《渺小一生》:從巴黎回來后，他做了個夢

　 Willem stayed with him until the very day he had to leave for Colombo. He was playing the eldest son of a faded Dutch merchant family in Sri Lanka in the early nineteen-forties, and had grown a thick mustache that curled up at its tips; when Willem hugged him, he felt it brushing against his ear. For a moment, he wanted to break down and beg Willem not to leave. Don’t go, he wanted to tell him. Stay here with me. I’m scared to be alone. He knew that if he did say this, Willem would: or he would at least try. But he would never say this. He knew it would be impossible for Willem to delay the shoot, and he knew that Willem would feel guilty for his inability to do so. Instead, he tightened his hold on Willem, which was something he rarely did—he rarely showed Willem any physical affection—and he could feel that Willem was surprised, but then he increased his pressure as well, and the two of them stood there, wrapped around each other, for a long time. He remembered thinking that he wasn’t wearing enough layers to really let Willem hug him this closely, that Willem would be able to feel the scars on his back through his shirt, but in the moment it was more important to simply be near him; he had the sense that this was the last time this would happen, the last time he would see Willem. He had this fear every time Willem went away, but it was keener this time, less theoretical; it felt more like a real departure.

威廉一直陪著他，直到要去科倫坡[1]那天。他將在新片中飾演20世紀(jì)40年代初斯里蘭卡一個沒落荷蘭商人家族的長子，他已經(jīng)蓄了厚厚的小胡子，兩邊尾端還朝上翹；威廉跟他擁抱告別時，他感覺到那小胡子搔著他的耳朵。一時間，他差點崩潰，很想求威廉不要離開。他想告訴他，別走。留在這里陪我。我很怕孤單一人。他知道如果自己真的這么說，威廉會留下的，至少他會想辦法試試看。但他永遠(yuǎn)不會這么做。他知道威廉不可能耽誤電影拍攝，他知道威廉會因為自己無法留下而覺得內(nèi)疚。于是，他什么都沒說，只是很難得地抱緊了威廉（他很少在肢體上對威廉顯露任何情感），他可以感覺到威廉很驚訝，接著也把他抱得更緊，兩個人就站在那里緊擁了好久。他記得當(dāng)時還想著自己穿得不夠厚，威廉把他抱得這么緊，會感覺到他背部襯衫底下的疤痕，但是那一刻，更重要的就只是靠近他。他感覺這是最后一次這樣了，是他最后一次見到威廉了。每回威廉離開時，他都有這種恐懼，但這回卻特別強烈，特別難以解釋，感覺像是真正的離別。

　 After Willem left, things were fine for a few days. But then they got bad again. The hyenas returned, more numerous and famished than before, more vigilant in their hunt. And then everything else returned as well: years and years and years of memories he had thought he had controlled and defanged, all crowding him once again, yelping and leaping before his face, unignorable in their sounds, indefatigable in their clamor for his attention. He woke gasping for air: he woke with the names of people he had sworn he would never think of again on his tongue. He replayed the night with Caleb again and again, obsessively, the memory slowing so that the seconds he was standing naked in the rain on Greene Street stretched into hours, so that his flight down the stairs took days, so that Caleb’s raping him in the shower, in the elevator, took weeks. He had visions of taking an ice pick and jamming it through his ear, into his brain, to stop the memories. He dreamed of slamming his head against the wall until it split and cracked and the gray meat tumbled out with a wet, bloody thunk. He had fantasies of emptying a container of gasoline over himself and then striking a match, of his mind being gobbled by fire. He bought a set of X-ACTO blades and held three of them in his palm and made a fist around them and watched the blood drip from his hand into the sink as he screamed into the quiet apartment.

威廉離開后，剛開始幾天還好，但接著又惡化了。那些鬣狗回來了，數(shù)量比之前更多，也更饑餓，更留神尋找獵物。然后其他的一切也回來了：他以為自己已經(jīng)控制且抹去棱角的多年回憶，全部再度涌向他，在他眼前吠叫跳躍著，那些聲音讓人無法忽視，那些吵嚷堅持不懈，非得要吸引他的注意。他半夜猛喘著醒來，嘴里喊著的那些名字是他早已發(fā)誓絕對不再想起的。他腦袋里一次又一次地回放著和凱萊布的那一夜，走火入魔，而且記憶放慢許多，因而他赤裸地站在格林街雨中的幾秒鐘延長為幾個小時，他飛下樓梯花了好幾天，凱萊布在淋浴間、在電梯里強暴他花了好幾個星期。他幻想著拿起一把冰錐，刺穿耳朵，刺入腦中，好停止那些回憶。他夢想用腦袋撞墻，撞到頭骨破裂、炸開，灰色的肉“砰”的一聲滾出來，成為一攤濕漉漉、血淋淋的模糊碎塊。他空想著要把一桶汽油淋遍全身，然后點一根火柴，讓他的腦子被大火吞噬。他買了一套X-ACTO片[2]刀片，放了三片在掌心，捏緊拳頭，看著血從手里滴入水槽，同時他的尖叫聲響徹安靜的公寓。

　 He asked Lucien for more work and was given it, but it wasn’t enough. He tried to volunteer for more hours at the artists’ nonprofit, but they didn’t have any additional shifts to give him. He tried to volunteer at a place where Rhodes had once done some pro bono work, an immigrants’ rights organization, but they said they were really looking for Mandarin and Arabic speakers at the moment and didn’t want to waste his time. He cut himself more and more; he began cutting around the scars themselves, so that he could actually remove wedges of flesh, each piece topped with a silvery sheen of scar tissue, but it didn’t help, not enough. At night, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in, and hadn’t for years: Help me, help me, help me, he pleaded. He was losing himself; this had to stop. He couldn’t keep running forever.

他要求呂西安給他更多的工作，也如愿以償了，但還是不夠。他想去那個非營利藝術(shù)家團體做更多義務(wù)服務(wù)，但他們沒有多余的時段給他。他去了以前羅茲做公益服務(wù)的一個移民權(quán)利組織，但他們說目前缺的是會講中文和阿拉伯語的人，不想浪費他的時間。他割自己割得越來越兇；又開始繞著疤痕周圍割，這樣就可以把那些凸起、發(fā)著銀光的疤痕組織割掉，但這樣沒有什么幫助，就是不夠。到了夜里，他向自己多年不信的神祈禱：幫我，幫我，幫我，他懇求道。他快發(fā)瘋了，這個狀況必須停止。他沒法永遠(yuǎn)跑下去。

　 It was August; the city was empty. Malcolm was in Sweden on holiday with Sophie; Richard was in Capri; Rhodes was in Maine; Andy was on Shelter Island (“Remember,” he’d said before he left, as he always said before a long vacation, “I’m just two hours away; you need me, and I catch the next ferry back”). He couldn’t bear to be around Harold, whom he couldn’t see without being reminded of his debasement; he called and told him he had too much work to go to Truro. Instead he spontaneously bought a ticket to Paris and spent the long, lonely Labor Day weekend there, wandering the streets by himself. He didn’t contact anyone he knew there—not Citizen, who was working for a French bank, or Isidore, his upstairs neighbor from Hereford Street, who was teaching there, or Phaedra, who had taken a job as the director of a satellite of a New York gallery—they wouldn’t have been in the city anyway.

那是八月，紐約市一片空寂。馬爾科姆跟蘇菲去瑞典度假；理查德在意大利的卡普里島；羅茲在緬因州；安迪去了長島東端的謝爾特島（“記住，我離這里只有兩個小時；如果你需要我，我坐下一班渡輪就回來了。”他離開前說，一如他每次放長假那樣）。他沒辦法跟哈羅德在一起，每次看到哈羅德，他都會想起自己曾經(jīng)淪落得有多慘；他打電話說自己工作太多，沒辦法去特魯羅。然后他臨時起意買了張機票飛到巴黎，在那里度過漫長、孤單的勞動節(jié)周末，獨自在街上漫游。他沒聯(lián)絡(luò)任何在巴黎的熟人（西提任當(dāng)時在一家法國銀行工作，住赫里福德街時樓上的鄰居伊西多爾也在巴黎教書，菲德拉則在一家紐約畫廊的巴黎分公司當(dāng)總監(jiān)），反正他們一定都到外地度假了，不會留在巴黎市區(qū)。

　 He was tired, he was so tired. It was taking so much energy to hold the beasts off. He sometimes had an image of himself surrendering to them, and they would cover him with their claws and beaks and talons and peck and pinch and pluck away at him until he was nothing, and he would let them.

他累了，真的好累。他花了好多力氣不讓那些野獸近身。他有時想象自己被包圍，它們一起撲上前，用爪子和尖喙又啄又抓又扯，直到他被吞噬殆盡，他完全不會反抗。

　 After he returned from Paris, he had a dream in which he was running across a cracked reddish plain of earth. Behind him was a dark cloud, and although he was fast, the cloud was faster. As it drew closer, he heard a buzzing, and realized it was a swarm of insects, terrible and oily and noisy, with pincerlike protuberances jutting out from beneath their eyes. He knew that if he stopped, he would die, and yet even in the dream he knew he couldn’t go on for much longer; at some point, he had stopped being able to run and had started hobbling instead, reality asserting itself even in his dreams. And then he heard a voice, one unfamiliar but calm and authoritative, speak to him. Stop, it said. You can end this. You don’t have to do this. It was such a relief to hear those words, and he stopped, abruptly, and faced the cloud, which was seconds, feet away from him, exhausted and waiting for it to be over.

從巴黎回來后，他做了個夢，夢到自己跑過一大片干裂的紅土平原。他身后是一團烏云。他跑得很快，但那團云更快。烏云離他越來越近，他聽到嗡嗡聲，才明白那是一大群昆蟲，又可怕又油亮又嘈雜，雙眼底下伸出一對像螯的東西。他知道自己停下來就會死，但即使在夢中，他都知道自己撐不了多久；到了某個時間，他就再也跑不動，必須開始跛行，連在夢中都無法脫離這個現(xiàn)實。接著他聽到一個人聲，不熟悉，但冷靜、充滿權(quán)威，對著他說話?！巴Ｏ?，”那聲音說，“你可以結(jié)束這個。你不必?fù)蜗氯??！蹦憧梢越Y(jié)束這個。你不必?fù)蜗氯?。聽到這句話真是一大解脫，于是他突然停下，面對那團離他只差幾秒鐘距離的烏云，筋疲力盡地等著一切結(jié)束。

　 He woke, frightened, because he knew what the words meant, and they both terrified and comforted him. Now, as he moved through his days, he heard that voice in his head, and he was reminded that he could, in fact, stop. He didn’t, in fact, have to keep going.

他醒來，很害怕，因為他知道那些話的意思，驚駭?shù)耐瑫r又覺得欣慰。現(xiàn)在，當(dāng)他熬過每一天，腦袋里都會聽到那個聲音，然后想到他其實可以停止，不必再繼續(xù)下去。

　 He had considered killing himself before, of course; when he was in the home, and in Philadelphia, and after Ana had died. But something had always stopped him, although now, he couldn’t remember what that thing had been. Now as he ran from the hyenas, he argued with himself: Why was he doing this? He was so tired; he so wanted to stop. Knowing that he didn’t have to keep going was a solace to him, somehow; it reminded him that he had options, it reminded him that even though his subconscious wouldn’t obey his conscious, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still in control.

他以前當(dāng)然考慮過自殺；當(dāng)年在少年之家，還有在費城，還有安娜死后，他都想過。但總有事情阻止他，不過現(xiàn)在他不記得是什么事了。如今每當(dāng)他被那些鬣狗追著跑時，他就會跟自己爭辯：為什么他要這么做？他好累；他好想停下來。不知怎的，知道自己不必繼續(xù)下去是一大慰藉；這提醒了他，讓他想到自己還有別的選擇；也提醒他：即使?jié)撘庾R不遵從他的知覺，也不表示他失控了。

　 Almost as an experiment, he began thinking of what it would mean for him to leave: in January, after his most lucrative year at the firm yet, he had updated his will, so that was in order. He would need to write a letter to Willem, a letter to Harold, a letter to Julia; he would also want to write something to Lucien, to Richard, to Malcolm. To Andy. To JB, forgiving him. Then he could go. Every day, he thought about it, and thinking about it made things easier. Thinking about it gave him fortitude.

仿佛是做實驗一般，他開始想如果他要離開的話，得交代什么。一月，他領(lǐng)到進(jìn)事務(wù)所后最大的一筆年度分紅，他更新了自己的遺囑，所以這部分準(zhǔn)備妥當(dāng)了。他得寫一封信給威廉、一封給哈羅德、一封給朱麗婭；他也想留話給呂西安、理查德、馬爾科姆。還要寫給安迪。寫給杰比，原諒他。然后他就可以走了。每一天，他都想著這些事情，然后就好過一點。想著這件事給了他堅毅。

　 And then, at some point, it was no longer an experiment. He couldn’t remember how he had decided, but after he had, he felt lighter, freer, less tormented. The hyenas were still chasing him, but now he could see, very far in the distance, a house with an open door, and he knew that once he had reached that house, he would be safe, and everything that pursued him would fall away. They didn’t like it, of course—they could see the door as well, they knew he was about to elude them—and every day the hunt got worse, the army of things chasing him stronger and louder and more insistent. His brain was vomiting memories, they were flooding everything else—he thought of people and sensations and incidents he hadn’t thought of in years. Tastes appeared on his tongue as if by alchemy; he smelled fragrances he hadn’t smelled in decades. His system was compromised; he would drown in his memories; he had to do something. He had tried—all his life, he had tried. He had tried to be someone different, he had tried to be someone better, he had tried to make himself clean. But it hadn’t worked. Once he had decided, he was fascinated by his own hopefulness, by how he could have saved himself years of sorrow by just ending it—he could have been his own savior. No law said he had to keep on living; his life was still his own to do with what he pleased. How had he not realized this in all these years? The choice now seemed obvious; the only question was why it had taken him so long.

然而，想到一個程度，那就不再只是個實驗。他想不起自己是怎么決定的，但決定之后，他覺得自己更輕盈、更自由，也比較不那么受折磨了。那些鬣狗依然追著他，但現(xiàn)在他可以看到，在很遠(yuǎn)的遠(yuǎn)方，有一棟房子開著門，他知道一旦自己跑進(jìn)那棟房子，他就安全了，一切追逐都會消失。那些鬣狗當(dāng)然不喜歡這樣——它們也看得到那扇門，它們知道他就要逃掉了——而每一天，那些追逐都更兇惡，追逐他的陣容變得更壯大、更吵嚷，也更堅持。他的腦子狂吐出一段段回憶，到處泛濫——他回想起多年來沒再想過的人、感覺和事件。他舌頭上仿佛變魔術(shù)般冒出種種滋味；還聞到幾十年沒聞到過的香味。他的身體都妥協(xié)了；他會被他的回憶淹沒；他得做點事情。他試過了——他這輩子都在努力嘗試。他試過當(dāng)個不一樣的人，他試過當(dāng)個更好的人，他試過讓自己干凈。但是沒有用。一旦他決定之后，他就深深入迷了，因為自己滿懷希望，只要結(jié)束生命，就可以拯救自己多年來的不幸——他可以成為自己的拯救者。沒有法律規(guī)定他得活下去；他的這條命還是他自己的，他愛做什么就做什么。這么多年來，他怎么都沒有明白這一點？現(xiàn)在他的選擇似乎很明顯了；唯一的問題就是為什么拖了這么久。

　 He talked to Harold; he could tell by the relief in Harold’s voice that he must be sounding more normal. He talked to Willem. “You sound better,” Willem said, and he could hear the relief in Willem’s voice as well.

他打電話找哈羅德；從哈羅德如釋重負(fù)的聲音，他知道自己聽起來一定比較正常了。他跟威廉交談?！澳懵犉饋砗枚嗔??！蓖f。他也聽得出威廉松了口氣。

　 “I am,” he said. He felt a pull of regret after talking to both of them, but he was determined. He was no good for them, anyway; he was only an extravagant collection of problems, nothing more. Unless he stopped himself, he would consume them with his needs. He would take and take and take from them until he had chewed away their every bit of flesh; they could answer every difficulty he posed to them and he would still find new ways to destroy them. For a while, they would mourn him, because they were good people, the best, and he was sorry for that—but eventually they would see that their lives were better without him in it. They would see how much time he had stolen from them; they would understand what a thief he had been, how he had suckled away all their energy and attention, how he had exsanguinated them. He hoped they would forgive him; he hoped they would see that this was his apology to them. He was releasing them—he loved them most of all, and this was what you did for people you loved: you gave them their freedom.

“我是好多了啊?！彼f。跟他們分別談過之后，他感覺到一股后悔的力量，但是他下定決心了。總之，他對他們沒有好處；他只是個麻煩的大集合，如此而已。除非他自己停下來，否則他會以自己的種種需要毀掉他們。他會從他們身上一直索取一直索取一直索取，直到他一口口啃光他們的肉為止；他們會解決他所提出的每一道難題，但他還是會找出新的辦法摧毀他們。他走了之后，他們會為他哀悼一陣子，因為他們是好人，最好的人，而他會因此遺憾——但最終他們會明白，他們的人生沒有他會更好。他們會看清他從他們身上偷走了多少時間；他們會了解他根本是個小偷，吸光了他們所有的精力和注意力，吸干了他們的血。他希望他們能原諒他；他希望他們能看清這是他對他們的道歉。他離開他們——他最愛的人，而為了你所愛的人，你就該這么做：讓他們自由。

　 The day came: a Monday at the end of September. The night before he had realized that it was almost exactly a year after the beating, although he hadn’t planned it that way. He left work early that evening. He had spent the weekend organizing his projects; he had written Lucien a memo detailing the status of everything he had been working on. At home, he lined up his letters on the dining-room table, and a copy of his will. He had left a message with Richard’s studio manager that the toilet in the master bathroom kept running and asked if Richard could let in the plumber the following day at nine—both Richard and Willem had a set of keys to his apartment—because he would be away on business.

那天來到了：九月底的星期一。前一夜他才發(fā)現(xiàn)，他挨揍后幾乎正好滿一年，不過他并沒有刻意這樣計劃。那天晚上他很早就下班了。前一個周末，他都在整理手上的案子，他寫了一份備忘錄給呂西安，詳細(xì)列出手上工作的狀況?；氐郊?，他把他的信排列在餐廳的桌上，還加上一份遺囑。他留話給理查德的工作室主任，說主浴室的馬桶水箱一直在漏水，問理查德能不能讓水管工次日早上9點過來檢查（理查德和威廉都有他公寓的備份鑰匙），因為屆時他已經(jīng)去上班了。

　 He took off his suit jacket and tie and shoes and watch and went to the bathroom. He sat in the shower area with his sleeves pushed up. He had a glass of scotch, which he sipped at to steady himself, and a box cutter, which he knew would be easier to hold than a razor. He knew what he needed to do: three straight vertical lines, as deep and long as he could make them, following the veins up both arms. And then he would lie down and wait.

他脫掉西裝外套、領(lǐng)帶、鞋子和手表，進(jìn)入浴室。他坐在淋浴間，卷起袖子。他準(zhǔn)備了一杯蘇格蘭威士忌，慢慢喝著穩(wěn)定情緒，還有一把美工刀，他知道這比刮胡刀片好握。他也知道自己該怎么做：沿著兩邊手臂的靜脈割三條垂直線，盡量割得深而長。然后他就會躺下來等死。

　 He waited for a while, crying a bit, because he was tired and frightened and because he was ready to go, he was ready to leave. Finally he rubbed his eyes and began. He started with his left arm. He made the first cut, which was more painful than he had thought it would be, and he cried out. Then he made the second. He took another drink of the scotch. The blood was viscous, more gelatinous than liquid, and a brilliant, shimmering oil-black. Already his pants were soaked with it, already his grip was loosening. He made the third.

他等了一會兒，哭了一會兒，因為他又累又怕，也因為他準(zhǔn)備好要走了，他準(zhǔn)備要離開了。最后他揉揉眼睛，開始動手。他先從左手臂開始，劃下第一刀，結(jié)果比他原先以為的要痛，他叫出聲來。然后劃了第二刀。他又喝了一杯威士忌。那些血好黏稠，比較像膠狀而非液體，而且是一種明亮、閃著微光的油黑色。他的長褲已經(jīng)沾上了血，緊握的手也開始放松了。他劃了第三刀。

　 When he was done with both arms, he slumped against the back of the shower wall. He wished, absurdly, for a pillow. He was warm from the scotch, and from his own blood, which lapped at him as it pooled around his legs—his insides meeting his outsides, the inner bathing the outer. He closed his eyes. Behind him, the hyenas howled, furious at him. Before him stood the house with its open door. He wasn’t close yet, but he was closer than he’d been: close enough to see that inside, there was a bed where he could rest, where he could lie down and sleep after his long run, where he would, for the first time in his life, be safe.

兩手都割完之后，他往后靠著淋浴間的墻壁，忽然很荒謬地希望有個枕頭。蘇格蘭威士忌讓他全身溫暖，他的血流出來，圍繞著雙腿越積越多，于是他的體內(nèi)與體外交會，內(nèi)部浸浴著外表。他閉上眼睛。在他后方，那些鬣狗朝著他怒不可遏地嚎叫。他前方是那棟打開門的房子。他還沒接近，但已經(jīng)比以前都更接近了：近得足以看到屋里，有一張床可以休息，他可以在長跑之后躺下來睡覺，在里頭，有生以來第一次，他將會安全了。

　 After they crossed into Nebraska, Brother Luke stopped at the edge of a wheat field and beckoned him out of the car. It was still dark, but he could hear the birds stirring, hear them talk back to a sun they couldn’t yet see. He took the brother’s hand and they skulked from the car and to a large tree, where Luke explained that the other brothers would be looking for them, and they would have to change their appearance. He took off the hated tunic, and put on the clothes Brother Luke held out for him: a sweatshirt with a hood and a pair of jeans. Before he did, though, he stood still as Luke cut off his hair with an electric razor. The brothers rarely cut his hair, and it was long, past his ears, and Brother Luke made sad noises as he removed it. “Your beautiful hair,” he said, and carefully wrapped the length of it in his tunic and then stuffed it into a garbage bag. “You look like every other boy now, Jude. But later, when we’re safe, you can grow it back, all right?” and he nodded, although really, he liked the idea of looking like every other boy. And then Brother Luke changed clothes himself, and he turned away to give the brother privacy. “You can look, Jude,” said Luke, laughing, but he shook his head. When he turned back, the brother was unrecognizable, in a plaid shirt and jeans of his own, and he smiled at him before shaving off his beard, the silvery bristles falling from him like splinters of metal. There were baseball caps for both of them, although the inside of Brother Luke’s was fitted with a yellowish wig, which covered his balding head completely. There were pairs of glasses for both of them as well: his were black and round and fitted with just glass, not real lenses, but Brother Luke’s were square and large and brown and had the same thick lenses as his real glasses, which he put into the bag. He could take them off when they were safe, Brother Luke told him.

他們進(jìn)入內(nèi)布拉斯加州之后，盧克修士在一小片麥田邊緣停下，示意他下車。當(dāng)時天還沒亮，但他聽得到鳥兒的騷動，聽到它們跟尚未露臉的太陽對話。他牽著修士的手，兩人躡手躡腳離開車旁，來到一棵大樹下。盧克解釋其他修士會找他們，所以他們得改變外貌。他脫掉那件討厭的長袍，穿上盧克修士遞給他的衣服：有帽兜的長袖運動衫和牛仔褲。不過他換上之前，先站著不動，讓盧克用一把電動剃刀幫他剪頭發(fā)。修士們很少幫他剪頭發(fā)，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)留得很長，超過耳朵了，盧克修士邊剪邊發(fā)出難過的聲音。“你美麗的頭發(fā)。”他說，然后小心翼翼地把頭發(fā)包在他的長袍里，再塞進(jìn)一個垃圾袋?！澳悻F(xiàn)在看起來就像其他男孩了，裘德。但之后等我們安全了，你就可以再把頭發(fā)留長，好嗎？”他點點頭，但其實，他喜歡自己看起來像其他男孩。然后，盧克修士自己也換了衣服，他轉(zhuǎn)開身好讓修士有隱私?！澳憧梢钥吹?，裘德?！北R克笑著說，但他搖搖頭。等他轉(zhuǎn)回身來，看到身穿格子襯衫和牛仔褲、露出微笑的修士，根本認(rèn)不出來了。接著修士剃掉大胡子，那銀色的短毛像金屬碎片般掉落。然后兩個人都戴上棒球帽，不過盧克修士的帽子里還裝了一頂?shù)S色的假發(fā)，好蓋住他全禿的腦袋。另外他們還有一人一副眼鏡：他的是黑色圓框平光鏡，盧克修士的則是大大的褐色方框鏡，原先的眼鏡則放到垃圾袋里。盧克修士說，等到安全后，他就可以把眼鏡拿下來了。

　 They were on their way to Texas, which is where they’d build their cabin. He had always imagined Texas as flat land, just dust and sky and road, which Brother Luke said was mostly true, but there were parts of the state—like in east Texas, where he was from—that were forested with spruce and cedars.

他們要前往德州建造他們的小木屋。他原先一直想象德州是一片平原，只有沙塵、天空、馬路。盧克修士說大部分是這樣沒錯，但這個州的某些部分，比如他的家鄉(xiāng)東德州，就有云杉和雪松森林。

　 It took them nineteen hours to reach Texas. It would have been less time, but at one point Brother Luke pulled off the side of the highway and said he needed to nap for a while, and the two of them slept for several hours. Brother Luke had packed them something to eat as well—peanut butter sandwiches—and in Oklahoma they stopped again in the parking lot of a rest stop to eat them.

他們花了十九個小時才抵達(dá)德州。本來可以更快的，但中間修士在公路邊暫停，說他們得打個盹，于是兩個人睡了幾小時。盧克修士也帶了一些花生醬三明治，到了俄克拉荷馬州時，他們在休息站的停車場停下來吃。

　 The Texas of his mind had, with just a few descriptions from Brother Luke, transformed from a landscape of tumbleweeds and sod into one of pines, so tall and fragrant that they cottoned out all other sound, all other life, so when Brother Luke announced that they were now, officially, in Texas, he looked out the window, disappointed.

他心目中的德州原本由一大片風(fēng)滾草和草皮組成，但單憑盧克修士的少許描述，它已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)橐黄蓸渖?。那些松樹高大而芳香，阻絕了其他聲音、其他生活。當(dāng)盧克修士宣布他們現(xiàn)在正式進(jìn)入德州時，他看著車窗外，覺得很失望。