2020年经济学人 部落演员安东尼奥·萨尔瓦多(4)（在线收听）

The rubber barons who had destroyed his family and much of the region in the early 20th century had been only the bloodiest in a string of invaders and exploiters going back, he reckoned, to Columbus's time. And their place had now been taken by narcotraficantes, by loggers and miners doing "black" or illegal work while governments did nothing, and even by the tourists who took quick day-trips from the cities, threw their money around and left again, proclaiming that all was well.

安东尼奥认为，在哥伦布时代以来的一系列入侵者和剥削者中，在20世纪早期摧毁他的家人和这个地区大部分的橡胶大亨们是最血腥的一批人。他们的地方现在被毒贩子、伐木工和矿工所占据，这些人从事“黑色”或非法的工作，而政府却毫无作为，甚至还有城市里来的一日游观光游客，他们到处花钱后拍屁股走人，然后宣称这里一切都好。

All was not well. The Amazon, as he constantly repeated, was the lungs of the world, the great purifying filter of all its modern filth. Those lungs had a cancer now, and if it went on growing both they, and all living things, would be finished. Like Karamakate, he had to pass on this truth to his white brothers. The rainforest and its tribes must be supported and protected against invaders.

一切都不好。正如他不断重复的那样，亚马逊是世界之肺，是现代一切污物的伟大净化器。现在这个肺患了癌症，如果情况继续恶化的话，亚马逊和所有生命都会终结。就像老卡拉马凯那样，他得把这个真理传递给他的白人兄弟们。必须支持和保护热带雨林及其部落，使其免受外来入侵。

He did not include among those the new illness that crept (from Brazil, the government feared), into his home town of Leticia, where Brazil, Peru and Colombia all met on the great river, and where most of the people were indigenous. For a while, infection rates there were Colombia's worst. He caught it at the end of April. But he still had bigger worries. Often he felt like one of those dogs that went on barking, yap! yap! yap! Until everyone was tired of it. He refused to be patted quiet. As he spoke of the dog he writhed and barked, while his blue eyes continued to smile with a wisdom barely known in the wider world, and fast vanishing.

他没有把蔓延到自己家乡莱蒂西亚的新疾病（政府担心从巴西传来）包括在内，在那里，巴西、秘鲁和哥伦比亚都在这条大河上交汇，那里的居民大多是土著居民。有段时间，那里的感染率是哥伦比亚最高的。四月末，他感染了新冠肺炎。但是他有更大的担忧。安东尼奥常常觉得自己就像一只不停吠叫的狗。汪汪汪！直到每个人都厌倦了。他就是不肯安静下来。当他说到那条狗时，他就扭动着，叫着，而他蓝色的眼睛继续微笑，带着一种在大千世界里几乎不存在的智慧，很快就消失了。