那时的我

作者： F. 斯科特 · 费兹杰拉德 编译：嘉炜

记得当我们都体验了，亚特兰大那特有的南方炎热，那让人疯魔的魅力之后，我们还是低估了塔尔顿这座城市。因为这里比我们到过的任何地方都还要热——在乔治亚州的太阳下，第一天就有十几个新兵热昏过去——有成群的牛在街区马路上飘过，就像是沙漠中的海市蜃楼一样，他们还被皮肤黝黑的牧牛人驱赶着，炽热的空气更加使你恍惚；这时候，你会想动一动手或者脚，来确定自己是否被炙热的阳光烤到已经石化，意识疲惫慵懒不堪的怀疑着自己是否还活着。

所以我就待在了营地里，我很乐意于，让沃伦中尉告诉我一些关于姑娘们的故事。对比现在，这已经是发生在十五年前的事了。现在的我早已忘记了那时自己的感受，只记得日子一天天过去，过得比现在好，但我心里空荡荡的，因为那时我奋力爱了三年的她要结婚了。我看到了剪报和报纸上的照片，上面写着，这是一场“浪漫的战时婚礼”，显得既昂贵又悲伤。我能清楚地感受到天空中的余晖是黑暗的，对于那时年轻而功利的我而言，我更多的是嫉妒，而不是为他们结婚感到懊悔。

后来有一天，我到塔尔顿城里去理发，碰到了一个名叫比尔的不错的小伙子，他和我在哈佛的时候是同班同学，之前我们都曾是国民警卫队服役；在被派往军营的最后一刻，他转到了航空部队并被留了下来。

他跟我打了招呼，并过分正经的跟我说，在他动身去德州之前，会把他知道的所有信息都告诉我，其实也就是关于三个姑娘的事情。

对于这三个姑娘，我还是很感兴趣的，可能也是因为当时失恋加上军营的生活过分无聊，天气似乎要把我整个人掏空了，异性的神秘感在本能上也刚好吸引着我，让我心中也燃起了莫名的期待感。

After Atlanta's elaborate and theatrical rendition of Southern charm, we all underestimated Tarleton. It was a little hotter than anywhere we'd been--a dozen rookies collapsed the first day in that Georgia sun--and when you saw herds of cows drifting through the business streets, hi-yaed by colored drovers, a trance stole down over you out of the hot light; you wanted to move a hand or foot to be sure you were alive.

So I stayed out at camp and let Lieutenant Warren tell me about the girls. This was fifteen years ago, and I've forgotten how I felt, except that the days went along, one after another, better than they do now, and I was empty-hearted, because up North she whose legend I had loved for three years was getting married. I saw the clippings and newspaper photographs. It was "a romantic wartime wedding," all very rich and sad. I felt vividly the dark radiance of the sky under which it took place, and as a young snob, was more envious than sorry.

A day came when I went into Tarleton for a haircut and ran into a nice fellow named Bill Knowles, who was in my time at Harvard. He'd been in the National Guard division that preceded us in camp; at the last moment he had transferred to aviation and been left behind.

"I'm glad I met you, Andy," he said with undue seriousness. "I'll hand you on all my information before I start for Texas. You see, there're really only three girls here—"

I was interested; there was something mystical about there being three girls.

音播封面人物是Josh Hartnett 乔什 · 哈奈特，他的形象很贴合小说主人公“我”的气质，图片来自豆瓣。