Li, Yiyun. The Book of Goose. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022).
America and fame: they are equally useful if you want freedom from your mother.
美国和名气：如果你想摆脱你的母亲、获得自由，这两者均有用。
The secrets inside me have not left much space for a fetus to grow.
我内心的秘密让可供胎儿成长的空间所剩无几。
If dead people had no choice but to become ghosts, Fabienne’s ghost would only scoff at the usual tricks that other ghosts take pride in. Her ghost would do something entirely different.
如果死去的人别无选择，仅可变成鬼魂，法比耶娜的鬼魂只会嘲笑这些其他鬼魂引以为傲的寻常把戏。她的鬼魂会做出一些截然不同的事。
Well-proportioned children are a rare happenstance. War guarantees disproportion, but during peacetime other things go wrong. I have not met a child who is not lopsided in some way. And when children grow up, they become lopsided adults.
身心均衡的儿童是难得的。由于战争，失衡成为必然，可在和平时期，其他方面出现问题。我没见过一个一切正常、没有偏差的小孩。而当小孩长大后，他们变成畸形的大人。
We were almost one person. I do not imagine that the half of an orange facing south would have to tell the other half how warm the sunlight is.
我们简直等于一个人。我猜，朝南的半个橙子无须告诉另外一半阳光有多暖和。
Most adults struck us as peripheral, some more annoying than others. But we liked the ceremony, the grave of a recently dead woman strewn with the more recently dead flowers.
大多数成年人在我们眼里无关大局，有些比其他更讨厌，但我们喜欢这仪式，把才刚死去的花铺在一位刚死去不久的妇人的坟上。
How do I measure Fabienne’s presence in my life—by the years we were together, or by the years we have been apart, her shadow elongating as time goes by, always touching me?
我怎么计量法比耶娜在我人生中的存在——用我们在一起的岁月，或用我们分开的岁月？在分开的岁月里，她的影子随时光的流逝而拉长，始终触及我。
Fabienne believed that we must always test the limits of our bodies. Not drinking until thirst scratched our throats like sand. Not eating until our heads were lightened by hunger.
法比耶娜认为，我们应该时时测试我们身体的极限。渴到喉咙像被沙子擦痛时才喝水。饿得头晕眼花才吃东西。
Time corrupts. And we pay a price for everything corruptible: food, roof beams, souls.
时间使东西变质。我们为一切易变质的东西付出代价：食物、顶梁、灵魂。
“Sad people don’t often know that they are sad and bored.”
“悲伤的人常常不知道他们既悲伤又空虚无聊。”
I did not speak with my parents unless I had to. I did all my chores without their bidding because I hated to give them an opportunity to disturb the blanket of quiet mystery I carried around myself at home. I was not a child who could bring comfort to anyone, and I had no such desire.
除非迫不得已，我不跟我的父母讲话。无需他们吩咐，我主动做所有我分内的家务，因为我不想让他们有机会搅乱我在家时给自己披上的沉默、神秘的外衣。我不是一个能让谁获得慰藉的孩子，我也不渴望成为这样的孩子。
When she—no, the woman she was speaking for—asked god why he had sent her baby to the earth only for him to die, I stopped writing. “That’s a funny question the woman is asking,” I said.
“What’s so funny?”
“All people are sent to the earth to die,” I said. “God even sent his own son to the earth to die.”
当她——不，是那个借她之口在讲话的女子——问上帝为什么把她的宝宝送到人间却不让他活下去时，我停下笔。“这女人问的问题未免可笑。”我说。
“哪里如此可笑？”
“每个被送到世间来的人都是来送死的，“我说，“上帝甚至把他自己的儿子送到人间来送死。”
What’s the difference between knowing a story and writing it out? But the questions I should have asked, which I did not know how when we were younger, were: Isn’t it enough just to know a story? Why take the time to write it out?
I now have the answer, for her and for myself. The world has no use for who we are and what we know. A story has to be written out. How else do we get our revenge?
知道一个故事和把它写下来有什么区别？我该问的其实不是这个……而是：光知道一个故事不够吗？为何要花时间把它写下来？
现在我有了答案，既是给她也是给我自己的。世人不把我们是谁、我们知道什么当一回事。一个故事必须写下来。否则我们怎么替自己报仇雪耻？
It was not that I had any moral issue with lying, but lying to someone would only make that person important to me.
不是因为我觉得撒谎有违道德，而是因为对某人撒谎，只会使那人在我心目中的地位变得重要。
Perhaps that was my intuition, acting sensibly and disarmingly baffled, as though the world were a mystery beyond my capacity, which I had accepted without protest, along with the fact that I, too, was part of that mystery, defying my own understanding.
直觉体现在那方面，装傻时装得合情合理，教人消除疑窦，仿佛这世界是一个超出我理解能力的谜，我心甘情愿地接受，连同接受事实上我也是那个谜的一部分，拒绝让自己搞懂自己。
We forgive many people for what they cannot do for us, but not our mothers; we protect our mothers more than we protect others, too. Sometimes I think it may be just as well that I cannot have my own children: I can count more things I would not be able to do for them than what I could; and I would rather march through life without the futile protection from my children. People often forget that it is always a gamble to be a mother; I am not a gambler.
我们原谅许多人，原谅他们不能为我们做的事，但我们不原谅我们的母亲；我们也保护我们的母亲胜过我们保护其他人。有时，我觉得我不能有我自己的孩子反倒是件好事：我能数出我无法为他们做的事多于我可以做的；我宁愿潇洒地走完人生，不要我的孩子来徒劳地保护我。人们时常忘记，当母亲永远是一场赌博；我不是赌徒。
People close to you at one moment may disappear the next moment, but the sky is always there, whether you have a roof over your head or not.
这一刻与你亲近的人，下一刻也许消失不见，但天空始终在那儿，不管你的头顶有没有一片遮风挡雨的屋檐都一样。
Two people who are constantly seeking experience rarely settle for each other.
Two people enduring experience rarely meet in life.
That’s why Fabienne and I were meant for each other. We were the perfect pair, one seeking all that the other could experience.
两个不断追求生活经历的人很难迁就彼此。
两个背负着经历的人很难在生活中相遇。
正因为如此，法比耶娜和我是天作之合。我们是完美的一对，一方追求另一方可能经历的所有事。
Happiness, I would tell her, is to spend every day without craning one’s neck to look forward to tomorrow, next month, next year, and without holding out one’s hands to stop every day from becoming yesterday.
快乐，我会告诉她，是度过每一天时不用引颈盼着明天、次月、来年，不用伸出手阻止每一天变成昨日。
Life is most difficult for those who know what they want and also know what makes it impossible for them to get what they want. Life is still difficult, but less so, for those who know what they want but have not realized that they will never get it. It is the least difficult for people who do not know what they want.
活得最不易的人知道他们想要什么，也知道是什么阻挠他们得到他们想要的东西。同样活得不易但并非最不易的，是知道他们想要什么却还未意识到他们将永远无法如愿的人。对不知道自己想要什么的人来说，生活一点不难。
Often I imagine that living is a game of rock-paper-scissors: fate beats hope, hope beats ignorance, and ignorance beats fate. Or, in a version that has preoccupied me: the fatalistic attracts the hopeful, the hopeful attracts the ignorant, and the ignorant, the fatalistic.
我时常把活着想象成一个石头剪子布的游戏：命运击败希望，希望击败无知，无知击败命运。或者换一个让我念念不忘的版本：听天由命的人吸引满怀希望的人，满怀希望的人吸引蒙昧无知的人，蒙昧无知的人吸引听天由命的人。
It baffles me that often songs and poems are written about love at first sight: those who claim to experience the phenomena have preened themselves, ready for love. There is nothing extraordinary about that. Childhood friendship, much more fatal, simply happens.
我不懂歌曲和诗为何常常描写一见钟情的爱：那些声称体验过这奇迹的人，事先精心打扮自己，为迎接爱做好准备。那样的一见钟情没什么大不了了。儿时的友谊含有更多命中注定的成分，说来就来。
“Is there an hour that is neither day nor night?” she said. “No. So you see, you and I together, we cover all the time, we have everything between us.”
“有没有一个时间点，既不属于白天也不属于黑夜？”她说，“没有。所以你瞧，你和我合在一起，我们涵盖全部的时间，我们相依为伴等于拥有一切。”
I felt like the country rat in the La Fontaine fable we had read at school. How immense the world is, the rat exclaims when he sets out for an adventure, congratulating himself that he is no longer a country rat but a creature of sophistication. And when he sees an oyster on the beach, he tells himself that a worldly eater will enjoy an oyster, so he sticks his head between the open shells. Like the rat, I was caught. I was doomed.
我觉得自己好像我们上学时读的《拉封丹寓言》里那只乡下的老鼠。这世界多么辽阔，当那只老鼠出发要去探险时，它高喊，庆贺自己不再是一只乡下的老鼠，而是一个精明老练的家伙。它看到沙滩上有一只牡蛎，它对自己说，见过世面的食客会懂得品尝牡蛎，于是它把头伸进打开的壳里。和那只老鼠一样，我被夹住。我完蛋了。
(By half—that expression, which I had learned from listening to the girls, has become one of my favorite phrases. By half, by half of that half—even now, I like to repeat it to myself when I am in a dividing mood. Halve life’s pain, and we are not pain-free. Halve life’s joy, there is still joy enough to be halved. Truly life can be a funny business, too prodigal by half, also too stingy by half. I have a habit of speaking to my geese as though to myself: You’re too silly by half. You’re too proud by half.)
（加倍——我通过谛听那些女生讲话，学来了上述表达，现已成为我最爱的短语之一。加倍、再加倍——即使到今天，我仍喜欢在处于做算术的心情时对自己重复这个短语。把人生的快乐加倍，不会抵消我们的痛苦。把快乐减半，依然还有足可减半的快乐。的确，人生有时是一场恶作剧，加倍挥霍又加倍吝啬。我有个习惯，和我的鹅讲话像在跟我自己讲话似的：你们加倍可笑。你们加倍自豪。）
I arranged my nightdress with the scalloped hem on the bed, spreading it out to mark the shape of my body and folding the two sleeves in front of the chest like an angel’s. It was so soft and so pretty, but I knew that if I made an exception for it, soon I would make exceptions for the rest. No, I would not take anything from the school but only what truly belonged to me.
我把我带荷叶边的睡袍放到床上摊开，铺成我身体的样子，然后将两个衣袖折叠于胸前，摆出类似天使的姿势。那睡袍如此柔软、如此美丽，但我知道，倘若我破例把它装进行李，很快我会破例把剩下的全装走。不，我不会从学校拿走一点东西，我将只拿真正属于我的。
Of all the people in the world, how many of them, looking into their own conscience, can say with unwavering certainty that they have never betrayed someone in their lives—ten, five, none? If so, why do we often make a fuss about betrayal? So many movies and books, so many broken marriages and torn friendships. The knives we stick into one another’s backs—perhaps those knives have their own wills. They take a grand tour, finding a hand here and a back there. We cannot blame the hands, just as we cannot sympathize with the backs. They are equally recruited for the knives’ entertainment. The world is never short of knives.
全世界的人里，有多少人扪心自问，能够斩钉截铁地说他们这辈子从未背叛过谁——十个、五个、一个也没有？倘若如此，我们为什么经常对背叛小题大做？这么多电影和书，这么多破碎的婚姻和决裂的友谊。我们互相在背后捅刀子——也许这些刀子有它们自己的意志。它们巡游四方，在各地觅得一只手、一个背。我们无法责备那些手，诚如我们无法同情那些背。它们是同样被招募来供那些刀子取乐的。这个世界绝不缺少刀子。
The past few months felt like a trance. No one stays in a trance forever, true, but no one, shaken awake, lives on without feeling a void inside. A trance is a displacement. A trance is a wound.
过去几个月感觉像一场催眠。诚然，没有人永远停留在催眠状态里，但被摇醒后，没有人不会在继续生活下去时感到一种内心的空虚。催眠是一次脱位。催眠是一个伤口。
Fabienne pressed her hands hard on my ears. I stayed still, and then heard her shriek, not through the air, but through our bodies. Even with my ears muffled I knew the shriek was terrifying, more animal than human. If a child cried for help, someone would hear it, but no help would come for us now, because Fabienne was no more than an injured animal. Somewhere in a house a baby would be awakened from sleep and cry. A dog wandering in the alley would be running home, frightened, with its tail tucked in.
Fabienne shrieked once more, and then pulled her hands away from my ears. In a voice nearly inaudible, she said, “It’s going to be pain and pain and pain and pain from now on, don’t you see it, Agnès?”
法比耶娜把她的双手紧贴在我的耳朵上。我一动不动，接着我听见她的尖叫，不是通过空气而是通过我们的身体传来。即使我的耳朵被捂住，我也知道那叫声吓人，更像动物而不是人发出的。如果一个小孩大哭求助，有人会听见，但此刻没有人来救助我们，因为法比耶娜不过是一头受伤的动物。在某处的一间屋子里，有个睡着的婴儿会被惊醒，大哭。一条在巷子里游荡的狗会惊恐地夹着尾巴跑回家。
法比耶娜义尖叫了一声，然后松开捂着我耳朵的手。她用近乎不可闻的声音说：“从今往后将是痛、痛、痛、痛，你行不出来吗，阿涅丝?”
I now know that so much of our story began with Fabienne’s exultation and despair, both out of my reach. For as long as I could be the outlet of her exultation and her despair, life was bearable, even interesting, to her. I was the whetstone that sharpened her mind’s blade; I was the orange that she cut into effortlessly. All the same, I could not save us. It was not boredom that defeated us, it was not defeat that made us drift apart. Not every child is born with an untamable force within her. It is the world’s job to avert its eyes, writing that force off as childish tantrum, as immaturity. It is a child’s job to forbear that force until she, too, can write it off and sail into a safer adulthood. Fabienne had no words to describe her exultation and despair, and I had no way to grasp them, but she was not alone in her extremes. The lucky ones have waited out the storms. The really lucky ones who have learned a few tricks to tame the untamable—however momentarily—have made their names. I am not sophisticated enough to claim that I understand those geniuses, but I know what they have put in their symphonies and concertos, what they have put on their canvases or in their books, is what made Fabienne shriek in the cemetery. Through her hands I had heard her pain: there was something immense in her, bigger, sharper, more permanent, than the life we lived. She could neither find nor make a world to accommodate that immense being.
我现在明白，我们的故事在很大程度上始于法比耶娜的狂喜与绝望，两者我都达不到。只要我可以让她通过我来发泄她的狂喜和绝望，生活对她来说就可以忍受，甚至有意思。我是磨刀石，我把她刀子般的心磨得锋利；我是那颗她毫不费力切开的橙子。尽管如此，我照样救不了我们。击败我们的不是无聊，使我们分道扬镇的不是落败。不是每个小孩生来骨子里都有一股难以驯服的力晕。世人的职责是不要正视，把那股力最当作小孩子闹脾气，当作不成熟而勾销。儿童的职责是克制那股力量，直至能把它扼杀，昂首成为大人，让自己更加安全。法比耶娜找不到语言描述她的狂喜和绝望，我没有办法理解她的狂喜和绝望，但活在这极端中的人不只她一个。其中幸运的人等待风暴过去。真正幸运的人学会几招技巧，驯服这不可驯服的力量——无论多么昙花一现——扬名天下。我不够老练世故，无法声称我理解那些天才，但我知道，他们在交响乐和协奏曲里所表达的，他们在画布上或书里所呈现的，正是使法比耶娜在墓园发出尖叫的东西。隔着她的手，我听见她的痛：她的心中有个庞然大物，比我们实际的人生更大、更鲜明、更永恒。她既找不到也创造不出一片能容纳那庞然大物的天地。