(单词翻译:单击)
Early in the pages of We Don’t Know Ourselves, Fintan O’Toole’s masterful “personal history” of modern Ireland, I came upon a moment in O’Toole’s life that intersected unexpectedly with my own.
在《我们不了解自己》一书的开头，我偶然发现奥图尔的生活出乎意料地与我的生活有一个交集。这本书是芬坦·奥图尔关于现代爱尔兰“个人历史”的杰作。
The date was Tuesday, March 8, 1966.
日期是1966年3月8日，星期二。
In a Dublin bedroom in the chill dark of early morning—1:31 a.m. exactly—O’Toole’s mother, given to premonitions, awoke and exclaimed, “God, what was that?”
凌晨1点31分，在一间寒冷黑暗的都柏林卧室里。正是--奥图尔的母亲，在不详的预感中醒了过来，喊道：“天哪，那是什么？”
Then came the sound of a distant explosion. I, too, heard the explosion.
然后远处传来爆炸声。我也听到了爆炸声。
My American family had moved from the United States to Ireland for several years.
我的美国家庭已经从美国搬到爱尔兰好几年了。
I was a schoolboy, a little older than O’Toole; our home was a mile or so from his.
我当时是个小学生，比奥图尔稍大一点; 我们家离他家大约有一英里远。
As everyone soon learned, an IRA splinter group had blown off the top of Nelson’s Pillar, an imposing column in O’Connell Street that some saw as a symbol of British oppression but most regarded as a convenient landmark and an elegant viewing platform.
正如每个人很快了解到的那样，从爱尔兰共和军中分裂出来的一个集团炸毁了纳尔逊柱的顶部，纳尔逊柱是奥康奈尔街的一根雄伟的柱子，一些人认为它是英国压迫的象征，但大多数人认为它是一个方便的地标和优雅的观景台。
I had paid my sixpence and spiraled up the interior staircase many times.
我曾支付六便士，多次在里面的楼梯里螺旋攀爬。
Now the Pillar was a ragged stump.
现在纳尔逊柱变成了一个高低不平的柱子。
Thinking back on the moment, O’Toole writes: My father got us up early that morning and we took the bus in to see the wreck of Nelson.
回想那一刻，奥图尔写道: 那天早上我父亲很早就叫我们起床，我们坐公共汽车去看纳尔逊柱的残骸。
He said it was a big thing, an event we should remember.
他说这是件大事，我们应该铭记在心。
He took us right up close to the base where huge lumps of stone were scattered randomly like pebbles. Nobody stopped us.
他把我们带到基地附近，那里巨大的石块像鹅卵石一样随意散落着。没有人阻止我们。
My father picked up a small piece of the granite, its outside worn grimy by the murk of the city, its inside glistening with newly revealed speckles of quartz, a secret self, hidden within the monument until the shock of the explosion so violently brought it to life.
父亲捡起一小块花岗岩，它的外面被城市的黑暗弄得肮脏不堪，里面却闪烁着新露出的石英斑点，一个秘密的自我，隐藏在纪念碑内，直到爆炸的剧烈震动来临使它复活。
O’Toole and I must have crossed paths that morning, or come close, because our fathers had the same impulse.
那天早晨，奥图尔和我一定是偶然相遇，或者距离很近，因为我们的父亲也有同样的冲动。
I rode into the city with my dad and collected pieces of granite; I keep one on my desk.
我和父亲一起骑马进城收集花岗岩碎片; 我在桌上放了一个碎片。
That March day in Dublin feels as present to me now as it does to O’Toole.
都柏林三月的那一天，现在对我和奥图尔来说都历历在目。
It was, he writes, “the first time I was conscious of pure memory, of the idea that something you had in your head was now gone forever.”
他写道，那是“我第一次意识到纯粹的记忆，意识到你脑子里的东西现在永远消失了。”
O’Toole’s sweeping, intimate book covers a lifetime of Ireland’s history: a period of six decades when the country transitioned from one thing to another with little understanding of where it had been or where it was going, and was content to wear blinkers.
奥图尔的这本涉略广泛、内容详尽的著作涵盖了爱尔兰一生的历史: 在这60年的时间里，这个国家从一件事情过渡到另一件事情，但却不知道它过去在哪里，也不知道它要去哪里，只是满足于戴上眼罩。
A dishonest deflection of important questions was a deep-seated habit.
欺骗性地回避重要问题是一种根深蒂固的习惯。
The years punctuated by the bombing of Nelson’s Pillar marked a turning point.
被纳尔逊柱爆炸事件打断的这些年标志着一个转折点。
Even a kid in short pants and knee socks could sense that something was up.
即使是穿着短裤和齐膝袜的孩子也能感觉到有事发生。
