《渺小一生》:“但是只谈权利法案，还有比较性感的修正案。”

　 “You’re very welcome, Jude,” said Harold. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“不客气，裘德。”哈罗德说，“星期一见。”

　 He stood on the sidewalk and watched Harold’s car drive away, and then went up to his apartment, which was on the second floor of a brownstone adjacent to an MIT fraternity house. The brownstone’s owner, a retired sociology professor, lived on the ground floor and leased out the remaining three floors to graduate students: on the top floor were Santosh and Federico, who were getting their doctorates in electrical engineering at MIT, and on the third floor were Janusz and Isidore, who were both Ph.D. candidates at Harvard—Janusz in biochemistry and Isidore in Near Eastern religions—and directly below them were he and his roommate, Charlie Ma, whose real name was Chien-Ming Ma and whom everyone called CM. CM was an intern at Tufts Medical Center, and they kept almost entirely opposite schedules: he would wake and CM’s door would be closed and he would hear his wet, snuffly snores, and when he returned home in the evenings at eight, after working with Harold, CM would be gone. What he saw of CM he liked—he was from Taipei and had gone to boarding school in Connecticut and had a sleepy, roguish grin that made you want to smile back at him—and he was a friend of Andy’s friend, which was how they had met. Despite his perpetual air of stoned languor, CM was tidy as well, and liked to cook: he’d come home sometimes and find a plate of fried dumplings in the center of the table, with a note beneath that read EAT ME, or, occasionally, receive a text instructing him to rotate the chicken in its marinade before he went to bed, or asking him to pick up a bunch of cilantro on his way home. He always would, and would return to find the chicken simmered into a stew, or the cilantro minced and folded into scallop pancakes. Every few months or so, when their schedules intersected, all six of them would meet in Santosh and Federico’s apartment—theirs was the largest—and eat and play poker. Janusz and Isidore would worry aloud that girls thought they were gay because they were always hanging out with each other (CM cut his eyes toward him; he had bet him twenty dollars that they were sleeping together but were trying to pretend they were straight—at any rate, an impossible thing to prove), and Santosh and Federico would complain about how stupid their students were, and about how the quality of MIT undergraduates had really gone downhill since their time there five years ago.

他站在人行道上看着哈罗德的车子开走，才上楼回他的公寓。他住的这栋褐石楼房，隔壁是麻省理工学院一个兄弟会的会馆。褐石楼房的主人是一位退休的社会学教授，住在一楼，他把剩下的三层楼出租给研究生：四楼住的是桑托什和费德里科，他们在麻省理工学院读电机博士；三楼是雅努什和伊西多尔，两个都是哈佛的博士候选人（雅努什专攻生物化学，伊西多尔则念近东宗教）；二楼则是他和他的室友查利·马（Charlie Ma），他的本名是马谦明，但大家都喊他CM。CM是塔夫茨医学中心的实习医生，两人的作息时间几乎完全相反：他醒来时，会听到CM黏浊的鼾声；等他帮哈罗德工作完，晚上8点回家，CM已经出门上班去了。就他所看到的部分而言，他很喜欢CM（他来自台北，曾就读于康涅狄格的寄宿学校，带着懒洋洋、恶作剧式的笑容，让人不禁也对着他笑），是安迪朋友的朋友，这也是他们认识的缘由。尽管CM总是一副懒洋洋的模样，但他其实很爱干净，也喜欢做菜，有时他回家后会发现餐桌中央放着一盘煎饺，盘子底下压着一张字条“吃我”；偶尔，他会收到CM的短信，要他睡前把泡在腌酱里的鸡肉翻一下，或是请他在回家路上买一把香菜。他总是照做，然后就会发现家里出现一锅炖鸡，或是他买的那些香菜被切碎放进了干贝煎饼里。每隔两三个月，他们的时间刚好能凑上时，整栋楼的六名房客会聚集在桑托什和费德里科那里（因为他们住的地方最大）一起吃东西，玩扑克牌。雅努什和伊西多尔会说他们很担心女生以为他们是同性恋，因为他们两个总是泡在一起（CM朝他看了一眼，他曾跟他赌二十元，说他们其实睡在一起，又努力想假装自己是异性恋者——但无论如何，这种事没办法证明）。桑托什和费德里科会抱怨他们的学生有多笨，还有麻省理工学院大学部的学生素质跟他们五年前相比，真的是在走下坡了。

　 His and CM’s was the smallest of the apartments, because the landlord had annexed half of the floor to make a storage room. CM paid significantly more of the rent, so he had the bedroom. He occupied a corner of the living room, the part with the bay window. His bed was a floppy foam egg-carton pallet, and his books were lined up under the windowsill, and he had a lamp, and a folding paper screen to give him some privacy. He and CM had bought a large wooden table, which they placed in the dining-room alcove, and which had two metal folding chairs, one discarded from Janusz, the other from Federico. One half of the table was his, the other half CM’s, and both halves were stacked with books and papers and their laptops, both emitting their chirps and burbles throughout the day and night.

他和CM住的那户最小，因为房东把其中一半楼面隔出来当了仓库。CM分摊的房租比他多一大截，所以拥有卧室。他则占据客厅的一角，面对凸窗。他睡在一块松软的、像装蛋托盘的泡棉床垫上，书则排列在窗台底下。另外他有一盏灯，还有一面可以提供一点隐私的折叠纸屏风。他和CM买了一张大木桌放在小餐厅里。此外，还有两张金属折叠椅，一把是雅努什不要的，一把来自费德里科。餐桌的一半归他，另一半归CM，两边都堆着书、纸张以及笔记本电脑，日夜各自发出细小的声响。

　 People were always stunned by the apartment’s bleakness, but he had mostly ceased to notice it—although not entirely. Now, for example, he sat on the floor before the three cardboard boxes in which he stored his clothes, and lifted his new sweaters and shirts and socks and shoes from their envelopes of white tissue paper, placing them in his lap one at a time. They were the nicest things he had ever owned, and it seemed somehow shameful to put them in boxes meant to hold file folders. And so finally, he rewrapped them and returned them carefully to their shopping bags.

来过他们公寓的人总是被里头的凄惨模样吓一跳。多数时候，他不太会在意，但也有例外的时候。比方现在，他坐在地板上三个放衣服的厚纸板箱前，把崭新的毛衣、衬衫、袜子和鞋子从包装的白色薄纸里拿出来，一件一件放在膝上。这是他拥有过最美好的东西，要把这么精致的衣物放进那些原该放档案夹的箱子，好像很不像话。最后，他又把那些衣物包起来，小心翼翼地放回购物袋里。

　 The generosity of Harold’s gift unsettled him. First, there was the matter of the gift itself: he had never, never received anything so grand. Second, there was the impossibility of ever adequately repaying him. And third, there was the meaning behind the gesture: he had known for some time that Harold respected him, and even enjoyed his company. But was it possible that he was someone important to Harold, that Harold liked him more than as just a student, but as a real, actual friend? And if that was the case, why should it make him so self-conscious?

哈罗德慷慨的礼物让他很不安。首先是礼物本身，他从来、从来没有收过这么贵重的礼物。第二，他根本不可能适当地回报他。第三就是送礼这件事背后的意义。这些日子以来，他已经知道哈罗德尊重他，甚至很喜欢有他做伴。但对哈罗德来说，他有没有可能是个很重要的人，不只是一个学生而已，而是真正、实际的朋友？如果是这样，为什么他会觉得如此不安呢？

　 It had taken him many months to feel truly comfortable around Harold: not in the classroom or in his office, but outside of the classroom, outside of the office. In life, as Harold would say. He would return home after dinner at Harold’s house and feel a flush of relief. He knew why, too, as much as he didn’t want to admit it to himself: traditionally, men—adult men, which he didn’t yet consider himself among—had been interested in him for one reason, and so he had learned to be frightened of them. But Harold didn’t seem to be one of those men. (Although Brother Luke hadn’t seemed to be one of those men either.) He was frightened of everything, it sometimes seemed, and he hated that about himself. Fear and hatred, fear and hatred: often, it seemed that those were the only two qualities he possessed. Fear of everyone else; hatred of himself.

跟哈罗德相处，他花了好多个月才真正感到自在：不光是在教室或他的办公室，而是在教室之外，在办公室之外，或是像哈罗德会说的，在生活中。他去哈罗德家吃过晚餐回来后，会觉得如释重负，而且他知道为什么，尽管他很不想承认。惯例上，男人——成年男人，他还没把自己列入其中——对他有兴趣都是出于一个原因，因此他早已学会怕他们（尽管卢克修士似乎也不是这类令他害怕的男人）。有时候，他好像什么都怕，而且他恨自己这一点。害怕与憎恨，害怕与憎恨，他似乎只有这两种特质，害怕其他所有人；憎恨他自己。

　 He had known of Harold before he met him, for Harold was known. He was a relentless questioner: every remark you made in his class would be seized upon and pecked at in an unending volley of Whys. He was trim and tall, and had a way of pacing in a tight circle, his torso pitched forward, when he was engaged or excited.

早在认识哈罗德之前，他就知道他这个人了，因为哈罗德很有名。他是个坚持不懈的提问者：你在他课堂上讲的每句评论，他都会抓住不放，用一连串没完没了的“为什么”不断追问。他身材高而修长，常常在课堂上绕着小圈圈踱步，每当他提起兴趣或感到兴奋时，上半身就会往前探。

　 To his disappointment, there was much he simply couldn’t remember from that first-year contracts class with Harold. He couldn’t remember, for example, the specifics of the paper he wrote that interested Harold and which led to conversations with him outside the classroom and, eventually, to an offer to become one of his research assistants. He couldn’t remember anything particularly interesting he said in class. But he could remember Harold on that first day of the semester, pacing and pacing, and lecturing them in his low, quick voice.

可惜他法学院第一年就上了哈罗德的契约法，有好多事情都不记得了。比方说，他不记得引起哈罗德注意的那篇论文到底写了什么，才导致两人开始在课堂外谈话，最后哈罗德还找他去当研究助理。他不记得自己在课堂上说了什么特别有趣的话。但他清楚记得那个学期的第一天，哈罗德在课堂上踱步绕了一圈又一圈，用他低沉、快速的声音讲课。

　 “You’re One Ls,” Harold had said. “And congratulations, all of you. As One Ls, you’ll be taking a pretty typical course load: contracts; torts; property; civil procedure; and, next year, constitutional and criminal law. But you know all this.

“你们是法学院一年级生。”哈罗德当时说，“恭喜各位。在法学院一年级，你们会学习一套很典型的课程，契约法、侵权法、财产法、民事诉讼法，然后明年是宪法和刑法。这些你们都知道了。

　 “What you may not know is that this course load reflects—beautifully, simply—the very structure of our society, the very mechanics of what a society, our particular society, needs to make it work. To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that’s constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that’s criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that’s civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that’s property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that’s torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts.”

“但你们可能不知道，这套课程完美而简单地反映了我们这个社会的架构，以及我们这个社会运转所需的种种机制。要组建一个社会，首先要有一套制度化的框架：这是宪法。要有一套惩罚制度：这是刑法。必须确保有一套适当的制度，可以让其他各种制度运行：这是民事诉讼法。需要一套方法来管理领域和所有权的事务：这是财产法。必须确保人在受到其他人的损害时，施害者会负起财务责任：这是侵权法。最后，必须确保人们会遵守协议，履行承诺：这个，就是契约法。”

　 He paused. “Now, I don’t want to be reductive, but I’ll bet half of you are here so you can someday wheedle money out of people—torts people, there’s nothing to be ashamed of!—and the other half of you are here because you think you’re going to change the world. You’re here because you dream of arguing before the Supreme Court, because you think the real challenge of the law lies in the blank spaces between the lines of the Constitution. But I’m here to tell you—it doesn’t. The truest, the most intellectually engaging, the richest field of the law is contracts. Contracts are not just sheets of paper promising you a job, or a house, or an inheritance: in its purest, truest, broadest sense, contracts govern every realm of law. When we choose to live in a society, we choose to live under a contract, and to abide by the rules that a contract dictates for us—the Constitution itself is a contract, albeit a malleable contract, and the question of just how malleable it is, exactly, is where law intersects with politics—and it is under the rules, explicit or otherwise, of this contract that we promise not to kill, and to pay our taxes, and not to steal. But in this case, we are both the creators of and bound by this contract: as citizens of this country, we have assumed, from birth, an obligation to respect and follow its terms, and we do so daily.

他暂停一下。“现在，我不想太简化，但我打赌你们有一半的人会来上法学院，是打算有一天可以从人们身上赚到钱——也就是侵权的人，这没什么好羞愧的！——而另外一半的人来上法学院，是因为你认为你们会改变世界。你们来到这里是因为你们梦想在最高法院辩论，因为你们认为法律的真正挑战，就是宪法条文间的空白地带。但我现在要告诉你们，并不是。法律最真实、最迷人、最复杂的领域，就是契约法。契约法不光是一堆纸，承诺给你一份工作、一栋房子或一份遗产而已，以最纯粹、最真实、最具概括性的意义而言，契约法统御了法律的每个领域。当我们选择住在一个社会时，我们就选择要在一份契约下生活。这份契约是为我们制定的，我们要遵守其中的规则——宪法本身就是一份契约，尽管是一份有延展性的契约，至于到底可以延展到什么地步，答案就在于法律与政治的交叉点——而在这份契约的规则下，无论规则明确与否，我们承诺不杀人、要缴税、不偷盗。但是就宪法的例子，我们既是这份契约的拟定者，也受到契约的约束：我们认为，身为这个国家的公民，从出生开始，我们就有义务尊重并遵循宪法的条款，没有一天例外。

　 “In this class, you will of course learn the mechanics of contracts—how one is created, how one is broken, how binding one is and how to unbind yourself from one—but you will also be asked to consider law itself as a series of contracts. Some are more fair—and this one time, I’ll allow you to say such a thing—than others. But fairness is not the only, or even the most important, consideration in law: the law is not always fair. Contracts are not fair, not always. But sometimes they are necessary, these unfairnesses, because they are necessary for the proper functioning of society. In this class you will learn the difference between what is fair and what is just, and, as important, between what is fair and what is necessary. You will learn about the obligations we have to one another as members of society, and how far society should go in enforcing those obligations. You will learn to see your life—all of our lives—as a series of agreements, and it will make you rethink not only the law but this country itself, and your place in it.”

“在这门课上，你们当然会学到契约的种种机制——如何拟定、如何违反、具有什么样的约束力、如何解约——但我也会要求你们把法律本身视为一连串的契约。有些比较公平——这一回，我会允许你们说公平——有些则不公平。但公平并不是法律唯一的考虑，甚至也不是最重要的，法律不见得总是公平，契约也不见得总是公平。但这些不公平有时是必要的，因为这样社会才能顺利运作。在这堂课，你们会学到公平和正义之间的差异，以及同样重要的，公平和必要性之间的差异。你们会学到我们身为社会的一分子，对彼此有什么义务，以及这个社会应该采取什么方法迫使我们尽这些义务。你们会学到把自己的生活，我们所有人的生活，视为一连串的协议，然后不光重新思考法律，也重新思考这个国家本身，还有你在其中的位置。”

　 He had been thrilled by Harold’s speech, and in the coming weeks, by how differently Harold thought, by how he would stand at the front of the room like a conductor, stretching out a student’s argument into strange and unimaginable formations. Once, a fairly benign discussion about the right to privacy—both the most cherished and the foggiest of constitutional rights, according to Harold, whose definition of contracts often ignored conventional boundaries and bounded happily into other fields of law—had led to an argument between the two of them about abortion, which he felt was indefensible on moral grounds but necessary on social ones. “Aha!” Harold had said; he was one of the few professors who would entertain not just legal arguments but moral ones. “And, Mr. St. Francis, what happens when we forsake morals in law for social governance? What is the point at which a country, and its people, should start valuing social control over its sense of morality? Is there such a point? I’m not convinced there is.” But he had hung in, and the class had stilled around them, watching the two of them debate back and forth.

哈罗德的这一番话深深打动了他。接下来几个星期，他又惊叹于哈罗德的思考方式有多么与众不同，惊叹于他会像个指挥家似的站在教室前方，把一个学生的观点延伸为奇怪而无法想象的结构。有一回，他和哈罗德本来颇为温和地讨论着隐私权——这是宪法的种种权利中最珍贵也最模糊的，根据哈罗德的说法，隐私权的契约定义往往无视常见的疆界，愉快地将自身纳入其他法律的领域中——但后来却演变成他们两个对于堕胎的论辩。他说堕胎在道德立场上站不住脚，但在社会观点上却是必要的。“哈！”哈罗德当时说，他是少数不但对法律论点有兴趣、也对道德论点有兴趣的教授，“那么，圣弗朗西斯同学，如果我们为了治理社会，抛弃了法律中的道德，那会怎么样呢？在什么样的状况下，一个国家及其人民应该开始重视社会控制而非道德观念呢？那样的状况存在吗？我不认为。”但他坚持不退让，其他同学也就只能看着他们两人一来一往继续争论。

　 Harold was the author of three books, but it was his last, The American Handshake: The Promises and Failures of the Declaration of Independence, that had made him famous. The book, which he had read even before he met Harold, was a legal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence: Which of its promises had been kept and which had not, and were it written today, would it be able to withstand trends in contemporary jurisprudence? (“Short answer: No,” read the Times review.) Now he was researching his fourth book, a sequel of sorts to The American Handshake, about the Constitution, from a similar perspective.

哈罗德写过三本书，让他成名的是最新的一本《美国式握手：独立宣言的承诺与失败》。在认识哈罗德之前他就读过了。书中以法律的观点诠释独立宣言，哪些承诺兑现了，哪些没有；另外，如果这篇宣言写在今天，经得起当代法学潮流的考验吗？（“简短的答案：不。”《纽约时报》的书评如此归纳。）现在他在帮忙做的研究是针对哈罗德的第四本书，那是《美国式握手》的某种续论，以同样的观点谈宪法。

　 “But only the Bill of Rights, and the sexier amendments,” Harold told him when he was interviewing him for the research assistant position.

“但是只谈权利法案，还有比较性感的修正案。”他去应征研究助理职位时，哈罗德这么告诉他。

　 “I didn’t know some were sexier than others,” he said.

“我都不知道某些修正案比其他的性感。”

　 “Of course some are sexier than others,” said Harold. “Only the eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, and sixteenth are sexy. The rest are basically the dross of politics past.”

“当然有。”哈罗德说，“只有第十一条、十二条、十四条、十六条是性感的，其他基本上都是过往政治的糟粕。”

　 “The thirteenth is garbage?” he asked, enjoying himself.

“第十三条是垃圾？”他津津有味地问。

　 “I didn’t say it was garbage,” Harold said, “just not sexy.”

“我没说那是垃圾。”哈罗德说，“只是不性感罢了。”

　 “But I think that’s what dross means.”

“可是我以为那就是糟粕的意思啊。”