第 60 节
作者:风雅颂      更新:2021-10-16 18:44      字数:9322
  and must pass。
  Oh; I do see myself to…day that one man who appeared in the elder
  world; blonde; ferocious; a killer and a lover; a meat…eater and a
  root…digger; a gypsy and a robber; who; club in hand; through
  millenniums of years wandered the world around seeking meat to
  devour and sheltered nests for his younglings and sucklings。
  I am that man; the sum of him; the all of him; the hairless biped
  who struggled upward from the slime and created love and law out of
  the anarchy of fecund life that screamed and squalled in the jungle。
  I am all that that man was and did become。  I see myself; through
  the painful generations; snaring and killing the game and the fish;
  clearing the first fields from the forest; making rude tools of
  stone and bone; building houses of wood; thatching the roofs with
  leaves and straw; domesticating the wild grasses and meadow…roots;
  fathering them to become the progenitors of rice and millet and
  wheat and barley and all manner of succulent edibles; learning to
  scratch the soil; to sow; to reap; to store; beating out the fibres
  of plants to spin into thread and to weave into cloth; devising
  systems of irrigation; working in metals; making markets and trade…
  routes; building boats; and founding navigationay; and organizing
  village life; welding villages to villages till they became tribes;
  welding tribes together till they became nations; ever seeking the
  laws of things; ever making the laws of humans so that humans might
  live together in amity and by united effort beat down and destroy
  all manner of creeping; crawling; squalling things that might else
  destroy them。
  I was that man in all his births and endeavours。  I am that man to…
  day; waiting my due death by the law that I helped to devise many a
  thousand years ago; and by which I have died many times before this;
  many times。  And as I contemplate this vast past history of me; I
  find several great and splendid influences; and; chiefest of these;
  the love of woman; man's love for the woman of his kind。  I see
  myself; the one man; the lover; always the lover。  Yes; also was I
  the great fighter; but somehow it seems to me as I sit here and
  evenly balance it all; that I was; more than aught else; the great
  lover。  It was because I loved greatly that I was the great fighter。
  Sometimes I think that the story of man is the story of the love of
  woman。  This memory of all my past that I write now is the memory of
  my love of woman。  Ever; in the ten thousand lives and guises; I
  loved her。  I love her now。  My sleep is fraught with her; my waking
  fancies; no matter whence they start; lead me always to her。  There
  is no escaping her; that eternal; splendid; ever…resplendent figure
  of woman。
  Oh; make no mistake。  I am no callow; ardent youth。  I am an elderly
  man; broken in health and body; and soon to die。  I am a scientist
  and a philosopher。  I; as all the generations of philosophers before
  me; know woman for what she isher weaknesses; and meannesses; and
  immodesties; and ignobilities; her earth…bound feet; and her eyes
  that have never seen the stars。  Butand the everlasting;
  irrefragable fact remains:  HER FEET ARE BEAUTIFUL; HER EYES ARE
  BEAUTIFUL; HER ARMS AND BREASTS ARE PARADISE; HER CHARM IS POTENT
  BEYOND ALL CHARM THAT HAS EVER DAZZLED MEN; AND; AS THE POLE WILLY…
  NILLY DRAWS THE NEEDLE; JUST SO; WILLY…NILLY; DOES SHE DRAW MEN。
  Woman has made me laugh at death and distance; scorn fatigue and
  sleep。  I have slain men; many men; for love of woman; or in warm
  blood have baptized our nuptials or washed away the stain of her
  favour to another。  I have gone down to death and dishonour; my
  betrayal of my comrades and of the stars black upon me; for woman's
  sakefor my sake; rather; I desired her so。  And I have lain in the
  barley; sick with yearning for her; just to see her pass and glut my
  eyes with the swaying wonder of her and of her hair; black with the
  night; or brown or flaxen; or all golden…dusty with the sun。
  For woman IS beautiful 。 。 。 to man。  She is sweet to his tongue;
  and fragrance in his nostrils。  She is fire in his blood; and a
  thunder of trumpets; her voice is beyond all music in his ears; and
  she can shake his soul that else stands steadfast in the draughty
  presence of the Titans of the Light and of the Dark。  And beyond his
  star…gazing; in his far…imagined heavens; Valkyrie or houri; man has
  fain made place for her; for he could see no heaven without her。
  And the sword; in battle; singing; sings not so sweet a song as the
  woman sings to man merely by her laugh in the moonlight; or her
  love…sob in the dark; or by her swaying on her way under the sun
  while he lies dizzy with longing in the grass。
  I have died of love。  I have died for love; as you shall see。  In a
  little while they will take me out; me; Darrell Standing; and make
  me die。  And that death shall be for love。  Oh; not lightly was I
  stirred when I slew Professor Haskell in the laboratory at the
  University of California。  He was a man。  I was a man。  And there
  was a woman beautiful。  Do you understand?  She was a woman and I
  was a man and a lover; and all the heredity of love was mine up from
  the black and squalling jungle ere love was love and man was man。
  Oh; ay; it is nothing new。  Often; often; in that long past have I
  given life and honour; place and power for love。  Man is different
  from woman。  She is close to the immediate and knows only the need
  of instant things。  We know honour above her honour; and pride
  beyond her wildest guess of pride。  Our eyes are far…visioned for
  star…gazing; while her eyes see no farther than the solid earth
  beneath her feet; the lover's breast upon her breast; the infant
  lusty in the hollow of her arm。  And yet; such is our alchemy
  compounded of the ages; woman works magic in our dreams and in our
  veins; so that more than dreams and far visions and the blood of
  life itself is woman to us; who; as lovers truly say; is more than
  all the world。  Yet is this just; else would man not be man; the
  fighter and the conqueror; treading his red way on the face of all
  other and lesser lifefor; had man not been the lover; the royal
  lover; he could never have become the kingly fighter。  We fight
  best; and die best; and live best; for what we love。
  I am that one man。  I see myself the many selves that have gone into
  the constituting of me。  And ever I see the woman; the many women;
  who have made me and undone me; who have loved me and whom I have
  loved。
  I remember; oh; long ago when human kind was very young; that I made
  me a snare and a pit with a pointed stake upthrust in the middle
  thereof; for the taking of Sabre…Tooth。  Sabre…Tooth; long…fanged
  and long…haired; was the chiefest peril to us of the squatting
  place; who crouched through the nights over our fires and by day
  increased the growing shell…bank beneath us by the clams we dug and
  devoured from the salt mud…flats beside us。
  And when the roar and the squall of Sabre…Tooth roused us where we
  squatted by our dying embers; and I was wild with far vision of the
  proof of the pit and the stake; it was the woman; arms about me;
  leg…twining; who fought with me and restrained me not to go out
  through the dark to my desire。  She was part…clad; for warmth only;
  in skins of animals; mangy and fireburnt; that I had slain; she was
  swart and dirty with camp smoke; unwashed since the spring rains;
  with nails gnarled and broken; and hands that were calloused like
  footpads and were more like claws than like hands; but her eyes were
  blue as the summer sky is; as the deep sea is; and there was that in
  her eyes; and in her clasped arms about me; and in her heart beating
  against mine; that withheld me 。 。 。 though through the dark until
  dawn; while Sabre…Tooth squalled his wrath and his agony; I could
  hear my comrades snickering and sniggling to their women in that I
  had not the faith in my emprise and invention to venture through the
  night to the pit and the stake I had devised for the undoing of
  Sabre…Tooth。  But my woman; my savage mate held me; savage that I
  was; and her eyes drew me; and her arms chained me; and her twining
  legs and heart beating to mine seduced me from my far dream of
  things; my man's achievement; the goal beyond goals; the taking and
  the slaying of Sabre…Tooth on the stake in the pit。
  Once I wan Ushu; the archer。  I remember it well。  For I was lost
  from my own people; through the great forest; till I emerged on the
  flat lands and grass lands; and was taken in by a strange people;
  kin in that their skin was white; their hair yellow; their speech
  not too remote from mine。  And she was Igar; and I drew her as I
  sang in the twilight; for she was destined a race…mother; and she
  was broad…built and full…dugged; and she could not but draw to the
  man heavy…muscled; deep…chested; who sang of his prowess in man…
  slaying and in meat…getting; and so; promised food and pr