米歇尔•乔伊斯拿着哥哥的童子军刀。他最近向乔伊斯道歉，他从前曾拿着这把刀追逐6岁时的乔伊斯并假装要袭击她。
简•阿格丽奇(Jane Angelich)带着负罪感生活了四十多年。许多年前，她曾经对某人态度残酷，却从未承认自己的行为。阿格丽奇常常会想到她伤害过的那个人，猜测他是否已经原谅了自己。
Jane Angelich carried the guilt around for more than four decades. Years ago, she had been cruel to someone and had never acknowledged her actions. Often, she thought of the person she had hurt and wondered: Had he ever forgiven her?
最终，她决定再也不能继续背负这个重压了。因此，去年冬天她上网寻找自己曾经错待的那个人。然后，她为自己当时的行为道歉：1961年，当那个人给阿格丽奇家回电话的时候，阿格丽奇告诉他“去死吧”。
Finally, she decided she could carry her burden no longer. So last winter she went online and looked up the person she had mistreated. Then she apologized for telling him to 'drop dead' when he called her house back in 1961.
当年，他们都只有10岁。
They were both 10 years old at the time.
今年58岁的阿格丽奇是加州一家宠物食品公司的首席执行长。她说，当一件事煎熬了你48年时，你需要卸下这个包袱。这是我对别人做过最过分的事情。
'When something is nagging at you for 48 years, you need to clear it up,' says Ms. Angelich, 58 years old, a pet-products company chief executive in Novato, Calif. 'That was the meanest thing I ever did to anyone.'
网络正在帮助人们重新联络昔日恋人、儿时好友甚至是失散多年的亲人，并带来了一种较新的现象：迟来数十年的道歉。网络让我们通过电子邮件交谈， 这种交流方式通常让我们更加勇敢和直接地表示自己，有时候甚至会更加深思熟虑。甚至有ThePublicApology.com和 PerfectApology.com等一些网站专门帮助人们表达歉意。
Along with helping people reconnect with old flames, childhood friends and even long-lost relatives, the Internet is giving rise to a newer phenomenon: the decades-late apology. The Web allows us to converse by email, a form of communication that often makes us braver and more impulsive -- and occasionally even more thoughtful -- about what we say. There are even Web sites, such as ThePublicApology.com and PerfectApology.com, dedicated to facilitating our quest for absolution.
在所有那些我们从网络上找到的故人中，肯定有我们有所亏欠的人，是吗？
And among all those people we are finding from our past online, there is bound to be someone we wronged somehow, right?
在撰写这篇专栏时，我听说了人们为形形色色的事情道歉的故事，从没有归还图书馆的书到约会大学室友的前男友等等。某人向他的姐夫道歉，因为数年 之前他曾劝自己的姐姐不要嫁给他。还有人联络了13年前录取自己的大学，为当年没有填写大学发给他询问为什么选择不入学的调查问卷而道歉。他说，我只是想 改正。
In reporting this column, I heard tales of people asking forgiveness for everything from failing to return a library book to dating a college roommate's ex-boyfriend. One man apologized to his brother-in-law for telling his sister years before not to marry the man. Another told of contacting a university that had admitted him 13 years earlier and apologizing for never filling out the questionnaire they had sent him asking why he chose not to attend. 'I just wanted to set things right,' he said.
当然，并非所有的迟来道歉都是通过网络进行的。我听说一位妇女打电话给她姐姐，为此前关于长胖的事情跟姐姐顶撞而道歉。还有一个打电话给她妈妈，为自己以前因为在单亲家庭长大而心怀怨恨而表达了歉意。一名前雇员打电话给她以前的老板，为被解雇后写书抨击公司而道歉。
Not all tardy apologies come through the Web, of course. I heard from one woman who had picked up the phone to say she was sorry to her sister for confronting her about her weight gain, another who had called her mother to apologize for being resentful over being raised without a father, and a former employee who called her ex-bosses to apologize for writing a book trashing the company after being laid off.
去年春天，米歇尔•乔伊斯(Michelle Joyce)的哥哥突然拿着他以前的童子军刀向乔伊斯道歉，说他从前曾拿着这把刀在厨房里追逐乔伊斯并假装要袭击她。当时，乔伊斯6岁，她哥哥10岁。
Last spring, out of the blue, Michelle Joyce's older brother presented her with his old Cub Scout knife and said he was sorry for chasing her around the kitchen and pretending to attack her with it when she was 6 and he was 10.
乔伊斯的哥哥麦克•杰拉德(Mike Gerard)说，自己看了一本书才想到道歉，这本书鼓励读者回想自己人生中的未尽事宜，不管事情多么琐碎。今年38岁的杰拉德曾经是美国陆军突击队员， 目前居住在俄克拉荷马州的毕克斯比。他说，随着年岁的增长，你意识到你整个人生都在努力保护自己的妹妹，但我也曾经让她和自己失望过。
Mike Gerard, Ms. Joyce's brother, says his apology was inspired by a book that encouraged readers to think about the unresolved events in their lives, no matter how small. 'As you get older, you realize that you spend your whole life trying to protect your younger sister, and that was one time I let her -- and myself -- down,' says the 38-year-old former Army Ranger, who lives in Bixby, Okla.
今年33岁的乔伊斯生活在北卡罗来纳州的夏洛特，她的工作是安排企业研讨会。乔伊斯说，她觉得那件事没什么可道歉的，知道这事让哥哥内疚那么多年，她也不开心。但乔伊斯说，知道道歉一事对他那么重要，我很感动。
Ms. Joyce, 33, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., and books corporate seminars for a living, says she didn't think the incident warranted an apology and felt bad to learn it had troubled her brother for years. 'But I was touched that it meant that much to him to make it right,' she says.
这一切引发了一个问题：如果只是因为有个故人可以让我们道歉，那我们是否应当致歉？毕竟，无论是通过网络或是其他途径，迟来很多很多年的忏悔行为有什么用？
All this raises the question: Just because there is someone from our past we could apologize to, should we? After all, how effective is an act of contrition -- whether proffered over the Web or otherwise -- that comes many, many years late?
想想我的朋友，她大学的拍拖对象最近给她写了封长长的电子邮件，为1987年某个晚上在酒吧对她的不敬举动道歉。信中说他一直后悔自己的行为。她则表示对于他所说的事简直摸不着头脑。
Consider my friend, who recently received a lengthy email from a guy she dated in college, apologizing for the way he treated her at a bar one night in 1987. He said he had always regretted his behavior. She says she had no idea what he was talking about.
（这里我想插一句，如果你是我曾约会的人──我就不说名字了──如果你觉得欠我一个道歉的话，我保证我肯定记得事情原由。所以，尽管来请求我的原谅吧。）
(At this point I'd just like to say that if you are a man I dated -- I won't mention names -- and you think you owe me an apology: I promise you I will remember why. So feel free to beg forgiveness.)
当然，像盗窃或陷害同事这样的行为是严重的，也确实应该道歉。但我们生活在一个自助的文化中，治疗专家、12步骤的项目指导以及脱口秀主持人一 直在提醒我们，宽恕和感恩是通向幸福（以及清醒）的道路。很多时候，迟来的歉意就像忏悔，对道歉的人的意义要大于接受歉意的人。
Of course, some apologies -- for things like theft or backstabbing a colleague -- are serious and really should be made. But we live in a self-help culture, where therapists, 12-step program guides and talk-show hosts are forever reminding us that forgiveness and gratitude are the way to happiness (and sobriety). Many times, a long-overdue apology, much like a confession, does more for the person offering it up than it does for the one receiving it.
阿格丽奇对此表示认同，她在1961年让她五年级的同学去死。阿格丽奇在电子邮件中向那位同学解释说，自己挂他电话，是因为当时她还不知道怎么 和男孩说话，而且由于妈妈在一边听着，她感到很尴尬。阿格丽奇说，他对自己的道歉作出了回答，说他都想不起那回事儿了。但她说，知道他没有受到终生影响， 我很高兴。
Jane Angelich, who told her fifth-grade crush to drop dead in 1961, agrees. She explained in her email to him that she hung up on him because she didn't know how to talk to a boy at the time and was embarrassed that her mother was listening. He replied to her apology, she says, and said he did not remember the incident. 'It was good to know, though, that luckily he wasn't scarred for life,' she says.
不过，有时候小忏悔会需要经历很长的时间（类似临终时候），有时候说抱歉永远不会晚。
Still, there are times when a little contrition can go a long way (like on a deathbed) -- and sometimes it really is never too late to say you're sorry.
劳拉•舒梅克(Laura Shumaker)去年体会到这点，她患有自闭症的儿子以前的一名同班同学向她道歉，因为多年之前在一起上中学的时候，他曾经捉弄过舒梅克的儿子。虽然这个二十出头的年轻人说话支支吾吾，但他承认过错的举动打动了舒梅克。
Laura Shumaker learned this last year, when a former classmate of her autistic son apologized to her for teasing the boy years earlier, when they were both in middle school. Although the young man, who is in his early 20s, hemmed and hawed, it was the acknowledgment of his behavior that mattered to her.
今年54岁的舒梅克说，我当时一路哭回家。她是一名作家，生活在加州拉法耶特。舒梅克说，在生活中你不会知道真实情况，为什么一个人会那样做，因此你必须宽恕。
'I cried all the way home,' says Ms. Shumaker, 54, a writer who lives in Lafayette, Calif. 'In life you don't know what's behind the surface and why a person behaves a certain way, so you have to be forgiving.'
如果你被内心督促着要为多年前所做的事情道歉，那你该怎么做？以下就是一些建议：
So what do you do if you are overcome with the urge to apologize for something you did ages ago? Here are some tips:
--确定你是为了别人道歉，而不是为了自己。（我采访过的那位在一年之后因为当初说姐姐发胖而道歉的女士，她说，姐姐听了她的道歉反而再次发火了，因为她的道歉提醒了姐姐“她当时很胖”。）如果你道歉是为了自己，那么就不要再说你很抱歉了。
-- Make sure you are apologizing for the sake of the other person and not yourself. (The woman I interviewed who apologized to her sister -- a year later -- for mentioning her weight gain says her sister got upset all over again and accused her of 'reminding her that she was fat.') If your motives are selfish, don't bother saying you are sorry.
--不要通过社交网站表达你的歉意。这太轻率了。你应该打电话，或至少写电子邮件，这会显得较为深思熟虑。
-- Resist sending an apology via a social-networking Web site. It's too flip. Use the phone. Or at least write an email, which demonstrates a little more thoughtfulness.
--询问你的行为给别人带来了怎样的影响。辛辛那提的婚姻和家庭问题专家刘易斯(Karen Gail Lewis)说，你能提供的最好礼物就是愿意好好倾听你的行为给别人带来的感受。
-- Ask how your actions affected the other person. 'The best gift you can offer is the willingness to finally hear exactly what the other person felt like as a result of your actions,' says Karen Gail Lewis, a marriage and family therapist in Cincinnati.
--要诚恳。解释你之前做了什么，为什么那样做，以及你为什么现在要道歉。
-- Be sincere. Explain why you did what you did, and why you are apologizing now.
--还有（这话或许有点太唠叨了），下次道歉要更加及时。我一岁半的侄子扎克(Zach)昨天向我道歉，因为他之前向我扔玩具。如果他都能做到，你也可以的。
-- And -- at the risk of sounding like your mother -- try to apologize in a timelier manner next time. My 21-month-old nephew Zach did it yesterday, after throwing one of his toys at me. If he can do it, you can too.