午夜漫步者

For a year， Matt Gaw hiked across the country at night—savouring the planets， the midnight light and the sense of earthly troubles shrinking into the universe. 一年來，馬特·高徒步夜行，足跡遍布整個國家——品味星空、午夜之光和俗世煩惱消失在宇宙中的感覺。

I still remember that first night walk in Kings Forest near my Suffolk home， two years ago. The clouds were smoking-room-thick， so there had been no visible sunset. The cold， white sky did not even blush. Instead， the light thickened and clotted as darkness began to form， seeping out from between stands of pines. It puffed from the shadows of my footsteps on the track and welled up from the deep ruts made by 4 × 4s.

Im not sure why I kept walking that night. Partly it was just the rhythm： the metronome swing of the legs， the freedom of having nowhere to be and no place to go. But also， Id been rallied by my 10-year-old son who， in his campaign for an ever-later bedtime， argued that an average human spends 26 years of their time on Earth asleep. His words had wormed their way into my brain. When was the last time I had been out at night？ Not camping or running or toddling home from the pub， but really out into the dark. Was my life being only half-lived？

And so I went into the wood. Night had always seemed a dark and gloomy place， a solid， black bookend to day. But there among the trees， as the retinal cones clicked off and the rods kicked in1， I could see that night was not just one long stretch of unforgiving darkness， any more than daytime is a constant bright blue sky. No， night is full of its own subtle shades of light， capable of illuminating the landscape and inspiring in us a sense of connection and wonder.

For the next year， I walked and walked at night. Over a number of months that spanned the seasons， I travelled across Britain in an attempt to explore the shades， subtleties and lights of the nocturnal hours. I paced the full-moon-lit coasts of Suffolk and swam in its light. I strolled through London as it tossed and turned to sleep， and I patrolled empty， suburban streets in Bury St Edmunds—even sharing a memorable cup of tea with an owl on a town centre roundabout. I went north to Scotland， a country where， in lowland woodlands， mountainous regions， cruelly cleared Highlands and on wild coasts， the dark lives.

Galloway Forest is one of the UKs handful of International Dark Sky Parks， a place where the stars still gather in large numbers and the night sky is protected for its scientific， natural， educational and cultural value. Here I learned to unpick the dot-to-dot riddle of constellations. And here I looked through a telescope into another galaxy—Andromeda—and was left reeling by both its fuzzy， spiders egg beauty and the idea that the light I was seeing had travelled for millions of years to reach me： light much older than the first tool-wielding humans.

Since Covid-19 became an unwelcome satellite to our lives， Ive been thinking about these journeys a great deal. Part of it is， of course， simply an itch to travel again. I want to return to these landscapes. After weeks of shut-in， I yearn to be on the Isle of Coll （which is free of streetlights） to see the Milky Way cracking across a star-filled sky that stretches from horizon to horizon. I want to be back on the west coast of Scotland， watching meteors over Ailsa Craig， the stars dropping like gannets; or to fall asleep in the haunting shadow of Wistmans Wood， waking to find Dartmoor transformed—the definition of day gone and a detailed landscape rewound to a simple but exquisite pencil sketch.

But there is something else. I found that at night the world both shrinks and expands. Even after the eyes have adjusted， big landscapes—the miles of moor， tor and bog—are reduced to contrasts， to smells or the occasional heart-quickening fidget in the undergrowth. Yet look up and the bubble pops. The stars rush in， bringing with them a connection to the seasons， but also an almost impossible， self-shrinking sense of the universes scale. A dizzying “You are here”， an affirmation of being alive. Perhaps that is why the night skies have been so important during the lockdown： they help the largeness， the weirdness of that giant word “pandemic” become so much smaller.

As soon as it is safe and responsible to do so， I will start exploring the night again， seeking out the magic of darkness and experiencing the quiet joy of the land transforming into a place of subtlety and shades. But for now， I still take comfort in the night. I know when I look up and see the stars， the moon or the bright glare of Venus， I am seeing a light in the dark that connects us to all living things and all ages. No matter where we are， how isolated we may feel， we all see the same stars.

我仍然記得第一次夜行，那是兩年前，在薩福克我家附近的國王森林。云層像吸煙室里的煙霧一樣濃密，因而看不見日落。冰冷、蒼白的天空甚至都沒有一絲紅暈。到了夜幕降臨時，光線反而堆積、凝結(jié)，從片片松林間透出，從我行走在小路上的腳步的陰影中冒出，從四驅(qū)車留下的深深車轍中涌出。

我不知道自己那晚為何一直走。一定程度上僅僅是因?yàn)楣?jié)奏：雙腿擺動的節(jié)拍，所到不定、所往不知的自由。但也由于我被10歲兒子說動了，他向我爭取越來越晚的就寢時間，辯稱每個人在世上平均有26年的時間花在睡覺上。他的話慢慢潛入我的思想。我上一次在夜里出行是什么時候？露營、跑步或者從酒館踉蹌回家都不算，而是真正地走入黑暗之中。難道我只在享受一半的生命嗎？

于是我走進(jìn)了樹林。夜晚似乎總是一個黑暗、陰郁的地方，一塊阻隔白晝的漆黑硬書擋。但是在那里，置身樹木間，隨著視錐細(xì)胞關(guān)閉，視桿細(xì)胞開始發(fā)揮作用，我發(fā)現(xiàn)夜晚不只是無情黑暗的漫長延伸，正如白晝不總是明亮的藍(lán)天。不，夜晚充滿了自己微妙的光影色調(diào)，能夠照亮自然景致，在我們心中激起一種聯(lián)結(jié)感和奇妙感。

接下來的一年，我一次又一次地夜行。在跨越季節(jié)的數(shù)月時間里，我走遍整個不列顛，以探索夜間時分的色調(diào)、微妙變化和光影。我踱步于灑滿月光的薩福克海岸，徜徉于燈影之中。我漫步穿過倫敦，看它輾轉(zhuǎn)反側(cè)漸至入眠。我在貝里圣埃德蒙茲空蕩的郊區(qū)街道上閑逛——甚至在城中心的環(huán)島路上與貓頭鷹共飲一杯雋永的茶。我向北走到蘇格蘭，在這片土地上，黑暗寄居于低地林地、山區(qū)、光禿的高地和荒涼的海岸上。

加洛韋森林公園是英國為數(shù)不多的“國際暗空公園”之一，一個依舊繁星聚集的地方，其夜空因科學(xué)、自然、教育和文化價值而受到保護(hù)。在這里，我學(xué)著拆解點(diǎn)點(diǎn)相連的星座之謎。在這里，我通過望遠(yuǎn)鏡望向另一個星系——仙女座——看到它毛茸茸、蜘蛛卵形狀的美貌，想到我目之所見的光旅行了數(shù)百萬年才來到我的眼前，光比最早使用工具的人類還要古老得多，我感到一陣目眩神迷。

自從令人反感的2019冠狀病毒病繞著我們生活轉(zhuǎn)以來，我一直在思考這些旅程。當(dāng)然，部分原因僅僅是出于對再次步行的渴望。我想返歸那些景觀中去。在幾周的足不出戶之后，我渴望到科爾島上去（那里沒有路燈），看銀河劃破布滿星星的天空，看天空從一頭的地平線延展到另一頭。我想回到蘇格蘭的西海岸，看艾爾薩巖上空的流星，看流星像鰹鳥一般沖下;或是在威斯特曼深林縈繞不去的陰影下入睡，醒來發(fā)現(xiàn)達(dá)特穆爾國家公園搖身一變——白天的清晰消失不見，繁復(fù)的景觀倒回成一幅簡約卻精致的鉛筆素描。

但是不僅如此。我發(fā)現(xiàn)在夜里，世界既縮小又?jǐn)U大。即使在眼睛已經(jīng)適應(yīng)夜色后，廣闊的景觀——綿延數(shù)英里的荒野、石山和沼澤——也簡化成明暗對比，只留下各種氣味或灌木叢中偶爾讓人心跳加速的那種動靜。然而抬起頭，穹蒼冒出，星星沖進(jìn)來，展現(xiàn)其與四時的聯(lián)系，同時又使人感到宇宙令人不可置信的無窮以及自己的渺小。一聲驚訝的“你在這兒啊”就是對活著的確認(rèn)。或許這就是防疫禁閉期間夜空如此重要的原因：它們有助于將“疫情大流行”這個大詞所包含的巨大感、詭異感變得渺小許多。

待到夜行變得安全可靠的時候，我會第一時間再次開始探索夜晚，追尋黑暗的魔法，感受大地幻化為一個微妙之處、色調(diào)深淺有別之地的寂靜歡喜。但是此時，我仍然在夜晚中得到慰藉。我知道，當(dāng)我抬頭看星星、月亮或是金星明亮炫目的光芒時，我是在黑暗中看到一束光，將我們和所有的生物、所有的時代聯(lián)結(jié)在一起。無論我們在哪里，無論我們感到多么孤獨(dú)，我們看到的是同一片星空。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎?wù)撸?/p>