贾平凹·《丑石》英译

我常常遗憾我家门前的那块丑石呢：它黑黝黝地卧在那里，牛似的模样；谁也不知道是什么时候留在这里的，谁也不去理会它。只是麦收时节，门前摊了麦子，奶奶总是要说：这块丑石，多碍地面哟，多时把它搬走吧。

于是，伯父家盖房，想以它垒山墙，但苦于它极不规则，没棱角儿，也没平面儿；用錾破开吧，又懒得花那么大气力，因为河滩并不甚远，随便去掮一块回来，哪一块也比它强。房盖起来，压铺台阶，伯父也没有看上它。有一年，来了一个石匠，为我家洗一台石蘑，奶奶又说：用这块丑石吧，省得从远处搬动。石匠看了看，摇着头，嫌它石质太细，也不采用。

它不像汉白玉那样的细腻，可以凿下刻字雕花，也不像大青石那样的光滑，可以供来浣纱捶布；它静静地卧在那里，院边的槐荫没有庇覆它，花儿也不再在它身边生长。荒草便繁衍出来，枝蔓上下，慢慢地，竟锈上了绿苔、黑斑。我们这些做孩子的，也讨厌起它来，曾合伙要搬走它，但力气又不足；虽时时咒骂它，嫌弃它，也无可奈何，只好任它留在那里去了。

稍稍能安慰我们的，是在那石上有一个不大不小的坑凹儿，雨天就盛满了水。常常雨过三天了，地上已经干燥，那石凹里水儿还有，鸡儿便去那里渴饮。每每到了十五的夜晚，我们盼着满月出来，就爬到其上，翘望天边；奶奶总是要骂的，害怕我们摔下来。果然那一次就摔了下来，磕破了我的膝盖呢。

人都骂它是丑石，它真是丑得不能再丑的丑石了。

终有一日，村子里来了一个天文学家。他在我家门前路过，突然发现了这块石头，眼光立即就拉直了。他再没有走去，就住了下来；以后又来了好些人，说这是一块陨石，从天上落下来已经有二三百年了，是一件了不起的东西。不久便来了车，小心翼翼地将它运走了。

这使我们都很惊奇！这又怪又丑的石头，原来是天上的呢！它补过天，在天上发过热，闪过光，我们的先祖或许仰望过它，它给了他们光明，向往，憧憬；而它落下来了，在污土里，荒草里，一躺就是几百年了？！

奶奶说：“真看不出！它那么不一般，却怎么连墙也垒不成，台阶也垒不成呢？”

“它是太丑了。”天文学家说。

“真的，是太丑了。”

“可这正是它的美！”天文学家说，“它是以丑为美的。”

“以丑为美？”

“是的，丑到极处，便是美到极处。正因为它不是一般的顽石，当然不能去做墙，做台阶，不能去雕刻，捶布。它不是做这些顽意儿的，所以常常就遭到一般世俗的讥讽。”

奶奶脸红了，我也脸红了。

我感到自己的可耻，也感到了丑石的伟大；我甚至怨恨它这么多年竟会默默地忍受着这一切？而我又立即深深地感到它那种不屈于误解、寂寞的生存的伟大。

杨宪益、戴乃迭译文：

An Ugly Stone 

Jia Pingwa

I used to feel sorry for that ugly black piece of stone lying like an ox in front of our door; none knew when it was left there and none paid any attention to it, except at the time when wheat was harvested and my grandma, seeing the grains of wheat spread all over the ground in the front yard of the house, would grumble: “This ugly stone takes so much space. Move it away someday.”

Thus my uncle had wanted to use it for the gable when he was building a house, but he was troubled to find it of very irregular shape, with no edges nor corners, nor a flat plane on it. And he wouldn’t bother to break it in half with a chisel because the river bank was nearby, where he could have easily fetched a much better stone instead. Even when my uncle was busy with the flight of steps leading to the new house he didn’t take a fancy to the ugly stone. One year when a mason came by, we asked him to make us a stone mill with it. As my grandma put it: “Why not take this one, so you won’t have to fetch one from afar.” But the mason took a look and shook his head: He wouldn’t take it for it was of too fine a quality.

It was not like a fine Piece of white marble on which words or flowers could be carved, nor like a smooth big bluish stone people used to wash their clothes on. The stone just lay there in silence, enjoying no shading from the Pagoda trees by the yard, nor flowers growing around it. As a result weeds multiplied and stretched all over it, their stems and tendrils gradually covered with dark green spots of moss. We children began to dislike the stone too, and would have taken it away if we had been strong enough; all we could do for the present was to leave it alone, despite our disgust or even curses.

The only thing that had interested us in the ugly stone was a little pit on top of it, which was filled with water on rainy days. Three days after a rainfall, usually, when the ground had become dry, there was still water in the pit, where chickens went to drink. And every month when it came to the evening of the 15th of lunar calendar, we would climb onto the stone, looking up at the sky, hoping to see the full moon come out from far away. And Granny would give us a scolding, afraid lest we should fall down — and sure enough, I fell down once to have my knee broken. So everybody condemned the stone: an ugly stone, as ugly as it could be.

Then one day an astronomer came to the village. He looked the stone square in the eye the moment he came across it. He didn’t take his leave but decided to stay in our village. Quite a number of people came afterwards, saying the stone was a piece of aerolite which had fallen down from the sky two or three hundred years ago 一what a wonder indeed! Pretty soon a truck came and carried it away carefully.

It gave us a great surprise! We had never expected that such a strange and ugly stone should have come from the sky! So it had once mended the sky, given out its heat and light there, and our ancestors should have looked up at it. It had given them light, brought them hopes and expectations, and then it had fallen down to the earth, in the mud and among the weeds, lying there for hundreds of years!

My grandma said: “I never expected it should be so great! But why can’t people build a wall or pave steps with it?”

“It’s too ugly,” the astronomer said.

“Sure, it’s really so ugly.”

 “But that’s just where its beauty lies!” the astronomer said, “its beauty comes from its ugliness.”

“Beauty from ugliness?”

 “Yes. When something becomes the ugliest, it turns out the most beautiful indeed. The stone is not an ordinary piece of insensate stone, it shouldn’t be used to build a wall or pave the steps, to carve words or flowers or to wash clothes on. It’s not the material for those petty common things, and no wonder it’s ridiculed often by people with petty common views.”

My grandma became blushed, and so did I.

I feel shame while I feel the greatness of the ugly stone; I have even complained about it having pocketed silently all it had experienced for so many years, but again I am struck by the greatness that lies in its lonely unyielding existence of being misunderstood by people. 

刘荣跃译文：

The Ugly Rock 

Jia Pingwa

I often despaired over that ugly lump of rock right by the front of our house. There it sprawled, a great black, murky mass, with an appearance both bovine and ungainly. Nobody knew how or when it exactly had been left there, so everybody simply ignored it. Only, come harvest time, when the front yard would be piled high with wheat and crops, Grandmother would notice it and exclaim: “This unsightly rock — look how much space it’s taking up! We’ve got to get rid of it sometime.”

Therefore, when Uncle’s family was building a house, we thought of using it to pile up a side of the house wall. This proved to be impossible, however, since the rock was of an extremely irregular shape, possessing neither sharp right angles nor any smooth, flat surfaces. We could have used a chisel to break the rock up, but on one could be bothered to expend such a great deal of effort over it; the riverbank was only a short distance away, and any old rock that we brought back from there would have been easier to use than this one. Then, when the house was nearly completed, and we were looking for something for the front steps, Uncle didn’t think that the rock was even good enough for that. Another time, we had a stonemason come to grind a millstone for us. Grandmother again persuaded: “Why don’t you just use this piece of rock, and save yourself the trouble of hauling another piece over from somewhere far away?” The stonemason took a good look at the rock, and shock his head: he thought the rock’s texture too fine, and unsuitable for making the mill.

Yet it wasn’t as if our rock were fine like white marble, out of which intricate characters and delicate flowers could be wrought; nor was it smooth and polished like black granite, and could be used to wash linen and beat cloth. No, it just lay there silently in our yard. Even the expansive shade of the locust tree did not care to spread itself to cover and protect this homely rock, and flowers no longer blossomed beside it. Weeds began to sprout and flourish all around and about the rock, invading every crack and crevice, and encroaching upon the surface. Splotches of green moss and mottled black then further marred its already homely face. And we, the children, began to view it as a terrible eyesore. Once we even tried to haul it off the premises, but we weren’t quite strong enough. And though from time to time we cursed it and scorned it, there was nothing we could do — so in the end we had to let this ugly rock be, leaving it to lie there on its own.

If there was any slight comfort to be found in this ugly rock, it was the existence of a concavity, a hollow in its surface that was neither too large nor too small, and which would be filled to the brim with water on rainy days. Often, even after the rain had ceased for several days and the ground had already dried, the hollow in the rock would still be brimming with rainwater, and the chicks and hens would scurry up onto the rock to sip and drink from it. Every so often, on nights of the fifteenth when we would wait outside for the full moon to appear, we would also climb on top of the rock, and from its height, gaze hopefully into the dark sky. Grandmother would always come out and scold us, worried that we would fall off. And once, exactly as she had feared, I slipped off from my rocky perch, badly scraping my knee.

Everyone jeered at it, dubbing it “The Ugly Rock.” And, truly, it was as ugly as ever a rock could be.

Finally one day, an astronomer came to our village. As he passed our front gate, he suddenly spotted his rock — immediately he stared at it intently. He never left again, and proceeded to live with us. Soon after many others arrived, and declared that this homely rock was actually a meteorite. They explained to us that it had fallen from the sky, and had landed here on earth as long as two, maybe three hundred years ago, and that it was a great and wondrous object. A truck appeared, and the rock was carefully transported away.

This turn of events startled us all a great deal! To think that this strange and ugly rock had actually descended from the heavens! It had once made up part of this vast sky looming right over our heads, suffusing it with warmth, glowing with heat and light. Our forefathers had perhaps gazed up at it, and it had given them light and clarity, promising them a haven for their aspirations, their yearnings, providing a space for their dreams. And yet it had fallen from above, only to land here in the earth’s muddy depths, amidst the weedy undergrowth, for a visit that had lasted several hundreds of years.

Grandmother signed: “You never can tell, can you? That this ugly old rock would turn out to be something so special, when it couldn’t even be used to pile up a wall, or lay down a few lousy steps?”

“It really is too ugly,” the astronomer said.

“Yes really, too ugly.”

“But that is precisely wherein its beauty lies,” the astronomer explained. “Within its ugliness, this rock harbours a great and unearthly beauty, like a diamond in the rough.”

“Because it’s ugly it’s beautiful?”

“Yes. Ugliness in its extreme is beauty in the extreme. Precisely because it’s like no other rock, it cannot be made to pile up walls or be molded into a few front steps, and it cannot be carved or sculpted, or be used to beat down linen. The rock is from the heavens — it was not meant for such petty, banal purposes. And as a consequence, the world mocked it.”

Grandmother blushed, and so did I.

I felt my own baseness, as I also felt the goodness of this ugly rock. I even blamed it for bearing silently all the abuse and scorn for so many years. Then, I began to recognize and respect the greatness of its stoicism in the face of misunderstanding and lack of appreciation, and the strength of its forbearance in the face of a vast and eternally lonely, solitary existence.