三次求婚 | 克林顿深情回忆希拉里（上）

克林顿先生为实现妻子梦想，在堂堂党员大会上“秀恩爱”，他辞真意切，娓娓道来，却又刻意遮蔽了另一段不堪往事。这就是他——那个在选课时耍了小花招、做错了事又矢口否认的有点可笑又着实可恨的大男生。至于希拉里，当丈夫说“这个女人从未对任何现状感到满足“时，不知是“赞”还是“黑”；未来可能成为美国史上第一个“第一绅士”的他，是几分得意，又是几分心酸，曾经一起开怀大笑的他和她，如今几分是爱，几分是利。

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！谢谢！

In the spring of 1971 I met a girl. The first time I saw her we were, appropriately enough, in a class on political and civil rights. She had thick blond hair, big glasses, wore no makeup, and she exuded a sense of strength and self-possession that I found magnetic. 

1971年春天，我遇见一个女孩。初相遇时，我们在听一堂政治和民权课，说来还颇应景。她金发浓密，戴一副大大的眼镜，素颜清风，让人不怒自威，又泰然自若，把我给迷住了。

After the class I followed her out, intending to introduce myself. I got close enough to touch her back, but I couldn’t do it. Somehow I knew this would not be just another tap on the shoulder, that I might be starting something I couldn’t stop. And I saw her several more times in the next few days, but I still didn’t speak to her. 

下课后，我就跟着她，想认识一下。我跟得很紧，伸手就能拍到她的背，可我不能那样做。说不上为什么，我觉得这不只是一次轻触，我可能要开始做一件一发不可收拾的事。接下来几天，我又碰到她几次，可还是没和她搭上话。

Then one night I was in the law library talking to a classmate who wanted me to join the Yale Law Journal. He said it would guarantee me a job in a big firm or a clerkship with a federal judge. I really wasn’t interested, I just wanted to go home to Arkansas.

有一天晚上，我在法律图书馆和一个同学说话，他想让我加入《耶鲁法学评论》。他说这能帮我在大公司谋一份工作，或是给某个联邦法官当秘书。我实在不怎么感兴趣，我只想回阿肯色老家去。

Then I saw the girl again, standing at the opposite end of that long room. Finally she was staring back at me, so I watched her. She closed her book, put it down and started walking toward me. She walked the whole length of the library, came up to me and said, look, if you’re going to keep staring at me…and now I’m staring back, we at least ought to know each other’s name. I’m Hillary Rodham, who are you?

这时，我又看到这个女孩儿，他站在那间长条屋子的对面。最后，她朝我看了一眼，我们四目相对。她合上书，放在桌上，开始向我走来。她穿过整个图书馆，走到我身旁说，瞧，要是你打算一直盯着我我……我现在回看过来，那么我们应该知道彼此的名字，我是希拉里·罗德海姆，你呢？

I was so impressed and surprised that, whether you believe it or not, momentarily I was speechless.

我被吓住了，不管你信不信，我当时就是说不出话来。

Finally, I sort of blurted out my name and we exchanged a few words and then she went away.

最后，我磕磕巴巴地说了我的名字，聊了几句话，她就离开了。

Well, I didn’t join the Law Review, but I did leave that library with a whole new goal in mind.

我没有加入《法学评论》，可走出图书馆时，我心底盘算着全新的目标。

A couple of days later, I saw her again. I remember, she was wearing a long, white, flowery skirt. And I went up to her and she said she was going to register for classes for the next term. And I said I’d go, too. And we stood in line and talked — you had to do that to register back then — and I thought I was doing pretty well until we got to the front of the line and the registrar looked up and said, Bill, what are you doing here, you registered morning?

几天后，我又看到她。我记得，她穿着白色的碎花长裙，我走过去，她说她正打算为下学期选课。我说我也去，我们排队的时候聊了起来——当时还必须选课——我觉得自己表现还不错，直到排到了前边，选课员抬头对我说，比尔，你在这里干什么，早上不是选完了吗？

I turned red and she laughed that big laugh of hers. And I thought, well, heck, since my cover’s been blown I just went ahead and asked her to take a walk down to the art museum.

我脸红了，她开怀大笑，用她那种大笑的方式。我当时想，真见鬼，既然我的借口被戳穿了，索性硬着头皮邀请她和我散散步，一路走到艺术博物馆去。

We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since.

从此，我们就一直走下去了，一起说说话，一起开怀大笑。

And we’ve done it in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak. We cried together this morning on the news that our good friend and a lot of your good friend, Mark Weiner, passed away early this morning.

我们历经风雨彩虹，有欢乐，也有心碎。今天早上得知我们最要好的朋友也是你们很多人的好朋友马克·维纳逝世，我们失声痛哭。

We’ve built up a lifetime of memories. After the first month and that first walk, I actually drove her home to Park Ridge, Illinois to meet her family and see the town where she grew up, a perfect example of post World War II middle-class America, street after street of nice houses, great schools, good parks, a big public swimming pool, and almost all white.

我们有一生的回忆。就那个月，我们第一次散步后，我开车送她回家，在伊利诺伊州的帕克里奇见了她的家人，看到她长大的镇子，那是二战后美国中产阶级的典型代表，一排排的漂亮房子，优秀的学校，漂亮的公园，大公共游泳池，几乎都是白人。

I really liked her family. Her crusty, conservative father, her rambunctious brothers, all extolling the virtues of rooting for the Bears and the Cuba. Now, her mother was different. She was more liberal than the boys.

我很喜欢她的家人，她倔强而保守的父亲，喧闹的兄弟，都力挺芝加哥灰熊队和丘巴的棒球队。她的母亲就不一样了，她比兄弟们更自由派。

And she had a childhood that made mine look like a piece of cake. She was easy to underestimate with her soft manner and she reminded me all over again of the truth of that old saying you should never judge a book by its covers. Knowing her was one of the greatest gifts Hillary ever gave me.

相比她的童年，我的简直不值一提。她举止优雅，容易让人低估，她让我再次想到老话是怎么说的，不要以貌取人。认识希拉里是她送我的最宝贵的礼物之一。

I learned that Hillary got her introduction to social justice through her Methodist youth minister, Don Jones. He took her downtown to Chicago to hear Dr. Martin Luther King speak and he remained her friend for the rest of his life. This will be the only campaign of hers he ever missed.

我得知公理会牧师唐·琼斯让希拉里受到主张社会公正的启蒙。牧师带她去芝加哥城里听马丁·路德·金演讲，琼斯生命剩下的岁月一直是她的朋友，这是他错过的她唯一一次竞选。

When she got to college, her support for civil rights, her opposition to the Vietnam War compelled her to change party, to become a Democrat. And then between college and law school on a total lark she went alone to Alaska, slimming fish.

她上大学时，支持民权，反对越战，这让她改弦更张，成为民主党人。大学毕业到读法学院之间，她玩票只身去了阿拉斯加，在那里做鱼罐头。

More to the point, by the time I met her she had already been involved in the law school’s legal services project and she had been influenced by Marian Wright Edelman.

更重要的是，我认识她时，她已经加入法学院的法律服务项目，受到儿童保护基金会的玛丽安·怀特·埃德尔曼的影响。

She took a summer internship interviewing workers in migrant camps for Senator Walter Mondale’s subcommittee.

她暑假在沃尔特·蒙代尔的委员会实习，采访移民营的工人。

She had also begun working in the Yale New Haven Hospital to develop procedures to handle suspected child abuse cases. She got so involved in children’s issues that she actually took an extra year in law school working at the child studies center to learn what more could be done to improve the lives and the futures of poor children. So she was already determined to figure out how to make things better. Hillary opened my eyes to a whole new world of public service by private citizens.

她还开始在耶鲁纽黑文医院工作，制定处理涉嫌虐童案件的流程。她深入参与儿童事物，以至于她在法学院多呆了一年，在儿童中心工作，学习还能为贫穷儿童的生活和未来做些什么。她决心找出办法来，让事情变得更好。希拉里让我大开眼界，让我认识到凭一己之力如何致力大公。

In the summer of 1972, she went to Dothan, Alabama to visit one of those segregated academies that then enrolled over half-a-million white kids in the South. The only way the economics worked is if they claimed federal tax exemptions to which they were not legally entitled. She got sent to prove they weren’t.

1972年夏天，她去阿拉巴马州多森探访了某个实施种族隔离的学院，当时这些学院只面向南部50万白人孩子招生。让经济复苏的唯一办法是这些学院是否谎称享受法律上本无权享受的联邦免税政策，她就被派去到那里去查出漏洞。

So she sauntered into one of these academies all by herself, pretending to be a housewife that had just moved to town and needed to find a school for her son. And they exchanged pleasantries and finally she said, look, let’s just get to the bottom line here, if I enroll my son in this school will he be in a segregated school, yes or no? And the guy said absolutely. She had him!

她自己溜进其中一家学院，假装是一个刚刚搬到镇上来的家庭主妇，要为他的儿子找所学校。寒暄一番后，她说，瞧，让我直说吧，如果我让我的孩子来上学，他会上一所宗族隔离学校，对不对？那个家伙说绝对没问题。她逮到他了。

I’ve seen it a thousand times since. And she went back and her encounter was part of a report that gave Marian Wright Edelman the ammunition she needed to keep working to force the Nixon administration to take those tax exemptions away and give our kids access to an equal education.

这样的事有上千次，她回来后，这些遭遇为埃德尔曼提供了她所需的弹药，迫使尼克松政府取消免税政策，让孩子们享受平等的教育。

译者注：法律曾禁止实行种族隔离的所谓“学院”享受免税待遇。

Then she went down to south Texas where she met one of the nicest fellows I ever met, the wonderful union leader Franklin Garcia, and he helped her register Mexican-American voters. I think some of them are still around to vote for her in 2016.

她又南下德克萨斯，在那里她碰到我所知最棒的人之一，出色的工会领袖富兰克林·加西亚，他曾帮她获得墨西哥裔美国选民。我想部分墨西哥裔仍会在2016年投她。

Then in our last year in law school, Hillary kept up this work. She went to South Carolina to see why so many young African-American boys, I mean, young teenagers, were being jailed for years with adults in men’s prisons. And she filed a report on that, which led to some changes, too. Always making things better.

在法学院的最后一年，希拉里一直继续这一工作。她去南卡罗莱纳调查，为什么这么多的年轻非裔美国男孩，我的意思是，十几岁的少年，被关在成年男子监狱数年之久。她提交了报告，也带来变革。她总能让事情得以改善。

Now, meanwhile, let’s get back to business. I was trying to convince her to marry me.

现在，我们回到正题。我正打算让她同意嫁给我。

I first proposed to her on a trip to Great Britain, the first time she had been overseas. And we were on the shoreline of this wonderful little lake, Lake Ennerdale. I asked her to marry me and she said I can’t do it.

我在去英国的旅行路上向她求婚，这是她第一次出国。我们在这个美丽的小湖旁，恩纳戴尔湖。我请她嫁给我，她说不行。

So in 1974 I went home to teach in the law school and Hillary moved to Massachusetts to keep working on children’s issues. This time trying to figure out why so many kids counted in the Census weren’t enrolled in school. She found one of them sitting alone on her porch in a wheelchair. 

1974年，我回家在法学院教书，希拉里搬到马塞诸塞州继续她的儿童事业。这次她想搞明白人口统计中为什么这么多孩子没有入学。她发现其中一个孤独地在走廊中，坐在轮椅上。

Once more, she filed a report about these kids, and that helped influence ultimately the Congress to adopt the proposition that children with disabilities, physical or otherwise, should have equal access to public education.

她又写了一份报告，最终促进国会采取决议，让那些有身体或其他残疾的儿童有权平等接受公立教育。

You saw the results of that last night when Anastasia Somoza talked.

你们听到昨晚[脑瘫患者]安娜斯塔西亚.索莫扎的演讲了。

She never made fun of people with disabilities; she tried to empower them based on their abilities.

她永远不拿残疾人开涮，她努力依照他们的能力向他们赋权。

Meanwhile, I was still trying to get her to marry me.

另一方面，我仍想让她嫁给我。

So the second time I tried a different tack. I said I really want you to marry me, but you shouldn’t do it.

第二次，我用了不同的方法。我说我真的想让你嫁给我，但你不该如此。

And she smiled and looked at me, like, what is this boy up to? She said that is not a very good sales pitch. I said I know, but it’s true. And I meant it, it was true.

I said I know most of the young Democrats our age who want to go into politics, they mean well and they speak well, but none of them is as good as you are at actually doing things to make positive changes in people’s lives.

她笑着盯着我，好像在说这个男生想干吗？她说这不是个很好的推销方式。我说我知道，可我是真心的。我认真的，千真万确。我说我知道，多数在我们这个岁数想从政的年轻民主党人，他们本意很好，说的也好，但没人像你这样做实事，给人们的生活带来积极的变化。

So I suggested she go home to Illinois or move to New York and look for a chance to run for office. She just laughed and said, are you out of you mind, nobody would ever vote for me.

我建议她回伊利诺伊老家，或搬到纽约去寻求竞选公职的机会。她只是笑笑说，你疯了吗，没人会投票给我。

So I finally got her to visit me in Arkansas. And when she did, the people at the law school were so impressed they offered a teaching position. And she decided to take a huge chance.

最后，她来阿肯色州看我。她来到这里，让法学院的人折服了，他们给她一份教职工作，她决定抓住这次机会。

She moved to a strange place, more rural, more culturally conservative than anyplace she had ever been, where she knew good and well people would wonder what in the world she was like and whether they could or should accept her.

她搬到一个陌生的地方，相比她在过的地方，这里更乡村，文化上更保守，在这里她充分了解到，人们想知道她到底是什么人，他们是否能够或将会接受她。

Didn’t take them long to find out what she was like. She loved her teaching and she got frustrated when one of her students said, well, what do you expect, I’m just from Arkansas. She said, don’t tell me that, you’re as smart as anybody, you’ve just got to believe in yourself and work hard and set high goals. She believed that anybody could make it.

他们没过多久就明白她是谁了，她热爱教职，有一次一个学生说，你猜怎么说，我只不过是个阿肯色人，这让她备受挫折。她说，不要这样说话，你和所有人一样聪明，你要相信自己，努力工作，志向高远。她相信任何人都能成功。

She also started the first legal aid clinic in northwest Arkansas, providing legal aid services to poor people who couldn’t pay for them. And one day I was driving her to the airport to fly back to Chicago when we passed this little brick house that had a for sale sign on it. And she said, boy, that’s a pretty house. It had 1,100 square feet, an attic, fan and no air conditioner in hot Arkansas, and a screened-in porch.

她还在阿肯色州西北开了州内第一家法律援助中心，为付不起律师费的穷人提供法律服务。有一天她回芝加哥，我开车送她去机场，我们经过这所小砖房时，发现房屋正在出售。她说，哥哥，这是个不错的房子。这里有1100平方英尺，有个天台，有电扇，在炎热的阿肯色没有空调，走廊还有隔断。

Hillary commented on what a uniquely designed and beautiful house it was. So I took a big chance. I bought the house. My mortgage was $175 a month.

希拉里赞叹这是个设计独特且漂亮的房屋。终于有机会了，我买下这所房子，月供175美元。

When she came back, I picked up her up and I said, you remember that house you liked? She said yeah. I said, while you were gone I bought it, you have to marry me now.

她回来时，我去接她，我当时说，还记得你喜欢的房子吗？她说记得，我说你离开后我买了她，现在请嫁给我吧。

The third time was the charm.

第三次求婚成功了。

We were married in that little house on October the 11th, 1975. I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.

1975年10月11日我们在那所小房子里结婚，我娶了我最好的朋友。和她一起四年多了，我仍对她充满敬畏，她聪明、强大、可爱、温柔。她选择了我，并拒绝我让她追求事业的建议，我真希望她不会对这个决定感到后悔。

A little over a year later we moved to Little Rock when I became attorney general and she joined the oldest law firm west of the Mississippi. Soon after, she started a group called the Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children. It’s a group, as you can hear, is still active today.

一年多以后，我们搬到小石城，我做了检察长，她进入密西西比州最悠久的法律事务所。很快，她创建了阿肯色家庭和儿童倡议组织，这一组织现在仍在运行。

In 1979, just after I became governor, I asked Hillary to chair a rural health committee to help expand health care to isolated farm and mountain areas. They recommended to do that partly by deploying trained nurse practitioners in places with no doctors to provide primary care they were trained to provide. It was a big deal then, highly controversial and very important.

1979年，我刚刚做了州长，我要希拉里主持一家农村健康委员会，在偏远的农庄和山区扩大健康服务。他们建议通过调用受训护士代替医生提供基础医疗服务。这在当时是个大事，极具争议且非常重要。

She just went out and figured out what needed to be done and what made the most sense and what would help the most people. And then if it was controversial she’d just try to persuade people it was the right thing to do.

她前去调研该做什么，做什么最重要，做什么能帮到最多数人。如遇争议，她劝人们说，这是正确的事。

It wasn’t the only big thing that happened that spring my first year as governor. We found out we were going to be parents.

这还不是做州长第一年最大的事，那时我们发现要为人父母了。

And time passed. On February 27th, 1980, 15 minutes after I got home from the National Governors Conference in Washington, Hillary’s water broke and off we went to the hospital. Chelsea was born just before midnight.

时间到了1980年2月27日，我从华盛顿全国州长会回家15分钟，希拉里的羊水破了，我把她送到医院。午夜前，切尔西出生了。

And it was the greatest moment of my life. The miracle of a new beginning. The hole it filled for me because my own father died before I was born, and the absolute conviction that my daughter had the best mother in the whole world.

这是我生命中最重要的时刻，一个新开端的奇迹。这填补了我的空白，因为我出生前，我的父亲就去世了，我绝对相信，我的女儿有全世界最好的母亲。

For the next 17 years, through nursing school, Montessori, kindergarten, through T-ball, softball, soccer, volleyball and her passion for ballet, through sleepovers, summer camps, family vacations and Chelsea’s own very ambitious excursions, from Halloween parties in the neighborhood, to a Viennese waltz gala in the White House, Hillary first and foremost was a mother.

接下来的17年，托儿所、蒙特梭利幼儿园、乐乐球、垒球、英式足球、排球、女儿跳芭蕾、在朋友家过夜、夏令营、家庭旅行、切尔西自己雄心勃勃的远行、邻居家的万圣节聚会，在白宫的维也纳华尔兹晚会……希拉里首先是一个母亲。

She became, as she often said, our family’s designated worrier, born with an extra responsibility gene. The truth is we rarely disagreed on parenting, although she did believe that I had gone a little over the top when I took a couple of days off with Chelsea to watch all six “Police Academy” movies back-to-back.

如她所言，她是家里操心的那个人，她责任心尤其强。事实上，我们对育儿罕有龃龉，尽管她认为我一连几天和切尔西背靠背看了六部《警察学校》有点过分了。

When Chelsea was 9 months old, I was defeated for reelection in the Reagan landslide. And I became overnight, I think, the youngest former governor in the history of the country. We only had two-year terms back then.

切尔西九个月时，我再选失利，里根的政党大获全胜，一夜间，我成了这个国家历史上最年轻的前州长，我们当时只有两年任期。

Hillary was great. Immediately she said, OK, what are we going to do? Here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to get a house, you’re going to get a job, we’re going to enjoy being Chelsea’s parents. And if you really want to run again, you’ve got to go out and talk to people and figure out why you lost, tell people you got the message and show them you’ve still got good ideas.

希拉里很了不起。她立即说，好吧，你打算去做什么？我们要做的事是找一套房子，你要去找工作，我们要享受做切尔西的父母。如果你真得想再此参选，你要出门去和人们交流，找出你为什么败选，告诉人们你明白问题所在，让他们知道你还有好点子。

I followed her advice. Within two days we had a house, I soon had a job. We had two fabulous years with Chelsea. And in 1982, I became the first governor in the history of our state to be elected, defeated and elected again.

我接受了她的建议，两天里，我们找到了房子，我也很快找到了工作。我们和切尔西享受了两年的天伦之乐。1982年，我成为本州历史上第一位当选、落败、又当选的州长。

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