諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第2章Part 11

She shook her head no and reached down to take off her shoes.
She pulled her dress up to the knees and rolled down her stockings.
When the hosiery was tucked into the shoes, Sethe saw that her feet were like her hands, soft andnew. She must have hitched a wagon ride, thought Sethe. Probably one of those West Virginiagirls looking for something to beat a life of tobacco and sorghum. Sethe bent to pick up the shoes.
"What might your name be?" asked Paul D.
"Beloved," she said, and her voice was so low and rough each one looked at the other two. Theyheard the voice first — later the name.
"Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?" Paul D asked her.
"Last?" She seemed puzzled. Then "No," and she spelled it for them, slowly as though the letterswere being formed as she spoke them.
Sethe dropped the shoes; Denver sat down and Paul D smiled. He recognized the carefulenunciation of letters by those, like himself, who could not read but had memorized the letters oftheir name. He about to ask who her people were but thought better of it. A young coloredwomandriftin(was) g was drifting from ruin. He had been in Rochester four years ago and seenfive women arriving with fourteen female children. All their men — brothers, uncles, fathers,husbands, sons — had been picked off one by one by one. They had a single piece of paperdirecting them to a preacher on DeVore Street. The War had been over four or five years then, butnobody white or black seemed to know it. Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered the backroads and cowpaths from Schenectady to Jackson. Dazed but insistent, they searched each otherout for word of a cousin, an aunt, a friend who once said, "Call on me. Anytime you get nearChicago, just call on me." Some of them were running from family that could not support them,some to family; some were running from dead crops, dead kin, life threats, and took-over land.
Boys younger than Buglar and Howard; configurations and blends of families of women andchildren, while elsewhere, solitary, hunted and hunting for, were men, men, men. Forbidden public transportation, chased by debt and filthy "talking sheets," they followed secondary routes, scannedthe horizon for signs and counted heavily on each other. Silent, except for social courtesies, whenthey met one another they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from oneplace to another. The whites didn't bear speaking on. Everybody knew.
So he did not press the young woman with the broken hat about where from or how come. If shewanted them to know and was strong enough to get through the telling, she would. What occupiedthem at the moment was what it might be that she needed. Underneath the major question, eachharbored another. Paul D wondered at the newness of her shoes. Sethe was deeply touched by hersweet name; the remembrance of glittering headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her. Denver, however, was shaking. She looked at this sleepy beauty and wanted more.
Sethe hung her hat on a peg and turned graciously toward the girl.
"That's a pretty name, Beloved. Take off your hat, why don't you, and I'll make us something. We just got back from the carnivalover near Cincinnati. Everything in there is something to see."

她搖頭否認，又伸手去脫鞋。
她把裙子提到膝蓋，然後搓下長統襪。
當她把襪子塞進鞋窠，塞絲看到她的腳像她的手一樣，又軟又嫩。她肯定搭了輛大車，塞絲想。大概是那種西弗吉尼亞的姑娘，來尋找比菸草和高粱的生活更勝一籌的東西。塞絲彎腰拾起鞋子。
“你叫什麼名字？”保羅?D問。
“寵兒。”她答道，嗓門又低又粗，他們仨不禁互相看了看。他們先聽見的是喉音———然後纔是名字。
“寵兒。你有個姓嗎，寵兒？”保羅?D問她。
“姓？”她好像糊塗了。然後她說“沒有”，又爲他們拼寫了名字，慢得好像字母是從她嘴裏發明的。
塞絲失手掉了鞋子；丹芙坐下來；而保羅?D微笑起來。他聽出了拼字母時那種小心翼翼的發音，所有像他一樣目不識丁、只會背自己名字字母的人都那樣念。他本想打聽一下她的家人是誰，但還是忍住了。一個流浪的黑人姑娘是從毀滅中漂泊而來的。他四年前去過羅徹斯特，在那兒看見五個女人，帶着十四個女孩從別處來。她們所有的男人———兄弟、叔伯、父親、丈夫、兒子———都一個一個又一個地被槍殺了。她們拿着一張紙片到德沃爾街的一個牧師那裏去。那時戰爭已經結束四五年了，可是白人黑人似乎都不曉得。臨時搭夥的和失散的黑人們在從斯克內克塔迪到傑克遜的鄉間道路和羊腸小徑上游蕩。他們茫然而堅定，相互打聽着一個表兄、一個姑母、一個說過“來找我吧。什麼時候你到芝加哥附近，就來找我吧”的朋友的消息。在他們中間，有些是從食不果腹的家裏出逃的；有些是逃回家去；也有些是在逃離不育的莊稼、亡親、生命危險和被接管的土地。
有比霍華德和巴格勒還小的男孩；有婦孺之家組合和混合在一起結成的大家庭；而與此同時孤獨地淪落他鄉、被捕捉和追趕的，是男人，男人，男人。禁止使用公共交通，被債務和骯髒的“罪犯檔案”追逐着，他們只好走小路，在地平線上搜尋標記，並且嚴重地彼此依賴。除了一般性的禮節，他們見面時是沉默的，既不訴說也不過問四處驅趕他們的悲傷。白人是根本不能提起的。誰都清楚。
所以他沒有逼問那個弄破了帽子的年輕姑娘，她是從哪裏、怎麼來的。如果她想讓他們知道，而且也能堅強地講完，她會講的。他們此刻想的是，她可能需要什麼。在這個關鍵問題之外，每個人都藏着另一個問題。保羅?D發現她的鞋是嶄新的，覺得蹊蹺。塞絲被她那甜美的名字深深打動了；關於閃閃發光的墓石的記憶，使她備感親切。丹芙，卻在顫抖。她望着這個瞌睡美人，想得更多。
塞絲把帽子掛在木釘上，慈愛地轉向那個姑娘。
“是個可愛的名字，寵兒。幹嗎不摘下你的帽子？讓我來給大家做點吃的。我們剛從辛辛那提附近的狂歡節上回來。那兒什麼都值得一瞧。”