The Lover (Excerpt) - Marguerite Duras

（依旧是听众点播~摘自杜拉斯著作《情人》开头前三段，感兴趣的朋友去读原著呀！改编的同名电影也很好看！！）
ONE DAY, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said: "I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged."

I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I've never spoken. It's always there, in the same silence, amazing. It's the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I delight.

Very early in my life it was too late. It was already too late when I was eighteen. Between eighteen and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction. I grew old at eighteen. I don't know if it's the same for everyone. I've never asked. But I believe I've heard of the way time can suddenly accelerate on people when they're going through even the most youthful and highly esteemed stages of life. My ageing was very sudden. I saw it spread over my features one by one, changing the relationship between them, making the eyes larger, the expression sadder, the mouth more final, leaving great creases in the forehead. But instead of being dismayed, I watched this process with the same sort of interest I might have taken in the reading of a book. And I knew I was right, that one day it would slow down and take its normal course. The people who knew me at seventeen, when I went to France, were surprised when they saw me again two years later, at nineteen. And I've kept it ever since, the new face I had then. It has been my face. It's got older still, of course, but less, comparatively, than it would otherwise have done. It's scored with deep, dry wrinkles, the skin is cracked. But my face hasn't collapsed, as some with fine features have done. It's kept the same contours, but its substance has been laid waste. I have a face laid waste.

我已经上了年纪，有一天，在一处公共场所的大厅里，有个男人朝我走过来。他在做了一番自我介绍之后对我说：“我始终认识您。大家都说您年轻的时候很漂亮，而我是想告诉您，依我看来，您现在比年轻的时候更漂亮，您从前那张少女的面孔远不如今天这副被毁坏的容颜更使我喜欢。”

我常常忆起这个只有我自己还能回想起而从未向别人谈及的形象。它一直在那里，在那昔日的寂静之中，令我赞叹不止。这是所有形象中最使我惬意、也是我最熟悉、最为之心荡神驰的一个形象。

在我的生命中，青春过早消逝。在我十八岁的时候，繁花似锦的年花早就枯萎凋零。从十八岁到二十五岁之间，我的容貌朝着一个意料之外的方向发展。十八岁的时候我就衰老了。我不知道是否每个人都是这样，我从来也没有打听过。似乎有人对我说过，当你正在经历一生中最年轻、最受赞美的年华时，这段时光的突然推进有时会使你感到吃惊。这种衰老来得太唐突了。我眼看着我的相貌日渐衰老，我那线条的比例也随之改变，眼睛变得更大，嘴巴更加突出，额头也刻下一道道深深的皱纹。我对此并没有感到惊恐，相反，我是带着一种似乎象是追求小说中情节发展的兴趣去观察我那衰老的面容的。那时我同样也晓得我并没有弄错，我相信总有一天这种衰老会缓慢下来，恢复正常的速度。那些在我十七岁回法国时认识我的人，在两年以后，即我十九岁时重新见到我时都感到惊奇。后来我终于保留下了那副新的面孔。它曾经是我的面孔。当然它还会衰老下去，不过其速度毕竟要比原先缓慢一些。我现在有一副面容衰老、布满枯深皱纹的面孔。可它却不象某些容貌清秀的面孔那样骤然沉陷下去，它依旧保留着原来的轮廓，只不过质地被毁坏罢了。我有一张被毁坏的脸庞。