《渺小一生》:但即使在当时，他也没办法相信她。

　 “Ah, yes,” she said. They were quiet. “Jude,” she began, and then stopped. “You’ll find your own way to discuss what happened to you. You’ll have to, if you ever want to be close to anyone. But your life—no matter what you think, you have nothing to be ashamed of, and none of it has been your fault. Will you remember that?”

“啊，就是啊。”她说。他们沉默了一会儿。“裘德，”她开口，然后又停下来，“你会找到自己的方法去谈过去发生的事。如果你想跟任何人亲近的话，你非找到不可。但是你的人生……不论你怎么想，你都没有什么好羞愧的，那一切都不是你的错。这个你要记住，好不好？”

　 It was the closest they had ever gotten to discussing not only the previous year but the years that preceded it, too. “Yes,” he told her.

那是最接近讨论的一次，不光是谈过去一年，也包括更早以前。“好。”他告诉她。

　 She glared at him. “Promise me.”

她目光炯炯地瞪着他：“答应我。”

　 “I promise.”

“我答应。”

　 But even then, he couldn’t believe her.

但即使在当时，他也没办法相信她。

　 She sighed. “I should’ve made you talk more,” she said. It was the last thing she ever said to him. Two weeks later—July third—she was dead. Her service was the week after that. By this point he had a summer job at a local bakery, where he sat in the back room spackling cakes with fondant, and in the days following the funeral he sat until night at his workstation, plastering cake after cake with carnation-pink icing, trying not to think of her.

她叹气，“我早该逼你多谈一些的。”她说。那是她跟他说的最后一件事。两星期后的七月三日，她过世了。她的告别式在她死后的第二周举行。那时，他已经在当地一家面包店找到暑期工作，天天坐在店后的厨房里做翻糖装饰蛋糕。葬礼后的那些日子，他都在工作台从早坐到晚，用粉红色糖霜装饰一个又一个蛋糕，试着不去想她。

　 At the end of July, the Douglasses moved: Mr. Douglass had gotten a new job in San Jose, and they were taking Agnes with them; Rosie was being reassigned to a different family. He had liked the Douglasses, but when they told him to stay in touch, he knew he wouldn’t—he was so desperate to move away from the life he was in, the life he’d had; he wanted to be someone whom no one knew and who knew no one.

到了七月底，道格拉斯夫妇搬家了：道格拉斯先生在加州圣荷西找到了新工作，他们会带着阿格尼丝过去，萝西则被重新安置到另一个寄宿家庭。他喜欢道格拉斯夫妇，但当他们跟他说保持联络时，他知道自己不会——他太想脱离眼前的人生、过去的人生了，他想成为一个全新的自己：没有人认识他，他也不认识任何人。

　 He was put into emergency shelter. That was what the state called it: emergency shelter. He’d argued that he was old enough to be left on his own (he imagined, also illogically, that he would sleep in the back room of the bakery), and that in less than two months he’d be gone anyway, out of the system entirely, but no one agreed with him. The shelter was a dormitory, a sagging gray honeycomb populated by other kids who—because of what they had done or what had been done to them or simply how old they were—the state couldn’t easily place.

他被送到紧急收容所。这是州政府的称呼：紧急收容所。他争辩说他已经够大了，可以自己生活（他还很不合逻辑地想象，自己会睡在面包店后头的房间里），而且再过不到两个月他就会离开，完全脱离这个系统，但是没有人同意他的意见。那个收容所是个破烂的灰色蜂巢式宿舍，里头还有其他州政府一时无法顺利安置的男孩——他们会被送到那里，是因为他们做过的事、别人对他们做过的事，或纯粹只是因为年纪的关系。

　 When it was time for him to leave, they gave him some money to buy supplies for school. They were, he recognized, vaguely proud of him; he might not have been in the system for long, but he was going to college, and to a superior college at that—he would forever after be claimed as one of their successes. Leslie drove him to the Army Navy Store. He wondered, as he chose things he thought he might need—two sweaters, three long-sleeve shirts, pants, a gray blanket that resembled the clotty stuffing that vomited forth from the sofa in the shelter’s lobby—if he was getting the correct things, the things that might have been on Ana’s list. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking that there was something else on that list, something essential that Ana thought he needed that he would now never know. At nights, he craved that list, sometimes more than he craved her; he could picture it in his mind, the funny up-and-down capitalizations she inserted into a single word, the mechanical pencil she always used, the yellow legal pads, left over from her years as a lawyer, on which she made her notes. Sometimes the letters solidified into words, and in the dream life he’d feel triumphant; ah, he’d think, of course! Of course that’s what I need! Of course Ana would know! But in the mornings, he could never remember what those things were. In those moments he wished, perversely, that he had never met her, that it was surely worse to have had her for so brief a period than to never have had her at all.

等到他要离开时，他们给了他一些钱去买上学需要的东西。这时他发现，他们似乎隐隐以他为荣：他进入这个系统的时间或许不长，但他要去上大学，而且是一间很好的大学，日后他将永远成为他们手上成功的案例之一。莱斯莉开车载他去军用剩余物资商店。他在里头逛，挑选他认为自己可能需要的东西——两件针织衫、三件长袖衬衫、长裤、一条灰色毯子（看起来很像收容所大厅里那张破沙发露出来的填充物）——一边想着自己是否挑对了东西，想着这些东西可能也出现在安娜的清单上。他不禁一直去想那张清单上还有别的东西，还有些基本的、安娜觉得他需要的物品，但如今他永远不会知道了。在夜里，他渴望着那张清单，有时甚至压过对她的渴望。他可以想象那张清单的样子，她穿插在单个词汇里那些可笑的大写字母，她习惯用的自动铅笔，她用的黄色笺纸簿（她以前当律师时留下来的，她都用这些簿子写笔记）。有时那些字挤在一起。而在梦里，他会觉得很得意，他心想，当然了！那当然是他需要的！当然安娜会知道！但早上醒来，他再也不记得上头的内容。在那些时刻，他就会赌气地希望自己从来不曾认识她，因为有她在的时间这么短暂，比根本没有过还糟糕。

　 They gave him a bus ticket north; Leslie came to the station to see him off. He had packed his things in a double-layered black garbage bag, and then inside the backpack he’d bought at the Army Navy Store: everything he owned in one neat package. On the bus he stared out the window and thought of nothing. He hoped his back wouldn’t betray him on the ride, and it didn’t.

他们给了他一张北上的巴士车票，莱斯莉去车站送他离开。他把自己的东西装在一个双层黑色垃圾袋里，然后放进他在军用物资店买来的背包里。他拥有的一切全都装成干净利落的一包。在巴士上，他望着车窗外，脑袋里什么都不想。他希望自己的背部不要在车上出状况，幸好没有。

　 He had been the first to arrive in their room, and when the second boy came in—it had been Malcolm—with his parents and suitcases and books and speakers and television and phones and computers and refrigerator and flotillas of digital gadgetry, he had felt the first sensations of sickening fear, and then anger, directed irrationally at Ana: How could she let him believe he might be equipped to do this? Who could he say he was? Why had she never told him exactly how poor, how ugly, what a scrap of bloodied, muddied cloth, his life really was? Why had she let him believe he might belong here?

他是第一个抵达宿舍的人。等到第二个人进来（马尔科姆），身后跟着他的父母、一堆行李箱和书、喇叭、电视、电话、电脑、冰箱以及一大堆数码小玩意儿，他第一次感到那种害怕得快要吐出来的感觉，然后是生气，而且很没道理地生安娜的气：她怎么能让他相信自己适合读大学？他怎么能真的这么以为？她为什么从没提过他到底有多穷、有多丑，而且他的人生其实是一块染了血和泥巴的破布？她为什么让他相信自己可能属于这里？

　 As the months passed, this feeling dampened, but it never disappeared; it lived on him like a thin scum of mold. But as that knowledge became more acceptable, another piece became less so: he began to realize that she was the first and last person to whom he would never have to explain anything. She knew that he wore his life on his skin, that his biography was written in his flesh and on his bones. She would never ask him why he wouldn’t wear short sleeves, even in the steamiest of weather, or why he didn’t like to be touched, or, most important, what had happened to his legs or back: she knew already. Around her he had felt none of the constant anxiety, nor watchfulness, that he seemed condemned to feel around everyone else; the vigilance was exhausting, but it eventually became simply a part of life, a habit like good posture. Once, she had reached out to (he later realized) embrace him, but he had reflexively brought his hands up over his head to protect himself, and although he had been embarrassed, she hadn’t made him feel silly or overreactive. “I’m an idiot, Jude,” she’d said instead. “I’m sorry. No more sudden movements, I promise.”

几个月过去了，这种感觉逐渐减少，但是从来没有消失过，那感觉黏在他身上，像一层薄薄的霉。等到他比较可以接受这件事了，另一件却变得难以接受：他开始明白她是第一个、也是最后一个他不必解释任何事的人。她知道他的皮肤上就刻画着他的人生，他的自传就写在他的皮肉和骨头上。她永远不会问他天气热成这样，为什么不穿短袖衣服，也不会问他为什么他不喜欢被人碰触，更重要的是，不会去问他的两腿和背部发生过什么事，因为她已经知道了。在她身边，他不会有面对其他人时那种持续不断的焦虑或警觉；那样随时保持警惕真是累死人，但最后那也成为他生活的一部分，就像保持姿势端正一样，成了一种习惯。有回她朝他伸出手，后来他才知道她是想拥抱他，但当时他反射性地举起双手抱住头保护自己。尽管他事后很难为情，但她从不曾让他觉得自己很愚蠢或反应过度。“裘德，我真是个白痴。”她说，“真对不起。我保证，以后不会再有突然的动作了。”

　 But now she was gone, and no one knew him. His records were sealed. His first Christmas, Leslie had sent him a card, addressed to him through the student affairs office, and he had kept it for days, his last link to Ana, before finally throwing it away. He never wrote back, and he never heard from Leslie again. It was a new life. He was determined not to ruin it for himself.

但现在她不在了，没有人了解他了。他过去的记录已经封存。他的第一个圣诞节，莱斯莉寄了一张卡片给他，地址写的是他学校的学生事务处。那是他和安娜之间最后的联系，他把卡片留在手上几天，最后还是扔掉了。他从来没回信，也从此没了莱斯莉的消息。这是全新的人生，他下定决心不要毁掉它。

　 Still, sometimes, he thought back to their final conversations, mouthing them aloud. This was at night, when his roommates—in various configurations, depending on who was in the room at the time—slept above and next to him. “Don’t let this silence become a habit,” she’d warned him shortly before she died. And: “It’s all right to be angry, Jude; you don’t have to hide it.” She had been wrong about him, he always thought; he wasn’t what she thought he was. “You’re destined for greatness, kid,” she’d said once, and he wanted to believe her, even though he couldn’t. But she was right about one thing: it did get harder and harder. He did blame himself. And although he tried every day to remember the promise he’d made to her, every day it became more and more remote, until it was just a memory, and so was she, a beloved character from a book he’d read long ago.

然而，有时他会回想起他们最后的几次谈话，还会说出声来。那是在夜里，他的室友们各自睡在上铺或旁边（不见得都在，要看当时的状况）。“别让这种沉默变成习惯。”她过世前不久曾这么警告过他。还有“裘德，生气没关系，你不必隐藏自己的愤怒。”她错看他了，他总这么想，他不是她以为的那样。“你注定要做大事的，孩子。”她有回说，他很想相信她，却办不到。可是她有件事想得没错：的确是越来越难。他的确是怪自己。尽管他每天都努力记住他答应过她的事情，但随着每一天过去，那承诺变得越来越遥远，直到最后只成了一段回忆。她也一样，成为他许久以前读过的书里一个钟爱的人物。

　 “The world has two kinds of people,” Judge Sullivan used to say. “Those who are inclined to believe, and those who aren’t. In my courtroom, we value belief. Belief in all things.”

“世界上有两种人。”沙利文法官总是这么说，“一种倾向于相信，另一种倾向于不相信。在我的法庭里，我们重视相信，相信一切。”

　 He made this proclamation often, and after doing so, he would groan himself to his feet—he was very fat—and toddle out of the room. This was usually at the end of the day—Sullivan’s day, at least—when he left his chambers and came over to speak to his law clerks, sitting on the edge of one of their desks and delivering often opaque lectures that were interspersed with frequent pauses, as if his clerks were not lawyers but scriveners, and should be writing down his words. But no one did, not even Kerrigan, who was a true believer and the most conservative of the three of them.

他常常如此宣告，讲完了就会吃力地站起来（他非常胖），蹒跚走出房间。这通常发生在一天终了（至少对沙利文是如此），他走出办公室，过来找他的助理们，坐在其中一个人的办公桌边，开始讲话。他讲的内容往往模糊难懂，还常常穿插着暂停，好像他的助理们不是律师，而是书记官，应该记下他讲的话。但没人记，就连他们三人中最真心相信法官、立场最保守的克里根也没记。

　 After the judge left, he would grin across the room at Thomas, who would raise his eyes upward in a gesture of helplessness and apology. Thomas was a conservative, too, but “a thinking conservative,” he’d remind him, “and the fact that I even have to make that distinction is fucking depressing.”

法官离开后，他会朝对面的托马斯咧嘴一笑，托马斯则会眼睛往上看，表示无奈和歉意。托马斯也是保守派，不过“是会思考的保守派”。他会提醒他：“可是我居然还得讲出这个差别，真是他妈的令人沮丧。”

　 He and Thomas had started clerking for the judge the same year, and when he had been approached by the judge’s informal search committee—really, his Business Associations professor, with whom the judge was old friends—the spring of his second year of law school, it had been Harold who had encouraged him to apply. Sullivan was known among his fellow circuit court judges for always hiring one clerk whose political views diverged from his own, the more wildly, the better. (His last liberal law clerk had gone on to work for a Hawaiian rights sovereignty group that advocated for the islands’ secession from the United States, a career move that had sent the judge into a fit of apoplectic self-satisfaction.)

他和托马斯在同一年开始当法官助理。他读法学院第二年的春天，法官的非正式寻才委员（其实就是他的商业法教授，也是法官的老朋友）来找他，提供这个工作机会，当时哈罗德鼓励他申请这份工作。沙利文在巡回法院的法官同僚都知道，他总是会雇一个政治观点跟他存在分歧的助理，而且歧异越大越好（他的上一个自由派助理辞职后，去帮一个倡议脱离美国独立的夏威夷主权团体工作，他的选择让法官得意了好一阵子）。

　 “Sullivan hates me,” Harold had told him then, sounding pleased. “He’ll hire you just to spite me.” He smiled, savoring the thought. “And because you’re the most brilliant student I’ve ever had,” he added.

“沙利文恨我。”哈罗德当时告诉他，口气很乐，“他雇用你，是为了要气我。”他微笑，想得很开心，还补了一句，“因为你是我教过最有才气的学生。”

　 The compliment made him look at the ground: Harold’s praise tended to be conveyed to him by others, and was rarely handed to him directly. “I’m not sure I’m liberal enough for him,” he’d replied. Certainly he wasn’t liberal enough for Harold; it was one of the things—his opinions; the way he read the law; how he applied it to life—that they argued about.

这番恭维让他低头看着地上：哈罗德对他的赞美，通常都是通过别人转述，很少当面说出来。“我不确定我对他来说够不够自由派。”他回答。当然他对哈罗德来说不够自由派，这是他们争执的老问题之一：他的意见，他解读法律的方式，还有在生活中的运用。