《渺小一生》:“我?guī)闳タ??！?/h1>

所屬教程:經(jīng)典讀吧

瀏覽:

2020年04月06日

手機(jī)版

掃描二維碼方便學(xué)習(xí)和分享

　 “It’s not real,” said Richard, watching him look at the honeycomb. “I made it from wax.”

“那不是真的，”理查德說，看到他在觀察那個(gè)蜂巢，“是蠟做的。”

　 “It’s spectacular,” he said, and Richard nodded his thanks.

“太了不起了。”他說。理查德點(diǎn)頭表示謝意。

　 “Come on,” he said, “I’ll give you the tour.”

“來吧，”他說，“我?guī)愎湟幌??！?

　 He handed him a beer and then unbolted a door next to the refrigerator. “Emergency stairs,” he said. “I love them. They’re so—descent-into-hell looking, you know?”

他遞了一瓶啤酒給他，然后打開冰箱旁的一扇門。“逃生樓梯。”他說，“我超喜歡的，看起來簡(jiǎn)直是——直通地獄，你懂吧？”

　 “They are,” he agreed, looking into the doorway, where the stairs seemed to vanish into the gloom. And then he stepped back, suddenly uneasy and yet feeling foolish for being so, and Richard, who hadn’t seemed to notice, shut the door and bolted it.

“沒錯(cuò)?！彼猓粗T內(nèi)的樓梯消失在黑暗中，他忍不住后退，忽然間覺得很不安，同時(shí)又覺得自己這樣很蠢。理查德似乎沒注意到，把門關(guān)起來上鎖。

　 They went down in the elevator to the second floor and into Richard’s studio, and Richard showed him what he was working on. “I call them misrepresentations,” he said, and let him hold what he had assumed was a white birch branch but was actually made from fired clay, and then a stone, round and smooth and lightweight, that had been whittled from ash and lathe-turned but that gave the suggestion of solidity and heft, and a bird skeleton made of hundreds of small porcelain pieces. Bisecting the space lengthwise was a row of seven glass boxes, smaller than the one upstairs with the wax honeycomb but each still as large as one of the casement windows, and each containing a jagged, crumbling mountain of a sickly dark yellow substance that appeared to be half rubber, half flesh. “These are real honeycombs, or they were,” Richard explained. “I let the bees work on them for a while, and then I released them. Each one is named for how long they were occupied, for how long they were actually a home and a sanctuary.”

他們乘電梯下到二樓，進(jìn)入理查德的工作室，理查德帶他參觀正在進(jìn)行的作品。“我把這些稱為虛假陳述?！崩聿榈抡f，讓他握住一根他以為是白色樺木枝、其實(shí)是黏土燒制的作品；然后是一塊渾圓光滑、重量很輕的石頭，其實(shí)是白蠟樹木材被車床削成的，但看起來沉重而結(jié)實(shí)；還有一副用幾百根小瓷骨拼成的鳥類骨骼。工作室的正中央放著一排七個(gè)玻璃箱，把整個(gè)空間一分為二，它們比樓上那個(gè)裝著蠟蜂巢的玻璃箱要小，但還是大得像商店櫥窗，每個(gè)箱子里都裝著一大塊鋸齒狀、有如崩塌小山的暗黃色物質(zhì)，看起來半似橡皮半似肉?！斑@些是真的蜂巢，或者曾經(jīng)是。”理查德解釋，“我讓蜜蜂進(jìn)去待了一陣子，然后放掉蜜蜂。每一件的標(biāo)題就是蜜蜂在里頭住的時(shí)間，也就是這些物質(zhì)實(shí)際作為一個(gè)家與庇護(hù)所的時(shí)間。”

　 They sat on the rolling leather desk chairs that Richard worked from and drank their beers and talked: about Richard’s work, and about his next show, his second, that would open in six months, and about JB’s new paintings.

他們坐在理查德平常工作時(shí)坐的、帶有滾輪的皮革辦公椅上喝啤酒聊天，聊理查德的工作，還有他將在六個(gè)月后開幕的下一次、也就是第二次展覽，還聊到杰比的新畫作。

　 “You haven’t seen them, right?” Richard asked. “I stopped by his studio two weeks ago, and they’re really beautiful, the best he’s ever done.” He smiled at him. “There’re going to be a lot of you, you know.”

“你還沒看過，對(duì)吧？”理查德問，“我兩周前去過他工作室，那些畫真的很美，是他有史以來畫得最好的?！彼冻鑫⑿?，“里頭有很多畫你，你知道?！?

　 “I know,” he said, trying not to grimace. “So, Richard,” he said, changing the subject, “how did you find this space? It’s incredible.”

“我知道。”他說，設(shè)法不要皺起臉，“那么，理查德，”他說，改變?cè)掝}，“你是怎么找到這個(gè)工作室的？這里真是太棒了?！?

　 “It’s mine.”

“是我的?！?

　 “Really? You own it? I’m impressed; that’s so adult of you.”

“真的？是你買的？太厲害了，沒想到你有這么成人的一面?！?

　 Richard laughed. “No, the building—it’s mine.” He explained: his grandparents had an import business, and when his father and his aunt were young, they had bought sixteen buildings downtown, all former factories, to store their wares: six in SoHo, six in TriBeCa, and four in Chinatown. When each of their four grandchildren turned thirty, they got one of the buildings. When they turned thirty-five—as Richard had the previous year—they got another. When they turned forty, they got a third. They would get the last when they turned fifty.

理查德大笑：“不，這整棟樓——都是我的?！彼忉屗淖娓改甘沁M(jìn)口商，在他父親和他阿姨小時(shí)候，祖父母就在下城鬧市區(qū)買了十六棟樓房，全是舊時(shí)的廠房，用來儲(chǔ)藏他們進(jìn)口的貨物：六棟在蘇荷區(qū)，六棟在翠貝卡區(qū)，還有四棟在唐人街。他的四個(gè)孫子、孫女滿30歲時(shí)，都會(huì)得到其中一棟。等到他們滿35歲時(shí)（就像理查德前一年一樣），就會(huì)得到第二棟。滿40歲時(shí)，會(huì)再得到第三棟。最后一棟則是等他們滿50歲之時(shí)獲得。

　 “Did you get to choose?” he asked, feeling that particular mix of giddiness and disbelief he did whenever he heard these kinds of stories: both that such wealth existed and could be discussed so casually, and that someone he had known for such a long time was in possession of it. They were reminders of how na?ve and unsophisticated he somehow still was—he could never imagine such riches, he could never imagine people he knew had such riches. Even all these years later, even though his years in New York and, especially, his job had taught him differently, he couldn’t help but imagine the rich not as Ezra or Richard or Malcolm but as they were depicted in cartoons, in satires: older men, stamping out of cars with dark-tinted windows and fat-fingered and plush and shinily bald, with skinny brittle wives and large, polished-floor houses.

“想要哪一棟，你們能挑嗎？”他問，體會(huì)到他每回聽到這類故事時(shí)特有的那種暈眩加上難以置信：不僅是因?yàn)橛羞@樣的財(cái)富存在，還因?yàn)樗鼙蝗绱溯p松地提及，而且是由他認(rèn)識(shí)這么久的人所擁有的。這也讓他想到，自己不知怎的還是那么天真又不諳世故，因?yàn)樗肋h(yuǎn)無(wú)法想象這樣的財(cái)富，永遠(yuǎn)無(wú)法想象他認(rèn)識(shí)的人有這樣的財(cái)富。即使這么多年之后，即使他在紐約待了這些年，尤其是他在工作上已有了這么多歷練，每回講到有錢人，他下意識(shí)想到的依然不是埃茲拉、理查德或馬爾科姆，而是忍不住聯(lián)想到諷刺漫畫里的情景：一個(gè)老男人，從有深色玻璃的汽車?yán)锟绯鰜?，手指肥肥的，一身豪華著裝、禿頂光亮，擁有苗條嬌小的太太和地板發(fā)亮的大房子。

　 “No,” Richard grinned, “they gave us the ones they thought would best suit our personalities. My grouchy cousin got a building on Franklin Street that was used to store vinegar.”

“不行，”理查德咧嘴笑了，“他們會(huì)把他們認(rèn)為最適合我們個(gè)性的一棟給我們。我那個(gè)愛抱怨的表哥就分到了富蘭克林街的一棟樓，以前是用來存放醋的?！?

　 He laughed. “What was this one used for?”

他大笑：“那這一棟樓以前是放什么的？”

　 “I’ll show you.”

“我?guī)闳タ??！?

　 And so back in the elevator they went, up to the fourth floor, where Richard opened the door and turned on the lights, and they were confronted with pallets and pallets stacked high, almost to the ceiling, with what he thought were bricks. “But not just bricks,” said Richard, “decorative terra-cotta bricks, imported from Umbria.” He picked one up from an incomplete pallet and gave it to him, and he turned the brick, which was glazed with a thin, bright green finish, in his hand, running his palm over its blisters. “The fifth and sixth floors are full of them, too,” said Richard, “they’re in the process of selling them to a wholesaler in Chicago, and then those floors’ll be clear.” He smiled. “Now you see why I have such a good elevator in here.”

于是他們回到電梯，往上到四樓，理查德開了門又按開燈，他們面對(duì)著一排排在棧板上堆得老高的貨物，都快碰到天花板了，他覺得那是磚頭?！暗@不是普通的磚頭，”理查德說，“是裝飾用的陶瓦磚，從意大利的翁布里亞進(jìn)口的?！崩聿榈聫囊患軟]堆滿的棧板上拿起一塊遞給他，他轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)那塊罩著一層鮮綠色薄釉的陶瓦磚，手掌撫過上頭的氣泡?！拔鍢呛土鶚且捕褲M了這些玩意兒?！崩聿榈抡f，“他們正要把這些磚頭賣給芝加哥的一個(gè)批發(fā)商，然后這兩樓就會(huì)被清空了?！彼⑿?，“現(xiàn)在你知道為什么我這里有一臺(tái)這么好的電梯了?！?

　 They returned to Richard’s apartment, back through the hanging garden of chandeliers, and Richard gave him another beer. “Listen,” he said, “I need to talk to you about something important.”

他們回到理查德住的那層公寓，再度經(jīng)過那堆枝狀吊燈，理查德又給了他一瓶啤酒?！奥犖艺f，”他說，“我得跟你談一件重要的事情?！?

　 “Anything,” he said, placing the bottle on the table and leaning forward.

“沒問題?！彼f，把啤酒放在桌上，身子前傾。

　 “The tiles will probably be out of here by the end of the year,” said Richard. “The fifth and sixth floors are set up exactly like this one—wet walls in the same place, three bathrooms—and the question is whether you’d want one of them.”

“那些瓷磚大概年底前就會(huì)被從這里搬出去了?！崩聿榈抡f，“五樓和六樓的格局跟這一樓完全一樣，灰泥墻在同樣的地方，都有三間浴室。我的問題是，你想不想要其中一層?！?