◎董繼平 譯
阿格尼斯·涅默斯·納吉(Agnes Nemes Nagy,1922-1991),匈牙利著名女詩人、作家,早年在布達佩斯大學攻讀匈牙利語文、拉丁語文及藝術史。二戰(zhàn)期間參加過抵抗納粹的運動。鐵幕時期,她因政治原因而被迫沉默。此后她在中學教書,后來成為職業(yè)作家。其主要詩集有《在一個雙重的世界中》(1946)、《熱閃電》(1957)、《至日》(1967)、《馬與天使:詩選》(1969)、《之間》(1981)、《大地的禮物》(1986)等。她先后獲得過包括“鮑姆加登獎”在內的多種文學獎項。
只有細節(jié),貓。因為街車顯然像老練的奔跑者,或者像在橢圓的軌道上運轉的地球,傾斜著轉彎,比喻在那里不是比喻,僅僅是同一種法則的另一張臉。結果,質量和運動的關系是比例、倒數和系數。在街上,這可以感覺得到。
這可以感覺得到:如果我猛然穿過偶然的事物,就可以感覺得到日食的水平面——在早晨或傍晚六點,在多云的天氣中,在陽光明媚的天氣中。如果我把房子剝光,如果我把骨頭剝光,如果我把過程剝光(植被,氣候),線條就留下來,彎曲部分,一個網絡。然而這個網絡只是一個輪廓,彎曲部分是用圖案來表現的語言。法則難以察覺。這感覺得到。
交叉點。例如,我的意思是活躍的事物和不活躍的事物的交叉點。兩種法則。三種法則。十六種法則。它們的交叉點。結果,如果我剝離偶然的事物,交叉點的群星就從下面閃耀,軌道就從它們里面凸顯而出——拖曳在天藍色想象中的蒸汽。
我在說,然而細節(jié),是貓。盡管與法則比較,它們也無疑只是虛飾的水泡。一蓬蓬要被吹走的頭發(fā),顛簸地漂浮在洪水中的假發(fā)。在它們下面和后面,是巨大的河床、山谷和斜坡,漸漸出現的群山分水嶺,陌生星球的地質學。在比較和測量下面,立體形的公里、盎司、太空中地球影子的巨大圓錐形斗篷、厘米、歲月、天體的測定;腳、達因①、分貝、星期一、星期二;推論、抽象。這是明顯的。宇宙如此透明。房子、柏油路,測量的金屬骨架在它們后面如此透明。另一張臉,另一片天空,正在通過電影般的畫面疊化而變得鮮明。
如果我剝離偶然的事物,遠處是星圖的黑色,一片北方天空的銀色序幕。
與這些相比較,這里的前景是什么呢?當然前景是窮人的圣經、圖畫、圖畫,再次是圖畫,形態(tài)與卷須。被一一畫下來,展示在大教堂的墻上。起初是那兩個赤裸的小人和蘋果,接下來是天使那美妙的翅膀——他小小的手中握著隱現的劍,然后是洪水、方舟、孔雀,然后是一串葡萄,然后是羊羔,然后,然后是尼希米②。(當然,它們后面是石墻——我們不會忘記——上面提到的骨架、測量桿,時不時意外地凸出來,擠進我們的故事。)
無論怎樣……只有我。只有一個人。仍要述說關于唯一的貓的故事,一只事實上微不足道的貓,當它越過街道,穿越而過,呈現對角狀地切過那測量系統(tǒng)的邊沿,當它邁著那四只橡膠似的破爛腳墊前進,當它應和著那凸出的小小肩胛骨的音調前進,又消失(沉默的獨立宣言)在一輛小車側邊和一棵酸橙樹的樹干之間。
它再也不在那里。它算不上什么。它僅僅用它兩眼的丁香綠的葉片——遠遠觸及我——最后的動作。
注:①力學單位。②約公元前5世紀希伯來人的領袖。
But the particulars,the cats.Because it is obvious that the street-car banks into the turn like a seasoned runner or like the earth at the curve of its elliptical orbit,where the simile is not simile,merely the other face of the same law.Consequently,the relationship of mass and motion is ratios,reciprocals,and coefficients.This is perceptible in the street.
This is perceptible;if I smash through the fortuitous,the plane of the ecliptic is perceptible——in the morning or at six in the evening,in cloudy weather,in sunshine.If I strip the house naked,if I strip the bone naked,if I strip naked the processes(vegetation,the climate),then lines are left,curvatures,a network.But the network is just an outline,the curvature is figurative language.The law is imperceptible.This is perceptible.
And the points of intersection.I mean,for example,the intersections of the animate and the inanimate.Two laws.Three laws.Sixteen.Their points of intersection.Consequently,if I gently peel off the fortuitous,the stars of the intersections shine from beneath,and the orbits projecting from them——vapor trails in a sky-blue imagination.
But the particulars,I was saying,the cats.Though compared with the law they are undoubtedly only frilly bubbles.Tufts of hair to be blown away,pitching wigs floating in the flood.Beneath and behind them,the great river-bed,the valleys and rises,the rolledup mountain ranges of watersheds,the geology of known planets.Beneath the comparisons and measurements,the cubic kilometer,the ounce,the great conical cloak of the earth's shadow in space,the centimeters,the years,the celestial calibrations;foot,dyne,decibel,Monday,Tuesday;consequences,abstractions.This is obvious.The universe is so translucent.The house,the asphalt,behind them the metal skeletons of measurements,are so translucent.Another face,another sky,are sharpening by a film-like dissolve.
If I peel off the fortuitous,beyond are the blackness of starcharts,the silver inductions of a northern sky.
Compared to these,what is the foreground here?Surely it is the bible of the poor,picture,picture,again picture,forms and tendrils.Painted one after the other,displayed on the wall of the cathedral.First the two little naked ones and the apple;next the sweet wings of the angel,his brooding sword in his tiny hand;then the Flood,ark,peacock;then the bunch of grapes;then the lamb;then,then,Nehemiah.(And behind them,of course,the stone wall——which we shall not forget——the above-mentioned skeleton,the measuring post,now and then unexpectedly jutting out,elbowing into the design of our stories.)
However…But I.Just one.Once.Still,to tell a story about a single cat,a practically inconsequential cat,as it cuts across the street,across,through,diagonally slices the rims of measurementsystems,as it marches on its four ragged India-rubber pads,as it marches to the cadence of protruding little shoulder-blades,and vanishes(silent declaration of independence)between the side of a car and the trunk of a lime tree.
It is no longer there.It is nothing.It touches me only remotely——ultimate motion——with the lilac green leaves of its two eyes.
如果身高達十層樓的生物指著我——僅僅看著,看著那小小的爪子,是雄性還是雌性,它們畢竟都相似
而在那里的夏天的草叢上,我們坐在它們的周圍,仿佛在曬日光浴,普拉頓,一個瘦削的木匠,還有我,它們的影子在我們眼里形成,走過建筑物——然而很慢、很輕,因此沒有用它們那具有權威的腳踩倒我們
如果它們指著我,呼喚我,驅逐我,不斷把石頭投向我,并且消除我,用兩米長的手拍打我的身側,然后……
然而它們,它們甚至會嫉妒我——看吧,多么獨立、準確的動作,多么驕傲的小人國的鬃毛
看吧,這怎樣來來往往
If creatures ten stories high pointed at me——just look,look at that tiny little paw,is it male or female,after all they are all alike
And we would sit around them there on the summer grass,as if sunbathing,Platon,a thin carpenter,and I,their images forming in our eyes,walking buildings——but slowly,gently,so as not to trampleus down with their authoritative feet
If they pointed at me,called me,sent me away,kept pelting me with stones,and cured me,patting my side with hands two meters long,then…
but they,they would even envy me--look,what independent,precise movements,what a proud,Lilliputian mane
look,how it comes and goes