阅读弗莉达·劳伦斯 Frieda von Richthofen在小说之家的作品!!! |
婚后的日子并不好过,社会压力大,劳伦斯又没钱,两人去美国新墨西哥州过了好几年。无休无止的争吵,相互咆哮,甚至互揪头发殴斗,谁也不曾想到当初热烈的爱,会孕育出这等场面。这种暗无天日的生活,把劳伦斯造就成了灵魂的矿工,他知道自己只有通过不停的写作,才能匍匐穿越炼狱,见到心灵的阳光。他开始进入创作盛年,《虹》(1915)、《恋爱中的女人》(1920)、《亚伦的手杖》(1922)、《羽蛇》(1926),一部长篇就是通往灵魂天堂的一级台阶,不知道《查泰莱夫人的情人》(1928)问世时,他是否见到了一线曙光?弗丽达是深爱劳伦斯的,有时候恰恰因为爱,才相互折磨得死去活来。
劳氏1930年死于旅途,先埋在法国小镇温斯的公墓,五年后由弗丽达取出火化。她挑了一只精致的花瓶,委托朋友拉瓦利装上劳氏的骨灰,带往新墨西哥州北部的陶斯镇——那是劳氏夫妇流亡时最喜欢的地方。这拉瓦利是何许人呢?是弗丽达的热烈追求者,对她是有求必应,可要他带情人亡夫的骨灰越洋旅行,实在是受不了,他嘴上答应着,却在去马赛的路上,找了个靠近罗讷河的地方,把大文豪的骨灰一把撒掉,随后在纽约装上一些不知哪儿弄来的骨灰运到陶斯安葬。这是拉瓦利后来良心发现,自己承认的。
在黑暗中流浪,这是劳伦斯的命。他的骨灰早已被地中海的暖风吹到世界的各个角落了,想来这也符合他的愿望。曾经读过一篇描述非洲矿难的文章,说矿工们为了少消耗氧气,躺在地下等待施救,黑暗中只有矿长有表,氧气仅能维持三个半小时。大家要求矿长每熬过半小时就报个信,这样好知道自己离死期还有多远。矿长呢,有意拖延报信的时辰,只有他知道,其实等待的时间早已过了极限。后来救援队终于到达,大伙儿在奄奄一息中获救,只有矿长死了。跟劳伦斯相比,我们都是在蒙昧中求生的矿工。
(沈东子零度漂流)
Life
Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin (Baroness) von Richthofen (also known as Frieda Weekley, Frieda Lawrence, and Frieda Lawrence Ravagli) was born in Metz. Her father was Baron Friedrich Ernst Emil Ludwig von Richthofen (1844-1916), an engineer in the German army, and her mother was Anna Elise Lydia Marquier (1852-1930).
In 1899, she married a British philologist and professor of modern languages, Ernest Weekley, with whom she had three children, Charles Montague (born 1900), Elsa Agnès (born 1902) and Barbara Joy (born 1904). They settled in Nottingham, where Ernest worked at the university. During her marriage with Weekley, she started to translate pieces of German literature, mainly fairy tales, into English and took considerable pride in their publication in book form.
In 1912 she met D. H. Lawrence, at the time a former student of her husband. She soon fell in love with him and the pair eloped to Germany, leaving her children behind. During their stay, Lawrence was arrested for spying and, after the intervention of Frieda's father, the couple walked south, over the Alps to Italy. Following her divorce from Weekley, Frieda and Lawrence married in 1914. They intended to return to the continent, but the outbreak of war kept them in England, where they endured official harassment and censorship. They also struggled with limited resources and D.H. Lawrence's already frail health.
Leaving post-war England at the earliest opportunity, they travelled widely, eventually settling at the Kiowa Ranch (now D. H. Lawrence Ranch) near Taos, New Mexico and, in Lawrence's last years, at the Villa Mirenda, near Scandicci in Tuscany. After her husband's death in Vence, France in 1930, she returned to Taos to live with her third husband, Angelo Ravagli. The ranch is now owned by the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.
Mainly through her elder sister Else von Richthofen, Frieda became acquainted with many intellectuals and authors, including the socioeconomist Alfred Weber and sociologist Max Weber, the radical psychoanalyst Otto Gross (who became her lover), and the writer Fanny zu Reventlow.
By approving the dramatization for the theatre of Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover - thought to be based partly on her own relationship as an aristocrat with the working class Lawrence - it became his only novel ever to be staged. John Harte's play was the only dramatization to be accepted by her, and she did her best to get it produced. Although she loved the play when she read it, the copyright to Lawrence's story had already been acquired by Baron Philippe de Rothschild, who was a close friend. He only relinquished it in 1960. John Harte's play was first produced at The Arts Theatre in 1961, five years after her death.
Frieda Lawrence died on her 77th birthday in Taos.
Further reading
Frieda Lawrence: "Not I, but the Wind...", Rydal/Viking, 1934.
Janet Byrne: A Genius for Living - A Biography of Frieda Lawrence, Bloomsbury, 1995.
Green, Martin Burgess: The Von Richthofen Sisters