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…

                                超越生命

    我希望自己唯一确定的生命拥有对称性，如果做不到，至少让我的生命变得清晰些。希望了解自己的个人行为，这种要求当然不算太高！但要了解宇宙的意图何在，朝何目标而去，我为何在此，甚或在此该做何事，则是可望而不可求的。我依稀觉得要执行一项指派的任务，但具体是什么却不得而知。这些年来我有何成就？所写的一些书表明我并非一事无成，它们因为我才得以问世，但它们甚至会整个取代我被埋葬的尸体，这样人类就不会因为我的生命遭受任何物质损失。但回顾往昔，我的生命历程就像一条无序的涓涓细流，所经之处，每一块鹅卵石、每一处裂缝、每一条草根都会引导它、让它转向。我做事好象都没有预先谋划，而是事到临头才处理。我现在知道，未来的日子里，每天早上我都得刮胡修面，目的不过是为此做好准备！

    一直以来我都努力充分利用物质条件；直到今天我也没有弄清楚，任何变化多端的历程会更明智甚或可行：但是物质条件与我体内活动的生命毫不相干，为何应由它们来指引、增强、激发和抑制生命的每个行动？我要反抗物质的专横 –– 反抗为了生命存续而对食物、书籍、火、衣物、肉身、触摸及居住等等的绝对需要。不，我在这儿所做或避免做的一切都缺乏清晰度，我在哪都找不到对称性，而我认为，假如有任何特定动机指引我前进，那么生存肯定会展现对称性。不知何故，这一切就是胡乱应付，看不到明确的目标，也没有提供或在任何地方可以获得为何要敷衍了事的解释。看起来不过是维持生存已经成为我的习惯而已。

我想让生命拥有美。我在西沉的斜阳中看到过美，在春天的树林中看到过美，在女潜水员的双眸中看到过美，但如今这些五光十色的意外之喜已无法让我激动。我想让美出现在生命本身，而不是偶然降临的机遇之中。很久以前，好象我生命的许多活动都洋溢着美。那时我还年轻，女孩子都是那么友善，虽然她们已经消逝，却比现在的任何女孩子都更可爱。因为现在的女子不过是好看，而且据我所知，她们最好看的时候都是浓妆艳抹的结果。但是，我希望在体内活动并充满渴望的生命本身能变美，哪怕这种美转瞬即逝。譬如蝴蝶的生命，只是一种优雅的姿态；然而就在这种姿态中，蝴蝶的生命本身成就了她的美，并臻于完美。我非常羡慕这种流光溢彩的存在。而我现在能达成的理想目标，就是按时支付账单，对妻子以礼相待，捐款给值得赞助的慈善事业：光是这些好象还不够。对了，还有我的书。我的书页中多处“精心保存和珍藏”着美，在我可以随意翻阅的别人的书中也一样。但是，在纸上标注记号或解读记号并不能满足我这种与生俱来的渴望。简而言之，这种无瑕之美让我着迷。所有诗人都曾焦灼不安地猜测这种美存于何方。人们所知的生命根本无法赋予这种美，任何地方也难以预见这种美。

    还有温情 –– 但渴求生命中的温情是不是有点多愁善感呢？唉，我发现人类并不讨彼此欢喜。的确，人类是有理性的生物，为什么就应该互相喜欢？当然，所有婴儿都会暂时拥有温情：自那以后，儿童也会获得温情，只是一天少似一天。然而，回顾孩提时代，你可能会发现，总的说来自己的童年孤独寂寞，饱受欺瞒。但是，所有成年人都不可言喻地互相猜忌。我承认，求爱期间会有短暂的偏离，这种偏离往往表现得像温情。这种情况有时候是真心实意幻想的结果，但更多的则是男女之间永无休止的争斗中的一次伏击。已婚人士不会再对配偶表现出温情，你会看到：他们之间能相敬如宾已然不错，除了身体接触外，他们的关系并不是很亲密。反正就我的妻子来说，我发现她是一个永恒的谜团。我觉得她就是斯芬克斯，其秘密不该为我所知。而且，我得略带感激地说，她几乎对我一无所知，对我的事也没有关注到病态的程度。这并不是说如果我得病，感染了某种可以想象得到的传染病，她会弃我而去。也不是说她快淹死时，我不会跳入水中救她，哪怕我不擅游泳。我的意思是除了这些紧要关头外，我们会温和地容忍对方，此外再也没想过要做点别的。我们跟兄弟姊妹会日渐生疏，这是无法避免的。他们与我们的生活与兴趣不再相同，见面时明显会有所保留，交谈也很做作，不能畅所欲言。另外，他们了解我们不想为人所知的往事。至于我与其他伙伴之间，哪怕是孩童，我发现我们的所有交往都由习俗左右，我们做事和说话似乎多多少少都在他人意料之中。而且我知道，我们一直都不信任对方，即使不是非常必要，也会出于本能隐藏或虚假表述我们的真实想法与情感。我本人不喜欢人类，因为总的说来，我觉得人类这个种群不具备值得欣赏和钟爱的任何特质。但对于书中的人物，如米勒曼特夫人、特洛伊的海伦、贝拉·维尔佛、梅绿丝娜和比阿特丽克丝·埃斯蒙德，我会因为理解透彻而对她们满怀柔情，关爱之情溢于言表。之所以如此，一方面是因为她们应当获得柔情与关爱，另一方面是因为我知道，她们不会认为我“古怪”，也不会怀疑我另有所图。

    与我生命相关的任何一种环境，我常希望能了解其真相。千变万化的声响、噪音和色彩真是倏忽而过，抑或一切皆是我脑海中的幻觉？比方说，你怎么知道现在不是梦到我？我敢肯定，在你承认的梦中，你必定虚构、看见和倾听一些人，而这些人似乎非常真实，尤如我现在这般。对，看吧，尤如我这般！我如此流畅地指称为“我”的又是什么呢？假如你打算形成关于自己的概念，即关于这样一种东西的概念：你觉得这种东西栖身于并部分控制你的血肉之躯，那么你就会遭遇大量活生生的多余之物。如果不理会外在的东西 –– 衣服、四肢和躯体，后天养成的习惯、胃口、遗传特质和偏见，以及单个而言并非你必需的其他所有附属物 –– 那么看起来留在珍珠色脑细胞（这是你最后的藏身之处）里的东西就非常少了，只剩下接收知觉的功能，而你清楚这种功能大多会产生错觉。当然，仅仅成为极易受骗的意识，暂时寄身于未解之秘，这样的困境不会令人羡慕。然而这一生 –– 我执着固守的一生 –– 也就仅此而已。同时我听到人们谈论“真相”，甚至就他们所知的“真相”下大赌注：而我会效仿“善戏谑的彼拉多”，重提有史以来没有答案的可怜疑问 –– 真相，何为真相。

    最后，我渴求文雅。我认为这种特质世间少有。实际上，它很可能根本不存在。真正的文雅之士 –– 一个思想开明的凡人，坦承自己有短处、会犯错，在什么事情上都不会被非理性的盲目偏见蒙蔽 –– 难逃被世上男女视作怪物的命运。我们所有人，仿佛天生就不能容忍不熟悉的东西：我们痛恨其突兀。就像小男孩会嘲笑不合时宜的草帽，基于大致相同的理由，他们的长辈把传教士派遣到异教徒中去……