第四部分
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IV. TALISAC : OF THE SACRED HEART
圣心医生塔利萨克
I.
继国王全家惨死在镰刀手-梅司特刀下之后,普利摩顿的又一个头面人物黑手党头子杜拉夫·卡斯卡利安和他的儿子们也遭到了露辛迪克的屠杀。渐渐的,全城陷入一种惶惶不安的沉寂之中。早先“大起义”之后爆发的那些大大小小的争斗打闹突然间平息了下来,因为在这个特殊的?诿挥腥嗽敢夤?嗟匾?鹚?说墓刈ⅲ??蛭?饷娼值郎系酱Χ家?刈派被??庵质焙蚬?嗟耐獬鱿匀徊皇敲髦侵?佟?br /> With the Emperor and his family dead at the hand of The Scythe-Meister, and the head of the Don of Primordium, Duarf Cascarellian, slaughtered by Lucidique (along with most of his sons and bodyguards) an uneasy peace had settled on the city. The minor brawls and battles that had erupted after the Great Insurrection quietened down. It was as though nobody wanted to draw attention to themselves; not with so many murderous forces abroad in the city's streets.
暴乱发生后接管这座城市的军事集团由三位将领共同领导,他们分别是:博哥特、乌班诺和蒙特法罗。他们三个都是典型的军人,生性残酷和痴迷权力,正因为这样才得以晋升到今天的位置。然而,在职业性的丧心病狂和暴躁性情背后,三位将军的内心深处还潜藏着另外两种特质,尽管他们本人或许羞于承认:其一,一种近乎病态的多愁善感(集中体现在博哥特将军和乌班诺将军对待各自母亲以及蒙特法罗将军对待自己六、七岁幼女的态度上);其二,极端的迷信。
The Military junta that had taken charge of the running of the city during this crisis was headed by a triumvirate of Generals: Bogoto, Urbano and Montefalco. They were no better nor worse than any of their type: men who'd risen to the top of their belligerent trade by showing the greatest propensity for cruelty and control. But beneath the institutionalized sadism and their manic capacity for violence, two qualities well hidden in the hearts of the three Generals, there also lay qualities that they would have been ashamed to confess they possessed. One, a sickly sentimentality (focused upon their mothers in the cases of Generals Bogoto and Urbano, and upon girls of six or seven in the case of Montefalco). Second, a startling capacity for superstition.
对于城中近期接连发生的诡异事件,虽然嘴上谁也不说,三位将军却都意识到了各自心中的恐惧,大家心照不宣地保持着沉默的姿态。从来没有哪座城邦象普利摩顿现在这般被各种鬼怪事件包围,刹那间谣言四起,人人谈鬼说怪。谣言渐渐散布到军队里,士兵们时常围坐在篝火旁讨论各种无法解释的超自然现象,这些话不久就传进了将军们的耳朵。到处流传着关于镰刀手-梅司特豢养的怪物、孩童的恶灵、女妖及被她们色诱的牺牲品等等古怪的传说,人们窃窃私语,绘声绘色。
It went undiscussed, but they each knew the other was touched by a profound fear of the uncanny. And there was no city presently more inundated in unholy matters than Primordium. Rumour was rife here; and its subject was seldom rational. The stories that were passed around the soldiers' campfires (and sooner or later reached the Generals' ears) were of unnatural horrors: things that defied reason. Tales of monsters that had been bred from the loins of the Scythe-Meister; of the vengeful ghosts of children; of succubi, their sexual attributes discussed in clammy, but arousing detail.
-
一天夜里,三位将军在喝得迷迷糊糊之后终于克服了心中的恐惧,开口讨论起了这个话题。
One night, after some very heavy drinking, the three men vented their fears.
“我相信,”乌班诺将军说道,“这座该死的城市是真的被鬼魂缠住了。”
"It is my belief," Urbano said, "that this damned city is haunted."
另外两位立即严肃地点头表示赞同。
The other two nodded grimly.
“那你觉得我们该怎么办呢?”博哥特将军问道。
"What do you suggest we do about it?" Bogoto asked.
蒙特法罗将军抢着回答说:
“首先……要是让我说的话,我会下令烧死这里四分之一的非法移民。正是他们与绝大多数发生的诡异事件有关联。”
It was Montefalco who replied. "Well, for a start…if I had my druthers I'd burn the illegal immigrant quarter to the ground. It's they who engage in most of these unholy goings-on."
“可他们是重要的劳力……”博哥特将军反驳道,“杀了他们之后,谁接替他们来干那些倒屎盆子、埋葬麻风病人的脏活累活呢?”
"But the work-force…" Bogoto said. "Who'd empty our shit cans? Who'd bury the lepers?"
蒙特法罗勉强同意了这个观点,可他又说:
“但至少我们可以针对一些可能与邪恶势力有勾结的目标,有的放矢地采取行动呀。”
Montefalco had to concede the point. "At least we could target any element we suspect of intercourse with demonic forces."
“没错没错,”乌班诺将军表示赞同,“可以实行全城戒严。”
"Good. Good." said Urbano. "Vigilance."
“还有新的惩罚制度,” 蒙特法罗补充道,“我们必须立即采用更迅速和严厉的方法——当众处决。”
"And punishment," Montefalco went on. "Swift, draconian measures -"
"Public executions."
“好!”
"Yes!"
“用火刑?”
"Burnings?"
“哦,不,那样太富戏剧性了。枪决,干净利落。还不用忍受焚烧的臭味。”
"No, too theatrical. Shootings are clean and fast. And they don't smell."
“你觉得气味很重要吗?”博哥特问。
"That bothers you?" said Bogoto.
蒙特法罗将军打了个寒战,回答道:
“我讨厌焚烧尸体的气味。”
Montefalco shuddered. "I loathe the smell of burning bodies." He said.
II
正当将军们为了各种酷刑争论不休之时,露辛迪克正在睡觉,更确切地说是正打算睡觉。她回到了自己父亲多年前为她母亲建造的老宅中,辗转反侧不能入眠,这座房子里有那么多美好的回忆,还有那么多的遗憾。
While the Generals debated the relative merits of this kind of execution or that, Lucidique was sleeping - or attempting to sleep - in the house which her father had built many years ago for her mother. Her slumbers were uneasy. So many memories. So many regrets.
很早以前,在没有发生那么多变故之前的日子里,每当失眠的时候,她总会出去散散步。而现在,她当然再也不能在大白天出门了。她那经由阿冈尼司帝斯亲手改造后的身体已经变得面目全非了:强壮、柔韧、威力无比……同时,却也非常的骇人。每次出门,即便是在漆黑的夜晚,她都尽可能地选择城中最僻静的小路来避人耳目。
Often in earlier, simpler times, when sleep eluded her, she would go out walking. Now, of course, she could not go by day. The transformation of her body that had been wrought by Agonistes had resulted in a physique which was strong, supple and powerful, but which terrified many who laid eyes on her. When she did go out - even in the blackest night - she did her best to keep to the quiet back-alleys of Primordium where she would not be seen.
-
今晚,她彻底打消了睡觉的的念头,独自漫步在这些羊肠小道上,可突然她意识到自己被人跟踪了。她感觉到了身后紧跟着的步伐,渐渐察觉了跟踪者的身份——杀手扎尔兹·克里奇。当然,他现在已经是耸人听闻的镰刀手-梅司特了。
Tonight, having given up on sleep, she went wandering in these alleys, and became aware that she was being followed. After a little distance she sensed the rhythm of the step, and realized that she knew who her pursuer was. It was Zarles Kreiger, the assassin turned Scythe-Meister.
她停下脚步转过身。镰刀手-梅司特就站在她身后不远处。他的躯体与她的一样在夜色中发出微微的荧光,那是阿冈尼司帝斯杰作的一部分:一种会发光的细菌。伤口越新,发出的光就越强,而他们身上的这些伤口是变形手术时阿冈尼司帝斯故意留下的,永远无法完全愈合。
She stopped, and turned. The Scythe-Meister was standing a little distance from her. His flesh had the same sickly luminescence that hers did; a bacterial brightness that was part of Agonistes' handiwork. The rawer the wounds (and there were parts of both their transformed bodies that were designed to never heal) the brighter the luminescence with which they burned.
“我以为你已经离开这里了。”露辛迪克开口对他说道。
"I thought you'd left the city," she said to him.
“是的。我是离开了一阵子。我去了沙漠,在我接受变形手术的地方思考了一些问题。”
"I did. For a while. I went out to the desert. Meditated on my changed state."
“那你已经有答案了吗?”
"And did you learn anything from your meditations?"
克里奇点了点头。
Kreiger shook his head.
“所以你回来了?”
"So you came back?"
“所以我回来了。”
"So I came back."
III
三位将军敞开心扉诉说彼此对城中邪恶力量的恐惧之后没过几天,蒙特法罗将军又一次把大家召集到一起来进行一次午夜之旅。
A few days after the three Generals had exchanged their fears about the presence of unsacred powers in Primordium, Montefalco brought them together again for a midnight journey.
“那我们去哪儿?”
"Where are we going?"
“去找一个叫塔利萨克的医生,他以我的名义进行实验许多年了。”
"There's a man called Doctor Talisac who has been conducting experiments on my behalf for several years now."
“什么样的实验?”乌班诺急切地想知道。
"What kind of experiments?" Urbano wanted to know.
“我希望他能为我造一个完美的战士。一个不会感到恐惧的打斗机器。”
"I hoped he would perfect me a soldier. Make a fighting machine that was not susceptible to fear."
“那他成功了吗?”
"Has he succeeded?"
“没有,早呢。至今我也没有对他报很大的期望。他沉迷于他自己的那些药物和……好吧,你会见到他本人的。虽然他上次做了一个次品,现在却或许对我们有用了。”
"No. Not so far. Nor do I have great hope for him now. He's addicted to many of his own medications, and . . . well, you'll see for yourself. But there was one failure of his which might be useful to us now."
“一个有用的次品?”博哥特问道,他显然对这前后矛盾的话感到摸不着头脑。
"A useful failure?" Bogoto said, somewhat amused by the paradox.
“我们需要一个能够赶走普利摩顿城里鬼怪的家伙。而我相信他哪儿可以找到我们所需要的东西。”
"We need a creature that will drive the unholy elements out of Primordium. I believe he has such a creature."
“呃……”乌班诺问道,“你的意思是说你要让我们和你一起去看那个次品怪物?”
"Ah…" said Urbano. "So will you see this creature with me?"
“那个医生在哪儿?”
"Where is he?"
“我把他藏在德利福斯山上的圣心救济院里了。”
"I have him hidden away in what used to be the Hospice of the Sacred Heart, on Dreyfus Hill."
“可我一直以为那里没有人。”
"I thought the place was empty."
“那是我一直以来制造的假象。要是有谁闯入了那片禁地,我就会杀掉他们然后把尸体抛进大运河毁尸灭迹。”
"That's the impression I intended to give the world. If anybody ventures in there I have them killed and thrown in the canal."
“这么说那几个被抛尸在运河里的修女是你杀的咯?”
"Is that what happened to the nuns?"
蒙特法罗露出了诡秘的微笑:“我哪里会那么仁慈呀,要知道军人的本性可是极端残酷的哟。”
Montefalco smiled. "Nothing so humane, I'm afraid," he said. "Soldiers can be brutish if left to their own devices."
谈话到此为止了,三位将军动身朝德利福斯山进发。
The subject was left there, and the three headed up towards Dreyfus Hill.
IV
扎尔兹·克里奇全身舒展地躺在露辛迪克的床上,向她展示自己赤裸的身躯。露辛迪克用崇拜的目光细细打量他:伤口上的血痂,阿冈尼司帝斯亲手扭曲交错的肌肉,还有与金、银、铜丝交织在一起的骨头和经络。
Zarles Kreiger stretched out naked on Lucidique's bed. She looked at him admiringly: at the plethora of scars; at the intricate way the machinations of his flesh had been bound to Agonistes' own creations. Silver bonded with bone and nerve; gold and bronze the same.
露辛迪克轻轻爬上他的身体,水乳交融的那一刹那,蓝色的电弧滑过他们的身体,在夜色中发出耀眼的光芒。
She climbed on top of him. Arcs of electricity leapt between them: nipple to nipple, eye to eye.
多么销魂的一刻呀!她想道,而此刻与她交欢的竟然是她的杀父仇人。从某种意义上说,他们其实又是同一个父亲的孩子,他们的父亲名叫:阿冈尼司帝斯。
What a time this was!, she thought. Here she was mating with the man who had taken her father's life. In a sense there was something even more taboo about their intimacy. They were both the offspring of the same father. Both Agonistes' children.
“我不知道他是否允许我们这样做。”露辛迪克怀疑地说道。
"I wonder if he'd approve?" Lucidique said.
“你是指阿冈尼司帝斯?”
"You mean Agonistes?"
“是的。”
"Yes."
克里奇沉默不语。露辛迪克清楚地知道阿冈尼司帝斯对于她情人的意义。
Kreiger didn't speak. It was Lucidique who realized what her lover's reference to Agonistes implied.
“你在沙漠里见过他了?”
"You saw him in the desert?"
“是的。”
"Yes."
“那么是他派你回来的?”
"And he sent you back here?"
“是的。”
"Yes."
“来找我?”
"To find me?"
“来和你在一起。他说你是这个世界上唯一能令我快乐的东西。”
"To be with you. He said you were the only thing that would make me happy."
V
座落在德利福斯山上的圣心救济院是幢巨大的建筑物,里面一片漆黑。房子的主人没有让三位将军久等,几分钟后,一个女侏儒举着蜡烛出现在了他们面前,她自我介绍说她叫卡米尔。在卡米尔的指引和陪同下,三位将军穿行过堆满垃圾的修道院回廊,又向下走了两层陡峭的台阶方才到达塔利萨克医生的实验室。
The Hospice of the Sacred Heart was an enormous edifice, its upper floors in darkness. But the Generals didn't have to wait long for a guide. After a few minutes a female dwarf - who introduced herself as Camille - came with candles. She escorted the uniformed trio through the echoing cloisters (which were heaped with huge mounds of dirt) and down two flights of steep stairs into Doctor Talisac's laboratory.
医生的工作间实际上是一间巨大的地下室,这样既可以装下所有的实验装备又能避人耳目。地面没有铺设瓷砖,取而代之的是坚硬的土地,墙壁也同样是用泥土砌成的。冰冷的土腥味掩盖住了其他气味,多亏了这些能够吸附臭气的泥土,否则将军们早就被眼前这个坟场里的臭气熏晕过去了。这么说一点也不夸张,因为塔利萨克医生实验用的原材料就是尸体,整间房子堆满了尸体和各色残肢断臂。很明显,医生是个浪费物资的高手,许多尸体只被割下一条胳膊甚至一根手指,还有的尸体上单单被取走了一只眼睛或是嘴唇。
His workspace had been dug out of the earth so as to accommodate the scale of the Doctor's experimentation and still preserve the secrecy of his location. In place of tile there was hard trodden earth beneath the Generals' boots, and the walls were beaten dirt. The place stank of cold earth: which served to complete the scene. For if the stench was that of the grave, so were many of the sights before them. The dead were Talisac's raw materials, and they lay everywhere around, in various states of amputation. He was an uneconomic consumer. In many cases the corpses were lacking only a limb, or a portion of a limb; an eye, in one case, lips in another.
“医生在哪儿?”乌班诺用命令的口气问道。
"So where is he?" Urbano demanded to know.
卡米儿伸手指了指尸体堆后面一个阴暗潮湿的角落,塔利萨克医生正在那里恭候他们的到来。
Camille pointed the way over a carpet of corpses to a dank corner of the immense chamber, where Talisac awaited them.
将军们惊讶地发现,塔利萨克医生看上去就和他那些尸体没什么两样,他仿佛是上帝的一个恶作剧:恐怖、怪异……超乎想象。他用一个奇怪的装置把自己从嘴巴的位置吊了起来,就好象他是一条鱼一样。他用自己怪异的头脑(或者说天才的头脑,又或者两者兼而有之)为自己建造了一个外置的子宫——他的小腹外挂着一个半透明的袋子,垂直悬挂在他的两条长腿之间。那袋子里正孕育着一个生命。
He looked, to the Generals' astonished eyes, like one of his own victims; a terrible, implausible experiment in the extremes to which a human carcass might be put. He hung by his mouth from a device whose purpose was beyond the Generals' comprehension, his mouth hooked up, as though he were a fish. In his perversity, or his genius, or both, he had created some kind of external womb for himself. A semi-translucent bag hung from the lower portion of his abdomen, down between his spidery legs. There was life inside.
“一个生化怪物(Mongroid)……”卡米尔小声解释道。
"A Mongroid," Camille whispered.
蒙特法罗将贪婪邪恶的目光从子宫中抽搐的东西上转向它的主人。
Montefalco took his eyes off the foul sight of the womb and its twitching contents, and addressed its owner.
“塔利萨克?”他叫着医生的名字,“我们想从你这儿要点东西。”
"Talisac?" he said. "We need something from you."
塔利萨克忽闪着眼皮望向蒙特法罗。他开口说话了,可被吊起来的嘴巴让他说话含糊不清,最后卡米尔不得不充当翻译的角色来向将军们解释他说的内容。
Talisac turned his fluttering eyes in Montefalco's direction. When he spoke the maimed form of his mouth meant that what he said was virtually incomprehensible. It took Camille to translate it.
“他说:什么?你们想要什么?”
"He says: What? What do you need?"
“我们想要一个能让魔鬼都觉得害怕的魔鬼,”蒙特法罗告诉他,“一个怪物中的怪物,一个能让城中妖魔抱头鼠窜的厉害角色。”
"We need a fiend to put fear into the heart of the Devil himself," Montefalco said. "A beast among beasts. Something to scour the city of its monsters by being still more monstrous."
塔利萨克突然发出古怪的声响,过了半天大家才发现他可能是在笑,直笑得他浑身颤动吊在空中晃来晃去。而他“腹中”的“胎儿”也用剧烈的痉挛回应着“母亲”的反应。
Talisac made a strange sound - which might have been laughter; shaking as he hung from his hooks. The creature in his womb responded to its parent's movement by spasming.
“这家伙到底是怎么弄出这个怪物的?”博哥特轻声问身后的乌班诺。
"How the hell did he come by that thing?" Bogoto murmured to Urbano behind his hand.
“不要窃窃私语,”卡米尔打断了他的话,“医生不喜欢别人这样。”
"Don't whisper," Camille snapped. "He hates it."
“他只不过奇怪塔利萨克是怎么让自己怀孕的而已。”乌班诺大声说出了他们心中的疑问。
"He was wondering how Talisac got himself pregnant?" Urbano said.
这次塔利萨克用手把嘴唇尽量按回原形以便亲自回答这个问题,答案非常简短:
“用科学。”他说。
This time Talisac pressed his lips into service, in order that he answer for himself. The reply was a single word: "Science." he said.
“真的吗?”乌班诺疑惑不解地说,为了进一步确认他跨过几具残缺不全的尸体走近塔利萨克细细查看。“我很高兴听到你这样说,要是这是某种乱伦行为的结果我会很沮丧的。”
"Really?" Urbano said, sufficiently reassured to step over some of the mutilated bodies to examine Talisac more closely. "Well I'm pleased to hear that. I would have been distressed if there's been some sexual impropriety here."
塔利萨克又大笑起来,可将军们却一点也不觉得这有什么好笑的。好不容易笑完了,他又开口说话了。这次依旧需要卡米尔来翻译给大家听。
Again, Talisac laughed, though none of the Generals were in the mood to see the humor of the situation. His laughter spent, he spoke again. This time Camille's services as a translator were required.
“他说他有一个假人或许能满足你们的要求,”女侏儒说,“他只有一个要求作为交换……”
"He has a golem he thinks would suit your purposes very well," the dwarf said. "He only asks one thing in return…"
“他要什么?”蒙特法罗问。
"And what's that?" Montefalco said.
“他要你们保证不会去伤害任何一个他的孩子。”
"That you shouldn't attempt to hurt any of his children."
“你是指这个吗?”蒙特法罗冲着子宫中那抽动着的怪物点了点头。
"Meaning that?" Montefalco said, nodding towards the twitching womb.
“恩。”塔利萨克回答说,“这……我的……孩……”
"Es." Said Talisac. "Is my ur chile."
“他说什么?”乌班诺问卡米尔
"What did he say?" Urbano said to Camille.
“他说这是他的孩子。”卡米尔回答
"He said it was his child," Camille replied.
蒙特法罗耸耸肩。
“只要你把我们想要的东西给我们,没有人会伤害这个‘小家伙’的,”蒙特法罗说,“我以我个人名义向你保证。”
Montefalco shrugged.
"No harm will come of this Mongroid, if we are given a fiend of our own." Montefalco said. "I will personally guarantee that."
“很好。”卡米尔说。接着,在塔利萨克没有开口的情况下,她补充道:“他希望下次你们不要一起到这里来,就让蒙特法罗将军一个人来。”
"Good." said Camille. Then, without Talisac speaking again, she added: "He would prefer if you did not come here again together. Only General Montefalco."
“我个人对此一点意见都没有。”博哥特边说边挥手往回走,“只要他把我们的怪物给我们,他愿意生多少个小鬼就生多少个,我才不管呢,只要别让它们靠近我就成。”
"You'll get no argument from me on that account." Bogoto said, waving the horror away as he retreated. "If he gives us our monster, then he can give birth to a thousand little brats as far as I'm concerned. Just keep them the hell away from me."
VI
露辛迪克躺在沾满血液和汗液的床上,身边躺着她的情人。她看着窗外的月亮说道:
“我们不可能长久,你知道的。”
Lucidique lay on the blood and sweat stained bed beside her lover, and watched the moon through the window.
"This can't last for long, you know. This thing between us."
“为什么不可能?”
"Why not?"
“两个象我们这样的人在一起能得到快乐吗?”她说,“这是天理不容的。你杀了我的父亲,我应该恨你。”
"For two such as us to find some happiness together?" she said. "It's against nature. You killed my father. I should hate you."
“而你则把我送到了阿冈尼司帝斯手里,我也应该恨你。”
"And you put me through hell at Agonistes' hands. I should hate you."
“我们是怎么样的一对呀。”
"What a pair we make."
“也许我们应该回到沙漠里去,”克里奇提议,“那里对我们来说安全一些。”
"Maybe we should go back out into the desert." Kreiger said, "We'd be safer there."
露辛迪克笑了。
“听你说的,更安全!难道不应该是别人怕我们吗?我们有什么好怕的。”
Lucidique laughed. "Listen to you. Safer! Isn't the world supposed to be afraid of us? Not the other way round."
“我只希望情况一直能这样继续下去……希望我的感觉是错误的。”
"I just want to hold on to this…hope that I feel."
露辛迪克翻过身用她的长刀紧贴住克里奇的手臂。
“我们不能离开普利摩顿。”她说。
Lucidique reached across the bed and ran her blade along Kreiger's arm. "We can't leave Primordium," she said.
“为什么不能,这里迟早会天下大乱的。让它去吧。”
"Why not? It's going up in flames, sooner or later. Let it burn."
“可亲爱的,是我们挑起了争端,你和我,我们应该留下把戏看完。”
"But love, we started the fire, you and me. We should stay and watch it to the end."
克里奇点头表示同意:“如果你想的话。”
Kreiger nodded. "If that's what you want."
“这是世间万物走向末日的规律。”
"It's the way things have to end."
“末日?为什么这样说?”
"End? Why do you say that?"
“嘘,亲爱的,别激动。这样更好,你会明白的。”她转头吻了他一下,“为我留下吧。”
"Hush, love. It'll be better this way, you'll see." She leaned over and kissed him. "Do it for me."
“这是我听过的最好的理由。”克里奇对她说道。
"That's as good a reason as any I ever heard," Kreiger said.
“这么说你同意留下了?”
"So you'll stay?"
“是的,我留下。”
"I'll stay."
================================================================
第五部分
也就是找不到翻译文件的这部分,广大英文爱好者和原著爱好者自己翻译吧。我实在懒得再翻一次了,太麻烦!!SORRY
VENAL ANATOMICA : THE HAUNTER OF PRIMORDIUM
I
Having made the arrangement with Talisac to provide them with a creature, the three Generals - Bogoto, Urbano and Montefalco - returned to
Military Headquarters and waited. Bogoto was the most anxious of the three. He'd seen his share of battle scenes; bodies blown to pieces, the
stink of burning hair and bone in the air: but the grotesqueries of Talisac's laboratory had left him sickened and nervous.
He decided to do what he often did when his life became difficult: he drove across the city in the night to seek the comfort of a woman called
Greta Sabatier, a reader of fortunes. Though he would have been appalled if he'd thought any of his fellow Generals knew it, Sabatier's advice
had been behind much of what Bogoto had done over the years: who he'd favoured amongst his subordinates, and who he'd demoted; even, on
occasion, how he'd run some of his military campaigns. And as events in Primordium had steadily become more crazed, Bogoto had come to
rely more and more upon Sabatier's wisdom. Her cards, he had come to believe, carried vital clues to his fate. In a world where madness was
constantly in the air, and nothing and no one could be trusted, it made a paradoxical sense to seek illumination from a woman who read the
future from a pack of dirty cards.
"You've seen somebody powerful," Greta told him that night, tapping one of the cards she'd just turned over. "I can't tell if it's a man卭r a
woman."
Bogoto pictured Talisac, hanging up from his hooks, with that vile womb of his hanging down between his legs.
Sabatier was studying his face.
"You know this person I'm talking about?"
"Well then you don't need any warning from me. He, or she - which is it?"
"Well he has friends卆llies卛t's hard to be sure exactly who or what they are卼he cards are very ambiguous. But there's harm from this
source, whatever it is."
"Harm to the world." "Huh."
"That matters less to you, yes?"
"Of course. Do you think I should consider leaving the city?"
"Well厃ou're a military man. It's not the first time I've seen death in your cards, General."
This was the first time Greta had ever made mention of the General's profession. Whether she knew it from the cards or from the broadsheets in
which he was regularly eulogized was anybody's guess.
"But I don't think I ever saw it so near to you," she went on, looking at the cards.
"I see."
"So yes, I think you should consider leaving. At least until this unsettled period is over astronomically."
"So it's not just the cards, it's the stars too?"
"They're all reflections of one another: cards, stars, palms. It's the same story wherever you look."
She sorted through the cards as she spoke, and now dropped one down on the table in front of General Bogoto. It was called The Tower, and it
represented - in a simplified, even crude, form, a tower struck by lightning. Its upper half was erupting, raining down rubble, and bodies; the
lower half was cracked and ready to explode.
"This is Primordium?" Bogoto asked.
"It's the city's future," Greta replied, nodding. "Or at least one of them."
"So will you be leaving too?" Bogoto said, thinking to catch the woman out. Greta was as old as the antiquated table she read her cards upon
and her legs were a good deal less reliable. She'd never leave Primordium; or so he thought.
"Yes, I'm leaving. This will be the last time you see me, General, unless you should come to Calyx."
"You're moving to Calyx?"
Tomorrow. Before things get any worse."
II
The house on Diamanda Street, which once belonged to the murdered Senator, had gathered itself quite a reputation of late.
There were lovers there, it was rumoured; several of them. Night and day, passers by heard the sound of lovemaking: the sighs, the sobs, the
irresistible demands.
The houses nearby were all virtually deserted, their owners having fled Primordium for safer cities; or better still, for the country. Life on a pigfarm
might be boring, but at least it had a chance of being long. Nevertheless people came to Diamanda Street of late, simply to hear the noise
of pleasure out of the lamp-lit home. No, not just to hear. There was a feeling about the place, which got under people's skin. The energy
seeping out from open windows, was enough to make the fireflies assemble in their many tens of thousands each dusk and describe elaborate
arabesques in their pursuit of one another, the air so thick with their passion, and their light so insistent, that the house was festooned with their
flight paths, which lingered long after the deed was done and the insects lay exhausted and extinguished in the long grass.
Sometimes the human voyeurs, who lingered in the shadows of the nearby houses, hoping to catch a glimpse of the lovers, were granted what
they were here to see. As the strange force of the lover's din suggested, they were not natural creatures, not by any means. They seemed to be
hybrids; one third human, one third metallic, one third the no man's land between flesh and devices made to strip it and slash it and scour it.
They bled as they rose from their nuptial sheets; but smiled, kissing one another's wounds as though they were inconsequential, as though
these flaps and sores and gougings were proof of devotion.
Word got round, quickly enough. It didn't take long for the General Montefalco to hear about the house on Diamanda Street, and the reputation it
had got for itself. He went to the location, late one night. Things were in full swing: the air filled with weaving lights, the houses moaning and
shaking. Then shrieks of terrible joy out of the fire-lit interior and shadows on the blinds, moving from room to room as the momentum of the
lovers' passion carried them around the house.
Montefalco had never seen, heard or felt anything like it before. A wave of something like superstition passed through his body, weakening his
bowels and making his hair, which was a quarter inch from widow's peak to nape, stand on end.
He started to retreat from the house, clammy-palmed. As he did so he heard a voice behind him. He turned. It was Urbano. He looked like a
man who had just discovered some truly terrible thing about himself, or God, or both. "These we kill," Montefalco said, very calmly.
General Urbano began to nod, but the motion was too much for his sickened system. He puked a yellowish puke, which spattered his
immaculately polished boots. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth; then he said:
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes. These we kill."
Later that night, Montefalco went back to see Talisac. He went alone, which turned out to be a wise move. Neither Urbano nor Bogoto had the
guts for what awaited him there.
The place had deteriorated considerably in the forty-eight hours since he'd last stepped over the threshold; the bodies were still everywhere, but
they were in a new condition. It looked as though all the moisture, all the energy, had been sucked out of them, leaving them withered. The eyes
had gone from the sockets and the lips had been drawn back from the teeth, giving them all the look of blind, squealing monkeys. The flesh on
their torsos had withered to bones; as had the meat on their arms and legs. The skin itself was now like a thin layer of dried tissue, covering the
structure of the bone. When the dwarf Camille appeared to greet Montefalco, and kicked a couple of the corpses aside, they rolled away from
her kick like so many paper mannequins.
"Is it done?" Montefalco asked her.
"Oh yes, it's done," Camille said with a twinkling smile, "and I think you're going to be very pleased."
A voice emerged from the shadows, speaking words Montefalco could not comprehend.
"He's asking me to unveil it," Camille said.
The General scanned the dirt-walled room, looking for what 'it' might be; and there at the end of the chamber he saw a monumental form,
covered with a threadbare tapestry obviously brought down from the floor above.
"That?" he said, not waiting for confirmation before approaching it. As he strode through the bodies, they cracked beneath his heels, erupting
into dust and fragments. Soon the room was filled with spiraling bits of pale human stuff.
Montefalco grabbed hold of the tapestry. As he did so, Camille named the thing - "VENAL ANATOMICA."
The General pulled the tapestry off and revealed it.
As might have been guessed from its scale beneath the carpet, it was of heroic size, nine feet or more. It had death's face, and was equipped
with a variety of medieval murder weapons. There were nails crudely hammered into its shoulder and leg. Blood had coagulated around the
nails, but when Anatomica began to move (as now it did) fresh blood bubbled up from the wounds and ran down its body.
"Does it know me?" the General asked.
"Yes," said Camille, "it is ready to obey your instructions." Talisac spoke, and Camille translated. "He says he has no loyalty to its Creator, only
to you, General Montefalco."
"That's good to hear."
Montefalco beckoned to it.
"Come on then."
The creature made a hesitant step. Then another.
"Can I come with you?" Camille said. Montefalco looked down at her nakedness. "Only if you cover yourself up," he said.
She smiled, and then went away to fetch herself a flea-bitten fur coat.
They went out into the night together: the three of them. The General, the Dwarf and Venal Anatomica.
Daybreak wasn't far off. Neither was the end of certain things. Though Greta Sabatier had been killed by the bandits on the road to Calyx - a
fate she had not foreseen - she had been right about that much. An age was coming to an end: and it was the Age of Lovers. "Kreiger?"
==============================================================
最后一部分也是最长的一篇(外边随便什么地方都找不到的!)
因为以前在某个网站发表过1-4,前面几部分可能大家都看过,由于第5部分找不到翻译文件了,所以第6部分是第一次和大家见面!!!
原创翻译,请勿随意转载,如需要转载请尊重我的劳动,标明我的网址和出处,谢谢!
VI.孟格里德——基督再临
VI.MONGROID : THE SECOND COMING
I
塔利萨克医生独自一人躺在他的尸体堆里,静静地等待着神圣时刻的到来。他的身体从来没有象现在一样剧烈地颤抖过。这一切都是因为那个即将出生的孩子,他所怀着的孩子:克隆婴儿孟格里德(MONGROID)。 回顾自己这一生中的成功与失败,塔利萨克开始深信自己真正想要的不是造一个卡米尔那样的侏儒,而是一个真正属于他的孩子:一个与他有着相同基因,流着相同的血液的孩子。对他而言,这即将来临的分娩是件神圣的事情,从某种意义上说,他将是另一个圣母玛利亚。
In his bunker of dirt and corpses Talisac waited alone, while his body - which was a thing without precedent - twitched and jumped and spasmed. There was a child inside of him; the MONGROID, the infant of the Second Coming. Or so he'd come to believe, after the years he'd spent experimenting upon others, and himself. It wasn't until he had created a homunculus that would be to all intents and purposes his child, its flesh made up of the same DNA as his, that he had come to believe there was something holy in the imminent arrival. It was another Virgin Birth.
再过几个小时,他的孩子就将躺在他的怀抱中了。他不愿与任何人分享这成功的喜悦,他要独享着一刻,要知道在这一刻到来之前他忍受了多少的孤独啊。他常常会在午夜时分被一个奇怪的梦惊醒,在梦中他的孩子走到他面前告诉他世界即将灭亡,不过没关系,因为他们在一起。于是,男人和孩子一起面对世界末日。
In only a matter of hours now, the child would be in his arms. He would have no one to share the triumph of what he'd achieved, but so be it. He'd been alone all his life, even in the company of his fellow human beings. Alone with his ambition, alone with his failures, alone with the strange dreams that came to find him in the middle of the night; dreams of his child, speaking to him, telling him that the world was going to end, but that it wouldn't matter, because they'd be together, Man and Child, to the End of Time.
他开始感觉到分娩前的阵痛了,体内的孩子正挣扎着要出来,他能听到它挣扎时发出的微弱而尖细的声音。随着阵痛的加剧,塔利萨克开始哭叫起来,废弃的修道院里回荡着他恶毒的诅咒……最终,“圣婴”用他那小小的手指和柔软的指甲撕破了子宫的束缚,和带着血腥气的羊水一起滑落到地上,降生在了尸体丛中。
He could feel the child struggling to get out now. He could hear its tiny, high-pitched voice as it worked to free itself. The pain was excruciating; a vicious hallucinogen. He sobbed and he screamed; the Convent had never heard such cursings as it heard now. But finally the womb tore as the Holy Child scrabbled with his little hands, his little nails, and in a gush of blood-tinged fluids the Mongroid was disgorged onto the ground amongst the corpses.
II
“克里奇?”
"Kreiger?"
露辛迪克走到窗前向花园望去,口中呼唤着她的爱人——镰刀手-梅司特变形前的名字。克里奇刚才下楼去花园为她摘花,很久都没有回来。卧室里散发着一种强烈的气味,那是一种做爱后从他们变形身体上分泌出来的特殊物质,闻起来又苦又臭,与正常人分泌物咸咸的味道截然不同。
Lucidique went to the window and called down into the garden around her father's house. Zarles Kreiger, The Scythe-Meister, who had lately become Lucidique's lover, had gone out into the garden to bring her some perfumed flowers. The bedroom stank of the pungent oil that their
violently transfigured bodies gave off. It was a bitter and unpleasant smell; not the salty smell of natural sex.
楼下的花园里开满了馥郁芬芳的玫瑰,那香甜的气味足以掩盖房间里的怪味,而那些午夜后绽放的花蕊香气最为浓烈。现在已近凌晨两点,正是一天中花香最浓郁的时候,阵阵花香从漆黑一片的花园里随风飘进卧室。露辛迪克又叫了一声,克里奇依旧没有回答,可她明明看见一个黑影在灌木丛中闪过,要是那是克里奇的话,为什么他不回答呢?或者那根本就不是克里奇,而是有人挟持了他使他无法回答。一想到这儿,露辛迪克立刻飞奔下楼冲进了花园。
But the garden was full of sweet smelling flowers that would conceal the bitterness; and some of the strangest scents were those of blossoms that opened after dark. It was now almost two in the morning; and the smells that rose from the darkened garden were giddyingly strong. She called Kreiger's name again. Then she seemed to see him; a dark presence moving through the bushes. If it was indeed Kreiger, why didn't he answer her call? Perhaps it wasn't him. Keeping her silence now, she crept down the stairs and went out into the garden.
今天晚上的天气很好,柔和的晚风轻轻吹拂过灌木和花丛发出沙沙的响声。虽然花园很大,曲径通幽,但露辛迪克从小在这里玩耍对每条小路都了若指掌,就算闭着眼睛,她也能毫不费力地穿梭于错综复杂的小径之间,每片树林每个花丛都逃不过她的眼睛。很快,她就到达了刚才看见人影的地方。空气中弥漫着金银花和茉莉的香气,可除了花香,另一种气味引起了露辛迪克的注意,那是一种陌生动物或人身上的味道,而气味的源头就在附近。
There was a gentle, balmy breeze tonight: it made the bushes and trees churn. The garden was large, and its layout complex, but she'd been playing here since she was a child. She could have found her way down its narrow, labyrinthine paths and around its rose patches and secret groves with hers eyes closed. She went directly to the place where she thought she'd seen the man when she'd been up at the bedroom window. Despite the sweetness of honeysuckle and the night-blooming jasmine, her nostrils caught the scent of something else, somebody else, in the vicinity.
这气味与她和克里奇身上散发出的那种涩涩的味道不同,那是一种让她联想到疾病、腐烂和死亡的气味。露辛迪克一动不动地站在原地,有什么东西在她周围的灌木丛中移动着,在漆黑的夜色下她只能看见那家伙的轮廓:畸形的巨大脑袋,批着盔甲的肩膀,结实的胸膛。不管那到底是个什么东西,它走动的时候明显一跛一跛,右腿艰难地拖着左腿。随着它越来越近,那种腐败的气味也越来越浓烈起来。毫无疑问,这气味就是从这个不速之客身上传来的。接着,附近响起她情人克里奇的声音:
There was a stink that was not the bitter smell of her own body, or that of Kreiger. This was something else. Something that made her think of disease, of corruption, of death. She stood very still. Something moved through the bushes close by. She saw its form, silhouetted against the starless sky: a vast misshapen head, armoured shoulders, the chest of an ox. Whatever it was, it walked with a pronounced limp, dragging its left leg. The closer it came to her the stronger the smell of corruption became. This trespasser was the source; no doubt of that. Then, from the darkness close by, the sound of her lover's voice:
“露辛迪克!快离开这儿!快跑!”
"Lucidique! Get away from here! Quickly!"
接着,有什么东西打断了他的叫声。
There was something broken in his voice.
“你怎么了?” 露辛迪克焦急地问道,心中充满了不安。
"What's happened to you?" she said, afraid of the answer.
那个不速之客循着声音向她所在的地方转过头来,隐约可见这个家伙额头部分的头皮连着肉翻起来露出森森白骨。和他们一样,这是一个形容可怖的怪物,但又有一点不同:它肯定不是阿冈尼司帝斯的作品,至少,它肯定不是出自上帝本人之手。
Hearing her voice, the trespasser looked in her direction. A hood of flesh slid slickly back from the upper half of its face, revealing its skeletal features. This was - like them - a monster. And yet it was not like them. Not Agonistes' handiwork, at least. Not the product of the unsung
architect of Eden.
这个不速之客看上去象是刚从停尸房出来,它的身体是用腐烂的死人肉、神经和骨头堆砌出来的,浑身散发着死尸的恶臭。它大步朝露辛迪克走来,露辛迪克向后退去,并非因为不知该如何应战,而是这个家伙的样子实在让她觉得不寒而栗。这家伙一定力大无穷,并且非比寻常,露辛迪克暗自思量,不知道它的致命处在哪里。
This trespasser was a charnel-house child if ever there was one. It was made of parcels of rotten flesh and nerve and bone, all nailed together and given foetid breath. She retreated as it strode towards her. She knew how to kill; that was not in doubt. But the creature still made her afraid. It was a powerhouse; and indifferent, she guessed, to any pain she might be able to cause it.
“快跑!”克里奇朝她大叫起来。
"Go!" she heard Kreiger yelling to her.
她顺着声音望去,借着卧室里倾泻下来的微弱灯光看到自己的情人躺倒在地,浑身是血。
Her eyes flittered in his direction, and by the light shed from the bedroom window she saw him, on the ground, blood pouring out of him.
“天哪!”
"Christ!"
露辛迪克朝克里奇跑过去,但那可恶的大怪物拦住了她的去路,伸出巨大的双手想要掐死她。但露辛迪克并没有退却,她不愿抛下她的爱人独自逃跑。相反,她凭借自己对地形的了解穿梭在黑暗的花园里,试图引诱这个跛子怪物远离克里奇。
She started towards him, but the trespasser moved to intercept her, its vast hands eager to tear out her throat. But she wasn't going to flee the garden; not with her lover lying there in the dirt, bleeding from a hundred places. Instead she turned and led the limping slaughterer away from Kreiger, dodging through the darkened garden, using her knowledge of its layout to double the distance between them.
与她预料中一样,怪物紧追不放,带着庞大的身躯穿越错综复杂的荆棘丛,喉咙里发出一种恐怖的声音,听起来象是动物垂死挣扎是发出的喘息声被放大了许多倍。
Still it came after her, throwing its weight through the tangle of thorny bushes, emitting a guttural din as it did so, like the noise of some immense mechanism that imperfectly copied the sound of a tormented animal; a bull, perhaps, beneath the slaughterer's hammer. It was horrible to hear.
终于,露辛迪克跑到了她的目的地——一棵她儿时爬过无数次的大树下,她开始迅速地攀爬起来,试图借此摆脱追踪她的家伙。她的身手如此敏捷,以至于等她安全地藏在巨大的树冠中时怪物才刚刚赶到。现在,她想,要是那家伙能在树下徘徊一会的话,她就有机会趁其不备从树上跳下来割断它的喉咙了。露辛迪克想,即便它真的是用死人造出来的,整个地切断它的喉咙还是应该能将它杀死的。可是,就在离树还有六步远的地方,这个怪物停下了脚步,抬头在空气中嗅了嗅,警惕地环顾了一下四周。难道它已经察觉到了这是个陷阱?露辛迪克简直不敢相信它竟然有如此智能,可它的的确确是在犹豫徘徊。就这样过了一会儿,怪物转身离开了露辛迪克藏身的大树,哼哼唧唧、一拐一瘸地没入黑暗的树丛里。
She had come to the place where she hoped to outwit her pursuer: a tree which she had climbed a thousand times as a child, and now climbed again, so quickly that by the time the trespasser came in sight of it she was already concealed in its verdant canopy. Now, she thought, if the beast would only wander beneath the tree, she could perhaps kill it. Drop out of the branches and cut open its throat. Even if it was something that was made from mortuary slops, it drew breath; and if she could open its throat from ear to ear, it would be dead as any other slitted thing. But about six feet from the tree the creature stopped, and sniffed the air, looking around suspiciously. Did it sense that there was a trap laid for it here? She couldn't believe it had the wit to be so cautious. And yet it had halted, hadn't it? And now it retreated from the tree, loosing a low, barely audible noise in its throat, limping off into the darkness.
露辛迪克小心翼翼地拨开树枝观望周围情况,她听见从她刚才跑来的地方有什么动静,隐约间好象还有克里奇痛苦的呻吟声。上帝啊,不!她痛苦地想道:别让这个怪物拿克里奇当成诱饵吧……然而,几分钟后,她所担心的事情果然应验了,那怪物重新出现在荆棘丛中,手里拖着一样很重的东西。与露辛迪克预料中一样,那个看上去象个大麻袋一样的东西是昏迷了的克里奇,她的情人,短短一会儿工夫里,他们竟然就被眼前这个不知名的魔鬼弄到如此被动的境地。
She carefully parted the foliage, to see if she could discover what it was up to. There was some sound from the direction in which she'd come, and then an audible moan from Kreiger. Oh God, no, she thought. Don't let the trespasser be smart enough to use Kreiger as bait… Her fears were realized a moment later, as the creature reappeared between the thorn bushes, dragging a heavy burden behind him. It was Kreiger, of course. This lover of hers, who was now reduced to little more than a sack, hauled behind the nameless fiend, had been a terror in his own right not so long ago.
在克里奇还是个杀手的时候他就已经凭借自己非凡的武艺穿梭于普利摩顿城中的各个角落,令人闻风丧胆了。后来,他接受了阿冈尼司帝斯的变形手术,成为了镰刀手-梅司特,让这座城市的统治阶层一夜间命丧他的镰刀下。可现在,看看他成了什么样子!他脸上裂开了一道大口子,就好象是这个怪物用手指从嘴唇(那是露辛迪克一个小时前还亲吻过的双唇啊)里撕开的一样。身体的其他部分也同样受过了酷刑折磨:肌肉被生生撕扯下来,露出森森白骨。大面积的创口造成了大量失血,很难相信克里奇还活着。很显然,他是在刚才下楼为自己的爱人采摘玫瑰花时遭到了突袭,克里奇一定曾全力反击直到精疲力竭,而偷袭者则很有耐性地在花园里等待另一个目标的出现,一边眼睁睁地看着被打败的猎物流血致死。而情况正如它预期那般,露辛迪克没多久就出现了。毫无疑问,那怪物原本是想给予她致命一击的,但露辛迪克没有让它得逞,于是现在它不得不用克里奇这个血淋淋的人质来骗她现身了。
As the assassin Zarles Kreiger he'd once haunted the city of Primordium from the shanties to the chateaus. Then, after the transformation worked upon him by Agonistes, as the Scythe-Meister, he'd wiped out the ruling class of the city in one scarlet night. But now look at him! His face was torn open, as though the fiend had simply put his fingers into Kreiger's mouth (whose lips Lucidique had kissed an hour before) and ripped it apart like a paper bag. The rest of his body had been just as cruelly treated; the flesh torn away from its seating, exposing the breastbone and the ribs and the long bone of his thigh. The loss of blood from these wounds was traumatic. It was a wonder Kreiger was still alive. But plainly - having been surprised in the garden while peacefully flower-picking - he'd fought back until he had no strength to fight with, at which point his attacker had simply waited in the garden while one of its two victims slowly bled to death, knowing the other would appear given time. And so she had. No doubt the creature had expected to dispatch her in a heartbeat; now it was obliged to coax her out of her hiding place with this bloody hostage.
怪物紧紧掐住克里奇的脖子,单手将他提到空中,用力将他的脸象大树撞去。克里奇的头无力地垂在脖子上,双目深陷,看上去和死了没什么两样。而凶手此刻却举起了他的另一只手,朝着露辛迪克躲藏着的方向招了招手,示意她出来,同时用手指把克里奇的脑袋前后摇晃起来,就好象他是一个木偶。看到这样的场面,露辛迪克心中的痛苦简直无法用语言形容,眼前这个被人想木偶一样玩弄摆布着的男人曾经推翻过一代王朝,改写了历史,他是她的挚爱,她的情人……这一切使她丧失了理智,尽管她清楚的知道树下的偷袭者有足够的力量可以杀掉她,她还是无法看着克里奇在临死的时候被人如此羞辱。于是,露辛迪克狂怒地尖叫着跳下枝头,以迅雷不及掩耳之势刺瞎了怪物的双眼。瞎眼了的怪物不得不丢下手中的人质,口中发出令人毛骨悚然的吼声。露辛迪克敏捷地穿过怪物扑腾着的双臂来到克里奇身边。他已经死了。
It grabbed Kreiger's neck and lifted him up by one hand, thrusting his broken face towards the tree. Kreiger's head lolled on his neck; his eyes rolled back into their sockets. He was as close to dead as made no difference. Then his killer lifted its other hand and beckoned to the woman in the tree. As it did so it twitched Kreiger's head back and forth, like that of a doll. For Lucidique it was agonizing beyond words to see her lover, a man who had brought down a dynasty, bobbing around like a ventriloquist's doll. It made her lose all reason. Though she knew the trespasser below had the physical power to kill her, she could not watch Kreiger's last moments played out as a humiliating puppet-show. She leapt from the tree with a shriek of rage, and before the creature could bring down its visor of flesh, she had slit both of its eyes with her weapon, blinding it. It dropped Kreiger, and let out a roar that sounded pleasingly like panic. She ducked under its flailing arms and went to Kreiger. He was dead.
露辛迪克回头看着杀害她情人的凶手,此刻那个怪物就象是个受到惊吓的孩子一般,已经从怒吼转为嚎啕大哭,哭了一会儿以后慢慢开始低声呜咽起来。她原本可以再给予它致命一击的,或许,在数次进攻之后她甚至可以取它的性命为克里奇报仇。但她却无暇顾及这个瞎眼怪物了。她必须立即将克里奇转移到什么地方去,或许还有机会能让他死而复生。
She glanced back at his killer, who was indeed in a state of child-like terror. His roar had turned into howls that were close to descending into whimpers. She could have wounded it again easily enough; and perhaps, after a dozen woundings, or two dozen, she might have claimed its life. But she didn't have any time to waste with the blinded thing. She needed to take Kreiger somewhere he had a hope of resurrection.
就这样,露辛迪克带着她情人的尸体走进沙漠去寻找他们的主人阿冈尼司帝斯(克里奇的身体比她预计的要轻,仿佛这躯体里某些蕴涵生命的物质已经一去不返了,即便是魔法也无力回天)。她努力说服自己不要有这样悲观的念头,丢下玫瑰花丛中愤怒发狂的瞎眼怪物,扛着爱人的尸体走到前院,温柔地将他放进马车厢里,驾车朝着郊外飞奔而去……
Out into the desert. Out to find Agonistes. She lifted her lover's body up over her shoulders (he was lighter than she'd expected; troublingly so, as though the mass of his life had gone from him and would never be returned, even by a miracle). She would not let such pessimism linger in her mind however. Leaving the blind trespasser to rage amongst the roses, she headed to the forecourt of the house. She gently laid the corpse in the back of the car, and then drove out of the city, in search of a sandstorm.
III
塔利萨克医生低头看着这个从他体内分娩出来的小家伙,他的小孟格里德。他看到自己儿子身上比他漂亮的地方,但随后,他也看到了丑陋的地方。这个小家伙比任何其他出生才五分钟的生物都要来得独立,它开始行走起来,更确切地说是用它四条纤细的胳膊爬了起来,同时,它的口中发出含糊不清的声音,仿佛是在自我介绍。
Talisac looked down at the creature that had spilled from his body: his Mongroid. He'd seen prettier things, but then he'd seen uglier too. It had more self-reliance than any creature five minutes old should reasonably have; it walked, crab-like, on four hands; it made rudimentary attempts to express itself.
塔利萨克医生轻轻地呼唤它的名字,就好象在叫条小狗一样,但那孩子并没有回答。此刻它被眼前到处都是的尸体深深吸引了,正用它那翻转过来的脑袋仔细研究着,闻着这些发臭的样品。就塔利萨克医生的技术而言,孟格里德的头脑看上去发育健全。这里面多少有点家族遗传的因素,医生想。他已经放弃去吸引它的注意了,可突然,那小婴儿的眼睛落在了他的身上,它迈着笨拙可笑的步伐慢慢靠近他,一路上不时打量房间里的其他地方,看起来它的思路非常清晰。这是它出生后做出的第一个判断:活的和死的。
He called it to him, as he might a dog, but it wouldn't come. It was too interested in the bodies that lay everywhere about the chamber, examining them with its inverted head, sniffing at the ranker examples. It seemed to have a well-formed head, as far as Talisac could make out.
There was some family resemblance there, he thought. He had given up trying to draw its attention, but now - paradoxically - its eyes came to rest on him, and with its ungainly, sideways gait it approached him. It cast a glance around the charnel house as it did so, and its thought processes were perfectly clear. It was making the first distinction of its young life: between the living and the dead.
“非常正确……” 塔利萨克用一种鼓励的语气对它说,“……他们都死了,他们对你已经没什么用了。而我是唯一一个你必须帮助的人。我是你的父亲。”
"That's right…" Talisac said, attempting an encouraging tone, "…they're dead. They're no use to you. I'm the one you have to help. I'm your father."
孟格里德究竟听明白了多少,又或许它一句都没有听明白,塔利萨克对此也一无所知。应该是听懂了一点点吧,他猜想无论如何他们得从头开始。教育和抚养这个小家伙必定是件漫长而琐碎的事情。他曾希望自己能生下一个更完美的后代,一个能够直接呈献给蒙特法罗将军的作品,那样的话他就能够得到更多的资助来完成更宏大的研究计划了。现在,他必须先让将军见见他的这件作品。虽然这个从充满精子和海水的人造子宫中降生的小家伙远远没有达到他心目中完美邪恶的要求,但这又有什么关系呢?它只是一个开始,接着还会有其他孩子降生的。现在他所需要做的只是去抓住它,然后解剖一下,查看失败的原因以便下次不再犯同样的错误。就在离他几码远的地方,这个小怪物突然停了下来,低头开始研究那个孕育了自己十七个星期之久的人造子宫。血依旧从里面汩汩地涌出,淌落到肮脏的地面,只见孟格里德将它翻转过来,深出舌头开始吮吸流出的液体。
How much of this - if any - the Mongroid understood, Talisac had no idea. Very little, he guessed. But they had to begin somewhere. It would be a long, weary business, rearing this thing. He had hoped to give birth to something more praiseworthy; something he could show Montefalco, and thus be funded for further, more ambitious researches. Now, he would have to do some fast-talking to get the General to see his vision of things. The crab homunculus produced from his sac of semen and sea-water was very far from the perfect, vicious child he'd hoped to produce: a hymn to the glories of testosterone. But never mind, there would be others. In time he'd subdue this one, and vivisect it to see if he could work out where the errors lay. Then he'd try again. The creature had come to a halt a few yards away from him, and was studying the sac from which it had been contained for seventeen weeks. Blood still dripped from it, onto the dirt floor. It scuttled over and put its tongue to the pool, tasting the fluid.
“不,”塔利萨克厌恶地对它说道:“别这样。”
"No," Talisac said, faintly revolted by its display. "Don't do that."
他可不希望这个怪物有对血或者人肉之类奇怪的嗜好,至少不喜欢它象现在这样吮吸从他身体里分泌的体液,更何况他自己还没有从挂钩上被放下来呢,这样的姿势让他觉得不太安全。
He didn't want it getting some unnatural appetite; for blood, or flesh, or whatever other juices ran from him freely as he hung there. He was altogether too vulnerable in his present state.
可是孟格里德看上去好象对禁令之类的事情并不感兴趣。它这么做完全是出自本能,而它的本能告诉它这些是可以吃的食物。它顺着血水的源头象上望去看到了悬挂着的塔利萨克医生,这个曾经孕育它的身躯。它的目光让医生感到非常恐惧,更让他不安的是怪物那渐渐隆起的腹部,就好象是它正胃口大开准备好好吃上一顿的样子。孟格里德顺着医生那沾满血污的袍子慢慢地爬上了他的身体,而他腹部的皮肤依旧在不断的膨胀。
But the creature wasn't interested in being forbidden anything. It was a creature of instinct, and its instinct told it that there was a meal to be had here. It traced the source of the pool to the hanging corpse of flesh that had been its makeshift womb. He didn't like the look in the creature's eyes at all. Nor did he like the way its belly was distending, as though its aroused appetite was awaking a change in its anatomy. The Mongroid was pulling on the loose bloody tatters of his flesh now, its belly skin still swelling obscenely.
“卡米尔!” 塔利萨克医生大叫起来,恐惧让他忘记了女侏儒卡米尔已经跟随蒙特法罗将军走了,现在他是孤单一人了。此时此刻,他就这样被孤伶伶一个人吊在半空中晃来晃去,无助地看着他亲生子的腹部胀裂成一张血盆大口,口中是两排完整而锋利的牙齿。
"Camille!" Talisac yelled, forgetting in his fear that the dwarf had left in the company of General Montefalco. He was alone. And now, as he swung there, helpless, the belly of his offspring split open, revealing a vast mouth, completely arrayed with glistening teeth.
“哦,天啊!我的天啊!”
"Jesus! Oh Jesus!"
这句话成了塔利萨克医生的遗言。
They were the last words Talisac uttered.
孟格里德用它的四条手臂支撑起身体向滑落在地上的子宫爬去,它腹部的那张大嘴吞没了自己的“母亲”后正慢慢合拢,锋利的牙齿用力地咀嚼着塔利萨克医生的身体。医生临终前的祈祷化成了令人毛骨悚然的尖叫。孟格里德将满口的肠子、内脏重新吐到地上,再从中挑选出那些可以吃的部分。
Using its four hands to spring up towards the womb from which he had so recently been delivered, the thing closed its gaping jaws on the groin of its parent, its teeth digging deep into Talisac's flesh. The cries to Jesus became a solid shriek. The Mongroid took a healthy mouthful of gut and manhood and womb, and dropped down to the ground again to devour what it had bitten off.
塔利萨克医生的内脏从被咬断了的下身流了出来,五脏六肺洒了一地。这个圣心救济院里的天才医生最终没有了声息……
Talisac's innards, with their lower half removed, simply fell out of his body: uncoiling innards followed by liver and kidneys and spleen. The genius of the Hospice of the Sacred Heart stopped screaming.
IV
一夜之间,普利摩顿少了两个怪物,却又多了两个新的。卫奈尔·阿纳托米卡——或者叫它瞎眼怪更恰当一些,这家伙实际上不值一提。除了身型庞大和浑身蛮力外,它和一个莽撞的瞎子没有任何区别。它瞎了之后一直无法适应这种变化,情况没有丝毫的好转,它还是和那天晚上一样时常发狂、跌跌冲冲、猛摔猛打。
Thus in one night Primordium lost two of the monsters that had haunted its streets, and gained two new ones. Venal Anatomica - or The Blind One, as he became known, was, in truth, something of a joke. Despite its bulk, and his phenomenal strength, he never developed the compensating skills that often came after a blinding. He lived always as though he had just been blinded. Always flailing, always raging, always violent.
出自一种奇怪的忠心,蒙特法罗将军接手了这个瞎眼怪物的一切,照料它的生活。他下令所有人都不许嘲笑“伟大的卫奈尔·阿纳托米卡”,一旦有人违反命令将就地枪决。几次杀鸡敬猴之后,再没有人敢嘲笑卫奈尔了。这个瞎眼怪被独自放逐到城中的目的里,时常挖开新坟啃食那些新鲜的尸体。
Montefalco took care of him, however, out of a bizarre sense of loyalty. He ordered that anyone found taunting the once mighty Venal Anatomica be summarily shot. After a dozen such casual executions, the message made it out to those who liked to torment the creature. The
Blind One was left alone to haunt the city's graveyards, often digging up and eating the recently dead.
V
露辛迪克驾着马车在沙漠中转悠了好几天却始终没有能找到阿冈尼司帝斯,整个沙漠象被施了魔法一样安静,没有丝毫沙尘暴的迹象。平静的沙丘看上去象是一个谷仓,密不透风。一个星期之后,镰刀手-梅司特的尸体开始发出臭味了,露辛迪克用她美丽的双手一点一点挖出了一个墓穴,亲手为自己的爱人举行葬礼。正当她坐在墓穴边轻声哭泣时,恍惚间听到风中传来了阿冈尼司帝斯的呼唤,她猛地站了起来,准备向这位伊甸园的天才乞求帮助,希望他能用神奇的法力将生命重新灌入克里奇干枯的身躯。
Lucidique never found Agonistes. Though she drove for several days, looking for the sandstorms where he hid himself, the desert was preternaturally still. Not a breeze to move so much as a grain of sand; much less a storm. After a week, when The Scythe-Meister's body was beginning to smell, she dug a hole with her bare hands, and put him in it. Even as she sat there beside the mound, keening, she thought she heard Agonistes calling her name, and got up, ready at a moment's notice to reclaim Kreiger from his dry bed, and let the genius of Eden work his Lazarene magic on her lover.
可是,这不过是她的幻觉而已,呼啸而过的大风对她开了一个残酷的玩笑。事实上,就在短短四十一年后,就在露辛迪克在离开克里奇墓穴仅仅四分之一英里的地方游荡的时候,阿冈尼司帝斯确实曾出现过……
But it was not the Resurrection she had heard. It was just a trick of the wind. Indeed, not once in the next forty-one years, during which time Lucidique seldom strayed more than a quarter of a mile from the place Zarles Kreiger was laid, did Agonistes appear.
VI
一天清晨,露辛迪克象过去四十年一样在灿烂的朝阳下醒来,突然,她很想回去看看普利摩顿城。于是她离开了守侯多年的克里奇回到了城中。她很惊讶地发现父亲的老房子竟然还在,人们慑于迷信不敢摧毁这座当年声名显赫的房子。于是,露辛迪克重新住了进去,可仅仅在冰冷的地板上睡了几个晚上之后,种种对往昔的回忆几乎将她窒息,她觉得自己快要发疯了。她决定重新睡到那张快要坍塌的老床上,许多年前,她每天晚上都在这里和克里奇疯狂地做爱。睡在这里露辛迪克没有做噩梦,恰恰相反,她觉得克里奇和她在一起,这种感觉远比她在沙漠中守侯他墓穴的时候来得强烈,在梦中,他轻轻拥着她,在她耳边诉说着对她的相思之情。露辛迪克开始自残,因为流血让她觉得痛快,现在的她成了一个极端危险的人,无论是谁看她的目光令她觉得不舒服,她都会毫不犹豫地出手杀掉他。
Then one day, waking to the same bright sky she'd woken to for over four decades - she was seized by a desire to see Primordium. The house her father had built was still standing, she was surprised to find; left by authorities too superstitious to knock it down. She occupied it again, and after a few nights of sleeping on the bare boards overcame her fear of memories that would unknit her sanity, and moved up into the stained, ancient bed where she and Kreiger had made love all those years before. There were no nightmares. He was with her, here, more than he'd ever been in the desert. He held her, in her dreams, and he whispered mischiefs to her, that sometimes she acted upon, for old time's sake. Blood she let freely, when it pleased her to do so. Nobody was safe from her. She would have happily murdered a saint if he'd looked at her in some fashion that irritated her.
在一个月黑风高的夜晚,露辛迪克出手杀掉了那三位将军:博哥特、乌班诺和蒙特法罗,过了这许多年,他们都已经成了又老又胖的糟老头子,成天聚在一起发牢骚。又一个夜晚,她在目的找到了当年杀害克里奇的那个瞎眼怪物,瞎眼怪夜夜以泪洗面,它的眼睛除了流泪外没有任何其他用处。露辛迪克站在一旁,看着它边哭边吃死人肉,她决定不杀它,让它的痛苦继续折磨它自己。
And one night, just for the hell of it, she killed the three Generals, Montefalco, Bogoto and Urbano, who were by now fat and old and put up little protest at her arrival. Another night, she went to find Kreiger's killer, The Blind One. She found him in the cemetery, weeping from his slit eyes, the weary tears of a man who weeps every night, but knows no cure for them. She watched him for a while, while he wept and ate the dead. Then she left him to his suffering.
露辛迪克清楚地知道此刻对于瞎眼怪来说死亡反而是一种解脱,她本可以轻而易举地取到它的性命结束这种痛苦的,但为什么她要这么仁慈?为什么没有人对她这么仁慈?更何况她很高兴这座城市里有三个怪物同时存在:下水管道里的孟格里德(她已经它的腐烂王国里见过这个肮脏的怪物了),墓地里的卫奈尔·阿纳托米卡,以及参议院别墅里的她。这其中有某种必然的联系。有时候,露辛迪克也会觉得孤单,她曾考虑重新回到沙漠中,回去躺在已经变成干尸的克里奇身边,让风沙将他们一起掩埋。可总有什么事情阻挠着她,或许她想亲眼看到普利摩顿的毁灭,又或者她早已走火入魔了。
It was cruel, of course, to let him live, when she could have put him out of his misery with a well placed blow. But why should she dispense mercy, when no one had ever been merciful to her? Besides, it pleased her to know that there were three monsters in Primordium. The Mongroid (whom she'd also gone to view in his excremental kingdom) in the sewers, Venal Anatomica in the charnel houses, she in her father's mansion. It had a certain neatness. Sometimes, when she became lonely, she thought about going out into the desert, and lying down beside Kreiger's mummified corpse; letting the sand smother her. But something stopped her from doing it. Perhaps she'd have to watch the city of Primordium burn down first; or feel insanity creeping up her spine.
从那之后,露辛迪克接受了命运的安排,终生与泪水、鲜血和孤独为伍。无数虔诚的信徒夜夜向上帝祈祷,企求自己不要成为露辛迪克的目标。从某种意义上,露辛迪克获得了永生。
Until then, she would live out her destiny, in blood and tears and loneliness; in the knowledge that she was named in the prayers of tens of thousands of God-fearing citizens every night, who begged the Lord to keep them and their faces safe from her. It was a kind of immortality.
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THE END