諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第2章Part 2

124 was so full of strong feeling perhaps she was oblivious to the loss of anything at all. There wasa time when she scanned the fields every morning and every evening for her boys. When she stoodat the open window, unmindful of flies, her head cocked to her left shoulder, her eyes searching to the right for them. Cloud shadow on the road, an old woman, a wandering goat untethered andgnawing bramble — each one looked at first like Howard — no, Buglar. Little by little she stoppedand their thirteen-year-old faces faded completely into their baby ones, which came to her only insleep. When her dreams roamed outside 124, anywhere they wished, she saw them sometimes inbeautiful trees, their little legs barely visible in the leaves.
Sometimes they ran along the railroad track laughing, too loud, apparently, to hear her becausethey never did turn around. When she woke the house crowded in on her: there was the door wherethe soda crackers were lined up in a row; the white stairs her baby girl loved to climb; the cornerwhere Baby Suggs mended shoes, a pile of which were still in the cold room; the exact place onthe stove where Denver burned her fingers. And of course the spite of the house itself. There wasno room for any other thing or body until Paul D arrived and broke up the place, making room,shifting it, moving it over to someplace else, then standing in the place he had made.
So, kneeling in the keeping room the morning after Paul D came, she was distracted by the twoorange squares that signaled how barren 124 really was.
He was responsible for that. Emotions sped to the surface in his company. Things became whatthey were: drabness looked drab; heat was hot. Windows suddenly had view. And wouldn't youknow he'd be a singing man.

時時刻刻有強烈的感情佔據着124號，也許她對任何一種喪失都無動於衷了。有一個時期，她每天早晚都要眺望田野，找自己的兒子。她站在敞開的窗前，不理會蒼蠅，頭偏向左肩，眼睛卻往右搜尋他們。路上的雲影，一個老婦，一隻沒拴繩子、啃食荊棘的迷途山羊———每一個乍看上去都像霍華德———不，像巴格勒。漸漸地她不再找了，他們十三歲的臉完全模糊成兒時的模樣，只在她的睡夢中出現。她的夢在124號外面隨心所欲地漫遊。她有時在美麗的樹上看見他們，他們的小腿兒在葉子中間隱約可見。
有時他們嘻嘻哈哈地沿着鐵軌奔跑，顯然是笑得太響了才聽不見她的叫聲，所以他們從不回頭。等她醒來，房子又撲面而至：蘇打餅乾碎末曾經在旁邊排成一行的那扇門；她的小女兒喜歡爬的白樓梯；過去貝比·薩格斯補鞋的那個角落———現在冷藏室裏還有一堆鞋呢；爐子上燙傷了丹芙手指的那個位置。當然，還有房子本身的怨毒。再容不下別的什麼東西、別的什麼人了，直到保羅·D到來，打亂這個地方，騰出空間，攆走它，把它趕到別處，然後他自己佔據了騰出來的空間。
因此，保羅·D到來的第二天早晨，她跪在起居室裏，被那標誌着124號實爲顏色匱乏的不毛之地的兩方橙色搞得心煩意亂。
這都怪他。在他陪伴下，情感紛紛浮出水面。一切都恢復了本來面目：單調看着單調了；熱的熱起來。窗戶裏忽然有了風景。還有，你想不到吧，他還是個愛唱歌的男人呢。