青春无价--再评《荆棘鸟》中的富婆Mary (w English)

 

《荆棘鸟》读完已经一两个星期了，想着自己欠的英文读书笔记，在强迫自己写的同时，脑海里钻出一个人－－老太太Mary Carson，那日，茵茵在我文章后面留言提到她后，这个人物一直在我脑海挥之不去。

 

小说中的Mary只是一个配角，并非主线，但是她死前修改的遗嘱，留下的13million英镑的遗产，就像丢下一颗重磅炸弹，激起千层浪，让故事起伏跌宕。小说也是围绕着这份遗产而变化展开的。

 

Mary是个富婆遗霜，膝下没有儿女，守寡三四十年不愿意再嫁，因为她愿意享受这种“女王”一样的身份，不愿意转移财产。她经营牧场，靠的是自己的能力、专横；她财富的聚集靠的是她的妥善安排和投资的眼光。但是她毕竟是个女人，还有着柔情的一面。65岁那年，她喜欢上了二十八岁的牧师Ralph。Ralph从爱尔兰发配到澳大利亚西北农村，沮丧、失落、无望，一度仰仗Mary的财富、权势, 两人关系暧昧，有那么一点现代版的富婆包养小鲜肉的味道。然而Mary侄女Meggie的出现，像沙漠中出现的一棵含苞待放的玫瑰，像天空划过的一道亮光，唤醒了Ralph沉寂的心灵。他俩懵懵懂懂、隐藏地爱着，还是被Mary敏感地察觉到了。她觊觎嫉妒Ralph对Maggie的爱，对Ralph说，“我把你输给了Meggie, 但是我已经确信Meggie也得不到你。”因此，她改了遗嘱，把一千三百万英镑留给Ralph掌控，知道Ralph会为了自己的仕途放弃Meggie。她死之前交给Ralph一个信封，告诉他，“里面躺着他的命运和灵魂”， 并对他说，”我比你想象的还要了解你”。Ralph心里为此恨得咬牙切齿，骂这个至死都想用钱来掌控他的女人，一个死了都不忘报复他的毒蜘蛛。

 

一场赌注由此拉开帷幕。Mary那双老眼没有昏花，却似鹰眼洞察人心，洞察人性。在那晚，她还跟Ralph提及撒旦把耶稣带到山巅，用脚下的世界诱惑耶稣的故事，让人不禁揣测，Mary在此是不是代表着撒旦的化身， 是不是在用她的13 million英镑来诱惑心爱的Ralph？  结果，Ralph没能经受住考验，一生都在名誉、地位和情欲、心爱女人之间纠结争斗。

 

Mary报复Ralph的手段虽然有点过激，但是此举却也证明她爱得有多深，恨得有多切，侧面反映出她的个性。然而，她并非是个没有自尊的女人。在她65岁那年，当时依附她的Ralph主动提出跟她做爱，被她一笑了之。她不愿被人怜悯、被人施舍。可当Ralph厌恶地拒绝了她最后“像情侣般亲吻”她的要求时，她怒斥Ralph是个伪君子，说后悔自己当年没有跟他上床恶心他。一个行将就木的女人，在生命的最后一刻掷地有声地骂一个她爱的人，可谓个性鲜明，敢做敢为。

 

小说中的Mary还是个宿命论者。她厌倦了生命，在她七十二岁生日结束之晚，宣称自己今晚即将死去，自己的命运掌握在自己手里，人不想死是因为有口气撑着，而她今晚就要松了这口气离世了。果然如她所愿，她当晚真的离开了人世。牧师第二天从她躯体腐烂的程度，推算出Mary上床后几分钟就撒手人寰了。作者就此赋予小说宿命论的色彩。

 

Mary看似强悍，然而在她死之前跟Ralph说的话里却带着几分酸楚，几分无奈，几分抗争。她说(译文如下)：

 

“让我来告诉你, 我这个蠢笨的身子下还有一个年轻的心，我还有知觉，还有欲望，还有梦想。我的双脚踢着想挣脱身体的束缚。上帝对人最大的报复就是让我们变老。他为什么不让我们的心灵一起老去呢？”

 

“拉尔夫，你永远不会知道我多想把我生命的三十年一脚踢出窗口。如果魔鬼来找我，愿意他买走我的灵魂换回我的青春，我一秒钟内就成交，绝不会像浮士德那个老傻瓜那样愚蠢地后悔。”

 

这两段话倒出了Mary的心声。可以这么说，从某种角度，Mary追逐的不是Ralph的爱，她是想用钱在Ralph身上找回自己青春的影子，证明自己也可以重焕青春。一个人年轻的时候并不知道青春的价值，任意挥霍，而当青春真正离去，两鬓苍苍时，就会像Mary一样，发现青春是无价的，再多的钱买不回青春，再多的钱买不到真爱真情。作者在塑造Mary这个人物上是成功的。她笔下一个二十世纪初的富婆，一个cougar lady,  在当今二十一世纪物欲横流的今天不乏存在。Mary这个人物的时代性、现实性、无地域性让人产生共鸣，发人深省。这是小说成功的地方。

 

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Mary Carson is not a main character in the novel The Thorn Birds, but she is really a character! She was the owner of a vast sheep station Drogheda in the northwestern Australia. Rich she was, she was a widow, whose husband died young and whose only child died in infancy. At age 65, she wrote to her only living brother Paddy, inviting him and his family to live on her land, and intended to leave her fortune to him after her death. Ralph was a young good-looking priest , whom Mary was very enamored of. For quite a few years, he was like a cub to a cougar. But the appearance of Meggie changed him. Sensing the love between Ralph and Meggie, Mary was jealous and spiteful. She devised a new will before her death, in which her assets, a total of 13 million pounds, was donated to the Church in the hand of Ralph, as she was sure that Ralph would not give up his world for Meggie. “I must lose you to Meggie, but I’ve made sure she doesn’t get you, either.”, said Mary. And just as she predicted, Ralph failed the test, selling his “soul” for the 13 million pounds, as the ambition of advancing his career outweighed his love towards Meggie.

Mary is a shrewd woman with brain. She managed her land with an iron fist and autocratically, and thus wielded much power in the area.  Her fortune was amassed not just through running the sheep station, but through setting up an investment company called Michar Limited. She was a successful woman in business.  She chose not to remarry in her long 40 years’ widowhood, maintaining her status of being indisputably a queen. Being “a staunch pillar of the Church all her life”, she fell in love with Ralph for his youth, wits and charm. But in Ralph’s eye later, she was a poisonous and vicious spider, who spun the web that tangled him inside. When Ralph turned down in disgust her last plea of kissing her in the mouth like lovers, Mary was enraged, calling him a “sham”, “an impotent and useless sham”, poignantly reminding Ralph of his offer to make love with her seven years ago.

What still echoed in my mind is what she told Father Ralph the night before she died. Quoted below are the two passages, the revelations of a 72-year-old woman:

“Well, Father de Bricassarrt, let me tell you something.Inside this stupid body I’m still young—I still feel, I still want, I still dream, I still kick up my heels and chafe at restrictions like my body. Old age is the bitterest vengeance our vengeful God inflicts upon us. Why doesn’t He age our minds as well?”

“Ralph, you’ll never know how I’ve longed to throw thirty years of my life out of the window. If the Devil had come to me and offered to buy my soul for the chance to be young again, I’d have sold it in a second, and not stupidly regretted the bargain like that old idiot Faust.”

Mary’s pain was acute to realize that her still throbbing young heart was buried in a dying body, and there is nothing she can do, however longing she is of being young again. She is like a withered flower, envying an unfolding rose, in the knowledge that it will never bloom again.

She won the game, but then so what? She died and could only see her achieved revenge from the heaven. Rich as she was, she was powerless over the priceless youth. She could not buy it back. Neither could she ever buy the love, the true love from Ralph. Her revenge was a bitter attack, to torment Ralph between his spiritual pursuit and his worldly lust. But that was all she can do. Money may bring the glory, fame, and power when one lives. But in face of death, everybody is equal.  Rich or poor, we are from ashes to ashes, holding nothing before death except dust and ashes.

Below is copied from the book covers and preface.

The Thorn Birds is a robust, romantic saga of a singular family, the Clearys. It begins in the early part of this century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their seven children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless old sister; and it ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O’Neil, sets a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.

The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph’s course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie’s, except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones—but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.

Wonderful characters people this book: strong and gentle Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her; violent, tormented Frank and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie’s children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself: stark, its flowering, prey to gigantic cycle of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.

Australian-born Colleen McCullough found devoted readers for her fine, compact first novel, Tim. The Thorn Birds, entirely different in story and scope, is that most exhilarating of reading experiences—a book that enfolds the reader in its capacious arms. There is simply no way to put it down once you have begun, or to separate yourself from the lives and loves of this fascinating family.

From the preface:

2. There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.... Or so says the legend.