The notice was pinned between a yoga class and a lost cat. 'Swap a Day: spend one day in someone else's ordinary life.' Iris read it twice, took a photograph, and forgot about it for a week. Then a Saturday opened up, empty and irritating, and she filled in the form.
通知钉在瑜伽课和寻猫启事之间。“交换一天：在别人的平凡生活里度过一天。”艾里斯读了两遍，拍了张照片，然后忘了一周。后来一个星期六空了出来，空旷得让人恼火，她填了表。
She was matched with a woman named Rosa, who ran a bakery three streets from Iris's flat. They exchanged one message each. Rosa asked whether Iris could stand for long periods. Iris said yes, though she had never tried. They agreed on Thursday, from four in the morning until noon.
她被匹配给一位叫罗莎的女士，她在离艾里斯公寓三条街的地方开面包店。她们各发了一条消息。罗莎问她能不能长时间站立。艾里斯说可以，虽然她从未试过。她们约在星期四，凌晨四点到中午。
On Wednesday night Iris set three alarms and lay awake listening to traffic. She was seventeen and had never been inside a working kitchen before seven. She imagined flour, warm bread, a friendly woman in an apron. She did not imagine the cold, or the noise, or how much of the job would involve lifting.
星期三晚上，艾里斯设了三个闹钟，躺在床上听车流。她十七岁，从没在七点前进过一个正在工作的厨房。她想象面粉、温热的面包、一位系围裙的友善女士。她没有想到寒冷、噪音，也没想到这份工作有多少时间在搬东西。
Rosa was sixty-one and had the calm of someone who had already made every mistake twice. She handed Iris a cloth and pointed at a bench. For the first hour Iris wiped surfaces, weighed flour, and tried not to get in the way. The ovens were already on. The radio played a station Iris had never heard.
罗莎六十一岁，有一种已经把每个错误都犯过两遍的镇定。她递给艾里斯一块抹布，指了指一张台面。第一个小时，艾里斯擦台面、称面粉，努力不挡路。烤箱已经开了。收音机放着一个艾里斯从没听过的频道。
By six, her back ached and her hands were dry. Rosa worked without hurry and without stopping, shaping dough with a rhythm that looked like thinking. She talked about her husband, who had died four years earlier, and about the shop's rent, and about a regular customer who always bought the same loaf and never said hello.
到六点，她的背开始疼，手也干了。罗莎不慌不忙，也不停下，揉面团时有一种像在思考的节奏。她谈起四年前去世的丈夫，谈起店租，还谈起一位常客，总买同一种面包，从不打招呼。
At half past seven the queue reached the door. Iris burned two trays and was told, kindly, to stay away from the ovens. At noon she took off her apron and realized she had not looked at her phone for five hours. Rosa gave her a loaf and said, 'Same time next month, if you want.'
七点半，队伍排到了门口。艾里斯烤坏了两盘，被客气地告知离烤箱远一点。中午她解下围裙，才意识到自己五个小时没看手机。罗莎给了她一条面包，说：“下个月同一天，如果你愿意。”
Iris slept until two in the afternoon, which she had not done since thirteen. When she woke, the flat was silent and the bread was on the table, still in its paper. She ate two slices standing at the counter and understood something about her own mornings that she had never had words for.
艾里斯一觉睡到下午两点，这是她十三岁以后没有过的。醒来时公寓很安静，面包还在桌上，仍包在纸里。她站在台面前吃了两片，忽然对自己每天早晨的事有了一种从前没有词句可形容的理解。
She went back the following month, and the month after that. She learned to shape a loaf and to keep out of the way during the rush. She stopped calling Rosa a stranger, though she still did not know her surname. On Thursdays she began to notice the bakery lights on her way home, and the other lights that were on at four in the morning.
第二个月她又去了，再下个月也去了。她学会了整形成面包，也学会了在忙碌时别碍事。她不再把罗莎称作陌生人，尽管她仍不知道她姓什么。星期四回家的路上，她开始注意到面包店的灯，也注意到凌晨四点还亮着的其他灯。
The project had promised one day. Iris had expected a story to tell at school. What she got was smaller and more useful: a second clock in her head, one that ran on other people's hours. When her friends complained that nothing ever happened before noon, she did not argue. She just set an alarm.
这个项目只承诺一天。艾里斯本以为会得到一个可以在学校讲的故事。她得到的更小，也更有用：脑子里多了一只钟，按别人的时间走。当朋友们抱怨中午之前什么都不会发生时，她不争辩。她只是设了个闹钟。