Fifty years ago, British aviator Beryl Markham became the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean, from east to west.
50年前,英国飞行家柏瑞尔·马卡姆成为第一个从东向西飞跃大西洋的人。
Her achievement was marveled, though, as were many of her accomplishments.
包括这次在内,她有许多成就令人惊叹。
Markham had set out to fly from London to New York.
马卡姆已着手准备从伦敦飞往纽约,
She ended up flying from London to Nova Scotia.
最后是从伦敦飞往新斯科舍。
That flight and other aspects of her extraordinary life are told in Markham's book West with the Night.
这次飞行以及她不凡一生的其他方面都在她的书《夜航西飞》中得到了体现。
This week, many public television stations will broadcast a documentary about Markham called "World without Walls".
本周,很多公共电视台将报道有关马卡姆的纪录片,名为《没有墙的世界》。
NPR's Susan Stanberg tells Beryl Markham's story.
下面请听公家公共电台苏珊·史登堡为您发回的有关柏瑞尔·马卡姆的报道。
New York City, September 6, 1936, a ticker take parade, and mayor Fiorello LaGuardia greeting a tall, blonde English woman
1936年9月6日于纽约:市长菲欧雷洛·拉加迪亚列队欢迎一名金发高个儿的英国女子。
who just the day before, had completed a 21-hour-and-25-minute flight across the Atlantic, Ebbingdon, England to a nameless swamp, non-stop.
就在一天前,这名女子完成了无停歇穿越大西洋和英格兰来到无名沼泽的飞行,历时21小时25分钟。
"Markham, may I, on behalf of the city of New York, extend to you,
“马卡姆女士,请允许我代表纽约市向您致以真挚的欢迎和祝贺,
a sincere welcome and our congratulations on your splendid flight across the ocean."
祝贺您完成了穿越大西洋的精彩飞行。”
" I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much." Nine years after Lindbergh, and going in the other direction,
“我很高兴来到纽约,谢谢你们,9年后,马卡姆独自向另一个方向,
his Spirit of Saint Louis, soloed New York to Paris,
纽约到巴黎完成了飞行。
Beryl Markham, thirty-four years old, had flown seventeen of the twenty-one and a half hours in fog and darkness,
那时她才34岁,却已经在迷雾和黑暗中飞行了21.5小时,而其中有17个小时是在黑暗中飞行的。
with no fuel gauge, no radio, no idea where she was most of the time, to crash land,
这次飞行期间没有燃油量表的指示,听不到收音机,大多数时候也不知道自己在哪儿。最后,她的飞机坠机,
after the engine of her monoplane died in a bog on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
单翼机发动机陷于泥沼无法启动,淹没在了新斯科舍的布雷顿角岛上。
The next day, she was being cheered in New York.
第二天,整个纽约市为她欢呼沸腾。
"It was a hard battle against the elements above the ocean, fog and storm,
“跟海上的迷雾和暴风雨较劲是一场艰难的斗争,
but pluck and endurance crowned one of the most grueling flights on record."
但勇气和忍耐最终托举我完成了有生以来最艰难的一次飞行。”
"I am so pleased to have got here; I only wish I could come in my own machine."
“我很高兴自己抵达了那里,我希望下一次能用我自己的飞机来完成飞行。”
"And now, onto a New York hotel, to be interviewed by a movie waker,
“是啊,现在,您已经抵达纽约旅馆,即将受到电影界人士的采访,
Mrs Markham, just what were you thinking about while flying through all that fog and storm?"
我想请问您,在迷雾和暴风雨中飞行的时候,脑海里在想些什么呢?”
"Well, my one thought and ambition was to get to America."
“我想的还是抵达美国的愿望。”
"When above the sea, what did you eat or drink?"
“在海上飞行的时候,您有摄入食物或者饮料吗?”
"I didn't have anything until the last half hour when I had a taste of brandy."
“我直到最后半个小时才进了点儿食,喝了口白兰地”
"Just one?" "No, two, I'm afraid." Aviation was very young then.
“只有一口吗?”“大概两口吧,我感觉。”那时候,人类的航空技术还不是很成熟。
Every single day without fail, there were two or three articles in the newspapers about people being killed in aircraft.
每天都毫无例外的有报道称,有人在飞行中身亡。
It was completely new sport. Mary Lovell has just completed a biography of Beryl Markham.
飞行,对人类来说,是一项全新的运动,玛丽·洛弗尔刚刚完成了有关柏瑞尔·马卡姆的传记。
The book will be published next spring. The engines were not very reliable.
明年春天,这本书将面世。发动机不太靠得住。
All she had was a compass and some kind of direction-finding equipment that didn't work very well.
她仅有的是一个指南针还有类似于寻找方位的设备,不过后者找方位也不是很准确。
She really didn't know where she was for a long time.
很长一段时间里,她都不知道自己身在何处。
She had no idea how far off the coast she was, whether her fuel would last.
她不知道自己离海岸有多远,也不知道燃料能支撑多久。
I think the one time in her life she has been frightened was then.
我觉得那是她一生里最害怕的一次。
For most of her eighty-three years, Beryl Markham was indeed fearless.
在柏瑞尔·马卡姆一生83年的岁月里,她都是无所畏惧的。
As a child growing up in Africa, she faced down a marauding lion.
在非洲长大的时候,她曾与一只觅食的狮子面对面而站。
As a trainer, she forced high-strung racehorses to obey her.
作为训练员,她也曾让情绪激动地赛马乖乖听话。
As an old woman, she drove her car through a machine gun fire during an attempted coup in Kenya.
年老的时候,她还曾驱车穿越肯尼亚政变的枪林弹雨。
She wanted to keep a luncheon date. It was simply her nature to confront danger.
穿越枪林弹雨只是为了赴约午餐。直面危险是她与生俱来的能力。
"There's a coolness to her. She's not a very trusting person."
“她骨子里透着冷静,她不是轻易相信别人的人。”
Writer Judith Theuman. "I think any person who's lived by her wits would probably have developed that coolness.
作家朱迪思写道,“我认为,靠自己行走一生的人大概都有这样的冷静劲儿。”
Look at the astronauts. I mean, it's a quality that you see it in fliers.
宇航员也是如此啊,我的意思是,这就是飞行员应该具有的品质。
You see it in sailors, or you see it in hunters, and Beryl was of that stamp.
在水手和猎人身上也有这样的品质,柏瑞尔身上也有这样的标签。
There were other interpretations of Markham's coolness.
对于马卡姆的冷静,外界还有其他的阐释。
Some said she lacked the sense to be afraid.
一些人说,马卡姆就是没有害怕的那根弦儿。
People often said nasty things about Beryl Markham, especially other women. It's easy to figure out why.
有人经常会说马卡姆的坏话,尤其是一些女性。其中的原因很简单。
She was beautiful. She was very seductive. She was well born.
马卡姆很漂亮,让人想入非非。她天生俊美。
And she was strong and ambitious and fearless and smart.
她强大而又有抱负,她无畏而又聪明伶俐。
So, you know, it's a lot to take.
所以,说她坏话是有很多原因的。
Ironically, recognition did come to Beryl Markham, but only in the last years of her life.
讽刺的是,直到她人生的最后数年才得到了外界的认可。
Since West with the Night was reissued three years ago, it's sold briskly.
3年前,《夜航西飞》再次发表时,销量火爆。
There are 300,000 copies in print now, and royalties from the book gave much needed financial security.
现在已经有30万份影印本了,光是版税就赚得盆满钵满了。
More recognition will come with the showing on public television this week, of the documentary about her.
随着本周公共电视台上有关马卡姆纪录片的播放,人们对她会有更多的认可。
More recognitions still, when Mary Lovell's biography comes out next spring.
而明年春天,玛丽·洛弗尔有关马卡姆的传记也会为马卡姆带来更多的认可。
And another biography is in the work for publication in a few years.
几年后,还将有一本有关马卡姆传记的书将要发表。
So the story of the woman who flew west on that difficult, dangerous night in 1936 will be told and re-told.
所以,那个曾在1936年经历艰难危险夜晚航行的女性,她的故事将永世流传。
Through the darkness, wedged between extra fuel tanks that had been fitted into the cabin for the long journey,
在一片黑暗中,满载的燃料跟她一起踏上漫漫征途,
her small plane bucking fog and storms and headwinds, the Atlantic Ocean black beneath her,
她狭小的飞机在迷雾和暴风雨里逆风前行。
Beryl Markham flew west with the night, completely alone.
她身下是一片漆黑的大西洋,马卡姆在夜色中独自飞行。
You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.
一个人可以选择这样过一生:看过许多人,对他人的了解比对自己还多。
You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness.
你会学会审视他人,却无法关注自己,因为一直都在与寂寞作斗争。
If you read a book or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself.
无论是读书、玩扑克还是照顾狗狗,其实都是在回避自己。
The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all.
厌恶孤独是人与生俱来的。
If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet,
正是因为孤独,人类不厌其烦地创造了字母,
nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, or to have crossed continents, each man to see what the other looked like.
又从仅仅是动物的声音里抽离出文字;正是因为孤独,人类在洲际间跨越,想要看看未曾见过的人。
Being alone in an aeroplane, for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone,
自己一个人在飞机里,即便只是一个晚上或者一个白天,但只有自己一人,
with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness.
除了器械和昏暗光线里的双手,其他什么都看不见。
Nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage.
这是考验一个人胆量的时刻。
Nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces and hopes rooted in your mind.
脑海里只有信念、牢记的面孔和深植于内心的希望。
Such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger.
这样的经历就像陌生人夜晚经过你身旁那样让人吃惊,一切都是陌生的。
Beryl Markham died in Kenya this past August. She was eighty-three.
在刚刚过去的8月里,柏瑞尔·马卡姆去世。享年83岁。
Her ashes were scattered from a light aircraft over the hills at Inguro, her beloved childhood home.
她的骨灰由一架轻型飞机在Inguro山上撒下,那里是她童年的故乡。
In Washington, I'm Susan Stangerg.
感谢收听苏珊·史登堡为您从华盛顿发回的报道。