“The PhD is exceptionally demanding,” he said. “It’s okay if you can’t do it.”
“博士学位要求特别高，”他说，“如果你做不到也没关系。”
If I had explained to my supervisor, Dr. Runciman, why I was unable to work, he would have helped me, would have secured additional funding, petitioned the department for more time. But I didn’t explain, I couldn’t. He had no idea why it had been nearly a year since I’d sent him work, so when we met in his office one overcast July afternoon, he suggested that I quit.
假如那时我向导师朗西曼博士解释自己无法工作的原因，他会帮助我，为我争取更多资金，并请求院系给我更多时间。但我没有解释，我不能。他不知道为什么将近一年我的工作毫无进展。于是七月一个阴沉的下午，我们在他的办公室见面时，他建议我放弃。
I was failing my PhD.
我的博士学位岌岌可危。
I left his office full of fury at myself. I went to the library and gathered half a dozen books, which I lugged to my room and arranged on my desk. But my mind was made nauseous by rational thought, and by the next morning the books had moved to my bed, where they propped up my laptop while I worked steadily through Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
走出他的办公室，我对自己满心愤怒。我去图书馆搜集了半打书，将它们抱回我的房间，放在书桌上。但理性思考让我头晕恶心，第二天一早，那些书都被我挪到床上支撑笔记本电脑，而我连续地看着《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》，美其名曰工作。
That autumn, Tyler confronted my father. He talked to Mother first, on the phone. He called me after and related their conversation. He said Mother was “on our side,” that she thought the situation with Shawn was unacceptable and had convinced Dad to do something. “Dad is taking care of it,” Tyler said. “Everything is going to be fine. You can come home.”
那年秋天，泰勒与我父亲对质。他先和母亲通了电话，之后又打电话给我，转述了他们的谈话。他说，母亲“站在我们这边”，她认为肖恩的状况让人无法接受，并已说服父亲采取行动。“爸爸正在处理这件事，”泰勒说，“一切都会好起来的。你可以回家。”
I listened to Tyler relate this story while staring at the frozen image of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Tyler talked for a long time, moving through the events quickly but lingering in a wasteland of rationalization and self-recrimination. Dad must have misunderstood, Tyler said. There had been a mistake, a miscommunication. Maybe it was his fault, maybe he hadn’t said the right thing in the right way. That was it. He had done this, and he could repair it.
我一边听泰勒的讲述，一边盯着屏幕上莎拉·米歇尔·盖拉[8]静止的画面。泰勒说了很久，快速回溯这件事，但仍停留在合理化和自我谴责的荒原。爸爸一定是误会了，泰勒说，是哪里出了差错，生了误会。也许是他自己的错，也许是他说话的方式不对。就是这样。是他的错，他能弥补。【注：[8]Sarah Michelle Gellar（1977－），《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》的女主演。】
Tyler was still reeling from Dad’s threat when his phone rang. He thought it was Dad calling to apologize, but it was Shawn. Dad had told him everything. “I can have you out of this family in two minutes,” Shawn said. “You know I can do it. Just ask Tara.”
泰勒还没从父亲的威胁中回过神来，他的电话又响了。他以为是爸爸打来道歉的电话，没想到是肖恩打来的。爸爸已将一切都告诉了他。“我可以让你在两分钟内滚出这个家，”肖恩说，“你知道我能办到。问问塔拉就行。”
I dislike imagining this conversation. Tyler’s stutter was always worse when he talked to our father. I picture my brother hunched over the receiver, trying to concentrate, to push out the words that have jammed in his throat, while his father hurls an arsenal of ugly words.
我不愿想象这次谈话。泰勒一跟父亲说话，就口吃得更厉害。我想象哥哥弓着腰对着话筒，集中精力，费劲地把卡在喉咙里的话一一吐出来，而父亲则抛出一大堆丑话。
My phone rang again two days later, and I paused Buffy to answer it. It was Tyler. The whole thing had exploded in his face. He had felt uneasy after his conversation with Mother, so he had called Dad to see exactly what was being done about Shawn. Dad had become angry, aggressive. He’d shouted at Tyler that if he brought this up again, he would be disowned, then he’d hung up the phone.
两天后我的电话又响了，我暂停《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》，接起电话。是泰勒。整件事在他面前炸开了。与母亲谈话后，他不放心，于是又给爸爸打了个电话，想问问他究竟怎么处理肖恩的事。爸爸很生气，咄咄逼人。他朝泰勒大吼，说如果再提此事，就与泰勒断绝关系，然后就挂断了电话。
It was October when I got the letter.
我是在十月收到那封信的。
So I knew even before it happened that Tyler would go the same way. I could hear his hand-wringing through the long echo of the telephone. He was deciding what to do, but I knew something he did not: that the decision had already been made, and what he was doing now was just the long work of justifying it.
所以在事情发生之前，我就知道泰勒也会这么做。我能从电话长长的回声里听出他的绝望。他正决定着什么，但我知道他自己还不知道的事：他已经做出了决定，现在他所做的只是为它做漫长的辩护。
As I listened, I felt a strange sensation of distance that bordered on disinterestedness, as if my future with Tyler, this brother I had known and loved all my life, was a film I had already seen and knew the ending of. I knew the shape of this drama because I had lived it already, with my sister. This was the moment I had lost Audrey: this was the moment the costs had become real, when the tax was levied, the rent due. This was the moment she had realized how much easier it was to walk away: what a poor trade it was to swap an entire family for a single sister.
听着听着，我感到一种陌生的距离感，近乎冷漠，仿佛我和泰勒——这个我认识了一辈子的最挚爱的哥哥——的未来是一部我已经看过并知晓了结局的电影。我知道这出戏的走向，因为我已经在姐姐身上体验过了。这正是我失去奥黛丽的时刻：这是成本为现实的时刻，税款缴纳的时刻，租金到期的时刻。就在这一刻，她意识到抽身离开是多么轻而易举：用一整个家庭来交换一个妹妹是多么差劲的交易。
It came in the form of a PDF attached to an email from Tyler and Stefanie. The message explained that the letter had been drafted carefully, thoughtfully, and that a copy would be sent to my parents. When I saw that, I knew what it meant. It meant Tyler was ready to denounce me, to say my father’s words, that I was possessed, dangerous. The letter was a kind of voucher, a pass that would admit him back into the family.
它以PDF格式附在泰勒和斯蒂芬妮发来的电子邮件中。上面解释说，这封信是经过深思熟虑精心起草的，一份副本将寄给父母。当我看到它的时候，我便明白了这意味着什么。这意味着泰勒已经准备好谴责我，用我父亲的话说，就是我被魔鬼附身，极其危险。这封信是一种凭证，一个让他得以重返家庭的通行证。
When I heard this story, I made the only good decision I had made for months: I enrolled in the university counseling service. I was assigned to a sprightly middle-aged woman with tight curls and sharp eyes, who rarely spoke in our sessions, preferring to let me talk it out, which I did, week after week, month after month. The counseling did nothing at first — I can’t think of a single session I would describe as “helpful”– but their collective power over time was undeniable. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now, but there was something nourishing in setting aside that time each week, in the act of admitting that I needed something I could not provide for myself.
当我听到这个故事，我做出了几个月来唯一一个明智的决定：我求助于大学心理咨询服务。分配给我的咨询师是一个开朗活泼的中年女士，她有一头紧密的卷发和一双犀利的眼睛。每次会面她很少说话，而是倾向于让我主动开口。我照做了，一周又一周，一个月又一个月，都是如此。起初咨询没有什么效果——我想不出哪次咨询很有“帮助”——但随着时间推移，它们的总体效果不容置疑。我当时不明白，现在也不明白，但每周抽出一段时间，坦承自己需要一些自己无法提供的东西，这么做很有益处。
I clicked the mouse, the attachment opened. I was so far removed from myself that I read the entire letter without understanding it: Our parents are held down by chains of abuse, manipulation, and control… They see change as dangerous and will exile anyone who asks for it. This is a perverted idea of family loyalty… They claim faith, but this is not what the gospel teaches. Keep safe. We love you.
我点击鼠标，打开附件。我神情恍惚，以至于整封信读完了，也没有理解它的意思：我们的父母被一连串虐待、操纵和控制所束缚…他们视变化为危险，不管谁要求改变，都会遭到驱逐。这是一种扭曲的家庭忠诚观念…他们称其为信仰，但这不是福音所教导的。保重。我们爱你。
From Tyler’s wife, Stefanie, I would learn the story of this letter, how in the days after my father had threatened disownment, Tyler had gone to bed every night saying aloud to himself, over and over, “What am I supposed to do? She’s my sister.”
从泰勒的妻子斯蒂芬妮那里，我得以了解这封信背后的故事。在我父亲威胁要跟泰勒断绝关系后的那些日子里，泰勒每晚上床睡觉时都会一遍遍地自言自语：“我该怎么办？她是我妹妹。”
I couldn’t get myself to open the attachment; some instinct had seized my fingers. I remembered Tyler as he’d been when I was young, the quiet older brother reading his books while I lay under his desk, staring at his socks and breathing in his music. I wasn’t sure I could bear it, to hear those words in his voice.
我无法说服自己打开附件；某种本能攫住了我的手指。我还记得我小时候泰勒的样子，那个安静的哥哥在看书，而我躺在他的书桌下，盯着他的袜子，呼吸着他的音乐。我不确定自己能否忍受听见他的声音说出那些话。
Tyler did send the letter to my parents, and once committed he never wavered. That winter I spent many hours on the phone with him and Stefanie, who became a sister to me. They were available whenever I needed to talk, and back then I needed to talk quite a lot.
泰勒确实把这封信寄给了父母，并且他一旦做出承诺就再未动摇过。那年冬天，我经常给他和斯蒂芬妮打电话，斯蒂芬妮俨然成了我的亲姐姐。每当我需要找人聊聊时，他们随时都在，每次我都有很多话要说。
I’ve apologized to Tyler more times than I can count for what I’ve cost him, but the words are awkwardly placed and I stumble over them. What is the proper arrangement of words? How do you craft an apology for weakening someone’s ties to his father, to his family? Perhaps there aren’t words for that. How do you thank a brother who refused to let you go, who seized your hand and wrenched you upward, just as you had decided to stop kicking and sink? There aren’t words for that, either.
我向泰勒道歉了多次，超越了我无法计算的我给他带来的损失，但是这些话都说得很别扭，说得结结巴巴。怎样遣词造句才算合理？一个人为了你，与父亲和家人疏远，你该如何道歉？也许没有合适的词句来表达。你该如何感谢一个不肯弃你而去的哥哥？就在你决定不再挣扎，任凭自己下沉时，正是他抓住你的手，将你拽上了岸。这一切，没有语言能够形容。
Tyler paid a price for that letter, though the price is hard to define. He was not disowned, or at least his disownment was not permanent. Eventually he worked out a truce with my father, but their relationship may never be the same.
泰勒为那封信付出了代价，尽管这个代价很难定义。他没有被断绝关系，或者至少不是永久性的。最终他和父亲达成休战协议，但他们的关系可能永远不会如从前了。
Winter was long that year, the dreariness punctuated only by my weekly counseling sessions and the odd sense of loss, almost bereavement, I felt whenever I finished one TV series and had to find another.
那一年的冬天尤为漫长，只有每周的心理咨询会打断那种沉闷。每当看完一部电视剧，我会有一种莫名的失落感，几乎是丧亲之痛，于是不得不再去找下一部。
Then it was spring, then summer, and finally as summer turned to fall, I found I could read with focus. I could hold thoughts in my head besides anger and self-accusation. I returned to the chapter I had written nearly two years before at Harvard. Again I read Hume, Rousseau, Smith, Godwin, Wollstonecraft and Mill. Again I thought about the family. There was a puzzle in it, something unresolved. What is a person to do, I asked, when their obligations to their family conflict with other obligations — to friends, to society, to themselves?
春去夏至，终于在秋天来临时，我发现自己能专心阅读了。除了愤怒和自责，我的大脑又可以容下别的想法了。我又重拾两年前在哈佛写的那一章。我重读了休谟、卢梭、史密斯、戈德温、沃斯通克拉夫特和穆勒的著作。我又想起了家庭。这里面有个谜，一个未解之谜。我问自己：当一个人对家庭的责任与他对朋友、对社会、对自己的责任冲突时，他该怎么做？
The chapter on Mormonism was my favorite. As a child in Sunday school, I’d been taught that all history was a preparation for Mormonism: that every event since the death of Christ had been fashioned by God to make possible the moment when Joseph Smith would kneel in the Sacred Grove and God would restore the one true church. Wars, migrations, natural disasters — these were mere preludes to the Mormon story. On the other hand, secular histories tended to overlook spiritual movements like Mormonism altogether.
我最喜欢关于摩门教的那一章。作为一个在主日学校待过的孩子，我被教导，一切历史皆为摩门教做准备：基督死后的每一个事件都是上帝安排的，为的是让约瑟夫·史密斯跪在神圣树林、上帝还原真正的教会的那一刻成为可能。战争、迁徙、自然灾害——这些仅仅是摩门教故事的前奏。另一方面，世俗历史倾向于忽略诸如摩门教这样的精神运动。
I began the research. I narrowed the question, made it academic, specific. In the end, I chose four intellectual movements from the nineteenth century and examined how they had struggled with the question of family obligation. One of the movements I chose was nineteenth-century Mormonism. I worked for a solid year, and at the end of it I had a draft of my thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890.”
我开始了研究。我缩小问题范围，使其更学术化、具体化。最后，我选择了十九世纪的四种思想运动，研究它们是如何与家庭责任问题作斗争的。我所选的运动之一便是十九世纪的摩门教。我踏踏实实研究了一年，在这一年的年尾终于写出了论文初稿：《英美合作思想中的家庭、道德和社会科学，1813—1890》。
As I walked home carrying the heavy manuscript, I remembered attending one of Dr. Kerry’s lectures, which he had begun by writing, “Who writes history?” on the blackboard. I remembered how strange the question had seemed to me then. My idea of a historian was not human; it was of someone like my father, more prophet than man, whose visions of the past, like those of the future, could not be questioned, or even augmented. Now, as I passed through King’s College, in the shadow of the enormous chapel, my old diffidence seemed almost funny. Who writes history? I thought. I do.
当我拿着厚重的手稿走回宿舍时，我想起克里博士的一次讲座。讲座一开始他就在黑板上写道：“历史是由谁书写的？”我记得当时这个问题在我看来有多奇怪。我心目中的历史学家不是人类；那是像我父亲一样的人，与其说是人类，不如说是先知。他们对过去的看法和未来的憧憬都不容置疑，甚至不能补充。现在，当我穿过国王学院，走在宏伟的教堂投下的影子中，我从前的胆怯似乎显得有些可笑。历史是由谁书写的呢？我想，是我。
My dissertation gave a different shape to history, one that was neither Mormon nor anti-Mormon, neither spiritual nor profane. It didn’t treat Mormonism as the objective of human history, but neither did it discount the contribution Mormonism had made in grappling with the questions of the age. Instead, it treated the Mormon ideology as a chapter in the larger human story. In my account, history did not set Mormons apart from the rest of the human family; it bound them to it.
我的论文赋予历史一个不同的形态：既不是摩门教也不是反摩门教；既不是精神的也不是世俗的。我没有把摩门教作为人类历史的一个目标，也没有贬低摩门教在解决时代问题上所做的贡献。相反，我将摩门教的意识形态视为更大的人类历史中的一个章节。在我看来，历史并未把摩门教徒与人类大家庭的其他成员区别对待，而是将他们捆绑在一起。
I sent Dr. Runciman the draft, and a few days later we met in his office. He sat across from me and, with a look of astonishment, said it was good. “Some parts of it are very good,” he said. He was smiling now. “I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t earn a doctorate.”
我把论文初稿发给朗西曼博士，几天后我们在他的办公室见了面。他坐在我对面，面带惊讶地说，论文写得不错。“有些章节写得非常好，”这回他笑着说，“要是这个论文不能让你拿到博士学位，我会感到意外的。”
I had built a new life, and it was a happy one, but I felt a sense of loss that went beyond family. I had lost Buck’s Peak, not by leaving but by leaving silently. I had retreated, fled across an ocean and allowed my father to tell my story for me, to define me to everyone I had ever known. I had conceded too much ground — not just the mountain, but the entire province of our shared history.
我已经建立了新生活，这是一种幸福的生活，但我感到一种超越家庭的失落感。我失去了巴克峰，不是主动离开，而是默默离开。我退缩了，逃离到大洋彼岸，让父亲为我讲述我的故事，向我认识的每一个人下关于我的定论。我退让了太多的土地——不仅仅是那座山，还有我们共同历史的整个领域。
On my twenty-seventh birthday, the birthday I had chosen, I submitted my PhD dissertation. The defense took place in December, in a small, simply furnished room. I passed and returned to London, where Drew had a job and we’d rented a flat. In January, nearly ten years to the day since I’d set foot in my first classroom at BYU, I received confirmation from the University of Cambridge: I was Dr. Westover.
在我为自己选择的二十七岁生日那天，我提交了博士论文。十二月我在一间简陋的小房间进行了论文答辩。我通过了答辩，回到伦敦。德鲁在那里找了份工作，我们租了一套公寓。今年一月，距我初次踏进杨百翰大学教室近十年后，我收到了剑桥大学的确认函：我是韦斯特弗博士了。
It was time to go home.
是时候回家了。
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