诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第8章Part 4

It started like the chain-up but the difference was the power of the chain. One by one, from Hi Manback on down the line, they dove. Down through the mud under the bars, blind, groping. Some hadsense enough to wrap their heads in their shirts, cover their faces with rags, put on their shoes.
Others just plunged, simply ducked down and pushed out, fighting up, reaching for air. Some lostdirection and their neighbors, feeling the confused pull of the chain, snatched them around. Forone lost, all lost. The chain that held them would save all or none, and Hi Man was the Delivery.
They talked through that chain like Sam Morse and, Great God, they all came up. Like theunshriven dead, zombies on the loose, holding the chains in their hands, they trusted the rain andthe dark, yes, but mostly Hi Man and each other.
Past the sheds where the dogs lay in deep depression; past the two guard shacks, past the stable ofsleeping horses, past the hens whose bills were bolted into their feathers, they waded. The moondid not help because it wasn't there. The field was a marsh, the track a trough. All Georgia seemedto be sliding, melting away. Moss wiped their faces as they fought the live-oak branches thatblocked their way. Georgia took up all of Alabama and Mississippi then, so there was no state lineto cross and it wouldn't have mattered anyway. If they had known about it, they would haveavoided not only Alfred and the beautiful feldspar, but Savannah too and headed for the SeaIslands on the river that slid down from the Blue Ridge Mountains. But they didn't know.
Daylight came and they huddled in a copse of redbud trees. Night came and they scrambled up tohigher ground, praying the rain would go on shielding them and keeping folks at home. They werehoping for a shack, solitary, some distance from its big house, where a slave might be making ropeor heating potatoes at the grate. What they found was a camp of sick Cherokee for whom a rosewas named. Decimated but stubborn, they were among those who chose a fugitive life rather thanOklahoma. The illness that swept them now was reminiscent of the one that had killed half theirnumber two hundred years earlier. In between that calamity and this, they had visited George III in London, published a newspaper, made baskets, led Oglethorpe through forests, helped AndrewJackson fight Creek, cooked maize, drawn up a constitution, petitioned the King of Spain, beenexperimented on by Dartmouth, established asylums, wrote their language, resisted settlers, shotbear and translated scripture. All to no avail. The forced move to the Arkansas River, insisted uponby the same president they fought for against the Creek, destroyed another quarter of their alreadyshattered number.

行动开始时，很像穿上锁链，可是区别在于锁链的力量。一个接一个地，从"嗨师傅"往回，沿着这一排，他们扎了下去。潜到栅栏下的泥浆里，瞎着眼睛摸索着。几个有心计的把脑袋裹在衬衫里，用破布蒙住脸，穿上鞋。
其余的就这么囫囵扎了下去，只管往下划开去，再奋力上来找空气。有的迷失了方向，同伴感觉到锁链上慌张狼狈的乱扯，就四处去抓他们。因为一旦有一个迷失，大家就会全部迷失。将他们拴在一起的锁链，要么救出所有人，要么一个也救不了，于是，"嗨师傅"成了救星。
他们通过链子说话，就像山姆·摩斯一样，老天哪，他们全出来了。他们手执锁链，如同未经忏悔的死者和逍遥法外的僵尸，他们信赖豪雨和黑夜，是的，但最信任的是"嗨师傅"，是他们自己。
他们走过狗窝棚，狗无精打采地趴在那里；走过两个看守室，走过马沉睡着的马厩，走过把嘴埋进羽毛的母鸡，他们跋涉着。月亮没帮上忙，因为它不在场。田野是一片沼泽，道路是一条水沟。整个佐治亚似乎都在下沉、融化。他们企图拨开挡道的橡树枝，倒被蹭了一脸青苔。那时的佐治亚还包括整个亚拉巴马和密西西比，所以没有州界可过，其实它们本来也没什么用处。要是他们知道的话，他们不仅会逃离阿尔弗雷德和美丽的长石矿，还会避开萨凡纳，而直奔位于滑下蓝岭的河流上的海群岛。然而他们不知道。
白天来了，他们在紫荆树丛中挤作一团。夜幕降临，他们爬起身登上高地，祈求雨会继续掩护他们，把人们困在家里。他们希望找到一个孤零零的小棚子，离主人的大房子有一定距离，里面可能有个黑奴在搓绳子或者在炉架上烤土豆。他们找到的是一营生病的切罗基人，一种玫瑰就是因他们而得名的。人口大批死亡之后，切罗基人仍然很顽固，宁愿去过一种逃犯的生涯，也不去俄克拉何马。现在席卷他们的这场疾病让人想起二百年前曾经要了他们半数性命的那一场。在这两场灾祸之间，他们去拜见了伦敦的乔治三世，出版了一份报纸，造出了篮子，把奥格尔索普带出了森林，帮助安德鲁·杰克逊与克里克人作战，烹调玉米，制定宪法，上书西班牙国王，被达特茅斯学院用来做实验，建立避难所，为自己的语言发明文字，抵抗殖民者，猎熊，翻译经文。然而都是徒劳无功。他们协助攻打克里克人的那同一个总统一声令下，他们就被迫迁往阿肯色河，已经残缺不全的队伍因此又损失了四分之一。