旅行的艺术:Ⅷ 对美的拥有-2

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在与美邂逅的那一刻，我们会有一种强烈的冲动，就是一种握住它不放的渴望：将它占为己有，并使它成为自己生命中举足轻重的一部分。我们有一种迫切地表达的欲望：“我曾在这里，我看见了它，它对我很重要。”

A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is the desire to hold on to it: to possess it and give it weight in our lives. There is an urge to say, 'I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.'

但是美是短暂的，它常常在那些我们无缘再见之地被发现，或者是在一定的季节、光线及天气情况下才能形成的难逢之景。那么，面对飘浮的列车、哈尔瓦式的砖块或英国的山谷时，我们如何才能紧紧把握其中的美呢？

But beauty is fugitive, it is frequently found in places to which we may never return or else it results from a rare conjunction of season, light and weather. How then to possess it, how to hold on to the floating train, the halva-like bricks or the English valley?

照相机提供了一种选择。拍照可以稍稍满足那种拥有的渴望，这种渴望是被一个地方的美丽所激起的；我们对将要失去一幅珍贵的图景的焦虑，会随着快门的每一次闪动而逐渐消失。也许我们还可以尝试着让自己完全置身于一个美丽的地方，希望通过让自己更加接近于这地方而使它们在我们心中留下更深刻的印象。在亚历山大港，站在庞培石柱前，我们可以将自己的名字刻在花岗岩上，就像福楼拜那个来自桑德兰的朋友汤普逊（“只要你看到了庞培柱，你必然就会看见‘汤普逊’的字样；自然，你就会联想到汤普逊其人。这白痴已成了纪念柱的一部分，并使自己同庞培柱一起万世留名。……所有白痴差不多都有桑德兰的汤普逊这德性。”）。一种更加合适的方式也许是买一些纪念品——一个碗，一个涂漆的盒子或者一双拖鞋（福楼拜曾在开罗买了3块地毯），用以提醒我们已经失去的东西，就像是我们从分离的爱人那儿剪下的一缕发丝。

The camera provides one option. Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety about losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter. Or else we can try to imprint ourselves physically on a place of beauty, perhaps hoping to render it more present in us by making ourselves more present in it. In Alexandria, standing before Pompey's Pillar, we could try to carve our name in the granite, to follow the example of Flaubert's friend Thompson from Sunderland ('You can't see the Pillar without seeing the name of Thompson, and consequently, without thinking of Thompson. This cretin has become part of the monument and perpetuates himself along with it … All imbeciles are more or less Thompsons from Sunderland'). A more modest step might be to buy something-a bowl, a lacquered box or a pair of sandals (Flaubert acquired three carpets in Cairo)-to be reminded of what we have lost, like a lock of hair that we cut from a departing lover's mane.