I have cobbled something together about physics and writing. Neither of us has had a proper breakfast. As we go through the Lincoln Tunnel I recall an anecdote my Nobelist colleague T. D. Lee once told me about Dirac. He was driving him from New York to Princeton through this same tunnel. Sometime after they had passed it, Dirac interrupted his silence to remark that, on the average, about as much money would be collected in tolls if they doubled the toll and had tollbooths only at one end. A few years later the Port Authority seems to have made the same analysis and halved the number of tollbooths. We pass the turnoff that would have taken us to Princeton. It is tempting to pay a visit. But Oppenheimer is by then dead and Dirac living in Florida with his wife, the sister of fellow physicist Eugene Wigner. Dirac used to introduce her to people as Wigner's sister, as in "I would like you to meet Wigner's sister." Dirac died in Florida in 1984.
我胡乱拼凑了一些关于物理学与写作之间的关系的东西。我们俩都没好好地吃一顿早饭。当我们穿越林肯隧道时，我想起我的同伴诺贝尔奖获得者李政道讲的一件关于狄拉克的轶事。他当时正开车穿过这座隧道送狄拉克从纽约去普林斯顿。已经通过隧道的某个时候，狄拉克打破沉默说道：平均起来，如果把通行费提高一倍而只把收费站建在隧道的一端，收上来的钱其实是一样多的。几年以后，口岸管理部门似乎做了同样的分析，然后把收费站的数量减半。我们经过了通向普林斯顿方向的岔道。很想去拜访一下。可是那时奥本海默已经去世，狄拉克和妻子住在佛罗里达。他的妻子是他的物理学家同伴尤金·维格纳的妹妹。狄拉克过去常常把妻子以维格纳的妹妹的身份介绍给人们，比如：“我想让你们认识一下维格纳的妹妹。”狄拉克于1984年在佛罗里达去世。
We arrived at the conference center a few minutes before my lecture was scheduled to begin. There was no one, or almost no one, in the lecture room. However, in midroom, there was Spender. I recognized him at once from his pictures. Christopher Isherwood once described Spender's eyes as having the "violent color of blue-bells." Spender was wearing a dark blue suit and one of those striped British shirts—Turnbull and Asser?—the mere wearing of which makes one feel instantly better. He had on a club tie of some sort. He said nothing during my lecture and left as soon as it was over, along with the minuscule audience that I had traveled five hours by car to address.
我们到达会议中心的时候距离我做讲座的预定时间仅有几分钟了。讲堂里没有任何人，或者说几乎没有人。但是在屋子的中央斯彭德正坐在那里。我见过他的照片，所以立刻就认出他来。克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德曾描绘斯彭德的眼睛里如同有“蓝铃花般狂热的色彩”。斯彭德身着一套深蓝色的西装和一件英式的条纹衬衫——特恩布尔-阿瑟品牌？——仅仅穿上就立即让人赏心悦目的那种。他系着一条某个俱乐部的领带。在我的整个讲座中他一言不发，一结束就立即起身离去，随之离开的还有那些我驾车奔波了五个小时给他们做讲座的一小撮听众。