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Powered by苏兰朵小说《寻找艾薇儿》读后点滴。
欣喜地读到苏兰朵刊于《鸭绿江》月刊，而后被《小说选刊》选载的中篇小说《寻找艾薇儿》。
小说描述了两个年轻的“狗贩子”在现代都市生活中心灵挣扎的经历和故事，通过两个“狗贩子”与一个神秘兮兮的女子相遇将故事展开。小说的故事性强，故事贴近现实，情节曲折，构思缜密合理，语言质感可触。小说写了两个性格相近的“狗贩子”。如果处理对比强烈，一黑一红，一柔一刚，两个性格相反的人物，往往相对容易一些。而要处理两个性格相近的文学人物，难度就出来了，就更考验写作者的真功夫了。
小说分8个小段落。
1段是全篇的铺垫，将主人公张三和二毛引介出来。起笔干脆果断，没有赘肉。“我贩狗为生,今年二十六岁,叫张顺飞.”
2段处理得精妙，问题也抛出来。艾小姐真的真的能那么傻吗？自己养的宠物难道自己还不认识吗？还是另有其他隐情？这些也是阅读者的将信将疑，也是阅读者所猜测的。艾小姐至此一直戴着神秘的面纱。
3段和4段是作者以倒记时的方式引领阅读者似乎是想揭开底牌的样子，再过十天……再过五天……，距狗毛露出本来的颜色的日子越来越近了，张三心里的忐忑也随之越来越加重了。但离揭开底牌的时刻还有一段距离呢。3段和4段使得小说人物心理处于一种胶着状态。
5段应该是小说的“屋脊”。一篇小说也仿佛盖一座房子，是房子就必须得有屋脊。这段如果处理得不好，整篇小说就可能有“塌腰”的感觉。而作者恰恰将这段处理得精彩纷呈。
“…………在回家的路上，我拐到干洗店，取回两天前送来的西装。进门后，我把狗关进阳台，然后冲到卫生间。我要洗个澡，还要仔细地刮一下脸，再吹一下头发，打一点定型膏。我用了阿迪达斯沐浴露，这是我昨天晚上特意去超市买的，它有一种淡淡的男士香水的味道，能遮住我身上的狗味。衬衫也准备好了，是条纹的休闲款，这样就可以不用打领带，显得随意一些，洒脱一些。还有鞋，很久不穿的皮鞋，一会需要仔细擦一下。还有什么呢？对了，还有口香糖，出门的时候要嚼两块，再带上银行卡，或许能吃顿饭吧？希望如此。我也不知道。
当我忙活完这一切，离与艾小姐约定的时间还有两个小时。我站在镜子前，打量着张三，我很满意。张三没法更帅了，配得上与艾小姐站在一起了。
我牵着狗走出家门，天气很好。树很好，草也很好。街道很好，行人也都很好。我慢慢地走，慢慢地被风吹，头发要稍微乱一点才自然，还有足够的时间。
如约抵达红旗广场，艾小姐还没来。
我点了一支烟，边吸边等。记得她上次是从北面过来的，那有一片高档住宅区。我看着那个方向，想象着她会穿什么衣服，我能远远地认出她来吗？我希望她来得晚些，再晚些。…………”
以上这一大段描述，表明了张三的心理已由“量变”过渡到了“质变”，动了真心的。但由于艾小姐的神秘面纱，张三还是忐忑的。
生活中有很多事情都是阴差阳错的，但就是在这阴差阳错间，故事发生了，缘分出现了，有趣味和有意味的东西出现了。其实小说就是对有板有眼的生活的一种调剂，使呆板的日常生活有色彩。
6段中故事进一步深入。艾小姐突然的生病而住院而失约，张三在医院里没头没脑地背扛艾小姐，更显示张三心理的焦急。
“……现在我基本可以断定，艾小姐是一个人住，即便有亲密的人，也不在身边。否则，她不会在苏醒过来之后第一个想到给我打电话，而且在再次苏醒过来之后只想到狗。……”
艾小姐面纱似乎快要被揭掉了。艾小姐在病床上将自己的房间钥匙交给张三，然后疲惫地放心地闭上眼睛。这层层递进，读者不禁会想到：艾小姐真的对一个“狗贩子”放心吗？还是通过张三对二毛们的心理的一种藐视？
人与人交往，或成为朋友，或成为仇敌，往往都是由一件意外的事件引起的。或一件芝麻小事，或一个微不足道的眼神。而看似熟悉的人（比如同事）在一起共事许多年，内心却形同陌路。小说家其实也是在寻找这样的一个“点”，关键的“点”，能使阅读者兴奋的“点”。
而艾小姐手机上突然出现的一条短信，使得艾小姐身上的神秘感再次笼罩在张三的心头。
7段是作者将艾小姐身上的迷雾不断加重。艾小姐突然的要离开这座城市了，使得她的身份重新神秘起来。使得张三也更加云里雾里了。
8段为结尾段。这一段里，底牌终于被揭开了，谜底终于出现了。但故事结局却是那么出乎人的意料。
一个饲养过宠物的人，怎么说将宠物送人就送人呢？哦，原来是这样的：“应该道歉的是我！张先生，从来就没有报纸上的那个艾薇儿。那条狗，是我凭空想象出来的。是我……用来打发寂寞的……一个游戏。”
原来是竟然是这样。竟然是这样？
作者思维缜密，故事层层递进，小说情节处理得山中见路，路中见山，相互呼应。人物处理生动有趣，结尾引人遐思。“小红”着墨不多，却也将人物形象活灵活现跃然纸上。
作为阅读者，有理由期待苏兰朵创作出更多更优秀的作品问世。
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小小说【1300只老鼠】
原作者：Coraghessan Boyle
发表时间：浏览量：5030评论数：0挑错数：0
这篇短篇小说讲述了一个鳏夫饲养蟒蛇作为自己宠物的一个故事。小说主人公杰拉德，在他的妻子去逝世后，开始养起了宠物，而此后发生了什么事... ...，敬请关注
there was a man in our village who never in his life had a pet of any kind until his wife died. By my calculation, Gerard Loomis was in his mid-fifties when Marietta was taken from him, but at the ceremony in the chapel he looked so scorched and stricken that people mistook him for a man ten or twenty years older. He sat collapsed in the front pew, his clothes mismatched and his limbs splayed in the extremity of his grief, looking as if he’d been dropped there from a great height, like a bird stripped of its feathers in some aerial catastrophe. Once the funeral was over and we’d all offered up our condolences and gone back to our respective homes, rumors began to circulate. Gerard wasn’t eating. He wouldn’t leave the house or change his clothes. He’d been seen bent over a trash barrel in the front yard, burning patent-leather pumps, brassieres, skirts, wigs, even the mink stole with its head and feet still attached that his late wife had worn with pride on Christmas, Easter, and Columbus Day.
&&&&&& 我们村子里住着这样一个人，他这一辈子直到他的妻子离世前，从来没有饲养过任何一只宠物。据我推测，当玛丽埃塔离开他时，杰拉德.卢米斯正值五十五岁左右。然而，在教堂葬礼的仪式上，他看起来是那样的憔瘁，以致于人们认为他看上去要比实际年龄老上十至二十年。他衣着不堪地瘫坐在教堂前排的长凳上，极度的悲痛，使他的四肢松软无力，仿佛如同高空中坠下一般，更似天空中惨遭横祸的折翅的小鸟。葬礼一结束，人们表达了对逝者的哀悼后，便各自回家了。随之谣言也开始传播开来。杰拉德饭也吃不下，他不愿离开这间屋子或换下他的衣服。只见他伏在前院的垃圾桶上，烧掉漆皮的轻便舞鞋，胸罩，裙子，假发甚至是从头部到脚的貂皮披肩，这是他已故妻子在圣诞节，复活节和哥伦布纪念日时穿戴的衣物。 Pe ople began to worry about him, and understandably so. Ours is a fairly close-knit community of a hundred and twenty souls, give or take a few, distributed among some fifty-two stone-and-timber houses that were erected nearly a century ago in what the industrialist B. P. Newhouse hoped would be a model of utopian living. We are not utopians, at least not in this generation, but our village, set as it is in the midst of six hundred acres of dense forest at the end of a consummately discreet road some forty miles from the city, has fostered, we like to think, a closeness and uniformity of outlook that you wouldn’t find in some of the newer developments built right up to the edges of the malls, gallerias, and factory outlets that surround them. &&&&&& 人们开始担心起杰拉德来了，这是可以理解的。我们是一个关系相当密切的拥有差不多一百二十人的社区。五十二幢石木结构的房子按需分配。这些房子是在近一个世纪前由实业家B.P纽豪斯建造的，他希望这里能成为“乌托邦”式生活的典范。我们不是理想主义者，至少我们这一代不是，可我们的村子座落在六百英亩的茂密的森林之中，密林的尽头，有一条通往城里的近四十英里的别致简朴的小路。在这里我们已习惯了这种封闭与单调的环境，在购物商场，商业街廊以及工厂四周，你找不到一些新建的建筑物。 He should have a dog, people said. That sounded perfectly reasonable to me. My wife and I have a pair of shelties (as well as two lorikeets, whose chatter provides a tranquil backdrop to our evenings by the fireplace, and one very fat angelfish in a tank all his own, on a stand in my study). One evening at dinner, my wife glanced at me over her reading glasses and said, “Do you know that, according to this article in the paper, ninety-seven per cent of pet owners say their pets make them smile at least once a day?” The shelties—Tim and Tim II—gazed up from beneath the table with wondering eyes as I fed scraps of meat into their mobile and receptive mouths.
&&&&&&& 他的确应该有一只狗陪伴他，大家都这样说。这听起来很合乎情理。我和妻子就饲养了一对谢德兰牧羊犬（还有两只鹦鹉，晚上围坐在壁炉旁，它为我们宁静的夜晚增添了多彩的画面，在书房里的落地式鱼缸中，仅放着一条体态肥硕的热带神仙鱼）。一天吃晚饭时，妻子从她那老花镜的上方向我瞥了一眼，说道，“报纸上的这篇文章说，饲养宠物的97%的人，说他们的宠物一天至少会使他们笑一次，你知道吗？”当我把肉片塞到狗张开的嘴里时，它们在桌子下用奇怪的目光注视着我。 “You think I ought to speak with him?” I said. “Gerard, I mean?” &&&&&& “你是说我应该和他说说这些？”我说。“是杰拉德吗？” “It couldn’t hurt,” my wife said. And then, the corners of her mouth sinking toward her chin, she added, “The poor man.” &&& “不能再让他痛苦下去了，”妻子说道。然后，嘴角向下沉了沉，又说，“可怜的人啊。” I went to visit him the next day—a Saturday, as it happened. The dogs needed walking, so I took them both with me, by way of example, I suppose, and because when I’m home—and not away on the business that takes me all over the world, sometimes for weeks or even months at a time—I like to give them as much attention as I can. Gerard’s cottage was half a mile or so from our house, and I enjoyed the briskness of the season—it was early December, the holidays coming on, a fresh breeze spanking my cheeks. I let the dogs run free ahead of me and admired the way the pine forest that B. P. Newhouse had planted all those years ago framed and sculpted the sky. The first thing I noticed on coming up the walk was that Gerard hadn’t bothered to rake the leaves from his lawn or cover any of his shrubs against the frost. There were other signs of neglect: the storm windows weren’t up yet, garbage overspilled the two cans in the driveway, and a pine bough, a casualty of the last storm, lay across the roof of the house like the severed hand of a giant. I rang the bell.
&&&&&& 第二天,我去拜访了杰拉德。碰巧那天是星期六，我的宠物狗们要出去遛一遛，所以我就一同把它们带了出来。比如，我想因为我的工作需要满世界的奔波，有时几星期，甚至一次要几个月在外面，因此当我在家的时候，更要尽可能多的来关心我的小家伙们。杰拉德的小房子离我家有半里地左右。我喜欢这里的清爽的季节——大致在十二月初。这个季节来临时，我享受着清新的微风轻轻地吹拂着面颊的感觉。狗在前面自由的奔跑，我羡幕&&B.P纽豪斯多年前栽下的这片松林和那塑造般的天际。我走在路上察觉到的第一件事&，就是杰拉德还未耙除自家草坪上的落叶，或给他的灌木遮挡上任何的防霜覆盖物，另外还有一些疏忽的地方：防风的窗户板仍没有安装上，马路边的两个垃圾桶内的垃圾溢落在路旁。最近一次风暴吹折的松树枝干如同巨人的大手横卧在屋顶上。我按响了杰拉德家的门铃。 & Gerard was a long time answering. When he did finally come to the door, he held it open just a crack and gazed out at me as if I were a stranger. (I was nothing of the sort—our parents had known each other, we’d played couples bridge for years and had once taken a road trip to Hyannis Port together, not to mention the fact that we saw each other at the lake nearly every day in the summer, shared cocktails at the clubhouse, and basked in an air of mutual congratulation over our separate decisions not to complicate our lives with the burden of children.)
&&&&&& 过了很长时间，屋里传来杰拉德的应答声。他总算来到了门前，他把门打开一条缝，并象陌生人似的打量着我。（我才不在乎他呢，我们的父母彼此都很熟悉。我们在一起玩耍很多年，还曾一起长途拔涉去了海安尼斯港。更不用说在夏天时，我们每天几乎都在湖边见面，俱乐部里我们共饮鸡尾酒，沐浴在阳光下，共同谈论各自的志向，而不是把生活因有孩子而弄的很复杂。） “Gerard,” I said. “Hello. How are you feeling?” &&&& “杰拉德”，我说，“嗨，现在好吗？” He said nothing. He looked thinner than usual, haggard. I wondered if the rumors were true—that he wasn’t eating, wasn’t taking care of himself, that he’d given way to despair. &&&&& 他什么也没说。他看上去比以前瘦多了。我想，如果这个传闻是事实的话——他不吃不喝，不珍惜自己。那么这样下去，他就会走上绝路。 “I was just passing by and thought I’d stop in,” I said, working up a grin, though I didn’t feel much in the mood for levity and had begun to wish I’d stayed home and let my neighbor suffer in peace. “And look,” I said, “I’ve brought Tim and Tim II with me.” The dogs, hearing their names, drew themselves up out of the frost-blighted bushes and pranced across the doormat, inserting the long damp tubes of their snouts into the crack of the door. &&&&& “我刚刚路过这里，想顺便来看看你”，我还是咧嘴笑了笑说。，尽管我的心情不是那么轻松，而且也开始希望自己待在家里就好了，好让我的这位邻居免受打扰。“就是来看看你”，我说，“我买了两只狗，一个叫蒂姆，另一个叫小蒂姆”。两只狗听到叫它们的名子，从被霜打的灌木丛中窜出来，并跃过门前的脚垫，把它们那潮湿湿的鼻子伸进门缝。 Gerard’s voice was hoarse. “I’m allergic to dogs,” he said. &&&&&&&& 杰拉德用沙哑的声音说，“我讨厌狗”。 Ten minutes later, after we’d gone through the preliminaries and I was seated on the cluttered couch in front of the dead fireplace while Tim and Tim II whined from the front porch, I said, “Well, what about a cat?” And then, because I was mortified at the state to which he’d sunk—his the house was like the lounge in a transient hotel—I found myself quoting my wife’s statistic about smiling pet owners. &&&&&& 我们寒喧了一阵子，十分钟后，我坐在冰冷壁炉前零乱的沙发上。两只狗在门廊中呜呜地叫着。我说，“不妨你养只猫吧？”他在那里低头不语，因此我打破沉默问道。他衣衫褴缕，散发出难闻的气味；屋里象一个临时的大车店。我发现自己在借用妻子有关饲养宠物会使人微笑的例证。 “I’m allergic to cats, too,” he said. He was perched uncomfortably on the canted edge of a rocker and his eyes couldn’t seem to find my face. “But I understand your concern, and I appreciate it. And you’re not the first. Half a dozen people have been by, pushing one thing or another on me—pasta salad, a baked ham, profiteroles, and pets, too. Siamese fighting fish, hamsters, kittens. Mary Martinson caught me at the post office the other day, took hold of my arm, and lectured me for fifteen minutes on the virtues of emus. Can you believe it?” &&&&&& “我也讨厌猫”他说道。他不安地坐在摇椅的一个角上，而且他的眼睛似乎看不到我的脸。“可是，我理解你的担忧，同时也赞同你的看法。不只是你，附近的许多人都是这样想的，一件又一件的事情都压在我的肩上——意面通心粉沙拉，熏火腿，空心甜饼，还有宠物，像暹罗斗鱼，仓鼠，猫等等。前几天，在邮局门口，玛利.马丁逊遇见我，一把拉住我的胳膊，给我讲了十五分钟的有关饲养驼鸟的好处，你能相信吗？ “I feel foolish,” I said. &&&&& “我真傻，”我说。 “No, don’t. You’re right, all of you—I need to snap out of it. And you’re right about a pet, too.” He rose from the chair, which rocked crazily behind him. He was wearing a stained pair of white corduroy shorts and a sweatshirt that made him look as gaunt as the Masai my wife and I had photographed on our safari to Kenya the previous spring. “Let me show you,” he said, and he wound his way through the tumbling stacks of magazines and newspapers scattered around the room and disappeared into the back hall. I sat there, feeling awkward—was this what it would be like if my wife should die before me?—but curious, too. And, in a strange way, validated. Gerard Loomis had a pet to keep him company: mission accomplished. &&&&&& “不，你是对的——我是该需要振作起来了。有关饲养宠物，你说的也是对的。”他从椅子上站了起来，摇椅在他身后剧烈地摇摆着，他下身穿着褪了色的条绒短裤，上身穿着汗衫，他的穿着打扮就象我和妻子前年春天到肯尼亚旅游时，拍到的肯尼亚马萨伊人一样瘦小。“我给你看一样东西”，他说着，便匆匆地绕过凌乱摆放在屋子里装满杂志和报纸的袋子，消失在屋子里的后厅中。我坐在那儿，感到局促不安的是，如果我的妻子先离我而去，我也会象他这样吗？然而，我也感到好奇的是，而且是用了另一种奇怪的方式，来证实杰拉德.卢米斯有一个宠物一直在陪伴着他，我就算是完成了使命。 When he came back into the room, I thought at first that he’d slipped into some sort of garish jacket or cardigan, but then I saw, with a little jolt of surprise, that he was wearing a snake. Or, that is, a snake was draped over his shoulders, its extremities dangling beyond the length of his arms. “It’s a python,” he said. “Burmese. They get to be twenty-five feet long, though this one’s just a baby.” &&&&&& &当他返回屋里时，我起初在想，他可能是去匆忙穿上一件象样的夹克或羊毛衫，但是此时，有点令我吃惊地看到，他穿着一条蛇，换句话说，那是一条蛇披在他的肩上，它的躯体悬挂着超出了他的手臂的长度。“这是蟒蛇”，他说。“缅甸产的，虽说这只是一条幼蛇，它可长到二十五米长。” I must have said something, but I can’t really recall now what it was. I wasn’t a herpetophobe or anything like that. It was just that a snake wasn’t what we’d had in mind. Snakes didn’t play fetch, didn’t bound into the car panting their joy, didn’t speak when you held a rawhide bone just above shoulder level and twitched it invitingly. As far as I knew, they didn’t do much of anything, except exist. And bite. &&&&&& 我当时肯定说了些什么，但是我现在真的记不起来当时说了些什么。我不是恐（爬）虫症，或任何类似于爬虫的东西。并非如我们所想像的那样，它不过是一条蛇。蛇可不是拿来玩耍的，它不会因窜上你的车里而高兴不已，它仅仅是爬上你的肩头缠绕蠕动。据我所知，他们不会做出任何过多的表现，只是活着、撕咬而已。 “So what do you think?” he said. His voice lacked enthusiasm, as if he were trying to convince himself. &&&&&& “你看这蛇怎么样”，他用冰冷的声音问道，好象在说服自己。 “Nice,” I said. &&&&& “很好”我说道。 I don’t know why I’m telling this story—perhaps because what happened to Gerard could happen to any of us, I suppose, especially as we age and our spouses age and we’re increasingly set adrift. But the thing is, the next part of what I’m going to relate here is a kind of fiction, really, or a fictive reconstruction of actual events, because two days after I was introduced to Gerard’s python—he was thinking then of naming it either Jason or Siddhartha—my wife and I went off to Switzerland for an account I was overseeing there and didn’t return for more than four months. In the interval, here’s what happened. &&&&&& 我不知道为什么要讲这个故事——或许是因为杰拉德身上所发生的事，也同样可能会在我们身上发生的缘故吧，我想，尤其是到了我们这个年龄段的夫妻，无依无靠，日渐漂泊不定。接下来我要讲述的那部分具有小说的特性，不错，或者说是由现实生活中发生的事情重新虚构而成的小说。杰拉德向我们展示了他的蟒蛇——他当时正在考虑给它取个什么名字，要么叫詹森，或者叫悉达多什么的——两天后，我和妻子就动身去了瑞士，因为我要在哪儿申请个开户行账号，而且要四个多月后才能回来。在这段时间里，事情就发生了。 There was a heavy snowfall the week before Christmas that year, and for the space of nearly two days the power lines were down. Gerard woke the first morning to a preternaturally cold house, and his first thought was for the snake. The man in the pet shop at the mall had given him a long lecture before he bought the animal. “They make great pets,” he’d said. “You can let them roam the house if you want, and they’ll find the places where they’re comfortable. And the nice thing is they’ll come to you and curl up on the couch or wherever, because of your body heat, you understand.” The man—he wore a name tag that read “Bozeman” and he looked to be in his forties, with a gray-flecked goatee and his hair drawn back in a patchily dyed ponytail—clearly enjoyed dispensing advice. As well he should, seeing that he was charging some four hundred dollars for a single reptile that must have been as common as a garden worm in its own country. “But most of all, especially in this weather, you’ve got to keep him warm. This is a tropical animal we’re talking about here, you understand? Never—and I mean never—let the temperature fall below eighty.” &&&&&& 那年圣诞节前的一个星期里，雪下得很大。将近两天的大雪，压断了供电线路。杰拉德一大早醒来，面对的是异常寒冷的屋子，此时，他首先想到了他的那条蛇。他买这条蛇之前，在购物商场的宠物店里，卖家给他上了好长时间的培训课。"它们是最好的宠物。”店主说。“如果你想让它们在房间里爬动，它们就会找一个舒适的地方。然而他们最大的好处是，它们会跟随你并盘绕在睡椅上，或者其他什么地方。你知道，人的身体有热量。”店主身上穿着标有“勃兹曼”名字的外衣，看上去有四十岁左右，留着灰白的山羊胡子，头发向后梳着染过的凌乱的马尾辫子————他正享受着自己给别人提出的一系列忠告。同样，他当然也很清楚，为了这条极普通的爬行动物，向他人索要四百多美元，这样的爬行动物，在他们乡下如同园林里的蠕虫，随处可见。“可是，最重要的，尤其是在这个季节，你可得让它保暖。我们在这儿谈论的是热带动物，你明白吗？决不要——我的意思是说，温度一定不要低于华氏八十度。” Gerard tried the light on the nightstand, but it was out. Ditto the light in the hall. Outside, the snow fell in clumps, as if it had been preformed into snowballs somewhere high in the troposphere. In the living room, the thermostat read sixty-three degrees, and when he tried to click the heat on nothing happened. The next thing he knew he was crumpling newspaper and stacking kindling in the fireplace, and where were the matches? A quick search around the house, everything a mess (and here the absence of Marietta bit into him, down deep, like a parasitical set of teeth), the drawers stuffed with refuse, dishes piled high, nothing where it was supposed to be. Finally, he retrieved an old lighter from a pair of paint-stained jeans on the floor in the back of the closet and he had the fire going. Then he went looking for Siddhartha. He found the snake curled up under the kitchen sink where the hot-water pipe fed into the faucet and dishwasher, but it was all but inanimate, as cold and slick as a garden hose left out in the frost. &&&&&& 杰拉德试图打开床头灯，但灯没亮。同样他又去开走廊里的灯。屋外，大雪倾泻，仿佛大气层中老天爷事先安排好的一般向下抛着雪球。客厅里温度显示摄氏六十三度，可是，当他按下开关时，却一点反应都没有。紧接着，他揉搓着报纸，把它堆积在壁炉里，可是火柴在哪儿呢？他快速地在屋子里各处寻找着，屋子里乱的一团糟（）抽屉里塞满了东西，能够想象到，除了一堆碗碟高高地摞在一起，其余什么东西都没有。最后，他在壁橱后面的地板上，一条沾满油渍的牛仔裤中找到了一个老式的打火机，他点燃了火。然后，他开始寻找他的宠物悉达多。他发现它蜷缩在厨房的洗碗池下面，哪里有流经水笼头和洗碗机的热水管，尽管如此，蛇还是几乎冻僵了，就像寒冷天气中，被遗忘在田园里用来浇水的软管一样，冰冷光滑，毫无生气。 It was surprisingly heavy, especially for an animal that hadn’t eaten in the two weeks it had been in the house, but he dragged it, stiff and frigid, from its cachette and laid it before the fireplace. While he was making coffee in the kitchen, he gazed out the window on the tumble of the day and thought of all those years that he’d gone to work in weather like this, in all weathers, actually, and felt a stab of nostalgia. Maybe he should go back to work—if not in his old capacity, from which he was gratefully retired, then on a part-time basis, just to keep his hand in, just to get out of the house and do something useful. On impulse he picked up the phone, thinking to call Alex, his old boss, and sound him out, but the line was down, too. &&&&&& 他把僵硬冰冷的蛇，从它的藏匿处吃力地拖到了壁炉前。简直是太重了，更让他吃惊的是，它已有两个星期没吃东西了。他一边在厨房中煮着咖啡，一边注视着窗外糟糕的天气。他回想起这些年来，在这样的天气，实际上不论什么天气，他都已出去工作了，此时，一种怀旧的心情涌上心头。他本应该重返工作的——要不是自己的无能，要不是退休后贪图舒适的生活，找份兼职工作，以保持自己的工作技能并走出家门，做一些有意义的事情。他一时心血来潮，抓起电话，想给他以前的老板亚历克斯打电话试探一下。可是，电话线也断了。 Back in the living room, he sank into the couch with his coffee and watched the snake as it came slowly back to itself, its muscles shivering in slow waves from head to tail, like a soft breeze trailing over a still body of water. By the time he’d had a second cup of coffee and fixed himself an egg on the gas range, the crisis—if that was what it was—had passed. Siddhartha seemed fine. He never moved much even in the best of times, with the heat on high and the electric blanket that Gerard had bought for him draped across the big Plexiglas terrarium he liked to curl up in, so it was difficult to say. Gerard sat there a long while, stoking the fire, watching the snake unfurl its muscles and flick the dark fork of its tongue, until a thought came to him: Maybe Siddhartha was hungry. When Gerard had asked the pet-shop proprietor what to feed him, Bozeman had answered, “Rats.” Gerard must have looked dubious, because the man had added, “Oh, I mean, you can give him rabbits when he gets bigger, and that’s a savings, really, in time and energy, because you won’t have to feed him as often, but you’d be surprised—snakes, reptiles in general, are a lot more efficient than we are. They don’t have to stoke the internal furnace all the time with filet mignon and hot-fudge sundaes, and they don’t need clothes or fur coats, either.” He paused to gaze down at the snake, where it lay in its terrarium, basking under a heat lamp. “I just fed this guy his rat yesterday. You shouldn’t have to give him anything for a week or two, anyway. He’ll let you know.” &&&&& 回到客厅，他一头扎进沙发里，手里端着咖啡观察着蛇的动静，这时它慢慢地苏醒过来。身上的肌肉从头至尾缓缓地颤抖着，像一阵轻风掠过平静的水面。这时他已经喝了第二杯咖啡并且自己在煤气灶上放好一个鸡蛋，关键时刻，如果是这样的话，那它已经过去了。悉达多看上去情况有了好转。他已把电热毯的温度调到了最高档位，即使在温度最好的情况下，很难说他从未动过。这是他专门为他买的。用它盖在树脂玻璃做的育养箱上面，几乎要把育养箱包裹起来了。杰拉德在哪儿坐了好长时间，他一边拨弄着火，一边观察着蛇那没有皮毛的身体和轻轻吐出黑色的分叉的舌信，直到这时，他萌生一个念头：也许悉达多饿了。杰拉德曾问过宠物店的老板喂它什么吃，勃兹曼回答说，“老鼠。”杰拉德看上去将信将疑，所以这个人又说道，“哦，我是说，如果它吃得多的时候，你给他喂兔子吃，并且这样真的很节省，既方便又使它增加活力，因为你不可能会时常去喂它，但让你惊奇的是——蛇，一般来说，爬行动物会比我们人类的适应能力更强。它们不可能总是在壁炉旁边吃上一顿菲力牛排和饮上一杯热巧克力圣代的。而且，他们也不需要衣服，或者是毛发。”他停顿下来注视着躺在养育箱中的蛇，它正在加热灯下取着暖。“我昨天才给这家伙喂了老鼠，一两个星期内，你可以不用喂它任何东西，总之，它会向你要吃的。” &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& &&&&& “如何要呢？”他耸了耸肩问道。 A shrug. “Could be a color thing, where you notice his pattern isn’t as bright, maybe. Or he’s just, I don’t know, what you’d call lethargic.” “身上的颜色会有些变化，你注意到它身上的花纹暗下来，或许是这样吧。或者，刚好你所说的它无精打采的样子，我不知道是不是这个样子的。” They’d both looked down at the snake then, its eyes like two pebbles, its body all but indistinguishable from the length of rough wood it was stretched out on. It was no more animate than the glass walls of the terrarium, and Gerard wondered how anyone, even an expert, could tell if the thing was alive or dead. Then he wrote the check. &&&&&& 于是，他们俩低下头看着蛇，它的眼睛就像两粒卵石一般，躯体如粗糙的木头伸展着，几乎分辨不出它的轮廓来。如同养育箱的玻璃墙一样没有活力，此时，杰拉德想知道，即使是行家，如何来辨别这东西是死了还是活着。随后他就填写了支票单。 But now he found himself chafing at an idea: the snake needed to be fed. Of course it did. It had been two weeks—why hadn’t he thought of it before? He was neglecting the animal, and that wasn’t right. He got up from the couch to close off the room and build up the fire, then went out to shovel the driveway and take the car down the long, winding community road to the highway and on into Newhouse and the mall. It was a harrowing journey. Trucks threw blankets of slush over the windshield, and the beating of the wipers made him dizzy. When he arrived, he was relieved to see that the mall had electricity, the whole place lit up like a Las Vegas parade for the marketing and selling of all things Christmas, and with a little deft maneuvering he was able to wedge his car between a plowed drift and the handicapped space in front of the pet store. &&&&&& 此刻他的心情有些不耐烦了：蛇该喂食了。应该是这样。已经有两个星期没喂了——为什么他以前没有想到呢？他疏忽了，这是他的不对。他从沙发上起来，关上门，又加了一把火，然后他出去清理一下车道，开车驶往通向高速公路的漫长崎岖的社区之路,到购物商场。这是一次痛苦的旅程。卡车掀起的污泥遮盖住挡风玻璃，刮水器有节奏的晃动令他眩晕。他到了商场后，他看到哪里没有停电，顿时感到轻松了许多。整个商场灯火通明，就像拉斯维加斯的交易市场和出售圣诞节的各种用品一样人群川流不息。他毫不费劲的能把他的车塞进宠物店前的堆积物和残疾人用的空间里。 Inside, Pets & Company smelled of nature in the raw, every creature in every cage and glassed-in compartment having defecated simultaneously, just to greet him, or so he imagined. The place was superheated. He was the only customer. Bozeman was up on a footstool, cleaning one of the aquariums with a vacuum tube. “Hey, man,” he said, his voice a high singsong. “Gerard, right? Don’t tell me.” He reached back in a practiced gesture to smooth down his ponytail, as if he were petting a cat or a ferret. “You need a rat. Am I right?” &&&&&& 宠物店里面充满了原生动物的气味，同时，每一个装有动物的笼子里和用玻璃罩住的空间里，到处是动物的粪便，刚好呈现在他的眼前，这是他所料到的事情。这里热极了。他是唯一的一个客人。勃兹曼站在脚凳上，正在用真空管清理其中的一个水族馆箱。“嘿，朋友，”他说，他节奏平缓地大声说道。“杰拉德，还好吧？别跟我说。”他用熟练的动作把手伸向脑后，梳弄着他的马尾辫子，好像在抚弄着一只小猫或者是一只白鼬。“你需要一只老鼠，我说的对吧？” The rat—he didn’ Bozeman had gone into the back room to fech it—came in a cardboard container with a molded carrying handle on top, the sort of thing you got if you asked for a doggie bag at a restaurant. The animal was heavier than Gerard had expected, shifting its weight mysteriously from one corner of the box to another as he carried it out into the snow and set it on the seat beside him. He turned on the fan after he’d started up the engine, to give it some heat—but then it was a mammal, he figured, with fur, and it could warm itself. And, in any case, it was dinner, or soon to be. The roads were slick. Visibility was practically zero. He crawled behind a snowplow all the way back to Newhouse Gardens, and when he came in the door he was pleased to see that the fire was still going strong. &&&&&& 老鼠——他没看见；勃兹曼已去后屋拿老鼠去了——他进来时拿来一个纸箱子，上面有一个类似的把手，这种东西就像你去餐馆时用来打包的食物袋子。这个动物要比杰拉德想象的要重些，当勃兹曼顶着雪走出来并把它放在杰拉德座位旁边时，箱子里动物的重量神秘的从箱子的一角偏向另一角。汽车发动着后，他打开暖风，给箱子里的动物增加点热量——不过，他想这是哺乳动物，有皮毛，而且它自己能够取暖。再者说了，不管怎样，它迟久将会成为晚餐的。路面很光滑。能见度几乎为零。返回纽豪斯的一路上，他跟在除雪机的后边缓慢地爬行着，在他走进房间时，他高兴地看到壁炉中的火仍然着的很旺盛。 All right. He set down the box and then dragged the python’s terrarium across the floor from the bedroom to the living room and set it to one side of the fireplace. Then he lifted the snake—it was noticeably warm to the touch on the side that had been closest to the fire—and laid it gently in the terrarium. For a moment, it came to life, the long run of muscles tensing, the great flat slab of the head gearing around to regard him out of its stony eyes, and then it was inert again, dead weight against the Plexiglas floor. Gerard bent cautiously to the rat’s box—would it spring out, bite him, then scurry away across the floor to live behind the baseboard forever, like some cartoon incarnation?—and, with his heart pounding, lowered the box into the terrarium and opened the lid.
&&&&&& 一切准备就绪。他放下箱子，把装有蟒蛇的养育箱从卧室拖到客厅并把它放在壁炉的一侧。然后，他提起蛇——靠近火的那一边的身体摸上去明显有了温度——把它轻柔地放回玻璃容器内。一会儿，蛇苏醒过来，它绷紧的躯体舒展开来，巨大扁平的头四处转动着，用他那无情的目光注视着周围，随后，它又失去了活力，头部重重地倒向树脂玻璃地板上。杰拉德弯下腰，小心翼翼地接近装老鼠的箱子——一旦老鼠窜出来咬他时，就象一些动画片里的人物一样，可以跨过地板，永远躲藏在护墙板上面吗？——而且他的心也怦怦直跳，他把纸箱放进玻璃容器里，打开盖子。 The rat—it was white, with pink eyes, like the lab rats he’d seen arrayed in their cages in the biology building when he was a student—slid from the box like a lump of gristle, then sat up on its haunches and began cleaning itself, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be transported in a doggie bag and dumped into a glass-walled cavern in the presence of a tongue-flicking reptile. Which might or might not be hungry.
&&&&&& 老鼠——白色，红眼睛，就像他上学时在生物教学楼里所看到的依序排列的实验老鼠一般——像一团软骨组织一样从纸箱中滑落下来，于是这些小老鼠坐在那开始清理自己的皮毛，仿佛觉得被装在食物袋子里，然后被倒进四周为玻璃墙的洞穴里，面对一条在吐着蛇信的爬行动物——无论它是饿了或是不饿，是最自然不过的事情了。 For a long while, nothing happened. Snow ticked at the windows, the fire sparked and settled. And then the snake moved ever so slightly, the faintest shifting of the bright tube of its scales, energy percolating from the deepest core of its musculature, and suddenly the rat stiffened. All at once it was aware of the danger it was in. It seemed to shrink into itself, as if by doing so it could somehow become invisible. Gerard watched, fascinated, wondering how the rat—reared in some drowsy pet warehouse, slick and pink and suckling at its mother’s teats in a warm gregarious pack of its pink siblings, generations removed from the wild and any knowledge of a thing like this snake and its shining elongate bulk—could recognize the threat. Very slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees, the snake lifted its head from the Plexiglas floor, levelling on the rat like a sculpture come to life. Then it struck, so quickly that Gerard nearly missed it, but the rat, as if it had trained all its life for just this moment, was equal to it. It sprang over the snake’s head in a single frantic leap and shot to the farthest corner of the terrarium, where it began to emit a series of birdlike cries, all the while fastening its inflamed eyes on the white hovering face of Gerard. And what did he feel? He felt like a god, like a Roman emperor with the power of fatality in his thumb. The rat scrabbled at the Plexiglas. The snake shifted to close in on it. &&&&&& 过了好长时间，什么事情都没发生。大雪拍打着窗户，火仍然在燃烧着。不大一会儿，蛇微微的活动了，周身附着鳞片，发着亮光的滚圆身体软绵绵的挪动着，能量从它的肌肉组织的最深处向外扩散，突然间，老鼠惊呆了，立刻意识到危险在向它们逼近。它们似乎要缩成一团，仿佛只有这样，才能使自己隐藏起来。杰拉德着迷般的注视着，他想知道老鼠——它们生长在宠物店里，整日昏昏欲睡。在温暖的兄弟姐妹的大家族中，生的溜光水滑，粉嘟嘟的，在吸吮着母亲的乳头。一代一代的使它们丧失了大自然的野性，并且有关象蛇这类的东西以及其发亮的伸长的大块头，一概不知——是如何知道威胁存在的呢。慢慢地，几乎在不易察觉的角度，蛇从玻璃板上抬起头，像一尊鲜活的雕塑，瞄向老鼠。随后，蛇开始攻击了，速度如此之快，杰拉德几乎没有看清楚。然而，老鼠此时就象有由生俱来的本领一样，应对着蛇的攻击。它疯狂的一跳，越过蛇的头部，飞快地逃向玻璃箱内最远处的一个角落，在哪里它发出像鸟鸣一般的阵阵叫声，同时，瞪大惊恐的双眼盯着悬在上方杰拉德苍白的脸孔。可是他的感觉会是怎样呢？他觉得自己象上帝一样，象一个掌握生死大权的罗马皇帝。老鼠在玻璃箱里挣扎着，蛇又在向它靠拢了。 And then, because he was a god, Gerard reached into the terrarium and lifted the rat up out of the range of his python. He was surprised at how warm the animal was, and how quickly it accommodated itself to his hand. It didn’t struggle or try to escape but simply pressed itself against his wrist and the trailing sleeve of his sweater as if it understood, as if it were grateful. In the next moment he was cradling the rat against his chest, the pulse of its heart already slowing. He went to the couch and sank into it, uncertain what to do next. The rat gazed up at him, shivered the length of its body, and promptly fell asleep.
&&&&&&& 由于自己是上帝，于是，他把手伸进玻璃箱拿出老鼠，他惊奇的发现这小家伙真暖和，而且很顺从地呆在他的手里，它没有挣扎也没有企图逃掉，只是贴在他的手腕上，尾随在他毛衣的袖口处，就像很懂事一样，也像是在表达感激之情似地。接下来，他把老鼠捧在胸前，它的心跳慢慢地平静下来。他来到沙发前，一屁股坐进沙发里，他在想下一步该做什么。老鼠注视着他，整个身体颤抖着，不久就进入了梦乡。 The situation was novel, to say the least. Gerard had never touched a rat in his life, let alone allowed one to curl up and sleep in the weave of his sweater. He watched its miniature chest rise and fall, studied the intricacy of its naked feet that were like hands, saw the spray of etiolated whiskers, and felt the suppleness of the tail as it lay between his fingers like the suède fringe of the jacket he’d worn as a boy. The fire faltered, but he didn’t rise to feed it. When finally he got up to open a can of soup, the rat came with him, awake now and discovering its natural perch on his shoulder. He felt its fur like a caress on the side of his neck, and then the touch of its whiskers and fevered nose. It stood on its hind legs and stretched from Gerard’s lap to the edge of the table as he spooned up his soup by candlelight, and he couldn’t resist the experiment of extracting a cube of potato from the rich golden broth and feeding it into the eager, mincing mouth. And then another. And another. When he went to bed, the rat came with him, and if he woke in the dark of the night—and he did, twice, three times—he felt its presence beside him, its spirit, its heart, its heat, and it was no reptile, no cold thankless thing with a flicking tongue and two dead eyes, but a creature radiant with life.
&&&&&& 紧要关头，至少可以说是在讲故事了。杰拉德一辈子从来没碰过老鼠，更不必说让一只老鼠蜷缩在他的毛衣里睡大觉了。他望着老鼠上下起伏的小胸脯，琢磨着它的象手一样的裸露的小脚，看着它苍白的雾气状的胡须，他还感觉到了手指间它那柔软的尾巴，好像他童年时穿旧的夹克服下摆边缘的绒面毛边。火苗忽暗忽明，可是他并没有添加燃料。最后他起来打开一个汤罐时，他才发现自己身上还带着老鼠，它现在醒过来了并安然自得地栖息在他的肩头。他感到它的皮毛在他脖子的一侧抚摸着，紧接着是它的尾巴和热乎乎的鼻子。当他拿着蜡烛用勺子盛汤时，老鼠用后腿站立，从杰拉德的膝盖处伸展身体上到了桌子的边沿，即使这样，也不能阻止他从丰盛的黄橙橙的肉汤里捞出一块土豆，况且他急不可耐地渴望吃到嘴里。于是捞出一块又一块。当他睡觉时老鼠也跟着他，如果睡到半夜醒来——他的确醒来两三次——他感到他的身边尽是老鼠，它的身影、它的心跳，而且这不是爬行动物，不是吐着舌信，还有两只呆板眼睛的冷酷无情的东西，而是一个温暖的有活力的小家伙。 The house was very cold when he woke to the seeping light of morning. He sat up in bed and looked around him. The face of the clock radio was blank, so the electricity must still have been down. He wondered about that, but when he pushed himself up and set his bare feet on the floor it was the rat he was thinking about—and there it was, nestled in a fold of the blankets. It opened its eyes, stretched, and then climbed into the palm he offered it, working its way up inside the sleeve of his pajamas until it was balanced on his shoulder again. In the kitchen, he turned on all four gas burners and the oven, too, and shut off the room to trap the heat. It wasn’t until the kettle began to boil that he thought about the fireplace—and the snake stretched out in its terrarium—but by then it was too late. &&&&&& 早晨，他醒来时，阳光渗透进冰冷的屋子。他坐在床上环顾四周，带定时功能的收音机闹钟钟面一片空白，因此，他知道昨夜一直没有来电。他感到困惑不解的是，当他撑起身子光着脚踩到地板时，他在想着老鼠——果然有一只老鼠，身子紧贴在地毯的折叠处。它睁着眼睛，舒展着身体，然后，爬进了他伸过去的手掌里，在他那宽大的睡衣里向上爬去，直到再一次稳稳地站到他的肩膀上。在厨房里他拧开所有四个燃气炉，还有烤箱，并且，他关上屋门保存热量。直到壶水烧开了，他才想到了壁炉——可是蛇在玻璃箱里已经冻的僵直了——但是那时已经来不及了。 He returned to the pet store that afternoon, reasoning that he might as well convert the snake’s lair into a rat’s nest. Or no, that didn’t sound right—that was what his mother used to call his boyhood room. He’d call it a rat apartment. A rat hostel. A rat— Bozeman grinned when he saw him. “Not another rat?” he said, something quizzical in his eyes. “He can’t want another one already, can he? But then with Burms you’ve got to watch for obesity—they’ll eat anytime, whether they’re hungry or not.” &&&&&& 那天下午他又返回宠物店，照此推测，莫不如把蛇窝儿变成养老鼠的地方。不行，这样听起来不妥——那是她母亲过去称之为他的“童年空间”的屋子，他要把它叫作“老鼠公寓”，“老鼠旅店”。老鼠——勃兹曼看见他时就咧着嘴笑。“不再来一个老鼠吗？”他眼神中露出某种古怪的神情说道。“他（蛇）已经不想再要了，对吗？不过，你这种缅甸产的蟒蛇要当心患肥胖症——不管饿不饿，它们任何时候都想吃东西。” Even under the best of conditions, Gerard was not the sort to confide in people he barely knew. “Yes” was all he said, in answer to both questions. And then he added, “I may as well take a couple of them while I’m here.” He looked away. “To save me the trip.” &&&&&& 即使在心情最好的情形下，杰拉德也是守口如瓶的样子。他只是用一个“是”字，便回答了两个问题。随后他又说，“我既然来了，还是拿几个吧。”他把脸转过去。“省的我白跑一趟。” Bozeman wiped his hands on the khaki apron he wore over his jeans and came out from behind the cash register. “Sure,” he said. “Good idea. How many you want? They’re five ninety-nine each.” &&&&&& 勃兹曼在他的卡其布围裙上擦了擦手，披上牛仔服，从收款机后面走了出来。“没问题，”他说。“好主意。你想要多少？五元九毛九一只。” Gerard shrugged. He thought of the rat at home, the snugness of it, the way it sprang across the carpet in a series of little leaps or shot along the baseboard as if blown by a hurricane wind, how it would take a nut in its hands and sit up to gnaw at it, how it loved to play with anything he gave it—a paper clip, an eraser, the ridged plastic top of an Evian bottle. In a moment of inspiration, he decided to call it Robbie, after his brother in Tulsa. Robbie. Robbie the Rat. And Robbie needed company, needed playmates, just like any other creature. Before he could think, he said, “Ten?” &&&&&& 杰拉德耸耸肩。他想到了家中的老鼠，想到了它的偎依，想到了它一连串的在地毯上蹦来蹦去的样子，或者是急速跑过墙壁的基线板时，犹如一阵飓风吹过，它如何用爪子抓起一粒坚果，并坐下来啃咬着，它是多么喜欢和他给它的任何一件东西一起玩耍——曲别针、橡皮和法国埃维昂矿泉水瓶上面的凸起的所料。一瞬间他来了灵感，他决定称它为罗比，那是他在塔尔萨（译者注：美国俄克拉菏马州东北部城市）居住的他兄弟的名字。罗比。老鼠罗比。可是罗比需要同伴，就像其它动物一样，它需要玩伴。他顾不上考虑了，说道，“十只？” “Ten? Whoa, man, that is going to be one fat snake.” &&&&&&&& “十只？哦，你这个人啊，这足可以把蛇喂得很粗壮的。” “Is that too many?” “这还多吗？” Bozeman slicked back his ponytail and gave him a good, long look. “Hell, no—I mean, I’ll sell you all I’ve got if that’s what you want, and everything else, too. You want gerbils? Parakeets? Albino toads? I’m in business, you know—pets for sale. This is a pet shop, comprende? But I tell you, if that Burm doesn’t eat them P.D.Q., you’re going to see how fast these things breed. . . . I mean, the females can go into heat, or whatever you want to call it, at five weeks old. Five weeks.” He shifted his weight and moved past Gerard, gesturing for him to follow. They stopped in front of a display of packaged food and bright-colored sacks of litter. “You’re going to want Rat Chow,” he said, handing him a ten-pound sack, “and a bag or two of these wood shavings.” Another look. “You got a place to keep them?” &&&&&&& 勃兹曼向后梳理着他的马尾辫子，并仔细打量了他好一阵子。“见鬼，不——我是说，我所有的你想要的东西，我都卖给你，还有别的其它的东西都可以。要沙鼠（译者注：南非传播鼠疫的啮齿动物）吗？还有鹦鹉和白蟾蜍？我是做生意的，你知道——卖宠物的。这是宠物店，comprende（译者注：法语comprende意为，你明白吗）？不过，我得告诉你，如果蛇不尽快吃掉它们，你就会发现这些东西繁殖相当快了... ...我的意思是，就像人们所说的，母鼠五周大就会发情。五个星期。”他转过身子来到杰拉德面前，示意他跟着他走。他们在一个食品袋前停下脚步，那是一个色泽鲜艳的垃圾袋子。“你就要得到鼠食品了，”他说着递给他一个能装十磅重东西的袋子，“在这些木质存储物中拿出一两袋。”又仔细看了看。“你有地方存放他们吗？” By the time he left the store, Gerard had two wire cages (with cedar-plank flooring so the rats wouldn’t contract bumblefoot, whatever that was), twenty pounds of rat food, three bags of litter, and two super-sized doggie bags with five rats in each. Then he was home and shutting the door to keep out the cold even as Robbie, emerging from beneath the pillows of the couch, humped across the floor to greet him and all the lights flashed on simultaneously.
&&&&&& 离开宠物店后，杰拉德自带了两个钢丝笼子（笼子里铺上松木板，因此，老鼠不会弄伤爪子，弄不伤爪子就行），二十磅的鼠食，三个垃圾袋子，还有每个里面能装五只老鼠的两个超大食品袋。于是他回到了家关紧门，生怕冷空气吹进屋里，他进门时刚巧蛇从睡椅上的枕头下面露出头来，蜷伏着穿过地板来向他问候，同时身上闪着亮光。 It was mid-April by the time my wife and I returned from Switzerland. Tim and Tim II, who’d been cared for in our absence by our housekeeper, Florencia, were there to greet us, acting out their ecstasy on the doorstep and then carrying it into the living room with such an excess of animation that it was all but impossible to get our bags in the door before giving them their treats, a thorough back-scratching, and a cooed rehearsal of the little endearments they were used to. It was good to be home, back to a real community, after all that time spent living in a sterile apartment in Basel, and, what with making the rounds of the neighbors and settling in both at home and at work, it wasn’t till some weeks later that I thought of Gerard. No one had seen him, save for Mary Martinson, who’d run into him in the parking lot at the mall, and he’d refused all invitations to dinner, casual get-togethers, ice-skating on the lake, even the annual Rites of Spring fund-raiser at the clubhouse. Mary said that he’d seemed distracted and that she’d tried to engage him in conversation, thinking he was still locked in that first stage of grieving and just needed a little nudge to get him on track again, but he’d been abrupt with her. And she didn’t like to mention it but he was unkempt—and he smelled worse than ever. It was startling, she said. Even outdoors, standing over the open trunk of his car, which was entirely filled, she couldn’t help noticing, with something called Rat Chow, even with the wind blowing and a lingering chill in the air, he gave off a powerful reek of sadness and body odor. Someone needed to look in on him, that was her opinion. &&&&&& 四月中旬，我和妻子从瑞士回到家里。蒂姆和小蒂姆出来迎接我们的归来，我们离开的这段时间里，女管家弗洛伦莎照看着它们。只见它们在门前的台阶上欢天喜地的表演着，随后我们怀着及其兴奋的心情，把他们带进客厅，在款待它们之前，用搔痒耙给他们全身挠上一遍，然后像从前一样，只是轻轻的爱抚，它们就会发出咕咕的叫声。重新回到了社区的生活之中，回家的感觉就是好。毕竟那段时间一直住在巴塞尔的一家毫无生气的公寓里，况且，无论是呆在公寓里，还是外出办事，总是忙于四处拜访，熟悉居住的周围环境，直到几星期后才想起杰拉德。除了玛丽.马丁逊外，没有人看见过他。马丁逊是在购物商场的停车场碰见过他，而且他还拒绝了所有的邀请，诸如晚宴邀请、临时聚会和湖面上滑冰，甚至是俱乐部筹资人组织的每年一次的春日典礼活动。玛丽说他似乎很痛苦，而且她试图想和他搭话，他总是把自己关在屋子里，考虑到他正值因失去妻子而处在悲伤时期，他只是需要有人拉他一把，使他重新振作起来。可是他一直对她态度生硬。然而她不愿提及到他是如此的邋遢不堪——而且身上的味道比以前更难闻。这太令人震惊了，她说。即使在室外，站在他车打开的后备厢哪里，也是充满了难闻的气味。她察觉到那是一种被称之为“鼠食”的气味。这气味随风飘来，弥漫在冰冷的空气中。杰拉德的精神和肉体中散发出一种强烈的腐臭味道。她建议大家有必要去看看他了。 I waited till the weekend, and then, as I’d done back in December, I took the dogs down the wide, amicable streets, through the greening woods, and over the rise to Gerard’s cottage. The day was glorious, the sun climbing toward its zenith, moths and butterflies spangling the flower gardens, the breeze sweetened with a scent of the South. My neighbors slowed their cars to wave as they passed, and a few people stopped to chat, their engines rumbling idly. Carolyn Porterhouse thrust a bouquet of tulips at me and a mysterious wedge-shaped package wrapped in butcher paper, which proved to be an Emmentaler—“Welcome home,” she said, her grin anchored by a layer of magenta lipstick—and Ed Saperstein stopped right in the middle of the road to tell me about a trip to the Bahamas that he and his wife had taken on a chartered yacht. It was past one by the time I got to Gerard’s. &&&&&& 我一直等到周末，记得有一年的十二月份，我牵着狗走在宽敞平静的大街上，穿过绿荫，途径坐落高处的杰拉德家的茅屋。那天天气非常好，太阳升到了最高点，花园里的蝴蝶波光闪亮，轻柔的微风中充溢着南方的气息。邻居们从此经过时，他们放慢车速向我打着招呼，还有几个人会停下车来闲聊，而让发动机隆隆地空转着。在卡洛琳小酒馆，店主会硬塞给我一束郁金香和一个神秘的用黄油纸包裹着的楔形纸包，这纸包原来是一块上乘的奶酪——“欢迎来到本店，”她咧嘴笑道，嘴角上挂着一层红紫色的唇膏——在去巴哈马旅行行程过半时，赛普斯泰（译者注：美国最大的交通信息（报道）提供商，为1300多家广播电台和114家电视台提供交通报告资料，由 56 岁的塞普斯泰（David Saperstein）创立。）的路况信息中断了，他和妻子只好租赁一艘游艇了。这是我去杰拉德家的一段往事。 I noticed right off that not much had changed. The windows were streaked with dirt, and the yard, sprouting weeds along the margins of the unmowed lawn, looked as neglected as ever. The dogs bolted off after something in the deep grass, and I shifted the bouquet under one arm, figuring I’d hand it to Gerard, to cheer him up a bit, and rang the bell. There was no answer. I tried a second time, then made my way along the side of the house, thinking to peer in the windows—for all anyone knew, he could be ill, or even, God forbid, dead. &&&&&& 我立刻注意到杰拉德的房子没有太多的变化。窗户上斑驳的灰尘，院子里未曾平整的草坪杂草丛生，看起来一切依旧。狗在深草丛中不知在追逐着什么东西，我把花束夹在腋下，盘算着要把它递给杰拉德，让他高兴一点，我按响了门铃。没有动静。我又试了一次，然后我来到屋子的一侧，想从窗户窥视一下——尽管人们知道，他或许病倒了，甚至，他死了。但愿不会发生这样的事。 The windows were nearly opaque, with a scrim of some sort of pale fluff or dander. I rapped at the glass and thought I saw movement within, a kaleidoscopic shifting of shadowy forms, but couldn’t be sure. It was then that I noticed the odor, saturated and bottom-heavy with ammonia, like the smell of a poorly run kennel. I mounted the back steps through a heavy accounting of discarded microwave-dinner trays and a tidal drift of feed bags and knocked uselessly at the door. The wind stirred. I looked down at the refuse at my feet and saw the legend “Rat Chow” replicated over and over in neon-orange letters, and that should have been all the information I needed. Yet how was I to guess? How was anyone? &&&&&&& 窗户上挂着薄棉布窗帘，上面有些泛白的绒毛或说是一些毛屑。我轻叩着玻璃，而且我认为我看见了屋里有东西在移动，如万花筒般在晃动的身影，但是我不敢确定。紧接着我又闻到了一股气味，很浓的高浓度氨水的味道，就像狗窝里散发出的气味。我爬上后面的台阶，穿过一大堆估计是用于微波炉中的托盘，四处飘荡的食品袋无助地拍打着屋门。我朝下看了一眼脚边的垃圾，发现了反复折叠起来的用虹橙色印刷体注明有“鼠食”二字的说明书，然而这一切都给我提供了线索。现在我该如何去猜测呢？其他人又如何去猜测呢？ Later, after I’d presented the bouquet and the cheese to my wife, I tried Gerard’s phone and, to my surprise, he answered on the fourth or fifth ring. “Hello, Gerard,” I said, trying to work as much heartiness into my voice as I could. “It’s me, Roger, back from the embrace of the Swiss. I stopped by today to say hello, but—” &&&&&&& 最后，我只好把这束花和奶酪呈献给我的妻子，之后我拨通了杰拉德家的电话，让我惊奇的是，铃声响过四五声之后，他竟然接起了电话。“你好，杰拉德，”我尽可能用非常关切的语调说道。“是我，罗杰，离开瑞士人的怀抱了，我今天顺便给你打个招呼，可是——” He cut me off then, his voice husky and low, almost a whisper. “Yes, I know,” he said. “Robbie told me.” 随后他打断了我的话语，他的声音沙哑而低沉，几乎在耳语。“是的，我知道了，”他说。“罗比已经告诉我了。” If I wondered who Robbie was—a roommate? a female?—I didn’t linger over it. “Well,” I said, “how’re things? Looking up?” He didn’t answer. I listened to the sound of his breathing for a moment, then added, “Would you like to get together? Maybe come over for dinner?” &&&&&&&&& 令我不解的是，罗比是谁——同居的人？女人？——我没多加考虑。“啊，”我说，“一切都好吗？我去看看你？”他没有回答。我听到了他片刻的喘气声，于是我又说，“要不我们聚一聚？能过来吃晚饭吗？” There was another long pause. Finally, he said, “I can’t do that.” 又停顿了好长一会儿，最后，他说，“我不能去了。” I wasn’t going to let him off so lightly. We were friends. I had a responsibility. We lived in a community where people cared about one another and where the loss of a single individual was a loss to us all. I tried to inject a little jocularity into my voice: “Well, why not? Too far to travel? I’ll grill you a nice steak and open a bottle of C?tes du Rh?ne.” &&&&&& 我不能这样漠不关心地让他离去。我们是朋友。我有义务帮助他。我们同住在一个相互关爱的社区，并且，在这里失去一个人，对我们大家来说都是个损失。我尽量在话语中插入诙谐的语调：“哦，为什么不呢? 旅途太远？我给你烤最好的牛排而且再来一瓶隆河葡萄酒。” “Too busy,” he said. And then he said something I couldn’t quite get hold of at the time. “It’s nature,” he said. “The force of nature.” &&&&&& “实在太忙了，”他说。于是他又说了些什么，当时没听清楚。“这是大自然，”他说。“大自然的力量。” “What are you talking about?” &&&&&& “你在说什么？” “I’m overwhelmed,” he said, so softly that I could barely hear him, and then his breathing trailed off and the phone went dead. &&&&&&& “我不行了，”他说，声音很微弱，我几乎听不到他的声音，后来，他的呼吸渐渐消失了，电话那端死一般沉寂。 They found him a week later. The next-door neighbors, Paul and Peggy Bartlett, noticed the smell, which seemed to intensify as the days went on, and when there was no answer at the door they called the Fire Department. I’m told that when the firemen broke down the front door a sea of rodents flooded out into the yard, fleeing in every direction. Inside, the floors were gummy with waste, and everything, from the furniture to the plasterboard walls and the oak beams of the living-room ceiling, had been gnawed and whittled till the place was all but unrecognizable. In addition to the free-roaming animals, there were hundreds more rats stacked in cages, most of them starving and many cannibalized or displaying truncated limbs. A spokeswoman for the local A.S.P.C.A. estimated that there were upward of thirteen hundred rats in the house, most of which had to be euthanized at the shelter because they were in no condition to be sent out for adoption.
&&&&&&& 星期以后人们才察觉到他。他的邻居保罗和佩吉.巴特利特闻到一股难闻的气味，似乎觉得这气味一天比一天浓，于是，他们敲他的门也没有应答，就报了火警。我得知，当消防人员破门而入时，一群啮齿动物蜂拥跑进院子里，四处逃窜。屋子里地板上到处是粘糊糊的排泄物，从家俱到墙壁纸，再到客厅里天花板上的橡木房梁，已被鼠啮的不堪入目，难以辨明出本来的面目。除了散放的这些动物之外，还有数百只老鼠装在笼子里，它们大多饥饿难耐，而且还有很多老鼠自相残食，或看见一些缺肢少腿的。据当地的a.s.p.c.a.发言人推测，屋里大约不下一千三百只老鼠，由于没有条件放养，大多数老鼠在其藏身处已自然死亡了。 As for Gerard, he’d apparently succumbed to pneumonia, though there were rumors of hantavirus, which really put a chill into the community, especially with so many of the rodents still at large. We all felt bad for him, of course, I more than anyone else. If only I’d been home through the winter, I kept thinking, if only I’d persisted when I’d stood outside his window and caught the odor of decay, perhaps I could have saved him. But then I kept coming back to the idea that there must have been some deep character flaw in him that none of us had recognized—he’d chosen a snake for a pet, for God’s sake, and that low animal had somehow morphed into this horde of creatures that could only be described as pests, as vermin, as enemies of mankind that should be exterminated, not nurtured. And that was another thing that neither my wife nor I could understand: how could he allow even a single one of them to come near him, to fall under the caress of his hand, to sleep with him, eat with him, breathe the same air? &&&&&& 至于杰拉德，显然是死于肺炎，尽管有传闻说是他感染了汉坦病毒（Hantavirus)给社区蒙上了阴影，尤其是还有大量的啮齿动物。当然，我们对他的不幸感到很痛苦，我更是如此。我一直在想，如果我冬天一直呆在家里，如果我站在他窗外时多加追问并注意到着腐烂的气味，或许我就能挽救他的生命。可是我当时又想到这必定是他个人性格上的瑕疵，我们大家没有一个人曾经察觉到——他选择蛇作为自己的宠物，看在上帝的份上，而老鼠那种动物以某种方式繁殖成群，只能说是害虫、寄生虫、人类的敌人，应该消灭它，而不是加以饲养。我和妻都不明白的另一件事情是：他怎么会，即使是一只老鼠接近她，抚摸它并与他同寝、同食、同呼吸？ For the first two nights, I could barely sleep, playing over that horrific scene in my mind. How could Gerard have sunk so far? How could anyone? &&&&&& 事后的头两天夜里，我几乎没睡，大脑中始终浮现出这可怖的场景。杰拉德如何消沉到这种地步？其他人都如此吗？ The ceremony was brief, the casket closed (and there wasn’t one of us who wanted to speculate on the reason, though it didn’t take an especially active imagination to picture Gerard’s final moments). I was very tender with my wife afterward. We went out to lunch with some of the others, and when we got home I pressed her to me and held her for a long while. And though I was exhausted, I took the dogs out on the lawn to throw them their ball and watch the way the sun struck their rollicking fur as they streaked after the rumor of it, only to bring it back, again and again, and lay it in my palm, still warm from the embrace of their jaws. ? &&&&&&& 葬礼仪式很简短，棺木封盖上了（然而大家没有去想象杰拉德最后时刻的画面，我们当中没人去猜测他的死因）我拖着虚弱的身子和妻子跟在人群的后面。我们与其他人一样精神恍惚。回到家时，我抱住妻子，就这样呆了好长时间。尽管我已筋疲力尽，还是牵着狗来到草坪上，把球扔给它们并就这样看着阳光梳理着它们的绒毛，此事的传言过后，它们也在撒着欢嬉戏，球竟然一次又一次地转回来，我把它放在手掌上，仍然能感受到狗嘴巴遗留下的温暖。
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