諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第2章Part 1

Sethe had given little thought to the white dress until Paul D came, and then she remembered Denver's interpretation: plans. The morning after the first night with Paul D, Sethe smiled justthinking about what the word could mean. It was a luxury she had not had in eighteen years andonly that once. Before and since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but on gettingthrough it as quickly as possible. The one set of plans she had made — getting away from SweetHome — went awry so completely she never dared life by making more.
Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D, the word her daughter had used a few years ago didcross her mind and she thought about what Denver had seen kneeling next to her, and thought alsoof the temptation to trust and remember that gripped her as she stood before the cooking stove inhis arms. Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count onsomething? She couldn't think clearly, lying next to him listening to his breathing, so carefully,carefully, she had left the bed.
Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggswas so starved for color. There wasn't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made theabsence shout.
The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the woodendresser the color of itself, curtains white, and the dominating feature, the quilt over an iron cot, wasmade up of scraps of blue serge, black, brown and gray wool — the full range of the dark and themuted that thrift and modesty allowed. In that sober field, two patches of orange looked wild —like life in the raw.
Sethe looked at her hands, her bottle-green sleeves, and thought how little colorthere was in the house and how strange that she had not missed it the way Baby did. Deliberate,she thought, it must be deliberate, because the last color she remembered was the pink chips in theheadstone of her baby girl. After that she became as color conscious as a hen. Every dawn sheworked at fruit pies, potato dishes and vegetables while the cook did the soup, meat and all therest. And she could not remember remembering a molly apple or a yellow squash. Every dawn shesaw the dawn, but never acknowledged or remarked its color. There was something wrong withthat. It was as though one day she saw red baby blood, another day the pink gravestone chips, andthat was the last of it.

保羅·D到來之前，塞絲很少去想那條白裙子，他來了以後，她又想起了丹芙的解釋：計劃。與保羅·D初夜之後的第二天早晨，塞絲剛想到這個詞可能意味着什麼就笑了。那是她整整十八年沒再享受過的奢侈，而且這輩子也只有那麼一次。在那之前、之後，她的全部努力都用於儘快捱過痛苦，而不是逃避痛苦。她作出的一整套計劃———逃離“甜蜜之家”———如此徹底地失敗了，所以她再也不會捨命另作圖謀了。
然而那個早晨，她在保羅·D身邊醒來，女兒幾年前用過的那個詞又闖進了她的腦海；她想起丹芙看見的那個跪在她身邊的東西，也想起了被他擁在火爐前的時候牢牢抓住她的那種信任和記憶的誘惑。到底可不可以呢？可不可以去感覺？可不可以去依賴點什麼呢？躺在他身邊聽着他的呼吸，她想不清楚，所以她小心翼翼地、小心翼翼地下了牀。
跪在她常去說話和思考的起居室裏，塞絲豁然開朗，明白了爲什麼貝比·薩格斯那樣迫切地渴求色彩。屋裏沒有任何顏色，只有被子上的兩塊橙色補丁，使得顏色的匱乏更爲怵目驚心。
房間的牆壁是石板色的，地板是土黃色的，木頭碗櫃就是它本來的顏色，窗簾是白色的，而主要角色，鐵牀上鋪的被子，是由藍色的嗶嘰碎塊和黑色、棕色、灰色的呢絨碎塊拼成的———節儉與樸素所能允許的所有晦暗和柔和的色調。在這素淨的背景上，兩塊橙色的補丁顯得野性十足———好像傷口裏的勃勃生氣。
塞絲看看自己的手，又看看兩隻深綠色的袖子，心想，房子裏的顏色少得多麼可憐，而她並未像貝比那樣惦念它們，又是多麼不可思議。故意的，她暗道，肯定是故意的，因爲她女兒墓石上的粉紅顆粒是她記得的最後一樣顏色。從那以後，她就變得像母雞一樣色盲了。每天清晨她負責做水果排、土豆和蔬菜，廚子做湯、肉和所有別的。她卻沒有任何印象，告訴她自己記住過一隻嫩蘋果或者一個黃南瓜。每個黎明她都看到曙光，卻從未辨認或留心過它的色彩。這不大對頭。彷彿有一天她看見了紅色的嬰兒的血，另一天看見了粉紅色的墓石的顆粒，色彩就到此爲止了。