The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 精彩片段：
The Jockey
THE JOCKEY came to the doorway of the dining room, then after a moment stepped to one side and stood motionless, with his back to the wall. The room was crowded, as this was the third day of the season and all the hotels in the town were full. In the dining room bouquets of August roses scattered their petals on the white table linen and from the adjoining bar came a warm, drunken wash of voices. The jockey waited with his back to the wall and scrutinized the room with pinched, crêpy eyes. He examined the room until at last his eyes reached a table in a corner diagonally across from him, at which three men were sitting. As he watched, the jockey raised his chin and tilted his head back to one side, his dwarfed body grew rigid, and his hands stiffened so that the fingers curled inward like gray claws. Tense against the wall of the dining room, he watched and waited in this way.
He was wearing a suit of green Chinese silk that evening, tailored precisely and the size of a costume outfit for a child. The shirt was yellow, the tie striped with pastel colors. He had no hat with him and wore his hair brushed down in a stiff, wet bang on his forehead. His face was drawn, ageless, and gray. There were shadowed hollows at his temples and his mouth was set in a wiry smile. After a time he was aware that he had been seen by one of the three men he had been watching. But the jockey did not nod; he only raised his chin still higher and hooked the thumb of his tense hand in the pocket of his coat.
The three men at the corner table were a trainer, a bookie, and a rich man. The trainer was Sylvester -- a large, loosely built fellow with a flushed nose and slow blue eyes. The bookie was Simmons. The rich man was the owner of a horse named Seltzer, which the jockey had ridden that afternoon. The three of them drank whiskey with soda, and a white-coated waiter had just brought on the main course of the dinner.
It was Sylvester who first saw the jockey. He looked away quickly, put down his whiskey glass, and nervously mashed the tip of his red nose with his thumb. "Its Bitsy Barlow," he said. "Standing over there across the room. Just watching us."
"Oh, the jockey," said the rich man. He was facing the wall and he half turned his head to look behind him. "Ask him over."
"God no," Sylvester said.
"Hes crazy," Simmons said. The bookies voice was flat and without inflection. He had the face of a born gambler, carefully adjusted, the expression a permanent deadlock between fear and greed.
"Well, I wouldnt call him that exactly," said Sylvester. "Ive known him a long time. He was O.K. until about six months ago. But if he goes on like this, I cant see him lasting another year. I just cant."
"It was what happened in Miami," said Simmons.
"What?" asked the rich man.
Sylvester glanced across the room at the jockey and wet the corner of his mouth with his red, fleshy tongue. "A accident. A kid got hurt on the track. Broke a leg and a hip. He was a particular pal of Bitsys. A Irish kid. Not a bad rider, either."
"Thats a pity," said the rich man.
"Yeah. They were particular friends," Sylvester said. "You would always find him up in Bitsys hotel room. They would be playing rummy or else lying on the floor reading the sports page together."
"Well, those things happen," said the rich man.