他已祈求过所有星宿和山川河流的神祇。最后他匍匐在半虎半马的石像脚下，祈求祂的帮助。那晚他梦见神像抖动着活了。祂不仅是虎和马的混合怪兽，同时也是牡牛，玫瑰和暴风雨。
——博尔赫斯｜张系国 译
— Reading and Rereading —
其他
环形废墟（张系国译本）｜博尔赫斯
∞《小径分叉的花园》，1941
El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan
環墟
“如果他忽略了梦想你……”
《艾丽斯镜中游记》
没有人看到他如何在深夜里登岸，也没有人看到竹筏如何搁浅在泥滩上。但不出几天时间，所有人都知道这沉默寡言的人来自南方河流上游崇山峻岭间某个村落，那里的方言尚未受希腊语影响，也少有痲疯病患者。灰暗的陌生人亲吻了圣地的泥土，爬上河岸，任凭荆棘撕裂衣裳和皮肉，似乎毫无知觉。他虚弱地流着血，勉强来到神殿的环形入口。入口处有一座半虎半马的石像，原先是火焰般的颜色已褪为灰色。神殿许久以前曾为火焚毁，荒野沼泽侵入了圣地，人不再在此敬拜神。陌生人在石像脚前躺下来。
高悬在天空的太阳照醒了他。他注意到身上的伤口已经痊愈，不知怎的并未感到惊奇。他闭上暗淡的眼睛，再度睡去。他并不疲倦，但他以意志力驱使自己入睡。他知道这神庙是完成他夙愿的好地方。河流下游，他知道另有一处焚毁的神殿，也尚未被四周的丛林所吞噬。他知道他首要的任务就是睡眠。到子夜时分，一只鸟的孤鸣唤醒了他。身旁的脚印、一些无花果、一个水壶......显示有人乘他入睡时来过并敬畏地留下祭物，或许想求他保佑，也可能是怕他作祟。他感到一股恐惧的寒意，在残墙废墟间找到一处葬龛。他躲进壁龛，用从未见过的树叶掩藏住自己。
他的目标虽然超乎常理，却并非全无可能。他要在梦中造人，他要梦想出人的每一个细节，并将他引入真实的世界里。为达成这个目标，他已竭尽心智。如果有人问他叫甚么名字和他从前的经历，他恐怕都回答不出来。这荒废的神殿颇合他意，里面没有甚么可引他分神的东西。而且附近的乡民会献给他祭品，有水果和米可供他肉体所需，他可以专心睡觉和做梦。
开始时他的梦十分混乱，后来却逐渐出现一定的秩序。陌生人梦见自己站在一座圆形剧场的中央，圆形剧场又似乎就是荒废的神殿。剧场层层阶梯上坐满了沉默的门徒。坐得最遥远的，距离他有许多世纪，座位也高高在星空之间，但他仍可清楚看见他们的脸庞。陌生人开始讲演，讲到解剖学、宇宙的起源、巫术。每一张脸都热心的聆听，尽可能恰当地回答他的问题，好像他们知道他的问题很重要，能使他们中间一个幻影般的存在，进入真实的世界。不论是睡是醒，这人都在思考那些幻影的答案，设法寻找一个值得活在这世界上的灵魂。
经过九日或十日，他痛苦的发现，那些只会囫囵吞下他一切教导的幻影，都成不了大器。倒是那些会怀疑、会提出问题的，或许还有希望。前者虽然值得他爱护，却永远不可能成为真人。后者虽仍模糊虚幻，却已有真人的痕迹。一天傍晚（现在他不论白天晚上都在睡觉，只有每天清晨会醒来一两个小时）他解散了庞大的梦中学校，只留下一位门徒。这个门徒是位安静、皮肤发黄、桀骜不驯的青年，刚毅的容貌颇类似做梦的陌生人。同学的突然消失，并没有令年轻人不安太久。不过上了几节课，他已大有进步，使教导他的陌生人大为惊讶。但是这时却出了乱子。一天傍晚，陌生人从梦境的荒原回来，看见微弱的星光。起先他还以为是破晓的曙光，然后突然明白他并不是在做梦。这夜整晚和第二天，他竟都失眠了，无论如何再也睡不着。为了使自己疲乏，他到附近丛林里游荡，但他仍只能入睡片刻，做了几个残缺不全、毫无用处的梦。他想再召集他的梦中学校，但还没有等到他说完几句勉励的话，全班都突然消失了。他不断保持清醒的状态，愤怒的眼泪刺痛了陌生老人的眼睛。
他明白他虽能参透天地的奥秘，要想拾掇无意义而迷乱的梦成为一个真人的工作，却是更困难的事——远比编沙为绳、或铸风成形还要困难。他明白他总得失败一次。他决定放弃教授梦中学校所采取由多选少的选择方式，改换了另一种办法。在开始进行前，他休养了一个月。他放弃了一切做梦的念头，立刻每天都能睡着相当长一段时间。偶然他也会做梦，但他却并不老想同一个梦。他休养了一整月，等待月圆的到来。然后在晚间他到河里洗净身子，敬拜了星宿众神，念了神咒，就躺下来睡觉。几乎立刻他就梦见一颗跳跃的心。
他梦见心脏有规律的跳动着，温暖而神秘。它的大小犹如一个紧捏的拳头，色泽暗红，跳动在尚无脸庞或性别的人的躯体里。他充满关怀爱意，一连十四夜都清楚梦见那颗心。每过一夜，他就看得更清楚些。起先他不敢去抚摸它，只从各个不同的角度观察它，不时以目光的一瞥修正它的小缺陷。到第十四夜，他伸出一根手指，触及心脏上的肺动脉，然后他抚摸心脏的里外各部分。检查完毕，他颇感满意。下一个晚上，他故意不去做梦。然后他又梦回到心脏，祈求了某个星宿的护佑，再去构想别的器官。不到一年时间，他已构想完各个器官、四肢、骨骼、头颅、眼睑......最难的部分也许是无数根头发。他在梦里终于创造了一个完整的人——一位红发青年。但年轻人尚不会站起来，不会说话，也不会张开眼睛。夜复一夜，他梦见沉睡中的青年。
在诺斯替教的创世纪里，造物主的术士塑造了一位红发的亚当，还不能站立行走的亚当。术士在无数个夜里所塑造的梦之亚当，和由尘土所塑造的亚当同样的粗糙简陋。一晚，这人几乎想毁掉他所塑造的人形（如果他真这样做了，也许对他比较好些），但最后他还是忍住了。他已祈求过所有星宿和山川河流的神祇。最后他匍匐在半虎半马的石像脚下，祈求祂的帮助。那晚他梦见神像抖动着活了。祂不仅是虎和马的混合怪兽，同时也是牡牛，玫瑰和暴风雨。多样面貌的神祇对他透露，祂世俗的名字原是火神。在这环形的神殿（以及其他类似的神殿）里，人们曾对祂献祭膜拜。祂能使这人梦中的幻影获得生命，除了火神和梦者以外，别的生物都会相信他是有血有肉的真人。火神并指示这人，青年门徒一旦学会祭神的礼仪之后，就必须到下游另外一座神殿的废墟去。那座神殿的金字塔犹在，人的声音可在那儿再度赞颂神。在梦者的梦里，那被梦者醒转过来。
术士遵照火神的指示，花费了一段时间（两年的光阴）教导青年门徒宇宙的奥秘，以及祭祀火神的礼仪。在他内心深处，他并不愿和他的创造物分离。借口更仔细教导他的门徒，他每天延长睡眠的时间。并且他又改造了略嫌难看的右肩。时常他感到不安，觉得这一切从前好像都曾发生过。但大致上每天他都过得很快乐，每次闭眼睡觉时，他会想：“现在我可以和我的孩子相聚了。”也有时他会想：“我所生的孩子等待着我。如果我不去找他，他就不会继续存在。”
一步步他训练年轻人如何应付现实环境。有一次他要年轻人在远山竖立一杆旗帜。第二天，火焰般的旗帜果然飘扬在山顶。他又以其他方式磨练青年，一次比一次更大胆。他不无痛苦地明白，他的孩子已经够资格出世——也许急躁地等待出世。这天晚上，他第一次吻了孩子，并命令他沿河岸走到另一座神庙去。那座神庙白色的遗墟，隔着几十里的沼泽和丛林，仍历历可见。最后（为了使孩子永远不知道自己是幻影，可以像别人一样做一个完整的人），术士让他的门徒完全遗忘了这些年学习的日子。
他的成功和内心的平静，却不能却祛除一丝倦意。每天清晨和黄昏，他都匍匐在石像前，也许想象他的孩子同样在下游另一座环状的废墟里，执行同样的仪式。晚上他不再做梦，偶尔也会像普通人一般的做梦，四周世界的声音和形状都变得模糊不清，因为他离去的孩子仍从他逐渐减退的意识里汲取养料。他一生的愿望已经达成，这人遂生活在一种狂喜的境界里。经过很长一段时间，讲述这故事的人，有的说是好几年，也有的是说好几十年。有一天深夜，这人被两名划船夫唤醒了。他看不见他们的脸，但他们对他讲述北边神庙里有一位术士，能在火上行走而安然无损。这老术士突然想起火神的话。他想起世界上所有的生物里，只有火神知道他的孩子是幻影。此一回忆，开始时令他安慰，后来却令他焦虑不安。他担心他的孩子也许会奇怪自己所拥有的异禀，而竟然发现自己不过是个幻影。不是真人，而是别人梦中投射的幻影——这对孩子是多么大的屈辱！会引起孩子多么大的迷惑！每一个父亲都会关心自己的孩子。术士会关心他在一千零一个夜里一步步逐渐构想的孩子，因此也不难理解了。
术士的焦虑终止得十分突然，但事先已有若干预兆。首先（在长久干旱之后）是山顶远处出现轻飘的白云；其次是南方天空呈现豹皮般的玫瑰色泽；再次是烟柱，铁青的夜晚转变成红锈的颜色；最后是丛林里野兽慌乱的狂奔。许多世纪前发生的事，又再度发生了。火神祭坛的废墟再度为火所焚毁。在没有鸟鸣的微曦里，老术士看见环绕的火逐渐包围住他。这一剎那间，他想逃往河边。但他随即明白，死亡的来临，对他正是一种解脱，他已功德圆满。他走入跳跃飘动如旗帜的火焰里。火焰并未烧焦他的皮肤，却轻轻拥抱抚摸着他。欣慰、屈辱和恐怖的感觉同时袭向他。他突然了解他也只不过是个幻影，另有别人在梦里创造了他。
—推荐图书—
The Circular Ruins
Translated by James E. Irby
And if he left off dreaming about you…
Through the Looking Glass, VI
No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe sinking into the sacred mud, but within a few days no one was unaware that the silent man came from the South and that his home was one of the infinite villages upstream, on the violent mountainside, where the Zend tongue is not contaminated with Greek and where leprosy is infrequent. The truth is that the obscure man kissed the mud, came up the bank without pushing aside (probably without feeling) the brambles which dilacerated his flesh, and dragged himself, nauseous and bloodstained, to the circular enclosure crowned by a stone tiger or horse, which once was the color of fire and now was that of ashes. The circle was a temple, long ago devoured by fire, which the malarial jungle had profaned and whose god no longer received the homage of men. The stranger stretched out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by the sun high above. He evidenced without astonishment that his wounds had closed; he shut his pale eyes and slept, not out of bodily weakness but of determination of will. He knew that this temple was the place required by his invincible purpose; he knew that, downstream, the incessant trees had not managed to choke the ruins of another propitious temple, whose gods were also burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was to sleep. Towards midnight he was awakened by the disconsolate cry of a bird. Prints of bare feet, some figs and a jug told him that men of the region had respectfully spied upon his sleep and were solicitous of his favor or feared his magic. He felt the chill of fear and sought out a burial niche in the dilapidated wall and covered himself with some unknown leaves.
The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though it was supernatural. He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality. This magical project had exhausted the entire content of his soul; if someone had asked him his own name or any trait of his previous life, he would not have been able to answer. The uninhabited and broken temple suited him, for it was a minimum of visible world; the nearness of the peasants also suited him, for they would see that his frugal necessities were supplied. The rice and fruit of their tribute were sufficient sustenance for his body, consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming.
At first, his dreams were chaotic; somewhat later, they were of a dialectical nature. The stranger dreamt that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which in some way was the burned temple: clouds of silent students filled the gradins; the faces of the last ones hung many centuries away and at a cosmic height, but were entirely clear and precise. The man was lecturing to them on anatomy, cosmography, magic; the countenances listened with eagerness and strove to respond with understanding, as if they divined the importance of the examination which would redeem one of them from his state of vain appearance and interpolate him into the world of reality. The man, both in dreams and awake, considered his phantoms' replies, was not deceived by impostors, divined a growing intelligence in certain perplexities. He sought a soul which would merit participation in the universe.
After nine or ten nights, he comprehended with some bitterness that he could expect nothing of those students who passively accepted his doctrines, but that he could of those who, at times, would venture a reasonable contradiction. The former, though worthy of love and affection, could not rise to the state of individuals; the latter pre-existed somewhat more. One afternoon (now his afternoons too were tributaries of sleep, now he remained awake only for a couple of hours at dawn) he dismissed the vast illusory college forever and kept one single student. He was a silent boy, sallow, sometimes obstinate, with sharp features which reproduced those of the dreamer. He was not long disconcerted by his companions' sudden elimination; his progress, after a few special lessons, astounded his teacher. Nevertheless, catastrophe ensued. The man emerged from sleep one day as if from a viscous desert, looked at the vain light of afternoon, which at first he confused with that of dawn, and understood that he had not really dreamt. All that night and all day, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia weighed upon him. He tried to explore the jungle, to exhaust himself; amidst the hemlocks, he was scarcely able to manage a few snatches of feeble sleep, fleetingly mottled with some rudimentary visions which were useless. He tried to convoke the college and had scarcely uttered a few brief words of exhortation, when it became deformed and was extinguished. In his almost perpetual sleeplessness, his old eyes burned with tears of anger.
He comprehended that the effort to mold the incoherent and vertiginous matter dreams are made of was the most arduous task a man could undertake, though he might penetrate all the enigmas of the upper and lower orders: much more arduous than weaving a rope of sand or coining the faceless wind. He comprehended that an initial failure was inevitable. He swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had misled him at first, and he sought another method. Before putting it in effect, he dedicated a month to replenishing the powers his delirium had wasted. He abandoned any premeditation of dreaming and, almost at once, was able to sleep for a considerable part of the day. The few times he dreamt during this period, he did not take notice of the dreams. To take up his task again, he waited until the moon's disk was perfect. Then, in the afternoon, he purified himself in the waters of the river, worshiped the planetary gods, uttered the lawful syllables of a powerful name and slept. Almost immediately, he dreamt of a beating heart.
He dreamt it as active, warm, secret, the size of a closed fist, of garnet color in the penumbra of a human body as yet without face or sex; with minute love he dreamt it, for fourteen lucid nights. Each night he perceived it with greater clarity. He did not touch it, but limited himself to witnessing it, observing it, perhaps correcting it with his eyes. He perceived it, lived it, from many distances and many angles. On the fourteenth night he touched the pulmonary artery with his finger, and then the whole heart, inside and out. The examination satisfied him. Deliberately, he did not dream for a night; then he took the heart again, invoked the name of a planet and set about to envision another of the principal organs. Within a year he reached the skeleton, the eyelids. The innumerable hair was perhaps the most difficult task. He dreamt a complete man, a youth, but this youth could not rise nor did he speak nor could his eyes. Night after night, the man dreamt him as asleep.
In the Gnostic cosmogonies, the demiurgi knead and mold a red Adam who cannot stand alone; as unskillful and crude and elementary as this Adam of dust was the Adam of dreams fabricated by the magician’s nights of effort. One afternoon, the man almost destroyed his work, but then repented. (It would have been better for him had he destroyed it.) Once he had completed his supplications to the numina of the earth and the river, he threw himself down at the feet of the effigy which was perhaps a tiger and perhaps a horse, and implored its unknown succor. That twilight, he dreamt of the statue. He dreamt of it as a living, tremulous thing: it was not an atrocious mongrel of tiger and horse, but both these vehement creatures at once and also a bull, a rose, a tempest. This multiple god revealed to him that its earthly name was Fire, that in the circular temple (and in others of its kind) people had rendered it sacrifices and cult and that it would magically give life to the sleeping phantom, in such a way that all creatures except Fire itself and the dreamer would believe him to be a man of flesh and blood. The man was ordered by the divinity to instruct his creature in its rites, and send him to the other broken temple whose pyramids survived downstream, so that in this deserted edifice a voice might give glory to the god. In the dreamer's dream, the dreamed one awoke.
The magician carried out these orders. He devoted a period of time (which finally comprised two years) to revealing the arcana of the universe and of the fire cult to his dream child. Inwardly, it pained him to be separated from the boy. Under the pretext of pedagogical necessity, each day he prolonged the hours he dedicated to his dreams. He also redid the right shoulder, which was perhaps deficient. At times, he was troubled by the impression that all this had happened before… In general, his days were happy; when he closed his eyes, he would think: Now I shall be with my son. Or, less often: The child I have engendered awaits me and will not exist if I do not go to him.
Gradually, he accustomed the boy to reality. Once he ordered him to place a banner on a distant peak. The following day, the banner flickered from the mountain top. He tried other analogous experiments, each more daring than the last. He understood with certain bitterness that his son was ready—and perhaps impatient—to be born. That night he kissed him for the first time and sent him to the other temple whose debris showed white downstream, through many leagues of inextricable jungle and swamp. But first (so that he would never know he was a phantom, so that he would be thought a man like others) he instilled into him a complete oblivion of his years of apprenticeship.
The man's victory and peace were dimmed by weariness. At dawn and at twilight, he would prostrate himself before the stone figure, imagining perhaps that his unreal child was practicing the same rites, in other circular ruins, downstream; at night, he would not dream, or would dream only as all men do. He perceived the sounds and forms of the universe with a certain colorlessness: his absent son was being nurtured with these diminutions of his soul. His life's purpose was complete; man persisted in a kind of ecstasy. After a time, which some narrators of his story prefer to compute in years and others in lustra, he was awakened one midnight by two boatmen; he could not see their faces, but they told him of a magic man in a temple of the North who could walk upon fire and not be burned. The magician suddenly remembered the words of the god. He recalled that, of all the creatures of the world, fire was the only one that knew his son was a phantom. This recollection, at first soothing, finally tormented him. He feared his son might meditate on his abnormal privilege and discover in some way that his condition was that of a mere image. Not to be a man, to be the projection of another man's dream, what a feeling of humiliation, of vertigo! All fathers are interested in the children they have procreated (they have permitted to exist) in mere confusion or pleasure; it was natural that the magician should fear for future of that son, created in thought, limb by limb and feature by feature, in a thousand and one secret nights.
The end of his meditations was sudden, though it was foretold in certain signs. First (after a long drought) a faraway cloud on a hill, light and rapid as a bird; then, toward the south, the sky which had the rose color of the leopard's mouth; then the smoke which corroded the metallic nights; finally, the panicky flight of the animals. For what was happening had happened many centuries ago. The ruins of the fire god's sanctuary were destroyed by fire. In a birdless dawn the magician saw the concentric blaze close round the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the river, but then he knew that death was coming to crown his old-age and absolve him of his labors. He walked into the shreds of flame. But they did not bite into his flesh, they caressed him and engulfed him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another.
张系国（1944年7月17日－），著名台湾作家、中文科幻小说作家。
原籍江西南昌，出生于重庆，计算机和电脑专家，创办《幻象》科幻杂志。为新竹中学校友，1965台湾大学电机系毕业，1966年入美国加州柏克莱大学，现任美国匹兹堡大学计算机科学系教授。
题图作者：Ciara Rafferty，美国
ciararafferty.com
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阅读原文可看在梦里，神启迪了豹这粗糙的野兽｜博尔赫斯