Perhaps no one has captured New York City as lyrically, and certainly none as efficiently, as E. B. White. This brief essay has an amazingly timeless, fresh quality to it, and is a marvelous introduction to what people still love about New York City.
也许没有人能像E. B. 怀特那样富有诗意地描绘纽约，更肯定没有人能像他那样简练高效。这篇短文历久弥新，读来清新隽永，是了解人们至今仍热爱纽约之处的绝佳引言。
On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city's walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
纽约会把孤独和隐私这两份礼物赐给所有渴望这种奇特奖赏的人。正是这份慷慨，使相当一部分人聚居在纽约城内；因为曼哈顿居民在很大程度上都是异乡客，他们从某个地方拔根而起，来到这座城市，寻求庇护、实现自我，或追寻某种或大或小的圣杯。能够送出这种福祸难料的礼物，是纽约的一种神秘特质。它可以毁掉一个人，也可以成就一个人，结果很大程度上取决于运气。除非愿意接受幸运的眷顾，否则谁也不该来纽约定居。
New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant. It carries on its lapel the unexpungeable odor of the long past, so that no matter where you sit in New York you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings. I am sitting at the moment in a stifling hotel room in 90-degree heat, halfway down an air shaft, in midtown. No air moves in or out of the room, yet I am curiously affected by emanations from the immediate surroundings. I am 22 blocks from where Rudolph Valentino lay in state, eight blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, five blocks from the publisher's office where Ernest Hemingway hit Max Eastman on the nose, four miles from where Walt Whitman sat sweating out editorials for The Brooklyn Eagle, 34 blocks from the street Willa Cather lived in when she came to New York to write books about Nebraska, one block from where Marceline used to clown on the boards of the Hippodrome, 36 blocks from the spot where the historian Joe Gould kicked a radio to pieces in full view of the public, 13 blocks from where Harry Thaw shot Stanford White, five blocks from where I used to usher at the Metropolitan Opera and only 112 blocks from the spot where Clarence Day the elder was washed of his sins in the Church of the Epiphany (I could continue this list indefinitely); and for that matter I am probably occupying the very room that any number of exalted and somewise memorable characters sat in, some of them on hot, breathless afternoons, lonely and private and full of their own sense of emanations from without.
纽约是艺术、商业、体育、宗教、娱乐和金融的浓缩体，把角斗士、布道者、推销者、演员、交易商和商人都汇集到一方紧凑的舞台上。它的衣襟上沾着漫长往昔无法抹去的气息，所以无论坐在纽约何处，你都能感到伟大时代和非凡事迹的震颤，感到奇人、奇事和种种事业的回响。此刻我坐在市中心一间闷热的旅馆客房里，气温华氏90度，房间位于通风井半腰。没有空气进出，我却奇异地受到近旁环境所散发气息的感染。我离鲁道夫·瓦伦蒂诺停灵之处22个街区，离内森·黑尔就义之处8个街区，离欧内斯特·海明威一拳打中马克斯·伊斯特曼鼻子的那间出版社办公室5个街区，离沃尔特·惠特曼挥汗为《布鲁克林鹰报》撰写社论之处4英里，离威拉·凯瑟初到纽约创作内布拉斯加题材作品时居住的街道34个街区，离马塞林昔日在竞技场剧院舞台上扮小丑的地方1个街区，离历史学家乔·古尔德当众把收音机踢得粉碎之处36个街区，离哈里·肖枪杀斯坦福·怀特之处13个街区，离我过去在大都会歌剧院当引座员的地方5个街区，离老克拉伦斯·戴在主显节教堂受洗涤罪之处也只有112个街区（这样的清单我可以一直列下去）。说不定我住的正是某些显赫而又颇令人难忘的人物曾坐过的房间；他们中有些人也曾在炎热窒闷的午后独处于此，享受隐私，心中满是外界传来的种种气息。
When I went down to lunch a few minutes ago I noticed that the man sitting next to me (about eighteen inches away along the wall) was Fred Stone. The 18 inches are both the connection and the separation that New York provides for its inhabitants. My only connection with Fred Stone was that I saw him in The Wizard of Oz around the beginning of the century. But our waiter felt the same stimulus from being close to a man from Oz, and after Mr. Stone left the room the waiter told me that when he (the waiter) was a young man just arrived in this country and before he could understand a word of English, he had taken his girl for their first theater date to The Wizard of Oz. It was a wonderful show, the waiter recalled?a man of straw, a man of tin. Wonderful! (And still only eighteen inches away.) "Mr. Stone is a very hearty eater," said the waiter thoughtfully, content with this fragile participation in destiny, this link with Oz.
几分钟前我下楼吃午饭，发现坐在我旁边、沿墙相距约18英寸的人是弗雷德·斯通。这18英寸既代表纽约为居民提供的联系，也代表彼此之间的隔离。我与弗雷德·斯通唯一的联系，是世纪之初曾看过他出演《绿野仙踪》。我们的侍者靠近这位来自“奥兹国”的人物，也受到同样的触动。斯通先生离开后，侍者告诉我，他年轻时刚到美国，一句英语也听不懂，就曾带着女友第一次进剧院约会，看的正是《绿野仙踪》。他回忆说，那场演出精彩极了——有稻草人，有铁皮人。太精彩了！（而刚才仍只隔着18英寸。）“斯通先生胃口真好。”侍者若有所思地说，满足于自己与命运的这点微弱交会，以及与奥兹国的这丝联系。
New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute. Since I have been sitting in this miasmic air shaft, a good many rather splashy events have occurred in town. A man shot and killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. It caused no stir outside his block and got only small mention in the papers. I did not attend. Since my arrival, the greatest air show ever staged in all the world took place in town. I didn't attend and neither did most of the eight million other inhabitants, although they say there was quite a crowd. I didn't even hear any planes except a couple of westbound commercial airliners that habitually use this air shaft to fly over. The biggest oceangoing ships on the North Atlantic arrived and departed. I didn't notice them and neither did most other New Yorkers. I am told this is the greatest seaport in the world, with 650 miles of waterfront, and ships calling here from many exotic lands, but the only boat I've happened to notice since my arrival was a small sloop tacking out of the East River night before last on the ebb tide when I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. I heard the Queen Mary blow one midnight, though, and the sound carried the whole history of departure and longing and loss. The Lions have been in convention. I've seen not one Lion. A friend of mine saw one and told me about him. (He was lame, and was wearing a bolero.) At the ball grounds and horse parks the greatest sporting spectacles have been enacted. I saw no ballplayer, no race horse. The governor came to town. I heard the siren scream, but that was all there was to that—an 18-inch margin again. A man was killed by a falling cornice. I was not a party to the tragedy, and again the inches counted heavily.
纽约把隐私的馈赠与参与的兴奋融为一体；它比多数人口密集的社区更善于使个人避开每分钟都在发生的那些巨大、激烈而精彩的事件——只要他愿意，而几乎人人都愿意或需要如此。自从我坐进这条空气污浊的通风井，城里已经发生了不少颇为轰动的事情。一个男人出于嫉妒开枪杀死妻子，消息没有传出他所在的街区，报纸也只略提几句，我没有到场。自我抵达以来，世界上规模最大的航空表演在城里举行；我没去，另外八百万居民中的大多数也没去，尽管据说观众很多。除了一两架惯常从通风井上空飞过、向西航行的民航客机，我连飞机声都没听见。北大西洋上最大的远洋轮船来来去去，我没注意到，大多数纽约人也没注意到。据说这里是世界最大的海港，拥有650英里长的滨水区，许多异域船只来此停靠；但我到纽约后碰巧留意到的唯一一艘船，是前天夜里退潮时我走过布鲁克林大桥，看见的一艘正迎风驶出东河的小帆船。倒是有一天午夜，我听见“玛丽王后号”鸣笛，那声音承载着离别、思念与失落的全部历史。国际狮子会来这里开过大会，我一个会员也没见到。朋友见过一位，还讲给我听。（那人腿有残疾，穿着一件短上衣。）球场和赛马场上演了最盛大的体育赛事，我没见到球员，也没见到赛马。州长进城时，我只听见警笛尖啸——仍旧隔着18英寸。有人被坠落的檐口砸死，我没有卷入这场悲剧；这一次，距离同样起了关键作用。
I mention these events merely to show that New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along (whether 1,000-foot liner out of the East or a 20,000-man convention out of the West) without inflicting the event on its inhabitants; so that every event is, in a sense, optional, and the inhabitant is in the happy position of being able to choose his spectacle and so conserve his soul. In most metropolises, small and large, the choice is often not with the individual at all. He is thrown to the Lions. The Lions are overwhelming; the event is unavoidable. A cornice falls, that it hits every citizen on the head, every last man in town. I sometimes think that the only event that hits every New Yorker on the head is the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, which is fairly penetrating—the Irish are a hard race to tune out, there are 500,000 of them in residence, and they have the police force right in the family.
我列举这些事情，只是为了说明纽约的构造十分独特：它几乎能吸收任何到来的事物——无论是来自东方的千英尺巨轮，还是来自西方的两万人大会——而不把事件强加给居民。因此从某种意义上说，每件事都可以选择参加与否，居民得以挑选自己想看的场面，从而保存自己的心灵。在大大小小的多数都市里，选择权往往根本不在个人手中；人会被扔进狮群。狮群势不可挡，事件无从逃避。一块檐口坠落，便仿佛砸中每一位市民，砸中城里最后一个人。有时我想，唯一会砸中每个纽约人头顶的事件，是一年一度的圣帕特里克节游行。它的影响颇具穿透力——爱尔兰人很难被忽略，纽约住着50万爱尔兰人，连警察队伍都像是他们自家人。
The quality in New York that insulates its inhabitants from life may simply weaken them as individuals. Perhaps it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow; where, when the governor passes, you see at any rate his hat.
纽约这种把居民同生活隔离开的特质，也许只会削弱他们作为个体的力量。或许住在另一种社区更为健康：檐口坠落时，你能感到那一击；州长经过时，你至少能看见他的帽子。
I am not defending New York in this regard. Many of its settlers are probably here merely to escape, not face, reality. But whatever it means, it is a rather rare gift, and I believe it has a positive effect on the creative capacities of New Yorkers—for creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
在这一点上，我并非要为纽约辩护。它的许多移居者来这里，大概只是为了逃避现实，而不是面对现实。但不论这种特质意味着什么，它都是相当罕见的馈赠；我相信，它对纽约人的创造能力有积极作用——因为创作在一定程度上无非是摒除大大小小的干扰。
Although New York often imparts a feeling of great forlornness or forsakenness, it seldom seems dead or unresourceful; and you always feel that either by shifting your location 10 blocks or by reducing your fortune by five dollars you can experience rejuvenation. Many people who have no real independence of spirit depend on the city's tremendous variety and sources of excitement for spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale. In the country there are a few chances of sudden rejuvenation—a shift in weather, perhaps, or something arriving in the mail. But in New York the chances are endless. I think that although many persons are here from some excess of spirit (which caused them to break away from their small town), some, too, are here from a deficiency of spirit, who find in New York a protection, or an easy substitution.
纽约虽然常使人感到极度孤独或被遗弃，却很少显得死寂或缺乏生机；你总觉得，只要换到十个街区以外，或让钱包少掉五美元，就能重新焕发活力。许多精神上并不真正独立的人，依靠这座城市无穷的变化和刺激来源来获得精神滋养、维持士气。在乡间，突然恢复活力的机会屈指可数——也许是天气一变，或是邮件中来了什么东西；而在纽约，这样的机会无穷无尽。我认为，许多人来到这里是因为精神过盛，促使他们挣脱小镇；也有些人是因为精神匮乏，在纽约找到一种保护，或一种轻易可得的替代品。