On a riverbank in the cool of a summer evening two women struggled under a shower of silveryblue. They never expected to see each other again in this world and at the moment couldn't careless. But there summer night surrounded by bluefern they did something togetherappropriatelyandwe(on) ll.(a) A pateroller passing would have sniggered to see two throw-away people,two lawless outlaws — a slave and a barefoot whitewoman with unpinned hair — wrapping a tenminute-old baby in the rags they wore. But no pateroller came and no preacher. The water suckedand swallowed itself beneath them. There was nothing to disturb them at their work. So they did itappropriately and well.
Twilight came on and Amy said she had to go; that she wouldn't be caught dead in daylight on abusy river with a runaway. After rinsing her hands and face in the river, she stood and lookeddown at the baby wrapped and tied to Sethe's chest.
"She's never gonna know who I am. You gonna tell her? Who brought her into this here world?"She lifted her chin, looked off into the place where the sun used to be. "You better tell her. Youhear? Say Miss Amy Denver. Of Boston."
Sethe felt herself falling into a sleep she knew would be deep. On the lip of it, just before goingunder, she thought, "That's pretty. Denver. Real pretty."
IT WAS TIME to lay it all down. Before Paul D came and sat on her porch steps, words whisperedin the keeping room had kept her going. Helped her endure the chastising ghost; refurbished thebaby faces of Howard and Buglar and kept them whole in the world because in her dreams she sawonly their parts in trees; and kept her husband shadowy but there — somewhere. Now Halle's facebetween the butter press and the churn swelled larger and larger, crowding her eyes and makingher head hurt. She wished for Baby Suggs' fingers molding her nape, reshaping it, saying, "Lay emdown, Sethe. Sword and shield.
Down. Down. Both of em down. Down by the riverside. Swordand shield. Don't study war no more. Lay all that mess down. Sword and shield." And under thepressing fingers and the quiet instructive voice, she would. Her heavy knives of defense againstmisery, regret, gall and hurt, she placed one by one on a bank where dear water rushed on below.
n. 胆囊,胆汁,苦味,厚颜无耻 v. 烦恼,屈辱,磨伤