Whenever he prepared a meal for himself, he would immediately and assiduously do the dishes—but rinse them only, never using soap, so that every cup, every saucer, every plate was coated with a film of dingy grease.
每次他为自己准备好食物之后，他都会立即勤奋地把盘子洗掉——但仅仅是冲洗一下，从不用肥皂，所以每一个杯子，每一个茶托，每一张盘子都被覆盖上了一层脏兮兮的油脂。
Throughout the house: the window shades, which were kept drawn at all times, had become so threadbare that the slightest tug would pull them apart. Leaks sprang and stained the furniture, the furnace never gave off enough heat, the shower did not work. The house became shabby, depressing to walk into. You felt as if you were entering the house of a blind man.
纵观整个屋子，只见一直被拉上的窗帘已经变得十分破旧，甚至力道最轻的一拉都可能会把它们扯落。漏雨落下，溅起，弄脏了家具，壁炉从未提供过足够的热度，淋浴头也不起作用。这屋子变得残破，压抑的让人不想走进。你会感觉自己是走进一间盲人住的屋子。
His friends and family, sensing the madness of the way he lived in that house, kept urging him to sell it and move somewhere else.
他的朋友和家庭，察觉到了他居住方式的疯狂，一直敦促他把那房子卖了然后搬到别处去。
But he always managed to ward them off with a non-committal “I’m happy here,’’ or “The house suits me fine.’’
但他总能用一些含混不清的话语例如：“我在这儿很开心”或者是“这房子很适合我”把他们搪塞过去。
In the end, however, he did decide to move. At the very end. In the last phone conversation we ever had, ten days before he died, he told me the house had been sold and that the closing was set for February first, about three weeks away.
最终，他还是决定搬走了。离他去世十天前，我们通了最后一次电话，他告诉我房子已经卖出去了，在二月一号前还保有出入权，也就是大约还有三周左右的时间。
He wanted to know if there was anything in the house I could use, and I agreed to come down for a visit with my wife and Daniel on the first free day that opened up. He died before we had a chance to make it.
他想知道房子里是否还有些东西是我能用的，我也答应了他带着妻子和儿子在第一个空闲日就过来。可是他在我们还没能过来之前就去世了。
There is nothing more terrible, I learned, than having to face the objects of a dead man. Things are inert: they have meaning only in function of the life that makes use of them.
我意识到没有什么事情能够比面对一个逝者的遗物更糟糕了。物件本身是消极的：它们只有在被人使用时才有意义并发挥价值。
When that life ends, the things change, even though they remain the same. They are there and yet not there: tangible ghosts, condemned to survive in a world they no longer belong to.
而当那生命终结之时，这物件也变了，即使它们外表上还保持着原样。它们既存在于此，而又不存在于此：好似有形的幽魂，被诅咒着生存在一个再也不属于它们的世界之中。
What is one to think, for example, of a closetful of clothes waiting silently to be worn again by a man who will not be coming back to open the door?
一个人该如何思考，比如说一柜子的衣服
Or the stray packets of condoms strewn among brimming drawers of underwear and socks? Or an electric razor sitting in the bathroom, still clogged with the whisker dust of the last shave? Or a dozen empty tubes of hair coloring hidden away in a leather travelling case?—suddenly revealing things one has no desire to see, no desire to know.
或者是散落在塞满内衣和袜子抽屉里的条装的安全套？放在卫生间里还沾着上次挂完之后的胡须的电动剃须刀？放在皮质旅行箱里的用光了的几管染发膏？——瞬间xxx令人丝毫不想看见，不想了解的事物。
There is a poignancy to it, and also a kind of horror.
这其中是充满辛酸的，同样也有一丝恐惧。
In themselves, the things mean nothing, like the cooking utensils of some vanished civilization.
物件本身并不意味着任何事情，就好像一些消失的文明里的炊具。
And yet they say something to us, standing there not as objects but as remnants of thought, of consciousness, emblems of the solitude in which a man comes to make decisions about himself: whether to color his hair, whether to wear this or that shirt, whether to live, whether to die. And the futility of it all once there is death.
然而它们却又在向我们诉说着什么，不是以物件的形式而是以残存的想法和意识，一个男人为他自己做出要不要染发，穿着件短袖还是那件短袖，是生，还是死的抉择的，孤独的象征。
Each time I opened a drawer or poked my head into a closet, I felt like an intruder, a burglar ransacking the secret places of a man’s mind. I kept expecting my father to walk in, to stare at me in disbelief, and ask me what the hell I thought I was doing. It didn’t seem fair that he couldn’t protest. I had no right to invade his privacy.
每次当我打开一张抽屉或是把头伸进一个衣柜里的时候，我就会感觉自己像是个搜刮一个人思维隐秘之处的入侵者，或是窃贼。我一直期待着我的父亲能够走进来，用质疑的眼光盯着我，然后问我我究竟以为自己在做什么。他不能抗议这点看起来是不公平的，因为我并没有权利侵犯他的隐私。