《[HP]格林德沃与邓布利多通信集》我才不爱吃泡面

31、Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore

　　[sealed with a charm which opens only to a drop of Gellert Grindelwald's blood]

　　[一封只能用盖勒特·格林德沃的一滴血启封的信]

　　December 25th, 1995

　　1995年12月25日

　　Gellert,

　　盖勒特，

　　A Christmas letter, after all this time. I must confess that I have not held to your wishes. Voldemort remains undefeated, and he has recently returned in full health, after his brush with what he so feared, and begun to gather followers. Horcruxes, old friend. Horcruxes and dozens of other defenses. And, on my word, I do not lie. I do not know why I won, in the end. I do not know what you want me to say.

　　一封多年后的圣诞信。我必须承认，我没有完成你的期望。伏地魔残余的部分并未被击败，他很快就要卷土重来了，从他最恐惧的东西（死亡）擦肩而过后，重新召集追随者。魂器，老朋友。魂器和一打别的防御咒。而且，正如我说的那样，我不会撒谎。我真的不知道我为什么获得了最后的胜利。我不知道你究竟想让我说什么。

　　And I know—that I said I would not write again. And I accept your apology, of course, years ago. But I cannot think what else to do. I beg of you patience...

　　并且你知道的——我之前说过我不会再给你写信了。我接受你的道歉，当然，很多年前就接受了。但我不知道我还能做什么。我乞求你给我一点耐心……

　　I suppose by now you must have heard of Harry Potter.

　　我想你一定听说过哈利·波特。

　　I send this to you in the deepest confidence. As I remember writing long ago, I have no true intimates. Peculiar as it is, after all the years of silence and all the anger, you are the man whom I trust most with—this. With a matter of no consequence to the war, to England, to Voldemort—

　　我怀着对你无比的信任写信给你。就像我很久以前给你写的信里说过，我没有真正的知己。虽然可能会奇怪，但在这么多年的沉默和愤怒后，你仍是我认为可以说这件事的，最信任的人。这件事关乎这一场未分胜负的战役，关乎英格兰，关于伏地魔的——

　　Harry Potter started at Hogwarts five years ago. He was Sorted into Gryffindor House, which I doubt surprises you. His academics are on the upper side of average, his teacher relations generally neutral, and his friendships unbreakable as diamonds. He was raised by an abusive, neglectful Muggle family, utterly miserable until he came to Hogwarts, and that was my will, for it was necessary to protect him. Necessary to condemn him to a horrible childhood. His entire life is bound up in old magic, wild philomency, things Voldemort refuses to acknowledge and which even you and I barely plumbed the existence of. He is both ordinary and extraordinary at once, and it strains my wit to describe him.

　　哈利·波特于五年前入学霍格沃茨。他被分到格兰芬多学院，我想你一定会为此感到惊讶。他的成绩中等偏上，同教授们的关系不好不坏，与几个朋友的友谊坚不可摧。他在一个麻瓜家庭的虐待与忽视中长大，来到霍格沃茨前一直过着悲惨的生活，而这都是我安排的，为了给他提供必要的保护。不得不让他陷入一段悲惨的童年。他的生命与古老的魔法、强烈的爱意紧紧相连，这是伏地魔拒绝去承认的东西，也是你我都未曾探究的领域。他平凡却又非凡，以至于我不得不绞尽脑汁向你描述他。

　　He has suffered so, so much for a boy so young. And so much of it at my hands, even if indirectly. And—he does not know. He has not even the faintest clue of the true weight of it.

　　他遭受过的比他的同龄人多太多。很多都是出自我手，或者说，是由我间接造成的。而他——对此毫不知情。他甚至没有掌握有关自己命运的一丁点线索。

　　His fate is entwined with Voldemort's. Magic beyond logic or reason—

　　他的命运与伏地魔紧紧纠缠。那是超乎逻辑或理性的魔法使然——

　　Gellert, I must send him to his death.

　　盖勒特，我必须将他推向死亡。

　　I had tried for so many years not to see it. A shred of Voldemort's soul, so torn from the creation of his Horcruxes, dislodged when the Killing Curse backfired and stuck in an innocent boy. There is a prophecy. Twin serpents in the smoke of the pathfinder. Old, old, antediluvian magic—

　　这么多年来，我一直都在试图回避这件事。伏地魔的灵魂碎片之一，如他撕裂灵魂制造魂器一样，在杀戮咒反弹之后，一部分灵魂附在了一个无辜的婴儿身上。这是预言的印证。预言迷雾中的一对孪生蛇。非常古老的魔法——

　　I cannot tell him. How could I? He must realize it himself—

　　我无法告诉他。我该怎么开口呢？他必须自己意识到这一点——

　　He is a good boy, Gellert. He is tough and brave and mostly clever, and he deserves better. He deserves to grow up and grow old and fall in love and herd about children and write crochety letters. He deserves to bury Voldemort and move on to his own life, free of fates and scars and nonsense, and I would give my life to make it so, but I cannot, not ever, because that is not how things are.

　　他是个好孩子，盖勒特。他坚强，勇敢还很聪明，他值得更好的。他本应长大成人，然后衰老，拥有爱情然后和自己的孩子们生活在一起，写着带着钩针花边的信。他本应葬送伏地魔后开启一段属于自己的崭新的人生，不被命运，伤疤等等这些没有意义的东西缠绕，我宁可牺牲自己的生命去成就这一切，但是我无法，我做不到，因为一切已然预示。

　　I feared you, when I realized the extent of your plans, the terror of your rule, the Muggle-torture. When you fled from Ariana's body like a common cut-throat. And I was angry, yes, of course. So very angry. But I never hated you. I never wished upon you the worst thing in the world. And hence you wake and sleep and eat and breathe, and do not burn in the everlasting furnace of phoenix fire into which I would cast Voldemort—no, Tom Riddle, that is his name, the rest is affectation—into which I would cast the man who bound Harry to his fate, I hate him so, I hate him to the marrow of my bones—

　　我那时很怕你，当我意识到你计划的内容，你可怖的统治，对麻瓜的折磨。当你残酷冷漠地从阿利安娜的尸体旁逃走时，我气愤，是的，当然，非常气愤。但我从来没有恨过你。我从未诅咒任何灾难落到你的身上。因此，在你醒来，入睡，用餐，呼吸时，我从未想过把你投入永远燃烧着凤凰之火的熔狱里，那个我想把伏地魔——不，汤姆·里德尔，这才是他的名字，其他的都是装腔作势——投进去的地方，我想将这个把哈利和他的命运束缚在一起的人投入此中，我对他恨之入骨。

　　You do not cling to life like a canker. That is remorse enough for me, no matter what you may think. And for a Dark wizard, you have a surprisingly healthy relationship with death—

　　你不会像个肿瘤一样依附在别的生命上苟延残喘。这足以让我感到自责，无论你怎么想。作为一个黑巫师，你对死亡的看法出乎意料的合理且正确——

　　Listen to me. I am sorry. I write to you in despair and burden you with an old man's insoluble worries, after we both said there was nothing left between us but bitterness. But, Gellert. I send him to his death. For the greater good.

　　听我说，对不起。我在绝望中给你写信，用一个老人无解的烦恼打扰你，在我们都承认彼此之间除了苦涩之外一无所有后。但，盖勒特，我把他推向了死亡。为了更伟大的利益。

　　You claim Nurmengard and I will not break you. And perhaps they have not. But, Gellert, Tom and Harry have broken me. You're stronger than me in the end, I suppose.

　　你曾说纽蒙伽德和我都无法摧毁你。或许他们真的没有。但是，盖勒特，汤姆和哈利摧毁了我。最终你依旧比我坚强，我想。

　　Oh, but there is a chance! a faint glimmer of a chance that he might just survive. That Harry might live—damaged, no doubt, shell-shocked as the Muggles would say, but alive.

　　哦，但，这仍有一线生机！一点让他活下去的微弱的可能。哈利会活下来——在经历过伤害后，毫无疑问，用那些麻瓜的话叫罹患炮弹休克综合征，但是仍活着。

　　But sometimes hope is more painful than surrender.

　　但是希望往往比绝望更令人痛苦。

　　Ignore me. Laugh at me. I send an innocent boy to war and torture and death, because I must do what is necessary, because I must not apologize for what is necessary. Look over your door, Gellert—I still live by those bloody, cursed words—

　　不用理我，嘲弄我吧。我将一个无辜的男孩推向了战场、苦难和死亡，因为我不得不做这些事，因为我不能为这些我不得不做的事道歉。看看你的牢门，盖勒特——我依旧被这些该死的，诅咒的话折磨着。

　　Only you could possibly appreciate what this means. The full irony of it. Only you, old friend, after everything we've done and all this time we've spent hurting each other.

　　只有你能够理解这意味着什么。令人感到讽刺和荒谬的是，只有你，老朋友，在我们经历了一切并且彼此深深的伤害之后。

　　I never knew the way. For all that I am a sanctimonious old bastard, I never knew the way. I only tried to help, to do what I thought would be right, would be successful. And this is where it ends, sending a child to die—everything I touch, everyone I love, turning to dust—I admit what I am, Gellert, I am a monster—

　　我从来不知道我是如何赢你的。尽管我是一个伪善的老混蛋，我仍然不知道如何打败他（伏地魔）。我只能试着去帮助他（哈利），去做我认为可能会成功的正确的事。而我最后能做的，就是把一个孩子推向死亡——所有我爱过的事物，所有我爱过的人，终将归于尘埃——我终于认清了我自己，盖勒特，我是一个怪物——

　　I—must stop this. I'm sorry.

　　我——写不下去了。对不起。

　　P.S. for both of us

　　又及，你和我都需要这个

　　[enclosure: a package of sherbet lemons]

　　[附：一大包柠檬雪宝]