爱 作者 杰斯·斯图亚特
昨天，当明朗的太阳照耀在枯萎的玉米上时，我的父亲和我走在新开垦的土地边，准备做一个栅栏。
牛群在悬崖上不断从栗子橡树中穿过，并踩踏玉米苗。它们咬掉玉米苗的顶端，踏碎玉米的须茬。
我的父亲走在玉米地田梗上。鲍勃，我们的
牧羊犬，走在我父亲的前面。我们听到一只地松鼠在空地边缘的枯树的树顶上虚张声势地吹着口哨。“来吧，干掉他，鲍勃。”我的父亲说道。他举起一根玉米苗，苗的根部已经枯萎脱水，地松鼠为了遗留在柔嫩根部的甜玉米粒把它们挖了出来。这是一个干燥的春季，泥土里的玉米一直长得很好，已经发芽了。地松鼠喜欢这种玉米，它们把一行行玉米挖开，把甜玉米粒吃掉，幼嫩的玉米桔梗就这样被杀死了，我们不得不重新种植。
我看到父亲一直让鲍勃去追咬那些地松鼠，他跳过了玉米行，开始向地松鼠跑去。我也向空地跑去，鲍勃正在那儿又跳又叫。尘埃在我们脚后形成一个小小的漩涡，大团的尘埃跟着我们。
“是一条公的黑蛇，”我父亲说，“杀了他，鲍勃！杀了他，鲍勃！”
鲍勃跳起来抓住蛇以便让他不能动弹，同时来个措手不及。鲍勃已经在今年春天杀了28条铜斑蛇，他知道怎样杀死一条蛇，但他并没有急于杀死这一条。他从容且出色地完成他的工作。
“别杀了这条蛇，”我说，“黑蛇是无害的蛇，它会杀有毒的蛇，它会杀铜斑蛇。比起猫，它在田里能抓更多的老鼠。”
我看到那条蛇没有攻击狗的意图。蛇想逃跑，鲍勃不会让它得逞。我想知道它为什么会爬到大山肥沃的
黑土地上来；我想知道它为什么要爬过那些栗子橡树苗和悬崖上纠结的绿色石南。我看着蛇，它正抬起它漂亮的脑袋，作为对鲍勃一次跳跃的回应。“它不是一条公蛇，”我说，“它是一条母蛇，看它喉咙上的白斑。”
“蛇是我的敌人，”我的父亲严厉地说，“我讨厌任何一条蛇。杀了它，鲍勃。去把它抓过来，而且不准再和它玩。”
鲍勃服从了我的父亲，我讨厌看到他刺穿这条蛇的喉咙。悬在阳光中的她，看起来美丽异常。
鲍勃抓着她喉咙上的白斑，她那像风中牛尾般长长的身体被撕裂了。他是在逆风处撕裂那身体的。血从她弧度优美的喉咙喷射而出。什么东西击中了我的胳膊，像小球一样。鲍勃把蛇仍在了地上，我看到了那个打在我胳膊上的东西。
是蛇蛋，鲍勃把它们从她的身体里抛了出来。她是要去沙丘产卵，在那儿太阳是一只抱蛋的母鸡，它将给它们温暖并孵化它们。
鲍勃抓起她那躺在泥土上的身体，血液在那堆灰色的土壤上蔓延开来。她的身体还在因疼痛来回翻滚，她就像一棵被新燃的火威胁着的绿草般动作着。鲍勃多次恶意地投掷她的身体。他在逆风处撕裂她柔软的身体，她现在柔软得如同一根风中的鞋带。鲍勃把她千穿百孔的身体扔回了沙子上。她颤抖得像一片飘在懒洋洋的风中的树叶，随后，她满是窟窿的身体终于完全静止不动了。鲜血在蛇周围肥沃的土地上流了一片。
“看看这蛋，看见没？”我的父亲说道。我们数了数，一共37枚。我捡起一只蛋并把它捧在我的手心里。仅仅在一分中前，里面是一条生命。这是一颗不成熟的种子，它不能被孵化，太阳母亲无法用温暖的土地将它孵化。在我手中的这枚蛋几乎只有一颗
鹌鹑蛋的大小，它的壳薄而坚韧，壳下似乎是一只水蛋。
“嗯，鲍勃，我想你现在明白这条蛇为什么不能反抗了。”我说，“这就是生活，弱肉强食，即使在人类之间，也是如此。狗杀死蛇，鸟儿杀死蝴蝶。人类征服一切，为取乐而杀戮。”
鲍勃气喘吁吁，他带头返回我们的屋子。他的舌头从嘴巴里伸了出来，他累了，他那外套一样的茸毛让他
发热。
他的舌头几乎触到了干燥的地面以及那上面由白色泡沫形成的白斑。我们朝屋子走去，我和父亲都没有说话。我仍想着那条死去的蛇。太阳正从栗树岭那儿缓缓西下，一只云雀正在歌唱。对于一直云雀而言，现在唱歌已经有些晚了。红色的晚霞在我们牧场山的松树上方漂浮。我的父亲站在道路的旁边，他黑色的头发随风而动，在天蓝色的风中，他的脸红红的，他的眼睛直直看着下沉的太阳。
“我的父亲讨厌蛇。”我思忖。
我想到女人分娩时体会到的痛苦；我想到她们为了拯救自己的孩子将怎样竭力抗争；随后，我想到了那条蛇。我觉得有这样想法的自己非常愚蠢。
今天早上，我的父亲和我在鸡鸣中醒来。他说人必须在鸡鸣中起床，然后开始一天的工作。我们拿着柱坑挖掘机，斧头，小锄头，测量杆和鹤嘴锄。我们的目的地是空地边缘。鲍勃没有跟来。
露水还挂在玉米上。我的父亲扛着柱坑挖掘机走在后面，我走在前面。起风了，这晨风呼吸起来非常舒爽，这风让人觉得自己好似能举着山的边沿把山颠倒过来。
我走出玉米行，来到我们昨天下午到过的地方。我看着我前面的地方，我看到了一些东西。我看到它在移动，它像一根绕着胶盘移动的巨大的黑绳子。“别动！”我对父亲说，“这里有一条公的大黑蛇。”他上前一步站在了我的旁边，睁大了眼睛。
“你是怎么知道他是公的？”他说。
“你现在看到这条公蛇了。”我说，“好好看看他！他正躺在他死去的伴侣旁。他找到她了。他，也许，昨天就跟随她而来了。”
公蛇跟随着她的足迹一路而来，直至她的厄运。他晚上就到了，在星空造的屋顶下，当颤抖的绿云遮挡了月亮发出的光芒时。他发现自己的爱人死了。他盘在她身边，然而她已经死去。
公蛇抬起头跟在绕着死蛇走动的我们的后面。他将与我们战斗到死，他将与鲍勃战斗到死。“拿根棍子来，”我的父亲说，“把他扔到山的那边，这样鲍勃就不会发现他了。你有见过什么会因此打架的吗？我听说这种蛇会，但这是我第一次亲眼见到。”我拿来一根棍子，把他扔到了悬崖那边带着露水的豆芽里。
——————
下附原文：
Love by Jesse Stuart （英语短篇小说）
Yesterday when the bright sun blazed down on the wilted corn my father and I walked around the edge of the new ground to plan a fence. The cows kept coming through the chestnut oaks on the cliff and running over the young corn. They bit off the tips of the corn and [trample]trampled[/w] down the stubble.
My father walked in the cornbalk. Bob, our Collie, walked in front of my father. We heard a ground squirrel whistle down over the bluff among the dead treetops at the clearing’s edge. "Whoop, take him, Bob." said my father. He lifted up a young stalk of corn, with wilted dried roots, where the ground squirrel had dug it up for the sweet grain of corn left on its tender roots. This has been a dry spring and the corn has kept well in the earth where the grain has sprouted. The ground squirrels love this corn. They dig up rows of it and eat the sweet grains. The young corn stalks are killed and we have to replant the corn.
I could see my father keep sicking Bob after the ground squirrel. He jumped over the corn rows. He started to run toward the ground squirrel. I, too, started running toward the clearing’s edge where Bob was jumping and barking. The dust flew in tiny swirls behind our feet. There was a big cloud of dust behind us.
"It’s a big bull blacksnake," said my father. "Kill him, Bob! Kill him, Bob!"
Bob was jumping and snapping at the snake so as to make it strike and throw itself off guard. Bob has killed twenty-eight copperheads this spring. He knows how to kill a snake. He doesn’t rush to do it. He takes his time and does the job well.
"Let’s don’t kill the snake," I said. "A blacksnake is a harmless snake. It kills poison snakes. It kills the copperhead. It catches more mice from the fields than a cat."
I could see the snake didn’t want to fight the dog. The snake wanted to get away. Bob wouldn’t let it. I wondered why it was crawling toward a heap of black loamy earth at the bench of the hill. I wondered why it had come from the chestnut oak sprouts and the matted greenbriars on the cliff. I looked as the snake lifted its pretty head in response to one of Bob’s jumps. "It’s not a bull blacksnake," I said. "It’s a she-snake. Look at the white on her throat."
"A snake is an enemy to me," my father snapped. "I hate a snake. Kill it, Bob. Go in there and get that snake and quit playing with it!"
Bob obeyed my father. I hated to see him take this snake by the throat. She was so beautifully poised in the sunlight.
Bob grabbed the white patch on her throat. He cracked her long body like an ox whip in the wind. He cracked it against the wind only. The blood spurted from her fine-curved throat. Something hit against my legs like pellets. Bob threw the snake down. I looked to see what had struck my legs.
It was snake eggs. Bob had slung them from her body. She was going to the sand heap to lay her eggs, where the sun is the setting-hen that warms them and hatches them.
Bob grabbed her body there on the earth where the red blood was running down on the gray-piled loam. Her body was still writhing in pain. She acted like a greenweed held over a new-ground fires. Bob slung her viciously many times. He cracked her limp body against the wind. She was now limber as a shoestring in the wind. Bob threw her riddled body back on the sand. She quivered like a leaf in the lazy wind, then her riddled body lay perfectly still. The blood covered the loamy earth around the snake.
"Look at the eggs, won’t you?" said my father. We counted thirty-seven eggs. I picked an egg up and held it in my hand. Only a minute ago there was life in it. It was an immature seed. It would not hatch. Mother sun could not incubate it on the warm earth. The egg I held in my hand was almost the size of a quail’s egg. The shell on it was thin and tough and the egg appeared under the surface to be a watery egg.
"Well, Bob, I guess you see now why this snake couldn’t fight." I said. "It is life. Stronger devour the weaker even among human beings. Dog kills snake. Snake kills birds. Birds kill the butterflies. Man conquers all, too, kills for sport."
Bob was panting. He walked ahead of us back to the house. His tongue was out of his mouth. He was tired. He was hot under his shaggy coat of hair.
His tongue nearly touched the dry dirt and white flecks of foam dripped from it. We walked toward the house. Neither my father nor I spoke. I still thought of the dead snake. The sun was going down over the chestnut ridge. A lark was singing. It was late for a lark to sing. The red evening clouds floated above the pine trees on our pasture hill. My father stood beside the path. His black hair was moved by the wind. His face was red in the blue wind of day. His eyes looked toward the sinking sun.
"And my father hates a snake,"I thought.
I thought about the agony women know of giving birth. I thought about how they will fight to save their children. ThenI thought of the snake. I thought it was silly of me to think such thoughts.
This morning my father and I got up with the chickens. He says one has to get up with the chickens to do a day’s work. We got the posthole digger, ax, spud, measuring pole and the mat-tock. We started for the clearing’s edge. Bob didn’t go along.
The dew was on the corn. My father walked behind with the posthole digger across his shoulder. I walked in front. The wind was blowing. It was a good morning wind to breathe and a wind that makes one feel like he can get under the edge of a hill and heave the whole hill upside down.
I walked out the corn row where we had come yesterday afternoon. I looked in front of me. I saw something. I saw it move. It was moving like a huge black rope winds around a windlass. "Steady," I says to my father. "Here is the bull blacksnake." He took one step up beside me and stood. His eyes grew wide apart.
"What do you know about this," he said.
"You have seen the bull blacksnake now." I said. "Take a good look at him! He is lying beside his dead mate. He has come to her. He, perhaps, was on her trail yesterday."
The male snake had trailed her to her doom. He had come in the night, under the roof of stars, as the moon shed rays of light on the quivering clouds of green. He had found his lover dead. He was coiled beside her, and she was dead.
The bull blacksnake lifted his head and followed us as we walked around the dead snake. He would have fought us to his death. He would have fought Bob to his death. "Take a stick," said my father, "and throw him over the hill so Bob won’t find him. Did to you ever see anything to beat that? I’ve heard they’d do that. But this is my first time to see it." I took a stick and threw him over the bank into the dewy sprouts on the cliff.
杰斯·斯图亚特（Jesse Stuart,1907-1984）美国小说家、诗人。他的诗集"Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow"（1934）被爱尔兰诗人乔治·威廉 ·卢梭称为继沃特·惠特曼的《草叶集》之后最伟大的诗作。他的小说代表作有"Taps for Private Tussie"(1943)，著有多部自传体小说，国内关于他的介绍和作品译介很少，故在此还是用了其作品题目原文。