不期而遇的珍貴紀念

The opera was over， and the 1）loiterers on the steps of the 2）Palais Garnier 3）peeled off into the night. Something 4）glinted on the dark side-walk. I bent down. It was the face of 5）Marianne， symbol of the French Republic， on a copper 2-cent euro coin. I slipped it into the pocket of my 6）trench coat， just as I had tucked stones from the Irish Sea into my jeans in Northern Ireland the previous year， and dropped a fragrant wine cork from a bar in 7）La Boqueria into my bag in Barcelona a few years before that.

There are orphaned things in this world—coins， books， fallen leaves—that when you chance upon them feel like winks from the universe. They are at once the most ubiquitous and intimate souvenirs. I’ve returned from Europe with superb bags and scarves， yet my prized 8）mementos are the things I didn’t buy. They’re the things I found. Or maybe they found me.

Sprigs of lavender， maps， matchbooks： They’re ordinary. Yet acquiring them in faraway places seems to infuse them with mystery.

We typically think of objects as “useful or aesthetic，” “necessities or vain indulgences，” as Sherry Turkle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts it in Things We Think With. Yet through essays by humanists， artists and scientists she shows how objects are of central importance to thought and emotion. An object， she writes， is “a companion in life experience.”

Sometimes it takes years for such companions to materialize. In April， I found a mystery novel hidden-in-plain-sight in the Medieval-inspired gardens of the Musée de Cluny. The sky was white and there was a damp chill in the air， the kind that feels like it’s seeping into your spine. Having failed to find some Parisian address， I retreated to the Cluny where I began reading a series of posters about the landscaping. It was at the last one that I spotted a paperback abandoned in a corner： L’affaire est close by 9）Patricia Wentworth， about one of the earliest female 10）sleuths. That tickled me.

But what really turned the afternoon around was a sticker on the cover that said 11）Bookcrossing.com. For the 12）uninitiated， Bookcrossing encourages people to read and hide books in the world for others to find. I was 13）buoyant. I had been wanting to discover a novel in the wild for years， and at long last there it was， 3，600 miles from home. L’affaire est close is a keepsake of that trip and of the generosity of an anonymous stranger. It’s also a reminder that not getting what you want can sometimes lead to something even better.

Unlike clothes or jewelry， the value of such souvenirs cannot be understood unless their owner shares their 14）provenance and significance. A book or coin from your travels is a secret object； only you know its meaning. There’s something nice about that. It can be kept on a shelf or a coffee table； a trinket or 15）objet d’art to anyone who doesn’t know better. This is as true today as it was hundreds of years ago when people filled curiosity cabinets with tokens from their adventures.

Not all found objects are discovered， though. Some come to us from people we meet along the way. Take the airline gate agent who， when I mentioned I was going wine-tasting in 16）Tuscany but had yet to create an itinerary， began scribbling his recommendations—driving the Via Chiantigiana to Greve in Chianti， Radda in Chianti， Castellina in Chianti—on the back of my flight receipt （which I still have）.

Or consider Ian Clark， the smart and smartly dressed tour guide who stood in the aisle of a bus and recited from memory Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18， “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day？” I was a teenager on my first trip to Europe， and my parents had booked us on a group tour to the birthplace of Shakespeare， Stratford-upon-Avon. A hopeful writer， I listened to Mr. Clark with rapt attention. When at one point he asked if anyone in our group knew the term， named after an English clergyman， for the transposition of letters or sounds of words in a sentence， I waited for a grown-up to answer. None did. “Spoonerism，” I replied （for William A. Spooner）.

I can’t say who that pleased more， me or Mr. Clark. I think， perhaps， it was him. As the tour drew to a close， he emerged from a shop holding a little red hardcover book with gold lettering on the front：“The Shakespeare Birthday Book.” Each day of the year has a corresponding quotation from a work by Shakespeare. He 17）inscribed the book to me and， on a pale blue Post-it note， wrote five playful spoonerisms that he had shared during the tour， such as “Riding around on a well oiled bicycle” （as a spoonerism it would sound like “Riding around on a well boiled icicle”） and “Lighting fires in college”（or “Fighting liars in college”）.

Since then， any time I’ve bought what I thought would be a beautiful souvenir， be it a wool skirt in Florence or a jacket in Madrid， I’ve been 18）left cold. Nearly all of it has been donated or given away.

What remains is a modest bin of ticket 19）stubs， hotel stationery and youth hostel pamphlets； postcards （a favorite from 20）Verona shows a crimson-lipped Juliet on the verge of stabbing herself atop a fallen Romeo）； magazines （I take one from the country I’m in to easily recall the date and fashions）； and 21）bric-a-brac （a Droste cocoa powder tin from Amsterdam， a plastic La Vieille Ferme wine bottle from Air France）. Then there are the photos—including one of my laundry pinned to a clothes line below the open window of a room I was renting in 22）Liguria when I was in college.

“Souvenir” comes from the French word for“remember.” Everything it represents， marks or makes you wonder exists as long as you live and remember. In this way， the ultimate souvenir is not a coin or a book， or even a thing as ancient and everlasting as a stone. It’s you.

歌劇結束了，在巴黎歌劇院的門階前徘徊的人們漸漸離去，消失在夜色當中。昏暗的人行道上有什么東西閃閃發亮。我彎下了身子。是一枚鑄有瑪麗安頭像（法蘭西共和國的象征）、面值兩分的歐元硬幣。我把它放進了風衣的口袋里，就像去年在北愛爾蘭時，我把愛爾蘭海的石頭塞進牛仔褲里一樣，也像好幾年前在巴塞羅那時，我把波蓋利亞市場一間酒吧里的一個芳香的酒瓶塞子放進包包里一樣。

世界上有許多這樣被遺落的東西—硬幣、書本、落葉—當你與之不期而遇時，那感覺就如同看到來自宇宙的星光。它們立馬就成為了最是隨處可見，卻又私密無比的紀念品。我從歐洲帶回了上乘的包包和絲巾，然而我的珍藏紀念品卻不是那些買來的東西。而是我找到的，又或許是它們找上了我。

薰衣草枝條、地圖、火柴紙板：都是些平凡無奇的東西。然而在千里之外的地方拾獲它們，這個緣故似乎為之平添了幾分神秘的色彩。

我們通常都會以“實用還是美觀”、“必需品還是奢侈品”的眼光來看待某樣物件，正如麻省理工學院的雪莉·特爾克在她的著作《我們認可的東西》中所提及的那樣。她更通過人文主義者、藝術家以及科學家的散文來說明—物品對人的思想和情感舉足輕重。一件物品，她寫道，就是“一位人生的同行者。”

有時候，要歷經數年才能找到這樣的同行者。今年四月，我在法國國立中世紀博物館的中世紀花園里發現了一本懸疑小說，就藏在一個毫不起眼的地方。……