放逐在宇宙之外——Wakefield

赏析/ 李科

纳撒尼尔·霍桑(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804～1864)，是美国文学史上最伟大的小说家之一。他出生于美国马萨诸塞州塞勒姆市。霍桑大学就读于缅因州的鲍登学院，毕业后隐居故乡，专注于读书写作，蛰居长达12年之久。1837年，霍桑出版了短篇小说集《重述的故事》(Twice-Told Tales)，获得了众多批评家的认可，奠定了他浪漫文学大师的文坛地位。霍桑的代表作还有《红字》(The Scarlet Letter)、《七个尖顶的阁楼》(The House of Seven Gables)和《福谷传奇》(The Blithedale Romance)等长篇小说。他擅长在小说中深入挖掘人物的内心世界，探讨人性本质。《威克菲尔德》(Wakefield)选自其短篇小说集《重述的故事》，是其中较有影响的一篇。

Excerpts1)

In some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as truth, of a man—let us call him Wakefield—who absented himself for a long time from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very uncommon, nor—without a proper distinction of circumstances—to be condemned either as naughty or nonsensical. Howbeit2), this, though far from the most aggravated, is perhaps the strangest instance on record of marital delinquency3); and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found in the whole list of human oddities. The wedded couple lived in London. The man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years. During that period, he beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn4) Mrs. Wakefield. And after so great a gap in his matrimonial5) felicity6)—when his death was reckoned certain, his estate settled, his name dismissed from memory, and his wife, long, long ago, resigned to her autumnal7) widowhood—he entered the door one evening, quietly, as from a days absence, and became a loving spouse till death….

What sort of a man was Wakefield? We are free to shape out our own idea, and call it by his name. He was now in the meridian8) of life; his matrimonial affections, never violent, were sobered into a calm, habitual sentiment; of all husbands, he was likely to be the most constant, because a certain sluggishness9) would keep his heart at rest, wherever it might be placed. He was intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in long and lazy musings10), that ended to no purpose, or had not vigor to attain it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize hold of words. Imagination, in the proper meaning of the term, made no part of Wakefields gifts. With a cold but not depraved11) nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous thoughts, nor perplexed with originality, who could have anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a foremost place among the doers of eccentric deeds? Had his acquaintances been asked, who was the man in London the surest to perform nothing today which should be remembered on the morrow12), they would have thought of Wakefield. Only the wife of his bosom13) might have hesitated. She, without having analyzed his character, was partly aware of a quiet selfishness that had rusted into his inactive mind; of a peculiar sort of vanity, the most uneasy attribute about him; of a disposition to craft, which had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets, hardly worth revealing; and, lastly, of what she called a little strangeness, sometimes, in the good man. This latter quality is indefinable, and perhaps non-existent.

Let us now imagine Wakefield bidding adieu14) to his wife. It is the dusk of an October evening. His equipment is a drab15) great-coat, a hat covered with an oilcloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand and a small portmanteau16) in the other. He has informed Mrs. Wakefield that he is to take the night coach17) into the country. She would fain18) inquire the length of his journey, its object, and the probable time of his return; but, indulgent to his harmless love of mystery, interrogates him only by a look. He tells her not to expect him positively by the return coach, nor to be alarmed should he tarry19) three or four days; but, at all events, to look for him at supper on Friday evening. Wakefield himself, be it considered, has no suspicion of what is before him. He holds out his hand, she gives her own, and meets his parting kiss, in the matter-of-course way of a ten years matrimony; and forth goes the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield, almost resolved to perplex his good lady by a whole weeks absence. After the door has closed behind him, she perceives it thrust20) partly open, and a vision of her husbands face, through the aperture21), smiling on her, and gone in a moment. For the time, this little incident is dismissed without a thought. But, long afterwards, when she has been more years a widow than a wife, that smile recurs, and flickers across all her reminiscences of Wakefields visage22). In her many musings, she surrounds the original smile with a multitude of fantasies, which make it strange and awful: as, for instance, if she imagines him in a coffin, that parting look is frozen on his pale features; or, if she dreams of him in heaven, still his blessed spirit wears a quiet and crafty smile. Yet, for its sake, when all others have given him up for dead, she sometimes doubts whether she is a widow.

But our business is with the husband. We must hurry after him along the street, ere23) he lose his individuality, and melt into the great mass of London life. It would be vain searching for him there. Let us follow close at his heels, therefore, until, after several superfluous turns and doublings, we find him comfortably established by the fireside of a small apartment, previously bespoken24). He is in the next street to his own, and at his journeys end. He can scarcely trust his good fortune, in having got thither25) unperceived—recollecting that, at one time, he was delayed by the throng, in the very focus of a lighted lantern; and, again, there were footsteps that seemed to tread behind his own, distinct from the multitudinous tramp around him; and, anon26), he heard a voice shouting afar, and fancied that it called his name. Doubtless, a dozen busybodies had been watching him, and told his wife the whole affair. Poor Wakefield! Little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great world! No mortal eye but mine has traced thee.27)

1. 节选部分选自小说的前半部分，对主人公威克菲尔德进行了介绍并描述了其最初离家出走的情况。

2. howbeit [ha??bi??t] adv. [古语]尽管如此

3. delinquency [d??l??kw?nsi] n. 不端行为

4. forlorn [f?(r)?l??(r)n] adj. 被遗弃的

5. matrimonial [?m?tr??m??ni?l] adj. 婚姻的，与婚姻有关的

6. felicity [f??l?s?ti] n. 幸福，福气

7. autumnal [???t?mn(?)l] adj. 已过中年的

8. meridian [m??r?di?n] n. (健康、精力的)全盛期

9. sluggishness [?sl?ɡ??n?s] n. 懒怠

10. musing [?mju?z??] n. 沉思，冥想

11. depraved [d??pre?vd] adj. 堕落的

12. morrow [?m?r??] n. 次日

13. bosom [?b?z(?)m] n. 亲密的关系

14. adieu [??dju?] n. 告别，离别

15. drab [dr?b] adj. 土褐色的

16. portmanteau [p??(r)t?m?nt??] n. 旅行皮箱

17. coach [k??t?] n. 四轮大马车

18. fain [fe?n] adv. 欣然，乐意地

19. tarry [?t?ri] vi. 逗留；耽搁

20. thrust [θr?st] vt. (用力)推

21. aperture [??p?(r)t??(r)] n. 缝隙

22. visage [?v?z?d?] n. 容貌

23. ere [e?(r)] conj. 在……以前

24. bespoken [b??sp??k?n] adj. 预订的

25. thither [?????(r)] adv. 到那边

26. anon [??n?n] adv. 不久，之后

27. 在这句话中，有几个单词用的是古语的形式，其中knowest = knows，thou = you (主格)，thine = your，thee = you (宾格)。

作品赏析

美国小说大师纳撒尼尔·霍桑的《威克菲尔德》讲述了一则离奇的故事。一位住在伦敦的已婚男子告诉妻子自己要出门几天，随即搬到隔壁街道，不肯与家人再通音讯。20年后的某一天，就像他离开时一样，他一声不响地回到了妻子身边，直到终老。

“丈夫离家出走”这样的故事情节，在小说和影视作品中并不少见：可能是丈夫爱上了别的女性，与对方开始了新的生活；也可能是丈夫厌倦了一成不变的婚姻生活，一个人去浪迹天涯。但小说《威克菲尔德》的特殊之处在于，主人公威克菲尔德离家出走并没有明确的理由，只是一时兴起。而且，所谓离家，依然是住在同一个街区，离自己的家只有一个路口的距离，但主人公就这样与妻子咫尺天涯地生活了20年。

威克菲尔德是个循规蹈矩的老实人，既没有风流倜傥的外表，也没有一颗花花公子的心。他和妻子结婚十年，妻子贤惠忠贞，无可挑剔。是什么阻止了威克菲尔德的回归，使他突发奇想的恶作剧变成了一道无法弥合的鸿沟，将他和妻子隔绝开来？如果我们仔细阅读小说，将会发现，答案是因为威克菲尔德不满意自己离家出走后周围人所表现出的镇静。他渴望的是无条件的爱，希望属于他的这一片天空能够因为他这颗星体发生的悄然位移而引发巨大的震动。

在离家出走的当天，威克菲尔德就在盼望着有人能够注意到他的意图。他一边和妻子说要到乡下住上三五天，一边担心妻子会发现他在撒谎。其实，他的担心中掩藏着渴望，渴望妻子能够注意到他这一刻的与众不同。他的妻子却只是“以十年夫妻理所当然的方式，接受了他临别的一吻”。离开家后，威克菲尔德并没有立刻去新公寓，而是在城里兜了个很大的圈子。这样做的目的是甩掉跟踪的人。他一厢情愿地以为整个世界都在向他行注目礼，紧盯着他的一举一动。

威克菲尔德的离家出走，并不是成年人式的深思熟虑的结果，而是孩子式的任性。孩子总是想当然地以为自己应该是世界的中心。想要妈妈抱，要不到就会嚎啕大哭；想要玩具车，要不到可能就会大发脾气；想要人们的关注，要不到可能就会生出离家出走的念头：“当大人发现我失踪了，肯定会万分着急，即刻会来找我。”其实，成人世界的情感和孩子所理解的不一样。成人世界的情感不是先验的、无条件的，没有谁可以不用付出便拥有他人无休止的关注。可惜当威克菲尔德领会到这一点的时候，他的心已经被深深地伤害了。

威克菲尔德原打算离家出走一星期。在这一周之内，他一次次在旧家附近徘徊，希望妻子、女仆以及听差，无论是谁，至少有人能够体现出对他离家的关注。事与愿违，周围人的生活平静如昨。为此他恼羞成怒：“他好生闷气，脾气有时候也挺固执，眼下因为太太对自己的失踪不够重视，犟脾气又上来了。不把她吓个半死就决不回去。”如他所愿，妻子为他迟迟不归开始愁眉不展，一天比一天苍白，甚至病倒了。然而，还没有等他决定是否该回家，妻子就康复了。危机过去，她习惯了没有他的日子，生活平静淡然。十年后，他们再相遇，熙攘的人潮把她挤进他的怀里，她抬头望向他，并没有认出这就是曾经和自己同床共枕了十年的人。

在《威克菲尔德》中，霍桑写出了人类亲密关系之中的孤独。英文中，alone与lonely这两个单词都表示“孤独的”，但两者却有着很大的区别，前者侧重于指一个人独居，后者强调的则是内心的孤独感。人们可以一个人住在荒原而丝毫不觉得寂寞；也可能置身于热闹的狂欢舞会，却感受到形单影只。熙攘人群中的孤独有时比离群索居更可怕、更难耐。路上的人行色匆匆，有谁曾留意过擦肩而过的人中是否有熟悉的面孔？夫妻、同事、朋友——人与人的命运以某种方式联系在一起，但这并不表示就一定会彼此惦念、彼此关怀。的确，小说中的威克菲尔德任性而自私，但是细想他的动机，不过是贪恋爱与关注，他其实是个可怜人。当然，我们没有理由指责他的妻子，毕竟是他抛弃她在前，又有什么资格要求她无条件的专注与痴情。

《威克菲尔德》有个貌似和谐的结尾。在某个寒冷的秋夜，威克菲尔德仰望旧居二楼的窗户，在那里看到了壁炉温暖的火光和妻子的身影。他爬上楼梯，推开了门，走进屋，回到了婚姻生活之中。不过，我们都清楚地知道，威克菲尔德的回归不是胜利，而是妥协。因为他和妻子之间，除了昔日那份并不浓烈的感情，又加上了20年的陌生。

特蕾莎修女(Mother Teresa of Calcutta)曾经说过：“我们有时会以为贫困是没有饭吃、没有衣穿、无家可归。但最可怕的贫困其实是没有人需要我们、爱我们、关怀我们。”人类是渺小的、卑微的，所以才如此渴望被关注、被牢记、被深爱。如果没有人惦念和怀想，从这个世界消失是一件多么简单的事情，就像是在无垠的宇宙中，一颗小行星被某个黑洞所吞噬，宇宙平稳地运转着，仿佛什么也没有发生过。然而，人与人之间的惦念与怀想依靠的是心与心之间的一根线，它是如此纤细，经不住怀疑与试炼的反复拉扯。所以，珍惜身边的人，握紧彼此的手，不要轻言别离，哪怕别离的距离只隔着一条短短的街道。如果线断了，人就会被放逐在亲密关系之外，成为宇宙间无家可归的弃儿。