若茫旎欧·客拉蕊雅

"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes"  - Marcel Proust

The real quest is not for knowledge, but for understanding

Devil in the detail

重要的是忠实自己的理想并且始终如一坚持下去的品质，而不是作品的优劣

Mr. Robert Lynd once remarked of Jane Austen’s characters: ‘They are people in whose lives a slight fall of snow is an event.’ Even at the risk of appearing to this witty and genial critic as another Mr. Woodhouse, I must insist that last night’s fall of snow here was an event. I was nearly as excited about it this morning as the children, whom I found all peering through the nursery window at the magic outside and chattering as excitedly as if Christmas had suddenly come round again. The fact is, however, that the snow was as strange and enchanting to me as it was to them. It is the first fall we have had here this winter, and last year I was out of the country, broiling in the tropics, during the snowy season, so that it really does seem an age since I saw the ground so fantastically carpeted. It was while I was away last year that I met the three young girls from British Guiana who had just returned from their first visit to England. The two things that had impressed them most were the endless crowds, of people in the London street, all strangers (they emphasized this, for they had spent all their lives in a little town where everybody knows everybody), and the snow-covered landscape they awoke to, one morning when they were staying somewhere in Somerset. They were so thrilled and delighted that they flung away any pretence of being demure young ladies and rushed out of the house to run to and fro across the glittering white expanses, happily scattering footmarks on the untrodden surface, just as the children did in the garden this morning.

The first fall of snow is not only an event but it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up to find yourself in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found? The very stealth, the eerie quietness, of the thing makes it more magical. If all the snow fell at once in one shattering crash, awakening us in the middle of the night the event would be robbed of its wonder. But it flutters down, soundless, hour after hour while we are asleep. Outside the closed curtains of the bedroom a vast transformation scene is taking place, just as if a myriad elves and brownies were at work, and we turn and yawn and stretch and know nothing about it. And then, what an extraordinary change it is! It is as if the house you are in had been dropped down in another continent. Even the inside, which has not been touched, seems different, every room appearing smaller and cosier, just as if some power were trying to turn it into a woodcutter’s hut or sung log-cabin. Outside, where the garden was yesterday, there is now a white and glistening level, and the village beyond is no longer your own familiar cluster of roofs but a village in an old German fairy-tale. You would not be surprised to learn that all the people there, the spectacled postmistress, the cobbler, the retired school master, and the rest, had suffered a change too and had become queer elvish beings, purveyors of invisible caps and magic shoes. You yourselves do not feel quite the same people you were yesterday. How could you when so much has been changed? There is curious stir, a little shiver of excitement, troubling the house, not unlike the feeling there is abroad when a journey has to be made. The children, of course, are all excitement but even the adults hand about and talk to one another longer than usual before settling down to the day’s work. Nobody can resist the windows. It is like being on board a ship.

When I got up this morning the world was a chilled hollow of dead white and faint blues. The light that came through the windows was very queer, and it contrived to make the familiar business of splashing and shaving and brushing and dressing very queer too. Then the sun came out, and by the time I had sat down to breakfast it was shining bravely and flushing the snow with delicate pinks. The diningroom window had been transformed into a lovely Japanese print. The little plum-tree outside, with the faintly flushed snow lining its boughs and artfully disposed along its trunk, stood in full sunlight. An hour or two later everything was a cold glitter of white and blue. The world had completely changed again. The little Japanese prints had all vanished. I looked out of my study window, over the garden, the meadow, to the low hills beyond, and the ground was one long glare, the sky was steely, and all the trees so many black and sinister shapes. There was indeed something curiously sinister about the whole prospect. It was as if our kindly countryside, close to the very heart of England, had been turned into a cruel steppe. At any moment , it seemed, a body of horsemen might be seen breaking out from the black copse, so many instruments of tyranny might be heard and some distant patch of snow be reddened. It was that kind of landscape.

Now it had changed again. The glare has gone and not touch of the sinister remains. But the snow is falling heavily, in great soft flakes, so that you can hardly see across the shallow valley, and the roofs are thick and the trees all bending, and the weathercock of the village church, still to be seen through the grey loaded air, has become some creature out of Hans Andersen. From my study, which is apart from the house and faces it, I can see the children flattening their noses against the nursery window, and there is running through my head a jangle of rhyme I used to repeat when I was a child and flattened my nose against the cold window watching the falling snow:

Snow, snow faster;
Whit alabaster!
Killing geese in Scotland,
Sending feathers here!

兲朝

码这段字的时候，Lance已经在准备今年的最后一个赛段比赛了吧，这一次，他还会在路上喝香槟么？几个小时以后，香榭丽舍那个领奖台上，黄色的领骑衫将穿在一个西班牙人身上，而7届总冠军得主，将会站在比他小11和14岁的小朋友身边，开始一段新的传奇……

第一次知道Lance的时候还小，环法对于偶而言只是一个风景show，不知道对于自行车运动员来说，Le tour de France是至高无上的，Alps是艰苦和神圣的考验，香榭丽舍是荣誉殿堂。2002年，天朝5台第一次录像了环法大赛，暑假坐在家里面，看着一个美国人统治着法莫道不消魂国的公路，觉得挺好玩。

2003年，高半夜凉初透考结束，看Lance和Ullrich的决斗，记得第一场ITT，Ullrich击败Lance，记得Lance在上坡时被观众挂到，Ullrich停下来等待，Lance像超人一样从后赶上，超越所有的人，记得那场雨中的ITT，Ullrich摔倒的时候车轮在地面擦出了火星，最后惜败。那是一届两个人之间的环法，那时候开始，慢慢的开始喜欢上这个Texan。

2004年，Ivan Basso和Lance Armstrong的山地决战，偶记得最清楚的一幕是两个人第一场climbing，Lance在最后时刻将赛段冠军让给Basso，Ivan在过线之后双手指天，为自己癌症去世的亲属祈祷的镜头，那一刻，顿时觉得Lance是一个伟大的车手，之后的比赛，Lance再不谦让，15，16，17赛段统治性地拿下赛段冠军，也统治性地拿下那一年的总冠军。

2005年，Lance似乎是为了完成传奇而骑行，不再带着悬念的拿下史无前例的7冠王，转身告别。香榭丽舍发奖的时候，Lance和Basso一人一个小孩子，可爱。

离开了这个美国人，环法还得继续看，最好的死党给我一本《重返艳阳下》，读完了，英雄的形象渐渐在心中清晰起来，2006吃药的Landis，2007侥幸的康塔多，2008年，甚至都不知道总冠军是Sastre。Alps山路上再看不到那个奋力骑行的车王，越来越怀念2002到2005那些守夜看的比赛，那些Lance在赛道上solo run，在ITT中风驰电掣，在climbing时没有任何人能够跟上的Attack，这时候，总是埋怨自己，为何总是在一段传奇渐渐远去的时候，才意识到它的伟大？

2009年，阿壮哥回来了。

第一站，ITT，Monaco，记得很清楚，第19个出发的是Lance，Astana经理解释说是因为害怕天气会变差，镜头给了Lance全程，到达终点时领先当时第二好成绩30秒钟（15KM比赛），让偶心里面顿时充满了欣喜，那个Tour de Lance英雄又回来了！虽然看完他就睡了，第二天知道Kloden，Contador和拉拉都比他要好，但是这只是第一赛段吖！2009年的期待继续。

接下来的队记赛，Lance瞬间上升到第二，0.2秒的优势，立马让人感受到车王回归的气势，偶这个观众，都已经忍不住开始幻想八冠王站在巴黎的景象了。

然而，岁月如刀，刀刀催人老。

来到山地，Lance不再像曾经那样有队友护送上山，22的号码也注定他必须考虑康塔多的位置，那个实力强劲却自私，从来就不曾讨我喜欢的西班牙人，和两个卢森堡小帅哥一次又一次的发起attack，Lance却只是在后面和Kloden默默的骑行，一夜又一夜，坐在电脑前，期待着Armstrong's solo，却只看到了他从第二到了第二，而第一却从拉拉换成了罗森蒂尼又换成了康塔多。直到16赛段，那天晚上，Peloton在骑行时，卢森堡兄弟突然发起attack，康塔多，kloden都跟了上去，而Lance却落下了，10米，100米，10秒，30秒。我曾经的英雄，真的只能屈服给时间么？

然后，我就激动得哭起来了。

Lance开始站立骑行，往前，Kirchen跟上，后面的人望尘莫及，Lance坐下来骑，慢下来，我心中一紧，然而那个老家伙，那个Alps的王，重新开始了他的solo，撇下了Kirchen，撇下了Evans，撇下了一群人，在弯曲的山路上飞翔起来，那辆Trek开始加速，直逼前面那一群年轻人，这一瞬间，积攒了多少年的环法记忆一下子完全被激活，那些曾经的画面仿佛就在眼前，整个2009年的环法，对于我而言，就化成了这一段，当Lance赶上黄衫集团的时候，我的眼睛已经湿了。

这一年，他没有穿上过一秒钟的黄衫，尽管最近的时候，他只差0.2秒。他不曾拿下一个赛段冠军，只有一个队记赛的冠军。
这一年，他没有赢得过ITT，甚至在40KM的ITT中排在10名开外，在山地上，他也不曾赶上康塔多和大小苏莱克，更多的时候，他只是在后面跟骑，连电视转播，也把更多时间给了80后的康塔多和大小s。

然而，不要忘记，倒数第二赛段的Mount Ventoux，有50万人观战，其中有多少是为了赶来看车王，Lance自嘲：“我在这里老是拿第二，运气一直不好（2000年输给潘塔尼，2002年圆点传奇维兰克夺冠）”，而最后，top 3一起冲过终点，所有人都记得，这个老家伙，得过癌症，38岁，钢铁一样的战士，又回来了。

再过几个小时，Lance将要站在领奖台上了，第三名，完全不要紧，只要能重新看见你骑车，比什么名次都重要。

车王不老，传奇永存

1999_2005_Lance

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