《渺小一生》:人們也想看我們的作品啊。

　 Now, as he lies in bed, he hears the old lied murmur to him. “I have become lost to the world,” he sings, quietly, “in which I otherwise wasted so much time.”

現(xiàn)在他躺在床上，聽著那首古老的德語獨唱曲在他耳邊低吟。“我逐漸被世界遺棄，”他低聲唱起來，“我已浪費了太多光陰?！?

　 But although he knows how foolish he is being, he still cannot bring himself to eat. The very act of it now repels him. He wishes he were above want, above need. He has a vision of his life as a sliver of soap, worn and used and smoothed into a slender, blunt-ended arrowhead, a little more of it disintegrating with every day.

他知道自己這樣有多傻，卻還是沒有辦法逼自己吃東西。吃東西這件事現(xiàn)在令他厭惡。他真希望無欲無求。他想象自己的人生是一小片肥皂，使用到只剩下光滑的一片，像薄薄的、尖端圓鈍的箭鏃，每一天都被磨蝕掉一些。

　 And then there is what he doesn’t like to admit to himself but is conscious of thinking. He cannot break his promise to Harold—he won’t. But if he stops eating, if he stops trying, the end will be the same anyway.

而這時，還有他不愿向自己承認、但是意識到了的想法。他無法打破對哈羅德的承諾——他不會的。反正，如果他停止進食，如果他不勉強自己，最后他照樣會死。

　 Usually he knows how melodramatic, how narcissistic, how unrealistic he is being, and at least once a day he scolds himself. The fact is, he finds himself less and less able to summon Willem’s specifics without depending on props: He cannot remember what Willem’s voice sounds like without first playing one of the saved voice messages. He can no longer remember Willem’s scent without first smelling one of his shirts. And so he fears he is grieving not so much for Willem but for his own life: its smallness, its worthlessness.

通常他知道自己這樣有多戲劇化、有多自戀，而且每天至少都會痛罵自己一次。但事實上，他發(fā)現(xiàn)如果不借助道具，他越來越想不起關(guān)于威廉的種種細節(jié)：如果不先聽一下他保存的語音留言，他就想不起威廉的聲音是什么樣。如果不先去聞一下威廉的襯衫，他就想不起威廉的氣味。他擔心自己的悲慟不是為了威廉，而是為了他自己的人生：如此渺小，如此毫無價值。

　 He has never been concerned with his legacy, or never thought he had been. And it is a helpful thing that he isn’t, for he will leave nothing behind: not buildings or paintings or films or sculptures. Not books. Not papers. Not people: not a spouse, not children, probably not parents, and, if he keeps behaving the way he is, not friends. Not even new law. He has created nothing. He has made nothing, nothing but money: the money he has earned; the money given to him to compensate for Willem being taken from him. His apartment will revert to Richard. The other properties will be given away or sold and their proceeds donated to charities. His art will go to museums, his books to libraries, his furniture to whoever wants it. It will be as if he has never existed. He has the feeling, unhappy as it is, that he was at his most valuable in those motel rooms, where he was at least something singular and meaningful to someone, although what he had to offer was being taken from him, not given willingly. But there he had at least been real to another person; what they saw him as was actually what he was. There, he was at his least deceptive.

他從不關(guān)心自己死后的遺贈，至少不覺得自己關(guān)心。幸好是這樣，因為他什么都不會留下：沒有建筑物、畫作、電影、雕塑。沒有書。沒有論文。沒有人：沒有配偶或子女，大概也沒有父母，而且，如果他繼續(xù)這個樣子，也不會有朋友了。就連新的法律都沒有留下。他沒有創(chuàng)造出什么，也沒有制作出什么，除了錢：有的是他賺來的；有的是別人給他，以補償奪走威廉的損失的。他的公寓會歸還給理查德。其他財產(chǎn)會送掉或賣掉，得到的錢捐給慈善機構(gòu)。他收藏的藝術(shù)品會捐給博物館，他的書會捐給圖書館，他的家具看誰想要就給誰。最后他就像不曾存在過。他有種感覺，即使很不愉快，但在那些汽車旅館房間里的時候，是他最有價值的時候，至少他對某個人是特別的、有意義的，盡管他是被迫提供服務(wù)，而非自愿的。在那些房間里，至少他對另一個人來說是真實的；他們眼中的他就是真正的他。在那些房間里，他是最沒有偽裝的。

　 He had never been able to truly believe Willem’s interpretation of him, as someone who was brave, and resourceful, and admirable. Willem would say those things and he would feel ashamed, as if he’d been swindling him: Who was this person Willem was describing? Even his confession hadn’t changed Willem’s perception of him—in fact, Willem seemed to respect him more, not less, because of it, which he had never understood but in which he had allowed himself to find solace. But although he hadn’t been convinced, it was somehow sustaining that someone else had seen him as a worthwhile person, that someone had seen his as a meaningful life.

他從來無法真正相信威廉對他的詮釋，說他是個勇敢、足智多謀、令人欽佩的人。威廉說那些話的時候，他覺得很羞愧，好像自己欺騙了他。威廉描述的這個人是誰？即使他跟威廉坦白了過去的一切，也沒能改變威廉對他的看法——事實上，威廉不但沒有因此看輕他，還更尊敬他。這點他一直無法了解，但他允許自己從中得到安慰。他始終不相信威廉的說法，然而不知怎的，他相信有這么一個人把他視為一個有價值的人、把他的人生視為有意義的。

　 The spring before Willem died, they’d had some people over for dinner—just the four of them and Richard and Asian Henry Young—and Malcolm, in one of the occasional spikes of regret he had been experiencing over his and Sophie’s decision not to have children, even though, as they all reminded him, they hadn’t wanted children to begin with, had asked, “Without them, I just wonder: What’s been the point of it all? Don’t you guys ever worry about this? How do any of us know our lives are meaningful?”

威廉死前的那年春天，他們邀請了一些人來家里吃晚餐，只有他們四個，理查德和亞裔亨利·楊。那天，馬爾科姆又忽然后悔他和蘇菲不生小孩的決定；他偶爾會來這么一下，即使他們所有人都提醒他，他們從一開始就不想要小孩。他問：“因為我沒有小孩，我很好奇：一切是為了什么？你們難道沒擔心過這個？我們怎么知道我們的人生是有意義的？”

　 “Excuse me, Mal,” Richard had said, pouring him the last of the wine from one bottle as Willem uncorked another, “but I find that offensive. Are you saying our lives are less meaningful because we don’t have kids?”

“對不起，馬爾?！崩聿榈庐敃r說，把一瓶葡萄酒最后的一點倒進自己的杯子里，威廉在旁邊又打開一瓶，“可我覺得這話有點冒犯人。你是在說，因為我們沒有小孩，所以我們的人生比較沒意義？”

　 “No,” Malcolm said. Then he thought. “Well, maybe.”

“不是，”馬爾科姆說，他想一想，“唔，或許吧?！?

　 “I know my life’s meaningful,” Willem had said, suddenly, and Richard had smiled at him.

“我知道我的人生是有意義的。”威廉忽然說，理查德微笑地看著他。

　 “Of course your life’s meaningful,” JB had said. “You make things people actually want to see, unlike me and Malcolm and Richard and Henry here.”

“你的人生當然有意義?！苯鼙日f，“你的作品是人們實際想要看的，不像我和馬爾科姆、理查德，還有亨利。”

　 “People want to see our stuff,” said Asian Henry Young, sounding wounded.

“人們也想看我們的作品啊?！眮喴岷嗬钫f，口氣很受傷。

　 “I meant people outside of New York and London and Tokyo and Berlin.”

“我指的是除了紐約、倫敦、東京、柏林以外的人。”

　 “Oh, them. But who cares about those people?”

“喔，那些人啊。可是誰在乎他們呢？”

　 “No,” Willem said, after they’d all stopped laughing. “I know my life’s meaningful because”—and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued—“because I’m a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.”

“不，”威廉在眾人大笑完畢之后說，“我知道我的人生有意義，因為……”他暫停一下，露出害羞的表情，沉默了片刻才說，“……因為我是個好朋友。我愛我的朋友們，我關(guān)心他們，我想我也讓他們快樂。”

　 The room became quiet, and for a few seconds, he and Willem had looked at each other across the table, and the rest of the people, the apartment itself, fell away: they were two people on two chairs, and around them was nothingness. “To Willem,” he finally said, and raised his glass, and so did everyone else. “To Willem!” they all echoed, and Willem smiled back at him.

大家都沉默了，有幾秒鐘，他和威廉隔著桌面看著彼此，其他人和整個公寓似乎消失了：就只有他們兩人坐在兩把椅子上，周圍的一切都不存在。“敬威廉?！弊詈笏f，舉起酒杯，其他人也跟著舉杯?！熬赐?！”大家齊聲說。威廉對著他微笑。

　 Later that evening, when everyone had left and they were in bed, he had told Willem that he was right. “I’m glad you know your life has meaning,” he told him. “I’m glad it’s not something I have to convince you of. I’m glad you know how wonderful you are.”

那天夜里稍晚，大家都離開后，他們兩個躺在床上，他告訴威廉他說得沒錯。“我很高興你知道你的人生是有意義的，”他告訴他，“我很高興這種事不必我說服你。我很高興你知道自己有多了不起。”

　 “But your life has just as much meaning as mine,” Willem had said. “You’re wonderful, too. Don’t you know that, Jude?”

“但是你的人生跟我一樣很有意義啊?！蓖f，“你也很了不起。你難道不明白嗎，裘德？”

　 At the time, he had muttered something, something that Willem might interpret as an agreement, but as Willem slept, he lay awake. It had always seemed to him a very plush kind of problem, a privilege, really, to consider whether life was meaningful or not. He didn’t think his was. But this didn’t bother him so much.

當時，他喃喃說了些什么，威廉可能以為是贊同，但威廉睡著后，他醒著躺在那。思索人生是否有意義，對他來說似乎是一件非常奢侈的事情，甚至是一種特權(quán)。他不認為自己的人生有意義，似乎也不太因此而困擾。

　 And although he hadn’t fretted over whether his life was worthwhile, he had always wondered why he, why so many others, went on living at all; it had been difficult to convince himself at times, and yet so many people, so many millions, billions of people, lived in misery he couldn’t fathom, with deprivations and illnesses that were obscene in their extremity. And yet on and on and on they went. So was the determination to keep living not a choice at all, but an evolutionary implementation? Was there something in the mind itself, a constellation of neurons as toughened and scarred as tendon, that prevented humans from doing what logic so often argued they should? And yet that instinct wasn’t infallible—he had overcome it once. But what had happened to it after? Had it weakened, or become more resilient? Was his life even his to choose to live any longer?

盡管他不會為他的人生是否有價值而煩惱，但他總是很好奇，為什么他和其他這么多人，還是繼續(xù)活下去；有時他很難說服自己這一點，但是有這么多人，幾百幾千萬人、幾十億人，活在他無法想象的悲慘中，面對種種極其貧困和可怕的疾病。然而他們都繼續(xù)活下去。所以求生的決心根本不是一種選擇，而是一種演化出來的本能？在人類的腦子中是否有一連串的神經(jīng)元，如肌腱般堅韌而飽經(jīng)折磨，能防止人類做出邏輯上往往應(yīng)該做的？那種本能并非萬無一失——他就戰(zhàn)勝過它一次。但之后發(fā)生了什么事？這種本能減弱了，還是更強韌呢？他真的能選擇要不要活下去嗎？