Part 2, Chapter 7

15 畜生儿子

Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears. Julia rolled sleepily against him, murmuring something that might have been 'What's the matter?'

温斯顿醒来时眼里充满了泪水。裘莉亚睡意很浓地挨近他,嘴里喃喃地说着大概是“怎么回事”之类的话。

'I dreamt -' he began, and stopped short. It was too complex to be put into words. There was the dream itself, and there was a memory connected with it that had swum into his mind in the few seconds after waking.

“我梦见——”他开始说道,马上又停住了。这梦境太复杂了,说不清楚。除了梦本身之外,还有与梦有关的记忆,那是在醒来以后几秒钟之内浮现在他心中的。

He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the atmosphere of the dream. It was a vast, luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain. It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances. The dream had also been comprehended by -- indeed, in some sense it had consisted in -- a gesture of the arm made by his mother, and made again thirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the news film, trying to shelter the small boy from the bullets, before the helicopter blew them both to pieces.

他闭上眼睛躺着,仍浸沉在梦境中的气氛里。这是一场光亮夺目、场面很大的梦,他的整个一生,好象夏日傍晚雨后的景色一样,展现在他的前面。这都是在那玻璃镇纸里面发生的,玻璃的表面成了苍穹,苍穹之下,什么东西都充满了柔和的清澈的光芒,一望无际。这场梦也可以由他母亲的手臂的一个动作所概括,实际上,也可以说是他母亲的手臂的一个动作所构成的。这个动作在三十年后他又在新闻片中看到了,那就是那个犹太妇女为了保护她的小孩不受子弹的扫射而做的一个动作,但是仍不能防止直升飞机把她们母子俩炸得粉碎。

'Do you know,' he said, 'that until this moment I believed I had murdered my mother?'

“你知道吗,”他说,“以前我一直以为我母亲是我害死的。”

'Why did you murder her?' said Julia, almost asleep.

“你为什么要害死你的母亲?”裘莉亚问道,仍旧在睡梦之中。

'I didn't murder her. Not physically.'

“我没有害死她。没有在肉体上害死她。”

In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his mother, and within a few moments of waking the cluster of small events surrounding it had all come back. It was a memory that he must have deliberately pushed out of his consciousness over many years. He was not certain of the date, but he could not have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when it had happened.

在梦中,他记起了他对他母亲的最后一瞥,醒来以后,围绕着这梦境的一切细微末节都涌上了心头。这个记忆他在许多年来是一直有意从他的意识中排除出去的。他已记不得确切日期了,不过这件事发生的时候他大概至少已有十岁了,也可能是十二岁。

His father had disappeared some time earlier, how much earlier he could not remember. He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent machine-gun fire in the distance -- above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys in scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs of cabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust from which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting for the passing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were known to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted over the bad patches in the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.

他父亲在这以前消失了;在这以前究竟多久,他已记不得了。他只记得当时生活很不安定,朝不保夕:经常发生空袭,在地下铁道车站中躲避空袭,到处都是瓦砾,街头贴着他所看不懂的公告,穿着同样颜色衬衫的成群少年,面包房前长长的队伍,远处不断响起的机枪声,尤其是,总是吃不饱。他记得每天下午要花许多时间同其他一些孩子在垃圾桶、废物堆里捡破烂,什么菜帮子,菜叶子,土豆皮,有时甚至还有陈面包片,捡到这些,他们就小心翼翼地把炉渣扒掉;有时还在马路上等卡车开过,他们知道这些卡车有固定路线,装的是喂牛的饲料,在驶过坑坑洼洼的路面时,就会洒出一些豆饼下来。

When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that she knew must happen. She did everything that was needed -- cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted the mantelpiece -- always very slowly and with a curious lack of superfluous motion, like an artist's lay-figure moving of its own accord. Her large shapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister, a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian by thinness. Very occasionally she would take Winston in her arms and press him against her for a long time without saying anything. He was aware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow connected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.

他父亲失踪的时候,他母亲并没有表示奇怪或者剧烈的悲痛,但是一下子就变了一个人。她好象精神上完全垮掉了一样。甚至连温斯顿也感到她是在等待一件必然会发生的事。一切该做的事她都照样在做——烧饭、洗衣、缝补、铺床、扫地、掸土——但是总是动作迟缓,一点多余的动作也没有,好象艺术家的人体模型自己在走动一样,这使人觉得奇怪。她的体态动人的高大身子似乎自然而然地陷于静止了。她常常一连好几小时一动不动地坐在床边,给他小妹妹喂奶,他的小妹妹是个体弱多病、非常安静的婴儿,只有二、三岁,脸上瘦得象只猴子。她偶然会把温斯顿紧紧地搂在怀里,很久很久不说话。他尽管年幼无知,只管自己,但也明白这同要发生的、但是从来没有提到的事情有关。

He remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He remembered his mother's statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid battles at meal-times. He would ask his mother naggingly, over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm at her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would attempt a snivelling note of pathos in his efforts to get more than his share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share. She took it for granted that he, 'the boy', should have the biggest portion; but however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little sister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use.

他记得他们住的那间屋子,黑暗湫隘,一张白床单铺盖的床占了一半的面积。屋子里有个煤气灶,一个食物柜,外面的台阶上有个棕色的陶瓷水池,是几家合用的。他记得他母亲高大的身子弯在煤气灶上搅动着锅里的什么东西。他尤其记得他老是肚子饿,吃饭的时候总要吵个不休。他常常一次又一次哼哼唧唧地问他母亲,为什么没有更多吃的,他常常向她大喊大闹(他甚至还记得他自己的嗓门,由于大喊大叫过早地变了音,有时候洪亮得有些奇怪),他也常常为了要分到他一些吃的而伪装可怜相。他母亲是很乐意多分给他一些的。她认为他是个“男孩”,分得最多是当然之理;但是不论她分给他多少,他总是嫌不够。每次吃饭时她总求他不要自私,不要忘了小妹妹有病,也需要吃的,但是没有用。

He would cry out with rage when she stopped ladling, he would try to wrench the saucepan and spoon out of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister's plate. He knew that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it; he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his belly seemed to justify him. Between meals, if his mother did not stand guard, he was constantly pilfering at the wretched store of food on the shelf.

她如果不给他多盛一些,他就气得大喊大叫、把锅子和勺子从她手中夺过来,或者把他妹妹盆中的东西抢过来。他也明白这么做,他母亲和妹妹得挨饿,但是他没有办法;他甚至觉得自已有权这么做。他肚中的辘辘饥肠似乎就是他的理由。两餐之间,如果他母亲防卫不严,他还常常偷吃食物柜上一点点可怜的贮藏。

One day a chocolate-ration was issued. There had been no such issue for weeks or months past. He remembered quite clearly that precious little morsel of chocolate. It was a two-ounce slab (they still talked about ounces in those days) between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in a loud booming voice that he should be given the whole piece. His mother told him not to be greedy. There was a long, nagging argument that went round and round, with shouts, whines, tears, remonstrances, bargainings. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to Winston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. Winston stood watching her for a moment. Then with a sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister's hand and was fleeing for the door.

有一天发了巧克力的定量供应。过去已经有好几个星期、好几个月没有发了。他还十分清楚地记得那珍贵的一点点巧克力,二两重的一块(那时候仍用磅称),三人分。应该分成等量的三块。但是突然之间,仿佛有人在指使他似的,温斯顿听到自己声如洪钟的要求,把整块巧克力都给他。他母亲叫他别贪心。接着就是没完没了的哼哼唧唧,又是叫,又是哭,眼泪鼻涕,劝诫责骂,讨价还价。他的小妹妹双手紧抱着他母亲,活象一只小猴子,坐在那里,从他母亲的肩后望过来,瞬着大眼睛悲伤地看着他。最后他母亲把那块巧克力掰了四分之三,给了温斯顿,把剩下的四分之一给了他妹妹。那小姑娘拿着巧克力,呆呆地看着,好象不知它是什么东西。温斯顿站着看了一会。接着他突然跃身一跳,从他妹妹手中把那块巧克力一把抢走就跑到门外去了。

'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come back! Give your sister back her chocolate!'

“温斯顿,温斯顿!”他母亲在后面叫他。“快回来!把你妹妹的那块巧克力还给她!”

He stopped, but did not come back. His mother's anxious eyes were fixed on his face. Even now he was thinking about the thing, he did not know what it was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious of having been robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His mother drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against her breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and fled down the stairs' with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand.

他停了下来,但没有回来。他母亲的焦虑眼光盯着他的脸。就是在这个时候,她也在想那就要发生的事,即使他不知道究竟是什么。他妹妹这时意识到有东西给抢走了,软弱地哭了几声。他母亲搂紧了她,把她的脸贴在自己的胸口上。这个姿势使温斯顿意识到他妹妹快要死了。他转过身去,逃下了楼梯,巧克力捏在手中快要化了,有点粘糊糊的。

He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several hours, until hunger drove him home.

他以后没有再见到他母亲。他吃了巧克力以后,觉得有点惭愧,在街头闲荡了几个小时,饥火中烧才驱使他回家。

When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result of the civil war, or she might have been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die.

他一回去就发现母亲不在了。那个时候,这已成了正常的现象。屋子里除了他母亲和妹妹以外,什么都不缺。他们没有拿走衣服,甚至也没有拿走他母亲的大衣。到今天他还没有把握,他母亲是不是已经死了。完全有可能,她只是给送到强迫劳动营去了。至于他妹妹,很可能象他自己一样,给送到一个孤儿院里去了,他们把它叫做保育院,这是在内战后象雨后春笋似地出现的。她也很可能跟他母亲一起去了劳动营,也很可能给丢在什么地方,无人过问而死了。

The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.

这个梦在他心中仍栩栩如生,特别是那个胳膊一搂的保护姿态,似乎包含了这个梦的全部意义。他又回想到两个月前的另外一个梦。他的母亲同坐在铺着白床单的床边抱着孩子一样,这次是坐在一条沉船里,掉在他的下面,起渐往下沉,但仍从越来越发黑的海水中指头朝他看。

He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.

他把他母亲失踪的事告诉了裘莉亚。她眼也不睁开就翻过身来,蜷缩在他怀里,睡得更舒服一些。

'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'

“你在那时候大概真是头畜生,”她含糊地说。“孩子们全是畜生。”

'Yes. But the real point of the story -'

“是的。但是这件事的真正意义是——”

From her breathing it was evident that she was going off to sleep again. He would have liked to continue talking about his mother. He did not suppose, from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual woman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child's death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history. And yet to the people of only two generations ago this would not have seemed all-important, because they were not attempting to alter history. They were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would one day spring to life and regenerate the world. The proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside. They had held on to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious effort. And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how a few weeks ago he had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had kicked it into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.

从她呼吸声听来,显然她又睡着了。他很想继续谈谈他的母亲。从他所记得的关于她的情况来看,他想她并不是个不平常的女人,更谈不上聪明。但是她有一种高贵的气派,一种纯洁的素质,这只是因为她有自己的行为标准。她有自己的爱憎,不受外界的影响。她从来没有想到过,没有效用的事就没有意义。如果你爱一个人,你就爱他,当你没有别的东西可以给他时,你仍把你的爱给他。最后一块巧克力给抢走时,他母亲怀里抱着孩子。这没有用,改变不了任何东西,并不能变出一块巧克力来,并不能使那孩子或她自已逃脱死亡;但是她仍抱着她,似乎这是很自然的事。那条沉船上的那个逃难的女人也用她的胳膊护着她的孩子,这象一张纸一样单薄,抵御不了枪弹。可怕的是党所做的事却是使你相信,仅仅冲动,仅仅爱憎并无任何意义,但同时却又从你身上剥夺掉一切能够控制物质世界的力量。你一旦处在党的掌握之中,不论你有感觉还是没有感觉,不论你做一件事还是不做一件事,都无关重耍。不论怎么样,你还是要消失的,不论是你或你的行动,都不会再有人提到。历史的潮流里已没有你的踪影,但是在两代之前的人们看来,这似乎并不是那么重要,因为他们并不想篡改历史。他们有自己的不加置疑的爱憎作为行为的准则。他们重视个人的关系。一个完全没有用处的姿态,一个拥抱,一滴眼泪,对将死的人说一句话,都有本身的价值。他突然想到,无产者仍旧是这样。他们并不忠于一个政党,或者一个国家,或者一个思想,他们却相互忠于对方。他有生以来第一次不再轻视无产者,或者只把他们看成是一种有朝一日会爆发出生命来振兴全世界的蛰伏的力量。无产者仍有人性。他们没有麻木不仁。他们仍保有原始的感情,而他自己却是需要作出有意识的努力才能重新学会这种感情。他这么想时却毫不相干地记起了几星期前他看到人行道上的一只断手,他把它踢在马路边,好象这是个白菜头一样。

'The proles are human beings,' he said aloud. 'We are not human.'

“无产者是人,”他大声说。“我们不是人。”

'Why not?' said Julia, who had woken up again.

“为什么不是?”袭莉亚说,又醒了过来。

He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here before it's too late, and never see each other again?'

他想了一会儿。“你有没有想到过,”他说,“我们最好是趁早从这里出去,以后不再见面?”

'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm not going to do it, all the same.'

“想到过,亲爱的,我想到过好几次了。但是我还是不想那么做。”

'We've been lucky,' he said 'but it can't last much longer. You're young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me, you might stay alive for another fifty years.'

“我们很幸运,”他说,“但是运气不会很长久。你还年轻。你的外表正常纯洁。如果你避开我这种人,你还可以活上五十年。”

'No. I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to do. And don't be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying alive.'

“不,我已经想过了。不论你做什么,我都要跟着做。别灰心丧气。我要活命很有办法。”

'We may be together for another six months -- a year -- there's no knowing. At the end we're certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be? When once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they'll shoot you, and if I refuse to confess, they'll shoot you just the same. Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will put off your death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us will even know whether the other is alive or dead. We shall be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that matters is that we shouldn't betray one another, although even that can't make the slightest difference.'

“我们可能还可以在一起呆六个月——一年——谁知道。最后我们还是要分手的。你没有想到我们将来完全是孤独无援的?他们一旦逮住了我们,我们两个人是没有办法,真的一点也没有办法给对方帮什么忙的。如果我招供,他们就会枪毙你,如果我拒绝招供,他们也会枪毙你。不管我做什么,说什么,或者不说什么,都不会推迟你的死亡五分钟。我们不会知道对方是死是活。我们将完全束手无策,有一点是重要的,那就是我们不要出卖对方,尽管这一点也不会造成任何不同。”

'If you mean confessing,' she said, 'we shall do that, right enough. Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They torture you.'

“如果你说的是招供,”她说,“那我们还是要招供的。人人都总是招供的。你没有办法。他们拷打你。”

'I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you -- that would be the real betrayal.'

“我不是说招供。招供不是出卖。无论你说的或做的是什么都无所谓。有所谓的是感情。如果他们能使我不再爱你——那才是真正的出卖。”

She thought it over. 'They can't do that,' she said finally. 'It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything -- anything -- but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.'

她想了一会儿。“这他们做不到,”她最后说。“这是他们唯一做不到的事。不论他们可以使你说些什么话,但是他们不能使你相信这些话。他们不能钻到你肚子里去。”

'No,' he said a little more hopefully, 'no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.'

“不能,”他比较有点希望地说,“不能;这话不错。他们不能钻到你肚子里去。如果你感到保持人性是值得的,即使这不能有任何结果,你也已经打败了他们。”

He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning. Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.

他想到通宵不眠进行窃听的电幕。他们可以日以继夜地侦察你,但是如果你能保持头脑清醒,你仍能胜过他们。他们尽管聪明,但仍无法掌握怎样探知别人脑袋里怎样在想的办法。但当你落在他们手中时也许不是这样。友爱部里的情况究竞如何,谁也不知道,但不妨可以猜一猜:拷打、麻醉药、测量你神经反应的精密仪器。不给你睡觉和关单独禁闭造成你精神崩溃、不断的讯问。无论如何,事实是保不了密的。他们可以通过讯问,可以通过拷打弄清楚。但是如果目标不是活命而是保持人性,那最终有什么不同呢?他们不能改变你的爱憎,而且即使你要改变,你自已也无法改变。他们可以把你所做的,或者说的,或者想的都事无巨细地暴露无遗,但是你的内心仍是攻不破的,你的内心的活动甚至对你自己来说也是神秘的。