致一位青年詩人的信 Letters to a Young Poet(5)

October 29, 1903

Dear Sir,

I received your letter of August 29 in Florence, and it has taken me this long two months to answer. Please forgive this tardiness, but I don't like to write letters while I am traveling because for letter-writing I need more than the most necessary tools: some silence and solitude and a not too unfamiliar hour.

We arrived in Rome about six weeks ago, at a time when it was still the empty, the hot, the notoriously feverish Rome, and this circumstance, along with other practical difficulties in finding a place to live, helped make the restlessness around us seem as if it would never end, and the unfamiliarity lay upon us with the weight of homelessness. In addition, Rome (if one has not yet become acquainted with it) makes one feel stifled with sadness for the first few days: through the gloomy and lifeless museum atmosphere that it exhales, through the abundance of its pasts, which are brought forth and laboriously held up (pasts on which a tiny present subsists), through the terrible overvaluing, sustained by scholars and philologists and imitated by the ordinary tourist in Italy, of all these disfigured and decaying Things, which, after all, are essentially nothing more than accidental remains from another time and from a life that is not and should not be ours. Finally, after weeks of daily resistance, one finds oneself somewhat composed again, even though still a bit confused, and one says to oneself: No, there is not more beauty here than in other places, and all these objects, which have been marveled at by generation after generation, mended and restored by the hands of workmen, mean nothing, are nothing, and have noheart and no value; but there is much beauty here, because every where there is much beauty. Waters infinitely full of life move along the ancient aqueducts into the great city and dance in the many city squares over white basins of stone and spread out in large, spacious pools and murmur by day and lift up their murmuring to the night, which is vast here and starry and soft with winds. And there are gardens here, unforgettable boulevards, and stair cases designed by Michelangelo, staircases constructed on the pattern of downward-gliding waters and, as they descend, widely giving birth to step out of step as if it were wave out of wave. Through such impressions one gathers oneself, wins oneself back from the exacting multiplicity, which speaks and chatters there (and how talkative it is!), and one slowly learns to recognize the very few Things in which something eternal endures that one can love and something solitary that one can gently take part in.

I am still living in the city, on the Capitol, not far from the most beautiful equestrian statue that has come down to us from Roman art - the statue of Marcus Aurelius; but in a few weeks I will move into a quiet, simple room, an old summerhouse, which lies lost deep in a large park, hidden from the city, from its noises and incidents. There I will live all winter and enjoy the great silence, from which I expect the gift of happy, work-filled hours....

From there, where I will be more at home, I will write you a longer letter, in which I win say something more about what you wrote me. Today I just need to tell you (and perhaps I am wrong not to have done this sooner) that the book you sent me (you said in your letter that it contained some works of yours) hasn't arrived. Was it sent back to you, perhaps from Worpswede? (They will not forward packages to foreign countries.) This is the most hopeful possibility, and I would be glad to have it confirmed. I do hope that the package hasn't been lost - unfortunately, the Italian mail service being what it is, that would not be anything unusual.

I would have been glad to have this book (as I am to have anything that comes from you); and any poems that have arisen in the meantime I will always (if you entrust them to me) read and read again and experience as well and as sincerely as I can. With greetings and good wishes,

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

親愛的先生：

我在弗羅倫薩收到了您8月29日的信，但隔了這么長時間--兩個月--之后才給您回復(fù)。請您原諒我的拖拉--但是我不喜歡在旅行的時候?qū)懶?。因為在寫信時我除了需要那些必備的工具之外，還要一些寧靜和孤獨以及一個不那么太陌生的時刻。

大約6個星期以前我們到達(dá)了羅馬，那時它還是空虛、炎熱、發(fā)著高燒的羅馬，這種氣氛和其他諸如尋找安身之地的實際困難讓我們覺得：圍繞著我們的混亂將永遠(yuǎn)無休無止。冷漠壓在我們頭上，還有那無家可歸的沉重心情。除此之外，羅馬(如果人們對它還不熟悉的話)會讓人在初到的日子里覺得悲哀而沉悶：博物館式憂郁而無生活氣息的氛圍，無限的歷史包裹著它，并沉重地蔓延著(渺小的今天無奈地呆在昨日的一邊)，它們過時的驕傲被學(xué)者們和哲學(xué)家支撐著，被普通的意大利旅游者模仿著，但是，所有這些丑陋而腐朽的東西，都只不過是偶然從另一個不屬于我們的時間和生活里留下來的。最后，經(jīng)過了幾周的持續(xù)抵抗，人們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己也融入了進(jìn)去，雖然仍有一點困惑，可還是自言自語道：不，這兒其實并不比別的地方好看多少，所有這些東西，盡管在一代又一代的工匠們的修補和保護(hù)下顯得那么壯觀，可它們根本沒有意義，它們什么也不是，沒有心靈和價值;--但是這兒又確實那么美麗，因為到處都那么美麗?；钴S跳蕩的水沿著溝渠流入偉大的城市，在廣場上白色的石盆里跳舞，然后散成巨大的水池，它們在白日里低語，在夜晚又開始喧鬧，聲音如此巨大，水面星星閃閃，在風(fēng)的吹拂下柔柔的。這兒也有許多花園，令人難忘的林蔭大道和米開朗基羅設(shè)計的樓梯，樓梯的設(shè)計是水往下流的樣子，從上望下去，臺階環(huán)環(huán)相扣，就象洶涌著的波濤。帶著這些印象，人們找尋著自己，從那說著、嘮叨著的繁復(fù)的多樣性中找回了自己，然后才慢慢認(rèn)識到只有極少的事物里邊蘊藏著人們永久的熱愛和可以溫柔地觸及的孤獨。

我仍舊在這座城市里生活，在丘比特主神殿上，離我們所熟知的羅馬藝術(shù)中最美麗的騎士塑像不遠(yuǎn)--馬克斯.里留斯的塑像;但幾個星期后我將搬到一個安靜、簡潔的房間去，那是一座古老的涼亭，坐落在一個巨大的公園深處，把自己和城市、城市的喧囂和事變隔離開來。我將在那兒度過整個冬天，享受著那兒的安靜。希望我在那兒可以得到快樂，并用心地工作......

到了那兒，我將覺得更象在自己家里，我會給您寫一封較長的信，談一談您信里提到的內(nèi)容。今天我只想告訴您(或許我錯了，不必如此地匆忙)您送給我的書還沒有收到?；蛟S他們已經(jīng)從沃爾普斯維德寄回給了您(他們不會把包裹送到外國來的)?這種可能性最大，我希望能夠得到證實。我真心希望那包裹沒有丟失--不幸，意大利的郵政服務(wù)通常如此，這種事情實在不足為奇。否則現(xiàn)在我該多么高興能有這本書了(我在收到您的其他東西時也是一樣);還有您隨信寄來的詩。我總是(如果您委托給了我)讀了又讀，細(xì)心去品味。

致我的問候和良好的祝愿于您。

您的，

瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克

羅馬1903年10月29日