諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第13章Part7

"I won't need him for that. I can make my own acquaintance. What I need him for is to reacquaint me with my children. He can read and write, I reckon?""Sure.""Good, 'cause I got a lot of digging up to do." But the news they dug up was so pitiful she quit.
After two years of messages written by the preacher's hand, two years of washing, sewing,canning, cobbling, gardening, and sitting in churches, all she found out was that the Whitlow placewas gone and that you couldn't write to "a man named Dunn" if all you knew was that he wentWest. The good news, however, was that Halle got married and had a baby coming. She fixed onthat and her own brand of preaching, having made up her mind about what to do with the heart thatstarted beating the minute she crossed the Ohio River. And it worked out, worked out just fine,until she got proud and let herself be overwhelmed by the sight of her daughter-in-law and Halle'schildren — one of whom was born on the way — and have a celebration of blackberries that putChristmas to shame. Now she stood in the garden smelling disapproval, feeling a dark and comingthing, and seeing high-topped shoes that she didn't like the look of at all. At all.
WHEN THE four horsemen came — schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff— the house on Bluestone Road was so quiet they thought they were too late. Three of themdismounted, one stayed in the saddle, his rifle ready, his eyes trained away from the house to theleft and to the right, because likely as not the fugitive would make a dash for it. Althoughsometimes, you could never tell, you'd find them folded up tight somewhere: beneath floorboards,in a pantry — once in a chimney. Even then care was taken, because the quietest ones, the onesyou pulled from a press, a hayloft, or, that once, from a chimney, would go along nicely for two orthree seconds. Caught red-handed, so to speak, they would seem to recognize the futility ofoutsmarting a whiteman and the hopelessness of outrunning a rifle. Smile even, like a child caught dead with his hand in the jelly jar, and when you reached for the rope to tie him, well, even thenyou couldn't tell. The very nigger with his head hanging and a little jelly-jar smile on his facecould all of a sudden roar, like a bull or some such, and commence to do disbelievable things. Grabthe rifle at its mouth; throw himself at the one holding it — anything. So you had to keep back apace, leave the tying to another. Otherwise you ended up killing what you were paid to bring backalive. Unlike a snake or a bear, a dead nigger could not be skinned for profit and was not worth hisown dead weight in coin.

"我用不着他介紹。我會自己介紹自己。我需要他做的是把我重新介紹給我的孩子們。我猜，他識文斷字吧？""當然。""太好了，我要澄清好多事情。"可是他們澄清的消息少得可憐，她不得不放棄了。
在牧師替她寫了兩年的信之後，在兩年的漿洗、縫補、做罐頭、做鞋、種菜和去教堂之後，她發現的只是：惠特婁的地方已經沒了，而且，也沒法給"一個叫丹的男人"寫信，如果你知道的只是他去了西部。不管怎麼說，好消息總還有：黑爾結了婚，就快有個孩子了。從此，她便把精力集中在那件事，以及她自己用來佈道的標誌上面，決心用她那剛一過俄亥俄河就開始跳動的心來做點什麼。而且它行得通，很行得通，直到她開始驕傲，見到她的兒媳婦和黑爾的孩子們——其中一個出生在路上——就忘乎所以，還舉辦了一個讓聖誕節遜色的黑莓慶祝會。現在她站在菜園裏，嗅着非難氣味，感覺到了一個黑壓壓趕來的東西，並看見了那雙絕對不討她喜歡的高靿鞋。絕對不喜歡。
四個騎馬的人——"學校老師"、一個侄子、一個獵奴者和一個警官——到來的時候，藍石路上的這所房子這麼安靜，他們以爲自己來得太遲了。三個人下了馬，一個留在鞍子上，槍上膛，眼睛從左到右掃視着房子，因爲說不定有個逃犯會狗急跳牆的。儘管有些時候，你怎麼也拿不準，你會發現他們在什麼地方蜷縮着：地板下、壁櫥裏——有一次是在煙囪裏。甚至那些時候，也得多加小心，即使最老實的那些，那些你從櫥櫃、乾草堆，或者那回，從煙囪里拉出來的，也只會聽兩三秒鐘的話。這麼說吧，被當場捉獲後，他們會假裝認識到了哄騙白人的無益和逃脫槍口的無望，甚至還像小孩子手腕在果醬罐裏被人牢牢抓住時那樣笑。可當你拿繩子來捆他的時候，唉，甚至到那時候你也看不出來。就是那個垂頭喪氣、面帶一絲果醬罐訕笑的黑鬼，會像頭公牛一樣冷不防大吼大叫起來，開始去做令人難以置信的事情。抓住槍管；撲向獵奴者——什麼都幹得出來。所以你必須退後一步，讓另一個人來捆。不然，末了你會殺了他，可你本來是被僱傭去活捉他的。不像一條蛇或一隻熊，一個喪了命的黑奴可不能剝了皮換錢，死屍也值不了幾個子兒。