诺贝尔文学经典:《宠儿》第10章Part 1

Denver stretches out her right arm and takes a step or two. She trips and falls down onto the pallet.
Newspaper crackles under her weight. She laughs again. "Oh, shoot. Beloved?"No one answers. Denver waves her arms and squinches her eyes to separate the shadows of potatosacks, a lard can and a side of smoked pork from the one that might be human.
"Stop fooling," she says and looks up toward the light to check and make sure this is still the Cold house and not something going on in her sleep. The minnows of light still swim there; they can'tmake it down to where she is.
"You the one thirsty. You want cider or don't you?" Denver's voice is mildly accusatory. Mildly.
She doesn't want to offend and she doesn't want to betray the panic that is creeping over her likehairs. There is no sight or sound of Beloved. Denver struggles to her feet amid the cracklingnewspaper. Holding her palm out, she moves slowly toward the door. There is no latch or knob —just a loop of wire to catch a nail. She pushes the door open. Cold sunlight displaces the dark. Theroom is just as it was when they entered-except Beloved is not there. There is no point in lookingfurther, for everything in the place can be seen at first sight. Denver looks anyway because the lossis ungovernable. She steps back into the shed, allowing the door to close quickly behind ness or not, she moves rapidly around, reaching, touching cobwebs, cheese, slanting shelves,the pallet interfering with each step. If she stumbles, she is not aware of it because she does notknow where her body stops, which part of her is an arm, a foot or a knee. She feels like an ice caketorn away from the solid surface of the stream, floating on darkness, thick and crashing against theedges of things around it. Breakable, meltable and cold.

It is hard to breathe and even if there were light she wouldn't be able to see anything because she iscrying. Just as she thought it might happen, it has. Easy as walking into a room. A magicalappearance on a stump, the face wiped out by sunlight, and a magical disappearance in a shed,eaten alive by the dark.

丹芙伸出右手，迈了一两步。她脚下一滑，倒在草荐上。报纸在她的重压下哗啦乱响。她大笑起来。"哎呀，呸。宠儿？"
没人答应。丹芙挥着胳膊，挤着眼睛，从土豆麻袋、一个猪油罐头和一块熏肉的侧影中辨别着人影。
"别闹了。"她说着，仰起头去看阳光，以便搞清楚这仍是在冷藏室，而不是梦中发生的事情。光线的小鱼仍在那里游动；它们游不到她站立的地方。
"是你喊渴的。你还想不想喝苹果汁了？"丹芙的声音里有温和的责备。温和的。

她不想得罪人，也不愿流露那毛发一般爬遍全身的恐慌。没有宠儿的一丝影子或声音。丹芙从哗啦作响的报纸中挣扎起来。她伸出手掌，慢慢地摸向门口。没有插销，也没有门把手——只有一圈铁丝，拴在一颗钉子上。她推开门。寒冷的阳光取代了黑暗。屋子里同她们进来的时候一模一样——只是宠儿不在了。再找下去没有意义，所有的东西都一目了然。但丹芙还是要找，因为这个损失是无法弥补的。她走回棚屋，让门在身后猛地关上。不管黑不黑，她快速地转着圈，搜索着，摸到了蜘蛛网、奶酪，撞歪了架子，每走一步草荐都绊她。即使绊倒在地，她也没有感觉，因为她不知道自己的身体停在何处，自己的哪一部分是胳膊、脚或者膝盖。她觉得自己好像是一块从小溪坚实的冰面上扯下的冰坨，漂浮在黑暗中，撞击着它周围一切物体的边缘。易碎，易融，而且冰冷。
她呼吸困难，而且，就算有光亮也看不见任何东西，因为她哭了。她刚预感到要出事，它就发生了。就像走进一间屋子那样容易。在树桩上神奇地现身，脸庞被阳光抹去；然后，在棚屋里神奇地消失，被黑暗活活吞吃。