旅行的藝術(shù):Ⅷ 對美的擁有-9

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如果一個男子將車子停在一排高大的辦公樓對面的馬路邊，那么不太會有人猜測他正在作文字素描。惟一的提示就是一本記事本被按在方向盤上，上面是他在長長的注視期間偶爾涂鴉寫下的東西。

It would scarcely have been possible to guess that the man parked at the kerbside opposite a row of large office blocks was doing some word-painting. The only hint was a notepad pressed against the wheel, on which he occasionally scribbled something between long periods of staring.

現(xiàn)在是晚上11：30，我已經(jīng)繞著船塢開了幾個小時的車，并在倫敦城市機場前停下來喝了些咖啡（我一直想在這里看最后一班飛機，一架瑞航附屬的十字航空Avro RJ85型飛機，飛向蘇黎世的天空——或者飛往波德萊爾所說的“任何地方！任何地方！”）。在回家的路上，我望見了西印度船塢上巨大而明亮的高樓。辦公室似乎與四周樸素而微弱的燈光照亮下的房屋所形成的景致沒有任何關(guān)聯(lián)。它們出現(xiàn)在哈得孫河畔或是在前往卡納維拉爾角的飛機的一邊也許會更加合適。水蒸氣從兩座相鄰的高樓的頂部升起，整個區(qū)域被籠罩上了一層均勻、稀薄的霧氣。大部分樓層的燈依然亮著，甚至從遠(yuǎn)處都能看見室內(nèi)的計算機終端、會議室、花盆里的植物和活動掛圖。

It was eleven-thirty at night and I had been driving around the docks for several hours, stopping for coffee at London City Airport (where I had longingly watched the last flight, a Crossair Avro RJ85, take to the skies for Zurich-or for Baudelaire's 'Anywhere！ Anywhere！'). On my way home, I came upon the giant illuminated towers of the West India Docks. The offices seemed to have no connection with the surrounding landscape of modest and weakly lit houses. They would have been more at home on the banks of the Hudson or to one side of the space shuttle at Cape Canaveral. Steam was rising from the top of two adjacent towers and the whole area had been painted with an even, sparse coating of fog. The lights were still on in most floors, and even from a distance one could see computer terminals, meeting rooms, pot plants and flip charts inside.

這是一幅美麗的景色，并且，這種讓人留戀的美讓人心生擁有的渴望，如同羅斯金所說，這是一種只有藝術(shù)才能使之得到真正滿足的渴望。

It was a beautiful scene, and along with the impression of beauty came the desire to possess its source, a desire which, to follow Ruskin, only art could properly satisfy.

我開始了語言描畫。描述性的文字非常容易地源源涌出：辦公樓很高，其中一座的頂部就像金字塔，它兩側(cè)面有紅寶石般的亮光，天空不是黑色的，而是呈現(xiàn)出一種橘黃。但是由于一種寫實性描述似乎無法幫助我將景致如此動人的原因清楚地表達(dá)出來，我嘗試著用比較偏向于心理的語言去分析它的美。這片景致的特別之處似乎是那彌漫于高樓頂上的夜與霧。夜晚讓人將注意力轉(zhuǎn)向了白天被忽視的辦公樓的方方面面。在陽光的照射下，辦公樓顯得很普通，人們不會對它心生好奇，就像樓體上的玻璃不會吸引人的注意一樣。然而，夜晚卻傾覆了這種在白天被認(rèn)為是普通的東西；它允許人們看到室內(nèi)的情景，并且心生困惑，一切竟然都是如此奇特，令人吃驚和令人贊嘆！辦公室象征幾千人之間的秩序與合作，同時還代表嚴(yán)格管制與煩悶無聊。官僚視角的嚴(yán)肅性在夜晚被削弱了，或者至少遭到了質(zhì)疑。在黑暗中我們不禁感到好奇，活動掛圖和計算機終端有什么用呢？這并不是說它們是多余的，只是它們在黑暗中看起來比較怪異、可疑。

I began word-painting. Descriptive passages came most readily: the offices were tall, the top of one tower was like a pyramid, it had ruby-red lights on its side, the sky was not black but an orangey yellow. But because a factual description seemed not to help me in pinning down why the scene was impressive, I attempted to analyse its beauty in more psychological terms. The power of the scene appeared to be located in the effect of the night and of the fog on the towers. Night drew attention to facets of the offices that were submerged in the day. Lit by the sun, the offices could seem normal, they repelled questions as effectively as their windows repelled glances. But night upset this claim to normality; it allowed one to see inside and wonder at how strange, frightening and admirable they were. The offices embodied order and cooperation between thousands and at the same time regimentation and tedium. A bureaucratic vision of seriousness was undermined, or at least questioned, by the night. One wondered in the darkness what the flip charts and office terminals were for: not that they were redundant, just that they might be stranger and more dubitable than daylight had allowed us to think.

羅斯金：《阿爾卑斯山頂》，約1846年

與此同時，霧氣引來愁緒。霧氣彌漫的夜晚，猶如某種氣味，將我們帶回到我們曾經(jīng)經(jīng)歷過的，有著相同氣息的其他時刻。我想起了在大學(xué)的夜晚，沿著燈光下的運動場走回住所；想起了那時的生活與現(xiàn)在的生活之間的區(qū)別，那些曾經(jīng)困擾我的各種困境和失落讓我產(chǎn)生了一種苦樂交集的傷感。

At the same time, fog ushered nostalgia. Foggy nights may, like certain smells, carry us back to other times we experienced them. I thought of nights at university, walking home along illuminated playing fields; and of the differences between my life then and now, which led to a bittersweet sadness for difficulties that had beset me then and precious things that had since been lost.

現(xiàn)在車身到處都是小紙片。語言描畫的成果和我在朗戴爾谷畫的幼稚的橡樹圖之間區(qū)別并不大。然而作品好壞并不是關(guān)鍵。我至少已按照羅斯金所指出的兩個藝術(shù)目的中的一個去做了，那就是了解痛苦，并探尋美的根源。

There were bits of paper all over the car now. The standard of the word-painting was not far above that of my childlike drawing of an oak tree in the Langdale valley. But quality was not the point. I had at least attempted to follow one strand of what Ruskin judged to be the twin purposes of art: to make sense of pain and to fathom the sources of beauty.

如同他在一群學(xué)生向他展示英國鄉(xiāng)間旅游時所畫的糟糕作品時所指出的：“我相信視覺比繪畫來得重要；我寧愿教我的學(xué)生繪畫，從而讓他們學(xué)會熱愛自然，而不會教他們盯著自然，從而讓他們學(xué)會如何繪畫。”

And, as he had pointed out when presented with a series of misshapen drawings that a group of his pupils had produced on their travels through the English countryside: 'I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing; and I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw.'