Paulina had not lost a game to a human being in over a year. She was sixteen, and her teacher was a program on her phone. For a small subscription and a great many evenings, it had taught her to see the board as a machine sees it: a column of numbers that rose and fell with every move. When a move was good, a green bar grew. When it was a mistake, the bar turned red, and she took the move back and tried again until the bar approved.
保利娜已经一年多没有输给过真人了。她十六岁，老师是手机里的一个程序。花了一点订阅费和许许多多个夜晚，它教会了她像机器那样看棋盘：那是一列数字，随着每一步棋起起落落。走了好棋，绿色的条就会变长；走了错招，条就会变红，她便悔棋重来，直到那条绿条点头认可为止。
On Saturday she carried her folding board down to the stone tables by the fountain, where the retirees played. She sat opposite an old man in a woollen cap who seemed to be asleep until she set up her pieces. He opened with a pawn on the very edge of the board, a move she would have called pointless. Then he spent his next four turns shuffling a knight backwards. Her phone, in her bag, would have painted every one of them red.
星期六，她提着折叠棋盘来到喷泉旁的石桌边，退休的老人们都在那里下棋。她坐在一位戴羊毛帽的老人对面，他看上去像是睡着了，直到她摆好棋子才睁开眼。他的第一步是把一枚兵走到棋盘最边上，这一步她会说毫无意义。接下来的四个回合，他又把一匹马一步步往后挪。她包里的手机要是看到，会把这每一步都标成红色。
She played the way she had been taught, quickly and accurately, counting each exchange to the end. By the twentieth move she was sure she was winning; by the thirtieth she had stopped being sure of anything. It was no single blow that undid her. The old man's pieces had simply been gathering, one slow step at a time, on the side of the board she had judged too dull to look at. When her king finally turned around, there was nowhere left for it to go.
她按照学到的方式下棋，又快又准，每一次兑子都算到最后。走到第二十步时，她确信自己要赢了；走到第三十步时，她已经什么都不敢确信了。把她打垮的并不是某一记重拳。老人的棋子只是一步一步慢慢地聚集起来，聚在她认为太乏味、不值一看的那一侧棋盘上。等她的王终于回过头来，已经无处可走了。
"Good game," he said, and held out a hand as dry as paper. She shook it without thinking. "You played that very well, you know. Every move was right."
“下得好。”他说着伸出一只干得像纸一样的手。她不假思索地握了握。“你知道吗，你下得非常好。每一步都是对的。”
"Then why did I lose?" The words came out harder than she meant.
“那我为什么会输？”这句话说出口，比她本意要生硬得多。
He considered this, scratching his ear. "Every move was right for a board. I don't think you were looking at one. You were looking for the move somebody cleverer than both of us would pick, whereas I was only looking at you."
他想了想，挠了挠耳朵。“每一步对于一块棋盘来说都是对的。可我觉得你看的并不是一块棋盘。你在找的，是一个比我们俩都聪明的人会选的那一步，而我只是在看你。”
He nodded at her hand. "You touch your bishop before you commit to anything. Twice you took your hand away. Rarely does anyone give me so much for free."
他朝她的手点了点头。“你在做决定之前，总会先摸一下你的象。有两次你又把手缩了回去。很少有人能白白送给我这么多东西。”
Walking home, she kept replaying the game in her head, and it refused to turn red anywhere. That was what she could not forgive. His moves, which the engine would have rated as errors, had not been errors at all, only questions. They had asked her something, and she had answered every one the same way, politely, with the best line a machine would find. The engine had never been afraid of her. It had never wondered whether she was bluffing, or tired, or about to touch her bishop. If she had been taught by a person, she thought, she might have learned what a person's hand does when it hesitates.
走在回家的路上，她不停地在脑子里复盘这盘棋，可它在哪一处都不肯变红。这正是她无法原谅的地方。他那些会被引擎评为失误的走法，根本不是失误，只是一个个问题。它们在问她一些事，而她每一次都用同样的方式回答，规规矩矩地，给出机器能找到的最佳路线。引擎从来不怕她。它从不会琢磨她是不是在虚张声势，是不是累了，是不是又要去摸她的象。她想，如果教她的是一个人，她也许就会明白，一个人的手在犹豫的时候是什么样子。
She stopped at the corner and took out her phone. The app opened on the last game she had analysed, a long scroll of green bars. For a minute she looked at it the way you look at a photograph of a house you no longer live in. Then she put the phone back in her bag, turned around, and walked back to the fountain, where the old man was still sitting, folding and unfolding his cap.
她在街角停下来，掏出手机。应用打开的是她分析过的最后一盘棋，一长串绿色的条。她看了它一分钟，就像看一张自己已经不住的那座房子的照片。然后她把手机放回包里，转身往回走，走向喷泉，老人还坐在那里，把帽子折起来又展开。
"Again," she said, and began to set up the pieces.
“再来一盘。”她说，开始摆棋子。
