“Well,” said Luke, and he could feel the brother kneeling, very close to him. “Don’t cry; don’t cry.” But his voice was so gentle, and he cried harder.
“哦，”卢克说，他感觉到修士跪下来，离他很近，“别哭，别哭。”但修士的声音很温柔，于是他哭得更凶了。
Then Brother Luke stood, and when he spoke next, his voice was jollier. “Jude, listen,” he said. “I have something to show you. Come with me,” and he started walking toward the greenhouse, turning around to make sure he was following. “Jude,” he called again, “come with me,” and he, curious despite himself, began to follow him, walking toward the greenhouse he knew so well with the beginnings of an unfamiliar eagerness, as if he had never seen it before.
卢克修士站了起来，再度开口时，他的声音比较愉快了。“裘德，听我说。”他说，“我有个东西要给你看。跟我来吧。”修士开始走向玻璃温室，还回头确认他是不是跟了上来。“裘德，”修士又喊，“跟我来吧。”他不禁好奇起来，跟了上去，走向他熟悉的玻璃温室，带着一种陌生的急切感，好像他从没看过温室一般。
As an adult, he became obsessed in spells with trying to identify the exact moment in which things had started going so wrong, as if he could freeze it, preserve it in agar, hold it up and teach it before a class: This is when it happened. This is where it started. He’d think: Was it when I stole the crackers? Was it when I ruined Luke’s daffodils? Was it when I had my first tantrum? And, more impossibly, was it when I did whatever I did that made her leave me behind that drugstore? And what had that been?
成年后，他有时会走火入魔，执迷地想找出事情开始出大错的确切时刻，仿佛他可以将那一刻冻结，保存在琼脂里，拿起来在课堂上教导学生：这就是发生的时候。这就是开始的时候，他会想，是我偷饼干的时候吗？是我毁掉卢克那些黄水仙的时候吗？是我第一次乱发脾气的时候吗？或是更不可能的：会是我做了一些事、让她把我丢在药房后头那个时候吗？那会是什么事？
But really, he would know: it was when he walked into the greenhouse that afternoon. It was when he allowed himself to be escorted in, when he gave up everything to follow Brother Luke. That had been the moment. And after that, it had never been right again.
但其实他知道：是在他走进玻璃温室的那个下午。是在他放弃一切，愿意跟着卢克修士之时。就是那一刻。从此以后，一切都没再对劲过了。
There are five more steps and then he is at their front door, where he can’t fit the key into the lock because his hands are shaking, and he curses, nearly dropping it. And then he is in the apartment, and there are only fifteen steps from the front door to his bed, but he still has to stop halfway and bring himself down slowly to the ground, and pull himself the final feet to his room on his elbows. For a while he lies there, everything shifting around him, until he is strong enough to pull the blanket down over him. He will lie there until the sun leaves the sky and the apartment grows dark, and then, finally, he will hoist himself onto his bed with his arms, where he will fall asleep without eating or washing his face or changing, his teeth clacking against themselves from the pain. He will be alone, because Willem will go out with his girlfriend after the show, and by the time he gets home, it will be very late.
再走五步，他来到了前门，可是手抖得太厉害，钥匙插不进锁孔里。他诅咒着，钥匙差点掉地。然后他进了公寓，从前门到他的床只剩十五步了，可是走到一半，他不得不停下来，缓缓坐到地上，用手肘匍匐前进，完成最后那点距离。有一会儿他躺在那里，周围的一切旋转着，直到他有力气把床上的毯子拉下来盖住自己。他会躺在那儿直到太阳离开天空，公寓内变黑，最后他会用手臂把自己撑起来，爬到床上。然后他会睡着，没吃饭、没洗脸也没换衣服，他痛得发抖，牙齿咬得格格作响。他会孤单一人，因为威廉演出结束后会跟女朋友出去，要很晚才回家。
When he wakes, it will be very early, and he will feel better, but his wound will have wept during the night, and pus will have soaked through the gauze he had applied on Sunday morning before he left for his walk, his disastrous walk, and his pants will be stuck to his skin with its ooze. He will send a message to Andy, and then leave another with his exchange, and then he will shower, carefully removing the bandage, which will bring scraps of rotten flesh and clots of blackened mucus-thick blood with it. He will pant and gasp to keep from shouting. He will remember the conversation he had with Andy the last time this happened, when Andy suggested he get a wheelchair to keep on reserve, and although he hates the thought of using a wheelchair again, he will wish he had one now. He will think that Andy is right, that his walks are a sign of his inexcusable hubris, that his pretending that everything is fine, that he is not in fact disabled, is selfish, for the consequences it means for other people, people who have been inexplicably, unreasonably generous and good to him for years, for almost decades now.
他会很早醒来，觉得好过一些，但伤口会在黑夜渗出液体。他星期天上午出门走路（灾难性的散步行程）前换上的纱布会被脓汁浸透，而他的长裤会因为分泌物黏在皮肤上。他会传短信给安迪，得到回复后会再传一则。然后他会冲澡，小心翼翼地拆掉绷带，上头黏着零碎的烂肉和发黑、黏湿的血块。他会喘着猛吸气，免得叫出声来。他会记得上回这种情况发生时他和安迪的对话，当时安迪建议他弄个轮椅以备不时之需。尽管他很不想再用轮椅，可是他但愿现在有一台。他想安迪说得没错，他的市区长途漫步的确代表着他不可饶恕的傲慢，他想假装一切没问题、不肯面对自己的残疾，实在太自私了，因为后果就是会影响到其他人。这些人多年来一直对他慷慨又和善，莫名又没有道理，到现在都快二十年了。
He will turn off the shower and lower himself into the tub and lean his cheek against the tile and wait to feel better. He will be reminded of how trapped he is, trapped in a body he hates, with a past he hates, and how he will never be able to change either. He will want to cry, from frustration and hatred and pain, but he hasn’t cried since what happened with Brother Luke, after which he told himself he would never cry again. He will be reminded that he is a nothing, a scooped-out husk in which the fruit has long since mummified and shrunk, and now rattles uselessly. He will experience that prickle, that shiver of disgust that afflicts him in both his happiest and his most wretched moments, the one that asks him who he thinks he is to inconvenience so many people, to think he has the right to keep going when even his own body tells him he should stop.
他会关掉花洒的水，放低身子躺在浴缸里，脸颊贴着瓷砖，等自己感觉好一点。他会想起自己受困了，困在这具他痛恨的身体里，怀着他所痛恨的过去，两者他都永远无法改变。他会想哭，因为挫折、憎恨和疼痛，但自从发生了卢克修士的事情以后，他告诉自己再也不可以哭了，从此他真的没再哭过。他会想起自己无足轻重，只是一个空壳，里面的果实早就干瘪，只能发出空洞无用的喀啦声。他会感受到在他最快乐和最难受的时刻都会出现的那种刺痛、打着冷战的厌恶，问他自以为是谁，竟然给这么多人造成麻烦，以为他有权利继续活下去。其实他自己的身体都跟他说该停下来了。
He will sit and wait and breathe and he will be grateful that it is so early, that there is no chance of Willem discovering him and having to save him once again. He will (though he won’t be able to remember how later) somehow work himself into a standing position, get himself out of the tub, take some aspirin, go to work. At work, the words will blur and dance on the page, and by the time Andy calls, it will only be seven a.m., and he will tell Marshall he’s sick, refuse Marshall’s offer of a car, but let him—this is how bad he feels—help him into a cab. He will make the ride uptown that he had stupidly walked just the previous day. And when Andy opens the door, he will try to remain composed.
他会坐在那里等待，继续呼吸，然后他会庆幸现在时间还很早，威廉不可能发现他，也就不必再次救他。他会设法拖着身子站起来（虽然事后他不会记得是怎么做到的），爬出浴缸，吃几颗阿司匹林，再去上班。上班时，他会觉得纸上的字模糊地舞动。等到安迪来电时，应该才早上7点，他会告诉上司马歇尔他病了，拒绝马歇尔开车送他，但是如果感觉太难受了，就让他协助他上出租车。去上城的路上，他会经过他前一天才愚蠢地走过的那段路。等到安迪开门时，他会设法保持镇定。
“Judy,” Andy will say, and he will be in his gentle mode, there will be no lectures from him today, and he will allow Andy to lead him past his empty waiting room, his office not yet open for the day, and help him onto the table where he has spent hours, days of hours, will let Andy help undress him even, as he closes his eyes and waits for the small bright hurt of Andy easing the tape off his leg, and pulling away from the raw skin the sodden gauze beneath.
“小裘。”安迪会这般喊他，并且处于温柔模式，他今天不会说教。接着他会让安迪带着他穿过空荡荡的等候室，此时他的诊所还没开门。然后安迪会帮他坐上那张他度过好多个小时、好多天的检查台。他甚至会让安迪协助他脱掉衣服，再闭上眼睛，等着安迪拆开他腿上的胶带，揭开湿透的纱布，露出破皮的伤口，等着那令人晕眩的剧痛袭来。
My life, he will think, my life. But he won’t be able to think beyond this, and he will keep repeating the words to himself—part chant, part curse, part reassurance—as he slips into that other world that he visits when he is in such pain, that world he knows is never far from his own but that he can never remember after: My life.
我的人生，他会想着，我的人生。除此之外没法再想别的，他会一直重复默念这几个字——一部分像念经，一部分像诅咒，一部分像宽慰——同时滑入他经历这类剧痛时会造访的另一个世界。他知道那世界离自己的世界从来不远，但他事后总是想不起来：我的人生。
2
2
YOU ASKED ME once when I knew that he was for me, and I told you that I had always known. But that wasn’t true, and I knew it even as I said it—I said it because it sounded pretty, like something someone might say in a book or a movie, and because we were both feeling so wretched, and helpless, and because I thought if I said it, we both might feel better about the situation before us, the situation that we perhaps had been capable of preventing—perhaps not—but at any rate hadn’t. This was in the hospital: the first time, I should say. I know you remember: you had flown in from Colombo that morning, hopscotching across cities and countries and hours, so that you landed a full day before you left.
有一回，你问我是什么时候开始认定他的，当时我告诉你我一直都知道。但是一说出口，我就知道那并非实情。我会这么说，是因为这话听起来很美，像是书中或电影里的角色会说的话。当时你我都觉得很痛苦、很无助，我觉得这样说，眼前的状况可能就不会让我们那么难受。那个状况，我们一直觉得有办法阻止，但还是发生了。那是在医院里，第一次发生的时候。我知道你记得：你那天早上从斯里兰卡的科伦坡搭上飞机，跳房子似的经过好几个城市和国家，花了好多时间，降落后停留一整天，然后又离开了。
But I want to be accurate now. I want to be accurate both because there is no reason not to be, and because I should be—I have always tried to be, I always try to be.
但现在我想讲得精确一点。因为没有理由不精确，而且我应该力求精确。我一直想要这样，一直试着这样。
I’m not sure where to begin.
我不确定该从哪里讲起。
Maybe with some nice words, although they are also true words: I liked you right away. You were twenty-four when we met, which would have made me forty-seven. (Jesus.) I thought you were unusual: later, he’d speak of your goodness, but he never needed to explain it to me, for I already knew you were. It was the first summer the group of you came up to the house, and it was such a strange weekend for me, and for him as well—for me because in you four I saw who and what Jacob might have been, and for him because he had only known me as his teacher, and he was suddenly seeing me in my shorts and wearing my apron as I scooped clams off the grill, and arguing with you three about everything. Once I stopped seeing Jacob’s face in all of yours, though, I was able to enjoy the weekend, in large part because you three seemed to enjoy it so much. You saw nothing strange in the situation: you were boys who assumed that people would like you, not from arrogance but because people always had, and you had no reason to think that, if you were polite and friendly, then that politeness and friendliness might not be reciprocated.
或许讲些好听的话吧，也的确是事实：第一次见面时，我立刻就喜欢你了。当时你24岁，我47岁（天啊），我当时觉得你很特别。后来，他谈到你的善良，但他从来不必跟我解释，因为我知道你很善良。那个夏天你们四个第一次来我的房子，对我来说，那是个非常奇特的周末，对他也是。对我，是因为我在你们四个身上看到雅各布可能变成什么样子；对他，则是因为他原先只把我当老师，但那回他突然看到我穿短裤和围裙，在烤架上烤蛤蜊，还跟你们三个争辩各式各样的话题。一旦我停止在你们脸上寻找雅各布的影子，我就开始享受那个周末了，很大一部分原因是你们三个是那么乐在其中。你们不觉得整个状况有什么奇怪：你们三个假设人们会喜欢你们，不是出于傲慢，而是因为人们总是喜欢你们。而且你们觉得，如果自己礼貌又友善，就没有理由认为对方不会回报。
He, of course, had every reason to not think that, although I wouldn’t discover that until later. Then, I watched him at mealtimes, noticing how, during particularly raucous debates, he would sit back in his seat, as if physically leaning out of the ring, and observe all of you, how easily you challenged me without fear of provoking me, how thoughtlessly you reached across the table to serve yourselves more potatoes, more zucchini, more steak, how you asked for what you wanted and received it.
但他当然有充分的理由不这么想，我是到后来才发现的。然后，我在用餐时观察他，发现争辩特别激烈时，他会往后坐，似乎完全退出战场，然后持续观察你们。你们三个是那么轻松地提出挑战，完全不怕激怒我，也毫无顾忌地动手去拿桌上的马铃薯、节瓜、牛排，还会开口要求自己想要的，并大方接受。
The thing I remember most vividly from that weekend is a small thing. We were walking, you and he and Julia and I, down that little path lined with birches that led to the lookout. (Back then it was a narrow throughway, do you remember that? It was only later that it became dense with trees.) I was with him, and you and Julia were behind us. You were talking about, oh, I don’t know—insects? Wildflowers? You two always found something to discuss, you both loved being outdoors, both loved animals: I loved this about both of you, even though I couldn’t understand it. And then you touched his shoulder and moved in front of him and knelt and retied one of his shoelaces that had come undone, and then fell back in step with Julia. It was so fluid, a little gesture: a step forward, a fold onto bended knee, a retreat back toward her side. It was nothing to you, you didn’t even think about it; you never even paused in your conversation. You were always watching him (but you all were), you took care of him in a dozen small ways, I saw all of this over those few days—but I doubt you would remember this particular incident.
那个周末，我记得最清楚的是一件小事。那天，你跟他、朱丽娅和我，正走在通往瞭望台、两旁种了桦树的小径上（你还记得吗？当时那里只有一条窄窄的小路，茂密的树林是很久以后的事了）。我跟他并肩而行，你和朱丽娅在后头。你们不知正在聊什么，昆虫？野花？你们两个总是聊得来，你们都喜欢野外，也喜欢动物。我不明白乐趣何在，但我很喜欢你们两人这一点。你碰触他一边的肩膀，走到他面前，跪下来帮他把松开的鞋带重新绑好，然后回到后头跟朱丽娅边走边聊。整个过程很流畅，只是一个小动作：往前一步，弯下膝盖，又往后退到她旁边。对你来说这没什么，连想都没想，甚至没有中断谈话。你总是留心着他（不过你们三个都是），以十几种小小的方式照看着他，在那短短的几天，我都看到了，但我怀疑你不会记得这起小事件。
But while you were doing it, he looked at me, and the look on his face—I still cannot describe it, other than in that moment, I felt something crumble inside me, like a tower of damp sand built too high: for him, and for you, and for me as well. And in his face, I knew my own would be echoed. The impossibility of finding someone to do such a thing for another person, so unthinkingly, so gracefully! When I looked at him, I understood, for the first time since Jacob died, what people meant when they said someone was heartbreaking, that something could break your heart. I had always thought it mawkish, but in that moment I realized that it might have been mawkish, but it was also true.
当你这么做的时候，他看着我，他脸上的表情——我至今无法形容，只知道在那一刻，我感觉心中有个什么崩塌了，就像一座盖得太高的沙塔：为了他，为了你，也为我自己。在他脸上，我看到了呼应我的表情。真不敢相信有人会去帮另一个人做这样的事情，这么不假思索，这么有风度！我看着他，打从雅各布死后，我第一次明白，所谓有个人或有个东西会让你心碎是什么意思。我以前一直以为这种说法太强说愁了，但在那一刻，我明白那可能是强说愁，但也是真实的。
And that, I suppose, was when I knew.
而我想，我就是从那一刻开始认定他的。
I had never thought I would become a parent, and not because I’d had bad parents myself. Actually, I had wonderful parents: my mother died when I was very young, of breast cancer, and for the next five years it was just me and my father. He was a doctor, a general practitioner who liked to hope he might grow old with his patients.
我从没想过自己会为人父母，不是因为我有差劲的父母。事实上，我的父母很棒：我母亲在我很小的时候就死于乳癌，接下来五年只有我和父亲。他是自己开业的家庭医生，总是希望自己可以跟病人一起变老。
