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1、notes of a native son 一个土生子的笔记Notes of a Native Son By James Baldwin The year which preceded my fathers death had made a great change in my life. I had been living in New Jersey, working in defense plants, working and living among southerners, white and black. I knew about the south, of course, and
2、about how southerners treated Negroes and how they expected them to behave, but it had never entered my mind that anyone would look at me and expect me to behave that way. I learned in New Jersey that to be a Negro meant, precisely, that one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the ref
3、lexes the color of ones skin caused in other people. I acted in New Jersey as I had always acted, that is as though I thought a great deal of myself-I had to act that way-with results that were, simply, unbelievable. I had scarcely arrived before I had earned the enmity, which was extraordinarily in
4、genious, of all my superiors and nearly all my co-workers. In the beginning, to make matters worse, I simply did not know what was happening. I did not know what I had done, and I shortly began to wonder what anyone could possibly do, to bring about such unanimous, active, and unbearably vocal hosti
5、lity. I knew about jim-crow but I had never experienced it. I went to the same self-service restaurant three times and stood with all the Princeton boys before the counter, waiting for a hamburger and coffee; it was always an extraordinarily long time before anything was set before me; but it was no
6、t until the fourth visit that I learned that, in fact, nothing had ever been set before me: I had simply picked something up. Negroes were not served here, I was told, and they had been waiting for me to realize that I was the only Negro present. Once I was told this, I determined to go there all th
7、e time. But now they were ready for me and, though some dreadful scenes were subsequently enacted in that restaurant, I never ate there again. It was the same story all over New Jersey, in bars, bowling alleys, diners, places to live. I was always being forced to leave, silently, or with mutual impr
8、ecations. I very shortly became notorious and children giggled behind me when I passed and their elders whispered or shouted-they really believed that I was mad. And it did begin to work on my mind, of course; I began to be afraid to go anywhere and to compensate for this I went places to which I re
9、ally should not have gone and where, God knows, I had no desire to be. My reputation in town naturally enhanced my reputation at work and my working day became one long series of acrobatics designed to keep me out of trouble. I cannot say that these acrobatics succeeded. It began to seem that the ma
10、chinery of the organization I worked for was turning over, day and night, with but one aim: to eject me. I was fired once, and contrived, with the aid of a friend from New York, to get back on the payroll; was fired again, and bounced back again. It took a while to fire me for the third time, but th
11、e third time took. There were no loopholes anywhere. There was not even any way of getting back inside the gates. That year in New Jersey lives in my mind as though it were the year during which, having an unsuspected predilection for it, I first contracted some dread, chronic disease, the unfailing
12、 symptom of which is a kind of blind fever, a pounding in the skull and fire in the bowel. Once this disease is contracted, one can never be really carefree again, for the fever without an instants warning, can recur at any moment. It can wreck more important things than race relations. There is not
13、 a Negro alive who does not have this rage in his blood-one has the choice, merely, of living with it consciously or surrendering to it. As for me, this fever has recurred in me, and does, and will until the day I die. My last night in New Jersey, a white friend from New York took me to the nearest
14、big town, Trenton, to go to the movies and have a few drinks. As it turned out, he also saved me from, at the very least, a violent whipping. Almost every detail of that night stands out very clearly in my memory. I even remember the name of the movie we saw because its title impressed me as being s
15、o partly ironical. It was a movie about the German occupation of France, starring Maureen O Hara and Charles Laughton and called This Land Is Mine. I remember the name of the diner we walked into when the movie ended: it was the American Diner. When we walked in the counterman asked what we wanted a
16、nd I remember answering with the casual sharpness which had become my habit: We want a hamburger and a cup of coffee, what do you think we want? I do not know why, after a year of such rebuffs, I so completely failed to anticipate his answer, which was, of course, We dont serve Negroes here. This re
17、ply failed to discompose me, at least for the moment. I made some sardonic comment about the name of the diner and we walked out into the streets. This was the time of what was called the brown-out, when the lights in all American cities were very dim. When we rentered the streets something happened
18、 to me which had the force of an optical illusion, or a nightmare. The streets were very crowded and I was facing north. People were moving in every direction but it seemed to me, in that instant, that all of the people I could see, and many more than that, were moving toward me, against me, and tha
19、t everyone was white. I remember how their faces gleamed. And I felt, like a physical sensation, a click at the nape of my neck as though some interior string connecting my head to my body had been cut. I began to walk. I heard my friend call after me, but I ignored him. Heaven only knows what was g
20、oing on in his mind, but he had the good sense not to touch me-I dont know what would have happened if he had-and to keep me in sight. I dont know what was going on in my mind, either; I certainly had no conscious plan. I wanted to do something to crush these white faces, which were crushing me. I w
21、alked for perhaps a block or two until I came to an enormous, glittering, and fashionable restaurant in which I knew not even the intercession of the Virgin would cause me to be served. I pushed through the doors and took the first vacant seat I saw, at a table for two, and waited. I do not know how
22、 long I waited and I rather wonder, until today, what I could possibly have looked like. Whatever I looked like, I frightened the waitress who shortly appeared, and the moment she appeared all my fury flowed towards her. I hated her for her white face, and for her great, astounded, frightened eyes.
23、I felt that if she found a black man so frightening I would make her fright worth-while. She did not ask me what I wanted, but repeated, as though she had learned it somewhere, We dont serve Negroes here. She did not say it with the blunt, derisive hostility to which I had grown so accustomed, but,
24、rather, with a note of apology in her voice, and fear. This made me colder and more murderous than ever. I felt I had to do something with my hands. I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck between my hands. So I pretended not to have understand her, hoping to draw her closer. And sh
25、e did step a very short step closer, with her pencil poised incongruously over her pad, and repeated the formula:.dont serve Negroes here. Somehow, with the repetition of that phrase, which was already ringing in my head like a thousand bells of a nightmare, I realized that she would never come any
26、closer and that I would have to strike from a distance. There was nothing on the table but an ordinary water-mug half full of water, and I picked this up and hurled it with all my strength at her. She ducked and it missed her and shattered against the mirror behind the bar. And, with that sound, my
27、frozen blood abruptly thawed, I returned from wherever I had been, I saw, for the first time, the restaurant, the people with their mouths open, already, as it seemed to me, rising as one man, and I realized what I had done, and where I was, and I was frightened. I rose and began running for the doo
28、r. A round, potbellied man grabbed me by the nape of the neck just as I reached the doors and began to beat me about the face. I kicked him and got loose and ran into the streets. My friend whispered, Run! and I ran. 在我父亲去世前那一年，我的生活发生了很大的变化。当时我住在新泽西，在国防工厂工作，与南方的白人和黑人一起工作、生活。我当然懂得南方，懂得南方人如何对待黑人以及他们如何
29、指望黑人个个循规蹈矩，但我从未想到竟会有人瞅着我，指望我也规规矩矩地行事。我在新泽西学习到身为黑人的精确含义，那就是决不会有人会好好看你一眼，只是凭你的肤色在别人眼里的反应而听人摆布。我在新泽西的行动也象我平时的行动一样，仿佛我自以为很了不起-我不得不如此行动-结果简直令人难以置信。我刚刚到达，就引起所有上司和几乎所有同事的仇视，尽管这种仇视表现得非常巧妙。开始时我根本不知道正在发生的事，这就使情况更糟。我并不知道自己干了什么，很快就开始琢磨有什么人可能干了什么坏事，竟导致那么一致的、剧烈的和听上去使人无法忍受的敌意。我知道什么是种族歧视，但从未亲身体验过。我去同一家自助餐厅三次，跟所有那些普
30、林斯顿学生一起站在食柜台前面，等待一个汉堡包和一杯咖啡；总是要等待特别长的时间，才有东西放到我面前；但直到第四次去那儿，我才发现事实上并没有东西放在我面前：我只是捡起给别人吃的东西。黑人在那儿不受招待，他们告诉我说，而且一直在等我自己认识到我一直是在场的唯一黑人。一旦有人告诉了我这一点，我决意天天去那儿。但现在他们对我已经习惯，尽管那家餐馆里后来闹了几次事，我却再也不到那儿去用餐了。 在新泽西到处都是同一个故事，不管是酒吧间里，地滚球戏球场上，小餐馆里，或者住区。我总是被迫离开，悄悄地，或者互相咒骂着。我很快就臭名远扬，走到哪儿都有孩子们在背后咯咯地笑，成人们或是窃窃私语，或是大声吆喝-他们真
31、的相信我是个疯子。而我在心理上也确实开始受到影响，当然啦；我开始害怕去任何地方，而为了补偿这一点，我去了我实在不应该去的地方，同时也是，上帝知道，我并不想去的地方。我在镇上的名声自然提高了我在工作地方的名声，我的工作日也成了一长串杂技表演，都是设计出来不让我惹麻烦的。我不能说这些杂技表演是成功的。我开始觉得，我工作单位的机器之所以日夜运转，只是为了一个目标：轰我出去。我被解雇一次，在我的一个来自纽约的朋友帮助下设法恢复了工作；再次被解雇，再次反跳回去。第三次解雇来得比较缓慢，但终于来了。并不是到处都有空子可钻的。甚至连再进大门的机会都没有了。 在新泽西的这一年一直在我的脑海里流连，仿佛我对它有
32、了无知的偏爱之后，就在当年首次染上了某种可怕的慢性病，它的铁定的症状是一种使人两眼发黑的高热，脑壳里的一阵剧痛，和肠子里火燎似的感觉。一旦染上这病，你再也不能无忧无虑了，因为这种高热没有丝毫预兆，任何时候都可能复发。它能够破坏比种族关系更为重要的东西。凡是活着的黑人，没有一个不是血管里含着这种忿怒你只有两种选择：耍么自觉地跟它一起生活，要么向它投降。至于我，这种高热在我身上一再复发，过去、现在、将来都这样，直到我的末日。 我在新泽西的最后一个晚上，一位来自纽约的白人朋友带我到最近的大镇特伦顿去看电影，喝几杯。结果他救了我的命，至少免去一顿毒打。差不多那天晚上的每一细节都非常滑楚地突出在我的记忆
33、里。我甚至记得我们看的那个电影的名字，因为那片名颇具讽刺意味，给我的印象很深。电影讲的是德国占领时期的法国，由毛琳奥哈拉和查尔斯劳顿主演，取名这片土地是我的。我也记得看完电影后我们进去用餐的那家小餐馆的名字：它叫作“美国餐馆”。我们进去以后，掌柜的问我们需要什么，我记得自己回答的口气随便而尖锐，这早已成为我的习惯：“我们要一份汉堡包和一杯咖啡，你以为我们需要什么？”我不知道为什么经过一年那样的挫折之后，我竟完全想不到会有那样的回答。回答当然是：“我们这儿不招待黑人。”这回答并没有使我失去常态，至少在当时。我对餐馆的名字说了两句刻薄话，我们就走出餐馆到了街上。 当时是所谓“部分灯火管制”时期，美
34、国所有城市里的灯光都非常暗淡。我们到了街上之后，我遭遇到一件事，起的作用很象是视错觉或者梦魇。街上十分拥挤，我正好脸朝北。人们奔向各个方向，但那一瞬间，在我看来好像是我视野内的所有的人，都是奔向我、反对我，而且全都是白人。我还记得他们的脸上如何闪闪发亮。我还感觉到，象是深受伤似的，我的后颈克嚓一声，仿佛有跟连接我脑袋和身躯的内在绳索被割断了。我迈步就走。我听见我朋友在后面叫我，但我不理睬他。只有老天爷知道我心里在想些什么，可他还算聪明，并没有碰我-要是他碰了我，我不知道会出什么事-只是紧紧盯住我。我自己也不知道心里在想些什么；我肯定没有任何自觉的计划。我只想采取行动粉碎那些白脸，因为它们正在粉
35、碎我。我大约走了一、两条街，来到一家金碧辉煌、非常豪华的大餐厅，在这里我深知哪怕是圣母说情，也没法叫他们招待我。我推门进去，找了第一眼看到的空位置坐下，在一张两个座位的饭桌旁边，等待着。 我不知道我等了多久，而且直到今天我都想象不出我当时可能是副什么样子。不管我当时的样子如何，我把不久后出现的女招待吓得够呛，她一出现，我的全部忿怒都倾泻在她身上。我憎恨她那张白脸，憎恨她那双既吃惊又害怕的大眼睛。我觉得她既然发现一个黑人那么可怕，那我就不应该让她白害怕一场。 她并不问我需要什么，只是象背书似的背诵：“我们这儿不招待黑人。”她说话的口气并不含有我已完全习惯了的那种直截了当的、含讥讽的敌意，而是声音
36、里带着几分歉意，还有恐惧。这使我变得更冷静，也更凶狠。我觉得我必须使用我的双手干些什么。我要她走得更近一些，好让我用双手掐住她的脖子。 因此我装作不明白她说些什么，希望把她引得近些。她也确实迈进非常小的一步，她的铅笔怪模怪样地举在小本子上面，嘴里重复着那个公式：“.这儿不招待黑人。” 这句话早已象噩梦里的一千只铃似的在我脑袋里轰响，它才重复说出口来，不知怎的我就看出她再也不会走近一步，我必须从远处袭击。桌上别无它物，只有一只盛有半杯水的普通大水杯，我就捡起杯子，用尽全力向她掷去。她一低头，杯子没击中她，却打在酒吧后面的镜子上撞得粉碎。就是这一声响，我冻结的血液突然溶化了，我出窍的灵魂也重新回来
37、，第一次看见这餐馆，看见这些张大了嘴的人，在我眼里他们仿佛已经象一个人似的站立起来，我意识到我自己做了什么，以及我身在何处，我害怕了。我站起来，开始向门口奔去。我刚到门边，有个圆滚滚的大肚皮男人一把拽住我的脖领子，开始揍我的脸。我踢了她一脚，挣脱开去，奔到街上。我朋友悄没声儿说：“跑！”我拔腿就跑。 我朋友留在餐馆外面很久，向追我的人们和警察指引错误的方向，他告诉我说警察到得很快。我不知道那天晚上他来到我房间时我对他说了些什么。我不可能说得很多。我非常奇特、非常难过的感觉到，我在某种程度上出卖了他。这记忆在我脑海里一而再、再而三的重复出现，就象一个人遭遇车祸后发现只剩自己一个人好好活着，他脑海里就会一再出现那段记忆一样。我无法忘怀两个事实，二者同样难以使我的想象力接受：一是我可能被谋杀，另一是我当时准备谋杀人。我对一切都看不十分清楚，但有一点是清楚的：那就是我的生命，我真正的生命，是在危险之中-倒不是有人可能加害于我，而是由于我自己内心蕴藏着仇恨。
