A Hanging 原文和译文

A Hanging 原文 少年中国说原文俱舍论原文大医精诚原文注音大学原文和译文对照归藏易原文 和译文 A Hanging by Eric A. Blair Adelphi, August 1931 IT WAS in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two. One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening. Eight o‟clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. “For God‟s sake hurry up, Francis,” he said irritably. “The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren‟t you ready yet?” Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. “Yes sir, yes sir,” he bubbled. “All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman is waiting. We shall proceed.” “Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can‟t get their breakfast till this job‟s over.” We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened—a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog. “Who let that bloody brute in here?” said the superintendent angrily. “Catch it, someone!” A warder, detached from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced and gambolled just out of his reach, taking everything as part of the game. A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail walls. The prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though this was another formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before someone managed to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its collar and moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering. It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working—bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming—all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned—reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone—one mind less, one world less. The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner‟s neck. We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”, not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down over the prisoner‟s face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again: “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!” The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, “Ram! Ram! Ram!” never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number—fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened to his cries—each cry another second of life; the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise! Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. “Chalo!” he shouted almost fiercely. There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner‟s body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone. The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. “He’s all right,” said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Eight minutes past eight. Well, that‟s all for this morning, thank God.” The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily. The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: “Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas. Classy European style.” Several people laughed—at what, nobody seemed certain. Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. “Well, sir, all hass passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass all finished—flick! like that. It iss not always so—oah, no! I have known cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner‟s legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!” “Wriggling about, eh? That‟s bad,” said the superintendent. “Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg. We reasoned with him. „My dear fellow,‟ we said, „think of all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!‟ But no, he would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!” I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. “You‟d better all come out and have a drink,” he said quite genially. “I‟ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.” We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road. “Pulling at his legs!” exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis‟s anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away. 行 刑(乔治?奥威尔) 缅甸，一个雨水浸湿的早晨。惨谈的灯光越过高墙，照到监狱的院子里。死囚牢房的外面钉着两层铁栅栏，就像关动物的小笼子。每间牢房大约10英尺见方，里面除了一张木板床和一壶饮用水再无其他摆设。在另外几间牢房里，棕色皮肤的死囚默默地蹲在里面的一道铁栅栏后，用床单裹着身子，在一两星期内他们就要被绞死了。 有一个印度死囚已被带出了牢房。他是个身材瘦小的人，光头，眼球混浊。他浓密茂盛的胡子，大得同他的身材很不协调，显得十分可笑，很像电影里滑稽角色的道具。有6个高大的印度狱卒押解着他，为把他送上绞刑架作准备。两个人扛着上了刺刀的步枪站在一旁，其余的人在给他上手铐，把一条铁链穿过他的手铐再系到自己的腰带上，然后又把囚犯的胳膊捆紧在他身子两侧。他们贴着囚犯，手总是放在他身上，小心地抓着，好像在对付一条依然活着，随时可能跳回到水里去的鱼一样。但是死囚站在那里，一点也没有反抗，听任双臂给绳子勒得紧紧地，好像他根本觉得无所谓。 时钟敲了8下，一声军号从远处营房那里飘过来，在湿漉漉的空气中，这种声音显得轻而且凄凉。狱长站在离我们不远的地方，他闷闷不乐地用手杖在沙砾地上划着，一听到号声就拾起头来。他是个军医，留着短而齐的灰色胡子，声音粗哑。"快些，快些，佛朗西斯，"他不快地说。"这人现在早该上绞架了。你难道还没有准备好,"佛朗西斯是个身体肥胖的达罗毗荼人，狱卒的头目，他身穿白色卡其布工作服，鼻子挎着一副金丝眼镜。他挥一下黑色的手，忙不迭地说:"好了，长官，好了，一切都准备好了，没有问题，刽子手正在那等着。我们可以去了。""那么快走吧。这活干完了犯人们才能吃早饭呢。"我们走向绞刑台。两个肩上扛着步枪的狱卒走在囚犯的两旁，另外两个抓住他的肩膀和胳膊紧挨着他，好像是一边推着他，一边夹着他。其余的人，包括法警和我们跟在后面。刚走了10码远，行列突然停止了，事前没有收到命令或警告。一件令人意想不到的事情发生了，不知从哪里窜出来的一条狗，突然出现在院子里。它大声狂叫，冲到我们中间来，围着我们又跑又跳，全身摇晃，看到有这么多的人在一起，这条多毛的杂种大狗十分兴奋。它在我们周围窜跳了一阵子，就突然扑向囚犯，跳起来居然想舔他的脸，大家都吓呆了，站在那里一动也不动，惊慌之下竟没有人想起去抓那条狗。 "谁放这条该死的畜牲进来的,"狱长异常生气地问道:"你们快抓住它～"有个狱卒离开押送的队伍，开始笨手笨脚地追那条狗，但是那狗像是和他在做游戏，跑着蹦着不让他走近。一个年轻的混血狱卒抓起一把石子砸去，想把那条狗赶走，但是那条狗躲过了石子，又向我们奔来。它的叫声从狱墙上反弹了回来。那个囚犯被抓在两名狱卒手中，面无表情地看着，好像这是绞刑的一部分。几分钟之后人们才设法抓住了那条狗，他们用我的手帕拴住狗的项圈，再次出发，那条狗仍在呜咽着、挣扎着。 绞刑台快到了。我看着那个囚犯的赤裸的棕色后背不时地在我面前晃动。他的胳膊给捆紧了，走路不大方便，但是他步伐很稳，那种一颠一颠的步态是直着腿走路的印度人所特有的。他每走一步，脑袋上的那绺头发上下舞动，肌肉就一张一弛，双脚在湿地上留下脚印。我看到，尽管有狱卒抓住他的双肩，他还是稍微侧身，灵活地躲开地上的一滩积水。 一直到这时候为止，我才明白到杀死一个健康并且神志清醒的人意味着什么。这是一件很奇怪的事，当我看到那个囚犯侧身想躲避那洼水时，我才了解扼杀一个正当壮年的人的意义，那是一种无法言喻的错误。这个人像我们一样是活人，并不是痛得快死的人。他身上的所有器官都在工作:肠子在消化，皮肤在更新，指甲在生长，组织在形成，所有这一切都在分工明确地忙活着。他站在绞刑台上，离他生命的终点还有十分之一秒时，他的指甲仍在长。他的眼睛仍能看到黄色的石头和灰色的墙，他的脑子仍在记忆、预见、思考甚至会想到那积水。他和我们都是一样的，看到的、听到的、感觉到的、了解到的都是同一个世界，但是在两分钟之后，他就会"啪"的一声永远地去了，去了另个世界，灵魂也随风而逝。 绞刑台设在一个同监狱的大院相邻的小院子里，长满了高高的刺人的野草。绞刑台是用砖头砌的，像一所三面有墙的平房，上面铺着木板，木板的顶上有两条大梁和一条横杠，横杠上挂着绳子。刽子手是个身穿白色制服，头发花白的囚犯。他正站在绞刑架旁边。我们进院时他对我们点头哈腰笑脸相迎。佛朗西斯一声令下，两个狱卒把囚犯夹得更紧了，他们半推半拉地把他拖到绞刑台前，拉着他笨手笨脚地爬上了阶梯。然后刽子手爬了上去，把绞索套到了囚犯的脖子上。 我们等在几米外的地方。狱警们围着绞刑台站成一个圆圈。在绞索套好了以后，那个囚犯就开始大声重复的叫喊:"罗摩～罗摩～罗摩～"。那是他心中的上帝。他喊地不像祷告或求救那样充满恐惧，而是不慌不忙有节奏的，几乎像教堂的钟声那样。那条狗听到叫声就哀嚎起来。刽子手拿出一个像面口袋一样的小布袋，套在囚犯的头上。但是呼喊声仍可听见，只是隔了一层布听起来有些发闷，这个声音重复地叫着:"罗摩～罗摩～罗摩～"。狱长的脑袋耸拉在胸前，手杖慢慢地拨弄着地面。也许他正在数数，让囚犯喊到一定数目，也许五十声，也许一百声。大家的脸色都变了。印度人的脸色变成了劣制咖啡的灰白色，一把或者两把刺刀在摇晃。我们看着那站在绞刑台上被绳子捆着、脑袋蒙着的囚犯，听着他在一秒一秒地数着自己的生命，我们都是一个想法:唉，动手吧，快点把事办完，别让他再这么讨厌的叫唤了～ 狱长忽然拿定了主意，他抬起头，迅速地挥一下手杖。"行刑～"他几乎愤怒地叫了一声。 很轻地响了一声，接下来是一片死寂。囚犯消失了，绳子自己转着绞了起来。我撒开狗，它立刻蹿跳到绞刑台的后面，但是它一跑到那里就停下来了，呜咽着。接着又灰溜溜地躲到院子的一个角落，站在野草丛里，胆怯地望着我们。我们绕到绞刑台的后面去检查囚犯的尸体。他吊在那里，脚趾笔直朝下，身子还在慢慢地转动着，已经死了。 狱长用手杖，戳一戳赤裸的尸体，它轻轻地摆一下。"他完了。"狱长说。他从绞刑台下退出来，深深地吸了一口气。阴郁的表情突然从他的脸上消失了。他看一下手表:"八点零八分。好吧，今天上午就到此结束，谢谢上帝。"狱警卸下了刺刀，起步走开了。那条狗也清 醒过来，明白了刚才的行为大跌身份，乖乖地跟着他们。我们走出耸立着绞刑台的院子，走过死囚室和里面等着的死囚面前，回到了监狱的大院子。在带着警棍的狱警的监督下，囚犯们正在领早餐。他们蹲在地上，两名狱卒提着饭桶把饭舀进他们的铁皮缸子里去。在绞刑以后，这个景象看上去很安宁祥和。我们大家因为该做的事已经做完而觉得松了一口气。你感到某种要唱歌，要奔跑，要大笑的冲动，大家都开始在轻松友好地交谈了。 那个走在我身旁的混血狱警用头指一指我们过来的方向，心照不宣地微笑道:"你知道吧，长官，刚才的朋友(刚死去的那个人)听到上诉被驳回，吓的尿了一裤子。请抽一支烟，长官，不要客气，我这新买的银烟盒怎么样，长官,这是从小摊上买的，两个卢比八个安纳，高级的欧洲花样。"有好几个人笑了，到底笑什么，似乎谁也不知道。 佛朗西斯在狱长身边，喋喋不休地唠叨着:"真是不错，长官，一切顺利。咔嚓一下，一切都很快结束了，就是那样。以前并不是总能这样的，据我所知有几次还得要请医生来钻到绞刑台下去使劲拽囚犯的腿才使他快点死。真是够讨厌的～""拽他的腿，唔,那太糟了。"狱长说。 "啊，长官，死囚不听指挥时更糟了～我记得有一个人，在我们带他去行刑时他死拽住笼子的铁栏杆不放。说来您都不信，长官，派了6个狱卒才把他拉开，3个人扯一条腿。我们向他讲道理。我们说:'朋友，你想想，你这样给我们招来多少麻烦～'但他就是不听～啊，他真是不好对付～"大家都在笑，我发现我也在大声笑着。甚至狱长也宽容地咧着嘴。"你们不如一起来喝一杯，"他很和蔼地说:"我在车上有一瓶威士忌。我们可以干掉它。"我们来到了路上。"拽他的腿～"一个缅甸法警忽然说道，格格地大笑起来。我们大家又都笑了起来。佛朗西斯的故事似乎显得特别好笑。我们大家在一起亲热地喝了一杯酒，本地人和欧洲人不分彼此。那个死人就在100码以外安静地躺着。