重读《老人与海》（4）

第二个夜晚降临的时候，老人不禁为大鱼悲伤起来：

Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill himnever relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity.

(后来，他为这条没东西吃的大鱼悲伤起来，不过杀死他的决心并没有因为悲伤而松懈。他想，他能养活很多人。但是那些人值得吃他吗？不，当然不。以他的优雅举止和他的崇高尊严，没有人配得上吃他。)

在老人的眼里，这是一条非同寻常的鱼，有着比普通人更高贵的品格，很多人根本就没有资格吃它。

经过两个白天两个夜晚的煎熬，老人感到自己已经处于精疲力尽的程度。但同样，鱼也无法像第一晚那样悠闲，那么力大无穷了。到此，老人与鱼之间的最后较量终于展开：

‘He is making the far part of his circle now,' he said. I must hold all I can, he thought. The strain will shorten his circle each time. Perhaps in an hour I will see him. Now I must convince him and then I must kill him.

But the fish kept on circling slowly and the old man was wet with sweat and tired deep into his bones two hours later. But the circles were much shorter now and from the way the line slanted he could tell the fish had risen steadily while he swam.

For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut under his eyes and on his forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the tension that he was pulloing on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him.

(他说: “他现在开始兜大圈了。” 我必须尽力握住，他想。他兜一圈，拉力就会把他兜的圈缩小一些。也许一小时后我就能见到他了。现在我必须说服他，然后杀了他。

但鱼继续慢慢地打着转，两个小时后，老人汗流浃背，疲惫得连骨头都痛了。不过，鱼兜的圈现在也小多了，从钓绳倾斜的角度看，他可以断定，鱼在兜圈的同时一直在往上升。

有一个小时左右，老人发现眼前一直有黑点。汗水蛰疼了他的眼睛，也蛰疼了他眼睛下面和额头上的伤口。他不怕黑点。在拉绳的紧张状态下出现黑点是正常的。不过，他有两次感到了晕眩，这让他很担心。)

上面的文字不仅讲述了大鱼在挣扎，也描述了老人的疲惫感以及眼冒金星的生理反应。老人在坚持，但是能不能坚持到底，并且战胜大鱼，初读《老人与海》的读者这时候心里不免要打问号了。

小说之所以为小说，一般需要情节的不断推进。没有情节推进的小说一定是很难吸引读者继续往下阅读的。海明威的高明处就是让情节慢慢展开，在启发读者发挥想象的同时，把故事渐渐引向高潮。当然，老人和大鱼进行搏杀这一节还不是小说的高潮，高潮还在后面，就是老人与鲨鱼的搏斗，其结果是老人虽然击退了鲨鱼的一次又一次的进攻，但大鱼的肉也被鲨鱼一块块撕裂并吞噬了。

下面这节文字重点描述了大鱼被老人杀死的场面，有些血腥，但血腥中又展示着强烈感人的力量之美：

The old man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more strength he had just summoned, into the fish's side just behind the great chest fin that rose high in the air to the altitude of the man's chest. He felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all his weight after it.

Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff.

(老人放下钓绳，用脚踩着，然后把鱼叉尽量高举，用尽全力，用他刚刚凝聚起来的更大的力量，把鱼叉刺入鱼的侧面，就在那只升腾到空中的巨大胸鳍的后面，高度与老人的胸部齐平。他感觉了到鱼叉的进入，又向前靠近一些，把鱼叉刺得更深些，随之把全身的重量都压上去。

稍后，鱼活过来，回光返照地跳出水面，把他的长度、宽度、力量和美全部展现无遗。有那么一会儿，他似乎悬在了站在小船上的老人的上空，然后，砰然一声落入水中，把水花溅泼到老人和整条小船上。）

我不知道海明威写这段文字的时候是否想到了西班牙斗牛的场面，但是我读这段文字的时候想到了。我觉得老人手里的鱼叉分明就是斗牛士手中的长剑，而大鱼最后的一跳，仿佛是被刺中的牛，在完成最后一程的狂奔。

在老人与鱼的战斗中，老人获得了胜利。老人最后的行为颇像古代的英雄，经过格斗，骄傲地砍下对方的首级。大鱼被杀死了，但死的一点也不难看，相反，它也像个英雄，死的壮丽，死的八面威风。