旅行的藝術:對旅行的期待-7

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在我們動身離開的前幾天，我和M打算在島上四處走走。我們租借了一輛小型越野車，開著它往北，到一處叫蘇格蘭的崎嶇陡峭的山地，那是17世紀奧利佛·克倫威爾 [9] 流放英國天主教徒的地方。在巴巴多斯島的最北端，我們參觀了動物花洞（Animal Flower Cave），那是海浪沖擊石崖，在崖表留下的許許多多的洞穴。洞穴里住滿了巨大的?？诳涌油萃莸氖律箱伮_來，當它們伸出觸角時，看上去像是黃、綠色的花簇。

A few days before our departure, M and I decided to explore the island. We rented a Mini Moke and headed north, to an area of rugged hills called Scotland, to which Oliver Cromwell had exiled English Catholics in the seventeenth century. At Barbados's northernmost tip, we visited Animal Flower Cave, a series of caverns hollowed out of the rock-face by the pounding of the waves, in which giant sea anemones grew along the pitted walls and looked like yellow and green flowers when they opened their tendrils.

中午時分，我們開始往南，到達圣約翰的教區(qū)，在那里的一個林木蔥蘢的小山上，我們找到了一個餐館，它位于一棟古老的殖民時期留下的建筑物的長廊內(nèi)。餐館的花園里長著炮彈樹，還有開滿花的非洲郁金香樹，滿樹的花朵就像是倒懸的喇叭。從一頁介紹詞上我們獲知這建筑和花園都是1745年安東尼·哈欽森爵士在此統(tǒng)治時建造的，造價顯然非常高昂，耗費了10萬磅食糖貿(mào)易之所得。沿著走廊，擺放著十張餐桌，正對著花園和大海。我和M在走廊的盡頭找了一張桌子坐下，桌旁是開著葉子花的灌木叢。M點了一大份甜辣醬蝦，我要了紅酒海魚片，里面放有洋蔥和香草。我們談論著殖民制度，還有在這里防曬霜（即便是最好的防曬霜）的不可思議的低效用。至于甜點，我們要了兩份焦糖布丁。

At midday, we headed south towards the parish of St John and there, on a tree-covered hill, found a restaurant in one wing of an old colonial mansion. In the garden were a cannonball tree and an African tulip tree, the latter bearing flowers in the shape of upside-down trumpets. A leaflet informed us that the house and gardens had been built by the administrator Sir Anthony Hutchison in 1745, and had cost the apparently enormous trade of 100,000 pounds of sugar. Ten tables were set out along a gallery, with a view of the gardens and the sea. We took our place at the far end, beside an efflorescent bougainvillea bush. M ordered jumbo shrimp in sweet pepper sauce, I had a kingfish with onions and herbs in red wine. We talked about the colonial system and the curious ineffectiveness of even the most powerful sunblocks. For dessert, we ordered two crèmes caramel.

甜點上來了，M的那份較大，但看上去像是曾經(jīng)掉在廚房地板上然后再撿起來那樣不成形狀；我的一份則較小，但精致成形。餐館服務員一走開，M便起身把她的盤子和我的盤子對換了一下?！皠e偷走我的甜點，”我有些生氣地說?！拔疫€以為你想要大的一份，”她回答道，一點也不給我情面?！澳闶窍肽煤玫哪欠?！”“我并不是像你那樣想的，我只是想對你好而已！別這樣多疑好嗎？”“得了，對我好，把我的一份給我就行了！”

When the crèmes arrived, M received a large, but messy portion which looked as if it had fallen over in the kitchen and I a tiny, but perfectly formed one. As soon as the waiter had stepped out of eyeshot, M reached over and swapped my plate for hers. 'Don't steal my dessert,' I said, incensed. 'I thought you wanted the bigger one,' she replied, no less affronted. 'You're just trying to get the better one.' 'I'm not, I'm trying to be nice to you. Stop being suspicious.' 'I will if you give me back my portion.'

就這一會兒，我和M都感到了難堪，因為在那孩子氣的口角背后，我們都感覺到了彼此不合、相互不信任的恐懼。

In only a few moments, we had plunged into a shameful interlude where beneath infantile rounds of bickering there stirred mutual terrors of incompatibility and infidelity.

M極不友善地退回了我的甜點，只嘗了兩勺她的甜點，然后將盤子推到了桌子的一邊。我們再也沒有言語。付完賬，我們便開車回酒店，車子引擎的聲音掩蓋了我們之間的強烈怨憤。我們不在時，酒店服務員整理了房間，床上換了干凈的床單，矮柜上還擺放了花束，浴室里也放著新的大浴巾。我從浴室的毛巾架上掀了一條浴巾，走出房間坐在陽臺上，狠狠地帶上落地窗門。椰子樹投下舒適的陰涼，在下午的微風里，它們交叉在一起的葉子不時地重新組合，變著樣式。但是，雖有如此美景，我們卻無快樂可言。幾小時前的甜點之爭，使我對任何實際的事物和任何美的景致都不能產(chǎn)生快感。舒適的浴巾、花朵和迷人的風景都變得與我無涉。我的情緒無法借助美好的外在事物而變得高昂起來；相反，如此完美的天氣，還有晚上即將進行的海灘燒烤，讓我覺得是一種羞辱。

M handed back my plate grimly, took a few spoons from hers and pushed the dessert to one side. We said nothing. We paid and drove back to the hotel, the sound of the engine disguising the intensity of our sulks. The room had been cleaned in our absence. The bed had fresh linen. There were flowers on the chest of drawers and new beach towels in the bathroom. I tore one from the pile and went to sit on the veranda, closing the French doors violently behind me. The coconut trees were throwing a gentle shade, the criss-cross patterns of their palms occasionally rearranging themselves in the afternoon breeze. But there was no pleasure for me in such beauty. I had enjoyed nothing aesthetic or material since the struggle over the crèmes caramel several hours before. It had become irrelevant that there were soft towels, flowers and attractive views. My mood refused to be lifted by any external prop; it even felt insulted by the perfection of the weather and the prospect of the beach-side barbecue scheduled for that evening.

那天下午，空氣中攙雜著眼淚、防曬霜和空調(diào)冷氣的味道，我們心境凄然；它提醒我們：人類情緒受制于一種僵硬和不寬容的邏輯，若我們想象眼前的美景可以帶給我們快樂，而忽略這種邏輯，那我們就錯了。無論是賞心悅目的事物，還是實實在在的東西，我們從中獲取幸福的關鍵似乎取決于這樣一個事實，那就是我們必須首先滿足自己情感或心理上的一些更為重要的需求，諸如對理解、愛、宣泄和尊重的需求。我和M突然發(fā)現(xiàn)彼此承諾的戀情中充滿了溝通障礙和怨憤，我們將不會，也不可能會安然享用華麗的熱帶花園和迷人的海灘木屋。

Our misery that afternoon, in which the smell of tears mixed with the scents of suncream and air-conditioning, was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which human moods appear to be subject, a logic that we ignore at our peril when we encounter a picture of a beautiful land and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence. Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love,expression and respect.We will not enjoy-we are not able to enjoy-sumptuous tropical gardens and attractive wooden beach huts when a relationship to which we are committed abruptly reveals itself to be suffused with incomprehension and resentment.

僅僅是一次發(fā)怒，居然讓我們不再能夠享受整個酒店的所有迷人之處。如果我們對這怒氣的威力感到驚訝，那是因為我們曾經(jīng)誤解了影響我們情緒的關鍵因素。在家時，我們情緒低落，詛咒氣候的惡劣，抱怨建筑物的丑陋，然而，到了熱帶島嶼上，在湛藍天空下有著椰纖屋頂?shù)男∧疚堇?，一場爭論過后我們明白的卻是這樣一個道理——天空的狀態(tài)和我們所居住的建筑物的外表決不能憑它們自身的力量保證讓我們暢享快樂，或倍感凄然。

If we are surprised by the power of one sulk to destroy the beneficial effects of an entire hotel, it is because we misunderstand what holds up our moods. We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn (after an argument in a raffia bungalow under an azure sky) that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

我們所進行的一些巨大的工程，諸如酒店的建造和海灣的疏浚等，同我們的一些細微和基本、卻能消解這些宏偉工程留給我們的印象的心理情結形成了反差。人類文明的一切優(yōu)勢，竟然在我們遭遇這一次小小的爭吵之后如此迅速地蕩然無存！這些心理情結之難以應付，正說明了一些古代哲人的樸素且具諷刺意味的智慧：他們主動拋卻浮華和俗世糾纏，住進小泥屋，甚至木桶里，并堅持認為構成幸福的關鍵因素并非是物質(zhì)的或?qū)徝赖?，而永遠是心理上的。薄暮時分，在海灘燒烤的火光所映照不到的暗處，我和M言歸于好，這時，豐盛的燒烤晚宴相對我們當時的幸福而言，已經(jīng)太不重要了！這也許再真切不過地印證了上述古代哲人的睿智。

There is a contrast between the vast projects we set in motion, the construction of hotels and the dredging of bays, and the basic psychological knots that undermine them. How quickly the advantages of civilization are wiped out by a tantrum. The intractability of the mental knots points to the austere, wry wisdom of certain ancient philosophers who walked away from prosperity and sophistication and argued, from within a barrel or mud hut, that the key ingredients of happiness could not be material or aesthetic, but must always be stubbornly psychological-a lesson that never seemed truer than when M and I made up at nightfall, in the shadow of a beach-side barbecue whose luxury had become a humbling irrelevance.