I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble:
my father’s father killed in the frontier ofBuenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the he of a cow;
my mother’s grandfather -just twentyfour- heading a 插rge of three hundred men in Perú, now ghosts on vani射d horses.
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold,whatever manliness or humour my life.
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved somehow -the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
I offer you explanationsof yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.
Ican give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart;
I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
--
(我用什麼才能留住你？
我給你貧窮的街道、絕望的日落、破敗郊區的月亮。
我給你一個久久地望著孤月的人的悲哀。
我給你我已死去的先輩，人們用大理石紀念他們的幽靈：
在布宜偌斯艾利斯邊境陣亡的我父親的父親，兩顆子彈穿了他的胸膛。蓄著鬍子的他死去了，士兵們用牛皮裹起他的屍體；
我母親的祖父——時年二十四歲——在秘魯率領三百名士兵衝鋒，如今都成了消失的馬背上的幽靈。
我給你我寫的書中所能包含的一切悟力、我生活中所能有的男子氣概或幽默。
我給你一個從未有過信仰人的忠誠。
我給你我設法保全的我自己的核心——不營字造句，不和夢想交易，不被時間、歡樂和逆境觸動的核心。
我給你，早在你出生前多年的一個傍晚看到的一朵黃玫瑰的記憶。
我給你對自己的解釋，關於你自己的理論，你自己的真實而驚人的消息。
我給你我的寂寞、我的黑暗、我心的饑渴；
我試圖用困惑、危險、失敗來打動你。）2
6.
管鋅手臂有輕微的動作，靖岳立馬握住，放在唇邊一點一點兒地啄著，眼淚隨地心引力滑落，靖岳沒有伸手去抹，管鋅的手指在他臉上顫顫巍巍地浮著，靖岳含住，聲淚俱下。