追忆似水年华什么意思【追忆似水年华】

　　法国著名作家马塞尔・普鲁斯特的名作《追忆似水年华》，是一本与遗忘作斗争的书。普鲁斯特就是为了怕自己忘掉一些鲜活的感觉而写了这本书。书中，因为喝了一口带有玛德琳蛋糕渣的暖茶，勾起了作者对过去的无限回忆……这里节选了其中几段文字，阅读时要留意大量长句的运用。
　　
　　Many years had 1)elapsed during which nothing of 2)Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called “3)petites
　　4)madeleines,” which look as though they had been 5)moulded in the 6)fluted 7)scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my 8)palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, 9)intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the 10)vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters 11)innocuous, its brevity illusory―this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, 12)accidental, 13)mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
　　I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the 14)potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently,
　　15)intact and 16)at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an 17)abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has 18)strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
　　…
　　Undoubtedly what is thus 19)palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colorless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling 20)medley of radiant 21)hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable 22)paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life.
本文为全文原貌 未安装PDF浏览器用户请先下载安装 原版全文 　　Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has traveled so far to
　　23)importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must 24)essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of today and of my hopes for tomorrow, which let themselves be 25)pondered over without effort or distress of mind.
　　And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say 26)good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of 27)lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in 28)pastry-cooks’ windows, that their
　　image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual
　　under its severe, religious folds, were either 29)oblite-rated or had been so long 30)dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing 31)subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain 32)poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost 33)impalpable 34)drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.
　　
　　这已经是很多很多年前的事了，除了同我上床睡觉有关的一些情节和场景外，贡布雷的其他往事对我来说早已化为乌有。可是有一年冬天，我回到家里，母亲见我冷成那样，便让我喝点茶暖暖身子，而我平常并不喝茶。于是我先说不喝，后来不知怎么又改变了主意。母亲叫人拿来一块点心，是那种又矮又圆的名叫“小玛德琳”的小蛋糕，看起来像是用朝圣者的扇形贝壳那样的点心模子做出来的。那天天色阴沉，而且第二天也不见得会转晴，我的心情很压抑，机械地舀了一勺茶送到嘴边，起先我已把一小口玛德琳蛋糕浸泡在那勺茶里。带着蛋糕渣的那一勺暖茶碰到我的上腭，我顿时混身一震，定住了。我感觉到自己身上正发生着非同小可的变化，一种舒坦的快感传遍全身，我感到超尘脱俗，却不知出自何因。我忽然觉得人生一世，荣辱得失都清淡如水，灾难不幸亦无甚大碍，所谓人生短促，不过是一时幻觉；这种全新的感觉对于我的影响好比恋爱发生的作用，它以一种可贵的精神充实了我。也许，这感觉并不在我心间，而原本就是我的一部分。我不再感到平庸、不重要、平凡。这股强烈的快感是从哪里涌出来的？我感到它同茶水和蛋糕的味道有关，但它又远远超出了那些味道，肯定同那些味道的性质不一样。那么，它从何而来？又意味着什么？怎样才能抓住并阐释它？
　　我喝第二口时感觉比第一口要淡薄，第三口比第二口更微乎其微。该到此为止了，茶的魔力正在消失。显然我所追求的真相并不在于茶水之中，而在于我的内心。茶味唤醒了我心中的那种感觉，但这感觉并不为茶所熟知，亦只能茫然地反复诉说，且力量逐渐减弱，而我并不明白茶的话语，只求能够通过喝茶让它再次出现，找到最初的那种感觉，使我最终彻悟。我放下茶杯，审视我的内心。只有我的心才能发现事实真相。可是如何寻找？当心灵感觉自己的一部分已经越过了自己的疆界；当追寻者本身就是那黑暗的疆域而他还必须穿过黑暗去寻找，而且他所拥有的却对他毫无帮助，这不确定的深渊将是如何的深不见底。探索吗？又不仅仅是探索：还得创造。这颗心面临着某些还不存在的东西，它本身就能使这些东西成为现实且赋予其内容，并把它们引到白昼的光明中来。
　　……
　　不用说，在我的内心深处跳动着的，一定是影像，一定是视觉的回忆，它同那种味道联系在一起，并试图随味道出现在我的脑海里。但是它的挣扎太遥远、太混乱，我勉强只看到一点苍白的影子，其中混杂着一股捉摸不定、不断回旋且杂色斑驳的混合物；我无法分辨它的形状，我无法像询问可能作出解释的知情人那样，求它阐明它的同龄伙伴、亲密朋友――蛋糕浸泡在茶里的那种味道所蕴含的意义，我无法请它告诉我这一感觉和哪种特殊境遇有关，与我从前的哪一个时期相连。
　　这渺茫的回忆，这有着同样的吸引力，从遥遥远方而来，触动、震撼和撩拨起我内心深处感觉的古老而尘封的瞬间，最终能不能浮升到我清醒的意识的表层？我不知道。现在我什么感觉都没有了，它不再往上升，也许又沉下去了，沉入黑暗之中；谁知道它还会不会再从混沌的黑暗中飘浮起来？我得十次、八次地再作努力，我得俯身探寻深渊。与生俱来的懒惰总是让我们知难而退，放弃丰功伟业的建树，如今它又劝我半途而废，劝我喝茶时干脆只想想今天的烦恼，只想想对明天的期望。这既不用花什么力气，也不会让人苦恼。
　　然而，回忆却突然回来了：那味道就是我在贡布雷时星期天早晨吃到的小玛德琳蛋糕的味道（因为那些日子里我在做弥撒前都不会出门）。当我到莱奥妮姨妈的房内去请安时，她常常会把一块玛德琳蛋糕放到不知是茶叶泡的还是莱檬花泡的茶水中浸泡一下，然后拿给我吃。见到那种小蛋糕，我还想不起这件往事，等我尝到它的味道，往事才浮上心头；也许是因为虽然后来我常在糕点店橱窗里摆放的盘子里看见那种小点心，但并没有拿来尝尝，于是它们的形象早已与贡布雷的日日夜夜脱离，倒是与眼下的日子更关系密切；也许因为贡布雷的往事被抛却在记忆之外太久，已经陈迹依稀，影消形散；凡事物的形状，一旦被湮没或者长期被隐匿，便失去足以与意识会合的扩张能力，连扇贝形的小点心也不例外，虽然它的样子丰满肥腴、令人垂涎，虽然点心的四周还是那么规整、那么有层次。但是天长日久之后，即使人亡物毁，久远的往事了无陈迹，唯独气味和味道虽说更脆弱却更有生命力；虽说更虚幻却更经久不散，更忠贞不渝。尽管其他的记忆早已烟消云散，但是气味和味道会在形销之后长期存在，如同灵魂一样，它们时刻准备着提醒我们，等待和期盼它们回归的那一刻；它们以细小到几乎无从辨认而又极其重要的蛛丝马迹，坚强不屈地支撑起整座回忆的巨厦。
　　
　　
　　
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