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老人之爱 Anza-borrego - Excerpt of Into the Wild(2)

a narrow 12)wash. After a mile or so they arrived at a bizarre encampment, where some two hundred people had gathered to spend the winter. At the center of the camp, water from a 13)geothermal well had been piped into a pair of shallow, steaming pools lined with rocks and shaded by palm trees: Oh-My-God Hot Springs. McCandless, however, wasn’t living right at the springs; he was camped by himself another half mile out on the bajada. Franz drove McCandless the rest of the way, chatted with him there for a while, and then returned to town, where he lived alone, rent free, in re­turn for managing a 14)ramshackle apartment building.
  他们沿着玻里哥—沙尔顿海道开了几分钟,麦克肯多斯告诉他左转进入沙漠中,沿着崎岖的越野车轨迹,驶向狭窄的干河床。行驶了约1英里之后,他们抵达一个奇特的营地,大约有200人聚居在那里过冬。在营地中心,由地热水井打出来的水,流到两个热气腾腾的浅池中,池畔围着石头,还有棕榈树遮荫。这就是“哦我的天啊热情温泉”。然而,麦克肯多斯并不住在泉水旁;他独自一人在离此半英里的斜坡上扎营。弗朗兹送他继续前行,并在那里和他闲聊了一会儿才回到城里。他独自住在城内,管理一栋破旧失修的公寓,报酬就是免费住宿。

  Franz, a devout Christian, had spent most of his adult life in the army, stationed in Shanghai and 15)Okinawa. On New Year’s Eve 1957, while he was overseas, his wife and only child were killed by a drunk driver in an automobile accident. Franz started hitting the whiskey, hard. Six months later he managed to pull himself together and quit drinking, 16)cold turkey, but he never really got over the loss. To salve his loneliness in the years after the accident, he started un­officially “adopting” indigent Okinawan boys and girls. When Franz met McCandless, his long-17)dormant paternal im­pulses were kindled anew. He couldn’t get the young man out of his mind. The boy had said his name was Alex—he’d declined to give a surname—and that he came from West Virginia. He was polite, friendly, 18)well-groomed.
  弗朗兹是虔诚的基督徒,成年后大部分时间都在军旅中,在上海和冲绳驻扎过。在他被派驻海外期间,1957年除夕,他的妻子和独子在一起交通事故中被一名醉酒司机驾车撞死。这次的打击使得弗朗兹开始酗酒。6个月后,他设法振作精神,戒了酒,骤然彻底戒掉,但他一直没有真正从丧亲之痛中恢复过来。在事故发生后的日子里,为了缓解自己的孤单,他开始非正式地收养贫穷的冲绳小孩。弗朗兹遇到麦克肯多斯时,他长久潜伏的父爱本能又重新燃起。他无法忘怀这个年轻人。这个男孩拒绝说出自己的姓,只说他名叫亚历克斯,来自西维吉尼亚;他和善有礼,穿戴齐整。

  Over the next few weeks McCandless and Franz spent a lot of time together. The younger man would regularly hitch into Salton City to do his laundry and barbecue steaks at Franz’s apartment. He confided that he was 19)biding his time until spring, when he intended to go to Alaska and embark on an “ultimate ad­venture.” Not infrequently during their visits, Franz recalls, McCandless’s face would darken with anger and he’d 20)fulminate about his parents or politicians or the 21)en­demic idiocy of mainstream American life. Worried about alien­ating the boy, Franz said little during such outbursts and let him 22)rant.
  接下来几周,麦克肯多斯和弗朗兹共度了许多时光。年轻人定时搭便车到沙尔顿市弗朗兹的公寓洗衣烤肉。他表示他在这里只是暂时停留,等到春天他就要前往阿拉斯加,开始“终极探险”。弗朗兹记得,麦克肯多斯来访时,经常会因为愤怒而脸色黯黑,他常严词批评父母、政客或美国本土主流生活的愚蠢。弗朗兹担心这孩子会感觉被孤立,因此在这种情况下总不多说话,让他尽情咆哮。

  One day in early February, McCandless announced that he was splitting for 23)San Diego to earn more money for his Alaska trip.
  二月初的某一天,麦克肯多斯宣布他要前往圣地亚哥,赚更多的钱,为他的阿拉斯加之行做准备。

  “You don’t need to go to San Diego,” Franz protested. “I’ll give you money if you need some.”
  “No. You don’t get it. I’m going to San Diego. And I’m leaving on Monday.”
  “OK. I’ll drive you there.”
  “Don’t be ridiculous,” McCandless scoffed.
  “I need to go anyway,” Franz lied, “to pick up some leather sup­plies.”

  “你不需要去圣地亚哥,”弗朗兹反对说,“如果你缺钱,我可以给你。”
  “不,你不懂,我要去圣地亚哥,而且我星期一就走。”
  “好,我送你去。”
  “别闹了。” 麦克肯多斯嘲笑他。
  “反正我本来也要去,”弗朗兹说谎道,“去买一点皮材。”

  McCandless 24)relented. He struck his camp, stored most of his belongings in Franz’s apartment—the boy didn’t want to 25)schlepp his sleeping bag or backpack around the city—and then rode with the old man across the mountains to the coast. It was rain­ing when Franz dropped McCandless at the San Diego water­front. “It was a very hard thing for me to do,” Franz says. “I was sad to be leaving him.”
  麦克肯多斯不再那么坚持,他撤了营,把大部分的家当存在弗朗兹的公寓里——他不想带着睡袋或背包在城里到处走——接着他搭车和老人越过山岭,前往海边。弗朗兹把麦克肯多斯载到圣地亚哥港口附近放下他时,正下着雨。弗朗兹说:“这么做真难,我真舍不得离开他。”

  A week later Franz’s phone rang. “When I heard his voice, it was like sunshine after a month of rain.”
  “Will you come pick me up?” McCandless asked.
  “Yes. Where in Seattle are you?”

  一周之后,弗朗兹的电话铃响了。“当我听到他的声音时,仿佛下了一个月的雨后重见阳光的感觉。”
  “你可不可以来接我?”麦克肯多斯问道。
  “好,你在西雅图的哪里?”

  “Ron,” McCandless laughed, “I’m not in Seattle. I’m in Califor­nia, just up the road from you, in 26)Coachella.” Unable to find work in the rainy Northwest, McCandless had hopped a series of freight trains back to the desert. As soon as he hung up the phone, Franz rushed off to pick McCandless up. “We went to a Sizzler, where I filled him up with steak and lob­ster,” Franz recalls, “and then we drove back to Salton City.” McCandless said that he would be staying only a day, just long enough to wash his clothes and load his backpack. He’d heard from 27)Wayne Westerberg that a job was waiting for him at the grain elevator in 28)Carthage, and he was eager to get there. Franz offered to take McCand­less to Grand Junction, Colorado, which was the farthest he could drive without missing an appointment in Salton City the following Monday. To Franz’s surprise and great relief, McCand­less accepted the offer without argument.
  麦克肯多斯笑着说:“罗,我不在西雅图,我在加州,就在离你不远的科切拉市。”麦克肯多斯在多雨的西北部找不到工作,于是跳上了几列货运车回到沙漠。弗朗兹一挂上电话,就十万火急地去接他。“我们去时时乐餐厅,让他大吃了一顿牛排和龙虾,”弗朗兹回忆道,“接着我们驶回沙尔顿市。”麦克肯多斯说他只停留一天,只够他换洗衣服,整理行囊。他已经接到韦恩 • 威斯伯格的消息,知道在迦太基市的谷仓有工作等着他,他很急着要去。弗朗兹提议要送麦克肯多斯到科罗拉多州大章克申,他之前约了人下周一要在沙尔顿市见面,所以那是他能送麦克肯多斯最远而不至于失约的地点。令弗朗兹既惊讶又欣慰的是,麦克肯多斯接受了他的安排,并无异议。

  Thursday at daybreak they drove out of Salton City in Franz’s truck. Franz reports that it was a pleasant, if hurried trip. “Some­times we’d drive for hours without saying a word,” he recalls. “Even when he was sleeping, I was happy just knowing he was there.” On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the shoulder of Inter­state 70 outside Grand Junction and returned to southern Cali­

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