毛时安·《长夜属于你》英译

白天的喧嚣与骚动，随着最后一片晚霞的消失而远去。热闹的人际交往与似乎永远都在纠缠的杂事，也随着太白星的闪烁而飘去，夜晚渐渐合拢。你脱下带了一整天的面具，慢慢恢复了你的自我，

你坐在写字桌前，灯光照在雪白的稿子上，中年的脸隐在一片灯的暗影中。你想寻找关于生存、关于生命、关于人类、关于一切的终极存在。你像一个在浩瀚沙海中跋涉的朝圣者，你不知道你离那块精神的圣地还有多远，但你知道圣地所在的方向。在漫漫长夜，你想用语言在万物的存在之上构筑一个理念的世界一个意象的世界。你用自己柔韧而百折不回的心灵感悟若广漠自然的生机，把生命汇入广交的星空，让清风抚慰你思想着的大脑。你像一匹北方的狼，一任自己的思想在精神的大地上踽踽独行，经历一次次心灵与精神的探险。每一个字，每个句子，都来自你心灵的深处，是你耗尽心智的产物。

夜让你的思想在万物的静谧中变得活跃而充满生机。你已经度过了无数次这样的夜晚，你不知道你还会拥有多少这样富于创造活力的夜晚，为此你感谢造物主的创造，创造了夜晚。

远处黑影幢幢的高楼星星点点的灯火开始媳灭，一盏又一盏，像一双又一双闭上的眼晴。城市也要酣睡，夜慢慢地静下来。很静。像深山老林的千年古井，幽深、黝黑、神秘得深不可测。

你想起一个普通而平凡的女性。她熟悉的面容遥远而亲切，模糊而清晰，她过早地衰老，灰白的头发在北窗的风中飘拂。忧虑期待的目光投向新村的深处。动乱年头孩子的每一次晚归，都使她的生命和等待像在炼狱中煎熬。你将一千次一万次地在不眠的长夜想起她。想起她浮云般苍老的生命，她是一颗早逝的彗星，全部的价值就在那短促璀璨的一闪。她朴素的生命使你知道人世间原就有着金钱、谎言、权利与名利无法替代的东西。一个人的价值不是附加的而是内心爱的博大与厚重。她是你的母亲。

你白天生活在属于别人的繁华中，唯有夜晚你才生活在属于你的寂寞与孤独之中。新村的深处传来轻轻犬吠——先富起来的人们已经流行宠物热——使夜变得更静更深，像一条黑暗而不见尽头的隧道。你站在窗前，用心灵聆听。你听到了一自己的心脏依然像年轻人一样有力地搏动。

你曾一个人静静坐在九寨沟翡翠一般清澈幽冷的湖边，远远逃避着观景的喧闹人群。空谷纳万景。大自然的美丽和温情其实只能用宁静的心灵去体悟去接纳。昨夜满天碎玉飞舞。此刻，艳阳高悬。你躲在角落，满眼玉树琼枝。“噗、噗”，大块大块白得虚无的积雪从松树枝头，厚实地往地下落。天籁之声。这是大地的呼吸。唯有大地的儿子才有倾听这大自然给你的神示。人生祸福，荣辱浮沉，你都不会忘记这“噗噗”的坠雪声。

不眠的夜像爬满的常青藤笼络着你，你把每一缕紊乱的思绪变化成文字，变成句子。你在文字和句子中，发现了你自己。你的感情依然炽烈，你的心也依然年轻。我想，造物主创造黑夜，原本是让人类静静地享受她那份宁静的诗意和浪漫的情调。但是，在这物欲横流、实利至上的年头，现代人却在灯红酒绿、纸醉金迷中奢侈地消费着长夜。豪华的消费。

你珍惜着不眠的长夜，唯有长夜属于你。

The Full Nighttime is Yours

Mao Shi’an

The hustle and bustle of the day has gone away, as the last wisp of glowing cloud fades with the sunset; the din of social activities and the seemingly never-ending chores have also ebbed away as Venus starts to glitter. As the night gradually falls, you take off your “daytime mask” and slowly let out your true self.

Sitting in front of the desk, with your snow-white sheets of paper in the lamplight and your middle-aged face in the shade, you scratch in your mind for the ultimate meaning for living, life, and mankind—everything. Like a pilgrim trudging on a sea-like vast desert, you do not know how far away you are from that spiritual shrine, but you know where to head to find it. During this extensive night, you are using words to set up a conceptual and imaginary world upon all things existing. You sit there, with your assiduous and indomitable soul, trying to perceive the vitality of great nature, to merge your life into the vast star-strewn sky, to let the breeze caress your thoughtful mind. Like a northern wolf, you let your thoughts wander on a spiritual path and explore your soul again and again. Every word or every sentence, the result of brain-wracking effort, comes from the inner recesses of your soul.

The quiet night-world activates and enlivens your mind to its fullest capacity. This is just one of those countless creative nights, and you do not know how many more you will have in the future. You feel grateful to God for the nights he has created.

Lights studding the delineated dark buildings in the distance begin to go off. One after another, they look like pairs upon pairs of eyes starting to close—a city also needs sleep. Gradually, the night falls quiet—very quiet, like a millennium-old water well on a remote, thickly forested mountain, sequestered, deep, dusky, and mysterious—unfathomably mysterious.

Now your mind turns to an ordinary woman, whose familiar face is remote yet gracious, blurred yet vivid. Beset by early senility, she had grey hair that fluttered in the wind coming through the north window, and her grievous and wishful eyes were fixed on the end of the residential area. It was like going through a purgatorial torture for her every time her child was late in returning home during those years of turmoil. You will miss her myriad times during your long, sleepless nights and remember her senile life. Like a prematurely extinct comet, all her life value lies in that moment of brilliant sparkles. Her simple life shows you that there is something in this world that money, lies, power, and fame cannot replace. One’s value is not something attached, but is innate—the profound love carried in his or her heart. And such is the love your mother carried.

During the daytime, you live in the vanity of other people; only at night do you live your own solitary and sequestered life. From the deep end of the residential area comes a dog’s gentle barking—keeping pets is now fashionable among the newly rich—which instead quiets and deepens the night even more, making it like a bottomless, dark tunnel. Standing at the window, you listen with your soul. You hear your heart still throbbing, like that of a young man.

To get away from the noisy tourists, you once quietly sat alone by the secluded, cold, limpid, and emerald-like lake in Jiuzhaigou, a natural scenic spot—for a spacious valley can contain all scenes, but only a tranquil heart can perceive the beauty of and feel the warmth of Mother Nature. The night before, the sky had been laden with glittering jade shards of snowflakes, but now, at this moment, the bright sun hung high up. From a corner, you took a view full of jade-green trees and graceful boughs. “Flop, flop!” Large, thick lumps of snow, as white as if they were transparent, thumped down from the branches of pine trees, producing a heavenly sound. That was the breath of the great earth, and therefore, only the sons of the earth could hear this divine manifestation of nature. Whether you encounter a blessing or a curse, an honor or a disgrace, a rise or fall in your life, you will never forget that flopping sound of snow falling.

On such a sleepless night, which wraps around you as evergreen ivy does, you turn each of your tangled thoughts into fine words and sentences, through which you discover yourself: You are still ardent in feeling and young at heart. In my opinion, the Creator’s initial purpose in making the night was for humans to enjoy their poetic tranquility and romantic mood, but on the contrary, modern people in this material-craving and profit-seeking age waste these nights in the indulgence of revelry, extravagance and racket—such an expensive waste!

But you treasure a full, sleepless night time, which is truly yours.

（徐英才 译）