諾貝爾文學經典:《寵兒》第14章Part6

Pigs were crying in the chute. All day Paul D, Stamp Paid and twenty more had pushed andprodded them from canal to shore to chute to slaughterhouse. Although, as grain farmers movedwest, St. Louis and Chicago now ate up a lot of the business, Cincinnati was still pig port in theminds of Ohioans. Its main job was to receive, slaughter and ship up the river the hogs thatNortherners did not want to live without. For a month or so in the winter any stray man had work,if he could breathe the stench of offal and stand up for twelve hours, skills in which Paul D wasadmirably trained. A little pig shit, rinsed from every place he could touch, remained on his boots,and he was conscious of it as he stood there with a light smile of scorn curling his lips. Usually heleft his boots in the shed and put his walking shoes on along with his day clothes in the cornerbefore he went home. A route that took him smack dab through the middle of a cemetery as old assky, rife with the agitation of dead Miami no longer content to rest in the mounds that coveredthem. Over their heads walked a strange people; through their earth pillows roads were cut; wellsand houses nudged them out of eternal rest. Outraged more by their folly in believing land washoly than by the disturbances of their peace, they growled on the banks of Licking River, sighed inthe trees on Catherine Street and rode the wind above the pig yards. Paul D heard them but hestayed on because all in all it wasn't a bad job, especially in winter when Cincinnati reassumed itsstatus of slaughter and riverboat capital. The craving for pork was growing into a mania in everycity in the country. Pig farmers were cashing in, provided they could raise enough and get themsold farther and farther away. And the Germans who flooded southern Ohio brought and developedswine cooking to its highest form. Pig boats jammed the Ohio River, and their captains' holleringat one another over the grunts of the stock was as common a water sound as that of the ducksflying over their heads. Sheep, cows and fowl too floated up and down that river, and all a Negrohad to do was show up and there was work: poking, killing, cutting, skinning, case packing andsaving offal.
A hundred yards from the crying pigs, the two men stood behind a shed on Western Row and it was clear why Stamp had been eyeing Paul D this last week of work; why he paused when theevening shift came on, to let Paul D's movements catch up to his own. He had made up his mind toshow him this piece of paper — newspaper — with a picture drawing of a woman who favoredSethe except that was not her mouth. Nothing like it.
Paul D slid the clipping out from under Stamp's palm. The print meant nothing to him so he didn'teven glance at it. He simply looked at the face, shaking his head no. No. At the mouth, you no at whatever it was those black scratches said, and no to whatever it was Stamp Paid wantedhim to know. Because there was no way in hell a black face could appear in a newspaper if thestory was about something anybody wanted to hear. A whip of fear broke through the heartchambers as soon as you saw a Negro's face in a paper, since the face was not there because theperson had a healthy baby, or outran a street mob. Nor was it there because the person had beenkilled, or maimed or caught or burned or jailed or whipped or evicted or stomped or raped orcheated, since that could hardly qualify as news in a newspaper. It would have to be something outof the ordinary — something whitepeople would find interesting, truly different, worth a fewminutes of teeth sucking if not gasps. And it must have been hard to find news about Negroesworth the breath catch of a white citizen of Cincinnati.

豬在滑運道里嚎叫着。保羅·D、斯坦普·沛德和另外二十多人一整天都在把它們催來趕去，從運河到岸上到滑運道再到屠宰場。儘管由於糧農遷往西部，聖路易斯和芝加哥現在吞併了許多企業，但辛辛那提在俄亥俄人的印象裏仍舊是豬的港口。它的主要職責是接收、屠宰和向上遊運去北方人離不開的肉豬。冬天裏有一個月左右的時間，所有流浪漢都有活兒幹，只要他們能忍受死牲口的惡臭，一連站上十二個小時。這些事，保羅·D都令人驚歎地訓練有素。他沖洗乾淨身上所有夠得着的地方，還剩一點豬屎粘在他的靴子上；他站在那裏，意識到這一點，一絲鄙夷的微笑捲起了他的嘴脣。他通常是把靴子留在棚屋裏，回家之前在角落裏換上便鞋和便衣。一條路正好把他帶進一片天空一樣古老的墓地中央，路上充斥着死去的邁阿密人①騷動的亡靈，他們已不再滿足於在墳堆下面安眠了。他們的頭頂上走動着一個陌生的人種；他們的土地枕頭被公路切開；水井和房屋將他們從永恆的憩息中撼醒。與其說是由於安寧受到攪擾，不如說是他們對土地之神聖的愚蠢信仰令他們惱羞成怒，於是他們在黎津河畔怒吼，在凱瑟琳大街的樹上嘆息，並乘風駛過宰豬場的上空。保羅·D聽見了他們的聲音，但仍舊留了下來，因爲無論如何那是個不賴的工作，尤其是在辛辛那提作爲屠宰與河運之都的地位得到確立的冬天。在這個國家的每一座城市裏，對豬肉的渴望正在演化成一種癲狂。倘若豬農們能養足夠的豬，再把它們賣得越來越遠，他們是會賺大錢的。在南俄亥俄氾濫的德國人帶來了豬肉烹調術，並把它發展到登峯造極的地步。運肉豬的船隻阻塞了俄亥俄河；在水上，船長們彼此的吆喝聲蓋過了牲口的哼叫聲，這就像鴨羣飛過頭頂一樣尋常。綿羊、奶牛和家禽也在河上往來輾轉，而一個黑人只須露個面，就會有活兒幹：捅、殺、割肉、剝皮、裝箱，以及儲存下腳料。
距離號叫的豬羣一百碼遠，兩個男人站在西線公司的一間棚屋後面。現在清楚了，爲什麼這一個星期的工作中斯坦普一直盯着保羅·D看；爲什麼輪到上夜班時他就停下來，好讓保羅·D的動作趕上他的。他已經打定主意要向他出示這張紙——報紙——上面有一個女人的肖像，酷似塞絲，只不過那不是她的嘴。一點也不像。
保羅·D從斯坦普的手掌下抽出那張剪報。上面的鉛字他一個也不認得，所以他根本就沒瞥上一眼。他只是看了看那張臉，搖頭說不是。不是。嘴那兒，你看。不管那些黑道道寫的是什麼，也不管斯坦普·沛德想讓他知道些什麼，反正不是。因爲即便在地獄裏，一張黑臉也不可能上報紙，哪怕那個故事有人想聽。你在報上剛看見一張黑人的臉，恐懼的鞭笞就會掠過你的心房，因爲那張臉上報，不可能是由於那個人生了個健康的嬰兒，或是逃脫了一羣暴徒。也不會因爲那個人被殺害、被打殘、被抓獲、被燒死、被拘禁、被鞭打、被驅趕、被蹂躪、被姦污、被欺騙，那些作爲新聞報道根本不夠資格。它必須是件離奇的事情——白人會感興趣的事情，確實非同凡響，值得他們回味幾分鐘，起碼夠倒吸一口涼氣的。而找到一則值得辛辛那提的白人公民屏息咋舌的有關黑人的新聞，肯定非常困難。