我剛好也讀到了Private Frederick W. Heath (英國軍人)寫的一封信 從頭到尾 娓娓道出當時的情景:
The night closed in early - the ghostly shadows that haunt the trenches came to keep us company as we stood to arms. Under a pale moon, one could just see the grave-like rise of ground which marked the German trenches two hundred yards away. Fires in the English lines had died down, and only the squelch of the sodden boots in the slushy mud, the whispered orders of the officers and the NCOs, and the moan of the wind broke the silence of the night. The soldiers' Christmas Eve had come at last, and it was hardly the time or place to feel grateful for it.
Memory in her shrine kept us in a trance of saddened silence. Back somewhere in England, the fires were burning in cosy rooms; in fancy I heard laughter and the thousand melodies of reunion on Christmas Eve. With overcoat thick with wet mud, hands cracked and sore with the frost, I leaned against the side of the trench, and, looking through my loophole, fixed weary eyes on the German trenches. Thoughts surged madly in my mind; but they had no sequence, no cohesion. Mostly they were of home as I had known it through the years that had brought me to this. I asked myself why I was in the trenches in misery at all, when I might have been in England warm and prosperous. That involuntary question was quickly answered. For is there not a multitude of houses in England, and has not someone to keep them intact? I thought of a shattered cottage in -- , and felt glad that I was in the trenches. That cottage was once somebody's home.
Still looking and dreaming, my eyes caught a flare in the darkness. A light in the enemy's trenches was so rare at that hour that I passed a message down the line. I had hardly spoken when light after light sprang up along the German front. Then quite near our dug-outs, so near as to make me start and clutch my rifle, I heard a voice. there was no mistaking that voice with its guttural ring. With ears strained, I listened, and then, all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: "English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!"
Following that salute boomed the invitation from those harsh voices: "Come out, English soldier; come out here to us." For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other's throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity - war's most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn - a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired, except for down on our right, where the French artillery were at work.
Came the dawn, pencilling the sky with grey and pink. Under the early light we saw our foes moving recklessly about on top of their trenches. Here, indeed, was courage; no seeking the security of the shelter but a brazen invitation to us to shoot and kill with deadly certainty. But did we shoot? Not likely! We stood up ourselves and called benisons on the Germans. Then came the invitation to fall out of the trenches and meet half way.
Still cautious we hung back. Not so the others. They ran forward in little groups, with hands held up above their heads, asking us to do the same. Not for long could such an appeal be resisted - beside, was not the courage up to now all on one side? Jumping up onto the parapet, a few of us advanced to meet the on-coming Germans. Out went the hands and tightened in the grip of friendship. Christmas had made the bitterest foes friends.
Here was no desire to kill, but just the wish of a few simple soldiers (and no one is quite so simple as a soldier) that on Christmas Day, at any rate, the force of fire should cease. We gave each other cigarettes and exchanged all manner of things. We wrote our names and addresses on the field service postcards, and exchanged them for German ones. We cut the buttons off our coats and took in exchange the Imperial Arms of Germany. But the gift of gifts was Christmas pudding. The sight of it made the Germans' eyes grow wide with hungry wonder, and at the first bite of it they were our friends for ever. Given a sufficient quantity of Christmas puddings, every German in the trenches before ours would have surrendered.
And so we stayed together for a while and talked, even though all the time there was a strained feeling of suspicion which rather spoilt this Christmas armistice. We could not help remembering that we were enemies, even though we had shaken hands. We dare not advance too near their trenches lest we saw too much, nor could the Germans come beyond the barbed wire which lay before ours. After we had chatted, we turned back to our respective trenches for breakfast.
All through the day no shot was fired, and all we did was talk to each other and make confessions which, perhaps, were truer at that curious moment than in the normal times of war. How far this unofficial truce extended along the lines I do not know, but I do know that what I have written here applies to the -- on our side and the 158th German Brigade, composed of Westphalians.
As I finish this short and scrappy description of a strangely human event, we are pouring rapid fire into the German trenches, and they are returning the compliment just as fiercely. Screeching through the air above us are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery. So we are back once more to the ordeal of fire.
l 我想提到藝術,不免有讀者會有一些疑問(其實是我自己),那就是看一幅畫該去看什麼?又該怎麼樣欣賞它?即使曾造訪羅浮宮、大英、梵諦岡博物館,看了許多名畫與大作,卻常常是拿著導覽聽聽關於一幅畫的故事,隨著感覺帶著輕鬆的心情看著畫,最後好像都變成放空了,總覺得有點對不起這些大畫家。 其實,這些藝術大師們遺留偉大的作品,不是要我們愧疚,應該覺得有幸,想靠近它們,只要每一次都能比前一次更親近、領悟,就夠了,我們對一個藝術家的了解不在一時,而是一輩子的追求。
你問:看一幅畫該去看什麼?又該怎麼樣欣賞它?
說真的,沒有一定的答案,看一張畫,不論用什麼角度或觀點,我認為關鍵在於,抓住藝術家的美學中心與創作精神。就舉一個例子吧,最近倫敦有一個泰納大展,也有一部邁克˙利夫(Mike Leigh)的電影「泰納先生」(Mr Turner)正在上映,一股泰納風潮在英國境內吹起。泰納(Joseph Mallord William Turner,1775-1851)是誰呢?他是英國浪漫派風景畫家,看他作品時,別忘了看他的用色,看他畫的主題,看他捕捉的景,看他怎麼去觀察大自然,看他的專注點,看他跟同個時期的浪漫畫家有什麼不一樣,泰納最常被拿來討論的作品,莫過於這一幅1844年的〈雨、蒸汽和速度—西部大鐵路〉(Rain, Steam, and Speed—the Great Western Railway),這記錄了西部大鐵路的興建,對當時不少人來說,鐵路像一個大怪物,對緩慢的生活步調與清新的大自然,形成了強烈的威脅,但泰納持不同的想法,畫裡,火車在梅登黑德鐵路大橋(Maidenhead Railway Bridge)上急速行駛,有雲有雨有霧,火車頭的炭燒烈火,右下角有一隻兔子疾跑著,嬌小到若沒仔細看,真會忽略牠的存在,整個畫面營造,是為了表現速度的驚嘆,暗示科技終將超越自然。我們可以總結,泰納對事件發生很敏感,像記者一樣,立即性的反應,懷有一種紀實的心態; 而且,跟世上的罕見偉大藝術家,如米開郎基羅、達文西...等等,泰納是一位擁抱科學,如推動文明的文藝復興人。
l 卡夫卡曾說:「要是我們不能輕易得到愉快的生活,那麼就只好想些巧妙的辦法迂迴前進。」海明威曾說:「如果你有幸在年輕時居住過巴黎,那巴黎將會跟著你一輩子。」這些文豪的名言讓我印象深刻,這也常常是引起我去閱讀外語文學經典的動機,想請老師分享一些印象深刻的藝術家、作家的名言,並談談這些話是如何影響自己的。
現在,我住的愛丁堡,每天的呼吸、思考、談話,每天經過的、看到的、吃喝的、感覺的,都離不開這兒有過的作家、哲學家、與藝術家,大衛·休谟(David Hume)、沃爾特·司各特(Walter Scott)、羅伯特·伯恩斯(Robert Burn)、詹姆士·包斯威爾(James Boswell)、塞謬爾·約翰遜(Samuel Johnson)、艾倫‧拉姆齊(Allan Ramsay)、大衛‧威爾基(David Wilkie)、孟德爾頌(Felix Mendelssohn)、 J K 羅琳(J K Rowling)、伊恩‧班克斯(Iain Banks)、亞歷山大·邁考爾·史密斯(Alexander McCall Smith)….等等。若沒有這些人,只有草有樹有花,只有一些好看的建築物,我仍能流連忘返嗎?貪心的我,這怎麼夠呢!多了人,多了精彩的人,多了很精彩的人,一個地方就會變得很不一樣。
l 老師住過被稱國「英國世界遺產」的愛丁堡,那我們當然不能放過這個機會請老師跟我們分享一些平常觀光客不會去的獨家景點及餐廳啦!(光是愛丁堡車站外的草地大公園就讓我為之驚嘆,想必還有許多絕妙之處)另外,旅行跟居住在某地一段時間,往往會有不同的感受,希望老師能分享一些愛丁堡的生活日常以及民情文化,當然還有介紹不可錯過的愛丁堡藝術節及自身參與經驗囉!