Chapter 22

 I guess it was clear enough.
Time continued to pass - the oldest trick in the world, and maybe the only one that really is magic. But Andy Dufresne had changed. He had grown harder. That's the only way I can think of to put it. He went on doing Warden Norton's dirty work and he held onto the library, so outwardly things were about the same. He continued to have his birthday drinks and his New Year's Eve drinks; he continued to share out the rest of each bottle. I got him fresh rock-polishing cloths from time to time, and in 1967 I got him a new rock-hammer - the one I'd gotten him nineteen years ago had plumb worn out. Nineteen years! When you say it sudden like that, those three syllables sound like the thud and double-locking of a tomb door. The rock-hammer, which had been a ten-dollar item back then, went for twenty-two by '67. He and I had a sad little grin over that.
Andy continued to shape and polish the rocks he found in the exercise yard, but the yard was smaller by then; half of what had been there in 1950 had been asphalted over in 1962. Nonetheless, he found enough to keep him occupied, I guess. When he had finished with each rock he would put it carefully on his window ledge, which faced east. He told me he liked to look at them in the sun, the pieces of the planet he had taken up from the dirt and shaped. Schists, quartzes, granites. Funny little mica sculptures that were held together with airplane glue. Various sedimentary conglomerates that were polished and cut in such a way that you could see why Andy called them 'millennium sandwiches' - the layers of different material that had built up over a period of decades and centuries.
Andy would give his stones and his rock-sculptures away from time to time in order to make room for new ones. He gave me the greatest number, I think - counting the stones that looked like matched cufflinks, I had five. There was one of the mica sculptures I told you about, carefully crafted to look like a man throwing a javelin, and two of the sedimentary conglomerates, all the levels showing in smoothly polished cross-section. I've still got them, and I take them down every so often and think about what a man can do, if he has time enough and the will to use it, a drop at a time.
So, on the outside, at least, things were about the same. If Norton had wanted to break Andy as badly as he had said, he would have had to look below the surface to see the change. But if he had seen how different Andy had become, I think Norton would have been well-satisfied with the four years following his clash with Andy.
He had told Andy that Andy walked around the exercise yard as if he were at a cocktail party. That isn't the way I would have put it, but I know what he meant. It goes back to what I said about Andy wearing his freedom like an invisible coat, about how he never really developed a prison mentality. His eyes never got that dull look. He never developed the walk that men get when the day is over and they are going back to their cells for another endless night - that flat-footed, hump-shouldered walk.
Andy walked with his shoulders squared and his step was always light, as if he was heading home to a good home-cooked meal and a good woman instead of to a tasteless mess of soggy vegetables, lumpy mashed potato, and a slice or two of that fatty, gristly stuff most of the cons called mystery meat ... that, and a picture of Raquel Welch on the wall.
But for those four years, although he never became exactly like the others, he did become silent, introspective, and brooding. Who could blame him? So maybe it was Warden Norton who was pleased ... at least, for a while.
His dark mood broke around the time of the 1967 World Series. That was the dream year, the year the Red Sox won the pennant instead of placing ninth, as the Las Vegas bookies had predicted. When it happened - when they won the American League pennant - a kind of ebullience engulfed the whole prison. There was a goofy sort of feeling that if the Dead Sox could come to life, then maybe anybody could do it. I can't explain that feeling now, any more than an ex-Beatlemaniac could explain that madness, I suppose. But it was real. Every radio in the place was tuned to the games as the Red Sox pounded down the stretch. There was gloom when the Sox dropped a pair in Cleveland near the end, and a nearly riotous joy when Rico Petrocelli put away the pop fly that clinched it. And then there was the gloom that came when Lonborg was beaten in the seventh game of the Series to end the dream just short of complete fruition. It probably pleased Norton to no end, the son of a bitch. He liked his prison wearing sackcloth and ashes. But for Andy, there was no tumble back down into gloom. He wasn't much of a baseball fan anyway, and maybe that was why. Nevertheless, he seemed to have caught the current of good feeling, and for him it didn't peter out again after the last game of the Series. He had taken that invisible coat out of the closet and put it on again.
I remember one bright-gold fall day in very late October, a couple of weeks after the World Series had ended. It must have been a Sunday, because the exercise yard was full of men 'walking off the week' - tossing a Frisbee or two, passing around a football, bartering what they had to barter. Others would be at the long table in the Visitors' Hall, under the watchful eyes of the screws, talking with their relatives, smoking cigarettes, telling sincere lies, receiving their picked-over care packages.
Andy was squatting Indian-fashion against the wall, chunking two small rocks together in his hands, his face turned up into the sunlight. It was surprisingly warm, that sun, for a day so late in the year.
'Hello, Red,' he called. 'Come on and sit a spell.'
I did.
'You want this?' he asked, and handed me one of the two carefully polished 'millennium sandwiches' I just told you about.
'I sure do,' I said. 'It's very pretty. Thank you.'
He shrugged and changed the subject 'Big anniversary coming up for you next year.'
I nodded. Next year would make me a thirty-year man. Sixty per cent of my life spent in Shawshank Prison.
'Think you'll ever get out?'
'Sure. When I have a long white beard and just about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.'
He smiled a little and then turned his face up into the sun again, his eyes closed. 'Feels good.'
'I think it always does when you know the damn winter's almost right on top of you.'
He nodded, and we were silent for a while.
'When I get out of here,' Andy said finally, 'I'm going where it's warm all the time.' He spoke with such calm assurance you would have thought he had only a month or so left to serve. 'You know where I'm goin', Red?'

　　我想他把话说得很清楚了。
　　时间继续一天天过去——这是大自然最古老的手段，或许也是惟一的魔法，安迪变了，他变得更冷酷了，这是我惟一能想到的形容词。他继续掩护诺顿做脏事，也继续管理图书馆，所以从外表看来，一切如常。每年生日和年关岁暮时，他照样会喝上一杯，也继续把剩下的半瓶酒和我分享。我不时为他找来新的磨石布，一九六七年时，我替他弄来一把新锤子，十九年前那把已经坏掉了。十九年了！当你突然说出那几个字时，三个音节仿佛坟墓上响起的重重关门声。当年十元的锤子，到了一九六七年，已经是二十二元了。当我把锤子递给他时，他和我都不禁惨然一笑。
　　他继续打磨从运动场上找到的石头，但运动场变小了，因为其中一半的地在一九六二年铺上了柏油。不过，看来他还是找了不少石头来让自己忙着。每当他琢磨好一块石头后，他会把它放在朝东的窗台上，他告诉我，他喜欢看着从泥土中找到的一块块片岩、石英、花岗岩、云母等，在阳光下闪闪发光，安迪给这些石头起名叫“千年三明治”，因为岩层是经过几十年、几百年，甚至数千年才堆积而成的。
　　隔三差五，安迪会把石雕作品送人，好腾出地方来容纳新琢磨好的石头。他最常送我石头，包括那双袖扣一样的石头，我就有五个，其中有一块好像一个人在掷标枪的云母石，是很小心雕刻出来的。我到现在还保存着这些石头，不时拿出来把玩一番。每当我看见这些石头时，总会想到如果一个人懂得利用时间的话（即使每一次只有一点点时间），一点一滴累积起来，能做出多少事情。
　　所以，表面上一切如常。如果诺顿是存心击垮安迪的话，他必须穿透表面，才能看到个中的变化。但是我想在诺顿和安迪冲突之后的四年中，如果他能看得出安迪的改变，应该会感到很满意，因为安迪变化太大了。
　　他曾经说，安迪在运动场上散步时，就好像参加鸡尾酒会一样。我不会这么形容，但我知道他是什么意思。我以前也说过，自由的感觉仿佛一件隐形外衣披在安迪身上，他从来不曾培养起一种坐牢的心理状态，他的眼光从来不显呆滞，他也从未像其他犯人一样，在一日将尽时，垮着肩膀，拖着沉重的脚步，回到牢房去面对另一个无尽的夜。他总是抬头挺胸，脚步轻快，好像走在回家的路上一样，而家里有香喷喷的晚饭和好女人在等着他，而不是只有食之无味的蔬菜、马铃薯泥和一两块肥肉……，以及墙上的拉蔻儿·薇芝的海报在等着他。
　　但在这四年中，虽然他并没有完全变得像其他人一样，但的确变得沉默、内省，经常若有所思。又怎能怪他呢？不过总算称了诺顿的心……至少有一阵子如此。
　　他的沉郁到了一九六七年职业棒球世界大赛时改变了。那是梦幻的一年，波士顿红袜队不再排第九名敬陪末座，而是正如拉斯维加斯赌盘所预测，赢得美国联盟冠军宝座。在他们赢得胜利的一刹那，整个监狱为之沸腾。大家似乎有个傻念头，觉得如果连红袜队都能起死回生，或许其他人也可以。我现在没办法把那种感觉解释清楚，就好像披头士迷也无法解释他们的疯狂一样。但这是很真实的感觉。当红袜队一步步迈向世界大赛总冠军宝座时，监狱里每个收音机都在收听转播。当红袜队在圣路易的冠军争夺战中连输两场的时候，监狱里一片愁云惨雾；当皮特洛切里演出再见接杀时，所有人欢欣雀跃，简直快把屋顶掀掉了；但最后在世界大赛最关键的第七战，当伦伯格吃下败投、红袜队功亏一篑、冠军梦碎时，大家的心情都跌到谷底。惟有诺顿可能在一旁幸灾乐祸，那个龟儿子，他喜欢监狱里的人整天灰头土脸。
　　但是安迪的心情没有跌到谷底，也许因为反正他原本就不是棒球迷。虽然如此，他似乎感染了这种振奋的气氛，而且这种感觉在红袜队输掉最后一场球赛后，仍然没有消失。他重新从衣柜中拿出自由的隐形外衣，披在身上。
　　我记得在十月底一个高爽明亮的秋日，是棒球赛结束后两周，一定是个星期日，因为运动场上挤满了人，不少人在丢飞盘、踢足球、私下交易，还有一些人在狱卒的监视下，在会客室里和亲友见面、抽烟、说些诚恳的谎话、收下已被狱方检查过的包裹。
　　安迪靠墙蹲着，手上把玩着两块石头，他的脸朝着阳光。在这种季节，这天的阳光算是出奇的暖和。
　　“哈啰，雷德，”他喊道，“过来聊聊。”
　　我过去了。
　　“你要这个吗？”他问道，递给我一块磨亮的“千年三明治”。
　　“当然好，”我说，“真美，多谢。”
　　他耸耸肩，改变话题，“明年是你的大日子了。”
　　我点点头，明年是我入狱三十周年纪念日，我一生中百分之六十的光阴都在肖申克州立监狱中度过。
　　“你想你出得去吗？”
　　“当然，到时我应该胡子已经花白，嘴里只剩三颗摇摇欲坠的牙齿了。”
　　他微微一笑，把脸又转向阳光，闭上眼，“感觉真舒服。”
　　“我想只要你知道该死的冬天马上来到，一定会有这种感觉。”
　　他点点头。我们都沉默下来。
　　“等我出去后，”安迪最后说，“我一定要去一个一年到头都有阳光的地方。”他说话那种泰然自若的神情，仿佛他还有一个月便要出去似的。“你知道我会上哪儿吗，雷德？”