The Silence of the Lambs

When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read, Clarice. The emperor counsels simplicity. First principles. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?"

Never use wit in a segue. Understanding a witticism and replying to it makes your subject perform a fast, detached scan that is inimical to mood.

But early torment makes torment easily...imagined.

The book was first read in Chinese translation, fanscinated by all the psychological plotting, then painstakingly tried to read the English one, that was the days when I had to look for words like windbreaker and claw hammmer--well, still not sure what a claw hammer looks like... so naturally not much fun. Recently dug up the audiobook by Frank Muller and listened to it on and off for a while, the narrating was a little too intimate, made me rather uncomfortable, most of the time also a little too slow or too calculating, but all the hissing aside, I quite liked this Dr. Lecter. Here's the bits and pieces: (chapter 3) Dr. Lecter considered, his finger pressed against his pursed lips. Then he rose in his own time and came forward smoothly in his cage, stopping short of the nylon web without looking at it, as though he chose the distance. (Anthony Hopkins was really really good in this scene) "No. No, that's stupid and wrong. Never use wit in a segue. Listen, understanding a witticism and replying to it makes your subject perform a fast, detached scan that is inimical to mood. It is on the plank of mood that we proceed. You were doing fine, you'd been courteous and receptive to courtesy, you'd established trust by telling the embarrassing truth about Miggs, and then you come in with a ham-handed segue into your questionnaire, It won't do." (on the plank of mood...) (chapter 4) Starling, scrubbed shiny and wearing her FBI Academy nightgown, was working on the second draft of her report when her dormitory roommate, Ardelia Mapp, came in from the library. Mapp's broad, brown, eminently sane countenance was one of the more welcome sights of her day. Ardelia Mapp saw the fatigue in her face. "What did you do today, girl?" Mapp always asked question as if the answers could make no possible difference. "Wheedled a crazy man with come all over me." "I wish I had time for a social life--- I don't know how you manage it, and school too." Starling found that she was laughing. Ardelia Mapp laughed with her, as much as the small joke was worth. Starling did not stop, and she heard herself from far away, laughing and laughing. Through Starling's tears, Mapp looked strangely old and her smile had sadness in it. (chapter 9) she knew the Baltimore County police had had the lights full on for hours while they shouted questions at Lecter. He had refused to speak, but responded by folding for them an origami chicken that pecked when the tail was manipulated up and down. The senior officer, furious, had crushed the chicken in the lobby ashtray as he gestured for Starling to go in. (the origami chicken...) Starling jumped when the food carrier rolled out of Lecter's cell. There was a clean, folded towel in the tray. She hadn't heard him move. She looked at it and, with a sense of falling, took it and toweled her hair. "Thanks," she said. (with a sense of falling...) "How did you feel when you heard about my late neighbor, Miggs? You haven't asked me about it." "I was getting to it." "Weren't you glad when you heard?" "No." "Were you sad?" "No. Did you talk him into it?" Dr. Lecter laughed quietly. "Are you asking me, Officer Starling, if I suborned Mr. Miggs' felony suicide? Don't be silly. It has a certain pleasant symmetry, though, his swallowing that offensive tongue, don't you agree?" "No." "Officer Starling, that was a lie. The first one you've told me. A triste occasion, Truman would say." "President Truman?" "Never mind. Why do you think I helped you?" "I don't know." "Jack Crawford likes you, doesn't he?" "I don't know." "That's probably untrue. Would you like for him to like you? Tell me, do you feel an urge to please him and does it worry you? Are you wary of your urge to please him. "Everyone wants to be liked, Dr. Lecter." "Not everyone. Do you think Jack Crawford wants you sexually? I'm sure he's very frustrated now. Do you think he visualizes... scenarios, transactions... fucking with you?" "That's not a matter of curiosity to me, Dr. Lecter, and it's the sort of thing Miggs would ask." "Not anymore." "Did you suggest to him that he swallow his tongue?" "Your interrogative case often has that proper subjunctive in it. With your accent, it stinks of the lamp. Crawford clearly likes you and believes you competent. Surely the odd confluence of events hasn't escaped you, Clarice--- you've had Crawford's help and you've had mine. You say you don't know why Crawford helps you--- do you know why I did?" (it stinks of the lamp...) "No, tell me." "Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up--- about how you would taste?" "Is that it?" "No."... "And then Raspail himself... died. Why?" "Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn't going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me. I've never discussed this before, and now I'm getting bored with it." "And your dinner for the orchestra officials." "Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?" "Yes. I think I'll just call you-" "Dr. Lecter--- that seems most appropriate to your age and station," he said. (Hopkins appears again.) "Yes." (chapter 13) She watched him walk away, a middle-aged man laden with cases and rumpled from flying, his cuffs muddy from the riverbank, going home to what he did at home. She would have killed for him then. That was one of Crawford's great talent. (a very memorable line.) (chapter 14) They waited for the elevator. "Most people love butterflies and hate moths," he said. "But moths are more--- interesting, engaging." "They're destructive." "Some are, a lot are, but they live in all kinds of ways. Just like we do." Silence for one floor. "There's a moth, more than one in fact, that lives only on tears," he offered. "That's all they eat or drink." "What kind of tears? Whose tears?" "The tears of large land mammals, about our size. The old definition of moth was 'anything that gradually, silently eats, consumes, or wastes any other thing.' It was a verb for destruction too... " ... Out of the cosmic hangover the Smithsonian leaves came her last thought and a coda for her day: Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears. (chapter 17) On the way back to the room, Starling snatched a message out of her box and read this: Please call Albert Roden, and a telephone number. "That just proves my theory," she told Mapp as they flopped on their beds with their books. "What's that?" "You meet two guys, right? The wrong one'll call you every God damned time." "I been knowing that." (chapter 22) A paperback book was wrapped around Barney's massive index finger as he held his place. It was Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. (wondering if it's Persuation, would it make any difference, in a created world?) (chapter 25) "This is about my crucifixion watch," Dr. Lecter said. "They won't give me a patent, but they advise me to copyright the face. Look here." He put a drawing the size of a dinner napkin in the carrier and Starling pulled it through. "You may have noticed that in most crucifixions the hands point to, say, a quarter to three, or ten till two at the earliest, while the feet are at six. On this watch face, Jesus is on the cross, as you see there, and the arms revolve to indicate the time, just like the arms on the popular Disney watches. The feet remain at six and at the top a small second hand revolves in the halo. What do you think?" (a religious clock...) The quality of the anatomical sketching was very good. The head was hers. (chapter 35) "I thought you might want your drawings, the stuff from your cell, just until you get your view." "How thoughtful. Dr. Chilton's euphoric about you and Jack Crawford being put off the case. Or did they send you in for one last wheedle?" The officer on suicide watch had strolled back to talk to Officer Pembry at the desk. Starling hoped they couldn't hear. "They didn't send me. I just came." "People will say we're in love. Don't you want to ask about Billy Rubin, Clarice?" "I've read the cases, Clarice, have you? Everything you need to know to find him is right there, if you're paying attention. Even Inspector Emeritus Crawford should have figured it out. Incidentally, did you read Crawford's stupefying speech last year to the National Police Academy? Spouting Marcus Aurelius on duty and honor and fortitude--- we'll see what kind of a Stoic Crawford is when Bella bites the big one. He copies his philosophy out of Bartlett's Familiar, I think. If he understood Marcus Aurelius, he might solve his case." "Tell me how." "When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read, Clarice. The Emperor counsels simplicity: First principles Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?" "That doesn't mean anything to me." "What does he do, the man you want?" "He kills---" "Ah---" he said sharply, averting his face for a moment from her wrongheadedness. "That's incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?" "Anger, social resentment, sexual frus---" "No." "What, then?" "He covets. In fact, he covets being the very thing you are. It's his nature to covet. How do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort at an answer." "No. We just---" "No. Precisely so. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over you every day, Clarice, in chance encounters? I hardly see how you could not. And don't your eyes move over things?" "All right, then tell me how---" "It's your turn to tell me, Clarice. You don't have any beach vacations at the Hoof and Mouth Disease Station to offer me anymore. It's strictly quid pro quo from here on out. I have to be careful doing business with you. Tell me, Clarice." "Tell you what?" "The two things you owe me from before. What happened to you and the horse, and what you do with your anger." "Dr. Lecter, when there's time I'll---" "We don't reckon time the same way, Clarice. This is all the time you'll ever have." "Later, listen, I'll---" "I'll listen now. "Good-bye, Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?" "Yes." Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him. "Yes," she said. "I'll tell you." "Do you promise?" "Yes." "Then why not finish the arch? Take your case file with you, Clarice, I won't need it anymore." He held it at arm's length. through the bars, his forefinger along the spine. She reached across the barrier and took it. For an instant the tip of her forefinger touched Dr. Lecter's. The touch crackled in his eyes. "Thank you, Clarice." "Thank you, Dr. Lecter." And that is how he remained in Starling's mind. Caught in the instant when he did not mock. Standing in his white cell, arched like a dancer, his hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly to the side. (can't think any other way than Hopkins'...) (chapter 36) He (Dr. Lecter) flipped over the cassette in the tape player chained to the table leg and punched the play button. Glenn Gould playing Bach's Goldberg Variations on the piano. The music, beautiful beyond plight and time, filled the bright cage and the room where the warders sat. (Gould, 1955 or 1981?) (chapter 47) (Burroughs): "Hang in there, kid. You're gonna come out smelling like a rose." "Fuck this," Starling said aloud and put her feet on the floor. "You're over there corrupting a moron, aren't you, Starling?" Ardelia Mapp said. "Sneaked him in here while I was asleep and now you're giving him instructions--- don't think I don't hear you." "Sorry, Ardelia, I didn't---" "You've got to be a lot more specific with 'em than that, Starling. You can't just say what you said. Corrupting morons is just like journalism, you've got to tell 'em What, When, Where, and How. I think Why gets self-explanatory as you go along." (chapter 57) "That Pilcher, Doctor Pilcher at the Smithsonian, called three times. Made me promise to tell you he called." "He's not a doctor." "You think you might do something about him?" "Maybe. I don't know yet." "He sounds like he's pretty funny. I've about decided funny's the best thing in men, I'm talking about aside from money and your basic manageability." "Yeah, and manners too, you can't leave that out." "Right. Give me a son of a bitch with some manners every time." (:))))) She (Mapp) found Starling in the warm laundry room, dozing against the slow rump-rump of a washing machine in the smell of bleach and soap and fabric softener. Starling had the psychology background--- Mapp's was law--- yet it was Mapp who knew that the washing machine's rhythm was like a great heartbeat and the rush of its waters was what the unborn hear--- our last memory of peace. (the famous washing machine...) (chapter 60) Ardelia Mapp was a great tutor--- she could spot a test question in a lecture farther than a leopard can see a limp--- but she was not much of a runner. She told Starling it was because she was so weighted with facts. She had fallen behind Starling on the jogging trail and caught up at the old DC-6 the FBI uses for hijack simulations. It was Sunday morning. They had been on the books for two days, and the pale sun felt good. "So what did Pilcher say on the phone?" Mapp said, leaning against the landing gear. "He and his sister have this place on the Chesapeake." "Yeah, and?" "His sister's there with her kids and dogs and maybe her husband." "So?" "They're in one end of the house--- it's a big old dump on the water they inherited from his grandmother." "Cut to the chase." "Pilch has the other end of the house. Next weekend, he wants us to go. Lots of rooms, he says. 'As many rooms as anybody might need,' I believe is the way he put it. His sister would call and invite me, he said." "No kidding. I didn't know people did that anymore." "He did this nice scenario--- no hassles, bundle up and walk on the beach, come in and there's a fire going, dogs jump all over you with their big sandy paws." "Idyllic, umm-humm, big sandy paws, go on." "It's kind of much, considering we've never had a date, even. He claims it's best to sleep with two or three big dogs when it gets really cold. He says they've got, enough dogs for everybody to have a couple." "Pilcher's setting you up for the old dog-suit trick, you snapped to that didn't you?" "He claims to be a good cook. His sister say he is." "Oh, she called already." "Yep." "How'd she sound?" "Okay. Sounded like she was in the other end of the house." "What did you tell her?" "I said, 'Yes, thank you very much,' is what I said." "Good," Mapp said. "That's very good. Eat some crabs. Grab Pilcher, and smooch him on his face, go wild." (chapter 61) At the door of suite 91, he (room service) stopped and rapped softly on the door with his gloved knuckle. He cocked his head and rapped again to be heard above the music from within--- Bach, Two- and Three-Part Inventions, Glenn Gould at the piano. (Gould again...) (the letter) Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming? You owe me a piece of information, you know, and that's what I'd like. An ad in the national edition of the Times and in the International Herald-Tribune on the first of any month will be fine. Better put it in the China Mail as well. (100 years from now on, can we still be expecting a message from a rustling newpaper?) ... I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it. Be sure you extend me the same courtesy. I have windows. Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be again before the year 2000. (I have no intention of telling you the time and how high it is.) But I expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same. Clarice. <原文开始></原文结束>