通译双语文库:钟形罩第5章|Five

1

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次日早上七点，电话铃响了。

1

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At seven the next morning the telephone rang.

2

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睡得昏天黑地的我慢慢清醒过来。梳妆镜上已经插了一封来自杰·茜的电报，她为坏掉的蟹肉表示遗憾，让我不用急着上班，好好休息一天，彻底恢复再说。既然如此，我想象不出会是谁打的电话。

2

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Slowly I swam up from the bottom of a black sleep. I already had a telegram from Jay Cee stuck in my mirror, telling me not to bother to come in to work but to rest for a day and get completely well, and how sorry she was about the bad crabmeat, so I couldn’t imagine who would be calling.

3

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我伸手拽过听筒，放在枕头上，听筒说话的那头搁在我的锁骨上，听声的那头靠在我肩膀上。

3

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I reached out and hitched the receiver onto my pillow so the mouthpiece rested on my collarbone and the earpiece lay on my shoulder.

4

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“你好？”

4

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“Hello?”

5

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一个男人的声音传来：“是埃斯特·格林伍德小姐吗？”我听出他略带外国口音。

5

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A man’s voice said, “Is that Miss Esther Greenwood?” I thought I detected a slight foreign accent.

6

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“当然。”我答道。

6

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“It certainly is,” I said.

7

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“我是康斯坦丁……”

7

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“This is Constantin Something-or-Other.”

8

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我没听清他的姓氏，只听到很多“斯”和“克”的音。我不认得什么康斯坦丁，但不忍心直言。

8

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I couldn’t make out the last name, but it was full of S’s and K’s. I didn’t know any Constantin, but I hadn’t the heart to say so.

9

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接着，我想起了威拉德太太和她要介绍给我的那位同声传译员。

9

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Then I remembered Mrs. Willard and her simultaneous interpreter.

10

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“哦，你好！”我大声说道，连忙起身，双手拿起电话。

10

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“Of course, of course!” I cried, sitting up and clutching the phone to me with both hands.

11

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我从来都不相信威拉德太太真的会介绍一个名叫康斯坦丁的人给我认识。

11

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I’d never have given Mrs.Willard credit for introducing me to a man named Constantin.

12

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我喜欢名字有趣的男人。之前我认识一个叫苏格拉底的，个子挺高，虽然其貌不扬但颇有学识，是好莱坞某个著名希腊裔电影制作人的儿子，只可惜他是天主教徒，我们俩之间没戏。除了他，我在波士顿工商管理学院还认识一个叫阿提拉的白俄罗斯人。

12

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I collected men with interesting names. I already knew a Socrates. He was tall and ugly and intellectual and the son of some big Greek movie producer in Hollywood, but also a Catholic, which ruined it for both of us. In addition to Socrates, I knew a White Russian named Attila at the Boston School of Business Administration.

13

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聊了几句，我明白过来，康斯坦丁想约我今天见个面。

13

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Gradually I realized that Constantin was trying to arrange a meeting for us later in the day.

14

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“下午想不想来看看联合国总部？”

14

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“Would you like to see the UN this afternoon?”

15

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“我能看到联合国总部。”我带着点小兴奋，笑着说。

15

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“I can already see the UN,” I told him, with a little hysterical giggle.

16

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他似乎有点窘。

16

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He seemed nonplussed.

17

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“从我房间窗户就可以看到啦。”我想是不是我的英文说得太快了。

17

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“I can see it from my window.” I thought perhaps my English was a touch too fast for him.

18

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静默了一会儿。

18

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There was a silence.

19

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他终于开口：“或许参观完后，你能赏脸吃顿便饭。”

19

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Then he said, “Maybe you would like a bite to eat afterward.”

20

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觉察到这是威拉德太太惯用的口气，我的一颗心沉入谷底。威拉德太太一开口就是，请你吃顿便饭。我想起这位仁兄初来美国时曾到威拉德太太的家中做客——她信奉这样一种做法：你把家门向外国人敞开，等你出国时，他们也向你敞开家门。

20

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I detected the vocabulary of Mrs. Willard and my heart sank. Mrs. Willard always invited you for a bite to eat. I remembered that this man had been a guest at Mrs.Willard’s house when he first came to America—Mrs. Willard had one of these arrangements where you open your house to foreigners and then when you go abroad they open their houses to you.

21

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现在我明白了，威拉德太太只不过是把她在俄罗斯做客的机会换成我在纽约的一顿便饭而已。

21

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I now saw quite clearly that Mrs.Willard had simply traded her open house in Russia for my bite to eat in New York.

22

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“好啊，我们吃顿饭吧。”我冷冷地说，“你几点到？”

22

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“Yes, I would like a bite to eat,” I said stiffly. “What time will you come?”

23

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“大概两点，我开车去接你。是亚马逊女士宾馆，对吧？”

23

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“I’ll call for you in my car about two. It’s the Amazon, isn’t it?”

24

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“对。”

24

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“Yes.”

25

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“好，我知道在哪儿。”

25

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“Ah, I know where that is.”

26

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一时之间，我觉得他话里有话，可转念一想，可能只是住在这间旅馆里的某些女孩正好在联合国总部当秘书，而他又曾经约过其中的一个。我让他先挂电话，然后我也挂断，闷闷不乐地躺下。

26

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For a moment I thought his tone was laden with special meaning, and then I figured that probably some of the girls at the Amazon were secretaries at the UN and maybe he had taken one of them out at one time. I let him hang up first, and then I hung up and lay back in the pillows, feeling grim.

27

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我的老毛病又犯了，幻想着一个男人对我一见钟情的浪漫画面，其实不过是我无中生有、自作多情。人家只是略尽地主之谊，带我逛逛联合国总部，然后再吃块三明治罢了！

27

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There I went again, building up a glamorous picture of a man who would love me passionately the minute he met me, and all out of a few prosy nothings. A duty tour of the UN and a post-UN sandwich!

28

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我努力打起精神。

28

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I tried to jack up my morale.

29

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也许威拉德太太介绍的同声传译员又矮又丑，到头来一样被我瞧不起，就像我瞧不起巴迪·威拉德一样。这么一想，我心满意足了。因为我的确瞧不起巴迪·威拉德，虽然在他离开肺结核疗养院后，所有人依然认为我会嫁给他，但我知道，就算天下的男人都死光了，我也不会选他。

29

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Probably Mrs.Willard’s simultaneous interpreter would be short and ugly and I would come to look down on him in the end the way I looked down on Buddy Willard. This thought gave me a certain satisfaction. Because I did look down on Buddy Willard, and although everybody still thought I would marry him when he came out of the TB place, I knew I would never marry him if he were the last man on earth.

30

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巴迪·威拉德是个伪君子。

30

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Buddy Willard was a hypocrite.

31

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当然，起初我不知道他是个伪君子时，还觉得他是我所见过的最好的男孩。我在远处暗恋了他五年，他连瞧都没瞧我一眼。然后他开始注意到我，而我也依然爱慕他，那真是一段美好的时光。可就在他越来越关注我的时候，我却偶然发现他虚伪得可怕。最后变成了现在这个样子：他想娶我，我却恨透了他。

31

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Of course, I didn’t know he was a hypocrite at first. I thought he was the most wonderful boy I’d ever seen. I’d adored him from a distance for five years before he even looked at me, and then there was a beautiful time when I still adored him and he started looking at me, and then just as he was looking at me more and more I discovered quite by accident what an awful hypocrite he was, and now he wanted me to marry him and I hated his guts.

32

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最糟糕的是我不能对他实话实说，因为没等我来得及说，他就得了肺结核。所以我只好事事迁就他，等他康复后能承受我的大实话的时机到来。

32

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The worst part of it was I couldn’t come straight out and tell him what I thought of him, because he caught TB before I could do that, and now I had to humor him along till he got well again and could take the unvarnished truth.

33

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我决定不去楼下的自助餐厅吃早饭，因为要下楼就得穿戴整齐。既然我要赖床一个早上，还费那个劲干什么？我本可以打电话到楼下，让人送份早餐上来，可要是那样的话就得付小费给送餐的人，我一直都不知道该给多少合适。来纽约之后，我已经有过几次给小费的不愉快经历了。

33

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I decided not to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. It would only mean getting dressed, and what was the point of getting dressed if you were staying in bed for the morning? I could have called down and asked for a breakfast tray in my room, I guess, but then I would have to tip the person who brought it up and I never knew how much to tip. I’d had some very unsetting experiences trying to tip people in New York.

34

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我入住亚马逊宾馆那天，有个穿服务生制服、矮小、秃顶的男人又是帮我把行李提进电梯，又是帮我打开房门。一冲进房间，我只顾着欣赏窗外的风景，过了一会儿才意识到他还在房里。他拧开洗脸台上的冷热水龙头，说“这是热水，这是冷水”，还打开收音机告诉我纽约每个电台的名称，搞得我很不舒服，只好背对着他，坚定地说：“谢谢你帮我提行李。”

34

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When I first arrived at the Amazon a dwarfish, bald man in a bellhop’s uniform carried my suitcase up in the elevator and unlocked my room for me. Of course I rushed immediately to the window and looked out to see what the view was. After a while I was aware of this bellhop turning on the hot and cold taps in the washbowl and saying “This is the hot and this is the cold” and switching on the radio and telling me all the names of all the New York stations and I began to get uneasy, so I kept my back to him and said firmly, “Thank you for bringing up my suitcase.”

35

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“谢谢谢谢谢谢。哼！”他讽刺的语调听起来真是恶心。我还没来得及转身看他有什么不对劲的，他就粗鲁地甩上门，走了。

35

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“Thank you thank you thank you. Ha!” he said in a very nasty insinuating tone, and before I could wheel round to see what had come over him he was gone, shutting the door behind him with a rude slam.

36

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后来，我跟朵琳说起他的怪异举止，她才告诉我：“你这傻瓜，他在跟你要小费呢。”

36

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Later, when I told Doreen about his curious behavior, she said, “You ninny, he wanted his tip.”

37

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我问该给多少，她说至少二十五美分，如果行李太重就给三十五美分。其实我本来要自己把行李提到房间里的，只是那个服务生实在太积极了，我才让他帮忙的。我还以为这种服务包含在房费里。

37

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I asked how much I should have given and she said a quarter at least and thirty-five cents if the suitcase was too heavy. Now I could have carried that suitcase to my room perfectly well by myself, only the bellhop seemed so eager to do it that I let him. I thought that sort of service came along with what you paid for your hotel room.

38

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我讨厌花钱请人做我自己轻松就可以办到的事，这让我很不舒服。

38

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I hate handing over money to people for doing what I could just as easily do myself, it makes me nervous.

39

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朵琳说小费一般是消费金额的百分之十。可是我手头总是没有刚好的零钱，我总不能傻兮兮地给人家五十美分，再跟他解释：“你的小费是十五美分，请找给我三十五美分。”

39

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Doreen said ten percent was what you should tip a person, but I somehow never had the right change and I’d have felt awfully silly giving somebody half a dollar and saying, “Fifteen cents of this is a tip for you, please give me thirty-five cents back.”

40

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第一次在纽约搭出租车，我给了司机十美分小费。车费是一美元，所以我想十美分刚刚好。递给他十分硬币时，我面带微笑，还颇有些得意。可他盯着掌心里的硬币看了又看，搞得我担心是不是不小心拿错了，给了他加拿大的硬币。见我要下车时，他开始嚷嚷：“小姐，你要吃饭，我也要吃饭，大家都要吃饭啊！”那嗓门奇大，吓得我撒腿就跑。幸好，他被红灯拦了下来，否则恐怕他会一路开车跟着我，吼得我尴尬万分。

40

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The first time I took a taxi in New York I tipped the driver ten cents. The fare was a dollar, so I thought ten cents was exactly right and gave the driver my dime with a little flourish and a smile. But he only held it in the palm of his hand and stared and stared at it, and when I stepped out of the cab, hoping I had not handed him a Canadian dime by mistake, he started yelling, “Lady, I gotta live like you and everybody else,” in a loud voice which scared me so much I broke into a run. Luckily he was stopped at a traffic light or I think he would have driven along beside me yelling in that embarrassing way.

41

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我跟朵琳问起这件事，她说小费很有可能自她上次来纽约之后从百分之十涨到了百分之十五。要不然就是那个出租车司机太贪心。

41

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When I asked Doreen about this she said the tipping percentage might well have risen from ten to fifteen percent since she was last in New York. Either that, or that particular cabdriver was an out-and-out louse.

42

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我伸手去拿《淑女生活》的人送来的书。

42

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I reached for the book the people from Ladies’ Day had sent.

43

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刚一打开，一张卡片掉了出来。卡片正面是一只穿着花睡衣的狮子狗，苦着张脸坐在狗篮里。打开卡片，那只狮子狗在狗篮里微笑着睡着了。卡片上方有一条刺绣横幅，写着：“多多休息，才能早日康复。”卡片底部有人用淡紫色的墨水留言：“祝早日康复！《淑女生活》全体好友敬上。”

43

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When I opened it a card fell out. The front of the card showed a poodle in a flowered bedjacket sitting in a poodle basket with a sad face, and the inside of the card showed the poodle lying down in the basket with a smile, sound asleep under an embroidered sampler that said, “You’ll get well best with lots and lots of rest.” At the bottom of the card somebody had written, “Get well quick! from all of your good friends at Ladies’ Day,” in lavender ink.

44

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我草草翻阅着一篇篇小说，直到最后看到一个关于无花果树的故事。

44

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I flipped through one story after another until finally I came to a story about a fig tree.

45

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一片绿草地上，一个犹太男子的家和一座修女院毗邻而居，两所房子中间长着一棵无花果。犹太男子和一个黝黑美丽的修女因采摘成熟的无花果，常常在树下见面。有一天，两人发现枝头鸟巢里有颗即将孵化的小蛋，就在他们看着雏鸟啄壳而出时，两人的手背碰到了一起。那天起，修女就再也不来和犹太男子一起摘无花果了，取而代之的是修女院厨房里那个长相凶恶、信奉天主教的女仆。两人每次摘完果子后，她还要清点数目，确定犹太男子摘的没她多，把男的给气坏了。

45

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This fig grew on a green lawn between the house of a Jewish man and a convent, and the Jewish man and a beautiful dark nun kept meeting at the tree to pick the ripe figs, until one day they saw an egg hatching in a bird’s nest on a branch of the tree, and as they watched the little bird peck its way out of the egg, they touched the backs of their hands together, and then the nun didn’t come out to pick figs with the Jewish man any more but a mean-faced Catholic kitchen maid came to pick them instead and counted up the figs the man picked after they were both through to be sure he hadn’t picked any more than she had, and the man was furious.

46

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好美的故事，尤其是那棵冬天覆盖着皑皑白雪、春天缀满绿色果实的无花果树。读到最后一页，我十分不舍，真想像翻越篱笆围墙一样爬进字里行间，安眠在美丽、翠绿的大无花果树下。

46

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I thought it was a lovely story, especially the part about the fig tree in winter under the snow and then the fig tree in spring with all the green fruit. I felt sorry when I came to the last page. I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig tree.

47

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在我看来，巴迪·威拉德和我就好比故事里的犹太男子和修女，虽然他不是犹太人，我也不是天主教徒，而都是一神派的信徒。我们在想象的无花果树下相遇，可惜见到的不是雏鸟破壳，而是婴儿诞生，一桩坏事接踵而至，令我们分道扬镳。

47

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It seemed to me Buddy Willard and I were like that Jewish man and that nun, although of course we weren’t Jewish or Catholic but Unitarian. We had met together under our own imaginary fig tree, and what we had seen wasn’t a bird coming out of an egg but a baby coming out of a woman, and then something awful happened and we went our separate ways.

48

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我躺在旅馆的白色大床上，孤独，虚弱，觉得自己身处阿迪伦达克山区的疗养院，感觉糟透了。巴迪的信中说，他正在读一位诗人的诗，这位诗人还是名医生，并且他还发现某位已故的俄罗斯著名短篇小说家也是医生。所以，或许医生和作家这两种身份本就相得益彰。

48

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As I lay there in my white hotel bed feeling lonely and weak, I thought I was up in that sanatorium in the Adirondacks, and I felt like a heel of the worst sort. In his letters Buddy kept telling me how he was reading poems by a poet who was also a doctor and how he’d found out about some famous dead Russian short-story writer who had been a doctor too, so maybe doctors and writers could get along fine after all.

49

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现在的巴迪·威拉德变了很多，跟过去两年我们逐渐熟悉时的论调大不相同。我记得有一天，他笑着问我：“埃斯特，你知道诗是什么吗？”

49

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Now this was a very different tune from what Buddy Willard had been singing all the two years we were getting to know each other. I remember the day he smiled at me and said, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?”

50

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“不知道，是什么？”我说。

50

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“No, what?” I said.

51

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“一粒尘埃。”他对自己有这样的深度颇为得意，而我只是盯着他的金发、蓝眼和白牙——他的牙又长又坚固——应了一声：“大概是吧。”

51

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“A piece of dust.” And he looked so proud of having thought of this that I just stared at his blond hair and his blue eyes and his white teeth—he had very long, strong white teeth —and said, “I guess so.”

52

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直到一年后，我身处纽约市中心，才想到当时可以怎么反驳他。

52

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It was only in the middle of New York a whole year later that I finally thought of an answer to that remark.

53

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我常在心里和巴迪·威拉德进行假想的对话。他比我大两岁，很有科学条理，所以总能证明自己说得对。跟他在一起时，我必须时刻绷紧神经，以免被他说得哑口无言。

53

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I spent a lot of time having imaginary conversations with Buddy Willard. He was a couple of years older than I was and very scientific, so he could always prove things. When I was with him I had to work to keep my head above water.

54

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我在心里想象跟他的交谈多是以我俩真正的对话为开头，但是结尾的部分，我不再呆坐着说“大概是吧”，而是对他展开了尖锐的反驳。

54

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These conversations I had in my mind usually repeated the beginnings of conversations I’d really had with Buddy, only they finished with me answering him back quite sharply, instead of just sitting around and saying, “I guess so.”

55

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这会儿，我躺在床上，想象着巴迪说：“埃斯特，你知道诗是什么吗？”

55

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Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?”

56

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“不知道，是什么？”我说。

56

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“No, what?” I would say.

57

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“一粒尘埃。”

57

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“A piece of dust.”

58

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就在他得意地扬起嘴角时，我会说：“那么被你解剖的尸体是尘埃，被你治愈的病人也是尘埃。他们是尘中之尘，埃中之埃。我觉得一首好诗远比一百个低到尘埃里的人加起来还要历久弥新。”

58

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Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.”

59

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被我这么一顶，巴迪肯定会语塞，因为我说的都是实话。人，不过是尘埃做成的，在我看来，医治尘埃如何能比得上写诗？一首好诗，可以让人铭记，可以让人在伤心、病痛或失眠的时候反复吟咏。

59

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And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.

60

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问题在于，我把巴迪·威拉德说过的每句话都奉为至高无上的真理。我想起他第一次吻我的那晚。那是在耶鲁大三学生的舞会后。

60

-

My trouble was I took everything Buddy Willard told me as the honest-to-God truth. I remember the first night he kissed me. It was after the Yale Junior Prom.

61

-

巴迪邀请我去参加那舞会的方式非常奇怪。

61

-

It was strange, the way Buddy had invited me to that prom.

62

-

那年圣诞假期，他突然跑到我家，一身白色的翻领厚毛衣，帅得我挪不开眼。他说：“哪天我去学校看你，怎么样？”

62

-

He popped into my house out of the blue one Christmas vacation, wearing a thick white turtleneck sweater and looking so handsome I could hardly stop staring, and said, “I might drop over to see you at college some day, all right?”

63

-

我非常吃惊。我们平时在学校念书，只有周末回家去教堂做礼拜时才能远远地打个招呼。我实在不明白，他怎么会想到跑来找我——他的解释是，他把我家和他家之间的这两英里路程当作越野练习。

63

-

I was flabbergasted. I only saw Buddy at church on Sundays when we were both home from college, and then at a distance, and I couldn’t figure what had put it into his head to run over and see me—he had run the two miles between our houses for cross-country practice, he said.

64

-

诚然，我们的母亲是好友，她们一起上学，都嫁给了各自的教授，还定居在同一个城镇，但是巴迪总是秋天拿着奖学金去上预备学校，或者夏天在蒙大拿处理松树的疱状锈病赚钱。总之，就算我们的母亲是同窗好友，对我们之间的感情也没什么用。

64

-

Of course, our mothers were good friends. They had gone to school together and then both married their professors and settled down in the same town, but Buddy was always off on a scholarship at prep school in the fall or earning money by fighting blister rust in Montana in the summer, so our mothers being old school chums really didn’t matter a bit.

65

-

那次突然造访过后，巴迪便没了音讯。直到三月初一个明媚的星期六早晨，我在学校宿舍为下周一关于十字军东征的历史考试做准备，正当我埋首于隐士彼得和穷汉瓦尔特的史料中时，走廊上的电话响了。

65

-

After this sudden visit I didn’t hear a word from Buddy until one fine Saturday morning in early March. I was up in my room at college, studying about Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless for my history exam on the crusades the coming Monday, when the hall phone rang.

66

-

一般情况下，大家是轮流负责接电话的。但是鉴于整层楼只有我一个新生，高年级的学姐们多半要我去接。我等了一会儿，看有没有人先我一步，但随即想到大家可能都去打壁球或度周末了，所以只得自己去接电话。

66

-

Usually people are supposed to take turns answering the hall phone, but as I was the only freshman on a floor with all seniors they made me answer it most of the time. I waited a minute to see if anybody would beat me to it. Then I figured everybody was probably out playing squash or away on weekends, so I answered it myself.

67

-

“埃斯特，是你吗？”楼下值班的女孩在电话里问道。我说是，她便接着说：“楼下有位男士找你。”

67

-

“Is that you, Esther?” the girl on watch downstairs said, and when I said yes, she said, “There’s a man to see you.”

68

-

我听了大吃一惊，因为那年相亲认识的男孩中，没有一个再打电话约过我。我就是运气不好。现在我都痛恨相亲了：每周六晚上，手心冒汗、小鹿乱撞地下楼，让某位学姐介绍她阿姨的闺密的儿子给我，结果却发现对方长得像个白蘑菇，还有一对招风耳，要不就是大龅牙，或者腿脚不便。我可不认为我只配得上这种人。虽然我是个书呆子，只知道埋头苦读，但起码我好手好脚啊。

68

-

I was surprised to hear this, because of all the blind dates I’d had that year not one called me up again for a second date. I just didn’t have any luck. I hated coming downstairs sweaty-handed and curious every Saturday night and having some senior introduce me to her aunt’s best friend’s son and finding some pale, mushroomy fellow with protruding ears or buck teeth or a bad leg. I didn’t think I deserved it. After all, I wasn’t crippled in any way, I just studied too hard, I didn’t know when to stop.

69

-

唉，可我还是梳了头，抹了点口红，拿上历史书下楼去了——如果来找我的人太烂，我就借口说我正要去图书馆。来的人居然是巴迪·威拉德。他穿着卡其色的拉链夹克，蓝色粗棉裤，磨损的灰色球鞋，倚着寄信的桌子对着我笑。

69

-

Well, I combed my hair and put on some more lipstick and took my history book—so I could say I was on my way to the library if it turned out to be somebody awful—and went down, and there was Buddy Willard leaning against the mail table in a khaki zipper jacket and blue dungarees and frayed gray sneakers and grinning up at me.

70

-

“我只是来跟你打个招呼。”他说。

70

-

“I just came over to say hello,” he said.

71

-

我觉得太反常了，他竟然大老远从耶鲁来到这里——而且据他说，为了省钱，他还是一路搭便车来的——就为了跟我打个招呼。

71

-

I thought it odd he should come all the way up from Yale even hitchhiking, as he did, to save money, just to say hello.

72

-

“嗨。”我说，“我们去外面门廊坐坐吧。”

72

-

“Hello,” I said. “Let’s go out and sit on the porch.”

73

-

我想去门廊，因为值班的学姐很八卦，她正好奇地打量着我，那样子显然认为巴迪会喜欢我绝对是犯了重大错误。

73

-

I wanted to go out on the porch because the girl on watch was a nosy senior and eyeing me curiously. She obviously thought Buddy had made a big mistake.

74

-

我们并排坐在两张藤制摇椅上。阳光明媚，宁静无风，甚至有点儿热了。

74

-

We sat side by side in two wicker rocking chairs. The sunlight was clean and windless and almost hot.

75

-

“我待不了几分钟。”巴迪说。

75

-

“I can’t stay for more than a few minutes,” Buddy said.

76

-

“哦，别这样，留下来吃午饭吧。”我说。

76

-

“Oh, come on, stay for lunch,” I said.

77

-

“呃，不行。我是陪琼来参加大二舞会的。”

77

-

“Oh, I can’t do that. I’m up here for the Sophomore Prom with Joan.”

78

-

我觉得自己是天下头号大笨蛋。

78

-

I felt like a prize idiot.

79

-

“琼还好吗？”我冷冷地问道。

79

-

“How is Joan?” I asked coldly.

80

-

琼·吉林和我们来自同一个镇，我们上同一个教堂，她比我高一届。她可是个风云人物——班长，主修物理，校曲棍球冠军。她鹅卵石色的眼睛盯住你便不放，一口墓碑形状的牙齿闪闪发亮，说话时带着喘息声，这一切都让我觉得浑身难受。此外，她的体形壮硕如牛。我开始觉得巴迪品味真差。

80

-

Joan Gilling came from our home town and went to our church and was a year ahead of me at college. She was a big wheel—president of her class and a physics major and the college hockey champion. She always made me feel squirmy with her starey pebble-colored eyes and her gleaming tombstone teeth and her breathy voice. She was big as a horse, too. I began to think Buddy had pretty poor taste.

81

-

“哦，说到她。”他说，“早在两个月前，她就要我参加这个舞会，她妈妈还问我妈妈，我愿不愿意当她的舞伴。我能怎么办？”

81

-

“Oh, Joan,” he said. “She asked me up to this dance two months ahead of time and her mother asked my mother if I would take her, so what could I do?”

82

-

“既然你不想陪她去，为什么要答应呢？”我刻薄地问。

82

-

“Well, why did you say you’d take her if you didn’t want to?” I asked meanly.

83

-

“我喜欢琼啊。她从不在意你有没有为她花钱，而且她喜欢户外活动。上次她来耶鲁参加周末宿舍开放日，我们一起骑车去东岩玩，她是唯一不用我帮忙推车上山的女孩。琼很不错。”

83

-

“Oh, I like Joan. She never cares whether you spend any money on her or not and she enjoys doing things out-of-doors. The last time she came down to Yale for house weekend we went on a bicycle trip to East Rock and she’s the only girl I haven’t had to push up hills. Joan’s all right.”

84

-

我嫉妒得浑身发冷。耶鲁是我宿舍楼里所有学姐周末最爱去的地方，而我从没去过。我决定对巴迪·威拉德死心。没有了期望，自然就不会失望。

84

-

I went cold with envy. I had never been to Yale, and Yale was the place all the seniors in my house liked to go best on weekends. I decided to expect nothing from Buddy Willard. If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.

85

-

“你该去找琼了。”我以一种实事求是的口吻说道，“我的约会对象随时会出现，他不会乐意看见我和你坐在一起。”

85

-

“You better go and find Joan then,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve a date coming any minute and he won’t like seeing me sitting around with you.”

86

-

“约会对象？”巴迪一脸惊讶，“他是谁？”

86

-

“A date?” Buddy looked surprised. “Who is it?”

87

-

“有两个。”我答道，“隐士彼得和穷汉瓦尔特。”

87

-

“It’s two,” I said, “Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless.”

88

-

巴迪一言不发，所以我接着说：“这是他们的绰号。”

88

-

Buddy didn’t say anything, so I said, “Those are their nicknames.”

89

-

我随即又补上一句：“他们来自达特茅斯。”

89

-

Then I added, “They’re from Dartmouth.”

90

-

我猜巴迪从来都没有好好读过历史，因为他惊得张口结舌。他从藤制摇椅上愤而起身，还多此一举地猛推了它一把，然后把一个印有耶鲁校徽的浅蓝色信封扔在我大腿上。

90

-

I guess Buddy never read much history, because his mouth stiffened. He swung up from the wicker rocking chair and gave it a sharp little unnecessary push. Then he dropped a pale blue envelope with a Yale crest into my lap.

91

-

“我本来打算，如果你不在，就把信留下。信里有个问题，你写信回答我吧。我不想现在问你。”

91

-

“Here’s a letter I meant to leave for you if you weren’t in. There’s a question in it you can answer by mail. I don’t feel like asking you about it right now.”

92

-

巴迪走后，我打开了信，信中他邀请我参加耶鲁的大三舞会。

92

-

After Buddy had gone I opened the letter. It was a letter inviting me to the Yale Junior Prom.

93

-

我欣喜若狂，尖叫了好几声，一边冲进宿舍楼，一边喊着：“我要去我要去我要去！”从门廊外的耀眼日光中走进宿舍楼的我一时不能适应，只觉得眼前一片漆黑，什么也看不清，但我发现自己已经抱住了值班的学姐。当她听明白有人邀请我去参加耶鲁的大三舞会，立刻对我刮目相看。

93

-

I was so surprised I let out a couple of yips and ran into the house shouting, “I’m going I’m going I’m going.” After the bright white sun on the porch it looked pitch dark in there, and I couldn’t make out a thing. I found myself hugging the senior on watch. When she heard I was going to the Yale Junior Prom she treated me with amazement and respect.

94

-

奇怪的是，这件事之后，宿舍楼里的情况也有所改观。同一层的学姐开始和我说话，有时还很主动地接电话，再也没人在我的门前冷嘲热讽，说有些书呆子只知道读书，白白浪费了大学的黄金时光。

94

-

Oddly enough, things changed in the house after that. The seniors on my floor started speaking to me and every now and then one of them would answer the phone quite spontaneously and nobody made any more nasty loud remarks outside my door about people wasting their golden college days with their noses stuck in a book.

95

-

然而，到了舞会那天，巴迪从头到尾待我如普通朋友或家里的表妹。

95

-

Well, all during the Junior Prom Buddy treated me like a friend or a cousin.

96

-

跳舞时，我们之间隔着有一英里远。直到《友谊地久天长》的乐声响起，他突然把下巴靠在我的头顶，似乎很疲惫。半夜三点，我们顶着寒风，在漆黑的夜里慢慢走了五英里，从舞会返回我借住的人家。我睡的是客厅里五十美分一晚的沙发，虽然太短，好歹能省点钱；大部分有正式床铺的房间要两美元才租得到。

96

-

We danced about a mile apart the whole time, until during “Auld Lang Syne” he suddenly rested his chin on the top of my head as if he were very tired. Then in the cold, black, three-o’clock wind we walked very slowly the five miles back to the house where I was sleeping in the living room on a couch that was too short because it only cost fifty cents a night instead of two dollars like most of the other places with proper beds.

97

-

我闷闷不乐，无精打采，幻想尽数破灭。

97

-

I felt dull and flat and full of shattered visions.

98

-

我原本想着那周末巴迪会爱上我，这样接下来一年我都不必发愁如何打发周六晚上的时光。快到我借住的地方时，巴迪说：“咱们去化学实验室吧。”

98

-

I had imagined Buddy would fall in love with me that weekend and that I wouldn’t have to worry about what I was doing on any more Saturday nights the rest of the year. Just as we approached the house where I was staying Buddy said, “Let’s go up to the chemistry lab.”

99

-

我惊讶万分。“化学实验室？”

99

-

I was aghast. “The chemistry lab?”

100

-

“对。”巴迪拉起我的手，“化学实验室后面的景色很美。”

100

-

“Yes.” Buddy reached for my hand. “There’s a beautiful view up there behind the chemistry lab.”

101

-

果然，实验室后面有一个小山包，站在上面可以看见纽黑文市的零星灯火。

101

-

And sure enough, there was a sort of hilly place behind the chemistry lab from which you could see the lights of a couple of houses in New Haven.

102

-

巴迪忙着在崎岖的地面上站稳脚跟，我假装欣赏夜景。他突然俯身吻我，我睁大双眼，想将错落的灯火印入脑海，这样我就永远不会忘记这一刻。

102

-

I stood pretending to admire them while Buddy got a good footing on the rough soil. While he kissed me I kept my eyes open and tried to memorize the spacing of the house lights so I would never forget them.

103

-

良久，巴迪从我唇边退开。“哦！”他说。

103

-

Finally Buddy stepped back. “Wow!” he said.

104

-

“哦什么？”我惊讶地问。这个干吻了无激情，而且因为在冷风里走了五英里，我俩的嘴唇都干裂了，真是郁闷。

104

-

“Wow what?” I said, surprised. It had been a dry, uninspiring little kiss, and I remember thinking it was too bad both our mouths were so chapped from walking five miles in that cold wind.

105

-

“哦，吻你的感觉真棒。”

105

-

“Wow, it makes me feel terrific to kiss you.”

106

-

我很知时宜地不发一语。

106

-

I modestly didn’t say anything.

107

-

“我猜，你和不少男生约会过。”巴迪说。

107

-

“I guess you go out with a lot of boys,” Buddy said then.

108

-

“呃，算是吧。”我觉得我的表现很像是这一年的每周都和不同男生约会才有的样子。

108

-

“Well, I guess I do.” I thought I must have gone out with a different boy for every week in the year.

109

-

“唉，可我得花很多时间读书。”

109

-

“Well, I have to study a lot.”

110

-

“我也是。”我急忙说，“总得保住奖学金嘛。”

110

-

“So do I,” I put in hastily. “I have to keep my scholarship after all.”

111

-

“不过，我应该可以想办法，每三个礼拜和你见一面。”

111

-

“Still, I think I could manage to see you every third weekend.”

112

-

“好啊。”我快要乐晕了，迫不及待想回到学校，把这事昭告天下。

112

-

“That’s nice.” I was almost fainting and dying to get back to college and tell everybody.

113

-

在屋前的台阶上，巴迪又吻了我。第二年秋天，他拿到了医学院的奖学金，我没再去耶鲁，改去医学院看他。就是在医学院，我发现这些年他是如何愚弄了我，发现了他是一个多么可怕的伪君子。

113

-

Buddy kissed me again in front of the house steps, and the next fall, when his scholarship to medical school came through, I went there to see him instead of to Yale and it was there I found out how he had fooled me all those years and what a hypocrite he was.

114

-

在目睹婴儿诞生的那一天，我发现了真相。

114

-

	crabmeat [k’ræbmiːt]	蟹肉
	earpiece [’ɪəpiːs]	n.头戴式耳机;听筒;眼睛脚
	Greenwood [’griːnwʊd]	n.绿林
	interpreter [ɪn’tɜːprɪtə(r)]	n.口译员;演绎的人;【计算机】解释程序
	clutch [klʌtʃ]	vt.抓住
	Socrates [ˈsɒkrətiːz]	n.苏格拉底(古希腊哲学家)
	gradual [’ɡrædʒuəl]	adj.逐渐的;逐步的;平缓的
	giggle [’ɡɪɡl]	v.咯咯地笑
	vocabulary [və’kæbjələri]	n.词汇
	York [jɔːk]	约克郡;〈板球〉使击球员出局
	Amazon [’æməzən]	n.亚马逊河
	prosy [’prəʊzɪ]	adj.散文的;散文体的;无趣味的
	morale [mə’rɑːl]	n.士气;斗志;道德准则
	hypocrite [’hɪpəkrɪt]	n.伪君子;伪善者
	unvarnished [ʌn’vɑːnɪʃt]	adj.未涂漆的;无掩饰的;原样的
	suitcase [’suːtkeɪs]	n.手提箱
	rude [ruːd]	adj.粗鲁无礼的;原始的;未加工的;粗糙的;猛烈的
	ninny [’nɪni]	n.笨人;傻子
	bellhop [’belhɒp]	n.旅馆服务员
	cent [sent]	n.分
	Luckily [’lʌkɪli]	adv.幸运地;幸亏地
	louse [laʊs]	n.虱子;寄生虫;卑鄙的家伙
	lavender [’lævəndə(r)]	n.熏衣草;淡紫色
	furious [’fjʊəriəs]	adj.狂怒的;猛烈的
	felted [’feltɪd]	v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)
	imaginary [ɪ’mædʒɪnəri]	adj.想象的;虚构的
	conversation [ˌkɒnvə’seɪʃn]	n.谈话;会话
	cadaver [kə’dævə(r)]	n.尸体;死尸
	Prom [prɒm]	Programmable Read only Memory 可编程序只读存储器
	prom [prɒm]	Programmable Read only Memory 可编程序只读存储器
	turtleneck [’tɜːtlnek]	n.高翻领;高领套头毛衫
	Chum [tʃʌm]	n.密友;鱼饵
	crusade [kruː’seɪd]	n.改革运动
	squash [skwɒʃ]	vt. 把…压碎；把…压扁；压挤;
	downstairs [ˌdaʊn’steəz]	adj.楼下的
	cripple [’krɪpl]	n.跛者;残废
	sneaker [’sniːkə(r)]	n.运动鞋
	nosy [’nəʊzi]	adj.好管闲事的;爱追问的
	windless [’wɪndləs]	adj.无风的;平稳的
	Joan [dʒəʊn]	n.琼(女子名)
	idiot [’ɪdiət]	n.白痴;傻瓜;笨蛋
	breathy [’breθi]	adj.带呼吸声的;缺少声量的
	Penniless [’peniləs]	adj.身无分文的
	nickname [’nɪkneɪm]	n. 绰号; 昵称
	crest [krest]	n.浪尖;冠;饰章;顶部
	amazement [ə’meɪzmənt]	n.惊愕;惊异
	nasty [’nɑːsti]	adj.下流的;严重的;令人不快的;难懂的;危害的
	shatter [’ʃætə(r)]	v.粉碎;毁坏;使震骇;使精疲力尽
	aghast [ə’ɡɑːst]	adj.惊骇的;吓呆的
	Haven [’heɪvn]	n.港口;避难所
	memorize [’meməraɪz]	v.记住;记录;记下
	chap [tʃæp]	vt. 使(皮肤)裂口，裂开；变粗糙;
	hastily [’heɪstɪli]	adv.匆忙地;急速地