I have said already that but for the hazard of a journey to Tahiti I should doubtless never have written this book. It is thither that after many wanderings Charles Strickland came, and it is there that he painted the pictures on which his fame most securely rests.I suppose no artist achieves completely the realization of the dream that obsesses him, and Strickland, harassed incessantly by his struggle with technique, managed, perhaps, less than others to express the vision that he saw with his mind's eye;but in Tahiti the circumstances were favourable to him;he found in his surroundings the accidents necessary for his inspiration to become effective, and his later pictures give at least a suggestion of what he sought.They offer the imagination something new and strange.It is as though in this far country his spirit, that had wandered disembodied, seeking a tenement, at last was able to clothe itself in fesh.To use the hackneyed phrase, here he found himself.
It would seem natural that my visit to this remote island should immediately revive my interest in Strickland, but the work I was engaged in occupied my attention to the exclusion of whatever was irrelevant, and it was not till I had been there some days that I even remembered his connexion with it. After all, I had not seen him for fifteen years, and it was nine since he died.But I think my arrival at Tahiti would have driven out of my head matters of much more immediate importance to me, and even after a week I found it not easy to order myself soberly.I remember that on my first morning I awoke early, and when I came on to the terrace of the hotel no one was stirring.I wandered round to the kitchen, but it was locked, and on a bench outside it a native boy was sleeping.There seemed no chance of breakfast for some time, so I sauntered down to the water-front.The Chinamen were already busy in their shops.The sky had still the pallor of dawn, and there was a ghostly silence on the lagoon.Ten miles away the island of Murea, like some high fastness of the Holy Grail, guarded its mystery.
I did not altogether believe my eyes. The days that had passed since I left Wellington seemed extraordinary and unusual.Wellington is trim and neat and English;it reminds you of a seaport town on the South Coast.And for three days afterwards the sea was stormy.Grey clouds chased one another across the sky.Then the wind dropped, and the sea was calm and blue.The Pacifc is more desolate than other seas;its spaces seem more vast, and the most ordinary journey upon it has somehow the feeling of an adventure.The air you breathe is an elixir which prepares you for the unexpected.Nor is it vouchsafed to man in the flesh to know aught that more nearly suggests the golden realms of fancy than the approach to Tahiti.Murea, the sister isle, comes into view in rocky splendour, rising from the desert sea mysteriously, like the unsubstantial fabric of a magic wand.With its jagged outline it is like a Montserrat of the Pacific, and you may imagine that there Polynesian knights guard with strange rites mysteries unholy for men to know.The beauty of the island is unveiled as diminishing distance shows you in distincter shape its lovely peaks, but it keeps its secret as you sail by, and, darkly inviolable, seems to fold itself together in a stony, inaccessible grimness.It would not surprise you if, as you came near seeking for an opening in the reef, it vanished suddenly from your view, and nothing met your gaze but the blue loneliness of the Pacifc.
Tahiti is a lofty green island, with deep folds of a darker green, in which you divine silent valleys;there is mystery in their sombre depths, down which murmur and plash cool streams, and you feel that in those umbrageous places life from immemorial times has been led according to immemorial ways. Even here is something sad and terrible.But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of the moment.It is like the sadness which you may see in the jester's eyes when a merry company is laughing at his sallies;his lips smile and his jokes are gayer because in the communion of laughter he fnds himself more intolerably alone.For Tahiti is smiling and friendly;it is like a lovely woman graciously prodigal of her charm and beauty;and nothing can be more conciliatory than the entrance into the harbour at Papeete.The schooners moored to the quay are trim and neat, the little town along the bay is white and urbane, and the famboyants, scarlet against the blue sky, faunt their colour like a cry of passion.They are sensual with an unashamed violence that leaves you breathless.And the crowd that throngs the wharf as the steamer draws alongside is gay and debonair;it is a noisy, cheerful, gesticulating crowd.It is a sea of brown faces.You have an impression of coloured movement against the faming blue of the sky.Everything is done with a great deal of bustle, the unloading of the baggage, the examination of the customs;and everyone seems to smile at you.It is very hot.The colour dazzles you.
我前面已經(jīng)說過,要不是一次冒險(xiǎn)的旅程把我?guī)У搅怂L釐u,我毫無疑問絕對(duì)不會(huì)寫這本書的。查爾斯·斯特里克蘭走過了很多地方,最后來到了塔希提島,正是在那里他畫了很多畫,這些畫作牢固地奠定了他后來的聲譽(yù)。我想沒有哪個(gè)藝術(shù)家能夠完全實(shí)現(xiàn)他魂?duì)繅?mèng)縈的理想,而斯特里克蘭不斷地受到他糾結(jié)于技巧的困擾,在表達(dá)用他思想的眼睛所看到的幻景時(shí),也許還不如別的畫家。只有在塔希提島,周邊的環(huán)境更適合他。他發(fā)現(xiàn)在他的周圍,足以激發(fā)他靈感的事件很多,而且對(duì)于他的創(chuàng)作很有效果,他后期的畫作至少給出了他苦苦追尋的東西的暗示。這些畫作提供了某種新穎而奇異的想象空間,好像在遙遠(yuǎn)的國度,他的精神脫離了軀殼,游游蕩蕩尋找著安身之所,最后終于能夠用肉身做衣。借用一句老生常談的話,在這里,他找到了自己。
我來到這個(gè)偏遠(yuǎn)的小島,應(yīng)該能夠馬上喚起我對(duì)斯特里克蘭的興趣,這似乎是自然而然的事,但是當(dāng)時(shí)我正在創(chuàng)作的作品占據(jù)了我全部精力,我得把所有不相關(guān)的事情都拋到腦后。直到來到這兒好幾天以后,我才想起這個(gè)地方和他有著千絲萬縷的聯(lián)系,畢竟我已經(jīng)有十五個(gè)年頭沒有見過他,距離他去世也有九年了。然而,我現(xiàn)在都覺得,本來我以為到了塔希提島,我會(huì)把對(duì)我來說一些緊迫和重要的事情都從頭腦中趕出去,可甚至都過了一周,我發(fā)現(xiàn)讓自己冷靜清醒、有條不紊可不是件容易的事。我還記得第一個(gè)早晨我醒得很早,當(dāng)我走到賓館的露臺(tái)上時(shí),四周靜悄悄的,一個(gè)人也沒有。我繞著廚房溜達(dá)了一圈,廚房鎖著門,在門外的一條長凳上,一個(gè)當(dāng)?shù)氐氖陶哒谒X,看來一時(shí)半會(huì)兒我還吃不上早餐,所以我漫步到了海濱的道路上。中國人已經(jīng)在店鋪里忙碌起來了。天空中還泛著黎明前的魚肚白,環(huán)礁湖上籠罩著死一般的沉寂。十英里之外是莫里阿島,像座圣杯形狀的巍峨要塞,護(hù)衛(wèi)著自己的秘密。
我完全不能相信自己的眼睛。自從我離開威靈頓后,日子過得似乎與眾不同和非同一般。威靈頓是一座整潔的英格蘭小城,位于南部海岸,屬于海港城鎮(zhèn),我在海上航行了三天后,開始下起了暴風(fēng)雨,烏云在空中翻滾,相互追逐。后來,大風(fēng)減弱了,大海變得安靜、湛藍(lán)。太平洋比別的海洋更加荒涼寂寥,海面看上去更加寬闊,即使最普通的航行也會(huì)有種冒險(xiǎn)的感覺,你呼吸的空氣中好像有靈丹妙藥,讓你精神氣爽地準(zhǔn)備面對(duì)突發(fā)事件。它不會(huì)賜予凡夫俗子了解任何事物的能力,當(dāng)你隱約感到進(jìn)入了一個(gè)金色的想象中的國度時(shí),船已經(jīng)接近了塔希提島。莫里阿島是塔希提島的姊妹島,當(dāng)這個(gè)小島進(jìn)入視線時(shí),會(huì)看到它危崖聳立,氣勢(shì)宏偉,突然從荒無人煙的海面上神秘地突兀而起,好像神奇的魔杖喚出的虛無縹緲的織錦。小島巉巖嶙峋,有如蒙特塞拉特山[83]被移到太平洋中,你可能會(huì)想象波利尼西亞的騎士們正在守衛(wèi)著它,同時(shí)還在舉行神秘的異教儀式,但不會(huì)讓一般人知道。隨著距離的接近,這座島正在揭開面紗,露出它的美麗,你可以看見它可愛頂峰的更加清晰的輪廓,但當(dāng)你航行路過它時(shí),它還要保守秘密。于是,你看到,它黑黢黢地不可冒犯,似乎用一種多石的、不可接近的冷峻把自己攏在一起。船只駛到近處,如果你想在珊瑚礁尋覓一個(gè)入口,它就會(huì)突然從人們的視線里消失,這一點(diǎn)兒也不奇怪。映入你眼簾的仍是太平洋的一片茫茫碧波,寂寥無垠。
塔希提島是一座高聳出海面的島嶼,島上樹木郁郁蔥蔥,暗綠色的深褶使你猜到那是一條條寂靜的峽谷,在陰暗峽谷的深處神秘莫測(cè),沿著峽谷流淌著冰冷的潺潺溪水。你會(huì)覺得在這個(gè)樹木遮天蔽日的地方,遠(yuǎn)古時(shí)代以來,生活就按照古老的方式一直延續(xù)至今而未改變。甚至在這里,你能感到某種東西是悲傷和可怕的,但這種印象很快就會(huì)煙消云散,反而使你更加敏銳地感到要及時(shí)行樂。就好像快樂的一群人對(duì)于小丑的插科打諢哈哈大笑時(shí),在小丑的眼中你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)悲傷的神色。他的嘴角在微笑,他的笑話更可笑,因?yàn)樗诤痛笮Φ娜嘶?dòng)交流時(shí),發(fā)現(xiàn)自己內(nèi)心無法忍受的孤獨(dú)越發(fā)強(qiáng)烈。塔希提島在微笑,親切而友好,就像一個(gè)可愛的女人優(yōu)雅地彰顯她的迷人與美麗。當(dāng)船進(jìn)到位于帕皮提的港口時(shí),那種身心得以撫慰的感覺簡直無與倫比,美妙極了。停泊在碼頭的雙桅縱帆船整齊、干凈,海灣環(huán)抱的小鎮(zhèn)潔白、文雅,而鳳凰木在蔚藍(lán)的天空下卻紅得刺目,像激情的呼喊一般,極力炫示自己鮮艷的色彩。它們有著放浪形骸的肉欲,讓你喘不上氣來。當(dāng)船靠近碼頭的時(shí)候,穿過碼頭蜂擁到岸邊的人們興高采烈而又彬彬有禮,他們大聲喊叫,開心地?fù)]舞著手臂。這是一片褐色面孔的海洋,你會(huì)有這樣一種印象:在炎炎碧空下,色彩在移動(dòng)。每件事都是在奔忙中完成的,無論是從船上卸行李,還是海關(guān)的通關(guān),似乎每個(gè)人都在沖你微笑。天氣很熱,光線照得人睜不開眼,而各種色彩又讓人頭暈?zāi)垦!?/p>
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