If I'd had any way of knowing that things were—as Lily Tomlin once said—going to get a whole lot worse before they got worse, I'm not sure how well I would have slept that night. But seven very difficult months later, I did leave my husband. When I finally made that decision, I thought the worst of it was over. This only shows how little I knew about divorce.

倘若有办法知道情况会比变得更糟之前还糟上许多倍，我无法肯定那天晚上我会睡得怎么样。然而在七个艰苦的月份过后，我确实离开了我先生。我最后下这个决定时，以为最坏的景况已经过去，然而这只表明我对离婚所知甚少。

There was once a cartoon in The New Yorker magazine. Two women talking, one saying to the other: "If you really want to get to know someone, you have to divorce him." Of course, my experience was the opposite. I would say that if you really want to STOP knowing someone, you have to divorce him. Or her. Because this is what happened between me and my husband. I believe that we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually incomprehensible strangers who ever lived. At the bottom of that strangeness was the abysmal fact that we were both doing something the other person would never have conceived possible; he never dreamed I would actually leave him, and I never in my wildest imagination thought he would make it so difficult for me to go.

《纽约客 》杂志曾刊载过一幅漫画。两个女人在讲话，一人对另一人说“你若真想了解一个人，就得跟他离婚。”当然，我的经验正好相反。我会说，你若想“停止”了解一个人，就得跟他或她离婚。因为这正是我跟我先生之间的情况。我相信我们彼此都惊恐地发现，我们从世界上最了解彼此的两个人，迅速成为史上最不理解对方的一对陌生人。在这种陌生感的底层，存在着一个糟透了的事实：我们两人都在做对方意想不到的事情；他作梦也没想过我会真的离开他，而我也从未料想过他会如此刁难，不让我走。

It was my most sincere belief when I left my husband that we could settle our practical af-fairs in a few hours with a calculator, some common sense and a bit of goodwill toward the person we'd once loved. My initial suggestion was that we sell the house and divide all the as-sets fifty-fifty; it never occurred to me we'd proceed in any other way. He didn't find this sug-gestion fair. So I upped my offer, even suggesting this different kind of fifty-fifty split: What if he took all the assets and I took all the blame? But not even that offer would bring a settle-ment. Now I was at a loss. How do you negotiate once you’ve offered everything? I could do nothing now but wait for his counterproposal. My guilt at having left him forbade me from thinking I should be allowed to keep even a dime of the money I’d made in the last decade. Moreover, my newfound spirituality made it essential to me that we not battle. So this was my position—I would neither defend myself from him, nor would I fight him. For the longest time, against the counsel of all who cared about me, I resisted even consulting a lawyer, because I considered even that to be an act of war. I wanted to be all Gandhi about this. I wanted to be all Nelson Mandela about this. Not realizing at the time that both Gandhi and Mandela were lawyers.

我确信当我离开我先生的时候，我们能够在几个小时内用计算器、一些判断力，以及面对我们曾经爱过的人所表现的诚意，来解决实际事务。我最初提议卖了房子，平分所有财产；我从没想过以其他方式解决。他觉得这个提议不公平。于是我更进一步，甚至建议一种不同的平分方式：财产归他，过错归我，如何？但即使这样的提议，亦未能达成和解。如今我手足无措。想想看，一切都已交付出去，该如何继续谈判？如今我无能为力，只能等候他的回复。离他而去的罪恶感，阻止我考虑保留过去十年内所赚得的任何一分钱。此外，新发现的心灵信仰也使我不愿让我们彼此作战。因此我的立场是——我既不抵抗他，也不去攻击他。很长一段时间，我完全不听从所有关心我的人的劝告，甚至抗拒找律师商量，因为我甚至认为这是一种交锋之举。我想和甘地一样和平解决这一切 。我想当曼德拉，当时却没意识到，甘地和曼德拉都是律师。

Months passed. My life hung in limbo as I waited to be released, waited to see what the terms would be. We were living separately (he had moved into our Manhattan apartment), but nothing was resolved. Bills piled up, careers stalled, the house fell into ruin and my husband's silences were broken only by his occasional communications reminding me what a criminal jerk I was.

几个月过去了，我的生活悬而未决，等待解脱，等待知道自己的刑期。我们已经分居（他已搬进我们的曼哈顿公寓），却未解决任何事情。账单成堆，事业耽误，房子破败不堪；我先生的沉默，只有在偶尔联系时提醒我是个可耻的混账时，才被打破。

And then there was David.

而后大卫出现。

All the complications and traumas of those ugly divorce years were multiplied by the drama of David—the guy I fell in love with as I was taking leave of my marriage. Did I say that I "fell in love" with David? What I meant to say is that I dove out of my marriage and into David's arms exactly the same way a cartoon circus performer dives off a high platform and into a small cup of water, vanishing completely. I clung to David for escape from marriage as if he were the last helicopter pulling out of Saigon. I inflicted upon him my every hope for my salvation and happiness. And, yes, I did love him. But if I could think of a stronger word than "desperately" to describe how I loved David, I would use that word here, and desperate love is always the toughest way to do it.

在那几个难堪的离婚年头，因为大卫——我在告别婚姻之时爱上的家伙——而更节外生枝，倍增创伤。我是不是说我“爱上”大卫？我要说的是，我钻出婚姻，一头钻入大卫怀里，就像卡通里的马戏团演员从高台跳下，钻入一小杯水里，消失得无影无踪。我紧缠大卫，以摆脱婚姻，仿佛他是撤出西贡的最后一架直升机。我把自己所有的救赎和幸福都投注在大卫身上。是的，我确实爱他。但如果我能想到比“绝望”更强烈的字眼描述我对大卫的爱，我就会用在此处，而绝望的爱向来艰难无比。

I moved right in with David after I left my husband. He was—is—a gorgeous young man. A born New Yorker, an actor and writer, with those brown liquid-center Italian eyes that have always (have I already mentioned this?) unstitched me. Street-smart, independent, vegetarian, foulmouthed, spiritual, seductive. A rebel poet-Yogi from Yonkers. God's own sexy rookie shortstop. Bigger than life. Bigger than big. Or at least he was to me. The first time my best friend Susan heard me talking about him, she took one look at the high fever in my face and said to me, "Oh my God, baby, you are in so much trouble."

我离开我先生之后，立即搬去和大卫住。他一直是个漂亮的年轻人。生在纽约，一个演员兼作家，一双水汪汪的意大利褐眼（我是否已提过这件事？）令我全身瘫软。机智，独立，素食，满口粗话，性灵，诱人。一个来自纽约郊区的反叛诗人兼瑜伽信徒。神专用的性感游击手，大过于生活，大过于一切。至少这曾是我眼中的他。我的好友苏珊第一次听我谈及他时，看了看我脸上的高烧，对我 说：“天啊，姑娘，你麻烦大了。”

David and I met because he was performing in a play based on short stories I'd written. He was playing a character I had invented, which is somewhat telling. In desperate love, it's always like this, isn't it? In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.

大卫和我的相识，是因为他在根据我的短篇小说改编的戏剧中担任演员。他扮演我捏造出来的角色，这似乎说明了问题症结所在。绝望的爱情不总是如此吗？在绝望的爱中，我们总是捏造伴侣的角色性格，要求他们满足我们的需要。而在他们拒演我们一开始创造的角色时，我们便深受打击 。

But, oh, we had such a great time together during those early months when he was still my romantic hero and I was still his living dream. It was excitement and compatibility like I'd never imagined. We invented our own language. We went on day trips and road trips. We hiked to the top of things, swam to the bottom of other things, planned the journeys across the world we would take together. We had more fun waiting in line together at the Department of Motor Vehicles than most couples have on their honey-moons. We gave each other the same nickname, so there would be no separation between us. We made goals, vows, promises and dinner together. He read books to me, and he did my laundry. (The first time that happened, I called Susan to report the marvel in astonishment, like I'd just seen a camel using a pay phone. I said, "A man just did my laundry! And he even hand-washed my delicates!" And she repeated: "Oh my God, baby, you are in so much trouble.")

然而，我们在头几个月里一起度过多么美妙的时光啊 ！那时他仍是我的浪漫英雄，我仍是他成真的美梦。我从未想象过能够如此兴奋与协调。我们创造我们独有的语言。我们出游。我们上山下海，计划一同到全世界旅行。我们在监理所一同排队的时候，比度蜜月的大多数佳偶更快乐。我们为了不分你我而为彼此取相同的绰号。我们一起设定目标、立誓、承诺、做晚餐。他念书给我听，而且——他洗我的衣服。（头一次发生时 ，我打电话给苏珊，惊奇地报告这项奇迹，就像我刚才看见骆驼打公共电话。我说：“刚才有个男人洗我的衣服！他甚至手洗我的内衣！”而苏珊再说一次：“天啊，姑娘，你麻烦大了。”）

The first summer of Liz and David looked like the falling-in-love montage of every romantic movie you've ever seen, right down to the splashing in the surf and the running hand-in-hand through the golden meadows at twilight. At this time I was still thinking my divorce might actu-ally proceed gracefully, though I was giving my husband the summer off from talking about it so we could both cool down. Anyway, it was so easy not to think about all that loss in the midst of such happiness. Then that summer (otherwise known as "the reprieve") ended.

小莉和大卫的第一个夏天，看起来就像每一部浪漫电影中坠入爱河的蒙太奇，从海滩戏水，到携手跑过黄昏时分的金色原野。当时的我依然认为我的离婚进展顺利，尽管我跟我先生没在夏天谈它，为了让彼此冷静下来。不管怎么说，在这样的幸福当中，不去想到失败的婚姻是很容易的事。然后，那个夏天（亦称“苟安时期”）结束了。