《魔法師的外甥》第22期:滅絕咒(4)
"Beast!" muttered Polly.
"The last great battle," said the Queen, "raged for three days here in Charn itself. For three days I looked down upon it from this very spot. I did not use my power till the last of my soldiers had fallen, and the accursed woman, my sister, at the head of her rebels was halfway up those great stairs that lead up from the city to the terrace. Then I waited till we were so close that we could see one another's faces. She flashed her horrible, wicked eyes upon me and said, "Victory." "Yes," said I, "Victory, but not yours." Then I spoke the Deplorable Word. A moment later I was the only living thing beneath the sun.",
"But the people?" gasped Digory.
"What people, boy?" asked the Queen.
"All the ordinary people," said Polly, "who'd never done you any harm. And the women, and the children, and the animals."
"Don't you understand?" said the Queen (still speaking to Digory). "I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?"
"It was rather hard luck on them, all the same," said he.
"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny."
Digory suddenly remembered that Uncle Andrew had used exactly the same words. But they sounded much grander when Queen Jadis said them; perhaps because Uncle Andrew was not seven feet tall and dazzlingly beautiful.
"And what did you do then?" said Digory.
"I had already cast strong spells on the hall where the images of my ancestors sit. And the force of those spells was that I should sleep among them, like an image myself, and need neither food nor fire, though it were a thousand years, till one came and struck the bell and awoke me."
"Was it the Deplorable Word that made the sun like that?" asked Digory.
"Like what?" said Jadis
"So big, so red, and so cold."
"It has always been so," said Jadis. "At least, for hundreds of thousands of years. Have you a different sort of sun in your world?"
"Yes, it's smaller and yellower. And it gives a good deal more heat."
The Queen gave a long drawn "A-a-ah!" And Digory saw on her face that same hungry and greedy look which he had lately seen on Uncle Andrew's. "So," she said, "yours is a younger world."
She paused for a moment to look once more at the deserted city - and if she was sorry for all the evil she had done there, she certainly didn't show it - and then said: "Now, let us be going. It is cold here at the end of all a the ages."
"Going where?" asked both the children.
"Where?" repeated Jadis in surprise. "To your world, of course."
“最後一次大戰，”女王說，“在恰恩城裏打了三天。那三天，我就在這兒觀戰。我一直沒有使用魔法，直到我的最後一批戰士倒下。那可惡的女人，也就是我的姐姐．帶領她的叛軍．已經走到了從城市通向這個臺地的大臺階的一半。我等候着，當我們互相能看清對方的臉時，她用那雙可怕的邪惡的眼睛盯粉我，說‘勝利了。’‘是的，’我說，‘勝利了，但不是你的勝利。’接着，我說出了滅絕咒。頃刻間，我就是太陽下惟一的活物了。”
“可是，那些人呢。”迪格雷氣喘吁吁地問。
“什麼人，孩子？”女王問。
“所有的替通人，”波莉說，“他們又沒有傷害你。婦女，孩子，還有動物。”
“你還不明白嗎？”女王仍然對着迪格雷說．“我是女王，他們都是我的臣民，除了服從我的意志外還能幹什麼呢？”
“不管怎麼說，他們都是很倒黴的。”迪格雷說。
“我剛纔忘了，你不過是個普通的男孩，你怎麼會明白執政者的理由呢？你必須懂得，孩子，對你或者對其他凡人來說錯誤的事，對我這樣的女王來說是不稱其爲錯的。天下的重擔壓在我們肩上。我們必須從所有律法的約束中解脫出來。我們命定是高貴而孤獨的。”
迪格雷突然想起，安德魯舅舅也說過完全相同的話，但這些話由簡蒂絲女王說出來，就顯得莊嚴、自負得多，可能是因爲安德魯舅舅沒有七尺高，也沒有美得驚人的外貌吧。
“然後呢？”迪格雷說。
“我預先對存放我祖先塑像的大廳施了強有力的魔咒。這魔咒使我自己也變得像一稱塑像沉睡在他們中間，一千年不吃飯，不烤火，直到有人進來，敲鐘喚醒我。”
“太陽這種模樣是滅絕咒造成的嗎？”迪格雷問。
“什麼模樣？”簡帶絲問。
“又大，又紅，又冷。”
“一直是這樣的，”簡蒂絲說，“至少，已經上千年了。你們的太陽不一樣嗎？”
“是的，要小一些，黃一些，發出的熱量要多得多。”
“啊——!
”女王長長地嘆息一聲。迪格雷從她臉上看到了他最近從安德魯舅舅的臉上看到過的那種飢餓和貪婪的表情。“那麼，”她說，“你們的世界要年輕一些。”她停了停，再次望了一眼荒涼的城市——要是說她爲自己的罪惡感到內疚，那麼，她當然沒有表露出來——然後說：
“好了，我們走吧。這兒是世紀的末日，太冷了。”
“去哪兒，”兩個孩子一起問。
