飞蛾之死

弗吉尼亚•伍尔芙

……

然而，虽然他很小，却是一种很简单的能量形式。这种能量从打开的窗口纷至沓来，深入到我自己和他人头脑里无数狭小复杂的角落，所以他身上有着某种可悲而神奇的东西。好像有人取来一小滴生命原汁，极其灵巧地为他装上羽翼，叫他来回穿梭飞舞，向我们展示生命的实质。这种展现十分奇特，叫人难以忘怀。望着他弓腰驼背，受人差遣，被人装扮，身负重荷，不得不特别小心特别庄严地飞舞，你会忘记一切。另外，你如果想想他生成另一种样子会怎么生活，就会带着一种怜悯来看待他简单的活动。

过了一会儿，他显然飞累了，落在阳光下的窗台上。奇怪的场面一结束，我也就把他忘了。后来，我抬起头，目光又被他吸引住了。他想重新飞舞，但显得很僵硬，很笨拙，只能飞到窗格底下；想飞到窗格上面却没有飞成。我因为注意旁的事情，一时间看到这种种徒劳的举动也没去细想，下意识地等着他重新飞起来，就像一台机器一时停了，等着它再启动一样，也不去考虑它停机的原因。大概试飞了7次以后，他在木质窗台上滑了一下，扇动着翅膀，背着地落到窗沿上。他那无可奈何的样子引起了我的注意。我突然想到他遇到麻烦了。他自己爬不起来；双腿徒劳地挣扎着。但是，我伸出铅笔想帮他翻身的时候，才想到他飞不动、身体笨拙，是快要死了。我又把铅笔放下。

他的腿又抽搐了一下。我抬起头来，仿佛要寻找他与之战斗的敌人。我朝门外望去。怎么回事？想必到了中午，田里没有人干活。静谧与安宁代替了先前的喧闹。白嘴鸦飞到河里觅食去了。马儿一动不动地站着。但是那种力量依然聚集在外面，冷冷冰冰，对什么都不闻不问，似乎它在与这个干草色的飞蛾作对。做什么都没用，只能眼睁睁地望着小飞蛾的两条细腿在厄运即将来临之际乱踢乱蹬。如果愿意，厄运会淹没整个城市，不光是一座城市，还有大批大批的人；我知道什么也逃不了一死。然而，精疲力竭的飞蛾停了一会儿，又开始蹬腿，这最后的反抗非常精彩，十分激烈，终于他翻过身来。人的同情心自然都是向着生命的。而且，虽然没有人在意，没有人知道，这个微不足道的小飞蛾还是拼命地与这么巨大的力量抗争，保存别人看不起也不愿保留的东西，此情此景会给你一种奇特的感动。同时，你不知怎么又会看到生命，一滴纯粹的生命。我又拿起铅笔，虽然我知道不管用。但就在我拿着铅笔的时候，死亡的迹象已经明白无误地表现出来。飞蛾的身体松弛下来，立刻又僵硬了。抗争结束了。现在微不足道的小生物死了。我打量着死飞蛾，是强大的力量打败这么卑微的对手，轻易取得了小小的胜利，这不能不让我惊讶。几分钟以前，生命令人奇怪，而现在，死亡同样令人奇怪。现在飞蛾翻过身来，体面安详地躺着，没有一丝怨言。是啊，他似乎在说：死亡比我强大。

The Death of the Moth

Virginia Woolf

…

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvelous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feat hers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.

After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the windowpane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine that has stopped momentarily, to strut again without considering the reason for its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the windowsill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs straggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.

The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he struggled. I looked of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animations. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brook s. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay coloured moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself. One's sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also, when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an in significant little moth; against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself just now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed.  O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.