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'The charge of insensibility. The charge that I somehow blithely allowed you to arrange to take the boy to a camp meeting while fully aware that he was to be sold before you ever got to Jerusalem. Which brings me to another matter that I should mention in passing. And that is the camp meeting itself. I was in Jerusalem that Friday, which as you may remember was the first day of the revival. I believe I counted no more than twenty-four of the faithful, not including several stray cats and dogs, at the meeting grounds.They packed up and left the next day, and had you gone there with your wagonload of wild-eyed apostles you would have been greeted by a deserted field of grass. Which only goes to show that this benighted countryside cannot sustain a religious revival any more than it can feed itself. So I mention in passing that I saved you from a bad disappointment. But as for the lad in question, I must only repeat that I had no more idea that you were taking him to that camp meeting than I had knowledge that the two of you were what you describe as inseparable friends. Lacking eyes in the back of my head, or a seventh sense, I can scarcely be asked to mark the relationship between every human being among the eighty or so of all colors that exist on this property. And I think it was a great Frenchman, Voltaire, who said that the beginning of wisdom is the moment when one understands how little concerned with one's own life are other men, they who are so desperately preoccupied with their own. I knew nothing about you and that boy, nothing at all.' “对我冷漠的指责。指责我以某种无牵无挂的方式允许安排那个男孩去参加帐篷大会，而同时完全清楚，在到达耶路撒冷之前，他会被卖掉。这就让我不得不顺便提一下另一件事情。那就是帐篷大会。那个星期五我在耶路撒冷，也许您还记得，就是复兴活动的第一天。我相信，在会场上，我数过，不超过二十四名信徒，这不包括几只流浪的猫和狗。他们收拾好行李，第二天就离开了。如果你带着一车狂热的信徒去那儿，就会看到一大片荒芜的土地。这只能说明，这个愚昧的乡村无法维持宗教的复兴，就像它无法养活自己一样。”因此，之所以我顺便提起，就是我为了让你免得太过失望。但至于所提到的那个小伙子，我只能再重复一遍，我只知道你带他去参加帐篷大会，却不知道如你所言，你们两个是密不可分的好友。我没长前后眼，也没有第七感觉，几乎搞不清这个农场大概八十个各种肤色的人，每个人之间的关系。我想，正如伟大的法国人伏尔泰曾经所言，智慧的开始是当一个人明白，其他人与自己的生活毫无关系，而那些人只是拼命地专注于自己的生活。我对你和那个男孩一无所知，所以什么都不知道。”
译者注：伏尔泰——（1694年11月21日－1778年5月30日），原名弗朗索瓦-马里‧阿鲁埃，法国启蒙时代的思想家、哲学家、文学家，启蒙运动公认的领袖和导师。他的论说以讽刺见长，常常抨击天主教教会的教条和当时的法国教育制度。伏尔泰的著作和思想与托马斯·霍布斯及约翰·洛克一道，对美国革命和法国大革命的主要思想家都有影响。
I remained silent, wetting my lips with my tongue and feeling desolate and miserable, gazing at the library floor.
我依然一言不发，用舌头舔着嘴唇，感到孤独而痛苦，盯着图书馆的地板。
'I have told you more than once now that had you come to me the next day and stated your case - had you made yourself immediately clear instead of for two weeks casting me these looks of canine reproach - I should have taken steps to get the boy back, buy him back even though that might mean money and travel to an extent quite out of the ordinary. But I must try to convince you that surely by now he has passed through the Petersburg market - though even of the place I cannot be really certain, it may be that he was taken to a sale in Carolina - whatever, that he has been passed on into some buyer's hands and must now be on the way to Georgia or Alabama, though one can hope that a kindly providence has seen fit that he somehow remain in Virginia. This, however, I sincerely doubt. The fact remains that he would now seem to be all but irrecoverable. I am in no way blaming you for lacking the presence of mind to come to me earlier when I may have been able to do something about it. I am only asking you now to try to understand the impossibility of my position. Do you see what I mean?' “我不止一次地告诉过你，第二天找我说明情况——如果你马上自己弄清楚，就不会过了两周，才像狗一样，用责备的眼神看着我——我应该早一点采取措施，将那个男孩弄回来，把他买回来，即便这可能意味着要花钱，要比平常走更多的路。但我必须给你说清楚，他现在肯定已经通过彼得斯堡的奴隶市场——尽管那是我无法确实肯定的地方，也许被带到卡罗莱纳卖了——无论如何，他已经被转手到某个买家的手里，现在肯定在去佐治亚州或阿拉巴马州的路上，尽管人们可以希望，仁慈的上帝认为如果合适，他就会以某种方式，留在弗吉尼亚。然而这一点，我真地怀疑。事实依然是，似乎他现在再也不能回来了。我绝不会责备你没脑子，在我还能做点什么的时候，你应该早一点告诉我。我现在只要求你尽量明白，我已经无能为力。你明白我的意思吗？”
'Yes,' I said after a moment. 'Yes, I do but - '
“是的，”片刻之后，我说。 “是的，我理解，但—— ”
'Yes, but again,' he interrupted, 'you are still eaten up about that one thing that will not let you alone. Even though you say you told him of your own surprise, you are devoured by the terrible idea that the boy for the rest of his life will think that you were a party to, an accomplice in, his disposal. Am I correct in this? Isn't that what you said you are unable to shake from your mind?'
“是的，又但是了，”他打断我，“你依然对不能让你孤独耿耿于怀。即便你说过你告诉过他，你很吃惊，你满脑子都是，那个男孩一辈子都会认为，对他的处理，你是同伙儿，是共犯。这说的对吗？难道不是你说的，你难以释怀？”
'Yes,' I replied, 'that's right.'
“是的，”我回答，“是这样。”
'Then what can I say? Say that I too am sorry? I've said that over and over to you before. Perhaps he will think that, perhaps not. Possibly it would be better for your peace of mind if you envisioned him thinking charitably of you - if indeed it occurs to him to think of you as being involved in his disposition at all - envisioned him thinking of you only as an unwitting and ignorant dupe in the whole transaction, which you were. But if he thinks otherwise, I can only repeat again and for the last time that I am sorry. There is nothing else that I can say. Understand again: I had no idea that Abraham would fall ill and that you would become the - the instrument by which those boys were delivered into - into other hands.' He halted then and looked at me, lapsing into silence. “那我还能说什么呢？说我也很抱歉？我之前已经对你说了一遍又一遍了。也许他会那么想，也许不会。如果你想象着，他会认为这是你的仁慈，也许你会好受一些——如果他确实认为，你从一开始就参与到他的处理之中——想着他会认为，你在整个交易中，只不过是个愚昧无知的傻瓜，你确实是这样。如果他想别的，我只能再重复一遍，而且是最后一次，对不起了。我也没什么可说的。再理解一下吧：我不知道亚伯拉罕会生病，而你却成为那个——那个交付这些孩子的工具——将他们交给别人。”于是他停了下来，看着我，陷入了沉默。
'But - ' I began slowly, 'but I - '
“但——”我开始慢慢说，“但是我——”
'But what?'
“但是什么？”
'All right,' I went on, 'I see pretty well, I guess, about Willis, you didn't know about him and I. How I was teaching him and all. But this other thing I don't understand. I mean, going out at night like that and thinking they was going to be hired out at the Vaughans'.' I paused. 'I mean, everyone was going to know what really happened anyway, by and by. Or not by and by. Soon.'
“好吧，”我继续说道，“我很明白，我想，关于威利斯的事情，您不了解他与我的关系。不了解我是怎么教他的，以及所有的事情。但有一点我不明白。我的意思是，像那样大晚上出去，想着将他们租给沃恩家。”我停顿了一下。“我的意思是，大家总归会知道，到底发生了什么事情，不久之后，也许用了多久，很快就会知道。”
He looked away from me and when he spoke at last his voice was faint and faraway; suddenly I realized how weary he seemed, how gaunt were his cheeks and how red-rimmed and vacant were his eyes. 'I will be truthful with you. I was quite simply troubled - afraid. I got confused, lost my bearings. Only twice do I recall darkies ever being sold away from here - both times by my father, both of the darkies, I'm afraid, crazy people who were a threat to the community. Furthermore and aside from that, there has never until now been any need. So I had never sold off hands before, and as I have readily admitted, it was a bungled transaction. I had not wanted the word to get around, I was afraid of the trouble and unrest that would ensue once the darkies knew that some of the people were being sold. So in my confusion I conceived the idea of disposing of the first four under the cover of night and in the guise of a fortnight' s hire to Major Vaughan. I thought that somehow the shock would be less this way, that it would be easier for the place to become accustomed to their absence. Worst of all, I conspired with a trader. It was folly to expect anything to come of this method. It was devious and cowardly. The duplicity! The masquerade! I should have done it in broad daylight with all the plantation as gaping onlookers to a plain and simple sale, with money changing hands in full view. Of the entire proceedings the only redeeming feature may be that at least I tried to make certain that my first sale would involve no separation of families. It was unfortunate for you, perhaps imponderably unfortunate for your young friend, that my resolve to pick only boys who were old enough to make the break, boys who additionally had already been orphaned and who thus had no family ties to sever - well, it was unfortunate that he was one of four who answered to that description.' He halted again, remaining silent, then said in a faint voice: 'I'm sorry. God, how sorry I am, that Willie......'
他转过头，当终于张口时，声音微弱而遥远；突然我意识到他似乎太累了，满脸的憔悴，双眼空洞且布满了血丝。“我会对你说实话的。我只是有些麻烦——我恐怕。我感到困惑，实在承受不了了。我记得从这儿，只卖过两次黑人——两次都是在我父亲的手里，两个黑人，我恐怕，都是对社区造成威胁的疯子。除此之外，再也没有过，直到现在，没办法啊。所以我以前从没卖过黑人，而且正如我承认的那样，奴隶买卖真的是太糟糕了。我一直不想这种话到处传播，我害怕，万一黑人知道有些人会被卖掉，紧跟着就有麻烦和不安。于是，在困惑中，我想着夜幕下卖掉前四个人的想法，还哄骗他们说是租给沃恩少校两周的时间。我以为无论如何，这样就会减少受到惊吓的程度，而大家也更容易习惯没有他们的日子。最糟糕的是，我是与奴隶贩子沆瀣一气，期望用这种方法所带来任何的结果都是愚蠢的。这不但狡猾，而且懦弱。简直是口是心非，虚伪至极！我应该在光天化日之下光明正大地做，让所有种植园的人目瞪口呆地看着，就像一次再平淡无奇的买卖，在众目睽睽之下钱人两清。在整个交易的过程中，唯一让人感到欣慰的，可能就是至少我尽量确保第一次销售并不涉及家庭的骨肉分离。对你来说这是不幸的，对你年轻的朋友来说，也许是无法估量的不幸，我决定仅选择年龄大的男孩，他们足以承受这种分离，另外男孩已经是孤儿，从而没有家人可以分开——好吧，不幸的是他是四个符合这种条件的人中的一个。”他又停了下来，一言不发，然后用微弱的声音说：“对不起，主啊，真是很遗憾，那个威利……”
'Willis,' I said. 'And so you just had to sell them. There just wasn't any other way.'
“威利斯，”我说。“因此，你只能卖掉他们。再也没有其他办法了。” His back was to me now, he stood facing the great high window open to the spring garden, and his voice, dim enough at the outset, was barely audible and I had to strain to hear it, as if it belonged to someone so infirm and depleted, or so lacking in spirit or hope, that whether the words could be understood was at last a matter of indifference. He went on as if he hadn't heard me.
他此刻背对着我站在那儿，面朝向着春天的花园开着的落地窗，而他的声音从一开始就模糊不清，几乎听不到，我不得不紧张地听着，仿佛那声音来自一个身体虚弱、精疲力尽的人，毫无精神或希望，是否理解这些话，最终都无关紧要。他继续说着，好像根本没有听到我的声音。
'Well, soon all of them will be gone - everything - not just the land now utterly consumed by that terrible weed, not just the wagons and the pigs and the oxen and the mules but the men too, the white men and the women and the black boys - the Willies and the Jims and the Shadrachs and the Todds - all gone south, leaving Virginia to the thorn bushes and the dandelions. And all this we see here will be gone too, and the mill wheel will crumble away and the wind will whistle at night through these deserted halls. Mark my word. It is coming soon.'
“好吧，过不了多久，所有的人都得走——所有的一切——不只是现在土地被可怕的杂草消耗殆尽，不只是马车、猪、牛和骡子，还有人，白人、女人和黑人男孩——威利斯们、吉姆们、沙德拉克们和托德们——都要去南方，将弗吉尼亚留给荆棘灌木和蒲公英。而且我们在这儿看到的一切都会消失。磨坊的磨盘会崩溃，夜晚，风会穿过那些荒芜的大厅呼呼作响。记住我的话，这很快就会成为现实。”
He paused, then said: 'Yes, I had to sell those boys because I needed the money. Because anything non-human I had to sell was unsellable. Because those boys were worth over a thousand dollars and only through their sale could I begin to make the slightest inroad upon those debts I have accumulated for seven years - seven years during which I have lied to myself night and day in an effort to believe that what I saw around me was an illusion, that this mutilated and broken Tidewater would survive in spite of itself, that no matter how wrecked and eaten up the soil, no matter how many men and chattel began to move south to Georgia and Alabama, Turner' s Mill would forever be here grinding out timber and meal. But now it is timber and meal for ghosts.' He ceased speaking for a moment, then again the weary voice resumed: 'What should I have done instead? Set them free? What a ghastly joke! No, they had to be sold, and the rest of them will be sold too, and soon Turner's Mill will stand a dead hulk like the others on the landscape, and somewhere in the far South people may remember it but it will be remembered as if it were the fragment of a dream.'
他停了下来，然后说：“是的，我不得不卖掉那些男孩，因为我需要钱。因为那几个孩子可以卖1000美元，而且只有卖了他们，我才能对七年来积累的债务稍作安排——七年啊，七年来我日日夜夜一直对自己撒谎，努力相信周围所看到的一切都是幻象，相信这残缺不全破碎的低洼海岸不会受到自身的影响而生存下来，相信无论土地遭到怎样的破坏和蚕食，相信无论多少人和奴隶开始向南移动到佐治亚州和阿拉巴马州，特纳磨坊将永远屹立在这儿，出产着木材和研磨过的谷物。但现在木材和谷物都归于幽灵了。”他不再说话，停顿片刻，然后那倦怠的声音再次响起：“我还能做什么呢？把他们释放了？真是可怕的笑话！不，必须卖掉他们，还得卖掉剩下的人，而且很快，特纳磨坊就会像景观上的其他地方一样，站在死去的巨人面前，而且在遥远的南方，人们可能还记得，但记忆仿佛只是破碎的梦。”
For a long time now he fell silent and then finally he said (or I think he spoke my name, I was straining so hard to hear), 'Nat ...' And when he spoke again, his voice was the barest murmur as if whispering from the far bank of a stream against a rising wind. 'I sold them out of the desperation to hang on pointlessly a few years longer.' He made an abrupt gesture with his lifted arm, and it seemed that he passed his hand in a quick angry motion across his eyes. 'Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely this is true! For only something blind and uncomprehending could exist in such a mean conjunction with its own flesh, its own kind. How else account for such faltering, clumsy, hateful cruelty? Even the possums and the skunks know better! Even the weasels and the meadow mice have a natural regard for their own blood and kin. Only the insects are low enough to do the low things that people do - like those ants that swarm on poplars in the summertime, greedily husbanding little green aphids for the honeydew they secrete. Yes, it could be that mankind has yet to be born. Ah, what bitter tears God must weep at the sight of the things that men do to other men!' He broke off then and I saw him shake his head convulsively, his voice a sudden cry: 'In the name of money! Money! '
很长时间，他一言不发，最后才说（或者我想他在叫着我的名字，我太过紧张，没有听到），“纳特......”当他再次说话时，声音只剩下喃喃低语，仿佛是从远处的河岸迎着上升的风传来的窃窃私语。“因为绝望，我卖掉他们，这样就可以毫无意义地再撑几年。”他猛然抬手一挥，仿佛随手而去的，是眼睛里闪过的一丝愤怒。“肯定人类还尚未诞生。这肯定是真的！因为只有盲目无知的东西，才能与其自身的肉体，与其同类，如此卑鄙地结合在一起，否则，如何解释这种摇摇欲坠、笨拙而仇恨的残酷行为？甚至连负鼠和臭鼬都更明白！即便是黄鼠狼和草鼠，也会对自己的血亲和族类有着自然而然的关心。只有昆虫十分低级，才会做出人类才做的那些卑鄙的事情——就像夏天一群群蜂拥而至的蚂蚁，贪婪地养育着绿色的小蚜虫为它们分泌蜜汁。是的，可能是人类还尚未诞生。啊，看到人们对他人所做的事情，上帝一定会流下多么痛苦的眼泪啊！”于是他停下来，我看到他痉挛似的摇了摇头，突然抽泣起来：“都是因为钱啊！钱哪！”
He became silent and I stood waiting for him to continue, but he said nothing, turned with his back toward me in the dusk. Afar and high above I heard Miss Nell call out: 'Sam! Samuel! Is there anything wrong?' Yet again for a long while he made no sign, no motion, so at last I moved quietly toward the door and left the room.
他变得沉默，我站在那儿，等着他继续说下去，但他却什么也没说，黑暗中转身背对着我。远方的高处，我听到内尔小姐喊着：“山姆！塞缪尔！有什么问题吗？”然而再一次很长时间，他没有手势，没有动作，于是最后我悄悄地朝门走去，离开了那个房间。
Three years after this episode (and a galloping swift three years they seemed to me) - a month before my twenty-first birthday and at just about the time I had originally been destined to start my life anew in Richmond - I was removed from Marse Samuel's purview and passed into the temporary custody of, or fell under the protection of, or was rented out to, or was borrowed by, a Baptist preacher named the Reverend Alexander Eppes, pastor to an impoverished flock of farmers and small tradesmen living in a district called Shiloh about ten miles to the north of Turner's Mill. For a long time I was never quite clear as to the relationship between me and the Reverend Eppes. Yet, one thing is certain, and this is that I was not ' sold,' in the unadorned, mercenary sense of the word. The other Negroes at Turner's Mill might be sold - and sold they were, with depressing regularity - but the notion that I could be disposed of in this way was, up to and including the moment when I passed into the hands of the Reverend Eppes, quite inconceivable. Thus for the next three years, aware though I might have been of the uncertainty of the future that lay before me, I never thought once that Marse Samuel would not still ensure my freedom in Richmond as he had so eagerly promised - and I kept up this sunny optimism and complacency even as I watched Turner's Mill and all of its land and its people and its chattel and its livestock disintegrate before my eyes like one of those river islands at flood time which slowly crumbles away at the edges, toppling all of its drenched and huddled ragtag occupants, coons and rabbits and blacksnakes and foxes, into the merciless brown waters.
在这段插曲后的三年（三年的时光对我来说转瞬即逝）——在我21岁生日前的一个月，就在我原本注定要到里士满重新开始自己的生活的时候——有人把我从塞缪尔先生的权限范围移开，通过临时监护，或者落入保护，或者被出租，或者被借用给一位浸信会的传教士。他名叫亚历山大·埃普斯牧师，是距离特纳磨坊北边大概十英里一个叫希洛的地区，专门为一群贫困的农民和小商人服务的牧师。很长一段时间，我从未搞清我与埃普斯牧师之间的关系。然而，有一件事情是可以肯定的，那就是我并未被“卖掉”——一个朴实无华、唯利是图的用词。纳特磨坊的其他黑人可能都已经被卖掉了——以令人沮丧的规律被卖掉了——但用这种方式处理我的概念，到目前为止，包括我被送到埃普斯牧师手中的那一刻，简直令人不可思议。于是在接下来的三年里，尽管可能已经意识到摆在面前的未来的不确定性，但我以前从未想过塞缪尔先生依然会确保在里士满给我自由，就像他曾经热切地保证的那样——而我一直保持着这种阳光的乐观和满足，即便看着特纳磨坊、其所有的土地、奴隶和牲口，在我的眼前分崩离析，就像河里的小岛，在洪水时慢慢从边缘瓦解，将所有浑身湿透挤在一起的一群乌合之众推翻，将浣熊、兔子、黑蛇和狐狸推入无情的浊水之中。
The Negroes - because they were by far the most valuable of the property, because at anywhere between four hundred and six hundred dollars apiece they represented the only safe, solid capital which Marse Samuel could liquidate in order to meet his creditors' incessant demands (the creditors too were packing up and leaving the Tidewater, hence an urgency in their claims) - the Negroes began to be sent off at a steady rate, in twos and threes or singly, a family here, another there, though often months might go by without a sale. All at once would appear a man in a gig, a gentleman with white side whiskers and a thick gold watch chain, stamping the mud from his mirror-bright boots. In the library I would serve biscuits and pork from a silver tray, listening to Marse Samuel's voice wan and weary in the summer dusk: 'It is the traders who are an abomination, sir, the traders! That they will generally pay more means nothing to me. They are unscrupulous, sir, and would think nothing of separating a mother from her only child. That is why, helpless as I am in this dreadful situation, I can at least insist upon dealing with a gentleman...... Yes, with one bad exception, so far all my sales have been with gentlemen like yourself...... You are from the York County Fitzhughs, you say? Then you must be a cousin of Thaddeus Fitzhugh, a classmate of mine at William & Mary......Yes, the last lot of people I sold was to a gentleman heading west to the Boonslick country, I believe, in Missouri; I sold him a family of five...... A most humane and learned gentleman from Nottoway he was...... You are favored by the gods, sir as you must know, to have a mill situated near a city like Richmond, free of the burden, the curse of land...... I do not know, sir, it is clear that time is drawing short for me here. Perhaps I shall go to Kentucky or Missouri too, though I have heard of interesting prospects in Alabama...... Come now, I will show you George and Peter, the best mill hands I have left, you may be sure that they are uncommonly likely Negroes...... Only a few of my darkies will have been fortunate enough to remain in Virginia......'
黑人——因为他们是迄今为止最有价值的财产，因为无论在哪儿，每个人都能卖到400-600 美元之间，他们代表了唯一安全可靠的资本，那是塞缪尔先生为满足债权人不断的要求所可能清偿的（债权人也收拾行囊，离开沿岸地区，因此索偿颇为迫切）——黑人开始被稳步卖掉，三三两两，或单独一个，这儿一个家庭，那儿一个家庭，尽管通常好几个月都没有人被卖掉。时不时会有人出现在马车上，脸颊两侧留着胡须的绅士，戴着粗大的金链手表，闪亮的马靴踩在泥浆里。 在图书馆，我用银托盘端上饼干和猪肉。在夏天的黄昏中，我听到塞缪尔先生悲伤而倦怠的声音：“那些奴隶贩子真是可恶，先生，奴隶贩子！通常他们给我的付款极为吝啬，他们简直是肆无忌惮，先生，从未想过母子分离的事情。这就是为什么，在这种可怕的情况下，我特别无助，但至少我可以坚持与绅士打交道......是的，只有一次例外，非常糟糕，到目前为止，我所有的销售都是与像您这样的绅士打交道的.....您是从约克县的菲茨休来的，是不是？那您一定是撒迪厄斯·菲茨休的堂弟了，他是我在威廉玛丽学院的同班同学......是的，我最后卖掉的一批人，是给一位绅士，他向西去了布恩斯利克县，我相信，在密苏里州；我卖给他一家五口.....他是诺德韦一位最仁慈，最有学识的绅士......先生，您得到了众神的眷顾，这一点您一定知道，在像里士满的城市旁边有一个磨坊，没有这样的压力，土地没有遭到诅咒.....我不知道，先生，显然，我在这儿的时间越来越短了。也许，我也会去肯塔基州或密苏里州，尽管我听说阿拉巴马州的前景很有意思……现在来吧，我给你看看乔治和彼得，那是我留下来最好的磨坊工人，您可以肯定，他们是非同寻常的黑人……我的黑人中只有为数不多的几个才有幸继续留在弗吉尼亚……”
So George and Peter would go, or Sam and Andrew, or Lucy and her two young boys, packed off in a wagon which I myself would often drive to deliver them in Jerusalem, and always I was haunted and perplexed by the docile equanimity and good cheer with which these simple black people, irrevocably uprooted, would set out to encounter a strange and unknown destiny. Although they might cast backward what appeared to be the faintest glimmer of a wistful glance, this final parting from a place which had been their entire universe for years caused them no more regret than did the future cast over them worry or foreboding: Missouri or Georgia were as far away as the stars, or as near as the next plantation, it was all the same to them, and with despair I marked how seldom they seemed to bother even bidding farewell to their friends. Only the rupture of some family tie I felt could grieve them, and such calamities did not happen here. Twittering and giggling, they mounted the wagon poised to carry them to an impossible fate at the uttermost ends of the earth, and they could speak only of an aching knee, the potency of a hairball from a mule' s stomach as a charm against witches, the proper way to train a dog to tree a possum, and mumble incessantly about eating. Slumbrous in broad daylight, they would flop asleep against the side boards of the wagon, pink lips wet and apart, nodding off into oblivion even before they had been taken beyond the gate, even before they were carried past the bounds of that land which had composed the entire smell and substance and geography of their lives and whose fields and meadows and shimmering woodland now dwindled away behind them, unseen and unremarked, forever. They cared nothing about where they came from or where they were going, and so snored loudly or, abruptly waking, skylarked about, laughing and slapping each other, and trying to clutch at the passing overhead leaves. Like animals they relinquished the past with as much dumb composure as they accepted the present, and were unaware of any future at all. Such creatures deserved to be sold, I thought bitterly, and I was torn between detestation for them and regret that it was too late for me to save them through the power of the Word.
所以乔治和彼得会离开，或者山姆和安德鲁，或者是露西和她的两个小儿子，会被塞进一辆马车，那辆我自己经常驾着将他们送到耶路撒冷的马车，我总是感到困惑且百思不得其解，因为那种温顺的平静和欢呼；带着这样的心情，这些简单的黑人被不可挽回地连根拔起，出发去迎接一种未知且陌生的命运。尽管他们可能会留恋地回头瞥来一丝最微弱的目光，与这个多年来曾经是他们的整个宇宙的地方道别，比起以后落在他们身上的忧虑和不祥的预感，这并未让他们感到遗憾：密苏里州或乔治亚州就像星辰一样遥远，又像附近的种植园一样近在咫尺，但对他们来说都一样，我绝望地注意到，他们似乎很少费心劳神地向自己的朋友告别。只有家庭关系的撕裂，我感觉才会让他们感到悲伤，而这种灾难在这儿就没有发生过。他们叽叽喳喳地说着话，咯咯咯地笑着，爬上准备将他们送到地球尽头某个不可能的命运的马车。而他们所能谈论的，就只有疼痛的膝盖、骡子肚子里的毛球对抗女巫的魅力、正确训练狗穷追不舍负鼠的办法，以及不停地嘟哝着吃的事情。他们在大白天昏昏欲睡，靠在马车的侧板上，扑通一声就睡着了，粉红的嘴唇湿漉漉地张着，甚至在他们被带出大门之前，甚至在他们被带过那片覆盖着他们生命的全部气息、物质和地理的土地的边缘，他们还在昏昏欲睡。而田地、草地和迷人的林地，此刻在他们的身后逐渐消失，再也看不到了，再也无人注意。他们从不关心自己从哪儿来，或者要到哪儿去，于是他们就大声地打着呼噜，或突然醒来，开着玩笑，相互说笑戏耍，试图抓住头顶掠过的树叶，像动物一样，他们如此沉着冷静地抛弃着过去，也同样沉着冷静地接受着现实，却根本不知道未来的任何东西。我痛苦地想着，这样的生物应该被卖掉，而我则痛苦万分，一方面憎恶他们，一方面遗憾的是通过《圣经》的力量拯救他们已为时已晚。 And so at last an alien quietude and stillness settled over the plantation, a hush so profound that it was in itself like the echo or reverberation of a faint remembered sound upon the ear. Finally it was not alone the Negroes who were disposed of but all the rest - the mules and the horses and the pigs, the wagons and the farming implements and the tools, saws and spinning wheels and anvils and house furniture, buggies and buggy whips and spades and scythes and hoes and hammers, all and anything movable or unhingeable and detachable and worth more than half a dollar. And the absence of these things left a silence astonishing and complete. The great mill wheel, its last revolution accomplished, lay idle on its oaken shaft bedecked with dried mattings of greenish pond weed and grass, motionless now, the deep-throated steady grumble and roar as much a memory as those other diurnal sounds, far more faint yet persistent, that had echoed in all weathers season after season from dawn till dusk: the chink-chinking of hoes in the distant cornfields, sheep bleating on the lawn and a Negro's sudden rich laughter, an anvil banging in the blacksmith's shop, a snatch of song from one of the remotest cabins, the faint crashing in the woods of a felled tree, a stirring within the big house, a fidget and a buzz, a soft musical murmuration. Slowly these sounds diminished, faded, became still altogether, and the fields and rutted roadways lay as starkly deserted as a place ravaged by the plague: weeds and brambles invaded the cornfields and the meadows; sills, frames, and doors fell apart in the empty outbuildings. At night, where once glowing hearths lit each cabin down the slope, now all lay in suffocating dark like the departure of the campfires of some army on the plains of Israel.
于是，最终在种植园的上方弥漫着一种陌生的安静和寂静，一种沉默，令人如此深刻，本身就像耳边回响着记忆中微弱的声音所发出的回声或余音。最终，不只是所有黑人被处理掉，而是所有的东西 ——骡子、马、猪、货车、务农的器具和工具、锯子、 纺车、铁砧和家具、四轮马车、马车鞭子、铁锹、镰刀、锄头和锤子——所有的一切，包括任何可移动或无法移动但可拆卸的东西，只要价格超过半个美元。而这些东西的缺席，只留下一阵令人惊讶且完全的沉默。大型的磨坊轮（最后一次整修刚刚完成）闲置在橡木轴上，上面盖着绿色的池塘杂草和干草做成的干垫子，现在一动不动，这种低沉而持续的抱怨和咆哮，就像每天记忆中的那些声音，但更加微弱而持久，从黎明到黄昏，不分季节不分天气地回荡着，就像远方玉米地里的锄头叮叮当当的声音，草坪上绵羊的哀鸣和黑人突然爆发出的笑声，铁匠铺里的铁砧叮叮当当的敲击，从最远的棚屋传来的一阵歌声，树林里倒下的树木所发出微弱的扑通声和大房里的一阵骚动，令人烦躁地嗡嗡嗡着，如轻柔的音乐在耳边嗫嚅。慢慢地，这些声音越来越小，逐渐消失，变成一片死寂，田野和坑坑洼洼的道路，就像瘟疫肆虐过的地方，变得荒无人烟：杂草和荆棘侵入了玉米地和草地；空无一人的附属建筑，窗子、框架和门都坍塌了。夜晚，曾经熠熠生辉的灶台照亮斜坡下的每一间小屋，而此刻都躺在令人窒息的黑暗之中，就像以色列的平原在部队离开后所留下的篝火。 浏览45次
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