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John Mortimer 约翰.莫蒂默
Jan 29th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Sir John Mortimer, barrister and freedom-fighter, died on January 16th, aged 85
约翰.莫蒂默爵士，法庭律师，自由斗士。1月16日辞世，享年85岁
EVERY true-born Englishman knows that the law is an ass. Rules are better honoured in the breach than the observance. Judges are best represented in a chorus line at the D’Oyly Carte. The English constitution is a vague formulation in someone’s head, and that foundation of English liberties, Magna Carta（注1）, is best known for banning eel-traps in the Thames. The firm clip of the law is for the other fellow. Behind the furled umbrellas and decorum, Englishmen are anarchists. Or, as John Mortimer liked to think of them, votaries of “my darling” Prince Kropotkin（注2）.
真正的英国人都知道，法律就是扯淡。法规不是为了遵守，是为了破坏；最好的法官在德奥义利.卡特剧院的合唱队里；英国宪法就是一模糊的意识形态；自由之基《大宪章》以禁止在泰晤士河投鳗鱼篓闻名。法律严谨，就是做给别人看的。透过收起的雨伞和绅士风度，英国人心中并无政府——或者用约翰.莫蒂默的话说，他们是“亲爱的”克鲁泡特金的忠实拥趸。
Mr Mortimer’s great service to his country was to sum up in one person both the weight of the law and a sharp, rollicking scepticism of it. He was an eminent lawyer, entering chambers in 1948 and becoming, in time, a Queen’s Counsel and a master of the bar. Few excelled him in cross-examination (the art of which, he liked to say, was “not to examine crossly”). Yet the law was only his day job, giving him the money and the material to write novels. At the bar he dressed scruffily, lest anyone take him for a conventional lawyer. He made fun of the “old sweethearts” on the bench, who would pass a death sentence and then go out for buttered muffins. And as for the law itself, “the great stone column of authority which has been dragged by an adulterous, careless, negligent and half-criminal humanity down the ages”,
[it] is a subject which, I may say, never interested me greatly. People in trouble, yes. Bloodstains and handwriting, certainly…Winning over a jury, fascinating. But law! The only honourable way to pass a law exam is to make a few notes on the cuff and take a quick shufti at them during the occasional visit to the bog.
论及莫蒂默对祖国之功，既有法律之重，也有对其肆无忌惮之疑。作为律师，他卓越出众，1948年进入事务所，不久后就服务王室，成为律师界泰斗。他的反诘问鲜有能敌，却称其艺术在于“切忌故意为难”。然而，律师只不过是莫蒂默的糊口职业，为得是为他的小说创作提供资金和写作材料。在法庭上，他总是衣冠不整，唯恐别人认为他“因循守旧”。对冷板凳上的“老情人”——那些曾经刚刚宣判别人死刑就去出门享用奶油松饼的律师，他嗤之以鼻。而说到法律，他认为不过是“自古以来通奸大意疏忽的‘半罪人’所拖拽而成的权威石柱阵”，
[法律]就从未让我欣然甚之。人之又难，无可置疑；世之有流血有记录，无需争辩…说陪审团，妙不可言。可法律啊！录小抄于袖口，若偶然陷入泥潭，挥袖撇之，若非如此，考试体面成绩无从得也。
Those words were not exactly his, but those of Horace Rumpole (seen above right, played by Leo McKern), whose adventures at the criminal bar Mr Mortimer tirelessly depicted in books and TV plays from 1975 onwards. He denied that Rumpole was entirely himself. There was much of his barrister-father in him, especially in his habit of quoting poetry to ward off unwelcome conversation, as well as borrowings from colourful colleagues. Rumpole was a cheroots-and-cheap-claret man (“Pommeroy’s claret keeps me astonishingly regular”), where Mr Mortimer favoured cigars and, at the dawn of the writing day, champagne. He often lost his cases, where Mr Mortimer was notably successful. Home for Rumpole was a mansion flat off Gloucester Road, where he lived in a state of miserable, snappish fidelity to Hilda, “She Who Must be Obeyed”. Mr Mortimer graced the well-heeled, pretty Chilterns near Henley-on-Thames, where children, stepchildren, a love-child, two wives called Penelope and the “Mortimer-ettes”, a claque of intelligent, charmed women, paid court to him and he to them.
确切地讲，这些话并不是莫蒂默所言，而出自贺拉斯.兰伯尔（上图右，雷欧.麦肯饰），其法庭经历自1975年起，多次被莫蒂默先生记录于书、于剧本之中。莫蒂默说，兰伯尔并无完全自我，身为律师之父的影子，在他身上随处可见；最明显的特点，莫过援引诗句，拒不善谈话于门外，不论同事肤色，他都曾伸手求助。兰伯尔抽方头雪茄，喝廉价红葡萄酒，他说：“饮博姆罗伊红葡萄，生活异常美好”；而莫蒂默则偏爱雪茄，写作之日时至黄昏，常小酌香槟。兰伯尔败诉乃家常便饭，而莫蒂默之成功举世瞩目。兰伯尔居于格洛斯特路上的公寓，生活困窘，惧内不堪；对其妻希尔达，忠之，骂之。莫蒂默则栖身牛津泰晤士河附近考究美丽的奇特恩斯，家中亲子、继子，私生子共居同一屋檐；两位妻子贝纳洛普和“莫蒂默夫人”才智过人，魅力四射，夫妇们相敬如宾。
A golden thread
唯一的金线
Where Rumpole and Mr Mortimer fused together was in their sense of how lawyers should behave. Both were freedom-fighters. They refused to prosecute: their role was to defend the individual against the weight and follies of the law. Rumpole, grubbing round the Old Bailey（注3） cells with their “perpetual smell of cooking”, refused to let his clients plead guilty while the smallest doubt remained. He liked to quote Lord Sankey’s（注4） words on the presumption of innocence, the “single golden thread” that ran through English law.
兰伯尔同莫蒂默之同，在于他们认同的律师举止，在于他们为自由而抗争，在于他们反对告发——他们的职责就是帮助被告者，使之不受权重而愚蠢的法律侵害。兰伯尔总是在老贝勒“总是飘着饭香”的牢房中徘徊，只要一丝疑虑未解，就不会让委托人服罪。他喜欢在假定别人无罪时援引桑基爵士的比喻：无罪推定原则是英国法律中“唯一的金线”。
Mr Mortimer, also tracing that thread, took on the most celebrated free-speech cases of the 1970s, and won them all. Largely thanks to him, the lord chamberlain’s censoring hand was lifted from the theatre. Thanks to him, Englishmen could read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover（注5）” and “Inside Linda Lovelace（注6）”, could see Rupert Bear with an erection in Oz magazine, and could endure a Roman soldier’s tryst with the body of Jesus in Gay News（注7）. Mr Mortimer hated pornography. But “Liberty is allowing people to do things you disapprove of.”
这一金线同样也为莫蒂默德追求，20世纪70年代，他承接了几宗最著名的自由言论案例，无一失手。正因为他，剧院才摆脱了宫务大臣的监察之手；正因为他，英国人才得以阅读《查泰莱夫人的情人》和《琳达.拉芙蕾丝自传》，得以在Oz杂志上看到勃起的鲁珀特熊，得以忍受《同志新闻》中罗马士兵和耶稣之躯幽会。莫蒂默先生憎恶色情读物；然而，“自由者，容人为己之憎恶也。”
He took that conviction into politics, too. It led him to support foxhunting and to resume smoking in old age, just to defy the ban. He played the devil’s advocate on behalf of freedom everywhere, from the Oxford Union to the dinner table. Bishops were a favourite target, rapiered for the “absurdity” of life and the worse absurdity of heaven, which had to resemble “the lounge of a Trusthouse Forte hotel”. People, he thought, should be regularly shocked. Offence “makes society move”.
这种观点被他带入政界。因此他赞成猎狐，晚年重拾烟蒂，只为挑衅禁令。从牛津大学俱乐部到晚餐餐桌，他无不身肩自由使命高唱反调。他最喜欢抨击主教，称生活已然荒谬天堂更是无稽——也就同福特集团酒店大堂别无二异。他认为人们应该时不时震惊。无冒犯，“社会何谈前进”。
All this, he admitted, came close to anarchism. Yet at its base was something different. He took up the law, which made all else possible, out of obedience to his father. Clifford Mortimer was blinded when John was 13, yet continued his law practice and his life as though nothing had happened. For his son—as he explained in his play, “A Voyage Round My Father”, in 1971—a career at the bar was an extension of all the other duties he assumed for his demanding, unseeing parent, from tying up the dahlias and trapping earwigs to handing him his boiled egg, or his coat.
He walked with his hand on my arm. A small hand, with loose brown skin. From time to time, I had an urge to pull away from him, to run into the trees and hide…But then his hand would tighten on my sleeve…He was very persistent…
他承认，这一切都近乎无政府主义，然立足点却不同。法律造就了莫蒂默的一切，而他踏入律师界却是“谨遵父命”。年仅13岁，父亲柯利福德.莫蒂默便双目失明，却若无其事地继续行使法律，继续生活。在1971年的戏剧《环父之旅》中，莫蒂默写道：自从儿时帮助失明父亲扎绑大丽花、捕捉蠼螋、递送煮鸡蛋和外套起，律师工作也就成了父亲的期待，成了命中注定。
走路的时候，他会握住我的手臂——他的手不大，皮肤浅褐色，触觉松垮。有时，我内心有一种冲动想要挣脱，跑进树林住躲起…但这时，他就会更紧地握住我的衣袖…他很固执…
The freedom-fighter defied most laws but not this one, family love.
这位自由斗士对多数准则都发出挑衅，但面对亲情，他却缄默了。
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Notes:
1. 大宪章（拉丁文：Magna Carta ， 英文：The Great Charter ）是英国于1215年订立的宪法，用来限制英国国王（主要是针对当时的约翰）的绝对权力。订立大宪章的主因是教皇、英王约翰及封建贵族对王室权力出现意见分歧。大宪章要求王室放弃部分权力，尊重司法过程，接受王权受法律的限制。大宪章是英国在建立宪法政治这长远历史过程的开始。（摘自wikipedia）
2. 彼得• 阿历克塞维奇•克鲁泡特金（1842年12月9日－1921年2月8日），俄国革命家和地理学家，无政府主义的重要代表人物之一，“无政府共产主义”的创始人。（摘自wikipedia）
3. 老贝勒：英国最著名的法庭，正式名称为“中央刑事法庭”。位于伦敦，因所在街道得名。（摘自朗文现代英语辞典）
4. 约翰.桑基（1866.10.26-1948.2.6）英国著名政治家，在英国国会上议院中做出的许多裁决闻名于世。
5. 《查泰莱夫人的情人》是劳伦斯最后的一部长篇小说，1928年7月在佛罗伦萨出版，立刻受到英国文学界的攻击，英国当局以“有伤风化”的罪名予以查封，直到1958年才得以解禁。《查泰莱夫人的情人》讲的是，康妮(康斯坦斯的爱称)嫁给了贵族地主查泰莱为妻，但不久他便在战争中负伤，腰部以下终身瘫痪。在老家中，二人的生活虽无忧无虑，但却死气沉沉。庄园里的猎场守猎人重新燃起康妮的爱情之火及对生活的渴望，她经常悄悄来到他的小屋幽会，尽情享受原始的、充满激情的性生活。康妮怀孕了，为掩人耳目到威尼斯度假。这时守猎人尚未离婚的妻子突然回来，暴露了他们之间的私情。巨大的社会差距迫使康妮为生下孩子先下嫁他人，只能让守猎人默默地等待孩子的降生。（摘自安徽新闻网）
6. 琳达.拉芙蕾丝的第一部自传小说。作者是一位有名的色情演员。以《深喉》一片一举成名。
7. 同志新闻：英国双周刊，1972年6月，由“同性恋解放阵线”和“同性恋平等运动”共同创办。
《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
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发表于 2009-2-2 10:44
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