闲情逸志

闲情逸致

——回忆陆谷孙教授

人们将去世的陆谷孙教授叫做“老神仙”，可是他在我的心中，却永远是充满童心的年富力强的中年教授。他与我已故的舅舅、原来的贵州农学院林学系主任杨世逸同龄，九十年代初，正是他们大展身手的时候。陆教授在阶梯教室的讲台上一站，那么后来的同学肯定是无法再挤进那人满为患的教室的，可见他的号召力有多强，他的讲课有多精彩，他的人格有多吸引人。

作为一名进修生，我确实听过他的课，并按学校规定请他作为我的指导老师，我也与他交往过一阵，无非是请他上我那时候工作的宾馆喝喝咖啡，他顺便给海外的家人打一两个电话。

在我多年前写的博客中那么一段：“我不禁想起了上世纪九十年代初，我去听陆谷孙教授讲英国散文，特别是讲那篇《闲情逸致》的情景。很多当时比我小二十岁的大学生们也许早已忘记了陆教授的精彩讲演，可是我却没有，也许永远也不会忘记陆教授用英语讲述的D. H. 劳论斯笔下的生动描写。

一个炎热而宁静的夏日，作者在旅店的阳台上欣赏着远处山下发生的一幕：一老一少两个割草人挥动着大镰刀，唰！唰！大镰刀的声声喘息清晰可闻。而在作者的隔壁，两位从未谋面的女士也在欣赏着这一幕。

当我在听陆教授讲解的时候，我似乎看见了我年轻时的师傅正站在我的对面，用一把长长的、把柄高出人头的大镰刀（东北人叫它“大苫刀”）割草。这把大镰刀以他的身体为轴心，以他的手腕和腰部的力量为动力，作半圆形的旋转；每转一下，他就发出一声低沉的喘息，同时，一大片齐腰高的茅草便倒了下来。他用这把大镰刀割草已经有七八年，而我却从不敢去碰一碰它，因为弄不好会伤了自己的脚。”

从听陆教授讲课那时候算起，已经二三十年过去了。回想起来，我与他还是有几次亲密交往的，虽然我只是他众多学生中的一个。一是当我向他表示想学习英语翻译时，他转交给我两本用黄色大信封装着的外国英语杂志，信封上写着这是人家请他翻译的，他忙不过来，让我自己找一篇合适的小说翻一下试试。我记得曾翻译了一篇，连同一本杂志一起还给他了，不过也许因为水平太差，就没有后文了。另一本杂志到现在还在我这里。二是他曾送给我一本他翻译的美国作家欧文.肖的小说《幼狮》上下册，还有他与上海市长汪道涵等人的合影照片。三是当我在电话上向他抱怨换工作后带来的不顺时，他风趣地安慰我，让我感到好受多了。从这些小事可以看出，他对学生是有求必应，而且办事是多么认真，一丝不苟。

九五年底，当我读到他为杨自伍编的《英国散文名篇欣赏》所作的序中，说他是“断腿手术之后躺在病床上写成的文字”，便想打电话给他问问情况，不过没有打通。自那以后，直到零三年我转学日语翻译后首次在报上发表文章，我都试图联系他，但都没有成功，因为他的办公室总有人挡驾，我便与他失去了联系。不过我还是没死心，零七年我在新民晚报上見到他的文章“关于‘剽译’”，就写了篇文章表达自己一点不同看法，请编辑向他转达。意外的是，他竟然回了我的信，虽然是短短几句话，也不知道他十几年后对我是否还有印象，但他与人交往的真诚可见一斑。

假如我再见到陆谷孙教授，我会再次感谢他对我的教导和帮助，他曾当过我的指导老师，我不会忘记他。

英国散文：Insouciance

by D. H. Lawrence

My balcony is on the east side of the hotel, and my neighbours on the right are a Frenchman, white-haired, and his white-haired wife; my neighbour on the left are two little white-haired English ladies. And we are all mortally shy of one another.

1. mortally: extremely.

When I peep out of my room in the morning and see the matronly French lady in a purple silk wrapper, standing like the captain on the bridge surveying the morning, I pop in again before she can see me. And whenever I emerge during the day, I am aware of the two little white-haired ladies popping back like two white rabbits, so that literally I only see the whisk of their skirt-hems.

1. matronly,: no longer young, and rather fat.

2. emerge: to come out of a dark, enclosed or hidden place.

3: whisk: to take sth/sb somewhere very quickly and suddenly.

This afternoon being hot and thundery, I woke up suddenly and went out on the balcony barefoot. There I sat serenely contemplating the world, and ignoring the two bundles of feet of the two little ladies which protruded from their open door ways, upon the end of two chaises longues. A hot, still afternoon! The lake shining rather glassy away below, the mountains rather sulky, the greenness very green, all a little silent and lurid, and two mowers moving with scythes, downhill just near; slush! slush! sound the scythe-strokes.

1. serene: calm and peaceful.

2. contemplate: to think deeply about sth for a long time.

3. protrude: to stick out from a place or a surface

The two little ladies become aware of my presence. I become aware of a certain agitation in the two bundles of feet wrapped in two discreet steamer rugs and protruding on the end of two chaises longues from the pair of doorways upon balcony next me. One bundle of feet suddenly disappears; so does the other. Silence!

Then lo! with odd sliding suddenness a little white-haired lady in grey silk, with round blue eyes, emerges and looks straight at me, and remarks that it is pleasant now. A little cooler, say I, with false amiability. She quite agrees, and we speak of the men mowing: how plainly one hears the long breaths of the scythes.

By now we are tête-à-tête. We speak of cherries, strawberries, and the promise of the vine crop. This somehow leads to Italy, and to Signor Mussolini. Before I know where I am, the little white-haired lady has swept me off my balcony, away from the glassy lake, the veiled mountains, the two men mowing, and the cherry trees, away into the troubled ether of international politics.

I am not allowed to sit like a dandelion on my own stem. The little lady in a breath blows me abroad. And I was so pleasantly musing over the two men moving: the young one, with long legs in bright blue cotton trousers, and with bare black head, swinging so lightly downhill, and the other, in black trousers, rather stout in front, and wearing a new straw hat of the boater variety, coming rather stiffly after, crunching the end of his stroke with a certain violent effort.

I was watching the curiously different motions of the two men, the young thin one in bright blue trousers, the elderly fat one in shabby black trousers that stick out in front, the different amount of effort in their mowing, the lack of grace in the elderly one, his jerky advance, the unpleasant effect of the new "boater" on his head -- and I tried to interest the little lady.

But it meant nothing to her. The mowers, the mountains, the cherry trees, the lake, all the things that were ACTUALLY there, she didn't care about. They even seemed to scare her off the balcony. But she held her ground, and instead of herself being scared away, she snatched me up like some ogress, and swept me off into the empty desert spaces of right and wrong, politics, Fascism and the rest.

The worst ogress couldn't have treated me more villainously. I don't care about right and wrong, politics, Fascism, abstract liberty, or anything else of the sort. I want to look at the mowers, and wonder why fatness, elderliness, and black trousers should inevitably wear a new straw hat of the boater variety, move in stiff jerks, shove the end of the scythe-strokes with a certain violence, and win my hearty disapproval, as contrasted with young long thinness, bright blue cotton trousers, a bare black head, and a pretty lifting movement at the end of the scythestroke.

Why do modern people almost invariably ignore the things that are actually present to them? Why, having come out from England to find mountains, lakes, scythe-mowers and cherry trees, does the little blue-eyed lady resolutely close her blue eyes to them all, now she's got them, and gaze away to Signor Musolini, whom she hasn't got, and to Fascism, which is invisible anyhow? Why isn't she content to be where she is? Why can't she be happy with what she's got? Why must she CARE?

I see now why her round blue eyes are so round, so noticeably round, It is because she "cares." She is haunted by that mysterious bugbear of "caring." For everything on earth that doesn't concern her she "cares." She cares terribly because far-off, invisible, hypothetical Italians wear black shirts, but she doesn't care a rap that one elderly mower whose stroke she can hear, wears black trousers instead of bright blue cotton ones. Now if she would descend from the balcony and climb the grassy slope and say to the fat mower: "Cher monsieur, pourquoi porlez-vous les pantalons noirs? why, Oh, why do you wear black trousers?" -- then I should say: what an on-the-spot little lady! -- But since she only torments me with international politics. I can only remark: What a tiresome off-the-spot old woman!

They care! They simply are eaten up with caring. They are so busy caring about Fascism or Leagues of Nations or whether France is right or whether Marriage is threatened, that they never know where they are. They certainly never live on the spot. They inhabit abstract space, the desert void of politics, principles, right and wrong, and so forth. They are doomed to be abstract. Talking to them is like trying to have a human relationship with the letter x in algebra.

闲情逸志

[英]D·H·劳伦斯

（1）我的房间在酒店的东面，和其他两家住户公用一个阳台。左手边住着两个白色头发的英国姑娘；右手边的这家是一对法国夫妇，同样也是白发。我们三家平时往来很少。

（2）早上起来，我望向窗外，只见那个法国妇人身着紫色丝绸睡衣，一脸严肃的眺望远方，活像个船长站在船头观察海况。还没等她看到我，我就轻巧的避开了她的目光。那两个英国姑娘见了我也是十分害羞的快速躲开，倏的一跃，小白兔似的躲回房里去了，只能看到两个白色的背影一闪而过。

（3）那是个闷热的午后，天空乌云密布，伴随着雷声。午睡醒来，我赤脚走上阳台，坐在那静静的注视远处的景。旁边的门开着，摆着两张沙发。两个姑娘躺在那，脚伸出门外，穿着鞋子像是套了个袋子一样。天真的太热了。我看着远处，湖水波光粼粼，群山若隐若现，郁郁葱葱，什么劲都提不起来，更无心欣赏景色。只听见楼下有两个除草工正挥着镰刀嚓嚓的割草，和这死气沉沉的环境格格不入。

（4）沙发上的少女似乎注意到了我，“袋子”不安的蠕动起来，不一会，一个“袋子”迅速的抽了回去，另一个也随之消失在我的视野，只留下我一个人静静的坐在阳台上。

（5）突然，我注意到一个白发少女走出房间，径直来到我跟前。她穿一身灰色，大大的蓝眼睛，直直的盯着我，淡淡的说：“今天天气不错。”“有点闷。”我答道，语气有些不自在。她频频点头，然后我们开始聊楼下的除草工，他们的穿着以及他们割草的动作。

（6）在这场一对一的闲聊中，我们先是聊樱桃，草莓，葡萄，后来莫名其妙的聊到墨索里尼。在我理清思绪前，我就已经被她从阳台，湖面，群山，除草工的那些话题中剥离开，一把推进了混乱的国际政治时局之中。

（7）她一口气，把我这丝蒲公英从茎上吹出国去了。而在此之前，我一直都在打量那两个工人：一人年轻，一人年长；年轻的身着蓝色裤子，没带帽子，动作轻快熟练；年长的穿黑裤子，上半身微胖，戴着一顶礼帽状的新草帽，他步态僵硬，动作也比较粗暴。

（8）我正饶有兴趣的观察两人的动作，两人用的力道不同，老工人的动作缺乏美感，看着很费力，他的“礼帽”也成了一个阻碍。我只是想让她把话题转移到这上面来。

（9）可她毫不在乎我的感受。面前的群山，樱桃林，湖泊，她视而不见，对除草工镰刀的声音她也充耳不闻，而这一切是真实存在的。她似乎很是讨厌这些景物，它们就像是有意要把她从阳台上赶走一样。但她一步也不挪，然后她一把揪住我的脖子，巫婆一样的把我扔进了一间不见天日，与世隔绝的小黑屋，这里除了空洞的是非黑白，政治官腔，其他什么也没有。

（10）我觉得再恶毒的巫婆也不至于此吧。我对那些空洞的理论根本不感兴趣。我只想一直看着楼下的两个除草工，想想为什么那个老工会戴一顶这么不合身份的帽子，为什么他腿有点跛，以至于他挥动镰刀都很费劲。虽然我永远不可能知道答案。

（11）为什么现在的人都这么容易忽视眼前实实在在的东西呢？这个英国姑娘出国旅游，寻找群山，湖泊，樱桃林，她的确找到了，然后她转眼又去寻找墨索里尼和他的主义，这些看不见摸不着的东西，而且还更有兴趣，这又是何必呢？她满足眼前的东西不好吗？她应该为能欣赏美景快乐才对啊！为什么非要关心那些无聊的东西呢？

（12）我现在终于明白她的蓝眼睛为什么总是滴溜溜的转了，因为她真的很“关心”这些。她关心这些根本轮不到她关心的事。她关心那些远在天边的意大利黑衫党，却对面前同样穿着黑色的老工人不闻不问。如果她现在离开阳台，下楼和工人们打声招呼，问“老师傅，打扰一下，请问为什么您穿着这样的黑色裤子呢？”那也许我会觉得她是个懂得珍惜当下，会欣赏的人。可她只是一如既往的用她对国际形势肤浅的见解来恶心我，那我只能说：这小老太太可真烦人，嘀嘀咕咕的。

（13）唉，可是我改变不了他们。他们整天都关心这关心那。他们整天都在关注联合国的问题，关注作家法郎士的论断有没有出错，以及民政局为什么人满为患，但他们从不关心自己在哪。他们并不活在当下。他们活在虚空之中，以政论，条例，是非为生。其实这也是他们的命吧。跟他们聊天就像是让一个没学过数学的人看见“未知数X”一样头疼。

（14）他们关心的东西和我们生活的世界之间有道不可逾越的鸿沟。现实的世界是怎样的？我觉得里面应该有人与人，人与物，人与环境之间的直接的感官上的联系，比如虽然我们看不到有人在修剪树，但声音是清晰可闻的。但这个小老太太，这个巫婆，只用了几句评论时事的空洞的话，就把我彻底的推进了万丈深渊，万劫不复。她还割下我的首级，直接丢进了虚空。可就算有这样的邻居，价值观也不允许我们和她撕破脸。

（15）个人而言，我觉得我们是靠着本能和直觉过活的。本能会让我们远离这种过于关心政治的小老太太，还让我们能细嗅蔷薇，体会自然的魅力。而直觉会让人厌倦这闪的刺眼的湖面，绿的发腻的山峰，注意这两个风格迥异的工人，在烈日下挥汗如雨。