旅行的藝術(shù):動機 Ⅲ 異國情調(diào)-5

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如果我們了解福樓拜的這些想法，我們就會明白他對中東有著特別的興趣決非偶然，也不只是追求時尚。東方同他的性情有著邏輯上必然的契合。我們可以在他個性中的一些主要方面找出他強烈喜歡埃及的理由。他自身的一些想法和價值觀念并不見容于他所生活的社會，但在埃及，這些想法和觀念卻能大行其道。

Given all this, it appears to be no coincidence, no mere accident of fashion, that it was specifically the Middle East that Flaubert was interested in. It was temperamentally a logical fit. What he loved in Egypt could be traced back to central facets of his personality. Egypt lent support to ideas and values that were part of his identity but for which his own society had had little sympathy.

（Ⅰ）喧囂中的異域情調(diào)

(I)THE EXOTICISM OF CHAOS

從下船登上亞歷山大的第一天起，福樓拜就注意到埃及生活中的喧囂。這種喧囂既是視覺上的，也是聽覺上的，如水手們的叫喊聲、努比亞搬運工招攬生意的叫喊聲、商人們討價還價的聲音、雞被殺死時發(fā)出的聲音、驢子被鞭打的聲音、駱駝低沉的呻吟，這一切都讓他感到很自在。他說，在街上有“粗嗄的喉音，類似野獸的吼叫，有笑聲，到處可見白色的衣袍，在厚唇間閃爍的潔白牙齒，黑人塌塌的鼻子、臟臟的腳丫、項鏈和手鐲”。“那感覺就像沉迷于貝多芬的交響樂之中，銅管樂器聲震耳欲聾，低音樂器聲隆隆如雷，長笛聲凄然欲絕，任意擺蕩；每種聲音都讓你揮之不去，它們捏著你，你越是想讓注意力集中在某處，你越是無法把握整體……在城中各處走動時，當你的視線落在停滿白鸛的光塔之上，抑或是落在房屋露臺上橫躺在太陽底下、疲乏的奴隸們身上，或者是凝視靠墻生長的西克莫無花果樹的枝杈，你會發(fā)覺，這里的色彩是如此的斑斕炫目，你如同在觀看不停頓的焰火表演，而你貧乏的想象力完全無所適從。與此同時，駝鈴縈繞耳畔，大群的黑山羊咩咩直叫，還有馬嘶驢鳴，商販吆喝，不絕于耳……”

From the day he disembarked in Alexandria, Flaubert noticed and felt at home in the chaos, both visual and auditory, of Egyptian life: boatmen shouting, Nubian porters hawking, merchants bargaining, the sounds of chickens being killed, donkeys being whipped, camels groaning. In the streets there were, he said, 'guttural intonations that sound like the cries of wild beasts, and laughter, and flowing white robes, and ivory teeth flashing between thick lips and flat negro noses, and dusty feet and necklaces and bracelets'. 'It is like being hurled while still asleep into the midst of a Beethoven symphony, with the brasses at their most ear-splitting, the basses rumbling, and the flutes sighing away; each detail reaches out to grip you; it pinches you; and the more you concentrate on it the less you grasp the whole … it is such a bewildering chaos of colours that your poor imagination is dazzled as though by continuous fireworks as you go about staring at minarets thick with white storks, at tired slaves stretched out in the sun on house terraces, at the patterns of sycamore branches against walls, with camel bells ringing in your ears and great herds of black goats bleating in the streets amid the horses and the donkeys and the pedlars.'

福樓拜有豐富的美感。他喜歡紫色、金色和碧綠色，對埃及建筑的顏色更是歡喜不已。英國旅行家愛德華·萊恩在其著作《現(xiàn)代埃及人的生活方式和社會風俗》中對埃及商人住所的典型設(shè)計作了如下描述：“除了斜條格構(gòu)的窗戶，還有一些別的裝飾，如彩色玻璃拼成一些花束和孔雀圖案，還有一些灰色的和艷彩的裝飾，或者僅僅是一些奇幻的圖案……在一些公寓抹有泥灰的墻面上，有當?shù)啬滤沽炙嚾撕唵温收娴漠嬜?，有畫下埃?[8] 神殿的，有畫穆罕默德墓的，也有畫花卉及其他東西的……有時墻面只刻繪一些阿拉伯的格言警句，用的是美術(shù)字體，也不失為一種漂亮的裝飾。”

Flaubert's aesthetic was rich. He liked purple, gold and turquoise and so welcomed the colours of Egyptian architecture. In his book The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians , first published in 1833 and revised in 1842, the English traveller Edward Lane described the interiors typical of Egyptian merchants' houses: 'There are, besides the windows of lattice-work, others, of coloured glass, representing bunches of flowers, peacocks, and other gay and gaudy objects, or merely fanciful patterns … On the plastered walls of some apartments are rude paintings of the temple of Mekkeh, or of the tomb of the Prophet, or of flowers and other objects, executed by native Muslim artists … Sometimes the walls are beautifully ornamented with Arabic inscriptions of maxims in an embellished style.'

路易斯·阿格仿大衛(wèi)·羅伯斯的石版畫《開羅的絲布市場》

埃及的這種巴羅克風格還延伸到其語言上，即便是最普通場合使用的語言也不例外。福樓拜曾記下了這樣一些例子：“剛不久，我在一家商店看花草種子時，有位曾接受我的東西的女人對我說：‘祝福您，我親愛的大人：神保佑您平安返回故里’……當麥克斯問一位車夫是否很累，他得到的回答是：‘能得到您長久的注目，我感到萬分榮幸。’”

The baroque quality of Egypt extended to the language used by Egyptians in even the most ordinary situations. Flaubert recorded examples: 'A while ago when I was looking at seeds in a shop a woman to whom I had given something said, “Blessings on you, my sweet Lord: God grant that you return safe and sound to your native land” … When ［Maxime du Camp］ asked a groom if he wasn't tired, the answer was: “The pleasure of being seen by you suffices.”'

為什么這種聲的喧囂和色的斑斕能打動福樓拜？福樓拜認為，生活本質(zhì)上是混亂和喧囂的，除了藝術(shù)作品，其他創(chuàng)造秩序的企圖只是吹毛求疵和假正經(jīng)，因而背離我們的現(xiàn)實生活。1851年9月，埃及之旅結(jié)束才幾個月，他便到倫敦旅行。在給路易斯·科萊的信中，他談及他的感受：“我們剛?cè)チ撕８裉啬沟?[9] 。相形于埃及和伊特拉斯坎 [10] 的建筑，這墓地有太多矯飾和做作！它太過整飭，太過清潔！似乎墓里的人都是帶著潔白的手套死去的。我討厭墓地周圍那些有著平整花圃且群花綻放的小花園。那種對稱的布局在我看來似乎是源自于某部拙劣小說中的描寫。至于墓地，我還是喜歡那些破敗、坍塌和荒蕪的墓地，其四圍荊棘叢生，雜草瘋長，還有一只從附近原野跑來的牛在那里悠閑地啃著嫩草。毫無疑問，這肯定比看到穿著制服的警察要強。秩序是多么荒謬的東西！”

Why did the chaos, the richness, so touch Flaubert? Because of his belief that life is fundamentally chaotic and that, aside from art, attempts to create order imply a censorious and prudish denial of our condition. He expressed his feelings to his mistress Louise Colet in a letter written during a trip to London in September 1851, only a few months after his return from Egypt: 'We've just come back from a walk in Highgate cemetery. What gross corruption of Egyptian and Etruscan architecture it all is! How neat and tidy it is! The people in there seem to have died wearing white gloves. I hate little gardens around graves, with well-raked flower beds and flowers in bloom. This antithesis has always seemed to me to have come out of a bad novel. When it comes to cemeteries, I like those that are run-down, ravaged, in ruins, full of thorns or tall weeds and where a cow escaped from a neigbouring field has come to graze quietly. Admit that this is better than some policeman in uniform! How stupid order is!'

《開羅的私人宅第》，出自愛德華·萊恩1842年出版的《現(xiàn)代埃及人》一書

（Ⅱ）拉屎的驢的異域情調(diào)

(II)THE EXOTICISM OF SHITTING DONKEYS

“昨天我們在開羅最好的一家餐館用餐，”福樓拜回到巴黎幾個月后寫道，“和我們同時在店里的還有一只正在拉屎的驢子，一個在餐館一角撒尿的男人。沒有人覺得這有任何的不妥，也沒有人表示任何的不滿。”在福樓拜看來，他們這么做是對的。

Yesterday we were at a café which is one of the best in Cairo,' wrote Flaubert a few months after his arrival in the capital, 'and where there were at the same time as ourselves, inside, a donkey shitting and a gentleman pissing in a corner. No one finds that odd; no one says anything.' And, in Flaubert's eyes, they were right not to.

福樓拜思想中的一個核心部分是，他認為人不僅僅是有思想的動物，同時也是需要拉屎撒尿的動物，我們必須把這種率直的理念納入世界觀。他對舍瓦利耶說：“我們的身體里有泥土和糞便，還有比豬和陰虱更卑劣的本性，我不相信它們包容著任何純潔和精神的東西。”這并不是說人類沒有任何高于動物的地方。只是福樓拜所處時代的偽善和假道學使他萌生心念，以人類的種種不足來警策世人。因此，他不時地會站在當眾小便者的一邊，有時，他甚至同情馬奎斯·德·薩德[11] 的觀點，為雞奸、強奸、亂倫和未成年者性行為等作辯護。（他曾對舍瓦利耶說：“我剛讀了知名評論家讓寧關(guān)于薩德的傳記文章。這文章使我心生憎惡——是對讓寧的憎惡，因為很顯然，他是在以仁慈、道義和被奸污的處女的立場進行說教……”）

Central to Flaubert's philosophy was the belief that we are not simply spiritual creatures, but also pissing and shitting ones and that we should integrate the ramifications of this blunt idea into our view of the world. 'I can't believe that our body, composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of the pig or the crab-louse, contains anything pure and immaterial,' he told Ernest Chevalier. Which wasn't to say that we were without any higher dimensions. It was just that the prudery and self-righteousness of the age aroused in Flaubert a desire to remind others of mankind's impurities. And occasionally to take the side of café urinators-or even the Marquis de Sade, advocate of buggery, incest, rape and underage sex. ('I've just read a biographical article about de Sade by ［the famous critic］ Janin,' he informed Chevalier, 'which filled me with revulsion-revulsion against Janin, needless to say; who held forth on behalf of morality, philanthropy, deflowered virgins…')

福樓拜發(fā)現(xiàn)埃及文化能坦然接受生活的雙重性：糞便—心智，生—死，純潔—性欲，瘋狂—理智，對此，他樂于接受。人們可以在餐館里盡情地打嗝。在開羅街頭，一個只有六七歲的小男孩經(jīng)過福樓拜的身旁時高聲問候說：“我祝福您百事興旺，特別祝福您有一根長長的肉棍。”愛德華·萊恩也注意到了埃及文化中的雙重性，但可以想見，他的反應(yīng)更近于讓寧而非福樓拜：“在埃及，人們不分性別、不計身份，一味耽溺于最低級的、庸俗的交談，即便最有德性、最受尊敬的女性也不例外。從那些受過良好教育的人們口中，你同樣能聽到淫穢的話語，這些話語只適合于在低級的妓院里使用；在我們國家連妓女都極可能羞于啟齒的事物和話題，在埃及卻為那些最為優(yōu)雅的女性所津津樂道，她們絲毫不曾意識到她們的談話是多么的失禮，也毫不顧及在場的男性聽眾。”

Flaubert found and welcomed in Egyptian culture a readiness to accept life's duality: shit-mind, death-life, sexuality-purity, madness-sanity. People belched to their hearts' content in restaurants. A boy of six or seven, passing Flaubert in a Cairo street, cried out in greeting, 'I wish you all kinds of prosperity, especially a long prick.' Edward Lane also noticed this duality, though reacted to it more in the manner of Janin than of Flaubert: 'The most immodest freedom of conversation is indulged in by persons of both sexes, and of every station of life, in Egypt; even by the most virtuous and respectable women. From persons of the best education, expressions are often heard so obscene as only to be fit for a low brothel; and things are named, and subjects talked of, by the most genteel women, without any idea of their being indecorous, in the hearing of men, that many prostitutes in our country would probably abstain from mentioning.'

（Ⅲ）駱駝所體現(xiàn)的異域情調(diào)

(III)THE EXOTICISM OF CAMELS

“駱駝是最讓人心動的東西之一，”福樓拜在開羅時寫道，“它是個奇怪的動物，行走時有如驢子，步履蹣跚，同時還像天鵝般搖晃著自己的脖子，我很喜歡看著它，并樂此不疲。它們的叫聲短促，伴著喉部的顫音，我已經(jīng)摹仿很久，嗓子都有些累了，真希望我能摹仿出它的叫聲，但這的確很難。”離開埃及幾個月后，他寫信給一位親友，列出了在埃及最讓他心動的事物：金字塔、凱爾奈克的廟宇、君王谷、開羅的一些舞蹈藝人，一位叫比爾貝斯的畫家。“但最能打動我的還是駱駝（千萬別以為我是在開玩笑），你很少能找到別的什么，比憂郁善感的駱駝更奇特、更優(yōu)雅。你必須得到沙漠中，看著地平線上，它們像士兵一樣排成單列向前行進。它們的脖子，鴕鳥般前伸，不斷前行……”

One of the finest things is the camel,' wrote Flaubert from Cairo. 'I never tire of watching this strange beast that lurches like a donkey and sways its neck like a swan. Its cry is something that I wear myself out trying to imitate-I hope to bring it back with me-but it's hard to reproduce-a rattle with a kind of tremulous gargling as an accompaniment.' A few months after leaving Egypt, he wrote to a family friend listing all that had most impressed him in the country: the Pyramids, the temple at Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, some dancers in Cairo, a painter called Hassan el Bilbeis. 'But my real passion is the camel (please don't think I'm joking), nothing has a more singular grace than this melancholic animal. You have to see a group of them in the desert when they advance in single file across the horizon, like soldiers; their necks stick out like those of ostriches, and they keep going, going … '

為什么福樓拜如此欣賞駱駝？一個重要的原因是他認同駱駝的恬淡韌毅和樸拙單純的天性。駱駝憂傷的表情，駱駝拙樸中透出的宿命般的生存能力，都讓他感動。埃及人的天性中似乎也有駱駝的影子：在靜默中表現(xiàn)出一種勇毅，一份謙恭，同福樓拜周圍的法國中產(chǎn)階層的傲慢天性正好相反。

Why did Flaubert admire the camel so much? Because he identified with its stoicism and ungainliness. He was touched by its sad expression, and the combination of awkwardness and fatalistic resilience. The people of Egypt seemed to share some of the qualities of the camel: a silent strength and humility that contrasted with the bourgeois arrogance of Flaubert's Normand neighbours.

從少年時代起，福樓拜就對法國的自我優(yōu)越深惡痛絕——在其小說《包法利夫人》中，通過對藥劑師霍梅斯這位最可憎的人物的殘酷的科學信仰的描寫，表達的正是這種深惡痛絕。他還給未來描繪了一個更為悲觀的前景：“一天又結(jié)束了，呸！這是一個威力無窮的詞，它能在你遭遇任何人間苦境時給你帶來安慰，所以我喜歡反復(fù)說：呸！呸！”這是一種處世的哲學，在埃及，可以在駱駝傷感、尊貴卻帶一點調(diào)皮的眼神中找到答案。

Flaubert had since boyhood resented the optimism of his countrya resentment expressed in Madame Bovary in the description of the cruel scientific faith of the most detestable character, the pharmacist, Homaisand he held a predictably darker outlook: 'At the end of the day, shit. With that mighty word, you can console yourself for all human miseries, so I enjoy repeating it: shit, shit.' It was a philosophy reflected in the sad, noble yet slightly mischievous eyes of the Egyptian camel.