Smiley's People汉译100
本帖最后由 agent124 于 2024-7-19 22:01 编辑Toby made a pause but Smiley did not stir. Toby stood up, went to a cupboard, poured two glasses of an extremely indifferent sherry, and put one on the table beside the Degas maquette. He said “Cheers” and drank back his glass, but still Smiley did not budge. His inertia rekindled Toby’s anger.
“So I killed him, George, okay? It’s Hector’s fault, okay? Hector is personally and totally responsible for the old man’s death. That’s all I need.” He flung out both hands, palms upward. “George! Advise me! George, for this story I should go to Hamburg, unofficial, no cover, no baby-sitter? Know where the East German border is up there? From Lübeck two kilometres? Less? Remember? In Travemünde you got to stay on the left of the street or you’ve defected by mistake.” Smiley did not laugh. “And in the unlikely event I come back, I should call up George Smiley, go round to Saul Enderby with him, knock on the back door like a bum—‘Let us in, Saul, please, we got hot information totally reliable from Otto Leipzig, only five grand Swiss for an audition concerning matters totally forbidden under the Boy Scout laws’? I should do this, George?”
From an inside pocket, Smiley drew a battered packet of English cigarettes. From the packet he drew the home-made contact print, which he passed silently across the table for Toby to look at.
“Who’s the second man?” Smiley asked.
托比停顿了一下，但斯迈利没有动。托比站起身，走到橱柜前，倒了两杯质量极其一般的雪利酒，然后把其中一杯放在德加塑像旁边的桌子上。他说了声“干杯”，然后把杯中的酒一饮而尽，但斯迈利仍然纹丝不动。他无动于衷的样子重新点燃了托比的怒火。
“是我杀了他，乔治，好吗？都是赫克托的错，好吗？赫克托本人要对老人的死负全部责任。这就够了。”他两手一摊。“乔治，你说该怎么办！乔治，为了这个故事，我应该去汉堡，非官方的，没有掩护，没有保姆？知道那里的东德边界在哪里吗？离吕贝克（德国北部城市，以砖砌哥特式建筑而著称——译注）两公里？或更近？记得吗？在特拉弗明德，你必须走在街道左边，否则就会不知不觉中成了叛逃者。”斯迈利没有笑。“即使我侥幸回来了，难道我还要叫上乔治·斯迈利，和他一起去找索尔·恩德比，像个流浪汉一样敲他家的后门——‘索尔，请让我们进去，我们从奥托·莱比锡那里得到了完全可靠的消息，只要五千瑞士金币，就可以参加一次试听，内容是童子军法完全禁止的’？我应该这么做吗，乔治？”
斯迈利从口袋里掏出一包皱巴巴的英国香烟，从烟盒里抽出那张照片，默默地把它递过桌子让托比看。
“第二个人是谁？”斯迈利问道。
“I don’t know.”
“Not his partner, the Saxon, the man he stole with in the old days? Kretzschmar?”
Shaking his head, Toby Esterhase went on looking at the picture.
“So who’s the second man?” Smiley asked again.
Toby handed back the photograph. “George, pay attention to me, please,” he said quietly. “You listening?”
Smiley might have been and might not. He was threading the print back into the cigarette packet.
“People forge things like that these days, you know that? That’s very easy done, George. I want to put a head on another guy’s shoulders, I got the equipment, it takes me maybe two minutes. You’re not a technical guy, George, you don’t understand these matters. You don’t buy photographs from Otto Leipzig, you don’t buy Degas from Signor Benati, follow me?”
“Do they forge negatives?”
“Sure. You forge the print, then you photograph it, make a new negative—why not?”
“Is this a forgery?” Smiley asked.
Toby hesitated a long time. “I don’t think so.”
“Leipzig travelled a lot. How did we raise him if we needed him?” Smiley asked.
“He was strictly arm’s length. Totally.”
“我不知道”
“不是他的搭档，那个撒克逊人，就是以前和他一起偷东西的人？克雷奇马尔吗？”
托比·埃斯特哈斯摇摇头，继续看着照片。
“那么第二个人是谁？” 史迈利又问。
托比把照片递了回去。“乔治，请注意听我说。”他低声说。“你在听吗？”
斯迈利可能在听，也可能没在听。他正把照片放回烟盒里。
“现在人们都在伪造这样的东西，你知道吗？这很容易做到，乔治。我想在另一个人的肩膀上放一个头，我有设备，也许只需要两分钟。你不懂技术，乔治，你不懂这些事。你不会从奥托·莱比锡那里买照片 也不会从比纳蒂先生那里买德加的画，明白吗？”
“他们会伪造照片吗？”
“当然，你伪造好照片，然后你把它拍下来，再做一张新的底片，为什么不呢？”
“这是伪造的吗？” 斯迈利问道。
托比犹豫了很久。“我觉得不是。”
“莱比锡到处乱跑。如果我们需要他，怎么跟他联系？” 斯迈利问。
“总是和我们保持距离。一直是。”
“So how did we raise him?”
“For a routine rendezvous the Hamburger Abendblatt marriage ads. Petra, aged twenty-two, blonde, petite, former singer—that crap. George, listen to me. Leipzig is a dangerous bum with very many lousy connections, mostly still in Moscow.”
“What about emergencies? Did he have a house, a girl?”
“He never had a house in his life. For crash meetings, Claus Kretzschmar played key-holder. George, for God’s sake, hear me once—”
“So how did we reach Kretzschmar?”
“He’s got a couple of night-clubs. Cat houses. We left a message there.”
A warning buzzer rang and from upstairs they heard the sound of voices raised in argument.
“I’m afraid Signor Benati has a conference in Florence today,” the blonde girl was saying. “That’s the trouble with being international.”
But the caller refused to believe her; Smiley could hear the rising tide of his protest. For a fraction of a second Toby’s brown eyes lifted sharply to the sound; then with a sigh he pulled open a wardrobe and drew out a grimy raincoat and a brown hat, despite the sunlight in the ceiling window.
“What’s it called?” Smiley asked. “Kretzschmar’s night-club—what’s it called?”
“The Blue Diamond. George, don’t do it, okay? Whatever it is, drop it. So the photo is genuine, then what? The Circus has a picture of some guy rolling in the snow courtesy of Otto Leipzig. You think that’s a gold-mine suddenly? You think that makes Saul Enderby horny?”
“那我们到底怎么找到他？”
“如果是例行约会，在《汉堡晚报》登一则征婚广告。佩特拉，22岁，金发碧眼，身材娇小，曾是歌手——就这些垃圾话。乔治，听我说。莱比锡是个危险的流浪汉，有很多烂关系，大部分还在莫斯科。”
“紧急情况呢？他有房子吗，或者是找某个女人？”
“他一辈子都没有房子。紧急会面的话，克劳斯·克雷奇马尔是关键人物。乔治，看在上帝的份上，听我说一次......”
“那我们怎么找到克雷奇马尔的？”
“他开了几家夜总会。窑子。我们在那留个言。”
警告的铃声响了，他们听到楼上传来了争吵声。
“恐怕比纳蒂先生今天要去佛罗伦萨开会，”金发女孩说。“这就是跨国公司的麻烦。”
但跟她说话的人拒绝相信她；斯迈利可以听到那人抗议的声音越来越响。托比的棕色眼睛猛地抬起来，听了一会儿，然后叹了口气，拉开衣柜，拿出一件脏兮兮的雨衣和一顶棕色的帽子，尽管天花板上的窗户透着阳光。
“它叫什么名字？”斯迈利问。“克雷奇马尔的夜总会，叫什么来着？”
“蓝钻石。乔治，别这样，好吗？不管是什么，别管它了。照片是真的，又怎么样？圆场有一张奥托·莱比锡提供的某人在雪地里打滚的照片。你觉得那是金矿吗？你以为索尔·恩德比会因此而鸡血上头吗？”
Smiley looked at Toby, and remembered him, and remembered also that in all the years they had known each other and worked together, Toby had never once volunteered the truth, that information was money to him; even when he counted it valueless, he never threw it away.
“What else did Vladimir tell you about Leipzig’s information?” Smiley asked.
“He said it was some old case come alive. Years of investment. Some crap about the Sandman. He was a child again, remembering fairy tales, for God’s sake. See what I mean?”
“What about the Sandman?”
“To tell you it concerned the Sandman. That’s all. The Sandman is making a legend for a girl. Max will understand. George, he was weeping, for Christ’s sake. He’d have said anything that came into his head. He wanted the action. He was an old spy in a hurry. You used to say they were the worst.”
Toby was at the far door, already half-way gone. But he turned and came back despite the approaching clamour from upstairs, because something in Smiley’s manner seemed to trouble him—“a definitely harder stare,” he called it afterward, “like I’d completely insulted him somehow.”
“George? George, this is Toby, remember? If you don’t get the hell out of here, that guy upstairs will sequester you in part-payment, hear me?”
斯迈利看着托比，想起了过去和他的交往，也想起在他们相识共事的这些年里，托比从来没有主动说过一次实话，情报对他来说就是金钱；即使他认为情报毫无价值，他也从来没有丢弃过。
“关于莱比锡的情报，弗拉基米尔还告诉了你什么？” 斯迈利问。
“他说这是一个重新复活的老案子。下了好多年本钱。一些关于睡魔的屁话。看在上帝的份上，他又回到了童年，想起了童话故事。明白我的意思了吗？”
“睡魔是怎么回事？”
“告诉你这和睡魔有关。就是这样。睡魔在为一个女孩编故事。马克斯会理解的。乔治，看在上帝的份上，他在哭泣。他想到什么就说什么，他想要行动，他是个老间谍，急得跟什么似的。你以前常说这种人最糟糕。”
托比在远处的门口，几乎要走出房间了。尽管楼上的吵闹声越来越近，他还是转身折回来了，因为斯迈利的举止似乎让他感到不安——“那是一种绝对严厉的目光”，他事后这样说，“好像我在某种程度上完全侮辱了他。”
“乔治？乔治，这是托比，还记得吗？如果你再不滚出去，楼上那家伙就会把你扣押起来抵一部分债，听见了吗？”
Smiley hardly did. “Years of investment and the Sandman was making a legend for a girl?” he repeated. “What else? Toby, what else!”
“He was behaving like a crazy man again.”
“The General was? Vladi was?”
“No, the Sandman. George, listen. ‘The Sandman is behaving like a crazy man again, the Sandman is making a legend for a girl, Max will understand.’ Finito. The total garbage. I’ve told you every word. Go easy now, hear me?”
From upstairs, the sounds of argument grew still louder. A door slammed, they heard footsteps stamping towards the staircase. Toby gave Smiley’s arm a last, swift pat.
“Goodbye, George. You want a Hungarian baby-sitter some day, call me. Hear that? You’re messing around with a creep like Otto Leipzig, then you better have a creep like Toby look after you. Don’t go out alone nights, you’re too young.”
Climbing the steel ladder back to the gallery, Smiley all but knocked over an irate creditor on his way down. But this was not important to Smiley; neither was the insolent sigh of the ash-blonde girl as he stepped into the street. What mattered was that he had put a name to the second face in the photograph; and to the name, the story, which like an undiagnosed pain had been nagging at his memory for the last thirty-six hours—as Toby might have said, the story of a legend.
斯迈利几乎动都没动。“下了好多年本钱，睡魔在为一个女孩编故事？”他重复道。“还有什么？托比，还有什么！”
“他又表现得像个疯子一样了。”
“你说将军？弗拉迪？”
“不，是睡魔。乔治，听着。'睡魔又像个疯子，睡魔在为一个女孩编故事，马克斯会理解的。’到此为止。完全是垃圾。我把每个字都告诉你了。别激动，听见了吗？”
楼上的争吵声越来越大。一扇门砰地关上了，他们听到有脚步声踏向楼梯。托比最后迅速拍了拍斯迈利的胳膊。
“再见，乔治。如果哪天你想找个匈牙利保姆，给我打电话。听见了吗？你要是跟奥托·莱比锡这样的烂人混，那你最好让托比这样的烂人来照顾你。晚上别一个人出去，你还太小。”
斯迈利爬上钢梯回到画廊，上楼时差点撞倒一个恼怒的债主。但这对斯迈利来说并不重要，当他走到大街上时，灰黄女孩无礼的叹了口气，这也不重要。重要的是，他给照片上的第二张脸对上了名字；而这个名字又带出一个故事，在过去的三十六个小时里，这个故事就像一种无法确诊的疼痛，一直在他的记忆里挥之不去——托比可能会说，那是一个传奇故事。
And that, indeed, is the dilemma of those would-be historians who are concerned, only months after the close of the affair, to chart the interplay of Smiley’s knowledge and his actions. Toby told him this much, they say, so he did that much. Or: if so-and-so had not occurred, then there would have been no resolution. Yet the truth is more complex than this, and far less handy. As a patient tests himself on coming out of the anaesthetic—this leg, that leg, do the hands still close and open?—so Smiley by a succession of cautious movements grew into his own strength of body and mind, probing the motives of his adversary as he probed his own.
事实上，这正是那些想成为历史学家的人所面临的困境，他们在事件结束仅仅几个月之后，就开始关注斯迈利的知识和他的行为之间的相互作用。他们说，托比告诉了他这么多，所以他做了这么多。或者说：如果没有发生这样那样的事情，那么就不会有解决的办法。然而，真相比这更复杂，也更不容易理解。就像一个病人在麻药劲儿过去之后要测试自己——这条腿，那条腿，手是否还能合拢和张开？斯迈利通过一系列谨慎的动作，逐渐增强了自己的身体和精神力量，像探究自己的动机一样探究对手的动机。
（第13章完）
全书翻译初稿已完成。剩下的章节就不贴了。
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