Hemingway's Short Stories: Two Generations of Father and Son (Part II)

"If Eddie Gilby dares to come at night, dare to say a word to Dorothy, do you know what I'm going to do with him? Nick pulled the bolt and didn't even aim at it, it was just a shot from the horn, as if it had punched the bastard Eddie Gilby with a slap-sized hole in either his head or stomach. "That's all. And so he slaughtered him. ”

"Then persuade him not to come," Mr. Trudy said. She reached into Nick's pocket.

"Gotta advise him to be more careful," Billy said.

"He's a braggart. Trudy's hand ran his way into Nick's pocket. "But don't kill him. Kill him and cause great trouble. ”

"That's how I'm going to kill him," Nick said. It was as if Eddie Gilby was lying on the ground, with a big disembowelment in his chest. Nick also stepped on one foot vividly.

"I'm going to scalp him too," he said gleefully.

"That's not going to work," Mr. Trudy said. "That's disgusting. ”

"I'm going to strip him off and send it to his mother. ”

"dead a long time ago," Mr. Trudy said. "Don't kill him, Nicky. For my sake, don't kill him. ”

"After he had scalped him, he threw him to the dogs. ”

Billy was on his mind. "You have to advise him to be careful," he said sullenly.

"Calling the dog tore him to shreds," Nick said, smug at the sight. After stripping the scoundrel bastard, he would stand aside and watch the guy be torn to pieces by the dog, and he didn't even frown, and suddenly he stumbled backwards, leaning against a tree, and his neck was tightly hooked, and it turned out that Trudy had put his arms around him, and he couldn't breathe anymore, and shouted, "Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him! Nicky. Nicky!"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Don't kill him. ”

"You have to kill him. ”

"He's a braggart. ”

"Okay," Nicky said. "As long as he doesn't come to the door, I won't kill him. Let go of me. ”

"That's right," Mr. Trudy said. "Are you interested now? I think it's okay now. ”

"As long as Billy Ken walks away. "Nick thinks he's a manly man who killed Eddie Gilby and spares him later.

"You go away, Billy. Why are you stuck here all the time? Let's go. ”

"Son of a bitch," Billy said. "It's something that annoys me to death. What are we going to do? Hunting or what?"

"You can take this gun. And one more bullet. ”

"Okay. I took care of a big, black one. ”

"I'll call you in a moment," Nick said.

After most of the day, Billy still hasn't returned.

"Do you think we're going to have a baby?" Trudy happily crossed her swarthy legs and rubbed against Nick. Nick didn't know what was on his mind.

"No," he said.

"Just give birth to a special student, whatever. ”

They heard a gunshot from Billy.

"I don't know if he hit it. ”

"Whatever," Mr. Trudy said.

Billy came out of the woods. He carried a gun over his shoulder, a black squirrel in his hand, and grabbed two front feet.

"Look," he said. "Bigger than a cat. Are you done?"

"Where did you get it?"

"Over there. When you see it jump out, hit it. ”

"It's time to go home," Nick said.

"No," Trudy said.

"I need to rush back to dinner. ”

"Okay. ”

"Do you want to hunt tomorrow?"

"Okay. ”

"Take the squirrel. ”

"Okay. ”

"Did you come out after dinner?"

"Nope. ”

"What do you think?"

"Good. ”

"Oh well. ”

"Kiss me on the face," Trudy said.

Now driving down the highway in a car, it was getting dark, and Nick stopped thinking about his father. At the end of the day, he would no longer miss his father. At the end of the day, Nick doesn't allow anyone else to disturb him, and if he can't spend the night alone, he feels that something is wrong. Every year in autumn or early spring, he often misses his father, when a sandpiper flew on the prairie, or saw a pile of corn and corn in the field, or saw a lake of water, sometimes even if he saw a carriage, or because he saw a group of geese, heard the sound of geese, or because he hid in the edge of the pond to hunt wild ducks; As long as he walked into a barren orchard, stepped on a newly cultivated field, went into the bushes, went to the hill, or stepped on the withered grass on the ground, as soon as he chopped wood, as soon as he carried water, as soon as he walked past the mill, the mill, the dam, and especially the sight of a bonfire burning in the field, his father's shadow would always suddenly appear before his eyes. However, some of the cities he lived in, his father did not see. From the age of fifteen he was completely separated from his father.

In the cold winter weather, my father's beard was frosted, and when it was hot, he sweated like pulp. He likes to work in the fields under the sun, because it's not his job, he just likes to do hard work, but Nick doesn't. Nick loved his father, but hated the smell of his father, and once he had to wear a set of underwear that his father could no longer wear, and it made him feel disgusting, so he took it off and stuffed it under two rocks by the brook, saying that he had lost it. When his father told him to put it on, he told him that it smelled, but he said that the clothes had only been washed. The clothes were indeed washed. Nick asked him to smell it, and his father got angry, picked it up and smelled it, saying that it was clean and fragrant. When Nick came back from fishing, his underwear was gone, and he said that he had lost it, so he was whipped for telling the lie.

Afterwards, he loaded his shotgun, pulled the bolt, sat down in the small woodroom, left the door open, and saw his father sitting under the screen window of the porch reading the newspaper, and he thought to himself, "I can send him to Hades with one shot." I beat him to death. In the end, his anger finally subsided, but he still felt a little disgusted when he remembered that this shotgun was given by his father. So he went to the camp of the Indians in the dark to get rid of the smell. There was only one person in the house who didn't hate the smell, and that was with a younger sister. He can't avoid contact with others at all. By the time he smoked a cigarette, his sense of smell was dulled. That's a good thing. The sharper the nose of a birdhunting dog, the better, but a person with a nose too sharp is not necessarily good.

"Dad, when you were a kid, you used to go hunting with the Indians, how did you hunt?"

"I can't say that," Nick was taken aback. He didn't even notice that the child was awake. He looked at the child sitting in the car seat next to him. He thought he was alone, but the kid kept his eyes wide open all the time. I don't know how long the child has been awake. "We used to go black squirrel hunting, and a dozen was a day," he said. "My father only gave me three rounds a day, and he said that this is how to learn how to hunt, and that it is not good for a child to take a gun and crack it everywhere. I went with a guy named Billy Gilby and his sister Trudy. One summer, we went almost every day. ”

"It's weird, the Indians have names like that. ”

"yes, no," Nick said.

"Tell me, what are they like?"

"They're Ojibwa," Nick said. "People are very nice. ”

"How are they doing with them?"

"How do I tell you that," said Nick Adams. Can you tell the child that she was the first to give him the pleasure he had never had? Can she mention to the child the plump and dark thighs, the flat belly, the pair of firm little tits, the arms tightly hugged, the tip of the tongue that explores nimbly, the misty eyes, the wonderful taste in the mouth? Can you talk about the discomfort that follows, the tightness, the sweetness, the wetness, the warmth, the thoughtfulness, the stimulation? The infinite perfection, the infinite perfection, the endless There is never end, never end, but all at once it was over, and a great bird flew away like an owl in the twilight, but in the woods during the day, and some hemlock tree needles stuck to its belly. In this way, wherever you go thereafter, as long as there are Indians living there, you can smell the traces they have left behind, and no matter how strong the smell of empty wine bottles is, no matter how many flies there are, they cannot overpower the smell of vanilla, the smell of fireworks, and the smell of freshly peeled mink. Even if I hear the jokes of sarcastic Indians and see the old and withered old Indian woman, this feeling will not change. I am not afraid that they will gradually bring a disgusting fragrance on them. It doesn't matter what they end up doing. It doesn't matter where they end up. Anyway, they all ended the same way. It was not bad back then. Not right now.

Let's talk about hunting. Striking a bird is equivalent to striking all the birds in the sky. Although there are all kinds of birds, and the posture of flying is also different, but the feeling of hitting a bird is the same, the first bird is good, and the last bird is equally beautiful. Knowing this, he should be grateful to his father.

"You probably won't like them," Nick said to his son. "But I think you're going to like them. ”

"Grandpa lived with them when he was a kid, didn't he?"

"Yes. I also asked him what the Indians were like, and he said that many of them were his friends. ”

"Can I go live with them in the future?"

"I can't say that," Nick said. "It's up to you to decide. ”

"How old can I get a shotgun and go hunting alone?"

"Twelve years old, if I see you being careful by then. ”

"I wish I were twelve years old now. ”

"That's going to be fast anyway. ”

"What was my grandfather like? I don't remember him anymore, but I remember the year I came back from France, and he gave me an airsoft gun and an American flag. What does he look like?"

"He's a great catcher and a fisherman, and he's got a lot of eyes. ”

"Is it more amazing than you?"

"He's a lot better marksman than I am, and his father is also a sharpshooter who shoots flying birds. ”

"I dare say he won't be better than you. ”

"Oh, he's tough. He shoots quickly and hits accurately. Watching him hunt is more enjoyable than watching anyone hunt. He was always unhappy with my marksmanship. ”

"Why don't we ever go to Grandpa's grave to pray?"

"Our hometown is not in this area. It's far from here. ”

"There's no such thing in France. If only in France we could go. I guess I should go to my grandfather's grave and pray. ”

"Let's go another day. ”

"I hope that in the future we will not live so far away, lest I will not be able to go to your grave to pray when you die. ”

"We'll have to wait and see. ”

"Do you think we should all be buried in a convenient place? Burial in France is good. ”

"I don't want to be buried in France," Nick said.

"Then we have to find a more convenient place in the United States. We're all buried on the pasture, okay?"

"It's not a bad idea. ”

"So I can stop at my grandfather's grave on my way to the ranch and pray. ”

"You're very thoughtful. ”

"Alas, I haven't even been to my grandfather's grave once, and I always feel very comfortable. ”

"We're always going," Nick said. "Don't worry, we're always going. ”

Translated by Cai Hui

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[1] Enrico Caroso (1873-1921) was a famous Italian tenor opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for a long time.

[2] The original word for mashing is the word for "seduction" in the Turkish language, and in ordinary English, it means "mashing (potatoes) into a puree", so Nick has the following association.

[3] Anna Helde (1873-1918), a French-born singer and opera singer, performed in the United States for a long time, was known for her beauty, and was the first wife of Florence Siegfried (1867-1932), the founder of the "Siegfried Song and Dance Company".

[4] Like Nick, Nicky is also a nickname for Nicholas.

[5] Workshop for squeezing apple juice.