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James is all too familiar with this kind of forgetting.
詹姆斯对这种遗忘太熟悉了。
From Lloyd Academy to Harvard to Middlewood, he has felt it every day—that short-lived lull, then the sharp nudge to the ribs that reminded you that you didn't belong.
从劳埃德学院到哈佛大学再到米德尔伍德学院，他每天都能感受到这种感觉：短暂的平静，然后是肋骨上的轻推，提醒你自己不属于这里。
It seemed a false comfort to him, like a zoo animal crouched in its cage, ignoring the gawking eyes, pretending it is still running wild.
对他来说，这似乎是一种虚假的安慰，就像一只动物园里的动物蜷缩在笼子里，无视那呆滞的眼睛，假装仍在疯狂奔跑。
Now, a month after Lydia's funeral, he treasures those moments of forgetting.
现在，莉迪亚的葬礼已经过去一个月了，他珍惜那些遗忘的时刻。
Others might have found refuge in a pint of whiskey, or a bottle of vodka, or a six-pack of beer.
其他人可能会在一品脱威士忌、一瓶伏特加或半打啤酒中寻求慰藉。
James, though, has never liked the taste of alcohol, and he finds it does not dull his mind;
然而，詹姆斯从来就不喜欢酒的味道，他发现酒并没有使他头脑迟钝；
it only turns him a dark beet-red, as if he has endured some terrible battering, while his mind races all the faster.
这只会使他变成深红色的甜菜色，就好像他已经忍受了一些可怕的打击，而他的大脑却在加速运转。
He takes long drives, crisscrossing Middlewood, following the highway almost to Cleveland before turning back.
他开了很长时间的车，在米德尔伍德来回穿梭，沿着高速公路几乎到了克利夫兰，然后又折回。
He takes sleeping pills from the drugstore, and even in his dreams, Lydia is dead.
他从药店买了安眠药，甚至在梦里莉迪亚也死了。
Again and again, he finds only one place where he can stop thinking: Louisa's bed.
一次又一次，他发现只有一个地方他可以停止思考：路易莎的床。
He tells Marilyn that he's going in to class, or to meet with students; on weekends, he says he has papers to grade.
他告诉玛丽琳他要去上课，或者去见学生；在周末，他说他有论文要批改。
These are lies. The dean had canceled his summer class the week after Lydia's death.
这些都是谎言。莉迪亚死后一周，院长就取消了他的暑期班。
"Take some time for yourself, James," he had said, touching James gently on the shoulder.
“给自己留点时间吧，詹姆斯，”他说着，轻拍了拍詹姆斯的肩膀。
He did this with everyone he needed to soothe: students enraged over low grades, faculty slighted by the grants they did not receive.
他这样做是为了安抚每一个他需要安抚的人：对低分感到愤怒的学生，因没有拿到拨款而受到轻视的教师。
His job was to make losses feel smaller. But the students never turned their C-minuses into Bs; new funding never materialized.
他的工作就是让损失最小化。但学生们从未把C-变成B；新的资金从未落实。
You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.
你永远得不到你想要的；你只是学会了在没有的情况下生活。
And the last thing James wants is time for himself—being at home is unbearable.
而詹姆斯最不想要的就是自己的时间——呆在家里是无法忍受的。
At every moment, he expects Lydia to appear in the doorway, or to hear the squeak of her floorboards overhead.
他每时每刻都盼望着莉迪亚出现在门口，或者听见头顶上她地板的吱嘎声。
One morning, he heard footsteps in her room, and before he could stop himself, he ran upstairs, breathless, only to find Marilyn pacing before Lydia's desk, opening and closing her desk drawers.
一天早晨，他听见她房间里有脚步声，他还没来得及站住，就上气不接下气地跑上楼，却发现玛丽琳在莉迪亚的办公桌前踱来踱去，打开又关上她的抽屉。
Get out, he wanted to shout, as if this were a sacred space. Now, every morning, he picks up his briefcase, as if he is going to teach, and drives in to the college.
他想大叫“滚出去”，好像这是一个神圣的地方。现在，每天早上，他拿起公文包，好像他要去教书，然后开车去大学。
Even in his office, he finds himself mesmerized by the family photo on his desk, where Lydia—barely fifteen, then—peers out, ready to leap through the frame's glass and leave everyone behind.
甚至在办公室里，他发现自己被桌上的全家福照片迷住了，莉迪亚刚满15岁，她向外张望着，准备从镜框的玻璃里跳出去，把所有人都抛在后面。
By afternoon, he finds himself at Louisa's apartment, plunging into her arms, then between her legs, where, blessedly, his mind shuts off.
到了下午，他发现自己来到了路易莎的公寓，一头扑进她的怀里，然后又扑进她的两腿之间。
But after leaving Louisa's, he remembers again, and he is always angrier than before.
但离开路易莎家后，他又记起来了，而且总是比以前更生气。
On the way back to his car one evening, he seizes a stray bottle from the street and hurls it into the side of Louisa's building.
一天晚上，在去往停车处的路上，他从街上捡到一个漂流瓶，把它扔到路易莎的公寓边上。
Other nights, he fights the temptation to steer into a tree. Nath and Hannah try to stay out of his way, and he and Marilyn have barely exchanged a word in weeks.
其他晚上，他会抵抗着撞树的诱惑。纳和汉娜尽量避开他，而他和玛丽琳几个星期几乎没说一句话。
As the Fourth of July approaches, James passes the lake and finds that someone has festooned the dock with bunting and red and white balloons.
7月4日临近，詹姆斯经过湖边，发现有人在码头上挂满了彩旗和红白相间的气球。
He swerves to the side of the road and rips it all down, bursting each balloon under his heel.
他突然转向路边，把所有东西都扯了下来，踩在脚下的气球都爆了。
When everything has sunk beneath the surface of the water, and the dock lies solemn and barren, he heads home, still shaking.
一切沉入水面，码头庄严而荒芜，他回到家，仍然在发抖。
The sight of Nath rummaging in the refrigerator sets him ablaze again. "You're wasting power," James says.
看到纳在冰箱里乱翻，他又火了起来。“你在浪费力气，”詹姆斯说。
Nath shuts the door, and his quiet obedience only makes James angrier. "Do you always have to be in the way?"
纳关上了门，他的顺从只会让詹姆斯更生气。“你总是要碍事吗?”
"Sorry," Nath says. He cups a hard-boiled egg in one hand, a paper napkin in the other. "I didn't expect you."
“对不起，”纳说。他一只手拿着煮熟的鸡蛋，另一只手拿着餐巾。“我没料到你会过来。”
Out of the car, with its lingering air of exhaust and engine grease, James realizes he can smell Louisa's perfume on his skin, musky and spicy-sweet.
出了车，空气中弥漫着废气和引擎润滑油，詹姆斯意识到他可以闻到露易莎的香水在他皮肤上的味道，麝香和香料的甜味。
He wonders if Nath can, too. "What do you mean, you didn't expect me?" he says. "Don't I have a right to come into my own kitchen after a hard day of work?"
他想知道纳是否也能做到。“你什么意思，你没料到我会过来？”他说。“难道我没有权利在辛苦工作一天后回到我自己的厨房吗？”
