《渺小一生》:他是在偷他最大的目標

　 It was shortly after Brother Peter accused him of stealing his comb that he actually stole his first item: a package of crackers from the kitchen. He was passing by one morning on the way to the room they had set aside for his schooling, and no one was there, and the package was on the countertop, just within his reach, and he had, on impulse, grabbed it and run, stuffing it under the scratchy wool tunic he wore, a miniature version of the brothers’ own. He had detoured so he could hide it under his pillow, which had made him late for class with Brother Matthew, who had hit him with a forsythia switch as punishment, but the secret of its existence filled him with something warm and joyous. That night, alone in bed, he ate one of the crackers (which he didn’t even really like) carefully, breaking it into eight sections with his teeth and letting each piece sit on his tongue until it became soft and gluey and he could swallow it whole.

在彼得修士指控他偷了梳子之后不久，他第一次真正偷了東西：廚房里的一包餅干。那天早上，他正要去專門供他上課的房間，經過廚房，里頭沒人，那包餅干就放在料理臺上，他剛好拿得到。于是他一時沖動拿了，抓了就跑，把它塞在身上穿的粗羊毛長袍里（是其他修士穿的袖珍版）。他繞回自己的房間，把餅干藏在枕頭下，因此馬修修士的課他遲到了，作為懲罰，修士用連翹樹枝打他，但那包餅干的秘密讓他覺得溫暖又喜悅。那天晚上，他獨自躺在床上，小心翼翼吃了一片（其實他根本不喜歡），把那餅干用牙齒分成八小片，每一小片都含在舌頭上，直到又軟又黏，才有辦法吞下去。

　 After that, he stole more and more. There was nothing in the monastery he really wanted, nothing that was really worth having, and so he simply took what he came across, with no real plan or craving: food when he could find it; a clacky black button he found on the floor of Brother Michael’s room in one of his post-breakfast prowlings; a pen from Father Gabriel’s desk, snatched when, mid-lecture, the father had turned from him to find a book; Brother Peter’s comb (this last was the only one he planned, but it gave him no greater thrill than the others). He stole matches and pencils and pieces of paper—useless junk, but someone else’s junk—shoving them down his underwear and running back to his bedroom to hide them under his mattress, which was so thin that he could feel its every spring beneath his back at night.

之后，他偷得越來越多了。修道院里沒有什么他真正想要，也沒有什么真正值得擁有的東西。于是他隨機偷拿他所看到的物品，沒有真正的計劃或渴望，通常是能找到的食物。有回早餐后他到處游蕩，在邁克修士房間的地板上發(fā)現(xiàn)一顆脆硬的黑色紐扣；還有一次，加布里埃爾神父訓話訓到一半，轉身去找一本書，他就伸手摸走了神父桌上的一支筆；而彼得修士的梳子是他真正計劃要偷的，不過給他的快感沒有更大。他偷火柴、鉛筆和紙片（沒有用的垃圾，不過是別人的垃圾），塞在內衣底下跑回臥室，藏在床墊下，那床墊好薄，他夜里都能感覺到背部底下的每個彈簧。

　 “Stop that running around or I’ll have to beat you!” Brother Matthew would yell at him as he hurried to his room.

“別再跑來跑去，不然我就要打你了！”他匆忙沖向房間時，馬修修士會這樣吼他。

　 “Yes, Brother,” he would reply, and make himself slow to a walk.

“是的，修士。”他會回答，然后逼自己慢下腳步。

　 It was the day he took his biggest prize that he was caught: Father Gabriel’s silver lighter, stolen directly off his desk when he’d had to interrupt his lecturing of him to answer a phone call. Father Gabriel had bent over his keyboard, and he had reached out and grabbed the lighter, palming its cool heavy weight in his hand until he was finally dismissed. Once outside the father’s office, he had hurriedly pushed it into his underwear and was walking as quickly as he could back to his room when he turned the corner without looking and ran directly into Brother Pavel. Before the brother could shout at him, he had fallen back, and the lighter had fallen out, bouncing against the flagstones.

他是在偷他最大的目標——加布里埃爾神父的銀制打火機時被抓到的。他是趁他訓誡到一半，必須中途停止，去接一通電話時，從他桌上偷走的。當時加布里埃爾神父彎腰越過電話鍵盤，他就伸手抓了打火機，握著那冰涼沉重的金屬，直到終于下課。他一走出神父的辦公室，就匆忙把打火機塞進內衣里，盡快走回房間。結果轉彎時沒看路，跟帕維爾修士撞了個滿懷。修士還來不及吼他，他就往后倒下，打火機也摔出來，砸在石板地上。

　 He had been beaten, of course, and shouted at, and in what he thought was a final punishment, Father Gabriel had called him into his office and told him that he would teach him a lesson about stealing other people’s things. He had watched, uncomprehending but so frightened that he couldn’t even cry, as Father Gabriel folded his handkerchief to the mouth of a bottle of olive oil, and then rubbed the oil into the back of his left hand. And then he had taken his lighter—the same one he had stolen—and held his hand under the flame until the greased spot had caught fire, and his whole hand was swallowed by a white, ghostly glow. Then he had screamed and screamed, and the father had hit him in the face for screaming. “Stop that shouting,” he’d shouted. “This is what you get. You’ll never forget not to steal again.”

當然，他被揍了，還被罵了，而且在他以為是最后一次的懲罰中，加布里埃爾神父把他叫進辦公室，說要教他有關偷別人東西的一堂課。他看著，不明白什么意思，但是害怕得連哭都哭不出來。加布里埃爾神父折起手帕，湊到一瓶橄欖油的瓶口，然后把油抹在他左手背上。接著，神父拿了打火機——就是他偷的那一個——抓著他的手湊在火焰下，直到那油點燃，燒起來，整只手被一片幽靈似的白光吞沒。他尖叫又尖叫，神父因為他尖叫而打他耳光?！皠e叫了?！彼鸬溃斑@就是給你的教訓，你以后絕對不會忘記不可偷竊?！?

　 When he regained consciousness, he was back in his bed, and his hand was bandaged. All of his things were gone: the stolen things, of course, but the things he had found on his own as well—the stones and feathers and arrowheads, and the fossil that Brother Luke had given him for his fifth birthday, the first gift he had ever received.

等到他恢復意識時，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己躺在床上，左手被繃帶包扎起來。他所有的東西都不見了，偷來的東西當然沒了，但他自己找到的東西也不見了，那些石頭、羽毛和箭鏃，還有盧克修士送給他當5歲生日禮物的化石。那是他有生以來的第一個禮物。

　 After that, after he was caught, he was made to go to Father Gabriel’s office every night and take off his clothes, and the father would examine inside him for any contraband. And later, when things got worse, he would think back to that package of crackers: if only he hadn’t stolen them. If only he hadn’t made things so bad for himself.

自從被抓之后，他被規(guī)定每晚要去加布里埃爾神父的房間，把衣服脫掉，由神父檢查他身上是否藏了違禁品。后來事情一路惡化時，他會回想起那包餅干，真希望他當初沒偷，真希望他沒有把自己害得這么慘。

　 His rages began after his evening examinations with Father Gabriel, which soon expanded to include midday ones with Brother Peter. He would have tantrums, throwing himself against the stone walls of the monastery and screaming as loudly as he could, knocking the back of his damaged ugly hand (which, six months later, still hurt sometimes, a deep, insistent pulsing) against the hard, mean corners of the wooden dinner tables, banging the back of his neck, his elbows, his cheeks—all the most painful, tender parts—against the side of his desk. He had them in the day and at night, he couldn’t control them, he would feel them move over him like a fog and let himself relax into them, his body and voice moving in ways that excited and repelled him, for as much as he hurt afterward, he knew it scared the brothers, that they feared his anger and noise and power. They hit him with whatever they could find, they started keeping a belt looped on a nail on the schoolroom wall, they took off their sandals and beat him for so long that the next day he couldn’t even sit, they called him a monster, they wished for his death, they told him they should have left him on the garbage bag. And he was grateful for this, too, for their help exhausting him, because he couldn’t lasso the beast himself and he needed their assistance to make it retreat, to make it walk backward into the cage until it freed itself again.

他的暴怒始于加布里埃爾神父的夜間檢查。不久后，連彼得修士也在白天檢查他。他會亂發(fā)脾氣，去撞修道院的石墻，用盡力氣放聲尖叫。他會用燒傷的丑陋手背（直到六個月后，他的手背有時還是會痛，那是一種持續(xù)的深層抽痛）去敲木餐桌堅硬的角落，把他的頸背、手肘、臉頰——所有最容易痛、最柔軟的部位——對著書桌的邊緣撞去。他白天和黑夜都會這樣暴怒，自己也控制不了。他感覺到那股怒氣像一陣濃霧籠罩他，讓他在其中放松，而他的身體和聲音的種種活動方式，讓他同時感到刺激和反感。盡管事后很痛，但他知道自己把修士們嚇壞了，他們害怕他的怒氣、大吼和力量。他們用任何能找到的東西打他，他們開始在上課房間墻壁的釘子上掛一根皮帶，他們會脫下涼鞋打他個不停，害他次日連坐都沒辦法坐，他們說他是怪物，希望他死掉，說當初應該把他留在那個垃圾袋里不予理會。他也很感激他們這樣對待他，那樣就可以讓他累得筋疲力盡，因為他自己控制不了心底的那頭野獸，所以需要他們幫忙擊退它，讓它往后退回籠子里，直到下次又跑出來為止。

　 He started wetting his bed and was made to go visit the father more often, for more examinations, and the more examinations the father gave him, the more he wet the bed. The father began visiting him in his room at night, and so did Brother Peter, and later, Brother Matthew, and he got worse and worse: they made him sleep in his wet nightshirt, they made him wear it during the day. He knew how badly he stank, like urine and blood, and he would scream and rage and howl, interrupting lessons, pushing books off tables so that the brothers would have to start hitting him right away, the lesson abandoned. Sometimes he was hit hard enough so that he lost consciousness, which is what he began to crave: that blackness, where time passed and he wasn’t in it, where things were done to him but he didn’t know it.

他開始尿床，被迫要更頻繁地去找加布里埃爾神父，接受更多的檢查，而神父檢查他的次數(shù)越多，他尿床就越頻繁。神父開始在夜里去他房間找他，還有彼得修士，后來又多了馬修修士，于是他的狀況越來越糟糕：他們逼他穿著尿濕的長睡衣睡覺，逼他白天也穿著那身衣服。他知道自己身上很臭，聞起來像尿和血，他會尖叫、暴怒、哭號，上課上到一半，他會把桌上的書掃下桌，修士們就立刻開始打他，不再上課。有時他被打得失去意識，后來他開始想念這種滋味：時間在那片黑暗中流逝，但他不在其中，他也不知道別人對他做了什么事。

　 Sometimes there were reasons behind his rages, although they were reasons known only to him. He felt so ceaselessly dirty, so soiled, as if inside he was a rotten building, like the condemned church he had been taken to see in one of his rare trips outside the monastery: the beams speckled with mold, the rafters splintered and holey with nests of termites, the triangles of white sky showing immodestly through the ruined rooftop. He had learned in a history lesson about leeches, and how many years ago they had been thought to siphon the unhealthy blood out of a person, sucking the disease foolishly and greedily into their fat wormy bodies, and he had spent his free hour—after classes but before chores—wading in the stream on the edge of the monastery’s property, searching for leeches of his own. And when he couldn’t find any, when he was told there weren’t any in that creek, he screamed and screamed until his voice deserted him, and even then he couldn’t stop, even when his throat felt like it was filling itself with hot blood.

有時他暴怒的背后有些原因，不過只有他自己知道。他覺得自己永遠很臟、很齷齪，仿佛他體內有一座破敗的建筑物，就像他有回難得離開修道院，被帶去看的那座廢棄的教堂：屋梁上生著點點霉斑，木椽裂開，上面布滿了被白蟻蛀食的孔洞，毀壞的屋頂難堪地露出一塊塊三角形的白色天空。他在一堂歷史課中學到水蛭，知道古時候人們認為水蛭可以從人類身上吸出不健康的血液，愚蠢而貪婪地把疾病吸入肥胖蠕動的身軀中，于是他在自己的閑暇時間——上完課之后，開始做雜務之前——走進修道院產業(yè)邊緣的那條小溪，尋找自己的水蛭。但他一條都找不到，聽修士說那條溪中沒有水蛭，他尖叫又尖叫，叫到聲音都沒了，還是停不下來，即使那時他感覺喉嚨里仿佛充滿滾燙的血液。

　 Once he was in his room, and both Father Gabriel and Brother Peter were there, and he was trying not to shout, because he had learned that the quieter he was, the sooner it would end, and he thought he saw, passing outside the doorframe quick as a moth, Brother Luke, and had felt humiliated, although he didn’t know the word for humiliation then. And so the next day he had gone in his free time to Brother Luke’s garden and had snapped off every one of the daffodils’ heads, piling them at the door of Luke’s gardener’s shed, their fluted crowns pointing toward the sky like open beaks.

有回他在自己的房間，加布里埃爾神父和彼得修士也都在。他設法不要叫出聲，因為他已經學會只要他越安靜，事情就會越快結束。此時，他仿佛看見盧克修士像一只蛾似的飛快掠過門框外，他覺得受到了羞辱，盡管當時他還不認識羞辱這個字。于是第二天，他在閑暇時間溜到盧克修士的花園，把每一株黃水仙的花朵都摘下來，堆在盧克修士的園藝工具小屋門口。那管狀的花冠指向天空，像一張張打開的鳥喙。

　 Later, alone again and moving through his chores, he had been regretful, and sorrow had made his arms heavy, and he had dropped the bucket of water he was lugging from one end of the room to the other, which made him toss himself to the ground and scream with frustration and remorse.

稍后，獨自忙著做雜務時，他覺得很后悔，悲傷令他雙手沉重。當他把水提到房間的另一頭時，水桶落地，他整個人撲在地上，懊惱又自責地尖叫。

　 At dinner, he was unable to eat. He looked for Luke, wondering when and how he would be punished, and when he would have to apologize to the brother. But he wasn’t there. In his anxiety, he dropped the metal pitcher of milk, the cold white liquid splattering across the floor, and Brother Pavel, who was next to him, yanked him from the bench and pushed him onto the ground. “Clean it up,” Brother Pavel barked at him, throwing a dishrag at him. “But that’ll be all you’ll eat until Friday.” It was Wednesday. “Now go to your room.” He ran, before the brother changed his mind.

晚餐時他吃不下。他尋找盧克修士的身影，想知道自己什么時候會被處罰、怎么處罰，想知道什么時候他得向盧克修士道歉。但是他不在。焦慮之下，他手上的金屬牛奶壺掉在地上，冷白的液體潑濺在地板上，于是坐在他旁邊的帕維爾修士把他從長椅上抓起來，推到地板上?！扒謇砀蓛?。”帕維爾修士朝他咆哮，把一條抹布朝他丟去，“星期五前你都不能再吃東西了。”那天是星期三?！盎啬愕姆块g去吧?！背眯奘扛淖冃囊庵埃s緊跑回房間。

　 The door to his room—a converted closet, windowless and wide enough for only a cot, at one end of the second story above the dining hall—was always left open, unless one of the brothers or the father were with him, in which case it was usually closed. But even as he rounded the corner from the staircase, he could see the door was shut, and for a while he lingered in the quiet, empty hallway, unsure what might be waiting for him: one of the brothers, probably. Or a monster, perhaps. After the stream incident, he occasionally daydreamed that the shadows thickening the corners were giant leeches, swaying upright, their glossy segmented skins dark and greasy, waiting to smother him with their wet, soundless weight. Finally he was brave enough and ran straight at the door, opening it with a slam, only to find his bed, with its mud-brown wool blanket, and the box of tissues, and his schoolbooks on their shelf. And then he saw it in the corner, near the head of the bed: a glass jar with a bouquet of daffodils, their bright funnels frilled at their tops.

他的房間位于餐廳上方的二樓一角，原來是一間小儲藏室，沒有窗子，而且窄得只放得下一張行軍床。他的房門向來開著，除非有修士或神父在里頭，門才會關上。當他上了樓、繞過轉角，遠遠就看到門關著。有一會兒，他默默地在空蕩的走廊上逗留，不確定里頭有什么等著他：大概是某個修士吧，或是一個怪物。沒在小溪找到水蛭，他有時會幻想角落里深暗的陰影就是巨大的水蛭，搖晃著豎直身體，發(fā)亮的環(huán)狀皮膚是油膩的黑色，等著用潮濕無聲的重量悶死他。最后他終于鼓起勇氣跑向那扇門，砰一聲打開來，里頭只有他的床和泥褐色的羊毛毯子，還有紙巾盒，以及書架上的課本。然后他看到房間的角落里，靠近床頭處，有一個玻璃瓶插著一把黃水仙，頂端是鮮黃色有褶邊的漏斗狀花冠。

　 He sat on the floor near the jar and rubbed one of the flowers’ velvet heads between his fingers, and in that moment his sadness was so great, so overpowering, that he wanted to tear at himself, to rip the scar from the back of his hand, to shred himself into bits as he had done to Luke’s flowers.

他坐在瓶子旁的地上，手指撫摸著那天鵝絨質感的花冠。那一刻他的憂傷很龐大、很強烈，他真想把自己給撕開，把手臂的傷疤扯掉，把自己撕成一片片的，就像他對盧克的花做過的那樣。

　 But why had he done such a thing to Brother Luke? It wasn’t as if Luke was the only one who was kind to him—when he wasn’t being made to punish him, Brother David always praised him and told him how quick he was, and even Brother Peter regularly brought him books from the library in town to read and discussed them with him afterward, listening to his opinions as if he were a real person—but not only had Luke never beaten him, he had made efforts to reassure him, to express his allegiance with him. The previous Sunday, he was to recite aloud the pre-supper prayer, and as he stood at the foot of Father Gabriel’s table, he was suddenly seized by an impulse to misbehave, to grab a handful of the cubed potatoes from the dish before him and fling them around the room. He could already feel the scrape in his throat from the screaming he would do, the singe of the belt as it slapped across his back, the darkness he would sink into, the giddy bright of day he would wake to. He watched his arm lift itself from his side, watched his fingers open, petal-like, and float toward the bowl. And just then he had raised his head and had seen Brother Luke, who gave him a wink, so solemn and brief, like a camera’s shutter-click, that he was at first unaware he had seen anything at all. And then Luke winked at him again, and for some reason this calmed him, and he came back to himself, and said his lines and sat down, and dinner passed without incident.

但他為什么要對盧克修士做那樣的事？盧克并不是唯一對他好的人。不懲罰他的時候，戴維修士總是贊美他，說他腦子動得很快。就連彼得修士都常常從鎮(zhèn)上的圖書館借書給他閱讀，等他看完了再一起討論，認真聽他的意見，好像他是個真正的人。但是盧克修士不僅僅是沒打過他，而且會努力讓他安心，表現(xiàn)出對他的忠誠。前一個星期天，他站在加布里埃爾神父那一桌的桌尾，正要念餐前禱辭時，忽然被一股搗蛋的沖動攫住了，想從面前抓起一把馬鈴薯塊，在餐廳里亂丟。他幾乎可以感覺到喉嚨叫得沙啞的刺痛、皮帶抽著背部的灼痛，還有他即將沉入的黑暗，以及醒來時將會看到白晝的炫目天光。他看著自己一手抬起來，看著手指張開有如花瓣，移向那個大缽。就在此時，他抬頭看到了盧克修士。他朝他眨了一下眼睛，嚴肅而短暫，像照相機的快門般一閃，一開始他完全沒意識到自己看到了什么。然后，盧克又朝他眨了一下眼睛，出于某個原因，這個動作讓他冷靜下來。他控制住自己，說了餐前禱辭后坐下，平靜無事地吃完晚餐。

　 And now there were these flowers. But before he could think about what they might mean, the door opened, and there was Brother Peter, and he stood, waiting in that terrible moment that he could never prepare for, in which anything might happen, and anything might come.

現(xiàn)在又有了這些花。但他還沒想到這些花可能代表什么意義，門就打開了，是彼得修士。他站起來，在那可怕的一刻等待著他的，是他永遠沒準備好面對的事情，任何事都可能發(fā)生，任何事都可能降臨在他身上。

　 The next day, he had left directly after his classes for the greenhouse, determined that he should say something to Luke. But as he drew closer, his resolve deserted him, and he dawdled, kicking at small stones and kneeling to pick up and then discard twigs, throwing them toward the forest that bordered the property. What, really, did he mean to say? He was about to turn back, to retreat toward a particular tree on the north edge of the grounds in whose cleft of roots he had dug a hole and begun a new collection of things—though these things were only objects he had discovered in the woods and were safely nobody’s: little rocks; a branch that was shaped a bit like a lean dog in mid-leap—and where he spent most of his free time, unearthing his possessions and holding them in his hands, when he heard someone say his name and turned and saw it was Luke, holding his hand up in greeting and walking toward him.

次日，他上完課后直接跑去玻璃溫室，決心要和盧克說些什么。但當他走近時，決心就消失了。于是他磨蹭著，踢著路上的小石頭，跪下去撿起小樹枝，丟向修道院外圍的樹林。他到底打算說什么？他轉身準備離開，走向修道院北端的一棵樹，他在那棵樹根部的裂縫間挖了個洞，放入一批新的收藏，不過都是他在樹林里撿到的東西，不屬于任何人：小石頭、一根形狀有點像瘦狗躍起的樹枝。平常他大部分閑暇時間都在這里度過，挖出自己擁有的這些東西，拿在手里。此時他忽然聽到有人叫他的名字，轉身發(fā)現(xiàn)是盧克。盧克舉起一只手打招呼，朝他走來。

　 “I thought it was you,” Brother Luke said as he neared him (disingenuously, it would occur to him much later, for who else would it have been? He was the only child at the monastery), and although he tried, he was unable to find the words to apologize to Luke, unable in truth to find the words for anything, and instead he found himself crying. He was never embarrassed when he cried, but in this moment he was, and he turned away from Brother Luke and held the back of his scarred hand before his eyes. He was suddenly aware of how hungry he was, and how it was only Thursday afternoon, and he wouldn’t have anything to eat until the next day.

“我就覺得是你?！北R克修士說著走近他（太不誠實了，很久以后他才想到，不然還會有誰？他是修道院里唯一的小孩）。無論怎么努力想，他還是想不出該怎么向盧克道歉，真的什么話都想不出來，不知不覺他哭了起來。他以前哭時從不覺得難堪，但那一刻卻很難為情，于是他轉身背對盧克修士，用有傷疤的那只手背遮著雙眼。他忽然意識到自己好餓，而那時還只是星期四下午，他要等到第二天才有東西吃。