1
1
春天，我受邀到马德里出席一个3天的会议，会议预计在星期五下午结束。由于我从来没有到过这个城市，而又听说这里有一些名胜古迹（显然不限于博物馆），我决定留下来多住几天。接待我的朋友为我在旅馆租了一间客房。这间旅馆就坐落在城市东南部、一条树木林立的大街上。从这里可以俯视一座庭院。有时，我会看到一位个子矮小、长得很像菲利普二世的男子，站在那里一面抽着烟，一面用脚轻叩着我想应该是通往地窖的一扇铁门。星期五傍晚，我很早就回房休息。我并没有向接待我的友人透露，我准备在这里度过周末，因为我担心那样会增添他们的麻烦，反倒对大家都不好。不过，这意味着我的晚餐将没有着落。在走回旅店的途中，我没有胆子去路边的餐馆一探究竟。很多地方都是黑漆漆的木屋，好些餐馆的天花板都垂吊着火腿。我害怕成为众人好奇和怜悯的焦点，于是，我在客房的点心吧里拿了一包辣味薯片，看完卫星电视新闻后倒头便睡。
In the springtime, I was invited to Madrid to attend a three-day conference which was scheduled to end on a Friday afternoon. Because I had never visited the city before and had been told of its attractions (which were apparently not limited to museums) on several occasions, I decided to extend my stay by a few days. My hosts had booked a room for me in a hotel on a wide, treelined avenue in the south-eastern part of the city. It overlooked a courtyard, in which a short man with a resemblance to Philip II occasionally stood and smoked a cigarette while tapping his foot on the steel door of what I supposed to be a cellar. On the Friday evening, I retired early to my room. I had not revealed to my hosts that I would be staying the weekend, for fear of forcing them into half-hearted hospitality from which neither side would benefit. But the decision also meant that I had to go without dinner, for I realized on walking back to the hotel that I was too shy to venture alone into any of the neighbourhood restaurants, dark, wood-panelled places, many with a ham hanging from the ceiling, where I risked becoming an object of curiosity and pity. So I ate a packet of paprika-flavoured crisps from the mini-bar and, after watching the news on satellite television, fell asleep.
第二天早上我起床时，却觉得非常疲累，血管就像被砂糖或细沙堵塞着似的。阳光从粉红和灰色的塑料窗帘透进来，而外边巷子传来车水马龙的声音。桌上摆放着几本旅店提供的关于这座城市的杂志，以及我从家里带来的两本指南。它们都以不同的描述，向我们展示着一座充满刺激、五花八门的城市——马德里。它由纪念碑、教堂、博物馆、喷泉、广场和购物街所组成，正等待我去欣赏。然而，尽管这些景观我听得多了，也知道难得一见，我却因为自己的惰性和一般兴致勃勃的游客相去甚远而感到无精打采、心生厌烦。此时我最大的愿望就是赖在床上，如果可能的话，搭乘早班飞机回家。
When I awoke the next morning, it was to an intense lethargy, as though my veins had become silted up with fine sugar or sand. Sunlight shone through the pink and grey plasticcoated curtains and traffic could be heard along the avenue. On the desk lay several magazines offered by the hotel with information on the city and two guidebooks that I had brought from home. In their different ways, they conspired to suggest that an exciting and multifarious phenomenon called Madrid was waiting to be discovered outside, made up of monuments, churches, museums, fountains, plazas and shopping streets. And yet these elements, about which I had heard so much and which I knew I was privileged to see, merely provoked in me a combination of listlessness and self-disgust at the contrast between my own indolence and what I imagined to be the eagerness of more normal visitors. My overwhelming wish was to remain in bed and, if possible, catch an early flight home.
