THE CATASTROPHE1 was not an earthquake, nor a forest fire, nor an avalanche2, nor a cave-in. It was not an external catastrophe at all, but an internal one, and as such particularly distressing3, because it blocked Grenouille’s favorite means of escape. It happened in his sleep. Or better, in his dreams. Or better still, in a dream while he slept in the heart of his fantasies.
He lay on his sofa in the purple salon4 and slept, the empty bottles all about him. He had drunk an enormous amount, with two whole bottles of the scent5 of the red-haired girl for a nightcap. Apparently6 it had been too much; for his sleep, though deep as death itself, was not dreamless this time, but threaded with ghostly wisps of dreams. These wisps were clearly recognizable as scraps7 of odors. At first they merely floated in thin threads past Grenouille’s nose, but then they grew thicker, more cloudlike. And now it seemed as if he were standing8 in the middle of a moor9 from which fog was rising. The fog slowly climbed higher. Soon Grenouille was completely wrapped in fog, saturated10 with fog, and it seemed he could not get his breath for the foggy vapor11. If he did not want to suffocate12, he would have to breathe the fog in. And the fog was, as noted13, an odor. And Grenouille knew what kind of odor. The fog was his own odor. His, Gre-nouille’s, own body odor was the fog.
And the awful thing was that Grenouille, although he knew that this odor was his odor, could not smell it. Virtually drowning in himself, he could not for the life of him smell himself!
As this became clear to him, he gave a scream as dreadful and loud as if he were being burned alive. The scream smashed through the walls of the purple salon, through the walls of the castle, and sped away from his heart across the ditches and swamps and deserts, hurtled across the nocturnal landscape of his soul like a fire storm, howled its way out of his mouth, down the winding14 tunnel, out into the world, and far across the high plains of Saint-Flour-as if the mountain itself were screaming. And Grenouille awoke at his own scream. In waking, he thrashed about as if he had to drive off the odorless fog trying to suffocate him. He was deathly afraid, his whole body shook with the raw fear of death. Had his scream not ripped open the fog, he would have drowned in himself-a gruesome death. He shuddered16 as he recalled it. And as he sat there shivering and trying to gather his confused, terrified thoughts, he knew one thing for sure: he would change his life, if only because he did not want to dream such a frightening dream a second time. He would not survive it a second time.
He threw his horse blanket over his shoulders and crept out into the open. It was already morning outside, a late February morning. The sun was shining. The earth smelled of moist stones, moss17, and water. On the wind there already lay a light bouquet18 of anemones19. He squatted20 on the ground before his cave. The sunlight warmed him. He breathed in the fresh air. Whenever he thought of the fog that he had escaped, a shudder15 would pass over him. And he shuddered, too, from the pleasure of the warmth he feit on his back. It was good, really, that this external world still existed, if only as a place of refuge. Nor could he bear the awful thought of how it would have been not to find a world at the entrance to the tunnel! No light, no odor, no nothing-only that ghastly fog inside, outside, everywhere...
Gradually the shock subsided22. Gradually the grip of anxiety loosened, and Grenouille began to feel safer. Toward noon he was his old cold-blooded self. He laid the index and middle fingers of his left hand under his nose and breathed along the backs of his fingers. He smelled the moist spring air spiced with anemones. He did not smell anything of his fingers. He turned his hand over and sniffed23 at the palm. He sensed the warmth of his hand, but smelled nothing. Then he rolled up the ragged24 sleeve of his shirt, buried his nose in the crook25 of his elbow. He knew that this was the spot where all humans smell like themselves. But he could smell nothing. He could not smell anything in his armpits, nor on his feet, not around his genitals when he bent26 down to them as far as he possibly could. It was grotesque27: he, Grenouille, who could smell other people miles away, was incapable28 of smelling his own genitals not a handspan away! Nevertheless, he did not panic, but considered it all coolly and spoke29 to himself as follows: “It is not that I do not smell, for everything smells. It is, rather, that I cannot smell that I smell, because I have smelled myself day in day out since my birth, and my nose is therefore dulled against my own smell. If I could separate my own smell, or at least a part of it, from me and then return to it after being weaned from it for a while, then I would most certainly be able to smell it-and therefore me.”
He laid the horse blanket aside and took off his clothes, or at least what remained of them-rags and tatters were what he took off. For seven years he had not removed them from his body. They had to be fully30 saturated with his own odor. He tossed them into a pile at the cave entrance and walked away. Then, for the first time in seven years, he once again climbed to the top of the mountain. There he stood on the same spot where he had stood on the day of his arrival, held his nose to the west, and let the wind whistle around his naked body. His intention was thoroughly31 to air himself, to be pumped so full of the west wind-and that meant with the odor of the sea and wet meadows -that this odor would counterbalance his own body odor, creating a gradient of odors between himself and his clothes, which he would then be in a position to smell. And to prevent his nose from taking in the least bit of his own odor, he bent his body forward, stretching his neck out as far as he could against the wind, with his arms stretched behind him. He looked like a swimmer just before he dives into the water.
He held this totally ridiculous pose for several hours, and even by such pale sunlight, his skin, maggot white from lack of sun, was turned a lobster32 red. Toward evening he climbed back down to the cave. From far off he could see his clothes lying in a pile. The last few yards, he held his nose closed and opened it again only when he had lowered it right down onto the pile. He made the sniffing33 test he had learned from Baldini, snatching up the air and then letting it out again in spurts34. And to catch the odor, he used both hands to form a bell around his clothes, with his nose stuck into it as the clapper. He did everything possible to extract his own odor from his clothes. But there was no odor in them. It was most definitely not there. There were a thousand other odors: the odor of stone, sand, moss, resin35, raven’s blood-even the odor of the sausage that he had bought years before near Sully was clearly perceptible. Those clothes contained an olfactory36 diary of the last seven, eight years. Only one odor was not there-his own odor, the odor of the person who had worn them continuously all that time.
And now he began to be truly alarmed. The sun had set. He was standing naked at the entrance to the tunnel, where he had lived in darkness for seven years. The wind blew cold, and he was freezing, but he did not notice that he was freezing, for within him was a counterfrost, fear. It was not the same fear that he had felt in his dream-the ghastly fear of suffocating37 on himself-which he had had to shake off and flee whatever the cost. What he now felt was the fear of not knowing much of anything about himself. It was the opposite pole of that other fear. He could not flee it, but had to move toward it. He had to know for certain-even if that knowledge proved too terrible- whether he had an odor or not. And he had to know now. At once.
He went back into the tunnel. Within a few yards he was fully engulfed38 in darkness, but he found his way as if by brightest daylight. He had gone down this path many thousands of times, knew every step and every turn, couid smell every low-hanging jut39 of rock and every tiny protruding40 stone. It was not hard to find the way. What was hard was fighting back the memory of the claustrophobic dream rising higher and higher within him like a flood tide with every step he took. But he was brave. That is to say, he fought the fear of knowing with the fear of not knowing, and he won the battle, because he knew he had no choice. When he had reached the end of the tunnel, there where the rock slide slanted41 upwards42, both fears fell away from him. He felt calm, his mind was quite clear and his nose sharp as a scalpel. He squatted down, laid his hands over his eyes, and smelled. Here on this spot, in this remote stony43 grave, he had lain for seven years. There must be some smell of him here, if anywhere in this world. He breathed slowly. He analyzed44 exactly. He allowed himself time to come to a judgment45. He squatted there for a quarter of an hour. His memory was infallible, and he knew precisely46 how this spot had smelled seven years before: stony and moist, salty, cool, and so pure that no living creature, man or beast, could ever have entered the place... which was exactly how it smelled now.
He continued to squat21 there for a while, quite calm, simply nodding his head gently. Then he turned around and walked, at first hunched47 down, but when the height of the tunnel allowed it, erect48, out into the open air.
Outside he pulled on his rags (his shoes had rotted off him years before), threw the horse blanket over his shoulders, and that same night left the Plomb du Cantal, heading south.
收听单词发音 |
1
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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suffocate
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| vt.使窒息，使缺氧，阻碍；vi.窒息，窒息而亡，阻碍发展 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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lobster
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| n.龙虾，龙虾肉 | |
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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spurts
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| 短暂而突然的活动或努力( spurt的名词复数 )； 突然奋起 | |
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resin
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| n.树脂，松香，树脂制品；vt.涂树脂 | |
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olfactory
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| adj.嗅觉的 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jut
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| v.突出；n.突出，突出物 | |
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protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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analyzed
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| v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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