“Last Letter” by Ted Hughes
What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
最后一封信
那晚发生了什么？ 你的最后一晚。
双重， 三重曝光了
每一件事。 周五， 近黄昏，
最后一眼活着的你。
烟灰缸里， 燃着你给我的信，
伴着诡秘的笑容。 我破坏了你的计划？
是我的惊惶来得早过你的计划？
是我太快地带着信找到你？
一小时后-你本该已去
到了我无法找到的地方。
我愿已转身离开你紧锁的
无人再打开的红门。
依然攥着你的信，
像一道闪电不能落下。
那本该是我需要的电休克
治疗。
一遍遍， 整个周末，
我不停地读它， 想它。
愿那重塑我的头脑， 我的生活。
你计划的治疗还需要时间。
我无法想象
我如何熬过那周末。
我无法想象。 你谋划了这一切？
你的信来得太快－在同一天，
那个周五下午， 虽然在早晨寄出。
无处不在的魔鬼加快了投递。
那是又一束厄运的稻草
邮局载着它和你为敌。
给你更重的负担。 我迅速，
穿过二月里， 蓝雪的， 伦敦夜。
直到你开门时才让慰藉的泪水流出。
纠结的谜题等着解决。 早来的泪水
没能让我理解， 让我解开
它们深藏的意义。 可是你的话
飘过那封信的燃烧的烟雾
如此小心， 冷静地消除我的顾虑，
以致我由着你， 任着你
吹散落在你的计划上的， 烟灰缸上的灰烬
而没有让你靠着我说出
医生的电话号码。
我的逃脱
已是如此的难缠
无眠， 无望， 出现在所有的梦里。
只愿重被捕获， 只
愿跌落， 跌落出它的抽吸。
两天的无牵挂。 两天的赏赐。
从日历里抹去的两天， 但被
偷走，
偷走那个现实，感情， 和名字的世界。
我的情爱生活抓住了它。 我麻木了的情爱生活
用它的两枚疯狂的针，
刺穿撕扯， 绣着它们的玫瑰，
在我肚脐后面某处， 图案里，
血色的纹身，
践踏着纹章的泥沼，
两枚疯狂的针，针迹交叉着，
依照颜色
挑选着我的神经， 在我的皮肤里
重塑我， 每人用自己的漫画
重塑另一人的作品，
他们沉迷其中。 两个女人
每人都用着自己的针。
那晚
我的雕刻家苏珊。 我同行
谨慎得如同面对
保险丝上的火焰。 我所有的愤怒
是无谓的努力去炸毁
这旧世界， 在那里阴影
笼罩着泄露我的灰迹。 我飞奔
往复， 倒退着， 反过来的底片，
朝向哪里？ 我们去了如格比街
你和我开始的地方。
你为何去那？ 所有的地方里，
你为何去那？ 是我们命运
的艺术化的乖僻
为你， 为我， 也为为苏珊
精密地调整。 迷宫里的
人身牛头怪玩的纸牌谜游戏
甚至包括海伦， 在公寓的底层。
你提起过她－有故事的女孩。
你从未见过她。 几乎无人见过她。
除了她的牧羊犬的耳朵
和说胡话的面具。 你甚至没有瞥过她。
你只躲闪过
当发狂的狗用身体撞击
她的门， 当我们溜过走廊；
听到它因不停的德国腔的仇恨而哽噎。
那个周日晚上她稍稍把门开了
只几寸。
苏珊问候那黑眼睛的， 不高兴
超重的， 可爱的脸， 从链子上
窥视的脸。 门关了。
我们听到她安慰她的看门狗
在她的小房间里， 在狗的小屋里， 就在那， 几天后，
她用煤气杀死了她的凶残的狗， 和她自己。
在你和我的婚床上
苏珊和我度过了那晚。 自从结婚日我们躺在那
我还没见过那床。
我没有带她去我的床。
我以为， 周末结束时，
你会出现－突然造访。
你来了吗， 敲了我的黑暗的窗吗？
我同着苏珊， 躲着你，
在我们的婚床－就是那床，
三年后从那她被送到医院
死在那里； 就是那个医院，
十二小时后我寻到死去的你。
星期一的早晨
我送她去上班， 在市里，
然后在优斯顿路北停车
再回到我的电话等待的地方。
你最后的几个小时发生的事，
就如同它从未发生过一样无法知道。
你一生的积累，
比如无意识的努力， 比如出生时
缓慢地一秒秒的冲破每一层膜
进入到下一层， 发生过
就如同它不可能发生过，
如同它不在发生。 有多少次
我的空房里电话会响，
你听着听筒里的铃声－
在两端关于电话铃声
的记忆在褪去， 在头脑里
如同它已死去。 我数着
有多少次你走到圣乔治
平台下的电话亭。
任何时候我看你都在那， 刚刚转出
菲之罗伊路， 穿过
肮脏的凹凸的路面。
穿着黑色长大衣，
你的辫子盘起在脑后
你走着没有移动， 没有醒来， 而且
无人左右
靠着扶手走在普莱罗斯山下
朝着永不会到达的电话亭。
午夜前。 午夜后。 再一次。
再一次。 再一次。 而， 拂晓， 再一次。
你最后想将我手表上的指针
停在哪里，
已远远超过了
我能听到的， 摇着空床上的
枕头？ 最后一次
轻触我的书， 和我的手稿？
我到时我的电话已入睡。
无辜的枕头。 我的房间睡着了，
已充满了映雪的晨光。
我点燃火。 取出我的手稿。
当我动笔时电话
突然响起， 急促的铃声，
想起每一件事。 我拿起听筒。
然后那声音如同精选过的武器
或计算好的注射，
冷冷的说出四个字
深深的传到我耳里：“你的妻子死了。”
Ted Hughes poem 'inspired by row with Sylvia Plath shortly before she died'
Edward James (Ted) Hughes was born in Mytholmroyd, in the West Riding district of Yorkshire, on August 17, 1930. His childhood was quiet and dominately rural. When he was seven years old his family moved to the small town of Mexborough in South Yorkshire, and the landscape of the moors of that area informed his poetry throughout his life.
After high school, Hughes entered the Royal Air Force and served for two years as a ground wireless mechanic. He then moved to Cambridge to attend Pembroke College on an academic scholarship. While in college he published a few poems, majored in Anthropolgy and Archaeology, and studied mythologies extensively.
Hughes graduated from Cambridge in 1954. A few years later, in 1956, he cofounded the literary magazine St. Botolph’s Review with a handful of other editors. At the launch party for the magazine, he met Sylvia Plath. A few short months later, on June 16, 1956, they were married.
Plath encouraged Hughes to submit his first manuscript, The Hawk in the Rain, to The Poetry Center's First Publication book contest. The judges—Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender—awarded the manuscript first prize, and it was published in England and America in 1957, to much critical praise.
Hughes lived in Massachusetts with Plath and taught at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. They returned to England in 1959, and their first child, Freida, was born the following year. Their second child, Nicholas, was born two years later.
In 1962, Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. Less than a year later, Plath committed suicide. Hughes did not write again for years, as he focused all of his energy on editing and promoting Plath’s poems. He was also roundly lambasted by the public, who saw him as responsible for his wife’s suicide. Controversy surrounded his editorial choices regarding Plath’s poems and journals.
In 1965, Wevill gave birth to their only child, Shura. Four years later, like Plath, she also commited suicide, killing Shura as well. The following year, in 1970, Hughes married Carol Orchard, with whom he remained married until his death.
Hughes’s lengthy career included over a dozen books of poetry, translations, non-fiction and children’s books, such as the famous The Iron Man (1968). His books of poems include: Wolfwatching (1990), Flowers and Insects (1986), Selected Poems 1957–1981 (1982), Moortown (1980), Cave Birds (1979), Crow (1971), and Lupercal (1960). His final collection, The Birthday Letters (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), published the year of his death, documented his relationship with Plath.
Hughes's work is marked by a mythical framework, using the lyric and dramatic monologue to illustrate intense subject matter. Animals appear frequently throughout his work as deity, metaphor, persona, and icon. Perhaps the most famous of his subjects is "Crow," an amalgam of god, bird and man, whose existence seems pivotal to the knowledge of good and evil.
Hughes won many of Europe’s highest literary honors, and was appointed Poet Laureate of England in 1984, a post he held until his death. He passed away in October 28, 1998, in Devonshire, England, from cancer.
