But if I was puzzled and disconcerted, I was not unimpressed. Even I, in my colossal ignorance, could not but feel that here, trying to express itself, was real power. I was excited and interested. I felt that these pictures had something to say to me that was very important for me to know, but I could not tell what it was. They seemed to me ugly, but they suggested without disclosing a secret of momentous significance. They were strangely tantalising. They gave me an emotion that I could not analyse. They said something that words were powerless to utter. I fancy that Strickland saw vaguely some spiritual meaning in material things that was so strange that he could only suggest it with halting symbols. It was as though he found in the chaos of the universe a new pattern, and were attempting clumsily, with anguish of soul, to set it down. I saw a tormented spirit striving for the release of expression.
但是即使說思特里克蘭德的畫當(dāng)時(shí)使我感到困惑莫解，卻不能說這些畫沒有觸動(dòng)我。盡管我對(duì)他的技巧懵然無知，我還是感到他的作品有一種努力要表現(xiàn)自己的真正力量。我感到興奮，也對(duì)這些畫很感興趣。我覺得他的畫好象要告訴我一件什么事，對(duì)我說來，了解這件事是非常重要的，但我又說不出來那究竟是什么。這些畫我覺得一點(diǎn)不美，但它們卻暗示給我——是暗示而不是泄露——一個(gè)極端重要的秘密。這些畫奇怪地逗弄著我。它們引起我一種我無法分析的感情。它們?cè)V說著一件語言無力表達(dá)的事。我猜想，思特里克蘭德在有形的事物上模模糊糊地看到某種精神意義，這種意義非常奇異，他只能用很不完善的符號(hào)勉強(qiáng)把它表達(dá)出來。仿佛是他在宇宙的一片混亂中找到了一個(gè)新的圖案，正在笨拙地把它描摹下來，因?yàn)榱Σ粡男?，心靈非常痛苦。我看到的是一個(gè)奮力尋求表現(xiàn)手段的備受折磨的靈魂。
I turned to him. "I wonder if you haven't mistaken your medium," I said.
“我懷疑，你的手段是否選擇對(duì)了?！蔽艺f。
"What the hell do you mean?"
“你說的是什么意思？”
"I think you're trying to say something, I don't quite know what it is, but I'm not sure that the best way of saying it is by means of painting."
“我想你是在努力表達(dá)些什么。雖然我不太清楚你想要表達(dá)的是什么，但我很懷疑，繪畫對(duì)你說是不是最好的表達(dá)方法?！?/div>
When I imagined that on seeing his pictures I should get a clue to the understanding of his strange character I was mistaken. They merely increased the astonishment with which he filled me. I was more at sea than ever. The only thing that seemed clear to me—and perhaps even this was fanciful—was that he was passionately striving for liberation from some power that held him. But what the power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure. Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
我曾經(jīng)幻想，看過他的圖畫以后，我也許多少能夠了解一些他的奇怪的性格，現(xiàn)在我知道我的想法錯(cuò)了。他的畫只不過更增加了他已經(jīng)在我心中引起的驚詫。我比沒看畫以前更加迷惘了。只有一件事我覺得我是清楚的——也許連這件事也是我的幻想——，那就是，他正竭盡全力想掙脫掉某種束縛著他的力量。但是這究竟是怎樣一種力量，他又將如何尋求解脫，我一直弄不清楚。我們每個(gè)人生在世界上都是孤獨(dú)的。每個(gè)人都被囚禁在一座鐵塔里，只能靠一些符號(hào)同別人傳達(dá)自己的思想；而這些符號(hào)并沒有共同的價(jià)值，因此它們的意義是模糊的、不確定的。我們非?？蓱z地想把自己心中的財(cái)富傳送給別人，但是他們卻沒有接受這些財(cái)富的能力。因此我們只能孤獨(dú)地行走，盡管身體互相依傍卻并不在一起，既不了解別的人也不能為別人所了解。我們好象住在異國的人。對(duì)于這個(gè)國家的語言懂得非常少，雖然我們有各種美妙的、深?yuàn)W的事情要說，卻只能局限于會(huì)話手冊(cè)上那幾句陳腐、平庸的話。我們的腦子里充滿了各種思想，而我們能說的只不過是象“園丁的姑母有一把傘在屋子里”這類話。
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