“Come stay in the apartment tonight,” Harold says, turning to him, but he shakes his head, staring straight ahead. “At least come up and have a cup of tea and wait until you feel a little better,” but he shakes his head again. “Jude,” Harold says, “I’m really sorry—for everything, for all of it.” He nods, but still can’t say anything. “Will you call me if you need anything?” Harold persists, and he nods again. And then Harold reaches his hand up, slowly, as if he is a feral animal, and strokes the back of his head, twice, before getting out, closing the door softly behind him.
“今天晚上来我这里住吧。”哈罗德说着转向他，但他摇摇头，只看着前方，“那至少上来喝杯茶，待到你觉得好过些吧。”但他还是摇头。“裘德，”哈罗德说，“我真的很遗憾——为了这一切，为了所有的事情。”他点点头，但还是说不出话。“如果你需要什么，会打电话给我吗？”哈罗德坚持问他，他又点了点头。然后，哈罗德缓缓举起一只手，摸了他脑后两下，好像他是野生动物，这才下了车，轻轻关上车门。
He takes the West Side Highway home. He is so sore, so depleted: but now his humiliations are complete. He has been punished enough, he thinks, even for him. He will go home, and cut himself, and then he will begin forgetting: this night in particular, but also the past four months.
他走西城高速公路回家。他全身酸痛，筋疲力尽；但现在他觉得自己被羞辱到底了。他被惩罚够了，他心想，即使对他而言都够了。他会回家，割割自己，然后他会开始忘却：尤其是这一夜，但也包括过去四个月。
At Greene Street he parks in the garage and rides the elevator up past the silent floors, clinging to the cage-door mesh; he is so tired that he will slump to the ground if he doesn’t. Richard is away for the fall at a residency in Rome, and the building is sepulchral around him.
到了格林街，他把车子停进车库，坐着电梯经过静默的楼层，抓着电梯的网格门：他累到如果不抓个什么，就会垮在地上。理查德这个秋天去罗马当驻地艺术家，整栋大楼像一座坟墓似的包围他。
He steps into his darkened apartment and is feeling for the light switch when something clots him, hard, on the swollen side of his face, and even in the dark he can see his new tooth project itself into the air.
他进入黑暗的公寓，正在摸索电灯开关时，忽然有个什么朝他肿起的那边脸扑来，即使在黑暗中，他还是看得到自己新装的那颗牙齿飞了出去。
It is Caleb, of course, and he can hear and smell his breath even before Caleb flicks the master switch and the apartment is illuminated, dazzlingly, into something brighter than day, and he looks up and sees Caleb above him, peering down at him. Even drunk, he is composed, and now some of his drunkenness has been clarified by rage, and his gaze is steady and focused. He feels Caleb grab him by his hair, feels him hit him on the right side of his face, the good one, feels his head snapping backward in response.
是凯莱布，当然了，他在黑暗中听得到也闻得到他的呼吸。凯莱布打开电灯主开关，公寓里大放光明，令人目眩，比白天还要亮。他抬头，看到凯莱布正低头盯着他。即使喝醉了，他还是很镇定，而且现在因为怒气而清醒了一点，眼神平稳而专注。他感觉到凯莱布抓着他的头发把他提起来，感觉到他打向他没受伤的右脸，感觉到自己的头被打得往后一晃。
Caleb still hasn’t said anything, and now he drags him to the sofa, the only sounds Caleb’s steady breaths and his frantic gulps. He pushes his face into the cushions and holds his head down with one hand, while with the other, he begins pulling off his clothes. He begins to panic, then, and struggle, but Caleb presses one arm against the back of his neck, which paralyzes him, and he is unable to move; he can feel himself become exposed to the air piece by piece—his back, his arms, the backs of his legs—and when everything’s been removed, Caleb yanks him to his feet again and pushes him away, but he falls, and lands on his back.
凯莱布始终一语不发，拖他到沙发，唯一的声音就是凯莱布平稳的呼吸和他自己疯狂的吸气。凯莱布把他的脸压进椅垫里，然后一手按着他的脑袋，另一手开始脱下他的衣服。他恐慌起来，开始挣扎，但凯莱布用手臂压着他的颈背，让他全身麻痹，无法动弹。他可以感觉到自己一点接着一点暴露在空气中——他的背部、他的双臂、他的后腿——等到所有衣服都被脱掉，凯莱布又拉着他站起来，把他往前推，但他摔倒了，仰天躺着。
“Get up,” says Caleb. “Right now.”
“起来。”凯莱布说，“快点。”
He does; his nose is discharging something, blood or mucus, that is making it difficult for him to breathe. He stands; he has never felt more naked, more exposed in his life. When he was a child, and things were happening to him, he used to be able to leave his body, to go somewhere else. He would pretend he was something inanimate—a curtain rod, a ceiling fan—a dispassionate, unfeeling witness to the scene occurring beneath him. He would watch himself and feel nothing: not pity, not anger, nothing. But now, although he tries, he finds he cannot remove himself. He is in this apartment, his apartment, standing before a man who detests him, and he knows this is the beginning, not the end, of a long night, one he has no choice but to wait through and endure. He will not be able to control this night, he will not be able to stop it.
他照做了，鼻子流出东西来，鲜血或是鼻涕，让他更难呼吸。他站着，这辈子从没觉得这么赤裸、这么暴露、毫无遮蔽。他小时候，碰到有什么事情发生在他身上，总是有办法离开自己的身体，跑到别的地方去。他会假装自己是个没有生命的物体——一根窗帘杆，一具天花板上的风扇——一个冷静无感的见证者，看着底下发生在他身上的这一幕。他会看着自己，什么都感觉不到：没有怜悯、没有愤怒，什么都没有。但现在他试了又试，却发现自己无法抽离。他就在这间公寓里，他的公寓，站在一个厌恶他的人面前，而且他知道这只是漫漫长夜的开始，不是结束，他毫无办法，只能忍受着熬过去。他无法控制这个夜晚，无法使之停止。
“My god,” Caleb says, after looking at him for a few long moments; it is the first time he has ever seen him wholly naked. “My god, you really are deformed. You really are.”
“老天，”凯莱布打量了他半天之后说，这是他第一回看到他全身赤裸，“老天，你真的很畸形，你真的是。”
For some reason, it is this, this pronouncement, that brings them both back to themselves, and he finds himself, for the first time in decades, crying. “Please,” he says. “Please, Caleb, I’m sorry.” But Caleb has already grabbed him by the back of his neck and is hurrying him, half dragging him, toward the front door. Into the elevator they go, and down the flights, and then he is being dragged out of the elevator and marched down the hallway toward the lobby. By now he is hysterical, pleading with Caleb, asking him again and again what he’s doing, what he’s going to do to him. At the front door, Caleb lifts him, and for a moment his face is fitted into the tiny dirty glass window that looks out onto Greene Street, and then Caleb is opening the door and he is being pushed out, naked, into the street.
出于某些原因，这个宣告把所有往事都带了回来，他发现自己二十几年来第一次哭。“拜托，”他说，“拜托，凯莱布，我很抱歉。”但凯莱布又抓住他的颈背，半催促半拖拉着他往前门走。他们进入电梯，下了楼，然后他被拖出电梯，沿着走廊来到门厅。此时他已经歇斯底里起来，恳求着凯莱布，一次又一次问他要做什么、要对他怎么样。到了前门，凯莱布抓起他，有那么片刻，他的脸抵着门上那面开向格林街的肮脏小玻璃。然后凯莱布打开门，把他推出去，全身赤裸，来到街上。
“No!” he shouts, half inside, half outside. “Caleb, please!” He is pulled between a crazed hope and a desperate fear that someone will walk by. But it is raining too hard; no one will walk by. The rain drums a wild pattern on his face.
“不！”他大喊，半在脑子里、半喊出声，“凯莱布，拜托！”他渴望有人会经过，却又绝望地生怕有人经过。但雨太大了，没有人经过。雨水疯狂地打在他脸上。
“Beg me,” says Caleb, raising his voice over the rain, and he does, pleading with him. “Beg me to stay,” Caleb demands. “Apologize to me,” and he does, again and again, his mouth filling with his own blood, his own tears.
“求我。”凯莱布说，在雨中提高嗓门，于是他乖乖恳求他。“求我留下来。”凯莱布命令道，“跟我道歉。”他都照做，一遍又一遍，嘴里充满了他的血和泪。
Finally he is brought inside, and is dragged back to the elevator, where Caleb says things to him, and he apologizes and apologizes, repeating Caleb’s words back to him as he instructs: I’m repulsive. I’m disgusting. I’m worthless. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
最后他终于被带进门，拖回电梯里，凯莱布用各种难听的字眼骂他。他道歉又道歉，遵照凯莱布的命令，把凯莱布说的那些话重复说一遍：我很讨厌。我很恶心。我毫无价值。我很抱歉，我很抱歉。
In the apartment, Caleb lets go of his neck, and he falls, his legs unsteady beneath him, and Caleb kicks him in the stomach so hard that he vomits, and then again in his back, and he slides over Malcolm’s lovely, clean floors and into the vomit. His beautiful apartment, he thinks, where he has always been safe. This is happening to him in his beautiful apartment, surrounded by his beautiful things, things that have been given to him in friendship, things that he has bought with money he has earned. His beautiful apartment, with its doors that lock, where he was meant to be protected from broken elevators and the degradation of pulling himself upstairs on his arms, where he was meant to always feel human and whole.
回到公寓里，凯莱布放开他的脖子，他倒下去，双腿根本站不住。凯莱布踢他肚子，踢得他吐了出来。接着又踢他背部，他滑过马尔科姆那漂亮、干净的地板，倒在呕吐物中。他美丽的公寓，他心想，他在这里一直觉得很安全。这件事就发生在他美丽的公寓里，周围都是美丽的东西，是朋友出于友谊送给他的，是他用自己赚的钱买的。他美丽的公寓，门上装了锁。在这里，他应该被安全地保护着，不会有故障的电梯，或是需要用双臂爬上楼的难堪，他应该永远觉得像个完整的人。
Then he is being lifted again, and moved, but it is difficult to see where he’s being taken: one eye is already swollen shut, and the other is blurry. His vision keeps blinking in and out.
然后他又被抓起来，移动着，但实在很难看出他要被带到哪里去：他一只眼睛已经肿到睁不开了，另一只眼睛也视线模糊。他的视野时而清楚，时而模糊。
But then he realizes that Caleb is taking him to the door that leads to the emergency stairs. It is the one element of the old loft that Malcolm kept: both because he had to and because he liked how bluntly utilitarian it was, how unapologetically ugly. Now Caleb unslides the bolt, and he finds himself standing at the top of the dark, steep staircase. “So descent-into-hell looking,” he remembers Richard saying. One side of him is gluey with vomit; he can feel other liquids—he cannot think about what they are—moving down other parts of him: his face, his neck, his thighs.
但接着他明白了，凯莱布要带他到通往紧急逃生梯的门那去。那是马尔科姆保留的老厂房元素之一：一方面是因为消防法规，一方面是他也喜欢那座坦率而实用，丑得理直气壮的逃生梯。现在凯莱布拉开插销，他发现自己站在陡峭楼梯的顶端。“简直像直通地狱。”他还记得理查德这么说过。他身子一侧黏着呕吐物，同时还可以感觉到其他液体（他不敢去想那是什么）在他脸上、脖子上、大腿上往下流淌。
He is whimpering from pain and fear, clutching the edge of the doorframe, when he hears, rather than sees, Caleb move back and run at him, and then his foot is kicking him in his back, and he is flying into the black of the staircase.
他因为疼痛和害怕而啜泣起来，手抓着门框。此时他听到、而非看到，凯莱布往后退，接着冲向他，一脚踢中他的背，他就飞进了楼梯的黑暗中。
As he soars, he thinks, suddenly, of Dr. Kashen. Or not of Dr. Kashen, necessarily, but the question he had asked him when he was applying to be his advisee: What’s your favorite axiom? (The nerd pickup line, CM had once called it.)
他飞起时，忽然想到了卡申博士。或者未必是卡申博士，而是他申请成为他的指导学生时，曾被问到的问题：你最喜欢的公理是哪个？（CM有回说那是数学宅男的搭讪词。）
“The axiom of equality,” he’d said, and Kashen had nodded, approvingly. “That’s a good one,” he’d said.
“相等公理。”他说，卡申博士赞许地点点头。“这个公理很好。”他说。
The axiom of equality states that x always equals x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that it must always be equivalent to itself, that it has a uniqueness about it, that it is in possession of something so irreducible that we must assume it is absolutely, unchangeably equivalent to itself for all time, that its very elementalness can never be altered. But it is impossible to prove. Always, absolutes, nevers: these are the words, as much as numbers, that make up the world of mathematics. Not everyone liked the axiom of equality—Dr. Li had once called it coy and twee, a fan dance of an axiom—but he had always appreciated how elusive it was, how the beauty of the equation itself would always be frustrated by the attempts to prove it. It was the kind of axiom that could drive you mad, that could consume you, that could easily become an entire life.
相等公理规定，x永远等于x：这个公理假设你有一个名叫x的概念，那么它一定恒等于自己，它有一种唯一性，具有某种不可约的性质，因而我们必须假设它永远绝对地、不可改变地恒等于它自己，假设它最重要的本质绝不改变。但这项公理无法被证明。永远、绝对、绝不：这些词汇跟数字一样常用，构成了数学的世界。并不是每个人都喜欢相等公理——李博士有回就说这项公理害羞又做作，是公理的裸体扇子舞——但他一直很欣赏这个公理的不可捉摸，这个等式本身的美总会被证明它的尝试所掩盖。这是那种会把你逼疯、把你累垮、轻易害你耗上一辈子的公理。
