“I don’t want to need you cause I can’t have you.” 好多個鏡頭，淚水都奪眶，止不住地流。這一段美好真摯純粹的愛情，就不要太過世俗地去衡量評判了，靜靜感受一下，也當是做了一場夢。

下面是羅伯特的信，英文以及翻譯，字字句句都是“我愛你”：

Dear Francesca,

I hope this finds you well. I don’t know when you’ll receive it. Sometime after I’m gone. I’m sixty-five now, and it’s been thirteen years ago today that we met when I came up your lane looking for directions.

I’m gambling that this package won’t upset your life in any way. I just couldn’t bear to think of the cameras sitting in a secondhand case in a camera store or in some stranger’s bands. They’ll be in pretty rough shape by the time you get them.

But, I have no one else to leave them to, and I apologize for putting you at risk by sending them to you.

I was on the road almost constantly from 1965 to 1975. Just to remove some of the temptation to call you or come for you, a temptation I have virtually every waking moment of my life, I took all of the overseas assignments I could find. There have been times, many of them, when I’ve said, “The hell with it. I’m going to Winterset, Iowa, and, whateverthe cost, take Francesca away with me.”

But I remember your words, and I respect your feelings. Maybe you were right; I just don’t know. I do know that driving out of your lane that hot Friday morning was the hardest thing I’ve ever done or will ever do. In fact, I doubt if few men have ever done anything more difficult than that.

I left National Geographic in 1975 and have been devoting the remainder of my shooting years mostly to things of my own choosing, picking up a little work where I can get it, local or regional stuff that keeps me away only a few days at a time. It’s been tough financially, but I get along. I always do.

Much of my work is around Puget Sound. I like it that way. It seems as men get older they turn toward the water.

Oh, yes, I have a dog now, a golden retriever. I call him “Highway” and he travels with me most of the time, head hangingout the window, looking for good shots.

In 1972, I fell down a cliff in Maine, in Acadia National Park, and broke my ankle. The chain and medallion got torn off in the fall. Fortunately they landed close by. I found them again, and a jeweler mended the chain.

I live with dust on my heart. That’s about as well as I can put it. There were women before you, a few, but none after. I made no conscious pledge to celibacy; I’m just not interested.

I once watched a Canada goose whose mate had been shot by hunters. They mate for life, you know. The gander circled the pond for days, and more days after that. When I last saw him, he was swimming alone through the wild rice, still looking. I suppose that analogy is a little too obvious for literary tastes, but it’s pretty much the way I feel.

In my imagination, on foggy mornings or afternoons with the sun bouncing off northwest water, I try to think of where you might be in your life and what you might be doing as I’m thinking of you. Nothing complicated—going out to your garden, sitting on your front porch swing, standing at the sink in your kitchen. Things like that.

I remember everything. How you smelled, how you tasted like the summer. The feel of your skin against mine, and the sound of your whispers as I loved you.

Robert Penn Warren once used the phrase “a world that seems to be God-abandoned.” Not bad, pretty close to how I feel some of the time. But I cannot live that way always. When those feelings become too strong, I load Harry and go down the road with Highway for a few days.

I don’t like feeling sorry for myself. That’s not who I am. And most of the time I don’t feel that way. Instead, I am grateful for having at least found you. We could have flashed by one another like two pieces of cosmic dust.

God or the universe or whatever one chooses to label the great systems of balance and order does not recognize Earth-time.

To the universe, four days is no different than four billion light years. I try to keep that in mind.

But, I am, after all, a man. And all the philosophic rationalizations I can conjure up do not keep me from wanting you, every day, every moment, the merciless wail of time, of time I can never spend with you, deep within my head.

I love you, profoundly and completely. And I always will.

The last cowboy,

Robert

P. S., I put another new engine in Harry last summer, and he’s doing fine.

親愛的弗朗西絲卡：

希望你一切都好。我不知道你何時能收到此信，總是在我去世以後。我現已六十五歲，我們相逢在十三年前的今日，當我進入你的小巷問路之時。

我把寶押在這個包裹不會擾亂你的生活上，我實在無法忍受讓這些相機躺在相機店的二手貨櫥窗裡，或是轉入陌生人之手。等它們到你手裡時已是相當破舊了，可是我沒有别人可以留交，隻好寄給你，讓你冒風險，很抱歉。

從一九六五年到一九七三年我幾乎常年是在大路上。我接受所有我謀求得到的海外派遣，隻是為了抵擋給你打電話或來找你的誘惑，而事實上隻要我醒着，生活中每時每刻都在這種誘惑。多少次，我對自己說：“去它的吧，我這就去依阿華溫特塞特，不惜一切代價要把弗朗西絲卡帶走。”

可是我記得你的話，我尊重你的感情。也許你是對的，我不知道。我隻知道在那個炎熱的星期五從你的小巷開車出來是我一生中做過的最艱難的事以後也決不會再有。事實上我懷疑有多少男人曾做過這樣艱難的事。

我于一九七五年離開以後的攝影生涯就緻力于拍攝我自己挑選的對象，有機會時就在當地或者本地區找點事做，一次隻外出幾天經濟比較困難，不過還過得去，我總是過得去的。

我的許多作品都是圍繞着皮吉特海灣。我喜歡這樣。似乎人老了就轉向水。

對了，我現在有一條狗，一條金色的獵狗。我叫它“大路”，它大多數時間都伴我旅行，腦袋伸到窗外，尋找捕捉對象。

一九七二年我在緬因州阿卡迪亞國家公園的一座峭壁上摔了下來，跌斷了踝骨，項鍊和圓牌一起給跌斷了，幸虧是落在近處，我又找到了，請一位珠寶商修複了項鍊。

我心已蒙上了灰塵。我想不出來更恰當的說法。在你之前有過幾個女人在你之後一個也沒有，我并沒有要發誓要保持獨身，隻是不感興趣。

我有一次觀察過一隻加拿大鵝，它的伴侶被獵人殺死了。你知道這種鵝的伴侶是從一而終的。那雄鵝成天圍着池塘轉，日複一日。我最後一次看見它，它還在尋覓。這一比喻太淺露了，不夠文學味兒，可這大緻就我的感受。

在霧蒙蒙的早晨，或是午後太陽在西北方水面上跳動時，我常試圖想象你在哪裡，在做什麼。沒什麼複雜的事-不外乎到你的園子裡去，坐在前廊的秋千上，站在你廚房洗滌池前之類的事。

我樣樣都記得：你的氣息，你夏天一般的味道，你緊貼我身上的皮膚的手感還有在我愛着你時你說悄悄話的聲音。

羅伯特•潘•華倫用過一句話：“一個似乎為上帝所遺棄的世界。”說得好，很接近我有時的感覺。但我不能總是這樣生活。當這些感覺太強烈時，我就給哈裡裝車，與大路共處幾天。

我不喜歡自憐自艾。我不是這種人。而且大多數時候我不是這種感覺。相反，我有感激之情，因為我至少找到了你。我們本來也可能像一閃而過的兩粒宇宙塵埃一樣失之交臂。

上帝，或是宇宙，或是不管叫它什麼，總之那平衡與秩序的大系統是不承認地球上的時間的。對宇宙來說，四天與四兆光年沒有什麼區别。我努力記住這一點。但是我畢竟是一個男人。所有我能記起的一切哲學推理都不能阻止我要你，每天，每時，每刻，在我頭腦深處是時間殘忍的悲号，那永不能與你相聚的時間。

我愛你，深深地，全身心地愛你，直到永遠。

最後的牛仔：羅伯特

又：我去年夏天給哈裡裝了一個新引擎，它現在挺好。

看完電影之後再看這封信，覺得自己是寫這封信的人，同時又覺得這封信是寫給自己的……

“This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime. ”這樣确切的愛，一生隻有一回，希望遇到的時候可以好好去愛。

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