以《悉达多》文本释义《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》四例
我曾在某个英语世界的书评网站上看到一句让人捧腹的评论,大意是说,赫尔曼黑塞的书哪儿都好,唯独就是每每亮出一个观点,就要beat it to death(窃以为东北话里的“可劲儿造”是这句俗语最好的翻译)。然而,话糙理不糙。黑塞小说的说理部分叙述之清晰,逻辑之过硬,当然也包括篇幅之长——颇讽刺地,可能是得益于作者青少年时期接受的压抑人性的经院教育——是其他各类小说作品难以企及的。黑塞是不是将其一生的时间,全部用于探讨一个终极的主题(二元对立统一),可以暂且存疑。但在1922至1930年之间,这位作家创作的全部三个作品——《悉达多》(1922)、《荒原狼》(1927)、《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》(1930),却可以非常明了地互相阐释、互作补充,其中最为明显的是这里要谈及的,《悉达多》的文本如何释义《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》中,作者有意或无意,未作详细展开的部分。
一、黑塞是否在歌尔德蒙游历的章节中忽视了一般的女性心理?
在《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》一书中,黑塞采用了一种非常不俗的手法,描述了比例不少于95%的女性角色:她们一律视爱为游戏,心硬如磐石;聚散无因也无果,激情来去如云烟:
Ch.8 Not one had seriously begged Goldmund to stay, not one had asked him to take her along, had loved him enough to share the joys and hardships of his wandering life.
这让“在第二天从不思念前一夜的女人”的歌尔德蒙都不禁怀疑:
Ch.8 Did women desire him as they desired a pretty doll, to hug to their hearts, only to run back to their husbands afterwards, in spite of the beatings that awaited them?
之所以说这个比例不低于95%,是因为我只能找到一个因跛脚而丧失大部分女性吸引力,至少是对歌尔德蒙的吸引力的角色,Marie,不符合上述特质:
Ch.16 Perhaps Marie was still sitting up, even now: poor Marie with the good loving eyes and hobbled gait, sitting and waiting, falling asleep in her kitchen and waking up again, but no Goldmund would ever come home.
尽管歌尔德蒙成功地从横祸中脱身,最终还是没有兑现对Marie许下的以后再回来看她的承诺。这位具备一般女性的心理特点,我也怀疑是符合了不少人的道德取向的角色,就这样自始至终没有受到主人公爱情的垂青。
黑塞在创作中虽然采取了上帝视角,常常针对两位主人公展开心理描写,面对他创作的女性角色,却往往吝惜笔墨,只是将她们集体比喻成偷食禁果的世俗母亲:
Ch.11 Each new woman added to the image of the worldly mother, the Eve-mother, each new insight, each experience and event worked at it and fashioned its traits.
与之形成对比的是,《悉达多》却对一位同样坚强、独立、具有强大女性魅力的角色,Kamala,进行了较为生动的语言和心理描写。当悉达多警告Kamala,驱使他的行为的是欲望,而非怜惜、关爱,或者为她着想:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Oh, he’s strong, the Samana, and he isn’t afraid of anything. He could force you, beautiful girl. He could kidnap you. He could hurt you.”
Kamala却将爱情的授予与思想的授予类比:
Part II Section “Kamala” “No, Samana, I am not afraid of this. Did any Samana or Brahman ever fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.”
接着作者借Kamala之口,继续点明了这类女性所具备的自主意识与自由精神:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen.”
仅仅凭借顺从、被动、关怀、温柔等传统的女性特质,她们还欠缺通往引导者的关键一步。这也就是为什么《悉达多》、《荒原狼》、《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》三部小说中的女主人公,无一例外都是曾经勇敢地迈出这一步的世俗母亲夏娃的投射,区别于《格特鲁德》等其他作品。
二、纳尔齐斯未曾详述的,他在思辨与苦修中体验的挣扎到底是什么?
《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》的另一位主人公纳尔齐斯,自始至终是一位崇尚逻辑与理性的神学家。然而他在一步步将具有无拘无束的艺术灵魂的歌尔德蒙推出禁锢人性的修道院的同时,也开始比之前更频繁地苦修、斋戒、忏悔与接受训诫:
Ch.5 Narziss began to feel the need for seclusion; either because he had completed the novitiate or because of his experience with Goldmund, he felt drawn to fasting and long prayers, frequent confessions, voluntary penitence.
就连歌尔德蒙自己,在享受感官世界之余也常常会想到:
Ch.6 Narziss was bent down in front of the altar on tired knees, prepared and purified for a night of prayer and contemplation that permitted him no more than two hours' sleep.
更为不幸的一点在于,在长达十余年的时间过后,纳尔齐斯也没有从苦修中得到平静与领悟:
Ch.19 "You should not envy me, Goldmund. There is no peace of the sort you imagine. You don't see me fight, you don't know my struggles as Abbot, my struggles in the prayer cell. You only see that I am less subject to moods than you, and you take that for peace. But my life is struggle; it is struggle and sacrifice like every decent life; like yours, too."
那么造成了这种挣扎的迷惑到底是什么?黑塞反而在《悉达多》一书中做了详述:
Part II Section “By the River” Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, too much self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most, always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this arrogance, into this spirituality, his Self had retreated, there it sat firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and penance.
纳尔齐斯的思辨与苦修,恰好对应了尚处于婆罗门身份的悉达多的思辨与苦修;纳尔齐斯唯一的不足之处——骄傲——正是作者明确点出的作为婆罗门的悉达多的不足,为此他们心甘情愿选择自惩;他们在一元的维度上做到了极致,却依然无益于理解一个二元统一的世界,意识到这一点更令他们的痛苦加剧:
Part II Section “By the River” Now he saw that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation. Therefore, he had to go out into the world.
三、歌尔德蒙行事的动机是否可以称作爱,歌尔德蒙究竟爱过谁?
《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》中有俯拾皆是的文本,暗示了歌尔德蒙几乎没有按一般的定义,真心地爱过哪个人:
Ch.8 When he questioned his heart, he knew that he cherished his freedom. He could not remember a single woman for whom he had not stopped longing in the arms of the next.
Ch.11 Some women tied him to them more strongly after three or ten nights of love; others were exhausted after the first time and forgotten.
类似的行事风格,在《悉达多》中,就被明确地贴上了“不能爱”的标签:
Part II Section “The Son” Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him. “You cannot love,” she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and also sensed an accusation in that line. Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love of another person; never had he been able to do this, and this was, as it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him apart from the childlike people.
借助这一段的叙述,为歌尔德蒙与其他女性的关系下定义就变得很简单——那些统统都不是“孩子般的爱”,原因是他在“爱”的同时从来没有丢下过“本我”。欲望驱使他到哪里,他就怎样做:
Ch.8 How stupid of him; words were unnecessary in love; he should have kept silent.
但是整部小说确实有一段真正符合上述定义的爱,歌尔德蒙确实爱过并且只爱过一个人,他做过并且只为这一个人做过非常孩子气的、不惜远离“本我”的事情。不要怀疑,就是纳尔齐斯:
Ch.2 Fervently Goldmund admired his beautiful, outstandingly intelligent teacher. But Goldmund was timid; the only way he knew to court Narziss was to exhaust himself in being an attentive, eager student.
Ch.20 “I have always loved you. Half of my life was spent courting you.”
四、歌尔德蒙是否得到了救赎?这是在何种意义上的救赎?等待纳尔齐斯的是否也是救赎?
歌尔德蒙在小说的结尾处是否实现了对自身的救赎,也即二元对立统一?对于实现二元对立统一状态的明确的描绘,只有在《悉达多》一书中出现过:
Part II Section “Om” Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva’s old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.
“年老却又孩子气”,以及在更早些时候提及的不擅思辨或言辞,这些用来形容渡船夫Vasudeva的语句,是否太过熟悉?
Ch.20 Narziss looked into Goldmund’s eyes. He too saw not only the exhaustion, the pitiful wilting of this face; he saw other things besides, strangely pleasing signs of acceptance, of detachment even, of surrender and old man's good humor.
渡船夫Vasudeva正是年迈时的歌尔德蒙在《悉达多》中的对应人物。他们早早地退出了通过理性与思辨追求真理的那条路,转而诉诸于感官、情绪与体验,当他们认识了世界的二元统一时,无需在理性世界做出更多的探索,也能超越时空,留下不朽的遗产。
至于纳尔齐斯最终得到的是不是领悟与救赎,我个人认为是这里唯一一个开放性的问题。首先,全书是这样作结的:
Ch.20 Goldmund's last words burned like fire in his heart.
歌尔德蒙为他留下的这最后一句话是:
Ch.20 “But how will you die when your time comes, Narziss, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die."
而纳尔齐斯的角色,可以泛泛地与《悉达多》中的Govinda类比,虽然二者具有截然不同的个性,但出于没有“走进世界”,从而无法实现二元对立统一的挣扎是相同的;另一个远非凑巧的细节是,《悉达多》同样以Govinda听到悉达多的一席话流下泪水而作结:
Part II Section “Govinda” Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face; like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life.
无可争议的一点是,Govinda通过悉达多的指引,实现了迈向般若的最后一跃。但我个人认为,Govinda在通往般若路上的努力,不同于纳尔齐斯的努力。如果说纳尔齐斯在经院的修行是第一步,悉达多“走进世界”是第二步,Govinda作为佛陀的门徒处于这两步中间。因此,尽管纳尔齐斯天赋异禀,资质远比Govinda来得强,然而在他心中燃烧的火,依旧是触动而不是觉悟;歌尔德蒙所提出的也是真实存在的问题,因为联接纳尔齐斯与世俗世界的唯一通道即将断绝。走不进这个世界,就得不到彻底的救赎。这是经院禁锢下注定要发生的悲剧。
一、黑塞是否在歌尔德蒙游历的章节中忽视了一般的女性心理?
在《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》一书中,黑塞采用了一种非常不俗的手法,描述了比例不少于95%的女性角色:她们一律视爱为游戏,心硬如磐石;聚散无因也无果,激情来去如云烟:
Ch.8 Not one had seriously begged Goldmund to stay, not one had asked him to take her along, had loved him enough to share the joys and hardships of his wandering life.
这让“在第二天从不思念前一夜的女人”的歌尔德蒙都不禁怀疑:
Ch.8 Did women desire him as they desired a pretty doll, to hug to their hearts, only to run back to their husbands afterwards, in spite of the beatings that awaited them?
之所以说这个比例不低于95%,是因为我只能找到一个因跛脚而丧失大部分女性吸引力,至少是对歌尔德蒙的吸引力的角色,Marie,不符合上述特质:
Ch.16 Perhaps Marie was still sitting up, even now: poor Marie with the good loving eyes and hobbled gait, sitting and waiting, falling asleep in her kitchen and waking up again, but no Goldmund would ever come home.
尽管歌尔德蒙成功地从横祸中脱身,最终还是没有兑现对Marie许下的以后再回来看她的承诺。这位具备一般女性的心理特点,我也怀疑是符合了不少人的道德取向的角色,就这样自始至终没有受到主人公爱情的垂青。
黑塞在创作中虽然采取了上帝视角,常常针对两位主人公展开心理描写,面对他创作的女性角色,却往往吝惜笔墨,只是将她们集体比喻成偷食禁果的世俗母亲:
Ch.11 Each new woman added to the image of the worldly mother, the Eve-mother, each new insight, each experience and event worked at it and fashioned its traits.
与之形成对比的是,《悉达多》却对一位同样坚强、独立、具有强大女性魅力的角色,Kamala,进行了较为生动的语言和心理描写。当悉达多警告Kamala,驱使他的行为的是欲望,而非怜惜、关爱,或者为她着想:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Oh, he’s strong, the Samana, and he isn’t afraid of anything. He could force you, beautiful girl. He could kidnap you. He could hurt you.”
Kamala却将爱情的授予与思想的授予类比:
Part II Section “Kamala” “No, Samana, I am not afraid of this. Did any Samana or Brahman ever fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.”
接着作者借Kamala之口,继续点明了这类女性所具备的自主意识与自由精神:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen.”
仅仅凭借顺从、被动、关怀、温柔等传统的女性特质,她们还欠缺通往引导者的关键一步。这也就是为什么《悉达多》、《荒原狼》、《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》三部小说中的女主人公,无一例外都是曾经勇敢地迈出这一步的世俗母亲夏娃的投射,区别于《格特鲁德》等其他作品。
二、纳尔齐斯未曾详述的,他在思辨与苦修中体验的挣扎到底是什么?
《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》的另一位主人公纳尔齐斯,自始至终是一位崇尚逻辑与理性的神学家。然而他在一步步将具有无拘无束的艺术灵魂的歌尔德蒙推出禁锢人性的修道院的同时,也开始比之前更频繁地苦修、斋戒、忏悔与接受训诫:
Ch.5 Narziss began to feel the need for seclusion; either because he had completed the novitiate or because of his experience with Goldmund, he felt drawn to fasting and long prayers, frequent confessions, voluntary penitence.
就连歌尔德蒙自己,在享受感官世界之余也常常会想到:
Ch.6 Narziss was bent down in front of the altar on tired knees, prepared and purified for a night of prayer and contemplation that permitted him no more than two hours' sleep.
更为不幸的一点在于,在长达十余年的时间过后,纳尔齐斯也没有从苦修中得到平静与领悟:
Ch.19 "You should not envy me, Goldmund. There is no peace of the sort you imagine. You don't see me fight, you don't know my struggles as Abbot, my struggles in the prayer cell. You only see that I am less subject to moods than you, and you take that for peace. But my life is struggle; it is struggle and sacrifice like every decent life; like yours, too."
那么造成了这种挣扎的迷惑到底是什么?黑塞反而在《悉达多》一书中做了详述:
Part II Section “By the River” Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, too much self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most, always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this arrogance, into this spirituality, his Self had retreated, there it sat firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and penance.
纳尔齐斯的思辨与苦修,恰好对应了尚处于婆罗门身份的悉达多的思辨与苦修;纳尔齐斯唯一的不足之处——骄傲——正是作者明确点出的作为婆罗门的悉达多的不足,为此他们心甘情愿选择自惩;他们在一元的维度上做到了极致,却依然无益于理解一个二元统一的世界,意识到这一点更令他们的痛苦加剧:
Part II Section “By the River” Now he saw that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation. Therefore, he had to go out into the world.
三、歌尔德蒙行事的动机是否可以称作爱,歌尔德蒙究竟爱过谁?
《纳尔齐斯与歌尔德蒙》中有俯拾皆是的文本,暗示了歌尔德蒙几乎没有按一般的定义,真心地爱过哪个人:
Ch.8 When he questioned his heart, he knew that he cherished his freedom. He could not remember a single woman for whom he had not stopped longing in the arms of the next.
Ch.11 Some women tied him to them more strongly after three or ten nights of love; others were exhausted after the first time and forgotten.
类似的行事风格,在《悉达多》中,就被明确地贴上了“不能爱”的标签:
Part II Section “The Son” Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him. “You cannot love,” she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and also sensed an accusation in that line. Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love of another person; never had he been able to do this, and this was, as it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him apart from the childlike people.
借助这一段的叙述,为歌尔德蒙与其他女性的关系下定义就变得很简单——那些统统都不是“孩子般的爱”,原因是他在“爱”的同时从来没有丢下过“本我”。欲望驱使他到哪里,他就怎样做:
Ch.8 How stupid of him; words were unnecessary in love; he should have kept silent.
但是整部小说确实有一段真正符合上述定义的爱,歌尔德蒙确实爱过并且只爱过一个人,他做过并且只为这一个人做过非常孩子气的、不惜远离“本我”的事情。不要怀疑,就是纳尔齐斯:
Ch.2 Fervently Goldmund admired his beautiful, outstandingly intelligent teacher. But Goldmund was timid; the only way he knew to court Narziss was to exhaust himself in being an attentive, eager student.
Ch.20 “I have always loved you. Half of my life was spent courting you.”
四、歌尔德蒙是否得到了救赎?这是在何种意义上的救赎?等待纳尔齐斯的是否也是救赎?
歌尔德蒙在小说的结尾处是否实现了对自身的救赎,也即二元对立统一?对于实现二元对立统一状态的明确的描绘,只有在《悉达多》一书中出现过:
Part II Section “Om” Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva’s old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.
“年老却又孩子气”,以及在更早些时候提及的不擅思辨或言辞,这些用来形容渡船夫Vasudeva的语句,是否太过熟悉?
Ch.20 Narziss looked into Goldmund’s eyes. He too saw not only the exhaustion, the pitiful wilting of this face; he saw other things besides, strangely pleasing signs of acceptance, of detachment even, of surrender and old man's good humor.
渡船夫Vasudeva正是年迈时的歌尔德蒙在《悉达多》中的对应人物。他们早早地退出了通过理性与思辨追求真理的那条路,转而诉诸于感官、情绪与体验,当他们认识了世界的二元统一时,无需在理性世界做出更多的探索,也能超越时空,留下不朽的遗产。
至于纳尔齐斯最终得到的是不是领悟与救赎,我个人认为是这里唯一一个开放性的问题。首先,全书是这样作结的:
Ch.20 Goldmund's last words burned like fire in his heart.
歌尔德蒙为他留下的这最后一句话是:
Ch.20 “But how will you die when your time comes, Narziss, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die."
而纳尔齐斯的角色,可以泛泛地与《悉达多》中的Govinda类比,虽然二者具有截然不同的个性,但出于没有“走进世界”,从而无法实现二元对立统一的挣扎是相同的;另一个远非凑巧的细节是,《悉达多》同样以Govinda听到悉达多的一席话流下泪水而作结:
Part II Section “Govinda” Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face; like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life.
无可争议的一点是,Govinda通过悉达多的指引,实现了迈向般若的最后一跃。但我个人认为,Govinda在通往般若路上的努力,不同于纳尔齐斯的努力。如果说纳尔齐斯在经院的修行是第一步,悉达多“走进世界”是第二步,Govinda作为佛陀的门徒处于这两步中间。因此,尽管纳尔齐斯天赋异禀,资质远比Govinda来得强,然而在他心中燃烧的火,依旧是触动而不是觉悟;歌尔德蒙所提出的也是真实存在的问题,因为联接纳尔齐斯与世俗世界的唯一通道即将断绝。走不进这个世界,就得不到彻底的救赎。这是经院禁锢下注定要发生的悲剧。
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