给失联朋友的信
【美】芭芭拉·汉比 陈子弘 译
必定有个俄语词来形容我们之间发生的
事情。比如奥斯迪契，用于描述
一杯太热的茶，等你走到隔壁房间之后，
又回来，但又太凉了；或者说是比列哈杰契。
就是数月甚至多年以来一直想要的
东西，而你得到的时候，你就已经了无
兴趣。普希金看了基普连斯基画的他的肖像就说：
“这就像在照镜子一样，而且是照讨好卖乖的镜子。”
盯着朋友的脸看的人是个什么意思
而且看到一度光生的皮肤像火车驶离
彼得堡车站以及宽阔的大街和夜晚
在流浪狗咖啡馆，与不般配的男人们做爱，
烛光下他们看起来是如此登对，那时大家都还年轻
一起抽手制卷烟，整夜画画或者写诗
但都是狗屁，喝了太多太多的伏特加，然后
在痛苦的日光下醒来，肌肤鲜如乳霜，书籍
遍地都是，洛尔迦骑着果戈里，托尔斯泰在塞维涅夫人身下，
如此这般，现在火车奔驰在西伯利亚沼泽林中，
我看见她正在瞅着—— 我所有的书都按字母顺序排放在书架上，
她双脚畸形，手上青筋凸起，
脖子像上周的报纸一样皱皱巴巴，而她的朋友们
却很年轻，皮肤满是粉刺，眼睛像小狗一样明亮。
这能怪她么，而我们有多幸运还能被爱着
哪怕只是一瞬，虽然我也忍不住感觉像普希金，
一排铅弹射入他的肠子，看他的书
也说，"再见，我亲爱的朋友们"，而那几本书
合上并放回长方形格子，尘云漫布
曾经在它们书脊上闪闪发光金色的叶子。
译注：
１、奥斯迪契，原文为俄语单词остыть的拉丁化转写ostyt；
２、比列哈杰契，原文为俄语单词перехотеть的拉丁化转写perekhotet；
３、奥列斯特·阿达莫维奇·基普连斯基（Orest Adamovich Kiprensky 1782-1836)俄罗斯肖像画家；
４、写洛尔迦这一行均指洛尔迦、果戈里、托尔斯泰和塞维涅夫人的书。塞维涅夫人（1626─1696，法国书信作家，其尺牍生动、风趣，反映了路易十四时代法国的社会风貌，被奉为法国文学的瑰宝。）
诗人简介：芭芭拉·汉比（生于1952年）美国诗人、小说家、编辑和评论家。她出生在新奥尔良，在夏威夷长大。她的诗发表于许多种书刊，她的第一本诗集《谵妄》（1995年）获得文学界的认可。她和丈夫兼诗人大卫·柯比现居佛罗里达州塔拉哈西，在那里她是创意写作项目的常驻作家，他也是佛罗里达州立大学英语系的教授。
Letter to a Lost Friend
BY BARBARA HAMBY
There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened
between us, like ostyt, which can be used
for a cup of tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,
and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet,
which is to want something so much over months
and even years that when you get it, you have lost
the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky,
“It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.”
What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face
and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left
the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights
at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men,
who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young
and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote
all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke
in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books
everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné,
so that now, on a train in the taiga of Siberia,
I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves,
feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins,
neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends
are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’,
and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved
for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin,
a rough ball of lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books
and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes
close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding
the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.
Source: Poetry (January 2013)
