《渺小一生》:“不，我完全懂你的意思?！?/h1>

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2020年04月21日

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　 Over the remainder of the meal, Rhodes makes attempts to corral his guests into a group conversation, but it doesn’t work—the table is too wide, and he has unwisely seated friends near each other—and so he ends up talking to Caleb. He is forty-nine, and grew up in Marin County, and hasn’t lived in New York since he was in his thirties. He too went to law school, although, he says, he’s never used a day of what he learned at work.

接下來的晚餐，羅茲努力讓全桌客人打成一片，結果沒成功——桌子太大了，而且他很不明智地安排原先彼此熟識的朋友坐在一起——于是他一直和凱萊布聊天。他49歲，在北加州馬林郡長大，三十多歲搬離紐約后一直在別處定居。他也讀過法學院，不過他說，以前學的那些，在工作上一天都沒有派上過用場。

　 “Never?” he asks. He is always skeptical when people say that; he is skeptical of people who claim law school was a colossal waste, a three-year mistake. Although he also recognizes that he is unusually sentimental about law school, which gave him not only his livelihood but, in many ways, his life.

“從來沒有？”他問。每次聽到有人這么說，他都很懷疑，對于那些宣稱讀法學院是巨大的浪費、是三年錯誤的說法，他總是心存懷疑。不過他也知道自己一直對法學院感情很深，因為法學院不只給了他謀生的本領，從很多方面來說，也給了他人生。

　 Caleb thinks. “Well, maybe not never, but not in the way you’d expect,” he finally says. He has a deep, careful, slow voice, at once soothing and, somehow, slightly menacing. “The thing that actually has ended up being useful is, of all things, civil procedure. Do you know anyone who’s a designer?”

凱萊布想了一下，“好吧，或許不是從來沒有，不過不是一般預期的那樣?！彼K于說。他有一種深沉、小心、緩慢的嗓音，帶著撫慰的同時，不知怎的又有點令人害怕?！胺▽W院所學的東西里頭，真正派上用場的其實是民事訴訟法。你認識的人里頭有設計師嗎？”

　 “No,” he says. “But I have a lot of friends who’re artists.”

“沒有?！彼f，“不過我有很多藝術家朋友。”

　 “Well, then. You know how differently they think—the better the artist, the higher the probability that they’ll be completely unsuited for business. And they really are. I’ve worked at five houses in the past twenty-odd years, and what’s fascinating is witnessing the patterns of behavior—the refusal to hew to deadlines, the inability to stay within budget, the near incompetence when it comes to managing a staff—that are so consistent you begin to wonder if lacking these qualities is something that’s a prerequisite to having the job, or whether the job itself encourages these sorts of conceptual gaps. So what you have to do, in my position, is construct a system of governance within the company, and then make sure it’s enforceable and punishable. I’m not quite sure how to explain it: you can’t tell them that it’s good business to do one thing or another—that means nothing to them, or at least to some of them, as much as they say they understand it—you have to instead present it as the bylaws of their own small universe, and convince them that if they don’t follow these rules, their universe will collapse. As long as you can persuade them of this, you can get them to do what you need. It’s completely maddening.”

“唔，那么你就了解他們的想法有多么不同——越好的藝術家，就越有可能完全不適合做生意，真的是完全不行。我過去二十年在五家不同的時裝公司待過，親身見證了那種行為模式——拒絕遵守工作期限，無力控制預算，簡直完全沒辦法管理員工——實在太一致了，搞得你開始懷疑，或許當設計師的先決條件就是缺乏這類特質，或者設計師這份工作本身鼓勵他們有這樣的概念缺失。所以在我的立場上，我要做的，就是在公司內(nèi)部建立一套管理制度，然后確保這套制度可以執(zhí)行、可以處罰。我不太確定該怎么解釋：你不能告訴他們這樣做或那樣做對生意有用——那對他們毫無意義，至少對其中某些人來說是這樣，盡管他們總是說他們明白——你必須告訴他們，這套制度就是他們那個小小宇宙的運作法則，而且要讓他們相信如果不遵守這些規(guī)定，他們的宇宙就會崩潰。只要可以說服他們這點，你就可以讓他們照你需要的做。這真是可以把人搞瘋?！?

　 “So why do you keep working with them?”

“那你為什么還一直跟他們合作？”

　 “Because—they do think so differently. It’s fascinating to watch. Some of them are essentially subliterate: you get notes from them and they can really barely construct a sentence. But then you watch them sketching, or draping, or just putting colors together, and it’s … I don’t know. It’s wondrous. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

“因為他們的思考的確非常不一樣。看起來太迷人了。有些人基本上接近文盲：看他們寫的字條，連湊出一個完整句子都有困難。但接著你看到他們畫的草圖，給衣服打褶，或只是配顏色，那真是……不知道，太美好了。我實在沒辦法用別的方式形容?！?

　 “No—I know exactly what you mean,” he says, thinking of Richard, and JB, and Malcolm, and Willem. “It’s as if you’re being allowed entrée into a way of thinking you don’t even have language to imagine, much less articulate.”

“不，我完全懂你的意思。”他說，想到了理查德、杰比、馬爾科姆，還有威廉，“那就像是你被允許窺探另一種思考方式，你根本沒有辦法想象，更別說要清楚表達了。”

　 “That’s exactly right,” Caleb says, and smiles at him for the first time.

“一點也沒錯。”凱萊布說，頭一次對他露出微笑。

　 The dinner winds down, and as everyone’s drinking coffee, Caleb disentangles his legs from under the table. “I’m going to head off,” he says. “I think I’m still on London time. But it was a pleasure meeting you.”

晚餐接近尾聲，每個人都在喝咖啡時，凱萊布將雙腳從桌下移出來?！拔业米吡恕！彼f，“我想我還處在倫敦時間。很高興認識你。”

　 “You, too,” he says. “I really enjoyed it. And good luck establishing a system of civil governance within Rothko.”

“我也是，”他說，“我聊得很高興。祝你幸運，希望你在羅思科順利建立一套管理方式。”

　 “Thanks, I’ll need it,” says Caleb, and then, as he’s about to stand, he stops and says, “Would you like to have dinner sometime?”

“謝了，我會需要這樣的運氣?！眲P萊布說，正要起身時，又停下來說，“下回有空的話，要不要一起吃個晚飯？”

　 For a moment, he is paralyzed. But then he rebukes himself: he has nothing to fear. Caleb has just moved back to the city—he knows how difficult it must be to find someone to talk to, how difficult it is to find friends when, in your absence, all your friends have started families and are strangers to you. It is talking, nothing more. “That’d be great,” he says, and he and Caleb exchange cards.

一時之間，他嚇呆了。但接著他在心里罵自己：他沒什么好怕的。凱萊布才剛搬回紐約——他知道要找個可以聊天的人有多么困難，要找個朋友有多么困難，因為你不在的這些年，所有的朋友都成家了，也陌生了許多。只是聊聊天而已，沒什么。“那就太好了。”他說，和凱萊布交換了名片。

　 “Don’t get up,” Caleb says, as he starts to rise. “I’ll be in touch.” He watches as Caleb—who is taller than he had thought, at least two inches taller than he is, with a powerful-looking back—rumbles his goodbyes to Alex and Rhodes and then leaves without turning around.

“不必起來?！眲P萊布一看他要起身，就忙著說，“我再跟你聯(lián)絡?！彼粗鴦P萊布（他比他原先以為的高，至少比他高兩英寸）對亞歷克絲和羅茲說再見，然后沒再回頭就離開了。

　 He gets a message from Caleb the following day, and they schedule a dinner for Thursday. Late in the afternoon, he calls Rhodes to thank him for dinner, and ask him about Caleb.

次日他接到凱萊布的短信，他們約了周四吃晚餐。那天傍晚，他打電話謝謝羅茲的晚餐，順便跟他打聽凱萊布。

　 “I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t even speak to him,” Rhodes says. “Alex invited him very last minute. This is exactly what I’m talking about with these dinner parties: Why is she inviting someone who’s taking over at a company she’s just leaving?”

“說來尷尬，我根本沒跟他講過話?！绷_茲說，“亞歷克絲是在最后一刻邀請他的。這就是我對這些晚餐派對有意見的地方：她為什么要邀請一個她剛離開的公司里剛來的新執(zhí)行長呢？”

　 “So you don’t know anything about him?”

“所以你也不了解他的事情？”

　 “Nothing. Alex says he’s well-respected and that Rothko fought hard to bring him back from London. But that’s all I know. Why?” He can almost hear Rhodes smiling. “Don’t tell me you’re expanding your client base from the glamorous world of securities and pharma?”

“沒錯。亞歷克絲說他在那一行很受敬重，羅思科花了一番力氣才把他從倫敦挖過來。不過我只知道這些。你為什么要打聽他？”他幾乎聽得出羅茲的笑意，“可別告訴我你要拓展客戶，從證券業(yè)和制藥業(yè)的迷人世界跨出來了？”

　 “That’s exactly what I’m doing, Rhodes,” he says. “Thanks again. And tell Alex thanks as well.”

“我就是這么打算的，羅茲?！彼f，“謝了，另外也幫我跟亞歷克絲說聲謝謝。”

　 Thursday arrives, and he meets Caleb at an izakaya in west Chelsea. After they’ve ordered, Caleb says, “You know, I was looking at you all through that dinner and trying to remember where I knew you from, and then I realized—it was a painting by Jean-Baptiste Marion. The creative director at my last company owned it—actually, he tried to make the company pay for it, but that’s a different story. It’s a really tight image of your face, and you’re standing outside; you can see a streetlight behind you.”

星期四到了，他和凱萊布約在西切爾西的一家日式居酒屋。點菜之后，凱萊布說：“你知道，上星期晚餐時，我看著你，一直在想我在哪里見過你，然后我想到了——是一幅讓·巴蒂斯特·馬里昂的畫。我上一個公司的創(chuàng)意總監(jiān)有那幅畫——其實呢，他想讓公司付那幅畫的錢，不過那是另一個故事了。畫里是你的臉，你站在戶外，而你后方有一盞路燈?！?