雙語·面紗 第六十九章

69

Waddington walked with Kitty up the hill and they turned aside for a moment to look at Walter's grave; at the memorial arch he said good-bye to her, and looking at it for the last time she felt that she could reply to the enigmatic irony of its appearance with an equal irony of her own. She stepped into her chair.

One day passed after the other. The sights of the wayside served as a background to her thoughts. She saw them as it were in duplicate, rounded as though in a stereoscope, with an added significance because to everything she saw was added the recollection of what she had seen when but a few short weeks before she had taken the same journey in the contrary direction. The coolies with their loads straggled disorderly, two or three together, and then a hundred yards behind one by himself, and then two or three more; the soldiers of the escort shuffled along with a clumsy walk that covered five and twenty miles a day; the amah was carried by two bearers and Kitty, not because she was heavier, but for face sake, by four. Now and then they met a string of coolies lolloping by in line with their heavy burdens, now and then a Chinese official in a sedan who looked at the white woman with inquisitive eyes; now they came across peasants in faded blue and huge hats on their way to market and now a woman, old or young, tottering along on her bound feet. They passed up and down little hills laid out with trim rice-fields and farm-houses nestling cozily in a grove of bamboos; they passed through ragged villages and populous cities walled like the cities in a missal. The sun of the early autumn was pleasant, and if at daybreak, when the shimmering dawn lent the neat fields the enchantment of a fairy tale, it was cold, the warmth later was very grateful. Kitty was filled by it with a sense of beatitude which she made no effort to resist.

The vivid scenes with their elegant color, their unexpected distinction, and their strangeness, were like an arras before which, like mysterious, shadowy shapes, played the phantoms of Kitty's fancy. They seemed wholly unreal. Mei-tan-fu with its crenellated walls was like the painted canvas placed on the stage in an old play to represent a city. The nuns, Waddington, and the Manchu woman who loved him, were fantastic characters in a masque; and the rest, the people sidling along the tortuous streets and those who died, were nameless supers. Of course it had, they all had, a significance of some sort, but what was it? It was as though they performed a ritual dance, elaborate and ancient, and you knew that those complicated measures had a meaning which it was important for you to know; and yet you could see no clue, no clue.

It seemed incredible to Kitty (an old woman was passing along the causeway, in blue, and the blue in the sunshine was like lapis lazuli; her face with its thousand little wrinkles was like a mask of old ivory; and she leaned, as she walked on her tiny feet, on a long black staff) it seemed incredible to Kitty that she and Walter had taken part in that strange and unreal dance. They had played important parts too. She might easily have lost her life: he had. Was it a joke? Perhaps it was nothing but a dream from which she would suddenly awake with a sigh of relief. It seemed to have taken place a long time ago and in a far-off place. It was singular how shadowy the persons of that play seemed against the sunny background of real life. And now it seemed to Kitty like a story that she was reading; it was a little startling that it seemed to concern her so little. She found already that she could not recall with distinctness Waddington's face which had been so familiar to her.

This evening they should reach the city on the Western River from which she was to take the steamer. Thence it was but a night's run to Hong Kong.

第六十九章

威廷頓和凱蒂往山上走著，途中拐了個彎又去看了看沃爾特的墓。在牌坊那兒，威廷頓跟她告了別。最后一次看著牌坊，她覺得自己境遇之中的諷刺之意絲毫不遜于這謎一樣的拱門。她邁上了轎椅。

一天天過去了，沿途的景色可以作為她萬千思緒的背景，她看見它們好像在一個立體鏡中，豐滿，而且就像復(fù)制品一樣，但是，有了附加的意義，因為她看見的每件東西都讓她反思。幾周之前，她曾走過相同的路線，不過方向相反。苦力抬著她的東西跌跌撞撞地走著。兩三個人一伙，一百碼遠的后面，又有一個人在走著，再后面又跟著兩三個。護送的士兵也在跌跌撞撞地走著，一天走個五到二十英里左右，女仆由兩個轎夫抬著，而凱蒂因為面子的關(guān)系，即使不見得更重，也由四個轎夫抬著。時不時地他們會遇見一長隊的苦力，排成一行背負著重物，偶爾也能碰到坐著轎子的中國官員，他們用好奇的目光打量著這個白人婦女。一會兒他們穿行在一群身著褪了色的藍布衣，頭戴大草帽，正趕往集市的農(nóng)民當(dāng)中，一會兒他們又會遇見一個年老或年輕的婦女，裹著小腳正蹣跚而行。他們上上下下路過一些小山丘，山的中間是整齊的稻田，還有被一叢叢竹子包圍的農(nóng)舍，恬靜愜意。他們經(jīng)過破破爛爛的農(nóng)村和人口稠密的城市，城市的四周是城墻，就像一本彌撒書中所描述的那些城市。早秋的太陽是令人愉快的，在天剛亮的時候，陽光閃爍的黎明給整齊的田野施魔法般蒙上了一層童話般的色彩，但天氣還是寒冷，隨后的溫暖讓人心存感激。凱蒂心中充滿了幸福感，這種感覺她已久違。

生動的景色，雅致的色彩，時常給人意外，宛如一疊異常華麗的掛毯。而在掛毯上，凱蒂的思緒像神秘而黯淡的影子一樣晃來晃去。它們?nèi)际遣徽鎸嵉?。湄潭府，帶著垛口的城墻，就像舞臺上的一張油畫布，在一出老戲中代表著一座城市。修女們、威廷頓和愛著他的那位滿族婦女，都是一場假面劇中的精彩角色。而其他的人，沿著彎彎曲曲街道側(cè)身而行的人和那些死去的人，都是無名的龍?zhí)捉巧?。?dāng)然，這部劇以及劇中的每個人，都有某種意義，但是意義是什么？好像他們在表演儀式般的舞蹈，精美而古老，你知道那些復(fù)雜的舉手投足都有一種意義，你要知道這意義，這點很重要，但是你看不到任何線索，完全沒有線索。

對凱蒂來說，似乎是不可思議的（一個老婦人穿著藍色的衣服，正沿著堤道走著，那藍色在陽光的照耀下如同天青石般湛藍，她的臉上有著上千條小皺紋，就像老象牙做成的面具，她佝僂著腰，因為她走路的雙腳是纏足的，拄著一根長長的黑色拐杖），不可思議的是她和沃爾特也參加了那場奇怪和不真實的舞蹈，他們也都扮演了重要的角色。她可能很容易就失去生命，他已經(jīng)失去了生命。這是一場笑話嗎？也許什么都不是，只是一場夢。她已經(jīng)從夢中驚醒，如釋重負地嘆了口氣。這一切似乎發(fā)生在很久以前，發(fā)生在一個遙遠的地方。在陽光明媚的現(xiàn)實之前，這出遙遠的戲劇里的角色們該是多么模糊難辨?，F(xiàn)在對于凱蒂，它就像她正在閱讀的一個故事。似乎涉及她的部分很少，這有點兒令人吃驚。她發(fā)現(xiàn)已經(jīng)無法清晰地記起威廷頓的臉了，這張臉?biāo)?jīng)是那么熟悉。

今天傍晚，他們應(yīng)該到達西江岸邊的城市，從那里她要坐上輪船，然后經(jīng)過一晚上的航行就能到香港了。