諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第8章Part 7

Paul D moaned, surprised to find himself exactly where he was the last time he looked.
"Don't tell me I slept in this chair the whole night."
Sethe laughed. "Me? I won't say a word to you."
"Why didn't you rouse me?"
"I did. Called you two or three times. I gave it up around midnight and then I thought you went outsomewhere."
He stood, expecting his back to fight it. But it didn't. Not a creak or a stiff joint anywhere. In facthe felt refreshed. Some things are like that, he thought, good-sleep places. The base of certain treeshere and there; a wharf, a bench, a rowboat once, a haystack usually, not always bed, and here,now, a rocking chair, which was strange because in his experience furniture was the worst placefor a good-sleep sleep.
The next evening he did it again and then again. He was accustomed to sex with Sethe just aboutevery day, and to avoid the confusion Beloved's shining caused him he still made it his business totake her back upstairs in the morning, or lie down with her after supper. But he found a way and areason to spend the longest part of the night in the rocker. He told himself it must be his back —something supportive it needed for a weakness left over from sleeping in a box in Georgia.

保羅·D哼了哼，吃驚地發現自己還待在原來待的地方。
"別跟我說我在這張椅子上睡了一整夜。"
塞絲笑了起來。"我嗎？我什麼也不會跟你說的。"
"你怎麼沒把我叫起來？"
"我叫了。叫了你兩三遍吶。到了半夜我才決定拉倒，我以爲你上外頭什麼地方去了。"
他站起來，以爲後背會很難受。可是沒有。哪裏都沒有咯吱作響，也沒感到關節麻木。實際上他倒覺得振奮。有些東西就是那樣，他想，真是個睡覺的好地方。隨便什麼地方的樹腳下；一個碼頭，一條長椅，有一次是隻小船，通常是一垛乾草堆，不總是牀；可現在這回，居然是一把搖椅，很是莫名其妙，因爲憑他的經驗，要睡個好覺，傢俱可是最糟糕的地方了。
第二天晚上他又這樣睡了，接着又睡了一夜。他已經習慣了幾乎每天和塞絲性交，爲了避免自己被寵兒的光芒迷惑，他仍然自覺地每天早晨回到樓上與塞絲雲雨一番，或者晚飯以後和她一起躺倒。然而爲了在搖椅上過夜，他找到了一個辦法，一個理由。他告訴自己，肯定是因爲他的後背——在佐治亞的匣子裏落下的後遺症，使它需要什麼東西支撐。