目　录

中文目录

英文目录

企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想

阅读的时光

（英汉双语）

［法］马塞尔·普鲁斯特　著

约翰·斯特罗克　英译　魏柯玲　汉译

中　国　出　版　集　团

中国对外翻译出版公司

图书在版编目（CIP）数据

阅读的时光／（法）普鲁斯特著；魏柯玲译．—北京：中国对外翻译出版公司，2010.1

（企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想）

ISBN 978-7-5001-2527-3

Ⅰ．阅…　Ⅱ．①普…②魏…　Ⅲ．文学欣赏—世界　Ⅳ．I106

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字（2009）第230301号

（著作权合同登记：图字01-2009-5533号）

出版发行／中国对外翻译出版公司

地　　址／北京市西城区车公庄大街甲4号物华大厦6层

电　　话／（010）68359376　68359303　68359719

邮　　编／100044

传　　真／（010）68357870

电子邮箱／book@ctpc.com.cn

网　　址／http://www.ctpc.com.cn

出版策划／张高里

策划编辑／李育超

责任编辑／张晶晶　郭小华

封面设计／奇文堂·潘峰

排　　版／北京杰瑞腾达科技发展有限公司

印　　刷／保定市中画美凯印刷有限公司

规　　格／760×920毫米　1/32　　印　　张／6.875

版　　次／2010年4月第一版

印　　次／2010年4月第一次

ISBN 978-7-5001-2527-3　　定价：14.00元

“企鹅”及相关标识是企鹅图书有限公司已经注册或尚未注册的商标。

未经允许，不得擅用。

中国对外翻译出版公司与企鹅出版社联合出版

目　录

约翰·拉斯金

阅读的日子（一）

阅读的日子（二）

圣伯夫之道

普鲁斯特解释《在斯万家那边》

返回总目录

约翰·拉斯金
【1】

1．一个个地，如同 “离开了父亲阿波罗而为世界带去光明的缪斯”，拉斯金的思想相继离开那诞生它们的神圣头颅，化身在鲜活的书籍里，为各民族带去启示。拉斯金退隐于孤独之中：先知们的生命经常于此终结，直到这苦修者完成了自己超人的工作，上帝一时高兴将他召回。人们只能透过圣洁之手拉下的面纱来猜测那正在实现的神迹，那蕴藏了不朽于后世的易逝头脑的缓慢毁灭。

2．今天，死亡使人类拥有了拉斯金留下的巨大遗产。因为天才只有以其自身所承载的人类的榜样为蓝本，而非依据其凡人形象，才能创造出不朽的作品。他的思想在某种意义上暂时与他相伴一生。他死之后它们便回归全人类并予以启示。就像居斯塔夫·莫罗
【2】

在世时，人们知道居住在拉罗什富科街的尊贵家族是莫罗一家，而他死后那里便成为莫罗博物馆。

3．约翰·拉斯金博物馆（位于谢菲尔德）久已存在。博物馆目录仿佛是所有艺术与科学的梗概。大师绘画作品的照片与矿藏品相邻，就像在歌德的居所。同拉斯金博物馆一样，拉斯金的作品无所不包。他追寻真理，即便在编年表和社会法则里也能找到美。但逻辑学家们对“美术”的定义既然将矿物学和政治经济学排除在外，我在此便只谈及作为美学家和艺术批评家的拉斯金，以及他在一般意义上的“美术”作品。

4．有人说他是现实主义者。不错，他经常重申，艺术家应该致力于对自然的纯粹模仿，“不对任何事物加以摒弃、蔑视和选择”。

5．有人说他是知性论者，因为他写道，最好的绘画包含着最崇高的思想。论及在透纳
【3】

的《迦太基的建筑》一画的前景中玩耍小船的孩子们时，他总结道：“这一场景表现的是一种主导性的激情，那新兴城市的伟大未来便由此产生……此绝妙场景用词语和颜料均可表达，同绘画技巧无关；寥寥数笔亦可同精心设色的图画一样向心灵传达同样的思想。这思想远远高于所有艺术；它是最高意义的史诗。”密勒桑
【4】

引用了此段文字并补充道，“同样，在分析丁托列托
【5】

的《圣家庭》时，拉斯金凭借一段残垣和一个刚开工的建筑物发现了大师的不同凡响，艺术家以此让我们从象征意义上理解到耶稣的诞生是犹太经济的终结和新联盟的兴起。这位威尼斯画家的另一件作品《耶稣受难》被拉斯金视为杰作，因为艺术家通过一个表面上无足轻重的细节，即在受难地背景中啃食棕榈叶的一头驴子，来表达一种深刻的思想，即正是犹太物质主义——伴随着它对纯现世意义上救主的期待和进入耶路撒冷时的幻灭——从根本上导致了对耶稣所倾泻的仇恨及其死亡。”

6．有人说他过于强调科学在艺术中的作用，以至抹杀了想象力。他难道不是这样说过吗：“……画家必须以地质学和气象学的精确度了解每种岩石、土壤和云朵……每种地质构成都有其特点；决定性的裂纹造成了岩石和土壤的固定形态；特殊的植物还要因气候与海拔的不同加以细分…… ［画家］需观察植物色彩形状的每一特点……把握其或僵直或静穆……的线条……观察其当地习性，其对特定地点的偏爱或厌憎，某些特殊影响对它的滋养或摧残；他在头脑中把这一切同植物生活环境的所有特征结合起来……他必须用雨丝一般轻柔精妙的笔触表现出坍塌中的土壤那细微的裂纹、下降的曲线、还有波动的阴影……最伟大的绘画当最大限度地向观者传达最伟大的思想。”

7．相反，有人说他给予想象太大的空间，以至于毁了科学。不错，下面这段话不禁让人想起贝纳丹·德·圣皮埃尔
【6】

那天真的终极论，他说上帝将瓜果分成片只是为了方便人们享用：“……上帝在自己的创造物上使用色彩作为其最纯洁、最无辜、最珍贵之处的永恒陪衬；而在仅仅是物质上贵重或者有害的东西上则使用普通的颜色……看看鸽子的颈部，再比较一下蝰蛇的灰色后背……同样，鳄鱼是灰色的，而无辜的蜥蜴则有着美丽的绿色。”

8．有人说他使艺术沦为科学的附庸，因为他的理论认为艺术品使我们认识到事物的性质，甚至声称“一幅透纳的作品要比任何学院都能更多地呈现出岩石的属性”，以及“像丁托列托这样的艺术家举手之间便能揭示出关于肌肉活动的大量真相，足以令全世界的解剖学家汗颜”，但也有人说他在艺术面前贬低科学。

9．最后，有人说他是唯美主义者，他唯一的宗教便是美，因为事实上他一生热爱美。

10．另一方面，还有人说他甚至不是艺术家，因为他在对美的欣赏中掺入了别的思考，这些思考可能高于审美，但显然与审美无关。《建筑七灯》开宗明义，阐明建筑师需使用最珍贵最持久的材料，这一要求源于耶稣的牺牲，以及上帝所认可的这一牺牲的永久条件，我们没有理由认为这些条件已更改，因为上帝并未明确告知我们。在《现代画家》一书中，为解决色彩论与明暗论者之间谁对谁错的问题，他所采纳的论据之一是：“……从更广阔的角度来看自然界，将彩虹、日出、玫瑰、紫罗兰、蝴蝶、鸟雀、金鱼、红宝石、蛋白石、珊瑚等笼统地同鳄鱼、河马、……鲨鱼、蛞蝓、骨殖、菌类、苔藓，以及所有那些腐蚀性的、尖锐的、毁坏性的东西相比较，你就能领悟到这问题在色彩论和明暗论者之间应如何定位——谁这边是自然与生命，谁那边是罪恶和死亡。”

11．既然关于拉斯金有这么多互相矛盾的说法，结论便是他就是自相矛盾的。

12．有关拉斯金面貌的这许多个侧面，因为我们曾经见过而最熟悉的肖像，或者——如果我可以这么说的话——最令人着力研究、最成功、最震撼和最广为人知的肖像便是那个终其一生只以美为唯一宗教的拉斯金。

13．对美的顶礼膜拜是拉斯金终其一生的活动，这可能是千真万确的；但我认为他生命的目标，他深刻、秘密而长久的意图藏于他处，我这么说并非为了反对德·拉·西兹拉纳
【7】

的观点，而是为了防止用一种错误的但却似乎是自然而然、不可避免的解释使读者在心目中低估这些观点。

14．不仅拉斯金的主要信仰是宗教本身（我稍后将回到这一点，因为它支配并反映了他的美学观），只在目前就其“美的宗教”而言，我们的时代必须警醒地认识到，如果我们想要忠实于拉斯金，我们就不能说出这个词而不重新考虑其含义，因为人们很容易赋予其浅薄的唯美意义。实际上，在这个猎奇的唯美时代，所谓美的膜拜者是这样的人，他不奉行其他信仰，也不承认任何其他神祗，终生沉溺于对艺术品心醉神迷的观赏。

15．但是，出于一些超出这篇短文范畴的纯粹超验的原因，如果人们只是因为快感而热爱美的话，这热爱便难成正果。正如为幸福而寻求幸福只会使人感到乏味，要找到幸福必须寻找别的什么，同样，如果我们为了美而热爱美，把它当作存在于身外，远比它带来的快乐重要得多的真实的事物，我们会额外地获得审美快感。拉斯金远非浅薄猎奇的唯美主义者，恰好相反，他是卡莱尔式
【8】

的人物，天生警惕所有享乐的虚荣，本能地察觉到身边那永恒现实的存在。这类人天赋超群，拥有把握现实的能力，并满怀激情，好像听命于灵魂一般将自己短暂流逝的一生献给这全能而永恒的现实，并为之带来价值。他们关注而焦虑地面对着等待解释的宇宙，某位引领他们的神灵、某种他们听得到的声音为他们宣示着这现实的一些部分，使之昭显于天才的永恒灵感。拉斯金的特殊天赋在于美感，无论在自然界还是在艺术中。他的天纵秉赋驱使他在美中追寻现实，从而将全部的宗教生命投身于审美之中。但他并不将自己为之献身的美视为享乐，而是把它看作无上重要的现实，宁愿为此献出生命。你会看到拉斯金的全部美学便来源于此。你首先要理解的是，他认识一个新的建筑或绘画流派的年代很可能是他道德生命的重要里程碑。在谈到哥特式建筑向他呈现的年代时，他就如基督徒谈到真理昭示的日子，带着同样的肃穆，同样反复的感动，以及同样的安详态度。他一生中的事件均属于灵智的范畴，那些重要的日子是这样一些时刻，比如当他洞察了一种新的艺术形式的时候，他理解了阿布维利
【9】

的那一年，理解了鲁昂
【10】

的那一年，还有那天，他感到提香
【11】

的绘画及其画作上的阴影要比鲁本斯
【12】

的绘画及阴影更加高贵的时刻。

16．随后你要理解的是，和卡莱尔一样，对于拉斯金，诗人便是誊写者，听从自然的指示书写其或多或少重要的秘密，而艺术家的第一要务就是丝毫不将自己的印记加诸神示。从这个高度来看，对拉斯金的指责，无论说他是现实主义还是知性主义，都可以像笼罩大地的云彩一般烟消云散了。这样的批评意见是无的放矢，因为它们瞄准得还不够高。它们站错了高度。艺术家必须记录的现实既是物质的又是精神的。物质是真实的，因为它是心灵的表现。没有人比拉斯金更擅长嘲讽那些认为艺术品是单纯模仿表象的人。他说，“无论模仿的主题是英雄还是他的马，单纯模仿的乐趣都将正好是同样的程度（如果准确度可以相等的话）……我们既可以认为眼泪是出于痛苦，也可以认为是出于艺术，但不能认为同时出于两者。如果我们把它当作艺术的眼泪而惊叹，那我们就不可能把它当作痛苦的眼泪而感动。”如果说他如此看重事物的外表，那是因为单从外表便可揭示出其深刻的本性。德·拉·西兹拉纳出色地翻译过拉斯金的一段话，其中说明一棵树的“主导”线条可以让我们发现哪些惹事的树曾把它挤到一边，什么样的风曾折磨过它等等。一个物体的构形不单单是其本性的形象，它还是其命运的钥匙和历史的痕迹。

17．这种对艺术的看法还产生了另一个后果，那就是：如果现实是唯一的，天才是能够看到这现实的人，那么，他用来表现这现实的物质，无论是绘画、雕塑、交响乐、法律还是行为，又有什么重要性呢？在《英雄与英雄崇拜》中，卡莱尔将莎士比亚和克洛维尔
【13】

，默罕默德和彭斯
【14】

相提并论。爱默生
【15】

则将斯维登堡
【16】

和蒙田
【17】

一并列入他的《代表人物》中。该体系的过火之处在于未能对反映这唯一现实的不同方式加以足够深刻的区分。卡莱尔说因为薄迦丘
【18】

和彼特拉克
【19】

是优秀的诗人，他们便一定会是优秀的外交家。拉斯金犯了同样的错误，他说“绘画之美能够到达这样的程度，即它用画面所传达的思想独立于画面的语言。”如果说拉斯金的思想体系有任何偏差，那在我看来便体现于此。因为绘画无法达到事物的整体现实，因而无法同文学竞争，除非它不是文学性的。

18．拉斯金规定艺术家的职责便是严格服从自身天才的“声音”去传达现实，因为他本人有过这样的经验，了解什么是真正的灵感，什么是不息的热情和丰饶的景仰。不过，尽管在我们每个人身上激起热情与景仰并启发灵感的原因各不相同，我们最终都会赋予它一种尤为神圣的特征。可以说，对于拉斯金，这启示和向导就是圣经。

19．在此，在拉斯金美学的重心处，像在一个定点，让我们稍作停留。这样看来，他的宗教感指引着他的审美感。首先，对于这类观点，即认为他的美感因之而变质，认为他在对建筑、雕塑和绘画的欣赏中掺入了本不应有的宗教思考，我的回答是正好相反。拉斯金在艺术品所激发的情感中深刻地体会到一种神圣，正是这情感的深邃与独特之处，它决定了他的品位而不会使之变味。与人们常常认为的相反，他在表达这情感时带着虔诚的景仰，小心翼翼不加丝毫歪曲，这使他从来不会在对艺术品的感受中掺入任何与之无关的矫饰的思辨。因此，把他看成一个道德家或布教者，热爱艺术中非艺术的东西，或者无视他审美情感的深刻本质，将之混同于享乐的唯美主义，这两种观点同样是错误的。所以，最终，他的宗教热忱标志并巩固着他审美的真诚，并使之免受任何外界的干扰。他那崇高美学中的某一概念是否有误对我们来说无关紧要。所有对天才的发展规律略知一二的人都知道，天才更多是由其信仰的力量来衡量，而不在于这信仰的对象从常识角度看所带来的某种满足感。但既然拉斯金的基督教精神便是其精神气质的本质，他同样深邃的艺术爱好必然与之有着密切关系。所以，正如他对透纳风景画的热爱与他对为自己带来巨大快乐的自然的热爱相对应，与他思想中深刻的基督教本质相对应的是他对法国中世纪的建筑与雕塑及意大利中世纪的建筑、雕塑和绘画等可称为基督教艺术的恒久不变的钟爱，它支配着他全部的生命，全部的作品。无需在其生活中寻找痕迹，他的著作便可证明他对这些艺术品的无私热情。他的阅历是如此丰富，以致他在一部作品中所显示出的最精深的学识，在别的作品中，即便是恰如其分，也常常不再利用，甚至连提都不提，哪怕是稍作暗示。他的学识极为渊博，不光将其言论供我们借鉴，而是送给我们不再收回。比如，你知道他就亚眠
【20】

大教堂写了一本书。你可能会得出结论认为那是他最热爱或最了解的教堂。但在《建筑七灯》中，鲁昂大教堂提到了40次，贝叶
【21】

大教堂提到了9次，亚眠则一次未曾提及。在《阿诺河谷》中，他吐露最令他心醉的哥特教堂是特鲁瓦
【22】

的圣于尔班教堂。但在《建筑七灯》和《亚眠的圣经》中却只字未提该教堂。就《建筑七灯》不曾提及亚眠大教堂一事，你也许会猜想是因为他快到生命结束时才认识亚眠？绝非如此。1859年，在肯辛顿的一次讲演中，他将亚眠大教堂的金圣母雕像同夏尔特尔
【23】

大教堂中支撑西门廊的雕像进行了长时间的比较，认为后者在艺术技巧上稍逊一畴，但有着更深刻的情感。而在人们认为他集中了自己所有关于亚眠的思想的《亚眠的圣经》中，在许多讨论金圣母雕像的篇幅里，他只字未提夏尔特尔大教堂的雕像。这便是他无比丰富渊博的爱与学识。通常，一名作家会一再援引自己喜爱的例子，甚至重复某些观点的阐发，这提醒我们，面前是一个凡人，他有特定的生活，有特定的知识来取代一些别的知识，他还会尽量利用自己有限的经验。但只要查看一下拉斯金著作中的索引就可以知道他引用的作品永远是新的，他会轻易舍弃仅用过一次的某样知识，甚至永不再使用，这让我们感到某种超人的东西，或者不如说给我们留下这样的印象，即每部书都是由不同的作者写就，他拥有不同的知识，不同的经验，另类的人生。

20．他用自己无穷无尽的财富从事着一场愉快的游戏，从他奇妙的记忆珠宝箱中永远能取出新的珍宝：今天是亚眠大教堂珍贵的玫瑰窗，明天是阿布维利门廊上的金色花边，又将它们融合于令人眩目的意大利宝藏。

21．他的确能这样从一个国家转换到另一个国家，因为他在比萨
【24】

的石刻中顶礼膜拜的灵魂同样赋予了夏尔特尔石刻不朽的形式。对于从阿诺河岸延伸到索姆河岸的中世纪基督教艺术，没有人拥有他那样的整体感，他在我们心中实现了那些伟大的中世纪主教们对“基督教的欧洲”的梦想。如果像人们所说，他的名字必然同前拉斐尔派
【25】

密切相连，那么我们应该明白这里所说的前拉斐尔派不是透纳之后，而是源于拉斐尔之前。今天，我们可以忘记他对亨特、罗塞蒂、米莱斯所作的工作，但不能忘记他对乔托、卡尔帕乔、贝利尼
【26】

所作的贡献。他天神般的工作不在于唤醒生者，而在于使死者复活。

22．在一些篇章里，他的想象力用来自意大利的神奇光芒照亮了法国的石像，这难道不是处处显示出中世纪基督教艺术的整体性吗？刚才我们看到他在《英国的快乐》中比较亚眠大教堂中的爱德雕像和乔托笔下的爱德女神。在《哥特式的性质》中，且看他如何以鲁昂的圣马克鲁教堂的门廊为例，将意大利哥特式和法国哥特式建筑对火焰饰的处理进行比较。在《建筑七灯》中，请看意大利的色彩是如何变幻于这同一座门廊的灰色石刻。

23．“门楣中心处浮雕的主题是末日审判，其地狱部分带有一种力量，那令人生畏的丑怪只能让我描述为奥尔卡涅
【27】

和贺加斯
【28】

思想的混合。那些恶魔可能比奥尔卡涅的更加可怕；对极端绝望中堕落人类的表现也至少能与英国画家贺加斯相媲美。同样狂野的是想象力，它将愤怒与恐惧体现在所有雕像的安排上。一名恶天使煽动翅膀，带领被判罪的众人从审判椅前经过……这些人被他如此狂怒地驱赶着，不仅一直被赶到此场景的尽头——该场景被雕塑家限定在门楣中心的其他地方——而且出了门楣进入到拱顶的壁龛里；而追随他们的火焰仿佛在天使翅膀的猛击下弯曲，也一路迸发着直冲入壁龛，最下面的三个壁龛表现为正在熊熊燃烧，其通常为拱形凸起的顶盖各被一个恶魔占据，他翅膀合拢，从黑影中向下狞笑。”

24．他并不仅仅停留于对不同种类的艺术和不同国家的类比，他将有更深入的发现。异教形象和基督教形象中某些宗教思想的一致性将令他震惊。阿利·勒南
【29】

十分深刻地指出在居斯塔夫·莫罗的普罗米修斯中已含有耶稣的成分。拉斯金对基督教艺术的虔诚从未使他蔑视异教艺术，他怀着审美感和宗教感比较了圣热罗姆
【30】

的狮子与尼米亚猛狮
【31】

，维吉尔
【32】

与但丁
【33】

，参孙
【34】

与赫拉克勒斯，忒修斯
【35】

与黑王子
【36】

，以赛亚
【37】

与库米女预言家
【38】

的预言。拉斯金和居斯塔夫·莫罗当然没有可比之处，但我们可以说对原始艺术的了解在他们身上孕育出一种自然的倾向，使他们两人都反对在艺术中表现狂暴的情感，至于对象征形象的研究，这一倾向使他们对形象本身的崇拜带有某种拜物性，不过这种拜物性并无甚危险，因为他们的思想植根于形象所代表的情感，可以在各个形象间转换，不会为单纯表象的多样化所羁绊。说到在艺术中全面禁止表现狂暴的情感，除了《米开朗基罗与丁托列托之关系》
【39】

中的篇章，哪里还能找到对勒南称为“美丽的无为”的原则更好的定义？难道不正是对中世纪法国和意大利艺术的研究使他对象征形象产生了几乎排他性的崇拜吗？由于他在艺术品之下寻找的是时代的灵魂，夏尔特尔教堂大门的雕像与比萨壁画之间的相似之处必然会触动他，让他认为这表明了启发艺术家灵感的典型的精神特质，而其不同之处则恰好证明了后者的多样性。换成任何其他人，审美感受都有可能被推理所冷却。但对他而言，一切均是爱，他心目中的圣像研究不如称为圣像崇拜。在这一点上，艺术批评让位给一些可能更加崇高的东西；它几乎具有科学的程序，是对历史的贡献。教堂的门廊上出现的一些新的特征使我们得知不仅在艺术史而且在文明史上所产生的变化，就如同出现在地球上的新物种让地质学家所了解到的文明史上的变化同样深刻。自然界的鬼斧神工并不比艺术家的雕刻更具启发性，一件保存着古老神怪的石刻也并不比一件表现一个新的神祗的石刻对我们更有意义。

25．从这个角度看，伴随拉斯金文字的绘画意义重大。在同一个图版上你可以看到出现在利兹由、贝叶、维罗纳和帕多瓦的同样的建筑图案，就好像某一品种的蝴蝶在不同气候地区的变种。但他如此热爱的石刻对他来说从来就不是抽象的例子。每一块石刻上都凝聚着那流逝岁月的细微变化与许多个世纪的色彩。他告诉我们，“……赶在太阳从塔尖上落下之前跑过街道再去看一看圣维尔佛朗大教堂，这就是我们珍存过去——直到最终的原因。”他甚至走得更远；他并不将教堂本身与其背景，即它们浮现于其中的那些河流和山谷区分开来，就像在原始绘画中一样。最能说明这一点的是《我们的父辈告诉我们》中题为《亚眠，死者纪念日》的第二幅版画作品。在那些因为拉斯金的驻留而不朽的城市，如亚眠、阿布维尔、博韦和鲁昂，他或者在教堂写生（“而不受教徒们的干扰”），或者在露天写生。他带领的素描者和版画家在这些城市是多么可爱而转瞬即逝的一群人，就像柏拉图为我们描绘的跟随着普罗泰哥拉
【40】

辗转于各个城市的智者们，又像喜欢栖息在教堂的古老屋顶和塔楼上的群燕。也许我们还能与拉斯金的一些弟子偶遇，他们伴随着他去到了重新皈依的索姆河岸，仿佛又回到了圣佛尔明和圣萨尔瓦的时代，他们在聆听这位新使徒的言谈，他像解释圣经一样解释亚眠时，记下的不是笔记，而是速写，而保存着这些优美记录的文件当能在一些英国博物馆找到，我猜想它们会以维奥莱—勒—杜克
【41】

的风格对现实略加改动。版画《亚眠，死者纪念日》看上去美得不真实。难道仅仅是那将亚眠大教堂和圣洛教堂拉近的加宽的索姆河岸的远景不真实的吗？不错，拉斯金可能会再次把他在《鹰巢》中引用过的透纳的话拿来回答我们，德·拉·西兹拉纳将之翻译如下：“……早年的透纳心情好时会向人展示他的创作。一天他正在画一幅普利茅斯港的画，其上可见逆光处一两英里距离远的一些船只。他向一位海军军官展示这幅画，那军官惊奇地端详了一阵，以十分正当的不满抗议说那些船只没有舷窗。‘没有，’透纳说，‘当然没有。如果你登上艾支康布山，逆着夕阳观看那些船只，你会发现你看不到舷窗。’‘不错，可是，’海军军官仍然不满地说，‘你明知是有舷窗的。’‘是的，’透纳说，‘我很清楚；但我的工作是画我所看到的，而不是我知道的。’”

26．如果在亚眠，站在朝向屠宰场的方向，你会看到和版画里一样的景象。你会看到，由于距离的缘故，以艺术家虚幻而美妙的眼光来看，建筑物的分布方式有所改变，但如果你走近些，它们又会回到早先十分不同的位置；比如，你会看到一座水塔的形状印在大教堂的正面，因而从三维几何中产生出一种平面效果。但如果你还是发现从你的角度看到的饶有意味的景象仍然同拉斯金的画作有所不同，你不妨归咎于在拉斯金逗留过后几乎二十年的时光给城市外观带来的变化，就像他本人谈到他热爱的另一处：“从我上次在那儿作画或者思考以来，发生了很多的改观。”

27．但至少《亚眠的圣经》中的这幅版画会在你的回忆中将索姆河岸和大教堂紧密相连，要比你亲眼所见更加密切，无论你处在城市的哪个位置。这幅画比我所说的一切都更好地证明拉斯金从不将大教堂之美同其所处的乡村魅力分割开来，每个参观者都能领会到这种魅力，它依然存在于那独特的充满诗意的乡村，还有他在那里度过的下午时分或朦胧或金色的回忆。不仅《亚眠的圣经》的第一章命名为“在水边”，拉斯金计划撰写的关于夏尔特尔大教堂的书也将题为《厄尔之泉》。因此他不仅仅在绘画中将教堂置于河岸，而且将哥特式大教堂的伟大同优美的法国风光联系在一起。
【42】

我们会更加敏锐地感受到某处风景的个性魅力，如果我们不是拥有那魔法靴似的高速火车的话，如果我们还像从前那样，为到达某个偏远之地，不得不途经许多个乡村，它们与我们的目的地渐趋一致，就好像渐次递进的和谐之地，让外界元素难以进入，并以一种温柔而神秘的方式保护着它，使之免于雷同，不仅在自然界将之环绕，也在我们的头脑中为看到它做好了准备。

28．拉斯金对基督教艺术的研究仿佛印证着他的基督教思想，还有其他我们无法在此阐发的思想，其中最著名的应该稍后让拉斯金本人进行定义：即他对机械主义和工业艺术的厌恶。“所有美好的事物都创造于中世纪，当人们笃信基督教纯粹、欢乐与美好教义的时候。”从那之后他认为艺术随着信仰一同衰落，技巧取代了情感。当他看到创造美的力量是信仰时代的专利时，他只会更加强烈地信奉信仰的善。他最后的著作《我们的父辈告诉我们》中的每一卷（只有第一卷已完稿）都将包括四个章节，其中前三章讨论信仰，最后一章研究因信仰而诞生的杰作。就这样，孕育了拉斯金审美情感的基督教被无上神圣化了。当他领着身为新教徒的女读者来到圣母像前的时候，他嘲笑她道，“你必须理解，无论是玛利亚崇拜还是任何其他女性崇拜……都从未对任何人造成过伤害”，或者在圣奥诺雷的雕像前，哀叹“在以他命名的巴黎市郊，人们现在很少谈起”这位圣徒，随后，他还可能像在《阿诺河谷》的结尾处那样说：“世人哪，耶和华指示你何为善，他向你所要的是什么呢？只要你行公义，好怜悯，存谦卑之心，与上帝同行。”如果你关注人类的生存境遇，你会发现这样的遵从总是会得到现世赐福的报偿。如果你背离那可悲可悯的残酷野心，那无所皈依的轻慢信仰，而去关注那些无人在意的芸芸众生，关注他们在沉默中的劳作，谦卑中的膜拜，就如基督教王国的雪带来了耶稣诞生的回忆，或者春日阳光让人想起他的复生，你就会了解伯利恒天使的许诺的确成了现实；你就会祈祷如阿诺河岸一般欢乐的英国田野还能将其最纯洁的百合奉献给花中的圣玛丽。”

29．最后，拉斯金的中世纪研究，加之他坚信信仰之善，证实了他的信念，即人类需要工作来获得自由、欢乐与个性，无需机械主义的干扰。在此我录下一段极具拉斯金特点的话，你就能更好地理解这一点。他谈到的是鲁昂大教堂书商门廊处数百个微型雕像中一个仅几厘米高的小人像。

30．“……这狡黠的家伙看上去不安而困惑；他的手用力压着自己的面颊骨，眼睛下面的肌肉因这压力皱了起来。如果你把它同精细的版画相比，整个形象看上去的确拙劣粗糙。但考虑到它只是为了填充教堂大门外部的缝隙，而且是三百多个雕像中的一个（我的估计还不包括外部基座），它证明了当时艺术中蕴含的极为高贵的生命力……

31．“我们有些工作是为了谋生，那需付出辛苦；其他工作是为了乐趣，那需要热忱：这两种工作都需要意愿，不能够三心二意；不值得付出努力的便根本不必去做。也许我们所做的一切只不过是对心灵和意志的训练，其本身毫无用处；但无论怎样，如果不值得我们动手动力，它可能有的那一点用处也无必要了。同我们的尊严不相称的投机取巧，或者忍受某种本无必要的器械夹在中间，这都配不上我们的不朽：情愿不用自己的双手而用器械去创造的人也会，如果可能的话，送给天堂里的天使们一些手摇风琴以便他们更轻松地演奏音乐。人类生活中已然充斥着白日梦、世俗性和感官享受，无需我们将少有的闪亮时刻机械化；既然我们的生命充其量不过是转瞬即逝的气体，就让它至少像高空的云朵般浮现，而不是像笼罩在狱火和转轮之上的浓重黑暗。”

32．我承认，在拉斯金去世之时重读这段文字的时候，我产生了想去看一看这小人像的欲望。于是我去了鲁昂，仿佛听命于某种遗嘱，仿佛拉斯金在临终时将这可怜的造物托付给了他的读者，这造物因他的文字而复生，并且在不知情中永远失去了这个同最初的雕刻者一样对自己意义重大的人。但当我走近那巨大的教堂，站在阳光沐浴下满是圣徒像的门前时，我向上看，从刻满了伟大国王的柱廊一直到我以为空无一物的最高处，但就在那里，一位隐修士离群索居，任鸟儿在他的额上停留，另一处，在一群鸽子飞翔的翅影下，一群使徒正在聆听身边一位合拢翅膀的天使的预言，不远处，一个背负孩子的人像正以一种突兀却亘古的姿势转过头来；当我看到门廊前或塔楼栏杆处这成排的雕像，这座神秘城市中呼吸着阳光或清晨的阴凉的石雕客人们，我意识到我不可能在这非凡的群像中找到一个几厘米高的人像。我还是去了书商门廊处。但如何从数百座雕像中认出那一个小人呢？突然，一位年轻有为、前途远大的雕塑家L.伊特曼女士对我说：“这个看上去很像。”我们稍往下看，看到……就在那儿。它还没有十厘米高。已相当残损，但那目光仍在，石头上仍然有托出瞳孔的洞，那表情让我认出它来。就在那儿，在上千座雕刻中，一个死去已几百年的艺术家留下了这个小人，它每天死去一点，它早已死去多时，永远，失落在那众多雕像中。但他把它安放在那儿。一天，来了一个人，一个对他来说不存在死亡，不存在物质的无穷尽，不存在遗忘的人，他把那压迫我们的虚无远远抛开，去追求支配他一生的目标，那些他无法全部实现而我们却缺乏的目标，这个人来了，他为那些波涛般参差仿佛的石雕逐个命名，从中看出了生命的所有法则，灵魂的所有思想，并说着：“看，这是这个，这是那个。”正像不远处表现的审判日，他的声音如天使长的号角一般回响：“那些活过的还会活着，物质无关紧要。”的确，就像在这门楣不远处所表现的死者，他们被天使长的号角唤醒，起来重新恢复了自己的形状，再次充满生机，让人可以辨认，同样，那小人像也重新复活，恢复了他的目光，审判长说：“你已活过，你应活着。”他自己并非不死的法官，他的身体会死去；但那有什么！他从事着不朽的工作，就好像他不会死去，并不在意那占据他时间的物体的大小，并且，虽然只有一次人生，他却面对一座教堂无数雕像中的一个消磨数日的时光。他把它画下来，毫不在意自己已近暮年。对他来说它应和着头脑中旋转的思想。他画下它，谈论它。那丑陋的、与世无争的小人便从那似乎比所有其他雕像都要绝对的死亡中复苏，它湮灭于无数因相像而藉藉无名的群体，唯有天才才能让我们迅速指出它来。在那里重新发现这小人像，我们只有感动。它好像还活着，还在凝视着，或者不如说就在那凝视中被死亡攫去，就像那些动作戛然中止的庞贝人。实际上被静止的岩石所凝固于此的正是雕刻家的思想。在那里再次发现它让我感动；曾经活着的都没有死去，无论是雕刻家的思想还是拉斯金的思想。

33．与这小人像的邂逅对拉斯金是必要的，他罕有的几幅作为插图（《建筑七灯》）的版画之一便以它为主题，因为对他来说它是其思想真实而持久的一部分，这邂逅对我来说则是愉快的，因为他的思想对我是不可或缺的，他指引着我自己的思想，我们两人在途中不期而遇，我们感到自己同那些在门楣上雕刻了末日审判群像的艺术家们心意相接，他们相信个体，作为个人及其意志的最独特之处，不会死去，而是保存在上帝的回忆中，终将复活。哈姆雷特和掘墓人，一个看到的仅仅是个头盖骨，另一个因之浮想联翩，他们两人谁对呢？科学会说：掘墓人；但它忽略了莎士比亚，他会令这冥想的回忆持续下去，即使那头盖骨已成灰烬。在天使的召唤下，每个死者都还在那里，各得其所，而我们以为他们早已归于尘土。在拉斯金的召唤下，我们发现了那最小的人像，它构成一个微小的四叶饰，从其形态中复生，以其不变的目光，那占据了不到岩石一毫米见方的目光凝视着我们。无疑，可怜的小丑八怪，我本眼拙，本无法从这城市成千上万的石块中找到你，辨认你，还你以个性，呼唤你，令你复活。无穷、无数、虚无压垮了我们，并非由于它们强大，而是因为我的心灵不够强大。不错，你真是毫无美感。我本来永远不会注意到你凄惨的面容，你并无有趣的表情，不过你当然有，就像每一个人都有他人从不具有的表情一样。但既然你曾活着，继续用那同样歪斜的目光凝视着，能让拉斯金注意到你，并在他说出你的名字之后，让他的读者能认出你，你现在是否活得足够，是否被爱得足够？人们想着你的时候只会充满温情，尽管你神情丑恶，因为你是活的造物，因为，在那漫长的世纪里，你早已死去，没有复活之望，又因为你复活了。这些天里也许另一个人会在那大门上寻找你，温情地注视你倾斜丑怪的面庞，那已复苏的面庞，因为出自一个人的心灵的东西会在某一天截获另一个心灵，后者又深深吸引我们的心灵。你是对的，呆在那儿，无人理睬，逐渐塌裂。从那物质中你毫无指望，置身其中你不过是虚无。但那些小小的人像无需惧怕什么，死者也是一样。因为有时神灵会造访尘世；他所过之处死者复生，那些几乎被忘却的面容重新凝眸注视着生者，后者为了这些面容抛开那些不再活着的生者，只在神灵启示之处，在早已化为尘土但却仍然包含着人类思想的石块中找寻生命。

34．阳光以其飘忽的微笑投向那些古老教堂亘古的美丽，这个人用更多的爱与欢乐笼罩着它们，如果我们用心去了解，他是不会错的。精神世界便如同物质世界，一座喷泉的高度超不过水最开始降落的高度。文学之大美对应着一些什么，在艺术中，激情便是真理的标准。假设作为批评家的拉斯金对一部作品价值的判断有时不甚准确，但他错误判断中的美常常超出他所评判的作品的美，并对应着一些虽非作品本身，但只会同样珍贵的东西。拉斯金论及“亚眠的美丽神像”时说“没有一座雕像能够或者应该满足懂得信仰基督的热忱灵魂的希望；但这座雕像所传达的温柔慈爱在当时已无其他作品能及，”而于斯曼先生
【43】

将这同一座亚眠的神像称为“长着绵羊脸的矜骄子弟”，我们并不相信拉斯金是错误的，也不认为于斯曼是正确的，但正确与否无关紧要。那“亚眠的美丽神像”是否如拉斯金所想，这对我们毫不重要。正如布丰
【44】

所说，“（一种美丽风格）所具有的智性之美，及其所有的组合关系，都构成了有益的真理，而且，对公众思想来说，也许比其所针对的主题的真相还要宝贵，”那么，在《圣经》一书中，讨论有关亚眠之美丽神像的段落之美自有其真理和价值，独立于雕像本身之美，但拉斯金若以轻蔑的口气谈论这雕像，他就无从发现这些真理，因为只要拥有热情，他便拥有了发现真相的力量。

35．我们将永远无从知道，也无论如何无法在此探寻的，是他那了不起的灵魂是以怎样的忠实反映宇宙的，而谎言是以怎样令人迷惑的形式潜入了他理智的诚实中。无论答案如何，如果我们想要了解和热爱美的一个新的部分，那么我们中间即使是天生聪颖的人也需要那些“天才”的指引，而拉斯金便是其中之一。我们这代人在思想交流中所说的许多话都带有他的印记，就好像硬币上君主的肖像。在冥界他继续启迪着我们，就像那些早已熄灭的星星，其光芒仍然照耀着我们，他在透纳去世时所说的话我们可以用在他身上：“通过这深深坟茔中永远闭合的双眼，尚未出生的后世将看到自然。”

36．“谎言是以怎样诱人而华美的形式潜入了他理智诚实的深处……”我想说的是：没有人比拉斯金本人在《艺术演讲录》中更好地定义了偶像崇拜：“我大体上如此认为，虽说这也会产生一些良好的后果，因为每种大恶都在其逆流中带有些许的善——我认为，无论是在异教的还是在基督教的土地上，无论是体现为华丽的言辞还是色彩，抑或美丽的形式，艺术的致命功能在深层意义上确实可称为偶像崇拜——它令我们竭尽心智服务于我们为自己创造的一些或珍贵或悲伤的幻象，当我们违背了主耶稣的现世召唤，他没有死去，也没有昏倒在十字架下，而要求我们掮起我们自己的十字架。”

37．现在看来在拉斯金工作的基础上，在他天才的源头，确实存在着这种偶像崇拜。无疑他从不允许它完全掩盖——即便是作为修饰——他的理智和道德的真诚，完全使之僵硬、瘫痪并最终毁掉它。他写下的每一句话，如同他生命中的每一刻，都表现出他需要用真诚与偶像崇拜相对抗，真诚宣布着偶像崇拜的虚荣，并令美屈从于义务，即便这义务是不美的。关于这一点我不会从他的生活中寻找例子（他并不像拉辛、托尔斯泰或梅特林克，他们的生活中审美为先，道德为后，在他的生命中道德感从一开始就在其美学思想的最中心确立了特权——同时从未像我刚刚提到的这些大师那样完全释放它。）我无需重复这道德感的各个阶段，它们已广为人知，比如早期他为一边喝茶一边观看提香的画作而感到羞愧，直到后来，把父亲留给他的五百万尽数花在社会和慈善事业上之后，他决定卖掉透纳的作品。但唯美主义在他身上并不是以一种主动外在的方式（他已将之克服）表现出来，而以一种更加隐秘的形式存在，他的偶像崇拜和他的诚实感之间的真正决斗并不发生在他生活的某些时刻，也不在他著作的某些段落，而是终其一生，在那些最深最隐秘之处，那些我们自己几乎未知的地方，在那里我们的性格从我们的想象中获得意象，从理智中获得思想，从回忆中获得词语，并不断地从中做出选择以证明自己，不断地在某种意义上以我们的道德与精神生活的命运为赌注。我感到在那些地方，拉斯金从未停止过犯下偶像崇拜的罪过。就在他鼓吹真诚的时候他却缺乏真诚，不是其内容而是其方式。他的教诲是道德的而非审美的，但他却为了美而选择教义。由于他想呈现的并非其美而是其真，他不得不就选择它们的真正原因对自己撒谎。因此他不断地违背良心，以至于对他思想的正直诚实性来说，更危险的可能是那些言不由衷、屈从于他不曾承认的审美偏爱的道德宣言，倒不如他去真诚地鼓吹不道德的信条。事实上，选择对一件事情如何解释，对一件作品如何评价，以及如何遣词造句时，他不断地犯下这罪——最终导致虚伪的态度，而心灵总是退让。为让读者能够更好地评判拉斯金的障眼法——出自他笔下的障眼法不但为别人，也是为他自己——我将引用在我看来他最美但其罪过也最昭彰的一段文字。你会看到，如果说在理论上（在表面上，也就是说一个作者思想的内容始终是表象，其形式则是现实）美是从属于道德感和真理的话，在实际上则是真理和道德感从属于审美感，一种多少被那些无休止的妥协所扭曲的美感。引文的主题是“威尼斯衰落的原因”。

38．“大理石凿就透明的力量，拱门排列成虹彩，这并非出于财富的挥霍，也并非为了徒劳地满足感观的欲望或人生的自豪。在那色彩中写着一个预言，它曾经写在血液里；在那穹顶中回响着一个声音，它有一天将回荡在天堂的穹顶，——‘他将回来做出判决并带来公正。’他赋予威尼斯强大，只要她将之铭记：当她遗忘，她将毁灭；她无可挽回地毁灭了，因为她毫无理由地遗忘。从没有一座城市有过更加光彩夺目的圣经群像。在北方的国度里，粗糙阴郁的雕像以其混乱难以辨认的图像充满了庙宇；但在威尼斯，东方的技艺和珍宝为每一个字母镀金、为每一幅书页敷彩，直到那圣书如同伯利恒之星在远处闪闪发光。在其他城市，人们常常在与宗教无关的地方聚会，常常导致暴力和变乱；在那些危机四伏的城墙的茅草中，在那些混乱街道的尘土里所达成的一些事务或协约，我们若不能为之正名，有时尚可以原谅它们。但威尼斯的罪恶，无论是在宫殿还是在广场，都是在她右手持着圣经的时候犯下的。篆刻着基督诫条的大理石墙同保护着城市议会或关押着政治犯的围墙只有数英寸之隔。当她在最后的时光抛开所有的羞耻与约束，当城市广场为全世界的疯狂所充斥，请记住她的罪行是加倍的严重，因为这罪行就发生在闪耀着主的法则的上帝的殿堂前面。骗子们和戴假面具者狂笑而去；并非没有预警的沉默随之而来；在这一切中间，穿越无数个世纪积聚的虚荣和腐烂的罪恶，圣马可大教堂白色的穹顶对威尼斯死去的双耳说道：‘记住，为所有这一切上帝会带来他的审判。’

39．如果拉斯金对自己完全诚实的话，他就不会认为威尼斯人的罪行要比其他人的更不可原谅，应受到更严厉的惩罚，因为他们的教堂不是用石灰岩而是用华彩的大理石建成，因为总督的宫殿就在圣马可大教堂旁边而不是在城市的另一头，还因为在拜占庭教堂里，用镶嵌画构成的圣经篇章不像在北方教堂的雕像那样朴素，而是伴以摘自福音书或预言录的烫金字母。不错，这段出自《威尼斯之石》的文字美轮美奂，尽管难以解释其缘由。这美在我看来是建立在谎言之上，我不愿对它低头。

40．但这其中必定是有些真理的。在严格的意义上没有完全错误的美，因为伴随着对真理的发现而产生的愉悦正是审美愉悦。难以判断的是这段文字给读者带来的强烈的愉悦感所对应的是何种真理。这段话本身便是神秘的，同时充满了美和宗教的意象，正如圣马可教堂，在那里所有出自《旧约》和《新约》的形象都呈现在一种华美的黑暗和闪烁明灭的灿烂背景之上。我记得我第一次读到这段文字时恰好在圣马可教堂，在一个风雨大作的黑暗时分，当那些镶嵌画只以自身的物质之光，以一种内在的、尘世的和古老的金色而闪耀，即便是威尼斯的太阳，那令钟楼上的天使仿佛在燃烧一般的太阳都无法再增加其光芒；在所有这些衬着四周黑暗的明亮天使中间，我在读到这段文字时产生的情感十分强烈，但也许并不十分纯洁。正如我在看到这些美丽而神秘的形象时油然而生欢乐一样，但当我看到在它们笼罩着光环的额头旁边以拜占庭手写体出现的经文时，那欢乐便因这学识的愉悦而黯淡，同样，拉斯金的意象之美因他对圣经的贸然影射而活跃并遭到损害。这欢乐中难免有自恋的回归自我，其中学识掺杂了艺术，审美愉悦也许能更强烈但无法保持纯洁。因此，《威尼斯之石》中的这段文字之美也许首先在于它恰恰让我感到了在圣马可教堂所感到的那种混合的欢乐，因为它正像那拜占庭教堂一般，在阴影衬托下炫目如镶嵌画般的文体的意象旁撰刻着圣经的语录。更何况，这段文字难道不是正如圣马可教堂的镶嵌画吗，其目的在于说教，不在于艺术之美？今天，除了愉悦它再不能给予我们任何东西。而这说教带给学者的乃是一种自私的愉悦，艺术家所感受到的最无私的愉悦仍然来自于美，那些以教育为目的的人轻蔑甚或无视这美，把它当成额外之物。

41．在《亚眠的圣经》的最后一页，“如果……你将在意那承诺”这段话是一个类似的例子。还是在《亚眠的圣经》里，拉斯金以这句话结束关于埃及的部分：“她是摩西的监护人和耶稣的主人”，我们可以接受摩西的监护人这一说法：为了教育的目的有些说教是必要的。但耶稣的“女主人”一说也许能为句子增色，但它真的适用于对埃及神灵之美德的理性评估吗？

42．我一直在与自己最珍视的审美印象作斗争，试图将理智之真诚推向极限。还需要补充吗，如果我耽于这广义的评释，或在某种意义上耽于这绝对性，这并非针对拉斯金的作品，更多的是有感于其深刻的启迪性和美感，而他对我来说仍然是所有时代和国度最伟大的作家之一。我并非抨击拉斯金特有的某一缺点，而是试图将他作为特别有利于思考的“主题”，来探索人类思想中固有的缺陷。读者一旦完全理解了这“偶像崇拜”的含义，他便可以对自己解释为什么拉斯金在评论中极其看重艺术品中的烫印文字（我在序言中过于简略地指出了他重视文字的另一个原因），以及为什么他错用了“不敬的”和“傲慢的”这两个词：“我们无需破解的秘密，或我们因傲慢而想要去攻克的困难，”“让艺术家别信任选择的精神，那是一种傲慢的精神，”“一个不敬的人很可能认为中殿太窄，而不是拱顶太高，”等等等等——以及这两个词所揭示的精神状态。想着这偶像崇拜的时候（我也想到了拉斯金将句子均衡排列时感到的愉悦，似乎这种均衡为他的思想带来了对称感，而不是由思想来指导语句的对称）
【45】

，我说过：“我不必寻找那些令人迷惑的形式，谎言借此潜入了他理智之诚实的深处。”但正好相反，我本应寻找它们，而且如果我继续躲在这种本质上是拉斯金式的崇敬形式之后的话，本会犯下同样的偶像崇拜罪。并非我不了解崇拜的益处，它正是爱的条件。但在爱中止的地方，敬仰永远不能代替爱，让我们不加辨别地相信，并在信任的基础上崇拜。更何况拉斯金会第一个赞同我不赋予他的文字以绝对的权威，因为他甚至对圣经都拒绝这权威：“……将绝对真理同任何形式的人类语言联系起来是毫无可能的……”但他喜欢“敬仰”的态度，他相信“破解秘密是傲慢的”。为把偶像崇拜的问题作一个了结，也为了更确定我和我的读者之间关于这点不再有误解，我想请来一位我们时代最为人所称道的人物 （他在其他地方同拉斯金毫无相似之处！），他在其谈话中，而不是作品中，表现出了这个错误，而且表现得如此淋漓尽致，很容易让人辨认和演示，再不需要费力地放大它。在谈话中他被偶像崇拜所——愉快地——折磨着。那些曾经听过他谈话的人会发现我的“模仿”颇为生硬，他的风趣迷人在其中荡然无存，不过人们仍然能从下面的叙述中猜出我想援引的是哪位同代人。这个人曾满怀仰慕地从一位悲剧女演员身上看出与居斯塔夫·莫罗的画作“年轻人与死神”中死神所穿的同样的衣料，或者发现一位女性友人的长裙和发型与“卡迪央王妃第一次见到大丹士
【46】

那天时一模一样。”他在看到那女演员的衣料或者那上流女子的长裙时为这高贵的联想而感动，惊呼：“多美啊！”但这美并非衣物之美，而是因为它出于莫罗的画作或巴尔扎克的描写，因而变得永恒地神圣……对于这位偶像崇拜者。在他的卧室你会看到一种牡丹花，或插在瓶中或由他的画家朋友绘在墙上，因为这种花出现在韦兹莱
【47】

的圣玛德莱娜教堂。同样，他怀着虔诚的崇敬珍藏着一些曾属于波德莱尔或米什莱或雨果的物品。这种敬奉以其特殊的愉悦，给予我们的偶像崇拜者以灵感，让他的即兴谈话机智而风趣，令我极为享受，甚至深深为之吸引，丝毫不愿为此与他纠缠不休。

43．但就在我极度享受这谈话的同时，我问自己，这无与伦比的谈话者——还有让他一直说下去的听众——是否同样犯了不诚实的罪；是否因为一朵花（受难花）上带有耶稣受难的印记，把它送给异教徒便是渎神，或者一所房子是否因为曾是巴尔扎克的居所（如果那里不再有什么关于巴尔扎克的东西）就更加美丽。如果仅仅因为一个女子的名字同《吕西安·娄凡》
【48】

的女主角一样是巴蒂尔德，我们是否真的应该，除了赞扬她的美貌之外，还要更偏爱她呢？

44．卡迪央夫人的衣着是巴尔扎克的美妙发明，因为它让我们获悉她的艺术趣味，以及她希望对大丹士造成的印象和她的一些“秘密”。但是一旦去除了它所包含的意义，它就只不过是一个去掉了含义的符号，亦即空无；如若继续对它顶礼膜拜，甚至在一个现实生活中的女人身上发现它时达到心醉神迷的程度，那就是真正的偶像崇拜。这是艺术家们钟爱的理智之罪，他们中很少有人能不为之倾倒。幸运之罪啊！你会情不自禁这样说，当你看到它使他们创造出多少美妙作品的时候。但他们至少不应该毫无反抗地屈服。自然界任何一种特殊的形式，无论多美，其价值均只在于它自身所代表的那一部分无限之美；就连盛开的苹果花和粉色的山楂花亦然。我对这些花儿的爱是无限的，每年春天因离它们太近而产生的烦恼（花粉病）足以证明我的爱并非人人能及。但即使是对它们，对这些毫无文学意义、无关任何审美传统的花朵，这些并非用拉斯金的话来说是“丁托列托某幅画中所能看到的实际的花朵”，也并不出现在我们的那位同代人会提到的列奥纳多的某幅素描中（在他为我们揭示的许多事物中，有一样就是现在人人谈论但在他之前无人注意的——威尼斯学院素描），我也总是要小心避免产生一种排他的崇拜感，这种崇拜感可能在令我愉悦之外赋予这些花儿一些别的东西，并且，因了这种崇拜，我可能以自恋的方式使它们成为“我的”花朵，并且用描绘着它们的艺术品装饰我的卧室来专门向它们致敬。不，我不会因为艺术家在前景中描绘了一朵山楂花而认为这幅画更美，尽管我不知道还有比山楂花更美的东西，因为我想保持真诚，我知道一幅画的美与其所画的东西无关。我不会收集山楂花的图像。我不会对山楂花顶礼膜拜，我只去观赏并呼吸它的芬芳。在此我任由自己短暂地进入了当代文学的领域——这绝非冒犯——因为在我看来经过这般放大，尤其是经过如此大力的鉴别之后，读者便能够清楚地看出拉斯金身上蕴藏的偶像崇拜的特征。无论如何，我请求我的这位同代人，如果他在我这张拙劣的速写中认出自己，请相信我毫无恶意，正如我说过的，我需要走到对自己真诚的极限才能就这一点对拉斯金提出批评，并在我对他的绝对景仰中发现这一脆弱之处。因此，不仅“同拉斯金共享批评丝毫无损其名誉”，而且我认为赞美他的最好方式就是把对拉斯金的批评用在他身上。我几乎遗憾自己过于谨慎，没有吐露他的名字。因为当一个人被允许来到拉斯金的身边，即便只是处于奉献的态度，只是为了举起他的书来好让别人更好地阅读，那也是一种荣誉而非惩罚。

45．回到拉斯金。我对他已如此“习以为常”，因此要想掌握这偶像崇拜的证据，研究其性质，并探索在那最深切的文学愉悦感之外我有时感受到的轻微的虚假造作之感，我需要深深进入自我。但在我刚开始热爱他的著作时，这偶像崇拜一定曾常常令我震惊，随后我才逐渐对这缺陷视若无睹，就好像恋爱中一样。同一个人的恋爱有时会以利欲开始，随后才得到净化。一个男人接近一个女人是因为她能帮他达到一个与她无关的目标。一旦他了解了她，他便因为她本身而爱她，并毫不犹豫地为她牺牲那在她帮助下实现的目标。所以最早在我对拉斯金著作的热爱中掺杂了一些自私的东西，即我能在智识上从中获益的愉快。事实上，从最初的阅读中感觉到那力量和魅力后，我便努力不去抵制它们，不同我自己过度争辩，因为我感到，如果有一天拉斯金的思想对我的吸引力扩大到他触及过的一切，简言之，如果我彻底迷醉于他的思想，那么我在此之前一直未知的一切，包括哥特式教堂，还有英国和意大利的绘画，将大大丰富我的世界，因为这一切将唤醒我身上沉睡的渴望，而没有它便永远不会有真正的知识。因为拉斯金的思想与诸如爱默生等人的思想不同，后者将一切囊括于一本书中，是某种抽象的东西，纯粹自身的符号。而与拉斯金的思想密不可分并贯彻其中的并不是非物质的东西，它散落在地球的表面。人们必须到处寻找，去比萨、佛罗伦萨、威尼斯、国家美术馆、鲁昂、亚眠，以及瑞士的山脉。这样的思想有其自身之外的物质实体，在空间自我实现，不再是无限而自由的，而是受到限制和约束，化身于大理石雕像、白雪覆盖的山峦、绘画中的面庞。也许不如纯粹的思想神圣，但它令宇宙、至少是某些部分，某些叫得出名字的部分更美，因为它触动了这些部分，促使我们去爱——如果我们愿意理解的话——进而去了解。

46．是的；宇宙突然间又为我呈现出无尽的价值。我对拉斯金的景仰使得他让我学会去热爱的东西变得无比重要，在我看来比生命本身还要珍贵。事实的确如此，有一次我认为自己来日无多；我出发去威尼斯，为的是在死前去接近、触摸那化身于中世纪本土建筑宫殿中的拉斯金的思想，那些宫殿虽然在衰败中，却依然挺立，依然鲜活。像威尼斯这样一座如此特殊而具体地定位于时空的城市，对于一个即将告别人世的人来说，到底具有什么样的重要性和现实意义呢？我可能在那里研究并从活生生的例子中验证的有关本土建筑的理论又如何能够成为“支配死亡，让我们对它无所畏惧，甚至使我们热爱它的真理”（勒南）呢？天才的力量在于让我们热爱美，让我们感到它比我们自身还要真实，它存在于那些他人看来和我们自身同样特殊而易逝的东西之中。

47．诗人说“如果你的眼睛这么说，我便说它们是美的”，这并非完全正确，如果诗里的眼睛指的是被爱者的眼睛。在某种意义上，同样从诗歌的立场来看，无论爱可能为我们带来怎样精彩的补偿，自然总会因之失去诗意。对于恋爱中的男子，地球充其量是为情人那“可爱的孩子般的双足所准备的地毯”，而自然无非是“她的庙宇”。爱情一方面为我们揭示了许多心理方面的深刻道理，另一方面又使我们对自然不再具有诗意的感受，因为它将我们封闭在一种自私的心理状态中（爱情是最高程度的自私，但仍然是自私），使我们很难产生诗意。相反，对某人思想的崇敬则在每一步都激发美，因为它不断激起对美的欲望。凡俗的人通常以为听凭我们所崇拜的书籍的引导会使我们失去独立判断能力。“拉斯金所感与你何关：你自己去感受。”这种看法犯了心理学的错误，不会为有信仰的人所认可，因为信仰使他们的理解力和感受力都得到了无限提高，而且从未损害其批判力。因了这纯粹的天恩惠顾，我们所有的能力、批判意识及其他意识都大为提高。因此这种自愿的服从是自由的开始。感受自我的最好方式便是努力去感受大师之所感。从这深深的努力中我们同大师的思想一道发现了自己的思想。只有拥有目标，我们才有自由的人生：我们早已揭穿那关于冷漠的自由的诡辩。那些不断掏空自己的思想，试图摆脱所有外界影响以保持个性的作者其实是在无意中听从一种同样天真的诡辩。事实上，我们唯一真正能够完全依赖自己理智的全部力量的时候，恰恰是我们不相信我们是在独立行动的时候，是我们不为自己的努力任意选择一个目标的时候。小说家的主题，诗人的意象，哲学家的真理，它们均以一种几乎是必然的方式强加于他们，可以说外在于他们的思想。正是通过把自己的思想用于传达那意象、接近那真理，艺术家才真正变成他自己。

48．但是在谈到对拉斯金思想的激情——开始多少有些矫饰但到后来如此深刻的激情的时候，我谈到的是由回忆之光所照亮的，仅限于追述事实，“但丝毫无法重新拥有遥远过去”的回忆。只有当我们生命中的某些时段永远结束，当我们即使仿佛拥有那力量和自由时也被禁止偷偷开启通向它们的大门，当我们连一刻也无法回到我们曾经久处其中的状态时，只有在这些时候我们才拒绝接受这些事已被彻底抹去了。我们无法再歌唱它们，因为我们未能听从歌德智慧的告诫，即只有在我们还能够感知的事物当中才有诗歌。但如果无法重新点燃过去的火苗，我们希望至少还能收拾其灰烬。因为无法复活我们业已无能为力的东西，我们希望至少还能描述它、了解它，带着我们保存的关于它的冰冷回忆——关于那些事实的回忆，它告诉我们：“你曾是这样或那样的”，但我们已无法回去，它证实了失落的天堂，不可能在回忆中复原。只有当拉斯金离我们远去的时候我们才诠释他的著作，试图尽可能近似地把握他思想的特点。因此你将听到的并非出自我们的信仰或爱的声音，你将在这儿那儿窥见的只是我们的虔诚，它寂静漠然，像那个底比斯的处女般忙于修复一座坟茔。

注释

【1】
John Ruskin（1819—1900），英国艺术评论家，著有《现代画家》，《建筑七灯》、《亚眠的圣经》、《威尼斯之石》、《芝麻与百合》等。

【2】
Gustave Moreau（1826—1898），法国象征主义画家。

【3】
Turner, Joseph Mallord Willam（1775—1851），英国风景画家。

【4】
Joseph Antoine Milsand （1817—1886），法国评论家。

【5】
Tintoretto （1518—1594），意大利文艺复兴后期威尼斯画派画家。

【6】
Bernardin de Saint—Pierre（1737—1814），法国作家、植物学家，最著名的小说是《保尔与薇吉妮》。

【7】
Robert de la Sizeranne （1866—1932），法国评论家。

【8】
Thomas Carlyle （1795—1881），苏格兰散文作家和历史学家。

【9】
Abbeville，法国北部城市，发现欧洲旧石器时代早期文化。

【10】
Rouen，法国北部城市。

【11】
Titian（1490—1576），意大利文艺复兴盛期威尼斯画家。

【12】
Rubens（1577—1640），佛兰德斯画家，巴罗克艺术代表人物。

【13】
Cromwell（1599—1658），英国军人、政治家、独立派领袖。后成立共和国。

【14】
Burns（1759—1796），苏格兰诗人。

【15】
Emerson（1803—1882），美国思想家、散文家、诗人。

【16】
Swedenborg（1688—1772），瑞典科学家和神学家。

【17】
Montaigne （1533—1592），法国思想家、散文作家。

【18】
Boccaccio（1313—1375），意大利文艺复兴时期作家，代表作为《十日谈》。

【19】
Petrarch（1304—1374），意大利诗人、学者。

【20】
Amiens，法国北部城市。

【21】
Bayeux，法国城市。

【22】
Troyes，法国中部城市。

【23】
Chartres，法国城市。

【24】
Pisa，意大利西北部城市。

【25】
Pre-Raphaelitism，1848年在英国兴起的美术改革运动，早期主要成员为Hunt、Rossetti和 Millais。

【26】
Giotto（1267—1337），Carpaccio（1450—1525），Bellini（1430—1516），意大利文艺复兴时期画家。

【27】
Orcagna（1308—1368），意大利画家、雕刻家、建筑师。

【28】
William Horgarth（1697—1764），英国油画家、版画家、艺术理论家。

【29】
Ary Renan（1858—1900），法国艺术家、评论家。

【30】
St Jerome，传说因为一只狮子除去了爪上的荆刺而与之为友。

【31】
希腊神话中大力神赫拉克勒斯（Hercules）在尼米亚杀死的一头猛狮。

【32】
Virgil（公元前70—19），古罗马诗人。

【33】
Dante （1265—1321），意大利诗人，文艺复兴先驱，名著《神曲》。

【34】
Samson，古犹太人领袖之一，以身强力大著称。

【35】
Theseus，希腊神话中的雅典国王。

【36】
即爱德华（1330—1376）王子，英格兰国王爱德华三世之子，英法百年战争中战功卓著。

【37】
Isaiah，公元前8世纪希伯来预言家。

【38】
Cumean Sibyl，希腊神话中的女预言家。

【39】
同样，在《阿诺河谷》中，圣马可雄狮是尼米亚雄狮的直接后代，其鬃毛就是在加马里纳的赫拉克勒斯头上可见的，在书中其他地方指出其区别在于“那个赫拉克勒斯杀死了野兽并用它的皮做成头盔和斗篷；希腊人则让野兽皈依并使它成为布教士。”［《阿诺河谷》，8，cciii.］

我引用这段文字不是为了给尼米亚雄狮找到另一个神圣的后裔，而是为了强调《亚眠的圣经》这一章结尾处的总体思想，即“存在着神圣的古典艺术”。拉斯金不想将希腊（《阿诺河谷》）同基督教相比，而只想将它同哥特艺术相比，“因为圣马可同赫拉克勒斯一样是希腊人”。在这里我们接触到了拉斯金最重要的思想之一，或更确切地说他为希腊和基督教艺术品的思考与研究带来的最独特的情感之一，要想完整地传达这情感必须摘录《圣马可的栖息》中的一段，这段文字在我看来最清晰地表现出拉斯金独特的思想态度，即他并不看重基督教的降临，却在异教作品中便认出一种基督教艺术之美，并描绘出一直贯穿到中世纪作品中的顽强的希腊理想。很肯定地，这种在我看来是完全审美的思想态度至少在本质上是符合逻辑的，如果说在来源上不遵守时代顺序的话，拉斯金将这思想系统化，扩大至历史和宗教批评。但即使是当拉斯金将希腊王权同法兰克王权相比（见《阿诺河谷》中的“法国化”一章），或者在《亚眠的圣经》中宣称“基督教并未过多改变人类道德与幸福的理想，”或者像我们在前面所述谈到贺拉斯的宗教时，他所作的一切都是从审美愉悦中得出理论性的结论，就像他在重新发现诸如希罗底的女像柱、天使中的哈比、拜占庭庙宇中的一只希腊花瓶时一样。下面就是这段出自《圣马可的栖息》的文字：“不光拜占庭艺术，这一点适于所有的希腊艺术…今天让我们别再用… ‘拜占庭’这个词。只有一个希腊学院，从荷马的时代一直到塞尔沃总督的时代；圣马可的这些镶嵌画是真正蕴含着代达罗斯的力量，带有希腊的建筑灵感…就像库普赛罗的胸膛或厄瑞克修姆庙的门柱。”

拉斯金随后进入圣马可洗礼堂，说道：”大门上方是希律的宴会。希罗底的女儿头上顶着施洗者约翰的头颅在舞蹈，——完全是任一只希腊花瓶上任一个头顶水瓶的希腊女子的翻版……现在接着进入穹顶深处更远的小教堂。那里更加黑暗，非常黑暗；——我的昏花老眼几乎分辨不出什么，但你若有一双年轻明亮的眼睛，你应看出那美，因为它确是贝利尼、契马和卡尔帕乔所绘的所有金顶的根源；它本是一只希腊花瓶，带着新的神祗。在圣坛后的壁龛里有一只十翼天使，胸上有一圈的文字，“智慧充盈”。这确是圣灵的呼吸。但它曾经是一个希腊哈比，其鸟爪般的四肢虽已毁损但仍依稀可见肌肉……其上，耶稣在一群天使的环绕下出现并降落；正如同贝利尼和卡尔帕乔的天顶画不过是这哈比天顶的放大，丁托列托的天堂亦不过是这狭窄穹顶所包含的思想的最终结果……毫无疑问这些镶嵌画不会早于十三世纪。然而它们在所有的思想方式和表达形式上都是绝对希腊式的。那火焰和喷泉完全是客迈拉和佩瑞涅的形状；那舞蹈的少女，尽管是十三世纪身穿袖口镶白鼬皮长袍的公主，却一如阿卡狄亚泉边汲水的甜美的希腊少女。” ［《圣马可的栖息》，第92页及以下。引文不是连续的。］又比如拉斯金说：“我相信我是唯一还同希罗多德一道思考的人。”任何一个思想敏锐、足以被一名作家的面貌特征所吸引的人，一个不为有关拉斯金的种种无聊说法——说他是先知、预言家、新教徒等等其他无甚意义的说法——所动的人，都会感到他的面貌特征，尽管是次要的，却是十分“拉斯金式”的。拉斯金同所有时代的伟大灵魂生活在一起，他只在意他们能够回答那些永恒的问题，对他来说没有什么古典和现代之分，他可以像谈论一个当代人那样谈论希罗多德。古人对他来说除了在“目前”能够对我们的日常思考有所帮助之外没有别的价值，他便并不把他们当作古人。因此他们所说过的所有那些未因过时而被抛弃、也不被视为只属于某一特定时代的话语对他来说更加重要，它们在某种意义上将其曾经拥有但为时间所剥夺的科学价值保存了下来。从荷拉斯描绘班都斯亚泉的方式，拉斯金推断说他是虔诚的，“以弥尔顿的方式” 。就在十三岁时，他为了消遣阅读阿那克里翁的赞歌，从中发现“非常肯定地，希腊人就像我一样喜爱鸽子、燕子和玫瑰，后来对希腊艺术的研究证明这一点对我极为有利。”［Praeterita, lxxxi.］显然，对于爱默生这样的人，“文化”有着同样的价值。但我们暂不去耽于两者之间的深刻差别，为了强调拉斯金面貌的特殊之处，让我们首先指出，由于他对科学和艺术一视同仁，他在谈到作为科学家的古人和谈到作为艺术家的古人一样满怀崇敬。关于自然史的发现，他引用了第104篇赞美诗，关于一个宗教史问题他同意希罗多德的观点（恰同当代科学家的观点相反），他很欣赏卡尔帕乔的一幅画，认为它对鹦鹉的描述史作出了重大贡献（《圣马可的栖息》：“奴隶的圣坛”）。显然我们很快应该回到他的古典神圣艺术观，“只有一个希腊艺术，圣热罗姆和赫拉克勒斯，等等”，每一个这样的观念又引向其他。但此刻我们面前只有这样一个深深留恋着自己藏品的拉斯金，他对科学和艺术一视同仁，相信一项科学理论能够始终正确，正如一件艺术品能够始终美丽（他从未明确提出这一观点，但它暗中支配着其他所有的观点，没有它其他都将成为不可能），他会为了自然史或思辨哲学去求证于一首古代赞歌或者一件中世纪浮雕，因为他深信任何年代任何国度的智者都比哪怕是当代的愚人更值得去咨询。当然，他恰如其分的批判意识始终约束着这一倾向，让我们对他可以完全信任，他的夸张仅仅是为了开个诸如“十三世纪昆虫学”等的小玩笑。

【40】
Protagoras（前490？— 420？），古希腊哲学家，智者派的代表人物。

【41】
Viollet-le-Duc（1814—1879），法国哥特复兴式建筑代表。

【42】
从英国人眼中看法国风景，这会是多么有趣的展品：透纳笔下的法国河流；波宁顿的“凡尔赛”；沃尔特·佩特的“奥塞尔”或“瓦朗西安”，“韦兹莱”或“亚眠”；斯蒂文森的“枫丹白露”；还有更多更多！

【43】
Huysmans（1848—1907），法国小说家。

【44】
Buffon（1707—1788）法国博物学家。

【45】
我现在没有时间阐明这一缺撼，但我猜想通过我的翻译——尽管它很乏味——读者能够看出，就像透过强光照亮的厚厚的鱼缸玻璃，思想被语句迅速地驱赶，在瞬间受到损害。

【46】
巴尔扎克小说《卡迪央王妃》中的人物。

【47】
Vézelay，法国城镇。

【48】
Lucien Leuwen，司汤达小说，又名《红与白》。

阅读的日子（一）

1．我的童年过得最充实的日子也许就是那些我以为我不曾生活过的日子，那些伴随着一本心爱的书度过的日子。在那些日子里，每一件与他人有关的事，每一件被我当做是对那神奇享受的庸俗妨碍而推开的事：正读到最有趣的段落有小伙伴来找我玩耍，讨厌的蜜蜂或一束阳光使我不得不从书页中抬起头来或者变换姿势，为我端来的茶点放在旁边一动未动，而在头顶的蓝天，太阳的威力正在减弱，我必须回去用晚餐，其间唯一的念头就是饭后直接上楼读完剩余的章节：阅读本应让我觉得这些事不胜其烦，但相反，它们镌刻在我心中的回忆是如此甜美（在我现在的感受中要比当时如此全心阅读的东西珍贵得多），以至于到今天，如果我有时还会去翻阅这些过去的书籍，那只不过是将它们作为唯一保存了逝去日子的日历，希望在那些书页中还能找到早已消失不再的房屋和池塘的影子。

2．谁会不记得，如我回忆之中，那些假期中的阅读时光，一天中所有那些安宁且不受干扰、足以庇护阅读的时光。上午，从公园回来之后，当其他人都去散步时，我会溜进餐厅，在那儿，一直到尚未遥远的午餐时间，除了年迈寡言的费利西之外没有人会进来，我唯一的、最尊重阅读的同伴，便是挂在墙上的彩盘，刚刚撕下前一页的日历，自言自语不求回答的钟表和炉火，它们的窃窃私语不具意义，不像人类的话语一般用别的意义取代你正在阅读的语句。我会坐在一张椅子里，在一小堆柴火旁边，关于这火我那早起的照管花园的叔叔会在午餐时说：“这可不碍什么事！我们容得下这点儿火的；你知道六点钟的时候菜园里可真冷。想想吧，离复活节只有一星期了！”离我不得不中断阅读的午餐时间还有整整两小时。时而能听到要流出水的水泵的声音，让我抬头透过关着的窗户注视它，那儿紧挨着小花园的一条幽径，环绕着用砖和半月形陶瓷装饰的三色堇花坛：这些三色堇好像是从天上摘下来的，那无比美好、色彩斑斓、仿佛倒映在有时能从村庄的房顶之间看到的教堂彩窗上的天空，有时出现在暴风雨之前的惨淡天空，或者在那之后，很晚了，暮色即将降临。不幸的是，厨娘会早早进来安放餐具；要是她能不说话该有多好！可她觉得自己有必要说：“您看上去不太舒服；我把桌子挪近点好吗？”仅只回答一句：“不用，谢谢”，我就得将嘴里的声音从远处召回，令它戛然中止，而它正在无声而流利地念诵着眼睛看到的所有词语；我得停下，再发出声音，还它以早已遗失的日常表象和应答的语调，只为了礼貌地发出一句“不用，谢谢”。时间在流逝；常常离午餐时间还早就开始有人来到餐厅，有人走累了，选了一条捷径，从“梅塞格里斯路”回来，或者有人要“写点东西”，那天早晨没有出去散步。当然，他们会说：“我不想打扰你”，但他们立刻开始走近柴火，看看时间，表示现在就吃饭也不错。无论是谁“留下来写点东西”，他们都会带着一种特别的敬意含笑对他或她说：“您在保持通信呐”，这笑容里含着尊敬、神秘、猥亵和小心，就好像这小小的“通信联系”既是国家机密，又是一种特权、一种暧昧关系和一种病态。有人不再等待，早早坐在自己的位置上。这真叫人难过，因为他们给后来者树立了个坏榜样，让他们以为已经是中午了，我的父母便会过早地说出那句致命的话：“好了，合上书，我们要吃午饭了。”万事俱备，桌布上摆好了每个人的餐具，没有上桌的只是在餐后才会摆上来的器具，比如我那既是园丁又是厨师的叔叔用来在桌上亲手泡制咖啡的玻璃壶，那好像物理仪器般复杂、味道芳香的管状器皿，看着那突然产生的沸腾泡沫升上玻璃罩，将芬芳的褐色余渣留在充满蒸汽的内壁，这实在让人愉快；还有奶油和草莓，我这位叔叔总是以同样的比例将之调和，以五彩画家的经验和美食家的预见性精确地达到他要求的粉色。这午餐显得多么漫长啊！我的婶祖母对每道菜肴浅尝辄止，便能以一种大度却不容置疑的平静提出她的见解。对于她所精通的小说或诗歌，她总是以女性的谦卑对其他更有见地的人的意见表示尊重。她相信那属于随心所欲的范畴，个人的喜好无法作为真理去评判。但对于那些由母亲传授的规矩与准则，比如怎样烹调某些菜肴，怎样演奏莫扎特的奏鸣曲，或者什么是优雅的待客之道，她确信自己知道怎样做才恰如其分，并能够判断他人做到了几分。何况，这三样事具有同样的完美标准：简洁、适度、迷人。她憎恶在菜肴中加入并非必需的调味品，矫揉造作或过多使用踏板的演奏，以及在待客时不具备完全自然的态度或过多地谈论自己。只要尝一口菜，听头几个音符，看一眼便笺，她就称自己知道面前是不是一个好厨师，一个真正的音乐家，或者一位有教养的女子。“她也许技巧比我熟练，但她演奏那段简单的行板时过于夸张，说明她毫无品位。”“她也许是个出色的女子，但在这种场合夸夸其谈可见其缺乏分寸。”“她也许是个在行的厨子，但她不会做土豆煎牛排。”正因简单所以难做的土豆煎牛排是一个理想的比赛项目，好比烹饪中的悲怆奏鸣曲，在美食方面等同于社交生活中一位夫人前来询问有关仆人的事，从这件简单的行为中便可看出她是否知分寸有修养。我祖父自尊心十足，希望每一道菜成功，但极不擅烹饪，从来不知道何处不妥。他很想承认有些菜确有不妥之处，但那十分罕见，而且完全是出于意外。而我婶祖母那永远有理有据、暗示厨子不会做菜的批评必然让祖父难以忍受。为了避免和他争论，婶祖母经常忍住不发言，只用嘴唇碰一下那道菜，但我们即刻便知道那为她所不喜。她保持着沉默，但从那双慈爱的眼睛里看得出深思熟虑、不可动摇的否认，令祖父狂怒。他会嘲讽地请她发表意见，对她的沉默很不耐烦，不断地向她提问，大发脾气，但我们能感到婶祖母宁愿忍受折磨也不愿承认祖父所相信的：点心并不是太甜。

3．午餐之后我立刻重新开始读书；特别是天气十分暖和的日子，所有人都上楼回到卧室，我也马上沿着一节窄仄的楼梯回到自己的屋子，它在很低的单独一层，从窗台上轻易就能直接跳到外面街上。我去关上窗户，但仍未能躲开对面的枪炮匠同我打招呼，他趁着放下雨篷的机会，每天午饭后在门前抽烟斗，同过路人打招呼，他们有时会停下来和他聊天。被梅坡公司
【1】

和英国室内设计师们严格遵守的威廉·莫里斯
【2】

的理论规定，一间卧室是否漂亮的唯一条件是它只陈放对我们有用的物品，而任何有用的物品，哪怕是一枚钉子，都不应遮盖而应暴露在外。在这些洁净的卧室里，在完全裸露的铜条床架之上，光秃秃的墙上挂着几幅名画的复制品。以这样的审美观来看，我的卧室决谈不上美，因为里面充满无用的物品，它们谦逊地挡住了那些还有些用处的东西，让人用起来极为困难。但对我而言，我的房间之美正源于这些不为我方便、只为其自身愉悦而存在的物品。高高的白色帷帐挡住了视线，床仿佛隐蔽在一所祭坛深处；散落的绸料压脚被、花朵图案的床罩、刺绣被套、细亚麻布枕套，我的床在白天消失在所有这一切东西的下面，好像玛丽月花彩之下的祭坛，到了晚上，为了能睡觉，我得把它们小心地放在旁边的扶手椅上，让它们在那儿过夜；床边，蓝色花纹的三件套玻璃制品，配套的糖罐和水罐（我到达的第二天姑母便嘱咐我里面不要盛水，怕我碰倒它），好像某种宗教仪式的器具——几乎同旁边小玻璃瓶中珍贵的白色香橙花液体一般神圣——它们如同圣体盒一般，我不会冒犯它们，更不会私自使用它们，但我会在脱衣之前长时间地凝视它们，担心不小心碰倒它们；那些小小的镂空钩编长巾为椅背覆盖了一层白色的玫瑰，它们一定有刺，因为每当我阅读完毕准备起身时都会发现自己被挂住了；用玻璃罩围起来以防被不慎碰到的钟对着来自远方的贝壳和一朵古老的伤感之花切切私语，它十分沉重，很难抬得起来，一旦停摆，除了钟表匠以外没人会鲁莽地给它上发条；白色的镂空花边布像覆盖着祭坛一样罩着五斗橱，其上装饰着两只花瓶，一幅圣像和一支圣枝，就像是圣餐桌（每天整理完卧室之后摆在那里的祈祷跪凳更让人产生如此联想），但它开松的边线总是夹进抽屉的缝隙中，让抽屉完全无法工作，即使为拿一条手帕出来我也必须将圣像、圣花瓶和圣枝全部拿下来，而且总是跌跌撞撞，不得不抓牢跪凳；最后还有薄布窗帘、沉重的细布窗帘和更沉重的花缎窗帘组成的三重窗帘，它们在阳光照耀下总是像山楂花一样明亮喜人，但每当我想要打开或关上窗户，它们就会笨重而顽固地在平行的木杆上滑动，十分恼人地互相裹挟并缠绕在窗子上，如果我成功地解开了第一层，第二层便会立即裹进连接处，将之完全堵塞，就像有一棵真正的山楂树或者真有一只异想天开的燕子在那儿筑巢，其结果就是，如果没有另一个家庭成员帮忙，我永远也别想完成开关窗子这看似简单的动作；所有这些物件非但不能满足我的任何需求，而且颇有些碍事。显然，它们放在那儿并非为任何人所用，它们让我的房间充满了某种私密沉思的气氛，带着那种自己选择所爱的生存与享受方式的神情，就像林间空地上的树，抑或路边或一段老墙上的花朵。它们使之充满了种种静默的生命，充满了让我的个体既失落其中又为之着迷的神秘；它们让这房间变为一所小教堂，阳光——在穿过我叔叔安在窗户上方的红色玻璃窗格之后——先将窗帘上的山楂花变成粉红色，又在墙壁上洒下奇异的闪烁斑点，就好像这小教堂藏身于一座彩窗的教堂大殿之中；在这里，因为离得近，响亮地回荡着乡村教堂的钟声，在盛大宗教节日，教堂的临时祭坛更通过一条花路与我们的房子相连，这钟声让我幻想它就敲响在我们的屋顶下，在窗子上面，从那里我常常问候手拿日课经的牧师，晚祷归来的姑母，或者为我们带来圣餐面包的唱诗班男孩。至于布朗所摄波堤切利
【3】

的《春》，或者里尔博物馆的《无名女士》复制品，威廉·莫里斯对其无用之美作出了让步，让它们出现在梅坡公司室内的墙壁和壁炉架上，而我必须承认，在我的房间里，它们让位于一幅表现欧仁亲王的版画，他身着土耳其式长袍，英俊而令人生畏。一天夜里，在一个火车站餐厅入口处，在火车与冰雹的猛烈撞击声中，我震惊地看到这幅画，他为一个饼干牌子做的广告，依然英俊而令人生畏。现在我怀疑这幅画是我的祖父从前得自于一个慷慨的制造商，随后才永久地挂在我的卧室里。但当时我并不关心其似乎古老神秘的来源，也不曾想象可能存在不止一件复制品，因为在我看来他是一个活生生的人，是这房间永久的居住者，而我只不过同他共用这房间，在这里每一年我都会重新发现他，永恒不变。从我上次看到他已经很久了，我想我再也不会见到他了。但若上天赐福我还能见到他的话，我相信他会比波堤切利的《春》有更多话要对我说。让那些有品位的人用他们崇拜的名作的复制品去装饰自己的家吧，让他们把那些对他们而言珍贵的图像托付给木刻的像框好能免去保存的烦恼。让那些有品位的人把自己的卧室依其品位来安排，让里面充满了符合其品位的物件。对于我自己，只有在每件物品都是迥异于我自己的生活、同我的口味截然相反的创造与表现的房间里，我才能感到自己在生活与思考，在那里没有什么与我的意识有关，我的想象力因潜入非我的深处而奔放；只有当我踏入——在俯视港口的车站大道，或在教堂广场——外省的一间旅馆时我才感到幸福，它们有着长长的寒冷的走廊，外面的寒风战胜了中央暖气，墙上唯一的装饰便是当地的详细地图，每一种声音都更烘托出寂静，房间里保留着一种腐旧的味道，新鲜空气将之清洗却无法根除，鼻孔上百次将它吸入，想象力为之着迷，将它视为样本，试图通过思想与回忆再造它所包含的一切；傍晚，当你打开房门，你感觉你侵犯了留在其中四处散落的那全部生命，关上门之后，当你进到房间深处，到桌子或窗户那里，你好像冒失地伸手拉住了这生命；坐在那小镇装饰工自以为的巴黎风格装饰的长椅上，你感到与那生命自由自在地亲密共处；你感到自己到处触摸到它赤裸的存在，当你欲以自己熟悉的一切来惊扰自己，当你四处堆放着自己的东西，装作是这漫溢着其他灵魂的房间的主人，而一直到薪架的形状或窗帘的图案都还保存着他们梦想的痕迹，当你赤足走在那陌生的地毯上；你感到自己仿佛将这秘密的生命锁入了自身，就在你浑身颤抖着去闩门的时候；你感到它在你前面上了床，最后和你一起躺在那一直盖到你脸上的大白被单里，就在这时，附近教堂的钟声为整个小镇敲响了对情人与垂死者而言无眠的时光。

4．我在房间里读书并不多久就得去离村子一公里远的公园。装在篮子里带来的点心在岸边分发给孩子们，我的书放在草地上不得拿起，但这强制的游玩活动结束后，我会在下午茶点快结束时早早离开。稍远一些，在公园一些茂盛而神秘的地带，河流不再是浮着天鹅、两边环以喜人的雕塑小径、时有鲤鱼跳跃的笔直的人工河道，它加快了速度，迅速越过公园围墙，变成一条地理意义上的河流——一条本应有名字的河流——并且立刻四处蔓延（它还是那条雕塑环绕天鹅漂浮的河吗？），奔流在毛莨草已被淹没的牛群睡卧的牧场和被它弄得颇为泥泞的草地中间，一边通过一些据说是中世纪遗迹的不辨形状的塔楼同村子相连，另一边沿着蜿蜒上升的蔷薇和山楂花小径通向“自然”，将那些有过其他姓名的未知的村庄延伸至无穷。我会离开其他人，让他们继续在公园低处天鹅旁边吃完茶点，我会远远地跑到曲径深处某个树荫下，背靠修剪过的榛子丛无人察觉地坐下，观看石刁柏苗床、草莓丛的边缘，马儿时常转着圈去汲水的水池，以及上面“公园尽头”的白色大门，还有更远处，开满罂粟花和矢车菊的草地。在我的荫蔽处笼罩着深深的寂静，几乎没有被发现的危险，从下面传来的远远的徒劳的呼唤声只让我的安全感更加甜美，这声音有时甚至更近些，沿着开始的斜坡向上，到处搜寻未果，又转回去；随后是一片寂静；只有从远处平原那边时时传来的金色钟声仿佛来自蓝天之外，提醒我时间已过；但惊异于那悠扬，不安于那更深沉的寂静，失落于接踵而至的最后几个音符，我从来不清楚钟鸣了几响。这不是当你重新进入村庄时听到的那雷鸣般的钟声——当你走近教堂，它从近处看恢复了那高耸僵直的外表，石板顶端栖满了乌鸦，映衬着傍晚黛色的天空——在村庄广场上那声音裂成了碎片，为了传扬“世间之善”。它们传到公园尽头的时候变得轻柔微弱，不是为我鸣响，而是朝着整个乡间，所有的村庄，那些分散在田间的乡民，丝毫无意让我抬头观望，只是从我身边经过，把时间带到遥远之地，不曾看见我、认出我或者打扰我。

5．有时，在房间里，在我的床上，晚餐早已结束，傍晚的最后时光也能庇护我用来读书，但我只将这些时光用于阅读一本书最后的章节，即将结束前的篇幅。那时，冒着一旦发现便会受到惩罚，或者读完全书后可能一夜失眠的危险，一俟父母上床我便重新点燃蜡烛；就在近旁街道，在沉浸于寂静中的枪炮匠的房子和邮局之间，黑暗而湛蓝的天空繁星密布，在左边，在那蜿蜒上升的小巷之上，你能感到教堂庞大的黑色后殿在守望着，还有它一夜无眠的雕像，而这乡村教堂却自有其久远的历史，是神奇的居所，里面有慈爱的主、圣体面包、多彩的圣徒像，还有来自邻近庄园的妇人，她们在节日里“坐着马车”前来做弥撒，在穿过市场的时候让母鸡们咯咯直叫，长舌妇们眼睛发直，在回去的路上，刚刚离开门廊的阴影，信徒们从那里推开前厅大门时驱散了殿内逡巡的小鸟，她们总不忘记从广场的点心铺里买些用帘子遮挡着日晒的塔形糕点——曼格黄油蛋糕、奶油小饼、杏仁果酱小蛋糕 ——对我而言，它们慵懒甜美的气息仍然同大弥撒的钟声及礼拜日的欢乐掺杂在一起。

6．然后，最后一页读完了，书看完了。眼睛，和那无声地跟随着文字、停下来只为稍作喘息的嗓音，它们狂热的奔跑不得不中止于一声深深的叹息。随后，为了将我内心停留过久、无法平息的躁动引向其他方向，我会起身在床边踱步，眼睛仍然注视着不存在于房间内外任何地方的某一点，它停驻于灵魂的距离，与别的距离不同，无法用米尺或英里去衡量，你不会弄错，一旦见到那些思想在“别处”的人“遥远”的目光就能立刻认出它来。然后呢，这本书就是这样了吗？我们对其中人物给予了比现实生活中的人还要多的关注和感情，并不总是敢于承认自己是多么热爱他们，甚至，当父母对我读书时的激动报以微笑时，我会作出无动于衷的样子或假装无聊地合上书；我永远不会再见到这些我曾为之屏息静气或哭泣的人，永远不会再知道他们的消息。早在最后几页，作者在他残酷的“跋”里，已经用心地以一种令人难以置信的冷淡态度将他们“隔离出去”，而我们知道他曾如何一步步满怀关切地跟踪着他们。他们生活中的每一刻都被详加描述。然后，突然之间：“这些事情发生二十年之后，那老人可能还会出现在富热尔的街上，仍然身材挺拔，等等。”
【4】

还有婚姻，我们在整整两卷书中不时瞥见那令人欢喜的可能性，为每一个障碍忧心忡忡，为每一次障碍的清除欢欣雀跃，却在跋中，从某个小人物不经意的一句话里听说婚礼已经举行，而我们并不确切知道是在何时，这令人吃惊的结尾好像来自上天，由一个对我们的短暂激情无动于衷的人代替作者写就。我们多么希望书中的故事继续下去，或者，如果这不可能的话，能够了解人物目前生活的一些情况，能够用我们的生活去体验一些与他们在我们心中激起的爱有关的东西
【5】

，而这爱的对象已不再，多希望我们并不仅仅是短暂徒劳地热爱过他们，而他们在明天就只不过是同我们的生活无关的一本书中被忘却的一页里的一个名字而已，我们一定错误地估计了这书的价值，因为现在我们看出，就像我们的父母用不屑的一句话教给我们的那样，它在此间的归宿根本不像我们想象的那样包含着全宇宙以至我们自己的命运，而只不过是在公证人的书架上，在一册册乏味的《彩图时装报》和《厄尔—卢瓦尔省地理》之间占据着一个窄窄的位置。

7．在进入《国王的宝藏》一文之前，在试图阐明我的意见之前，即阅读并不像拉斯金在这篇小文中所讲的应该占据生活中的重要位置，在此之前我必须将可爱的童年时代的阅读时光排除在外，那回忆应永远成为我们每个人的恩宠。无疑，上述文字的长度和内容只是更好地证明了我在本文一开始所说过的：阅读留给我们的是当时当地的影像。我未能逃脱它的咒语；我想谈的是阅读，但我谈到了书籍以外的一切，因为阅读对我讲述的并不是书本。但也许阅读赠予我的一个个回忆也会在我的读者心中苏醒，在他徘徊于这循环往返的花径时，慢慢引导他在心中重新创造出阅读这一独特的心理活动，并给予他足够强大的力量，让他现在能从自己内心深处聆听我即将陈述的意见。

8．我们知道《国王的宝藏》是拉斯金1864年12月6日在曼彻斯特附近拉绍尔默市政厅所作的关于阅读的讲演，目的是帮助拉绍尔默学院创立一所图书馆。12月14日他作了第二场讲演，《女王的花园》，讨论女性的作用，以图在安科茨建立学校。科林伍德先生在他令人钦佩的《拉斯金的生活与作品》中说，“那整整一年他都留在家中，除了……频频造访卡莱尔。他12月份在曼彻斯特所作的一系列讲演后来收于《芝麻与百合》一书，成为他最广为人知的作品，从他思想最闪亮之处我们看得出当时他正处于身体与理智最健康的状态。从他所谈及的英勇、高贵、坚忍的理想观，以及他对书籍和公共图书馆价值的坚持，我们听到了同卡莱尔交谈的回响，——卡莱尔是伦敦图书馆的创办人。”

9．既然我在这里想做的只是讨论拉斯金的理论本身，不涉及其历史渊源，那么用笛卡尔的话即可相当准确地对之加以总结，“阅读好书就好像同过去时代最优秀的人物交谈”。拉斯金也许并不知道这位法国哲学家这多少有些枯燥的比喻，但这观点却贯穿了他的讲演，只不过笼罩在融合了英格兰的薄雾的金色阳光中，就像那照亮了他所钟爱的英国画家笔下风景的阳光。“但是，即使我们有择友的意愿和见识，又有几人有那能力！或至少，对大多数人来说，那选择的范围多么有限！……我们无法知道我们会选择谁……幸运的话，我们可能瞥见一位伟大的诗人，聆听他的声音；或向科学家提问，得到友善的答复。我们可能占用一位内阁部长十分钟的时间同我们交谈，……或者在一生中有一两次与女王仁慈的目光相遇的殊荣。我们渴求这些短暂的运气；我们花费时光、激情与权力去追逐的不过如此；而与此同时，有一群人永远向我们开放，永远会与我们交谈，多久都行，无论我们的地位或职业为何；……他们是如此数量众多，温文尔雅，——可以一整天等待着，不为恩准我们聆听，只期待得到听众——国王和政要们耐心地守候在那朴素狭窄的接待室，即我们的书架上，——而我们并不以之为意，——也许一整天连一句他们想说的话都不听！”“你也许会告诉我，”拉斯金补充道，“你更愿意同活着的人交谈，因为你能看到他们的面孔，”等等，驳斥了这个以及下一个反对意见之后，他说明，阅读恰恰是同比我们周围可能遇见的人要聪明有趣得多的人对话。在本文的注释中我试图说明阅读并不等同于对话，哪怕是同最有智慧者的对话；一本书和一位友人的本质区别不在于其或多或少的智慧，而在于我们与之交流的方式，阅读同对话正好相反，在阅读时，我们每个人在接受他人思想交流的同时仍然保持孤独，亦即仍然享受着我们在孤独中享有的智力优势，而交谈却会顷刻间将之瓦解，同时仍然接受启迪，思想仍然富有成效地工作着。如果拉斯金对后来陈述的其他真理进行总结的话，他很有可能得出与我类似的结论。但显然他并没有去探求阅读的中心意旨。为了教导我们阅读的价值，他只是以希腊人的简洁讲述了一个动人的柏拉图式的神话，希腊人为我们揭示了几乎所有的真理，却留给现代的有心人对其进行深入探索。但尽管我认为阅读在本质上，就其于孤独中实现的丰硕的交流奇迹而言，有着不同于拉斯金所说的更丰富的东西，我却并不就此承认它在我们的精神生活中具有拉斯金似乎想为它赋予的重要地位。

10．其地位的局限性源于其功能。我仍然要回到童年的阅读经验去发现这些功能是什么。那本书，你刚刚看到我在餐厅的炉火旁，在卧室里，蜷在罩着钩编头靠的扶手椅里，或在下午的美好时光，在公园的榛子树和山楂花下捧读的那本书，在那里，来自遥远无边原野的所有气息在我身边静静嬉戏，无声地为我心不在焉的鼻翼送来苜蓿和驴食草的香味，令我时而抬起疲倦的双眼：这本书，你靠近的眼睛无法穿过二十年的时光辨认出它来，只有我的记忆，凭着它更适合此种观察的视觉，才能告诉你它的名字：《佛拉卡西上尉》，戈蒂埃
【6】

著。在这本书里我最爱的有两三个句子，它们在我看来是全书最优美独特之处。我无法想象别的作者写过可与之媲美的句子。但我感到这优美对应着一种现实，戈蒂埃只在每卷书的一两处让我们瞥见这现实的一角。因为我相信他一定了解其全部，我便想读到他别的作品，其中所有的句子都应同这几句一样美，其内容都是有关我想知道的他的见解。“笑就其本质而言并不残酷；它将人与动物区别开来，就像希腊诗人荷马的《奥德赛》所表现的，它是幸福者和不朽神灵的特权，他们在永恒的闲散时光里像奥林匹斯诸神一般笑了个够。”
【7】

这句话真正令我心醉神迷。我以为透过唯有戈蒂埃才能向我揭示的中世纪，我窥见了一个奇妙的古代。但我更希望他不是像现在这样，用太多我不认识的词汇对一个我根本无法想象的城堡进行冗长描述之后一笔带过这句话，而是让书里充满这样的句子，并告诉我一些全书结束之后我还能继续了解并热爱的东西。我更希望这位掌握真理的智者能告诉我应该怎样恰如其分地看待莎士比亚、圣梯纳、索福克勒斯、欧里庇得斯、西尔维奥·佩利科
【8】

，我在一个非常寒冷的三月读了佩利科的书，每次合上书我便走着，跺着脚，沿着小径疾走，因为刚刚结束的阅读，因为我一动不动所积聚的能量，因为吹过村庄街道的令人振奋的风而狂喜。我还特别希望他告诉我是否更有机会接近真理，如果我重修六年级，或者以后成为外交官或高等法院的律师。但这句优美的句子刚刚结束，他便开始描绘一张“铺了一层厚厚的尘土，手指能在上面写字”的桌子，这话在我看来无甚意义，我的注意力无法为之停留；我只好想象戈蒂埃哪些其他的书能更好地满足我的渴望，让我最终了解他的全部思想。

11．确实，好书最伟大奇妙的特点之一（这让我们看到阅读在我们的精神生活中能够起到的根本而有限的作用）便在于对作者可称为“结论”，但对读者则是“激励”。我们强烈地感到我们的智慧开始于作者的智慧中止之处，我们希望他给予我们答案，而他所能做的全部便是给予我们欲望。他只有让我们注视他以艺术之全力达到的极致的美才能在我们身上唤醒这些欲望。但是从精神角度一个独特而神奇的法则来看（这法则意味着我们也许无法从任何其他人那里获得真理，而必须自己去创造真理），他们智慧的终点正是我们智慧的起点，所以就在他们说尽了所有能说的话的时候，我们却感到他们什么都没有说。而且，如果我们提出他们无法回答的问题，我们也就是在向他们要求对我们一无用处的答案。诗人在我们心中激起的爱所产生的效果之一便是，仅对他们具有个人情感意义的事物被我们赋予了重大意义。在他们为我们呈现的每一幅图画中，我们仅能在瞬间瞥见那迥异于世界其他地方的景象，我们希望进入那奇妙的深处。“请带领我们，”我们想对梅特林克先生
【9】

和诺阿伊夫人
【10】

说，“去到那开放着古老花朵的泽兰花园”，沿着充满‘苜蓿和蒿草’芳香的大路，去到世界所有那些你们在书中未曾提及但却认为同样美好的地方。”我们想去探访米勒
【11】

（因为画家以与诗人一样的方式给我们以教诲）在《春季》中展示的田野，想让莫奈
【12】

带我们去赛纳河边的吉维尼，看看他画中透过清晨的雾霭几乎难以分辨的河流弯道。而实际上，诺阿伊夫人或梅特林克或米勒或莫奈选择去描绘那条路、那座花园、那片田野、那段河流，而不是别的什么，那仅仅是因为偶然的亲戚关系使他们在那里停留。它们在我们眼中比世界其他地方更特别更美，因为它们飘忽不定地反映着天才心中的印象，这印象，同样特别，同样霸道，飘过所有他可能描绘的风景那顺从而漠然的面容。这表象迷惑我们、令我们失望，让我们想走得更远，它便是这在某种意义上不具深度的东西的本质——截留于画布的幻影——一种视象。而我们渴望的双眼想要穿越的迷雾就是艺术家的结束语。作家和画家至高无上的努力不过是为我们部分地揭开了那让我们在宇宙面前无动于衷的丑陋无聊的面纱。随后他说：“看吧，看吧，

充满苜蓿与艾蒿的芳香，

拥抱着狭窄奔腾的溪流，

是那埃纳与瓦兹之地。

“看那泽兰的房舍，粉红闪亮如一只贝壳。看啊！学着去看！”就在这时他消失了。这便是阅读的价值所在，也是它的不足之处。将它变成教条就是赋予启蒙过于重要的角色。阅读是精神生活的开始；它将我们引入精神生活：它并不构成它。

12．但在某些情形下，比如精神抑郁症的病例，这时阅读可以作为一种治疗方式加以运用，通过反复的激励，将懒惰的心灵重新不断地引入精神生活中去。那时书籍起到的作用便类似于针对某些精神衰弱症的心理疗法。

13．我们知道在某些精神系统的疾病中，虽然器官本身无恙，患者却深深陷于一种失去意愿的状态而无力自拔，最终衰竭，如果没有一只有力的援助之手向他伸出的话。他的大脑、双腿、肺部和胃部均很健全。他并非完全失去了工作、行走、耐寒、饮食的能力。但他没有意愿去做这些完全有能力做到的动作。器官的衰竭会最终演变成他本没有的病症，造成无可挽回的后果，如果他自身无法找到的推力没有从外部出现，没有医生愿意为他做出决定，直到他慢慢恢复各种感官的意志。有一些人的情形可以同这种病患相比，他们受滞于一种惰怠
【13】

或无聊，无法自觉地深入到真正的精神生活开始的深层的自我中去。一旦有人将他们引入这自我深处，他们并不缺乏发现和探索那真正丰富性的能力，但是由于缺乏外界的干涉，他们便生活在表面，处于永远遗忘自我的消极状态，这使他们嬉游于每样享乐，甘心混同于周遭的熙攘，就好比一个出身高贵但从童年起便与街头盗贼厮混的人，早已不再使用因而不再记得自己的姓名，他们最终会丧失精神高贵性的所有感觉和回忆，如果不是来自外界的推力将他们强制再次推进精神生活中去，在那里他们突然间恢复了自己思考和创造的能力。但显然，惰怠的心灵必须在孤独中接受这来自外界的推动力，正如我们已看到的，没有孤独便无法产生创造活动，而创造活动恰恰是这推力所要激发的。从单纯的孤独中惰怠的心灵将一无所获，因为它不能自己进行创造性活动。但最高深的交谈和最紧迫的建议也无济于事，因为它们无法直接产生这种独特的活动。这时所需要的是来自他人但却生发于我们内心深处的影响，它确是来自另一个心智的推动，但我们在孤独之中接受它。我们已经看出，这恰恰是阅读的定义，而且只适于阅读。因此，唯一能够对这样的心灵施加有益影响的训练便是阅读：借用几何术语，证明完毕。但我重申，阅读只能作为激励，决不能代替我们的个体活动；它仅仅满足于帮助我们恢复其功能，就像我在前面比喻过的神经疾病，心理医生只能为患者恢复其意志力去运用自己仍然健康的胃、腿和脑。也许所有的心智或多或少都有些这样的惰性，这种深层的滞碍，或者也许阅读所带来的兴奋对我们自己的工作虽非必要，却会产生有利的影响，总之人们发现不止一位作家喜欢在写作之前先读篇好文章。爱默生很少不重读几页柏拉图就开始写作。但丁也并非唯一由维吉尔引入天堂大门的诗人。

14．因为，只要阅读对我们是激励性的，用神奇的钥匙为我们打开了内心深处我们本不懂得如何进入的所在，那么它便起到了有益的作用。反之它就是危险的，如果它不是唤醒我们心灵的个体生命，而是试图取而代之，如果真理不再表现为只有靠我们自己思想的隐秘的进步以及我们自己心灵的努力才能实现的理想，而只是好像置于书页间的一件物品，就像他人酿好的蜂蜜，我们只须从书架上取下来就可以在心灵与身体的完全静止中消极地品味。有时，在一些特别的、不那么危险的情形下，这始终被看作是外在的真理离我们十分遥远，隐藏在难于到达的某处。比如某些机密的资料，未发表的通信或回忆录，可能出人意料地揭示出某些特点，但却很难获得。对于厌倦于在内心寻找真理的理智来说，这是怎样的幸福与休憩呵，当它发现这真理就存在于外界，被小心翼翼地保存在荷兰一所隐修院的对开本书籍中，虽然我们得费些功夫才能抵达，但辛苦的只是身体，对理智而言不过是迷人的消遣。这将意味着一段漫长的旅程，你得乘坐驳船穿越风声呜咽的沼泽地，岸边的芦苇在无尽的波动中连绵起伏；你得在多德雷赫特停留，它那常青藤覆盖的教堂倒映在纵横交错沉睡的运河与金光颤动的墨兹河上，晚上，船只划过水面，搅乱了一条条红色屋顶与蓝色天空的倒影；而一直到最后到达目的地，你仍不能肯定能够借阅到这本书。为此必须想方设法运用强大的影响力，比如结交那位有一张前冉森教徒般英俊的四方脸的尊敬的乌得勒支大主教，还有阿姆斯福特
【14】

那位虔诚的档案保管人。在这种情形之下获得真知就好像是某种外交使命的胜利，不乏艰险的旅途和充满变数的谈判。但那有什么关系？我们能否获得真知全靠乌得勒支这个古老的小教堂里所有这些可爱的成员，他们十七世纪的面孔有别于我们惯常所见，与他们保持联系，至少通通信将是多么有趣的事。他们时常继续与我们通信所表现出的尊敬将令我们颇为自诩，并把他们的信件作为证件和珍玩保存起来。对这些赠我们以…真知的人，我们不会忘记将来把我们的书题献给他们，这自然是我们所能做到的最起码的事。至于我们不得不在隐修院图书室里进行的少量研究工作则是获取真知的必要前提——谨慎起见，为了避免遗忘，我们会记笔记——抱怨这些工作所带来的麻烦简直就是不知好歹：古老隐修院的安宁清冷是如此的迷人，修女们仍然像在会客室悬挂的韦登
【15】

的画中一样头戴带有白色边缘的高帽；当我们工作时，一抹苍白的阳光照耀着醺醺然沉醉于十七世纪温柔的排钟声里的天真的运河水，两旁从夏天结束便一直光秃秃的枝条拂过两岸悬挂在三角形房舍上的镜子。
【16】

15．对思想的呼唤置若罔闻，只听从外界的影响，认为通过推荐信便能获得真知，不必了解，只要在物质上拥有，就能将之交到我们手中，并能誊录到笔记本上，这种真理观倒远不是最危险的。因为通常，历史学家甚或学者深入一本书中所寻找的，从严格意义上说并不是真理本身，而是其迹象或印证，进而为另一个它预告或证明的真理留下了空间，这至少还是他们自己思想的个别创造。文人却完全不同。他为了阅读而阅读，为了留住阅读的东西而阅读。对他，书籍并不是在他打开天堂花园大门那一瞬间便振翅飞去的天使，而是静止的偶像，他为它自身的缘故而崇拜它，并不从它激起的思想中获得一种真正的尊严，而是带给周遭一切一种虚假的尊严。文人微笑地援引它，向维尔阿杜安或薄迦丘
【17】

作品中的人物表示敬意
【18】

，或者维护维吉尔笔下的某些风俗。他的思想没有独创活动，不能从书中找出增强心智的东西，却被整部书所拖累，书籍于他不是可吸收的元素，生命的原则，而只是异体，死亡的原则。自然，如果我说这种对书籍的喜爱、拜物般的崇拜是不健康的话，那是相对于完美心智的理想习惯而言，而完美的心智是不存在的，正如生理学家所描述的机体的正常工作状态在常人身上是罕见的一样。相反，在现实生活中，正如没有完全健康的身体一样，也没有完美无缺的心智，我们称为具有“伟大心灵”的人和其他人一样会染上这种“文学病”。也许比其他人更为严重。对书籍的热爱似乎同理智一起增长，略低于它但处在同一根枝干上，正如任何激情均伴随着对其对象的周围及相关事物的偏爱，并在它不在时仍然谈论它。因此最伟大的作家不在与自己的思想作直接交流的时候，喜欢与书籍为伴。它们难道不正是为了他们所写吗；它们难道不是向他们揭示出那许多为大众所不知的美吗？但事实上，高尚的心智可能被称为嗜书者，但这决不证明这并非缺陷。平庸之人通常勤勉，聪明人则常常是懒惰的，但从中并不能得出结论说明勤奋不是比懒惰对心智更好的训练。尽管如此，在伟人身上看到我们自己的缺点总会使我们去想它是否在根本上是一种被误会的美德，我们不无愉快地发现雨果将昆提斯·库尔提乌斯、塔西佗和查士丁尼一世
【19】

的著作熟记于心，如果某个词的合理性当面受到挑战，他便可以旁征博引追述其来龙去脉。（我在别的地方说明，在他身上，学识是滋养而不是压制了他的天才，正如一捆木柴能扑灭一小簇火苗但只能让一大簇火焰燃得更旺。）梅特林克在我看来是文人的反面，其心灵永远敞开接纳由蜂巢、花床或牧场所激起的数不清的无名情感，当他以收藏家的身份描述雅各布·凯茨
【20】

或桑德儒斯神父的老版著作里的版画时，我们便可大大放心于博学甚至是嗜书的危险。这种危险即使存在，它对理智构成的威胁要比对感性小得多，而思想家要比想象力丰富的诗人更具备从阅读中获益的能力。比如叔本华
【21】

，他生机焕发的心灵轻松地负载着大量的阅读，因为每一条新的知识都能立刻被压缩到阅读所包含的现实和生活的部分。

16．叔本华提出任何见解都会同时用数条引言来佐证，但你会感到，对他来说，他所引的文章仅为举例之用，是下意识的提前暗示，他喜欢在其中发现自己思想的一些特点，但它们绝非其灵感来源。我还记得《作为意志与表象的世界》中的一页，其中大约有连续二十条引语。这段文字的主题是悲观（我自然会将这些引言加以缩写）：“伏尔泰在《老实人》中，以轻松愉快的方式同乐观作战。拜伦则在《该隐》中以其悲剧性的风格作同样的事。希罗多德记叙色雷斯人用哀叹迎接新生儿，却欢欣地对待死亡。这也是普卢塔克用以下动人的文字所表达的：这遭遇太多不幸的人儿，他为了自伤自怜而被孕育，等等。墨西哥人的祈愿习俗也必归因于此，斯威夫特亦必有同感，他从年轻时代就习惯于将生日作为苦难日来庆祝（如果相信司各特爵士的传记的话）。大家都知道柏拉图在《苏格拉底的申辩》中的段落，他在其中说死亡值得钦羡。赫拉克里特的箴言表达了同样的意思：如果说生命的名字是“生命”，其作品却是死亡。特奥格尼斯动人的诗篇十分著名：人最伟大的命运便是不曾出生，等等。索福克勒斯在《俄狄浦斯在科洛诺斯》中简述如下：不诞生便远胜其他，等等。欧里庇得斯说：人的一生充满痛苦（《希波吕托斯》），荷马也早已说过：无论何地，所有呼吸的生物都没有人类悲惨，等等；普林尼也这样说：没有什么好过适时的死亡。莎士比亚从年迈的亨利四世王口中说出：‘噢，如果此景可见——最幸福的青年——当合上书本，坐下死去。’最后仍是拜伦：‘死去更妙。’巴尔塔沙·葛拉西安在《批评大师》中用最黑暗的色调描绘生存，等等。”如果我不是已被叔本华带到这么远的话，我会很高兴用《智慧书》来结束这段小小的论述，在所有我所知道的书中，它也许见证了一位博览群书的作者的最独到之处，因此在这本充满引语的书的书眉，叔本华会郑重其事地写上：“编纂并非我的强项。”

17．友谊对于个体而言也许无足轻重，而阅读是友谊的一种。但至少它是真诚的，它由于面对的是死者或不在场者而带有一种无私的、几乎感人之处。而且，这种友谊摆脱了所有其他友谊所包含的丑恶。既然我们这些活着的人都是尚未赴约的死者，我们在所有那些枯燥乏味、我们称之为尊敬、感激或虔诚的门厅处的礼貌用语和问候里掺进了太多的谎言。而且——从我们最早的善意、敬仰或感激的关系开始——我们最早说出的话、最早写下的文字就开始在我们周围编织出习惯之网、真正的生活方式之网，在其后的友情中我们再无法从中解脱；还没算上这时我们饶舌的话，它始终像我们必须兑现的期票，或者我们因为听任它被拒付而终生悔恨，须以更大的代价来偿还。而在阅读中，友谊突然回归了其原初的纯粹，如同书籍不存在虚伪的友善。如果我们整个晚上与之为伴，那是因为我们真心希望如此。我们常常离开他们，但只会带着遗憾。而且离开之后不会有这些损害友谊的念头：“他们会怎么想我们？”“我们是否得体？”“他们喜欢我们吗？”，或者担心因为别的什么人而遭遗忘。所有这些关于友谊的疑惧都在阅读这纯净安详的形式面前消失了。也无须毕恭毕敬，我们对莫里哀的话大笑就只是因为它很可笑；他令我们烦闷时我们也不必害怕显得烦闷，确信读够了之后我们便突兀地把他放回去，仿佛他既非天才也非名人。这种纯粹友谊的氛围是沉默，它比话语更加纯粹。因为我们是为他人而说，自己只有沉默。所以沉默不像话语那样带着我们的错误或造作的痕迹。它是纯粹的，真正是一种氛围。在作者和我的思想之间并不夹杂着我们各自不同的自我对思想顽固的抵制。书的语言本身是纯粹的（如果它配得上被称为书的话），作者的思想更使其透明，凡不属于思想本身的均已清除，语言便是思想的忠实影像；每个句子在本质上都与其他句子相似，因为所有的语句均出自同一个拥有独特个性的语调；书中因而有一种连续性，而生活中的种种关系因掺杂了与思想无关的因素而不带有这种连续性，这使我们能很快跟上作者思想的轨迹，以及他反映在这宁静镜面中的面貌特征。我们能够愉快地观照而无需崇拜这些特征，因为对理智而言，能够辨认出这些深刻的画像，能够以无私无言的友情去爱，这真乃一大乐事。就像我们喜爱戈蒂埃，因为他是个高雅的好人（他被认为是艺术完美性的代表，这让我觉得好笑），仅此而已。我并不高估他的精神力量，在他的《西班牙游记》中，每一个句子都在无意中强调并延伸了他个性中十分优雅而欢快的特点（词语自行组合来描绘这特点，因为正是他的个性选择了它们并将其按顺序排列），但我不得不认为他的创作手法远称不上真正的艺术：他逼迫自己对每一种形式都加以详细描绘，并伴以并非源于任何愉快强烈的印象的比较，因此毫无动人之处。我们不得不责怪他想象力的可怜的贫乏，当他将种植着各种农作物的田野同“粘有长裤和马甲式样的裁缝的名片”相比较时，或者当他说从巴黎到昂古莱姆一路上无甚可欣赏之处。而这位狂热的哥特风格爱好者在夏尔特尔时连大教堂都懒得去参观，这不禁让人好笑。（“我很遗憾经过夏尔特尔时没能去看看大教堂”，《西班牙游记》。）

18．但是多好的脾气，多好的品位啊！我们多么心甘情愿地跟随这位快活的伙伴去历险；他是如此令人愉快，连他周围的一切也是如此。在他因风暴耽搁在那条“黄金般闪耀”的漂亮大船上，同勒巴尔毕耶·德·提南船长共度数日之后，我们悲哀地看到他只字不再提起这位友善的海员，让我们永远离开他，不知道他后来怎样了。
【22】

我们能感觉到他夸夸其谈的快乐和一阵阵的忧郁都来自记者放荡不羁的习性。但我们宽容这一切，对他唯命是从，当他满身湿透、饥累交加回来时觉得很有趣，当他像个报纸专栏作家一样追述那些与他同代的早夭的人名时又不禁随之悲伤。我说过他的句子描绘着他的面貌，而他并不知觉；因为如果词语不是我们的思想根据其本质的亲和力所选择，而是出于我们自我描绘的欲望的话，它们所表现的便是那欲望，不是我们。佛洛芒丹和缪塞
【23】

虽然才华横溢，但他们想将自己的肖像留传后世，于是这肖像便十分平庸；但也正因如此它们令我们极感兴趣，因为其失败之处颇具启发意义。因此，当一本书不能反映一种强有力的个性时，它倒反映了其思想中有趣的缺陷。当我们仔细阅读佛洛芒丹或缪塞的书时，我们注意到前者某种“高雅”里所包含的狭隘和幼稚，而在后者则是滔滔雄辩中的空虚。

19．如果说我们对书籍的热爱随着我们智力的成长而成长，那么其危险，像我们所看到的，则随之减弱。有独创力的精神能够使阅读服从其个体的活动。对它而言，阅读仅仅是最高贵的消遣，而且首先是最使人高贵的，因为仅只阅读和知识便能培养出“有教养的”心智。我们只能在内心，在我们精神生活的深处发展我们感性和智力的能力。但正是在同其他心灵的接触，即阅读活动中，我们心灵的“修养”才得以形成。无论如何，博览群书仍然同过去一样是心智超群的特征，不知道某本书或某条文学知识，哪怕对于天才也将始终是智力平庸的的标志。对于精神来说也是如此，优越和高贵体现在一种习惯的默契和对传统的继承上。
【24】

20．大作家们在其广泛的阅读中非常容易偏爱古人的著作。即使那些被同代人视为最“浪漫”的作家也几乎只读古典作品。谈到自己近来在读的作品时，在雨果口中最常出现的名字是莫里哀、贺拉斯、奥维德、雷尼亚尔。都德是最少书生气的作家，他的作品生机勃勃、充满现代感，好像摒弃了所有古典的传承，但他不间断地阅读、引用、评注的是帕斯卡尔、蒙田、狄德罗、塔西佗。
【25】

我们几乎可以走得更远，以一种当然并不完全的诠释方式，重新解释古典派与浪漫派的传统区分，说明公众（当然是聪明的公众）是浪漫派的，而大师（即使是浪漫派公众所喜爱的被称为浪漫派的大师）则是古典派的。（这一观察可推广至所有其他艺术。公众去聆听丹第的音乐，后者却在重温蒙西尼的作品。
【26】

公众去观看维亚尔或莫里斯·德尼
【27】

的作品展，他们却去参观卢浮宫。）这种现象产生的原因可能是，独具创见的作家和艺术家使公众得以接触和喜爱的一些当代思想在某种程度上早已成为他们的一部分，所以他们更容易为不同的思想所打动。为此他们须付出更大的努力去获得更多的乐趣；在阅读中我们总喜欢到身外之地去旅行。

21．作为结束，我更愿意把伟大心灵对古老作品的偏爱归于另一个原因。
【28】

这就是，同当代作品不同，对于我们，它们具有的不仅仅是其创造者置于其中的美。它们还有另一种更感人的美，来自其物质，我指它们所写就的语言，如同一面生活的镜子。就好像我们在类似博恩这样的城市中散步所感到的幸福，那里完好无损地保存着十五世纪的救济院、水井、洗衣房，贴彩绘木板的天花板拱顶，高高的人字屋顶，嵌着带有薄薄的铅铂尖顶饰的老虎窗（所有一个时代消逝时仿佛被遗忘的东西，所有只属于那个时代的东西，因为从那之后所有其他的时代均未曾见过任何类似的东西产生），当我们徜徉在拉辛的悲剧或圣西门的一卷著作中时，再次感到那种幸福。因为它们包含着所有早已湮灭的美丽的语言形式，其中保存着业已不存在的习俗或感觉方式的记忆，还有那些与现在的一切毫无相像之处的过去长存的痕迹，只有时间才能为其增光添彩。

22．拉辛的一部悲剧或圣西门的一卷回忆录仿佛是不再产生的美丽物品。伟大的艺术家用来雕琢它们的语言具有一种自由之美，闪耀着柔和的光芒，突出了天生的力量，令我们感动不已，就像过去工匠所使用的，今天已不多见的大理石。无疑这些古建筑中的石头忠实地保存着雕刻家的思想，但也多亏了雕刻家，今天已无人知晓的石头也保存了下来，带着雕刻家从中发掘、显现、调和的所有色彩。我们在拉辛的诗文中所乐于发现的正是十七世纪法国的活的句法——及其早已消弭的习惯和措辞方式。让我们感动的正是这句法形式本身，袒呈在他如此率直而细腻的刻刀之下，其俗语的运用风格既奇特又大胆
【29】

，就在最为温柔圆润的段落里，突兀的构思忽如利剑般穿过，或以美妙的断句转回。我们前往拉辛作品中观赏的正是这些从过去的生活本身截取下来的古老形式，正如一座保存完好的老城。面对这些语言形式我们有着同样的感动，就像面对那些同样早已消亡的建筑形式，现在只能在由塑造它们的过去遗留下来的罕见而华美的范例中欣赏它们：比如古老的城墙、城堡和塔楼、教堂的洗礼堂；比如回廊附近，或教堂庭院的藏骸所下那小小的墓地，它在蝴蝶和花草之下，将葬礼之泉和死亡之灯遗忘在阳光下。

23．而且，为我们描绘古老灵魂形状的并不仅仅是句子本身。在语句之间——我想到那些最早为人诵读的古籍，——在那字里行间，到今天仍然充塞着许多个世纪以来的沉寂，就像一间不可侵犯的地下墓室。常常，在“路加福音”中，当我看到遍布书中许多赞美诗般的段落之前的“冒号”时，
【30】

我仿佛听到祈祷者的静默，他刚刚大声朗读完毕，准备吟诵下面的诗句，
【31】

又似乎想到了圣经中更古老的诗篇。这寂静仍然充满在语句的停顿中，这些句子分成两行将其包围，保留了它的形状；不只一次，我在读到这些段落时闻到了微风从敞开的窗子吹进来的玫瑰的芳香，它飘散在举行聚会的上房中，两千年间仍未消散。在《神曲》或莎士比亚的剧作中，我感到过去的片断仿佛锲入了此时此刻；那种令人为之一振的印象使得某些“阅读的日子”就如同徜徉在威尼斯圣马可广场，在那里，在你面前，在近在咫尺又隔着许多个世纪之遥的物质的半真实的色彩中，你看到两根粉色和灰色的石灰岩立柱，柱头上一个是圣马可之狮，另一个是脚踩鳄鱼的圣狄奥多尔；这两个美丽修长的异乡人来自东方，穿过在他们脚下碎裂的海洋；他们听不懂四周的话语，在今天的人群中依然过着他们十二世纪的日子，就在你身边的公共广场依然闪耀着他们遥远恍惚的微笑。

注释

【1】
Maple & Co.，伦敦一家家具制造商，在巴黎开有分店。

【2】
William Morris（1834—1896），英国工艺美术运动领袖之一，家具、室内设计家兼画家。

【3】
Botticelli（1445—1510），意大利文艺复兴时期画家。

【4】
我必须承认，对直陈式未完成过去时的某些运用——那残酷的时态，它将生活描绘得仿佛既短暂又被动，它在追述过去的行动时使之沦为一种幻觉，并陷于过去的虚无，而不像完成时态那样留给我们行动的安慰——这时态对我始终是一种神秘悲哀感的无尽来源。就在今天，我可以连续几小时冷静地沉浸于对死亡的思考；但我只需打开圣伯夫的《月曜日丛谈》中的一卷，刚好看到拉马丁的这段文字（关于达尔巴尼夫人）“那时在她身上没有什么还让人想得起［rappelait］…她曾经是 ［c’était］一个矮小的女人，其身体在体重之下衰弱并失落了，等等”，我就立刻感到自己被最深沉的忧郁所吞没。在那些作者想让人痛苦的意图十分明显的小说中，我们更会做好防备。

【5】
我们可以间接的方式，用并非完全虚构、带有深层的历史真实性的书来验证这一点。例如巴尔扎克，其著作在某种意义上来说并不纯粹，混合着思想和基本未经改造的现实，有时候尤其适合这种阅读方式。至少阿尔贝·索莱尔便是巴氏作品最令人钦佩的“历史意义的读者”之一，他就《黑暗的勾当》和《现代史内幕》写下了无与伦比的评论。的确，阅读这样既热烈又安详的享乐看来多么适合索莱尔先生的探索精神和平静强壮的身体，在阅读中无数诗意朦胧的幸福感从我们安乐的身心深处欢喜地起飞，为读者的遐想营造出蜜一般金色甜美的愉悦。索莱尔先生的阅读艺术登峰造极，其中包含了这么多有力独到的见解，而这并不止于半历史性的作品。我会永远记得——并衷心感谢——他在评论我的《亚眠的圣经》的法文翻译时写下的也许是他最强有力的文字。

【6】
Théophile Gautier （1811—1872），法国诗人、小说家、评论家，首倡“为艺术而艺术”。

【7】
事实上在《佛拉卡西上尉》里找不到这句话，至少不是以这种形式出现。并非“就像希腊诗人荷马的《奥德赛》所表现的”，而只是“根据荷马的说法”。但既然书中其他地方出现过“就像荷马所表现的”和“就像《奥德赛》所表现的”这样的说法，并给我以同等程度的愉悦，我为了使这例子对读者更具震撼力，允许自己把这所有的美融于一炉，而今天，说实话，我对此已不再感到那虔诚的崇拜了。在《佛拉卡西上尉》的其他地方，荷马也被描述为希腊诗人，无疑这也曾令我着迷。但我不再能足够准确地感受到这些忘却的欢乐，无法确定我在一句话中堆积了这许多的美妙的词语，这是否走得太远，越过了界限！但我并不这样想。我遗憾地意识到，当我漫步在砾石小径，对着垂在河岸上方的鸢尾花和长春花反复吟诵《佛拉卡西上尉》里的这句话时感到的欣悦之情会更加甜美，如果当时我能像今天一样，用自己的创造在戈蒂埃的一句话中聚集起这许多迷人的词语，虽然今天它已不再带给我任何愉悦。

【8】
Santine（1798—1865），法国戏剧家、小说家；Sophocles（前496？— 406）和Euripides（前485—406）均为古希腊悲剧诗人； Silvio Pellico（1789—1854），意大利作家。

【9】
Maeterlinck（1862—1949），比利时法语诗人和剧作家，象征派戏剧代表。

【10】
Noailles （1876—1933），法国女诗人。

【11】
Millet（1814—1875），法国画家。

【12】
Claude Monet（1840—1926），法国印象派画家。

【13】
我在丰丹纳身上便感到这懒惰的苗头，圣伯夫写道：“他身上有着非常强烈的享乐的一面…倘不是这些耽于物欲的习性，以丰丹纳的才华，他本能创造出更多…更持久的作品。”别忘了无能的人总是宣称自己并不无能。丰丹纳说：

照他们的话我在浪费时间，

只有他们才增添这世纪的荣光

并向我们保证自己的勤勉。

柯勒律治则是一个更加病态的例子。“在他的时代，或许在任何其他时代，”卡彭特说（转引自里博的杰作《意志的疾病》），“没有一个人像柯勒律治那样将哲学家的逻辑能力同诗人的想象力融于一身，等等。但也没有一个人像他那样，如此天纵英才却如此浪费自己的才华：他性格的重大缺陷便是缺乏意志力，不能将其天赋加以运用，因而纵然他脑中总是浮动着庞大的计划，他却从未真正努力去实现其中的一个。在创作生涯之初，他就遇到一位慷慨的书商，许诺为他朗诵过的每一首诗支付三十个几尼，等等。而他宁愿每个星期去乞求，也不愿写下来一行诗就能获得自由。”

【14】
Dordrecht, Meuse, Utrecht, Amersfoort，均为荷兰地名。

【15】
Roger van der Weyden（1399？—1464），佛兰德斯画家。

【16】
毋庸讳言，在乌得勒支附近寻找这家隐修院毫无意义，这整段文字都纯属虚构。不过灵感来自雷翁·塞舍就圣伯夫所写的下列文字：“他（圣伯夫）在列日的时候，有一天决定与乌得勒支的小教堂联系。天色已晚，乌得勒支距巴黎很远，我不知道是否“沉迷”足以让阿姆斯福特档案室的大门为他敞开。我对此颇为怀疑，因为即使在《波尔罗亚尔》的前两卷之后，那虔敬的学者主管这些档案。圣伯夫好不容易让好心的卡斯坦先生允许他瞧瞧那些纸箱子…打开《波尔罗亚尔》的第二版，你能找到圣伯夫对卡斯坦先生表示感谢。”至于那旅程的细节，全仰赖当前的印象。我并不知道去乌得勒支是否要经过多德雷赫特，但我就像看到了一样加以描述。我是在去沃伦丹而不是去乌得勒支的一次旅途中乘坐过穿越沼泽的驳船。我安排在乌得勒支的运河实际上位于戴夫特。我是在博恩医院里看到了一幅韦登的画，还有我相信是来自佛兰德斯一个修道会的修女，她们仍然戴着不是出现在韦登的画中，而是和我在荷兰见过的其他画家的画中一样的头饰。

【17】
Villehardouin（1160—1212），法国历史学家，散文家；Boccaccio（1313—1375），意大利文艺复兴时期作家。

【18】
纯粹的附庸风雅则更加无辜。喜欢与某人为伴，因为其先祖参加过十字军东征，这属于虚荣，与理智无关。但如果喜欢与某人为伴是因为其祖父的名字频繁出现在维尼或夏多布里昂的笔下，或者（我必须承认这对我是不可抵制的诱惑）因为其家族的纹章（该女士无需此纹章便大大值得我们崇敬）出现在亚眠圣母院的大玫瑰窗上的话，那就是理智之罪开始的地方。我在别处已经用很长的篇幅讨论过这点，尽管我还有很多要说，在此就不必再加强调了。

【19】
Quintus Curtius，大约公元一世纪时的古罗马历史学家；Tacitus（55？—120？），古罗马历史学家；Justinian（483—565），拜占庭皇帝，主持编纂《查士丁尼法典》。

【20】
Jacob Cats（1577—1660），丹麦诗人、政治家。

【21】
Schopenhauer （1788—1860），德国哲学家，唯意志论的创始人。

【22】
我听说他变成著名的德迪南海军上将，艺术家们仍然钟爱的佩舍·德迪南夫人的父亲，以及英勇的骑兵上尉的祖父。我相信他还在盖尔特之前负责弗兰西斯二世和那不勒斯女王之间的供应与联络（见皮埃尔·德拉·高斯的《第二帝国史》）。

【23】
Fromentin（1820—1876），法国画家和作家；Musset（1810—1857），法国诗人、剧作家。

【24】
而且，真正的高雅总是好像只与同样高雅的人对话，它并不去“解释”。法朗士的书暗示其丰富的才学，总是包含着众多易为凡人忽略的典故，除了该书其他的优美之处，它们自身便具有无与伦比的高贵。

【25】
可能这就是为什么，当一位伟大的作家从事评论时，他大量谈论的常常是古代作品的现今版本，而很少提及当代作品。例如圣伯夫的《月曜日丛谈》和法朗士的《文学生活》。但如果说法朗士是当代作家的杰出评论家的话，圣伯夫可以说曲解了与他同时代的所有伟大作家。请勿反对，他是被个人的敌意蒙蔽了双眼。在令人难以置信地诋毁了司汤达的小说才华之后，作为补偿，他对其谦逊机敏的作风大加赞赏，就好像他再没有别的好处可说！圣伯夫对当代作家的盲目同他自称的清明和预见能力形成了奇怪的对比。他在《夏多布里昂和他的文学团体》中说，“每个人都擅长就拉辛和博絮埃发表意见……但审判官的洞察力与评论家的机敏首先要在尚未为大众所知的新作品中得到验证。第一眼就去评判、预言、指导，那是批评家的天赋。极少人有这天赋。”

【26】
反之亦然，古典作家们并没有比“浪漫派”们更好的评论家。只有浪漫派作家才真正懂得怎样阅读古典作品，因为他们将后者当作浪漫派作品，因为要恰当地阅读一个诗人或散文家的作品，你自己就必须是诗人或散文家，而不是学者。对于最不“浪漫”的作品也是如此。让我们注意到布瓦洛的优美诗句的人不是修辞教授，而是维克多·雨果：

在被她的美所沾污的四块手帕里

她的玫瑰和百合被送到洗衣工那里

或者法朗士的诗行：

无知与谬误在他新生的剧目中

身着侯爵的装束，伯爵夫人的长裙

《拉丁复兴》的最后一期（1905年5月15日）里有一个最新的例子，让我在修改校样时把这一观察推广至美术领域。文中（作者为莫克莱尔）说罗丹是希腊雕塑的真正评论家。

【27】
Vincent d’Indy （1851—1931），Monsigny（1729—1817），法国作曲家；Vuillard（1868—1940），Maurice Denis（1870—1943），法国画家。

【28】
他们自己通常认为这种偏爱是偶然的：他们假定最好的书籍恰巧都是古人所著；这无疑是可能的，因为我们阅读的古老书籍是从作为一个整体的过去被挑选出来的，而过去同当代相比是如此广泛。但在某种意义上偶然不足以解释如此普遍的思想态度。

【29】
比如，我认为人们通常从《安德洛玛刻》这些诗行中发现的魅力：为什么杀他？他做了什么？凭什么？谁告诉你的？其魅力恰恰来源于惯常的句法联系被刻意打断了。“凭什么”指的不是前面紧接着的“他做了什么？”，而是“为什么杀他？”“谁告诉你的”指的也是“谋杀”（根据《安德洛玛刻》的另一行文字“谁告诉你的，我的主人，说他蔑视我？”我们可以猜想“谁告诉你的”意为“谁告诉你去谋杀他？”）。表达的曲折（上文提到的反复的断句）必然会多少令意思显得隐晦，因此我听到过一位伟大的女演员，更重视叙述的明晰而非韵律的准确，直白地说出：“为什么杀他？凭什么？他做了什么？”拉辛最著名的诗行的确迷人，其大胆的口语形式就像一座桥梁飞架于温文的两岸。“Je t’aimais inconstant, qu’aurait-je fait fidèle？”［我爱过反复无常的你，你若忠实我会怎样？］这些表达法漂亮的组合是多么令人愉快，它们的通俗简单为其意义添加了如此柔美的丰满与动人的色彩，就像曼特尼亚画笔下的面庞：

我的青春登上狂野的爱情让三颗纷争的心合于一处。

这就是为什么应阅读古典作家的全文而不满足于摘录。在这些作家的著名段落中，其语言的内在经络通常被选文几乎无所不在的美所遮掩。我不认为格鲁克音乐的特质在他壮丽的咏叹调中要比在宣叙调的某些顿挫中表现得更充分，在后者，每当我们听到他的喘息时，其和音落在无意识的音调上，就像他天才的声音本身，表现出天真的肃穆和高贵。每个见过威尼斯圣马可大教堂照片的人（我说的只是其外观而已）都可以认为他对这拱顶教堂多少有些了解，但只有当你走近那些美妙多彩的圆柱，亲手触摸到它们，只有当你看到住头上只从近处才辨认得出的包围着叶饰或栖息着鸟儿的奇异庄严的力量，只有在广场本身亲自体会这低低的建筑，领略沿着整个正面排列的花饰立柱和喜庆的雕饰，它“展览大厅”般的气象，你才能体会到从这些没有任何照片能够捕捉到的次要而关键的特征中爆发出的真实复杂的个性。

【30】
“于是玛丽亚说：‘我的灵魂颂扬主，因主而喜悦，’等等。她的父亲萨迦利亚心中充满圣灵，预言道：‘感谢主，以色列的神，为他所赎回的，’等等。‘他拥抱她，感谢主，说道，“主啊，让你的仆人在平安中离去。’”

【31】
事实上没有实际的证据证明当吟诵者阅读这一段时会唱出圣路可穿插在福音书中的赞美诗。但将勒南，特别是圣保罗、使徒列传、马可·奥勒利乌斯等不同段落进行比较之后，我认为这一点足够强烈地表现了出来。

阅读的日子（二）

1．你大概读过布瓦涅伯爵夫人
【1】

的《回忆录》。眼下有“这许多生病的人”，书籍鲜有读者，即使是女性读者。当一个人无法出去会客时，他可能宁愿在家待客而不是读书。但“在这传染病流行的日子”，即便是在家待客也并非没有危险。比如那位女士在门口停住脚步——只是片刻而已——，在那儿好像给危险设了一个极限，向你喊道：“你不怕腮腺炎或者猩红热吧？我必须警告你我女儿和外孙们生了这病。我能进来吗？”；然后不等回答便进来了。另一位婉转些的女士，掏出表来说：“我得赶快回家；三个女儿都得了麻疹；我得轮流照顾她们；我的英国女仆从昨天起就发高烧病倒了，我很担心该轮到我了，因为起床时我就感到不适。但我总得花力气来看你……”

2．所以你宁肯少去应酬，既然不能总打电话，那就读书吧。读书只是万不得已最后的选择。首先，我们打许多电话。由于我们是孩子，与那神奇的力量玩耍而不为其神秘所动，我们只是发现电话“很方便”，或者，由于我们是被宠坏的孩子，发现它“很不方便”，于是牢骚满腹地翻阅着《费加罗报》，认为电话这魔法工具变得还不够快，有时要花好几分钟的时间才让身边出现那无形却在场的女友，我们早渴望与之交谈的女友，虽然她仍然留在自己桌边，在她居住的遥远城市，在与我们不同的天空下，与此处不同的气候中，在我们一无所知但她即将告诉我们的情形和事务中，突然从百十英里之外前来（她自己还有她沉浸其中的全部氛围），贴着我们的耳朵，在一个我们随心选定的时刻。我们就像童话中的人物，借助巫师的力量，通过看一本书，流几滴眼泪，或者摘几朵花，便能如心中渴盼、魔术般地清晰看到自己的未婚妻出现在身边，虽然她其实仍在远方。

3．为了让这奇迹再次发生，我们只需把嘴唇贴近那神奇的电话板上呼叫——有时得花些时间，我同意——那些警觉的接线女郎，我们每天听到她们的声音却不曾见过她们的面容，她们是我们的守望天使，万般谨慎地守护着令人眩晕的黑暗之门，多亏了她们的全知全能，不在者的面容才能浮现在身边，虽然我们无以得见；我们只需呼叫这些不可见的达纳伊得斯姐妹
【2】

，她们不断地倒空、盛满那些黑暗的声音之壶，相互传给对方，她们是妒嫉的愤怒女神，当我们对女友吐露私情，希望没有人听见的时候，讥讽地对我们呼叫：“我在线上”，这些神秘的暴躁仆人，无情的神灵，电话中的少女！就在那一刻，她们的呼叫响在黑暗中，那里充满了只有我们的双耳才能捕捉到的幻影，一个微弱的声音，抽象的声音——距离消除了——女友的声音在对我们说话。

4．如果那一刻，一个过路人的歌声，自行车的喇叭声，或者远处军乐队的声音从窗口飘入打扰了正在对我们讲话的她，这些声音也同样清晰地响在我们耳畔（就好像要证明她确实在我们身边，还有她周遭的一切，所有敲击着她的耳鼓、分散她注意力的东西）——那些真实的细节，同主题无关，自身毫无作用，但却因而更显必要，因为它们为我们揭示出那奇迹的全部真实性——那些平凡而动人的地方色彩，描绘着从她居处所见的外省的街道和马路，就像诗人在需要使人物栩栩如生并再现其环境时所选择的一样。

5．正是她，正是她的声音在对我们说话，就在那里。但那是多么遥远啊！有多少次我能够做到聆听她的声音而不深感痛苦，就好像对于那声音如此贴近我双耳的人，面临着没有长时间的旅行便不可能相见的事实，我更加清晰地感到这仿佛最甜蜜的相依是多么令人失望，我们同我们的所爱距离是多么遥远，就在我们似乎只须伸出双手就能将之挽留的时刻。真实的此在——这如此接近的声音——却处于实际的分离。但同时也是长久分离的预兆。常常，这样地听着这声音，无法看到从那么遥远的地方对我讲话的人，她的声音好像在从无尽的深渊呼喊，我体会到焦虑之感，它有一天会攫住我，当一个声音就这样传来，孤零零的，独立于我永难再见的身体，在我的耳边呢喃着我渴望拥抱的话语，而它们经过的嘴唇已永远化为灰烬。

6．我说过，在下决心读书之前，我们总是试着继续聊天、打电话，一个又一个地询问电话号码。但有时那夜晚的女儿，话语的信使，无面目的女神，善变的守护神不能或不愿为我们打开那不可见之门，我们所乞求的神秘装聋作哑，印刷术可敬的发明者和热爱印象派作品同时又是汽车手的年轻的亲王——古登堡和瓦格拉姆！［两个巴黎电话局］——被她们不知疲倦地呼叫着，却对她们的请求概不作答；那时，既然我们不能访客，也不愿待客，既然电话女郎无法为我们接通，我们便任自己沉默，我们便开始读书。

7．在几个星期的时间里我们就能读完诺阿伊夫人的一本新诗《炫目》（我不知道这题目会不会保留下来），它甚至胜于她其他的天才作品，如《无数的心》和《岁月之影》，在我看来可媲美《秋叶》或《恶之花》
【3】

。不过我们也可以阅读由R.杜梅耶精彩翻译的巴里
【4】

所著纯净精美的《玛格丽特·奥吉维》，它简单地描述了一个农妇的生活，由她身为诗人的儿子讲述。但是不；一旦听任自己去阅读，我们更愿意选择像布瓦涅夫人的《回忆录》这样的书，它们让我们产生继续访客的幻觉，好像在拜访我们从前无缘得见的客人，因为在路易十六时代我们尚未出生，但他们同你认识的人并无太大区别，因为他们的后代和你的友人，出于对你衰退记忆的感人的善意，仍然保留着同样的名字，仍然叫做：奥东、吉斯兰、尼维隆、维克图尼安、约瑟兰、雷奥诺、阿尔图斯、图克杜阿、阿德奥姆或者雷努夫。这还是些优美的教名，如果对之加以嘲笑你就错了；它们来自如此久远的过去，那不同寻常的光泽中仿佛仍然散发着神秘，就像撰刻在我们教堂的彩色玻璃上那些先知和圣徒的简写名字。日昂这个名字，虽说更像今天的名字，难道不正像用蘸着紫色、群青色或天蓝色的毛笔在一本历书中描出的哥特式字体吗？面对这样的名字，一般人也许会重复那首蒙玛特尔之歌：

布拉冈斯，我们知道这人物！

他必定自傲自大

才有这么个名字！

他难道不能起个和别人一样的名字吗！

8．但诗人如果真诚的话，并不会觉得这有什么好笑，他会注视着这样的名字所揭示的过去，像魏尔兰
【5】

那样回答：

我看到、听到很多东西

在他加洛林王朝
【6】

时代的名字里

9．那也许曾经非同寻常的过去。我愿意相信，这些极少数多亏了一些家族对传统的重视而流传至今的名字在过去都是很普通的——无论是农奴还是贵族——于是，透过这些名字为我们展示的幻灯片般的天真色彩，我们看到的不仅是蓝胡子的威严主人或塔楼中的安娜嬷嬷，还有躬身在成熟中的草地上的农民或驱马在十三世纪尘土飞扬的马路上的士兵。

10．无疑，这些名字所带来的中世纪的印象常常在不曾保有亦不解其诗意的拥有它们的人身上湮灭；但我们能够理智地要求人类配得上他们的名字吗，当最美好的东西最难与之匹配，当没有一处风景、城市或河流能够平息它们的名字在我们心头激起的梦幻的渴望时？明智的做法应该是用阅读欧洲王族家谱年鉴或火车时刻表来取代我们所有的社交联络和旅行……

11．十八世纪末到十九世纪初的回忆录，比如布瓦涅夫人的作品，其感人之处在于，它们好像是处在历史的前景，为我们当今毫无美感的生活带来了一种颇为高贵而忧郁的视角。它们使我们轻而易举地将我们在生活中遇到的人——或我们的父母认识的人——看成与回忆录的作者或其中的人物有关，后者也许亲历过法国大革命，看到过玛丽·安托瓦内特
【7】

经过。因此，我们可能见过或认识的人——我们亲眼见过的人——就像全景画的前景中那些真人大小的蜡像一样，踏在真正的草地上，持着从商店里买来的手杖，好像仍然是注视着他们人群中的一员，他们将我们渐渐引向背景画布，通过设计精巧的过渡，显示出三维的生活和现实感。这位原名多斯蒙的布瓦涅夫人告诉我们，她在路易十六和玛丽·安托瓦内特的膝上长大，年少时我常常在舞会上见到她的侄女，年迈的马耶公爵夫人，她亦原名多斯蒙，已年过八十仍神采奕奕，灰色的头发从前额向上梳起，令人想起高等法院法官头戴的卷曲假发。我还记得我的父母常常同布瓦涅夫人的侄子多斯蒙先生共进晚餐，她的回忆录便是为他所写，在他们的文件中我见过他的照片，还有许多他写给他们的信件。所以我自己关于舞会的最早记忆由我父母已不甚清晰但仍真实的叙述之线牵着，通过几乎早已无形的联系与布瓦涅夫人保存下来的回忆相连，她在其中对我们讲述了自己身临其境的最早的社交活动；所有这一切织成一张琐屑但诗意盎然的网，它像梦境般终结，如同一座纤细的桥梁飞架于现在和已然远去的过去之间，将生活与历史相连，使历史充满生机，而生活几乎成为历史性的。

12．唉，我已经写到报纸第三栏的篇幅，却尚未开始我的文章。文章题目本该是《虚荣与后世》，但我不能留着这个标题，因为我已填满了为我预留的空白，却只字未提有关虚荣或后世这两位你无疑认为不会再碰面的人物，这尤其是后者的福气，关于他我本想让你听听我受布瓦涅夫人回忆录的启发得出的思考。那只能等到下次了。那时，如果不断出现在我的思想和其目标之间的幻影又像在梦中一样前来干扰我的注意力，让我分心，我会将其推开，就像尤利西斯
【8】

用宝剑推开拥挤在身边向他乞求人形或得以埋葬的影子们。

13．而今天我无力抗拒这些幻相的诱惑，我看到它们漂浮于半空，在我思想的透明中。我尝试过，但未能像玻璃制作大师那样获得成功，他会在他的幻梦显现之处将其转移并固定，在两种被黑暗的粉色反光所笼罩的液体之间，在半透明的物质里，来自中心的一道道光芒会让它们以为仍然存在于活的思想当中。就像古代雕刻家从海水中攫取的仙女涅瑞伊德
【9】

，她们游弋于浮雕的大理石波浪中，还能够相信自己仍然浸没在大海中。我错了。它再也不会发生。下一次我会与你讨论虚荣与后世，不再跑题。如果有什么不合时宜的想法，什么鲁莽的异想天开的念头想要掺杂进来，再次打断我们，我会立即请它让我们安静：“我们正在谈话，请别切断线路，小姐！”

注释

【1】
Countesse de Boigne（1781—1866），亲历法国路易十六时代至拿破仑倒台，著有著名的《回忆录》。

【2】
Danaids，希腊神话中的50个姐妹，因罪被罚在地狱中永远用筛取水。

【3】
分别为雨果和波德莱尔的诗集。

【4】
James Barrie（1860—1937），英国作家，著名儿童剧《彼得潘》的作者。

【5】
Verlaine（1844—1896），法国诗人。

【6】
8世纪中叶—10世纪统治法兰克王国的封建王朝（751—987）。

【7】
Marie-Antoinette（1755—1793），法王路易十六的王后，死于断头台。

【8】
Ulysses，即希腊神话传说中的奥德修斯，是希腊西部伊塔卡岛之王，曾参加特洛伊战争，随后历经十年艰辛返回家乡。《尤利西斯》为爱尔兰作家詹姆斯·乔伊斯的长篇小说。

【9】
Nereids，希腊神话中海神涅柔斯的50个女儿。

圣伯夫之道
【1】

（节选）

［……］

1．因此在我看来，关于圣伯夫，我有些话自有其重要性，这在当前更多地是借其发挥而不是只论及他本人，而且，通过指出他作为作家和评论家的错误之处，我应该能够就我常常想到的事发表些意见，比如批评应该是什么，艺术是什么。附带地，关于他，就像他经常做的那样，我会以他为借口谈到一些生活的形式……

［……］

2．关于对圣伯夫方法的定义与褒扬，我曾参考过保罗·布尔热
【2】

的文章，因为他的定义简洁，褒扬具有权威性。我还能再引用其他二十个评论家。为理解某人的作品及其天才的特质，他为其撰写心灵的自然史，参考其生平、其家族史及其所有的特殊之处，人们公认这是圣伯夫的独到之处，他本人也这么认为，而且确乎其然。丹纳
【3】

本人便梦想着一部更加系统化、规范化的人类精神的自然史，尽管圣伯夫就种族问题与他有分歧，他对圣伯夫的颂扬却并无异议：“圣伯夫的方法同他的作品一样珍贵。在这点上他是先驱。他将自然史的进程引入了精神史。”

［……］

3．但在艺术中并无创始者或先驱（至少在科学的意义上是如此）。一切存乎个人，每一个体为了自己重新开始艺术或文学的求索；前人的作品并不像在科学中那样构成已知真理，可供后人获利。今天一名天才作家自有其一切要做。他并不比荷马先进许多。

4．但对于那些无法在艺术中找到真实且独立于所有科学的东西的哲学家，他们不得不认为艺术、批评等等就像科学一样，前人必然远远不如后人先进。

5．但何必引用所有那些认为这便是圣伯夫方法论的独到出色之处的名人呢？只需让他自己说话便可。

6．“对我而言，”圣伯夫说，“文学与人及其结构的其他方面并无不同，并且无论如何不可分离……如果想去了解一个人，一个不仅仅是纯粹理智的人，那么用再多不同的方式或从再多不同的视角出发都不为过。直到你就一个作家提出了一系列的问题并找到了答案，哪怕只是悄声为自己回答，你才能肯定掌握了他的整体，即使这些问题似乎与其写作的性质完全无关：他的宗教思想为何？自然界的现象是如何影响着他？他对女人、金钱的态度如何？他是富有还是贫穷？他的饮食规律、日常习惯是什么？他的缺陷或弱点是什么？所有这些问题的答案都不是无关紧要的，如果我们要对一名作者或一本书作出判断的话，只要这书不是单纯的几何论文集，如果这是一部囊括一切的文学作品的话，那就更是如此，等等。”他下意识地终生使用这种方法，并最终勾勒出某种文学植物学的框架……

7．圣伯夫的作品并无深奥之处。他著名的方法论，根据丹纳、保罗·布尔热和众多他人的见解，那使他成为十九世纪无与匹敌的批评大师的方法论——即不将人与其作品分开，认为除非是“纯几何论文集”，我们若想判断一位作家的话就应首先回答那些似乎与其作品无关的问题（他如何为人处世……），收集关于他的所有事实，整理他的所有通信，向所有认识过他的人询问，他们若还活着就去采访他们，若已死去就去阅读所有他们写下的关于他的东西——这种方法论未能认识到任何对自身稍有深层了解便知道的：一本书是另一个自我的产物，无关我们在习惯、交往、缺陷中所展示的自我。如果我们试着在内心重新创造，我们就可能成功地尝试并理解这自我，这深藏内心的自我。这是心灵的努力，别无他途。这是一种真理，每一点一滴都要我们去创造……别过于轻易地以为它会在某个晴朗的早晨以未发表的信件的形式通过邮件来到我们手里，由一位当图书馆员的友人寄来，或者能够从一个熟知作者的人的口中得知。在谈到司汤达
【4】

的作品在几位新一代作家当中所激起的敬仰之情时，圣伯夫说：“请允许我告诉他们，如果我们要清晰且毫无夸张地评判他那相当复杂的思想，我会抛开自己的印象和回忆，去询问在他的全盛时代和刚刚开始写作生涯的时候认识他的人们的意见，去询问梅里美、安培，还有雅克蒙
【5】

对他的看法，假设他还活着的话，简言之，去询问见过他并喜爱过他早期作品的人们。”

8．为什么？司汤达的友人如何能够帮助我们更好地评价他？相反，这很可能构成严重的妨碍。对这些密友来说，创造作品的自我被另一个自我所掩盖，后者可能远逊于许多其他人外在的自我。对这一点最好的验证就是，认识司汤达，收集了所有从“梅里美先生”和“安培先生”那里得来的事实，总之用所有据他所说能使批评家更准确评价一部作品的一切武装了自己之后，圣伯夫这样评价司汤达：“我刚刚读过，或者试着刚刚读过司汤达的小说；坦白地说，令人厌憎。”

［……］

9．他以这两条宝贵的见解作结：“尽管直率地批评贝尔的小说，我倒也不责怪他写了它们……他的小说虽然如此，但并不庸俗。它们就像他的评论，主要为撰写它们的人服务……”还有该文的结语：“说完我们的意见之后，千万不要忘记承认他在为人处事上根本的坦白和可靠。”总而言之，一个大好人。要得出这个结论也许大可不必煞费苦心地多次借晚餐之机或在学院拜会梅里美先生，或者经常“安排安培先生谈话”，而读过这一结论后我们亦不必如圣伯夫那样为晚生后代忧心忡忡了。

［……］

10．圣伯夫似乎从未曾把握灵感或写作活动的特殊性，以及它与其他人、或作家的其他活动迥然不同之处。在孤独的写作活动中，我们赶走那些和他人共用的词语，那些让我们即便在独处时判断事物也会失去自我的词语，我们终于再次与自我面对，寻求倾听并还原我们心灵的真正声音——而他却将写作和交谈混为一谈！

11．虚假的表象让作家的作品显得模糊而外在，却让社交显得深刻而具沉思感。事实上作家向公众展示的是他在孤独中为自己所写，在很大程度上是他自我的产品……一个人在社交中，亦即在谈话中（无论是多么高雅的谈话，而最高雅的也是最糟的，因为它关乎我们的精神生活，从而将之扭曲：福楼拜同他的侄女或钟表匠的交谈便无此危险），或者在为至交亲朋准备的作品，也就是只为吸引极少数人，充其量不过是书面谈话的作品中，所展示的都是十分外在的自我，而不是深层的自我，这深层的自我只有在不去理会他人，也不去理会与他人相识的那个自我时才能被发现，你同他人在一起时它就在一旁等待，你能清晰地感到那才是唯一真实的自我，艺术家最终只为它而活，它如神祗般令艺术家越来越难以离弃，并甘愿为之牺牲生命，那只为它带来荣耀的生命。

［……］

12．不曾看到将作家与名流分裂的鸿沟，不曾理解作家的自我仅仅表现在他的书里，他向社交界人物（即便是面对其他作家，他们只在独处时才重新成为作家，在社交场合便都是社交界人物）所展现的只是他作为名流的一面，不曾明了这一切，圣伯夫便抛出了那著名的，让丹纳、布尔热还有许多其他人纷纷认可的使他一举成名的方法论，其要旨是，为了理解一名诗人或作家，需热切征询那些认识过他、与他常相往来的人，向他们探听诸如他与女人的相处之道等等所有那些恰恰无关诗人真实自我的方方面面。

［……］

13．我们发现圣伯夫相信他所享受的沙龙生活对文学不可或缺，并使之穿越世纪的时光，时而到路易十四的宫廷，时而到督政府的名人圈中，因而……事实上这位全天候创造者常常在星期天亦不休息，取悦好的鉴赏家，驳斥坏的鉴赏家，在每个星期一从中领受名誉的奖赏，他将全部文学看成是一种《月曜日丛谈》，也许有人会再去读它，但它们在当时必定是根据好鉴赏家的意见写成的，为了取悦而顾不得后世如何。他将文学归于时间范畴。［……］文学于他似乎是件时事，取决于人的价值。总之，宁可扮演重要的政治角色而不写作，也不要政治上不得志而去写一部道德的书……等等。因此他与爱默生
【6】

不同，后者说我们必须胸系宇宙，而他却试图纠缠于最偶然之事：政治。

［……］

14．有时我会想，仍可称为圣伯夫最好的东西是否是他的诗。他的诗篇中不再有智力游戏。他不再以无穷无尽的聪明伶俐迂回曲折。神奇而可恶的循环被打破了。不再用散文体说话他便不再撒谎，就好像对他而言，他思想不间断的谎言来自精心雕琢的表达技巧。正如一名被迫用拉丁文表达的学生，不得不放弃修辞，将思想袒呈，圣伯夫发现自己第一次直面现实并获得了直接的感受。［……］至于他自己，他深层的、无意识的、个体的自我，除了拙劣之外几乎别无所长。他频频如此，乃是天性使然。但他的诗虽微不足道却真诚而令人愉快，它们笔法巧妙，有时成功地表达了爱的纯洁，都市里午后的忧伤，回忆的魔力，阅读的激情，多疑老者的惆怅，这些诗——我们感到这是关于他唯一真实的事物——表明，作为批评家，他那浩如烟海、天花乱坠的作品毫无意义——因为不过如此。《月曜日丛谈》，表象而已。这几首小诗才是现实。这是一名批评家的诗，在他所有的作品中只有这些诗能令永恒的天平向他倾斜。

注释

【1】
节选自普鲁斯特批评圣伯夫的著名论著《驳圣伯夫》。

【2】
Paul Bourget（1852—1935），法国小说家、评论家。

【3】
H.A. Taine （1828—1893），法国著名文艺评论家及史学家，名著《艺术哲学》。

【4】
Stendhal（1783—1842），一译斯当达尔，原名昂里·贝尔，法国小说家，代表作为《红与黑》（1830）。

【5】
Mérimée（1803—1870），法国小说家；Ampère（1800—1864），法国作家和历史学家；Jacquemont（1801—1832），法国植物学家，司汤达的朋友。

【6】
Emerson （1803—1882），美国思想家、散文家、诗人。

普鲁斯特解释《在斯万家那边》

［发表于1913年11月］

1．“我即将发表的是全称为《追忆似水年华》的小说中的一卷，《在斯万家那边》。我本想一次全部带来；但分成几卷的作品已不再发表了。就好像我有一幅对现在的寓所来说太大的挂毯，不得不将之剪开。

2．“年轻作家们——我在其他方面倒与他们颇为投契——却与此相反，鼓吹简洁的情节，少量的人物。那并非我的小说观。怎样对你解释呢？你知道有平面几何和立体几何。那么，对于我，小说并不仅只是平面心理，而是时间中的心理。我曾试图分离出时间这不可见的物质，但为此必须进行长久的实验。我希望在我的书的结尾处，某个微不足道的社交事件，比如两个在第一卷中属于完全不同世界的人的婚姻能够表明，时间流逝了，它会呈现出如凡尔赛宫绿锈斑斑的铅制品之美，那是时间将其封存于绿宝石般的外壳之中。

3．“那么，就像你乘着一列沿着弯曲轨道行驶的火车，外面的城市时现于左、时现于右，某个人物在另一个人的眼中会呈现出多个侧面，甚至像是不同而连续的几个人物，这会带来——但只是因此带来——时间流逝的感觉。特定的人物到后来会表现得与在当前这一卷中完全不同，也会异于人们认为他们将要成为的样子，就像生活中常常发生的那样。

4．“这并不是同样的人物在作品进程中会以不同的面貌重新出现，像在巴尔扎克的某些系列中那样，而是，”普鲁斯特先生对我们说，“在单个人物当中某些深刻的、几乎是无意识的印象。

5．“从这个观点来看，”普鲁斯特先生接着说，“我的书也许看起来像是‘无意识小说’的尝试；如果我相信这一点的话我会毫无愧色地称之为‘柏格森式的小说’
【1】

，因为在每一个时代都是如此，文学总是试图将自己——当然是后知后觉——与流行的哲学思潮联系起来。但这么说并不准确，因为主宰我作品的是无意识回忆和有意识回忆之间的区别，这一区别在柏格森先生的哲学中不但不曾出现，而且与之相抵触。”

6．“您如何验证这一区别？”

7．“对我，有意识的回忆首先是理智和视觉的回忆，它仅仅带来过去的一些方面，其中并无真相；但当我们在完全不同的场合再次与一种气息或味道邂逅，不自觉地将过去唤醒，我们便能感到这过去与我们以为还记得的过去是多么不同，后者被我们的有意识回忆用错误的色彩去描绘，就像一个拙劣的画家一样。就在这第一卷里，你会发现自称‘我’（他并不是我）的叙述者突然间，在啜饮着浸过一点儿玛德琳蛋糕的茶水时，重新找回了他久已忘却的年代、花园、人物；无疑他也能有意识地想起它们，但并无其神采；我借他之口说，就像那小小的日本游戏，你把一团团薄薄的纸浸入水碗中，它们便开始伸展、卷曲，形成花朵和人物，同样，他花园里的所有花朵，维弗纳的睡莲，村子里的好人们，他们小小的房子和教堂，还有整个贡布雷及其周遭环境，所有能够产生形状与质地的东西，城镇与花园，都在他的茶杯中浮现。

8．“你看，我相信艺术家唯有求助于无意识回忆才能找到其作品的原材料。首先，正因为它们是无意识的，完全凭自己的心意形成，源于一些同样时刻的相似性，它们本身便带着真实性的标记。其次，它们所带来的事物仍以原来精确的记忆与遗忘的比例呈现。最后，因为它们让我们领略到的是在完全不同的场合下同样的感受，这感受便脱离了偶然性，具有了超时间的本质，而这便是优秀风格的内涵，是唯有风格之美才能揭示的普遍必然的真理。

9．“如果我允许自己这样理性地分析我的书，”普鲁斯特先生接着说道，“那是因为它在任何程度上都不是理性的产物，它最细微的元素均由我的感性带来，我首先从内在自我的深处觉察到它们，并不理解并且很难将它们转变成某种理智的东西，就如同——我该怎么说呢——音乐动机一般与理智世界格格不入。我猜你觉得这一切太高深莫测了。但你放心，正好相反，它是现实。我们无需为自己澄清的东西，早已经明晰的东西（比如逻辑概念），并不真正属于我们，我们甚至不知道它是否真实。它是我们任意选择的‘可能性’的一部分。此外，你知道，你从风格上立刻就能辨别出来。

10．“风格绝非某些人认为的是一种修饰，它甚至不是技术问题，它是——就像画家手中的色彩——视相的特质，是仅我们每个人自己所见、不为他人得见的隐秘宇宙的显现。艺术家为我们带来的愉悦就是引领我们进入另一个宇宙。”

注释

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Bergson（1859—1941），法国哲学家，倡导生命哲学与直觉主义，1927年获诺贝尔文学奖。

Contents

John Ruskin

Days of Reading (Ⅰ)

Days of Reading (Ⅱ)

From The Method of Sainte-Beuve (extracts)

Swann Explained by Proust

返回总目录

Marcel Proust

Days of Reading

TRANSLATED BY JOHN STURROCK

PENGUIN BOOKS — GREAT IDEAS

John Ruskin

1. One by one, like the 'muses leaving their father Apollo to go and bring light to the world', Ruskin's ideas left the godlike head which had borne them and, embodied in living books, went to bring instruction to the nations. Ruskin had withdrawn into the solitude in which prophetic existences often end until it pleases God to call back the cenobite or ascetic whose superhuman task is done. And the mystery which was being fulfilled, the slow destruction of a perishable brain which had harboured an immortal posterity, could only be guessed at, through the veil stretched over it by pious hands.

2. Today death has put mankind in possession of the immense inheritance that Ruskin bequeathed to it. For the man of genius can only give birth to works which will not die by creating them in the image not of the mortal being that he is, but of the exemplum of mankind he bears within him. His thoughts are in some sense lent to him for his lifetime, of which they are the companions. On his death they return to mankind and instruct it. Such as that august family dwelling in the rue de la Rochefoucauld known as the home of Gustave Moreau while he yet lived and since his death as the Musée Gustave Moreau.

3. There has long been a John Ruskin Museum (in Sheffield). Its catalogue is like an epitome of all the arts and all the sciences. Photographs of paintings by the masters are found next to collections of minerals, as in Goethe's house. Like the Ruskin Museum, Ruskin's oeuvre is universal. He sought the truth, he found beauty even in chronological charts and the laws of society. But the logicians having so defined the 'Fine Arts' as to exclude mineralogy as well as political economy, it is only of that part of Ruskin's oeuvre which concerns the 'Fine Arts' as they are generally understood, of Ruskin as aesthetician and art critic, that I shall have to speak here.

4. It was said first of all that he was a realist. And indeed he often reiterated that the artist should apply himself to the pure imitation of nature, 'without rejecting, despising, choosing anything'.

5. But it has been said also that he was an intellectualist for he wrote that the best picture was the one which contained the loftiest ideas. Speaking of the group of children who are amusing themselves sailing toy boats in the foreground of Turner's 'Building of Carthage', he concludes: 'The exquisite choice of this incident, as expression of the ruling passion which was to be the source of the future greatness of the new city ... is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen, it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of colour. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order.' 'In the same way,' adds Milsand, who quotes this passage, 'when he analyses a "Holy Family" by Tintoretto, the feature by which Ruskin recognizes a great master is a ruined wall and the beginnings of some masonry, by means of which the artist gives us symbolically to understand that the birth of Christ was the end of the Jewish economy and the advent of the new alliance. A composition by the same Venetian painter, a "Crucifixion", Ruskin finds to be a masterpiece of painting because the artist has been able, by a seemingly insignificant incident, by introducing a donkey grazing off some palm leaves in the background to Calvary, to state the profound idea that it was Jewish materialism, with its expectation of a purely temporal Messiah and with the disappointment of its hopes at the entry into Jerusalem, that was the source of the hatred unleashed against the Saviour and hence of his death.'

6. It has been said that he did away with the role of imagination in art by giving too large a role to science. Did he not say that: '... every class of rock, earth and cloud, must be known by the painter, with geologic and meteorologic accuracy ... Every geological formation has features peculiar to itself; definite lines of fracture, giving rise to fixed resultant forms of rock and earth; peculiar vegetable products, among which still further distinctions are wrought out by variations of climate and elevation ... [The painter] observes every character of the plant's colour and form ... he seizes on its lines of ... rigidity or repose ... observes its local habits, its love or fear of peculiar places, its nourishment or destruction by particular influences; he associates it in his mind with all the features of the situation it inhabits ... He must render the delicate fissure, and descending curve, and undulating shadow of the mouldering soil with gentle and fine finger like the touch of the rain itself ... The greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas.'

7. But it has been said in return that he ruined science by giving too large a place in it to the imagination. And indeed, one can but think of the simple-minded finalism of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre saying that God has divided melons into slices so as to make them easier for men to eat, when one reads passages such as this: '... God has employed colour in His creation as the unvarying accompaniment of all that is purest, most innocent, and most precious; while for things precious only in material uses, or dangerous, common colours are used ... look at a dove's neck, and compare it with the grey back of a viper ... So again, the crocodile and alligator are grey, but the innocent lizard green and beautiful.'

8. Although it has been said that he reduced art to being merely the vassal of science, since he carried his theory of the work of art seen as giving us facts about the nature of things to the point of declaring that 'a Turner discloses more about the nature of rocks than any academy will ever know,' and that 'a Tintoretto need only let his hand go to reveal a multitude of truths about the play of the muscles which will confound all of the world's anatomists,' it has been said also that he humbled science before art.

9. It has been said lastly that he was a pure aesthetician and that his one religion was that of Beauty, because he in fact loved it throughout his life.

10. But it has been said on the other hand that he was not even an artist, because into his appreciation of beauty he intruded considerations that were perhaps higher but were certainly alien to aesthetics. The first chapter of The Seven Lamps of Architecture lays down that the architect should use the most precious and durable materials, an obligation made to derive from the sacrifice ofJesus and the permanent conditions of that sacrifice agreeable to God, conditions we have no call to think have been modified, God not having let us know explicitly that they have been. And here is one of his arguments in Modern Painters, in order to settle the question of knowing who is right between the supporters of colour and the adepts of chiaroscuro: '... but take a wider view of nature, and compare generally rainbows, sunrises, roses, violets, butterflies, birds, gold-fish, rubies, opals, and corals, with alligators, hippopotami, ... sharks, slugs, bones, fungi, fogs, and corrupting, stinging, destroying things in general, and you will feel then how the question stands between the colourists and the chiaroscurists,—which of them have nature and life on their side, and which have sin and death.'

11. And because so many contrary things have been said about Ruskin, the conclusion is that he was contradictory.

12. Of all these aspects of Ruskin's physiognomy, the one we are most familiar with, because it is the one of which we possess, if I may so put it, the most painstaking and successful, the most striking and widely known portrait, is the Ruskin who throughout his life knew of only one religion: that of Beauty.

13. It may be the literal truth that the worship of Beauty was the perpetual activity of Ruskin's life; but I adjudge that the object of that life, its deep, secret and constant intention, was other, and if I say so it is not in order to go against the system of M. de la Sizeranne, but to prevent his being depreciated in readers' minds by an interpretation which is false but natural and as if inevitable.

14. Not only was Ruskin's principal religion religion as such (I shall return to this point in a moment, because it dominates and characterizes his aesthetic), but to remain for the present with his 'Religion of Beauty', our own age must be warned that, if it wishes to refer truthfully to Ruskin, it cannot utter these words without emending the sense which its aesthetic dilettantism is too inclined to lend to them. In fact, for an age of dilettantes and aesthetes, a worshipper of Beauty is a man who, practising no other form of worship but his own, and acknowledging no other god but it, must spend his life in the enjoyment afforded by the voluptuous contemplation of works of art.

15. But, for reasons the wholly metaphysical search for which would go beyond a mere essay on art, Beauty cannot be loved in a fruitful manner if one loves it simply for the pleasures it affords. And just as to seek for happiness for its own sake leads only to tedium, and to find it one must seek for something other than it, so aesthetic pleasure is given to us in addition if we love Beauty for its own sake, as something real existing outside of ourselves and infinitely more important than the joy it affords us. Very far from being a dilettante or an aesthete, Ruskin was the precise opposite, one of those Carlyle-like men warned by their genius of the vanity of all pleasure and at the same time of the presence close beside them of a timeless reality, intuitively perceived by their inspiration. Their talent is given to them as an ability to capture this omnipotent and timeless reality, to which they dedicate, enthusiastically and as if in obedience to a command from their conscience, their fleeting lifetimes, in order to endow them with value. Such men, attentive and anxious, faced by a universe needing to be deciphered, are warned as to those elements of reality on which their special gifts will shed a peculiar light for them, by a sort of demon who guides them, of a voice that they can hear, the timeless inspiration of beings of genius. Ruskin's special gift was the sense of Beauty, in nature as in art. It was in Beauty that his temperament led him to seek for reality, and hence his wholly religious life was spent wholly aesthetically. But he did not conceive of the Beauty to which he thus found himself devoting his life as an object of enjoyment designed to attract him, but as a reality infinitely more important than life itself, for which he would have given his own life. You will see Ruskin's aesthetic follow from this. You must understand first of all that the years in which he came to know a new school of architecture or of painting may have been the principal landmarks of his moral life. He can speak of the years when the Gothic made its appearance for him with the same gravity, the same recurrence of emotion, the same serenity as a Christian speaks of the day when the truth was revealed to him. The events of his life were intellectual ones and its important landmarks those when he penetrated into a new form of art, the year when he understood Abbeville, the year when he understood Rouen, the day when the painting of Titian and the shadows in Titian's painting seemed nobler to him than the painting of Rubens and the shadows in Rubens's painting.

16. You must understand next that the poet being for Ruskin, as for Carlyle, a sort of scribe writing down at nature's dictation a more or less important part of her secret, the artist's first duty is to add nothing of his own pressing to this message from God. From which height the complaints of realism as well as of intellectualism directed at Ruskin can be seen to evaporate, like clouds that hug the ground. If such objections are wide of the mark, it is because they do not aim high enough. Such criticisms mistake the right altitude. The reality which the artist must record is at once material and intellectual. Matter is real because it is an expression of the mind. As for mere appearances, no one was more sardonic than Ruskin about those who see the object of art as being their imitation. 'The simple pleasure in the imitation,' he says, 'would be precisely of the same degree (if the accuracy could be equal), whether the subject of it were the hero or his horse ... we may consider tears as a result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other.' If he attaches such importance to the way things look, this is because it alone reveals their underlying nature. M. de la Sizer-anne has given us an admirable translation of a passage where Ruskin shows that the 'leading' lines of a tree can reveal to us which troublesome trees have pushed it to one side, which winds have tormented it, etc. The configuration of something is not simply the image of its nature, it is the clue to its destiny and the transcript of its history.

17. Another consequence of which conception of art is this: if reality is one and the man of genius he who sees it, what importance does the substance in which he represents it have, be it pictures, statues, symphonies, laws, actions? In his Heroes and Hero-Worship Carlyle makes no distinction between Shakespeare and Cromwell, Mohammed and Burns. Emerson numbers Swedenborg as well as Montaigne among his Representative Men. Where the system goes too far is, because the reality being translated is one, in not distinguishing profoundly enough between the different modes of translation. Carlyle says that it was inevitable that Boccaccio and Petrarch should have been good diplomats because they were good poets. Ruskin commits the same error when he says that 'a painting is beautiful to the extent that the ideas it translates into images are independent of the language of images.' If Ruskin's system errs in any direction, it is in this one, it seems to me. Because painting cannot attain to the unitary reality of things and hence compete with literature, except on condition that it not be literary.

18. If Ruskin promulgated the artist's duty as being scrupulously to obey these 'voices' of his genius which tell him what is real and to be transcribed, it was because he himself had had experience of what was genuine in inspiration, infallible in enthusiasm and fruitful in reverence. Only, although what excites enthusiasm, commands reverence and prompts inspiration be different for each one of us, we each end by attributing to it a more particularly sacred character. It can be said that for Ruskin this revelation, this guide was the Bible.

19. Here let us pause as at a fixed point, at the centre of gravity of Ruskin's aesthetic. Thus it was that his religious sense directed his aesthetic sense. And first, to those who may think that it adulterated it, that into the artistic appreciation of monuments, statues and pictures it introduced religious considerations which had no place there, I shall answer that it was quite the reverse. That something divine which Ruskin sensed deep inside the feeling inspired in him by works of art was precisely what was profound and original about that feeling, which imposed itself on his taste without being susceptible to modification. And the religious reverence that he brought to the expression of this feeling, his fear of subjecting it to the least distortion in translating it, prevented him, contrary to what has often been supposed, from ever introducing into his impressions of works of art any artifice of reasoning that was foreign to them. So that those who see in him a moralist or an apostle loving in art what is not art, are equally as mistaken as those who, ignoring the profound essence of his aesthetic feeling, confuse it with a sensual dilettantism. So that, finally, his religious fervour, which had been the token of his aesthetic sincerity, further reinforced it and shielded it against all interference from without. It is as I see it of no importance that this or that notion of his supernatural aesthetic should be false. All those who have some idea of the laws by which genius develops know that its strength is measured more by the strength of its beliefs than by whatever satisfaction the object of those beliefs may offer to common sense. But since Ruskin's Christianity was of the very essence of his intellectual nature, his artistic preferences, equally profound, had to have some kinship with it. And so, just as his love of Turner's landscapes corresponded in Ruskin to that love of nature which afforded him his greatest joys, so to the fundamentally Christian nature of his thought there corresponded his permanent predilection, which dominated the whole of his life, the whole of his work, for what may be called Christian art: the architecture and sculpture of the French Middle Ages, the architecture, sculpture and painting of the Italian Middle Ages. There is no need to search in his life for evidence of the disinterested passion with which he loved their works, you will find the proof of it in his books. So vast was his experience that very often the most thorough knowledge displayed in one work is neither used nor mentioned, even by way of allusion, in those other of his books where it would be appropriate. Such are his resources that he does not lend us his words; he gives them to us and does not take them back. You know, for example, that he wrote a book on Amiens cathedral. From which you might conclude that that was the cathedral he loved the most and knew the best. Yet in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, where Rouen cathedral is named forty times as an example, and that of Bayeux nine times, Amiens is not named once. In Val d'Arno, he confesses that the church that made him the most profoundly drunk on Gothic was Saint-Urbain in Troyes. Yet, not once in The Seven Lamps nor in The Bible of Amiens is mention made of Saint-Urbain. So far as the lack of references to Amiens in The Seven Lamps is concerned, perhaps you imagine that he only came to know Amiens at the end of his life? Far from it. In 1859, in a lecture given in Kensington, he compares the Vierge Dorée of Amiens at length with the statues, less skilful as art but more profound in feeling, which appear to be holding up the west porch of Chartres. Yet in The Bible of Amiens, where one might suppose that he had brought together all his thoughts about Amiens, not once, in the pages where he speaks of the Vierge Dorée, does he make reference to the statues of Chartres. Such is the infinite wealth of his love and of his knowledge. Usually, with a writer, the harking back to certain favourite examples, or even the repetition of certain developments, reminds us that we have to deal with a man who had a certain life, particular knowledge which took the place of some other knowledge, and a limited experience from which he drew all the advantage he could. Merely by consulting the index to Ruskin's various books, the constant novelty of the works cited there, and even more the spurning or, very often, abandoning for good of an item of knowledge used only once, give one a sense of something more than human, or rather the impression that each book is by someone new, who has other knowledge, not the same experience, another life.

20. The delightful game he played with his inexhaustible riches was forever to be drawing new treasures out from the wonderful jewel-cases of his memory: one day the precious rose window of Amiens, another day the golden lacework of the porch at Abbeville, and to wed these to the dazzling gems of Italy.

21. He was able indeed to pass from one country to another in this way because the same soul that he had worshipped in the stones of Pisa was that which had also given their immortal form to the stones of Chartres. No one has had his sense of the oneness of the Christian art of the Middle Ages, from the banks of the Somme to the banks of the Arno, and he has realized in our hearts the dream of the great medieval popes for a 'Christian Europe'. If, as has been said, his name has to remain tied to Pre-Raphaelitism, we should understand by that not the one following Turner but that from before Raphael. Today we can forget the services he rendered to Hunt, to Rossetti, to Millais; but we cannot forget what he did for Giotto, for Carpaccio, for Bellini. His godlike task was not to arouse the living but to resurrect the dead.

22. Is this oneness of the Christian art of the Middle Ages not everywhere to be seen in the perspective of those passages in which his imagination here and there illuminates the stones of France with a magical reflection from Italy? A moment ago we saw him in Pleasures of England comparing the Amiens Charity with that of Giotto. In The Nature of Gothic see how he compares the way in which flames are treated in Italian Gothic and in French, where he takes the porch of Saint-Maclou in Rouen for his example. And in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, in connection with this same porch, see how something of the colours of Italy plays over its grey stones.

23. 'The subject of the tympanum bas-relief is the Last Judgement, and the sculpture of the Inferno side is carried out with a degree of power whose fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as a mingling of the minds of Orcagna and Hogarth. The demons are perhaps even more awful than Orcagna's; and, in some of the expressions of debased humanity in its utmost despair, the English painter is at least equalled. Not less wild is the imagination which gives fury and fear even to the placing of the figures. An evil angel, poised on the wing, drives the condemned troops from before the Judgement seat ... but they are urged by him so furiously, that they are driven not merely to the extreme limit of that scene, which the sculptor confined elsewhere within the tympanum, but out of the tympanum and into the niches of the arch; while the flames that follow them, bent by the blast, as it seems, of the angel's wings, rush into the niches also, and burst up through their tracery, the three lowermost niches being represented as all on fire, while, instead of their usual vaulted and ribbed ceiling, there is a demon in the roof of each, with his wings folded over it, grinning down out of the black shadow.'

24. Nor was this parallelism between the different kinds of art and different countries the most profound one he was to insist on. He was to be struck by the identity of certain religious ideas in pagan and Christian symbols. M. Ary Renan has remarked, very profoundly, how much of Christ there is in Gustave Moreau's Prometheus. Ruskin, whose devotion to Christian art never made him contemptuous of paganism, compared in an aesthetic and religious sense the lion of St Jerome with the Nemean lion, Virgil with Dante, Samson with Hercules, Theseus with the Black Prince, the prophecies of Isaiah with the prophecies of the Cumean sibyl. There is no call, certainly, to liken Ruskin to Gustave Moreau, but it can be said that a natural tendency, fostered by their acquaintance with the Primitives, led both to proscribe in art the expression of violent feelings and, in so far as it was applied to the study of symbols, to a certain fetishism in the worship of the symbols themselves, a fetishism that carried few dangers however for minds so fundamentally attached to the feeling symbolized that they could pass from one symbol to another without being detained by mere differences of surface. As for the systematic prohibition of the expression of violent emotion in art, the principle which M. Ary Renan has called the principle of Beautiful Inertia, where can we find it better defined than in the passages on 'The relation of Michaelangelo to Tintoretto'?
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Was it not inevitable that his study of medieval French and Italian art should lead to his somewhat exclusive worship of symbols? And because he was searching, beneath the work of art, for the soul of an age, the resemblance between the symbols of the portal at Chartres and the frescoes of Pisa was bound to affect him as a proof of the originality typical of the spirit by which artists were then inspired, and their differences as evidence of its variety. With anyone else the aesthetic response might have risked being chilled by reasoning. But in him all was love, and iconography, as he understood it, might better have been called iconolatry. At this point, moreover, art criticism gives way to something greater perhaps; its procedures are those almost of science, it is a contribution to history. The appearance in the porches of cathedrals of some new quality informs us of changes no less profound in the history, not only of art but of civilization, as those announced to geologists by the appearance on earth of a new species. The stone sculpted by nature is no more instructive than the stone sculpted by the artist, and we derive no greater profit from that which preserves for us some ancient monster than that which exhibits a new god to us.

25. From this point of view the drawings which accompany Ruskin's writings are highly significant. In the one plate you may find a single architectural motif as treated at Lisieux, Bayeux, Verona and Padua, as if we had to do with the varieties of a single species of butterfly in different climes. But the stones which he so loved never become abstract examples for him. On each stone you can see the nuance of the passing moment joined with the colour of the centuries. '... Rushing down the street to see St Wulfran again,' he tells us, 'before the sun was off the towers, are things to cherish the past for, — to the end.' He went further even; he made no separation between the cathedrals and that background of rivers and valleys against which they appear to the traveller as he approaches, like in a primitive painting. One of his most instructive drawings in this respect is that reproduced in the second engraving of 'Our Fathers have told us' entitled 'Amiens, Jour des Trépassés'. In the towns of Amiens, Abbeville, Beauvais and Rouen, consecrated by Ruskin's stay in them, he spent his time sketching, either in the churches ('without being disturbed by the sacristan') or else in the open air. And what delightful, transient colonies they must have formed in these towns, the troupe of sketchers and engravers whom he took with him, just as Plato shows us the Sophists following Protagoras from town to town, and similar also to the swallows, in imitation of which they would pause for choice on the old roofs and ancient towers of the cathedrals. Perhaps some of these disciples of Ruskin's are still to be met with who accompanied him to the banks of this re-evangelized Somme, as if the days of St Firmin and St Salve had returned, and who, while the new apostle was talking and explicating Amiens like a Bible, made instead of notes drawings, graceful notes the folder of which is doubtless to be found in some English museum room and in which I imagine reality will have been slightly rearranged, in the style of Viollet-le-Duc. The engraving 'Amiens, Jour des Trépassés' seems a little too beautiful to be true. Is it the perspective alone which, from the banks of a widened Somme, brings the cathedral and the church of St Leu so close together? Ruskin it is true might answer us back by repeating on his own account the words of Turner which he quotes in The Eagle's Nest and which M. de la Sizeranne has translated: '... Turner, in his early life, was sometimes good- natured, and would show people what he was about. He was one day making a drawing of Plymouth harbour, with some ships at the distance of a mile or two, seen against the light. Having shown this drawing to a naval officer, the naval officer observed with surprise, and objected with very justifiable indignation, that the ships of the line had no port-holes. "No," said Turner, "certainly not. If you will walk up to Mount Edgecumbe, and look at the ships against the sunset, you will find you can't see the port-holes." "Well, but," said the naval officer, still indignant, "you know the port-holes are there." "Yes," said Turner, "I know that well enough; but my business is to draw what I see, and not what I know is there."'

26. If, when in Amiens, you take the direction of the slaughter-house, you will get a prospect no different from that in the engraving. You will see the distance arrange, in the deceptive but happy manner of an artist, monuments which, if you then draw closer, will resume their earlier, quite different positions; you will see it, for example, inscribe the shape of one of the town's water installations on the façade of the cathedral, and create a plane out of a three-dimensional geometry. But if you nevertheless find this landscape, tastefully composed by your perspective, somewhat different from that recounted by Ruskin's drawing, you may lay the blame above all on the changes brought about in the appearance of the town by the almost twenty years which have elapsed since Ruskin stayed there, and as he himself said of another location which he loved: 'Since I last composed, or meditated there, various improvements have taken place.'

27. But at least this engraving in The Bible of Amiens will have associated the banks of the Somme and the cathedral more closely together in your memory than your eyes no doubt could have done, no matter at what point in the town you had been placed. It will prove to you better than anything I could have said that Ruskin made no separation between the beauty of the cathedrals and the charm of the country out of which they arose, and which everyone who visits them can savour still in the particular poetry of the country and the misty or golden recollection of the afternoon he spent there. Not only is the first chapter of The Bible of Amiens called 'By the Rivers of Waters', but the book that Ruskin planned to write on Chartres cathedral was to be entitled. 'The Springs of Eure'. So it was not only in his drawings that he set churches on the edge of rivers and associated the grandeur of the Gothic cathedrals to the gracefulness of their French settings.
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We would be more keenly alive to the individual charm of a landscape if we did not have at our disposal those seven-league boots which are the great expresses and were obliged, as in the old days, in order to get to some remote spot, to pass through countrysides more and more like that we are making for, like zones of graduated harmony which, by making it less easily penetrable by what is different from itself, and protecting it gently and mysteriously against brotherly resemblances, not only envelop it in nature but also prepare it in our minds.

28. These studies of Ruskin's of Christian art were for him like the verification and counter-proof of his ideas on Christianity and of other ideas I have been unable to indicate here but the most celebrated of which I shall allow Ruskin himself to define in a moment: his horror of machinism and of industrial art. 'All beautiful things were made when the men of the Middle Ages believed in the pure, joyous and beautiful lesson of Christianity.' After that he saw art as having declined along with faith, and dexterity as having taken the place of feeling. When he saw the power to realize beauty that was the privilege of the ages of faith, his belief in the goodness of faith could only grow stronger. Each volume of his last book, Our Fathers Have Told Us (only the first was written), was to have comprised four chapters, the last of them devoted to the masterpiece that was the fruition of the faith whose study had been the aim of the first three chapters. Thus did the Christianity that had been the cradle of Ruskin's aesthetic feeling receive its supreme consecration. And having mocked at his Protestant reader, at the moment when he led her before the statue of the Madonna, 'who must understand that neither Madonna-worship, nor Lady-worship of any sort ... ever did any human creature any harm', or before the statue of St Honoré, after lamenting that this saint was 'little talked of now in his Parisian faubourg', he might have said as at the end of Val d'Arno: 'And if you will fix your minds only on the conditions of human life which the Giver of it demands, "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" you will find that such obedience is always acknowledged by temporal blessing. If, turning from the manifest miseries of cruel ambition, and manifest wanderings of insolent belief, you summon to your thoughts rather the state of unrecorded multitudes, who laboured in silence, and adored in humility, as the snows of Christendom brought memory of the Birth of Christ, or her spring sunshine, of His Resurrection, you may know that the promise of the Bethlehem angels has been literally fulfilled; and will pray that your English fields, joyfully as the banks of Arno, may still dedicate their pure lilies to St Mary of the Flowers.'

29. Finally, Ruskin's medieval studies confirmed, together with his belief in the goodness of faith, his belief in the need for work to be free, joyous and personal, without interference from machinism. This you will best understand if I transcribe here a passage highly characteristic of Ruskin. He is talking of a small figure, a few centimetres high, lost amidst hundreds of minuscule figures, in the portal of the Booksellers in Rouen cathedral.

30. '... the fellow is vexed and puzzled in his malice; and his hand is pressed hard on his cheekbone, and the flesh of the cheek is wrinkled under the eye by the pressure. The whole, indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, when it is seen on a scale in which it is naturally compared with delicate figure etchings; but considering it as a mere filling of an interstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and as one of more than three hundred (for in my estimate I did not include the outer pedestals), it proves very noble vitality in the art of the time ...

31. 'We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily: neither is to be done by halves and shifts, but with a will; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart and of the will, and is useless in itself; but, at all events, the little use it has may well be spared if it is not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It does not become our immortality to take an ease inconsistent with its authority, nor to suffer any instruments with which it can dispense, to come between it and the things it rules: and he who would form the creations of his own mind by any other instrument than his own hand, would also, if he might, give grinding organs to Heaven's angels, to make their music easier. There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality enough in human existence, without our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism; and since our life must at the best be but a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel.'

32. I will confess that rereading this passage at the time of Ruskin's death I was seized with a desire to see the little man he speaks of. And I went to Rouen as if in obedience to some testamentary thought, as if in dying Ruskin had somehow entrusted to his readers that poor creature whose life he had restored by speaking of him and who had, without knowing it, just lost for ever someone who had done as much for him as his original sculptor. But when I came close to the immense cathedral, before the door where the saints were warming themselves in the sun, higher up, from the galleries of radiant kings up to the very topmost heights of stone that I supposed to be uninhabited but where, in one place, a sculpted hermit led his isolated life, allowing the birds to dwell on his forehead, while in another a coterie of apostles was listening to the message of an angel who had settled beside them, wings folded, beneath a flock of pigeons that were opening theirs, and not far from a personage who had received a child on his back and was turning his head with a sudden, age-old gesture; when I saw, in rows before its porches or leaning from the balconies of its towers, all these stone guests of the mystical city breathing in the sunshine or the early morning shadows, I realized it would be impossible to find a figure a few centimetres high amidst this superhuman population. I went to the portal of the Booksellers none the less. But how to recognize the little figure among the hundreds of others? Suddenly a young sculptress of talent and of promise, Mme L. Yeatman, said to me: 'Here's one that looks like it.' We looked a little lower down, and ... there it was. It wasn't ten centimetres high. It has been worn away yet its gaze is there still, the stone still has the hole picking out the pupil and lending it the expression by which I recognized it. There, amidst thousands of others, an artist dead centuries before has left this little person who dies a little each day, and who had been dead for a very long time, lost in the midst of that host of others, for ever. But he had set it there. And one day a man for whom there is no death, no infinity of matter, no oblivion, a man who, casting far away from him that annihilation which weighs us down, to pursue ends that dominated his life, so many that he was unable to achieve them all whereas we seem to lack them, this man came, and seeing, in those waves of stone where one jagged crest seemed just like another, all the laws of life, all the soul's thoughts, named them by their names, and said: 'Look, it is this, it is that.' As at the Day of judgement, which is represented not far away, the trumpet of the archangel is to be heard in his words as he says: 'Those who have lived shall live, matter is nothing.' And indeed, like the dead represented not far away in the tympanum, who have been awoken by the archangel's trumpet and have arisen, have resumed their form, are recognizable and alive, so the little figure has come alive again and has recovered its gaze, and the Judge has said: 'Thou hast lived, thou shalt live.' He himself is not an immortal judge and his body will die; but what matter! He carries out his immortal task as if he were not going to die, unconcerned by the size of the object that occupies his time and, though having but one human life to live, he spends several days in front of one of the ten thousand figures on a church. He drew it. For him it corresponded to the ideas stirring in his brain, heedless of approaching old age. He drew it, he spoke of it. And the monstrous, inoffensive little figure was to be resurrected, against all hope, from that death which seems more absolute than others, that disappearance into the midst of an infinite number made anonymous by their resemblance, but out of which genius can quickly draw us also. Rediscovering it there, one could not but be moved. It seems to live and to be gazing, or rather to have been taken by death in the very act of gazing, like those Pompeians whose movements remain suspended. In fact it is the sculptor's idea that has been seized here in its movement by the immobility of the stone. I was touched to rediscover it there; nothing then dies of what has once lived, the sculptor's thought any more than that of Ruskin.

33. Coming upon it there, necessary to Ruskin, who devoted one of the very few engravings illustrating his book to it (The Seven Lamps of Architecture) because for him it was an actual and enduring part of his thought, and pleasing to me because his thought is necessary to me, a guide to my own which met with his along the way, I felt myself to be in a state of mind closer to that of the artists who carved the Last Judgement in the tympanum and who believed that the individual, that which is most particular in a person, in an intention, does not die but remains in the memory of God and will be resurrected. Who is right out of Hamlet and the gravedigger, when the one sees only a skull and the other recalls a fancy? Science may say: the gravedigger; but it reckons without Shakespeare, who will cause the memory of that fancy to endure beyond the dust of the skull. At the angel's summons, each one of the dead is found to be still there, in his place, when we had thought him long since turned to dust. At Ruskin's summons, we find the smallest figure, framing a tiny quatrefoil, resurrected in its form, gazing at us with the same gaze which seems to fit inside no more than a millimetre of stone. No doubt, poor little monster, I would not have been clever enough to find you, amongst the thousands of stones in our towns, to pick out your figure, to rediscover your personality, to summon you, to make you live again. Infinity, numbers, annihilation weigh us down, but it is not that they are so strong; it is that my mind is not very strong. True, there was nothing really beautiful about you. Your poor face, that I would never have noticed, does not have a very interesting expression, although obviously it has, as everyone does, an expression that no one else has ever had. But since you were sufficiently alive to continue to gaze with that same sideways gaze, for Ruskin to notice you and, after he had spoken your name, for his reader to be able to recognize you, are you sufficiently alive now, are you sufficiently loved? One can but think on you with tenderness, unkind though your look be, because you are a living creature, because, through long centuries, you were dead without hope of resurrection and because you have been resurrected. And one of these days perhaps some other person will go to seek you out in your portal, looking fondly on your oblique and spiteful face, now resurrected, because what has come from a human mind can alone one day arrest another mind which, in its turn, has fascinated our own. You were right to remain there, unregarded, crumbling away. You could hope for nothing from matter, in which you were mere nothingness. But the little ones have nothing to fear, nor do the dead. For sometimes the Spirit visits the earth; and as it passes the dead arise, and little forgotten faces recover their gaze to engage that of the living who, for their sake, abandon the living who are not alive and go to seek for life only where the Spirit has shown it to them, in stones which are already dust yet still contain human thought.

34. The man who enveloped the old cathedrals in more love and more joy than is bestowed on them by the sun when it adds its fugitive smile to their centuries-old beauty, cannot, if we understand him aright, have been mistaken. In the world of the spirit it is as in the universe of physics, where the height of a fountain can not exceed the height of the place from which the water has originally descended. The great beauties of literature correspond to something, and in art it is enthusiasm perhaps which is the criterion of truth. If we suppose Ruskin to have sometimes been mistaken, as a critic, in the exact assessment of a work's value, the beauty of his wrong judgement is often of greater interest than that of the work being judged and corresponds to something which may be other than it but no less precious. I do not believe that Ruskin was wrong to say of the 'Beau Dieu of Amiens' that 'no sculpture would satisfy, or ought to satisfy, the hope of any loving soul that has learned to trust in Him; but at the time, it was beyond what till then had been reached in sculptured tenderness,' and M. Huysmans right to call this same Amiens God 'a fop with a sheep's face', but it hardly matters that we should know. Whether or not the 'Beau Dieu of Amiens' is what Ruskin thought it was is of no importance for us. Just as Buffon said that 'all the intellectual beauties to be found (in a beautiful style), all the relations of which it is made up, are so many truths as useful and perhaps more precious for the public mind than those which may constitute the subject-matter,' so the truths making up the beauty of the passages in the Bible about the Beau Dieu of Amiens have value independently of the beauty of the statue, but Ruskin would not have found them had he spoken of it disdainfully, for enthusiasm alone could give him the power to discover them.

35. What it will never be given to us to know perhaps, and what in any case we cannot search for here, is just how faithfully that marvellous soul reflected the universe, and in what tempting and pathetic forms falsehood may, for all that, have insinuated itself into the very heart of his intellectual sincerity. Whatever the answer, he was one of those 'geniuses' of whom even those amongst us who were endowed at birth by the fairies have need if we are to be initiated into the knowledge and love of a new part of Beauty. Much of what is said by our contemporaries in their intellectual exchanges bears his imprint, just as on coins one sees the effigy of the reigning sovereign. In death he continues to enlighten us, like those extinguished stars whose light still reaches us, and it can be said of him what he said when Turner died: 'It is through those eyes, closed for ever in the depths of the grave, that generations yet unborn will see nature.'

36. 'In what tempting and magnificent forms falsehood may have insinuated itself into the very heart of his intellectual sincerity ...' This is what I meant to say: there is a sort of idolatry which no one has defined better than Ruskin himself, in a passage from the Lectures on Art: 'Such I conceive generally, though indeed with good arising out of it, for every great evil brings some good in its backward eddies — such I conceive to have been the deadly function of art in its ministry to what, whether in heathen or Christian lands, and whether in the pageantry of words, or colours, or fair forms, is truly, and in the deep sense, to be called idolatry — the serving with the best of our hearts and minds, some dear or sad fantasy which we have made for ourselves, while we disobey the present call of the Master, who is not dead, and who is not now fainting under His cross, but requiring us to take up ours.'

37. Now it certainly seems that at the basis of Ruskin's work, at the root of his talent, one finds this very idolatry. No doubt he never allowed it completely to overlay — even as an embellishment, — to immobilize, paralyse and finally to kill his intellectual and moral sincerity. In every line he wrote, as at each moment of his life, one senses this need for sincerity struggling against idolatry, proclaiming its vanity and humbling beauty before duty, be it an unaesthetic duty. I shall not take examples of this from his life (which was not like the lives of Racine, or Tolstoy, or Maeterlinck, aesthetic at first and later moral, but one in which morality established its rights from the outset and in the very heart of his aesthetic — without perhaps ever liberating itself as completely as in the lives of the other Masters I have just named). I have no need to recall its stages, for they are quite well known, from the early scruples which he felt at drinking tea while looking at Titians, up until the time when, having swallowed up the five millions left him by his father on his social and philanthropic work, he decided to sell his Turners. But there is a more inward form of dilettantism than the active form (which he had overcome) and the real duel between his idolatry and his sincerity was fought out not at certain moments of his life, or in certain passages in his books, but the whole time, in those deep and secret places, unknown almost to ourselves, where our personality receives images from the imagination, ideas from the intellect and words from the memory, and affirms itself in the ceaseless choices it makes from them and ceaselessly wagers in a sense the destiny of our moral and spiritual lives. I have the impression that in those places the sin of idolatry never ceased to be committed by Ruskin. And at the very moment when he was preaching sincerity he lacked it himself, not in what he said but in the manner in which he said it. The doctrines he was professing were moral and not aesthetic doctrines, yet he chose them for their beauty. And as he did not want to present them as beautiful but as true, he was obliged to lie to himself concerning the nature of the reasons which had led him to adopt them. Hence a compromising with his conscience so unceasing that immoral doctrines sincerely professed might have been less dangerous for the integrity of his mind than these moral doctrines whose affirmation is not wholly sincere, having been dictated by an unacknowledged aesthetic preference. This sin was being committed constantly, in the actual choice of each explanation he gave of a fact, of each judgement he passed on a work, in his actual choice of the words he used — and it finally lent a mendacious attitude to the mind that was constantly giving way to it. So that the reader may be better able to judge the sort of trompe l'oeil which a passage from Ruskin is for anyone, including for Ruskin himself, I shall quote one of those which I find most beautiful yet where this defect is at its most flagrant. You will see that if in theory (in appearance, that is, the content of a writer's ideas being always the appearance, and their form the reality) beauty has been subordinated to the moral sense and to truth, in actual fact truth and the moral sense have been subordinated to the aesthetic sense, and to an aesthetic sense somewhat distorted by these perpetual compromises. The subject is 'The Causes of Venice's Decline'.

38. 'Not in the wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eye or the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength, and those arches arrayed in the colours of the iris. There is a message written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of heaven, — "He shall return to do judgement and justice." The strength of Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had a city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject to violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous rampart, and in the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels taken, which, if we cannot justify, we may sometimes forgive. But the sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the victims of her policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning with the letters of His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and festering guilt, that white dome of St Mark's had uttered in the dead ear of Venice: "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement."

39. Now if Ruskin had been entirely sincere with himself he would not have thought that the crimes of the Venetians had been more inexcusable and more severely punished than those of other men because they possessed a church of multicoloured marble instead of a limestone cathedral, because the Doge's palace was next to St Mark's instead of at the other end of the town, and because in Byzantine churches, instead of being simply represented as in the sculpture of northern churches, the biblical texts of the mosaics are accompanied by lettering forming a quotation from the Gospel or the prophecies. It is none the less true that this passage from The Stones of Venice is of great beauty, even though it is quite difficult to account for the reasons for that beauty. It seems to me to rest on something false and I feel some scruples about yielding to it.

40. Yet there must be some truth in it. There is no altogether false beauty properly speaking, for aesthetic pleasure is that very pleasure which goes with the discovery of a truth. What is quite hard to say is to what order of truth the very keen aesthetic pleasure one gets from reading such a passage can correspond. It is itself mysterious, full at once of images of beauty and of religion like that same church of St Mark's, where all the figures from the Old and New Testaments appear against a background of a sort of splendid darkness and fitful brilliancy. I remember having read it for the first time in St Mark's itself, during an hour of storm and darkness when the mosaics shone with their own material light alone, with an inner, earthly and ancient gold, to which the Venetian sun, which sets even the angels of the campaniles on fire, no longer added anything of itself; the emotion which I felt on reading this passage, amidst all these angels bright against the surrounding gloom, was very strong and yet not perhaps very pure. Just as my joy grew at seeing these beautiful and mysterious figures, yet was tainted by the pleasures of erudition as it were, which I felt as I took in the texts appearing in Byzantine script beside their haloed brows, so the beauty of Ruskin's images was quickened and corrupted by the presumption of his allusions to the sacred texts. A sort of egotistical return into the self is inevitable in these joys, in which erudition mixes with art and where the aesthetic pleasures may become keener but not remain so pure. So perhaps this passage from The Stones of Venice was beautiful above all for affording me precisely those mixed joys I had felt in St Mark's, for it too, like the Byzantine church, had its biblical quotations inscribed beside the images in the mosaic of its style, dazzling amidst the shadows. Did the same not hold for it, moreover, as for the mosaics in St Mark's, whose purpose was to instruct and which laid no great store by their artistic beauty? Today they no longer give us anything except pleasure. Yet the pleasure their didacticism gives the scholar is a selfish one, and the most disinterested pleasure is still that given to the artist by a beauty despised by, or even unknown to those whose one purpose was to educate the people and who gave it to them as something extra.

41. On the last page of The Bible of Amiens, the 'if ... you would care for the promise to you' is an example of the same kind. When, again in The Bible of Amiens, Ruskin ends the section on Egypt by saying: 'She was the Tutress of Moses and the Hostess of Christ,' we can allow the tutress of Moses: certain virtues are required in order to educate. But the fact of having been the 'hostess' of Christ may add beauty to the sentence but can it really come into the reckoning in a reasoned appreciation of the virtues of the Egyptian genius?

42. I have been trying to wrestle here with my most cherished aesthetic impressions, attempting to carry intellectual sincerity to its ultimate and cruellest limits. Do I need to add that if I enter this general caveat, in some sense in the absolute, less about Ruskin's works than about their essential inspiration and the quality of their beauty, he nevertheless remains for me one of the greatest writers of all times and all countries. Rather than seeking to decry a defect peculiar to Ruskin, I have been trying to lay hold in him, as in a 'subject' particularly favourable to such observation, of an infirmity essential to the human mind. Once the reader has understood fully in what this 'idolatry' consists, he will be able to explain to himself the excessive importance that Ruskin attaches in his essays to lettering in works of art (an importance another reason for which I indicated, far too summarily, in my preface), as well as his misuse of the words 'irreverent' or 'insolent': 'mystery which we are not required to unravel, or difficulties which we should be insolent in desiring to solve,' 'let the artist distrust the spirit of choice, it is an insolent spirit,' 'where it is just possible for an irreverent person rather to think the nave narrow than the apse high,' etc., etc. — and the state of mind which they reveal. I was thinking of this idolatry (I was thinking also of the pleasure Ruskin takes in balancing his phrases in an equilibrium which seems rather to impose a symmetrical arrangement on his thought than to receive one from it)
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when I said: 'I do not have to look for the tempting and pathetic forms in which falsehood may have insinuated itself into the very heart of his intellectual sincerity.' But I should, on the contrary, have looked for them and I should be committing that same sin of idolatry were I to continue to shelter behind this essentially Ruskinian formula of reverence. It is not that I fail to recognize the virtues of reverence, it is the very condition of love. But where love ceases, it must never be substituted for it, so enabling us to believe without examination and to admire on trust. Ruskin moreover would have been the first to approve my not according to his writings an infallible authority, since he even refused it to the Holy Scriptures: '... and there is no possibility of attaching the idea of infallible truth to any form of human language ...' But he liked the attitude of 'reverence' which believes it 'insolent to throw light on a mystery'. In order to have done with idolatry and to make yet more certain that no misunderstanding remains concerning it between myself and my reader, I would like to bring on here one of our most justly celebrated contemporaries (as unlike Ruskin in other ways as could be!) who allows this fault to show in his conversation, though not in his books, carried to such an excess that it is easier to recognize and to demonstrate it in his case, with no need any more to strive so hard to magnify it. When he talks he is afflicted — delightfully — with idolatry. Those who have once heard him will find an 'imitation' very crude in which nothing survives of his attractions, but they will know however of whom I wish to speak, whom I am taking here as my example, when I tell them that in the material in which a tragic actress is draped he recognizes admiringly the same stuff as is worn by Death in Gustave Moreau's 'The Young Man and Death', or in the costume of one of his lady friends: 'the very dress and hairstyle worn by the Princesse de Cadignan the day she saw d'Arthez for the first time.' And as he looks at the actress's drapery or at the society woman's dress he is moved by such noble associations and exclaims: 'Quite lovely!' not because the material is lovely, but because it is the material painted by Moreau or described by Balzac and hence forever sacred ... to idolaters. In his bedroom you will find dielytras, either real ones in a vase or painted ones in a mural done by artist friends, because this is the very flower one sees represented in the Madeleine at Vézélay. As for some object that has belonged to Baudelaire, or to Michelet, or to Hugo, that he hedges about with a religious reverence. I savour too profoundly, am even carried away by, the witty improvisations into which our idolater is led and inspired by the particular kind of pleasure he finds in such veneration to wish in the very least to wrangle with him over it.

43. But at the very height of my enjoyment I ask myself whether this incomparable talker — and the listener who lets him go on talking — are not equally guilty of insincerity; whether because a flower (the passion flower) bears on it the instruments of the passion, it is a sacrilege to offer it to someone of another religion, or whether the fact of a house's having been lived in by Balzac (if nothing remains there anyway which might tell us something about him) makes it more beautiful. Ought we really, other than to pay her an aesthetic compliment, to prefer someone because her name is Bathilde, like the heroine of Lucien Leuwen?

44. Mme de Cadignan's costume is a ravishing invention of Balzac's because it gives us an idea of Mme de Cadignan's artistry, and informs us of the impression she wishes to make on d'Arthez and of some of her 'secrets'. But once deprived of the idea it contains, it is no more than a sign deprived of its meaning, that is to say, nothing; and to continue to worship it, to the point of going into ecstasies when one finds it again in real life on the body of a woman, that is true idolatry. This is the favourite intellectual sin of artists, to which very few of them have failed to succumb. Felix culpa! one is tempted to say when one sees how fruitful it has been for them in terms of charming inventions. But they should at least not succumb without a struggle. There is in nature no particular form, however beautiful, which has value except for that portion of the infinite beauty that has been able to embody itself there: not even the apple blossom, not even the blossom of the pink hawthorn. My love for these is infinite and the affliction (hay fever) which proximity to them brings on enables me each spring to give them a proof of that love not within reach of everyone. But even towards them, which are far from literary, far from being linked to any aesthetic tradition, which are not 'the actual flower to be seen in such and such a picture by Tintoret' as Ruskin would say, or such and such a drawing by Leonardo as our contemporary would say (who has revealed to us, among many other things, which everyone now speaks of yet to which no one had paid any regard before him — the drawings in the Accademia in Venice), I shall always beware of an exclusive cult that might attach itself to anything in them other than the delight they afford me, a cult in whose name, by an egotistical return into the self, I might make of them 'my' flowers and take care to honour them by decorating my bedroom with the works of art in which they appear. No, I shall not find a picture more beautiful because the artist has painted a hawthorn in the foreground, although I know of nothing more beautiful than the hawthorn, because I want to remain sincere and I know that a picture's beauty does not depend on the things portrayed in it. I shall not collect images of the hawthorn. I do not venerate the hawthorn, I go to see it and to breathe it in. I have allowed myself this brief incursion — which is not in any way an offensive — on to the ground of contemporary literature because it seemed to me that the features of idolatry there in germ in Ruskin would stand out clearly to the reader when thus magnified, all the more for being so strongly differentiated. I beg our contemporary in any case, should he have recognized himself in this very clumsy pencil sketch, to believe that it was done without malice and that, as I have said, I needed to go to the furthermost limits of sincerity with myself to make this complaint against Ruskin and discover this fragile element in my absolute admiration for him. Now not only is there 'nothing at all dishonourable in sharing with Ruskin', but also I could never find any greater compliment to pay this contemporary than to have addressed the same criticism to his as to Ruskin. I can almost regret having been so discreet as not to name him. For when one is admitted into the presence of Ruskin, be it in the attitude of a donor, solely in order to hold up his book and to help it to be read more attentively, that is not a punishment but an honour.

45. I come back to Ruskin. So 'used' am I to him today that to grasp the evidences, and study the nature of this idolatry, and the slight factitiousness it sometimes adds to the keenest literary pleasures that he affords us, I need to descend deep into my own self. But it must often have shocked me when I was starting to love his books, before gradually closing my eyes to their defects, as happens in any love-affair. Love-affairs with living people may sometimes have a sordid origin which is later purified. A man makes the acquaintance of a woman because she can help him to achieve an end unconnected with herself. Then, once he knows her, he loves her for herself, and unhesitatingly sacrifices to her that end she was merely to have helped him to attain. Thus originally there was something self-interested mixed in with my love for Ruskin's books, a delight in the intellectual profit I was to derive from them. The fact is that, sensing the power and attraction of the very first pages I read, I made an effort not to resist them, not to argue too much with myself, because I felt that if one day the attraction of Ruskin's thought should extend for me over everything he had touched, in short if I became completely enamoured of his thought, the world would be enriched by everything of which I had hitherto been ignorant, by Gothic cathedrals and by any number of pictures in England and in Italy which had not yet awoken in me that desire without which there is never true knowledge. For Ruskin's thought is not like the thought of an Emerson, for example, which is contained in its entirety in a book, something abstract that is, a pure sign of itself. The object to which a thought like Ruskin's is applied and from which it is inseparable, is not immaterial, it is scattered across the surface of the earth. One must go to seek it wherever it is to be found, to Pisa, to Florence, to Venice, to the National Gallery, to Rouen, to Amiens, into the mountains of Switzerland. Such a thought, which has an object other than itself, which has realized itself in space, which is thought no longer infinite and free but limited and subjugated, which is incarnate in bodies of sculpted marble, in snow-covered mountains, in painted faces, is perhaps less godlike than pure thought. But it makes the universe more beautiful for us, or at least certain parts of it, certain named parts, because it has touched them and initiated us into them by forcing us, if we would understand them, to love them.

46. And so indeed it was; the universe suddenly took on for me again an infinite value. And my admiration for Ruskin lent to the things which he had brought me to love so great an importance that they seemed to me charged with a value higher than that of life itself. This was literally so on an occasion when I believed that my days were numbered; I set off for Venice in order, before I died, to approach, to touch, to see embodied, in palaces that were decaying yet still upright, still pink, Ruskin's ideas on the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages. What importance, what reality can a town so special, so localized in time and so particularized in space as Venice have in the eyes of someone about to take leave of the earth, and how could the theories of domestic architecture that I might study there and verify from living examples, be amongst those 'truths which dominate death, which keep us from fearing it and cause us almost to love it' (Renan)? The power of genius is to make us love a beauty we feel to be more real than ourselves, in those things which in the eyes of others are as particular and as perishable as ourselves.

47. The poet's 'I shall say they are beautiful once your eyes have said so' is not very true, if the eyes in question are those of the beloved. In a certain sense and whatever splendid compensations, on this same ground of poetry, it may be preparing for us, love depoeticizes nature. To the man in love the earth is nothing more than 'the carpet for the lovely child's feet' of his mistress, nature nothing more than 'her temple'. That love which uncovers so many profound psychological truths for us, excludes us on the other hand from the poetic feeling for nature, because it puts us into selfish frames of mind (love is at the highest point along the scale of selfishness, but it is still selfish) in which the poetic feeling occurs only with difficulty. Admiration for someone's thought, on the contrary, causes beauty to arise at every step because it is constantly awakening the desire for it. The mediocre usually imagine that to let ourselves be guided by the books we admire robs our faculty of judgement of part of its independence. 'What can it matter to you what Ruskin feels: feel for yourself.' Such a view rests on a psychological error which will be discounted by all those who have thus accepted a spiritual discipline and feel thereby that their power of understanding and of feeling is infinitely enhanced, and their critical sense never paralysed. Then we are simply in a state of grace in which all our faculties, our critical sense as much as the others, are enhanced. And so this voluntary servitude is the beginning of freedom. There is no better way of coming to be aware of what feels oneself than by trying to recreate in oneself what a master has felt. In this profound effort it is our thought itself that we bring out into the light, together with his. We are free in life but only if we have an aim: the sophism of an indifferent freedom was exposed long ago. Those writers who are forever emptying their minds, thinking to rid them of all outside influence so as to be quite sure of remaining personal, are obeying, unknowingly, a sophism equally as naive. In point of fact, the only occasions when we can truly call on the full power of our minds are those when we do not believe we are acting independently, when we do not choose an arbitrary objective for our endeavours. The theme of the novelist, the vision of the poet, the truth of the philosopher, impose themselves on them in an almost necessary way, externally to their minds so to speak. And it is by submitting his mind to the conveying of that vision, to the approximation to that truth, that the artist becomes truly himself.

48. But in speaking of the passion, somewhat artificial to start with but later so very profound, which I had for Ruskin's thought, I speak by the light of memory and of a memory which recalls only the facts 'but can repossess nothing of the deep past'. It is only when certain periods of our lives are forever closed, when, even at those times when we seem to have been granted the power and the freedom, we are forbidden to reopen the doors to them by stealth, when we are incapable of reverting even for an instant to the state in which we were for so long, only then do we refuse to accept that such things should have been entirely abolished. We can no longer sing of them, having failed to heed Goethe's wise admonition, that there is no poetry but in the things one can still feel. But if we are unable to relight the fires of the past, we would like at least to gather up their ashes. For want of a resurrection of which we are no longer capable, we would like at least, with the frozen memory we have preserved of these things — the memory of the facts which tells us: 'you were this or that' without enabling us to become it again, which affirms the reality of a paradise lost instead of restoring it to us in memory, — to describe it and to constitute the knowledge of it. It is when Ruskin is far away from us that we translate his books and try to capture the characteristics of his thought in a close likeness. And so it is not the accents of our faith or of our love that you will come to know, but our piety alone that you will perceive here and there, stealthy and impassive, busied, like the Theban virgin, on the restoration of a tomb.

Notes

【1】
1. Similarly in Val d'Arno, the lion of St Mark is the direct descendant of the lion of Nemea, and its plumed crest is the one to be seen on the head of the Hercules of Camarina, with the difference pointed out elsewhere in the same book 'that Herakles kills the beast and makes a helmet and cloak of its skin; the Greek St Mark converts the beast and makes an evangelist of him.' [Val d'Arno, 8, cciii.]

It is not in order to find another sacred lineage for the lion of Nemea that I have quoted this passage, but to emphasize the whole idea of the end of this chapter in The Bible of Amiens, 'that there is a Sacred classical art'. Ruskin did not want (Val d'Arno) Greek to be contrasted with Christian but with the Gothic, 'because St Mark is Greek like Herakles'. We touch here on one of Ruskin's most important ideas, or more accurately on one of the most original sentiments he brought to the contemplation and study of Greek and Christian works of art, to convey which fully it is necessary to quote a passage from St Mark's Rest which is, in my opinion, one of those where there emerges the most clearly anywhere in Ruskin, where that particular attitude of mind can most easily be seen at work which led him to pay no heed to the advent of Christianity, to recognize a Christian beauty already in the works of paganism and to trace the persistence of a Hellenic ideal into the works of the Middle Ages. It is quite certain that this attitude of mind, wholly aesthetic in my view, at least logically in its essence if not chronologically in its origins, became systematized in Ruskin's mind and that he extended it into his historical and religious criticism. But even when Ruskin is comparing Greek royalty with Frankish (Val d'Arno, chapter on 'Franchise'), or when he is declaring in The Bible of Amiens that 'Christianity brought no great alteration to the ideal of virtue and of human happiness,' or when he speaks as we have seen on the preceding page of the religion of Horace, all he is doing is to draw theoretical conclusions from the aesthetic pleasures he had felt on rediscovering a canephoros in a Herodias, a Harpy in a cherub, a Greek vase in a Byzantine dome. Here is the passage in St Mark's Rest: 'And this is true, not of Byzantine art only, but of all Greek art ... Let us leave, today ... the word "Byzantine". There is but one Greek school, from Homer's day down to the Doge Selvo's; and these St Mark's mosaics are as truly wrought in the power of Daedalus, with the Greek constructive instinct ... as ever chest of Cypselus or shaft of Erectheum.'

Then Ruskin enters the baptistery of St Mark's and says: 'Over the door is Herod's feast. Herodias's daughter dances with John the Baptist's head in the charger, on her head, — simply the translation of any Greek maid on a Greek vase, bearing a pitcher of water on her head ... Pass on now into the further chapel under the darker dome. Darker, and very dark; — to my old eyes scarcely decipherable, to yours, if young and bright, it should be beautiful, for it is indeed the origin of all those golden-domed backgrounds of Bellini, and Cima, and Carpaccio; itself a Greek vase, but with new Gods. That ten-winged cherub in the recess of it, behind the altar, has written on the circle on its breast, "Fulness of Wisdom". It is the type of the Breath of the Spirit. But it was once a Greek Harpy, and its wasted limbs remain scarcely yet clothed with flesh from the claws of birds that they were ... Above, Christ himself ascends, home in a whirlwind of angels; and, as the vaults of Bellini and Carpaccio are only the amplification of the Harpy vault, so the Paradise of Tintoret is only the final fulfilment of the thought in this narrow cupola ... there is no question but that these mosaics are not earlier than the thirteenth century. And yet they are still absolutely Greek in all modes of thought and forms of tradition. The Fountains of fire and water are merely forms of the Chimera and the Peirene; and the maid dancing, though a princess of the thirteenth century in sleeves of ermine, is yet the phantom of some sweet water-carrier from an Arcadian spring.' [St Mark's Rest, 92, et seq. The quotations are not continuous.] Cf., when Ruskin says: 'I am alone, as I believe, in thinking still with Herodotus.' Anyone of a mind sufficiently discerning to be struck by the features characteristic of a writer's physiognomy, and who does not hold where Ruskin is concerned to everything he may have been told, that he was a prophet, a seer, a Protestant and other things which mean very little, will feel that such features, though certainly secondary, are yet very 'Ruskinian'. Ruskin lives in a sort of brotherhood with all the great minds of every age, and since he is interested in them only to the extent that they are able to answer the eternal questions, for him there are no ancients or modems and he can talk of Herodotus as he would of a contemporary. As the ancients have no value for him except in so far as they are 'of the present day', and can serve as illustrations for our daily meditations, he does not treat them at all as ancients. And so all those of their words which have not been rejected as obsolete and are no longer seen as relating to a given epoch, have a greater importance for him, and preserve in some sense the scientific value they may once have had but of which time had deprived them. From the manner in which Horace speaks of the spring of Bandusia, Ruskin deduces that he was pious, 'in Milton's fashion'. And even at the age of eleven, learning the odes of Anacreon for pleasure, he learnt from them 'with certainty, what in later study of Greek art it proved extremely advantageous to me to know, that the Greeks liked doves, swallows, and roses just as well as I did.' [Praeterita, lxxxi.] Obviously for an Emerson 'culture' has the same value. But without even pausing over the differences, which are profound, let us note first of all, to stress those features peculiar to the physiognomy of Ruskin, that because he saw no distinction between science and art he speaks of the ancients as scientists with the same reverence as of the ancients as artists. When it comes to discoveries in natural history he invokes the 104th psalm, falls in with the view of Herodotus (readily opposing it to the opinion of a contemporary scientist) on a question of religious history, and admires one of Carpaccio's paintings as an important contribution to the descriptive history of parrots (St Mark's Rest: 'The Shrine of the Slaves'). Obviously we should soon join up again here with the idea of a classical sacred art, 'there is only one Greek art, St Jerome and Herakles, etc.', each one of these ideas leading to the rest. But for the time being we still only have a Ruskin deeply attached to his library, making no distinction between science and art, believing in consequence that a scientific theory may remain true just as a work of art may remain beautiful (this idea he never expresses explicitly, but secretly it governs all the others and alone can have made them possible), and going to an ode from antiquity or a medieval bas-relief for facts of natural history or of critical philosophy, convinced that all the sages from every age and every country are better worth consulting than the fools, be they contemporary. This inclination is of course held in check by a critical sense so right that we can have full confidence in him, and he exaggerates it only for the pleasure of making little jokes about 'thirteenth-century entomology' etc., etc.

【2】
2. What an interesting collection might be made of French landscapes as seen through English eyes: the rivers of France by Turner; Bonington's 'Versailles'; Walter Pater's 'Auxerre' or 'Valenciennes', 'Vézélay' or 'Amiens'; Stevenson's 'Fontainebleau'; and how many more!

【3】
3. I do not have the time today to make myself clear concerning this failing, but I fancy that through my translation, however flat it may be, the reader may be able to see, as through the thick but abruptly illuminated glass of a fish-tank, the rapid but perceptible snatching away of the thought by the phrase, and the instant wasting which the thought suffers.

Days of Reading (Ⅰ)

1. There are no days of my childhood which I lived so fully perhaps as those I thought I had left behind without living them, those I spent with a favourite book. Everything which, it seemed, filled them for others, but which I pushed aside as a vulgar impediment to a heavenly pleasure: the game for which a friend came to fetch me at the most interesting passage, the troublesome bee or shaft of sunlight which forced me to look up from the page or to change my position, the provisions for tea which I had been made to bring and which I had left beside me on the seat, untouched, while, above my head, the sun was declining in strength in the blue sky, the dinner for which I had had to return home and during which my one thought was to go upstairs straight away afterwards, and finish the rest of the chapter: reading should have prevented me from seeing all this as anything except importunity, but, on the contrary, so sweet is the memory it engraved in me (and so much more precious in my present estimation than what I then read so lovingly) that if still, today, I chance to leaf through these books from the past, it is simply as the only calendars I have preserved of those bygone days, and in the hope of finding reflected in their pages the houses and the ponds which no longer exist.

2. Who cannot recall, as I can, the reading they did in the holidays, which one would conceal successively in all those hours of the day peaceful and inviolable enough to be able to afford it refuge. In the mornings, after returning from the park, when everyone had gone out for a walk, I would slip into the dining-room, where no one would be coming until the still distant hour for lunch except for the old, relatively silent Félicie, and where I would have for my sole companions, most respectful of reading, the painted plates hanging on the wall, the calendar from which the previous day's page had been newly torn, the clock and the fire, which speak but without demanding that one answer them and whose quiet remarks are void of meaning and do not, unlike human speech, substitute a different meaning for that of the words you are reading. I would settle myself on a chair, near the small log fire of which, during lunch, my early rising uncle, the gardener, would say: 'That doesn't do any harm! I can put up with a bit of fire; it was jolly cold in the vegetable garden at six o'clock I can assure you. And to think it's only a week to Easter!' Before lunch, which would, alas, put a stop to my reading, lay two whole hours. From time to time one heard the sound of the pump, from which the water was about to flow, causing one to look up and gaze at it through the closed window, close by on the little garden's solitary path that edged its beds of pansies with bricks and half-moons of pottery: pansies gathered so it seemed in those too beautiful skies, those versicoloured skies that were as if reflected from the stained-glass of the church sometimes to be seen between the roofs of the village, the sad skies that appeared before a storm, or afterwards, too late, when the day was about to end. Unfortunately, the cook would come in well ahead of time to set the table; if only she had set it without speaking! But she felt it her duty to say: 'You're not comfortable like that; supposing I move the table nearer?' And merely to reply: 'No, thank you,' one had to stop one's voice dead and bring it back from far away, that voice which, inside one's lips, had been noiselessly repeating, fluently, all the words one's eyes had been reading; one had to stop it, to bring it out, and, in order to say an appropriate 'No, thank you,' to give it a semblance of ordinary life, the intonation of a reply, which it had lost. Time was passing; often there would start to arrive in the dining-room, long before lunch, those who had felt tired and had cut short their walk, had 'taken the Méréglise way' or those who had not gone out that morning, having some 'writing to do'. They would say, admittedly: 'I don't want to disturb you,' but would at once start to approach the fire, to look at the time, to declare that lunch would not be unwelcome. Whoever had 'stayed in to write' was met with a particular deference and they would say to him or her: 'You've been keeping up your little correspondence' with a smile into which there entered respect, mystery, ribaldry and circumspection, as if this 'little correspondence' were at once a state secret, a prerogative, an amorous liaison and an indisposition. Some could wait no longer and would take their places at the table, ahead of time. This was heartbreaking because it would set a bad example to the other arrivals, would make them think it was already midday and bring from my parents all too soon the fatal words: 'Come on, close your book, we're going to have lunch.' Everything was ready, the places were fully laid on the table-cloth, where all that was missing was what was only brought in at the end of the meal, the glass device in which my uncle, the horticulturalist and cook, himself made the coffee at the table, tubular and complicated like some piece of physics apparatus that smelt good and in which it was most agreeable to watch the sudden ebullition rise into the glass dome and then leave its fragrant brown ash on the steamed-up sides; as well as the cream and the strawberries which this same uncle would mix, always in identical proportions, stopping precisely at the pink colour that he required, with the experience of a colourist and the instinctive foresight of a gourmand. How long lunch seemed to last! My great-aunt did no more than sample the dishes so as to give her opinion with a quietness which would tolerate but not admit contradiction. Over a novel, or a poem, things she was an expert in, she always deferred, with a woman's humility, to the opinion of those more competent. She believed that to be the fluctuating domain of caprice in which the preference of an individual is unable to establish the truth. But over things the rules and principles of which had been taught her by her mother, the way of cooking certain dishes, of playing Beethoven sonatas, or of entertaining graciously, she was sure she knew what a proper perfection was and could tell how close or not others had come to it. In these three things, what is more, perfection was almost the same: a sort of simplicity of means, of sobriety and of charm. She rejected with horror the addition of seasonings to dishes that did not absolutely require them, that one should play affectedly or with too much pedal, that when 'entertaining' one should be other than perfectly natural or talk overmuch about oneself. From the very first mouthful, the first notes, a simple invitation, she would claim to know whether she had to deal with a good cook, a genuine musician, a woman who had been well brought up. 'She may have many more fingers than I do, but she has no taste to play that very simple andante with so much emphasis.' 'She may be a very brilliant woman full of good qualities, but it is wanting in tact to talk about oneself in such circumstances.' 'She maybe a very knowledgeable cook, but she doesn't know how to do a bifteck aux pommes.' A bifteck aux pommes, the ideal competition piece, difficult by its very simplicity, a sort of Pathetic Sonata of cooking, a gastronomic equivalent of, in social life, the visit of the lady who has come to ask you to tell her about a servant yet who, in this simple act, is able to display, or to lack, so much tact and education. Such was my grandfather's amour propre that he would have liked all the dishes to be a success, but so ill-informed was he about cooking that he never knew when they had failed. He was quite willing to admit on occasions that they had, but very rarely and only on purely accidental grounds. My great-aunt's always justified criticisms, implying on the contrary that the cook had not known how to make a certain dish, could not fail to seem especially intolerable to my grandfather. Often, to avoid arguing with him, my great-aunt, after merely brushing it with her lips, would then withhold her opinion, which at once let us know that it was unfavourable. She remained silent, but in her kindly eyes we could read an unshakeable and meditated disapproval, which had the gift of driving my grandfather into a fury. He would beg her ironically to give her opinion, grow impatient at her silence, press her with questions, lose his temper, but one sensed that she would have accepted martyrdom rather than be made to confess what my grandfather believed: that the dessert had not been over-sweetened.

3. After lunch, my reading resumed straight away; especially if the day was at all warm, everyone withdrew upstairs into their bedrooms, which enabled me at once to gain my own, up the little flight of close-set stairs, on the solitary upper storey, so low that once astride the windowsill a child might have jumped down into the street. I would go to close my window without having been able to escape the greeting of the gunsmith opposite who, on the pretext of lowering his awnings, came every day after lunch to smoke his pipe in front of his doorway and to say good-afternoon to the passers-by, who would sometimes stop to converse. The theories of William Morris, applied so consistently by Maple and the English interior designers, decree that a bedroom is beautiful solely on condition that it contain only objects that are useful to us and that any useful object, be it a simple nail, should be not concealed but showing. Above the slatted and completely uncovered brass bedstead, on the bare walls of these hygienic bedrooms, a few reproductions of masterpieces. Judged by the principles of which aesthetic, my own bedroom was in no way beautiful, for it was full of objects that could serve no purpose and which modestly concealed, to the extent of making it extremely hard to use them, those which did serve a purpose. But for me it was from these very objects which were not there for my convenience, but seemed to have come for their own pleasure, that my bedroom derived its beauty. The tall white curtains which hid from view the bed, set back as if in a sanctuary; the scattering of marceline quilts, flowered counterpanes, embroidered bedspreads, and batiste pillow-slips beneath which it disappeared during the day, like an altar beneath its flowers and festoons in the month of Mary, and which, in the evening, so that I could get into bed, I would lay cautiously down on an armchair where they consented to spend the night; beside the bed, the trinity of the glass with its blue designs, the matching sugar bowl and the water-jug (empty ever since the day following my arrival on the orders of my aunt, who was afraid to have me 'upsetting' it), like the implements of some religion — almost as holy as the precious orange-blossom liqueur sitting next to them in a glass phial — which I would no more have thought myself permitted to profane or even possible to make use of for my own personal ends than if they had been consecrated ciboria, but which I contemplated at length before getting undressed, for fear of upsetting them by some false movement; the little crochet-work stoles which cast a mantle of white roses over the backs of the armchairs and which cannot have been thornless because, whenever I had finished reading and tried to stand up, I noticed I was still hooked on to them; the glass dome beneath which, immured from vulgar contact, the clock chattered intimately away for the seashells brought from afar and for an old sentimental flower, but which was so heavy to lift up that when the clock stopped, no one, except the clockmaker, would have been rash enough to undertake to rewind it; the white point-lace cloth which had been thrown like an altar-covering over the commode decorated with two vases, a picture of the Saviour and a palm-frond, making it look like the Communion Table (the evocation of which was completed by a prie-dieu, put away there every day when the bedroom was 'done'), but whose frayed ends were perpetually catching in the cracks of the drawers and stopping them so completely from working that I could never take out a handkerchief without all at once bringing down the picture of the Saviour, the holy vases, and the palm-frond, and without myself stumbling and holding on to the prie-dieu; the triple thickness finally of thin butter-cloth curtains, heavy muslin curtains and still heavier damask curtains, always cheerful and white as the mayblossom and often with the sun on them, yet fundamentally most annoying in the clumsy, obstinate way they moved around their parallel wooden rods and became caught one in the other and all of them together in the window the moment I wanted to open or close it, a second one being ever ready, if I had succeeded in freeing a first, immediately to take its place in the joins, which they stopped up as completely as a real hawthorn bush might have done or the nests of swallows that had taken it into their heads to build there, with the result that I could never manage this apparently very simple operation, of opening or closing my casement, without help from a member of the household; all these objects which not only could not answer to any of my needs but which actually placed an obstacle, albeit slight, in the way of their satisfaction, and which had obviously never been put there to be useful to anyone, peopled my bedroom with thoughts that were somehow personal, with that air of predilection of having chosen to live and enjoy themselves there which trees often have in a clearing, or flowers by the roadside or on old walls. They filled it with a diverse and silent life, with a mystery in which my person was at once lost and entranced; they made that bedroom into a sort of chapel where the sunshine — once it had passed through the little panes of red glass which my uncle had inserted into the tops of the windows, — after turning the mayblossom of the curtains to pink, speckled the walls with glimmerings as strange as if the little chapel had been enclosed within a larger nave of stained-glass; and where the sound of the bells reached one so resonantly, our house being close to the church, to which we were joined moreover, on high feast-days, by the floral way of the altars of rest, that I could fancy that they were being rung in our own roof, just above the window from which I would often greet the priest with his breviary, or my aunt on her way back from vespers, or the choirboy bringing us consecrated bread. As for the photograph by Brown of Botticelli's 'Spring' or the cast of the 'Unknown Woman' from the museum in Lille, which were William Morris's concession to a useless beauty on the walls and mantelpieces of Maple's bedrooms, I have to confess that in my bedroom they had been replaced by a sort of engraving showing Prince Eugène, handsome and terrible in his dolman, which I was greatly astonished to catch sight of one night, amidst a great crashing of locomotives and hailstones, still handsome and terrible, in the entrance to a station buffet, where it was serving as an advertisement for a make of biscuits. Nowadays I suspect my grandfather of having got it in the old days as a bonus from a generous manufacturer, before installing it permanently in my bedroom. But at that time I was unconcerned by its origins, which seemed to me historical and mysterious, and I did not imagine that there might be several copies of what I looked on as a person, as a permanent inhabitant of the room which I merely shared with him and where every year I rediscovered him, forever the same. It is a long time now since I saw him, and I suppose that I shall never see him again. But were such good fortune to befall me, I believe he would have many more things to say to me than Botticelli's 'Spring'. I leave it to people of taste to decorate their homes with reproductions of the masterpieces which they admire and to relieve their memories of the trouble of preserving a precious image for them by entrusting it to a carved wooden frame. I leave it to people of taste to make of their bedrooms the very image of their taste and to fill them only with those objects of which it can approve. For myself, I only feel myself live and think in a room where everything is the creation and the language of lives profoundly different from my own, of a taste the opposite of mine, where I can rediscover nothing of my conscious thought, where my imagination is exhilarated by feeling itself plunged into the heart of the non-self; I only feel happy when I set foot — in the Avenue de la Gare, overlooking the harbour, or in the Place de l'Eglise — in one of those provincial hotels with long cold corridors where the wind from outside is winning the battle against the efforts of the central heating, where the detailed map of the locality is still the only decoration on the walls, where each sound serves only to make the silence apparent by displacing it, where the bedrooms preserve a musty aroma which the fresh air washes away but cannot erase, and that the nostrils breathe in a hundred times to carry it to the imagination, which is enchanted by it and makes it pose as a model to try and recreate it within itself with all it contains by way of thoughts and memories; where in the evenings, when you open the door of your bedroom, you feel you are violating all the life that remains dispersed there, taking it boldly by the hand as, the door once closed, you enter further in, up to the table or the window; that you are sitting in a sort of free promiscuity with it on a settee made by the upholsterer in the county town in what he believed was the Parisian style; that you are everywhere touching the bareness of this life in the intention of disturbing yourself by your own familiarity, as you put your things down in this place or that, playing the proprietor in a room filled to overflowing with the souls of others and which preserves the imprint of their dreams in the very shape of the firedogs or the pattern on the curtains, or as you walk barefoot over its unknown carpet; then you have the sense of locking this secret life in with you, as you go, trembling all over, to bolt the door; of driving it ahead of you into the bed and at last of lying down with it in the great white sheets which come up above your face, while, close by, the church tolls for the whole town the hours that are without sleep for lovers and for the dying.

4. I had not been reading in my room for very long before having to go to the park, a kilometre out of the village. But this enforced playtime over, I would cut short the end of tea, which had been brought in baskets and handed out to the children by the river bank, on the grass where my book had been laid with orders not to pick it up again. A little further on, in certain rather overgrown and rather mysterious reaches of the park, the river ceased from being an artificial, rectilinear water-course, covered with swans and lined by paths of cheerful statues, and skipping now and again with carp, and gathered speed, flowed rapidly on past the enclosure of the park to become a river in the geographical sense of the word — a river which must have had a name — and to lose no time in spreading itself out (was it really the same one as between the statues and beneath the swans?) between pastures where cattle slept and whose butter-cups it had drowned, a sort of meadowland it had made quite marshy, attached on one side to the village by some shapeless towers, remains it was said, of the Middle Ages, while on the other side it was joined, up climbing paths of eglantine and hawthorn, to 'nature', which stretched away into infinity, villages which had other names, the unknown. I would leave the others to finish having tea at the bottom of the park, beside the swans, and run up into the maze as far as some arbour or other and there sit, unfindable, my back against the clipped hazel bushes, taking note of the asparagus bed, the edging of strawberry plants, the ornamental lake up into which, on certain days, the water would be pumped by circling horses, the white gate at the top which was the 'end of the park' and, beyond it, the fields of poppies and cornflowers. In my arbour the silence was profound, the risk of being discovered negligible, my security made all the sweeter by the distant shouts summoning me in vain from down below, which at times even drew closer, mounted the first banks, searching everywhere, but then turned back again, not having found; then, no further sound; only, from time to time, the golden notes of the bells that, far away, beyond the plains, seemed to be ringing out behind the blue sky and might have warned me that time was passing; but surprised by their softness and troubled by the deeper silence, emptied of their last notes that ensued, I was never certain of the number of strokes. These were not the thunderous bells you heard when re-entering the village — as you approached the church which, from close to, had resumed its tall, rigid stature, its slate cowl punctuated by corbels standing up against the blue of the evening — shivering the sound into splinters on the village square 'for the good things of the earth'. They were soft and feeble by the time they reached the end of the park and being directed not at me, but at the whole countryside, at all the villages, at the country people isolated in their fields, they in no way obliged me to look up but passed close beside me, carrying the time to distant places, without seeing me, or recognizing me, or disturbing me.

5. And sometimes in the house, in my bed, long after dinner, the last hours of the evening would also give shelter to my reading, but only on days when I had come to the last chapters of a book, when there was not much to be read before getting to the end. Then, at the risk of being punished if I was discovered, or of an insomnia which might last right through the night once the book was finished, as soon as my parents were in bed I relit my candle; while in the street nearby, between the gunsmith's house and the post office, both steeped in silence, the dark yet blue sky was full of stars, and to the left, above the raised alley-way where one began the winding ascent to it, you could sense the monstrous black apse of the church to be watching, whose sculptures did not sleep at night, a village church yet a historic one, the magical dwelling-place of the Good Lord, of the consecrated loaf, of the multicoloured saints and of the ladies from the neighbouring châteaux who set the hens squawking and the gossips staring as they crossed the marketplace on feast-days, when they came to mass 'in their turn-outs', and who, on their way home, just after they had emerged from the shadow of the porch where the faithful were scattering the vagrant rubies of the nave as they pushed open the door of the vestibule, did not fail to buy from the pâtissier in the square some of those cakes shaped like towers, which were protected from the sunlight by a blind — 'manqués', 'saint-honorés' and 'genoa cakes', whose indolent, sugary aroma has remained mingled for me with the bells for high mass and the gaiety of Sundays.

6. Then the last page had been read, the book was finished. The frantic career of the eyes and of the voice which had been following them, noiselessly, pausing only to catch its breath, had to be halted, in a deep sigh. And then, so as to give the turbulence loose inside me for too long to be able to still itself other movements to control, I would get up and start walking up and down by my bed, my eyes still fixed on some point that might have been looked for in vain either inside the room or without, for it was the distance of a soul away, one of those distances not to be measured in metres or in miles, unlike others, and which it is impossible moreover to mistake for them once one sees the 'remote' stare of those whose thoughts are 'elsewhere'. Was there no more to the book than this, then? These creatures on whom one had bestowed more attention and affection than on those in real life, not always daring to admit to what extent you loved them, and even, when my parents found me reading and seemed to smile at my emotion, closing the book with studied indifference or a pretence of boredom; never again would one see these people for whom one had sobbed and yearned, never again hear of them. Already, in the last few pages, the author himself, in his cruel 'Epilogue', had been careful to 'space them out' with an indifference not to be credited by anyone who knew the interest with which he had followed them hitherto, step by step. The occupation of each hour of their lives had been narrated to us. Then, all of a sudden: 'Twenty years after these events an old man might have been met with in the rue des Fougères, still erect, etc.'
【1】

And the marriage, the delightful possibility of which we have been enabled to glimpse through two whole volumes, fearful at first and then overjoyed as each obstacle was raised and then smoothed away, we learn from a casual phrase by some minor character that it has been celebrated, we do not know exactly when, in this astonishing epilogue written, it would seem, from up in heaven, by someone indifferent to our momentary passions who has taken the author's place. One would have so much liked for the book to continue or, if that was impossible, to have other facts about all these characters, to learn something of their lives now, to employ our own on things not altogether unconnected with the love they have inspired in us,
【2】

whose object was now all of a sudden gone from us, not to have loved in vain, for an hour, human beings who tomorrow will be no more than a name on a forgotten page, in a book unrelated to our lives and as to whose value we were certainly mistaken since its fate here below, as we could now see and as our parents had taught us when need arose by a dismissive phrase, was not at all, as we had thought, to contain the universe and our own destiny, but to occupy a very narrow space in the lawyer's bookcase, between the unglamorous archives of the Journal de modes illustré and La Géographie d'Eure-et-Loir.

7. Before attempting to show, on the threshold to 'Of Kings' Treasuries', why in my opinion Reading should not play the preponderant role in life assigned to it by Ruskin in this little work, I needed to make an exception for that delightful childhood reading the memory of which must remain a benediction for each one of us. No doubt the length and nature of the preceding exposition proves only too well what I had first of all claimed for it: that what it chiefly leaves behind in us is the image of the places and the times when we did it. I have not escaped from its spell; I wanted to speak of my reading but I have spoken of everything except books because it was not of them that my reading spoke to me. But perhaps the memories it has given me back, one after the other, will themselves have awakened in my reader and led him gradually, as he dwelt along these flowery, circuitous paths, to recreate in his own mind the original psychological act known as Reading, sufficiently strongly for him to be able now to follow, as if within himself, the few reflections it remains to me to proffer.

8. We know that 'Of Kings' Treasuries' was a lecture on reading given by Ruskin in the town hall of Rusholme, near Manchester, on 6 December 1864, to help in the setting-up of a library at the Rusholme Institute. On 14 December he gave a second, 'Of Queens' Gardens', about the role of women, to help found schools in Ancoats. 'All through that year,' says Mr Collingwood in his admirable Life and Work of Ruskin, 'he remained at home, except for ... frequent evenings with Carlyle. And when, in December, he gave those lectures in Manchester which afterwards, as Sesame and Lilies, became his most popular work, we can trace his better health of mind and body in the brighter tone of his thought. We can hear the echo of Carlyle's talk in the heroic, aristocratic, stoic ideals, and in the insistence on the value of books and free public libraries, — Carlyle being the founder of the London Library.'

9. Since all I wish to do here is to discuss Ruskin's thesis in itself, without concerning myself with its historical origins, it may be summed up quite accurately in the words of Descartes, that 'the reading of all good books is like a conversation with the worthiest individuals of past centuries who were their authors.' Ruskin did not perhaps know of this somewhat and reflection of the French philosopher, but it is one in point of fact which is to be found throughout his lecture, only swathed in an Apollonian gold fused with the mists of England, like those whose splendour illuminates the landscapes of his favourite painter. 'But, granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice! ... We cannot know whom we would ... We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good-humouredly. We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, ... or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of ... arresting the kind glance of a Queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, passions, and powers in pursuit of little more than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation; ... And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, — and can be kept waiting round us all day long, not to grant audience but to gain it — kings and statesmen lingering patiently in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves, — we make no account of that company, — perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!' 'You may tell me perhaps,' adds Ruskin, 'that if you prefer to talk with the living, it is because you can see their faces,' etc., and rebutting this first objection, and then a second, he shows that reading is precisely a conversation with men much wiser and more interesting than those whom we may have occasion to meet with around us. In the notes which I have added to this volume I have tried to show that reading cannot be assimilated in this way to a conversation, even with the wisest of men; that the difference essentially between a book and a friend lies not in their greater or lesser wisdom, but in the manner in which we communicate with them, reading being the reverse of conversation, consisting as it does for each one of us in receiving the communication of another's thought while still being on our own, that is, continuing to enjoy the intellectual sway which we have in solitude and which conversation dispels instantly, and continuing to be open to inspiration, with our minds still at work hard and fruitfully on themselves. Had Ruskin drawn the consequences of other truths which he states a few pages later on, he would probably have reached a conclusion analogous to my own. But obviously he was not seeking to get to the very heart of the idea of reading. In order to teach us the value of reading, he seeks only to recount a sort of beautiful Platonic myth, with the simplicity of the Greeks who showed us almost all the true ideas and left it to modern scruples to explore them more fully. But although I think that reading, in its original essence, in the fertile miracle of a communication effected in solitude, is something more, and something other than what Ruskin says that it is, I do not for all that think that one can allow it the preponderant role in our spiritual lives which he seems to assign to it.

10. The limitations of its role derive from the nature of its virtues. And it is to my childhood reading once again that I shall go to find out in what these virtues consist. The book which you saw me reading just now beside the fire in the dining-room, in my bedroom, in the depths of the armchair with its crocheted head-rest, or on fine afternoons, beneath the nut trees and hawthorns in the park, where every breath from the boundless fields came from so far off to play silently at my side, holding mutely out to my distracted nostrils the scent of the clover and the sainfoin to which my weary eyes would sometimes be raised: that book, since your eyes as you lean towards it would be unable to make out its title across those twenty years, my memory, whose eyesight is better suited to this kind of perception, will tell you what it was: Le Capitaine Fracasse, by Théophile Gautier. In it I loved before all else two or three sentences which seemed to me the most beautiful and original in the book. I could not imagine that any other author had written comparable ones. But I had the feeling that their beauty corresponded to a reality of which Théophile Gautier allowed us to glimpse only a small corner once or twice in each volume. And as I believed that he must assuredly know it in its entirety, I would have liked to read other books by him in which all the sentences would be as beautiful as these and would have as their subject the things on which I would have liked to have his opinion. 'Laughter is not cruel by its nature; it distinguishes man from the animals and is, so it appears from the Odyssey of Homerus, the Grecian poet, the prerogative of the blessed and immortal gods who laugh their Olympian fill as they lounge away eternity.'
【3】

This sentence produced a genuine intoxication in me. I thought I caught sight of a marvellous antiquity through the Middle Ages as Gautier alone could reveal them to me. But I would have wished that instead of saying this furtively, after the tedious description of a château containing too many terms I did not know for me to be at all able to visualize it, he had written sentences of this kind all through the volume and spoken to me of things that once his book was finished I could continue to know and to love. I would have wished for him, the one wise custodian of the truth, to tell me what I ought rightly to think of Shakespeare, of Saintine, of Sophocles, of Euripides, of Silvio Pellico whom I had read one very cold March, walking, stamping my feet, running along the paths, whenever I had just closed the book, exhilarated by having finished my reading, by the energy accumulated by my immobility, and by the salubrious wind blowing down the village streets. I would have wished him above all to tell me whether I would have a better chance of arriving at the truth if I repeated my first-form year at school or later on by becoming a diplomat or an advocate at the Court of Appeal. But as soon as the beautiful sentence was finished he set to describing a table covered 'with a layer of dust so thick that a finger might have traced letters in it', too insignificant a thing in my eyes for me to be able even to let my attention pause at it; and I was reduced to wondering what other books Gautier had written which might better satisfy my aspirations and enable me finally to know the whole of his thought.

11. Indeed, it is one of the great and wonderful characteristics of good books (which will give us to see the role at once essential yet limited that reading may play in our spiritual lives) that for the author they may be called 'Conclusions' but for the reader 'Incitements'. We feel very strongly that our own wisdom begins where that of the author leaves off, and we would like him to provide us with answers when all he is able to do is to provide us with desires. And he can only awaken these desires by making us contemplate the supreme beauty to which the utmost efforts of his art have enabled him to attain. But by a singular and moreover providential law of mental optics (a law which signifies perhaps that we are unable to receive the truth from anyone else but must create it ourselves), the end-point of their wisdom appears to us only as the beginning of our own, so that it is at the moment when they have told us everything they could have told us that they give rise to the feeling in us that as yet they have told us nothing. Moreover, if we put questions to them which they are unable to answer, we also ask them for answers which would teach us nothing. For an effect of the love which poets arouse in us is to make us attach a literal importance to things significant to them only of personal emotions. In each picture that they show us, they seem to afford us only a brief glimpse of some marvellous location, different from the rest of the world, and we would like them to make us enter into the very heart of it. 'Take us,' we would like to be able to say to M. Maeterlinck or Mme de Noailles, '"into the Zeeland garden where the old-fashioned flowers grow", along the highway scented "with clover and artemisia", and into all those places on the earth of which you have not spoken in your books but which you adjudge to be as beautiful as these.' We would like to go and visit the field which Millet (for painters teach us in the same manner as poets) shows us in his 'Springtime', we would like M. Claude Monet to take us to Giverny, on the Seine, to that bend in the river which he allows us barely to make out through the morning mist. Yet, in actual fact, it was the mere chance of an acquaintance or family connection which gave Mme de Noailles, or Maeterlinck, or Millet, or Claude Monet occasion to pass or to stay nearby and made them choose to paint that road, that garden, that field, that bend in the river rather than another. What makes them seem other and more beautiful to us than the rest of the world is that they bear on them like some elusive reflection the impression they made on a genius, and which we might see wandering just as singular and despotic across the submissive and indifferent face of all the landscapes he may have painted. This surface with which they charm and disappoint us, and beyond which we would like to go, is the very essence of that in a sense depthless thing — a mirage arrested on a canvas — which is a vision. And the mist which our eager eyes would like to pierce is the last word in the painter's art. The supreme effort of the writer as of the artist only succeeds in raising partially for us the veil of ugliness and insignificance that leaves us incurious before the universe. Then does he say: 'Look, look,

Parfumés de trèfle et d'armoise

Serrant leurs vifs ruisseaux étroits

Les pays de l'Aisne et de l'Oise.

Scented with clover and artemisia

Gripping their quick, narrow streams

The country of the Aisne and of the Oise.

'Look at the house in Zeeland, pink and shiny as a seashell. Look! Learn to see!' At which moment he disappears. That is the value of reading, and also its inadequacy. To make it into a discipline is to give too large a role to what is only an incitement. Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it: it does not constitute it.

12. There are certain cases, however, certain as it were pathological cases of spiritual depression, when reading may become a sort of healing discipline and be entrusted, by way of repeated incitements, with reintroducing a lazy mind perpetually into the life of the spirit. Then books play a role for it analogous to that of psychotherapists for certain cases of neurasthenia.

13. We know that in certain affections of the nervous system, without any of the organs themselves being affected, the patient is mired in a sort of impossibility of willing, as if in a deep rut, from which he cannot escape unaided and where ultimately he would waste away, if a strong and helping hand were not held out to him. His brain, his legs, his lungs, his stomach are sound. He is not truly incapacitated from working, from walking, from exposing himself to the cold, from eating. But he is incapable of willing these various actions, which he would be perfectly capable of performing. And an organic degeneration, which would end by becoming the equivalent of the diseases he does not have, would be the irremediable consequence of this inertia of the will, if the impulsion he is unable to find in himself were not to come to him from outside, from a doctor who will will for him, until such time as his various organic wills have been re-educated. Now there exist certain minds that might be compared to patients such as these, who are prevented by a sort of laziness
【4】

or frivolity from descending spontaneously into the deeper parts of the self where the true life of the spirit begins. It is not that once they have been shown the way there they are incapable of discovering and exploiting its true riches, but that, failing such intervention from without, they live on the surface in a perpetual forgetfulness of themselves, in a sort of passivity which makes them the plaything of every pleasure and reduces them to the stature of those roundabout who excite them, so that, like the man of gentle birth who, having shared the life of highway robbers ever since childhood, could not remember his name any more so long ago was it that he had ceased to bear it, they would end by abolishing in themselves all sense and recollection of their spiritual nobility, were an outside impulsion not to come to reintroduce them forcibly in a sense into the life of the mind, where they suddenly recover the power of thinking for themselves and of creating. Now it is clear that this impulsion, which the lazy mind cannot find in itself but which has to come to it from another, must be received in that solitude outside of which, as we have seen, the very activity of creation that is to be resuscitated cannot occur. From pure solitude the lazy mind can derive nothing, since it is incapable of setting its creative activity in motion of its own accord. But the most lofty conversation and the most pressing advice are of no assistance to it either, for they cannot produce this original activity directly. What it takes then, is an intervention which, though it comes from someone else, occurs deep inside ourselves, the impulsion certainly of another mind but received in the midst of our solitude. But we have already seen that this was exactly the definition of reading, and applicable to reading alone. Thus the one discipline that can exercise a favourable influence on such minds is reading: quod erat demonstrandum, as the geometers say. But here again, reading works only as an incitement which can in no way take the place of our own personal activity; it is content simply to restore the use of it to us, just as, in the nervous ailments to which I was alluding a little earlier, the psychotherapist merely restores to the patient the willpower to make use of his still sound stomach, legs and brain. Whether it is that all minds have more or less of such laziness, of this stagnation of the lower depths, or whether, though it may not be essential, the exaltation that some reading can produce has a propitious influence on our own work, more than one writer is quoted as having liked to read some choice extract before sitting down to work. Emerson seldom began to write without having reread a few pages of Plato. And Dante is not the only poet whom Virgil has conducted to the threshold of paradise.

14. For as long as reading is for us the instigator whose magic keys have opened the door to those dwelling-places deep within us that we would not have known how to enter, its role in our lives is salutary. It becomes dangerous on the other hand, when, instead of awakening us to the personal life of the mind, reading tends to take its place, when the truth no longer appears to us as an ideal which we can realize only by the intimate progress of our own thought and the efforts of our own heart, but as something material, deposited between the leaves of books like a honey fully prepared by others and which we need only take the trouble to reach down from the shelves of libraries and then sample passively in a perfect repose of mind and body. Sometimes even, in certain somewhat exceptional and anyway, as we shall see, less dangerous cases, the truth, still conceived of as something external, is at a distance from us, concealed in a place difficult of access. Then it is some secret document, some unpublished correspondence, some memoir which may shed an unexpected light on certain characters, but which can be imparted to us only with difficulty. What happiness, what respite for the mind weary of seeking within for the truth to tell itself that it is to be found without, in the sheets of an in-folio jealously preserved in a convent in Holland, and that though it may cost us some effort to come at it, this will be a purely material effort and no more than a charming relaxation for the mind. It will mean a long journey by passenger barge, no doubt, across fenlands moaning with the wind, as on the bank the reeds bend and straighten by turns in an endless undulation; it will mean stopping in Dordrecht, whose ivy-clad church will be mirrored in the tangle of dormant canals and in the golden, tremulous Meuse, where in the evening the boats, as they glide past, break up the reflections of the lines of red roofs and the blue sky; and when at last we come to our destination, we shall still not be certain of being given the truth. For that, powerful influences must be brought into play and friends made with the venerable Archbishop of Utrecht, his handsome square face like that of an old Jansenist, and with the pious keeper of the archives in Amersfoort. In such instances the conquest of the truth is seen as the triumph of a sort of diplomatic mission in which the journey was not without its difficulties nor the negotiation without its hazards. But what matter? All these members of the little old church in Utrecht, on whose good will our entering into possession of the truth depends, are charming folk whose seventeenth-century faces make a change from those we are used to and with whom it will be most amusing to remain in touch, at least by letter. The esteem with which, from time to time, they will continue to send us their evidence will raise us in our own eyes and we shall keep their letters as a warranty and as a curiosity. And we shall not fail one day to dedicate one of our books to them, which is certainly the least one can do for people who have made one a gift ... of the truth. And as for the few enquiries, the brief labour that we shall be obliged to undertake in the library of the convent, and which will be the indispensable prelude to the act of entering on possession of the truth — that truth on which, for prudence's sake and so as not to risk its escaping from us, we shall take notes — it would be ungrateful to complain of the pains they may have cost us: the peace and coolness of the old convent are so exquisite, where the nuns still wear the tall headdresses with white wings that they have in the Roger van der Weyden in the visiting-room; and as we are working the seventeenth-century carillons fondly take the chill off the artless waters of the canal, which a little pale sunlight is sufficient to make to dazzle us between the double row of trees, bare since the summer ended, that brush against the mirrors hanging from the gabled houses on either bank.
【5】

15. This conception of a truth deaf to the appeals of reflection but docile to the exercise of influence, of a truth to be obtained through letters of recommendation, which is put into our hands by whoever had charge of it materially without perhaps even knowing of it, of a truth which allows itself to be copied out into a notebook, such a conception of the truth is yet far from being the most dangerous of all. Because very often, for the historian and even for the scholar, the truth which they go to seek far away in a book is not so much the truth itself, properly speaking, as its index or its proof, leaving room consequently for another truth of which it is the promise or the verification and which is, this time at least, an individual creation of their own minds. It is not at all the same for the literary man. He reads in order to read, to retain what he has read. For him the book is not the angel who takes wing the moment he has opened the gates into the celestial garden, but a motionless idol, which he adores for its own sake and which, instead of acquiring a true dignity from the thoughts it arouses, communicates a factitious dignity to everything around it. The literary man invokes it smilingly in honour of some name to be found in Villehardouin or in Boccaccio,
【6】

or in favour of some custom described in Virgil. His mind has no original activity of its own and is unable to pick out in books the substance which might fortify it; it encumbers itself with them as a whole so that, instead of being an assimilable element for him, a principle of life, they are merely a foreign body, a principle of death. Is there any need to say that if I qualify this fondness, this sort of fetishistic reverence for books as unhealthy, it is relative to what the ideal habits of a mind without defects would be, which does not exist, just as physiologists do who describe the normal workings of organs such as are hardly to be met with in living persons. In real life, on the contrary, where there are no perfect minds any more than entirely healthy bodies, those whom we call great minds are afflicted as others are by this 'literary disease'. More so than others, one might say. It seems that the liking for books grows along with the intellect, a little below it but on the same stem, just as any passion goes with a predilection for what surrounds its object, has some connection with it and still speaks of it in its absence. And so the greatest writers, at those times when they are not in direct communication with their own thought, take pleasure in the company of books. Is it not above all for them, moreover, that they were written; do they not disclose to them untold beauties which remain hidden from the masses? But in truth, the fact that superior minds may be what one terms bookish in no way proves that this is not a failing in someone. From the fact that mediocre men are often industrious and intelligent ones often lazy, one cannot conclude that hard work is not a better discipline for the mind than laziness. In spite of which, to meet with one of our own faults in a great man always sets us to wondering whether it was not at bottom an unacknowledged virtue, and it is not without pleasure that we learn that Hugo knew Quintus Curtius, Tacitus and Justinian by heart, and that if the legitimacy of a word was challenged in his presence he was quite ready to trace its genealogy back to its origins, by quotations that demonstrated a genuine erudition. (I have shown elsewhere how in his case this erudition fostered his genius instead of stifling it, just as a bundle of sticks may put out a small fire but helps a large one.) Maeterlinck, who is for me the opposite of a literary man, whose mind is perpetually open to the countless anonymous emotions conveyed by the beehive, the flowerbed or the pasture, reassures us largely as to the dangers of erudition, and almost of bibliophilia, when he describes as an amateur the engravings decorating an old edition of Jacob Cats or the Abbé Sanderus. These dangers, when they exist, are anyway much less of a threat to our intellect than to our sensibility, and the capacity to read with profit is, if I may so express it, much greater among thinkers than among imaginative writers. Schopenhauer for example, offers us the image of a mind whose vitality wears the most enormous reading lightly, each new item of knowledge being at once reduced to its element of reality, to the portion of life that it contains.

16. Schopenhauer never puts forward an opinion without at once supporting it by several quotations, but one has the feeling that for him the texts he cites are merely examples, unconscious or anticipatory allusions in which he likes to discover a few features of his own thought but which have in no way been his inspiration. I recall a passage in The World as Will and Idea where there are perhaps twenty quotations in a row. The subject is pessimism (I will abridge the quotations, naturally): 'Voltaire, in Candide, wages war on optimism in an agreeable manner. Byron did so, in his tragic style, in Cain. Herodotus reports that the Thracians greeted the newborn with lamentations and rejoiced at each death. This is what is expressed in the lovely lines that Plutarch records: Lugere genitum, tanta, qui intravit mala, etc. To which must be attributed the custom among the Mexicans of wishing, etc., and Swift was obeying the same sentiment when from his young days on (if Sir Walter Scott's biography is to be believed) he was accustomed to celebrating the day of his birth as a day of affliction. Everyone knows the passage in Plato's Apology where he says that death is a good to be admired. A maxim of Heraclitus is similarly framed: Vitae nomen quidam est vita, opus autem mors. As for the lovely lines of Theognis, they are famous: Optima sors homini natum non esse, etc. Sophocles in Oedipus at Colonus, summarizes it as follows: Natum non esse sortes vincit alias omnes, etc. Euripides says: Omnis hominum vita est plena dolore (Hippolytus), and Homer had already said it: Non enim quidquam alicubi est calamitosius homine omnium, quotquot super terram spirant, etc. Pliny said so too, moreover: Nullum melius esse tempestiva morte. Shakespeare puts these words into the mouth of the old king Henry Ⅳ: 'Oh if this were seen — The happiest youth — Would shut the book and sit him down and die.' Byron finally: "'Tis something better not to be." Balthasar Gracián paints existence for us in the blackest colours, including the Criticón, etc.' Had I not already let myself be carried too far by Schopenhauer, I would have been happy to round off this little demonstration with the help of Aphorisms on Wisdom in Life, which is of all the books known to me perhaps the one which presupposes in its author the most originality along with the widest reading, so that at the head of the book, each page of which contains several quotations, Schopenhauer was able to write in all seriousness: 'Compilation is not my forte.'

17. Friendship, friendship in respect of individuals, is no doubt a frivolous thing, and reading is a form of friendship. But at least it is a sincere form, and the fact that it is directed at someone who is dead, who is not there, lends something disinterested, almost moving to it. It is a form of friendship freed moreover from all that makes other forms ugly. Since we are all of us, the living, but dead people who have not yet taken up their appointment, all those politenesses, all those salutations in the entrance-hall that we call deference, or gratitude, or devotion, and into which we mix so much falsehood, are wearisome and sterile. What is more — from our very first relations of sympathy, admiration or gratitude — the first words that we utter, the first letters we write weave around us the first threads of a canvas of habit, of a veritable mode of existence, which we are no longer able to rid ourselves of in our subsequent friendships; not to mention that during this time the excessive things we have said remain like promissory notes that we must settle, or that we shall pay for even more dearly all through our lives by our remorse at having allowed them to be protested. In reading, friendship is suddenly brought back to its original purity. There is no false amiability with books. If we spend the evening with these friends, it is because we genuinely want to. We often take leave of them, at least, only with regret. And once we have left them, none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: 'What did they think of us?' 'Were we not tactless?' 'Did they like us?' or the fear of being forgotten in favour of someone else. All these qualms of friendship expire on the threshold of the pure and peaceful form of it that is reading. There is no deference either, we laugh at what Molière has to say only just so far as we find it funny; when he bores us we are not afraid to look bored, and once we have definitely had enough of him we put him back in his place as abruptly as if he had neither genius nor celebrity. The atmosphere of this pure form of friendship is silence, which is purer than speech. Because we speak for others, but remain silent for ourselves. So silence, unlike speech, does not bear the trace of our faults or affectations. It is pure, it is genuinely an atmosphere. Between the author's thought and our own it does not interpose the irreducible elements, refractory to thought, of our two distinct egos. The very language of the book is pure (if it is worthy to be called a book), made transparent by the thought of the author, which has removed whatever was not itself to make of it its own faithful image; each sentence, at bottom, resembling the others, because all are spoken with the unique inflection of a personality; hence a sort of continuity that in life our commerce with others excludes by mixing in with our own thought elements foreign to it, and which very quickly enables us to follow the actual line of the author's thought, the features of his physiognomy as they are reflected in this tranquil mirror. We are able to take pleasure in the features of each one in turn, without asking that they be admirable, for the mind delights in making out these profound portraits and loving them with an unselfish, unassuming friendship, as if for their own sake. Thus do we take to a Gautier, simple, a good fellow, with excellent taste (it amuses me to think that they could see him as representing perfection in art). I do not overestimate his spiritual capacities, and in his Voyage en Espagne, where every sentence, without his suspecting it, stresses and extends the very graceful, very cheerful line of his personality (the words arranging themselves of their own accord to trace it, because his personality it was that chose them and set them out in order), I cannot help but see as anything but true art the obligation he felt himself to be under not to let a single form go by without a full description, and accompanied by a comparison which does not originate in any strong or agreeable impression and is therefore by no means appealing. When he likens the countryside with its different forms of cultivation 'to those tailors' cards which have samples of trousers and waistcoats stuck down on them', one can but blame the pitiful poverty of his imagination, as when he says that there is nothing to admire between Paris and Angoulême. And one smiles at this fervent Gothicist who could not even be bothered in Chartres to go and visit the cathedral. ('I regret having passed through Chartres without managing to see the cathedral', Voyage en Espagne.)

18. But what good humour and what taste! how willingly we follow this very buoyant companion on his adventures; so sympathetic is he that we find everything around him so too. And after the few days he spends with Captain Lebarbier de Tinan, delayed by the storm on board his fine vessel, 'glistening like gold', we are sad he should have nothing more to say about that amiable sailor but makes us take leave of him for ever without telling us what became of him.
【7】

One certainly has the sense that his cheerful bragging like his fits of melancholy were in his case the somewhat unbuttoned habits of the journalist. But we give him all that, we do what he wants, we are amused when he comes home soaked to the skin, dying of hunger and for some sleep, and sad when, as mournfully as any feuilletoniste, he recites the names of all those men of his own generation dead before their time. I was saying about him that his sentences traced his physiognomy but without his suspecting it; for if words are chosen, not by our minds in accordance with the affinities of their essence, but by our desire to portray ourselves, he represents that desire, he does not represent us. For all their gifts, Fromentin and Musset, because they wanted to leave their own portraits to posterity, painted them very indifferently; yet they interest us enormously for that very reason, because their failure is instructive. So that even when a book is not the mirror of a powerful individuality, it is still the mirror of interesting defects in the mind. When we read closely a book by Fromentin or a book by Musset, we notice in the first how fundamentally limited and stupid a certain 'distinction' is, and in the second how vacuous is eloquence.

19. If, as we grow intellectually, our liking for books grows also, its dangers, as we have seen, are reduced. An original mind is able to subordinate its reading to its own personal activity. For it, reading is merely the noblest of distractions, above all the most ennobling, for reading and knowledge alone make for a 'well-mannered' mind. We can only develop the power of our sensibility and our intellect in ourselves, in the depths of our spiritual lives. But it is in this contact with other minds that is reading that the 'ways' of our minds are inculcated. In spite of everything, the well-read remain the intellectual 'quality' as it were, and not to know a particular book, or a particular item of literary knowledge, will always be, even in a man of genius, a mark of intellectual ill-breeding. In the order of the mind too, distinction and nobility consist in a sort of freemasonry of usage and a heritage of traditions.
【8】

20. The preference of great writers, in this taste and diversion of reading, is very readily given to books by the ancients. Even those whom their contemporaries saw as the most 'romantic' read hardly anything except the classics. When, in conversation, Victor Hugo talks about what he has been reading, it is the names of Molière, of Horace, of Ovid, of Régnard, which recur the most frequently. Alphonse Daudet, the least bookish of writers, whose oeuvre is so thoroughly vital and modern it seems to have rejected the whole classical inheritance, was ceaselessly reading, quoting, glossing Pascal, Montaigne, Diderot, Tacitus.
【9】

One might almost go so far as to say, so renewing perhaps, by an anyway wholly partial interpretation, the old distinction between classics and romantics, that it is audiences (intelligent audiences, of course) which are romantic, whereas the masters (even the masters said to be romantic, those preferred by romantic audiences) are classic. (An observation that could be extended to all the arts. The public goes to hear the music of M. Vincent d'Indy, M. Vincent d'Indy rereads that of Monsigny.
【10】

The public goes to exhibitions by M. Vuillard or M. Maurice Denis, whereas the latter go to the Louvre.) This stems doubtless from the fact that the contemporary ideas which writers and artists of originality make accessible and desirable to the public, are to some extent so much part of them that they are more easily diverted by different ideas. It asks a greater effort of them, to go to where these are, and so gives them more pleasure; we always like to be taken out of ourselves a little, to travel, when we read.

21. But there is another cause to which, finally, I would rather ascribe this predilection in great minds for old works.
【11】

Which is that, unlike contemporary works, they do not only have for us the beauty which the mind that created them was able to put into them. They receive another beauty, more affecting still, from the fact that their substance, I mean the language in which they were written, is like a mirror of life. Something ofthe happiness one feels walking in a town like Beaune, whose fifteenth-century hospice has been preserved intact, with its well, its wash-house, the painted panels of its wooden ceiling, the tall gabled roof, pierced by dormer windows surmounted by frail finials of beaten lead (all the things that an age left behind there as it were when it vanished, all the things that were its alone since none of the ages which followed saw anything similar arise), one feels something of that happiness again as one wanders in the midst of a tragedy by Racine or a volume of Saint-Simon. For these contain all the lovely suppressed forms of a language that preserve the memory of usages or ways of feeling which no longer exist, persistent traces of the past unlike anything in the present and whose colours time alone, as it passed over them, has been able further to enhance.

22. A tragedy by Racine or a volume of Saint-Simon's memoirs resemble beautiful objects which are no longer made. The language from which they have been sculpted, by great artists, with a freedom which shows off its mellowness and brings out its native vigour, affects us like the sight of certain marbles, uncommon today, which were used by the workmen of old. No doubt in this old building or that the stone has faithfully preserved the sculptor's thought, but also, thanks to the sculptor, the stone itself, of a kind unknown today, has been preserved for us, dressed in all the colours he was able to extract from it, to show off and to harmonize. It is very much the living syntax of seventeenth-century France — and in it customs and a way of thinking that have vanished — which we love to discover in the poetry of Racine. It is the actual forms of this syntax, laid bare, reverenced, embellished by his very free yet very delicate chisel, which move us in those turns of phrase so colloquial as to be both strange and daring,
【12】

whose abrupt pattern we can see, in the gentlest and tenderest of passages, pass swiftly by like an arrow or turn back in lovely, broken lines. It is these obsolete forms drawn from the life of the past itself which we go to visit in the work of Racine as in some ancient yet still intact citadel. Before them we feel the same emotion as before those architectural forms, likewise suppressed, which we can now admire only in the rare and magnificent examples of them bequeathed to us by the past which fashioned them: such as old town walls, keeps and towers, or the baptisteries of churches; such as, next to the cloister, or beneath the charnel-house of the Aître, the little burial ground where, beneath its butterflies and its flowers, the funerary Fountain and the Lantern of the Dead stand forgotten in the sun.

23. Furthermore, it is not only the phrases themselves that trace for us the forms of the ancient soul. Between the phrases — I am thinking of those books of antiquity which were originally recited, — in the interval which separates them, there is still contained today, as in some inviolate hypogeum, filling their interstices, a silence many centuries old. Often, in St Luke's Gospel, when I come upon the 'colons' which punctuate it before each of the almost canticle-like passages with which it is strewn,
【13】

I have heard the silence of the worshipper who has just stopped from reading out loud so as to intone the verses following,
【14】

like a psalm reminding him of the older psalms in the Bible. This silence still filled the pause in the sentence which, having been split into two so as to enclose it, had preserved its shape; and more than once, as I was reading, it brought to me the scent of a rose which the breeze entering by the open window had spread through the upper room where the Gathering was being held and which had not evaporated in almost two thousand years. The Divine Comedy or the plays of Shakespeare also give one an impression of contemplating something of the past, inserted into the present moment; that very uplifting impression which makes certain 'days of reading' resemble days spent strolling in Venice, on the Piazzetta for example, where before you, in their half unreal colours of objects at once a few paces and many centuries distant, you have the twin columns of pink and grey granite bearing on their capitals, the one the lion of St Mark and the other St Theodore trampling on the crocodile; these two beautiful and slender foreigners came once from the East, across the sea that is breaking at their feet; uncomprehending of the remarks exchanged around them, they continue to live out their twelfth-century days amidst the crowds of today, on that public square where, close beside you, there still gleams their remote and distracted smile.

Notes

【1】
1. I have to admit that a certain use of the imperfect indicative — that cruel tense which portrays life to us as something both ephemeral and passive, and which, in the very act of retracing our actions, reduces them to an illusion, annihilating them in the past without, unlike the perfect, leaving us with the consolation of activity — has remained for me an inexhaustible source of mysterious sadness. Even today I can have been reflecting calmly on death for hours on end; but I only have to open a volume of Sainte-Beuve's Lundis and light, for example, upon these words of Lamartine's (they concern Mme d'Albany). 'Nothing about her at that time recalled [rappelait] ... She was [c'était] a small woman whose figure had somewhat collapsed beneath her weight and lost, etc.,' to feel myself at once invaded by the profoundest melancholy. In novels the author's intention of making us suffer is so obvious that we brace ourselves rather better.

【2】
2. One can try this, in a roundabout way, with books which are not pure imagination but have a substratum of history. Balzac, for example, whose work is in a sense impure, being a mixture of thought and of a reality insufficiently transformed, sometimes lends himself particularly well to being read in this way. He has at any rate found the most admirable of 'historical readers' in M. Albert Sorel, who has written matchless essays on Une Ténébreuse affaire and L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine. How well reading, indeed, an enjoyment at once ardent and sedate, seems to suit M. Sorel, with his inquiring spirit and his calm, powerful body, reading, in the course of which the countless sensations of poetry and of a vague contentment that wing cheerfully up from the depths of our well-being come to create a pleasure as sweet and as golden as honey around the reader's reverie. It is not only with semi-historical works, either, that M. Sorel has perfected this art of encompassing so many powerful and original reflections within a single reading. I shall always remember — and with such gratitude — that my study of The Bible of Amiens was the subject of perhaps the most powerful pages he has ever written.

【3】
3. In point of fact this sentence is not to be found in Le Capitaine Fracasse, at least in this form. Instead of 'so it appears from the Odyssey of Homerus, the Grecian poet,' we have simply 'according to Homerus'. But since the expressions 'it appears from Homerus' and 'it appears from the Odyssey', to be found elsewhere in the book, gave me the same degree of delight, I have permitted myself, so that the example might be more striking for my readers, to fuse all these beauties into one, now that, truth to tell, I no longer feel a religious veneration for them. Elsewhere in Le Capitaine Fracasse, Homerus is again described as a Grecian poet, and I do not doubt but that this too enchanted me. All the same I am no longer capable of recovering these forgotten joys with sufficient accuracy to be sure that I have not gone too far and overstepped the mark in amassing so many wonderful things in a single sentence! I do not think so, however. And I reflect to my regret that the exhilaration with which I used to repeat that sentence from Le Capitaine Fracasse to the irises and the periwinkles overhanging the river-bank, as I trod the gravel of the path, would have been more delightful still had I been able to find in a single sentence of Gautier's so many of the charms which my own artifice has gathered here today, though without, alas, affording me any pleasure.

【4】
4. The germ of it is there I sense in Fontanes, of whom Sainte-Beuve said: 'This epicurean side was very strong in him ... but for these rather materialistic habits, Fontanes, with his talent, would have produced much more ... and more lasting works.' Note that the impotent man always claims not to be so. Fontanes says:

If they are to be believed I waste my time,

They alone do honour to the century

and assures us of his own industry.

Coleridge's is a more pathological case still. 'No man of his time, or perhaps of any other time,' says Carpenter (quoted by M. Ribot in his fine book on Diseases of the Will), 'combined better than Coleridge the power of reasoning of the philosopher with the imagination of the poet, etc. And yet no one gifted with such remarkable talents has ever made so little of them: the great defect of his character was a lack of willpower to turn his natural gifts to advantage, so that although he always had gigantic projects floating in his brain, he never made a serious effort to execute a single one of them. Thus, from the outset of his career, he found a generous bookseller who promised him thirty guineas for the poems he had been reciting, etc. He preferred to come begging each week without supplying a single line of the poem he needed only to write down to be set free.'

【5】
5. I have no need to say that it would be pointless to look for this convent near Utrecht and that this whole passage is pure imagination. It was suggested to me however by the following lines in M. Léon Séché's book on Sainte-Beuve: 'He (Sainte-Beuve) took it into his head one day, while he was at Liège, to get in touch with the little church in Utrecht. It was quite late but Utrecht was a good long way from Paris and I do not know whether Volupté would have sufficed to open the doors to the archives in Amersfoort wide to him. I rather doubt it, because even after the first two volumes of his Port-Royal, the devout scholar who then had charge of these archives, etc. With difficulty Sainte-Beuve obtained permission from the good M. Karsten to glance inside certain cardboard boxes ... Open the second edition of Port-Royal and you will find the gratitude which Sainte-Beuve expressed to M. Karsten.' As for the details of the journey, all of them rely on actual impressions. I do not know whether one goes through Dordrecht to get to Utrecht, but I have described it just as I saw it. It was when going to Vollendam, and not to Utrecht, that I travelled by passenger barge, amongst the reeds. The canal which I have set in Utrecht is in Delft. It was in the Hôpital of Beaune that I saw a Van der Weyden and nuns of an order which came, I believe, from Flanders, and who still wear the same headdresses, not as in the Roger van der Weyden but as in other paintings I saw in Holland.

【6】
6. Pure snobbery is more innocent. To take pleasure in someone's company because he had an ancestor at the Crusades, that is vanity, intelligence does not enter into it. But to take pleasure in someone's company because the name of his grandfather recurs frequently in Alfred de Vigny or in Chateaubriand, or (a truly irresistible attraction for me, I must confess) who has her family coat-of-arms (the woman in question is richly deserving of admiration without this) in the great rose-window of Notre-Dame in Amiens, that is where the intellectual sin begins. I have anyway analysed this at too great a length elsewhere, although I have much left to say on the matter, to need to insist on it further here.

【7】
7. I am told that he became the celebrated Admiral de Tinan, father of Mme Pochet de Tinan, whose name artists still hold dear, and the grandfather of the dashing cavalry officer. It was he also, I believe, who was in charge of supplies and communications between Francis Ⅱ and the Queen of Naples before Gaeta (see Pierre de la Gorce's Histoire du Second Empire).

【8】
8. True distinction, moreover, always feigns to be addressing itself only to persons of distinction who know the same usages, it does not 'explain'. A book by Anatole France hints at a mass of erudite knowledge, and contains constant allusions that the masses will overlook but which, independently of its other beauties, constitute its incomparable nobility.

【9】
9. This is no doubt why often, when a great writer turns critic, he talks a lot about the available editions of old works, and very little about contemporary books. Example, the Lundis of Sainte-Beuve and Anatole France's Vie littéraire. But whereas M. Anatole France is a wonderful judge of his contemporaries, it may be said that Sainte-Beuve misinterpreted all the great writers of his own day. And let it not be objected that he was blinded by personal animosities. After, unbelievably, having disparaged the novelist in Stendhal, by way of compensation he extols the modesty and tactful dealings of the man, as if there were nothing else to be said in his favour! This blindness in Sainte-Beuve, where his own time was concerned, contrasts oddly with his pretensions to clear-sightedness and to prescience. 'Everyone is adept,' he says in Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire, 'at prononucing on Racine and Bossuet ... But the sagaciousness of the judge and the perspicacity of the critic prove themselves above all on new writings as yet untried by the public. To judge at first sight, to divine, to lead the way, that is the gift of the critic. How few possess it.'

【10】
10. And, vice versa, the classics have had no better commentators than the 'Romantics'. The Romantics alone indeed know how to read classical works, because they read them as they were written, romantically, because to read a poet or a prose writer properly, one has oneself to be, not a scholar, but a poet or a prose writer. This is true for the least 'Romantic' of works. It was not the professors of rhetoric who drew our attention to Boileau's beautiful lines, but Victor Hugo:

Et dans quatre mouchoirs de sa beauté salis

Envoie au blanchissuer ses roses et ses lys.

And in four handkerchiefs soiled by her beauty

Sends to the laundryman her roses and her lilies.

Or M. Anatole France:

L'ignorance et l'erreur à ses naissantes pièces

En habits de marquis, en robes de comtesse.

Ignorance and error in his newborn plays

In a marquis's clothes, in a countess's robes.

The latest issue of La Renaissance latine (15 May 1905) has enabled me, as I was correcting my proofs, to extend this observation to the fine arts, by means of a fresh example. This shows M. Rodin, indeed (in an article by M. Mauclair), to be the true commentator on Greek statuary.

【11】
11. A predilection which they themselves generally believe to be fortuitous: they assume that the best books merely chance to have been written by ancient authors; and this may happen no doubt, because the old books which we read have been selected from the past as a whole, so vast compared with the modern age. But an in a sense accidental reason can not suffice to explain an attitude of mind so general.

【12】
12. I think for example that the charm normally found in these lines from Andromaque:

Pourquoi l'assassiner? Qu'a-t-il fait? A quel titre?

Qui te l'a dit?

Why murder him? What has he done? On what grounds?

Who told you?

comes precisely from the fact that the usual syntactical links have been deliberately broken. 'On what grounds?' relates not to the 'What has he done' immediately preceding, but to 'Why murder him?' And 'Who told you?' also relates to 'murder' (Recalling another line in Andromaque: 'Who told you, my Lord, that he despises me?' one might imagine that 'Who told you?' stands for 'Who told you to murder him?'). Zigzags in the expression (the recurring, broken line I speak of above) which do not fail to obscure the sense somewhat, so that I have heard a great actress, more concerned for the clarity of the speech than the accuracy of the prosody, say straight out: 'Why murder him? On what grounds? What has he done?' Racine's most celebrated lines are so in point of fact because we are charmed when some bold colloquialism is thus thrown like an impetuous bridge between two mellow river-banks. 'Je t'aimais inconstant, qu'aurais-je fait fidèle.' [I was inconstant and loved you, what would I have done had I been true.] And what pleasure they give, these splendid encounters with expressions whose almost vulgar simplicity lends to their meaning, as to certain of Mantegna's faces, so sweet a fullness, such lovely colours:

Et dans un fol amour ma jeunesse embarquée ...

And on a mad love my youth embarked

Réunissons trois coeurs qui n'ont pu s'accorder.

Let us unite three hearts unable to agree.

This is why it is right to read classical authors in the text and not be satisfied with extracts. The famous passages of writers are often those where this intimate contexture of their language is disguised by the beauty — almost universal in character — of the extract. I do not believe that the essence peculiar to the music of Gluck reveals itself in any one of his sublime arias so much as in certain cadences of his recitative, where the harmony is like the actual sound of the voice of his genius as it drops on an involuntary intonation on which is stamped all of his artless gravity and distinction, each time one hears him catch his breath so to speak. Anyone who has seen photographs of St Mark's in Venice may imagine (but I speak only of the outside of that monument) that he has some idea of that domed church, whereas it is only as you approach the mottled curtain of its cheerful columns, until you can touch them with your hand, only when you see the strange and solemn power that has wreathed the foliage or made birds to perch in those capitals, distinguishable only from close to, only when you have had an impression from the square itself of this low-set building, and the full length of its facade, with its flowered masts and festival decoration, its 'exhibition-hall' look, that you feel its true and complex individuality burst forth from these significant yet subsidiary features which no photograph can capture.

【13】
13. 'And Mary said: "My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour," etc. Zacharias her father was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying: "Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel for that he has redeemed," etc. "He took him up in his arms, blessed God and said, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'"'

【14】
14. In truth there is no positive evidence enabling me to affirm that when reading like this the reciter chanted the sort of psalms which St Luke has inserted into his gospel. But it seems to me to come out sufficiently strongly from a comparison of various passages in Renan and notably in St Paul, the Apostles, Marcus Aurelius, etc.

Days of Reading (Ⅱ)

1. You have no doubt read the Memoirs of the Countess de Boigne. There are 'so many people ill' at the moment, that books are finding readers, even female ones. When one is unable to go out and pay calls, one would rather receive them no doubt than read. But 'in these days of epidemics' even the calls one receives are not without danger. There is the lady who pauses for a moment — just for a moment — in the doorway, where she puts a frame round her threat, to call to you: 'You're not afraid of mumps or scarlet fever? I must warn you that my daughter and my grandchildren have got them. Can I come in?'; and comes in without waiting for a reply. There is another lady, less candid, who pulls out her watch: 'I must be off home; my three daughters have got measles; I go from one to the other; my English girl has been in bed since yesterday with a high fever, and I'm very much afraid it may be my turn to be caught, because I felt off colour when I got up. But I had to make the big effort to come and see you ...'

2. So one prefers not to entertain too much and since one cannot be always telephoning, one reads. One reads only as an absolutely last resort. First, we do a lot of telephoning. And, since we are children who play with the sacred powers unawed by their mystery, we find merely with the telephone that 'it is convenient', or rather, since we are spoilt children, that 'it is not convenient' and fill Le Figaro with our complaints, finding this wonderful fairy-land still not fast enough in its transformations, when several minutes may sometimes elapse indeed before there appears beside us, invisible yet present, the friend to whom we had desired to speak and who, though still at her table, in the far-off town where she lives, beneath skies different from ours, in weather not as it is here, in the midst of circumstances and pre-occupations of which we know nothing but of which she is about to tell us, finds herself suddenly transported a hundred miles away (herself, and the whole ambience in which she remains immersed), against our ear, at a moment ordained by our own whim. And we are like the character in the fairy-tale who, this being what he has wished for, is shown his betrothed by a wizard, with a magical clarity, in the act of looking through a book, or shedding tears, or picking flowers, right beside him, yet in the place where she then is, far away.

3. For this miracle to be renewed for us, we have only to put our lips to the magic planchette-board and summon — for quite some time on occasions, I will agree — the vigilant Virgins whose voices we hear every day without ever knowing their faces and who are our guardian angels in that vertiginous darkness whose gates they watch over jealously, the Omnipotent ones thanks to whom the faces of the absent loom up beside us without our being allowed to see them; we have only to summon these Danaids of the Invisible who empty, recharge and hand on to one another unceasingly the dark urns of sounds, the jealous Furies who, as we murmur a confidence to a woman friend, call out to us ironically: 'I'm on the line,' at a moment when we were hoping no one could hear us, the irate servants of the Mystery, the implacable Divinities, the Damsels of the telephone! And the instant their summons has sounded in the night full of apparitions to which our ears alone are opened, a faint sound, an abstract sound — of distance being suppressed — and the voice of our friend is addressing us.

4. If at that moment the singing of a passer-by, the horn of a bicyclist or a distant regimental band should enter by the window to importune her as she is speaking to us, they ring out just as distinctly for us (as if to prove that it is indeed she who is beside us, with everything that surrounds her at that moment, that is striking her ear and distracting her attention) — truthful details, nothing to do with the subject, useless in themselves, but all the more necessary as revealing to us the full evidence of the miracle — prosaic and charming elements of local colour, descriptive of the provincial street and roadway to be seen from her house, such as a poet chooses when he wants to bring a character alive and evokes his milieu.

5. It is she, it is her voice which is speaking to us, which is there. But how far away it is! How many times have I been able to listen to it without anguish, as if, faced by the impossibility of seeing, without long hours of travelling, the person whose voice was so close to my ear, I sensed more clearly how disappointing this semblance of the sweetest proximity is and how far distant we may be from the things we love at the moment when it seems we need only stretch out our hand to detain them. A real presence — this voice so close — in an effective separation. But an anticipation also of an everlasting separation. Very often, listening to it in this fashion, unable to see the person who was speaking to me from so far away, her voice seemed to be crying out from the depths from which one does not reascend, and I experienced the anxiety that would one day seize hold of me, when a voice returned to me thus, alone no longer dependent on a body I should never set eyes on again, to murmur in my ear words I would like to have been able to embrace as they passed on lips that are forever dust.

6. I was saying that before making up our minds to read, we try to keep on conversing, to telephone, we ask for number after number. But sometimes the Daughters of the Night, the Messengers of the Word, the faceless Goddesses, the capricious Guardians cannot or will not open the gates of the Invisible to us, the Mystery we solicit remains deaf, the venerable inventor of printing and the young prince who was both a lover of Impressionist painting and a motorist — Gutenberg and Wagram! [two Parisian telephone exchanges] — upon whom they call tirelessly, leave their supplications unanswered; then, since we cannot pay calls, since we do not wish to receive them, since the damsels of the telephone cannot connect us, we resign ourselves to being silent, we read.

7. In only a few weeks' time we shall be able to read the new volume of poetry by Mme de Noailles, Les Eblouissements (I do not know whether it will keep that title), superior even to those books of genius, Le Coeur innombrable and L'Ombre des jours, the equal in fact, it seems to me, of the Feuilles d'automne or the Fleurs du mal. Meanwhile, we might read the pure and exquisite Margaret Ogilvy de Barrie, wonderfully well translated by R. d'Humières, which is simply the life of a peasant woman told by a poet, her son. But no; the moment we resign ourselves to reading, we choose for preference books like the Memoirs of Mme de Boigne, books which give us the illusion of continuing to pay calls, calls on people we had not been able to visit before because we were not yet born under Louis XVI, but who are not so very different as it happens from the people whom you know because almost all of them bear the same names as they do, their descendants and your friends who, by a touching courtesy towards your ailing memory, have kept the same first names and are still called: Odon, Ghislain, Nivelon, Victurnien, Josselin, Léonor, Artus, Tucdual, Adhéaume or Raynulphe. Fine baptismal names moreover, which one would do wrong to smile at; they come from a past so profound that in their unwonted lustre they seem to sparkle mysteriously, like those names of prophets and saints inscribed in brief in the stained-glass of our cathedrals. Does Jehan itself, although more like one of today's names, not appear inevitably as if traced in Gothic characters in a Book of Hours by a brush dipped in purple, ultramarine or azure? Faced with such names, the common people would perhaps repeat the Montmartre song:

Bragance, on le connaît ct'oiseau-là;

Faut-il que son orgueil soye profonde

Pour s'être f... u un nom comme ça!

Peut donc pas s'appeler comme tout le monde!

Bragance, we know that character;

He must be really big-headed

To have got himself a f ... ing name like that!

Couldn't he have a name like everyone else!

8. But the poet, if he is sincere, does not share in such merriment but, with his eyes fixed on the past that such names disclose to him, will reply with Verlaine:

Je vois, j'entends beaucoup de choses

Dans son nom Carlovingien.

I see, I hear many things

In his Carolingian name.

9. An enormous past perhaps. I should like to think that these names, so few examples of which have come down to us, thanks to the attachment to tradition of certain families, were in the old days very common names — the names of villeins as well as noblemen — so that, through the naive colours of the magic-lantern slides that such names offer us, it is not only the mighty lord with the blue beard or Sister Anne in her tower that we can see, but also the peasant bent over the ripening meadow or the men-at-arms riding along dusty thirteenth-century roads.

10. Very often no doubt the medieval impression their names give off does not survive an acquaintance with those who bear them and who have neither preserved nor understood their poetry; but can we reasonably ask of human beings that they should show themselves worthy of their names when the most beautiful things have so much difficulty in living up to theirs, when there is no landscape, no city, no river the sight of which can assuage the dreamlike desire its name had given birth to in us? The sensible thing would be to replace all our society connections and many journeys by a reading of the Almanach de Gotha or the railway timetable ...

11. What is moving about Memoirs from the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, like those of the Countess de Boigne, is that they lend to the contemporary age, to our own days that are lived without beauty, a rather noble, rather melancholy perspective, by making them as it were into the foreground of History. They enable us to pass easily from the persons whom we have met with in life — or whom our parents have known — to the parents of those persons, who themselves, as authors or as characters in these Memoirs, may have witnessed the Revolution and seen Marie-Antoinette go by. So that the people whom we may have been able to glimpse or to know — the people we have seen with our own eyes — are like those life-size wax models in the foreground of panoramas, treading on real grass and holding up a cane bought from a shop, who seem still to be part of the crowd that is gazing at them and lead us gradually to the painted backcloth, to which, thanks to skilfully contrived transitions, they lend the three-dimensional appearance of life and reality. This Mme de Boigne then, born a d'Osmond and brought up, so she tells us, on the laps of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, as an adolescent I very often saw her niece at balls, the old Duchess de Maillé, née d'Osmond, over eighty yet still splendid beneath the grey hair brushed upwards from her forehead which put one in mind of the bob-wigs worn by presidents in the High Court. And I recall that my parents very often dined with Mme de Boigne's nephew, M. d'Osmond, for whom she wrote these Memoirs and whose photograph I found among their papers, together with many letters he had addressed to them. So that my own earliest memories of balls, which hang by a thread from the for me somewhat less distinct yet still very real accounts of my parents, are connected by an already almost immaterial link to the memories which Mme de Boigne had preserved and which she recounts to us of the earliest entertainments at which she was present; all of which weaves a tissue of frivolities, yet a poetic one, for it ends as the stuff of dreams, a slender bridge thrown between the present and an already distant past, and which joins life to history, making history more alive and life almost historical.

12. Here I am, alas, at the third column of the newspaper and I have not yet begun my article even. It was to have been called. 'Snobbery and Posterity', but I am not going to be able to leave it with that title since I have filled the entire space reserved for me without saying a single word to you as yet about either Snobbery or Posterity, two persons whom you no doubt thought would never be called upon to meet, for the greater good fortune of the second, and on the topic of whom I was intending to subject you to a few reflections inspired by reading the Memoirs of Mme de Boigne. That must wait until next time. And if then one of those phantoms that interpose themselves ceaselessly between my mind and its object, as happens in dreams, should again come to solicit my attention and distract it from what I have to say to you, I shall thrust it aside just as Ulysses thrust aside with his sword the shades that crowded round him imploring him for a human form or for burial.

13. Today I have been unable to resist the appeal of these visions that I could see floating halfway down, in the transparency of my mind. And I have attempted without success what the master glassmaker so often achieved when he transported and fixed his dreams, at the very distance at which they had appeared to him, between two waters clouded by dark, pink reflections, in a translucid substance in which at times a fitful ray of light, coming from its heart, might have made them think that they were still at play inside a living mind. Like the Nereids which the sculptor of antiquity had snatched from the sea but who could still believe themselves to be immersed in it as they swam between the marble waves of the bas-relief that figured it. I was wrong. It will not happen again. Next time I shall talk to you of snobbery and posterity, without digressing. And should some untoward idea, some indiscreet fancy seek to meddle in what is none of its business and threaten once more to interrupt us, I shall at once beg it to let us be: 'We are talking, do not cut us off, mademoiselle!'

From The Method of Sainte-Beuve

(extracts)

[...]

1. Thus it seems to me that I would have things that have their importance perhaps to say about Sainte-Beuve, and presently much more in connection with him than about him, that by showing where he sinned, in my view, both as writer and as critic, I should perhaps come to say some things about which I have often thought as to what criticism should be and what art is. In passing, and in his connection, as he does so often, I shall use him as the excuse for talking about certain forms of life ...

[...]

2. For the definition and eulogizing of Sainte-Beuve's method I have looked to the article by M. Paul Bourget, because the definition was short and the eulogy authoritative. I could have cited twenty other critics. To have written the natural history of minds, to have looked to the biography of the man, to the history of his family, to all his peculiarities, for an understanding of his work and the nature of his genius, that is what everyone recognizes to have been his originality, and what he recognized himself, in which moreover he was right. Taine himself, who dreamt of a more systematic and better codified natural history of men's minds and with whom as it happens Sainte-Beuve did not agree over questions of race, says no differently in his eulogy of Sainte-Beuve: 'M. Sainte-Beuve's method is no less valuable than his work. In this he was a pioneer. He imported into moral history the procedures of natural history.'

[...]

3. Now, in art there are no initiators or precursors (at least in the scientific sense). Everything is in the individual, each individual starts the artistic or literary endeavour over again, on his own account; the works of his predecessors do not constitute, unlike in science, an acquired truth from which he who follows after may profit. A writer of genius today has it all to do. He is not much further advanced than Homer.

4. But those philosophers who have been unable to find what is real and independent of all science in art have been forced to imagine art, criticism, etc., to themselves as sciences in which the predecessor is necessarily less far advanced than whoever follows after him.

5. But why trouble anyway to name all those who see in this the originality and excellence of Sainte-Beuve's method? One need only let him speak for himself.

6. 'For me,' said Sainte-Beuve, 'literature is not distinct or at any rate separable from the rest of the man and of his organization ... We cannot go about it in too many different ways or from too many different angles if we are to get to know a man, something more than a pure intelligence, that is. Until such time as one has put to oneself a certain number of questions about an author, and has answered them, be it only to oneself alone and under one's breath, one cannot be sure of having grasped him entire, even though the questions may seem quite foreign to the nature of his writings: What were his religious ideas? How did the spectacle of nature affect him? How did he behave in the matter of women, of money? Was he rich, poor; what was his diet, his daily routine? What was his vice or his weakness? None of the answers to these questions is irrelevant if we are to judge the author of a book or the book itself, provided that book is not a treatise on pure geometry, if it is a work of literature above all, one, that is, which brings in everything, etc.' This method which he applied instinctively all his life and in which towards the end he saw the first outlines of a sort of literary botany ...

7. Sainte-Beuve's is not a profound oeuvre. The famous method which in fact, according to Taine, to M. Paul Bourget and to so many others, made him the peerless master of nineteenth-century criticism — that method which consists of not separating the man from the work, of considering that it is not irrelevant if we are to judge the author of a book, unless the book is 'a treatise on pure geometry', to have first answered questions which seem quite foreign to his work (how did he behave ...), to surround oneself with all the possible facts about a writer, to collate his correspondence, to question the people who knew him, talking with them if they are still alive, reading what they may have written about him if they are dead — such a method fails to recognize what any more than merely superficial acquaintance with ourselves teaches us: that a book is the product of a self other than that which we display in our habits, in company, in our vices. If we want to try and understand this self, it is deep inside us, by trying to recreate it within us, that we may succeed. This is an effort of the heart from which nothing can absolve us. It is a truth every bit of which we have to create and... It is too easy to suppose that it will arrive one fine morning among our mail, in the form of an unpublished letter imparted to us by a librarian friend, or that we shall gather it from the lips of someone who knew the author well. Speaking of the great admiration aroused in several writers of the new generation by the work of Stendhal [Henri Beyle], Sainte-Beuve says: 'May they permit me to tell them, that if we are clearly to judge that rather complicated mind and not exaggerate at all in any direction, I shall always come back for preference, independently of my own impressions and memories, to what those who knew him in his prime and when he was starting out have to say about him, to M. Mérimée, to M. Ampère, to what Jacquemont would have to tell me about him were he still alive, to those, in short, who saw and savoured much of him in his earlier version.'

8. Why so? How does the fact of having been a friend of Stendhal make us better able to judge him? On the contrary, it would probably be a serious hindrance. For such intimates the self which produces the works is obscured by the other self, which may be very inferior to the outward self of many other men. The best proof of which moreover is that, having known Stendhal, and having collected up all the facts he could from 'M. Mérimée' and 'M. Ampère', having equipped himself, in short, with everything which, according to him, enables a critic to judge a book more accurately, Sainte-Beuve judged Stendhal in the following manner: 'I have just reread, or tried to, the novels of Stendhal; they are frankly detestable.'

[...]

9. He ends with these two gems: 'Criticize Beyle's novels with some candour though I may, I am far from censuring him for having written them ... His novels are what they may be, but they are not vulgar. They are like his criticism, for the use chiefly of those who write them ...' And the concluding words of the article: 'Beyle had a fundamental straightforwardness and reliability in his personal dealings which we must never forget to acknowledge once we have said our piece about him.' A good fellow, Beyle, all things considered. To reach which conclusion it was perhaps scarcely worth the trouble of meeting M. Mérimée so often at dinner or at the Academy, or 'setting M. Ampère talking' so much, and once having read it one is less anxious than Sainte-Beuve was at the thought of the new generations to come.

[...]

10. At no time does Sainte-Beuve seem to have grasped what is peculiar to inspiration or the activity of writing, and what marks it off totally from the occupations of other men and the other occupations of the writer. He drew no dividing line between the occupation of writing, in which, in solitude and suppressing those words which belong as much to others as to ourselves, and with which, even when alone, we judge things without being ourselves, we come face to face once more with our selves, and seek to hear and to render the true sound of our hearts — and conversation!

11. It is only the deceptive appearance of the image here which lends something vaguer and more external to the writer's craft and something deeper and more contemplative to sociability. In actual fact what one gives to the public is what one has written when alone, for oneself, it is very much the work of one's self... What one gives to sociability, that is to conversation (however refined it may be, and the most refined is the worst of all, because it falsifies our spiritual life by associating itself to it: Flaubert's conversations with his niece or with the clockmaker are without risk) or to those productions intended for one's intimates, that is to say reduced so as to appeal to a few and which are barely more than written conversation, is the work of a far more external self, not of the deep self which is only to be found by disregarding other people and the self that knows other people, the self that has been waiting while one was with others, which one feels clearly to be the only real self, for which alone artists end by living, like a god whom they leave less and less and to whom they have sacrificed a life that serves only to do him honour.

[...]

12. And not having seen the gulf that separates the writer from the society man, not having understood that the writer's self shows itself only in his books, that he only shows society men (even those society men that other writers are, when in society, who only become writers again once on their own) a society man like themselves, he was to launch that famous method which, according to Taine, Bourget and so many others, is his claim to fame, and which consists, in order to understand a poet or writer, in questioning avidly those who knew him, who frequented him, who may be able to tell us how he behaved in the matter of women, etc., that is, on all those very points where the poet's true self is not involved.

[...]

13. Just as we find Sainte-Beuve believing that the salon life which he enjoyed was indispensable to literature, and projecting it across the centuries, here to the court of Louis XIV, there to the select circle of the Directory, so ... In point of fact this seven-days-a-week creator, who often did not rest even on Sundays and who received his wages of fame on Mondays from the pleasure he gave to good judges and the knocks he inflicted on the unkind ones, saw all of literature as a sort of Lundis which may perhaps be reread but which have had to be written in their own time heedful of the opinion of the good judges, in order to please and not relying too much on posterity. He sees literature under the category of time. [...] Literature seems to him to be of its period, to be worth what the person was worth. In sum, it is better to play a major role in politics and not to write than to be a political malcontent and write a book on morality ... etc. He was not like Emerson, therefore, who said that we must hitch our wagon to a star. He tries to hitch his to the most contingent thing of all, to politics.

[...]

14. I wonder at times whether what is still best in Sainte-Beuve is not his poetry. There the intellectual games have ceased. He no longer comes at things obliquely, with endless clevernesses and trickery. The magic and infernal circle has been broken. In ceasing to speak in prose he ceases to tell lies, as if the constant mendacity of his thought stemmed in his case from his contrived skill in expression. Just as a student, forced to translate his thoughts into Latin, is forced to lay them bare, so Sainte-Beuve finds himself for the first time in the presence of reality and receives a direct sense of it. [...] of him, of the deep, unconscious, personal self there is hardly anything bar the clumsiness. That recurs frequently, as nature will. But the trifling thing, the trifling yet also delightful and sincere thing that is his poetry, that skilful and at times successful attempt to express the purity of love, the sadness of late afternoons in large towns, the magic of memory, the emotion of reading, the melancholy of an unbelieving old age, demonstrates — because one feels that it is the only real thing about him — the lack of significance in his vast, marvellous, ebullient oeuvre as a critic — for all these marvels come down to this. Mere appearance, the Lundis. The reality, this handful of poems. The poems of a critic, they it is out of all his writings that tip eternity's scales.

Swann Explained by Proust

[Published November 1913]

1. 'I am publishing only one volume, Du côté de chez Swann, of a novel whose general title will be A la recherche du temps perdu. I would like to have brought the whole of it out at once; but works in several volumes are no longer being published. I am like someone who has a tapestry too large for present-day apartments, and who has been obliged to cut it up.

2. 'Young writers, with whom I am otherwise in sympathy, advocate on the contrary a succinct plot with few characters. That is not my conception of the novel. How to put it to you? You know that there is plane geometry and solid geometry. Well, for me, the novel is not only plane psychology, but psychology in time. I have attempted to isolate the invisible substance of time, but to do that the experiment had to be able to be long-lasting. I hope that at the end of my book, some minor social event of no importance, some marriage between two persons who in the first volume belong to very different worlds, will indicate that time has passed and will take on the beauty of certain patinated leadwork at Versailles, which time has encased in an emerald sheath.

3. 'Then, like a town which, as the train follows a curve in the track, appears now on our right hand and now on our left, the various aspects that a single character has taken on in someone else's eyes, to the extent of being like different and successive characters, will convey — but only by this — the sensation of time having elapsed. Particular characters will later reveal themselves as different from what they are in the present volume, and different from what they will be believed to be, as very often happens in life for that matter.

4. 'It is not only the same characters who will reappear in the course of the work under different aspects, as in certain cycles by Balzac, but,' M. Proust tells us, 'certain profound, almost unconscious impressions within a single character.

5. 'From this point of view,' M. Proust goes on, 'my book would perhaps be like an attempt at a sequence of "Novels of the Unconscious"; I would not be at all ashamed to say "Bergsonian novels" if I believed that, for it happens in every age that literature attempts to attach itself — post hoc, of course — to the prevailing philosophy. But that would not be accurate, for my work is dominated by the distinction between involuntary and voluntary memory, a distinction which not only does not appear in M. Bergson's philosophy but is even contradicted by it.'

6. 'How do you substantiate this distinction?'

7. 'For me, voluntary memory, which is above all a memory of the intellect and of the eyes, gives us only facets of the past that have no truth; but should a smell or a taste, met with again in quite different circumstances, reawaken the past in us, in spite of ourselves, we sense how different that past was from what we thought we had remembered, our voluntary memory having painted it, like a bad painter, in false colours. Already, in this first volume, you will find the character who tells the story and who says "I" (who is not me) suddenly recovering years, gardens, people he has forgotten, in the taste of a mouthful of tea in which he has soaked a bit of madeleine; he could have remembered them no doubt, but without their colour or their charm; I have been able to make him say that, as in that little Japanese game where you soak flimsy bits of paper which, the moment you immerse them in the bowl, spread out and writhe and turn into flowers and characters, all the flowers in his garden, and the water-lilies of the Vivonne, and the good people of the village and their little houses and the church, and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, whatever can take on shape and solidity, has emerged, town and gardens, out of his cup of tea.

8. 'You see, I believe that it is really only to involuntary memories that the artist should go for the raw material of his work. First, precisely because they are involuntary and take shape of their own accord, drawn by the resemblance of some identical moment, they alone bear the hallmark of authenticity. Then, they bring things back to us in exact proportions of memory and oblivion. And finally, since they give us to enjoy the same sensation in quite other circumstances, they release it from all contingency, they give us its extratemporal essence, which is the very content of good style, that general and necessary truth that the beauty of a style alone can reveal.

9. 'If I permit myself to rationalize about my book like this,' M. Proust continues, 'that is because it is not in any degree a product of the reason, for its least elements were supplied to me by my sensibility, I perceived them first deep inside myself, without understanding them and had as much difficulty converting them into something intelligible as if they had been as alien to the world of the intellect — as what shall I say — a musical motif. You are thinking I imagine that this is over-subtle. But I assure you, on the contrary, that it is a reality. What we have not had to elucidate for ourselves, what was clear already (the ideas of logic for example), is not truly ours, we do not even know whether it is the real. It is a part of the "possible" that we select arbitrarily. Besides, you can tell that right away, you know, by the style.

10. 'Style is not at all an embellishment as certain people think, it is not even a matter of technique, it is — like colour with painters — a quality of vision, the revelation of the private universe that each one of us can see and which others cannot see. The pleasure an artist affords us is to introduce us to one universe the more.'