The Far and The Near（短篇小说）

拼搏现实的明天。 2022-09-13 04:08 13阅读 0赞

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**托马斯·沃尔夫（1900年10月3日-1938年9月15日），美国作家。代表作《天使，望故乡》（Look Homeward， Angel）和《时间与河流》（Of Time and the River）**  
On the outskirts of a little town upon a rise of land that swept back from the railway there was a tidy little cottage of white boards, trimmed vividly with green blinds. To one side of the house there was a garden neatly patterned with plots of growing vegetables, and an arbor for the grapes which ripened late in August. Before the house there were three mighty oaks which sheltered it in their clean and massive shade in summer, and to the other side there was a border of gay flowers. The whole place had an air of tidiness, thrift, and modest comfort.

Every day, a few minutes after two o’clock in the afternoon, the limited express between two cities passed this spot. At that moment the great train, having halted for a breathing-space at the town near by, was beginning to lengthen evenly into its stroke, but it had not yet reached the full drive of its terrific speed. It swung into view deliberately, swept past with a powerful swaying motion of the engine, a low smooth rumble of his heavy cars upon pressed steel, and then it vanished in the cut. For a moment the progress of the engine could be marked by heavy bellowing puffs of smoke that burst at spaced intervals above the edges of the meadow grass, and finally nothing could be heard but the solid clacking tempo of the wheels receding into the drowsy stillness of the afternoon.

Every day for more than twenty years, as the train had approached this house, the engineer had blown on the whistle, and every day, as soon as she heard this signal, a woman had appeared on the back porch of the little house and waved to him. At first she had a small child clinging to her skirts, and now this child had grown to full womanhood, and every day she, too, came with her mother to the porch and waved.

The engineer had grown old and gray in service. He had driven his great train, loaded with its weight of lives, across the land ten thousand times. His own children had grown up, and married, and four times he had seen before him on the tracks the ghastly dot of tragedy converging like a cannon ball to its eclipse of horror at the boiler head—a light spring wagon filled with children, with its clustered row of small stunned faces; a cheap automobile stalled up the tracks, set with the wooden figures of people paralyzed with fear; a battered hobo walking by the rail, too deaf and old to hear the whistle’s warning; and a form flung pas his window with a scream—all this he had seen and known. He had known all the grief, the joy, the peril and the labor such a man could know; he had grown seamed and weathered in his loyal service, and now, schooled by the qualities of faith and courage and humbleness that attended his labor, he had grown old, and had the grandeur and the wisdom these men have.

But no matter what peril or tragedy he had known, the vision of the little house and the women waving to him with a brave free motion of the arm had become fixed in the mind of the engineer as something beautiful and enduring, something beyond all change and ruin, and something that would always be the same, no matter what mishap, grief or error might break the iron schedule of his days.

The sight of this little house and these two women gave him the most extraordinary happiness he had ever known. He had seen them in a thousand lights, a hundred weathers. He had seen them through the harsh light of wintry gray across the brown and frosted stubble of the earth, and he had seen them again in the green luring sorcery of April.

He felt for them and for the little house in which they lived such tenderness as a man might feel for his own children, and at length the picture of their lives was carved so sharply in his heart that he felt that he knew their lives completely, to every hour and moment of the day, and he resolved that one day, when his years of service should be ended, he would go and find these people and speak at last with them whose lives had been so wrought into his own.

That day came. At last the engineer stepped from a train onto the station platform of the town where these two women lived. His years upon the rail had ended. He was a pensioned servant of his company, with no more work to do. The engineer walked slowly through the station and out into the streets of the town. Everything was as strange to him as if he had never seen this town before. As he walked on, his sense of bewilderment and confusion grew. Could this be the town he had passed ten thousand times? Were these the same houses he had seen so often from the high windows of his cab? It was all as unfamiliar, as disquieting as a city in a dream, and the perplexity of his spirit increased as he went on.

Presently the houses thinned into the straggling outposts of the town, and the street faded into a country road—the one on which the women lived. And the man plodded on slowly in the heat and dust. At length he stood before the house he sought. He knew at once that he had found the proper place. He saw the lordly oaks before the house, the flower beds, the garden and the arbor, and farther off, the glint of rails.

Yes, this was the house he sought, the place he had passed so many times, the destination he had longed for with such happiness. But now that he had found it, now that he was here, why did his hand falter on the gate; why had the town, the road, the earth, the very entrance to this place he loved turned unfamiliar as the landscape of some ugly dream? Why did he now feel this sense of confusion, doubt and hopelessness? At length he entered by the gate, walked slowly up the path and in a moment more had mounted three short steps that led up to the porch, and was knocking at the door. Presently he heard steps in the hall, the door was opened, and a woman stood facing him.

And instantly, with a sense of bitter loss and grief, he was sorry he had come. He knew at once that the woman who stood there looking at him with a mistrustful eye was the same woman who had waved to him so many thousand times. But her face was harsh and pinched and meager; the flesh sagged wearily in sallow folds, and the small eyes peered at him with timid suspicion and uneasy doubt. All the brave freedom, the warmth and the affection that he had red into her gesture, vanished in the moment that he saw her and heard her unfriendly tongue.

And now his own voice sounded unreal and ghastly to him as he tried to explain his presence, to tell her who he was and the reason he had come. But he faltered on, fighting stubbornly against the horror of regret, confusion, disbelief that surged up in his spirit, drowning all his former joy and making his act of hope and tenderness seem shameful to him.

At length the woman invited him almost unwillingly into the house, and called her daughter in a harsh shrill voice. Then, for a brief agony of time, the man sat in an ugly little parlor, and he tried to talk while the two women stared at him with a dull, bewildered hostility, a sullen, timorous restraint.

And finally, stammering a crude farewell, he departed. He walked away down the path and then along the road toward town, and suddenly he knew that he was an old man. His heart, which had been brave and confident when it looked along the familiar vista of the rails, was now sick with doubt and horror as it saw the strange and unsuspected visage of the earth which had always been within a stone’s throw of him, and which he had never seen or known. And he knew that all the magic of that bright lost way, the vista of that shining line, the imagined corner of that small good universe of hope’s desire, could never be got again.  
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这么近，那么远

托马斯.沃尔夫

一个小镇坐落在铁路延绵而来的高地上，在小镇郊外，有一座白色板子搭建的整洁小屋，装饰有绿色的百叶窗。屋的一边是一个园子，被整齐地划分为一块一块，上面种着蔬菜，还有一个葡萄架，葡萄在8月晚些时候成熟了。在屋子前面有三棵大橡树，夏季橡树浓密整齐的树阴会遮住小屋。屋子另一边则是颜色明艳的鲜花丛。这整个地方，空气中都是整洁、朴素和适度的舒适。  
每天下午两点过几分，两个城市间的特快列车就会通过这个地方。这时，这辆长长的列车，会为了留一个“呼吸空间”而在小镇附近停留一下，再平稳地起步前行，但这时它的速度还达不到马力全开时的速度。在引擎强有力的掣动下，列车从容地摇晃进入视野，重重的车厢压着铁轨，发出低沉的隆隆声，然后消失在尽头。在一段时间里，在草原的边缘，每隔一段距离，汽笛吼叫，喷出一圈圈浓烟，以此可以发现列车行进的痕迹。最后，什么都听不到了，除了车轮坚实的咯咯声拍子，在那个下午昏昏欲睡的时光中慢慢消失。  
二十多年来，每天当列车接近小屋时，司机就会拉响汽笛。每天当听到这个信号，一个妇女就会从小屋后廊出来并向他挥手。起初她有一个孩子牵着她的裙子站在旁边，而现在这个孩子已经长大成熟了，也每天随着她的母亲一起来到后廊向他挥手。  
司机长期供职，已经年老，鬓发灰白。他驾驶着他长长的列车，满载乘客上万次地通过这片土地。他自己的孩子们已经长大，结婚。并且曾经有四次他在他前面的铁轨上看到悲剧凝成的可怕小点，像颗炮弹似的射向火车头前的恐怖阴影——一辆辆满载孩子的轻型货车，上面一排惊慌的小脸；一辆廉价的汽车停留在铁轨上，上面被恐惧麻痹的人呆若木鸡；一个消瘦的流浪汉在铁轨上面游走，他过于耳背和年老，以至于无法听到汽笛声的警告。以及一个人影带着一声尖叫掠过他的窗口——所有的这些他都见得多了。他了解一个人所能了解的所有悲伤、欢乐、危险和辛劳。在忠诚的职业生涯中，他饱经风霜。而现在他虽已年老，却在所从事的工作中学习到了诚实、勇敢和谦逊这些品质，并拥有了司机们应有的崇高和智慧。  
但无论他见识过多少危险和悲剧，那座小屋和那两个妇女以一种勇敢自由动机向他挥手的景象，已经印在了他的心里，作为美丽，不朽，万劫不变和始终如一的事物，纵使灾难、悲伤和过失可能打破他的生活铁律。  
看到这座小屋和这两个妇女，他总能感到从未有过的非凡幸福。他在一千种光线明暗和一百种天气变化中见到过她们。通过冬天严峻而灰蒙蒙的光线，穿过地上褐色而被冰封的残梗，他见到过她们。在绿色的富有魅力魔法的四月，他见到过她们。  
他感到对她们和这座小屋十分亲切，如同一个男人对他自己的孩子们一样。终于，她们生活的画面被深深地刻在了他的心里，他感觉他完全了解她们一天中每时每刻的生活。于是他决定有一天当自己退休的时候，他将去找到她们，最后和她们聊一聊，因为她们的生活已经和他自己的深深融为一体了。  
这一天终于来到了。最后，司机在这两个妇女居住的小镇的车站下了车，走上月台。他在铁路上的职业生涯已经结束。他是公司一个拿养老金的人了，没有工作要去做。司机慢慢地走出车站，走入小镇的街道。一切对于他都十分陌生，就好像他从来没有见过这个小镇。他继续走着，心中越来越迷惑与不解。这真是他经过数以万次的小镇吗？这真的是他从列车的高窗里经常见到的房子吗？一切是那么陌生，不安，好像一座梦中的城市。随着不断向前走，他的内心愈发困惑起来。  
现在房屋渐渐变为小镇边区散布的村落，大街也渐渐冷落成为一条乡村小路——两个妇女就住在其中一所村舍里。司机在闷热和尘埃中沉重地慢慢走着。最后他站在他要寻找的房屋前面。他马上知道他找到了正确的地方。他看到了屋子前高大的橡树、花坛、菜园和葡萄架，以及更远处那铁轨的闪光。  
是的，这是他要找的那个屋子，这个地方他已经经过无数次，这是他一直渴望着的幸福的目的地。现在，他找到了它，他就在这里，但为什么他的手却在门前犹豫起来？为什么这小镇，这小路，这土地，以及他所眷念的小屋门口，变得陌生，像噩梦中的景物？为什么他现在感到慌乱、疑惑和失望？  
最终他还是进入了那个大门，沿着小径慢慢走着，过了一会儿，他踏上了通向门廊的三步台阶，敲了敲门。不久，他听到了客厅的脚步声，门开了，一个妇女站在他前面。  
一瞬间，他感到失望和懊丧，后悔来这里了。他立刻认出这个站在他前面用怀疑的眼神看着他的女人正是那个数以千次向他挥手的女人。但是她的脸变得粗糙、憔悴和瘦削。她的皮肤松弛下垂形成蜡黄的褶皱，她那双小眼睛带着胆怯疑惑与不安质问凝视着他。从她挥手姿势中所读的出所有勇敢、温暖和深情，此时此刻都消失在他见到她和听到她不友好的言语中。  
现在他试图去向她解释他是谁和他来到这里的原因，可他自己的声音听起来却不真实且生硬。但是他还是结结巴巴说下去，他努力地压抑着环绕在脑海的悔恨，迷惑和怀疑，深埋当初所有的欢乐，并将他当初的希望和爱慕视为耻辱。  
最后那个妇人极不愿意地请他进屋了，并用粗气刺耳的声音喊来了她的女儿。然后在一段痛苦的时间里，司机坐在一个小小的难看的客厅里，试图和她们聊一聊，而她们却带着迟钝的目光，迷茫的敌意，阴沉胆怯的抑郁瞪着他。  
最后，他结结巴巴地和她们生硬地道了别，然后离开了。他从小径走出来沿着大路朝小镇走去。他忽然意识到自己是一个老人了。他的心，过去望向熟悉的铁路远景时，勇敢自信，现在当他看到这块陌生，不可意料，永远近在咫尺而从未见过，并不熟知的土地，他的心因怀疑与恐惧衰弱了。他知道一切有关迷途获得光明的神话，闪光铁路的远景，希望中美好小天地里的幻想一角，都已一去不返了。

**PS:翻译是转自知乎，神仙翻译！！**

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