The Girl Who Lives Forever


永恒的女孩

Night had fallen over the North African desert, and our battalions tanks were
huddled in a protective circle. A group of my fellow soldiers stood around a
radio. As I approached, one of them put his finger to his lips.


夜幕笼罩着北非沙漠。我们营的坦克围成了一个保护圈，我的一帮战友围站在一个收音机旁。当我走近时，其中一位将手指放在嘴唇上，示意我别出声。


　


From the radio came a bugle call, then a tender, come-kiss-me womans voice
singing in German the most haunting melody I'd ever heard.


Vor der Kaserne


vor dem grossen Tor


stand eine Laterne


und steht sie noch davor…


从收音机里传来号角声，随后传来一个女人温柔缠绵的歌声，她在用德语唱着一支我有生以来听过的最难以忘怀的曲子：


Vor der Kaserne


vor dem grossen Tor


stand eine Laterne


und steht sie noch davor…


I didnt understand the words, nor did most of us. For we were not the German
Afrikakorps but the British Eighth Army---the Desert Rats. Yet we were
captivated by this mysterious voice that somehow reached deep into our thoughts
and memories.


我不明白歌词是什么意思，我们大多数人都不明白。因为我们不是德国的非洲军团，而是英国第八军沙漠之鼠。但我们人被这神秘的歌声所吸引，不知怎么的，这个声音已经深深地印在了我们的脑海和记忆里。


Only a short distance away, German soldiers were listening to the same song,
sharing our loneliness and longings. This was the spring of 1942; both sides
were far from home, but we were all in love with the same girl in the song. So
were millions of other soldiers of almost every nationality---and they continue
to sing of her to this day. Her name was Lilli Marlene.


仅仅咫尺之遥的地方，德国士兵也正在收听这同一首歌曲，和我们一同感受着孤独与渴望。这是1942年的春天。对阵双方的士兵都远离家乡，但我们都爱者歌中的那一个姑娘，几乎每个国家中都有千百万的士兵在爱着她而且直到今天他们仍在歌唱这她。她的名字叫丽莉·玛琳。


Who was Lilli, and how did she transcend borders, languages and generations to
become every soldier's sweetheart? Her story begins in 1915, in the early stage
of World War I.


丽莉是谁，她又是怎么超越国家、语言和年龄的界限而成为每个士兵的心上人的呢？她的故事开始于1915年，第一次世界大战早期。


One foggy April night in Berlin, Hans Leip, a young officer cadet and budding
poet, was standing guard outside a fusiliers barracks. Across the way, fog
swirled eerily around a brightly lit lantern.


4月的柏林，一个雾蒙蒙的夜晚，汉斯·莱普正站在一个燧发枪团的营房外站岗。他既是一个年轻的军校学员，又是一个崭露头角的诗人。马路对面，一盏明亮的灯四周阴森森地围绕着一圈雾气。


A little while before, Leip had been in the arms of a pretty greengrocers
daughter nicknamed Lili. He was dreamily thinking about her when out of the
lamp-lit haze came Marleen, a coquettish beauty with sea-green eyes whom Leip
had met at an art gallery. For him it was love at first sight.


片刻之前，他还在一个小名叫丽莉的漂亮姑娘的怀抱中，她是一个蔬菜水果店主的女儿。他正在如痴如梦地想念者她。这时，从灯光照耀下的迷雾中走来了玛伦，一个长者海蓝色眼睛的风骚美人，莱普曾在一个艺术画廊中遇到过她。他对她一见钟情。


Marleen was on her way to a nearby hospital to help nurse wounded soldiers. She
waved and called a greeting just as the sergeant of the guard came to the gate.
Unable to reply, Leip forlornly watched her disappear in the fog.


玛伦到附近一家医院帮助护理伤兵，正好路过这里。她招手向莱普大声问好，可这时恰逢警卫队的中士走到了门口，莱普不敢回答，只能颓然地望着她消失在雾中。


That night, he lay on his bunk dreaming of Lili and Marleen, and was inspired to
write a poem coupling their names. He called it "Song of a Young Sentry".


那天夜里，他躺在床上梦想着丽莉和玛伦，这激发起了他的创作灵感，他将她们的名字连在一起写下了一首诗，并取名为《年轻哨兵之歌》。


It tells of a soldier standing in lamplight outside a barracks saying good-bye
to his sweetheart, Lilli Marleen. A bugle sounds. The soldier yearns to stay
with Lili, but the bugle calls again. As he leaves, he wonders aloud: Should
anything happen to me, will another man stand under the lamplight with my love?
Or will my ghost embrace her once again?


诗中讲的是一个士兵战在营房外的灯光下向她的心上人丽莉·玛琳告别的故事：出征的号角响了，但士兵仍可望和丽莉呆在一起，他不愿与她分离。可是号角声再次响起，催促着他。离别之际，他禁不住想：未来将会发生什么事呢，会不会有另一个男人和我的爱人再站在这个灯光下呢？我的灵魂可以再次拥抱她吗？


Posted to the Russian front, Leip never saw Lili or Marleen again. Some 20 years
later he included "Song of a Young Sentry" in an anthology of his poems. Berlin
composer Norbert Schultze spotted the poem, set it to music, entitled it "Lili
Marleen" and offered it to tenor Jan Bayern---who turned it down as "too
simple."


此后，莱普被派往了俄国前线，他再也没有见到丽莉和玛伦。大约20年后，他将这首《年轻哨兵之歌》收进了他的一本诗集。柏林作曲家诺伯特·舒尔茨看到了这首诗，将它谱成曲，起名叫《丽莉·玛伦》，并将它送给男高音歌唱家詹·拜恩，请他演唱可他却以“太简单”为由拒绝了。


Schultze gave "Lili Marleen" to a nightclub singer named Lale Andersen, a
striking blonde with a haunting, sensual voice that suited the songs melancholy.
In 1939 the Electrola Company recorded it. By then war had broken out, and only
700 copies of "Lili" were sold---each worth about '300 today.


舒尔茨又将《丽莉·玛伦》送给了一个名叫拉尔·安德森的夜总会歌手，她是一个迷人的金发女郎，有着一副令人难忘的、美妙的嗓音，正适合这首歌忧伤的旋律。1939年，爱来客都乐唱片公司给安德森的这首歌灌录了磁带。到战争爆发时，《丽莉·玛伦》只卖出了700盘今天每盘价值300美元。


The song remained in obscurity for two years. After Germany occupied Yugoslavia,
the Wehrmacht opened Radio Belgrade to broadcast to its troops in the Balkans
and North Africa. The station director had to scrounge some records. In a cellar
at Radio Vienna, a soldier unearthed a dust-covered collection of recordings
among them Andersen's "Lili Marleen". On the evening of August 18, 1941, it went
on the air for the first time.


在此后的两年里，这首歌一直默默无闻。在德国占领南斯拉夫之后，德军开设了贝尔格莱德广播电台，向驻扎在巴尔干和北非的德军广播。这样，电台台长就不得不四处寻找唱片来播出。在维也纳电台的地下室中，一名士兵发现了一堆上面积满灰尘的唱片其中就有安德森演唱的《丽莉·玛伦》。1941年8月18日晚上，贝尔格莱德广播电台首次播放了这首歌。


My future brother-in-law, then a tank officer in the Afrikakorps, heard the
song. "I was spellhound," he told me years later. So were thousands of other
soldiers. Requests for repeats poured into Radio Belgrade.


我未来的内弟，当时在北非军团中担任坦克兵军官，听到了这首歌。几年之后，他对我说：“我一听就被它深深地迷住了。”成千上万的士兵也被它深深地迷住了，他们纷纷写信给贝尔格莱德广播电台要求重播。


The song also became a homefront favorite, broadcast regularly on Radio Berlin.
“My son has fallen,” wrote one German mother to composer Schultze. “In his last
letter he wrote of 'Lili Marleen.' I think of him whenever I hear your song.”


在后方，这首歌也广受欢迎，在柏林电台定期播出。一位德国母亲给作曲家舒尔茨的信中写道：“我的儿子已经阵亡了，他的最后一封来信中提到了《丽莉·玛伦》。我一听到你的这首歌就会想起他”



The Afrikakorps' commander, Gen. Erwin Rommel, shrewdly saw the song as a means
to rally his men. He ordered “Lili” played every night. At 9:55 each evening the
song became Radio Belgrade's sign-off and cast its magic spell almost until the
war's end.


北非军团司令埃尔温·隆梅尔将军精明的将这首歌作为了一种鼓舞士气的手段。他命令每天夜里都要播出《丽莉·玛伦》。于是，每天晚上9点55分，这首歌就成了贝尔格莱德电台的结束曲，散发着它的神奇魅力。这种情绪几乎一直持续到战争结束。



In his book The Great Lili, Carlton Jackson records that Nazi propaganda
minister Josegh Goebbels detested “Lili.” He wanted morale-boosters like “Bombs
on England”. He ordered the original master copy of Lale Andersen's recording
destroyed. When Stalingrad fell in January 1943, after 300,000 German soldiers
had been killed, Goebbels banned the song entirely, saying that “a dance of
death roamed throughout its bard.”


卡尔顿·杰克逊在他的《伟大的丽莉》一书中记录了纳粹宣传部长约瑟夫·戈培尔对《丽莉·玛伦》这首歌的憎恶。他想要的是像《轰炸英格兰》这样的鼓舞士气的歌曲。他命令销毁拉尔·安德森录制这首歌所用的母带。1943年1月，当在斯大林格勒会战中被打败、30万德军阵亡之后，戈培尔下令彻底禁播这首歌，说它是“弥漫在酒吧中的死亡舞曲”。



But unknown to Goebbels, a second master had been sent to neutral Switzerland.
Three days after his ban, “Lili” was back on the air.


但戈培尔不知道，还有一盒母带已经被送到了中立国瑞士。在他下令禁播的3天之后，《丽莉·玛伦》又回到了电波之中。



Unable to stifle the song, Goebbels vented his anger on the singer. He ordered
lLale Andersen put under surveillance and had rumors spread that she was a
friend of Jews. Andersen did have close Jewish friends. To one in Switzerland,
she wrote letters saying how much she wanted to get out of Germany.


由于无法阻止这首歌的播出，戈培尔便将怒火发泄到了歌手身上。他下令监视拉尔·安德森的一举一动，并散布谣言说她是犹太人的朋友。安德森的确有一些交往密切的犹太人朋友，于是她给其中一位住在瑞士的朋友写信说她是多么地想离开德国。



In Italy, after a troop concert tour, Andersen decided to escape across the
Swiss border by train. She was seized on a Milan station platform by two Gestapo
agents. Back in Berlin, a Nazi official produced copies of her incriminating
letter. Falsely accused of being a spy, she was placed under house arrest and
told she might be sent to a concentration camp.


在意大利参加完一场军队举行的巡回音乐会以后，安德森决定乘火车越过边境逃往瑞士。在米兰火车站的月台上，她被两个盖世太保密探抓住了。回到柏林以后，一个纳粹军官像她出示了那些表明她“有罪”的信件的副本，歪曲地指控她是间谍，将她软禁了起来，并扬言要将她送进集中营。



British Intelligence heard of her arrest. The BBC broadcast the news that the
Nazi had put Germany's beloved singer into a concentration camp. This British
intervention may have helped save her. The Gestapo seemed to lose interest in
her, and she slipped away quietly to her grandparents' home on a North Sea
island, staying there until the war ended.


英国情报机构获悉了她的被捕。英国广播公司（BBC）广播了纳粹分子把这位深受大家喜爱的德国歌手投进了集中营的消息。英方的这次介入可能有助于她的获救。盖世太保好像对她失去了兴趣，使她得以悄悄溜到了在北海的一个小岛上她祖父母的家里，并在那里一直呆到了战争结束。



As novelist John Steinbeck once wrote, “Songs have a way of leaping boundaries.”
The German song was “captured” by the British fighting Rommel in the desert. But
like Goebbels, British army brass disliked the song. It was not the right thing
for their soldiers to march to –especially singing in German.


正如小说家约翰·斯坦贝克曾写过的那样：“歌曲有一种超越国界的能力。”这首德国歌曲也吸引了在沙漠中与隆梅尔作战的英国军人。但像戈培尔一样，英军的高级将领也不喜欢这首曲子，他们认为它对于那些要冲锋陷阵的士兵来说是不适宜的
尤其适用德语演唱的。



Back in England, Carlton Jackson relates, some Eighth Army veterans were belting
out “Lili Marleen” one night in a pub frequested by song publisher J. J.
Phillips. He remarked that village police might think they were German spies.
“If you're so fired up about it,” a soldier yelled, “why don't you write us some
English words?”


卡尔顿·杰克逊在书中说，回到英国后，一天夜里，第八军的一些老兵来到了一家酒吧大唱着《丽莉·玛伦》，而这家酒吧也是歌曲出版商J·J·飞利浦斯经常光顾的地方。听到老兵们的歌唱，飞利浦斯对他们说，村里的警察可能会以为他们是德国间谍。“如果你对它很不满的话，”一个老兵大声喊道，“为什么不为我们给它填上英语歌词？”



Phillips took up the challenge with the help of songwriter Tommie Connor. Lili
became “My Lilli of the Lamplight”; “Marleen” changed to “Marlene”; and out went
the fog and the spirit rising from the grave to kiss her. The new Lilli was the
girl left behind, waiting wistfully for her soldier to return safely.


飞利浦斯接受了这个挑战，在词作者汤米·康纳的帮助下，将《丽莉·玛伦》改为了《我灯光下的丽莉》；将“玛伦”改为了“玛琳”；并在歌词中写道：当迷雾散尽，战士的灵魂将从陵墓中升腾出来，曲亲吻他亲爱的姑娘。新的丽莉是一个留在后方、苦苦期待她的心上人平安归来的姑娘。



Underneath the lantern by the barrack gate,


Darling, I remember the way you used to wait;


'Twas there that you whispered tenderly,


My Lilli of the lamplight,


My own Lilli Marlene.


在军营门口的灯光下，


我想起了你曾在此等候的模样；


我的宝贝，你在那里对我温柔低语，


我灯光下的丽莉，


我心爱的丽莉·玛琳。



It was an immediate hit. Within six months sheet-music sales topped half a
million copies. The haulting ballad expressed all the fears of a soldier far
from home, yearning to be in his love's arms. Adaptations of Leip's poem have
appeared in more than 40 languages.


这首歌立即就引起了轰动。不到6个月，单曲销售量就达到了50万张。那缠绵婉转的曲调诉说着每一个远离家乡士兵对战争的恐惧和对爱人怀抱的深深的眷恋。莱普的这首诗也被用40多种语言改编出版。



Over the decades moviegoers have heard the straight version of “Lilli” in dozens
of feature films and documentaries. And she is still heard today whenever old
soldiers gather to sing of loneliness and loves gone by.


在此后的几十年中，观众都可以在数十部故事片和纪录片中听到“丽莉”。直到今天，当老兵们聚在一起时，也仍能听到他们在唱着这首歌，唱着他们的孤独和那些早已逝去的爱情。



Why did the song steal so many hearts? Lale Andersen's simple reply was: “Can
the wind explain why it becomes a storm?” Amid the brutal, ugly cacophony of
war, Lilli Marlene always struck a sweet and tender note. She belongs to all
nations.


为什么这首歌偷走了这么多人的心？拉尔·安德森的回答言简意赅：“我们为什么要去问风是怎么成为风暴的呢？”在残酷丑陋的战争喧嚣中，丽莉·玛琳总是用她那温柔甜蜜的音符去抚慰人们心灵的创伤。她永远属于所有的民族。



　


The End.



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