【导读】厄休拉·勒古恩(1929-)，美国科幻、奇幻与女性主义与青少年儿童文学作家。著有小说20余部，以及诗集、散文集、游记、文学评论多部。她曾与人合译老子《道德经》，所获文学奖与荣誉不计其数。由于深受老子与人类学影响，其作品常蕴含道家思想，将世界万物与人类等量齐观。
《妻子的故事》收录在勒古恩1982年的短篇小说集《罗盘玫瑰》(The Compass Rose)中，小说使用第一人称回顾视角，讲述了一只狼怎样变成狼人，然后被狼群杀死的故事。小说的故事本身并不新奇(美国文学中有数量相当可观的关于狼人的故事)，但勒古恩别具一格的视角使用方式体现了她一贯的叙述风格和哲学思想。
【正文】
He was a good husband, a good father1. I don’t understand it. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe that it happened. I saw it happen but it isn’t true. It can’t be. He was always gentle. If you’d have seen him playing with the children, anybody who saw him with the children would have known that there wasn’t any bad in him, not one mean bone. When I first met him he was still living with his mother, over near Spring Lake, and I used to see them together, the mother and the sons, and think that any young fellow that was that nice with his family must be one worth knowing. Then one time when I was walking in the woods I met him by himself coming back from a hunting trip. He hadn’t got any game at all, not so much as a field mouse, but he wasn’t cast down about it. He was just larking along enjoying the morning air. That’s one of the things I first loved about him. He didn’t take things hard, he didn’t grouch and whine when things didn’t go his way. So we got to talking that day. And I guess things moved right along after that, because pretty soon he was over here pretty near all the time. And my sister said — see, my parents had moved out the year before and gone south, leaving us the place — my sister said, kind of teasing but serious, “Well! If he’s going to be here every day and half the night, I guess there isn’t room for me!” And she moved out — just down the way. We’ve always been real close, her and me. That’s the sort of thing doesn’t ever change. I couldn’t ever have got through this bad time without my sis.
他曾是个好丈夫、好父亲。我不明白，我不相信，我不相信事情就那样发生了。我目睹了事情的发生，可那不是真的，根本不可能!他一向都是很温柔的。如果你曾见过他和孩子们玩耍，只要见过他和孩子们在一起的情景，谁都知道他一点都不坏，连一根坏骨头也没有。我第一次遇上他时，他还和母亲一起住在春湖附近，我经常看到他们在一起，母亲和她那群儿子，我心想，对家人那么友好的年轻小伙肯定值得相识。有一次我在树林里散步，看见他独自打猎回来。他没有打到任何猎物，就连一只田鼠也没有，但他一点也不沮丧。他一路嬉戏，享受着清晨的空气。我首先爱上他的就是这一点。他不会纠结，事不遂愿时也不牢骚抱怨。就这样，那天我们开始说起话来。之后我觉得事情上路了，因为不久后他就老在我们周围晃悠。我姐——哦，我父母一年前就搬走，去了南方，把这地方留给我俩——，我姐半开玩笑半认真地说：“好啦!如果他整天半夜都来这里的话，我看这地方就没有我的份罗!”很快她真的搬出去了——离这儿不远的地方。我们一直都非常亲近，她和我。那是永远都不会改变的。要不是姐儿，我根本熬不过眼下这段难捱的日子。
[2] Well, so he come to live here. And all I can say is, it was the happy year of my life. He was just purely good to me. A hard worker and never lazy, and so big and fine-looking. Everybody looked up to him, you know, young as he was. Lodge Meeting nights, more and more often they had him to lead the singing. He had such a beautiful voice, and he’d lead off strong, and the others following and joining in, high voices and low. It brings the shivers on me now to think of it, hearing it, nights when I’d stayed home from meeting when the children was babies — the singing coming up through the trees there, and the moonlight, summer nights, the full moon shining. I’ll never hear anything so beautiful. I’ll never know a joy like that again.
[2] 于是，他就过来住这儿了。不得不说，那是我人生中幸福的一年。他是全心全意地对我好。他干起活来很卖力，从不偷懒，而且块头很大，长相英俊。真的，虽然他年纪不大，可人人都敬他三分。居处集会之夜，越来越多的时候他们让他领唱。他的嗓音那么动听，领唱那么有劲，大家都跟着他高高低低地唱起来。直到现在，只要我想起这些，我都禁不住全身颤抖，仿佛又回到那些夜晚—那时孩子们还小，我留在家里，不去参加集会—，听见那歌声穿越树林，还有那月色，夏夜，皎洁的圆月!我再也不会听到如此美妙的声音，再也不会拥有那样的欢乐了!
[3] It was the moon, that’s what they say. It’s the moon’s fault, and the blood. It was in his father’s blood. I never knew his father, and now I wonder what become of him. He was from up Whitewater way, and had no kin around here. I always thought he went back there, but now I don’t know. There was some talk about him, tales, that come out after what happened to my husband. It’s something runs in the blood, they say, and it may never come out, but if it does, it’s the change of the moon that does it. Always it happens in the dark of the moon. When everybody’s home and asleep. Something comes over the one that’s got the curse in his blood, they say, and he gets up because he can’t sleep, and goes out into the glaring sun, and goes off all alone — drawn to find those like him.
[3] 是月亮，他们说，是月亮和血液的错。在他父亲的血液中就有了。我从不认识他父亲，而现在我想知道他的来龙去脉了。他来自白水河道上游，在这附近无亲无戚。我一直以为他已原路回去，但现在我不敢肯定了。我丈夫出事之后，就出现了一些关于他的风言风语。他们说，是血液里流淌着的某种东西，那东西可能永远都不会出来，一旦出来，那就是月亮的变化让它出来的，通常发生在月黑时分，大家都回家睡着之时。谁的血液里被种下符咒，那东西就会附在他身上，他睡不着，于是起床走到耀眼的太阳之下，独自离开，被牵引着去寻找同类。
[4] And it may be so, because my husband would do that. I’d half rouse and say, “Where you going to?” and he’d say, “Oh, hunting, be back this evening,” and it wasn’t like him, even his voice was different. But I’d be so sleepy, and not wanting to wake the kids, and he was so good and responsible, it was no call of mine to go asking “Why?” and “Where?” and all like that.
[4] 也许他们说的不错，因为我的丈夫就是那样的。我会半起身地说：“你要去哪里?”他会回答：“哦，打猎，晚上就回来。”这不像他，甚至连他的声音也变了。但是由于我太困，也不想吵醒孩子，他又是那么好，那么有责任感，我就没有必要追问“为什么?”、“去哪里?”之类的问题了。
[5] So it happened that way maybe three times or four. He’d come back late and worn out, and pretty near cross for one so sweet-tempered —not wanting to talk about it. I figured everybody got to bust out now and then, and nagging never helped anything. But it did begin to worry me. Not so much that he went, but that he come back so tired and strange. Even, he smelled strange. It made my hair stand up on end. I could not endure it and I said, “What is that — those smells on you? All over you!” And he said, “I don’t know,” real short, and made like he was sleeping. But he went down when he thought I wasn’t noticing, and washed and washed himself. But those smells stayed in his hair, and in our bed, for days.
[5] 事情就这样发生了大概三四次。他每次回来都很晚，而且疲惫不堪，他本来脾气很好，现在却面带愠色——似乎不愿说话。我想每个人都有偶尔出格的时候，唠唠叨叨是没有用的。但这事的确开始让我不安了，主要原因并不是他的离开，而是他回来时显得那样疲倦，那样奇怪。甚至他身上的味道都是怪怪的。这让我感到毛骨悚然。终于我无法忍受了，说：“你身上那——那些味道是什么，满身都是!”他说：“我不知道。”十分简短，让人觉得他是睡着了。但是当他以为我没注意时，他下去使劲地冲洗自己的身子。可那些气味依然留在他头发里，留在我们床上，几天都散不去。
[6] And then the awful thing. I don’t find it easy to tell about this. I want to cry when 1 have to bring it to my mind. Our youngest, the little one, my baby, she turned from her father. Just overnight. He come in and she got scared-looking, stiff, with her eyes wide, and then she begun to cry and try to hide behind me. She didn’t yet talk plain but she was saying over and over, “Make it go away! Make it go away!”
[6] 接着可怕的事情来了。对我来说讲这事并不容易，每当我不得不回忆这事的时候我都想哭。我们最年幼的小乖乖小宝贝突然间讨厌起她爸爸来了。他进屋时，她一脸惊愕，僵在那里，眼睛瞪得大大的，然后就开始哭，想躲到我身后。她本来话都说不清，这会却一个劲地说：“让它滚开!让它滚开!”
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