【我坐在河边哭泣】《在巴比伦的河边我们坐下来哭泣》
时间：2019-01-08 03:21:13 来源：柠檬阅读网 本文已影响 人 
She was 20 and he was 26. They met by the river one May afternoon. She was from the city and he lived in the small town of St. Anne. She was a city girl who loved the outdoors, simple and carefree[无忧无虑的]. He was a young man who nursed his grief, who loved to be alone and who shut himself off from seeing the real beauty of life. They were complete opposites.
“Hi!” she said. She is petite[娇小的] and looks younger
than her age, unusually pale but there is some glow in her small eyes. She’s wearing a brown leather hat. He’s sitting at the big roots of a mango tree at the
riverbank, waiting for any fish that will bite his bait[诱饵].
He looks up and frowns as he sees the unfamiliar face. He looks back at the river and says, “Ello注.”
She sits beside him. “Mind if I sit here?”
“You’re already sitting there,” he says, without looking at her face.
She just shrugs[耸肩] her small shoulders. “My name is Gessana,” she says
after a long silence. “What’s your name?”
“Arthur.”
After that they remain silent, and after several more minutes she tells him that she will go home now. Her cousin might be looking for her. He just nods.
The following afternoon, she finds him again in the same spot.
“Hi! Please, do you mind if I sit here again?” she happily asks.
A simple nod is his answer. She’s wearing a yellow dress and she looks very fragile.
“Where do you stay?” he asks her,
after she fully settled on the big stone
beside the big roots where he sits.
She smiles. “Keanne is my cousin and she invited me to spend my summer
vacation here.”
He nods again.
“I like it here, the place, this river, and the quiet environment.” She closes her eyes and leans back on the mangoes’ bark.
He looks at her then looks back at the water.
“Is that all?” he asks.
She opens her eyes. “Hmmm, it is
relaxing in here. I like the green grass and the feel of the rough mango bark on my back. The warm stone I sit on. Everything!”
“Nature lover, huh?”
“Hmmm, sort of. How about you?” She looks at him.
He shakes his head negatively.
“Nothing.”
She frowns. “Nothing?”
He nods.
“Hmmm, hearing it is something new!” she says jubilantly[欢欣地]. “But honestly, a person has always something on himself: beauty, joy, cravings[渴望], even loneliness and desperation. There is always
something in a person’s life.”
And that was the beginning. They became friends, sharing that something and nothing.
But he lives in his dark past. She’s the light that comes to lighten his world, but summer will end after two weeks and his world will be dark again.
“But you don’t need to think sadness before it grips you,” she says, as they hold each other’s hand under the mango tree at the riverbank.
“You will not enjoy life if you think of getting hurt someday. You will not feel what real love is if you
restrain[抑制] yourself from loving that special person wholly. Will you reap[收获] full trust if you sow only half? Interruptions come in a person’s life and we can’t stop them � nobody can. Someone we love might disappoint us, incurable[不能治愈的] sickness will embrace us, and some people will leave us behind. Well, it’s natural. We don’t know what’s in store for tomorrow, so while we have the now, let’s embrace it joyfully. What matters is the lesson it teaches us, that there is always more to life than increasing its speed.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The following day is a cloudy day for him. As he cleans his closet, he sees the picture of the woman he loved before, who he was about to marry; a woman whom he’d
given all his devotion[投入] and understanding, a woman he adored[爱慕], yet left him because
of some foreign ambitions � unattainable[实现不了的] if she
remained in their small village. The grief and bitterness flows back to his heart like a strong
current[涌流] of the river.
She’s been waiting for him for two hours already yet even his shadow isn’t there. But she still waits...till the darkness
envelopes the day and it’s time for her to go home. Every day she waits for him at the riverbank until the summer is over � the summer of her heart.
September.
“Where does she live?” He is sitting in the living room of Keanne’s house. She’s looking grumpily[脾气粗暴地] at him.
“Please,” he begs.
“Heaven.”
He frowns. “Please tell me. I need to go to her and tell her how sorry I am.”
She shakes her head. Then some small pearls of tears roll onto her cheek.
“She already passed away, two weeks ago. She had bone marrow[骨髓] cancer. You saw how pale she was? Of course you didn’t see it,
because you always looked down at yourself.”
He sat by the river and wept silently, but tears would not return her from the grave. Then, he remembered what she said.
“Always enjoy the present � it’s the only thing that we have now.”
她20岁，他26岁。五月的一个下午他们在河边相遇了。她来自城市，他住在圣安妮的一个小镇里。她是个城市女孩，喜欢待在户外，天真无邪，无忧无虑。他是个心怀积怨的年轻人，喜欢独来独往，将自己与生活的美妙隔绝――他们有着天渊之别。
“嗨！”她打了声招呼。她长得很娇小，看起来比实际年龄要小，脸色苍白得很不平常，但小小的眼睛里闪烁着光芒。她戴着一顶棕色的皮帽。他正坐在河岸边一棵芒果树粗壮的树根上，等着鱼儿上钩。
他抬头看看那张陌生的脸，皱了皱眉头，然后扭头看着河里说：“你好。”
她坐到他身边：“介意我坐在这儿吗？”
“你已经坐下了，”他说，没有
看她。
她耸了耸肩。“我叫杰珊娜，”一阵沉默后，她说，“你叫什么名字？”
“亚瑟。”
之后他们又沉默下来，几分钟后她告诉他自己要回家了，她的表姐可能在找她。他只是点了点头。
第二天下午，她又在那儿遇见他。
“嗨！请问，介意我又坐这儿吗？”她高兴地
问道。
他轻轻点了点头作为回答。她穿着黄色的裙子，看起来弱不禁风。
“你住哪？”等她稳稳地坐在大树根旁的大石头上后，他问。
她笑了笑。“基妮是我的表姐，她邀请我来这里过暑假。”
他又点点头。
“我喜欢这儿，这个地方，这条河，还有安静的环境。”她闭上眼睛，靠在芒果树干上。
他看了看她，又望向水里。
“就这样吗？”他问。
她睁开眼睛。“嗯。这里让人放松。我喜欢绿色的草地和靠着粗糙的芒果树皮的感觉，还有我坐着的这块暖暖的石头。所有的一切！”
“你是大自然爱好者，对吧？”
“嗯，或许。你呢？”她看着他。
他摇摇头。“什么都不喜欢。”
她皱眉。“什么都不喜欢？”
他点头。
“嗯，这可是件新鲜事！”她欢喜地说道。“不过说真的，每个人都有些自己的东西，美丽、喜悦、渴望，甚至孤独和绝望。一个人的生命中总有些东西。”
就这样，他们成了朋友，分享那些有的和没有的东西。
然而他活在黑暗的过去。她是那束照亮他的世界的亮光，但两个星期后夏天就要结束，他的世界又将黯淡下去。
“但是，在悲伤抓住你之前你不必想它。”他们在河岸边的芒果树下手握着手时，她说。
“如果你总想着某天会受到伤害，你就不会幸福；如果你压抑自己，不能全心全意去爱那个特别的人，你就不会了解什么是真爱。如果只播种一半，你能收获全部的信任吗？生活中总有些阻碍，我们不能阻止它们发生――没有人可以。我们爱的人可能会令我们大失所望，我们可能患上不治之症，我们可能被人抛弃。这都很自然。我们不知道明天将发生什么，所以当我们拥有现在时，我们要开心地接受。重要的是我们从中学到的东西，生活还有待挖掘，不要急着过完。”
“嗯，我想是吧。”
第二天对他来说是阴郁的一天。他在清理柜子时看见以前爱人的照片，一个他当时将要娶的女人。他对她全心全意，无微不至，钟爱有加，她却因为抱负不同而离开――那是一个待在小村庄就不能实现的抱负。伤心和痛苦像一股洪流涌回他的心中。
她等了两个小时，始终不见他的身影。她继续等
着……直到夜幕降临才回家。每天她都在河岸边等他，一直到暑假结束――直到她心灵的夏天随之结束。
九月。
“她住在哪里？”他坐在基妮的客厅里。她生气地看着他。
“求求你告诉我吧，”他哀求。
“天堂。”
他皱眉。“请告诉我，我要见她，跟她道歉。”
她摇摇头。脸颊上滚落几滴泪珠。
“她已经去世了，两个星期前。她得了骨髓癌。你看到她有多苍白吗？你当然没注意到，因为你总是低头看自己。”
他坐在河边，静静地流泪。但是眼泪也不能把她带回来。然后他想起她的话。
“好好享受现在――因为这是我们现在唯一拥有的东西。”
注：非正式用法，即hello.
