Chapter 19

I guess you can see why Andy went a little wonky when Tommy told him that story, and why he wanted to see the warden right away. Elwood Blatch had been serving a six-to-twelve rap when Tommy knew him four years before. By the time Andy heard all of this, in 1963, he might be on the verge of getting out ... or already out. So those were the two prongs of the spit Andy was roasting on - the idea that Blatch might still be in on one hand, and the very real possibility that he might be gone like the wind on the other.
There were inconsistencies in Tommy's story, but aren't there always in real life? Blatch told Tommy the man who got sent up was a hotshot lawyer, and Andy was a banker, but those are two professions that people who aren't very educated could easily get mixed up. And don't forget that twelve years had gone by between the time Blatch was reading the clippings about the trial and the time he told the tale to Tommy Williams. He also told Tommy he got better than a thousand dollars from a footlocker Quentin had in his closet, but the police said at Andy's trial that there had been no sign of burglary. I have a few ideas about that. First, if you take the cash and the man it belonged to is dead, how are you going to know anything was stolen, unless someone else can tell you it was there to start with? Second, who's to say Blatch wasn't lying about that part of it? Maybe he didn't want to admit killing two people for nothing. Third, maybe there were signs of burglary and the cops either overlooked them - cops can be pretty dumb - or deliberately covered them up so they wouldn't screw the DA's case. The guy was running for public office, remember, and he needed a conviction to run on. An unsolved burglary-murder would have done him no good at all.
But of the three, I like the middle one best. I've known a few Elwood Blatches in my time at Shawshank - the trigger-pullers with the crazy eyes. Such fellows want you to think they got away with die equivalent of the Hope Diamond on every caper, even if they got caught with a two-dollar Timex and nine bucks on the one they're doing time for.
And there was one thing in Tommy's story that convinced Andy beyond a shadow of a doubt. Blatch hadn't hit Quentin at random. He had called Quentin 'a big rich prick', and he had known Quentin was a golf pro. Well, Andy and his wife had been going out to that country club for drinks and dinner once or twice a week for a couple of years, and Andy had done a considerable amount of drinking there once he found out about his wife's affair. There was a marina with the country club, and for a while in 1947 there had been a part-time grease-and-gas jockey working there who matched Tommy's description of Elwood Blatch. A big tall man, mostly bald, with deep-set green eyes. A man who had an unpleasant way of looking at you, as though he was sizing you up. He wasn't there long, Andy said. Either he quit or Briggs, the fellow in charge of the marina, fired him. But he wasn't a man you forgot. He was too striking for that.
So Andy went to see Warden Norton on a rainy, windy day with big grey clouds scudding across the sky above the grey walls, a day when the last of the snow was starting to melt away and show lifeless patches of last year's grass in the fields beyond the prison. The warden has a good-sized office in the administration wing, and behind the warden's desk there's a door which connects with the assistant warden's office. The assistant warden was out that day, but a trustee was there. He was a half-lame fellow whose real name I have forgotten; all the inmates, me included, called him Chester, after Marshall Dillon's sidekick. Chester was supposed to be watering the plants and dusting and waxing the floor. My guess is that the plants went thirsty that day and the only waxing that was done happened because of Chester's dirty ear polishing the keyhole plate of that connecting door.
He heard the warden's main door open and close and then Norton saying, 'Good morning, Dufresne, how can I help you?'
'Warden,' Andy began, and old Chester told us that he could hardly recognize Andy's voice it was so changed. 'Warden ... there's something ... something's happened to me that's ... that's so ... so ... I hardly know where to begin.'
'Well, why don't you just begin at the beginning?' the warden said, probably in his sweetest let's-all-turn-to-the-23rd-psalm-and-read-in-unison voice. 'That usually works the best.'
And so Andy did. He began by refreshing Norton of the details of the crime he had been imprisoned for. Then he told the warden exactly what Tommy Williams had told him. He also gave out Tommy's name, which you may think wasn't so wise in light of later developments, but I'd just ask you what else he could have done, if his story was to have any credibility at all.
When he had finished, Norton was completely silent for some time. I can just see him, probably tipped back in his office chair under the picture of Governor Reed hanging on the wall, his fingers steepled, his liver lips pursed, his brow wrinkled into ladder rungs halfway to the crown of his head, his thirty-year pin gleaming mellowly.
'Yes,' he said finally. That's the damnedest story I ever heard. But I'll tell you what surprises me most about it, Dufresne.'
'What's that, sir?'
'That you were taken in by it.'
'Sir? I don't understand what you mean.' And Chester said that Andy Dufresne, who had faced down Byron Hadley on the plate-shop roof thirteen years before, was almost
floundering for words.
'Well now,' Norton said. 'It's pretty obvious to me that this young fellow Williams is impressed with you. Quite taken with you, as a matter of fact he hears your tale of woe, and it's quite natural of him to want to ... cheer you up, let's say. Quite natural. He's a young man, not terribly bright. Not surprising he didn't realize what a state it would put you into. Now what I suggest is -' 'Don't you think I thought of that?' Andy asked. 'But I'd never told Tommy about the man working down at the marina. I never told anyone that - it never even crossed my mind! But Tommy's description of his cellmate and that man ... they're identical!'
'Well now, you may be indulging in a little selective perception there,' Norton said with a chuckle. Phrases like that, selective perception, are required learning for people in the penalogy and corrections business, and they use them all they can.
"That's not it at all. Sir.'
"That's your slant on it,' Norton said, 'but mine differs. And let's remember that I have only your word that there was such a man working at the Falmouth Country Club back then.'

　　我想你不难看出当安迪听完汤米的故事后，为何有一点魂不守舍了，以及他为何要立刻求见典狱长。布拉契被判六至十二年徒刑，而汤米认识他已是四年前的事。当安迪在一九六三年听见这事时，布拉契也许已经快出狱了……甚至已经出狱。安迪担心的是，一方面布拉契有可能还在坐牢，另一方面，他也可能随风而逝，不见踪影。
　　汤米说的故事并不完全前后一致，但现实人生不就是这样吗？布拉契告诉汤米，被关起来的是个名律师，而安迪却是个银行家，只不过受教育不多的人原本就很容易把这两种职业混为一谈。何况别忘了，布拉契告诉汤米这件事时，距离报上刊出审判消息已经十二年了。布拉契告诉汤米，他从昆丁的抽屉拿走了一千多元，但警方在审判中却说，屋内没有被窃的痕迹。在我看来，首先，如果拥有这笔钱的人已经死了，你怎么可能知道屋内到底被偷了多少东西呢？第二，说不定布拉契根本在说谎？也许他不想承认自己无缘无故就杀了两个人。第三，也许屋内确实有被窃的痕迹，但被警方忽略了——警察有时候是很笨的，也可能当时为了不要坏了检察官的大事，他们故意把这事掩盖过去。别忘了，当时检察官正在竞选公职，他很需要把人定罪，作为竞选的宣传，而一件迟迟未破的盗窃杀人案对他一点好处也没有。
　　但在这三个可能中，我觉得第二个最有可能。我在肖申克认识不少像布拉契这类的人，他们都有一双疯狂的眼睛，随时会扣扳机。即使他们只不过偷了个两块美金的廉价手表和九块钱零钱就被逮了，他们也会把它说成每次都偷到“希望之星”之类的巨钻后逃之夭夭。
　　尽管稍有疑虑，但有一件事说服安迪相信汤米的故事。布拉契绝不是临时起意杀昆丁的，他称昆丁为“有钱的讨厌鬼”，他知道昆丁是个高尔夫职业选手。在那一两年中，安迪和他老婆每个星期总会到乡村俱乐部喝酒吃饭两次，而且安迪发现太太出轨后，也经常独自在那儿喝闷酒。乡村俱乐部有个停靠小艇的码头，一九四七年有一阵子，那儿有个兼差的员工还蛮符合汤米对布拉契的描述。那个人长得很高大，头几乎全秃了，有一对深陷的绿眼睛。他瞪着你的时候，仿佛在打量你一般，会令你浑身不舒服。他没有在那里做多久，要不是自己辞职，就是负责管理码头的人开除了他。但是你不会轻易忘记像他那种人，他太显眼了。
　　于是安迪在一个凄风苦雨的日子去见诺顿，那天云层很低，灰蒙蒙的墙上是灰蒙蒙的天。那天也是开始融雪的日子，监狱外田野间露出了无生气的草地。
　　典狱长在行政大楼有间相当宽敞的办公室，他的办公室连着副典狱长的办公室，那天副典狱长出去了，不过我有个亲信刚好在那儿，他真正的名字我忘了，大家都叫他柴士特。柴士特负责浇花和给地板打蜡，我想那天有很多植物一定都渴死了，而且只有钥匙孔打了蜡，因为他只顾竖起他的脏耳朵从钥匙孔偷听事情经过。
　　他听到典狱长的门打开后又关上，然后听到典狱长说：“早安，杜佛尼，有什么事吗？”
　　“典狱长，”安迪说，老柴士特后来告诉我们，他几乎听不出是安迪的声音，因为变得太多了。“典狱长……有件事发生了……我……那真的是……我不知道该从哪儿说起。”
　　“那你何不从头说起呢？”典狱长说，大概用他“我们打开《圣经》第二十三诗篇一起读吧”的声音：“这样会容易多了。”
　　于是安迪开始从头说起。他先说明自己入狱的前因后果，然后再把汤米的话重复一遍。他也说出了汤米的名字，不过从后来事情的发展看来，这是不智之举，但当时他又别无他法，如果没有人证，别人怎么可能相信你说的呢？
　　当他说完后，诺顿不发一语。我可以想象他的表情：整个人靠在椅背上，头快撞到墙上挂着的州长李德的照片，两手合十，指尖抵着下巴，嘴唇噘着，从眉毛以上直到额顶全是皱纹，那个三十年纪念襟章闪闪发亮。
　　“嗯，”他最后说，“这是我听过的最该死的故事。但告诉你最令我吃惊的是什么吧，杜佛尼。”
　　“先生，是什么？”
　　“那就是你居然会相信这个故事。”
　　“先生，我不懂你是什么意思？”柴士特告诉我们，十三年前那个在屋顶上毫无惧色地对抗哈力的安迪·杜佛尼，此时竟然语无伦次起来。
　　诺顿说：“依我看来，很明显那个年轻的汤米对你印象太好了，他听过你的故事，很自然的就很想……为了鼓舞你的心情，比方说，这是很自然的。他太年轻了，也不算聪明，他根本不知道这么说了会对你产生什么影响。我现在建议你——”
　　“你以为我没有这样怀疑过吗？”安迪问，“但是我从来没有告诉汤米那个码头工人的事情。我从来不曾告诉任何人这件事，甚至从来不曾想过这件事！但是汤米对牢友的描述和那个工人……他们根本就是一模一样！”
　　“我看你也是受到选择性认知的影响。”诺顿说完后干笑两声。“选择性认知”，这是专搞狱政感化的人最爱用的名词。
　　“先生，完全不是这样。”
　　“那是你的偏见，”诺顿说，“但是我的看法就不同。别忘了，我只听到你的片面之词，说有这么一个人在乡村俱乐部工作。”