Travels with a Donkey In The Cevennes
163吴楚帆
史帝文森是我所喜爱读的一位作家，大二读过他的《金银岛》，很为里面的一群海盗所激动。他的作品总有一股动感，一腔激情。后来读到关于他的生平的书，才知道他自己一生很坎坷，爱旅游，却身体虚弱多病。他的一生是写作的一生，旅游流浪的一生。他爱读书，涉猎广泛，他的笔很老到，他的感觉很灵敏。所以，读他的游记，风光人情及历史融成一体，如临其境，如闻其声。同时，他的英人幽默，也会让你不时失笑。这本书里的驴叫Modestine，译者将其译成‘小乖’，是挺有意思的。前三四章主要是讲述作者与这头驴间的斗争，小乖没少给小史麻烦，但最终中史从一房东那取得真经，弄到一根goad，终于将小乖驯服。
小史的小乖是拿来背东西的，试想他牵着驴，在风雨交加的夜晚露营，当多不塂啊。可是，在他笔下，却描述得非常诗情画意。
他歌颂露营：
The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set in the face of the night. No one knows the stars who has not slept , as the French happily put it, a la belle etoile. He may know all their names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns mankind- their serene and gladsome influence on the mind. The greater part of poetry is about the stars; and very justly, for they are themselves the most classical of poets. These same far-away worlds sprinkled like tapers or shaken tighter like a diamond dust upon the sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier.
当地的风土人情，特别是宗教方面，他时有所见，时有所思，我们也能从中一窥法国南部，这个地区人的性情，特别是他与牧师间的冲容和思想斗争，精彩有趣：
Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de croyance? He demanded; and there is no type used by mortal printers large enough to qualify his accent.
I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family affections, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life.
I think I see my father’s face! I would rather tackle the Gaetulian lion in his den than embark on such an enterprise against the family theologian.
But now the hunt was up; prisest and soldier wre in full cry for my conversion;
文中有些法语表达，也十分有趣
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