旅行的藝術(shù):旅行中的特定場所-7

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霍珀對火車也有興趣。他很喜歡坐在人很少的車廂里駛過原野的那種感覺：車廂里一片沉寂，只聽見車輪有節(jié)奏地敲打鐵軌的聲音；這有節(jié)奏的敲擊聲和窗外飄逝的風(fēng)景把人帶入一種夢幻之中，我們似乎出離了自己的身體而深入一種常態(tài)下我們不可能涉及的地帶，在那里，各種思緒和諸般記憶錯雜糾纏。油畫《293號車廂C艙》中的女士正在讀著她手中的書，時而打量車艙內(nèi)的布置，時而觀看車窗外的風(fēng)景，她現(xiàn)在的思緒大概就處于上面所說及的那種夢幻般的狀態(tài)。

Hopper also took an interest in trains. He was drawn to the atmosphere inside half-empty carriages making their way across a landscape: the silence that reigns inside while the wheels beat in rhythm against the rails outside, the dreaminess fostered by the noise and the view from the windows, a dreaminess in which we seem to stand outside our normal selves and have access to thoughts and memories that may not arise in more settled circumstances. The woman in Compartment C, Car 293 (1938) seems in such a frame of mind, reading her book and shifting her gaze between the carriage and the view.

旅行能催人思索。很少地方比在行進中的飛機、輪船和火車上更容易讓人傾聽到內(nèi)心的聲音。我們眼前的景觀同我們腦子里可能產(chǎn)生的想法之間存在著某種奇妙的關(guān)聯(lián)：宏闊的思考常常需要有壯闊的景觀，而新的觀點往往也產(chǎn)生于陌生的所在。在流動景觀的刺激下，那些原本容易停頓的內(nèi)心求索可以不斷深進。我們倘若被迫去講出一個笑話或模仿一種口音，效果往往差強人意；同理，如果只是為思考而思考，我們的腦子可能不愿去好好思考。當(dāng)我們腦子在思索的同時還有別的驅(qū)遣，如聽音樂或讓目光追隨一排林木的時候，我們的思考其實是得到了改善。當(dāng)我們注意到意識已遭遇困境，這種困境又會阻礙各種記憶、渴望、內(nèi)省或創(chuàng)見的出現(xiàn)，并希望我們的思索程式化、客觀化，我們腦子中的那些緊張、挑剔和講求實際的想法就可能迫使我們中止思考。而這時，我們聽到的音樂或看見的風(fēng)景便正好能夠分散我們腦子里緊張、挑剔和講求實際的想法，讓思考繼續(xù)和深入。

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do. The task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand. Thinking improves when parts of the mind are given other tasks, are charged with listening to music or following a line of trees. The music or the view distracts for a time that nervous, censorious, practical part of the mind which is inclined to shut down when it notices something difficult emerging in consciousness and which runs scared of memories, longings, introspective or original ideas and prefers instead the administrative and the impersonal.

愛德華·霍珀：《293號車廂C艙》，1938年

在各種交通方式中，火車也許最益于思考：同輪船和飛機比較，坐在火車上，我們決不會擔(dān)心窗外的風(fēng)景可能會單調(diào)乏味；其速度適中，既不會太慢而讓我們失去耐性，也不會太快而讓我們無法辨認窗外的景觀。在行進過程中，火車能讓我們瞥見一些私人空間，譬如說，我們可能剛剛看見一位女士正從廚房的餐臺上拿起杯子，緊接著看見一個露臺，露臺上正睡著一位先生，再接下來，看見公園里一個小孩正在接一只球，至于拋球的人我們卻看不見……這些私人空間，雖是短短的一瞥，卻給人遐思。

Of all modes of transport, the train is perhaps the best aid to thought: the views have none of the potential monotony of those on a ship or plane, they move fast enough for us not to get exasperated but slowly enough to allow us to identify objects. They offer us brief, inspiring glimpses into private domains, letting us see a woman at the precise moment when she takes a cup from a shelf in her kitchen, then carrying us on to a patio where a man is sleeping and then to a park where a child is catching a ball thrown by a figure we cannot see.

在一次旅行中，火車行進在平坦的原野上，我的思緒差不多完全放松下來。我想到了父親的死，想到了我正在寫作的關(guān)于司湯達的論文，還想起了兩個朋友間的猜忌。每次只要我的思考遇上死結(jié)，腦海一片空白，我就會把目光轉(zhuǎn)移到車窗之外，讓視線鎖住一個目標，然后跟住它一會兒，直至新的想法開始成形，并能在沒有壓力的情形下將思緒厘清。

On a journey across flat country, I think with a rare lack of inhibition about the death of my father, about an essay I am writing on Srendhal and about a mistrust that has arisen between two friends. Every time the mind goes blank, having hit on a difficult idea, the flow of my consciousness is assisted by the possibility of looking out of the window, locking on to an object and following it for a few seconds, until a new coil of thought is ready to form and can unravel without pressure.

在長時間的火車夢幻的最后階段，我們會感覺自己返歸本真——亦即開始清楚那些對我們真正重要的情感和觀念。我們并非一定得在家里才最有可能接近真實的自我。在家時，家庭裝飾會阻撓我們的改變，因為它們并沒有改變；家居生活的模式也讓我們維持著日常形象，而這形象，可能并非我們的本我形象。

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves-that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.

旅館的房間同樣為我們提供了擺脫定勢思維的機會。躺在旅館的床上，室內(nèi)極靜，偶爾聽到酒店內(nèi)電梯快速上下所發(fā)出的聲響，此時此刻，我們可以忘卻到達之前的一切勞頓，任思緒馳騁，品味自己曾擁有的輝煌和曾遭遇過的落寞。面盆邊用紙包著的小肥皂，小吧臺上陳列的小瓶包裝的酒，承諾整晚提供送餐服務(wù)的菜單，以及25樓下平靜而又有些騷動的陌生城市的夜景等等，這全然陌生的環(huán)境能促使我們從一個新的高度來省察我們的生活。這高度，是我們在家中，為日?，嵤滤鶡_時所不能達到的。

Hotel rooms offer a similar opportunity to escape our habits of mind. Lying in bed in a hotel, the room quiet except for the occasional swooshing of an elevator in the innards of the building, we can draw a line under what preceded our arrival, we can overfly great and ignored stretches of our experience. We can reflect upon our lives from a height we could not have reached in the midst of everyday business-subtly assisted in this by the unfamiliar world around us: by the small wrapped soaps on the edge of the basin, by the gallery of miniature bottles in the mini-bar, by the room-service menu with its promises of allnight dining and the view on to an unknown city stirring silently twenty-five floors below us.

夜半，旅館的便條紙成了接受靈光乍現(xiàn)的思想的工具。早餐的菜單（“請在凌晨3點前掛到房門外”）正擱在房間的地上，尚未填寫，一起在地上的還有一張問候卡，上面記錄著接下來一天的天氣情況以及旅館管理層的晚安祝福。

Hotel notepads can be the recipients of unexpectedly intense, revelatory thoughts, taken down in the early hours while the breakfast menu ('to be hung outside before 3 a.m.') lies unattended on the floor, along with a card announcing the next day's weather and the management's hopes for a peaceful night.