18

Romantic Terrorism

爱情恐怖主义

1. "Why don't you love me?" is as impossible a question (though a far less pleasant one) to ask as "Why do you love me?" In both cases, we come up against our lack of conscious control in the amorous structure, the fact that love has been brought to us as a gift for reasons we never wholly determine or deserve. To ask such questions, we are forced to veer on one side towards complete arrogance, on the other to complete humility: "What have I done to deserve love?" asks the humble lover; I can have done nothing. "What have I done to be denied love?" protests the betrayed one, arrogantly claiming possession of a gift that is never one's due. To both questions, the one who hands out love can only reply: "Because you are you" ?an answer that leaves the beloved dangerously and unpredictably strung between grandiosity and depression.“你为什么不爱我？”这个问题（尽管让我更不愉快）就如“你为什么要爱我？”一样不能被视为是问题。在这两种情形中，我们都会丧失对爱情的清醒（富有吸引力的）判断：即爱情是一个馈赠，而馈赠的因由不为我们所知，或不应为我们所知。在某种意义上说，我们无须知道答案，因为我们不能遵奉它代表的真正含义行事，所以答案毫无意义。它不是具有因果性质的有效原因。它跟随在事实之后，是对隐秘的变化作出的辩解，是一个表面的“发生于后必是结果”式的分析。提出这些问题，我们一方面变得非常傲慢，另一方面又变得极度谦卑：我做了什么而被爱？谦卑的情人问道。我什么也没有付出。我做了什么而被爱拒绝？被背叛的情人抗议道，傲慢地声言拥有永远不是一个人必须得到的馈赠。对于这两个问题，施舍爱的人只能回答：因为你就是你——一个把恋爱者危险而又不可预测地摆弄于兴奋高昂和消沉失意之间的答案。

2. Love may be born at first sight, but it does not die with corresponding rapidity. Chloe must have feared that to talk or even leave would have been hasty, that she might have been opting for a life offering no more favourable alternative. It was hence a slow separation, the masonry of affect only gradually prising itself loose from the loved one. There was guilt at the residual sense of responsibility towards a once-prized object, a form of treacly liquid left at the bottom of the glass that needed time to drain off.爱情也许可以一见钟情，然而不会以同样的速度消逝。克洛艾一定是害怕谈论分手或者过于急速地离我而去，害怕她新的选择不一定就更称心如意，因此，这是一个缓慢的分手，感情的建筑工在一步步地撬掉爱情的大厦。背弃中有负罪，负罪于对曾经珍视的东西仅剩的一点责任感，就如残留在杯底的糖水黏渍需要时间的冲刷一样。

3.When every decision is difficult, no decision is taken. Chloe prevaricated, I joined her (for how could any decision be pleasant for me?). We continued to see one another and sleep with one another. We even made plans to visit Paris at Christmas time, yet Chloe was curiously disengaged from the process, as though she were making arrangements for someone else ?perhaps because it was easier to deal in airline tickets than the issues that lay behind their purchase or non-purchase. Her apathy embodied the hope that by doing nothing, another might take the decision for her, that by displaying her indecision and frustration while not acting on it I would ultimately perform the move that she had needed (but been too scared) to make herself.当每一个决定都难以做出时，就不会有决定。克洛艾推诿搪塞，我也含糊其辞（又有哪个决定能给我快乐？）。我们继续相见，继续做爱，并且打算圣诞节去巴黎。然而奇怪的是，克洛艾对此漠不关心，就好像是在为他人计划一样——也许是因为买机票比买了机票或不买机票之后的问题更容易处理。她不做出决定，是希望通过沉默让另一个人来为她做决定，她希望以自己暗含的犹豫不决和失意失败使我最终迈出她需要的（但自己又太怕而不敢迈出的那一步。

4.We entered the era of romantic terrorism.我们进入了爱情恐怖主义时期。

'Is there anything wrong?'“有什么不对劲吗？”

'No, why, should there be?'“没有，怎么了？该有吗？”

'I just thought you might want to talk about things.'“我只是想，你该有什么事要说一说。”

'What things?'“什么事？”

'About us.'“关于我们。”

'You mean about you,' snapped Chloe.“你指你自己吧，”克洛艾厉声说。

'No, I mean about us.'“不是，我是指我们两个。”

'Well, what about us?'“我们两个什么？”

'I don't know, really. It's just a sense I have that ever since about the middle of September, we haven't really been communicating. It's like there's a wall between us and you're refusing to acknowledge it's there.'“我不知道，真的。我只有一种感觉，大概自九月底以来，我们就再没有真正交流过了。就好比我们之间出现了一堵墙，而你一直拒绝承认它的存在。”

'I don't see a wall.'“我没看到什么墙。”

'That's what I mean. You're even refusing to admit there was ever anything other than this.'“我指的就是这一点，你甚至不承认这些。”

'Than what?'“哪些？”

5. Once a partner has begun to lose interest, there is apparently little the other can do to arrest the process. Like seduction, withdrawal suffers under a blanket of reticence. The very breakdown of communication is hard to discuss, unless both parties have a desire to see it restored. This leaves the lover in a desperate situation. Honest dialogue seems to produce only irritation and smothers love in the attempt to revive it. Desperate to woo the partner back at any cost, the lover might at this point be tempted to turn to romantic terrorism, the product of irredeemable situations, a gamut of tricks (sulking, jealousy, guilt) that attempt to force the partner to return love, by blowing up (in fits of tears, rage or otherwise) in front of the loved one. The terroristic partner knows he cannot realistically hope to see his love reciprocated, but the futility of something is not always (in love or in politics) a sufficient argument against it. Certain things are said not because they will be heard, but because it is important to speak.一旦一方开始失去兴趣，另一方显然无法挽回离去的脚步。就如吸引对方时一样，分手也要在沉默中面临情爱关系中心的一个难于言表的问题：我渴望得到你/我对你没有兴趣——在这两种情形中，表达任何一种想法都需要一段时间。交流的中断其本身无法讨论，除非双方都有重归于好的愿望。这样一来就会把情人置于一个绝望的境地：合理对话的魅力和吸引力看来已消失殆尽，只有恼怒烦躁。如果心上人合乎常规地（甜甜地）行为处事，这行为常常适得其反，在恢复爱情的努力中却扼杀了爱情。于是，不顾一切央求伴侣回到身边的爱人走向了爱情恐怖主义。这恐怖主义是绝境的产物，是通过在伴侣面前爆发（痛哭流涕、大发雷霆及其他什么方式）试图让他/她回心转意的所有计策（生气、妒忌、内疚）。采用恐怖主义手段的恋爱者知道不能真正奢望自己的爱得到回报，但是无效性并不一定是（在爱情或在政治中）制止一件事情发生的充分的理由。有些东西必说不可，不是因为它们有听众，而是它们具有说出来的重要性。

6. When political dialogue has failed to resolve a grievance, the injured party may also in desperation resort to terrorist activity, extracting by force the concession it has been unable to seduce peacefully from its opposite number. Political terrorism is born out of deadlocked situations, behaviour that combines a party's need to act with an awareness (conscious or semi-conscious) that action will not go any way towards achieving the desired end ?and will if anything only alienate the other party further. The negativity of terrorism betrays all the signs of childish rage, a rage at one's own impotence in the face of a more powerful adversary.当不满情绪无法通过政治对话来解决时，受损的一方就可能会不顾一切地采取恐怖活动，通过暴力手段从对立方那里得到和平方式不能实现的让步。政治恐怖主义产生于僵局，知道（清醒的或半清醒的）行动的结果绝不会如己所愿，但还是为了党派的需要而行动——这些行动将只会使对方更对立。恐怖主义的消极性在于，它暴露了一切幼稚的恼怒，一种面对更为强大的对手时对自己无能的恼怒。

7. In May 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army, who had been armed, briefed and financed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), landed on a scheduled flight at Lod Airport, near Tel Aviv. They disembarked, followed the other passengers into the terminal building, and once inside, pulled machine-guns and grenades out of their hand luggage. They began firing on the crowd indiscriminately, slaughtering twenty-four people and injuring a further seven before they were themselves killed by the security forces. What relation did such butchery have with the cause of Palestinian autonomy? The murders did not accelerate the peace process, they only hardened Israeli public opinion against the Palestinian cause, and in a final irony for the terrorists, it turned out the majority of their victims were not even Israelis, but belonged to a party of Puerto Rican Christians who had been on a religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Yet the action found its justification elsewhere, in the need to vent frustration in a cause where dialogue had ceased to produce results.1972年5月，三名日本红军搭乘一架定期航班到达特拉维夫的罗得机场。他们下了飞机，随着其他乘客进入候机大厅。一到大厅，他们就从行李包里拿出机枪和手榴弹，不分青红皂白地朝人群开火。直到杀死了二十四个人，打伤了七个人之后，才被保安人员击毙。这种残杀与巴基斯坦的自治运动有什么联系？凶手并没有促进和平进程，他们只是使反对巴基斯坦自治运动的以色列公众舆论变得更为坚定。对这些恐怖分子来说，具有嘲讽意味的是，受害人大多不是以色列人，而是去耶路撒冷朝圣的波多黎各的天主教徒们。不过行动本身却在其他方面找到了正当理由，即有必要去发泄一下自治运动中对话已经不能再产生任何效果的失败感。

7.Both of us could only spare a weekend in Paris, so we left on the last flight out of Heathrow on Friday, and planned to return late on the Sunday. Though we were going to France to celebrate our anniversary, it felt more like a funeral. When the plane landed in Paris, the airport terminal was sombre and empty. It had begun to snow and a fierce arctic wind was blowing. There were more passengers than taxis, so we ended up sharing a ride with a woman we had met at passport control, a lawyer travelling from London to Paris for a conference. Though the woman was attractive, I was in no mood to find her so, but nevertheless flirted with her as we made our way into the city. When Chloe attempted to join the conversation, I would interrupt her with a remark addressed exclusively (and seductively) to the woman. But success in inducing jealousy is dependent on a significant factor: the inclination of the targeted audience to give a damn. Hence terroristic jealousy is always a gamble: how far could I go in trying to make Chloe jealous? What if she were not to react? Whether she was merely hiding that jealousy so as to call my bluff (like politicians who appear on television and declare how unconcerned they are with the terrorist threat), or whether she genuinely did not care, I could not be sure. But one thing was certain, Chloe did not allow me the pleasure of a jealous reaction, and was more pleasant than she had been in a long time when we finally settled into our room in a small hotel on the Rue Jacob, perhaps cheered by the thought that I would, after all, get over her.我们只能在巴黎过一个周末，所以就在星期五乘希斯罗机场的最后一架班机出发了，准备星期天晚些时候回来。虽然我们是去巴黎庆祝纪念日，但却让人感觉更像是赴一个葬礼。飞机到达巴黎时，候机大厅里昏暗阴沉，空空荡荡。天开始飘起雪花，寒风瑟瑟。乘客比出租车还多，所以最后我们只好和在海关出口碰到的一个女人共乘一辆车。这个女人是律师，从伦敦来巴黎开会。虽然她漂亮迷人，我却没有心情来搭理她。但是在我们去市区的路上，我却和她调起情来。当克洛艾想加入进来时，我打断她，专门（富有诱惑力地）和那个女人讲话。但是成功地引发妒忌取决于一个重要的因素：目标观众有在乎的趋势。因而恐怖主义式的妒忌通常是一场赌博：为了使克洛艾心生妒忌，我应该做到什么程度？如果她毫无反应怎么办？她会不会藏起妒忌，接受我的挑战（就如那些政客在电视上宣布自己对恐怖主义的威胁毫不在意一样）？或者，她是不是真的并不在乎？我无从确定。但是可以确信无疑的一点就是，克洛艾没有表现出给我带来快感的那种妒忌。当我们过了很久终于在雅各布街的一个小旅馆里安顿下来时，克洛艾甚至显得更高兴了。

9. Terrorists take a gamble in assuming that their actions will prove terrifying enough to provide a form of bargaining power. There is the story of a wealthy Italian businessman who, late one afternoon, received a phone call in his office from a terrorist gang, telling him that they had kidnapped his youngest daughter. A huge sum was stipulated as ransom, and the threat levelled that if it wasn't paid, the daughter would never be seen alive again. But the businessman casually replied that, if they killed the girl, they would in fact be doing him a huge favour. He had ten children, he explained wearily, and they had all been a great disappointment and a trial to him, expensive to keep and the unfortunate result of only a few moments of exertion in the bedroom on his part. The ransom would not be paid, and if they wanted to kill her, that was their choice. And with that blunt message, the businessman put down the phone. Within hours, the girl was released.恐怖分子在假设自己的行为会恐怖得足以产生达成协议的威力时，他们是在进行一场赌博。有个故事讲述一位富有的意大利商人，有天下午在办公室接到一伙恐怖分子打来的电话告诉他说，他们绑架了他的小女儿。在开出巨大的赎金数目后，他们还威胁说，如果不付赎金，他就别想见到女儿活着回来。但是这位商人处乱不惊，他随意地回答道，如果他们杀了他女儿，反倒帮了他的大忙。他解释说，他有十个孩子，个个让他失望，都给他惹麻烦，养育他们要花很多钱。对他来说，不幸的结果只是在床上躺上几天，他不会付赎金，如果他们要杀，那就杀好了。说完这些生硬的话，商人就放下了电话。恐怖主义团伙相信了他，几个小时之后，他女儿就被放了出来。

10. It was still snowing when we awoke the next morning, but it was too warm for it to settle, so the pavements turned to mud, brown beneath a low grey sky. We had decided to visit the Mus閑 d'Orsay after breakfast, and planned to go on to a cinema in the afternoon. I had just shut the door to the hotel room, when Chloe asked me brusquely, 'Have you got the key?'当我们第二天早上醒来时，雪还在下着。不过天气很暖和，雪一下就融化了，于是道路上一片泥泞，脏兮兮的。灰蒙蒙的天空压得很低。我们已经计划好吃完早餐去参观巴黎奥赛博物馆，下午去看电影。我刚关上旅馆的门，克洛艾就生硬地问道：“你带了钥匙没有？”

'No,' I answered, 'you told me a minute ago you had it.'“没有，”我回答说，“你刚才说你带了。”

'Did I? No, I didn't,' said Chloe, 'I don't have the key. You've just locked us out.'“我？人没有，”克洛艾说，“我没带钥匙，你把我们锁在外面了。”

'I haven't locked us out. I shut the door thinking you had the key, because the key wasn't where I left it.'“我可没有把我们锁在外面。我锁门时是想你把钥匙带着的，因为钥匙不在我放的那个地方。”

'Well, that's really silly of you, because I don't have it either, so we're locked out ?thanks to you.'“你真是荒谬，我也没有带，是你忘了带钥匙，不要再怪我。”

'Thanks to me! For Heaven's sake, stop blaming me for the fact that it was you who forgot the key.'“责任不在我。”

'I had nothing to do with the key.'

At that moment, Chloe turned towards the lifts, and (with novelistic timing) the room key fell out of her coat pocket onto the maroon carpet of the hotel.说完这话，克洛艾转身走向电梯，（就如小说中的情节一样）钥匙从她的大衣兜里掉下来，落在旅馆紫褐色的地毯上。

'Oh, I'm sorry. I did have it all along, oh, well,' said Chloe.“天啊，对不起。我确实带了，天啊，”克洛艾说道。

But I decided I would not forgive her with ease, and snapped, 'That's it,' and headed for the stairs silently and melodramatically, Chloe calling after me, 'Wait, don't be silly, where are you going? I said I was sorry.'但是我决定不轻易原谅她，怒声说“是的”，然后就默默地朝楼梯走去，如同情节剧里的动作一般。克洛艾在后面叫着我：“等等我，不要这样，你去哪？我说过了对不起。”

11. A structurally successful terroristic sulk must be sparked by some wrong-doing, however small, on the part of the sulked, and yet is marked by a disproportion between insult inflicted and sulk elicited, drawing a punishment bearing little relation to the severity of the original offence - and one that cannot easily be resolved through normal channels. I had been waiting to sulk Chloe for a long time, but to begin sulking when one has not been wronged in any definite way is counter-productive, for there is a danger the partner will not notice and guilt not flourish.成功伪装的恐怖主义式生气必须是由某个过失行为触发，不管过失是多么微不足道，标志就是遭受侮辱和生气产生之间不成比例，做出一个与起初触怒的严重性联系很小的惩罚——不能通过正常的渠道轻易地得以解决的惩罚。我已经等待了很长时间要对克洛艾发火，但是，对一个并没有做错什么的人发火会产生相反的效果，因为伴侣不会觉察到，内疚也就不会产生。

12. I could briefly have shouted at Chloe, she back at me, and then our argument over the room key would have unwound itself. At the basis of all sulks lies a wrong that might have been addressed and disappeared at once, but that instead is taken by the injured partner and stored for later and more painful detonation. Delays in explanations give grievances a weight that they would lack if the matter had been addressed as soon as it had arisen. To display anger shortly after an offence occurs is the most generous thing one may do, for it saves the sulked from the burgeoning of guilt and the need to talk the sulker down from his or her battlement. I did not wish to do Chloe such a favour, so I walked out of the hotel alone and headed towards Saint-Germain, where I spent two hours browsing in a series of bookshops. Then, instead of returning to the hotel to leave a message, I ate lunch alone in a restaurant, then went to see two films in a row, eventually returning to the hotel at seven o'clock in the evening.我本可以草率地对克洛艾吼叫，她也回击我。然后由房间钥匙引发的争吵就可以自行解决。所有的生气产生于过错，这过错也许可以解决，从而顷刻消失。如果不是这样，受伤的一方对此耿耿于怀，就将导致日后更痛苦的爆发。问题一出现就得到解决，就不会因解释延迟而怨愤深重。触怒之后立刻发火是最为宽宏大量的，因为这样就可以使冒犯者不会过于内疚，也不需要劝说生气者息怒。我不想让克洛艾得到这个便宜，所以独自一人走出旅馆，向圣日耳曼走去，在那里的书店逛了两个小时，接着我没有回旅馆给克洛区留口信，而是独自一人去餐馆吃了午饭，然后连续看了两场电影，在晚上七点钟时回到旅馆。

13. The key point about terrorism is that it is primarily designed to attract attention, a form of psychological warfare with goals (for instance, the creation of a Palestinian state) unrelated to military techniques (opening fire in the arrival lounge of Lod Airport). There is a discrepancy between means and ends, a sulk being used to make a point relatively unconnected to the sulk itself ?I am angry at you for accusing me of losing the key symbolizing the wider (but unspeakable) message I am angry at you for no longer loving me.恐怖主义的关键就在于首先是为了引起注意，是目标（比如说巴基斯坦建国）与战术（在罗得机场的候机厅的扫射）毫无关联的心理战争，方式和结果并不一致，发泄怒火与生气本身并无相应的联系。因为你指责我丢了钥匙，所以我气恼，这代表一个更宽泛（但无法表达）的信息：因为你不再爱我，所以我气恼。

14. Chloe was no brute and, whatever I might claim, had generous tendencies for self-blame. She had tried to follow me to Saint-Germain, but had lost me in the crowd. She had returned to the hotel, waited a while, and then gone to the Mus閑 d'Orsay. When I finally came back to the room, I found her resting in bed, but without speaking to her, went into the bathroom and took a long shower.不论怎么说，克洛艾并不算是残忍无情，她也在深深地自责。她曾试图跟我去圣日耳曼，但在人群中走散了，只好回到旅馆，等了一会儿，又去了奥赛博物馆。当我最终回到房间时，她正在床上休息，不过我没有理她，径直走进浴室，洗了很长时间的澡。

15.The sulker is a complicated creature, giving off messages of deep ambivalence, crying out for help and attention, while at the same time rejecting it should it be offered, wanting to be understood without needing to speak. Chloe asked if she could be forgiven, saying she hated to leave arguments unresolved and wanted us to spend a pleasant anniversary evening that night. I said nothing. Unable to express the full extent of my anger with her (an anger that had nothing to do with a key), I had grown unreasonable. Why had it become so hard for me to say what I meant? Because of the danger of communicating my real grievance: that Chloe had ceased to love me. My hurt was so inexpressible, had so little to do with a forgotten key, that I would have looked like a fool to bring the matter up at this stage. My anger was hence forced underground. Unable to say directly what I meant, I resorted to symbolizing meaning, half hoping, half dreading that the symbol would be decoded.生气的人是一个复杂的动物，发出极度矛盾的信息，哀求着救助与关注，然而当这一切到来时，却又拒绝，希望无须言语就可以得到理解。克洛艾问我可不可以原谅她，说她讨厌不把争端解决掉，说希望我们那天晚上过一个愉快的纪念日。我一言不发。我无法对她表达我全部的怒火（与钥匙毫无关系的怒火），我已经变得不合情理。为什么说出我的意图这么艰难？因为与克洛艾交流我真正的怨愤——她不再爱我了，存在危险。我的创伤是如此的无法表达，与那把忘了的钥匙联系太小，以至在此刻说出真相只会过于愚笨。我的怒火因而只能埋藏在内心深处。我无法直抒我的心意，只能求援于钥匙的象征意义，半是期盼，半是害怕这符号被破解。

16. After my shower, we finally made it up over the key incident, and went out for dinner to a restaurant on the 蝜e de la Cit? We were both on best behaviour, keen to avoid tensions, chatting on neutral territory about books, films, and capital cities. It might have seemed (from the waiter's point of view) that the couple was indeed a happy one ?and that romantic terrorism had scored a significant victory.洗完澡后，我们终于平息了钥匙事件，一起到城市之岛的一个餐馆吃晚饭。我们都尽量表现得最好，极力避免紧张气氛，主要谈论书、电影和一些首都。看起来（在服务员的眼中）我们这一对真是非常幸福美满——爱情恐怖主义大获全胜。

17. Yet ordinary terrorists have a distinct advantage over romantic terrorists, the fact that their demands (however outrageous) do not include the most outrageous demand of all, the demand to be loved. I knew that the happiness we were enjoying that evening in Paris was illusory, because the love that Chloe was displaying had not been given spontaneously. It was the love of a woman who feels guilty for the fact she has ceased to feel affection, but who nevertheless attempts a display of loyalty (as much to convince herself as her partner). Hence my evening was not a happy one: my sulk had worked, but its success had been empty.然而一般的恐怖分子有一个明显优于爱情恐怖分子的优势，他们的要求（不论有多么无礼）不包括最无礼的那一个，即要求被人爱恋。我知道那天晚上我们在巴黎享受的幸福是虚假的，因为克洛艾表现出来的爱并非发自内心。那是一个因为不再有爱而心怀内疚，但又试图表示忠诚（既想使自己相信，又要伴侣接受）的女人的爱。所以，那个夜晚我并无幸福可言：我的生气起了作用，但它获得的成功却空洞虚幻。

18. Though ordinary terrorists may occasionally force concessions from governments by blowing up buildings or school children, romantic terrorists are doomed to disappointment because of a fundamental inconsistency in their approach. You must love me, says the romantic terrorist, I will force you to love me by sulking you or making you feel jealous, but then comes the paradox, for if love is returned, it is at once considered tainted, and the romantic terrorist must complain, "If I have only forced you to love me, then I cannot accept this love, for it was not spontaneously given." Romantic terrorism is a demand that negates itself in the process of its resolution, it brings the terrorist up against an uncomfortable reality ?that love's death cannot be arrested.虽然一般的恐怖分子通过炸毁建筑物或枪杀学生偶尔可以迫使政府作出让步，但是爱情恐怖分子因为态度存在根本的前后矛盾注定会失望落寞。你必须爱我，爱情恐怖分子说，我通过惹你生气或让你妒忌使你来爱我。但是，矛盾出现了，因为如果爱情回归，只会立刻被当作是变味的爱情，爱情恐怖分子必定会抱怨说，如果是我迫使你爱我，那么我不能接受这份爱，因为这不是发自内心的爱。爱情恐怖主义必然要在解决问题的过程是否定自己，这就向恐怖分子提出了一个难以接受的现实——爱情死亡的脚步无法止住。

19. As we walked back towards the hotel, Chloe slipped her hand in my coat pocket and kissed me on the cheek. I did not return her kiss, not because a kiss was not the most desired conclusion to a terrible day, but simply because I could no longer feel Chloe's kiss to be genuine. I had lost the will to force love on its unwilling recipient.当我们走着回旅馆时，克洛艾把她的一只手插在我的大衣口袋里，吻着我的面颊。我没有回吻她，不是因为亲吻并非这糟糕的一天中最让人向往的结束，只是因为我不再感受到克洛艾的吻是出于真心实意。我已经不想再把爱强加给一个并不情愿的接受者。