旅行的藝術(shù):Ⅳ 好奇心-7

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這里我們還碰到另一個(gè)問題：那些到過此地的探險(xiǎn)家，在有所發(fā)現(xiàn)的同時(shí)卻也宣判了它們當(dāng)中哪些是有意義的、哪些則沒有。久而久之，這就決定了馬德里的價(jià)值所在，并且變成了不可推翻的真理。維拉廣場屬于一星級，皇家宮殿屬兩星級，王室赤足女子修道院屬三星級，而東方廣場則一星都沒有。

There was another problem: the explorers who had come before and discovered facts had at the same time laid down distinctions between what was significant and what was not, distinctions which had, over time, hardened into almost immutable truths about where value lay in Madrid. The Plaza de la Villa had one star, the Palacio Real two stars, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales three stars and the Plaza de Oriente no stars at all.

這樣的區(qū)分未必是錯(cuò)的，但是它卻造成不良的影響。當(dāng)旅游指南對一個(gè)景點(diǎn)贊賞有加時(shí)，它無形中產(chǎn)生一股壓力，迫使讀者接受其權(quán)威性，締造一股熱忱，至于景點(diǎn)會(huì)使游客感受到沉默、幸福還是興致勃勃，它則毫不關(guān)心。早在未進(jìn)入三星級的王室赤足女子修道院之前，我就曉得自己得配合這種源于權(quán)威的熱忱：“這是西班牙最美麗的修道院。有壁畫裝飾的樓梯看起來十分堂皇，上方則是回廊，這里的小禮拜堂一間比一間更奢華。”或許旅游指南還應(yīng)該加上這句話：“那些不同意以上說法的游客必定有問題。”

The distinctions were not necessarily false, but their effect was pernicious. Where guidebooks praised a site, they pressured a visitor to match their authoritative enthusiasm, where they were silent, pleasure or interest seemed unwarranted. Long before entering the three-star Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, I knew the official enthusiasm that my response would have to accord with: 'The most beautiful convent in Spain. A grand staircase decorated with frescoes leads to the upper cloister gallery where each of the chapels is more sumptuous than its predecessor. ' The guidebook might have added 'and where there must be something wrong with the traveller who cannot agree '.

洪堡卻沒有感到這種威懾。當(dāng)時(shí)很少歐洲人到過他留下足跡的地域，他者的缺席，正好給洪堡提供了自由的想象空間，使他能憑自己的感覺決定自己對什么產(chǎn)生興趣。他能自如地建立自己的價(jià)值體系，無須遵循或刻意推翻他人的權(quán)威。當(dāng)他到達(dá)處在內(nèi)格羅河旁的圣費(fèi)爾南多傳教會(huì)時(shí)，他可以自由地設(shè)想這里的一切都是有趣的，又或許根本沒任何有趣的東西。他的好奇心指向了植物，這對洪堡游記——《旅程》——的讀者而言并不會(huì)感到意外。在談到圣費(fèi)爾南多最有趣的地方時(shí)，他寫道：“我們在圣費(fèi)爾南多最感到驚訝的是栗椰子。它的出現(xiàn)為這里的鄉(xiāng)間帶來了獨(dú)特的風(fēng)貌。這種植物長滿了刺，而樹干高度超過了60英尺。”接著，洪堡測量了這里的氣溫（很熱），并注意到傳教士住在布滿藤蔓植物的宅子內(nèi)，它們周圍都有花園，非常漂亮。

Humboldt did not suffer such intimidation. Few Europeans had crossed the regions through which he travelled and their absence offered him an imaginative freedom. He could unselfconsciously decide what interested him. He could create his own categories of value without either following or deliberately rebelling against the hierarchies of others. When he arrived at the San Fernando mission on the Rio Negro, he had the freedom to think that everything, or perhaps nothing, would be interesting. The needle of his curiosity followed its own magnetic north and, unsurprisingly to readers of his Journey , ended up pointing at plants. 'In San Fernando we were most struck by the pihiguado or pirijao plant, which gives the countryside its peculiar quality. Covered with thorns, its trunk reaches more than sixty feet high,' he reported at the top of his list of what was interesting in San Fernando. Next, Humboldt measured the temperature (very hot), then noted that the missionaries lived in attractive houses matted with liana and surrounded by gardens.

保羅·戈西仿查理·本特列的石版畫《奧里諾科的埃斯梅拉達(dá)》

我試圖設(shè)想一本沒有任何先入之見的馬德里旅游指南，想想我會(huì)如何按主觀喜好對這里的所見所聞作一次評估。就我的興趣指數(shù)而言，我會(huì)對西班牙飲食多肉少菜這一點(diǎn)給予三星（在這里的最后一頓正餐中，我只吃到了幾根薄薄、白白的蘆筍，其余的菜肴全都是肉類）。另外，我也會(huì)對普通百姓聽似高貴且冗長的姓氏給予三星的興趣指數(shù)（負(fù)責(zé)安排會(huì)議的助理，有像一列火車那么長的姓氏，由“de”或“la”銜接，這些稱呼代表了祖先的城堡，忠實(shí)的仆人、一口舊水井和飾有紋章的外套。這與她現(xiàn)實(shí)中的生活形成了對比：一輛沾滿塵土的西特伊畢沙型汽車和一棟靠近機(jī)場的小型公寓）。此外，我對這里男人長著小腳感到好奇，新市區(qū)里的建筑體現(xiàn)出人們對現(xiàn)代建筑風(fēng)格的取舍，這也同樣令我興趣盎然。例如，我在這里發(fā)現(xiàn)，一棟建筑的現(xiàn)代性比它是否美觀更為重要，就連一眼就覺得難看的古銅色外觀也無所謂（現(xiàn)代性似乎是期盼已久的東西，人們需要感受到它的強(qiáng)烈程度，以彌補(bǔ)過去停滯不前的時(shí)代），如果我能夠依據(jù)好奇心的驅(qū)使決定什么是有趣的，而不是被一本有著綠色封面、影響力極強(qiáng)的《米奇林馬德里道路指南》所左右，那么我主觀上認(rèn)為以上所說的，都應(yīng)該名列馬德里趣事中。而那本旅游指南具有很強(qiáng)的磁場作用，把讀者心中好奇的指針拉往王室赤足女子修道院內(nèi)，那些走起來有回聲的走廊上一道褐色樓梯。

I tried to imagine an uninhibited guide to Madrid, how I might have ranked its sights according to a subjective hierarchy of interest. I had three-star levels of interest in the under-representation of vegetables in the Spanish diet (at the last proper meal I had eaten, only a few limp, bleached and apparently tinned asparagus had appeared between a succession of meat dishes) and in the long and noble-sounding surnames of ordinary citizens (the assistant in charge of organizing the conference had owned a train of surnames connected by de and la, an appellation which suggested an ancestral castle, faithful servants, an old well and a coat of arms, and contrasted with the reality of her life: a dust-coated SEAT Ibiza and a studio flat near the airport). I was interested in the smallness of male feet and in the attitude towards modern architecture evident in many newer districts of the city: specifically the way it appeared to be less important that a building was attractive than that it was obviously modern, even if this meant giving something a vile bronze façade (as though modernity were a longed-for good that one needed in extra-strong doses to compensate for an earlier lack). All of these would have appeared on my subjective list of interesting things in Madrid if my compass of curiosity had been allowed to settle according to its own logic-rather than being spun by the unexpectedly powerful forcefield of a small green object by the name of The Michelin Streetguide to Madrid , which pointed its needle resolutely towards, among other targets, a brown-looking staircase in the echoing corridors of the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales.