The Pearl

John Steinbeck

《珍珠》(1947) 一书中的主人公吉诺（Kino）的幼子被毒蝎叮咬却无钱医治，一次偶然的机会他发现了稀世珍珠（Pearl of the World）。瞬间，小镇上似乎所有的人都对这颗稀世之宝产生了兴趣，并梦想得到它。他们想象着若能得到这颗珍珠，他们的生活将发生如何的改变，如何能实现自己的梦想，而吉诺成了阻碍他们得到这颗珍珠的绊脚石。

约翰·斯坦贝克（1902—1968）是20世纪美国最有影响力的作家之一。他的作品大多反映社会底层的人们，展现了底层人的善良、质朴的品格。他将写实与幻想两种风格有机地结合起来，对后来的美国文学，尤其是西部文学的发展起了重大的影响。《珍珠》的叙事手法独特，文笔优美，用寓言的方式讲述了一个关于欲望和人性的古老故事。

这期选登其中第三章的部分内容，看看这颗珍珠如何勾起小镇上各类人物的欲望，包括主人公吉诺。

A town is a thing like a colonial animal（群居的动物）. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns, so that there are no two towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart（急忙爬起来飞快跑去）to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.

Before Kino and Juana and the other fishers had come to Kino’s brush house（茅草房）, the nerves of the town were pulsing（跳动）and vibrating（振动）with the news—Kino had found the Pearl of the World. Before panting （气喘吁吁的） little boys could strangle out（费力地说出）the words, their mothers knew it. The news swept on past the brush houses, and it washed in a foaming wave （泡沫翻滚的浪花）into the town of stone and plaster （灰泥）. It came to the priest walking in his garden, and it put a thoughtful look in his eyes and a memory of certain repairs necessary to the church.He wondered what the pearl would be worth. And he wondered whether he had baptized （为……洗礼）Kino’s baby, or married him for that matter. The news came to the shopkeepers, and they looked at men’s clothes that had not sold so well.

The news came to the doctor where he sat with a woman whose illness was age, though neither she nor the doctor would admit it. And when it was made plain who Kino was, the doctor grew stern（严肃的） and judicious（精明的） at the same time. “He is a client （顾客）of mine,” the doctor said. “I am treating his child for a scorpion sting （蝎子叮咬）.” And the doctor’s eyes rolled up a little in their fat hammocks（吊床，这里形容医生肥厚的眼帘） and he thought of Paris. He remembered the room he had lived in there as a great and luxurious place,and he remembered the hard-faced（其貌不扬的，傲慢无礼的）woman who had lived with him as a beautiful and kind girl, although she had been none of these three. The doctor looked past his aged patient and saw himself sitting in a restaurant in Paris and a waiter was just opening a bottle of wine.

The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there is no alms（施舍）giver in the world like a poor man who is suddenly lucky. Kino has found the Pearl of the World. In the town, in little offices, sat the men who bought pearls from the fishers. They waited in their chairs until the pearls came in, and then they cackled （喋喋不休地讨价还价） and fought and shouted and threatened until they reached the lowest price the fisherman would stand. But there was a price below which they dared not go, for it had happened that a fisherman in despair had given his pearls to the church. And when the buying was over, these buyers sat alone and their fingers played restlessly with the pearls, and they wished they owned the pearls. For there were not many buyers really—there was only one, and he kept these agents （代理） in separate offices to give a semblance of competition （竞价的假象）. The news came to these men, and their eyes squinted （眯着眼看） and their fingertips burned a little,and each one thought how the patron （老板） could not live forever and someone had to take his place. And each one thought how with some capital he could get a new start.

小说封面

约翰·斯坦贝克

All manner of people grew interested in Kino—people with things to sell and people with favors to ask.Kino had found the Pearl of the World. The essence of pearl mixed with essence of men and a curious dark residue（残渣）was precipitated（沉淀下来）. Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, and Kino’s pearl went into the dreams, the speculations（臆测）, the schemes（谋划）, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts（强烈的欲望）, the hungers, of everyone,and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino,so that he became curiously every man’s enemy. The news stirred up（搅动，激起） something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate（精华，蒸馏物）was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food,or like loneliness when love is withheld （抑制）. The poison sacs（囊袋）of the town began to manufacture venom（毒液，这里指“恶意”）, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.

But Kino and Juana did not know these things.Because they were happy and excited they thought everyone shared their joy. Juan Tomas and Apolonia did, and they were the world too. In the afternoon,when the sun had gone over the mountains of the Peninsula（半岛）to sink in the outward sea,Kino squatted（盘腿坐着）in his house with Juana beside him. And the brush house was crowded with neighbors. Kino held the great pearl in his hand, and it was warm and alive in his hand. And the music of the pearl had merged with the music of the family so that one beautified（美化）the other. The neighbors lookedat the pearl in Kino’s hand and they wondered how such luck could come to any man.

And Juan Tomas, who squatted on Kino’ s right hand because he was his brother, asked, “What will you do now that you have become a rich man?” Kino looked into his pearl, and Juana cast her eyelashes down and arranged her shawl to cover her face so that her excitement could not be seen. And in the incandescence（白炽）of the pearl the pictures formed of the things Kino’s mind had considered in the past and had given up as impossible. In the pearl he saw Juana and Coyotito and himself standing and kneeling at the high altar, and they were being married now that they could pay. He spoke softly, “We will be married—in the church.”In the pearl he saw how they were dressed—Juana in a shawl stiff with newness and a new skirt, and from under the long skirt Kino could see that she wore shoes. It was in the pearl—the picture glowing there. He himself was dressed in new white clothes, and he carried a new hat—not of straw but of fine black felt（毛毡）—and he too wore shoes—not sandals but shoes that laced. But Coyotito—he was the one—he wore a blue sailor suit from the United States and a little yachting cap（游艇帽） such as Kino had seen once when a pleasure boat（游船） put into the estuary （河口）. All of these things Kino saw in the lucent （晶莹剔透的）pearl and he said, “We will have new clothes.”

And the music of the pearl rose like a chorus of trumpets（小号，喇叭）in his ears. Then to the lovely gray surface of the pearl came the little things Kino wanted: a harpoon （鱼叉）to take the place of one lost a year ago, a new harpoon of iron with a ring in the end of the shaft; and—his mind could hardly make the leap—a rifle（步枪）—but why not, since he was so rich. And Kino saw Kino in the pearl, Kino holding a Winchester carbine （温彻斯特卡宾枪）. It was the wildest daydreaming and very pleasant. His lips moved hesitantly over this— “A rifle,” he said. “Perhaps a rifle.”

It was the rifle that broke down the barriers. This was an impossibility, and if he could think of having a rifle whole horizons were burst and he could rush on. For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement （蔑视的口吻）, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.

约翰·斯坦贝克

The neighbors, close pressed and silent in the house,nodded their heads at his wild imaginings. And a man in the rear （坐在后面的）murmured, “A rifle. He will have a rifle.”

But the music of the pearl was shrilling with triumph in Kino. Juana looked up, and her eyes were wide at Kino’s courage and at his imagination. And electric strength had come to him now the horizons were kicked out. In the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk in a school, just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And Coyotito was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar, and a broad silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of paper. Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. “My son will go to school,” he said, and the neighbors were hushed. Juana caught her breath sharply. Her eyes were bright as she watched him, and she looked quickly down at Coyotito in her arms to see whether this might be possible.

But Kino’s face shone with prophecy （预言）. “My son will read and open the books, and my son will write and will know writing. And my son will make numbers, and these things will make us free because he will know—he will know and through him we will know.” And in the pearl Kino saw himself and Juana squatting by the little fire in the brush hut while Coyotito read from a great book. “This is what the pearl will do,” said Kino. And he had never said so many words together in his life. And suddenly he was afraid of his talking. His hand closed down over the pearl and cut the light away from it. Kino was afraid as a man is afraid who says, “I will,” without knowing.

Now the neighbors knew they had witnessed a great marvel. They knew that time would now date from Kino’s pearl, and that they would discuss this moment for many years to come. If these things came to pass, they would recount （叙述） how Kino looked and what he said and how his eyes shone, and they would say, “He was a man transfigured（发生了变化）. Some power was given to him, and there it started. You see what a great man he has become, starting from that moment. And I myself saw it.”

And if Kino’s planning came to nothing, those same neighbors would say, “There it started. A foolish madness came over him so that he spoke foolish words. God keep us from such things. Yes, God punished Kino because he rebelled against the way things are. You see what has become of him. And I myself saw the moment when his reason left him.”

Kino looked down at his closed hand and the knuckles were scabbed （结了痂的） over and tight where he had struck the gate.