Old-school love letters between a young Richard Nixon and the woman he would later marry have been unveiled at the former president's library in California, showing the poetic side of a man who addressed his future wife as "dearest heart."
日前,加利福尼亚州的前总统图书馆曝光了年轻的理查德·尼克松的老情书,这些情书的收信人是他后来的妻子。这些书信显示了一个男人充满诗意的一面,他在信中称妻子为“最亲密的爱人”。
The letters, written by hand between 1938 and 1940, include professions of love in which Nixon tells Pat Ryan, as she was then known, that "nothing so fine ever happened" to him as falling in love with her.
这些情书写于1938年至1940年间,尼克松在这些书信里向帕特·瑞安表达了爱意,尼克松告诉瑞安,对他来说再也没有比爱上她更好的事情了。
"Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousy. In fact I should always want you to live just as you wanted — because if you didn't then you would change and wouldn't be you," Nixon wrote in one of the letters, part of a rotating display at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
“每一天我都想看见你,每一天我都想和你待一起,这绝不是出于占有欲或嫉妒心里。事实上,我总是希望你能过你想要的生活——因为如果你不能这样,那么你就变了,那样你就不是我爱的那个你了。”尼克松在其中一封信中这样写到。这是在尼克松总统图书馆和博物馆巡回展出的其中一部分。
"Let's go for a long ride Sundays; let's go to the mountains weekends; let's read books in front of fires; most of all let's really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours," he continued.
“在星期天我们出去骑车;在周末我们去爬山;在火堆前我们一起阅读;最重要的是我们在一起成长,并找到了正如我们了解的属于我们的幸福”。他接着说。
Nixon, who served as U.S. president from 1969 to 1974, stepped down in the face of almost certain impeachment due to the involvement of his aides and campaign in an attempt to bug his political opponents' offices at the Watergate complex and the subsequent cover-up.
尼克松1969年至1974年任职美国总统。在面对涉及和女助理的丑闻以及有关水门事件中窃听案的弹劾后,尼克松辞职下台。
He was pardoned a month after he left office by his successor, President Gerald Ford. Nixon, whose wife stood by him throughout a scandal that damaged national trust in the White House and government, died in 1994.
在他卸任一个月后,下一任总统杰拉尔德·福特宣布对他的这一事件表示谅解。尼克松的夫人在整个丑闻事件中一直陪伴着尼克松,而这一丑闻也引发了全国民众对白宫及政府的不信任感。尼克松于1994年逝世。
The letters on display illustrate the couple's courtship between the time they met during tryouts for a community play in Whittier, California, in 1938 and when they were later married in 1940, nearly three decades before they became president and first lady.
展出的这些信件也诠释了这对夫妇的恩爱不离,从1938年他们在美国加州西南部城市惠蒂尔一个社区戏剧试演时相遇到1940年他们结婚。在他们成为总统和第一夫人前他们共度了将近30年时间。
"What's so charming about these letters is that they are really from another time, because I think the writing of love letters has really become a lost art with technology," said exhibit curator Bob Bostock.
“这些信的魅力在于它们真的是来自另一个时代,因为我认为写情书真的已经成为科技时代我们丢失的一门艺术。”展览馆长鲍勃如是说。
He said that while Nixon's letters showed a romantic side of the former president, Pat Ryan's letters tended to be "a bit lighter, humorous."
他还说,当尼克松的情书展示了前总统浪漫一面的同时,总统夫人帕特·瑞安的信件则显得“语言平淡和有幽默感”。
In one, she writes: "Hi-ho, Hi-ho! How does it go? It would be good to see and hear — . Night school is over about 9 so if you are through with club meeting perhaps I'll see you?" In another letter, she offers to "burn a hamburger" for her sweetheart if he visits her on a Wednesday evening.
在其中一封信中,她写到:“嗨,最近怎么样?要是能看到你听到你的声音就好了——夜校在九点左右结束,如果你那时参加俱乐部会议,也许我会遇到你?” 在另一封信里,她表示如果他星期三的晚上来看她,她就“烤一个汉堡”给她心爱的人。
Six of the letters, three penned by Nixon and three by his future wife out of a collection of several dozen, will be on rotating display in the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, through September 3 as part of an exhibit to mark what would have been Pat Nixon's 100th birthday. She died in 1993.
六封情书有三封出自尼克松之手,三封属于他的妻子。这些从上百封情书中挑出来的情书将会在加州约巴林达市的尼克松图书馆进行巡回展出,展览将作为帕特·瑞安百岁诞辰纪念活动的一部分。今年的9月3日正是帕特·瑞安百岁诞辰,帕特·雷恩于1993年逝世。