“He reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.” That’s what Kellyanne Conway said about Donald Trump in her testimony before a congressional committee in 2022. But is that really true? Looking at the Trumps, I can’t tell. But then we don’t get to look at them all that much — not the two of them together. Melania is often off on her own.
“他只怕一个人，梅拉尼娅·特朗普。”这是凯莉安·康威2022年在国会委员会作证时对唐纳德·特朗普的评价。然而，事实果真如此吗？看着特朗普一家，我无法判断。但是我们并没有太多的机会去观察他们——没法同时观察他们两个。梅拉尼娅经常独自一人。
“At the end of the day, she could probably make or break him.” That’s what Stephanie Grisham, Donald Trump’s former press secretary, said about Melania to Katie Rogers of The Times this week. But is that because Melania has command of his heart or of his secrets? It’s a mystery, like so much about their marriage and about the former first lady herself. “到头来，他的成与败可能是由她决定的。”这是唐纳德·特朗普的前新闻秘书斯蒂芬妮·格里沙姆本周跟时报记者凯蒂·罗杰斯谈到梅拉尼娅时说的话。然而，这是因为梅拉尼娅掌握了他的内心，还是因为她掌握了他的秘密？这是一个谜，就像他们的婚姻和前第一夫人本人一样。
Melania was tugged back into the news this week as her husband went on trial in Manhattan on charges stemming from his supposed dalliance with the porn star Stormy Daniels. Journalists wanted to know what Melania Trump was thinking. The judge presiding over the trial said that she could theoretically be called to testify. 随着她的丈夫因与色情明星“风暴丹尼尔斯”的风流事而导致的指控在曼哈顿接受审判，梅拉尼娅再次成为新闻焦点。记者们想知道梅拉尼娅·特朗普在想什么。主审法官说，理论上，她可以被传唤作证。
And Donald Trump fumed to reporters that the trial might prevent him from joining Melania at the high school graduation of their son, Barron, on May 17. 唐纳德·特朗普愤怒地对记者们说，审判可能会妨碍他在5月17日与梅拉尼娅一起参加他们儿子巴伦的高中毕业典礼。
“I was looking forward to that graduation with his mother and father,” Trump said, making a Gotrocks family sound like a Rockwell one. Who knows? Maybe they have cozy moments of closeness invisible to us. Maybe he’s just seizing another opportunity to play the martyr. In this case, the truth really is opaque. “我很期待有他的母亲和父亲出席的毕业典礼，”特朗普说，这让一个洛克菲勒式富豪家族显得像是洛克威尔名画里的温馨家庭。谁知道呢？也许他们之间存在我们看不见的亲密时刻。也许他只是在抓住另一个机会扮演受难者。在这种情况下，真相确实是不透明的。
All these years and tweets and town halls and tirades since he came down that infernal escalator, there’s still stuff that we don’t know about a man who is, paradoxically, perhaps the greatest exhibitionist ever to reach the pinnacle of American politics. He over-shares his every absurd irritation and eccentric rumination. He is forever beseeching us to look at him, look at him, look at him. 自从他从那通往地狱的自动扶梯上下来之后，这么多年来，他的推文、市政厅集会露面和咆哮之中，仍然有一些我们不知道的东西，吊诡的是，他可能是有史以来达到美国政治顶峰的最伟大的暴露癖。他过度分享自己的每一个荒谬的愤怒和古怪的遐想。他总是恳求我们看看他，看看他，再看看他。
But his life with his family — his feelings about his family — are something we can’t see. And that blind spot is a significant part of what can make him seem so inhuman. 但他和家人的生活——他对家人的感情——却是我们看不到的。他看起来之所以如此不人性化，这个盲点也是重要原因之一。
His predecessors in the White House had their own family dramas. Can we talk about Bill and Hill? But in President Clinton’s voice and eyes — when he spoke of Hillary, when he looked at Chelsea — there were genuine sorrow for the screw-ups and a whole riot of raw emotions. His lack of discipline wasn’t a lack of heart. 他的白宫前任们也有自己的家庭闹剧。我们能谈谈比尔和希拉里吗？但在克林顿总统的声音和眼神中——当他谈到希拉里的时候，当他看着切尔西的时候——有一种对自己搞砸了一切的真诚悲伤，以及一种强烈的原始情感。他缺乏自我约束，但并不是没有心。
George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s interactions with their wives and daughters were suffused with a palpable tenderness. 乔治·W·布什和贝拉克·奥巴马与妻女的互动显然充满温柔。
But when Trump talks about Melania, Ivanka, Donald Jr.? Even as he praises them, he seems really to be complimenting himself. And he uses the same stock phrases, the same braggart’s diction, the same isn’t-my-life-enviable boilerplate with which he discusses his foreign policy, his economic record, his golf resorts, his crowds. It could be A.I.-generated: ChatDJT. 但当特朗普谈起梅拉尼娅、伊万卡、小唐纳德的时候呢？他在赞美他们的同时，似乎也在赞美自己。他在谈论自己的外交政策、经济成绩、高尔夫度假村和支持者的时候，用的也是同样的惯用语、同样的自夸口吻，同样的“我的生活是不是很让人羡慕呀”这种陈词滥调。简直就像是人工智能生成的：ChatDJT。
Are his family members’ meanings to him more ornamental than sentimental? Again, I can’t tell. It’s possible that Ivanka’s emphatic exit from his political life wounds him greatly and that Don Jr.’s clinging presence touches him deeply. It’s possible that he views them as transactional figures, making decisions based entirely on their own immediate interests — apples fallen close to the tree. 对他来说，家庭成员的装饰意义是不是大于情感意义？我还是不知道。伊万卡断然退出他的政治生活，可能对他造成了极大的伤害，而小唐纳德对他的执着则深深打动了他。他有可能把他们看作是交易数字，做决定时完全是从自己的直接利益出发——有其父必有其子。
And Melania? How much does she matter to him, and vice versa? I draw no conclusions because I accept the adage that nobody outside a marriage has any firm grasp of what goes on inside it. And she gives away nothing, a paragon of inscrutability. She disappears, she reappears, she wears a jacket with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” scrawled across the back. 梅拉尼娅呢？她对他来说有多重要，他对她又有多重要呢？我没有得出任何结论，因为我接受这句格言：清官难断家务事。她什么也不透露，堪称高深莫测的典范。她消失了，又出现了，身穿一件夹克，背面潦草地写着“我真的不在乎，你呢？”
The trial that began with jury selection on Monday is in part an excavation of Donald Trump’s private life, as lawyers argue over, and the judge rules on, whether certain details about his reputed infidelities are relevant. But there’s much that these proceedings won’t bring to the surface. 周一以挑选陪审团成员开始的审判在一定程度上是对唐纳德·特朗普私人生活的挖掘，关于他被指控为不忠的某些细节是否重要，律师们要就此进行争论，法官要就此做出裁决。但这些诉讼不会暴露太多东西。
Is Melania far away because she’s disgusted with him, and does he feel at least pinpricks of hurt and worry about that? Those answers remain buried beneath thick layers of bluster, spin and conjecture, and my own guess is that both Trumps prefer it that way. 梅拉尼娅远离他，是因为她厌恶他吗？他是否至少感到有些许伤心，并为此感到担忧？这些答案仍然隐藏在厚厚的一层咆哮、谎言和猜测之下。而我自己的猜测是，特朗普夫妇都希望保持现状。
Frank Bruni是杜克大学(Duke University)公共政策教授，也是《The Beauty of Dusk》一书的作者。他是一位观点撰稿人。
翻译：晋其角
