喬治‧歐威爾>絞刑 >散文
絞刑
奧威爾基金會是一個獨立的慈善機構。我們依靠 捐贈者、朋友和贊助人的慷慨 來維護這些免費資源。
那是在緬甸，一個陰雨綿綿的早晨。一道昏暗的燈光，像黃色的錫箔，斜射過高牆，照進監獄的院子裡。我們在死囚牢房外面等候，那是一排棚子，前面有雙層柵欄，像小動物的籠子一樣。每個牢房大約有十英尺見方，裡面除了一張木板床和一壺飲用水外，空無一物。在一些監獄裡，棕色皮膚的男人們沉默地蹲在裡面的柵欄裡，身上披著毯子。這些都是被判死刑的人，將在一兩週內被絞死。
一名囚犯被帶出了牢房。他是印度教徒，身材瘦小，剃著光頭，眼睛無神。他留著濃密的、正在生長的鬍子，與他的身體不成比例，很像電影裡喜劇演員的鬍子。六個高大的印度獄卒看守著他，準備將他送上絞刑架。其中兩人手持步槍和上好刺刀的槍站在一旁，其他人則給他戴上手銬，將鏈條穿過手銬固定在腰帶上，並將他的雙臂緊緊綁在身體兩側。他們緊緊地圍著他，雙手始終小心翼翼地、愛撫地放在他身上，彷彿一直在感受他，確保他就在那裡。這就像人們處理一條還活著的魚，它可能會跳回水裡。但他站在那裡，沒有抵抗，雙臂無力地垂在繩子上，好像他幾乎沒有註意到發生了什麼事。
八點鐘敲響，遠處的營房裡飄來一聲號角聲，在潮濕的空氣中顯得淒涼而稀薄。獄長站在我們旁邊，悶悶不樂地用棍子戳著礫石，聽到聲音，他抬起了頭。他是一名軍醫，留著灰色的牙刷狀小鬍子，聲音粗啞。 「看在上帝的份上，快點，法蘭西斯，」他煩躁地說。 “那人現在應該已經死了。你還沒準備好嗎？”
獄長法蘭西斯是個身材肥胖的達羅毗荼人，身穿白色粗佈軍裝，戴著金色眼鏡，他揮舞著黑色的手。 「是的，長官，是的，長官，」他興奮地說。 “一切準備就緒。劊子手正在等候。我們繼續。”
「好吧，那就快走吧。這項工作要等到結束，囚犯們才能吃早餐。”
我們出發去絞刑架。兩名獄警走在囚犯的兩側，手裡拿著步槍，放在斜坡上；另外兩個人向他靠近，抓住他的手臂和肩膀，好像在推他又在扶他。我們其餘的人，像是地方法官之類的，都跟在後面。突然，當我們走了十碼的時候，遊行隊伍突然停了下來，沒有任何命令或警告。一件可怕的事發生了──一隻狗，天知道它從哪裡來的，出現在了院子裡。它大聲吠叫著，蹦蹦跳跳地跑到我們中間，在我們周圍跳來跳去，搖晃著整個身體，發現這麼多人聚集在一起，高興得發狂。這是一隻毛茸茸的大狗，一半是萬能梗，一半是流浪狗。它在我們周圍蹦蹦跳跳了一會兒，然後，在任何人阻止它之前，它衝向囚犯，跳起來試圖舔他的臉。所有人都驚呆了，甚至沒有力氣去抓那隻狗。
「誰讓這個該死的畜生進來的？」 」警司 憤怒地說。「快來人，接住它！ 」
一名脫離押送隊伍的獄警笨拙地追趕那隻狗，但那隻狗卻在他的觸及範圍之外跳來跳去，把一切都當成了遊戲的一部分。一名年輕的歐亞混血獄卒抓起一把碎石，試圖用石頭把那隻狗趕走，但它躲開了石頭，再次追上我們。它的叫聲在監獄的哀號聲中迴盪。囚犯被兩名獄卒緊緊抓住，漠然地看著這一切，彷彿這只是絞刑的另一種形式。幾分鐘後，有人才設法抓住了這隻狗。然後，我們把我的手帕穿過它的項圈，再次出發，而狗仍然在掙扎並嗚咽。
距離絞刑架大約有四十碼。我看著囚犯裸露的棕色背部在我前面行進。他雙臂被綁著，步伐笨拙，但走得很穩，步態搖擺不定，就像印度人那樣，膝蓋從不伸直。每走一步，他的肌肉都整齊地滑入到位，頭皮上的一綹頭髮上下跳動，他的腳印印在濕漉漉的礫石上。有一次，儘管兩個男人緊緊抓住他的肩膀，他還是稍微往旁邊挪了挪，以避開路上的水坑。
奇怪的是，直到那一刻我才意識到摧毀一個健康、有意識的人意味著什麼。當我看到囚犯走到一邊避開水坑時，我看到了在潮水漲潮時結束生命的神秘性和難以言喻的錯誤。這個人沒有死，他還活著，就像我們活著一樣。他身體的所有器官都在運作——腸道消化食物、皮膚更新、指甲生長、組織形成——一切都在莊嚴而愚蠢地工作。當他站在懸崖邊上，當他從空中墜落，只剩下十分之一秒的生命時，他的指甲還在生長。他的眼睛看到了黃色的礫石和灰色的牆壁，他的大腦仍然記得、預見、推理——甚至推理了水坑。他和我們是一群一起行走的人，看到、聽到、感受到、理解同一個世界；兩分鐘後，隨著一聲突然的響聲，我們中的一個人就消失了——失去了一個思想，失去了一個世界。
絞刑架位於一個小院子裡，與監獄的主場地隔開，院子裡長滿了高高的多刺的雜草。它是用磚砌成的，像棚子的三面，上面鋪著木板，再上面有兩根橫樑和一根橫桿，繩子懸垂著。絞刑官是一名身穿白色監獄制服、頭髮花白的囚犯，他正在絞刑架旁等候。當我們進去時，他卑躬屈膝地向我們致意。法蘭西斯一聲令下，兩名獄卒更加緊緊地抓住了囚犯，半推半拽地將他帶到絞刑架上，然後笨拙地扶著他爬上梯子。然後，絞刑官站起身，將繩子固定在囚犯的脖子上。
我們站在五碼外等待。獄警們在絞刑架周圍圍成一個圓圈。然後，當套索被固定住時，囚犯開始向他的上帝哭喊。那是一聲高亢、反覆的「拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！」的呼喊，不像祈禱或求救那樣急切或恐懼，而是穩定、有節奏的，幾乎就像鐘聲一樣。那隻狗用嗚咽聲回應了這聲音。劊子手仍然站在絞刑架上，拿出一個像麵粉袋一樣的小棉袋，罩在囚犯的臉上。但被布料掩蓋的聲音仍然不斷響起，一遍又一遍：“拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！”
劊子手爬下來，站好，握住槓桿。幾分鐘似乎就過去了。囚犯持續不斷地發出低沉的哭喊：「拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！」一刻也不動搖。警司把頭埋在胸前，用棍子慢慢地戳著地面；也許他正在數著囚犯的哭喊聲，以便給他們一個固定的數字——五十個，或者一百個。整個人都變了臉色。印第安人已經變得像變質的咖啡一樣灰白，其中有一兩把刺刀在搖晃。我們看著站在懸崖邊、戴著頭巾、被鞭子抽打的男人，聽著他的哭喊聲——每一聲哭喊都意味著一秒的生命；我們所有人的心裡都有同樣的想法：哦，快點殺了他，快點結束這一切，別再發出那可惡的噪音了！
突然，警司下定了決心。他揚起頭，迅速揮動著棍子。 「你好！」他幾乎是兇猛地喊道。
一陣叮噹聲響起，隨後一片死寂。囚犯已經消失，繩子開始自行纏繞。我放開狗，它立刻飛奔到絞刑架後面；但當它到達那裡時，它突然停了下來，吠叫了幾聲，然後退到院子的一個角落裡，站在雜草叢中，膽怯地望著我們。我們繞著絞刑架走了一圈，檢查囚犯的屍體。他懸在空中，腳趾直直地朝下，緩慢地旋轉著，像石頭一樣死氣沉沉。
警司伸出棍子戳了戳那名警官的裸露屍體；它輕微地擺動著。 「他沒事，」警司說。他從絞刑架下退出來，深深呼出一口氣。他臉上憂鬱的表情突然消失了。他看了一眼手錶。 “八點零八分。好了，今天早上就到這裡了，感謝上帝。”
獄警們卸下刺刀，列隊走開。那隻狗清醒過來，意識到自己行為不當，便溜了出去跟在他們後面。我們走出絞刑架場，經過關著囚犯的死囚牢房，進入監獄的中央院。囚犯們在手持警棍的獄警的指揮下，已經開始吃早餐了。他們蹲成長長的一排，每人手裡拿著一個錫盤，兩名獄警提著桶子四處走動，舀出米飯。絞刑之後，這似乎是多麼溫馨、歡樂的景象。現在工作已經完成，我們感到如釋重負。一個人會感到一種想唱歌、想奔跑、想竊笑的衝動。突然，大家都開始興高采烈地聊天。
走在我身旁的歐亞混血男孩朝我們來時的路點了點頭，帶著會心的微笑：「先生，您知道嗎，我們的朋友（他指的是那個死者），當他聽說上訴被駁回時，嚇得在牢房的地板上撒尿。——先生，請拿一支我的香煙。你不欣賞我的新銀煙盒嗎，
有幾個人笑了——但似乎沒人知道為什麼。
法蘭西斯從主管身邊走過，喋喋不休地說著話。 「嗯，先生，一切順利，一切都結束了。一切都結束了——輕彈！就像那樣。情況並不總是這樣——哦，不！我知道有些案例，醫生不得不走到絞刑架下面，拉動犯人的腿，以確保他死亡。真是令人不快！”
「扭來扭去，嗯？真糟糕，」主管說。
「哎呀，先生，他們要是變得不聽話就更糟了！我記得，我們去把他抬出去的時候，有個人死死地抓著籠子的欄桿。先生，您肯定想不到，我們動用了六個獄警，每條腿三個人拽著，才把他拽了出來。我們跟他理論。「我親愛的朋友，」我們說，「想想你給我們帶來了多少痛苦！ 」 「可是他不聽！哎，他真煩人！ 」
我發現我笑得相當大聲。大家都笑了。連警司也寬容地笑了。 「你們最好都出來喝一杯，」他非常和藹地說。 “我車裡有一瓶威士忌。我們可以喝點。”
我們穿過監獄的雙大門，來到馬路上。 「拉他的腿！」一名緬甸地方官員突然驚呼道，並發出一陣大笑。我們又都笑了起來。那一刻，法蘭西斯的軼事顯得格外有趣。我們所有人，無論是當地人還是歐洲人，都相處得很友善。死者距離這裡有一百碼遠。
首次發表於1931 年 8 月的《阿德爾菲報》 | 新薩沃伊》1946 年《
該資料在包括美國在內的一些司法管轄區仍受版權保護，並經奧威爾莊園的許可在此複製。
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It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.
One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.
Eight o’clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,” he said irritably. “The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready yet?”
Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. “Yes sir, yes sir,” he bubbled. “All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We shall proceed.”
“Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.”
We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened–a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.
“Who let that bloody brute in here?” said the superintendent angrily. “Catch it, someone!”
A warder, detached from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced and gambolled just out of his reach, taking everything as part of the game. A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails. The prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though this was another formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before someone managed to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its collar and moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.
It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working –bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming–all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.
The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman limbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck.
We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”, not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down over the prisoner’s face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again: “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”
The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, “Ram! Ram! Ram!” never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number – fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened to his cries – each cry another second of life; the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!
Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. “Chalo!” he shouted almost fiercely.
There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.
The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. “He’s all right,” said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning, thank God.”
The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.
The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: “Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. –Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas. Classy European style.”
Several people laughed – at what, nobody seemed certain.
Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. “Well, sir, all hass passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass all finished – flick! like that. It iss not always so – oah, no! I have known cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner’s legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!”
“Wriggling about, eh? That’s bad,” said the superintendent.
“Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg. We reasoned with him. “My dear fellow,” we said, “think of all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!” But no, he would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!”
I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. “You’d better all come out and have a drink,” he said quite genially. “I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.”
We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road. “Pulling at his legs!” exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis’s anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.
First published in The Adelphi, August 1931 | Reprinted in The New Savoy, 1946
This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate.
散文
那是在緬甸，一個陰雨綿綿的早晨。一道昏暗的燈光，像
黃色的錫箔，斜射過高牆，照進監獄的院子裡。我們
在死囚牢房外面等候，那是一排棚子，前面有
雙層柵欄，像小動物的籠子一樣。每個牢房大約有十英尺見方
，裡面除了一張木板床和一壺
飲用水外，空無一物。在一些監獄裡，棕色皮膚的男人們沉默地蹲在
裡面的柵欄裡，身上披著毯子。這些都是
被判死刑的人，將在一兩週內被絞死。
一名囚犯被帶出了牢房。他是印度教徒，
身材瘦小，剃著光頭，眼睛無神。他留著濃密的、
正在生長的鬍子，與他的身體不成比例，很像
電影裡喜劇演員的鬍子。六個高大的印度獄卒
看守著他，準備將他送上絞刑架。其中兩人
手持步槍和上好刺刀的槍站在一旁，其他人則給他戴上手銬，將
鏈條穿過手銬固定在腰帶上，並將他的
雙臂緊緊綁在身體兩側。他們緊緊地圍著他，雙手
始終小心翼翼地、愛撫地放在他身上，彷彿一直在
感受他，確保他就在那裡。這就像人們處理一條
還活著的魚，它可能會跳回水裡。但他站在那裡
，沒有抵抗，雙臂無力地垂在繩子上，好像他幾乎沒有
註意到發生了什麼事。 八點鐘敲響，遠處的營房裡飄來
一聲號角聲，在潮濕的空氣中顯得淒涼而稀薄 。
獄長
站在我們旁邊，悶悶不樂地用
棍子戳著礫石，聽到聲音，他抬起了頭。他是一名軍醫，留著
灰色的牙刷狀小鬍子，聲音粗啞。 「看在上帝的份上，快點，
法蘭西斯，」他煩躁地說。 「那人現在應該已經死了
。你還沒準備好嗎？」
獄長法蘭西斯是一名身材肥胖的達羅毗荼人，身穿白色粗佈軍裝，戴著金色
眼鏡，他揮舞著黑色的手。 「是的，長官，是的，長官，」他興奮地說。 「一切
準備就緒。劊子手正在等候。我們繼續。」 「 好吧，那就快走吧。這項工作
要等到結束，囚犯們才能吃早餐 。」我們出發去絞刑架。兩名獄警走在囚犯的兩側 ，手裡拿著步槍，放在斜坡上；另外兩個人向他靠近 ，抓住他的手臂和肩膀，好像在推 他又在扶他。我們其餘的人，包括治安官和類似的官員，也跟著
在後面。突然，當我們走了十碼的時候，遊行隊伍突然停了
下來，沒有任何命令或警告。一件可怕的事發生了──一隻
狗，天知道它從哪裡來的，出現在了院子裡。它
大聲吠叫著，蹦蹦跳跳地跑到我們中間，在我們周圍跳來跳去，搖晃著
整個身體，發現這麼多人聚集在一起，高興得發狂。
這是一隻毛茸茸的大狗，一半是萬能梗，一半是流浪狗。它在我們周圍蹦蹦跳跳了一會兒
，然後，在任何人阻止它之前，它衝向
囚犯，跳起來試圖舔他的臉。所有人都
驚呆了，甚至沒有力氣去抓那隻狗。
「誰讓這個該死的畜生進來的？」 」警司憤怒地說。
「快來人，抓住它！ 「
一個脫離押送隊伍的獄警笨拙地追趕那隻狗，但那
隻狗卻在他的觸及範圍之外跳來跳去，把一切都當成了
遊戲的一部分。一名年輕的歐亞混血獄卒抓起一把碎石，
試圖用石頭把那條狗趕走，但它躲開了石頭，
再次被關緊地看著這一切，在監獄的哀號聲中被哀嘆
這一切。只是 絞刑 的
另 一種
形式 。的肌肉都整齊地滑入到位， 頭皮上的一綹頭髮上下跳動，他的腳印印 在濕漉漉的礫石上。 有一次，儘管 兩個男人緊緊抓住他 的肩膀，他還是稍微往旁邊 挪了挪，以避開路上的 水坑 。 結束生命的神秘性和難以 言喻 的 錯誤 。
A Hanging
Essay
It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like
yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We
were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with
double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet
by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of
drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the
inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the
condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.
One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny
wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick,
sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the
moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were
guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by
with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a
chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his
arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their
hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while
feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish
which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite
unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly
noticed what was happening.
Eight o'clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air,
floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who
was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with
his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a
grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. "For God's sake hurry up,
Francis," he said irritably. "The man ought to have been dead by this
time. Aren't you ready yet?"
Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold
spectacles, waved his black hand. "Yes sir, yes sir," he bubbled. "All
iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We shall proceed."
"Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can't get their breakfast till
this job's over."
We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the
prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close
against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing
and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed
behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped
short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened--a
dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came
bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging
its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together.
It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it
pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a
dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone
stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.
"Who let that bloody brute in here?" said the superintendent angrily.
"Catch it, someone!"
A warder, detached from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but
it danced and gambolled just out of his reach, taking everything as part
of the game. A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and
tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us
again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails. The prisoner, in the grasp of
the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though this was another
formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before someone managed
to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its collar and
moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.
It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of
the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound
arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never
straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place,
the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed
themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped
him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the
path.
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to
destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to
avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of
cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he
was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working
--bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues
forming--all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be
growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air
with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the
grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned--reasoned
even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together,
seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two
minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone--one mind less, one
world less.
The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the
prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection
like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two
beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired
convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his
machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word
from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than
ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up
the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the
prisoner's neck.
We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough
circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the
prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of
"Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!", not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for
help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog
answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the
gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down
over the prisoner's face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still
persisted, over and over again: "Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!"
The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes
seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and
on, "Ram! Ram! Ram!" never faltering for an instant. The superintendent,
his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick;
perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number--
fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians
had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were
wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened
to his cries--each cry another second of life; the same thought was in
all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable
noise!
Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he
made a swift motion with his stick. "Chalo!" he shouted almost fiercely.
There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had
vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and
it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there
it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard,
where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went
round the gallows to inspect the prisoner's body. He was dangling with
his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a
stone.
The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it
oscillated, slightly. "HE'S all right," said the superintendent. He
backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody
look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his
wrist-watch. "Eight minutes past eight. Well, that's all for this
morning, thank God."
The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and
conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them. We walked out
of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting
prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts, under
the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their
breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin,
while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed
quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had
come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to
break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering
gaily.
The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come,
with a knowing smile: "Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead
man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor
of his cell. From fright.--Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you
not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight
annas. Classy European style."
Several people laughed--at what, nobody seemed certain.
Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. "Well,
sir, all hass passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass all
finished--flick! like that. It iss not always so--oah, no! I have known
cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull
the prisoner's legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!"
"Wriggling about, eh? That's bad," said the superintendent.
"Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall,
clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will
scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three
pulling at each leg. We reasoned with him. "My dear fellow," we said,
"think of all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!" But no, he
would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!"
I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the
superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. "You'd better all come out and
have a drink," he said quite genially. "I've got a bottle of whisky in
the car. We could do with it."
We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road.
"Pulling at his legs!" exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst
into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment
Francis's anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink
together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a
hundred yards away.
灰色的牆壁，但他的大腦仍然記得、預見、推理——
甚至推理水坑。他和我們是一群一起行走的人，
看到、聽到、感受到、理解同一個世界；兩分鐘後
，隨著一聲突然的響聲，我們中的一個人就消失了——失去了一個思想，
失去了一個世界。
絞刑架位於一個小院子裡，與監獄的主場地隔開
，院子裡長滿了高高的多刺的雜草。它是用磚砌成的
，像棚子的三面，上面鋪著木板，再上面有兩根
橫樑和一根橫桿，繩子懸垂著。絞刑官是一名
身穿白色監獄制服、 頭髮花白的 囚犯，他正在
絞刑架旁等候。當我們進去時，他卑躬屈膝地向我們致意。法蘭西斯一聲
令下，兩名獄卒更加緊緊地抓住了囚犯
，半推半拽地將他帶到絞刑架上，然後笨拙地扶著他爬上
梯子。然後，絞刑官爬上去，把繩子固定在
囚犯的脖子上。
我們站在五碼外等待。獄警們在
絞刑架周圍圍成一個圓圈。然後，當套索被固定住時，
囚犯開始向他的上帝哭喊。那是一聲高亢、反覆的
「拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！」的呼喊，不像祈禱或求救那樣急切或恐懼
，而是穩定、有節奏的，幾乎就像鐘聲一樣。那隻狗
用嗚咽聲回應了這聲音。劊子手仍然站在
絞刑架上，拿出一個像麵粉袋一樣的小棉袋，罩
在囚犯的臉上。但被布料掩蓋的聲音仍然
不斷響起，一遍又一遍：「拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！」
劊子手爬下來，站好，握住槓桿。幾分鐘
似乎就過去了。囚犯持續不斷地發出低沉的哭喊
：「拉姆！拉姆！拉姆！」一刻也不動搖。警司
把頭埋在胸前，用棍子慢慢地戳著地面；
也許他正在數著囚犯的哭喊聲，以便給他們一個固定的數字——
五十個，或者一百個。整個人都變了臉色。印第安人
已經變得像變質的咖啡一樣灰白，其中有一兩把刺刀在
搖晃。我們看著站在懸崖邊、頭戴頭巾、身披鞭子的男人，聽著
他的哭喊聲——每一聲哭喊都意味著一秒的生命；我們所有人的心裡都有同樣的想法
：哦，快點殺了他，快點結束這一切，別再發出那可惡的
噪音了！
突然，警司下定了決心。他揚起頭，
迅速揮動著棍子。 「查洛！」他幾乎是兇猛地喊道。
一陣叮噹聲響起，隨後一片死寂。囚犯
消失了，繩子開始自我纏繞。我放開狗，
它立刻飛奔到絞刑架後面；但當它到達那裡時
，它突然停了下來，吠叫了幾聲，然後退到院子的一個角落裡，
站在雜草叢中，膽怯地望著我們。我們
繞著絞刑架走了一圈，檢查囚犯的屍體。他懸在空中，
腳趾直直地朝下，緩慢地旋轉著，像
石頭一樣死氣沉沉。
警司伸出棍子戳了戳那名警官的裸露屍體；它
輕微地擺動著。 「他沒事，」警司說。他
從絞刑架下退出來，深深呼出一口氣。他臉上憂鬱的
表情突然消失了。他看了
一眼手錶。 「八點零八分。好了，
感謝上帝，今天早上就到這裡了。」
獄警們卸下刺刀，列隊走開。那隻狗清醒過來，
意識到自己行為不當，便溜了出去跟在他們後面。我們走出
絞刑架場，經過關著囚犯的死囚牢房
，進入監獄的中央院。囚犯們在
手持警棍的獄警的指揮下，已經開始吃
早餐了。他們蹲成長長的一排，每人手裡拿著一個錫盤，
兩名獄警提著桶子四處走動，舀出米飯。
絞刑之後，這似乎是 多麼溫馨、歡樂的景象。
現在工作已經完成，我們感到如釋重負 。一個人會感到一種想唱歌、想
奔跑、想竊笑的衝動。突然，大家都開始興高采烈
地聊天。
走在我身旁的歐亞混血男孩朝我們來時的路點了點頭，
帶著會心的微笑：「先生，您知道嗎？我們的朋友（他指的是那個死者
），聽說他的上訴被駁回後，嚇得在
牢房的地板上撒尿。——先生，請拿一支我的香煙。你
不欣賞我的新銀煙盒似乎有笑了兩檔，但有什麼人笑的人，但有八檔
人
。
法蘭西斯從主管身邊走過，喋喋不休地說著話。 「嗯，
先生，一切麻煩事都圓滿解決了。一切都
結束了——輕彈！就像那樣。事情並不總是這樣——哦，不！我知道
有些案例，醫生不得不走到絞刑架下面，拉動
犯人的腿，以確保他死亡。真是令人不快！」
「扭來扭去，是嗎？這很糟糕，」警司說道。
「哎呀，先生，他們變得難以管教的時候，情況就更糟了！我記得有一個人，
當我們帶他出去的時候，他緊緊抓住籠子的欄桿。先生，您
大概不會相信，需要六名獄警才能把他拖走，
每人三人拉著他的腿。我們跟他講道理。 「我親愛的朋友，」我們說道，
「想想你給我們帶來多少痛苦和麻煩！」但他不
聽！ 「啊，他真是麻煩！」
我發現自己笑得很大聲。大家都在笑。連
警司也寬容地笑了。 「你們最好都出來 喝一杯，」他非常和藹地說。 「我車裡
有一瓶威士忌 我們穿過監獄的大門，來到馬路上。 「拉他的腿！ 「緬甸法官突然驚呼道，然後放聲 大笑。我們又都笑了起來。那一刻， 方濟各的故事顯得格外有趣。我們所有人，無論是當地人還是歐洲人，都相當友好地一起 喝了一杯 。死者離我們有一百碼遠。
