双语·当呼吸化为空气 很好 这样很好

很好，这样很好。
Good. One good thing.

我们掀开病人身上的无菌布，一个以前没合作过的手术助理护士问我：“这周末你值班吗，医生？”
As we uncovered the patient, the scrub nurse, one with whom I hadn’t worked before, said, “You on call this weekend, Doc?”

“不。”也许永远都不值班了。
“Nope.” And possibly never again.

“今天还有手术吗？”
“Got any more cases today?”

“没有了。”也许永远都没有了。
“Nope.” And possibly never again.

“啊，那好。那就是大团圆结局了！工作做完啦。我喜欢大团圆的结局，你也是吧，医生？”
“Shit, well, I guess that means this is a happy ending! Work’s done. I like happy endings, don’t you, Doc?”

“是啊，是啊，我也喜欢大团圆。”
“Yeah. Yeah, I like happy endings.”

我坐在电脑旁边输入一些术后指令，护士们进行着清理工作，麻醉师开始唤醒病人。我一直半开玩笑地威胁说，如果是我主刀的手术，就不许听那种人人都喜欢的“打鸡血”的流行音乐，只能听巴萨诺瓦舞曲。我播放了巴萨诺瓦风格的经典专辑《不老的传说》，萨克斯柔和而又铿锵的演奏响彻整个手术室。
I sat down by the computer to enter orders as the nurses cleaned and the anesthesiologists began to wake the patient. I had always jokingly threatened that when I was in charge, instead of the high-energy pop music everyone liked to play in the OR, we’d listen exclusively to bossa nova. I put Getz/Gilberto on the radio, and the soft, sonorous sounds of a saxophone filled the room.

过了一会儿，我出了手术室，收拾好七年来用的所有东西——一些为通宵工作准备的备用衣服、牙刷、几块肥皂、手机充电器、零食、我的头骨模型和一系列神经外科的书，诸如此类。我转念一想，又把书留下了。它们在这儿，应该更能发挥作用吧。
I left the OR shortly after, then gathered my things, which had accumulated over seven years of work—extra sets of clothes for the nights you don’t leave, tooth-brushes, bars of soap, phone chargers, snacks, my skull model and collection of neurosurgery books, and so on. On second thought, I left my books behind. They’d be of more use here.

走向停车场的路上，一个同事走过来想问我什么事，但他的呼机响了。他看了一眼，挥挥手，转身往医院里面跑。“晚点再找你！”他回头朝我喊了一声。我坐在车里，热泪盈眶，转动钥匙，慢慢开到路上。回到家，我走进家门，挂好我的白大褂，摘下我的名牌，接着取出呼机的电池，脱下手术衣，痛痛快快地洗了个澡。
On my way out to the parking lot, a fellow approached to ask me something, but his pager went off. He looked at it, waved, turned, and ran back in to the hospital—“I’ll catch you later!” he called over his shoulder. Tears welled up as I sat in the car, turned the key, and slowly pulled out into the street. I drove home, walked through the front door, hung up my white coat, and took off my ID badge. I pulled the battery out of my pager. I peeled off my scrubs and took a long shower.

再晚点的时候，我给维多利亚打电话，告诉她周一我没法去上班了，可能永远都不能去了，所以就做不了手术室的安排了。
Later that night, I called Victoria and told her I wouldn’t be in on Monday, or possibly ever again, and wouldn’t be setting the OR schedule.

“嗯，我一直做噩梦，梦见这一天来了。”她说，“真不知道你是怎么坚持这么久的。”
“You know, I’ve been having this recurring nightmare that this day was coming,” she said. “I don’t know how you did this for so long.”

星期一，露西和我一起去见了艾玛。她肯定了我们列出的计划：支气管镜活检，针对性地寻找突变，实在不行，只有化疗。但我去见她的真正原因，是希望得到一些引领和指导。我告诉她，我已经在神经外科那边请假了。
Lucy and I met with Emma on Monday. She confirmed the plan we’d envisioned: bronchoscopic biopsy, look for targetable mutations, otherwise chemo. The real reason I was there, though, was for her guidance. I told her I was taking leave from neurosurgery.

“好，”她说，“没事。嗯，要是你想集中精力做更重要的事情，那就别回神经外科了。但别单纯因为你病了就不干了。和一个星期前相比，你的病情并没有加重。这一路上的确有些颠簸，但你还是可以维持现有生活轨道的。对你来说，神经外科的工作很重要。”
“Okay,” she said. “That’s fine. You can stop neurosurgery if, say, you want to focus on something that matters more to you. But not because you are sick. You aren’t any sicker than you were a week ago. This is a bump in the road, but you can keep your current trajectory. Neurosurgery was important to you.”

我再一次走上了从医生到病人的轨道，从行动者变成被动者，从主语变成了直接宾语。生病之前，我的生活可以说是心想事成，按照既定的轨道一帆风顺地前进着。大多数现代文学作品中，人物的命运都是由自身和旁人的人为行动决定的。《李尔王》中的葛罗斯特伯爵埋怨过，说人类的命运之于神明，正如“苍蝇之于顽童”。然而那部作品主要的戏剧冲突，还是来源于李尔王的虚荣与专制。从启蒙运动开始，占据舞台中心位置的，就是个人。但现在，我所在的世界已然不同，这是个更古老的世界，人类的行动在超人类的力量面前显得苍白无力。这个世界比起莎士比亚的作品更具有希腊悲剧的色彩。不管付出多少努力，俄狄浦斯和他的父母都逃脱不出命运的股掌；他们只能通过神谕与预言，通过那些既定的占卜，才能接触到掌控他们命运的力量。我来找艾玛，不是想要治疗方案。我读的资料已经够多了，未来会采取什么样的医学手段我已经了然于心。我想要的，是眼前这个“神谕家”充满智慧的安慰。
Once again, I had traversed the line from doctor to patient, from actor to acted upon, from subject to direct object. My life up until my illness could be understood as the linear sum of my choices. Like most modern narratives, a character’s fate depended on human actions, his and others. King Lear’s Gloucester may complain about human fate as “flies to wanton boys,” but it’s Lear’s vanity that sets in motion the dramatic arc of the play. From the Enlightenment onward, the individual occupied center stage. But now I lived in a different world, a more ancient one, where human action paled against superhuman forces, a world that was more Greek tragedy than Shakespeare. No amount of effort can help Oedipus and his parents escape their fates; their only access to the forces controlling their lives is through the oracles and seers, those given divine vision. What I had come for was not a treatment plan—I had read enough to know the medical ways forward—but the comfort of oracular wisdom.

“这不是结束。”她说。这种说辞她恐怕已经用过成千上万遍了。想想我自己，难道就没有跟病人说过类似的话吗？反正面对那些想寻找不可能的答案的人，她肯定都这么说。“甚至都不能说是结束的开始。这仅仅是开始的结束。”
“This is not the end,” she said, a line she must have used a thousand times—after all, did I not use similar speeches to my own patients?—to those seeking impossible answers. “Or even the beginning of the end. This is just the end of the beginning.”