《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 32 (68):欣賞威尼斯
Her cheer, her optimism—they in no way match this stinky, slow, sinking, mysterious, silent, weird city. Venice seems like a wonderful city in which to die a slow and alcoholic death, or to lose a loved one, or to lose the murder weapon with which the loved one was lost in the first place. Seeing Venice, I'm grateful that I chose to live in Rome instead. I don't think I would have gotten off the antidepressants quite so quick here. Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it. 她的振奮，她的樂觀——與這座發臭、緩慢、逐日下陷、神祕、沉默、古怪的城市毫不搭調。威尼斯似乎是個適合慢慢酒精中毒身亡，或失去愛人，或愛人遇難後丟棄兇器的城市。玩過威尼斯，我很慶幸選擇了羅馬。若住在此地，我想我無法那麼快擺脫抗憂鬱劑。威尼斯很美，但就像柏格曼電影的美；你雖喜歡，卻不想住在其中。
The whole town is peeling and fading like those suites of rooms that once-rich families will barricade away in the backs of their mansions when it gets too expensive to keep the maintenance up and it's easier to just nail the doors shut and forget about the dying treasures on the other side—this is Venice. Greasy streams of Adriatic backwash nudge up against the long-suffering foundations of these buildings, testing the endurance of this fourteenth-century science fair experiment—Hey, what if we built a city that sits in water all the time? 整座城市正在剝落、衰退，仿若家道中落的大宅後面上鎖的房間，因維修過於昂貴，倒不如把門釘死，忘卻門後陳舊的寶藏——這就是威尼斯。亞德里亞海的油污反流推向這些深受磨難的建築物地基，考驗着這項十四世紀科學博覽會的實驗——“喂，我們若建造一座自始至終坐落在水裏的城市，會有怎樣的結果？”——撐得了多久。
Venice is spooky under its grainy November skies. The city creaks and sways like a fishing pier. Despite Linda's initial confidence that we can govern this town, we get lost every day, and most especially at night, taking wrong turns toward dark corners that dead-end dangerously and directly into canal water. One foggy night, we pass an old building that seems to actually be groaning in pain. "Not to worry," chirps Linda. "That's just Satan's hungry maw." I teach her my favorite Italian word—attraversiamo ("let's cross over")—and we backtrack nervously out of there. 威尼斯在11月的粒狀天空下讓人毛骨悚然，像漁船碼頭般嘎嘎響，東搖西晃。儘管琳達一開始相信我們支配得了這座城市，我們卻天天迷路，尤其夜間，朝直接通往運河的死巷轉錯彎。某個霧濛濛的夜晚，我們經過一棟簡直像在痛苦呻吟的老建築。“用不着擔心，”琳達吭聲說，“只是撒旦飢餓的胃罷 了。”我教給她我最愛的意大利用詞——（我們過街吧）——我們緊張兮兮地退出那裏。
The beautiful young Venetian woman who owns the restaurant near where we are staying is miserable with her fate. She hates Venice. She swears that everyone who lives in Venice regards it as a tomb. She'd fallen in love once with a Sardinian artist, who'd promised her another world of light and sun, but had left her, instead, with three children and no choice but to return to Venice and run the family restaurant. She is my age but looks even older than I do, and I can't imagine the kind of man who could do that to a woman so attractive. ("He was powerful," she says, "and I died of love in his shadow.") Venice is conservative. The woman has had some affairs here, maybe even with some married men, but it always ends in sorrow. The neighbors talk about her. People stop speaking when she walks into the room. Her mother begs her to wear a wedding ring just for appearances—saying, Darling, this is not Rome, where you can live as scandalously as you like. Every morning when Linda and I come for breakfast and ask our sorrowful young/old Venetian proprietress about the weather report for the day, she cocks the fingers of her right hand like a gun, puts it to her temple, and says, "More rain." 我們旅館附近的餐廳老闆娘是個威尼斯美少婦，她爲自己的命運感到悲哀。她討厭威尼斯。她發誓住在威尼斯的每個人都覺得像住在墳墓裏一般。她曾愛上一位撒丁藝術家，他答應給她陽光燦爛的另一種世界，卻離開了她。帶了三名孩子的她別無選擇，只能回到威尼斯經營家庭餐館。她跟我年紀相當，看起來卻比我老，我無法想象哪種男人會對如此迷人的女子做這種事。（“他是強者，”她說，“我在他的陰影下因愛而死。”）威尼斯是座保守的城市。這女子有幾段情事，甚至和已婚男人發生婚外情，卻始終以哀傷作結。鄰居議論她。人們在她走進屋裏的時候停止說話。她的母親求她戴上結婚戒指做做樣子，說：“親愛的女兒，這裏不是羅馬，讓你能隨心所欲地過丟人現眼的生活。”每天早上琳達和我來吃早飯，向這位悲愁的老闆娘詢問當天的天氣預 報時，她便豎起右手指頭，像拿槍一樣，對準她的太陽穴，說：“又是雨天。”
Yet I don't get depressed here. I can cope with, and even somehow enjoy, the sinking melancholy of Venice, just for a few days. Somewhere in me I am able to recognize that this is not my melancholy; this is the city's own indigenous melancholy, and I am healthy enough these days to be able to feel the difference between me and it. This is a sign, I cannot help but think, of healing, of the coagulation of my self. There were a few years there, lost in borderless despair, when I used to experience all the world's sadness as my own. Everything sad leaked through me and left damp traces behind. 然而我在這兒並不憂鬱。我有辦法應付，甚至有辦法享受幾天憂鬱的威尼斯。我心中某處分辨出這並非我的憂鬱，而是這座城市本身固有的憂鬱；我近來很健康，感覺得出自己和這座城市的不同。我禁不住想，這是傷口癒合的證據，代表着我不再四散紛飛。有好幾年的時間，我沉浸在無邊無際的抑鬱中，獨自經歷全世界的哀傷。一切的哀傷從我身上漏出來，留下斑斑痕跡。
Anyhow, it's hard to be depressed with Linda babbling beside me, trying to get me to buy a giant purple fur hat, and asking of the lousy dinner we ate one night, "Are these called 's Veal Sticks?" She is a firefly, this Linda. In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega—a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets. This is Linda—my temporary, special-order, travel-sized Venetian codega.
Eat, Pray, Love 無論如何，有琳達在身邊念念叨叨，很難沮喪得起來，她要我買一頂紫色大毛帽，還談起我們某天晚上吃的差勁晚飯“那東西是不是叫保羅太太的小牛肉條？”琳達是螢火蟲：中世紀的威尼斯曾有一種職業，稱爲“codega”——你僱用這種職業的人，晚上提着燈籠走在你前面帶路，嚇跑小偷和魔鬼，在黑暗的街道保護你，使你安心。這就是琳達——我臨時性、特別訂製、旅行攜帶用的威尼斯。
