The One-Eyed Cat獨(dú)眼貓

阿爾弗雷德·喬治·加德納　朱建迅/譯

“Theres Peggy with that horrid cat again—that one-eyed cat from over the fence.” I looked out as I heard the ejaculation， and there in truth coming down the garden path was Peggy bearing affectionately in her arms the one-eyed cat from over the fence. Peggy likes the animal in spite of its one eye. I am not sure that she does not like it all the more because of its one eye. I think she has an idea that if she nurses the cat it forgets that it has only one eye and recovers its happiness. She has a passion for all four-legged creatures. I have seen her spend a whole day picking handfuls of grass in the orchard and running with them to the donkey or the horse standing patiently in the neighbours paddock， and when she hasnt animals to play with she will put a horseshoe on each hand and each foot， and then you will hear from above the plod-plod-plod of a horse going its daily round. But while she has a comprehensive affection for all four-legged things， her most fervent love is reserved for all the halt and the blind.

“佩吉又跟那只丑貓待在一起了——柵欄外過來的那只獨(dú)眼貓?！甭牭胶奥曃亿s緊朝外望去。的確，從花園小路上走來的正是佩吉，懷里憐愛地?fù)е侵粡臇艡谕饬镞^來的獨(dú)眼貓。佩吉喜歡這個(gè)小家伙，雖然它僅有一只眼。我不能確定她是否由于貓兒獨(dú)眼的緣故而對(duì)它疼愛有加。我想，她以為只要這只貓得到她的照料，便會(huì)忘了自己僅有一只眼，進(jìn)而重新獲得幸福。她酷愛所有四條腿的動(dòng)物。我曾見她整天在外，一把把地拔出果園里的青草，攥在手里，跑到平靜地站在鄰家圍場(chǎng)里的驢或馬身邊。若是沒有動(dòng)物陪她玩耍，她就將自己的雙手雙腳全都套上馬掌，隨后你便聽到樓上傳來一匹馬兒每天溜達(dá)時(shí)發(fā)出的嗒嗒蹄聲。不過，她雖然普遍喜歡四條腿的動(dòng)物，對(duì)其中的跛足眇目者卻尤為寵愛。

It is only among children that we find the quality of charity sufficiently strong to forgive deformity. The natural instinct is to turn away from any physical imperfection. It is the instinct of the race for the preservation of its forms. We call these forms beauty and the departure from them ugliness， and it is from “beautys rose，” as Shakespeare says， that “we desire increase.”2 If you shudder at the touch of a withered hand or at the sight of a one-eyed cat， it is because you feel that they are a menace to the established forms of life. You are unconsciously playing the part of policeman for nature. You are the guardian of its traditions when you blush at the glance of two eyes and shudder at the glance of one.

只有在兒童身上，我們才能發(fā)現(xiàn)那種足以憐憫畸殘的善良品質(zhì)。人類遵從自然的天性，厭惡任何一類身體缺陷。一個(gè)種族努力維護(hù)自身形態(tài)的完美，也是天性使然。我們管勻稱的形態(tài)叫美，管畸殘的形態(tài)叫丑。正是從莎士比亞所說的“美的玫瑰”中，“我們祈盼生命的繁盛”。你在觸碰一只枯瘦的手或瞧見一只獨(dú)眼貓時(shí)直打哆嗦，因?yàn)槟阌X得它們對(duì)既有的生命形態(tài)是一種威脅。你不自覺地扮演了維系自然形態(tài)的角色。你看到俊美的雙目臉頰泛紅，瞥見丑陋的獨(dú)眼渾身顫栗，都是在維護(hù)自然界沿襲已久的形態(tài)。

And yet it is not impossible to fall in love with the physically defective and sincerely to believe that they are beautiful. Take that incident mentioned by Descartes. He said that when he was a child he used to play with a little girl who had a squint， and that to the end of his days he liked people who squinted. In this case it was the associations of memory that gave a glamour to deformity and made it beautiful. The squint brought back to him the memory of the Golden Age， and through the mist of that memory it was transmuted into loveliness.

然而，愛上罹患?xì)埣舱卟⑸钚牌涿溃瑓s并非無此可能。且以笛卡爾提到的那則軼事為例。笛卡爾說他兒時(shí)常與一個(gè)斜眼小姑娘玩耍，結(jié)果他終生都喜歡斜眼人。在這個(gè)故事中，記憶的諸多聯(lián)想賦予畸殘幾分魅力，令其呈現(xiàn)美的形態(tài)。斜眼使他想起自己的“黃金歲月”，并且通過朦朧的回憶，轉(zhuǎn)化為怡人的秀色。

Nor is it memory alone that will work the miracle. Intellectual sympathy will do it too. Wilkes3 was renowned for his ugliness， but he claimed that， given half an hours start4， he would win the smile of any woman against any competitor. And when one of his lady admirers， engaged in defending him， was reminded that he squinted badly， she replied： “Of course he does; but he doesnt squint more than a man of his genius ought to squint.” Nor was it women alone whom the fellow fascinated. Who can forget the scene when Tom Davies brought him into the company of Dr. Johnson5， who hated Wilkes Radicalism， and would never willingly have consented to meet him？ For a time Johnson refused to unbend， but at last he could hold out no longer， and fell a victim to the charm of Wilkes talk.

世上并非只有回憶才能創(chuàng)造奇跡，心靈的契合亦能如此。威爾克斯以貌丑而著稱，但他聲稱，給他半小時(shí)的說話機(jī)會(huì)，他就能擊敗任何一位對(duì)手而贏得任何女士的青睞。一位對(duì)他崇拜有加百般袒護(hù)的女士，聽人提及他眼睛斜得厲害時(shí)說道：“沒錯(cuò)，他是斜眼；可他這樣天資卓絕的人物，斜眼又有何妨?！币膊粌H僅是女士才為之傾倒。誰能忘記湯姆·戴維斯把威爾克斯帶入約翰遜博士社交圈的一幕？此前約翰遜討厭威爾克斯的激進(jìn)主義，絕對(duì)不愿答應(yīng)與其晤面。約翰遜曾一度拒絕妥協(xié)，但他終于撐不住了，完全被威爾克斯談吐的魅力所折服。

In the same way， Johnson believed his wife to be a woman of perfect beauty. To the rest of the world she was extraodinarily plain and commonplace， but to Johnson she was the mirror of beauty. “Pretty creature，” he would say with a sigh in referring to her after her death.

同樣，約翰遜相信自己的妻子是一位絕色美人。在所有的外人看來，她的相貌特別普通，并無姿色，但在約翰遜眼里，她卻儼然是美貌的化身。“美人兒?！彼谄拮尤ナ篮筇崞鹚龝r(shí)常常說道，伴隨著一聲嘆息。

And here， I fancy， we touch the root of the matter. The sense of beauty is in one respect an affair of the soul， and only superficially an aesthetic quality. We start with a common prejudice in favour of certain physical forms. They are the forms with which nature has made us familiar， and we seek to perpetuate them. But if the conventionally beautiful form is allied with spiritual ugliness it ceases to be beautiful to us， and if the conventionally ugly form is allied with spiritual beauty that beauty irradiates6 the physical deficiency. The soul dominates the senses. Francis Thompson7 expresses the idea very beautifully when he says：—

這里，我以為，我們觸及到問題的實(shí)質(zhì)。美感在一定程度上關(guān)乎人的心靈，表面上只是一種審美的特質(zhì)。我們起初全都帶著喜愛某些身體形態(tài)的偏向。這些偏向都是大自然幫助我們逐漸熟悉的形態(tài)，我們努力使之永存。但是，倘若傳統(tǒng)的美麗形態(tài)與心靈的丑陋為伍，它對(duì)于我們便不再是美；倘若傳統(tǒng)的丑陋形態(tài)與心靈的美麗相伴，心靈美便抵消了身體的缺陷。心靈主宰了感覺。弗朗西斯·湯普森用下列詩(shī)行完美地表達(dá)了這一觀點(diǎn)：

I cannot tell what beauty is her dole，

我無法分辨她的美歸屬何類，

Who cannot see her features for her soul.

我關(guān)注她的心靈，不見其貌，

As birds see not the casement8 for the sky.

有如鳥貪戀天宇，不見窗扉。

But there is another sense in which beauty is the most matter-of-fact thing. I can conceive that if the human family had developed only one eye， and that planted in the centre of the forehead， the appearance of a person with two eyes would be as offensive to our sense of beauty as a hand that consisted not of fingers but of thumbs. We should go to the show to see the two-eyed man with just the same feelings as we go now to see the bearded woman. We should not go to admire his two eyes， any more than we go to admire the beard; we should go to enjoy a pleasant sense of disgust at his misfortune and a comfortable satisfaction at the fact that we had not been the victims of such a calamity. We should roll our single eye with a proud feeling that we were in the true line of beauty， from which the two-eyed man in front was a hideous and fantastic depature.

然而人們又覺得美是最順其自然的事。不妨這樣想象，如果人類以前長(zhǎng)出的是一只眼，且位于額頭中央，雙眼人的形象將與我們的美感相抵觸，恰似一只手有五根拇指而非各不相同的五指。那樣我們前去參觀雙眼人展覽，就會(huì)懷著我們?nèi)缃窨吹介L(zhǎng)胡子女人時(shí)同樣的心理。我們不會(huì)贊賞他的雙眼，正如我們不會(huì)贊賞女人的胡須；我們只會(huì)由于厭其不幸而生出一種怡然快感，同時(shí)又為我們沒有成為如此災(zāi)禍的犧牲品而感到慶幸和寬慰。我們會(huì)骨碌骨碌轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)著單眼，自豪地感到我們才真正符合美的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，我們面前丑陋而怪誕的雙眼人，則背離了美的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。

Beauty， in short， is only a tribute9? which we pay to necessity. In equipping itself for the struggle for existence humanity has found that it is convenient to have two eyes and a stereoscopic10 vision， just as it is convenient to have four fingers on the hand and one thumb instead of five thumbs. Our members have been developed in the manner best fitted to enable us to fight our battle. And the more perfectly they fulfil that supreme condition the more beautiful we declare them to be. Our ideas of beauty， therefore， are not absolute; they are conditional. They are the humble servants of our necessity. Two eyes are necessary for us to get about our business， and so we fall in love with two eyes， and the more perfect they are for their work the more we fall in love with them， and the more beautiful we declare them to be.

美，簡(jiǎn)而言之，只是我們對(duì)需求的一種稱贊。人類在為努力生存于世培養(yǎng)自身官能的過程中，發(fā)現(xiàn)還是兩只眼睛和立體視覺方便，正如人手五指不全是拇指而是四根手指加一拇指才更方便一樣。我們的身體器官以最適宜的方式逐漸進(jìn)化，以便于我們應(yīng)對(duì)挑戰(zhàn)。這些器官越是充分適應(yīng)那種最佳狀態(tài)，我們便越覺得它們美麗。因此，我們的美學(xué)觀念不是絕對(duì)的，而是有條件的。這些觀念謙卑地服務(wù)于我們的需求。雙眼為我們履行己職之所必需，于是我們開始喜歡雙眼，它們功能發(fā)揮得越完美，我們?cè)绞窍矚g它們，越會(huì)聲稱它們美麗。

I think that Peggy， nursing her one-eyed cat there in the sun， has not yet accepted our creed of beauty. She will be as conventional as the rest of us when her frocks are longer.

我想，此刻正在陽光下小心抱著她那只獨(dú)眼貓的佩吉，尚未接受我們的美學(xué)信條。及至她身上的連衣裙再長(zhǎng)些，自會(huì)像我們其他人一樣形成傳統(tǒng)的審美觀。

（譯者單位：揚(yáng)州大學(xué)外國(guó)語學(xué)院）