这一段很有名,非常美,耐人寻思,放在这里以备重读。
It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with every reperusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions when he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an ITALICIZED passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation points at the end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter.
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?
- Re: 马克土温《在密西西比河上》第九章摘选posted on 09/10/2008
值得品味!
touche wrote:
这一段很有名,非常美,耐人寻思,放在这里以备重读。 - posted on 09/10/2008
这段也不错!
密西西比河上的黎明
They are enchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep hush broods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness, isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawn creeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften to gray, and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the water is glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist, there is not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the tranquillity is profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, another follows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music. You see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of song which seems to sing itself. When the light has become a little stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable. You have the intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by; you see it paling shade by shade in front of you; upon the next projecting cape, a mile off or more, the tint has lightened to the tender young green of spring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthest one, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim vapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. And all this stretch of river is a mirror, and you have the shadowy reflections of the leafage and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in it. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful; and when the sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush here and a powder of gold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect, you grant that you have seen something that is worth remembering.
黎明悄然而至;黑幽幽的树林如同坚实的壁垒,这会儿成了灰白色,宽阔的河面也在你面前打开;水面像玻璃一样平滑,泛着一圈圈幽幽的白雾;没有一丝风,树叶 一动也不动;一切如此静谧,让人感到无限惬意。这时一只鸟儿唱起来,另一只也跟着唱,不一会儿百鸟争鸣,成了一场热闹的音乐狂欢。可是你一只鸟也看不见; 只是在歌声中穿行,仿佛歌声自己唱起来。天更亮一些了,可以看到近处稠密的树叶浓郁的绿色;这绿色在你面前越远越浅;一英里外或更远一点,在下一个伸进河 里的岬角上,已淡成春天娇柔的嫩绿;再远处的岬角几乎没有了颜色,最远处的则在数英里外的地平线下,它安静地睡在水中,仿佛一片氤氲的水汽,和周围的天际 几乎连成一片。这一片河面好像一面镜子,树叶,曲折的河岸,和那些渐远渐小的岬角,河中都有它们幽暗的倒影。啊,这实在太美了;柔和,富郁,美丽;太阳完 全跃出了地平线,这边的灌木丛上洒下一片粉红,那边一点金光,还有最美不过的那一抹紫烟,于是你得承认这是真正值得记住的一幕。
(Chapter 30, Life on the Mississippi)
- Re: 马克土温《在密西西比河上》第九章摘选posted on 09/10/2008
谢谢lucy and touche.
更喜欢看中英对照的.
lucy wrote: - posted on 09/10/2008
我也要谢谢lucy。
我最早注意土温的这一段,是别人在讨论理解和感觉时引用的。土温说当他对密西西比河滚瓜烂熟后遗憾地发现他再也看不到大河原有的美感。这是很有意思的一点。我们不必在理性和感性上过分教条。理性发现的是理,感性发现的是感。
比如说,在了解到贝多芬第九交响乐的终曲是个双重复格后,我确实知道到了更多的东西,也猜测作曲家在这里用复格曲式的宗教含义,我也会更注意乐曲的编织,但是我不能说这些了解使我对这个终曲的感受超过原先浑然的感觉。
就我个人而言,我常常发现我会切换大脑的模式,从分析型的到整体型的。用英文可能更准确一点:switch between analytic and holistic modes。用不同的模式,你注意到的不是同一东西。
一个例子是当我读外语材料的时候,我或者关注内容,或者关注形式,启用不同模式。这两种模式从来不能相安无事,不是你就是他。读内容时无法同时关注形式,必须强制自己切换模式重新扫描处理句子或段落。 - posted on 09/11/2008
touche wrote:
我也要谢谢lucy。
就我个人而言,我常常发现我会切换大脑的模式,从分析型的到整体型的。用英文可能更准确一点:switch between analytic and holistic modes。用不同的模式,你注意到的不是同一东西。
一个例子是当我读外语材料的时候,我或者关注内容,或者关注形式,启用不同模式。这两种模式从来不能相安无事,不是你就是他。读内容时无法同时关注形式,必须强制自己切换模式重新扫描处理句子或段落。
这个这个我感兴趣。我对母语是两种语言的人的大脑转换好奇,他们阅读时如何切换,对任何一种语言都无外语之感。用的模式好象不光是 analytic and holistic modes,但我也不知道是什么模式。
我认识一个母语为英法德语的人,能在三种语言里游弋自如,听说读写译切换,直接欣赏土温哈马贝斯塞林那,我总有想把他的脑袋切开看看的念头。
- posted on 09/16/2008
这个也相关。钢琴家David Dubal采访钢琴家Alfred Brendel:
Dubal: Since you are a profoundly analytic musician, when you memorize, do you analyze the names of the harmonic progressions, writting in their numbers and so forth?
Brendel: I prefer no to memorize harmonic progressions, because I want to feel them as freshly as possible while I play. Perhaps I am a little bit afraid that knowing them too well intellectually may detract from the spontaneity of my playing. What I like to analyze is the motive connections within a piece.
Dubal: So you feel that there is a point at which too much academic knowledge will hurt your interpretation.
Brendel: That's correct. As I mold my interpretation and conception I play as instinctively as possible; only later do I attempt to understand what I am doing, why I am doing it. Then I start correcting myself whenever necessary, and from that moment on, I am reassessing my findings as often as I can.
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation