双语·当呼吸化为空气 然而 这也不是简单的罪恶

然而，这也不是简单的罪恶。不仅尸体解剖，医学的一切，都是对神圣的冒犯。医生们以一切可以想象得到的方式入侵人体。他们看到的，都是人们最脆弱、最恐惧、最私密的时候。他们治愈病人，护送他们重新回到滚滚红尘，自己却转身离开。将尸体看作平常的物体和机器，恰恰是为了缓解人类最深的痛苦。同样地，人类最深的痛苦，也仅仅是一种教学工具。解剖学教授大概是这种关系的最终端，然而他们仍然与尸体保持着割不断的联系。刚开始不久，我在我的捐赠者的横膈膜上划了长长的一刀，就为了快点找到脾动脉，搞得在场的学监既生气又惊骇。不是因为我破坏了重要的组织结构，没搞清楚基本的概念，或者搞砸了未来的解剖，而是因为我做这一切时如此漫不经心。他脸上那种表情，那种无法用语言表达的忧伤，比任何讲座都更深刻地让我理解到医学的真谛。我解释说，是一个解剖学教授让我这么做的，学监的悲伤变成狂怒，一些教授突然涨红了脸，被学监拖到走廊上去了。
It was not a simple evil, however. All of medicine, not just cadaver dissection, trespasses into sacred spheres. Doctors invade the body in every way imaginable. They see people at their most vulnerable, their most scared, their most private. They escort them into the world, and then back out. Seeing the body as matter and mechanism is the flip side to easing the most profound human suffering. By the same token, the most profound human suffering becomes a mere pedagogical tool. Anatomy professors are perhaps the extreme end of this relationship, yet their kinship to the cadavers remains. Early on, when I made a long, quick cut through my donor’s diaphragm in order to ease finding the splenic artery, our proctor was both livid and horrified. Not because I had destroyed an important structure or misunderstood a key concept or ruined a future dissection but because I had seemed so cavalier about it. The look on his face, his inability to vocalize his sadness, taught me more about medicine than any lecture I would ever attend. When I explained that another anatomy professor had told me to make the cut, our proctor’s sadness turned to rage, and suddenly red-faced professors were being dragged into the hallway.

其他时候，这种割舍不下的联系要简单很多。一次，教授给我们展示捐献者罹患胰腺癌之后留下的满目疮痍，问：“这人多大年纪？”
Other times, the kinship was much simpler. Once, while showing us the ruins of our donor’s pancreatic cancer, the professor asked, “How old is this fellow?”

“七十四。”我们回答。
“Seventy-four,” we replied.

“我也是。”他说着，放下激光笔，走开了。
“That’s my age,” he said, set down the probe, and walked away.