正文 目录 文库目录 文库收藏 中文百科 Wiki百科
北回归线|Tropic Of Cancer

Part 13 第1章|Part 13 Chapter 1

属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 亨利-米勒] 阅读:[14247]
字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 字+字- 行+行- 页+页-
-

冷天来临时公主不见了,工作室里只有一个小火炉,使人越来越不舒服。卧室冷得像个冰窖,厨房也好不了多少,只有火炉周围的一刊、块地方是真正暖和的。于是玛莎又找了一个被阉割过的雕刻家,她离开前还对我们讲了这个人的情况。几天后她又想回到我们这儿来,可是菲尔莫坚决不同意。她抱怨说雕刻家不停地吻她,弄得她一夜睡不成觉,而且没有热水,无法使用灌洗器。最后她还是认为不回来也一样,她说,“这样我身边再也没烛台了。总有那个烛台……叫我受不了。你们要是老老实实地不招惹我,我当时是不会离开的……”

1
-

玛莎走后,我们晚上的消遣方式变得全然不同了。我们经常坐在火炉旁,喝着加了热水的烈酒谈论在美国时的生活。我们谈论它的口吻就好像永远不再指望回到那儿去了。菲尔莫有一张纽约市地图,他把它钉在墙上,于是我们常常花去整个晚上探讨巴黎和纽约这两个城市共有的优点。我们在讨论中是不可避免地要谈到惠特曼这个人,这个美国在其短促的历史上造就的一个孤零零的人物。在惠特曼的诗中,整幅美国景象有了生命力—她的过去和未来、她的诞生和死亡,美国有价值的一切惠特曼都已说到,没有更多的话可说了。未来是属于机器、属于机器人的。惠特曼,他是灵与肉的诗人,是第一个,也是最后一个诗人。今天他的诗几乎已无法解读了,这是一座刻满粗糙的神秘符号的纪念碑,我们没有解读它的钥匙。欧洲语言没有一种可与他创造的不朽精神相提并论,欧洲已到处皆是艺术品,她的土地中尽是死人骨头,她的博物馆被掠来的珍宝塞得满满当当,不过欧洲从未得到的是一种自由、健康的精神,也就是你可以称其为“人”的精神。歌德离这方面最近,但是相比之下歌德不过是一件填进东西的衬衣。歌德是一位有名望的公民,一个学究、一个令人生厌的家伙、一个多才多艺的人物,只是他身上打着德国的双鹰商标。歌德的安详,那种宁静、气派十足的态度不过是一个德国资产阶级神灵在昏昏迷迷地沉睡。歌德是事情的结尾,惠特曼却是开端。

2
-

讨论过一阵这类事情后我有时便起身穿好衣服出去散步,我穿起毛衣和菲尔莫的风衣,又在上面套上一件披肩。这种阴湿寒冷的气候很难抵挡,只有精神坚强才行。人们都说美国是一个极冷和极热气候并存的国家,而且温度计上显示出的严寒温度在这儿是闻所未闻的,不过巴黎的寒冬也是美国所没有的,这是心理上体验到的寒冷,心里冷,身上也冷。这儿从不结冰,也就无所谓解冻了。人们学会了如何抵御遒劲、清新的寒冷气候,正如他们用高墙、门闩和百叶窗,用不断咆哮、说话刻雹蓬头垢面的看门人来防止别人侵入他们的隐私一样。他们加强自己抵抗寒冷的能力,保暖是关键。保暖和安全,这样他们便可以在安逸中烂掉。在一个阴湿的冬夜里根本毋须查阅地图以确定巴黎的纬度,它是一个北方城市,是建在填满人脑壳和人骨的沼泽地上的前哨。沿着林荫道有冰凉的人造电气热源,这就是用紫外线打出的“皆大欢喜”,在它的照射下光顾一连串杜邦咖啡店的顾客显得像生了坏疽的尸首。“皆大欢喜!”这是滋养孤苦伶仃的乞丐的金玉良言,他们在蒙蒙细雨般的紫色光线照射下整夜在街上走来走去。凡有光线的地方总有一点点热气,看着大腹便便、无衣食之忧的王八蛋们喝下一杯杯烈酒和热气腾腾的黑咖啡,一个叫花子也会暖和起来,凡是有光线的地方人行道上总会有人,他们互相推挤,透过脏内衣,通过恶臭的、诅咒谩骂时哈出的气释放出一点儿热量,像牲口一样。或许熙熙攘攘的景观会延续八到十个街区,过后街道又沉入黑夜之中,阴沉、污秽、黑暗的夜,像汤碗里凝结的动物油。参差不齐的住宅延伸了好多个街区,每扇窗都紧闭着,铺面都闩着、锁着。这是连绵多少英里的石筑监牢,里面没有一丝热气,狗和猫全同金丝雀一道呆在屋里,蟑螂和臭虫都被妥当地监禁起来了。“皆大欢喜”。如果你一文不名,为什么不拿几份旧报纸在大教堂的台阶上给自己铺一张床?那儿的门都闩好了,而且不会有管理人员来打搅你。睡在地铁门外更好,那儿有人给你做伴。在一个下雨的夜里看看他们吧,他们全像床垫一样僵硬地躺着—男人、女人、虱子,全抱成一团,用报纸遮挡别人吐唾沫和没有腿的害虫。到桥下或市场上的棚子底下看看他们吧,同像珠宝一样装在袋子里的干净新鲜蔬菜相比,他们是多么卑贱呀!就连油腻腻的钩子上挂着的死马、死牛和死羊看起来也更诱人些,至少明天我们还要吃这些东西,甚至它们的肠肚也有用途。可那些睡在雨里、浑身发臭的叫花子又有什么用呢?他们能替我们做什么?他们叫我们流五分钟血,如此而已。

3
-

唉,得了,这些是基督教诞生两千年后的夜间我在雨中散步时产生的感想。至少现在那些鸟儿都有人养活了,还有猫和狗。每一回从看门人窗下经过并且被她恶狠狠地盯住瞧了个够之后,我就会产生一种疯狂的欲念,想掐死世上所有的鸟类。在每一颗冷酷的心灵深处仍有一两滴爱—刚好够喂小鸟的。

4
-

仍叫我难以忘怀的是观念与生存之间竟有这么大的区别,其中存在永久性的脱节,尽管我们试图用一块鲜艳的篷布把两者蒙在一起。而这也办不到,观念必须同行动结合在一起,如果观念中没有性,没有生命力,那么也就没有行动。观念无法在头脑的真空中单独存在,观念是同生存相联系的:肝观念,肾观念,组织间隙间的观念,等等。如果仅仅是为了一个观念,哥白尼本会砸烂整个现存宇宙的,哥伦布也会葬身马尾藻海。这个观念的美学孕出一个又一个你摆在窗台上的花盆。可是如果既不下雨又不出太阳,把花盆摆出窗外又有什么用呢?

5
-

菲尔莫关于黄金的主意多极了,他把它叫作关于黄金的“神话”。我喜欢“神话”,也喜欢有关黄金的事,可我并不为此着迷,也看不出我们为什么要造花盆,即使是金子的花盆。他告诉我法国人正在把他们的金子贮藏在防水箱子里,存放在地下,他说有一部小火车头在这些地下洞穴和走道中到处跑。我极欣赏这个主意,金子置身于深深的、无人破坏的寂静中,在摄氏十六又四分之一度的环境中静静地沉睡。他说一个军的部队花四十六天零三十六小时仍数不清埋在法国银行下面的全部金子,还有储备的金假牙,手镯、结婚戒指,等等。还储存了够吃八十天的食物,金子堆上还有一个抗御高爆炸药造成的震动的人工湖。他说黄金趋向于渐渐消失,这是一个神话,并不是又有人侵吞公款。太妙了!我在设想当我们放弃了观念上、衣饰上和道德上的金本位制后,这个世界将会变成什么样子。想想看,爱情上的金本位制!

6
-

迄今为止,我的符合自己心愿的想法一直是要摆脱文学的金本位制。简单他讲,我是想展现情感的再生,描写一个人处于最艰深的思考时的行动,就是说,在他处于谵狂状态中的行为。我要刻画一个苏格拉底之前的人物,一个半是色鬼半是巨人的生灵。简而言之,我要在肚脐的基础上建立一个世界,而不是在钉在十字架上的一个抽象观念上。你在一些地方会遇到遭人冷落的塑像、设有陷讲的绿洲、被塞万提斯忽视的风车、流到山上去的河流、从上到下身上长着五六个乳房的女人。(斯特林堡在给高更的信中说,“我看到的树是哪一个植物学家都不会再看到的,我看的动物是居维叶从未想到过的,我看到的人是只有你才能够创造的。”)当雷姆卜兰特如愿以后,他带着金条、干肉饼和折叠床下到地洞里,“黄金”是住在地下的神的黑话,这个词里包含着梦幻和神话。我们正在回到炼金术的年代,回到造出我们膨胀的象证的虚假的亚历山大式的智慧上去。真正的智慧却已被学问的小气鬼藏在地窖深处,他们用磁铁在空中划圆圈的这一天就要到来。为了找到一块矿石你得带上两件仪器走到一万英尺的高处,纬度高的地方最好,你得在那儿同地球内部及死人的幽灵建立起精神感应式的联系。再也没有克朗代克,再也没有富金矿了,你将不得不学着唱两句、跳两下,读一读十二宫图,研究研究你的内脏。所有掖在地球口袋里的金子都得叫人提到,所有的象征主义都得重新从人的肠子里扯出来,不过首先要改善工具,首先要发明更好的飞机,要分辨声音来自何方,这样便不至于听到屁股下有爆炸声便傻呼呼地乱跑。其次有必要适应平流层中的寒冷层次,成为空中的一条冷血鱼。没有崇敬,没有神灵,没有渴求,没有懊悔,没有歇斯底里。总之,正如菲力浦?达茨所说—“别灰心!”

7
-

这些都是在三一广场喝下一杯味美思和黑茶蕉子酒后激发的快活念头。正值一个星期六下午,手中拿着一本“失败”的书,一切便在神圣的痰液里游泳了。酒在我嘴里留下一股发苦的草药味,我们伟大西方文明的庇荫处现在像圣人的脚趾甲一样地腐烂。女人们正从我身边走过,成千上万的女人,她们全在我面前扭屁股。大钟声在震荡,公共汽车驶上了人行道,互相撞在一起。侍者在用一块肮脏的破布擦桌子,老板兴高采烈地给现金出纳机搔痒。我脸上一副空虚的表情,烂醉如泥,视线模糊,我死死盯着擦过我身边的屁股。在对面的钟楼上,那个驼背在用一支金槌敲钟,鸽子闻声惊叫起来。我打开书。那本尼采称之为“迄今为止最好的德国书”。--书中写道:“人会变得更聪明、更敏感,但是不会更好、更幸福,行动更坚决,至少在某些时期是如此。我预见上帝看到人类不再欢悦的时刻会到来,那时他会打碎一切以便重新创造。我坚信一切都是为达到这一目的而设计的,而且这焕然一新的新纪元在遥远的未来降临的准确时间已确定。不过在此之前有一段漫长的时间,我们人类仍能在这片亲爱的古老土地上过几千几万年欢乐的生活。”

8
-

妙极了!起码在一百年前就有人有眼光看出整个世界快完蛋了!我们的西方世界!每当我看到男男女女在监狱大墙后面无精打采地移动—他们头上有遮盖,只是与世隔绝短短的几小时—我便大吃一惊,这些衰弱的人身上居然仍具有表现出情趣的潜力。灰色的大墙后面仍有人性的火花,只是永远也不会燃成大火了。我问自己,这些是男人和女人还是影子?被看不见的细绳吊着晃来晃去的木偶的影子?他们显然是能自由活动的,不过却无处可去。他们仅仅在一个区域内是自由的,在那儿可以随心所欲地游荡,不过他们尚未学会如何飞翔。至今还没有一个人在梦里飞起来过,也没有一个人生下来便很轻、很欢快,能飞离地球。鼓动有力的翅膀的雄鹰有时尚会重重地跌到地面上,它们呼呼振动翅膀的声音使我们头晕眼花。呆在地球上吧,你们这些未来的鹰!天空已有人邀游过,那儿是空的。

9
-

地底下也是空的,填满了枯骨和幻影。呆在地球上,再漂浮几十万年吧!

10
-

When the cold weather set in the princess disappeared. It was getting uncomfortable with just a little coal stove in the studio; the bedroom was like an icebox and the kitchen was hardly any better. There was just a little space around the stove where it was actually warm. So Macha had found herself a sculptor who was castrated. She told us about him before she left. After a few days she tried coming back to us, but Fillmore wouldn’t hear of it. She complained that the sculptor kept her awake all night kissing her. And then there was no hot water for her douches. But finally she decided that it was just as well she didn’t come back. "I won’t have that candlestick next to me any more," she said. "Always that candlestick… it made me nervous. If you had only been a fairy I would have stayed with you…"

1

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

With Macha gone our evenings took on a different character. Often we sat by the fire drinking hot toddies and discussing the life back there in the States. We talked about it as if we never expected to go back there again. Fillmore had a map of New York City which he had tacked on the wall; we used to spend whole evenings discussing the relative virtues of Paris and New York. And inevitably there always crept into our discussions the figure of Whitman, that one lone figure which America has produced in the course of her brief life. In Whitman the whole American scene comes to life, her past and her future, her birth and her death. Whatever there is of value in America Whitman has expressed, and there is nothing more to be said. The future belongs to the machine, to the robots. He was the Poet of the Body and the Soul, Whitman. The first and the last poet. He is almost undecipherable today, a monument covered with rude hieroglyphs for which there is no key. It seems strange almost to mention his name over here. There is no equivalent in the languages of Europe for the spirit which he immortalized. Europe is saturated with art and her soil is full of dead bones and her museums are bursting with plundered treasures, but what Europe has never had is a free, healthy spirit, what you might call a MAN. Goethe was the nearest approach, but Goethe was a stuffed shirt, by comparison. Goethe was a respectable citizen, a pedant, a bore, a universal spirit, but stamped with the German trade mark, with the double eagle. The serenity of Goethe, the calm, Olympian attitude, is nothing more than the drowsy stupor of a German burgeois deity. Goethe is an end of something, Whitman is a beginning.

2

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

After a discussion of this sort I would sometimes put on my things and go for a walk, bundled up in a sweater, a spring overcoat of Fillmore’s and a cape over that. A foul, damp cold against which there is no protection except a strong spirit. They say America is a country of extremes, and it is true that the thermometer registers degrees of cold which are practically unheard of here; but the cold of a Paris winter is a cold unknown to America, it is psychological, an inner as well as an outer cold. If it never freezes here it never thaws either. Just as the people protect themselves against the invasion of their privacy, by their high walls, their bolts and shutters, their growling, evil tongued, slatternly concierges, so they have learned to protect themselves against the cold and heat of a bracing, vigorous climate. They have fortified themselves: protection is the keyword. Protection and security. In order that they may rot in comfort. On a damp winter’s night it is not necessary to look at the map to discover the latitude of Paris. It is a northern city, an outpost erected over a swamp filled in with skulls and bones. Along the boulevards there is a cold electrical imitation of heat. Tout Va Bien in ultraviolet rays that make the clients of the Dupont chain cafés look like gangrened cadavers. Tout Va Bien! That’s the motto that nourishes the forlorn beggars who walk up and down all night under the drizzle of the violet rays. Wherever there are lights there is a little heat. One gets warm from watching the fat, secure bastards down their grogs, their steaming black coffees. Where the lights are there are people on the sidewalks, jostling one another, giving off a little animal heat through their dirty underwear and their foul, cursing breaths. Maybe for a stretch of eight or ten blocks there is a semblance of gaiety, and then it tumbles back into night, dismal, foul, black night like frozen fat in a soup tureen. Blocks and blocks of jagged tenements, every window closed tight, every shopfront barred and bolted. Miles and miles of stone prisons without the faintest glow of warmth; the dogs and the cats are all inside with the canary buds. The cockroaches and the bedbugs too are safely incarcerated. Tout Va Bien. If you haven’t a sou why just take a few old newspapers and make yourself a bed on the steps of a cathedral. The doors are well bolted and there will be no draughts to disturb you. Better still is to sleep outside the Metro doors; there you will have company. Look at them on a rainy night, lying there stiff as mattresses – men, women, lice, all huddled together and protected by the newspapers against spittle and the vermin that walks without legs. Look at them under the bridges or under the market sheds. How vile they look in comparison with the clean, bright vegetables stacked up like jewels. Even the dead horses and the cows and sheep hanging from the greasy hooks look more inviting. At least we will eat these tomorrow and even the intestines will serve a purpose. But these filthy beggars lying in the rain, what purpose do they serve? What good can they do us? They make us bleed for five minutes, that’s all.

3

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

Oh, well, these are night thoughts produced by walking in the rain after two thousand years of Christianity. At least now the birds are well provided for, and the cats and dogs. Every time I pass the concierge’s window and catch the full icy impact of her glance I have an insane desire to throttle all the birds in creation. At the bottom of every frozen heart there is a drop or two of love – just enough to feed the birds.

4

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

Still I can’t get it out of my mind what a discrepancy there is between ideas and living. A permanent dislocation, though we try to cover the two with a bright awning. And it won’t go. Ideas have to be wedded to action; if there is no sex, no vitality in them, there is no action. Ideas cannot exist alone in the vacuum of the mind. Ideas are related to living: liver ideas, kidney ideas, interstitial ideas, etc. If it were only for the sake of an idea Copernicus would have smashed the existent macrocosm and Columbus would have foundered in the Sargasso Sea. The aesthetics of the idea breeds flowerpots and flowerpots you put on the window sill. But if there be no rain or sun of what use putting flowerpots outside the window?

5

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

Fillmore is full of ideas about gold. The "mythos" of gold, he calls it. I like "mythos" and I like the idea of gold, but I am not obsessed by the subject and I don’t see why we should make flowerpots, even of gold. He tells me that the French are hoarding their gold away in watertight compartments deep below the surface of the earth; he tells me that there is a little locomotive which runs around in these subterranean vaults and corridors. I like the idea enormously. A profound, uninterrupted silence in which the gold softly snoozes at a temperature of 17? degrees Centigrade. He says an army working 46 days and 37 hours would not be sufficient to count all the gold that is sunk beneath the Bank of France, and that there is a reserve supply of false teeth, bracelets, wedding rings, etc. Enough food also to last for eighty days and a lake on top of the gold pile to resist the shock of high explosives. Gold, he says, tends to become more and more invisible, a myth, and no more defalcations. Excellent! I am wondering what will happen to the world when we go off the gold standard in ideas, dress, morals, etc. The gold standard of love!

6

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

Up to the present, my idea in collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of literature. My idea briefly has been to present a resurrection of the emotions, to depict the conduct of a human being in the stratosphere of ideas, that is, in the grip of delirium. To paint a pre-Socratic being, a creature part goat, part Titan. In short, to erect a world on the basis of the omphalos, not on an abstract idea nailed to a cross. Here and there you may have come across neglected statues, oases untapped, windmills overlooked by Cervantes, rivers that run uphill, women with five and six breasts ranged longitudinally along the torso. (Writing to Gauguin, Strindberg said: "J’ai vu des arbres que ne retrouverait aucun botaniste, des animaux que Cuvier n’a jamais soup?onnés et des hommes que vous seul avez pu créer.") When Rembrandt hit par he went below with the gold ingots and the pemmican and the portable beds. Gold is a night word belonging to the chthonian mind: it has dream in it and mythos. We are reverting to alchemy, to that fake Alexandrian wisdom which produced our inflated symbols. Real wisdom is being stored away in the subcellars by the misers of learning. The day is coming when they will be circling around in the middle air with magnetizers; to find a piece of ore you will have to go up ten thousand feet with a pair of instruments – in a cold latitude preferably – and establish telepathic communication with the bowels of the earth and the shades of the dead. No more Klondikes. No more bonanzas. You will have to learn to sing and caper a bit, to read the zodiac and study your entrails. All the gold that is being tucked away in the pockets of the earth will have to be re mined; all this symbolism will have to be dragged out again from the bowels of man. But first the instruments must be perfected. First it is necessary to invent better airplanes, to distinguish where the noise comes from and not go daffy just because you hear an explosion under your ass. And secondly it will be necessary to get adapted to the cold layers of the stratosphere, to become a cold blooded fish of the air. No reverence. No piety. No longing. No regr ets. No hysteria. Above all, as Philippe Datz says – "NO DISCOURAGEMENT!"

7

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

These are sunny thoughts inspired by a vermouth cassis at the Place de la Trinité. A Saturday afternoon and a "misfire" book in my hands. Everything swimming in a divine mucopus. The drink leaves a bitter herbish taste in my mouth, the lees of our Great Western civilization, rotting now like the toenails of the saints. Women are passing by – regiments of them – all swinging their asses in front of me; the chimes are ringing and the buses are climbing the sidewalk and bussing one another. The gar?on wipes the table with a dirty rag while the patronne tickles the cash register with fiendish glee. A look of vacuity on my face, blotto, vague in acuity, biting the asses that brush by me. In the belfry opposite the hunchback strikes with a golden mallet and the pigeons scream alarum. I open the book – the book which Nietzsche called "the best German book there is" – and it says:

8

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

"MEN WILL BECOME MORE CLEVER AND MORE ACUTE; BUT NOT BETTER, HAPPIER, AND STRONGER IN ACTION – OR, AT LEAST, ONLY AT EPOCHS. I FORESEE THE TIME WHEN GOD WILL HAVE NO MORE JOY IN THEM, BUT WILL BREAK UP EVERYTHING FOR A RENEWED CREATION. I AM CERTAIN THAT EVERYTHING IS PLANNED TO THIS END, AND THAT THE TIME AND HOUR IN THE DISTANT FUTURE FOR THE OCCURRENCE OF THIS RENOVATING EPOCH ARE ALREADY FIXED. BUT A LONG TIME WILL ELAPSE FIRST, AND WE MAY STILL FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS AMUSE OURSELVES ON THIS DEAR OLD SURFACE."

9

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

Excellent! At least a hundred years ago there was a man who had vision enough to see that the world was pooped out. Our Western world! – When I see the figures of men and women moving listlessly behind their prison walls, sheltered, secluded for a few brief hours, I am appalled by the potentialities for drama that are still contained in these feeble bodies. Behind the gray walls there are human sparks, and yet never a conflagration. Are these men and women, I ask myself, or are these shadows, shadows of puppets dangled by invisible strings? They move in freedom apparently, but they have nowhere to go. In one realm only are they free and there they may roam at will – but they have not yet learned how to take wing. So far there have been no dreams that have taken wing. Not one man has been born light enough, gay enough, to leave the earth! The eagles who flapped their mighty pinions for a while came crashing heavily to earth. They made us dizzy with the flap and whir of their wings. Stay on the earth, you eagles of the future!

10

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
-

The heavens have been explored and they are empty. And what lies under the earth is empty too, filled with bones and shadows. Stay on the earth and swim another few hundred thousand years!

11

读书笔记

是否公开

我的读书笔记

仅对会员开放

网友的读书笔记

仅对会员开放
简典