"They slept in their own bedrooms," a Blue Heron Farm staffer told Klein for his expose on the Obamas' relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton, released Monday. "They both had stacks of books by their beds. The president was reading The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell and Rodin's Debutante⁴ by Ward⁵ Just. I don't know if they visited each other's bedroom at night, but I didn't see any signs of that."

 

"The president ate in bed," the staffer added. "You had to change the sheets every day. He smoked cigarettes and didn't try to hide it at all. And he snores. I heard him. He ate a lot of junk food, chips and stuff. He loved fudge（软糖） and bought it from Murdick's Fudge. It was a wonder that he stayed so thin."

 

The staffer's testimony⁶ will only serve to fuel rumors⁷ of marital strife⁸ between the First Couple, which have been reported widely in the press since President Obama snapped a selfie with attractive blonde Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt at Nelson Mandela's funeral. The marital problems were on display during the couple's vacation, according to the staffer quoted by Klein.

 

"The Obamas seemed like they were bickering⁹ a lot, but they whispered so you couldn't exactly hear what it was about," the staffer said. "But I can tell when people are pissed off at each other, and they seemed to be pissed a lot."

 

"In fact," the staffer said, "I didn't see much warmth between the president and the first lady at all. They almost seemed to avoid each other."

 

"When the president was going on about something, Michelle would put on her earphones and listen to her iPod. She tuned¹⁰ him out."

 

"And they didn't do much together. Michelle went out with her friends to lunch or dinner," Klein's source claimed, "and he stayed at home or went to the gym to play basketball or had a game of golf."

点击收听单词发音