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由于非常向往沙漠，而美国西部的照片（小片风滚草被风卷起，在草地上翻腾）和伟大沙漠的名字如美国加州的莫哈韦沙漠、非洲的卡拉哈里沙漠、新疆的塔克拉玛干沙漠和蒙古的戈壁又强烈地吸引了我，于是我搭乘包机前往以色列胜地埃拉特，准备到西奈沙漠漫游一番。在飞机上，我同邻座一名澳大利亚女子谈天，她正准备到埃拉特的希尔顿酒店当泳池救生员。在飞行途中，我阅读的是帕斯卡尔 [1] 的文章：
Long partial to deserts, drawn to photographs of the American West (bits of tumbleweed blowing across a wasteland) and to the names of the great deserts (Mojave, Kalahari, Taklamakan, Gobi), I booked a charter flight to the Israeli resort of Eilat and went to wander in the Sinai. On the plane journey over, I talked to a young Australian woman beside me who was taking up a job as a lifeguard at the Eilat Hilton-and I read Pascal:
当我想到……我占有的这个小小的空间正要被无垠的空间吞噬，然而对无垠的空间，我一无所知，连这空间也不知道我的存在，这个念头让我惊恐，我也惊讶于自己出现在此空间而非彼空间：我有什么理由出现在此地而非彼地，有什么理由出现在此时而非彼时？是谁让我置身于此？
When I consider … the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me ［'l'infinie immensité des espaces que j'ignore et qui m'ignorent'］, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here?
帕斯卡尔：《沉思录》
Pascal, Pensées, 68
华兹华斯鼓励我们到各地旅游，以体验真情，滋润灵魂。我前往沙漠是为了让自己感悟到一种渺小。
Wordsworth had urged us to travel through landscapes to feel emotions that would benefit our souls. I set out for the desert in order to be made to feel small.
阿尔伯特·比兹塔特：《落基山脉兰德斯峰》，1863年
就像被酒店的看门侍者轻视，或者被英雄的成就比下去一样，“渺小”通常不是一种让人愉快的感觉。不过，还有另外一种令人满足又能让自己感觉渺小的方式，那就是在以下画作面前观画：比兹塔特 [2] 的《落基山脉兰德斯峰》（1863年）、卢泰尔堡 [3] 的《阿尔卑斯山雪崩》（1803年），或者弗里德里希 [4] 的《吕根岛的白垩峭壁》（1818年）。画中这些荒芜、无垠的空间带给我们的是什么呢？
It is usually unpleasant to be made to feel small-by doormen in hotels or by comparison with the achievements of heroes. But there may be another and more satisfying way to feel diminished. There are intimations of it in front of Rocky Mountains, 'Lander's Peak'(1863) by Albert Bierstadt, in front of An Avalanche in the Alps (1803) by Philip James de Loutherbourg or the Chalk Cliffs in Rügen (1810) by Caspar David Friedrich. What do such barren, overwhelming spaces bring us?
