张晓风《不朽的失眠》英译

    他落榜了！一千二百年前。榜纸那么大那么长，然而，就是没有他的名字。啊！竟单单容不下他的名字“张继”那两个字。
    考中的人，姓名一笔一划写在榜单上，天下皆知。奇怪的是，在他的感觉里，考不上，才更是天下皆知，这件事，令他羞惭沮丧。

    离开京城吧！议好了价，他踏上小舟。本来预期的情节不是这样的，本来也许有插花游街、马蹄轻疾的风流，有衣锦还乡、袍笏加身的荣耀。然而，寒窗十年，虽有他的悬梁刺股，琼林宴上，却并没有他的一角席次。

    船行似风。

    江枫如火，在岸上举着冷冷的爝焰，这天黄昏，船，来到了苏州。但，这美丽的古城，对张继而言，也无非是另一个触动愁情的地方。

    如果说白天有什么该做的事，对一个读书人而言，就是读书吧！夜晚呢？夜晚该睡觉以便养足精神第二天再读。然而，今夜是一个忧伤的夜晚。今夜，在异乡，在江畔，在秋冷雁高的季节，容许一个落魄的士子放肆他的忧伤。江水，可以无限度地收纳古往今来一切不顺遂之人的泪水。

    这样的夜晚，残酷地坐着，亲自听自己的心正被什么东西啮食而一分一分消失的声音。并且眼睁睁地看自己的生命如劲风中的残灯，所有的力气都花在抗拒，油快尽了，微火每一刹那都可能熄灭。然而，可恨的是，终其一生，它都不曾华美灿烂过啊！

    江水睡了，船睡了，船家睡了，岸上的人也睡了。惟有他，张继，睡不着。夜愈深，愈清醒，清醒如败叶落余的枯树，似梁燕飞去的空巢。

    起先，是睡眠排拒的他。（也罢，这半生，不是处处都遭排拒吗？）而后，是他在赌气，好，无眠就无眠，长夜独醒，就干脆彻底来为自已验伤，有何不可？

    月亮西斜了，一副意兴阑珊的样子。有乌啼，粗嗄嘶哑，是乌鸦。那月亮被它一声声叫得更黯淡了。江岸上，想已霜结千草。夜空里，星子亦如清霜，一粒粒零落凄绝。

    在须角在眉梢，他感觉，似乎也森然生凉，那阴阴不怀好意的凉气啊，正等待凝成早秋的霜花，来贴缀他惨淡少年的容颜。

    江上渔火二三，他们在干什么？在捕鱼吧？或者，虾？他们也会有撒空网的时候吗？世路艰辛啊！即使潇洒的捕鱼的，也不免投身在风波里吧？然而，能辛苦工作，也是一种幸福吧！今夜，月自光其光，霜自冷其冷，安心的人在安眠，工作的人去工作。只有我张继，是天不管地不收的一个，是既没有权利去工作，也没福气去睡眠的一个……

    钟声响了，这奇怪的深夜的寒山寺钟声。一般寺庙，都是暮鼓晨钟，寒山寺庙敲“夜半钟”，用以惊世。钟声贴着水面传来，在别人，那声音只是睡梦中模糊的衬底音乐。在他，却一记一记都撞击在心坎上，正中要害。钟声那么美丽，但钟声自己到底是痛还是不痛呢？既然失眠，他推枕而起，摸黑写下“枫桥夜泊”四字。然后，就把其余二十八字照抄下来。我说“照抄”，是因为那二十八个字在他心底已像白墙上的黑字一样分明凸显：

    月落乌啼霜满天，

    江枫渔火对愁眠。

    姑苏城外寒山寺，

    夜半钟声到客船。

    感谢上苍，如果没有落第的张继，诗的历史上便少了一首好诗，我们的某一种心情，就没有人来为我们一语道破。

    一千二百年过去了，那张长长的榜单上（就是张继挤不进去的那纸金榜）曾经出现过的状元是谁？哈！管他是谁。真正被记得的名字是“落第者张继”。有人会记得那一届状元披红游街的盛景吗？不！我们只记得秋夜的客船上那个失意的人，以及他那场不朽的失眠。
 
——原载一九九五年七月十日《中国时报》

杜南馨 译:

Immortal Sleeplessness
Zhang Xiaofeng
 
He didn’t make it! One thousand two hundred years ago. On that big and lengthy scroll of names, only his was missing. Why, could it not just hold the two simple characters of his name, Chang Chi?

The ones that made it, their names were written stroke for stroke on the public bulletin board. An announcement to the world. Strangely, he felt, his failure was even more of an announcement to the world. This shamed and depressed him.

Leave the imperial city! Once a price was fixed, he boarded a small boat. This was not the way the story was supposed to evolve, originally perhaps he would be adorned with flowers and he would parade in the streets, ever so debonair while his horse trotted gently in the wind. He would be filled with the glory of returning home decorated and honored. But despite his ten years of careful study and its share of struggle and pain1, there was no seat for him at the Chung Lin Feast2.

The boat sailed as fast as the wind.

The maples by the river bank appear as if on fire, its cold flames lifted high. That day at dusk, the boat docked at Suchou. But to Chang Chi, this beautiful ancient city was just another place that touched his sorrow.

To a scholar, if there was one thing he had to do during the day, it was to study. And at night? Nights were for sleeping so you had enough stamina to continue studying the following day. But,
tonight was a melancholic evening. Tonight, in a faraway land, by the river bank, during the cold season of autumn where wild geese flew overhead, a down and out scholar was permitted to give full vent to his sorrow. The river, throughout the years, had the capacity to swallow infinitely the tears of the unblessed.

A night like this, he sat without any sympathy for himself, listening to the sound of his own heart disintegrating bit by bit as something gnawed at it. He look wide-eyed at his own life dwindling like an old lamp in a strong wind, with every ounce of energy spent resisting. The oil was almost out, the weak flame would die any moment. But the hateful truth was, throughout his life, the flame had never once shone brightly and resplendently!

The river slept. The boat slept. The boatman slept. The people on the shore also slept. Only he, Chang Chi, was awake. The deeper night fell, the more awake he became. Awake as a dying tree with very few leaves hanging; awake as an empty swallow’s nest deserted on the roof beam.

At first, sleep refused him (but then, most of his life, wasn’t he constantly being refused wherever he went?) Then in anger, his resolve strengthened. Fine, sleepless he would remain. Being the only one awake in the long night, he would give his scars a thorough examination. What was there to prevent him?

The moon slanted westward, appearing dispirited. A bird cawed hoarsely. It was a crow. Cowering under the cries of the crow, the moon looked even more crestfallen. He imagined frost forming on the vast spread of grass on the bank. In the night sky, the stars looked also like clear frost, each crystal cold and cutting to the core.

There was a sparse scattering of light from the fishing boats on the river. What were they doing? Catching fish? Or shrimp? Do they ever cast out nets that return without any catch? Life was hard. Even the carefree fishermen must sometimes get tangled in the wind and waves, surely?
But to be able to work hard was also a blessing. Tonight, the moon shone as moons do, the frost was cold as frost is generally, the sleeping were asleep, the working were at work. There was only he left. Chang Chi, a person who was discarded by heaven and jilted by earth. One who did not have the right to work, nor the fortune to sleep…

A bell rang, late at night, eerily, from the Cold Mountain Temple. Generally, temples tolled bells in the morning and beat drums in the evening. But the Cold Mountain Temple rang its bell in the middle of the night as a warning to the masses. The sound of the bell rode on the water and travelled over. To others, the sound was just a vague sort of background music in their dreams. To him, the sound banged hard against his heart, right to his very hurt. The bell sounded hauntingly beautiful, but did the bell itself feel pain?

As sleep eluded him, he pushed aside his pillow and rose. In the dark, he wrote down the words ‘Mooring at Night by Maple Bridge.’ Then, he copied the other twenty-eight characters down one by one. I say copied because the other twenty-eight characters were as clear as black ink on the white wall of his consciousness:
 
Moon setting, crow cawing, frost filling the sky.
Through river maples, fisherman flares confronting troubled sleep.
Outside Kusu Cith, Cold Mountain Temple—
Late at night the sound of its bell reaches a traveler’s boat3.
 
Thank god. Were it not for Chang Chi who failed his examination, a great poem would be missing from the history of poetry. There would be no one to hit a certain mood of ours right in the eye.
One thousand two hundred years have since passed. Who was the top examinee on that long public notice (that golden scroll that Chang Chi could not squeeze into)? Ha, who cares? The name that we really remember is Chang Chi, the one that failed.

Does anyone recall the top scoring scholar of that year and the festive occasion of his parade in the streets? No, we only remember that autumn evening with the disillusioned man on the small boat. And his immortal sleeplessness.
 
“The Chinese PEN” Autumn, 1995
 
1. In Chinese, this literally means to tie one’s hair on a house beam and jab at oneself with an awl to keep oneself awake. It refers to the extreme hardships some examinees experienced in order to prepare for their official examinations.
2. The Chung Lin Feast was a feast hosted by the emperor in honor of the successful examinees of the imperial examination.
3. Adapted from the Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry-from Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, translated and edited by Burton Watson, N. Y. Columbia University Press, 1984. Watson’s title of the poem: “Tying up for the Night at Maple River Bridge”.