by Shi Tiesheng
那么，一切不幸命运的救赎之路在哪里呢？
设若智慧或悟性可以引领我们去找到救赎之路，难道所有的人都能够获得这样的智慧和悟性吗？
我常以为是丑女造就了美人。我常以为是愚氓举出了智者。我常以为是懦夫衬照了英雄。我常以为是众生度化了佛祖。
六
设若有一位园神，他一定早已注意到了，这么多年我在这园里坐着，有时候是轻松快乐的，有时候是沉郁苦闷的，有时候优哉游哉，有时候恓惶落寞，有时候平静而且自信，有时候又软弱，又迷茫。其实总共只有三个问题交替着来骚扰我，来陪伴我。第一个是要不要去死？第二个是为什么活？第三个，我干吗要写作？
现在让我看看，它们迄今都是怎样编织在一起的吧。
你说，你看穿了死是一件无需乎着急去做的事，是一件无论怎样耽搁也不会错过的事，便决定活下去试试？是的，至少这是很关键的因素。为什么要活下去试试呢？好像仅仅是因为不甘心，机会难得，不试白不试，腿反正是完了，一切仿佛都要完了，但死神很守信用，试一试不会额外再有什么损失。说不定倒有额外的好处呢，是不是？我说过，这一来我轻松多了，自由多了。为什么要写作呢？作家是两个被人看重的字，这谁都知道。为了让那个躲在园子深处坐轮椅的人，有朝一日在别人眼里也稍微有点光彩，在众人眼里也能有个位置，哪怕那时再去死呢，也就多少说得过去了。开始的时候就是这样想，这不用保密，这些现在不用保密了。
I took a pad and a pen, hid myself in a secluded corner of the temple and secretly began to write. Not far away the young singer kept singing. If someone passed by, I would close my pad and stick the pen between my teeth — I was afraid of being made fun of if my writing didn't get me anywhere. I spared no efforts to save my vanity.
I finally finished my first story and got it published. People said it wasn't bad, some even said they never thought I had it in me to write so well. To this, I would say to myself: There are many more things about me that wouldn't occur to you. I was so excited that I didn't sleep a wink that night.
I wanted to tell the young singer my good news, but in the end I only told my friend, the runner. He felt excited too, and said: Good, I'll devote myself to running and you to writing.
我带着本子和笔，到园中找一个最不为人打扰的角落，偷偷地写。那个爱唱歌的小伙子在不远的地方一直唱。要是有人走过来，我就把本子合上把笔叼在嘴里。我怕写不成反落得尴尬。我很要面子。可是你写成了，而且发表了。人家说我写的还不坏，他们甚至说：真没想到你写得这么好。我心说你们没想到的事还多着呢。我确实有整整一宿高兴得没合眼。我很想让那个唱歌的小伙子知道，因为他的歌也毕竟是唱得不错。我告诉我的长跑家朋友的时候，那个中年女工程师正优雅地在园中穿行；长跑家很激动，他说好吧，我玩命跑，你玩命写。
From then on I felt like one possessed and spent all day thinking about what and whom I could write about in my next story. In fact, I would think about writing wherever I went. I looked for inspiration among the people. If only there could have been some sort of fiction potion which I could try on every person I met to see if there was a story behind him. At that time I just lived for writing.
Then I had several other stories published and fame began to tap on my door. But again I became frustrated, for I suddenly felt I was living like a hostage in a conspiracy who might be shot any time. I was worried that some day I might use up all my themes and creativity, then I was again finished — why would a cripple, confined mostly to a chair in an old temple, always have something to write about? Even a healthy writer who travels all over may run out of inspiration.
Again I thought of dying. I thought, maybe I should stop there — it would not be too bad an ending. It was just too exhausting living like your own hostage when there was no guarantee that tomorrow you would still find things to write about. I lived because I was thinking about writing, but if I was not cut out to be a writer after all, wasn't I foolish to keep on struggling?
Despite this, I still searched my brain for fragments of inspiration and managed to squeeze out the last drops of water from a drying towel. The feeling of mentally depleting oneself was far more agonizing than complete self-destruction. It would be better if I had died or had never been born, I thought. If only this world had never existed.
I didn't take my own life, however. Instead I decided to carry on living. I wanted to live.
Man's real name is desire. Sometimes I am honestly not afraid of death. I say "sometimes". But "not afraid of death" is different from "wanting to die". There are people who, on occasions, have no fear of death, but nobody is born that way. Sometimes I'm afraid of living, but that doesn't mean I don't want to live. I live because I want to gain something — love and a sense of worth. Shouldn't I be entitled to these? Nobody said no. But why do I constantly live in fear and feel like a hostage?
Later I came to understand that I was wrong. You don't live to write, you write to live. That day I said to a friend again that maybe it was better to die after all. My friend said: Don't die, you've still got something to write; there're still many things that only you could write about. Then I suddenly realized that I had to keep writing for as long as I wanted to live.
The best revenge a hostage can take against his captors is to kill himself. I'll need to kill myself so that I need not enter the writing market and join in the rush for subjects to write about.
But I keep on writing. One has to find a sound excuse for one's existence. To be or not to be is not a question that may be solved before death.
这一来你中了魔了，整天都在想哪一件事可以写，哪一个人可以让你写成小说。是中了魔了，我走到哪儿想到哪儿，在人山人海里只寻找小说，要是有一种小说试剂就好了，见人就滴两滴看他是不是一篇小说，要是有一种小说显影液就好了，把它泼满全世界看看都是哪儿有小说，中了魔了，那时我完全是为了写作活着。结果你又发表了几篇，并且出了一点小名，可这时你越来越感到恐慌。我忽然觉得自己活得像个人质，刚刚有点像个人了却又过了头，像个人质，被一个什么阴谋抓了来当人质，不定哪天被处决，不定哪天就完蛋。你担心要不了多久你就会文思枯竭，那样你就又完了。凭什么我总能写出小说来呢？凭什么那些适合作小说的生活素材就总能送到一个截瘫者跟前来呢？人家满世界跑都有枯竭的危险，而我坐在这园子里凭什么可以一篇接一篇地写呢？你又想到死了。我想见好就收吧。当一名人质实在是太累了太紧张了，太朝不保夕了。我为写作而活下来，要是写作到底不是我应该干的事，我想我再活下去是不是太冒傻气了？你这么想着你却还在绞尽脑汁地想写。我好歹又拧出点水来，从一条快要晒干的毛巾上。恐慌日甚一日，随时可能完蛋的感觉比完蛋本身可怕多了，所谓不怕贼偷就怕贼惦记，我想人不如死了好，不如不出生的好，不如压根儿没有这个世界的好。可你并没有去死。我又想到那是一件不必着急的事。可是不必着急的事并不证明是一件必要拖延的事呀？你总是决定活下来，这说明什么？是的，我还是想活。人为什么活着？因为人想活着，说到底是这么回事，人真正的名字叫作：欲望。可我不怕死，有时候我真的不怕死。有时候，—说对了。不怕死和想去死是两回事，有时候不怕死的人是有的，一生下来就不怕死的人是没有的。我有时候倒是怕活。可是怕活不等于不想活呀！可我为什么还想活呢？因为你还想得到点什么，你觉得你还是可以得到点什么的，比如说爱情，比如说价值感之类，人真正的名字叫欲望。这不对吗？我不该得到点什么吗？没�
��不该。可我为什么活得恐慌，就像个人质？后来你明白了，你明白你错了，活着不是为了写作，而写作是为了活着。你明白了这一点是在一个挺滑稽的时刻。那天你又说你不如死了好，你的一个朋友劝你：你不能死，你还得写呢，还有好多好作品等着你去写呢。这时候你忽然明白了，你说：只是因为我活着，我才不得不写作。或者说只是因为你还想活下去，你才不得不写作。是的，这样说过之后我竟然不那么恐慌了。就像你看穿了死之后所得的那份轻松？一个人质报复一场阴谋的最有效的办法是把自己杀死。我看出我得先把我杀死在市场上，那样我就不用参加抢购题材的风潮了。你还写吗？还写。你真的不得不写吗？人都忍不住要为生存找一些牢靠的理由。你不担心你会枯竭了？我不知道，不过我想，活着的问题在死前是完不了的。
This thought liberates me, although I know the most effective way to get rid of fear is to first rid oneself of human desire.
I seem to hear the Temple God say: A good actor can't help feeling like a hostage; a good audience can always see through the conspiracy. Only a bad actor thinks he has no connection with the drama and an unlucky audience is the one that sits too close to the stage.
I sit in the temple all year round and listen to the Temple God. "My son, it is your fate and your fortune to be this way," I seem to hear.
这下好了，您不再恐慌了不再是个人质了，您自由了。算了吧你，我怎么可能自由呢？别忘了人真正的名字是：欲望。所以您得知道，消灭恐慌的最有效的办法就是消灭欲望。可是我还知道，消灭人性的最有效的办法也是消灭欲望。那么，是消灭欲望同时也消灭恐慌呢？还是保留欲望同时也保留人性？
我在这园子里坐着，我听见园神告诉我：每一个有激情的演员都难免是一个人质。每一个懂得欣赏的观众都巧妙地粉碎了一场阴谋。每一个乏味的演员都是因为他老以为这戏剧与自己无关。每一个倒霉的观众都是因为他总是坐得离舞台太近了。
我在这园子里坐着，园神成年累月地对我说：孩子，这不是别的，这是你的罪孽和福祉。
If there's something I did not say, you, the Temple of Earth, don't say I have forgotten it. Nothing has ever slipped from my memory. It's only that some things are meant to be collected – I can neither talk about them nor miss them, yet I cannot forget them. They cannot be verbalized. They cannot be changed into language; if they can, they are no longer themselves. They are a foggy morsel of sweet warmth and solitude, or a morsel of mature hope and despair. There are merely two domains for them: heart or grave. Take stamps for an example. Some of them are for posting letters, while others are merely meant to be put aside.
Rolling my wheel-chair in the park, I had the lingering feeling that I had come out to the world to enjoy myself for too long. One day, when I was sorting out my old photo album, I saw a photo I had taken in this park more than a decade ago. On the wheel-chair sits a young man. Behind him is an old cypress tree, and further away, an ancient sacrificial altar. Thus I went to the park to look for that tree. With the clue provided by the photo, I found it quickly. And I was sure it was the same tree that appeared in the photo, judging from the shapes of its trunk and branches. Unfortunately, it was dead – it was tangled up by a bowl-thick wisteria. One day, I came across an old lady in the park. "Hey. You still live here, don't you?" she said, adding, "How's your mother?" "Who are you?", I asked, puzzling. "You don't know me, but I know who you are," she answered. "When your mother came here to look for you the other day, she asked me whether I had seen a boy on a wheel-chair...." Her remarks jolted me to my senses all of a sudden. Indeed, I had been to the world, alone, for fun for too long. I was reading by myself under a road lamp close by the sacrificial altar one night. Suddenly came the strains of a suona horn from inside the pitch-dark altar. All around under the sky were towering old trees and the vast, empty premises of the altar. I could not see the instrumentalist playing, but his lilting tunes were reverberating in the starry night, which were by turns mournful, joyful, sweet and touching, and desolate, but I surmise none of these adjectives were enough to do his melody justice. In my sober mind I could tell that the music, having been played for an eternity, was resonant then and now, and would remain so in the future.
七
要是有些事我没说，地坛，你别以为是我忘了，我什么也没忘，但是有些事只适合收藏。不能说，也不能想，却又不能忘。它们不能变成语言，它们无法变成语言，一旦变成语言就不再是它们了。它们是一片朦胧的温馨与寂寥，是一片成熟的希望与绝望，它们的领地只有两处：心与坟墓。比如说邮票，有些是用于寄信的，有些仅仅是为了收藏。
如今我摇着车在这园子里慢慢走，常常有一种感觉，觉得我一个人跑出来已经玩得太久了。有一天我整理我的旧相册，看见一张十几年前我在这园子里照的照片—那个年轻人坐在轮椅上，背后是一棵老柏树，再远处就是那座古祭坛。我便到园子里去找那棵树。我按着照片上的背景找很快就找到了它，按着照片上它枝干的形状找，肯定那就是它。但是它已经死了，而且在它身上缠绕着一条碗口粗的藤萝。有一天我在这园子里碰见一个老太太，她说：“哟，你还在这儿哪？”她问我：“你母亲还好吗？”“您是谁？”“你不记得我，我可记得你。有一回你母亲来这儿找你，她问我您看没看见一个摇轮椅的孩子？……”我忽然觉得，我一个人跑到这世界上来玩真是玩得太久了。有一天夜晚，我独自坐在祭坛边的路灯下看书，忽然从那漆黑的祭坛里传出一阵阵唢呐声；四周都是参天古树，方形祭坛占地几百平方米空旷坦荡独对苍天，我看不见那个吹唢呐的人，唯唢呐声在星光寥寥的夜空里低吟高唱，时而悲怆时而欢快，时而缠绵时而苍凉，或许这几个词都不足以形容它，我清清醒醒地听出它响在过去，响在现在，响在未来，回旋飘转亘古不散。
It was inevitable that someday, I would hear someone yelling to ask me to return to where I used to be. When that day comes, you can imagine what a child will do. He has played to exhaustion, yet he hasn't enjoyed himself to his heart's content. He has a wealth of novel ideas and cannot wait until tomorrow to live them out. You may also conjure up the image of an old man, moving toward his eternal resting place willingly and without the slightest trace of hesitation. Or you may think of a couple in love, who say to each other time and again, "I will not leave you for even a single second", yet they know perfectly well that they are running out of time. "We have not much time left," they tell each other repeatedly. "I don't want to be separated from you for even a second, but, alas, it's too late."
必有一天，我会听见喊我回去。
那时您可以想象一个孩子，他玩累了可他还没玩够呢，心里好些新奇的念头甚至等不及到明天。也可以想象是一个老人，无可质疑地走向他的安息地，走得任劳任怨。还可以想象一对热恋中的情人，互相一次次说“我一刻也不想离开你”，又互相一次次说“时间已经不早了”，时间不早了可我一刻也不想离开你，一刻也不想离开你可时间毕竟是不早了。
I can't say whether I want to return or not. I can't say for certain whether I feel like it or whether I don't care. I can't say whether I am that child, that old man, or one of that love-struck couple. It is likely that I am the three of them all at once. I came to this world as a boy who, driven by too many of childish ideas, cried and shouted for permission. But once he came and saw the world, he fell head over heels in love, whereas in a lover's perspective, time fleets no matter how long it is. Thus he became aware that ever step was taking was leading him back to where he came from. The funeral horn is heard the moment the morning glories come out.
Yet the sun remains itself, setting and rising at
any point of time. It starts climbing up the mountain ablaze in its morning glory the moment it puts out its fire and goes down. When the day comes, I will walk down the mountain on my crutch with a peaceful frame of mind. Someday in some dale, a boy will come up leaping and jiving in joy, with a toy in his arms.
Of course, that boy can't be me.
But can he not be me?
The universe, driven by an endless desire, hones and re-hones a song-and-dance number into an eternal one. Whatever earthly name that desire may have, it may as well not to be taken into account.
Translated by Shi Junbao, Fan Haixiang
我说不好我想不想回去。我说不好是想还是不想，还是无所谓。我说不好我是像那个孩子，还是像那个老人，还是像一个热恋中的情人。很可能是这样：我同时是他们三个。我来的时候是个孩子，他有那么多孩子气的念头所以才哭着喊着闹着要来，他一来一见到这个世界便立刻成了不要命的情人，而对一个情人来说，不管多么漫长的时光也是稍纵即逝，那时他便明白，每一步每一步，其实一步步都是走在回去的路上。当牵牛花初开的时节，葬礼的号角就已吹响。
但是太阳，它每时每刻都是夕阳也都是旭日。当它熄灭着走下山去收尽苍凉残照之际，正是它在另一面燃烧着爬上山巅布散烈烈朝辉之时。那一天，我也将沉静着走下山去，扶着我的拐杖。有一天，在某一处山洼里，势必会跑上来一个欢蹦的孩子，抱着他的玩具。
当然，那不是我。
但是，那不是我吗？
宇宙以其不息的欲望将一个歌舞炼为永恒。这欲望有怎样一个人间的姓名，大可忽略不计。