W HY DOES it make me so sad when I think back to that time? Is it yearning for past happiness—for I was happy in the weeks that followed, in which I really did work like a lunatic and passed the class, and we made love as if nothing else in the world mattered. Is it the knowledge of what came later, and that what came out afterwards had been there all along?
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?
I think back to that time and I see my former self. I wore the well-cut suits which had come down to me from a rich uncle, now dead, along with several pairs of two-tone shoes, black and brown, black and white, suede and calf. My arms and legs were too long, not for the suits, which my mother had let down for me, but for my own movements. My glasses were a cheap over-the-counter pair and my hair a tangled mop, no matter what I did. In school I was neither good nor bad; I think that many of the teachers didn’t really notice me, nor did the students who dominated the class. I didn’t like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I’d be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?
She—I should start calling her Hanna, just as I started calling her Hanna back then—she certainly didn’t nourish herself on promises, but was rooted in the here and now.
I asked her about her life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers. She had grown up in a German community in Rumania, then come to Berlin at the age of sixteen, taken a job at the Siemens factory, and ended up in the army at twenty-one. Since the end of the war, she had done all manner of jobs to get by. She had been a streetcar conductor for several years; what she liked about the job was the uniform and the constant motion, the changing scenery and the wheels rolling under her feet. But that was all she liked about it. She had no family. She was thirty-six. She told me all this as if it were not her life but somebody else’s, someone she didn’t know well and who wasn’t important to her. Things I wanted to know more about had vanished completely from her mind, and she didn’t understand why I was interested in what had happened to her parents, whether she had had brothers and sisters, how she had lived in Berlin and what she’d done in the army. “The things you ask, kid!”
It was the same with the future—of course I wasn’t hammering out plans for marriage and future. But I identified more with Julien Sorel’s relationship with Madame de Renal than his one with Mathilde de la Mole. I was glad to see Felix Krull end up in the arms of the mother rather than the daughter. My sister, who was studying German literature, delivered a report at the dinner table about the controversy as to whether Mr. von Goethe and Madame von Stein had had a relationship, and I vigorously defended the idea, to the bafflement of my family. I imagined how our relationship might be in five or ten years. I asked Hanna how she imagined it. She didn’t even want to think ahead to Easter, when I wanted to take a bicycle trip with her during the vacation. We could get a room together as mother and son, and spend the whole night together.
Strange that this idea and suggesting it were not embarrassing to me. On a trip with my mother I would have fought to get a room of my own. Having my mother with me when I went to the doctor or to buy a new coat or to be picked up by her after a trip seemed to me to be something I had outgrown. If we went somewhere together and we ran into my schoolmates, I was afraid they would think I was a mama’s boy. But to be seen with Hanna, who was ten years younger than my mother but could have been my mother, didn’t bother me. It made me proud.
When I see a woman of thirty-six today, I find her young. But when I see a boy of fifteen, I see a child. I am amazed at how much confidence Hanna gave me. My success at school got my teachers’ attention and assured me of their respect. The girls I met noticed and liked it that I wasn’t afraid of them. I felt at ease in my own body.
The memory that illuminates and fixes my first meetings with Hanna makes a single blur of the weeks between our first conversation and the end of the school year. One reason for that is we saw each other so regularly and our meetings always followed the same course. Another is that my days had never been so full and my life had never been so swift and so dense. When I think about the work I did in those weeks, it’s as if I had sat down at my desk and stayed there until I had caught up with everything I’d missed during my hepatitis, learned all the vocabulary, read all the texts, worked through all the theorems and memorized the periodic table. I had already done the reading about the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich while I was in my sickbed. And I remember our meetings in those weeks as one single long meeting. After our conversation, they were always in the afternoon: if she was on the late shift, then from three to four-thirty, otherwise until five-thirty. Dinner was at seven, and at first Hanna forced me to be home on time. But after a while an hour and a half was not enough, and I began to think up excuses to miss dinner.
It all happened because of reading aloud. The day after our conversation, Hanna wanted to know what I was learning in school. I told her about Homer, Cicero, and Hemingway’s story about the old man and his battle with the fish and the sea. She wanted to hear what Greek and Latin sounded like, and I read to her from the Odyssey and the speeches against Cataline.
“Are you also learning German?”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you only learn foreign languages, or is there still stuff you have to learn in your own?”
“We read texts.” While I was sick, the class had read Emilia Galotti and Intrigues and Love, and there was an essay due on them. So I had to read both, which I did after finishing everything else. By then it was late, and I was tired, and next day I’d forgotten it all and had to start all over again.
“So read it to me!”
“Read it yourself, I’ll bring it for you.”
“You have such a nice voice, kid, I’d rather listen to you than read it myself.”
“Oh, come on.”
But next day when I arrived and wanted to kiss her, she pulled back. “First you have to read.”
She was serious. I had to read Emilia Galotti to her for half an hour before she took me into the shower and then to bed. Now I enjoyed showering too—the desire I felt when I arrived had got lost as I read aloud to her. Reading a play out loud so that the various characters are more or less recognizable and come to life takes a certain concentration. Lust reasserted itself under the shower. So reading to her, showering with her, making love to her, and lying next to her for a while afterwards—that became the ritual in our meetings.
She was an attentive listener. Her laugh, her sniffs of contempt, and her angry or enthusiastic remarks left no doubt that she was following the action intently, and that she found both Emilia and Luise to be silly little girls. Her impatience when she sometimes asked me to go on reading seemed to come from the hope that all this imbecility would eventually play itself out. “Unbelievable!” Sometimes this made even me eager to keep reading. As the days grew longer, I read longer, so that I could be in bed with her in the twilight. When she had fallen asleep lying on me, and the saw in the yard was quiet, and a blackbird was singing as the colors of things in the kitchen dimmed until nothing remained of them but lighter and darker shades of gray, I was completely happy.
為什么一想起過去我就很傷心？這是一種對過去幸福時光的懷念嗎？——在隨后的幾周里，我的確很幸福愉快，我拼命地用功學(xué)習(xí)而沒有留級；我們相親相愛，仿佛世界上只有我倆。還是由于我后來知道了事實真相？
為什么？為什么對我們來說那么美好的東西竟在回憶中被那些隱藏的丑惡變得支離破碎？為什么對一段幸?；橐龅幕貞浽诎l(fā)現(xiàn)另一方多年來竟還有一個情人之后會變得痛苦不堪？是因為人在這種情況下無幸福可言嗎？但是他們曾經(jīng)是幸福的！有時候人們對幸福的回憶大打折扣，如果結(jié)局令人痛苦。是因為只有持久的幸福才稱得上幸福嗎？是因為不自覺的和沒有意識到的痛苦一定要痛苦地了結(jié)嗎？可什么又是不自覺和沒有意識到的痛苦呢？
我回想著過去，眼前出現(xiàn)了當(dāng)時的我自己。我穿著一套講究的西服，那是我一位富有的叔叔的遺物，它和幾雙有兩種顏色的皮鞋——黑色和棕色、黑色和白色、生皮和軟皮，一起傳到了我手里。我的胳膊和腿都很長，穿媽媽為我放大的任何制服都不合身。我胳膊腿不是為穿衣長的，而是為動作協(xié)調(diào)長的。我的眼鏡的式樣是疾病保險公司所支付的那種，價錢便宜。我的頭發(fā)是那種蓬松型，我可以隨心所欲地梳理它。在學(xué)校里，我的功課不好不壞。我相信，許多老師沒有把我當(dāng)回事，班里的好學(xué)生也沒把我放在眼里。我不喜歡我的長相，不喜歡我的穿戴舉止，不滿我的現(xiàn)狀，對別人對我的評價不屑一顧。希望有朝一日變得英俊聰明，超過其他人，讓他們羨慕我。不過，我有多少精力，多少信心？我還能期待遇到什么新人和新情況呢！
是這些令我傷感嗎？還是我當(dāng)時的勤奮努力和內(nèi)心所充滿的信念令我傷感？我的信念是對生活的一種，一種無法兌現(xiàn)的。有時候，我在兒童和青少年的臉上能看到這種勤奮和信念。我看到它們時，我感到傷感，一種令我想起自己的過去的傷感。這是一種絕對的傷感嗎？當(dāng)一段美好的回憶變得支離破碎時，我們就一定傷感嗎？因為被追憶的幸福不僅僅存在于當(dāng)時的現(xiàn)實生活中，也存在于當(dāng)時沒有履行的諾言中？
她——從現(xiàn)在起我應(yīng)叫她漢娜，就像我當(dāng)時開始叫她漢娜一樣，她當(dāng)然不是生活在中，而是生活在現(xiàn)實中，僅僅生活在現(xiàn)實中。
我問過她的過去，她的回答仿佛像從布滿灰塵的老箱子里折騰出來的東西一樣沒有新意。她在七座堡長大，十七歲去了柏林，曾是西門子公司的一名女工，二十一歲時去當(dāng)了兵。戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束以后，所有可能的工作她都做過。有軌電車售票員的工作，她已經(jīng)干了幾年了，她喜歡那套制服和這種往返運動，喜歡變換的風(fēng)景還有腳下車輪的轉(zhuǎn)動。除此之外，她并不喜歡這份工作。三十六歲了，仍沒有成家。她講述這些的時候，仿佛講的不是她自己的生活，而是另外一個她不熟悉、與她無關(guān)的人的生活。我想詳細(xì)知道的事情，她往往都不記得了。她也不理解我為什么對諸如此類的問題感興趣：她父母從事什么職業(yè)？她是否有兄弟姐妹？她在柏林是怎樣生活的？她當(dāng)兵時都做了什么？"你都想知道些什么呀！小家伙。"
她對未來的態(tài)度也是如此。當(dāng)然，我沒有想結(jié)婚組建家庭的計劃。但是，相對而言，我對朱連·索雷爾與雷娜爾的關(guān)系比他與馬蒂爾德·德拉莫爾的關(guān)系更為同情。我知道，腓力斯·科魯爾后不愿在他女兒的懷里，而愿在他母親的懷里死去。我姐姐是學(xué)日耳曼學(xué)的，她曾在飯桌上講述過關(guān)于歌德和施泰因夫人的曖昧關(guān)系的爭論。我強(qiáng)詞奪理地為他．們辯護(hù)，這令全家人感到震驚。我設(shè)想過我們的關(guān)系在五年或十年之后會是什么樣子。我問漢娜她是怎么想的，她說她甚至連復(fù)活節(jié)的事都還沒想。我們曾商定，復(fù)活節(jié)放假時，我和她騎自行車出去。這樣，我們就可以以母子身份住在一個房間里，可以整夜呆在一起了。
我的設(shè)想和建議很少有不令我痛苦的時候。有和媽媽一起度假，我本想為自己力爭一個單間。由媽媽陪著去看醫(yī)生，或者去買一件新大衣，或者旅行回來由她去接站，這些我覺得都已與我的年齡不相稱了。如果和媽媽在路上遇到同學(xué)的話，我害怕他們把我當(dāng)做媽媽的寶貝兒子。盡管漢娜比我媽媽年輕十歲，可也夠做我媽媽的年齡了。不過，和她在一起，我不但不怕別人看見，反而還為此感到自豪。
如果現(xiàn)在我見到一個三十六歲的女人，我會認(rèn)為她很年輕，但是，如果我現(xiàn)在看到一個十五歲的男孩，我會認(rèn)為他還是個孩子。漢娜給了我那么多自信，這使我感到驚訝。我在學(xué)校取得的成績引起了老師們的注意，他們已對我刮目相看。我接觸的女孩們也察覺到，我在她們面前不再膽怯，她們也喜歡我這樣。我感到愜意。
我對與漢娜初的相遇記憶猶新，當(dāng)時的情景歷歷在目，這使得我對后來發(fā)生的事情，即從我與她的那次談話到學(xué)年結(jié)束之前的那幾周內(nèi)發(fā)生的事情，反而記不清了。其中原因之一，是我們見面、分手都太有規(guī)律了。另一個原因是，在此之前，我從未有過這么忙碌的日子，我的生活節(jié)奏還從本這么快過，生活從未這么充實過。如果我回想我在那幾周內(nèi)所做的功課的話，我仿佛感覺到我又坐在寫字臺旁，而且一直坐在那兒，直到把我生病期間所落下的功課都趕上為止。我學(xué)了所有的生詞，念了所有的課文，證明了所有的數(shù)學(xué)習(xí)題，連接了所有的化學(xué)關(guān)系。關(guān)于魏瑪共和國和第三帝國，我在醫(yī)院的病床上就讀過了。還有我們的約會，在我的記憶中，這時約會的時間持續(xù)長。自我們那次談話之后，我們總是在下午見面。如果她上晚班的話，就從三點到四點半，否則就到五點半。七點鐘開晚飯。開始時，她還催我準(zhǔn)時回家，可是，過了一段時間以后，我就不止呆一個半小時了，我開始找借口放棄吃晚飯。
這是由于要朗讀的緣故。在我們交談之后的第二天，漢娜想知道我在學(xué)校都學(xué)什么。于是，我向她講述了荷馬史詩、西塞羅的演講和海明威的《老人與?！返墓适隆先嗽鯓优c魚、與海搏斗。她想知道希臘語和拉丁語聽起來是什么樣。我給她朗讀了《奧德賽》中的一段和反對卡塔琳娜的演講。
"你還學(xué)德語嗎？"
"你是什么意思？"
"你是只學(xué)外語呢，還是自己的本國語言也有要學(xué)？"
"我們念課文。"我生病期間，我們班讀了《愛米麗雅·葛洛獲》和《陰謀與愛情》。這之后，我們要寫一篇讀后感。這樣，我還要補(bǔ)讀這兩本書。我每次都是在做完其他作業(yè)之后才開始閱讀它們。這樣，當(dāng)我開始閱讀時，時間就已經(jīng)很晚了，我也很累了，讀過的東西第二天就全忘記了，我必須重讀一遍。
"讀給我聽聽！"
"你自己讀吧，我把它給你帶來。"
"小家伙，你的聲音特別好聽，我寧愿聽你朗讀而不愿自己去讀。"
"是嗎？原來如此？"
第二天，我仍去她那兒。當(dāng)我想親吻她時，她卻躲開了："你得先給我朗讀！"
她是認(rèn)真的。在她讓我淋浴和上床之前，我要為她朗讀半個小時的《愛米麗雅·葛洛獲》?，F(xiàn)在我也喜歡淋浴了。我來時的性欲，在朗讀時都消失了，因為朗讀一段課文時要繪聲繪色地把不同的人物形象表現(xiàn)出來，這需要集中精力。淋浴時，我的性欲又來了。朗讀、淋浴、做愛，然后在一起躺一會兒，這已成了我們每次約會的例行公事。
她是個注意力集中的聽眾，她的笑，她的嗤之以鼻，她的憤怒或者是贊賞的驚呼，都毫無疑問地表明，她緊張地跟蹤著情節(jié)。她認(rèn)為愛米麗雅像露伊莎一樣都是愚蠢的、沒有教養(yǎng)的女孩。她有時迫不及待地求我繼續(xù)念下去，這是由于她希望這段愚蠢的故事應(yīng)該早點結(jié)束。"怎么會有這種事呢／有時我自己也渴望讀下去。當(dāng)天變長的時候，我讀的時間也長些，為的是在黃昏時才與她上床。當(dāng)她在我懷里入睡，院子里的鋸木聲沉默下來，烏鴉在唱歌，廚房里也只剩下越來越淡的和越來越黯的顏色時，我也沉浸在無限幸福之中。
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?
I think back to that time and I see my former self. I wore the well-cut suits which had come down to me from a rich uncle, now dead, along with several pairs of two-tone shoes, black and brown, black and white, suede and calf. My arms and legs were too long, not for the suits, which my mother had let down for me, but for my own movements. My glasses were a cheap over-the-counter pair and my hair a tangled mop, no matter what I did. In school I was neither good nor bad; I think that many of the teachers didn’t really notice me, nor did the students who dominated the class. I didn’t like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I’d be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?
She—I should start calling her Hanna, just as I started calling her Hanna back then—she certainly didn’t nourish herself on promises, but was rooted in the here and now.
I asked her about her life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers. She had grown up in a German community in Rumania, then come to Berlin at the age of sixteen, taken a job at the Siemens factory, and ended up in the army at twenty-one. Since the end of the war, she had done all manner of jobs to get by. She had been a streetcar conductor for several years; what she liked about the job was the uniform and the constant motion, the changing scenery and the wheels rolling under her feet. But that was all she liked about it. She had no family. She was thirty-six. She told me all this as if it were not her life but somebody else’s, someone she didn’t know well and who wasn’t important to her. Things I wanted to know more about had vanished completely from her mind, and she didn’t understand why I was interested in what had happened to her parents, whether she had had brothers and sisters, how she had lived in Berlin and what she’d done in the army. “The things you ask, kid!”
It was the same with the future—of course I wasn’t hammering out plans for marriage and future. But I identified more with Julien Sorel’s relationship with Madame de Renal than his one with Mathilde de la Mole. I was glad to see Felix Krull end up in the arms of the mother rather than the daughter. My sister, who was studying German literature, delivered a report at the dinner table about the controversy as to whether Mr. von Goethe and Madame von Stein had had a relationship, and I vigorously defended the idea, to the bafflement of my family. I imagined how our relationship might be in five or ten years. I asked Hanna how she imagined it. She didn’t even want to think ahead to Easter, when I wanted to take a bicycle trip with her during the vacation. We could get a room together as mother and son, and spend the whole night together.
Strange that this idea and suggesting it were not embarrassing to me. On a trip with my mother I would have fought to get a room of my own. Having my mother with me when I went to the doctor or to buy a new coat or to be picked up by her after a trip seemed to me to be something I had outgrown. If we went somewhere together and we ran into my schoolmates, I was afraid they would think I was a mama’s boy. But to be seen with Hanna, who was ten years younger than my mother but could have been my mother, didn’t bother me. It made me proud.
When I see a woman of thirty-six today, I find her young. But when I see a boy of fifteen, I see a child. I am amazed at how much confidence Hanna gave me. My success at school got my teachers’ attention and assured me of their respect. The girls I met noticed and liked it that I wasn’t afraid of them. I felt at ease in my own body.
The memory that illuminates and fixes my first meetings with Hanna makes a single blur of the weeks between our first conversation and the end of the school year. One reason for that is we saw each other so regularly and our meetings always followed the same course. Another is that my days had never been so full and my life had never been so swift and so dense. When I think about the work I did in those weeks, it’s as if I had sat down at my desk and stayed there until I had caught up with everything I’d missed during my hepatitis, learned all the vocabulary, read all the texts, worked through all the theorems and memorized the periodic table. I had already done the reading about the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich while I was in my sickbed. And I remember our meetings in those weeks as one single long meeting. After our conversation, they were always in the afternoon: if she was on the late shift, then from three to four-thirty, otherwise until five-thirty. Dinner was at seven, and at first Hanna forced me to be home on time. But after a while an hour and a half was not enough, and I began to think up excuses to miss dinner.
It all happened because of reading aloud. The day after our conversation, Hanna wanted to know what I was learning in school. I told her about Homer, Cicero, and Hemingway’s story about the old man and his battle with the fish and the sea. She wanted to hear what Greek and Latin sounded like, and I read to her from the Odyssey and the speeches against Cataline.
“Are you also learning German?”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you only learn foreign languages, or is there still stuff you have to learn in your own?”
“We read texts.” While I was sick, the class had read Emilia Galotti and Intrigues and Love, and there was an essay due on them. So I had to read both, which I did after finishing everything else. By then it was late, and I was tired, and next day I’d forgotten it all and had to start all over again.
“So read it to me!”
“Read it yourself, I’ll bring it for you.”
“You have such a nice voice, kid, I’d rather listen to you than read it myself.”
“Oh, come on.”
But next day when I arrived and wanted to kiss her, she pulled back. “First you have to read.”
She was serious. I had to read Emilia Galotti to her for half an hour before she took me into the shower and then to bed. Now I enjoyed showering too—the desire I felt when I arrived had got lost as I read aloud to her. Reading a play out loud so that the various characters are more or less recognizable and come to life takes a certain concentration. Lust reasserted itself under the shower. So reading to her, showering with her, making love to her, and lying next to her for a while afterwards—that became the ritual in our meetings.
She was an attentive listener. Her laugh, her sniffs of contempt, and her angry or enthusiastic remarks left no doubt that she was following the action intently, and that she found both Emilia and Luise to be silly little girls. Her impatience when she sometimes asked me to go on reading seemed to come from the hope that all this imbecility would eventually play itself out. “Unbelievable!” Sometimes this made even me eager to keep reading. As the days grew longer, I read longer, so that I could be in bed with her in the twilight. When she had fallen asleep lying on me, and the saw in the yard was quiet, and a blackbird was singing as the colors of things in the kitchen dimmed until nothing remained of them but lighter and darker shades of gray, I was completely happy.
為什么一想起過去我就很傷心？這是一種對過去幸福時光的懷念嗎？——在隨后的幾周里，我的確很幸福愉快，我拼命地用功學(xué)習(xí)而沒有留級；我們相親相愛，仿佛世界上只有我倆。還是由于我后來知道了事實真相？
為什么？為什么對我們來說那么美好的東西竟在回憶中被那些隱藏的丑惡變得支離破碎？為什么對一段幸?；橐龅幕貞浽诎l(fā)現(xiàn)另一方多年來竟還有一個情人之后會變得痛苦不堪？是因為人在這種情況下無幸福可言嗎？但是他們曾經(jīng)是幸福的！有時候人們對幸福的回憶大打折扣，如果結(jié)局令人痛苦。是因為只有持久的幸福才稱得上幸福嗎？是因為不自覺的和沒有意識到的痛苦一定要痛苦地了結(jié)嗎？可什么又是不自覺和沒有意識到的痛苦呢？
我回想著過去，眼前出現(xiàn)了當(dāng)時的我自己。我穿著一套講究的西服，那是我一位富有的叔叔的遺物，它和幾雙有兩種顏色的皮鞋——黑色和棕色、黑色和白色、生皮和軟皮，一起傳到了我手里。我的胳膊和腿都很長，穿媽媽為我放大的任何制服都不合身。我胳膊腿不是為穿衣長的，而是為動作協(xié)調(diào)長的。我的眼鏡的式樣是疾病保險公司所支付的那種，價錢便宜。我的頭發(fā)是那種蓬松型，我可以隨心所欲地梳理它。在學(xué)校里，我的功課不好不壞。我相信，許多老師沒有把我當(dāng)回事，班里的好學(xué)生也沒把我放在眼里。我不喜歡我的長相，不喜歡我的穿戴舉止，不滿我的現(xiàn)狀，對別人對我的評價不屑一顧。希望有朝一日變得英俊聰明，超過其他人，讓他們羨慕我。不過，我有多少精力，多少信心？我還能期待遇到什么新人和新情況呢！
是這些令我傷感嗎？還是我當(dāng)時的勤奮努力和內(nèi)心所充滿的信念令我傷感？我的信念是對生活的一種，一種無法兌現(xiàn)的。有時候，我在兒童和青少年的臉上能看到這種勤奮和信念。我看到它們時，我感到傷感，一種令我想起自己的過去的傷感。這是一種絕對的傷感嗎？當(dāng)一段美好的回憶變得支離破碎時，我們就一定傷感嗎？因為被追憶的幸福不僅僅存在于當(dāng)時的現(xiàn)實生活中，也存在于當(dāng)時沒有履行的諾言中？
她——從現(xiàn)在起我應(yīng)叫她漢娜，就像我當(dāng)時開始叫她漢娜一樣，她當(dāng)然不是生活在中，而是生活在現(xiàn)實中，僅僅生活在現(xiàn)實中。
我問過她的過去，她的回答仿佛像從布滿灰塵的老箱子里折騰出來的東西一樣沒有新意。她在七座堡長大，十七歲去了柏林，曾是西門子公司的一名女工，二十一歲時去當(dāng)了兵。戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束以后，所有可能的工作她都做過。有軌電車售票員的工作，她已經(jīng)干了幾年了，她喜歡那套制服和這種往返運動，喜歡變換的風(fēng)景還有腳下車輪的轉(zhuǎn)動。除此之外，她并不喜歡這份工作。三十六歲了，仍沒有成家。她講述這些的時候，仿佛講的不是她自己的生活，而是另外一個她不熟悉、與她無關(guān)的人的生活。我想詳細(xì)知道的事情，她往往都不記得了。她也不理解我為什么對諸如此類的問題感興趣：她父母從事什么職業(yè)？她是否有兄弟姐妹？她在柏林是怎樣生活的？她當(dāng)兵時都做了什么？"你都想知道些什么呀！小家伙。"
她對未來的態(tài)度也是如此。當(dāng)然，我沒有想結(jié)婚組建家庭的計劃。但是，相對而言，我對朱連·索雷爾與雷娜爾的關(guān)系比他與馬蒂爾德·德拉莫爾的關(guān)系更為同情。我知道，腓力斯·科魯爾后不愿在他女兒的懷里，而愿在他母親的懷里死去。我姐姐是學(xué)日耳曼學(xué)的，她曾在飯桌上講述過關(guān)于歌德和施泰因夫人的曖昧關(guān)系的爭論。我強(qiáng)詞奪理地為他．們辯護(hù)，這令全家人感到震驚。我設(shè)想過我們的關(guān)系在五年或十年之后會是什么樣子。我問漢娜她是怎么想的，她說她甚至連復(fù)活節(jié)的事都還沒想。我們曾商定，復(fù)活節(jié)放假時，我和她騎自行車出去。這樣，我們就可以以母子身份住在一個房間里，可以整夜呆在一起了。
我的設(shè)想和建議很少有不令我痛苦的時候。有和媽媽一起度假，我本想為自己力爭一個單間。由媽媽陪著去看醫(yī)生，或者去買一件新大衣，或者旅行回來由她去接站，這些我覺得都已與我的年齡不相稱了。如果和媽媽在路上遇到同學(xué)的話，我害怕他們把我當(dāng)做媽媽的寶貝兒子。盡管漢娜比我媽媽年輕十歲，可也夠做我媽媽的年齡了。不過，和她在一起，我不但不怕別人看見，反而還為此感到自豪。
如果現(xiàn)在我見到一個三十六歲的女人，我會認(rèn)為她很年輕，但是，如果我現(xiàn)在看到一個十五歲的男孩，我會認(rèn)為他還是個孩子。漢娜給了我那么多自信，這使我感到驚訝。我在學(xué)校取得的成績引起了老師們的注意，他們已對我刮目相看。我接觸的女孩們也察覺到，我在她們面前不再膽怯，她們也喜歡我這樣。我感到愜意。
我對與漢娜初的相遇記憶猶新，當(dāng)時的情景歷歷在目，這使得我對后來發(fā)生的事情，即從我與她的那次談話到學(xué)年結(jié)束之前的那幾周內(nèi)發(fā)生的事情，反而記不清了。其中原因之一，是我們見面、分手都太有規(guī)律了。另一個原因是，在此之前，我從未有過這么忙碌的日子，我的生活節(jié)奏還從本這么快過，生活從未這么充實過。如果我回想我在那幾周內(nèi)所做的功課的話，我仿佛感覺到我又坐在寫字臺旁，而且一直坐在那兒，直到把我生病期間所落下的功課都趕上為止。我學(xué)了所有的生詞，念了所有的課文，證明了所有的數(shù)學(xué)習(xí)題，連接了所有的化學(xué)關(guān)系。關(guān)于魏瑪共和國和第三帝國，我在醫(yī)院的病床上就讀過了。還有我們的約會，在我的記憶中，這時約會的時間持續(xù)長。自我們那次談話之后，我們總是在下午見面。如果她上晚班的話，就從三點到四點半，否則就到五點半。七點鐘開晚飯。開始時，她還催我準(zhǔn)時回家，可是，過了一段時間以后，我就不止呆一個半小時了，我開始找借口放棄吃晚飯。
這是由于要朗讀的緣故。在我們交談之后的第二天，漢娜想知道我在學(xué)校都學(xué)什么。于是，我向她講述了荷馬史詩、西塞羅的演講和海明威的《老人與?！返墓适隆先嗽鯓优c魚、與海搏斗。她想知道希臘語和拉丁語聽起來是什么樣。我給她朗讀了《奧德賽》中的一段和反對卡塔琳娜的演講。
"你還學(xué)德語嗎？"
"你是什么意思？"
"你是只學(xué)外語呢，還是自己的本國語言也有要學(xué)？"
"我們念課文。"我生病期間，我們班讀了《愛米麗雅·葛洛獲》和《陰謀與愛情》。這之后，我們要寫一篇讀后感。這樣，我還要補(bǔ)讀這兩本書。我每次都是在做完其他作業(yè)之后才開始閱讀它們。這樣，當(dāng)我開始閱讀時，時間就已經(jīng)很晚了，我也很累了，讀過的東西第二天就全忘記了，我必須重讀一遍。
"讀給我聽聽！"
"你自己讀吧，我把它給你帶來。"
"小家伙，你的聲音特別好聽，我寧愿聽你朗讀而不愿自己去讀。"
"是嗎？原來如此？"
第二天，我仍去她那兒。當(dāng)我想親吻她時，她卻躲開了："你得先給我朗讀！"
她是認(rèn)真的。在她讓我淋浴和上床之前，我要為她朗讀半個小時的《愛米麗雅·葛洛獲》?，F(xiàn)在我也喜歡淋浴了。我來時的性欲，在朗讀時都消失了，因為朗讀一段課文時要繪聲繪色地把不同的人物形象表現(xiàn)出來，這需要集中精力。淋浴時，我的性欲又來了。朗讀、淋浴、做愛，然后在一起躺一會兒，這已成了我們每次約會的例行公事。
她是個注意力集中的聽眾，她的笑，她的嗤之以鼻，她的憤怒或者是贊賞的驚呼，都毫無疑問地表明，她緊張地跟蹤著情節(jié)。她認(rèn)為愛米麗雅像露伊莎一樣都是愚蠢的、沒有教養(yǎng)的女孩。她有時迫不及待地求我繼續(xù)念下去，這是由于她希望這段愚蠢的故事應(yīng)該早點結(jié)束。"怎么會有這種事呢／有時我自己也渴望讀下去。當(dāng)天變長的時候，我讀的時間也長些，為的是在黃昏時才與她上床。當(dāng)她在我懷里入睡，院子里的鋸木聲沉默下來，烏鴉在唱歌，廚房里也只剩下越來越淡的和越來越黯的顏色時，我也沉浸在無限幸福之中。