第2章 The Snows of Kilimanjaro 乞力马扎罗的雪
Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai“Ngaje Ngai,”the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
“The marvellous thing is that it's painless,”he said.“That's how you know when it starts.”
“Is it really?”
“Absolutely. I'm awfully sorry about the odor though. That must bother you.”
“Don't! Please don't.”
“Look at them,”he said.“Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that?”
The cot the man lay on was in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out past the shade onto the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds squatted obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick-moving shadows as they passed.
“They've been there since the day the truck broke down,”he said.“Today's the first time any have lit on the ground. I watched the way they sailed very carefully at first in case I ever wanted to use them in a story. That's funny now.”
“I wish you wouldn't,”she said.
“I'm only talking,”he said.“It's much easier if I talk. But I don't want to bother you.”
“You know it doesn't bother me,”she said.“It's that I've gotten so very nervous not being able to do anything. I think we might make it as easy as we can until the plane comes.”
“Or until the plane doesn't come.”
“Please tell me what I can do. There must be something I can do.”
“You can take the leg off and that might stop it, though I doubt it. Or you can shoot me. You're a good shot now. I taught you to shoot, didn't I?”
“Please don't talk that way. Couldn't I read to you?”
“Read what?”
“Anything in the book that we haven't read.”
“I can't listen to it,”he said.“Talking is the easiest. We quarrel and that makes the time pass.”
“I don't quarrel. I never want to quarrel. Let's not quarrel any more. No matter how nervous we get. Maybe they will be back with another truck today. Maybe the plane will come.”
“I don't want to move,”the man said.“There is no sense in moving now except to make it easier for you.”
“That's cowardly.”
“Can't you let a man die as comfortably as he can without calling him names? What's the use of slanging me?”
“You're not going to die.”
“Don't be silly. I'm dying now. Ask those bastards.”He looked over to where the huge, filthy birds sat, their naked heads sunk in the hunched feathers. A fourth planed down, to run quick-legged and then waddle slowly toward the others.
“They are around every camp. You never notice them. You can't die if you don't give up.”
“Where did you read that? You're such a bloody fool.”
“You might think about some one else.”
“For Christ's sake,”he said,“that's been my trade.”
He lay then and was quiet for a while and looked across the heat shimmer of the plain to the edge of the bush. There were a few Tommies that showed minute and white against the yellow and, far off, he saw a herd of zebra, white against the green of the bush. This was a pleasant camp under big trees against a hill, with good water, and close by, a nearly dry water hole where sand grouse6 flighted in the mornings.
“Wouldn't you like me to read?”she asked. She was sitting on a canvas chair beside his cot.“There's a breeze coming up.”
“No thanks.”
“Maybe the truck will come.”
“I don't give a damn about the truck.”
“I do.”
“You give a damn about so many things that I don't.”
“Not so many, Harry.”
“What about a drink?”
“It's supposed to be bad for you. It said in Black's to avoid all alcohol. You shouldn't drink.”
“Molo!”he shouted.
“Yes Bwana.”
“Bring whiskey-soda.”
“Yes Bwana.”
“You shouldn't,”she said.“That's what I mean by giving up. It says it's bad for you. I know it's bad for you.”
“No,”he said.“It's good for me.”
So now it was all over, he thought. So now he would never have a chance to finish it. So this was the way it ended, in a bickering over a drink.
Since the gangrene started in his right leg he had no pain and with the pain the horror had gone and all he felt now was a great tiredness and anger that this was the end of it. For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity. For years it had obsessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. It was strange how easy being tired enough made it.
Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.
“I wish we'd never come,”the woman said. She was looking at him holding the glass and biting her lip.“You never would have gotten anything like this in Paris. You always said you loved Paris. We could have stayed in Paris or gone anywhere. I'd have gone anywhere. I said I'd go anywhere you wanted. If you wanted to shoot we could have gone shooting in Hungary and been comfortable.”
“Your bloody money,”he said.
“That's not fair,”she said.“It was always yours as much as mine. I left everything and I went wherever you wanted to go and I've done what you wanted to do. But I wish we'd never come here.”
“You said you loved it.”
“I did when you were all right. But now I hate it. I don't see why that had to happen to your leg. What have we done to have that happen to us?”
“I suppose what I did was to forget to put iodine on it when I first scratched it. Then I didn't pay any attention to it because I never infect. Then, later, when it got bad, it was probably using that weak carbolic solution when the other antiseptics ran out that paralyzed the minute blood vessels and started the gangrene.”He looked at her,“What else?”
“I don't mean that.”
“If we would have hired a good mechanic instead of a half-baked driver, he would have checked the oil and never burned out that bearing in the truck.”
“I don't mean that.”
“If you hadn't left your own people, your goddamned Old Westbury Saratoga, Palm Beach people to take me on.”
“Why, I loved you. That's not fair. I love you now. I'll always love you. Don't you love me?”
“No,”said the man.“I don't think so. I never have.”
“Harry, what are you saying? You're out of your head.”
“No. I haven't any head to go out of.”
“Don't drink that,”she said.“Darling, please don't drink that. We have to do everything we can.”
“You do it,”he said.“I'm tired.”
Now in his mind he saw a railway station at Karagatch and he was standing with his pack and that was the headlight of the Simplon-Offent cutting the dark now and he was leaving Thrace then after the retreat. That was one of the things he had saved to write, with, in the morning at breakfast, looking out the window and seeing snow on the mountains in Bulgaffa and Nansen's Secretary asking the old man if it were snow and the old man looking at it and saying, No, that's not snow. It's too early for snow. And the Secretary repeating to the other girls, No, you see. It's not snow and them all saying, It's not snow we were mistaken. But it was the snow all right and he sent them on into it when he evolved exchange of populations. And it was snow they tramped along in until they died that winter.
It was snow too that fell all Christmas week that year up in the Gauertal, that year they lived in the woodcutter's house with the big square porcelain stove that filled half the room, and they slept on mattresses filled with beech leaves, the time the deserter came with his feet bloody in the snow. He said the police were right behind him and they gave him woolen socks and held the gendarmes talking until the tracks had drifted over.
In Schrunz, on Christmas day, the snow was so bright it hurt your eyes when you looked out from the Weinstube and saw every one coming home from church. That was where they walked up the sleigh-smoothed urine-yellowed road along the river with the steep pine hills, skis heavy on the shoulder, and where they ran down the glacier above the Madlenerhaus, the snow as smooth to see as cake frosting and as light as powder and he remembered the noiseless rush the speed made as you dropped down like a bird.
They were snow-bound a week in the Madlenerhaus that time in the blizzard playing cards in the smoke by the lantern light and the stakes were higher all the time as Herr Lent lost more. Finally he lost it all. Everything, the Skischule money and all the season's profit and then his capital. He could see him with his long nose, picking up the cards and then opening,“Sans Voir.”
There was always gambling then. When there was no snow you gambled and when there was too much you gambled. He thought of all the time in his life he had spent gambling.
But he had never written a line of that, nor of that cold, bright Christmas day with the mountains showing across the plain that Barker had flown across the lines to bomb the Austrian officers’leave train, machine-gunning them as they scattered and ran. He remembered Barker afterwards coming into the mess and starting to tell about it. And how quiet it got and then somebody saying,‘You bloody murderous bastard.’
Those were the same Austrians they killed then that he skied with later. No not the same. Hans, that he skied with all that year, had been in the Kaiser Jagers and when they went hunting hares together up the little valley above the saw-mill they had talked of the fighting on Pasubio and of the attack on Perticara and Asalone and he had never written a word of that. Nor of Monte Corona, nor the Sette Communi, nor of Arsiero.
How many winters had he lived in the Vorarlberg and the Arlberg? It was four and then he remembered the man who had the fox to sell when they had walked into Bludenz,that time to buy presents, and the cherry-pit taste of good kirsch, the fast-slipping rush of running powder-snow on crust, singing‘Hi! Ho! said Rolly!’as you ran down the last stretch to the steep drop, taking it straight, then running the orchard in three turns and out across the ditch and onto the icy road behind the inn. Knocking your bindings loose, kicking the skis free and leaning them up against the wooden wall of the inn, the lamplight coming from the window, where inside, in the smoky, new-wine smelling warmth, they were playing the accordion.
“Where did we stay in Paris?”he asked the woman who was sitting by him in a canvas chair, now, in Africa.
“At the Crillon. You know that.”
“Why do I know that?”
“That's where we always stayed.”
“No. Not always.”
“There and at the Pavillion Henri-Quatre in St. Germain. You said you loved it there.”
“Love is a dunghill,”said Harry.“And I'm the cock that gets on it to crow.”
“If you have to go away,”she said,“is it absolutely necessary to kill off everything you leave behind? I mean do you have to take away everything? Do you have to kill your horse, and your wife and burn your saddle and your armour?”
“Yes,”he said.“Your damned money was my armour. My Sword and my Armour.”
“Don't.”
“All right. I'll stop that. I don't want to hurt you.”
“It's a little bit late now.”
“All right then. I'll go on hurting you. It's more amusing. The only thing I ever really liked to do with you I can't do now.”
“No, that's not true. You liked to do many things and everything you wanted to do I did.”
“Oh, for Christ sake stop bragging, will you?”
He looked at her and saw her crying.
“Listen,”he said.“Do you think that it is fun to do this? I don't know why I'm doing it. It's trying to kill to keep yourself alive, I imagine. I was all right when we started talking. I didn't mean to start this, and now I'm crazy as a coot and being as cruel to you as I can be. Don't pay any attention, darling, to what I say. I love you, really. You know I love you. I've never loved any one else the way I love you.”
He slipped into the familiar lie he made his bread and butter by.
“You're sweet to me.”
“You bitch,”he said.“You rich bitch. That's poetry. I'm full of poetry now. Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry.”
“Stop it. Harry, why do you have to turn into a devil now?”
“I don't like to leave anything,”the man said.“I don't like to leave things behind.”
It was evening now and he had been asleep. The sun was gone behind the hill and there was a shadow all across the plain and the small animals were feeding close to camp; quick dropping heads and switching tails, he watched them keeping well out away from the bush now. The birds no longer waited on the ground. They were all perched heavily in a tree. There were many more of them. His personal boy was sitting by the bed.
“Memsahib's gone to shoot,”the boy said.“Does Bwana want?”
“Nothing.”
She had gone to kill a piece of meat and, knowing how he liked to watch the game, she had gone well away so she would not disturb this little pocket of the plain that he could see. She was always thoughtful, he thought. On anything she knew about, or had read, or that she had ever heard.
It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over. How could a woman know that you meant nothing that you said; that you spoke only from habit and to be comfortable? After he no longer meant what he said, his lies were more successful with women than when he had told them the truth.
It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. He had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones.
You kept from thinking and it was all marvellous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.
She had liked it. She said she loved it. She loved anything that was exciting, that involved a change of scene, where there were new people and where things were pleasant. And he had felt the illusion of returning strength of will to work. Now if this was how it ended, and he knew it was, he must not turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken. It wasn't this woman's fault. If it had not been she it would have been another. If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it. He heard a shot beyond the hill.
She shot very well this good, this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent. Nonsense. He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook. What was this? A catalogue of old books? What was his talent anyway? It was a talent all right but instead of using it, he had traded on it. It was never what he had done, but always what he could do. And he had chosen to make his living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil. It was strange, too, wasn't it, that when he fell in love with another woman, that woman should always have more money than the last one? But when he no longer was in love, when he was only lying, as to this woman, now, who had the most money of all, who had all the money there was, who had had a husband and children, who had taken lovers and been dissatisfied with them, and who loved him dearly as a writer, as a man, as a companion and as a proud possession; it was strange that when he did not love her at all and was lying, that he should be able to give her more for her money than when he had really loved.
We must all be cut out for what we do, he thought. However you make your living is where your talent lies. He had sold vitality, in one form or another, all his life and when your affections are not too involved you give much better value for the money. He had found that out but he would never write that, now, either. No, he would not write that, although it was well worth writing.
Now she came in sight, walking across the open toward the camp. She was wearing jodhpurs and carrying her rifle. The two boys had a Tommie slung and they were coming along behind her. She was still a good-looking woman, he thought, and she had a pleasant body. She had a great talent and appreciation for the bed, she was not pretty, but he liked her face, she read enormously, liked to ride and shoot and, certainly, she drank too much. Her husband had died when she was still a comparatively young woman and for a while she had devoted herself to her two just-grown children, who did not need her and were embarrassed at having her about, to her stable of horses, to books, and to bottles. She liked to read in the evening before dinner and she drank Scotch and soda while she read. By dinner she was fairly drunk and after a bottle of wine at dinner she was usually drunk enough to sleep.
That was before the lovers. After she had the lovers she did not drink so much because she did not have to be drunk to sleep. But the lovers bored her. She had been married to a man who had never bored her and these people bored her very much.
Then one of her two children was killed in a plane crash and after that was over she did not want the lovers, and drink being no anaesthetic she had to make another life. Suddenly, she had been acutely frightened of being alone. But she wanted some one that she respected with her.
It had begun very simply. She liked what he wrote and she had always envied the life he led. She thought he did exactly what he wanted to. The steps by which she had acquired him and the way in which she had finally fallen in love with him were all part of a regular progression in which she had built herself a new life and he had traded away what remained of his old life.
He had traded it for security, for comfort too, there was no denying that, and for what else? He did not know. She would have bought him anything he wanted. He knew that. She was a damned nice woman too. He would as soon be in bed with her as any one;rather with her, because she was richer, because she was very pleasant and appreciative and because she never made scenes. And now this life that she had built again was coming to a term because he had not used iodine two weeks ago when a thorn had scratched his knee as they moved forward trying to photograph a herd of waterbuck standing, their heads up, peering while their nostrils searched the air, their ears spread wide to hear the first noise that would send them rushing into the bush. They had bolted, too, before he got the picture.
Here she came now. He turned his head on the cot to look toward her.“Hello,”he said.
“I shot a Tommy ram,”she told him.“He'll make you good broth and I'll have them mash some potatoes with the Klim. How do you feel?”
“Much better.”
“Isn't that lovely? You know I thought perhaps you would. You were sleeping when I left.”
“I had a good sleep. Did you walk far?”
“No. Just around behind the hill. I made quite a good shot on the Tommy.”
“You shoot marvellously, you know.”
“I love it. I've loved Africa. Really. If you're all right it's the most fun that I've ever had. You don't know the fun it's been to shoot with you. I've loved the country.”
“I love it too.”
“Darling, you don't know how marvellous it is to see you feeling better. I couldn't stand it when you felt that way. You won't talk to me like that again, will you? Promise me?”
“No,”he said.“I don't remember what I said.”
“You don't have to destroy me. Do you? I'm only a middle-aged woman who loves you and wants to do what you want to do. I've been destroyed two or three times already. You wouldn't want to destroy me again, would you?”
“I'd like to destroy you a few times in bed,”he said.
“Yes. That's the good destruction. That's the way we're made to be destroyed. The plane will be here tomorrow.”
“How do you know?”
“I'm sure. It's bound to come. The boys have the wood all ready and the grass to make the smudge. I went down and looked at it again today. There's plenty of room to land and we have the smudges ready at both ends.”
“What makes you think it will come tomorrow?”
“I'm sure it will. It's overdue now. Then, in town, they will fix up your leg and then we will have some good destruction. Not that dreadful talking kind.”
“Should we have a drink? The sun is down.”
“Do you think you should?”
“I'm having one.”
“We'll have one together. Molo, letti dui whiskey-soda!”she called.
“You'd better put on your mosquito boots,”he told her.
“I'll wait till I bathe…”
While it grew dark they drank and just before it was dark and there was no longer enough light to shoot, a hyena crossed the open on his way around the hill.
“That bastard crosses there every night,”the man said.“Every night for two weeks.”
“He's the one makes the noise at night. I don't mind it. They're a filthy animal though.”
Drinking together, with no pain now except the discomfort of lying in the one position, the boys lighting a fire, its shadow jumping on the tents, he could feel the return of acquiescence in this life of pleasant surrender. She was very good to him. He had been cruel and unjust in the afternoon. She was a fine woman, marvellous really. And just then it occurred to him that he was going to die.
It came with a rush; not as a rush of water nor of wind; but of a sudden, evil-smelling emptiness and the odd thing was that the hyena slipped lightly along the edge of it.
“What is it, Harry?”she asked him.
“Nothing,”he said.“You had better move over to the other side. To windward.”
“Did Molo change the dressing?”
“Yes. I'm just using the boric now.”
“How do you feel?”
“A little wobbly.”
“I'm going in to bathe,”she said.“I'll be right out. I'll eat with you and then we'll put the cot in.”
So, he said to himself, we did well to stop the quarrelling. He had never quarrelled much with this woman, while with the women that he loved he had quarrelled so much they had finally, always, with the corrosion of the quarrelling, killed what they had together. He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.
He thought about alone in Constantinople that time, having quarrelled in Paris before he had gone out. He had whored the whole time and then, when that was over, and he had failed to kill his loneliness, but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it… How when he thought he saw her outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman who looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. How every one he had slept with had only made him miss her more. How what she had done could never matter since he knew he could not cure himself of loving her. He wrote this letter at the Club, cold sober, and mailed it to New York asking her to write him at the office in Paris. That seemed safe. And that night missing her so much it made him feel hollow sick inside, he wandered up past Maxim's, picked a girl up and took her out to supper. He had gone to a place to dance with her afterward, she danced badly, and left her for a hot Armenian slut, that swung her belly against him so it almost scalded. He took her away from a British gunner subaltern after a row. The gunner asked him outside and they fought in the street on the cobbles in the dark. He'd hit him twice, hard, on the side of the jaw and when he didn't go down he knew he was in for a fight. The gunner hit him in the body, then beside his eye. He swung with his left again and landed and the gunner fell on him and grabbed his coat and tore the sleeve off and he clubbed him twice behind the ear and then smashed him with his right as he pushed him away. When the gunner went down his head hit first and he ran with the girl because they heard the M.P.'s coming. They got into a taxi and drove out to Rimmily Hissa along the Bosphorus, and around, and back in the cool night and went to bed and she felt as over-ripe as she looked but smooth, rose-petal, syrupy, smooth-bellied, big-breasted and needed no pillow under her buttocks, and he left her before she was awake looking blousy enough in the first daylight and turned up at the Pera Palace with a black eye, carrying his coat because one sleeve was missing.
That same night he left for Anatolia and he remembered, later on that trip, riding all day through fields of the poppies that they raised for opium and how strange it made you feel, finally, and all the distances seemed wrong, to where they had made the attack with the newly arrived Constantine officers, that did not know a goddamned thing, and the artillery had fired into the troops and the British observer had cried like a child.
That was the day he'd first seen dead men wearing white ballet skirts and upturned shoes with pompons on them. The Turks had come steadily and lumpily and he had seen the skirted men running and the officers shooting into them and running then themselves and he and the British observer had run too until his lungs ached and his mouth was full of the taste of pennies and they stopped behind some rocks and there were the Turks coming as lumpily as ever. Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse. So when he got back to Paris that time he could not talk about it or stand to have it mentioned. And there in the café as he passed was that American poet with a pile of saucers in front of him and a stupid look on his potato face talking about the Dada movement with a Roumanian who said his name was Tristan Tzara, who always wore a monocle and had a headache, and, back at the apartment with his wife that now he loved again, the quarrel all over, the madness all over, glad to be home, the office sent his mail up to the flat. So then the letter in answer to the one he'd written came in on a platter one morning and when he saw the hand writing he went cold all over and tried to slip the letter underneath another. But his wife said,‘Who is that letter from, dear?’and that was the end of the beginning of that.
He remembered the good times with them all, and the quarrels. They always picked the finest places to have the quarrels. And why had they always quarrelled when he was feeling best? He had never written any of that because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.
“How do you feel?”she said. She had come out from the tent now after her bath.
“All right.”
“Could you eat now?”He saw Molo behind her with the folding table and the other boy with the dishes.
“I want to write,”he said.
“You ought to take some broth to keep your strength up.”
“I'm going to die tonight,”he said.“I don't need my strength up.”
“Don't be melodramatic, Harry, please,”she said.
“Why don't you use your nose? I'm rotted half way up my thigh now. What the hell should I fool with broth for? Molo bring whiskey-soda.”
“Please take the broth,”she said gently.
“All right.”
The broth was too hot. He had to hold it in the cup until it cooled enough to take it and then he just got it down without gagging.
“You're a fine woman,”he said.“Don't pay any attention to me.”
She looked at him with her well-known, well-loved face from Spur and Town &Country, only a little the worse for drink, only a little the worse for bed, but Town &Country never showed those good breasts and those useful thighs and those lightly small-of-back-caressing hands, and as he looked and saw her well-known pleasant smile, he felt death come again. This time there was no rush. It was a puff, as of a wind that makes a candle flicker and the flame go tall.
“They can bring my net out later and hang it from the tree and build the fire up. I'm not going in the tent tonight. It's not worth moving. It's a clear night. There won't be any rain.”
So this was how you died, in whispers that you did not hear. Well, there would be no more quarrelling. He could promise that. The one experience that he had never had he was not going to spoil now. He probably would. You spoiled everything. But perhaps he wouldn't.
“You can't take dictation, can you?”
“I never learned,”she told him.
“That's all right.”
There wasn't time, of course, although it seemed as though it telescoped so that you might put it all into one paragraph if you could get it right.
There was a log house, chinked white with mortar, on a hill above the lake. There was a bell on a pole by the door to call the people in to meals. Behind the house were fields and behind the fields was the timber. A line of lombardy poplars ran from the house to the dock. Other poplars ran along the point. A road went up to the hills along the edge of the timber and along that road he picked blackberries. Then that log house was burned down and all the guns that had been on deer foot racks above the open fire place were burned and afterwards their barrels, with the lead melted in the magazines, and the stocks burned away, lay out on the heap of ashes that were used to make lye for the big iron soap kettles, and you asked Grandfather if you could have them to play with, and he said, no. You see they were his guns still and he never bought any others. Nor did he hunt any more. The house was rebuilt in the same place out of lumber now and painted white and from its porch you saw the poplars and the lake beyond; but there were never any more guns. The barrels of the guns that had hung on the deer feet on the wall of the log house lay out there on the heap of ashes and no one ever touched them.
In the Black Forest, after the war, we rented a trout stream and there were two ways to walk to it. One was down the valley from Triberg and around the valley road in the shade of the trees that bordered the white road, and then up a side road that went up through the hills past many small farms, with the big Schwarzwald houses, until that road crossed the stream. That was where our fishing began.
The other way was to climb steeply up to the edge of the woods and then go across the top of the hills through the pine woods, and then out to the edge of a meadow and down across this meadow to the bridge. There were birches along the stream and it was not big, but narrow, clear and fast, with pools where it had cut under the roots of the birches.
At the Hotel in Triberg the proprietor had a fine season. It was very pleasant and we were all great friends. The next year came the inflation and the money he had made the year before was not enough to buy supplies to open the hotel and he hanged himself.
You could dictate that, but you could not dictate the Place Contrescarpe where the flower sellers dyed their flowers in the street and the dye ran over the paving where the autobus started and the old men and the women, always drunk on wine and bad marc;and the children with their noses running in the cold; the smell of dirty sweat and poverty and drunkenness at the Café’des Amateurs and the whores at the Bal Musette they lived above. The concierge who entertained the trooper of the Garde Republicaine in her loge, his horse-hair-plumed helmet on a chair. The locataire across the hall whose husband was a bicycle racer and her joy that morning at the cremerie when she had opened L'Auto and seen where he placed third in Paris-Tours, his first big race. She had blushed and laughed and then gone upstairs crying with the yellow sporting paper in her hand. The husband of the woman who ran the Bal Musette drove a taxi and when he, Harry, had to take an early plane the husband knocked upon the door to wake him and they each drank a glass of white wine at the zinc of the bar before they started. He knew his neighbors in that quarter then because they all were poor.
Around that Place there were two kinds; the drunkards and the sportifs. The drunkards killed their poverty that way; the sportifs took it out in exercise. They were the descendants of the Communards and it was no struggle for them to know their politics. They knew who had shot their fathers, their relatives, their brothers, and their friends when the Versailles troops came in and took the town after the Commune and executed any one they could catch with calloused hands, or who wore a cap, or carried any other sign he was a working man. And in that poverty, and in that quarter across the street from a Boucherie Chevaline and a wine cooperative he had written the start of all he was to do. There never was another part of Paris that he loved like that, the sprawling trees, the old white plastered houses painted brown below, the long green of the autobus in that round square, the purple flower dye upon the paving, the sudden drop down the hill of the rue Cardinal Lemoine to the River, and the other way the narrow crowded world of the rue Mouffetard. The street that ran up toward the Pantheon and the other that he always took with the bicycle, the only asphalted street in all that quarter, smooth under the tires, with the high narrow houses and the cheap tall hotel where Paul Verlaine had died. There were only two rooms in the apartments where they lived and he had a room on the top floor of that hotel that cost him sixty francs a month where he did his writing, and from it he could see the roofs and chimney pots and all the hills of Paris.
From the apartment you could only see the wood and coal man's place. He sold wine too, bad wine. The golden horse's head outside the Boucherie Chevaline where the carcasses hung yellow gold and red in the open window, and the green painted cooperative where they bought their wine; good wine and cheap. The rest was plaster walls and the windows of the neighbors. The neighbors who, at night, when some one lay drunk in the street, moaning and groaning in that typical French ivresse that you were propaganded to believe did not exist, would open their windows and then the murmur of talk.
“Where is the policeman? When you don't want him the bugger is always there. He's sleeping with some concierge. Get the Agent.”Till some one threw a bucket of water from a window and the moaning stopped.“What's that? Water. Ah, that's intelligent.”
And the windows shutting. Marie, his femme de ménage, protesting against the eight-hour day saying,‘If a husband works until six he gets only a little drunk on the way home and does not waste too much. If he works only until five he is drunk every night and one has no money. It is the wife of the working man who suffers from this shortening of hours.’
“Wouldn't you like some more broth?”the woman asked him now.
“No, thank you very much. It is awfully good.”
“Try just a little.”
“I would like a whiskey-soda.”
“It's not good for you.”
“No. It's bad for me. Cole Porter wrote the words and the music. This knowledge that you're going mad for me.”
“You know I like you to drink.”
“Oh yes. Only it's bad for me.”
When she goes, he thought, I'll have all I want. Not all I want but all there is. Ayee he was tired. Too tired. He was going to sleep a little while. He lay still and death was not there. It must have gone around another street. It went in pairs, on bicycles, and moved absolutely silently on the pavements.
No, he had never written about Paris. Not the Paris that he cared about. But what about the rest that he had never written?
What about the ranch and the silvered gray of the sage brush, the quick, clear water in the irrigation ditches, and the heavy green of the alfalfa. The trail went up into the hills and the cattle in the summer were shy as deer.
The bawling and the steady noise and slow moving mass raising a dust as you brought them down in the fall. And behind the mountains, the clear sharpness of the peak in the evening light and, riding down along the trail in the moonlight, bright across the valley. Now he remembered coming down through the timber in the dark holding the horse's tail when you could not see and all the stories that he meant to write.
About the half-wit chore boy who was left at the ranch that time and told not to let any one get any hay, and that old bastard from the Forks who had beaten the boy when he had worked for him stopping to get some feed. The boy refusing and the old man saying he would beat him again. The boy got the rifle from the kitchen and shot him when he tried to come into the barn and when they came back to the ranch he'd been dead a week, frozen in the corral, and the dogs had eaten part of him. But what was left you packed on a sled wrapped in a blanket and roped on and you got the boy to help you haul it, and the two of you took it out over the road on skis, and sixty miles down to town to turn the boy over. He having no idea that he would be arrested. Thinking he had done his duty and that you were his friend and he would be rewarded. He'd helped to haul the old man in so everybody could know how bad the old man had been and how he'd tried to steal some feed that didn't belong to him, and when the sheriff put the handcuffs on the boy he couldn't believe it. Then he'd started to cry. That was one story he had saved to write. He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?
“You tell them why,”he said.
“Why what, dear?”
“Why nothing.”
She didn't drink so much, now, since she had him. But if he lived he would never write about her, he knew that now. Nor about any of them. The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Julian and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began,“The very rich are different from you and me.”And how some one had said to Julian, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Julian.
He thought they were a special glamourous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him.
He had been contemptuous of those who wrecked. You did not have to like it because you understood it. He could beat anything, he thought, because no thing could hurt him if he did not care.
All right. Now he would not care for death. One thing he had always dreaded was the pain. He could stand pain as well as any man, until it went on too long, and wore him out, but here he had something that had hurt frightfully and just when he had felt it breaking him, the pain had stopped.
He remembered long ago when Williamson, the bombing officer, had been hit by a stick bomb some one in a German patrol had thrown as he was coming in through the wire that night and, screaming, had begged every one to kill him. He was a fat man, very brave, and a good officer, although addicted to fantastic shows. But that night he was caught in the wire, with a flare lighting him up and his bowels spilled out into the wire, so when they brought him in, alive, they had to cut him loose. Shoot me, Harry. For Christ sake shoot me. They had had an argument one time about our Lord never sending you anything you could not bear and some one's theory had been that meant that at a certain time the pain passed you out automatically. But he had always remembered Williamson, that night. Nothing passed out Williamson until he gave him all his morphine tablets that he had always saved to use himself and then they did not work right away.
Still this now, that he had, was very easy; and if it was no worse as it went on there was nothing to worry about. Except that he would rather be in better company.
He thought a little about the company that he would like to have.
No, he thought, when everything you do, you do too long, and do too late, you can't expect to find the people still there. The people all are gone. The party's over and you are with your hostess now.
I'm getting as bored with dying as with everything else, he thought.
“It's a bore,”he said out loud.
“What is, my dear?”
“Anything you do too bloody long.”
He looked at her face between him and the fire. She was leaning back in the chair and the firelight shone on her pleasantly lined face and he could see that she was sleepy. He heard the hyena make a noise just outside the range of the fire.
“I've been writing,”he said.“But I got tired.”
“Do you think you will be able to sleep?”
“Pretty sure. Why don't you turn in?”
“I like to sit here with you.”
“Do you feel anything strange?”he asked her.
“No. Just a little sleepy.”
“I do,”he said.
He had just felt death come by again.
“You know the only thing I've never lost is curiosity,”he said to her.
“You've never lost anything. You're the most complete man I've ever known.”
“Christ,”he said.“How little a woman knows. What is that? Your intuition?”
Because, just then, death had come and rested its head on the foot of the cot and he could smell its breath.
“Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull,”he told her.“It can be two bicycle policemen as easily, or be a bird. Or it can have a wide snout like a hyena.”
It had moved up on him now, but it had no shape any more. It simply occupied space.
“Tell it to go away.”
It did not go away but moved a little closer.
“You've got a hell of a breath,”he told it.“You stinking bastard.”
It moved up closer to him still and now he could not speak to it, and when it saw he could not speak it came a little closer, and now he tried to send it away without speaking, but it moved in on him so its weight was all upon his chest, and while it crouched there and he could not move or speak, he heard the woman say,“Bwana is asleep now. Take the cot up very gently and carry it into the tent.”
He could not speak to tell her to make it go away and it crouched now, heavier, so he could not breathe. And then, while they lifted the cot, suddenly it was all right and the weight went from his chest.
It was morning and had been morning for some time and he heard the plane. It showed very tiny and then made a wide circle and the boys ran out and lit the fires, using kerosene, and piled on grass so there were two big smudges at each end of the level place and the morning breeze blew them toward the camp and the plane circled twice more, low this time, and then glided down and levelled off and landed smoothly and, coming walking toward him, was old Compton in slacks, a tweed jacket and a brown felt hat.
“What's the matter, old cock?”Compton said.
“Bad leg,”he told him.“Will you have some breakfast?”
“Thanks. I'll just have some tea. It's the Puss Moth you know. I won't be able to take the Memsahib. There's only room for one. Your lorry is on the way.”
Helen had taken Compton aside and was speaking to him. Compton came back more cheery than ever.
“We'll get you right in,”he said.“I'll be back for the Mem. Now I'm afraid I'll have to stop at Arusha to refuel. We'd better get going.”
“What about the tea?”
“I don't really care about it, you know.”
The boys had picked up the cot and carried it around the green tents and down along the rock and out onto the plain and along past the smudges that were burning brightly now,the grass all consumed, and the wind fanning the fire, to the little plane. It was difficult getting him in, but once in he lay back in the leather seat, and the leg was stuck straight out to one side of the seat where Compton sat. Compton started the motor and got in. He waved to Helen and to the boys and, as the clatter moved into the old familiar roar, they swung around with Compie watching for warthog holes and roared, bumping, along the stretch between the fires and with the last bump rose and he saw them all standing below, waving, and the camp beside the hill, flattening now, and the plain spreading, clumps of trees, and the bush flattening, while the game trails ran now smoothly to the dry waterholes, and there was a new water that he had never known of. The zebra, small rounded backs now, and the wildebeeste, big-headed dots seeming to climb as they moved in long fingers across the plain, now scattering as the shadow came toward them, they were tiny now, and the movement had no gallop, and the plain as far as you could see, gray-yellow now and ahead old Compie's tweed back and the brown felt hat. Then they were over the first hills and the wildebeeste were trailing up them, and then they were over mountains with sudden depths of green-rising forest and the solid bamboo slopes, and then the heavy forest again, sculptured into peaks and hollows until they crossed, and hills sloped down and then another plain, hot now, and purple brown, bumpy with heat and Compie looking back to see how he was riding. Then there were other mountains dark ahead.
And then instead of going on to Arusha they turned left, he evidently figured that they had the gas, and looking down he saw a pink sifting cloud, moving over the ground, and in the air, like the first snow in a blizzard, that comes from nowhere, and he knew the locusts were coming, up from the South. Then they began to climb and they were going to the East it seemed, and then it darkened and they were in a storm, the rain so thick it seemed like flying through a waterfall, and then they were out and Compie turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro. And then he knew that there was where he was going.
Just then the hyena stopped whimpering in the night and started to make a strange, human, almost crying sound. The woman heard it and, stirred uneasily. She did not wake. In her dream she was at the house on Long Island and it was the night before her daughter's debut. Somehow her father was there and he had been very rude. Then the noise the hyena made was so loud she woke and for a moment she did not know where she was and she was very afraid. Then she took the flashlight and shone it on the other cot that they had carried in after Harry had gone to sleep. She could see his bulk under the mosquito bar but somehow he had gotten his leg out and it hung down alongside the cot. The dressings had all come down and she could not look at it.
“Molo,”she called,“Molo! Molo!”
Then she said,“Harry, Harry!”Then her voice rising,“Harry! Please. Oh Harry!”
There was no answer and she could not hear him breathing.
Outside the tent the hyena made the same strange noise that had awakened her. But she did not hear him for the beating of her heart.
乞力马扎罗是一座常年积雪的高山，海拔19710英尺，据说也是非洲最高的山。它的西高峰名叫马赛人[8]的“鄂阿奇-鄂阿伊”，有“上帝的殿堂”之意。在其近旁，有一具被风干冻僵的豹子尸体。这头豹子为什么会跑到这高寒地带来，没人说得清。
“奇怪的是，伤口竟一点儿也不痛，”他说，“你知道，一开始就是这样。”
“真的吗？”
“的确是真的。但我感到很抱歉，这股气味儿让你受不了吧？”
“别这么说，请你千万别这么说。”
“你看那些鸟，”他说，“是因为这儿的风景，还是因为我这股气味儿吸引了它们？”
在一棵合欢树的浓荫下，男人躺在帆布床上。他的目光越过树荫，投向那片阳光刺目的平原，正有三只硕大的鸟讨厌地蜷伏在那儿，空中还有十几只在展翅盘旋，当它们掠过的时候，投下了飞速移动的影子。
“自打这卡车抛了锚，它们就一直在那儿转悠了，”他说，“今天，它们第一次落到地面。一开始我还很认真地观察过它们飞的动作，想着哪一天我要是写短篇小说，兴许能用得上。现在想起来真是可笑。”
“我希望你别写这个。”她说。
“我就是说说而已，”他说，“只要说着话儿，我就会觉得轻松许多。但我也不想让你觉得心烦。”
“这不会让我心烦的，你知道，”她说，“我是因为没帮什么忙，才这么焦躁。在飞机到来之前，我想我们不妨尽可能放松点儿。”
“或者一直等到根本看不见飞机影子的时候。”
“告诉我该做些什么，总会有些事是我能做的吧。”
“你可以将我这条腿锯下来，这样就不会让它蔓延了，但我怀疑这样也不成。或者你可以把我打死，你现在算是个好射手啦。我教过你打枪的，对不对？”
“求求你别这么说了，我能否给你读点什么？”
“有什么可读的呢？”
“我们书包里的，不管是哪本书，只要没读过的都行。”
“可是我已经听不进去了，”他说，“还是谈话最轻松。我们来吵架吧，吵吵架时间会过得快些。”
“不，我从来就不想吵。我们再也不要吵了，甭管心里有多烦躁。没准今天他们就会坐另外的卡车回来，也说不准飞机会来。”
“我不想动弹，”男人说，“现在转移已没有什么意义了，除非这能让你心里好受些。”
“这是懦弱的表现。”
“你就不能让一个男人尽量死得轻松些，非把他痛骂一顿才舒服啊？你羞辱我又有什么用？”
“你不会死。”
“别天真了，现在就快了，不信你问问那些杂种。”他望向那三只讨厌的大鸟，它们的秃头缩进了耸起的羽毛里。第四只滑翔而下，飞奔几步，随后蹒跚着缓步移向那几只。
“每个营地都能看到这些鸟，只是你从来没注意过。你只要不自暴自弃就不会死。”
“你这是从哪儿读来的？你个大傻瓜！”
“你不妨想想还有别的人。”
“看在上帝的份上，”他说，“这一向是我的老本行。”
静静躺了片刻后，他的目光越过那片灼热而刺目的平原，眺望灌木丛边缘。在土黄的平原上有几只野羊，显得又小又白。远处的一群斑马，在葱绿的灌木丛的映衬下，白花花的一片。这是个不错的营地，大树好遮阴，山背有洌泉。附近有个几近干涸的水穴，每个清晨，沙松鸡就在此盘旋。
“要不要我给你读点什么？”她问。此刻，她正坐在帆布床边的一张帆布椅上，“吹来了一阵微风。”
“不，谢谢你。”
“没准卡车会来的。”
“我才不在乎什么卡车来不来。”
“可我在乎。”
“你在乎的多着呢，我可不在乎。”
“并不是很多，哈里。”
“来点酒，怎么样？”
“饮酒对你有害。布莱克出版的书里说，一滴酒也不能沾，你不应该喝酒。”
“莫洛！”他唤道。
“是，先生。”
“把威士忌苏打拿过来！”
“是，先生。”
“你不应该喝酒，”她说，“我说你自暴自弃，就是说这个呢。书上说酒对你有害，我就知道酒对你不好。”
“不，”他说，“酒对我有好处。”
现在一切就这样结束了，他想，他再没有机会来终结这一切了。所有的一切，就这样在为喝一杯酒这种琐事的争吵里终结了。
自打他的右腿生了坏疽，他就不觉得痛了。随着疼痛感的消失，恐惧感也没了，他现在只感到一股强烈的厌倦和愤怒：结局居然是这样！至于这结局现在正在降临，他倒并不感到奇怪。多少年来它一直纠缠着他，但现在这结局本身并不能说明什么。真是奇怪，要是你厌倦够了，就能如此轻而易举地得到这一结局。
现在，他再也不能把原先打算留到以后写作的题材写出来了，他原本想等到自己有足够认识之后再动笔，这样就能写得更好些。嗯，他也不会在尝试写这些东西时遭遇失败了。或许你已经没机会把它们写出来了，这就是你迟迟未动笔的原因。算了，现在，他永远不会知道了。
“我希望我们根本没来这儿。”女人说。她咬着嘴唇，盯着他手里举着的酒杯。“要是在巴黎，你根本不会出这事儿。你总是说喜欢巴黎，我们原本可以待在巴黎，或者到别的地方去，无论去哪儿我都愿意。我说过的，你到哪儿我都愿意去。要是想打猎，我们本来可以到匈牙利，并且会很舒服。”
“你有的是该死的钱。”他说。
“这么说不公平，”她说，“那一直是你的，就跟是我的没区别。我抛下一切，无论上哪儿，只要是你想去的我都会去，你想做什么我就做什么，但我真希望我们根本没来这儿。”
“你喜欢这儿，你说过的。”
“是，我是说过，可那时候你平安无恙。现在我恨透这儿了。我真不明白干吗非让你的腿出事儿。我们到底做了什么，非要让我们遇到这样的事。”
“我想我做的就是：一开始把腿擦破了，忘了抹碘酒，随后又没去留意它，因为我从不会被感染。后来等它变得严重起来，别的抗菌药剂恰好都用完了，也许就因为用了药性很弱的苯酚溶液，把微血管麻痹了，所以生了坏疽。”他看着她：“除了这些，还能有什么呢？”
“我指的不是这个。”
“要是我们雇了个好点儿的技工，而不是那个半吊子的基库尤人[9]司机，那么或许他就会检查机油，而不至于烧毁卡车的轴承。”
“也不是这个。”
“假如你没有离开那些自己人——你那些个该死的威斯特伯里、萨拉托加和棕榈滩[10]的老相好——而偏和我在一起的话——”
“不，我是爱上了你。你这么说不公平，我现在也是爱你的，我永远爱你，你爱我吗？”
“不，”男人说，“我不这样想，我也从来没这样想过。”
“你在说什么鬼话，哈里？昏了头了！”
“我没有，我已经没有头可发昏了。”
“别喝酒了，”她说，“亲爱的，求求你别喝了。只要我们能办到，我们就得尽力去做。”
“你去折腾吧，”他说，“我可是累了。”
在他的脑海中，他正看到卡拉加奇[11]的一座火车站，背着背包的他站在那里。现在，辛普伦-奥连特列车的前灯刺破了黑暗，当时在撤退后，他正准备离开色雷斯[12]。这是他准备留待以后写作的一段情景。此外还有这段情节：早上吃早餐时，眺望着窗外保加利亚群山的积雪，南森的女秘书问那老头儿：山上是不是雪？老头儿望望窗外说：不，那不是雪。现在还不是下雪的时候呢。于是，那女秘书把老头儿的话讲给其他几个姑娘听。不，你们看，那不是雪。她们都说，那不是雪，我们都看错了。可等到他提出要交换居民，将她们送往山里的时候，那年冬天她们脚下缓缓踩着前进的正是绵绵积雪，直到她们死去。
那年圣诞节，在高厄塔耳山，雪整整下了一个星期。那年他们住在伐木工的屋子里，那口正方形大瓷灶就占满了半间屋。他们在装着山毛榉叶子的垫子上睡着，这时那个逃兵撞进屋来，一双脚在雪地上冻得鲜血直流。他说宪兵在他后面紧追着，于是他们给他穿上羊毛袜子，并缠住追来的宪兵，跟他们闲扯，直到雪花掩盖了逃兵留下的脚印。
在希伦兹，圣诞节那天，雪是如此晶莹闪亮，如果你从酒吧间向外面望去，眼睛会被刺得生疼，你会看到每个人都从教堂出来回到自己家里。他们背着笨重的滑雪板，就是从那里走上覆盖着松林的陡峭群山旁的那条已被雪橇磨光滑的、尿黄色的河滨大路的。他们那次滑雪，就是从那里一直滑到“梅德纳尔之家”上面的那座冰川的大斜坡的。那雪看起来平滑得好像蛋糕上的糖霜，轻柔得如同粉末一般。他记得那回悄然无声的滑行，那速度，好似一只飞鸟从天而降。
在“梅德纳尔之家”，他们被大雪滞留了一周时间。在暴风雪期间，他们紧挨着灯光，在弥漫的烟雾中玩牌。伦特先生输得越多，跟着下的赌注越大，最后输得身无分文。他把所有东西都输掉了，滑雪学校的钱和那一季的收入也都输掉了，资金也输掉了。他能看见伦特先生那长长的鼻子，拾起牌，随后翻开牌来，说：“不看。”
那个时候总在赌博。天不下雪，赌；雪下得太大，还是赌。他想起这一生在赌博里消磨掉的时光。
但是有关这些，他连一个字都没有写过，也没有些那个寒冷刺骨却异常晴朗的圣诞节。那天平原尽头显露出群山，加德纳飞越过防线去轰炸火车，那列车运载着去休假的奥地利军官。当军官们四散奔跑之时，他用机枪猛扫他们。他记得，后来加德纳走进食堂开始说起这事。听完了他的讲述，全场鸦雀无声，有个人突然说：“你是个该死的刽子手！”
这件事，他也一个字没写。被他们射杀的那些奥地利人，就是前不久还和他一块儿滑雪的奥地利人。不，不是那些人。汉斯，那整整一年都和他一块儿滑雪的奥地利人，一直都住在“国王-猎人”客店。他们一同去那家锯木厂上面的那座小山谷去打兔子时，还聊起那次在帕苏比奥[13]的战役以及向波蒂卡和阿萨洛纳的进攻。这些他也一个字都没写。有关孟特科尔诺、西特科蒙姆、阿尔西陀的，他也一个字没写。
福拉尔贝格[14]和阿尔贝格[15]，他在那儿住过几冬？度过四个冬季，由此他想起那位卖狐狸的人。他们当时在布卢登茨[16]，为了买礼物。他记得那香醇的樱桃酒，有股特别的樱桃核味儿；记得在结了冰的如同粉般光滑的雪地上快速滑行，你一边唱“嗨！嚯！罗利说——”，一边滑过最后的一道坡，朝着那险峻的陡坡笔直地飞冲下去，转过三道弯滑进果园，穿过果园，越过那道渠沟，便登上了客店背后那条光滑的大道。你弄松缚带，将它们踢下滑雪板，放到客店外部的木墙上。窗子里透出灯光，在烟雾缭绕、冒着新醅酒香的温暖中，屋子里的人们正拉着手风琴。
“在巴黎的时候，我们住在哪儿？”他问女人，女人正坐在他身旁的帆布椅上。现在，是在非洲。
“在克里昂，你是知道的。”
“为什么我知道？”
“我们一直都住在那儿。”
“不，并不是一直都住那儿。”
“我们在那儿住过的，也曾住过圣日耳曼区的亨利四世大楼。你说你爱那个地方。”
“爱是一堆大粪，”哈里说，“我就是那只爬在粪堆上喔喔叫的公鸡。”
“如果你这次真的撑不住的话，”她说，“是不是非要把没法带走的都赶尽杀绝才痛快？我的意思是，你是不是非把所有东西都带走不可？你是不是非得把你的马、你的老婆都杀死，把马鞍和盔甲都烧掉才安心？”
“没错，”他说，“你的那些该死的钱就是我的马和盔甲。”
“你不要这么说。”
“好吧，我不说，我也不想伤害你的感情。”
“到现在说这个，已经有点儿晚了！”
“那好，我就继续伤害吧，这样多有趣儿！我真正喜欢和你一块儿做的唯一一件事，现在是做不成了。”
“不，这可不像是实话。你喜欢做的事多了，只要是你喜欢做的，我也都做过。”
“噢，看在上帝的份儿上，别那么自大，行吗？”
他看着她，看见她哭了。
“听我说，”他说，“你以为我这么说会觉得有趣？我都不知道我自己为什么要说这些。我想，或许只是想用毁灭一切的方式让自己活下来。我们刚开始说话的时候，我还好好的。我并没有想到会是这样的开场，可现在我蠢得像个傻子，对你也总说捅心窝子的话。亲爱的，不管我说了什么，你就当是放屁。我爱你，真的。你知道我爱你，我从来没有像爱你一样爱过其他女人。”
不知不觉中，他说出了平时惯常用来谋生的那套谎话。
“你对我挺好的。”
“你这个坏女人，”他说，“你这个有钱的坏女人，这是诗。现在我浑身上下都是诗。腐朽的诗！腐朽的诗！”
“别说了，哈里，你现在干吗非要把自己变得这样狠毒？”
“什么东西我都不想留下，”男人说，“我不愿意看到在我身后还有什么东西留下来。”
此时已是傍晚，他睡着了一会儿。夕阳已没入山后，平原一片阴影，一些小动物正在营地周围觅食。它们的小脑袋有节奏地一起一落，摆动着尾巴。醒来后，他眼见着它们正从灌木丛那头跑掉。那几只大鸟已不在地上等着，而是都沉重地窝在一棵树上，数量还很多。他的那个贴身男仆正立在床边。
“太太去打猎了，”男仆说，“先生需要什么吗？”
“什么都不要。”
她打猎去了，想弄点兽肉。她知道他喜欢看打猎，所以故意跑得远远的，这样就不会惊扰到这小块平原而让他发现她在打猎。她从来都是这么体贴周到，他想。只要是她知道或读到过的，或是听到别人说过的，她都会照顾到。
这不是她的错，当他来到她身边时，他已经完了。一个女人怎么会知道你所说的一切都并非出自真心？怎么会知道你所说的只是出于习惯，并且只是为了贪图享乐？自打他对自己说的话都不再当真后，他靠谎话和女人们沟通，这比他从前对她们说真心话更为有效。
他说谎并不都是因为没有真话可说。他也曾享有过生命，这已成为过去式，随后他又和一些不同的人，并且拥有了更多的钱，在那些他以前认为最好的地方，以及另一些新地方重新活下来。
你不允许自己思索，这真是了不起。你有副好内脏，因此没有那样垮掉，他们中的大部分都垮下来了，唯独你没有。你坚定了一种态度：既然现在再也不能做了，便不再去关心经常做的工作。可在你心里，你说你要写他们，写这群超级有钱的家伙；你说你根本不属于他们这一类，只是他们那一国度中的间谍；你说你会离开这一国度，会书写它，而且是第一次由一个熟悉它的人来书写。可是，他永远不会动笔了，因为他每天什么都不写，醉生梦死，扮演着自己所鄙夷的角色，这样一来便浪费了才能，消磨了工作的意志，最后干脆什么都不做了。他不工作时，他现在所认识的那些人都觉得惬意许多。非洲是他一生幸运的时期中，令他感到最幸福的地方。之所以到这儿来，是为了要从头开始。他们以最低限度的舒适来进行这次非洲狩猎之旅。无所谓艰苦，也无所谓奢华。他曾以为这样就能让自己重新得到训练，或许就可以把他心灵上的脂肪拿掉，就如同一个拳击手，为了消耗体内的脂肪，到深山老林中去干活和训练一样。
她曾一度喜欢这次狩猎旅行，还说过她爱这次狩猎旅行。这是让人心潮澎湃的事情，能因此换换环境，结识新人物，看到令人开心的事物，她都喜爱。他也曾一度产生工作意志力得以恢复的幻觉。要是现在一切都结束的话，他便能接受事实，自己也不必变得像条蛇那样，因为脊骨被打断就啃咬自己。这不是她的错，即便不是她，也会有其他的女人。要是他以谎言为生，就应该尝试着为谎言而死。他听到山谷那边传来一声枪响。
她的枪法挺好，这个善意的、有钱的女人，亦是他才能的体贴的守护人与破坏者。废话！是他自己把自己的才能毁了，干吗要责怪这个女人，因为她无微不至地供养了他？尽管他有才能，可因为自弃，因为出卖自己，也出卖了自己的信仰，因为酗酒而堵塞了敏锐的直觉，因为懒散，因为倦怠，因为势利，因为傲慢和偏见，因为其他种种，他把自己的才能毁掉了。这算是什么？一张旧书目录卡吗？他的才能到底是什么？就算真有才能吧，但他并没有充分利用，而是用它做了交易。他从不用才能去做什么，而是用它来决定能做什么。他坚决不靠钢笔或铅笔谋生，而是靠别的东西。这说来很奇怪，不是吗？每当他爱上另一个女人，这个女人总要比前一个更有钱，为什么？当他不再真心爱的时候，他只用谎言对待一切，就像现在对待这女人一样。她比他爱过的所有女人都更有钱，她有的是钱。她有过丈夫、孩子，也找过情人，可都不能令她满意，她倾心爱慕他，把他看作一名作家，看作是男子汉，看作伴侣，看作一份引为骄傲的财产来爱他。但奇怪的是，他根本不爱她，只是撒谎说爱她，为了回报她为他所花费的那些钱，他所能给予她的，竟然比他过去真心相爱的时候还要多。
我们做什么，都已被注定。他想，不管你以什么为生，这即是你的才能所在。他这一生都在出卖生命力，不管是以何种形式。当你并不倾心于此，便越会看重金钱。他发现了这点，但他绝不会写出来，现在也不会写了。是的，他不会写了，虽然这是非常值得写的。
这会儿，她从远处走过来，穿过那片空地向营地走来了。她穿着马裤，提着她的来复枪。两名男仆扛着一只野羊跟在她身后。她仍旧是个耐看的女人，他想，她的身材很动人，对爱也很有领悟。她并不美，可他对她的脸庞很着迷。她博览群书，喜欢骑马和狩猎，当然，酒也喝得不少。在她还很年轻的时候，丈夫就死了。有那么一个很短暂的时期，她把心思都放在两个刚长大的孩子身上，可孩子们并不需要她。她在他们身边时，他们会感到不自在。她还专心地养马，读书和喝酒。她喜欢在黄昏吃晚饭前看书，一边看一边喝威士忌苏打。到了饭点，她已喝得醉醺醺，晚饭时再喝上一瓶甜酒，就足以让她昏昏欲睡了。
这是她有了情人之前的状况。有了情人之后，她不再喝那么多酒了，因为不必喝醉了酒去睡觉。可情人常令她感到厌烦。她嫁过一个丈夫，他从没让她感到过厌烦，但这些人却让她厌烦透了。
随后，她的一个孩子在一次飞机事故中死去。事件过后，她不再需要情人，酒也不再能充当麻醉剂，她必须过另一种生活。忽然间，孤身独处吓得她胆战心惊，她要和一个自己所尊敬的人生活在一起。
事情的发生非常简单。她喜欢看他写的东西，他所过的生活是她一直向往的。她认为他正是做了他自己想做的事情。她为了得到他所做的种种努力，以及最后爱上他的那种方式，都是一个正常过程中的正常组成。在这一过程中，她给自己建立了一种新生活，而他则出售着旧有生活的残余。
他出售旧有生活的残余，是为了换取安全，也为了贪图安逸。除了这个，还为了什么？他不知道。他想要的，她都会买给他，这点他非常清楚。她也是个十分温柔的女人。和其他人一样，他愿意马上和她同床共枕——尤其是她，因为她更有钱，因为她很风趣，很有欣赏力，并且从不大吵大闹。可现在，她重新建立起来的这种生活快要结束了，因为两周以前，他的膝盖被一根荆棘刺破了，而他没给伤口涂碘酒。当时他们靠近想拍下一群羚羊的照片，这群羚羊站立着，扬起头来窥视着四周，一边用鼻子嗅着空气，耳朵朝向两边，只待一声响动就准备奔向丛林。他还没来得及摁下快门，它们就已经跑掉了。
现在她到他跟前来了，躺在帆布床上的他转过脸来看着她，“你好。”他说。
“我打了一只野羊，”她告诉他，“可以给你做碗好汤喝。我还让他们捣了些土豆泥拌奶粉。这会儿你觉得怎么样？”
“好些了。”
“这该有多好！你知道，我就想过你或许会好起来。我离开时你正睡得香呢。”
“我这一觉睡得挺好。你跑得远吗？”
“没跑远，就在山后边。我一枪就打中了这只野羊。”
“你打得挺不错的，你知道的。”
“我爱打猎，我已经爱上非洲了。说真的，要是你平安无事，这可是我玩得最痛快的一次了。你不知道跟你一块儿打猎是多么有趣。我已经爱上这里了。”
“我也爱上这地方了。”
“亲爱的，你知道吗？看到你觉得好些了，那有多么重要。刚才看到你难受成那样，我都快受不了了。你千万不要再那样跟我说话了，好吗？答应我。”
“不会了，”他说，“我记不得我说过些什么了。”
“你不一定非要把我毁掉，对吗？我只不过是个中年妇女，可我爱你，你要做什么，我都愿意做。我已经被毁了两三次了。你不会再这样对我了，对吗？”
“我倒是很想在床上再把你毁灭几次。”他说。
“啊，那可是令人愉快的毁灭，我们就是注定要这样毁灭的。飞机明天就会来了。”
“你怎么知道？”
“我有把握，飞机肯定要来。仆人已经准备好了木柴，还备了生浓烟的野草。我今天又下去看了，那儿足够飞机着陆的。在空地两头，我们准备好了两堆浓烟。”
“你为什么这么肯定飞机明天会来？”
“它准定会来。现在它已经耽搁得够久了。这样到了城里，他们会治好你的腿，然后我们就能搞点儿愉快的毁灭，而不是那种令人讨厌的谈话。”
“我们喝点酒怎么样？太阳落山了。”
“你想喝吗？”
“我想来一杯。”
“那我们就一块儿喝一杯吧。莫洛，拿两杯威士忌苏打来！”她唤道。
“你最好穿上防蚊靴。”他提醒她。
“等我洗完澡再穿上……”
他们喝酒的时候，天色渐渐暗下来。在这暮色苍茫无法瞄枪打猎的时刻，一条鬣狗穿过那片空地朝山那边跑去。
“那条杂种每晚都从那儿跑过，”男人说，“两个星期以来，每晚都这样。”
“每天晚上发出怪声的就是它。虽然这是种令人讨厌的野兽，但我不在乎。”
他们一块儿喝着酒。他没有疼痛的感觉，因为一直躺着不能翻身而感到不舒服。两个仆人生起一堆篝火，火光的影子在帐篷上跳跃着。他觉得自己对这种愉快的投降生活所怀的默许心情，现在又产生了。她的确对他不错。今天下午他对她太冷酷了，也太不公平了。她是个好女人，确确实实是个了不起的女人。可就在这会儿，他突然想到他快要死了。
这一念头如同一股突如其来的冲击——不是流水或疾风那样的冲击，而是一股渺无踪影的臭气的冲击。令人感到奇怪的是，那条鬣狗竟顺着这股臭气的边缘悄悄跑过来了。
“做什么，哈里？”她问他。
“没什么，”他说，“你最好挪到那一面去坐，坐到上风的那一面去。”
“莫洛给你换药了吗？”
“换过了，刚敷上硼酸膏。”
“你觉得怎么样？”
“有点发抖。”
“我进去洗澡了，”她说，“马上就会出来的。我和你一起吃晚饭，然后再把帆布床抬进去。”
“这样一来，”他自言自语道，“我们结束吵架，是正确的了。”他和这女人从没大吵大闹过，却和他爱上的那些女人吵得天翻地覆，最后因为吵架的腐蚀作用，毁掉他们共有的感情。他爱得太深，要求得也太多，这样，一切全被耗尽了。
他想起他孤零零一个人在君士坦丁堡[17]的那次经历。从巴黎出走前，他们吵了一架。那些日子他每晚都找妓女睡觉，可事后仍然无法排遣心中的寂寞，反而感到更加难以忍受的寂寞。于是他给她——他的第一个情妇，那个已离开了他的女人写了一封信，告诉她，他无论怎样都割不断对她的思念……他说他有次在摄政院外面以为看见了她，为了追上她，跑得晕头转向，肚里直反胃；说他会在林荫大道跟踪一个外貌有些像她的女人，可总也不敢看清楚那是不是她，因为生怕失去了她在他心目中勾起的感情；说他和很多女人睡过觉，她们每个人又是怎样只能令他更加对她念念不忘，他又是怎样绝对不会介意她做了些什么，因为他知道他无法摆脱对她的爱恋。
在夜总会，他头脑清醒而冷静地写了这封信，寄到纽约，哀求她把回信寄到他在巴黎的事务所，这样似乎才比较妥当。那晚他非常想她，他觉得心里空荡荡的直反胃，他在街上徘徊，直至走到塔克辛姆遇到一个女郎。他带她一块儿去吃了晚饭。后来他到一个地方跟她跳舞，可她跳得十分糟糕，于是他丢下她，搞上了一个风骚的亚美尼亚女郎。她把肚子紧贴着他的身体摆动，擦得肚皮都差点要烫坏了。他同一名少尉衔的英国炮手吵了一架，就将她从炮手那里带走了。炮手把他叫到外面，于是他们在暗夜里，在街道的圆石铺就的地面上打了起来。他朝着他的下巴狠狠打了两拳，可对方并没有倒下，这会儿他知道他躲不过这场恶斗了。那名炮手打中了他的身体，又打中了他的眼角。他又一次挥动左拳，击中了对方。炮手向他扑过来，抓住了他的上衣，扯下了他的袖手。他往炮手的耳朵后面狠狠地揍了两下，在把他推开的时候，又用右手将对方打倒在地。炮手倒下时，头先着地。他带着女郎跑掉了，因为他们听见宪兵赶来了。他们跳上一辆出租车，沿着博斯普鲁斯海峡[18]驶向雷米利希萨，转了一圈，在寒冷刺骨的夜晚回到城里睡觉。她给人的感觉如同她的外貌，过于成熟了，但皮肤柔滑如脂，像玫瑰花瓣，像玉液糖浆。她的肚皮光滑，胸脯高耸，根本不需要在她臀部下面垫个枕头。在她醒来之前，他就离开了她。在第一缕曙光照射下，她的容貌显得无比粗俗。他来到彼拉宫，带着一个被打得瘀青的眼圈，手里拎着那件上衣，因为袖子已经没了。
然而，就是在那天晚上，他离开了君士坦丁堡，只身前往安纳托利亚[19]。后来，当他回忆那次旅行时，令他印象最深刻的就是整天穿行于长有罂粟花的田野中。这里的人们大多种植罂粟花，然后提炼鸦片。这一切都让你感到新奇，最后——无论向哪个方向走，好像都是错的——来到他们当初与刚从君士坦丁堡来的军官们共同发动进攻的地方。那些军官什么都不懂，甚至都把大炮打进部队里了，当时那个英国观察员哭得就跟小孩子一样。
就在当天，他第一次见到了死人，穿着一条白色芭蕾舞裙和带有向上翘的绒球的鞋子。土耳其人好似波浪一般不断地涌过来，他看见那些穿裙子的男人拼命地奔跑着。身后的军官们向他们打枪，可是紧接着，那些军官们自己也逃了。他跟着那个英国观察员也一起跑了。他跑得肺都发痛了，嘴里全是铜腥味。他们躲到岩石后面休息，可土耳其人仍然如波浪般涌来。后来，一件他从未想象过的事情在他眼前发生了，然而，之后他还看到了比这更糟糕的事情。所以，当他回到巴黎时，对这些事情他不能说半句，即使是提起，都会让他受不了。经过咖啡馆时，他看到那位美国诗人正坐在里面，面前堆了一大堆碟子，从他那土豆般的脸上可以看出一副蠢相。美国诗人正在同一位叫作特里斯坦·采拉[20]的罗马尼亚人讲述达达运动。这位罗马尼亚人经常戴一副单眼镜，而且老闹头痛。接着，当他回到公寓同妻子在一起时，他感到自己又爱他的妻子了，此时吵架已经是很久以前的事情了，任何怨气都消失了。他为自己又能回到家里感到高兴，事务所将他的信件送到了公寓。所以，一天早晨，那封答复他的来信的回信就被盛在一只盘子里送了进来。当他看到上面的笔迹时，顿时浑身发冷。他想把这封信塞在其他信件下面，可这时妻子说：“亲爱的，那是谁寄来的信啊？”于是那件刚开场的事就此结束了。
他想起自己同所有女人在一起时的欢乐与争吵。她们总会选择最佳时机和他吵嘴。他想不通，为什么每次她们都会在他心情最愉快的时候和他吵嘴呢？关于这一点，他始终只字未提，原因是，刚开始，他不想伤害她们其中任何一个人的感情。后来，他发觉除了这些，要写的东西已经非常多了。他一直认为自己最后还是会写的，毕竟有很多东西要写。他曾目睹了世间的变化，不单是那些事件。虽然他曾经历过许多事件，人们的一举一动都看在他的眼里，但他还见到过更微妙的变化，并且记得人们在不同时刻的不同表现。当时，他自己就置身于此种变化中。他观察过这种变化，而且还写过这种变化，这些虽然是他的责任，但现在他再也不会写了。
“你怎样了？”她问。她洗完澡从帐篷里走出来。
“没什么。”
“这会儿就吃晚饭，好吗？”他看到莫洛在她身后拿着一张折叠桌，另一个仆人端着菜盘子。
“但我要写东西。”他说。
“你应该先喝一点肉汤恢复体力。”
“今天晚上我就会死掉，”他说，“用不着恢复体力。”
“请不要那么夸张，哈里。”她说。
“你为什么不用你的鼻子闻闻？我都烂掉半截了，现在已经烂到大腿了。我哪能和肉汤开玩笑？莫洛，请拿一杯威士忌苏打来。”
“请你喝一点肉汤吧。”她温柔地说。
“好吧。”
肉汤很烫，于是他将肉汤倒进一个杯子里，凉了一会儿，才把肉汤喝下去，没有一口哽住过。
“你是一个好女人，”他说，“你就不用关心我了。”
她微微仰起她那张出现在《激励》和《城市和乡村》上——人人皆知人人都爱——的脸望着他，这张脸因为酗酒、贪恋床笫之欢而略有些逊色，可是，在《城市和乡村》上，她从未展示过自己美丽的胸部，以及她那有用的大腿和爱抚你的温柔纤小的手。当他望着她，看到莫洛动人的微笑时，他仿佛感到死神的降临。没有冲击，就像一股气，一阵使烛光摇曳、让烛火腾起的微风。
“过一会儿，他们可以将我的蚊帐拿出来，挂到树上，然后在旁边生一堆篝火。今晚我不想在帐篷里睡，也不值得搬动。看，今晚可是一个晴朗的夜晚，不会下雨的。”
这样的话，你就会死去，在你听不到的悄声低语中慢慢死去。算了，这样也不会再吵嘴了。这一点他倒是能保证。这种他始终没有经历过的经验，是不会故意去破坏它的，但他或许也会破坏。你已经把一切都毁了，但他或许不会。
“你能听写吗？”他问。
“这个，我没有学过。”她告诉他。
“哦，好吧。”
时间不多了，当然，虽然好似经过了压缩，但只要你处理得当，你只用一段文字就能将这一切都写进去。
湖畔的山上，有一座用圆木构筑的房子，表面的缝隙都用灰泥嵌成了白色。门边的柱子上还挂了一个铃铛，是用来召唤人们进屋吃饭的。房后是一片田野，再往后是森林。房子边种着长长的两排伦巴底白杨树，一排一直伸展到码头，另一排则沿着这一带迤逦而去。在森林的边缘，有一条通往山峦的小路，他曾经在经过这条小路时采过黑莓。后来，那所圆木房子在一场大火中烧坍了，甚至连挂在壁炉上面的鹿脚架上的猎枪都烧掉了，枪筒、枪托以及弹夹里的铅弹都烧坏了，摊在一堆灰上——那堆灰原本是用来为做肥皂的大铁锅熬碱水的。你问祖父，是否可以拿去玩，他说，不行。你很清楚，那些猎枪即使化成灰也仍旧是他的，祖父从此没有再买过别的猎枪，而且也不再打猎了。现在，人们在原来的位置重新盖了一所房子，同样漆成了白色。透过门廊，你可以看到一排排白杨树和对面的湖光山色。可惜没有了猎枪。昔日那个挂在墙上的鹿脚上的猎枪筒，依然摊在那堆灰上面，没有人碰。
战争结束后，我们在黑森林[21]租了一条可以钓鲑鱼的小溪，周围有两条路通向那儿。一条是从特里贝格开始，走下山谷，然后绕着覆盖在林荫（靠近那条白色的路）下的山路走上山坡的一条小道，然后翻山越岭，在经过许多矗立着许多高大的黑森林式房子的小农场后，一直向前走，走到小路与小溪交叉的地方，这里就是我们钓鱼的地方。
而另一条路则是先爬上树林的边沿，然后翻过山巅，经过一片松林，来到草地边沿，下山后越过草地来到一座小桥边。小溪边种着一排桦树，这是一条并不宽阔，而且有些窄小、清澈、湍急的小溪，桦树根的边上还冲出了许多小小的潭。
在特里贝格客店里，这一季的生意算得上是兴隆的。这也是令人愉快的事，我们与店主人是亲密的朋友。由于第二年通货膨胀，店主人前一年赚到的钱还不够买客店经营所需的必需品，于是他选择了上吊自杀。
你能够口授这些，可是你无法将那个城堡护墙广场口授出来。那里，大街上的卖花人给他们的花卉染色，路面上随处可见那些颜料留下的痕迹。公共汽车全是从那里出发，这里，老头儿和女人们经常喝甜酒，以及那种用果渣酿制而成的低劣白兰地，一个个醉醺醺的；小孩儿们在寒风中流着鼻涕；空气中充满了汗臭味和贫穷的气息，还有名为“业余者咖啡馆”中的醉态，“风笛歌舞厅”的妓女们——她们都住在舞厅楼上。看门的女人正在自己的小屋里款待共和国自卫队队员，他那顶插着马鬃的帽子放在椅子上。门厅附近还有一家住户，男主人是一名自行车赛手。那天早晨，女主人在牛奶房翻开《机动车》报，看到丈夫第一次参加盛大的巴黎环城比赛中名列第三时，她十分高兴，涨红了脸放声大笑，然后跑到楼上，手里紧紧握着那张淡黄色的报纸，哭了起来。他——哈里——有一回凌晨时分要乘飞机出门，“风笛歌舞厅”女老板的丈夫驾驶一辆出租车来到他家，敲门把他叫起来。动身前，他们俩还在酒吧间的锌桌旁各喝了一杯白葡萄酒。当时他十分了解这个地区邻居的情况，因为他们都很穷。
在城堡护墙广场附近，经常出现两种人：酒鬼和运动员。酒鬼靠酗酒打发贫困的生活，运动员则通过锻炼来忘记贫困。这些人都属于巴黎公社的后裔，所以对于他们而言，了解他们的政治并不算难事。他们知道杀害他们的父老兄弟以及亲属朋友的凶手是谁。就在凡尔赛的军队进入巴黎，成为继公社之后另一个占领此城市的主人时，任何人，只要他们摸到手上长有茧子，或者戴便帽的，抑或是带有任何其他标志能够证明他是劳动者的，一律杀无赦。正是在这种贫困之中，在这个地方，在马路对面的那家马肉铺和酿酒合作社里，他开始了自己的写作生涯。巴黎失去让他如此热爱的地方了，那一排排蔓生的树木，白色的灰泥墙，外面涂着棕色的老房子，以及行驶在圆形广场上的长长的绿色公交车，甚至是路面上流淌着五颜六色的颜料，当然还有那条从山上通向塞纳河的急转直下的莱蒙昂红衣主教大街和狭窄却非常热闹的莫菲塔德路。那条可以抵达万神殿的大街和他经常骑着自行车经过的大街，那是这个地方唯一一条铺有沥青的大街。当车胎在这条大街上行驶时，他能感到路面的光溜平滑。街道两边都是些高耸而狭小的房子，其中有一家高耸的下等客店，而保尔·魏尔伦[22]就是在这里结束生命的。他们的公寓只有两间屋子。而在那家客店的顶楼，有一个房间是他租住的，每月的房租是六十法郎（1法郎≈6.83人民币）。这里就是他写作的地方，从这个房间，他能看到鳞次栉比的屋顶、烟囱，以及整座巴黎的山峦。
但是从那幢公寓向外望去，你却只能看到一家经营木柴的店铺和卖煤炭的店铺——这家店铺也卖酒，却是一些低劣的甜酒。马肉铺子门外高高挂着金黄色的马头。透过马肉铺的橱窗，可以看到里面挂着的金黄色和红色的马肉。那间被涂成绿色的合作社，就是他们买酒喝的地方——醇美且便宜的甜酒。剩下的都是灰泥的墙壁以及邻居们的窗户。夜里，常常有喝醉了的人躺在街上，在标准的法国式的酩酊大醉中（有人告诉你，让你相信其实根本没有这种醉法）呻吟着，隔壁的邻居就会打开窗户，发出一阵喃喃低语。
“警察到哪儿去了？这个家伙总是在你不需要他的时候出现。他准是和哪个看门女人在一起亲热呢。去找警察呀。”但是当不知是谁从窗口泼下一桶水后，醉汉的呻吟声也就停止了。“泼下来的是什么？是水！哦，真是个聪明的办法。”
一系列动作结束后，窗子被关上了。他的女仆玛丽对于一天八小时的工作制提出抗议：“如果一个丈夫工作到六点钟，那么他在回家的路上就只能喝一点酒，微微有些醉意，也花不了很多钱。可是，如果他的活儿只需要干到五点钟，那么他每天晚上必然会喝得烂醉，你也就一个子儿都没有。所以缩短工时受罪的却是工人的老婆。”
“你要再来点肉汤吗？”女人问他。
“不了，多谢。肉汤的味道好极了。”
“那就再喝一点儿吧。”
“我还是比较想喝威士忌苏打。”
“但是酒对你没什么好处。”
“没错，酒对我是有害的。柯尔·波特[23]曾经创作过这些歌词，还谱了曲子。这种知识正让你生我的气。”
“你知道，其实我是喜欢你喝酒的。”
“是的，但酒对我有害。”
等她走开了，他想：我即将得到我所要求的一切。不，不是我所要求的一切，而是我拥有的一切。唉，他累了，太累了。他好想睡一会儿。他静静地躺下来，此刻死神好像还没有来。它现在一定是到另一条街上溜达去了。它骑着自行车，成双结对地、静悄悄地在人行道上行驶。
不，他从未写过巴黎，字字未提他喜爱的那个巴黎。可剩下那些他从未写过的东西又会如何呢？大牧场、银灰色的灌木丛、灌溉渠里湍急却十分清澈的流水、绿油油的苜蓿又该如何呢？如羊肠般窄小的道路蜿蜒而伸向山里，牛群在夏天里胆小得如麋鹿一样。
一阵吆喝声和连续不断的嘈杂声，一群行动迟缓的庞大动物。秋天时，当你把它们赶下山的过程中，路上会扬起一片尘土。群山背后，嶙峋的山峰凸显在暮霭中。月光下，沿着那条小道骑马下山，山谷里倒是一片皎洁。他记得，当穿过森林向山下走去时，因为黑暗，所以看不见路，只能抓着马尾巴摸索前进。而这些正是他想写的故事。
还有那个在牧场打杂的傻小子，那次把他一个人留在了牧场，并且告诉他不准任何人来偷干草。但是那个从福克斯来的老坏蛋，在经过牧场时，特意停下来想弄一些饲料——傻小子以前为他干活时，被他揍过几次。傻小子当然不会让他拿干草，可老头儿威胁他说会再给他一顿狠揍。而就在老坏蛋即将闯进牲口栏里去时，傻小子从厨房拿来了来复枪，将老头儿打死了。于是，在他们回到牧场时，那个老头儿已经死了一个星期了，尸体直挺挺地倒在牲口栏里，狗已经把他的部分尸体吃掉了。后来，你将尸体残骸包在毯子里，捆在一架雪橇上，让那个傻小子帮你拖走。你们穿着滑雪服，带着尸体赶路。在滑行了六十英里之后，你把孩子接到城里去。他并不知道有人会逮捕他。他倒是认为自己是尽了责任的，而且你是他的朋友，他还会得到相应的报酬呢。他是帮着你将这个老坏蛋拖进城的，这样一来，谁都知道他有多坏，他是怎样想偷饲料的，可饲料并不是他的呀。然而，当行政司法官将手铐戴到孩子手上时，孩子简直无法相信这个事实。于是他放声痛哭。这是他留下准备在未来的日子里写的一个故事。从那儿，他至少了解到二十个十分有趣的故事，但他一个也没写。为什么？
“还是你去告诉他们，这是为什么吧。”他说。
“哦，亲爱的，什么为什么？”
“不为什么。”
自从有了他，她现在不再喝那么多酒了。但只要他活着，他就不会写她。对此，他现在知道了，他也绝对不会写她们中的任何一个。愚蠢是属于那些有钱人的，因为他们只知道酗酒，或者就知道玩巴加门[24]。他们的确是愚蠢的，并且总是唠叨不停，叫人厌烦。他想到那个可怜的朱利安[25]，以及他对有钱人所怀有的罗曼蒂克的敬畏之情。记得有一次他是这样动手写一篇短篇小说的，他在开头部分这样写道：“豪门巨富与你我不同。”曾经有人对朱利安说：“的确，他们是比咱们有钱。”但对于朱利安而言，这可不是一句幽默的话。
在他看来，这些人倒是一种具有特殊魅力的族类，可当他发现他们事实上并非如此时，他就毁了，这也正好像其他事物将他毁了一样。
他始终对那些毁了他的人投以鄙视的目光。你也没有必要喜欢这一套，因为其中事宜你是十分了解的。任何事情都骗不过也瞒不过他。他想，因为什么都无法伤害他，假如他根本不在意的话。
好吧。即使现在就要死去，他也丝毫不在意。他只是一直害怕一点——疼痛。他和别人一样可以忍受疼痛，但前提是疼痛的时间太长，痛到他精疲力竭。好像有一种什么东西曾经令他痛得无法忍受，可就在他感觉自己好像被一种东西撕裂时，这种疼痛却突然停止了。
他还记得在很久以前，有一天晚上，投弹军官威廉逊钻过铁丝网爬回阵地时，正好被一名德国巡逻兵扔过来的手榴弹击中，他尖声大叫，恳求大家将他打死。他是一个胖子，虽然平时很喜欢炫耀自己，但他有时令人难以相信，如此勇敢，算得上是一个好军官。可是就在那天晚上，正处在铁丝网里的他被打中了，一道闪光瞬间将他照亮，他的肠子也顿时淌了出来，钩在铁丝网上。当其他人将他抬进来时，他还有一口气，可他们不得不将他的肠子割断。“把我打死吧，哈里。请看在上帝的份上，打死我吧。”
曾经，他们对“凡是上帝赐予你的，你都能忍受”这句话展开过讨论。有人认为，经过一段时间之后，疼痛就会自行消失。可是他自始至终都无法忘记威廉逊和那天晚上。威廉逊身上的痛苦没有消失，他将那些留给自己的吗啡片全部吃下去之后，都没有使疼痛立刻止住。
然而此刻他感受到的痛苦却变得非常轻松，假如能一直这样而不会变得更糟糕的话，那他就没有什么需要担心的了。但是他想，若能有更好的同伴在一起，那该有多好啊。
他开始想象他想要的同伴了。
不，他想，你做任何事情都会做很久，并且做得很晚，你不能指望别人还在那儿。人家都已经走了，酒阑席散，留下的只有你和女主人。
我对死亡感到越来越厌倦了，如同我对其他所有东西感到厌倦一样，他心想。
“真令人厌倦。”他不禁说出声来。
“亲爱的，你说什么？”
“你做什么事情都会做很久。”
他望向自己身边的她和篝火之间。她坐在椅子里，火光正映在她那线条动人的脸上。他看出了她脸上的困意。他听见鬣狗正在那圈火光外发出一声吠叫。
“我一直在写东西，”他说，“我感到累了。”
“你认为你能睡得着吗？”
“一定能。你怎么还不去睡？”
“我喜欢和你在一起，在这里坐着。”
“那你感到有什么奇怪的东西了吗？”他问她。
“没有啊，我只是感到有一点困了。”
“我倒是感觉到了。”
就在这时，他真的感到死神又一次来临。
“你是知道的，我唯一没有失去的，就是这份好奇心。”他对她说。
“你从来都没有失去任何东西，你是我所看到的最完美的人。”
“天哪！”他说，“你们女人知道的东西简直是太少了！你这样说有什么根据？只是直觉吗？”
然而就在这时，死神来了，死神的头正靠在帆布床的床脚，他可以感受得到它的呼吸。
“你可千万不要相信死神就是镰刀和骷髅，”他告诉她，“它很可能就是两个从容骑着自行车的警察，或者是一只可爱的小鸟儿，抑或是像鬣狗那样，有一只大鼻子。”
现在，死神已经靠近他的身体了，它也不再具备某种形状了，它只是占有这个空间。
“让它走开。”
它没走，反倒离得更近了。
“你就会呼哧呼哧地喘气，”他对它说，“你是个杂种。”
它仍然一步步地向他靠近，而他不能对它说话了。就在它发现他无法说话时，又向他靠近了一些。现在，他好想默默地将它赶走，但此刻它已经爬到他的身体上来了，这样一来，它的重量就全部压在他的胸口。它趴在那儿，使他无法动弹也说不出话。他倒是能听见女人说：“先生已经睡着了，轻轻地把床抬起来，搬到帐篷里去吧。”
他无法开口让她将它赶走，而它更加沉重地趴在他的身体上，使他透不过气来，可是就当他们抬起帆布床的一瞬间，这一切突然又恢复正常了，他胸前的重压也消失了。
现在已是早晨，其实已经是上午了，他能听到飞机经过上空的声音。向天空望去，飞机显得很小，接着又飞了一大圈。两个男佣从远处跑出来，用汽油把野草堆点燃，平地两端很快就冒起两股浓烟，晨风使浓烟向着帐篷的方向吹。飞机又飞了两圈，这次飞得很低，紧接着开始往下滑翔，拉平，最终平稳地着陆。老康普顿下身穿着一条宽大的便裤，上身穿了一件花呢夹克，头上还戴了一顶棕色的毡帽，从远处向他走来。
“老伙计，怎么回事啊？”康普顿问。
“腿坏了，”他平静地告诉他，“你要来一点儿早饭吗？”
“谢谢。我只喝些茶就可以了。你知道它是一架‘天社蛾’，我没有弄到那架‘夫人’，只能容纳一个人，你的卡车正在路上呢。”
海伦将康普顿拉到旁边，正和他说着什么。康普顿走回来时，看上去更加兴高采烈。
“我们得立刻把你抬到飞机上去，”他说，“然后我还得回来接你的太太。现在我认为我得在阿鲁沙[26]停一下，加些油。咱们最好还是马上走。”
“坐下来，喝点茶怎么样？”
“你知道，我其实并不想喝。”
这时，两个男佣抬起了帆布床，在绿色帐篷边兜了一圈，然后沿着岩石走向那片平地，经过那两股浓烟——此刻正亮晃晃地燃烧着，风一吹火就旺了些，很快野草就全烧光了——来到小飞机跟前。两个人好不容易将他抬进飞机，飞机一起飞，他就躺在皮椅子里，那条腿直挺挺地伸到了康普顿的座位旁。康普顿发动马达，也上了飞机。他向海伦和两个男佣挥手告别，马达发出的咔嗒声也变成了十分熟悉的吼声。他们摇摇摆摆地打着转儿，康普顿则留意着野猪们的洞穴。在两堆火光之间的平地上，飞机怒吼着，颠簸着，在最后一次颠簸中，飞机起飞了，他看到地面上的人们都站在下面向他们扬手，那个帐篷也显得扁扁的。平原好像彻底展开呈现在他们眼前一样，一簇簇的树林和那片灌木丛也看上去扁扁的，野兽经常出没的那一条条小道，此刻好像都平坦坦地通往那些干涸的水穴。他看到一处水源，这是他以前从未知晓的。斑马，现在只能看见它们隆起的圆圆的背脊了。大羚羊此刻只有人类的手指头那么大，它们穿过平原时，仿佛只是一个黑点在地上爬行。当飞机的影子临近它们身边时，它们都四散奔跑了。现在它们都显得太微小了，往日奔驰的动作也丝毫看不出来了。极目望去，看到的平原此刻只是一片灰黄色。向前看，是老康普顿穿着花呢夹克衫的背影和那顶棕色的毡帽。接着，他们飞越了第一批山峦。他看到大羚羊正向山上跑去，紧接着他们又飞过了高峻的山岭，看到在陡峭的深谷有一片斜生着的浓绿的森林和茁壮生长的竹林的山坡，在经过了一大片茂密的森林之后，又穿越了一座座尖峰和山谷。周围的山岭好像渐渐低斜下去，接下来又是一片平原。现在的天气有些热，大地呈现出一片紫棕色。飞机在颠簸中喷出热热的气，康普顿则回过头来观察他在飞行中的情况。然后，他们前面又是一片片黑压压的群山峻岭。
接下来，他们的飞行方向不是阿鲁沙，而是向左转，很明显，他估计他们的燃料可能是不够了。向下面看时，他看到一片像经过筛子筛落下来的粉红色的云正掠过大地，但从空中看过去，却又像是突然出现的暴风雪来临前的第一阵飞雷。当然，他十分清楚那是蝗虫从南方飞过来了。
他们不断地向上飞，方向上好似在往东方飞，接着，天色有些灰暗，他们真的碰上了一场暴风雨。大雨如注，飞机就好像正穿过一道长长的瀑布。当他们穿出水帘时，康普顿转过头对他咧嘴大笑，同时用手指着前方。极目所见，他看到的一切，像整个世界那般宽广无垠，它是那么高耸、宏大，而且白得令人难以置信，它就是乞力马扎罗山方形的山巅。此刻他明白了，那就是他要飞去的地方。
正在这时，鬣狗在夜里停止了呜咽，反而发出一种奇怪的如同人的哭声一般的声音。
女人听到这个声音，在床上辗转反侧。但她没有醒，在梦中，她还在长岛的家里，就在她女儿第一次参加社交活动的前夜，好像她的父亲也在场，父亲看上去很粗暴。紧接着，鬣狗的哭声终于把她吵醒了，一时间她不知道自己身在何方，她害怕极了。她拿起手电照向另一张帆布床——哈里睡着后，他们就把床抬了进来。
在蚊帐下面，哈里的身躯隐约可见，但他将那条腿伸了出来，耷拉在帆布床沿，敷着药的纱布已经掉落下来了。她实在不忍心看这幅情景。
“莫洛！”她喊道，“莫洛！莫洛！”
随后，她说：“哈里，哈里！”接着，她又提高调门喊：“哈里！请你醒一醒，啊，哈里！”
他没有回答，她也听不到他的呼吸声。
帐篷外，鬣狗依旧发出那种奇怪的叫声，她正是被那种叫声惊醒的。她听不到他的声音，因为她的心怦怦直跳。