雜譚點滴
評天下大事小事，抒懷中喜怒哀樂。有聊無聊，即興隨筆。冀望四海知音，或存觀省。
這幾天讀了埃德加·愛倫·坡的小說（Edgar Allan Poe）的中篇小說 《莫格街凶殺案》（The Murders in the Rue Morgue）。
文學界公認該作品是現代偵探小說的鼻祖。咱雖然是福爾摩斯迷，而且福爾摩斯對杜賓 (Dupin, 愛倫·坡小說裏的法國偵探）不屑一顧，但畢竟是鼻祖級的作品，不能不讀。
讀後，確實能從柯南道爾塑造的福爾摩斯身上看到杜賓的影子。
人物構架也雷同。在柯南道爾的係列小說裏，大偵探福爾摩斯離不開他的搭檔華生。華生在福爾摩斯麵前相形見絀，對福爾摩斯佩服得五體投地。華生其實就是個襯托，是為了凸顯福爾摩斯的偵探天賦。此外還有來自官方的偵探，他們對案件往往一籌莫展。
在 愛倫·坡的小說裏，也有來自官方的偵探，同樣很笨。杜賓是業餘偵探，但具有特殊的推理天賦，他能通過人的肢體看到內心活動。當然還有一位類似華生的角色做搭檔，他就是故事的敘述者。跟華生對福爾摩斯一樣，敘述者對杜賓佩服得五體投地，讚賞不已。
而且，像華生和福爾摩斯一樣，敘述者與杜賓兩人同居一室，與外界也不怎麽接觸。兩人出門上街還摟肩搭背，不清楚是啥關係--這個不重要啦。
《莫格街凶殺案》故事本身並不複雜，但挺引人入勝。在巴黎莫格街上發生了一件神秘而殘忍的凶殺案，死者是一對頗為富有的母女，兩人被凶手以離奇又凶殘的手法殺害。聽到受害人慘叫後，幾位鄰居和巴黎警察及時趕到現場。他們往樓上衝時聽到除了受害者以外還有兩個聲音。一個聲音是法語，可以判斷出這是一個極度恐慌的法國人發出的聲音。另一個聲音，則沒有人能聽懂，或判斷出生哪國語言。受害人的房間從內部緊鎖。他們砸開房間，房間一片狼藉，屋內貴重的錢幣沒有丟失（案件發生前，母女剛才銀行提取了很多錢），在壁爐的煙囪邊發現受害的年輕女子，身體倒掛著，慘不忍睹。母親的屍體在院子裏發現，頭都快被割斷了。
可是，房間從內部鎖著，兩個窗子都緊閉。凶手是怎麽進來的，又是怎麽逃出去的？那兩個聲音，尤其是第二個，是誰發出的？此案存在似乎無法解開的死結。警察匆匆抓了一位嫌疑人了事。
當然，杜賓最終把案子破了。具體的破案細節就不透露了。這裏要講的是小說的開頭和結尾。
小說的開頭三段比較羅嗦，也比較難懂。我把原文搬過來：
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture. --Sir Thomas Browne, Urn-Burial.
THE mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract --Let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.
Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to proceed by "the book," are points commonly regarded as the sum total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation --all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of their own.
The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.
洋洋灑灑寫了這麽多前言後，案件才正式展開。如果隻對偵探感興趣，這幾段完全可以越過。
警方不但沒破案，還抓錯了人（Le Bon)。杜賓破案後，到警察局去解釋。小說的最後兩段是杜賓對官方偵探的評價，原文如下：
Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his own business.
"Let him talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. "Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna, -- or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas.' "
最後一段用了三個比喻：
1. "In his wisdom is no stamen"
2. "It is all head and no body like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,"
3. "or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish."
一頭霧水，不懂。看不懂就查文獻。從網文到學術論文，找到了很多相關討論。下麵是其中一篇，並把相關的部分搬過來，供參考方麵。
Lemay, J.A. Leo, "The Psychology of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'", American Literature, vol. 54, no. 2 (1982), 165-66.
In the conclusion of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe wrote three metaphors which challenge the reader. They do not make literal sense. Dupin is explaining (for the final time) the reason why the Prefect of Police failed to solve the mystery. Dupin says, "in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound." He illustrates the generalization with three paradoxical comparisons: "In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna, - or at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish."
I believe that if we fully understand the ways that these three metaphors - and the final quotation - complement the story, then we will understand the psychology of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
All three tropes point to a head-body dichotomy and all concern sex. The first, "In his wisdom is no stamen," is an obvious paradox. What does stamen have to do with wisdom? The stamen, of course, is a flower's pollen-producing organ - comparable to the male genitalia. (Since the stamen indicates one essential theme of the story, Poe may also have been punning on the uncommon meaning of stamen as "the fundamental or essential element of a thing.") Literally, Dupin seems to be saying that the Prefect failed to solve the mystery because he failed to take sex into account - or because he failed to integrate the entire person, head and body, intellect and sex.
The second trope, "It is all head and no body like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna," directly names the head-body dichotomy. In identifying the head with Laverna, Dupin reverses the normal, expected associations; for the head - the citadel of reason - is usually associated with intelligence and wisdom, as in the first trope. Laverna, however, is the classical goddess of the underworld, night, and thieves. She suggests crime and evil, not wisdom and good. This trope echoes at least two details in the story. The head-body dichotomy recalls the corpse of Madame L'Espanaye "with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off". And the Goddess Laverna reminds us of an attribute of Dupin and the narrator, for the goddess of the night is evidently the "sable divinity" whom Dupin is "enamored of".
The third trope is "or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish." Does a fish have shoulders? Even by itself, the metaphor seems strained, since a fish appears to be an absurd choice. This comparison again reverses the normally positive associations of wisdom and instead identifies it with a fish-head, a monstrosity of mouth and jaws. The comparison again emphasizes the head-body dichotomy, thus reaffirming that "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" concerns this dualism. Further, the codfish reference, which calls attention to itself, probably does so for the sexual suggestion. Marlowe, Shakespeare, and other Renaissance writers frequently pun about cods and codfish, and Mark Twain's splendidly scurrilous poem "The Mammoth Cod" attests that the pun remained popular until well after Poe's time. More Info So when Poe drags in a reference to a codfish, I suspect that, as in the first trope, he alludes to sex, as well as to the head-body dichotomy.
貌似學問很深。還是留給專業人士去解讀吧。
讀後匆匆寫了篇隨感，雖然是淺嚐輒止，但對自己有個交代。
至於高深的學問，留著以後慢慢咀嚼品味吧。
2023年3月11日，星期六
附：The Murders in the Rue Morgue 全文鏈接：
我是福爾摩斯迷。握手！
先讚！