作品原文

张爱玲 《打人》

在外滩看见一个警察打人，没有缘故，只是一时兴起，挨打的是个十五六岁的穿得相当干净的孩子，棉袄棉裤，腰间系带。警察用的鞭，没看仔细，好像就是警棍头上的绳圈。“呜！”抽下去，一下又一下，把孩子逼在墙根。孩子很可以跑而不跑，仰头望着他，皱着脸，眯着眼，就像乡下人在田野的太阳里睁不开眼睛的样子，仿佛还带着点笑。事情来得太突兀了，缺乏舞台经验的人往往来不及调整面部表情。

我向来很少有正义感。我不愿意看见什么，就有本事看不见。然而这一回，我忍不住屡屡回过头去望，气塞胸膛，打一下，就觉得我的心收缩一下。打完之后，警察朝这边踱了过来。我恶狠狠盯住他看，恨不得眼睛里飞出小刀子，很希望我能够表达出充分的鄙夷与愤怒，对于一个麻风病患者的憎怖。然而他只觉得有人在注意他，得意洋洋紧了一紧腰间的皮带。他是个长脸大嘴的北方人，生得不难看。

他走到公众厕所的门前，顺手揪过一个穿长袍而带寒酸相的，并不立即动手打，只定晴看他，一手按着棍子。那人于张煌气恼之中还想讲笑话，问道：“阿是为仔我要登坑老?”

大约因为我的思想没受过训练之故，这时候我并不想起阶级革命，一气之下，只想去做官，或是做主席夫人，可以走上前给那警察两个耳刮子。

在民初李涵秋的小说里，这时候就应当跳出一个仗义的西洋传教师，或是保安局长的姨太太，（女主角的手帕交，男主角的旧情人。）偶尔天真一下还不要紧，那样有系统地天真下去，到底不大好。

作品译文

A Beating

I saw a policeman hitting someone on the Bund, for no reason, simply because he felt like it. It was a boy of fifteen or sixteen, quite neatly dressed, in padded jacket and trousers, with a belt around his waist. I did not see clearly what the policeman was whipping him with—it seemed to be the long loop attached to the end of his truncheon. Down came his arm, thwack!, time after time, driving the boy up against a wall. The boy did not try to run away, though he could have. He looked up at him, screwing up his eyes, in the way country people squint against the glare of the sun in the open fields, and there was even the hint of a smile on his face. It had all happened too suddenly: people without stage experience often lag behind in adjusting their expression.

I have never had a strong sense of justice. If I don't want to see something I can shut it out. But this time I couldn't help it, I kept looking round at them. I felt choked. With every blow my heart contracted. When he had finished his beating, the policeman sauntered over in my direction. I fixed him with a venomous star, only sorry that I could not look real daggers. I hoped I could express my utter contempt and anger, the kind of disgust one feels for a leper. But he was only aware he was the object of attention, and smugly tightened his belt. He was a northerner with a long face and a big mouth, not at all bad looking in fact.

He walked over to the door of the public lavatory, and laid hold of a shabby looking man in a long gown who happened to be standing there. He did not set about him straight away, he just glared at him as he fingered his truncheon. Torn between panic and indignation, the man actually came out with a witticism: "Is it because I was going for a crap?"

Probably because of my lack of ideological training, I forgot all about the class revolution, and in my anger wished I were a high official, or else the First Lady, so that I could have stepped up to the policeman and boxed his ears.

In the novels of Li Hanqiu, written in the early years of the Republic, there would have come at this juncture the intervention of a public-spirited Western missionary or the concubine of the Chief of Police (the confidante of the heroine, the old flame of the hero). Momentary naivety is excusable, but systematic naivety is really not a good thing.