“您此行的目的是什么,先生?工作还是休假?”
“都不是”
“您的意思是?”这位身材梨形,有着褐色短发女士,戴着很大框的眼镜眼镜,身穿一袭深蓝色制服。
“我来取我父亲的遗体,”帕特里克含糊地说。
“抱歉先生,我没听清您讲的,”她用官方的口气中有一丝的恼怒。
“我来取我父亲的遗体,”帕特里克极为缓慢地喝叫。
她把护照还给帕特里克“祝您旅途愉快。”
从海关出来后他内心的愤怒掩盖了他通常过海关的恐惧(如果要求他脱衣服怎么办?要是手臂上的针眼被发现了怎么办?)。
他再一次来到这里。帕特里克倒在出租车后座,后座的椅子通常粘满了黑色胶布,但底下的黄色海绵还是偶尔从缝隙中露出来;这个通过克制的饮食而走向永生的国家,正引导帕特里克去往相反的方向。
出租车在高速路上飞驰,他体会到再次回纽约的厌恶感。有这位很显然不会说英语的司机,他忧伤的照片证实了他本人自杀式的抑郁,而坐在后面看他的后脖颈只能得到少许的迹象。两旁的车道共同见证城市发展过剩和凋败不堪。硕大的旧车和将要散架的引擎,还有涂着黑色窗户的豪华轿车,蜂拥向城市,像苍蝇看到了它最喜爱的食物。帕特里克注视着窗外的老旧白色客车的微微凹陷的毂盖。它经历的太多了。他转移了视线,头脑一片空白什么也想不起来,好像遗忘症的病状。自己好似一轴光滑的丝线,眼前忽闪而过千万幅画面,他不停的反抗,在更暗淡的更宽广的穹顶下,旋转的生命消失殆尽。
初次翻译,很多地方都翻译的不对,请大家指正。
终于体会到翻译的不易,之前在哪里独到一种说法,就是说翻译的好坏看的是你母语的水平,因为对于外语是理解,而对于中文是准确的表达。当初读原文的时候感觉挺流畅的基本上都能看懂,我想是语言的差异吧,转述成中文的时候就感觉特别别扭,怎么说都不对劲,是的再次道歉我中文/语文不是很好,它一直是我的弱项。
对于那些想看《梅尔罗斯》的朋友,烦请不要指望我了(真的非常好看)。
附上原文
Edward St. Aubyn the Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
Bad News Chapter 2
‘What is the purposeof your visit, sir? Business or pleasure?’
‘Neither.’
‘I’m sorry?’ She was a pear-shaped, slug-coloured, shorthaired woman wearing big glasses and a dark blue uniform.
‘I’m here to collect my father’s corpse,’ mumbled Patrick.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t catch that,’ she said with official exasperation.
‘I’m here to collect my father’s corpse,’Patrick shouted slowly.
She handed back his passport. ‘Have a nice day.’
The rage that Patrick had felt after passing through passport control eclipsed his usual terror of Customs (What if they stripped him? What if they saw his arms?).
And so here he was again, slumped in the back of a cab, in a seat often repaired with black masking tape, but still opening occasionally onto small craters of yellow foam, back in a nation that was dieting its way to immortality, while he still dieted his way in the opposite direction.
As his taxi bounced and squeaked along the freeway, Patrick started to register reluctantly the sensations of reentry into New York. There was of course a driver who spoke no English, and whose lugubrious photograph confirmed the suicidal gloom which the back of his neck could only hint at. The neighbouring lanes bore witness to the usual combination of excess and decay. Enormous battered cars with sloppy engines, and black-windowed limos, swarmed into the city, like flies on their favourite food. Patrick stared at the dented hubcap of an old white station wagon. It had seen so much, he reflected, and remembered nothing, like a slick amnesiac reeling in thousands of images and rejecting them instantly, spinning out its empty life under a paler wider sky.