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Then, on her way upstairs, she passed the hall table, where her father had set the mail just before supper, and one envelope caught her eye: a Harvard seal in the corner, and beneath that, Admissions Office. She slit it open with her finger.
她经过前厅的桌子，晚饭前，她父亲刚把信件拿进来放在上面，一只信封吸引了她的注意：它的角上印着哈佛大学的校徽，校徽下面是“招生办”字样。她用手指划开信封。
Dear Mr. Lee, she read. We look forward to you joining us on campus April 29–May 2 and have matched you with a host student for your visit.
亲爱的李先生，她读道，我们期待你于4月29日到5月2日访问我校，我们已为你安排好一位学生予以接待。
She knew it had been coming, but it had not seemed real until now. The day after her birthday. Without thinking, she ripped the letter and envelope in two. And at that moment, Nath came out of the kitchen.
虽然她知道这一天迟早要来，但白纸黑字带来的冲击异常真实。那是她生日的后一天。她不假思索地把信和信封撕成两半，就在这时，纳走出厨房。
"Thought I heard you out here," he said. "Can I borrow—" He spotted the red crest on the torn envelope, the letter in pieces in Lydia's hand, and froze.
“我听见你在这里，”他说，“我能借……”看到莉迪亚手中破信封上的红色校徽和被撕碎的信，纳呆住了。
Lydia flushed. "It's nothing important. I didn't—" But she had crossed a line, and both of them knew it.
莉迪亚脸色通红。“没什么重要的，我没……”但她越过了底线，他们两个都清楚。
"Gimme that." Nath snatched the letter. "This is mine. Jesus. What are you doing?" "I just—" Lydia could not think of a way to finish.
“给我。”纳抢过了信，“这是我的，天哪。你在干什么？”“我只是……”莉迪亚不知道该怎么解释。
Nath pieced the ragged edges together, as if he could make the letter whole again. "This is about my visit. What the hell were you thinking? That if I didn't get this, I couldn't go?"
纳小心地把碎片拼到一起，好像这样就能让信恢复原样似的。“这是关于我的参观的，你到底是怎么想的？要是我看不到它，就不能去吗？”
Put so starkly, it sounded foolish and pathetic, and tears began to form in the corners of Lydia's eyes, but Nath did not care. It was as if Lydia had been stealing from him.
他说得非常直白，听起来既愚蠢又可悲，眼泪涌出莉迪亚的眼角，但纳不在乎，他觉得莉迪亚偷了他的东西，
"Get it through your head: I'm going. I'm going that weekend. And I'm going in September." He bolted for the stairs. "Jesus Christ. I can't get out of this house fast enough."
“你得想明白，我要走了。那个周末我会走，九月份更要走。”他跑上楼梯，“天哪，我恨不得快点离开这个家。”
In a moment, his door slammed overhead, and although Lydia knew he wouldn't open it—nor did she know what she would say if he did—this did not stop her from knocking, again and again and again.
过了一会儿，他的房门“砰”的一声被甩上了。莉迪亚虽然知道他不会再开门——她也不知道他开了门她又能说什么——她还是过去敲门，一遍一遍又一遍。
The next afternoon, in Jack's car, she stalled the engine over and over until Jack said they'd better call it a day.
第二天下午，在杰克的车上，她搞得发动机频繁熄火，最后，杰克不得不建议结束当天的练习。
"I know what to do," Lydia said. "I just can't do it." Her hand had cramped into a claw around the gearshift and she pried it away. Partners, she reminded herself. The gas and the clutch were partners. It struck her now: that wasn't true. If one went up, the other had to go down.
“我知道该怎么做，”莉迪亚说，“我只是做不到。”她紧抓变速杆，把它拨到一边。“好伙伴”，她提醒自己，油门和离合器是好伙伴。突然，她发现，这不是真的，如果一个上去，另一个就得下来，那算什么好伙伴。
That was how everything went. Her grade in physics had gone up to a C-minus but her grade in history had slipped to a D. Tomorrow her English essay was due—two thousand words on Faulkner—but she could not even find her book.
然而，世界上的事情都是这样的，她的物理成绩提升到C-，但历史成绩就得下降到D。明天又要交英语论文——两千字，论福克纳——但她连福克纳的书都找不着了。
Maybe there was no such thing as partners, she thought. From all her studying, this flashed through her mind: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
也许世上根本没有所谓的好伙伴，她想。她曾经学过的一条知识划过脑海：“对于每一个作用力，都有一个大小相等、方向相反的反作用力。”
One went up and the other went down. One gained, the other lost. One escaped, the other was trapped, forever.
一个向上，另一个向下。一个得到，另一个失去。一个逃离，另一个受困，永远受困。
The thought haunted her for days. Although Nath—cooled down now from the incident of the letter—was speaking to her again, she could not bear to mention it, even to apologize.
这些想法侵扰了她好几天。虽然纳——他已经从撕信事件中冷静下来——又和她说话了，但她还是不愿面对他要走的事实，甚至连向他道歉都不肯。
Each night after dinner, despite her mother's most pointed nagging, she stayed in her room alone instead of tiptoeing down the hall in search of sympathy. The night before her birthday, James rapped at her door.
尽管每天晚饭时还要继续听母亲唠叨，但她一离开饭桌就会躲进自己房间，而不是偷偷走进客厅寻找安慰。她生日的前一天晚上，詹姆斯过来敲门。
"You've seemed down the past couple of weeks," he said. He held out a little blue velvet box the size of a deck of cards. "I thought an early present might cheer you up."
“最近几周你看上去心情不好，”他说，然后拿出一只蓝色的丝绒小盒，盒面像扑克牌那么大，“我想，提前把礼物送给你可能会让你开心。”
