了不起的盖茨比 第七章 第十六节 - 天使的守护又怎样

I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped from between two bushes into the path. I must have felt pretty weird by that time because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon.

我还没走上二十码就听见有人叫我的名宇，跟着盖茨比从两个灌木丛中间出来走到小路上。我当时一定已经神志恍惚了，因为我脑子里什么都想不到，除了他那套粉红色衣服在月光下闪闪发光。

‘What are you doing?’ I inquired.
‘Just standing here, old sport.’
Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I knew he was going to rob the house in a moment; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see sinister faces, the faces of ‘Wolfshiem’s people,’ behind him in the dark shrubbery.

“你在干什么?”我问道。
“就在这儿站着，老兄。”

不知为什么，这好像是一种可耻的行径。说不定他准备马上就去抢劫这个人家哩。 我也不会感到奇怪的，如果我看到许多邪恶的面孔，“沃尔夫山姆的人”的面孔，躲在他后面黑黝黝的灌木丛中。

‘Did you see any trouble on the road?’ he asked after a minute.

‘Yes.’
He hesitated.
‘Was she killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought so; I told Daisy I thought so. It’s better that the shock should all come at once. She stood it pretty well.’
He spoke as if Daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered.
“你在路上看见出什么事了吗?”他过了一会问道。

“看见了。”
他迟疑了一下。

“她撞死了吗?”
“死了。”

“我当时就料到了。我告诉了黛西我想是撞死了。一下子大惊一场，倒还好些。她表现得挺坚强。” 他这样说，仿佛黛西的反应是唯一要紧的事情。

‘I got to West Egg by a side road,’ he went on, ‘and left the car in my garage. I don’t think anybody saw us but of course I can’t be sure.’

I disliked him so much by this time that I didn’t find it necessary to tell him he was wrong.

‘Who was the woman?’ he inquired.

‘Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen?’

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth.

‘Was Daisy driving?’

“我从一条小路开回西卵去，”他接着说，“把车子停在我的车房里。我想没有人看到过我们，但我当然不能肯定。”

到这时我已经十分厌恶他，因此我觉得没有必要告诉他他想错了。

“那个女人是谁?”他问道。 “她姓威尔逊。她丈夫是那个车行的老板。这事到底怎么会发生的?”

“呃，我想把驾驶盘扳过来的⋯⋯”他突然打住，我也忽然猜到了真相。

“是黛西在开车吗?”

‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way.

“是的，”他过了一会才说，“但是当然我要说是我在开。是这样的。我们离开纽约的时候，她神经非常紧张，她以为开车子可以使她镇定下来——后来这个女人向我们冲了出来。正好我们迎面来了一辆车子和我们相错。

It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’

前后不到一分钟的事，但我觉得她想跟我们说话，以为我们是她认识的人。呃，黛西先是把车子从那个女人那边转向那辆车子，接着她惊慌失措又转了回去。我的手一碰到驾驶盘我就感到了震动——她一定是当场撞死的。”

‘It ripped her open——‘

‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced. ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on.

‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently. ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’

“把她撞开了花⋯⋯”

“别跟我说这个，老兄。”他间缩了一下，“总而言之，黛西拼命踩油门。我要她停下来，但她停不了，我只得拉上了紧急刹车。这时她晕倒在我膝盖上，我就接过来向前开。”

“明天她就会好的，”他过了一会又说，“我只是在这儿等等，看他会个会因为今天下午那场争执找她麻烦。她把自己锁在自己屋子里了，假如他有什么野蛮的举动，她就会把灯关掉然后再打开。”

‘He won’t touch her,’ I said. ‘He’s not thinking about her.’

‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’
‘How long are you going to wait?’
‘All night if necessary. Anyhow till they all go to bed.’
A new point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been driving. He might think he saw a connection in it—he might think anything. I looked at the house: there were two or three bright windows downstairs and the pink glow from Daisy’s room on the second floor.

“他不会碰她的，”我说，“他现在想的不是她。”

“我不信任他，老兄。”
“你准备等多久!”

“整整一夜，如果有必要的话。至少，等到他们都去睡觉。”

我忽然有了一个新的看法。假定汤姆知道了开车的是黛西，他或许会认为事出有因——他或许什么都会疑心。我看看那座房子。楼下有两三扇亮堂堂的窗户，还有二楼黛西屋子里映出的粉红色亮光。

‘You wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll see if there’s any sign of a commotion.’

I walked back along the border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly and tiptoed up the veranda steps. The drawing-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was empty. Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn but I found a rift at the sill.

“你在这儿等着，”我说，“我去看看有没有吵闹的迹象。”

我沿着草坪的边缘走了回去，轻轻跨过石子车道，然后踮起脚尖走上游廊的台阶。客厅的窗帘是拉开的，因此我看到屋子里是空的。我穿过我们三个月以前那个六月的晚上吃过晚餐的阳台，来到一小片长方形的灯光前面，我猜那是食品间的窗户。遮帘拉了下来，但我在窗台上找到了一个缝隙。

Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.

黛西和汤姆面对面坐在厨房的桌子两边，两人中间放着一盘冷的炸鸡，还有两瓶啤酒。他正在隔着桌子聚精会神地跟她说话，说得那么热切，他手盖住了她的手。她不时抬起头来看看他，并且点头表示同意。

They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.

As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was waiting where I had left him in the drive.

他们并不是快乐的，两人都没动鸡和啤酒——然而他们也不是不快乐的。这幅图画清清楚楚有一种很自然的亲密气氛，任何人也都会说他们俩在一同阴谋策划。

当我踮着脚尖走下阳台时，我听见我的出租汽车慢慢地沿着黑暗的道路向房子开过来。盖茨比还在车道上我刚才和他分手的地方等着。

‘Is it all quiet up there?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yes, it’s all quiet.’ I hesitated. ‘You’d better come home and get some sleep.’
He shook his head.
‘I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good night, old sport.’
He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.

 “那上面一切都安静吗?”他焦急地问。

“是的，一切都安静。”我犹疑了一下，“你最好也回家去睡觉吧。”

他摇了摇头。
“我要在这儿一直等到黛西上床睡觉。晚安，老兄。”

他把两手插在上衣口袋里，热切地掉转身去端详那座房子，仿佛我的在场有损于他神圣的守望。于是我走开了，留下他站在月光里——空守着。