《渺小一生》:“你是我的导师。”

　 “Who are you?” Lucien asks.

“你是谁？”吕西安问。

　 “Jude,” he says.

“裘德。”他说。

　 “Now, remind me,” Lucien says, pleasantly, as if they’re meeting at a cocktail party, “how do I know you?”

“那么，提醒我一下，”吕西安愉快地说，好像他们是在鸡尾酒会上碰到的，“我是怎么认识你的？”

　 “You were my mentor,” he tells him.

“你是我的导师。”裘德告诉他。

　 “Ah,” says Lucien. And then there is a silence.

“啊。”吕西安应了一声，之后便陷入沉默。

　 In the first weeks, he tried to make Lucien remember his own life: he talked about Rosen Pritchard, and about people they knew, and cases they used to argue about. But then he realized that the expression he had mistaken—in his own stupid hopefulness—for thoughtfulness was in reality fear. And so now he discusses nothing from the past, or nothing from their past together, at least. He lets Lucien direct the conversation, and although he doesn’t understand the references Lucien makes, he smiles and tries to pretend he does.

头几个星期，他设法让吕西安想起以前的人生：他会谈起罗森·普理查德律师事务所，谈起他们认识的人，还有他们老在争辩的那些案子。但接下来他才明白，他自己愚蠢地抱着希望，一直误解吕西安脸上的表情，他本来以为那个表情是思索，但其实是害怕。于是现在他不会跟吕西安介绍过去，或至少是他们共同的过去。他改让吕西安引导谈话，尽管他不明白吕西安提到的一些事情，他还是保持微笑，设法假装他知道。

　 “Who are you?” Lucien asks.

“你是谁？”吕西安问。

　 “Jude,” he says.

“裘德。”他说。

　 “Now, tell me, how do I know you?”

“那么，提醒我一下，我是怎么认识你的？”

　 “You were my mentor.”

“你是我的导师。”

　 “Oh, at Groton!”

“啊，在格罗顿！”

　 “Yes,” he says, trying to smile back. “At Groton.”

“是的。”他说，设法微笑。“在格罗顿。”

　 Sometimes, though, Lucien looks at him. “Mentor?” he says. “I’m too young to be your mentor!” Or sometimes he doesn’t ask at all, simply begins a conversation in its middle, and he has to wait until he has enough clues and can determine what role he has been assigned—one of his daughters’ long-ago boyfriends, or a college classmate, or a friend at the country club—before he can respond appropriately.

不过有时候，吕西安会看着他。“导师？”他说，“我太年轻了，没办法当你的导师！”有时候吕西安什么都不问，只是兀自没头没尾地说起话，他得等到有够多的线索，才能判定自己被指派的角色并适当地响应，可能是吕西安某个女儿很久以前的男朋友，或是一个大学同学、在乡村俱乐部的朋友。

　 In these hours he learns more about Lucien’s earlier life than Lucien had ever revealed to him before. Although Lucien is no longer Lucien, at least not the Lucien he knew. This Lucien is vague and featureless; he is as smooth and cornerless as an egg. Even his voice, that droll croaking roll with which Lucien used to deliver his sentences, each one a statement, the pause he used to leave between them because he had grown so used to people’s laughter; the particular way he had of structuring his paragraphs, beginning and ending each with a joke that wasn’t really a joke, but an insult cloaked in a silken cape, is different. Even when they were working together, he knew that the Lucien of the office was not the Lucien of the country club, but he never saw that other Lucien. And now, finally, he has, he does; it is the only person he sees. This Lucien talks about the weather, and golf, and sailing, and taxes, but the tax laws he discusses are from twenty years ago. He never asks him anything about himself: who he is, what he does, why he is sometimes in a wheelchair. Lucien talks, and he smiles and nods back at him, wrapping his hands around his cooling cup of tea. When Lucien’s hands tremble, he takes them in his own, which he knows helps him when his hands shake: Willem used to do this, and breathe with him, and it would always calm him. When Lucien drools, he takes the edge of his napkin and blots the saliva away. Unlike him, however, Lucien doesn’t seem embarrassed by his own shaking and drooling, and he is relieved that he doesn’t. He’s not embarrassed for Lucien, either, but he is embarrassed by his inability to do more for him.

在这些探访时间里，他得以了解许多吕西安的早年生活，超过了他中风前曾透露过的。吕西安不再是他原来认识的那个人。眼前的这个吕西安糊涂而平凡，整个人毫无棱角，平和得像个鸡蛋。就连声音也不同了，没了以往那种滑稽的低沉沙哑，以及总是暂停、等众人大笑完的习惯；他特有的组织句子的方式，每一段前后都会夹一个笑话，但其实不是笑话，而是披着笑话外衣的侮辱，这些也全不一样了。早在他们当年一起工作的时候，他就知道办公室里的吕西安跟乡村俱乐部里的吕西安不一样，但他从来没看过另一个吕西安。现在，终于，他看到了；因为现在只有一个吕西安。这个吕西安会聊天气、高尔夫、驾驶帆船，还有税，不过他讨论的税法是二十年前的。这个吕西安从来不问他的事情：他是什么样的人、做什么工作、为什么有时候他会坐轮椅。吕西安讲话时，他就听着微笑点头，双手握着那杯逐渐变凉的茶。当吕西安双手颤抖时，他会伸手过去，把他的双手握在自己手里。他知道这样对自己有用：以前威廉都会握住他的双手，跟着他一起呼吸，让他平静下来。吕西安流口水时，他会掏出自己的手帕，擦掉那些口水。然而跟他不一样的是，吕西安对于自己颤抖或流口水并不感到难为情，这让他松了一口气。他也不会替吕西安觉得难为情，只会因为自己没有能力做更多而难为情。

　 “He loves seeing you, Jude,” Meredith always says, but he doesn’t think this is true, really. He sometimes thinks he continues to come more for Meredith’s sake than for Lucien’s, and he realizes that this is the way it is, the way it must be: you don’t visit the lost, you visit the people who search for the lost. Lucien is not conscious of this, but he can remember being so when he was sick, both the first time and the second, and Willem was taking care of him. How grateful he was when he would wake and find someone other than Willem sitting next to him. “Roman’s with him,” Richard or Malcolm would say, or “He and JB went out for lunch,” and he’d relax. In the weeks after his amputations, when all he wanted to do was give up, those moments in which he could imagine that Willem might be being comforted were his only moments of happiness. And so he sits with Meredith after sitting with Lucien and they talk, although she too asks him nothing about his life, and this is fine with him. She is lonely; he is lonely, too. She and Lucien have two daughters, one of whom lives in New York but is forever going in and out of rehab; the other lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three children and is a lawyer herself.

“裘德，他很喜欢看到你。”梅瑞迪丝总是这么说，但他不认为是这样。他有时觉得自己持续去探望是为了梅瑞迪丝，不是吕西安，而且他明白本来就是这样，一定是这样：你不是去拜访失踪的人，而是去拜访那些寻找失踪者的人。吕西安没有意识到这点，但他还记得自己两次生病住院，威廉照顾他的情景。每回他醒来发现旁边坐的不是威廉，他就很高兴。“罗蒙跟他在一起。”理查德或马尔科姆会说，或者，“他和杰比出去吃午餐了。”然后他就会放松下来。他截肢后那几个星期，一心只想放弃，只有威廉不在时，他想象着威廉此刻有人安慰，那是他当时唯一快乐的时刻。于是他陪过吕西安之后，也会陪梅瑞迪丝坐一会儿，两人聊聊天，不过她不会问起他的生活，他也觉得这样很好。她孤单一人；他也孤单一人。她和吕西安生了两个女儿，其中一个住在纽约，但长年进出戒毒所；另一个跟先生和三个小孩住在费城，也是个律师。

　 He has met both of these daughters, who are a decade or so younger than he is, although Lucien is Harold’s age. When he went to visit Lucien in the hospital, the older of them, the one who lives in New York, had looked at him with such hatred that he had almost stepped back, and then had said to her sister, “Oh, and look who it is: Daddy’s pet. What a surprise.”

他见过这两个女儿，都比他年轻十来岁，但其实吕西安跟哈罗德同龄。他去医院看吕西安时，他们住在纽约的长女用充满恨意的眼光看着他，看得他简直要后退，然后那长女跟妹妹说：“啊，看看谁来了：老爸的宠物。真想不到啊。”

　 “Grow up, Portia,” the younger one had hissed. To him she said, “Jude, thanks for coming. I’m so sorry about Willem.”

“波西亚，少幼稚了。”她妹妹气呼呼地低声道，然后对他说，“裘德，谢谢你过来。威廉的事情我很遗憾。”

　 “Thank you for coming, Jude,” Meredith says now, kissing him goodbye. “I’ll see you soon?” She always asks this, as if he might someday tell her she won’t.

“谢谢你来，裘德，”这会儿梅瑞迪丝说，跟他吻颊道别，“很快就能再看到你了吧？”她总是这么问，好像有一天他会跟她说不会。

　 “Yes,” he says. “I’ll e-mail you.”

“是的，”他说，“我会再写电子邮件给你。”

　 “Do,” she says, and waves as he walks down the hall toward the elevator. He always has the sense that no one else visits, and yet how can that be? Don’t let that be, he pleads. Meredith and Lucien have always had lots of friends. They threw dinner parties. It wasn’t unusual to see Lucien leaving the offices in black tie, rolling his eyes as he waved goodbye to him. “Benefit,” he’d say as an explanation. “Party.” “Wedding.” “Dinner.”

“那就麻烦你了。”她说，然后挥挥手看着他走向电梯。他总有种感觉，好像都没有其他人来拜访，但怎么可能呢？拜托不要是这样，他心里恳求着。梅瑞迪丝和吕西安向来有很多朋友，常常举办晚宴。以前在事务所里，他们时不时就会看到吕西安打着黑色领结、一身正式礼服准备离开办公室，同时翻着白眼朝他们挥手道别。“慈善晚会，”他会解释，“派对。”“婚礼。”“晚宴。”