《渺小一生》:冒险试一次吧，另一个声音说

　 Take a chance, says the other voice. You’re lonely. You have to try. This is the voice he always ignores.

冒险试一次吧，另一个声音说，你很孤单，你得试试看。这是他向来忽略的声音。

　 This may never happen again, the voice adds, and this stops him.

这种机会可能不会再有了，那个声音又说，这句话让他停了下来。

　 It will end badly, says the first voice, and then both voices fall silent, waiting to see what he will do.

结果会很惨的，第一个声音说。然后两个声音都沉默下来，等着看他会怎么做。

　 He doesn’t know what to do; he doesn’t know what will happen. He has to find out. Everything he has learned tells him to leave; everything he has wished for tells him to stay. Be brave, he tells himself. Be brave for once.

他不知道该怎么做，他不知道会发生什么事。他得弄清楚。他学到过的一切都叫他离开；但他期望的一切都叫他留下。勇敢一点，他告诉自己，就勇敢这一次吧。

　 And so he looks back at Caleb. “Let’s go,” he says, and although he is already frightened, he begins the long walk down the narrow hallway toward the elevator as if he is not, and along with the scrape of his right foot against the cement, he hears the tap of Caleb’s footsteps, and the explosions of rain pinging off the fire escape, and the thrum of his own anxious heart.

于是他目光回到凯莱布身上。“走吧。”他说。虽然他已经开始害怕，但他还是假装不怕，开始沿着狭窄的走廊朝电梯走。除了他右脚刮过水泥地的声音，他还听到凯莱布的鞋底接触地面的声音、雨水敲着防火梯的轰响，以及他自己跳得很急的焦虑心脏。

　 A year ago, he had begun working on a defense for a gigantic pharmaceutical company called Malgrave and Baskett whose board of directors was being sued by a group of their shareholders for malfeasance, incompetence, and neglect of their fiduciary duties. “Gee,” Lucien had said, sarcastically, “I wonder why they’d think that?”

一年前，他开始帮一个叫马格瑞夫和巴斯克特（Malgrave and Baskett）的大型制药公司辩护。这家公司的董事会被一群股东控告渎职、无能、玩忽职守。“老天，”卢西恩那时还嘲讽地说，“真不懂他们为什么会这样想？”

　 He had sighed. “I know,” he said. Malgrave and Baskett was a disaster, and everyone knew it. Over the previous few years, before they had come to Rosen Pritchard, the company had had to contend with two whistle-blower lawsuits (one alleging that a manufacturing facility was dangerously out of date, the other that a different facility was producing contaminated products), had been served with subpoenas in connection with an investigation into an elaborate kickback scheme involving a chain of nursing homes, and had been alleged to be illegally marketing one of their bestselling drugs, which was approved only for treatment of schizophrenics, to Alzheimer’s patients.

他听了叹气：“我知道。”马格瑞夫和贝斯凯这家公司根本是一塌糊涂，大家都知道。找上罗普克之前的那几年，这家制药公司不得不应付两宗内部吹哨人提起的诉讼（一个指出该公司有一组老旧且危险的制造设备，另一个指出另一组设备制造出了被污染的产品）。于是法院向该公司发出传票，调查涉及了一连串养老院的复杂回扣案；此外公司也被指控非法营销该公司最畅销的一种药。那种药物原先获得核准上市，只能治疗精神分裂症，结果却用来治疗阿兹海默症。

　 And so he had spent the last eleven months interviewing fifty of Malgrave and Baskett’s current and former directors and officers and compiling a report to answer the lawsuit’s claims. He had fifteen other lawyers on his team; one night he overheard some of them referring to the company as Malpractice and Bastard.

于是，他花了十一个月访谈了五十名马格瑞夫和巴斯克特的现任和前任主管，汇整出了一份答辩报告。他的团队里还有十五名律师，有天夜里加班，他听到他们提到这家公司，叫它“弊端加混蛋”。

　 “Don’t you dare let the client hear you say that,” he scolded them. It was late, two in the morning; he knew they were tired. If he had been Lucien, he would have yelled at them, but he was tired too. The previous week, another of the associates on the case, a young woman, had stood up from her desk at three a.m., looked around her, and collapsed. He had called an ambulance and sent everyone home for the night, as long as they returned by nine a.m.; he had stayed an hour longer and then had gone home himself.

“你们敢让客户听到就试试看。”他斥责他们。当时很晚了，已经凌晨2点，他知道他们很累。如果他是卢西恩，就会吼他们，但他也累了。前一个星期，团队里一名普通律师，是个年轻女性，凌晨3点从座位上站起来，转头看了一圈，就晕倒了。他叫了救护车来，让其他人都回家，但隔天早上9点前要准时上班；他自己又多待了一个小时才回家。

　 “You let them go home and you stayed here?” asked Lucien the next day. “You’re getting soft, St. Francis. Thank god you don’t act like this when you’re at trial or we’d never get anywhere. If only opposing counsel knew what a pushover they were actually dealing with.”

“你让他们回家，然后自己留下来？”卢西恩第二天问他，“你变得心软了，圣弗朗西斯。幸好你在审判时不会这样，要是让对方律师知道他们的对手这么好欺负，我们连一场官司都别想赢了。”

　 “So does this mean the firm isn’t going to send poor Emma Gersh any flowers?”

“这表示我们事务所不会送花给埃玛·格什吗？”

　 “Oh, we already sent them,” said Lucien, getting up and wandering out of his office. “ ‘Emma: Get better, get back here soon. Or else. Love from your family at Rosen Pritchard.’ ”

“哦，已经送了。”卢西恩说，站起来慢吞吞地走出他的办公室，“‘埃玛，养好身体，早点回来，不然走着瞧。爱你的罗普克大家庭。’”

　 He loved going to trial, he loved arguing and speaking in a courtroom—you never got to do it enough—but his goal with Malgrave and Baskett was to get the lawsuit tossed by a judge before it entered the grinding, tedious drone years of investigation and discovery. He wrote the motion to dismiss, and in early September, the district court judge threw out the suit.

他喜欢出庭，他喜欢在法庭里辩论、演说，永远都不嫌多。但这回他跟马格瑞夫和贝斯凯的目标，是在进入折磨人的、冗长无聊、拖上好几年的调查与收集证据开始之前，就让法官撤销这个案子。他写了驳回原告起诉的申请书，九月初，地方法院的法官就驳回了。

　 “I’m proud of you,” Lucien says that night. “Malpractice and Bastard don’t know how fucking lucky they are; that suit was as solid as they come.”

“我真是以你为荣。”卢西恩那天晚上说，“弊端加混蛋不知道他们有多幸运，这个案子本来铁定会输的。”

　 “Well, there’s a lot that Malpractice and Bastard don’t seem to know,” he says.

“唔，弊端加混蛋好像真的不知道哦。”他说。

　 “True. But I guess you can be complete cretins as long as you have enough sense to hire the right lawyer.” He stands. “Are you going anywhere this weekend?”

“没错。不过我猜想，只要你有脑子找对律师，你就算当个彻头彻尾的白痴也没关系。”他站起来，“你这个周末打算去哪里吗？”

　 “No.”

“没有。”

　 “Well, do something relaxing. Go outside. Have a meal. You don’t look too good.”

“唔，做点放松的活动吧。出门玩玩，吃顿大餐。你的气色不太好。”

　 “Good night, Lucien!”

“晚安，卢西恩！”

　 “Okay, okay. Good night. And congratulations—really. This is a big one.”

“好吧，好吧。晚安。恭喜了——真的，这回真的是大胜。”