Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9 JULY 2, 1863 THE ROUTE TO GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA They marched two by two along the dusty road, camping at night, and then setting out again before dawn. The days were scorching hot, and some men had collapsed on the side of the road, their faces beet red, their wool uniforms soaked in sweat. Birdie rode in the wagon with Les and Homer. But Thomas marched with Henry. Henry told stories as they walked, about his parents and the store they owned, how his town smelled like apples in the fall, about his

第九章1863年7月2日去宾夕法尼亚州葛底斯堡的路线他们两个两个在尘土飞扬的路上行进，晚上露营，然后在黎明前再次出发。 天气酷热难当，一些人瘫倒在路边，满脸通红，羊毛制服被汗水浸透。 伯蒂和莱斯、霍默坐在马车上。 但是托马斯和亨利一起前进。 亨利一边走一边讲故事，讲他的父母和他们开的商店，讲他所在的小镇在秋天散发出的苹果味，讲他的故事

sweetheart, Mary. He had shown Thomas and Birdie a picture of Mary, a pretty and serious- looking girl with a thick brown braid. They were both teachers at a little school in their town. Henry had also shown them his most precious possession: a small book Mary had made for him. It had a tin cover, and was filled with paintings of their town in Vermont. In one of the pictures the trees and grass were covered with what looked like a thick white blanket. "That's snow," Henry had explained. "It comes from the sky, like tiny icy flowers. There's nothing more beautiful than the first snow in Vermont." Birdie had closed her eyes and smiled, as if she could see it all in her imagination. Thomas wished he could. But it seemed his mind had stopped making happy pictures when Clem was taken. "I told Mary all about you," Henry said now. "In my last letter."

亲爱的,玛丽。他给托马斯和伯蒂看了一张玛丽的照片，一个漂亮而严肃的女孩，梳着一条棕色的粗辫子。 他们都是镇上一所小学校的老师。 亨利还向他们展示了他最珍贵的财产:玛丽为他制作的一本小书。 它有一个锡皮，上面画满了他们在佛蒙特州的小镇。 在其中一张照片中，树木和草地被厚厚的白色毯子覆盖着。 “那是雪，”亨利解释道。 “它来自天空，像冰冷的小花。 没有什么比佛蒙特州的第一场雪更美丽的了。” 伯蒂闭上眼睛，微笑着，仿佛她能在想象中看到这一切。 托马斯希望他能。但当克莱姆被拍下来时，他的大脑似乎已经停止了快乐的画面。 “我把你的事都告诉玛丽了，”亨利说。 “在我最后一封信里。”

"You wrote about me?" Thomas said, trying not to smile. Hearing that made him feel important. "One day you'll be able to write your own letters," Henry said. Thomas wondered if Henry was right. He hadn't learned how to read or write; teaching a slave to read was illegal all over the South. "Clem knew how to read," Thomas said. Henry always liked hearing about Clem. "How did he manage to learn?" Henry asked. "One winter, one of Mr. Knox's sons got sick," Thomas said. "So Mrs. Knox gave him lessons at home. Clem would sneak up to the house, and stand on a bucket outside the window so he could hear." "That's clever!" Henry said with a laugh. Thomas remembered how Clem would stay up late into the night. "He'd burn a candle so he could practice scratching letters into the dirt," he told Henry.

“你写过我?”托马斯说，强忍着不笑出来。 听到这些，他觉得自己很重要。 “总有一天你会自己写信的，”亨利说。 托马斯怀疑亨利是否正确。 他还没学会读书写字;在南方，教奴隶读书是违法的。 “克莱姆知道怎么读书，”托马斯说。 亨利总是喜欢听克莱姆的事。 “他是怎么学会的?”亨利问道。 “有一年冬天，诺克斯先生的一个儿子病了，”托马斯说。 于是诺克斯太太在家给他上课。 克莱姆会偷偷溜到屋里，站在窗外的水桶上，这样他就能听到。” “聪明!”亨利笑着说。 托马斯记得克莱姆经常熬夜到很晚。 “他点了根蜡烛，这样他就可以练习在泥土上刻字，”他告诉亨利。

Some mornings Thomas woke up and the entire floor of their shack was covered with words, as though Clem had spelled out all of his dreams. "But then Mr. Knox caught him. He noticed that Clem wasn't in the fields when he was supposed to be, and he found him up at the house, his ear close to the window. He saw all the words written in the dirt." "What did he do?" Thomas glanced at Henry. He hadn't meant to tell this part. He tried never to think about it. "He whipped him." Thomas closed his eyes, trying to stop the flood of memories — the thwack of Mr. Knox's whip, Clem's shouts of pain, the sight of Clem's blood- soaked shirt. "Clem couldn't walk for two weeks." "For learning to read?" Henry said, his eyes blazing with anger and shock. "Yes, sir," Thomas said.

有时候，托马斯早上醒来，棚屋的整个地板上都写满了字，好像克莱姆把他所有的梦都拼出来了。 但随后诺克斯先生抓住了他。 他注意到克莱姆没有在他应该在的地方，他发现他在房子里，耳朵贴在窗户上。 他看到了写在土里的所有的字。” “他做了什么?”托马斯瞥了亨利一眼。 他本不想讲这部分的。 他尽量不去想这件事。 “他鞭打他。”托马斯闭上眼睛，试图阻止记忆的洪流——诺克斯先生的鞭子抽打，克莱姆痛苦的呼喊，克莱姆浸透了鲜血的衬衫。 “克莱姆有两个星期不能走路。” “为了学习阅读?”亨利说，他的眼睛里闪着愤怒和震惊的光芒。 “是的，先生，”托马斯说。

They marched quietly for a moment, and then Henry turned. He put his hand on Thomas's arm. "There are plenty of bad people in the world," he said. "Too many to count. But there are good people, too." "I know that," Thomas said, looking around at all of the men. He had found that out over these past two weeks. Henry seemed to have more to say, but two soldiers appeared on horseback with a message for Captain Campbell. Tens of thousands of troops were already in Gettysburg. The battle had begun. "This is it!" the captain bellowed. "To Gettysburg!" The men raised their rifles and cheered along, but their eyes looked uncertain. Their words seemed to disappear quickly into the air, like dust.

他们静静地走了一会儿，然后亨利转过身来。 他把手放在托马斯的胳膊上。 “世界上有很多坏人，”他说。 “太多了，数不清。但也有好人。” “我知道，”托马斯说着，环顾了一下所有的人。 在过去的两个星期里，他发现了这一点。 亨利似乎还有更多的话要说，但是两个骑马的士兵出现了，给坎贝尔上尉带来了消息。 成千上万的军队已经在葛底斯堡。 战斗开始了。“就是这个!”船长喊道。 “葛底斯堡!”士兵们举起步枪，欢呼起来，但他们的眼神却充满了疑惑。 他们的话似乎很快就像灰尘一样消失在空气中。

They'd just started marching again when Henry suddenly turned to Thomas. "I've been thinking," he said, "that when all this is over, you and Birdie should come live in Vermont. You could go to my school. Mary is a wonderful teacher. She'll have you both reading in no time." Him and Birdie in Vermont? With Henry? Going to school? "What do you think?" Thomas smiled, too stunned to speak at first. And then the soldier marching in front of them fell to the ground. He landed on his back, his eyes gazing blankly up at the sky. There was a mark on the man's forehead, like the wormhole in an apple, only bigger. Blood poured from the hole, making a puddle around his head. The man had been shot dead.

他们刚开始行军，亨利突然转向托马斯。 “我一直在想，”他说，“等这一切都结束了，你和伯蒂应该去佛蒙特州住。 你可以去我的学校。 玛丽是个很棒的老师。 她很快就会让你们俩都看书的。” 他和伯迪在佛蒙特州? 与亨利?去上学? “你觉得怎么样?”托马斯笑了，一开始吓得说不出话来。 然后走在他们前面的士兵倒在了地上。 他仰面着地，眼睛茫然地望着天空。 那人的额头上有个记号，就像苹果上的虫洞，只是更大。 血从洞里涌出来，在他的头周围形成了一个水坑。 该男子已被枪杀。