諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第3章Part 15
"I didn't plan on telling you that.""I didn't plan on hearing it.""I can't take it back, but I can leave it alone," Paul D said.
He wants to tell me, she thought. Hewants me to ask him about what it was like for him — about how offended the tongue is, helddown by iron, how the need to spit is so deep you cry for it. She already knew about it, had seen ittime after time in the place before Sweet Home. Men, boys, little girls, women. The wildness thatshot up into the eye the moment the lips were yanked back. Days after it was taken out, goose fatwas rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness outof the eye. Sethe looked up into Paul D's eyes to see if there was any trace left in them.
"People I saw as a child," she said, "who'd had the bit always looked wild after that. Whatever theyused it on them for, it couldn't have worked, because it put a wildness where before there wasn'tany. When I look at you, I don't see it. There ain't no wildness in your eye nowhere.""There's a way to put it there and there's a way to take it out. I know em both and I haven't figuredout yet which is worse." He sat down beside her. Sethe looked at him. In that unlit daylight hisface, bronzed and reduced to its bones, smoothed her heart down. "You want to tell me about it?"she asked him.
"I don't know. I never have talked about it. Not to a soul. Sang it sometimes, but I never told asoul.""Go ahead. I can hear it.""Maybe. Maybe you can hear it. I just ain't sure I can say it. Say it right, I mean, because it wasn'tthe bit — that wasn't it." "What then?" Sethe asked.
"The roosters," he said. "Walking past the roosters looking at them look at me."
Sethe smiled. "In that pine?"
“我沒打算告訴你那個。”“我沒打算聽。”“我沒法收回來，但我能把它擱下。”保羅·D說。
他想對我開講了，她暗忖道。他想讓我去問問他當時的感覺———舌頭讓鐵嚼子墜住是多麼難受，吐唾沫的需要又是多麼強烈、不能自已。那個滋味她早就知道了，在“甜蜜之家”以前待的地方她就一次又一次地目睹過。男人，男孩，小女孩，女人。嘴脣向後勒緊那一刻注入眼裏的瘋狂。嚼子卸下之後的許多天裏，嘴角一直塗着鵝油，可是沒有什麼來撫慰舌頭，或者將瘋狂從眼中除去。塞絲擡頭朝保羅·D的眼中望去，看那裏是否留下了什麼痕跡。
“我小時候見過的那些人，”她說，“他們套過嚼子後看上去總是那麼瘋狂。誰知道他們因爲什麼給他們上嚼子，反正那一套根本行不通，因爲它套上的是一種從前沒有過的瘋狂。我看你的時候，卻看不見那個。你的眼睛裏哪兒都沒有那樣的瘋狂。”“有把它放進去的法子，就有拿出來的法子。兩個辦法我都知道，我還沒想好哪種更糟呢。”他在她身旁坐下。塞絲打量着他。在昏暗的日光裏，他瘦骨嶙峋的古銅色面孔讓她的心趨於平靜。“想跟我講講嗎？”她問他。
“我不知道。我從來沒講過。跟誰都沒講過。有時候唱唱，可我從來沒跟誰講過。”“說吧。我聽得了。”“也許吧。也許你聽得了。我只是不敢肯定我能說出來。我的意思是，能說得準確，因爲並不是嚼子的問題———不是那麼回事。”“那是什麼呢？”塞絲問道。
“公雞，”他說，“路過公雞時，我看見它們那樣看着我。”
塞絲笑了。“在那棵松樹上？”
