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英文汉文精美翻译欣赏

历届英文翻译大奖赛竞赛原文及译文

英译汉部分 (3)

Beauty (excerpt) (3)

美(节选) (3)

The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power byThomas De Quincey (8)

知识文学与力量文学托马斯.昆西 (8)

An Experience of Aesthetics by Robert Ginsberg (11)

审美的体验罗伯特.金斯伯格 (11)

A Person Who Apologizes Has the Moral Ball in His Court by Paul Johnson (14)

谁给别人道歉,谁就在道义上掌握了主动保罗.约翰逊 (14)

On Going Home by Joan Didion (18)

回家琼.狄迪恩 (18)

The Making of Ashenden (Excerpt) by Stanley Elkin (22)

艾兴登其人(节选)斯坦利.埃尔金 (22)

Beyond Life (28)

超越生命[美] 卡贝尔著 (28)

Envy by Samuel Johnson (33)

论嫉妒[英]塞缪尔.约翰逊著 (33)

中译英部分 (37)

在义与利之外 (37)

Beyond Righteousness and Interests (37)

读书苦乐杨绛 (40)

The Bitter-Sweetness of Reading Y ang Jiang (40)

想起清华种种王佐良 (43)

Reminiscences of Tsinghua Wang Zuoliang (43)

歌德之人生启示宗白华 (45)

What Goethe's Life Reveals by Zong Baihua (45)

怀想那片青草地赵红波 (48)

Y earning for That Piece of Green Meadow by Zhao Hongbo (48)

可爱的南京 (51)

Nanjing the Beloved City (51)

霞冰心 (53)

The Rosy Cloud byBingxin (53)

黎明前的北平 (54)

Predawn Peiping (54)

老来乐金克木 (55)

Delights in Growing Old by Jin Kemu (55)

可贵的“他人意识” (58)

Calling for an Awareness of Others (58)

教孩子相信 (61)

To Implant In Our Children’s Y oung Hearts An Undying Faith In Humanity (61)

英译汉部分

Beauty (excerpt)

美(节选)

Judging from the scientists I know, including Eva and Ruth, and those whom I've read about, you can't pursue the laws of nature very long without bumping into beauty. “I don't know if it's the same beauty you see in the sunset,”a friend tells me, “but it feels the same.”This friend is a physicist, who has spent a long career deciphering what must be happening in the interior of stars. He recalls for me this thrill on grasping for the first time Dirac's⑴equations describing quantum mechanics, or those o f Einstein describing relativity. “They're so beautiful,” he says, “you can see immediately they have to be true. Or at least on the way toward truth.” I ask him what makes a theory beautiful, and he replies, “Simplicity, symmetry, elegance, and power.”

我结识一些科学家(包括伊娃和露丝),也拜读过不少科学家的著作,从中我作出推断:人们在探求自然规律的旅途中,须臾便会与美不期而遇。一个朋友对我说:“我不敢肯定这种美是否与日落之美异曲同工,但至少,两者带给我的感受别无二致。”我的这个朋友是一位物理学家,他大半辈子都在致力于破解群星内部的秘密。他向我讲述了当年邂逅科学之美时的狂喜:那是当他生平第一次顿悟狄拉克的量子力学方程式,或是洞彻爱因斯坦相对论的方程式时的感受。“那些方程式是如此动人,”他说道,“只消看一眼你就会明白,它们一定是正确的,或者说---至少,它们的指向是正确的。”我好奇一个“动人的”理论是个什么样,他的回答是:“简约、和谐、典雅,有力。”

Why nature should conform to theories we find beautiful is far from obvious. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe, as Einstein said, is that it's comprehensible. How unlikely, that a short-lived biped on a two-bit planet should be able to gauge the speed of light, lay bare the structure of an atom, or calculate the gravitational tug of a black hole. We're a long way from understanding everything, but we do understand a great deal about how nature behaves. Generation after generation, we puzzle out formulas, test them, and find, to an astonishing degree, that nature agrees. An architect draws designs on flimsy paper, and her buildings stand up through earthquakes.

那些打动我们的理论,往往受到自然之母的肯定,其中奥妙不可言宣。诚如爱因斯坦所言:这个世界最让人费解之处就在于:它是能够被了解的。想想这一切是多么地不可思议:在一个不起眼的星球上,生存着一种拥有短暂生命的两足生物,然而,正是这些微不足道的小生物,不但测量出了光速,而且把原子层层剥开,还计算出了黑洞的引力。人类虽然尚未全知全能,但是,关于大自然的脾性,我们所知道的确实不能算少。人类经过世世代代的努力,猜想出各种定理公式,并在实践中检验它们,然后惊讶地发现:大自然竟然与我们不谋而合。这就像一位建筑师在薄薄的图纸上绘制出设计方案,

依此建造的高楼大厦,竟能够经受住地震的洗礼考验,依然耸立。

⑴Dirac: 迪拉克,保罗·阿德利安·莫里斯1902-1984英国数学和物理学家。1933年因新原子理论公式与人分享诺贝尔奖。

We launch a satellite into orbit and use it to bounce messages from continent to continent. The machine on which I write these words embodies hundreds of insights into the workings of the material world, insights that are confirmed by every burst of letters on the screen, and I stare at that screen through lenses that obey the laws of optics first worked out in detail by Isaac Newton⑵.

我们发射一枚人造卫星,它便帮助我们将讯息传遍世界各地。而我,正在一台机器上记录下这些文字,这台机器包涵着人类思想的精髓---对物质世界运作方式的真知灼见---每一次敲打键盘,这些真知便化为字母跳入屏幕;当我注视着屏幕,架在鼻梁上的眼镜则是根据光学原理配制而成的,而对这一理论进行详细论证的开山始祖则是艾萨克·牛顿。

By discerning patterns in the universe, Newton believed, he was tracing the hand of God. Scientists in our day have largely abandoned the notion of a Creator as an unnecessary hypothesis, or at least an untestable one. While they share Newton's faith tha t the universe is ruled everywhere by a coherent set of rules, they cannot say, as scientists, how these particular rules came to govern things. Y ou can do science without believing in a divine Legislator, but not without believing in laws.

通过对万物造化的深入观察,牛顿相信自己正追随着上帝的笔触。如今的科学家大都摒弃了“造物主”一说,认为那是无稽的假设,即使不全盘否定,至少也认定那是不可能得到验证的假说。诚然,他们坚信牛顿的看法---世界受一套整合的法则所支配,但问题在于,发轫之始,这些法则是如何开始掌管世界的?对此,身为科学家的他们也无从知晓。在科学的疆界,我们可以拒绝相信上帝的存在,但我们不能否认万物之法的存在。

I spent my teenage years scrambling up the mountain of mathematics. Midway up the slope, however, I staggered to a halt, gasping in the rarefied air, well before I reached the heights where the equations of Einstein and Dirac would have made sense. Nowadays I add, subtract, multiply, and do long division when no calculator is handy, and I can do algebra and geometry and even trigonometry in a pinch, but that is about all that I've kept from the language of numbers. Still, I remember glimpsing patterns in mathematics that seemed as bold and beautiful as a skyful of stars.

少年时,我曾试图攀登数学之颠。可惜才到半山腰,便开始步履踉跄;空气稀薄,使我气喘吁吁,不得不停下脚步,而爱因斯坦和狄拉克的方程式却仍旧远在高处。现在的我,若是手边没有计算器,便通过心算处理加减乘除;有必要时,我还能应付代数、

几何,甚至三角运算;但是话说回来,数字世界留给我的也就只有这些零星点滴了。不过,我至今仍然记得曾在数学王国里浅尝到的无穷变幻---大胆、迷人,犹如群星漫天。

⑵Isaac Newton: 牛顿(1642-1727) 英国物理学家、数学家。

I'm never more aware of the limitations of language than when I try to describe beauty. Language can create its own loveliness, of course, but it cannot deliver to us the radiance we apprehend in the world, any more than a photograph can capture the stunning swiftness of a hawk or the withering power of a supernova⑶. Eva's wedding album holds only a faint glimmer of the wedding itself. All that pictures or words can do is gesture beyond themselves toward the fleeting glory that stirs our hearts. So I keep gesturing.

每当我尝试着将美付诸于文字时,我便极为深刻地意识到:文字的力量是多么有限。语言自有其灵动可人之处,可它却无法传达大千世界的绚烂。正如一方相片框不住一只鹰的迅捷,也再现不了一颗超新星毁灭时的壮丽。伊娃的婚礼相册仅仅留存了一丝微弱的光芒,以见证婚礼现场的光鲜夺目。相片和文字能够做到的最多只是描摹那些瞬息即逝的、那些让我们心潮涌动的光芒。于是,我一直都在努力描摹。

“All nature is meant to make us think of paradise,”Thomas Merton⑷observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty is free and inexhaustible, but we need training in order to perceive more than the most obvious kinds. Even 15 billion years or so after the Big Bang⑸, echoes of that event still linger in the form of background radiation⑹, only a few degrees above absolute zero⑺. Just so, I believe, the experience of beauty is an echo of the order and power that permeate the universe. To measure background radiation, we need subtle instruments; to measure beauty, we need alert intelligence and our five keen senses.

托马斯·梅尔顿说过,“世间造物之神奇无不令人联想到天堂乐土”,因为创世纪本身就是一出永不落幕的表演;其间芳华之美悠游自在,无穷无尽。有些美显而易见,容易为我们所捕捉,但另一些则不然:若要欣赏她们,我们得付出一点努力。宇宙大爆炸在一百五十多亿年后的今天仍余波未平,爆炸当时所释放的能量(即使这些能量看起来似乎微不足道)仍以背景辐射现象的形式存在着。由此,我得出一个观点:人类对美的体验中暗含着秩序和力量的影子,而这些秩序和力量充斥着整个宇宙空间。测量背景辐射,我们需要精密仪器;而衡量美,则需要动用我们的聪慧和所有敏锐的感官。

⑶supernova: 超新星,一种罕见的天文现象,表现为一恒星中的绝大部分物质爆炸后,产生能放射极大能量的极为明亮而存在时间极短的物体。

⑷Thomas Merton: 默顿,托马斯1915-1968美国天主教教士和作家,其作品主要是关于当代宗教和世俗生活的,包括《七重山》(1948年)和《无人为孤岛》(1955年)。

⑸the Big Bang: 创世大爆炸按照大爆炸理论,标志宇宙形成的宇宙爆炸。

(6) background radiation: 背景辐射,又名3K宇宙背景辐射,是60年代天文学上的四大发现之一,它是由美国射电天文学家彭齐亚斯和威尔逊发现的。该学说认为,大爆炸之初,宇宙的温度高得惊人。随着宇宙膨胀的进行,其温度不断降低,到现在平均只有绝对温度2.7度(相当于零下270.46摄氏度)左右。

(7) absolute zero: 绝对零度在此温度下物质没有热能,相当于摄氏-273.15度或华氏-459.67度。

Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. Y ou need training, however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird's wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. For most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts. This predilection brings with it a clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, avoid predators. But the same advantage would apply to all species, and yet we alone compose symphonies and crossword puzzles, carve stone into statues, map time and space.

任何人都能在一颦一笑,一花一草中体验快乐。但是,发现数学之美、物理之绝、象棋之妙的眼睛并不是与生俱来,而欣赏树木形态、鸟翼构造、或是悠扬笛声的心灵也非浑然自成。我们需要点拨和引领。纵观历史传承,这样的点拨和引领往往来自长者,籍此,年轻人学会专注;因为专注,我们领略到万千形态的美,无论是量子力学中精妙的理论,还是棉被上漂亮的拼花图案。正是出于对美的强烈偏爱,才使得人类在物种进化的追逐比拼中处于上风。因为人类能够辨识出美的事物,而我们的祖先则因循这一标准选择伴侣,寻找食物,躲避敌人。如果自然界中所有的物种都拥有发现美的能力,那么它们都将在进化过程中称霸一方。然而,惟独人类在演变中独占鳌头:我们谱写交响曲,创造字谜游戏;在我们的手中,顽石诞生为雕像,时空归依为坐标。

Have we merely carried our animal need for shrewd perceptions to an absurd extreme? Or have we stumbled onto a deep congruence between the structure of our minds and the structure of the universe?

这一切究竟来源于何?仅仅是我们将本能的敏锐感知力推向了荒谬的极致,还是我们不经意间摸索到了扎根于人类思想和苍茫万物间那深刻的一致性?

I am persuaded the latter is true. I am convinced there's more to beauty than biology, more than cultural convention. It flows around and through us in such abundance, and in such myriad forms, as to exceed by a wide margin any mere evolutionary need. Which is not to say that beauty has nothing to do with survival: I think it has everything to do with survival. Beauty feeds us from the same source that created us.

我相信后者是正确的。我坚信美不仅仅存在于生物学和文化习俗中。美我们身边流

淌,充盈、润泽着我们的心田;而其量之充沛,形态之多变已经远远超越了进化本身的需要。我这样说并不意味着美和生存毫无干系;恰恰相反,我相信美和生存之间有着千丝万缕的联系。如果说是自然造就了我们,那么,是美通过自然滋养了我们。

It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands. It restores our faith in the generosity of nature. By giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made for life on this glorious planet, in this magnificent universe.

I find in that affinity a profound source of meaning and hope. A universe so prodigal of beauty may actually need us to notice and respond, may need our sharp eyes and brimming hearts and teeming minds, in order to close the circuit of Creation.

无论是一朵花或是一双手,都让我们联想到美的创造力量。美让我们重拾信念---相信自然对于我们的无私恩惠与慷慨。美在人类渺小的心灵和宇宙伟大的精魂之间,化身为一座沟通的桥梁,并以此让我们不再怀疑:在这片恢宏的宇宙中,在这颗璀璨的星球上,人类的存在实为天工之作,神明之意。宇宙和人类对于美的共识,给予我生存的意义与希望。我们的宇宙中,美无处不在;她等待着我们敏锐的眼睛、充实的心灵,和泉涌般的智慧,去发现美,去回应美,由此成全造物的圆满。

译者注:

本文为美国当代作家司各特·罗素·桑达(Scott Russell Sander,1945-)所写。桑达出生于美国田纳西州(Tennessee)的孟菲斯(Memphis)。1963年,他就读于布朗大学(Brown University), 其后,又就读于剑桥大学(Cambridge University)并获得文学博士。1971年,他携妻子(就是本文一开始提到的Ruth,而Eva则是作者的女儿)迁往印地安那州(Indiana)的布鲁明顿(Bloomington), 并在那里的印地安那大学(Indiana University)任教至今。印地安那的自然风光给予他创作的灵感,他在作品中对于自然的生动细致描写充分体现出他对环境的关注。本文选自他新近出版的作品《寻找希望》(Hunting for Hope)。(编辑:李吉琴)

The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power byThomas De Quincey

知识文学与力量文学托马斯·昆西

What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is he ld to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man—so that what applies only to a local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to Literature. So far the definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature; but inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind—to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm—does not attain the sanctuary of libraries in the ten-thousandth part of its extent. The Drama again—as, for instance, the finest of Shakespeare's plays in England, and all leading Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage—operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation some time before they were published as things to be read; and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing.

我们所说的“文学”是什么呢?人们,尤其是对此欠考虑者,普遍会认为:文学包括印在书本中的一切。可这种定义无需多少理由便可被推翻。最缺乏思考的人也很容易明白,“文学”这一概念中有个基本要素,即文学或多或少都与人类普遍而共同的兴趣有关;因此,那些仅适用于某一局部、某一行业或仅仅处于个人兴趣的作品,即便以书的形式面世,也不该属于“文学”。就此而论,文学之定义很容易变窄,而它同样也不难拓宽。因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品,而且与之相反,不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道,这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学,这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学,最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。此外还有戏剧,如英国莎士比亚最优秀的剧作,以及雅典戏剧艺术鼎盛时期的全部主流剧作,都曾作为文学作品对公众产生过影响。这些作品在作为读物出版之前,已通过观看其演出的观众而“出版”了(这正是“出版”一词最严格的意义)。在抄写或印刷都非常昂贵的年代,通过舞台形式“出版”这些剧作远比将它们出版成书效果更佳。

Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea coextensive and interchangeable with the idea of Literature; since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lecturers and public

orators), may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought not so much in a better definition of literature as in a sharper distinction of the two functions which it fulfills. In that great social organ which, collectively, we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is—to teach; the function of the second is—to move: the first is a rudder; the second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but, proximately, it does and must operate—else it ceases to be a literature of power—on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed, but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth—namely, power, or deep sympathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven—the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly—are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz. the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a

million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power—that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth: whereas the very first step in power is a flight—is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.

由此可见,书之概念与“文学”之概念不可相提并论,互相替换,因为许多文学作品,如戏剧演出或演讲者,雄辩家的说教和辩论,也许永远都不会付印成书,而不少印成书册的作品却可能与文学趣味并不相关。不过更为重要的是,要纠正人们对文学普遍的模糊观念,与其去为文学找一个更好的定义,不如更明确地划分文学的两种功能。在那两个被我们统称为文学的庞大社会媒体中,可以分辨出两种不同的功能。两种功能可能混合,而且经常混合,但各自又具有一种绝缘性,而且天生就互相排斥。这二者之一乃“知识文学”,之二则为“力量文学”。知识文学的作用在于教诲,力量文学的功能在于感化。前者可谓舵艄,后者则是桨桡或蓬帆。前者只有助于纯粹的推理悟解,后者则总是通过愉悦之情和恻隐之心的影响,最终激发出更高的悟性,或曰理性。远而望之,仿佛它可以通过培根称之为“理性之光”中的某个目标,近而观之,方知它必须通过那道被世人七情六欲之蒙蒙薄雾和闪闪彩虹包裹的“感性之光”发挥其作用,不然它就不再是一种“力量”的文学。世人对文学这两个更为重要的作用思之甚少,所以如果有人说赋予知识是书本平庸或次要的用途,此说便被视为悖论。但只有在悖论亦真这个意义上,此说方为悖论。每当我们用平常语言谈论求学求知的时候,总以为这些字眼与某种绝对新奇的事务有联系。然而,能在人类关注的事物中占据极高地位的真理之所以伟大,就在于它对最卑微者而言也绝非新奇;无论在最卑微者还是最高贵者心中,真理永远都以种子或潜在原理的方式存在,他只需去培育或发现,而无需去种植或创造。能够被移植是判断一个真理属于低级真理的直接标准。除此之外,还有一种比真理更珍贵的东西,那就是力量,或曰对真理的深切认同。举例而言,儿童对社会有何作用呢?儿童的无助、天真和单纯所唤起的怜悯、柔情和种种特殊的爱慕之意,不仅可强化和升华世人与生俱来的仁爱之心,就连那些在上帝眼中最为珍贵的品质,诸如唤醒宽容的柔弱、象征神圣的天真、以及超凡脱俗的单纯,也都会在永恒的记忆中得以保持,其完美典范亦会不断更新。更高层次的文学,即力量的文学,要实现的正是与此相同的目的。从弥尔顿的《失乐园》中你能获取什么知识呢?一无所获。从一本烹调书中你能学到什么呢?从每一段中你都能学到某种新的知识,某种你不曾知晓的知识。可你能因此而认为那本微不足道的烹调书比那部神圣的诗作更高明吗?你应该感谢弥尔顿的不是他给了你什么知识,因为获取一百万条互不相干的知识,也不过是在茫茫尘世向前走了一百万步;你应该感谢的是他给予你“力量”,使你能发挥并拓展与无限世界产生共鸣的潜能。在无限世界中,

每一次脉动和心跳都是上升的一步,犹如沿雅各的天梯从地面攀向远离凡尘的神秘高处。知识的步伐,自始至终都让你在同一层面行进,但绝不可能使你从古老的人间尘世上升一步;而力量迈出的第一步就是飞升——升入另一种境界,一种使你忘却凡尘的境界。(集体讨论曹明伦、吴刚执笔)

An Experience of Aesthetics by Robert Ginsberg

审美的体验罗伯特·金斯伯格

I climbed the heights above Y osemite V alley, California in order to see the splendid granite mountain, Half Dome, in its fullest view. Approaching the edge through the woods I was filled with heightened expectation. I saw the ruin of a cabin and my approach caused the alignment of the chimney on this side of the valley with the shorn mountain across the valley.

I stopped. Something happened. The stone verticals corresponded, one human-shaped, the other natural. The human site was still engaged in sightseeing. I was on its side. I saw the famous sight through the eyes of the ruin. I had come expecting beauty; I discovered an unexpected dimension to the beauty of the scene/seen.

为了饱览壮丽的花岗岩山峰半穹顶的全景,我登上了加州约塞米蒂谷的高地。穿过树林,走近山沿,心中充满美的期盼。远远望见一处小屋的废墟,走到近前,只见山谷这边的烟囱与横穿山谷的陡峭山崖恰好连成一线。我停下脚步,奇观出现了:两道石壁遥相呼应,一边人工打造,一边浑然天成。人造景观这边仍供观光游览,我此时就身临其境。透过小屋的废墟,我看到了著名的景观。我怀着对美的期盼而来,不经意间却发现了美的另一番天地。

In this experience I had been seeking the aesthetic. I knew I would find it, for I had seen post cards in advance and was following the trail map. The seeking took considerable effort and time. It was a heavy investment. I was not going for the scientific purpose of studying rock formation, nor was it for the recreational purpose of exercising my limbs in the fresh air, though that exertion added intensity to the experience and was its context. Primarily, I was going for the scenic wonders. No wonder that I would take delight in seeing Half Dome. The expectation elicited the outcome. I was suitably prepared. No distractions of practical consideration —or theoretic —detracted from my concentrated expectancy. Indeed, the world all around me on the climb contributed to the context for my goal. I was on the terrain of Nature in a national park, following the trail to a viewpoint upon a celebrated natural formation. Each step in the climb not only brought me closer but obliged me to sense the altitude. Moving through the thick woods was in anticipatory contrast to the great gap of the valley and the starkness of the treeless granite boulder.

这次旅程中我一直在捕捉一种美感。我知道会如愿以偿,因为我事先看过一些有关的风

景明信片,循着山路示意图一路找来。这样的寻找费时费力,投入颇大。我此行的目的既不是出于对科学的动机来研究岩石的结构,也不是出于娱乐消遣的考虑在清新的空气中舒展肢体——尽管这次跋涉加深了我对美的体验,而且是这番体验的不可或缺的环节。我来这主要是为了览胜,因此见到半穹顶自然欣喜不已。有什么样的期盼就有什么样的结果。我有备而来,心无旁骛,一心期盼着美景,不受任何实际或假设因素的干扰。真的,在攀登过程中,我周围的一切都为寻美营造了氛围。我登上了国家公园的天然山地,循着山道前来观赏闻名遐迩的大自然的鬼斧神工。攀登中的每一步不仅使我距目标越来越近,也使我感受到海拔越来越高。不出所料,穿行在茂密的树林中,登上大峡谷寸草不生的花岗岩巨石,两种不同境界给人以强烈的反差。

My spirit and my senses were heightened. I was keenly aware of the world, eager to experience it. My senses were willing to be gratified by their fullest exercise. Hence my eye was sharp, but so was my ear and my nose, I was open to experiencing aesthetically. And on the way I did take minor pleasure in a bird's song, a tree's sway, and a cloud's contortion. I was in the world considered as potential aesthetic realm. Any pleasing feature that appeared would be welcomed. And that welcoming mode drew forth pleasing features. A tonic subjective at-homeness with the world pervaded my feelings. I was in the right mood to enjoy Nature.

我精神抖擞,感官敏锐。我真切地感受到周围的一切,急于体验这一切,渴望在最充分的感官体验中得到最大满足。因此我不但目光敏锐,听觉和嗅觉也十分灵敏——我敞开心扉,尽情地体验着美的滋味。沿途所见所闻,哪怕是一点小小的愉悦,鸟雀鸣唱、树影婆娑、云卷云舒,都着实让我动情。置身于这样一个处处蕴含着美的王国,我随时准备接纳任何不期而至的景色。这样一种心态更促生了令人赏心悦目的景致,一种心旷神怡的回归自然之情在我心中油然而生。这样一种心情最适于欣赏自然美景不过了。Then the unexpected happened. I had no thought in reaching the natural heights that a human structure would be present. Normally, I would have avoided any such structure as I directed my steps toward the natural view. In retrospect it makes sense that a service building be present at the trail end. It may have had facilities for visitors and played an interpretive role. But the building was not present when I arrived. It was absent though its ruin was present. And that ruin spoke to my experience as related to what I had come to see. If I had been trudging on in a dulled state, passing the time in surroundings —like those of the railway station — that did not draw interest, I might well have missed the chimney, walked past it as if it were another tree on the way to the goal. The heightened intensity of my sensibility allowed the chimney to be integrated into the experiencing aesthetically. Readiness was all. The extraterrestrial aesthetician would explain that the creature it was observing on the trail was a specimen of an aesthetic being whose experiencing apparatus for the aesthetic was on

full alert. The individual was completely given over to the enjoyment of its experience. And while headed in the direction of an anticipated goal it was nonetheless open to enjoying anything that came its way. Something quite unexpected came its way, and it was ready to attend to it, getting the maximum aesthetic value out of the encounter. The creature was embarked on an adventure in experience. Given the wide range of accessible natural wonders in the national park, the individual in the right mood was bound to make gratifying discoveries.

接着,出乎意料的景观出现了。我怎么也不曾想到,在抵达天然高地时竟然会出现一处人工建筑。在通常情况下,我要是徒步参观某处自然景点,一定会绕开这类建筑。回想起来,在山路尽头有一座服务性建筑也全在情理之中。这小屋也许曾为游客提供过方便,起过导游讲解作用。可我来到高地时,小屋不见了。虽有断垣残壁,房屋却荡然无存。而正是这片废墟使我体验到此行览胜的真正含义。如果我当时兴致索然地一路跋涉,比如像在火车站那样的地方消磨时光,周围的事物一点也不引人注意,那么我很可能会错过烟囱,只当它是沿途路过的又一棵树罢了。而现在,我的感悟力增强了,烟囱作为一道景观融入了审美体验的始终。一切取决于心态。如果一个天外美学家看到我这模样,可能会认为,它观察到的路上这个怪人准是个充满审美细胞的动物,其审美感官正处于极度警觉的状态。他已完全沉浸在审美体验所带来的愉悦之中。他朝着既定的目标行进,同时又不放过闯入视野的任何景致。奇观乍现,立即映入眼帘,他便从中发掘出最大的审美价值。此人正在经历一次美的历险。有国家公园这般天地,随处可见自然奇现,心境舒畅的游人必定会获得心满意足的发现。

What are the contents of the aesthetic discovery? Formal properties of beauty may be pointed to in what I saw: the verticals as distinctively shaped and gathering space about them, and the interplay between the two kinds of vertical shapes over the enormous intervening space. The pleasure of perspective entered, for though the chimney is miniscule compared to Half Dome, my approaching it from the trail made it assume visual and spatial dignity equal to the mountain. Complexity of human meaning is encountered with poignant irony. The chimney is an enduring marker of the human value placed on the mountain visible from this point. Here human hands raised stones to shelter an experience of pure stone. So I have come to the right place; I am at home. But the human occupation has been lifted; our presence has turned to stone. Nature has reclaimed its elements. Half Dome presides over the petrifaction of the world. Chimney and mountain are in dialogue as I sense the switching between their perspectives. I am present in ruin and in unity.

这次审美体验的发现是什么?我所目睹的景致或许可以说明美的外在特征:悬崖峭壁,造型奇特,给人以强烈的空间感,两道石壁形状迥异,广袤交错,凌空矗立。此外,还有透视效果带来的愉悦:虽然与半穹顶相比石烟囱显得非常渺小,但我从山道这边靠近,

看上去无论在视觉上还是空间上其气势都一点儿不亚于半穹顶。人类的复杂意图受到了辛辣的讽刺。从这一视点看过去,那烟囱是人的价值置于大山上的一道永久性标记。人类在那里垒石筑屋,以观苍石。这样看来,我来对了地方,我找到了归宿。不过人类对自然的占据被消除掉了,我们的存在与石头融为一体。大自然索回了自己的要素,半穹顶主宰着石头的世界。我感受到两种不同景致的交替,仿佛听见烟囱在和大山对话。我站在小屋废墟上,也置身于和谐统一中。

(集体讨论许建平执笔)

A Person Who Apologizes Has the Moral Ball in His Court by Paul Johnson

谁给别人道歉,谁就在道义上掌握了主动保罗·约翰逊

I have sympathy for the butler in The Big Sleep. Marlowe detects him in a contradiction and asks him aggressively, "Y ou made a mistake, didn't you?" To which the man replies, sadly and sweetly, "I make many mistakes, sir." And so do I. I am, by instinct and training, a very specific writer, and so my errors are numerous. Recent ones include misspelling Geoffrey Madan's name —I phoned the printers with a correction but my page had already gone to press —and crediting Richard Tauber with Donald Peers's signature-tune, "By a babbling brook" (Tauber's, of course, was "Y ou are my heart's delight"). I apologise for these mistakes, and for others in the past, and for those to come.

我同情《长眠》这部影片中的男管家。马洛探长发现了他讲话前后有矛盾,就逼问道:“你犯了一个错,对不?”管家伤感而乖巧地答曰:“我犯下的错可多去啦,先生。”我又何尝不是如此呢?我有点灵气并且训练有素,写起东西来旁征博引,力求翔实,自然就言多语失喽。最近犯下的错误包括把杰弗瑞·马丹的名字拼写错了——我给印厂打了个电话,把更正告诉他们,可是我的那页已经开印了;我把唐纳德·皮尔斯的信号曲“在潺潺的小溪旁”安到了理查德·陶波的头上(陶波的信号曲自然是“你是我心中的喜悦”。)对于这些错误,以及过去犯的错误和今后会犯的错误,在下这厢有礼啦。

Disraeli thought that, in politics, apologies don't work. I see why. Such being the nature of parliamentary conflict, an apology in politics merely leads to fresh accusations and further demands for embarrassing details. I once said to Harold Wilson when he was prime minister, "It would be a good idea, Harold, to admit the government's mistakes occasionally, and apologise." He replied, "That's a shrewd suggestion, Paul, and I entirely agree with it." (Harold being Harold, I knew an untruth was coming.) "The trouble is, though, I can't actually think of any mistakes, and so there's nothing to apologise for." Which was to make Disraeli's point, though in a Wilsonian way.

迪斯累里首相认为在政治问题上,给别人道歉行不通。我明白个中的缘由。议会斗争的

本质就是如此,在政治问题上,道歉只会招致新的诘责和进一步要求交待让你左右为难的详情。还是哈罗德·威尔逊担任首相的时候,有一次我向他进言:“哈罗德,偶尔承认一下政府的错误,并且道个歉,不失为一个好主意吧。”他答道:“你这个建议高,保罗,本人完全赞同。”(哈罗德毕竟是哈罗德,我知道一句言不由衷的话就要脱口而出了。)“然而难办的是我实在想不出有哪些错误,因此,也就没有甚么好道歉的喽。”这正是以威尔逊的方式表达出了迪斯累里的意思。

Apologise is one of those words which has effectively reversed its original meaning. Its origin, in the Greek lawcourts, was jurisprudential: it signified the speech for the defence in which the prosecution's case was answered point by point. It retained its original meaning until at least the 16th century. Thus Sir Thomas More, after resigning from office, drew up his "Apologie of Syr Thomas More, Knyght; made by him, after he had geuen ouer the office of Lord Chancellor of Englande". Today we would say vindication. Only gradually did the word acquire the connotation of excuse, withdrawal, admission of fault and plea for forbearance. It still bore its original meaning in theology: Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua was not an apology at all but a vigorous rebuttal of Charles Kingsley's charges. Dickens's unfortunate statement about his reasons for splitting up with his wife, which his friends begged him not to publish, was self-destructive precisely because it was halfway between the two meanings: half defiant vindication, half admission of guilt.

有那么一些词儿,已经彻底演变得与本义完全相反,“Apologise”即是其中之一。该词的本义,在希腊法庭上,具有法理学意义:该词即指辩护词,在辩护过程中,对于诉讼方的指控,逐一予以回答。其原义至少到了16世纪还一直保留着。托马斯·莫尔爵士在挂印辞官之后,就是这样撰写了他的“托马斯·莫尔爵士之辩护词;辞去英格兰大法官之职后所作。”今天我们会使用“Vindication”

(辩白,辩护)一词。只是渐渐地“Apologise”这个词才获得了“原谅、撤回所说的话、承认错误并请求宽恕”之含义。在神学中该词仍保留原来的意义:纽曼的《为吾生辩》(Apologia pro Vita Sua)根本就不是什么道歉,而是对查尔士·金斯菜的指控所作的强硬辩驳。讲狄更斯与其妻分手理由的那篇倒霉的陈词(其友人求他不要发表),就是自毁其身,恰恰是它介于两个意义之间:一半是倔强的辩白,一半是承认有愧。

No doubt everyone has to apologise for his life, sooner or later. When we appear at the Last Judgment and the Recording Angel reads out a list of our sins, we will presumably be given an opportunity to apologise, in the old sense of rebuttal, and in the new sense too, by way of confession and plea of repentance. In this life, it is well to apologise (in the new sense), but promptly, voluntarily, fully and sincerely. If the error is a matter of opinion and unpunishable, so much the better —an apology then becomes a gracious and creditable occasion, and an example to all. An enforced apology is a miserable affair.

毋庸置疑,任何人都要为自己的一生辩护,不管是今生还是来世。当我们出席最后的审判时,记录天使诵读出所罗列的我们的罪孽,我们作了忏悔并请求宽恕,这样大概会被给予辩白(这个词的老义)和表示歉意(它的新义)的机会。在今生中,道歉(新义)是桩对的事,但是要做到及时、要心甘情愿、要完完全全、要诚心诚意。如果过错是看法上的事,并且错不当罚,那最好不过——说一声“对不起”就成了一个显示大度的机会,可赞可叹,众人之楷模也。而被迫去道歉,那可就难受了。

Newspaper apologies nearly always seem inadequate. The most audacious one I know was brought back from America by the artist Edward Burne-Jones to show his friend Lady Homer of Mells. It read: "Instead of being arrested as we stated, for kicking his wife down a flight of stairs, and hurling a lighted kerosene lamp after her, the Revd. James P. Wellman died unmarried four years ago." This sentence is remarkable for the enormity of the error and the succinctness of the correction —not, be it noted, an apology, for the law of libel, in the United States as in England, offers no redress to a dead person. I suspect the extract is from the New Y ork World when it was a sensational paper owned by Pulitzer. For reasons which a recent biography of him does not clarify, he had a particular hatred for c lergymen of all denominations, and frequently exaggerated or invented discreditable news items about them. He also discovered that such items invariably put on circulation.

报社的道歉几乎从来是不到位的。据我所知,最为厚颜的一次是艺术家爱德华·伯恩—琼斯从美国带回来,让他的友人麦尔斯庄园的洪纳夫人看的,曰:“詹姆士·P. 维尔曼神甫没有像我们所述说的那样,因为将妻子一脚踹下了楼梯,随后又将一支点燃的煤油灯朝她掷去而被逮捕,而是于四年之前过世,从未婚娶。”对于如此之大的错误,而更正又如此之简短,这一句话可谓妙矣也哉——请注意,这算不上是“赔礼道歉”,因为在美国(正如在英国一样),根据诽谤法,是不给死人纠错的。我猜想这条剪报取自《纽约世界报》,曾是一家轰动的报纸,由普利策拥有。不知何故(最近有关普氏的传记并未澄清)他尤其痛恨各个教派的教士们,经常将一些诋毁他们的新闻段子加以渲染,或是编造出一些这样的段子。他还发现此类新闻段子总是会使发行量剧增。

The most famous apology in history was made to a much maligned, though far from innocent, cleric: Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. He had become involved in what is known as the Investiture Dispute, a fierce Church-State Kulturkampf, revolving round the appointment of bishops. His chief opponent, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV —not a nice man but not a monster either — had called him an impostor, an antipope, an Antichrist and I know not what, but had got the worst of it in the armed struggle that followed. Henry decided to purge his excommunication and get the interdict on his territories withdrawn by apologising and doing penance. The Pope had sought the protection of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, then the world's richest woman, and princess of startling beauty, taste and wisdom. He was sheltering at her

stupendous mountain stronghold of Canossa, not far from Modena, and the Emperor had to climb there barefoot, in the depths of winter, to make his kowtow. Why has this amazing story not been the subject of a great opera? Perhaps it has. Needless to say, the apology was insincere and the tragic story ended in tears on both sides, the Pope's bitter last words being: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile." But the fact that the Church was slow to canonise this remarkable man suggests that to begin with it did not accept his version of events. A century later. Henry II of England was locked in mortal struggle over the same issue with Becket, and also apologised after he caused the archbishop's murder. This, too, was in some degree insincere, and trouble broke out afresh soon after Henry had donned sackcloth. Becket was at least as intemperate as Hildebrand, but he not only got his halo but did so in the fastest time on record. But then he was a martyr, and they always move to canonisation faster than any other category of saint.

历史上最为有名的“道歉”是向一位神职人士所致:此公乃是希尔得布兰德,即教皇格列高利七世,他被人诋毁多多,然而也并非无辜。他卷入了史书所记载的“授职争议”,即一次围绕教会与国家之间有关任命主教问题的激烈的“文化冲突”。他的主要对手就是神圣罗马帝国的皇帝亨利四世——他算不上是个好人,但也不是什么魔鬼——他称教皇是个骗子、伪教皇、假耶稣,还有一些不知道是什么样的骂名,但是在随后的武装冲突中,他却为此一败涂地。亨利四世决定向教皇请罪,表示诲意,以此希冀教皇解除将其逐出教门的惩罚,并撤回在其领土上的授权禁令。教皇寻求托斯坎尼区的玛蒂尔达伯爵夫人的庇佑,这位伯爵夫人是当时世界上最富有的女人,一位倾国倾城,睿智聪颖,极有品味的郡主。教皇躲进了她那气势恢宏的山间城堡,它建在离摩德纳市不远的卡诺萨。皇帝不得不在隆冬季节赤脚攀上城堡,前去叩头谢罪。这样一个令人拍案叫绝的故事却不曾成为一个大歌剧的主题,未知何也?或许已经有了。毋庸赘言,这次道歉并非真心实意,而悲剧则是以双方眼泪洗面告终。教皇临终时痛楚地说:“吾爱正义而恶不公:故而吾死于流放。”但是,教会迟迟不将这位杰出的人封为圣人,此事表明他们从一开始就未曾接受他对事件的说法。一个世纪之后,英格兰的亨利二世与贝克特大主教在同一问题上打得你死我活,不可开交;在他指使谋杀大主教之后,也做了道歉。这在某种程度上也并非诚心诚意,在亨利二世披上麻衣去忏悔之后,麻烦再度出现。贝克特主教至少也和希尔得布兰德一样放纵无度,然而他不但得到了光环,而且是以有史记载以来最快的速度得到的。再说啦,他算是个殉道者,这些殉道者比起其他类圣人,其被封圣的速度要快得多。

When I was an editor, I always preferred to apologise promptly, whatever the merits of the case, rather than face the expense and, more importantly, the time-consuming complexities and debilitating worry of litigation, libel being one of the least satisfactory branches of the law. When we took a crack at Dr Bodkin Adams, believing him to be dead, and his joyful lawyer

phoned me the next morning to tell me he was very much alive, I settled the matter there and then for the sum (if I remember correctly) of £450 and an apology. So my advice to editors is, get shot of claims quickly, unless the plaintiff's demands are manifestly unreasonable.

我还是编辑的时候,无论情况如何,我总是选择立马道歉,而不是去面对诉讼过程中所发生的费用,更为重要的是,去面对费时耗神的诉讼过程中产生的复杂情况。诽谤法是法律当中最不尽人意的部分。我们曾拿鲍德金·亚当姆斯医生开涮,还以为他已经死了;莅日,他的律师喜滋滋地打电话给我,告诉我亚当姆斯医生还活得好好的,我立时以一笔450 英镑(如果我没记错的话)的赔偿费和一句道歉的话了结此事。所以,我对编辑们的忠告是:对于赔偿要求要立马了结,除非原告的要求太离谱。

Besides, there is something distinguished about a ready apology. It is the mark of a gentleman, more particularly if it is not necessary. It is the opposite of revenge. Bacon wrote, "In seeking revenge, a man is but equal with his enemy, but in forgiving him, he is superior, for it is a princes' part to pardon." So, the person who apologises freely has the moral ball in his court.

此外,随时准备好一句道歉的话,是一种高尚行为,特别是在没有必要道歉时而道歉,更显示出一个绅士的特质。道歉与报复相对。培根有云:“夫图报复焉,汝与汝仇等:苟汝恕之,则汝优於汝仇焉;盖宽恕也,王者之风也。”由是,谁把“对不起”常挂在嘴边,谁就在道义上掌握了主动。(集体讨论范守义执笔)

On Going Home by Joan Didion

回家琼·狄迪恩

I am home for my daughter's first birthday. By "home" I do not mean the house in Los Angeles where my husband and I and the baby live, but the place where my family is, in the Central V alley of California. It is a vital although troublesome distinction. My husband likes my family but is uneasy in their house, because once there I fall into their ways, which are difficult, oblique, deliberately inarticulate, not my husband's ways. We live in dusty houses ("D-U-S-T," he once wrote with his finger on surfaces all over the house, but no one noticed it) filled with mementos quite without value to him (what could the Canton dessert plates. mean to him? How could he have known about the assay scales, why should he care if he did know?), and we appear to talk exclusively about people we know who have been committed to mental hospitals, about people we know who have been booked on drunk-driving charges, and about property, particularly about property, land, price per acre and C-2 zoning and assessments and freeway access. My brother does not understand my husband's inability to perceive the advantage in the rather common real-estate transaction known as "sale-leaseback," and my husband in turn does not understand why so many of the people he hears about in my father's house have recently been committed to mental hospitals or booked

on drunk-driving charges. Nor does he understand that when we talk about sale-leasebacks and right-of-way condemnations we are talking in code about the things we like best, the yellow fields and the cottonwoods and the rivers rising and falling and the mountain roads closing when the heavy snow comes in. We miss each other's points, have another drink and regard the fire. My brother refers to my husband, in his presence, as "Joan's husband." Marriage is the classic betrayal.

我回家给女儿过周岁生日。我所说的“家”,并非指丈夫,我和小宝宝在洛杉矶的家,而是指位于加州中央谷地的娘家。这样区分,尽管麻烦,却很重要。丈夫不是不喜欢我娘家的人,但是在我娘家却颇不自在。因为我一回去,就染上了娘家人的习惯,说起话来故意吞吞吐吐、拐弯抹角、令人费解,完全有别于丈夫的习惯。我们住在灰蒙蒙的屋子里(丈夫曾用手指在落满灰尘的地方都写上了“灰——尘”两个大字,只是没人注意),里面还摆满了纪念品,可在丈夫眼里这些东西毫无价值(粤式细瓷点心盘对他来说能有什么意义?他怎么可能了解分析天平?即使他了解,他又何必在意?)。在他看来,我们好像尽在那谈熟人,哪个被送进了精神病院,哪个被控酒后驾车。还谈财产,特别是地产、土地和地价,C-2区制规划及评估,还有高速公路的出入口,等等。弟弟弄不明白,我丈夫怎么连很平常的“售后回租”这种房地产交易的好处也不懂?丈夫也觉得奇怪,在我娘家为何听到这么多人最近被送进了精神病院,或是因酒后开车被控?其实丈夫不明白,我们谈售后回租和依法征用公共用地的时候,是在用娘家人特有的语言谈论最来劲的东西,像金黄色的田野、棉白杨、时涨时落的河水,以及下大雪时封闭的山路。话不投机,索性接着喝酒,默默注视着炉火。弟弟当着我丈夫的面,称他为“琼的丈夫”。结婚啊,从古到今,都意味着背叛。

Or perhaps it is not any more. Sometimes I think that those of us who are now in our thirties were born into the last generation to carry the burden of "home," to find in family life the source of all tension and drama. I had by all objective accounts a "normal "and a "happy " family situation, and yet I was almost thirty years old before I could talk to my family on the telephone without crying after I had hung up. We did not fight. Nothing was wrong. And yet some nameless anxiety colored the emotional charges between me and the place that I came from. The question of whether or not you could go home again was a very real part of the sentimental and largely literary baggage with which we left home in the fifties; I suspect that it is irrelevant to the children born of the fragmentation after World War II. A few weeks ago in a San Francisco bar I saw a pretty young girl on crystal take off her clothes and dance for the cash prize in an "amateur-topless" contest. There was no particular sense of moment about this, none of the effect of romantic degradation, of "dark journey," for which my generation strived so assiduously. What sense could that girl possibly make of, say, Long Day's Journey into Night? Who is beside the point?

或许,现在情况变了。我有时想,我们这些三十几岁的人,注定成为承担“家”的重负、并经受家庭生活中种种紧张和冲突的最后一代人。在别人的眼里,无论从哪方面看,我都曾拥有一个“正常”而“幸福”的家。然而,直到将近三十岁以前,我与娘家人通电话后总是要哭鼻子。我们没吵过架,也没出过岔子。但一丝莫名的忧虑,浸染了我和生我养我的家之间的情感纠葛。五十年代我们离家时,背负着一个装着伤感、多半是书籍的行囊。还能回家吗?这个问题便是行囊中实实在在的一部分。我想,这个问题大概与二战后破碎家庭里出生的孩子无关。几个礼拜前,在旧金山的一个酒吧里,我看见一位吸了毒的漂亮姑娘,脱去衣服跳舞,仅仅是为得到一场“业余无上装”比赛的现金奖励!这没有什么特别的意思,与浪漫沉沦沾不上边儿,与我们这一代人所趋之若鹜的“黑暗之旅”也沾不上边儿。那位姑娘呀,你对《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》作何理解?到底是谁离题了?

That I am trapped in this particular irrelevancy is never more apparent to me than when I am home. Paralyzed by the neurotic lassitude engendered by meeting one's past at every turn, around every corner, inside every cupboard, I go aimlessly from room to room. I decide to meet it head-on and clean out a drawer, and I spread the contents on the bed. A bathing suit I wore the summer I was seventeen. A letter of rejection from The Nation, an aerial photograph of the site for a shopping center my father did not build in 1954. Three teacups hand-painted with cabbage roses and signed "E.M.," my grandmother's initials. There is no fina l solution for letters of rejection from The Nation and teacups hand-painted in 1900. Nor is there any answer to snapshots of one's grandfather as a young man on skis, surveying around Donner Pass in the year 1910. I smooth out the snapshot and look into his face, and do and do not see my own. I close the drawer, and have another cup of coffee with my mother. We get along very well, veterans of a guerrilla war we never understood.

这个不相干的问题困扰着我,在我返回老家后尤为明显。走过每个角落,打开每个食橱,转身驻足间,我一次次地面对过去,思绪不宁,及至疲乏不堪,我还是漫无目的地逐个房间走着。我决意正视过去,清理出一个抽屉,把东西摊在床上。一件我十七岁那年夏天穿的泳衣;一封《民族》周刊的退稿信;一张从空中拍摄的选址照片,1954年父亲曾打算在那里建购物中心;还有三只茶杯,上面有手绘的百叶蔷薇,并签有祖母名字的两个首字母E.M.。我不知道该如何处理1900年手绘的茶杯和《民族》周刊的退稿信,也不知道该如何处理祖父1910年的几张快照。照片里的祖父青春年少,踩着滑雪板,在察看唐纳山口。我抚平照片,注视着祖父的脸,依稀看到自己的影子,又似乎没有。我关上抽屉,陪母亲又喝了一杯咖啡。我们现在相处得很好,就像打过游击战的老兵一样,真不明白过去为何有龃龉。

Days pass. I see no one. I come to dread my husband's evening call, not only because he is full of news of what by now seems to me our remote life in Los Angeles, people he has seen,

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