Chapter One: Departure
I On Anticipation
第一章:出发
第一节:对旅行的期待
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all its 1)ardour and paradoxes—than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are they considered to present philosophical problems—that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are2)inundated with advice on where to travel to; we hear little of why and how we should go—though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial, and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed “eudaimonia”, or “human flourishing”.
如果我们的生活其要义在于追求幸福,那么除却旅行,也许极少有别的活动能如此充分地显示这一追求过程中所有的热情和矛盾。尽管表达得不清晰,旅行仍道出了除却紧张工作和辛苦谋生之外,生活的另一种意义。尽管如此,人们甚少会觉得旅行会引出一些超越现实、需要深层思索的哲学问题。经常有人向我们提出去何处旅行的建议,但极少有人告诉我们为何要到那个地方旅行,又该如何到达那个地 方——尽管旅行的艺术看上去自然会涉及许多既不简单也不琐碎的问题,并且,对旅行艺术的研究至少也许能帮助人们理解希腊哲学家美其名曰“eudaimonia(由理性支配的积极生活所带来的幸福)”的这一概念,也就是“人类生活欣欣向荣”。
One question revolves around the relationship between the anticipation of travel and its reality. I came upon a copy of 3)J.-K. Huysmans’s novel A Rebours, published in 1884, whose 4)effete and5)misanthropic hero, the 6)aristocratic 7)Duc des Esseintes, anticipated a journey to London and offered in the process an extravagantly pessimistic analysis of the difference between what we imagine of a place and what can occur when we reach it.
对旅行的期望和旅行的现实之间的关系总会存在一个问题。我碰巧读到 若·卡·于斯曼的一部小说——《逆流》,该小说发表于1884年,主人公埃桑迪斯公爵是一个体弱厌世的贵族子弟,他满心期待一趟伦敦之旅,在旅途过程中,他就人们对一个地方的想象和到达当地后的实际经历之间的差异做出了极度悲观的分析。
Huysmans recounts that the Duc des Esseintes lived alone in a vast villa on the outskirts of Paris. He rarely went anywhere to avoid what he took to be the ugliness and stupidity of others. One afternoon in his youth, he had ventured into a nearby village for a few hours and had felt his detestation of people grow fierce. Since then he had chosen to spend his days alone in bed in his study, reading the classics of literature, and moulding 8)acerbic thoughts about humanity. However, early one morning, the Duc surprised himself by an intense wish to travel to London. The desire came upon him as he sat by the fire reading a volume of Dickens. The book evoked visions of English life, which he 9)contemplated at length and grew increasingly keen to see. Unable to withhold his excitement, he ordered his servants to pack his bags, dressed himself in a grey 10)tweed suit, a pair of laced ankle boots, a little 11)bowler hat and a 12)flax-blue 13)Inverness cape and took the next train to Paris. Because he had time to spare before the departure of the London train, he went to G alignani’s English Bookshop on the 14)Rue de Rivoli and there bought a volume of 15)Baedeker’s Guide to London. He was thrown into delicious 16)reveries by its 17)terse descriptions of London’s attractions. He moved on to a wine bar nearby frequented by a largely English 18)clientele. The atmosphere was out of Dickens.
在于斯曼的小说中,埃桑迪斯独自住在巴黎市郊的一栋宽敞的别墅里。他极少出门,不愿看见别人身上那些他认定为丑陋和愚蠢的行径。他还年轻时,有一天下午,他大胆地到附近的一个村子逛了几个小时,结果发现自己对人们的憎恶更甚。自那以后,他选择终日自个儿躺在书房里的床上阅读文学经典,构想出种种尖刻的人性论调。然而有一天清早,这位公爵突然很想去伦敦旅行。这念头让他吃了一惊。他是在坐在火炉旁阅读狄更斯的一本小说时萌生这个念头的。书中的描画让人对英国的生活浮想联翩,他穷尽想象,并越发渴望能亲眼目睹。他无法抑制心中的兴奋,于是差使仆人打点好行李,自己穿上灰色花呢套装,脚蹬一双绑带短靴,头戴一顶圆顶硬礼帽,还披了件蓝色亚麻长斗篷,搭乘最早的一趟火车前往巴黎。由于在开往伦敦的火车发车前还有些空闲时间,他走进里沃利街的加利那里英文书店,在那买了一本贝德克尔所著的《伦敦旅行指南》。书中有关伦敦名胜的简洁扼要的描述使他沉浸在美好的想象中。接着,他走进附近一间许多英国人时常光顾的酒吧。里面的氛围活脱脱就是狄更斯小说中所描述的那样。
Hungry, Des Esseintes went next to an English 19)tavern in the Rue d’Amsterdam, near the 20)Gare Saint Lazare. It was dark and smoky there, with a line of 21)beer pulls along a counter, which was spread with hams as brown as violins and lobsters the colour of 22)red lead. Seated at small wooden tables were 23)robust Englishwomen with boyish faces, teeth as big as 24)palette knives, cheeks as red as apples and long hands and feet. Des Esseintes found a table and ordered some 25)oxtail soup, a smoked 26)haddock, a 27)helping of roast beef and potatoes, a couple of 28)pints of 29)ale and a chunk of Stilton.
埃桑迪斯有些饿了,接着便走进一家英式小餐馆。这家餐馆位于阿姆斯特丹街,离圣拉扎尔火车站很近。里面光线昏暗,烟雾弥漫,吧台上有一排啤酒拉杆,还散放着褐如小提琴的火腿,以及艳如红铅的大龙虾。小木餐桌旁坐着粗壮的英国女人。她们的长相很男性化,牙齿如调色刀般硕大;脸颊如苹果般红通通的,手脚粗长。埃桑迪斯找了一张桌子坐下,点了牛尾汤和烟熏鳕鱼,还要了一份烤牛肉和土豆,两杯艾尔啤酒和一大块斯蒂尔顿干酪。
However, as the moment to board his train approached, along with the chance to turn dreams of London into reality, Des Esseintes was abruptly overcome with 30)lassitude. He thought how wearing it would be actually to go to London, how he would have to run to the station, fight for a porter, board the train, endure an unfamiliar bed, stand in queues, feel cold and move his fragile frame around the sights that Baedeker had so tersely described—and thus 31)soil his dreams: “What was the good of moving when a person could travel so wonderfully sitting in a chair? Wasn’t he already in London, whose smells, weather, citizens, food, and even 32)cutlery were all about him? What could he expect to find over there except fresh disappointments?”
但随着距离登上火车的时间越来越近,随着到伦敦旅行的梦想即将实现,埃桑迪斯却突然变得疲乏起来。他想到,若真正展开伦敦之旅该多么累人啊:他得赶到火车站、跟人争抢脚夫搬运行李、上火车、睡在陌生的床上,还得一次次地排队,寒风凛冽,而弱不禁风的他要走在贝德克尔描述如此精炼的伦敦街景中……想到这些,他的伦敦梦顿时黯然失色:“当一个人坐在椅子上就能在自己的想象空间里畅游,出行对于他又有何益处?他难道不是已置身于伦敦了吗?伦敦的气味、天气、市民、食物,甚至餐具不都已在他的周遭了吗?若真到了伦敦,除却新出现的失望,还能期望什么?”
So Des Esseintes paid the bill, left the tavern and took the first train back to his villa, along with his 33)trunks, his packages, his 34)portmanteaux, his rugs, his umbrellas and his sticks—and never left home again.
于是,埃桑迪斯付了账单,离开那家餐馆,搭乘最早的一趟火车回到他的别墅,陪同他一起回家的还有他的大行李箱、大包小包、手提箱、毯子、雨伞和拐杖——并且自那以后,他再没有离开过家。
We are familiar with the notion that the reality of travel is not what we anticipate. The pessimistic school, of which Des Esseintes might be an honorary 35)patron, therefore argues that reality must always be disappointing. It may be truer and more rewarding to suggest that it is primarily different.
旅行的现实体验并不是我们之前期待的那样,对此观点,我们并不陌生。对旅行持悲观态度的一派——埃桑迪斯应该算是个中典范——因此认为现实总让人失望。其实,现实和想象之间存在根本“差异”,这样说也许更准确,也更有积极意义。
…
There was one other country that, many years before his intended trip to England, Des Esseintes had wanted to see: Holland. He had imagined the place to resemble the paintings of 36)Teniers and 37)Jan Steen, 38)Rembrandt and 39)Ostade; he had anticipated 40)patriarchal simplicity and 41)riotous joviality; quiet small brick courtyards and pale-faced maids pouring milk. And so he had journeyed to 42)Haarlem and43)Amsterdam—and been greatly disappointed. It was not that the paintings had lied, there had been some simplicity and joviality, some nice brick courtyards and a few serving women pouring milk, but these 44)gems were blended in a 45)stew of ordinary images (restaurants, offices, uniform houses and featureless fields) which these Dutch artists had never painted and which made the experience of travelling in the country strangely 46)diluted compared with an afternoon in the Dutch galleries of the 47)Louvre, where the essence of Dutch beauty found itself collected in just a few rooms.
Des Esseintes ended up in the 48)paradoxical position of feeling more in Holland—that is more intensely in contact with the elements he loved in Dutch culture—when looking at selected images of Holland in a museum than when travelling with sixteen pieces of luggage and two servants through the country itself.
与他那次一时兴起的“英国之旅”相隔多年前,埃桑迪斯还曾想到另一个国家旅行——荷兰。他曾把荷兰想象成特尼尔斯、扬·斯丁、伦勃朗和奥斯塔德画作里所描绘的地方;他曾期望在那里看到父权社会下简单却不乏肆意狂欢的田园生活、宁静的砖砌小庭院,和在倒牛奶的脸色苍白的女仆。于是,他到哈勒姆和阿姆斯特丹旅行了一趟——结果大失所望。那些画作并没撒谎,荷兰有简单的生活,也不乏狂欢,有那么些漂亮的砖砌庭院,也有一些女仆在倒牛奶,但这些珍宝都混杂在一大堆日常影像中(如餐馆、办公室、风格统一的房屋以及毫无特色的田野等),这些普通事物从不会在荷兰画家们的画作里出现。就因为这样,相比在卢浮宫的荷兰画作展厅里浏览一下午,如今置身于真实荷兰的体验也出奇地变得味同嚼蜡,毕竟在卢浮宫那几间展厅里收藏展现的是荷兰最美的精华。
荒谬的是,荷兰之旅结束后,埃桑迪斯发现,相比带着十六件行李和两个仆从游历荷兰,在某个博物馆里欣赏精选出来的荷兰画作更能让他深切地体验到那在荷兰文化中他所热爱的方方面面。
…
After Holland and his abortive visit to England, Des Esseintes did not attempt another journey abroad. He remained in his villa and surrounded himself with a series of objects which facilitated the finest aspect of travel, its anticipation. He had coloured prints hung on his walls, like those in travel agents’ windows, showing foreign cities, museums, hotels and steamers bound for 49)Valparaiso or the 50)River Plate. He had the 51)itineraries of the major shipping companies framed and lined his bedroom with them. He filled an 52)aquarium with seaweed, bought a 53)sail, some 54)rigging and a pot of 55)tar and, with their help, was able to experience the most pleasant aspects of a long sea voyage without any of its inconveniences. Des Esseintes concluded, in Huysmans’s words, that “the imagination could provide a more-than-adequate substitute for the56)vulgar reality of actual experience”. Actual experience where what we have come to see is always diluted in what we could see anywhere, where we are drawn away from the present by an anxious future and where our appreciation of 57)aesthetic elements remains 58)at the mercy of perplexing physical and psychological demands.
I travelled in spite of Des Esseintes, and yet there were times when I too felt there might be no finer journeys than those provoked in the imagination by staying at home slowly turning the Bible-paper pages of the British Airways’ Worldwide Timetable.
经历荷兰之旅及“夭折”了的英国之旅后,埃桑迪斯再没尝试过出国旅行。他呆在他的别墅里,置身各式各样的物件中——这些物件使他轻易能享受到“旅行”最精华的部分,即对旅行的期待。他在墙上挂上各种彩图,上面标示着外国的城市、博物馆、旅店和开往瓦尔帕莱索或拉普拉塔河的班轮,类似旅行社的宣传橱窗那派景象。那些大船运公司的航海时刻表被他一一镶框,在卧室的墙上挂了一排。他在一个水缸里种满了水草,还买来一面船帆,一些索具和一罐柏油……他借助它们能体验到远航的最大乐趣,却避免了航海带来的任何不便。埃桑迪斯得出的结论,作者于斯曼写到:“想象能带给我们平凡的真实体验以外更丰富的内容。”我们焦虑未来而心不在焉,对美的鉴赏又往往受制于自己复杂的身心欲求,在这样的情境下所能看到的总是会冲淡感觉,让人觉得亲身游历的所见所闻乏善可陈。”
不管埃桑迪斯怎么说,我还是会外出旅行,然而有些时候,我也和他一样,感觉最好的旅行莫过于呆在家里,一边悠闲地翻着英国航空公司用圣经纸印刷的世界航班时刻表,一边在想象的国度里遨游。
The Art of Travel(《旅行的艺术》)是小编最近阅读到的绝佳的英文文学作品,其作者是去年11月号CR选摘的The Architecture of Happiness(《幸福的建筑》)一书的作者——“英伦才子”Alain de Botton(阿兰·德波顿)。这本书之所以能引起我的强烈共鸣,全因我也是个心怀“游遍世界”梦想的旅行爱好者,也经历着下文提到的“对旅行的期待幻灭”等种种烦心的问题。令我记忆忧新的是2007年夏天江南游的七天里,我每晚都躺在旅店陌生的床上细数这一天里的种种失落,感叹着——一切怎么都和书里、电视里、宣传册上描述的不同,左看右看,那些都不过是一座座和广州长得太过相似的现代化城市……我知道我需要一些指点,去更好地展开往后的每一段旅途,直到遇上这本书,我对旅行才有了更深的感悟。
好书当然要细细品味,尽管文字难度不低,但绝对值得“啃”!小编将会在CR上分两期(本期以及8月号)刊登这本书的部分精彩内容,欢迎大家关注哦! ——Lavender