STUDY IN CHINA GLOBAL (SCG)作品原文
郁达夫 《江南的冬景》
凡在北国过过冬天的人，总都道围炉煮茗，或吃煊羊肉，剥花生米，饮白干的滋味。而有地炉，暖炕等设备的人家，不管它门外面是雪深几尺，或风大若雷，而躲在屋里过活的两三个月的生活，却是一年之中最有劲的一段蛰居异境；老年人不必说，就是顶喜欢活动的小孩子们，总也是个个在怀恋的，因为当这中间，有的萝卜，雅儿梨等水果的闲食，还有大年夜，正月初一元宵等热闹的节期。
但在江南，可又不同；冬至过后，大江以南的树叶，也不至于脱尽。寒风——西北风——间或吹来，至也不过冷了一日两日。到得灰云扫尽，落叶满街，晨霜白得象黑女脸上的脂粉似的清早，太阳一上屋檐，鸟雀便又在吱叫，泥地里便又放出水蒸气来，老翁小孩就又可以上门前的隙地里去坐着曝背谈天，营屋外的生涯了；这一种江南的冬景，岂不也可爱得很么？
我生长江南，儿时所受的江南冬日的印象，铭刻特深；虽则渐入中年，又爱上了晚秋，以为秋天正是读读书，写写字的人的最惠节季，但对于江南的冬景，总觉得是可以抵得过北方夏夜的一种特殊情调，说得摩登些，便是一种明朗的情调。
我也曾到过闽粤，在那里过冬天，和暖原极和暖，有时候到了阴历的年边，说不定还不得不拿出纱衫来着；走过野人的篱落，更还看得见许多杂七杂八的秋花！一番阵雨雷鸣过后，凉冷一点；至多也只好换上一件夹衣，在闽粤之间，皮袍棉袄是绝对用不着的；这一种极南的气候异状，并不是我所说的江南的冬景，只能叫它作南国的长春，是春或秋的延长。
江南的地质丰腴而润泽，所以含得住热气，养得住植物；因而长江一带，芦花可以到冬至而不败，红时也有时候会保持得三个月以上的生命。象钱塘江两岸的乌桕树，则红叶落后，还有雪白的桕子着在枝头，一点—丛，用照相机照将出来，可以乱梅花之真。草色顶多成了赭色，根边总带点绿意，非但野火烧不尽，就是寒风也吹不倒的。若遇到风和日暖的午后，你一个人肯上冬郊去走走，则青天碧落之下，你不但感不到岁时的肃杀，并且还可以饱觉着一种莫名其妙的含蓄在那里的生气；“若是冬天来了，春天也总马上会来”的诗人的名句，只有在江南的山野里，最容易体会得出。
说起了寒郊的散步，实在是江南的冬日，所给与江南居住者的一种特异的恩惠；在北方的冰天雪地里生长的人，是终他的一生，也决不会有享受这一种清福的机会的。我不知道德国的冬天，比起我们江浙来如何，但从许多作家的喜欢以Spaziergang一字来做他们的创造题目的一点看来，大约是德国南部地方，四季的变迁，总也和我们的江南差仿不多。譬如说十九世纪的那位乡土诗人洛在格（Peter Rosegger 1843—1918）罢，他用这一个“散步”做题目的文章尤其写得多，而所写的情形，却又是大半可以拿到中国江浙的山区地方来适用的。
江南河港交流，且又地滨大海，湖沼特多，故空气里时含水分；到得冬天，不时也会下着微雨，而这微雨寒村里的冬霖景象，又是一种说不出的悠闲境界。你试想想，秋收过后，河流边三五家人家会聚在一道的一个小村子里，门对长桥，窗临远阜，这中间又多是树枝槎丫的杂木树林；在这一幅冬日农村的图上，再洒上一层细得同粉也似的白雨，加上一层淡得不成墨的背景，你说还够不够悠闲？若再要点景致进去，则门前可以泊一只乌篷小船，茅屋里可以添几个喧哗的酒客，天垂暮了，还可以加一味红黄，在茅屋窗中画上一圈暗示着灯光的月晕。人到了这一个境界，自然会得胸襟洒脱起来，终至于得失俱亡，死生不同了；我们总该还记得唐朝那位诗人做的“暮雨潇潇江上树”的一首绝句罢？诗人到此，连对绿林豪客都客气起来了，这不是江南冬景的迷人又是什么？
一提到雨，也就必然的要想到雪：“晚来天欲雪，能饮一杯无？”自然是江南日暮的雪景。“寒沙梅影路，微雪酒香村”，则雪月梅的冬宵三友，会合在一道，在调戏酒姑娘了。“柴门村犬吠，风雪夜归人”，是江南雪夜，更深人静后的景况。“前树深雪里，昨夜一枝开”又到了第二天的早晨，和狗一样喜欢弄雪的村童来报告村景了。诗人的诗句，也许不尽是在江南所写，而做这几句诗的诗人，也许不尽是江南人，但假了这几句诗来描写江南的雪景，岂不直截了当，比我这一枝愚劣的笔所写的散文更美丽得多？
有几年，在江南，在江南也许会没有雨没有雪的过一个冬，到了春间阴历的正月底或二月初再冷一冷下一点春雪的；去年（一九三四）的冬天是如此，今年的冬天恐怕也不得不然，以节气推算起来，大约太冷的日子，将在一九三六年的二月尽头，最多也总不过是七八天的样子。象这样的冬天，乡下人叫作旱冬，对于麦的收成或者好些，但是人口却要受到损伤；旱得久了，白喉，流行性感冒等疾病自然容易上身，可是想恣意享受江南的冬景的人，在这一种冬天，倒只会得到快活一点，因为晴和的日子多了，上郊外去闲步逍遥的机会自然也多；日本人叫作Hi-king，德国人叫作Spaziergang狂者，所最欢迎的也就是这样的冬天。
窗外的天气晴朗得象晚秋一样；晴空的高爽，日光的洋溢，引诱得使你在房间里坐不住，空言不如实践，这一种无聊的杂文，我也不再想写下去了，还是拿起手杖，搁下纸笔，上湖上散散步罢！
作品译文
The Winter Scene in Jiangnan
Yu Dafu
Everyone who has spent winter in the north knows how nice it feels to sit round a stove brewing tea, or eating lamb hotpot, or shelling peanuts, or drinking white spirits.
And though the snow outside may be feet deep and the wind may boom like thunder, if the house has sunken stoves, heated brick beds and such amenities, the two or three months holed up indoors are a period of hibernation more agreeable than any other time of year. Let alone the old folk, even children who love to be active all cherish the winter, because there are lots of eats for them, like dried turnip, yali pears and other fruits, and boisterous celebrations to take part in, as on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Lantern Festival.
But it is a different state of affairs south of the Yangtze River. The trees, for one thing, are not stripped bare of leaves after the winter solstice. Wintery winds—from the northwest—blow only intermittently, making it cold for no more than one or two days. When the sky clears of clouds, and daybreak brings streets littered with leaves and a frost as white as cold cream on a black girl’s face, the sun has only to fall on the house eaves for the birds to twitter again, the earth to steam again, and granddads to take the little ones out to the open lot in front of the house and sit with the sun on their backs chewing the rag and getting on with their outdoor lives. Who could say that the winter scene south of the Yangtze is not also very attractive?
I grew up in Jiangnan, and the impression of Jiangnan winters is deeply etched on my mind. Though as I approach middle age I have fallen in love with late autumn, believing it the most favorable season for reading and writing, I still think the winter scene in Jiangnan has a special feel about it that can match that of summer nights in the north; to put it in a modern way, a kind of clear and luminous ambience.
I have also been in Fujian and Guangdong in the winter. Warm isn’t the word for it! Sometimes at the time of the lunar New Year you might have to put on your summer gown. When you go past country gardens you can still see over the fence a jungle of autumn flowers! It’s true the temperature drops a few degrees after a storm, but a lined garment is all you’ll ever need: fur gowns and padded jackets are definitely out. The climatic abnormality of the extreme south is not what I mean by winter in Jiangnan: it can only be called the eternal spring of the south, or the extension of spring or autumn.
Because the soil in Jiangnan is rich and moist, it retains heat and sustains plant life. Hence in the Jiangnan region, rush catkins stay firm until the winter solstice, and red leaves sometimes stay on the trees for more than three months. The tallow trees along the banks of the Qiantang River are another example: after the red leaves of autumn fall, the branches are still speckled with clusters of snow-white seeds; in a photograph you could easily mistake them for plum blossoms. Grass turns brown at the most, and always stays greenish at the roots; brush fires will not kill it, nor winter winds flatten it. If you go out of town for a walk on your own in winter and the weather is mild and the sky blue, you not only have no sense of blight and deadness, you even feel a mysterious vitality latent in your surroundings. The Jiangnan countryside is the best place for understandings what the poet meant by his famous line, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
Talking of country walks in winter, they are a special grace and favor bestowed by that season on the inhabitants of Jiangnan. Those who live in the frozen north will never have the chance of enjoying this simple pleasure in their whole lifetime. I do not know how winters in Germany compare with ours in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but judging by the liking of many German writers for using the word ‘Spaziergang’ in their compositions I would guess that that in southern Germany the seasons are about the same as ours in Jiangsu. The 19th century rustic poet Peter Rosegger (1843-1918), for example, includes the word for ‘walks’ in the titles of an exceptional number of his works, and the conditions he describes could well apply to the hill districts of our Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Jiangnan is a region of rivers and tributaries, and bordering on the sea, abounds in lakes and marshes, hence the air is often humid. In winter you often get drizzling rain, and the winter scene of an out of the way village shrouded in drizzle conveys an inexpressible sense of pastoral peace. If you would just imagine, after the autumn harvest has been gathered in, a small hamlet of four or five homes on a river bank, their doors facing a long narrow bridge, their windows looking out on distant hills, amid thickets of natural forest trees; over this picture of a hibernal hamlet is sprinkled a layer of white rain as fine as powder, and a background is shaded in so faintly that you can hardly detect the ink: wouldn’t you say this qualifies as pastoral peace? If you wish to add some features to the scene, then can moor a little boat with a black awning before the dwellings, draw in some tipplers carousing in a thatched hut; then at sunset add a dash of amber to the sky, and paint a halo round the windows to represent the lamplight. Anyone coming upon a scene like this would feel liberated, released from petty cares, and finally forgetful of their own fortunes and their own mortality. No doubt we all recall the Tang poem that begins ‘The dark rain sweeps the riverside village’. In this setting, the poet even treated the bandits of the greenwood politely: what was that due to, if not the enchantment of the Jiangnan scene in winter?
Mention of rain inevitably brings thoughts of snow. ‘The evening draws in, the sky threatens snow, is there a cup to be had or no?’ describes, of course, a snowy evening in Jiangnan. ‘Plum trees’ shadows on the cold shone path, the fragrance of wine in the snow-sprinkle village’ brings together the ‘three friends’ of a winter’s night, snow, moon and plum trees, and tells of flirting with the waitress in a wineshop. ‘At the wicket gate the village dogs bark, the traveler returns on a night of wind and snow; describes a snowy night in Jiangnan when all is still. ‘The village up ahead is deep in snow, last night a spray of plum blossoms opened’; and the next morning the village boys who like to romp in the snow like dogs come to report on the village happenings. Perhaps not all of the lines I have quoted were written in Jiangnan, and perhaps not all the poets who wrote them were from Jiangnan, but borrowing those lines puts the case in a nutshell, and they are infinitely more beautiful than the prose my clumsy pen can write.
In some years the Jiangnan region might see a winter without rain or snow, and just a slight fall of spring snow at the end of the first month or beginning of the second month of the lunar calendar. Last winter (1934) was like that, and I’m afraid this winter is sure to be like that. Reckoning by the solar terms, the coldest spell should be at the end of February 1936, and it should last seven or eight days at the most. These are what the country people call dry winters. They may be good for the wheat harvest, but they are bed for the population: a prolonged drought makes it easy for diphtheria, influenza and other diseases to get a hold. But those willing to throw caution to the winds and enjoy the Jiangnan winter to the full will still welcome such years, because there are more mild and sunny days, and it follows that there are more opportunities for carefree country walks. Enthusiasts for what the Japanese call Kikeng and the Germans call Spaziergang look forward most to this kind of winter.
The weather outside my window is as fine as a late autumn day’s. The crisp air, the cloudless sky, and the flood of sunlight tempt you out of doors. Very well, I must practice what I preach. I shall stop writing this tiresome essay, put up my pen, pick up my stick, and be off to the lakeside for a nice stroll!
