旅行的艺术:风景 Ⅴ 乡村与城市-1

1

1

我们乘坐一辆下午的火车离开伦敦。我和M约好在伊斯顿车站的发车月台下层见面。望着自动扶梯上和大厅里熙来攘往的人群，我觉得若能找到她的影子必定是个奇迹。但我却必须找到她，这说明了欲望的奇特之处。

We left London by an afternoon train. I had arranged to meet M below the departure board at Euston Station. Watching crowds step off the escalators and on to the concourse, I thought it miraculous that, in the midst of so many people, I should ever be able to find her-as well as testimony to the strange particularities of desire that it should have been precisely her I needed to find.

我们沿着英格兰的山脊前进。夜幕低垂，我们嗅到了乡间的气息。车窗已逐渐变成长长的一面墨镜，望着它，我们越来越清楚地能看到自己的脸颊。当火车开到靠近特伦特河畔的斯托克时，我决定去餐车一趟，于是跌跌撞撞地穿梭于一节又一节摇晃的车厢，如同醉汉似的。但是对于能吃到在行进的火车上烹出的食物，我却特别兴奋。微波炉的计时器发出厚重的机械声，如同旧战争片中发出的响声一样，接着是清脆的铃声，示意我可以过来取烘好的热狗。这时火车开过一个道口，路的后方我隐约见到牛群的影子。

We travelled up the spine of England and, as night fell, there were intimations of countryside, though gradually all we could see was our own faces in windows that had turned into long black mirrors. Somewhere above Stoke-on-Trent, I visited the buffet car, sensing once again, on my way through a succession of carriages that swayed as if I were drunk, the excitement caused by the prospect of eating something cooked in a moving train. The timer on the microwave gave off a chunky mechanical sound, like a detonator in an old war film, then rang a dainty bell to signal that it had finished with my hot dog-just as the train went over a level crossing, behind which I could make out the shadow of a group of cows.

我们在将近9点的时候抵达奥克森霍尔姆站，站名边还附加了一个地名标示：湖区。只有少数几位乘客与我们一同下车。我们静悄悄地走在月台上，在寒夜中可以清楚看到我们呼出的热气。我们看到车厢里的乘客或在打盹儿、或在看书。“湖区”对他们而言不过是漫长火车旅途中的一站，他们可以暂且放下手上的书，四处张望一下，比如瞧瞧月台上对称排列的罐子，或者瞄一眼火车站里的时钟，又或者随意地打个哈欠。一旦这趟前往格拉斯哥的火车开动，再度穿越黑暗，他们便又将翻开手中的书。

We arrived at Oxenholme Station, subtitled 'The Lake District', shortly before nine. Only a few others alighted with us and we walked silently along the platform, our breaths visible in the night chill. Back inside the train, passengers were dozing or reading. The Lake District would, for them, be one stop among many, somewhere to look up from their book for a moment and take in the concrete pots arranged symmetrically along the platform, check the station clock and perhaps let out an uninhibited yawn-before the Glasgow train pulled off again into the darkness and they returned to a new paragraph.

火车站像被人遗弃似的冷清得很，但我想它不可能一直都是这样，要不然指示牌上就不会加上日文翻译。我们在伦敦时曾打电话来过，预租了一辆车。在停车场尾端的一盏路灯下，我们找到了它。我们原本向出租公司租一辆小型轿车，但因为这类车全租出去了，他们于是送来了一辆深紫色大型房车。它的新车气味还很浓，灰色的地毯洁净如新，地毯上还留下吸尘机划过的痕迹。

The station was deserted, though it could not always have been thus, for, remarkably, many of the signs were translated into Japanese. We had called from London to rent a car and found it at the end of a parking bay under a street-lamp. The rental company had evidently run out of the small models we had asked for and had delivered instead a large burgundy family saloon, which had a heady new-car smell to it and an immaculate grey carpet, across which the marks of a vacuum cleaner were still visible.