■永远的玫瑰之约
A Joy Forever
◎Jensen Lacey/延森·莱西
John Keats wrote, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Perennial, enduring love is a thing of beauty, rather like a rose can be.
Every time I catch the scent of a rose, I think of enduring love. Being a freelance[21] journalist, years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing an elderly man. James Charlet had an interesting story, beginning two decades earlier when he lost his beloved wife, who had been a great lover of roses.
So deep was his grief when she died, so enduring was his love, that he asked his church if he could plant roses by the church walkway in his wife’s memory. Of course, the priest there said yes.
James started with a few rose bushes. He planted lovely pinks, deep yellows and fragrant reds with names like “Yesterday” and “Golden Chersonese” and “Chrysler Imperial”. The roses grew and flourished[22] under his never-ending care, for he also had retired and had a great deal of time on his hands.
名人语库
～Robert Ingersoll
——罗伯特·英格索尔
诗人济慈写道：“一件美好的事物会带来永恒的喜悦。”永恒耐久的爱情正是如此，它就是这样一件如玫瑰般美好的事物。
每一次我闻到玫瑰的芳香，就会联想到经得起岁月考验的爱情。几年前，我有幸作为自由撰稿人采访一位名叫詹姆斯·夏洛特的老人。在他身上发生了一个有趣的故事，这个故事大约是从20年前他挚爱的妻子去世时开始的。他那位妻子非常喜爱玫瑰花。
妻子去世后，他悲痛万分，对妻子的爱非但没有丝毫减弱，反而更加浓烈持久。于是，他请求教堂让他在教堂过道两旁种上玫瑰，以此来纪念他的妻子。牧师欣然同意了。
他种下了几丛玫瑰，有可爱的粉玫瑰，有深黄玫瑰，还有香气袭人的红玫瑰；玫瑰的名字也五花八门，叫“昨日重现”“金色半岛”“克莱斯勒帝王”等。这些玫瑰花在他一刻不停的精心照料下长得又快又好，当然，这也是因为他退休了，有的是大把时间来伺弄这些花花草草。
He told me that those few roses didn’t seem to be enough; they were insufficient to fully express his love for his wife. He asked the priest if he could plant some more roses; again, the priest said yes.
James planted some different kinds of roses this time: rare burgundies and hard-to-find violet roses, silver roses and hybrid roses created in the memory of others. Roses with names like “The Doctor” and “Alba Celeste” and “Honorable Lady Lindsay”.
Still he was dissatisfied with what he called a paltry outward show of his inner feelings. He again approached the priest, asking if he could use part of the vacant lot next to the church that the church owned. Again, he was told yes.
James planted more roses and then went on to plant roses by the sidewalks up and down and around the entire city block, surrounding the church and grounds. Roses with names like “Red Meidiland” and “Trumpeter” and “Pikes Peak”.
Now, rose bushes numbering in the hundreds are everywhere; the scent of them fills the air, the pied blooms catch the eye and blossoms float on the breeze along with the laughter of the children playing in the church playground. Couples strolling along downtown walk past the roses and instinctively take each other’s hand. The altar-guild ladies cut great, fragrant bouquets of roses to decorate the church and altar, filling the interior with the color and perfume of love.
Decades after he began his project to honor his wife’s memory, and years after I interviewed him about what he had done, James and I visited that rose garden one afternoon. The roses are tended now by someone hired by the church, as James is no longer able to care for them himself. So old and feeble is he now that his nurse and I half-carried him to the garden, helping him
他告诉我说，那几丛玫瑰似乎太少，不足以表达他对死去的妻子的爱意。他请求牧师让他再多种些玫瑰。牧师又一次同意了。
这次，他种了一些不同品种的玫瑰：稀有的勃艮第，罕见的紫罗兰玫瑰，银色玫瑰，还有各种杂交玫瑰。这些杂交玫瑰通常是用来纪念他人的，从他们的名字就可以看出来，比如“纪念医生”“阿尔巴·赛莱斯特”“尊敬的琳赛女士”等。
但是，他仍不满意，他觉得这些玫瑰微不足道，并不能完全表达出他的内心情感。他又去找牧师，请求牧师让他在教堂旁边的那块空地上种满玫瑰。他又一次得到了肯定的答复。
他在空地上种下更多的玫瑰，后来，他继续在路边两侧种上玫瑰，最后，教堂周边、整个街区都种上了他的玫瑰。玫瑰的品种也更多了，加入了“红色美德兰”“小号手”“皮克峰”等。
现在，成百上千丛玫瑰遍布每个角落，浓郁的花香弥漫在空中，层层叠叠的各色花朵引人注目。微风吹过，玫瑰花瓣从空中婷婷袅袅地落下，在教堂空地上玩耍的孩子们发出阵阵爽朗的笑声。推着童车在街头散步的夫妇走过玫瑰花丛时，不禁下意识地握紧对方的手。圣坛会的女士们剪下大把芬芳的玫瑰花束，用来装饰教堂和圣坛。教堂里立刻充满了各种颜色的玫瑰，散发出阵阵爱的香气。
从他最初开始这项纪念妻子的盛大工程，几十年已经过去了；而我上次采访他、了解他的故事之后，又过去了好几年。一天下午，我和老人一同来到了玫瑰园。这些玫瑰花现在已由教堂雇佣专人打理，因为老人再也无法独自料理这些花儿。现在他已经老了，十分虚弱，我和他的护士几乎是半抬着他进入玫瑰园的。我们在美丽的花丛中帮他坐上轮椅，
settle in his wheelchair in the midst of the blossoms. We sat under an arbor, one of his favorite places to sit in the hot summers when he’d been more vigorous.
I sat with him there in companionable silence, among the scent of a myriad of rose blossoms. What was it that kept his love going inside him? What did the two of them have, even after one of them had died, that so many of us spend our lives desperately seeking?
It occurred to me then that some people are like prisms[23]: Anyone with a light in them can be near that person and have their light refracted into many different colors, like the colors of the roses around us. Prisms by themselves cannot make light, and light by itself cannot divide into the lovely colors of the rainbow. James Charlet’s wife must have been like a prism, being there to magnify and refract her husband’s light. He made her complete because she completed him. I thought at that moment how she must be smiling upon him, seeing all these gifts he had planted for her.
As I took his thin, old hand and saw him smile at me a bit sadly, in spite of the lovely midsummer day I found myself hoping that the love I have found is less ethereal than the scent of a rose, that it can endure as James’s love has.
To nurture this love so it can endure throughout all our lives, even through the infirmities[24] old age may bring, to care for one another and love one another even beyond the boundary that separates this existence from the next is my hope. Perhaps our love can remain as strong and as sweet as the roses that have endured and bloomed all these years, and be a thing of beauty, a joy forever.
然后，我们在一棵大树底下坐了下来。那里曾是他精力尚好时在炎热夏天最爱坐的地方之一。
我陪伴在他的身边，静静地坐着，无数玫瑰花瓣散发出的香气环绕着我们。是什么让爱在他的内心持久留存？他们俩之间有什么呢，甚至在其中一方去世之后还永存不息？难道是我们中的很多人孤注一掷、追寻一生的东西？
我忽然想到，有些人就像棱镜一样，本身并不会发光，因此也无法折射出彩虹般绚丽丰富的色彩。但是，当一个内心能发光的人靠近他们时，他们就能把这缕光芒折射成各种不同的颜色，就如我们身边这些玫瑰般五彩斑斓。老人的妻子可能就是一枚棱镜，她总是可以放大、折射她丈夫的光芒。在他成全她的同时，她也成全了他。我在想，那一刻，她一定看到了老人为她准备的礼物——这所有的玫瑰，她也一定在天堂向着老人微笑吧。
我握着他瘦削枯老的手，他向我微微笑着，眼神里不免有些伤感。尽管那是如此美丽的一个仲夏午后，我发现自己在心里默默祈祷着：但愿我所找到的爱情不要像玫瑰花香那么虚无缥缈，而能像老人的爱情那般持久隽永。
我也希望，我们能精心培育爱情，使其足以延续一生一世，哪怕年老体弱、满身病痛之时也不离弃；关爱彼此，纵然生死相隔，仍能始终不渝。也许，这样的话，我们的爱情，就能和这些玫瑰花一样经久不衰、繁盛绚丽，永远甜蜜、愉悦。