| 目 录 上一节 下一节 
奥古斯丁，奥古斯丁，你说得太多了，即使在北方，我也从来没听到过这样的观点。" "At the North!" said St. Clare, with a sudden change of expression, and resuming something of his habitual careless tone. "Pooh! your northern folks are cold-blooded; you are cool in everything! You can't begin to curse up hill and down as we can, when we get fairly at it."" 北方！"圣克莱尔的语调又恢复到平常那种漫不经心的样子，"哼，你们那些北方伦都是无情无义的冷血动物，你们对什么事都无动于衷。" "Well, but the question is," said Miss Ophelia." 可问题在于--" "O, yes, to be sure, the _question is_,--and a deuce of a question it is! How came _you_ in this state of sin and misery? Well, I shall answer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by ordinary generation. My servants were my father's, and, what is more, my mother's; and now they are mine, they and their increase, which bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, you know, came first from New England; and he was just such another man as your father,--a regular old Roman,--upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an iron will. Your father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks and stones, and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled in Louisiana, to rule over men and women, and force existence out of them. My mother," said St. Clare, getting up and walking to a picture at the end of the room, and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration, "_she was divine!_ Don't look at me so!--you know what I mean! She probably was of mortal birth; but, as far as ever I could observe, there was no trace of any human weakness or error about her; and everybody that lives to remember her, whether bond or free, servant, acquaintance, relation, all say the same. Why, cousin, that mother has been all that has stood between me and utter unbelief for years. She was a direct embodiment and personification of the New Testament,--a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for in no other way than by its truth. O, mother! mother!" said St. Clare, clasping his hands, in a sort of transport; and then suddenly checking himself, he came back, and seating himself on an ottoman, he went on:" 不错，问题在于它有两方面：一个人怎么可能成为凶狠的奴隶主，同时又感受到犯罪似的痛苦？那好，让我用你在礼拜天教我的那些古朴而典雅的语句来回答这个问题。我现在的财产和地位是从我父母那里继承来的，我的仆人是我父母的，而现在这些仆人以及他们的后代都是属于我所有，这可是笔非常可观的财产。我父亲来自新英格兰，是一个地道的天主教徒。他生性豪爽，为人正直，品德高尚，意志坚强。你父亲在新英格兰安了家，依靠大自然的资源而生活。我父亲则在路易斯安那州安居下来，靠剥削黑奴而生活。至于我的母亲，"圣克莱尔一边说着，一边站起身来，走到墙上的一幅画像前面，抬头凝视着，脸上涌现出崇敬之情。然后他转过身来，对奥菲利亚小姐说："她像圣女般圣洁。她虽然是凡人，但在我心目中，她没有丝毫凡人所具有的缺点和错误，不管是奴隶，还是自由人，不管是仆人，还是亲戚、朋友，也都是这么认为的。这么多年来，正是我的母亲，我才没有完全变成一个毫无信仰的人。我母亲是《新约》的忠实体现者和化身，这一现象除了用《新约》的真理来解释，没有别的方法能给以解释了。母亲啊！"圣克莱尔激动得握紧双手，深情地呼唤着。一会儿，他控制住了自己的感情，转过身来，坐到一张小凳子上 "My brother and I were twins; and they say, you know, that twins ought to resemble each other; but we were in all points a contrast. He had black, fiery eyes, coal-black hair, a strong, fine Roman profile, and a rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline, and fair complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and inactive. He was generous to his friends and equals, but proud, dominant, overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever set itself up against him. Truthful we both were; he from pride and courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about as boys generally do,--off and on, and in general;--he was my father's pet, and I my mother's." 人们说孪生兄弟应该是非常相像的，可我和我的孪生哥哥却截然不同。他有一双锐利的黑眼睛，头发乌黑发亮，拥有如同罗马人般端正的相貌，皮肤呈深棕色。而我却拥有一双蓝眼睛，头发金黄，脸色白皙，一副希腊人的相貌。他爱动，我爱静。他对朋友或同等地位的人慷慨大方，对待下人却蛮横无理，如果谁要和他唱反调，他会毫不留情将之打倒。我们都拥有诚实的品质，他表现出骄傲，勇敢，而我则表现得过于理想化。我们兄弟俩的感情时好时坏，但彼此还能相互爱护。父亲宠爱他，母亲则宠爱我。 
我容易多愁善感，父亲和哥哥根本不能理解我，可母亲却很理解。所以，每当我和艾尔弗雷德吵架，父亲对我板起面孔时，我便到母亲身边去。我至今仍记得那时母亲望着我的神情。她脸色苍白，目光庄重而温柔，一身白色服装。每当我在《新约·启示录》里读到有关身着白色衣服的圣徒时，我都不由自主地想起母亲。她多才多艺，尤其精通音乐。她经常坐在风琴前，弹奏庄重而优美的天主教教堂音乐，并用她那天使般的嗓音唱着，而我呢，则靠在母亲的膝头，流着眼泪，心中充满无限感慨。那简直是用语言难以形容的美妙境界。 "In those days, this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as it has now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it."My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family. My brother was begotten in his image. 那时候，奴隶制问题还没有被人们普遍关注，人们还没有想过它究竟有多大的害处。我父亲是那种天生就具有贵族气质的人。尽管他出身低贱，与名门望族无缘，可他那股贵族气派却是深入骨髓。我的哥哥完全就是父亲的翻版。""他有个监工，身材高大，对于凶残这套本领，他可称得上精通。母亲和我都不能容忍他，可我的父亲却非常信任他，对他是言听计从，所以，这个监工成为了庄园里专制的暴君。 "Now, an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies, beyond a certain line in society. In England the line is in one place, in Burmah in another, and in America in another; but the aristocrat of all these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship and distress and injustice in his own class, is a cool matter of course in another one. My father's dividing line was that of color. _Among his equals_, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered the negro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate link between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice or generosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to be sure, if anybody had asked him, plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, he might have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a man much troubled with spiritualism; religious sentiment he had none, beyond a veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper classes." 你也知道，全世界的贵族对于自己阶级之外的人，都是毫无怜惜之心的。无论在哪个国家，阶级界限都是存在的，所有的贵族都不会超越这个界限。在自己阶级里被认为是苦难和不公平的事，到了另一个阶级里便成为天经地义的事了。在我父亲看来，这条界限便是肤色。他对待和自己同等地位的人是无比的慷慨，可他把黑人却看成是介乎于人和动物之间的东西。在这个前提下，他的慷慨也就不是确定不变的了。如果要他公正地回答，黑人是否有人性和不灭的灵魂，他也许会吞吞吐吐地回答说：有。不过，我父亲是个不太注重性灵的人，除了对上帝稍微敬重之外，他没有任何宗教热忱。" "Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man; everything was to move by system,--to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now, if you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but `shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you'll see that there might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a sensitive child, like me." 我父亲有五百名左右的黑奴。他是个十足的事业家，一切按制度办事，规规矩矩，一丝不苟。你可以设想一下：他的制度由一些成天只会说废话，懒散，无能的黑奴来执行的话，你就会明白，他的庄园里会发生许许多多的事情，许许多多令我这个敏感的孩子感到可怕和伤心的事情。" "I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that I have now for all kinds of human things,--a kind of passion for the study of humanity, come in what shape it would. I was found in the cabins and among the field-hands a great deal, and, of course, was a great favorite; and all sorts of complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear; and I told them to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort of committee for a redress of grievances. We hindered and repressed a great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves on doing a vast deal of good, till, as often happens, my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained to my father that he couldn't manage the hands, and must resign his position. Father was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never flinched from anything that he thought necessary; and so he put down his foot, like a rock, between us and the field-hands. He told my mother, in language perfectly respectful and deferential, but quite explicit, that over the house-servants she should be entire mistress, but that with the field-hands he could allow no interference. He revered and respected her above all living beings; but he would have said it all the same to the virgin Mary herself, if she had come in the way of his system. 我那时尽管还是个孩子，却已经热衷于思考人世间的事情，探究人性本质。我常常和黑奴们混在一起，他们都很喜欢我，对我倾吐心事，我再把这些告诉母亲。就这样，我们母子俩成为了一个黑奴们伸冤诉苦委员会。我们极力预防和制止庄园里的暴行。由于我过度的热情，终于招致那个监工的极度不满。他向父亲抱怨说他管不了那帮农奴，他要辞职。父亲平常对母亲非常温存体贴，可在关键时候，他是决不退让的。他不准我们再干涉黑奴们的事情。他毕恭毕敬地解释说：家中的仆人全部由母亲管理，但不能插手干预田间的农奴。尽管父亲对母亲十分敬重，但无论谁干涉妨碍了他的制度，他都会这么说的。" 
有时母亲把一些事情讲给父亲听，试图打动他的怜惜之心。可他那副无动于衷，镇定自若的表情真叫人寒心。父亲总认为问题根本就在于是辞掉斯塔布斯，还是继续留用他。他认为斯塔布斯是个非常精明强干的帮手。要用他，就必须支持他那套方法，即使有时会有些过分，但任何制度都会存在过激的地方。这似乎成了父亲为残暴行径作辩护的法宝。每次说完这些，他都会坐到沙发上，跷起腿，好像了结了一件事，接着要么开始睡午觉，要么看报纸。" "The fact is my father showed the exact sort of talent for a statesman. He could have divided Poland as easily as an orange, or trod on Ireland as quietly and systematically as any man living. At last my mother gave up, in despair. It never will be known, till the last account, what noble and sensitive natures like hers have felt, cast, utterly helpless, into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty, and which seems so to nobody about them. It has been an age of long sorrow of such natures, in such a hell-begotten sort of world as ours. What remained for her, but to train her children in her own views and sentiments? Well, after all you say about training, children will grow up substantially what they _are_ by nature, and only that. From the cradle, Alfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, all his sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and all mother's exhortations went to the winds. As to me, they sunk deep into me. She never contradicted, in form, anything my father said, or seemed directly to differ from him; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, with all the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the dignity and worth of the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn awe, when she would point up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, `See there, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living, when all these stars are gone forever,--will live as long as God lives!'" 我父亲完全具备成为一个出色政治家的才能。如果他去瓜分波兰，对他来说简直像掰桔子一样容易；如果他去统治爱尔兰，没有谁会比他治理得更出色。所以，我母亲最后只得妥协了。像她那样天性善良的人，一旦陷入对不义和残暴事情的思考中--而身边的人却丝毫没有同样的感受，她的内心感受会是怎样，只有等到最后审判的时候才能得知。我们这个充满罪恶和苦难的世界对她来说，简直就是个人间地狱。她想用自己的感情、理念来教育孩子，可孩子的性情品质是与生俱来的，后天是改变不了的。艾尔弗雷德天生就是个贵族，成人后当然是同情上层阶级，他把母亲的教导劝诫完全当作耳旁风，可我对于母亲的教导却是铭记在心。对父亲的话，母亲从不正面反对或明显表示出对立观点，但她那执着的品质却深深感染了我，使我产生了一个深不可灭的观念--一个人不论出身如何卑贱，他的灵魂也同样具有价值和尊严。母亲爱在晚上指着天上的星空对我说：'奥古斯丁，即使天上的星星全部都消逝了，那些最贫苦，最卑贱的人也仍然活在这个世界上，他们的灵魂与上帝同在。'我总是一边听着，一边幻想着，用充满崇敬的目光望着母亲。"
| |
