再次碎片化閱讀《蝴蝶夢》，筆者對達芙妮豐富的植物學知識深表欽佩。
小說第四章，女作家通過男主人公馬克西姆·德溫特(Maxim De Winter)（一位老派的英國紳士）之口，展示了她對大自然細膩的觀察以及她的家花野花理論。馬克西姆在摩納哥蒙特卡洛市與女友約會時，提起了曼陀麗莊園，現將相關段落翻譯如下：
“他沒有談起自己在那裏的生活，關於他本人，隻字不提。他隻告訴我春天午後日落時，岬角上一片光輝。大海看起來像石板，經過漫長的冬天後依然冰冷，從露台上，你可以聽到小海灣漲潮的濤聲。水仙花盛開，在晚風中搖曳，細長的莖托著金色的花頭，無論你摘多少，它們都不會顯得稀疏，它們像軍隊一樣肩並肩聚集在一起。草坪下麵的堤岸上種著金黃色、粉紅色和淡紫色的番紅花，但到了這個時候，它們已經過了最佳狀態，像蒼白的雪花蓮一樣枯萎凋零。報春花則更普通，是一種樸實可愛的東西，像野草一樣出現在每個縫隙中。風鈴草尚未到開花時節，它們的花頭還隱藏在去年的葉叢下麵，可當它們盛開時，令更加不起眼的香紫堇相形見絀，它們甚至淹沒了森林裏的蕨類植物，花色可與天空的顏色相媲美。
他說，他永遠不會把風鈴草放在屋子裏。把它們插進花瓶裏，它們會變得晦暗和無精打采，要想看到它們最美的一麵，你必須在早上十二點太陽高懸時到森林裏散步。它們散發著有點苦澀的煙熏味，仿佛它們的莖幹裏流淌著辛辣而多汁的野生粘液。從森林裏采摘風鈴草的人是文明的破壞者；他禁止在曼陀麗這樣做。有時，他在鄉間開車時，看到騎自行車的人在車把前掛著一大束風鈴草，花朵已經從枯萎的花頭上凋謝，飽受摧殘的花莖裸露著，髒兮兮的。
報春花卻不那麽在意，雖然是野生的，卻傾向於文明，它們會在小屋窗戶裏的果醬罐中毫無怨言地搔姿弄首，微笑著，隻要澆水，就能活上一個星期。曼陀麗的屋內沒有野花。他在圍牆圈起來的花園裏種植了專門擺在室內的園藝花。他說，玫瑰是少數幾種采摘後比種著更好看的花之一。客廳裏的一盆玫瑰花有著露天開放時所不具備的鮮豔色彩與濃香。盛開的玫瑰有一種相當浮誇、淺薄和喧鬧的感覺，就像頭發淩亂的女人。一旦在屋內，它們變得神秘細膩。一年中有八個月，他在曼陀麗莊園的室內都放著玫瑰。他問我，喜歡丁香嗎？他從臥室的窗邊就能聞到草坪邊上一棵丁香樹的芬芳。他的姐姐是個強悍而務實的人，常抱怨曼陀麗莊園裏有太多的花香，讓她醉了。也許她是對的。他不在乎。唯有花香使他沉醉。他最早的記憶是插在白色的花瓶裏的巨大丁香花束，讓房子裏彌漫著一種令人渴望的、淒美的香味。
從山穀到海灣的小路左邊種著一叢叢的落葉杜鵑和山杜鵑，如果你在五月的某一天晚飯後沿著小路漫步，你就會感覺到灌木叢在空氣中淌汗。你可以彎下腰，摘下一片落下的花瓣，用手指捏碎它，然後，在你的手掌中就有了千種奇香，濃烈而芬芳。這一切都來自一片卷曲而皺巴巴的花瓣。你走出山穀，頭暈目眩，來到鋪著堅硬的白色卵石的海灘和平靜的海麵。一個奇怪的、或許太突兀的對比……”
（He said nothing of his life there, no word about himself, but he told me how the sun set there, on a spring afternoon, leaving a glow upon the headland. The sea would look like slate, cold still from the long winter, and from the terrace you could hear the ripple of the coming tide washing in the little bay. The daffodils were in bloom, stirring in the evening breeze, golden heads cupped upon lean stalks, and however many you might pick there would be no thinning of the ranks, they were massed like an army, shoulder to shoulder. On a bank below the lawns, crocuses were planted, golden, pink, and mauve, but by this time they would be past their best, dropping and fading, like pallid snowdrops. The primrose was more vulgar, a homely pleasant creature who appeared in every cranny like a weed. Too early yet for bluebells, their heads were still hidden beneath last year's leaves, but when they came, dwarfing the more humble violet, they choked the very bracken in the woods, and with their colour made a challenge to the sky.
He never would have them in the house, he said. Thrust into vases they became dank and listless, and to see them at their best you must walk in the woods in the morning, about twelve o'clock, when the sun was over head. They had a smoky, rather bitter smell, as though a wild sap ran in their stalks, pungent and juicy. People who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; he had forbidden it at Manderley. Sometimes, driving in the country, he had seen bicyclists with huge bunches strapped before them on the handles, the bloom already fading from the dying heads, the ravaged stalks straggling naked and unclean.
The primrose did not mind it quite so much; although a creature of the wilds it had a leaning towards civilization, and preened and smiled in a jam-jar in some cottage window without resentment, living quite a week if given water. No wild flowers came in the house at Manderley. He had special cultivated flowers, grown for the house alone, in the walled garden. A rose was one of the few flowers, he said, that looked better picked than growing. 'A bowl of roses in a drawing-room had a depth of colour and scent they had not possessed in the open. There was something rather blousy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair. In the house they became mysterious and subtle. He had roses in the house at Manderley for eight months in the year. Did I like syringa, he asked me? There was a tree on the edge of the lawn he could smell from his bedroom window. His sister, who was a hard, rather practical person, used to complain that there were too many scents at Manderley, they made her drunk. Perhaps she was right. He did not care. It was the only form of intoxication that appealed to him. His earliest recollection was of great branches of lilac, standing in white jars, and they filled the house with a wistful, poignant smell.
The little pathway down the valley to the bay had clumps of azalea and rhododendron planted to the left of it, and if you wandered down it on a May evening after dinner it was just as though the shrubs had sweated in the air. You could stoop down and pick a fallen petal, crush it between your fingers, and you had there, in the hollow of your hand, the essence of a thousand scents, unbearable and sweet. All from a curled and crumpled petal. And you came out of the valley, heady and rather dazed, to the hard white shingle of the beach and the still water. A curious, perhaps too sudden contrast...）
以上段落中，馬克西姆將英國戶外春天常見的野花一一道來：最早開放的是番紅花和雪花蓮，黃水仙、報春花、香紫堇緊隨其後。水仙和報春花盛放時，番紅花和雪花蓮已經式微了。在英國，bluebell 指的是藍鈴花（Hyacinthoides non-scripta）或圓葉風鈴草（Campanula rotundifolia）的俗名。這兩種野花都是英國原始森林的標配，但藍鈴花是春花，風鈴草是夏花。風鈴草的莖幹折斷時會流出白色的乳液，從文中的花期和莖幹裏流著乳液這一特征判斷，bluebell是風鈴草。風鈴草多次出現在小說中的其他段落，用來表示戶外季節的更替，也代表了一種自由自在的精神，因為這些野花是被排斥在令人窒息的曼陀麗莊園之外的。
（番紅花）
（雪花蓮）
（黃水仙）
（報春花）
（香紫堇）
（藍鈴花） （風鈴草）
馬克西姆的家花野花論也符合當時英國上流社會男子的擇偶標準，出生卑賤狂放任性的女子（野花）是不能登堂入室的，身世清白、麵容姣好、品性純潔的淑女才是良配（家花）。淑女們都被圈在圍牆花園內精心培養，如擺放在客廳裏的玫瑰純潔貞靜，散發著紳士們喜歡的濃香，卻不許在室外如頭發淩亂的輕浮女人那樣恣意盛開。
幾乎所有的讀者都將山杜鵑（Rhododendron）和落葉杜鵑（Azalea）視為馬克西姆的前任太太麗貝卡（Rebecca）的象征。Rhododendron是一種樹形杜鵑，葉片像皮革一樣厚實，四季常青，動輒長到九至十二米高。Azalea是小株的落葉杜鵑，通常一兩米高，可以圍籬式種植，也可盆栽。筆者出國前隻見過Azalea，定居溫哥華後，有一回全家去參觀植物園，在杜鵑花區見到了高大的山杜鵑，一團團紫色、粉色、血紅色、白色的花掛滿了枝頭，如雲霞般燦爛。筆者驚得目瞪口呆，感歎世上竟然還有這麽高大的杜鵑，花兒漂亮的如此不真實，太突兀了！
（山杜鵑）
筆者的母親尤愛猩紅色的杜鵑（就是曼陀麗莊園的那種），從植物園回來後，母親在自家半敞的後院也種了一株同樣品種的小苗，幾年後伸展的樹枝覆蓋了半麵木圍牆。花開時刻尤為驚豔，鄰居們紛紛跑來拍照。有了真實的生活體驗，筆者完全可以想象的出馬克西姆的第二任太太新婚後初到曼陀麗莊園見到山杜鵑時錯愕的心情。正值五月初，在通往曼陀麗的路上，這些杜鵑花盛開得令人眼花繚亂，一團團的血紅色非常引入注目。小嬌妻無比震驚，“這些是怪物，直衝雲霄，像一個營的士兵排列在一起，，我覺得它們太漂亮了，太強大了；它們根本不像植物。”（These were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not like plants at all. ）那些山杜鵑不受控製地野蠻生長，高達50英尺（stood fifty feet high），擠占了車道，就連朝西的主臥室的窗台下也都種滿了紅杜鵑。紅色的杜鵑花甚至出現在房間裏，裝飾著已故的麗貝卡的晨間起居室裏的各種盛花器皿。這些火花的花朵昭示著麗貝卡揮之不去的存在、絕世的容顏、熱情奔放的性格、自由的意誌和殺伐果斷的魄力。
（山杜鵑）
山杜鵑花是沒有香味的，個別品種的落葉杜鵑花卻芬芳無比，被稱為香水杜鵑，筆者在自家前院就種了兩株香水杜鵑。陽光明媚的時刻，花香尤為濃烈，很適合做高級香水。這種香水杜鵑沒有山杜鵑那麽抗凍，適合生長在有遮蔽的地方，曼陀麗莊園的歡樂穀（Happy Valley）就是一個理想的清幽避風處。
（白花落葉杜鵑）
小說第十章，馬克西姆帶著新婚妻子去歡樂穀探幽，“這裏沒有黑壓壓的樹，沒有盤根錯節的灌木叢，但在狹窄道路的兩邊，長滿了落葉杜鵑和山杜鵑，不是車道上的那些血紅色的巨樹，而是橙紅色、白色和金色的，美麗而優雅，在柔和的夏雨中低垂著它們可愛、嬌嫩的花朵 。空氣中充滿了杜鵑花甜美而醉人的香味，在我看來，花香似乎已經與溪流融合在一起，與我們腳下的雨水和潮濕肥沃的苔蘚融為一體……我們靜靜地站著，沒有說話，低頭看著離我們最近的潔白的花朵，馬克西姆彎下腰，撿起一片落下的花瓣遞給我。花瓣已經壓碎了，傷痕累累，卷曲的邊緣變成了棕色，可當我用手摩擦它時，聞到了一股甜美濃鬱的香味，和長在樹上的新鮮花朵的芬芳沒什麽區別……”
（There were no dark trees here, no tangled undergrowth, but on either side of the narrow path stood azaleas and rhododendrons, not blood-coloured like the giants in the drive, but salmon, white, and gold, things of beauty and of grace, drooping their lovely, delicate heads in the soft summer rain.
The air was full of their scent, sweet and heady, and it seemed to me as though their very essence had mingled with the running waters of the stream, and become one with the falling rain and the dank rich moss beneath our feet……
We stood quite still, not speaking, looking down upon the clear white faces of the flowers closest to us, and Maxim stooped, and picked up a fallen petal and gave it to me. It was crushed and bruised, and turning brown at the curled edge, but as I rubbed it across my hand the scent rose to me, sweet and strong, vivid as the living tree from which it came……)
馬克西姆的第二任妻子在歡樂穀盡頭的海灘上發現了麗貝卡生前經常流連的船屋，又覺察到自己順手拿來穿在身上的一件膠質雨衣也是麗貝卡的，因為雨衣口袋裏的方手帕上繡著麗貝卡的英文名字縮寫，帕子上還散發出淡淡的白色落葉杜鵑花的香味。小說的第十四章，第二任妻子又在衣櫃裏找到了麗貝卡換下的尚未清洗的睡衣，也散發出同樣的杜鵑花香味。看來麗貝卡有用白色的落葉杜鵑花熏香的習慣。
（白花落葉杜鵑）
我們也可以把莊園裏的白色丁香（white lilac）視為麗貝卡無所不在的影響力。 這裏的liliac 指的是歐丁香（syringa vulgaris），通常是淡紫色花，也有白色品種。千萬不可與古詩詞裏的中國紫丁香（Syringa oblata）混為一談。
（白丁香）
初夏季節，曼陀麗莊園的室內總陳列著白丁香和玫瑰。某個夏日的早晨，莊園的新女主人懷裏抱滿了丁香花走進圖書館，被下人告知，她應該用麗貝卡用過的花瓶來插丁香花，並且把花瓶擺在相同的位置。後來她精心準備了一場舞會，“整個上午，園丁們都在把鮮花帶進屋裏，有最後一批白色的丁香，還有五英尺高的大羽扇豆和翠雀花，還有成百上千的玫瑰，還有各種各樣的百合花……”(All the morning the gardeners were bringing flowers into the house, the last of the white lilac, and great lupins and delphiniums, five foot high, roses in hundreds, and every sort of lily……” 在女管家的誘騙下，毫不知情的新女主人套上了麗貝卡於生前的最後一次舞會穿過的裙裝，出了大洋相，遭到丈夫訓斥，總之，她被杜鵑花和丁香花徹底打敗了。
（羽扇豆） （翠雀花）
莊園裏還種著忍冬（honeysuckle）和白色的木蘭花（white magnolia），這兩種植物隻在小說裏出現過一次，可以忽略不計。
（忍冬）
（白色木蘭花）
年輕時的馬克西姆被魅力四射的麗貝卡迷住了，以為得到了集“美貌、智慧、教養”（Beauty, brains,and breeding. ）於一身的女性。他後來對自己的第二任妻子坦白，他和麗貝卡結婚後的第五天，“她（麗貝卡）向我講述了她自己的事，告訴我一些我永遠無法向任何活著的人啟齒的事情。”（she told me about herself, told me things I shall never repeat to a living soul.）馬克西姆感受到了極大的恥辱，生平第一次起了激情殺人的念頭。
他開始懷念曼陀麗莊園東側的整潔有序的玫瑰園，它代表著一種純樸賢惠的女人，如馬克西姆的母親。馬克西姆小時候和母親曾在在玫瑰園裏散步，度過了美好的時光。他帶著第二任妻子回曼陀麗莊園時，小嬌妻就被安排在東側的正對著玫瑰園的房間。
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