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0微妙的关系
作者： F. 斯科特 · 费兹杰拉德 编译：嘉炜
两个星期后，我和她坐在同一个阳台上，或者更确切地说，是她半躺在我怀里，但她几乎没有碰我，我也不记得她当时是怎么做到的。我曾经试图吻她，但没有成功，而且已经努力了将近一个小时。我们彼此打趣，她说我不真诚。我的理论是，如果她让我吻她，我就会爱上她。她的论点则认为，我这样显然是没有诚意的。
我们一直保持着这样的状态，在我也不知道能不能称作是暧昧的间歇，她告诉我她哥哥在耶鲁大学读大四时去世的事。她给我看了他的照片——那是一张英俊而真诚的脸，额头前留着莱因德克人的发式——她告诉我，如果遇到了跟他一样的男生，她就嫁给他。我发现这种家庭理想主义令人沮丧，因为即使是我如此的傲慢自信也是无法与死去的人相比的。
很多个夜晚，就这样过去了，最后我带着记忆中的玉兰花的香味，和一种模糊的不满又说不清的情绪回到营地——那是因为我从来没能吻到过她。星期六晚上我们去看杂耍，去乡村俱乐部，在那里她很少和一个男人能连续走上十步。她带我去烧烤和吵闹的西瓜派对，但她从来不觉得有必要或者是值得，把我对她的感觉变成是爱。我知道这并不难，但她是个19岁的聪明女孩儿，她一定已经看出我们在情感上的矛盾，所以，我成了她的知己。
我们谈到了比尔·诺尔斯。她在考虑跟他在一起；因为在纽约上学的那个冬天和那次在耶鲁的毕业舞会，使她的目光转向了北方，尽管她不愿承认这点。她说她不认为自己会嫁给一个南方人。渐渐地，我发现她意识和主观上确实有些不一样，特别是跟那些唱黑人歌曲、在乡村俱乐部酒吧里掷骰子的姑娘们相比。这就是我和比尔被她吸引的原因。我们大概是能懂她吧！
六月和七月，那些关于海外的战事，以及零碎又真假难辨的可怕谣言传到我们耳边，艾莉的目光在乡村俱乐部的地板上到处扫视着，希望能够在那些高大的年轻军官中寻找到自己想要的面孔。她总是目光挑剔，但也还是有几个曾与她约会过，当然包括坎比中尉，她声称看不上他，但“因为他很真诚”，她还是愿意给他机会的。就这样，整个夏天他们的存在，几乎占据了在我跟艾莉的所有夜晚。
Two weeks later I sat with her on the same veranda, or rather she half lay in my arms and yet scarcely touched me--how she managed that I don't remember. I was trying unsuccessfully to kiss her, and had been trying for the best part of an hour. We had a sort of joke about my not being sincere. My theory was that if she'd let me kiss her I'd fall in love with her. Her argument was that I was obviously insincere.
In a lull between two of these struggles she told me about her brother who had died in his senior year at Yale. She showed me his picture--it was a handsome, earnest face with a Leyendecker forelock--and told me that when she met someone who measured up to him she'd marry. I found this family idealism discouraging; even my brash confidence couldn't compete with the dead.
The evening and other evenings passed like that, and ended with my going back to camp with the remembered smell of magnolia flowers and a mood of vague dissatisfaction. I never kissed her. We went to the vaudeville and to the country club on Saturday nights, where she seldom took ten consecutive steps with one man, and she took me to barbecues and rowdy watermelon parties, and never thought it was worth while to change what I felt for her into love. I see now that it wouldn't have been hard, but she was a wise nineteen and she must have seen that we were emotionally incompatible. So I became her confidant instead.
We talked about Bill Knowles. She was considering Bill; for, though she wouldn't admit it, a winter at school in New York and a prom at Yale had turned her eyes North. She said she didn't think she'd marry a Southern man. And by degrees I saw that she was consciously and voluntarily different from these other girls who sang nigger songs and shot craps in the country-club bar. That's why Bill and I and others were drawn to her. We recognized her.
June and July, while the rumors reached us faintly, ineffectually, of battle and terror overseas, Ailie's eyes roved here and there about the country-club floor, seeking for something among the tall young officers. She attached several, choosing them with unfailing perspicacity--save in the case of Lieutenant Canby, whom she claimed to despise, but, nevertheless, gave dates to "because he was so sincere"--and we apportioned her evenings among us all summer.
