1964年三月

March 1964

一

I

她临盆前的几小时下起了雪。起先只是午后阴沉的天际飘下朵朵雪花，而后大风吹得雪花滚滚飞扬，盘旋在他们宽敞前廊的边际。他站在她身旁，倚在窗边，看着雪花在强风中翻腾、回旋，缓缓飘落到地面。附近家家户户点亮了灯火，树木光秃秃的枝干变得雪白。

THE SNOW STARTED TO FALL SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE HER labor¹ began. A few flakes² first, in the dull gray late-afternoon sky, and then wind-driven swirls⁴ and eddies⁵ around the edges of their wide front porch. He stood by her side at the window, watching sharp gusts⁶ of snow billow, then swirl³ and drift to the ground. All around the neighborhood, lights came on, and the naked branches of the trees turned white.

晚餐之后，他生了一炉火。他大胆走入风雪中，拿取秋季堆积在车库旁边的柴火。冷咧的寒风打着他的脸颊，车道上的积雪已经深及腿肚。他捡拾起木块，甩去上面柔软轻盈的白雪，抱着木块走回屋内。壁炉里的火花马上引燃熊熊火光，他在壁炉前盘腿坐了一会，一面添加木块，一面看着火花跃动，火焰周围带着一圈蓝光，令人昏昏欲睡。屋外白雪在黑暗中静静地持续飘落，积雪银白、深厚而静默，彷佛街灯投射而下的圆锥光束。等到他起身往窗外一看，他们的车已经变成街角的一座白色小山丘，先前印在车道上的脚印已被填满，不见踪迹。

After dinner he built a fire, venturing out into the weather for wood he had piled against the garage the previous autumn. The air was bright and cold against his face, and the snow in the driveway was already halfway⁷ to his knees. He gathered logs, shaking off their soft white caps and carrying them inside. The kindling⁸ in the iron grate caught fire immediately, and he sat for a time on the hearth⁹, cross-legged, adding logs and watching the flames leap, blue-edged and hypnotic. Outside, snow continued to fall quietly through the darkness, as bright and thick as static in the cones¹⁰ of light cast by the streetlights. By the time he rose and looked out the window, their car had become a soft white hill on the edge of the street. Already his footprints in the driveway had filled and disappeared.

他拍去双手的灰烬，坐到沙发上的妻子身旁。她双脚垫在靠枕上，肿胀的脚踝交盘，一本斯波克医生的育儿宝典四平八稳地摆在她肚子上。她读得出神，每次翻页就不自觉地舔一下食指。她双手纤细，五指短而强壮，阅读时心无旁鹜地轻咬着下唇。他看着她，心中顿时充满挚情与惊叹：她是他的妻子，他们的宝宝即将诞生，预产期只剩下三星期。这是他们第一个宝宝，而他俩结婚才一年呢。

He brushed ashes from his hands and sat on the sofa beside his wife, her feet propped¹¹ on pillows, her swollen¹² ankles crossed, a copy of Dr. Spock balanced on her belly¹³. Absorbed, she licked her index finger absently each time she turned a page. Her hands were slender, her fingers short and sturdy, and she bit her bottom lip lightly, intently, as she read. Watching her, he felt a surge of love and wonder: that she was his wife, that their baby, due in just three weeks, would soon be born. Their first child, this would be. They had been married just a year.

他拿条毯子盖住她的双腿，她微笑地抬头一望。

She looked up, smiling, when he tucked the blanket around her legs.

“你知道吗？我始终想不通那是什么感觉。”她说，“我是说我们出生之前。真可惜我们不记得。” 她拉开袍子，脱下穿在里面的毛衣，露出像西瓜般圆硬的腹部。她伸手抚过它圆滑的表面，火光映着她的肌肤闪动，在她的发际洒下金红色的光影。“你猜那种感觉像不像置身一个大灯笼里？书上说灯光穿得透我的皮肤，小宝宝已经看得见。”

"You know, I've been wondering what it's like," she said. "Before we're born, I mean. It's too bad we can't remember." She opened her robe and pulled up the sweater she wore underneath¹⁴, revealing a belly as round and hard as a melon. She ran her hand across its smooth surface, firelight playing across her skin, casting reddish gold onto her hair. "Do you suppose it's like being inside a great lantern? The book says light-permeates my skin, that the baby can already see."

“我不知道。”他说。

"I don't know," he said.

她笑笑，“怎么不知道？”她问道，“你是个医生。”

She laughed. "Why not?" she asked. "You're the doctor."

“我只是骨科医生。”他提醒她，“我可以告诉你小宝宝胚胎时期的骨化历程，但仅此而已。”他抬高她一只脚，裹在浅蓝色袜子里的足部细致而肿胀，他动手轻柔地按摩：她脚后跟的跗骨强劲有力，脚掌骨和趾骨隐藏在肌肤之下，密密相迭的肌肉彷佛是把即将展开的扇子。静悄悄的屋子里充满了她的呼吸声，她的足部温暖了他的双手，他脑海中浮现出骨头的完美、隐秘与匀称。在他眼里，怀孕的她显得美丽而脆弱，苍白的肌肤上隐约可见细微的蓝色血管。

"I'm just an orthopedic surgeon," he reminded her. "I could tell you the ossification¹⁵ pattern for fetal bones, but that's about it." He lifted her foot, both delicate and swollen inside the light blue sock, and began to massage¹⁶ it gently: the powerful tarsal bone of her heel, the metatarsals and the phalanges, hidden beneath skin and densely¹⁸ layered muscles like a fan about to open. Her breathing filled the quiet room, her foot warmed his hands, and he imagined the perfect, secret, symmetry of bones. In pregnancy¹⁹ she seemed to him beautiful but fragile, fine blue veins²⁰ faintly visible through her pale white skin.

怀孕过程非常顺利，无需任何医药限制。尽管如此，他已好几个月没有跟她燕好。他发现自己反而只想保护她，抱她上楼、替她盖被子、帮她端布丁等等，“我不是病人。”她每次都笑着抗议，“也不是你在草坪上发现的雏鸟。”虽说如此，他的关爱其实令她相当开心。有时他醒来看着沉睡中的她，她的眼睫毛轻轻眨动，胸脯缓慢而平稳地起伏，一只手伸到一旁，小巧得能让他完全握住。

It had been an excellent pregnancy, without medical restrictions²¹. Even so, he had not been able to make love to her for several months. He found himself wanting to protect her instead, to carry her up flights of stairs, to wrap her in blankets, to bring her cups of custard. "I'm not an invalid," she protested each time, laughing. "I'm not some fledgling you discovered on the lawn." Still, she was pleased by his attentions. Sometimes he woke and watched her as she slept: the flutter of her eyelids²², the slow even movement of her chest, her outflung hand, small enough that he could enclose it completely with his own.

她小他十一岁。不到一年前，他初次与她相逢。当时是十一月的一个星期六，天气阴沉，他到市区的一家百货商店买领带，刚好看到她乘坐电扶梯上楼。三十三岁的他刚搬到肯塔基州的列克星顿。她从人群中脱颖而出，仿佛美景般，一头金发在脑后盘成优雅的髻，珍珠在她颈部与耳际闪闪发光。她穿着一件深绿色的毛外套，肌肤澄净而洁白。他踏上电扶梯，推开人群往上走，力图让她不要离开自己的视线。她走到四楼的内衣与丝袜柜台，他试图跟随她前进，穿过一排排挂满内衣、胸罩、内裤的货架，件件衣物散发出柔软的光泽。有位身穿白领、天蓝色洋装的售货小姐拦下他，微笑着询问有何需要服务之处，他说想找件睡袍，同时双眼不停地在货架间搜寻，直到看到她的金发及深绿色的身影为止。她微微低头，露出洁白优美的颈线。我想帮住在新奥尔良的妹妹买件睡袍，他当然没有妹妹，或是任何他所认识、尚在人间的亲人。

She was eleven years younger than he was. He had first seen her not much more than a year ago, as she rode up an escalator in a department store downtown, one gray November Saturday while he was buying ties. He was thirty-three years old and new to Lexington, Kentucky, and she had risen out of the crowd like some kind of vision, her blond hair swept back in an elegant chignon, pearls glimmering²³ at her throat and on her ears. She was wearing a coat of dark green wool, and her skin was clear and pale. He stepped onto the escalator, pushing his way upward through the crowd, struggling to keep her in sight. She went to the fourth floor, lingerie and hosiery. When he tried to follow her through aisles²⁵ dense¹⁷ with racks of slips and brassieres and panties, all glimmering softly, a sales clerk in a navy blue dress with a white collar stopped him, smiling, to ask if she could help. A robe, he said, scanning the aisles until he caught sight of her hair, a dark green shoulder, her bent²⁷ head revealing the elegant pale curve of her neck. A robe for my sister who lives in New Orleans. He had no sister, of course, or any living family that he acknowledged.

售货小姐离开，不久之后拿了三件质料结实的绒布睡袍过来，他漫不经心地挑拣，几乎连看都没看就拿起最上面那件。售货小姐说有三种尺寸，下个月还有更多颜色可供挑选，但他已经走向货架之间，手臂上披着那件珊瑚色的睡袍，皮鞋在地砖上发出刺耳的声响，焦急地迈过其他顾客朝她走去。

The clerk disappeared and came back a moment later with three robes in sturdy terry cloth. He chose blindly, hardly glancing down, taking the one on top. Three sizes, the clerk was saying, and a better selection of colors next month, but he was already in the aisle²⁴, a coral-colored robe draped over his arm, his shoes squeaking²⁸ on the tiles as he moved impatiently between the other shoppers to where she stood.

她正检视一迭昂贵的丝袜，丝袜细致的色彩映着光滑的玻璃柜台闪闪发亮：灰褐、天蓝、还有像猪血般深暗的红栗。她绿色外套的衣袖扫过他的袖口，他闻到她的香水，气味淡雅却弥漫各处，好像他以前在匹兹堡学生住处窗外浓密、洁白的紫丁香花瓣。当年他住在地下室，低矮的窗户外面一片灰暗，总是蒙上钢铁工厂的煤灰，但到了春天紫丁香盛开，洁白与淡紫的花瓣紧贴着窗面，香气如同光线般飘进室内。

She was shuffling²⁹ through the stacks of expensive stockings, sheer colors shining through slick cellophane windows: taupe, navy, a maroon³⁰ as dark as pig's blood. The sleeve of her green coat brushed his and he smelled her perfume, something delicate and yet pervasive³¹, something like the dense pale petals³² of lilacs outside the window of the student rooms he'd once occupied in Pittsburgh. The squat³³ windows of his basement apartment were always grimy, opaque³⁴ with steel-factory soot³⁵ and ash, but in the spring there were lilacs blooming, sprays of white and lavender pressing against the glass, their scent³⁶ drifting in like light.

他清清喉咙，几乎难以呼吸；他举起天鹅绒睡袍，但柜台后面的店员正在讲笑话，没有注意到他。他又清清喉咙，这下她才不耐烦地瞄了他一点，然后对她的顾客点点头，对方手里拿着三包薄薄的丝袜，彷佛是大张的扑克牌。

He cleared his throat—he could hardly breathe—and held up the terry cloth robe, but the clerk behind the counter was laughing, telling a joke, and she did not notice him. When he cleared his throat again she glanced at him, annoyed, then nodded at her customer, now holding three thin packages of stockings like giant playing cards in her hand.

“抱歉，阿舍小姐先来的。”店员冷淡而傲慢地说。

"I'm afraid Miss Asher was here first," the clerk said, cool and haughty³⁷.

他们的目光再度相逢，她的双眸有如她的外套一般深绿，他看了深感震慑。她上下打量着他：端整的斜纹软呢大衣，胡子刮得干干净净，脸颊冻得通红，指甲修剪得整整齐齐。她绕有兴趣地笑笑，略为高傲地指指他手臂上的睡袍。

Their eyes met then, and he was startled to see they were the same dark green as her coat. She was taking him in—the solid tweed overcoat, his face clean-shaven and flushed with cold, his trim fingernails. She smiled, amused and faintly dismissive, gesturing to the robe on his arm.

“买给夫人的？”她问。他注意到她讲话带着一丝优雅的肯塔基州口音。在这个仕绅望族所组成的城市中，这些特点满要紧的，虽然仅在此地住了六个月，他已经知晓这一点。“琼，没关系，”她转头对店员说，“先帮他结帐吧。这位可怜的男士置身成堆蕾丝之中，肯定感到不知所措。”

"For your wife?" she asked. She spoke³⁸ with what he recognized as a genteel Kentucky accent, in this city of old money where such distinctions mattered. After just six months in town, he already knew this. "It's all right, Jean," she went on, turning back to the clerk. "Go on and take him first. This poor man must feel lost and awkward, in here with all the lace."

“帮我妹妹买的。”他对她说，极力想扭转先前给人的坏印象。他在此地经常犯错，讲话不是太直接，就是太坦率，老是得罪人。睡袍从他手臂中滑落到地上，他弯下腰拾起，脸红得跟玫瑰花似的。她的手套平摆在玻璃柜台上，光溜溜的双手轻轻交握在旁。他窘迫的模样似乎让她心软，因为当他再度迎上她的目光时，她的双眸流露出和蔼的光芒。

"It's for my sister," he told her, desperate to reverse the bad impression he was making. It had happened to him often here; he was too forward or direct and gave offense³⁹. The robe slipped to the floor and he bent to pick it up, his face flushing as he rose. Her gloves were lying on the glass, her bare hands folded lightly next to them. His discomfort⁴⁰ seemed to soften⁴¹ her, for when he met her eyes again, they were kind.

他再试一次。“对不起，我似乎不晓得自己在做什么，我赶时间。我是医生，到医院快迟到了。”

He tried again. "I'm sorry. I don't seem to know what I'm doing. And I'm in a hurry. I'm a doctor. I'm late to the hospital."

Her smiled changed then, grew serious.

她的微笑随即起了变化，逐渐带着严肃。

Her smiled changed then, grew serious.

“原来如此，”她边说边转头面对店员，“琼，真的没关系，请先帮他结帐。”

"I see," she said, turning back to the clerk. "Really, Jean, do take him first."

她答应他的邀约，同时用娟秀的字迹写下了她的姓名和电话号码。她从小学三年级就学会写一手好字。班上的老师以前是修女，循循告诫学生们写字的艺术。她对大家说，每个字都有形状，而且形状独一无二，举世无双，大家必须将之表现得完美无缺。这个八岁，瘦小白皙，日后将穿上一袭绿色大衣，成为他妻子的小女孩，用她细小的手指紧握着笔，独自在房间里练习草体，直到写出行云流水般的优雅字迹为止。日后听到这件往事时，他想象她的头低垂在台灯灯光下，手指费尽地紧握着笔，心里不禁佩服她的毅力、对美的坚持，以及她对权威师长的信赖。但那天他对这些往事一无所悉，那天他把小纸片放在白医袍的口袋里巡视一间又一间病房，只记得字母在她笔下流畅而出，组合成她完美的姓名。他当天晚上就打电话给她，隔天晚上请她出去吃饭，三个月之后，他们就结婚了。

She agreed to see him again, writing her name and phone number in the perfect script she'd been taught in third grade, her teacher an ex-nun who had engraved⁴² the rules of penmanship in her small charges. Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect. Eight years old, pale and skinny, the woman in the green coat who would become his wife had clenched⁴³ her small fingers around the pen and practiced cursive writing alone in her room, hour after hour, until she wrote with the exquisite⁴⁴ fluidity of running water. Later, listening to that story, he would imagine her head bent beneath the lamplight, her fingers in a painful cluster around the pen, and he would wonder at her tenacity⁴⁵, her belief in beauty and in the authoritative⁴⁶ voice of the ex-nun. But on that day he did not know any of this. On that day he carried the slip of paper in the pocket of his white coat through one sickroom after another, remembering her letters flowing one into another to form the perfect shape of her name. He phoned her that same evening and took her to dinner the next night, and three months later they were married.

如今，在她怀孕的最后几个月，那件质料柔软的珊瑚色睡袍，她穿得合身极了。她先前发现睡袍好端端好摆在那里，便举高了给他看，但你妹妹好久以前就过世了，她惊讶地说，忽然大惑不解。在那一刻，他整个人呆住了，脸上微微一笑，一年前的谎言像只黑鸟似地猛然飞过屋内。过了一会，他不好意思地耸耸肩，我得说些什么吧，他对她说，我得找个法子问出你的名字。她听了微笑，走过房间拥抱他。

Now, in these last months of her pregnancy, the soft coral robe fit her perfectly⁴⁷. She had found it packed away and had held it up to show him. But your sister died so long ago, she exclaimed, suddenly puzzled, and for an instant he had frozen, smiling, the lie from a year before darting⁴⁸ like a dark bird through the room. Then he shrugged⁴⁹, sheepish. / had to say something, he told her. I had to find a way to get your name. She smiled then, and crossed the room and embraced him.

雪花从天而降。接下来的几小时，他们阅读、聊天，有时她拉起他的手，把手摆在她的腹部，让他感觉宝宝的蠕动。他不时起来添加柴火，瞄瞄窗外的积雪从三英寸累积到五六英寸。街道柔软而静谧，仅有几辆车。

The snow fell. For the next few hours, they read and talked. Sometimes she caught his hand and put it on her belly to feel the baby move. From time to time he got up to feed the fire, glancing out the window to see three inches on the ground, then five or six. The streets were softened⁵⁰ and quiet, and there were few cars.

十一点钟，她起身上楼休息，他留在楼下，阅读最新一期的《骨科与关节手术期刊》。大家都知道他是位优秀的医生，具有诊断的天赋，而且医技高超。他以第一名的成绩毕业。虽然掩饰得极为小心，但他知道他年纪尚轻，对自己的医技也尚有疑虑，所以他一有空就读书，同时暗自记录每次的成就，将此视为多了一项有利于己的凭证。他觉得自己是个异数，家人们日复一日只顾着谋生，他却天生好学。他们认为教育是种不必要的奢侈，不一定有助于生计。他们穷到就算不得不去看医生，也只能到五十英里外摩根城的一家诊所。他清楚地记得那几趟希罕的旅程：摇晃颠簸地坐在借来的小货车后座，车后尘土飞杨。妹妹和爸妈坐在驾驶室里，妹妹把这条路称为“跳舞的小径”。摩根城里的房间阴暗无光，混浊的池塘水色墨黑或蓝绿，医生们来去匆匆，对他们虽然亲切，却心不在焉。

At eleven she rose and went to bed. He stayed downstairs, reading the latest issue ofThe Journal of'Bone andJoint Surgery. He was known to be a very good doctor, with a talent for diagnosis⁵¹ and a reputation for skillful work. He had graduated first in his class. Still, he was young enough and—though he hid it very carefully— unsure enough about his skills that he studied in every spare moment, collecting each success he accomplished⁵³ as one more piece of evidence in his own favor. He felt himself to be an aberration⁵⁴, born with a love for learning in a family absorbed in simply scrambling⁵⁵ to get by, day to day. They had seen education as an unnecessary luxury, a means to no certain end. Poor, when they went to the doctor at all it was to the clinic in Morgantown, fifty miles away. His memories of those rare trips were vivid, bouncing in the back of the borrowed pickup⁵⁶ truck, dust flying in their wake. The dancing road, his sister had called it, from her place in the cab with their parents. In Morgantown the rooms were dim, the murky⁵⁷ green or turquoise⁵⁸ of pond water, and the doctors had been hurried, brisk with them, distracted.

多年之后，他依然感到在那些医生的注视下，自己不过是个冒牌货，只要犯一次错，马上就会遭到揭穿。他晓得正是这种心态让他选择了他的专科。他放弃了刺激比较少的普通内科，或是精细、高风险的心脏科，转而投身于医治断裂的四肢、塑造石膏模型、检视 X 光片、看着断处缓慢却奇迹般地愈合。他喜欢坚实牢靠的骨头，即使在焚化炉的白热火焰中也不会消失。骨头能够持久，他很容易就对这种坚实而可靠的东西产生信心。

All these years later, he still had moments when he sensed the gaze of those doctors and felt himself to be an imposter, about to be unmasked by a single mistake. He knew his choice of specialties⁵⁹ reflected this. Not for him the random⁶⁰ excitement of general medicine or the delicate risky⁶¹ plumbing⁶² of the heart. He dealt mostly with broken limbs, sculpting⁶³ casts and viewing X-rays, watching breaks slowly yet miraculously⁶⁴ knit themselves back together. He liked that bones were solid things, surviving even the white heat of cremation⁶⁵. Bones would last; it was easy for him to put his faith in something so solid and predictable.

读着读着，早已过了半夜，字眼开始在白花花的纸上无意义地闪动。他把期刊扔到咖啡桌上，站起来关照炉火。他将烧焦了的木炭捣成余烬，打开风门，关上壁炉罩。他关上电灯，余火在层层灰烬中发出柔和的光芒，恰如屋外的雪花一样明亮细致，白雪已积到前廊的扶手和杜鹃花丛。

He read well past midnight, until the words shimmered⁶⁶ senselessly on the bright white pages, and then he tossed the journal on the coffee table and got up to tend to the fire. He tamped⁶⁷ the charred⁶⁸ fire-laced logs into embers, opened the damper fully⁵², and closed the brass²⁶ fireplace screen. When he turned off the lights, shards⁶⁹ of fire glowed softly through layers of ash as delicate and white as the snow piled so high now on the porch railings and the rhododendron bushes.

楼梯承受了他的体重而嘎嘎作响。他驻足在婴儿房门口，仔细端详朦胧中的婴儿床和可调桌。玩具布偶整齐地排列在架子上，墙壁漆成澄净的海绿色；妻子缝制的鹅妈妈被罩悬挂在另一头的墙上，针针细密精准。只要一察觉到不尽完美之处，无论如何微小，她都拆掉重缝。沿着天花板的正下方有一圈熊宝宝的图样，这也是她的杰作。

The stairs creaked with his weight. He paused by the nursery door, studying the shadowy shapes of the crib and the changing table, the stuffed animals arranged on shelves. The walls were painted a pale sea green. His wife had made the Mother Goose quilt that hung on the far wall, sewing with tiny stitches, tearing out entire panels if she noted⁷⁰ the slightest imperfection. A border of bears was stenciled⁷¹ just below the ceiling; she had done that too.

冲动之下，他走入房内站到窗前，推开透明的窗帘看雪。白雪飘落在路灯灯柱、栏杆和屋顶上，积雪已将近八英寸，列克星顿很少下这么大的雪，洁白的雪花不断飘落，他心中充满了兴奋与安详。在这一刻，他一生的断简残篇似乎自行拼凑出完整的风貌，过去的悲伤、失望、每个令人焦虑的秘密，以及背后隐藏的不安，全被层层柔软的白雪掩埋。明天将一片宁静，世界将显得柔和而脆弱，直到附近的孩童们拉着小车子高兴地大喊大叫，才会打破这片沉寂。他记得小时候在山里偶尔享受同样的快乐时光。他走入林中，呼吸急促，沉重的积雪压低了枝头，不知怎么地蒙盖了他飘荡在小径之上的声音。在那段短短的几小时内，世界变了个样。

On an impulse he went into the room and stood before the window, pushing aside the sheer curtain to watch the snow, now nearly eight inches high on the lampposts and the fences and the roofs. It was the sort of storm that rarely happened in Lexington, and the steady white flakes, the silence, filled him with a sense of excitement and peace. It was a moment when all the disparate shards of his life seemed to knit themselves together, every past sadness and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty⁷² hidden now beneath the soft white layers. Tomorrow would be quiet, the world subdued⁷³ and fragile, until the neighborhood children came out to break the stillness with their tracks and shouts and joy. He remembered such days from his own childhood in the mountains, rare moments of escape when he went into the woods, his breathing amplified⁷⁴ and his voice somehow muffled⁷⁵ by the heavy snow that bent branches low, drifted over paths. The world, for a few short hours, transformed.

他在那里站了好久，直到听到她急促地挪动身子。他发现她坐在他们的床沿，头部低垂，双手紧抓着床垫。

He stood there for a long time, until he heard her moving quietly. He found her sitting on the edge of their bed, her head bent, her hands gripping the mattress