《渺小一生》:“二月十五日。”

　 That night he had his first tantrum in years, and although the punishment here was the same, more or less, as it had been at the monastery, the release, the sense of flight it had once given him, was not: now he was someone who knew better, whose screams would change nothing, and all his shouting did was bring him back to himself, so that everything, every hurt, every insult, felt sharper and brighter and stickier and more resonant than ever before.

那一晚，他多年来第一次乱发脾气。这里的处罚跟修道院一样，大同小异，现在却不能给他解脱，给他那种飞翔的感觉：现在他更懂事了，他的尖叫改变不了什么，他的怒吼只是召回原来的自己，召回过往的一切。于是每一种伤害、每一次侮辱，都变得更尖锐、更鲜明、更难受，而且比以往更刻骨铭心。

　 He would never, never know what he had done wrong that weekend at the Learys’. He would never know if it had been something he could control, or something he couldn’t. And of all the things from the monastery, from the home, that he worked to scrub over, he worked hardest at forgetting that weekend, at forgetting the special shame of allowing himself to believe that he might be someone he knew he wasn’t.

他永远、永远不会知道自己在黎瑞夫妇家的那个周末做错了什么。他永远不会知道那是不是自己能控制的事。多年来，他一直想忘却修道院和少年之家的种种，但他最努力忘记的是那个周末。因为他想忘掉那特别的耻辱：当时他竟然相信自己可以去当另一个人；他明明知道那不是真正的自己。

　 But now, of course, with the court date six weeks, five weeks, four weeks away, he thought of it constantly. With Willem gone, and no one to monitor his hours and activities, he stayed up until the sun began lightening the sky, cleaning, scrubbing with a toothbrush the space beneath the refrigerator, bleaching each skinny grout-canal between the bathtub wall tiles. He cleaned so he wouldn’t cut himself, because he was cutting himself so much that even he knew how crazy, how destructive he was being; even he was scared of himself, as much by what he was doing as by his inability to control it. He had begun a new method of balancing the edge of the blade on his skin and then pressing down, as deep as he could, so that when he withdrew the razor—stuck like an ax head into a tree stump—there was half a second in which he could pull apart the two sides of flesh and see only a clean white gouge, like a side of fatted bacon, before the blood began rushing in to pool within the cut. He felt dizzy, as if his body was pumped with helium; food tasted like rot to him, and he stopped eating unless he had to. He stayed at the office until the night shift of cleaners began moving through the hallways, noisy as mice, and then stayed awake at home; he woke with his heart thudding so fast that he had to gulp air to calm himself. It was only work, and Willem’s calls, that forced him into normalcy, or he’d have never left the house, would have cut himself until he could have loosed whole pyramids of flesh from his arms and flushed them down the drain. He had a vision in which he carved away at himself—first arms, then legs, then chest and neck and face—until he was only bones, a skeleton who moved and sighed and breathed and tottered through life on its porous, brittle stalks.

但现在，随着去法院的日子只剩六星期、五星期、四星期，他一直想着这件事。现在威廉不在家，没人监视他的作息和活动，他总是熬夜不睡，在家里打扫，用牙刷清理冰箱底下的空间，把浴室瓷砖的每一道小缝隙都漂白一遍，直到太阳开始照亮天空。他打扫是因为这样他就不会割自己，他割得太多了，就连他也知道自己有多疯狂、多具毁灭性；甚至他都被自己吓到了，包括自己做的事，还有自己的无力控制。他开始一种新的自残方法，把刀片一角放在皮肤上，然后往下压，尽可能深入，这样抽出刀片时（像斧头砍入树干般卡住），就会有半秒的时间可以拉开肉的两侧，出现一道干净的白沟，像是培根的侧面，然后血才开始涌出来，填满那道口子。他觉得晕眩，好像身体里充满了氦气。食物在嘴里总是有腐烂的气息，于是他停止进食，除非必要。他留在办公室加班，直到夜班清洁工开始在走廊上走动，胶底鞋摩擦地板发出有如老鼠的吱吱声，他才回家。有时他突然醒来，心脏跳得好快，得深吸几口气才能平静下来。只有工作和威廉的电话才能逼着他恢复正常，否则他永远不会离开屋子，会割自己割到手臂上的肉一块块掉光，然后冲进马桶里。他幻想着一刀刀割掉自己的肉，先是手臂，然后是双腿，然后是胸部、脖子和脸，直到只剩骨头，成了一具空荡、脆弱的骷髅，四处移动、叹气、呼吸，摇摇晃晃地过日子。

　 He was back to seeing Andy every six weeks, and had delayed his most recent visit twice, because he dreaded what Andy might say. But finally, a little less than four weeks before the court date, he went uptown and sat in one of the examining rooms until Andy peered in to say he was running late.

他每六周该去安迪那看诊一次，但最近两次都拖着没去，因为他很担心安迪可能会说的话。但最后，离法院公证日期不到四周时，他终于去了安迪那里，坐在一间诊室里，直到安迪站在门口说他晚一点才有空。

　 “Take your time,” he said.

“你慢慢来，没关系。”他说。

　 Andy studied him, squinting a bit. “I won’t be long,” he said, finally, and then was gone.

安迪打量着他，稍稍眯起眼睛。“不会太久的。”他终于说话了，但随即就走开了。

　 A few minutes later, his nurse Callie came in. “Hi, Jude,” she said. “Doctor wants me to get your weight; do you mind stepping on the scale?”

几分钟后，他的护士凯莉进来。“嗨，裘德。”她说，“医生要我帮你量体重；可以麻烦你站到体重计上吗？”

　 He didn’t want to, but he knew it wasn’t Callie’s fault or decision, and so he dragged himself off the table, and onto the scale, and didn’t look at the number as Callie wrote it down in his chart, and thanked him, and left the room.

他不想，但他知道这不是凯莉的错，也不是她的决定。于是他慢吞吞地下了检查台，站到秤上，没看数字。这时凯莉把数字写在他的病历表上，谢谢他，就离开了。

　 “So,” Andy said after he’d come in, studying his chart. “What should we talk about first, your extreme weight loss or your excessive cutting?”

“那么，”后来安迪进来，看着他的病历表说，“首先我们要谈什么？你体重一下子减轻太多，还是你太常割自己？”

　 He didn’t know what to say to that. “Why do you think I’ve been cutting myself excessively?”

他不知道该怎么回答：“你为什么觉得我太常割自己？”

　 “I can always tell,” Andy said. “You get sort of—sort of bluish under the eyes. You’re probably not even conscious of it. And you’re wearing your sweater over the gown. Whenever it’s bad, you do that.”

“我一向看得出来。”安迪说，“你眼睛下头有点——有点发青。你自己大概没注意到。另外，你在病人袍外穿了毛衣。每回状况糟糕的时候，你就会这样。”

　 “Oh,” he said. He hadn’t been aware.

“啊。”他说，他以前都没意识到。

　 They were quiet, and Andy pulled his stool close to the table and asked, “When’s the date?”

他们都没说话，安迪把凳子拖近检查台，问他：“是哪一天？”

　 “February fifteenth.”

“二月十五日。”

　 “Ah,” said Andy. “Soon.”

“啊，”安迪说，“快了。”

　 “Yes.”

“对。”

　 “What’re you worried about?”

“你在担心什么？”

　 “I’m worried—” he began, and then stopped, and tried again. “I’m worried that if Harold finds out what I really am, he won’t want to—” He stopped. “And I don’t know which is worse: him finding out before, which means this definitely won’t happen, or him finding out after, and realizing I’ve deceived him.” He sighed; he hadn’t been able to articulate this until now, but having done so, he knew that this was his fear.

“我在担心……”他开了口，接着停下来，又试着开口，“我担心如果哈罗德发现我的真面目，他就不会想……”他又停下了，“而且我不知道哪种状况比较糟糕：如果他在收养前发现，那表示这事就不会成了；倘若事后才发现，他会明白我一直在欺骗他。”他叹了口气；之前他一直没法讲清楚，现在说出口，他才明白自己害怕的是这个。

　 “Jude,” Andy said, carefully, “what do you think is so bad about yourself that he wouldn’t want to adopt you?”

“裘德，”安迪小心翼翼地说，“你觉得自己有什么地方那么糟，糟到让他不想收养你？”

　 “Andy,” he pled, “don’t make me say it.”

“安迪，”他恳求，“别逼我说出来。”