7
False Notes
不和谐的音符
1. Long before we've had a chance to become truly familiar with our loved one, we may be filled with the curious sense that we know them already. It can seem as though we've met them somewhere before, in a previous life, perhaps, or in our dreams. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes accounts for this feeling of familiarity by claiming that the loved one was our long-lost 'other half to whose body our own had originally been joined. In the beginning, all human beings were hermaphrodites with double backs and flanks, four hands and four legs and two faces turned in opposite directions on the same head. These hermaphrodites were so powerful and their pride so overweening that Zeus was forced to cut them in two, into a male and female half ?and from that day, every man and woman has yearned nostalgically but confusedly to rejoin the part from which he or she was severed.早在有机会与心上人熟识之前，我们的心中也许充满了奇特的感觉：我们早已认识他们。彼此似乎曾邂逅于某时某地，也许在前世前生里，抑或是在梦行神游中。在柏拉图的《谈话录》中，阿里斯托芬尼斯把这熟悉的感觉解释为，心上人是我们失去很久的“另一半”，我们曾与其紧密相连。起初，人类都是雌雄同体，两背两胁，四只手，四条腿，一个脑袋上有两张脸，面对相反的方向。这些雌雄同体人威力强大、无比骄傲，以致宙斯不得不将他们一分为二，不半是男，不半是女——从那时起，每个男人和每个女人就一直在期盼与那本属于他们的另一半合二为一。
2. Chloe and I spent Christmas apart, but when we returned to London in the new year, we began spending all our time in each other's company. We led the typical romance of late-twentieth-century urban life, sandwiched between office hours and animated by such minor external events as walks in the park, strolls through bookshops, and meals in restaurants. We found agreement on so many different issues, we hated and loved so many of the same things, that, after only a short time, it seemed churlish to deny that, despite an absence of clear separation marks, we must once have been two parts of the same body.克洛艾没有和我共度圣诞，但是在新年返回伦敦后，只要有可能，我们就分分秒秒厮守在一起，多半躺在我们的床上，依偎在彼此的臂弯里。夹在工作之间（当等待令人难受时，电话就成了呼叫对方的操纵缆）的我们过着典型的二十世纪后期城市的浪漫生活。室外的活动，诸如公园里的漫步、书屋中的留连、餐馆内的美食，都令生活趣味盎然。最初几周，就如同重新发现了原先同体人的另一半，在那么多不同的问题上，我们都和谐一致，以致我们不得不认为，尽管没有明显的分割痕迹，我们曾经定然是一个整体的两个部分。
当哲学家设想乌托邦时，他们很少将之想象成一个集差别于一体的熔炉，而认为这些假想的社会更多的是建立在思想相似、性质类同、有共同的目标和预想的基础之上。
3. It was congruence that made life with Chloe so attractive. After unending irreconcilable differences in matters of the heart, I had at last found someone whose jokes I understood without the need of a dictionary, whose views seemed miraculously close to mine, whose loves and hates kept tandem with my own and with whom I repeatedly found myself saying, 'It's amazing, I was about to say/think/do/express the same thing...'正是这些一致使得与克洛艾共度人生充满吸引力。在性情方面没完没了、不可调和的差别之后，我终于发现了一个人，她的笑话我无须字典就能懂得；她的观点与我的神奇般的接近；她的爱与恨就是我的爱与恨。和她在一起，我屡次发现自己在说：“太巧了，我正要说/想/做/谈同样的一件事情……”
4. Theorists of love have tended to be rightly suspicious of fusion, their scepticism stemming from the sense that it is easier to impute similarity than investigate difference. We base our fall into love upon insufficient material, and supplement our ignorance with desire. But, these theorists point out, time will show us that the skin separating our bodies is not just a physical boundary, but is representative of a deeper, psychological watershed we would be foolish to try and cross.爱情的批评家怀疑个性的融合，怀疑人与人之间的差别能够完全消除，从而合二为一。这怀疑的根源在于一种感觉，即接受相似比承认差别容易（相似的方面不必要找出来）；在没有相反的证据时，我们总是找到自己知道的，而非不知道或恐惧的东西。我们相爱乃是因为缺少互相了解，而用渴望填补了无知。然而，就像批评家指出的那样，时间将会告诉我们，分开我们身体表皮的不仅是肉体的界痕，而且代表了更深层次的心理差异，想要超越则是愚蠢的行为。
5. Therefore, in the mature account of love, we should never fall at first glance. We should reserve our leap until we have completed a clear-eyed investigation of the depths and nature of the waters. Only after we have undertaken a thorough exchange of opinions on parenting, politics, art, science, and appropriate snacks for the kitchen should two people ever decide they are ready to love each other. In the mature account of love, it is only when we truly know our partners that love deserves the chance to grow. And yet in the perverse reality of love (love that is born precisely before we know) increased knowledge may be as much a hurdle as an inducement ?for it may bring Utopia into dangerous conflict with reality.因此，就成熟的爱情而言，人们不会在第一眼就跌入爱河。只有当弄清水的深浅，才会跳入其中；只有在互相交流了以往的经历后，交流了政治、艺术、科学的观点，以及晚餐的喜好之后，两人才能决定是否相亲相爱，这是一个在互相理解和肯定的基础之上的决定，而非想象中的共鸣和吸引。对成熟的爱情来说，只有真正地了解了对方，才会让爱有孳生的机会。真正的爱情（恰恰总是诞生在我们知道之前）与常情背道而驰，不断增加的了解，既可能是一种吸引力，又可能是一种障碍——因为它使乌托邦与现实发生危险的冲突。
6. I date the realization that, whatever enticing similarities we had identified between us, Chloe was perhaps not the person from whom Zeus's cruel stroke had severed me, to a moment somewhere in the middle of March when she introduced me to a new pair of her shoes. It was perhaps a pedantic matter over which to come to such a decision, but shoes are supreme symbols of aesthetic, and hence by extension psychological, compatibility. Certain areas and coverings of the body say more about a person than others: shoes suggest more than pullovers, thumbs more than elbows, underwear more than overcoats, ankles more than shoulders.记得是在三月中旬的一天，当克洛艾向我展示她新买的一双鞋时，我意识到，无论我们之间存在多少令人兴奋的相似点，克洛艾也许并不是宙斯残酷地从我身上分割开的那一半。作出这样的结论可能有些学究式的迂腐，但是鞋子是美学的重要象征，从广义心理学的角度说，也是差别存在的重要标志。我经常发现，身体的某些部位和某些穿着相对于另一些部位和穿着更能反映一个人：比如鞋子相对于套衫、拇指相对于肘弯、内衣相对于罩衫、脚踝相对于肩膀。
7. What was wrong with Chloe's shoes? Objectively speaking, nothing ?but when did one ever fall in love objectively? She had bought them one Saturday morning in a shop on the King's Road, ready for a party we had been invited to that evening. I understood the blend of high- and low-heeled shoe that the designer had tried to fuse, the platformed sole rising sharply up to a heel with the breadth of a flat shoe but the height of a stiletto. Then there was the high, faintly rococo collar, decorated with a bow and stars, and framed by a piece of chunky ribbon. The shoes were the apogee of fashion, they were well made, they were imaginative, and I detested them.克洛艾的鞋子有什么不对劲的地方？客观地说，没有（但是谁又会客观地去爱？）。鞋子是克洛艾在星期六的上午从国王大道的一家商店里买来，准备穿着去赴那天晚上的一个派对。我理解设计师尝试融和高跟鞋和平跟鞋子特点的意图：木屐式的坡形鞋底，跟部急剧升到一把匕首那么高，但宽度又宽似平底鞋子的鞋面。高高的后帮用一根装饰着蝴蝶结和星星的结实带子围拢，有点儿洛可可式的纤巧繁琐。这鞋子制作精巧，造型完美，属于当下流行的一种——然而也正是我讨厌的一种。
8.'I know you're going to love them,' said Chloe, unfurling the purple tissue paper in which they had come, 'I'm going to wear them every day. Then again, they're so amazing, maybe I should just wrap them back up, leave them in their box, and never use them.'
'That's an interesting idea.'
“难道你不喜欢？”满怀对刚买的鞋子的兴奋，克洛艾夸张地说，“我要每天都穿，你不觉得它们美极了吗？”
尽管我爱她，但那根可以将这鞋子变成我的爱物的魔棒却失去了魔力。
'I could have bought the shop. They've got such great things there. You should have seen the boots they had.'“我跟你说，我恨不得买下整个商店，那儿的东西都太好了，你应该见过他们那儿的靴子。”
My mouth went dry. I felt a strange throbbing movement at the back of my neck. I couldn't conceive how Chloe had lost her heart to a deeply compromised piece of footwear. My idea of who she was, my Aristophanic certainty of her identity, had never included this sort of enthusiasm. Hurt and disturbed by the unexpected turn in our relationship, I asked myself, 'How could a woman who walks into my life (in sensible flat black shoes favoured by schoolgirls and nuns) and claims to love and understand me be drawn to such shoes?' Yet outwardly, I simply enquired (in what I trusted to be a remarkably innocent tone), 'Did you keep the receipt?'在我看来，这不过是一双最不好看的鞋子，但是看到克洛艾（在这之前我和她几乎在所有的事情上意见一致）如此狂喜，我震惊了。我心目中的她，也就是阿里斯托芬尼斯所说的是我另一半的她，并不具有这种特别的热情。买鞋子时的克洛艾在想什么？我被这个问题困扰。我质问自己：“她怎么可能同时喜欢这双鞋子和我这样一个人？”
克洛艾对鞋子的选择给了我一个不幸的提示：她有自己的权利（超越融合的幻想），她的趣味并不总和我的保持一致。无论我们在一些方面是多么融洽，但这融洽不会无边无际。它提醒我们，因为在找到令人欣喜的共性时也要面临危险的分歧，所以了解一个人并不总像一般认为的那样，是产生共鸣的愉快的过程。注视着克洛艾的鞋子，我的心头掠过一个一闪即逝的愿望：不要知道她的某些方面，以免它们与我想象中的美丽形象——几乎从第一眼看见她就树立起来了——不能一致。
9.It promptly seemed easier to love Chloe without knowing her. In one of his prose poems, Baudelaire describes how a man spends a day walking around Paris with a woman he feels ready to fall in love with. They agree on so many things that by evening, he is convinced he has found a companion with whose soul his own may unite. Thirsty, they go to a glamorous new cafe on the corner of a boulevard, where the man notices the arrival of an impoverished, working-class family who have come to gaze through the plate-glass window of the cafe at the elegant guests, dazzling white walls, and gilded decor. The eyes of these poor on-lookers are full of wonder at the display of wealth and beauty inside, and their expression fills the narrator with pity and shame at his privileged position. He turns to look at his loved one in the hope of seeing his embarrassment and emotion reflected in her eyes. But the woman with whose soul his own was prepared to unite has a different agenda. She snaps that these wretches with their wide, gaping eyes are unbearable to her, she wonders what on earth they want and asks him to tell the owner to have them moved on straightaway. Does not every love story have these moments? A search for eyes that will reflect one's thoughts and that ends up with a (tragicomic) divergence - be it over the class struggle or a pair of shoes.波德莱尔写过一篇散文诗，说一个男子和他准备去爱的一个女子在巴黎逛了一天。因为彼此在诸多方面的意见都和谐一致，夜晚来临之际，他确信找到了一个可以与他灵魂结合的完美对象。这时他们渴了，于是走进大街拐角处新开的一家富丽堂皇的咖啡馆。坐在咖啡馆里，那介男子看见外面走来一家人，属于贫穷的工人阶层。他们透过咖啡厅的橱窗玻璃，盯着里面优雅的客人、耀眼的白色墙壁以及金质的装饰品。这此可怜的穷人对于里面的宝贵和美丽充满了惊奇，令这位男子很是同情，并为自己的特权地位感到羞愧。他回过头来看着心上人，希望从她的眼中看到自己的想法。但是他准备与之灵魂结合的那位女士却厉声说，她忍受不了这些眼睛睁得大大的穷鬼，要他告诉老板把他们立刻赶走。在每一个爱情故事中不是都有这样的时刻吗？寻找反映自己思想的眼睛，结果却（悲喜剧）完全相反——对于阶级斗争或一双鞋子也同样如此。
10. Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window ?a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.也许确实如此，我们最容易爱上的人，是那些除了从他们脸上看到的、言谈中听到的之外再很少吐露自己的人。在想象中，一个人可以是无比的温顺，无尽的值得爱恋。如果是要适宜地梦想，那么就没有什么比为自己书写的爱情故事更浪漫的了。一次漫长的火车旅行，凝望一个注视着窗外的魅力十足的人儿——一个完美的爱情故事，当特洛伊罗斯或克瑞西达回过头来看着车厢，和邻座开始无聊的谈话或令人恶心地用肮脏的手帕揩鼻涕时，便宣告结束了。
11. The dismay that greater acquaintance with the beloved can bring is comparable to composing a symphony in one's head and then hearing it played in a concert hall by a full orchestra. Though we are impressed to find so many of our ideas confirmed in performance, we cannot help but notice details that are not quite as we had intended them to be. Is one of the violinists not a little off key? Is the flute not a little late coming in? Is the percussion not a little loud? People we love at first sight are as free from conflicting tastes in shoes or literature as the unrehearsed symphony is free from off-key violins or late flutes. But as soon as the fantasy is played out, the angelic beings who floated through consciousness reveal themselves as material beings, laden with their own mental and physical history.伴着对心上人的更多了解随之而来的失望，如同起初谱写了一支完美的交响乐，而后又在音乐厅里倾听一个完整的交响乐队演奏这支曲子。尽管我们听到很多构想在演奏中实现了，但仍然注意到一些细微之处不如我们所愿。一位小提琴手是不是有些走调？笛子是不是有些滞后？打击乐声是不是有些过大？我们第一眼爱上的人就如自己谱写的交响乐那么完美。他们不存在对鞋子口味或文学偏好的冲突，就如未经排演的交响乐，不存在走调的小提琴和滞后的笛声一样。然而一旦狂想曲在音乐厅里演奏，那漂浮在我们意识之中的天使就会坠落到现实之中，暴露出他们自己也是物质化的人类，具有自己（常常是愚蠢的）精神和肉体的丰满历史——我们知道他们用哪种牙膏、怎样剪脚趾甲、喜欢听贝多芬不喜欢听巴赫、习惯用铅笔而不是钢笔。
12. Chloe's shoes were only one of a number of false notes that came to light in the early period of the relationship. Living day to day with her was like acclimatizing myself to a foreign country, and therefore feeling prey to occasional xenophobia at departures from my own traditions and expectations.克洛艾的鞋子只是在我们认识初期，从内心的幻想到外部的真实这过渡时期（如果能如此乐观地说）发现的不和谐的音符之一。和她日复一日地生活，我好像在让自己适应民国的生活，离开了本国的传统和历史，成为异国生活的牺牲品，偶尔会对外国的事物畏惧，而且憎恨。
这意味着地理和文化的错位，迫使我们度过了一个独自生活和共同生活两种暴露习惯的时期，例如，克洛艾偶尔有深夜去夜总会的热情，而我有看先锋电影的爱好，这都要面临与对方习以为常的夜间活动习惯划电影的喜好发生冲突的风险。
13. Threatening differences did not collect at the major points (nationality, gender, class, occupation), but rather at small junctures of taste and opinion. Why did Chloe insist on leaving the pasta to boil for a fatal extra few minutes? Why was I so attached to my current pair of glasses? Why did she have to do her gym exercises in the bedroom every morning? Why did I always need eight hours' sleep? Why did she not have more time for opera? Why did I not have more time for Joni Mitchell? Why did she hate seafood so much? How could one explain my resistance to flowers and gardening? Or hers to trips on water? How come she liked to keep her options open about God ('at least till the first cancer') But why was I so closed on the matter? 在主要问题上（国度、性别、阶级、职业），我们并没有什么可怕的差别，差别更多的是产生于品位和观点等细小的方面。为什么克洛艾要把通心粉多煮那要命的几分钟？为什么我非要坚持戴现在这副眼镜？为什么她每天早晨必须要在卧室里做健身操？为什么我每天都要有八小时的睡眠？为什么她不能多花一些时间听歌剧？为什么我不能多花一些时间看琼尼·米切尔？为什么她那么讨厌吃海鲜？谁又能解释我为什么不喜欢花和园艺，或她为什么反对水上旅行？她怎会事事相信上帝（至少在第一例癌症出现之前）？我又怎么会事事只注重事实？
14. Anthropologists tell us that the group always comes before the individual, that to understand the latter one must pass through the former, be it nation, tribe, clan, or family. Chloe had no great fondness for her family, but when her parents invited us to spend Sunday with them at their home near Marlborough, in a spirit of scientific enquiry I urged her to take up the offer.人类学家告诉我们，群体总是先于个体出现，必须通过前者，即国家、种族、世系，或是家庭，才能理解后者。克洛艾对她的家庭没有多少好感，但是当她父母邀请我们去他们在马尔博罗附近的家中共度周日时，我乞求她接受邀请。
“你会发现你讨厌那里，”她说，“不过如果你真的想去，那就去吧。你至少可以理解一下我一生都在努力摆脱的东西。”
尽管她希望独立，但目睹家庭氛围中的克洛艾有助于我理解她的某些方面，也有助于理解我们之间差别的根源。
15.Everything about Gnarled Oak Cottage was a sign that Chloe had been born in one world, one galaxy almost, and I another. The living room was decorated in faux-Chippendale furniture, the carpet was a stained reddish brown, dusty bookcases with volumes of Trollope and Stubbsesque paintings lined the walls, three salival dogs were running in and out between the living room and the garden, and corpulent cobwebbed plants sagged in every corner. Chloe's mother wore a thick purple pullover with holes in it, a flowery baggy skirt, and long grey hair scraped back without design. One half expected to find bits of straw on her, an aura of rural nonchalance reinforced by her repeated forgettings of my name (and her creative approach to finding me another). I thought of the difference between Chloe's mother and my own, the contrasting introductions to the world that these two women had performed. However much Chloe had run away from all of this, to the big city, to her own values and friends, the family still represented a genetic and historical tradition to which she was indebted. I noticed a crossover between the generations: the mother preparing potatoes in the same way as Chloe, crushing a little garlic into the butter and grinding sea salt over them, or sharing her daughter's enthusiasm for painting, or taste in Sunday papers. The father was a keen rambler, and Chloe loved walking too, often dragging me on weekends for a brisk tour of Hampstead Heath, proclaiming the benefits of fresh air in a way that her father had perhaps once done.格拉莱德橡树村的一切表明，克洛艾出生在一个世界（几乎是一个银河系），而我出生在另一个世界。起居室摆放着仿奇彭代尔式家具；红褐色的地毯已经褪色了；布满灰尘的书柜上是特罗洛普的小说；两边墙上挂着斯塔布斯式的画；三只滴着涎液的狗在起居室和花园之间跑来跑去；墙角长着一棵枝叶繁茂的植物。克洛艾的母亲穿着一件有不少破洞的紫色厚套衫，一条印着花的宽松裙子，长长的花白头发没有编扎，披在肩后，她的身上简直能找到根根稻草。一种乡村特有的冷淡随着她一遍遍地忘记我的名字（她富有想象力地把我当作另一个人）而显得更加强烈。我在心里比较着克洛艾的母亲和我母亲的不同，她们折射出迥然不同的两个世界。无论克洛艾怎样想脱离这一切，进入大城市，实现自己的价值，找到自己的朋友，她的家庭仍然代表着她拥有的一些遗传和历史传统。我注意到两代人之间有一些共同之处：母亲做土豆的方法与克洛艾一样，碾碎大蒜放进黄油洒上海盐与克洛艾也一样，母亲与女儿一样热衷于画画，看星期天报纸的相同内容。父亲喜欢闲逛，女儿同样喜欢。克洛艾经常在周末拉着我到汉普斯泰德-希斯转一圈，声言新鲜空气有益健康，也许她父亲曾经也这么说过。
16. It was all so strange and new. The house in which she had grown up evoked a whole past on which I had missed out, and which I would have to take on board in order to understand her. The meal was largely spent on a question-answer volley between Chloe and her parents on various aspects of family folklore: Had the insurance paid for Granny's hospital bills? Was the water tank mended? Had Carolyn heard from the estate agency yet? Was it true Lucy was going to study in the States? Had anyone read Aunt Sarah's novel? Was Henry really going to marry Jemima? (All these characters who had entered Chloe's life long before I had - and might, with the tenacity of everything familial, still be there when I was gone.)一切都是那么奇异，那么新鲜。她成长的家园描绘出她全部的过去，我一直无缘领略的过去，而我为了理解她必须仔细体察。吃饭时的大部分时间都是克洛艾和她父母在就家庭事务的各个方面进行提问——回答：保险公司支付了祖母的医疗费没有？水箱修了没有？卡琳接到房地产公司的信没有？露丝真的要到美国去念书吗？谁读过莎拉姨妈的小说？亨利真的要和杰米玛结婚吗？（所有这些人物都先于我进入克洛艾的生活，而且也许我离开克洛艾之后，他们仍然处于家庭的紧密联系之中。）
17. It was intriguing to see how different the parents' perception of Chloe could be from my own. Whereas I had known her to be both accommodating and generous, at home she was known to be bossy and demanding. As a child she had been thought of as a miniature autocrat whom the parents had nicknamed Miss Pompadosso after the heroine of a children's book. Whereas I had known Chloe to be levelheaded about money and her career, the father remarked that his daughter 'did not understand the first thing about how things work in the real world', while the mother joked about her 'bullying all her boyfriends into submission'. I was forced to add to my understanding of Chloe a whole section that had unfolded prior to my arrival, my vision of her colliding with that imposed by the initial family narrative.父母对克洛艾的看法与我的感觉分歧很大，这不禁引起我的好奇心。在我看来，克洛艾既乐于助人，又慷慨大方；而她家人却认为她有些专横霸道、苛求任性。小时候的她是一个小独裁者，父母给她起了一个诨名——鲍帕多索小姐，这是一本儿童书中的女主人公的名字。我所了解的克洛艾冷静地看待金钱和自己的职业；父亲却说他的女儿“不谙世事”，母亲则笑话她“制服了所有的男友”。我与她家庭成员相左的看法，使我不由自主地加深对克洛艾的理解，理解我们相遇之前她的全部生活。
18. In the afternoon, Chloe showed me around the house. She took me into the room at the top of the stairs into which she'd been afraid to go as a child, because her uncle had once told her a ghost lived inside the piano. We looked into her old bedroom that her mother now used as a studio, and she pointed out a hatch that she had used to get into the attic in order to escape with her elephant Guppy whenever she'd been miserable. We took a walk in the garden, past a still-bruised tree at the bottom of a slope into which the family car had ploughed when she had once dared her brother to release the handbrake. She showed me the neighbours' house, whose blackberry bushes she had picked clean in the summers, and whose former owner's son she had kissed on the way back from school. He had since died, added Chloe with curious indifference, 'in an incident with a corn-thresher'.下午克洛艾领我参观了整栋房子。她把我带到楼梯顶上的房间里，她叔叔曾经告诉她说屋里的钢琴中住着一个鬼，所以小时候她一直害怕去那里。我们去看了她从前的卧室，她母亲现在把它当作自己的工作室。她指着天窗说，每当悲伤的时候，她就和她的格皮象从那儿躲到阁楼上去。后来我们又去花园散步，在一个斜坡下面有一棵还留着撞痕的树，那是有一次她激将她哥，说他不敢放开手刹，才让车给撞坏的。她指给我看邻居家的房子。以前一到夏天，她总是把那家种的草莓摘得精光，还在放学回家的路上吻过房主的儿子。
19.Later in the afternoon, I took a walk in the garden with her father, a donnish man to whom thirty years of marriage had imparted some distinctive views on the subject.下午晚些时候，我和她父亲在花园里散一会儿步。他是一个老学究，三十年的家庭生活使他对婚姻有了一些与众不同的观点。
'I know my daughter and you are fond of one another. I'm no expert on love, but I'll tell you something. In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right.'“我知道我女儿和父互相爱慕。我不是爱情专家，但是我有些话要告诉你。我认为，与谁结婚并不重要。如果你最初爱他们，可能你并产会一直爱到最后。而你如果开始讨厌他们，你未必到最后还是讨厌。”
19.On the train back to London that evening, I felt exhausted, weary at all the differences between Chloe's early world and mine. While the stories and settings of her past had enchanted me, they had also proved terrifying and bizarre, all these years and habits before I had known her, but that were as much a part of who she was as the shape of her nose or the colour of her eyes. I felt a primitive nostalgia for familiar surroundings, recognizing the disruption that every relationship entails ?a whole new person to learn about, to suggest myself to, to acclimatize myself to. It was perhaps a moment of fear at the thought of all the differences I would find in Chloe, all the times she would be one thing, and I another, when our world views would be incapable of alignment. Staring out of the window at the Wiltshire countryside, I had a lost child's longing for someone I could already wholly understand, the eccentricities of whose house, parents, and history I had already tamed.那天晚上在回伦敦的列车上，我感到精疲力竭，忧虑我们彼此早期生活的差异。当克洛艾过去生活的诸多情节和场景萦绕在我脑海时，她在我们相识之前的生活和习惯显得可怕而又稀奇古怪。但它们就像她鼻子的形状或眼睛的颜色一样，属于她的一部分。我感到一种古老的怀旧，怀念熟悉的环境，意识到每一个交往中必需经历的混乱——一个全新的人有待去认识、适应，同时把自己展示给对方。想到我从克洛艾身上发现的所有差别，想到一直以来她是一个人而我是另一个人，想到我们的生活观会有不可调和的地方，我的心里掠过片刻的担忧。望着车窗外威尔特郡的乡村，我产生了一种迷路孩童的渴望，渴望一个我完全熟悉的人，我了解她的家庭的癖好，了解她的父母和她的经历。