2012诺贝尔文学获得者 诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第10章Part 1

诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第10章Part 1  

Denver stretches out her right arm and takes a step or o. She trips and falls down onto the pallet.
Newspaper crackles under her weight. She laughs again. "Oh
shoot. Beloved?"No one answers. Denver waves her arms and squinches her eyes to separate the shadows of potatosacks
a lard can and a side of smoked pork from the one that might be human.
"Stop fooling
" she says and looks up toward the light to check and make sure this is still the cold house and not something going on in her sleep. The minnows of light still swim there; they can'tmake it down to where she is.
"You the one thirsty. You want cider or don't you?" Denver's voice is mildly accusatory. Mildly.
She doesn't want to offend and she doesn't want to betray the panic that is creeping over her likehairs. There is no sight or sound of Beloved. Denver struggles to her feet amid the cracklingnewspaper. Holding her palm out
she moves slowly toward the door. There is no latch or knob —just a loop of wire to catch a nail. She pushes the door open. Cold sunlight displaces the dark. Theroom is just as it was when they entered-except Beloved is not there. There is no point in lookingfurther
for everything in the place can be seen at first sight. Denver looks anyway because the lossis ungovernable. She steps back into the shed
allowing the door to close quickly behind ness or not
she moves rapidly around
reaching
touching cobwebs
cheese
slanting shelves
the pallet interfering with each step. If she stumbles
she is not aware of it because she does notknow where her body stops
which part of her is an arm
a foot or a knee. She feels like an ice caketorn away from the solid surface of the stream
floating on darkness
thick and crashing against theedges of things around it. Breakable
meltable and cold.
It is hard to breathe and even if there were light she wouldn't be able to see anything because she iscrying. Just as she thought it might happen
it has. Easy as walking into a room. A magicalappearance on a stump
the face wiped out by sunlight
and a magical disappearance in a shed
eaten alive by the dark.
她不想得罪人，也不愿流露那毛发一般爬遍全身的恐慌。没有宠儿的一丝影子或声音。丹芙从哗啦作响的报纸中挣扎起来。她伸出手掌，慢慢地摸向门口。没有插销，也没有门把手——只有一圈铁丝，拴在一颗钉子上。她推开门。寒冷的阳光取代了黑暗。屋子里同她们进来的时候一模一样——只是宠儿不在了。再找下去没有意义，所有的东西都一目了然。但丹芙还是要找，因为这个损失是无法弥补的。她走回棚屋，让门在身后猛地关上。不管黑不黑，她快速地转着圈，搜索着，摸到了蜘蛛网、奶酪，撞歪了架子，每走一步草荐都绊她。即使绊倒在地，她也没有感觉，因为她不知道自己的身体停在何处，自己的哪一部分是胳膊、脚或者膝盖。她觉得自己好像是一块从小溪坚实的冰面上扯下的冰坨，漂浮在黑暗中，撞击着它周围一切物体的边缘。易碎，易融，而且冰冷。
她呼吸困难，而且，就算有光亮也看不见任何东西，因为她哭了。她刚预感到要出事，它就发生了。就像走进一间屋子那样容易。在树桩上神奇地现身，脸庞被阳光抹去；然后，在棚屋里神奇地消失，被黑暗活活吞吃。