英语翻译之英译汉

英译汉

第七届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉 “Why Measure Life in Heartbeats?”

Hemingway once wrote that courage is grace under pressure. But I would rather think with the 18th-century Italian dramatist, Vittorio Alfieri, that “often the test of courage is not to die but to live.” For living with cancer engenders more than pressure; it begets terror. To live with it, to face up to it—that’s courage.

Hope is our most effective “drug” in treating cancer. There is almost no cancer (at any stage) that cannot be treated. By instilling hope in a patient, we can help develop a positive, combative attitude to his disease. Illogical, unproven? Perhaps. But many doctors believe that this must become a part of cancer therapy if the therapy is to be effective.

I have had the joy of two beautiful and wonderful wives, the happiness of parenthood and the love of eight children. My work was constantly challenging and fulfilling. I have always loved music and books, ballet and the theater. I was addicted to fitness, tennis, golf, curling, hunting and fishing. Good food and wine graced my table. My home was a warm and happy place.

But when I became aware of my imminent mortality, my attitudes changed. There was real meaning to the words, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.” There was a heightened awareness of each sunny day, the beauty of flowers, the song of a bird. How often do we reflect on the joy of breathing easily, of swallowing without effort and discomfort, of walking without pain, of a complete and peaceful night’s sleep?

After I became ill, I embarked upon many things I had been putting off before. I read the books I had set aside for retirement and wrote one myself, entitled The Art of Surgery. My wife Madeleine and I took more holidays. We played tennis regularly and curled avidly; we took the boys fishing. When I review these past few years, it seems in many ways that I have lived a lifetime since I acquired cancer. On my last holiday in the Bahamas, as I walked along the beach feeling the gentle waves wash over my feet, I felt a part of the universe, even if only a minuscule one, like a grain of sand on the beach.

Although I had to restrict the size of my practice, I felt closer empathy with my patients. When I walked into the Intensive Care Unit there was an awesome feeling knowing I, too, had been a patient there. It was a special satisfaction to comfort my patients with cancer, knowing that it is possible to enjoy life after the anguish of that diagnosis. It gave me a warm feeling to see the sparkle in one patient’s eyes—a man with a total laryngectomy—when I asked if he would enjoy a cold beer and went to get him one.

If one realizes that our time on this earth is but a tiny fraction of that within the cosmos, then life calculated in years may not be as important as we think. Why measure life in heartbeats? When life is so dependent on such an unreliable function as the beating of the heart, then it is fragile indeed. The only thing that one can depend upon with absolute certainty is death.

I believe that death may be the most important part of life. I believe that life is infinitesimally brief in relation to the immensity of eternity. I believe, because of my religious faith, that I shall “return to the Father” in an afterlife that is beyond description. I believe that though my life was short in years, it was full in experience, joy, love and accomplishment; that my own immortality will reside in the memories of my loved ones left behind, mother, brother, wife, children, dear friends. I believe that I will die with loved ones close by and, one hopes, achieve that great gift of God—death in peace, and with dignity.

何必以心跳定生死？ 海明威曾经写过，勇气就是临危不惧。不过，我更赞同18世纪意大利戏剧家维多利奥·阿尔菲利的观点，“对勇气的考验往往不是去死，而是要活。”生患癌症，不仅带来痛苦，而且引起恐惧。抱病生活，并敢于正视这一现实，这就是勇气。

希望是我们治疗癌症最有效的“药物”。几乎没有什么癌症（无论发展到那一期）是不能医治的。把希望灌输到病人心里，我们就可以帮助他树立起积极与疾病作斗争的观念。也许此话不合逻辑，言之无据，是吗？然而，许多医生认为，要想使疗法有效，这必须成为治疗的一部分。

我有幸先后拥有两位美丽贤惠的妻子所带来的欢欣，体验过为人之父的乐趣，并得到八个子女的爱。过去，我的工作一直富有挑战性，令人有成就感。我一向喜欢听音乐和读书，酷爱芭蕾舞和戏剧。我曾醉心于健身运动、网球、高尔夫球、冰上溜石、打猎和垂钓。我的餐桌摆满美酒佳肴。我的家温馨而又幸福。

可是，当我知道自己大限将至时，生活态度就变了。“这是您余生的开始”这句话对我有了实实在在的含义。对每一个晴天丽日，对鸟语花香，我的感触倍加强烈。平时呼吸轻松，吞食自如，走路毫不费力，一夜安寝到天明，我们几曾回味过其中的乐趣？

患病以后，我着手做以前搁置下来的许多事情。我阅读了本来留到退休后才读的书，而且还写一本题为《外科术》的书。我与夫人玛德琳度假更加频繁。我们经常去打网球，劲头十足地在冰上溜石，还带儿子们去钓鱼。回顾过去几年，从许多方面来看，我似乎已经活了一辈子。上次到巴哈马度假期间，我沿着海滩漫步，海浪轻轻抚揉着我的双脚，此时此刻我蓦然觉得自己与整个宇宙融为一体，尽管我显得微不足道，就像海滩上的一粒沙子。

虽然我不得不限制自己的医务工作量，我感到与病人更加心灵相通。当我走进特别护理室，一种敬畏之感油然而生，因为我知道自己也曾是这里的病人。我明白，在经历了被确诊为癌症的极度痛苦之后，仍有可能享受生活，因此，安慰癌症患者成了一种特别的乐事。一位病人做了喉切手术，我问他是否想喝冻啤酒，而且为他拿来了一杯，这时我看到他眼里闪现出了火花，一股暖流顿时涌上我的心头。

倘若人们意识到人生在世只不过是宇宙的时间长河中转瞬即逝的一刹那，那么以岁月计算的生命就不会像我们所想像的那样重要了。何必以心跳来定生死呢？当生命依赖于心跳这样一种不可靠的功能时，它的确脆弱不堪。而只有死亡才是人们唯一可以绝对依赖的。

我想，死亡可能是人生中最重要的一环。我认为，与那漫长的永生相比，生命是极其短暂的。基于我的宗教信仰，我相信在我身后那难以描绘的时光里，我将回归圣父。我相信，我的生命以年月计算，虽然是短暂的，但经历丰富，充满了欢乐、爱情和成就；我将永远活在我所爱的人，即我母亲、兄弟、妻子、儿女及密友的记忆中。我相信，在弥留之际，我的亲朋好友将陪伴在我身旁：我希望得到上帝的恩赐——带着尊严，安详地告别人间。

（集体讨论，黄家休 执笔）

第十二届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉） Garibaldi in the Assembly George Macaulay Trevelyan

About midday on June 30, while Manara was dying in the hospital, Garibaldi was galloping across the Tiber to the Capitol, whither the Assembly of the Roman Republic had summoned him to attend its fateful session. He rode in haste, for though the fighting had died away, he would not consent to be absent from his post longer than one hour. He had missed death in the battle, and his heart was bitter within him. To add to his misery, news had just been brought that his faithful Negro friend, Aguyar, who had so often guarded his life in the perils of war, had been killed by a shell whilst walking across a street in the Trastevere. Garibaldi, who was far above base racial

pride, and regarded all men as brothers to be valued each according to his deserts, had given his love freely to the noble Othello, who in body and soul alike far surpassed the common type of white man. Sore at heart, and pre-occupied by bitter thoughts, he galloped up to the Capitol, dismounted, and entered the Assembly as he was, his red shirt covered with dust and blood, his face still moist with the sweat of battle, his sword so bent that it stuck half-way out of the scabbard. The members, deeply moved, rose to their feet and cheered, as he walked slowly to the tribune and mounted the steps.

They had sent to ask his advice on the three plans, between which, as Mazzini had told them in his speech that morning, they were now reduced to choose. They could surrender; they could die fighting in the streets; or, lastly, they could make their exodus into the mountains, taking with them the Government and the army. This third plan was that which Garibaldi had for days past been urging on the Triumvirate, and he now pressed the Assembly to adopt it, in a brief and vigorous speech.

He brushed aside the idea of continuing the defense of Rome. It could no longer, he showed them, be carried on even by street fighting, for the Trastevere must be abandoned, and the enemy's cannon from the height of San Pietro in Montorio could reduce the capital of the world to ashes. As to surrender, he does not seem to have discussed it. There remained the third plan—to carry the Government and army into the wilderness. This he approved. \(Wherever we go, there will be Rome), he said. This was the part he had chosen for himself and for everyone who would come with him. But he wished to have only volunteers and to take no one on false pretences. He declared that he could promise nothing, and very honestly drew for the senators a picture of the life of danger and hardship to which he invited them.

Altogether it was a wise and noble speech, for it put an end to all thought of bringing further ruin on the buildings of Rome, and at the same time offered a path of glory and sacrifice to those who, like himself, were determined never to treat with the foreigner on Italian soil. Having spoken, he left the hall and galloped back to the Janiculum.

议会上的加里波第

乔治·麦考利·特里维廉

6月30日，大约中午时分，马拉纳在医院里生命垂危的时候，加里波第正策马跃过台伯河，朝卡匹托尔奔去。他奉罗马共和国议会之召，去那里参加决定共和国命运的会议。他一路急如星火；虽然战斗已经停息，他执意要在一个小时内返回自己的岗位。他因为能战死沙场而内心十分痛楚。更让他感到痛苦的是，他刚刚得到消息，他忠实的黑人朋友，多次在战场的危难中保护他生命的阿古亚尔，在穿过特拉斯特维尔的一条街道时被一颗子弹夺去了生命。加里波第绝无低俗的种族优越感，他把所有的人都视为兄弟，对每一个人都是根据他的品行给以评价，而对这位身心都远远胜过普通白人的奥赛罗式的人物，他毫无保留地倾注了他的爱。加里波第怀着沉痛的心情和苦楚的思绪，驱马急驰上了卡匹托尔，翻身下马，戎装未卸，就进了议会大厅，身上的红衫沾满灰尘和血迹，脸上仍有从战场上带来的湿漉漉的汗水，腰间的佩剑已经弯曲，半截露出鞘外。当他缓缓走向讲坛、一步步踏上台阶时，深受感动的议员们纷纷起立向他欢呼致意。

他们就马志尼提出的三个方案将他找来听取他的意见；马志尼在当天上午的讲话中说过，他们必须从三者之中做出抉择。他们可以投降；可以战死街头；或者，走最后一条路，撤出罗马，把政府和军队拉到山里。而这第三个方案正是加里波第几天来一直敦促三执政接受的；现在，他正以简单明了、铿锵有力的讲演力谏议会采纳。

他排除了继续保卫罗马的意见。他向他们指明，即使开展巷战，也难以保住罗马，因为

特拉斯特维尔必须放弃，而且敌人部署在蒙托里奥的圣彼得罗高地上的大炮会将这世界之都化为灰烬。至于投降，看来他未曾谈及。这样就剩下第三个方案，即，把政府和军队撤到山野。这个方案他是赞成的。他说：“Dovunque saremo, colà sarà Roma”（“我们走到哪里，哪里就是罗马”）。这就是他为自己以及每一个愿意跟他走的人所做的选择。但是，他只要志愿者，绝不以虚假的理由骗走任何人。他声明他不做任何承诺，并坦诚地向议员们描绘了一幅画面——应邀与他同行的诸位所面临的生活将充满危险与艰辛。

总之，他的演讲表现出英明的睿智和高尚的气节；它不但结束了使罗马建筑物遭受更大破坏的想法，同时又为像他一样誓死不与意大利土地上的外敌媾和的志士们指出了一条既光荣又有牺牲的道路。演讲一结束，他就离开大厅，骑马奔回雅尼库卢姆阵地。

（集体讨论郗庆华 执笔）

第十六届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉） Necessary Fictions O. B. Hardison Jr.

The most pathetic in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play The Visit is the Schoolmaster. The play tells the story of a town bribed by an enormously wealthy lady (the “visitor” of the title) to murder her former lover. That, at least, is the surface plot. The real plot is the reenactment by the townspeople of the archetypal ritual sacrifice that is the subject of Sir James Frazer’s study of primitive religion, The Golden Bough, and that classical scholars such as Gilbert Murray and F. M. Cornford have found at the root of Greek tragedy. The play thus moves on two levels. On one, it is the story of a judicial murder for money, an indictment of materialism. On the other, it has nothing to do with motives in the conventional sense. It is a play about religious impulses that are independent of the ways people explain them.

Dürrenmatt’s Schoolmaster is a key figure because he represents the liberal and rational heritage of Western culture. He is “Headmaster of Guellen College, and lover of the noblest Muse.” He sponsors the town’s Youth Club and describes himself as “a humanist, a lover of the ancient Greeks, an admirer of Plato.” He is a true believer in all those liberal and rational values that Western culture has inherited from antiquity.

In keeping with these values, Dürrenmatt’s schoolmaster is horrified by the plans of his fellow townspeople, whom he has tried to inspire with visions of nobility, to commit murder. As the climax approaches, however, he crumbles. Not only does he know of the murder plan, he knows he will become a part of it:

I know something else. I shall take part in it. I can feel myself slowly becoming a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless to stop it.

The Schoolmaster has discovered that the apparently absolute values of “the ancient Greeks...and Plato” have limits. Other values, hidden and irrational, are at least as powerful. Are the latter true and the former nothing more than lovely and venerable fictions?

The Visit brilliantly explores one of the most ancient paradoxes in Western experience, a paradox that appears in the Old Testament in the contrast between the Gentiles who worship graven idols and the Hebrews who worship invisible truth: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth underneath, or that is in the waters under the earth.” The same paradox recurs in the conflict between pagan learning and Christian revelation in the early centuries of the Christian era, and again, in the high Middle Ages, in the debate between Thomistic rationalism, which sees the world

as an intelligible and orderly expression of divine reason, and the mysticism of St. Bonaventure’s The Mind’s Road to God, which sees the world as a delusion and turns from it to suprarational experience. In the seventeenth century the paradox is embodied in the conflict between science and revelation, a conflict that was renewed in the nineteenth century by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

It is still with us. No one could be more devoted to humane values — or more knowledgeable in the field of biology — than Jacques Monod, co-recipient of the 1965 Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology. In a much-admired essay, “On Values in the Age of Science” (1969), Monod proclaimed the end of the Age of Faith:

Modern nations...still teach and preach some more or less modernized version of traditional systems of values, blatantly incompatible with what scientific culture they have. The western, liberal-capitalist countries still pay lip service to a nauseating mixture of Judeo-Christian religiosity, “Natural” Human rights, pedestrian utilitarianism and XIX Century progressivism...They all lie and they know it. No intelligent and cultivated person, in any of these societies can really believe in the validity of these dogma...

While a great many “intelligent and cultivated persons” undoubtedly agree with Monod, many others do not. Dürrenmatt is a case in point. What he shows through his Schoolmaster is that a rational and secular value system of the kind proposed by Monod is delusion that may crumble as soon as it is subjected to stress. Dürrenmatt had good reason to believe his message. The Visit was written in 1956 when memories of the Holocaust were still vivid. Since then, confidence in rational and secular values has continued to decline. In 1979, in what was almost a national paroxism of disgust, the people of Iran rejected Western rationalism and opted for a form of government that looks very much like theocracy. The diatribes of Iran’s Mullahs are hardly less passionate than tirades of America’s Moral Majority and the sermons of its radio and television evangelists. It is interesting and significant that the American Mullahs consistently identify “secular humanism” as the chief corruption of modern society. In fact, in 1979 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, a normally moderate body, felt the pressure sufficiently to include a denunciation of “humanistic secularization” in its proceedings.

While the Schoolmasters of Western society dream of nobility, the Faithful quote the Sermon on the Mount:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

And:

Take therefore no thought of the morrow, for the morrow shall take no thought for the things of itself.

And:

Everyone that heareth these things, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon sand.

The conflict between the graven idols of secular humanism and the invisible realities known only to the saving remnant of the devout is very much alive today. If Dürrenmatt is correct, there is little to be said for humanism. It is an illusion, a fiction, a thin coating of rationalizations covering something awesome and terrifying. The Mullahs have won.

Before abandoning humanism and all its works, however, let us consider it from another angle. For the sake of speculation, let us imagine a humanism that is a way of seeing. The things it

sees are human creations or things that have special human significance. This sort of humanism will be interested in the values these things express but not in any particular set of those values.

A humanism that is a way of seeing will be committed describing what it sees. It will seek to fix the condition of the human spirit at a particular place in a particular moment of time in relation to a particular experience, and it will choose its places and times and experiences because they express the condition of the human spirit with particular clarity. They are the evidence concerning the nature of the human spirit that has accumulated throughout history. In other words, they are to humanism what the raw materials of physics, biology, and chemistry are to science.

必要的虚构 O.B. 哈迪森二世

在弗里德利希·迪伦马特的剧作《老妇还乡》中，最可悲的人物是那位校长。该剧讲述了一座小城的居民被一位亿万富婆（即剧名中的“老妇”）收买，害死其昔日情人的故事。这只是表面情节，而实际情节是通过小城居民重演了一段原型祭祀仪式。詹姆斯·弗雷泽爵士在其研究原始宗教的著作《金枝》一书中探讨过这一主题，吉尔伯特·默里、F.M.康福德等古典人文学者则发现，古希腊悲剧皆根植于此。该剧在两个层面上展开：一方面，它讲述了一个看似合法、实为有悖公理的图财害命的的故事，抨击了物质享乐主义；另一方面，它并不涉及通常所说的动机，而表现的是独立于人们解释方式之外而存在的宗教冲动。

迪伦马特笔下的校长是个关键人物，因为他代表了西方文化自由与理性的传统。作为“居伦学校的校长、最尊贵的缪斯女神的仰慕者”，他资助了该城的青年俱乐部，并自诩“崇尚人文主义、热爱古希腊人、仰慕柏拉图”。他对西方文化从远古承袭下来的所有自由和理性价值观笃信不已。

校长一直恪守这些价值观。得知居伦城居民的谋杀计划，他惊骇万分。他曾试图用崇高理想来感化他们。然而随着戏剧高潮的临近，他完全崩溃了。他不但获悉谋杀计划，而且知道自己将在其中扮演一个角色：

我还知道，我将参与其中。我感到自己正渐渐沦为一名杀人犯。我对人性的信念却无力阻止这一切的发生。

校长发现，看似完美的“古希腊人和柏拉图”的价值观有其局限，而其他隐秘的和非理性的价值观至少具有同样的影响力。难道只有后者真实可信，而前者只不过是惹人喜爱、受人尊敬的虚构之物？

《老妇还乡》成功地探究了西方文明史中一对最古老的矛盾。在《旧约全书》中，这表现为异邦人与希伯来人的对立：前者崇拜雕刻的偶像，后者崇拜无形的真理：“不可为自己雕刻偶像，也不可作什么形象，仿佛上天、下地和地底下、水中之物。”在基督纪元早期的几个世纪中，同样的矛盾在异教认知论与基督教天启论冲突之中得以再现。在中世纪全盛时期，这对矛盾表现为托马斯·阿奎纳的理性主义与圣波拿文都拉的神秘主义之间的纷争。阿奎纳认为世界清晰有序地体现了上帝的理性，圣波拿文都拉则在《心向上帝的旅程》一书中认为万物皆虚幻，从而转向朝理性的神秘体验。在十七世纪，这一矛盾再次表现为科学和天启论之间的冲突，而达尔文在十九世纪出版的《物种起源》又重新挑起了这一冲突。

这一矛盾至今仍然困扰着我们。就其对人文价值的钟情于生物学的广博学识而言，1965 年诺贝尔医学和生理学奖得主之一的雅克·诺末无人可比。在一片广受赞誉的文章“论科学时代的价值观”（1969）中，莫诺宣告了宗教信仰时代的结束：

现代国家??仍在传授和鼓吹一些或多或少经过现代加工的传统价值体系，这显然与其拥有的科学文明格格不入。西方的自由资本主义国家仍在口头上信奉由犹太教和基督教共有的狂热宗教信仰、“天赋”人权论、庸俗功利主义、十九世纪社会进步论等拼凑而成的令人作呕的大杂烩??。他们全在说谎，并且对此心知肚明。这些社会中任何有头脑、有修养的

人都绝不会相信这些信条。

尽管许多“有头脑、有修养的人”深信莫诺的观点，也有很多人持反对意见。迪伦马特就是其中之一。他通过塑造校长这一人物向世人表明：莫诺倡导的理性和世俗价值体系是一种幻象，一遇到压力就会破灭。迪伦马特完全有理由相信自己的观点。《老妇还乡》写于1956年，当时人们对犹太人惨遭屠杀的情景仍记忆犹新。从那以后，人们对于理性和世俗价值观的信心持续减弱。1979年，在几乎是举国上下爆发出的一片不慢声中，伊朗人民拒绝了西方的理性主义，选择了酷似政教合一的政体。伊朗毛拉们的抨击就其激烈程度而言，不亚于美国“道德多数派”演说词中的长篇攻击，也不亚于福音传教士在电台和电视台上的训诫。饶有趣味而值得一提的是，美国的毛拉们始终把“世俗人文主义”看作现代社会腐败堕落的主要因素。美国圣公会通常属于立场温和的教派，他们也感受到巨大压力，在1979 年举行的教友大会上将谴责“人文主义走向世俗化”列入议程。

西方社会的校长们沉湎于崇高理想，而虔诚的基督徒则搬出耶稣的“登山宝训”： 一个人不能事奉两个主：不是恶这个爱那个，就是重这个轻那个；你们不能又事奉神，又事奉玛门。

所以不要为明天忧虑，因为明天自有明天的忧虑。

凡听见我这话不去行的，好比一个无知的人，把房子盖在沙土上。 今天，崇尚雕刻偶像的世俗人文主义者与信奉无形真理的为数不多的虔诚信徒之间的冲突仍然十分激烈。如果迪伦马特言之有理，人文主义也就乏善可陈。人文主义是一种幻觉，一种虚构，在其薄薄的理性外衣下掩盖着某种令人敬畏恐惧之物。毛拉们胜利了。

不过，在抛弃人文主义及其所有论述之前，我们还是先换个角度思考一下。为了便于推论，我们假定有一个人文主义，它只是一种观察方式。它所观察到的是人类的创造以及对人类影响深远的事物。这种人文主义感兴趣的是上述事物体现出来的各种价值观，而不是某种特定的价值观。

作为一种观察方式，人文主义将致力于描述它观察到的一切事物。它将力图确定在特定的地点、特定的时间、与特定的经历有关的人文精神状况。之所以对这些时间、地点以及经历加以选择，是因为它们能清晰地展现人文精神所处的状态，并能见证通过历史长河积淀下来的人文精神本质。换言之，特定的时间、地点和经历之于人文主义，犹如物理学、生物学和化学的原始资料之于科学一样重要。

（集体讨论，王宏 执笔）

第十八届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉） The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power Thomas De Quincey

What is it that we mean by literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to include everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition. The most thoughtless person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is some relation to a general and common interest of man—so that what applies only to a local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to Literature. So far the definition is easily narrowed; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature; but inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind—to warn, to uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm—does not attain the sanctuary of libraries in the ten-thousandth part of its extent. The Drama again—as, for instance, the finest of Shakespeare's plays in England, and all leading

Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage—operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representation some time before they were published as things to be read; and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books during ages of costly copying or of costly printing.

Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea coextensive and interchangeable with the idea of Literature; since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lecturers and public orators), may never come into books, and much that does come into books may connect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought not so much in a better definition of literature as in a sharper distinction of the two functions which it fulfills. In that great social organ which, collectively, we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is—to teach; the function of the second is—to move: the first is a rudder; the second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but, proximately, it does and must operate—else it ceases to be a literature of power—on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honorable to be paradoxical. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed, but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth—namely, power, or deep sympathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven—the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly—are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz. the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power—that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above

the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth: whereas the very first step in power is a flight—is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.

知识文学与力量文学 托马斯·昆西

我们所说的“文学”是什么呢？人们，尤其是对此欠考虑者，普遍会认为：文学包括印在书本中的一切。可这种定义无需多少理由便可被推翻。最缺乏思考的人也很容易明白，“文学”这一概念中有个基本要素，即文学或多或少都与人类普遍而共同的兴趣有关；因此，那些仅适用于某一局部、某一行业或仅仅处于个人兴趣的作品，即便以书的形式面世，也不该属于“文学”。就此而论，文学之定义很容易变窄，而它同样也不难拓宽。因为不仅有许多跻身于书卷之列的文字并非文学作品，而且与之相反，不少真正的文学著作却未曾付梓成书。譬如基督教世界每星期的布道，这种篇什浩繁且对民众精神影响极广的讲坛文学，这种对世人起告戒、鼓励、振奋、安抚或警示作用的布道文学，最终能进入经楼书馆的尚不及其万分之一。此外还有戏剧，如英国莎士比亚最优秀的剧作，以及雅典戏剧艺术鼎盛时期的全部主流剧作，都曾作为文学作品对公众产生过影响。这些作品在作为读物出版之前，已通过观看其演出的观众而“出版”了（这正是“出版”一词最严格的意义）。在抄写或印刷都非常昂贵的年代，通过舞台形式“出版”这些剧作远比将它们出版成书效果更佳。

由此可见，书之概念与“文学”之概念不可相提并论，互相替换，因为许多文学作品，如戏剧演出或演讲者，雄辩家的说教和辩论，也许永远都不会付印成书，而不少印成书册的作品却可能与文学趣味并不相关。不过更为重要的是，要纠正人们对文学普遍的模糊观念，与其去为文学找一个更好的定义，不如更明确地划分文学的两种功能。在那两个被我们统称为文学的庞大社会媒体中，可以分辨出两种不同的功能。两种功能可能混合，而且经常混合，但各自又具有一种绝缘性，而且天生就互相排斥。这二者之一乃“知识文学”，之二则为“力量文学”。知识文学的作用在于教诲，力量文学的功能在于感化。前者可谓舵艄，后者则是桨桡或蓬帆。前者只有助于纯粹的推理悟解，后者则总是通过愉悦之情和恻隐之心的影响，最终激发出更高的悟性，或曰理性。远而望之，仿佛它可以通过培根称之为“理性之光”中的某个目标，近而观之，方知它必须通过那道被世人七情六欲之蒙蒙薄雾和闪闪彩虹包裹的“感性之光”发挥其作用，不然它就不再是一种“力量”的文学。世人对文学这两个更为重要的作用思之甚少，所以如果有人说赋予知识是书本平庸或次要的用途，此说便被视为悖论。但只有在悖论亦真这个意义上，此说方为悖论。每当我们用平常语言谈论求学求知的时候，总以为这些字眼与某种绝对新奇的事务有联系。然而，能在人类关注的事物中占据极高地位的真理之所以伟大，就在于它对最卑微者而言也绝非新奇；无论在最卑微者还是最高贵者心中，真理永远都以种子或潜在原理的方式存在，他只需去培育或发现，而无需去种植或创造。能够被移植是判断一个真理属于低级真理的直接标准。除此之外，还有一种比真理更珍贵的东西，那就是力量，或曰对真理的深切认同。举例而言，儿童对社会有何作用呢？儿童的无助、天真和单纯所唤起的怜悯、柔情和种种特殊的爱慕之意，不仅可强化和升华世人与生俱来的仁爱之心，就连那些在上帝眼中最为珍贵的品质，诸如唤醒宽容的柔弱、象征神圣的天真、以及超凡脱俗的单纯，也都会在永恒的记忆中得以保持，其完美典范亦会不断更新。更高层次的文学，即力量的文学，要实现的正是与此相同的目的。从弥尔顿的《失乐园》中你能获取什么知识呢？一无所获。从一本烹调书中你能学到什么呢？从每一段中你都能学到某种新的知识，某种你不曾知晓的知识。可你能因此而认为那本微不足道的烹调书比那部神圣的诗作更高明吗？你应该感谢弥尔顿的不是他给了你什么知识，因为获取一百万条互不相干的知识，也不过是在茫茫尘世向前走了一百万步；你应该感谢的是他给予你“力量”，使你能发挥并拓展与无限世界产生共鸣的潜能。在无限世界中，每一次脉动和心跳都是上升的一

步，犹如沿雅各的天梯从地面攀向远离凡尘的神秘高处。知识的步伐，自始至终都让你在同一层面行进，但绝不可能使你从古老的人间尘世上升一步；而力量迈出的第一步就是飞升—— 升入另一种境界，一种使你忘却凡尘的境界。

（集体讨论，曹明伦、吴刚 执笔）

第二十届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉） Philosophy vs. Emerson (Excerpt)

“HE is,” said Matthew Arnold of Emerson, “the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit.” These well-known words are perhaps the best expression of the somewhat vague yet powerful and inspiring effect of Emerson’s courageous but disjointed philosophy.

Descended from a long line of New England ministers, Emerson, finding himself fettered by even the most liberal ministry of his day, gently yet audaciously stepped down from the pulpit and, with little or no modification in his interests or utterances, became the greatest lay preacher of his time. From the days of his undergraduate essay upon “The Present State of Ethical Philosophy” he continued to be preoccupied with matters of conduct: whatever the object of his attention—an ancient poet, a fact in science, or an event in the morning newspaper—he contrives to extract from it a lesson which in his ringing, glistening style he drives home as an exhortation to a higher and more independent life.

Historically, Emerson marks one of the largest reactions against the Calvinism of his ancestors. That stern creed had taught the depravity of man, the impossibility of a natural, unaided growth toward perfection, and the necessity of constant and anxious effort to win the unmerited reward of being numbered among the elect. Emerson starts with the assumption that the individual, if he can only come into possession of his natural excellence, is the most godlike of creatures. Instead of believing with the Calvinist that as a man grows better he becomes more unlike his natural self (and therefore can become better only by an act of divine mercy), Emerson believes that as a man grows in excellence he becomes more like his natural self. It is common to hear the expression, when one is deeply stirred, as by sublime music or a moving discourse: “That fairly lifted me out of myself.” Emerson would have said that such influences lift us into ourselves.

For one of Emerson's most fundamental and frequently recurring ideas is that of a “great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere,” an “Over-Soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other,” which “evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty.” This is the incentive — the sublime incentive of approaching the perfection which is ours by nature and by divine intention — that Emerson holds out when he asks us to submit us to ourselves and to all instructive influences.

Nature, which he says “is loved by what is best in us,” is all about us, inviting our perception of its remotest and most cosmic principles by surrounding us with its simpler manifestations. “A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing laws which bind the farthest regions of nature.” Thus man “carries the world in his head.” Whether he be a great scientist, proving by his discovery of a sweeping physical law that he has some such constructive sense as that which guides the universe, or whether he be a poet beholding trees as “imperfect men,” who “seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground,” he is being brought into his own by perceiving “the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind of material objects, whether inorganic or organized.”

Ranging over time and space with astonishing rapidity and binding names and things together

that no ordinary vision could connect, Emerson calls the Past also to witness the need of self-reliance and a steadfast obedience to intuition. The need of such independence, he thought, was particularly great for the student, who so easily becomes overawed by the great names of the Past and reads “to believe and take for granted.” This should not be, nor can it be if we remember what we are. When we sincerely find, therefore, that we cannot agree with the Past, then, says Emerson, we must break with it, no matter how great the prestige of its messengers. But often the Past does not disappoint us; often it assists us in our quest to become our highest selves. For in the Past there have been many men of genius; and, inasmuch as the man of genius has come nearer to being continually conscious of his relation to the Over-Soul, it follows that the genius is actually more ourselves than we are. So we often have to fall back upon more gifted souls to interpret for us what we mean but cannot say. Any supreme triumph of expression, therefore, should arouse in us not humility, still less discouragement, but renewed consciousness that “one nature wrote and the same reads.” So it is in travel or in any other form of contact with the Past: we cannot derive any profit or see any new thing except we remember that “the world is nothing, the man is all.”

Similar are the uses of Society. More clearly than in Nature or in the Past, we see in certain other people such likeness to ourselves, and receive from the perception of that likeness such inspiration, that a real friend “may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” Yet elsewhere Emerson has more than once urged us not to be “too much acquainted”: all our participation in the life of our fellows, though rich with courtesy and sympathy, must be free from bending and copying. We must use the fellowship of Society to freshen, and never to obscure, “the recollection of the grandeur of our destiny.”

Such, in some attempt at an organization, are a few of Emerson, s favorite ideas, which occur over and over again, no matter what may be the subject of the essay. Though Emerson was to some degree identified, in his own time, with various movements which have had little or no permanent effect, yet as we read him now we find extraordinarily little that suggests the limitations of his time and locality. Often there are whole paragraphs which if we had read them in Greek would have seemed Greek. The good sense which kept him clear of Brook Farm because he thought Fourier “had skipped no fact but one, namely life,” kept him clear from many similar departures into matters which the twenty-first century will probably not remember. This is as it should be in the essay, which by custom draws the subject for its “dispersed meditations” from the permanent things of this world, such as Friendship, Truth, Superstition, and Honor. One of Emerson, s sources of strength, therefore, is his universality.

Another source of Emerson, s strength is his extraordinary compactness of style and his range and unexpectedness of illustration. His gift for epigram is, indeed, such as to make us long for an occasional stretch of leisurely commonplace. But Emerson always keeps us up—not less by his memorable terseness than by his startling habit of illustration. He loves to dart from the present to the remotest past, to join names not usually associated, to link pagan with Christian, or human with divine, in single rapid sentences, such as that about “Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who worshiped Beauty by word or by deed.”

If, in spite of all these admirable qualities, Emerson, s ideas seem too vague and unsystematic to satisfy those who feel that they could perhaps become Emersonians if there were only some definite articles to sign, it must be remembered that Emerson wishes to develop independence

rather than apostleship, and that when men revolt from a system because they believe it to be too definite and oppressive, they are likely to go to the other extreme. That Emerson did go so far toward this extreme identifies him with a period notable for its enthusiastic expansion of thought. That he did not systematize or restrict means that he was obedient to the idea that what really matters is not that by exact terminology, clever tactics and all the niceties of reasoning a system of philosophy shall be made tight and impregnable for others to adopt, but rather that each of us may be persuaded to hitch his own particular wagon to whatever star for him shines brightest.

爱默生与哲学（节选）

马修·阿诺德在谈及爱默生时曾说：“他是那些崇尚精神生活者的良师益友。”对爱默生那种颇具胆识但并不成体系的哲学思想而言，阿诺德这句名言也许恰好揭示了其略显模糊但影响极大的启迪作用。

虽然出身于新英格兰一家牧师世家，爱默生却觉得连当时最为自由的牧师职位对他来说也是羁绊，于是他从容而无畏地辞弃了神职，成了当时最伟大的世俗传道者，但依然保持其一如既往的志趣和言辞风格。从他在大学时代写出《伦理哲学之现状》那篇文章开始，他就一直专注于探究人类行为，而不论其关注的对象是古代诗人、科学细节，还是晨报报道的事件，他都会设法从中汲取教益，并用他明快而华丽的语言风格透彻讲解，使之成为规劝世人向往更为高尚、更为自由之生活的训喻。

纵观历史，对其祖辈所信奉的加尔文主义，爱默生是最主要的反对者之一。加尔文教严格的教义宣扬人已堕落，不可能不靠神助而自然趋于完美，必须靠急迫而持久的努力才能跻身于上帝的选民行列，赢得那原本不配的恩赐。爱默生则从一开始就假定，一个人只要能拥有其天生的美德，便可成为近乎于神的完人。加尔文教徒认为，人越自我完美便会越远离其本性，因此只能靠神恩的作用变得更加完美。与之相反，爱默生则认为人越自我完美便越接近其本性。当有人被庄严的音乐或感人的演说深深打动时，我们常常会听到这样的感叹：“这几乎使我超越自我。”而爱默生则很可能会说：这种影响可以使我们回归自我。

因为爱默生频频论及的一个基本概念就是“自然”，即这个“我们像大地卧于大气温柔怀抱那样存在于其中的自然”；这自然或曰“超灵”，它不仅“把每个人独特的自我都包容其中并使之相互融合”，而且“往往会浸入我们的思想和行为之中，形成我们的智慧、德性、力量和美。”这便是爱默生在要求我们顺从自我们并接受一切有益影响时所说的那种动机—— 那种追求上天所赐并与生俱来之完美的崇高动机。

爱默生说的这个“被人类至善至美之心所爱的”自然就环绕在我们周围，她爱用我们身边较为简单的形式诱使我们去感知其最为幽远而恢宏的法则。“人往往会从系鞋带这样的小事中发现大自然最遥远之处相联系的规律。”人就这样“把天地万物置于脑中”。无论是通过发现普遍自然规律来证明其拥有可驾驭宇宙之创造意识的科学家，还是将树木视为“尚未完善之人”并认为它们“似乎在哀叹其被囚禁于土地的命运“的诗人，都会因为感知到”有机或无机的世间万物对心灵之巨大而深刻的影响”而回归自我。

爱默生还能笔翰如流地跨越时空，让常人难以连属的名物彼此相连，用“过去”来证明自信自立之必要和始终服从直觉之必需。他认为这种独立自主对学生尤为重要，因为莘莘学子很容易慑于“过去”的名流大家，从而“尽信书中之言”。而只要我们记住吾辈亦人，这种盲从就不应该也不可能发生。因此爱默生说，当我们发现自己果真不能认同“过去”时，我们必须与之决裂，而不必在意其代言人声望有多高。但“过去”通常不会令我们失望，它往往有助于我们追求自我完美。因为“过去”有许多天才人物，而天才人物几乎都能不断意识到自己与“超灵”之间的关系。由此可见，天才实际上比我们更接近我们的自我。所以我们每每得靠近那些更具天赋者替我们说出我们意欲言说而无从言说的思想。鉴于此，面对任何至言宏论，我们所感到的都不应该是自卑，更不应该是沮丧，而应该是对“作者读者天性

相通”之重新认识。因此当我们以游历或其它方式接触“过去”时，必须记住“天地甚小，唯人乃大”，否则便不能从中受益或发觉新知。

社交的益处与之相似。较之对自然的观照和对过去的反思，在与某些人的交往中，我们更能看清这种与我们自己的相似之处，并从对这种相似性的感知中领悟到真正的朋友“堪称自然的杰作”。不过在其他篇什里，爱默生又多次告诫我们交友切莫“过从甚密”。与人相交虽不乏礼尚往来、意气相投，但切不可屈意顺从，或亦步亦趋。我们须利用社交关系来加深“对我们天命高贵的记忆”，而决不可将其淡忘。

若要理出点头绪，以上便是爱默生最为津津乐道的一些理念，无论其文章涉及什么主题，这些理念都会在字里行间一再重复。虽说爱默生在一定程度上卷入过当时的各种对后世影响甚微或毫无影响的运动，但今天捧读其著作，我们却几乎感觉不到那个时代和地域的局限。他文中往往会有这样一些段落，倘若我们读其希腊语文本，很可能会一位是出自古希腊人之手。他当初避开布鲁克农场的原因是他认为傅里叶“虽然面面俱到，但却忽略了一个细节，那就是活生生的人”，正是这种见识使他避开了许多与此相似的分心旁骛，没去探讨那些也许到21世纪就会被人遗忘的问题。此可谓爱默生散文之为文之道，即依循先例从诸如友谊、真理=迷信和荣誉等世间永恒的事物中提炼其“遐想幽思“的主题。由此可见，爱默生笔力的源泉之一在于其无所不及。

爱默生笔力的另一源泉在于其文本之异常简练=论列阐释之旁征博引和出人意表。的确，他将其妙语连珠的天赋发挥得淋漓尽致，以至于读者有时会希望读到一段悠然平缓的寻常话语。不过他总能使我们保持阅读趣味，这不仅因其令人惊叹的阐述习惯，还因其令人难忘的凝练风格。他喜欢在明快的单句中从现在跃到遥远的过去，使通常彼此无涉的姓氏或名号相连，令异教徒和基督教徒并肩，让凡夫俗子和神祗相聚，譬如他那个关于“西庇阿、锡德尼、华盛顿以及所有对美之崇尚都言行一致的纯洁勇者”的句子。

若有人无视上述这些值得称赞的特性，仍觉得爱默生的思想因过于含糊或不成体系而难以使其信服，认为要是有几则明确的信条供其认同遵循，他们也许就会成为爱默生的追随者，那他们务必记住两点：一是爱默生希望弘扬的是独立之精神，而非信徒的盲从；而是当人们认为某个体系僵化得令人窒息而对其心生厌恶时，他们很可能会走向另一个极端。爱默生之所以大步走向那个极端，是因为他置身于一个以思想热情张扬著称的时代。他未将思想体系化或未对其设置樊篱，则说明他遵从这样的理念：真正重要的并不在于用精确的术语、巧妙的手法及细致的推论来建构一种因其缜密严谨而为人接受的哲学体系，而在于能说服每个人都套上自己那乘马车，驶向他心目中最明亮的那颗星。

（集体讨论，曹明伦、李慧明 执笔）

第二十一届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛初赛原文参考译文（英译汉） Beyond Life

I want my life, the only life of which I am assured, to have symmetry or, in default of that, at least to acquire some clarity. Surely it is not asking very much to wish that my personal conduct be intelligible to me! Yet it is forbidden to know for what purpose this universe was intended, to what end it was set a-going, or why I am here, or even what I had preferably do while here. It vaguely seems to me that I am expected to perform an allotted task, but as to what it is I have no notion. And indeed, what have I done hitherto, in the years behind me? There are some books to show as increment, as something which was not anywhere before I made it, and which even in bulk will replace my buried body, so that my life will be to mankind no loss materially. But the course of my life, when I look back, is as orderless as a trickle of water that is diverted and guided by every pebble and crevice and grass-root it encounters. I seem to have done nothing with

pre-meditation, but rather, to have had things done to me. And for all the rest of my life, as I know now, I shall have to shave every morning in order to be ready for no more than this!

I have attempted to make the best of my material circumstances always; nor do I see to-day how any widely varying course could have been wiser or even feasible: but material things have nothing to do with that life which moves in me. Why, then, should they direct and heighten and provoke and curb every action of life? It is against the tyranny of matter I would rebel—against life's absolute need of food, and books, and fire, and clothing, and flesh, to touch and to inhabit, lest life perish. No, all that which I do here or refrain from doing lacks clarity, nor can I detect any symmetry anywhere, such as living would assuredly display, I think, if my progress were directed by any particular motive. It is all a muddling through, somehow, without any recognizable goal in view, and there is no explanation of the scuffle tendered or anywhere procurable. It merely seems that to go on living has become with me a habit.

And I want beauty in my life. I have seen beauty in a sunset and in the spring woods and in the eyes of divers women, but now these happy accidents of light and color no longer thrill me. And I want beauty in my life itself, rather than in such chances as befall it. It seems to me that many actions of my life were beautiful, very long ago, when I was young in an evanished world of friendly girls, who were all more lovely than any girl is nowadays. For women now are merely more or less good-looking, and as I know, their looks when at their best have been painstakingly enhanced and edited. But I would like this life which moves and yearns in me, to be able itself to attain to comeliness, though but in transitory performance. The life of a butterfly, for example, is just a graceful gesture: and yet, in that its loveliness is complete and perfectly rounded in itself, I envy this bright flicker through existence. And the nearest I can come to my ideal is punctiliously to pay my bills, be polite to my wife, and contribute to deserving charities: and the program does not seem, somehow, quite adequate. There are my books, I know; and there is beauty “embalmed and treasured up” in many pages of my books, and in the books of other persons, too, which I may read at will: but this desire inborn in me is not to be satiated by making marks upon paper, nor by deciphering them. In short, I am enamored of that flawless beauty of which all poets have perturbedly divined the existence somewhere, and which life as men know it simply does not afford nor anywhere foresee.

And tenderness, too—but does that appear a mawkish thing to desiderate in life? Well, to my finding human beings do not like one another. Indeed, why should they, being rational creatures? All babies have a temporary lien on tenderness, of course: and therefrom children too receive a dwindling income, although on looking back, you will recollect that your childhood was upon the whole a lonesome and much put-upon period. But all grown persons ineffably distrust one another. In courtship, I grant you, there is a passing aberration which often mimics tenderness, sometimes as the result of honest delusion, but more frequently as an ambuscade in the endless struggle between man and woman. Married people are not ever tender with each other, you will notice: if they are mutually civil it is much: and physical contacts apart, their relation is that of a very moderate intimacy. My own wife, at all events, I find an unfailing mystery, a Sphinx whose secrets I assume to be not worth knowing: and, as I am mildly thankful to narrate, she knows very little about me, and evinces as to my affairs no morbid interest. That is not to assert that if I were ill she would not nurse me through any imaginable contagion, nor that if she were drowning I would not plunge in after her, whatever my delinquencies at swimming: what I mean is that, pending such high crises, we tolerate each other amicably, and never think of doing more. And from our

blood-kin we grow apart inevitably. Their lives and their interests are no longer the same as ours, and when we meet it is with conscious reservations and much manufactured talk. Besides, they know things about us which we resent. And with the rest of my fellows, I find that convention orders all our dealings, even with children, and we do and say what seems more or less expected. And I know that we distrust one another all the while, and instinctively conceal or misrepresent our actual thoughts and emotions when there is no very apparent need. Personally, I do not like human beings because I am not aware, upon the whole, of any generally distributed qualities which entitle them as a race to admiration and affection. But toward people in books—such as Mrs. Millamant, and Helen of Troy, and Bella Wilfer, and Mélusine, and Beatrix Esmond—I may intelligently overflow with tenderness and caressing words, in part because they deserve it, and in part because I know they will not suspect me of being “queer” or of having ulterior motives.

And I very often wish that I could know the truth about just any one circumstance connected with my life. Is the phantasmagoria of sound and noise and color really passing or is it all an illusion here in my brain? How do you know that you are not dreaming me, for instance? In your conceded dreams, I am sure, you must invent and see and listen to persons who for the while seem quite as real to you as I do now. As I do, you observe, I say! and what thing is it to which I so glibly refer as I? If you will try to form a notion of yourself, of the sort of a something that you suspect to inhabit and partially to control your flesh and blood body, you will encounter a walking bundle of superfluities: and when you mentally have put aside the extraneous things—your garments and your members and your body, and your acquired habits and your appetites and your inherited traits and your prejudices, and all other appurtenances which considered separately you recognize to be no integral part of you,—there seems to remain in those pearl-colored brain-cells, wherein is your ultimate lair, very little save a faculty for receiving sensations, of which you know the larger portion to be illusory. And surely, to be just a very gullible consciousness provisionally existing among inexplicable mysteries, is not an enviable plight. And yet this life—to which I cling tenaciously—comes to no more. Meanwhile I hear men talk about “the truth”; and they even wager handsome sums upon their knowledge of it: but I align myself with “jesting Pilate,” and echo the forlorn query that recorded time has left unanswered.

Then, last of all, I desiderate urbanity. I believe this is the rarest quality in the world. Indeed, it probably does not exist anywhere. A really urbane person—a mortal open-minded and affable to conviction of his own shortcomings and errors, and unguided in anything by irrational blind prejudices—could not but in a world of men and women be regarded as a monster. We are all of us, as if by instinct, intolerant of that which is unfamiliar: we resent its impudence: and very much the same principle which prompts small boys to jeer at a straw-hat out of season induces their elders to send missionaries to the heathen?

[美] 卡贝尔 著 我愿此生，我唯一确知的此生，能和谐地度过；若此愿不遂，至少也该活得有几分清醒。希望自己之所作为能被自己了解，这肯定不算要求过分。不过有些奥秘却不容你去了解，诸如宇宙宏旨之所在，乾坤归宿在何方，我为何置身于此间，于此间该做何事等。我隐约觉得此生被指望去履行一项既定使命，但这是项什么使命，我却一无所知。而且真正说来，我在过去的岁月里又有过什么作为呢？有那么几本书可显示为生命之赢余，可显示为在我创作其之前这世间未曾有过的东西，其体积甚至可置换我入土后的那副躯壳，从而使我生命之结束不致给人类造成物质损失。但当回首往昔，我发现自己的生命历程就像溪流之蜿蜒漫无定向，触石砄草根则避而改道，遇岩缝土隙则顺而流之。我似乎做任何事都未经事先考虑，而是任

凭事务来摆布自己。且据我眼下所知，在我的整个余生，我每日清晨得剃须也仅仅是为了翌日清晨得剃须。

我总想善用身边的物质环境，因时至今日我也不知有任何迥异之做法会更为明智可行。然身外之物与涌动于我心中的那种生命毕竟无关。既如此，为何人之一举一动又常为身外之物所引所趋，所扬所抑？我所厌恶的正是这种物质之主宰——这种为了生命苟存于世而对食物、书本、炉火、衣衫等身外之物以及灵魂借以寓居之肉体的纯粹需求。的确，我在世界之全部所为或忍而不为之事都不甚明了，无论何处我都看不到丝毫和谐，而我认为，我的人生历程若有任何特定目标之指引，定会显现出那种明澈和谐。但不知何故，我眼前无可辨之目标，一直在浑然度日，而且对这种蹉跎或茫然也无从解说。活下去似乎已成了我的一种习惯，仅此而已。

我希望生活中有美。我曾在落日余晖、春日树林和女人的眼中看见过美，可如今与这些光彩邂逅已不再令我激动。我期盼的是生命本身之美，而非偶然降临的美的瞬间。我觉得很久以前我生活行为中也充溢着美，那时我尚年轻，置身于一群远比当今姑娘更为友善可爱的姑娘之中，置身于一个如今已消失的世界。时下女人不过是多少显得有几分姿色，而据我所知，她们最靓丽的容颜都经过煞费苦心的设色缚彩。但我希望这在我心中涌动并期盼的生命能绽放出自身之美，纵然其美丽会转瞬即逝。比如蝴蝶的一生不过翩然一瞬，但在这翩然一瞬间，其美丽得以完善，其生命得以完美。我羡慕一生中有这种美丽闪烁。可我最接近我理想生活的行为只是付账单一丝不苟，对妻子相敬如宾，捐善款恰宜至当，而这些无论如何也远远不够。当然，还有我那些书，在我自己撰写以及我可随意翻阅的他人所撰写的书中，都有美“封藏”于万千书页之间。但我与生俱来的这种欲望并不满足于在纸上写美或从书中读美。简而言之，我所迷恋的那种无暇之美，那种天下诗人在忐忑中发现存在于某处的美，那种世人所知的凡尘生活无法赐予也无法预见的美。

我也渴望柔情——但对生活如此奢求难道不是自作多情？我发现世人彼此间从不相互喜欢。的确，作为理性动物，他们为何要相互喜欢呢？婴儿当然都有权得到短期柔情贷款，而且在童年时期还会有逐日递减的柔情进账，然而你回忆往事时就会发现，童年大体上是一段孤独寂寞且屡屡受骗的时期。但成人都莫可名状地相互猜疑。我承认，男女求爱时会有一时间的失常，而这种失常往往装扮成柔情蜜意，因此有时还让人误以为是真情，但更多时候会变成男女间无休止争斗的伏笔。你会注意到，已婚男女通常不会柔情缱绻，双方能以礼相待就不错了，除两性身体接触外，夫妻关系往往都不愠不火。以我妻子为例，我横竖都觉得她就像斯芬克司，一个永远也猜不透的谜，而我想也没必要去探究她那些秘密。并且就像我并无欣慰地述说的一样，她对我同样知之甚少，对我的私事也没有表现出任何病态的兴趣。但这并非说一旦我罹病，她会因惧怕传染而置我于不顾，也并非说万一她溺水，我会因不善游泳而不下水施救。我的意思是说，除非到紧要关头，我俩会彼此容忍，和睦相处，但绝不会想到更进一步。我们与亲属的关系也势必日渐疏远。因各自生活已不同，彼此情趣已相异，故见面时存心话说三分且多说套话。再说他们还知晓我们不想被别人抖露的底细。至于其他熟人，甚至包括未成年人，我发现彼此间交往全然是蹈常袭故，我们的所言所行似乎都不会超出对方之所料。我知道我们始终都互不信任，虽然有时毫不必要，我们仍本能地隐藏或伪装真实的思想感情。就我个人而言，我不喜欢人类，因为从总体上看，我不知这个物种有何共同的品质使其值得被人钦慕。但对书中那些人——例如米拉曼特夫人、特洛伊的海伦、贝拉·威尔弗、比阿特丽克丝·埃斯蒙德等——我却能不失理性地满怀柔情，表达一腔爱慕之意，这一则是因为她们值得我爱慕，二则是因为我知道她们不会怀疑我“变态”或别有用心。

我还常常祈愿，愿我能了解关于我生活的哪怕任何一点真相。这变化的声色光彩是在真正掠过，还是我脑海中的一种幻觉？譬如你何以知晓此刻我不是你梦中之幻象？毫无疑问，你在你坦言的梦中肯定遇见过人，且眼观其行，耳闻其声，当时他们于你肯定就像现时之我

一样真实。注意，我说像现时之我一样真实！那么，我这口口声声称之谓的“我”又当是何物？若你设法去感知你自己为何物，那种你觉得寓于你体内并肆意支配你肉体的东西又为何物，那将有一大堆活生生的多余物与你不期而遇——诸如你的衣衫裙袍、手足躯干、习性胃口、禀性偏见以及其他所有附属物，那些你逐一视之便会承认其并非你不可或缺的多余之物——而若是你从心中将这些多余物抹去，那在你珍珠色的脑细胞了，在你最终的寓所之中，几乎就只剩下一种感知能力，可你知道，这种感知多半都是幻觉。而毋庸置疑，仅仅作为一种极易受骗的知觉，暂居于神秘莫测的迷幻之中，这并非一种令人羡慕的境况。然而这种生命——这种我死死黏附的生命——也不过如此这般。但与此同时我却听世人在谈论“真理”，他们甚至花大价钱为其所知的真理担保；可我愿与“爱逗趣的彼拉多”为伍，重复那几个几乎没法回答且上千年来无人回答的疑问。

最后我还企求高雅。我认为高雅乃世间最珍贵的品质。其实然，高雅或许并不存在于现实之中。真正的高雅之士虚怀若谷，闻过则喜，不会被非理性的盲目偏见所左右，而在这个被庸男俗女充斥的世界，这等高雅之士只能被视为怪物。仿佛是出于天性，我们所有人都容不得稀罕之事，都恨其不守规矩；而正是依照与此极其相似的准则，小男孩嘲讽不合时令的草帽，他们的父辈则给异教徒派出传教士??

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