1. 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, rending 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 be 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 the both physics and writing, especially if one wanted to do them well, were extremely difficult.

2. 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. He studied with the distinguished German theoretical physicist Max Born in Gottingen and took his degree there in 1927 at the age of twenty-three. Born’ s recollections of Oppenheimer, which were published posthumously in 1975, were not sympathetic. Oppenheimer, he wrote, “was a man of great talent and I was conscious of the superiority in a way which was embarrassing and led to trouble. In my ordinary seminar on quantum mechanics, he used to interrupt the speaker, whoever it was, not excluding myself, and to step to the blackboard, taking the chalk and declaring: ‘This can be done much better in the following manner.’” In fact, it got so bad that Oppenheimer’s fellow students in the seminar petitioned Born to put a stop to it.

3. Quantum a mechanics had been invented in the year before by Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Heisenberg and Paul A. M. Dirac. The next year, Dirac came as a visitor to Gottingen and, as it happened, roomed in the large house of a physician named Cario where Oppenheimer also had a room. Dirac was twenty-five. The two young men became friends—insofar as one could have a friendship with Dirac. As young as the took it for granted. However, he was, and remained, an enigma. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it was always with extraordinary precision and often with devastating effect. This must have had a profound effect on Oppenheimer. While Oppenheimer was interrupting Born’ s seminars, announcing that He could do calculation better in the quantum theory, Dirac, only two years older, had invented the subject. In any case, in the course of thing the two of them often went for walks. In the version of the theory that I heard Oppenheimer tell, they were walking one evening on the walls that surrounded Gottingen and got to discussing Oppenheimer’s poetry. I would imagine that he “discussion” was more like an Oppenheimer monologue, which was abruptly interrupted by Dirac, who asked, “How can you do both poetry and physics? In physics was try to give people an understanding of something that nobody knew before, whereas in poetry...” Oppenheimer allowed one to fill in the rest of the sentence. As interesting as it might have been to hear the responses, this did not seem to be the sort of anecdote that would go over especially well at a conference devoted to poetry.

4. Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were two others that finally carried the day. In the first place, I was in the beginning stages of a love affair with a young woman who wanted very much to write. She wanted to write so much that she had resigned a lucrative job with an advertising agency and was giving herself a year in which, living on here savings, she was going to do nothing but write. It was a gusty thing to do, but like many people who try it, she was finding it pretty rough going. In face, she was rather discouraged. So, to cheer her up, I suggest attending this conference, where she might have a chance to talk with other people who were in the same boat. This aside, i had read in the tentative program of the conference that one of the other tutors was to be Stephen Spender. This, for reasons I will now explain, was decisive. I should begin by saying right off that i am not a great admirer if Spender’s poetry. He is, for me, one of those writing about their writing is more interesting than their writing itself. But I had read with great interest Spender’ s autobiography—World Within World—especially for what it revealed about the poet who did mean the most to me—namely, W.H. Auden, Auden’s Dirac-like lucidity, the sheer wonder of the language, and the sense of fun about serious things—“At least my modern pieces shall be cheery/Like English bishops on the Quantum Theory”— were to me irresistible. I became fascinated by Spender’s obsession with Auden. Auden must have been to Spender what Dirac was for Oppenheimer, a constant remainder of the difference between being “great” and being “merely” very good. I was also struck by the fact that, like Oppenheimer, Spender seemed “unfocused”. Partly Jewish, partly homosexual, partly a British establishment figure, one wondered when he got time to write poetry. By being profoundly eccentric, both Auden and Dirac, probably not by accident, insulated themselves. They focused like laser beams. What I did not know in 1981—i learned it only after Spender’s journals were published in 1986—was that Spender had paid a brief visit to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in November of 1956, the year before i got there and two years before Dirac came on one of his perennial visits.

5. Spender’s journal entry on his visit is fascinating both for what it says and for what it does not say. He begins by nothing that “Oppenheimer lives in a beautiful house, the interior of which is painted almost entirely white.” This was the director’s mansion. Spender did not notice that, because of Oppenheimer’s western connections, there was also the odd horse on the grounds. He continues: “He has beautiful paintings. As soon as we came in, he said: ‘ Now is the time to look at the van Gogh.’ We went into the sitting room and saw a very fine van Gogh of a sun above a field almost entirely enclosed in shadows.” At the end of my first interview with Oppenheimer, immediately after I had driven cross-country from Los Alamos in a convertible with a large hole in the roof and had been summoned to the interview while still covered in grime, he said to me that he and his wife had some pictures I might like to look at sometime. I wondered what he was talking about. Some months later i was invited a party at the Oppenheimers’ and realized that he was talking about a van Gogh. Some years later, i learned that this was part of a small collection he had inherited from his father to which he had never added.

6. In his journal entry, Spender describes Oppenheimer’s physical appearance:“Robert Oppenheimer is one of the extraordinary-looking men I have ever seen. He has a head like that of a very small intelligent boy, with a long back to it, reminding one of those skulls which were specially elongated by the Egyptian. His skull gives an almost egg-shell impression of fragility, and is supported by a very thin neck. His expression is radiant and at the same time ascetic.” Much of this description seems right to me except that it leaves out the fact that Oppenheimer did have the sunwrinkled look of someone who had spent a great deal of time outdoors, which he had. Spender also does not seem to have remarked on Oppenheimer’s eyes, which had a kind of wary luminescence. Siamese cats make a similar impression. But more important, Oppenheimer appears in Spender’s journal as a disembodied figure with no contextual relevance to Spender’s own life.

7. There is no comment about the fact that, three years earlier, Oppenheimer had been “tried” for disloyalty to this country and that his clearance had been taken away. One of the charges brought against him was that his wife, Katherine Puening Oppenheimer, was the former wife of Joseph Dallet, who had been a member of the Communist Party and who had been killed in 1937 fighting for the Spanish Republican Army. In 1937, Spender was also a member of the Communist Party in Britain and had also spent time in Spain. Did Oppenheimer know this? He usually knew most things about the people who interested him. Did “Kitty” Oppenheimer know it? Did this have anything to do with the fact that, during Spender’s visit, she was upstairs “ill”? Spender offers no comment. What was he thinking? There was so many things the two of them might have said to each other, but didn’t. They talked about the invasion of the Suez Canal.’

8. In the fall of my second year at the institute, Dirac came for a visit. We all knew that he was coming, but no one had actually encountered him, despite rumored sightings. By this time, Dirac, who was in his mid-fifties, had a somewhat curious role in physics. Unlike Einstein, he had kept up with many of the developments and indeed from time to time commented on them. But, like Einstein, he had no school for following and had produced very few students. He had essentially to collaborators. Once, when asked about this, he remarked that “ the really good ideas in physics are had by only one person. ” That seems to apply to poetry as well. He taught his classes in the quantum theory at Cambridge University, where he held Newton’s Lucasian chair, by, literally, reading in his precise, clipped way from his great text on the subject. When this was remarked on, he replied that he had given the subject a good deal of thought and that was no better way to present it.

9. At the institute we had a weekly physics seminar over which Oppenheimer presided, often interrupting the speaker. Early in the fall we were in the midst of one of these— there were about forty people in attendance in a rather small room—when the door opened. In walked Dirac. I had never seen him before, but i had often seen pictures of him. The real thing was much better. He wore much of a blue suit—trousers, shirt, tie, and, as I recall, a sweater—but what made an indelible impression were the thigh—length muddy rubber boots. It turned out that he was spending a good deal of time in the woods near the institute with an ax, chopping a path in the general direction of Trenton. Some years later, when I had begun writing for The New Yorker and attempted a profile of Dirac, he suggested that we might conduct some of the sessions while clearing this path. He was apparently still work on it.

10. Now it is some twenty-five years later. The sun has not yet come up, and I am driving across the state of New Jersey with my companion. We have left New York at about 5 A. M. so that I will arrive in time for a midmorning lecture. 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, this sister of fellow physicist Eugene Winger. Dirac used to introduce her to people as Winger’s sister, as in “I would like yo to meet Winger’s sister.” Dirac died in Florida in 1984.

11. 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 form his pictures. Christopher Isherwood once described Spender’s eyes as having the “violent color of blue-bells”. Spender was wearing a dark blue suit an done 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 soon as it was over, along with the minuscule audience that i had traveled five hours by car to address. My companion and I then had a mediocre lunch in one of the local coffee shops. There seemed to be no official lunch. I was now thoroughly out of sorts and was ready to return to New York, but she wanted very much to stay for a least part of Spender’s poetry workshop, and so we did.

12. I had never been to poetry workshop and i couldn’t imagine what one consist of. I had been to plenty of physics workshops and knew only too well what they consisted of: six physicists in a room with a blackboards shouting at one another. The room where Spender was to conduct this workshop was full, containing perhaps thirty people. One probably should not read too much into appearances, but these people—mostly women—looked to me as if they were clinging to poetry as if it were some sort of life raft. If I had had access to Spender’s journals (they came out a few years later), I would have realized that he was very used to all of this. In fact, he had been earning his living since his retirement from University College in London a decade earlier by doing lectures and classes for groups like this. I would also have realized that by 1981 he was pretty tired of it, and pretty tired of being an avatar for his now dead friends—Auden, C. Day Lewis, and the rest. He had outlived them all, but was still under their shadow, especially that of Auden, whom he had first met at Oxford at about the same age and same time that Oppenheimer had met Dirac.

13. Spender walked in with a stack of poems written by the workshop members. He gave no opening statement, but began reading student poems. I was surprised by now awful they were. Most seemed to be lists: “sky, sex, sea, earth, red, green, blue”, and so forth. Spender gave no clue about what he thought of them. Every once in a while he would interrupt his reading and seek out the author and ask such a question as, “Why did you choose red there rather than green? What does red mean to you?” He seemed to be on autopilot.

14. It is a pity that there are no entries in Spender’s journals for this precise period. But it is clear that he was leading a rich social life at that time: dinner with Jacqueline Onassis one day, the Rothschilds’ at Mouton a week later—the works. My feeling was that whatever he was thinking of had little to do with this workshop. Somehow, i was getting increasingly annoyed. It was none of my business, I guess, but i had put in a long day, and i felt that Spender owed us more. I didn’t know what—but more.

15. My companion must have sensed that I was about to do something because she began writing furiously in a large notebook that she she had brought along. Finally, after one particularly egregious “list”, I raised my hand. Spender looked surprised, but he called on me. “Why was that a poem?” i asked. In reading his journals years later, I saw that this was a question that he had been asked by students several times and had never come up with an answer that really satisfied him. In 1935, Auden wrote an introduce for an anthology of poetry for schoolchildren in which he defined poetry as “memorable speech.” That sounds good until one asks, memorable to whom? Doesn’t it matter? If not, why a workshop?

16. I can’t remember what Spenser answered, but I then told him that, when I was a student, I had heard T. S. Eliot lecture. After the lecture one of the students in the audience asked Eliot what he thought the most beautiful line in the English language was—an insane question, really, like asking for the largest number. Much to my amazement Eliot answered without the slightest hesitation, “ But look, the morn in russet mantle clad/Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” I asked Spender what he thought the most beautiful line in the English language was. He got up form his chair and in a firm hand wrote a line of Auden’s on the blackboard. He looked at it with an expression that i have never forgotten—sadness, wonder, regret, perhaps envy. He recited it slowly and then sat back down. There was total silence in the room. I thanked him, and my companion and i left the class.

17. I had not thought of all of this for many years, but recently, for some reasons, it all came back to me, nearly. I remembered everything except the line that Spender wrote on the blackboard. All that i could remember for certain was that it had to do with the moon—somehow the moon. My companion of fifteen years ago is my companion no longer, so I could not ask her. I am a compulsive collector of data from my past, mostly in the form of items that were once useful for tax preparation. Perhaps I had saved the program of the conference with the line written down on it. I looked in the envelops for 1981 and could find no trace of this trip. Then i had an idea—lunatic, lunar, perhaps. I would look through Auden’s collected poems and seek out every line having to do with the moon, to see if it jogged my memory. One thing that struck me, once i started this task, was that there are surprisingly few references to the moon in these poems. In a collection of eight hundred and ninety-seven pages, i doubt if there are twenty. From Moon Landing, there is “Unsmudged, thank God, my moon still queens the Heavens as she ebbs and fulls...” or from The Age of Anxiety, “Mild, unmilitant, the moon rose / And reeds rustled...” or from Nocturne, “Appearing unannounced, the moon / Avoids a mountain’s jagged prongs / And seeps into the open sky / Like one who knows where she belongs”—all wonderful lines, but not what I remembered. The closest was “ White hangs the waning moon / A scruple in the sky...” also form The Age Anxiety. This still didn’t seem right.

18. Then I got an idea. I would reread Spender’s journals to see if he mentions a line in Auden’s poetry that refers to the moon. In the entry for the sixth of February 1975, i found this: “ It would not to be very difficult to imitate the late Auden. [He had died in1973.] For in his late poetry his late poetry there is rather crotchety persona into whose carpet slippers some ambitious young man with a technique as accomplished could slip. But it would be very difficult to imitate the early Auden. ‘This lunar beauty / Has no history, / Is complete ans early...’” This, i am sure of it now, it the line that Spender wrote on the blackboard that afternoon in 1981.

19. Poor Stephen Spender, poor Robert Oppenheimer, each limited, if not relegated, to the category of the merely very good, and each inevitably saddened by his knowledge of what was truly superior. “Being a minor poet is liking being a minor royalty,” Spender wrote in his journals, “and no one, as a former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret once explained to me, is happy as that.” As for Oppenheimer, I recall Isidor Rabi once telling me that “if he had studied the Talmud and Hebrew, rather than Sanskrit, hr was brighter than he was. But to be more original and profound i think you have to be more focused.”

20. As Spender says, W.H. Auden’s poetry cannot be imitated, any more than Paul Dirac’s physics can be. That is what great poetry and great physics have in common: both are swept along by the tide of unanticipated genius as it rushes past the merely very good.

Words and Expressions from the Text

1. repellent: causing distaste, dislike or aversion; repulsive

2. honorarium: a payment as to a professional person legally obtainable

3. to come to mind: to be remembered

4. fellowship: sum of money paid by an institution or an endowment for the support of a graduate student, scholar, etc. doing advanced study in some field

5. posthumous: published after the author’s death

6. to go over well: to be well received

7. to pit against: to set in competition(against)

8. lucrative: profitable; producing wealth or profit

9. gutsy: (Slang) courageous; daring; full of guts

10. lucidity: clarity

11. obsession: preoccupation

12. to insulate: to detach from the rest: to isolate

13. perennial: constantly recurring

14. grime: dirt, esp. sooty dirt, rubbed into or covering a surface, as of the skin

15. to elongate: to make or become longer; to stretch

16. ascetic: self-denying: austere

17. luminescence: any cold or glowing light

18. Siamese cat: a breed of short-haired cat characterized by usually slanting, blue ey es and a fawn-colored coat shading to a darker color at the face, ears, paws, and tail

19. disembodied: ( soul or spirit) separated from the body 形神分离

20. context: the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to a particular event, personality, creation, etc

21. chair: an important or official position, as a professorship; when a chair has a name(modifier) before it, such as Lucasian chair, it means the position is associated with an endowment of a person or an institution, thus with higher pay and prestige.

22. clipped: short, trimmed; quick

23. to cobble: to put together clumsily or crudely

24. turnoff: 岔道

25. blue-bells: any of various plants with blue, bell-shaped flowers

26. striped: 有条纹的

27. minuscule: very small; tiny

28. avatar: any incarnation or embodiment, as of a quality or concept in a person

29. autopilot: 自动驾驶仪

30.egregious: remarkably bad

31. russet: reddish brow

32. mantle: a loose, sleeveless cloak or cape: sometimes used figuratively, in allusion to royal robes of state

33. yon: over there

34. to relegate: to consign or assign to an inferior position; to consign or assign to a cl ass; to classify as belonging to a certain class, group, category

35. lady-in-waiting: a woman attending or waiting upon a queen or princess

Notes on the Background

1. Jeremy Bernstein (1929—):professor of physics and writer. After getting his Ph.D. in physics at Harvard, he spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at the National Science Foundation. He taught physics for 5 years at New York University and then at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. But Jeremy Bernstein has also spent more than 30 years on the staff of The New Yorker magazine, writing mostly about physics, computers, and other topics in physical science. He moves as comfortably among sentences and paragraphs as among equations. Some of his publications are: The Analytical Engine: Computers- Past, Present and Future (1964 revised 1981); Einstein(1973); Experiencing Science (1978): Science Observed: Essays Out of My Mind(1982); and The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists (2001)

2. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904—1967): theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory(Manhattan Project). Oppenheimer grew up in a sumptuous Manhattan apartment whose walls were decorated with paintings by Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin In 1922 Oppenheimer enrolled at Harvard, where he took an intense program that ranged from

math and sciences to philosophy and Eastern religions and French and English literature. Oppenheimer graduated summa cum laude in 1925. In 1926 he studied with Max Born at the University of Gottingen in Germany, from which he received his doctoral degree in March 1927.

In 1939 he fell in love with Katharine“ Kitty” Puening Harrison, a biologist and widow of a Communist killed during the Spanish civil war. She, too, had belonged to the Communist party. They married in November 1940 and had two children.

Oppenheimer became officially involved in the atomic bomb project in Oct. 1941. This would come to be known as the Manhattan Engineer District Project. In Nov. 1942 he was appointed Director of what was to become the Los Alamos Laboratory, which would design and construct the atomic bomb.

People marveled at how he seemed to understand any concept instantly. Almost everyone considered him to be their intellectual superior. He had the greatest memory anyone had ever seen. He seemed to keep all aspects of the Manhattan Project in his head, along with an impressive knowledge of the arts and literature.

Oppenheimer was also an advisor to the Target Committee, which recommended Japanese targets for the atomic bombs.

Oppenheimer celebrated the end of the war and the success of the Manhattan Project, but the death toll and chilling descriptions of radiation sickness had a sobering effect. He informed government officials that most scientists in the project would not continue to pursue such work. “I feel we have blood on our hands,” he told President Harry S. Truman. In October Oppenheimer resigned from Los Alamos.

From 1947 through 1952 Oppenheimer directed the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, which became a leading center of theoretical physics and attracted notable scholars in the social sciences and humanities.

In May 1953 when Lewis Strauss was appointed to chair the Atomic Energy Commission, he moved to revoke Oppenheimer's security clearance, thereby severing him from the commission’s work. In April 1954 the hearing on Oppenheimer began and in May the security board affirmed Oppenheimer’s loyalty but denied him security clearance.

3. Max Born (1882—1970): German nuclear physicist, who published a paper in 1924 in which the term Quantum Mechanics was used for the first time. Winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954.

4. Gottingen: Gottingen University has a history of over 260 years, which was founded in the King George II, who was also ruler of Hanover.

5. quantum mechanics: quantum theory, especially the quantum theory of the structure and behavior of atoms and molecules量子力学

6. Erwin Schrodinger (1887—1961): Austrian physicist

7. Werner Heisenberg (1901—1976): German theoretical and nuclear physicist.

8. Paul A. M. Dirac (1902—1984). Professor Dirac’s pioneer work in the quantum mechanics of the atom won him the Nobel Prize in 1933 at the age of 31. A giant in his field, Dirac has continued to make major contributions in many areas of modern theoretical physics.

9. Stephen Spender (1909-1995): English poet and critic. His early poetry—like that of W. H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, with whom he became associated at Oxford—was inspired by social protest. His autobiography, World Within World (1951), is a re-creation of much of the political and social atmosphere of the 1930s. His passionate and lyrical verse is filled with images of the modern industrial world yet intensely personal. Spender was knighted in 1983.

10. W. H. Auden (1907—1973): English poet. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender an Christopher Isherwood.

His collection of poems, published in 1930, established him as the leading voice of a new generation. Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets. Auden is generally considered as the greatest English poet of the twentieth century.

11. Los Alamos: city in the state of New Mexico, the location of the famous American nuclear laboratory.

12. Spanish Republican Army: the army of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936—1939). During the war, the rebels under Franco, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, defeated the Republican Army. Revolutionaries all over the world organized the International Brigade and fought on the side of the Republican Army.

13. Invasion of the Suez Canal: In 1956, after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, Britain, France and Israel attracted Egypt and started the second Middle Eastern War, which is also called the invasion of Suez Canal.

14. Sanskrit: the classical old Indic literary language, still used in the rituals of the northern Buddhist Church.

15. The New Yorker: a weekly magazine dedicated to ideas which is about good writing, a point of view and a deeper understanding of the world.

16. T. D. Lee: Lee Tsung Dao (1926—) 李政道, American- Chinese physicist who won the1957 Nobel Prize together with Frank Yang (杨振宁).

17. Port Authority: government commission in charge of the traffic, regulation, etc. of a port.

18. Eugene Wigner (1902—1995): professor of physics and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963.

19. Christopher Isherwood (1906—1986): Anglo-American novelist and playwright, best known for his stories about Berlin in the early 1930s. Goodbye to Berlin is considered among the most significant political novels of the 20th century. In 1975 he won the Brandeis Medal for Fiction. With his explicitly autobiographical works Isherwood became in the 1970s a leading spokesman for gay rights.

20. Turnbull and Asser: a leader in male elegance and classic clothing for both men andwomen, first shop in London in 1885, first store in Manhattan in 1998.

21. C. D. Lewis: Cecil Day Lewis(1904—1972), Anglo-Irish poet, critic, and educator, appointed Poet Laureate in 1968. He also gained fame as a detective story writer under the name Nicholas Blake. He produced 20 crime novels.

22. Jacqueline Onassis: Jacqueline Bouvier Onassis (1929--1994) was born in Southampton, New York, of a socially prominent family and worked (1951-1953) as a journalist and photographer before marrying (1953) John F. Kennedy. As first lady (1961-1963) Jacqueline Kennedy planned and conducted the restoration of the White House and had Congress declare the White House a national museum. After the assassination of President Kennedy, she returned to private life and later married (1968) the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who died in 1975. From 1978 until her death she was an editor at Doubleday.

23. Rothschild: the House of Rothschild, founded by Mayer Amschel Bauer, has now become world leading investment banker.

24. Mouton: Chateau Mouton Rothschild, name of an estate in France where wines are famous.

25. T.S. Eliot (1888—1965): English poet, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present day poetry”. Author of The Waste Land (1922).

26. Princess Margaret (1930—2002): Countess of Snowdon, sister to the Queen of UK, a hardworking and much loved member of the Royal Family.

27. Isdor Rabi: 1898—1988): professor of physics and Noble Prize winner for Physics in 1944.

28. Talmud: the collection of writings constituting the Jewish civil and religious law.

29. Hebrew: the ancient Semitic language of the Israelites in which most of the Old Testament was written; the official language of Israel.

Notes on the Text

1. When the author was invited to lecture at a writers' conference early in 1981, what was his first inclination? Why?

His first inclination was to turn down the invitation. The reasons were several-fold. (1) He was living and teaching in New York city and getting up early on weekend and driving all the way across New Jersey to give a lecture did not appeal to him. (2) The honorarium could only cover the expenses. (3) The suggested topic... the connection between physics and writing no longer interested him.

2. I don't remember... it was probably New Hope

(1) Why is it that present and past tenses are used in the same sentence?

The whole paragraph is about an event in early 1981 so the past tense is used. But in this sentence, the action of "not remembering" and "convincing" takes place at the time of writing. In order to make a distinction in terms of time, the present tense is used.

(2) How did the author decide where the location is? How did he express the idea?

He made a study of the map.

Note the pattern used here: a study of the map convinces me...

Other examples: A look of the room assures me that no one has come.

Convince is used here perhaps to assure readers that he is careful about evidence.

3. ... the idea of getting up.. was repellent.

What information can we get from this statement?

The information we can get from this statement is:

(a) The location of the conference is a few hours drive from the author’s home.

(b) The author does not have a car. Since he was teaching full time in New York and wrote at the same time, it was obvious that he chose not to own a car.

(c) repellent: causing distaste, dislike or aversion; repulsive.

4. Why was the author invited to speak on the subject?

He was invited to speak on the subject because he had been doing physics and writing for over 20 years.

5. What did he have to say on this subject?

All he wanted to say was it was extremely difficult if one wanted to do either of the two well. The implication is it is almost impossible to do both well.

6. Why does the author begin the essay with such an incident?

Such a beginning serves two purposes: on the one hand it adds a personal touch to the subject; on the other, recreating his everyday thoughts makes it easier for readers to identify with him and in this way he will communicate to them more effectively.

Paras. 2-3

7. What is the role of the first sentence in Paragraph 2?

(1) It is a transitional sentence. The first part of the sentence links the paragraph with the previous one. The second part brings in a chief character of the essay, Robert Oppenheimer.

(2) to come to mind: to be remembered

8. to elaborate: to explain in great detail; go into details

fellowship: sum of money paid by an institution or endowment, for the support of a graduate student, scholar, etc. doing advanced study in some field

nervous breakdown: a psychotic or neurotic crisis that impairs the ability to function norm

9. ... took his degree.. at the age of twenty-three.

Why do you think the age is mentioned here?

The age is mentioned to show he was young and bright. When such a bright person is considered "merely very good" by the author, his message will come across more strongly.

10. Born’s recollections ... were not sympathetic.

(1) recollection: the act of calling back to mind; a thing recollected

sympathetic: showing favor or approval

posthumous: published after the author's death

(2) What was Prof. Born’s view of Oppenheimer?

He did not have very favorable assessment of Oppenheimer.

11. ... I was conscious ... and led to trouble.

(1) What is the meaning of the word “way”?

“Way” here means a course of action or manner of doing something

(2) Why was the way embarrassing?

It was embarrassing because Oppenheimer was very rude in interrupting speakers at Born’s seminars, yet at the same time his scientific superiority to the Professor was evident to all present.

(3) Why did it lead to trouble?

Oppenheimer’s behavior offended his fellow students and they protested to Prof. Born, demanding he put an end to such behavior.

(4) I knew that Oppenheimer was a man of great talent but his way of showing his talent at my seminars caused uneasiness and resentment among people, especially among his fellow students.

12. quantum mechanics量子力学

13. insofar as one could have a friendship with Dirac

(1) Did Dirac have friends?

Not really.

(2) Was there any limit to such friendship?

Yes, Dirac’s friendship with others would only go to a certain extent.

(3) Were Oppenheimer and Dirac friends?

They were friends only to a certain extent.

14. What are the similarities and differences of Dirac and Oppenheimer as shown in Paragraph 3?

Both were young, in their twenties.

Both were physicists, working on quantum mechanics.

But when Oppenheimer was showing his talent in doing calculation better in the quantum theory, Dirac had invented the theory. Dirac was already famous.

Dirac concentrated on physics while Oppenheimer also wrote poetry.

15. enigma: a perplexing or seemingly inexplicable person

in the course of in the progress or process of

to go over well: to be well received

anecdote: a short, entertaining account of some happening, usually personal or biographical

16. While Oppenheimer was interrupting ... had invented the subject.

(1) What is the contrast implied in the statement?

The contrast implied is calculation applying the theory as against invention of the theory.

(2) In what way does the author make the contrast sharper?

The author uses two methods: the first is the choice of words, such as “interrupting", “announcing” giving the impression that Oppenheimer was very talented, very pompous and aggressive; the second is a studied insertion "only two years older", meaning Dirac was not much older than Oppenheimer yet he had invented the theory.

(3) What sort of image is created about Oppenheimer?

It gives readers the impression of a young man who was bright but lacked creativeness who could only follow other’s step yet was pompous and conceited.

17. I would imagine that the “discussion” ... monologue

(1) Why is the word “discussion” in quotes?

Because it is so-called “discussion” since Dirac did not say anything or did not have a chance to say anything. Hence there was no discussion to speak of.

(2) Does this show anything about Oppenheimer?

Yes, it shows that Oppenheimer was eager to offer his opinion without thinking of giving others a chance to express their views. He liked to monopolies the whole situation.

18. ... who asked, “How can you. whereas in poetry...”

(1) What was Dirac’s understanding of physics and poetry?

Dirac thought that the physicists tried to make people understand something nobody knew before whereas poets were dealing with subjects people were familiar with.

(2) Did Dirac think people could do both poetry and physics? Why (not)?

Dirac did not think people could do both poetry and physics because the nature of the two things was diametrically different.

19. As interesting ... devoted to poetry.

(1) Did the author repeat this anecdote?

No, he decided against telling the anecdote.

(2) Why did he decide against telling the anecdote?

Since those attending the conference were people devoted to poetry and he had been asked to talk about the connection between physics and poetry, such an anecdote, though interesting, might not be appreciated by the audience. Such an anecdote would likely not be well-received.

Para. 4

20. What is the function of this paragraph?

It brings the readers back to the decision of going to the conference and introduces Spender and Auden, thus presenting to the readers the two pairs of contrast: Dirac and Oppenheimer and Auden and Spender.

21. Pitted against ... that finally carried the day.

(1) to pit: to set in competition (against)

to carry the day: to win; overcome the opposition of others, e. g. They found that my views, with which they mostly disagreed, often carried the day.

(2) There were two reasons for my going to the conference set against the reasons for my not going and they became decisive in my final decision.

22. What were the two very powerful reasons for the author’s going?

The first was he wanted to cheer up his girl friend who was rather discouraged as a result of the rough going in writing. The second was he would like to meet Stephen Spender.

23. lucrative: profitable; producing wealth or profit

24. she was finding it pretty rough going

(1) going: progress toward a goal

(2) What does“it”stand for?

It stands for“ writing

(3) She was finding that it was terribly hard (it 'was very difficult) to make progress in writing.

25. who were in the boat

(1) in the same boat: sharing the same adverse circumstances; in the same unfavorable situation

(2) who were encountering the same kind of difficulty

26. This aside, ... to be Stephen Spender. This... was decisive.

(1) What is the grammatical function of “this aside”?

It is an independent element, denoting additional information.

(2) What is the full form of “this aside”?

It is“this being put aside”

(3) What is the meaning of the phrase?

It means “apart from this”.

(4) What had he read in the tentative program? What is meant by “tentative program”?

He had read that Spender would be one of the other tutors at the conference. Tentative

program means the arrangement is not final.

(5) Why was this so important to the author?

The author was eager to meet Spender not because he admired spender's writing but because Spender knew things about Auden who meant a lot to the author.

27. He is, for me, ... than their writing itself.

Which category, according to the author, does Spender fall into?

According to the author, Spender belongs to the group whose writings about their lives, experience, that is, whose autobiographies, are more interesting than their literary works.

28. What are the qualities about Auden’s writing?

According to the author, Auden is outstanding in clarity, the powerful use of language and the sense of fun about serious issues.

29. Like English bishops on the Quantum Theory

What is funny about this statement?

The role of an English bishop is to make official pronouncements for the Anglican Church on matters of faith, while Quantum Theory deals with laws in physics, with new understandings of nature unknown to people in the past. The Church relates everything to God, whereas physics believes that nature can be revealed through science. Therefore it sounds ridiculous to put the two together.

30. I became fascinated by Spender’s obsession with Auden.

(1) to fascinate: to hold the attention of by being very interesting or delightful; captivate

(2) obsession: preoccupation with an idea, desire, emotion that cannot be got rid of by reasoning

31. Auden must have been to Spender... They focused like laser beams.

(1) In this part the author brings up two important points: one is the idea of “great” and “merely very good”; the other is the reason for the difference: focused attention versus an unfocused approach.

(2) establishment: in England, a complex consisting of the church, the royal family and the plutocracy, regarded as holding the chief measure of power and influence

eccentric: odd; unconventional

to insulate: to detach from the rest; to isolate

perennial: constantly recurring

Para. 5

32. Spender's journal entry... for what it does not say.

The thing he does not say is mentioned in Paragraph 8.

33. This was the director’s mansion.

(1) The director here refers to director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Oppenheimer at that time was the director.

(2) mansion: a large, imposing house

34. Spender did not notice that,... the odd horse on the grounds.

The horse refers to a real horse Oppenheimer brought back from the western part of the United States.

35. Why did Oppenheimer want to show people the painting of Van Gogh?

Do not forget that Oppenheimer wrote poetry. The display of his collection of paintings also revealed the artistic side of his character. He may not be able to appreciate art but he wanted to show he had artistic taste. This is also an example to show his unfocused interests.

36. Where did his small collection come from? Did the collection expand? Why(not)?

He had inherited the collection from his father but he had never added to the collection. This showed that he was not really interested in art collection. The constant display and the never adding anything bring light to his character.

37. Some years later... never added.

What is the tone of this statement?

It is written with an ironical tone.

Paras.6—7

38. ... reminding one of those skulls which were specially elongated by the Egyptians.

(1) to elongate: to make or become longer; stretch.

(2) An ancient Egyptian tradition is mentioned here.

39. His expression... ascetic.

He looks intense as well as self-denying.

40. ... which had a kind of wary luminescence. Siamese cats make a similar impression

他的眼睛带有一种警觉而冷冷的目光。这种目光也可以在暹罗猫身上找到。

41. ... Oppenheimer appears... own life.

(1) context: the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to a particular event, personality, creation, etc.

(2) relevance: close logical relationship with and importance to the matter under consideration

(3) In his book, Spender fails to give a connected, complete picture of Oppenheimer and does not mention that Oppenheimer’s background and situation has quite a lot to do with Spender.

42. Oppenheimer has been “tried” for disloyalty to this country and that his clearance had been taken away.

(1) clearance: official, especially governmental, authorization allowing a person to examine classified documents, participate in confidential projects, etc.

通过审查,可以接触机密文件,参与保密项目;用我们通俗的话来讲就是“通过政审”或“政审合格”。

(2) Why is “tried” in quotes?

Oppenheimer had not been tried by a court but was called before a three-member Security Board set up by the Atomic Energy Commission to hear accusations against him and to defend himself. The hearing lasted for four weeks.

(3) Did the hearings prove that Oppenheimer was disloyal to the country? What was the final conclusion?

No, even the Security Board had to admit in its final report that it had not found any act of disloyalty committed by Dr. Oppenheimer.

The final decision of the Atomic Energy Commission was to deny security clearance. In other words, he could no longer have access to classified materials.

(4) What is the real reason for the “trial”?

The real reason is Dr. Oppenheimer opposed the development of hydrogen bomb by the United States. The “trial” took place in 1954, the time of McCarthyism.

43. Did this have anything to do.. she was upstairs “ill”?

(1) What is the implication of this question?

(2) The implication is the author believes that Kitty Oppenheimer deliberately tried to avoid meeting Spender.

(3) Does the author think she was really ill?

No, he thinks it is only an excuse so “ill”is put in quotes.

44. There were so many things ... but didn’t.

(1) Who does the“two of them”refer to?

It refers to Oppenheimer and Spender.

(2) Is there anything the author is insinuating?

The author is showing that there were many things they could have discussed but instead they only talked about incident far from the American scene. They talked about recent event involving Cold War issues but not the politically more sensitive matters that had involved them both.

Paras.8—9

45. ... but no one had actually encountered him, despite rumored sightings.

(1) Had any one met him personally?

No

(2) Did that mean there was no news about him?

No, there were unconfirmed reports about people having seen him from a distance.

46. .. he had no school.. very few students.

(1) school: a group of people held together by the same teachings, beliefs, opinions methods, etc.

(2) following: a group of followers or adherents

(3) 他没有建立学派,没有追随者,也没有培养出几个学生。

47. He had essentially.. only one person.

(1) to collaborate: to work together esp. in some scientific undertaking

(2) Why didn’t Dirac really have collaborator?

That was because Dirac held that breakthrough ideas in physics could only come from an individual.

48. He taught his classes... to present it.

(1) How did he teach his class at Cambridge?

He read aloud from the book he had written on the subject.

(2) Why did he teach in that way?

His answer was when he wrote he had given much thought to the subject and he considered his writing the best presentation of the subject. Since that was the case, he would rather read his great text.

(3) to remark (on): to make an observation or comment on

49. In walked Dirac.

This is a very short sentence for emphasis. It is also an inversion, also for emphasis; because the last the rhetoric of English sentences gives most weight to last.

50. The real thing was much better.

(1) What is meant by “the real thing”?

It means the person himself, the real Dirac.

(2) In what way was he much better?

The real person looked much better than the pictures.

51. He wore much of... a sweater.

(1) What did he wear?

He wore blue trousers, shirt, tie and a sweater.

(2) Why did the author say “much of a blue suit”?

Because he did not wear a blue coat. Instead he had on a sweater. So it cannot be called a blue suit.

52. ... and attempted a profile of Dirac.

...and tried to write a short biographical and character sketch of Dirac...

Paras. 10—11

53. What is the role of the first sentence in Paragraph 10?

It brings the story back to the year 1981 so as to carry on the story.

54. to cobble: to put together clumsily or crudely

to interrupt: to make a break in the continuity of

turnoff: a place where one turns off; esp. a road or ramp leading off a highway岔道

55. What was Dirac's remark when he was passing the Lincoln Tunnel once with T D. Lee?

He said if the toll was doubled and the tollbooths were halved, the tolls collected would be more or less the same。

56. Is this a good suggestion?

Yes. It can cut down costs because fewer tollbooths will mean fewer toll collectors. The Port Authority of New York did the same thing a few years later.

57. ... the mere wearing of which makes one feel instantly better.

(1) What does “which” refer to?

It refers to striped British shirt, product of the leader in male elegance and classic clothing, Turnbull and Asser, a famous, expensive shirt.

(2) Does the author really think the wearing of it will make one feel instantly better?

No, he is being a little ironical. He is hinting here that Spender likes expensive clothes because he cares much about status. To such a person, the wearing of a brand name, expensive shirt will certainly make him feel better.

58. He had on a club tie of some sort.

(1) What is a club tie?

A club tie is a tie with the insignia or symbol of the club on it. Many American universities also have university ties. A club usually is an exclusive institution, rendering service only to its members. Membership fee may be expensive but the environment is very nice and service very good. Being a club member is usually a status symbol.

(2) Why does the author mention a club tie?

The purpose is the same as mentioning the shirt, to show spender's taste and sense of status.

59. What made the author feel out of sorts?

A number of things made him feel out of sorts:

(1) the audience was small;

(2) there was no response after his lecture;

(3) there was no official lunch and the lunch he had was mediocre. All this made the author feel it was a waste of precious time and energy, and his effort was not appreciated. So he was cross.

Paras. 12—13

60. ... one probably should not... life raft.

(1) to read into: to attribute (a particular meaning) to; to project excessive significance into something

(2) maybe one should not attach too much importance to appearance

(3) How did those attending the poetry workshop look like?

They looked very eager to learn to write poetry as if without poetry they could not survive.

61. ... pretty tired of being an avatar ... especially that of Auden...

(1) What was he tired of?

He was tired of being a person in whom people would find traces or influences of his more famous friends: Auden, C. D. Lewis and others. In other words, he no longer wanted to be seen as one always under the influence of others. He wanted to be recognized in his own right.

(2) to outlive: to live longer than (out, as a prefix, meaning better, greater or more than, e.g. outrun, outboast, outperform, outshout)

under their shadow: under their influence or domination

62. He seemed to be on autopilot.

The questions Spender asked came out automatically, unthinkingly. He was rather mechanical, without giving the writings much thought.

Paras, 14—16

63. Somehow, I was getting.. but more.

(1) Did the author have a reason to feel increasingly annoyed?

No, especially he had no reason to turn his anger at Spender. This is what we may call transferred anger.

(2) Did Spender owe them anything?

No, Spender, like the author, was invited there to conduct a workshop.

64. But look, the morn in russet mantle clad

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

(1) Where were these lines taken from?

They were taken from the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 1 Scene 1) when the rising dawn marks the necessary departure of the ghost.

(2) What do these lines mean?

russet: reddish brown

mantle: a loose, sleeveless cloak or cape; sometimes used figuratively, in allusion to royal robes of state

yon: over there

But look, the morning in reddish brown color cloak walks over the dew of the high hill over there to the east.

65. He looked at it ... total silence in the room.

(1) What was the expression on Spender when he looked at the line of Auden’s?

Spender had an expression of sadness, wonder, regret, perhaps envy.

(2) Why did he have such an expression? What sort of feeling was revealed?

Sadness indicated that Spender felt he could never compete with Auden when Auden could produce such unforgettable lines.

Wonder indicated spender's admiration. How could one produce such lines?

Regret indicated that Spender felt sorry that he had never written lines of such beauty.

Envy was self-evident.

Paras. 17—18

66. I had not thought of... nearly

(1) What is the role of this sentence?

It brings the scene from 1981 to the time of writing. The sentence serves as a transition linking his encounter with Spender in 1981 with the concluding part, the message the author wants to impart to his readers.

(2) Why is the word “nearly” used here?

The word “nearly” is used here because almost everything came back to the author except the line Spender wrote on the blackboard.

67. My companion... no longer...

(1) What does this statement show?

Fifteen years ago when the author decided to go to thee conference he “was in the beginning stages of a love affair with a young lady”. Now he has parted with the young lady.

(2) When was the article written according to the statement? 1996.

68. I am a compulsive collector of data from my past...

I always have an irresistible, even irrational impulse (or urge) to keep all the papers containing information of my past activities.

69. to see if it jogged to my memory

to find out if the line would make me recall the thing/would revive my memory

70. Unsmudged... ebbs and fulls.

谢天谢地,我的月亮没有受污染,月缺又月圆,她仍后居天庭。

71. In the entry for sixth of February 1975... is complete and early...

(1) Why did Spender think it would not be very difficult to imitate the late Auden?

He thought so because in Auden’s late poetry, there is a kind of eccentric appearance which some young people eager for success and with proficient writing skill can pick up, and imitate.

(2) Why did he think it would be difficult o imitate the early Auden?

Because the poetry of early Auden is simple yet original.

(3) What does the line mean?

The beauty of the moon has no history. In other words, it is not the result of gradual development. This beauty has been absolute from the time of the moon’s coming into existence.

此月之美

无始无终

初始即完美

Paras. 19-20

72. What role do the last two paragraphs play?

They play the role of presenting the concluding remark, imparting the key message to the readers.

73. What are the things the author wants to tell the readers?

(1) Great poetry and great physics cannot be imitated. As Dirac put it, “the really great ideas in physics are had by only one person”.

(2) Great poetry and physics are pushed (driven) ahead by unanticipated genius. The merely very good cannot contribute to the development of either poetry or physics.

(3) To be original and profound, one has to be focused. As the author says, Auden and Dirac focused like laser beams. This, according to the author, is the cause of difference of being great and being merely very good.

Translation of the Text

仅仅不错而已

杰里米·伯恩斯坦

1. 早在1981年。我收到过一份请柬，邀请我在宾西法尼亚州特拉华河沿岸过新泽西不远的某地召开的一次作家年会上做讲座。我记不起确切的地点了，查看地图后我认为大概是在新望市。我最开始的想法是拒绝。理由很多。首先我住在纽约，担任全职教学任务。周末对我来说很珍贵。一想到为做个讲座周六天没亮就起床,驾着租来的车穿过整个新泽西州，实在不情愿。我记得给的讲课费几乎不够行程所需的花费。另外,让我讲的题目实际上已经不再是我的兴趣所在了。我边写作边搞物理学研究，经常有人让我讲讲两者之间的联系。人们一开始提问的时候，我觉得是值得讲一讲。可是过了20年,我觉得惟一想要说的就是搞物理学和搞写作都极其困难，尤其是在你想两全其美的情况下。

2. 大会的主题好像集中在诗歌上,于是我想起罗伯特·奥本海默过去自我介绍时的一件事。由于奥本海默将在以下的故事中扮演重要的角色,我讲得详细点。1925年奥本海默从哈佛毕业后，获得研究员的资格到欧洲学习。在英国他的神经出了点儿毛病，度过了一段不愉快的时光之后，他去德国攻读博士学位。在哥廷根．他师从著名的德国理论物理学家马克思·伯恩,并于1927年他23岁时获得了学位。伯恩去世后对奥本海默的回忆录l975年出版,书中没有赞扬之词。他写道，奥本海默“是伟大的天才，我从一件令人尴尬并惹麻烦的事上意识到他多么与众不同。在上我的量子力学讨论课时，他经常打断别人的演讲,不管这个人是谁，连我在内，然后跨上讲台,拿起粉笔，说道：‘用下面的方法这道题可以做得更好。”’实际上,研讨课上他的同学烦得要求伯恩制止这样的事情再次发生。

3. 量子力学在此前一年由欧文·施罗丁格、沃纳·海森伯格和保罗·迪拉克创造。第二年,迪拉克到哥廷根做客,碰巧住在一位名叫加里奥的物理学家的大房子里,奥本海默也住在那里。迪拉克当时25岁。两个年轻人成了朋友----此前还没有人能和迪拉克建立友谊。迪拉克虽然年轻,可当时已经是了不起的物理学家了,我想他本人知道这一点。也许他对此并不在意。然而，他从前是个谜，现在也是个谜。他很少说话,可是一但开口，他的话往往极为精确，而且常常有压倒一切的威力。这在当时一定对奥本海默产生了深刻的影响。还在奥本海默打断伯恩的讲座，声称他可以运用量子理论计算得更精确的时候,只比他年长两岁的迪拉克已经发掘了这个课题。无论当时情形如何,那时两个人经常一块散步。在据说是奥本海默自己讲的那个故事说法中，事情是这样叙述的：那天傍晚他们正在环城墙上散步,讨论起奥本海默的诗歌来。可以想像，这种“讨论”更像奥本海默的独白。迪拉克突然打断奥本海默的话，问道：“你怎么能够又写诗又搞物理学?物理学让人们明白从前不知的道理，可是诗歌……”奥本海默意在让人们想像后半句话的内容。尽管听听人们对此如何应答会很有意思,可是这样的段子在以诗歌为主题的年会上讲恐怕不合时宜。

4. 虽然有了以上那些冠冕堂皇的不去的理由,可是有两条最终还是让我启程了。第一条是我刚刚同一位极其热衷于写作的年轻女士坠人情网。为了写作她甚至放弃了在一家广告公司收入颇丰的职位，仅靠积蓄生活,在一年的时间里全身心地投入写作。这么做的确勇气可嘉，可是像许多尝试过的人一样,她感觉目前举步维艰,毫无进展。事实上,她已经有了挫折感。为了给她打气,我建议参加这个会,以便有机会结识一些同类人。这个先不说，我还读到会议议程上的另一位导师将由斯带芬·斯彭德担当。这个最终决定的原因我会在这里解释。首先我得说我其实并不欣赏斯彭德的诗。对我来说，他是那种人们对他们作品的评价比这些人的作品本身来的更有意思的那类人。不过我很有兴致地拜读过斯彭德的自传《世界包容的世界》，尤其是其中谈到了一位我最欣赏的诗人，即W·H·奥登。奥登有迪拉克的清晰敏捷，对语言驾驭纯熟，能从严肃呆板中找出幽默。“至少我的大作将妙趣横生．犹如英国主教涉足量子理论”---这样的诗句我简直爱不释手。斯彭德对奥登的情结让我着迷。奥登对于斯彭德来说一定跟迪拉克对于奥本海默一样，永远提醒人们“伟大”与“仅仅不错”之间有怎样的区别。让人难以理解的是，与奥本海默一样，斯彭德也有些“漂移不定”。某种程度上是犹太教信徒，某种程度上搞点同性恋，某种程度上又是英国当权派中的重要角色，真不知道他还有没有时间用来写诗。而奥登和迪拉克则不然，他们举止极其怪异，很自然就把自己与他人隔离开来。他们像激光一样目标集中。在1981年那个当时我所不知的是----这是我直到1986年斯彭德的日志发表以后才知晓的----斯彭德曾于1956年11月短期造访普林斯顿的高级研究院，早我一年，比迪拉克多次访问中的一次早两年。

5. 斯彭德在日志中对他本人的那次造访的记载所提到的事和没有提到的事都同样引起我的兴趣。一开始他就说道“奥本海默的房子非常漂亮．房子内部几乎全部漆成白色。”这就是高级研究院主任的房子。斯彭德没有注意到的是，正是由于奥本海默与西方渊源至深，他的庭院里还怪怪地有一匹马。斯彭德接着写道：“奥本海默有几幅漂亮的画。我们刚一到，他就说，‘大家该欣赏欣赏梵高啦。’到了他的起居室，我们看到的是一幅梵高的作品，太阳高高地悬挂在完全笼罩在阴影里的田地上空。”那次我也是驾着棚顶露个大洞的折篷汽车，从洛斯阿拉莫斯匆匆赶来见面，一路风尘。与奥本海默会面终了的时候，他告诉我他和他妻子的有些画儿，也许我愿意什么时候欣赏欣赏。我那时不知他指的什么画儿，几个月以后我应邀参加奥本海默在家举办的晚会，才知道他说的是梵高的画儿。几年以后，我了解到那时他从他父亲那儿继承了几幅收藏品，他本人再也没有增添过。

6. 斯彭德在日志中描写了奥本海默的长相：“罗伯特·奥本海默是我见过的长相最奇特的人。他的头跟一个聪明的小孩的头差不多，脖子长长的，让人想到埃及人特意拉长了脖子的脑壳。他的脑壳让人觉得像鸡蛋壳似的不堪一击，由一根细细的脖颈支撑着。他的表情看上去容光焕发，同时又让人觉得清苦淡漠。”对这个描写我很认同，但是遗漏了一个事实。那就是奥本海默看上去像一个进行过大量户外活动的人，皮肤黝黑，而事实也是如此。斯彭德也没有提到奥本海默的眼睛，那双眼睛里闪烁着一种提防的冷冷的光，这样的目光也可以在暹罗猫身上找到。更重要的是，奥本海默在斯彭德的日志中是一个游离于他人的人物，与斯彭德本人的生活圈格格不入。

7. 日志中也没有提到另外一件事；那就是，三年前奥本海默由于对国家忠诚问题被审查，最终他的参加秘密工作许可被吊销。对他的指控之一是他的妻子凯瑟琳·普宁·奥本海默，也就是约瑟夫·戴勒特的前妻。约瑟夫·戴勒特是共产党员，参与西班牙共和军在1937年时战死。同一年，斯彭德也是英国共产党员，也曾到过西班牙。不知奥本海默是否了解此事。他总是了解很多对他感兴趣的人的事情。“基蒂”·奥本海默知道此事吗?斯彭德来访时，她恰好在楼上养“病”，这与此事是否相关?斯彭德在日志里没有提起。他当时怎么想的? 他们两人其实有许多话题可谈，却没有谈。谈的是入侵苏伊士运河的事。

8. 我在研究院的第二年，迪拉克曾经来访。我们大家都知道他要来，却谁也没有遇见他，只是有人说在远处看见他的身影。当年迪拉克50多岁，在物理学界的地位有些奇怪。他与爱因斯坦的不同之处是，他跟上了许多研究项目的发展，还时不时地评论一番。但是与爱因斯坦一样，他没有建立学派，没有追随者，也没有培养出几个学生。也基本是没有合作者。有一次被问及此事时，他回答说：“物理学中真正有价值的主张只能为个人享有。”这个说法好像也挺适用于诗歌。他曾是剑桥大学卢卡斯教授，此前牛顿曾经拥有这个位子，在教授量子理论课程时，他实际上是用他一贯精确而掐头去尾的方式念着他本人的著作。当有人对此提出疑问时．他回答说他对该课程斟酌至深，没有更好的方式讲给学生听。

9. 研究院召开了一个为期一周的研讨会，奥本海默主持，还是不断地打断讲话者的发言。那是初秋的一天，研讨会正在进行，在那个小会议室里当时大约有40多位与会人员。这时门开了，迪拉克突然到来。我此前没有见过他，不过他的照片倒是常常看到。他本人比照片好多了。他身着大致是蓝色的西装----西裤、衬衫、领带，我还记得他还穿着毛衣。但是给人以不可磨灭的印象的是，他当时穿着一双齐大腿、沾满泥土的胶皮靴。后来得知他花了很多时间手持板斧在离研究院不远的林子里朝特棱顿大致的方向开辟一条小径。几年以后，我开始给《纽约人》撰稿，想让迪拉克提供他个人的传略，他建议我们的几次会面可以一边清理那条小径一边谈。显然他仍在进行着这项工作。

10. 现在25年过去了。太阳还没有升起来，我开着车和我的女伴穿越新泽西州。我们大约在早晨五点钟离开纽约，这样能赶上安排在上午的讲座。我胡乱拼凑了一些关于物理学与写作的东西。两个人谁也没正经吃早饭。行至林肯第一隧道时，我想起我的同事诺贝尔奖获得者李政道讲的关于迪拉克的一件轶事。李政道当时开车送迪拉克从纽约到普林斯顿，穿过这座隧道。出隧道有一会儿了，迪拉克打破沉默说道：平均算起来，如果把收费价增加一倍并且把收费站都建在一端，收上来的钱会一样多。几年以后，口岸管理部门好像做了同样的分析，把收费站减少了一半。车驶过了通往普林斯顿的岔道，很想再去看一看。可是那时奥本海默已经去世，迪拉克和妻子住在佛罗里达。他的妻子是同是物理学家的尤金·威格纳的妹妹。迪拉克经常把妻子以威格纳的妹妹的身份介绍给人们，比方他会说：“请让我来介绍维格纳的妹妹。”迪拉克于1984年在佛罗里达去世。

11. 我们在预定时间前几分钟到达会议中心。讲课厅里没有人，或者几乎没有人。但是在屋子的中央坐着斯彭德。我见过他的照片．所以一眼就认出他来。克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德曾描绘斯彭德的眼睛里有“蓝钟花的猛烈的颜色”。斯彭德穿着一套藏蓝色的西装，里面是一件带条纹的英国衬衫---特恩布尔一阿瑟品牌? ----一穿上就让人觉得特精神的那种。打的是一条带有某个俱乐部标志的领带。我讲课的过程中他一言未发，课程一结束就跟着那小伙儿零零星星的听众一起离开了，而我特意为了他们跑了5个小时的车程。此后我和我的同伴在当地的一家咖啡馆吃了顿不怎么样的午餐，好像会议没有提供正规午餐。这时我已经完全恼怒不已，要立刻回纽约去，但是她非常想多呆一会儿，看看斯彭德的诗歌研习会的一部分也好，所以我们留了下来。

12. 我从未参加过诗歌研习会，想不出里面有些什么。物理学研习会倒是参加了不少，我太了解它们都干些什么了：一个屋子里有6个物理学家在黑板前互相大喊大叫。斯彭德举行诗歌研习会的屋子坐满了人，大约有30个人。可能不该以貌取人，可是这些观众 ----大多数是妇女，在我看来好像把诗歌当成救命的稻草一样抓住不放。如果我能够读到斯彭德的日志(他的日志几年以后才出版)，我会知道斯彭德对这一切已经习以为常了。事实上，从10年前他从伦敦的大学学院退休以后就以给这样的群体做讲座和讲课赖以生计的。我后来也了解到1981年的时候他对此已经厌倦了，也对做他过世的朋友----奥登、C·戴·刘易斯以及其他人的替身厌倦了。他比他们每个人都活得长久，可是仍然活在他们的阴影里，尤其是奥登。他们在牛津头一次结识，刚好和奥本海默与迪拉克头一次结识时同一年龄，也同一年代。

13. 斯彭德夹着一摞研习会学员写的诗走了进来。没有开场白，开板就读起学员们的诗来。我感到惊奇的是那些诗竟然那么拙劣，多数都好像一串名单，什么“天空、性爱、海洋、大地、红色、绿色、蓝色”等等。斯彭德没有表露他对这些诗的看法，不时停下朗读，问问谁是作者，并且提出类似这样的问题：“为什么你选红色不选绿色?红色对你意味着什么?”问题脱口而出，好像自动化控制的一样。

14. 很遗憾斯彭德的日志中没有记下这一段，但是很明显他的社交生活很丰富：某日与杰奎琳·奥尼瑟斯共餐，一星期以后出现在缪顿的罗氏银行----手段高明。我的感觉是无论他在想什么都与这个研习会无关。不知怎么，我越来越感觉不对头。大概这不是我该管的事，不过我可是花了一整天的时间，我觉得斯彭德欠我们不少。我不知道他欠的什么----反正不少。

15. 我的同伴大概感觉到我要有所行动，因为她在带来的大本子上大写特写。最终，在读了又一串典型的愚蠢的“单子”之后，我举手发言。斯彭德有点吃惊，但还是允许我说话。“为什么那也是一首诗?”我问道。几年后读了他的日志我才发现，这个问题他被问过许多遍，从来没有拿出过令他满意的答案。1935年，奥登为一本给小学生写的诗集写过序，其中他对诗歌的定义是“可以记忆的演讲”。这一定义听上去尚可，直到有人质疑：对谁可以记忆?这很重要吗?如果不重要，为什么要搞这个研习会?

16. 我没有记住当时斯彭德是怎么回答的，但是我后来告诉他，我当学生那会儿听过T·S·艾略特的课。课后一个学生问艾略特他认为英国语言中最美的诗句是什么----疯子才问的问题，真的，就像问最大的数字是什么一样。令我万分吃惊的是，艾略特回答了这个问题，没有半点迟疑，“瞧啊，晨披金色氅，脚踏东山露。”我问斯彭德，他认为英国语言中最美的诗句是什么。他从椅子上起身，坚定地在黑板上写下了一行奥登的诗句。他盯着诗句的神情我永远难忘 ----悲哀、惊奇、懊丧、也许还有妒忌。他慢慢地背诵了一遍，然后坐下来。室内鸦雀无声。我道了谢。然后与同伴离开了课堂。

17. 我有好多年没有去想这件事了，可是最近出于某种原因，这件事完全又回到我的脑海里来，几乎完全回来了。我记起了所有的一切，就差斯彭德写在黑板上的那行诗句。我只记得那句诗与月亮有关----反正是关于月亮的。15年前我的那位同伴已经不再是同伴了，所以我没法去问她。我有强制性地收藏自己历史资料的习惯，多数资料是返税时有用的东西。或许我保存了那次会议的议程表，在上面写下了那句诗。我翻遍了装着1981年材料的信封，没有找到那次旅行的痕迹。于是我有了个主意----精神错乱的(lunatic)、月的(lunar)，或许是这个字。我要从头到尾查一查奥登的诗集，找出每一句与月亮有关的来，看看是不是能唤醒我的记忆。令我惊奇的是，开始了这项工程以后我才发现这些诗里提到月亮的有多么少!我怀疑一本897页的集子中，连20处都不到。在《月球登陆》里有“谢天谢地，我的月亮没有受到污染，月缺又月圆，她仍后居天庭……”或者在《焦虑的时代》里，“月亮升起，温柔，安详，草在摇曳……”，还有在《夜曲》里的“月亮出现，悄然无声，避让山峦的獠牙磋齿；悄悄然，溜进开阔的天空，豁然知所处”----都是特棒的诗句，可都不是我记忆中的那一句。最接近的是“渐逝的月儿苍白地高悬，犹豫踌躇在天边……”，也是《焦虑的时代》里的。这一句也不像。

18. 我又想到了一个主意。我要重读斯彭德的日志，看他是否提到过奥登的有关月亮的诗。于是，在1975年2月6日的那一条中我找到了这样的话：“模仿已故的奥登并不难。(他于1973年去世)因为在奥登晚年的诗中有一种怪诞的外表，一些雄心勃勃掌握了技巧的年轻人可以效仿。但是模仿早期的奥登难乎其难。“此月之美，无始无终，初始即已成……”我敢肯定，这一句正是1981年那个下午斯彭德写在黑板上的那行诗。

19. 可怜的斯蒂芬·斯彭德，可怜的罗伯特·奥本海默，即使不是被划分到仅仅不错之列，也都受其限制。他们了解什么是真正出类拔萃，因此两人都不可避免地感到悲哀。“做个渺小的诗人如同做个渺小的皇族，”斯彭德在日志中写道，“正如玛格利特公主的贴身女仆有一次告诉我的那样，任何人在那个地位上都不会高兴的。”至于奥本海默，我记得埃斯德·拉比曾经跟我说“如果他研究的是犹太教法典和希伯来语，而不是梵语的话，他(奥本海默)或许会成为更杰出的物理学家。我从未遇见过他那么聪明的人。但是要更具原创性和博大精深，注意力得更集中才行。”

20. 正如斯彭德所说，w·H·奥登的诗无法模仿，保罗·迪拉克的物理学更无法模仿。这就是伟大的诗歌与伟大的物理学之间的共同之处：两者犹如前无古人的天才们掀起的巨浪，席卷澎湃而去，将那些仅仅不错的人甩在后头。