一月份一个寒冷的晚上,医院里异乎寻常地安静, 一切都静止不动,就像暴风雨来临之前一样。我站在七楼的护士值班室,瞥了一眼时钟。九点了,我把听诊器套在脖子上便向走廊尽头的712房间走去。712房间新住进一位病人,威廉斯先生,一个孤独的男人,一个非常奇怪、闭口不谈家人的男人。我走进房间时,威廉斯急切地抬头看了看,但当看到是我一个人——他的护士时,又垂下了眼帘。我把听诊器按在他胸口上倾听,心跳缓慢有力平稳,正是我想听到的。几个小 On a cold evening in January, the hospital was unusually quiet. Everything remained still, just as before the storm. I stood in the nurse duty room on the seventh floor and took a look at the clock. At nine o’clock, I set my stethoscope around my neck and walked to Room 712 at the end of the corridor. Room 712 was newly admitted to a patient, Mr. Williams, a lonely man, a very strange man who talked about his family. When I entered the room, Williams looked up eagerly, but when he saw me alone—his nurse, he looked down again. I listened to the stethoscope on his chest, and my heartbeat was slow and steady. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. Several small