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雙語·月亮與六便士 第五十章

所屬教程:譯林版·月亮與六便士

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2022年04月27日

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I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not.They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage.They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known.Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves.Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth.Here at last he fnds rest.

I told Tiaré the story of a man I had known at St.Thomas’s Hospital.He was a Jew named Abraham, a blond, rather stout young man, shy and very unassuming;but he had remarkable gifts.He entered the hospital with a scholarship, and during the fve years of the curriculum gained every prize that was open to him.He was made house-physician and house-surgeon.His brilliance was allowed by all.Finally he was elected to a position on the staff, and his career was assured.So far as human things can be predicted, it was certain that he would rise to the greatest heights of his profession.Honours and wealth awaited him.Before he entered upon his new duties he wished to take a holiday, and, having no private means, he went as surgeon on a tramp steamer to the Levant.It did not generally carry a doctor, but one of the senior surgeons at the hospital knew a director of the line, and Abraham was taken as a favour.

In a few weeks the authorities received his resignation of the coveted position on the staff. It created profound astonishment, and wild rumours were current.Whenever a man does anything unexpected, his fellows ascribe it to the most discreditable motives.But there was a man ready to step into Abraham's shoes, and Abraham was forgotten.Nothing more was heard of him.He vanished.

It was perhaps ten years later that one morning on board ship, about to land at Alexandria, I was bidden to line up with the other passengers for the doctor's examination. The doctor was a stout man in shabby clothes, and when he took off his hat I noticed that he was very bald.I had an idea that I had seen him before.Suddenly I remembered.

“Abraham,”I said.

He turned to me with a puzzled look, and then, recognizing me, seized my hand. After expressions of surprise on either side, hearing that I meant to spend the night in Alexandria, he asked me to dine with him at the English Club.When we met again I declared my astonishment at finding him there.It was a very modest position that he occupied, and there was about him an air of straitened circumstance.Then he told me his story.When he set out on his holiday in the Mediterranean he had every intention of returning to London and his appointment at St. Thomas's.One morning the tramp docked at Alexandria, and from the deck he looked at the city, white in the sunlight, and the crowd on the wharf;he saw the natives in their shabby gabardines, the blacks from the Sudan, the noisy throng of Greeks and Italians, the grave Turks in tarbooshes, the sunshine and the blue sky;and something happened to him.He could not describe it.It was like a thunder-clap, he said, and then, dissatisfed with this, he said it was like a revelation.Something seemed to twist his heart, and suddenly he felt an exultation, a sense of wonderful freedom.He felt himself at home, and he made up his mind there and then, in a minute, that he would live the rest of his life in Alexandria.He had no great difficulty in leaving the ship, and in twenty-four hours, with all his belongings, he was on shore.

“The Captain must have thought you as mad as a hatter,”I smiled.

“I didn't care what anybody thought. It wasn't I that acted, but something stronger within me.I thought I would go to a little Greek hotel, while I looked about, and I felt I knew where to find one.And do you know, I walked straight there, and when I saw it I recognized it at once.”

“Had you been to Alexandria before?”

“No;I'd never been out of England in my life.”

Presently he entered the Government service, and there he had been ever since.

“Have you never regretted it?”

“Never, not for a minute. I earn just enough to live upon, and I'm satisfed.I ask nothing more than to remain as I am till I die.I've had a wonderful life.”

I left Alexandria next day, and I forgot about Abraham till a little while ago, when I was dining with another old friend in the profession, Alec Carmichael, who was in England on short leave. I ran across him in the street and congratulated him on the knighthood with which his eminent services during the war had been rewarded.We arranged to spend an evening together for old time's sake, and when I agreed to dine with him, he proposed that he should ask nobody else, so that we could chat without interruption.He had a beautiful old house in Queen Anne Street, and being a man of taste he had furnished it admirably.On the walls of the dining-room I saw a charming Bellotto, and there was a pair of Zoffanys that I envied.When his wife, a tall, lovely creature in cloth of gold, had left us, I remarked laughingly on the change in his present circumstances from those when we had both been medical students.We had looked upon it then as an extravagance to dine in a shabby Italian restaurant in the Westminster Bridge Road.Now Alec Carmichael was on the staff of half a dozen hospitals.I should think he earned ten thousand a year, and his knighthood was but the frst of the honours which must inevitably fall to his lot.

“I've done pretty well,”he said,“but the strange thing is that I owe it all to one piece of luck.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, do you remember Abraham?He was the man who had the future. When we were students he beat me all along the line.He got the prizes and the scholarships that I went in for.I always played second fddle to him.If he'd kept on he'd be in the position I'm in now.That man had a genius for surgery.No one had a look in with him.When he was appointed Registrar at St.Thomas's I hadn't a chance of getting on the staff.I should have had to become a G.P.,and you know what likelihood there is for a G.P.ever to get out of the common rut.But Abraham fell out, and I got the job.That gave me my opportunity.”

“I dare say that's true.”

“It was just luck. I suppose there was some kink in Abraham.Poor devil, he's gone to the dogs altogether.He's got some twopenny-halfpenny job in the medical at Alexandria-sanitary officer or something like that.I'm told he lives with an ugly old Greek woman and has half a dozen scrofulous kids.The fact is, I suppose, that it's not enough to have brains.The thing that counts is character.Abraham hadn't got character.”

Character?I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour's meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense signifcance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step.But I said nothing, and Alec Carmichael proceeded refectively:

“Of course it would be hypocritical for me to pretend that I regret what Abraham did. After all, I've scored by it.”He puffed luxuriously at the long Corona he was smoking.“But if I weren't personally concerned I should be sorry at the waste.It seems a rotten thing that a man should make such a hash of life.”

I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life;and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife?I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual.But again I held my tongue, for who am I to argue with a knight?

我有種看法,一些人出生在了本不屬于他們的地方。偶然的事件把他們置于特定的環(huán)境中,但是他們對于他們自己都不知道的家園總有一種思鄉(xiāng)之情。對于出生地而言,他們反而成了陌生人,從孩童時期他們就熟知的鋪滿落葉的小巷,或者他們曾經(jīng)玩耍過的熙熙攘攘的街道,對他們來說,都只不過是人生旅途中的一站罷了。在他們的親友中度過了整個人生,卻還形單影只,在他們熟悉的場景中仍感到孤獨落寞。也許正是這種陌生感,使得人們滿世界去尋找某種永恒的東西,這種永恒的東西成為他們的依附之所。說不定某種根深蒂固的返祖現(xiàn)象驅策著浮萍般的漫游者重回故地,這塊土地是他的祖先在遠古時代一片混沌中離開的。有時一個人碰巧來到一個冥冥之中他感到是自己所屬的地方,這兒是他尋找的家園,他在前所未見的場景中駐扎下去,在他從未見過的人當中安頓下來,好像他從出生的那一刻起,就跟這些人很熟悉。最后,就是在這兒,他找到了安息之所。

我給蒂亞瑞講了一個我在圣托馬斯醫(yī)院所認識的人的故事。他是一個猶太人,名叫亞伯拉罕。他是個一頭金發(fā)、相當結實的年輕人。性格靦腆,十分謙遜,但是他有很突出的能力。他是帶著獎學金進入醫(yī)院實習的,在五年的課程學習中,囊括了所有他有資格參評的獎項。他先后當了住院內(nèi)科醫(yī)生、住院外科醫(yī)生。他的才華有目共睹,得到大家的一致認可。最后,他被選舉進了醫(yī)院的領導層,事業(yè)蒸蒸日上,只要世事可料,就完全可以肯定,他會爬到這個行業(yè)的最高層,各種榮譽和財富在向他招手。在他就任新的崗位之前,他希望去度個假,由于他自己沒錢,他在一艘開往黎凡特[88]的不定期貨輪找了個住船醫(yī)生的臨時活兒。一般來說,這種貨輪上是沒有醫(yī)生的,只因這家醫(yī)院一位資深的醫(yī)生認識這條航線上的主管,于是亞伯拉罕利用這層便利條件得到了這個職位。

幾周之后,醫(yī)院當局就接到了亞伯拉罕的辭職信,宣稱放棄多少人夢寐以求的職位。大家在震驚之余,傳聞沸沸揚揚。無論什么時候,只要有人做出什么出人意料的舉動,他身邊的人就會把這種舉動歸因于最難以置信的動機。但是,準備填補亞伯拉罕位置的大有人在,很快他就被人們遺忘了。從此以后,他也杳無音訊,就像在地球上消失了一般。

過了大約十年,有一天上午,我乘船去亞歷山大港。按照吩咐我和其他乘客一起排隊等著醫(yī)生的檢查。這個醫(yī)生是個矮壯的人,穿得破破爛爛。當他脫掉帽子的時候,我注意到他的頭已經(jīng)全禿了。一閃念間,我覺得以前好像在哪里見過他。突然,我記起來了。

“亞伯拉罕?!蔽医械馈?/p>

他滿臉困惑地轉向我,隨后,也認出了我,一把抓住了我的手。我們兩個一通他鄉(xiāng)遇故知的驚喜表白之后,知道我打算在亞歷山大港待一個晚上,亞伯拉罕邀請我和他一起去一家英國人的俱樂部共進晚餐。到了晚上,我們再次碰面的時候,我表示在這兒遇見他讓我感到很吃驚,他現(xiàn)在的職位很低微,而且好像日子過得也很窘迫。接下來,他向我講述了自己的故事。當他出發(fā)去地中海度假的時候,本是打算度完假后,就回倫敦到圣托馬斯醫(yī)院上班。一天清晨,當船停泊在亞歷山大港,他從甲板上眺望這座城市,在陽光中,城市呈現(xiàn)一片白色,碼頭上熙熙攘攘;他還看到穿著破爛長袍[89]的當?shù)厝?,從蘇丹來的黑人,吵吵鬧鬧成群結隊的希臘人和意大利人,戴著塔布什帽[90]、表情嚴肅的土耳其人。在陽光和藍天下,他心中有種東西觸動了自己,這種東西他說不清,道不明,他說道,就像平地里的一聲驚雷。然后,他好像不滿意這種說法,他又說,像某種天啟。這種東西在他心中糾結,突然他感到一陣狂喜,一種美妙的、自由的感覺,覺得回到了故國家園,當時當?shù)?,他很快就下定了決心,要在亞歷山大港度過他的余生。他沒費什么周折就離開了那艘船,二十四小時后,帶著他的所有行李物品,他已經(jīng)到了岸上。

“船長一定覺得你完全瘋了?!蔽倚χf。

“我不在乎別人怎么想,好像不是我自己在行動,而是我靈魂中更為強大的東西在驅使我這樣做。我四下觀望,覺得應該去一家小希臘旅館,好像我知道路怎么走,你知道,我直接就走到了那里,當我看見這家旅館時,我馬上就認出了它?!?/p>

“你以前來過亞歷山大港?”

“沒來過,我以前從沒離開過英格蘭?!?/p>

很快他在一個政府服務部門找到了工作,從那以后他就一直待在那里了。

“你后悔過嗎?”

“沒有,一分鐘也沒有過,我的收入僅夠糊口,但是我很滿足。我別無所求,只希望這樣生活,直到我死去,我過著一種自己想要的生活。”

第二天我就離開了亞歷山大港,也快忘了亞伯拉罕的事了,直到不久前,我和從事醫(yī)療行當?shù)牧硗庖晃焕吓笥殉燥垥r,才又想了起來。我這位老朋友叫艾列克·卡米歇爾,當時回來在英國短期度假,我在街上偶然遇見了他,并祝賀他因為戰(zhàn)時卓越的貢獻而獲封爵士稱號。我們倆打算找一天晚上好好敘敘舊,我答應和他一塊兒吃個飯,他也提議為了不被打擾,別的人他都不叫了,就我們倆。他在安妮女王大街有一棟古老的漂亮房子,作為一個品味高雅的人,他把房子拾掇得讓人艷羨。在餐廳四周的墻上,我看見一幅迷人的貝洛托[91]的畫,還有兩幅讓我羨慕不已的佐范尼[92]的畫。他的妻子個頭高挑,身著金光閃閃的衣服,長相討人喜歡,跟我打了個招呼就離開了。我笑著打趣他說,和我們倆還是醫(yī)學院的窮酸學生時相較,他已經(jīng)是鳥槍換炮,今非昔比了。我們倆上學時如果能在位于威斯敏斯特橋大街的一家寒酸的意大利小餐館里撮上一頓,都覺得太過奢侈?,F(xiàn)在,艾列克在六七家醫(yī)院做特聘醫(yī)生,我想他一年能收入一萬英鎊,他的爵士封號只不過是眾多榮譽的開端罷了,以后這樣的榮譽肯定會滾滾而來。

“我混得不錯,”他說,“不過,奇怪的是,我所得到的這一切歸于一次好運氣?!?/p>

“你這話是什么意思?”

“好吧,你還記得亞伯拉罕吧?他本來是前途無量的,我們還是學生時,他的成績一直壓著我,我孜孜以求的各種獎項和獎學金都被他拿了。我總是落后他一步,如果他繼續(xù)干下去,我今天的位置就是他的了。這家伙簡直就是拿手術刀的天才,沒人能跟他一決高下。他被任命為圣托馬斯醫(yī)院的主治醫(yī)生時,我根本還沒有機會進入醫(yī)院,我只能做個全科醫(yī)生,你也知道全科醫(yī)生當時是什么樣的狀態(tài),我甚至都無法逃脫全科醫(yī)生最終的老路。但是亞伯拉罕給我讓出了位置,我得到了那份本屬于他的工作。從那以后,我就時來運轉了?!?/p>

“這倒真是這么回事?!?/p>

“這就是運氣,我想亞伯拉罕不定自己糾結什么事呢,可憐的家伙,他從此一蹶不振了。他在亞歷山大港的醫(yī)療部門找了一份工作——檢疫員之類的活兒,掙個三核倆棗的。有人告訴我說,他和一個又老又丑的希臘娘們生活在一起,生了六七個長得疙里疙瘩的孩子。我覺得,事實上,光是腦子好使還不夠,起決定作用的還是性格,亞伯拉罕性格上就有缺陷?!?/p>

性格?我應該能想到,正是因為太有性格了,所以只經(jīng)過半個小時的思考,就把一個好端端的事業(yè)給扔了。因為你看到了另一種生活方式更加有意義,而且它要求有更多的性格,才絕不會后悔所邁出的突然的一步。但是我什么也沒說,而艾列克·卡米歇爾繼續(xù)若有所思地說:

“當然啦,如果我假裝為亞伯拉罕所做的一切感到惋惜的話,我就太虛偽了,畢竟,我從中得到太多的好處。”他抽著一支長長的克羅納牌雪茄煙,愜意地吐著煙圈,“但是,如果不是從個人的角度考慮這個問題,我還是為這個天才的荒廢感到難過,一個人把生活搞成這樣一團亂麻,似乎是糟糕透頂?shù)氖虑??!?/p>

我倒是想知道亞伯拉罕是否真的把生活搞成了一團亂麻。做自己最想做的事,在某種條件下,過一種讓自己最開心的生活,自己始終處于淡泊寧靜之中,難道就是生活成了亂麻嗎?而且,成為一名年收入一萬英鎊的著名外科醫(yī)生,再娶上一個漂亮的太太,難道就是成功的標志嗎?我想這取決于你對生活賦予什么意義,取決于你對社會應盡什么義務,取決于你對自己有什么要求。然而,我再次保持了緘默,因為我怎么可以和一名爵士去爭辯什么呢?

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