Re: [請益] 問不到人來這一邊問看看

說到當下，當然我這瀕臨死亡而得時時勞心為生存掙扎的失敗人士沒什麼資格多說話， 不過也還是尋章摘句找幾個好玩的例子。 法國老電影《恨》La Haine Un homme tombe d’un immeuble de cinquante étages. Le mec, au fur et à mesure de sa chute il se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer : jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien. Mais l'important ce n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage. 有一個人從五十層高的頂樓墜下。 這傢伙，隨著他不斷墜下，他一再不停地安慰他自己： 「到目前為止都還好，到目前為止都還好，到目前為止都還好。」 可是重點不是墜落，而是著地。 這段形容一步步墮落下去的過程還真是甚深！ 另外摘一個小說家的滿腹牢騷，但乍看起來他比他的同事們都更「活在當下」！ 《北回歸線》牢騷摘 雖說某種意義上我不喜歡亨利米勒這傢伙，可是他的文字實在是有趣。 尤其是他那一堆牢騷。這裏摘用李三冲的譯本作對照。 (頁134起) I must say, at the start, that I haven't a thing to complain about. It's like being in a lunatic asylum, with permission to masturbate for the rest of your life. The world is brought right under my nose and all that is requested of me is to punctuate the calamities. There is nothing in which these slick guys upstairs do not put their fingers: no joy, no misery passes unnoticed. They live among the hard facts of life, reality, as it is called. It is the reality of a swamp and they are like frogs who have nothing better to do than to croak. The more they croak the more real life becomes. Lawyer, priest, doctor, politician, newspaperman─these are the quacks who have their fingers on the pulse of the world. A constant atmosphere of calamity. It's marvellous. It's as if the barometer never changed, as if the flag were always at half-mast. One can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about. A frog's heaven, no doubt. Miasma, scum, pond lilies, stagnant water. Sit on a lily-pad unmolested and croak all day. Something like that, I imagine. (頁163起) 在這裏我必須要說，打一開始，我對這份工作就沒有任何期待。這就像關在一個神經病 院裏面，你愛怎麼打手槍都沒有關係。全世界的事情每天都會出現在我的眼前，我唯一 需要做的，是看這些天災人禍的標點符號有沒有弄錯。世界上的任何事情，樓上那些圓 滑的傢伙都要插一手，不管好的還壞的全不放過。他們活在生活的一些悲慘事實上，換 一種說法，就是活在現實中。那是泥淖一般的現實，而他們是泥淖裏的青蛙，整天除嘓 嘓叫就沒別的事幹。他們叫得越起勁，生活就變得越真實。律師、牧師、醫生、政客、 記者──替這個世界把脈的，就是這些庸醫。這個世界總是多災多難，真好，氣壓計數 字一直沒有改變，旗杆總是下半旗。進了報社你才知道，爲什麼人對天堂的想法那麼根 深柢固，你才會了解，爲什麼支柱已經被砍斷，它還是屹立不搖。在這個泥淖旁邊，一 定要有一個可以讓人隨便傾倒垃圾的世界才行。人類期待的這個天堂，你很難想像它是 什麼樣子。不過毫無疑問的，那一定是一個青蛙的天堂，裏面充滿瘴氣、苔尼、蓮花、 臭水，青蛙整天悠閒地坐在蓮葉上嘓嘓叫。大概是那種樣子，我想。 They have a wonderful therapeutic effect upon me, these catastrophes which I proof-read. Imagine a state of perfect immunity, a charmed existence, a life of absolute security in the midst of poison bacilli. Nothing touches me, neither earthquakes nor explosions nor riots nor famine nor collisions nor wars nor revolutions. I am inoculated against every disease, every calamity, every sorrow and misery. It's the culmination of a life of fortitude. Seated at my little niche all the poisons which the world gives off each day pass through my hands. Not even a finger-nail gets stained. I am absolutely immune. I am even better off than a laboratory attendant, because there are no bad odors here, just the smell of lead burning. The world can blow up─I'll be here just the same to put in a comma or a semi-colon. I may even touch a little overtime, for with an event like that there's bound to be a final extra. When the world blows up and the final edition has gone to press the proof-readers will quietly gather up all commas, semi-colons, hyphens, asterisks, brackets, parentheses, periods, exclamation marks, etc., and put them in a little box over the editorial chair. Comme ça tout est réglé.... 我校對這些天災人禍，對我來說有一種很奇妙的醫療效果。你好像處在一種絕對的免疫 狀態，你好像有神明庇佑，你在各種病毒中過一種絕對安全的生活。管他什麼地震、爆 炸、暴動、飢餓、車禍、戰爭、革命，我全部無動於衷。什麼疾病，什麼災難，什麼憂 愁和痛苦的事情，我全打過預防針。這是剛毅生活的極致表現。坐在我那個小位子上， 這個世界每天放出來的毒素一一從我手中經過，連一個指尖都沒有被污染到，簡直比在 一個無菌室做實驗還要舒服，因爲這裏沒有難聞的藥水味，有的話，也只是一點油墨的 味道。如果天塌下來，我照樣會坐在這裏改我的讀點和分號。說不定我還得加班，因爲 天如果塌下來，截稿後一定還有很多新聞會進來。天塌下來，版全部拼好送進去印之後， 校對還得靜靜地把所有的讀點、分號、連字號、星字號、引號、括號、句點、驚嘆號等 等全部收拾好，然後放到總編輯後面的一個小箱子裏。一切按照規定…… None of my companions seem to understand why I appear so contented. They grumble all the time, they have ambitions, they want to show their pride and spleen. A good proof-reader has no ambitions, no pride, no spleen. A good proof-reader is a little like God Almighty, he's in the world but not of it. He's for Sundays only. Sunday is his night off. On Sundays he steps down from his pedestal and shows his ass to the faithful. Once a week he listens in on all the private grief and misery of the world; it's enough to last him for the rest of the week. The rest of the week he remains in the frozen winter marshes, an absolute, an impeccable absolute, with only a vaccination mark to distinguish him from the immense void. 我的同事似乎都不了解爲什麼我看起來那麼滿足。他們整天發牢騷，他們滿懷抱負，他 們想表現他們的自尊和委屈。一個好的校對沒有抱負，沒有自尊，也沒有委屈。一個好 的校對有時候就像創造萬物的主宰，他在這個世界上，可是他不是這個世界的一部分。 他只爲禮拜天而活，禮拜天是他的休假日。在禮拜天，他會走下他的神座，讓他的信徒 看看他的屁股。他一個禮拜出來聽一次這個世界的悲哀和痛苦，一次就夠他維持一個禮 拜。其他幾天，他留在冬天冰封的沼澤中，處在一種絕對的狀態，一種無懈可擊的絕對 狀態，身上只留下區別他與這個龐大空洞的接種疤痕。 The greatest calamity for a proof-reader is the threat of losing his job. When we get together in the break the question that sends a shiver down our spines is: what'll you do if you lose your job? For the man in the paddock, whose duty it is to sweep up manure, the supreme terror is the possibility of a world without horses. To tell him that it is disgusting to spend one's life shoveling up hot turds is a piece of imbecility. A man can get to love shit if his livelihood depends on it, if his happiness is involved. 校對者最大的災難是，工作隨時可能被辭掉。休息的時間我們在一起的時候，最讓我們 兩腿發軟的問題是：如果失去這份工作，你要怎麼辦？在牧場負責掃糞便的人，最害怕 就是這個世界沒有馬。只有最笨的人才會對他說，一輩子在那裏剷馬糞有什麼意思？如 果一個人必須靠馬糞過活，如果馬糞關係到他的幸福，那他愛上馬糞有何不可？ -- Repetitio est mater studiorum. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 114.37.235.169 (臺灣) ※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Buddha/M.1720327278.A.F15.html