一位百岁老人见证的美国历史
John Morris — so old his father was born just after the American civil war — has seen plenty of US history.
约翰.莫里斯(John Morris)活了一大把年纪了——他的父亲出生在美国内战刚结束的时候——也见证了大段的美国历史。
Yet this American abroad feels that last month, aged 99, watching TV all night in Paris, he witnessed the worst political event of his lifetime.
然而这位身在异乡的美国人觉得，今年11月他算是目睹了他毕生所见的最糟糕的政治事件，当时99岁的他在巴黎观看了整晚的电视。
I was with my granddaughter, she was in tears, he says.
我的孙女和我在一起，她泪流满面，他说，我不像她那么难过。
I’ve been through other tragedies, usually somebody’s death.
我经历过其他悲剧，通常是有人离世。
But I think Trump’s election makes it easier for me to contemplate an early death.
但是我想特朗普当选让我更容易去思考早点死这件事。
In my case, you can’t exactly call it early but, at any rate, I’m glad I’m going to be through!
在我身上说早不太准确，但无论如何，我很庆幸我快走了！
The number of American centenarians — a cohort that had an outsize role in shaping modern history — has burgeoned in recent years to more than 70,000 and counting.
近年来，美国百岁老人——该群体在现代历史的发展进程中发挥了重要作用——的数量增加到了7万人以上，并且还在增加之中。
Morris will join their ranks on December 7, though you’d never guess it from his spookily unlined face and thick white hair.
莫里斯于12月7日跨入了百岁老人之列，但从他脸上异常平滑的皮肤和浓密的白发上你丝毫猜不出他的年纪。
He is possibly the photo-editor who did most to depict the 20th century: he started with the Spanish civil war, published his friend Robert Capa’s 11 D-Day pictures in Life magazine and, in 1972, put the Vietnamese Napalm Girl photo on The New York Times’ front page.
他可能是在记录20世纪的历史方面贡献最大的图片编辑：他从西班牙内战时开始投身这行，在《生活》(Life)杂志上刊登了他的朋友罗伯特.卡帕(Robert Capa)拍摄的、诺曼底登陆日(D-Day)的11张照片，1972年他在《纽约时报》(The New York Times)头版刊登了越南烧夷弹的女孩(Napalm Girl)照片。
He still beavers away.
他现在仍然坚持工作。
We meet in his home office, where there are piles of newspapers — A Startling New Political Reality, says a US headline — and neat inboxes marked Urgent and Thank You.
他在家里有办公室，我们就在那里见面，屋里摆着成堆的报纸——一张美国报纸的头条标题写着《令人震惊的新政治现实》(A Startling New Political Reality)——和整齐码放、标着紧急和谢谢的文件篮。
Yet post-Trump, Morris is left wondering whether his twin life-long endeavours — political activism and photojournalism — achieved anything.
不过在特朗普胜选后，莫里斯不由得开始琢磨他毕生奋斗的两项事业——政治行动主义和新闻摄影——是否有任何意义。
His life changed on his 25th birthday, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
他的人生在25岁生日时出现了转折，当时日本轰炸了珍珠港(Pearl Harbor)。
Life magazine sent him on a Norwegian freighter to wartime London, where he witnessed the first drones, Hitler’s pilotless V1 missiles.
《生活》杂志派他搭乘一艘挪威货船前往战时的伦敦，他在那里亲眼见到了最早的无人机——希特勒的V1飞弹。
We wasted a lot of time trying to photograph the drones.
我们浪费了很多时间想要拍摄无人机，
The story was in the faces of the people looking up.
其实故事都写在人们抬头看天的脸上。
In 1944, after D-Day, Morris followed the Allied armies into France.
1944年，在诺曼底登陆事件后，莫里斯跟随盟军进入法国。
He hung out with Capa and Ernest Hemingway, took spellbinding photographs — his favourite is of a captured young German soldier, almost a child, glaring into the lens —
他和卡帕、欧内斯特.海明威(Ernest Hemingway)一起，拍摄了许多精彩照片——他最喜爱的一张是一个被俘虏的年轻德国士兵的照片，那个看起来还是孩子模样的士兵盯着镜头。
and reached Paris days after the Liberation.
解放巴黎几天后，他来到了这座城市。
Shown around by a local photographer named Henri Cartier-Bresson, he fell for the place.
一位名为亨利.卡蒂埃-布列松(Henri Cartier-Bresson)的当地摄影记者带他四处参观，他爱上了巴黎。
Someday we must live in Paris, he wrote to his wife in the US.
有朝一日，我们一定要在巴黎住，他给当时身在美国的妻子写信说道。
He finally moved here long after her death, in 1983.
1983年，在他妻子去世后很久，他终于迁居巴黎。
He plans to die in Paris but there is so much to do first.
他计划在巴黎终老，但在这之前还有太多未了之事。
He still hosts campaign events for Democrats Abroad, and feels sick that Bernie Sanders didn’t win the party’s nomination.
他仍然主持着民主党海外部(Democrats Abroad)的竞选活动，并且对于伯尼.桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)没能获得党内提名耿耿于怀。
He was cheated by the money people who have the Democratic Party as their instrument of power.
他被那些把民主党当成权力工具的有钱人坑了。
My attempt now will be to try to reform the party.
我现在的目标是试着改革民主党。
And so Morris gives political speeches, when he isn’t staging exhibitions or working on new books.
因此，如今莫里斯只要不是在布展或写新书，就是忙着发表政治演讲。
We leaf through the dummy of his photobook My Century: beautiful people smoking, flirting, having fun, almost all of them now dead.
我们翻阅了他的摄影集《我的世纪》(My Century)：一张张抽烟、调情或取乐的漂亮面孔，差不多所有人都已经离世了。
Even his Republican sister finally went, aged 103.
就连他那共和党籍的姐姐也终于离世了，享年103岁。
In the early 1970s, The New York Times prepared Morris’s obituary, thinking he was about to die, but he’s a survivor.
上世纪70年代初，《纽约时报》准备了莫里斯的讣告，以为他不久人世了，但他至今健在。
I’ve lost two children.
我有两个子女过世了。
I had four.
我有4个子女。
The first girl died as an infant, and the second one at age 72.
第一个女孩在襁褓中夭折，第二个活到了72岁。
I’ve been a widower three times.
我三次失去了伴侣。
I have times when I think, ‘God, if I could just get finished with this.’
有时我会想，‘上帝啊，让我就这样了此一生吧。
On the other hand, I have happy moments.
’不过我也有快乐的时光。
I have a wonderful lady.
我太太老好了。
She can be a pain in the neck sometimes.
她有时很让人头疼。
She gets thinking about things which seem unimportant to me, like what shirt I’m wearing.
她总想一些对我来说不太重要的事情，比如我穿了什么衬衣。
But love gives me the courage to continue.
但是爱给了我继续下去的勇气。
He sees hard years ahead.
他预感未来日子不太平。
Looking ahead to President Trump, he recalls the president who bombed Hiroshima.
展望未来的特朗普总统，他回想起了那位下令轰炸广岛的总统。
Harry Truman was a fine man, he was honest, but he was far from the most qualified man to have become president.
哈里.杜鲁门(Harry Truman)是个好人，诚实，但他绝不是最适合当总统的那个人。
The first thing he did was drop not one but two atom bombs.
他做的第一件事是扔原子弹，不是一颗、而是两颗。
It was just absolutely unnecessary.
这完全没必要。
I keep thinking back to Truman, which was a political disaster although it was not recognised as such at the time.
我常想起杜鲁门，那是一场政治灾难，尽管当时没人意识到这点。
Other disasters followed: Morris considers America’s wars from Korea onwards unnecessary.
其他灾难接踵而至：莫里斯认为，美国从越战起经历的所有战争都没有必要。
I hold that against my own country, he says.
这一点我对我的祖国有看法。
So he doesn’t consider himself part of the greatest generation? I feel that my generation failed.
这么说他不认为自己属于最伟大的一代？我觉得我们这一代人失败了。
I think we should have been the greatest generation, but we were a very fortunate generation as long as we kept within our own shores.
我想我们本该成为最伟大的一代，但如果我们待在自己的国土，我们是非常幸运的一代。
Morris’s credo was always that photography could improve the world by showing it.
以前莫里斯一直抱着这样的信念：通过展示世界，摄影可以让世界变得更好。
Now he’s no longer so sure.
如今他不那么确定了。
I worry about the overuse of pictures.
我担心照片被滥用了。
Trump is flamboyant, and if he could not have been photographed continuously I don’t think he’d be president.
特朗普是个惹眼的人，如果他不是老被拍照，我不认为他能当总统。
I’m afraid photojournalism helped him achieve the presidency.
我担心新闻摄影帮他当上了总统。
Looking back, did all Morris’s work make any difference? OK, that’s my point.
回首往事，莫里斯的作品是否起到了什么作用？好吧，这就是我的症结。
This is what I keep asking myself.
我一直在问自己这个问题。
If we really get into another cold war, I’ve got to say, ‘What the hell am I doing around?’ I was opposed to the first cold war.
如果我们真的再一次陷入冷战，我会说，‘我到底做了什么？’我反对第一次冷战。
The most important thing to me has been war and peace.
对我来说，最重要的事就是战争与和平。
I don’t think we’ve made enough difference.
我不认为我们带来了足够大的改变。
But he will keep trying.
但是他会继续努力。
