17
Contractions
挛缩
1. Though questions of reality and falsehood in this area are notorious for resisting scrutiny and systematic analysis, after our return from Spain I began to suspect ?without quite being able to look at the evidence in the face ?that Chloe had started to simulate all or some of her orgasms.起初我难以想象一个持续3.2秒的诺言会和谐地存在于一个由八个0.8秒的挛缩组成的序列之中，而最初的两个0.8和最后的两个0.8（共3.2秒）是真实的。想象这个序列全部是真实的，或全部是虚假的要容易得多，但是一个真实-虚假-真实的模式显得有悖常理，而且没有必要。这个等式或是错误或是正确，二者必居其一。也许我应该抛开表象，寻找心理方面的解释。然而不论原因是什么，不论解释处于哪个层次，我都开始发现克洛艾（自我们从西班牙回来之后）开始假装或部分假装高潮的到来。
2. Her customary behaviour was replaced by an exaggerated activity apparently designed to divert me from her lack of genuine involvement in the process. The change was not accompanied by any obvious sign of uninterest. Indeed, lovemaking as a whole became more passionate. Not only was it performed more often, it was also performed in different positions and at different hours of the day, it was more turbulent, there were screams, even crying, the gestures closer to anger than the gentleness normally associated with the act.她用夸张的动作代替了一贯的挛缩次数，可能是为了不让我知道她在做爱过程中没有真正投入。如果我过于关注有无高潮，这不是因为挛缩对每个人都很重要（有证据表明快感与痉挛次数无关），只是因为挛缩对于一个女人（她过去喜欢一次又一次的挛缩）来说是一个意味深长的标志，标志她更可能移情别恋了。
挛缩次数的减少并没有与明显的厌倦做爱同时到来。从某种程度上说，这时做爱反而有了更多的热情。不仅做的更加频繁，而且会不断变换地点，选择不同的时间，更为激情澎湃，伴随着尖叫，甚至嘶喊，动作几近狂野。与平常温文尔雅的方式相比，更近于愤怒。这里面包含着什么？我不能确定。只是这足以说明疑心产生了。
3. What should have been said to Chloe was eventually shared with a great male friend instead.我本就忘与克洛艾交谈的话却与一个男性朋友讲了起来。
'I don't know what's happening, Will, sex simply isn't what it used to be.'“我不知道是怎么回事，威尔，性爱变味了。”
'Don't worry, it goes in phases, you can't expect it to be high octane every time. Not even I expect that.'“别担心，性爱是有阶段性的，你别想次次都如登仙境。”
'I just feel something else is wrong, I don't know what, but in the months since we came back from Spain, I've been noticing stuff. And I don't mean only in the bedroom, that's just a kind of symptom. I mean everywhere.'“没有，我只是觉得别的什么不太对劲，又说不清楚。自我们从西班牙回来后的这几个月里，我已经注意到一些苗头，不只是在卧室里，那只是一种征兆。我是说它无所不在。”
'Like?'“比方说？”
'Well, nothing I could put a finger on directly. All right, here's one thing I remember. She likes a different cereal than me, but because I spend a lot of time at her place, she usually buys the kind of cereal I like so we can have breakfast together. Then all of a sudden last week, she stops buying it, and says it's too expensive. I don't want to come to any conclusions, I'm just noticing.'“嗯，一下子也说不上来。喏，我记得有这样一件事。克洛区喜欢的那种麦片与我喜欢的不同，但是因为我很多时候都待在她那儿，所以她通常都买我喜欢吃的那种，这样我们就能在一起吃早餐。但是，上个星期，她突然不买了，说太贵了。我不想从中得出什么结论，只是注意到这一点变化。”
4. Will and I were standing in the reception area of our office. A cocktail party was in progress to celebrate the firm's twentieth birthday. I had brought Chloe with me, for whom this was a first chance to see my work-space.威尔和我站在办公楼的接待厅，庆祝公司成立二十周年的鸡尾酒会正在举行。我把克洛艾带来了，这是她第一次看到我工作的地方。
'Why does Will have so many more commissions than you?' Chloe asked Will and me after wandering around the exhibits.“为什么威尔的任务要比你多得多？”在看了一圈展览品之后， 克洛艾这样问威尔和我。
'You answer that one, Will.'“你回答她吧，威尔。”
'That's because real geniuses always have a hard time getting their work accepted,' answered Will, cancelling out what might have been a compliment through exaggeration.“那是因为真正的天才总要经历一个艰难的时期才能让人们接受他们的成果，”威尔宽厚地说。
'Your designs are brilliant,' Chloe told him, 'I've never seen anything so inventive, especially for office projects. The use of materials is just incredible, and the way you've managed to integrate the brick and metal so well. Couldn't you do things like that?' Chloe asked me.“你的设计真是太杰出了，”克洛艾对他说，“我从没看到过这么富有创意的设计，特别是那些办公大楼项目。材料的使用真是不可思议，你的设计把砖的金属结合得太好了你难道不能也这样做吗？”克洛艾问我。
'I'm working on a number of ideas, but my style is very different, I work with different materials.'“我正在考虑很多想法，但我的风格不同，我用的材料也不同。”
'Well, I think Will's work is great, incredible in fact. I'm so glad I came to see it.'“那么，我认为威你的成果太伟大了，简直是不可思议。我真高兴今天来观看。”
'Chloe, it's great to hear you say so,' answered Will.“克洛艾，你能这样说，真是太好了，”威尔答道。
'I'm so impressed, your work is exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in and I think it's such a pity that more architects don't do what you're trying to do. I imagine it can't be easy.'“你给我的印象太深刻了，你设计的正是我感兴趣的东西。我认为那么多设计师没有像你那样去做真是太遗憾了。我猜一定很难吧。”
'It's not that easy, but I've always been taught to go with the things I believe in. I build the houses that make me feel real, and then the people who live in them end up absorbing a kind of energy from them.'“确实不太容易，但以前老师教导我要相信自己的判断。 我只建造那些让我自己感觉真实的房子，然后住在里面的人们才会从中吸取一种能量。”
'I think I see what you mean.'“我想我懂你的意思。”
'You'd see better if we were out in California. I was working on a project in Monterey, and I mean, there you'd really get a sense of what you can do by using different kinds of stone as well as some steel and aluminium, and working with the landscape instead of against it.'“要是我们去加利福尼亚，你会发现那儿的还要好。我曾经在蒙特雷设计过一个项目，我是说，在那儿你才会真正感觉到用各种不同的石头、钢材，以及铝材可以建造出什么样的建筑，你的设计会与整个风景融为一体，而不是破坏它。”
5. It is part of good manners not to question the criteria responsible for eliciting another's love. The dream is that one has not been loved for criteria at all, but rather for who one is, an ontological status beyond properties or attributes. From within love, as within wealth, a taboo surrounds the means of acquiring and sustaining affection or property. Only poverty, either of love or money, leads one to question the system - perhaps the reason why lovers do not make great revolutionaries.不询问他人的爱情标准是一种良好的风度。理想的爱情是，不因一个人符合标准而产生爱恋，而只是爱上一个人，无关财产和身体地位的本位的人。爱情如同财富一样，忌讳人们探询是如何获得并保持感情/财产的。只有当爱情渐逝，才会使人质疑这种理想状态是不是存在——可能这也是情人们不敢做出决断的原因。
6. Passing an unfortunate woman in the street one day, Chloe had asked me, 'Would you have loved me if I'd had an enormous birthmark on my face like she does?' The yearning is that the answer be 'yes' ?an answer that would place love above the mundane surfaces of the body, or more particularly, its cruel unchangeable ones. I will love you not just for your wit and talent and beauty, but simply because you are you, with no strings attached. I love you for who you are deep in your soul, not for the colour of your eyes or the length of your legs or size of your chequebook. The longing is that the lover admire us stripped of our external assets, appreciating the essence of our being without accomplishments, ready to repeat the unconditional love said to exist in some parts between parent and child. The real self is what one can freely choose to be, and if a birthmark arises on our forehead or age withers us or recession bankrupts us, then we must be excused for accidents that have damaged what is only our surface. And even if we are beautiful and rich, then we do not wish to be loved on account of these things, for they may fail us, and with them, love. I would prefer you to compliment me on my brain than on my face, but if you must, then I would rather you comment on my smile (motor- and muscle-controlled) than on my nose (static and tissue-based). The desire is that I be loved even if I lose everything: leaving nothing but 'me', this mysterious 'me' taken to be the self at its weakest, most vulnerable point.有一天，我们在街上看到一例不幸的女人。克洛艾当时问我说：“如果我的脸上像她那样有那么一大块胎记内外还会爱我吗？”她渴望的答案是“会”——一个把爱置于身体的世俗外表之上的答案，或者更确切地说，置于它残酷的、不可改变的外表之上的答案。我爱你，不是因为你的聪颖、才干和美丽，只因为你就是你，没有任何附带条件；我爱你，爱的是你灵魂深处的那个你，而不是你眼睛的颜色，你腿的长短，或你支票簿的厚薄。我们渴望心上人欣赏的是我们的本质，而不是外在条件带给我们的光环；我们渴望心上人乐意去重复那据说存在于父母和子女之间的无条件的爱。我们能够选择的只有真实的自我，如果胎记长在我们的前额，如果岁月让我们日益枯槁，如果经济衰退让我们一贫如洗，这些不幸的事物摧毁的只是外表，我们应该得到谅解。即使我们美丽动人，富甲天下，但我们也许不会获得真爱。我更愿意你称赞我的头脑，而不是我的脸蛋，但如果你执意这样做，那么我更愿意你评价我的微笑（富于运动，肌肉控制），而不是我的鼻子（静止不动，都是组织）。我们渴望永远被爱，即使我们一无所有：只剩下“我”，这神秘的“我”在最脆弱、最易受伤的时刻还原为最真实的自我。
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but Do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test. Do you love me stripped of everything that might be lost, for only the things I will have for ever? 你能爱我之深以至于我可以裸露我的脆弱吗？人人都喜欢强壮有力，但你能爱虚弱无力的我吗？那才是真正的考验。你会爱上那个剥离了一切外在条件，只剩下最本质内涵的我吗？
6.That evening at the architectural office, I first began to sense Chloe slipping away from me, losing admiration for my work and beginning to question my value in relation to other men. Because I was tired, and Chloe and Will were not, I went home and they chose to go on to the West End for a drink. Chloe told me she'd call as soon as she got home, but by eleven o'clock, I decided to call her. The answerphone replied, as it did when I called again at two thirty that morning. The urge was to confess my anxieties into the machine, but to formulate them seemed to bring them closer into existence, dragging a suspicion into the realm of accusation and counter-accusation. Perhaps it was nothing - or at least everything: I preferred to imagine her in an accident than playing truant with Will. I called the police at four in the morning, and asked them in the most responsible tone a man drunk on vodka may adopt, if they had not seen evidence, perhaps a mutilated body or wrecked Volkswagen, of my angel in a short green skirt and black jacket, last seen in an office near the Barbican. No, sir, no such sighting had been made, was she a relative or just a friend? Could I wait till morning, and contact the station again then? 在办公楼的那个晚上，我第一次感受到克洛艾在消然地与我分离，不再欣赏我的工作，开始把我和别的男人比较，质疑我的价值。我累了，但克洛艾和威尔却兴致盎然，我便回家了，他们一起去西区喝酒。克洛艾说，她一到家就给我打电话，但是到十一点钟时，我决定给她打。只有电话录音答复我。凌晨两点半时同样如此。这种迫切的心情把我的焦虑通过电话机表露出来，但是系统地阐述似乎让它们更接近事实，把怀疑带进指责与反指责的领域。也许什么事也没有——或什么事都有，我更愿意想象她是出了什么事故，而不是正在与威尔寻欢作乐。凌晨四点时，我给警察局打了电话，我喝了太多伏特加酒，醉醺醺的，但我还是极力用最正常的声音询问他们，有没有撞伤的人或撞毁的大众车，有没有我那穿着绿色短裙和黑色夹克的天使的踪迹，我最后看到她是在巴比肯附近的办公楼里。没有，先生，没有这种事故发生，她是你的亲戚还仅是一个朋友？能不能等到早上再和警察局联系一下？
8. 'One can think problems into existence,' Chloe had told me. I dared not think, for fear of what I might find. The freedom to think involves the courage to stumble upon our demons. But the frightened mind cannot wander; I stayed tethered to my paranoia, brittle as glass. Bishop Berkeley and later Chloe had said that if one shuts one's eyes, the outer world may be said to be no more real than a dream, and now more than ever the power of illusion came to seem comforting, the urge not to look truth in the face, the urge that if only one did not think, an unpleasant truth might not exist.“胡思乱想会弄假成真，”克洛艾曾经对我说。我不敢去想，因为害怕可能会真的发现什么。要自由思考就要有碰上坏消息的勇气，但是受惊的思想不能迈开思考的步伐。我摆脱自己的妄想，我如玻璃杯一般易碎。伯克利大主教和克洛艾都说过，如果闭上眼睛，外部世界不过是一场梦而已。但现在不再仅仅是梦。漫无边际的幻想似乎让人舒适，不要直面真相，如果停止思考，令人痛苦的事实可以不复存在该多好啊。
9. Feeling implicated in her absence, guilty for my suspicions, and angry at my own guilt, I pretended to have noticed nothing when Chloe and I met at ten o'clock the following day. Yet she must have been guilty ?for why else would she have gone to her local supermarket to add to her kitchen the missing breakfast cereal to fill Weltschmertz's stomach? She accused herself not by her indifference, but by her sense of duty, a large packet of Three Cereal Golden Bran prominently placed on the window ledge.
'Is something wrong with it? Isn't that the one you like?' asked Chloe, watching me stumble over my mouthfuls.情绪因为克洛艾的彻夜未归受到影响，我为自己的疑心愧疚，又为这份愧疚恼火。第二天十点钟，当克洛艾和我见面时，我装作若无其事。然而她肯定心中有愧——不然为何又到附近的超市去买那久违了的麦片给她的少年维特做早餐？她不是用冷漠，而是用责任感来责怪自己，一大包金麦片显眼地放在窗台上。
“怎么啦，你不是喜欢这种吗？”克洛艾见我嗫嚅，便这样问道。
10. She said she had stayed the night at her girlfriend Paula's house. Will and she had chatted till late in a bar in Soho, and as she'd had a bit to drink, it had seemed easier to stop off in Bloomsbury than make the journey back home to Islington. She had wanted to call me, but it would surely have woken me up. I had said I wanted to go to sleep early, so wasn't it the best thing? Why was I making that face? Did I want more milk to go with the three cereals?说自己在一个叫宝拉的女朋友家过夜。威尔和她在索霍的酒吧回复的聊到很晚。她有点醉了，中途觉得最好还是到布卢姆伯利歇下，而不是开车回伊斯灵顿的家里。她本想给我打电话，但肯定会把我吵醒。我曾经说过要早点睡，这不是最恰当的借口吗？我什么要摆出那样脸色来呢？难道我中想再要些牛奶冲麦片？
11. An urge accompanies epistemically stunted accounts of reality - the urge, if they are pleasant, to believe them. Like an optimistic simpleton's view of the world, Chloe's version of her evening was desirably believable, like a hot bath in which I wished to sit for ever. If she believes in it, why shouldn't I? If it's this simple for her, why should it be so complicated for me? I wished to be taken in by her story of a night spent on the floor of Paula's flat in Bloomsbury, able in that case to set aside my alternative evening (another bed, another man, unfaked pleasure). Like the voter from whom the politician's caramel promise draws a tear, I was lured by falsehood's ability to appeal to my deepest emotional yearning.一个迫切的要求伴随着这对现实站不住脚的解释产生了，这要求就是，如果这些解释能让人心情愉快，那么就姑且相信吧。就如一个乐观的大傻瓜眼中的世界一样，关于那天夜晚的行踪，克洛艾的解释是合人心意地可信，好比一个温暖的大浴缸，我想永远浸泡其中。如果她自己相信，我又为何不相信？如果对她来说简单明了，我又为何要让事情错综复杂？我祈望自己听信她在布卢姆伯利的宝拉家地板上过夜的故事，这样我就能够把另一个可供选择的过夜方式（另一张床，另一个男人，多次的挛缩）抛在脑后。就如那些被政治家们用涂着卡拉梅尔糖的承诺哄去眼泪的选民一样，我被那投我最深处的情感渴求所好的诺言所诱惑。
12. Therefore, as she had spent the night with Paula, had bought cereal, and all was forgiven, I felt a burst of confidence and relief, like a man awaking from a nightmare. I got up from the table and put my arms around the beloved's thick white pullover, caressing her shoulders through the wool, then bending down to kiss her neck, nibbling at her ear, feeling the familiar perfume of her skin and the brush of her hair against my face. 'Don't, not now,' said the angel. But, disbelieving, caught up in the familiar perfume of her skin and brush of hair against his face, Cupid continued to pucker his lips against her flesh. 'I said once already, not now!' repeated the angel, so that even he might hear.所以，由于她是在宝拉那儿过的夜，还买了麦片，一切都得到了谅解。于是我就像从梦魇中醒过来的人，感到极大的自信和轻松。我从桌边站起来，用胳膊拥住心上人穿的那件厚厚的白色套衫，俯身吻她的脖颈，一点点咬她的耳朵，感受她皮肤上熟悉的香水和她的秀发轻拂我的脸。“不要，现在不，”天使说。但是，被她皮肤上熟悉的香水味和她头发拂过脸的感觉所吸引的丘比特不相信她的话，继续嘟着嘴亲吻她。“我已经说过了，现在不要！”天使又重复一遍，为了让他能够听见。
13. The pattern of the kiss had been formed during their first night together. She had placed her head beside his and, fascinated by this soft juncture between mind and body, he had begun running his lips along the curve of her neck. It had made her shudder and smile, she had played with his hand, and shut her eyes. It had become a routine between them, a signature of their intimate language. Don't, not now. Hate is the hidden script in the letter of love; its foundations are shared with its opposite. The woman seduced by her partner's way of kissing her neck, turning the pages of a book, or telling a joke watches irritation collect at precisely these points. It is as if the end of love was already contained in its beginning, the ingredients of love's collapse eerily foreshadowed by those of its creation.接吻的模式在他们的第一个夜晚就形成了。她把头放在他的旁边，闭上眼睛，为灵魂和肉体之间的这种温软可人的结合而神魂颠倒。他的舌头游走在她的脖颈上，让她浑身颤抖，面露微笑，抚弄他的手。这已成为他们的惯例，是他们亲密语言的标志。不要，现在不要。憎恨隐藏在爱这个字眼中，与钟情共用一个载体。这个女人，曾被爱人亲吻脖颈的方式、一页页地翻书的动作，或讲笑话的口吻所诱惑的女人，目睹恼怒也正在这些地方积聚起来。好像爱情的终结早就包含在爱情产生的地方，爱情破裂的因素被创造爱情的因素神秘地预示。
14. _I said once already, not now_. There are cases of skilled doctors, experts at detecting the first signs of cancer in their patients, who will somehow ignore the growth of football-sized tumours in their own body. There are examples of people who in most walks of life are clear and rational, but who are unable to accept that one of their children has died or that their wife or husband has left them ?and will continue to believe the child has merely gone missing or the spouse will leave their new marriage for the old. The shipwrecked lover cannot accept the evidence of the wreckage, continuing to behave as though nothing had changed, in the vain hope that by ignoring the verdict of execution, death will somehow be stalled. The signs of death were everywhere waiting to be read - had I not been struck by the illiteracy pain had induced.我已经说过了，现在不要。技术精湛的医生、专家常常从最早的迹象中诊断出病人的癌症，然而他们有时却忽视了自己体内已经长到足球大的肿瘤。很多人一生多半头脑清醒，富有理性，但他们却无法接受自己的孩子的死亡，或自己妻子或丈夫离他们而去，仍然认为孩子只是走丢了，或配偶会抛却新的婚姻，回到他们身边。爱情遭到毁灭的情人不能接受毁灭的事实，仍然一如往日地行为处事。他们徒劳地以为，忽略死刑的裁决，就能阻止死亡的脚步。然而死亡的标志随处可见，等待解读——如果痛苦还没有使我失去解读能力的话。
15. The victim of love's demise grows unable to locate original strategies to revive the corpse. At precisely the time when things might still have been rescued with ingenuity, fearful and hence unoriginal, I became nostalgic. Sensing Chloe drawing away, I attempted to pull her back through blind repetition of elements that had in the past cemented us. I continued with the kiss, and in the weeks thereafter, insisted that we return to cinemas and restaurants where we had spent pleasant evenings, I revisited jokes we had laughed at together, I readopted positions our bodies had once moulded.爱情灭亡的受害者无法再用原来的办法复活爱情。在一切尚可以用足智多谋进行挽救的时刻，我变得害怕而缺乏创意，开始怀旧。当感受到克洛艾离我越来越远时，我盲目地去重复那些将我们牢牢联系在一起的东西，试图挽留她。我不断吻她，接下来的几个星期，我坚持带她去曾度过了很多美好夜晚的电影院和餐馆，重复我们曾为之一起大笑过的笑话，重新采取旧日欢好的体位。
16. I sought comfort in the familiarity of our in-house language, the language used to ease previous conflicts, a joke designed to acknowledge and hence render inoffensive the temporary fluctuations of love.我从我们室内语的熟悉感中寻找慰藉，那些语言以前是用于平息争端的，那些赫拉克利特式的笑话是用来承认，从而使暂时的爱情波动无伤大雅。
'Is something wrong today?' I asked one morning when Venus looked almost as pale and sad as I.“你今天有什么不对劲吗？”一天早上，当维纳斯看上去几乎和我一样苍白时，我问她。
'Today?'“今天？”
'Yes, today, is something wrong?'“是啊，今天，怎么了？”
'No, why? Is there any reason it should be?'“没什么，你怎么了？有什么原因要这样吗？”
'I don't think so.'“没有。”
'So why are you asking?'“那你为什么要这样问？”
'I don't know. Because you're looking a bit unhappy.'“不知道。因为你看起来有点不高兴。”
'Sorry for being human.'“做人真难。”
'I'm just trying to help. Out of ten today, what would you give me?'“我正在努力想办法。我今天超过十点，你对我呢？”
'I really don't know.'“我实在不知道。”
'Why not?'“为什么不知道？”
'I'm tired.'“我很累。”
'Just tell me.'“告诉我吧。”
'I can't.'“我无法告诉你。”
'Come on, out of ten. Six? Three? Minus twelve? Plus twenty?'“求你了，超过十点。六点？三点？小于十二？大于二十？”
'I don't know.'“我不知道。”
'Have a guess.'“随便说一个吧。”
'For Christ's sake, I don't know, leave me alone, damn it!'“看在上帝份上，我不知道，让我安静一下，见鬼！”
17. The in-house language unravelled, it grew unfamiliar to Chloe, or rather, she feigned forgetting, so as not to admit denial. She refused complicity in the language, she played the foreigner, she began reading me against the grain, and found errors. I could not understand why things I was saying and that in the past had proved so attractive were now suddenly so irritating. I could not understand why, having not changed myself, I should now be accused of being offensive in a hundred different ways. Panicking, I embarked on an attempt to return to the golden age, asking myself, 'What had I been doing then that I perhaps am not doing now?' I became a desperate conformist to a past self that had been the object of love. What I had failed to realize was that the past self was the one now proving so annoying, and that I was therefore doing nothing but accelerating the process towards dissolution.室内语行不通了，克洛艾不再熟悉它们，或者更直接地说，她假装忘了，以此不承认她在拒绝我。她拒绝和我在那些语言中心有灵犀；她假装不懂我的话语；她开始看我格格不入了，老挑我的碴。我不能理解为何我过去那么富有吸引力的话语突然之间开始惹她生气；我不能理解丝毫未变的我现在却在方方面面都让人生厌。惊慌失措的我努力寻找过去的美好时光。我问自己：“为什么我那时做的事情现在不能做呢？”我成了不顾一切墨守成规的人，墨守那个以前是克洛艾爱恋对象的自己。我没能意识到过去的那个我现在却被证实是令人厌烦的家伙，因而无论我做什么都只是加速爱情的崩溃。
19.I became an irritant, one who has gone beyond caring for reciprocation. I bought her books, I took her jackets to the dry cleaner's, I paid for dinner, I suggested we make a trip to Paris at Christmas time to celebrate our anniversary. But humiliation could be the only result of loving against all evidence. She could sulk me, shout at me, ignore me, tease me, trick me, hit me, kick me, and still I would not react -and thereby grew abhorrent.我成了一个厌物，一个不在乎回报的人。我给她买书，把她的衣服送到干洗店去洗，我吃饭时主动买单，我建议圣诞节去巴黎旅行以庆祝我们的相识纪念日。但是，从所有的证据来看，屈辱是爱的惟一结果。她生我的气，朝我吼叫，对我视而不见，取笑我，戏弄我，打我，踢我，但是我仍然没有反应——从而更让人生厌。
19.At the end of a meal I had spent two hours preparing (largely taken up by an odd argument we fell into over Balkan history after Chloe began a peculiar defence of Serbian nationalism), I took Chloe's hand and told her, 'I just wanted to say, and I know it sounds sentimental, that however much we fight and everything, I still really care about you and want things to work out between us. You mean everything to me, you know that.'有一次，吃完我花了两个小时准备的饭菜（大半时间都在争论巴尔干的历史），我握着克洛艾的手，告诉她说：“我只是想说，我知道这听起来多愁善感，不管我们怎样打闹，以及一切的一切，我仍然在乎你，仍然希望我们两个顺利地走下去。你是我的一切，这你知道。”
Chloe (who had always read more psychoanalysis than fiction) looked at me suspiciously and replied, 'Listen, it's kind of you to say so, but it worries me; you've got to stop turning me into your ego ideal like this.'克洛艾（读心理分析方面的书多于小说的克洛艾）带着怀疑的神情看着我，回答说：“听着，你这么说真是太好了，但是它使我害怕，你不要再把我变成你想象中的那个完美的人。”
20.Things had reduced themselves to a tragicomic scenario: on the one hand, the man identifying the woman as an angel, on the other, the angel identifying love as something only a little short of a pathology.事情变得像一个悲喜剧的剧本概要：一方面，男人把女人当作天使，而另一方面，天使把爱当作是需要变化的事物。