双语·面纱 第五十六章
Kitty was lying on her bed and the shutters were closed. It was after luncheon and the servants slept. What she had learnt that morning (and now she was certain that it was true) filled her with consternation. Ever since she came home she had been trying to think; but her mind was a blank, and she could not collect her thoughts. Suddenly she heard a step, the feet were booted so that it could not be one of the boys; with a gasp of apprehension she realised that it could only be her husband. He was in the sitting-room and she heard herself called. She did not reply. There was a moment's silence and then a knock on her door.
“Yes?”
“May I come in?”
Kitty rose from her bed and slipped into a dressing-gown.
“Yes.”
He entered. She was glad that the closed shutters shadowed her face.
“I hope I didn't wake you. I knocked very, very gently.”
“I haven't been asleep.”
He went to one of the windows and threw open the shutter. A flood of warm light streamed into the room.
“What is it?” she asked. “Why are you back so early?”
“The Sisters said that you weren't very well. I thought I had better come and see what was the matter.”
A flash of anger passed through her.
“What would you have said if it had been cholera?”
“If it had been you certainly couldn't have made your way home this morning.”
She went to the dressing-table and passed the comb through her shingled hair. She wanted to gain time. Then, sitting down, she lit a cigarette.
“I wasn't very well this morning and the Mother Superior thought I'd better come back here. But I'm perfectly all right again. I shall go to the convent as usual to-morrow.”
“What was the matter with you?”
“Didn't they tell you?”
“No. The Mother Superior said that you must tell me yourself.”
He did now what he did seldom; he looked her full in the face; his professional instincts were stronger than his personal. She hesitated. Then she forced herself to meet his eyes.
“I'm going to have a baby,” she said.
She was accustomed to his habit of meeting with silence a statement which you would naturally expect to evoke an exclamation, but never had it seemed to her more devastating. He said nothing; he made no gesture; no movement on his face nor change of expression in his dark eyes indicated that he had heard. She felt suddenly inclined to cry. If a man loved his wife and his wife loved him, at such a moment they were drawn together by a poignant emotion. The silence was intolerable and she broke it.
“I don't know why it never occurred to me before. It was stupid of me, but… what with one thing and another… ”
“How long have you… when do you expect to be confined?”
The words seemed to issue from his lips with difficulty. She felt that his throat was as dry as hers. It was a nuisance that her lips trembled so when she spoke; if he was not of stone it must excite his pity.
“I suppose I've been like this between two and three months.”
“Am I the father?”
She gave a little gasp. There was just a shadow of a tremor in his voice; it was dreadful that cold self-control of his which made the smallest token of emotion so shattering. She did not know why she thought suddenly of an instrument she had been shown in Hong Kong upon which a needle oscillated a little and she had been told that this represented an earthquake a thousand miles away in which perhaps a thousand persons had lost their lives. She looked at him. He was ghastly pale. She had seen that pallor on him once, twice before. He was looking down, a little sideways.
“Well?”
She clasped her hands. She knew that if she could say yes it would mean everything in the world to him. He would believe her, of course he would believe her, because he wanted to; and then he would forgive. She knew how deep was his tenderness and how ready he was, for all his shyness, to expend it. She knew that he was not vindictive; he would forgive her if she could but give him an excuse to, an excuse that touched his heart, and he would forgive completely. She could count on him never to throw the past in her teeth. Cruel he might be, cold and morbid, but he was neither mean nor petty. It would alter everything if she said yes.
And she had an urgent need for sympathy. The unexpected knowledge that she was with child had overwhelmed her with strange hopes and unforeseen desires. She felt weak, frightened a little, alone and very far from any friends. That morning, though she cared little for her mother, she had had a sudden craving to be with her. She needed help and consolation. She did not love Walter, she knew that she never could, but at this moment she longed with all her heart for him to take her in his arms so that she could lay her head on his breast; clinging to him she could have cried happily; she wanted him to kiss her and she wanted to twine her arms around his neck.
She began to weep. She had lied so much and she could lie so easily. What could a lie matter when it could only do good? A lie, a lie, what was a lie? It was so easy to say yes. She saw Walter's eyes melt and his arms outstretched towards her. She couldn't say it; she didn't know why, she just couldn't. All she had gone through during these bitter weeks, Charlie and his unkindness, the cholera and all these people dying, the nuns, oddly enough even that funny, drunken little Waddington, it all seemed to have changed her so that she did not know herself; though she was so deeply moved, some bystander in her soul seemed to watch her with terror and surprise. She had to tell the truth. It did not seem worth while to lie. Her thoughts wandered strangely: on a sudden she saw that dead beggar at the foot of the compound wall. Why should she think of him? She did not sob; the tears streamed down her face, quite easily, from wide eyes. At last she answered the question. He had asked her if he was the child's father.
“I don't know,” she said.
He gave the ghost of a chuckle. It made Kitty shudder.
“It's a bit awkward, isn't it?”
His answer was characteristic, it was exactly what she would have expected him to say, but it made her heart sink. She wondered if he realised how hard it had been for her to tell the truth (at the same moment she recognised that it had not been in the least hard, but inevitable)and if he gave her credit for it. Her answer, I don't know, I don't know, hammered away in her head. It was impossible now to take it back. She got her handkerchief from her bag and dried her eyes. They did not speak. There was a siphon on the table by her bed and he got her a glass of water. He brought it to her and held the glass while she drank. She noticed how thin his hand was, it was a fine hand, slender, with long fingers, but now it was nothing but skin and bone; it trembled a little: he could control his face, but his hand betrayed him.
“Don't mind my crying,” she said. “It's nothing really; it's only that I can't help the water running out of my eyes.”
She drank the water and he put the glass back. He sat down on a chair and lit a cigarette. He gave a little sigh. Once or twice before she had heard him sigh like that and it always gave her a catch at the heart. Looking at him now, for he was staring with abstracted gaze out of the window, she was surprised that she had not noticed before how terribly thin he had grown during the last weeks. His temples were sunken and the bones of his face showed through the skin. His clothes hung on him loosely as though they had been made for a larger man. Through his sunburn his face had a greenish pallor. He looked exhausted. He was working too hard, sleeping little and eating nothing. In her own grief and perturbation she found room to pity him. It was cruel to think that she could do nothing for him.
He put his hand over his forehead, as though his head were aching, and she had a feeling that in his brain too those words hammered madly: I don't know, I don't know. It was strange that this moody, cold and shy man should have such a natural affection for very little babies; most men didn't care much even for their own, but the nuns, touched and a little amused, had more than once spoken of it. If he felt like that about those funny little Chinese babies what would he have felt about his own? Kitty bit her lips in order to prevent herself from crying again.
He looked at his watch.
“I'm afraid I must go back to the city. I have a great deal to do to-day… Shall you be all right?”
“Oh, yes. Don't bother about me.”
“I think you'd better not wait for me this evening. I may be very late and I'll get something to eat from Colonel Yü.”
“Very well.”
He rose.
“If I were you, I wouldn't try to do anything to-day. You'd better take it easy. Is there anything you want before I go?”
“No, thanks. I shall be quite all right.”
He paused for an instant, as though he were undecided, and then, abruptly and without looking at her, took his hat and walked out of the room. She heard him go through the compound. She felt terribly alone. There was no need for self-restraint now and she gave herself up to a passion of tears.
凯蒂躺在床上，百叶窗已经拉上。午饭过后，仆人们也去睡觉了。她满脑子装的都是今天早上知道的这个消息（现在她当然已经确认这是真的），而且有些惊慌失措。从回到家里的那一刻起，她就一直想把思路捋清，但脑子始终是一片空白，无法集中注意力。突然，她听到了一阵脚步声，脚步声是从皮靴上传来的，所以不可能是仆人们的，当她意识到这脚步声只可能会来自她丈夫，心头立刻被恐惧攫住了。他在客厅里，她也听见叫她的名字了，但她没回答，沉寂了一会儿后，传来了一阵敲门声。
“谁呀？”
“我能进来吗？”
凯蒂从床上坐起来，套上了晨衣。
“好的。”
他走进了她的卧室，她很庆幸紧关着的百叶窗能让她的脸处在阴影中。
“希望没吵醒你，我敲得非常轻。”
“我其实没睡着。”
他走近其中一扇窗子，把百叶窗拉开了。温暖的阳光如洪水般倾泻进了房间。
“怎么回事？”她问道，“为什么今天你回来得这么早？”
“修女们说你病了，我想还是早点儿回来好，看看你怎么了。”
一阵怒气穿过她的全身。
“如果说我染上了霍乱，你会怎么想？”
“如果真像你说的那样，她们上午就不会把你送回来了。”
她走到梳妆台前，用梳子拢了拢额前的刘海。她想争取点儿时间，坐下来后，点着了一支香烟。
“我今天上午身体不太好，院长嬷嬷认为我最好回来休息，但是我现在完全好了。明天我会像往常一样去修道院的。”
“你身体出什么状况了？”
“她们没告诉你吗？”
“没有，院长嬷嬷说必须由你自己告诉我。”
这时，他做了一件近来几乎不怎么做的事，他端详着她的脸。他职业的本能超过了个人的好恶。她犹豫了一下，然后迫使自己正视他的目光。
“我怀孕了。”她说道。
她已经习惯了他的做法，本来她指望能够让他大呼小叫的话他往往会用沉默对待，而现在他不这样了，反而更让她惊恐万分。他什么也没说，也没做出任何手势，脸色凝固了，黑色的眼睛没有任何神情的改变表明他已经听见了她的话。她想要哭，如果一个男人爱他的妻子，而他的妻子也爱他的话，在这样一个幸福的时刻，强烈的感情会让他们的心贴得更近。沉默让人难以忍受，她首先打破了它。
“我不知道为什么我以前没有想到，我太笨了，但……近来一件事接着另一件事……”
“你这样多长时间了……你的预产期是什么时候？”
这些话似乎很难说出口，她觉得他的喉咙跟她的一样干涩，她说话的时候嘴唇也是这样颤抖，这让她觉得很讨厌。如果他不是铁石心肠的话，这件事一定会激起他的同情。
“我想这样有两三个月了。”
“我是孩子的父亲吗？”
她倒吸了一口气，隐约能感到他的声音有一种震颤，他冷静的自控力是挺可怕的，能抹去话语中最微不足道的感情变化的痕迹。她不知道为什么突然想到了在香港曾经见到过的一种仪器，如果上面的针稍微摆动一下，就代表着一千英里远的地方发生了地震，也许有一千人在地震中已经失去了生命。她看着他，他的脸色煞白，以前她见过一两次他的这种脸色。他低着头，扭过脸去。
“嗯？”
她的双手紧握，知道如果她给出肯定的答案，对他来说将拥有整个世界。他会相信她的话的，他当然会相信她，因为他希望是这样的结果，那么接下来，他会原谅她的，她知道他有着无尽的柔情，也准备迸发出来，但由于羞怯，埋藏到了内心深处。她知道他不是一个报复心很强的人，只要给他一个理由，他会原谅她的，如果能够有一个借口触动了他内心最柔软的部分，他会完完全全原谅她的，能够指望他对过去既往不咎，闭口不提的。虽然他可能有些残忍、冷酷和病态，但是他既不卑鄙也不小心眼儿。如果她说是的，一切都会改变。
而她现在急需别人的怜爱，当她得知自己怀孕的消息后，先是有些措手不及，然后开始有了奇怪的希望和莫名的憧憬。她觉得有点儿虚弱、害怕，自己孤身一人，远离朋友。虽然她很少想到自己的母亲，但今天上午突然渴望母亲能在她的身边，她太需要帮助和安慰了。她不爱沃尔特，知道自己绝不可能爱上他，但是今天上午她真心渴望他能把她揽入怀中，她能够把头枕在他的胸口，紧贴着他，她能幸福地大哭，她想让他亲吻她，也想用自己的胳膊搂着他的脖子。
她开始抽泣了，以前她的谎话说得太多了，所以现在可以张口就来。如果谎话对大家有好处，撒一个又何妨？谎话、谎话，什么是谎话？对沃尔特的问题说“是的”太容易了。她好像看见他冰冷的眼神融化了，他向她伸出了双臂。但她不能那么说，也不知道什么原因，但她就是不能。在过去痛苦的几周里，她经历了一切，查理的寡情薄义，霍乱和那些垂死的人，修女们，古灵精怪甚至有些滑稽、整天醉醺醺的小个子威廷顿，都似乎改变了她，以至于自己都认不出自己了。虽然她被深深地感动着，但灵魂深处的旁观者似乎用一种惊恐和吃惊的神态在观察着她。她必须得说真话，但可以说谎的时候，说真话似乎不值得。她的思想在做着奇怪的斗争，突然，她好像见到了在院墙根上死去的那个乞丐，为什么她会想起他来呢？她没有发出呜咽声，但从她的眼里，泪水轻易地喷涌而出。最后，她回答了那个问题，也就是他问她，他是否是她肚子里孩子的父亲。
“我不知道。”她说道。
他发出了像鬼哭一般咯咯的笑声，让凯蒂不寒而栗。
“有那么一点儿难为情，是吧？”
他的话带有自己的特点，她也预料到了他会这么说，但是还是使得她的心沉了下去。她想知道他是否认识到对她来说道出实情是多么的难（同时，她也意识到说真话自己需要多么大的勇气，但又不可避免），而且他是否相信她的话。她的回答“我不知道，我不知道”不停地在她的脑海中回响，现在不可能把它收回了。她从包里拿出了手绢擦干了眼泪。他们俩又都不说话了，她床边的桌子上有一个虹吸水瓶，他给她到了一玻璃杯水，把水杯靠近她的嘴边，而且在她喝水的时候一直端着水杯。她这才注意到他的手是多么的消瘦，本来这是一双很有型的手，手指细长，但是现在只剩下皮包骨头了。他拿杯子的手在微微颤抖，他能控制住面部表情，但他的手背叛了他。
“别介意我哭。”她说道，“真的没什么，只是我自己控制不住眼里的泪水要往下流。”
她喝完了水，他又把杯子放了回去，坐在椅子上，点着了一支香烟，轻轻地叹了口气。以前她听见过他一两次像这样的叹气，总是会让她的心揪着。现在再看他，眼睛出神地盯着窗外，她很吃惊，前一阵子没有注意到在过去的几周里，他憔悴消瘦得厉害，太阳穴已经凹陷下去，脸上的颧骨也愈发突出，衣服穿在身上咣里咣当，好像是个头比他大一号的人穿的。被太阳晒黑的脸透着瓜菜色的苍白，看上去有些筋疲力尽。他工作得太辛苦了，睡眠很少，几乎不吃什么东西。她难过和不安之余，还是有些心疼他。想想她从未为他做过什么，自己也觉得有些过分。
他把手放在前额上，头痛欲裂，她也觉得在他的脑海中，这些词汇也在不断疯狂地敲击着：“我不知道，我不知道”。凯蒂觉得纳闷，这个忧郁、冷淡和羞怯的男人对很小的婴儿会有一种自然的感情流露，大多数的男人都不怎么在意婴儿，哪怕是他们自己的孩子，而让修女们既感动又觉得好玩的是，沃尔特对孩子的喜爱，她们不止一次说起过这一点。如果他对这些好笑的、弱小的中国孩子都那么喜爱的话，更何况他自己的亲生骨肉呢？凯蒂紧咬着嘴唇，防止自己再哭出声来。
他看了看手表。
“恐怕我必须赶回城里了，今天有很多的事情要做……你没事了吧？”
“哦，是的，不用担心我。”
“我想今天晚上你最好不用等我了，我可能会回来得很晚，我会去余上校那儿吃饭。”
“好的。”
他站起身来。
“如果我是你的话，今天什么活都不要干了。你最好放松些，在我走前，你还需要什么东西吗？”
“不需要了，谢谢。我会很快好起来的。”
他停顿了一小会儿，好像还在犹豫着什么。随后，他突然拿起帽子，一眼也没看她，径直走出了房间。她听见他穿过院落的脚步声，然后，自己再次陷入了可怕的孤独之中。现在不用憋着了，她尽情地放声大哭起来。
