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Sir Ranulph Fiennes is in Nepal preparing to climb Everest, and nobody is more worried than his wife. Our correspondent talks to the newly married couple
THE GUINNESS Book of Records once described Sir Ranulph Fiennes as the world's greatest explorer, but to his deskbound, predominantly female critics he is a selfish, potentially masochistic show-off whose near-fatal flaw has been to fail to grow up.
For these people it means little that Fiennes discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman, or that he led the first polar circumnavigation of the earth. It remains their belief that only a profoundly troubled individual would be prepared to endure — as Fiennes has — blindness, amputation and unthinkably long periods without a bath to achieve his goals.
Take February 1993, when he and Mike Stroud failed in their attempt to complete the first unaided trip across Antarctica. Even before the frostbitten team called for an emergency airlift home, Anne Robinson was sharpening her pencil. Theirs was a "tiresome and unnecessary trek", she asserted. "Does it not strike you as odd," she continued, "that in order to help one group of physically challenged individuals (MS sufferers, for whom the expedition raised a seven-figure sum), two previously-fit human beings must nearly cripple themselves to death?"
Others labelled him a "dilettante aristocrat" on a "nobly idiotic . . . extremely cold, dangerous, expensive and pointless walk across the Antarctic". Fiennes did manage it in the end, but has always refused to gratify the public with the kind of self-analytical sob stories that our celebrities and even politicians have learnt to churn out so enthusiastically. He believes that class prejudice makes him, a descendent of Charlemagne, an easy target for chippy journalists.
"Words like dilettante and aristocrat appeal to someone naturally critical. They're both nice neat packages to attack and the attacks are both pointless and totally ignorant."
On Saturday Fiennes set off on another mission that people such as Robinson will find impossible to justify. He is to risk his life again in an attempt to conquer Everest, ascending via the more dangerous North Face.
The expedition — Fiennes's first high-altitude challenge — is the result of a conversation with Sibusiso Vilane, the first black man to have conquered the summit. Vilane, 35, now wants to have a go on the North and asked Fiennes along.
They plan to reach the summit in May, by which time Fiennes hopes to have raised ?2 million for the British Heart Foundation. A double bypass saved his life two years ago and enabled him to run seven consecutive marathons in seven continents in a week. But there's a twist. Two twists, in fact. First, Fiennes has bronchitis. Secondly, he has just married a 38-year-old horse-trainer called Louise Millington, whom he met at a lecture he was giving last summer. On the day of our first meeting the couple sit on a banquette at the Ritz, hands and arms intermittently intertwined. There seems to be a blanket ban on Fiennes saying anything very much about their relationship and many of his conversational forays in that direction are curtailed by a sudden "Oh, I'm not supposed to say that" and an only half-amused glance in the direction of his wife. A few days later, on the phone, he becomes so elliptical that it's difficult to know what he's saying. It takes a few long seconds to realise that the anonymous "somebody" to whom he refers cagily is actually Louise.
The death early last year of Ginny, Fiennes's beloved wife of more than three decades, catapulted him into what he described at the time as "one big, black void". Back in February, nothing could have convinced him that he wouldn't spend the rest of his life a lonely and unhappy widower. Now: "I still find it very difficult if I get reminders of Ginny but I look forward to lovely times with Louise, who I have been incredibly lucky to have met," he says.
翻译：英国著名探险家雷纳夫·法因斯目前正在尼泊尔为攀登珠穆朗玛峰做准备，这次他将从更为危险的北坡攀登珠峰。此时没有谁比他的新婚妻子更为他担心。究竟法因斯的妻子是什么样的一位女子愿意承受无尽的担忧、选择一个探险家作丈夫呢？
据英国《泰晤士报》4月4日报道，这是法因斯第1次进行高海拔探险。这次行动是法因斯应西布斯索·维兰的邀请而决定的。维兰是第1位登上珠峰的黑人，这次他想要从北坡登珠峰，并邀请法因斯同行。他们计划5月到达山顶，届时法因斯希望能为英国心脏病基金会筹集到200万英镑。
法因斯用他并不强壮的身体，实现了一个个令人望而生畏的冒险之行。
《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》一书把法因斯形容为世界上最伟大的探险家，但有些人却认为他是一个自私的家伙和潜在的受虐狂，并且爱炫耀。对持有这样看法的人来说，法因斯在阿曼发现了乌巴尔这座被遗忘之城，以及他引领了世界上第1次地球南北两极之游等壮举都不足为奇。他们认为，只有像法因斯这样脑子有严重问题的人才会为了自己的目标，去忍受失明、手术和长期不能洗澡等等这些痛苦。
1993年，法因斯和迈克·斯特劳德第1次尝试独立穿越南极洲，最终失败。他们俩生了冻疮，被空运回国。而与此同时，批评家安妮·罗宾森评论说，他们的尝试是一次“无聊且不必要的跋涉”，虽然他们的这次行动为MS患者筹集了上百万捐款。她说：“这还不够古怪吗？为了帮助一群人，两个本来很健康的人必须要把自己折磨得几乎死去。” 还有人说他是个“崇高的白痴”。
去年年初，与法因斯一起生活了30多年的爱妻金尼去世了，这对法因斯是个沉痛的打击。直到今年2月份，法因斯还认为自己有可能孤独地度过余生。但现在，他说：“一想到金尼我还是会难过，但我期待和路易丝一起开心地生活；遇上她(路易丝)我太幸运了。”法因斯承认自己有点孤僻(这是他少年时就形成的性格)，但他也不习惯孤独。他说，独自远征(比如去北极)缺乏乐趣，因为没有人可以交流。他还说，金尼死后，“我觉得一个人生活非常非常艰难，我经常会想她。”
两周前，法因斯刚刚娶了38岁的训马师路易丝·米林顿为妻，法因斯去年夏天在自己的一次演讲上认识她的。在接受采访时，他们的手臂挽绕在一起。谈到关于他们之间关系的话题时，法因斯说话总是很谨慎，并且常常会话说到一半停住。他说：“哦，我不应该说那事。”他还开心地看了妻子一眼。
路易丝以前结过婚，有一个10岁大的儿子。她不愿多谈自己的过去，但谈到和法因斯的关系，她既热烈又开诚布公。提起初逢时法因斯的那次演讲，她说：“给我印象很深的是，他很累，看起来那么苍白和疲惫。他仿佛只生活在他自己的影子里。所有听讲的人都涌到他周围，却没人问他是否需要一杯咖啡或什么。”
于是，路易丝主动出击，法因斯接过了她送上的一罐可乐，一段浪漫的感情就朦胧地开始了。在圣诞节前不久，法因斯在路易丝的厨房里出其不意地向她求婚。路易丝回忆说：“实际上，那时我对于这方面的问题还没考虑过。之后我们只是花了3个小时来组装我的吸尘器。”
从外貌上看，这对夫妻有很大差异：路易丝金发碧眼，脸颊红润，大眼睛，非常健康。并且，她还是个相当时髦的女郎。而坐在她旁边的法因斯——高而瘦，眼睛斜视，脸颊苍白且有冻伤(这是在法国沙莫尼山和厄瓜多尔为登珠峰而进行训练时冻伤的)。但他对于登珠峰表现得很乐观，还经常开开玩笑，这让他的妻子吓坏了。
路易丝对丈夫的行动抱怨起来，而这又逼她审视自己的处境。他们之间谈过这个问题，但路易丝最终还是在心里接受了法因斯的一切。她说：“我不期望他会在任何方面有所改变。如果还期待他改变的话，我就不会嫁给一个60岁的男人。”
然而，自从他们住在一起，法因斯的生活还是发生了一些变化。法因斯原来藏在房子各个角落里的巧克力被发现并转移了，因为吃巧克力会使他的健康不利，会使他体内的胆固醇增加。法因斯被拖着去听音乐剧《神父》，并且喜欢上了音乐剧。虽然法因斯对医生很反感，他认为医生们是大惊小怪的悲观主义者，并总是把他们打发走。但是，路易丝总是推动着他到专家那里去看心脏和胸部疾病。路易丝一头扎进了一书架关于珠穆朗玛峰的书，还看了一些关于冠心病和营养学方面的书。过去的几个月里，当法因斯为了登珠峰而高兴地忽略了医生的建议的时候，路易丝正在记那些类似《珠穆朗玛的胜利和悲剧》的书里的数字；有多少人在珠峰丧生，珠峰各个位置的氧气含量是多少，这些路易丝都知道。
实际上，路易丝已经介入了珠峰之行。她坚持让法因斯带上备用氧气，并找了一个会说英语的夏尔巴人当向导，以保证她的丈夫喝足够的水、按时吃药。她把服药的说明和时间表打印出来给向导，并且她自己也将前往探险队的营地。对于刚刚结婚两周的这对夫妻来说，这次充满危险的喜马拉雅山脉之旅将成为他们的蜜月。
照顾法因斯会不会成为路易丝全职的工作呢？她说：“我不知道。……我以前没有认识到法因斯对自己如此刻薄。我想，他能从那么多次危险中活过来，靠的是运气，而不是出色的判断。”
法因斯“能够去做”的态度在他的一本畅销书《超越极限》的题目上得到了最好的体现。但路易丝并不认同法因斯的态度，她说：“兰(法因斯的昵称)总是不关心自己的身体，他总是相信决心和意志使他渡过难关。但珠峰是个与以往不同的挑战，它太高了。”
法因斯现在并非处于最佳状态。上周医生通知他说，长久以来的胸腔感染使得他的肺脏呼吸的功能缩小到平时的81%；而珠峰上氧气的含量只有6%。显然，人们有理由再次追问——他为什么要这么做。法因斯说，吸引着他身赴险境的部分原因，是那些地方有着一些难以言喻的东西，那是语言无法描述的。或者，正如李尔王所说的——“理由并不必要”。 (孙亚萍)
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