諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第10章Part 1

Denver stretches out her right arm and takes a step or two. She trips and falls down onto the pallet.
Newspaper crackles under her weight. She laughs again. "Oh, shoot. Beloved?"No one answers. Denver waves her arms and squinches her eyes to separate the shadows of potatosacks, a lard can and a side of smoked pork from the one that might be human.
"Stop fooling," she says and looks up toward the light to check and make sure this is still the cold house and not something going on in her sleep. The minnows of light still swim there; they can'tmake it down to where she is.
"You the one thirsty. You want cider or don't you?" Denver's voice is mildly accusatory. Mildly.
She doesn't want to offend and she doesn't want to betray the panic that is creeping over her likehairs. There is no sight or sound of Beloved. Denver struggles to her feet amid the cracklingnewspaper. Holding her palm out, she moves slowly toward the door. There is no latch or knob —just a loop of wire to catch a nail. She pushes the door open. Cold sunlight displaces the dark. Theroom is just as it was when they entered-except Beloved is not there. There is no point in lookingfurther, for everything in the place can be seen at first sight. Denver looks anyway because the lossis ungovernable. She steps back into the shed, allowing the door to close quickly behind ness or not, she moves rapidly around, reaching, touching cobwebs, cheese, slanting shelves,the pallet interfering with each step. If she stumbles, she is not aware of it because she does notknow where her body stops, which part of her is an arm, a foot or a knee. She feels like an ice caketorn away from the solid surface of the stream, floating on darkness, thick and crashing against theedges of things around it. Breakable, meltable and cold.

It is hard to breathe and even if there were light she wouldn't be able to see anything because she iscrying. Just as she thought it might happen, it has. Easy as walking into a room. A magicalappearance on a stump, the face wiped out by sunlight, and a magical disappearance in a shed,eaten alive by the dark.

丹芙伸出右手，邁了一兩步。她腳下一滑，倒在草荐上。報紙在她的重壓下嘩啦亂響。她大笑起來。"哎呀，呸。寵兒？"
沒人答應。丹芙揮着胳膊，擠着眼睛，從土豆麻袋、一個豬油罐頭和一塊燻肉的側影中辨別着人影。
"別鬧了。"她說着，仰起頭去看陽光，以便搞清楚這仍是在冷藏室，而不是夢中發生的事情。光線的小魚仍在那裏遊動；它們遊不到她站立的地方。
"是你喊渴的。你還想不想喝蘋果汁了？"丹芙的聲音裏有溫和的責備。溫和的。

她不想得罪人，也不願流露那毛髮一般爬遍全身的恐慌。沒有寵兒的一絲影子或聲音。丹芙從嘩啦作響的報紙中掙扎起來。她伸出手掌，慢慢地摸向門口。沒有插銷，也沒有門把手——只有一圈鐵絲，拴在一顆釘子上。她推開門。寒冷的陽光取代了黑暗。屋子裏同她們進來的時候一模一樣——只是寵兒不在了。再找下去沒有意義，所有的東西都一目瞭然。但丹芙還是要找，因爲這個損失是無法彌補的。她走回棚屋，讓門在身後猛地關上。不管黑不黑，她快速地轉着圈，搜索着，摸到了蜘蛛網、奶酪，撞歪了架子，每走一步草荐都絆她。即使絆倒在地，她也沒有感覺，因爲她不知道自己的身體停在何處，自己的哪一部分是胳膊、腳或者膝蓋。她覺得自己好像是一塊從小溪堅實的冰面上扯下的冰坨，漂浮在黑暗中，撞擊着它周圍一切物體的邊緣。易碎，易融，而且冰冷。
她呼吸困難，而且，就算有光亮也看不見任何東西，因爲她哭了。她剛預感到要出事，它就發生了。就像走進一間屋子那樣容易。在樹樁上神奇地現身，臉龐被陽光抹去；然後，在棚屋裏神奇地消失，被黑暗活活吞吃。