誰說法國衰落 她只是魅力獨特

PARIS — I have just read another piece about French decline and malaise. My first reaction is: Enough already! As I’ve said before, malaise is to France as the Royal family is to Britain: a perennial condition that each people lives off.

巴黎——我剛剛又讀到一篇以法國的衰落和不安情緒爲題的文章。我的第一反應是：夠了！正如我以前所說，不安情緒之於法國，就如同王室之於英國：是每個人早就習以爲常的東西。

It was 18 years ago that, as a correspondent in Paris, I wrote: “France today is racked by doubt and introspection. There is a pervasive sense that not only jobs — but also power, wealth, ideas and national identity itself — are migrating, permanently and at disarming speed, to leave a vapid grandeur on the banks of the Seine.”

18年前在巴黎當通訊記者的時候，我曾經寫道：“懷疑和自省的氛圍讓今天的法國備受煎熬。人們普遍感覺，正以驚人的速度永遠離法國而去的不只是工作機會，還有權力、財富乃至國家認同感本身，遺留在塞納河岸的唯有空洞乏味的的偉大。”

Well, almost two decades on France is still here, as are the jeremiads that accompany it. One should not mistake grumbling, in its French iteration, for unhappiness. That would be far too literal-minded, almost Anglo-Saxon!

可是，過了將近20年，法國依然佇立在這裏，與此同時，關於法國的種種哀嘆依然沒有消散。別以爲法國人翻來覆去地發牢騷，就表示他們不幸福。那樣的話就太死腦筋了，簡直堪稱盎格魯-撒克遜式的死腦筋。

France is stubborn. It is an idea, after all. Ideas must be defined against something. France has little choice but to define itself against the English-speaking world, rushing after money when other consolations abound. It was the French epicure Brillat-Savarin who noted: “I have drawn the following inference, that the limits of pleasure are as yet neither known nor fixed.”

法國很固執。說到底，它是一種理念。理念總得靠點什麼來襯托和突顯。法國別無選擇，只能用放着那麼多別的慰藉不要、偏去追逐金錢的英語世界來襯托和突顯自己。法國美食家布里亞-薩瓦亨(Brillat-Savarin)曾經說過：“我得出的結論是，到目前爲止，快感的界限既不爲人所知，也非固定不變。”

Perhaps it’s the perfection of Paris in these early spring days that makes all the chat about moroseness seem facile — the sweet breeze, the wide bright sky on the banks of the Seine, the low-slung bridges with their subtle fulcrums, the early-morning silence (enveloping enough for the sound of a woman’s heels on the sidewalk to be audible), the city’s gentle awakening, the curve of a zinc roof, the flat-topped pollarded trees along the gravel pathways of the Tuileries, the etched shadows on limestone, the streets that beckon and the boulevards that summon.

或許是這早春巴黎的完美無缺讓一切與鬱悶有關的話題都顯得沒了意義——習習的清風，塞納河岸上方廣闊明亮的天空，有着精巧支點的低矮橋樑，清晨的寂靜（寂靜到可以聽見一個女人穿着高跟鞋走在人行道上），緩緩甦醒的城市，鋅皮屋頂的曲線，杜樂麗花園(Tuileries)裏的碎石小徑兩旁頂部修剪得平平整整的樹木，映在石灰石上的影子，擺手致意的小街巷，高聲招呼的林蔭大道。

If this is the vapid grandeur of a fading power, I’ll take it!

如果這就是一個衰落大國的“空洞乏味的偉大”，那我願意接受！

It is April, “mixing memory and desire,” as T.S. Eliot put it. Cruel would be an overstatement. There are places you come to at an impressionable age that will never leave you. Forty years ago, I lived as a student in a tiny apartment at the bottom of the Rue Mouffetard. I was studying French and giving English lessons three times a week in a lycée in a southern suburb famous principally for its prison. I would return in the early evening and wander around the market — the mackerel glistening on their bed of ice, the barded chickens, the plump endives, the serried ranks of eggplant, the bawdy invitations to buy the last of the silvery sardines for a song, acrid Gauloise smoke in the wintry air. Paris was release from a crimped Britain. A single window on the city was enough.

正如T·S·艾略特(T.S. Eliot)所言，這是“混雜着回憶與慾望”的四月。用殘酷一詞來描述它未免顯得太過誇張。如果你在容易受到外界影響的年紀到過某些地方，那它們就會永遠留在你的記憶中。40年前，我還是一名學生，住在穆浮達街(Rue Mouffetard)盡頭的一間小公寓裏。我當時正學習法語，每星期在一所公立中學給學生上三次英語課。那所學校位於主要以監獄聞名的南郊。我會在傍晚時分趕回來，逛一逛穆浮達街市場——鯖魚在冰牀上閃閃發光，雞肉被片成了薄片，菊苣豐滿多肉，茄子密密匝匝地排成排，小販發出猥瑣的邀請，說只要唱首歌就可以把最後一點銀亮的沙丁魚買走，寒冷的空氣中飄散着高盧牌(Gauloise)香菸的刺鼻味道。巴黎讓我得以逃離束縛多多的英國。只要在這座城市裏擁有一扇窗，對我來說就已足夠。

My Parisian sojourn culminated with the boiling summer of 1976. City fountains dried up. People sat dazed on park benches staring into the haze. Not a bottle of water could be found. The city was as romantic as a war zone. Pensioners died in little airless maids’ rooms under those zinc roofs. Nobody knew. Brittle leaves on plane trees dangled motionless.

在1976年的那個酷暑，我結束了在巴黎的逗留。當時，城裏的噴泉水流枯竭。人們坐在公園的長凳上，盯着霧靄發呆。一瓶水都找不到。當時的巴黎像戰區一樣誇張。鋅皮屋頂下，老年人死在狹小且不通風的小屋裏，無人知曉。懸鈴木的樹葉一動不動地耷拉着。

Of course, Britain has raced ahead since, Thatcher-revolutionized itself, uncrimped itself, and London has become the global city par excellence, while Paris has merely burnished the credentials of its beauty. France has grown sullen in its defiance of global modernity. Well, so be it!

當然，英國後來走到了前面，掀起了一場撒切爾革命，擯棄了諸多束縛。倫敦變成了出類拔萃的全球化城市，而巴黎只是把它美麗之都的招牌擦了擦。和全球現代化作對的法國變得鬱鬱寡歡。可那又怎麼樣！

Few countries would have handled the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 with such rigor, transparency and speed. Watching Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor, I was reminded that public service in France is still a high calling that draws many of the country’s best minds. It is not a mere second-best to the lucrative private sector. Once again the police — applauded by left-wing crowds in the vast demonstration after the Charlie Hebdo killings in January — showed superb professionalism. President François Hollande was measured and composed, his response appropriate at every step.

鮮有國家能以法國那樣縝密、透明和迅速地應對德國之翼9525航班墜機事件。看着馬賽檢察官布里斯·羅班(Brice Robin)，我想起法國的公共服務依然是一項要求頗高的職業，吸引了該國很多極優秀的人才。它可不是屈居富有的私營領域之下的次等選擇。警方再次表現出了高超的專業水平。今年1月，在《查理週報》(Charlie Hebdo)殺人事件後出現的大規模示威遊行中，警方就受到了左翼民衆的稱讚。總統弗朗索瓦·奧朗德(François Hollande)慎重沉穩，每一步的應對都恰如其分。

France is a country that works. It could work better. But it works in its way. And if it worked better, by the standards of the Anglo-Saxon world, it would also lose some essence of its particular functionality.

法國是一個正常運行的國家。它可以運行得更好。但它有自己的運行方式。如果按照按盎格魯-撒克遜世界的標準來看，它的運行達到了更好，它那獨特的功用性就會出現一些本質上的損失。

Last September, I wrote of my attempts to sell a village house I’ve owned for 20 years and the real estate agent who began her pitch by saying: “Monsieur, you cannot sell it. This is a family home. You know it the moment you step in. You sense it in the walls. You breathe it in every room. You feel it in your bones. This is a house you must keep for your children. I will help you sell it if you insist, but my advice is not to sell.”

去年秋天，我寫了打算賣房子的經歷。那是一處在鄉下的房子，在我名下已經20年了，房地產經紀人張口一句話卻說：“先生，你不能賣。這是家宅。一走進來就知道。你能從牆裏感受它，在每間屋裏都能呼吸到它，你能在骨子裏能感覺它。你必須把這座房子留給你的孩子。如果你堅持要賣，我會幫你，但我的建議是別賣。”

Since then, I’ve been asked many times what happened to the house. I sold it. She was right: It was a mistake. The world needs real estate agents who tell you not to sell your home — and they are only to be found in France.

從那時候開始，我多次被問到那處房子怎麼樣了。我賣了。她說得對：那是個錯誤。這個世界需要那種讓你不要賣房子的房地產經紀人——只有在法國，才能找到這樣的經紀人。