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SEVNICA, Slovenia — On days when Melanija Knavs could not play outside or grew tired of knitting her navy blue sweaters, she and her friends would exchange notes along the lines of yarn1 they strung between their apartment block balconies.
斯洛文尼亚塞夫尼察——每当梅拉尼娅·克纳夫斯(Melanija Knavs)不能去外面玩，或织海军蓝毛衣织累了的时候，她会和朋友们通过在公寓楼的阳台之间扯出的纱线传递信息。
梅拉尼娅以清晰的笔迹写下了她对自己的梦中男孩的想法。
She could not have seen what was coming. Melanija Knavs is now Melania Trump4, and she is one election away from being the first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams. She is to address millions of Americans on Monday night in a televised speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
她完全没有预料到自己的未来会是什么样子的。梅拉尼娅·克纳夫斯现在的身份是梅拉尼娅·特朗普(Melania Trump)，如果她的丈夫在接下来的大选中获胜，她将成为继续路易莎·亚当斯(Louisa Adams)之后的首位在外国出生的美国第一夫人。在周一晚上于克利夫兰举行的共和党全国大会(Republican National Convention)上，她将对数以百万的美国人发表电视讲话。
But interviews with her former classmates, friends of her family and others who knew them during her youth in Slovenia suggest that her transformation5 owes less to chance than to the Knavs family’s determination to seize openings and avoid getting stuck.
《纽约时报》采访了她过去的同班同学、家庭友人以及她在斯洛文尼亚度过的青年时期认识的一些人。结果发现，与其将她的转变归功于机遇，不如说是克纳夫斯一家抓住机遇、不甘于现状的决心成就了她。
Her father, a larger-than-life personality who reminds her childhood friends of Donald Trump, belonged to the Communist Party, an exclusive club whose members sometimes joined because of career ambitions as much as ideology6. Her mother, an industrious7 and striking woman, went from harvesting red onions on her family’s farm to a career in the town’s textile factory. She always found time to make sure her two daughters dressed to impress, sewing clothes for them after her work shift ended.
梅拉尼娅的父亲是一位颇具传奇色彩的人物，会让她童年时期的朋友想到唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)。他是共产党党员。相较于意识形态的原因，也有很多人是因为未来更好的职业发展加入了这个门槛颇高的“俱乐部”。她的母亲是一位勤劳而又引人注目的女性，最初在自家农场收割红皮洋葱，后来进入镇里的纺织厂工作。她在下班后会为两个女儿缝制衣服，总是抽时间给她们打扮，确保她们的衣着会引人赞叹。
Melania Trump herself trained her bright eyes on the next thing. Once she left Sevnica for high school in Ljubljana, now Slovenia’s capital, she rarely came back to see her old friends. Once she left Ljubljana for a modeling career in Milan and then elsewhere in Europe, Slovenia receded8 from view. And once she moved to New York, where she caught the eye of Donald Trump, 24 years her senior, during a Fashion Week party at the Kit9 Kat Club, she never looked back.
梅拉尼娅·特朗普永远把自己明亮的眼睛瞄准前方。自从离开塞夫尼察，去卢布尔雅那——斯洛文尼亚现在的首都——上高中以后，她很少回去见她的老朋友。自她离开卢布尔雅那，去米兰，之后到欧洲其他城市发展自己的模特事业之后，斯洛文尼亚也退出了她的视野。而自从她搬到纽约，然后在那里的Kit Kat俱乐部举行的一场时装周派对上引起大她24岁的唐纳德·特朗普的注意之后，她再也不曾回头。
“She tried to find opportunities,” said Damijan Kracina, 46, a high school classmate. “And took them.”
“她努力寻找机会，”她的高中同学、46岁的达米扬·克拉齐娜(Damijan Kracina)说。“然后抓住它们。”
Melania Trump, born in 1970, grew up in this hilly town of 4,500 best known around Slovenia, at least until Donald Trump entered the presidential race, for its medieval castle and annual salami festival. Then, Slovenia was the northern region of Yugoslavia, ruled by Josip Broz Tito, a Communist dictator who kept his distance from the Soviet10 Union and allowed more freedoms than did other Eastern bloc2 leaders.
梅拉尼娅·特朗普出生于1970年，在这个人口4500人的丘陵城镇长大，这个城镇在整个斯洛文尼亚最出名的事物是其中世纪城堡和一年一度的萨拉米香肠节，至少在唐纳德·特朗普参加美国总统大选之前是如此。当时，斯洛文尼亚还属于南斯拉夫的北部地区，由共产党独裁者约瑟普·布罗兹·铁托(Josip Broz Tito)统治。铁托与苏联保持了一定的距离，比起其他苏东集团国家，允许民众拥有更多自由。
But under Tito, there were clear benefits to being a member of the Communist Party, to which only a tiny percentage of Slovenians belonged. Some inherited membership through parents, particularly if they had resisted the Nazis11, as Tito had; others by exhibiting unusual talent.
不过在铁托的统治之下，当一名共产党员可以获得明显的好处。当时，只有很少数的斯洛文尼亚人能够加入共产党。一些人是从父母那里继承了党员资格，尤其是如果他们曾经像铁托那样反抗过纳粹的话；其他人则是因为展现了不同寻常的才华得以入选。
While it is not clear how Melania Trump’s father, Viktor, joined — available records in Ljubljana simply list him as a member — others from the Sevnica Communist Party mentioned his work as a driver for a neighboring mayor and then for the director of the government-owned textile factory, Jutranjka, across the river, as possible entry points.
尽管并不清楚梅拉尼娅·特朗普的父亲维克托是如何加入的——在卢布尔雅那可以找到的记录仅仅显示他是一名共产党员——但塞夫尼察的其他一些共产党员提到，他曾先后为附近城市的市长和位于河对岸的Jutranjka国有纺织厂厂长开车，这或许是他得以加入的原因。
While the Knavs, along with Melania Trump, declined to be interviewed about their years in Slovenia, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Hope Hicks, said that Knavs had never been an “active member” of the party.
尽管克纳夫斯一家，连同梅拉尼娅·特朗普都拒绝就他们在斯洛文尼亚时期的生活接受采访，但特朗普竞选团队的发言人霍普·希克斯(Hope Hicks)表示，克纳夫斯从来都不是共产党“积极分子”。
Donald Trump, in an interview last month, said he had never discussed the topic with his father-in-law. “But he was pretty successful over there,” he said. “It’s a different kind of success than you have here. But he was successful.”
唐纳德·特朗普上月接受采访时称，他不曾和岳父谈论过这个话题。“但他在那边非常成功，”他说。“与这里相比，那是一种不同意义上的成功。但他的确很成功。”
In 1972, the Knavs moved into a larger apartment in a new housing block for workers of the government-owned textile factory, including Melania’s mother, Amalija, nicknamed Malci. She drew patterns for children’s clothes and later designed them, crossing the bridge to the factory every day in heels.
1972年，克纳夫斯一家搬进了一个新住宅楼内一套更大的公寓。这些住宅是为包括梅拉尼娅的母亲阿马利娅(Amalija)——昵称马尔奇(Malci)——在内的国有纺织厂的工人提供的。阿马利娅每天穿着高跟鞋过桥到厂里工作，她为童装描绘图案，后来还开始设计童装。
In 1985, Melania left Sevnica, traveling on the narrow roads along the slow-moving Sava River, green from the reflection of the wooded hills, and through coal mining towns on the way to Ljubljana. There she attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography, housed in an arcaded12 Renaissance13 monastery14.
1985年，梅拉尼娅离开了塞夫尼察，沿着缓缓流动、被葱翠山丘映成绿色的萨瓦河旁狭窄的道路，穿过几个煤矿城镇，来到了卢布尔雅那。她在那里的设计与摄影中等学校(Secondary School of Design and Photography)上学，该校坐落于一座带拱廊的文艺复兴时期的修道院内。
She lived in an apartment that her father, who had opened a bicycle and car parts shop in Ljubljana, had bought a few years earlier on the outskirts15 of the city. The building superintendent16, Joze Vuk, lived on their floor, and he recalled that Viktor Knavs was displeased17 that after he had paid for his unit, the government decided18 to set aside some of the apartments as rentals19 for construction workers.
她住在父亲于几年前在卢布尔雅那郊区购买的一套公寓内。她父亲之前就在这个城市开了一家自行车和汽车零件铺。这座公寓楼的管理员约热·武克(Joze Vuk)和他们住在同一楼层，他记得在维克托·克纳夫斯花钱买下这套公寓之后，政府决定拨出楼里的一些公寓租给建筑工人。维克托为此感到不快。
“We were all angry because most of the residents were not prepared to invest in the block,” said Vuk, who also owned an apartment. “They were renters of a public property and did not care.”
“我们都很生气，因为大多数这类居民都不准备把钱花在房子上，”武克说，他当时也拥有一套公寓。“他们是公共物业的租赁者，才不会在意。”
Viktor Knavs sought to distinguish himself from his neighbors. “He always wore a tie, smart clothes and carried a briefcase,” Vuk said. “You could not avoid noticing him.”
维克多·克纳夫斯希望在邻居当中显得与众不同。“他总是打着领带，衣履光鲜，拿着一个公文包，”武克说。“你不可能注意不到他。”
Melania and her older sister, Ines, also stood out, for their looks, their wardrobe and the makeup20 they put on whenever they left the apartment. At school, Melania kept her distance from peers listening to the Cure or Metallica, Kracina said, and gravitated toward a clique21 of pop music fans who hung out at the Horse’s Tail bar by the Triple Bridge in Ljubljana.
因为长相、穿着，还有每次离开公寓时脸上化的妆，梅拉尼娅和姐姐伊内丝(Ines)也很显眼。克拉齐娜说，在学校的时候，梅拉尼娅没有跟那些听The Cure和Metallica乐队的同龄人玩在一起，而是受到一小群流行乐爱好者的吸引，混在卢布尔雅那三桥旁边的马尾酒吧(Horse’s Tail)里。
Melania had also begun a process that would carry her away from Slovenia. In January 1987, the photographer Stane Jerko spotted22 her and asked if she would be interested in modeling.
梅拉尼娅还开始涉足后来让她能够离开斯洛文尼亚的事业。在1987年1月，摄影师斯塔内·叶尔科(Stane Jerko)发现了她，询问她是否有兴趣做模特。
She proved somewhat wooden, but “pridna — diligent23, obedient,” Jerko said. She told him she wanted to get better. Jerko passed the photographs he snapped of Melania — hair up, hair down, gym clothes, flowing dress — to a Slovenian cultural center, which admitted her to a fashion course for models in the fall of 1987.
她有点呆板，不过是个“好姑娘——勤奋又听话，”叶尔科说。梅拉尼娅告诉他，自己想取得进步。叶尔科把他拍的梅拉尼娅的照片——头发扎上去、散开来、身穿运动装、飘飘长裙等——发给了斯洛文尼亚的一家文化中心。1987年的秋天，这家文化中心录取她参加模特的时尚课程。
Melania’s entire family sensed potential in her modeling. After high school, she concentrated on her career, dropping out of architecture school. (She still claims on her website to have graduated.) On one occasion, Kravs drove his Mercedes to the shop of the seamstress Silva Njegac, hours from Ljubljana, to order leather dresses for Melania that his wife had designed.
梅拉尼娅全家嗅到了她从事模特工作的潜力。高中以后，她开始专注这份事业，从建筑学院退学。（她目前仍在自己的网站上宣称从学院毕业。）有一次，克纳夫斯开着奔驰车前往距离卢布尔雅那几小时车程的地方去找裁缝西尔瓦·叶加奇(Silva Njegac)，订制梅拉尼娅的妈妈为她设计的皮裙。
A second-place finish in Jana magazine’s Slovenian Face of the Year contest in 1992 expanded Melania’s ambitions. In a fashion video for a Slovenian label, she wore a skirt suit, exited a plane shadowed by bodyguards24 and signed papers at the national library. “She was acting25 like the president of the United States,” said Andrej Kosak, the director.
到了1992年，梅拉尼娅夺得了《Jana》杂志举办的“斯洛文尼亚年度面孔奖”评选的第二名，让她提升了自己的抱负。在为斯洛文尼亚某品牌拍摄的时尚视频中，她身穿短裙套装，在保镖的环绕中走下飞机，在国家图书馆里签署文件。“她表现得像是美国总统，”视频的导演安德烈·科萨克(Andrej Kosak)说。
She would soon Germanize her name to Melania Knauss and become an international model.
很快，她就把自己的名字按照德文拼写换成了梅拉尼娅·克瑙斯(Melania Knauss)，成为了国际模特。
Melania Trump’s parents spend much of the year with their daughter and her 10-year-old son, Barron, at Trump Tower in Manhattan or at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where they enjoy the pool. But they have also brought a whiff of the campaign back to Sevnica, where they now own a handsome house. Alongside the sloping lawn and the beige Mercedes, one finds security guards to turn away unwanted visitors.
梅拉尼娅·特朗普的父母如今每年会花许多时间与女儿和10岁的外孙巴伦(Barron)一起待在曼哈顿的特朗普大厦，或者前往唐纳德·特朗普在佛罗里达州棕榈滩的马阿拉歌庄园，去享用那里的游泳池。不过，他们也带了一丝竞选的气息到塞夫尼察。二人在那里拥有一栋漂亮的别墅。除了倾斜的草坪和那辆米色的奔驰车，还有安保人员在那里驱赶不速之客。
In Sevnica, Viktor Knavs has confided26 in Matej Novsak, his longtime mechanic, and complained recently about Donald Trump’s whiplash-inducing inconsistency.
在塞夫尼察的时候，维克多·克纳夫斯会对多年为自己服务的机修工马泰·诺夫萨克(Matej Novsak)吐露心声。他近期抱怨过唐纳德·特朗普前后不一，容易招致猛烈的批评。
“'One time it is this, the other time that,' ” Novsak said Viktor Knavs had told him. The mechanic said that Viktor Knavs had also said that Donald Trump was unwanted by Republicans and that he did not understand his wealthy son-in-law’s need to pursue the presidency27. “'Why does he have to do it?'” the mechanic said Viktor Knavs had told him.
“一会儿是这样，一会儿又是那样，”诺夫萨克表示克纳夫斯这样对他说。他称，克纳夫斯还说，唐纳德·特朗普受到共和党人的排斥，自己不明白身家丰厚的女婿有什么必要去竞选总统。“他为什么非得做这个？”诺夫萨克回忆起克纳夫斯的疑问。
When told of his in-laws’ bewilderment, Donald Trump said, “They are not the only ones.”
得知岳父母的困惑后，唐纳德·特朗普回应，“不光是他们这么想。”
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yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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bloc
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| n.集团；联盟 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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ideology
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| n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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Soviet
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| adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃 | |
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Nazis
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| n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义 | |
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arcaded
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| adj.成为拱廊街道的，有列拱的 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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decided
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rentals
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| n.租费，租金额( rental的名词复数 ) | |
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makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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bodyguards
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| n.保镖，卫士，警卫员( bodyguard的名词复数 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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