诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第2章Part 1

Sethe had given little thought to the white dress until Paul D came, and then she remembered Denver's interpretation: plans. The morning after the first night with Paul D, Sethe smiled justthinking about what the word could mean. It was a luxury she had not had in eighteen years andonly that once. Before and since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but on gettingthrough it as quickly as possible. The one set of plans she had made — getting away from SweetHome — went awry so completely she never dared life by making more.
Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D, the word her daughter had used a few years ago didcross her mind and she thought about what Denver had seen kneeling next to her, and thought alsoof the temptation to trust and remember that gripped her as she stood before the cooking stove inhis arms. Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count onsomething? She couldn't think clearly, lying next to him listening to his breathing, so carefully,carefully, she had left the bed.
Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggswas so starved for color. There wasn't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made theabsence shout.
The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the woodendresser the color of itself, curtains white, and the dominating feature, the quilt over an iron cot, wasmade up of scraps of blue serge, black, brown and gray wool — the full range of the dark and themuted that thrift and modesty allowed. In that sober field, two patches of orange looked wild —like life in the raw.
Sethe looked at her hands, her bottle-green sleeves, and thought how little colorthere was in the house and how strange that she had not missed it the way Baby did. Deliberate,she thought, it must be deliberate, because the last color she remembered was the pink chips in theheadstone of her baby girl. After that she became as color conscious as a hen. Every dawn sheworked at fruit pies, potato dishes and vegetables while the cook did the soup, meat and all therest. And she could not remember remembering a molly apple or a yellow squash. Every dawn shesaw the dawn, but never acknowledged or remarked its color. There was something wrong withthat. It was as though one day she saw red baby blood, another day the pink gravestone chips, andthat was the last of it.

保罗·D到来之前，塞丝很少去想那条白裙子，他来了以后，她又想起了丹芙的解释：计划。与保罗·D初夜之后的第二天早晨，塞丝刚想到这个词可能意味着什么就笑了。那是她整整十八年没再享受过的奢侈，而且这辈子也只有那么一次。在那之前、之后，她的全部努力都用于尽快挨过痛苦，而不是逃避痛苦。她作出的一整套计划———逃离“甜蜜之家”———如此彻底地失败了，所以她再也不会舍命另作图谋了。
然而那个早晨，她在保罗·D身边醒来，女儿几年前用过的那个词又闯进了她的脑海；她想起丹芙看见的那个跪在她身边的东西，也想起了被他拥在火炉前的时候牢牢抓住她的那种信任和记忆的诱惑。到底可不可以呢？可不可以去感觉？可不可以去依赖点什么呢？躺在他身边听着他的呼吸，她想不清楚，所以她小心翼翼地、小心翼翼地下了床。
跪在她常去说话和思考的起居室里，塞丝豁然开朗，明白了为什么贝比·萨格斯那样迫切地渴求色彩。屋里没有任何颜色，只有被子上的两块橙色补丁，使得颜色的匮乏更为怵目惊心。
房间的墙壁是石板色的，地板是土黄色的，木头碗柜就是它本来的颜色，窗帘是白色的，而主要角色，铁床上铺的被子，是由蓝色的哔叽碎块和黑色、棕色、灰色的呢绒碎块拼成的———节俭与朴素所能允许的所有晦暗和柔和的色调。在这素净的背景上，两块橙色的补丁显得野性十足———好像伤口里的勃勃生气。
塞丝看看自己的手，又看看两只深绿色的袖子，心想，房子里的颜色少得多么可怜，而她并未像贝比那样惦念它们，又是多么不可思议。故意的，她暗道，肯定是故意的，因为她女儿墓石上的粉红颗粒是她记得的最后一样颜色。从那以后，她就变得像母鸡一样色盲了。每天清晨她负责做水果排、土豆和蔬菜，厨子做汤、肉和所有别的。她却没有任何印象，告诉她自己记住过一只嫩苹果或者一个黄南瓜。每个黎明她都看到曙光，却从未辨认或留心过它的色彩。这不大对头。仿佛有一天她看见了红色的婴儿的血，另一天看见了粉红色的墓石的颗粒，色彩就到此为止了。