《渺小一生》:“那就告诉我你原谅我

　 “You have to do something,” says Harold. “We could have a dinner for you here, or in the city.”

“你一定要庆祝一下。”哈罗德说，“我们可以在这里帮你办个晚宴，或者去纽约。”

　 He smiles but shakes his head. “Forty’s forty,” he says. “It’s just another year.” As a child, though, he never thought he’d make it to forty: in the months after the injury, he would sometimes have dreams of himself as an adult, and although the dreams were very vague—he was never quite certain where he was living or what he was doing, though in those dreams he was usually walking, sometimes running—he was always young in them; his imagination refused to let him advance into middle age.

他微笑着摇摇头：“40岁就是40岁，没什么两样。”不过小时候，他从来没想过自己能活到40岁。受伤之后那几个月，他有时会梦到自己是成人。尽管梦境非常模糊（他从来不太确定自己住在哪里，也不确定自己在做什么工作，不过在那些梦里，他通常都在走路，有时还在跑），但他总是很年轻，他的想象力拒绝让自己活到中年。

　 To change the subject, he tells them about Dr. Kashen’s funeral, where Dr. Li gave a eulogy. “People who don’t love math always accuse mathematicians of trying to make math complicated,” Dr. Li had said. “But anyone who does love math knows it’s really the opposite: math rewards simplicity, and mathematicians value it above all else. So it’s no surprise that Walter’s favorite axiom was also the most simple in the realm of mathematics: the axiom of the empty set.

为了改变话题，他告诉他们沃尔特·卡申博士葬礼上的事，李博士念了一段悼词。“不喜欢数学的人总是指责数学家把数学搞得很复杂，”李博士说，“但任何真心喜欢数学的人都知道，其实正好相反：数学鼓励简单，而数学家最重视的莫过于简单。所以也难怪，沃尔特最喜欢的数学公理，就是数学领域中最简单的公理：空集合公理。

　 “The axiom of the empty set is the axiom of zero. It states that there must be a concept of nothingness, that there must be the concept of zero: zero value, zero items. Math assumes there’s a concept of nothingness, but is it proven? No. But it must exist.

“空集合公理就是零的公理。它的规定是，一定有个空无的概念，一定有个零的概念：零值、零项。数学里假设有一个空无的概念，但被证明了吗？没有，但它一定存在。

　 “And if we are being philosophical—which we today are—we can say that life itself is the axiom of the empty set. It begins in zero and ends in zero. We know that both states exist, but we will not be conscious of either experience: they are states that are necessary parts of life, even as they cannot be experienced as life. We assume the concept of nothingness, but we cannot prove it. But it must exist. So I prefer to think that Walter has not died but has instead proven for himself the axiom of the empty set, that he has proven the concept of zero. I know nothing else would have made him happier. An elegant mind wants elegant endings, and Walter had the most elegant mind. So I wish him goodbye; I wish him the answer to the axiom he so loved.”

“如果哲学一点来看，今天就是这样，我们可以说，生命本身就是空集合公理。从零开始，以零结束。我们知道这两种状态存在，但两种经验我们都没有办法得知：即使我们无法体验，但这两者都是人生必需的一部分。我们假设了空无的概念，我们无法证明，但它必然存在。所以我宁可想成沃尔特没有死，而是向自己证明了空集合公理，我宁可想成他证明了零的概念。我想再没有别的事情能让他更高兴的了。优雅的心灵都想要优雅的结尾，而沃尔特拥有最优雅的心灵。所以，愿他一路好走，愿他验证了他深爱的公理。”

　 They are all quiet for a while, contemplating this. “Please tell me that isn’t your favorite axiom,” Harold says suddenly, and he laughs. “No,” he says. “It’s not.”

他们都沉默了一会儿，思索着这段话。“拜托告诉我，那不是你最爱的公理。”哈罗德突然说。他听了大笑。“不，”他说，“的确不是。”

　 He sleeps in the next day, and that night he goes to the wedding, where because both of the grooms lived in Hood, he knows almost everyone. The non-Hood guests—Lionel’s colleagues from Wellesley, and Sinclair’s from Harvard, where he teaches European history—stand near one another as if for protection, looking bored and bemused. The wedding is loose-limbed and slightly chaotic—Lionel starts assigning his guests tasks as soon as they arrive, which most of them neglect: he is supposed to be making sure everyone signs the guest book; Willem is supposed to be helping people find their tables—and people walk around saying how, thanks to Lionel and Sinclair, thanks to this wedding, they won’t have to go to their twentieth reunion this year. They are all here: Willem and his girlfriend, Robin; Malcolm and Sophie; and JB and his new boyfriend, whom he hasn’t met, and he knows, even before checking their place cards, that they will all be assigned to the same table. “Jude!” people he hasn’t seen in years say to him. “How are you? Where’s JB? I just spoke to Willem! I just saw Malcolm!” And then, “Are you four all still as close as you were?”

次日白天他都在睡觉，然后晚上去参加婚礼，因为两位新郎以前都在虎德馆住过，所以在场每个人他几乎都认识。非虎德馆的客人——莱诺在韦斯利学院的同事，辛克莱在哈佛大学（他在那里教欧洲史）的同事——都站在一起，好像是为了保护自己，而且他们看起来无聊且茫然。整个婚礼很随性，也有些混乱——客人一到，就分别被莱诺派了任务，但他们大部分人都没认真做：他负责让客人在签名本上签名；威廉负责帮每个客人找到自己的桌子——大家走来走去，说多亏莱诺和辛克莱，多亏这个婚礼，他们不必去参加二十周年同学会了。所有的人都来了：威廉和他的女友罗宾、马尔科姆和苏菲，还有杰比和一个陌生的新男友。不必查座位卡，他就知道他们被安排在同一桌。“裘德！”多年不见的人跟他说，“你好吗？杰比在哪里？我刚刚跟威廉聊了一下！我刚刚看到马尔科姆了！”然后，“你们四个还是像以前那么要好吗？”

　 “We all still talk,” he says, “and they’re doing great,” which is the answer he and Willem had decided they’d give. He wonders what JB is saying, whether he is skimming over the truth, as he and Willem are, or whether he is lying outright, or whether, in a fit of JBish forthrightness, he is telling the truth: “No. We hardly ever speak anymore. I only really talk to Malcolm these days.”

“我们都还有联络，”他说，“他们现在都很好。”这是他和威廉之前决定的说法。他很好奇杰比会怎么说，不知是会像他和威廉一样对真相轻描淡写，还是会忽然直肠子发作说出实话：“没有，我们现在不太来往了。我现在只跟马尔科姆联络。”

　 He hasn’t seen JB in months and months. He hears of him, of course: through Malcolm, through Richard, through Black Henry Young. But he doesn’t see him any longer, because even nearly three years later, he is unable to forgive him. He has tried and tried. He knows how intractable, how mean, how uncharitable he is being. But he can’t. When he sees JB, he sees him doing his imitation of him, sees him confirming in that moment everything he has feared and thought he looks like, everything he has feared and thought other people think about him. But he had never thought his friends saw him like that; or at least, he never thought they would tell him. The accuracy of the imitation tears at him, but the fact that it was JB doing it devastates him. Late at night, when he can’t sleep, the image he sometimes sees is JB dragging himself in a half-moon, his mouth agape and drooling, his hands held before him in claws: I’m Jude. I’m Jude St. Francis.

他好多个月没见到杰比了。当然，他听说了他的近况：通过马尔科姆，通过理查德，通过黑亨利·杨。但他再也不跟杰比来往了。即使时隔将近三年，他还是没办法原谅他。他试了又试，知道自己这样有多难搞、有多小气、有多不厚道。但他就是没办法。每当他看到杰比，就看到杰比模仿自己的样子。他一直恐惧，也想过自己看起来是什么样，一直恐惧，也想过别人怎么看他，在杰比模仿他的那一刻，他证实了过往所有的恐惧和猜测。但他从来没想到他的朋友会那样看他，至少，他从来没想到他们会告诉他。那模仿的精确性的确很让他伤心，但真正让他震惊并且心碎的原因，在于模仿他的人是杰比。每当夜深人静睡不着时，他偶尔会看到杰比在半月下拖着脚步，嘴巴张开流着口水，双手像爪子般抬在胸前说：我是裘德。我是裘德·圣弗朗西斯。

　 That night, after they had taken JB to the hospital and admitted him—JB had been stuporous and dribbling when they took him in, but then had recovered and become angry, violent, screaming wordlessly at them all, thrashing against the orderlies, wresting his body out of their arms until they had sedated him and dragged him, lolling, down the hallway—Malcolm had left in one taxi and he and Willem had gone home to Perry Street in another.

那天夜里，他们把杰比送去住院。到医院时，杰比已经神志不清、猛流口水，但恢复意识后，他就变得愤怒、暴力，朝着他们所有人尖叫，双手乱打护理员，身子扭动着想要挣脱，直到院方给他打了镇静剂，才把全身无力的他拖走。后来，马尔科姆坐一辆出租车离开，他和威廉坐另一辆回佩里街的家。

　 He hadn’t been able to look at Willem in the cab, and without anything to distract him—no forms to fill out, no doctors to talk to—he had felt himself grow cold despite the hot, muggy night, and his hands begin to shake, and Willem had reached over and taken his right hand and held it in his left for the rest of the long, silent ride downtown.

他在出租车上没办法看威廉，也没有其他事情能转移注意力——没有表格要填，没有医生要见。那是个闷热的夏夜，他却觉得自己越来越冷，双手开始发抖。威廉伸出左手抓住他的右手，在回市区那段漫长而沉默的车程中始终握着不放。

　 He was there for JB’s recovery. He decided he’d stay until he got better; he couldn’t abandon JB then, not after all their time together. The three of them took shifts, and after work he’d sit by JB’s hospital bed and read. Sometimes JB was awake, but most of the time he wasn’t. He was detoxing, but the doctor had also discovered that JB had a kidney infection, and so he stayed on in the hospital’s main ward, liquids dripping into his arm, his face slowly losing its bloat. When he was awake, JB would beg him for forgiveness, sometimes dramatically and pleadingly, and sometimes—when he was more lucid—quietly. These were the conversations he found most difficult.

他陪伴杰比，直到他恢复，并决心要待到他好转为止；这么多年的情谊，他不能在这个时候抛下杰比不管。他们三个人轮班，下班后他就到医院，坐在杰比的病床边阅读。有时杰比会醒来，但大多数时间都处于昏迷状态。杰比在戒毒，但医生发现他的一个肾脏感染了，所以杰比一直住在医院的主病房区，手上插了静脉注射管，脸慢慢地消肿。醒来时，杰比会求他原谅，有时是很戏剧化的恳求，碰到他比较清醒时，则是轻声的哀求。这类对话是他觉得最棘手的。

　 “Jude, I’m so sorry,” he’d say. “I was so messed up. Please tell me you forgive me. I was so awful. I love you, you know that. I would never want to hurt you, never.”

“裘德，对不起，”杰比会说，“我当时脑子乱成一团。拜托告诉我你原谅我了。我太差劲了。我爱你，你知道的。我绝对不会想伤害你的，绝对不会。”

　 “I know you were messed up, JB,” he’d say. “I know.”

“我知道你当时昏头了，杰比。”他会说，“我知道。”

　 “Then tell me you forgive me. Please, Jude.”

“那就告诉我你原谅我。拜托，裘德。”

　 He’d be silent. “It’s going to be okay, JB,” he’d say, but he couldn’t make the words—I forgive you—leave his mouth. At night, alone, he would say them again and again: I forgive you, I forgive you. It would be so simple, he’d admonish himself. It would make JB feel better. Say it, he’d command himself as JB looked at him, the whites of his eyes smeary and yellowed. Say it. But he couldn’t. He knew he was making JB feel worse; he knew it and was still unable to say it. The words were stones, held just under his tongue. He couldn’t release them, he just couldn’t.

然后他会沉默一会儿。“没事的，杰比。”他会说，但他没办法让“我原谅你”这几个字从嘴巴吐出来。到了夜里独自一人时，他会一遍又一遍地说：我原谅你，我原谅你。明明很简单，他劝告自己，这样可以让杰比好过一点。每当杰比看着他，眼白浑浊发黄，他就会命令自己，快说，快说啊。但他就是做不到。他知道自己害杰比感觉更糟糕。他明明知道，但就是说不出来。那几个字像石头，就埋在他的舌头下方。但他没法吐出来，就是没办法。

　 Later, when JB called him nightly from rehab, strident and pedantic, he’d sat silently through his monologues on what a better person he’d become, and how he had realized he had no one to depend on but himself, and how he, Jude, needed to realize that there was more in life than just work, and to live every day in the moment and learn to love himself. He listened and breathed and said nothing. And then JB had come home and had had to readjust, and none of them heard very much from him at all for a few months. He had lost the lease on his apartment, and had moved back in with his mother while he reestablished his life.

后来，杰比每天晚上从勒戒中心打电话给他时，他会坐在那沉默地听着杰比兀自说个不停，刺耳又学究气，说他已经变成了一个更好的人，说他了解到了他不能靠别人、只能靠自己，还有他（裘德）要明白人生不光是工作而已，要好好过每一天，并且学着爱自己。杰比勒戒完回家，必须重新适应。有短暂的几个月他们很少听到他的消息。只知道杰比租的公寓被房东收回，他先搬回母亲家，设法重建自己的生活。

　 But then one day he had called. It had been early February, almost seven months exactly after they had taken him to the hospital, and JB wanted to see him and talk. He suggested JB meet him at a café called Clementine that was near Willem’s building, and as he inched his way past the tightly spaced tables to a seat against the back wall, he realized why he had chosen this place: because it was too small, and too cramped, for JB to do his impression of him, and recognizing that, he felt foolish and cowardly.

但接下来有一天，他打电话来了。那是二月初，离他们送他去医院将近七个月了。杰比想跟他见面谈谈。他就约了去威廉家附近一家叫克莱芒蒂娜的小餐馆碰面。当他在拥挤的餐桌间缓缓前进，走向靠着后墙的座位时，忽然明白为什么自己挑了这家餐馆：因为这里太小、太挤，杰比就没办法再模仿他的样子了。一领悟到这点，他就觉得自己好傻好懦弱。

　 He hadn’t seen JB in a long time, and JB leaned over the table and hugged him, lightly, carefully, before sitting down.

他跟杰比很久没见了。杰比站起来身体前倾，隔着餐桌拥抱了他一下，很轻、很小心翼翼，然后才坐下。

　 “You look great,” he said.

“你气色很好。”他说。