Traveller_Levin's Blog

The Cold Outside

by John Burnside October 29, 2007

John Burnside  (1955 – ) 蘇格蘭作家。他曾於劍橋文理學院研讀歐美思潮與文學。原擔任電腦軟體工程師，1996年後成為自由作家，目前於St Andrews大學教授創作、文學、生態學及美國詩。先後出版14本詩集和9本短篇小說選集，無論現代詩或短篇小說皆屢獲重要文學獎項。其2011年詩集Black Cat Bone同時獲頒T. S. Eliot 詩作獎及 Forward詩作獎。2013年出版最新短篇小說選集Something Like Happy亦有極高之文學評價。

When the cancer came back, I wasn’t surprised. I was upset1 for Caroline, knowing she’d have to be told eventually, and I was bothered about how Sall would take it, after last time2. I was even sorry for Malky, because finding reliable drivers was difficult, and he’d always been a good boss. Still, I wasn’t surprised, not when they told me. I’d been expecting something to go wrong since the summer, when Sall and I had talked about flying over to Montreal to see Caroline and meet her new boyfriend, then given up on the idea. Sall knew I was keen3, of course: Caroline had always been Daddy’s little girl, and, ever since she’d left, it had been an effort to hide how empty the house felt without her—an effort I’d sometimes failed to make. Sall probably knew as well as I did that I was on borrowed time4, so to begin with she had gone through all the motions5 of planning the trip, but then she’d started talking about how expensive it was and how tiring it would be for me, having to drive over to Glasgow, then sit on the plane for seven hours, and then, after all that, there was immigration and customs, which took forever6. The way she spoke, it was as if she’d made the journey herself, but she hadn’t. She’d never even left Scotland, and all that talk about the Montreal customs was just stuff she’d picked up from Caroline, who’d been back three times in the six years since she got the job in Montreal. Not long before her last visit, though, she had met this new boyfriend and had started making a big thing about7 how it was our turn to go over there.

1.upset心裡感到煩亂。

2.   last time指他上一次發病。

3.   keen：eagerly desirous十分渴望，想要。

4.   英文片語be living on borrowed time意思是說原先預期會死卻沒死，現在活著的這些時光都是跟老天爺借來的。主角上一次發病，那一次原本會死卻活了下來。

5.   to begin with：in the first place打從一開始。

go through the motions：To do something in a mechanical manner indicative of a lack of interest or involvement對於蒙特婁之旅，Sall並沒無心參與，她只是做做樣子、敷衍了事。

6.   which 指immigration（移民局）and customs（海關），抵達目的機場後要通過移民局與海關才能入境。take花多少時間。It took one hour to pass immigration and customs.花了一小時才通過移民局與海關。這裡forever當然是誇張的說法，比喻要花非常長的時間。

7.   big有非常重要或嚴重的意思，例如a big decision；a big problem。

片語make a big thing of (about) something：make (something) seem more important than it actually is小題大做。

“I understand it’s a long way,” she’d said. “But you’ll love it when you get there. You’ll see. It’ll be a nice holiday. Besides, Jim keeps asking me if you really exist. He thinks I made you up8.” She’d laughed, but the invitation was real, even if she didn’t look at Sall when she said it but kept her eyes fixed on me. She was content to work around9 her mother for my sake, now that the two of them didn’t have to live in the same house. For her, it was all about careful management, about avoiding those occasions when something might be said that couldn’t be taken back. Even before she left, she had come and gone like a ghost, just so she didn’t have to be with Sall. I’d never really understood why. I once overheard Caroline say that her mother could start a fight in an empty room, but that wasn’t altogether fair. The two of them just weren’t able to sit together without arriving at some kind of disagreement or misunderstanding. It was a mismatch of personalities10, something that happened all the time, in all kinds of situations. It was shocking only when it happened between a mother and her child.

Whenever Caroline extended one of those vague invitations, I wanted to tell her that we’d come over as soon as we could, but Sall always got in first11. “We’ll see” 12 was all she’d say, and then she would go to work, undermining the idea. That was what she had done during the summer, making up excuses and problems and eventually talking the trip out of existence, till we ended up driving down to Hertfordshire instead, for a sad fortnight of rain and tea shops with Sall’s brother Tom and his second wife. I’d understood what was going on, and I told myself that it was probably for the best, what with13 the history between them; still, that so-called holiday was more of an upset than I’d expected. At first, I just put it down to the usual disappointment with Sall’s games and the way I never seemed to be able to stand up to14 her, but somewhere in the midst of it all, wandering around a grimy little bric-a-brac15 shop in Stevenage, I realized that I’d given up the last chance I would ever have to visit Montreal.

8. make you up你們是捏造出來的。當然這是Caroline邀請她父母去加拿大蒙特婁的玩笑口吻。

9.   Caroline與Sall間的母女關係長期以來就很惡劣，無法解決或改善。

work around 的意思：當始終無法解決某個問題，想辦法忽略該問題使其不致於影響正常運作。

這裡並非說Caroline忽略她媽媽，而是說為了爸爸的緣故，盡量規避母女不合的問題，不讓這問題影響到她與爸爸的關係之正常運作。。

10. 夫妻離異的理由，性格不和一向名列前茅。mismatch of personalities就是性格不和。

11. get in：to become involved in an activity. 這裡是說Caroline含糊其詞提出邀請時，Sall總會搶先介入這件事。

12. “We’ll see” ：“再看看”。

13. what with：Taking into consideration; because of.

這裡是說：考慮到Caroline與Sall之間長期不睦，我告訴自己或許這樣的安排對兩人都比較好。

for the best：With an ultimately positive or preferable result

14. stand up to (someone) : to refuse to accept bad treatment from (someone) 拒絕接受Sall這麼差勁的對待他。

15. bric-a-brac便宜的裝飾品；小玩藝兒

So the knowledge was there, sitting at the back of my mind, waiting to come true,16 when the doctor told me. I was almost ready for it: almost accepting, the way you’re supposed to be in all the stories they tell about dying. Not completely but close, just waiting to hear how it was going to be, so I could walk out of the surgery and get on with what was left of my life. I had a matter of months17, the specialist thought, and the idea crossed my mind that I could do anything I liked. I was free. Except that there wasn’t anything I wanted to do that much, apart from seeing Caroline, and I knew what Sall would say to that now18. I’d heard it all before: how I had never had any time for anybody but my little girl, how I’d spoiled her rotten. To hear Sall talk, you’d have thought that what happened between them was all my fault, but I looked back in my mind’s eye and I tried to find a picture, one reliable image of the two of them happy together, and I couldn’t. Not even when Caroline was a baby. I could see me standing at the window in the back bedroom, rocking her to sleep and singing her Christmas carols, because they were the only songs I could remember, and I could see the two of us, when Caroline was six, going around and around on the horses at Flamingo Park, while Sall sat off by herself19, watching, a curious, slightly bewildered look on her face, as if she were ashamed or embarrassed about something. I could see Caroline laughing at my bad jokes as we drove to school in the mornings, and I saw us making a row of snowmen in the garden—four of them, all identical. That was why I liked driving, and that was why I didn’t mind going back on the road so soon, because when I was out there, on my own, I would look at those pictures in my head and I would be happy.

16. knowledge：awareness of something 指他意識到他的病情。

at the back of one's mind的意思指某事你不願去想起，卻又縈繞腦海。

17. get on with (something) : to continue doing (something)指繼續過我的餘生。

a matter of：used to refer to a small amount 用來指小的數量。這裡指我的生命剩下沒幾個月。

18. 既然他的生命剩下沒幾個月，應當愛做什麼事就去做，他只想去看看Caroline，但是他知道Sall會怎麼說。

19. 故事主角（亦即敘事者）從小就非常疼寵女兒，父女關係親密到當母親的選擇獨自遠遠坐在一旁，造成日後母女關係之疏遠與不合。

Anyway, the day after I got the diagnosis, I was back at work, hauling treacle20. When Malky called, that first evening, Sall told him I was fine, and that I’d be back in the morning. I didn’t blame her for that; we needed the money. I suppose I should have been disappointed that she didn’t want me at home, at least for a little while, but I wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t really her fault. She just didn’t know how to deal with that kind of thing. Even before we left the surgery, I could feel her edging away21, the way she always did whenever there was a problem. She slipped away into her own separate place, as she had done when we were first married and things weren’t what either of us had expected, or during the long weeks after Caroline moved away and we were left stranded22, speechless and unable to touch or even look at each other, alone together with the quiet of an empty house and a shelf’s worth23 of pale photographs in the matching set of Shaker-style frames that Sall had bought at the Sue Ryder.

So I’m not blaming her. I was just as glad to go back on the road and not have to sit moping about24 the house. Besides, I’ve always liked pulling treacle—molasses, to give it its proper name. Every now and then, I run around the countryside, delivering the warm, dark slop that farmers use to supplement the fodder25 for their cattle, blending the treacle with barley to make a sweet malty mix that the beasts can’t get enough of26. I like going out on the farms, all quiet and lonely in the middle of the day; I like talking to the farmers and listening to their stories—men who have never been anywhere in all their born years save these hundred acres of ground, grown men haunted by their own holdings27. To be honest, I like hauling treacle more than anything else. There are times when it’s so thick and dark and solid you could walk on it, and we have to work hard to get it pumped out and into the big tanks, which are usually so old and creaky that you think they won’t hold. Sometimes they don’t. On a really warm day, one of the pipes, or maybe the wall of the tank, will give way, and there will be treacle everywhere: treacle and the smell of treacle that makes you dizzy, it’s so sweet and strong.

20. treacle（英國用語）)糖漿；美國用語叫molasses。

21. edge這個動作指逐漸一小步一小步地移動。

甚至還沒等到他們離開，主角可以感覺到Sall正逐漸一小步一小步地疏離開他，這裡當指心理狀態，參照下文She slipped away into her own separate place。

22. stranded 原指船隻觸礁擱淺，引喻為被置於困難無助的處境，進退維谷。

23. a shelf’s worth of pale photographs 占滿整個書架的蒼白相片。這裡worth指的是數量，例句We carried a week's worth of food；She wrote a whole album's worth of songs.。

24. mope about：wander about listlessly and aimlessly because of unhappiness or boredom因為悶悶不樂或無聊而無精打采、漫無目的四處走動。

25. fodder牲畜的飼料、草料。

26. the beasts can’t get enough of指牲畜很喜歡吃摻有糖蜜的草料，怎麼吃也吃不夠。

27. save=except。這些人除了這幾百畝地外，一輩子什麼地方也沒去過。

haunt羈絆，holdings擁有財產。這些有了年紀的男人被他們自己的家產羈絆住。

It was hard work, but it was good being busy. It gave me less time to dwell28. And I knew, when I started out that winter’s morning, that I’d feel better coming home with a full day’s work under my belt29, knowing that I wasn’t quite used up. I thought about that all day, driving round the farms in the frosty light—about how I would keep going till I couldn’t go on anymore. All a man has is his work and his sense of himself, all the secret life he holds inside that nobody else can know. That was how it had always been, even at home: my real life was separate from the day-to-day business that Sall knew or cared enough about to make decisions30. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, at least to begin with; we got on well enough in the first few years. It was just that we’d always been private people31, in our different ways. That was probably what made it possible for us to stay together after Caroline left. We knew how to keep ourselves to ourselves, a skill we had perfected through the years without even knowing how completely we had mastered it.

It was late in the afternoon, the sun just going down over the fields, the last of the light filtering through the trees and shrubs along the road by the old hospital. The first green of evening32, my mother had always called it, sitting on the back step at home, watching the Peruvian lilies and the montbretia fade into the gloaming33. I was never sure if that was a phrase of her own, or a quote from something, some radio drama, say, or a children’s book she’d read to me in the days before memory. Usually, if I got home early, this was my time34. While Sall made herself busy in the kitchen, I would sit in the dining room with the paper spread out on the table, or I would listen to the radio, staring out at the garden and fiddling with the dials to get a better signal. That day, though, I had pulled a long run35, only just finishing up at Jacob’s Well Farm when the dark set in. It had been a good day, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to overdo it, so I was happy enough saying my goodbyes to Ben Walsh, who used to run Jacob’s Well with his dad, and keeps it going himself now, his wife gone, no kids, both his parents dead. He had been living alone like that for some years by then, which was maybe why he paid so much attention to the few people he encountered. That day, it was attention I could have done without36, but then he wasn’t to know what my troubles were. He offered me a cup of tea, but he didn’t seem to mind when I told him I’d better get on back. He gave me a solemn little smile and shook his head. “How’s the missus?” he said. “Keeping all right? 37” He always talked about Sall as if she were an invalid.

28. dwell思緒在某件事情上面持續打轉，將注意力持續放在某件事情上面。

29. have/get something under one’s belt：to have achieved something useful or important。

當他在那個冬天早晨出門時，他知道在好好幹了一整天的活之後，他心裡會覺得比較舒暢，因為他知道了自己還不完全是個廢物。

30. that Sall knew or cared enough about to make decisions這個關係子句在修飾the day-to-day business。這裡to=in order to。

Sall所能夠理解的日常事務，或者她十分在意且常做決定的日常事務。在這篇故事裡，Sall常對一些日常事務擅做決定，而主角只能乖乖聽從。例如Caroline邀父母到蒙特婁，Sall起先假裝籌備一切行程，後來又說開銷太大、旅途勞頓等等，最後取消行程。又例如主角拿到診斷書當天晚上，Sall告訴他老闆Malky說他沒事，明天一早就會回去上班。

31. private people：喜歡獨處，不太談論自己想法或情感的人。跡似中文所說—性情孤僻。

32. 太陽從田野上空徐徐落下，最後一抹餘暉穿越老醫院附近那條道路兩旁的樹林和灌木叢。主角母親總喜歡稱呼這樣的夕陽餘暉為the first green of evening（傍晚的第一道綠）。這個詞非常有意思，傍晚的色調不外乎暈黃或灰昏，但她卻稱之綠色，而且還是第一道。當母親稱呼這詞時心裡想著什麼？主角回想母親這詞時心裡又在想著什麼？

33. gloaming：twilight；dusk. 黃昏薄暮。

34. 通常若主角早點完工回家，那是屬於他的私密時光。

35. run指兩地間經常性的旅程。這裡是說那天他出了長途的差。

36. Ben Walsh孑然一身在農場過活，一碰到什麼人便非常熱情、殷勤。attention指殷勤對待。

那一天主角本來不會接受Ben Walsh的殷勤，那麼Ben Walsh也就不會知道他的麻煩。

37. “Keeping all right? ” 接近中文“沒事吧？”“還好嗎？”

“Can’t complain,” I said.

“That’s good.” He gave me an odd, shy look. “Still, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re looking a bit under the weather yourself. 38”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Yes?”

“I’m a bit tired, I suppose,” I said. “It’ll pass.”

He nodded. He was curious and, I think, genuinely concerned, but he knew not to pursue it. “Well, I hope so,” he said. “You take care of yourself. You don’t want to be coming down with something, right before Christmas. 39”

I managed a smile. “You can say that again, 40” I said. “Anyway, this is the last of it, before the holidays. I’ll get a good rest then. You take care, too.” I shook his hand and got back into the rig. For a moment, I wished I’d said yes to the tea and stopped, not to talk about anything in particular but to keep company with the man for a while. I couldn’t imagine that his Christmas would be that festive41, with just him and the animals.

38. under the weather：slightly ill。你自己看起來有點不舒服。

39. come down with something：to get an illness.

40. You can say that again 表示對某人所說的話完全、強烈地贊同。

41. that festive的that 口語中用以強調。我無法想像，他的耶誕節能有多歡樂—那兒只有他和牲畜。

Then again, I couldn’t imagine much of a Christmas for myself, now that everything was decided. I wasn’t looking forward to the quiet of the holidays, or having to go through the motions with Sall, which she would want to do, because—well, it was Christmas. Maybe Caroline would ring, sometime in the middle of the afternoon, making the call first thing, so she could get on with the rest of the day knowing she’d done her duty. I hadn’t said anything to her about the cancer, of course. I’d considered telling her the first time, but it would only have worried her, and then she might have felt duty-bound to come over. This time, I didn’t even give it a second thought, because I knew for sure that I was going to die, and I wanted to do it in my own way. I wanted to let go of life with some kind of grace, or at least with some attention to what was happening42, instead of just sitting quietly in the middle of some great drama between Sall and Caroline about what they thought I should do43. That was how it had been through so much of my life: I hadn’t missed any of the big events, but, at the same time, I hadn’t felt entirely present while they were happening. Those last few weeks, though, I noticed everything. Like the way time would catch up with me all of a sudden, and I’d see myself opening a letter, or making a cup of tea: see myself from above, doing these ordinary little things and taking an odd pleasure in them, though I can’t say why.

I’d notice things out on the road, too, things I’d seen a thousand times before and had liked without knowing why. Little details and imaginings I’d dismissed all my life as plain silliness suddenly became important. Like that stretch of road on the way back from the Glasgow run, when I would pass the turnoff44 for Larbert. I used to see it all the time: a blue road sign and a row of cherry-cola street lamps running off into the distance—Larbert, A9. It was odd how much I liked that sign. I’d never had reason to go to Larbert. We didn’t do any runs in that direction, but maybe that was why I’d always liked the name. Larbert. It sounded like a place where the teen-age years went on forever, all gray days by the water and strange-tasting sweets that fizzed in your mouth,45 making you think of the possibility of sex. Not that I had ever known much about sex as a teen-ager, other than what I saw in films and the oddly pleasurable discomfort I felt when Rita Compton visited my sister. 46

42  主角確定他即將死去，他想依照自己的方式走完人生最後這一段路。他想優雅、灑脫地離開這人世，或者至少對身邊發生的事情多些關心、注意。表示他之前的人生不完全依照自己的方式，不優雅、灑脫，對身邊的事莫不關心，為什麼？

43  drama 這裡是指Caroline與Sall之間的吵吵鬧鬧，她們各自認為主角應該怎麼做。但是一邊是女兒，一邊是老婆，他怎麼做都不對，只能安安靜靜地坐在那裏。

44  turnoff：，從主幹道或高速公路分支下來的岔路、支線。

45  Larbert這個名字聽起來就像(1)一個永遠持續著少年時光的地方；(2)靠水邊老是灰濛濛的日子；(3)在嘴裡起泡泡、滋滋響有奇特風味的糖果。作者這裡運用了三個意象，第一跟第三個意象還比較好理解，但第二個意象是甚麼樣的聯想？或許跟蘇格蘭當地之地理、氣象有關。

46  前述三個意象可能會讓你聯想到性，但主角年少時對性也所知不多，除了從電影中看到的，還有姊姊朋友Rita Compton來訪時心裡感覺的一種異樣的愉悅不安。

That was the kind of stuff that was running through my head when I came across the boy, a few hundred yards into the woods, in the first of the heavy rain 47. I was thirty miles from home when it started, a thick sleet 48 that might turn to snow later, or might come to nothing; it was already dark enough for headlights, but as I came into the woods, passing under the beech trees, it was like entering a little theatre, the lights flickering across the darkness, the woods black and still, like a backdrop. I’d always liked that about the woods, the way they suddenly closed in on me as if a story were about to be told.  Like when I was a boy, and the announcer on “Listen with Mother” 49 would say, “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.” Usually the road was empty, with maybe the odd set of headlamps—not a person, not even a car, just an effect of the light—streaming past in the opposite direction. But that night the story contained another character, though he wasn’t a character from any of the children’s books I knew.

To begin with, I thought he was a woman. Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped if I’d known otherwise. He certainly looked like a woman: a black dress, no coat, fish-net stockings, ankle boots, shoulder-length wavy hair. She was walking slowly, toward the far end of that little avenue of beech trees, and I couldn’t make out much50 but when my lights picked her out she turned, and I saw that there was something odd about her, something heavy. Not that I guessed right away that she was a boy. It was dark and rainy, and then, when I saw her properly, I was distracted by the bruises on her face: the bruises, the mess her hair was in, the dark stain that might have been blood on her right leg, just below the hem of the dress.

47.the first of the heavy rain剛剛下起大雨的時候。

48  sleet：雨夾雜著雪。

49  外頭天已暗到必須開啟車燈，駛進樹林，通過一大片山毛櫸樹底下，彷彿進入了一個小劇場，燈光在黑暗中閃爍、忽隱忽現，整片樹林黑魆魆的，寂靜無聲，宛若劇場裡的背景。我一直都很喜歡樹林，喜歡它們驀然向我逼近，然後將我團團圍住，彷彿故事就要開講了。這一段氛圍的描摹甚佳。

“Listen with Mother”是英國廣播公司（BBC）的一檔收音機廣播的兒童節目。announcer：播音員。

50  make out：to be just able to see or hear .

這裡說她緩緩地朝著兩旁長著毛櫸樹林蔭道的盡頭走去，起初，主角看不大清楚。

I didn’t pick up hitchhikers much. I did in the early days, and I’d enjoyed the chat most of the time. Not always, but enough to make it worthwhile. More recently, though, I’d preferred being alone in the cab. Some nights, coming home in the dark, reeling off51 the narrow roads that ran to Perth or St. Andrews, remembering the way by my own landmarks—the hedges and drystone dykes and the spaces between them that other people didn’t even notice, tight angles of holly or lamplight as I came through a town—I would realize, with a pleasant rush of surprise, that I was fond of myself as I was, fond of my life, and yet, at the same time, not that worried about having to let it go52. I had got past the stage when company seemed like a good thing on the road, and I have to admit that I thought about driving on53 that night, even after I’d noticed the gash on her leg. I didn’t need complications, and by then everything that wasn’t part of the usual schedule had come to seem unnecessarily complicated54. Nevertheless, I made myself stop, and I pulled up55 alongside her—still thinking of this person on the road as a woman, possibly a woman in real difficulty—just to check, at least, that she was all right. I rolled down the window and leaned across to the passenger side. “You look like you ran into some trouble,” I called out, trying to make myself heard above the engine and, at the same time, not to be so loud that I might frighten her.

The moment I put on the brake, she stopped walking—and that was when I realized that she wasn’t a woman. She looked up, and I could see it in everything about her56: the way she stood, the darkness in her face, the heaviness. It was a boy, not a woman. Not a man, either, just a boy of eighteen or twenty, fairly thickset and not at all feminine. When he looked up at me, I saw the fear in his face, behind the mass of wet makeup and mascara, a fear that he wanted, but couldn’t quite manage, to hide. “I’m O.K.,” he said, but he stayed where he was, stock still, waiting.

51. reel off：to recite fluently and usually at length. 主角談起每一條小路如數家珍。

52. 當主角想起路上種種熟悉的風景，籬笆、無漿砌成的堤壩、冬青樹等等，心裡湧起一股驚奇的喜悅，他領悟到他喜歡自己目前的狀態，喜歡自己的生活，而且同時對於即將失去的生命也沒那麼擔憂。

53. 那天晚上他本來想在路上繼續的行駛。（他想按照自己的意思走，他不大想回家）。

54. 當主角遇見那男孩，注意到他腿上一道砍得很深的傷痕，他不想去惹麻煩。在那刻之前，任何日常行程之外的事情似乎都是沒有必要的麻煩。

55. pulled up：to bring or come to a halt. 將車子停下來。

56. I could see it in everything about her這一句中的it指她不是女生這件事。主角從她站立的姿態、臉色之暗沉、身材之胖碩都可看出她不是女生。

“Where are you headed?” I said, switching off the ignition and trying to keep the surprise out of my voice.

“Home,” he said. Then he mumbled something else that I couldn’t make out.

“What was that?” I said.

He shook his head. He seemed desperate, though I wasn’t sure if he was desperate to be helped or to be left alone57—at least, not until he spoke. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

I knew then that he wanted to trust me enough to get him home safe and dry. I also knew that he didn’t trust anybody, not right at that moment, anyway. “Well,” I said, “I’m Bill Harley. I’m on my way home from a long run delivering molasses, and it’s nearly Christmas, so I’m not going to leave you out here in the dark.”

Something changed in him then. Maybe it struck58 him as funny that I was talking about molasses, but he seemed to soften. He moved closer to the cab and tried to see inside. “I’m going home,” he said. “It’s just down this road.” He looked up into my face. “I’ll be fine,” he added, though he sounded less convinced than before.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Do yourself a favor. We’ll get you home, and you can get cleaned up.” I swung the passenger-side door open.

The boy nodded. I suppose he’d sized me up and decided it was worth the risk. Or maybe he was just past caring and the promise of shelter was more than he could resist.59 “All right,” he said. “It’s very kind of you.”

I nodded, then waited while he climbed in. He had a bit of trouble with that, what with the dress and the sling-back shoes, which I assumed he wasn’t used to, but finally he got himself settled and pulled the door shut. I looked at him for a moment in the golden light from the overhead, then I started the engine as casually as I could. “Well,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear me above the noise. “Where are you headed?”

57. desperate：suffering or driven by great need or distress主角不確定那男孩是急切地需要別人幫忙，還是不想被打擾。

58. 主角簡略的自我介紹，尤其最後那句話軟化了男孩僵硬的態度。或許是因為主角提及糖蜜，男孩覺得滿有趣的。

It strikes someone that……某人突然想起……. ；某人了悟到…….。

59. size someone up 打量某人。

男孩打量下主角，才決定冒此風險。或者他已不管什麼風險，因為他無法抗拒家的渴望。

“Coaltown?”

I nodded and turned back toward the road. It was a good twenty miles to Coaltown, not just down the road, but I had to pass it on my way home anyway. “O.K.,” I said.

“You know it?”

“I used to work there,” I said. “Long time ago.”

“Well, he said. “You’ll not find it much changed. I guarantee you that.”

“I don’t suppose I will,” I said, releasing the hand brake. As I did, I caught sight of the gash on his leg. It looked nasty, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. There was dirt all over his legs and hands, dirt and blood dried into the mesh of his fish-net stockings. His face was badly bruised, as if someone had punched him several times. I turned back toward the road, but I knew that he’d noticed me looking at him.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Just a few cuts and grazes.”

I shook my head. “It’s a bit more than that,” I said.

He let out a short, hard laugh, as if I’d made some joke at his expense60. “I suppose it is,” he said—and I detected something in his voice, more of a drift than a slur, that suggested he might be on something. 61

“Well,” I said. “It’s none of my business. But I’ve got a first-aid kit in the box behind you.” I tilted my head toward the back. “If you want to get yourself sorted out.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “But thanks, anyway.” He shot me a quick glance, then looked away. “I’ve had worse.”

“Really?”

“Rules of the game,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I just went to the wrong party.” He glanced out at the side mirror. “I suppose it was a mistake, going for the Aileen Wuornos look. 62” I had to think about that for a moment, before I remembered who he was talking about, and he must have seen the realization dawn in my face, because he laughed again, louder and more confident this time. “Don’t worry, Bill,” he said. “I didn’t bring the gun.”

60. 男孩注意到主角在看他，所以掩飾道：「沒什麼，一點小割傷、擦破皮。」主角搖搖頭說：「比那個還多些。」（意思是事情沒那麼簡單）男孩短促的狂笑一聲，好像主角在揶揄他似的。

61. slur指講話含糊不清，drift則是閃爍其詞。

he might be on something他有可能遇上什麼麻煩事。

62. 男孩顯然去參加一個化妝舞會，他打扮成Aileen Wuornos的模樣。Aileen Wuornos為美國連續殺人犯， 1989~1990年間於美國佛羅里達州連續殺害七個男人，真人真事於1992年拍成電視連續劇Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story ，2003年拍成電影Monster。這篇短篇小說發表日期為2007年10月29日。

I had to smile at that. “Well,” I said. “There’s a relief. 63”

He laughed again, but this time his laughter was good-humored and warm, and I was suddenly glad that I’d stopped. “So,” he said. “Where are you headed, Bill Harley?”

“Home,” I said, and I realized that I didn’t want to think about home, at least for the moment. I wanted to be out on the road still, out on the road on a winter’s night, with no set destination, passing the time with someone I’d never see again.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Home.” He dwelled on the word for the moment before moving on. “Soon be Christmas,” he said.

“Not long.” I looked over at him; he was watching me, attentive, taking me in64, maybe searching for something that he thought I wanted to keep hidden—and I had an image of Caroline, of how she had watched me like that sometimes when she was younger, hoping for a clue to what lay behind the façade that she thought I was working so hard to maintain65. Maybe that was what made me say what I said next, surprising myself, and the boy. I didn’t say it very loudly, and I wasn’t really speaking to him, but it was loud enough to be audible above the noise of the engine. “One last Christmas,” I said. “Better make the most of it, eh?”

63. 男孩開玩笑地說：「別擔心，比爾，我沒帶槍。」 於是主角笑著回道：「嗯，讓人放心多了。」 

64. take in：to look at thoroughly. 男孩仔細地打量著主角。

65. 男孩瞧著他的樣子讓主角想起Caroline小的時候，也常會用那種神情注視著他，希望透過他費心維持的外表，發現線索洞察其內心世界。

It wasn’t what I’d intended to say, though I wasn’t sorry I’d said it. Still, I had no wish to pursue the notion any further, now that it was out—and I think he understood that, because, after allowing just enough space for what I might say next, he let it go without another word, and we drove on in silence, staring out from our separate places into the sleety darkness, our faces filling with light from time to time as a car passed from the opposite direction. It was slow going, then, but the silence didn’t bother me; if anything66, it felt strangely comfortable, like having a passenger in the cab and being alone at the same time. After a while, though, the boy picked up the conversation67, slipping casually into the kind of slow-moving, pointless talk that goes on between people of good will who don’t know each other well: stuff about football—I was surprised by that, though I suppose I shouldn’t have been68—and some documentary he’d seen on television. It could have been anybody in the cab with me, to begin with at least, but then he started talking about other things, minor stuff about his school days mostly, only it was funny and good-humored, and all the time I knew he was really talking about something else altogether69, some other story about himself that he wanted to tell, not out of need but because it was interesting. Like his memory of the school atlas that he’d been given in geography class—how he had loved the way the world was all mapped out, all the colors and lines and borders perfect and just, so that it looked like the kind of world it would be a pleasure to inhabit, an utterly fictional world where you could never be lost, because everybody and everything belonged somewhere70. I enjoyed that, for as long as it lasted, partly because it felt new, to be driving along like this, talking to a boy in a dress and runny makeup, but also because he was such good company. When we finally reached the turn for Coaltown, he leaned forward in his seat slightly. “If you drop me here, that’ll be fine,” he said.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to leave him in the dark, on another stretch of featureless road. “I’ll take you to your door,” I said. “It’s no trouble.”

“Thanks, Bill,” he said. “But I’d rather walk from here. No offense71.” He looked over at me, and, even out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he was hoping he hadn’t somehow insulted me.

“None taken72,” I said, but I turned off the main road and carried on a few hundred yards toward the coast before I stopped.

66. 在主角不經意說出最後一個耶誕節之後，男孩久久不語，兩人各自凝望窗外雨雪紛飛的黑。車子開得很慢 ，主角沒有因為沉默不語而感到不安，如果硬要說什麼的話，那是種滿奇怪的舒服的感覺，好像開車時旁邊有個人陪，同時又像是自己一個人在開著車。

if anything在文法上是個插入語，用法上如同if possibly, if necessary。

67.picked up the conversation重新聊起話來。

68. 他們兩人漫不經心地閒扯著些尋常話題，例如像足球賽。這裡主角說到聊足球賽原本應該沒甚麼好奇怪的，但他感到詫異自己都快死了，還有此閒情逸致聊著這些話題。

69. 當男孩在聊談學校裡種種趣事時，主角知道他其實真正在說的是別的東西。那麼，主角認為男孩真正在說的是甚麼呢？

altogether： used to make a final statement about several things you have just mentioned (= all in all) 

70. 男孩記得地理課上發的地圖冊，世界各地全都標示在地圖上，所有的顏色、線條和邊界如此完美、公允，從這地圖冊看起來就像一個快樂居住的世界，一個你永遠不會迷失的完全虛構的世界，因為每個人、每件物皆各有所屬。這段描述讓人聯想到J.D. Salinger的The Catcher in the Rye裡Holden Caulfield說話的口吻。

71. No offense=無心冒犯；請別見怪。

72. None taken=你沒冒犯我；我沒見怪，回應前句No offense。反之，Take offense=被惹怒，生氣發怒。 

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” I said.

He put his hand on the door, as if to go, then he turned and smiled, not so much at me as at something that had just crossed his mind. “It’s not how you think it is,” he said. I felt uneasy, as if he were breaking some prearranged code and had started telling me a secret that I wasn’t supposed to know. “I’m happy with how things are, most of the time,” he said, and it was as if he were talking to someone else, trying to persuade them that what he was saying was true. Someone else, or himself, or a little of both73. “So that question in your mind,” he said. “You might as well forget it.”

I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. I really didn’t want to make something of it74, even if there was a question in my mind, because it probably wasn’t the question he thought I wanted to ask. I didn’t need to know about his life, or what he did sexually, or what he wanted to do, or any of those things. I certainly didn’t want to know what the wrong party had been, or how he had come by75 his cuts and bruises. Some part of me was curious about him, but it was his happiness that I was curious about—because I thought he wanted me to imagine him as happy, and I wondered why it mattered to him76. Or maybe I was just surprised that he seemed to believe that happiness was possible—and probably that was why I asked him the question I thought he wanted to hear, because, even on such short acquaintance, I liked him and I wished him well, at least. It was a piece of shorthand, I suppose, for all the other questions, the ones about happiness and being alone and getting home safe. It was also nothing at all77. “Do you know what you’re doing?” I said.

The boy laughed. “Never,” he said, with a little too much emphasis. “But you have to pretend, Bill.” He regarded me for a moment. “If you don’t pretend,” he said, “you’re lost.” 78

73.男孩臨走時說：「事情不是你所想的那樣。大多數時候，我對目前的狀況還滿意。」他這些話彷彿說給別的另外的人，或者他自己，或者兩者皆是。主角這裡提到someone else與之前提到的something else相呼應。

74. make something of it：to treat something as a reason for arguing.

即使主角心裡有個疑問，但他實在不想再多說些甚麼。主角心裡的疑問顯然與男孩認為的不同，主角的疑問究竟是甚麼呢？

75. come by (something) : to get or acquire (something)

主角的確不想知道那個他不該去的派對是怎麼回事，或者他身上的割傷與瘀青是怎樣來的。

76. 主角認為男孩很要讓主角覺得他是快樂的，主角納悶男孩為什麼對這點會這麼在意？

77. 男孩似乎相信快樂是可能的，主角感到詫異所以才問他下面那個問題：「你知道自己在幹什麼嗎？」

主角為什麼對男孩似乎相信快樂是可能的而感到詫異？

主角為什麼認為男孩想要聽他下面那個問題？

主角為什麼認為他底下那個問題是其他所有問題的速記？其他所有問題包括有關於快樂、孤獨、平安回家。主角同時又認為這個問題一點意義也沒有。

作者好幾個地方都寫得跟詩一樣，意境超脫猶若羚羊掛角，無跡可求。

78. 男孩回答他從來不知道自己在幹些什麼，但你必須假裝知道自己在幹些什麼，不然你就輸了。

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I understood anyway. He couldn’t do anything else, was what he meant. He couldn’t do anything different, and neither could anybody else. “Well,” I said. “You be careful now.”

He slid down off the seat and turned back toward me. “You, too, Bill,” he said. He’d said my name again, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know his. “Have a good Christmas,” he said.

“You, too,” I said. Then I slipped into gear, released the hand brake, and pulled away, leaving him there in the slow, dark sleet. I didn’t look back through the side mirror so I didn’t see what he did next, and it wasn’t until I was some miles farther down the road that I realized that he hadn’t wanted to talk about himself at all, but was just giving me something back, and I felt sorry not to have understood it at the time, but glad, too, because, out on the road, in the cold, any gift is better than nothing. 79

After I dropped the boy off, the weather cleared a little, and the last ten miles took next to no time 80. I liked that final stretch, the road going straight along the coast for a while, the water big and empty to the south, the fields and low hills above spotted with light here and there from farmsteads and faraway cottages. By the time I turned off and began climbing the rise toward home, the sleet had stopped altogether; a few miles farther, I came within sight of my own village, not much more than a row of houses straggling along a back road, a brief distraction on the way to somewhere else81. The lights here always seemed dull and brownish in comparison with the fairy-tale silver of the lights I’d seen from the high road, and it struck me, sometimes, coming home late, that I knew the place too well. I knew all the stories. I knew what the people were doing behind those windows. I could see the abandoned dinner tables and the stone sculleries, the muddy boots on the doormat, the piles of newly opened letters on the sideboard, the silent men sitting in worn armchairs in the kitchen, watching television.

79. 車子行駛了幾英里遠，主角才意識到，男孩原本不想談任何關於他自己的事，但男孩還是對主角吐露了一些事，主角感到很遺憾當時沒能理解到他的用意。 主角把男孩吐露的這些話語當作禮物，雖然這些話並沒有說明他是誰，到底發生甚麼事等等，但總比他什麼都不講好些。

80. next to no time 表示很快，幾乎沒花什麼時間。

81. 眼前出現主角自己的村莊，不過就是一排偏僻小路兩旁零零落落的房子，那是在去往別處的路上一個短暫的分心。

這裡a back road中back的意思：distant from a center of activity; remote。

distraction當可數名詞時有兩種意義：（1）分心—某件讓你難於思考或集中注意的事或物；（2）消遣—某件讓你覺得開心而不再為問題或工作煩惱的事或物。在此顯然是第一個意思。

主角認為回家是短暫的分心，因為他的心在別處。底下形容自己村莊的燈光是沉悶的淡褐色，比照他在大路上看到的燈光是童話世界般的銀色。

When I reached my own cottage, I parked the rig in the lay-by82 opposite and let myself in through the side gate, coming across the garden to the back door, which was always left unlocked. The house was silent, almost dark; the one lamp burning was in the dining room, a room we hardly ever used, preferring to eat in the creaturely83 warmth of the kitchen. I wasn’t surprised that Sall was in there, though: that was where we kept the things that her real life was made from—the best china and the family albums and the framed pictures from what she probably thought were better days. I opened the back door and went through the kitchen as quietly as I could—quieter, those last months, than I’d ever been before, as if the promise of death84 had revealed a carefulness in me that I’d never suspected—and I found Sall sleeping in the big armchair by the fireplace, a magazine on the floor by her feet, an empty mug cradled in her lap. Asleep like that, unguarded, her head leaning heavily to one side, she looked old and tired, but at least the worry that usually haunted her face was gone, and, as I stood watching her, it struck me that she was dreaming. I knew she would be upset if she woke up and found that I’d come home while she was sleeping, but I stood a moment longer, watching her dream and wondering how she had spent the day, what she had thought about, what she had done. After a moment, though, I felt uncomfortable spying on her like that, and I walked back through to the kitchen, to let her rest.

82. rig：a tractor-trailer. 主角那輛車是運送糖蜜的牽引托車。 

lay-by ：Brit a place for drivers to stop at the side of a main road. (英式)大路旁駕駛停車的地方。

83. 廚房裡有人的溫暖，但是這裡主角用creaturely warmth而非human warmth，當稱呼人為creature時有三種情況：（1）scorn表示輕蔑（2）pity表示憐憫，（3）endearment表示愛慕、親熱，這裡是用哪一個意思呢？

84.最近這幾個月，主角的動作比以往任何時候都輕，彷彿是死亡的允諾使得主角顯露出發自內心的小心謹慎，而主角從未想過他會如此小心翼翼。

這裡suspect 解釋為懷疑have doubts，文義上不通，應當是：To surmise to be true or probable; imagine 猜測某事是真的或可能的。

the promise of death 這是個反諷的用詞。

It was colder than ever now, but the sky had cleared, and a bright moon had emerged from the clouds, cold and white in a pool of indigo sky85 right above the garden. I put the kettle on, then I stepped outside and stood on the patio, looking over the fields to the stand of trees and the long stone wall that I knew were just beyond, black and irrefutably solid in the darkness. It was almost completely silent: from time to time, a dog barked at the end of the road, or the odd gust of wind caught in the beech hedge by Sall’s flower border; then, after a minute or so, the kettle began to sing quietly, and, as I felt the silence slipping away, I tried to capture it all, to drink it all in, before Sall woke up and I wasn’t alone anymore86. This was my life, these were the times when I was true: in these half hours here and there when I felt alone in the house, or those fleeting moments out on the road, when I opened a gate and crossed an empty farmyard, a stranger, even to myself, in the quiet of the afternoon. The best part of the day was getting up at dawn and going down to the cool gray kitchen, the dark garden waiting at the door like some curious beast strayed in from the fields, a casual attentiveness in the coming light that seemed ready to include me, as it did everything else, in a soft, foreign stillness87. That was the best, because I knew Sall would stay in bed until after I left, whether she was awake or not—though times like tonight were almost as good. It had become more frequent of late88, this coming home and knowing that Sall was asleep somewhere, the magazine she had been reading slipped to the floor, a mug of tea cooling on a side table. It felt like coming home to another house, a place full of secrets, a childhood still there, intact among the green shadows under the stairs89. First love, too—though not for Sall, as it happened, even though I’d never known anyone else, or not in that way. No: if thirty years of marriage and bringing up a child had taught me anything, it was that through everything, through all the Christmases and birthdays, through all the mishaps and misunderstandings, almost nothing had been shared. Everything that happened had happened to us separately, and, afterward, in my own mind, it all had a strangely abstract feel: a marriage inferred from picture books and Saturday matinées90, a love that didn’t quite materialize, a series of other lives that had involved me for a while then shied away, the way an animal does when you make the wrong move and remind it of what you really are. 91

85. indigo 靛藍色的。

86. 主角在煮開水，水滾了，水壺開始輕輕地嘶嘶作響。他感覺寂靜正在溜走，於是他要將寂靜完全捕捉，他要飲盡所有寂靜（比擬寫法）。I tried to capture it all, to drink it all in中的it指silence。

主角珍惜獨自一人的時光，Sall醒過來後他就會失去這種獨處片刻。

87. The best part of the day這一整句寫得像現代詩，試著理解如下：

一天當中最好的時光就是一大清早起床，走到微涼、灰濛的廚房，

天色未亮，花園兀自漆黑，守在廚房門口等候著，

守候於門口的花園宛如一隻從曠野中迷路走來的稀奇野獸。

湧現的晨曦有一種隨意的垂顧，就要將我融合於輕柔、新奇的寂靜當中。

88. of late：recently. 最近

89. It felt like coming home to another house這裡another house不是指別人的家，而是指另外一棟房子，一棟充滿秘密、童年依舊的房子，所以是指他記憶中童年的那一棟房子。

intact among the green shadows under the stairs這句在修飾childhood，童年仍然在那裡，完整地在樓梯底下綠色蔭影當中。

90. matinee：通常於下午演出的歌舞劇、音樂會或電影。

91. 一系列與我短暫牽連的其他種生活，退縮離去，那種退縮的樣子就好像當你做出錯誤舉動時，動物退縮跑掉，或者是你讓那動物覺醒到真實的你時而畏縮跑掉。 

a series of 指的是相同性質的一些事物。

The kettle was whistling now, and I thought to leave it, so that Sall would have to get up and turn off the gas. That way, I could pretend I hadn’t seen her sleeping. It felt too close, seeing her like that. It was as if I were breaking the rules we had worked for years to set up, a system of small courtesies and avoidances and slow, fluid conversations that ran for days, pieces of hearsay and local news passed back and forth over meals and cups of tea to cover the bewildered quiet that had fallen upon us. It was awkward sometimes, but it did work, and it was better than any of the possible alternatives. 92 For a moment, I thought of the boy on the road and wondered if it would ever come to this for him, if he would ever come home and find someone he cared for, but no longer loved, asleep in an armchair. It was a tender thought, I suppose, but it wasn’t sad, or sentimental, and it had nothing to do with death. It was just a notion, passing through my mind, while I waited for the kettle to stop whistling.

Only it didn’t stop, and after a while I walked back inside and turned off the gas myself. At exactly the same moment, Sall came through93, her eyes bleary, an odd, faraway look on her face. She seemed surprised to see me, as if she hadn’t heard the kettle at all but had just woken up in what she thought was an empty house—and it struck me, for the first time, how difficult it would be for her, having me die first.

“You’re back,” she said. It sounded like an accusation. She glanced at the clock, but she didn’t say anything else.

“It was a long run,” I said. “I just got in.”

She nodded. “I haven’t made you anything,” she said. “I didn’t know when you’d be finished.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m not that hungry.”

She gave me a quick, scared look. “You’ve got to eat,” she said.

“I’ll have an omelette or something later,” I said. “I was just making coffee, if you want some.”

92. 主角認為他可以假裝沒有看見Sall沉睡的樣子，因為看著她睡這感覺太過於親密，會破壞他們倆人多年來建立的規則。

他們所謂的規則就是維持表面禮貌，避免觸及某些事或話題，接連數日緩慢流動的對話，餐桌上交換一些傳聞和當地新聞，或對飲杯茶掩蓋時而襲來令人困惑的安靜。這些狀態有時顯得尷尬，但這規則的確有用，比其他任何可能的選擇好的多。 

93. come through：to emerge successfully. 主角不說她醒過來，而是說她從昏睡中成功地浮現出來。

“I’ll make it,” she said. “You sit down. You’ve had a long day94.”

I nodded, but I didn’t move. The door was still open, just enough that I could smell the cold outside, and I heard the dog barking—farther away now, it seemed, at the darker end of the road that ran past our house and into the hills, past the golden lights of farms and dairies and narrow sheep runs through the gorse95, where snow was probably beginning to form—real snow this time, not the cold sleet I’d driven through in the woods where I met the boy. For a split second—no more—I wanted to get back in the rig and drive on, up into the darkness, into the origin of the approaching blizzard, just to be alone out there, the way that boy had been alone in the woods. Then, with Sall watching me curiously, and perhaps fearfully, I let go of that thought and went through to the living room, where the curtains were already drawn and the night was nothing more than a story to be told by a warm fire, with the radio humming quietly in the background, so that the world felt familiar and more or less happy, like the future that seemed possible when you didn’t think about dying, or the pastel-colored maps in a childhood atlas that you couldn’t help but go on trusting, even when you knew that they no longer meant what they said. ♦96

94. You’ve had a long day 你辛苦工作了一整天。

95. sheep run：牧羊場。 gorse：金雀花。

96. 主角有股衝動想回到車上，駛往黑暗之中，暴風雪之初。但是看到Sall訝異或許駭怕的眼神，他放棄這念頭，走進客廳，收音機發出低沉的嗡嗡聲，感覺這個世界這麼熟悉，多多少少有一些快樂，而且似乎可能有未來。

但是這裡有兩個條件：（1）不要再想著死亡一事，（2）不要再想著童年時在地圖冊中一幅幅色彩輕淡的地圖。為什麼不要再想著地圖？因為你會不由自主地相信那地圖所代表的意義，即使你知道地圖上所說的根本不是那麼回事。地圖代表什麼？地圖又說了些什麼？

【淺嚐賞味】

平凡的人平凡的日子，走著走著生命忽然就到了盡頭。回想此生，環顧四遭，夜暮蒼茫，雨雪雜沓。無比荒涼與孤獨之中，依稀還能感受關懷的溫度，但那幸福、未來的蹤跡呢？

初讀John Burnside這篇故事，感覺就像在品嘗李義山之無題詩，於縹渺朦朧的意境中透露著幽微沉鬱的情思。Ambiguity（多義性、晦澀、朦朧）置文本於非固定性、不明確的處境，如樂章中的休止符或繪畫中的留白，激發讀者通過鑑賞之再創造，去解釋與重建作品。不同讀者有不同的感受與解讀，也是合理的，誠謂：「橫看成嶺側成峰」。即使我們對於某些段落、章句無法達致明確的理解又何妨，梁啟超也曾說過：「義山的〈錦瑟〉、〈碧城〉、〈聖母祠〉等講的什麼事，我們理會不著，拆開一句句叫我理釋，我連文義也解不出，但我覺得他美，讀起來令我精神上得一種新鮮愉快，須知美是多方面的，美是含有神秘性的。」

執是之故，在此提出本篇故事幾處比較晦澀難解的段落，縱有論釋亦不過是個人的一種欣賞角度。主角於篇中提到傍晚時，最後一抹餘暉射入道路兩旁的樹林和灌木叢，母親總是稱呼此時的景致：“傍晚的第一道綠”。作者故意不說明何來此說（原因之一︰敘述故事的是主角而非作者），但他鑄造這相互矛盾的詞語的意圖是明顯的。傍晚接近黑夜，屬於死亡，而綠卻象徵生機盎然，第一道則是說正在開始。母親或有「夕陽無限好，只是近黃昏」之感慨，但她的態度卻是積極、正面的。到了垂暮之年，有時反而更能夠體會生命的意義與美好。主角在這時候想起母親的這個話，應是心裡有所感觸，只是這感受還是矇矓、不是很清楚的。

在和農場主人Ben Walsh道別之後，主角想像農場主人孤伶伶過耶誕節的景象，心想當時或許該坐下來陪他喝杯茶，因為他反觀自己的景況也好不到哪裡，類似「同是天涯淪落人」的同情與憐憫。主角想要以某種優雅的態度離開生命，或者至少對身邊發生的事情多些關心，應是對過去消極的生活態度有所悔悟。當他開始關注身邊所有事物，彷彿時間突如其來地趕上來與他會合，對於一些日常瑣事竟然也能感到一種奇特的樂趣，雖然他也說不出所以然。

接著主角述說路上的景致，從Glasgow回來的路上有條通往Larbert的岔道，雖然他從未去過那裏，但感覺那地名聽起來就像永遠持續年少光陰，近水邊且天總是灰濛濛的，又像嘴裡起泡泡、滋滋響風味奇特的糖果，讓人不自覺聯想起性。這段追憶年少，以景融情，由實入虛，尤其那段提到姊姊朋友來訪時的異樣愉悅不安，多麼鮮明的青春情懷！

在主角與男孩的對話之間，男孩提及地理課上發的地圖冊子，世界各地全都標示在地圖上，所有的顏色、線條和邊界如此完美、公允，看起來就像一個可以快樂居住、永遠不會迷失的完全虛構的世界，在這樣的世界裡人與物皆有所屬。所謂“有所屬”應當指和諧、親密的聯繫關係。地圖冊子是整篇故事一個非常重要的象徵，故事結尾又再度提起這個象徵。但在這裡應當與後頭那段對話合起來讀。主角問：「你知道自己在幹什麼嗎？」，男孩回答︰「我從來不知道自己在幹些什麼，但你必須假裝知道自己在幹些什麼，不然你就輸了（也可以解讀為：不然你就會迷失）。」篇尾主角提及地圖冊子，也說道：「即使你知道地圖所代表的意義根本不再是那麼回事，但是你還是不由自主地想要去繼續相信。」作者透過實虛正反的象徵比興，托寓他所要傳達的涵意。

故事後頭有一段陳述也很有意思。「一天當中最好的時光就是一大清早起床，走到微涼、灰濛的廚房，黑魆魆的花園守在廚房門口等候，猶如一隻從曠野中迷路走來的稀奇野獸。在湧現的晨曦中有一種隨意的垂顧，就要將我以及萬物融合於輕柔、新奇的寂靜當中。」這裡的垂顧(attentiveness)與前頭提到至少對身邊事物多些關心(attention)相互呼應，湧現的晨曦(the coming light)與傍晚的第一道綠相互呼應。那一隻從曠野中迷路走來的稀奇野獸指的是什麼？是人的心嗎？這讓人聯想起Carson McCullers那本經典名作“心是寂寞狩獵”The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”，獵人或者野獸，都指向那顆孤寂、渴望、覓尋的人心。

Traveler-Levin