《渺小一生》:“不，我完全懂你的意思。”

　 Over the remainder of the meal, Rhodes makes attempts to corral his guests into a group conversation, but it doesn’t work—the table is too wide, and he has unwisely seated friends near each other—and so he ends up talking to Caleb. He is forty-nine, and grew up in Marin County, and hasn’t lived in New York since he was in his thirties. He too went to law school, although, he says, he’s never used a day of what he learned at work.

接下来的晚餐，罗兹努力让全桌客人打成一片，结果没成功——桌子太大了，而且他很不明智地安排原先彼此熟识的朋友坐在一起——于是他一直和凯莱布聊天。他49岁，在北加州马林郡长大，三十多岁搬离纽约后一直在别处定居。他也读过法学院，不过他说，以前学的那些，在工作上一天都没有派上过用场。

　 “Never?” he asks. He is always skeptical when people say that; he is skeptical of people who claim law school was a colossal waste, a three-year mistake. Although he also recognizes that he is unusually sentimental about law school, which gave him not only his livelihood but, in many ways, his life.

“从来没有？”他问。每次听到有人这么说，他都很怀疑，对于那些宣称读法学院是巨大的浪费、是三年错误的说法，他总是心存怀疑。不过他也知道自己一直对法学院感情很深，因为法学院不只给了他谋生的本领，从很多方面来说，也给了他人生。

　 Caleb thinks. “Well, maybe not never, but not in the way you’d expect,” he finally says. He has a deep, careful, slow voice, at once soothing and, somehow, slightly menacing. “The thing that actually has ended up being useful is, of all things, civil procedure. Do you know anyone who’s a designer?”

凯莱布想了一下，“好吧，或许不是从来没有，不过不是一般预期的那样。”他终于说。他有一种深沉、小心、缓慢的嗓音，带着抚慰的同时，不知怎的又有点令人害怕。“法学院所学的东西里头，真正派上用场的其实是民事诉讼法。你认识的人里头有设计师吗？”

　 “No,” he says. “But I have a lot of friends who’re artists.”

“没有。”他说，“不过我有很多艺术家朋友。”

　 “Well, then. You know how differently they think—the better the artist, the higher the probability that they’ll be completely unsuited for business. And they really are. I’ve worked at five houses in the past twenty-odd years, and what’s fascinating is witnessing the patterns of behavior—the refusal to hew to deadlines, the inability to stay within budget, the near incompetence when it comes to managing a staff—that are so consistent you begin to wonder if lacking these qualities is something that’s a prerequisite to having the job, or whether the job itself encourages these sorts of conceptual gaps. So what you have to do, in my position, is construct a system of governance within the company, and then make sure it’s enforceable and punishable. I’m not quite sure how to explain it: you can’t tell them that it’s good business to do one thing or another—that means nothing to them, or at least to some of them, as much as they say they understand it—you have to instead present it as the bylaws of their own small universe, and convince them that if they don’t follow these rules, their universe will collapse. As long as you can persuade them of this, you can get them to do what you need. It’s completely maddening.”

“唔，那么你就了解他们的想法有多么不同——越好的艺术家，就越有可能完全不适合做生意，真的是完全不行。我过去二十年在五家不同的时装公司待过，亲身见证了那种行为模式——拒绝遵守工作期限，无力控制预算，简直完全没办法管理员工——实在太一致了，搞得你开始怀疑，或许当设计师的先决条件就是缺乏这类特质，或者设计师这份工作本身鼓励他们有这样的概念缺失。所以在我的立场上，我要做的，就是在公司内部建立一套管理制度，然后确保这套制度可以执行、可以处罚。我不太确定该怎么解释：你不能告诉他们这样做或那样做对生意有用——那对他们毫无意义，至少对其中某些人来说是这样，尽管他们总是说他们明白——你必须告诉他们，这套制度就是他们那个小小宇宙的运作法则，而且要让他们相信如果不遵守这些规定，他们的宇宙就会崩溃。只要可以说服他们这点，你就可以让他们照你需要的做。这真是可以把人搞疯。”

　 “So why do you keep working with them?”

“那你为什么还一直跟他们合作？”

　 “Because—they do think so differently. It’s fascinating to watch. Some of them are essentially subliterate: you get notes from them and they can really barely construct a sentence. But then you watch them sketching, or draping, or just putting colors together, and it’s … I don’t know. It’s wondrous. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

“因为他们的思考的确非常不一样。看起来太迷人了。有些人基本上接近文盲：看他们写的字条，连凑出一个完整句子都有困难。但接着你看到他们画的草图，给衣服打褶，或只是配颜色，那真是……不知道，太美好了。我实在没办法用别的方式形容。”

　 “No—I know exactly what you mean,” he says, thinking of Richard, and JB, and Malcolm, and Willem. “It’s as if you’re being allowed entrée into a way of thinking you don’t even have language to imagine, much less articulate.”

“不，我完全懂你的意思。”他说，想到了理查德、杰比、马尔科姆，还有威廉，“那就像是你被允许窥探另一种思考方式，你根本没有办法想象，更别说要清楚表达了。”

　 “That’s exactly right,” Caleb says, and smiles at him for the first time.

“一点也没错。”凯莱布说，头一次对他露出微笑。

　 The dinner winds down, and as everyone’s drinking coffee, Caleb disentangles his legs from under the table. “I’m going to head off,” he says. “I think I’m still on London time. But it was a pleasure meeting you.”

晚餐接近尾声，每个人都在喝咖啡时，凯莱布将双脚从桌下移出来。“我得走了。”他说，“我想我还处在伦敦时间。很高兴认识你。”

　 “You, too,” he says. “I really enjoyed it. And good luck establishing a system of civil governance within Rothko.”

“我也是，”他说，“我聊得很高兴。祝你幸运，希望你在罗思科顺利建立一套管理方式。”

　 “Thanks, I’ll need it,” says Caleb, and then, as he’s about to stand, he stops and says, “Would you like to have dinner sometime?”

“谢了，我会需要这样的运气。”凯莱布说，正要起身时，又停下来说，“下回有空的话，要不要一起吃个晚饭？”

　 For a moment, he is paralyzed. But then he rebukes himself: he has nothing to fear. Caleb has just moved back to the city—he knows how difficult it must be to find someone to talk to, how difficult it is to find friends when, in your absence, all your friends have started families and are strangers to you. It is talking, nothing more. “That’d be great,” he says, and he and Caleb exchange cards.

一时之间，他吓呆了。但接着他在心里骂自己：他没什么好怕的。凯莱布才刚搬回纽约——他知道要找个可以聊天的人有多么困难，要找个朋友有多么困难，因为你不在的这些年，所有的朋友都成家了，也陌生了许多。只是聊聊天而已，没什么。“那就太好了。”他说，和凯莱布交换了名片。

　 “Don’t get up,” Caleb says, as he starts to rise. “I’ll be in touch.” He watches as Caleb—who is taller than he had thought, at least two inches taller than he is, with a powerful-looking back—rumbles his goodbyes to Alex and Rhodes and then leaves without turning around.

“不必起来。”凯莱布一看他要起身，就忙着说，“我再跟你联络。”他看着凯莱布（他比他原先以为的高，至少比他高两英寸）对亚历克丝和罗兹说再见，然后没再回头就离开了。

　 He gets a message from Caleb the following day, and they schedule a dinner for Thursday. Late in the afternoon, he calls Rhodes to thank him for dinner, and ask him about Caleb.

次日他接到凯莱布的短信，他们约了周四吃晚餐。那天傍晚，他打电话谢谢罗兹的晚餐，顺便跟他打听凯莱布。

　 “I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t even speak to him,” Rhodes says. “Alex invited him very last minute. This is exactly what I’m talking about with these dinner parties: Why is she inviting someone who’s taking over at a company she’s just leaving?”

“说来尴尬，我根本没跟他讲过话。”罗兹说，“亚历克丝是在最后一刻邀请他的。这就是我对这些晚餐派对有意见的地方：她为什么要邀请一个她刚离开的公司里刚来的新执行长呢？”

　 “So you don’t know anything about him?”

“所以你也不了解他的事情？”

　 “Nothing. Alex says he’s well-respected and that Rothko fought hard to bring him back from London. But that’s all I know. Why?” He can almost hear Rhodes smiling. “Don’t tell me you’re expanding your client base from the glamorous world of securities and pharma?”

“没错。亚历克丝说他在那一行很受敬重，罗思科花了一番力气才把他从伦敦挖过来。不过我只知道这些。你为什么要打听他？”他几乎听得出罗兹的笑意，“可别告诉我你要拓展客户，从证券业和制药业的迷人世界跨出来了？”

　 “That’s exactly what I’m doing, Rhodes,” he says. “Thanks again. And tell Alex thanks as well.”

“我就是这么打算的，罗兹。”他说，“谢了，另外也帮我跟亚历克丝说声谢谢。”

　 Thursday arrives, and he meets Caleb at an izakaya in west Chelsea. After they’ve ordered, Caleb says, “You know, I was looking at you all through that dinner and trying to remember where I knew you from, and then I realized—it was a painting by Jean-Baptiste Marion. The creative director at my last company owned it—actually, he tried to make the company pay for it, but that’s a different story. It’s a really tight image of your face, and you’re standing outside; you can see a streetlight behind you.”

星期四到了，他和凯莱布约在西切尔西的一家日式居酒屋。点菜之后，凯莱布说：“你知道，上星期晚餐时，我看着你，一直在想我在哪里见过你，然后我想到了——是一幅让·巴蒂斯特·马里昂的画。我上一个公司的创意总监有那幅画——其实呢，他想让公司付那幅画的钱，不过那是另一个故事了。画里是你的脸，你站在户外，而你后方有一盏路灯。”