《渺小一生》:啊，这一点，我现在才想到？

　 “Oh, it’s all right,” Dennys would sigh, but none of us were convinced.

“啊，没事的。”丹尼斯叹气，但我们都不相信他真的没事。

　 And in that same way, law school breaks a mind down. Novelists, poets, and artists don’t often do well in law school (unless they are bad novelists, poets, and artists), but neither, necessarily, do mathematicians, logicians, and scientists. The first group fails because their logic is their own; the second fails because logic is all they own.

同样的，法学院也会摧毁你的思维方式。小说家、诗人、艺术家通常在法学院的表现都不会太好（除非他们是差劲的小说家、诗人、艺术家），但是数学家、逻辑学者、科学家的表现也不见得好。前者失败是因为他们有自己的一套逻辑；后者失败是因为他们只懂逻辑。

　 He, however, was a good student—a great student—from the beginning, but this greatness was often camouflaged in an aggressive nongreatness. I knew, from listening to his answers in class, that he had everything he needed to be a superb lawyer: it’s not accidental that law is called a trade, and like all trades, what it demands most is a capacious memory, which he had. What it demands next—again, like many trades—is the ability to see the problem before you … and then, just as immediately, the rat’s tail of problems that might follow. Much the way that, for a contractor, a house is not just a structure—it’s a snarl of pipes engorging with ice in the winter, of shingles swelling with humidity in the summer, of rain gutters belching up fountains of water in the spring, of cement splitting in the first autumn cold—so too is a house something else for a lawyer. A house is a locked safe full of contracts, of liens, of future lawsuits, of possible violations: it represents potential attacks on your property, on your goods, on your person, on your privacy.

总之，他从一开始就是个好学生，杰出得不得了。但是他极力表现得很平凡，因而掩饰了他有多杰出。根据他在课堂上的回答，我就知道他有成为一流律师的所有条件：法律被称为一门买卖（trade）不是意外，就像所有的买卖一样，最重要的是记性要好，这点他有。其次重要的（也跟很多买卖一样）就是要看出眼前的问题所在，然后立刻看出后续可能的影响。那种眼光很像是工程承包商看房子的眼光，他们看到的不光是一座建筑，而是一大堆冬天会结冰的水管、夏天会潮湿胀大的护墙板、春天会涨满雨水的雨水槽、秋天第一波寒意来袭时会冻裂的水泥表面。对律师来说，他们眼中的房子也不是房子，而是一个上锁的保险箱，里面放满合约、留置权、未来诉讼、可能的违法或侵权。这栋房子代表你的财产、东西、你这个人、你的隐私权可能遭受的各种攻击。

　 Of course, you can’t literally think like this all the time, or you’d drive yourself crazy. And so for most lawyers, a house is, finally, just a house, something to fill and fix and repaint and empty. But there’s a period in which every law student—every good law student—finds that their vision shifts, somehow, and realizes that the law is inescapable, that no interaction, no aspect of daily life, escapes its long, graspy fingers. A street becomes a shocking disaster, a riot of violations and potential civil lawsuits. A marriage looks like a divorce. The world becomes temporarily unbearable.

当然，你不能真的永远这么想，不然你会把自己给逼疯。对大部分律师来说，一栋房子最终也只是一栋房子，需要放进东西、修理、重新粉刷、清空。但是有一段时期，每个优秀的法学院学生都觉得自己的观点转变了，他们了解到法律是无可逃避的，任何互动、日常生活的任何层面都逃不过法律善于攫取的长手指。一条街道变成一场惊人的灾难，聚集了各式各样的违法案例和潜在的民事诉讼。一场婚姻看起来就是一场离婚案。整个世界一时之间变得令人难以忍受。

　 He could do this. He could take a case and see its end; it is very difficult to do, because you have to be able to hold in your head all the possibilities, all the probable consequences, and then choose which ones to worry over and which to ignore. But what he also did—what he couldn’t stop himself from doing—was wonder as well about the moral implications of the case. And that is not helpful in law school. There were colleagues of mine who wouldn’t let their students even say the words “right” and “wrong.” “Right has nothing to do with it,” one of my professors used to bellow at us. “What is the law? What does the law say?” (Law professors enjoy being theatrical; all of us do.) Another, whenever the words were mentioned, would say nothing, but walk over to the offender and hand him a little slip of paper, a stack of which he kept in his jacket’s inside pocket, that read: Drayman 241. Drayman 241 was the philosophy department’s office.

他做得到，他拿到一个案子，就能看到结果。要做到这一点很难，因为你的脑袋必须想到所有的可能性、所有会发生的后果，然后选择要操心哪些、忽略哪些。但他同时也忍不住会思索案子牵涉的道德层面；这在法学院是没有帮助的。我有一些同事甚至不准学生在课堂上说出“对”和“错”。“对跟这个案子没关系。”我以前的一个教授常常这样对着我们咆哮，“什么是法律？法律上是怎么样？”（法律教授都很戏剧化，没一个例外。）另一个教授每回碰到有人提到“对”或“错”，什么都不会说，只是走到那个犯规的学生面前，递给他一小张纸（他在西装内侧口袋里放了一小叠），上头印着：锥蒙大楼二四一室。那是哲学系办公室。

　 Here, for example, is a hypothetical: A football team is going to an away game when one of their vans breaks down. So they ask the mother of one of the players if they can borrow her van to transport them. Sure, she says, but I’m not going to drive. And so she asks the assistant coach to drive the team for her. But then, as they’re driving along, something horrible happens: the van skids off the road and flips over; everyone inside dies.

比方说，有个假设性的案子：某个美式橄榄球队要去另一所学校打客场比赛，但是一辆面包车故障了。所以他们问某位球员的母亲能否借她的车。母亲说没问题，但她不开车，于是她要求助理教练帮她开。结果，那辆车开到一半，可怕的事情发生了：车子在路上打滑、冲出路面、翻车，车上的人全部死亡。

　 There is no criminal case here. The road was slippery, the driver wasn’t intoxicated. It was an accident. But then the parents of the team, the mothers and fathers of the dead players, sue the owner of the van. It was her van, they argue, but more important, it was she who appointed the driver of her van. He was only her agent, and therefore, it is she who bears the responsibility. So: What happens? Should the plaintiffs win their suit?

这里头没有刑事案件。当时路面很滑，驾驶人也没有喝酒或嗑药。那是场意外。但那些死去球员的父母告了那辆面包车的车主。他们主张那是她的车，更重要的是，驾驶人是她指定的。他只是她的代理人，因此要负责的是她。所以结果呢，原告胜诉吗？

　 Students don’t like this case. I don’t teach it that often—its extremity makes it more flashy than it is instructive, I believe—but whenever I did, I would always hear a voice in the auditorium say, “But it’s not fair!” And as annoying as that word is—fair—it is important that students never forget the concept. “Fair” is never an answer, I would tell them. But it is always a consideration.

学生们不喜欢这个案子。我也不常教，因为太极端了，我认为会掩盖其中的教育意义。但只要我教这个案子，就总是听到课堂上传来一个声音说“可是这样不公平！”这个字眼——公平——听了就让人很烦，但同样重要的是，学生对公平这个概念总是念念不忘。我会告诉他们，“公平”从来不是回答，但他们总会考虑到公平。

　 He never mentioned whether something was fair, however. Fairness itself seemed to hold little interest for him, which I found fascinating, as people, especially young people, are very interested in what’s fair. Fairness is a concept taught to nice children: it is the governing principle of kindergartens and summer camps and playgrounds and soccer fields. Jacob, back when he was able to go to school and learn things and think and speak, knew what fairness was and that it was important, something to be valued. Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities.

总之，他从来不谈公平与否。他好像对公平这件事没有什么兴趣，这点让我非常好奇。因为很多人关心公平与否，尤其是年轻人。公平这个概念是用来教导乖孩子的，是幼儿园、夏令营、游乐场和足球场上的管理原则。雅各布还可以去学校学习事物、还可以思考和讲话的时候，知道什么是公平，也知道公平很重要，需要受到重视。公平是针对幸福的人，他们有幸过着种种由安全感构筑出来的生活，其中模糊不定的事物比较少。

　 Right and wrong, however, are for—well, not unhappy people, maybe, but scarred people; scared people.

然而，对与错，就是针对——唔，或许不是不幸福的人，而是有伤痕的人、害怕的人。

　 Or am I just thinking this now?

啊，这一点，我现在才想到？

　 “So were the plaintiffs successful?” I asked. That year, his first year, I had in fact taught that case.

“所以原告会胜诉吗？”当时我问。那一年，他的第一年。我在课堂上教了这个案子。

　 “Yes,” he said, and he explained why: he knew instinctively why they would have been. And then, right on cue, I heard the tiny “But it’s not fair!” from the back of the room, and before I could begin my first lecture of the season—“fair” is never an answer, etc., etc.—he said, quietly, “But it’s right.”

“会。”他说，然后解释为什么，他出于本能知道他们为什么会胜诉。接着，果然，我听到教室后头传来一个小小的声音：“但是这样不公平！”我还没来得及开始那学期的第一次说教——“公平从来不是答案”云云，他就平静地说：“但这是对的。”

　 I was never able to ask him what he meant by that. Class ended, and everyone got up at once and almost ran for the door, as if the room was on fire. I remember telling myself to ask him about it in the next class, later that week, but I forgot. And then I forgot again, and again. Over the years, I would remember this conversation every now and again, and each time I would think: I must ask him what he meant by that. But then I never would. I don’t know why.

我从来没能问他那句话是什么意思。那堂课结束，所有人立刻站起来急着离开，简直是用跑的，仿佛教室里失火了。我还记得当时提醒自己下一堂课（就在那个星期的后几天）要问问他，但我后来忘了。然后忘了一次又一次。那几年，我不时会想起这段对话，每回我都心想：我一定要去问他那句话是什么意思。但我始终没问，不知道为什么。

　 And so this became his pattern: he knew the law. He had a feeling for it. But then, just when I wanted him to stop talking, he would introduce a moral argument, he would mention ethics. Please, I would think, please don’t do this. The law is simple. It allows for less nuance than you’d imagine. Ethics and morals do, in reality, have a place in law—although not in jurisprudence. It is morals that help us make the laws, but morals do not help us apply them.

于是这成了他的模式：他懂法律，他在法律领域特别有慧根。但接着，正当我希望他停下来不要讲的时候，他又会引入某个道德论点，并提到伦理。拜托，我会心想，拜托不要提道德。法律很简单，不像你想象的需要考虑那么多细节。在现实里，伦理和道德的确会影响法律，但在法学中不会。道德协助我们制定法律，但是道德无法协助我们应用法律。

　 I was worried he’d make it harder for himself, that he’d complicate the real gift he had with—as much as I hate to have to say this about my profession—thinking. Stop! I wanted to tell him. But I never did, because eventually, I realized I enjoyed hearing him think.

我当时很担心他会让自己很辛苦，糟蹋自己真正的天赋，只因为思考过度（我很不想这么说自己的专业）。停止！我很想告诉他。但我从来没说，因为后来我发现，我很喜欢听他讲自己的想法。

　 In the end, of course, I needn’t have worried; he learned how to control it, he learned to stop mentioning right and wrong. And as we know, this tendency of his didn’t stop him from becoming a great lawyer. But later, often, I was sad for him, and for me. I wished I had urged him to leave law school, I wished I had told him to go to the equivalent of Drayman 241. The skills I gave him were not skills he needed after all. I wish I had nudged him in a direction where his mind could have been as supple as it was, where he wouldn’t have had to harness himself to a dull way of thinking. I felt I had taken someone who once knew how to draw a dog and turned him into someone who instead knew only how to draw shapes.

到最后，当然，我其实不必担心，他学会了如何控制，学会了不要提到对与错。一如我们知道的，他这个倾向并不影响他成为了不起的律师。但后来我常常替他难过，也替自己难过。我真希望当初逼他离开法学院，真希望叫他改念哲学系。我教他的技巧根本就不是他需要的。我真希望我把他推到别的方向，让他的思维方式像当初那样柔软有弹性，不必硬逼自己朝乏味的方向思考。我觉得自己把一个原本会画狗的人变得只会画形状了。

　 I am guilty of many things when it comes to him. But sometimes, illogically, I feel guiltiest for this. I opened the van door, I invited him inside. And while I didn’t drive off the road, I instead drove him somewhere bleak and cold and colorless, and left him standing there, where, back where I had collected him, the landscape shimmered with color, the sky fizzed with fireworks, and he stood openmouthed in wonder.

谈到他，很多事情让我心生愧疚。但有时无来由的，我最感到愧疚的是：我打开了面包车的车门，邀请他上车。虽然我没冲出路面，但我载他来到一个荒凉、冰冷、没有颜色的地方，还把他留在那里。而他原先上车的地方有一片充满鲜亮色彩的风景，天空爆出五彩烟火，让他惊奇得合不拢嘴。

　 3

3

　 THREE WEEKS BEFORE he left for Thanksgiving in Boston, a package—a large, flat, unwieldy wooden crate with his name and address written on every side in black marker—arrived for him at work, where it sat by his desk all day until he was able to open it late that night.

他要去波士顿过感恩节的前三个星期，一个包裹寄到了他的办公室（那是个又大又笨重的扁木板箱，每一面都用黑色马克笔写着他的名字和地址）。他把木箱在书桌旁边放了一整天，直到那天晚上很晚了才有空打开来。