第12章 童年與詩
- 每天讀點好英文:但愿你的道路漫長
- 暖小昕編譯
- 1359字
- 2016-05-24 14:58:11
Childhood and Poetry
[智]巴勃羅·聶魯達/Pablo Neruda
有一次,在特木科我家后院里,我檢查自己那些小物件和零零碎碎的東西時,發現圍墻的擋板上有個洞,透過這個洞,我看到了外面一處荒涼的風景。我向后退了幾步,隱約覺得有什么事情要發生。突然間,出現了一只手——一個與我年齡相仿的男孩的小手。這時,我再次走上前,那只手卻拿開了,留在那里的是一只漂亮的白色綿羊玩具。
綿羊的毛褪色了,輪子也脫落了,但這一切都使它更加逼真。我還從沒見過這么好看的綿羊。我又從洞里向外看,男孩已不見了。我回到屋里,拿出我自己的一件心愛之物:一枚裂開的松果,我非常喜歡它四溢的香氣。我把它放在同一個地方,然后拿著綿羊走開了。
后來,我再也沒見過那個男孩和那只手,再也沒有見過那樣漂亮的一只綿羊,因為在一場火災中我失去了那個綿羊玩具。直到現在,1954年,年近五十的我,每當路過玩具店時,總是偷偷地向櫥窗里張望,但是沒有用。他們再也做不出那樣的綿羊了。
我是個幸運的人。感受兄弟間的親情是人生的一件快事,感受我們所愛的人對我們的關愛,是點燃我們生命的火。而那些與我們完全不相識,也一無所知的人,在我們睡著或孤獨時看護著我們,監視我們面臨的危險和弱點。他們給予我們的溫情則更偉大、更美好,因為他們拓展了我們的空間,把所有的生命維系在一起。
那次交換第一次讓我明白了這樣一個珍貴的道理:不管怎樣,人類是一個整體。后來,我再一次體會到這一點。這一次,在動亂與迫害的背景下,它被醒目地表現了出來。
那么,我試圖用散發著松香和泥土芳香的東西換取人類的手足之情,就讓你感到驚訝。就像我在柵欄旁留下松果一樣,我曾把激勵的話語留在很多人的門上,他們與我素昧平生,或者在獄中服刑,或者被追捕,或者是孤獨的。
這是我在童年時期學到的重要一課,就在一所房子的后院中。也許這只不過是兩個互不相識的孩子的一場游戲,只是想要傳遞生活中某些美好的東西給對方。然而,或許這一次渺小卻又奇妙的禮物互換,會在我們內心深深地、永不泯滅地留存,為我的詩賦予光亮。
孩提時代的美好,不管時隔多么久遠,我們依舊無法忘懷。不管是珍藏這份回憶,還是偶爾回到那種心態,都是幸福的!
One time, investigating in the backyard of our house in Temuco the tiny objects and minuscule beings of my world, I came upon a hole in one of the boards of the fence. I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps, because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen. All of a sudden a hand appeared—a tiny hand of a boy about my own age. By the time I came close again, the hand was gone, and in its place there was a marvelous white sheep.
The sheep's wool was faded. Its wheels had escaped. All of this only made it more authentic. I had never seen such a wonderful sheep. I looked back through the hole but the boy had disappeared. I went into the house and brought out a treasure of my own: a pinecone, opened, full of odor and resin, which I adored. I set it down in the same spot and went off with the sheep.
I never saw either the hand or the boy again. And I have never again seen a sheep like that either. The toy I lost finally in a fire. But even now, in 1954, almost fifty years old, whenever I pass a toy shop, I look furtively into the window, but it's no use. They don't make sheep like that anymore.
I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses—that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.
That exchange brought home to me for the first time a precious idea: that all of humanity is somehow together. That experience came to me again much later; this time it stood out strikingly against a background of trouble and persecution.
It won't surprise you then that I attempted to give something resiny, earthlike, and fragrant in exchange for human brotherhood. Just as I once left the pinecone by the fence, I have since left my words on the door of so many people who were unknown to me, people in prison, or hunted, or alone.
That is the great lesson I learned in my childhood, in thebackyard of a lonely house. Maybe it was nothing but a game two boys played who didn't know each other and wanted to pass to the other some good things of life. Yet maybe this small and mysterious exchange of gifts remained inside me also, deep and indestructible, giving my poetry light.