《渺小一生》:他越来越相信他们打算摆脱他

　 “You’re welcome,” said Luke. “After all, you don’t turn eight every day, do you?”

“不客气，”卢克说，“你又不是天天都刚好满8岁，对吧？”

　 “No,” he admitted, smiling wildly at the gift, and for the rest of his free period, he had built houses and boxes with the pieces while Brother Luke watched him, sometimes reaching over to tuck his hair behind his ears.

“对。”他承认，对着礼物露出大大的笑容，而且在那段自由时间里，他一直用那些零件盖房子和盒子。卢克修士看着他，有时伸手把他的头发塞到耳后。

　 He spent every minute he could with the brother in the greenhouse. With Luke, he was a different person. To the other brothers, he was a burden, a collection of problems and deficiencies, and every day brought a new detailing of what was wrong with him: he was too dreamy, too emotional, too energetic, too fanciful, too curious, too impatient, too skinny, too playful. He should be more grateful, more graceful, more controlled, more respectful, more patient, more dexterous, more disciplined, more reverent. But to Brother Luke, he was smart, he was quick, he was clever, he was lively. Brother Luke never told him he asked too many questions, or told him that there were certain things he would have to wait to know until he grew up. The first time Brother Luke tickled him, he had gasped and then laughed, uncontrollably, and Brother Luke had laughed with him, the two of them tussling on the floor beneath the orchids. “You have such a lovely laugh,” Brother Luke said, and “What a great smile you have, Jude,” and “What a joyful person you are,” until it was as if the greenhouse was someplace bewitched, somewhere that transformed him into the boy Brother Luke saw, someone funny and bright, someone people wanted to be around, someone better and different than he actually was.

他一有空就去温室找修士。跟卢克在一起，他成了另一个人。对其他修士来说，他是个负担，集各种麻烦和缺陷于一身，而且每天都会增加一点小毛病：他太爱做白日梦、太情绪化、太精力旺盛、太爱幻想、太好奇、太没耐心、太瘦、太爱玩。他应该要更心存感激、更得体、更克制、更恭敬、更有耐心、更灵巧、更有纪律、更虔诚。但对卢克修士来说，他很聪明、反应很快、很伶俐、很活泼。卢克修士从不会跟他说他问的问题太多了，或有些事要等他长大了才能知道。卢克修士第一次呵他痒时，他猛吸一口气，然后开始大笑，无法控制，卢克修士也跟他一起大笑，两个人在兰花下方的地上扭打成一团。“你的笑声真可爱。”卢克修士说，还有“裘德，你的微笑太可爱了”，以及“你真是个充满喜悦的人”。到最后，那温室像被施了魔法，把他变成了卢克修士眼中的那个男孩，滑稽又开朗，让人想亲近，而且比实际的他更好、更不同。

　 When things were bad with the other brothers, he imagined himself in the greenhouse, playing with his things or talking to Brother Luke, and repeated back to himself the things Brother Luke said to him. Sometimes things were so bad he wasn’t able to go to dinner, but the next day, he would always find something in his room that Brother Luke had left him: a flower, or a red leaf, or a particularly bulbous acorn, which he had begun collecting and storing under the grate.

当他跟其他修士处得很糟时，他会幻想自己在温室里，玩他自己的东西或跟卢克修士讲话，然后自言自语重复着卢克修士跟他说过的事情。有时状况糟到他没法去吃晚餐，但次日他总会在房间里发现卢克修士留给他的东西：一朵鲜花、一片红叶，或是一颗特别圆的橡实。他会收集起来，藏在铁栅栏之下。

　 The other brothers had noticed he was spending all his time with Brother Luke and, he sensed, disapproved. “Be careful around Luke,” warned Brother Pavel of all people, Brother Pavel who hit him and yelled at him. “He’s not who you think he is.” But he ignored him. They were none of them who they said they were.

其他修士注意到他总是跟卢克修士在一起，他感觉到他们似乎不赞同。“跟卢克在一起要小心点。”帕维尔修士警告他，偏偏帕维尔修士最常打他或骂他了。“他不是你以为的那种人。”但他不理会。他们没有一个是自己说的那种人。

　 One day he went to the greenhouse late. It had been a very hard week; he had been beaten very badly; it hurt him to walk. He had been visited by both Father Gabriel and Brother Matthew the previous evening, and every muscle hurt. It was a Friday; Brother Michael had unexpectedly released him early that day, and he had thought he might go play with his logs. As he always did after those sessions, he wanted to be alone—he wanted to sit in that warm space with his toys and pretend he was far away.

某天他很晚才去温室。那个星期很难捱，他被打得很惨，连走路都会痛。前一天晚上，盖柏瑞神父和马修修士都来找过他，现在他全身的每块肌肉都在发痛。那是星期五；迈克修士出乎意料地提早让他下课，他想着可以去玩那些原木。就像每回自由时间那样，他想独处——他想坐在那温暖的空间里玩他的玩具，假装自己在很远很远的地方。

　 No one was in the greenhouse when he arrived, and he lifted the grate and took out his Indian doll and the box of logs, but even as he was playing with them, he found himself crying. He was trying to cry less—it always made him feel worse, and the brothers hated it and punished him for it—but he couldn’t help himself. He had at least learned to cry silently, and so he did, although the problem with crying silently was that it hurt, and it took all your concentration, and eventually he had to put his toys down. He stayed until the first bell rang, and then put his things away and ran back downhill toward the kitchen, where he would peel carrots and potatoes and chop celery for the night’s meal.

他进去的时候，温室里没有人，于是他掀起铁栅栏，拿出他的印第安玩偶和那盒原木，但他玩的时候，发现自己开始哭。他已经试着少哭了（因为哭了感觉更糟，而且修士们很讨厌他哭，会因此惩罚他），但他控制不了自己。他至少学会不要哭出声，于是静静地掉泪。虽然安静地哭的麻烦是很痛，而且会用尽他的注意力，最后不得不放下玩具。他待在那里，直到第一声钟响，才把东西收回去，冲下坡，奔向厨房，他要去削胡萝卜和马铃薯、切芹菜，好准备晚餐。

　 And then, for reasons he was never able to determine, not even when he was an adult, things suddenly became very bad. The beatings got worse, the sessions got worse, the lectures got worse. He wasn’t sure what he had done; to himself, he seemed the same as he always had. But it was as if the brothers’ collective patience with him were reaching some sort of end. Even Brothers David and Peter, who loaned him books, as many as he wanted, seemed less inclined to speak to him. “Go away, Jude,” said Brother David, when he came to talk to him about a book of Greek myths the brother had given him. “I don’t want to look at you now.”

后来，因为一些他始终无法断定的原因（连他成年后都搞不清楚），事态忽然急转直下。修士们打他打得更凶，上课的状况恶化，训诫也更严厉。他不确定自己做了什么，对他自己而言，他好像一直是老样子。但修士们对他的耐心似乎快用光了。就连向来无限制借他书的戴维修士和彼得修士，好像都不太想跟他讲话了。“走开，裘德。”戴维修士说——当时他去找修士，想跟他谈一本修士给他的希腊神话——“我现在不想看到你。”

　 Increasingly he was becoming convinced that they were going to get rid of him, and he was terrified, because the monastery was the only home he had ever had. How would he survive, what would he do, in the outside world, which the brothers had told him was full of dangers and temptations? He could work, he knew that; he knew how to garden, and how to cook, and how to clean: maybe he could get a job doing one of those things. Maybe someone else might take him in. If that happened, he reassured himself, he would be better. He wouldn’t make any of the mistakes he had made with the brothers.

他越来越相信他们打算摆脱他。这把他吓坏了，因为修道院是他有生以来唯一的家。修士们都跟他说外面的世界充满危险和诱惑，离开了修道院，他要怎么存活，他要做什么？他知道他可以工作；他会园艺、会做菜，也会打扫，或许他可以找到做这类事情的工作。或许有别人愿意收留他。如果是这样，他向自己一再保证，他会更乖的。他对这些修士犯下的错误，绝对不会重演。

　 “Do you know how much it costs to take care of you?” Brother Michael had asked him one day. “I don’t think we ever thought we’d have you around for this long.” He hadn’t known what to say to either of those statements, and so had sat staring dumbly at the desk. “You should apologize,” Brother Michael told him.

“你知道为了照顾你，要花多少钱吗？”迈克修士有天上课上到一半问他，“我不认为我们当初想到你会待这么久。”这两句话他不知该怎么回应，只是坐在那里，呆呆地瞪着书桌。“你应该道歉。”迈克修士告诉他。

　 “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“对不起。”他低声说。

　 Now he was so tired that he didn’t have strength even to go to the greenhouse. Now after his classes he went down to a corner of the cellar, where Brother Pavel had told him there were rats but Brother Matthew said there weren’t, and climbed onto one of the wire storage units where boxes of oil and pasta and sacks of flour were stored, and rested, waiting until the bell rang and he had to go back upstairs. At dinners, he avoided Brother Luke, and when the brother smiled at him, he turned away. He knew for certain now that he wasn’t the boy Brother Luke thought he was—joyful? funny?—and he was ashamed of himself, of how he had deceived Luke, somehow.

现在他累到连去温室的力气都没有了。只要一上完课，他就跑到地窖的一个角落里，帕维尔修士以前跟他说那里有老鼠，但马修修士说没有。他会爬到那些堆放成箱食物油、意大利面和一袋袋面粉的储藏网架上休息，等到铃声响起才上楼去。晚餐时间他都躲着卢克修士。如果修士朝他微笑，他就别过头去不理不睬。他现在确定自己不是卢克修士认为的那个男孩了（欢乐？滑稽？），而且他以自己为耻，也为自己欺骗了卢克而感到羞愧。

　 He had been avoiding Luke for a little more than a week when one day he went down to his hiding place and saw the brother there, waiting for him. He looked for somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere, and instead he began to cry, turning his face to the wall and apologizing as he did.

他躲了卢克一个多星期。有一天，他到地窖里的躲藏处，看到卢克在那里等着他。他想找个地方躲起来，但那里没有地方可以躲，于是他转向墙壁哭了起来，一边哭一边道歉。

　 “Jude, it’s all right,” said Brother Luke, and stood near him, patting him on the back. “It’s all right, it’s all right.” The brother sat on the cellar steps. “Come here, come sit next to me,” he said, but he shook his head, too embarrassed to do so. “Then at least sit down,” said Luke, and he did, leaning against the wall. Luke stood, then, and began looking through the boxes on one of the high shelves, until he retrieved something from one and held it out to him: a glass bottle of apple juice.

“裘德，没事的，”卢克修士说，走上前来拍着他的背，“没事的，没事的。”修士在地窖台阶上坐下。“过来，坐在我旁边。”修士说。但他摇头，因为太难为情而没有过去。“那至少坐下来吧。”卢克说。于是他坐下，靠在墙上。然后卢克站起来，开始检视某个高处网架的箱子，取出一个东西递给他：玻璃瓶装的苹果汁。

　 “I can’t,” he said, instantly. He wasn’t supposed to be in the cellar at all: he entered it through the small window on the side and then climbed down the wire shelves. Brother Pavel was in charge of the stores and counted them every week; if something was missing, he’d be blamed. He always was.

“我不能喝。”他马上说。他根本不该出现在地窖里，他是从侧边的小窗钻进来，再爬下网架的。帕维尔修士负责管理仓库，每周都会清点；要是少了东西，被责怪的一定是他，一如往常。

　 “Don’t worry, Jude,” said the brother. “I’ll replace it. Go on—take it,” and finally, after some coaxing, he did. The juice was sweet as syrup, and he was torn between sipping it, to make it last, and gulping it, in case the brother changed his mind and it was taken from him.

“别担心，裘德，”修士说，“我会买新的补回去。来，拿去吧。”终于，在修士的好言劝慰下，他接过来。那果汁甜得像糖浆，他想慢慢喝，喝久一点，又想大口喝掉，免得修士改变心意把果汁收回去。

　 After he had finished, they sat in silence, and then the brother said, in a low voice, “Jude—what they do to you: it’s not right. They shouldn’t be doing that to you; they shouldn’t be hurting you,” and he almost started crying again. “I would never hurt you, Jude, you know that, don’t you?” and he was able to look at Luke, at his long, kind, worried face, with his short gray beard and his glasses that made his eyes look even larger, and nod.

他喝完后，他们默默坐在那里，修士低声说：“裘德，他们对你做的事是不对的。他们不该对你那样，他们不该伤害你。”他差点又哭起来。“裘德，我永远不会伤害你，你知道吧？”他这才有办法看着卢克，看着他仁慈、忧虑的长脸、他短短的灰色络腮胡、让他的大眼显得更大的眼镜，然后点点头。

　 “I know, Brother Luke,” he said.

“我知道，卢克修士。”他说。

　 Brother Luke was quiet for a long time before he spoke next. “Do you know, Jude, that before I came here, to the monastery, I had a son? You remind me so much of him. I loved him so much. But he died, and then I came here.”

卢克修士安静了许久，才继续说：“裘德，你知道吗，我来这里之前，来修道院之前，我有一个儿子。你常常让我想起他。我很爱他。但是他死了，之后我就来这里了。”

　 He didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t have to say anything, it seemed, because Brother Luke kept talking.

他不知道该说什么，但感觉上，他似乎什么都不必说，因为卢克修士一直讲个不停。