Essay
A Stool Three Winters in the Making
做了三个冬天的凳子
The balcony is glazed but unheated, and from November it is a cold room with tools in it. I work there anyway, in two pairs of gloves, which is not sensible for joinery. My fingers have made their peace with it. Cold is the one thing I have never managed to defeat by being punctual.
The stool began three winters ago. Ash, from a tree that came down near Logoysk, on land where the owner had grown too old to cut it up. I brought four metres of it home on the roof of the car and told myself the stool would take a month.
Ash and Gloves
Ash is honest. It does not lie about its grain, and if you cut against it, it tells you at once, in a voice of splinters. I saw the legs first — four of them, tapered — and then set them aside for a year, because the angles were not right in my head yet. Not in my hands. In my head.
A piece of wood will wait for you longer than any person will, and it will not think less of you for the waiting.
My wife has a name for the balcony: the graveyard of small furniture. She is not wrong. There are two stools up there, a shelf, a box that was going to be a box, and a chair back I am not ready to talk about. I do not see failure. I see a man who is not ready yet.
The Part That Is Unfinished
At the depot I am exact, and at home I am not, and I have decided this is a fair division of one life rather than a contradiction. The timetable is not mine to change. The stool is. So the stool waits, I sand a little on Sundays, and the shavings go into a jar, because the jar was a gift.
I am never late. I am often unfinished. Those are two different things.
In March, when the balcony stops being a cold room, I will glue the legs. It will be a small thing, low to the ground, a place for boots or for a child who is not much of a child anymore. If it wobbles, I will fix it. There is no train to catch.
中文译文
阳台封了玻璃，但没有暖气，从十一月起就是一间放着工具的冷屋子。我还是在那儿干活，戴两副手套，这对细木工来说并不明智。手指头已经认了。冷是我唯一没能靠准时打败的东西。
这条凳子做了三个冬天。白蜡木，来自洛戈伊斯克附近倒掉的一棵树，那块地的主人已经老得劈不动它。我用车顶拉回四米长的一段，跟自己说一个月就能做完。
白蜡木与手套
白蜡木老实。它不隐瞒自己的纹理，你要是逆着切，它当场就告诉你，用木刺的声音。我先锯腿——四条、收分——然后放了一年，因为角度在我脑子里还没对。不是在手上，是在脑子里。
一块木头等你的时间，比任何人都长，而且它不会因为你在等就看轻你。
我妻子给阳台起了个名字：小家具的坟场。她没说错。那里有两条凳子、一个搁板、一个本来要做成盒子的盒子，还有一个我暂时不想谈的椅背。我不觉得那是失败。我看到的是一个人，还没到时候。
还没做完的那部分
在车库里我一分不差，在家里我不是——我已经认定，这是一个人的生活的合理分工，而不是矛盾。时刻表不归我改，凳子归我。所以凳子就等着，我星期天磨一点，木屑都收在一个罐子里，因为那个罐子是别人送的。
我从不迟到。我经常没做完。这是两回事。
三月里，等阳台不再是一间冷屋子，我就把腿粘上。它会是个小东西，矮矮的，搁靴子，或者给一个现在已经不算小孩的小孩坐。要是晃，我再修。没有车要赶。
