1969年从耶鲁大学毕业前，我写信给阿弗雷尔·哈里曼，他是“骷髅会”最杰出的校友之一，询问能否拜访他，征求关于我未来的建议。
Before graduating from Yale in 1969, I wrote to Averell Harriman, one of the most distinguished alumni of Skull and Bones, asking if I might come to see him for advice about my future.
在我眼中，哈里曼就是政治家的化身。年近八旬的他，已历经数番公共生涯，在商业、外交和政治领域均以权威姿态游刃有余。
To me, Harriman embodied the very idea of a statesman. Approaching 80, he had already lived several public lives, moving with authority through the worlds of business, diplomacy and politics.
他的父亲爱德华·亨利·哈里曼本人就是一位传奇人物：一位拥有巨额财富的铁路大亨，通过控制联合太平洋铁路和南太平洋铁路等大型铁路网建立起自己的权势，赢得了“铁路大王”的绰号。哈里曼这个名字甚至与日本也有渊源：日俄战争后，E·H·哈里曼曾与首相桂太郎短暂探讨在满洲合办铁路事业，但最终未能成行。
His father, Edward Henry Harriman, was himself a figure of legend: a railroad magnate of immense fortune who had built his power through control of such great rail networks as the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, earning the sobriquet "the Railroad King." The Harriman name had even touched Japan: After the Russo-Japanese War, E. H. Harriman briefly explored a joint railway venture in Manchuria with Prime Minister Taro Katsura, though the plan came to nothing.
为了拜会哈里曼，我买了人生第一套西装。当我按响他在曼哈顿联排别墅的门铃时，一位身穿白色夹克、打着蝴蝶结领带的管家——这是我从未见过的阵仗——以庄重恭敬的态度为我开门。我被领进哈里曼的起居室，安坐在他身侧，因为他听力已衰退。“好吧，年轻人，”他问道，“今天什么风把你吹来了？”接下来的两个半小时里，含午餐在内，他的生平故事在我面前徐徐展开，一个个惊人之举接踵而至。
For my meeting with Harriman, I bought my first suit. When I rang the bell at his Manhattan town house, a butler in a white jacket and bow tie, the like of which I had never seen, opened the door with grave deference. I was shown into Harriman's sitting room and seated close beside him, for his hearing had grown poor. "Well, young man," he said, "What brings you here today?" Over the next two and a half hours, lunch included, the story of his life unfolded before me as one astonishment after another.
1917年俄国革命后，布尔什维克夺取政权，渴望美国资本和外汇，试图吸引哈里曼家族、梅隆家族等美国巨富。据哈里曼讲述，他作为这些利益集团的年轻代表前往俄国，发现自己直接与布尔什维克及其世界打交道。他会见的人物中就有列昂·托洛茨基。
The Bolsheviks, having seized power in the Russian Revolution of 1917, were eager for American capital and foreign currency and sought to attract great American fortunes, including the Harrimans, the Mellons and others. As Harriman told it, he went to Russia as a young representative of those interests and found himself dealing directly with the Bolsheviks and their world. Among those he met was Leon Trotsky.
他得出了一个极其重要的结论。他认为，苏联人诱导美国人帮助建立工厂和其他工业资产，却无意让外国投资者永远保留对这些资产的控制权。他回国报告说，他们应该变卖在苏俄拥有的一切资产，并立即撤离。
He came away with a conclusion of grave importance. The Soviets, he believed, had induced the Americans to help build factories and other industrial assets but had no intention of allowing foreign investors to retain control of them indefinitely. He reported back that they should sell what they owned in Soviet Russia and get out at once.
这一警告被忽视了。在老一辈人眼中，哈里曼仍是一个资历太浅、不足以被认真对待的年轻人。他们无动于衷，正如他后来讲述的那样，最终资产被没收，他们损失了一切。
The warning was dismissed. To the older men, Harriman was still a young man with too little experience to be taken seriously. They did nothing and, as he told the story, they lost everything when the assets were ultimately taken from them.
1939年第二次世界大战爆发时，哈里曼步入了一个更大的舞台。应他长期交往的富兰克林·罗斯福总统之请，他成为美苏盟国关系中的核心美国人物之一。1943年，苏联仍在德国进攻之下苦苦支撑时，他被任命为美国驻莫斯科大使。
When World War II broke out in 1939, Harriman entered a still larger arena. At the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with whom he had long been associated, he became one of the central American figures in the Allied relationship with the Soviet Union. In 1943, with the Soviet Union still under German assault, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Moscow.
在盟国领导人——罗斯福、约瑟夫·斯大林和英国首相温斯顿·丘吉尔——之间穿梭，他帮助协调了战争物资和其他援助的流向，支撑了对德共同作战。
Moving among the leaders of the Allied powers -- Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill -- he helped coordinate the flow of war material and other aid that sustained the common fight against Germany.
在我们会面时，哈里曼再次投身外交，率领美国代表团在巴黎与北越谈判，美国在那里开始了寻求结束越南战争的艰难努力。
At the time of our meeting, Harriman was again engaged in diplomacy, leading the American delegation at the Paris talks with North Vietnam, where the United States had begun the difficult work of seeking an end to the Vietnam War.
谈话间，电话响了。电话那头是赛勒斯·万斯，哈里曼在巴黎和谈中的副手、后来的国务卿，正从谈判现场打来电话。哈里曼听完，权衡了一下，然后以一个习惯了掌权者的沉着权威回答：“行，这一点我们可以让步。”我当时只有21岁。我是世界上最幸运的人吗？我想，能在这里，在这个房间里，在这个时刻，目睹历史的诞生，并向一位缔造了如此多历史的人学习？
At one point during our conversation, the telephone rang. On the line was Cyrus Vance, Harriman's deputy at the Paris peace talks and later secretary of state, calling from the negotiations. Harriman listened, weighed the point, and then answered with the calm authority of a man accustomed to power: "OK, We can give on that." I was only 21. Am I the luckiest person in the world, I thought, to be here, in this room, at this moment, watching history being made and learning from a man who had helped make so much of it?
这也不是我学到的全部。哈里曼给了我一条忠告，这条忠告将伴随我一生。当我表达我对政治的兴趣时，他问：“你是独立富裕的吗？"
Nor was that the whole of what I learned. Harriman gave me a piece of advice that would remain with me for the rest of my life. When I expressed my interest in politics, he asked, "Are you independently wealthy?"
“不，”我说。“我什么钱都没有。“然后他谈到了公共生活中财务独立的重要性。他告诉我，如果我对政治感兴趣，我应该首先从商，赚足够的钱来独立生活。只有这样我才会独立。只有这样，我才能做我自己，不受制于任何人。
"No," I said. "I have no money whatsoever." He then spoke about the importance of financial independence in public life. If I was interested in politics, he told me, I should first go into business and make enough money to stand on my own. Only then would I be independent. Only then would I be my own person, beholden to no one.
他说，如果他的父亲不是E。H.哈里曼，联合太平洋铁路公司的董事长，世界上最富有的人之一，我不会坐在那里和他说话。
He said that had his father not been E. H. Harriman, chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad and one of the richest men in the world, I would not have been sitting there talking to him.
当我离开他家时，天空晴朗明亮。我环顾四周，心想这个世界距离我长大的世界有多远。我喜欢它。我完全被哈里曼的魅力、他的权威和他所过的巨大生活所吸引。
When I left his home, the sky was clear and bright. I looked around me and thought how far this world was from the one in which I had been raised. And I loved it. I had been wholly captivated by Harriman's charm, his authority and the immense scale of the life he had lived.
我想立即告诉父母。我冲到一个公用电话亭，把事情的经过一五一十地说了出来。“我刚刚经历了最奇妙的经历，“我告诉他们。
I wanted to tell my parents at once. I rushed to a pay phone and poured out the whole story. "I've just had the most marvelous experience," I told them.
我小时候在郊区的家只比普通的房子好一点，有一片草坪和两辆家用汽车。我们像普通美国人一样生活。经过一天的采访，我觉得自己已经被提升到了一个完全不同的秩序中，哪怕只是一个下午。这就是我的“哈里曼经历”。“斯蒂芬·施瓦茨曼是黑石集团的联合创始人、董事长兼首席执行官。
My childhood home in the suburbs had been only slightly better than an ordinary house, with a lawn and two family cars. We had lived as ordinary Americans did. After a day of interviews, I felt I had been lifted, if only for an afternoon, into an entirely different order of things. That was my "Harriman experience." Stephen Schwarzman is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone.