THE BEAST OF BURDEN
负重的牲口
By W. Somerset Maugham
威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆
THE BEAST OF BURDEN, from On a Chinese Screen, by William Somerset Maugham, New York, George H. Doran Company, 1922, pp. 77-79.
William Somerset Maugham （1874-1965）, English dramatist and novelist. In 1921, Mr. Maugham traveled through China. His impressions of places and persons he recorded in his book of delightful sketches On a Chinese Screen, from which book THE BEAST OF BURDEN and THE SONG OF THE RIVER were taken.
At first when you see the coolie on the road, bearing his load, it is as a pleasing object that he strikes the eye. In his blue rags, a blue of all colors from indigo to turquoise and then to the paleness of a milky sky, he fits the landscape. He seems exactly right as he trudges along the narrow causeway between the rice fields or climbs a green hill. His clothing consists of no more than a short coat and a pair of trousers; and if he had a suit which was at the beginning all of a piece, he never thinks when it comes to patching to choose a bit of stuff of the same color. He takes anything that comes handy. From sun and rain he protects his head with a straw hat shaped like an extinguisher with a preposterously wide, flat brim.
刚开始看到有苦力挑着重担在路上行走，你会觉得这是个愉悦的场景，冲击着你的眼球。他穿着破衣烂衫，一身蓝，从靛蓝、天蓝到泛白的乳蓝，但很应景。他费力地走在稻田间狭窄的田埂上，又或是爬上绿色的山丘，一切都显得那么自然。他上身不过一件短外套，下身一条裤子。倘若他有一套起先还是浑然一体的衣服，但后来要打补丁时，他不会想到要选用同一颜色的布块，手头什么方便就拿什么补。为了遮阳避雨，他戴了顶草帽，隆起的部分像个灭火器，帽檐又宽又平，看上去有些怪异。
You see a string of coolies come along, one after the other, each with a pole on his shoulders from the ends of which hang two great bales, and they make an agreeable pattern. It is amusing to watch their hurrying reflections in the padi water. You watch their faces as they pass you. They are good-natured faces and frank, you would have said, if it had not been drilled into you that the oriental is inscrutable; and when you see them lying down with their loads under a banyan tree by a wayside shrine, smoking and chatting gaily, if you have tried to lift the bales they carry for thirty miles or more a day, it seems natural to feel admiration for their endurance and their spirit. But you will be thought somewhat absurd if you mention your admiration to the old residents of China. You will be told with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders that the coolies are animals and for two thousand years from father to son have carried burdens, so it is no wonder if they do it cheerfully. And indeed you can see for yourself that they begin early, for you will encounter little children with a yoke on their shoulders staggering under the weight of vegetable baskets.
你看见一长溜苦力走过来，一个接一个，每个人肩上挑一个担子，两头挂着两个大包，构成一幅惬意的图景。从水中的倒影看他们匆匆忙忙的样子十分逗笑。他们路过时你观察他们的脸，要不是东方人神秘莫测的说法已植入人心，你肯定会说他们面容温厚坦诚。当他们到了路边的神祠，在菩提树下放下重担，躺下来，快乐地抽烟聊天，而且如果你也尝试扛过他们一天要挑三十里路的重担，你会很自然地敬佩他们的忍耐力和精神。但是如果你跟人说，你对这些中国长者心生钦佩之感，人们会耸耸肩，觉得你有些荒谬可笑，然后宽容地告诉你，这些苦力都是牲口。两千年来，他们祖祖辈辈都是挑重担的，所以他们干得很开心也不足为奇。事实上，你自己都能看到他们打很小的时候就开始挑担了，因为你会遇到小孩子肩头扛着扁担，两头挂着菜筐，踉踉跄跄地蹒跚前行。
The day wears on and it grows warmer. The coolies take off their coats and walk stripped to the waist. Then sometimes in a man resting for an instant, his load on the ground but the pole still on his shoulders so that he has to rest slightly crouched, you see the poor tired heart beating against the ribs: you see it as plainly as in some cases of heart disease in the out-patients' room of a hospital. It is strangely distressing to watch. Then also you see the coolies' backs. The pressure of the pole for long years, day after day, has made hard red scars, and sometimes even there are open sores, great sores without bandages or dressing that rub against the wood; but the strangest thing of all is that sometimes, as though nature sought to adapt man for these cruel uses to which he is put, an odd malformation seems to have arisen so that there is a sort of hump, like a camel's, against which the pole rests. But beating heart or angry sore, bitter rain or burning sun notwithstanding, they go on eternally, from dawn till dusk, year in year out, from childhood to the extreme of age. You see old men without an ounce of fat on their bodies, their skin loose on their bones, wizened, their little faces wrinkled and apelike, with hair thin and grey; and they totter under their burdens to the edge of the grave in which at last they shall have rest. And still the coolies go, not exactly running, but not walking either, sidling quickly, with their eyes on the ground to choose the spot to place their feet, and on their faces a strained, anxious expression. You can make no longer a pattern of them as they wend their way. Their effort oppresses you. You are filled with a useless compassion.
日子一天天过去了，天气变暖，这些苦力脱掉上衣，光着膀子走着。有时一个苦力要停下来休息，便把两头的包放地上，扁担还留在肩头，这样他就要稍稍蜷蹲着休息一下，这个时候你会看到他那可怜疲惫的心脏在肋骨间跳动。你看得一清二楚，样子恰似在医院门诊室看见心脏病人的心脏跳动一样。看到这一幕会让人有些许莫名的伤感。然后你再看他们的脊背，担子长年累月的压迫，留下深红的疤痕，有时甚至有溃口的疮疤，很大，没有绷带包扎，没有衣服隔挡，直接就在木扁担上摩擦。但最奇怪的是，就好像大自然力图让人适应他被交予的这些残酷用途，一种反常的畸形出现了，苦力们肩上会隆起一个包，就像驼峰一样，这样担子就可以顶在上面。但是尽管心在狂跳，疤在怒吼，不管苦雨还是烈日，他们永远都行在路上，从黎明到黄昏，年复一年，从童年到迟暮。你看到那些老人骨瘦如柴，皮肤松弛地耷拉在骨头上，干瘪枯槁，脸上满是皱纹，像瘦猴一样，头发灰白稀疏，在重担之下跌跌撞撞，一直走向坟墓的边缘，那是他们最后休息的场所。但苦力们仍在赶路，不能算跑，也不能算走，就是快速地侧身而行，眼睛一直盯着地面，好选个下脚的地方，脸上露出紧张焦虑的神情。他们继续前行时，你眼前再也不是什么惬意的图景了。他们的那种疲于奔命的努力让你感到压抑，内心充满怜悯，但又什么忙都帮不上。
In China it is man that is the beast of burden.
在中国，人就是负重的牲口。
“To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without the possibility of arresting one's course, —is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither, —is not that a just cause for grief?”
“被生活损耗、折磨，然后迅速走完生命历程，根本得不到休息——这不是很可怜吗？苦苦地干，没个完了，然后还没活到享受劳动果实的日子，就疲惫地突然逝去，也不知道会落个什么归宿——这能够不令人悲哀吗？”
So wrote the Chinese mystic.
那位中国的神秘主义者如是写道。
（罗选民 译）
