A pair of mismatched cloth shoes

帕洛马尔先生在东方某个国家旅游时，从集市上买回一双布鞋。回到家里试穿时，发现一只鞋比另一只大，穿上它直往下掉。他回忆起那个年迈的摊贩蹲在集市上小棚内，面前乱七八糟摆着一堆各种号码的布鞋，他看着老人从鞋堆里翻出一只与他的脚相当的布鞋并递过来让他试，然后又在鞋堆里翻找并把这只不配对的鞋递给他，他试也没试就买下了。

帕洛马尔先生心里想道：“也许现在那个国家另有一个人正穿着一双大小不一样的鞋走路呢。”他仿佛看见一个瘦小的身影在沙漠上一瘸一拐地行走，脚上有只鞋大得多，走一步都要掉下来，或者小得把他的脚都挤变形了。“也许他现在也正想着我，希望遇见我同我交换呢。我们之间的关系比较大部分人际关系来要具体得多、明确得多。然而，我们却永远也不会相遇。”为了向这位不知姓名的难友表示同情，为了牢牢记住他们之间的这种极为罕见的互补关系，让这个大陆上的跛行反映到另一个大陆上去，帕洛马尔先生决定永远穿着这双不配对的布鞋。

帕洛马尔先生在思想中一直这么想，但是他知道事实并非如此。批量生产的布鞋源源不断地补充着那个集市商贩的货摊，鞋堆里的那两只不配对的鞋将会永远留在那里。只要这个年迈的摊贩不卖光自己的全部库存（也许这些库存永远也卖不完，他死后他的买卖和存货会转给他的儿子，儿子再交给孙子），那么他只需在鞋堆里翻检几下就能找到一只鞋与另一只鞋配对。只有像他帕洛马尔这样粗心的顾客才会出现这种差错，但是，要使他这一差错的后果反映在这个古老集市的另一位顾客身上，可能需要几百年的时间。世界上任何统一体的分解过程都是不可抗拒的，但是它的后果却被大量的也许是无穷无尽的新的对称、组合与配对所掩盖而迟迟不能被人发现。

他的这个差错可能不可能修正了从前的一个差错呢？他的粗心会不会不仅没有造成混乱反而恢复了原来的秩序呢？帕洛马尔先生心想：“也许那个摊贩非常清楚他的行为，他把这只不配对的鞋给了我，从而消除了在那堆鞋中隐藏了几百年、自他的祖辈在这个集市开业以来就一代一代遗传下来的不平衡呢？”

那位不知姓名的难友也许在几个世纪以前曾跛足而行。那么，帕洛马尔先生与他同样跛足而行，中间不仅隔着两大洲，而且相距几个世纪呢。尽管时间过去很久了，帕洛马尔先生并不因此而对他缺乏同情心，他继续穿着这双布鞋吃力地走着，以慰藉他的这位已不存在的伙伴。

Mr. Palomares bought a pair of cloth shoes from a market in an eastern country. When I got home to try it on, I found one shoe was bigger than the other, and I put it on and it fell off. He recalls the elderly vendor squatting in a stall at the market, with a jumble of cloth shoes of all sizes in front of him. He watched the old man pull out a cloth shoe from the pile that matched his foot and hand it to him to try on, then he rummaged through the pile of shoes and handed him the mismatched shoe, which he bought without trying. "perhaps there is another man in that country now walking in shoes of different sizes," thought Mr. Palomares, as if he saw a small figure limping in the desert, one of the shoes on his foot was so much bigger that he would fall off at every step, or so small that it would have crushed his foot. "perhaps he is thinking of me now, and wishes to meet me and exchange with me. Our relationships are much more specific and explicit than most human relationships. However, we will never meet." In order to express our sympathy to this nameless friend, to keep in mind this rare complementarity between them, and to allow the lameness of one continent to be reflected in another, Mr. Palomares decided to wear the mismatched cloth shoes forever. Mr Palomares had thought so, but he knew it was not so. Mass-produced cloth shoes are constantly replenishing the stall of the bazaar vendor, and the pair of mismatched shoes in the shoe pile will remain there forever. As long as the elderly vendor does not sell out his entire stock (which may never be sold out, and his sale and stock will be passed on to his son, who will then give it to his grandchildren) , so all he has to do is flip through the shoe stack and find a match between one shoe and another. Only a careless customer like Palomares could have made such a mistake, but it would have taken hundreds of years for the consequences of his mistake to be reflected in another customer of the ancient bazaar. The process of decomposition of any unity in the world is irresistible, but its consequences are obscured by a large number of perhaps endless new symmetries, combinations, and pairings. Is it possible that this error of his corrected a previous error? Could his carelessness have restored order rather than chaos? "perhaps," thought Mr. Palomares, "the street vendor was well aware of his behavior, and he gave me the mismatched shoe, thus eliminating the imbalance that had been hidden in the pile for centuries and passed down from generation to generation since his ancestors opened the bazaar?" The nameless fellow-in-arms may have limped along centuries ago. Mr Palomares, then, limped along with him, separated not only by continents but by centuries. Though time had passed, Mr. Palomares was not unsympathetic to him, and he continued to plod along in his cloth shoes, consoling his now defunct companion.

标题: 一只不配对的布鞋
作者: 卡尔维诺
字数: 951
简介: 帕洛马尔先生在东方某个国家旅游时，从集市上买回一双布鞋。回到家里试穿时，发现一只鞋比另一只大，穿上它直往下掉。他回忆起那个年迈的摊贩蹲在集市