Essay
The Bridge Before the Shutters Open
卷帘门拉起之前的桥
At twenty to seven the bridge is still a bridge and not a shop. The shutters on the goldsmiths' windows are down, the water is doing what it does, and the only other people are a man with a broom and two girls photographing each other's shoes. I cross here every morning even though it is the long way to the workshop. I have no defence for it.
By nine the same stones will be a corridor of lit windows and strangers looking at rings they will not buy. I do not dislike that. It is simply a different bridge, and I prefer to have known both of them before I start work.
What the Water Holds
The river gives the light back in pieces. In November it is tin, in June it is almost yellow, and after rain it carries the colour of the hills down and out of the city. I once spent a whole season trying to match a green to that water and failed honestly, which is the only acceptable way to fail.
Every city has an hour that belongs to the people who work in it.
The man with the broom is called Dario, or I have decided he is. We have nodded at each other for six years and exchanged perhaps forty words. Once he told me the bridge is quietest on Sundays and worst on Tuesdays. I checked. He is right. That is the entire content of our friendship and I would not improve it.
Then up the street to the workshop, past the shop that sells paper and the one that sells nothing anyone needs. The key sticks. The shutters open inward. The room smells of beeswax and yesterday. I put my apron on over whatever I am wearing — the pale blue shirt, usually — and the day starts, and the bridge becomes something I will walk over again in the dark without looking at it.
I have drawn that bridge forty times. It has never once been the same bridge.
Walking back at night I do look, because the lights are on and the water doubles them and somebody is always standing at the middle arch for reasons of their own. Then I go home. I eat something. Tomorrow I will cross at twenty to seven and it will be mine again for twenty minutes.
中文译文
六点四十，桥还是桥，不是店铺。金匠们的卷帘门都拉着，河水照旧做它的事，路上只有一个人拿扫帚，两个女孩互相拍对方的鞋。我每天早上从这里过，明明去工作室是绕远。我为自己辩解不了。
到九点，这些石头会变成一条亮着窗的走廊，陌生人在看他们不会买的戒指。我并不讨厌那样。那只是另一座桥，而我更愿意在开工之前，两座都认识过。
水接住的东西
河把光一块一块还回来。十一月是锡色，六月近乎发黄，下过雨，它把山丘的颜色带进城，又带出去。有一整个季度，我想把某种绿配到那片水上，最后诚实地失败了——诚实地失败，是唯一可以接受的失败方式。
每座城市都有一个小时，属于在这里干活的人。
扫地的人叫达里奥——或者说，我决定他叫达里奥。六年来我们互相点头，说过的话大概不超过四十个词。有一次他说，桥在周日最安静，周二最糟。我核对过。他说得对。这就是我们友谊的全部内容，我不打算改进它。
然后上坡去工作室，路过卖纸的店，和那家卖没人需要的东西的店。钥匙总是卡。卷帘往里开。屋子里是蜂蜡和昨天的味道。我在身上套围裙——多半是那件浅蓝衬衫——一天就开始了，桥变回一件天黑后我会再次走过、却不看一眼的东西。
那座桥我画过四十次。它一次也没有是同一座桥。
夜里走回来我是会看的，因为灯亮着，水把灯翻倍，总有人站在中间的桥拱上，出于他们自己的原因。然后我回家。吃点东西。明天六点四十我还会过去，它会有二十分钟重新属于我。
