旅行的艺术:Ⅳ 好奇心-7

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这里我们还碰到另一个问题：那些到过此地的探险家，在有所发现的同时却也宣判了它们当中哪些是有意义的、哪些则没有。久而久之，这就决定了马德里的价值所在，并且变成了不可推翻的真理。维拉广场属于一星级，皇家宫殿属两星级，王室赤足女子修道院属三星级，而东方广场则一星都没有。

There was another problem: the explorers who had come before and discovered facts had at the same time laid down distinctions between what was significant and what was not, distinctions which had, over time, hardened into almost immutable truths about where value lay in Madrid. The Plaza de la Villa had one star, the Palacio Real two stars, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales three stars and the Plaza de Oriente no stars at all.

这样的区分未必是错的，但是它却造成不良的影响。当旅游指南对一个景点赞赏有加时，它无形中产生一股压力，迫使读者接受其权威性，缔造一股热忱，至于景点会使游客感受到沉默、幸福还是兴致勃勃，它则毫不关心。早在未进入三星级的王室赤足女子修道院之前，我就晓得自己得配合这种源于权威的热忱：“这是西班牙最美丽的修道院。有壁画装饰的楼梯看起来十分堂皇，上方则是回廊，这里的小礼拜堂一间比一间更奢华。”或许旅游指南还应该加上这句话：“那些不同意以上说法的游客必定有问题。”

The distinctions were not necessarily false, but their effect was pernicious. Where guidebooks praised a site, they pressured a visitor to match their authoritative enthusiasm, where they were silent, pleasure or interest seemed unwarranted. Long before entering the three-star Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, I knew the official enthusiasm that my response would have to accord with: 'The most beautiful convent in Spain. A grand staircase decorated with frescoes leads to the upper cloister gallery where each of the chapels is more sumptuous than its predecessor. ' The guidebook might have added 'and where there must be something wrong with the traveller who cannot agree '.

洪堡却没有感到这种威慑。当时很少欧洲人到过他留下足迹的地域，他者的缺席，正好给洪堡提供了自由的想象空间，使他能凭自己的感觉决定自己对什么产生兴趣。他能自如地建立自己的价值体系，无须遵循或刻意推翻他人的权威。当他到达处在内格罗河旁的圣费尔南多传教会时，他可以自由地设想这里的一切都是有趣的，又或许根本没任何有趣的东西。他的好奇心指向了植物，这对洪堡游记——《旅程》——的读者而言并不会感到意外。在谈到圣费尔南多最有趣的地方时，他写道：“我们在圣费尔南多最感到惊讶的是栗椰子。它的出现为这里的乡间带来了独特的风貌。这种植物长满了刺，而树干高度超过了60英尺。”接着，洪堡测量了这里的气温（很热），并注意到传教士住在布满藤蔓植物的宅子内，它们周围都有花园，非常漂亮。

Humboldt did not suffer such intimidation. Few Europeans had crossed the regions through which he travelled and their absence offered him an imaginative freedom. He could unselfconsciously decide what interested him. He could create his own categories of value without either following or deliberately rebelling against the hierarchies of others. When he arrived at the San Fernando mission on the Rio Negro, he had the freedom to think that everything, or perhaps nothing, would be interesting. The needle of his curiosity followed its own magnetic north and, unsurprisingly to readers of his Journey , ended up pointing at plants. 'In San Fernando we were most struck by the pihiguado or pirijao plant, which gives the countryside its peculiar quality. Covered with thorns, its trunk reaches more than sixty feet high,' he reported at the top of his list of what was interesting in San Fernando. Next, Humboldt measured the temperature (very hot), then noted that the missionaries lived in attractive houses matted with liana and surrounded by gardens.

保罗·戈西仿查理·本特列的石版画《奥里诺科的埃斯梅拉达》

我试图设想一本没有任何先入之见的马德里旅游指南，想想我会如何按主观喜好对这里的所见所闻作一次评估。就我的兴趣指数而言，我会对西班牙饮食多肉少菜这一点给予三星（在这里的最后一顿正餐中，我只吃到了几根薄薄、白白的芦笋，其余的菜肴全都是肉类）。另外，我也会对普通百姓听似高贵且冗长的姓氏给予三星的兴趣指数（负责安排会议的助理，有像一列火车那么长的姓氏，由“de”或“la”衔接，这些称呼代表了祖先的城堡，忠实的仆人、一口旧水井和饰有纹章的外套。这与她现实中的生活形成了对比：一辆沾满尘土的西特伊毕沙型汽车和一栋靠近机场的小型公寓）。此外，我对这里男人长着小脚感到好奇，新市区里的建筑体现出人们对现代建筑风格的取舍，这也同样令我兴趣盎然。例如，我在这里发现，一栋建筑的现代性比它是否美观更为重要，就连一眼就觉得难看的古铜色外观也无所谓（现代性似乎是期盼已久的东西，人们需要感受到它的强烈程度，以弥补过去停滞不前的时代），如果我能够依据好奇心的驱使决定什么是有趣的，而不是被一本有着绿色封面、影响力极强的《米奇林马德里道路指南》所左右，那么我主观上认为以上所说的，都应该名列马德里趣事中。而那本旅游指南具有很强的磁场作用，把读者心中好奇的指针拉往王室赤足女子修道院内，那些走起来有回声的走廊上一道褐色楼梯。

I tried to imagine an uninhibited guide to Madrid, how I might have ranked its sights according to a subjective hierarchy of interest. I had three-star levels of interest in the under-representation of vegetables in the Spanish diet (at the last proper meal I had eaten, only a few limp, bleached and apparently tinned asparagus had appeared between a succession of meat dishes) and in the long and noble-sounding surnames of ordinary citizens (the assistant in charge of organizing the conference had owned a train of surnames connected by de and la, an appellation which suggested an ancestral castle, faithful servants, an old well and a coat of arms, and contrasted with the reality of her life: a dust-coated SEAT Ibiza and a studio flat near the airport). I was interested in the smallness of male feet and in the attitude towards modern architecture evident in many newer districts of the city: specifically the way it appeared to be less important that a building was attractive than that it was obviously modern, even if this meant giving something a vile bronze façade (as though modernity were a longed-for good that one needed in extra-strong doses to compensate for an earlier lack). All of these would have appeared on my subjective list of interesting things in Madrid if my compass of curiosity had been allowed to settle according to its own logic-rather than being spun by the unexpectedly powerful forcefield of a small green object by the name of The Michelin Streetguide to Madrid , which pointed its needle resolutely towards, among other targets, a brown-looking staircase in the echoing corridors of the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales.