《渺小一生》:“这并不自私。”

　 “Willem,” Jude said, and was quiet. “I think I turned out pretty normal, all things considered, don’t you?” and Willem had heard the strain, and the hope, in his voice.

“威廉，”裘德说，接着沉默了一下，“我想，如果考虑到各方面，我最后的结果相当正常，你不觉得吗？”威廉听得出他声音里的那种焦虑、那种期望。

　 “No,” he said, and Jude winced. “I think you turned out extraordinary, all things considered or not,” and finally, Jude smiled.

“不，”他说，裘德皱起脸，“我想，无论是不是考虑到各方面，你最后的结果都非常了不起。”裘德终于露出微笑。

　 That night, they had discussed what they were going to do. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me,” he began, and when he saw how relieved Jude was, he cursed himself for not making it clearer earlier that he was going to stay. Then he gathered himself and they talked about physical matters: how far he could go, what Jude didn’t want to do.

那一夜，他们讨论接下来该怎么办。“你恐怕甩不掉我了。”他说，看到裘德有多如释重负，他心里暗骂自己没有更早表明他不会离开。之后他振作起来，讨论身体的事情：他可以做到哪个地步，什么是裘德不想做的。

　 “We can do whatever you want, Willem,” Jude said.

“你想怎么样都可以，威廉。”裘德说。

　 “But you don’t like it,” he’d said.

“可是你不喜欢啊。”他说。

　 “But I owe it to you,” Jude had said.

“可是这是我欠你的。”裘德说。

　 “No,” he told him. “It shouldn’t feel like something you owe me; and besides, you don’t owe it to me.” He stopped. “If it’s not arousing for you, it’s not for me, either,” he added, although, to his shame, he did still want to have sex with Jude. He wouldn’t, not anymore, not if Jude didn’t want to, but it didn’t mean he would be able to suddenly stop craving it.

“不，”他告诉他，“这种事不该让人觉得是你欠我；更何况，你其实不欠我。”他暂停一下，“如果这事情不能激起你的性欲，那对我也一样。”他补充。虽然让他愧疚的是，他的确还是想跟裘德做爱。但只要裘德不想做，他也不会做了，但这不表示他有办法突然停止渴望。

　 “But you’ve sacrificed so much to be with me,” Jude said after a silence.

“但是你为了跟我在一起，牺牲那么多。”裘德沉默了一会儿说。

　 “Like what?” he asked, curious.

“比如什么？”他好奇地问。

　 “Normalcy,” Jude said. “Social acceptability. Ease of life. Coffee, even. I can’t add sex to that list.”

“正常，”裘德说，“社会接受度，生活的舒适，甚至还有咖啡。在这份清单上，我不能再加上性爱了。”

　 They had talked and talked, and he had finally managed to convince him, had managed to get Jude to define what he actually liked. (It hadn’t been much.) “But what are you going to do?” Jude asked him.

他们谈了又谈，他终于设法说服裘德，让裘德讲清楚他真正喜欢的有哪些（还真不多）。“可是你要怎么办？”裘德问他。

　 “Oh, I’ll be fine,” he said, not really knowing himself.

“啊，我不会有事的。”他说，其实自己也不知道。

　 “You know, Willem,” Jude had said, “you should obviously sleep with whomever you want. I just”—he fumbled—“I know this is selfish, but I just don’t want to hear about it.”

“你知道，威廉，”裘德说，“你显然应该跟任何你想要的人睡觉。我只是……”他支支吾吾地说，“我知道这样很自私，但我只是不希望听到这些事。”

　 “It’s not selfish,” he said, reaching across the bed for him. “And I wouldn’t do that, not ever.”

“这并不自私。”他说，伸手到床的那头抱住裘德，“我不会谈的，绝对不会。”

　 That was eight months ago, and in those eight months, things had gotten better: not, Willem thought, his former version of better, in which he pretended everything was fine and ignored all inconvenient evidence or suspicions that suggested otherwise, but actually better. He could tell Jude really was more relaxed: he was less inhibited physically, he was more affectionate, and he was both of those things because he knew that Willem had released him from what he thought were his obligations. He was cutting himself far less frequently. Now he didn’t need Harold or Andy to confirm for him that Jude was better: now he knew it to be true. The only difficulty was that he did still desire Jude, and at times he had to remind himself not to go any further, that he was getting close to the boundaries of what Jude could tolerate, and he would make himself stop. In those moments he would be angry, not at Jude or even at himself—he had never felt guilty about wanting to have sex, and he didn’t feel guilty about wanting to have it now—but at life, at how it had conspired to make Jude afraid of something that he had always associated with nothing but pleasure.

那是八个月前了，在那八个月，情况逐渐好转：不是他以前所想的那种好转（他以前会假装一切都很好，无视各种不对劲的证据，也不怀疑任何相反的迹象），而是确实好转了。他看得出裘德真的比较放松：对身体的羞怯减少了，更常表示关爱，而这两者，都是因为他知道威廉解除了那些他自认是自己的义务。裘德割自己的频率也低了很多。现在他不需要哈罗德或安迪跟他确认裘德好转了，连他也知道这是真的。唯一的难题是，他对裘德还是有欲望，有时他还得提醒自己不要更进一步，提醒自己已经濒临裘德所能忍受的极限，然后他会逼自己停下来。在那些时刻，他会很生气，不是气裘德，甚至不是气自己（他从来不会因为想性交而感到罪恶，现在依然），而是气人生，竟然促使裘德害怕一件事，而这件事向来只会让他联想到欢娱。

　 He was careful about who he chose to sleep with: he picked people (women, really: they had almost all been women) who he either sensed or knew, from previous experience, were truly only interested in him for sex and were going to be discreet. Often, they were confused, and he didn’t blame them. “Aren’t you in a relationship with a man?” they would ask, and he would tell them that he was, but that they had an open relationship. “So are you not really gay?” they would ask, and he would say, “No, not fundamentally.” The younger women were more accepting of this: they’d had boyfriends (or had boyfriends) who had slept with other men as well; they had slept with other women. “Oh,” they’d say, and that would usually be it—if they had other concerns, other questions, they didn’t ask. These younger women—actresses, makeup assistants, costume assistants—also didn’t want a relationship with him; often, they didn’t want a relationship at all. Sometimes the women asked him questions about Jude—how they had met, what he was like—and he answered them, and felt wistful, and missed him.

他很小心挑选要跟谁睡觉：他挑的人（其实是女人，他挑的几乎全是女人）都是他感觉到或是从以往的经验确知，对他真的只有上床的兴趣，而且会很谨慎的人。她们往往会很困惑，他也不怪她们。“你不是跟男人在一起吗？”她们会问。他说没错，但他们是开放式的关系。“所以你其实不是同性恋者？”她们会问，然后他说：“对，根本来说不算是。”年轻一些的女人比较能接受这个状况：她们的男友（或前男友）也曾跟其他男人睡觉；她们也跟其他女人睡过觉。“喔。”她们会说，通常只到此为止——就算有其他担忧或问题，也没提出来过。这些年轻女人，女演员、化妆助理、服装助理，不想跟他发展伴侣关系，通常她们根本不想跟任何人发展伴侣关系。有时，那些女人会问起关于裘德的事（他们是怎么认识的，他是什么样的人），他会回答，然后伤感起来，很想念裘德。

　 But he was vigilant about not letting this life intrude on his life at home. Once there had been a blind item in a gossip column—forwarded to him by Kit—that was clearly about him, and after debating whether to say something to Jude or not, he had in the end decided not to; Jude would never see the story, and there was no reason to make what Jude knew was happening in theory something he was forced to confront in reality.

但他随时留意，不让这一方面入侵他在家中的生活。有回一个八卦专栏没指名道姓（基特转给他看的），但显然就是在写他。他和自己斗争了半天，还是决定不要告诉裘德；裘德绝不会看到这篇文章。裘德知道这种事理论上会发生，但他没有理由逼着裘德去面对现实。

　 JB, however, had seen the item (he supposed other people he knew had seen it as well, but JB was the only one to actually mention it to him), and had asked him if it was true. “I didn’t know you guys had an open relationship,” he said, more curious than accusatory.

总之，杰比看到那篇八卦文章了（他猜他认识的其他人也看到了，但杰比是唯一跟他提起的人），然后问他是不是真的。“我都不晓得你们还有开放式的关系呢。”他说，比较好奇，而不是责问。

　 “Oh yeah,” he said, casually. “Right from the start.”

“喔是啊，”他说，故作轻松，“从一开始就是这样了。”

　 It saddened him, of course, that his sex life and his home life should have to be two distinct realms, but he was old enough now to know that within every relationship was something unfulfilled and disappointing, something that had to be sought elsewhere. His friend Roman, for example, was married to a woman who, while beautiful and loyal, was famously unintelligent: she didn’t understand the films Roman was in, and when you talked to her, you found yourself consciously recalibrating the velocity and complexity and content of your conversation, because she so often looked confused when the talk turned to politics, or finance, or literature, or art, or food, or architecture, or the environment. He knew that Roman was aware of this deficiency, in both Lisa and in his relationship. “Ah, well,” he had once said to Willem, unprompted, “if I want good conversation, I can talk to my friends, right?” Roman had been among the first of his friends to get married, and at the time, he had been fascinated by and disbelieving of his choice. But now he knew: you always sacrificed something. The question was what you sacrificed. He knew that to some people—JB; Roman, probably—his own sacrifice would be unthinkable. It would have been once to him as well.

现在他的性生活和家庭生活成了两个截然不同的领域。这一点他当然觉得难过，但他现在年纪够大了，足以知道每段伴侣关系都有不足和失望，必须去别处寻求。比方他的朋友罗蒙娶的老婆莉萨美丽而忠实，但是出了名的不聪明：她根本看不懂罗蒙拍的那些电影，而且你跟她讲话时，会发现自己一直在评估对话的速度、复杂度和内容，因为每次话题一转到政治、金融、文学、艺术、美食、建筑或环境生态，她常常一脸困惑。他知道罗蒙也知道莉萨和他们伴侣关系中的这个缺陷。“啊，好吧，”他有回主动跟威廉说，“如果我想要聊个过瘾，可以找我的朋友谈，对吧？”罗蒙是他最早结婚的朋友之一，当时他对罗蒙的选择非常好奇，觉得难以置信。但现在他懂了；你总会有所牺牲。他知道对某些人来说（杰比，大概还有罗蒙），他自己的牺牲是难以想象的。他以前也这样想。