现代大学英语精读第二版（第六册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——11 - Beauty（美）

Unit 11 - Beauty

Beauty

Scott Russell Sanders

In memory, I wait beside Eva in the vestibule of the church to play my part as father of the bride. She hooks a hand on my elbow while three bridesmaids fuss over her, fixing the gauzy veil spreading the long ivory train of her gown, tucking into her bun a loose strand of hair, which glows the color of honey filled with sunlight. Clumsy in my rented patent leather shoes and stiff black tuxedo, I stand among these gorgeous women like a crow among doves. I realize that they're gorgeous not because they carry bouquets or wear silk dresses, but because the festival of marriage has slowed time down until any fool can see their glory.

Concerned that we might walk too fast, as we did in rehearsal, Eva tries in vain to teach me a gliding ballet step to use as we process down the aisle.

"It's really simple, Daddy, "she says, as I botch it over and over.

I fear that I will stagger along beside my elegant daughter like a veteran wounded in foreign wars.

Eva, meanwhile, seems blissfully confident, not only of being able to walk gracefully, as she could do in her sleep, but of standing before this Congregation and solemnly promising to share her life with Matthew Allen, the man who waits in thinly disguised turmoil at the far end of the aisle. Poised on the dais, wearing a black ministerial robe and a white stole, is the good friend whom Eva and know best as our guide on canoe trips through the Boundary Waters. He grins so broadly that his full cheeks push up against the round rims of his spectacles.

"There's one happy preacher," Eva says.

He believes in marriage, " I reply.

"So do I. Remember, Matt and I figured that between you and Mom and his folks, our parents have been married fifty-eight years."

Eva lets go of my arm to lift a hand to her throat, touching the string of pearls she has borrowed from my own bride, Ruth, to whom I've been married thirty years.

Love may last, I want to say, but do not, feeling unsure of my voice. Eva returns her free hand to my arm and tightens her grip. The arm she holds is my left one, close against my racing heart. In her own left arm she balances a great sheaf of flowers-daisies and lilies, marigolds, snapdragons-and in her left hand she holds a Belgian lace handkerchief, also borrowed from Ruth, in case she cries.

The organ strikes up Bach's "Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring" for the bridesmaids' entrance, and down the aisle they skim, those gorgeous women in midnight blue. Overawed by the crowd, the flower girls hang back until their mother nudges them along, and then they dash and skip, carrying their fronds of flowers like spears.

Finally, only the bride and the father of the bride remain in the vestibule. Eva whispers. "Remember, now, don't walk too fast." But how can I walk slowly while my heart races? I've forgotten the ballet step she tried to show me. I want events to pause so I can practice the step, so we can go canoeing once more in the wilderness, so we can sit on a boulder by the sea and talk over life's mysteries, so I can make up to my darling for anything she may have lacked in her girlhood. But events do not pause. The organ sounds the first few bars of Purcell's "Trumpet Voluntary," our cue to show ourselves. We move into the open doorway, and two hundred faces turn their lit eyes on us. Eva tilts her face up at me, quirks the corners of her lips into a tight smile, and says, "Here we go, Daddy." And so, lifting our feet in unison, we go.

The wedding took place in Bloomington, Indiana, hometown for Matthew as well as Eva, on a sizzling Saturday in July. Now in early September, I can summon up hundreds of details from that radiant day, but on the day itself I was aware only of a surpassing joy. The glow of happiness had to cool before it would crystallize into memory.

Pardon my cosmic metaphor, but I can't help thinking of the physicists' claim that, if we trace the universe back to its origins in the Big Bang, we find the multiple things fusing into greater and greater simplicity, until at the moment of creation itself there is only pure undifferentiated energy. Without being able to check their equations, I think the physicists are right. I believe the energy they speak of is holy, by which I mean it is the closest we can come with our instruments to measuring the strength of God. I also believe this primal energy continues to feed us, directly through the goods of creation, and indirectly through the experience of beauty. The thrill of beauty is what entranced me as I stood with Eva's hand hooked over my arm while the wedding march played, as it entrances me on these September nights when I walk over dewy grass among the songs of crickets and stare at the Milky Way.

We're seeing the Milky Way, and every other denizen of the sky, far more clearly these days thanks to the sharp eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope, as it orbits out beyond the blur of Earth's atmosphere. From data beamed down by the telescope, for example, I summon onto my computer screen an image of Jupiter wrapped in its bands of cloud like a ball of heathery yarn. Then I call up the Cat's Eye Nebula, incandescent swirls of red looped around the gleam of a helium star, for all the world like the burning iris of a tiger. This fierce glare began its journey toward earth 3, 000 years ago, about the time my Assyrian ancestors were in their prime. Pushing back deeper in 18 time, I summon onto my screen the Eagle Nebula, 7, 000 light-years away, a trio of dust clouds like rearing horses, their dark bodies scintillating with the sparks of newborn stars.

I study images of quasars giving birth to galaxies, galaxy whirling in the shapes of pinwheels, supernovas ringed by strands of luminous debris, and all the while I'm delving back toward that utter beginning when you and I and my daughter and her new husband and the bright heavenly host were joined in the original burst of light.

On these cool September mornings, I've been poring over two sets of photographs, those from deep space and those from Eva's wedding, trying to figure out why such different images-of supernova and shining daughter, of spinning galaxies and trembling bouquets-set up in me the same hum of delight. The feeling is unusually intense for me just now, so soon after the nuptials, but it has never been rare. As far back as I can remember, things seen or heard or smelled, things tasted or touched, have provoked in me an answering vibration. The stimulus might be the sheen of moonlight on the edges of a white pine, or the iridescent glimmer on a dragonfly's tail, or the lean silhouette of a ladder-back chair, or the glaze on a hand-thrown pot. It might be bird song or a Bach sonata or the purl of water over stone. It might be a line of poetry, the outline of cheek, the savor of bread, the sway of a bough or a bow. The provocation might be as grand as a mountain sunrise or as humble as an icicle's jeweled tip, yet in each case a familiar surge of gratitude and wonder wells up in me.

Now and again some voice raised on the stairs leading to my study, some passage of music, some noise from the street, will stir a sympathetic thrum from the strings of the guitar that tilts against the wall behind my door. Just so, over and over again, impulses from the world stir a responsive chord in me-not just any chord, but a particular one, combining notes of elegance, exhilaration, simplicity, and awe. The feeling is as recognizable to me, as unmistakable, as the sound of Ruth's voice or the beating of my own heart.

A screech owl calls, a comet streaks the night sky, a story moves unerringly to a close, a child lays an arrowhead in the palm of my hand, my daughter smiles at me through her bridal veil, and I feel for a moment at peace, in place, content. I sense in those momentary encounters a harmony between myself and whatever I behold. The word that seems to fit most exactly this feeling of resonance, this sympathetic vibration between inside and outside is beauty.

What am I to make of this resonant feeling? Do my sensory thrills tell me anything about the world? Does beauty reveal a kinship between my small self and the great cosmos, or does my desire for meaning only fool me into thinking so? Perhaps, as biologists maintain, in my response to patterns I'm merely obeying the old habits of evolution. Perhaps, like my guitar, I'm only ding box played on by random forces.

I must admit that two cautionary sayings keep echoing in my head. Beauty is only skin deep, I've heard repeatedly and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Appealing surfaces may hide ugliness, true enough, as many a handsome villain or femme fatale should remind us. The prettiest of butterflies and mushrooms and frogs include some of the most poisonous ones. It's equally true that our taste may be influenced by our upbringing, by training, by cultural fashion. One of my neighbors plants in his yard pink flamingo made of translucent plastic and a concrete goose dressed in overalls, while I plant in my yard oxeye daisies and jack-in-the-pulpit; and maidenhair ferns, and both of us, by our own lights, are chasing beauty.

Mustn't beauty be shallow if it can be painted on? Mustn't beauty be a delusion if it can blink off and on like a flickering bulb? A wedding gown will eventually grow musty in a mothproof box; flowers will fade, and the glow will seep out of the brightest day. I'll grant that we may be fooled by facades, may be led astray by our fickle eyes. But I've been married to Ruth for thirty years, remember. I've watched my daughter grow for twenty-four years, my son for twenty, and these loved ones have taught me more hopeful possibility. Season after season I've knelt over fiddleheads breaking ground, studied the wings of swallowtails nectaring on blooms, spied skeins of geese high in the sky. There are books I've read, pieces of music I've listened to, ideas I've revisited time and again with fresh delight. Having lived among people and places and works of imagination whose beauty runs all the way through; I feel certain that genuine beauty is more than skin deep, that real beauty dwells not in my own eye alone but out in the world.

While I can speak with confidence of what I feel in the presence of beauty, I must go out on speculative limb if I'm to speak about the qualities in the world that call it forth. Far out on that limb; therefore, let me suggest that a creature, an action, a landscape, a line of poetry or music, a scientific formula, or anything else that might seem beautiful, seems so because it gives us a glimpse of the underlying order of things. The swirl of a galaxy and the swirl of a gown resemble one another not merely by accident, but because they follow the grain of the universe. That grain runs through our own depths. What we find beautiful accords with our most profound sense of how things ought to be. Ordinarily, we live in a tension between our perceptions and our desires. When we encounter beauty, that tension vanishes, and outward and inward images agree.

Before I climb out any farther onto this limb, let me give biology its due. It may be that in pursuing beauty we're merely obeying our genes. It may be that the features we find beautiful in men or women, in art or landscape or weather, are ones that improved the chances of survival for our ancestors. Put the other way around, it's entirely plausible that the early humans who did not tingle at the sight of deer, the smell of a thunderstorm, the sound of running water, or the stroke of a hand on a shapely haunch, all died out, carrying with them their oblivious genes.

Who can doubt that biology, along with culture, plays a crucial role in tuning our senses? The gravity that draws a man and woman together, leading each to find the other ravishing, carries with it a long history of sexual selection, one informed by a shrewd calculation of fertility and strength. I remember how astonished I was to realize, one rainy spring day in seventh grade, that the girl sitting in the desk beside me was suddenly, enormously interesting. My attention was riveted on Mary Kay's long blond hair, which fell in luxuriant waves over the back of her chair, until it brushed against a rump that swelled, in a way I had never noticed before, her green plaid skirt. As a twelve-year-old, I would not have called Mary Kay beautiful, although I realize now that that is what she was. And I would have balked at the suggestion that my caveman ancestors had any say in my dawning desire, although now I can hear their voices grunting. Go for the lush hair, the swelling rump.

If we take a ride through the suburbs and study the rolling acres of lawn dotted with clumps of trees and occasional ponds, what do we see but a faithful simulation of the African savanna where humans first lived? Where zoning laws permit, the expanse of green will often be decorated by grazing animals, docile and fat, future suppers on the hoof. The same combination of watering holes, sheltering trees, and grassland shows up in paintings and parks the world over, from New Delhi to New York. It is as though we shape our surroundings to match an image, coiled in our DNA, of the bountiful land.

Perhaps in every case, as in our infatuation with lover or landscape, a sense of biological fitness infuses the resonant, eager uplifting response to the world at I am calling beauty. Yet I persist in believing there is more to this tingle than an evolutionary reflex. Otherwise, how could a man who is programmed to lust after every nubile female nonetheless be steadily attached, year after year, to the same woman? Why would I plant my yard with flowers that I cannot eat.

As far back as we can trace our ancestors, we find evidence of passion for design-decorations on pots, beads on clothes, pigments on the ceilings of caves. Bone flutes have been found at human sites dating back more than 30, 000 years. So we answer the breathing of the land with our own measured breath; we answer the beauty we find with the beauty we make. Our ears may be finely tuned for detecting the movements of predators or prey, but that does not explain why we should be so moved by listening to Gregorian chants or Delta blues. Our eyes may be those of a slightly reformed ape, trained for noticing whatever will keep skin and bones intact, but that scarcely explains why we should be so enthralled by the lines of a Shaker chair or a Durer engraving, or by photographs of Jupiter.

As it happens, Jupiter is the brightest light in the sky on these September evenings, blazing in the southeast at dusk. Such a light must have dazzled our ancestors long before telescopes began to reveal the planet's husk of clouds or its halo of moons. We know that night-watchers in many cultures kept track of the heaven dance because the records of their observations have come down to us. Did they watch so faithfully because they believed the stars and planets controlled their fate, or because they were mesmerized by the majesty of the night?

I can't speak for them. But when I look at Jupiter, with naked eye or binoculars, or in the magnified images broadcast down from the Hubble Telescope, I am not looking for a clue to the morning's weather or to the mood of a deity, any more than I am studying the future of my genes when I gaze at my daughter. I am looking for the sheer bliss of looking.

In a wedding scene that has cooled into memory from the red glow of happiness, I keep glancing at Eva's face as we process down the aisle, trying to match my gawky stride to her graceful one. The light on her skin shimmers through the veil. A ripple of voices follows us toward the altar, like the sound of waves breaking on cobbles. The walk seems to go on forever, but it also seems to be over far too soon. Ready or not, we take our place at center stage with the bridesmaids in midnight blue to our left, Matthew and his groomsmen in black to our right. My heart thrashes like a bird in a sack.

The minister, our canoeing guide, gives us both a steadying glance. Then he lifts his voice to inquire of the hushed congregation, "Who blesses this marriage? "

I swallow to make sure my own voice is still there, and say loudly, "The families give their blessing."

I step back, lift Eva's hand from my arm and place it onto Matthew's, a gesture that seemed small in rehearsal yesterday but that seems huge today. Then my bit part is over. I leave the stage, carefully stepping around the long train of Eva's dress, and go to my seat beside Ruth, who dabs handkerchief to her eyes. I grasp her free hand, so deft and familiar. Just one month shy of thirty years after my own wedding. I want to marry her all over again. Despite my heart's mad thrashing, I haven't felt like crying until this moment, as I sit here beside my own bride, while Eva recites her vows with a sob in her throat. When I hear that sob, tears rise in me, but joy rises more swiftly.

Judging from the scientists I know, including Eva and Ruth, and those whom I've read about, you can't pursue the laws of nature very long without bumping into beauty. "I don't know if it's the same beauty you see in the sunset," a friend tells me, "but it feels the same." This friend is a physicist, who has spent long career deciphering what must be happening in the interior of stars. He recalls for me this thrill on grasping for the first time Dirac's equations describing quantum mechanics, or those of Einstein describing relativity. "They're so beautiful," he says, "you can see immediately they have to be true. Or at least on the toward truth." I ask him what makes a theory beautiful, and he replies, "Simplicity, symmetry, elegance, and power."

Why nature should conform to theories we find beautiful is far from obvious. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe, as Einstein said, is that it's comprehensible. How unlikely, that a short-lived biped on a two-bit planet should be able to gauge the speed of light, lay bare the structure of an atom, or calculate the gravitational tug of a black hole. We're a long way from understanding everything, but we do understand a great deal about how nature behaves. Generation after generation, we puzzle out formulas, test them, and find, to an astonishing degree, that nature agrees. An architect draws designs on flimsy paper, and her buildings stand up through earthquakes. We launch a satellite into orbit and use it to bounce messages from continent to continent. The machine on which I write these words embodies hundreds of insights into the workings of the material world, insights that are confirmed by every burst of letters on the screen, and I stare at that screen through lenses that obey the laws of optics first worked out in detail by Isaac Newton.

By discerning patterns in the universe, Newton believed, he was tracing the hand of God. Scientists in our day have largely abandoned the notion of a Creator as an unnecessary hypothesis, or at least an untestable one. While they share Newton's faith that the universe is ruled everywhere by coherent set of rules, they cannot say, as scientists, how these particular rules came to govern things. You can do science without believing in a divine Legislator, but not without believing in laws.

I spent my teenage years scrambling up the mountain of mathematics. Midway up the slope, however, I staggered to a halt, gasping in the rarefied air, well before I reached the heights where the equations of Einstein and Dirac would have made sense. Nowadays I add, subtract, multiply, and do long division when no calculator is handy, and I can do algebra and geometry and even trigonometry in a pinch, but that is about all that I've kept from the language of numbers. Still, I remember glimpsing patterns in mathematics that seems as bold and beautiful as a skyful of stars.

I never more aware of the limitations of language than when I try to describe beauty. Language can create its own loveliness, of course, but it not deliver to us the radiance we apprehend in the world, any more than an capture the stunning swiftness of a hawk or the withering power of a supernova. Eva's wedding album holds only a faint glimmer the wedding itself. All that pictures or words can do is gesture beyond themselves toward the fleeting glory that stirs our hearts. So I keep gesturing.

"All nature is meant to make us think of paradise," Thomas Merton observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty is free and inexhaustible, but we need training in order to perceive more than the most obvious kinds. Even 15 billion years or so after the Big Bang, echoes of that event still linger in the form of background radiation, only a few degrees above absolute zero. Just so, I believe, the experience of beauty is an echo of the order and power that permeate the universe. To measure background radiation, we need subtle instruments; to measure beauty, we need alert intelligence and our five keen senses.

Anyone with eyes can take delight in a face or a flower. You need train however, to perceive the beauty in mathematics or physics or chess, in the architecture of a tree, the design of a bird's wing, or the shiver of breath through a flute. For most of human history, the training has come from elders who taught the young how to pay attention. By paying attention, we learn to savor all sorts of patterns, from quantum mechanics to patchwork quilts.

This predilection brings with it clear evolutionary advantage, for the ability to recognize patterns helped our ancestors to select mates, find food, avoid predators. But the same advantage would apply to all species, and yet we alone compose symphonies and crossword puzzles, carve stone into statues, map time and space. Have we merely carried our animal need for shrewd perceptions to an absurd extreme? Or have we stumbled onto a deep congruence between the structure of our minds and the structure of the universe?

I am persuaded the latter is true. I am convinced there's more to beauty than biology, more than cultural convention. It flows around and through us in such abundance, and in such myriad forms, as to exceed by a wide margin any mere evolutionary need. This is not to say that beauty has nothing to do with survival: I think it has everything to do with survival. Beauty feeds us from the same source that created us. It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands. It restores our faith in the generosity of nature. By giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made for life on this glorious planet, in this magnificent universe. I find in that affinity a profound source of meaning hope. A universe so prodigal of beauty may actually need us to notice and respond, may need our sharp eyes and brimming hearts and teeming minds, in order to close the circuit of Creation.

参考译文——美

美

斯科特·拉塞尔·桑德斯

记忆中，教堂的门厅里，我等在伊娃的身旁准备担当新娘父亲的角色。她一只手挎着我的臂弯，同时，三个伴娘手忙脚乱地在她身上忙着，或整理薄薄的面纱，或铺平象牙色长长的拖裙，或将一绺散落的头发卷塞到发髻里。她蜜糖色的头发在阳光下闪耀着。我穿着一双租来的专利皮革制成的鞋，身上是一件笔挺的黑色礼服，笨拙地站在一群漂亮的女士中间，就像一只被白鸽包围的乌鸦。我意识到她们是如此美丽并非因为她们手捧花束身着丝质裙装，而是因为婚礼使得时间的脚步放慢了下来，慢得即便是傻瓜也看得到她们的光彩。

伊娃担心我们可能会像在排练时那样走得太快，便徒劳地试图教我一种滑动的芭蕾舞步，以便在步入教堂时使用。

她说：“爸爸，真的很简单。”我却一遍又一遍地搞砸。

走在优雅的女儿身旁，我担心自己会像个从海外战场归来的受伤退伍兵，摇晃不稳。

然而伊娃看起来兴高采烈，充满自信。一方面相信她自己会走得优雅，这一点她睡梦中都做得到。另一方面她对站在众人面前庄严允诺同马修·伦共度此生也信心百倍。那位男士正远远地等在过道的另一头，紧张不安难以掩饰。我和伊娃都熟识的一位好朋友穿一件黑色教士袍、身披圣带泰然自若地站在礼台上。他曾在我们划独木舟穿越美加边界湖区时做我们的向导。他笑得很夸张，整个脸颊抵住眼镜的圆边。

“这是一位快乐的教士，”伊娃说。

“他相信婚姻，”我回答。

“我也相信。记得马特和我计算过，把你和妈妈及他的父母的婚龄加到一起，可以说我们的父母结婚已有58年了。”

伊娃松开我的胳膊，抬手到颈边碰触那串珍珠项链——那是她从我30年前的新娘鲁思那儿借的。

我想说，爱可以持久，却没说出来，害怕我的声音会颤抖。伊娃把空下来的手又放回到我的臂弯里握紧。她挎住的是我的左臂，紧贴着我紧张跳动的心。在她自己的左臂中，稳稳地抱着一大束花，有雏菊、百合、万寿菊、金鱼草。她左手拿一块比利时蕾丝手帕，也是从鲁思那儿借来的，以备擦眼泪时用。

管风琴奏起巴赫的《基督，人们期望的快乐》，预示着伴娘即将进入大厅。这几个美丽的着深蓝色的女孩子轻快地穿过通道。花童们在人群面前畏缩着躲到了后边，在她们母亲的推搡下才蹦蹦跳跳地冲到前面，像抱幼苗一样抱着手中的花叶。

最后，门厅里只剩下新娘和她的父亲还在走廊的这头了。伊娃对我耳语道：“记住，不要走得太快。”可是，我心跳得这么快，怎么能走得慢？我已经忘记了她试图教我的芭蕾舞步。我想让仪式暂停下来，这样，我可以练习舞步，我们可以再次去野外划独木舟，我们还可以坐在海边平滑的岩石上谈论生命的奥秘，让我有机会为我亲爱的女儿弥补一切童年时的缺憾。可是，仪式不会暂停。管风琴奏出普塞尔的《志愿者号角》，示意我们该入场了。我们走到大厅入口，200多张面孔转过来，闪亮的目光盯住了我们。伊娃微微将脸侧向我，扬起嘴角带出一丝笑容说道：“爸爸，我们开始吧。”就这样，我们一起迈着步子向前。

婚礼是在伊娃和马修的老家，印第安纳州布鲁明顿市举行的。那是七月的一个酷热的星期六。如今，在九月初，我仍能回忆起那闪亮一天中的诸多细节，而婚礼当天我只意识到自己在经历快乐。快乐的热烈只有在冷却后才能够在记忆中清晰定格。

原谅我用宇宙来做比喻，但我不禁想起了物理学家的说法。如果我们追溯宇宙的起源到原始的大爆炸，我们就会发现众多复杂的事物逐渐合并成为越来越简单的事物，直到创世那一刻，只剩下那浑然一体的能量。虽无法检验他们的方程式，但我认为物理学家是正确的。我相信他们提到的能量是神圣的，之所以这样说是因为这是我们用仪器所能测量到的最近似“上帝的力量”的事物。我还认为这种原始能源继续在给我们提供能量，直接地是通过上帝创造的万物，间接地是通过我们对美的感受。当礼进行曲响起，伊娃挎着我的臂弯，我们并肩站在一起时我感受到的喜悦，就是一种美所带来的兴奋，同我在九月的夜晚，倾听着蟋蟀的歌唱，仰望着银河，走过露珠点点的草地时，感受到的喜悦是一样的。

由于哈勃太空望远镜的锐眼，我们今天观察到的银河及太空中的其他星体都更为清晰，甚至可以观察到它们在大气层外部的运行。譬如说，利用太空望远镜发回的信息，我在计算机屏幕上显示了一张被云团包围着的木星的图像，就像一个杂色的线团。然后，我又显示了猫眼星云，一颗闪烁的氦星被灼热的红色漩涡所包围，整个世界就像老虎身上闪耀的五彩斑纹。这种炙热的强光3000年前开始向地球进发，当时我的亚述祖先正处于全盛时期。在时间上追溯得更远一些，我又显示了距地球7000光年的老鹰星云，三股尘埃就如三匹后脚站立的黑马，身上闪烁着新星的光芒。

我研究类星体产生星系的图像，这些星系如同玩具风车一样旋转，超新星周围是一条条由星体遗骸组成的闪闪发光的带状物。我在这中间一直不断地探索宇宙的开始，一直追溯到你，我，我的女儿，她的新婚丈夫，以及天空中大量闪闪发光的星星汇合成最初的原始大耀光。

九月凉爽的早晨，我一直在研究两套照片：一套来自遥远的天际，一套来自伊娃的婚礼。我在试图弄清楚为什么这些不同的形象——超新星和闪亮的女儿，旋转的星系和颤动的花束——都在我心中激起了同样喜悦的旋律。婚礼结束并没有多久，这种感觉在我心中异常强烈，事实上这种感觉常常会有。就我所能回想起的，无论是所见、所听、所闻，是所品尝或所触摸的事物，都曾激起我回应的共鸣。触动这种激情的，也许是倾泻在白松松针上的月色，是蜻蜓尾部变幻不定的彩虹色的闪光。它可能是小鸟的歌唱、巴赫的奏鸣曲，或流水淌过石头的潺潺声；它可能来自一行诗、面包的香味或者是树枝的摇曳和琴弓的拉动；它可能来自高山日出的壮观场面，也可能仅仅起自不起眼的冰锥儿头上晶莹的冰珠。但不管是何种起因，每次我心中都会涌起同样的感激和惊叹。

通向我书房楼梯上响起的谈话声、飘过的乐声街道上的嘈杂声，都会不时激起那把倾斜着放在我的门后墙上的吉他的和弦共鸣。就这样一次又一次地，外部世界总会激起我回应的和弦——那不是一种任意的和弦，而是混合了优雅、振奋、简洁和敬畏各种音符的一种特别的和弦。这种感觉如辨别鲁思的声音或确定我的心跳一样清晰，准确无误。

当乌鸦高声鸣叫，当流星划过夜空，当故事自然发展到结局，当孩子把一支箭头放到我的手掌，当女儿在婚纱后向我微笑，那一刻我感到平和、自在和满足。我在我自己和我所见到的事物间的短暂面对中感受到了和谐。最能准确恰当描述这种共鸣感和内外和谐的词，便是美。

我应该如何解释这种共鸣感？我感官的激动是否在让我对这个世界有所了解呢？美是否在揭示小小的我与这庞大的宇宙之间存在一种紧密关系，还是由于我追求世上存在事物的意义的愿望导致我这样错误认为呢？也许正如生物学家所认为的，我对各种事物所做出的回应仅仅是在遵循古老的进化法则。或许，同我的吉他一样，我也只是一个可以被各种力量拨动的音乐盒。

我必须承认有两个警句一直萦绕在我脑海里。我一次又一次地听到，美是肤浅的，情人眼里出西施。极美的外表下可能隐藏丑陋，这千真万确，许多英俊的恶棍或美丽的恶毒女子都证明了这一点。最漂亮的蝴蝶、蘑菇和青蛙中都包括了最具毒性的那一种。同样正确的是，我们的审美会受到成长环境、所受教育及文化时尚的影响。我的一位邻居在他的庭院里立了一只半透明塑料制的粉色火烈鸟，还立了一只水泥制的穿工装裤的鹅，而我在院中种了春白菊、天南星和掌叶铁线蕨。我们两个人都在依照我们各自的标准追求美。

如果美可以画在画板上，难道它就一定不会肤浅？如果美就像灯泡那样，可以开开关关难道它就一定不会是一种错觉吗？婚纱最终会在防蛀的箱子中发霉，花儿会凋谢，最明亮的一天也终会暗淡。我同意我们会被片面的见解所迷惑，也会被我们易变的观察所误导。但我不会忘记，我和鲁思结婚已经30年，我看着女儿24年的成长，儿子20年的成长。这些我深爱的人使我懂得了一种更富希望的可能性。冬去春来，我蹲在蕨类植物旁边，观察它们如何破土而出，我研究吸吮着花蕊蜜汁的凤尾蝶的翅膀、观察在天上高高飞翔的一群群大雁。还有我读过的书、听过的乐曲，一次又一次让我充满新鲜喜悦感的想法。与充满美的人、地方和创作的作品生活在一起，使我深信真正的美绝不肤浅，这种美也不仅存在于我的眼中，而是客观地存在于我们身外的世界。

我可以充满信心地谈论我对美的感受，但是若要让我谈论使美产生的事物的特质，我只能进行不充分的推断。因而，这也许是很不充分的推断。但我想说，一种生物、一种举止、一种地貌、一行诗、一段乐曲、一道科学公式或其他美丽的事物，之所以看起来美丽，是因为它们能让我们窥见事物隐含的序。星系的旋涡同裙摆的旋转的类似并非偶然。它们都沿循着宇宙的本质。这种本质存于我们的内在。我们认为美的事物总是与我们内心的感觉相吻合。多时候，我们都生活在愿望和理性的矛盾中。当我们发现美的时候，矛盾消失，内在和外在形象获得了统一。

在我还未推论得太远之前，让我将生物学提到讨论中来。很可能基因在我们追求美的过程中起到了重要作用。或许我们在男人、女人身上或在艺术风景、天气中发现的某些美的特征正是那些使得我们的祖先得以生存下来的事物。换言之，如果早期人类中某些人在看到驯鹿、闻到暴风雨的气息、听到潺潺流水或触摸到优美的腰身时都不会激动兴奋，那么，他们带着毫无感知的基因消亡似乎公平合理。

有谁能怀疑生物学以及文化在培养我们的感知力方面所起到的重要作用呢？令男人女人发现对方迷人从而走到一起的吸引力，是在漫长的进化程中精明估算生育能力和体魄是否强壮而形成的一种性感选择。记得在读初一时的一个春雨天，我很诧异地意识到我邻座的女孩突然很强烈地吸引了我。我的注意力牢牢地固定在了玛丽·凯的金色长发上。卷曲的波浪披在椅背上，发梢扫过她绿色格子裙下鼓起的臀部，这是我从未注意到的。虽然现在我意识到那时她的确很美，但在12岁的年纪，我不会认为玛丽·凯很美。那时我也不会承认我的遥远祖先在我的初始欲望中扮演了一定的角色，虽然现在我能够听到他们的低语：选择浓密的头发，选择丰满的臀部。

如果我们坐车穿越郊区，观察那遍布树木以及偶尔出现的池塘的成英亩的连绵起伏的草坪，我们所看到的不就是人类最早居住的非洲热带大草原的忠实翻版吗？在区域法许可的地方，展开的绿色中还会经常点缀着牧养动物，温顺肥壮，它们是还在奔跑的未来晚餐。在世界各地，从新德里到纽约，不论在绘画中或公园里，这种水塘、遮阳树和草地的组合随处可见。这一切看起来都好像我们是在依照深存于我们基因中的一幅丰饶大地的图画来塑造我们周围的环境。

也许在任何一种情况下，比如在我们对爱人或自然环境的迷恋中，都会有一种生理上的吻合感，我们对外部世界的共鸣和热切兴奋的反应也融入其中，这就是我所谓的美。然而我坚信除了进化作用之外，这种兴奋中还包含了一样更为重要的东西。否则，我们如何解释，天性中会对每一个性感女子都强烈愿望的男士，为何还会日复一日地受到同一个女子的吸引？我又为何要在庭院中种上无法食用的花？

不论我们追溯远古到多远，我们都能找到对设计充满热情的证明——罐钵外部的装饰、衣服上的串珠及洞穴顶部的彩绘。人类遗址上曾发现过30000年前的骨制的笛子。因而，我们用有韵律的呼吸回应大地的呼吸，我们用创造的美回应发现的美。我们的耳朵可以很精确地探知食肉动物或猎物的行踪，但这并无法解释为什么我们在听到格列高利圣歌或德尔塔布鲁斯时会感动。我们的眼睛也许比猿略为进化，可以发现任何猎物而毫发无损，但这也很难解释为什么我们会着迷于震颤派的线条、丢勒的雕刻或木星的图片。

事实上，木星是九月星空最亮的一颗，昏暗中闪烁在东南上空。在没有望远镜来显示行星的环绕云层和月亮的光晕时，这样的光亮一定使我们的祖先目眩。我们得知许多文化中的观星人都记载了星体运行，是因为他们的观察记录流传了下来。他们如此忠诚地观察是因为他们相信行星及恒星控制他们的命运，还是因为他们沉迷于夜晚的肃穆？

我无法代表他们发言。但是，当我通过肉眼、双目望远镜或哈勃望远镜传来的放大图片来观察木星时，我并不是在为早晨的天气状况寻找线索，也不是在寻求一种神圣的心境，这正如我凝视女儿的照片并不是为了研究我的基因的未来一样，我只是在寻找纯粹的观看喜悦。

那婚礼的场景，已经从火红炽烈的幸福冷却成为回忆。在我和伊娃沿过道步入大厅时，我不时地抬头看她，竭力使我笨拙的脚步跟上她优雅的步伐。投在她脸上的光透过面纱散发着光芒。人群中轻微的躁动，如拍击鹅卵石的波浪，伴我们走向圣坛。这一过程似乎很漫长，却又好像结束得太快。无论是否准备好，我们已经站在了圣坛中央预定的位置，穿深蓝色的伴娘在左侧，马修和穿黑色的伴郎在右侧。我的心脏剧烈跳动，就像袋中的小鸟。

牧师——我们曾经的独木舟旅行向导，先把目光投向我们两人，使我们的心绪平静下来。然后，他高声问肃静的人群：“谁来佑福这一婚姻？”

我吞咽了一下确认我的喉咙还在，然后大声说：“家庭佑福这一婚姻。”

我迈步退后，将伊娃的手从我的臂弯抬起，放在马修的臂弯处。我们昨天排练时，这个动作看起来那么微小，而今天它却显得意义重大。这样，我的这部分角色结束了。我离开圣坛，小心地绕过伊娃长长的拖裙，回到鲁思身旁我的座位上。鲁思正用手帕擦拭着眼睛。我握住她没拿手帕的那只手——灵巧而又熟悉。还有一个月我们就已结婚30年整。我想同她再次步入婚姻的殿堂。尽管我的心一直在狂乱地跳动，我并没有感觉到想哭。现在我坐在我的新娘身旁，听伊娃声音呜咽地诵读誓词。当我听到那声呜咽，泪水涌了上来，但比泪水来得更快的是喜悦。

从我认识或了解的科学家那里（包括伊娃和鲁思），我得出如下的判断：在追求自然法则的过程中，一个人很快就会发现美。“我不知道和你在落日中见到的是不是同一种美，”一个朋友告诉我，“但感受是一样的。”这位朋友是个物理学家，职业生涯中很长时间都在解密星体内部的玄妙。他给我讲述第一次领悟狄拉克量子作用方程式或爱因斯坦相对论方程式时的兴奋。“它们非常美，”他说，“你马上就看得出它们肯定正确，或至少接近真理。”我问他是什么使理论变得美丽。他答道：“简洁、对称、优雅和力量。”

大自然为什么会遵守这些美的原理，目前还没有明确答案。正如爱因斯坦所说，关于宇宙最难理解的就是它是可理解的。居住在一颗普通星球上的一种生命短暂的两足动物能够计算光速，列出原子结构或计算黑洞引力，是否难以想象？我们还远未了解世间的万物，但我们又的确对自然规律了解很多。一代又一代的人发现规律、验证规律，并吃惊地发现自然界认可这些规律。一名建筑师在轻薄脆弱的图纸上设计图案，而她的建筑在地震中可以岿然不动。我们将人造卫星发射到轨道用以在洲际间传递信息。我用来写字的机器包含着千百个对物质世界如何运转的洞悉，每一个迅速呈现在屏幕上的字母都证实了这一点。同时，我在通过镜片看屏幕，镜片遵循的是由牛顿首先详尽阐述的光学原理。

牛顿相信，辨识宇宙的种种模式就是在追寻上帝的创造之手。今天多数的科学家认为造物者的概念是不一定的假说，或者认为这一概念无从考证。他们赞同牛顿提出的宇宙是符合一系列连贯的规律，这些规律无处不在。同时，作为科学家，他们又无法说明这些特定的法则是如何开始统治世界的。一个人若不相信神圣造物者的存在，可以研究科学；一个人若不相信法则，却无法研究科学。

我的青年时代一直在攀登数学的高峰。登到山坡的一半时，我摇摇晃晃地停下来，呼吸稀薄的空气，这时，距离我能够理解爱因斯坦或狄拉克的等式的高度还相差很远。如今，我可以加、减、乘，并在手边没有计算器的情况下做长除法；我还可以在急需的情况下做代数、几何，甚至三角几何。这便是我对数字语言了解的仅存硕果。然而，我依然记得匆匆瞥见的数学排列，醒目美丽，如满天繁星。

在我试图描述美的时候，就会充分意识到语言的局限性。当然，语言也可以创造出自己的可爱之处，但是，它无法传达我们所领会到的世界的真正风采，正如照片也无法形象地捕捉山鹰的异常敏捷或超新星陨落时的威力。伊娃的婚礼相册仅仅体现了婚礼本身的些许光彩。图片和文字所能做的，只是让我们不要忘记那些激动人心，稍纵即逝的辉煌时刻。所以，我会一直写作。

托马斯·默顿在观察中写道：“大自然中的一切都会带给我们天堂般的美妙感受”大自然的鬼斧神工在不断上演，带给我们免费而又无穷尽的美。只是们需要一定的素养才能体会到一些并不显而易见的美。原始大爆炸已过了150亿年左右，大爆炸的痕迹仍以背景辐射的形式存留在宇宙中间，只比绝对零度高几度。因此，我相信我们对美的感受是与宇宙中无处不在的秩序和能量的共鸣。测量背景反射需要有精密的仪器，衡量美需要敏锐的智慧和五官。

任何有视觉的人都会在看到一张面孔或一朵花时感受到喜悦。然而，一个人必须有一定的素养，才能体味数学、物理和对弈的美，才能领略大树结构的美、小鸟羽翼图案的美、吹笛子时呼吸颤动的美。人类历史上，年轻人常常从上辈人那里学会专注的素养。只有专注，我们才会充分欣赏从量子作用到床罩拼图花案各式各样的美丽。

这种专注带有明显的进化优势。因为，识别不同的形态，帮助了我们的祖先选择伴侣、寻找食物和躲避食肉兽。所有的物种都有同样的进化优势。然而，唯独人类能够作曲、玩字谜游戏、用石头雕刻塑像、测绘时间空间地图。是我们将进化所需的精明观察发展到了极端，还是我们不经意间取得了宇宙运行和我们的大脑思维间的高度一致？

我相信后者是真的。我坚信，美不只是生物因素，也不只是文化传统。美四处逸散，涌流于我们之中，形式纷繁，远远超过进化所需。这并不是说美同生存没有关系，相反，它同生存密切相关。美与我们同源并滋养着我们。美令我们想起花的枝干、枝叶繁茂的塑造力和我们双手的塑造力。美使我们再次相信大自然的慷慨。美在我们的小智慧和宇宙的大智慧间建立了一种亲密感，从而使我们确信，人类就是为了在这宏伟的地球上和神奇的宇宙中精彩生活而生。我在这种亲密中找到了生命的意义和希望的无穷源泉。宇宙中，美无处不在，也许的确需要我们的关注和回应，需要我们敏锐的双眼、充盈的内心和智慧的大脑来接近这创世的圆环。

另译1（博主认为此翻译比原翻译更胜一筹！）：

我认识的科学家，像伊凡和卢斯，还有我通过阅读了解的科学家，普遍认为人们在探索自然界规律的过程中，很快便能与美不期而遇。“我不清楚那份美是否如你从日落中感受到的一样，”一位朋友对我说，“但对我而言，两者是一样的。”朋友是位物理学家，长期致力于解开恒星内部的奥秘。他向我回忆起第一次领会狄拉克的量子力学方程式和爱因斯坦的相对论方程式时，他是如何欣喜若狂。“它们如此美丽，”朋友说道，“你几乎马上明白这就是真理，或者至少是在通往真理的大道上。”当被问及是什么让理论如此美丽时，他的回答是，“简洁，对称，优美，力量。”

优美的理论和自然为何如此吻合？这不是个轻易就能回答的问题。正如爱因斯坦所言，宇宙最大的不可知性就在于它的可知性。多么不可思议啊！在这个微不足道的星球上，那天不予寿的双足动物竟能测出光速，解开原子的结构之谜，算出黑洞的地心引力。洞悉宇宙的一切奥秘任重而道远，但我们的确已能解释相当多的自然现象。一代又一代人苦苦思索着复杂的公式，反复验算，最后发现它们与自然惊人的吻合。建筑师绘蓝图于薄纸，她的建筑历经地震屹然不倒。我们送卫星上轨道，利用它进行洲际信息传输。我写下这番话的机器包含了数百个我们对物质世界运行方式的理解，屏幕上跳出的每一个字母都在佐证这些理解的正确性；透过镜片我注视着屏幕，是艾萨克·牛顿首先解开了镜片所要遵循的光学原理这一难题。

牛顿认为自己研究天体的运行方式是在寻找所谓的“神臂”。当代的科学家大多已摒弃造物主这一不切实际的假说，至少是因为无法进行验证。牛顿认为宇宙的一切都被内在统一的法则主宰，对于这一观点科学家们并无异议，但他们无法科学解释这一切是如何进行的。你可以不信奉神圣的上帝而进行科学研究，但抛弃了规律，你将寸步难行。

少年时代，我勇攀数学高峰。然而抵达半山腰时，我蹒跚而止，在稀薄的空气中气喘吁吁，远未达到能够理解爱因斯坦和狄拉克的方程式这一高度。如今，当手头没有计算器时，我手工运算加法，减法，乘法和繁琐的除法，必要时我还会去手工运算代数，几何，甚至是三角函数，但这几乎就是我从数字语言中学到的全部知识。不过，我不会忘记当回首这些数学图形时，它们醒目而美丽，宛如那璀璨的满天星辰。每当试图描绘美丽，我感触最深的是语言的苍白无力。诚然，语言有其自身生动的一面，但亦无法描绘世间所有的美丽，就像照片捕捉不了雄鹰的迅疾和超新星的坍缩。伊凡婚礼写真集上的照片如今只是些模糊的回忆。那稍纵即逝，令人心潮澎湃的美丽，岂是照片和语言所能表达的呢？于是其中之美我只能意会。

“自然的美丽是为了让我们认为她就是天堂。”托马斯·默顿有过这番评述。天地万物的衍变是永不停息的过程，美丽因此不受羁绊，层出不穷，但是若想能感受到不同寻常的美，还得经过一番专门培养才行。虽然大爆炸发生在150亿年前，但它的影响仍以本底辐射的形式存留世间，这种辐射只稍稍高出绝对零度。正因为如此，我认为体验美丽就是在回应宇宙中无所不在的秩序与力量。测量本底辐射，需要精密的仪器；而感受美，需要明辨的智慧和五大敏锐的感官。

欣赏一张美丽的面孔或一朵娇艳的花儿，仅凭双眼就能做到。然而没有经过专门培养，你将无法领略数学和物理学的缜密，国际象棋的奥妙，树木结构的精致，无法发现鸟类翅膀那精巧的构造，和气流穿越笛身时那优美的颤动。在相当长的人类历史长河中，这种培养由长者教导幼者如何善于发现来完成。学会这一本领之后，我们始能欣赏各种形式的美丽，大到量子力学，小到百袖被罩。对美的向往让人类在进化过程中获益匪浅，我们祖先择偶，觅食和躲避猛兽都离不开辨别美丑这一能力。但同样的进化优势适用于任意物种，为何只有人类能够谱写交响乐，编写纵横格填字游戏，把石头雕刻成塑像，使时空呈对应关系呢? 是否我们过于明察秋毫，让这一动物的本能需求走向了荒谬的极端？抑或思维的结构与宇宙的结构能够不谋而合，只是因为我们偶得其理？

后一种说法更令我折服。我深信，较之世间万物，遑论文化习俗，美丽更为丰富多彩。它就在我们身边，数量之大，形式之多，远远超出简单的进化之需求。有人说美和人类的生存毫无关系，而我认为两者息息相关。美从创造了我们的大自然处汲取源泉，哺育着我们。让我们牢记花茎的塑造力和双手的塑造力同样伟大。让我们重拾旧有的信仰，感激自然的慷慨赠予。给我们机会体验自己那些微不足道的思想和智慧之神的共通之处，让我们信心十足，原来自己竟也如此神奇，有理由以生命的形式生存于这美丽的星球，存续于这壮丽的宇宙。于天人之暗合处，无穷的意义和无尽的希冀皆为我所得。宇宙之美如此包罗万象，莫不是在诱导我们去留意，并热情回应？莫不是要我们以敏锐的目光，热情洋溢的心和丰富的思想去穷尽万物之美？

另译2（此翻译也相当不错！）：

后一说法令我信服。我相信，美之契合甚于生物进化，更甚于文化习俗，它流经我们身边，贯通我们心灵，其内涵之丰富、形态之多样，大大超越了人类起码的进化需求。当然，这并非说美与生存无关，恰恰相反，它们之间可谓息息相通。美用人类生命之源滋养人类，使我们想起了经由花茎与人的双手产生的创造力。美恢复了人类对大自然慷慨富有的信念，唤起了渺小人类与浩瀚宇宙心灵间的亲缘感应。美使我们深信，如此妙绝天成的人类，原本就是为这煌煌星球、泱泱宇宙应运而生的。从这一天缘巧合中，我悟出那种深长的蕴意与博大的希望。一个流芳溢美的大千世界，兴许真要我们对它处处留意并做出回应，需要我们用敏锐的双眼、充沛的情感、博大的心怀，去勾通人类与大自然的交流和循环，使之周而复始、生生不息。

Key Words:

congregation [.kɔŋgri'geiʃən]

n. 集合，会合

lace [leis]

n. 饰带，花边，缎带

v. 结带子，饰以花边

aisle [ail]

n. (席位间的)通道，侧廊

trio ['tri:əu]

n. 三个一组，三重唱（奏）

translucent [træns'lu:sənt]

adj. 半透明的

kinship ['kinʃip]

n. 血缘关系，亲属关系

lush [lʌʃ]

adj. 苍翠繁茂的，多青草的，丰富的 n. 酒，酒鬼

plausible ['plɔ:zəbl]

adj. 似真实合理的，似可信的

oblivious [ə'bliviəs]

adj. 没注意到，或不知道

infatuation [in.fætju'eiʃən]

n. 迷恋

bliss [blis]

n. 福佑，天赐的福

algebra ['ældʒibrə]

n. 代数学

prodigal ['prɔdigəl]

adj. 挥霍的，(物产等)丰富的，慷慨的 n. 挥霍者

patchwork ['pætʃwə:k]

n. 修补工作，拼凑的东西，混杂物

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