| 目 录 上一节 下一节 
主楼四周的草地上到处乱撒着细碎的木屑、稻草屑及破破烂烂的木桶和老式箱子等物。三四只模样凶狠的大灰狗被嘎吱嘎吱的车轮声惊得龇牙咧嘴，汪汪乱叫着跟了出来。几个服饰褴褛的奴仆跟在它们的后面，费力地想拉住它们失控的身躯，汤姆和他的伙伴们才有幸没被它们咬到。"你们看到没有！？"烈格雷先生一边冷笑一边友善地轻抚那几条狗，回过头来神色飞扬地对汤姆他们说道："它们是我特训的哨兵，瞧瞧！它们的眼睛有多尖锐，它们的牙齿有多锋利，如果你们想逃跑，自己想想会是什么样的下场吧！这些狗是经过专门训练用来对付那些想逃跑的黑鬼的！它们几乎一口就能把人撕个粉碎，然后饱餐一顿连骨头都不放过。哼！你们最好给我当心点！喂--桑博，装什么死！"烈格雷对一个头戴无沿帽、身穿破烂衣裳、神情低落沮丧的人问道，"这些天家里怎么样？没什么异常现象吧！" Fust rate, Mas'r."" 回主人的话，家里一切如故。" "Quimbo," said Legree to another, who was making zealous demonstrations to attract his attention, "ye minded what I telled ye?"" 昆博！你说呢？"烈格雷又问站在旁边的另外一个黑人，他正在指手画脚，想引起他的注意。"还记得我吩咐过你的事吗？一切都照办了吗？" "Guess I did, didn't I?"" 这还用说吗？主人？你的吩咐，就等于天主的命令，我怎敢忘记呀？" These two colored men were the two principal hands on the plantation. Legree had trained them in savageness and brutality as systematically as he had his bull-dogs; and, by long practice in hardness and cruelty, brought their whole nature to about the same range of capacities. It is a common remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly against the character of the race, that the negro overseer is always more tyrannical and cruel than the white one. This is simply saying that the negro mind has been more crushed and debased than the white. It is no more true of this race than of every oppressed race, the world over. The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one. 这两个黑鬼无疑是庄园里两个掌管琐事的黑奴。烈格雷像训练他的大灰狗一样，亲自将他们一点一滴地训练得忠诚无比、残暴无比、凶蛮无比。经过长时间的凶恶而残酷的训练，人善良的本性在他们的心里已被渐渐磨灭，不复存在了。他们有的也只是像恶狗一样的凶残野蛮。世人常说，黑人主管比白人主管更加残暴凶狠。我认为，这种说法毫无确切根据，逻辑上全然歪曲了黑人们善良的本性。因为，这种说法唯一能证实的只是黑人们的心灵在历史的摧残中，要遭受比白人更多的压抑和更深的摧残罢了。其实全世界受压迫的民族、种族都是这样。一旦给予他们机会，即使最忠诚的奴仆，往往也会变成一名最凶狠的暴君。 
一如我们在历史书籍上曾读到过的一些君主一样，烈格雷先生有着先天的残暴和统治奴隶的能力，他采取了权力分散的方式统治着他的庄园。这样一来，权势的争夺，为了博得主人更多的权威，桑博和昆博不可救药地憎恨着对方，而庄园上其他的黑奴又对他俩恨之入骨。烈格雷先生在这三者之间轻意地挑衅生事，激起他们之间的内部矛盾，所以聪明的烈格雷先生毫不费力地就能统治他的庄园，对庄园发生的一切事情了如指掌。 Nobody can live entirely without social intercourse; and Legree encouraged his two black satellites to a kind of coarse familiarity with him,--a familiarity, however, at any moment liable to get one or the other of them into trouble; for, on the slightest provocation, one of them always stood ready, at a nod, to be a minister of his vengeance on the other. 人生在世，不可能和外界毫无来往。烈格雷先生也不例外，因而他便鼓励自己的这两位得力助手与他形成一种粗俗的亲近关系，但这种主奴之间所谓的亲密关系是极有可能随时给这两个家伙带来灭顶之灾。因为，倘若在两个人之间任何一个对烈格雷先生稍有冒犯，只要另一个略微示意，肇事者必将要遭到烈格雷先生的一场苦刑。 As they stood there now by Legree, they seemed an apt illustration of the fact that brutal men are lower even than animals. Their coarse, dark, heavy features; their great eyes, rolling enviously on each other; their barbarous, guttural, half-brute intonation; their dilapidated garments fluttering in the wind,--were all in admirable keeping with the vile and unwholesome character of everything about the place. 此刻这两个家伙分站在烈格雷先生的两旁。他们的模样充分地说明了这样的事实：凶狠无比，失去了人性的他们比野兽还要低贱野蛮。他们那粗糙、黝黑而阴沉的面庞，那互相敌视、充满仇恨的大眼，那粗俗、嘶哑而难听的声音，那残忍蛮横的语调，那随风抖动的破烂衣裳露出的脏秽的肉体，都与整座庄园令人作呕的环境相称。 "Here, you Sambo," said Legree, "take these yer boys down to the quarters; and here's a gal I've got for _you_," said he, as he separated the mulatto woman from Emmeline, and pushed her towards him;--"I promised to bring you one, you know."" 哎，桑博，"烈格雷先生说，"把这两个家伙带到他们住的地方去吧。喏，这是我送给你的女人。"他把混血女人和埃米琳的手铐打开，将那柔弱的混血女人一把推到了桑博的怀中，嬉笑道："我先前答应过要送你一个女人的，满意吗？" The woman gave a start, and drawing back, said, suddenly, 那混血女人吓了一跳，往后退了一步，哭丧着脸急切地说： 
主人！求求您别这么做！您让我干别的什么都可以，我在奥尔良有丈夫啊！" "What of that, you--; won't you want one here? None o' your words,--go long!" said Legree, raising his whip." 那有什么关系？难道你在这就只想做一匹不需要性爱的母驴吗？这儿没你说话的份，你给我滚开点！"烈格雷举起鞭子恐吓她。 "Come, mistress," he said to Emmeline, "you go in here with me."" 来，我的宝贝！"他调过头对埃米琳说道，"你跟我来吧。" A dark, wild face was seen, for a moment, to glance at the window of the house; and, as Legree opened the door, a female voice said something, in a quick, imperative tone. Tom, who was looking, with anxious interest, after Emmeline, as she went in, noticed this, and heard Legree answer, angrily, "You may hold your tongue! I'll do as I please, for all you!" 此时窗口闪现了一张黝黑、抑郁而狂野的脸孔，朝着下面注视了好一会儿。当烈格雷先生开门进去时，有个女人用愤怒的口吻急促地说了些什么。汤姆正忧心忡忡地看着埃米琳被带了进去。他听到了一个声音，也听到了烈格雷先生愤怒地回答："蠢货，你给我住嘴！老子想干什么轮得到你来管？" Tom heard no more; for he was soon following Sambo to the quarters. The quarters was a little sort of street of rude shanties, in a row, in a part of the plantation, far off from the house. They had a forlorn, brutal, forsaken air. Tom's heart sunk when he saw them. He had been comforting himself with the thought of a cottage, rude, indeed, but one which he might make neat and quiet, and where he might have a shelf for his Bible, and a place to be alone out of his laboring hours. He looked into several; they were mere rude shells, destitute of any species of furniture, except a heap of straw, foul with dirt, spread confusedly over the floor, which was merely the bare ground, trodden hard by the tramping of innumerable feet. 后面他还说了些什么，汤姆再已听不见了。因为他已经跟在桑博的后面，被带到了属于自己的住处。这地方也在庄园里，但地处偏僻，离主楼还有一大段路程，它是由木板搭起的一排破旧房子，狭窄得像一条小街。整个地方显得荒凉而凄清。汤姆看到这些，不禁大所失望。他本来一直在慰藉自己，想象有属于自己的一间安静舒适的小屋。即使简陋破旧一点也没关系，只需里面有个架子能给他放宝贝的《圣经》，他可以把它弄得干干净净，让它每天保持着整洁。这样的话，自己就能在劳作之后，独自享用一份宁静安逸了。他往房间四周打量了一下，发现里面空荡荡的。除了凌乱地铺在被无数双脚践踏后早已变得坚硬无比的泥土上的稻草之外，就再没别的东西了。 
我该住在那儿呢？"汤姆温驯地问桑博。 "Dunno; ken turn in here, I spose," said Sambo; "spects thar's room for another thar; thar's a pretty smart heap o' niggers to each on 'em, now; sure, I dunno what I 's to do with more."" 我也不太清楚，反正都一样，就住这间吧，"桑博回答，"只有这间还能再容得下一个人；别的房间都被塞得满满的。我都不知道如果再有人来的话该往哪里搁。" It was late in the evening when the weary occupants of the shanties came flocking home,--men and women, in soiled and tattered garments, surly and uncomfortable, and in no mood to look pleasantly on new-comers. The small village was alive with no inviting sounds; hoarse, guttural voices contending at the hand-mills where their morsel of hard corn was yet to be ground into meal, to fit it for the cake that was to constitute their only supper. From the earliest dawn of the day, they had been in the fields, pressed to work under the driving lash of the overseers; for it was now in the very heat and hurry of the season, and no means was left untried to press every one up to the top of their capabilities. "True," says the negligent lounger; "picking cotton isn't hard work." Isn't it? And it isn't much inconvenience, either, to have one drop of water fall on your head; yet the worst torture of the inquisition is produced by drop after drop, drop after drop, falling moment after moment, with monotonous succession, on the same spot; and work, in itself not hard, becomes so, by being pressed, hour after hour, with unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even the consciousness of free-will to take from its tediousness. Tom looked in vain among the gang, as they poured along, for companionable faces. He saw only sullen, scowling, imbruted men, and feeble, discouraged women, or women that were not women,--the strong pushing away the weak,--the gross, unrestricted animal selfishness of human beings, of whom nothing good was expected and desired; and who, treated in every way like brutes, had sunk as nearly to their level as it was possible for human beings to do. To a late hour in the night the sound of the grinding was protracted; for the mills were few in number compared with the grinders, and the weary and feeble ones were driven back by the strong, and came on last in their turn. 夜很深了，月亮爬上了树枝，住在这些房子里的人才拖着沉重的步子、疲惫不堪、成群结队地归来--男男女女，没有一个不精疲力竭，神色消沉。他们身上穿的脏衣服这时候显得更破更脏了，如同刚刚劳作完的驴子。这样的心情下，谁也没有多注意新来的人，也没有人给他什么好脸色看。木匣子似的房间，瞬间就变得人声鼎沸，嘈杂无比。几个人在磨坊那边大声吵嚷，声音嘶哑难听。他们正站在磨盘旁边等着将自己那少得可怜的玉米粒儿磨成面粉，再烙成饼，好充当他们的晚餐。从天边刚刚透出一丝光亮的那一刻起，他们就被迫在地里一直干活。可恶的监工还不时地挥舞着手中的皮鞭，稍有不注意就会遭到一阵痛打。这是一年中最繁忙也最热的季节，主人只好使出最狠的招式，迫使他们不遗余力地为他干活。"老实说，"一些悠闲自在、不务正业、吊儿郎当的人常常这么谈论，"摘棉花真算不上什么苦活。"果真这样吗？想想吧。假如有一滴水滴到你的头上，那当然算不上什么。但如果一滴又一滴的水不停地滴在你头上的同一个地方，就不能说，"算不上什么了"。这何尝算不上一种可怕的苦刑？同样，摘棉花的本身并不是什么苦事，但如果你被迫一分钟接一分钟不停地干着这样的事，甚至连想都不敢想怎么减轻这种单调乏味、循环往复的乏味工作，那干活也就成了一种活受罪、一种苦刑了。人潮涌进来的时候，在不同的面孔下，汤姆曾试图寻找着，希望能够找到一张友善点的面孔。但他所看见的只有抑郁凶狠、愁眉不展的男人和虚弱不堪、万分沮丧的女人，或者说不像女人的女人。弱肉强食--这种人类生存上的竞争本能、如同动物般赤裸裸的自私心在他们身上表现无遗。在他们那儿，休想得到丝毫善意，更无法找到高尚的东西了。人家像对待禽兽那样地对待他们，他们从根本上已经失去了人类的情感和尊严，早已堕落到了近乎禽兽的地步。磨面的沉闷声音一直持续到深夜。因为要与磨面的人数来比，磨子远远不够。那些瘦弱疲惫无力的人被强健硕壮的人挤到队伍的最末端，最后才轮到他们。
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