love的英語閱讀jesse

『陸』 lovejessestuart全文

愛
作者 傑斯·斯圖亞特

昨天，當明朗的太陽照耀在枯萎的玉米上時，我的父親和我走在新開墾的土地邊，准備做一個柵欄。牛群在懸崖上不斷從栗子橡樹中穿過，並踩踏玉米苗。它們咬掉玉米苗的頂端，踏碎玉米的須茬。
我的父親走在玉米地田梗上。鮑勃，我們的牧羊犬，走在我父親的前面。我們聽到一隻地松鼠在空地邊緣的枯樹的樹頂上虛張聲勢地吹著口哨。「來吧，幹掉他，鮑勃。」我的父親說道。他舉起一根玉米苗，苗的根部已經枯萎脫水，地松鼠為了遺留在柔嫩根部的甜玉米粒把它們挖了出來。這是一個乾燥的春季，泥土裡的玉米一直長得很好，已經發芽了。地松鼠喜歡這種玉米，它們把一行行玉米挖開，把甜玉米粒吃掉，幼嫩的玉米桔梗就這樣被殺死了，我們不得不重新種植。
我看到父親一直讓鮑勃去追咬那些地松鼠，他跳過了玉米行，開始向地松鼠跑去。我也向空地跑去，鮑勃正在那兒又跳又叫。塵埃在我們腳後形成一個小小的漩渦，大團的塵埃跟著我們。
「是一條公的黑蛇，」我父親說，「殺了他，鮑勃！殺了他，鮑勃！」
鮑勃跳起來抓住蛇以便讓他不能動彈，同時來個措手不及。鮑勃已經在今年春天殺了28條銅斑蛇，他知道怎樣殺死一條蛇，但他並沒有急於殺死這一條。他從容且出色地完成他的工作。
「別殺了這條蛇，」我說，「黑蛇是無害的蛇，它會殺有毒的蛇，它會殺銅斑蛇。比起貓，它在田裡能抓更多的老鼠。」
我看到那條蛇沒有攻擊狗的意圖。蛇想逃跑，鮑勃不會讓它得逞。我想知道它為什麼會爬到大山肥沃的黑土地上來；我想知道它為什麼要爬過那些栗子橡樹苗和懸崖上糾結的綠色石南。我看著蛇，它正抬起它漂亮的腦袋，作為對鮑勃一次跳躍的回應。「它不是一條公蛇，」我說，「它是一條母蛇，看它喉嚨上的白斑。」
「蛇是我的敵人，」我的父親嚴厲地說，「我討厭任何一條蛇。殺了它，鮑勃。去把它抓過來，而且不準再和它玩。」
鮑勃服從了我的父親，我討厭看到他刺穿這條蛇的喉嚨。懸在陽光中的她，看起來美麗異常。
鮑勃抓著她喉嚨上的白斑，她那像風中牛尾般長長的身體被撕裂了。他是在逆風處撕裂那身體的。血從她弧度優美的喉嚨噴射而出。什麼東西擊中了我的胳膊，像小球一樣。鮑勃把蛇仍在了地上，我看到了那個打在我胳膊上的東西。
是蛇蛋，鮑勃把它們從她的身體里拋了出來。她是要去沙丘產卵，在那兒太陽是一隻抱蛋的母雞，它將給它們溫暖並孵化它們。
鮑勃抓起她那躺在泥土上的身體，血液在那堆灰色的土壤上蔓延開來。她的身體還在因疼痛來回翻滾，她就像一棵被新燃的火威脅著的綠草般動作著。鮑勃多次惡意地投擲她的身體。他在逆風處撕裂她柔軟的身體，她現在柔軟得如同一根風中的鞋帶。鮑勃把她千穿百孔的身體扔回了沙子上。她顫抖得像一片飄在懶洋洋的風中的樹葉，隨後，她滿是窟窿的身體終於完全靜止不動了。鮮血在蛇周圍肥沃的土地上流了一片。
「看看這蛋，看見沒？」我的父親說道。我們數了數，一共37枚。我撿起一隻蛋並把它捧在我的手心裡。僅僅在一分中前，裡面是一條生命。這是一顆不成熟的種子，它不能被孵化，太陽母親無法用溫暖的土地將它孵化。在我手中的這枚蛋幾乎只有一顆鵪鶉蛋的大小，它的殼薄而堅韌，殼下似乎是一隻水蛋。
「嗯，鮑勃，我想你現在明白這條蛇為什麼不能反抗了。」我說，「這就是生活，弱肉強食，即使在人類之間，也是如此。狗殺死蛇，鳥兒殺死蝴蝶。人類征服一切，為取樂而殺戮。」
鮑勃氣喘吁吁，他帶頭返回我們的屋子。他的舌頭從嘴巴里伸了出來，他累了，他那外套一樣的茸毛讓他發熱。
他的舌頭幾乎觸到了乾燥的地面以及那上面由白色泡沫形成的白斑。我們朝屋子走去，我和父親都沒有說話。我仍想著那條死去的蛇。太陽正從栗樹嶺那兒緩緩西下，一隻雲雀正在歌唱。對於一直雲雀而言，現在唱歌已經有些晚了。紅色的晚霞在我們牧場山的松樹上方漂浮。我的父親站在道路的旁邊，他黑色的頭發隨風而動，在天藍色的風中，他的臉紅紅的，他的眼睛直直看著下沉的太陽。
「我的父親討厭蛇。」我思忖。
我想到女人分娩時體會到的痛苦；我想到她們為了拯救自己的孩子將怎樣竭力抗爭；隨後，我想到了那條蛇。我覺得有這樣想法的自己非常愚蠢。
今天早上，我的父親和我在雞鳴中醒來。他說人必須在雞鳴中起床，然後開始一天的工作。我們拿著柱坑挖掘機，斧頭，小鋤頭，測量桿和鶴嘴鋤。我們的目的地是空地邊緣。鮑勃沒有跟來。
露水還掛在玉米上。我的父親扛著柱坑挖掘機走在後面，我走在前面。起風了，這晨風呼吸起來非常舒爽，這風讓人覺得自己好似能舉著山的邊沿把山顛倒過來。
我走出玉米行，來到我們昨天下午到過的地方。我看著我前面的地方，我看到了一些東西。我看到它在移動，它像一根繞著膠盤移動的巨大的黑繩子。「別動！」我對父親說，「這里有一條公的大黑蛇。」他上前一步站在了我的旁邊，睜大了眼睛。
「你是怎麼知道他是公的？」他說。
「你現在看到這條公蛇了。」我說，「好好看看他！他正躺在他死去的伴侶旁。他找到她了。他，也許，昨天就跟隨她而來了。」
公蛇跟隨著她的足跡一路而來，直至她的厄運。他晚上就到了，在星空造的屋頂下，當顫抖的綠雲遮擋了月亮發出的光芒時。他發現自己的愛人死了。他盤在她身邊，然而她已經死去。
公蛇抬起頭跟在繞著死蛇走動的我們的後面。他將與我們戰斗到死，他將與鮑勃戰斗到死。「拿根棍子來，」我的父親說，「把他扔到山的那邊，這樣鮑勃就不會發現他了。你有見過什麼會因此打架的嗎？我聽說這種蛇會，但這是我第一次親眼見到。」我拿來一根棍子，把他扔到了懸崖那邊帶著露水的豆芽里。

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下附原文：
Love by Jesse Stuart （英語短篇小說）
Yesterday when the bright sun blazed down on the wilted corn my father and I walked around the edge of the new ground to plan a fence. The cows kept coming through the chestnut oaks on the cliff and running over the young corn. They bit off the tips of the corn and [trample]trampled[/w] down the stubble.

My father walked in the cornbalk. Bob, our Collie, walked in front of my father. We heard a ground squirrel whistle down over the bluff among the dead treetops at the clearing』s edge. "Whoop, take him, Bob." said my father. He lifted up a young stalk of corn, with wilted dried roots, where the ground squirrel had g it up for the sweet grain of corn left on its tender roots. This has been a dry spring and the corn has kept well in the earth where the grain has sprouted. The ground squirrels love this corn. They dig up rows of it and eat the sweet grains. The young corn stalks are killed and we have to replant the corn.

I could see my father keep sicking Bob after the ground squirrel. He jumped over the corn rows. He started to run toward the ground squirrel. I, too, started running toward the clearing』s edge where Bob was jumping and barking. The st flew in tiny swirls behind our feet. There was a big cloud of st behind us.

"It』s a big bull blacksnake," said my father. "Kill him, Bob! Kill him, Bob!"
Bob was jumping and snapping at the snake so as to make it strike and throw itself off guard. Bob has killed twenty-eight copperheads this spring. He knows how to kill a snake. He doesn』t rush to do it. He takes his time and does the job well.
"Let』s don』t kill the snake," I said. "A blacksnake is a harmless snake. It kills poison snakes. It kills the copperhead. It catches more mice from the fields than a cat."

I could see the snake didn』t want to fight the dog. The snake wanted to get away. Bob wouldn』t let it. I wondered why it was crawling toward a heap of black loamy earth at the bench of the hill. I wondered why it had come from the chestnut oak sprouts and the matted greenbriars on the cliff. I looked as the snake lifted its pretty head in response to one of Bob』s jumps. "It』s not a bull blacksnake," I said. "It』s a she-snake. Look at the white on her throat."

"A snake is an enemy to me," my father snapped. "I hate a snake. Kill it, Bob. Go in there and get that snake and quit playing with it!"
Bob obeyed my father. I hated to see him take this snake by the throat. She was so beautifully poised in the sunlight.

Bob grabbed the white patch on her throat. He cracked her long body like an ox whip in the wind. He cracked it against the wind only. The blood spurted from her fine-curved throat. Something hit against my legs like pellets. Bob threw the snake down. I looked to see what had struck my legs.
It was snake eggs. Bob had slung them from her body. She was going to the sand heap to lay her eggs, where the sun is the setting-hen that warms them and hatches them.

Bob grabbed her body there on the earth where the red blood was running down on the gray-piled loam. Her body was still writhing in pain. She acted like a greenweed held over a new-ground fires. Bob slung her viciously many times. He cracked her limp body against the wind. She was now limber as a shoestring in the wind. Bob threw her riddled body back on the sand. She quivered like a leaf in the lazy wind, then her riddled body lay perfectly still. The blood covered the loamy earth around the snake.

"Look at the eggs, won』t you?" said my father. We counted thirty-seven eggs. I picked an egg up and held it in my hand. Only a minute ago there was life in it. It was an immature seed. It would not hatch. Mother sun could not incubate it on the warm earth. The egg I held in my hand was almost the size of a quail』s egg. The shell on it was thin and tough and the egg appeared under the surface to be a watery egg.

"Well, Bob, I guess you see now why this snake couldn』t fight." I said. "It is life. Stronger devour the weaker even among human beings. Dog kills snake. Snake kills birds. Birds kill the butterflies. Man conquers all, too, kills for sport."
Bob was panting. He walked ahead of us back to the house. His tongue was out of his mouth. He was tired. He was hot under his shaggy coat of hair.

His tongue nearly touched the dry dirt and white flecks of foam dripped from it. We walked toward the house. Neither my father nor I spoke. I still thought of the dead snake. The sun was going down over the chestnut ridge. A lark was singing. It was late for a lark to sing. The red evening clouds floated above the pine trees on our pasture hill. My father stood beside the path. His black hair was moved by the wind. His face was red in the blue wind of day. His eyes looked toward the sinking sun.
"And my father hates a snake,"I thought.
I thought about the agony women know of giving birth. I thought about how they will fight to save their children. ThenI thought of the snake. I thought it was silly of me to think such thoughts.

This morning my father and I got up with the chickens. He says one has to get up with the chickens to do a day』s work. We got the posthole digger, ax, spud, measuring pole and the mat-tock. We started for the clearing』s edge. Bob didn』t go along.
The dew was on the corn. My father walked behind with the posthole digger across his shoulder. I walked in front. The wind was blowing. It was a good morning wind to breathe and a wind that makes one feel like he can get under the edge of a hill and heave the whole hill upside down.

I walked out the corn row where we had come yesterday afternoon. I looked in front of me. I saw something. I saw it move. It was moving like a huge black rope winds around a windlass. "Steady," I says to my father. "Here is the bull blacksnake." He took one step up beside me and stood. His eyes grew wide apart.

"What do you know about this," he said.
"You have seen the bull blacksnake now." I said. "Take a good look at him! He is lying beside his dead mate. He has come to her. He, perhaps, was on her trail yesterday."
The male snake had trailed her to her doom. He had come in the night, under the roof of stars, as the moon shed rays of light on the quivering clouds of green. He had found his lover dead. He was coiled beside her, and she was dead.

The bull blacksnake lifted his head and followed us as we walked around the dead snake. He would have fought us to his death. He would have fought Bob to his death. "Take a stick," said my father, "and throw him over the hill so Bob won』t find him. Did to you ever see anything to beat that? I』ve heard they』d do that. But this is my first time to see it." I took a stick and threw him over the bank into the dewy sprouts on the cliff.

傑斯·斯圖亞特（Jesse Stuart,1907-1984）美國小說家、詩人。他的詩集"Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow"（1934）被愛爾蘭詩人喬治·威廉 ·盧梭稱為繼沃特·惠特曼的《草葉集》之後最偉大的詩作。他的小說代表作有"Taps for Private Tussie"(1943)，著有多部自傳體小說，國內關於他的介紹和作品譯介很少，故在此還是用了其作品題目原文。