再次碎片化阅读《蝴蝶梦》，笔者对达芙妮丰富的植物学知识深表钦佩。
小说第四章，女作家通过男主人公马克西姆·德温特(Maxim De Winter)（一位老派的英国绅士）之口，展示了她对大自然细腻的观察以及她的家花野花理论。马克西姆在摩纳哥蒙特卡洛市与女友约会时，提起了曼陀丽庄园，现将相关段落翻译如下：
“他没有谈起自己在那里的生活，关于他本人，只字不提。他只告诉我春天午后日落时，岬角上一片光辉。大海看起来像石板，经过漫长的冬天后依然冰冷，从露台上，你可以听到小海湾涨潮的涛声。水仙花盛开，在晚风中摇曳，细长的茎托着金色的花头，无论你摘多少，它们都不会显得稀疏，它们像军队一样肩并肩聚集在一起。草坪下面的堤岸上种着金黄色、粉红色和淡紫色的番红花，但到了这个时候，它们已经过了最佳状态，像苍白的雪花莲一样枯萎凋零。报春花则更普通，是一种朴实可爱的东西，像野草一样出现在每个缝隙中。风铃草尚未到开花时节，它们的花头还隐藏在去年的叶丛下面，可当它们盛开时，令更加不起眼的香紫堇相形见绌，它们甚至淹没了森林里的蕨类植物，花色可与天空的颜色相媲美。
他说，他永远不会把风铃草放在屋子里。把它们插进花瓶里，它们会变得晦暗和无精打采，要想看到它们最美的一面，你必须在早上十二点太阳高悬时到森林里散步。它们散发着有点苦涩的烟熏味，仿佛它们的茎干里流淌着辛辣而多汁的野生粘液。从森林里采摘风铃草的人是文明的破坏者；他禁止在曼陀丽这样做。有时，他在乡间开车时，看到骑自行车的人在车把前挂着一大束风铃草，花朵已经从枯萎的花头上凋谢，饱受摧残的花茎裸露着，脏兮兮的。
报春花却不那么在意，虽然是野生的，却倾向于文明，它们会在小屋窗户里的果酱罐中毫无怨言地搔姿弄首，微笑着，只要浇水，就能活上一个星期。曼陀丽的屋内没有野花。他在围墙圈起来的花园里种植了专门摆在室内的园艺花。他说，玫瑰是少数几种采摘后比种着更好看的花之一。客厅里的一盆玫瑰花有着露天开放时所不具备的鲜艳色彩与浓香。盛开的玫瑰有一种相当浮夸、浅薄和喧闹的感觉，就像头发凌乱的女人。一旦在屋内，它们变得神秘细腻。一年中有八个月，他在曼陀丽庄园的室内都放着玫瑰。他问我，喜欢丁香吗？他从卧室的窗边就能闻到草坪边上一棵丁香树的芬芳。他的姐姐是个强悍而务实的人，常抱怨曼陀丽庄园里有太多的花香，让她醉了。也许她是对的。他不在乎。唯有花香使他沉醉。他最早的记忆是插在白色的花瓶里的巨大丁香花束，让房子里弥漫着一种令人渴望的、凄美的香味。
从山谷到海湾的小路左边种着一丛丛的落叶杜鹃和山杜鹃，如果你在五月的某一天晚饭后沿着小路漫步，你就会感觉到灌木丛在空气中淌汗。你可以弯下腰，摘下一片落下的花瓣，用手指捏碎它，然后，在你的手掌中就有了千种奇香，浓烈而芬芳。这一切都来自一片卷曲而皱巴巴的花瓣。你走出山谷，头晕目眩，来到铺着坚硬的白色卵石的海滩和平静的海面。一个奇怪的、或许太突兀的对比……”
（He said nothing of his life there, no word about himself, but he told me how the sun set there, on a spring afternoon, leaving a glow upon the headland. The sea would look like slate, cold still from the long winter, and from the terrace you could hear the ripple of the coming tide washing in the little bay. The daffodils were in bloom, stirring in the evening breeze, golden heads cupped upon lean stalks, and however many you might pick there would be no thinning of the ranks, they were massed like an army, shoulder to shoulder. On a bank below the lawns, crocuses were planted, golden, pink, and mauve, but by this time they would be past their best, dropping and fading, like pallid snowdrops. The primrose was more vulgar, a homely pleasant creature who appeared in every cranny like a weed. Too early yet for bluebells, their heads were still hidden beneath last year's leaves, but when they came, dwarfing the more humble violet, they choked the very bracken in the woods, and with their colour made a challenge to the sky.
He never would have them in the house, he said. Thrust into vases they became dank and listless, and to see them at their best you must walk in the woods in the morning, about twelve o'clock, when the sun was over head. They had a smoky, rather bitter smell, as though a wild sap ran in their stalks, pungent and juicy. People who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; he had forbidden it at Manderley. Sometimes, driving in the country, he had seen bicyclists with huge bunches strapped before them on the handles, the bloom already fading from the dying heads, the ravaged stalks straggling naked and unclean.
The primrose did not mind it quite so much; although a creature of the wilds it had a leaning towards civilization, and preened and smiled in a jam-jar in some cottage window without resentment, living quite a week if given water. No wild flowers came in the house at Manderley. He had special cultivated flowers, grown for the house alone, in the walled garden. A rose was one of the few flowers, he said, that looked better picked than growing. 'A bowl of roses in a drawing-room had a depth of colour and scent they had not possessed in the open. There was something rather blousy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair. In the house they became mysterious and subtle. He had roses in the house at Manderley for eight months in the year. Did I like syringa, he asked me? There was a tree on the edge of the lawn he could smell from his bedroom window. His sister, who was a hard, rather practical person, used to complain that there were too many scents at Manderley, they made her drunk. Perhaps she was right. He did not care. It was the only form of intoxication that appealed to him. His earliest recollection was of great branches of lilac, standing in white jars, and they filled the house with a wistful, poignant smell.
The little pathway down the valley to the bay had clumps of azalea and rhododendron planted to the left of it, and if you wandered down it on a May evening after dinner it was just as though the shrubs had sweated in the air. You could stoop down and pick a fallen petal, crush it between your fingers, and you had there, in the hollow of your hand, the essence of a thousand scents, unbearable and sweet. All from a curled and crumpled petal. And you came out of the valley, heady and rather dazed, to the hard white shingle of the beach and the still water. A curious, perhaps too sudden contrast...）
以上段落中，马克西姆将英国户外春天常见的野花一一道来：最早开放的是番红花和雪花莲，黄水仙、报春花、香紫堇紧随其后。水仙和报春花盛放时，番红花和雪花莲已经式微了。在英国，bluebell 指的是蓝铃花（Hyacinthoides non-scripta）或圆叶风铃草（Campanula rotundifolia）的俗名。这两种野花都是英国原始森林的标配，但蓝铃花是春花，风铃草是夏花。风铃草的茎干折断时会流出白色的乳液，从文中的花期和茎干里流着乳液这一特征判断，bluebell是风铃草。风铃草多次出现在小说中的其他段落，用来表示户外季节的更替，也代表了一种自由自在的精神，因为这些野花是被排斥在令人窒息的曼陀丽庄园之外的。
（番红花）
（雪花莲）
（黄水仙）
（报春花）
（香紫堇）
（蓝铃花） （风铃草）
马克西姆的家花野花论也符合当时英国上流社会男子的择偶标准，出生卑贱狂放任性的女子（野花）是不能登堂入室的，身世清白、面容姣好、品性纯洁的淑女才是良配（家花）。淑女们都被圈在围墙花园内精心培养，如摆放在客厅里的玫瑰纯洁贞静，散发着绅士们喜欢的浓香，却不许在室外如头发凌乱的轻浮女人那样恣意盛开。
几乎所有的读者都将山杜鹃（Rhododendron）和落叶杜鹃（Azalea）视为马克西姆的前任太太丽贝卡（Rebecca）的象征。Rhododendron是一种树形杜鹃，叶片像皮革一样厚实，四季常青，动辄长到九至十二米高。Azalea是小株的落叶杜鹃，通常一两米高，可以围篱式种植，也可盆栽。笔者出国前只见过Azalea，定居温哥华后，有一回全家去参观植物园，在杜鹃花区见到了高大的山杜鹃，一团团紫色、粉色、血红色、白色的花挂满了枝头，如云霞般灿烂。笔者惊得目瞪口呆，感叹世上竟然还有这么高大的杜鹃，花儿漂亮的如此不真实，太突兀了！
（山杜鹃）
笔者的母亲尤爱猩红色的杜鹃（就是曼陀丽庄园的那种），从植物园回来后，母亲在自家半敞的后院也种了一株同样品种的小苗，几年后伸展的树枝覆盖了半面木围墙。花开时刻尤为惊艳，邻居们纷纷跑来拍照。有了真实的生活体验，笔者完全可以想象的出马克西姆的第二任太太新婚后初到曼陀丽庄园见到山杜鹃时错愕的心情。正值五月初，在通往曼陀丽的路上，这些杜鹃花盛开得令人眼花缭乱，一团团的血红色非常引入注目。小娇妻无比震惊，“这些是怪物，直冲云霄，像一个营的士兵排列在一起，，我觉得它们太漂亮了，太强大了；它们根本不像植物。”（These were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not like plants at all. ）那些山杜鹃不受控制地野蛮生长，高达50英尺（stood fifty feet high），挤占了车道，就连朝西的主卧室的窗台下也都种满了红杜鹃。红色的杜鹃花甚至出现在房间里，装饰着已故的丽贝卡的晨间起居室里的各种盛花器皿。这些火花的花朵昭示着丽贝卡挥之不去的存在、绝世的容颜、热情奔放的性格、自由的意志和杀伐果断的魄力。
（山杜鹃）
山杜鹃花是没有香味的，个别品种的落叶杜鹃花却芬芳无比，被称为香水杜鹃，笔者在自家前院就种了两株香水杜鹃。阳光明媚的时刻，花香尤为浓烈，很适合做高级香水。这种香水杜鹃没有山杜鹃那么抗冻，适合生长在有遮蔽的地方，曼陀丽庄园的欢乐谷（Happy Valley）就是一个理想的清幽避风处。
（白花落叶杜鹃）
小说第十章，马克西姆带着新婚妻子去欢乐谷探幽，“这里没有黑压压的树，没有盘根错节的灌木丛，但在狭窄道路的两边，长满了落叶杜鹃和山杜鹃，不是车道上的那些血红色的巨树，而是橙红色、白色和金色的，美丽而优雅，在柔和的夏雨中低垂着它们可爱、娇嫩的花朵 。空气中充满了杜鹃花甜美而醉人的香味，在我看来，花香似乎已经与溪流融合在一起，与我们脚下的雨水和潮湿肥沃的苔藓融为一体……我们静静地站着，没有说话，低头看着离我们最近的洁白的花朵，马克西姆弯下腰，捡起一片落下的花瓣递给我。花瓣已经压碎了，伤痕累累，卷曲的边缘变成了棕色，可当我用手摩擦它时，闻到了一股甜美浓郁的香味，和长在树上的新鲜花朵的芬芳没什么区别……”
（There were no dark trees here, no tangled undergrowth, but on either side of the narrow path stood azaleas and rhododendrons, not blood-coloured like the giants in the drive, but salmon, white, and gold, things of beauty and of grace, drooping their lovely, delicate heads in the soft summer rain.
The air was full of their scent, sweet and heady, and it seemed to me as though their very essence had mingled with the running waters of the stream, and become one with the falling rain and the dank rich moss beneath our feet……
We stood quite still, not speaking, looking down upon the clear white faces of the flowers closest to us, and Maxim stooped, and picked up a fallen petal and gave it to me. It was crushed and bruised, and turning brown at the curled edge, but as I rubbed it across my hand the scent rose to me, sweet and strong, vivid as the living tree from which it came……)
马克西姆的第二任妻子在欢乐谷尽头的海滩上发现了丽贝卡生前经常流连的船屋，又觉察到自己顺手拿来穿在身上的一件胶质雨衣也是丽贝卡的，因为雨衣口袋里的方手帕上绣着丽贝卡的英文名字缩写，帕子上还散发出淡淡的白色落叶杜鹃花的香味。小说的第十四章，第二任妻子又在衣柜里找到了丽贝卡换下的尚未清洗的睡衣，也散发出同样的杜鹃花香味。看来丽贝卡有用白色的落叶杜鹃花熏香的习惯。
（白花落叶杜鹃）
我们也可以把庄园里的白色丁香（white lilac）视为丽贝卡无所不在的影响力。 这里的liliac 指的是欧丁香（syringa vulgaris），通常是淡紫色花，也有白色品种。千万不可与古诗词里的中国紫丁香（Syringa oblata）混为一谈。
（白丁香）
初夏季节，曼陀丽庄园的室内总陈列着白丁香和玫瑰。某个夏日的早晨，庄园的新女主人怀里抱满了丁香花走进图书馆，被下人告知，她应该用丽贝卡用过的花瓶来插丁香花，并且把花瓶摆在相同的位置。后来她精心准备了一场舞会，“整个上午，园丁们都在把鲜花带进屋里，有最后一批白色的丁香，还有五英尺高的大羽扇豆和翠雀花，还有成百上千的玫瑰，还有各种各样的百合花……”(All the morning the gardeners were bringing flowers into the house, the last of the white lilac, and great lupins and delphiniums, five foot high, roses in hundreds, and every sort of lily……” 在女管家的诱骗下，毫不知情的新女主人套上了丽贝卡于生前的最后一次舞会穿过的裙装，出了大洋相，遭到丈夫训斥，总之，她被杜鹃花和丁香花彻底打败了。
（羽扇豆） （翠雀花）
庄园里还种着忍冬（honeysuckle）和白色的木兰花（white magnolia），这两种植物只在小说里出现过一次，可以忽略不计。
（忍冬）
（白色木兰花）
年轻时的马克西姆被魅力四射的丽贝卡迷住了，以为得到了集“美貌、智慧、教养”（Beauty, brains,and breeding. ）于一身的女性。他后来对自己的第二任妻子坦白，他和丽贝卡结婚后的第五天，“她（丽贝卡）向我讲述了她自己的事，告诉我一些我永远无法向任何活着的人启齿的事情。”（she told me about herself, told me things I shall never repeat to a living soul.）马克西姆感受到了极大的耻辱，生平第一次起了激情杀人的念头。
他开始怀念曼陀丽庄园东侧的整洁有序的玫瑰园，它代表着一种纯朴贤惠的女人，如马克西姆的母亲。马克西姆小时候和母亲曾在在玫瑰园里散步，度过了美好的时光。他带着第二任妻子回曼陀丽庄园时，小娇妻就被安排在东侧的正对着玫瑰园的房间。
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