Unit 8 The Merely Very Good
第八单元 仅仅不错
Jeremy Bernstein
杰里米·伯恩斯坦
Early in 1981 I received an invitation to give a lecture at a writers' conference that was being held someplace on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, just across from New Jersey. I don't remember the exact location, but a study of the map convinces me that it was probably New Hope. My first inclination was to say no. There were several reasons. I was living in New York City and teaching full time. My weekends were precious and the idea of getting up before dawn on a Saturday, renting a car, and driving across the entire state of New Jersey to deliver a lecture was repellent. As I recall, the honorarium offered would have barely covered the expense. Furthermore, a subject had been suggested for my lecture that, in truth, no longer interested me. Since I both wrote and did physics, I had often been asked to discuss the connection, if any, between these two activities. When this first came up, I felt obligated to say something, but after twenty years, about the only thing that I felt like saying was that both physics and writing, especially if one wanted to do them well, were extremely difficult.
早在1981年，我收到过一份邀请我在一次作家年会上做讲座的请柬，这次会议在宾夕法尼亚州特拉华河沿岸过新泽西不远的某地召开。我记不起确切的地点了，但仔细查看地图后我确信应该是在新望市。我最初的意向是拒绝。有多种理出。首先我住在纽约，并担负着全职的教学工作，周末是很宝贵的。一想到周六天不亮就要起床，还要租车，然后驾车穿越整个新泽西州去做个讲座，实在是很厌烦。我回想起所给的酬金几乎还不足以支付行程所需的这些花费。此外，建议我讲的主题实际上我已经不再感兴趣了。我既写作又从事物理学研究，因此人们经常让我谈论两者之间的联系。这个议题最初提出的时候，我觉得还有必要讲一讲。可是二十年过去了，我现在唯一想要说的就是搞物理学和搞写作都极其困难，尤其是在一个人想做得尽善尽美的时候。
The conference seemed to be centered on poetry, and one of the things that came to mind was an anecdote that Robert Oppenheimer used to tell about himself. Since Oppenheimer will play a significant role in what follows, I will elaborate. After Oppenheimer graduated from Harvard in 1925, he was awarded a fellowship to study in Europe. Following a very unhappy time in England, where he seems to have had a sort of nervous breakdown, he went to Germany to get his Ph.D.
大会的中心议题似乎在诗歌上，于是我想起罗伯特·奥本海默过去讲述的关于他自己的一件事。由于奥本海默将在下面的故事中扮演重要的角色，我会详细讲述他。奥本海默1925年从哈佛毕业后，被授予研究员的资格到欧洲学习。在英国他似乎有些神经衰弱的症状，在那里度过了一段不愉快的时光之后，他去德国攻读博士学位。