(单词翻译:单击)
After the museum prank, almost 20 years passed before BAP’s politics emerged into the light.
在博物馆的恶作剧之后，将近20年过去了，BAP的政治才逐渐出现在阳光下。
And just as it did, the Romanian himself shrank vampirically into the shadows.
就在这个时候，那个罗马尼亚人自己却像吸血鬼一样躲进了阴影里。
No one seems sure where he is, or how he spends his days.
似乎无人知晓他在哪里，也无人知晓他是如何度日的。
But a sufficiently colorful and idiosyncratic personality is its own guarantee of detection.
但是，一个足够丰富多彩、与众不同的个性本身就是被发现的保证。
When I heard his podcast, it took me about 10 seconds to identify him.
当我听到他的播客时，仅花了10秒钟左右就认出了他。
Costin Alamariu is in his mid-40s, and he has never publicly admitted that he is BAP. (He did not reply to requests for comment for this article.)
科斯汀·阿拉马里乌40多岁，从未公开承认自己是BAP。(他没有回复本文的置评请求)
I met him only once, two decades ago, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after a mutual friend intuited that we might enjoy each other’s company.
我只见过他一次，那是20年前，在马萨诸塞州的剑桥，一位共同的朋友凭直觉感到我们可能会喜欢待在一起。
Costin appeared one night wearing a dramatic overcoat—the kind whose wearer is begging for those around him to make a comment. I resisted.
一天晚上，科斯汀穿着一件引人注目的大衣出现了--这种大衣的穿着者恳求周围人对他发表评论。我很抗拒。
He had emigrated from Romania, he said, when he was about 10.
他说，他10岁左右从罗马尼亚移民过来。
That explained the Dracula note in his voice.
这就解释了他声音中的吸血鬼德古拉腔调。
We spent that evening striding around Cambridge, having what I vaguely recall as a conversation that started with philosophy and then roamed widely over history, ethnography, and literature.
那天晚上，我们绕着剑桥大步走着，我依稀记得我们的谈话是从哲学开始的，然后大跨越到历史、人种学和文学。
Notably absent from our discussion was mathematics, then Costin’s undergraduate major at MIT.
值得注意的是，我们的讨论中没有提到数学，那是科斯汀在麻省理工学院的本科专业。
He had a gift for finely titrated offense—just enough to appall me but keep the conversation going.
他有巧妙的一针见血的进攻天赋——足以让人振聋发聩，但又能让谈话继续下去。
He learned that I was studying Persian, and I said the grammar was star tlingly simple, because its use as a lingua franca over several centuries had shorn it of many of its complexities.
他得知我在学习波斯语，我说波斯语的语法非常简单，因为几个世纪以来，波斯语作为一种通用语言进行使用使它摆脱了许多复杂性。
“Is it like Spanish,” he asked, in a mischievous deadpan, “where every time you say a word, you feel your brain shrinking?”
他面无表情地挑起是非，问道：“是不是跟西班牙语一样，每次说一个词，就觉得脑子在萎缩?”
For many years, we corresponded.
多年来，我们一直通信。
Costin’s messages arrived irregularly, and the tone ranged from friendly and inquisitive to boorish and insulting.
科斯汀的信息不定期地来，语气从友善好学到粗鲁无礼。
