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北方的秋天就要来了。北京的秋天虽然很短，但在这四个季节中是最美-平静恬淡的感觉! 而此时的美国正遭受着飓风艾达的袭击。很多时候，人类在自然灾害面前是无能为力的。那是一种未知的恐惧。 今天，读一篇《华尔街日报》的文章。65年前，作者还是一个刚出生一年的幼儿，对那场袭击了路易斯安那州的飓风毫无印象。 但飓风袭来的那一夜，作者的母亲却记忆犹新。 65年后，飓风再次袭击路易斯安那州，这一次，这一夜作者真切地感受到了自然的力量，人类面对灾难时的境况。 The Long Night of Hurricane Ida 飓风艾达漫长的一夜 这个标题，让我想起了那首One Night in Beijing As Hurricane Betsy tore through Louisiana in 1965, my mother held me in her arms and rocked me through the night. I was an infant with an ear infection, and as raging rain and the late hour kept us from getting medical help, Mama did what she could to comfort me in the long stretch before daylight. 1965年飓风贝奇刮过路易斯安那州时，我的母亲把我放在胳膊上，整晚摇着我睡觉。我当时还是个幼儿，而且耳朵感染了。 因为肆虐的暴雨，我们无法去找医生，天亮前，母亲在那一夜做了她能做的所有事来安抚我。 While the winds howled and I howled louder, the woman who had given me life a year before rocked and prayed. 风在咆哮，我在哭闹。一年前给了我生命的母亲抱着我摇来摇去，祈祷着。 I have no memory of that ordeal, but my mother told me the story often as a way to say, without quite spelling it out, that even the darkest night can be endured. 我对这场遭难完全没有印象，但母亲却经常给我讲这件事，当作是一个启示: 人类在最黑暗的夜里也能挺过来。 Mama died in 2008, but I think of her every time a hurricane rolls over my home in Baton Rouge, as on Sunday when Hurricane Ida arrived. 我的母亲2008年去世，但每当飓风吹过我在巴吞鲁日（路易斯安那州首府）时，我都会想起她。就如周日飓风艾达吹过这里一样。 Hurricanes are scary, and they are even scarier when they approach after dark. I always feel a pit in my stomach when the neighborhood transformers surrender to the gusts and the streets plunge into cast-iron gloom. 飓风让人心生畏惧，特别是在天黑之后。当邻居家的变压器被狂风吹的狂摆，街道陷入昏暗一片时，我内心常常会感到阵阵的恐惧。 Keeping anxious vigil, all a seasoned veteran of hurricanes can do is listen as the storm whips one tree after another. 飓风一来，彻夜难眠。即使是经历过多次飓风的人，能做的也只是听着狂风抽打着一颗又一颗的树。 Facing that fright in darkness makes it worse. In those moments, I usually feel deeply alone, even within the folds of family. 黑暗中面对那种情景更让人畏惧。每当处在这种时刻，即使家里几代同堂，我也会感到一种无边无际的孤独。 Ida’s arrival on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina only deepened the desolation. Like many Louisianians, I recall the date of Katrina’s landfall—Aug. 29, 2005—as vividly as 9/11. 十六年前卡特里娜飓风袭来，今天的艾达飓风让这种孤寂更深邃。 和很多路易斯安那人一样，我仍然记得卡特里娜飓风入境的时间-2005年8月29日。这个日子就像911一样让人记忆深刻。 But as Ida rattled our windows and snapped nearby branches Sunday night, I also thought about the writer Loren Eiseley, who observed that in the depths of a trying night, a wakeful soul can find strength that otherwise might go undiscovered. 但是，当周日晚上艾达飓风拍击着我的窗子，吹断附近的树枝时，我还想起来作家Loren Eiseley（洛伦·艾斯利）。 他说在难熬的黑夜中，无眠的灵魂更能找寻到可能会被深埋的力量。 “At night one has to sustain reality without help,” he wrote. “One has to hear lest hearing be lost, see lest sight not return to follow moon-beams across the floor, touch lest the sense of objects vanish. Oh, sleeping, soundlessly sleeping ones, do you ever think who knits your universe together safely from one day’s memory to the next?” 他写道：“在夜晚，一个人要坚守现实，要努力去听，就像听力消失一样，要努力去看，就像目光不会追寻扫过地面的月光一样，努力去触摸就像物体不复存在一样。” “啊，睡梦中，安然睡眠的人们啊，你可曾想过是谁把一天天的记忆编织成你的宇宙的？” As a lifelong resident of Louisiana, I’ve lived through a lot of storm-tossed nights, and they are never easy. Even so, they can prompt painful but productive reflection on what matters most. 作为一个世代居住在路易斯安那州的居民，我经历过很多狂风暴雨的夜晚，每一夜都很惊险。即便如此，这些夜晚让人痛苦，却更能激起人们对生活意义的反思。 Those priorities seemed clear enough as my wife and I greeted the dawn with health, safety and an intact house. 黎明到来，当我和妻子安然无恙，住所牢固不破，面面相觑的时候，才知道哪些是最重要的事。 Tree limbs littered the lawn, and the power was out, but we had weathered Ida. Our good fortune will enable us to help others who didn’t fare so well. 树枝散落在草坪上，电力被破坏，但我们没有被艾达打倒。我们很幸运，这份幸运也让我们能够帮助那些不幸的人。 Louisiana’s long night of suffering isn’t really over, though with prayer and resolve, we’ll get through. My dear mother, were she still around, would tell me this is true. 祈祷、决心并没有让路易斯安那州漫长又磨人的夜结束，但我们会度过这一夜的。如果我的母亲还在，一定会告诉我这是真的！ |
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