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In my necessity to find the terms on which my experience could be related to that of others, Negroes and whites, writers and non-writers, I proved, to my astonishment, to be as American as any Texas G. I.
在我认为有必要去寻求一种能把我的生活经历同别的人一黑人和白人，作家和非作家--的生活经历联系起来的途径的过程中，我惊奇地发现：自己原来也同任何得克萨斯州士兵一样，是非常爱国的美国人。
And I found my experience was shared by every American writer I knew in Paris.
而且我发现，我在巴黎所认识的每一位美国作家都有我这种感受。
Like me, they had been divorced from their origins, and it turned out to make very little difference that the origins of white Americans were European and mine were African-they were no more at home in Europe than I was.
他们都同我一样脱离了自己的本源，而且事实证明，这些美国白人的欧洲本源同我的非洲本源竞没有多少差别-他们在欧洲也像我一样感到不自在。
The fact that I was the son of a slave and they were the sons of free men meant less, by the time we confronted each other on Europe soil, than the fact that we were both searching for our separate identities.
我是奴隶的后代，而他们是自由人的子孙，这种差异则无关紧要。因为我们在欧洲大地上相遇时，都在努力探求着各自的自我价值。
When we had found these, we seemed to be saying, why, then, we would no longer need to cling to the shame and bitterness which had divided us so long.
当我们终于发现各自的自我价值之后，我们似乎都在感慨：这下可好啦，多少年来造成我们之间的隔阂的遗憾和痛苦之情，我们可再也不用死抱住不放了。
It became terribly clear in Europe, as it never had been here, that we knew more about each other than any European ever could.
我们美国人彼此间的相互了解超过任何欧洲人所能达到的程度。这一点在本国不曾有人认识到，但一到欧洲，我们便认识得很清楚了。
And it also became clear that, no matter where our fathers had been born, or what they had endured, the fact of Europe had formed us both, was part of our identity and part of our inheritance.
还有一点也显得很清楚：不论我们的祖先源于何处，也不管他们曾有过什么样的遭遇，我们美国黑人和白人都是欧洲造就出来的。这一事实就是我们的身分以及我们的遗传特征的组成部分。
