2022.02.23 我丢失了袜子、手缝的兔子--和信任

shiyi18

STRANGER THINGS
I’ve lost socks, a hand-sewn rabbit – and trust
Should I abandon hope of ever finding them again?



Feb 23rd 2022
BY ANN WROE


Confined by covid a few weeks ago, I decided to do a sock census. The census involves tipping the top drawer of my dressing table onto the bed and trying to pair them up. This is trickier than it sounds, because I only buy socks in black, and the variations which distinguish the tops of them (wide, narrow, ribbed, plain, elasticated or past it) are subtle. Two things alone are certain. There will be fewer than there used to be, and almost none will find a partner matching in all respects.

I can never understand this. I don’t throw socks away and actually like darning them, making use of a smooth Victorian mushroom and an almost prehistoric needle. I wash them by hand, not in a machine, so they can’t perform their tricks of vaporising, dissolving, sprinting down pipes or whatever else they do to avoid returning home. The days are gone when I used to find mysterious strays, fossilised into hard balls, under the beds and in the kit-bags of my sons. I can only conclude that getting lost, and staying there, is part of the life-cycle of the sock.

Getting lost, and staying there, is part of the life-cycle of the sock

And not of socks alone. Long-term or permanent vanishing is bizarrely common. Whatever happened, for example, to the credit and membership cards I stowed prudently away before a trip once, after I was robbed at LaGuardia? When I got back I marched confidently to get them from their hiding place – in the sock drawer, as it happens – and they were gone. No burglars had called, no subsidence had shifted things, even the ever-hungry moths don’t feast on plastic. It was just a case of “into thin air”.


That air must be plumping up nicely, as it also contains a fair number of Christmas Presents Bought in Advance. These are the items that looked ideal in April or June, stirring up all sorts of preening thoughts about providence and time-saving. So they were put away sensibly (in the postcard drawer, I’m sure) and inevitably, by December, lost. One, a very fancy Mercedes key-fob, turned up ten years later in the umbrella bucket, when we had long since downgraded to a Ford. How the mighty had fallen.

Whenever a wonder-hoard of coins or weapons is uncovered by detectorists, experts tend to say that it was buried at a time of danger, implying that the owners fled in a panic. An alternative possibility is that they were under no duress, just being careful and, after that, forgetful. When they came confidently back the forest looked different, plants had grown up and their markers had moved somehow; so, after many circles, they gave up searching. It seems to me that, as with my credit cards, the chance of losing something for ever is in direct proportion to the amount of care expended on getting it and putting it away.

Every ancient brooch or coin found by itself still carries a charge of grief

Presents, especially socks, can always be bought again, and we put the loss out of our minds. But in the case of precious items hope keeps going, living and reliving the last moments of seeing and touching them before they disappeared. Every ancient brooch or coin found by itself still carries, along with fascination, a charge of grief. The horse has been halted, the grass searched, the kerchief unwound from the neck, every receptacle turned inside out. Again and again the owner paces out the ground, or gets servants to do so, but the ground has apparently yawned once and closed again. It will reveal the ring or the jewel only to Stan or Dave, centuries later, as they spend a Sunday morning sweeping a hill with cigarettes dangling and their machines randomly beeping. In future years or decades someone will find the keys I lost on Hampstead Heath, exactly where the uncut grass met the mown field, below a particular oak tree. An easy place, you might think, but they were swallowed as completely as if I had dropped them in the ocean.


Such vanishings are hard to forget. The toy rabbit my grandmother made for me, everything hand-sewn down to the carrot in her apron pocket, disappeared when we moved house and ever since I have been haunted by her. Regret has only grown sharper the further I get from childhood. Why did other things sail through the move, like the fancy figurines I didn’t care about? Is she still in the old house somewhere, in some cobwebby corner in the dark? A strange belief grows that lost things are only waiting, in some limbo of suspended existence, for the moment when the right door is opened, the right box thrust open to the light, and they will live again in my life.


I’ve revisited the most likely rabbit-box several times, as if I must have been too cursory all those times before. She is still not there, though the unloved pinching shoes I wore at my wedding still are. Gloomily, I suppose that by some vicious directive of Fate I am meant to be separated from the precious things I lose. The strange myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where he looks back and loses the wife he is leading out of hell, is often read as a foolish attempt to retrieve the irretrievable past. Orpheus is meant to move on and Eurydice, his possession, to fade; the hands that were once his, Ovid writes, are his no longer. Having and losing is how life is.

Miracles do happen. A soft toy resembling a bumble bee, much loved by the boys when little, turned up after six years in a saucepan in the attic; they were horribly embarrassed when I erupted, waving both bee and pan, into their seriously cool teenage kickabout. My pocket Spanish dictionary, lost for two years, was found in my sewing box (why?), along with an Advance Present. Even partners to socks sometimes reappear and are gloriously reunited, Plato’s divided souls made one again with a firm twist of their tops.

Lost things are only waiting, in a limbo of suspended existence, for the moment when the right door is opened

Some lost things, too, turn out to be hiding in plain sight. A small yellow jug, much mourned as a rare memento of my college-garret days, was found humbly holding pens and brushes on a shelf behind my bedroom door. The weeping man I saw running along the platform at Brighton station was wearing his lost Ray-Bans on his head, but didn’t realise. An ancient art-supplies shop for which I had already written a tender mental obituary turned up, run-down as ever, in a different street. Part of me is still sure it was never there before.

The tricksiness of all this bothers me. Sleight of hand seems to be going on, without a conjuror behind it. As with poltergeists, objects even as large as shops are moving round of their own volition. Since I find such thoughts too creepy, I keep returning to the conclusion that the blame for long-term vanishings can only lie with me. It’s not just carelessness, it’s a case of shifting things in imagination, selectively forgetting and reinventing, misrepresenting the past. I’ve even caught myself looking for things which, after a little thought, I remember I decided not to buy anyway. I feed on dreams and search for ghosts, as Orpheus stared after the phantom of his wife.

And I remain trapped in the human tragedy that most things, when long lost, will never reappear. They include trust in, and respect for, the political leaders who are meant to guide and govern us. But that, at least, is truly not my fault.■

Ann Wroe is The Economist’s obituaries editor

ILLUSTRATIONS: ANTONELLO SILVERINI



陌生的事物
我丢失了袜子、手缝的兔子--和信任
我应该放弃再次找到它们的希望吗？



2022年2月23日
作者：ANN WROE


几周前，我被Covid禁锢，决定做一次袜子普查。普查包括将我梳妆台的最上面的抽屉翻到床上，并试图将它们配对起来。这比听起来要棘手，因为我只买黑色的袜子，而区分袜子顶部的变化（宽的、窄的、罗纹的、普通的、有弹性的或过去的）很微妙。只有两件事是肯定的。袜子的数量会比以前少，而且几乎没有人能够找到一个在各方面都匹配的伴侣。

我永远无法理解这一点。我不丢弃袜子，而且实际上我喜欢用光滑的维多利亚式蘑菇和几乎是史前的针来缝制它们。我用手洗，而不是用机器洗，这样它们就不能表演蒸发、溶解、在管道里冲刺或其他避免回家的技巧。我曾经在床底下和儿子们的包里发现神秘的流浪动物，化石般的硬球，这种日子已经一去不复返了。我只能得出结论，迷路并留在那里，是袜子生命周期的一部分。

迷路，并留在那里，是袜子生命周期的一部分

而不仅仅是袜子的问题。长期或永久的消失是很奇怪的事情。例如，有一次我在拉瓜迪亚机场被抢劫后，在旅行前谨慎地收起的信用卡和会员卡发生了什么？当我回来时，我自信地从藏身处--在袜子抽屉里--去拿它们，结果它们都不见了。没有小偷打来电话，没有地陷使东西移位，即使是一直很饿的飞蛾也不会以塑料为食。这只是一个 "凭空消失 "的案例。



那空气一定很充实，因为它还包含了相当数量的提前购买的圣诞礼物。这些物品在4月或6月看起来很理想，激起了各种关于天意和省时的预想。所以它们被明智地收了起来（我肯定是在明信片抽屉里），到了12月，不可避免地丢失了。有一个非常漂亮的奔驰钥匙扣，十年后在雨伞桶里出现了，当时我们早已降级为福特汽车。伟大的人是如何堕落的。

每当探测者发现了一袋神奇的硬币或武器，专家们往往会说这是在危险的时候埋下的，这意味着主人在恐慌中逃离。另一种可能性是，他们没有受到胁迫，只是小心翼翼，之后就忘记了。当他们满怀信心地回来时，森林看起来不一样了，植物长大了，他们的标记也不知不觉地移动了；因此，在绕了很多圈之后，他们放弃了寻找。在我看来，就像我的信用卡一样，永远失去某样东西的机会与获取和保管它所花费的谨慎程度成正比。

每一枚古老的胸针或硬币被发现时，都会带着悲痛的指控。

礼物，尤其是袜子，总是可以再买到的，而我们也就把丢失的事情抛在脑后了。但对于珍贵的物品，希望会一直存在，活在并重温在它们消失前看到和触摸它们的最后时刻。每一枚古老的胸针或硬币被发现时，都仍然带着迷人的魅力，以及悲伤的冲动。马匹已经停了下来，草地也被搜了个遍，手帕从脖子上解下来，每个容器都被翻了个底朝天。主人一次又一次地在地上踱来踱去，或者让仆人们这样做，但地面显然已经打了一个哈欠，然后又闭上了。几百年后，当斯坦或戴夫在一个星期天的早晨，香烟缭绕，机器乱响，在山上扫地的时候，它才会露出戒指或珠宝。在未来的几年或几十年里，有人会在汉普斯特德希思找到我丢失的钥匙，就在未割的草与刈割的田野相接的地方，在一棵特别的橡树下面。你可能会认为这是一个容易的地方，但它们被完全吞没了，就像我把它们丢进了大海。


这种消失是很难忘记的。我祖母为我做的玩具兔子，所有的东西都是手工缝制的，就连她围裙口袋里的胡萝卜也是如此，在我们搬家的时候就消失了，从那时起我就一直被她困扰着。遗憾的是，我离童年越远，遗憾就越尖锐。为什么其他东西在搬家过程中顺利通过，比如那些我并不关心的花哨的小雕像？她是否还在老房子的某个地方，在黑暗中某个布满蜘蛛网的角落里？一种奇怪的信念在增长，即失去的东西只是在等待，在某种悬浮存在的边缘地带，等待着正确的门被打开的那一刻，正确的盒子被推到光线下，它们将重新活在我的生活中。



我已经多次重访了最有可能的兔子盒子，似乎之前的那些时候我一定是太粗略了。她仍然不在那里，尽管我在婚礼上穿的那双不爱的夹脚鞋仍然在。我忧郁地想，由于命运的某种恶毒指令，我注定要与我失去的宝贵东西分离。奥菲斯和欧律狄刻的奇怪神话中，奥菲斯回首往事，失去了他正引领出地狱的妻子，这常常被解读为一种愚蠢的尝试，试图找回不可挽回的过去。奥菲斯的意思是继续前进，而欧律狄刻，他的财产，则逐渐消失；奥维德写道，曾经属于他的那双手，不再属于他。拥有和失去是生活的方式。

奇迹确实发生了。一个类似大黄蜂的软玩具，在孩子们小的时候非常喜欢，六年后出现在阁楼上的一个锅里；当我挥舞着大黄蜂和锅，进入他们严肃的青少年踢球活动时，他们感到非常尴尬。我丢失了两年的袖珍西班牙语词典，在我的缝纫箱里被找到了（为什么？即使是袜子的伙伴，有时也会重新出现，并光荣地重聚，柏拉图分裂的灵魂通过坚定地扭动他们的上衣而重新成为一体。

丢失的东西只是在等待，在一个悬浮存在的边缘，等待正确的门被打开的那一刻。

有些失落的东西，也被证明是隐藏在众目睽睽之下的。一个黄色的小罐子，作为我大学图书馆时代难得的纪念品而备受哀悼，在我卧室门后的架子上被发现，里面谦卑地放着钢笔和画笔。我看到在布莱顿车站的站台上奔跑的那个哭泣的男人头上戴着他丢失的雷朋眼镜，但他没有意识到。一家古老的艺术用品商店，我已经为它写了一份温柔的心理讣告，它在另一条街上出现了，一如既往地破旧。我的一部分仍然确信它以前从未出现过。

这一切的诡计让我不安。诡计似乎正在发生，背后却没有一个魔术师。就像捣蛋鬼一样，即使是像商店一样大的物体也会自动移动。因为我觉得这种想法太令人毛骨悚然了，所以我一直回到这样的结论：长期消失的责任只能在我身上。这不仅仅是粗心大意，而是在想象中转移事物，有选择地忘记和重塑，错误地描述过去。我甚至发现自己在寻找一些东西，而在稍加思考后，我记得我决定反正不买。我以梦为食，寻找鬼魂，就像奥菲斯盯着他妻子的幻影。

我仍然被困在人类的悲剧中，大多数东西，一旦失去，就永远不会再出现了。它们包括对旨在指导和管理我们的政治领导人的信任和尊重。但至少，这确实不是我的错。

Ann Wroe是《经济学人》的讣告编辑。

插图。安托内洛-西维尼