Lesson Eight Never Be a Quitter in Face of Life 不要做生活的逃兵“Get yourself up and make something of yourself,buddy!”Though she has passed away,my mothers words are as clear in my head today as when I was a boy.“孩子，起來，做個有出息的人！”雖然母親已經過世，但她的話依然清晰地在我腦海中回響，就如我在孩提時代聽到的一樣。She may have had my interests at heart, but from my standpoint at the time, her less than tender approach to parenting was the equivalent of bamboo torture treatment.她心里也許是為我好，但那時依我看來，她那毫不溫柔的為母之道就如同用竹條鞭笞一般嚴厲。“Christ!”I utter,“I have made something of yourself.I am entitled to sleep late.”“天哪！”我叫道：“我已經是個有出息的人了。我有權晚點起床了。”“If theres one thing I cant stand, its a quitter.”Her voice in my head is more powerful than my will to refuse, so I pull myself from bed.“要是有什么我不能忍受的東西，那就是逃兵。”她的聲音在我腦海中回響，讓我無法拒絕，于是我從床上爬了起來。My father died after five years of marriage. My mother didnt have any money after he died. She had three babies to care for and lots of bills to pay. She had just started college, but she had to quit to look for work. When we lost our house a couple of months later, she was left with nothing but scattered pieces of a life to pick up. My insane grandmother who was dying had to be institutionalized and we all had to take shelter with her brother Allen. She eventually found work as a grocer at a supermarket at ten dollars a week.我的父親在婚后5年就過世了。他死后，我母親沒有錢。她要撫養三個孩子，還有一身的債務。當時母親剛上大學，卻不得不輟學去找工作。幾個月后，我們失去了房子，母親一無所有，只有支離破碎的生活殘局等著她去收拾。我那奄奄一息的精神失常的祖母不得不被送往瘋人院，而我們也只能寄居于她弟弟艾倫的家中。最終，母親找到了一份超市售貨員的工作，每周工資10美元。Mother, although hopeful that I would make millions, never deceived herself about my abilities to do so, and so she pushed me toward working with words from an early age.雖然母親期望我能成為百萬富翁，但她很清楚我的能力，在這一點上，她從不欺騙自己。因此，從我很小的時候起，她就鼓勵我向文字工作的方向發展。Words ran in her family. The most spectacular proof was my mothers first cousin Edwin. He was managing editor of The New York Times and had gained a name for himself while covering the Cuban Missile Crisis. She often used Edwin as an example of how far an ambitious man could get without much talent.母親的家庭與文字素有淵源。最顯著的證據就是我母親最年長的堂兄埃德溫。他是紐約時報的執行編輯，因報道古巴導彈危機而聲名大噪。她常用埃德溫的例子來告訴我一個有雄心的人能走多遠，即使他沒什么天賦。“Edwin James was no smarter than anybody else, though a little faster as a typist, and look where he is today”,my mother said,and said,and said again.“埃德溫詹姆士雖然打字速度比較快，但他并不比其他人聰明，你看，他現在多么功成名就，”我母親總是一遍又一遍地說。Her early identification of my own gift for words gave her purpose and from then on, her whole life started to revolve around helping me to develop my talents. Though very poor, she signed us up for a set of books for intermediate and advanced readers. One book arrived by mail each month for just 39 cents.她早就認定我有文字天賦，從那時起，她就有了目標，她的整個生命便開始圍繞著幫助我開發天賦而運轉。雖然很窮，她還是為我們訂了一套適合中高級水平讀者閱讀的讀物。每個月都會有一本書郵寄過來，價值39美分。What I read with joy, though, were newspapers. I lapped up every word about monstrous crimes, awful accidents and terrible acts committed against people in faraway wars and the refugees who had to escape from their home countries. Accounts of police corruption and murderers dying in the electric chair fascinated me. 然而，我感興趣的卻是報紙。我貪婪地汲取每一條消息：駭人聽聞的罪行、可怕的事故、在遙遠地區發生的戰爭對人們犯下的令人發指的罪行，以及不得不背井離鄉的難民的消息。警察貪污以及兇手死于電椅的報道令我著迷。In 1947 I graduated from Johns Hopkins and applied for a job with the Baltimore Sun as a police reporter. Why they picked me was a mystery. It paid $30 a week. When I complained the wage was humiliating for a learned man, mother refused to sympathize.1947年，我從約翰斯霍普金斯大學畢業，向巴爾的摩太陽報應聘警事記者一職。他們為何選擇了我是個謎。工資是一周30美元。我抱怨薪水太低，這對一個有學問的人來說是侮辱，但母親卻不認同。“If you work hard at this job,”she said,“maybe ou can make something of it.”“如果你努力做好這份工作，”她說，“說不定能夠做出些名堂來。”After a while, I was given an assignment to cover diplomats at various African embassies. Then, seven years after I started, I was assigned by the Sun to cover the White House. Reporting from the Oval Office was as close to heaven as a journalist could get. I looked forward to seeing the delight on my mothers face when I told her. Considering the onward and upward course she had set for me, I should have known better.不久，我被委派去采訪非洲各國駐美大使館的外交官。工作七年后，太陽報派我去白宮采訪。對于一個記者來說，能夠從橢圓型辦公室發回報道已經是達到職業的頂峰了。當我把這個消息告訴母親時，我期待著從她的臉上看到喜悅。但要是我能夠考慮到她為我設定的不斷向前邁進、向上攀升的人生路線，我就不該有這種期待了。“Well,Russ,”she said,“if you work hard at this White House job,you might be able to make something of yourself.”“好，拉斯，” 她說：“要是你努力做好這份白宮的工作，你有可能會有所成就。”Her weak praise didnt correspond to my achievement. No matter what I did, any accomplishment of mine only seemed marginal in her eyes. This would often make me crazy. She would never congratulate me or make any concession that I was doing great things. There was always something negative to be said, even when I succeeded.母親并沒有對我取得的成就予以充分肯定。無論我做什么，我取得的成就在她看來都是微不足道的。這往往會讓我心煩。她從不向我道賀，從不承認我做得很棒。即使在我成功的時候，她也是說一些否定的話。“Even if you get to the top, you have to watch out.”She was always keen to point out,“The bigger they come, the harder they fall.”“即使你到達了巔峰，你還得留神。”她總是尖刻地指出，“成就越大，摔下來也越重。”Uncle Edwins success was a sincere nuisance during my early years as a reporter. What a thrill, I thought, if I were to be hired by The Times thus proving my worth to my mother once and for all.在我剛剛成為記者的幾年中，舅舅埃德溫的成就常常縈繞在我腦中，揮之不去。我常想，要是紐約時報雇用我，該是件多么令人興奮的事情啊，那樣我就可以向母親一勞永逸地證明我的價值了。Then, out of my wildest childhood fantasy, The Times came knocking. It was sad that Uncle Edwin had departed by this time. Eventually, I would be offered one of the most prized assignments for which a reporter could possibly hope: a regular opinion piece in The New York Times.后來，連孩提時代也沒想過的是，紐約時報竟然自己來敲門了。可惜的是，當我去紐約時報工作時埃德溫舅舅已經離開了那里。最后，我終于被委任了一個記者能夠夢想得到的最具榮譽性的工作：紐約時報的一個固定專欄的評論員。It was proof that my mothers scheme to push me toward literature from an early age had bee