Lawrence George Durrel - Justine (Excerpt) 汉译

Scobie is a sort of protozoic profile in fog and rain, for he carries with him a sort of English weather, and he is never happier than when he can sit over a microscopic wood-fire in winter and talk. One by one his memories leak through the faulty machinery of his mind until he no longer knows them for his own. Behind him I see the long grey rollers of the Atlantic at work, curling up over his memories, smothering them in spray, blinding him. When he speaks of the past it is in a series of short dim telegrams-as if already communications were poor, the weather inimical to transmission. In Dawson City the ten who went up the river were frozen to death. Winter came down like a hammer, beating them senseless: whisky, gold, murder-it was like a new crusade northward into the timberlands. At this time his brother fell over the falls in Uganda; in his dream he saw the tiny figure, like a fly, fall and at once get smoothed out by the yellow claw of water. No, that was later when he was already staring along the sights of a carbine into the very brainbox of a Boer. He tries to remember exactly when it must have been, dropping his polished head into his hands; but the grey rollers intervene, the long effortless tides patrol the barrier between himself and his memory.

史可庇带有一种在雾里和雨中的原生动物的轮廓，因为他携带得有英国的天气，只要他在冬天能够坐在一个微微的炉火旁边，天南地北来闲聊的话，他就再快乐也没有了。一件一件的往事，从他那有毛病的头脑中泄漏出来，直到最后连他自己都不知道那些记忆的东西，是不是他自己的。在他的背后我看见大西洋上的灰色巨浪，汹涌起伏，蜷伏在他的记忆上，又用浪花把他的记忆掩蔽，使他再也看不见了。当他说到过去的时候，是用一连串短的意思不清的电报来说的——宛然是因为原来的通信联络已经不好，再加上气象条件不利，而使得传送大有困难似的。在道生市，那时有十个人走到河的上流去，全都冻死了。冬天像一把铁锤似的降下，把他们打得失去知觉了。威士忌酒，黄金，杀人——这些结合在一起，形成了一支向着北方森林地带而去的新十字军。正在这时，他的弟弟在乌干达坠下到瀑布里去了；他在梦中看见那像苍蝇一般的小小的人影落下去，而马上就被黄色的水的魔爪吞没得不见了。不对：那还在以后，那是他已经把一支卡宾枪正瞄准好，要射中一个波尔人的脑袋那个当儿呀。他很想正确地记忆出那到底是在什么时候，于是把他那油滑的头伏下在他的两手之中，可是那灰色的大波又出现了，那毫不费力的巨大的浪潮，守住了界限，不让他回复记忆。