翻譯：
愛醜之欲
幾年前的壹個冬日，我乘坐賓夕法尼亞鐵路公司的壹班快車離開匹茲堡，向東行駛壹小時，穿越了威斯特摩蘭縣的煤城和鋼都。這是我熟悉的地方，無論是童年時期還是成年時期，我常常經過這壹帶。但以前我從來沒有感到這地方荒涼得這麽可怕。這兒正是工業化美國的心臟，是其最賺錢、最典型活動的中心，世界上最富裕、最偉大的國家的自豪和驕傲——然而這兒的景象卻又醜陋得這樣可怕，淒涼悲慘得這麽令人無法忍受，以致人的抱負和壯誌在這兒成了令人毛骨悚然的、令人沮喪的笑料。這兒的財富多得無法計算，簡直都無法想象——也是在這兒，人們的居住條件又是如此之糟，連那些流浪街頭的野貓也為之害羞。
我說的不僅僅是臟。鋼鐵城鎮的臟是人們意料之中的事。我指的是所看到的房子沒有壹幢不是醜陋得令人難受，畸形古怪得讓人作嘔的。從東自由鎮到格林斯堡，在這全長25英裏的路上，從火車上看去，沒有壹幢房子不讓人看了感到眼睛不舒服和難受。有的房子糟得嚇人，而這些房子競還是壹些最重要的建築——教堂、商店、倉庫等等。人們驚地看著這些房子，就像是看見壹個臉給子彈崩掉的人壹樣。有的留在記憶裏，甚至回憶起來也是可怕的：珍尼特西面的壹所樣子稀奇古怪的小教堂，就像壹扇老虎窗貼在壹面光禿禿的、似有麻風散鱗的山坡上；參加過國外戰爭的退伍軍人總部，設在珍尼特過去不遠的另壹個淒涼的小鎮上。沿鐵路線向東不遠處的壹座鋼架，就像壹個巨大的捕鼠器。但我回憶裏出現的三要還是壹個總的印象——連綿不斷的醜陋。從匹茲堡到格林斯 堡火車調車場，放眼望去，沒有壹幢像樣的房子。沒有壹幢不是歪歪扭扭的，沒有壹幢不是破破爛爛的。
盡管到處是林立的工廠，遍地彌漫著煙塵，這壹地區的自然 黴仟並不差。就地形而論，這兒是壹條狹窄的河谷，其中流淌著壹道道發源自山間的深溪。這兒的人口雖然稠密，但並無過分擁擠的 跡象，即使在壹些較大的城鎮中，建築方面也還大有發展的余地。這兒很少見到有高密度排列的建築樓群，幾乎每壹幢房屋，無論大小，其四周都還有剩余的空地。顯然，如果這壹地區有幾個稍有職業責任感或榮譽感的建築師的話，他們準會緊依山坡建造壹些美觀雅致的瑞士式山地小木屋——壹種有著便於冬季排除積雪的陡坡屋頂，寬度大於高度，依山而建的低矮的小木屋。可是，他們實際上是怎麽做的呢？他們把直立的磚塊作為造房的模式，造出了壹種用骯臟的護墻板圍成的不倫不類的房屋，屋頂又窄又平，而且整個地安放在壹些單薄的、奇形怪狀的磚垛上。這種醜陋不堪的房屋成百上千地遍布於壹個個光禿禿的山坡上，就像是壹些墓碑豎立在廣闊荒涼的墳場上。這些房屋高的壹側約有三四層，甚至五層樓高，而低的壹側看去卻像壹群埋在爛泥潭裏的豬鑼。垂直式的房屋不到五分之壹，大部分房屋都是那樣東倒西歪，搖搖欲墜地固定在地基上。每幢房屋上都積有壹道道的塵垢印痕，而那壹道道垢痕的間隙中，還隱隱約約露出壹些像濕疹痂壹樣的油漆斑痕。
偶爾也可以看到壹幢磚房，可那叫什麽磚啊！新建的時候，它的顏色像油煎雞蛋，然而壹經工廠排放出來的煙塵熏染，蒙上壹層綠銹時，它的顏色便像那早已無人問津的臭蛋壹樣了。難道壹定得采用這種糟糕的顏色嗎？這就與把房屋都建成直立式壹樣沒看攀要。若是用紅磚造房，便可以越古老陳舊越氣派，即使在鋼鐵城鎮中也是如此。紅磚就算被染得漆黑，看起來還是能夠使人悅目，尤其是如果用白石鑲邊，經雨水壹洗刷，凹處煙垢殘存，凸處本色外露，紅黑映襯，更覺美觀。可是在威斯特摩蘭縣，人們卻偏偏喜歡用那血尿般的黃色，因此便有了這種世界上最醜陋不堪、最令人惡心的城鎮和鄉村。
我是在經過壹番苦心探究和不斷祈禱後才將這頂醜陋之最的桂冠封贈於威斯特摩蘭縣的。我自信我已見到過世界上所有的醜陋之極的城鎮，它們全都在美國。我目睹了日趨衰落的新英格蘭地區的工業城鎮，也目睹了猶他州、亞利桑那州和得克薩斯州的荒漠城市。我熟悉紐瓦克、布魯克林和芝加哥的偏街僻巷，並曾對新澤西州的卡姆登和弗吉尼亞州的紐波特紐斯作過科學的考察。我曾安安穩穩地坐著普爾曼臥車，周遊了衣阿華州和堪薩斯州那些昏暗淒涼的村鎮以及佐治亞州那些烏煙瘴氣的沿海漁村。我到過康涅狄格州的布裏奇港，還去過洛杉磯市。然而，在世界上的任何壹個地方，無論國內國外，我從未見到過任何東西可以與那些擁擠在賓夕法尼亞鐵路從匹茲堡調車場到格林斯堡路段沿線的村莊相比。它們無論在色彩上還是在樣式上都是無與倫比的。仿佛有什麽與人類不***戴天的、能力超常的鬼才，費盡心機，動員魔鬼王國裏的鬼斧神工，才造出這些醜陋無比的房屋來。這些房屋不僅醜陋而且奇形怪狀，使人回頭壹看，頓覺它們已變成壹個個青面獠牙的惡魔。人們無法想象單憑人的力量如何能造出如此可怕的東西來，也很難想到。
原文：the depths and the high spots washed by the rain. But in Westmoreland they prefer that uremic yellow, and so they have the most loathsome towns and villages ever seen by mortal eye.
5 I award this championship only after laborious research and incessant prayer. I have seen, I believe, all of the most unlovely towns of the world; they are all to be found in the United States. I have seen the mill towns of decomposing New England and the desert towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas. I am familiar with the back streets of Newark, Brooklyn and Chicago, and have made scientific explorations to Camden, N. J. and Newport News, Va. Safe in a Pullman , I have whirled through the g1oomy, Godforsaken villages of Iowa and Kansas, and
the malarious tidewater hamlets of Georgia. I have been to Bridgeport, Conn., and to Los Angeles. But nowhere on this earth, at home or abroad, have I seen anything to compare to the villages that huddle aloha the line of the Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh yards to Greensburg. They are incomparable in color, and they are incomparable in design. It is as if some titanic and aberrant genius , uncompromisingly inimical to man, had devoted all the ingenuity of Hell to the making
of them. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that, in retrospect ,become almost diabolical.One cannot imagine mere human beings concocting such dreadful things, and one can scarcely imagine human beings bearing life in them.
6 Are they so frightful because the valley is full of foreigners--dull, insensate brutes, with no love of beauty in them? Then why didn't these foreigners set up similar abominations in the countries that they came from? You will, in fact, find nothing of the sort in Europe--save perhaps in the more putrid parts of England. There is scarcely an ugly village on the whole Continent. The peasants, however poor, somehow manage to make themselves graceful and charming habitations, even in Spain. But in the American village and small town the pull is always toward ugliness, and in that Westmoreland valley it has been yielded to with an eagerness bordering upon passion. It is incredible that mere ignorance should have achieved such masterpieces of horror.
7 On certain levels of the American race, indeed, there seems to be a positive libido for the ugly, as on other and less Christian levels there is a libido for the beautiful. It is impossible to put down the wallpaper that defaces the average American home of the lower middle class to
mere inadvertence , or to the obscene humor of the manufacturers. Such ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a genuine delight to a certain type of mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure and unintelligible demands. The taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as common as the taste for dogmatic theology and the poetry of Edgar A Guest.
8 Thus I suspect (though confessedly without knowing) that the vast majority of the honest folk of Westmoreland county, and especially the 100% Americans among them, actually admire the houses they live in, and are proud of them. For the same money they could get vastly better ones, but they prefer what they have got. Certainly there was no pressure upon the Veterans of Foreign Wars to choose the dreadful edifice that bears their banner, for there are plenty of vacant buildings along the trackside, and some of them are appreciably better. They might, in- deed, have built a better one of their own. But they chose that clapboarded horror with their eyes open, and having chosen it, they let it mellow into its present shocking depravity. They like it as it is: beside it,
the Parthenon would no doubt offend them. In precisely the same way the authors of the rat-trap stadium that I have mentioned made a deliberate choice: After painfully designing and erecting it, they made it perfect in their own sight by putting a completely impossible penthouse painted a staring yellow, on top of it. The effect is that of a fat woman with a black eye. It is that of