英文版《灵山》节选

tpatw

Soul Mountain
　　Gao Xingjian

　　Translation by Mabel Lee


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　



　　Chapter One

　　The old bus is a city reject. After shaking in it for twelve hours on the potholed highway since early morning you arrive in this mountain county town in the South.

　　In the bus station littered with ice-lollipop papers and sugar cane scraps, you stand with your backpack and a bag and look around for a while.

　　People are getting off the bus or walking past, men humping sacks and women carrying babies. A crowd of youths, unhampered by sacks or baskets, have their hands free. They take sunflower seeds out of their pockets, toss them one at a time into their mouths and spit out the shells. With a loud crack the kernels are expertly eaten. To be leisurely and carefree is endemic to the place. They are locals and life has made them like this, they have been here for many generations and you wouldn’t need to go looking anywhere else for them. The earliest to leave the place, of course at the time this bus station didn’t exist and probably there weren’t any buses, travelled by river in the black canopy boats and overland in hired carts or by foot if they didn’t have the money. Nowadays, as long as they are still able to travel they flock back home, even from the other side of the Pacific, arriving in cars or big air-conditioned coaches. The rich, the famous, and the nothing in particular all hurry back because they are getting old. After all, who doesn’t love the home of their ancestors? Of course they don’t intend to stay so they walk around looking relaxed, talking and laughing loudly, and effusing fondness and affection for the place. Here, when friends meet they don’t just give a nod or a handshake in the meaningless ritual of city people, they shout the person’s name or thump him on the back. Hugging is also common but not for women, who don’t do this. By the cement trough where the buses are washed, two young women hold hands as they chat. The women here have lovely voices and you can’t help taking a second look.