第4章 A Day's Wait 等待的一天

He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.

“What's the matter, Schatz?”

“I've got a headache.”

“You better go back to bed.”

“No. I'm all right.”

“You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed.”

But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.

“You go up to bed,”I said,“you're sick.”

“I'm all right,”he said.

When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.

“What is it?”I asked him.

“One hundred and two.”

Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative, the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.

Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.

“Do you want me to read to you?”

“All right. If you want to,”said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.

I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates; but I could see he was not following what I was reading.

“How do you feel, Schatz?”I asked him.

“Just the same, so far,”he said.

I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.

“Why don't you try to go to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine.”

“I'd rather stay awake.”

After a while he said to me,“You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”

“It doesn't bother me.”

“No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.”

I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out for a while.

It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. I took the young Irish setter for a little walk up the road and along a frozen creek, but it was difficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and slithered and I fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.

We flushed a covey of quail under a high clay bank with overhanging brush and I killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. Some of the covey lit in trees, but most of them scattered into brush piles and it was necessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times before they would flush. Coming out while I was poised unsteadily on the icy, springy brush they made difficult shooting and I killed two, missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.

At the house they said the boy had refused to let any one come into the room.

“You can't come in,”he said.“You mustn't get what I have.”

I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.

I took his temperature.

“What is it?”

“Something like a hundred,”I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.

“It was a hundred and two,”he said.

“Who said so?”

“The doctor.”

“Your temperature is all right,”I said.“It's nothing to worry about.”

“I don't worry,”he said,“but I can't keep from thinking.”

“Don't think,”I said.“Just take it easy.”

“I'm taking it easy,”he said and looked straight ahead. He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.

“Take this with water.”

“Do you think it will do any good?”

“Of course it will.”

I sat down and opened the Pirate Book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.

“About what time do you think I'm going to die?”he asked.

“What?”

“About how long will it be before I die?”

“You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?”

“Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.”

“People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk.”

“I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two.”

He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.

“You poor Schatz,”I said.“Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers. You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,”I said.“It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?”

“Oh,”he said.

But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.

我们还睡在被窝里时，他走进屋，关上那些窗户，我就看出他病恹恹的。他浑身颤抖，脸色苍白，走得很慢，仿佛动一下就很疼似的。

“怎么了，宝贝？”

“我头疼。”

“你最好还是回到床上去。”

“不，我没事儿。”

“你上床去吧，我穿好衣服就去看你。”

但是，我下楼后，他穿好了衣服，坐在炉火边，看上去是一个病病歪歪、可怜巴巴的九岁男孩。我把手放在他的额头上，知道他在发烧。

“你上去睡觉吧，”我说，“你病了。”

“我没事儿。”他说。

医生来后，给孩子量了量体温。

“多少度？”我问他。

“一百零二度。”（这里指的是华氏温度，一般我们说的是摄氏度）

楼下，医生留下三种不同的药，是三种不同颜色的胶囊，并说明了服用的方法。一种是退热的，另一种是泻药，第三种是克服酸性状态的。医生解释说，流感病菌只能存在于酸性状态之中。他好像对流感了如指掌，说如果体温不超过一百零四度，就没什么可担心的。这是轻度流感，如果消除肺炎，就没有什么危险。

回到屋里，我记下了孩子的体温，并记下了吃各种胶囊的时间。

“你想让我给你讲故事吗？”

“好吧，你想讲就讲。”孩子说。他脸色惨白，眼睛下面有黑眼圈。他躺在床上一动不动，仿佛与正在发生的事儿完全隔离开来。

我大声朗读霍华德·派尔[27]的《海盗集》，但我看得出他没有在听我说话。

“你感觉怎么样，宝贝？”我问他。

“到目前为止，还是那样。”他说。

我坐在床脚边看书，等着到时候给他吃另一种胶囊。他本来睡觉非常正常，但当我抬眼看时，却见他望着床脚，样子怪怪的。

“你为什么不想法睡觉？你要吃药，我会叫醒你的。”

“我宁愿醒着。”

过了一会儿，他对我说：“如果这让你心烦，你就不用待在这里陪我了，爸爸。”

“这不会让我心烦的。”

“不，我是说，如果这要让你心烦的话，你就不用待在这里了。”

我以为他可能有点儿头晕，到了十一点钟，我给他吃了医生开的胶囊后，就出去了一会儿。

这是晴朗又寒冷的一天，地上覆盖一层雨夹雪，结成了冰，因此所有光秃秃的树木、修剪过的灌木、所有草地和空地上面都涂上了一层冰。我带着那条爱尔兰长毛小猎犬，走上那条路，沿着一条冰冻的小溪走了一会儿，但在玻璃一样光滑的河面上很难站立或行走，那条红毛小猎犬滑脱摔倒，我也摔倒了两次，有一次我的枪都掉下来，顺着冰面滑去。

我们惊起了一群躲在悬垂灌木的高土堤下的鹌鹑，当它们从土堤顶上飞起时，我开枪打死了两只。有些鹌鹑落在树上，但大多数都四散开来，飞进一堆堆灌木丛中，必须在长有灌木丛的结冰土墩上跳几下，才能惊飞它们。当我在覆盖着冰、富有弹性的灌木丛上摇摇晃晃想保持身体平衡时，它们就会飞出来，这时我很难向它们射击，我打死了两只，五只没有打中，动身返回时，高兴地发现房子附近也有一群鹌鹑，开心的是第二天还会发现许多。

到家后，家里人说孩子拒绝让任何人走进他的房间。

“你们不能进来，”他说，“你们不许拿走我所有的东西。”

我上楼去看他，发现他完全是我离开他时那个姿势，脸色苍白，但因为发烧而脸颊发红，他像先前那样直盯盯地望着床脚，一动不动。

我量了量他的体温。

“多少度？”

“大约一百度。”我说。是一百零二又十分之四度。

“是一百零二度。”他说。

“谁这样说的？”

“是医生说的。”

“你的体温没事儿，”我说，“没什么担心的。”

“我不担心，”他说，“但我不能不想。”

“不要想了，”我说，“请不要紧张。”

“我不紧张。”他说着，直盯前方。他显然在心里藏着什么事儿。

“喝点水，把药吃了。”

“你认为这会有什么用吗？”

“当然会有。”

我坐下来，打开那本《海盗集》，开始读了起来，但我可以看出他没有在听，所以我就停了下来。

“你认为我大概什么时候会死？”他问。

“什么？”

“我大概还会活多久？”

“你不会死的。你是怎么了？”

“噢，不，我就要死了。我听到他说一百零二度。”

“人发烧一百零二度是不会死的。这样说真傻。”

“我知道会死的。在法国学校时，同学们告诉过我说，四十四度就活不了了。我已经一百零二度了。”

从上午九点钟起，他就一直在等死，等了整整一天。

“你这可怜的宝贝，”我说，“可怜的宝贝，这就像英里和公里，你不会死的。那是一种不同的体温计，那种体温计三十七度是正常的，这种体温计九十八度是正常的。”

“你敢确信？”

“绝对确信，”我说，“这就像英里和公里。你知道，我们开车时车速七十英里估计是多少公里吗？”

“噢。”他说。

不过，他盯住床脚的目光慢慢地放松了。他内心的紧张最后也放松了，第二天他更加轻松了，对无关紧要的小事动不动就哭。