《渺小一生》:她嘆氣：“我知道。”

　 He took the L to Eighth Avenue and then walked the few blocks south to his apartment. Late October was his favorite time in the city, and he was always sad to miss it. He lived on the corner of Perry and West Fourth, in a third-floor unit whose windows were just level with the tops of the gingko trees; before he’d moved in, he’d had a vision that he would lie in bed late on the weekends and watch the tornado the yellow leaves made as they were shaken loose from their branches by the wind. But he never had.

他坐L線地鐵到第八大道，然后往南走幾個(gè)街區(qū)回公寓。在紐約，十月下旬是他最喜歡的時(shí)節(jié)，錯(cuò)過了總令他傷心。他住在佩里街和西4街交叉口，是一間位于三樓的公寓，屋里的窗子剛好跟外頭的銀杏樹頂齊高。他搬進(jìn)去時(shí)總想象他周末會(huì)賴在床上，看著滿樹銀杏的黃葉被風(fēng)吹得紛紛掉落。但他其實(shí)從來沒看過。

　 He had no special feelings for the apartment, other than it was his and he had bought it, the first and biggest thing he had ever bought after paying off the last of his student loans. When he had begun looking, a year and a half ago, he had known only that he wanted to live downtown and that he needed a building with an elevator, so that Jude would be able to visit him.

他對這間公寓沒有特殊感情，除了這是屬于他的、是他自己花錢買的，而且是他還清了學(xué)生貸款后買的第一個(gè)、也是最重大的物品。一年半前，他剛開始找房子時(shí)，只知道他想住在下城，而且要有電梯，這樣裘德就可以來拜訪他。

　 “Isn’t that a little codependent?” his girlfriend at the time, Philippa, had asked him, teasing but also not teasing.

“這樣不是有點(diǎn)關(guān)系成癮嗎？”他當(dāng)時(shí)的女友菲莉帕曾取笑地問他，但同時(shí)也不算取笑。

　 “Is it?” he had asked, understanding what she meant but pretending not to.

“是嗎？”他問，明白她的意思，但假裝不懂。

　 “Willem,” Philippa had said, laughing to conceal her irritation. “It is.”

“威廉，”菲莉帕說，大笑著掩飾自己的不高興，“就是啦?！?

　 He had shrugged, unoffended. “I can’t live somewhere he can’t come visit,” he said.

他聳聳肩，沒生氣：“我不能住在一個(gè)他沒辦法來拜訪的地方?！彼f。

　 She sighed. “I know.”

她嘆氣：“我知道。”

　 He knew that Philippa had nothing against Jude; she liked him, and Jude liked her as well, and had even one day gently told Willem that he thought he should spend more time with Philippa when he was in town. When he and Philippa had begun dating—she was a costume designer, mostly for theater—she had been amused, charmed even, by his friendships. She had seen them, he knew, as proof of his loyalty, and dependability, and consistency. But as they continued dating, as they got older, something changed, and the amount of time he spent with JB and Malcolm and, especially, Jude became evidence instead of his fundamental immaturity, his unwillingness to leave behind the comfort of one life—the life with them—for the uncertainties of another, with her. She never asked him to abandon them completely—indeed, one of the things he had loved about her was how close she was to her own group of friends, and that the two of them could spend a night with their own people, in their own restaurants, having their own conversations, and then meet at its end, two distinct evenings ending as a single shared one—but she wanted, finally, a kind of surrender from him, a dedication to her and their relationship that superseded the others.

他知道菲莉帕不是反對裘德什么；她喜歡他，而且裘德也喜歡菲莉帕，甚至有天裘德還輕聲告訴威廉，說他覺得威廉回紐約時(shí)應(yīng)該多花點(diǎn)時(shí)間陪菲莉帕。當(dāng)初他和菲莉帕開始交往時(shí)（她是服裝設(shè)計(jì)師，大部分是舞臺劇的設(shè)計(jì)），她覺得他跟朋友的友誼很有趣，甚至很有魅力。他知道，她把這些友誼視為他忠誠、可靠、執(zhí)著的證據(jù)。但他們繼續(xù)交往下去，兩人年紀(jì)大一些，有些事情就改變了，他花在杰比和馬爾科姆，尤其是裘德身上的時(shí)間，轉(zhuǎn)而成了他根本不成熟、不愿意為了與另一個(gè)人（也就是她）種種不確定的未來，拋棄眼前舒適生活（與他朋友的生活）的證據(jù)。她從沒要求他完全舍棄他們——的確，他很喜歡她的一點(diǎn)，就是她跟自己的朋友關(guān)系很親密，而且他們兩個(gè)可以一整晚跟各自的朋友相處，在不同的餐廳進(jìn)行不同的談話，結(jié)束后再會(huì)合，兩個(gè)截然不同的夜晚最后成了一個(gè)共享的夜晚——但終究，她希望他屈服，專注于她和他的感情，以取代其他人的。

　 Which he couldn’t bring himself to do. But he felt he had given more to her than she recognized. In their last two years together, he hadn’t gone to Harold and Julia’s for Thanksgiving nor to the Irvines’ at Christmas, so he could instead go to her parents’ in Vermont; he had forgone his annual vacation with Jude; he had accompanied her to her friends’ parties and weddings and dinners and shows, and had stayed with her when he was in town, watching as she sketched designs for a production of The Tempest, sharpening her expensive colored pencils while she slept and he, his mind still stuck in a different time zone, wandered through the apartment, starting and stopping books, opening and closing magazines, idly straightening the containers of pasta and cereal in the pantry. He had done all of this happily and without resentment. But it still hadn’t been enough, and they had broken up, quietly and, he thought, well, the previous year, after almost four years together.

這一點(diǎn)他做不到。但他覺得自己的付出比她意識到的要多。他們在一起的最后兩年，他沒去哈羅德和朱麗婭家過感恩節(jié)，也沒去歐文家過圣誕節(jié)，而是去了她佛蒙特州的父母家。他放棄跟裘德每年一度的度假之旅，陪她去她朋友的派對、婚禮、晚宴及演出，而且回紐約時(shí)都陪著她，看她為《暴風(fēng)雨》的戲服畫草圖，幫她把那些昂貴的彩色鉛筆削尖。她睡覺時(shí)，他時(shí)差還沒調(diào)過來，就在公寓里漫游，翻翻書，看看雜志，把食品柜里裝意大利面和麥片的盒子排正。他開開心心地做了這一切，毫無怨尤。但這樣還是不夠，于是去年，在交往將近四年后，他們平靜地分手了，而他心想，好吧。

　 Mr. Irvine, hearing that they had broken up, shook his head (this had been at Flora’s baby shower). “You boys are really turning into a bunch of Peter Pans,” he said. “Willem, what are you? Thirty-six? I’m not sure what’s going on with you lot. You’re making money. You’ve achieved something. Don’t you think you guys should stop clinging to one another and get serious about adulthood?”

歐文先生在弗洛拉的產(chǎn)前送禮會(huì)上聽到他們分手的消息，搖搖頭：“你們這些小子真的成了一群不想長大的彼得·潘?！彼f，“威廉，你幾歲了？36？我不曉得你們是怎么回事。你們賺了錢，有了一些成就。你們不覺得自己應(yīng)該認(rèn)真當(dāng)個(gè)大人，別總是黏在一起嗎？”

　 But how was one to be an adult? Was couplehood truly the only appropriate option? (But then, a sole option was no option at all.) “Thousands of years of evolutionary and social development and this is our only choice?” he’d asked Harold when they were up in Truro this past summer, and Harold had laughed. “Look, Willem,” he said, “I think you’re doing just fine. I know I give you a hard time about settling down, and I agree with Malcolm’s dad that couplehood is wonderful, but all you really have to do is just be a good person, which you already are, and enjoy your life. You’re young. You have years and years to figure out what you want to do and how you want to live.”

但是要怎么當(dāng)大人？配偶關(guān)系真的是唯一合理的選項(xiàng)嗎？（然而，只有一個(gè)選項(xiàng)就等于沒選項(xiàng)了。）“幾千年的演化和社會(huì)發(fā)展下來，這是我們唯一的選擇嗎？”今年夏天他們?nèi)ヌ佤斄_度假時(shí)，他這樣問哈羅德，哈羅德大笑起來：“威廉，聽我說，”他說，“我覺得你過得很好。我知道我總是啰唆要你定下來，而且我也同意馬爾科姆的老爸說伴侶關(guān)系很棒，但你唯一真正要做的，就是當(dāng)個(gè)好人，而你已經(jīng)是了，還有享受人生。你還年輕，還有很多年可以搞清楚自己想做什么、想過什么樣的生活?！?

　 “And what if this is how I want to live?”

“那如果現(xiàn)在這樣就是我想過的生活呢？”

　 “Well, then, that’s fine,” said Harold. He smiled at Willem. “You boys are living every man’s dream, you know. Probably even John Irvine’s.”

“唔，那也很好啊?！惫_德說。他朝威廉微笑，“你們這幾個(gè)小子實(shí)現(xiàn)了每個(gè)男人的夢想，你知道，甚至包括了約翰·歐文的夢想?！?

　 Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.

最近他一直在想，關(guān)系成癮是否真的有那么糟。他從友誼中得到快樂，也沒有傷害到任何人，誰在乎是不是關(guān)系成癮？不管怎樣，友誼怎么可能比伴侶關(guān)系更讓人相互成癮？你27歲時(shí)受到欣賞的事情，為什么到了37歲就變得怪異了？為什么友情就不如伴侶關(guān)系好，難道不是更好嗎？兩個(gè)人一直在一起，日復(fù)一日，不是被性愛或身體的吸引力、金錢、子女或財(cái)產(chǎn)綁在一起，而是憑借彼此的共識走下去，為一個(gè)從未簽訂契約的同盟關(guān)系付出。友誼是見證另一個(gè)人在人生中緩慢滴流的悲傷，以及種種漫長的無聊，加上偶爾的成功。友誼是你能有幸在場見識另一個(gè)人最悲慘的時(shí)刻，懂得這是一種榮幸，而且知道你同樣可以在他身邊悲傷。

　 More troubling to him than his possible immaturity, though, were his capabilities as a friend. He had always taken pride in the fact that he was a good friend; friendship had always been important to him. But was he actually any good at it? There was the unresolved JB problem, for example; a good friend would have figured something out. And a good friend would certainly have figured out a better way to deal with Jude, instead of telling himself, chantlike, that there simply was no better way to deal with Jude, and if there was, if someone (Andy? Harold? Anyone?) could figure out a plan, then he’d be happy to follow it. But even as he told himself this, he knew that he was just making excuses for himself.

然而，比起自己可能的不成熟，他更困擾的是他身為朋友的能力。他向來自認(rèn)是個(gè)不錯(cuò)的朋友，友誼對于他向來很重要。但他真的擅長當(dāng)個(gè)好朋友嗎？比方說，杰比的問題一直沒解決，好朋友會(huì)想出辦法的。而且一個(gè)好的朋友會(huì)想出更好的辦法處理裘德的事，而不是像念經(jīng)似的告訴自己，就是沒更好的辦法，如果有，如果某個(gè)人（安迪？哈羅德？任何人？）能想出一個(gè)計(jì)劃，他很樂意照做。但即使他這么告訴自己，也知道他只是在為自己找借口。

　 Andy knew it, too. Five years ago, Andy had called him in Sofia and yelled at him. It was his first shoot; it had been very late at night, and from the moment he answered the phone and heard Andy say, “For someone who claims to be such a great friend, you sure as fuck haven’t been around to prove it,” he had been defensive, because he knew Andy was right.

安迪也很清楚這一點(diǎn)。五年前，安迪打電話到索非亞吼他。那時(shí)他第一次拍電影，已經(jīng)很晚了，他一接起電話就聽到安迪說：“對于一個(gè)自稱是個(gè)很棒的朋友來說，你他媽的根本沒有拿出證據(jù)來。”他開始自我防衛(wèi)，因?yàn)樗腊驳险f得沒錯(cuò)。

　 “Wait a minute,” he said, sitting upright, fury and fear clearing away any residual sleepiness.

“慢著。”他說，坐直身子，憤怒與害怕趕跑了殘留的睡意。

　 “He’s sitting at home fucking cutting himself to shreds, he’s essentially all scar tissue now, he looks like a fucking skeleton, and where are you, Willem?” asked Andy. “And don’t say ‘I’m on a shoot.’ Why aren’t you checking in on him?”

“他坐在家里，他媽的都把自己割成碎片了，現(xiàn)在全身都是疤痕組織，看起來像具他媽的骷髏，威廉，你人呢？”安迪問，“別跟我說‘我在拍戲’。你為什么沒打電話問問他的情況？”

　 “I call him every single day,” he began, yelling himself.

“我每一天都打電話給他?！彼f，也吼了起來。

　 “You knew this was going to be hard for him,” Andy continued, talking over him. “You knew the adoption was going to make him feel more vulnerable. So why didn’t you put any safeguards in place, Willem? Why aren’t your other so-called friends doing anything?”

“你明知道這件事對他來說很難熬。”安迪繼續(xù)說，聲音蓋過他的，“你明知道收養(yǎng)這件事會(huì)讓他更脆弱。為什么你沒采取好保護(hù)措施，威廉？為什么你其他所謂的朋友不做點(diǎn)事？”