Then came that July Sunday afternoon when our house suddenly emptied, and we were the only ones there, and fire tore through my guts—because “fire” was the first and easiest word that came to me later that same evening when I tried to make sense of it in my diary. I’d waited and waited in my room pinioned to my bed in a trancelike state of terror and anticipation. Not a fire of passion, not a ravaging fire, but something paralyzing, like the fire of cluster bombs that suck up the oxygen around them and leave you panting because you’ve been kicked in the gut and a vacuum has ripped up every living lung tissue and dried your mouth, and you hope nobody speaks, because you can’t talk, and you pray no one asks you to move, because your heart is clogged and beats so fast it would sooner spit out shards of glass than let anything else flow through its narrowed chambers. Fire like fear, like panic, like one more minute of this and I’ll die if he doesn’t knock at my door, but I’d sooner he never knock than knock now. I had learned to leave my French windows ajar, and I’d lie on my bed wearing only my bathing suit, my entire body on fire. Fire like a pleading that says, Please, please, tell me I’m wrong, tell me I’ve imagined all this, because it can’t possibly be true for you as well, and if it’s true for you too, then you’re the cruelest man alive. This, the afternoon he did finally walk into my room without knocking as if summoned by my prayers and asked how come I wasn’t with the others at the beach, and all I could think of saying, though I couldn’t bring myself to say it, was, To be with you. To be with you, Oliver. With or without my bathing suit. To be with you on my bed. In your bed. Which is my bed during the other months of the year. Do with me what you want. Take me. Just ask if I want to and see the answer you’ll get, just don’t let me say no.
 
接著是七月那個(gè)星期天的下午，屋子突然空了，只剩我們倆，火迅速在我五勝六腑間呼嘯蔓延開來(lái)——“火”是當(dāng)晚我試圖在日記里理清這件事時(shí)，第一個(gè)想到、也是最簡(jiǎn)單的字眼。我待在房間里，以一種驚恐又期待的恍惚狀態(tài)緊縛在床上，等待再等待。那不是激情的火，不是摧殘的火，而是讓人麻痹癱瘓的東西，像子母彈的火那樣吸光周圍的氧氣，讓你氣喘吁吁，內(nèi)臟受到撞擊，真空狀態(tài)撕碎每一個(gè)活著的肺組織，讓你口干舌燥。你希望誰(shuí)也別說(shuō)話，因?yàn)槟銦o(wú)法開口；你祈求沒人要你移動(dòng)，因?yàn)槟愕男募∽枞蔑w快，還來(lái)不及讓任何東西流過(guò)狹窄的心室之前，似乎已經(jīng)要噴出玻璃碎片。那火是害怕，是恐慌，仿佛再多捱一分鐘，如果他還不來(lái)敲我的門我就會(huì)死——但與其現(xiàn)在來(lái)到，我寧可他永遠(yuǎn)別來(lái)。我將落地窗打開一條小縫，只穿著泳衣躺在床上，全身猶如著火一般。這片火猶如懇求著：拜托，求你了，告訴我我錯(cuò)了！告訴我這一切都是我的想象，因?yàn)檫@對(duì)你來(lái)說(shuō)也不可能是真的；如果對(duì)你來(lái)說(shuō)也是真的，那么你就是世上最殘忍的人。仿佛被我的祈禱召喚而來(lái)，下午他終于真的沒敲門就走進(jìn)我的房間，問(wèn)我為什么沒跟其他人一起去海邊，此時(shí)我滿腦子只想說(shuō)：為了跟你在一起——雖然我說(shuō)不出口。為了跟你在一起，奧利弗。無(wú)論穿不穿泳衣都好。我想跟你在一起，在我床上，在你床上——那張一年中其他月份里本屬于我的床。跟我做你想做的事。占有我。問(wèn)我想不想要就好，看看你會(huì)得到什么答案，只是別讓我拒絕。
 
And tell me I wasn’t dreaming that night when I heard a noise outside the landing by my door and suddenly knew that someone was in my room, someone was sitting at the foot of my bed, thinking, thinking, thinking, and finally started moving up toward me and was now lying, not next to me, but on top of me, while I lay on my tummy, and that I liked it so much that, rather than risk doing anything to show I’d been awakened or to let him change his mind and go away, I feigned to be fast asleep, thinking, This is not, cannot, had better not be a dream, because the words that came to me, as I pressed my eyes shut, were, This is like coming home, like coming home after years away among Trojans4 and Lestrygonians, like coming home to a place where everyone is like you, where people know, they just know—coming home as when everything falls into place and you suddenly realize that for seventeen years all you’d been doing was fiddling with the wrong combination. Which was when I decided to convey without budging, without moving a single muscle in my body, that I’d be willing to yield if you pushed, that I’d already yielded, was yours, all yours, except that you were suddenly gone and though it seemed too true to be a dream, yet I was convinced that all I wanted from that day onward was for you to do the exact same thing you’d done in my sleep.
 
也請(qǐng)告訴我那天晚上我不是無(wú)端做夢(mèng)。我聽到門邊的樓梯平臺(tái)傳來(lái)一陣噪音，突然意識(shí)到有人進(jìn)了我房間，就坐在我的床尾，思量、思量、再三思量，總算往我這邊移來(lái)，而后躺倒下來(lái)——不是躺在我身邊，而是壓在趴著的我身上。我是多么喜歡這樣子，因此絲毫不敢貿(mào)然而動(dòng)，以免讓他察覺他吵醒了我、或讓他改變主意掉頭離開。我假裝酣睡，腦中一片轟然，想著：這不是、不可能是、最好不是一場(chǎng)夢(mèng)。當(dāng)我克制著緊閉雙眼，此時(shí)所能想到的就只有：“這就像歸鄉(xiāng)”。就像外出多年與特洛伊人和萊斯特律戈涅斯人作戰(zhàn)后，終于回到只有同類的國(guó)度，那兒的人了解，他們就是了解；就像回到故里，塵埃落定，萬(wàn)事就緒，你突然醒悟原來(lái)這十七年來(lái)你只是虛度時(shí)光，不斷與錯(cuò)誤的人群瞎攪和。就是在這一刻，我決定一動(dòng)也不動(dòng)，以身體鎮(zhèn)定的姿態(tài)告訴他：如果你前進(jìn)一步，我愿意屈服；我已然屈服于你，我是你的，全是你的。然而你卻突然離開了。雖然感覺太過(guò)真實(shí)，不像一場(chǎng)夢(mèng)，但我深信從那天開始，我一心企盼著你對(duì)我做你在我睡夢(mèng)中做的事，一模一樣的事。

《請(qǐng)以你的名字呼喚我》