你刚刚和你的孩子吵过架
You’ve had an argument with the children.
之后又要去工作 在你的老板身边忍气吞声
Later, you’ll have to go to work and bite your tongue around your boss.
现在 你躺在浴池里
Now, you’re in the bath,
读着报纸
reading the newspaper.
在头版上有个大新闻
There’s a big story on the front page:
加州的一个厨子
a chef in California
因为相信他的老婆有外遇
on becoming convinced that his wife was having an affair
而肢解了她并将尸体烹煮了整整四天
dismembered her and boiled her body parts for four days.
只有很少的头骨得以保留
Only a few bits of her skull were left,
也正是从这些碎片中她的身份得以证实
and it was from these fragments that she was later identified.
然后你读到卢顿市那边有一对夫妇
Then, you read, that a couple living near Luton
声称可以提供财会顾问服务
claiming to offer financial advice
他们接待了一系列年长的客户并毒杀了他们
befriended and then poisoned a sequence of elderly clients.
另一个故事则告诉你 在西班牙有一个女人
Another story informs you about a woman in Spain
捅了她的邻居整整十三刀
who stabbed her neighbor thirteen times.
几个月以来 女人家的狗总在她白天上班的时候大叫
For months, the woman’s dog had been barking during the day while she was at work.
她是个牙防人员
She was a dental hygenist.
她的邻居不停地抱怨
The neighbor complained repeatedly
并留下了威胁字条
left threatening notes
也报过几次警
had called the police on multiple occasions
还有一次当街踢了那只狗
and once, kicked the dog in the street.
从客观来说
From a distance
我们没有道理从这些故事中
it hardly makes sense at all
感到快乐
that we should find these things a source of pleasure.
这类故事都明显和可怕 惊悚的事情相关
Such stories deal with obviously horrible, horrendous things.
但奇怪的是这些故事很让人安心
But strangly it’s reasuring
并且让人听上去很享受
and (even though we don’t relish saying so)
（尽管我们并不愿意这样说）
enjoyable to hear about them.
我们可能会担心从这些故事中感受到乐趣
We perhaps worry that by taking pleasure in reading of such stories
会使人们自己走向犯罪
we’re endorsing the crimes themselves.
但事实是
But the truth is
我们并不是主动怂恿犯罪 也并不因为这些事的发生而开心
we’re not actively egging on criminals; we’re not glad these things happened.
相反
On the contrary
根本也不是这些故事激起了我们的满足感
it’s the very fact that they’re so clearly wrong that generates our moments of satisfaction.
我们愉悦感的来源之一
One source of our pleasure
是从很多方面看来 这些人太普通了
is that in many ways, these people look so normal:
加州的厨子会让你想你孩童时期教室里厚脸皮的男孩
the Californian chef reminds you of a cheeky boy in the classroom when you were a kid,
养狗的女人则像极了
the woman with a dog is
你在超市中遇到的某个人
like someone you just saw at the supermarket.
我们几乎是与另一个版本的他人不期而遇
We mostly enconter the edited versions of other people
与此同时我们却一直暴露在
while we are continually exposed
古怪的 原本的自己面前
to the weirder unedited version of ourselves.
这种不公平的对比
The unfair comparison
意味着我们不可避免地让我们感觉自己
means we inevitably feel much stranger
比实际上更奇怪
than we really are.
很多另类性感的事情会让你兴奋
There’s that odd sexual thing that excites you,
或是你在交通堵塞时感觉想哭
or maybe you feel like crying when you get stuck in traffic,
在群体中你会有奇怪的感觉 感觉除了你自己其他人都很正常
in groups you have the strange sense that everyone is normal except you,
工作时每个人都想笑的时候 说实话
at work everyone feels the need to laugh at a remark which, in all honesty
你感觉一点意思都没有
strikes you as entirely unamusing.
这就是媒体上的犯罪故事进入你脑海的时候
This is where the criminals we see in the media come in.
它们通过展示五十倍的“古怪”
They redraw the scale of strangeness
改写了“古怪”的尺度
by being exposed as fifty times more strange
它们将我们自己孤独的怪癖
they re-position our own, lonely peculiarities
重新摆放到了
squarely back in the realm
平凡而普通的国度
of the humdrum and the average.
显然你从未想过把你的对象煮了
It has absolutely never ever crossed your mind to cook your partner.
在毒杀和
In the realm of
刺杀邻居的国度里
poisoning and stabbing your neighbors
你如白雪般纯洁
you are a snow white innocent.
这确实是许多中年男人们
This is surely one of the hidden reasons
阅读有关希特勒的书籍
why middle age men turn in such numbers
的一个隐藏原因
to reading books about Adolf Hitler.
他悲剧级的癫狂 暴怒 妄想 毁灭性与残忍
His catastrophic levels of insane, rage, delusion, destructiveness and cruelty
让几乎所有人
make, pretty much, everyone else
相比之下都十分可爱
look quite lovely by comparison.
一个人可以晚上去喝啤酒
One may have spent the evening drinking beer
讲上三个隐晦的黄段子然后在睡觉前还不刷牙
made three vaguely insulting remarks and omitted to brush one’s teeth before coming to bed.
但是从贝希特斯加登（希特勒的度假会所）的标准来看
But, by the standards of Berchtesgaden
你是个相当不错的人
you are revealed as really rather nice.
这并不说你没有自己的挑战
It’s not like you haven’t had your share of challenges,
你也曾被背叛狠狠伤害过
you too have been deeply hurt by betrayal,
你也幻想过拥有纸醉金迷
you too have wished for easy money and luxury possessions,
你也尖酸地和你邻居吵过架
you too have had sour disputes with the neighbors.
但是通过对比
But by comparison
你对待的方式已经很优雅了
you have reacted with grace.
你感到暴怒
You felt furious
经受嫉妒折磨和缺钱的日子
suffered from envy and had periods of money worries.
但是你从未做过媒体上那些人做的事
But you never did what those guys from the media did.
你吸收了痛苦
You absorbed the pain
而不是从事一些可怕的犯罪
rather than committed some horrific crime.
那么现在
And now,
这些暴行就令人愉悦了
their villainy is pleasing
因为它揭示了你相当道德的英雄主义
because it reveals your quiet moral heroism.