作者：玛格丽特          翻译：提壶的胖子

John and Mary meet.

What happens next?

If you want a happy ending, try A

约翰和玛丽相遇了，接下来会有什么事情发生呢？如果你期待一个完美结局，试读一下A中的故事吧！

A.

John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative（报酬丰厚） jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

约翰和玛丽相爱了，他们走入了婚姻的殿堂。两个都有让自己充满动力，极富挑战而且收入可观又十分体面的工作。他们一起度假，一起退休。他们都有能让自己满心欢愉的追求。后来他们过世了，一切就这样结束了。

B.

Mary falls in love with John but John doesn't fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you'll notice that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after he's eaten dinner he fucks her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn't even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He doesn't take off Mary's clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if she's dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn't, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he'll get used to her, he'll come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six o'clock and they do the whole thing over again.

玛丽单恋着约翰。而约翰只是利用她的肉体填补自己内心的空虚。他每周去她家里两次，她为他下厨做饭，可他却觉得她那样廉价。吃过饭后两个人片刻缠绵之后约翰就沉沉睡去。而那时的玛丽打扫好一切，涂好口红尽量让自己不失精致。可约翰醒来的时毫无次序地穿着搭配，连自己都不曾察觉。穿好衣服后，他没再褪去玛丽的衣衫，玛丽自己脱掉了，她尽情展现自己的魅力，却不是因为真的陶醉其中。她只是希望约翰这样觉得，她试图让约翰上瘾，让他欲罢不能，之后换来一段完满的婚姻。可一夜春宵后约翰疲惫不堪径直走出门去，三天过后约翰照旧早起，他们还是重复着那天的一切。

Mary gets run-down. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she can't stop. People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn't good enough for her, but she can't believe it. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.

玛丽已经心力憔悴。哭多了就不美了这事儿大家都懂，可玛丽已经控制不住了。工作中的朋友发现了她，她朋友说约翰简直猪狗不如，他根本不值得她伤心流泪，可她就是不信。她脑海里的约翰一直都是另一个完美无缺的影子罢了。她以为如果那个约翰浪够了就会破茧成蝶宛如上天的馈赠。（胖子：我有点生气，把我提溜的水壶给我，我砸死这个王八羔子。）

One evening John complains about the food. He has never complained about her food before. Mary is hurt.

一天晚上约翰开始吐槽玛丽做的饭菜难吃，可之前他从没这么觉得过。这让玛丽倍感难过。

Her friends tell her they've seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. It's not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: it's the restaurant. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes he'll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.

她的朋友告诉他之前看见约翰和另一个叫玛奇儿女人一起进进出出。那天入睡前玛丽喝了一瓶雪莉酒，里面掺着各种她能找到的药片。这个潦倒的女人不靠酒精作用根本无法面对一切。她给约翰留了字条，她希望约翰能发现这一切及时送她去医院，然后他可以回心转意，之后他们可以顺利结婚。但这一切只是空想，她死了。

约翰娶了玛奇儿，像故事一里一样过上了幸福的生活。

C.

John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though she's not in love with him. She met him at work. She's in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.

约翰是个老头他爱上了年轻的玛丽，他特别担心有天头发掉光。她陪他入睡尽管不是处于真心。他们是在工作中认识的。她深爱着詹姆斯，可年轻的他还是漂泊不定。

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away.

约翰则不同，他已经定居多年，而这也恰恰是他无聊的原因。约翰有很稳定很体面的工作并且是他工作领域的杰出者。可是玛丽并不怎么欣赏他，她只爱慕骑着摩托车热爱收藏唱片的詹姆斯。詹姆斯却是个彻头彻尾的自由主义者。自由就意味着没有固定的女朋友，所以玛丽只在周四晚上与詹姆斯相会。周四是唯一约翰不在家的日子。

John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time.

约翰已经和叫玛奇儿的女人结婚了还有两个孩子和一栋很棒的房子，他很明智在房价上涨前买了它这会儿已经增值了。他有空就去干点儿喜欢的事情让自己充实起来。约翰对玛丽表明了自己对她深沉的爱，但你知道的他没法离婚，因为誓言终归不可背弃。他已经太多次重复这些话，玛丽已经司空见惯甚至可以说是心生厌倦了。约翰这个老头子还是乐此不疲地吸嗜她的青春。

One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you'd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary's apartment. He finds them stoned and entwined. He's hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's middle-aged, in two years he'll be as bald as an egg and he can't stand it. He purchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practice-- this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later--and shoots the two of them and himself.

一天詹姆斯骑着摩托载着玛丽和一辆加州顶级豪车并行，你根本无法想象他俩玩儿的有多么疯狂。一切正在潜移默化地进行约翰突然打开了玛丽家的门。他看到了床上正发生的一切。他根本没什么嫉妒的理由，想想马琦儿，他还是很绝望。他不再年轻了，过不上两年自己就会变成站都站不稳不稳的秃头亮蛋。他掏出了手枪，这会儿他需要一个靶子，这两只靴子看着不错，又或者是他自己。(这情节或许太过悲情了，但稍后会被处理的不赖）

Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.

玛奇儿度过了沉痛的阶段后，找了一个懂她的叫斐登的男人，他们和故事一中的那对儿一样幸福。

D.

Fred and Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches. Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and grateful, and continue as in A.

斐登和瑪奇儿从来没有矛盾。他们相处融洽，很会解决稀碎的小问题。可他们的房子在海滩旁边，有天巨浪突然涌来。整个庄园都被淹没了。我们略过海浪是怎么产生的，他们是怎么逃离的。那之后，有几千人遇难，斐登和瑪奇儿很幸运他们活了下来，并一直幸福的生活着。

E.

Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be "Madge," "cancer," "guilty and confused," and "bird watching."

是的，斐登心脏不好，我们不过多陈述斐登从生到死的一切。斐登过世之后玛奇儿一直在做慈善，直到过世。如果你希望，你可以成为任何角色，做任何事。

F

If you think this is all too bourgeois（中产阶级）, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. You'll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

或许你觉得这一切太过平凡，把约翰设定为政府领导，玛丽变成间谍，你又能让这个故事进行多久？请记得，这就是加拿大，你的结局还是会像故事一中的一样，那怕中间有多少骇人听闻，富有传奇色彩的故事，结局都一样。

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious（怀有恶意的） intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality（多愁善感的）.

你不得不去面对，这干涩暗淡的结局。不要被别人的结局所欺骗，那些都是假象，全是骗人的，不是过于美好，就是无痛呻吟。

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:

真正的结局只有一个：

John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

就是死亡

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

太多种结局了。所有开始都描绘得过于好。擦亮双眼看透一切，才是最难的。

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

我要诉说的一切就是这样，事情总是接连不断的发生，别再追问是什么。

Now try How and Why.

现在或许该想想怎么解决，为什么发生。