本集简介
双语字幕
仅展示文本字幕，不包含中文音频；想边听边看，请使用 Bayt 播客 App。
这是《纽约客》杂志的虚构小说播客。
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from The New Yorker magazine.
我是《纽约客》的虚构小说编辑黛博拉·特雷希曼。
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.
每个月，我们都会邀请一位作家从杂志的档案中挑选一篇故事进行朗读和讨论。
Each month, we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
这个月，我们将听到玛格丽特·阿特伍德的《猫》，这篇作品于1990年3月刊登在《纽约客》上。
This month, we're going to hear Cat by Margaret Atwood, which appeared in The New Yorker in March 1990.
这篇故事由珍妮弗·伊根挑选，她已出版了七部小说，包括获得普利策奖的《好兵》以及最近的《糖果屋》。
The story was chosen by Jennifer Egan, who's published seven books of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, and most recently, The Candy House.
嗨，珍妮。
Hi, Jenny.
嗨，黛博拉。
Hi, Deborah.
在以往的虚构小说播客中，你曾朗读过洛里·西格尔和玛丽·盖茨基尔的作品。
So on past episodes of the fiction podcast, you read stories by Lori Siegel and Mary Gaitskill.
而今天，你选择了玛格丽特·阿特伍德。
And today, you chose Margaret Atwood.
为什么呢？
Why was that?
嗯，我喜欢挑选那些我很久没再读过、但某种意义上仍留在记忆中的故事。
Well, I like picking stories that I actually haven't looked at in a really long time, but have stayed with me in some way.
我其实从九十年代以来就没再读过《猫》这篇故事。
And I actually hadn't read Cat since the nineties.
所以，我想部分原因只是想重新回顾一下。
So I think part of it was just a wish to revisit it.
而一旦我重新读了，从某种意义上说，这其实是一个关于时代变迁的故事，但那个时代本身如今却因各种原因显得无比遥远。
And then once I did, in some ways, it's really a story about a changing era, and yet its own era now feels way in the distance for all kinds of reasons.
因此，作为一件文化和个人的见证，它让我觉得格外迷人。
So as a cultural and personal artifact, it felt really fascinating to me.
是的。
Yeah.
所以它出版于1990年，而我认为你前一年已经在杂志上发表了你的第一个故事。
So it came out in 1990, and I think you had published your first story in the magazine the year before that.
所以你当时是知道《纽约客》的。
So you were aware of The New Yorker.
是的，当然。
Oh, yes.
你最初是在杂志上读到它的吗？
Did you read it first in the magazine?
我是在杂志上读到的，感觉它 somehow 非常重要。
I read it in the magazine, and it felt really important somehow.
我想部分原因和我的年龄有关。
I think part of it was my age.
你知道，它出版时我27岁。
You know, I was 27 when it came out.
我现在62岁了。
I'm now 62.
当时，我觉得这篇作品反映了一位年轻女性——或许比我还大几岁——所做出的一系列决定。
And at the time, it felt like a reflection on a certain set of decisions that a young woman, a woman maybe a few years older than I was, had made.
在27岁的时候，我觉得这篇文章与我息息相关。
And it just felt very relevant to me at age 27.
所以我认为，这是它深深打动我的一个原因。
And so I think that was one reason it really struck me.
此外，故事中那种怪诞的氛围一直萦绕在我心头，如今我比当时更被这种特质所排斥。
Also, the kind of grotesqueness of it really stayed with me, and I found myself more put off by that now than I was then.
我觉得这让我明显意识到，自己正变得越来越敏感畏缩。
And I think that's I really noticed that I am getting more squeamish.
我不知道为什么会这样，但我立刻想对抗这种感觉，反而更主动地去靠近它。
And I don't know why that is, but I immediately wanted to push against that and sort of lean into it.
于是我这么做了。
So I did.
如果我因为敏感畏缩而退缩，那就正是该向前迈进的时候了。
It's like if if I'm backing away out of squeamishness, it's time to move forward.
你之前读过阿特伍德的作品吗？
Had you been a reader of Atwoods already?
你有读过她的小说吗？
Were you reading her novels?
她的作品对你的人生有重要影响吗？
Have they been important in your life?
嗯，玛格丽特·阿特伍德可能是我第一次亲眼见到的职业作家。
Well, Margaret Atwood was I think maybe the first professional writer I had ever watched live.
我上学时她来过宾大，但我记不清具体时间了。
She came to Penn when I was a student and she I can't remember the timing.
我不确定是哪一年，但那时她已经非常有名，而且极具魅力。
I think I'm not sure what year it was, but she was already very well known and she was magnetic.
我记得那个拥挤的房间，我们所有人都因为这位作家的到来而激动不已。
And I specifically this crowded room and all of us so excited to have this writer there.
她是我亲眼见证过的第一位文学巨星，尽管我们从未打过招呼，我却对她产生了强烈的个人共鸣。
And so she was the first literary superstar I ever witnessed, and I felt a very personal connection to her even though we never actually said hello.
是的
Yeah.
你读过她那些重要的小说吗？
And had you read novels of hers that were important?
我记不清第一次见到她时读过哪些作品，但我了解她，当这个故事出版时，我确实很期待。
I can't remember what I had read when I first saw her, but I knew of her and was excited to see this story when it came out for sure.
是的
Yeah.
正如你所说，它带有鲜明的时代特征。
And as you said, it's kind of of its time.
那是我们亲身经历过的时代，但现在看来却仿佛已是遥远的过去，尽管那不过是大约二十五年前的事。
It's an era that that we lived through, but now seems very far in the distant past, even though it's about twenty five years.
你现在会以不同的方式看待这个故事吗？
Do you think you read this story differently now?
非常非常不同。
Very, very differently.
因为那时，这是一个关于一位年长女性犯了错误的故事。
Because then, it was a story about an older woman who had kind of screwed up.
这就是我的看法。
That's how I saw it.
这是一个关于一位女性做出错误决定、或许无法拥有她本想要的生活的悲剧故事。
A tragic story of a woman who had made the wrong decisions and maybe couldn't have the life it turned out that she wanted.
现在，我把它看作是一个年轻女性在探索自己想要的未来的故事。
Now, I see it as a story about a young woman who's figuring out what kind of future she wants.
我的意思是，视角的改变对一切的影响真是难以置信。
I mean, it's unbelievable how perspective changes everything.
是的。
Yeah.
而我欣赏它的一点是，它显然极具讽刺意味，非常幽默，而且对人物的刻画极为尖锐。
And what I love about it, it's obviously very satirical and quite funny and really very acid in its portrayals.
但与此同时，它确实充满温情。
And yet, it really has a heart.
而且这其中有一种悲情。
And there is pathos to it.
但我现在觉得这种悲情更加温柔、温暖，因为它讲述的是一种失去的过程，是发现未来会如何展开，而不是那种只会导致失去更多的丧失。
But I find that pathos more tender now and kind of warm because it doesn't it feels like it's a story about loss as a process of discovering what will come next as opposed to loss that's gonna result in having less.
失去身份，失去对自我的认知。
Loss as in loss of identity, loss of one's ideas about oneself.
对吧？
Right?
还有，我认为这也是失去了一种最终未能实现的整个视角。
And loss of I think it's also loss of a whole perspective that ultimately didn't pan out.
某种程度上，这触及了我现在觉得这个故事如此有趣的原因，因为作为一个文化产物，这是一部前互联网时代的故事，但只是……
And in a way, that gets at the other ways that the story is so interesting to me now because as a cultural artifact, I mean, this is a pre internet story, but just.
当凯特坐在桌前读信时，很容易想象她在查看邮件。
So when Kat sits down at her desk and reads her mail, it's very easy to imagine her checking her email.
但这并不是它的本意，这不是它所要表达的意思。
That's not what this is that's not what this means.
她坐下来，打开纸质信件。
She sits down and she opens up physical mail.
我们都明白，杂志界已经被互联网彻底改变了。
And we all know that the world of magazines has been changed irrevocably by the Internet.
事实上，各种创意生产也都被改变了。
And in fact, all kinds of creative production has been.
因此，它在某种程度上显得怀旧，尽管玛格丽特所描绘的这个我感到怀念的世界，实际上被她以批判的眼光呈现为一种传播荒谬且虚假的欲望与占有观念的媒介。
So it feels nostalgic in a way even though the world that it's depicting that I feel nostalgia for is being depicted very critically by Margaret as a, you know, a kind of purveyor of ridiculous and and false ideas of of desire and acquisition.
是的。
Yeah.
对。
Yeah.
阅读结束后，我们再继续聊聊吧。
Well, let's talk some more after the reading.
现在，请欣赏珍妮弗·埃根朗读玛格丽特·阿特伍德的《猫》。
And now here's Jennifer Egan reading Cat by Margaret Atwood.
猫。
Cat.
在十一月十三日——这个不祥之日、亡者之月，猫前往多伦多综合医院接受手术。
On the November 13, day of unluck, month of the dead, Cat went into the Toronto General Hospital for an operation.
手术是为了切除一个巨大的卵巢囊肿。
It was for an ovarian cyst, a large one.
医生告诉猫，很多女性都会得这种病。
Many women had them, the doctor told Cat.
没人知道原因。
Nobody knew why.
在手术前，没有任何办法能确定这个囊肿是否恶性，是否已经含有她死亡的种子。
There wasn't any way of finding out whether the thing was malignant, whether it contained already the spores of her death.
在进入手术室之前，谁也无法确定。
Not before they went in.
他谈论‘进入’时的语气，就像她在电视纪录片中听到的老兵描述进攻敌方阵地那样。
He spoke of going in the way she'd heard old veterans in TV documentaries speak of assaults on enemy territory.
她的下巴同样紧绷，牙齿同样用力咬紧，同样带着一种阴郁的满足感。
There was the same tensing of the jaw, the same fierce gritting of the teeth, the same grim enjoyment.
只是，他即将进入的，是她的身体。
Except that what he would be going into was her body.
在倒数计时、等待麻醉时，卡特也紧紧地咬住了牙。
Counting down, waiting for the anesthetic, Cat, too, gritted her teeth fiercely.
她很害怕，但同时也很好奇。
She was terrified, but she was also curious.
好奇心曾多次帮她渡过难关。
Curiosity has got her through a lot.
她让医生答应把那东西留给她，不管那是什么，她都想亲眼看看。
She'd made the doctor promise to save the thing for her, whatever it was, so she could have a look.
她对自己的身体充满浓厚兴趣，对身体可能做出的任何举动或产生的任何东西都极为关注。尽管当杂志排版人员弗拉基·达妮娅告诉她，这个肿块是身体给她的讯息，她应该在枕头下放一块紫水晶来平复体内的振动时，卡特让她别啰嗦。
She was intensely interested in her own body, in anything it might choose to do or produce, Although when Flaky Dania, who did layout at the magazine, told her this growth was a message to her from her body and she ought to sleep with an amethyst under the pillow to calm her vibrations, Cat told her to stuff it.
这个囊肿最终被证实是良性的肿瘤。
The cyst turned out to be a benign tumor.
卡特喜欢用‘良性’这个词，仿佛那东西有灵魂，还希望她好。
Cat liked the use of benign, as if the thing had a soul and wished her well.
医生说，它有葡萄柚那么大。
It was big as a grapefruit, the doctor said.
卡特说，有椰子那么大。
Big as a coconut, said Cat.
别人有的是葡萄柚。
Other people had grapefruits.
椰子更好。
Coconut was better.
这个词既传达了它的坚硬，也暗示了它的毛茸茸。
It conveyed the hardness of it and the hairiness too.
里面长着红色的毛发。
The hair in it was red.
长长的毛发在里面盘绕，像一团发疯的湿羊毛，或者像从堵塞的浴室排水管里拉出来的黏糊糊的东西。
Long strands of it wound round and round inside, like a ball of wet wool gone berserk or like the guck you pull out of a clogged bathroom sink drain.
里面还有小骨头或骨片，是鸟骨，一只被车压碎的麻雀的骨头。
There were little bones in it too or fragments of bone, bird bones, the bones of a sparrow crushed by a car.
散落着一些指甲，是脚趾甲还是手指甲。
There was a scattering of nails, toe, or finger.
有五颗完全成形的牙齿。
There were five perfectly formed teeth.
这正常吗？
Is this abnormal?
猫问医生，医生笑了。
Cat asked the doctor, who smiled.
既然他已经进去又平安出来，他没那么紧张了。
Now that he had gone in and come out again, unscathed, he was less clenched.
异常？
Abnormal?
不，他谨慎地回答，就像向一位母亲告知她新生儿遭遇了怪异事故一样。
No, he said carefully, as if breaking the news to a mother about a freakish accident to her newborn.
我们就说这相当常见吧。
Let's just say it's fairly common.
猫有点失望。
Cat was a little disappointed.
她更希望这是独一无二的。
She would have preferred uniqueness.
她要了一瓶福尔马林，把切开的肿瘤放了进去。
She asked for a bottle of formaldehyde and put the cut open tumor into it.
这是她的。
It was hers.
这是良性的。
It was benign.
它不值得被丢弃。
It did not deserve to be thrown away.
她把它带回了公寓，放在壁炉架上。
She took it back to her apartment and stuck it on the mantelpiece.
她给它取名叫毛球。
She named it hairball.
这和在壁炉上放一个毛绒熊头、保存下来的宠物标本，或者其他任何长毛带牙的东西没什么不同，或者她假装没什么不同。
It isn't that different from having a stuffed bear's head or a preserved ex pet or anything else with fur and teeth looming over your fireplace, or she pretends it isn't.
无论如何，它确实给人留下深刻印象。
Anyway, it certainly makes an impression.
杰尔不喜欢它。
Jer doesn't like it.
尽管他自称喜欢新奇和怪异的东西，但他是个容易恶心的人。
Despite his supposed yen for the new and outre, he is a squeamish man.
他第一次在手术后偷偷溜进来、鬼鬼祟祟地转悠时，就让卡特把毛球扔掉。
The first time he comes around, sneaks around, creeps around after the operation, he tells Cat to throw hairball out.
他称这东西恶心。
He calls it disgusting.
卡特断然拒绝，并说她宁愿让毛球躺在壁炉架上的瓶子里，也不愿要他带来的那些廉价、枯萎的花，那些花可比毛球烂得快多了。
Cat refuses point blank and says she'd rather have Hairball in a bottle on her mantelpiece than the soppy, dead flowers he's brought her, which will anyway rot a lot sooner than Hairball will.
作为壁炉架上的装饰品，毛球要好得多。
As a mantelpiece ornament, hairball is far superior.
杰尔说，凯特有一种倾向，会为了幼稚地制造震惊而把事情推向极端，这根本算不上机智。
Ger says Cat has a tendency to push things to extremes, to go over the edge, merely from a juvenile desire to shock, which is hardly a substitute for wit.
总有一天，他说，她会太过分的。
One of these days, he says, she will go way too far.
他所谓的‘太过分’，就是指超过他的底线。
Too far for him is what he means.
所以你才雇了我，对吧？
That's why you hired me, isn't it?
她说，因为我总是太过分。
She says, because I go way too far.
但他现在又进入分析模式了。
But he's in one of his analyzing moods.
他说，他能从她在杂志上的工作看出她的这些倾向。
He can see these tendencies of her as reflected in her work on the magazine, he says.
那些皮革和扭曲怪诞的姿态，正朝着他和其他人并不确定是否应继续追随的方向发展。
All that leather and those grotesque and tortured looking poses are heading down a track he and others are not at all sure they should continue to follow.
她明白他的意思吗？
Does she see what he means?
她理解他的观点吗？
Does she take his point?
这个观点以前就提过。
It's a point that's been made before.
她微微摇头，一言不发。
She shakes her head slightly, says nothing.
她知道这意味着什么。
She knows how that translates.
广告商已经提出过投诉。
There have been complaints from the advertisers.
太怪异了。
Too bizarre.
太变态了。
Too kinky.
真难办。
Tough.
想看看我的疤痕吗？
Wanna see my scar?
她说。
She says.
别逗我笑了。
Don't make me laugh, though.
你会把它弄裂的。
You'll crack it open.
这种事让他头晕。
Stuff like that makes him dizzy.
任何带点血迹的东西，任何与妇科有关的东西。
Anything with a hint of blood, anything gynecological.
两年前，他妻子生孩子时，他差点在产房里吐了。
He almost threw up in the delivery room when his wife had a baby two years ago.
他带着自豪告诉了她这件事。
He told her that with pride.
卡特想着把一支香烟叼在嘴角，就像四十年代的黑白电影里那样。
Kat thinks about sticking a cigarette into the side of her mouth as in a black and white movie of the forties.
她想着把烟雾吐到他脸上。
She thinks about blowing the smoke into his face.
她那种无礼的态度曾经在他们争吵时让他兴奋。
Her insolence used to excite him during their arguments.
接着他会抓住她的上臂，给她一个炽热而暴力的吻。
Then there would be a grab of her upper arms, a smoldering, violent kiss.
他吻她时，仿佛觉得有人在旁观，并评判着他们在一起的样子。
He kisses her as if he thinks someone else is watching him and judging the image they make together.
亲吻最新的潮流：嘴唇鲜艳、短发、亲吻一个女孩、一个女人，一个穿着紧身小内裤短裙和紧身裤的女孩。
Kissing the latest thing, hard and shiny, purple mouthed, crop headed, kissing a girl, a woman, a girl in a little crotch hugger skirt and skin tight leggings.
他喜欢镜子。
He likes mirrors.
但他现在毫无兴致，她也无法诱骗他上床。
But he isn't excited now, and she can't decoy him into bed.
她还没准备好做那件事。
She isn't ready for that yet.
她还没痊愈。
She isn't healed.
他喝了一杯酒，却没有喝完，随手牵起她的手，漫不经心地拍了拍她那宽大厚重的羊驼毛肩部，然后匆匆离去。
He has a drink, which he doesn't finish, holds her hand as an afterthought, gives her a couple of avuncular pats on the off weight, outsized alpaca shoulder, leaves too quickly.
再见，杰拉尔德，她说。
Goodbye, Gerald, she says.
她带着嘲讽的语气念出这个名字。
She pronounces the name with mockery.
这是对他的否定，是将他彻底抹去，就像从他胸口撕下一块金属。
It's a negation of him, an abolishment of him, like ripping a metal off his chest.
这是一种警告。
It's a warning.
他们刚认识时，他叫杰拉尔德。
He'd been Gerald when they first met.
是她把他改造成杰里，然后变成杰尔，押韵着‘flare’，押韵着‘dare’。
It was she who transformed him, first to Jerry, then to Jer, rhymed with flare, rhymed with dare.
她让他扔掉那些难看的、噘嘴般的领带，告诉他该穿什么鞋子，让他买了一套宽松剪裁的意大利西装，还重新打理了他的头发。
She made him get rid of those sucky, purse mouthed ties, told him what shoes to wear, got him to buy a loose cut Italian suit, redid his hair.
他如今的许多品味——关于食物、饮品、娱乐性药物，以及女性内衣——都曾经是她的喜好。
A lot of his current tastes, in food, in drink, in recreational drugs, in women's entertainment underwear, were once hers.
在他新的人生阶段，以他那简化为以锐利的‘r’结尾的新名字，他是她的作品，正如她自己也是自己的作品。
In his new phase, with his new hard stripped down name ending on the sharpened note of r, he is her creation as she is her own.
童年时，她被浪漫化地塑造成凯瑟琳，由她那眼神迷离、挑剔的母亲为她穿上像褶皱枕套一样的裙子。
During her childhood, she was a romanticized Catherine, dressed by her misty eyed, fussy mother in dresses that looked like ruffled pillowcases.
到了高中，她脱去了所有花哨的装饰，成长为一个活泼、圆脸的凯西，头发光亮洁净，牙齿令人羡慕，渴望取悦他人，却和健康食品广告一样乏味。
By high school, she'd shed the frills and emerged as a bouncy, round faced Kathy with gleaming freshly washed hair and enviable teeth, eager to please and no more interesting than a health food ad.
在大学里，她叫Kath，直率、不废话，穿着回收夜 jeans 和格子衬衫，戴着一顶砖工风格的条纹牛仔帽。
At university, she was Kath, blunt and no bullshit in her take back the night jeans and checked shirt and her bricklayer style striped denim peaked hat.
当她逃到英国时，她把自己简化成了‘Cat’。
When she ran away to England, she sliced herself down to cat.
这个名字简洁、街头感十足，像钉子一样尖锐。
It was economical, street feline, and pointed as a nail.
这也很不寻常。
It was also unusual.
在英国，如果你不是英国人，就必须做点什么才能引起别人的注意。
In England, you had to do something to get their attention, especially if you weren't English.
在这个身份的庇护下，她漫无目的地度过了八十年代。
Safe in this incarnation, she rambled through the eighties.
她至今仍认为，正是这个名字帮她赢得了面试，继而得到了这份工作。
It was the name she still thinks that got her the interview and then the job.
这份工作是在一家前卫杂志，那种用哑光纸黑白印刷、满是女性头发遮住眼睛、一个鼻孔格外突出的过度曝光特写照片的杂志。
The job was with an avant garde magazine, the kind that was printed on matte stock in black and white with overexposed close ups of women with hair blowing over their eyes, one nostril prominent.
这叫刀锋边缘。
The razor's edge, it was called.
发型即艺术。
Haircuts as art.
一些真正的艺术。
Some real art.
电影评论，一点星光，那些既是服装又是理念的衣着，以及理念化的垫肩。
Film reviews, a little stardust, wardrobes of ideas that were clothes and of clothes that were ideas, the metaphysical shoulder pad.
她通过实践，扎实地掌握了这门手艺。
She learned her trade well, hands on.
她学会了什么才有效。
She learned what worked.
她从版式设计做起，一步步晋升为设计，然后负责整个版面乃至整期杂志的统筹。
She made her way up the ladder from layout to design, then did the supervision of whole spreads and then whole issues.
这并不容易，但值得。
It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.
她已经成为了一名创造者。
She had become a creator.
她创造了完整的造型。
She created total looks.
过了一段时间，她可以在索霍区的街道上漫步，或在开幕式的大堂里伫立，亲眼目睹自己的作品化身为真人，穿着她搭配的服装，滔滔不绝地重复着那些陈词滥调。
After a while, she could walk down the street in Soho or stand in the lobby at openings and witness her handiwork incarnate, strolling around in outfits she'd put together, spouting her warmed over pronouncements.
这感觉就像当上帝一样，只不过上帝从未做过成衣系列。
It was like being God, only God had never got around to off the rack lines.
到那时，她的脸已经失去了圆润的轮廓，当然，牙齿依然还在。
By that time, her face had lost its roundness, though the teeth, of course, remained.
北美牙科还是有其可取之处的。
There was something to be said for North American dentistry.
她剃掉了大部分头发，磨练出那令人窒息的凝视， perfected 一种特定的转颈姿态，传递出一种超然的内在权威。
She'd shaved off most of the hair, worked on the drop dead stare, perfected a certain turn of the neck that conveyed an aloof inner authority.
你必须让他们相信，你知道一些他们尚未知晓的事情。
What you had to make them believe was that you knew something they didn't know yet.
你还得让他们相信，他们自己也能掌握这一秘诀，这个能赋予他们卓越、权力和性吸引力的秘诀，这会为他们招来嫉妒，但代价是那本杂志的价格。
What you also had to make them believe was that they too could know this thing, This thing that would give them eminence and power and sexual allure would attract envy to them, but for a price, the price of the magazine.
他们永远无法理解的是，这一切完全依靠相机完成。
What they could never get through their heads was that it was done entirely with cameras.
凝固的光线，凝固的时光。
Frozen light, frozen time.
凭借特定的角度，她能让任何女性看起来丑陋。
Given the angle, she could make any woman look ugly.
任何男性也一样。
Any man as well.
她能让任何人看起来美丽，或至少引人注目。
She could make anyone look beautiful or at least interesting.
这一切都是摄影。
It was all photography.
这一切都是符号建构。
It was all iconography.
这一切都取决于选择的眼光。
It was all in the choosing eye.
这是无论你把可怜的月工资花多少在蛇皮上都无法买来的东西。
This was the thing that could never be bought no matter how much of your pitiful monthly wage you blew on snakeskin.
尽管地位显赫，但这条刀锋边缘的报酬却相当微薄。
Despite the status, the razor's edge was fairly low paying.
卡特自己也买不起她所如此精准呈现的许多东西。
Cat herself could not afford many of the things she contextualized so well.
伦敦的肮脏与高昂开销开始让她难以承受。
The groddiness and expense of London began to get to her.
她厌倦了在文学新书发布会上大吃冷盘以节省杂货开支，厌倦了酒吧里红色与深紫色地毯上弥漫的香烟烟味，厌倦了每到冬天结冰时水管总是爆裂，也厌倦了杂志里那些克拉丽莎、梅丽莎和佩内洛普们喋喋不休地说她们昨晚‘真的、绝对、彻底’冻得要死，而实际上那地方‘从来、根本、压根儿’没那么冷。
She got tired of gorging on the canapes at literary launches in order to scrimp on groceries, tired of the fuggy smell of cigarettes ground into the red and maroon carpeting of pubs, tired of the pipes bursting every time it froze in winter, and of the Clarissas and Melissa's and Penelope's at the magazine rabbiting on about how they had been literally, absolutely, totally freezing all night, and how it literally, absolutely, totally, usually never got that cold.
那地方总是那么冷。
It always got that cold.
水管总是会爆裂。
The pipes always burst.
没人想到安装真正的管道，那种下次不会爆裂的管道。
Nobody thought of putting in real pipes, ones that would not burst next time.
管道爆裂是英国的传统之一，就像许多其他传统一样。
Burst pipes were an English tradition, like so many others.
比如，英国男人。
Like, for instance, English men.
用他们柔和的口音和轻浮的言辞让你心醉神迷，等你脱下裤子后，他们却惊慌逃跑，或者留下抱怨个不停。
Charm the knickers off you with their mellow vowels and frivolous verbiage, and then once they'd got them off, panic and run, or else stay and whinge.
英国人把抱怨叫做‘whinging’，而不是‘whining’。
The English called it whinging instead of whining.
其实这样更好，就像吱呀作响的铰链。
It was better, really, like a creaking hinge.
被一个英国男人抱怨，是一种传统的赞美。
It was a traditional compliment to be whinged at by an Englishman.
这是他表达信任你的方式。
It was his way of saying he trusted you.
他是在赋予你一个特权，让你得以了解真实的他，那个内在的抱怨之歌。
He was conferring upon you the privilege of getting to know the real him, the inner whinging hymn.
他们实际上就是这样看待女性的——当作发泄抱怨的容器。
That was how they thought of women, really, whinge receptacles.
猫能扮演这个角色，但这并不意味着她喜欢这样。
Cat could play it, but that didn't mean she liked it.
不过，她比英国女性占优势。
She had an advantage over the English women, though.
她没有任何阶级背景。
She was of no class.
她没有阶层。
She had no class.
她属于她自己的独特类别。
She was in a class of her own.
她可以自如地穿梭于各种英国男人之间，深知自己不会被他们随身携带在后口袋里的阶级标尺和口音探测器所衡量，也不会受到那些为他们内心生活增添丰富色彩的琐碎势利与怨恨的制约。
She could roll around among the English men, all different kinds of them, secure in the knowledge that she was not being measured against the class yardsticks and accent detectors they carried around in their back pockets, was not subject to the petty snobberies and resentments which lent such richness to their inner lives.
这种自由的另一面是，她被排斥在外。
The flip side of this freedom was that she was beyond the pale.
她是个殖民地人。
She was a colonial.
多么新鲜，多么有活力，多么无名，最终又多么无足轻重。
How fresh, how vital, how anonymous, how finally of no consequence.
就像墙上的一个洞，她可以听尽所有秘密，然后被毫不愧疚地抛弃。
Like a hole in the wall, she could be told all secrets and then abandoned with no guilt.
当然，她太聪明了。
She was too smart, of course.
英国男人非常具有竞争性。
The English men were very competitive.
他们喜欢赢。
They liked to win.
好几次，这都让人感到痛苦。
Several times, it hurt.
她曾两次堕胎，因为那些男人根本不愿意考虑其他选择。
Twice, she had abortions because the men in question were not up for the alternative.
她学会了说，自己根本不想生孩子，如果真想要个孩子，就养一只豚鼠。
She learned to say that she didn't want children anyway, that if she longed for a rug rat, she would buy a gerbil.
她的生活开始显得漫长无尽。
Her life began to seem long.
她的肾上腺素正在耗尽。
Her adrenaline was running out.
很快她就三十岁了，而她眼前能看到的，只有更多同样的日子。
Soon, she would be 30, and all she could see ahead was more of the same.
格拉德出现时，事情就是这样的。
This was how things were when Gerald turned up.
你太棒了，他说。
You're terrific, he said.
即使是他这么说，她也愿意听进去，尽管‘太棒了’这个词可能早就随着五十年代的平头发型一起过时了。
And she was ready to hear it even from him, even though terrific was a word that had probably gone out with fifties crew cuts.
到那时，她也已经准备好接受他的声音了——那是五大湖区那种平直、金属般、鼻音浓重的口音，清晰硬朗的卷舌音，毫无做作，平淡而普通，正是她同胞们的语言。
She was ready for his voice by that time too, the flat, metallic, nasal tone of the Great Lakes with its clear, hard r's and its absence of theatricality, dull, normal, the speech of her people.
她突然意识到，自己身处流放之中。
It came to her suddenly that she was in exile.
杰拉尔德在物色人选。
Gerald was scouting.
杰拉尔德在招揽人才。
Gerald was recruiting.
他听说过她，看过她的作品，特意来找她。
He'd heard about her, looked at her work, sought her out.
他说，多伦多一家大公司正要推出一本新的时尚杂志。
One of the big companies back in Toronto was launching a new fashion oriented magazine, he said.
高端定位，国际视野，当然也包含一些加拿大时尚内容，还会列出文中服饰的实际销售店铺。
Upmarket, international in its coverage, of course, but with some Canadian fashion in it too, and with lists of stores where the items portrayed could actually be bought.
在这方面，他们觉得自己能全面超越竞争对手——那些美国杂志总以为你只能在纽约或洛杉矶买到古驰。
In that respect, they felt they'd have it all over the competition, those American magazines that assumed you could only get Gucci in New York or Los Angeles.
天啊，时代已经变了。
Heck, times had changed.
你在埃德蒙顿也能买到。
You could get it in Edmonton.
你在温尼伯也能买到。
You could get it in Winnipeg.
卡特离开得太久了。
Cat had been away too long.
现在还有加拿大时尚了？
There was Canadian fashion now?
英国人可能会说，加拿大时尚是个自相矛盾的说法。
The English quip would be to say that Canadian fashion was an oxymoron.
她没有说出这句话，而是用那款登载于《刀锋》五月刊的氰化物绿科文特花园精品店皮革打火机点了一支烟，直视着杰拉尔德的眼睛。
She refrained from making it, lit a cigarette with her cyanide green Covent Garden boutique leather covered lighter, as featured in the May issue of The Razor's Edge, looked Gerald in the eye.
伦敦可不是那么容易放弃的，她温柔地说。
London is a lot to give up, she said lovily.
她环顾了一下这家位于梅费尔、名为‘看我在这里’的餐厅，他们正在这里用完午餐——她选这家餐厅，是因为她知道他会付账。
She glanced around the see me here Mayfair restaurant where they were finishing lunch, a restaurant she'd chosen because she'd known he was paying.
否则，她绝不会在食物上花这么多钱。
She'd never spend that kind of money on food otherwise.
那我该去哪儿吃呢？
Where would I eat?
杰拉尔德向她保证，多伦多如今已是加拿大的餐饮之都。
Gerald assured her that Toronto was now the restaurant capital of Canada.
他本人很乐意做她的向导。
He himself would be happy to be her guide.
那里有一个很棒的唐人街。
There was a great Chinatown.
还有世界级的意大利菜。
There was world class Italian.
然后他停顿了一下，深吸了一口气。
Then he paused, took a breath.
我一直想问你，”他说，“关于这个名字。
I've been meaning to ask you, he said, about the name.
这个‘cat’是‘疯子’的意思吗？
Is that cat as in crazy?
他认为这很有暗示性。
He thought this was suggestive.
她以前听过。
She'd heard it before.
不是，”她说。
No, she said.
是‘Kit Kat’里的‘cat’。
It's cat as in Kit Kat.
那是一种巧克力棒。
That's a chocolate bar.
在嘴里会融化。
Melts in your mouth.
她盯着他，嘴角微微一扬，只是轻轻一抽。
She gave him her stare, quirked her mouth, just a twitch.
杰拉尔德变得慌乱，但他还是继续说了下去。
Gerald became flustered, but he pushed on.
他们需要她。
They wanted her.
他们离不开她。
They needed her.
他说，本质上，他们爱她。
They loved her, he said, in essence.
以她这样新颖创新的思维和经验，相对而言，对他们来说价值连城。
Someone with her fresh, innovative approach and her experience would be worth a lot of money to them, relatively speaking.
但除了金钱之外，还有其他回报。
But there were rewards other than the money.
她将参与最初的概念构想。
She would be in on the initial concept.
她将产生深远的影响。
She would have a formative influence.
她将拥有完全的自主权。
She would have a free hand.
他报出一个数字，让她忍不住倒吸一口冷气，当然，她没出声。
He named a sum that made her gasp inaudibly, of course.
到这时，她已明白，绝不能流露出渴望。
By now, she knew better than to betray desire.
于是她回到了原地，经历了三个月的文化冲击，品尝了世界级的意大利菜和地道的中餐，并在第一个机会出现时——就在他副总裁办公室里——勾引了杰拉尔德。
So she made the journey back, did her three months of culture shock, tried the world class Italian and the great Chinese, and seduced Gerald at the first opportunity right in his junior vice presidential office.
这或许是杰拉尔德人生中第一次，也可能是唯一一次，在这样的地方被人勾引。
It was the first time Gerald had been seduced in such a location or perhaps ever.
尽管已是下班时间，但这种危险感让他兴奋不已。
Even though it was after hours, the danger frenzied him.
正是这种想法，这种大胆的举动。
It was the idea of it, the daring.
她跪在宽大的织布机上，穿着一件他以往只在《纽约时报》周日版内衣广告中见过的传奇式胸衣，在他办公桌上那对无法企及的圆珠笔套装旁，正对着他妻子的银框订婚照，为他解开拉链。
The image of Cat kneeling on the broad loom in a legendary bra that until now he'd seen only in the lingerie ads of the Sunday New York Times, unzipping him in full view of the silver framed engagement portrait of his wife that complemented the impossible ballpoint pen set on his desk.
那时，他正统得甚至觉得有必要先把结婚戒指摘下来，小心翼翼地放在烟灰缸里。
At that time, he was so straight he felt compelled to take off his wedding ring and place it carefully in the ashtray first.
第二天，他给她带了一盒大卫·伍德食品店的巧克力松露。
The next day, he brought her a box of David Wood Food Shop chocolate truffles.
他说这些是最好的，生怕她认不出它们的品质。
They were the best, he told her, anxious that she should recognize their quality.
她觉得这个举动平庸，却又甜蜜。
She found the gesture banal but also sweet.
这种平庸、这种甜蜜、这种想要打动对方的渴望，这就是杰拉尔德。
The banality, the sweetness, the hunger to impress, that was Gerald.
杰拉尔德是她在伦敦根本不会搭理的那种男人。
Gerald was the kind of man she wouldn't have bothered with in London.
他一点都不幽默。
He was not funny.
他知识匮乏。
He was not knowledgeable.
他缺乏语言魅力。
He had little verbal charm.
但他很积极。
But he was eager.
他很顺从。
He was tractable.
他像一张白纸。
He was blank paper.
她享受着他对自己邪恶行为那种偷偷摸摸、孩子般的喜悦。
She took pleasure in his furtive, boyish delight in his own wickedness.
他非常感激。
And he was so grateful.
我简直不敢相信这事会发生，他经常这样说，频率远超必要，而且通常是在床上。
I can hardly believe this is happening, he said, more frequently than was necessary and usually in bed.
他的妻子，卡特在许多乏味的公司活动中多次遇见并至今仍会遇见她，帮助解释了他为何如此感激。
His wife, whom Cat encountered and still encounters at many tedious company events, helped to explain his gratitude.
这位妻子是个矫揉造作的人。
The wife was a priss.
她的名字叫谢丽尔。
Her name was Cheryl.
她的头发看起来就像还在用大卷发筒和定型喷雾固定发型一样。
Her hair looked as if she still used big rollers and embalm your hairdo spray.
她的思维就像一间间房间贴着劳拉·阿什利风格的墙纸，排列整齐、未绽放的淡色花苞。
Her mind was room by room Laura Ashley wallpaper, tiny unopened pastel buds arranged in straight rows.
她可能在做爱时戴上橡胶手套，事后还在清单上打钩，当作又完成了一项杂乱的家务。
She probably put on rubber gloves to make love and checked it off on a list afterwards, one more messy household chore.
她看着卡特，仿佛想朝她喷点空气清新剂。
She looked at Cat as if she'd like to spritz her with air deodorizer.
卡特通过想象谢丽尔的浴室来报复——手巾上绣着百合花，马桶座上套着毛茸茸的罩子。
Cat revenged herself by picturing Cheryl's bathrooms, hand towels embroidered with lilies, fuzzy covers on the toilet seats.
这本杂志一开始进展不顺。
The magazine itself got off to a rocky start.
尽管凯特手头有充裕的资金可供支配，尽管在彩色印刷上工作是个挑战，但她并没有获得杰拉尔德许诺的完全自由。
Although Cat had lots of lovely money to play with and although it was a challenge to be working in color, she did not have the free hand Gerald had promised her.
她必须应对公司董事会，他们全是男性，全是会计师或与会计师无异，行事谨慎、迟缓如鼹鼠。
She had to contend with the company board of directors, who were all men, who were all accountants or indistinguishable from them, who were cautious and slow as moles.
凯特告诉他们，这很简单。
It's simple, Cat told them.
你们用他们应该成为的样子去轰炸他们，让他们因为自己的真实状态而感到糟糕。
You bombard them with images of what they ought to be, and you make them feel grotty for being the way they are.
你们在利用现实与认知之间的差距。
You're working with the gap between reality and perception.
因此，你们必须用全新的东西、他们从未见过的东西、他们并非如此的东西去冲击他们。
That's why you have to hit them with something new, something they've never seen before, something they aren't.
没有什么比焦虑更能促进销售了。
Nothing sells like anxiety.
展开剩余字幕（还有 480 条）
另一方面，董事会认为他们的读者应该只是获得更多他们已经拥有的东西。
The board, on the other hand, felt that their readership should simply be offered more of what they already had.
更多的毛皮，更奢华的皮革，更多的羊绒，更多的知名品牌。
More fur, more sumptuous leather, more cashmere, more established names.
董事会完全没有即兴发挥的意识，不愿冒险，没有运动本能，也不愿仅仅为了好玩就欺骗读者。
The board had no sense of improvisation, no wish to take risks, no sporting instincts, no desire to put one over on the readers just for the hell of it.
时尚就像狩猎，卡特告诉他们，希望借此唤起他们（如果有的话）的男性荷尔蒙。
Fashion is like hunting, Cat told them, hoping to appeal to their male hormones, if any.
它是充满乐趣的。
It's playful.
它是激烈的。
It's intense.
它是掠食性的。
It's predatory.
它是鲜血与内脏。
It's blood and guts.
它是性感的。
It's erotic.
但对他们来说，这关乎品味。
But to them, it was about good taste.
他们想要的是成功的着装。
They wanted dress for success.
卡特想要的是无差别突袭。
Cat wanted scattergun ambush.
一切都成了妥协。
Everything became a compromise.
卡特原本想把杂志命名为《全城热议》，但董事会对“热议”一词中蕴含的愤怒感感到不安。
Cat had wanted to call the magazine all the rage, but the board was put off by the vibrations of anger in the word rage.
他们竟然觉得这太女权主义了。
They thought it was too feminist, of all things.
这是四十年代的风格，卡特说。
It's a forties sound, Cat said.
四十年代风格回来了。
Forties is back.
你不懂吗？
Don't you get it?
但他们就是不懂。
But they didn't.
他们想把它命名为‘or’，这是法语中‘金’的意思，价值观足够直白，却又没有低音的沉重感，正如卡特告诉他们的那样。
They wanted to call it or, French for gold and blatant enough in its values but without any bass note, as Cat told them.
他们对费莉丝进行了删减，而它恰好具备了各方都想要的特质。
They sawed off at Felise, which had qualities each side wanted.
它听起来有点法式风格。
It was vaguely French sounding.
它的意思是‘快乐’，比‘愤怒’温和多了。
It meant happy, so much less threatening than rage.
虽然你不能指望其他人注意到，但对卡特来说，它带有猫科动物般的香气，中和了蕾丝的柔媚感。
And although you couldn't expect the others to notice, for Cat, it had a feline bouquet that counteracted the laciness.
她用亮粉色口红潦草地写下了它，这多少有所帮助。
She had it done in hot pink lipstick scrawl, which helped some.
她可以接受它，但这并不是她的第一选择。
She could live with it, but it had not been her first love.
这场争论在每一次设计创新、Katz尝试引入的每一个新角度、每一个无害的半怪异元素上都反复上演。
This battle has been fought and refought over every innovation in design, every new angle Katz tried to bring in, every innocuous bit of semi kink.
关于一组展示内衣的图片引发了巨大争议，图片中内衣半褪，地板上散落着打碎的香水瓶。
There was a big row over a spread that did lingerie, half pulled off and with broken glass perfume bottles strewn on the floor.
关于两条新潮的丝袜腿也闹得沸沸扬扬，其中一条用第三种不同颜色的丝袜绑在椅子腿上。
There was an uproar over the two nouveau stockinged legs, one tied to the leg of a chair with a third different colored stocking.
他们没能理解那双价值300美元的皮手套被模棱两可地放在脖子周围的用意。
They had not understood the man's $300 leather gloves positioned ambiguously around a neck.
就这样，这场争论持续了五年。
And so it has gone on for five years.
杰拉尔德离开后，Cat在客厅里来回踱步。
After Gerald has left, Cat paces her living room.
踱步。
Pace.
踱步。
Pace.
她的缝线拉扯着。
Her stitches pull.
她并不期待独自享用微波炉加热的剩菜。
She's not looking forward to her solitary dinner of microwaved leftovers.
她现在也不确定，自己为何回到这个位于污染内海旁的平凡小镇。
She's not sure now why she came back here to this flat berg beside the polluted inland sea.
是因为杰尔吗？
Was it Ger?
荒谬的想法，但已不再是不可能。
Ludicrous thought, but no longer out of the question.
他是否就是她尽管对他日益不耐烦，却仍留在此地的原因？
Is he the reason she stays despite her growing impatience with him?
他不再能完全满足她了。
He's no longer fully rewarding.
他们彼此太了解了。
They've learned each other too well.
现在他们走捷径了。
They take shortcuts now.
他们共度的时光已从完整、偷来的、悠长而感性的午后，缩减为工作与晚餐之间匆忙挤出的几个小时。
Their time together has shrunk from whole, stolen, rolling, and sensuous afternoons to a few hours snatched between work and dinnertime.
她不再清楚自己想要从他那里得到什么。
She no longer knows what she wants from him.
她告诉自己，她值得更好的。
She tells herself she's worth more.
她应该拓展自己的生活。
She should branch out.
但她看不到其他男人。
But she doesn't see other men.
她就是做不到。
She can't somehow.
她试过一两次，但都没成功。
She's tried once or twice, but it didn't work.
有时候她会和一位同性恋设计师一起去吃饭或看电影。
Sometimes she goes out to dinner or a flick with one of the gay designers.
她喜欢听八卦。
She likes the gossip.
也许她想念伦敦了。
Maybe she misses London.
她觉得自己被困在这个国家、这座城市、这个房间里。
She feels caged in this country, in this city, in this room.
她可以从这个房间开始。
She could start with the room.
她可以打开一扇窗户。
She could open a window.
这里太闷了。
It's too stuffy in here.
从Hairball的瓶子散发出一股福尔马林的气味。
There's an undertone of formaldehyde from Hairball's bottle.
她为手术收到的花大多已经枯萎了，只有今天Gerald送的那束还开着。
The flowers she got for the operation are mostly wilted, all except Gerald's from today.
说起来，他为什么没在医院给她送花呢？
Come to think of it, why didn't he send her any at the hospital?
他是忘了，还是在传递什么信息？
Did he forget, or was it a message?
Hairball，她说，真希望你能说话。
Hairball, she says, I wish you could talk.
我和你聊天，比和这个鸡窝里大多数废物聊天要有意思多了。
I could have a more intelligent conversation with you than with most of the losers in this turkey farm.
Hairball的乳牙在光线下闪闪发亮。
Hairball's baby teeth glint in the light.
它看起来好像就要说话了。
It looks as if it's about to speak.
猫摸了摸自己的额头。
Cat feels her own forehead.
她怀疑自己是不是发烧了。
She wonders if she's running a temperature.
她背后正发生着某种不祥的事。
Something ominous is going on behind her back.
杂志社的电话太少了。
There haven't been enough phone calls from the magazine.
他们没有她也能凑合着过，这可不是什么好兆头。
They've been able to muddle on without her, which is bad news.
雨天女王既不该去度假，也不该做手术。
Raining queens should never go on vacation or have operations either.
不安的王冠难以安枕。
Uneasy lies the head.
她对这些事情有种第六感。
She has a sixth sense about these things.
她经历过足够多的宫廷政变，懂得这些征兆。
She's been involved in enough palace coups to know the signs.
她对即将来临的背叛脚步有着敏锐的直觉。
She has sensitive antennae for the footfalls of impending treachery.
第二天早上，她振作起来，用迷你咖啡机喝了一杯浓缩咖啡，挑了一套军灰色的‘敢碰我就死’风格麂皮装扮，拖着疲惫的身体去了办公室，尽管她下周才该上班。
The next morning, she pulls herself together, downs an espresso from her mini machine, picks out an aggressive touch me if you dare suede outfit in armor gray, and drags herself to the office, although she isn't due in till next week.
惊喜。
Surprise.
惊喜。
Surprise.
走廊里窃窃私语的结群散开，假意欢迎她，而她一瘸一拐地走过。
Whispering knots break up in the corridors, greet her with false welcome as she limps past.
她坐在自己极简风格的办公桌前，查看邮件。
She settles herself at her minimalist desk, checks her mail.
她的头剧烈疼痛。
Her head is pounding.
她的缝合处很疼。
Her stitches hurt.
杰尔听说了她到来的消息。
Jer gets wind of her arrival.
他想尽快见到她，但不是为了吃午饭。
He wants to see her ASAP and not for lunch.
他坐在自己新装修的米色办公区等她，那张他们一起挑选的十八世纪书桌、维多利亚时代的墨水台、杂志的大幅放大照片、深红色皮革手套、手腕上串着珍珠的手铐、一条赫尔墨斯丝巾被拧成眼罩，模特的嘴唇在丝巾下绽放出诱人的弧度。
He awaits her in his newly done wheat on white office with the eighteenth century desk they chose together, the Victorian inkstand, the framed blow ups from the magazine, the hands in maroon leather, wrists manacled with pearls, the Hermes scarf twisted into a blindfold, the model's mouth blossoming lusciously beneath it.
这些都是她最出色的作品。
Some of her best stuff.
他精心打扮，穿着一件领口大开的丝质衬衫，外搭一件意大利产的宽松针织羊毛衫，仿佛在说‘吻我的脖子’和‘掏空你的心’。
He's beautifully done up in a lick my neck silk shirt open at the throat and eat your heart out Italian silk and wool loose knit sweater.
哦，真是冷淡的潇洒。
Oh, cool insouciance.
哦，眉毛语言。
Oh, eyebrow language.
他是个有钱人，一直渴望艺术，现在他拥有了一些。
He's a money man who lusted after art, and now he's got some.
现在他本人也成了艺术品。
Now he is some.
身体艺术。
Body art.
她的艺术。
Her art.
她把工作做得很好。
She's done her job well.
他终于有魅力了。
He's finally sexy.
他光滑得像漆面一样。
He's smooth as a lacquer.
他说，本来想等到下周再告诉你这件事。
I didn't want to break this to you until next week, he says.
他向她摊牌了。
He breaks it to her.
这是董事会的决定。
It's the board of directors.
他们觉得她太古怪了。
They think she's too bizarre.
他们觉得她做得太过分了。
They think she goes way too far.
对此他无能为力，尽管自然，他还是尝试过。
Nothing he could do about it, although naturally, he tried.
自然了。
Naturally.
背叛。
Betrayal.
这个怪物反噬了它自己的疯狂科学家。
The monster has turned on its own mad scientist.
我给了你生命，她想对他尖叫。
I gave you life, she wants to scream at him.
她的状态不好。
She isn't in good shape.
她几乎站不稳。
She can hardly stand.
尽管他主动提供椅子，她还是坚持站着。
She stands despite his offer of a chair.
她现在明白了自己真正想要的是什么，自己一直缺失的是什么。
She sees now what she's wanted, what she's been missing.
杰拉尔德才是她一直缺失的那个人——那个稳定、不合潮流、曾经古板的杰拉尔德，不是杰瑞，也不是她按自己理想塑造出的那个他，而是那个被毁掉之前的他。
Gerald is what she's been missing, the stable, unfashionable, previous tight ass Gerald, Not Jer, not the one she's made in her own image, the other one before he got ruined.
那个有房子、有小孩、办公桌上摆着妻子照片的杰拉尔德。
The Gerald with a house and a small child and a picture of his wife in a silver frame on his desk.
她想出现在那个银框相片里。
She wants to be in that silver frame.
她想要那个孩子。
She wants the child.
她被夺走了一切。
She's been robbed.
那我的幸运替代者是谁呢？
And who is my lucky replacement?
她说。
She says.
她想抽支烟，但又不想让人看到她颤抖的手。
She needs a cigarette, but she does not want to reveal her shaking hands.
其实是我，他说，故作谦逊。
Actually, it's me, he says, trying for modesty.
这太荒谬了。
This is too absurd.
杰拉尔德连电话簿都编辑不了。
Gerald couldn't edit a phone book.
你呢？
You?
她虚弱地说道。
She says faintly.
她明智地没有笑出来。
She has the good sense not to laugh.
我一直想从这里的钱财事务中脱身，”他说，“进入创意领域。
I've always wanted to get out of the money end of things here, he says, into the creative area.
我知道你会理解的，反正那个人不可能是你。
I knew you'd understand since it can't be you at any rate.
我知道你更喜欢一个能……稍微在你基础上继续发展的人。
I knew you'd prefer someone who could, well, sort of build on your foundations.
自大狂。
Pompous asshole.
她看着他的脖子。
She looks at his neck.
她渴望他，痛恨自己有这样的想法，却无能为力。
She longs for him, hates herself for it, and is powerless.
房间微微晃动。
The room wavers.
他沿着米色的宽幅织机向她滑近，握住她灰色麂皮的上臂。
He slides toward her across the wheat colored broad loom, takes her by the gray suede upper arms.
我会给你写一封很好的推荐信，他说。
I'll write you a good reference, he says.
别担心这个。
Don't worry about that.
当然，我们仍然可以见面。
Of course, we can still see one another.
我会想念我们的下午时光。
I'd miss our afternoons.
当然，她说。
Of course, she says.
他吻了她一下，那是一个充满情欲的吻，或者至少在旁人看来是如此，而她却丝毫不为所动。
He kisses her a voluptuous kiss or it would look like one to a third party, and she lets him in a pig's ear.
她乘出租车回到了家。
She makes it home in a taxi.
司机对她很无礼，却安然无恙。
The driver is rude to her and gets away with it.
她没有力气了。
She doesn't have the energy.
她的邮箱里有一张雕刻精美的请柬。
In her mailbox is an engraved invitation.
杰尔和谢丽尔明天晚上举办饮酒派对，邮戳是五天前的。
Jer and Cheryl are having a drinks party tomorrow evening, postmarked five days ago.
谢丽尔已经落伍了。
Cheryl is behind the times.
猫脱了衣服，放了一浅盆水洗澡。
Cat undresses, runs a shallow bath.
这儿没什么可喝的。
There's not much to drink around here.
也没什么可闻的或可吸的。
There's nothing to sniff or smoke.
真是疏忽大意。
What an oversight.
她只能与自己为伴。
She's stuck with herself.
还有其他工作。
There are other jobs.
还有其他男人。
There are other men.
或者，这只是理论上的说法。
Or that's the theory.
然而，有什么东西从她体内被撕走了。
Still, something's been ripped out of her.
这种事情怎么会发生在她身上？
How could this have happened to her?
当刀子本该对准别人的后背时，她总是亲自动手刺出去。
When knives have been slated for backs, she's always done the stabbing.
任何朝她袭来的危险，她都能提前察觉并加以阻止。
Any headed her way she's seen coming in time and thwarted.
也许她正在失去她的锋利。
Maybe she's losing her edge.
她凝视着浴室镜子，在雾气朦胧的玻璃中审视自己的脸——一张八十年代的脸，一张面具般的脸，一张底线之脸。
She stares into the bathroom mirror, assesses her face in the misted glass, a face of the eighties, a mask face, a bottom line face.
把软弱的人逼到墙角，抢走你能得到的一切。
Push the weak to the wall and grab what you can.
但如今已是九十年代。
But now it's the nineties.
她这么快就过时了吗？
Is she out of style so soon?
她才35岁，却已经跟不上那些比她小十岁的人的想法了。
She's only 35, and she's already losing track of what people ten years younger are thinking.
这可能是致命的。
That could be fatal.
随着时间推移，她必须跑得越来越快才能跟上节奏。
As time goes by, she'll have to race faster and faster to keep up.
但为了什么呢？
And for what?
她本该拥有的生活的一部分，如今只剩下一个空洞。
Part of the life she should have had is just a gap.
那里什么都没有。
It isn't there.
什么都不是。
It's nothing.
从中学到什么可以挽救？
What can be salvaged from it?
什么可以重做？
What can be redone?
到底还能做些什么？
What can be done at all?
她洗完海绵浴从浴缸里爬出来时，差点摔倒。
When she climbs out of the tub after her sponge bath, she almost falls.
她发烧了。
She has a fever.
毫无疑问。
No doubt about it.
她体内有什么东西正在泄漏，或者正在溃烂。
Inside her, something is leaking or else festering.
她能听到它像水龙头滴水一样。
She can hear it like a dripping tap.
一个因过度奔跑而溃烂的伤口，一个因拼命奔跑而产生的疮口。
A running sore, a sore from running so hard.
她应该去某家医院的急诊室，打上一针抗生素。
She should go to the emergency ward at some hospital, get herself shot up with antibiotics.
相反，她摇摇晃晃地走进客厅，从壁炉架上取下装在瓶子里的毛球，放在咖啡桌上。
Instead, she lurches into the living room, takes hairball down from the mantelpiece in its bottle, places it on the coffee table.
她盘腿坐下，仔细聆听。
She sits cross legged, listens.
灯丝波。
Filament wave.
她能听到一种嗡嗡声，就像蜜蜂在忙碌工作。
She can hear a kind of buzz like bees at work.
她曾问过医生，这会不会是从童年就开始的，一个受精卵不知怎地逃逸并进入了错误的位置。
She'd asked the doctor if it could have started as a child, a fertilized egg that escaped somehow and got into the wrong place.
不会，医生说。
No, said the doctor.
有些人认为这种肿瘤在出生前或出生时就已以胚胎形式存在。
Some people thought this kind of tumor was present in seedling form from birth or before it.
它可能是这位女性未发育完全的双胞胎。
It might be the woman's undeveloped twin.
它们真正的本质仍是个谜。
What they really were was unknown.
不过，它们包含多种组织，甚至包括脑组织。
They had many kinds of tissue, though, even brain tissue.
当然，所有这些组织都缺乏结构。
Though, of course, all of these tissues lack structure.
她仍坐在地毯上，凝视着它，想象它是一个孩子。
Still sitting here on the rug looking in at it, she pictures it as a child.
它毕竟从她体内出来了，是她和杰拉尔德的孩子，那个被扼杀的孩子，无法正常成长，那个扭曲的孩子在报复。
It has come out of her after all, her child with Gerald, her thwarted child, not allowed to grow normally, her warped child taking its revenge.
毛球，她说，你真丑。
Hairball, she says, you're so ugly.
只有妈妈才会爱你。
Only a mother could love you.
她为它感到难过。
She feels sorry for it.
她感到失落。
She feels loss.
泪水顺着她的脸流下。
Tears run down her face.
哭泣不是她常做的事，平时不是，最近更不是。
Crying is not something she does, not normally, not lately.
毛球用无声的方式和她说话。
Hairball speaks to her without words.
它是不可简化的。
It is irreducible.
它有着现实的质感。
It has the texture of reality.
这不是一幅图像。
It is not an image.
它告诉她的，是她从未想听过的关于自己的所有事情。
What it tells her is everything she's never wanted to hear about herself.
这是新的认知，黑暗、珍贵且必要。
This is new knowledge, dark and precious and necessary.
它刺痛了她。
It cuts.
她摇了摇头。
She shakes her head.
你为什么坐在地上跟一个毛球说话？
What are you doing sitting on the floor and talking to a hairball?
你病了，她对自己说。
You are sick, she tells herself.
吃片泰诺，去睡觉吧。
Take a Tylenol and go to bed.
第二天，她感觉好了一点。
The next day, she feels a little better.
来自排版部门的达尼亚给她打电话，像鸽子一样温柔地安慰她，还说想在午餐时间过来看看她的气场。
Dania, from layout, calls her and makes dove like sympathetic coos at her and wants to drop by during lunch hour to take a look at her aura.
凯特让她别闹了。
Kat tells her to come off it.
达尼亚生气了，说凯特丢掉工作是因为前世行为不端的报应。
Dania gets huffy and says that Kat's losing her job is a price for immoral behavior in a previous life.
凯特让她闭嘴。
Kat tells her to stuff it.
反正，这一世她已经做了足够多的不道德的事，足以解释这一切了。
Anyway, she's done enough immoral behavior in this life to account for the whole thing.
你为什么这么充满仇恨？
Why are you so full of hate?
达尼亚问道。
Asks Dania.
她这么说并不是在陈述一个观点。
She doesn't say it like a point she's making.
她的语气真的充满困惑。
She sounds truly baffled.
我不知道，凯特说。
I don't know, says Cat.
这是一个直接的回答。
It's a straight answer.
挂断电话后，她在房间里来回踱步。
After she hangs up, she paces the floor.
她内心像烤箱下沸腾的热油一样躁动不安。
She's crackling inside like hot fat under the broiler.
她想到的是谢丽尔在她温馨的家里忙前忙后，为派对做准备。
What she's thinking about is Cheryl bustling about her cozy house preparing for the party.
谢丽尔摆弄着她定型的头发，调整着堆满鲜花的花瓶，操心着餐饮人员。
Cheryl fiddles with her freeze framed hair, positions an overloaded vase of flowers, fusses about the caterers.
杰拉德走进来，轻轻吻了她的脸颊，一派夫妻恩爱的场景。
Gerald comes in, kisses her lightly on the cheek, a connubial scene.
他的良心已经洗得干干净净。
His conscience is nicely washed.
女巫已经死了。
The witch is dead.
他的脚踩在尸体上，那是他的战利品。
His foot is on the body, the trophy.
他已尽情放纵过。
He's had his dirty fling.
他现在准备好迎接余生了。
He's ready now for the rest of his life.
卡特打了一辆出租车，去了戴维·伍德食品店，买了两打巧克力松露。
Cat takes a taxi to the David Wood Food Shop and buys two dozen chocolate truffles.
她让店员把它们装进一个超大的盒子，然后再放进一个印有商店标志的超大袋子。
She has them put into an oversized box, then into an oversized bag with store logo on it.
然后她回家，把毛球从瓶子里倒出来。
Then she goes home and takes hairball out of its bottle.
她在厨房的滤网中倒空它，然后用纸巾轻轻拍干。
She drains it in the kitchen strainer and pats it damp dry tenderly with paper towels.
她撒上可可粉，形成一层棕色的糊状外壳。
She sprinkles it with powdered cocoa, which forms a brown pasty crust.
它仍然散发着福尔马林的气味，于是她先用保鲜膜包裹，再包上锡纸，最后用粉红色的包装纸包好，并系上一条淡紫色的丝带。
It still smells like formaldehyde, so she wraps it in saran wrap and then in tinfoil and then in pink tissue paper, which she ties with a mauve bow.
她把毛球放在大卫·伍德的盒子中，周围铺上撕碎的纸巾，巧克力松露则环绕在它四周。
She places it in the David Wood box in a bed of shredded tissue with the truffles nestled around.
她合上盒子，用胶带封好，放进袋子，再在顶部塞进几张粉红色的纸。
She closes the box, tapes it, puts it into the bag, stuffs several sheets of pink paper on top.
这是她的礼物，珍贵而危险。
It's her gift, valuable and dangerous.
这是她的信使，但它所传递的信息将由它自己决定。
It's her messenger, but the message it will deliver is its own.
它会向任何询问的人说出真相。
It will tell the truth to whoever asks.
让杰拉尔德拥有它是对的。
It's right that Gerald should have it.
毕竟，这也是他的孩子。
After all, it's his child too.
她在卡片上写道：杰拉尔德，抱歉我没能陪在你身边。
She prints on the card, Gerald, sorry I couldn't be with you.
这现在非常流行。
This is all the rage.
爱你的，凯。
Love, Kaye.
当夜幕降临，派对正进行得如火如荼时，她叫了一辆送货出租车。
When evening has fallen and the party must be in full swing, she calls a delivery taxi.
谢丽尔不会怀疑任何装在这种昂贵袋子里的东西。
Cheryl will not distrust anything that arrives in such an expensive bag.
她会在众人面前当众打开它。
She will open it in public in front of everyone.
将会引起恐慌。
There will be distress.
将会引发疑问。
There will be questions.
秘密将被揭开。
Secrets will be unearthed.
将会带来痛苦。
There will be pain.
之后，一切都会失控到极点。
After that, everything will go way too far.
她状态不好。
She is not well.
她的心跳得厉害。
Her heart is pounding.
空间再次开始波动。
Space is wavering once more.
但窗外正下着雪，是她童年时那种柔软、湿润、无风的雪花。
But outside the window, it's snowing, the soft, damp, windless flakes of her childhood.
她穿上外套，愚蠢地走了出去。
She puts on her coat and goes out foolishly.
她本打算只走到街角，但当她到达街角时，继续往前走。
She intends to walk just to the corner, but when she reaches the corner, she goes on.
雪花落在她脸上，像小小的手指轻触般融化。
The snow melts against her face like small fingers touching.
她做了一件离经叛道的事，但她并不感到内疚。
She has done an outrageous thing, but she doesn't feel guilty.
她感到轻盈、平静，充满仁爱，暂时失去了名字。
She feels light and peaceful and filled with charity and temporarily without a name.
这是珍妮弗·伊根朗读玛格丽特·阿特伍德的《猫》。
That was Jennifer Egan reading Cat by Margaret Atwood.
这个故事于1990年3月刊登在《纽约客》上，后被收录在阿特伍德的文集《荒野指南》中，该文集于1991年由加拿大的麦克莱兰德与斯图尔特出版社和美国的双日出版社出版，也可在Audible上获取。
The story appeared in The New Yorker in March 1990 and was included in Atwood's collection Wilderness Tips, which was published in 1991 by McClelland and Stewart in Canada, and Doubleday in The US, and is also available from Audible.
如今，我们正经历着我国历史上最动荡不安的政治时期之一。
Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known.
我是大卫·雷姆尼克，每周在《纽约客》广播节目里，我将与科里·布克、南希·佩洛西、莉兹·切尼、蒂姆·沃尔兹、凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊、纽特·金里奇、小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪、查理曼大神等政界人士和思想家一起，试图厘清正在发生的一切。
I'm David Remnick, each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert f Kennedy junior, Charlemagne the god, and so many more.
所有这些内容都在《纽约客》广播节目里，无论你在哪个平台收听播客都能找到。
That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
所以，珍妮，我们谈到了自1990年这个故事问世以来文化的变化，以及出版物和杂志的变迁。
So, Jenny, we talked about how culture has changed since this story came out in 1990, how publications, magazines have changed.
但你现在如何看待故事中体现的性别战争，以及男女之间的权力斗争？
But how do you read this now in terms of the kind of gender war in it and the power struggle between this man and this woman?
你认为，你作为作者，或者我们作为读者，在重读这个故事时，对这个问题的看法是否已经发生了变化？
Do you think that your perspective on that or our perspective as readers when reading the story has shifted?
这很有趣。
Well, it's interesting.
某种程度上，这个故事非常当代，因为卡特是这对关系中更具有主导性的一方。
In a way, it's very contemporary in that Cat is the more kind of alpha figure in the pair.
而她称他为杰尔，他则更顺从，可以被看作是更具女性化特质的，是的。
And Ger, as she calls him, is the more malleable, what you could think of as gendered as more female Yeah.
按传统方式来说。
In in a traditional way.
但最终，他掌握着权力。
But in the end, he has the power.
他有权力将她抛弃。
He has the power to get rid of her.
这是一个由男性主导的世界。
It's a world that's run by men.
这正是她所描绘的世界。
That's the world she's writing about.
我不确定现在是否还是这样。
I don't know if that would be true nowadays.
董事会不会全是男人。
The board wouldn't be all men.
那不会被允许，而且，老实说，也不会有手套紧掐女人脖子的画面。
That wouldn't be It wouldn't be allowed nor, frankly, would be gloves clutching a woman's neck.
她描述的许多图像都来自我非常熟悉的时尚时刻，因为我当时确实为《纽约时报杂志》写过一篇关于那时时尚模特的文章。
A lot of the imagery she describes is very much from a fashion moment that I remember really well because I actually wrote an article for the Times Magazine about fashion models at that time.
我记得，那是‘海洛因时尚’盛行的年代，人们认为将对女性的暴力或女性真实痛苦的状态表现为某种性感是可以接受的，尽管现实中这种行为根本不可接受。
And I remember, you know, that was the era of heroin chic and this notion that somehow portraying violence against women or women in real distress as somehow sexy was okay, even though it wasn't okay at all for that to be happening in real life.
我认为马可·达特伍德实际上专门写过这些图像的影响，以及它们如何唤起欲望。
And I think Marco Datwood actually writes kind of specifically about the impact of those images, the way in which they summon desire.
但我觉得现在我们已经意识到，其中一些做法真的不再能被接受了。
But I feel now that we have a sense that some of that is really not okay anymore.
是的。
Yeah.
所以，这并不是
So the the It's not
正确的唤起欲望。
the right desire to summon.
没错。
Exactly.
而且，从《使女的故事》的角度来看，这也很有意思。我不确定玛格丽特·阿特伍德在她访问宾大时是否已经出版了这部作品，但当这个故事发表时，她肯定已经出版了。
And it's also interesting to think about it in the context of The Handmaid's Tale, which I'm not sure Margaret Atwood had published yet at the time that she visited Penn, but certainly she had by the time this story came out.
我特别喜欢的一点是，其中一些相同的元素也在发挥作用，比如女性的生育和生育能力。
And one thing that I love about it is some of the same elements are at play, you know, women reproduction, childbearing.
但在这个语境中，它处于当时非常当代的背景下，与她在《使女的故事》中采用的更具幻想色彩的推测性手法截然不同。
But in this context, it's in a very contemporary at at its time context and very different from the more speculative kind of fantastical approach that she took in The Handmaid's Tale.
这充分体现了她的创作广度，以及她处理这些题材时所展现的多种创新方式。
And it really speaks to her range and also to the many innovative ways she has approached some of this material.
是的。
Yeah.
我的意思是，回到将暴力对待女性作为时尚工具或欲望象征的描绘，这部作品中想要这么做的人是凯特。
I mean, what's interesting, going back to the depiction of violence against women as a fashion tool or an insider of desire, that the person who wants to do that in this piece is Kat.
这是她的主意。
It's her idea.
这些是她的布置。
These are her stagings.
对杰来说，这太过分了。
For Jer, it goes too far.
嗯。
Mhmm.
对吧？
Right?
她总是越界，这让杰感到不舒服。
She's constantly pushing too far, and it makes him uncomfortable.
我们是否应该从中看到一种赋权，即她正在掌控这些事物？
Should we see a kind of empowerment in that, and that she's claiming these things?
还是说，她只是吸收了一种不属于自己的欲望？
Or is it more that she's kind of absorbed a desire that's not hers?
这很有趣。
It's interesting.
我的意思是，她试图激发的那种欲望，她对此非常明确，就是购买的欲望。
I mean, the desire she's trying to provoke, and she's very clear about this, is the desire to buy.
模仿的欲望。
The desire to emulate.
她明确表示，没有什么比焦虑更能促进销售了。
She says specifically, nothing sells like anxiety.
当然，我们都明白这是真的。
And of course, we all know that's true.
从一开始，广告就是这么运作的。
That's how advertising has worked from the very beginning.
如今，我们以许多当年这个故事发表时根本无法想象的方式看到了这一点。
Now, of course, we see it in all kinds of ways that were really unimaginable at the time that this story was published.
从这个角度看，认为这些事情仅仅发生在杂志广告的世界里，而没有考虑到青少年整天观看的、常常由他们自己创造的图像，简直有点过时了。
And in that way, it's almost quaint to think of some of this happening just in the world of magazine advertising as opposed to images that teenagers, for example, are looking at all day long, often created by each other.
是的
Yeah.
但这种利用图像与现实之间的差距、想象中的生活与自己平凡琐碎的日常之间的落差的理念，自图像文化诞生以来就一直存在。
But this idea of harnessing the gap between image and reality, between some notion of an imagined life and one's own lowly granular day to day existence, that is as old as image culture itself.
作为一名整个职业生涯都对此着迷的人，读到她对这一观点的见解令人着迷。
And it's as somebody who's been fascinated by that my whole career, fascinating to read her take on it.
是的
Yeah.
对
Yeah.
比如，女人脖子上戴着奢华的皮手套，和辅助牙齿之间的区别。
The difference between, you know, luxury leather gloves around a woman's neck and assist with teeth.
一种不同的怪诞形式。
Different form of grotesqueness.
是的
Yeah.
而且，这些根本不是她自己买得起的东西。
And and also the idea that these aren't even things she herself can afford.
是的。
Yeah.
凯特正在创造一个她无法触及的幻想世界。
Kat is creating a fantasy world that she has no access to.
于是，由此产生了一个畸形的、无法被完全解释的生物。
And so then out of that comes this horrible misshapen entity that can't even be explained fully.
没人能说清楚它为何存在。
No one quite knows why it exists.
它具有这些元素，这一点非常耐人寻味。
It's very suggestive that it has these elements.
当时我一定对此足够着迷，于是去查了资料，发现这一切都是真实的。
And I must, at the time, have been intrigued enough to look this up and learn that it was all real.
对。
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
对。
Yeah.
这些事物就这样存在着。
That these just exist.
这很有趣，因为玛格丽特告诉我，实际上在1990年时任《纽约客》编辑的鲍勃·戈特利布认为她完全是凭空捏造了这个东西。
It's funny because Margaret told me actually that Bob Gottlieb, was editor of The New Yorker in at the time in 1990, thought she had entirely invented this.
这属于她哥特式想象力的一部分。
This was part of her Gothic imagination.
这太有趣了。
That's so interesting.
是的。
Yeah.
我的性格里一直有点阴森怪异的特质，虽然我担心这种特质正在逐渐消失，但我确实对这个非常着迷。
I mean, I've always had a kind of slightly ghoulish quality, which I'm worried is starting to evaporate, but I was really fascinated by that.
我祖父是一位骨科医生，我一直很喜欢他的医学书籍。
My grandfather was an orthopedic surgeon and I always loved his medical books.
坦白说，我喜爱这些书的部分原因在于那些怪诞的图像。
Part of what I loved about them frankly were images of the grotesque.
你知道，人体不是那种所谓的‘应该’呈现的样子。
You know, the human form not as it quote unquote should be.
当然，这些观念本身也已经改变了。
And again, even those notions of course have changed.
但这种奇特而富有暗示性的符号，它确实存在，同时也非常象征着我们不确定的事物。
But the idea of this strange suggestive symbol, it's a thing, but it also feels very symbolic of what we're not sure.
我们正身处一个关于图像制作及其本质虚假性故事的中心。
We're sitting right in the middle of a story that's very much about the world of image making and the basically fakeness of it.
我的意思是，她说这一切都是摄影。
I mean, she says it's all photography.
我非常喜欢这种对比。
I love that juxtaposition.
我的意思是，这个故事经得起极其细致的审视。
I mean, this story really holds up under extremely close examination.
这里面有各种各样的平行关系。
There are all kinds of parallels.
你知道，她谈到自己的牙齿多么漂亮，是正畸出来的，是的。
You know, she talks about how her own teeth are so beautiful, orthodontically Yep.
你知道，北美式的牙齿。
You know, North American teeth.
而这个生物却有着奇怪的牙齿。
And then there are these strange teeth in this entity.
那么，你认为她为什么把它带回家，放在壁炉架上呢？
So why do you think she takes it home and puts it on her mantle?
部分原因只是她的天性。
Well, part of it is just her nature.
她非常好奇，这也是我欣赏她的另一点。
She's very curious, which is something else I love about her.
我喜欢这一点，因为这几乎是我们在了解她时最先注意到的事情。
I love that that is really what we learn about her almost before anything else.
是的。
Yep.
而且这一直是她的慰藉。
And that that's been kind of a solace to her.
我的意思是，我很难想象有哪位作家会不这么说。
I mean, I'd be surprised if there's any writer who wouldn't say the same.
你知道，好奇心是让一切变得可以接受的原因，因为它让一切变得有趣，即使是糟糕的事情。
You know, curiosity is the thing that makes everything okay because it makes everything interesting, even bad things.
对。
Yeah.
因此，它具有暗示性和令人反感这一事实，恰恰是值得去探索、值得保留而不是回避的原因。
So the very fact that it's suggestive and repulsive is a reason to explore it, is a reason to hold onto it rather than to push it away.
这在我看来，体现了一种非常深刻的藝術感知力。
That seems for me to be representative of some kind of really deep artistic sensibility.
我也很喜欢这一点，因为这种情感来自她自己，所以她对它怀有一种亲切感，我认为这实际上是一种非常健康的冲动。
And I also love the fact that it comes from her, so she feels a kind of affection toward it, which I think is actually a very healthy impulse.
明白吗？
Know?
她想，哦，这是来自我的。
She thinks, oh, this is from me.
我会紧紧抓住它。
I'm gonna hold on to it.
我会为它承担责任。
I'm gonna take responsibility for it.
对。
Right.
这和她与孩子之间的关系是相辅相成的，她做过两次流产，却学会说她根本不想生孩子，但显然这并不是事实。
That kind of goes hand in hand with the thing about her and children, and how she's had two abortions, and she's learned to say she didn't want a kid anyway, and obviously that's not the truth.
甚至她自己也把这视为她和格儿的孩子。
And even she thinks of this as her child with Ger.
对吧？
Right?
这是她的子宫或身体从他们关系中孕育出的东西，一种长着牙齿和头发的畸形产物。
This is what her womb has produced or her body has produced from their relationship, this kind of stunted thing with some teeth and hair.
所以这大概解释了她对它的某种保护欲。
So probably that explains some of the kind of protectiveness of it.
还有她最后做的那种疯狂而令人震惊的事，我当初不确定自己是怎么理解的，但这次我看的时候觉得，她和杰尔的关系本身就是扭曲的。
And also the wild and appalling thing that she does at the end, which I think at the time I'm not sure how I read that originally, but I know the way I saw it this time was, you know, the whole relationship with Jer was misshapen.
他结婚了。
He's married.
是的。
Yeah.
你知道的吧？
You know?
他将拥有一个家，和别人组成家庭。
He's gonna have that life of a home and a and a family with someone else.
所以如果她想要那样，她走错了路。
So if she wants that, she's on the wrong path.
因此，这次我认为，她把毛球交给杰和他的妻子，以她想象中一种破坏性的方式——我们其实并不知道这些是否真的会发生。
And so for me this time, giving Hairball to Jer and his wife in what she imagines will be a destructive way, we don't really know whether any of that's gonna happen.
我发现自己在想，你知道，他们可能根本就不会看到它。
I found myself thinking, you know, they might just never even see it.
我们不知道。
We don't know.
她喜欢这种宏大而狂野的举动，但谁知道呢？
She loves the thought of this big, you know, wild gesture, but who knows?
但这次我觉得这是一种赎罪。
But this time I thought it's a kind of expiation.
她在摆脱它。
She's getting rid of it.
而且again，这又稍微回到了社会规范，因为在1990年，也许如果你35岁还没生孩子，那就真的很难了。
And again, it a little bit gets back to social norms because in 1990, maybe it seemed like if you hadn't had a kid by 35, it was gonna be really hard.
但我的意思是，我写过关于主动选择成为单亲母亲的话题。
But I mean, I've written about single mothers by choice.
我的意思是，这只是一个日益增长的趋势。
I mean, that is only a growing trend.
我甚至不知道当时辅助生殖技术有多普遍。
I don't even know how common was IVF at that point.
如果她想要这样的生活，有太多方式可以实现，这根本不像对她来说是遥不可及的。
Like, there are so many ways that this woman can have that life if that's what she wants that it doesn't feel like it's something that's off limits to her at all.
从这个角度看，你很容易觉得未来令人恐惧，而它在某些方面确实如此。
And in that way, you know, it's so easy to think of, you know, the future as frightening, and it is in some ways.
但也很容易忘记，未来让很多事情——尤其是对女性而言——比以前容易多了。
But it's also easy to forget that it has made a lot of things a lot easier than they used to be, for women particularly.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
我的意思是，我觉得凯特的情况是，她一直沉迷于这种打造形象、虚假表象的时尚世界，越来越追求前卫、前卫、再前卫，她以为这种状态会一直持续下去。
I mean, it seems to me that what's happened with Kat is she's been enamored of this whole kind of image creation, false front fashion world of getting edgier and edgier and edgier, and she thought this was going to last.
这本该是她的专属风格。
This was going to be her thing.
她是这种另类束缚时尚形象的女王。
She is the queen of this kind of kinky bondage fashion representation.
然后她就35岁了。
And then she's 35.
我不是不能理解这一点，但在这个故事里，这让我感到惊讶，因为这个故事讲述的是一位非常坚强的女性。
And it's not that I have a hard time with this, but it surprises me in this story because the story is about a very strong woman.
到了35岁这个年纪，她想要的，是成为杰尔办公桌上那个银色相框里的女人。
At this age, at 35, what she's wanting is to be the woman in that silver frame on Jer's desk.
她想要成为一位有孩子的妻子。
She's wanting to be a wife with a baby.
她在这个阶段产生这样的想法，某种程度上显得有点复古。
And there's something sort of retro about that that she's hit this point.
她并不想独自一人进行试管婴儿并生下孩子独自抚养。
And she's not wanting to be someone who goes it alone and does IVF and has the child and raises it.
她想要的那种生活，就像你说的，某种程度上是一种温柔。
She's wanting that life, that kind of, as you said, tenderness in a way.
没错。
True.
还有稳定。
And Stability.
我的意思是，谁知道她是不是真的想要那样，或者最终是否会去追求。
I mean, who knows if she really wants that or ends up pursuing it.
当然，那时她确实非常认为自己想要那样的生活。
For sure, that is very much what she thinks she wants at that point.
但是是的。
But Yeah.
我也在想，她现在的感觉是不是自己的当前道路已经逐渐枯竭，仿佛无路可走。
What I wonder too is whether what she's feeling is that her current path has kind of dissipated, like there's nowhere to go.
是的。
Yeah.
部分原因是她的年龄，到了35岁，她不可能像25岁时那样了解年轻人的潮流。
Partly because of her age that in some way she just can't at 35, you know, know the trends of very young people in the way that she could at say 25.
也许还因为这是一个新时代。
Maybe too because it's a new era.
她说自己长着一张八十年代的脸。
She has an eighties face, she says.
是的。
Yeah.
把解读文化潮流当作工作，确实会非常困难。
And it can be really hard to keep reading the cultural room as your job.
是的。
Yeah.
你知道，如何才能保持相关性？
You know, how do you stay relevant?
如何产生别人会关心的想法？
How to have ideas that other people will care about?
这太难了。
That's so hard.
但我想，天啊，别是杰拉尔德，求你了。
But I kind of think, my god, not Gerald, please.
你可以做得更好。
You could do better.
我的意思是，我觉得她会想出更好的东西。
I mean, she's gonna come up with something better, I think.
她从一开始就知道自己可以做得更好。
She kind of knew from the beginning she could do better.
但某种程度上，这是她的《皮格马利翁》故事，她选了一个并不特别有魅力的人。
But in a way, this is her kind of Pygmalion story that she has taken someone who wasn't particularly attractive.
他唯一的优势就是对这件事充满热情和期待。
All he had going for him is he was sort of eager and excited about it.
她把他变成了一个冷酷的高端时尚人士，甚至在她做卵巢手术时都会把她赶出门，你知道的。
And she's turned him into cutthroat, high fashion guy who'll kick her out the door when she's having her ovary operated on, you know.
就像是，别为了做手术就离开办公室。
It's like, don't leave the office for for surgery.
某种程度上，她如愿以偿了，因为她重塑了这个男人，但结果他却不是她真正想要的那个人。
It's sort of like she got what she wished for in a way, because she recreated this man, and then he wasn't what she wished for.
她想要的是那个把妻子照片摆在办公桌上的男人。
She wished for the one who kept the picture of his wife on his desk.
也许她想要的是那种内心足够坚定、不会被别人重塑、也不会开心地背叛妻子长达五年的人。
And maybe the one who has enough of a center that he can't be recreated by someone else and won't cheat on his wife delightedly for five years.
但是，是的。
But, yeah.
有意思的是，有一个特别令人心酸的时刻，她说起过存在一个缺口。
I mean, it's interesting because there's that really poignant moment where she says something about there's a gap.
有些东西是缺失的。
There's something that's not there.
但某种程度上，她的整个工作就是利用幻想与现实之间的鸿沟。
But in a way, her whole job has been about exploiting a gap between fantasy and reality.
你知道，正是这个鸿沟让她一直有工作可做。
You know, that gap is what's kept her employed.
所以她感受到这个鸿沟的存在并不奇怪，但我觉得她所感受到的一部分，是一种成熟，这种成熟让她不再觉得这个鸿沟有吸引力，她想要一些不同的东西。
So it's no surprise that she feels its presence, but I think part of what she's feeling is a kind of maturity that makes that gap no longer appealing, that she wants something different.
对。
Right.
我的意思是，这个鸿沟正是她所缺乏的。
I mean, the gap is what she doesn't have.
对吧？
Right?
她的生活中并没有这个东西，但她也不太确定这到底是什么。
It's not there in her life, but she isn't quite sure what it is.
是的。
Yeah.
说是个孩子很容易，因为我们正在讨论从她体内出来的东西。
A baby is the easy thing to say because we're dealing with things coming out of her body.
嗯。
Mhmm.
但谁知道是不是这样呢？
But, who knows if it's that?
是的。
Yeah.
她把宝宝的毛球送人了。
And she gives her baby hairball away.
没错。
Exactly.
而她拥有的是她的好奇心、幽默感、机智和一种创造性的态度。
And what she has is her curiosity, her humor, her wit, and a kind of creative approach.
我觉得她摆脱这一切真是再好不过了。
I feel like she's a she's well rid of all of it.
是的。
Yeah.
你知道的。
You know?
那种方式让人感到非常有希望。
It feels very hopeful in that way.
我喜欢我们回到了童年。
And I love that we return to childhood.
就像有一种雪一般的宁静与温柔，回到了她还是凯瑟琳时的起点。
Like, there's this sense of snow and gentleness and back to the beginning when she was Catherine.
故事中以各种方式提到了外部塑造这一概念，我非常喜欢这一点。
That whole idea of being shaped from the outside comes up in all kinds of ways in the story that I really love.
显然，其中一个例子是广告，但还有就是，你知道的，成长过程中，我们很大程度上通过穿着、交往的人、听的音乐来定义自己。
Obviously, one of them is advertising, but also just the way that, you know, growing up, we do define ourselves so much by, like, what we wear, who we hang out with, what kind of music we listen to.
因此，回望那些不同版本的自己，感觉非常温馨。
And so thinking back on those different versions of ourselves is very kind of sweet.
我觉得这非常美好。
Like, I find that very lovely.
我觉得故事中对此的描述非常优美，而且极其精炼。
And I think it's so beautifully described, so so pithily in the story.
是的。
Yeah.
但从某种意义上说，那段关于名字的段落，以及她在整个故事中名字的变化，真的很打动人：她一开始是母亲为她打扮的、充满浪漫花边的凯瑟琳，然后变成了凯西，圆润活泼，接着是穿着‘夺回今夜’T恤和工装衬衫的凯斯，最后变成了卡特。
Though in a way, the paragraph with the names and the whole concept of her name through the whole story where she starts off as this romantically frilly Catherine dressed by her mother, and then she's Kathy, and she's all, like, bouncy and round faced, and then she's Kath wearing her Take Back the Night shirt and her lumberjack shirt, and she becomes Cat.
而在她最后的举动中，她在便条上签了一个‘k’，在故事的最后一行，她变得没有名字。
And then in her very last act, she signs her note k, and then she's nameless in that last line of the story.
所以我想问的是，她消失了吗？
So I guess the question is, is she gone?
还是说，接下来会发生什么？
Or or what comes next?
她只是暂时没有名字，但下一个名字会是什么呢？
She's only temporarily nameless, but what's the next name going to be?
也许这正是你在结尾时对未来的某种希望态度所表达的意思。
And maybe that's what you're saying when it's a sort of hopeful look to the future at the end.
没错。
Exactly.
我觉得这正是我过去和现在解读它的不同之处。
I think that's really the difference between how I read it then and how I read it now.
因为我觉得当时，我只是想，谁知道呢？
Because I think then, I felt like, well, who knows?
你知道，一切都消失了。
You know, it's all gone.
她35岁了。
She's 35.
哇哦。
Woah.
我27岁的时候觉得这已经挺老了。
That's pretty old, I thought, at 27.
但现在我只是想，是的，好吧，你已经度过了所有那些阶段。
But now I just think, yeah, okay, you got through all those phases.
现在让我们长大，看看接下来会发生什么。
Now let's grow up and find out what comes next.
它的解读方式完全不同了
It's how differently it reads
就是这样。
in that way.
所以你对她充满希望。
So you have a lot of hope for her.
完全正确。
Totally.
天哪。
Oh my god.
我的意思是，这些都会成为她日后回想起来的有趣故事。
I mean, these are funny stories she'll think back on.
关于 Bayt 播客
Bayt 提供中文+原文双语音频和字幕，帮助你打破语言障碍，轻松听懂全球优质播客。