The Pearl

John Steinbeck

《珍珠》(1947) 一書中的主人公吉諾（Kino）的幼子被毒蝎叮咬卻無錢醫治，一次偶然的機會他發現了稀世珍珠（Pearl of the World）。瞬間，小鎮上似乎所有的人都對這顆稀世之寶產生了興趣，并夢想得到它。他們想象著若能得到這顆珍珠，他們的生活將發生如何的改變，如何能實現自己的夢想，而吉諾成了阻礙他們得到這顆珍珠的絆腳石。

約翰·斯坦貝克（1902—1968）是20世紀美國最有影響力的作家之一。他的作品大多反映社會底層的人們，展現了底層人的善良、質樸的品格。他將寫實與幻想兩種風格有機地結合起來，對后來的美國文學，尤其是西部文學的發展起了重大的影響。《珍珠》的敘事手法獨特，文筆優美，用寓言的方式講述了一個關于欲望和人性的古老故事。

這期選登其中第三章的部分內容，看看這顆珍珠如何勾起小鎮上各類人物的欲望，包括主人公吉諾。

A town is a thing like a colonial animal（群居的動物）. 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（急忙爬起來飛快跑去）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（跳動）and vibrating（振動）with the news—Kino had found the Pearl of the World. Before panting （氣喘吁吁的） little boys could strangle out（費力地說出）the words, their mothers knew it. The news swept on past the brush houses, and it washed in a foaming wave （泡沫翻滾的浪花）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 （為……洗禮）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（嚴肅的） and judicious（精明的） at the same time. “He is a client （顧客）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，這里形容醫生肥厚的眼簾） 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（其貌不揚的，傲慢無禮的）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 （喋喋不休地討價還價） 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 （競價的假象）. The news came to these men, and their eyes squinted （瞇著眼看） 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.

小說封面

約翰·斯坦貝克

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（殘渣）was precipitated（沉淀下來）. Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, and Kino’s pearl went into the dreams, the speculations（臆測）, the schemes（謀劃）, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts（強烈的欲望）, 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（攪動，激起） something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate（精華，蒸餾物）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，這里指“惡意”）, 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（半島）to sink in the outward sea,Kino squatted（盤腿坐著）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（白熾）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（毛氈）—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 （晶瑩剔透的）pearl and he said, “We will have new clothes.”

And the music of the pearl rose like a chorus of trumpets（小號，喇叭）in his ears. Then to the lovely gray surface of the pearl came the little things Kino wanted: a harpoon （魚叉）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（步槍）—but why not, since he was so rich. And Kino saw Kino in the pearl, Kino holding a Winchester carbine （溫徹斯特卡賓槍）. 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 （蔑視的口吻）, 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.

約翰·斯坦貝克

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 （預言）. “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 （敘述） how Kino looked and what he said and how his eyes shone, and they would say, “He was a man transfigured（發生了變化）. 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 （結了痂的） over and tight where he had struck the gate.