諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第15章Part1

It made him dizzy. At first he thought it was her spinning. Circling him the way she was circlingthe subject. Round and round, never changing direction, which might have helped his head. Thenhe thought, No, it's the sound of her voice; it's too near. Each turn she made was at least threeyards from where he sat, but listening to her was like having a child whisper into your ear so closeyou could feel its lips form the words you couldn't make out because they were too close. Hecaught only pieces of what she said — which was fine, because she hadn't gotten to the main part— the answer to the question he had not asked outright, but which lay in the clipping he showedher. And lay in the smile as well. Because he smiled too, when he showed it to her, so when she burst out laughing at the joke — the mix-up of her face put where some other coloredwoman'sought to be — well, he'd be ready to laugh right along with her. "Can you beat it?" he would ask. And "Stamp done lost his mind," she would giggle."Plumb lost it."
But his smile never got a chance to grow. It hung there, small and alone, while she examined theclipping and then handed it back.
Perhaps it was the smile, or maybe the ever-ready love she saw in his eyes — easy and upfront, theway colts, evangelists and children look at you: with love you don't have to deserve — that madeher go ahead and tell him what she had not told Baby Suggs, the only person she felt obliged toexplain anything to. Otherwise she would have said what the newspaper said she said and no e could recognize only seventy-five printed words (half of which appeared in the newspaperclipping), but she knew that the words she did not understand hadn't any more power than she hadto explain. It was the smile and the upfront love that made her try.
"I don't have to tell you about Sweet Home — what it was — but maybe you don't know what itwas like for me to get away from there."Covering the lower half of her face with her palms, she paused to consider again the size of themiracle; its flavor.

他被弄得頭暈目眩。一開始他以為是因為她轉個不停。像繞着話題轉一樣繞着他兜圈子。一圈又一圈，從不改換方向，否則他的腦袋或許還能得救。然後他想，不對，是因為她的聲音，太近了。她轉的每一圈離他坐的地方都至少有三碼遠，可聽她説起話來，就像是一個孩子對着你的耳朵低語，這樣近，以致你能感到嘴脣翕動卻聽不出個子午卯酉。他只捕捉到了隻言片語——那沒關係，因為她還沒説到主要部分呢——還沒回答那個他並未直接提問，卻放在給她看的剪報裏的問題。也是放在微笑裏的。因為他是微笑着把剪報遞給她看的，所以，他都準備好了，當她對着這個笑話放聲大笑的時候——她臉上的迷惑本該出現在另外的某個黑女人臉上——當然，他就會馬上和她一起大笑起來。"你能相信這種事嗎？"他會問。"斯坦普真沒腦子，"她會格格笑着，"一點兒腦子沒有。"
但是他的微笑一直沒有機會發展。它懸在那裏，又小又孤單；而她仔細看了看剪報，然後就把它遞了回來。
也許是那個微笑，也許是她在他眼裏看到的時刻準備着的愛——輕鬆而不加掩飾的，小馬駒、傳道士和孩子們看人的那種眼神，充滿着你並不一定配得上的愛——驅使她開口道出了她從沒告訴過貝比·薩格斯的事情，她從前覺得只對她一個人有責任解釋一切。否則她會只講報紙上説她講過的話，而不再多説一句。塞絲只能認出七十五個印出來的詞（一半出現在那張剪報上），可她知道，自己不認識的字不比她要解釋的話更有力。是那微笑和不加掩飾的愛驅使她來作一次嘗試。
"我不用給你講-甜蜜之家-——它是什麼——可也許你不知道我從那兒逃出去是什麼滋味。"她用雙掌遮住下半邊臉，稍作停頓，再一次在心裏掂量那個奇蹟的大小，它的味道。