工作的。’我说好呀。所以他就上了我的一节课去看我是怎么教书的。”

"After the class was over, he said, 'All right, now, how would you like to see me work? I have an operation tonight. I wanted to return the favor, so I said okay."
“我的课上完之后，他过来说，‘那现在你想不想来看一下我是怎么工作的？我今晚刚好有一台手术。我希望能回报你这次帮我的忙，’ 所以我答应了。”

"He took me up to the hospital. He said, 'Scrub down, put on a mask, and get into a gown. And next thing I knew, I was right next to him at the operating table. There was this woman, the patient, on the table, naked from the waist down. And he took a knife and went zip — just like that! Well... "
“他带着我去了医院。他说，‘好好洗下手，戴好口罩，然后穿上防护衣。’紧接着等我知道的时候，我已经在他身边站在了手术台前。手术台上躺着一位女士，腰部以下是全裸的。然后他拿起手术刀就是一划拉 —— 好吧，我当时就这样了…”

Morrie lifted a finger and spun it around.
莫瑞举起一根手指绕着圈。

"... I started to go like this. I'm about to faint. All the blood. Yech. The nurse next to me said, What's the matter, Doctor?’ and I said, ' I'm no damn doctor! Get me out of here!' "
“…我开始整个人就这样了。我快晕倒了。全都是血。妈呀。我身边的护士赶忙问，‘出什么事啦？医生？' 然后我喊着，‘我才不是什么鬼的医生！赶紧让我离开这！’”

We laughed, and Morrie laughed, too, as hard as he could, with his limited breathing.
我们都笑了起来，然后莫瑞也笑了，用他有限的呼吸尽最大努力的笑着。

It was the first time in weeks that I could recall him telling a story like this.
这是几周以来我第一次能回想起来他像这样讲一个故事。

How strange, I thought, that he nearly fainted once from watching someone else's illness, and now he was so able to endure his own.
多么奇怪呀，我想着，莫瑞曾经看着别人生病都几乎晕倒，现在却能如此忍耐自己的疾病。

Connie knocked on the door and said that Morrie's lunch was ready.
康妮敲了敲门说莫瑞的午饭好了。

It was not the carrot soup and vegetable cakes and Greek pasta I had brought that morning from Bread and Circus.
他的午饭并不是我早上从‘面包和马戏团’带来的胡萝卜汤、蔬菜饼和希腊意面。

Although I tried to buy the softest of foods now, they were still beyond Morrie's limited strength to chew an