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 hide of a cow;

my mother’s grandfather -just twentyfour- heading a charge of three hundred men in peru, now ghosts on vanished 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.

--

(我用什么才能留住你？

我给你贫穷的街道、绝望的日落、破败郊区的月亮。

我给你一个久久地望着孤月的人的悲哀。

我给你我已死去的先辈，人们用大理石纪念他们的幽灵：

在布宜偌斯艾利斯边境阵亡的我父亲的父亲，两颗子弹穿了他的胸膛。蓄着胡子的他死去了，士兵们用牛皮裹起他的尸体；

我母亲的祖父——时年二十四岁——在秘鲁率领三百名士兵冲锋，如今都成了消失的马背上的幽灵。

我给你我写的书中所能包含的一切悟力、我生活中所能有的男子气概或幽默。

我给你一个从未有过信仰人的忠诚。

我给你我设法保全的我自己的核心——不营字造句，不和梦想交易，不被时间、欢乐和逆境触动的核心。

我给你，早在你出生前多年的一个傍晚看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。

我给你对自己的解释，关于你自己的理论，你自己的真实而惊人的消息。

我给你我的寂寞、我的黑暗、我心的饥渴；

我试图用困惑、危险、失败来打动你。）2

6.

管锌手臂有轻微的动作，靖岳立马握住，放在唇边一点一点儿地啄着，眼泪随地心引力滑落，靖岳没有伸手去抹，管锌的手指在他脸上颤颤巍巍地浮着，靖岳含住，声泪俱下。