呼啸山庄（全译本）

Wuthering Heights is the one and only novel by
Emily Bronte, who died at the age of twenty-nine, a
year after the publication of her novel. Her short life
was found to be quite as enigmatic as her masterpiece.
Born in 1818, she was the fifth of the six children of
an Irish country parson and his frail wife. Two years
later, when all six children were under the age of 7, the
Brontes made the Haworth Parsonage on the Yorkshire
moors their home, where the mother died of cancer soon
after her arrival. Her sister Elizabeth came aod stayed
on to look after the motherless family. But the children
had little affection from either the aunt or the father.
They kept very mucb to themselves, and imagined adven-
tures for their toy soldiers. So Emily and her younger
sister Anne invented a saga devoted to the island of
Gondal, in tiny books in microscopic writing which oc-
cupied them for years. They also had real adventures
of their own in the moors that stretch to a radius ot" 20
miles around the hill village of Haworth, which were
undoubtedly also a stirnulus to invention. After brief
unhappy experiences at schools and later working as a
governess, Emily returned at the end of 1842 to Haworth,
where she spent the rest of her brief life.
In 1845, ber elder sister Chariotte discovered
Emily＇s poems, and brought them out the following
year in a joint publication, Poems by Currer, Ellis dnd
Acton Bell. These poems by "Ellis Bell" (the pseudonym
of Emily) placo their author among the most original
poets of the century. Wuthering Heights, written be-
tween October 1845 and June 1846, was published by T.C.
Newby in December 1847. Unlike Charlotte＇s novel
Jane Eyre, it only rnet with hostile incomprehension.
A year later, the young authoress of the unrecognized
masterpiece died of consumption December 19, 1848.
Of her last days, Charlotte wrote: "Day by day, when 1
saw with what a front she met suffering, 1 looked on
her with an anguish of wonder and love. 1 have seen
nothing like it; but, indeed, 1 have never seen her paral-
lel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a
child, her nature stood alone."
It was from this unparalleled nature of hers that an
unparalleled novel came into being. The central action
of the novel evolves around Heathcliff＇s unparalleled
relationship with Catherine: from union to separation,
then from separation to reunion in death. It is set in
motion with the arrival of Heathcliff at Wuthering
Heights, a gypsy waif whom Mr. Eamshaw has picked
up in the streets of Liverpool and brings home to rear
as one of his own children. Heathcliff and the daughter
Cathy become attached to each other, while the father＇s
affection for the foundling makes his son Hindley furi-
ously jealous. Upon the early death of his father, Hind-
ley, now master of the house, bullies Heathcliff and
reduces him to the humiliating position of farm drudge,
though Cathy remains loyal as ever. An accident, how-
ever, brings her into Thrushcross Grange, where the young
girl becomes attracted by the young master Edgar Lin-
ton＇s good looks and good manners and the family＇s
social standing. When Heathcliff overhears her de-
claririg that she cannot marry him because it" would de-
grade her, he runs away in a rage of passion. The separa-
tion lasts until he returns three years later, mysteriously
enriched, to find Cathy unhappily married to Edgar.
Inflamed by Cathy＇s betrayal, the stormy eruptions of
his passionate and ferocious nature now make life in-
tolerable for her and promptly send the rueful broken-
hearted Cathy to her grave. Now that their earthly
separation is complete, the vengeful Heathcliff pursues
relentlessly the ruination of the two houses. The de-
monic thirst for revenge, however, brings him neither
satisfaction nor peace. Onlv. the memory. of the dead
Cathy drives him on with the "one universal idea" of
a final union with her spirit, which he ultimately brings
about with a wilful fast.
This strange tale is without question one ofthe great-
est tragic love stories of all times, comparable to Tol-
stoy＇s Anna Karenina and Cao Xueqin＇s The Dream of
the Red Chamber. However, there are significant dif-
ferences. Whereas both the Russian and the Chinese
masterpiece have for their background the glamourous
panorama ofglittering bigh society life, the tragic life and
death of Heathcliff and Catherina is set against the "at-
mospheric tumult" of the wild moors of the north of Eng-
land. Stripped of external trappings, the drama of their
"immortal" love appeals by an emotional power and
intensity of its own that defies mundane imagination.
But it is more than a great love story. For it is
also a tragedy of human alienation. Heathcliff begins
his fictional career as "a dirty, ragged, black-haired
child," a homeless gypsy foundling: an archetypal child
of nature. Once thrust into the midst of "h.uman" so-
ciety, his innocent nature begins to be twisted and distort-
ed by the forces of hate which tura the Heights into a
place "where every man＇s hand is against his neighbour."
Still he might endure it all and retain his human dignity,
did he not find himself betrayed by the only love which
is nothing less than his life itself. When that love is
beyond redemption in this world, Heathcliff＇s course of
utter alienation is destined not to end until it reaches,
inexorably, the other extreme of angelic innocence: "a
lying fiend, a monster, not a human being." After all,
"Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned!"
Most of all, however, the novel is a supreme true
tragedy in that it depicts the drama and spectacle of the
most poignant sufferings of a noble human soul. Heath-
cliff is a peculiar sort of the noble savage, and his nobi-
lity as a tragic hero lies essentially in his soul＇s great capa-
city for suffering. Linton suffers (innocently by mun-
dane standards), Cathy suffers (largely because she betrays
her true selt＇), but the emotional focus of the novel, that
which dominates and organizes the sequence of emo-
tional responses on the part of the attentive and sen-
sitive reader, is the sustained course of intense sufferings
that turns the hero＇s soul into a living hell. Read in this
light, the controversial "mysterious" novel becomes at
once a masterpiece comprehensible and admirable m
all its aspects and proportions.
Why does the novel open with a most bizarre blood-
curdling incident as it does? Simply because it means
to strike unerringly from the very beginning the keynote
df the hero＇s ever-suffering soul. Heathcliff＇s haunt-
ing cry "Come in! Come in! Cathy, do come in!"
echoes throughout the story. Even the commonplace
young city spark Lockwood is shaken by "such anguish
in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my
compassion made me overlook its folly." The siage is
set for a powerful tragedy of the ever-suffering soul.
One thing that has baffled and even repelled some
critics and readers alike is Heathcliff＇s "demonic" thirst
for revenge that plunges him into abysmal plots and fero-
cities against others, mostly innocent victims. Even her
sister Charlotte felt compelled to apologize for such "im-
morality" and send the "unredeemed" Heathcliff "never
once swerving in h……