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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
My bladder let go, and the scuffed1 brown the dead bee was lying on went a darker brown. I was hardly aware of what had happened, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the man standing2 on top of the bank and looking down at me, the man who had walked out of thirty miles of trackless western Maine woods in a fine black suit and narrow shoes of gleaming leather. I could see the watch-chain looped across his vest glittering in the summer sunshine. There was not so much as a single pine-needle on him. And he was smiling at me.
“Why, it’s a fisherboy!” he cried in a mellow3, pleasing voice. “Imagine that! Are we well-met, fisherboy?”
“Hello, sir,” I said. The voice that came out of me did not tremble, but it didn’t sound like my voice, either. It sounded older. Like Dan’s voice, maybe. Or my father’s, even. And all I could think was that maybe he would let me go if I pretended not to see what he was. If I pretended I didn’t see there were flames glowing and dancing where his eyes should have been.
“I’ve saved you a nasty sting, perhaps,” he said, and then, to my horror, he came down the bank to where I sat with a dead bee in my wet lap and a bamboo fishing pole in my nerveless hands. His slicksoled city shoes should have slipped on the low, grassy4 weeds which dressed the steep bank, but they didn’t; nor did they leave tracks behind, I saw. Where his feet had touched—or seemed to touch— there was not a single broken twig5, crushed leaf, or trampled6 shoeshape.
Even before he reached me, I recognized the aroma7 baking up from the skin under the suit—the smell of burned matches. The smell of sulfur8. The man in the black suit was the Devil. He had walked out of the deep woods between Motton and Kashwakamak, and now he was standing here beside me. From the corner of one eye I could see a hand as pale as the hand of a store window dummy9. The fingers were hideously10 long.
He hunkered beside me on his hams, his knees popping just as the knees of any normal man might, but when he moved his hands so they dangled11 between his knees, I saw that each of those long fingers ended in what was not a fingernail but a long yellow claw.
“You didn’t answer my question, fisherboy,” he said in his mellow voice. It was, now that I think of it, like the voice of one of those radio announcers on the big-band shows years later, the ones that would sell Geritol and Serutan and Ovaltine and Dr. Grabow pipes. “Are we well-met?”
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered, in a voice so low I could barely hear it. I was more afraid than I could ever write down, more afraid than I want to remember … but I do. I do. It never even crossed my mind to hope I was having a dream, although I might have, I suppose, if I had been older. But I wasn’t older; I was nine, and I knew the truth when it squatted12 down on its hunkers beside me. I knew a hawk13 from a handsaw, as my father would have said. The man who had come out of the woods on that Saturday afternoon in midsummer was the Devil, and inside the empty holes of his eyes, his brains were burning.
“Oh, do I smell something?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard me … although I knew he had. “Do I smell something … wet?”
He leaned forward toward me with his nose stuck out, like some one who means to smell a flower. And I noticed an awful thing; as the shadow of his head travelled over the bank, the grass beneath it turned yellow and died. He lowered his head toward my pants and sniffed14. His glaring eyes half-closed, as if he had inhaled15 some sublime16 aroma and wanted to concentrate on nothing but that.
“Oh, bad!” he cried. “Lovely-bad!” And then he chanted: “Opal! Diamond! Sapphire17! Jade18! I smell Gary’s lemonade!” Then he threw himself on his back in the little flat place and laughed wildly. It was the sound of a lunatic.
I thought about running, but my legs seemed two counties away from my brain. I wasn’t crying, though; I had wet my pants like a baby, but I wasn’t crying. I was too scared to cry. I suddenly knew that I was going to die, and probably painfully, but the worst of it was that that might not be the worst of it.
The worst of it might come later. After I was dead.
He sat up suddenly, the smell of burnt matches fluffing out from his suit and making me feel all gaggy in my throat. He looked at me solemnly from his narrow white face and burning eyes, but there was a sense of laughter about him, too. There was always that sense of laughter about him.
“Sad news, fisherboy,” he said. “I’ve come with sad news.”
I could only look at him—the black suit, the fine black shoes, the long white fingers that ended not in nails but in talons19.
“Your mother is dead.”
“No!” I cried. I thought of her making bread, of the curl lying across her forehead and just touching20 her eyebrow21, standing there in the strong morning sunlight, and the terror swept over me again … but not for myself this time. Then I thought of how she’d looked when I set off with my fishing pole, standing in the kitchen doorway22 with her hand shading her eyes, and how she had looked to me in that moment like a photograph of someone you expected to see again but never did. “No, you lie!” I screamed.
He smiled—the sadly patient smile of a man who has often been accused falsely. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “It was the same thing that happened to your brother, Gary. It was a bee.”
“No, that’s not true,” I said, and now I did begin to cry. “She’s old, she’s thirty-five, if a bee-sting could kill her the way it did Danny she would have died a long time ago and you’re a lying bastard23!”
I had called the Devil a lying bastard. On some level I was aware of this, but the entire front of my mind was taken up by the enormity of what he’d said. My mother dead? He might as well have told me that there was a new ocean where the Rockies had been. But I believed him. On some level I believed him completely, as we always believe, on some level, the worst thing our hearts can imagine.
“I understand your grief, little fisherboy, but that particular argument just doesn’t hold water, I’m afraid.” He spoke24 in a tone of bogus comfort that was horrible, maddening, without remorse25 or pity. “A man can go his whole life without seeing a mockingbird, you know, but does that mean mockingbirds don’t exist? Your mother—”
A fish jumped below us. The man in the black suit frowned, then pointed26 a finger at it. The trout27 convulsed in the air, its body bending so strenuously28 that for a split-second it appeared to be snapping at its own tail, and when it fell back into Castle Stream it was floating lifelessly, dead. It struck the big gray rock where the waters divided, spun29 around twice in the whirlpool eddy30 that formed there, and then floated off in the direction of Castle Rock. Meanwhile, the terrible stranger turned his burning eyes on me again, his thin lips pulled back from tiny rows of sharp teeth in a cannibal smile.
“Your mother simply went through her entire life without being stung by a bee,” he said. “But then—less than an hour ago, actually— one flew in through the kitchen window while she was taking the bread out of the oven and putting it on the counter to cool.”
“No, I won’t hear this, I won’t hear this, I won’t!”
I raised my hands and clapped them over my ears. He pursed his lips as if to whistle and blew at me gently. It was only a little breath, but the stench was foul31 beyond belief—clogged sewers32, outhouses that have never known a single sprinkle of lime, dead chickens after a flood.
My hands fell away from the sides of my face.
“Good,” he said. “You need to hear this, Gary; you need to hear this, my little fisherboy. It was your mother who passed that fatal weakness on to your brother Dan; you got some of it, but you also got a protection from your father that poor Dan somehow missed.” He pursed his lips again, only this time, he made a cruelly comic little tsk-tsk sound instead of blowing his nasty breath at me. “So, although I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, it’s almost a case of poetic33 justice, isn’t it? After all, she killed your brother Dan as surely as if she had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, it isn’t true.”
“I assure you it is,” he said. “The bee flew in the window and lit on her neck. She slapped at it before she even knew what she was doing—you were wiser than that, weren’t you, Gary?—and the bee stung her. She felt her throat start to close up at once. That’s what happens, you know, to people who are allergic34 to bee-venom. Their throats close and they drown in the open air. That’s why Dan’s face was so swollen35 and purple. That’s why your father covered it with his shirt.”
I stared at him, now incapable36 of speech. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn’t want to believe him, and knew from my church schooling37 that the devil is the father of lies, but I did believe him, just the same. I believed he had been standing there in our dooryard, looking in the kitchen window, as my mother fell to her knees, clutching at her swollen throat while Candy Bill danced around her, barking shrilly38.
“She made the most wonderfully awful noises,” the man in the black suit said reflectively, “and she scratched her face quite badly, I’m afraid. Her eyes bulged39 out like a frog’s eyes. She wept.” He paused, then added: “She wept as she died, isn’t that sweet? And here’s the most beautiful thing of all. After she was dead … after she had been lying on the floor for fifteen minutes or so with no sound but the stove ticking and with that little stick of a bee-stinger still poking40 out of the side of her neck—so small, so small—do you know what Candy Bill did? That little rascal41 licked away her tears. First on one side … and then on the other.”
He looked out at the stream for a moment, his face sad and thoughtful. Then he turned back to me and his expression of bereavement42 disappeared like a dream. His face was as slack and avid43 as the face of a corpse44 that has died hungry. His eyes blazed. I could see his sharp little teeth between his pale lips.
“I’m starving,” he said abruptly45. “I’m going to kill you and tear you open and eat your guts46, little fisherboy. What do you think about that?”
No, I tried to say, please, no, but no sound came out. He meant to do it, I saw. He really meant to do it.
“I’m just so hungry,” he said, both petulant47 and teasing. “And you won’t want to live without your precious mommy, anyhow, take my word for it. Because your father’s the sort of man who’ll have to have some warm hole to stick it in, believe me, and if you’re the only one available, you’re the one who’ll have to serve. I’ll save you all that discomfort48 and unpleasantness. Also, you’ll go to Heaven, think of that. Murdered souls always go to Heaven. So we’ll both be serving God this afternoon, Gary. Isn’t that nice?”
He reached for me again with his long, pale hands, and without thinking what I was doing, I flipped49 open the top of my creel, pawed all the way down to the bottom, and brought out the monster brookie I’d caught earlier—the one I should have been satisfied with. I held it out to him blindly, my fingers in the red slit51 of its belly52 from which I had removed its insides as the man in the black suit had threatened to remove mine. The fish’s glazed53 eye stared dreamily at me, the gold ring around the black center reminding me of my mother’s wedding ring. And in that moment I saw her lying in her coffin54 with the sun shining off the wedding band and knew it was true—she had been stung by a bee, she had drowned in the warm, bread-smelling kitchen air, and Candy Bill had licked her dying tears from her swollen cheeks.
“Big fish!” the man in the black suit cried in a guttural, greedy voice. “Oh, biiig fiiish!”
He snatched it away from me and crammed55 it into a mouth that opened wider than any human mouth ever could. Many years later, when I was sixty-five (I know it was sixty-five because that was the summer I retired56 from teaching), I went to the New England Aquarium57 and finally saw a shark. The mouth of the man in the black suit was like that shark’s mouth when it opened, only his gullet was blazing red, the same color as his awful eyes, and I felt heat bake out of it and into my face, the way you feel a sudden wave of heat come pushing out of a fireplace when a dry piece of wood catches alight. And I didn’t imagine that heat, either, I know I didn’t, because just before he slid the head of my nineteen-inch brook50 trout between his gaping58 jaws59, I saw the scales along the sides of the fish rise up and begin to curl like bits of paper floating over an open incinerator.
He slid the fish in like a man in a travelling show swallowing a sword. He didn’t chew, and his blazing eyes bulged out, as if in effort. The fish went in and went in, his throat bulged as it slid down his gullet, and now he began to cry tears of his own … except his tears were blood, scarlet60 and thick.
I think it was the sight of those bloody61 tears that gave me my body back. I don’t know why that should have been, but I think it was. I bolted to my feet like a jack62 released from its box, turned with my bamboo pole still in one hand, and fled up the bank, bending over and tearing tough bunches of weeds out with my free hand in an effort to get up the slope more quickly.
He made a strangled, furious noise—the sound of any man with his mouth too full—and I looked back just as I got to the top. He was coming after me, the back of his suit-coat flapping and his thin gold watch-chain flashing and winking63 in the sun. The tail of the fish was still protruding64 from his mouth and I could smell the rest of it, roasting in the oven of his throat.
He reached for me, groping with his talons, and I fled along the top of the bank. After a hundred yards or so I found my voice and went to screaming—screaming in fear, of course, but also screaming in grief for my beautiful dead mother.
He was coming along after me. I could hear snapping branches and whipping bushes, but I didn’t look back again. I lowered my head, slitted my eyes against the bushes and low-hanging branches along the stream’s bank, and ran as fast as I could. And at every step I expected to feel his hands descending65 on my shoulders pulling me back into a final hot hug.
That didn’t happen. Some unknown length of time later—it couldn’t have been longer than five or ten minutes, I suppose, but it seemed like forever—I saw the bridge through layerings of leaves and firs. Still screaming, but breathlessly now, sounding like a teakettle which has almost boiled dry, I reached this second, steeper bank and charged up to it.
Halfway66 to the top I slipped to my knees, looked over my shoulder, and saw the man in the black suit almost at my heels, his white face pulled into a convulsion of fury and greed. His cheeks were splattered with his bloody tears and his shark’s mouth hung open like a hinge.
“Fisherboy!” he snarled67, and started up the bank after me, grasping at my foot with one long hand. I tore free, turned, and threw my fishing pole at him. He batted it down easily, but it tangled68 his feet up somehow and he went to his knees. I didn’t wait to see anymore; I turned and bolted to the top of the slope. I almost slipped at the very top, but managed to grab one of the support struts69 running beneath the bridge and save myself.
“You can’t get away, fisherboy!” he cried from behind me. He sounded furious, but he also sounded as if he were laughing. “It takes more than a mouthful of trout to fill me up!”
“Leave me alone!” I screamed back at him. I grabbed the bridge’s railing and threw myself over it in a clumsy somersault, filling my hands with splinters and bumping my head so hard on the boards when I came down that I saw stars. I rolled over onto my belly and began crawling. I lurched to my feet just before I got to the end of the bridge, stumbled once, found my rhythm, and then began to run. I ran as only nine-year-old boys can run, which is like the wind. It felt as if my feet only touched the ground with every third or fourth stride, and for all I know, that may be true. I ran straight up the righthand wheelrut in the road, ran until my temples pounded and my eyes pulsed in their sockets70, ran until I had a hot stitch in my left side from the bottom of my ribs71 to my armpit, ran until I could taste blood and something like metal-shavings in the back of my throat. When I couldn’t run anymore I stumbled to a stop and looked back over my shoulder, puffing72 and blowing like a windbroke horse. I was convinced I would see him standing right there behind me in his natty73 black suit, the watch-chain a glittering loop across his vest and not a hair out of place.
But he was gone. The road stretching back toward Castle Stream between the darkly massed pines and spruces was empty. And yet I sensed him somewhere near in those woods, watching me with his grassfire eyes, smelling of burnt matches and roasted fish.
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1
scuffed
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| v.使磨损( scuff的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚走 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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7
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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sulfur
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| n.硫，硫磺（=sulphur） | |
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dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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12
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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13
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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14
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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15
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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19
talons
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| n.（尤指猛禽的）爪( talon的名词复数 )；（如爪般的）手指；爪状物；锁簧尖状突出部 | |
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20
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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21
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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22
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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23
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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24
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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25
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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26
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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28
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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29
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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30
eddy
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| n.漩涡，涡流 | |
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31
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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32
sewers
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| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
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33
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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34
allergic
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| adj.过敏的，变态的 | |
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35
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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36
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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38
shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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39
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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40
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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41
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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42
bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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43
avid
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| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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44
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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45
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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46
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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47
petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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48
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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49
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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50
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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51
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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52
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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53
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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54
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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55
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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56
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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57
aquarium
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| n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸 | |
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58
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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59
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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60
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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61
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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62
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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63
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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64
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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65
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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66
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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67
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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68
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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69
struts
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| （框架的）支杆( strut的名词复数 )； 支柱； 趾高气扬的步态； （尤指跳舞或表演时）卖弄 | |
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70
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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71
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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72
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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73
natty
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| adj.整洁的，漂亮的 | |
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