一座园林就像一方壶中天地，园中的一切似乎都可以与外界无关，园林内外仿佛使用着两套时间，园中一日，世上千年。就此意义而言，园林便是建造在人间的仙境。
——高居翰（James Cahill），《不朽的林泉：中国古代园林绘画》（Garden Paintings in Old China）
生在江南，小时候苏州园林是没有少去，然而除了游人如织，并没有许多好印象，直到与阮仪三遗产保护基金会的合作让我能够近距离接触园林，才真正体会到古典园林的精髓。2015年一个夏夜，我有幸在整个江浙地区为逼近的台风提心吊胆的夜晚，将耦园占为己有若干小时。坐在耦园黄石假山顶上的石凳等着天光消逝，我突然以前所未有的清晰看到，假山，并不是“假”的——在园林的语境中，它就是高山，因为园林并不遵循一元自然（Primary Nature）的法则，也不是是用人造的山水对一元自然进行简单模仿。正如托尔金（J. R. R. Tolkien）在《论神话》（On Fairy-Stories）中论述的，神话作者创造出一个不受已知自然规律的主宰、拥有独立运转规律的二元世界（Secondary World）——一个允许读者心灵进入的仙境——园林亦是不同于现实世界的另一个时空。
古时建造园林的文人，他们以“造物主”的身份创造了立体的二元世界，允许人们亲身流连其中，寻求解脱：并非仅仅是逃避古老或者现代“真实生活”的困扰，而更重要的，是从人类的必死命运中解脱。毕竟，正是在园林里，杜丽娘梦见了爱情，于是“情不知所起，一往而深。生者可以死，死可以生。”这突如其来的、奇迹般的完美结局，予以我们慰籍和喜悦，超越了世间的悲苦。从昆曲的经典《牡丹亭》到《聊斋志异》之类的志怪故事，园林总是那个不言自明的大背景。就像日本小说家梦枕貘笔下风雅别致又蒙昧黑暗的平安时代——“人和鬼神共处一个屋檐之下”——园林所构成的，也正是这样一个亦真亦幻的时空，它能够满足我们终极的渴望：永生。
诚然，如今作为旅游目的地的园林，早已不是数百年前初建的样子，历经损毁和修复——哪怕是根据史料尽力再现，其楼阁亭台，乃至一石一木，恐怕也不是人们心目中“原真的”（authentic）古迹。然而，哪怕在布局、植被、名称、所有权方面不断发生变化，有一种园林精魂却始终挥之不去，即，无论历史如何变迁，只要人类对于死亡的恐惧和对超越死亡的渴望不曾改变，园林在核心本质层面总是一脉相承的。让目光透过物质的、现实的世界，去搜寻隐匿其中的另一个时空。当阳光照到水中央的一簇植物，或者暮光将逝，或者一尾鲤鱼在稍纵即逝……在这样的时刻，分隔两个世界的帷幕突然撩开，那个隐秘的仙境浮现在眼前，甚至可以被铭刻在底片上。哪怕它同我们的渴望一样无法抵达，但若能在一瞥之中确认这个仙境的存在，或许也可以获得身在其中一般的慰籍和喜悦。
Faeire
At the mouth of the Yangtze, is the fertile flood plain where many intellectuals of the old dynasties made their retirement home, after serving as advisors in the Court. Here, they build their private Gardens, characterizing artificial mountains made of stones from the Lake Tai, winding corridors with carved windows and pavilions upon quiet ponds. As renowned scholar James Cahill argued in his book Garden Painting in Old China, time seems to work differently within and without the gardens. A thousand years could have passed in the real world while merely a day in the gardens. He went on to conclude that a garden is Faerie within the real world.
Wandering along the corridors or around the artificial mountains, I was struck with the realization that the Garden was not a representation system in which the man-made referred to the real hills or lakes in the Nature as people usually thought. In effect, the Garden does not follow the law of the Nature, nor is it mere simulation of our Primary World. Rather, the intellectuals who built them, were Sub-Creators of a Secondary World, in the same way, as J. R. R. Tolkien argued, that fairy-story authors create a Secondary World, a Faerie, that follows its own law, free from the domination of observed ‘fact’, and into which our mind can enter and find Escape and Consolation.
The Garden is a three-dimensional Secondary World, into which we can physically enter, and Escape, not only from the old or modern ‘real life’, but more importantly, from the ultimate Doom: Death. After all, in the Ming Dynasty classic Peony Pavilion, it was in the Garden that a fair maiden dreamt of her true lover and later woke up from Death for him. This sudden and miraculous happy ending gives us Consolation, and “a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief”.
It is recorded that centuries ago creators of these gardens would have Kunqu Opera performed in them. Then, the imagined time and space of such a legend became one with the theatrical background. Or, why not take a step further, to believe that the miraculous stories were not performed in the Gardens, but happened there? How joyous would that be! If every Sub-Creator wishes in some measure to be a real maker, then we, wanderers in these Secondary Worlds, could believe that Faerie is where we have entered, and that Legend and History have met and fused.
