The One-Eyed Cat独眼猫

阿尔弗雷德·乔治·加德纳　朱建迅/译

“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——栅栏外过来的那只独眼猫。”听到喊声我赶紧朝外望去。的确，从花园小路上走来的正是佩吉，怀里怜爱地搂着那只从栅栏外溜过来的独眼猫。佩吉喜欢这个小家伙，虽然它仅有一只眼。我不能确定她是否由于猫儿独眼的缘故而对它疼爱有加。我想，她以为只要这只猫得到她的照料，便会忘了自己仅有一只眼，进而重新获得幸福。她酷爱所有四条腿的动物。我曾见她整天在外，一把把地拔出果园里的青草，攥在手里，跑到平静地站在邻家围场里的驴或马身边。若是没有动物陪她玩耍，她就将自己的双手双脚全都套上马掌，随后你便听到楼上传来一匹马儿每天溜达时发出的嗒嗒蹄声。不过，她虽然普遍喜欢四条腿的动物，对其中的跛足眇目者却尤为宠爱。

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.

只有在儿童身上，我们才能发现那种足以怜悯畸残的善良品质。人类遵从自然的天性，厌恶任何一类身体缺陷。一个种族努力维护自身形态的完美，也是天性使然。我们管匀称的形态叫美，管畸残的形态叫丑。正是从莎士比亚所说的“美的玫瑰”中，“我们祈盼生命的繁盛”。你在触碰一只枯瘦的手或瞧见一只独眼猫时直打哆嗦，因为你觉得它们对既有的生命形态是一种威胁。你不自觉地扮演了维系自然形态的角色。你看到俊美的双目脸颊泛红，瞥见丑陋的独眼浑身颤栗，都是在维护自然界沿袭已久的形态。

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，爱上罹患残疾者并深信其美，卻并非无此可能。且以笛卡尔提到的那则轶事为例。笛卡尔说他儿时常与一个斜眼小姑娘玩耍，结果他终生都喜欢斜眼人。在这个故事中，记忆的诸多联想赋予畸残几分魅力，令其呈现美的形态。斜眼使他想起自己的“黄金岁月”，并且通过朦胧的回忆，转化为怡人的秀色。

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.

世上并非只有回忆才能创造奇迹，心灵的契合亦能如此。威尔克斯以貌丑而著称，但他声称，给他半小时的说话机会，他就能击败任何一位对手而赢得任何女士的青睐。一位对他崇拜有加百般袒护的女士，听人提及他眼睛斜得厉害时说道：“没错，他是斜眼；可他这样天资卓绝的人物，斜眼又有何妨。”也不仅仅是女士才为之倾倒。谁能忘记汤姆·戴维斯把威尔克斯带入约翰逊博士社交圈的一幕？此前约翰逊讨厌威尔克斯的激进主义，绝对不愿答应与其晤面。约翰逊曾一度拒绝妥协，但他终于撑不住了，完全被威尔克斯谈吐的魅力所折服。

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.

同样，约翰逊相信自己的妻子是一位绝色美人。在所有的外人看来，她的相貌特别普通，并无姿色，但在约翰逊眼里，她却俨然是美貌的化身。“美人儿。”他在妻子去世后提起她时常常说道，伴随着一声叹息。

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：—

这里，我以为，我们触及到问题的实质。美感在一定程度上关乎人的心灵，表面上只是一种审美的特质。我们起初全都带着喜爱某些身体形态的偏向。这些偏向都是大自然帮助我们逐渐熟悉的形态，我们努力使之永存。但是，倘若传统的美丽形态与心灵的丑陋为伍，它对于我们便不再是美；倘若传统的丑陋形态与心灵的美丽相伴，心灵美便抵消了身体的缺陷。心灵主宰了感觉。弗朗西斯·汤普森用下列诗行完美地表达了这一观点：

I cannot tell what beauty is her dole，

我无法分辨她的美归属何类，

Who cannot see her features for her soul.

我关注她的心灵，不见其貌，

As birds see not the casement8 for the sky.

有如鳥贪恋天宇，不见窗扉。

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.

然而人们又觉得美是最顺其自然的事。不妨这样想象，如果人类以前长出的是一只眼，且位于额头中央，双眼人的形象将与我们的美感相抵触，恰似一只手有五根拇指而非各不相同的五指。那样我们前去参观双眼人展览，就会怀着我们如今看到长胡子女人时同样的心理。我们不会赞赏他的双眼，正如我们不会赞赏女人的胡须；我们只会由于厌其不幸而生出一种怡然快感，同时又为我们没有成为如此灾祸的牺牲品而感到庆幸和宽慰。我们会骨碌骨碌转动着单眼，自豪地感到我们才真正符合美的标准，我们面前丑陋而怪诞的双眼人，则背离了美的标准。

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，简而言之，只是我们对需求的一种称赞。人类在为努力生存于世培养自身官能的过程中，发现还是两只眼睛和立体视觉方便，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样。我们的身体器官以最适宜的方式逐渐进化，以便于我们应对挑战。这些器官越是充分适应那种最佳状态，我们便越觉得它们美丽。因此，我们的美学观念不是绝对的，而是有条件的。这些观念谦卑地服务于我们的需求。双眼为我们履行己职之所必需，于是我们开始喜欢双眼，它们功能发挥得越完美，我们越是喜欢它们，越会声称它们美丽。

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，此刻正在阳光下小心抱着她那只独眼猫的佩吉，尚未接受我们的美学信条。及至她身上的连衣裙再长些，自会像我们其他人一样形成传统的审美观。

（译者单位：扬州大学外国语学院）