Unit 4B - Two Cities
Two Cities
Stanley Kauffmann
A young friend asked me recently what it's like to live in the city where I grew up. The question startled me. I never think of New York that way. True, when I walk along certain streets, I remember things that happened there, but the same city?
When I went to grammar school in the mid-1920s on 63rd Street between Second and Third Avenues—now a chic residential neighborhood bristling with high apartment houses—I passed a blacksmith shop on the way from the corner to the middle of the block. I can still hear the hiss of the white-hot horseshoes being plunged into a bucket of water, can still sniff the burny smell of the hoof to which a warm shoe was fixed. I used to hitch rides to and from school on the back step of horse-drawn ice wagons. I used to go shopping with my mother in the pushcart markets that lined both sides of Second Avenue from 70th Street to 76th. Those pushcarts were under the Second Avenue El. We lived on 68th Street near the corner of Second, and if one of us was on the phone when an El train came along, we had to halt the conversation until it passed. (Other boroughs still have Els, but people under 50 can't imagine one in mid-Manhattan.)
In those 1920s, near the end of the great immigration wave, my schoolmates were mostly Italian Catholic and Eastern European Jewish, the children of foreign-born in New York, as had both of my grandmothers. My schoolmates called me, semi-derisively, "the Yankee1." Once a teacher asked me to carry a note to the principal. In his outer office, an Italian woman, mother of one of the students, was waiting to see him. While waiting, she was unembarrassedly nursing a baby. I remember a blue vein in her very white breast.
Radio was still new in those days, wondrous. Many of my schoolmates came from families too poor to own a set. I became something of a school celebrity because of radio and my father. He was a dentist, and in the professional society to which he belonged, he was in charge of a series of talks on dental hygiene that the society presented on the municipal radio station WNYC—fifteen minutes at midday once a week. Usually he invited other dentists to speak, but one week he did the talk himself. My mother wrote a note to my teacher asking that I be excused a half-hour before lunchtime that day, so that I could come home and hear my father. It was granted. I heard him, and I bragged. Some of my friends, especially the foreign-born ones, could hardly believe it. They actually knew someone whose father's voice had been broadcast all around New York City. One of them, probably quoting a parent, said, "Only in America."
Earlier, until I was 7 years old, we lived in Washington Heights, near the northern tip of Manhattan. A photographer used to come around with a pony on which children would sit to have their picture taken. I still have mine taken at 4. (My future wife, then unknown to me, had her picture taken on the same pony a few years later.) In the summer, a truck came around with a small carousel on the back. The driver turned the carousel by hand. There was a big iron wheel at the side, and he pumped up and down while six or eight children rode around. I loved it. (My wife, a few years later, loved it too.) A man occasionally wandered through the streets, garments draped over his shoulder, calling out, "I cash clo'. I cash clo'." He bought old clothes, usually men's, that people wanted to get rid of, and then sold them somewhere. Opposite our apartment house was a large vacant lot that had never been built on. It was surrounded by apartment houses, but the lot itself was untouched. I used to clamber over rocks and climb trees that Indians had known. This was true of Central Park, too. I knew, but that was for the city. This was for me and my friends, our own Indian territory.
I don't live in that city any more.
Is New York worse now? Of course, and not just because many of my mementos are gone. We have an average of six murders a day, often including children. We have tens of thousands of homeless men and women, some of them mentally incompetent. We have a horrific drug problem. We share those miseries with other cities; one title we hold alone. New York streets are dirtier than those in any American city I've seen (let alone London or Paris).
But the greatest single change in New York in my lifetime is in the view of equality. Blacks are no longer required to "know their place"—at any rate, not comparably with the rigors of the past. At least lip service is now paid to the idea of absolute equality. ("Assume a virtue, if you have it not," says Hamlet.) After World War II, Puerto Ricans flocked to New York. Soon came other Hispanics. Equality for them, too. The cash machine in my bank now asks, after I've inserted my card, whether I want my instructions in English or Spanish. New York has become, perhaps less willy than nilly, a gigantic testing ground for the idea that America has been mouthing for 200 years. This, too, is true of other American cities, but New York is the hugest crucible. Insofar as inherited hates and prejudices—in all of us—will permit, we are finding out whether equality can be more than a catchword, whether equality is possible in race, religion, sexual preference, gender (Female police officers, for example. Fully uniformed and packing pistols, they still avoid eye contact with a passing man, just like other women.) New York is at the head of the parade that is being asked to put its money where its Fourth-of-July mouth is.
The process is expensive. It costs everybody something. It abrades those who grew up in a stratified New York. It harries those, particularly black or Hispanic, who are on the frontier and must bear both the resentments in others and the frustrations in themselves. Surely crime rates and drug abuse are connected to the tauntings of unfulfilled equality. Surely the decline in civic pride is connected to those same frustrations.
"Super-faced Manhattan!" sang Whitman. "Comrade Americans! to us, then at last the Orient comes." Was he foreseeing sushi bars, Korean grocers and nail shops? Walt continued:
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides,
to walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
Will the vast experiment succeed? I'll never know; but the fact that it is happening helps to reconcile me to this dirty and dangerous city, this second New York of my life.
参考译文——两个纽约
两个纽约
斯坦利·考夫曼
最近有一位年轻朋友问我，生活在从小长大的城市有何感受。这个问题使我大吃一惊，我还从未从这个方面想过纽约。说真的，我沿着几条街道漫步的时候，便回想起这里发生的历历往事，可这是同一座城市吗？
20世纪20年代中期，我去位于第二和第三大道之间的第63街上的小学上学——现在是公寓楼林立的雅致居民区——在从街角到街区之间的马路上，我要经过一家铁匠铺。现在，我似乎仍然能听到烧得白热的马蹄铁被投入水桶时所发出的咝咝声，仍能闻得到马蹄钉上热蹄铁时所发出的糊味。当时，我常常在往返学校的途中搭乘在拉冰马车的后面。我还常常和母亲一道去位于第70和76街之间的第二大道两边的手推货车市场买东西。这些手推货车停在第二大道上的高架铁路下面。我们住在靠近第二大道街角的第68街上，如果有人在打电话恰巧赶上高架铁路上火车隆隆经过，就只好等火车通过后才继续通话。（其他行政区仍然有高架铁路，可是50岁以下的人无法想象在曼哈顿区中心区曾有过一条这样的铁路。）
在20世纪20年代里，大规模移民浪潮已接近尾声，我的同学大多数为意大利天主教徒和东欧犹太人，他们的父母是外来移民，就像我的祖母和外祖母一样。我的同学们半嘲笑地称呼我“美国佬”。有一次，一位老师让我把一张字条带给校长。一位意大利妇女正在他办公室的外间等着见他，她是一位学生的母亲。在等待过程中，她毫不感到难为情地给婴儿哺乳。我还记得她那白皙的乳房上有一条青筋。
收音机在那时还是令人惊叹的稀罕物。我的许多同学家里太穷，买不起收音机。 因收音机和我父亲的缘故，我在学校里多少有点名气。父亲是个牙医，在他所厲的职业协会中，他负责关于牙齿卫生的系列讲座，这些讲座是协会在市无线电台——纽约公共无线电台推出的，每周一次，在中午播出15分钟。父亲通常邀请其他牙医做讲座，不过有一个星期是他亲自主讲的。母亲给老师写了个假条，请他允许我在那天午餐前离开半个小时，以便我赶回家听父亲的讲座。我的假被批准了，我听到了父亲的讲座，便吹嘘起来。一些朋友，特别是外国出生的朋友几乎难以相信这件事。他们居然认识这样一个人，他父亲的声音在全纽约市播出。其中一个同学大概是引用了一个家长的话说：“只有在美国才有这样的事。”
早些时候，我7岁以前，我家住在靠近曼哈顿北端的华盛顿高地。一位摄影师常常牵着一匹小马驹在这一带徘徊，孩子们往往骑在马上照相。我还保存着我4岁时骑马拍的照片。(我未来的妻子，当然我当时根本不认识她，几年后也骑在同一匹马上拍了照片。）夏日里，有一辆后面拉着一匹小型旋转木马的卡车常停在这一带。司机用手转动着木马，木马边上有一只大铁轮子，他上下移动操纵杆，6到8个孩子骑在上面旋转着。我喜欢坐旋转木马。（我妻子几年后也喜欢坐旋转木马。）一个男人偶尔在街上游荡，把衣服搭在肩上，嘴里吆喝着：“旧衣服换钱，旧衣服换钱。”他收购旧衣服，通常是人们不想要的男士衣服，再把它们卖往别处。我们住的公寓对面是一块空地，上面什么也没有。周围都是公寓，但这块空地从来没有人动过。我常常在大石头之间攀来爬去，还爬上印第安人所熟悉的树木。我知道，中央公园也是如此，但它是为这座城市准备的。而这块空地是为我和朋友们准备的，是我们自己的印第安人领地。
我不再生活在那座城市了。
纽约现在的情况更糟吗？当然，这并不仅仅是因为能引发我回忆的许多事物都消失了。这里平均每天发生六起凶杀案，被害者通常包括儿童。我们有成千上万的男男女女无家可归，其中还有智力不健全者。还有可怕的毒品问题。我们和其他城市一道承受着这些不幸，但有一个名声是我们独自享受的。纽约的街道要比我所见过的美国任何一座城市的都脏（更不要说伦敦或巴黎了)。
不过，在我一生中纽约发生的最大的一个变化要数人们对于平等的看法。黑人不再被要求“清楚自己地位低微而安守本分”——不管怎么说，与过去的苛刻已无法相比。至少在口头上已普及绝对平等的观念。(“假装你有美德吧，如果你没有的话”哈姆雷特这样说。）第二次世界大战结束后，波多泰各人涌入纽约。不久，其他讲西班牙语的人也来了。平等同样赋予了他们。在银行，我把信用卡插进去，自动取款机这时就问，我需要英语还是两班牙语提示。纽约也许无可奈何地成为美国言不由衷地重复了200年的观点的一个庞大的实验场。美国的其他城市也是如此，但纽约是最大的熔炉。在我们所继承的仇恨与偏见——在我们所有的人中都存在——允许的范围内，我们正在验证，平等是否只是一句口号，能否在种族、宗教、性取向和性别方面实现平等。（例如，女警官身穿制服。佩带手枪，但还是和其他妇女一样避免和路过的男入有目光接触。）纽约市在游行队伍中走在了前列，而人们要求此类游行把钱投到7月4日美国《独立宣言》所宣扬的地方去。
追求平等是要付出高昂代价的。每个人都要做出牺牲。它折磨着在阶层划分森严的纽约长大的人们。袭扰着那些生活在边远地带的人们，特别是黑人或讲西班牙语的人们，因为这些人必须忍受来自其他人的愤恨和来自自身的挫折感。高发的犯罪率与滥用毒品无疑与对未能实现平等权利的嘲弄有关。日益减弱的市民自豪感当然与他们遭受的同样的挫折直接相关。
“超级面孔的曼哈顿！”惠特曼在诗中写道。“美国同胞们！东方人最终会来到我们身边。”他能预见到寿司店、韩国杂货店和美甲店吗？沃尔特继续写道：
致我们，我的城市：
高入云端的大理石和钢铁美人矗立两侧，
行走其间，
澳新事物今天已经来到我们身边。
这一大规模实验会成功吗？我不得而知，但正在发生的一切使我甘于接受这座既肮脏又危险的城市，我生命中的第二个纽约。
Key Words:
hoof [hu:f]
n. 蹄，人的脚 v. 以蹄踢，行走
hiss [his]
n. 嘘声，嘶嘶声 v. 发出嘘声（表示不满）, 发嘶嘶
celebrity [si'lebriti]
n. 名人，名誉，社会名流
horrific [hɔ'rifik]
adj. 令人毛骨悚然的，可怖的
virtue ['və:tju:]
n. 美德，德行，优点，贞操
frontier ['frʌntjə]
n. 边界，边境，尖端，边缘
reconcile ['rekənsail]
vt. 和解，调和，妥协
参考资料：