諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第1章Part 2

"Then why don't it come?""You forgetting how little it is," said her mother. "She wasn't even two years old when she died.
Too little to understand. Too little to talk much even.""Maybe she don't want to understand," said Denver.
"Maybe. But if she'd only come, I could make it clear to her."Sethe released her daughter's hand and together they pushed the sideboard back against the wall.
Outside a driver whipped his horse into the gallop local people felt necessary when they passed124.
"For a baby she throws a powerful spell," said Denver.
"No more powerful than the way I loved her," Sethe answered and there it was again. Thewelcoming cool of unchiseled headstones; the one she selected to lean against on tiptoe, her kneeswide open as any grave. Pink as a fingernail it was, and sprinkled with glittering chips. Tenminutes, he said. You got ten minutes I'll do it for free.
Ten minutes for seven letters. With another ten could she have gotten "Dearly" too? She had notthought to ask him and it bothered her still that it might have been possible — that for twenty minutes, a half hour, say, she could have had the whole thing, every word she heard the preachersay at the funeral (and all there was to say, surely) engraved on her baby's headstone: DearlyBeloved. But what she got, settled for, was the one word that mattered. She thought it would beenough, rutting among the headstones with the engraver, his young son looking on, the anger in hisface so old; the appetite in it quite new. That should certainly be enough. Enough to answer onemore preacher, one more abolitionist and a town full of disgust.
Counting on the stillness of her own soul, she had forgotten the other one: the soul of her baby girl.
Who would have thought that a little old baby could harbor so much rage? Rutting among thestones under the eyes of the engraver's son was not enough. Not only did she have to live out heryears in a house palsied by the baby's fury at having its throat cut, but those ten minutes she spentpressed up against dawn-colored stone studded with star chips, her knees wide open as the grave,were longer than life, more alive, more pulsating than the baby blood that soaked her fingers likeoil. "We could move," she suggested once to her mother-in-law.
"What'd be the point?" asked Baby Suggs. "Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafterswith some dead Negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby. My husband's spirit was to come backin here? or yours? Don't talk to me. You lucky. You got three left.

"那它怎麼不出來？""你忘了它有多小，"媽媽說，"她死的時候還不到兩歲呢。

小得還不懂事。小得話都說不了幾句。""也許她不願意懂事。"丹芙道。
"也許吧。但只要她出來，我就會對她講清楚。"塞絲放開女兒的手，兩人一齊把碗櫃推回牆邊。

門外，一個車伕把馬抽打得飛跑起來——當地居民路過124號時都覺得有這必要。
"這麼小的小孩，魔法可真夠厲害的。"丹芙說。
"不比我對她的愛更厲害。"塞絲答道，於是，那情景登時重現。那些未經雕鑿的墓石涼意沁人；那一塊，她挑出來踮着腳靠上去，雙膝像所有墓穴一樣敞開。它像指甲一樣粉紅，遍佈晶亮的顆粒。十分鐘，他說。你出十分鐘我就免費給你刻。
七個字母十分鐘。再出十分鐘她也能得到"親愛的"麼？她沒想到去問他，而這種可能至今仍困擾着她——就是說，付出二十分鐘，或者半個小時，她就能讓他在她的寶貝的墓碑上把整句話都刻上，刻上她在葬禮上聽見牧師說的每個字（當然，也只有那麼幾個字值得一說）：親愛的寵兒。但是她得到和解決的，是關鍵的那個詞。她以爲那應該足夠了：在墓石中間與刻字工交媾，他的小兒子在一旁觀看着，臉上的憤怒那麼蒼老，慾望又如此新鮮。那當然應該足夠了。再有一個牧師、一個廢奴主義者和一座人人嫌惡她的城市，那也足以回答了。
只想着自己靈魂的安寧，她忘記了另一個靈魂：她的寶貝女兒的亡靈。

誰能想到一個小小的嬰兒會心懷這麼多的憤懣？在石頭中間，在刻字工的兒子眼皮底下與人苟合還不夠。她不僅必須在那因割斷喉嚨的嬰兒的暴怒而癱瘓的房子裏度日，而且她緊貼着綴滿星斑的曙色墓石、雙膝墓穴般敞開所付出的十分鐘，比生命更長，更活躍，比那油一般浸透手指的嬰兒的鮮血更加脈動不息。"我們可以搬家。"有一次她向婆婆建議。
"有什麼必要呢？"貝比·薩格斯問。"在這個國家裏，沒有一座房子不是從地板到房樑都塞滿了黑人死鬼的悲傷。我們還算幸運，這個鬼不過是個娃娃。是我男人的魂兒能回到這兒來，還是你男人的能回來？別跟我說這個。你夠走運的。你還剩了三個呢。