旅行的藝術(shù):動機(jī) Ⅲ 異國情調(diào)-8

8

8

即將作別埃及，福樓拜感到心煩意亂?！昂螘r我才能再見到棕櫚樹？何時我才能再次騎上單峰駝……”他黯然自問，而這以后，畢其一生他都只是在夢、想之中頻頻眷顧這個國度。1880年，福樓拜溘然辭世。在臨終的前幾天，他還對他的侄女卡羅琳說：“兩周來，我一直都盼著能看到藍(lán)天下傲立的棕櫚樹，盼著能聽到光塔頂上鸛雀咂嘴的聲音?！?

When the time came to leave Egypt, Flaubert was distraught. 'When will I see a palm tree again? When will I climb on a dromedary again? … ' he asked, and for the rest of his life, he was to return constantly to the country in his mind. A few days before his death in 1880, he told his niece Caroline: 'For the past two weeks I have been gripped by the longing to see a palm-tree standing out against a blue sky, and to hear a stork clacking its beak at the top of a minaret.'

福樓拜與埃及的一世情緣似乎在鼓動我們珍視，并加深我們對某些國家的迷戀。從年少時起，福樓拜就堅持認(rèn)為自己不是法國人。他對自己的國家和自己的國民的憎惡是如此之深，以至于他的法國公民的身份近乎是一種嘲諷。他也因此提出一種新的方法來確定一個人的國籍：不是按照一個人的出生之地，亦非依據(jù)他家庭的歸屬來決定其國籍；一個人的國籍因取決于他所喜愛的地方。（對他而言，把這個尚不確定的概念從“喜歡的地方”延伸到“性別”和“種族”也許更合邏輯；他曾經(jīng)在某個場合宣稱，不可以貌取人，他其實(shí)是一個女人、一只駱駝和一只熊。“我想給自己買一只漂亮的熊，我說的是畫上的熊，把它裝裱好，掛在我的臥室里，并在畫的下面寫上‘古斯塔夫·福樓拜的畫像’，以此來表明我的道德取向和社交習(xí)慣。”）

Flaubert's lifelong relationship with Egypt seems like an invitation to deepen and respect our attraction to certain countries. From his adolescence onwards, Flaubert insisted that he was not French. His hatred of his country and its people was so profound, it made a mockery of his civil status. And hence he proposed a new way of ascribing nationality: not according to the country one was born in or to which one's family belonged, but according to the places to which one was attracted. (It was only logical for him to extend this more flexible concept of identity to gender and species and for him to declare on occasion that, contrary to appearances, he was in truth a woman, a camel and a bear. 'I want to buy myself a beautiful bear, a painting of one, frame it and hang it in my bedroom, with written beneath it Portrait of Gustave Flaubert to suggest my moral disposition and social habits.')

還在學(xué)生時代，福樓拜剛從科西嘉度假回家，就在一封信里第一次表達(dá)了他是屬于法國以外的另一個地方的想法：“回到這個鬼國家，我感到很惡心，這里你常能看到太陽懸在天上，像是一顆鉆石鑲在豬的屁股上。我才不管什么‘諾曼底族’和‘可愛的法蘭西’……我想一定是風(fēng)將我吹到這個泥淖之邦；我敢肯定我生在別處——我一直都有一種對飄香的海岸和蔚藍(lán)的大海的感覺，像是記憶，或者說是直覺。我生來本是交趾支那的皇帝，吸著100英尺長的煙管，娶有6000名妻妾，還有1400個孌童，擁有努米底亞的好馬和大理石鋪成的水池，還佩戴著短彎刀，可以隨時用它們割下那些我認(rèn)為長得難看的人的頭顱……”

Flaubert's first development of the idea that he belonged somewhere other than France came in a letter written as a schoolboy on his return from a holiday in Corsica: 'I'm disgusted to be back in this damned country where you see the sun in the sky about as often as a diamond in a pig's arse. I don't give a shit for Normandy and la belle France … I think I must have been transplanted by the winds to this land of mud; surely I was born elsewhere-I've always had what seem like memories or intuitions of perfumed shores and blue seas. I was born to be the emperor of Cochin-China, to smoke 100-foot pipes, to have 6,000 wives and 1,400 catamites, scimitars to slice off heads I don't like the look of, Numidian horses, marble pools … '

找個地方來替代“可愛的法蘭西”也許不切實(shí)際，但這封信里所潛含的要旨，即是風(fēng)將他吹到這個國家的信念在他長大成人后仍被重復(fù)提及，并得到了更合理的解釋。埃及之旅結(jié)束后，福樓拜試圖向路易斯·科萊（“我的蘇丹”）解釋他的國家身份的理論（但與種族和性別無涉）：“至于說祖國，也就是可以在地圖上找到的、用紅色或藍(lán)色界線分隔出來的一小塊地方，這種觀念是不對的。對我來說，祖國是我熱愛的國度，換言之，是一個給我夢想，讓我舒暢的國度。在我身上，中國人的特性并不比法國人的特性少，而我們戰(zhàn)勝了阿拉伯世界的事實(shí)并不能讓我高興，相反，我為阿拉伯世界的失敗而悲傷。我熱愛那些粗獷、韌毅、剛強(qiáng)的國民——他們是最后的原始人。中午，他們躺在駱駝肚皮下的陰涼里，一邊吸著長長的煙管，一邊取笑我們所謂的優(yōu)秀文明，他們的取笑讓‘優(yōu)秀文明’里的人震怒不已……”

The alternative to la belle France may have been impractical, but the underlying principle of the letter, the belief that he had been 'transplanted by the winds', was to find repeated and more reasoned expression in his maturity. On his return from Egypt, Flaubert attempted to explain his theory of national identity (but not of species or gender) to Louise Colet ('my sultan'): 'As for the idea of a native country, that is to say, of a certain bit of ground traced out on a map and separated from others by a red or blue line: no. My native country is for me the country that I love, that is, the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well. I am as much Chinese as French, and I don't rejoice about our victories over the Arabs because I'm saddened by their defeats. I love those harsh, enduring, hardy people, the last of the primitives, who at midday, lie down in the shade under the bellies of their camels, and while smoking their chibouks, poke fun at our good civilization, which quivers with rage about it … '

路易斯在回復(fù)中表示，把福樓拜視為中國人或阿拉伯人是荒謬的。幾天后，我們的小說家在給路易斯的回信中作了回應(yīng)，堅持和強(qiáng)調(diào)了自己的立場，并顯得有些不耐煩：“與其說我是現(xiàn)代人，不如說我是古代人；與其說我是法國人，不如說我是中國人。祖國的觀念，亦即一個人必須生活在地圖上用紅色或藍(lán)色所標(biāo)示的一小塊土地上，并且仇恨那些生活在用綠色或黑色標(biāo)示的地塊上的人們，在我看來，這是狹隘、蒙昧和極端愚蠢的。我是所有活著的生物的兄弟，是人的兄弟，同樣地，也是長頸鹿和鱷魚的兄弟。”

Louise replied that she found it absurd to think of Flaubert as being either Chinese or Arab, and so, in a letter a few days later, the novelist returned to the charge with greater emphasis and irritation: 'I'm no more modern than ancient, no more French than Chinese, and the idea of a native country, that is to say, the imperative to live on one bit of ground marked red or blue on the map and to hate the other bits in green or black, has always seemed to me narrow-minded, blinkered and profoundly stupid. I am a soul brother to everything that lives, to the giraffe and to the crocodile as much as to man.'

我們，所有的人，都是因為風(fēng)而四散各地，然后在一個國家出生，我們無法選擇自己的出生之地；但是，和福樓拜一樣，我們長大成人后，都有依據(jù)內(nèi)心的忠誠來想象性地重造我們的國家身份的自由。如果我們厭煩了自己正式的國籍（在福樓拜的《成見詞典》中，“法國”的解釋是“看著旺多姆紀(jì)念碑，人們一定會因為自己是法國人而無比自豪”），我們可以回復(fù)到真正的自我，不再是諾曼底人，而更像是一個貝都因人 [15] ，在干熱的南風(fēng)中快樂地騎著駱駝，坐在快餐店里用餐，毫不忌諱身旁有驢子拉屎，也樂于參與愛德華·萊恩所謂的“淫穢而放肆的談話”。

We have all, without choosing, been scattered at birth by the wind on to a country, but, like Flaubert, we are in adulthood granted the freedom imaginatively to re-create our identity in line with our true allegiances. When weary with our official nationality (from Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas : FRENCH 'How proud one is to be French when one looks at the Colonne Vend?me'), we may withdraw to the parts of ourselves that are more bedouin than Normand, that delight in riding on a camel through a khamsin, in sitting in cafés beside shitting donkeys and in engaging in what Edward Lane called 'licentious conversation'.

有人問蘇格拉底他從哪里來，蘇格拉底回答說，他來自世界而非雅典。福樓拜生于魯昂（在他年輕時的記述中，魯昂有如地獄，在那里，中規(guī)中矩的公民們在星期天因為太過無聊，只好“可笑地手淫”），但他的另一面，阿布·尚納卜，胡子之父，也許會回答說，他，福樓拜，也有理由屬于埃及。

When he was asked where he came from, Socrates said not from Athens but from the world. Flaubert was from Rouen (in his youthful account, a place drowning in 'merde' and where the good citizens 'wank themselves silly' on a Sunday from boredom), and yet Abu-Chanab, the Father of the Moustache, might have answered, perhaps a little from Egypt too.