But as for that mark, I』m not sure about it; I don』t believe it was made by a nail after all; it』s too big, too round, for that. I might get up, but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldn』t be able to say for certain; because once a thing』s done, no one ever knows how it happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our possessions we have—what an accidental affair this living is after all our civilization—let me just count over a few of the things lost in one lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of losses—what cat would gnaw, what rat would nibble—three pale blue canisters of book–binding tools? Then there were the bird cages, the iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal–scuttle, the bagatelle board, the hand organ—all gone, and jewels, too. Opals and emeralds, they lie about the roots of turnips. What a scraping paring affair it is to be sure! The wonder is that I』ve any clothes on my back, that I sit surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour—landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one』s hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one』s hair flying back like the tail of a race–horse. Yes, that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard. . .

那些古冢，據說，它們要不是墳墓，就是宿營地。在兩者之中，我倒寧願它們是墳墓，我像多數英國人一樣偏愛憂傷，並且認為在散步結束時想到草地下埋著白骨是很自然的事情……一定有一部書 寫到過它。一定有哪位古物收藏家把這些白骨發掘出來，給它們起了名字……我想知道古物收藏家會是什麼樣的人?多半準是些退役的上校，領著一夥上了年紀的工 人爬到這兒的頂上，檢查泥塊和石頭，和附近的牧師互相通信。牧師在早餐的時候拆開信件來看，覺得自己頗為重要。為了比較不同的箭鏃，還需要作多次鄉間旅 行，到本州的首府去，這種旅行對於牧師和他們的老伴都是一種愉快的職責，他們的老伴正想做櫻桃醬，或者正想收拾一下書房。他們完全有理由希望那個關於營地 或者墳墓的重大問題長期懸而不決。而上校本人對於就這個問題的兩方面能否搜集到證據則感到愉快而達觀。的確，他最後終於傾向於營地說。由於受到反對，他便 寫了一篇文章，準備拿到當地會社的季度例會上宣讀，恰好在這時他中風病倒，他的最後一個清醒的念頭不是想到妻子和兒女，而是想到營地和箭鏃，這個箭鏃已經 被收藏進當地博物館的展櫃，和一隻中國女殺人犯的腳、一把伊利莎白時代的鐵釘、一大堆都鐸王朝時代的土製煙斗、一件羅馬時代的陶器，以及納爾遜用來喝酒的 酒杯放在一起──我真的不知道它到底證明了什麼。

And yet that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf, left over from the summer, and I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper—look at the dust on the mantelpiece, for example, the dust which, so they say, buried Troy three times over, only fragments of pots utterly refusing annihilation, as one can believe.

「Yes?」

Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have grasped a plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality which at once turns the two Archbishops and the Lord High Chancellor to the shadows of shades. Here is something definite, something real. Thus, waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is a proof of some existence other than ours. That is what one wants to be sure of. . . Wood is a pleasant thing to think about. It comes from a tree; and trees grow, and we don』t know how they grow. For years and years they grow, without paying any attention to us, in meadows, in forests, and by the side of rivers—all things one likes to think about. The cows swish their tails beneath them on hot afternoons; they paint rivers so green that when a moorhen dives one expects to see its feathers all green when it comes up again. I like to think of the fish balanced against the stream like flags blown out; and of water–beetles slowly raiding domes of mud upon the bed of the river. I like to think of the tree itself:—first the close dry sensation of being wood; then the grinding of the storm; then the shttps://read.99csw.comlow, delicious ooze of sap. I like to think of it, too, on winter』s nights standing in the empty field with all leaves close–furled, nothing tender exposed to the iron bullets of the moon, a naked mast upon an earth that goes tumbling, tumbling, all night long. The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them with diamond–cut red eyes. . . One by one the fibres snap beneath the immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes and, falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. Even so, life isn』t done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like to take each one separately—but something is getting in the way. . . Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? Whitaker』s Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can』t remember a thing. Everything』s moving, falling, slipping, vanishing. . . There is a vast upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying—

「不過買報紙也沒有什麼意思……什麼新聞都沒有。該死的戰爭，讓這次戰爭見鬼去吧!……然而不論怎麼說，我認為我們也不應該讓一隻蝸牛趴在牆壁上。」

我懂得大自然耍的是什麼把戲 ──她在暗中慫恿我們採取行動以便結束那些容易令人興奮或痛苦的思想。我想，正因如此，我們對實幹家總不免稍有一點輕視──我們認為這類人不愛思索。不 過，我們也不妨注視牆上的斑點，來打斷那些不愉快的思想。真的，現在我越加仔細地看著它，就越發覺得好似在大海中抓住了一塊木板。我體會到一種令人心滿意 足的現實感，把那兩位大主教和那位大法官統統逐入了虛無的幻境。這裏，是一件具體的東西，是一件真實的東西。我們半夜從一場噩夢中驚醒，也往往這樣，急忙 扭亮電燈，靜靜地躺一會兒，讚賞著衣櫃，讚賞著實在的物體，讚賞著現實，讚賞著身外的世界，它證明除了我們自身以外還存在著其他的事物。我們想弄清楚的也 就是這個問題。木頭是一件值得加以思索的愉快的事物。它產生於一棵樹，樹木會生長，我們並不知道它們是怎樣生長起來的。它們長在草地上、森林里、小河邊 ──這些全是我們喜歡去想的事物──它們長著、長著，長了許多年，一點也沒有注意到我們。炎熱的午後，母牛在樹下揮動著尾巴；樹木把小河點染得這樣翠綠一 片，讓你覺得那隻一頭扎進水裡去的雌紅松雞，應該帶著綠色的羽毛冒出水面來。我喜歡去想那些像被風吹得鼓起來的旗幟一樣逆流而上的魚群；我還喜歡去想那些 在河床上一點點地壘起一座座圓頂土堆的水甲蟲。我喜歡想像那棵樹本身的情景：首先是它自身木質的細密乾燥的感覺，然後想像它感受到雷雨的摧殘；接下去就感 到樹液緩慢地、舒暢地一滴滴流出來。我還喜歡去想這棵樹怎樣在冬天的夜晚獨自屹立在空曠的田野上，樹葉緊緊地合攏起來，對著月亮射出的鐵彈，什麼弱點也不 暴露，像一根空蕩蕩的桅杆豎立在整夜不停地滾動著的大地上。六月里鳥兒的鳴囀聽起來一定很震耳，很不習慣；小昆蟲在樹皮的褶皺上吃力地爬過去，或者在樹葉 搭成的薄薄的綠色天篷上面曬太陽，它們紅寶石般的眼睛直盯著前方，這時候它們的腳會感覺到多麼寒冷啊……大地的寒氣凜冽逼人，壓得樹木的纖維一根根地斷裂 開來。最後的一場暴風雨襲來，樹倒了下去，樹梢的枝條重新深深地陷進泥土。即使到了這種地步，生命也並沒有結束。這棵樹還有一百萬條堅毅而清醒的生命分散 在世界上。有的在卧室里，有的在船上，有的在人行道上，還有的變成了房間的護壁板，男人和女人們在喝過茶以後就坐在這間屋裡抽煙。這棵樹勾起了許許多多平 靜的、幸福的聯想。我很願意挨個兒去思索它們──可是遇到了阻礙……我想到什麼地方啦?是怎麼樣想到這裏的呢?一棵樹?一條河?丘陵草原地帶?惠特克年 鑒?盛開水仙花的原野?我什麼也記不起來啦。一切在轉動、在下沉、在滑開去、在消失……事物陷進了大動蕩之中。有人正在俯身對我說：

不，不，什麼也沒有證明，什麼 也沒有發現。假如我在此時此刻站起身來，弄明白牆上的斑點果真是──我們怎麼說不好呢?──一枚巨大的舊釘子的釘頭，釘進牆裡已經有兩百年，直到現在，由 於一代又一代女僕耐心的擦拭，釘子的頂端得以露出到油漆外面，正在一間牆壁雪白、爐火熊熊的房間里第一次看見現代的生活，我這樣做又能得到些什麼呢?知識 嗎?還是可供進一步思考的題材?不論是靜坐著還是站起來我都一樣能思考。什麼是知識?我們的學者不過是那些蹲在洞穴和森林里熬藥草、盤問地老鼠或記載星辰 的語言的巫婆和隱士們的後代，要不，他們還能是什麼呢?我們的迷信逐漸消失，我們對美和健康的思想越來越尊重，我們也就不那麼崇敬他們了……是的，人們能 夠想像出一個十分可愛的世界。這個世界安寧而廣闊，曠野里盛開著鮮紅的和湛藍的花朵。這個世界里沒有教授，沒有專家，沒有警察面孔的管家，在這裏人們可以 像魚兒用鰭翅劃開水面一般，用自己的思想劃開世界，輕輕地掠過荷花的梗條，在裝滿白色海鳥卵的鳥窠上空盤旋……在世界的中心紮下根，透過灰黯的海水和水裡 瞬間的閃光以及倒影向上看去，這裡是多麼寧靜啊──假如沒有惠特克年鑒──假如沒有尊卑序列表!

可是牆上的斑點不是一個小孔。 它很可能是什麼暗黑色的圓形物體，比如說，一片夏天殘留下來的玫瑰花瓣造成的，因為我不是一個警惕心很高的管家──只要瞧瞧壁爐上的塵土就知道了，據說就 是這樣的塵土把特洛伊城嚴嚴地埋了三層，只有一些罐子的碎片是它們沒法毀滅的，這一點完全能叫人相信。

How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it. . . If that mark was made by a nail, it can』t have been for a picture, it must have been for a miniature—the miniature of a lady with white powdered curls, powder–dusted cheeks, and lips like red carnations. A fraud of course, for the people who had this house before us would have chosen pictures in that way—an old picture for an old room. That is the sort of people they were—very interesting people, and I think of them so often, in such queer places, because one will never see them again, never know what happened九*九*藏*書 next. They wanted to leave this house because they wanted to change their style of furniture, so he said, and he was in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it when we were torn asunder, as one is torn from the old lady about to pour out tea and the young man about to hit the tennis ball in the back garden of the suburban villa as one rushes past in the train.

8. The Mark on the Wall

「Though it』s no good buying newspapers. . . Nothing ever happens. Curse this war; God damn this war! . . . All the same, I don』t see why we should have a snail on our wall.」

「是嗎?」

我一定要跳起來親眼看看牆上的斑點到底是什麼──是一枚釘子?一片玫瑰花瓣?還是木塊上的裂紋?

「我要出去買份報紙。」

I must jump up and see for myself what that mark on the wall really is—a nail, a rose–leaf, a crack in the wood?

大約是在今年一月中旬，我抬起頭來，第一次看見了牆上的那個斑點。為了要確定是在哪一天，就得回憶當時我看見了些什麼。現在我記起了爐子里的火，一片黃色 的火光一動不動地照射在我的書頁上；壁爐上圓形玻璃缸里插著三朵菊花。對啦，一定是冬天，我們剛喝完茶，因為我記得當時我正在吸煙，我抬起頭來，第一次看 見了牆上那個斑點。我透過香煙的煙霧望過去，眼光在火紅的炭塊上停留了一下，過去關於在城堡塔樓上飄揚著一面鮮紅的旗幟的幻覺又浮現在我腦際，我想到無數 紅色騎士潮水般地騎馬躍上黑色岩壁的側坡。這個斑點打斷了我這個幻覺，使我覺得鬆了一口氣，因為這是過去的幻覺，是一種無意識的幻覺，可能是在孩童時期產 生的。牆上的斑點是一塊圓形的小跡印，在雪白的牆壁上呈暗黑色，在壁爐上方大約六七英寸的地方。

窗外樹枝輕柔地敲打著玻璃…… 我希望能靜靜地、安穩地、從容不迫地思考，沒有誰來打擾，一點也用不著從椅子里站起來，可以輕鬆地從這件事想到那件事，不感覺敵意，也不覺得有阻礙。我希 望深深地、更深地沉下去，離開表面，離開表面上的生硬的個別事實。讓我穩住自己，抓住第一個一瞬即逝的念頭……莎士比亞……對啦，不管是他還是別人，都 行。這個人穩穩地坐在扶手椅里，凝視著爐火，就這樣──一陣驟雨似的念頭源源不斷地從某個非常高的天國傾瀉而下，進入他的頭腦。他把前額倚在自己的手上， 於是人們站在敞開的大門外面向里張望──我們假設這個景象發生在夏天的傍晚──可是，所有這一切歷史的虛構是多麼沉悶啊!它絲毫引不起我的興趣。我希望能 碰上一條使人愉快的思路，同時這條思路也能間接地給我增添幾分光彩，這樣的想法是最令人愉快的了。連那些真誠地相信自己不愛聽別人讚揚的謙虛而灰色的人們 頭腦里，也經常會產生這種想法。它們不是直接恭維自己，妙就妙在這裏。這些想法是這樣的：「於是我走進屋子。他們在談植物學。我說我曾經看見金斯威一座老 房子地基上的塵土堆里開了一朵花。我說那粒花籽多半是查理一世在位的時候種下的。查理一世在位的時候人們種些什麼花呢?」我問道──(但是我不記得回答是 什麼)也許是高大的、帶著紫色花穗的花吧。於是就這樣想下去。同時，我一直在頭腦里把自己的形象打扮起來，是愛撫地，偷偷地，而不是公開地崇拜自己的形 象。因為，我如果當真公開地這麼幹了，就會馬上被自己抓住，我就會馬上伸出手去拿過一本書來掩蓋自己。說來也真奇怪，人們總是本能地保護自己的形象，不讓 偶像崇拜或是什麼別的處理方式使它顯得可笑，或者使它變得和原型太不相像以至於人們不相信它。但是，這個事實也可能並不那麼奇怪?這個問題極其重要。

我們的思緒是多麼容易一哄而上，簇擁著一件新鮮事物，像一群螞蟻狂熱地抬一根稻草一樣，抬了一會，又把它扔在那裡……如果這個斑點是一隻釘子留下的痕迹，那一定不是為了掛一幅油畫，

No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really—what shall we say?—the head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a white–walled fire–lit room, what should I gain?—Knowledge? Matter for further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating shrew–mice and writing down the language of the stars? And the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for beauty and health of mind increases. . . Yes, one could imagine a very pleasant world. A quiet, spacious world, with the flowers so red and blue in the open fields. A world without professors or specialists or house–keepers with the profiles of policemen, a world which one could slice with one』s thought as a fish slices the water with his fin, grazing the stems of the water–lilies, hanging suspended over nests of white sea eggs. . . How peaceful it is drown here, rooted in the centre of the world and gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden gleams of light, and their reflections—if it were not for Whitaker』s Almanack—if it were not for the Table of Precedency!

「I』m going out to buy a newspaper.」

In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I ran my finger down that strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs which ahttｐs://rｅａｄ•９９ｃsｗ.ｃoｍre, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched beneath the turf. . . There must be some book about it. Some antiquary must have dug up those bones and given them a name. . . What sort of a man is an antiquary, I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow–heads necessitates cross–country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum jam or to clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on both sides of the question. It is true that he does finally incline to believe in the camp; and, being opposed, indites a pamphlet which he is about to read at the quarterly meeting of the local society when a stroke lays him low, and his last conscious thoughts are not of wife or child, but of the camp and that arrowhead there, which is now in the case at the local museum, together with the foot of a Chinese murderess, a handful of Elizabethan nails, a great many Tudor clay pipes, a piece of Roman pottery, and the wine–glass that Nelson drank out of—proving I really don』t know what.

在某種光線下面看牆上那個斑點，它竟像是凸出在牆上的。它也不完全是圓形的。我不敢肯定，不過它似乎投下一點淡淡的影子，使我覺得如果我用手指順著牆壁摸過去，在某一點上會摸著一個起伏的小小的古冢，一個平滑的古冢，就像南部丘陵草原地帶的

大自然又在這裏玩弄她保存自己 的老把戲了。她認為這條思路至多不過白白浪費一些精力，或許會和現實發生一點衝突，因為誰又能對惠特克的尊卑序列表妄加非議呢?排在坎特伯雷大主教後面的 是大法官，而大法官後面又是約克大主教。每一個人都必須排在某人的後面，這是惠特克的哲學。最要緊的是知道誰該排在誰的後面。惠特克是知道的。大自然忠告 你說，不要為此感到惱怒，而要從中得到安慰；假如你無法得到安慰，假如你一定要破壞這一小時的平靜，那就去想想牆上的斑點吧。

哦，牆上的斑點!那是一隻蝸牛。

I understand Nature』s game—her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action—men, we assume, who don』t think. Still, there』s no harm in putting a full stop to one』s disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall.

而是為了掛一幅小肖像畫──一 幅捲髮上撲著白粉、臉上抹著脂粉、嘴唇像紅石竹花的貴婦人肖像。它當然是一件贗品，這所房子以前的房客只會選那一類的畫──老房子得有老式畫像來配它。他 們就是這種人家──很有意思的人家，我常常想到他們，都是在一些奇怪的地方，因為誰都不會再見到他們，也不會知道他們後來的遭遇了。據他說，那家人搬出這 所房子是因為他們想換一套別種式樣的傢具，他正在說，按他的想法，藝術品背後應該包含著思想的時候，我們兩人就一下子分了手，這種情形就像坐火車一樣，我 們在火車裡看見路旁郊外別墅里有個老太太正準備倒茶，有個年輕人正舉起球拍打網球，火車一晃而過，我們就和老太太以及年輕人分了手，把他們拋在火車後面。

Here is nature once more at her old game of self–preservation. This train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a finger against Whitaker』s Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can』t be comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on the wall.

「And then I came into the room. They were discussing botany. I said how I』d seen a flower growing on a dust heap on the site of an old house in Kingsway. The seed, I said, must have been sown in the reign of Charles the First. What flowers grew in the reign of Charles the First?」 I asked—(but, I don』t remember the answer). Tall flowers with purple tassels to them perhaps. And so it goes on. All the time I』m dressing up the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, stealthily, not openly adoring it, for if I did that, I should catc九_九_藏_書h myself out, and stretch my hand at once for a book in self–protection. Indeed, it is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed in any longer. Or is it not so very curious after all? It is a matter of great importance. Suppose the looking glass smashes, the image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person which is seen by other people—what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent world it becomes! A world not to be lived in. As we face each other in omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror that accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes. And the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more and more out of their stories, taking a knowledge of it for granted, as the Greeks did and Shakespeare perhaps—but these generalizations are very worthless. The military sound of the word is enough. It recalls leading articles, cabinet ministers—a whole class of things indeed which as a child one thought the thing itself, the standard thing, the real thing, from which one could not depart save at the risk of nameless damnation. Generalizations bring back somehow Sunday in London, Sunday afternoon walks, Sunday luncheons, and also ways of speaking of the dead, clothes, and habits—like the habit of sitting all together in one room until a certain hour, although nobody liked it. There was a rule for everything. The rule for tablecloths at that particular period was that they should be made of tapestry with little yellow compartments marked upon them, such as you may see in photographs of the carpets in the corridors of the royal palaces. Tablecloths of a different kind were not real tablecloths. How shocking, and yet how wonderful it was to discover that these real things, Sunday luncheons, Sunday walks, country houses, and tablecloths were not entirely real, were indeed half phantoms, and the damnation which visited the disbeliever in them was only a sense of illegitimate freedom. What now takes the place of those things I wonder, those real standard things? Men perhaps, should you be a woman; the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets the standard, which establishes Whitaker』s Table of Precedency, which has become, I suppose, since the war half a phantom to many men and women, which soon—one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where the phantoms go, the mahogany sideboards and the Landseer prints, Gods and Devils, Hell and so forth, leaving us all with an intoxicating sense of illegitimate freedom—if freedom exists. . .

假定鏡子打碎了，形象消失了， 那個浪漫的形象和周圍一片綠色的茂密森林也不復存在，只有其他的人看見的那個人的外殼──世界會變得多麼悶人、多麼浮淺、多麼光禿、多麼凸出啊!在這樣的 世界里是不能生活的。當我們面對面坐在公共汽車和地下鐵道里的時候，我們就是在照鏡子；這就說明為什麼我們的眼神都那麼獃滯而朦朧。未來的小說家們會越來 越認識到這些想法的重要性，因為這不只是一個想法，而是無限多的想法；它們探索深處，追逐幻影，越來越把現實的描繪排除在他們的故事之外，認為這類知識是 天生具有的，希臘人就是這樣想的，或許莎士比亞也是這樣想的──但是這種概括毫無價值。只要聽聽概括這個詞的音調就夠了。它使人想起社論，想起內閣大臣 ──想起一整套事物，人們在兒童時期就認為這些事物是正統，是標準的、真正的事物，人人都必須遵循，否則就得冒打入十八層地獄的危險。提起概括，不知怎麼 使人想起倫敦的星期日，星期日午後的散步，星期日的午餐，也使人想起已經去世的人的說話方式，衣著打扮、習慣──例如大家一起坐在一間屋子裡直到某一個鍾 點的習慣，儘管誰都不喜歡這麼做。每件事都有一定的規矩。在那個特定時期，桌布的規矩就是一定要用花毯做成，上面印著黃色的小方格子，就像你在照片里看見 的皇宮走廊里鋪的地毯那樣。另外一種花樣的桌布就不能算真正的桌布。當我們發現這些真實的事物、星期天的午餐、星期天的散步、莊園宅第和桌布等並不全是真 實的，確實帶著些幻影的味道，而不相信它們的人所得到的處罰只不過是一種非法的自由感時，事情是多麼使人驚奇，又是多麼奇妙啊!我奇怪現在到底是什麼代替 了它們，代替了那些真正的、標準的東西?也許是男人，如果你是個女人的話；男性的觀點支配著我們的生活，是它制定了標準，訂出惠特克的尊卑序列表；據我猜 想，大戰後它對於許多男人和女人已經帶上幻影的味道，並且我們希望很快它就會像幻影、紅木碗櫥、蘭西爾版畫、上帝、魔鬼和地獄之類東西一樣遭到譏笑，被送 進垃圾箱，給我們大家留下一種令人陶醉的非法的自由感──如果真存在自由的話……

But after life. The slow pulling down of九*九*藏*書 thick green stalks so that the cup of the flower, as it turns over, deluges one with purple and red light. Why, after all, should one not be born there as one is born here, helpless, speechless, unable to focus one』s eyesight, groping at the roots of the grass, at the toes of the Giants? As for saying which are trees, and which are men and women, or whether there are such things, that one won』t be in a condition to do for fifty years or so. There will be nothing but spaces of light and dark, intersected by thick stalks, and rather higher up perhaps, rose–shaped blots of an indistinct colour—dim pinks and blues—which will, as time goes on, become more definite, become—I don』t know what. . .

Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail.

Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the mark on the wall for the first time. I looked up through the smoke of my cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps. The mark was a small round mark, black upon the white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece.

但是，我還是弄不清那個斑點到 底是什麼；我又想，它不像是釘子留下的痕迹。它太大、太圓了。我本來可以站起來，但是，即使我站起身來瞧瞧它，十之八九我也說不出它到底是什麼；因為一旦 一件事發生以後，就沒有人能知道它是怎麼發生的了。唉!天哪，生命是多麼神秘；思想是多麼不準確!人類是多麼無知!為了證明我們對自己的私有物品是多麼無 法加以控制──和我們的文明相比，人的生活帶有多少偶然性啊──我只要列舉少數幾件我們一生中遺失的物件就夠了。就從三隻裝著訂書工具的淺藍色罐子說起 吧，這永遠是遺失的東西當中丟牆上的斑點失得最神秘的幾件──哪只貓會去咬它們，哪只老鼠會去啃它們呢?再數下去，還有那幾個鳥籠子、鐵裙箍、鋼滑冰鞋、 安女王時代的煤斗子、彈子戲球台、手搖風琴──全都丟失了，還有一些珠寶，也遺失了。有乳白寶石、綠寶石，它們都散失在蕪菁的根部旁邊。它們是花了多少心 血節衣縮食積蓄起來的啊!此刻我四周全是挺有分量的傢具，身上還穿著幾件衣服，簡直是奇迹。要是拿什麼來和生活相比的話，就只能比做一個人以一小時五十英 里的速度被射出地下鐵道，從地道口出來的時候頭髮上一根髮針也不剩。光著身子被射到上帝腳下!頭朝下腳朝天地摔倒在開滿水仙花的草原上，就像一捆捆棕色紙 袋被扔進郵局的輸物管道一樣!頭髮飛揚，就像一匹賽馬會上跑馬的尾巴。對了，這些比擬可以表達生活的飛快速度，表達那永不休止的消耗和修理；一切都那麼偶 然，那麼碰巧。

那麼來世呢?粗大的綠色莖條慢 慢地被拉得彎曲下來，杯盞形的花傾覆了，它那紫色和紅色的光芒籠罩著人們。到底為什麼人要投生在這裏，而不投生到那裡，不會行動、不會說話、無法集中目 光，在青草腳下，在巨人的腳趾間摸索呢?至於什麼是樹，什麼是男人和女人，或者是不是存在這樣的東西，人們再過五十年也是無法說清楚的。別的什麼都不會 有，只有充塞著光亮和黑暗的空間，中間隔著一條條粗大的莖幹，也許在更高處還有一些色彩不很清晰的──淡淡的粉紅色或藍色的──玫瑰花形狀的斑塊，隨著時 光的流逝，它會越來越清楚、越──我也不知道怎樣……

The tree outside the window taps very gently on the pane. . . I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts. To steady myself, let me catch hold of the first idea that passes. . . Shakespeare. . . Well, he will do as well as another. A man who sat himself solidly in an arm–chair, and looked into the fire, so—A shower of ideas fell perpetually from some very high Heaven down through his mind. He leant his forehead on his hand, and people, looking in through the open door,—for this scene is supposed to take place on a summer』s evening—But how dull this is, this historical fiction! It doesn』t interest me at all. I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest mouse–coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises. They are not thoughts directly praising oneself; that is the beauty of them; they are thoughts like this: