伊丽莎白·泰勒女爵，演员，逝于3月23日，享年79岁。

　　BESOTTED with her radiant beauty, men lined up to lay huge jewels at Elizabeth Taylor’s feet. Their size didn’t matter so much to her, she said. Though the Krupp diamond was 33.19 carat, flaming with life when the light shone through it, and the Taylor-Burton 69.42 carat, so big that it made Princess Margaret’s eyes start out of her head, what mattered more was the emotion that lay behind them.

　　她倾国倾城，男人为之疯狂，争先恐后拜倒在她的石榴裙下，为她奉上价值连城的珠宝。但她说，珠宝大小，无关紧要。在送来的珠宝首饰中，“Krupp”钻石重达33.19克拉，在灯光照耀下闪动着生命的气息，“泰勒伯顿”钻石更是重达69.42克拉，其体积之大让玛格丽特公主（历史上有多位玛格丽特公主，从年份判断应该是英国玛格丽特公主，女王伊丽莎白二世的胞妹：译者注）目瞪口呆。但是她说她更在乎的是珠宝所蕴涵的情感。

　　So the $10,000 diamond and platinum ring that Nicky Hilton, the first of her seven husbands, presented to her in 1950 was the biggest thing that had so far happened to her, as marriage was. In the end it meant nothing, because he beat her. The ring of diamonds and sapphires from Michael Wilding, her second husband, which she rather than he steered to the correct finger, symbolised his caution; it soon became as dull as he was. Michael Todd, her third husband, gave her a Cartier set of rubies and diamonds and a $25,000 tiara, trinkets for the life of Hollywood extravagance to which he had introduced her. She wore the Cartier even barefoot under the lawn sprinkler. At this stage of her life, with Oscar nominations mounting up for her acting in raw, demanding parts, she began to feel that gorgeous ornaments—like lavish contracts—were only what she deserved.

　　1950年，她的首任丈夫尼克希尔顿赠送给她价值1万美元的铂金钻戒。这份礼物连同她的婚姻堪称她一生至此最重要的际遇。但是最后因为尼基对她拳脚相向，二人落得曲终人散。他的第二任丈夫麦克维尔丁送给她一颗蓝宝石钻戒，戒指是她自己而不是麦克帮她戴上去的，由此可见麦克对于这段婚姻还是持谨慎的态度。戒指和丈夫一样，很快让她感到厌烦。她的第三任丈夫麦克托德送给她一套卡地亚的红宝石和钻石，以及价值2.5万美元的头饰。对于托德引领她进入的好莱坞奢华生活，这些饰品不值一提，但是她（如此喜爱），以至于赤脚在草丛的喷水龙头下嬉戏时都戴着。此时，她已经凭借自己出演的青涩而富于挑战的角色囊括多项奥斯卡提名。她开始感到精美的首饰和丰厚的片约一样，舍她其谁。

　　It was Richard Burton’s jewels she treasured most, the wild spontaneity with which he gave them mirroring their explosive, unmanageable, on-again-off-again love. The Krupp came for beating her at ping-pong, the Taylor-Burton because, one night, he had insulted her hands. (He insulted her whole self, too, calling her a “fat little tart”, saying her legs were too short; she’d slap him, wrestle him on the ground, then make up, and so on and so on.) As the new rocks arrived during their two-decade Sturm und Drang she would parade them eagerly to friends, and sit at table silently adoring them while, with her free hand, she wolfed down steak-and-kidney pie.

　　但是她最珍视的却是理查伯顿送给她的珠宝。赠送礼物时，他所表现出的狂野不羁，竟是他们二人跌宕起伏，难以驾驭，阴晴不定的爱情写照。Krupp钻石是为了弥补打乒乓球时他打她的事实。泰勒伯顿钻石则是因为一个晚上，他嘲笑泰勒的手。（他也侮辱泰勒的人格，他叫她“臃肿的小骚货”，说她的腿太短。她很想扇他一记耳光，和他在地上厮打起来，然后再和他和好，之后再继续，如此反复。）在他们二十年狂浪不羁的生活中，一旦有新的钻戒到手，泰勒总是会迫不及待地将它们一一展示给朋友，然后自己坐在桌旁，一边无声地欣赏它们，一边却用另一只手拿起一块牛腰派，狼吞虎咽地送进肚里。

　　Her amethyst eyes她的眼睛，好似紫水晶

　　Jewels were something to hide behind as, chronically shy, she always wished to hide. The glitter at wrist and neck and the cleavage-plunging pearls made “Elizabeth Taylor” less boring to her. The dutiful girl who had given up her childhood to her mother’s pushing in Hollywood, whose baby cheek had been daubed with eye-pencil to accentuate her beauty spot, who had eagerly promised to grow breasts at 12 to please the producer of “National Velvet”, could disappear behind the dazzle. She hid behind other things, too: scorching flights of four-letter words, the brash character of the “broad” or the “dame”, a demanding, regal arrogance, clouds of her own perfume (“Passion” or “White Diamonds”), pills, booze, food. Ordinary Elizabeth would then try to take that character in hand, forcing her to diet and behave.

　　她要借珠宝隐藏自己，因为她生性羞涩，总是想要隐藏。手腕和脖子上闪闪发光的首饰以及悬挂于胸前的珍珠让她觉得“伊丽莎白泰勒”不那么单调。这个温顺的女孩，因为母亲逼迫她进军好莱坞而放弃了自己的童年，她那婴儿脸蛋上被眼线笔予以勾勒，来凸显她的美人痣。她曾急切地向电影“天鹅绒”（又名“玉女神驹”伊丽莎白泰勒1944年作品：译者注）的制片人保证自己到12岁时胸部会长得更丰满，以此来取悦他。但佩戴上珠光闪闪的首饰珠宝后，她宛若两人。她还会用其他东西来隐藏真实的自己：抑或是一连串刻薄的四个字母组成的词语（比如Fu_k, 比如Sh_t，译者注）抑或是一些诸如放荡女人或者水性杨花的贵妇人角色背后，抑或是苛刻的，不可侵犯的自傲，抑或是自己香水雾气之中（“激情”或者“白钻石”香水，这两款香水是伊丽莎白的公司设计的：译者注），嗑药，酗酒，暴饮暴食等等。平时，伊丽莎白会尽力管住自己，注意饮食且举止得体。

　　She insisted on marriage, too, to seal the tempestuous affairs her wilder self kept falling into. Weddings allowed her to become a willing, wifely shadow behind her husbands. Cheerfully she took up Todd’s Judaism, John Warner’s senatorial Virginia tweediness, Burton’s rugby-loving, hard-drinking Welshness, and, temporarily, the weaknesses of all of them. She could “spin on a dime” for love—and spin again when another enchanted man strayed close.

　　她一再结婚，试图以此来稳固自己一再陷入的癫狂爱情。婚礼满足了她成为一个温顺妻子的愿望，让她躲在他的身后。她欣然接受托德的犹太教，约翰华纳那议员派头十足的弗吉尼亚粗呢衫，伯顿那威尔士般对橄榄球和豪饮的热爱，并且她短暂地忍受了他们的缺点。为了爱情，她可以在方寸之间转圜，一旦另一个被他迷住的男人误入花丛，她又会再次使尽浑身解数。

　　Each film role gave her more cover. On screen, boring Elizabeth could win the Grand National, or tussle with horrific memories of murder in “Suddenly Last Summer”, or seduce both Caesar and Mark Anthony in real-gold robes in “Cleopatra” (1962), then the costliest film ever made. Decorous, timid Elizabeth could be a needy, whining, abandoned wife in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), or a disturbing prostitute in “Butterfield 8” (1960), the film for which she won her first Oscar, though she hated it. She never found acting hard, had no lessons, simply tried to become the other person, grateful to inhabit an alternative to herself. On screen she radiated a thoughtfulness in those blue-violet eyes which she defined as “concentration”. She brought it even to the dishevelled, bawling Martha baiting Burton’s George in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), a film that epitomised her louder life and won her her second Oscar.

　　每一个角色都让她把自己隐藏得更深。在银幕上，略显单调的伊丽莎白可以拿下英国越野障碍马术比赛的冠军，也能够在《夏日惊魂》中熟稔地演绎谋杀者惊恐的回忆，或者在当时制作成本最高的电影《埃及艳后》（1962）中，身着一袭浴袍，勾引凯撒和马克安东尼。而着装得体，略显羞涩的伊丽莎白则化身成为“朱门巧妇”（1958）中无助，哀怨遭人摒弃的妻子，或者“青楼艳妓”（1960）中让人不胜烦扰的青楼女子。尽管她不喜欢这部片子，她还是凭借《青楼艳妓》一片，一举拿下自己的首座奥斯卡奖。在演戏上，她总是游刃有余。她未曾学习如何演戏，只是试着让自己变成另一个人，她为能栖居于另一个自我而感到庆幸。银幕上的她，紫罗兰色的眼睛闪烁着深思，她称其为“专注”。在 “灵欲春宵”（1966）中，这种“专注”竟被她用来演绎头发散乱聒噪无比，勾引乔治（理查伯顿饰）的玛莎一角上。这部电影是她更为喧嚣的真实生活写照，凭借这部电影她摘得自己第二座奥斯卡奖。

　　Yet, as she often told the press, acting wasn’t real to her. Pain was: colitis, crushed discs, exhaustion, or the pneumonia that almost killed her during the making of “Cleopatra”. Her stardom came at a price. This, as much as her longing for concealment, fed her empathy with Hollywood’s misfits, to whom she offered simple, common kindness: Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Michael Jackson, the homosexuals-in-hiding and would-be children whose secrets she heard and kept. Hence, too, her generosity to AIDS sufferers long before most others cared to help them. The money raised from jewels could now provide clinics and counselling.

　　然而，正如她经常向媒体宣称的那样，她很多时候并不是在真的演戏。（戏中所表现的）痛苦其实来自结肠炎，椎间盘砸碎（南方周末译文），过度疲劳还有肺炎——在拍摄《埃及艳后》时，她几乎因肺炎而丧命。成名背后莫不是艰辛。这一切，加上她对于淡薄自我的渴望，让她更加深刻地体会到那些失意好莱坞之人的处境艰难。她以单纯的热情帮助他们，这些人包括：蒙哥马利·克利夫特（出演《纽伦堡的审判》，《红河》等电影：译者注），罗克·赫德森（出演《金屋春宵》，《豪门恩怨》等影片：译者注）詹姆斯迪恩，迈克杰克逊，那些不敢出柜的同性恋者，以及那些胸怀大志的孩子。她倾听他们的故事并为之保守秘密。此外，在多数人尚未有此觉悟之前，她早已向艾滋病患者伸出了慷慨援助之手。通过拍卖珠宝首饰所得的善款现在足以为他们提供诊所和咨询服务。

　　Her love of those staggering pieces only strengthened as she grew older. She admired their durability then, the fact that they would long outlast her. She was only their temporary custodian, she said, a form and a face caught fleetingly by the movie camera or posing, in soft focus, behind the hard stones. Ever matter-of-fact, she liked that thought of transience, and always refused to sit for the painted portraits that might have lasted. Her own amethyst eyes, pearl skin, ruby lips, would disappear. The beauty of jewels was for ever.

　　韶华流逝，她对于这些天价珠宝的喜爱也与日俱增。她欣赏它们的恒久，也知道自己不能像珠宝一样永远璀璨。她曾说，自己只是这些珠宝的暂时守护者，一张脸庞，一个身影，在电影镜头下匆匆走过，抑或者佩戴着这些首饰在柔和的镜头下摆出种种造型。事实上，她一直倾心于这种转瞬即逝的感觉，总是拒绝坐下来让别人给自己画像，因为画像会被保存下来。她那紫水晶似的眼睛，珍珠般的肌肤，红宝石般的嘴唇最终都会消逝。但是珠宝之美，恒久流传。