LOEFFLER was my trophy intellectual. We met at a party, where he hovered around my conversational circle for a while and then came up to me and asked, "Are you with someone?"呂弗勒是我認識的一個花瓶一樣的知識分子。我們在一次聚會上相遇，他在我談話的圈子周圍徘徊了一會兒，然后走到我面前，問我：“有人和你一起嗎?”

"Yes," I said. I’d come with my office mate, another editor.我說：“是的?！贝_實那一天我是和一個同事一起去的，他也是個編輯。

"Come home with me," he said.他又對我說：“跟我一起回家吧?！?/p>

I did. We sipped dry sherry on his porch until sunrise, and shortly thereafter he moved in to my small Florida home.我真的跟他回家了。我們在他家的門廊上啜飲著干雪利酒，直到太陽升起。此后不久，他搬進了我在佛羅里達的小家。

I began displaying him almost immediately, once I’d reviewed his credentials. They were just about right: Harvard, N.E.H. grant, a fellow at Yale, two sabbaticals in Africa, where he labored at compiling a Chamba dictionary. One night I half-woke and mumbled some words, and he shook me awake: "You know what that is, don’t you? It’s Chamba."自從看了他的履歷證明后，我?guī)缀趿ⅠR開始炫耀他。他從哈佛大學(xué)畢業(yè)，獲得過美國人文基金會的資助，是耶魯?shù)难芯繂T，兩次在非洲度年假，在那里辛苦的編撰他的昌巴人詞典。有天夜里我半睡半醒的時候嘟囔了幾句，結(jié)果他搖醒我，說：“你知道你說的什么嗎?知道嗎?那是昌巴語?！?/p>

But no, I don’t speak Chamba, not even in my sleep. There are only about 20,000 Chamba speakers in the world. Maybe one day they’ll use Loeffler’s dictionary, if he ever completes it.但那不是昌巴語，我不會說昌巴語，即使在夢里也不會說。現(xiàn)在世界上說昌巴語的人只剩20000人了。如果呂弗勒的詞典完成了，也許有一天他們能用得上。

He has another unfinished book, on African motifs in "Finnegans Wake." He’s been writing this book for about 20 years, including the two years it took to put his notes on computer when he got his first PC.他還有另一本未完成的書，關(guān)于《芬尼根守靈》中的非洲主題。他寫這本書已經(jīng)用了大概20年時間了，其中包括他有了自己的第一臺電腦后把所有筆記錄入電腦的那兩年。

Publish or perish did him in academically. He couldn’t finish his work, so he couldn’t publish it, which meant he couldn’t get tenure, which meant, essentially, the end of his academic career and along with it any reliable way of having an income. Oh, he got a grant at one point and also had some money from the sale of his mother’s house. But mostly he lived cheaply and was happy to be supported principally by others - by me for example.學(xué)術(shù)上他要承受不出版就完蛋的局面。他完不成自己的工作，就沒辦法發(fā)表，就意味著他沒法獲得長期聘用，從本質(zhì)上說，這就意味著他的學(xué)術(shù)生涯以及于此相關(guān)的任何穩(wěn)定的收入的結(jié)束。哦，他得到過一點補助金，賣掉他母親的房子也讓他得到了一點錢。但是大多數(shù)情況上他生活的很拮據(jù)。并很高興得到別人的幫助，比如我的。

By the time I met Loeffler I’d already had a trophy husband, a man so tall and handsome and mannerly that I sometimes believed I married him just to confound my family, who long before had decided I was too stubborn and uncommunicative to attract a desirable man. That’s the unspoken agenda in acquiring a trophy anything, to say to those who doubted you: Look, you were wrong.我認識呂弗勒的時候已經(jīng)有了一個花瓶丈夫，他高大英俊，彬彬有禮，有時候我覺得我之所以嫁給他就是為了讓我們家人大吃一驚，因為他們很長時間以來都認為我太固執(zhí)，有太沉默寡言了，所以無法吸引到一個好男人。世界上最棒的事情的就是向那些懷疑你的人說，看，你錯了吧!

After I separated from my trophy husband and was left with three children and no child support or alimony (my husband, too, had arranged to have no income), I procrastinated for a long time on initiating a divorce. For one thing, I knew the whole endeavor would fall on me; I’d have to pay the fees for us both and complete the paperwork, file everything, see it through.我離開丈夫后，要撫養(yǎng)三個孩子，沒有子女撫養(yǎng)費也沒有贍養(yǎng)費(我丈夫也沒有收入)，所以我拖了很長時間沒有離婚。首先，我知道所有事情都要我來做，而且我還得負擔(dān)我們兩個人的費用，完成文字工作，把一切都歸檔整理好，還得想辦法讓事情順利完成。

But also I had the idea ... well, I don’t know why I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I had the idea that maybe I could sell him. This was back when I lived in New York, and I imagined a wealthy Manhattan woman might spot him, a tall, handsome, well-spoken man, and think that, even as an escort, he was worth something. So she would ask me to divorce him, and I would say to her, "I’ll sell him to you."但是我還有一種想法……恩，我不知道為什么承認這一點讓我很尷尬，但是我確實有這樣的想法，或許我可以賣掉他。我在紐約生活時這種想法又回到了我的頭腦中，我想象著一個富有的曼哈頓女人或許會現(xiàn)場買了他，畢竟他是個高大英俊，善于言辭的男人，想想吧，最算是給人做護衛(wèi)者，他也應(yīng)該值點錢吧。所以她可能會要求我跟他離婚，然后我會跟她說：“好吧，我把他賣給你?！?/p>

Just such a woman ran over his foot one day, as he stood waiting for the light at Lexington and 59th Street. She jumped out of her Lexus and apologized profusely, but unfortunately he did not get her name or phone number. I would have called her, definitely.有一天，當他在列克星敦的59街等待綠燈時，有這樣一個女人開車碾過他的腳，然后她跳下自己的雷克薩斯向他大表歉意，但不幸的是他沒有要她的名字和電話號碼。不然我一定打電話給她。