諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第10章Part 3

Denver watches as Beloved bends over, curls up and rocks. Her eyes go to no place; her moaningis so small Denver can hardly hear it.
"You all right? Beloved?"
Beloved focuses her eyes. "Over there. Her face."
Denver looks where Beloved's eyes go; there is nothing but darkness there.
"Whose face? Who is it?"
"Me. It's me."
She is smiling again.
THE LAST of the Sweet Home men, so named and called by one who would know, believed it.
The other four believed it too, once, but they were long gone. The sold one never returned, the lostone never found. One, he knew, was dead for sure; one he hoped was, because butter and clabberwas no life or reason to live it. He grew up thinking that, of all the Blacks in Kentucky, only thefive of them were men. Allowed, encouraged to correct Garner, even defy him. To invent ways ofdoing things; to see what was needed and attack it without permission. To buy a mother, choose ahorse or a wife, handle guns, even learn reading if they wanted to — but they didn't want to sincenothing important to them could be put down on paper.

丹芙看見寵兒彎下身去，蜷縮成一團晃動着。她的眼裏空洞無物；她的呻吟這樣輕，丹芙幾乎聽不見。
"你沒事吧？寵兒？"
寵兒調整着眼睛的焦點。"在那兒。她的臉。"
丹芙跟着寵兒的眼睛走；除了黑暗什麼也沒有。
"誰的臉？是誰？"
"我。是我。"
她又笑起來。
最後一個"甜蜜之家"的男人，被如此命名、而且被相識者如此稱呼的那個人，曾經篤信這個名字。
其他四個也曾經篤信過，可是他們早已不在了。賣掉的那個再沒回來，丟掉的那個再沒找到。有一個，他知道，肯定死了；另一個，他希望也死了，因爲牛油和酸奶疙瘩不是生活，也不是生活的理由。他從小到大，一直有這個想法，那就是，在肯塔基所有的黑人當中，只有他們五個是男子漢。加納允許和鼓勵他們糾正他，甚至可以反對他。他們能夠發明幹活的方法；看看需要什麼，不用批准就着手去辦。可以贖出一個母親，挑選一匹馬或者一個妻子，擺弄槍支；要是他們願意的話，甚至可以學習讀書——可他們並不願意，因爲對於他們來說，任何重要的事情都不能寫在紙上。