【导读】《静园中的异乡人》是当代美国作家沃德·贾斯特于2009年发表的长篇小说，探讨了家庭、孤独与自我认同的主题。故事围绕主人公亚历克·马隆展开，讲述了他在充满社会和政治变革的背景下，如何挣脱家庭束缚、寻找生命的独立与意义。小说通过沉静的节奏、细腻的心理描写，描绘了亚历克与父亲的关系、他对家庭责任的逃避，以及对个人身份的探索，是一部关于成长、觉醒与寻求自我认同的作品。本篇节选自小说第一章开篇的内容。

Especially when he was alone Alec Malone had the habit of slipping into reverie， a semiconscious state not to be confused with dreams. Dreams were commonplace while his reveries presented a kind of abstract grandeur， expressionist canvases in close focus， untitled. That was how he thought of them， and not only because of the score in the background， German music， voices， trumpets， metronomic bass drums， and now and again the suggestion of a tango or a march. The reveries had been with him since childhood and he treated them like old friends paying a visit. The friends aged as he did， becoming increasingly abstract now that he had begun to lose sight in his right eye， a hole in the macula that began as a pinprick but was now the size of an o. That eye saw only the periphery of things with any clarity. The condition was annoying， not disabling， since sight was a function not of one eye but of two and Alec’s left eye was sound. However， driving at night was an adventure. He did not permit himself to drive in fog because objects had a way of vanishing altogether. And there was some amusement—when he closed his left eye and looked at a human face with his right， that face appeared as an expressionist’s death’s-head， an image very like Munch’s2 The Scream.

尤其在独处时，亚历克·马隆总会陷入遐思，进入一种半梦半醒的恍惚状态。梦境本是庸常，而他的神游却呈现出抽象的壮丽，仿佛是一幅幅表现主义风格的油画，聚焦于细节，无题无名。他向来如此看待这些幻想，不仅因为脑海深处总有背景音乐的烘托：德式乐章、人声、喇叭声与节拍精准的低音鼓，以及时而闪现的探戈或进行曲的旋律。这些遐思自幼便伴随他，他待之如老友造访。与他一样，这些老友也逐渐苍老，变得愈发抽象朦胧，只因他的右眼视力开始减退——视网膜黄斑上原先仅针尖大小的病灶，现已扩张成字母O那般大的孔洞了。如今，这只眼睛只能看清事物的边缘轮廓。这状况令人恼火，但无大碍，毕竟视觉功能本就取决于双眼，而亚历克的左眼尚且状况良好。只是夜间驾车便成了冒险。他绝不在大雾天开车，因为雾气会让物体彻底遁形。当然，这其中也有些趣味——当他闭上左眼，只用右眼端详人脸时，那张脸竟如表现主义的骷髅画，活脱脱蒙克名作《呐喊》中的扭曲面容。

Alec had the usual habits of one who lived alone： a fixed diet， a weekly visit to the bookstore， a scrupulously balanced checkbook， and a devotion to major league baseball and the PGA Tour. He worked when he felt like it. He described himself to himself as leading a chamber-music sort of life except for the Wagnerian reveries. They were neutral fantasies， meaning they had nothing to do with the life he wished he had led—Alec was quite content with the one he had—or might lead in the future. He did not count himself a prophet. He returned often to his childhood but rarely lingered there. His childhood was so long ago that the events he remembered most vividly seemed to him to have happened to someone else and were incomplete in any case， washed-out colors side by side with ink-black holes， a half-remembered country governed by a grim-faced man with a long nose， a figure from antiquity， perhaps a bildnis from Durer’s3 sketchbook. Alec considered the long-nosed man a family heirloom， grandmother’s silver or the pendulum clock on the mantel， the one whose ticks and tocks sounded like pistol reports. He lost his footing in those early years in which the domestic life of his own family was usurped by the civic life of the nation. That was the life that counted. The Malone dinner table， his father presiding， was a combination quiz show and news conference.

亚历克有着独居者惯常的习性：保持固定饮食，每周必去书店一趟，分毫不差地记账，以及对美国职棒大联盟和职业高尔夫巡回赛情有独钟。