Xu Zhimo's "I'm waiting for you"除志摩的『我等侯你』

I remember earlier I posted a blog by Yu Guangzhong about waiting for a girl. Well waiting for girls seems to be the common fate of not a few men too. Even poets enjoy no privilege nor any exemptions. As they say, all in love is fair. But perhaps poets suffer more. They suffer more because of they are more sensitive to what is going on. Perhaps the pain of disappointment cuts deeper because of their more powerful imagination, which brings to their hearts more vividly the  consequences reaching even further into the future to which the less sensitive are blind. In this poem, Xu Zhimo generalizes from a specific and particular experience of one fruitless and despairing wait into some more universal and archetypal experiences. As the seconds, minutes and hours tick away, they tick away more and more of his hopes until he can no longer hope against hope and accept the unpalatable bitterness of the realization that his girl is never going to come.

 

               我等候你                                                I'm waiting for you

 

我等候你。我望着戶外的昏黄，   I'm waiting for you. I'm looking upon the the yellowing dusk outside

如同望着將來，                               As if I were looking  at the future,

我的心震盲了我的聽。                   My heart has deafened my hearing.

你怎還不來？希望，                       Why aren't you coming? Hope,

在每一秒鐘上允開花。                    blooming on top of each second.

我守候着你的步履，                       I'm waiting for your steps,

你的笑語，你的臉，                       Your words of laughter, your face,

你的柔軟的髮絲，                           Your silky soft hair, 

守候着你的一切；                           I'm waiting for your everything; 

希望在每一秒鐘上                           Hope is dying on every second---

枯死---你在那裏？                          Where are you?

我要你，要得我心裏生痛，          I want you, I want you until my heart hurts,

我要你的火似的笑，                  I want your laughter of fire,

要你靈活的腰身，                           I want your nimble waist,

你的髮上眼角的飛星；                   The stars in flight from the corners of your eyes above your hair

我陷落迷醉的氛圍中，                    I'm sunk in the mesmerising atmosphere

像一座島，                                        Like an island,

在蟒綠的海濤間，不自主的在浮沈---in the turbulent green of seawaves, rising and falling against my will

喔，我迫切的想望                           Oh, I ardently desire 

你的來臨，想望                               Your arrival, I long to see 

那一朶神奇的優雲                           That exquisite cloud of wonder

開上時間的頂尖！                           blooming upon the tip of time!

你為什麽不來？忍心的？              Why aren't you coming? So hard hearted?

你明知道，我知道你知道，           You know well, I know that you know,

你這不來於我是致命的一擊，       Your not coming is a fatal blow to me,

打死我生命中乍放的陽春，           You'll kill that explosion of sprintime sun light

教堅實如礦裏的鐵的黑暗，           You'll order that iron-ore like darkness 

壓迫我的思想與呼吸；                   To oppress my thoughts and my breath;

打死可憐的希冀的嫩芽，               Killing off the buds of pitiful hope,

把我，囚犯似的交付給                   And deliver me, prisoner-like

妬與愁苦，生的羞慚                       To jealousy and to sorrow, to the shame of my life

與絕望的慘酷。                               And to the cruel misery of despair.

這也許是癡，竟許是癡                  Maybe it's madness, madness even

我信我確然是癡；                          I believe it really is madness;

但我不能撥一支已然定向的舵，But I cannot turn the rudder preset upon a determined course,

萬方的風息都不容許我猶豫，---  Winds from a thousand directions won't permit me to tarry

我不能回頭，這運命驅策着我！  I can't turn back, I'm driven by this fate!

我也知道這多半是走向                  I also know I'm  probably running down    

毁滅的路，但                                  A path of destruction. but

為了你，為了你                              For you, for you 

我什麽也都甘願；                          I'm prepared for anything;

這不僅是我的熱情，                      Not  just my passion,

我的僅有的理性亦如此說。          What's left of my rationality says so too.

癡！想磔碎一個生命纖微              Madness! Thinking of smashing the delicacy of a life

為要感動一個女人的心！              To move the heart of a woman'!

想博得的，能博得的，至多是      All you wish and can wager for, can't be more than

她的一滴淚，她的一陣心酸，      A drop of her tears, a twinge of her heart

竟許一半漠然的冷笑；                  Perhaps even a half-indifferent smile of scorn;

但我也甘願，即使                         But I'm willing, even if  

我粉身的消息傳到                         The news of my disintegration were 

她的心裏如同傳給                          To reach her heart as if it were reaching  

一塊頑石，她把我看作                  A hard rock, if she will look upon me as       

一地穴的鼠，一條蟲，                  A mouse in a burrow, a worm

我還是甘願！                                  I'm still willing!

癡到了真，是無條件的，             When madness is true, it's unconditional,

上帝他也無法調回一個                 Even God cannot turn back

癡定了的心如同一個將軍             A heart determined to be mad as a general         

有時調回已上死線的士兵。         May sometimes withdraw soldiers despatched to  the deadline

枉然，一切都是枉然，                  Futile, all is futile,

你的不來是不容否認的實在，      Your not coming is a fact which cannot be denied,         

雖則我心裏燒著潑旺的火，          Though my heart burns with a raging fire, 

饑渴着你的一切，                          Thirsting forevery part of  you,

你的髮，你的笑，你的手腳；      Your hair, your smiles, your hands and feet;

任何的癡想與祈禱。                      None of the mad thoughts and prayers.

不能縮短一小寸                              Can shorten a single inch more of

你我間的距離！                              The distance between you and me

戶外的昏黄已然                              The yellowing dusk outside is already

凝聚成夜的烏黑，                          crytalizing into the darkness of the night,

樹枝上掛着冰雪，                          Snow and ice are hanging upon the branches,

鳥雀們典去了它們的啁啾，         Birds are pawning their chattering away,

沈默是這一致穿孝的宇宙。         Silent like an entire universe in mourning . 

鐘上的針不斷的比着                     The hands upon the clock are constantly

玄妙的手勢，像是指點，             Making mysterious gestures, as if hinting,

像是同情，像是嘲諷，                 as if sympathizing, as if mocking,

每一次到點的打動，我聽來是     each strike upon the hour it makes, sounds to me

我自已的心的                                As if it were a knell 

活埋的喪鐘。                                Buried in my heart.

In this poem Xu Zhimo again establishes the immediacy of what he feels by using a monologue in which he expresses directly his thought which embodies the uncertainty, the anxiety of what appears an interminable wait. The arrival or non-arrival of his girl is elevated to the level of his fate and his destiny. Of course, the fate and destiny there can be little more than his provisional fate and destiny

During the non-existence that constitutes his wait, his thoughts turn naturally upon the object of that exercise. He thinks of her laughter, her face, her hair, her eyes, her waist , her hands and feet etc. He imagines the flowering of a colorful cloud blooming upon the tip of every second. And her non-arrival plunges him into the hell of despair, shame and jealousy. As some have said, a woman measures a man's love for her by the extent he is willing to abandon all sense of shame and dignity and the extent he is prepared to cower before her like a mouse, a worm. How cruel are women! But men will take their revenge but only after marriage when the tables are turned! To the poet, every tick of the clock is a death knell: the death knell of a love which shall never come!