诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第2章Part 2

124 was so full of strong feeling perhaps she was oblivious to the loss of anything at all. There wasa time when she scanned the fields every morning and every evening for her boys. When she stoodat the open window, unmindful of flies, her head cocked to her left shoulder, her eyes searching to the right for them. Cloud shadow on the road, an old woman, a wandering goat untethered andgnawing bramble — each one looked at first like Howard — no, Buglar. Little by little she stoppedand their thirteen-year-old faces faded completely into their baby ones, which came to her only insleep. When her dreams roamed outside 124, anywhere they wished, she saw them sometimes inbeautiful trees, their little legs barely visible in the leaves.
Sometimes they ran along the railroad track laughing, too loud, apparently, to hear her becausethey never did turn around. When she woke the house crowded in on her: there was the door wherethe soda crackers were lined up in a row; the white stairs her baby girl loved to climb; the cornerwhere Baby Suggs mended shoes, a pile of which were still in the cold room; the exact place onthe stove where Denver burned her fingers. And of course the spite of the house itself. There wasno room for any other thing or body until Paul D arrived and broke up the place, making room,shifting it, moving it over to someplace else, then standing in the place he had made.
So, kneeling in the keeping room the morning after Paul D came, she was distracted by the twoorange squares that signaled how barren 124 really was.
He was responsible for that. Emotions sped to the surface in his company. Things became whatthey were: drabness looked drab; heat was hot. Windows suddenly had view. And wouldn't youknow he'd be a singing man.

时时刻刻有强烈的感情占据着124号，也许她对任何一种丧失都无动于衷了。有一个时期，她每天早晚都要眺望田野，找自己的儿子。她站在敞开的窗前，不理会苍蝇，头偏向左肩，眼睛却往右搜寻他们。路上的云影，一个老妇，一只没拴绳子、啃食荆棘的迷途山羊———每一个乍看上去都像霍华德———不，像巴格勒。渐渐地她不再找了，他们十三岁的脸完全模糊成儿时的模样，只在她的睡梦中出现。她的梦在124号外面随心所欲地漫游。她有时在美丽的树上看见他们，他们的小腿儿在叶子中间隐约可见。
有时他们嘻嘻哈哈地沿着铁轨奔跑，显然是笑得太响了才听不见她的叫声，所以他们从不回头。等她醒来，房子又扑面而至：苏打饼干碎末曾经在旁边排成一行的那扇门；她的小女儿喜欢爬的白楼梯；过去贝比·萨格斯补鞋的那个角落———现在冷藏室里还有一堆鞋呢；炉子上烫伤了丹芙手指的那个位置。当然，还有房子本身的怨毒。再容不下别的什么东西、别的什么人了，直到保罗·D到来，打乱这个地方，腾出空间，撵走它，把它赶到别处，然后他自己占据了腾出来的空间。
因此，保罗·D到来的第二天早晨，她跪在起居室里，被那标志着124号实为颜色匮乏的不毛之地的两方橙色搞得心烦意乱。
这都怪他。在他陪伴下，情感纷纷浮出水面。一切都恢复了本来面目：单调看着单调了；热的热起来。窗户里忽然有了风景。还有，你想不到吧，他还是个爱唱歌的男人呢。