莫言什么时候获得诺贝尔文学 诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第14章Part6

诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第14章Part6  

Pigs were crying in the chute. All day Paul D
Stamp Paid and enty more had pushed andprodded them from canal to shore to chute to slaughterhouse. Although
as grain farmers movedwest
St. Louis and Chicago now ate up a lot of the business
Cincinnati was still pig port in theminds of Ohioans. Its main job was to receive
slaughter and ship up the river the hogs thatNortherners did not want to live without. For a month or so in the winter any stray man had work
if he could breathe the stench of offal and stand up for elve hours
skills in which Paul D wasadmirably trained. A little pig shit
rinsed from every place he could touch
remained on his boots
and he was conscious of it as he stood there with a light smile of scorn curling his lips. Usually heleft his boots in the shed and put his walking shoes on along with his day clothes in the cornerbefore he went home. A route that took him smack dab through the middle of a cemetery as old assky
rife with the agitation of dead Miami no longer content to rest in the mounds that coveredthem. Over their heads walked a strange people; through their earth pillows roads were cut; wellsand houses nudged them out of eternal rest. Outraged more by their folly in believing land washoly than by the disturbances of their peace
they growled on the banks of Licking River
sighed inthe trees on Catherine Street and rode the wind above the pig yards. Paul D heard them but hestayed on because all in all it wasn't a bad job
especially in winter when Cincinnati reassumed itsstatus of slaughter and riverboat capital. The craving for pork was growing into a mania in everycity in the country. Pig farmers were cashing in
provided they could raise enough and get themsold farther and farther away. And the Germans who flooded southern Ohio brought and developedswine cooking to its highest form. Pig boats jammed the Ohio River
and their captains' holleringat one another over the grunts of the stock was as mon a water sound as that of the ducksflying over their heads. Sheep
cows and fowl too floated up and down that river
and all a Negrohad to do was show up and there was work: poking
killing
cutting
skinning
case packing andsaving offal.
A hundred yards from the crying pigs
the o men stood behind a shed on Western Row and it was clear why Stamp had been eyeing Paul D this last week of work; why he paused when theevening shift came on
to let Paul D's movements catch up to his own. He had made up his mind toshow him this piece of paper — newspaper — with a picture drawing of a woman who favoredSethe except that was not her mouth. Nothing like it.
Paul D slid the clipping out from under Stamp's palm. The print meant nothing to him so he didn'teven glance at it. He simply looked at the face
shaking his head no. No. At the mouth
you no at whatever it was those black scratches said
and no to whatever it was Stamp Paid wantedhim to know. Because there was no way in hell a black face could appear in a newspaper if thestory was about something anybody wanted to hear. A whip of fear broke through the heartchambers as soon as you saw a Negro's face in a paper
since the face was not there because theperson had a healthy baby
or outran a street mob. Nor was it there because the person had beenkilled
or maimed or caught or burned or jailed or whipped or evicted or stomped or raped orcheated
since that could hardly qualify as news in a newspaper. It would have to be something outof the ordinary — something whitepeople would find interesting
truly different
worth a fewminutes of teeth sucking if not gasps. And it must have been hard to find news about Negroesworth the breath catch of a white citizen of Cincinnati.