認故鄉

by 毛姆

我認爲有些人誕生在某一個地方可以說未得其所。

機緣把他們隨便拋擲到一個環境中，而他們卻一直思念着一處他們自己也不知道坐落在何處的家鄉。在出生的地方他們好像是過客；從孩提時代就非常熟悉的濃蔭鬱鬱的小巷，同小夥伴遊戲其中的人煙稠密的街衢，對他們來說都不過是旅途中的一個宿站。

這種人在自己的親友中可能終生落落寡合，在他們唯一熟悉的環境裏也始終孑身獨處。也許正是在本鄉本土的這種陌生感才逼着他們遠遊異鄉，尋找一處永恆定居的寓所。說不定他們在內心深處仍然隱伏着多少世代前祖先的習性和癖好，從而叫這些彷徨者再回到他們祖先在遠古就已離開的土地。

有時候一個人偶然到了一個地方，會神祕地感覺到這正是自己的棲身之所，是他一直在尋找的家園。於是他就在這些從未寓目的景物裏，在從不相識的人羣中定居下來，倒好像這裏的一切都是他從小就熟稔的一樣。

他在這裏終於找到了寧靜。

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place.
Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage.
They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deeprooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.
Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth.
Here at last he finds rest.