In the fall of 1989, Princeton University welcomed into its freshman class a young man named Alexi Santana, whose life story the admissions committee had found extraordinarily compelling.
在1989年秋天,普林斯頓大學(xué)新生班上迎來了一位名叫亞歷克西·桑塔納的年輕人,招生委員會發(fā)現(xiàn)他的人生故事非常引人注目。
He had barely received any formal schooling. He had spent his adolescence almost entirely on his own, living outdoors in Utah, where he'd herded cattle, raised sheep, and read philosophy. Running in the Mojave Desert, he had trained himself to be a distance runner.
桑塔納幾乎沒有接受任何正規(guī)學(xué)校教育。他將自己的青春期近乎完全“耗”在了猶他州的戶外活動中:在那里養(yǎng)牛、放羊、讀哲學(xué),在莫哈韋沙漠跑步,將自己訓(xùn)練成一名長跑運動員。
Santana quickly became something of a star on campus. Academically too he did well, earning A's in nearly every course. His reserved manner and unusual background suffused him with an enigmatic appeal. When a suite mate asked Santana how his bed always seemed to be perfectly made, he answered that he slept on the floor. It seemed perfectly logical that someone who had spent much of his life sleeping outdoors would have no fondness for a bed.
桑塔納很快就成了校園里的明星。在學(xué)術(shù)上他也做得很好,幾乎在每一個課程中都得了A。 他的矜持舉止和不尋常的背景讓他充滿了神秘的吸引力。 一次桑塔納的室友問他,為什么他的床鋪總是那么整潔完美,他回答說,因為他睡在地板上。 那些大部分時間在戶外休憩的人都不會喜歡睡在床上,這似乎完全符合邏輯。
Except that Santana's story was a lie. About 18 months after he enrolled, a woman recognized him as somebody she'd known as Jay Huntsman at Palo Alto High School in California six years earlier. But even that wasn't his real name. Princeton officials eventually learned that he was actually James Hogue, a 31-year-old who had served a prison sentence in Utah for possession of stolen tools and bike parts. He was taken away from Princeton in handcuffs.
桑塔納的故事不僅僅是個謠言,還另有隱情。在他入學(xué)的18個月以后,一位女士認出了他——他是6年前在加利福尼亞帕洛阿爾托高中的一個名叫杰·亨斯邁的人--盡管這也不是他的真名。普林斯頓官員最終獲悉,他實際上叫詹姆斯·霍格,當(dāng)時31歲,曾因為擁有被盜的工具和自行車零件而在猶他州服刑。最終他被拷上了手銬帶離了普林斯頓。
In the years since, Hogue has been arrested several times on theft charges. In November, when he was arrested for stealing in Aspen, Colorado, he tried to pass himself off as someone else.
在之后的幾年里,霍格因為偷盜又被捕了幾次。11月,當(dāng)他在科羅拉多州的阿斯彭因偷竊而被捕時,他試圖以別人的身份逃脫。