The Eleventh Tuesday
第十一个星期二
We Talk About Our Culture
我们聊了聊我们的文化

"Hit him harder."
“击打再用力一点。”

I slapped Morrie's back.
我拍打着莫瑞的后背。

"Harder."
“再用力一点。”

I slapped him again.
我再次拍打莫瑞。

"Near his shoulders ... now down lower."
“靠近他的肩膀…现在再往下移一点。”

Morrie, dressed in pajama bottoms, lay in bed on his side, his head flush against the pillow, his mouth open.
莫瑞穿着睡裤，侧躺在床上，他的头正对着枕头，嘴巴张开着。

The physical therapist was showing me how to bang loose the poison in his lungs—which he needed done regularly now, to keep it from solidifying, to keep him breathing.
理疗师正在向我演示怎样通过击打来疏解莫瑞肺部的毒素——他现在需要定期做这项理疗来防止肺部硬化，从而使他能够呼吸。

"I... always knew... you wanted... to hit me ..." Morrie gasped.
“我…就知道…你一直想…揍我…” 莫瑞喘息道。

Yeah, I joked as I rapped my fist against the alabaster skin of his back.
对是，我一边开着玩笑一边用拳头捶在莫瑞如雪花石膏一样的后背皮肤上。

This is for that B you gave me sophomore year! Whack!
让你大二的时候给我打B（B指大学生课程期末成绩的等级）！我打！

We all laughed, a nervous laughter that comes when the devil is within earshot.

我们都笑了起来，那种魔鬼近在咫尺之时的紧张的大笑。

It would have been cute, this little scene, were it not what we all knew it was, the final calisthenics before death.
如果不是我们都明白这意味着什么，是死亡来临前最后的拉拉操表演的话，这个小小的场景也许会很可爱。

Morrie's disease was now dangerously close to his surrender spot, his lungs.
莫瑞的疾病现在已经及其危险的接近于让他投降的临界点了，他的肺部。

He had been predicting he would die from choking, and I could not imagine a more terrible way to go.
他以前就预测过说他会死于窒息，我真的是想不出比这更糟糕的死法了。

Sometimes he would close his eyes and try to draw the air up into his mouth and nostrils, and it seemed as if he were trying to lift an anchor.
有时他会闭上眼睛试着用嘴巴和鼻孔吸气，看起来他仿佛是在努力举起锚一样。

Outside, it was jacket weather, early October, the leaves clumped in piles on the lawns around West Newton.
外面是穿夹克衫的天气，十月初，落叶围绕着西牛顿区成堆的聚集在草坪上。

Morrie's physical therapist had come earlier in the day, and I usually excused myself when nurses or specialists had business with him.
莫瑞的理疗师早早地就来了，在护士或者专家有事来找莫瑞的时候我一般会回避。

But as the weeks passed and our time ran down, I was increasingly less self-conscious about the physical embarrassment.
但随着几周的时间过去，我们的时间所剩无几，我逐渐对这些理疗的尴尬场景变得不那么自我敏感了。

I wanted to be there.
我想在那陪着莫瑞。

I wanted to observe everything.
我想要观察一切。

This was not like me, but then, neither were a lot of things that had happened these last few months in Morrie’s house.
这并不太像我的风格，不过话说回来，过去这几个月在莫瑞的房子里发生的太多事情也不像。

So I watched the therapist work on Morrie in the bed, pounding the back of his ribs, asking if he could feel the congestion loosening within him.
所以我就看着理疗师给床上的莫瑞理疗，敲打着他的肋骨背面，一边询问莫瑞是否能感受到身体里的淤堵在疏解。

And when she took a break, she asked if I wanted to try it.
在理疗师休息的时候，她问我想不想尝试一下。

I said yes.
我回答想。

Morrie, his face on the pillow, gave a little smile.
莫瑞脸朝下埋在枕头里，笑了一下。

"Not too hard," he said. "I'm an old man."
“你可别打的太重哈，”他说，“我可是一个老人家。”

I drummed on his back and sides, moving around, as she instructed.
我敲打着他的后背和身体侧面，按照理疗师的指示来回游走。

I hated the idea of Morrie's lying in bed under any circumstances (his last aphorism, "When you're in bed, you're dead," rang in my ears), and curled on his side, he was so small, so withered, it was more a boy's body than a man's.

我讨厌莫瑞无论何种情形都只能躺着的印象（他最后的格言，“当你躺在床上的时候，你就死了。”不断在我耳边回响），而且蜷缩侧躺着的莫瑞是如此瘦小，如此消瘦，相比于一个男人的体型更像是一个小男孩的体型。

I saw the paleness of his skin, the stray white hairs, the way his arms hung limp and helpless.
我看着他苍白的皮肤，飘零的白发，他的胳膊无力的垂下的样子。

I thought about how much time we spend trying to shape our bodies, lifting weights, crunching sit-ups, and in the end, nature takes it away from us anyhow.
我想着我们花了那么多的时间去努力锻炼塑形，去举铁，去做仰卧起坐，可是到最终，自然规律无论如何都会夺走这一切。

Beneath my fingers, I felt the loose flesh around Morrie's bones, and I thumped him hard, as instructed.
指尖之下，我能够感受到附着在莫瑞筋骨周围松垮的皮肉，并且依照指示用力敲打着他。

The truth is, I was pounding on his back when I wanted to be hitting the walls.
真相其实是，在我特别想到狠狠捶墙的时候，我正在捶打莫瑞。

"Mitch?" Morrie gasped, his voice jumpy as a jackhammer as I pounded on him.
“米契？“莫瑞气喘吁吁的，他说话的声音也随着我的敲打像气锤一样一下一下起伏蹦跳着。

Uh-huh?
怎么了？

"When did ... I... give you ... a B?"
“我什么…时候…给你打过B呀”

Morrie believed in the inherent good of people.
莫瑞相信人性本善。

But he also saw what they could become.
但他同时也能看到人们会变成什么样子。

"People are only mean when they're threatened,” he said later that day, "and that's what our culture does. That's what o