旅行的藝術:Ⅳ 好奇心-1

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春天，我受邀到馬德里出席一個3天的會議，會議預計在星期五下午結束。由于我從來沒有到過這個城市，而又聽說這里有一些名勝古跡（顯然不限于博物館），我決定留下來多住幾天。接待我的朋友為我在旅館租了一間客房。這間旅館就坐落在城市東南部、一條樹木林立的大街上。從這里可以俯視一座庭院。有時，我會看到一位個子矮小、長得很像菲利普二世的男子，站在那里一面抽著煙，一面用腳輕叩著我想應該是通往地窖的一扇鐵門。星期五傍晚，我很早就回房休息。我并沒有向接待我的友人透露，我準備在這里度過周末，因為我擔心那樣會增添他們的麻煩，反倒對大家都不好。不過，這意味著我的晚餐將沒有著落。在走回旅店的途中，我沒有膽子去路邊的餐館一探究竟。很多地方都是黑漆漆的木屋，好些餐館的天花板都垂吊著火腿。我害怕成為眾人好奇和憐憫的焦點，于是，我在客房的點心吧里拿了一包辣味薯片，看完衛(wèi)星電視新聞后倒頭便睡。

In the springtime, I was invited to Madrid to attend a three-day conference which was scheduled to end on a Friday afternoon. Because I had never visited the city before and had been told of its attractions (which were apparently not limited to museums) on several occasions, I decided to extend my stay by a few days. My hosts had booked a room for me in a hotel on a wide, treelined avenue in the south-eastern part of the city. It overlooked a courtyard, in which a short man with a resemblance to Philip II occasionally stood and smoked a cigarette while tapping his foot on the steel door of what I supposed to be a cellar. On the Friday evening, I retired early to my room. I had not revealed to my hosts that I would be staying the weekend, for fear of forcing them into half-hearted hospitality from which neither side would benefit. But the decision also meant that I had to go without dinner, for I realized on walking back to the hotel that I was too shy to venture alone into any of the neighbourhood restaurants, dark, wood-panelled places, many with a ham hanging from the ceiling, where I risked becoming an object of curiosity and pity. So I ate a packet of paprika-flavoured crisps from the mini-bar and, after watching the news on satellite television, fell asleep.

第二天早上我起床時，卻覺得非常疲累，血管就像被砂糖或細沙堵塞著似的。陽光從粉紅和灰色的塑料窗簾透進來，而外邊巷子傳來車水馬龍的聲音。桌上擺放著幾本旅店提供的關于這座城市的雜志，以及我從家里帶來的兩本指南。它們都以不同的描述，向我們展示著一座充滿刺激、五花八門的城市——馬德里。它由紀念碑、教堂、博物館、噴泉、廣場和購物街所組成，正等待我去欣賞。然而，盡管這些景觀我聽得多了，也知道難得一見，我卻因為自己的惰性和一般興致勃勃的游客相去甚遠而感到無精打采、心生厭煩。此時我最大的愿望就是賴在床上，如果可能的話，搭乘早班飛機回家。

When I awoke the next morning, it was to an intense lethargy, as though my veins had become silted up with fine sugar or sand. Sunlight shone through the pink and grey plasticcoated curtains and traffic could be heard along the avenue. On the desk lay several magazines offered by the hotel with information on the city and two guidebooks that I had brought from home. In their different ways, they conspired to suggest that an exciting and multifarious phenomenon called Madrid was waiting to be discovered outside, made up of monuments, churches, museums, fountains, plazas and shopping streets. And yet these elements, about which I had heard so much and which I knew I was privileged to see, merely provoked in me a combination of listlessness and self-disgust at the contrast between my own indolence and what I imagined to be the eagerness of more normal visitors. My overwhelming wish was to remain in bed and, if possible, catch an early flight home.