巴别图书馆
The Library of Babel
巴别图书馆
Jorge Luis Borges
豪尔赫.路易斯.博尔赫斯
作者简介
豪尔赫.路易斯.博尔赫斯（Jorge Luis Borges，1899—1986），享誉世界的阿根廷诗人、翻译家、小说家，尤以短篇小说著称。他的短篇小说构思奇特、结构精巧、情节荒诞且充满幻想。此外，他的散文和艺术随笔同样成就不小。其代表作包括《小径分岔的花园》（The Garden of Forking Paths）、《巴别图书馆》（The Library of Babel）、《博尔赫斯口述》（Borges Oral）等。
《巴别图书馆》是博尔赫斯用西班牙语写成的短篇小说，最初收入1941年的小说集《小径分岔的花园》，后收入1944年的《虚构集》（Fictions）。本文节选自1962年的英译本。图书馆对博尔赫斯来说有不同寻常的意义：他先是在米格尔.卡内图书馆工作多年，后来担任阿根廷国立图书馆馆长直至退休。他最为人熟知的名言“我心中一直暗暗设想，天堂该是图书馆的模样”就与图书馆相关。
本文中，他以奇特的想象描绘了理想中的图书馆。在他的笔下，宇宙就是个图书馆，无穷无尽，极富变化。对爱书人来说，这或许是最令人神往之事。
The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one’s fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite (If it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite...Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.
宇宙（也有人称之为图书馆）由无穷无尽的六角书廊组成。书廊之间有巨大的通风井，周围是低矮的栏杆。从任何一个六角书廊放眼望去，皆可看见无限延伸的上下楼层。书廊的布置整齐划一，每间都有20个书架。除了两面墙之外，其余四面墙边各有5个长书架。每个书架都从地面一直顶到天花板，比普通书架略高一些。在没有摆书架的其中一面墙上，有一条通往另一间六角书廊的狭窄走道。所有的六角书廊都一模一样。走道左右有两个很小的房间，一间可供人站着睡觉，另一间则做厕所使用。这里还有一座螺旋形的楼梯，上通碧落，下抵黄泉。走道中还有一面镜子，能真实地复制一切。人们通常依此推断，图书馆并非无限。（如果图书馆是无限的，为何还有复制的幻象？）我更乐于想象，镜子光滑的表面反映了无尽，预示着无限……光线来自一些名叫“灯”的球状物体。每个六角书廊都横置着两盏这样的灯。它们发出的光线微弱而持久。
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary form of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.
...
与图书馆里的所有人一样，我年轻时也曾旅行。我曾为寻找一本书——或许是目录的总目录——而漫游；而如今，我已很难看清自己写下的文字，准备在自己出生的六角书廊附近死去。我死后，将有虔诚之手将我扔过栏杆；我的墓穴将是深不可测的天空；我的身体将不断坠落，并在无限的坠落中随风而散，化为无形。我说图书馆是无穷无尽的。理想主义者则声称，六角形房间是绝对空间[1]的必要形式，或者至少是人类空间直觉的必要形式。他们分析，三角形或五角形的房间是不可思议的。（神秘主义者则宣称，他们在迷幻状态下看见一个环形的房间，里面有一本环形的大书，它的书脊沿着环形墙壁连续不断。但他们的证词十分可疑；他们的话语含糊不清。这本循环的书是上帝。）现在让我重申那句经典格言：图书馆是个球体，以任意六角书廊为圆心，圆周长不可测。
……
Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which had nearly two pages of homogeneous lines. He showed his find to a wandering decoder who told him the lines were written in Portuguese; others said they were Yiddish. Within a century, the language was established: a Samoyedic Lithuanian dialect of Guarani, with classical Arabian inflections. The content was also deciphered: some notions of combinative analysis, illustrated with examples of variations with unlimited repetition. These examples made it possible for a librarian of genius to discover the fundamental law of the Library. This thinker observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are made up of the same elements: the space, the period, the comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet. He also alleged a fact which travelers have confirmed: In the vast Library there are no two identical books. From these two incontrovertible premises he deduced that the Library is total and that its shelves register all the possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthographical symbols (a number which, though extremely vast, is not infinite): Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels’ autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.
500年前，上层六角书廊的主管偶然看见一本像其他书一样令人费解的书，但其中近两页中的句子是类似的。他向一位云游四海的破译员请教自己的发现。那个人告诉他，这些句子是葡萄牙语写成的；也有人认为那是意第绪语。一个世纪之内，那种语言得到了确认——萨摩耶——立陶宛语的瓜拉尼方言，带有传统阿拉伯语的屈折变化。句子内容也得到了破译：一些综合分析的概念，用无限重复又有变化的事例加以阐释。这些事例使得一位天才图书馆员发现了图书馆的基本法则。这位思考者发现，所有的书无论有多大差别，都由相同的要素组成：空格、句号、逗号和字母表里的22个字母。他还指出了一个已得到旅行者确认的事实：浩瀚无边的图书馆里，没有两本完全相同的书。从这两个无可争议的前提出发，他得出了结论：图书馆无所不包，架上的书穷尽了20多个书写符号的一切组合。（这个数字尽管庞大，却并非无穷。）这些字母组合能表达一切，包括未来的详尽历史、天使长的自传、图书馆的真实书目、成千上万的伪书目、对伪书目中问题的论证、对真书目中问题的论证、巴西里德斯的诺斯底福音[2]、对这个福音的评论、对这些评论的评论、关于你死亡的真相、每本书的所有语言的译本以及所有书里的增补部分。
When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proffered dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad…The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man’s finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero.
人们得知图书馆收藏了所有的书时，第一反应便是感到幸福满溢。所有人都觉得自己是一座保存完好的神秘宝库的主人。所有的私人问题或关于世界的疑问都能在某些六角书廊里找到可靠的解答。宇宙合理化了，人类希望的无限维度却突然受到了宇宙的限制。那时有很多用于辩护的书：忏悔书和预言书。那些书总是为宇宙中每个人的行为辩解，并记录着有关每个人未来的奥秘。成千上万贪婪的人试图为自己寻找辩护。受到这种徒劳企图的驱使，他们放弃了自己温馨的六角书廊，冲上楼梯。这些朝圣者在狭窄的走道里争论不休，恶语相向，在神圣的楼梯上相互厮杀，把骗人的书本扔进通风管。他们自己则被远方居民以同样的方式扔进通风管，死于非命。还有些人疯了……辩护确实存在。（我看见过两本关于未来人类的辩护书，那些人不像是虚构出来的。）但搜索者忘记了一点：找到为自己辩护的书，或是一些不可靠的替代品的可能性可能为零。
At that time it was also hoped that a clarification of humanity’s basic mysteries—the origin of the Library and of time—might be found. It is verisimilar that these grave mysteries could be explained in words: if the language of philosophers is not sufficient, the multiform Library will have produced the unprecedented language required, with its vocabularies and grammars. For four centuries now men have exhausted the hexagons...There are official searchers, inquisitors. I have seen them in the performance of their function: they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of a broken stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no one expects to discover anything.
As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable. A blasphemous sect suggested that the searches should cease and that all men should juggle letters and symbols until they constructed, by an improbable gift of chance, these canonical books. The authorities were obliged to issue severe orders. The sect disappeared, but in my childhood I have seen old men who, for long periods of time, would hide in the latrines with some metal disks in a forbidden dice cup and feebly mimic the divine disorder.
那时，人们还希望找到对人类基本奥秘——图书馆和时间起源——的解释。这些严肃的奥秘似乎真的可以用文字解释：如果哲学家的语言不足以表达，那么，各种各样的图书馆会提供所需的语言，一种前所未见的语言，包含词汇和语法。400年来，人们已踏遍所有六角书廊……官方搜索者被称为“稽查员”。我见过他们工作的情形：他们到达目的地时总是筋疲力尽；他们谈起断裂的楼梯差点害自己丧命；他们与图书馆员谈论书廊和楼梯；他们有时会拿起身边的书随意翻阅，寻找伤风败俗的字眼。显然，他们不指望能发现什么。
自然而然，过分的希望带来的是极度的失望。一种笃定的观点认为，某个六角书廊的某个书架上藏有珍本，但这些珍本人手难及。这个观点似乎让人难以接受。一个亵渎神明的教派建议人们停止搜索，提议所有人随意摆弄字母和符号，直到它们在不太可能的机缘巧合中组合成符合教义的书。官方被迫颁布严格的法令。这个教派消失了。但在我小时候的很长一段时间里，我曾见过老人躲在厕所里，用被禁的骰盅摇着金属片，有气无力地模拟神界的混乱。
Others, inversely, believed that it was fundamental to eliminate useless works. They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the senseless perdition of millions of books. Their name is execrated, but those who deplore the “treasures” destroyed by this frenzy neglect two notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy is unique, irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles: works which differ only in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to suppose that the consequences of the Purifiers’ depredations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical.
相反，另一些人相信根除没用的书是关键。他们闯进六角书廊，出示或真或假的身份证件，满怀怒气地翻翻一本书，然后给所有的书架定罪。他们卫道士、苦行僧般的狂热，导致上百万本书莫名其妙地毁于一旦。他们的名字遭人咒骂，但那些谴责“珍宝”毁于狂热的人，忽视了两个明显的事实。其一，图书馆如此庞大，任何人为的削减都微不足道。其二，每本书都独一无二、无可替代，但由于图书馆无所不包，总能找到几十万本略有瑕疵的复制品。它们与原书的差别，不过是一个字母或一个逗号。我斗胆设想——这个设想与人们普遍的观点相反——这些清道夫蹂躏书籍带来的影响，被狂热分子营造的恐怖气氛夸大了。他们受到狂热的驱使，试图得到深红色六角书廊中的书。那些书的开本略小于普通书籍，书中蕴含无穷力量，配有插图，带有魔力。
We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone vestiges of this remote functionary’s cult still persist. Many wandered in search of Him. For a century they have exhausted in vain the most varied areas. How could one locate the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A’s position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to infinity...In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years. It does not seem unlikely to me that there is a total book on some shelf of the universe; I pray to the unknown gods that a man—just one, even though it were thousands of years ago! —may have examined and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified.
...
我们还知道那时的另一种迷信，即相信存在“书人”。（人们推断）在某个六角书廊的某个书架上，存在这样一本书——这本书是其余所有书的模板和完美纲要。某位图书馆员曾读过此书，而后变得近似于神。对这个人的古老的狂热崇拜，在此区域遗留的语言中仍然存在。许多人四处寻找这个人。一个世纪以来，他们筋疲力尽地走遍各地，却一无所获。如何找到他住过的那间受人崇敬的神秘六角书廊？有人提议用倒推法：为了找到甲书，先查看标出甲书位置的乙书；为找乙书，先看丙书；以此类推，直至无穷……在这样的探索中，我挥霍了多少光阴。在我看来，在宇宙的某个书架上，确实有一本无所不包之书。我向未知的神明祷告，祈盼已有人调查并读过此书——哪怕只有一个人，哪怕是在数千年之前。让荣誉、智慧、幸福属于别人吧——如果它们不属于我。让天堂存在吧，即使我身处地狱。让我遭受侮辱、陷入毁灭吧，只要有那么一瞬，通过一人之身，能证明伟大的图书馆确实存在。
……
The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species—the unique species—is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.
I have just written the word “infinite.” I have not interpolated this adjective out of rhetorical habit; I say that it is not illogical to think that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairways and hexagons can conceivably come to an end—which is absurd. Those who imagine it to be without limit forget that the possible number of books does have such a limit. I venture to suggest this solution to the ancient problem: The Library is unlimited and cyclical. If an eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same volumes were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order).
有条不紊的写作任务让我不再关注人类的现状。一种笃定的观点认为，万物都已被写尽。这种观点抹杀了人类的存在，或将我们化为幻影。我知道在有些地方，年轻人拜倒在书前，粗野地亲吻书页，但他们一个字母都不认识。传染病、异教冲突以及游历不可避免地导致盗寇横行，使人口数量骤减。我相信，我提到了近年来愈发频繁的自杀行为。或许高龄和恐惧欺骗了我，但我怀疑，人类这个独一无二的物种将走向灭亡，图书馆却将永存——它发出光芒、遗世独立、无穷无尽、安然静止，深藏无用、不朽、秘密的珍贵书籍。
我刚写下“无穷无尽”这个词。我插入这个形容词，并非出于修辞的习惯；我认为，“世界无边无际”这个想法合乎逻辑。那些认为“世界有限”的人假设在某个遥远的地方，走道、楼梯、六角书廊都有尽头——这真是荒谬。那些想象“世界无限”的人，忘记了书籍的数量或许有限。我斗胆为这个古老的问题给出解答：图书馆没有止境且周而复始。如果一位永生的旅行者朝任意方向穿越图书馆，许多个世纪之后，他会看见同样的书以同样的无序再次出现。（这种无序一旦重复，便形成了秩序，即“规律”。）
我怀疑，人类这个独一无二的物种将走向灭亡，图书馆却将永存——它发出光芒、遗世独立、无穷无尽、安然静止，深藏无用、不朽、秘密的珍贵书籍。
Jorge Luis Borges 豪尔赫•路易斯•博尔赫斯
[1] 物理学概念，牛顿认为宇宙中存在一个与任何物体均无相互作用，而且永远静止的空间，即“绝对空间”。
[2] 诺斯底福音，受诺斯底派影响写成的福音书，被正统教派视为异端和“伪福音”。
