我甚至孤身一人住在離家?guī)子⒗镞h的城市，強迫自己獨立，一切都由自己動手。但把我放在船上等于剝奪了我所獲得的一切，而我不想讓自己感到懦弱無助。

　　Charles saw them both at the same time: a small white bird and the girl wheeling down the walk. The bird glided downward and rested in the grass; the girl directed the chair smoothly along the sunlit, shadowy walk. She stopped to watch the ducks on the pond and when she shoved the wheels again, Charles stood up. "May I push you?" he called, running across the grass to her. The white bird flew to the top of a tree.

　　查爾斯是在同一時刻看到他們倆的：一只白色的小鳥和坐著輪椅沿著小徑悠然而來的女孩。小鳥滑翔而下，棲息在草地上；女孩則平穩(wěn)地駕著輪椅，穿行在陽光下婆娑的樹影之間。她停下來看了看池塘里的鴨子，當她再次用手推動輪椅時，查爾斯一下子站了起來。“我來推你好嗎？”他一邊喊道，一邊穿過草地朝她奔去。那只小鳥嗖地飛上了樹梢。

　　It was mostly he who talked and he seemed afraid to stop for fear she'd ask him to leave her by herself. Nothing in her face had supported the idea of helplessness conveyed by the wheelchair, and he knew that his assistance was not viewed as a favor. He asked the cause of her handicap.

　　大部分時間都是他在喋喋不休，他似乎害怕話一停，她就會請他離開，好讓她獨自呆著。從她的臉上看不出有任何緣于輪椅的無助表情，因而他知道，他的幫助并沒有被看作是一種恩惠。他問起她致殘的原因。

　　"It was an automobile accident when I was 12," Amy explained.

　　“我12歲那年出了一場車禍，”艾米解釋說。

　　They went for lunch, and he would have felt awkward except that she knew completely how to take care of herself.

　　他們一起去吃午餐。幸好她能完全照料自己，不然他可就尷尬了。

　　"Do you live with someone?" he asked the next day when they met.

　　“你和什么人住在一起嗎？”第二天見面時他問。

　　"Just myself," she answered. Asking the question made him feel uneasy because of his own loneliness even though he was hoping for this answer.

　　“就我自己，”她答道。盡管他希望得到這樣一個答案，但是問這個問題仍然讓他有些不安，因為他自己也過得很孤獨。

　　He came to like to feel the white handles in his grasp, to walk between the two white-rimmed metal wheels. And he grew almost more familiar with the slight wave at the back of her hair than with her eyes or her mouth. Once, he said to the wave at the back of her hair, "I hope I'm the only chair-pusher in your life," but she had only smiled a little and her eyes had admitted nothing.

　　他開始喜歡把輪椅的白色手柄握在手里的感覺，喜歡在那兩只鑲有白邊的金屬輪子中間推車行走。他對她披在身后的、微微起伏的長發(fā)愈加熟悉，幾乎超過了對她的眼睛和嘴唇的熟悉程度。有一次，他對著她波浪一般起伏的長發(fā)說：“真希望我是你生命中惟一為你推輪椅的人。”但她只是莞爾一笑，眼里沒有任何表示。

　　She cooked dinner for him once in June. He expected her to be proud of her ability to do everything from her seat in the wheelchair—and was faintly disappointed to see that she would not feel pride at what was, for her, simply a matter of course. He watched his own hand pick up the salt shaker and place it on one of the higher unused shelves, and awaited her plea for assistance. He didn't know why he'd done it, but the look in her eyes made him realize how cruel his prank was. To make her forget what he'd done, he told her about the little white bird in the park.

　　6月里，她曾為他燒過一頓晚餐。她坐在輪椅上樣樣事情都能做，他以為她會為此而自豪的，但她僅僅把這視為一件理所當然的事，并無自豪感可言。發(fā)現(xiàn)這一點后，他不免有些悵然若失。他望著自己的手拿起鹽瓶，把它放到一塊較高的、不常用的碗柜擱板上，然后等著她請求幫助。他不明白自己為什么要這樣做，但她的眼神讓他意識到，他的惡作劇有多么殘酷。為了讓她忘掉他剛才的蠢行，他跟她談起了公園里的那只小白鳥。

　　"I've seen it, too," she said. "I read a poem once about a little white bird that came to rest on a windowsill and the lady who lived in the house began to put out food for it. Soon the lady fell in love, but it was a mismatched love. Every day the little bird came to the window and the lady put out food. When the love affair was over, the little white bird never returned, but the woman went on putting out the crumbs every day for years and the wind just blew them away."

　　“我也看見了，”她說。“我曾經(jīng)讀過一首詩，詩中的小白鳥經(jīng)常飛來棲息在一戶人家的窗臺上，女主人開始拿出食物喂它。很快，女主人便愛上了這只鳥兒，可這場愛戀并不般配。小鳥每天飛到窗前，女主人便每天捧出食物。戀情結(jié)束之后，小白鳥一去不返，可女主人連著幾年日復(fù)一日地把面包屑放到窗臺上，任風把它們吹走。”

　　In July he took her boating frequently. The most awkward event, she felt, was getting in and out of the boat. For Charles, however, these "freight handlings," as she came to call it, seemed to be the highlight of the outings. In the boat she felt helpless, unable to move around, sitting in one spot. Also, she was unable to swim, should the boat turn over. Charles didn't observe her discomfort; she did note how much he enjoyed being in control. When he called for her one day in early August, she refused to.

　　7月里，他時常帶她去劃船。最令她感到不自在的是只能由查爾斯把她抱上抱下，她稱之為“貨物裝卸”。但對查爾斯而言，那樣的時刻仿佛就是他們戶外活動的最精彩部分。她在船上感到很無助，只能坐在一個地方，沒法四處活動。而且如果翻船，她可不會游泳。查爾斯對她的不安不予體察。她卻發(fā)現(xiàn)了他是多么喜歡控制別人。8月初的一天，他來喊她去劃船，她說什么也不肯去。

　　They would, instead, she said, go for a walk in which she would move herself by the strength of her own arms and he would walk beside her.

　　她建議他們不妨出去散散步，這樣她可以憑自己的臂力推動自己，他則可以走在她身邊。