《渺小一生》:我准备好了，他说，我准备好了
Back at the house, the beating continued, and over the next days, the next weeks, he was beat more. Not regularly—he never knew when it might happen next—but often enough so that coupled with his lack of food, he was always dizzy, he was always weak: he felt he would never have the strength to run again. As he feared, the sex also got worse, and he was made to do things that he was never able to talk about, not to anyone, not even to himself, and again, although it wasn’t always terrifying, it was often enough so that he lived in a constant half daze of fear, so that he knew that he would die in Dr. Traylor’s house. One night he had a dream of himself as a man, a real adult, but he was still in the basement and waiting for Dr. Traylor, and he knew in the dream that something had happened to him, that he had lost his mind, that he was like his roommate in the home, and he woke and prayed that he might die soon. During the daytime, as he slept, he dreamed of Brother Luke, and when he woke from those dreams he realized how much Luke had always protected him, how well he had treated him, how kind he had been to him. He had limped to the top of the wooden staircase then, and thrown himself down it, and then had pulled himself up and had done it again.
回到屋里，他继续挨揍，而且接下来几天、几星期，他也挨了揍。不是每天（他从来不知道下次会是什么时候），但是够频繁，加上缺乏食物，他总是觉得晕眩、虚弱，他觉得自己再也不会有力气跑了。一如他所害怕的，性交的状况也恶化了，他被迫去做一些他永远无法说出口的事，对任何人都没办法，甚至连对自己都没办法。而且同样地，尽管不是每次都很可怕，但也经常发生，让他一直处在半晕眩的害怕状态，他知道自己会死在特雷勒医生的屋子里了。有天夜里，他梦到自己变成大人，真正的成年人，但还是在地下室里等特雷勒医生，而且在梦里他知道自己出事了，他已经疯了，就像他在少年之家的室友那样，于是醒来时他祈祷自己赶快死掉。白天睡觉时，他梦到了卢克修士，醒来后他才明白卢克以前一直多么护着他，对他有多好，他一直对他那么仁慈。然后他踉跄爬到木阶梯顶端，往下摔，接着爬起来，再摔一次。
And then one day (Three months later? Four? Later, Ana would tell him that Dr. Traylor had said it was twelve weeks after he had found him at the gas station), Dr. Traylor said, “I’m tired of you. You’re dirty and you disgust me and I want you to leave.”
之后有一天（三个月后？四个月后？后来安娜告诉他，特雷勒医生说那是他在加油站发现他之后的第十二周），特雷勒医生说：“我厌倦你了。你好脏，让我觉得恶心，我希望你离开。”
He couldn’t believe it. But then he remembered to speak. “Okay,” he said, “okay. I’ll leave now.”
他不敢相信。但接着他才想起要说话。“好吧，”他说，“好吧，我现在就离开。”
“No,” said Dr. Traylor, “you’ll leave how I want you to leave.”
“不，”特雷勒医生说，“你会照我希望的方式离开。”
For several days, nothing happened, and he assumed that this too had been a lie, and he was grateful that he hadn’t gotten too excited, that he was finally able to recognize a lie when he was told it. Dr. Traylor had begun to serve him his meals on a fold of the day’s newspaper, and one day he looked at the date and realized it was his birthday. “I am fifteen,” he announced to the quiet room, and hearing himself say those words—the hopes, the fantasies, the impossibilities that only he knew lay behind them—he was sick. But he didn’t cry: his ability to not cry was his only accomplishment, the only thing he could take pride in.
接下来好几天，什么事都没发生，他猜想特雷勒医生又在撒谎了，还很庆幸自己没有太兴奋，庆幸他听到谎言时终于有办法辨认了。特雷勒医生开始用当天的报纸装食物给他，有天他看着上头的日期，发现是他的生日。“我15岁了。”他对着安静的房间说，听着自己说这些话，他很想吐——只有他知道这句话背后的种种希望、种种幻想、种种不可能。但他没哭：练出不哭的能力是他唯一的成就，是他唯一值得骄傲的事。
And then one night Dr. Traylor came downstairs with his fire poker. “Get up,” he said, and jabbed him in the back with the poker as he fumblingly climbed the stairs, falling to his knees and getting up again and tripping again and standing again. He was prodded all the way to the front door, which was ajar, just slightly, and then outside, into the night. It was still cold, and still wet, but even through his fear he could recognize that the weather was changing, that even as time had suspended itself for him, it had not for the rest of the world, in which the seasons had marched on uncaringly; he could smell the air turning green. Next to him was a bare bush with a black branch, but at its very tip it was sprouting buboes of pale lilac, and he stared at it frantically, trying to seize a picture of it and hold it in his mind, before he was poked forward.
然后有天夜晚，特雷勒医生带着他的拨火棒下楼。“起来。”他说。他笨手笨脚地爬上楼梯，跪倒又起来，又绊倒，再爬起来，医生一直用拨火棒戳他的背部。他一路被戳着来到前门，门微微开了一条缝，他走出去，进入夜色中。外头还是很冷、很湿，即使在恐惧中，他还是看得出气候正在变化，即使时间对他而言停止了，但对世界的其他部分并非如此，季节依然无情地往前走；他闻得出空气变绿了。他旁边是一丛只剩黑色树枝的灌木，但尖端刚冒出有如淋巴腺肿一般的淡紫色新芽，他狂乱地瞪着，想抓住那个画面留在心中，接着又被戳着往前走。
At the car Dr. Traylor held open the trunk and jabbed him again with the fire poker, and he could hear himself making sounds like sobs, but he wasn’t crying, and he climbed inside, although he was so weak that Dr. Traylor had to help him, pinching the sleeve of his shirt between his fingers so he wouldn’t have to actually touch him.
来到汽车旁，特雷勒医生打开后行李厢，又用拨火棒戳他，他听到自己发出类似啜泣的声音，但是没有哭。他爬进去，他很虚弱，还要特雷勒医生帮着他，手指捏着他的衬衫袖子，以免碰到他。
They drove. The trunk was clean and large, and he rolled about in it, feeling them go around corners and up hills and down hills, and then along long stretches of plain, even road. And then the car swerved left and he was being bounced along some uneven surface and then the car stopped.
车子往前行驶，后行李厢又大又干净。他在里头滚动，觉得他们转来转去，上坡之后又下坡，然后走过一长段又直又平的路。接着车子往左转，经过一片崎岖不平的路面，好不容易才停下来。
For a while, three minutes—he counted—nothing happened, and he listened and listened but he could hear nothing, just his own breaths, his own heart.
有好一会儿，他数了有三分钟，什么动静都没有。他努力听了又听，但是什么都听不到，只听到自己的呼吸声和心跳声。
The trunk opened, and Dr. Traylor helped him out, plucking his shirt, and shoved him to the front of the car with the fire poker. “Stay there,” he said, and he did, shivering, watching the doctor get back into the car, roll down the window, lean out at him. “Run,” the doctor said, and when he stood there, frozen, “you like running so much, right? So run.” And Dr. Traylor started the engine and finally, he woke and ran.
后行李厢打开，特雷勒医生抓着他的袖子帮他爬出来，用拨火棒把他推到汽车前面。“待在那里。”他说。于是他站在那里，全身发抖，看着医生倒车，摇下车窗，探出头来看着他。“跑。”医生说，看他还呆站在那里，“你不是很爱跑吗？那就跑啊。”然后特雷勒医生发动引擎，终于，他醒悟过来开始跑。
They were in a field, a large barren square of dirt where there would in a few weeks be grass but now there was nothing, just patches of shallow ice that broke under his bare feet like pottery, and small white pebbles that glowed like stars. The field dipped in the middle, just slightly, and on his right was the road. He couldn’t see how big the road was, only that there was one, but there were no cars passing. To his left the field was fenced with wire, but it was farther away, and he couldn’t see what lay beyond the wire.
他们在一片田野里，一大片空荡不毛的泥土地，再过几个星期就会长满青草，但现在什么都没有，只有一片片薄冰在他的赤脚底下宛如陶片般破裂，还有小小的白色圆石有如星星般发亮。这块田地中间稍微低一点，田地右边是马路，他看不到那条路有多大，只知道有条路，但没有车子经过。田地左边围着铁丝网篱笆，但是太远了，他看不到篱笆后面是什么。
He ran, the car just behind him. At first it actually felt good to be running, to be outdoors, to be away from that house: even this, the ice under his feet like glass, the wind smacking against his face, the tap of the fender as it nudged against the back of his legs, even all this was better than that house, that room with its cinder-block walls and window so small it was no window at all.
他奔跑着，那辆汽车紧跟在他后头。一开始，能够奔跑、能够来到户外、能远离那栋房子的感觉其实很好，即使是像眼前这样，脚底下的冰像玻璃，狂风猛扑着他的脸，汽车保险杆不时轻推一下他的双腿后方，即使这一切，都要好过那栋房子，好过那个以煤渣砖砌墙、窗子小得根本不算窗子的地下室。
He ran. Dr. Traylor followed him, and sometimes he would accelerate, and he would run faster. But he couldn’t run like he used to run, and he fell, and fell again. Each time he fell, the car would slow, and Dr. Traylor would call out—not angrily, not even loudly—“Get up. Get up and run; get up and run or we’re going back to the house,” and he would make himself stand and run again.
他奔跑着。特雷勒医生跟着他，有时会加速，他就跑得更快。但他没法跑得像以前那样，他跌倒了，然后又跌一次。每回他跌倒，车子就会减速，特雷勒医生就朝他喊——没生气，甚至也不大声——“起来。起来继续跑；起来继续跑，不然我们就回屋子里。”于是他逼自己站起来再跑。
He ran. He didn’t know then that this was the last time in his life that he would ever run, and much later he would wonder: If I had known that, would I have been able to run faster? But of course it was an impossible question, a non-question, an axiom with no solution. He fell again and again, and on the twelfth time, he was moving his mouth, trying to say something, but nothing would come out. “Get up,” he heard the man say. “Get up. The next time you fall will be the last,” and he got up again.
他奔跑着。当时他不知道这会是他这辈子最后一次奔跑了，直到很后来，他会纳闷：如果我知道那是最后一次，有办法跑得更快吗？当然这是一个不可能的问题，一个不是问题的问题，一个没有解答的公理。他跌倒了一次又一次，到了第十二次，他动着嘴巴，想说话却说不出来。“起来，”他听到特雷勒医生说，“起来。下次你再跌倒，就是最后一次了。”于是他又站起来。
By this time he was no longer running, he was walking and stumbling, he was crawling from the car and the car was bumping against him harder and harder. Make this stop, he thought, make this stop. He remembered—who had told him this? one of the brothers, but which one?—a story of a piteous little boy, a boy, he had been told, in much worse circumstances than he was in, who after being so good for so long (another way in which he and the boy had been different), prayed one night to God to take him: I’m ready, the boy said in the story, I’m ready, and an angel, terrible and golden-winged, with eyes that burned with fire, appeared and wrapped his wings around the boy and the boy turned to cinders and was gone, released from this world.
这回他不再跑了，而是踉跄着往前走，他缓缓离开那辆汽车，车子轻撞着他，越来越用力。让这停下来，他心想，让这一切停下来。他想起一个故事（是谁告诉他的？某个修士，但哪一个？），关于一个很可怜的小男孩，修士说，状况比他悲惨得多，长期以来一直很乖（他和这小男孩的另一个不同点）。有天晚上他祈祷上帝带走他：我准备好了，故事里的小男孩说，我准备好了。然后一个可怕的天使出现了，生着金色的翅膀，双眼焚烧着火，那对翅膀包住小男孩，那男孩就变为煤渣消失了，离开了这个世界。
I’m ready, he said, I’m ready, and he waited for the angel with his awful, fearsome beauty to come save him.
我准备好了，他说，我准备好了，他等着那可怕、令人畏惧的绝美天使来救他。
The last time he fell, he couldn’t get up again. “Get up!” he heard Dr. Traylor yell. “Get up!” But he couldn’t. And then he heard the engine start again, and he felt the headlights coming toward him, two streams of fire like the angel’s eyes, and he turned his head to the side and waited, and the car came toward him and then over him and it was done.
最后一次他跌倒，再也爬不起来了。“起来！”他听到特雷勒医生吼道，“起来！”但是他爬不起来。接着他听到引擎又开始运转，感觉车头大灯朝他逼近，两道火光像那天使的眼睛，于是他头转向一边等着，那车冲向他，然后碾过他，到此为止。
And that was the end. After that, he became an adult. As he lay in the hospital, Ana sitting by his side, he made promises to himself. He evaluated the mistakes he had made. He never had known whom to trust: he had followed anyone who had shown him any kindness. After, though, he decided that he would change this. No longer would he trust people so quickly. No longer would he have sex. No longer would he expect to be saved.
那就是结局。之后，他就变为成人了。当他躺在医院里，安娜坐在他旁边时，他向自己做出种种承诺。他评估自己犯过的种种错误，发现自己从来不懂该信任谁，只知道应该跟着向他表达过善意的人。但是以后，他心想，他决定要改变这个状态了。他再也不要这么快就信任他人，他再也不要性交，他再也不要期盼会被拯救。
“It’ll never be this bad,” Ana used to say to him in the hospital. “Things’ll never be this bad again,” and although he knew she meant the pain, he also liked to think she meant his life in general: that with every year, things would get better. And she had been right: things did get better. And Brother Luke had been right as well, because when he was sixteen, his life changed. A year after Dr. Traylor, he was in the college he had dreamed of; with every day he didn’t have sex, he was becoming cleaner and cleaner. His life became more improbable by the year. Every year, his own good fortunes multiplied and intensified, and he was astonished again and again by the things and generosities that were bequeathed to him, by the people who entered his life, people so different from the people he had known that they seemed to be another species altogether: How, after all, could Dr. Traylor and Willem both be named the same sort of being? How could Father Gabriel and Andy? How could Brother Luke and Harold? Did what existed in the first group also exist in the second, and if so, how had that second group chosen otherwise, how had they chosen what to become? Things had not just corrected themselves; they had reversed themselves, to an almost absurd degree. He had gone from nothing to an embarrassing bounty. He would remember, then, Harold’s claim that life compensated for its losses, and he would realize the truth of that, although sometimes it would seem like life had not just compensated for itself but had done so extravagantly, as if his very life was begging him to forgive it, as if it were piling riches upon him, smothering him in all things beautiful and wonderful and hoped-for so he wouldn’t resent it, so he would allow it to keep moving him forward. And so, as the years went by, he broke his promises to himself again and again. He did end up following people who were kind to him. He did trust people again. He did have sex again. He did hope to be saved. And he was right to do so: not every time, of course, but most of the time. He ignored what the past had taught him and more often than he should have been, he was rewarded for it. He regretted none of it, not even the sex, because he had had it with hope, and to make someone else happy, someone who had given him everything.
“以后不会这么糟了，”安娜在医院里总是这么告诉他，“事情再也不会这么糟了。”他知道她指的是疼痛，但他也愿意认为她指的是他整体的人生：随着每一年过去，状况就会好转一些。结果她说得没错：的确是越来越好。卢克修士说得也没有错，因为当他满16岁时，他的人生改变了。碰到特雷勒医生的一年后，他进了梦想中的大学；每天都没有性生活，他变得越来越干净。他的人生随着每一年的过去变得越来越令人难以置信。每一年，他的好运都会成倍地增加并且增强，他一次又一次地惊叹自己碰到的种种好事和慷慨之举，惊叹走进他生命的那些人。那些人跟他以前认识的人实在太不同了，简直是一个完全不同的物种。归根结底，特雷勒医生和威廉怎么可能被命名为同一种生物？还有盖柏瑞神父和安迪呢？卢克修士和哈罗德呢？第一组人身上存在的特质，也存在于第二组吗？若是如此，第二组人怎么会选择另一种特质，怎么会选择变成那样呢？种种事物不但自行修正，根本是逆转过来，到了几乎荒谬的程度。他从一无所有，变成富裕得令人难为情。然后他想起，哈罗德曾宣称人生会自行弥补之前的损失。他明白这是真的，虽然有时感觉人生不光是自行弥补，还弥补得太过头了，好像他的人生在乞求他的原谅，好像他的人生把财富堆到他头上，用种种美丽、神奇与他期盼中的事物淹没他，好让他不要恨它，让它继续推着他往前走。于是，一年接着一年过去，他一次又一次打破对自己的种种承诺。他终于又去跟随向他表达善意的人。他又再度信任他人。他又有性生活了。他又希望被拯救了。他这样做是对的：当然不是每一次，但大部分时候都是对的。他不理会过去给他的教训，而且超过应该有的频率，也因此得到了回报。他没有一丁点后悔，连性爱的部分都不后悔，因为他做的时候抱着希望，知道这样可以让另一个人快乐，而这个人给了他一切。
One night shortly after he and Willem had become a couple, they had been at a dinner party at Richard’s, a raucous, casual affair of just people they loved and people they liked—JB and Malcolm and Black Henry Young and Asian Henry Young and Phaedra and Ali and all of their boyfriends and girlfriends, their husbands and wives. He was in the kitchen helping Richard prepare dessert, and JB came in—he was a little drunk—and put his arm around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, Judy,” he said, “you really ended up with it all in the end, didn’t you? The career, the money, the apartment, the man. How’d you get so lucky?” JB had grinned at him, and he had grinned back. He was glad Willem wasn’t there to overhear that comment, because he knew Willem would get testy at what he saw as JB’s jealousy, at his conviction that everyone else had, and had had, life easier than he did, that he, Jude, was blessed in a way that no one else was.
他和威廉成为一对之后没多久，某天晚上他们去了理查德家的晚餐派对。那个派对喧闹而轻松，来的只有他们深爱和喜欢的人——杰比、马尔科姆、黑亨利·杨、亚裔亨利·杨、菲德拉、阿里和他们的男友或女友、丈夫或太太。他在厨房里帮理查德准备甜点时，杰比跑进来，有点喝醉了，把一只手搭在他肩膀上，吻了他的脸颊。“好吧，小裘，”他说，“到头来你真的什么都有了，对吧？事业、金钱、公寓、伴侣。你怎么会这么幸运啊？”杰比咧嘴对着他笑，他也咧嘴笑了。他很高兴威廉没在现场听到这段话，因为他知道威廉会发火，因为威廉会觉得杰比是嫉妒，深信别人的人生都比他容易，而裘德更是幸运得没人比得上。
