The Unbearable Lightness of Being

生命中不能承受之輕

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness. But, is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us. We sink beneath it. It pins us to the ground. The heaviest of burdens is, therefore, simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth; the more real and truthful they become.

如果永劫回歸是最沉重的負擔，那么我們的生活就能以其全部輝煌的輕松，來與之抗衡：可是，沉重便真的悲慘，而輕松便真的輝煌嗎？最沉重的負擔壓得我們崩塌了，沉沒了，將我們釘在地上、由此，最沉重的負擔同時也是一種生活最為充實的象征j負擔越沉，我們的生活也就貼近大地，越趨近真切和實在。

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights. Take leave of the earth and his earthly being and become only half real. His movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose; weight or lightness?

相反，完全沒有負擔，人變得比大氣還輕，會高高地飛起，離別大地亦即離別真實的生活。他將變得似真非真，運動自由而毫無意義，那么我們將選擇什么呢？沉重還是輕松？

I have been thinking about Tomas for many years. But only in the light of these reflections did I see him clearly. I saw him standing at the window of his flat and looking across the courtyard at the opposite walls not knowing what to do.

多少年來，我一直想著托馬斯，似乎只有憑借回想的折光，我才能看清他這個人j我看見他站在公寓的窗臺前不知所措，越過庭院的目光，落在對面的墻上。

He had first met Tereza about three weeks earlier in a small Czech town. They had spent scarcely an hour together. She had accompanied him to the station and waited with him until he boarded the train. Ten days later she paid him a visit. They made love the day she arrived. That night she came down with a fever and stayed a whole week in his flat with the flu. He had come to feel an in-explicable love for this all but complete stranger. She seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket docked with pitch and sent downstream for Tomas to fetch under the riverbank of his bed.

他與特麗莎初識于三個星期前捷克的一個小鎮上，兩人呆在一起還不到一個鐘頭，她就陪他去了車站，一直等到他上火車。十天后她去看他，而且兩人當天便做愛j不料夜里她發起燒來，是流感，她在他的公寓里呆了一個星期。對于這個幾乎是完全陌生的人，他慢慢地感到了一種莫名其妙的愛j對他來說，她像個孩子，被人放在樹脂涂覆的草筐里順水漂來，而他在床榻之岸順手撈起了她。

He knelt down next to her. Her feverous breath quickened and she gave out a weak moan. He pressed his face to hers and whispered calming words into her sleep. And all at once he fancied she had been with him for many years and was dying. He had a sudden clear feeling that he would not survive her death. He would lie down beside her and want to die with her. He pressed his face into the pillow beside her head and kept it there for a long time.

他跪在她的床邊，見她燒得呼吸急促，微微呻吟，他用臉貼在她的臉，輕聲安慰她，直到她睡著。剎那間，他幻想著自己與她在一起已有漫漫歲月，而現在她正行將死去。他突然清楚地意識到自己不能挺過她死去的這一劫，他得躺在她身邊，與她一同赴死，他挨著她的頭，把臉埋在枕頭里過了許久。

Now he was standing at the window trying to call that moment to account. What could it have been if not love declaring itself to him? But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly exaggerated; he had seen her only once before in his life. Was it simply the hysteria of a man who aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it? His unconscious was so cowardly that the best partner he could choose for his life comedy was this miserable provincial waitress with practically no chance at all to enter his life.

現在他站在窗前，極力回想那一刻的情景。若他清楚感受到的這種感情不是愛，又會是什么呢？但這是愛嗎？那種想死在她身邊的情感顯然有些夸張：在這以前他僅僅見了她一面！那么，明明知道這種愛不甚適當，難道這只是一個歇斯底里的男人感到自欺之需而做出的舉動嗎？他的無意識是如此懦弱，一個小小的玩笑就使他選擇了這樣一個可憐的、壓根兒不可能進入他生活的鄉間女招待，作為他的最佳伴侶！

He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he really wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to want because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

他生著自己的氣，直到他弄明白自己的茫然無措其實也很自然我們是永遠也不知道自己要什么的，因為人的生命只有一次，我們既不能把它與我們前世相比較，也無法使其在后世完美度過。

There is no means of testing which decision is better because there is no basis for comparison. We live even-thing as it comes. Without warming, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?

沒有比較的基點，因此沒有任何辦法可以檢驗何種選擇更好我們經歷著生活中突然臨頭的一切，毫無防備，就像演員進入初排如果生活的第一排練便是生活本身，那生活有什么價值呢？

"Einmal ist keinmal", says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.

“Finmal ist Keinmal"托馬斯自言自語，這句德國諺語說，只發生過一次的事就像壓根兒沒有發生過．如果生命屬于我們只有一次，我們當然也可以說根本沒有過生命。

英語學習筆記:

1. I saw him standing at the window of his flat and looking across the courtyard at the opposite walls, not knowing what to do.

英語點睛：動名詞的使用使句子更加精練。

2. What could it have been if not love declaring itself to him?

英語點睛：l declare在這個句子中的用法起到了畫龍點睛的作用。

3. We can never know what to want because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

英語點睛：neither... nor的句型雖然常見，但是很實用。

學習更多：

1. This is due to the child desperately wanting his/her moth-er, knowing that this is the person who would always want to be there for them. and the mothers deep desire to protect her child from harm．

（表現親子關系）這是因為她的孩子非常想得到母親的幫助，他們知道母親是隨時都愿意來到自己身邊，給予幫助的人，而母親也有保護她的孩子免受傷害的強烈愿望。

2. The government declared him a person non grata.

（表示宣稱）該國政府宣布他為不受歡迎的人。

3. Although neither nor them remembered the occasion, Diana first met her future husband when she was just a baby．

（表示二者皆非）盡管兩人已記不清那段往事，可當黛安娜頭一次見到她未來的丈夫時，還只是個孩子。

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