双语畅销书《我是马拉拉》第5章4:安抚和鼓励

My father consoled me by telling me about the mistakes great heroes made when they were children. He told me that Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.’ At school we had read stories about Mohammad Ali Jinnah. As a boy in Karachi he would study by the glow of street lights because there was no light at home. He told other boys to stop playing marbles in the dust and to play cricket instead so their clothes and hands wouldn’t get dirty. Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. ‘Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books . . . But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside, ’ it says. ‘Teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat.’

为了安抚和鼓励我，父亲跟我讲了许多伟人在小时候曾犯下过错的故事。他告诉我甘地曾说：“人若不能自由地犯错，那么这自由就不值得拥有。”我们在学校里读过穆罕默德.阿里.真纳的故事。当他还是个小男孩，住在卡拉奇时，因为他家里没有电灯，会借着路灯的光线读书。他告诉其他男孩子不要在尘土里玩弹珠，改打板球，这样就不会把全身弄得脏兮兮的。父亲在他的办公室外挂着一幅摹本，是林肯写给他儿子老师的一封信，已翻译成普什图语。那封信写得极好，全是极好的建议。“如果可以，请你教他书本的美好，但也给他时间，让他去思考永恒的谜题：天上的小鸟、阳光下的蜜蜂和翠绿山头上的花朵。”信里写道，“让他知道失败远比作弊光荣得多。”

I think everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. The important thing is what you learn from it. That’s why I have problems with our Pashtunwali code. We are supposed to take revenge for wrongs done to us, but where does that end? If a man in one family is killed or hurt by another man, revenge must be exacted to restore nang. It can be taken by killing any male member of the attacker’s family. Then that family in turn must take revenge. And on and on it goes. There is no time limit. We have a saying: ‘The Pashtun took revenge after twenty years and another said it was taken too soon.’

我想，每个人一辈子里至少都犯过一次错误，重要的是你从中学到了什么。这就是为什么我对我们普什图习俗有着不同的看法。按习俗规定，若受委屈，我们定要采取报复手段。但这样冤冤相报，何时能了？如果家族中的男人被另一个人伤害了或杀了，他们必定要采取报复，杀死加害者家庭中的任何一个男性，以维护荣誉。这一来一往不停循环下去，没有止息。我们甚至有句谚语说：“一个普什图人花二十年复仇，其他人会说这还早着呢。”

We are a people of many sayings. One is ‘The stone of Pashto does not rust in water, ’ which means we neither forget nor forgive. That’s also why we rarely say thank you, manana, because we believe a Pashtun will never forget a good deed and is bound to reciprocate at some point, just as he will a bad one. Kindness can only be repaid with kindness. It can’t be repaid with expressions like ‘thank you’.

有很多说法可以用来形容我们的民族，其中一种是“普什图的石头不会在水里变钝”。意思是说，我们既不会遗忘，也不会原谅。这就是为什么我们很少说“谢谢”，因为我们相信普什图人是不会忘记别人的恩情的，并且时候到了一定会报恩，就和一定会报仇是一样的。恩情只能用恩情来还，而不是用一句“谢谢”说说就行了。

Many families live in walled compounds with watchtowers so they can keep an eye out for their enemies. We knew many victims of feuds. One was Sher Zaman, a man who had been in my father’s class and always got better grades than him. My grandfather and uncle used to drive my father mad, teasing him, ‘You’re not as good as Sher Zaman, ’ so much he once wished that rocks would come down the mountain and flatten him. But Sher Zaman did not go to college and ended up becoming a dispenser in the village pharmacy. His family became embroiled in a dispute with their cousins over a small plot of forest. One day, as Sher Zaman and two of his brothers were on their way to the land, they were ambushed by his uncle and some of his men. All three brothers were killed.

为了防御敌人，许多家庭住在四面装有栅栏和瞭望台的屋子里。我们也认识很多纠纷的受害者。其中一位是希尔.扎曼，我父亲班上的同学，他总是在考试时赢过我父亲。祖父和大伯总是以此调侃我父亲，把他气得抓狂，并说：“你比不上希尔.扎曼。”父亲甚至一度希望山上有落石掉下来把扎曼压扁。但是希尔.扎曼没有去念大学，而是在村里的药房当上了药剂师。后来，他们家为了森林里的一小块地和亲戚起了冲突。有天，希尔.扎曼和他的两个兄弟要去那块土地时，被他的叔叔和手下人偷袭，三兄弟全都死了。