1、鹅（怀特散文） 原创 2007-05-24 13:25:27 字号：大 中 小 说 明这是“农场篇”里的最后一篇，也是这十篇散文中感情流露最多的一篇，我自然很喜欢。记得董乐山说过，怀特的散文很容易懂，翻译前八篇时，我还没有这样的感觉，但译到后两篇时，我才觉得格外的顺畅。尤其是这一篇文字简单，内容也很简单，更没有什么引经据典的妖冶作风怀特的散文从来都是这么平实：他懂的东西，也许比你多十倍，但他却从不愿为了表现而表现出来。乍看起来，这一篇也是最普通不过的，可是，藏在里面和溢在文字之外的那种悲天悯人的感情却如浓浓的夜来香的气息，在这个清凉的夏夜把我静静地淹没了。我真想看到怀特写到最后三段时的表情，他
2、的心里会有什么样的感觉！我想，这是一篇和林湖重游同样优秀的散文。这一篇散文似乎应该是用来听的听吧，这就是美国的“广陵散”。我不知道在以后的夏天里还能不能听到比这更令我心动的声音了。有朋友曾建议我介绍一下怀特的散文。可是，我对怀特的了解本来就不多，所以自然就不肯轻易动口。何况，每多看一篇怀特的散文，我的认识和人生态度就更进了一层，这结论自然更不能轻易的下了除非等到这本散文集都译出的时候。也许，有些人会觉得怀特的散文枯燥，单调，里面即没有华山派武功所特有的优美身段，又没有何铁手的含沙射影那样的动人心魄，那么我也不会强迫他来赞同我没有意见的意见。如果，非要作一番广告才能使人喜欢这篇散文的话，我还可以
3、试着吆喝几声请看乱交的鹅与窥淫狂（又名鹅）想了解公鹅如何性交吗？那么请看这篇旷世奇文；想知道花花公子如何击败强敌，将养父的情妇据为已有吗？那么请看这篇旷世奇文；想知道连弗洛伊德也不熟悉的窥淫狂的心理吗，那么请看这篇旷世奇文。如果非要我这么吆喝，我会感到深深的悲哀。但是，我绝不会这么吆喝的。我坚持一切我所愿意坚持的，从来都不会放弃。最后，我来把译过的十篇散文作一下简介。我现在翻译的是 1999年版的Essays Of EB White（1977 年初版）。这本散文选共收31 篇，分七部分，第一部分“The Farm”共十篇，占 84 页（全书共 364页），我用了近四个月的时间才把它们翻译完，虽
4、然很慢，但也没办法，因为我的英文就是这么差。为了以后归类的方便，我把这十篇文章的题目按顺序抄在下面，同时注明原刊的出处。除在下面单独注明的外，其余的几篇原来都发表在纽约客上。我接着准备先译它的第三部分：The City，这部分虽然只有两篇，但却占了 30 页，估计译起来也不会轻松。肖毛 2001 年 6 月 30 日 晚 10：08一 农场篇对第四十八街的告别回家春天的报告一头猪的死亡 （原载于大西洋月刊）埃德娜之眼浣熊的树元月纪闻大雪的冬天驳诘 （原载于纽约时报，原名为“Farmer Whites Brown Eggs”）鹅鹅(The Geese)（美）E.B.White 著肖毛译1971
5、年 7 月 9 日，艾伦湾The Geese - E. B. WhiteThe Geese Ellwyn Brooks White To give a clear account of what took place in the barnyard early in the morning on that last Sunday in June, I will have to go back more than a year in time, but a year is nothing to me these days. Besides, I intend to be quick about
6、it, and not dawdle. I have had a pair of elderly gray geese- a goose and a gander-living on this place for a number of years, and they have been my friends. “Companions” would be a better word; geese are friends with no one, they badmouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you
7、 get used to their ingratitude and their false accusations. Early in the spring, a year ago, as soon as the ice went out of the pond, my goose started to lay. She laid three eggs in about a weeks time and then died. I found her halfway down the lane that connects the barnyard with the pasture. There
8、 were no marks on her she lay with wings partly outspread, and with her neck forward in the grass, pointing downhill. Geese are rarely sick, and I think this gooses time had come and she had simply died of old age. We buried her in our private graveyard, and I felt sad at losing an acquaintance of s
9、uch long standing-long standing and loud shouting. Her legacy, of course, was the three eggs. I knew they were good eggs and did not like to pitch them out. It seemed to me that the least I could do for my departed companion was to see that the eggs she had left in my care were hatched. I checked my
10、 hen pen to find out whether we had a broody, but there was none. During the next few days, I scoured the neighborhood for a broody hen, with no success. Days went by. My gander, the widower, lived a solitary life-nobody to swap gossip with, nobody to protect. He seemed dazed. The three eggs were no
11、t getting any younger, and I myself felt dazed-restless and unfulfilled, I had stored the eggs down cellar in the arch where it is cool, and every time I went down there for something they seemed silently to reproach me. My plight had become known around the town, and one day a friend phoned and sai
12、d he would lend me an incubator designed for hatching the eggs of waterfowl. I brought the thing home, cleaned it up, plugged it in, and sat down to read the directions. After studying them, I realized that if I were to tend eggs in that incubator, I would have to withdraw from the world for thirty
13、days-give up everything, just as a broody goose does. Obsessed though I was with the notion of bringing life into the three eggs, I wasnt quite prepared to pay the price. Instead, I abandoned the idea of incubation and decided to settle the matter by acquiring three ready-made goslings, as a memoria
14、l to the goose and a gift for the lonely gander. I drove up the road about five miles and dropped in on Irving Closson. I knew Irving had geese; he has everything-even a sawmill. I found him shoeing a very old horse in the doorway of his barn, and I stood and watched for a while. Hens and geese wand
15、ered about the yard, and a turkey tom circled me, wings adroop, strutting. I brought up the question of goslings, and he took me into the barn and showed me a sitting goose. He said he thought she was covering more than twenty eggs and should bring off her goslings in a couple of weeks and I could b
16、uy a few if I wanted. I said I would like three. I took to calling at Irvings every few days-it is about the pleasantest place to visit anywhere around. At last, I was rewarded: I pulled into the driveway one morning and saw a goose surrounded by green goslings. She had been staked out, like a cow.
17、Irving had simply tied a piece of string to one leg and fastened the other end to a peg in the ground. She was a pretty goose-not as large as my old one had been, and with a more slender neck. The goslings had the cheerful, right, and innocent look that all baby geese have. We scooped up three and t
18、ossed them into a box, and I paid Irving and carried them home. My next concern was how to introduce these small creatures to their foster father, my old gander. I thought about this all the way home. Ive had enough experience with domesticated animals and birds to know that they are a bundle of ecc
19、entricities and crotchets, and I was not at all sure what sort of reception three strange youngsters would get from a gander who was full of sorrows and suspicions. (I once saw a gander, taken by surprise, seize a newly hatched gosling and hurl it the length of the barn floor.) I had an uneasy feeli
20、ng that my three little charges might be dead within the hour, victims of a grief-crazed old fool. I decided to go slow. I fixed the make-shift pen for the goslings in the barn, arranged so that they would be separated from the gander but visible to him, and he would be visible to them. The old fell
21、ow, when he heard youthful voices, hustled right in to find out what was going on, he studied the scene in silence and with the greatest attention. I could not tell whether the look in his eye was one of malice or affection-a gooses eye is a small round enigma. After observing this introductory scen
22、e for a while, I left and went into the house. Half an hour later, I heard a commotion in the barnyard: the gander was in full cry. I hustled out. The goslings, impatient with life indoors, had escaped from their hastily constructed enclosure in the barn and had joined their foster father in the bar
23、nyard. The cries I had heard were screams of welcome- the old bird was delighted with the turn that events had taken. His period of mourning was over, he now had interesting and useful work to do, and he threw himself into the role of father with immense satisfaction and zeal, hissing at me with ren
24、ewed malevolence, shepherding the three children here and there, and running interference against real and imaginary enemies. My fears were laid to rest. Summer was upon us, the pond was alive again. At first, I did not know the sex of my three goslings. But nothing on two legs grows any faster than
25、 a young goose, and by early fall it was obvious that I had drawn one male and two females. You tell sex of a goose by its demeanor and its stance-the way it holds itself, its general approach to life. A gander carries his head high and affects a threatening attitude. Females go about with necks in
26、a graceful arch and are less aggressive. My two young females looked like their mother, parti-colored. The young male was quite different. He feathered out white all over except for his wings, which were a very light, pearly gray. Afloat on the pond, he looked almost like a swan, with his tall, thin
27、 white neck and his cooked-up white tail- a real dandy, full of pompous thoughts and surly gestures. Winter is a time of waiting, for man and goose. Last winter was a long wait, the pasture deep in drifts, the lane barricaded, the pond inaccessible and frozen. Life centered in the barn and the barny
28、ard. When the time for mating came, conditions were unfavorable, and this was upsetting to the old gander. Geese like a body of water for their coupling; it doesnt have to be a large body of water just any wet place in which a goose can become partly submerged. My old gander, studying the calendar,
29、inflamed by passion, unable to get to the pond, showed signs of desperation. On several occasions, he tried to manage with a ten-quart pail of water that stood in the barnyard. He would chivvy one of his young foster daughters over to the quail, seize her by the nape of the neck, and hold her head u
30、nder water while he made his attempt. I noticed two things: the old fellow confined his attention to one of the two younger geese and let the other alone, and he never allowed his foster son to approach either of the girls he was very strict about that, and the handsome young male lived all spring i
31、n a state of ostracism. Eventually, the pond opened up, the happy band wended its way down across the melting snows, and the breeding season was officially opened. My pond is visible from the house, but it is at quite a distance. I am not a voyeur and do not spend my time watching the sex antics of
32、geese or anything else. But I try to keep reasonably well posted on all the creatures around the place, and it was apparent that the young gander was not allowed by his foster father to enjoy the privileges of the pond and that the old ganders attentions continued to be directed to just one of the y
33、oung geese. I shall call her Liz to make this tale easier to tell. Both geese were soon laying. Liz made her nest in the barn cellar; her sister, Apathy, made hers in the tie-up on the main floor of the barn. It was the end of April or the beginning of May. Still awfully cold a reluctant spring. Apa
34、thy laid three eggs, then quit. I marked them with a pencil and left them for the time being in the nest she had constructed. I made a mental note that they were infertile. Liz, unlike her sister, went right to laying, and became a laying fool. She dallied each morning at the pond with her foster fa
35、ther, and she laid and laid, like a commercial hen. I dutifully marked the eggs as they arrived 1,2,3, and so on. When she had accumulated a clutch of fifteen, I decided she had all she could cover. From then on, I took to removing the oldest egg from the nest each time a new egg was deposited. I al
36、so removed Apathys three eggs from her nest, discarded them, and began substituting the purloined eggs from the barn cellar the ones that rightfully belonged to Liz. Thus I gradually contrived to assemble a nest of fertile eggs for each bird, all of them laid by the fanatical Liz. During the last we
37、ek in May, Apathy, having produced three eggs of her own but having acquired ten through the kind offices of her sister and me, became broody and began to sit. Liz, with a tally of twenty-five eggs, ten of them stolen, showed not the slightest desire to sit. Laying was her thing. She laid and laid,
38、while the other goose sat and sat. The old gander, marveling at what he had wrought, showed a great deal of interest in both nests. The young gander was impressed but subdued. I continued to remove the early eggs from Lizs nest, holding her to a clutch of fifteen and discarding the extras. In late J
39、une, having produced forty-one eggs, ten of what were under Apathy, she at last sat down. I had marked Apathys hatching date on my desk calendar. On the night before the goslings were due to arrive, when I made my rounds before going to bed, I looked in on her. She hissed, as usual, and ran her neck
40、 out. When I shone my light at her, two tiny green heads were visible, thrusting their way through her feathers. The goslings were there a few hours ahead of schedule. My heart leapt up. Outside, in the barnyard, both ganders stood vigil. They knew very well what was up; ganders take an enormous int
41、erest in family affairs and are deeply impressed by the miracle of the egg-that-becomes-goose. I shut the door against them and went to bed. Next morning, Sunday, I rose early and went straight to the barn to see what the night had brought. Apathy was sitting quietly while five goslings teetered abo
42、ut on the slopes of the nest. One of them, as I watched, strayed from the others, and, not being able to find his way back, began sending out cries for help. They were the kind of distress signal any anxious father would instantly respond to. Suddenly, I heard sounds of a rumble outside in the barny
43、ard where the ganders were loud sounds of scuffling. I ran out. A fierce fight was in progress it was no mere skirmish, it was the real thing. The young gander had grabbed the old one by the stern, his white head buried in feathers right where it would hurt most, and was running him around the yard,
44、 punishing him at every turn thrusting him on ahead and beating him unmercifully with his wings. It was an awesome sight, these two great male birds locked in combat, slugging it out not for the favors of a female but for the dubious privilege of assuming the responsibilities of parenthood. The youn
45、g male had suffered all spring the indignities of a restricted life at the pond; now he had turned, at last, against the old one, as though to get even. Round and round, over rocks and through weeds, they raced, struggling and tripping, the old one in full retreat and in apparent pain. It was a beau
46、tiful late-June morning, with fair-weather clouds and a light wind going, the grasses long in the orchard the kind of morning that always carries for me overtones of summer sadness, I dont know why. For a moment, I thought of climbing the fence and trying to separate the combatants, but instead I ju
47、st watched. The engagement was soon over. Plunging desperately down the lane, the old gander sank to the ground. The young one let go, turned, and walked back, screaming in triumph, to the door behind which his newly won family were waiting: a strange family indeed the sister who was not even the mo
48、ther of the babies, and babies who were not even his own get. When I was sure the fight was over, I climbed the fence and closed the barnyard gate, effectively separating victor from vanquished. The old gander had risen to his feet. He was in almost the same spot in the lane where his first wife had
49、 died mysteriously more than a year ago. I watch as he threaded his way slowly down the narrow path between clumps of thistles and daisies. His head was barely visible above the grasses, but his broken spirit was plain to any eye. When he reached the pasture bars, he hesitated, then painfully squatted and eased himself under the bottom bar and into the pasture, where he sat down on the cropped sward in the bright sun. I felt very deeply his sorrow and his defeat. As things go in the animal kingdom, he is about my age, and when
