国王几乎没来得及见到的城堡

在巴伐利亚阿尔卑斯山的一道岩脊高处,矗立着一座白色城堡,看起来仿佛直接从童话故事里走了出来。它是国王路德维希二世下令建造的,这位国王在意音乐、传说和美的程度,远远超过他在意乏味的治国事务。他想要一座配得上童话的城堡,于是把它建在一处陡峭、几乎无法攀登的岩壁上,塔楼消失在山间的雾气中。

High on a rocky ridge in the Bavarian Alps stands a white castle that looks as though it had stepped straight out of a story. It was commissioned by King Ludwig the Second, a man who cared far more for music, legend, and beauty than for the tedious business of ruling. Wanting a castle worthy of a fairy tale, he set it on a steep, almost impossible crag, its towers disappearing into the mountain mist.

路德维希花费巨资,把自己的构想变成现实。技艺精湛的工匠雕刻出华丽的房间,把墙壁装点上取材于古老传说的场景,毫不吝惜开支,似乎也没怎么考虑实用性。然而,国王只在自己的创作里住了大约十一个夜晚就去世了,这意味着城堡其实从未真正建成。许多房间依然空荡而寂静,精心准备着,却从未迎来它们原本该有的生活。

Ludwig spent a fortune bringing his vision to life. Skilled craftsmen carved elaborate rooms and covered the walls with scenes drawn from old legends, sparing no expense and, it seems, no thought for practicality. Yet the king lived inside his creation for only around eleven nights before his death, which meant the castle was never actually completed. Many of its rooms remained bare and silent, elaborately prepared for a life that would never move in.

说来也怪,这个故事的结局是快乐的。这座曾被一位孤独、并不情愿的国王短暂居住过的城堡,后来成了世界上参观人数最多的城堡之一,吸引着一批批游客,每天沿着蜿蜒的小路攀登,只为抬头看一眼它的塔楼。它后来启发了世界各地主题乐园里那些童话城堡的样式,于是,一个私人的、未完成的梦想,如今活在了千百万张假期照片里。

The story, oddly enough, ends happily. The castle that one solitary, reluctant king barely occupied has since become one of the most visited castles on earth, drawing crowds of travellers who climb the winding path daily just to look up at its towers. It went on to inspire the fairy tale castles found in theme parks around the world, so that a private, unfinished dream now lives on in millions of holiday photographs.