《游隼》|英国自然文学作家J.A.贝克的十年追隼之旅
这是一本写鸟的书，我对它着迷的原因在于，整本书从头到尾都在描述一种美，一种即将消逝的美，一种没有人类参与的自然之美。
J.A.贝克是土生土长的英国埃塞克斯郡人，他一生从未离开过故土。他只出版过两本书，《游隼》是其中最著名的一部作品，曾获1967年的达夫·库珀奖，被誉为20世纪自然文学中最重要的作品之一。《游隼》记录了20世纪60年代J.A.贝克在英格兰东部湿地上对仅存的一对游隼的观察和追随。书中不仅有他对游隼生活习性的精确描述，作者诗意般的语言更是将整部作品提升到无可企及的高度。他写游隼，写麦鸡，写欧乌鸫，也写湿地，写海岸线；写游隼与猎物之间的残酷斗争，也写英格兰东部优美的湿地风景。哪怕是最容易令人忽略的空气，他也能写出一种灵动多变的性格。人类在整部作品中成为不值一提的存在，笔墨极少，即使有描述，也是以负面形象偶尔出现在几个片段当中。
不间断读了两次李斯本译版的《游隼》后，我也收藏了New York Review of Books出版的英文原版《The peregrine》，试图从作者的原版创作中深入体会这本书带给人的心灵抚慰。
游隼作为本书唯一的绝对主角，作者对游隼的观察角度和语言描述精确到令人惊叹的程度。他花费了整整十个冬天追逐游隼，记录下超过1600页的笔记，最终浓缩成时间跨度从10月1日到第二年4月4日仅半年的日记。“这是20世纪60年代的冬季，也是所有的任何的冬季”，译者李斯本在译后记如是写道。
1，“East of my home, the long ridge lies across the skyline like the low hull of a submarine. Above it, the eastern sky is bright with reflections of distant water, and there is a feeling of sails beyond land. Hill trees mass together in a dark-spired forest, but when I move towards them they slowly fan apart, the sky descends between, and they are solitary oaks and elms, each with its own wide territory of winter shadow. The calmness, the solitude of horizons lures me towards them, through them, and on to others. They layer the memory like strata.”
“我家往东，一条漫长的山脊横躺于地平线上，像浮上水面的潜艇。东方的天空在远处海水的映照下显得格外明亮，几乎能感觉到大地尽头的无数次远航。山间林木丛聚，汇成深沉而高耸的森林，但每当我走近它们，这深沉便会缓缓散开，天空从中显露——原来是孤独的橡树和榆树，它们各自占据着冬日阴影的一大片领地。这平静，这遥远地平线的孤寂引诱着我，走向它们，穿过它们，去往别处。它们有如地层，层层叠起我的记忆。”
2，“Hawk-hunting sharpens vision. Pouring away behind the moving bird, the land flows out from the eye in deltas of piercing colour. The angled eye strikes through the surface dross as the obliqued axe cuts to the heart of a tree. A vivid sense of place grows like another limb. Direction has colour and meaning. South is a bright, blocked place, opaque and stifling; West is a thickening of the earth into trees, a drawing together, the great beef side of England, the heavenly haunch; North is open, bleak, a way to nothing; East is a quickening in the sky, a beckoning of light, a storming suddenness of sea. Time is measured by a clock of blood. When one is active, close to the hawk, pursuing, the pulse races, time goes faster; when one is still, waiting, the pulse quietens, time is slow.”
“常年追寻着鹰，视觉也变得敏锐。鸟在飞行，大地在它身后奔流不息，仿佛是从它眼中奔涌而出，倾泻为一片片色彩鲜明的三角洲。这双眼能看穿事物表面的糟粕，像一柄锋利的斧头直砍树木的心脏。它对地点也有着敏锐的感知力，像拥有另一只于黑暗中发光的羽翼。每个方位都有它的色彩和意义。南方是一片明亮但闭塞的土地，模糊不清，闷热窒息；西方树木繁茂，用肉质形容，那儿就是英格兰最棒的牛侧身，是天堂般的腰腿肉；北方广袤、荒凉，通向空无之境；东方连空气都是兴奋的，是光明的召唤，是忽然降落在海面上的骤雨。而时间是以血液之钟来计量的。当你发现鹰，靠近它、追逐它时，心脏便会狂奔，时间迅速前移；而当你静止不动，陷入等待时，脉搏也安静下来，时间缓慢行进。”
3，“I have always longed to be a part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water；to return to the town as a stranger. Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.”
“我一直渴望成为外在世界的一部分，到最外面去，站到所有事物的边缘，让我这人类的污秽在虚空与寂静中被洗去，像一只狐狸在超尘灵性的冰冷的水中洗去自己的臭味;让我以一个异乡人的身份回到这小镇。游荡赐予我的奔涌的光芒，随着抵达消逝。”
4,“Aimed at a distant bird, a flutter of white wings, he may feel—as it spreads out beneath him like a stain of white一 that he can never fail to strike. Everything he is has been evolved to link the targeting eye to the striking talon.”
“他瞄准了远方的一只鸟，一瞬白色羽翼的震颤，可能只是察觉到了低空里洇开的一抹白，一抹他绝对不会袭击失误的白。游隼，他的存在，他的一切，都是为了连接起那双瞄准猎物的眼睛和那对袭击猎物的利爪。”
5，“Wherever he goes, this winter, I will follow him. I will share the fear, and the exaltation, and the boredom, of the hunting life. I will follow him till my predatory human shape no longer darkens in terror the shaken kaleidoscope of colour that stains the deep fovea of his brilliant eye. My pagan head shall sink into the winter land, and there be purified.”
“不论他去到哪里，这个冬季，我会跟随着他。我将与他分担这漫长捕猎生活里的恐惧、狂喜和百无聊赖。我将追随他，直到我这掠食性的人类的外形不再使他明亮的瞳孔，使他深深的中央凹上那有如万花筒般瞬息万变的色彩因恐惧而黯然。让我这异教徒的大脑沉沦于这片冬日的大地吧。如此，方能得到净化。”
6,“Fog hid the day in steamy heat. It smelt acrid and metallic, fumbling my face with cold decaying fingers. It lay by the road like a jurassic saurian, fetid and inert in a swamp.”
“大雾弥漫，空气潮湿而闷热。它闻起来有一股刺鼻的金属味，它正用那冰冷、腐烂的手指胡乱摸索着我的脸，它横跨道路两侧，像一只侏罗纪时代的大蜥蜴，浑身散发着来自沼泽的恶臭和慵惰。”
7，“Looking through binoculars, I saw the small pupils of his eyes contract and dilate in their white-flecked yellow irises. Eyes savagely alive, light smouldering within, yet glitteringly opaque as jewels. Their unchanging glare was fixed upon me as the fox walked slowly forward. When he stopped again, he was only ten yards away, and I lowered the binoculars. He stood there for more than a minute, trying to understand me with his nose and ears, watching me with his baffled, barbaric eyes. Then the breeze conveyed my fetid human smell, and the beautiful roan-coloured savage became a hunted fox again, ducking and darting away, streaming over the sea-wall and across the long green fields beyond.”
“从望远镜里看去，我看见他那闪烁着白光的黄色虹膜中央，小小的瞳孔猛然收缩又扩张。眼睛是如此热烈又狂野的存在，所有光亮都在其间闷燃，却只如宝石般闪烁出不透明的微光。而现在，这微光正一动不动，直直凝视着我。狐狸缓缓向前挪动。他再次停下时，距离我只有十码了。我放下望远镜。他站在那儿足足有一分钟之久，尝试用他的鼻子和耳朵读懂我，用他困惑而野性的双眼观察我。然后，微风带去了我这恶臭的人类气息，美丽的彩色野兽又变回了一只惊恐万分的狐狸。他迅速扭头，飞奔离去，奔过海堤，奔过绿色田野，远远离去了。”
8，“This valley has its own peculiar loneliness. Steep pastures, lined with elms, slope down to flat fields and marshes. The narrow shining estuary diminishes as the lanes descend. The sudden loneliness and peace one sees, far down between the elms, changes to a different desolation when the river-wall is reached.”
“这条河谷有着属于它自己的奇妙的孤独。陡坡上的牧场被一排排橡树环绕，向坡下倾泻而去，逐渐形成平缓的田野与湿地。小路消失于地平线处，这条狭窄、闪耀的河口也走到了尽头。你刚刚目睹了一片忽然袭来的孤独和平静，而这片橡树林往下很远的地方，远至河堤一带，又会是完全不同的荒凉与忧伤。”
9，“The valley sinks into mist, and the yellow orbital ring of the horizon closes over the glaring cornea of the sun. The eastern ridge blooms purple, then fades to inimical black. The earth exhales into the cold dusk. Frost forms in hollows shaded from the afterglow. Owls wake and call. The first stars hover and drift down. Like a roosting hawk, I listen to silence and gaze into the dark.”
“河谷沉浸在暮霭之中，地平线亮黄的轨道环逐渐淹没了太阳耀眼的瞳孔。东方的山峦绽放出灿烂的紫色，然后逐渐褪为似有敌意的黑。大地呼吐出冷冽的暮色。落日余晖的阴影里，寒霜寸寸生长。猫头鹰醒了，开始鸣叫。初升的星稀薄而寂寥。像一只栖息的鹰，我久久聆听着这岑寂，深深凝望着这 夜。”
10，“Two kills by the river: kingfisher and snipe. The snipe lay half submerged in flooded grass, cryptic even in death. The kingfisher shone in mud at the river's edge, like a brilliant eye. He was tattered with blood, stained with the blood-red colour of his stumpy legs that were stiff and red as sticks of sealing wax, cold in the lapping ripple of the river. He was like a dead star, whose green and turquoise light still glimmers down through the l long light-years.”
“河畔躺着两只猎物的残骸:翠鸟和沙锥。沙锥半身没入浸水的草地，颇有些隐晦、神秘。翠鸟在河畔的泥泞里闪烁，像灿烂的眼眸。他伤痕累累，浑身是血，粗短的腿部僵硬而鲜红，像两根蜡做的棍子，冰冷地躺在河水的轻抚里。他就像一颗死亡的恒星，绿松石般冷峻、微弱的星光，穿透漫长的光年，终传至我的眼中。”
11，“This was a day made absolute, the sun unflawed, the blue sky pure. Slate roofs and crows' wings burned white like magnesium. The shining mauve and silver woods, snow- rooted, bit sharply black into the solid blueness of the sky. The air was cold. The wind rose from the north, like cold fire. All was revealed, the moment of creation, a rainbow poured upon rock and shaped into woods and rivers.”
“纯粹的一天。日光无瑕，蓝天纯净。石板屋顶和乌鸦的翅膀闪动着灼灼白光，如燃烧的镁。小树林是一片淡紫与银白的交织，根部的积雪还未化去，顶部的黑枝根根锋利，直插天空凝固的蓝。空气依然寒冷。风从北方升起，有如冰冷的火焰。这是袒露无遗的世界，这是创造的时刻，一道彩虹倾泻于巨石之上，铺就了森林与河川。”
12，“The long feathers of his breast are rippled by the wind. I c cannot see his colour. In the falling gloom he looks much larger than he really is. The noble head lowers, but lifts again at once. Swiftly now he is resigning his savagery to the night that rises round us like dark water. The great eyes look into mine. When I move my arm before his face, they still look on, as though they see something beyond me from which they cannot look away. The last light flakes and crumbles down. Distance moves through the dim lines of the inland elms, and comes closer, and gathers behind the darkness of the hawk. I know he will not fly now. I climb over the wall and stand before him. And he sleeps.”
“夜风吹拂着他胸口的羽毛，泛起阵阵涟漪。我已看不清他身体的色彩了。在愈来愈深的暮色中，他看上去比他实际的样子要大得多。他低下了高贵的头颅，但立刻又抬起来，就在这一瞬间，夜凉如水，彻底淹没了我们，他也迅速褪去了一身的野蛮与凶残，好似将之全部交付给了黑夜。他那巨大的眼睛凝视着我的眼睛，我朝他晃动手臂，他也目不转睛，仿佛这双眼睛看见了某种我以外的东西，某种足以令它们无法移开的东西。最后一丝光线如雪花般剥落，崩碎，瓦解。我还能看见内陆那排榆树的微茫线条，然后，是更近一些的物体，再然后，只剩下鹰身后的一片漆黑。我知道，他现在不会飞走了。我翻过海堤，站到了他的面前。他闭上眼睛，睡去了。”
