第10届韩素音青年翻译比赛英译汉原文及参考译文
The Man in the Water

Roger Rosenblatt

As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst on the roster of U.S. air crashes. There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane clipped it at a moment of high traffic, one routine thus intersecting another and disrupting both. Then, too, there was the location of the event. Washington, the city of form and regulations, turned chaotic, deregulated, by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. The jets from Washington National Airport that normally swoop around the presidential monuments like famished gulls are, for the moment, emblemized by the one that fell; so there is that detail. And there was the aesthetic clash as well blue-and-green Air Florida, the name a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks in a black river. All that was worth noticing, to be sure. Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring millions to tears or to attention. Why, then, the shock here?

Perhaps because the nation saw in this disaster something more than a mechanical failure. Perhaps because people saw in it no failure at all, but rather something successful about their makeup. Here, after all, were two forms of nature in collision: the elements and human character. Last Wednesday, the elements, indifferent as ever, brought down Flight 90. And on that same afternoon, human nature groping and flailing in mysteries of its own rose to the occasion.

Of the four acknowledged heroes of the event, three are able to account for their behavior. Donald Usher and Eugene Windsor, a park police helicopter team, risked their lives every time they dipped the skids into the water to pick up survivors. On television, side by side in bright blue jumpsuits, they described their courage as all in the line of duty. Lenny Skutnik, a 28-year-old employee of the Congressional Budget Office, said: "It's something I never thought I would do"—referring to his jumping into the water to drag an injured woman to shore. Skutnik added that somebody had to go in the water, delivering every hero line that is no less admirable for its repetitions. In fact, nobody had to go into the water. That somebody actually did so is part of the reason this particular tragedy sticks in the mind.

But the person most responsible for the emotional impact of the disaster is the one known at first simply as "the man in the water." (Balding, probably in his 50s, an extravagant mustache.) He was seen clinging with five other survivals to the tail section of the airplane. This man was described by Usher and Windsor as appearing alert and in control. Every time they lowered a lifeline and flotation ring to him, he passed it on to another of the passengers. In a mass casualty, you'll find people like him, said Windsor. But I've never seen one with that commitment. When the helicopter came back for him, the man had gone under. His selflessness was one reason the story held national attention; his anonymity another. The fact that he went unidentified invested him with a universal character. For a while he was Everyman, and thus proof (as if one needed it) that no name is ordinary.

Still, he could never have imagined such a capacity in himself. Only minutes before his character was tested, he was sitting in the ordinary plane among the ordinary passengers, dutifully listening to the stewardess telling him to fasten his seat belt and saying something about the "no smoking sign. " So our man relaxed with the others, some of whom would owe their lives to him. Perhaps he started to read, or to doze, or to regret some harsh remark made in the office that morning. Then suddenly he knew that the trip would not be ordinary. Like every other person on that flight, he was desperate to live, which makes his final act so stunning.

For at some moment in the water he must have realized that he would not live if he continued to hand over the rope and ring to others. He had to know it, no matter how gradual the effect of the cold. In his judgment he had no choice. When the helicopter took off with what was to be the last survivor, he watched everything in the world move away from him, and he deliberately let it happen.

Yet there was something else about the man that kept our thoughts on him, and which keeps our thoughts on him still. He was there, in the essential, classic circumstance. Man in nature. The man in the water. For its part, nature cared nothing about the five passengers. Our man, on the other hand, cared totally. So the timeless battle commenced in the Potomac. For as long as that man could last, they went at each other, nature and man; the one making no distinctions of good and evil, acting on no principles, offering no lifelines; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles and, one supposes, on faith.

Since it was he who lost the fight, we ought to come again to the conclusion that people are powerless in the world. In reality, we believe the reverse, and it takes the act of the man in the water to remind us of our true feelings in this matter. It is not to say that everyone would have acted as he did, or as Usher, Windsor and Skutnik. Yet whatever moved these men to challenge death on behalf of their fellows is not peculiar to them. Everyone feels the possibility in himself. That is the abiding wonder of the story. That is why we would not let go of it. If the man in the water gave a lifeline to the people gasping for survival, he was likewise giving a lifeline to those who observed him.

The odd thing is that we do not even really believe that the man in the water lost his fight. "Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature, said Emerson. Exactly. So the man in the water had his own natural powers. He could not make ice storms, or freeze the water until it froze the blood. But he could hand life over to a stranger, and that is a power of nature too. The man in the water pitted himself against an implacable, impersonal enemy; he fought it with charity; and he held it to a standoff. He was the best we can do.

译文：

水中英雄

这次灾难和其他灾难一样很严重，但并不特殊，当然也绝对不在美国有记载的伤亡人数最多的空难之列。这次空难的不同之处在于：一是飞机是在交通高峰时段撞上了桥梁。另外就是事件发生的地点，在华盛顿。这个井然有序的漂亮城市，由于这突如其来的冬天的寒风以及这金属与金属的撞击声，突然变得混乱起来。从华盛顿国家机场起飞的飞机一般都像饥饿的海鸥一样绕着华盛顿纪念馆飞行。而现在，尤以这架坠落的飞机为代表，却发生了美感的撞击---号称“空中花园”的蓝绿色佛罗里达航空公司的飞机，坠入黑色河水的厚灰冰中。固然，这些都值得关注。因为只有死亡才会让成千上万的人落泪。那么，为什么这次空难如此令人震惊呢？

也许是因为人们不仅仅把这次空难堪称是一次机械故障。也许因为在这次空难中人们看到的不是失败，而是人类的成功。毕竟，这次相撞存在着两种因素：天气与人性。上周三，因素之一是这冷漠糟糕的天气将90号航班硬生生地从天空拽到了水中。而还是在同一个下午，另外一个因素人性---摸索着，挣扎着---终于冒着风险战胜了天气。

此事件的四个确认英雄中，三人能够向人们讲述他们的经历。由唐纳德.厄舍尔和尤金.温莎组成的一个公园警察直升机小组，数次冒着生命危险降到水中打捞起幸存者。电视上，他们共同描述着当时表现出来的勇气，如同在执行任务。28岁的勒尼.斯库特尼克是国民预算办公室的一名雇员，他说：“我没想到我会那样做。”--指的是他跳入水中将一个受伤的妇女拖上岸。斯库特尼克还说：“总得有人跳到水中去救人”，这是每个英雄都会说的话，即使是第一次听到这样的话，人们也丝毫不会吝啬对它的赞美。实际上，没有人必须跳进水中。而有人这样做了，这便成了这次特殊的悲剧让人们记住的部分原因。

但是，这次灾难使人们深深感动的最关键人物是最初被简单叫做“水中人”的那个人。可能有50来穗的鲍尔丁是一个大胡子。有人看到他和其他五个幸存者紧抓着失事飞机的尾翼。厄舍尔和温莎形容他表现得机警、镇定。每当他俩降下救生索和救生圈给他，他都要让给另外一个乘客。“在伤亡惨重的事故中，你总能找到像他那样的英雄，”温莎说道。“但是我从未见到过那样有奉献精神的人。”当直升机飞来救他时，他已经沉入水中了。他的无私是人们关注这件事情的一个原因；另一个原因则是他的未知身份，这样的身份赋予他普遍的特征。一时间，他成了每一个普通人的代表，这样也证明了（仿佛人们需要这个证明）没有人是普通的。

然而，他可能从来没有想过自己会有能力做出如此举动。就在品质被考验的几分钟之前，还在坐在普通的飞机中，周围是普通的乘客。他听着空姐叫他系好安全带并劝告不要吸烟。随后他和她将救其命的其他人一起放松下来。也许他开始了读报，或是打盹，或是为那天早晨在办公室中的严厉的话而感到后悔。然后，他突然意识到这次的旅途将不同寻常。和航班上的每个其他人一样，他也渴望生还，但这使得他最后的举动如此令人吃惊。

在水中的某一刻，他肯定想到了如果他继续把救生索和救生圈让给别人的话，他将不会活下来。他必须要清楚这一点，不管寒冷的作用有多缓慢。他感觉到自己别无选择。当直升机带走最后一个生还者时，他看见世界上的一切离他远去，而他只能任由这一切发生。

然而，我们的这位英雄的其他一些东西使我们关注着他，并且仍然使我们挂念着他。他当时处于关键的典型环境中。人类生活在自然界中，此时人却被困于水中。对自然界来说，它并不在意这五个乘客的生命。而相反，我们的大英雄却非常在意。因此，古老的战争在波托马克河重演。只要还有最后一口气，人来总会与大自然相斗争；一方不分善与恶，行为不羁，拒绝给予生还的希望；而另一方则完全是在明辨是非、遵循尊则或许还在坚持信仰。

由于战败的一方是这位水中人，我们应该又可以得出人类面对自然无能为力的结论。在现实中，我们却不相信这个，水中的这个人的举动使我们即期我们在这次事件中真实的想法。这并不是说我们每个人都可能会效仿水中人，或者是仿效厄舍尔、温莎或是斯库特尼克。然而，驱使这些英雄代表人类与死亡相抗争的动力并非为他们所独有。我们每个人都感觉到自己身上隐藏着这种可能性。这就是这个故事的恒久魅力之所在。这就是为什么我们不能忘怀这件事的缘故。如果水中的这位英雄给了幸存者一根救生索的话，他同时给了那些看着他的人一根救生索。

奇怪的是，我们居然不相信水中的这位英雄在抗争中失败了。“大自然中的万物苍生汲取了大自然的全部力量，”埃莫森如是说道。的确如此。水中的这位英雄有着他自己的自然力量。他不能制造冰暴，或是让水结冰直至使血液凝固，但是，他能把生命传递给一个陌生人，这也是大自然的一种力量。水中的英雄与一个无情的敌人抗争着；他带着仁慈，与自然打了一个平手。他已经做到最好了。