旅行的藝術:旅行中的特定場所-4

4

4

波德萊爾羨慕的不僅是旅程的起點或終點，如車站、碼頭、機場等地方，他也羨慕那些交通工具，特別是海上行駛的輪船。他曾寫道：“凝視一艘船，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)它散發(fā)出深邃、神秘的魅力?！彼桨屠璧氖ツ峁爬垢塾^看平底船，到魯昂和諾曼底的港口觀看更大的船只。他驚訝于和這些船只相關聯(lián)的科技成就，它們竟能使如此笨重復雜的船體協(xié)調合作，優(yōu)美地穿行海上。一艘巨輪讓他想起“一個龐大、復雜卻又靈活機敏的動物，它充滿活力，承載著人類所有的嗟嘆和夢想”。

Baudelaire admired not only the places of departure and arrival, but also the machines of motion, in particular ocean-going ships. He wrote of 'the profound and mysterious charm that arises from looking at a ship'. He went to see flat-bottomed boats, the 'caboteurs', in the Port Saint Nicolas in Paris and larger ships in Rouen and the Normandy ports. He marvelled at the technological achievements behind them, at how objects so heavy and multifarious could be made to move with elegance and cohesion across the seas.A great ship made him think of 'a vast, immense, complicated, but agile creature, an animal full of spirit, suffering and heaving all the sighs and ambitions of humanity'.

在觀看一架較大型的飛機時也會有同樣的感想：飛機也是一個很“龐大”很“復雜”的動物，盡管機身龐大，盡管低層大氣一片混沌，它卻仍能找準自己的航向，穿越蒼穹。一架飛機?？吭谝粋€登機口，相形之下，它周圍的行李車和檢修工是如此的渺小?？匆娙绱藞鼍埃藗儠侀_所有的科學解釋發(fā)出驚嘆：如此龐大的飛機如何能移動，哪怕只是移動幾米，遑論飛到日本！樓房，也算是人類所能建造的少數(shù)可與之相比的龐然大物之一，但地球的輕微震動便可能使它們四分五裂，它們透風滲水，強風下，還會遭受損壞，比不得飛機的靈活和泰然。

Similar sentiments may arise when looking at one of the larger species of aeroplane, it too a 'vast' and 'complicated' creature which defies its size and the chaos of the lower atmosphere to steer serenely across the firmament. Seeing one parked at a gate, dwarfing luggage carts and mechanics, one is induced to feel surprise, overriding any scientific explanation, at how such a thing might move-a few metres, let alone to Japan. Buildings, among the few man-made structures of comparable size, do not prepare us for a plane's agility or self-possession; for these buildings are cracked by slight movements of the earth, they leak air and water and lose parts of themselves to the wind.

生活中很少有什么時刻能像飛機起飛升空時那樣讓人釋然。飛機先是靜靜地停在機場跑道的一頭，從機艙的玻璃窗看出去，是一長串熟悉的景觀：公路、儲油罐、草地和有著古銅色窗戶的酒店；還有我們早已熟知的大地，在地上，即便是借助小汽車，我們的行進仍然緩慢；在地上，人和汽車正費力向山頂爬行；在地面上，每隔半英里左右，總會有一排樹或建筑擋住我們的視線……而現(xiàn)在，隨著飛機引擎的正常轟鳴（走廊的玻璃只有點輕微的顫動），我們突然平穩(wěn)地升上了天空，眼前展現(xiàn)的是直視無礙的廣闊視野。在陸地上我們得花上整個下午才能走完的旅程，在飛機上，只要眼珠微微轉動便可一掃而過：我們可以穿過伯克郡，參觀梅登黑德，在布拉克內爾兜圈子，俯視M4高速公路。

Few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends to the sky. Looking out of a window from inside a machine standing stationery at the beginning of a runway, we face a vista of familiar proportions: a road, oil cylinders, grass and hotels with copper-tinted windows; the earth as we have always known it, where we make slow progress, even with the help of a car, where calf muscles and engines strain to reach the summit of hills, where, half a mile ahead or less, there is almost always a line of trees or buildings to restrict our view. Then suddenly, accompanied by the controlled rage of the engines (with only a slight tremor from glasses in the galley), we rise fluently into the atmosphere and an immense horizon opens up across which we can wander without impediment. A journey which on earth would have taken an afternoon can be accomplished with an infinitesimal movement of the eye; we can cross Berkshire, visit Maidenhead, skirt over Bracknell and survey the M4.

飛機的起飛為我們的心靈帶來愉悅，因為飛機迅疾的上升是實現(xiàn)人生轉機的極佳象征。飛機展呈的力量能激勵我們聯(lián)想到人生中類似的、決定性的轉機；它讓我們想象自己終有一天能奮力攀升，擺脫現(xiàn)實中赫然迫近的人生困厄。

There is psychological pleasure in this take-off too, for the swiftness of the plane's ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives; to imagine that we too might one day surge above much that now looms over us.

這種視野上新的優(yōu)勢使陸地上的景觀整飭有序，一目了然：公路彎曲，繞過山頭；河流延伸，通向湖泊；電纜塔從發(fā)電廠一直架設到各個城鎮(zhèn)；那些在陸地上看上去布局混亂的街道，現(xiàn)在看來似乎是精心規(guī)劃的條格布局。我們的眼睛試圖把此刻所見與先前的認知連結在一起，像是用一種新的語言來解讀一本熟悉的書。那些燈火所在之處一定是紐伯里，那條道路一定是A33，因為它是從M4高速公路分出來的。照此思路，我們的生活是如此狹隘，就像井底之蛙：我們生活在那個世界里，但我們幾乎從未像老鷹和上帝那樣睹其全貌。

The new vantage point lends order and logic to the landscape: roads curve to avoid hills, rivers trace paths to lakes, pylons lead from power stations to towns, streets that from earth seemed laid out without thought emerge as well-planned grids. The eye attempts to match what it can see with what the mind knows should be there, like a reader trying to decipher a familiar book in a new language. Those lights must be Newbury, that road the A33 as it leaves the M4. And to think that all along, hidden from our sight, our lives were this small: the world we live in but almost never see; the way we must appear to the hawk and to the gods.

飛機引擎似乎毫不費力便將我們帶到高空。懸在高空，周圍是難以想象的寒冷，這些飛機引擎用一種我們看不到的方式持久地驅動飛機，在它們內側表層上，用紅色字母印出的是它們惟一的請求，要求我們不要在引擎上行走，要求我們只給它們添加D50TFI-S4號油，這些請求是給四千英里外還在睡夢中的一幫穿著工作服的人的信息。

The engines show none of the effort required to take us to this place. They hang in the inconceivable cold, patiently and invisibly powering the craft, their sole requests, painted on their inner flanks in red letters, being that we not walk on them and feed them 'Oil only: D50 TFI-S4', a message for a forthcoming set of men in overalls, 4,000 miles away and still asleep.

身處高空，可以看見很多的云，但對此人們似乎談論不多。在某處海洋的上空，我們飛過一大片像是棉花糖似的白色云島，對此，沒有人覺得這值得大驚小怪，盡管在弗蘭西斯卡 [4] 的繪畫作品中，這云島可以是天使，甚至是上帝的一個絕佳的座位。機艙內，沒有人起身煞有其事地宣布說，從窗戶看出去，我們正在云海上飛行；而對達·芬奇 [5] 、普桑 [6] 、克勞德·洛蘭 [7] 和康斯特布爾 [8] 等人而言，這景致恐怕會讓他們留戀。

There is not much talk about the clouds visible up here. No one seems to think it remarkable that somewhere above an ocean we are flying past a vast white candy-floss island which would have made a perfect seat for an angel or even God himself in a painting by Piero della Francesca. In the cabin, no one stands up to announce with requisite emphasis that, out of the window, we are flying over a cloud , a matter that would have detained Leonardo and Poussin, Claude and Constable.

飛機上的食物，如果是坐在廚房里享用，可以說是毫無特色，甚至讓人倒胃，但現(xiàn)在，因為面對的是云海，這些食品卻有了不同的滋味和情趣（一如坐在海邊峭壁之巔，一邊看驚濤拍岸，一邊野炊，這時吃哪怕是普通的面包和奶酪也會讓人神采高揚）。僅依賴飛行中的小餐板，在原本毫無家的情趣的機艙內我們感覺到了如家的自在：我們吃的是冷面包卷和一小盤土豆色拉，賞的是星際美景。

Food that, if sampled in a kitchen, would have been banal or even offensive, acquires a new taste and interest in the presence of the clouds (like a picnic of bread and cheese that delights us when eaten on a cliff-top above a pounding sea). With the inflight tray, we make ourselves at home in this unhomely place: we appropriate the extraterrestrial landscape with the help of a chilled bread roll and a plastic tray of potato salad.

細看之下，我們發(fā)覺機艙外陪伴著我們的云朵并非是我們想象中的情形。在一些油畫作品中，或者是從地面上看去，這些云朵看上去是平平的橢圓體，但從飛機上看去，它們像是由剃須泡沫層層堆砌而成的巨型方尖塔。它們和水氣的關聯(lián)是顯而易見的，但它們更容易散發(fā)，更加變幻無常，因而更像是剛剛爆炸的東西所產生的塵霧，仍然在變異之中。人們至今還在困惑，為什么不可以坐在一團云上。

Our airborne companions outside the window look unexpected when scrutinized. In paintings and from the ground, they appear like horizontal ovaloids, but here they resemble giant obelisks made of piles of unsteady shaving foam. Their kinship with steam is clearer, they are more volatile, the product of something that may have just exploded and is still mutating. It remains perplexing that it would be impossible to sit on one.

波德萊爾清楚如何表達對這些云朵的喜愛。

Baudelaire knew how to love the clouds.

陌生人

THE OUTSIDER

Tell me, whom do you love most, you enigmatic man: your

告訴我，你這個神秘的人，你說說你最愛誰呢？父親還是母親？姐妹還是兄弟？

father, your mother, your sister or your brother?

哦……我沒有父親也沒有母親，沒有姐妹也沒有兄弟。

I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.

那朋友呢？

Your friends?

這……您說出了一個我至今還一無所知的詞兒。

You're using a word I've never understood.

祖國呢？

Your country?

我不知道這個地方在哪。

I don't know where that might lie.

美人呢？

Beauty?

I would love her with all my heart, if only she were a goddess

如果她真的美若天仙，長生不老，我會很愛她，全心全意。

and immortal.

金錢呢？

Money?

我恨它，就像你恨上帝一樣。

I hate it as you hate God.

那么，你究竟愛什么呀？你這個不同尋常的陌生人！

Well then, what do you love, you strange outsider?

I love the clouds …the clouds that pass by …over there…

我愛云……過往的浮云……那邊……那邊……美妙的云！

over there …those lovely clouds!

云朵帶來的是一種寧靜。在我們的下面，是我們恐懼和悲傷之所，那里有我們的敵人和同仁，而現(xiàn)在，他們都在地面上，微不足道，也無足輕重。也許我們早已參透了這樣的真諦，但現(xiàn)在，我們倚著飛機冰涼的舷窗，這種感覺變得從未有過的真切——我們乘坐的飛機是一位淵博的哲學老師，是聽從波德萊爾的召喚的信徒：

The clouds usher in tranquillity. Below us are enemies and colleagues, the sites of our terrors and our griefs; all of them now infinitesimal, scratches on the earth. We may know this old lesson in perspective well enough, but rarely does it seem as true as when we are pressed against the cold plane window, our craft a teacher of profound philosophy-and a faithful disciple of the Baudelairean command:

列車，讓我和你同行！輪船，帶我離開這里！

Carriage, take me with you! Ship, steal me away from here!

帶我走，到遠方。此地，土俱是淚！

Take me far, far away. Here the mud is made of our tears!