《渺小一生》:當(dāng)然，他知道這種羨慕很荒謬

　 “I don’t mean to offend you, Willem,” Kit had said, carefully. “I know you love him. But come on. If he were the love of your life, I’d understand. But this seems extreme to me, to inhibit your career like this.”

“威廉，我不想惹你生氣，”基特小心翼翼地說，“我知道你愛他。但是拜托，如果他是你畢生的至愛，那我還能理解。但是你這樣為自己的事業(yè)設(shè)限，我覺得好像太極端了。”

　 And yet he sometimes wondered if he could ever love anyone as much as he loved Jude. It was the fact of him, of course, but also the utter comfort of life with him, of having someone who had known him for so long and who could be relied upon to always take him as exactly who he was on that particular day. His work, his very life, was one of disguises and charades. Everything about him and his context was constantly changing: his hair, his body, where he would sleep that night. He often felt he was made of something liquid, something that was being continually poured from bright-colored bottle to bright-colored bottle, with a little being lost or left behind with each transfer. But his friendship with Jude made him feel that there was something real and immutable about who he was, that despite his life of guises, there was something elemental about him, something that Jude saw even when he could not, as if Jude’s very witness of him made him real.

他有時(shí)也很好奇，不知道自己愛其他人時(shí)能否像愛裘德那么深。當(dāng)然，這是因?yàn)轸玫逻@個(gè)人，也是因?yàn)楦玫略谝黄鹉欠N全然的自在感，他們認(rèn)識(shí)了這么久，他相信裘德永遠(yuǎn)可以看清當(dāng)下的他。他的工作、他的生活，全是偽裝和演戲。有關(guān)他的一切、他所處的的環(huán)境時(shí)常在改變，包括他的頭發(fā)、他的身體、他當(dāng)天晚上要睡的地方。他常常覺得自己是液體做成的，不斷被從一個(gè)色彩鮮艷的瓶子倒進(jìn)另一個(gè)色彩鮮艷的瓶子，每換一次瓶就會(huì)流失一點(diǎn)色彩。但他和裘德的友誼讓他覺得自己的身份中有種永遠(yuǎn)不變的、真實(shí)的東西。盡管他的生活有種種偽裝，但裘德可以看清連他自己都看不出來的本質(zhì)，仿佛裘德的見證才讓他這個(gè)人真實(shí)存在。

　 In graduate school he’d had a teacher who had told him that the best actors are the most boring people. A strong sense of self was detrimental, because an actor had to let the self disappear; he had to let himself be subsumed by a character. “If you want to be a personality, be a pop star,” his teacher had said.

讀研究生時(shí)，有個(gè)老師曾告訴他，最好的演員也最無趣。太強(qiáng)烈的自我意識(shí)是有害的，因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)演員必須讓自我消失，以便融入角色。“如果你想當(dāng)個(gè)名人，那就去當(dāng)歌星吧。”他的老師這么說。

　 He had understood the wisdom of this, and still did, but really, the self was what they all craved, because the more you acted, the further and further you drifted from who you thought you were, and the harder and harder it was to find your way back. Was it any wonder that so many of his peers were such wrecks? They made their money, their lives, their identities by impersonating others—was it a surprise, then, that they needed one set, one stage after the next, to give their lives shape? Without them, what and who were they? And so they took up religions, and girlfriends, and causes to give them something that could be their own: they never slept, they never stopped, they were terrified to be alone, to have to ask themselves who they were. (“When an actor talks and there’s no one to hear him, is he still an actor?” his friend Roman had once asked. He sometimes wondered.)

他明白其中的道理，至今依然，但其實(shí)，他們?nèi)巳硕伎释凶晕?，因?yàn)槟阊莸迷蕉啵驮竭h(yuǎn)離你以為的那個(gè)自己，也更難找到回頭的路。難怪他有這么多同行都損傷嚴(yán)重。他們借著模仿他人賺錢、建立生活、找到定位——那么還用得著驚訝他們需要不停地尋找一個(gè)拍片現(xiàn)場、一個(gè)舞臺(tái)，好讓生活有個(gè)重心嗎？沒了這些拍片現(xiàn)場或舞臺(tái)，他們的定位和身份何在？所以他們會(huì)信教，交女朋友，投入公益活動(dòng)，好從中得到一些自己的東西。他們從不睡覺，從不停下來，也害怕獨(dú)處，害怕要問自己我是誰（“當(dāng)一個(gè)演員講話但沒人聽到時(shí)，他還算是演員嗎？”他的朋友羅曼有一回這么提問。他自己有時(shí)也會(huì)納悶）。

　 But to Jude, he wasn’t an actor: he was his friend, and that identity supplanted everything else. It was a role he had inhabited for so long that it had become, indelibly, who he was. To Jude, he was no more primarily an actor than Jude was primarily a lawyer—it was never the first or second or third way that either of them would describe the other. It was Jude who remembered who he had been before he had made a life pretending to be other people: someone with a brother, someone with parents, someone to whom everything and everyone seemed so impressive and beguiling. He knew other actors who didn’t want anyone to remember them as they’d been, as someone so determined to be someone else, but he wasn’t that person. He wanted to be reminded of who he was; he wanted to be around someone for whom his career would never be the most interesting thing about him.

但是對(duì)裘德來說，他不是演員，他是他的朋友，而這個(gè)身份取代了其他一切。他擔(dān)任朋友這個(gè)角色太久了，已經(jīng)成為他這個(gè)人不可磨滅的一部分。對(duì)裘德而言，他的首要身份不是演員，就像裘德的首要身份不是律師一樣，他們要描述彼此的第一個(gè)或第二個(gè)或第三個(gè)特點(diǎn)，都絕對(duì)不是演員或律師。裘德記得他以假扮他人為生之前，是個(gè)什么樣的人：他有個(gè)哥哥，有父母，沒見過什么世面，看到什么都覺得很厲害，看到什么人都覺得很迷人。他知道有些演員不希望任何人記得他們過去是什么樣的，但他不是那種人。他希望被提醒自己過去是什么樣；他希望身邊有這么一個(gè)人，對(duì)這個(gè)人來說，他的演員事業(yè)永遠(yuǎn)不是他最值得一提的事情。

　 And if he was to be honest, he loved what came with Jude as well: Harold and Julia. Jude’s adoption had been the first time he had ever felt envious of anything Jude had. He admired a lot of what Jude had—his intelligence and thoughtfulness and resourcefulness—but he had never been jealous of him. But watching Harold and Julia with him, watching how they watched him even when he wasn’t looking at them, he had felt a kind of emptiness: he was parentless, and while most of the time he didn’t think about this at all, he felt that, for as remote as his parents had been, they had at least been something that had anchored him to his life. Without any family, he was a scrap of paper floating through the air, being picked up and tossed aloft with every gust. He and Jude had been united in this.

而且老實(shí)說，他也很喜歡裘德身邊的人：哈羅德和朱麗婭。裘德被收養(yǎng)使他頭一次羨慕裘德所擁有的東西。他在很多方面上佩服裘德（他的聰慧、思慮縝密和機(jī)智），但從來沒嫉妒過。看著哈羅德、朱麗婭跟裘德在一起，看著他們觀察裘德的樣子，他感到一種空虛：他的父母過世了，盡管大部分時(shí)間他很少想到這一點(diǎn)，卻不禁想到父母在世時(shí)，即使那么疏遠(yuǎn)，他們至少是他生活中一股穩(wěn)定的力量?，F(xiàn)在沒了家人，他就像一張飄在空中的紙，隨著每陣風(fēng)飄向不同的方向。他和裘德本來就有這個(gè)共通點(diǎn)。

　 Of course, he knew this envy was ridiculous, and beyond mean: he had grown up with parents, and Jude hadn’t. And he knew that Harold and Julia felt an affection for him as well, as much as he did for them. They had both seen every one of his films, and both sent him long and detailed reviews of them, always praising his performance and making intelligent comments about his costars and the cinematography. (The only one they had never seen—or at least never commented on—was The Prince of Cinnamon, which was the film he had been shooting when Jude had tried to kill himself. He had never seen it himself.) They read every article about him—like his reviews, he avoided these articles—and bought a copy of every magazine that featured him. On his birthday, they would call and ask him what he was going to do to celebrate, and Harold would remind him of how old he was getting. At Christmas, they always sent him something—a book, along with a jokey little gift, or a clever toy that he would keep in his pocket to fiddle with as he talked on the phone or sat in the makeup chair. At Thanksgiving, he and Harold would sit in the living room watching the game, while Julia kept Jude company in the kitchen.

當(dāng)然，他知道這種羨慕很荒謬，而且太不厚道了。他從小有父母，裘德卻沒有。而且他知道哈羅德和朱麗婭很喜歡他，就像他也喜歡他們那樣。他們夫妻看過他的每一部電影，而且兩個(gè)人都會(huì)寫長信仔細(xì)評(píng)論，總是對(duì)他的表現(xiàn)贊美有加，而且會(huì)針對(duì)合演的明星和整部電影發(fā)表睿智的評(píng)語（他們唯一沒看過的，或至少?zèng)]提過的是《肉桂王子》，就是裘德企圖自殺時(shí)他正在拍攝的那部電影。他自己也始終沒看過）。他們閱讀每一篇關(guān)于他的報(bào)道，比如他向來避開的評(píng)論，而且每本有他特寫報(bào)道的雜志他們都會(huì)買來看。每年他的生日前，他們會(huì)打電話問他打算怎么過，哈羅德還會(huì)提醒他要滿幾歲了。到了圣誕節(jié)他們總會(huì)送他禮物，比如一本書，加上一個(gè)幽默的小禮物，或是可以放在口袋里的巧妙小玩具，讓他講電話或坐在片廠化妝時(shí)可以把玩。感恩節(jié)時(shí)，他和哈羅德會(huì)坐在客廳里看球賽，朱麗婭則在廚房忙碌。

　 “We’re running low on chips,” Harold would say.

“薯片快吃完了。”哈羅德會(huì)說。

　 “I know,” he’d say.

“我知道。”他會(huì)說。

　 “Why don’t you go get more?” Harold would say.

“你再去拿一點(diǎn)吧？”哈羅德會(huì)說。

　 “You’re the host,” he’d remind Harold.“You’re the guest.”

“你是主人哦。”他會(huì)提醒哈羅德。“你是客人哦。”

　 “Yeah, exactly.”

“是啊，一點(diǎn)也沒錯(cuò)。”

　 “Call Jude and get him to bring us more.”

“叫裘德幫我們拿一點(diǎn)過來。”

　 “You call him!”

“你去叫！”

　 “No, you call him.”

“不，你去叫。”

　 “Fine,” he’d say. “Jude! Harold wants more chips!”

“好。”他會(huì)說，“裘德！哈羅德還要薯片！”

　 “You’re such a confabulator, Willem,” Harold would say, as Jude came in to refill the bowl. “Jude, this was completely Willem’s idea.”

“威廉，你真會(huì)胡說八道。”等到裘德拿薯片進(jìn)來時(shí)，哈羅德會(huì)說，“裘德，這完全是威廉的主意。”

　 But mostly, he knew that Harold and Julia loved him because he loved Jude; he knew they trusted him to take care of Jude—that was who he was to them, and he didn’t mind it. He was proud of it.

最重要的是，他知道哈羅德和朱麗婭愛他是因?yàn)樗麗埕玫?；他知道他們相信他?huì)照顧裘德——他對(duì)他們的意義就是如此。他不介意，甚至引以為榮。

　 Lately, however, he had been feeling differently about Jude, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. They had been sitting on the sofa late one Friday night—he just home from the theater, Jude just home from the office—and talking, talking about nothing in particular, when he had almost leaned over and kissed him. But he had stopped himself, and the moment had passed. But since then, he had been revisited by that impulse again: twice, three times, four times.

但總之，最近他對(duì)裘德的感覺不太一樣了，他不確定該怎么辦。有個(gè)星期五晚上，很晚了，他剛從劇院回來，裘德也剛下班。兩人坐在沙發(fā)上聊天，沒有什么特定的主題，他差點(diǎn)靠過去吻裘德。但他忍住了，捱過那一刻。但從此以后，他就一再冒出那樣的沖動(dòng)：兩次、三次、四次。

　 It was beginning to worry him. Not because Jude was a man: he’d had sex with men before, everyone he knew had, and in college, he and JB had drunkenly made out one night out of boredom and curiosity (an experience that had been, to their mutual relief, entirely unsatisfying: “It’s really interesting how someone so good-looking can be such a turnoff,” had been JB’s exact words to him). And not because he hadn’t always felt a sort of low-key hum of attraction for Jude, the way he felt for more or less all his friends. It was because he knew that if he tried anything, he would have to be certain about it, because he sensed, powerfully, that Jude, who was casual about nothing, certainly wouldn’t be casual about sex.

這讓他開始擔(dān)心了。不是因?yàn)轸玫率悄腥?，他跟男人也有過接觸，每個(gè)他認(rèn)識(shí)的人都有過類似經(jīng)驗(yàn)。上大學(xué)時(shí)，他和杰比有天晚上喝醉，就出于無聊和好奇親熱過（結(jié)果兩個(gè)人都松了口氣，覺得完全沒勁。“真的很有趣，沒想到一個(gè)長得這么好看的人，這么讓人倒胃口。”當(dāng)時(shí)杰比這么跟他說）；也不是因?yàn)樗郧皬臎]察覺到裘德對(duì)自己有吸引力——其實(shí)所有的好友多少都對(duì)他有種淡淡的吸引力——而是因?yàn)樗酪坏┳约合雵L試什么，就得非常確定，因?yàn)樗麖?qiáng)烈感覺到，像裘德這樣凡事認(rèn)真的人，對(duì)感情也不可能隨便。