The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh. And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done (...)
Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.Vậy mà, từ trên cao này, dãy cửa sổ vàng vọt kia của chúng tôi chắc cũng đang dự phần phô diễn những bí ẩn nhân sinh cho ai đó đang lơ đãng nhìn lên từ dưới những đường phố đang tối dần kia, và chính tôi cũng là người ấy, đang ngẩng nhìn và tự hỏi mình đang thấy những gì. Tôi đang vừa ở trong vừa ở ngoài, vừa bị mê hoặc vừa thấy kinh tởm bởi cái đa dạng khôn kiệt của cuộc đời.
Atticus, you’ve never laid a hand on her. I admit that. So far I’ve been able to get by with threats. Jack, she minds me as well as she can. Doesn’t come up to scratch half the time, but she tries. That’s not the answer, said Uncle Jack. No, the answer is she knows I know she tries. That’s what makes the difference.
В последний вечер перед отъездом в Европу они с Дэзи долго сидели обнявшись и молчали. Погода была холодная, сырая, в комнате топился камин, и щеки у Дэзи разгорелись. Иногда она шевелилась в его объятиях, и он тогда слегка менял позу, чтобы ей было удобнее. Один раз он поцеловал ее темные, шелковистые волосы. Они притихли с наступлением сумерек, словно для того, чтобы этот вечер лучше запомнился им на всю долгую разлуку, которую несло с собой завтра. За месяц их любви ни разу они не были более близки, не раскрывались полней друг для друга, чем в эти минуты, когда она безмолвными губами касалась сукна мундира на его плече или когда он перебирал ее пальцы, так осторожно, словно боялся ее разбудить.
There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.But all of that was pertinent only in the night, and had nothing to do with the man you loved, at least in daylight.
I'm interested in your opinion. You're intelligent enough, you must have an opinion. About what? I say. What we've done, he says. How things have worked out. I hold myself very still. I try to empty my mind. I think about the sky, at night, when there's no moon. I have no opinion, I say. He sighs, relaxes his hands, but leaves them on my shoulders. He knows what I think, all right. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better. Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.