父亲的汗水（中英文对照）

围墙(Mr. Wang)

胡宝林文/王卫强译

By Hu Baolin/Tr. Wang Weiqiang

（原载于2017年8月7日《人民日报》24 版“大地”副刊）

(The original article was published in People’s Daily’s “The Land” Supplement, 24th Edition, on August 7, 2017)

月上半天，凉风起来，乡村的夜安静异常。父亲夹着镰，带着我出了门，顺着小路下到场院，再到河边，进了地。

The moon was half way up in the sky, the cool breeze began to blow and the night in the country was tranquil. Father set off carrying a sickle under his arm and taking me along. We passed by the threshing ground, walked along the riverside and finally arrived at our wheat field.

麦子已经熟透。黄时，它们一齐黄了，人手少，父亲忙不过来，只得在夜里赶着收割。村里的人已经睡下，或许鼾声已响起来。父亲也乏，也困，但他只能忍住，几片地的麦子等着他。

The wheat was fully ripe. As usually happens, all the wheat turns yellow in unison and there is always a shortage of farmhands. Father could not manage all the harvest work alone in the daytime, so he had to continue reaping at night. Other people in the village must have already gone to sleep, snoring away the pleasant hours now. But father could not have the infatuation whatsoever, though tired and sleepy too, because several plots of wheat awaited him to handle.

北边地头，父亲铺了蛇皮袋，让我坐下，他去割麦。他朝手心吐了两口唾沫，俯下身，攥住一把麦子，镰刀轻轻一划，麦子已经像“掫猴”一样提在手里。他把镰刀夹在左腋之下，双手将那把麦子穗头朝下轻轻蹾了两下，然后分成两股，一扭一拧打成腰，铺在地上。然后，正式开割。

At the northern edge of the field, father spread a plastic knitting bag for me to be seated on before getting down to work. First, he moistened his hands with saliva, bent down his body, grasped a handful of wheat stalks, flung his sickle at their roots, and instantaneously lifted them up into the air. Then he clamped the sickle under his left arm, and gently stroke the wheat stalks upside down on the ground twice for alignment. After that, he split the stalks into two strands, turned them into a twine by twisting them at the wheat ears' end and laid it down for binding. Finally, the reaping formally began.

他左手挽住一大抱麦子，右手挥镰出去，镰刃闪过一道亮光，再搂回来，“唰、唰、唰——”麦秸断裂的响声，急促、有力，在河边回荡。几镰过后，腰上已是一堆麦子，父亲扔下镰，蹲在地上，一只膝盖压在麦子上，双手将腰有力地拉在一起，扭绞一圈，然后将余把塞到腰里。随后，将麦捆轻轻提起，放在一边，又提起了镰，往前赶割。

He extended his left hand for a large holding of wheat, and thrust the sickle in his right hand forward and pulled it back swiftly. In so doing the sound of the wheat stalks being cut echoed incessantly and forcefully by the riverside. After a few cuttings, on the twine was already a big stack of wheat. Dropping the sickle aside and squatting on the ground, father pressed one of his knees against the stack, vigorously pulled together both ends of the twine and twisted them hard into a knot. Then, he gently lifted the wheat bale, set it aside, and picked up the sickle again to continue reaping. 

身后的空地越来越大，麦捆排成一条线。我感到有些瞌睡。父亲浑身燥热，干脆将长袖脱了，扔在了麦捆上，但他依然戴着草帽。“唰、唰——”这声音依然那么急促。慢慢，月亮向西，河边的树影愈发浓郁，麦子的声音中渐渐少了清脆，透着一种顽劲，那是露水起来了。但是锋利的镰刀、父亲黝黑的臂膀挥洒出的力量，将这顽劲毫不犹豫地斩断。这暗夜中的声音，好像哨声，好像打板子的节奏，又像父亲的脉搏和心跳。这声音，带来一种劳作的节奏，父亲投在地上的身影就像五线谱上的音符。这声音，父亲一年一年听着，这是他与麦子、与大地的对话，他能听来麦子的声音、土地的心绪。这声音久久地回荡在岁月里。

The clearance behind him was getting larger and larger, and more and more wheat bales were lined up in the field. Staying idle for so long, I felt like napping. But father kept reaping, which made him so hot that he took off his long-sleeve coat and threw it on a wheat bale. Still he wore the straw hat as he did in the daytime. The reaping resounded ever louder and ever faster. As time went on, the moon was going west, and the shadow of the trees by the riverside was getting darker. The reaping sound was gradually less crisp, revealing a kind of stubbornness in the wheat to be cut, for the wheat was moistened with morning dew. But the sharp sickle and the masculine strength released by father's dark arms cut down the stubborn wheat all at once. The sound in the darkness came as if from a whistle with the rhythm of a quick patter, like father’s pulse and heartbeat. The sound brought about a rhythm of labour, and father's figure was like a note on the stave. The sound that had been familiar to father for years was his dialogue with the wheat and the land. He could understand the voice of wheat and the mood of land. The sound had echoed for a long time in the flood of years.

父亲，在这急促的声音里，往前挥镰。我一觉醒来，父亲已经割到南头去了，我面前躺着一溜和我一样高的麦捆。我提了水瓶，轻轻走过来，站在父亲身后不远的地方，父亲没有发现我。两亩地，父亲已割了四五分。我想等到明天早晨，村里的人们起来一看，一定会感到惊讶，他们睡觉前好端端站着的一地麦子，已经倒在了地里。我站在有些凉意的地里，看父亲。父亲弯着腰，左手挥出去搂住一抱麦，右手的镰刀紧跟上去，一下、两下……

Father, in this rushing sound, reaped on with his sickle. When I woke up from a doze, father had already moved to the southern end, leaving behind him a long line of wheat bales as tall as I was then. I took up the water bottle, walked gently up to him and stood not far behind, but my father didn't notice me. Of such a big plot of wheat, father had finished a quarter or more. I thought, the next morning when the villagers got up and came into the fields, they would be quite amazed. How could it be that a whole plot of wheat which had stood upright there a night before was all cut and bound? I stood in the somewhat cooler dark air, watching him. Father kept bending over and reaping, his left hand thrusting forward for armful upon armful of wheat while the sickle in his right hand followed closely.

他像一个剪影，麦子就在他身子的暗影中。父亲，仰起头的一瞬，我看见他的额头、脸膛、臂膀湿漉漉的。在他俯身的一瞬，大大的汗珠子就一颗一颗滴落在地里，无声无息。父亲继续向前割，没有停歇，一镰一镰，一捆一捆，汗水悄悄滴下，像他干其他活计一样，让这个夜晚特别漫长。

He was like a silhouette, leaving the wheat in his shadow. Father looked up for an instant, and I all at once saw his forehead, cheeks and arms drenched with sweat. The moment he bent over, big beads of sweat dripped down to the field in silence. Father continued, swinging his sickle over and again and binding the reaped wheat into bundle upon bundle, sweat creeping down. Like he did always, he made this night particularly long for me.

父亲，在漫长人生岁月中的一个黑夜，把一滴滴汗水洒在土地上，洒在一片黑暗中，一如他经历的其他许多的黑夜。这汗水，从额头、从脸、到脊背，释放出他身体的热量。他与活儿展开一场不为人知的搏斗，他在黑暗中挥洒力量。他的汗水从地的北头流到南头，滴在麦秆上，滴在土地上，却捧不住，找不见。

Father, on a dark night in the long years of life, sprinkled drops of sweat onto the land and into the darkness, just as he had experienced in many other nights. The sweat, streaming down from his forehead, cheeks and back, released the heat of his body. He launched an unnoticed struggle with his living, and he demonstrated his might in the darkness. His sweat kept dripping off from the north to the south of the field, falling on the wheat-straw and the land, but could not be cupped in hands and got missing immediately.

这是一个农民的汗水。这是一个农民的力量。这汗水，从他的娃娃脸上流下，从他短暂的俊美的青春脸上流下，从他壮年的红脸膛上流下，后来从他衰老的身躯、萧索的容颜的皱纹里流下，滴在生命中，不为人知，找寻不见。

This was a farmer’s sweat. This was also an embodiment of a farmer’s power. The sweat was shed from the innocent face in his boyhood, from the shortly-lived, handsome face in his youth and from the wrinkled face in his weary old age, all dripping into the life, neither known nor found.

我，一个农民的九岁的儿子，站在地里，站在父亲的辛劳之外，看着父亲。

I, a farmer's nine-year-old son, stood there in the field disengaged from his toil, watching him.

多年以后，我把我的汗水洒在异乡的土地上，洒在不为人知的白天还有暗夜，一如父亲。一个人的汗水，从自己的身体里出来，会渗到自己的血液里，流淌在孤独的人生里，却不为人知。这不为人知的汗水，让人生变得更加硬朗，也让随之而来的欢乐变得更加有力。

Many years later, I sprinkle my sweat on a foreign soil in the days and nights unnoticed by others, just like my father. A person's sweat, coming out of his body, will seep into his own blood and flow in a solitary life, but not yet known. This unseen sweat makes the life more robust and its joy more forceful.

在父亲的身后站了许久，我终于打开水瓶，呼唤了一声，向父亲走去……

Having stood for quite some time behind my father, I finally opened the water bottle and my mouth, walking closer to him...

【作者简介】胡宝林，陕西宝鸡日报社记者，中国散文学会会员、陕西省作家协会会员。文学作品刊于《人民日报》《光明日报》《中国青年报》《中国文化报》《读者》等报刊，获第二届丝绸之路青年散文大赛银奖、第六届秦岭文学奖等。散文《未完成的抵达》上榜“2017中国散文排行榜”。出版散文集《此生此地》。

 [About the Author] Hu Baolin, Journalist of Baoji Daily of Shaanxi, member of Chinese Institute of Prose, and member of Shaanxi Writers Association. His literary works were published in such periodicals as People's Daily, Guangming Daily, China Youth Daily, China Culture News and Readers. He has won the Silver Prize of the 2nd Silk Road Youth Prose Competition and the 6th Qinling Literature Award. His prose The Unfinished Arrival is listed on the "2017 Chinese Prose Ranking". He has also published a prose collection entitled The Life Here and Now.