諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第7章Part 4

"Is that damn dog lost his mind?" shouted Baby Suggs.
"He's on the porch," said Sethe. "See for yourself."
"Well, what's that I'm hearing then?"
Sethe slammed the stove lid. "Buglar! Buglar! I told you all not to use that ball in here." Shelooked at the white stairs and saw Denver at the top.
"She was trying to get upstairs."
"What?" The cloth she used to handle the stove lid was balled in Sethe's hand.
"The baby," said Denver. "Didn't you hear her crawling?"
What to jump on first was the problem: that Denver heard anything at all or that the crawling-already? baby girl was still at it but more so.
The return of Denver's hearing, cut off by an answershe could not hear to hear, cut on by the sound of her dead sister trying to climb the stairs, signaledanother shift in the fortunes of the people of 124. From then on the presence was full of spite.
Instead of sighs and accidents there was pointed and deliberate abuse. Buglar and Howard grewfurious at the company of the women in the house, and spent in sullen reproach any time they hadaway from their odd work in town carrying water and feed at the stables. Until the spite became sopersonal it drove each off. Baby Suggs grew tired, went to bed and stayed there until her big oldheart quit. Except for an occasional request for color she said practically nothing — until theafternoon of the last day of her life when she got out of bed, skipped slowly to the door of thekeeping room and announced to Sethe and Denver the lesson she had learned from her sixty yearsa slave and ten years free: that there was no bad luck in the world but white people. "They don'tknow when to stop," she said, and returned to her bed, pulled up the quilt and left them to hold that thought forever.
Shortly afterward Sethe and Denver tried to call up and reason with the babyghost, but got nowhere. It took a man, Paul D, to shout it off, beat it off and take its place forhimself. And carnival or no carnival, Denver preferred the venomous baby to him any day. Duringthe first days after Paul D moved in, Denver stayed in her emerald closet as long as she could,lonely as a mountain and almost as big, thinking everybody had somebody but her; thinking even aghost's company was denied her. So when she saw the black dress with two unlaced shoes beneathit she trembled with secret thanks. Whatever her power and however she used it, Beloved was hers.
Denver was alarmed by the harm she thought Beloved planned for Sethe, but felt helpless to thwartit, so unrestricted was her need to love another. The display she witnessed at the Clearing shamedher because the choice between Sethe and Beloved was without conflict.
Walking toward thestream, beyond her green bush house, she let herself wonder what if Beloved really decided tochoke her mother. Would she let it happen? Murder, Nelson Lord had said. "Didn't your motherget locked away for murder? Wasn't you in there with her when she went?"

"是那該死的狗發昏了嗎？"貝比·薩格斯嚷道。
"它在門廊呢，"塞絲道，"不信你自己去看。"
"那我聽到的是什麼呀？"
塞絲砰地蓋上爐蓋。"巴格勒！巴格勒！我跟你們倆都說過，不許在這兒玩球。"她看了看白樓梯，見丹芙站在頂層。
"她在學着爬樓梯。"
"什麼？"開爐蓋用的墊布在塞絲手裏攥成一團。
"那個小孩，"丹芙說，"你沒聽見她在爬嗎？"
首先跳出的是這樣一個問題：到底是丹芙真的聽見了什麼動靜，還是那個"都會爬了？"的小女兒仍舊在這裏肆虐，變本加厲？
丹芙的聽覺被一聲她不忍聽到的回答切斷，又被她死去的姐姐試圖爬樓梯的響動接上，它的恢復標誌着124號裏面的人們命運的又一次轉折。
從那時起，鬼魂的出沒就充滿了惡意。不再是嘆息和意外事故了，而是變成了直截了當和蓄意爲之的摧殘。巴格勒和霍華德對於跟女人們一起住在房子裏感到怒不可遏，如果不去城裏幹送水和喂牲口的臨時工作，他們便時時刻刻都悶悶不樂地怪罪她們。直到最後，這惡意變成了過分的個人攻擊，把他們兩個統統趕走。貝比·薩格斯累了，在牀上長臥不起，直到她那偉大而蒼老的心停止跳動。除了不定期的對色彩的要求，她實際上一語不發——直到她生命中最後一天的那個下午，她下了牀，慢悠悠地顛到起居室門口，向塞絲和丹芙宣告她從六十年奴隸生涯和十年自由人的日子中學到的一課：這世界上除了白人沒有別的不幸。"他們不懂得適可而止。"她說道，然後就離開她們，回到牀上，拉上被子，讓她們永遠地記住那個思想。
此後不久，塞絲和丹芙試圖召喚那個小鬼魂，跟它論理，可是毫無結果。結果來了一個男人，保羅·D，將它吼走、打跑，再自己取代它的位置。無論有沒有狂歡節那回事，丹芙都更願意接受那個滿腔怒火的嬰兒，而不是他。保羅·D搬來後最初的那些日子，丹芙儘可能久地待在她的那間祖母綠密室裏，像山一樣孤獨，也幾乎一樣龐大；她常想，誰都有個伴兒，單單她沒有，連讓一個鬼跟她做伴都不行。所以，當她看見那條黑裙子和下面的兩隻沒繫好鞋帶的鞋子時，她渾身發抖，暗自謝天謝地。無論寵兒有怎樣的威力，無論她怎樣發威，寵兒總是她的。
想到寵兒對塞絲的計劃的危害性，丹芙警惕起來，但又覺得無力阻撓；她太渴望去愛別人了。在"林間空地"目睹的一幕令她羞辱，因爲在塞絲和寵兒之間作選擇並不存在矛盾。
她離開她的綠色灌木小屋，朝着小溪走去，不禁心想，如果寵兒真的決定掐死她的媽媽，那該怎麼辦。她會任其發生嗎？謀殺，內爾森·洛德說過的。"你媽媽不是因爲謀殺給關起來了嗎？她進去的時候你沒跟着嗎？"