你觉得网络虚幻吗?那为什么Facebook上展现的人生会如此真实生动,让你为其中的主角或欢喜不已,或肝肠寸断?你觉得网络真实吗?那你又真正认识几个列表中所谓的“好友”,曾与他们中的几个说过话、见过面、把酒言欢,甚至促膝长谈?这是个充满玄妙又让人费解的世界,虚拟与现实交错,真实与虚假难辨。我们究竟该嘲笑自己会轻易为一个素不相识的“朋友”和她真假难断的人生唏嘘,还是该为身处这个荒唐的世界却仍对人保有一份真情而庆幸?
I met “S” several years ago, when she was hired by the magazine where I worked as an editor. She was an assistant in a different department, so we had very little day-to-day contact. I somehow learned that she went to nightclubs a lot, and I once overheard her tell a colleague that she wanted to be the editor-in-chief of a magazine someday. It was a snippet1) that stayed with me, as her partying lifestyle seemed contrary to such a career goal, and for a while whenever I passed her desk I would worry over the incongruity2). Eventually I found resolution in the idea of Bonnie Fuller3), doyenne4) of celebrity journalism. That’s what S meant, I decided: she would be an editor like Fuller, rather than someone bookish, like the legendarily reticent5) New Yorker editor William Shawn6). She even had a haircut like Fuller’s. 
我是在几年前认识S的,那时她和我任职于同一家杂志社。我在那儿做编辑,而她在另一个部门做助理,我们日常接触的机会很少。我不知从哪儿听说她经常去泡夜店,还有一次无意中听到她对一个同事说,有朝一日她要成为一名杂志主编。当时我的印象是,这真是一个不知天高地厚的年轻人,因为她那种夜夜笙歌的生活方式与杂志主编这样的职业目标看上去完全背道而驰。于是,有那么一段时间,每当我经过她的办公桌时,都会对她这种梦想与现实间的不协调感到担忧。后来,我从专门报道名流新闻的资深女前辈邦妮·富勒的身上找到了答案。我暗自断定,S就是这个意思:她将来想做一名像富勒那样的编辑,而不是像《纽约客》那位富有传奇色彩但却不善言谈的编辑威廉·肖恩那样,一副书呆子气。就连她的发型都跟富勒的很像。
Eventually S quit the magazine. There must have been a goodbye party, with the customary boutique7) cupcakes and plastic Champagne flutes. Months wore on8), maybe even years. Much to our collective shock, one Wednesday morning our parent company announced it was shutting down the magazine, and by Friday we no longer had jobs. At first I was intoxicated9) by the novelty of solitude: it was late January, a nice time of year to spend the day reading on the sofa. But in the weeks to come, I started to miss popping into colleagues’ offices to get their daily romantic updates, or just making absentminded10) loops through the corridors, halfheartedly hunting for chocolates.
后来,S辞职,离开了杂志社。想必她走的时候部门还为她开了告别派对,大家依惯例买来精巧的纸托蛋糕和塑料香槟杯,一起热闹了一番。之后的日子就这样一月一月地慢慢过去,甚至好几年的光景也这样溜走了。然后,一个星期三的早上,突然发生了一件令我们所有人震惊的事:总公司宣布要关停我们杂志社。到了周五的时候,我们就都失业了。刚开始的时候,我陶醉于这种独处生活带来的新鲜感:那是1月下旬,正值一年中最适于整天窝在沙发上看书的好时节。但在接下来的几周时间里,我开始怀念上班时的日子:闯进同事的办公室探听他们最新的爱情八卦,或者什么也不干,只是在走廊里心不在焉地瞎转悠,然后漫不经心地四处看看哪儿有巧克力吃。
So it came to pass11) that I started logging on to Facebook. And, like seemingly everyone else I’d ever met, eventually S “friended” me. My policy has been always to accept whoever asks, no question, and never to friend anyone myself. I glanced at S’s picture—that pretty smile and Bonnie Fuller shag12)—clicked “confirm”, and unconsciously relegated13) her to the vast, benign category of “friends” with whom I never interact, but who constitute a comforting background chorus.
就这么着,我开始上Facebook。在Facebook上,似乎我碰到的每一个人都要加我为“好友”,和他们一样,最终,S也申请了加我。我一直坚持的一个原则是无论谁申请都接受,决不问任何问题;另一个原则是决不主动申请加任何人为好友。我扫了一眼S的照片——美丽的笑容和邦妮·富勒式乱蓬蓬的发型——接着点击“确认”,然后下意识地把她移到我那人数众多、气氛和谐的“好友”列表中。我从未跟列表中的“好友”有过任何交流,但他们的存在却仿佛构成了一首背景和声,让我觉得宽慰和安心。
S would accept no such fate. Straightaway, photos of her nightlife dominated my news feed14). Her status updates were bubbly15) shrieks of uppercase letters and exclamation points. I considered “hiding” her—this is the function that allows you to make a friend invisible without going so far as to “defriend” her—but that seemed excessive. S was, after all, my envoy16) to an alternate universe of abandon. Twenty-five years old and barelegged in winter was a variety of fun I’d never known before.
可是S却不愿接受这样的命运。很快,我的“动态消息”栏就被她各种各样的夜生活照片所占据。她的状态更新是由一连串大写字母和感叹号组成的热情四溢的“高声喊叫”。我考虑过把她“隐藏”掉——这种功能使你能够让某个好友“消失”,但又不至于把她从“好友”名单中删除——不过这么做似乎有点过分。不管怎么说,正是通过S,我才看到了另一个肆意放纵的世界。25岁的年龄,大冬天也光着腿,这其中的种种乐趣是我以前闻所未闻的。
Then, in the spring, a man—G—entered the frame. At first he appeared with other men, the whole group at a table in a bar, offering pints of beer to the camera. But quickly everyone else fell away and he emerged in photographs with S alone, his arm thrown around her. At first the gesture was friendly and drunk, but over time I could track the way his arm both relaxed and tightened, his hand cupping her shoulder, and see him taking possession.
之后,到了春天的时候,一个叫G的男人走进了S的相册。起初,照片里除了他还有其他很多男人,他们一大群人在酒吧里围着一张桌子,每个人手里一品脱啤酒,冲着相机镜头高高举起。但是很快,相片里的其他人消失了,只剩他和S两个,他的一只胳膊揽着她。一开始,这姿势看上去只是友好的表示和醉酒后的表现,但过了一段日子,我观察到他揽着她的那只胳膊渐渐变得自然、有力了,他的手那样紧紧地握住她的肩膀,我看得出他一步一步地俘虏了她的心。
It turned out that G lived in London, and in the fall S posted images from a visit: the couple in a crowded pub, or on a bridge at sunset. By now I habitually clicked through S’s photo albums, a diversion far better than popping into a colleague’s office for a romantic update. Here, I had the satisfaction of a love plot unfolding right in my living room, complete with17) revolving backdrops and the suspense inherent in a long-distance relationship. When was her next trip? Oh look, G is coming to town! At this I felt relief: I took it as evidence that he was as committed to her as she was to him.
后来我知道了G住在伦敦,秋天的时候,S上传了她去伦敦见他时的照片:这对小恋人或是在人山人海的酒吧里纵情欢乐,或是日落时分在桥上相互依偎。现在,我开始习惯于轻点鼠标进入S的相册浏览,这种消遣方式比闯进某个同事的办公室打听最新的爱情八卦好多了。在这里,就在我的客厅里,我满足于看着一段美妙的爱情故事一点一点展开,既配有不断变化的背景,又不乏异地恋情固有的悬念。她什么时候会再去伦敦呢?噢,看啊,G来看她了!看到这样的照片我感到很欣慰:我觉得这表示G对S也像S对G一样地全心全意。
But that was nothing compared to my delight the December morning I logged on to Facebook and was greeted by a photo of S and G grinning madly on an enormous gray sofa, S presenting the back of her hand to the camera to show off the diamond on her finger. I have never known that kind of happiness with a man. Without thinking, I started to type a note of congratulations into the comment box, but midway through I erased it and logged off. I hardly knew this person. When had I become such a voyeur18)?
不过与后面的欣喜比起来,这点欣慰就算不得什么了。那是12月的一个早上,我登录到Facebook后,迎接我的是一张S和G的照片,两人坐在一个硕大的灰色沙发上咧着嘴开怀大笑,S举起手背,对着相机秀出手指上的钻戒。我从不知道和一个男人在一起会那么幸福快乐。我不假思索地开始在评论栏里写祝福的话语,但写到一半,我就把它删了,然后退出了Facebook。我几乎不认识这个人。我什么时候变成这样一个偷窥狂了?
Still, I continued to devour19) her fairy tale. Here G was introducing her to his parents; here she was introducing him to hers. A year had passed since S had friended me. We never exchanged messages, or commented on one another’s postings, or saw each other in person (save for one early, awkward encounter in a furniture store, during which it took me a moment to place who she was). Yet I thought about her often, even when I wasn’t on Facebook, as I would any close friend in a similar joyful circumstance. More, in fact: her news thrummed20) inside my chest as if it were my own. I wondered where the wedding might take place, what she would wear. Being a voyeur isn’t so bad, I decided, as long as you’ve been invited—and you don’t tell anyone.
但是,我依然继续贪婪地关注着她童话般的生活。我看见G带她见了他的父母;她也带G见了自己的父母。从S加我为好友开始,算来已经一年过去了。我们从未互通过信息,从未给对方发布的东西写过任何评论,也从未跟本人见过面(除了很早的时候在一家家具店有过一次尴尬的偶遇,那一次我愣了一会儿才认出她是谁)。但我却常常想起她,即使不上Facebook时也是如此,就像我在同样愉快的氛围中想起其他亲密的朋友一样。事实上,类似的事情还有很多,她的消息总能触动我的心弦,好像那是我自己的事情一样。我想知道她的婚礼会在哪里举行,她会穿什么样的衣服。当一个偷窥狂也不是很糟,我心里暗自总结。当然,条件是别人主动邀请你窥探她的生活——而且你也不会把你看到的告诉任何人。
In late January, I traveled from my Brooklyn apartment to a remote Vermont farmhouse belonging to a friend of a friend. She was leaving the country for two weeks, and I’d agreed to take care of her animals. It was a brave little house with a big, tumbledown barn and fields that sloped into forests beyond. The days were bright with snow, the nights forbiddingly dark. I had to drive 20 miles to get Internet access. But one evening I made an exciting discovery: balanced just so on a windowsill, my iPhone had snatched a stray sliver of signal and garnered 50 e-mails. News from beyond! As the messages downloaded, excruciatingly21) slowly, I boiled water for tea, stoked the furnace, and settled into an armchair, pleased to see a message from a former colleague with S’s name in the subject line: had I actually been invited to the wedding shower?
1月下旬时,我离开布鲁克林的公寓,到佛蒙特州一个偏远的农舍里去住了一段日子。这个农舍属于我一个朋友的朋友,她打算出国两个星期,我答应帮她照顾家里的动物。那是一栋很漂亮的小房子,有一个非常宽敞、年久失修的谷仓,房前的斜坡上是成片的庄稼地,直延伸至远处的森林里。这里的白天因为雪的映照格外明亮,而夜晚则一片漆黑,令人生畏。我得开车跑20英里地才能找到上网的地方。但一天晚上,我有了一个激动人心的发现:我把我的iPhone手机平放在一个窗台上,它竟然捕捉到了零星的几格信号,接收到了50封电子邮件。那可是来自远方的消息啊!不过这些邮件下载起来可是慢得要命。于是,我趁下载邮件的空当,烧了一壶水泡茶,往炉子里添了点煤,在扶手椅上坐了下来,然后欣喜地看到了以前的一个同事发给我的一封邮件,消息主题行里有S的名字,我不禁想:难道我真的受到邀请去参加S告别单身的女子派对了吗?
It was a mass e-mail. “It’s my great displeasure to be the bearer of such horrible news, but S passed away on Sunday,” it read. “It was very sudden and I believe it happened in her sleep. I don’t have any other details; a friend of hers sent me a message via Facebook.”
那是一封群发的邮件。“我非常悲痛地告诉你们如此可怕的消息,S星期日去世了,”邮件中写道,“事情发生得很突然,我相信她去世的时候还在梦中。我知道的就这么多了;她的一个朋友通过Facebook给我发了一条消息告诉我的。”
A loud sob broke out of me, like a bark. It was a frightening sound in that too-quiet house. I stood up, heart racing, and paced the rooms, switching on any lamp I could find. But the rooms weren’t familiar to me, and their features—shelves sagging with books I’d never read; ropes of garlic garlanding a cupboard; decades of dirt caking the floor seams—only enlarged my sense of unreality. Even the smudged windows framed a night so black that I could see nothing there but my own pale face. How do you cry for someone you hardly know? And for what was I crying? S or her story?
一声响亮的抽泣声突然从我身体里爆发了出来,就像是在咆哮一般。在那个过于安静的房子里,这声音听上去令人恐惧。我站起身来,感觉到心跳加速,我在房间里不停地来回踱步,打开了我所能找到的每一盏灯。但是这些房间对于我来说是陌生的——被压得有些变形的书架上放着我从未读过的书,橱柜上挂着成串的大蒜,地板缝里积满了厚厚一层陈年污垢——眼前这一切只是增强了我的不真实感。甚至连从污迹斑斑的窗户看出去,都只能看到漆黑的夜晚,除了自己苍白的脸庞,我什么都看不见。你怎么会为一个你几乎不认识的人哭泣呢?我究竟为什么要哭呢?是为S,还是为她的经历?
1. snippet [5snIpIt] n.〈口〉不知天高地厚的年轻人
2. incongruity [7InkCN5^ru:EtI] n. 不和谐,不相称
3. Bonnie Fuller:邦妮·富勒,1956年生于加拿大多伦多,著名的杂志编辑,HollywoodLife.com的总裁及主编。她创造了现代娱乐八卦杂志的新模式,她对性、时尚、名人和娱乐八卦的热衷使杂志吸引了无数读者。在传媒界,她受到了人们的追捧,但同时也遭到了许多人的批评。
4. doyenne [5dCIen] n.〈法〉女性老前辈 5. reticent [5retIsEnt] adj. 沉默寡言的
6. William Shawn:威廉·肖恩(1907～1992),美国杂志编辑,从1952到1987年一直任《纽约客》(The New Yorker)的编辑。
7. boutique [bu:5ti:k] n. 一种小零售店,专卖礼品、时装、配件或食品。
8. wear on:缓慢地进行;时间消逝 9. intoxicate [In5tCksIkeIt] vt. 使陶醉
10. absentminded [5AbsEnt5maIndId] adj. 心不在焉的 11. come to pass:发生,出现
12. shag [FA^] n. 蓬乱一团 13. relegate [5relI^eIt] vt. 转移,归入
14. news feed:动态消息,是一种为用户提供不断更新的消息的数据模式。
15. bubbly [5bQblI] adj. 热情奔放的;轻快的,活泼的
16. envoy [5envCI] n. 使者,特使 17. complete with:包括,连同
18. voyeur [vwB:5j\:(r)] n.〈法〉窥淫癖者,偷看下流场面的人
19. devour [dI5vauE] vt. 贪婪地(或热切地)看
20. thrum [WrQm] vi. 随意地连续轻叩
21. excruciatingly [Ik5skru:FIeItINlI] adv. 极痛苦地,折磨人地