11月24日，我发现自己卷入了一连串类似政治惊险片的事件。关于这些事件，报刊杂志撰写了不少文章，国际电视媒体也做了详细报道。我未曾想到，自己会以这种非同寻常的方式赢得国际声望。我刻意决定不接受采访。不过，我必须说出究竟发生了什么。

On November 24, I found myself involved in a succession of events that resembled a political thriller. A lot has been written about what happened. International television provided detailed coverage of these events. I had not thought that global fame would find me in such an unusual way. I deliberately refused to give interviews. Nevertheless, I am compelled to tell what happened.

对于那些在谋杀中幸存下来的人，公众舆论都会拿他开开玩笑。我不明白为什么会出现这一现象。躲过鬼门关的我发现，这一点都不好笑。但公众意识的逻辑乃是一种生活现实，我们必须面对。在讲述整件事情的过程中，我会尽力保持幽默感。

Public opinion reserves a degree of humour for those who have survived attempted murder. The nature of this phenomenon is not clear to me. Having been in this situation myself, I found nothing funny about it. But the logic of public consciousness is a fact of life. One has to reckon with it. I will try to keep my sense of humour while telling what happened.

11月21日，我感到极其疲惫。在之前的三周，我除了正常的工作量外，还进行了几次吃力的商务旅行。因此我想取消爱尔兰之行，休息一下。但是，爱尔兰是个很好的国家，我爱它。这次旅程也很轻松：出席一个大学研讨会，其中一项主题是：就我的《帝国的覆灭：当代俄罗斯的教训》(Death of the Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia)一书发表演讲。于是我决定不取消此次行程。

On November 21, I felt exhausted. Over the previous three weeks, several difficult business trips added to my usual workload. I considered cancelling my trip to Ireland and resting. However, Ireland is a wonderful country, which I love. And the trip was easy: a university research conference and presentation of my book Death of the Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia was one of its subjects. I decided I would not cancel the trip.

抵达都柏林后的第二天早晨，在与会议的组织者之一、外文图书馆馆长叶卡捷琳娜•格妮耶娃(Yekaterina Geniyeva)一起散步时，我认定自己做出了正确的决定。在一所古老而可爱的爱尔兰大学，与聪明友善的人一起共度两天，这既是一种休息，也是一种快乐。

Next morning, after my arrival in Dublin, I was walking with a conference organiser, foreign literature library director Yekaterina Geniyeva, when I decided that I had made the right decision. Spending two days with smart and nice people in a lovely old Irish university is both a rest and a pleasure.

会议开幕前，我在学校餐厅用了早餐：一份水果色拉和一杯茶。然后我去了会议厅。会议开始约10分钟后，我发现自己什么都听不见了。我只想回到酒店房间里躺下来。我向主持下一场会议的同事道歉，告诉他们我感觉不舒服，必须告退。格尼耶娃困惑地看着我：40分钟前我们还漫步在学校的草坪旁，愉快地聊着天。她可能会认为，我对会议主题不感兴趣。

Before the conference opening, I had breakfast in the university canteen. I had a fruit salad and asked for a cup of tea. Then I went to the conference hall. About 10 minutes after the session started I realised that I was unable to hear anything. My only thought was how to get back to my hotel room and lie down. I apologised to my colleagues who were presenting the next session, said I felt unwell and had to go back upstairs. Ms Geniyeva looked at me perplexed; 40 minutes earlier we had been having a cheerful chat while walking along university lawns. She probably decided that I was not interested in the subject.

回到房间后，我不得不立即闭上眼睛。那种感觉就像是做了全身麻醉：你心里什么都清楚，但就是睁不开眼睛。伸手接电话需要费很大的力气。我以为这种昏沉沉的状态是疲劳所致。我认定，自己必须在做完演讲后立即返回莫斯科。

After I got back to my room, I had to close my eyes immediately. The sensation was similar to being under general anaesthesia. You can see and understand things, but it is hard to open your eyes. Reaching for a ringing telephone takes too much effort. I assumed this dusky state was a result of fatigue. I decided that I needed to deliver my lectures and return to Moscow immediately.

下午2点半，我强打起精神去做了有关俄罗斯移民政策的演讲。演讲一结束，我的眼睛就睁不开了，全身倦意笼罩。我以最快的速度回到房间。

I forced myself to deliver my presentation on Russian migration policy at 2.30pm. As soon as I finished my speech, my eyes began to close, fatigue took over and I returned to my room as quickly as I could.

下午5点10分，那个显然救了我的命的电话打了进来。主办方的一位代表提醒我，关于我那本书的演讲五分钟后要开始。我还要参加吗？我想过说“不”。如果我那么做了，如果15分钟后我是一个人呆在自己的房间里，那我活下来的几率就是零。但我到爱尔兰就是为了介绍我的书，我不会让小小的疾患挡道。于是我站起来，下楼，开始演讲。

The phone call that apparently saved my life came at 5.10pm. A representative of the organisers reminded me that my book presentation was in five minutes. Would I be taking part? I considered saying no. Had I done so, and had I been alone in my room 15 minutes later, my chances of survival would have been zero. But I had come to Ireland to make a presentation on my book; I would not let some minor ailment get in the way. I stood up, went downstairs and began to speak.

演讲刚刚进行10分钟，我就发现自己没有办法继续说下去了。我向听众致歉，然后向出口走去。跨过会议厅的门槛后，我就倒在了大学的走廊里。

Ten minutes into my speech, I realised I could not continue talking. I apologised to the audience and walked towards the exit. After I crossed the threshold of the conference hall, I collapsed in the university hallway.

接下来几个小时发生的事我几乎都不记得了。当在我躺在地上时，过来照顾我的人发现，我的鼻子在流血，而且还有血和呕吐物从我的嘴里流出来。我面色惨白，不省人事，仿佛就要死了。

I can remember very little about the events of the following several hours. Those who tended to me as I lay on the floor found me bleeding from the nose, with blood and vomit flowing from my mouth. I was pale, unconscious. It appeared as though I was dying.

不到30分钟，我开始恢复了知觉。我徒劳地尝试着抬了抬头。一辆救护车赶到现场，然后我被抬了上去。我唯一能做的就是睁眼、闭眼；我密切关注着自己的心电图记录。心电图是图表的一种，而我每天面对的就是图表。显然，即使是在神经系统受到损伤时，职业兴趣依然占了上风。

Within 30 minutes, I started to come around. I tried unsuccessfully to raise my head. An ambulance arrived and I was loaded in to it. All I could do was open and close my eyes and I watched with intense interest the recording of my own cardiogram. The cardiogram is a chart and charts are what I work with. Apparently, professional interest prevails even when the nervous system is damag.

在医院里，一恢复思考能力，我就对自己做了简单的诊断：疲劳，加上50多岁的男人常患的疾病：高血糖、高血压。但检查结果令医生们疑惑不解。我的心脏像时钟一样正常；血压偏高，但只是略高于正常水平；血糖水平也是如此。然而，医生面前的这位病人状况显然十分严重。中风是一种可能性。我的手脚都还不能动。但在随后的几个小时，我很快恢复了身体控制能力：到第二天早上7点，我不仅可以从床上站起来，还可以淋浴、刮胡子。我不是医生，但我知道中风的症状不是这样。我的身体肯定出了别的问题。

Once in the hospital, as soon as I regained the ability to think, my own hypothesis was simple: fatigue, combined with maladies often found with men in their 50s: increased sugar level, blood pressure. But my test results bemused the doctors. My heart was working like a clock; blood pressure was high, but only slightly higher than the norm; the same for sugar levels. Meanwhile, the patient was clearly in an extremely grave condition. A stroke was a possibility. I could still not move my hands or feet. But the ability to control my body came back quickly in the following hours. By 7 o’clock the next morning, not only could I stand up from my bed, but I could take a shower and shave. I am not a doctor, but I knew that stroke states are different. It must have been something else.

早上8点，我恢复知觉已有几个小时了，我可以活动、思考、做决定，并把决定付诸行动，就像24小时前一样。尽管遭到了爱尔兰医生的反对，但我还是告诉他们，我想立刻出院。他们告诉我，他们无权阻止我，但同时解释说，我的情况让他们感到困惑。我的检查结果与11月24日晚间和第二天凌晨时我的健康状况完全不符。他们告诉我，我需要接受彻底检查和深入的病因分析。我对他们的帮助表示了感谢，然后解释说，在俄罗斯做这种分析更容易，那里的医生多年来一直负责监督我的身体状况，了解我的病史。我安排了相关事宜，从医院转到俄罗斯大使馆，然后飞回莫斯科。

At 8am, a few hours after I stopped feeling like an inanimate object, I could move, think, make decisions and implement them just as I could 24 hours before. Despite the protests of the Irish doctors, I said that I wanted to leave the hospital immediately. They told me that they had no right to forbid me. But they explained that my case puzzled them. A comparison of test results and my state of health during the late hours of November 24 and early the next day did not tally in any way. They told me that I needed a thorough examination and in-depth analysis. I thanked them for their help and explained that it was easier to take this analysis in Russia, where the doctors had been supervising me for many years and knew my medical history. I arranged a transfer to the Russian embassy, then took a flight to Moscow.

我不是医生，也明白非专业判断的局限。然而，在性命攸关之际，你会禁不住想要了解所发生的事情。我的心脏、大脑、血压和血糖状况良好，或者说没有异常。尽管如此，我陷入了几个小时的昏迷或是半昏迷，不能控制自己的身体，鼻子和喉咙大量出血。在这种情况下，一个非专业大脑不可避免地会闪过一个可能的解释：中毒。我对早餐前的身体状况记得非常清楚：棒极了。但半小时之后的状况却糟糕至极。不过，这属于非专业人士的观点。我猜想会有医学上已知的病理导致上述症状。

I am not a doctor and realise the limits of unprofessional judgments. Nevertheless, when your life is at stake, it is hard to avoid attempting to understand what happened. My heart, brain, blood pressure, sugar level were either good or without abnormalities. Despite this, I suffered several hours of unconsciousness or semiconsciousness, an inability to control my body, and heavy bleeding from my nose and throat. One of the possible explanations that an unprofessional mind inevitably comes up with in such a situation is poisoning. I remember my state before breakfast very well. It was excellent. Half an hour later it was awful. However, this is an unprofessional view. I suppose that there are pathologies known to medicine that can cause such developments.

我从莫斯科的谢列梅捷沃机场直接去了我多年来一直就诊的诊所。尽管我是在周日深夜下的飞机，但主治医生还是召集了专家会诊。我把发生的事告诉了他们，要求他们考虑一切能够解释这种现象的情形。到周一早晨，检查结果已放在了主治医生的办公桌上。在此次爱尔兰事件发生前一个月，我刚刚进行了一次全面体检。现在，我们可以将原来和现在的情况进行比较。在医学已知疾病的范围内，主治医生无法用任何与中毒有关的因素来解释身体发生如此大规模系统性变化的原因，也无法解释为什么会出现这些奇异的组合。出于职业道德的原因，他不会用“投毒”这个词。要这么做，就应确定具体的有毒物质。在事故发生60小时以后，这是不可能的，特别是如果我们谈论的是一种秘密的有毒物质、公开医学无法得到有关它的信息。但我们彼此非常了解。可以谴责任何人，甚至是外星人。但如果我们按常识思考，那我们想的就是投毒。

Straight from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, I headed for the clinic where they have known me for many years. Despite the fact that I landed late at night on a Sunday, the chief doctor convened specialists. I told them what happened and asked them to consider all scenarios that could explain these phenomena. By Monday morning, he had the results of the tests on his desk. One month before the Irish incident I had had a thorough medical check-up. Now we could compare the old and the current pictures. The doctor was unable to explain such large-scale and systemic changes in the body in terms of anything related to intoxication, within the possible range of illnesses known to medicine, nor any of their most exotic combinations. For reasons of professional ethics he could not use the word “poisoning”. A particular poisonous substance should be determined in order to do that. This is impossible 60 hours after the accident, especially if we are talking about secret toxic substances, the information on which is unavailable to open medical science. But we understand each other well. One may blame anybody, even the aliens. If we stay within the framework of common sense, it is poisoning we think of.

11月25日下午，我首次想到，这可能是某人的故意行为造成的后果。当这种想法从脑海中闪过时，我开始考虑可能的策划人。谁会从中获利？我没有任何值得一提的财产。也没有盈利的金属或石油公司，因此没有什么东西可从我这里拿走。那么，如果这是谋杀的话，背后就是政治。现在，我投身俄罗斯政界已有多年，知道很多事。我非常了解那些大人物。此时，我才意识到我的幸免遇难是个奇迹。康复的速度之快表明，企图的目的不是致残或伤害，而是谋杀。在俄罗斯政界，谁需要我在2006年11月24日在都柏林死去呢？我几乎立刻就排除了俄罗斯领袖牵涉其中的想法。在亚历山大•利特维年科(Alexander Litvinenko)11月23日死于伦敦后，俄罗斯当局最不想要的就是另一位俄罗斯知名人士在第二天遇害。如果是发生在莫斯科的爆炸或小规模冲突，那么人们会首先想到激进的民粹主义暴徒。但在都柏林？投毒？那显然不是他们的风格。

When the thought that this could be a result of somebody’s wilful actions crossed my mind for the first time on the afternoon of November 25, I started thinking about who could have orchestrated it. Who would gain from it? I do not have any property to speak of. Neither do I have a profitable metal or oil company, so there is nothing to take away. So, if this was attempted murder, politics was behind it. I have participated in Russian politics for many years now andIknow quite a bit about it. I know its main figures well. By then I realised that my survival was a miracle. The fast rate of recuperation showed that the attempt did not aim at mutilation or injury, but murder. Who of the Russian political circle needed my death on the 24th of November 2006, in Dublin? I rejected the idea of complicity of the Russian leadership almost immediately. After the death of Alexander Litvinenko on November 23 in London, another violent death of a famous Russian on the following day is the last thing that the Russian authorities would want. In case of an explosion or skirmish in Moscow, one would think about radical nationalistic thugs first of all. But Dublin? Poisoning? This is obviously not their style.

最可能的情况是，此次事件的幕后指使者，是某些俄罗斯当局或明或暗的对手，那些希望俄罗斯与西方关系急剧恶化的人。通过将过去6周发生的各项事件的日期进行对比，不到几个小时，我便就背后的原因找出了一个非常合乎逻辑而且可靠的假设。我的世界观重拾了固有的逻辑，不再像卡夫卡笔下的噩梦。尽管如此，它看起来并没有更令人满意。好吧，正如俄罗斯人所说，只要我们活着，总有一天会幸福，但那是另一回事了。

Most likely that means that some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes of this event, those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the west. Within several hours, comparing the dates of events that took place during the past six weeks, I formulated a rather logical and consistent hypothesis on the reasons behind this. The world view regains its intrinsic logic and ceases resembling a Kafkaesque nightmare. Still, it does not look any more enjoyable. Well, as they say in Russia, as long as we are alive, we might even be happy some day, but that is a different story.

本文作者曾经担任俄罗斯联邦(Russian Federation)总理，现任转型经济研究所(Institute of Economy in Transition)所长。维罗妮卡•马雷茨卡(Veronica Malytska)译

The writer, former prime minister of the Russian Federation, is director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition. Translation by Veronica Malytska

译者/何黎