Hillary Clinton in her own words

Hillary Clinton in her own words

After you graduated from Wellesley, you went to Yale Law School, you were one of only 27 women out of 235 students. You say it was Bill Clinton who was hard to miss. Why was he hard to miss? What did he look like?

Well, he looked like a 1)Viking. He had this big 2)bushy 3)brownish 4)reddish beard and reddish hair and he looked very imposing 1. He was this Rhodes scholar from Arkansas who had a lot to say and knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

Were you attracted to him from the beginning?

From the very beginning...

Really?

Yeah, from the very beginning. In fact, there was a point which I still hadn’t really met him. And I was sitting in the library and he was standing 2 just outside the door, and he was looking at me and I was looking at him. And I finally felt this is 5)ridiculous, ‘cause every time I saw him on campus, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him. And he was always watching me. So I put my books down and I walked out and I said, “You know, if you’re going to keep looking at me and I’m going to keep looking back, we should at least know each other. I’m Hillary Rodham.” And he told me his name, he tells people that he couldn’t remember his name. But it was an immediate 3 attraction and it was just a life-changing experience to have met him.

From day one.

From day one.

You were young, you were smart, you had a future in Washington. But you gave it up to be with Bill Clinton to move to Arkansas where you had no friends, no family, no traditional roots there in any way. And one of your best friends said, why on earth would you throw away your future?

You know, I’ve had to at so many points in my life listen really hard to my own feelings. Sometimes my family and my friends have said “do this” or “do that” or “don’t do this” I just knew that I had to take that step -- so I followed my heart and I went to Arkansas.

Senator, I have to go back now to perhaps the most difficult time of your life and it is something that you write about very frankly 4. Wednesday January 21st, 1998, you write that your husband woke you up, sat on the edge of the bed and gave you some troubling news. What did he tell you?

Well, he told me there was going to be a newspaper article that 6)alleged that he had some kind of a relationship with a young woman, and he said he was very 7)upset about the article and he wanted me to know before I got up and read it in the paper myself. And he told me it wasn’t true.

Did you believe him?

I did believe him. You know, by that time, Barbara, so many 8)accusations 7 have been made about me that were just extraordinary, outrageous 8 accusations and I knew they weren’t true, and I knew that for whatever reason people felt 9)obligated or compelled to make them, and so it didn’t seem unusual to me that something like this would be said.

Then on Saturday, August 15th, just as he had done before, your husband woke you up. This time he had something different to say.

That was probably the worst moment that I can even imagine anyone going through, because what he told me that morning was that he had not 10)levelled with me or anyone else, he had not told me the whole truth about what the relationship was. And I was, I was 11)furious, I was dumbfounded, I was, you know, just beside myself with anger and disappointment. And you know, I couldn’t imagine how he could have done that to me or to anyone else. And that’s what I basically told him on that long ago morning now.

What did your husband say? How did he explain it?

    He just kept saying that he was very sorry over and over again. And I could tell that he was, but that wasn’t much comfort. I was still furious and stayed furious for quite some time. But he just kept saying over and over again, you know: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

At one point, you described what your husband had done as a sin of weakness.

It clearly was. You know, a friend, who is something of a 12)theologian, said to me during this period that there were two kinds of sins: sins of weakness and sins of 13)malice 9. And I think that my husband has so many strengths and is such a 14)fundamentally good person with a good heart. It was a question for me whether this particular wrongdoing or sin was something that we could work through together.

But was there a day, was there a time when you said, “I forgive him, this marriage will go on”?

Yes, yes, it took a long time. But I reached the point where I decided 10 that I was either going to have to forgive and let go of the anger and the disappointment that I had felt, or we weren’t going to have a marriage. And both of us worked very, very hard to reach that point.

What did your husband say when you told him, it’s OK we’re going to go on?

He was very 15)relieved and grateful because that is what he’s been asking for and it was something that we, you know, had to work toward. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide, it took quite some time.

OK, I have to ask it, what if he does something in the future that is similar?

You know, that will be between us and that will be that 16)zone of 17)privacy that I believe in, but right now I’m very hopeful and very committed to our marriage and our relationship.

There is the big question, what people most want to know and it’s this: How could you stay in this marriage? There is something in your book on page 75 that I thought answered the question.

“I’m often asked why Bill and I have stayed together. All I know is that no one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, 18)energizing 11 and fully 12 alive person I have ever met. Bill Clinton and I started a conversation in the spring of 1971, and more than 30 years later, we’re still talking. “

希拉里·克林顿的心路历程

你念完韦尔斯利学院后，入读耶鲁大学法学院，成为235名学生仅有的27名女生之一。你说，当时比尔·克林顿是很难不被注意到的。为什么他会很难不被注意？他的外表怎样？

这个啊，他当时看起来像个北欧海盗。长着浓密、棕红色的大胡子，头发是浅红色的，他真让人过目难忘。他是来自阿肯色州的明星学生，总是雄辩滔滔，对自己的人生规划胸有成竹。

你从一开始就被他吸引住了吗？

是从一开始……

真的吗？

真的，从一开始。其实刚开始我还不怎么认识他。我坐在图书馆里，他站在门外，他看着我，我也看着他。后来，我觉得这实在太可笑了，因为每次我在学校里见到他，视线总是不能离开他。他也总是在看我。于是我就放下书，走出去说：“你知道吗，如果你还老盯着我看，我也打算一直看回去，我们至少该认识一下。我叫希拉里·罗德罕。”他把他的名字告诉我，他后来跟别人说，当时他都忘了自己叫什么。那真是一见钟情，而且遇见他改写了我一生的命运。

自打第一天起。

自打第一天起。

当时你又年轻，又聪明，在华盛顿有大好前程。但是为了和比尔·克林顿在一起，你放弃了自己的事业，搬到无亲无友、没有一点传统根基的阿肯色州。你的一个好朋友问：你到底为了什么要抛弃大好前程？

你知道，我一生中经常要很认真地聆听自己的感受。有时候我的家人和朋友会说“这么做”、“那么做”或者“别这么做”。我非常明白我一定要这么走，我只是跟随自己的心意到了阿肯色州去。

参议员，我要说起你一生最难过的时刻了，对此你在书中写得很坦率。1998年1月21日星期三，你写道：丈夫摇醒你，他坐在床边告诉了你一个烦恼的消息。他是怎么说的？

他对我说，有一篇报纸文章宣称他与某年轻女士有绯闻，他说这篇文章让他很难受，他想在我起床并亲自读到该报纸之前，先让我知道这件事。他告诉我那都不是真的。

你相信他吗？

我相信他。芭芭拉，你知道，在那个时候，我遭受过好多指控，这些指控太离谱了，我知道是给凭空捏造出来的，我知道人们出于各种原因想要捏造出这些事端，所以对于我来说，听到他这么说不会觉得不正常。

接着等到8月15日星期六，正如上次一样，丈夫摇醒你。这一次，他的说法改变了

我想，那或许是人会经历到的最难的一刻了，因为那天早上他告诉我，他没有对我或其他人说出实话，他没有说出这件绯闻的全部实话。我愤怒了，哑口无言犹如泥塑，你知道，怒火与失望使我失控。我难以想象出他怎么可以这么对待我与其他人。很久以前的那天早晨我基本就是这么告诉他的。

你丈夫怎么说的呢？他是怎么解释的？

他只是不停地说对不起，说了一遍又一遍。我看得出他是真的愧疚，但我也没感到安慰。我依然怒气冲冲，怒火中烧了好一段时间。但是他一直都不停地说：对不起，对不起，对不起。

你曾说，你丈夫的罪过是出于软弱。

显然是的，一个神学家朋友在那段时间告诉我，罪分为两种：因软弱而犯的罪和因恶意犯下的罪。我想我丈夫是个优点很多的人，本质上是个很好的人，有一颗善良的心；我感到为难的是，这个错误或者罪行是否可以两人一起共同克服渡过。

但是有没有那么一天，你曾说过：“我原谅了他，我们的婚姻会继续下去。”？

说过，我花了很久才说出这句话。可我已经明白过来，我必须做个决定，要么原谅并忘记心中的愤怒与失望，要么结束这段婚姻，我们两人一起很努力、很努力，才做出了这个最终决定。

当你告诉你丈夫你们可以继续下去，他是怎么说的？

他松了一口气，非常感激，因为他一直是这么期望的，这也是我们希望共同努力达成的。做出这个决定我思索了很久，而不是哪天早晨一觉醒来就有的。

好，我必须要问一个问题：如果他将来又做出类似的事情来，怎么办呢？

你知道，那是我们两人之间的事，我相信那绝对属于私人问题，不过现在我对我们的婚姻与关系十分乐观和有信心。

我有一个大问题，这问题也是很多人都想知道的：你怎么还能维持这桩婚姻？我想，你在书中第75页回答了这个问题。

别人常问我，比尔和我为什么还在一起？我只知道，再没有人比他更了解我，没有人能像他那样让我欢笑。经历了那么些年，他依然是我见到过的最有趣、最有朝气、充满活力的人。比尔·克林顿和我在1971年春天开始谈话，30多年后的今天，我们仍然继续着话题。

注释:

1) Viking [5vaikiN] n. 北欧海盗，维京人

2) bushy [5buFi] a. 浓密的

3) brownish [5braJniF] a. 浅棕色的

4) reddish [5rediF] a. 浅红色的

5) ridiculous [ri5dikjulEs] a. 荒谬的，可笑的

6) allege 5 [E5ledV] v. 宣称，断言

7) upset [Qp5set] a. 难过的

8) accusation 6 [Akju:5zeiFEn] n. 谴责，指责

9) obligated [7Cbli5^eitid] a. 有责任的

10) level [5lev(E)l] v. 坦率，不耍花招

11) furious [5fjuEriEs] a. 狂怒

12) theologian [7Wi:E5lEudVjEn] n. 神学者

13) malice [5mAlis] n. 恶意，预谋

14) fundamentally [fQndE5mentEli] av. 基础地，根本地

15) relieved [ri5li:vd] a. 放心的

16) zone [zEun] n. 地带，地域

17) privacy [5praivEsi] n. 隐私

18) energizing [5enEdVaiziN] a. 有活力的