《渺小一生》:“我不知道要怎么处理这幅画。”
But JB couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and finally he had gotten up and left, and JB hadn’t tried to stop him.
但杰比没办法，或者不愿意道歉。最后他站起来离开，杰比也没有试图阻止他。
After that, he simply stopped speaking to JB. Willem had made his own approach, and the two of them (as Willem told him) had actually begun shouting at each other in the street, and then Willem, too, had stopped speaking to JB, and so from then on, they had to rely primarily on Malcolm for news of JB. Malcolm, typically noncommittal, had admitted to them that he thought JB was totally in the wrong, while at the same time suggesting that they were both being unrealistic: “You know he’s not going to apologize, Judy,” he said. “This is JB we’re talking about. You’re wasting your time.”
之后，他再也不跟杰比说话了。威廉也去找杰比谈过。根据威廉的说法，他们两个最后就在马路上吼来吼去，然后威廉也不跟杰比讲话了。所以从那时开始，他们主要是靠马尔科姆得知杰比的消息。马尔科姆还是一如往常地不表态，但也坦承他认为这件事错的绝对是杰比，同时又暗示他们两个太不切实际。“小裘，你明知道他不会道歉的，”他说，“这可是杰比啊。你只是在浪费时间而已。”
“Am I being unreasonable?” he asked Willem after this conversation.
“我要求他道歉过分吗？”跟马尔科姆谈话之后，他问威廉。
“No,” Willem said, immediately. “It’s fucked up, Jude. He fucked up, and he needs to apologize.”
“不。”威廉立刻说，“这件事太扯了，裘德。他太扯了，而且他一定要道歉。”
The show sold out. Willem and the Girl was delivered to him at work, as was Willem and Jude, Lispenard Street, II, which Willem had bought. Jude, After Sickness (the title, when he learned it, had made him so newly angry and humiliated that for a moment he experienced what the saying “blind with rage” meant) was sold to a collector whose purchases were considered benedictions and predictive of future success: he only bought from artists’ debut shows, and almost every artist whose work he had bought had gone on to have a major career. Only the show’s centerpiece, Jude with Cigarette, remained unplaced, and this was due to a shockingly amateurish error, in which the director of the gallery had sold it to an important British collector and the owner of the gallery had sold it to the Museum of Modern Art.
那次展览的画全数卖光。他买的《威廉与女孩》和威廉买的《威廉与裘德，利斯本纳街，II》都送到了他的办公室。《裘德，病后》（他后来知道画名，心底又生起一股怒火和羞辱感，霎时体验到所谓“气得盲目”是什么意思）被某个收藏家买走。他的购买向来被视为祝福和未来获得成功的预言：他只买艺术家首展的作品，而且被他买下作品的艺术家后来大都发展得不错。只有展览中最重要的作品《拿着香烟的裘德》还没确定归属。这是因为一个非常可怕的外行错误：画廊经理把这幅画卖给一位重要的英国收藏家，画廊老板却把它卖给了纽约的现代艺术博物馆。
“So, perfect,” Willem said to Malcolm, knowing Malcolm would ferry his words back to JB. “JB should tell the gallery that he’s keeping the painting, and he should just give it to Jude.”
“所以，好极了。”威廉跟马尔科姆说，知道马尔科姆会把他的话转达给杰比，“杰比应该跟画廊说，那幅画他要自己留着，而且应该把它送给裘德。”
“He can’t do that,” Malcolm said, as appalled as if Willem had suggested simply tossing the canvas into a trash can. “It’s MoMA.”
“他不能这么做。”马尔科姆说，吓得好像威廉是在建议把那幅画丢到垃圾桶里，“那是纽约现代艺术博物馆啊。”
“Who cares?” Willem asked. “If he’s that fucking good, he’ll have another shot at MoMA. But I’m telling you, Malcolm, this is really the only solution he has left if he wants to keep Jude as a friend.” He paused. “And me, too.”
“谁在乎？”威廉说，“如果他真的那么厉害，还是有机会进现代艺术博物馆。不过马尔科姆，我告诉你，如果他想保住裘德这个朋友，真的只有这个解决办法。”
So Malcolm conveyed that message, and the prospect of losing Willem as a friend had been enough to make JB call Willem and demand a meeting, at which JB had cried and accused Willem of betraying him, and always taking Jude’s side, and obviously not giving a shit about his, JB’s, career, when he, JB, had always supported Willem’s.
于是马尔科姆传了话。想到可能失去威廉这个朋友，足以让杰比打电话给威廉要求碰面。见面时杰比哭了，还控诉威廉背叛他，总是站到裘德那一边，根本不在乎杰比的事业，而杰比向来很支持威廉的事业。
All of this had taken place over months, as spring turned into summer, and he and Willem had gone to Truro without JB (and without Malcolm, who told them he was afraid of leaving JB on his own), and JB had gone to the Irvines’ in Aquinnah over Memorial Day and they had gone over the Fourth of July, and he and Willem had taken the long-planned trip to Croatia and Turkey by themselves.
这一切耗上了好几个月。当春天转入夏天时，他和威廉去了特鲁罗度假，没有杰比（也没有马尔科姆，他说他很怕留下杰比一个人）。杰比跟马尔科姆一家人去马撒葡萄园的阿奎纳过五月底的阵亡将士纪念日假期和七月四日国庆节假期，而他和威廉则踏上了计划已久的克罗地亚和土耳其之旅。
And then it was fall, and by the time Willem and JB had their second meeting, Willem had suddenly and unexpectedly booked his first film role, playing the king in an adaptation of The Girl with the Silver Hands and was leaving to shoot in Sofia in January, and he had gotten a promotion at work and had been approached by a partner at Cromwell Thurman Grayson and Ross, one of the best corporate firms in the city, and was having to use the wheelchair Andy had gotten him that May more often than not, and Willem had broken up with his girlfriend of a year and was dating a costume designer named Philippa, and his former fellow law clerk, Kerrigan, had written a mass e-mail to everyone he had ever worked with in which he simultaneously came out and denounced conservatism, and Harold had been asking him who was coming over for Thanksgiving this year, and if he could stay a night after whoever he invited had left, because he and Julia needed to talk about something with him, and he had seen plays with Malcolm and gallery shows with Willem and had read novels that he would have argued about with JB, as the two of them were the novel-readers of the group: a whole list of things the four of them would have once picked over together that they now instead discussed in twos or threes. At first, it had been disorienting, after so many years of operating as a foursome, but he had gotten used to it, and although he missed JB—his witty self-involvement, the way he could see everything the world had to offer only as it might affect him—he also found himself unable to forgive him and, simultaneously, able to see his life without him.
然后是秋天，威廉和杰比第二度碰面。在此之前，威廉很意外地获得了他的第一部电影片约，饰演格林童话改编的《银手姑娘》里的国王，一月就要去保加利亚的首都索非亚拍片；他在工作上获得晋升，全纽约最好的大型律师事务所之一克瑟葛罗的一位合伙人也来找他加入，但同时，他偶尔不得不开始使用安迪在五月帮他买的轮椅。此外，威廉和交往一年的女友分手，开始跟服装设计师菲莉帕在一起；还有他以前当法官助理时的同事克里根发了一封电子邮件给所有曾与他共事的人，在信中出柜，同时还谴责了保守主义；哈罗德一直在问今年感恩节有谁会来，还问他同行的人离开之后，能不能留下来住一夜，因为他和朱丽娅有事要跟他谈谈。这几个月，他和马尔科姆去看舞台剧，和威廉去看画展，另外还读了几本小说。以前他都是跟杰比讨论，因为四个朋友里就他们两个最爱看小说。有好多事情以前他们四个会一起讨论，但现在都是其中两个或三个人讨论。一开始他们有点无所适从，毕竟这么多年都是四人行，但他逐渐习惯了，而且就算他想念杰比——包括他的机智和自我中心，他有本事只看到这个世界可能影响他的事情——他也发现自己无法原谅他，甚至他已经完全可以接受没有杰比的生活。
And now, he supposed, their fight was over, and the painting was his. Willem came down with him to the office that Saturday and he unwrapped it and leaned it against the wall and the two of them regarded it in silence, as if it were a rare and inert zoo animal. This was the painting that had been reproduced in the Times review and, later, the Artforum story, but it wasn’t until now, in the safety of his office, that he was able to truly appreciate it—if he could forget it was him, he could almost see how lovely an image it was, and why JB would have been attracted to it: for the strange person in it who looked so frightened and watchful, who was discernibly neither female nor male, whose clothes looked borrowed, who was mimicking the gestures and postures of adulthood while clearly understanding nothing of them. He no longer felt anything for that person, but not feeling anything for that person had been a conscious act of will, like turning away from someone in the street even though you saw them constantly, and pretending you couldn’t see them day after day until one day, you actually couldn’t—or so you could make yourself believe.
而现在，他想他们的吵架结束了，这幅画是他的了。那个星期六，威廉跟他去办公室，他把画拆开来靠在墙上，两人沉默地看了好久，好像那是一只不会动的动物园动物。这幅画曾登上《纽约时报》的艺评版，稍后《艺术论坛》也有报道，但是直到现在，它平安地抵达他的办公室之后，他才有办法真正欣赏它。如果他能忘记里头画的是自己，他几乎可以看出这张画有多美好，也明白杰比为什么会被这个画面吸引：画中的陌生人一副害怕又提防的模样，无法分辨是男是女，衣服像是借来的，模仿着成人的动作和姿态，但显然对两者一点也不了解。他对画中那人再也没有任何感觉，但这种没感觉是刻意靠意志才办到的。就像你常常在街上碰到一个人，却故意不去看，随着一天天过去，都假装看不到，直到有一天，你真的看不到此人了，或者你让自己相信你看不到。
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” he admitted to Willem, regretfully, because he didn’t want the painting, and yet felt guilty that Willem had axed JB out of his life on his behalf, and for something he knew he would never look at again.
“我不知道要怎么处理这幅画。”他向威廉坦承，他很后悔，因为他不想要这幅画，而且很内疚威廉之前为了他跟杰比绝交，为了一个他知道自己不会再看的东西。
“Well,” said Willem, and there was a silence. “You could always give it to Harold; I’m sure he’d love it.” And he knew then that Willem had perhaps always known that he didn’t want the painting, and that it hadn’t mattered to him, that he hadn’t regretted choosing him over JB, that he didn’t blame him for having to make that decision.
“嗯，”威廉沉默了一会儿说，“反正你可以送给哈罗德，我很确定他一定会很喜欢。”他这才明白，威廉或许一直都清楚他不想要这幅画，而且他不在意，也不后悔选择了他而非杰比，更没有因为必须做这个选择而怪他。
“I could,” he said slowly, although he knew he wouldn’t: Harold would indeed love it (he had when he had seen the show) and would hang it somewhere prominent, and whenever he went to visit him, he would have to look at it. “I’m sorry, Willem,” he said at last, “I’m sorry to drag you down here. I think I’ll leave it here until I figure out what to do.”
“是啊。”他缓缓地说，但他知道他不会这么做。哈罗德会很喜欢这幅画（他当初看展时就非常喜欢了），还会把画挂在显眼的位置。这么一来，每回他去拜访哈罗德都会看到。“对不起，威廉。”最后他终于说，“我很后悔把你拖过来。我想我要把画留在这里，等到我想出该怎么处理再说。”
“It’s okay,” Willem said, and the two of them wrapped it up again and replaced it under his desk.
“没关系。”威廉说。于是两人又把画包回去，放到办公桌下。
After Willem left, he turned on his phone and this time, he did write JB a message. “JB,” he began, “Thanks very much for the painting, and for your apology, both of which mean a lot.” He paused, thinking about what to say next. “I’ve missed you, and want to hear what’s been going on in your life,” he continued. “Call me when you have some time to hang out.” It was all true.
威廉离开后，他打开手机，终于写了一则短信给杰比。“杰比，”他写道，“很谢谢你的画，也谢谢你的道歉，两者都对我意义重大。”他暂停下来，想着接下来要说什么，“我一直很想念你，想知道你的近况。”他继续写，“等到你有空碰面时，记得打个电话给我。”这些都是实话。
And suddenly, he knew what he should do with the painting. He looked up the address for JB’s registrar and wrote her a note, thanking her for sending him Jude with Cigarette and telling her that he wanted to donate it to MoMA, and could she help facilitate the transaction?
忽然间，他知道自己该怎么处理这幅画了。他查到杰比那家代理画廊的登记员地址，写了一封短信给她，谢谢她把《拿着香烟的裘德》寄来，说他想把这件作品捐给纽约现代艺术博物馆，问她能不能帮忙促成这件事？
Later, he would look back on this episode as a sort of fulcrum, the hinge between a relationship that was one thing and then became something else: his friendship with JB, of course, but also his friendship with Willem. There had been periods in his twenties when he would look at his friends and feel such a pure, deep contentment that he would wish the world around them would simply cease, that none of them would have to move from that moment, when everything was in equilibrium and his affection for them was perfect. But, of course, that was never to be: a beat later, and everything shifted, and the moment quietly vanished.
后来回头看时，他把这起事件当成某种转折点，是一段人际关系从此改变的关键：适用于他和杰比的友谊，这很自然，但也适用于他和威廉的友谊。在他二十来岁时，有时他会看着自己的朋友，感觉到一种非常纯粹、深厚的满足。他恨不得环绕他的世界当场停止，没有一个人必须离开那一刻，因为一切都处于均衡状态，他对他们的情感也是最完美的。当然，这样的事情永远不会发生。片刻之后，一切都改变了，那个时刻悄悄消失。
It would have been too melodramatic, too final, to say that after this JB was forever diminished for him. But it was true that for the first time, he was able to comprehend that the people he had grown to trust might someday betray him anyway, and that as disappointing as it might be, it was inevitable as well, and that life would keep propelling him steadily forward, because for everyone who might fail him in some way, there was at least one person who never would.
如果说在这起事件之后，杰比对他来说没有以前那么重要，未免太夸张、太决绝了。但他的确第一次有办法理解，自己多年来信赖的人有一天可能会背叛他。这很令人失望，但是也无法避免。人生会持续推着他前进，就算每个人都可能在某方面辜负他，但至少有一个人永远不会。
