第47章 警察与赞美诗欧·亨利 (3)
“Of course it’s mine,” said Soapy viciously.
The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across the street in front of a street car that was approaching two blocks away.
Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an excavation. He muttered against the men who wear helmets and carry clubs. Because he wanted to fall into their clutches, they seemed to regard him as a king who could do no wrong.
At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where the glitter and turmoil was but faint. He set his face down this toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct survives even when the home is a park bench.
But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted out to Soapy’s ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against the convolutions of the iron fence.
The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and pedestrains were few; sparrows twittered sleepily in the eaves—for a little while the scene might have been a country churchyard. And the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and collars.
The conjunction of Soapy’s receptive state of mind and the influences about the old church wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the pit into which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that made up his existence.
And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position. He would be somebody in the world. He would—
Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly round into the broad face of a policeman.
“What are you doin’ here?” asked the officer.
“Nothing’,” said Soapy.
“Then come along,” said the policeman.
“Three months on the Island,” said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.
警察与赞美诗
[美国] 欧·亨利
躺在麦迪逊广场的长凳上，索比不安稳地辗转反侧。当野天鹅在夜空中引吭高歌时，当缺少海豹皮外套的女人对她们的丈夫变得越来越亲热时，当索比在公园的长凳上辗转反侧时，你就该知道，冬天快要来了。
一片枯叶飘落在索比的膝盖上，那是霜冻先生——杰克·弗洛斯特的名片。对麦迪逊广场的常客们，杰克十分地友好，每年冬天来访前，他都事先通知。在十字街头，他把自己的名片交给北风先生——“露天大厦”的守门人，好让大厦里的房客们做好准备。索比逐渐意识到这个事实，那就是，他为自己组织“个人筹备委员会”以抵御即将来临的严寒气候。因此他在长凳上辗转不已。
对躲避寒冬，索比的奢望不算太高。他既没考虑去地中海旅游，也没考虑那熏人欲睡的南方天空，更没考虑去维苏威海湾漂游，他想的仅仅是在岛上待上三个月。三个月提供饭吃，提供床睡，又有意气相投的同伴，还能安全地躲过北风之神勃瑞艾斯和巡警。在索比看来，这就足够了。
很多年来，热情的布莱克韦尔岛监狱都是索比的冬季寓所。就像比他幸运得多的纽约人，每年冬天都买票去棕榈滩和里维埃拉一样，索比只能为他一年一次的海岛避冬做一些简单的安排。而现在，又到这个时候了。前一晚，他睡在古老广场喷泉旁的长凳上，用了三份星期日的报纸塞在外套下，盖住脚踝和膝盖仍不能抵御严寒。这时，那岛就在他的脑海里及时地涌现出来。索比鄙视那些以慈善为名供应给城里无依靠的人的必需品。在他看来，法律比慈善机关更仁厚。这里有无数机构，无论是市政的，还是慈善机关的，他都可以着手安排，以获取符合简单生活的食宿。但索比生性高傲，慈善机构的施舍对于他来说只是个累赘。尽管不必破费，但从慈善家手里接过的任何好处都必须用精神上的屈辱作为补偿。就像有了恺撒就有了他的布鲁图一样，慈善机构提供一个床位，你就得洗个澡作为代价。每施舍一片面包，你就得交待你的个人隐私。由此看来，当法律的客人还是合算一些。尽管在那里会受到法规的钳制，但对于一位绅士的个人隐私，法律是不会无故粗鲁地干涉的。