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飞蛾之死
弗吉尼娅·伍尔芙
弗吉尼娅·伍尔芙
准确地说，白天飞来飞去的蛾子并不叫做飞蛾。在窗帘的阴影中熟睡的常见的黄蛾总是会让我们大吃一惊，但是这些飞蛾并不会唤起我们对于黑暗的秋叶和绽放的常青藤的愉快的情感。它们是杂交的产物，既不像蝴蝶一样色彩缤纷，也不像它们的同类一般色彩黯然。然而在我面前的这个，有着狭长的干草色的翅子，翅子的边缘还有着颜色相同的流苏一般的纹饰，看上去活得心满意足。这是一个令人愉悦的九月中旬的早晨，温和、宜人，只是风吹得比夏季更加强烈了一些。犁已经在窗户外的田野中留下了刻痕，犁头过处，泥土被压得平平整整，散发着湿润的气息。这种活力的气息从田野和更远的地方滚滚而至，以致令人难以把心思完全放在书本上。白嘴鸦在忙着过它们每年一度的节日：它们绕着树顶飞来飞去，直到看上去仿佛有一张巨大的缀有成千上万个黑结的网撒开在空中。过了一会儿，这张网慢慢罩在树上，直到每一个树枝的枝头都有了一个结。突然这张网仿佛再次被撒到空中一样，然而是绕了一个更大的圈，伴随着很大的喧闹和叫嚷，就像被撒到空中然后慢慢落到树上这个过程是个极为令人兴奋的体验。
激发白嘴鸦、农夫、马匹、甚至光秃的小山丘的这种力量，也让飞蛾从窗玻璃的一边飞到另一边。这让人情不自禁地盯着看。这的确让人感到一种怜惜。那个早上似乎本应是快乐的，但是一只飞蛾对于短暂的生命的热情却让人不禁想到命运的残酷。它快乐地飞到格子的一个角落，在那里没有待到一秒钟，又飞向了另一个角落。接下来除了飞向第三个和第四个角落，它还有什么选择呢？尽管山丘是那么延绵起伏，天空是那么辽阔，房屋上空的炊烟飘得那么远，远处不时响起的海轮的汽笛声如此浪漫，这就是它所能做的事。它做了力所能及的事。看它，在它那脆弱而纤小的身体里就像有一条看不见的纤细而晶莹的充满整个世界的能量细线。当它频繁在玻璃上飞来飞去的时候，我仿佛看见了这条明亮的细线。它微小而无足轻重，但是充满了生命力。
然而，正是因为它的渺小和简单的能量穿过了开着的窗户，在人们的脑海中的狭小而错综复杂的走廊上横冲直撞，人们对它充满了某种惊奇且悲哀的感情。这就像有个人取了一滴生命的珠子，用绒毛和翅膀进行了尽量简单的装饰，然后让它转着圈舞蹈来向我们展示生活的真谛。人们不会忘记这种奇怪的感觉。人们倾向于忘记所有关于生活的东西，只是把它当作坎坷、无法改变、虚浮和苦难的，所以不得不小心谨慎地面对。人们又不禁会想到，如果生命将它生就为另一种模样，那又会怎么样呢？这让人们开始以一种怜悯的态度看待它这些简单的动作。
过了一段时间，它显然开始感到疲倦了，它停到了沐浴在阳光中的窗户边缘上。随着这种奇怪的景象进入尾声，我完全忘记了它。然后，当我抬头的时候，我的目光再次被它吸引过去。它正试图重新开始舞蹈，但是它只能僵硬或者说是笨拙地扇动翅膀飞到窗玻璃的底部。当它试图飞过去的时候却失败了。专注于其他事情的我看了一会儿这些无用的努力，而没有任何想法，只是单纯等着它再次飞起来，就像人们等待一台停了一会儿的机器重新启动起来却没去思考它停止的原因。差不多试了七次之后，它终于从木窗框上滑落下来，挥着翅膀向后跌到了窗台上。它无助的姿势唤醒了我，我终于意识到它遇到了困难。它再也飞不起来了，它的腿徒劳地拨动着。但是当我伸出铅笔想去帮助它翻过身来时，我意识到这种失败和笨拙意味着即将到来的死亡。想到这里，我又放下了手中的铅笔。
它的腿又开始猛烈地拨动了，在我看来就像在与敌人搏斗。我向门外看去，外面怎样了？大概已经到了中午，田地里的劳作停止了。静止与安静代替了之前的喧闹。那些白嘴鸦已经飞走去小溪边喝水了。马儿们站着一动也不动。但是那些力量仍然在那里，充满了外面的每个角落，中立、客观，不纠结于任何特别的事物。某种程度上讲这与眼前的这个有着枯草般的颜色的小飞蛾恰好相反。做任何事情都是徒劳的。人们只能旁观着那些细小的腿做出的离奇的努力来抗拒即将到来的毁灭。这种毁灭的力量可以让整个城市连同大批的人类沉入海底。没有什么能够抗拒死亡。然而在因为筋疲力尽而停了一小会儿后，它的腿又开始动了。这最后的抗拒是如此强烈和疯狂，它终于成功地翻过了身来。人们的同情当然永远会站在生命的一边。当没有人关心或者毫无所知的时候，一个无关紧要的小飞蛾为了维持别人不会珍惜和保留的生命，付出了不可思议的努力去对抗如此巨大的力量。这让人莫名地感动。不知为何，我再一次见证了生命的死亡。我再次举起了铅笔，尽管我知道这是徒劳的。但是甚至在我这样做的时候，死亡的象征再次毫无疑问地显现了出来。它的身体舒展开来，旋即变得僵硬。挣扎结束了。这个渺小的生命逝去了。看着这只死去的飞蛾，如此强大的力量战胜了如此普通的对手，这种胜利却让我感到惊讶。就像几分钟前生命曾经很诡谲一样，现在死亡也变得诡谲了。这只翻过身来的飞蛾终于优雅而毫无怨言地安详逝去了。是的，它好像在说，死亡比我强大多了。
（附原文）
The Death of the Moth (1942)
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that
pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yel-
low-underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us.
They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor somber like their own
species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings,
fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be content with life. It was a
pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath
than that of the summer months. The plough was already scoring the field oppo-
site the window, and where the share had been, the earth was pressed flat and
gleamed with moisture. Such vigor came rolling in from the fields and the down
beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book. The
rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops
until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up
into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until
every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would
be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamor
and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down
upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.
The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and
even, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side
to side of his square of the windowpane. One could not help watching him. One,
was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of plea-
sure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s
part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoy-
ing his meager opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one cor-
ner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the
other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth?
That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky,
the far-off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer
out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fiber, very
thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail
and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread
of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.
Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was
rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and
intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there
was something marvelous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had
taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and
feathers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus
displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all
about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it
has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of
all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to
view his simple activities with a kind of pity.
After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge
in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then,
looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but
seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of
the windowpane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on
other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, uncon-
sciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has
stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure.
After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, flut-
tering his wings, on to his back on the windowsill. The helplessness of his attitude
roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise
himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help
him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the
approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.
The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against
which he struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there? Presum-
ably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had re-
placed the previous animation. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the
brooks. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed out-
side, indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything in particular. Somehow it
was opposed to the little hay-colored moth. It was useless to try to do anything.
One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an
oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not
merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew had any chance
against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It
was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting
himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also, when there
was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant
little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued
or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure
bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so,
the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and in-
stantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now
knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so
great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had
been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having
righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he
