中国的日夜
Days and Nights of China

张爱玲
Eileen Chang

去年秋冬之交我天天去买菜。有两趟买菜回来竟做出一首诗，使我自己非常诧异而且快乐。一次是看见路上洋梧桐的落叶，极慢极慢的掉下一片来，那姿势从容得奇怪。我立定了看它，然而等不及它到地我就又往前走了，免得老站在那里像是发呆。走走又回头去看了个究竟。以后就写了这个：

In the days between autumn and winter last year, I went every day to buy vegetables. Twice, I was able to write a poem on the way to market, which left me both surprised and delighted. The first came when I saw the leaves falling from a French plane tree. One of the leaves fell very very slowly, holding its strangely graceful pose all the way down to the ground. I stood still to watch, but before it had touched down, I moved on so that I wouldn’t seem to be staring blankly in the same play for so long. As I walked away, I turned back for one final glance. Afterward, I wrote this:

落叶的爱

慢慢的，它经过风，
经过淡青的天，
经过天的刀光，
黄灰楼房的尘梦。
下来到半路上，
看得出它是要，
去吻它的影子。
地上它的影子，
迎上来迎上来，
又像是往斜里飘。
叶子尽着慢着，
装出中年的漠然，
但是，一到地，
金焦的手掌
小心覆着个小黑影，
如同捉蟋蟀——
“唔，在这儿了！”
秋阳里的
水门汀地上，
静静睡在一起，
它和它的爱。

The Love of a Falling Leaf

The big yellow leaf tumbles down
slowly, passing by the breeze
by the pale green sky
by the knifelike rays of the sun
and the dusty dreams of yellow-gray apartment buildings.
As it falls toward the middle of the road
you can see that it means to kiss
its own shadow.
Its shadow on the ground
reaches out in welcome, reaches out
and seems also to drift to the side.
The leaf moves as slowly as can be,
feigning a middle-aged nonchalance,
but as soon as it hits the ground
a hand baked gold by the season
carefully palms its little black shadow
as if catching a cricket:
“Oh, here you are!”
In the autumn sun
on the cement ground
they sleep quietly together
the leaf and its love.

又一次我到小菜场去，已经是冬天了。太阳煌煌的，然而空气里有一种清湿的气味，如同晾在竹竿上成阵的衣裳。地下摇摇摆摆走着的两个小孩子，棉袍的花色相仿，一个像碎切腌菜，一个像酱菜，各人都是胸前自小而大一片深暗的油渍，像关公颔下盛囊须的锦囊。又有个抱在手里的小孩，穿着桃红假哔叽的棉袍，那珍贵的颜色在一冬日积月累的黑腻污秽里真是双手捧出来的，看了叫人心痛，穿脏了也还是污泥里的莲花。至于蓝布的蓝，那是中国的“国色”。不过街上一般人穿的蓝布衫大都经过补缀，深深浅浅，都是像雨洗出来的，青翠醒目。我们中国本来是补钉的国家，连天都是女娲补过的。

Another time, I went to the vegetable market when it was already wintertime. The sun was dazzlingly bright, but there was a damp, clean smell in the air like freshly washed laundry hanging in a neat array from a bamboo pole. The colors and patterns of the padded cotton gowns of two children wobbling somewhere around my feet had a certain similarity: one was the color of salted vegetables, the others of soy pickles, and both were covered with a deep, dark oily stain formed of innumerable smaller stains across the front, resembling the proverbial embroidered sack in which Guan Gong, the god of war, keeps his beard below his chin. There was another child, cradled in someone’s arms, clad in a peach-red fake serge padded gown. That precious splash of color was cradled between the accumulated dirt and grime of a whole winter and seemed all the more poignant because of the filth, like a lotus blossom rising above the muck. As for the blue of blue cotton cloth: that is our national color. Most of the blue cotton shirts you see people wearing on the streets have been mended so many times that they are a patchwork of light and shade, as if they had all been rinsed by the rain, leaving an eye-opening bluish green. Our China has always been a nation of patches. Even our sky was patched together by the goddess Nüwa.

（Andrew F. Jones 译）