My Daughter Smokes
我女兒抽煙
Alice Walker
艾麗斯•沃克
My daughter smokes. While she is doing her homework, her feet on the bench in front of her and her calculator clicking out answers to her algebra problems, I am looking at the half-empty package of Camels tossed carelessly close at hand. Camels. I pick them up, take them into the kitchen, where the light is better, and study them—they're filtered, for which I am grateful. My heart feels terrible. I want to weep. In fact, I do weep a little, standing there by the stove holding one of the instruments, so white, so precisely rolled, that could cause my daughter's death. When she smoked Marlboros and Players, I hardened myself against feeling so bad; nobody I knew ever smoked these brands.
我女兒抽煙。她在做作業時.兩只腳放在前面的長凳上,計算器嗒嗒地跳出代數題的答案,而我卻在看著那包她已抽了一半、被她隨意扔在手邊的“駱駝”牌香煙。“駱駝”牌。我拿起香煙,走到廚房去仔細察看,那里的光線更好一些——這種香煙是帶有過濾嘴的,謝天謝地。我心里感到十分難過。我想哭。事實上,我站在爐子旁,手里拿著一支雪白的、制作得如此精致的香煙,我確實哭了,這東西可以置我女兒于死地。當她抽“萬寶路”和“普雷厄爾”牌香煙時,我硬起心腸,不讓自己難過,我認識的人中沒有人抽過這兩種牌子的香煙。