双语 | 男人的一半是女人

张贤亮·《男人的一半是女人》（节选）英译

Half Man is Woman  (Excerpt)

Zhang Xianliang

“‘八年啦，别提啦！’”她笑着，学了一句革命样板戏《智取威虎山》里的唱词。随后，两脚倒着把我埋下的土踩瓷实，眼睛看着地面说，“这八年，结了两次婚，离了两次婚，就这些。幸亏没生娃娃。”

‘Me? Don’t even ask.’ She laughed, as she reeled off a line from a model revolutionary play. Then she stamped down the earth that I had shoveled in. ‘Eight years: I married twice and divorced twice. That was about it. Luckily there weren’t any children.’

我不停地干着活，一点也不惊奇。我看见、听见的出乎意料的事太多了，到后来，竟没有一件事能出乎我的意料。她不那样生活还能怎样生活？幸福是一种奇迹，不幸才是常规。她对我的坎坷也没有感到惊奇。这样，我们倒是真正地相互理解了。她不说那些安慰的话语也好，这些年，我最怕那种老太婆式的絮絮叨叨的同情。

I kept on working, not at all surprised. I had seen too much, and heard too much. In the end, there was very little that I could not imagine. If she didn’t get along that way, how was she to live? Good fortune was a kind of miracle, misfortune was the norm. She, in turn, felt no surprise at my own experience. In that respect we both totally understood each other. Her lack of any commiseration was fine—through the years, I had come to dislike the simpering sympathy of other people.

“你别笑话，”她接着说，“你蹲了两次监狱，我结了两次婚，其实结婚跟蹲监狱一样，有的时候比蹲监狱还要难受。前一次，我没告诉他我劳改过，成天提心吊胆的，怕他知道了。可他还是知道了，跟我打了离婚。后一次，在白银滩农场，我一开始就跟他说清楚了，可他老把这事拿捏我，我受不了，跟他打了离婚。前一次是人家不要我，后一次是我不要人家，一比一，平了！唉，人一辈子就是这么回事。我以后再不结婚了！”

‘You’ve been in jail twice over these years, well, don’t laugh, I’ve been married twice. Comes to the same thing. At times, I think jail must be easier to take than marriage. The first time, I didn’t tell him I’d been in the camps, and I lived in fear that he would find out. When he eventually did, he asked for a divorce. The second time, at the White Sands Commune, I told him all about my past from the very start. After that, he was always bringing it up again holding it against me. In the end I couldn’t take it, and I asked him for a divorce. First time, he didn’t want me; second time, I didn’t want him. One to one, even! So that’s life, I’m not getting married again.’

 “你打定主意再不结婚容易办到，我打定主意再不蹲监狱可不容易。”我笑着和她打趣。“结不结婚由你，蹲不蹲监狱可不由我。这么说来，你还是比我强。”

‘That’s easy enough. If you don’t want to marry, you don’t have to. But me, if I don’t want to go to jail it isn’t my decision.’ I teased her, ‘Marriage is up to you, jail’s not up to me.You’ve been a lot better than I have.’

我们一见面就像老朋友似地嘻嘻哈哈，无拘无束。友谊的关系有各种各样的格局，有的格局是一见面就自然地很亲切，有的是必须在一段时间里逐渐啮合好齿轮，如果啮合不到一起便不能运转，我们都无视对方的痛苦，因为我们各自的遭遇就够自己心烦的了。但我们却能真正地同情对方，因为我们都亲身经历过那种痛苦，虽然在形式上不同——蹲监狱和结婚二者虽有区别，但感觉的实质和程度是一样的。

From the start we spoke to each other like old friends. There are all kinds of patterns in friendship. With some, you find it natural to be close from the beginning, with others it takes some time before the wheel engage. If the gears don’t mesh, the thing does not go at all. We both ignored the hardships of the other, because we had encountered enough in our own lives. At the same time, we understood each other, because although the form of suffering we each had endured was different the essence of what we had felt was the same.

 （Martha Avery 译）

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