雙語散文:A Locomotive 火車

【英文原文】

摘要：我無法表達，當我看見火車在車站喘息時心底那種敬畏以至於驚駭、謙卑得近於崩潰的感覺。

I cannot express the amazed awe, the crushed humility, with which I sometimes watch a locomotive take its breath at a railway station, and think what work there is in its bars and wheels, and what manner of men they must be who dig brown iron-stone out of the ground, and forge it into THAT! What assemblage of accurate and mighty faculties in them; more than fleshly power over melting crag and coiling fire, fettered, and finessed at last into the precision of watchmaking; Titanian hammer-strokes beating, out of lava, these glittering cylinders and timely-respondent valves, and fine ribbed rods, which touch each other as a serpent writhes, in noiseless gliding, and omnipotence of grasp; infinitely complex anatomy of active steel, compared with which the skeleton of a living creature would seem, to a careless observer, clumsy and vile — a mere morbid secretion and phosphatous prop of flesh! What would the men who thought out this— who beat it out, who touched it into its polished calm of power, who set it to its appointed task, and triumphantly saw it fulfil this task to the utmost of their will — feel or think about this weak hand of mine, timidly leading a little strain of watercolour, which I cannot manage, into an imperfect shadow of something else— mere failure in every motion, and endless disappointment; what, I repeat, would these Iron-dominant Genii think of me? And What ought I to think of them?

(From The Cestus of Aglaia, 1865)

【中文譯文】

我無法表達，當我看見火車在車站喘息時心底那種敬畏以至於驚駭、謙卑得近於崩潰的感覺。我暗自思忖，它的連桿和輪子之間有着怎樣了不起的設計；而那些從地下掘出褐色的鐵礦石、再用它鑄就這般事物的人，又該是怎樣了不起的人物！這是蘊聚了怎樣精確和強大能力的組合啊：控制熔岩和翻卷火焰的超凡偉力，經由巧妙的控制和運用，最後達到了製表工藝的精確；從熔岩中獲取力量的巨錘敲擊着這些閃閃發亮的活塞、適時感應的閥門以及精美的肋條似的連桿，這些連桿相互糾纏，如巨蟒翻騰，無聲地滑動，所向披靡。這是多麼活躍而複雜的鋼骨之軀啊，在粗心的觀察者看來，生物之軀與之相比顯得既笨拙又卑劣，不過是病態的分泌物和磷酸鹽撐起的一副肉架子！火車的創造者——他們精心打造它，賦予它蘊藏巨力的沉靜，指派給它特定的使命，以成功的心情看它奉他們的最大意願執行這個使命——他們會怎麼想我這隻孱弱無力的手？這隻手怯懦地用一小抹水彩——而我並不擅此道——試圖敷入另樣事物並不完美的陰影——每一個動作都不過是失敗和無盡的失望。重複一下這個問題吧，這些主宰鋼鐵的天才到底會怎樣看我？而我又該如何看他們呢？

（選自《阿格拉伊亞的腰帶》，1865）

【作者簡介】

約翰·羅斯金（John Ruskin，1819－1900），英國著名作家、批評家和藝術家，對維多利亞時代公衆的審美觀點有着重大影響。他認爲工業革命破壞了藝術美學，對工業革命的許多產物持強烈的批評態度。本段選自他的《阿格拉伊亞的腰帶》（The Cestus of Aglaia，阿格拉伊亞爲希臘美慧三女神之一），其中也反映了他的這種觀點。