高级英语第二册 7.The Libido for the Ugly

　　7.The Libido for the Ugly

　　H. L. Mencken

　　1 On a Winter day some years ago, coming out of Pittsburgh on one of the expresses of the Pennsylvania Railroad, I rolled eastward for an hour through the coal and steel towns of Westmoreland county. It was familiar ground; boy and man, I had been through it often before. But somehow I had never quite sensed its appalling desolation. Here was the very heart of industrial America, the center of its most lucrative and characteristic activity, the boast and pride of the richest and grandest nation ever seen on earth--and here was a scene so dreadfully hideous , so intolerably bleak and forlorn that it reduced the whole aspiration of man to a macabre and depressing joke . Here was wealth beyond computation, almost beyond imagination--and here were human habitations so abominable that they would have disgraced a race of alley cats.

　　2 I am not speaking of mere filth. One expects steel towns to be dirty. What I allude to is the unbroken and agonizing ugliness, the sheer revolting monstrousness, of every house in sight. From East Liberty to Greensburg, a distance of twenty-five miles, there was not one in sight from the train that did not insult and lacerate the eye. Some were so bad, and they were among the most pretentious --churches, stores, warehouses, and the like--that they were down-right startling; one blinked before them as one blinks before a man with his face shot away. A few linger in memory, horrible even there: a crazy little church just west of Jeannette, set like a dormer-window on the side of a bare leprous hill; the headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars at another forlorn town, a steel stadium like a huge rattrap somewhere further down the line. But most of all I recall the general effect--of hideousness without a break. There was not a single decent house within eyerange from the Pittsburgh to the Greensburg yards. There was not one that was not misshapen, and there was not one that was not shabby.

　　3 The country itself is not uncomely, despite the grime of the endless mills. It is, in form, a narrow river valley, with deep gullies running up into the hills. It is thickly settled, but not: noticeably overcrowded. There is still plenty of room for building, even in the larger towns, and there are very few solid blocks. Nearly every house, big and little, has space on all four sides. Obviously,

　　if there were architects of any professional sense or dignity in the region, they would have perfected a chalet to hug the hillsides--a chalet with a high-pitched roof, to throw off the heavy Winter snows, but still essentially a low and clinging building, wider than it was tall. But what have they done? They have taken as their model a brick set on end. This they have converted into a thing of dingy clapboards with a narrow, low-pitched roof. And the whole they have set upon thin, preposterous brick piers . By the hundreds and thousands these abominable houses cover the bare hillsides, like gravestones in some gigantic and decaying cemetery. On their deep sides they are three, four and even five stories high; on their low sides they bury themselves swinishly in the mud. Not a fifth of them are perpendicular . They lean this way and that, hanging on to their bases precariously . And one and all they are streaked in grime, with dead and eczematous patches of paint peeping through the streaks.

　　4 Now and then there is a house of brick. But what brick! When it is new it is the color of a fried egg. When it has taken on the patina of the mills it is the color of an egg long past all hope or caring. Was it necessary to adopt that shocking color? No more than it was necessary to set all of the houses on end. Red brick, even in a steel town, ages with some dignity. Let it become downright black, and it is still sightly , especially if its trimmings are of white stone, with soot in the depths and the high spots washed by the rain. But in Westmoreland they prefer that uremic yellow, and so they have the most loathsome towns and villages ever seen by mortal eye.

　　5 I award this championship only after laborious research and incessant prayer. I have seen, I believe, all of the most unlovely towns of the world; they are all to be found in the United States. I have seen the mill towns of decomposing New England and the desert towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas. I am familiar with the back streets of Newark, Brooklyn and Chicago, and have made scientific explorations to Camden, N. J. and Newport News, Va. Safe in a Pullman , I have whirled through the g1oomy, Godforsaken villages of Iowa and Kansas, and the malarious tidewater hamlets of Georgia. I have been to Bridgeport, Conn., and to Los Angeles. But nowhere on this earth, at home or abroad, have I seen anything to compare to the villages that huddle aloha the line of the Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh yards to Greensburg. They are incomparable in color, and they are incomparable in design. It is as if some titanic and aberrant genius , uncompromisingly inimical to man, had devoted all the ingenuity of Hell to the making of them. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that, in retrospect ,become almost diabolical .One cannot imagine mere human beings concocting such dreadful things, and one can scarcely imagine human beings bearing life in them.

　　6 Are they so frightful because the valley is full of foreigners--dull, insensate brutes, with no love of beauty in them? Then why didn't these foreigners set up similar abominations in the countries that they came from? You will, in fact, find nothing of the sort in Europe--save perhaps in the more putrid parts of England. There is scarcely an ugly village on the whole Continent. The peasants, however poor, somehow manage to make themselves graceful and charming habitations, even in Spain. But in the American village and small town the pull is always toward ugliness, and in that Westmoreland valley it has been yielded to with an eagerness bordering upon passion. It is incredible that mere ignorance should have achieved such masterpieces of horror.

　　7 On certain levels of the American race, indeed, there seems to be a positive libido for the ugly, as on other and less Christian levels there is a libido for the beautiful. It is impossible to put down the wallpaper that defaces the average American home of the lower middle class to mere inadvertence ,, or to the, , ob, sc, en, e hu, mor of the, manufacturers. Such ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a genuine delight to a certain type of mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure and unintelligible demands. The taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as common as the taste for dogmatic theology and the poetry of Edgar A Guest.

　　8 Thus I suspect (though confessedly without knowing) that the vast majority of the honest folk of Westmoreland county, and especially the 100% Americans among them, actually admire the houses they live in, and are proud of them. For the same money they could get vastly better ones, but they prefer what they have got. Certainly there was no pressure upon the Veterans of Foreign Wars to choose the dreadful edifice that bears their banner, for there are plenty of vacant buildings along the trackside, and some of them are appreciably better. They might, in- deed, have built a better one of their own. But they chose that clapboarded horror with their eyes open, and having chosen it, they let it mellow into its present shocking depravity. They like it as it is: beside it, the Parthenon would no doubt offend them. In precisely the same way the authors of the rat-trap stadium that I have mentioned made a deliberate choice: After painfully designing and erecting it, they made it perfect in their own sight by putting a completely impossible penthouse painted a staring yellow, on top of it. The effect is that of a fat woman with a black eye. It is that of a Presbyterian grinning. But they like it.

　　9 Here is something that the psychologists have so far neglected: the love of ugliness for its own sake, the lust to make the world intolerable. Its habitat is the United States. Out of the melting pot emerges a race which hates beauty as it hates truth. The etiology of this madness deserves a great deal more study than it has got. There must be causes behind it; it arises and flourishes in obedience to biological laws, and not as a mere act of God. What, precisely, are the terms of those laws? And why do they run stronger in America than elsewhere? Let some honest Privat Dozent in pathological sociology apply himself to the problem.

　　(from Reading for Rhetoric by Caroline Shrodes,Clifford A, Josephson, James R. Wilson )

　　第七课爱丑之欲

　　HL门肯

　　几年前的一个冬日，我乘坐宾夕法尼亚铁路公司的一班快车离开匹兹堡，向东行驶一小时，穿越了威斯特摩兰县的煤城和钢都。这是我熟悉的地方，无论是童年时期还是成年时期，我常常经过这一带。但以前我从来没有感到这地方荒凉得这么可怕。这儿正是工业化美国的心脏，是其最赚钱、最典型活动的中心，世界上最富裕、最伟大的国家的自豪和骄傲--然而这儿的景象却又丑陋得这样可怕，凄凉悲惨得这么令人无法忍受，以致人的抱负和壮志在这儿成了令人毛骨悚然的、令人沮丧的笑料。这儿的财富多得无法计算，简直都无法想象--也是在这儿，人们的居住条件又是如此之糟，连那些流浪街头的野猫也为之害羞。

　　我说的不仅仅是脏。钢铁城镇的脏是人们意料之中的事。我指的是所看到的房子没有一幢不是丑陋得令人难受，畸形古怪得让人作呕的。从东自由镇到格林斯堡，在这全长25英里的路上，从火车上看去，没有一幢房子不让人看了感到眼睛不舒服和难受。有的房子糟得吓人，而这些房子竞还是一些最重要的建筑--教堂、商店、仓库等等。人们惊愕地看着这些房子，就像是看见一个脸给子弹崩掉的人一样。有的留在记忆里，甚至回忆起来也是可怕的：珍尼特西面的一所样子稀奇古怪的小教堂，就像一扇老虎窗贴在一面光秃秃的、似有麻风散鳞的山坡上；参加过国外战争的退伍军人总部，设在珍尼特过去不远的另一个凄凉的小镇上。沿铁路线向东不远处的一座钢架，就像一个巨大的捕鼠器。但我回忆里出现的 三要还是一个总的印象--连绵不断的丑陋。从匹兹堡到格林斯 堡火车调车场，放眼望去，没有一幢像样的房子。没有一幢不是歪歪扭扭的，没有一幢不是破破烂烂的。

　　尽管到处是林立的工厂，遍地弥漫着烟尘，这一地区的自然 霉仟并不差。就地形而论，这儿是一条狭窄的河谷，其中流淌着一道道发源自山间的深溪。这儿的人口虽然稠密，但并无过分拥挤的 迹象，即使在一些较大的城镇中，建筑方面也还大有发展的余地。 这儿很少见到有高密度排列的建筑楼群，几乎每一幢房屋，无论 大小，其四周都还有剩余的空地。显然，如果这一地区有几个稍有职业责任感或荣誉感的建筑师的话，他们准会紧依山坡建造一些美观雅致的瑞士式山地小木屋--一种有着便于冬季排除积雪的陡坡屋顶，宽度大于高度，依山而建的低矮的小木屋。可是，他们实际上是怎么做的呢?他们把直立的砖块作为造房的模式，造出了一种用肮脏的护墙板围成的不伦不类的房屋，屋顶又窄又平，而且整个地安放在一些单薄的、奇形怪状的砖垛上。这种丑陋不堪的房屋成百上千地遍布于一个个光秃秃的山坡上，就像是一些墓碑竖立在广阔荒凉的坟场上。这些房屋高的一侧约有三四层，甚至五层楼高，而低的一侧看去却像一群埋在烂泥潭里的猪猡。垂直式的房屋不到五分之一，大部分房屋都是那样东倒西歪，摇摇欲坠地固定在地基上。每幢房屋上都积有一道道的尘垢印痕，而那一道道 垢痕的间隙中，还隐隐约约露出一些像湿疹痂一样的油漆斑痕。

　　偶尔也可以看到一幢砖房，可那叫什么砖啊!新建的时候，它的颜色像油煎鸡蛋，然而一经工厂排放出来的烟尘熏染，蒙上一层绿锈时，它的颜色便像那早已无人问津的臭蛋一样了。难道一定得采用这种糟糕的颜色吗?这就与把房屋都建成直立式一样没看攀要。若是用红砖造房，便可以越古老陈旧越气派，即使在钢铁城镇中也是如此。红砖就算被染得漆黑，看起来还是能够使人悦目，尤其是如果用白石镶边，经雨水一洗刷，凹处烟垢残存，凸处本色外露，红黑映衬，更觉美观。可是在威斯特摩兰县，人们却偏偏喜欢用那血尿般的黄色，因此便有了这种世界上最丑陋不堪、最令人恶心的城镇和乡村。

　　我是在经过一番苦心探究和不断祈祷后才将这顶丑陋之最的桂冠封赠于威斯特摩兰县的。我自信我已见到过世界上所有的丑陋之极的城镇，它们全都在美国。我目睹了日趋衰落的新英格兰地区的工业城镇，也目睹了犹他州、亚利桑那州和得克萨斯州的荒漠城市。我熟悉纽瓦克、布鲁克林和芝加哥的偏街僻巷，并曾对新泽西州的卡姆登和弗吉尼亚州的纽波特纽斯作过科学的考察。我曾安安稳稳地坐着普尔曼卧车，周游了衣阿华州和堪萨斯州那些昏暗凄凉的村镇以及佐治亚州那些乌烟瘴气的沿海渔村。我到过康涅狄格州的布里奇港，还去过洛杉矶市。然而，在世界上的任何一个地方，无论国内国外，我从未见到过任何东西可以与那些拥挤在宾夕法尼亚铁路从匹兹堡调车场到格林斯堡路段沿线的村庄相比。它们无论在色彩上还是在样式上都是无与伦比的。仿佛有什么与人类不共戴天的、能力超常的鬼才，费尽心机，动员魔鬼王国里的鬼斧神工，才造出这些丑陋无比的房屋来。这些房屋不仅丑陋而且奇形怪状，使人回头一看，顿觉它们已变成一个个青面獠牙的恶魔。人们无法想象单凭人的力量如何能造出如此可怕的东西来，也很难想象居然还有人类栖居其中并在那里生儿育女，繁殖人类。

　　这些房屋如此丑陋，难道是因为该河谷地区住满了一些愚蠢迟钝、麻木不仁、毫无爱美之心的外国蛮子吗?若果然如此，为什么那些外国蛮子却并没有在自己的故土上造出这样丑恶的东西来呢?事实上，在欧洲绝对找不到这种丑恶的东西--英国的某些破败的地区也许例外。整个欧洲大陆很难找到一个丑陋的村落。欧洲那儿的农民，不论怎么穷，都会想方设法将自己的居室修造得美观雅致，即使在西班牙也是如此。而在美国的乡村和小城镇里，人们千方百计地追求的目标是丑陋，尤其在那个威斯特摩兰河谷地区，人们对丑的追求已达到狂热的程度。如果说单凭愚昧无知就能造就这样令人毛骨悚然的杰作，那是无法让人信服的。

　　美国某些阶层的人们当中似乎的的确确存在着一种爱丑之欲，如同在另一些不那么虔信基督教的阶层当中存在着一种爱美之心一样。那些把一般美国中下层家庭的住宅打扮得像丑八怪的糊墙纸决不能归咎于选购者的疏忽大意，也不能归咎于制造商的鄙俗的幽默感。那些糊墙纸上的丑陋图案显然真正能使具有某种心理的人觉得赏心悦目。它们以某种莫名其妙的方式满足了这种人的某种晦涩难解的心理需要。人们对这类丑陋图案的欣赏，就同某些人对教条主义神学和埃德加·A格斯特的诗歌的迷恋一样，既不可思议，又让人习以为常。

　　因此，我相信(尽管坦白地说，我不敢绝对肯定)，威斯特摩兰县绝大多数正直诚实的人，尤其是其中的那些百分之百的美国人，确实很欣赏他们居住的房屋并为之感到自豪。虽然他们可以用同样多的建筑成本造出好得多的房屋，他们却宁愿要他们现有的那种丑陋不堪的房屋。可以肯定地说，海外战争退伍军人组织总部将自己的旗帜插在那样一幢丑陋的大楼上绝对不是出于无奈，因为铁路沿线多的是闲置未用的建筑，而且许多建筑都比他们那幢大楼要好得多。他们如果愿意的话，也完全可以自己建造一幢像样一些的大楼。然而，他们却眼睁睁地选择了那幢用护墙板造起来的丑陋的大楼，而且选定之后，还要让它发展演变成现在这副破烂相。他们喜欢的就是这种丑怪样子，如果有人在那附近竖起一座像希腊巴特农神殿那样的漂亮建筑，他们一定会感到恼火。前面提到的那个形如捕鼠器的钢架运动场的设计建造者们也是这样有意地作了一个深思熟虑的选择。在费尽心血，辛辛苦苦地设计并建成那个运动场之后，又想进一步美化完善它，于是便在建筑平项上加造一间极不协调的小棚屋，并涂上鲜艳夺目的黄色油漆。这样造成的效果是使该建筑看起来就像一个肥胖的女人面上带着一只被打肿发青的眼圈，也可以说像一位长老会牧师面上突然露出勉强的笑容的模样。但他们喜欢的就是这种模样。

　　这里涉及到一个心理学家迄今未加重视的问题，即为了丑本身的价值而爱丑(非因其他利益驱动而爱丑)，急欲将世界打扮得丑不可耐的变态心理。这种心理的孳生地就是美国。从美国这个大熔炉中产生出了一个新的种族，他们像仇视真理一样地仇视美。这种变态心理的产生根源值得进行更多的研究，它的背后一定隐藏着某些原因，其产生和发展肯定受到某些生物学规律的制约，而不能简单地看成是出于上帝的安排。那么，这些规律的具体内容究竟是什么呢?为什么它们在美国比在其他任何地方更为盛行?这个问题还是让某位像德国大学的无薪教师那样正直的社会病理学 家去研究吧。

　　(摘自卡罗琳什罗迪斯，克里福德A约瑟夫逊，詹姆斯R威尔逊编《修辞读物》)

　　词汇(Vocabulary)

　　libido (n.) : psychic energy generally；specifically，a basic form of psychic energy，comprising the positive。loving instincts manifested variously at different stages of personality development欲望

　　lucrative (adj.) : producing wealth or profit；profitable；remunerative有利可图的；赚钱的

　　hideous (adj.) : horrible to see,hear,etc.;very ugly or revolting;dreadful骇人听闻的;非常丑陋的;可怕的

　　forlorn (adj.) : in pitiful condition；wretched；miserable可怜的；悲惨的；不幸的

　　macabre (adj.) : gruesome；grim and horrible；ghastly可怕的；令人毛骨悚然的；恐怖的

　　computation (n.) : the act of computing；calculation 计算

　　abominable (adj.) : nasty and disgusting；vile；loathsome讨厌的，可恶的

　　alley (n.) : a narrow street or walk；specifically，a lane behind a row of buildings or between two rows of buildings that face on adjacent streets胡同；小巷；小街

　　filth (n.) : disgustingly offensive dirt，garbage，etc．污秽，污物；垃圾

　　allude (v.) : refer in a casual or indirect way(随便或间接)提到，涉及；暗指

　　monstrousness (n.) : strange shape奇形怪状

　　lacerate (v.) : tear jaggedly；mangle(something soft，as flesh)；wound or hurt(one's feelings，etc．)deeply；distress撕裂；割碎(肉等软组织)；伤害(感情等)；使…伤心

　　pretentious (adj.) : making claims，explicit or implicit，to some distinction，importance，dignity，or excellence自负的；自命不凡的；自大的

　　linger (v.) : continue to stay，esp．through reluctance to leave逗留(尤指不愿离开)

　　downright (adv.) : thoroughly；utterly；really彻底地，完全地；真正地

　　dormer (n.) : a window set upright in a sloping roof屋顶窗

　　leprous (adj.) : of or like leprosy；having leprosy麻风的；似麻风的；患麻风病的

　　rat-trap (n.) : a trap for catching rats捕鼠夹(子)

　　misshapen (adj.) : badly shaped；deformed奇形怪状的；畸形的

　　uncomely (adj.) : having unpleasant appearance不美观的，不好看的

　　grime (n.) : dirt，esp．sooty dirt，rubbed into or covering a surface，as of the skin(尤指经摩擦而深入或覆盖皮肤等表面的)积垢；污秽

　　gully (n.) : a channel or hollow worn by running water; small，narrow ravine沟壑，狭沟，冲沟

　　chalet (n.) : a type of Swiss house，built of wood with balconies and overhanging eaves(瑞士的木造)农舍，山上小舍

　　highpitched (adj.) : steep in slope said of roofs)(屋顶)坡度陡的

　　dingy (adj.) : dirty-colored；not bright or clean；grimy不干净的；不明亮的；弄脏的

　　clapboard (n.) : a thin，narrow board with one edge thicker than the other，used as siding护墙板，隔板

　　preposterous (adj.) : so contrary to nature，reason， or common sense as to be laughable；absurd；ridiculous反常的；乖戾的；十分荒谬的；愚蠢的

　　pier (n.) : a heavy column，usually square. used to support weight，as at the end of an arch角柱；支柱

　　cemetery (n.) : a place for the burial of the dead；graveyard公墓，墓地；坟场

　　swinish (adj.) : of or like a swine；beastly；piggish；coarse，etc．猪(似)的；鄙贱的；粗俗的

　　perpendicular (adj.) : exactly upright；vertical. straight up or down垂直的；矗立的

　　precarious (adj.) : uncertain；insecure；risky不稳定的；不安全的；危险的

　　eczematous (adj.) : of itching skin disease湿疹的

　　patina (n.) : a fine crust or film on bronze or copper．usually green or greenish-blue，formed by natural oxidation and often valued as being ornamental(青铜器上的)绿锈

　　uremia (n.) : a toxic condition caused by the presence in the blood of waste produts normally eliminated in the urine and resulting from a failure of the kidneys to secrete urine尿毒症

　　loathsome (adj.) : causing loathing；disgusting；abhorrent；detestable讨厌的；厌恶的；令人作呕的

　　laborious (adj.) : involving much hard work；difficult. industrious；hard-working费力的；困难的；勤劳的；辛苦的

　　incessant (adj.) : never ceasing；continuing or being repeated without stopping or in a way that seems endless：constant不停的，连续的；不间断的

　　decompose (v.) : break up or separate into basic components or parts；rot分解；(使)腐烂，(使)腐败

　　forsake (v.) : give up；renounce(a habit，idea，etc．)；leave；abandon抛弃，放弃(思想、习惯等)；遗弃；背弃

　　malarious (adj.) : of fever conveyed by mosquitoes疟疾的；空气污浊的

　　hamlet (n.) : a very small village小村庄

　　incomparable (adj.) : no beyond comparison；unequalled；matchless无与伦比的，举世无双的；无敌的，无比的

　　titanic (adj.) : of great size，strength，or power巨大的；力大无比的；有极大权力的

　　aberrant (adj.) : turning away from what is right，true，etc．：deviating from what is normal or typical与正确或真实情况相背的；偏离常规的；反常的

　　uncompromising (adj.) : not compromising or yielding；firm；inflexiable；determined不妥协的；坚定的；不让步的；坚决的

　　inimical (adj.) : 1ike an enemy；hostile；unfriendly；adverse；unfavorable敌人似的；敌对的；不友好的；相反的；不利的

　　ingenuity (n.) : cleverness，originality，skill，etc．机智；创造力，独创性；熟练

　　grotesquery (n.) : the quality or state of being grotesque奇形怪状；怪诞

　　retrospect (n.) : a looking back on or thinking about things past；contemplation or survey of the past回顾，回想；追溯

　　diabolical (adj.) : of the devil or devils；fiendish恶魔的；残忍的，凶暴的

　　concoct (v.) : devise，invent，or plan计划，策划；虚构，编造

　　insensate (adj.) : not feeling，or not capable of feeling，sensation无感觉的，无知觉的

　　brute (n.) : an animal；a person who is brutal or very stupid，gross，sensual，etc．畜生；笨蛋，粗野的人

　　abomination (adj.) : great hatred，and disgust；anything hateful and disgusting憎恨，厌恶；令人讨厌的东西

　　putrid (adj.) : decomposing；rotten and foul-smelling腐烂的，腐败的

　　deface (v.) : spoil the appearance of；disfigure；mar损坏…的外表；丑化

　　inadvertence (n.) : the quality of being inadvertent；oversight；mistake掉以轻心，粗心大意；疏漏；错误

　　obscene (adj.) : offensive to one's feelings，or to prevailing notions，of modesty of decency；lewd；disgusting猥亵的；诲淫的；可憎的

　　unfathomable (adj.) : which cannot be understood；which cannot be reached不可理解的；深不可测的

　　enigmatical (adj.) : of or like an enigma；perplexing；baffling谜一般的，谜似的；不可思议的，费解的

　　dogmatic (adj.) : of or like dogma；doctrinal教条(主义)的；教义的

　　edifice (n.) : a building，esp．a large，imposing one建筑物；尤指大型建筑物，大厦

　　depravity (n.) : a depraved condition；corruption；wickedness堕落，腐化，腐败

　　penthouse (n.) : a small structure，esp．one with a sloping roof，attached to a larger building小棚屋，(尤指靠在大楼边上搭的)披屋

　　lust (n.) : a desire to gratify the senses；bodily appetite欲望；贪欲

　　etiology (n.) : the assignment of a cause，or the cause assignment本源，原因(的说明)

　　pathological (adj.) : of pathology；of or concerned with diseases病理学的；病理上的

　　短语 (Expressions)

　　border upon :   to be like；almost be相近，类似

　　例： His emotion is bordering upon hysteria．他的情绪接近歇斯底里。

　　put down…to :   tbe attribute to归因于

　　例： I put Jane's moodiness down to the stress she was under．我认为简由于所承受的压力而闷闷不乐。