邢奕 中国日报网双语新闻
一个月前，我去采访张爱玲小说《半生缘》的译者金凯筠（Karen S. Kingsbury）, 一位和蔼的美国教授，1982年本科英语系毕业后来到四川外国语大学支教一年，从此便爱上了中国。回国后便去哥伦比亚大学读比较文学，先后从师夏志清和王德威。
2014年金凯筠出版《半生缘》译本（Half a Lifelong Romance）。而为这次翻译，她花了6年时间。
我本人是不太喜欢读译作的，但是采访前我先读了读英文版。虽然只读了开头的两三段，金凯筠的译文便打动了我。
He and Manzhen had met … a long time ago. Working it out, he realised it had been fourteen years since then. Quite a shock! It made him feel, suddenly, very old.
他和曼桢认识，已经是多年前的事了。算起来倒已经有十四年了——真吓人一跳！马上使他连带地觉得自己老了许多。
Time does fly for the middle-aged: a decade whips by in the blink of an eye, a flick of the fingertips. When you're still young, even three or four years, maybe five, can seem an entire lifetime. That's all they'd had, from meeting to parting－just a few years together. But in that brief span, they'd had a full measure: all the joy and the sorrow that comes with (as the old saying has it) "birth, old age, illness, death".
She'd asked him, back then, when he'd first started liking her. "The moment I first saw you," he'd replied, of course. His feelings were running so high then, he'd have believed anything. He was certain he was not lying. But in fact, the moment when he first saw her was not all that clear in his mind.
曼桢曾经问过他，他是什么时候起开始喜欢她的。他当然回答说：“第一次看见你的时候。”说那个话的时候是在那样的一种心醉的情形下，简直什么都可以相信，自己当然绝对相信那不是谎话。其实他到底是什么时候第一次看见她的，根本就记不清楚了。
书中有一封曼桢当年写给世钧的情书，张爱玲让已经成家的世钧隔了14年，又在不经意间看到。
Dear Shijun,
It's night, and everyone is asleep. The only sound is the chirping of the crickets my brothers are keeping. The weather's got colder, and you left in such a hurry I'm afraid you didn't take any winter clothing. I know you let these things pass you right by, and never think to wear warm clothing. I don't know why I'm worrying about it either, it seems so fussy of me. It's just that I keep turning anything I see, anything I hear, into a reason to think of you.
世钧：
现在是夜里，家里的人都睡了，静极了，只听见弟弟他们买来的蟋蟀的鸣声。这两天天气已经冷起来了，你这次走得这样匆忙，冬天的衣服一定没有带去吧？我想你对这些事情向来马马虎虎，冷了也不会想到加衣裳的。我也不知怎么老是惦记着这些，自己也嫌啰唆。随便看见什么，或是听见别人说一句什么话，完全不相干的，我脑子里会马上转几个弯，立刻就想到你。
I went to Shuhui's yesterday, though I knew he wouldn't be at home, to see his parents. You've lived with them a long while, and I thought maybe I'd hear something about you. His mother told me lots of things I didn't know. She said you used to be even thinner, and told me stories from your student days. It made me feel better. After you'd left, I started to feel afraid, for no particular reason. Shijun, I want you to know there's someone in this world who's yours always. Please know that, for ever and wherever. Yours, always.
昨天到叔惠家里去了一趟，我也知道他不会在家的，我就是想去看看他父亲母亲，因为你一直跟他们住在一起的，我很希望他们会讲起你。叔惠的母亲说了好些关于你的事，都是我不知道的。她说你从前比现在还要瘦，又说起你在学校里的一些琐事。我听她说着这些话，我真觉得安慰，因为你走了有些时了我就有点恐惧起来了，无缘无故的。世钧，我要你知道，这世界上有一个人是永远等着你的，不管是什么时候，不管在什么地方，反正你知道，总有这么个人。
(China Daily 02/08/2017 page20)
