我的妻子

《装腔指南》P215

My wife

Writing this section, I toyed with the idea of including – perhaps concluding with – an entry on ‘love’. But then it occurred to me that if I wrote one about my wife, that would amount to the same thing. I sometimes wonder why a preternaturally beautiful, free-thinking Russian, who skipped St Petersburg in her twenties during the chaotic period after the fall of Communism, would want to hang out with someone like me. And sometimes it seems she wonders too. While I tend to tie myself in verbal knots of evasion and euphemism, Anya is often very direct. I remember once asking her, during a conversation about Socrates*, if she could ever love a man who was hideous. ‘I thinkyouare hideous,’ she remarked. She later claimed that she thought the word ‘hideous’ meant ‘eccentric’, although I’ve always subsequently wondered if this was a retrospective improvisation.

Admittedly, there have been other occasional malapropisms that suggest her explanation may have been honest. She once told me that she had no respect for foreigners who came to England and refused to ‘disintegrate’. She refers to hip hop singers as ‘rappists’, and on another occasion endearingly misremembered the title of the romantic comedy in which Bill Murray’s misanthropic weatherman is forced to live the same day over and over again. She called itThe Day of the Badger, which you could argue is actually a better title thanGroundhog Day, although it might be more suited to a sci-fi horror film in which farmers finally get what’s coming to them.

Many years ago, when I was single, a friend warned me that before he got married he was the most important person in his life. Afterwards, with a wife and child, he found himself demoted to number three. What he didn’t say was that this painful process, which seems to be central to the enterprise of love, might have the desirable side-effect of making you cooler. I’m still resisting the process, but I can recognise the benefits of having one’s self-love chipped away at: a sculptural task at which Anya exhibits the skill of a Rodin. I treasure the memory of the time I asked her what kind of men she goes for. ‘Clowns,’ she replied.

P215 我的妻子

在写这一部分的时候，我曾想过在书中加入一个关于“爱”的条目，也许是作为结尾。但后来我突然想到，如果我写一篇关于我妻子的文章，那也是一样的。我有时会想，为什么一个异常美丽、思想自由的俄罗斯人，20来岁时，在共产主义垮台后的混乱时期逃离了圣彼得堡，会想和我这样的人在一起？有时她似乎也想知道其中原因。当我倾向于用回避和委婉的语言来包装自己，而安雅往往非常直接。我记得有一次在一场关于苏格拉底的谈话中，我问她，她是否会爱上一个丑陋的男人。"我觉得你很丑，"她说。她后来又说，她认为“丑陋”这个词的意思是指“古怪”，尽管我总是怀疑这是她回头临时编凑的。

诚然，也有其他一些偶然出现的误用现象，这表明她的解释可能是诚实的。她曾经告诉我，她不尊重那些来到英国并拒绝“解体”的外国人。她把嘻哈歌手称为“强奸犯”，还有一次还可爱地记错了浪漫喜剧的片名。在这部喜剧中，比尔·默里饰演的厌世的天气预报员被迫过着日复一日的生活。她称其为《獾日》，你可能会认为这实际上是一个比《土拨鼠之日》更好的名称，尽管它可能更适合科幻恐怖电影，农民最终得到了他们的报应。

很多年前，当我还是单身的时候，一个朋友提醒我，在他结婚前，他是他生命中最重要的人。后来，有了妻子和孩子，他发现自己被降到了第三位。他没有说的是，这个痛苦的过程是爱情机构的核心，且会有令人满意的副作用，它让你变得更酷。我仍然在抵制这个过程，但我能意识到一个人的自爱被削弱的好处: 安雅在雕塑任务中展示了罗丹的技巧。我珍惜问她喜欢什么样的男人的那一刻。“小丑”, 她回答。