Excerpts1)
I will not describe the pictures that Strickland showed me. Descriptions of pictures are always dull, and these, besides, are familiar to all who take an interest in such things. Now that his influence has so enormously affected modern painting, now that others have charted the country which he was among the first to explore, Strickland’s pictures, seen for the first time, would find the mind more prepared for them; but it must be remembered that I had never seen anything of the sort. First of all I was taken aback by what seemed to me the clumsiness2) of his technique. Accustomed to the drawing of the old masters, and convinced that Ingres3) was the greatest draughtsman of recent times, I thought that Strickland drew very badly. I knew nothing of the simplification at which he aimed … But if I was puzzled and disconcerted, I was not unimpressed. Even I, in my colossal4) ignorance, could not but feel that here, trying to express itself, was real power. I was excited and interested. I felt that these pictures had something to say to me that was very important for me to know, but I could not tell what it was. They seemed to me ugly, but they suggested without disclosing a secret of momentous significance. They were strangely tantalising5). They gave me an emotion that I could not analyse. They said something that words were powerless to utter. I fancy that Strickland saw vaguely some spiritual meaning in material things that was so strange that he could only suggest it with halting symbols. It was as though he found in the chaos of the universe a new pattern, and were attempting clumsily, with anguish of soul, to set it down. I saw a tormented spirit striving for the release of expression. I turned to him. “I wonder if you haven’t mistaken your medium,” I said.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I think you’re trying to say something, I don’t quite know what it is, but I’m not sure that the best way of saying it is by means of painting.”
When I imagined that on seeing his pictures I should get a clue to the understanding of his strange character I was mistaken. They merely increased the astonishment with which he filled me. I was more at sea6) than ever. The only thing that seemed clear to me—and perhaps even this was fanciful—was that he was passionately striving for liberation from some power that held him. But what the power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure. Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities7) of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething8) with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener’s aunt is in the house.
The final impression I received was of a prodigious9) effort to express some state of the soul, and in this effort, I fancied, must be sought the explanation of what so utterly perplexed me. It was evident that colours and forms had a significance for Strickland that was peculiar to himself. He was under an intolerable necessity to convey something that he felt, and he created them with that intention alone. He did not hesitate to simplify or to distort if he could get nearer to that unknown thing he sought. Facts were nothing to him, for beneath the mass of irrelevant incidents he looked for something significant to himself. It was as though he had become aware of the soul of the universe and were compelled to express it.
Though these pictures confused and puzzled me, I could not be unmoved by the emotion that was patent in them; and, I knew not why, I felt in myself a feeling that with regard to Strickland was the last I had ever expected to experience. I felt an overwhelming compassion.
“I think I know now why you surrendered to your feeling for Blanche Stroeve10),” I said to him.
“Why?”
“I think your courage failed. The weakness of your body communicated itself to your soul. I do not know what infinite yearning possesses you, so that you are driven to a perilous, lonely search for some goal where you expect to find a final release from the spirit that torments you. I see you as the eternal pilgrim to some shrine11) that perhaps does not exist. I do not know to what inscrutable Nirvana12) you aim. Do you know yourself? Perhaps it is Truth and Freedom that you seek, and for a moment you thought that you might find release in Love. I think your tired soul sought rest in a woman’s arms, and when you found no rest there you hated her. You had no pity for her, because you have no pity for yourself. And you killed her out of fear, because you trembled still at the danger you had barely escaped.”
He smiled dryly and pulled his beard.
“You are a dreadful sentimentalist, my poor friend.”
A week later I heard by chance that Strickland had gone to Marseilles. I never saw him again.
1. 节选部分描写的是思特里克兰德离家后暂居巴黎学画时,邀请“我”去看他画作的情节。小说以第一人称叙述故事,其中的“我”是一位作家,也是思特里克兰德一家的朋友。
2. clumsiness [5klQmzInIs] n. 笨拙
3. Ingres:即让-奥古斯特·多米尼克·安格尔(Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1780~1867),法国画家,19世纪新古典主义的代表
4. colossal [kE5lCsl] adj. 巨大的,庞大的
5. tantalising [5tAntElaIzIN] adj. 逗引人的
6. at sea:迷茫
7. banality [bE5nAlItI] n. 平凡,陈腐
8. seethe [5si:T] vi. 充满,挤满
9. prodigious [prE5dIdVEs] adj. 巨大的,惊人的
10. Blanche Stroeve:勃朗什·施特略夫,小说中画家戴尔克·施特略夫的妻子,她喜欢上了书中的主人公思特里克兰德,后遭其抛弃,终因心碎而自杀身亡。
11. shrine [FraIn] n. 神殿,神祠,圣地
12. Nirvana [7nIE5vB:nE, nE:5v-] n. (宗教)涅
作品赏析
一份薪金优厚的工作、一位善解人意的伴侣、一对懂事的儿女、一份稳定的生活,这些要素组成了大多数人对幸福的定义。许多人勤奋读书,努力工作,认真履行自己的社会和家庭责任,就是为了获得这样一份幸福。然而,在毛姆的小说《月亮和六便士》中,主人公查理斯·思特里克兰德却毅然转身,走上了与这一切彻底决裂的人生道路。
思特里克兰德是伦敦成功的证券经纪人,妻子温婉大方,儿子在著名的公学读书,女儿出落得端庄秀丽,生活似乎没有什么不可满足的。但他却在40岁时给家里留下一纸短笺,通知妻子“我不回来了”,便只身前往巴黎。他先在巴黎学习最基本的绘画技巧,住在肮脏的廉价旅馆,吃粗鄙的食物,靠朋友的施舍救济来购买绘画所需的颜料。后来他又乘船远航,自我放逐于风光如世外桃源般美丽的塔希提岛。在这个远离现代文明的小岛上,他娶了一名土著女子为妻,终日埋首创作。世人是否理解,他并不在意;得了麻风病,临终前双目失明、家徒四壁,他也不在意。他去世的时候,环绕着他的是他画在屋墙上的巨幅壁画。这些壁画可谓是他的呕心沥血之作,但他却要求土著妻子在他死后把壁画和房子都烧掉,并不求留名于这个世界。
对熟悉艺术史的人来说,思特里克兰德身上有着法国印象派画家高更的清晰轮廓。毛姆创作《月亮和六便士》正是以高更的一生为蓝本。和思特里克兰德一样,高更在学画前也是证券经纪人,生活舒适富足。然而,他却在35岁脱离证券业,37岁与家人决裂,40岁奔赴南太平洋群岛,在布列塔尼、巴拿马和马提尼克之间游荡,在塔希提岛居住了12年,1903年孤独地死于希瓦瓦岛。高更厌恶都市文明,在他的画笔下,原始的生命力喷薄而出。不幸的是,和好友梵高一样,他的才华并没有得到同时代人的欣赏和认可。直到他去世,人们才逐渐领悟了他绘画的意义。
《月亮和六便士》中的思特里克兰德脱胎于高更,但也与高更有所区别。毛姆在艺术加工的过程中,进一步放大了主人公的传奇色彩。高更二十几岁时就开始接触绘画;思特里克兰德40岁才开始学习基本技巧。高更在塔希提岛和多位土著女性交往,不负责任地留下私生子;而思特里克兰德在塔希提岛几乎离群索居。和高更的愤怒、放荡、世俗相比,思特里克兰德的身上有更加明显的殉道者的色彩。像是月亮的引力牵动着潮汐,他将生命献祭于艺术,时时被内心巨大的创作冲动所感召。为了绘画,他没有什么不可以舍弃:离开伦敦时,他并不考虑肩不能扛、手不能提的妻子和孩子以后该如何生活;在巴黎,朋友施特略夫的妻子为了他离开了自己的丈夫,但他在两人同居不久后就抛弃了她,即便她绝望而服毒自尽,他也没有体会到过多的忏悔之心。
按照一般意义上的成功标准,思特里克兰德是个失败者,死时籍籍无名;按照一般意义上的道德标准,思特里克兰德是个自私的人,应该受到人们的谴责。然而,我们却无法用一般的标准来衡量他。小说的题目《月亮和六便士》带有隐喻性:月亮象征精神世界,它在高高的天空用柔和的光照亮了世界;六便士则是英国硬币的最小面值之一,它由金属制成,散发着铜钱的市侩气,是凡俗世界的象征。对思特里克兰德来说,生活的意义不在于六便士式的物质层面的生活和享受,而是月亮所代表的超脱物外的境界。就像书中叙述者所形容的,思特里克兰德像是“一个终生跋涉的香客,不停地寻找一座可能根本不存在的神庙。我不知道他寻求的是什么不可思议的涅”。我们可以批评思特里克兰德在寻找涅的途中所犯下的错,但是我们不能否认,在寻找信仰的历程中,他那决绝坚定的身影令人敬畏、让人折服。
思特里克兰德是幸运的。过尽千帆,他终于找到了涅之地——塔希提岛。这里是灵魂真正意义上的归宿:远离工业文明的污染,没有人与人之间蛛网似的复杂关系,不必受限于禁锢欲望的道德标准;人们离阳光、土地很近,生活得如同天地初开之时,一派天然。在塔希提岛那灼烧着蓬勃生命力的自然里,思特里克兰德的心灵脱离了躯壳的束缚,在宇宙间自由遨游,与天地同呼吸。自然将丰富赐予了他的生命,而他也以生命来回馈大自然,他用自己的血肉灵魂作为画笔,描摹自然那拒绝驯服的巨大力量。
思特里克兰德在诘问我们:当我们沉浸在丰饶的物质所堆砌出的甜腻幸福中时,有没有想到在胸腔里那颗心可能正在窒息中慢慢枯死?如果灵魂需要痛苦来唤醒、来滋养,我们是不是能像他一样即便孤独与困苦,也要为灵魂求得一面自由的帆,远洋出海,只为看那壮阔的风景——头顶上是一片碧空,群星熠熠,大西洋烟波淼茫,浩瀚无垠? 赏析 / 陈 榕