《渺小一生》:“那兩個(gè)老惡棍怎么樣了？”

　 Willem comes home twice during the course of the shoot for long weekends; but one weekend he is sick with a stomach flu, and the next Willem is sick with bronchitis. But both times—as he feels every time he hears Willem walk into the apartment, calling his name—he must remind himself that this is his life, and that in this life, Willem is coming home to him. In those moments, he feels that his dislike of sex is miserly, that he must be misremembering how bad it is, and that even if he isn’t, he has simply to try harder, that he has to pity himself less. Toughen up, he scolds himself as he kisses Willem goodbye at the end of these weekends. Don’t you dare ruin this. Don’t you dare complain about what you don’t even deserve.

威廉去倫敦拍片期間，中間兩度在周末回家——第一個(gè)周末他得了腸胃型流感，第二次是得了支氣管炎。不過(guò)這兩次，每當(dāng)他感覺(jué)到自己聽(tīng)見(jiàn)威廉走進(jìn)公寓、喊他的名字時(shí)，他就得提醒自己這是他的生活，而在他的生活里，威廉回家了，回到了他身邊。那些時(shí)刻，他會(huì)覺(jué)得自己不喜歡性愛(ài)實(shí)在太小心眼了，他一定把那糟糕的程度記錯(cuò)了，就算他沒(méi)記錯(cuò)，他只要更努力，千萬(wàn)別再那么自憐自艾就好。堅(jiān)強(qiáng)起來(lái)，那兩個(gè)周末結(jié)束時(shí)，他一邊跟威廉吻別，一邊在心里暗罵自己。絕對(duì)不準(zhǔn)毀掉這個(gè)。絕對(duì)不準(zhǔn)抱怨你根本不配得到的。

　 And then one night, less than a month before Willem is due to come home for good, he wakes and believes he is in the trailer of a massive semitruck, and that the bed beneath him is a dirtied blue quilt folded in half, and that his every bone is being jounced as the truck trundles its way down the highway. Oh no, he thinks, oh no, and he gets up and hurries to the piano and begins playing as many Bach partitas as he can remember, out of sequence and too loud and too fast. He is reminded of a fable Brother Luke had once told him during one of their piano lessons of an old woman in a house who played her lute faster and faster so the imps outside her door would dance themselves into a sludge. Brother Luke had told him this story to illustrate a point—he needed to pick up his tempo—but he had always liked the image, and sometimes, when he feels a memory encroaching, just a single one, easy to control and dismiss, he sings or plays until it goes away, the music a shield between him and it.

有個(gè)晚上，還剩不到一個(gè)月威廉就會(huì)拍完電影回家，他半夜醒來(lái)，相信自己是在一輛龐大的半拖車車廂里，身下的床是一條折成一半的骯臟藍(lán)色拼綴布，身上的每根骨頭隨著卡車隆隆駛過(guò)高速公路而震動(dòng)。啊不，他心想，啊不，他起床沖到鋼琴前面，開(kāi)始彈奏他記得的巴赫組曲，一首接一首，太大聲又太急。他想到盧克修士以前上鋼琴課時(shí)說(shuō)過(guò)的寓言故事，一個(gè)屋里的老女人彈著魯特琴，越彈越快，門外跳舞的小惡魔們就跟著越跳越快，最后全部癱軟在地。盧克修士跟他說(shuō)這個(gè)故事是要表明一個(gè)重點(diǎn)：他得掌握速度。但他一直很喜歡那個(gè)畫面。有時(shí)，當(dāng)他覺(jué)得回憶襲來(lái)，只有單一的一個(gè)，很容易控制且打發(fā)走時(shí)，他就會(huì)唱歌或彈琴，直到回憶消失，音樂(lè)是他和回憶之間的一道屏障。

　 He was in his first year of law school when his life began appearing to him as memories. He would be doing something everyday—cooking dinner, filing books at the library, frosting a cake at Batter, looking up an article for Harold—and suddenly, a scene would appear before him, a dumb show meant only for him. In those years, the memories were tableaux, not narratives, and he would see a single one repeatedly for days: a diorama of Brother Luke on top of him, or one of the counselors from the home, who used to grab him as he walked by, or a client emptying his change from his pants pockets and setting it in the dish on the nightstand that Brother Luke had placed there for that purpose. And sometimes the memories were briefer and vaguer still: a client’s blue sock patterned with horse heads that he had worn even in bed; the first meal in Philadelphia that Dr. Traylor had ever given him (a burger; a paper sleeve of French fries); a peachy woolen pillow in his room at Dr. Traylor’s house that he could never look at without thinking of torn flesh. When these memories announced themselves, he would find himself disoriented: it always took him a moment to remember that these scenes were not only from his life, but his life itself. In those days, he would let them interrupt him, and there would be times in which he would come out of his spell and would find his hand still wrapped around the plastic cone of frosting poised over the cookie before him, or still holding the book half on, half off the shelf. It was then that he began comprehending how much of his life he had learned to simply erase, even days after it had happened, and also that somehow, somewhere, he had lost that ability. He knew it was the price of enjoying life, that if he was to be alert to the things he now found pleasure in, he would have to accept its cost as well. Because as assaultive as his memories were, his life coming back to him in pieces, he knew he would endure them if it meant he could also have friends, if he kept being granted the ability to take comfort in others.

上法學(xué)院第一年時(shí)，他的生活中開(kāi)始出現(xiàn)種種回憶畫面。他做著一些日常的事情，像是做晚餐、在圖書館把書上架、在烘焙工房給蛋糕上糖霜、幫哈羅德查一篇文章，忽然間，一個(gè)畫面出現(xiàn)在眼前，像一出只有他看得懂的啞劇。在那幾年，那些回憶是活人扮演的靜態(tài)畫面，不是動(dòng)態(tài)的描寫，他會(huì)好幾天重復(fù)看到同一個(gè)畫面，像立體透視模型：盧克修士趴在他上方，或是少年之家里的一個(gè)輔導(dǎo)員，經(jīng)過(guò)他身邊時(shí)總要抓住他，或是一名顧客把長(zhǎng)褲口袋里的零錢清出來(lái)，放在床頭桌上盧克修士刻意為此擺放的盤子里。有時(shí)那些回憶更短暫、更模糊：某個(gè)顧客上床時(shí)沒(méi)脫掉的、有馬頭紋樣的藍(lán)色襪子；在費(fèi)城時(shí)特雷勒醫(yī)生給他吃的第一餐（漢堡、用尖筒紙卷裝的炸薯?xiàng)l）；在特雷勒醫(yī)生的房子里，他住的房間有一個(gè)粉橘色的羊毛枕頭，他每次看到都會(huì)想到撕開(kāi)的肉。當(dāng)這些回憶不請(qǐng)自來(lái)，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己不知身在何處?？傄ㄉ虾靡粫?huì)兒，才想起這些畫面不但源自他的人生，也是他的人生本身。在那些日子里，他會(huì)被這些回憶打斷，有時(shí)他從那種著魔狀態(tài)走出來(lái)后，會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)自己手里還拿著擠糖霜的尖錐形塑料袋，停在面前的餅干上方，或者手上還拿著一本書，半插在架上。此時(shí)他才開(kāi)始明白，以前他學(xué)會(huì)把那么多人生的種種都清除掉，甚至在事發(fā)后幾天就刻意忘得一干二凈，但同時(shí)他也明白，不知怎的，他現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)失去了那種能力。他知道這是享受生活的代價(jià)，如果他能感受到現(xiàn)在讓他覺(jué)得愉悅的事物，那么他也得接受因此而來(lái)的破壞。因?yàn)楸M管他的回憶展開(kāi)猛烈的攻擊，讓他陸續(xù)想起過(guò)往的片段，但他知道自己可以忍受這些回憶的折磨，只要他可以擁有朋友，有能力繼續(xù)從別人身上獲得安慰。

　 He thought of it as a slight parting of worlds, in which something buried wisped up from the loamy, turned earth and hovered before him, waiting for him to recognize it and claim it as his own. Their very reappearance was defiant: Here we are, they seemed to say to him. Did you really think we would let you abandon us? Did you really think we wouldn’t come back? Eventually, he was also made to recognize how much he had edited—edited and reconfigured, refashioned into something easier to accept—from even the past few years: the film he had seen his junior year of two detectives coming to tell a student at college that the man who had hurt him had died in prison hadn’t been a film at all—it had been his life, and he had been the student, and he had stood there in the Quad outside of Hood, and the two detectives were the people who had found him and arrested Dr. Traylor in the field that night, and they had taken him to the hospital and had made sure Dr. Traylor had gone to prison, and they had come to find him to tell him in person that he had nothing to fear again. “Pretty fancy stuff,” one of the detectives had said, looking around him at the beautiful campus, at its old brick buildings where you could go and be absolutely safe. “We’re proud of you, Jude.” But he had fuzzed this memory, he had changed it to the detective simply saying “We’re proud of you,” and had left off his name, just as he had left out the panic he now remembered he had vividly felt despite their news, the dread that later someone would ask him who those people were that he had been talking to, the almost nauseous wrongness of his past life intruding so physically on his present.

他把這種情況想成是世界稍微裂開(kāi)了一道縫隙，他以前埋葬的東西從土壤中掙扎往上，翻開(kāi)泥土，停留在他眼前，等著他辨識(shí)出來(lái)，認(rèn)領(lǐng)回去。那些回憶的重現(xiàn)帶著一種挑釁：我們來(lái)了，它們仿佛在對(duì)他說(shuō)。你真以為我們會(huì)讓你拋棄我們？你真以為我們不會(huì)回來(lái)？最后，他也發(fā)現(xiàn)自己以前剪輯了多少回憶（剪輯并重新組合、設(shè)計(jì)為某種比較容易接受的回憶），即使是發(fā)生沒(méi)幾年的事情——他記得大三那年看過(guò)一部電影，兩個(gè)警探到大學(xué)里告訴一個(gè)學(xué)生，說(shuō)以前傷害他的那個(gè)男人已經(jīng)死在獄中。但其實(shí)那根本不是電影，而是他的真實(shí)人生，他就是那個(gè)學(xué)生。當(dāng)時(shí)他站在虎德館外的方院里，那兩位警探就是那一夜在田野里發(fā)現(xiàn)他并逮捕特雷勒醫(yī)生的人。他們把他送去醫(yī)院，確保特雷勒醫(yī)生會(huì)坐穿牢底，后來(lái)他們來(lái)學(xué)校找他，當(dāng)面跟他說(shuō)他以后不必再害怕了?！斑@里真不錯(cuò)啊，”其中一個(gè)警探說(shuō)，看著周圍美麗的校園、那些古老的磚造建筑物，在里面來(lái)去絕對(duì)安全，“裘德，我們以你為榮?！钡室馐惯@段回憶模糊，去掉了自己的名字，改成那個(gè)警探只說(shuō)：“我們以你為榮?！蓖瑯拥?，他現(xiàn)在才想起來(lái)，他之前還抹掉了當(dāng)時(shí)感覺(jué)到的強(qiáng)烈恐慌（這對(duì)他明明是好消息），擔(dān)心事后有人問(wèn)他剛剛跟他講話的那兩個(gè)是什么人。他往昔人生那種近乎令人作嘔的謬誤，現(xiàn)在卻如此具體地闖入眼前。

　 Eventually he had learned how to manage the memories. He couldn’t stop them—after they had begun, they had never ended—but he had grown more adept at anticipating their arrival. He became able to diagnose it, that moment or day in which he could tell that something was going to visit him, and he would have to figure out how it wanted to be addressed: Did it want confrontation, or soothing, or simply attention? He would determine what sort of hospitality it wanted, and then he would determine how to make it leave, to retreat back to that other place.

最后他學(xué)會(huì)如何控制回憶。他無(wú)法阻止它們（一旦開(kāi)始，就永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)停止），但他逐漸摸熟如何預(yù)測(cè)它們的到來(lái)。他變得可以判斷，某個(gè)時(shí)候或某一天，他可以感覺(jué)出即將有往事來(lái)訪，他得先搞清楚該怎么處理這段回憶：它是想要當(dāng)面跟他對(duì)抗，還是想要撫慰他，或只是想要吸引他的注意？他會(huì)判定它需要什么樣的款待，然后決定如何讓它離開(kāi)，退回原來(lái)的地方。

　 A small memory he could contain, but as the days go by and he waits for Willem, he recognizes that this is a long eel of a memory, slippery and uncatchable, and it whipsaws its way through him, its tail slapping against his organs so that he feels the memory as something alive and wounding, feels its meaty, powerful smack against his intestines, his heart, his lungs. Sometimes they were like this, and these were the hardest to lasso and corral, and with every day it seems to grow inside him, until he feels himself stuffed not with blood and muscle and water and bone but with the memory itself, expanding balloon-like to inflate his very fingertips. After Caleb, he had realized that there were some memories he was simply not going to be able to control, and so his only recourse was to wait until they had tired themselves out, until they swam back into the dark of his subconscious and left him alone again.

一段小小的回憶他還可以控制，但是當(dāng)他等著威廉回來(lái)時(shí)，一天天過(guò)去，他才發(fā)現(xiàn)這次來(lái)訪的回憶是一條長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的鰻魚，滑溜得抓不住，在他體內(nèi)扭來(lái)扭去地躥動(dòng)，尾巴拍擊著他的器官，讓他感覺(jué)到那些回憶像是個(gè)傷人的活物，感覺(jué)到它結(jié)實(shí)而有力地拍擊著他的腸子、他的心臟、他的肺。有時(shí)那些回憶就像這樣，是最難抓住也最難控制的。隨著每一天過(guò)去，那條鰻魚在他體內(nèi)似乎越長(zhǎng)越大，直到他覺(jué)得自己全身不光塞滿了血液、肌肉、水、骨頭，還有回憶，像氣球似的膨脹到了他的每一個(gè)指尖。在凱萊布之后，他已經(jīng)明白有些回憶他就是沒(méi)辦法控制，他唯一能仰仗的，就是等到這些回憶自己累垮，游回他潛意識(shí)的黑暗深處，還他清靜。

　 And so he waits, letting the memory—the nearly two weeks he had spent in trucks, trying to get from Montana to Boston—occupy him, as if his very mind, his body, is a motel, and this memory his sole guest. His challenge in this period is to fulfill his promise to Willem, to not cut himself, and so he creates a strict and consuming schedule for the hours between midnight and four a.m., which are the most dangerous. On Saturday he makes a list of what he will do each night for the next few weeks, rotating swimming with cooking and piano-playing and baking and work at Richard’s and sorting through all of his and Willem’s old clothes and pruning the bookcases and resewing the loose buttons on Willem’s shirt that he was going to have Mrs. Zhou do but is perfectly capable of doing himself and cleaning out the detritus that has accumulated in the drawer near the stove: twist ties and sticky rubber bands and safety pins and matchbooks. He makes pints of chicken stock and ground-lamb meatballs for Willem’s return and freezes them, and bakes loaves of bread for Richard to take to the food kitchen where they are both on the board and whose finances he helps administer. After feeding the starter, he sits at the table and reads novels, old favorites of his, the words and plots and characters comforting and lived-in and unchanged. He wishes he had a pet—a dumb, grateful dog, panting and smiling; a frigid cat, glaring judgmentally at him through her slitted orange eyes—some other breathing thing in the apartment that he could speak to, the sound of whose soft padding footsteps would bring him back to himself. He works all night, and just before he drops off to sleep, he cuts himself—once on the left arm, once on the right—and when he wakes, he is tired but proud of himself for making it through intact.

于是他等著，讓那些回憶占據(jù)他（有將近兩個(gè)星期，他都待在各輛卡車?yán)?，設(shè)法要從蒙大拿州去波士頓），好像他的腦子、他的身體是間汽車旅館，而這些回憶是他唯一的住客。在這期間，他的挑戰(zhàn)就是做到他對(duì)威廉的承諾，不要割自己，于是他為每天午夜12點(diǎn)到凌晨4點(diǎn)（這段時(shí)間最危險(xiǎn)）訂出一套嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)而消耗體力的時(shí)間表。到了星期六，他會(huì)規(guī)劃接下來(lái)兩周每一夜要做的事情，游泳、做菜、彈鋼琴、烘焙、去理查德的工作室打雜、整理他和威廉的舊衣服、整理書柜、把威廉襯衫上松掉的紐扣重新縫好（他本來(lái)要交給周太太縫的，但反正自己完全可以處理）、清理廚房爐子旁邊那個(gè)抽屜里累積的亂七八糟的東西：用來(lái)束緊袋口的金屬絲、舊橡皮筋、安全別針、紙板火柴。他做了大量的雞湯和羊肉丸，冷凍起來(lái)等威廉回來(lái)時(shí)可以吃，又烤了好多面包，讓理查德拿到慈善廚房去，他們都是那里的委員，他還幫忙管理財(cái)務(wù)。做完一開(kāi)始的體力活之后，他就坐在桌前重讀他喜歡的一些小說(shuō)，那些字句、情節(jié)、角色熟悉不變，令他安心。他真希望自己有寵物（一只愚蠢而懂得感恩的狗，喘著氣息微笑，或是一只冷淡的貓，用縮成一條線的橘色眼珠批判地瞪著他），希望公寓里有其他會(huì)呼吸的東西，讓他對(duì)著它們講講話，它們?nèi)彳浀哪_掌發(fā)出的腳步聲可以讓他回到現(xiàn)實(shí)。他徹夜工作，然后，就在他倒下去睡覺(jué)前，會(huì)去割自己——左手臂一道，右手臂一道——等到醒來(lái)時(shí)，他會(huì)很疲倦，但也很驕傲自己完整地熬過(guò)了這一夜。

　 But then it is two weeks before Willem is to come home, and just as the memory is fading, checking out of him until the next time it comes to visit, the hyenas return. Or perhaps return is the wrong word, because once Caleb introduced them into his life, they have never left. Now, however, they don’t chase him, because they know they don’t need to: his life is a vast savanna, and he is surrounded by them. They lie splayed in the yellow grass, drape themselves lazily over the baobab trees’ low branches that spread from their trunks like tentacles, and stare at him with their keen yellow eyes. They are always there, and after he and Willem began having sex, they multiplied, and on bad days, or on days when he was particularly dreading it, they multiply further. On those days, he can feel their whiskers twitch as he moves slowly through their territory, he can feel their careless derision: he knows he is theirs, and they know it, too.

但接著，離威廉回家只剩兩星期了，正當(dāng)回憶逐漸消退，暫時(shí)退房離開(kāi)后，那些鬣狗回來(lái)了?；蛘卟辉撜f(shuō)回來(lái)，因?yàn)樽詮膭P萊布把這些鬣狗帶入他的人生之后，它們始終不曾離開(kāi)。總之，現(xiàn)在它們不再追著他跑，因?yàn)橹罌](méi)有必要：他的人生是一片遼闊的無(wú)樹(shù)平原，而他被它們包圍著。那些鬣狗四肢大張地趴在發(fā)黃的草地上，或是爬到猴面包樹(shù)上那些有如觸須般伸展的低矮樹(shù)枝上暫歇，銳利的黃色眼珠瞪著他。它們總是在那里，在他和威廉有性生活之后，它們的數(shù)量成倍增加了。碰到糟糕的日子，或是他特別擔(dān)心要做愛(ài)的日子，鬣狗的數(shù)量就變得更多。在那些日子里，當(dāng)他緩緩走過(guò)它們的領(lǐng)域時(shí)，可以感覺(jué)到它們的胡須抽動(dòng)，感覺(jué)到它們漫不經(jīng)心的嘲笑：他知道自己會(huì)落入它們手中，它們也知道。

　 And although he craves the vacations from sex that Willem’s work provides him, he knows too that he ought not to, for the reentry into that world is always difficult; it had been that way when he was a child, too, when the only thing worse than the rhythms of sex had been readjusting to the rhythms of sex. “I can’t wait to come home and see you,” Willem says when they next speak, and although there is nothing leering in his tone, although he hasn’t mentioned sex at all, he knows from past experience that Willem will want to have it the night of his return, and that he will want to have it more times than usual for the remainder of his first week back home, and that he will especially want to have it because both of them had taken turns being sick on his two furloughs and so nothing had happened either time.

盡管他渴望威廉的工作能為他提供性愛(ài)假期，他也知道自己不必太高興，因?yàn)樾菁僦?，要再進(jìn)入那個(gè)世界總是很困難；他小時(shí)候就是這樣，唯一比性交節(jié)奏更糟糕的事，就是重新調(diào)整，以便進(jìn)入性交節(jié)奏?！拔业炔患耙丶铱茨懔??！毕乱淮瓮娫挄r(shí)威廉這么說(shuō)，盡管口氣毫無(wú)挑逗之意，盡管根本沒(méi)提到性愛(ài)，但他憑借過(guò)往的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，知道威廉回來(lái)的頭一夜就會(huì)想要，那星期的接下來(lái)幾天會(huì)比平常要更多次，而且這回他會(huì)特別想要，因?yàn)橹皟纱嗡菁倩貋?lái)，他們兩個(gè)輪流感冒了，所以兩次都沒(méi)做。

　 “Me too,” he says.

“我也是?！彼f(shuō)。

　 “How’s the cutting?” Willem asks, lightly, as if he’s asking about how Julia’s maple trees are faring, or how the weather is. He always asks this at the end of their conversations, as if the subject is something he’s only mildly interested in and is inquiring about to be polite.

“割自己的狀況怎么樣了？”威廉輕松地問(wèn)，好像在問(wèn)他朱麗婭種的那幾棵蘋果樹(shù)狀況如何，或是天氣怎么樣。他們每次通話末尾，他都會(huì)這么問(wèn)，好像這個(gè)話題他不怎么關(guān)心，只是出于禮貌要問(wèn)一聲。

　 “Fine,” he says, as he always does. “Only twice this week,” he adds, and this is true.

“很好，”他說(shuō)，一如往常，“這星期只有兩次。”這是實(shí)話。

　 “Good, Judy,” Willem says. “Thank god. I know it’s hard. But I’m proud of you.” He always sounds so relieved in these moments, as if he is expecting to hear—which he probably is—some other answer entirely: Not well, Willem. I cut myself so much last night that my arm fell off entirely. I don’t want you to be surprised when you see me. He feels a mix of genuine pride, then, both that Willem should trust him so much and that he is actually getting to tell him the truth, and an enervating, bone-deep sorrow, that Willem should have to ask him at all, that this should be something that they are actually proud of. Other people are proud of their boyfriends’ talents or looks or athleticism; Willem, however, gets to be proud that his boyfriend has managed to pass another night without slicing himself with a razor.

“很好，小裘，”威廉說(shuō)，“感謝老天。我知道很難，但我真以你為榮?！痹谶@些時(shí)刻，威廉的口氣總是那么如釋重負(fù)，好像他期望聽(tīng)到（大概也真是如此）某種完全不同的答案：不太好，威廉。我昨天夜里割自己了好多刀，割到整只手臂的肉都掉光了。我不希望你看到我時(shí)嚇一跳。他會(huì)感覺(jué)到一種由衷的驕傲，因?yàn)橥谷贿@么信任他，而且自己真的可以說(shuō)出實(shí)話。同時(shí)，那驕傲中混合了一種令人感到乏力、徹骨的悲傷，因?yàn)橥谷贿€得問(wèn)他，而且這竟然是他們兩個(gè)引以為傲的事情。其他人會(huì)以他們男友的才華、外貌或身手矯健為傲；但威廉，卻只能以男友設(shè)法度過(guò)一夜、沒(méi)用刮胡刀片割自己為傲。

　 And then, finally, there comes an evening in which he knows that his efforts will not satisfy him any longer: he needs to cut himself, extensively and severely. The hyenas are beginning to make little howls, sharp yelps that seem to come from some other creature within them, and he knows that they will be quieted only by his pain. He considers what to do: Willem will be home in a week. If he cuts himself now, the cuts won’t heal properly before he returns, and Willem will be angry. But if he doesn’t do something—then he doesn’t know. He has to, he has to. He has waited too long, he realizes; he has thought he could see himself through; he has been unrealistic.

終于，有一夜，他知道自己的種種努力再也無(wú)法滿足他了，他得割自己，割得又多又狠。那些鬣狗開(kāi)始發(fā)出小小的號(hào)叫，那種尖吠仿佛發(fā)自它們體內(nèi)的另一種生物，他知道只有自己的疼痛才能讓它們安靜下來(lái)。他想著該怎么做：威廉再過(guò)一周就要回家了。如果他現(xiàn)在割自己，威廉回家之前傷口不可能痊愈，威廉就會(huì)生氣。但如果他不做些事情，接下來(lái)就不知道會(huì)怎么樣了。他一定要做點(diǎn)事，非做不可。此時(shí)他明白自己已經(jīng)等得太久了；他原先太不切實(shí)際了，竟然以為自己熬得過(guò)去。

　 He gets up from bed and walks through the empty apartment, into the quiet kitchen. The night’s schedule—cookies for Harold; organize Willem’s sweaters; Richard’s studio—glows whitely from the counter, ignored but beckoning, pleading to be heeded, the salvation it offers as flimsy as the paper it’s printed on. For a moment he stands, unable to move, and then slowly, reluctantly, he walks to the door above the staircase and unbolts it, and then, after another moment’s pause, swings it open.

他從床上爬起來(lái)，走過(guò)空蕩蕩的公寓，進(jìn)入安靜的廚房。那一夜的時(shí)間表在料理臺(tái)上發(fā)出白光（烤餅干給哈羅德、整理威廉的毛衣、去理查德的工作室），盡管被忽視但依然召喚著他，懇求被注意，它提供的拯救好輕好薄，有如那張承載字跡的紙。一時(shí)間他站在那里，動(dòng)不了，然后緩緩地、不情愿地，他走向通往安全梯的那扇門，拉開(kāi)門閂，又暫停一下，才打開(kāi)門。

　 He hasn’t opened this door since the night with Caleb, and now he leans into its mouth, looking down into its black, clutching its frame as he had on that night, wondering if he can bring himself to do it. He knows this will appease the hyenas. But there is something so degrading about it, so extreme, so sick, that he knows that if he were to do it, he will have crossed some line, that he will, in fact, have become someone who needs to be hospitalized. Finally, finally, he unsticks himself from the frame, his hands shaking, and slams the door shut, slams the bolt back into its slot, and stumps away from it.

自從凱萊布那一夜之后，他再也沒(méi)打開(kāi)過(guò)這扇門。現(xiàn)在他探身進(jìn)去，往下看著里頭的黑暗，就像那一夜般緊抓著門框，不知道自己能否鼓起勇氣去做。他知道跳下去可以平息那些鬣狗。但這件事有種過(guò)于屈辱，極端、病態(tài)的成分，他知道如果做了，他就跨過(guò)了某些界限，就該被強(qiáng)制住院了。最后，最后，他離開(kāi)了門框，雙手顫抖，然后把門甩上，用力閂上門，大步離開(kāi)。

　 At work the next day, he goes downstairs with another of the partners, Sanjay, and a client so the client can smoke. They have a few clients who smoke, and when they go downstairs, he goes with them, and they continue their meeting on the sidewalk. Lucien had a theory that smokers are most comfortable, and relaxed, while smoking, and therefore easier to manipulate in the moment, and although he had laughed when Lucien had told him that, he knows he’s probably correct.

次日上班時(shí)，他跟另一個(gè)合伙人桑杰和一個(gè)客戶去樓下，那個(gè)客戶想抽煙。他們抽煙的客戶不多，每回要下樓抽煙時(shí)，他都會(huì)跟著一起去，在人行道上繼續(xù)之前的談話。呂西安有個(gè)理論，說(shuō)抽煙的人在抽煙時(shí)最舒服、最放松，在此時(shí)最容易操控。盡管呂西安說(shuō)這話的時(shí)候，他聽(tīng)了大笑，但他知道他講的大概沒(méi)錯(cuò)。

　 He is in his wheelchair that day because his feet are throbbing, although he hates to have the clients see him so impaired. “Believe me, Jude,” Lucien had said when he had worried aloud about this to him years ago, “the clients think you’re the same ball-crushing asshole whether you’re sitting down or standing up, so for god’s sake, stay in your chair.” Outside it is cold and dry, which makes his feet hurt a little less for some reason, and as the three of them talk, he finds himself staring, hypnotized, at the small orange flame at the tip of the client’s cigarette, which winks at him, growing duller and brighter, as the client exhales and inhales. Suddenly, he knows what he is going to do, but that revelation is followed almost instantly by a blunt punch to his abdomen, because he knows that he is going to betray Willem, and not only is he going to betray him but he is going to lie to him as well.

那天，他因?yàn)殡p腳抽痛坐了輪椅，盡管他討厭讓客戶看到他這副殘障的樣子。“相信我，裘德，”幾年前他跟呂西安說(shuō)出這些憂慮時(shí)，呂西安這么告訴他，“你不管是坐下還是站著，客戶照樣認(rèn)為你是個(gè)超級(jí)暴力的大混蛋，所以老天在上，你就乖乖坐你的輪椅吧?！蓖忸^寒冷而干燥，讓他覺(jué)得雙腳的疼痛稍微減輕了些。他們?nèi)齻€(gè)人談話時(shí)，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被催眠似的瞪著客戶煙頭上小小的橘色火光，覺(jué)得那火光在跟他擠眼睛，隨著那顧客的吞吐，火光一下黯淡些，一下又明亮些。忽然間，他知道自己該怎么做了，然而這個(gè)天啟讓他幾乎立刻覺(jué)得肚子挨了一記重?fù)?，因?yàn)樗浪鸵撑淹耍粏问潜撑?，還要撒謊。

　 That day is a Friday, and as he drives to Andy’s, he works out his plan, excited and relieved to have a solution. Andy is in one of his cheerful, combative moods, and he allows himself to be distracted by him, by his brisk energy. Somewhere along the way, he and Andy have begun speaking of his legs the way one would of a troublesome and wayward relative who is nonetheless impossible to abandon and in need of constant care. “The old bastards,” Andy calls them, and the first time he did, he had begun laughing at the accuracy of the nickname, with its suggestion of exasperation that always threatened to overshadow the underlying and reluctant fondness.

那天是星期五，他開(kāi)車去安迪的診所時(shí)一路擬定計(jì)劃，為了有個(gè)解答而覺(jué)得興奮、放松。這天安迪處于那種興高采烈、斗志昂揚(yáng)的狀態(tài)，于是他允許自己把注意力轉(zhuǎn)移到安迪和他旺盛的精力上。期間，兩人聊起他的腿，就像在聊某個(gè)麻煩又任性的親戚，但是你不可能拋棄他，還得隨時(shí)照料?！澳莾蓚€(gè)惡棍?！卑驳先绱朔Q呼他的兩條腿，第一次說(shuō)的時(shí)候，他被這個(gè)綽號(hào)的準(zhǔn)確程度逗得大笑，其中帶有的惱怒往往蓋過(guò)了那隱藏的、有些不情愿的喜愛(ài)。

　 “How’re the old bastards?” Andy asks him now, and he smiles and says, “Lazy and sucking up all my resources, as usual.”

“那兩個(gè)老惡棍怎么樣了？”安迪這會(huì)兒?jiǎn)査Ｋ⑿φf(shuō)：“老樣子，懶惰，又吸光了我所有的精力?！?