No Other Choice—别无选择（乔治·布莱克）（第二章~Section 2）
It so happened that I have fairly often had to change my name in the course of my life and the first change occurred very early on. My grandfathers on both sides were called Jacob, my Dutch grandfather in the Latin form, Jacobus. It was therefore decided that I should be called Jacob, in honour of one or both of them, as you like. Accordingly when, after the delivery, the family doctor asked my mother what I was to be called she said Jacob. When he returned in the evening to see how mother and child were doing he asked how little Jacob was getting on. To her great embarrassment my mother had to tell him that it was no longer Jacob, but George. What had happened was that on the way to register my birth my father had changed his mind. I was born on the 11th of November, 1922, Armistice Day, and being a war veteran he decided at the last minute in a surge of patriotism to call me George in honour of the King of England. It was typical of my father that he did this on his own without first consulting my mother. The funny thing is that I never liked the name George and at home and by my relations I was never called by that name, but by the nickname Poek, which I was given very early on. Another strange thing is that later, when I started to read the Bible I felt a strong attraction to the personality of Jacob and to some extent identified myself with him. This was even before I knew that I was partly Jewish. Evidently the fact that my mother called me by that name in the first hours of my life must have left an impression. I have never liked the name George myself though this may be due in part to the fact that in Holland it is an unusual name and made me stand out from the beginning among my friends and school fellows as somebody slightly different. I much prefer incidentally to be called, as I have been for the last twenty-three years, by the Russian version, Gueorgi, which sounds more attractive to my ears.
【碰巧的是，在我的一生中，我经常不得不改变我的名字，而第一次改变发生在很早的时候。我两边的祖父都叫雅各布，也就是我的荷兰祖父的拉丁语形式，雅各伯。因此，他们决定叫我雅各布，以纪念他们中的一个或两个。因此，当分娩后，家庭医生问我母亲我将叫什么名字时，她说:雅各布。晚上他回来看看母子俩怎么样了，他问小雅各布怎么样了。令母亲非常尴尬的是，她不得不告诉他，那人不再是雅各布，而是乔治。事情是这样的，在去登记出生的路上，我父亲改变了主意。我出生在1922年11月11日，停战日，作为一名退伍军人，他在最后一刻决定叫我乔治，以表达对英国国王的敬意。我父亲经常这样，他没有事先和我母亲商量就自己做了这件事。有趣的是，我从来都不喜欢乔治这个名字，在家里和亲戚们都不叫我乔治这个名字，而是叫我波克，这是我很早就起的绰号。另一件有意思的事是，后来当我开始读圣经的时候，我感到雅各布的人格有一种强烈的吸引力，在某种程度上，我与他产生了共鸣。这甚至是在我知道自己有一部分犹太人血统之前。显然，我母亲在我生命的最初几个小时就叫我这个名字，这一定给我留下了深刻的印象。我自己从来都不喜欢乔治这个名字，尽管这可能部分是因为在荷兰，乔治这个名字是一个不同寻常的名字，从一开始我就在我的朋友和同学中脱颖而出，成为一个有点不同的人。在过去的二十三年里，我更喜欢被俄文的格奥尔基(Gueorgi)称呼，听起来更顺耳一些。】
From the very first my mother and her many relatives, in the first place my grandmother, my aunts and my uncles, played the most important part in my life. My father, though we loved him dearly and stood in awe of him, was a rather remote figure of whom we children saw comparatively little. This especially when, after a few years, we moved to a new flat on the outskirts of the town and he transferred his business to other premises in the centre. We then saw him only on Sundays or for a short time at breakfast. In those days it was the custom to put children to bed early and as he did not return home till well after eight we were asleep and never saw him in the evening, though he always came into our bedroom to cover us up and kiss us goodnight.
【从一开始，我的母亲和她的许多亲戚，我的祖母、我的姑姑和叔叔，他们在我的生活中扮演了很重要的角色。我的父亲，虽然我们很爱他，也很敬畏他，但他却是一个我们很少见到的人。尤其是几年后，我们搬到了郊区的一套新公寓，而他把生意搬到了市中心的其他地方。我们只在星期天或早餐时见到他一小会儿。在那些日子里，孩子们早早上床睡觉是一种习惯，他一直到八点多才回家，我们都睡着了，晚上见不到他，尽管他总是到我们的卧室里来，给我们盖上被子，吻我们道晚安。】
On Sundays he was often tired and preferred to stay at home with a good book rather than accompany my mother on the long walks on which she and her younger sister took us. His health was never very good and much of his energy was taken up by the struggle to keep his business going. He was up against many difficulties. He was a foreigner and did not speak Dutch. He also knew very little about the Dutch character and customs. This made him do things which in Dutch eyes seemed strange and instead of attracting customers put them off. These difficulties could have been to a large extent overcome if he had taken the trouble to learn the language and been willing to listen to my mother's advice, but this he stubbornly refused to do. The truth of the matter is that, in spite of his Jewish origins, he did not conform to the stereotype of the clever Jewish businessman. Nevertheless at times his affairs flourished and then he was in high spirits and spent money lavishly - much against my mother's sound common sense. At other times things went less well and then he was worried and depressed. It was my mother's great merit that among these fluctuations of fortune and moods she managed to keep the family boat on an even keel and sheltered us children as much as possible from their consequences.
【星期天他经常一副疲惫的样子，宁愿呆在家里看一本好书，也不愿陪我母亲和她妹妹带我们去散步。他的健康状况一直不太好，他的大部分精力都花在维持生意上了。他遇到了许多困难。他是个外国人，不会说荷兰语。他对荷兰人的性格和习俗也知之甚少。这使得他做的事情在荷兰人看来很奇怪，不但没有吸引顾客，反而使他们望而却步。如果他肯下工夫去学这门语言，并愿意听我母亲的建议，这些困难在很大程度上是可以克服的，但他固执地拒绝这样做。事情的真相是，尽管他是犹太人，但他并不符合聪明的犹太商人的刻板印象。然而，他有时生意兴隆，情绪高涨，花钱大手大脚——这与我母亲相违。但在其他时候，事情不那么顺利了，他就会担心和沮丧。我母亲最大的优点是，在命运和情绪的波动中，她能使家庭保持平稳，并尽可能地保护我们这些孩子不受其影响。】
My father spoke French as a native and English well, though how well I cannot judge since I myself did not learn to speak that language till after his death when I was thirteen and went to live with his relatives in Egypt. At home he spoke English with my mother, who, like most Dutch people spoke English much better than French, though she had learned both languages at school. We children spoke Dutch both at home with our mother and relations and, of course, at school and with our friends and as we saw comparatively little of our father did not learn to speak English. So there existed a rather unusual situation in our family where we children did not have a common language with our father. This lack of direct communication did not worry us very much as far as I can recall as, somehow, we managed to understand each other.
【我父亲的母语是法语，英语也说得很好，但我无法判断他说得有多好，因为我自己直到他去世后才学会说这门语言，当时我13岁，去埃及和他的亲戚住在一起。在家里，他和我母亲用英语交谈。我母亲和大多数荷兰人一样，英语说得比法语好得多，尽管她在学校里学过这两种语言。我们这些孩子在家里和母亲及亲戚们说荷兰语，当然，在学校和朋友们也说荷兰语，因为我们看到父亲很少不会说英语。所以，在我们的家庭中存在着一种相当不寻常的情况，我们孩子和父亲没有共同的语言。在我的记忆中，这种缺乏直接沟通的情况并没有让我们太担心，我们设法理解了对方。】
I can remember only one instance when it caused me great grief and mortification. The last three months of his life my father was in hospital in The Hague, where we were living then, dying of lung cancer, the result of a gas attack in the war. We knew he was going to die as the doctors had told my mother that his case was hopeless from the very beginning of his illness. Every day after school - I was at that time in my first year at the municipal Gymnasium - I went to visit him. He was lying in a cubicle with curtains around it which were usually open. One day, as I was sitting at his bedside, he asked me to close the curtain. Somehow I just could not make out what exactly it was he wanted, however much I tried. The more I tried the less I understood. He got angry with me and I felt desperate and was almost in tears. Fortunately, the man in the next cubicle who, being ill himself probably understood him better, told me what he wanted and all was well. But I shall never forget this experience, especially as he died shortly afterwards.
【我只记得有一次语言不通使我非常痛苦。我父亲生命的最后三个月在海牙的医院里，那时我们就住在那里，他死于肺癌，这是战争中毒气袭击的结果。我们知道他快要死了，因为医生从他生病的一开始就告诉我的母亲，他的病情是没有希望的。那时我还在市立学校读一年级，每天放学后我都去看望他。他躺在一个小房间里，四周挂着窗帘，窗帘通常是开着的。一天，我坐在他床边，他让我把窗帘拉上。不管我怎么努力，我还是弄不明白他到底想要干什么。我越试越不明白。他对我生气了，我感到绝望，几乎哭了。幸运的是，隔壁隔间的那个人可能更了解他，因为他自己也生病了，他告诉了我父亲想要干什么，一切都好。但我永远不会忘记这次经历，尤其是他不久之后就去世了。】
I suppose my father was always somewhat a stranger to me. As I've said, he was very foreign and had nothing Dutch about him. But any idea that I hated him and that this was my pyschological motive for what I later did and that, as Leo Abse has written, the British Secret Service provided 'full facilities for George Blake to commit posthumous parricide', is absolute nonsense. My father's main influence in my early life was to give me a great respect for Britain and a dislike of Germany. That said, there is no doubt that I was closer to my mother. We are similar characters, we have a lot in common. After she was widowed at thirty-eight, I was the only man in the family. My mother has always been very loyal to me, a good friend as well as agood mother.
【我想我父亲对我来说一直有点陌生。我说过，他是个外国人，一点荷兰味儿也没有。但是，任何认为我恨他，认为这是我后来行为的心理动机，以及里奥·阿布塞所写的，英国特勤局“为乔治·布莱克弑父提供了全套设施”的想法，都是一派胡言。我父亲对我早期生活的主要影响是让我对英国怀有极大的尊敬，而对德国怀有厌恶之情。同时毫无疑问的是，我和我的母亲更亲近。我们性格相似，有很多共同点。她三十八岁丧偶后，我成了家里唯一的男人。我的母亲一直对我很关照，是一个好朋友，也是一个好母亲。】
My mother's relations formed a close-knit family who, though not always agreeing, were very much taken up with each other and we saw a great deal of my grandmother, my aunts and uncles not to mention great aunts and uncles and cousins of various degrees of proximity. Being the eldest of her grandchildren, I was, from the very beginning, my grandmother's favourite. She was a tall, handsome woman with a high colour and beautiful white hair. Always dressed in long black gowns, as was the fashion for elderly women in those days, and walking with a black ebony stick because of a knee complaint, she had a rather imposing presence. She was a woman of strong character and always said exactly what she thought. Her children loved and respected her, but were a little bit afraid of her, as my grandfather must have been, who was, by all accounts, a mild and gentle mannered man. I simply adored her. My sisters and cousins were less enthusiastic and I think deep down resented the fact that I was her favourite. The family had no money of its own and she lived on a widow's pension from the Rotterdam municipality. Every month she had to go to the town hall to collect her pension. She would always take me with her and make a bit of an occasion of it. The town hall with its monumental staircase and long vaulted corridors with white and black marble tiles and heavy oak doors impressed me very much. It made me feel rather important, a kind of reflected glory that I too was in some way connected with this imposing building from which the town was governed. After she had received her money she would always take me to Heck's, one of the largest tearooms in Rotterdam in those days, where a small orchestra played light music and she treated me to cream cakes or icecream. My early life was not without male influence, in spite of my father's remoteness, as my two uncles devoted a lot of their free time to me. In summer they would take me sailing in their boat on the river Maas or for long bicycle rides along the straight roads and dykes along the canals which linked the many villages and small towns around Rotterdam. In winter, when there was ice, they took me with them when they went skating which I had learned to do quite well at the early age of five. My eldest uncle was then studying to become a hydrotechnical engineer. I remember visiting him with my grandmother while he was doing practical work draining polders. He was wearing high rubber boots and living in a wooden shed and what with all the sticky mud and water around it did not seem to me a profession I wanted to follow. When he finished his studies he was sent out by the Dutch government to the West Indies, got married and passed out of my life. My other uncle joined his brother-in-law's grain firm, also got married and later successfully set up his own grain business. He continued to play a role in my life till he died at the end of the Sixties. Both my uncles were very tall and it was my great hope as a boy that when I grew up I would be as tall as they were. For a long time I prayed every night that I might grow to be at least six feet tall. Although I myself never grew taller than about five foot seven, these prayers have evidently not been entirely without effect. One of my sons is six foot and the youngest, born in Russia, is six foot two.
【我母亲的亲戚关系形成了一个亲密的家庭，虽然有时意见不一致，但彼此之间非常亲密。我们经常见到我的祖母，我的姑姑和叔叔们，更不用说那些亲近程度不同的叔婶姨和堂兄妹了。作为她孙辈中最年长的一个，我从一开始就是我祖母最喜欢的人。她是一个高大、英俊的女人，肤色鲜艳，一头美丽的白发。她总是穿着黑色长袍，这是当时上了年纪的妇女的时髦装束，走路时因为膝伤而拄着一根黑檀木手杖，她的仪态显得相当庄重。她是个性格坚强的女人，心里想什么就说什么。她的孩子们爱她，尊敬她，但也有点怕她，就像我的祖父一样，大家都说他是个温文尔雅的人。我就是喜欢她。我的姐妹们和表兄弟姐妹们就没那么热情了，我想，在内心深处，他们对我是她的宠儿感到愤恨。祖母没有自己的收入，她靠鹿特丹市政府提供的养老金生活。每个月她都得去市政厅领养老金。她总是以此为契机带着我一起出去。市政厅的巨大楼梯和长长的拱形走廊，白色和黑色的大理石瓷砖和沉重的橡木门给我留下了深刻的印象。这让我觉得自己很重要，这是一种荣耀，因为我也和这座统治城市的宏伟建筑有某种联系。收到钱后，她总是带我去赫克的茶馆，那是当时鹿特丹最大的茶馆之一，那里有一个小型管弦乐队演奏轻音乐，她请我吃奶油蛋糕或冰淇淋。我的早期生活并不是没有男性的影响，尽管我的父亲很疏远，因为我的两个叔叔把他们的很多空闲时间都花在了我身上。夏天，他们会带我乘他们的船在马斯河上航行，或者骑自行车沿着笔直的道路和运河的堤坝长时间骑行，这些运河连接着鹿特丹周围的许多村庄和小镇。在冬天，有冰的时候，他们带着我去滑冰，我在五岁的时候就已经学得很好了。我的大伯当时正在学习成为一名水利工程师。我还记得我和祖母去看望他的时候，他正在做着疏浚圩田的工作。他穿着高胶靴，住在一个木棚里，周围都是黏糊糊的泥和水，这对我来说似乎不是我想从事的职业。他完成学业后被荷兰政府派往西印度群岛，结了婚，从此离开了我的生活。我的另一个叔叔加入了他姐夫的粮食公司，也结婚了，后来成功地建立了自己的粮食生意。他继续在我的生活中扮演着一个角色，直到他在60年代末去世。我的两个叔叔都很高，我小时候最大的希望是长大后能和他们一样高。有很长一段时间，我每晚都祈祷自己至少能长到六英尺高。虽然我自己的身高从未超过5英尺7英寸，但这些祈祷显然并非完全没有效果。我的一个儿子身高六英尺，最小的一个出生在俄罗斯，身高六英尺二。】
