Margaret Shedd (1900—1986)
本文選自《1947年奧·亨利獎金得獎小說集》（Prize Stories of 1947, The O. Henry Awards）。《奧·亨利獎金得獎小說集》由專家評選，自1919年起，每年刊行一本，為一有歷史地位之著名短篇小說選集。本文作者瑪格麗特·謝特為美國女作家，有長短篇小說多種問世。
原題《一九四五年大火記》，文中敘一巨宅被焚之時，宅中女主人倉皇逃出（她已與其夫別居，其子戰死，生活本甚孤寂），今身處火場之外，目睹火勢蔓延，巨屋被毀，勾起種種回憶。本文於火景描寫之中，參以心理活動，勾勒深刻，描寫生動。此處所錄，因篇幅所限，略加節刪（如關於其兒子之處，均已節去），但大體俱在，仍不失為一短篇傑作也。
Standing on the high ground behind the house, she saw that one small flame had separated itself from the matrix of fire within the house and was gliding up the wall. It licked the shingles nimbly and delicately, and, still only a golden tongue, found the window of her room. She herself had left that window open and leaned out of it helplessly calling help before she ran from the room down the hot stairs out of the house to the earth never more friendly than then.
● 女主人於小說開幕時，已站立在屋後高地，全篇小說描寫，即由此觀點出發。
● matrix：母體，模型，原體。從它那裡，別的東西可以分化出來的。matrix of fire within the house：屋內之火，本是渾然一體，今有一小股火焰，離母體而獨立，緣壁而上。這股火焰，作者比之為「金黃色的舌頭」。它的動作是「舔」（licking），而且舔得輕巧（delicately）靈活（nimbly）。
● shingles：護牆木板（小木板排列成行，用以護牆，或鋪屋頂）。found the window of her room：她的臥室在樓上，火從外面牆上爬上去，找到了它的窗。
● had left that window open：她「剛才」把窗開了，探身出去叫救命，後來就沒有關。本文所用動詞時態，大致用「過去式」時，即為當前之事；用「過去完成式」時，表明過去之事。
● never more friendly than then：形容earth。她奔出臥室，衝下熱樓梯，逃到地上；「地對於她的友善，從未甚於此時者」：她那時覺得土地比任何時候都待她好。
Up to now the house had still looked quite natural. From the little hill where she stood, too dumfounded to speak or call out any more, it had seemed to be alight for some grand secret festival. The flame which had darted out of a cellar window or a rathole or who knows what tiny aperture and had run swift as a lizard up to the second story had found its kind; and with the flourish of grand finale the vaporous curtain of smoke puffs was transfigured into billows of flame-shot black and then into the pure roaring triumph of fire, fire. From down the valley she heard the engines, but they had a long way to come.
● looked quite natural：起初火勢不大，房子看上去還沒有走樣，還像一幢房子。
● dumfounded：慌亂。alight：點燃起來。festival：節日慶祝。secret：大抵指邪教或秘密團體舉火以行慶祝儀式一事。
● darted：急射。火從小孔裡噴出，其勢甚銳。這個緣牆而上的火焰從哪裡來的呢？可能是從地窖小窗，或老鼠洞（rathole），或是不知別的什麼小窟窿裡（aperture）鑽出來的（她自己也沒看清楚）。
● 火焰初升時，吞吐伸縮，故以「舌」為喻。今一氣竄上，輕快迅捷，又以「壁虎」（lizard）為喻。its kind：它的同類，也是火。爬上去的火焰，到了二樓，又和二樓的火內外相應。
● flourish（音樂名詞）：盛奏。finale（意大利文）：最後之樂章。音樂奏至最後一章，百音齊鳴，氣象萬千，今火勢之盛，亦復如此。
● vaporous：霧氣狀的。transfigured：形狀變易。billows：波濤。shot：本用於絲織物，經線用一種顏色，緯線用另一種顏色，交織而成的。flame-shot black：黑煙中夾雜著火焰。煙氣籠罩，本如霧幕；忽火煙翻騰，紅黑間雜，聲勢洶湧；繼而黑煙退盡，純然熾火（pure）聲如怒吼（roaring）。氣勢雄壯（triumph），火勢之盛極矣。
● engines=fire engines：救火車。山下有救火車聲，但不能立刻趕到。
The house, which she could see was going to be burned to its bones before any help could reach it, was the summing up of her life. Logically included in the slant of its roof, its closet spaces, its lonely distance from the village, was everything that had ever happened to the woman, and included as well were all the other houses she had lived in.
● burned to its bones：燒到骨頭裡去；燒完。
● summing up：總括。這幢房子把她的一生（回憶）都包括在內了（房子燒掉，把許多可以引起過去生活的聯想的東西都燒掉了）。
● 第二句動詞（was included）在先，主語（everything）在後，為加強logically included之用。everything…：這個女人所經歷的一切，都包括在這座房子裡。包括在內，是理之當然，故曰logically。但是作者並不說「包括在這座房子裡」，而把「房子」這一概念分成三點來說，一是「屋頂的斜度」，二是「壁櫥裡的空地位」，三是「房子僻處鄉間的形勢」。這三點恐怕是房子主人隨便想起來的，但是當一個人想起一座房子的時候，很少會空空洞洞地想到房子而已，很容易想起它的屋頂是怎麼的，壁櫥裡可以放些什麼東西，左右鄰居又是怎麼的等等。
● and以下另一從句，結構如前，她以前所住過的房子也都包括在裡邊——過去生活的回憶，重重疊疊，層層交織，不可分割，現在一起都要燒去了。
When, shortly before, the housekeeper had come pounding on her door, screaming, beating on the wood, "Wake up, wake up quick, Mrs. James! The furnace has burst, the house is afire, get up quick!" She had had time to get the bracelet and bring it out. She had, half consciously, gone to the window and called for help. Then she had wrapped herself in a heavy gray dressing gown and had looked around the room deciding whether to take out her fur coats and some letters. In her mind's eye she had seen the bracelet lying in the top drawer of her green French Provencal dressing table along with the other trinkets. She had had time to think, No, I won't take it; leave it where it is. So, remembering now the bracelet's earlier associations, which for many years she had forgotten, she was more glad than ever that it was gone. She was honest enough to admit that life had failed her. And as between apathy and pain she had made her choice.
● 女主人面對大火，回首前塵，想起了丈夫於某年聖誕節所送給她的一隻手鐲（bracelet）。手鐲象徵了他們婚姻生活的幸福，現在他們的婚姻既已破裂，她不願意再想起這隻手鐲，也不願意把它從火裡救出來。本段之前，原文有三段回憶描寫，今已節去。
● 本段開始，她想起了火起之時，她於睡夢中驚醒，倉皇呼救逃生這一段情景。
● pounding：用力地打。beating on the wood：打門。管家婆來報訊的時候，她還有工夫把手鐲搶救出來。
● 第二三兩句敘她驚醒後所做的事：迷迷糊糊地跑到窗口去叫救命，披起一件灰色的厚晨服，把全身裹住，再檢點一下什麼東西該搶救出去。
● In her mind's eye：腦筋裡很清楚地想到，好像看見一般。drawer：抽屜。dressing table：梳妝台。Provencal：法國東南部式的（傢俱的一種形式）。trinkets：小件珠寶玩物。
● She had had time to think之後跟的是直接引語，可是把引號省去了。
● So, remembering now之now又跳到她在火場前的那時候了。讀英美新派的心理小說，一定要把書中主角所處的時間空間，時時留心辨明，才有線索可尋。因為近代心理小說的特點，就是描寫「回憶」，而且是把「回憶」同「眼前情景」夾雜著寫，看慣十八、十九世紀那種條理清楚、層次井然的小說的讀者，乍讀新派小說，往往有「茫無頭緒，不知所云」之感。
● associations：聯想。想起了當初和手鐲有關的種種聯想，她想把它丟了也好。admit：承認。life had failed her：生命沒有給她什麼好處。
● apathy：麻木，尤其指對於痛苦的麻木。pain：痛苦。痛苦與麻木之間，她挑選了一樣。把手鐲帶出去，過去的一切悲喜哀樂，又要在她心頭重演，這是所謂「痛苦」。讓火把手鐲給燒了，把過去都毀滅了，這是所謂「麻木」。兩者之間，她早已經決定了採取一樣。as between這一phrase，是從as for（至於）化出來的。這裡的as不可省。
As if to test that decision, the fire peeled off one wall of the house, and the room she had just left opened up before her. There was no distortion; the fire illumined and had not begun to destroy the room which she suddenly realized was dear to her. There was the Provencal dressing table, bought for a white-plastered bedroom they had had in a house in the Berkeley hills.
● peeled off：剝去。屋子有一面的牆已經燒去，但是燒得很快，乾淨利落，好像剝去一層皮似的。
● 牆剝去以後，她的臥室赫然在目，好像要考驗（test）她所下的決心似的：到底她真是麻木呢，還是痛苦。she had just left是定語從句。
● 她的臥室還沒有燒壞，還沒有走樣（distortion）。illumined：照亮。火還沒有把房間毀了，只是把它照亮了，使她看得更清楚。realized：覺悟。
● 盛手鐲的梳妝台就在眼前。她想起了這只梳妝台還是以前住在別所房子的時候所買，後來搬來的。white-plastered：四周牆壁和天花板塗白灰的。
Now she saw the fire whirl up in a rotating gesture to snatch the clock and the vase with its white flowers, and, as if that were the signal for holocaust, the room was blotted out in a dance of up-prancing, laughing, clapping flames and the dressing table writhed in their grip. I never saw the bed, she thought, nor the curtains, the fabrics I loved. Now they were gone and, again to her surprise, she was grieved; she had thought she was immune to simple emotions like nostalgia or the faint sadness of having old friends depart who forget to say good-by.
● whirl up：迴旋而上。in a rotating gesture：以旋轉之勢。snatch：搶走，攫取。形容火勢之迅速。
● holocaust原意為「燔祭」，燒全牛全羊以祭神，轉為「徹底毀滅」，尤其是用火來燒燬的。signal：信號。火把檯鐘和花瓶一燒去，好像是一聲信號似的，立刻火勢大作。blotted out：塗沒。滿室是火，房間都看不見了。
● 形容flames的三個形容詞都很有力量：prancing原意為馬用後腳站起來跳，借作「跳躍」。up-prancing：往上跳的。laughing, clapping：火焰會笑，會鼓掌嗎？這三個形容詞都和前面的名詞dance呼應。
● writhed：輾轉反側，受煎熬之狀。in their grip：在火焰的魔掌之中。盛手鐲的梳妝台終於不保了。
● she thought的前後是沒有加引號的直接引語。從牆壁被剝去，到臥室被毀，只有很短的時間，她來不及周覽全室，很多東西已經不可復見了。床沒有見到，帳子幕簾等也沒有見到，而這些編織物（fabrics）是她所喜歡的。fabrics是curtains的同位語。
● again to her surprise：又是使她驚奇的。她歷經滄桑，自以為已經磨煉得心如鐵石，冷酷無情。不料今晚大火一起，所見所思，無不觸目驚心，甚至悲從中來，她自己也覺得驚奇起來了。
● immune（形容詞）：有力抗拒，不受支配或傷害。其所以「支配」或「傷害」的東西放在介詞to（或from或against）之後。她本來以為（had thought）她可以不受簡單情感的支配。簡單的情感有兩個例子，一是思鄉病（nostalgia），一是當老朋友遠行忘了來辭行時所感覺到的那種「淡淡的輕愁」（faint sadness）。這一類的情感，她自以為是不能支配她的了。現在床和帳子被焚，其最後一瞥，她竟亦未能見到，直如老友之不辭而別，心中難免悵然耳。
Someone was walking that way, hailing her. "They've got here at last, Mrs. James. They may be able to save some of the things downstairs."
"It's all right." She did not try to compete with fire and hose roar and the bells of rescuers arriving.
"What?" the voice shouted to her. "What did you say?"
"Never mind."
● hailing：高聲招呼。
● they指來救火的人。compete：競爭。hose：（救火車上的）水管。火聲、水聲、警鐘聲，一片喧嘩，講話很費力，她沒有提起嗓子說話，「她不想同那些聲音競爭」。rescuers：解救的人。
● 來人沒聽清楚她說什麼，所以嚷著問：What？她根本沒有注意來人是誰，她只聽見有個聲音同她說話而已，故曰：the voice shouted to her，而不說the man shouted to her。
"They've already got out some of the papers from Mr. James'study, and they've started on the furniture. That brocade settee."The shouting voice was triumphant, an achievement boasted. It was an achievement, men risking their lives to extract furniture from a burning house. She tried to remember if they had ever used that settee. Yes, there had been a time, and she was forgetting it on purpose…. The last time she had seen of Mr. James, she was sitting on the brocade settee....
● papers：文件。study：書房。started：開始（搶救）。brocade：錦緞。settee：沙發似的長椅子。boasted（過去分詞）：誇耀。achievement：（救火的）成績。extract：取出。
● if用來引起一個名詞從句時=whether。
● on purpose：故意地。過去的事情想起來太痛苦，她故意地要忘了它。
● The last time三個字連起來當conjunction用。這一類表示時間的所謂group conjunction常用的有the moment、every time、by the time等等。為什麼這只椅子所引起的回憶是痛苦的呢？因為最後一次她同她丈夫吵架的時候，她就是坐在這張椅子上。
The fire had blown to statuesque grandeur. It had taken hold of the house trees, which were now dying. The three tall sentinel firs made their pyre apart, but the others, among them the maple outside her window, were meeting common death with the house they shaded. This was a great fire, the biggest in these parts for twenty years. The firemen drew back to safer distances. The rescued settee, which had not been carried out far enough, began to smolder, and no one would brave the heat to rescue it again.
● blown：膨脹。statuesque：像雕像似的。grandeur：雄偉。
● firs：樅樹。sentinel：哨兵。樅樹三棵，本聳立守衛，猶如哨兵，今均焚去。pyre：火葬堆。apart與common death相對照，三棵樅樹分三處燒，別的樹同屋子一起燒去。maple：楓樹。they shaded是定語從句。they=the trees：屋本居樹蔭之下。
● drew back：向後撤退。火勢太大，救火人員都不敢再走上前去了。
● smolder：焚化（火不冒出來的）。長椅本已著火，搶救出來後，沒有搬多遠，現在它自己燒起來了。brave（動詞）：冒，犯，敢去碰。
The fire chief, village druggist disguised in a helmet, came up to comfort her and apologize, "It's a pity, Mrs. James, we couldn't save anything to speak of. The way the draft carried the flame you'd have thought that house was built to be burned. Excuse me, ma'am, I guess you're feeling bad enough."
● druggist：賣藥的，藥劑師。鄉間守望相助，救火會亦為村民所組成。disguised：化裝。helmet：（銅）盔。
● to speak of：值得一提的（東西）。draft：氣流，風。The way也是一個group conjunction，這裡的意思好像是From the way：從火隨風走這種情勢看來，你會以為那屋子是造來專給火燒的。
She had no idea what words he expected from her, so she pointed toward the fire, as much as to say, What is there to say? But he thought she was indicating the settee, now smoking like a Christmas pudding, and he felt guilty about it.
"I know," he said humbly. "I thought we sure had it out far enough."
● idea後有一介詞of省去：她不知道他期待她怎樣答覆。
● What is there to say?前後引號省去：還有什麼可說的呢？這句話並沒有說出來，可是從她的姿勢看來，效果上是等於說了（as much as to say）。
● Christmas pudding：聖誕布丁。麵粉、雞蛋、牛脂、葡萄乾、梅乾等調製而成，食時熱氣蒸騰。guilty：自責，內疚（自覺救火不力）。
● sure當副詞用。I thought we had…用過去式：「我起初還以為……」，現在才知道那張長椅子搬出來得還不夠遠。
"Throw it back into the fire." She heard her own harsh, unkempt voice and she hadn't meant to offend the druggist-fireman, who backed off hurriedly, disconcerted by her ferocity; it was just that she could not help voicing exactly what was in her mind…because she had decided to throw into the fiery furnace every shred of her life that she could lay hands on.
● harsh：粗聲粗氣的。unkempt：隨便的，不檢點的。offend：得罪。backed off：向後走開。disconcerted：弄得很窘。ferocity：凶狠之狀。
● it was just that：句子這樣開頭往往用來說明上文「事實只是這樣」。could not help：不得不。voice當動詞用，解作「表達出來，形諸語言」，這裡是動名詞。
● furnace：爐，是暗喻（metaphor），指焚燒中的房子。shred原意是極細的布條。生命裡的「一絲一縷」，她都要擲到火裡去，那張長椅子也不必說了。that she could lay hands on：定語從句，「凡是她的手所拿得到的」。
But the house burned brightly enough, as fine a fire as hell.
It was hell, nor more nor less. It tore at her eye-balls, and looking at it was more than looking because it had already begun to devour her.
● 照基督教傳說，地獄裡不斷地燒著火。一個在基督教傳統裡長大的人，看見大火，很容易聯想起地獄（hell）。
● nor more nor less：不多也不少，正是（地獄）。
● tore at本意為「使勁地拉」。屋子大火，刺激她的眼睛，好像要抓破她的眼球似的。looking at it：對它看。more than looking：不止是看而已。大火不單對她的「視覺」發生作用，她的整個身心都受到影響：它已經開始把她吞下去。
The clawing flame fingers began to encircle her heart. What did they want? Could they release the dream that had been walled up in her? A dream as soft-feathered and surely molded as a thrush, but lifeless now, head battered and wings shredded from beating against the walls of defeat. This dream of life, giving and taking and of loving—poor love—was dead. She had failed; and the heart was a tomb and the flame fingers could probe and claw to no purpose—forever. That was it. She had forgotten. Hell was a flame forever; that was the whole point. Eternal fire.
● clawing：用爪來抓的。女主人面對大火，火光刺目，熱浪襲人，加以思潮起伏，百感交集，此身似已為大火吞去。本段又云：烈焰囂張，伸指欲抓，開始向其方寸之間圍玫。是則非但身外火勢逼近，而且心中焦灼如焚，亦不堪熬煉矣。
● 這些火焰的手指要些什麼東西呢？它們能不能將「砌」（walled up）在她心頭的一個夢「釋放」（release）出來呢？A dream之下並無finite verb，句子不完全，只是用以說明上一句的the dream。她的夢像一隻小鳥（thrush：畫眉），羽毛柔軟，形體宛然（surely molded：她的夢不是空虛的，而有確定的塑造成的形體的）。現在這隻小鳥是死了，因為想破壁而出，自己給撞死的。battered和shredded都是過去分詞「頭破翅裂」。圍著那隻小鳥的牆是什麼牆呢？是「失敗之牆」。她一生多故，累遭挫折，好夢難圓，情思鬱結——夢想之鳥，難破失敗之牆，終於夢碎鳥死，生機奄然矣。
● 次句說明「夢」之內容：「生命之夢——施與受」。照語法結構，taking後最好接comma，可是接了comma之後，dream of life和dream of loving硬是成對立之局。作者之意不然，of loving既似與of life對立，又似附屬於of life之下，而和giving and taking相平行。此時小說中主角心頭本不甚清楚，此種句法似更能代表當時之心境。
● she had failed：她的生命是失敗了。probe：探察（尤其指用尖銳的外科儀器以探察傷口）。to no purpose：沒有結果。「她的心已經像一座墳，探察它撕抓它也得不到什麼結果了。」
● she had forgotten：她已經把過去都忘記了。她還是自以為她的過去已經毀滅，她的心已經死去，看下文乃知事實並不如此。
● that was the whole point：就是如此而已，只剩下大火，地獄，永久的（eternal）火。
And she sighed. For the first time she took her eyes away from the fire. That was all that happened. She paused and looked around.
She saw that oddly enough the woods behind the house had had nothing to do with the fire. Under her feet there were buds of bleeding heart and violets. In the valley, beyond the fire engines, a living thrush twittered. Could it be that the sky was reddening not with blood but with dawn?
● sighed：歎氣。
● That was all that happened：所發生的就是這麼一件事。歎了一口氣，眼光轉了一下。可是這麼一來，她在心理上就大有轉變了。
● had had nothing to do with the fire：跟火不發生什麼關係。第一個had表示過去完成式，第二個had表示「有」。
● bleeding heart：花名，中國俗名「荷包牡丹」或「倒掛金鐘」。twittered：啾唧而鳴。reddening：（天色）轉紅。不是為血所染紅的吧？或者可能是天亮了吧？
Spring dawn became something faintly more than the shadow smell of ground flowers under the leaves; and when she breathed she had to unclench her hands, because it was impossible to inhale the violet-tinged, dogwood-tipped air without also moving her neck and shoulders to relax them, then relaxing her arms, and at last her hands, which she held upward waist high and opened into palms.
● shadow：名詞當形容詞用，指「依稀恍惚，不可捉摸」——草花之香是如此。花香雖輕淡如影，然對於小說中主人之心理，已起作用；今晨光熹微，春日之黎明已可隱約覺得，在其人心理上亦起作用，其作用略甚（faintly more）於花香。
● unclench：鬆開。她因為神經緊張過度，雙手一直是緊握著拳的，現在透了一口氣，手也鬆開了。impossible跟without意義相連：不那麼做，這個也不可能了。要做這個也得連那個一起來。
● inhale：吸入。所吸入的空氣有兩個「復合字」（compound words）形容：violet-tinged（微微的帶一點紫羅蘭味兒的），dogwood-tipped（尖頭上抹著山茱萸香味的）。空氣怎麼會有尖頭（tip）的呢？中文也有「香味鑽進鼻孔裡面去」的說法，既能「鑽」，就可以有尖頭了。
● relax：放鬆。聞了那種空氣，脖子和肩膀就得動一下，以求鬆弛；然後臂也鬆了，手也鬆了。她的手抬得同腰一般高，現在張開來了。palms：手掌。
In one of them, of course, lay the golden bracelet. She had saved it without knowing it, and exactly when she thought she had made up her mind not to save it; and she had taken it because it was all she had worth saving.
● of course：當然如此，不用說的。她手心裡本來就捏著那隻金手鐲，手張開來，當然還在那裡。
● had saved有一個adverbial phrase（without…）和一個adverbial clause（exactly when…）形容，兩者之間有and連接。她把手鐲帶了出來，自己還不知道；那時候她正還下了決心不把它帶出來呢！手鐲是她丈夫所送的，她是不願意再想起這一段姻緣了，決心讓那手鐲付之一炬。可是人生的神秘就在這裡（心理小說的妙處也在這裡）；意識裡想做的是一件事，下意識支配人所做的是另一件事。而迷迷茫茫倉皇逃生的一剎那，亦正是下意識發揮作用之時。手鐲還是給帶出來了，因為她所有的東西裡面值得搶救的，就只是那隻手鐲而已。