旅行的艺术:旅行中的特定场所-1

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在伦敦通往曼彻斯特的高速公路旁，有一家用红砖搭建的加油站。加油站只有一层高，有玻璃橱窗，从那里可以俯瞰下方的高速公路，以及路旁单调的平坦无垠的原野。加油站的前院悬着一幅巨大的塑胶广告旗帜。上面的内容是一只煎鸡蛋、两根香肠和成堆的烤菜豆。它招揽来过路的司机，也吸引了邻近田野里的一群羊。

Overlooking the motorway between London and Manchester, in a flat, featureless expanse of country, stands a single-storey glass and red-brick service station. In its forecourt hangs a giant laminated flag that advertises to motorists and to sheep in an adjacent field a photograph of a fried egg, two sausages and a peninsula of baked beans.

我是在傍晚时分到达这家加油站的。西边，天空正布满红霞。加油站的一边是一排景观树，在过往车辆持续低闷的噪音里，还能听到树丛里的鸟鸣。我已经在路上颠簸了两个小时，孤独地看车窗外天边的云起云聚；看路旁草坡外市镇里的灯火闪烁，看公路大桥和车窗外超前的大车小车的匆促背影……车厢里的空调机制冷时，总发出连续不断的噼哒声，像是有回形针不停地落在引擎罩上。下车时，我已觉昏眩。我的感官也需要调整，重新适应脚下坚实的土地，习惯拂面的微风和夜即将来临时似有若无的天籁。

I arrived at the service station towards evening. The sky was turning red in the west and in a row of ornamental trees to the side of the building birds could be heard against the incessant bass note of the traffic. I had been on the road for two hours, alone with clouds forming on the horizon, with the lights of commuter towns beyond the grass banks, with motorway bridges and the silhouettes of overtaking cars and coaches. I felt dizzy stepping out of my craft, which gave off a series of clicks as it cooled, as if paper clips were being dropped through the bonnet. My senses needed to readjust themselves to firm land, to the wind and to the discreet sounds of night drawing in.

餐馆里灯火通明，有些太过暖热。墙上挂着咖啡杯、糕点和汉堡包的巨幅照片。一位女招待在给自动饮料售卖机添加饮料。我拿了一只托盘，沿着金属台面滑过去，买了一块巧克力和一份橙汁，在餐馆全是玻璃窗的那一边找了位子坐下来。大块的窗玻璃被带状的米色油灰所固定，油灰湿湿的、粘粘的，我都禁不住想用指甲去抠它。窗外，草坡往下，一直伸延到高速公路边。隔着窗玻璃看过去，6个车道的高速公路上车辆无声疾驰，车流优雅而对称，在渐浓的夜色里，每辆车的车型和颜色已不可辨，只能看见由红、白两色钻石般闪亮的车灯串成的彩带朝着相反的方向，伸展到无尽远处。

The restaurant was brightly illuminated and exaggeratedly warm. Large photographs of coffee cups, pastries and hamburgers hung on the walls. A waitress was refilling a drinks dispenser. I slid a damp tray along a metal runway, bought a bar of chocolate and an orange juice and sat by a window that made up one wall of the building. Vast panes were held in place by strips of beige putty, into whose chewy clamminess I was tempted to dig my nails. Beyond the window, the grass sloped down to the motorway, where traffic ran in silent, elegant symmetry along six lanes, the differences in makes and colours of cars disguised by the gathering darkness, leaving a uniform ribbon of red and white diamonds extending into infinity in two directions.

加油站里的顾客并不多。一位女士正悠闲地转动茶杯里的茶叶袋。一位男士和两个小女孩在吃汉堡包。一位年纪稍长蓄着胡须的男人在做填字游戏。没有人交谈。整个的氛围让人易于冥想，也会略觉伤感——只有隐隐约约的吹奏管乐的轻快节奏和柜台上一张照片里正要张口咬一块熏肉三明治的女人靓丽的微笑，让人稍觉轻松。餐厅正中央的天花板下悬着一只纸板箱，伴着空调出风口送出的微风不安分地晃动。纸板箱上写着餐馆的促销广告——买任何一种热狗即可获得免费的葱油圈。纸板箱形状奇怪，还倒置着，看来这并非完全是餐厅主管所设想的形状，一如罗马帝国偏远国土上的那些里程碑石，其形状背离了帝国中心标准的设计规范。

There were few other customers in the service station. A woman was idly rotating a teabag in a cup. A man and two small girls were eating hamburgers. A bearded elderly man was doing a crossword. No one was talking. There was an air of reflection, of sadness too-only heightened by the faint sound of piped upbeat music and the enamel smile of a woman about to bite into a bacon sandwich in a photograph above the counter. In the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling and dancing nervously in the breeze of an air vent, was a cardboard box announcing an offer of free onion rings with every hotdog. Misshapen and upside down, the box seemed only a rough approximation of what head office must have stipulated, like those milestones in distant parts of the Roman Empire whose form strayed from the designs of the centre.

从建筑学的角度看，加油站的建构很糟糕。整个餐厅里都能闻到一股燃油味，还有地板清洁剂中柠檬香精的气味。餐厅提供的食物油腻腻的，餐桌上有星星点点已发干的番茄酱，这是早已离开的旅客留下的纪念。尽管如此，在我看来，这远离喧嚣、孑然独立在高速公路一旁高地上的加油站，还是有些诗意的。它的情状让我联想到别的一些同样能让人意外地发现诗意的地方，如机场大楼、港口、火车站和小旅馆等等；它也使我联想到一位19世纪作家和一位20世纪的画家的作品，这位19世纪的作家对人类较少注意到的旅行地点有着不同寻常的感知能力，受其启发，那位20世纪的画家找到了自己的创作灵感。

The building was architecturally miserable, it smelt of frying oil and lemon-scented floor polish, the food was glutinous and the tables were dotted with islands of dried ketchup from the meals of long-departed travellers, and yet something about the scene moved me. There was poetry in this forsaken service station, perched on the ridge of the motorway far from all habitation. Its appeal made me think of certain other equally and unexpectedly poetic travelling places-airport terminals, harbours, train stations and motels-and the work of a nineteenth-century writer and a twentieth-century painter he had inspired, who had, in different ways, been unusually alive to the power of the liminal travelling place.