Iris Murdoch - The Flight from the Enchanter (Excerpt) 汉译

Annette felt always that she was travelling at a speed which was not her own. Going to or from her parents on one of her innumerable journey, her train would stop sometimes between stations, revealing suddenly the silence of the mountains. Then Annette would look at the grass beside the railway and see its green detail at it swayed in the breeze. In the silence the grass would seem very close to her; and she would stun herself with the thought that the grass was really there, a few feet away, and that it was possible for her to step out, and to lie down in it, and let the train go on without her. Or else, travelling towards evening, as the lights were coming on in the houses, she would see the cyclist at the level-crossing, his face preoccupied and remote, and think that when the train had passed and the gates opened he would go on his way and by the time he reached his house she would be passing another frontier. But she never got off the train to lie down in the grass, nor did she ever leave it, high up in the mountains, at the small station that was not mentioned in the timetable, where the train unexpectedly halted and where the little hotel whose name she could read so plainly, waited with its doors open. She would not break the spell and cross the barrier into what seemed to her at such moments to be her own world. She stayed on the train until it reached the terminus, and the chauffeur came to take her luggage to the car and Nicholas came bounding into the carriage, filling her with both sadness and relief at the ending of the journey. But the world of the chambermaid and the cyclist and the little strange hotel continued to exist, haunting and puzzling her with a dream of something slow and quiet from which she was forever shut away.

安呐特觉得她老是以非自己控制的速率在旅行着。从父母跟前出来，或回到父母跟前去，在数不清的旅程上，每次她坐的火车，有时总不免要在车站与车站的中途停下来，突然显示出有深山一般的寂静。那时，安呐特总要去看看铁路旁边的青草，看那些绿的草尖在微风中摇摆的样子。在这种寂静中，那青草会变得好像很靠近她似的；她会使自己昏眩地以为那青草果真在那儿，离开她不过两三英尺远吧了。她又以为她是可以走出去的，走去躺下在青草中，让火车没有她坐在上面自各儿开走。要不然的话，当万家灯火近黄昏的时候坐在火车上，她就会看到在平交道上那骑脚踏车的人，面孔上贤德心不在焉的样子，她想到火车一经过，平交道的栅门打开时，那人就会继续上路，等到他回到家里的时候，她乘的火车恐怕又在经过欧洲的另外一个国境了。但是她实际并没有下车去躺下在青草中，那怕是当火车走向高高的山路，在火车时间表上都没有名字的小站上以外地停下来，那儿的小旅馆，它的名字都看得清清楚楚，正敞开大门在等待着她，而她也从来没有离开过火车一步。她不能破除符咒，越过障碍进入在那种时候好像是她自己的世界里去。她只能留在火车上，直到它开到终点站为止。于是汽车夫来替她把行李搬上汽车去，而她的哥哥尼可拉一下就跳进车厢里来了。到了旅程的终点，她满怀忧愁而又安慰，心绪颇为不宁。但是包含那个儿时的女仆，那个骑脚踏车的人，以及那个奇怪的小旅舍等等的世界，老是历历在目，不能忘怀，时常浮现于脑海中，变成一个悠然静止的梦境，使她永远被关在它的外贸，深感迷惑。