前几日吃货君刚读完一个意味深长的故事，数日过去仍觉意犹未尽、震撼不已，心底直叹“这才是真正的诗和远方啊！然而有几人敢似这般放下眼前的苟且呢？”到底剧情如何，且听吃货君详解。故事主人公是英国一位家境殷实的证券经纪人，他有一位温婉可人的娇妻和一对漂亮聪慧的儿女。可他却放弃这羡煞旁人的美满生活，抛妻弃子，净身出户，只身一人去巴黎学画画了。他像中邪一般迷上了艺术，成了一位不食人间烟火、清贫落魄的画家。他的画作不用于交易，也不展出，他不社交，也不赚钱谋生，任凭自己落得个食不果腹、困病交加，他只在油墨颜料间享受单纯的快乐。为了艺术，他将自己“流放”到南太平洋小岛。
在那里他像到了天堂，土著人的淳朴和当地原始风光的丰富色彩成为他艺术的催化剂，他携当地土著妻子隐居在岛上山间，潜心作画。后来麻风病悄然而至，左邻右舍纷纷逃离，他却仍在妻子的陪伴下坚持创作。最后，他失明了，却还在以墙为布，在家中墙壁上完成了他一生最为得意的恢弘之作。灯枯油尽之际，他留下遗愿，让妻子一把火烧了家，烧了他的画。故事讲到这里，想必很多看官都已猜到了出处。是的，就是英国作家毛姆的 The Moon and Sixpence。这部小说的精彩之处当然不只故事本身，熟知毛姆的人都知道他的作品对人性的揭露和剖析可谓深刻，吃货君顺手摘录几处原文与君共享。下面这段话出自主人公之口。在旁人谴责他卑鄙绝情、“引诱”人妻却又将其抛弃时，他这样说道： “I don’t want love. I haven’t time for it. It’s weakness. I am a man, and sometimes I want a woman. When I’ve satisfied my passion I’m ready for other things. I can’t overcome my desire, but I hate it; it imprisons my spirit; I look forward to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to work. Because women can do nothing except love, they’ve given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it’s the whole of life. It’s an insignificant part. I know lust. That’s normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, and companions.”“When a woman loves you she’s not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she’s weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her, she has a small mind, and she resents the abstract which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book. Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks. With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me. She wanted to bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers. She was willing to do everything in the world for me except the one thing I wanted: leave me alone.”身为新时代的女性，吃货君看到这段不禁要拍桌子了。纵然在女性地位较低的时代，这样否定女性也未免太狠，但深思过后不难看出，其中某些话语其实直戳要害，让吃货君深觉惭愧不安，不知诸位是否有同感？下面这段是毛姆对人生孤独的体悟，为帮助理解，吃货君顺便附上译文（译文摘自网络）：Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
我们每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能依靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别人也不能为别人所了解。我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上的那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说的只不过是像“园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里”这类话。
我们常常向往“诗和远方”，但大多数人也只是向往而已。像书中主人公这样全然放下物欲、不顾一切后果地追求如此纯粹的诗和远方，想必没有几个人愿意或者有勇气做到吧？不知诸君看到这里作何感想？不如和吃货君一起打开原著，细细品味吧~
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