|
|
Excerpt：Letters to His Neighbor by Proust
“If you have suffered from noisy neighbours, you will sympathize with Marcel Proust.”
- The TImes Literary Supplement
不得不承認幾年前瘋狂認真地啃食吞嚥普魯斯特的傳記或評論的熱情已逐漸退卻，儘管現在的自己可以說是更成熟地看待自己的狂熱、也可以說是更冷靜地量測自己和普魯斯特的距離。
那無法跨越的鴻溝，端賴前人辛苦搭建的各種橋樑漸次靠近，有時候從普魯斯特的作品評論跨越過來、有時候從普魯斯特的傳記攀爬上去、有時候還得從普魯斯特的朋友打探消息……
而這一次則是試著從普魯斯特寫給鄰居的書信下手。
http://www.books.com.tw/products/F013954377
Letters to His Neighbor
作者： Proust, Marcel/ Davis, Lydia (TRN)/ Gaudry, Estelle (EDT)/ Tadie, Jean-Yves (EDT)
原文出版社：New Directions
出版日期：2017/08/22
普魯斯特在 1907 年搬至奧斯曼大道 (Boulevard Haussmann) 102 號，樓上住了一對夫婦，先生是美國牙醫師 Dr. Williams，太太 Marie 則是演奏豎琴的音樂家。
眾所周知，普魯斯特有嚴重的失眠症狀，他的作品中經常可見他個人領悟的獨到之處：
我情意綿綿地把腮幫貼在枕頭的鼓溜溜的面頰上，它像我們童年的臉龐，那麼飽滿、嬌嫩、清新。我劃亮一根火柴看了看錶。時近子夜。這正是病羈異鄉的遊子獨宿在陌生的客舍，被一陣疼痛驚醒的時刻。看到門下透進一絲光芒，他感到寬慰。謝天謝地，總算天亮了！旅館的聽差就要起床了；待一會兒，他只要拉鈴，就有人會來支應。偏偏這時他還彷彿聽到了腳步聲，自遠而近，旋而又漸漸遠去。門下的那一線光亮也隨之又消失。正是午夜時分。來人把煤氣燈捻滅了；最後值班的聽差都走了。他只得獨自煎熬整整一宿，別無他法。
(p.4 追憶似水年華 I 在斯萬家那邊 聯經版 1992)
……我們睡眠中生活的世界與現實世界是那樣不同，失眠者首先想到的是要擺脫現實世界。他們連續幾個小時閉著眼睛，腦子裏盤旋著和他們睜眼時同樣的想法，一旦發現頭一分鐘出現了一個異常的想法，從表面上看這想法與邏輯規律和現實生活相抵觸，他們就會恢復勇氣。這個短暫的“失神”表明睡眠的大門已經打開，也許他們馬上就可以溜進門去，脫離現實感覺，到離開現實多少有段距離的地方歇歇腳，這樣，他們就會或長或短地“美美”地睡上一覺。
(p.86~87 追憶似水年華 III蓋爾芒特家那邊 聯經版 1992)
因而普魯斯特對於「噪音」的高敏感度成了他寫信給 Williams太太的契機，而他總是能千回百轉地迂迴著：
I had in fact not anticipated a shortness of breath so severe that it prevents me from trying to sleep. Noise will therefore not bother me in the least (and will be all the more relief for me on a day on which I could rest).
﹝end of 1908—beginning of 1909？﹞
I hope that you will not find me too indiscreet. I have had a great deal of noise these past few days and as I am not well, I am more sensitive to it. I have learned that the Doctor is leaving Paris the day after tomorrow and can imagine all that this implies for tomorrow concerning the "nailing" of crates. Would it be possible either to nail the crates this evening, or else not to nail them tomorrow until starting at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon (if my attack ends earlier I would hasten to let you know).
﹝July or August 1915﹞
除此，普魯斯特也在信裡頭藉機談論他的作品、戰爭和兵役問題，以及彼此喜愛的音樂：
……Clary told me what a great musician you were. Will I never be able to come up and hear you? The Franck quartet, the Béatitudes, the Beethoven (all music that I have in fact here) are the objects of my most nostalgic desire.
I have never once been well enough to go hear them (last Sunday the Béatitudes was performed, but I was wheezing in my bed) and when by chance a musician comes to see me in the evening, I stop him from making music for me so that the noise may not bother you. What compensation if on one of the very rare evenings when I can get up, you should permit me to hear you.
譯者 Lydia Davis 本身是一位相當熟悉普魯斯特的知名作家，她曾經擔綱企鵝出版社的翻譯計畫，負責《追憶似水年華》的第一冊《斯萬之路》 (The Way by Swann's)，因此書末的評論格外珍貴，她還特別提到普魯斯特的房間，鉅細靡遺地描繪裡頭的隔間，或許也可以當作購買本書的重要考量。
另外有一件插曲則是相當有趣，Lydia 提到《新觀察家》 (Le Nouvel Observateur) 在本書出版之後摘要了部分書信內容，結果網站上出現一則留言，超展開普魯斯特的送花密史，原來從 1908 年開始長達五年，普魯斯特遠從他渡假的卡堡 (Cabourg) 鄰鎮烏爾加特 (Houlgate)，都會透過一家花店送花給巴黎住所的芳鄰，這完全符合他的行事風格：慷慨多金、溫文有禮且持之以恆……
我想這就是普魯斯特之所以是普魯斯特吧！
【Excerpt】
A person by the lyrical name of Lerossignol—"the nightingale" —writes an online comment to the article. He is the grandson of a florist with a shop in the seaside town of Houlgate, on the stretch of the Normandy coast aptly known as the Cote Fleurie (the Flowery Coast); Houlgate was a neighboring town to Cabourg, where Proust liked to stay at the Grand Hotel. Guests marveled, according to Philippe Soupault in his memoirs, over "how Monsieur Proust rented five expensive rooms, one to live in, the other four to 'contain' the silence." Cabourg became Balbec in Proust's novel. The flower shop was the one Proust patronized in the years 1908 to 1913 when sending flowers to, among others, Mme Williams. M. Lerossignol writes that the family archives in his possession include records of the shop's transactions which mention Proust's sending flowers to the Williamses; he has therefore known the name for a long time and was aware that the couple must have been acquaintances of Proust's. But only now, with the publication of the present letters, does he know who they were. He would like, incidentally, to correct one statement in the commentary that accompanies the extracts—that in those days etiquette required that a man send flowers not directly to a married woman but to her husband. He can attest from his family records that this was not always the case, and he knows in which cases Proust sent flowers to the husband and in which, in fact, directly to the wife. With regard to the Williamses, however, he adds, Proust was always very correct. (See, for example, letter 3.) M. Lerossignol goes on to remark that Proust' despite his illness, did venture into the family flower shop: Lerossignol's grandmother counted thirty-two visits before 1912.
From the invoices of Proust's orders it is possible to know the names of those with whom Proust associated while staying at the vast Grand Hotel Cabourg, before his health worsened to such an extent that he confined himself permanently to Paris. M, Lerossignol has had the idea organizing a tour the still surviving villas of those to whom Proust sent flowers in Houlgate ordered from Au Jardin des Roses, the florist of M. Lerossignol's grandparents, who were also named Lerossignol.
本文於 修改第 2 次
|
本城市首頁
等級：8
