To Kill a Mockingbird

∷蒋素华 选注

据英国古老传说，知更鸟在耶稣被钉上十字架时，飞往耶稣耳边唱歌以减轻他的痛楚，耶稣身上的血染在知更鸟身上，它胸脯羽毛的颜色也因此便变为鲜红色。

在小说《杀死一只知更鸟》中，尽管主人公阿提库斯·芬奇只在一个地方提到了知更鸟——自己因童年射杀了一只知更鸟，从而产生一种负罪感——但知更鸟的象征意义却贯穿在整个作品主题中。

例如：传闻中的布·拉德利是个危险人物，他白天被铁链拴在床上，夜里才能出来活动。万圣节那天夜里，杰姆和斯各特在从学校回家的路上遭到了埃威的袭击，这时布·拉德利突然出现并救了两个孩子。书中的另一只知更鸟是汤姆·罗宾逊。这个在种植园干活的诚实憨厚又乐于助人的黑人，被诬陷犯有强奸罪，在对美国法律失去信心之后，他企图越狱逃走，结果被看守发现开枪射死，身上中了十七发子弹。

知更鸟只不过是一种最早报晓最后唱小夜曲的鸟儿，小说中的某些人物就和知更鸟的命运一样，并没有做过任何坏事却被人伤害。

这期选登第三十章，布·拉德利救了杰姆和斯各特，杀死了埃威，这个案子该怎么处理呢？

Chapter 30

“Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus,gently correcting me. “Jean Louise,this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.”

If Atticus could blandly(温和地)introduce me to Boo Radley at a time like this, well—that was Atticus.

Boo saw me run instinctively to the bed where Jem was sleeping, for the same shy smile crept across his face. Hot with embarrassment, I tried to cover up by covering Jem up.

“Ah-ah, don’t touch him,” Atticus said.

Mr. Heck Tate sat looking intently (专注地) at Boo through his horn-rimmed (角质架的)glasses.He was about to speak when Dr. Reynolds came down the hall.

“Everybody out,” he said, as he came in the door. “Evenin‘, Arthur, didn’t notice you the first time I was here.”

Dr. Reynolds’s voice was as breezy (轻松愉快的) as his step, as though he had said it every evening of his life, an announcement that astounded (使震惊) me even more than being in the same room with Boo Radley. Of course… even Boo Radley got sick sometimes, I thought. But on the other hand I wasn’t sure.

Dr. Reynolds was carrying a big package wrapped in newspaper. He put it down on Jem’s desk and took off his coat. “You’re quite satis fied he’s alive, now? Tell you how I knew. When I tried to examine him he kicked me. Had to put him out good and proper to touch him. So scat (嘘),” he said to me.

“Er—” said Atticus, glancing at Boo. “Heck,let’s go out on the front porch. There are plenty of chairs out there, and it’s still warm enough.”

I wondered why Atticus was inviting us to the front porch instead of the living room, then I understood. The living room lights were awfully strong.

We filed out (鱼贯而出), first Mr. Tate—Atticus was waiting at the door for him to go ahead of him.Then he changed his mind and followed Mr. Tate.

People have a habit of doing everyday things even under the oddest (最古怪的) conditions. I was no exception: “Come along, Mr. Arthur,” I heard myself saying, “you don’t know the house real well.I’ll just take you to the porch, sir.”

He looked down at me and nodded.

I led him through the hall and past the living room.

“Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Arthur? This rocking-chair’s nice and comfortable.”

My small fantasy about him was alive again:he would be sitting on the porch… right pretty spell (漂亮的法术) we’re having, isn’t it, Mr.Arthur?

Yes, a right pretty spell. Feeling slightly unreal,I led him to the chair farthest from Atticus and Mr.Tate. It was in deep shadow. Boo would feel more comfortable in the dark.

Atticus was sitting in the swing, and Mr. Tate was in a chair next to him. The light from the living room windows was strong on them. I sat beside Boo.

“Well, Heck,” Atticus was saying, “I guess the thing to do—good Lord, I’m losing my memory…”Atticus pushed up his glasses and pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Jem’s not quite thirteen… no, he’s already thirteen—I can’t remember. Anyway, it’ll come before county court—”

“What will, Mr. Finch?” Mr. Tate uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.

“Of course it was clear-cut self defense, but I’ll have to go to the of fice and hunt up—”

“Mr. Finch, do you think Jem killed Bob Ewell?Do you think that?”

“You heard what Scout said, there’s no doubt about it. She said Jem got up and yanked (猛拉)him off her—he probably got hold of Ewell’s knife somehow in the dark… we’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Mister Finch, hold on,” said Mr. Tate. “Jem never stabbed Bob Ewell.”

Atticus was silent for a moment. He looked at Mr. Tate as if he appreciated what he said. But Atticus shook his head.

“Heck, it’s mighty kind of you and I know you’re doing it from that good heart of yours, but don’t start anything like that.”

Mr. Tate got up and went to the edge of the porch. He spat into the shrubbery (向灌木丛里吐了一口痰), then thrust (插入) his hands into his hip pockets and faced Atticus. “Like what?” he said.

“I’m sorry if I spoke sharply, Heck,” Atticus said simply, “but nobody’s hushing this up (掩盖). I don’t live that way.”

“Nobody’s gonna hush anything up, Mr.Finch.”

Mr. Tate’s voice was quiet, but his boots were planted so solidly on the porch floorboards(地板)it seemed that they grew there. A curious contest,the nature of which eluded (逃避) me, was developing between my father and the sheriff.

It was Atticus’s turn to get up and go to the edge of the porch. He said, “H’rm,” and spat dryly into the yard. He put his hands in his pockets and faced Mr. Tate.

“Heck, you haven’t said it, but I know what you’re thinking. Thank you for it. Jean Louise—”he turned to me. “You said Jem yanked Mr. Ewell off you?”

“Yes sir, that’s what I thought… I—”

“See there, Heck? Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t want my boy starting out with something like this over his head. Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. Let the county come and bring sandwiches. I don’t want him growing up with a whisper about him, I don’t want anybody saying, ‘Jem Finch… his daddy paid a mint (巨款) to get him out of that.’ Sooner we get this over with the better.”

“Mr. Finch,” Mr. Tate said stolidly (不动感情地), “Bob Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself.”

Atticus walked to the corner of the porch.He looked at the wisteria(紫藤) vine. In his own way, I thought, each was as stubborn as the other.I wondered who would give in first. Atticus’s stubbornness was quiet and rarely evident, but in some ways he was as set as the Cunninghams. Mr.Tate’s was unschooled (未受学校教育的) and blunt(直率的), but it was equal to my father’s.

“Heck,” Atticus’s back was turned. “If this thing’s hushed up it’ll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I’ve tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I’m a total failure as a parent, but I’m all they’ve got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me,and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely (诚实地) back at him… if I connived (纵容，默许) at something like this, frankly I couldn’t meet his eye,and the day I can’t do that I’ll know I’ve lost him. I don’t want to lose him and Scout, because they’re all I’ve got.”

“Mr. Finch.” Mr. Tate was still planted to the floorboards. “Bob Ewell fell on his knife. I can prove it.”

原书封面

Atticus wheeled around. His hands dug into his pockets. “Heck, can’t you even try to see it my way? You’ve got children of your own, but I’m older than you. When mine are grown I’ll be an old man if I’m still around, but right now I’m—if they don’t trust me they won’t trust anybody. Jem and Scout know what happened. If they hear of me saying downtown something different happened—Heck, I won’t have them any more. I can’t live one way in town and another way in my home.”

Mr. Tate rocked on his heels and said patiently,“He’d flung Jem down, he stumbled over a root under that tree and—look, I can show you.”

Mr. Tate reached in his side pocket and withdrew a long switchblade (弹簧小折刀）knife. As he did so,Dr. Reynolds came to the door. “The son—deceased’s under that tree, doctor, just inside the schoolyard.Got a flashlight? Better have this one.”

“I can ease around and turn my car lights on,”said Dr. Reynolds, but he took Mr. Tate’s flashlight.“Jem’s all right. He won’t wake up tonight, I hope,so don’t worry. That’s the knife that killed him,Heck?”

“No sir, still in him. Looked like a kitchen knife from the handle. Ken oughta be there with the hearse (灵车) by now, doctor, night.”

Mr. Tate flicked open the knife. “It was like this,” he said. He held the knife and pretended to stumble; as he leaned forward his left arm went down in front of him. “See there? Stabbed himself through that soft stuff between his ribs(肋骨）. His whole weight drove it in.”

Mr. Tate closed the knife and jammed it back in his pocket. “Scout is eight years old,” he said.“She was too scared to know exactly what went on.”

“You’d be surprised,” Atticus said grimly(生气地，严厉地).

“I’m not sayin‘ she made it up, I’m sayin’ she was too scared to know exactly what happened.It was mighty dark out there, black as ink. ‘d take somebody mighty used to the dark to make a competent witness…”

“I won’t have it,” Atticus said softly.

“God damn it, I’m not thinking of Jem!”

Mr. Tate’s boot hit the floorboards so hard the lights in Miss Maudie’s bedroom went on. Miss Stephanie Crawford’s lights went on. Atticus and Mr. Tate looked across the street, then at each other. They waited.

When Mr. Tate spoke again his voice was barely audible. “Mr. Finch, I hate to fight you when you’re like this. You’ve been under a strain tonight no man should ever have to go through. Why you ain’t in the bed from it I don’t know, but I do know that for once you haven’t been able to put two and two together (根据事实推理), and we’ve got to settle this tonight because tomorrow’ll be too late.Bob Ewell’s got a kitchen knife in his craw (胃).”

Mr. Tate added that Atticus wasn’t going to stand there and maintain that any boy Jem’s size with a busted (断裂的) arm had fight enough left in him to tackle (应付) and kill a grown man in the pitch dark.

“Heck,” said Atticus abruptly, “that was a switchblade you were waving. Where’d you get it?”

“Took it off a drunk man,” Mr. Tate answered coolly.

I was trying to remember. Mr. Ewell was on me… then he went down… Jem must have gotten up. At least I thought…

“Heck?”

“I said I took it off a drunk man downtown tonight. Ewell probably found that kitchen knife in the dump somewhere. Honed it down (把刀磨亮) and bided his time (伺机以待)… just bided his time.”

Atticus made his way to the swing and sat down. His hands dangled limply between his knees. He was looking at the floor. He had moved with the same slowness that night in front of the jail, when I thought it took him forever to fold his newspaper and toss it in his chair.

Mr. Tate clumped (迈着沉重的步子) softly around the porch. “It ain’t your decision, Mr. Finch,it’s all mine. It’s my decision and my responsibility.For once, if you don’t see it my way, there’s not much you can do about it. If you wanta try, I’ll call you a liar to your face. Your boy never stabbed Bob Ewell,” he said slowly, “didn’t come near a mile of it and now you know it. All he wanted to do was get him and his sister safely home.”

Mr. Tate stopped pacing. He stopped in front of Atticus, and his back was to us. “I’m not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County. Lived in this town all my life an‘ I’m goin’ on forty-three years old. Know everything that’s happened here since before I was born. There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead(任凭死人埋葬他们的死人)this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead.”

Mr. Tate went to the swing and picked up his hat.It was lying beside Atticus. Mr. Tate pushed back his hair and put his hat on.

“I never heard tell that it’s against the law for a citizen to do his utmost to prevent a crime from being committed, which is exactly what he did,but maybe you’ll say it’s my duty to tell the town all about it and not hush it up. Know what’d happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb includin‘my wife’d be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch,taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an‘ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight (焦点)—to me, that’s a sin. It’s a sin and I’m not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it’d be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch.”

Mr. Tate was trying to dig a hole in the floor with the toe of his boot. He pulled his nose, then he massaged his left arm. “I may not be much,Mr. Finch, but I’m still sheriff of Maycomb County and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir.”

Mr. Tate stamped off (跺着脚走）the porch and strode across the front yard. His car door slammed and he drove away.

Atticus sat looking at the floor for a long time. Finally he raised his head. “Scout,” he said,“Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?”

Atticus looked like he needed cheering up. I ran to him and hugged him and kissed him with all my might. “Yes sir, I understand,” I reassured him. “Mr. Tate was right.”

Atticus disengaged (摆脱) himself and looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’d be sort of like shootin‘ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”

Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned.Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. “Thank you for my children,Arthur,” he said.