讀點好英文:Catch-22 第二十二條軍規(guī)

Catch-22 第二十二條軍規(guī)

[美]約瑟夫·海勒（Joseph Helle）

故事發(fā)生在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，美國空軍的一支飛行大隊駐守在意大利以南地中海的一個小島上。主人公約塞連是這支飛行大隊的上尉轟炸手。他本來是一個正直勇敢、富有愛國心的青年。起初，他抱著為祖國而戰(zhàn)的信念，出色地完成了任務(wù)，因而被提拔為上尉，還獲得了一枚勛章。后來他發(fā)現(xiàn)周圍的人都在暗算他，企圖置他于死地。他竭力要保全自己的生命，他要逃離這個“世界”。最后，約塞連恍然大悟，第二十二條軍規(guī)原來是一個騙局，他臨陣逃脫，跑到瑞典去尋找避難所。

The?Texan

It was love at first sight.

The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him. Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice.The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite jaundice.If it became jaundice they could treat it.If it didn't become jaundice and went away they could discharge him.But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them.

Each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by brisk and serious Nurse Duckett, one of the ward nurses who didn't like Yossarian. They read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain.They seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same.

“Still no movement?”the full colonel demanded.

The doctors exchanged a look when he shook his head.

“Give him another pill.”Nurse Duckett made a note to give Yossarian another pill, and the four of them moved along to the next bed. None of the nurses liked Yossarian.Actually, the pain in his liver had gone away, but Yossarian didn't say anything and the doctors never suspected.They just suspected that he had been moving his bowels and not telling anyone.

Yossarian had everything he wanted in the hospital. The food wasn't too bad, and his meals were brought to him in bed.There were extra rations of fresh meat, and during the hot part of the afternoon he and the others were served chilled fruit juice or chilled chocolate milk.Apart from the doctors and the nurses, no one ever disturbed him.For a little while in the morning he had to censor letters, but he was free after that to spend the rest of each day lying around idly with a clear conscience.He was comfortable in the hospital, and it was easy to stay on because he always ran a temperature of 101.

After he had made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. One day he had a better idea.To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission.“They asked for volunteers.It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it.I'll write you the instant I get back.”And he had not written anyone since.

All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted-men patients, who were kept in residence in wards of their own. It was a monotonous job, and Yossarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting than the lives of officers.After the first day he had no curiosity at all.To break the monotony he invented games.Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.The next day he made war on articles.He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an and the.That erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal.Soon he was proscribing parts of salutations and signatures and leaving the text untouched.One time he blacked out all but the salutation“Dear Mary”from a letter, and at the bottom he wrote,“I yearn for you tragically.R.O.Shipman, Chaplain, U.S.Army.”R.O.Shipman was the group chaplain's name.

When he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters, he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were God. Catch-22 required that each censored letter bear the censoring officer's name.Most letters he didn't read at all.On those he didn't read at all he wrote his own name.On those he did read he wrote,“Washington Irving”.When that grew monotonous he wrote,“Irving Washington”.Censoring the envelopes had serious repercussions, produced a ripple of anxiety on some ethereal military echelon that floated a C.I.D.man back into the ward posing as a patient.They all knew he was a C.I.D.man because he kept inquiring about an officer named Irving or Washington and because after his first day there he wouldn't censor letters.He found them too monotonous.

It was a good ward this time, one of the best he and Dunbar had ever enjoyed. With them this time was the twenty-four-year-old fighter-pilot captain with the sparse golden mustache who had been shot into the Adriatic Sea in midwinter and not even caught cold.Now the summer was upon them, the captain had not been shot down, and he said he had the grippe.In the bed on Yossarian's right, still lying amorously on his belly, was the startled captain with malaria in his blood and a mosquito bite on his ass.Across the aisle from Yossarian was Dunbar, and next to Dunbar was the artillery captain with whom Yossarian had stopped playing chess.The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting.Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish.Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means—decent folk—should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk—people without means.

得克薩斯人

這可是實實在在的一見鐘情。

初次相見，約塞連便瘋狂地戀上了隨軍牧師。約塞連因肝痛住在醫(yī)院，不過，他這肝痛還不是黃疸病的征兆，正因為如此，醫(yī)生們才傷透了腦筋。如果它轉(zhuǎn)成黃疸病，他們就有辦法對癥下藥；如果他不是黃疸病而且癥狀又消失了，那么他們就可以讓他出院?？墒撬@肝痛老是拖著，怎么也變不成黃疸病，實在讓他們不知所措。

每天早晨，總有三個男醫(yī)生來查房，他們個個精力充沛，一本正經(jīng)，盡管眼力不好，一開口卻總是滔滔不絕。隨同他們一起來的是同樣精力充沛、不茍言笑的達克特護士。她就是討厭約塞連的病房護士中的一個。他們看了看掛在約塞連病床上的病況記錄卡，不耐煩地問了問肝痛的情況。聽他說一切還是老樣子，他們似乎很是惱怒。

“還沒有通大便？”那位上校軍醫(yī)問道。

見他搖了搖頭，三個醫(yī)生互換了一下眼色。

“再給他服一粒藥?！边_克特護士用筆記下醫(yī)囑，然后他們四人便朝另一張病床走去。沒有一個病房護士喜歡約塞連。其實，約塞連的肝早就不痛了，不過他什么也沒說，而那些醫(yī)生也從來不曾起過疑心。他們只是猜疑他早就通了大便，卻不愿告訴任何人。

約塞連住在醫(yī)院里什么都不缺?；锸尺€算不錯，每天都有專人送餐，而且還外送一份肉。在下午很熱的時候，他和其他病號還能喝到冰果汁或是冰巧克力牛奶。除了醫(yī)生和護士，沒人來打擾他。每天上午，他得去檢查信件，之后便無所事事，整日躺在病床上消磨時光，倒亦心安理得。在醫(yī)院里他過得相當(dāng)舒坦，而且要這么住下去也挺容易，因為他的體溫一直在華氏101度。

約塞連打定主意要留在醫(yī)院，不再上前線打仗，自此以后，他便去信告知所有熟人，說自己住進了醫(yī)院，不過從未提及個中緣由。有一天，他心生妙計，寫信給每一個熟人，告知他要執(zhí)行一項相當(dāng)危險的飛行任務(wù)?！八麄冊谡髂贾驹溉藛T。任務(wù)很危險，但總得有人去干，等我一完成任務(wù)回來，就給你去信?！睆哪且院?，他再也沒有給誰寫過一封信。

依照規(guī)定，病房里的每個軍官病員都得檢查所有士兵病員的信件，士兵病員只能待在自己的病房里。檢查信件實在是枯燥得很，得知士兵的生活只不過比軍官略多些許趣味而已，約塞連很是失望。第一天下來，他便興味索然了。于是，他就別出心裁地發(fā)明了種種把戲，給這乏味單調(diào)的差使添些情趣。有一天，他宣布要“處決”信里所有的修飾語，這一來，凡經(jīng)他審查過的每一封信里的副詞和形容詞便統(tǒng)統(tǒng)消失了。第二天，他又向冠詞開戰(zhàn)。第三天，他的創(chuàng)意達到了制高點，把信里的一切全給刪了，只留下冠詞。他覺得玩這種游戲引起了更多力學(xué)上的線性內(nèi)張力，差不多能使每一封信的要旨更為普遍化。沒隔多久，他又涂掉了落款部分，正文則一字不動。有一次，他刪去了整整一封信的內(nèi)容，只保留了上款“親愛的瑪麗”，并在信箋下方寫上，“我苦苦地思念著你。美國隨軍牧師R.O.希普曼?！盧.O.希普曼是飛行大隊隨軍牧師的姓名。

當(dāng)他再也想不出什么點子在這些信上面搞鬼時，又將注意力轉(zhuǎn)移到信封上的姓名和地址，隨手漫不經(jīng)心地一揮，就抹去了所有的住宅和街道名稱，好比讓一座座大都市消失，仿佛他是上帝一般。第二十二條軍規(guī)規(guī)定，審查官必須在自己檢查過的每封信上都署上自己的姓名。大多數(shù)信約塞連看都沒看過。凡是沒看過的信，他就簽上自己的姓名；要是看過了的，他則寫上：“華盛頓·歐文”。后來這名字寫煩了，他便改用“歐文·華盛頓”。審查信件一事引起了強烈反響，令某些養(yǎng)尊處優(yōu)的高層將領(lǐng)產(chǎn)生了焦慮情緒。結(jié)果，刑事調(diào)查部派了一名工作人員裝作病人，住進病房。軍官們都知道他是刑事調(diào)查部的人，因為他老是打聽一個名叫歐文或是華盛頓的軍官，而且第一天下來，他就不愿再審查信件了。他覺得那些信實在是太枯燥無味了。

約塞連這次住的病房挺不錯，是他和鄧巴住過的最好的病房之一。同病房里有一名戰(zhàn)斗機上尉飛行員，24歲，蓄著稀稀拉拉的金黃色八字須。這家伙曾在隆冬時節(jié)執(zhí)行飛行任務(wù)時被擊中，飛機墜入亞得里亞海，但他竟安然無事，都沒有感冒。時下已是夏天，他沒讓人從飛機上給擊落，反倒得了流行性感冒。約塞連右側(cè)病床的主人是一名身患瘧疾而嚇得半死的上尉，這家伙的屁股被蚊子叮了一口，此刻正脈脈含情地趴在床上。約塞連和鄧巴中間隔著通道。緊挨鄧巴的是一名炮兵上尉，現(xiàn)在約塞連再也不跟他下棋了。這家伙棋技極高，每回跟他對弈總是趣味無窮，然而，正因為趣味無窮，反而讓人有種被愚弄的感覺，所以約塞連后來就不再跟他下棋了。再過去便是那個頗有教養(yǎng)的得克薩斯人，看上去很像電影里的明星。他有一顆愛國心，他認(rèn)為較之于無產(chǎn)者——流浪漢、娼妓、罪犯、墮落分子、無神論者和粗鄙下流的人，有產(chǎn)者，亦即上等人，理應(yīng)獲得更多的選票。

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

——Martin Luther King

我們必須接受失望，因為它是有限的，但千萬不能失去希望，因為它是無窮的。

——馬丁·路德·金

實戰(zhàn)提升

作者介紹

約瑟夫·海勒（1923—1999），美國小說家，“黑色幽默”的代表作家之一。約瑟夫·海勒可謂是多產(chǎn)的作家，主要作品有《第二十二條軍規(guī)》《并非笑話》《悠悠歲月》以及兩個劇本《我們轟炸紐黑文》和《克萊文杰的審判》。海勒的幽默、諷刺把荒誕與嚴(yán)肅、夸張與真實、鬧劇與正經(jīng)調(diào)和起來，以陰冷的、玩世不恭的幽默來嘲笑一切，表達對現(xiàn)實世界的不滿和抗議，使人在震顫中去思索，在喜劇中去悲哀。

單詞注解

jaundice[5dVC:ndis]n.黃疸?。黄?；嫉妒；v.使懷偏見；使患黃疸

censor[5sensE]n.審查員

dynamic[dai5nAmik]adj.力的；動力的

proscribe[prEu5skraib]v.放逐；禁止

annihilate[E5naiEleit]v.殲滅，消滅；徹底擊潰；毀滅

mustache[mE5stB:F]n.髭，小胡子

mosquito[mEs5ki:tEu]n.蚊子

名句大搜索

這可是實實在在的一見鐘情。

第二十二條軍規(guī)規(guī)定，審查官必須在自己檢查過的每封信上都署上自己的姓名。

他覺得那些信實在是太枯燥無味了。