6岁海豚“爱上”女老师 分开后自杀

　　Of all the weird and wonderful events of the 1960s, few are as strange as an animal experiment that took place on the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1965.

　　上世纪六十年代的所有奇闻异事中，很少有能比得上1965年发生在美国维京群岛的“海豚恋人”动物实验事件。

　　For ten weeks, in a charming villa on the island of St Thomas, overlooking the Caribbean, Dr John C. Lilly, a neurologist, tried to teach a six-year-old dolphin to speak English。

　　在圣托马斯岛的一座可以俯瞰加勒比海的美丽别墅里，约翰·莉莉博士进行了一个为期10周的实验——教一只6岁的海豚说英语。

　　Margaret Howe, an experiment assistant, would live, day and night, with Peter, a bottlenose dolphin. And they would eat, bathe, sleep and play together in complete isolation。

　　实验助理玛格丽特·豪和一只名叫彼得的宽吻海豚在与世隔绝的环境里同吃同住。

　　The water on the first floor of the lab was 22in deep, allowing Margaret to wade and Peter to swim. At night, she lifted herself onto a hanging mattress, protected from Peter’s splashings by a shower curtain. She ate tinned food, so no need for any deliveries. No one was to interrupt their daily routine。

　　实验室一楼的水有22英寸深，彼得可以在那里游泳，玛格丽特也可以站在水中。晚上玛格丽特盖着浴巾睡在吊床上，免得被彼得弄出的水花溅湿。她只吃罐头食品，不叫外卖。没人能打扰她和彼得。

　　What no one predicted is that Peter the dolphin would take it one step further. He he fell in love with Margaret。

　　但没想到彼得让他们的关系更进一步——他爱上了玛格丽特。

　　And next week, after nearly five decades of silence from Margaret Howe, a BBC documentary will tell the whole story。

　　在保持了近50年沉默后，玛格丽特将在下周的BBC纪录片中讲述整个故事。

　　And what a rigorous routine it was, from Sunday to Friday, with only Saturdays off for Margaret. She lived her life in a swimming costume — with an extra leotard on colder evenings — and cut her hair to a quarter of an inch long to make her interactions with Peter easier。

　　玛格丽特一周工作六天，周六休息。为了和彼得更好的交流，她剪了短发，穿上泳衣，只在寒冷的晚上加上一件紧身衣。

　　Peter was growing keener and keener on winning her attentions, hurling a ball against her shower curtain to get her to play. Increasingly, he only wanted to play ball with her and not on his own。

　　彼得变得越来越热衷于吸引玛格丽特的注意。他把球顶向玛格丽特的浴巾，希望和她一起游戏。随着时间流逝，他甚至不再愿意独自玩耍。

　　‘I did have a very close encounter with — I can’t even say a dolphin again — Peter.’

　　“我和彼得的关系非常亲密，我甚至不能再叫他海豚。”

　　The problem was that, just at the time Peter and Margaret had begun to hammer out a workable relationship, the experiment ended and the lab was closed。

　　可惜的是，就在他们发展出超越工作伙伴的关系之时，实验结束了，实验室也随之关闭。

　　After a few weeks, Margaret received the shocking news that Peter had committed suicide by refusing to breathe, and sinking to the bottom of his tank。

　　几周后，玛格丽特接到了噩耗——彼得拒绝呼吸，沉入水底，结束了自己的生命。

　　Dolphins may not speak English — but, just like humans, they know all about broken hearts. The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins is on BBC4 on June 17 at 9pm。

　　海豚也许不会说英语，但和人类一样，它们也会感受心碎的情感。

(沪江英语)