The Left Hand of Darkness——和平的信使

陈榕

厄休拉·勒奎恩（Ursula Le Guin） 1929年出生于美国加州的伯克利，父亲是加州大学的人类学教授，母亲是一位作家。她1951年毕业于拉德克利夫大学，1952年获得哥伦比亚大学硕士学位，1960年代开始创作科幻小说。勒奎恩既是美国当代最重要的科幻小说家之一，也是最优秀的奇幻小说家之一，曾多次获得雨果奖和星云奖。她在作品中用瑰丽的想象搭建了一个又一个神奇的异域世界，其中又往往蕴含了对人性、对人类文明的深层思考。她的代表作有科幻小说《黑暗的左手》（The Left Hand of Darkness）、《一无所有》（The Dispossessed）、《倾诉》（The Telling）等。《黑暗的左手》是她发表于1969年的作品，书中描写了一种没有性别的独特异星文化，并借此对性别、社会、生命等议题进行了深入探讨。该作品获得1969年的星云奖和1970年的雨果奖。

Guyrny Thanern2）. Some snow， rising wind and falling temperature. Thirteen miles again today， which brings our distance logged since we left our first camp to 254 miles. We have averaged about ten and a half miles a day； eleven and a half omitting the two days spent waiting out the blizzard3）. 75 to 100 of those miles of hauling gave us no onward gain. We are not much nearer Karhide than we were when we set out. But we stand a better chance， I think， of getting there.

Since we came up out of the volcano-murk4） our spirit is not all spent in work and worry， and we talk again in the tent after our dinner. As I am in kemmer5） I would find it easier to ignore Ais presence， but this is difficult in a two-man tent. The trouble is of course that he is， in his curious fashion， also in kemmer： always in kemmer. A strange lowgrade sort of desire it must be， to be spread out over every day of the year and never to know the choice of sex， but there it is； and here am I. Tonight my extreme physical awareness of him was rather hard to ignore， and I was too tired to divert it into untrance6） or any other channel of the discipline. Finally he asked， had he offended me？ I explained my silence， with some embarrassment. I was afraid he would laugh at me. After all he is no more an oddity， a sexual freak， than I am： up here on the Ice each of us is singular， isolate， I as cut off from those like me， from my society and its rules， as he from his. There is no world full of other Gethenians7） here to explain and support my existence. We are equals at last， equal， alien， alone.

He did not laugh， of course. Rather he spoke with a gentleness that I did not know was in him. After a while he too came to speak of isolation， of loneliness.

“Your race is appallingly alone in its world. No other mammalian species. No other ambisexual8） species. No animal intelligent enough even to domesticate9） as pets. It must color your thinking， this uniqueness. I dont mean scientific thinking only， though you are extraordinary hypothesizers10）—its extraordinary that you arrived at any concept of evolution， faced with that unbridgeable11） gap between yourselves and the lower animals. But philosophically， emotionally： to be so solitary， in so hostile a world： it must affect your entire outlook.”

“The Yomeshta12） would say that mans singularity is his divinity.”

“Lords of the Earth， yes. Other cults on other worlds have come to the same conclusion. They tend to be the cults of dynamic， aggressive， ecology-breaking cultures. Orgoreyn is in the pattern， in its way； at least they seem bent on pushing things around. What do the Handdarata13） say？”

“Well， in the Handdara … you know， theres no theory， no dogma … Maybe they are less aware of the gap between men and beasts， being more occupied with the likenesses， the links， the whole of which living things are a part.”

Tormers Lay14） had been all day in my mind， and I said the words，

Light is the left hand of darkness

and darkness the right hand of light.

Two are one， life and death， lying

together like lovers in kemmer，

like hands joined together，

like the end and the way.

My voice shook as I said the lines， for I remembered as I said them that in the letter my brother wrote me before his death he had quoted the same words.

Ai brooded， and after some time he said， “Youre isolated， and undivided. Perhaps you are as obsessed with wholeness as we are with dualism15）.”

“We are dualists too. Duality is an essential， isnt it？ So long as there is myself and the other.”

1. 节选部分选自小说的第16章，以卡亥德（Karhide）前首相伊斯特拉凡的口吻，讲述了他和地球特使金瑞·艾（Genly Ai）从另一个国家欧格瑞恩（Orgoreyn）的劳改营逃出来后，在冰雪里艰难行路和休息闲谈时的情景。

2. 此处为格森星球纪年法中的记月和记日方法。

3. blizzard [?bl?z?（r）d] n. 大风雪

4. murk [m??（r）k] n. 黑暗

5. kemmer：克慕期，即发情期

6. untrance：非眠，一种意念功，练习者先使自己的感受力和意识达到极度敏锐和极度清醒的程度，再由此进入忘我的状态。

7. Gethenian：格森人，格森星球上居住的人类

8. ambisexual [amb??s?k???l] adj. 两性的，具有两性特征的

9. domesticate [d??mest?ke?t] vt. 驯养

10. hypothesize [h???p?θ?sa?z] vt. 假设，假定，猜测

11. unbridgeable [?n?br?d??b（?）l] adj. 不能逾越的

12. Yomeshta：尧米西主，小说中尧米西教的创始人

13. Handdarata：韩达拉信徒。韩达拉教（Handdara）是格森星上的一个教派，没有教义、牧师、盟誓和信条。

14. lay [le?] n. 短叙事诗

15. dualism [?dju??l??z（?）m] n. 二元论