《四季隨筆》節(jié)選 - 夏 02

《四季隨筆》是吉辛的散文代表作。其中對隱士賴克羅夫特醉心于書籍、自然景色與回憶過去生活的描述，其實是吉辛的自述，作者以此來抒發(fā)自己的情感，因而本書是一部富有自傳色彩的小品文集。

吉辛窮困的一生，對文學(xué)名著的愛好與追求，以及對大自然恬靜生活的向往，在書中均有充分的反映。本書分為春、夏、秋、冬四個部分，文筆優(yōu)美，行文流暢，是英國文學(xué)中小品文的珍品之一。

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I have been spending a week in Somerset. The right June weather put me in the mind for rambling, and my thoughts turned to the Severn Sea. I went to Glastonbury and Wells, and on to Cheddar, and so to the shore of the Channel at Clevedon, remembering my holiday of fifteen years ago, and too often losing myself in a contrast of the man I was then and what I am now. Beautiful beyond all words of description that nook of oldest England; but that I feared the moist and misty winter climate, I should have chosen some spot below the Mendips for my home and resting-place. Unspeakable the charm to my ear of those old names; exquisite the quiet of those little towns, lost amid tilth and pasture, untouched as yet by the fury of modern life, their ancient sanctuaries guarded, as it were, by noble trees and hedges overrun with f lowers. In all England there is no sweeter and more varied prospect than that from the hill of the Holy Thorn at Glastonbury; in all England there is no lovelier musing place than the leafy walk beside the Palace Moat at Wells. As I think of the golden hours I spent there, a passion to which I can give no name takes hold upon me; my heart trembles with an indefinable ecstasy.

我曾在薩默塞特郡度過了一周的時光。當(dāng)時是六月，美好的天氣讓我有漫游的心情，思緒于是飛到了塞汶河。我先去了格拉斯頓伯里和威爾斯，又到了切達(dá)，接著來到克利夫登的英吉利海峽岸邊。一路上我都沉浸在十五年前那個假期的回憶里，常常不自覺地把那時的自己和現(xiàn)在的自己進(jìn)行對比。那古老的英格蘭岬角真是美麗得無法形容，要不是因為對冬天潮濕多霧氣候的畏懼，我會選擇門迪普斯山下的一個地方安家并作為長眠之地。那些古老的名字在我聽來有一種無法言說的魅力，這里的小鎮(zhèn)是那么令人心醉的靜謐，它們坐落在耕地和草地之間，還未及受到現(xiàn)代喧囂生活的污染，秀頎的樹木和爬滿鮮花的樹籬守衛(wèi)著這塊古老的庇護(hù)地。在英格蘭，沒有比格拉斯頓伯里的圣荊山上看到的景色更優(yōu)美多姿的了；在英格蘭，沒有哪里比威爾斯宮壕邊上那條鋪滿落葉的人行道更適合沉思了。每每想起在那里度過的金色時光，一種莫名的激情便緊緊攫住我，我的心因為一種難以言說的狂喜而戰(zhàn)栗。

There was a time of my life when I was consumed with a desire for foreign travel; an impatience of everything familiar fretted me through all the changing year. If I had not at length found the opportunity to escape, if I had not seen the landscapes for which my soul longed, I think I must have moped to death. Few men, assuredly, have enjoyed such wanderings more than I, and few men revive them in memory with a richer delight or deeper longing. But—whatever temptation comes to me in mellow autumn, when I think of the grape and of the olive—I do not believe I shall ever again cross the sea. What remains to me of life and of energy is far too little for the enjoyment of all I know, and all I wish to know, of this dear island.

生命里曾有一個時期，我對海外旅行充滿了熱望，一年四季，司空見慣的一切讓我感到厭煩焦躁。要不是最后找到機(jī)會逃離，要不是終于看到了向往的景色，我想我一定會郁郁而終?？梢钥隙?，沒有誰比我更享受這樣的旅行，沒有誰在回憶中能比我感受到更飽滿的愉悅和更深沉的向往。但是—當(dāng)富饒的秋天來臨，我想起葡萄和橄欖時，不管這種誘惑有多大—我相信自己都不會再遠(yuǎn)渡重洋了。我所剩下的生命和精力太過有限，用來享受這塊親愛的島嶼上我知道和希望知道的一切還嫌不夠呢。

As a child I used to sleep in a room hung round with prints after English landscape painters—those steel engravings so common half a century ago, which bore the legend, "From the picture in the Vernon1 Gallery." Far more than I knew at the time, these pictures impressed me; I gazed and gazed at them, with that fixed attention of a child which is half curiosity, half reverie, till every line of them was fixed in my mind; at this moment I see the black-and-white landscapes as if they were hanging on the wall before me, and I have often thought that this early training of the imagination—for such it was—has much to do with the passionate love of rural scenery which lurked within me even when I did not recognize it, and which now for many a year has been one of the emotions directing my life. Perhaps, too, that early memory explains why I love a good black-and-white print even more than a good painting. And—to draw yet another inference—here may be a reason for the fact that, through my youth and early manhood, I found more pleasure in Nature as represented by art than in Nature herself. Even during that strange time when hardships and passions held me captive far from any glimpse of the flowering earth, I could be moved, and moved deeply, by a picture of the simplest rustic scene. At rare moments, when a happy chance led me into the National Gallery, I used to stand long before such pictures as "The Valley Farm," "The Cornfield," 2 "Mousehold Heath." 3 In the murk confusion of my heart these visions of the world of peace and beauty from which I was excluded—to which, indeed, I hardly ever gave a thought—touched me to deep emotion. But it did not need—nor does it now—the magic of a master to awake that mood in me. Let me but come upon the poorest little woodcut, the cheapest "process" illustration, representing a thatched cottage, a lane, a field, and I hear that music begin to murmur. It is a passion—Heaven be thanked—that grows with my advancing years. The last thought of my brain as I lie dying will be that of sunshine upon an English meadow.

小時候，我的臥室掛滿了英國風(fēng)景畫家的作品—這些鋼版畫在半個世紀(jì)前司空見慣，上面刻著題跋曰：弗農(nóng)畫廊展品仿作。它們給我留下了難以磨滅的印象，雖然當(dāng)時我并沒有意識到。我目不轉(zhuǎn)睛地凝視著它們，帶著孩子般半好奇半幻想的眼光，直到每一個線條都鐫刻在腦海中。此時，我彷佛能看到那些黑白風(fēng)景畫就掛在面前的墻上，我常常想，這種早期想象力的訓(xùn)練是否和我對鄉(xiāng)村景色的熱愛有很大關(guān)系，這種熱愛在我還沒認(rèn)識到之前就暗藏著，并在許多年里成為主導(dǎo)我生活的感情之一。也許，兒時的這些記憶也是我喜歡黑白版畫勝于油畫的原因。進(jìn)一步推想，這也許就是為什么在少年和青年時，我更喜歡藝術(shù)表現(xiàn)出的自然，甚至勝過自然景色本身。即使在那段不可思議的時期，我被苦難和激情所禁錮著，沒看過一眼繁花盛開的大地，一幅最淳樸的鄉(xiāng)村風(fēng)景畫作也能深深地打動我。難得有那么幾次，我有幸來到國家美術(shù)館，常常在一些諸如《山谷田莊》、《麥田》和《鼠穴荒原》的畫作前佇立許久。在我晦暗混亂的心中，這些畫境—一個把我排除在外的和平美麗的世界，而我也確實很少期望這樣的世界—深深觸動了我。然而，要喚醒我心底的情緒，在過去并不需要繪畫大師的高超技法，現(xiàn)在也不需要。只要面前放上一幅最拙劣的小木版畫或是最廉價的“程式化”插圖，描繪一間茅草屋，一條小路，一塊田地，我就能聽到音樂聲響起。感謝老天，這種激情隨著我年歲漸長愈加濃烈。在我臨終時，頭腦里最后一個畫面將會是灑在英格蘭的草地上的陽光。