旅行的藝術(shù):回歸 Ⅸ 習(xí)慣-5

5

5

我試圖繞著我的臥室旅行，但是它這么小，幾乎連一張床也容納不下，以至于我得出結(jié)論，如果德·梅伊斯特的理論應(yīng)用于我居住的小區(qū)，或許會更有價值。

I attempted to travel around my bedroom, but it was so small, with barely enough space for a bed, that I concluded that the De Maistrean message might prove more rewarding if it was applied to the neighbourhood as a whole.

因此，在3月間一個晴朗的下午，大約3點左右，在我從巴巴多斯回家?guī)字芎?，我開始以德·梅伊斯特式的旅行方式環(huán)游哈默史密斯。在正午外出，而腦子里沒有特定的目的，使我感到有些奇怪。一個婦女和兩個金發(fā)小孩正沿著主干道往前走，道路兩旁是各式各樣的商店和飯館。一輛雙層巴士停在一座小公園的對面搭載乘客。一塊巨大的廣告板上刷著肉汁的廣告。我?guī)缀趺刻於夹凶咴谶@條通往地鐵站的道路上，并且只習(xí)慣于把它想成是到達我的目的地的必經(jīng)之途?？梢詭椭覍崿F(xiàn)目標(biāo)的信息吸引著我的注意力，無法吸引我的是那些被判斷為不相干的事物。于是我留心觀察人行道上行人的數(shù)量，因為他們可能擋住我的去路，反之我無視于他們的臉和表情，就如同無視于建筑物的形狀或是商店里的活動一樣。

So on a clear March day, at around three in the afternoon, several weeks after my return home from Barbados, I set out on a de Maistrean journey around Hammersmith. It felt peculiar to be outside in the middle of the day with no particular goal in mind. A woman and two small blond children were walking along the main road, which was lined with a variety of shops and restaurants. A double-decker bus had stopped to pick up passengers opposite a small park. A giant billboard was advertising gravy. I walked along this particular road almost every day to reach my Underground station and was unused to considering it as anything other than a means to my end. Information that assisted me in my goal attracted my attention, what did not was judged irrelevant. I was therefore sensitive to the number of people on the pavement, for they might interrupt my path, whereas their faces and expressions were invisible to me, as invisible as the shapes of the buildings or the activity in the shops.

情形也并不總是這樣。剛搬到這一地區(qū)的時候，我關(guān)注的事物并不只限于這幾點上。那時候，我還不會一心只想趕快到我要去的地方，而對周圍場景視而不見。

It had not always been thus. When I had first moved to the area, my attention had been less jealously focused. I had at that time not settled so firmly on the goal of reaching the Underground quickly.

剛進入一個新的地方的時候，我們的敏感性會引領(lǐng)我們注意很多東西，等到確認這個地方對我們而言有何功能之后，我們注意的東西就會越來越少。比方說，在一條街上或許有4000種事物可以看到和想到，我們最后積極關(guān)注的卻只有其中的3到4件：在我們所走的路上的行人的數(shù)量、交通車輛的數(shù)量和下雨的可能性。我們最初對一輛公共汽車也許會從審美或機械構(gòu)成的角度看待它，或許它會引發(fā)我們對城市內(nèi)社區(qū)的思考，但久而久之，它在我們眼中變成了可以移動的盒子，它可以快速地把我們送到目的地，而路過的區(qū)域仿佛是不存在的，因為它們跟目的地?zé)o關(guān)。車窗外，一切都歸于黑暗，什么都無法進入我們的視野。

On entering a new space, our sensitivity is directed towards a number of elements, which we gradually reduce in line with the function we find for the space. Of the 4,000 things there might be to see and reflect on in a street, we end up actively aware of only a few: the number of humans in our path, the amount of traffic and the likelihood of rain. A bus, which we might at first have viewed aesthetically or mechanically or as a springboard to thoughts about communities within cities, becomes simply a box to move us as rapidly as possible across an area which might as well not exist, so unconnected is it to our primary goal, outside of which all is darkness, all is invisible.

我已經(jīng)為街道限定了一系列可被稱為有趣的東西的范圍，其中沒有金發(fā)的小孩、肉汁廣告、鋪就人行道的石子、店面的色調(diào)以及店員和領(lǐng)養(yǎng)老金的人們的表情。我只關(guān)注于自己的首要目標(biāo)，而不會去考慮公園的布局，也不會注意到同一條街上竟然雜陳著喬治亞式、維多利亞式和愛德華式的建筑。我行走在這條道路上，不會感受到任何美的吸引，不會產(chǎn)生任何聯(lián)想，沒有什么東西能讓我感到驚異或感動，我也無從萌發(fā)哲思。而代之，只有一個強烈的呼喚，那就是盡可能快地到達地鐵站。

I had imposed a grid of interests on the street, which left no space for blond children and gravy adverts and paving stones and the colours of shop fronts and the expressions of businesspeople and pensioners. The power of my primary goal had drained me of the will to reflect on the layout of the park or on the unusual mixture of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian architecture along a single block. My walks along the street had been excised of any attentiveness to beauty, of any associative thoughts, any sense of wonder or gratitude, any philosophical digressions sparked by visual elements. And in its place, there was simply an insistent call to reach the Underground posthaste.

然而，追隨著德·梅伊斯特，我嘗試顛倒習(xí)慣的過程，并在抵達目的地前，嘗試分離我周圍的環(huán)境和我以往為這些地方所設(shè)定的用途。我強迫自己遵循一種特殊的精神命令：環(huán)顧我的四周，仿佛我從前從未來過這里。慢慢地，我的旅行開始有了收獲。

However, following De Maistre, I tried to reverse the process of habituation, to disassociate my surroundings from the uses I had found for them until then. I forced myself to obey a peculiar kind of mental command: to look around me as though I had never been in this place before. And slowly, my travels began to bear fruit.

我告訴自己，這里的每件東西都可能是有趣的，眼前的事物于是開始顯現(xiàn)出潛在的價值。在原有的看法中，一長排商店不過是一片沒有特色的紅色建筑，但細看之下，我對這種建筑風(fēng)格產(chǎn)生了認同。一家花店的兩旁有喬治亞風(fēng)格的柱子，肉店的頂部是維多利亞時代后期哥特式風(fēng)格的怪獸狀噴水口。飯館里滿是用餐的人，而不是各種只會動的形狀。在一座裝有玻璃門的辦公樓里，我注意到一些人在一樓的會議室里做著手勢。有人在使用投影儀，投影圖上顯出一張餅狀圖。與此同時，就在辦公室對面的道路上，一個男人正在為人行道鋪設(shè)新的水泥板，并仔細地固定它們的邊角。我上了一輛公共汽車，這回我沒有過多地考慮自己的事情，而是嘗試著富有想象力地把自己同其他乘客聯(lián)系起來。我能聽到我前面一排的乘客交談。在某個辦公室里的某個人——很顯然級別相當(dāng)高的一個人，不曾嘗試?yán)斫馑?。這些級別相當(dāng)高的人們抱怨別人效率多么地低，但從來不反省他們做了些什么使問題更加嚴(yán)重。我想到了在同一座城市同一時間里處于不同生活水平上的人的多樣性。我想到人們相類似的抱怨，他們抱怨別人自私，有眼無珠，但實質(zhì)上，我們對別人的抱怨也就是別人對我們的抱怨。

Under the command to consider everything as of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value. A row of shops which I had known as one large, undifferentiated reddish block acquired an architectural identity. There were Georgian pillars around one flower shop, and late Victorian Gothic-style gargoyles on top of the butcher's. A restaurant became filled with diners rather than shapes. In a glass-fronted office block, I noticed some people gesticulating in a boardroom on the first floor. Someone was drawing a pie chart on an overhead projector. At the same time, just across the road from the office, a man was pouring out new slabs of concrete for the pavement and carefully shaping their corners. I got on a bus and, rather than slipping at once into private concerns, tried to connect imaginatively with other passengers. I could hear a conversation in the row ahead of me. Someone in an office somewhere, a person quite high up in the hierarchy apparently, didn't understand. They complained of how inefficient others were, but never reflected on what they might have been doing to increase that inefficiency. I thought of the multiplicity of lives going on at the same time at different levels in a city. I thought of the similarities of complaints-always selfishness, always blindness-and the old psychological truth that what we complain of in others, others will complain of in us.

周遭的一切不僅包括人和風(fēng)格鮮明的建筑，而且開始聚集理念。我思考涌入這個區(qū)域的新財富。我試圖判斷出我為什么如此喜歡鐵路的拱門以及為什么要修建切過地平線的高速公路。

The neighbourhood did not just acquire people and defined buildings, it also began to collect ideas. I reflected on the new wealth that was spreading into the area. I tried to think why I liked railway arches so much, and why the motorway that cut across the skyline.

獨自旅行似乎有一個優(yōu)點。我們對世界的看法通常在極大程度上受到我們周圍人們的影響，我們調(diào)和自己的求知欲去滿足別人的期待。他們或許已認定我們是怎樣的人，因此我們不得不有意識地隱藏自己身上的某些東西。“我沒想到你是那種對公路路橋感興趣的人，”他們也許會以一種讓你不自在的口吻說出他們的看法。被一個同伴近距離地觀察會阻止我們觀察別人，我們忙于調(diào)整自己以滿足同伴的疑問和評價，我們不得不讓自己看上去更正常，這樣一來便影響了我們的求知欲。但是獨自一人行走在哈默史密斯的正午，我卻沒有這樣的顧慮。我可以無拘無束地做出些奇怪的舉動。我描下了一家五金店的窗戶的草圖，并用生動的語言描繪了公路路橋。

It seemed an advantage to be travelling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by whom we are with, we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others. They may have a particular vision of who we are and hence subtly prevent certain sides of us from emerging: 'I hadn't thought of you as someone who was interested in flyovers,' they might intimidatingly suggest. Being closely observed by a companion can inhibit us from observing others, we become taken up with adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, we have to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity. But I had no such concerns, alone in Hammersmith in mid-afternoon. I had the freedom to act a little weirdly. I sketched the window of a hardware shop and word-painted the flyover.