旅行的艺术:Ⅷ 对美的拥有-9

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如果一个男子将车子停在一排高大的办公楼对面的马路边，那么不太会有人猜测他正在作文字素描。惟一的提示就是一本记事本被按在方向盘上，上面是他在长长的注视期间偶尔涂鸦写下的东西。

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.

现在是晚上11：30，我已经绕着船坞开了几个小时的车，并在伦敦城市机场前停下来喝了些咖啡（我一直想在这里看最后一班飞机，一架瑞航附属的十字航空Avro RJ85型飞机，飞向苏黎世的天空——或者飞往波德莱尔所说的“任何地方！任何地方！”）。在回家的路上，我望见了西印度船坞上巨大而明亮的高楼。办公室似乎与四周朴素而微弱的灯光照亮下的房屋所形成的景致没有任何关联。它们出现在哈得孙河畔或是在前往卡纳维拉尔角的飞机的一边也许会更加合适。水蒸气从两座相邻的高楼的顶部升起，整个区域被笼罩上了一层均匀、稀薄的雾气。大部分楼层的灯依然亮着，甚至从远处都能看见室内的计算机终端、会议室、花盆里的植物和活动挂图。

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.

这是一幅美丽的景色，并且，这种让人留恋的美让人心生拥有的渴望，如同罗斯金所说，这是一种只有艺术才能使之得到真正满足的渴望。

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.

我开始了语言描画。描述性的文字非常容易地源源涌出：办公楼很高，其中一座的顶部就像金字塔，它两侧面有红宝石般的亮光，天空不是黑色的，而是呈现出一种橘黄。但是由于一种写实性描述似乎无法帮助我将景致如此动人的原因清楚地表达出来，我尝试着用比较偏向于心理的语言去分析它的美。这片景致的特别之处似乎是那弥漫于高楼顶上的夜与雾。夜晚让人将注意力转向了白天被忽视的办公楼的方方面面。在阳光的照射下，办公楼显得很普通，人们不会对它心生好奇，就像楼体上的玻璃不会吸引人的注意一样。然而，夜晚却倾覆了这种在白天被认为是普通的东西；它允许人们看到室内的情景，并且心生困惑，一切竟然都是如此奇特，令人吃惊和令人赞叹！办公室象征几千人之间的秩序与合作，同时还代表严格管制与烦闷无聊。官僚视角的严肃性在夜晚被削弱了，或者至少遭到了质疑。在黑暗中我们不禁感到好奇，活动挂图和计算机终端有什么用呢？这并不是说它们是多余的，只是它们在黑暗中看起来比较怪异、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.

罗斯金：《阿尔卑斯山顶》，约1846年

与此同时，雾气引来愁绪。雾气弥漫的夜晚，犹如某种气味，将我们带回到我们曾经经历过的，有着相同气息的其他时刻。我想起了在大学的夜晚，沿着灯光下的运动场走回住所；想起了那时的生活与现在的生活之间的区别，那些曾经困扰我的各种困境和失落让我产生了一种苦乐交集的伤感。

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.

现在车身到处都是小纸片。语言描画的成果和我在朗戴尔谷画的幼稚的橡树图之间区别并不大。然而作品好坏并不是关键。我至少已按照罗斯金所指出的两个艺术目的中的一个去做了，那就是了解痛苦，并探寻美的根源。

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.

如同他在一群学生向他展示英国乡间旅游时所画的糟糕作品时所指出的：“我相信视觉比绘画来得重要；我宁愿教我的学生绘画，从而让他们学会热爱自然，而不会教他们盯着自然，从而让他们学会如何绘画。”

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.'