《灵山》节选（英文版）
《高行健文集》作者：高行健文集 2017-01-10 13:20
作者：高行健
（二）
You return to the bus station and go into the waiting room. The
busiest place in this small town is now deserted. The ticket window
and the parcel window are boarded up from the inside so knocking
is useless. There's nowhere to ask so you can only go through the
lists of stops above the ticket window: Zhang Village, Sandy Flat,
Cement Factory, Old Hut, Golden Horse, Good Harvest, Flood Waters,
Dragon Bay, Peach Blossom Hollow…the names keep getting better,
but the place you want isn't there. This is just a small town but
there are several routes and quite a few buses go through. The busiest
route, with five or six buses a day, is to Cement Factory but that's
definitely not a tourist route. The route with the fewest buses,
one a day, is sure to go to the furthest destination: it turns out
that Wuyizhen is the last stop. There's nothing special about the
name, it's just like any other place name and there's nothing magical
about it. Still, you seem to have found one end of a hopeless tangle,
you may not be ecstatic but you're certainly relieved. You'll need
to buy a ticket in the morning an hour before departure and you
know from experience that with mountain buses like this, which run
once a day, just to get on will be a fight. Unless you're prepared
to do battle, you'll just have to get into the queue early.
But, right now, you've got lots of time, although your backpack's
a nuisance. As you amble along the road timber trucks go by noisily
sounding their horns. In the town the noise is worse still as trucks,
some with trailers, blast on their horns and conductors hang out
of windows loudly banging the sides of the buses to get pedestrians
off the road.
The old buildings on both sides stand flush with the road and
all have wooden shopfronts. The downstairs is for business and upstairs,
washing hung out to dry-nappies, bras, underpants with patched crotches,
floral-print bedspreads -like flags of all the nations, flap in
the noise and dust of the traffic. The concrete telegraph poles
along the street are pasted at eye level with all sorts of posters.
One for curing body odour catches your attention. This is not because
you've got body odour but because of the fancy language and the
words in brackets after "body odour".
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting
condition with an awful, nauseating smell. It often affects social
relationships and can delay life's major event: marriage. It disadvantages
young men and women at job interviews or when they try to enlist,
therefore inflicting much suffering and anguish. By using a new
total treatment, we can instantly eradicate the odour with a rate
of up to 97.53% success. For joy in life and future happiness, we
welcome you to come and rid yourself of it…
After that you come to a stone bridge: no body odour here and
there's a cool, refreshing breeze. The bridge spanning the broad
river has a bitumen surface but the carved monkeys on the worn stone
posts testify to its long history. You lean on the concrete railing
and survey the township alongside the bridge. On both banks, black
roof-tops overlapping like fish-scales stretch endlessly into the
distance. The valley opens out between two mountains where the upper
areas of gold paddy fields are inlaid with clusters of green bamboos.
The river is blue and clear as it leisurely trickles over the sandy
shores but close to the granite pylons dividing the current it becomes
inky green and deep. Just past the hump of the bridge the rushing
water churns loudly and white foam surfaces from whirlpools. The
ten-metre high stone embankment is stained with water levels: the
new greyish-yellow lines were probably left by the recent summer
floods. Can this be the You River? And does it flow down from Lingshan?
The sun is about to set. The bright orange disc is infused with
light but there's no glare. You gaze into the distance at the hazy
layers of jagged peaks where the two sides of the valley join. This
ominous black image nibbl
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（二）
You return to the bus station and go into the waiting room. The
busiest place in this small town is now deserted. The ticket window
and the parcel window are boarded up from the inside so knocking
is useless. There's nowhere to ask so you can only go through the
lists of stops above the ticket window: Zhang Village, Sandy Flat,
Cement Factory, Old Hut, Golden Horse, Good Harvest, Flood Waters,
Dragon Bay, Peach Blossom Hollow…the names keep getting better,
but the place you want isn't there. This is just a small town but
there are several routes and quite a few buses go through. The busiest
route, with five or six buses a day, is to Cement Factory but that's
definitely not a tourist route. The route with the fewest buses,
one a day, is sure to go to the furthest destination: it turns out
that Wuyizhen is the last stop. There's nothing special about the
name, it's just like any other place name and there's nothing magical
about it. Still, you seem to have found one end of a hopeless tangle,
you may not be ecstatic but you're certainly relieved. You'll need
to buy a ticket in the morning an hour before departure and you
know from experience that with mountain buses like this, which run
once a day, just to get on will be a fight. Unless you're prepared
to do battle, you'll just have to get into the queue early.
But, right now, you've got lots of time, although your backpack's
a nuisance. As you amble along the road timber trucks go by noisily
sounding their horns. In the town the noise is worse still as trucks,
some with trailers, blast on their horns and conductors hang out
of windows loudly banging the sides of the buses to get pedestrians
off the road.
The old buildings on both sides stand flush with the road and
all have wooden shopfronts. The downstairs is for business and upstairs,
washing hung out to dry-nappies, bras, underpants with patched crotches,
floral-print bedspreads -like flags of all the nations, flap in
the noise and dust of the traffic. The concrete telegraph poles
along the street are pasted at eye level with all sorts of posters.
One for curing body odour catches your attention. This is not because
you've got body odour but because of the fancy language and the
words in brackets after "body odour".
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting
condition with an awful, nauseating smell. It often affects social
relationships and can delay life's major event: marriage. It disadvantages
young men and women at job interviews or when they try to enlist,
therefore inflicting much suffering and anguish. By using a new
total treatment, we can instantly eradicate the odour with a rate
of up to 97.53% success. For joy in life and future happiness, we
welcome you to come and rid yourself of it…
After that you come to a stone bridge: no body odour here and
there's a cool, refreshing breeze. The bridge spanning the broad
river has a bitumen surface but the carved monkeys on the worn stone
posts testify to its long history. You lean on the concrete railing
and survey the township alongside the bridge. On both banks, black
roof-tops overlapping like fish-scales stretch endlessly into the
distance. The valley opens out between two mountains where the upper
areas of gold paddy fields are inlaid with clusters of green bamboos.
The river is blue and clear as it leisurely trickles over the sandy
shores but close to the granite pylons dividing the current it becomes
inky green and deep. Just past the hump of the bridge the rushing
water churns loudly and white foam surfaces from whirlpools. The
ten-metre high stone embankment is stained with water levels: the
new greyish-yellow lines were probably left by the recent summer
floods. Can this be the You River? And does it flow down from Lingshan?
The sun is about to set. The bright orange disc is infused with
light but there's no glare. You gaze into the distance at the hazy
layers of jagged peaks where the two sides of the valley join. This
ominous black image nibbl