小东西的神灵  （自译）

即使后来，在此后的十三个夜里，他们也本能地依赖着小东西。真正的大事当然永远只能蔵在心里。他们知道两个人无处可去，一无所有。他们没有未来，能把握住的，只有一些生活中一闪而过的小东西。

他们取笑彼此屁股上蚂蚁的啮痕，看着笨拙的毛虫从叶端滑落，研究摔倒后翻不过身来的甲虫。河里总是追着维卢达咬的一对小鱼让他俩不禁莞尔，一只虔诚的仿佛在祷告的螳螂也能引起他们的兴趣。他们最爱的是一只住在老屋黑暗回廊墙缝里的小蜘蛛。它总是用小小的垃圾碎片把自己的身体伪装起来。一丝银色的黄蜂翅。一角蜘蛛网。尘土。腐叶。死蜜蜂空空如也的胸腔。维卢达叫他“Chappu Thamburan”, 垃圾之王。一天晚上他俩往它的衣橱里加了件衣裳—一瓣大蒜皮，结果小蜘蛛把大蒜皮连同自己的整套盔甲一股脑儿抛弃了，它好像被他俩“低劣”的着装品味震惊了，它踩在盔甲上，是一小团不忿的赤裸的鼻涕色的小东西。而他们俩也觉得受到深深的侮辱。此后的几天时间，小蜘蛛都保持着这种轻鄙的自杀式赤裸。被它遗弃的垃圾之壳静静地站立着，仿佛一种过时的世界观，一种废弃的哲学。直到有一天壳碎了。Chappu Thamburan换上了一套崭新的衣装。

虽然他们从没对彼此甚至自己承认这一点，但是他们已经把自己的命运，未来，他们的爱，他们的疯狂，他们的希望和他们无限的快乐都和它联系在一起了。随着时光飞逝他们的恐慌与日俱增，每逢入夜他们都要检查一下垃圾之王是否又活过了一天。他们俩为它的脆弱忧虑，为它的渺小难过，为它的伪装是否合格担心，为它似乎能自我毁灭的骄傲倍感焦急。渐渐地他们懂得欣赏它兼收并蓄的品味，以及它那蹒跚的尊严。

他们选择了它是因为知道自己只能信仰孱弱，维持卑微。每次分手，他们只能从彼此身上得到一个小小的承诺。

“明天？”

“明天。”

他们知道一天之内世界就可能崩塌。他们是对的。

不过他们对“垃圾之王”的担忧是多余的。它比维卢达活得更长。

它做了父亲，生养了一窝又一窝小崽儿。

最后还落得个安然老死。

（原文对照） The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy, Winner of Booker Prize)

Even later, on the thirteen nights that followed this one, instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew that there was nowhere for them to go. They had nothing. No future. So they stuck to the small things.

They laughed at ant-bites on each other’s bottoms. At clumsy caterpillars sliding off the ends of leaves, at overturned beetles that couldn't’ right themselves. At the pair of small fish that always sought Velutha out in river and bit. At a particular devout praying mantis. At the minute spider who lived in a crack in the wall of the black verandah of the History House and camouflaged himself by covering his body with bits of rubbish—a silver of wisp wing. Part of a cobweb. Dust. Leaf rot. The empty thorax of a dead bee. Chappu Thamburan, Velutha called him. Lord Rubbish. One night they contributed to his wardrobe – a flake of garlic skin，and were deeply offended when he rejected it along with the rest of his armour among which he emerged, disgruntled, naked, snot-coloured. As though he deplored their taste in clothes. For a few days, he remained in this suicidal state of disdainful undress. The rejected shell of garbage stayed standing, like an outmoded world view. An antiquated philosophy. Then it crumbled. Gradually Chappu Thamburan acquired a new ensemble.

Without admitting it to each other or themselves, they linked their fates, their futures (their Love, their Madness, their Hope, their Infinnate Joy) to his. They checked on him every night (with growing panic as time went by) to see if he had survived the day. They fretted over his frailty. His smallness. The adequacy of his camouflage. His seemingly self-destructive pride. They grew to love his eclectic taste. His shambling dignity.

They chose him because they knew that they had to put their faith in frailty. Stick to Smallness. Each time they parted, they extracted only one small promise from each other.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow.’

They knew that things could change in a day. They were right about that.

They were wrong about Chappu Thamburan, though. He outlived Velutha. He fathered future generations.

He died of natural causes.