永远的憧憬和追求 My Everlasting Dream and Pursuit 萧红

永远的憧憬和追求
My Everlasting Dream and Pursuit
萧红
Xiao Hong
一九一一年，在一个小县城里边，我生在一个小地主的家里。
In 1911, I was born into a petty landlord family in a remote county town in Heilongjiang Province—a town situated virtually at the northeastern tip of China.
那县城差不多就是中国的最东最北部——黑龙江省——所以一年之中，倒有四个月飘着白雪。
We had snow there for as long as one third of a year.
父亲常常为着贪婪而失掉了人性。
Father, driven by avarice, often became very unfeeling.
他对待仆人，对待自己的儿女，以及对待我的祖父都是同样的吝啬而疏远，甚至于无情。
He would treat his servants, his own children and even my grandpa alike with meanness and indifference, not to say with ruthlessness.
有一次，为着房屋租金的事情，父亲把房客的全套的马车赶了过来。
Once, due to a dispute over house rent, he took away by force a tenant’s horse-drawn cart and drove it home.
房客的家属们哭着诉说着，向我的祖父跪了下来，于是祖父把两匹棕色的马从车上解下来还了回去。
The tenant’s family came to see grandpa and, dropping to their knees, tearfully related their troubles. Grandpa unharnessed the two chestnut horses and returned them to the tenant.
为着这匹马，父亲向祖父起着终夜的争吵。
That touched off a night-long quarrel between father and grandpa. “The two horses mean nothing to us, but everything to the poor,” argued grandpa.
“两匹马，咱们是算不了什么的，穷人，这匹马就是命根。”祖父这样说着，而父亲还是争吵。
Father, however, refused to listen.
九岁时，母亲死去。
Mother died when I was nine.
父亲也就更变了样，偶然打碎了一只杯子，他就要骂到使人发抖的程度。
From then on father went from bad to worse. Even a mere cup accidentally broken by someone would send him into such a violent rage that we all shivered with fear.
后来就连父亲的眼睛也转了弯，每从他的身边经过，我就像自己的身上生了针刺一样；他斜视着你，他那高傲的眼光从鼻梁经过嘴角而后往下流着。
Later, whenever I happened to walk past him, he would even have his eyes directed sideways, which made me feel like being pricked all over on thorns. When he looked askance at me, superciliousness gushed from his eyes down the bridge of his nose and then off the corners of his mouth.
所以每每在大雪中的黄昏里，围着暖炉，围着祖父，听着祖父读着诗篇，看着祖父读着诗篇时微红的嘴唇。
Often of a snowy evening, we children would hang about grandpa by a heating stove, listening to him reading poems aloud and meanwhile watching his busy ruddy lips.
父亲打了我的时候，我就在祖父的房里，一直面向着窗子，从黄昏到深夜——窗外的白雪，好像白棉花一样飘着；而暖炉上水壶的盖子，则像伴奏的乐器似的振动着。
Whenever father had given me a beating, I would seek solace in grandpa’s room where I would stay gazing out of the window from dusk till late into the night while snowflakes were flying like cotton and the lid of the kettle over the heating stove rattling like a musical instrument playing an accompaniment.
祖父时时把多纹的两手放在我的肩上，而后又放在我的头上，我的耳边便响着这样的声音：
Grandpa would place his wrinkled hands on my shoulder and then on my head, saying,
“快快长吧！长大就好了。”
“Grow up quick, poor child! You’ll be all right after you’ve grown up.”
二十岁那年，我就逃出了父亲的家庭。
I fled from home at twenty.
直到现在还是过着流浪的生活。
And so far I still live the life of a vagrant.
“长大”是“长大”了，而没有“好”。
True, I’ve “grown up”, but I’m not yet “all right”.
可是从祖父那里，知道了人生除掉了冰冷和憎恶而外，还有温暖和爱。
Nevertheless, from grandpa I’ve learned that apart from coldness and hatred, there is also warmth and love in life.
所以我就向这“温暖”有“爱”的方面，怀着永久的憧憬和追求。
Hence my everlasting dream and pursuit of this “warmth” and “love”.