【導读】伊迪丝·华顿（1862—1937）被认为是最了解巴黎的美国作家。她从19世纪90年代开始旅居巴黎，随后生活重心由美国移到法国，直至去世。在旅居巴黎的岁月里，华顿融入了法国的文学艺术界，也见证了欧洲历史上最重大的变迁。

第一次世界大战即将爆发之际，人们纷纷逃离巴黎，华顿却选择成为一个逆行者，写下著名的游记《战斗的法国》（Fighting France）。本文节选自该书第一篇文章“The Look of Paris”，记叙了1914年7月末至8月初作者从普瓦捷回巴黎途中以及回到巴黎后的景、情、见、闻。作者运用超凡的想象力和细腻的笔触极好地捕捉住夏日光影下的法国乡野、沙特尔大教堂和巴黎城，也将战事一触即发之时巴黎人的生活和心理刻画得淋漓尽致。其中，对沙特尔大教堂的描写更是极尽想象与修辞之能事，令人叹为观止;语言之深、之难，于译家而言也是一大乐事！

On the 30th of July， 1914， motoring north from Poitiers， we had lunched somewhere by the roadside under apple-trees on the edge of a field. Other fields stretched away on our right and left to a border of woodland and a village steeple. All around was noonday quiet， and the sober disciplined landscape which the travellers memory is apt to evoke as distinctly French. Sometimes， even to accustomed eyes， these ruled-off fields and compact grey villages seem merely flat and tame; at other moments the sensitive imagination sees in every thrifty sod and even furrow the ceaseless vigilant attachment of generations faithful to the soil. The particular bit of landscape before us spoke in all its lines of that attachment. The air seemed full of the long murmur of human effort， the rhythm of oft-repeated tasks; the serenity of the scene smiled away the war rumours which had hung on us since morning.

All day the sky had been banked with thunder-clouds， but by the time we reached Chartres， toward four oclock， they had rolled away under the horizon， and the town was so saturated with sunlight that to pass into the cathedral was like entering the dense obscurity of a church in Spain. At first all detail was imperceptible： we were in a hollow night. Then， as the shadows gradually thinned and gathered themselves up into pier and vault and ribbing， there burst out of them great sheets and showers of colour. Framed by such depths of darkness， and steeped in a blaze of mid-summer sun， the familiar windows seemed singularly remote and yet overpoweringly vivid. Now they widened into dark-shored pools splashed with sunset， now glittered and menaced like the shields of fighting angels. Some were cataracts of sapphires， others roses dropped from a saints tunic， others great carven platters strewn with heavenly regalia， others the sails of galleons bound for the Purple Islands; and in the western wall the scattered fires of the rose-window hung like a constellation in an African night. When one dropped ones eyes from these ethereal harmonies， the dark masses of masonry below them， all veiled and muffled in a mist pricked by a few altar lights， seemed to symbolize the life on earth， with its shadows， its heavy distances and its little islands of illusion. All that a great cathedral can be， all the meanings it can express， all the tranquillizing power it can breathe upon the soul， all the richness of detail it can fuse into a large utterance of strength and beauty， the cathedral of Chartres gave us in that perfect hour.

It was sunset when we reached the gates of Paris. Under the heights of St. Cloud and Suresnes the reaches of the Seine trembled with the blue-pink lustre of an early Monet. The Bois lay about us in the stillness of a holiday evening， and the lawns of Bagatelle were as fresh as June. Below the Arc de Triomphe， the Champs Elysées sloped downward in a sun-powdered haze to the mist of fountains and the ethereal obelisk; and the currents of summer life ebbed and flowed with a normal beat under the trees of the radiating avenues. The great city， so made for peace and art and all humanist graces， seemed to lie by her river-side like a princess guarded by the watchful giant of the Eiffel Tower.

The next day the air was thundery with rumours. Nobody believed them， everybody repeated them. War？ Of course there couldnt be war！ The Cabinets， like naughty children， were again dangling their feet over the edge; but the whole incalculable weight of things-as-they-were， of the daily necessary business of living， continued calmly and convincingly to assert itself against the bandying of diplomatic words. Paris went on steadily about her midsummer business of feeding， dressing， and amusing the great army of tourists who were the only invaders she had seen for nearly half a century.

All the while， every one knew that other work was going on also. The whole fabric of the countrys seemingly undisturbed routine was threaded with noiseless invisible currents of preparation， the sense of them was in the calm air as the sense of changing weather is in the balminess of a perfect afternoon. Paris counted the minutes till the evening papers came.

They said little or nothing except what every one was already declaring all over the country. “We dont want war—mais il faut que cela finisse！1” “This kind of thing has got to stop”： that was the only phrase one heard. If diplomacy could still arrest the war， so much the better： no one in France wanted it. All who spent the first days of August in Paris will testify to the agreement of feeling on that point. But if war had to come， then the country， and every heart in it， was ready.

At the dressmakers， the next morning， the tired fitters were preparing to leave for their usual holidays. They looked pale and anxious—decidedly， there was a new weight of apprehension in the air. And in the rue Royale， at the corner of the Place de la Concorde， a few people had stopped to look at a little strip of white paper against the wall of the Ministère de la Marine. “General mobilization” they read—and an armed nation knows what that means. But the group about the paper was small and quiet. Passers-by read the notice and went on. There were no cheers， no gesticulations： the dramatic sense of the race had already told them that the event was too great to be dramatized. Like a monstrous landslide it had fallen across the path of an orderly laborious nation， disrupting its routine， annihilating its industries， rending families apart， and burying under a heap of senseless ruin the patiently and painfully wrought machinery of civilization.

1914年7月30日，我们从普瓦捷驱车北上，在路边一块田地旁的苹果树下用午餐。我们的左右两旁也是连片的田野，分别延伸至林地的边缘和一座乡村尖顶教堂。正午时分，周遭一片寂静，淡雅严整的风景，在旅行者记忆中往往会唤起一种特有的法兰西印象。即使惯看这风景的人，有时候也会觉得这些分割整齐的田地和排列紧凑的灰白村落过于单调乏味。而另一些时候，敏锐的想象力又让人从每一块青草茂盛的草皮甚至每一道犁沟中看到忠诚于土地的一代代人生生不息的警醒和眷恋。我们眼前这一小片风景就是这种眷恋的极好诠释。……