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除了荷兰之行和未成行的英国之旅，德埃桑迪斯再也没有打算过到国外旅行。他就呆在他的小别墅里，让自己置身于各式各样的事物之中，这些东西让他很容易就享受旅行的精髓。他在墙上挂着各种彩色图片，上面标示着外国的城市、博物馆、酒店和开往瓦尔帕莱索或普赖特河的班轮，俨然是旅行社的宣传橱窗。在他卧室的墙上，贴满了框框条条，都是大的船运公司的班轮时刻表。他在一个水缸里养了些水草，还买来一只小帆船，一些船用的索具以及小的海员模型……藉着它们，他能体验到远航的最大乐趣，却免去了航海中可能出现的任何不适。德埃桑迪斯用于斯曼的话表述自己的结论：“想象能使我们平凡的现实生活变得远比其本身丰富多彩。”在任何地方，实际的经历往往是，我们所想见到的 总是在我们所能见到的 现实场景中变得平庸和黯淡，因为我们焦虑将来而不能专注于现在，而且我们对美的欣赏还受制于复杂的物质需要和心理欲求。
After Holland and his abortive visit to England, Des Esseintes did not attempt another journey abroad. He remained in his villa and surrounded himself with a series of objects which facilitated the finest aspect of travel, its anticipation. He had coloured prints hung on his walls, like those in travel agents' windows, showing foreign cities, museums, hotels and steamers bound for Valparaiso or the River Plate. He had the itineraries of the major shipping companies framed and lined his bedroom with them. He filled an aquarium with seaweed, bought a sail, some rigging and a pot of tar and, with their help, was able to experience the most pleasant aspects of a long sea voyage without any of its inconveniences. Des Esseintes concluded, in Huysmans's words, that 'the imagination could provide a more-than-adequate substitute for the vulgar reality of actual experience'. Actual experience where what we have come to see is always diluted in what we could see anywhere, where we are drawn away from the present by an anxious future and where our appreciation of aesthetic elements remains at the mercy of perplexing physical and psychological demands.
我还是抛开了德埃桑迪斯的干扰而出外旅行。尽管如此，有时候，我也和他一样，觉得最好的旅行莫过于呆在家里，一边悠闲地翻着英国航空公司用圣经纸印刷的世界航班时刻表，一边在想象的国度里飞翔、遨游。
I travelled in spite of Des Esseintes. And yet there were times when I too felt there might be no finer journeys than those provoked in the imagination by staying at home slowly turning the Bible-paper pages of the British Airways Worldwide Timetable.
