Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Excerpt 2) 汉译

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instance, there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a tram. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins freckled brown with age. The single window looked out on a fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened whenever I felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it still was a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to become the writer I wanted to be.

It never occurred to me in those days to write about Holly Golightly, and probably it would not now except for a conversation I had with Joe Bell that set the whole memory of her in motion again.

Holly Golightly had been a tenant in the old brownstone; she’d occupied the apartment below mine. As for Joe Bell, he ran a bar around the corner on Lexington Avenue; he still does. Both Holly and I used to go there six, seven times a day, not for a drink, not always, but to make telephone calls: during the war a private telephone was hard to come by. Moreover, Joe Bell was good about taking messages, which in Holly’s case was no small favor, for she had a tremendous many. 

我老是要回想到我曾经住过的地方，那些屋子和临近一带。例如，在东七十街地区内的一幢用红褐色沙岩造的房子，在战争的初期，我第一次在纽约租下那公寓来住。那是一间房，里面塞满了简单的家具，一张沙发和一些臃肿的椅子，椅套是用令人发痒的特别红的天鹅绒做的，使人联想到暑天坐火车的味道。墙壁上是涂的灰泥，那颜色就像烟草的汁。屋子内到处，连浴室都不例外，挂着罗马废墟的版画，因年深月久都生出褐色的斑点来了。唯一的窗口是向一个太平梯子开着的。甚至如此，每次当我把手插进口袋去摸出我这公寓的开门钥匙时，我都感到非常高兴。哪怕是幽暗阴森，这总是我自己的家，第一，我的书都在这里，还有一筒子待削的铅笔，所以我觉得如我所指望的做一个作家，我所需要的一切，这儿都有了。

在那些日子里，我从来没有想到要点关于哈利·歌莱特里的事，大概我现在也不会想到要写的，如果不是和乔·白尔一席话，使我重又勾起了对她的记忆的话。

哈利·歌莱特里也是那幢红褐色沙岩建造的公寓中的房客。她就住在我底下一层楼。至于谈到乔·白尔，他是在雷新顿大道的转角上开一家酒吧的，那店子现在还在。哈利和我两个人一天要到他那儿去上六七次，不是去喝酒，并不一定是去喝酒，而是去打电话。在战时私人是很难获得电话的呀。加之，乔·白尔很好，他不惮烦地替我们接电话，在哈利的场合十分可感，因为她的电话多得可怕呢。