“I’m a Nobel Laureate, But I Still Have Regrets”“得了諾貝爾獎，遺憾仍然不少”

羅伯特·萊夫科維茨博士/文　賀叢芝/譯

Regrets—I’ve had a few. I wish I could say they’re too few to mention， but that wouldn’t be true. If you have ambition， you have regrets. It comes with the territory.

說起遺憾，我曾有過一些。我希望我可以說，我的遺憾太少，不值一提，但那不是事實。倘若有追求，就會有遺憾。這是不可避免的。

I recently made the mistake of writing a memoir recounting adventures from my life and career as a physician and scientist. Naturally， the writing process led me to also meditate on my many regrets， which unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to detail in the book because my publisher wanted to “keep things positive.”

最近，我撰寫了一本回憶錄，講述我的醫(yī)生、科學家生涯中的冒險歷程。這真是一個錯誤。在寫作過程中，我自然而然地思考起我的許多遺憾?？上覜]有機會在書中一一詳述，因為出版商希望我“保持積極樂觀”。

One of my biggest regrets is that I never mastered a musical instrument. I played percussion as a student and also took piano lessons， but didn’t stick with it. I was in such a hurry as a young man to achieve my dream of becoming a doctor that other ambitions， such as my musical aspirations， fell by the wayside.

我最大的遺憾之一就是沒有掌握一門樂器。在學生時代，我演奏過打擊樂器，還上過鋼琴課，但是沒有堅持。年輕的時候，我急于實現(xiàn)自己成為一名醫(yī)生的夢想，以至于音樂等其他的追求只能半途而廢。

I constantly have Walter Mitty-esque2 fantasies of being an elite musician. Sometimes I even act these fantasies out. A few years ago， I took a visiting professor to an upscale restaurant on the Duke Medical Center campus in North Carolina. We had to wait a few minutes for our table， so I sat down on a bench in front of a piano. Suddenly， the piano sprang to life and began playing itself. Without missing a beat， I put my fingers on the keys and began swaying along as if I were playing. Many of the diners looked over at me， nodding appreciatively in the belief that I was spontaneously regaling them with some light dining music.

我時常會有沃爾特·米蒂式的幻想，想象自己成為一名出色的音樂家，有時候甚至會把這些幻想表演出來。幾年前，我陪一位客座教授去北卡羅來納州杜克大學醫(yī)學中心的一家高檔餐廳。我們得等候幾分鐘，所以我在一架鋼琴前的長凳上坐了下來。突然，鋼琴啟動，開始自行彈奏起來。我把手指放在琴鍵上，一拍不漏，隨著音樂開始搖擺身體，就像我在彈奏一樣。很多就餐者看向我，贊許地點著頭，以為我是在即興為他們演奏一些輕松的用餐音樂。

After a few minutes， I sensed the piece was building to a climactic cres-cendo， so I threw my hands up with a flourish just as the song ended. The dining room erupted in applause， and I stood to take a bow. As I basked in the adulation and began heading to my table， the piano jolted to life again and began playing another song on its own， causing the entire room to burst into laughter. I’m not sure which I enjoyed more： the applause for my musical “performance” or the huge laugh I got afterwards when everyone realized that I was a complete phony.

過了幾分鐘，我感覺這首曲子漸入高潮，我夸張地把手揚起，恰好一曲終了。餐廳里爆發(fā)出熱烈的掌聲，我站起來鞠躬致意。我沉浸在人們的夸贊聲中走向我的餐桌時，鋼琴再次啟動，開始自行彈奏另一首曲子，引起全場哄堂大笑。我不太確定我更享受哪個：是我的音樂“表演”收獲的掌聲，還是大家意識到我完全在假彈后發(fā)出的大笑。

Yet whenever people ask me what career I would have chosen if I hadn’t become a doctor and scientist， I always say that I would’ve been a stand-up comic. As a college student in New York City in the 1960s， I regularly hit the clubs in Greenwich Village to catch performances by edgy comedians like Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.

然而，每當有人問我，如果我沒有成為醫(yī)生和科學家，我會選擇什么職業(yè)，我總是說我會成為一名單口喜劇演員。20世紀60年代，我在紐約上大學時，經(jīng)常去格林威治村的俱樂部觀看莫特·薩爾和萊尼·布魯斯等前衛(wèi)喜劇演員的表演。

Regrettably， I lack the level of wildfire talent to make it as a professional stand-up， but that hasn’t stopped me from cracking jokes at every opportunity in my daily life. In fact， a core part of my philosophy of mentoring is that I believe humor and playfulness are great prods3 to creativity： the more people are laughing， the more creative they become. For this reason， I am constantly joking around in meetings with the trainees in my research lab at Duke， with the humorous tone hopefully setting the stage for inspiration.

遺憾的是，我缺乏成為一名專業(yè)單口喜劇演員的過人天賦。但這并沒有妨礙我在日常生活中抓住每一個機會開玩笑。實際上，我做導師的核心準則之一就是我相信幽默和玩笑是激發(fā)創(chuàng)造力的巨大動力。人們笑得越多，就會越具有創(chuàng)造性。因此，我在杜克大學實驗室和學生開會時經(jīng)常開玩笑，希望幽默氛圍能夠激發(fā)他們的靈感。

My inner stand-up comic comes out sometimes when I’m invited to give presentations to scientific audiences. Some years ago， I was asked to deliver an after-dinner speech to all the board members and current investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute （HHMI）， which has funded my lab’s research for many decades. These days， HHMI is a well-run and buttoned-down4 organization， but my after-dinner talk focused on the wild early days of HHMI back in the 1970s.

當我應邀為科學界的聽眾做演講時，有時我內(nèi)心的單口喜劇演員身份就會亮相。幾年前，我受邀為霍華德·休斯醫(yī)學研究所的所有董事會成員和在職研究人員做餐后演講。該研究所幾十年來一直為我的實驗室提供研究資金。目前，霍華德·休斯醫(yī)學研究所運行良好，發(fā)展如常。但是我的餐后演講內(nèi)容主要集中在20世紀70年代研究所成立初期的崢嶸歲月。

The audience ate up my over-the-top5 stories， with every single joke slaying6. Legendary neuroscientist Eric Kandel was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his face. Forget about winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry： the high point of my career came when my comedy routine killed7 at the HHMI dinner.

我講著夸張的故事，觀眾們聽得津津有味，每一個笑話都令人捧腹。著名神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)學家埃里克·坎德爾笑得眼淚都流出來了。忘記我獲得諾貝爾化學獎這件事吧，當我的笑話在霍華德·休斯醫(yī)學研究所的晚宴上讓人們笑得前仰后合時，我的職業(yè)生涯才迎來了高光時刻。

I love giving talks to student groups， and students are rarely shy in asking about my regrets. A common question I get is， “Do you regret that it took so long for you to win a Nobel Prize？” Most of the work for which I won the Prize was done decades ago， but I didn’t get the call from Stockholm until 2012. I tell the students that in some respects I do regret the long wait， especially because it meant that neither of my parents was alive to see me receive the Prize.

我喜歡給學生們演講，而學生們也很少羞于詢問我的遺憾。他們經(jīng)常問我的一個問題是：“這么久才獲得諾貝爾獎，你覺得遺憾嗎？”我賴以獲得諾貝爾獎的大部分工作在幾十年前就已經(jīng)完成，但直到2012年我才接到來自斯德哥爾摩的電話。我告訴學生們，從某些方面來說，等待這么久我確實感到遺憾，特別是因為這意味著我的父母都沒有活著看到我獲獎。

When I was a young man， I won many awards in school and in my early professional career， and invariably my mother would say， “Well that’s nice， Bobby8， but it’s not the Nobel Prize.” For my mom， it was apparently either Nobel or bust. Thus， when I ultimately won a Nobel， it would have been very satisfying to take my mom to Stockholm to show her that I had finally made good. I never got the chance， alas， but when I did attend the Nobel ceremony I remember having elaborate internal fantasies about my mother being there to share it with me， and somehow these imagined discussions with my mother were intensely satisfying.

我年輕的時候，無論是在學校還是職業(yè)生涯初期，都獲得過很多獎項。我母親無一例外總會說，“那很好啊，博比，可惜不是諾貝爾獎”。對我母親而言，顯然只有諾貝爾獎最有價值。所以，當我最終獲得諾貝爾獎時，帶我母親去斯德哥爾摩讓她見證我的成功是最圓滿的。唉，我沒能有這樣的機會。但當我參加諾貝爾獎頒獎典禮時，我記得我曾在內(nèi)心精心設計了一個場景，想象母親與我一同分享我的喜悅。不知道為什么，這些想象中的與母親的對話讓我感到非常滿足。

A common theme of all my regrets is that fantasy has been an important coping9 mechanism for me. I’m never going to be a great musician or stand-up comic， and I certainly can’t bring my parents back to have healing conversations， but I can use imagination as a sort of therapy for dealing with these regrets. Given this insight， I look forward in the coming years to addressing other regrets， such as my regret that I never learned a foreign language.

我所有的遺憾都有一個共同的主題，即幻想一直是一種重要的應對機制。我永遠也成不了偉大的音樂家或單口喜劇演員，當然也沒有辦法讓已逝的父母起死回生跟我進行治愈性的對話。但是我可以把想象用作藥方，來療愈這些遺憾?？紤]到這一點，我期待著在未來的歲月里以此來應對其他的遺憾，比如我后悔從未學過一門外語。

I’ve come to realize that what I really want is to simply sound like I can speak another language. My son Noah， a former professional actor， has suggested that I hire an accent coach. Why take years to learn a language if I can deploy an arsenal of debonair10 accents with just a few weeks of training？ One day soon you’ll hear me engaging all the international trainees in my research laboratory in discussions where I match their melodious accents， shifting my accent in a Zelig11-like manner as I move from person to person， effortlessly creating the impression that I’m a cosmopolitan polyglot12.

我開始意識到，我真正想要的只是聽起來像會說另一種語言。我的兒子諾亞曾是一名專業(yè)演員，他建議我請一位口音教練。如果只需要幾周的訓練，我就能擁有一口優(yōu)雅的口音，為什么還要花幾年的時間去學習一門語言呢？不久的將來，你會聽到我在我的研究實驗室里與所有的國際實習生進行討論。我模仿他們優(yōu)美的口音，像澤里格一樣，在不同的人之間變換我的口音，毫不費力地營造一種通曉多種語言的假象。

I still won’t be multilingual， but the temporary fantasy that I am may be enough.

我仍然不會說多種語言，但是暫時的幻想可能就讓我滿足了。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）

1美國霍華德·休斯醫(yī)學研究所研究人員，美國杜克大學醫(yī)學中心醫(yī)學教授、生物化學教授。1968年開始利用放射學來追蹤細胞受體。2012年因?qū)蛋白偶聯(lián)受體的研究獲得諾貝爾化學獎。

2沃爾特·米蒂是電影《白日夢想家》（The Secret Life of Walter Mitty，2013）的主人公。米蒂是一名在《生活》雜志工作了16年的膠片洗印經(jīng)理，性格內(nèi)向。面對生活他像個旁觀者，時常“放空”做白日英雄夢。-esque似……般的；……風格（或樣式）的。

3 prods激勵。? 4 buttoned-down保守的，守舊的。

5 over-the-top過頭的，過分的。? 6 slay（尤指借著使人發(fā)笑而）深深打動，迷住。? 7 kill〈主美〉讓某人捧腹大笑。? 8羅伯特的昵稱。

9 coping應對難題，處理麻煩。? 10 debonair（尤指男人）溫雅自信的，風度翩翩的。

11 Zelig（隨環(huán)境的變化而改變自己外貌、行為等的）百變之人。? 12 polyglot通曉（或使用）多種語言的人。

Inspirational Quotes from

Nobel Prize Winners

Science walks forward on two feet， namely theory and experiment.

——Robert Andrews Millikan

In many cases， people who win a Nobel prize， their work slows down after that because of the distractions. Yes， fame is rewarding， but it’s a pity if it keeps you from doing the work you are good at.

——Charles Hard Townes

I read once， which I loved so much， that this great physicist who won a Nobel Prize said that every day when he got home， his dad asked him not what he learned in school but his dad said， ‘Did you ask any great questions today？’ And I always thought， what a beautiful way to educate kids that we’re excited by their questions， not by our answers and whether they can repeat our answers.

——Diane Sawyer

I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission—a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for “the brotherhood of man”.

——Martin Luther King， Jr.