诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第12章Part 1

Beloved looked at the tooth and thought, This is it. Next would be her arm, her hand, a toe. Pieces of her would drop maybe one at a time, maybe all at once. Or on one of those mornings beforeDenver woke and after Sethe left she would fly apart. It is difficult keeping her head on her neck,her legs attached to her hips when she is by herself. Among the things she could not remember waswhen she first knew that she could wake up any day and find herself in pieces. She had twodreams: exploding, and being swallowed. When her tooth came out — an odd fragment, last in therow — she thought it was starting.
"Must be a wisdom," said Denver. "Don't it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you cry?"
"What?"
"If it hurts, why don't you cry?"
And she did. Sitting there holding a small white tooth in the palm of her smooth smooth hand. Cried the way she wanted to when turtles came out of the water, one behind the other, right afterthe blood-red bird disappeared back into the leaves. The way she wanted to when Sethe went tohim standing in the tub under the stairs. With the tip of her tongue she touched the salt water thatslid to the corner of her mouth and hoped Denver's arm around her shoulders would keep themfrom falling apart.
The couple upstairs, united, didn't hear a sound, but below them, outside, all around 124 the snowwent on and on and on. Piling itself, burying itself. Higher. Deeper.

宠儿看着牙，心想：终于来了。下一回该是她的一只胳膊、一只手、一个脚指头了。她身上的零件也许会一点一点地，也许一股脑全掉下去。或者哪一天早晨，在丹芙醒来之前、塞丝上班之后，她会四分五裂。她独自一人的时候，很难让脑袋待在脖子上，腿安在屁股上。在她记不得的事情中有这么一件：她第一次得知她会在哪天醒来，发现自己已成为一堆碎片。她做过两个梦：一次是自己爆炸，一次是被吞噬。当她的牙脱落的时候——一块多余的碎片，一排中最后的那颗——她认为毁灭已经开始了。
"肯定是颗智齿，"丹芙道，"不疼么？"
"疼。"
"那你怎么不哭？"
"什么？"
"疼的话，你怎么不哭？"
于是她哭了。坐在那里，用非常非常光洁的手掌攥着一颗小白牙，哭了起来。就像那回，她看见血红的小鸟消失在树叶间，然后乌龟一个跟着一个从水里爬出来的时候想做的那样。就像那回，她看见他站在楼梯下的澡盆里，而塞丝走向他的时候想做的那样。她用舌头舔了舔滑到嘴角的咸泪，希望丹芙搂住她双肩的胳膊能避免它们四分五裂。
楼上的那一对结合着，什么也没听见，然而在他们下面、外面，124号的四周，雪下了又下，下了又下。堆积着自己，埋葬着自己。越来越高。越来越深。