THE MARK ON THE WALL

《墙上的斑点》发表于1919年，为伍尔夫的第一部意识流小说。小说描写主人公在一个普通日子的平常瞬间，抬头看见墙上的斑点，由此引发意识的飘逸流动，产生一系列幻觉和遐想。主人公一会由斑点联想到钉痕、挂肖像的前任房客；一会从对斑点的疑惑联想到生命的神秘、思想的不准确性和人类的无知；一会从猜测斑点是一个凸出的圆形联想到一座古象，进而想到忧伤、白骨和考古…

Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the mark on the wall for the first time. I looked up through the smoke of my cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps. The mark was a small round mark, black upon the white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece.

大约是在今年一月中旬，我抬起头来，第一次看见了墙上的那个斑点。为了要确定是在哪一天，就得回忆当时我看见了些什么。现在我记起了炉子里的火，一片黄色的火光一动不动地照射在我的书页上；壁炉上圆形玻璃缸里插着三朵菊花。对啦，一定是冬天，我们刚喝完茶，因为我记得当时我正在吸烟，我抬起头来，第一次看见了墙上那个斑点。我透过香烟的烟雾望过去，眼光在火红的炭块上停留了一下，过去关于在城堡塔楼上飘扬着一面鲜红的旗帜的幻觉又浮现在我脑际，我想到无数红色骑士潮水般地骑马跃上黑色岩壁的侧坡。这个斑点打断了我这个幻觉，使我觉得松了一口气，因为这是过去的幻觉，是一种无意识的幻觉，可能是在孩童时期产生的。墙上的斑点是一块圆形的小迹印，在雪白的墙壁上呈暗黑色，在壁炉上方大约六七英寸的地方。

How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it. . . If that mark was made by a nail, it can’t have been for a picture, it must have been for a miniature--the miniature of a lady with white powdered curls, powder-dusted cheeks, and lips like red carnations. A fraud of course, for the people who had this house before us would have chosen pictures in that way--an old picture for an old room. That is the sort of people they were--very interesting people, and I think of them so often, in such queer places, because one will never see them again, never know what happened next. They wanted to leave this house because they wanted to change their style of furniture, so he said, and he was in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it when we were torn asunder, as one is torn from the old lady about to pour out tea and the young man about to hit the tennis ball in the back garden of the suburban villa as one rushes past in the train.

我们的思绪是多么容易一哄而上，簇拥着一件新鲜事物，像一群蚂蚁狂热地抬一根稻草一样，抬了一会，又把它扔在那里……如果这个斑点是一只钉子留下的痕迹，那一定不是为了挂一幅油画，而是为了挂一幅小肖像画——一幅卷发上扑着白粉、脸上抹着脂粉、嘴唇像红石竹花的贵妇人肖像。它当然是一件赝品，这所房子以前的房客只会选那一类的画——老房子得有老式画像来配它。他们就是这种人家——很有意思的人家，我常常想到他们，都是在一些奇怪的地方，因为谁都不会再见到他们，也不会知道他们后来的遭遇了。据他说，那家人搬出这所房子是因为他们想换一套别种式样的家具，他正在说，按他的想法，艺术品背后应该包含着思想的时候，我们两人就一下子分了手，这种情形就像坐火车一样，我们在火车里看见路旁郊外别墅里有个老太太正准备倒茶，有个年轻人正举起球拍打网球，火车一晃而过，我们就和老太太以及年轻人分了手，把他们抛在火车后面。