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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033791]
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1 贫瘠的春天
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农民老刘坐在自己只有一间房的门口。那是二月末的一个温煦的黄昏，他瘦削的身体已经感知到春天的来临。他怎会知道正是这时候树木的汁液开始颤动，泥土中的生命开始苏醒呢？他无法给自己一个答案。可是在往年，这本是一件极容易的事情。他本可以指着屋子四周的柳树，给大家看就要抽条的嫩芽。但是现在树已经没有了，严冬饥荒时被他全砍了，一棵一棵地卖了。或者他本来还可以指着父亲年轻时亲手栽种的三株桃树和六棵杏树，给大家看那粉嫩的花苞。这些果树正值壮年，每年都会结下累累的果实。但是这些树也没有了。最重要的是，往年他还会指着麦地给大家看。在这块地上，他冬天种麦子，因为那个时令没法种水稻；快入夏时，他就会插秧种稻子，而且收成很好。水稻是他田里的主要农作物。但是今年地里啥也没有。没有离离的麦子，因为该种麦子的时候，田地被洪水淹没了，现在地都开裂了，像刚干不久的黏土一样。
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好吧，在这样一个日子里，要是还和往年一样，他的水牛还在，耕犁还在，他应该早已经出门去耕种那片已经开裂的土地了。他很想念犁地，想念平整耕田的样子，是的，就算他连一颗可以播撒的种子也没有。但如今他没有水牛了。要是先前有人劝他把他的水牛宰了吃，他一定会痛骂那个人是个王八犊子。他的水牛可是耕地能手，丰收时还可以帮拉石磨碾谷子。但这都是过去时了。他已经吃掉了自己的水牛。他和他的妻子、父母还有四个孩子一起把水牛给吃了。
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但是，在那个昏暗的冬日里，他们吃完了储藏的最后一点粮食，树也砍光了卖钱，能卖的都卖了，连从洪水中救出的那一点点东西也都卖了，除了房梁和身上的衣服，什么都没有剩下，他们还能怎么办？剥掉衣服来填肚子有意义吗？而且当时牲口也已快饿死了，因为洪水已淹没草地，连煮牲口的骨和肉所需的柴草也得走很远才能捡够。那一天，他看到自己年迈的父母面如死灰，听到孩子们哭泣不停，眼见小女儿奄奄一息，他被一阵惨痛的绝望钳住，变得失去了理智，然后鼓起虚弱的气力，做了他说过永远不会做的事情。他到厨房拿起刀，走出去，把自己的牲口给宰了。那一刻他绝望地呻吟着，好像亲手杀了自己的兄弟。对他而言，这是最后的牺牲。
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但这还不够。是的，他们又开始遭受饥饿的折磨了，但已经没有什么可杀的了。村子里很多人南下投奔别的地方，或者到河流下游的大城市去乞讨。但农民老刘绝不乞讨。而且他觉得反正大家迟早都要死，死在自己的土地上是剩下的唯一的安慰。邻居来求他，让他跟他们一起动身；是的，他的邻居看到自己的老父亲已命归黄泉时，甚至提出愿意跟老刘一道背他的父母赶路。但老刘拒绝了。这样也不错，因为两天以后他老母亲就死了。要是死在半路上，他只能把尸体扔在路边，否则还得耽误其他人的时间，然后就会有更多人因此死去。现在呢，虽说他身体已经十分虚弱，花了整整三天才挖出一个够深的土穴来掩埋母亲干瘪的身躯，但毕竟他可以把她安好地埋葬在自己的土地上。就在母亲下葬之前，他和老婆吵了一架，就为老人尸体上那点可怜的衣服。他老婆是个硬心肠的女人，假如老刘同意的话，她就要让婆婆光着身子下葬，这样一来扒下来的衣服就可以给孩子们穿。但是老刘还是给母亲穿了内衣和裤子离开了，尽管那都已经是破布了。当他看到冰冷的泥土盖在老母亲的皮肉上时——喔，这对一个男人来说是一种悲哀，但是又有什么办法呢？然后他又亲手将他的老父亲、幼小的女儿和一个从未长结实的小儿子一个个埋入泥土。
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这就是这场冬日的饥荒从他们身边所夺走的。饥荒还差点夺走所有人的性命，幸亏洪水过后，随处可见的水塘里发现了小虾，他们便捞来生吃，虽然都因此得了一种难以痊愈的痢疾，但他们一直这样吃到现在。大概在最后一天，他老婆挣扎着出去，挖到了一些刚发芽的蒲公英，因为没有柴火，所以也只能生吃了。味儿苦，但在吃腻了没有滋味的生虾后，这苦味倒还感觉不错。是的，春天来了。
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他一屁股坐下，望着外面自己的土地。要是他能要回他的水牛，如果他没有把耕犁当柴火烧了，他现在就能耕地了。每当他想到这些（他每天都想很多遍），他就觉得十分无助，就像扔进洪水的一片孤叶。水牛不在了，犁也不在了，连一根木头一节竹子都没有剩，他还有什么呢？冬天里，有时候他还会心存一丝感激，至少洪水没有把他所有的房屋都冲坏，尽管也冲毁了很多人家的房子。但现在，他突然意识到没有什么值得他感激的，没有，甚至他都不感激自己还活着，自己的老婆还活着，还有老大老二两个孩子。他感觉到泪水慢慢涌上眼眶，就算在埋葬母亲那天，看着泥土撒落在母亲的躯体上时，他都没有掉过一滴眼泪，他甚至还因为母亲辞世时尚有破布遮体而感到安慰。但现在，他无以慰藉。他喃喃自语：
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“我没有种子可以种地。土地就在那儿！我要是有种子，我会用我的双手去刨地，土地就会有收成。我知道我的地肥。但我没有种子，地里什么也没有。是的，春天来了，可我们还会挨饿！”他呆望着这贫瘠的春天，没有一丝希望。
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（罗选民 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033792]
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2 THE BEAST OF BURDEN
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By W. Somerset Maugham
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THE BEAST OF BURDEN, from On a Chinese Screen , by William Somerset Maugham, New York, George H. Doran Company, 1922, pp. 77-79.
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William Somerset Maugham （1874-1965）, English dramatist and novelist. In 1921, Mr. Maugham traveled through China. His impressions of places and persons he recorded in his book of delightful sketches On a Chinese Screen , from which book THE BEAST OF BURDEN and THE SONG OF THE RIVER were taken.
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At first when you see the coolie on the road, bearing his load, it is as a pleasing object that he strikes the eye. In his blue rags, a blue of all colors from indigo to turquoise and then to the paleness of a milky sky, he fits the landscape. He seems exactly right as he trudges along the narrow causeway between the rice fields or climbs a green hill. His clothing consists of no more than a short coat and a pair of trousers; and if he had a suit which was at the beginning all of a piece, he never thinks when it comes to patching to choose a bit of stuff of the same color. He takes anything that comes handy. From sun and rain he protects his head with a straw hat shaped like an extinguisher with a preposterously wide, flat brim.
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You see a string of coolies come along, one after the other, each with a pole on his shoulders from the ends of which hang two great bales, and they make an agreeable pattern. It is amusing to watch their hurrying reflections in the padi water. You watch their faces as they pass you. They are good-natured faces and frank, you would have said, if it had not been drilled into you that the oriental is inscrutable; and when you see them lying down with their loads under a banyan tree by a wayside shrine, smoking and chatting gaily, if you have tried to lift the bales they carry for thirty miles or more a day, it seems natural to feel admiration for their endurance and their spirit. But you will be thought somewhat absurd if you mention your admiration to the old residents of China. You will be told with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders that the coolies are animals and for two thousand years from father to son have carried burdens, so it is no wonder if they do it cheerfully. And indeed you can see for yourself that they begin early, for you will encounter little children with a yoke on their shoulders staggering under the weight of vegetable baskets.
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The day wears on and it grows warmer. The coolies take off their coats and walk stripped to the waist. Then sometimes in a man resting for an instant, his load on the ground but the pole still on his shoulders so that he has to rest slightly crouched, you see the poor tired heart beating against the ribs: you see it as plainly as in some cases of heart disease in the out-patients’ room of a hospital. It is strangely distressing to watch. Then also you see the coolies’ backs. The pressure of the pole for long years, day after day, has made hard red scars, and sometimes even there are open sores, great sores without bandages or dressing that rub against the wood; but the strangest thing of all is that sometimes, as though nature sought to adapt man for these cruel uses to which he is put, an odd malformation seems to have arisen so that there is a sort of hump, like a camel’s, against which the pole rests. But beating heart or angry sore, bitter rain or burning sun notwithstanding, they go on eternally, from dawn till dusk, year in year out, from childhood to the extreme of age. You see old men without an ounce of fat on their bodies, their skin loose on their bones, wizened, their little faces wrinkled and apelike, with hair thin and grey; and they totter under their burdens to the edge of the grave in which at last they shall have rest. And still the coolies go, not exactly running, but not walking either, sidling quickly, with their eyes on the ground to choose the spot to place their feet, and on their faces a strained, anxious expression. You can make no longer a pattern of them as they wend their way. Their effort oppresses you. You are filled with a useless compassion.
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In China it is man that is the beast of burden.
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“To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without the possibility of arresting one’s course, —is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither, —is not that a just cause for grief?”
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So wrote the Chinese mystic.
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Notes
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coolie, an unskilled hired laborer or porter. The word is probably derived from the Hindu word kuli or quli .
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pleasing object . The first and the second paragraphs tell what things are pleasing in the coolie.
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indigo to turquoise, deep violet-blue to light green-blue.