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On the couch, Mrs. Allen let out a little stuttering snore. A thread of spit oozed down her chin.
在沙发上，艾伦太太打了个小呼噜。一缕唾液从下巴流下来。
Nath headed outside, leaving the front door half-open, and jumped down off the porch.
纳走了出去，把前门半开着，从门廊上跳了下来。
The ground slammed into his heels like a jolt of electricity. Above him the sky stretched out pale steel gray.
地面像一股电流一样直冲他的脚后跟。头顶上的天空呈淡钢灰色。
"Where are you going?" Lydia peeked around the door. "None of your business."
“你上哪儿去?”莉迪亚从门后偷看了一眼。“不关你的事。”
He wondered if Mrs. Allen would hear, if she would wake and come out and call them back, but nothing happened.
他不知道艾伦太太会不会听见，会不会醒来，出来叫他们回去，但什么也没发生。
Without looking, he knew Lydia was watching, and he strode right down the middle of the street, daring her to follow.
他只知道莉迪亚在看他，看也没看就大步流星地走到街道中央，谅她也不敢跟在后面。
And in a moment, she did. She followed him all the way to the lake and to the end of the little pier.
片刻之间，她跟上去了。她跟着他一直走到湖边，一直走到小码头尽头。
The houses on the other side of the water looked like dollhouses, tiny and scaled-down and perfect.
河对岸的房子看起来像等比例缩小的玩具屋，完美无缺。
Inside, mothers were boiling eggs or baking cakes or making pot roasts, or maybe fathers were poking the coals in the barbecue, turning the hot dogs with a fork so that the grill made perfect black lines all over.
在屋里，母亲们在煮鸡蛋、烤蛋糕或烤肉，父亲们在烧烤时拨煤，用叉子翻动热狗，这样烤架上就会出现完美的黑线。
Those mothers had never gone far away and left their children behind. Those fathers had never slapped their children or kicked over the television or laughed at them.
这些母亲从未把孩子留在家里。这些父亲从未打过孩子，踢过电视机，也没有嘲笑过他们。
"Are you going swimming?" Lydia peeled off her socks and tucked one in each shoe, then perched at the end of the dock beside him, dangling her feet over the edge.
“你要去游泳吗?”莉迪亚脱下袜子，每双鞋都塞进一只袜子，蹲在码头的尽头，坐在他旁边，双脚悬在边上。
Someone had left a Barbie doll in the sand, naked and muddy, one of its arms gone.
有人把一个芭比娃娃丢在沙滩上，娃娃全身赤裸，满身是泥，一只胳膊不翼而飞。
Nath pried off the other and threw it into the water. Then the leg, which was harder. Lydia began to fidget.
纳撬开另一只胳膊，把它扔进水里，然后撬掉腿，腿比较硬。莉迪亚开始坐立不安。
"We better go home." "In a minute." In his hands, the head of the Barbie had turned around to face her back.
“我们还是回家吧。”“再等一分钟。”在他的手里，芭比娃娃的头已经扭过去对着她的背了。
"We'll get in trouble." Lydia reached for a sock. The other leg wouldn't come off, and Nath turned on his sister.
“我们会有麻烦的。”莉迪亚伸手去拿一只袜子。另一条腿没有拧下来，纳转身对着他妹妹。
He felt himself unsteady, struggling for balance, as if the world had tipped to one side.
他感觉站不稳了，挣扎着想保持平衡，好像世界已经向一边倾斜了。
He did not know exactly how it had happened but everything had gone askew, like a teeter-totter unevenly weighted.
他不知道事情究竟是怎么发生的，但一切都乱了套，就像跷跷板两端的重量不均匀。
Everything in their life—their mother, their father, even he himself—slid, now, toward Lydia.
生活中的一切——母亲，父亲，甚至他自己——现在都滑向了莉迪亚。
Like gravity, there was no resisting it. Everything orbited her.
就像地心引力一样，没有人能抗拒。一切都环绕着她。
Later on, Nath would never be able to disentangle what he said and what he thought and what he only felt. He would never be sure whether he said anything at all.
后来，纳再也无法理清自己说了什么、想了什么、感受到了什么。他永远也无法确定自己是否说了什么。
All Nath would know, for sure, was this: he pushed Lydia into the water.
唯一知道的就是：他把莉迪亚推到水里去了。
Whenever he remembered this moment, it lasted forever: a flash of complete separateness as Lydia disappeared beneath the surface.
每当他想起这一刻，场景不断延续：莉迪亚消失在水面下时，我们之间出现了鸿沟。
Crouched on the dock, he had a glimpse of the future: without her, he would be completely alone.
他蹲在码头上，窥见了未来：没有她之后，他将孑然一身。
In the instant after, he knew it would change nothing.
在那一刻之后，他知道这不会改变什么。
He could feel the ground still tipping beneath him. Even without Lydia, the world would not level.
他能感觉到脚下的地面仍在倾斜。即使没有莉迪亚，世界也不会平息。
He and his parents and their lives would spin into the space where she had been.
他、父母以及他们的生活将在她曾经待过的地方继续下去。
They would be pulled into the vacuum she left behind.
他们会被拉进她留下的真空中。
More than this: the second he touched her, he knew that he had misunderstood everything.
更重要的是：他一碰到她，就知道自己误解了一切。
When his palms hit her shoulders, when the water closed over her head, Lydia had felt relief so great she had sighed in a deep choking lungful.
当他的手掌打在她的肩膀上，当水淹过她的头时，莉迪亚如释重负，不由得深深吸了一口气。
She had staggered so readily, fell so eagerly, that she and Nath both knew: that she felt it, too, this pull she now exerted, and didn’t want it.
她那么快就踉跄了，那么急切地摔倒了，她和纳都知道：她也感觉到了现在施加的拉力，她并不想要。
That the weight of everything tilting toward her was too much.
所有向她倾斜的东西都太重了。
In reality, it was only a few seconds before Nath jumped into the water.
其实就在几秒钟后，纳跳进了水里。
He ducked under, grabbed Lydia's arm, pulled her to the surface, pedaling furiously. Kick, he gasped. Kick. Kick.
他钻到水下，抓住莉迪亚的胳膊，把她拉出水面，拼命地蹬着水。他踢着水，上气不接下气。
They floundered their way to the edge of the lake, moving slowly toward the shallows until their feet hit the sandy bottom and they lurched a ground.
他们挣扎着走到湖边，向浅滩慢慢移动，直到脚踩到沙底，踉踉跄跄地跌倒在地。
Nath wiped mud from his eyes. Lydia vomited a mouthful of lake water into the grass.
纳擦去眼睛上的泥。莉迪亚把一大口湖水吐到草地上。
