John Steinbeck

∷蔣素華 選注

一顆意外獲得的珍珠使主人公吉諾以及周圍其他人頓生貪婪之心，吉諾滿以為賣掉珍珠，一家人從此可以過上好日子，不料珍珠商們聯(lián)合起來殺價，還有人半夜來他家偷珍珠。奇諾的妻子胡安娜認為這是一顆不祥之物，準備偷偷把它扔回海里，奇諾追上奪了回來，在回家的路上他們又遭到伏擊，奇諾殺了偷襲者，但是他們的茅屋被大火吞噬，他們賴以生存的小船也遭人毀壞。

吉諾一家開始了逃亡生涯，在逃亡的途中又遇到了追殺，他們的幼兒被流彈擊中而亡，在瘋狂和憤恨中奇諾殺了幾個追捕者，最后和妻子踏上歸途，并把那顆帶來災(zāi)難的大珍珠扔向大海。

這期為《珍珠》一書第六章的節(jié)選。

Kino moved silently back into the cave.Juana’s eyes were two sparks re flecting a low star. Kino crawled quietly close to her and he put his lips near to her cheek.

“There is a way,” I he said.

“But they will kill you.”

“If I get first to the one with the ri fle,” Kino said, “I must get to him first, then I will be all right. Two are sleeping.”

Her hand crept out from under her shawl and gripped his arm. “They will see your white clothes in the starlight.”

“No,” he said. “And I must go before moonrise.”

He searched for a soft word and then gave it up.“If they kill me,” he said, “l(fā)ie quietly. And when they are gone away, go to Loreto.”

Her hand shook a little, holding his wrist.

“There is no choice,” he said. “It is the only way.They will find us in the morning.”

作者約翰·斯坦貝克

Her voice trembled a little. “Go with God,” she said.

He peered closely at her and he could see her large eyes. His hand fumbled out and found the baby, and for a moment his palm lay on Coyotito’s head. And then Kino raised his hand and touched Juana’s cheek, and she held her breath.

Against the sky in the cave entrance Juana could see that Kino was taking off his white clothes, for dirty and ragged（破爛的）though they were they would show up against the dark night. His own brown skin was a better protection for him. And then she saw how he hooked his amulet（護身符）neck-string about the horn handle of his great knife, so that it hung down in front of him and left both hands free. He did not come back to her. For a moment his body was black in the cave entrance, crouched and silent, and then he was gone.

Juana moved to the entrance and looked out. She peered like an owl from the hole in the mountain,and the baby slept under the blanket on her back, his face turned sideways against her neck and shoulder.She could feel his warm breath against her skin,and Juana whispered her combination of prayer and magic, her Hail Marys （萬?，旣悂啠?and her ancient intercession（代禱）, against the black unhuman things.

The night seemed a little less dark when she looked out, and to the east there was a lightening in the sky, down near the horizon where the moon would show. And, looking down, she could see the cigarette of the man on watch.

Kino edged like a slow lizard down the smooth rock shoulder. He had turned his neck-string so that the great knife hung down from his back and could not clash against the stone. His spread fingers gripped（抓牢）the mountain, and his bare toes found support through contact, and even his chest lay against the stone so that he would not slip. For any sound, a rolling pebble or a sigh, a little slip of flesh on rock, would rouse the watchers below.Any sound that was not germane（與……有密切關(guān)系的） to the night would make them alert. But the night was not silent; the little tree frogs that lived near the stream twittered（嘰嘰喳喳地叫） like birds, and the high metallic (金屬的) ringing of the cicadas（蟬） filled the mountain cleft（裂縫）. And Kino’s own music was in his head, the music of the enemy, low and pulsing, nearly asleep. But the Song of the Family had become as fierce and sharp and feline（像貓一樣的）as the snarl（咆哮）of a female puma. The family song was alive now and driving him down on the dark enemy. The harsh cicada seemed to take up its melody, and the twittering tree frogs called little phrases of it.

And Kino crept silently as a shadow down the smooth mountain face. One bare foot moved a few inches and the toes touched the stone and gripped,and the other foot a few inches, and then the palm of one hand a little downward, and then the other hand, until the whole body, without seeming to move, had moved. Kino’s mouth was open so that even his breath would make no sound, for he knew that he was not invisible. If the watcher, sensing movement, looked at the dark place against the stone which was his body, he could see him. Kino must move so slowly he would not draw the watcher’s eyes. It took him a long time to reach the bottom and to crouch（蹲伏）behind a little dwarf（矮小的）palm. His heart thundered（劇烈跳動） in his chest and his hands and face were wet with sweat. He crouched and took great slow long breaths to calm himself.

Only twenty feet separated him from the enemy now, and he tried to remember the ground between. Was there any stone which might trip him in his rush? He kneaded（揉捏）his legs against cramp（抽筋）and found that his muscles were jerking（痙攣）after their long tension. And then he looked apprehensively（擔(dān)心地）to the east.The moon would rise in a few moments now, and he must attack before it rose. He could see the outline of the watcher, but the sleeping men were below his vision. It was the watcher Kino must find—must find quickly and without hesitation. Silently he drew the amulet string over his shoulder and loosened the loop from the horn handle of his great knife.

He was too late, for as he rose from his crouch the silver edge of the moon slipped above the eastern horizon, and Kino sank back behind his bush.

《珍珠》封面

It was an old and ragged moon, but it threw hard light and hard shadow into the mountain cleft, and now Kino could see the seated figure of the watcher on the little beach beside the pool. The watcher gazed（注視）full at the moon, and then he lighted another cigarette, and the match illumined（照亮）his dark face for a moment. There could be no waiting now; when the watcher turned his head, Kino must leap. His legs were as tight as wound springs.

And then from above came a little murmuring cry. The watcher turned his head to listen and then he stood up, and one of the sleepers stirred（蘇醒）on the ground and awakened and asked quietly,“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” said the watcher. “It sounded like a cry, almost like a human—like a baby.”

The man who had been sleeping said, “You can’t tell. Some coyote bitch with a litter（母郊狼和它的崽子）. I’ve heard a coyote pup（幼小的動物） cry like a baby.”

The sweat rolled in drops down Kino’s forehead and fell into his eyes and burned them. The little cry came again and the watcher looked up the side of the hill to the dark cave.

“Coyote maybe,” he said, and Kino heard the harsh click as he cocked（豎起）the ri fle.

“If it’s a coyote, this will stop it,” the watcher said as he raised the gun.

Kino was in mid-leap when the gun crashed and the barrel- flash（槍筒里迸出的火花）made a picture on his eyes. The great knife swung and crunched（刀扎下去的嘎吱聲）hollowly. It bit through neck and deep into chest, and Kino was a terrible machine now. He grasped the ri fle even as he wrenched free his knife. His strength and his movement and his speed were a machine. He whirled and struck the head of the seated man like a melon. The third man scrabbled（掙扎） away like a crab, slipped into the pool, and then he began to climb frantically（瘋狂地）, to climb up the cliff where the water penciled down（細流而下）. His hands and feet threshed（抽打） in the tangle（纏繞） of the wild grapevine, and he whimpered（嗚咽，啜泣） and gibbered （急促不清地說話） as he tried to get up. But Kino had become as cold and deadly as steel. Deliberately he threw the lever（槍桿）of the ri fle, and then he raised the gun and aimed deliberately and fired. He saw his enemy tumble backward into the pool, and Kino strode to the water. In the moonlight he could see the frantic eyes,and Kino aimed and fired between the eyes.

And then Kino stood uncertainly. Something was wrong, some signal was trying to get through to his brain. Tree frogs and cicadas were silent now. And then Kino’s brain cleared from its red concentration and he knew the sound—the keening（慟哭）,moaning, rising hysterical cry from the little cave in the side of the stone mountain, the cry of death.

Everyone in La Paz remembers the return of the family; there maybe some old ones who saw it, but those whose fathers and whose grandfathers told it to them remember it nevertheless. It is an event that happened to everyone.

It was late in the golden afternoon when the first little boys ran hysterically in the town and spread the word that Kino and Juana were coming back.And everyone hurried to see them. The sun was settling toward the western mountains and the shadows on the ground were long. And perhaps that was what left the deep impression on those who saw them.

The two came from the rutted（有車轍的）country road into the city, and they were not walking in single file （成一列縱隊）, Kino ahead and Juana behind, as usual, but side by side. The sun was behind them and their long shadows stalked ahead, and they seemed to carry two towers of darkness with them. Kino had a ri fle across his arm and Juana carried her shawl（披肩）like a sack over her shoulder. And in it was a small limp heavy bundle. The shawl was crusted with dried blood,and the bundle swayed（來回搖擺）a little as she walked. Her face was hard and lined and leathery（似皮革的） with fatigue and with the tightness with which she fought fatigue. And her wide eyes stared inward on herself. She was as remote and as removed as Heaven. Kino’s lips were thin and his jaws tight, and the people say that he carried fear with him, that he was as dangerous as a rising storm. The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side; that there was almost a magical protection about them. And those people who had rushed to see them crowded back and let them pass and did not speak to them.

Kino and Juana walked through the city as though it were not there. Their eyes glanced neither right nor left nor up nor down, but stared only straight ahead. Their legs moved a little jerkily, like well-made wooden dolls, and they carried pillars of black fear about them. And as they walked through the stone and plaster city brokers（經(jīng)紀人）peered at them from barred windows and servants put one eye to a slitted （裂縫的） gate and mothers turned the faces of their youngest children inward against their skirts. Kino and Juana strode side by side through the stone and plaster city and down among the brush houses, and the neighbors stood back and let them pass. Juan Tomas raised his hand in greeting and did not say the greeting and left his hand in the air for a moment uncertainly.

In Kino’s ears the Song of the Family was as fierce as a cry. He was immune （沒有反應(yīng)的）and terrible, and his song had become a battle cry.They trudged（邁著沉重的步伐走） past the burned square where their house had been without even looking at it. They cleared the brush that edged the beach and picked their way down the shore toward the water. And they did not look toward Kino’s broken canoe.

And when they came to the water’s edge they stopped and stared out over the Gulf. And then Kino laid the ri fle down, and he dug among his clothes, and then he held the great pearl in his hand. He looked into its surface and it was gray and ulcerous（有斑點的）. Evil faces peered from it into his eyes, and he saw the light of burning.And in the surface of the pearl he saw the frantic eyes of the man in the pool. And in the surface of the pearl he saw Coyotito lying in the little cave with the top of his head shot away. And the pearl was ugly; it was gray, like a malignant（惡性的）growth. And Kino heard the music of the pearl,distorted（扭曲的） and insane. Kino’s hand shook a little, and he turned slowly to Juana and held the pearl out to her. She stood beside him, still holding her dead bundle over her shoulder. She looked at the pearl in his hand for a moment and then she looked into Kino’s eyes and said softly, “No, you.”

And Kino drew back his arm and flung the pearl with all his might（力氣）. Kino and Juana watched it go, winking（眨眼）and glimmering（閃爍）under the setting sun. They saw the little splash in the distance, and they stood side by side watching the place for a long time.

And the pearl settled into the lovely green water and dropped toward the bottom. The waving branches of the algae（海藻）called to it and beckoned（召喚）to it. The lights on its surface were green and lovely. It settled down to the sand bottom among the fern-like（蕨類）plants. Above, the surface of the water was a green mirror. And the pearl lay on the floor of the sea. A crab scampering over the bottom raised a little cloud of sand, and when it settled the pearl was gone.

And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared.

小說插圖