作者Clive Staples Lewis(克利夫·斯特普尔斯·刘易斯,1898—1963),是爱尔兰裔英国知名作家,出生于北爱尔兰首府贝尔法斯特,但长年居住于英国。他以儿童文学作品《纳尼亚传奇》系列而闻名于世,此外还著有神学论文、中世纪文学研究等诸多作品。
本文节选自作者1944年在英国伦敦大学国王学院所发表的一篇演说,说理深入浅出,逻辑缜密,值得细细品读。 ——Maisie
May I read you a few lines from 1)Tolstoi’s War and Peace?
我可以读一些托尔斯泰所著的《战争与和平》里的内容给你们听吗?
When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his2)decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andrey, with an expression of soldierly3)servility on his purple face. “Alright. Please wait!” he said to the general, speaking in Russian with the French accent which he used when he spoke with contempt. The moment he noticed Boris he stopped listening to the general who 4)trotted 5)imploringly after him and begged to be heard, while Prince Andrey turned to Boris with a cheerful smile and a nod of the head. Boris now clearly understood—what he had already guessed—that side by side with the system of discipline and 6)subordination which were laid down in the Army Regulations, there existed a different and more real system—the system which compelled a tightly 7)laced general with a purple face to wait respectfully for his turn while a mere 8)captain like Prince Andrey chatted with a mere second 9)lieutenant like Boris. Boris decided at once that he would be guided not by the official system but by this other unwritten system.
当鲍里斯走进房间的时候,安德烈王子正在听一个老将军讲话。老将军戴着勋章,发紫的脸上带有士兵的谦卑,正在向安德烈王子汇报着什么。“好了,请稍等!”他用夹杂法国口音的俄语对老将军说道,这种口音只在他语带轻蔑的时候才会出现。他一看到鲍里斯就无心听老将军讲话了,剩下老将军如哀似求地跟在他身后,请求他听自己说。安德烈王子一转向鲍里斯就面露微笑,点了点头。鲍里斯现在清楚了解到——之前他早有猜测——与军队的法规法令里所列明的纪律和等级关系一同存在着的,还有一个截然不同且更真实的制度——这个制度迫使像安德烈王子这样的上尉和像鲍里斯这样的少尉聊天之时,一个脸部发紫、穿戴整齐的将军不得不满怀敬意地在旁边等候着。鲍里斯当即决定自己不用遵循官方的制度,而是遵循这不成文的制度。
In the passage I have just read from Tolstoi, the young second lieutenant Boris Dubretskoi discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book and anyone can easily read it up. It also remains constant. A general is always superior to a 10)colonel, and a colonel to a captain. The other is not printed anywhere. Nor is it even a formally organized secret society with officers and rules which you would be told after you had been admitted. You are never formally and 11)explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it. There are what correspond to passwords, but they are too spontaneous and informal. A particular 12)slang, the use of particular nicknames, an 13)allusive manner of conversation, are the marks. But it is not so constant. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside. Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the borderline. There are no formal admissions or 14)expulsions.
在我刚读过的这段托尔斯泰所写的文字里,年轻的少尉鲍里斯·杜比茨斯基发现在军队中存在两种截然不同的等级制度。一种是印在小红本子上的,任何人都可以读到,并且是永恒不变的。将军永远高于上校,而上校永远高于上尉。另一种却没印在任何地方,并且也不像那种有正规组织的秘密社团那样,在加入时有人会把规章制度告诉你。你永远不会被任何人正式地或明确地认可。你会通过几乎是无法诠释的方式逐渐地发现这种制度的存在,而你置身其外;然后过一阵子,或许你又会发现你身处其中了。有类似暗号之类的东西存在,但那都是随性的、非正式的。一句特别的俚语,特殊昵称的使用,或者含沙射影的对话,都是标记。但它又不是一成不变的。即使是在某个特定的时刻,也很难说谁在里面,谁在外面。有些人是明显在其中的,有些人是明显在其外的,但是总会有一些人在边界线上徘徊。它没有正式的进入许可或者驱逐提示。
But you have met the phenomenon of an Inner Ring. You discovered one in your 15)house at school before the end of the first term. And when you had climbed up to somewhere near it by the end of your second year, perhaps you discovered that within the ring there was a Ring yet more inner, which in its turn was the 16)fringe of the great school Ring to which the house Rings were only satellites. It is even possible that the school ring was almost in touch with a 17)Masters’ Ring. You were beginning, in fact, to pierce through the skins of an onion.
但你肯定遇到过“内圈”这种现象。在第一学期结束前你就会在学院宿舍里发现它。第二学年结束时,当你爬到靠近它的地方时,或者你会发现在这圈子里面还有更核心的圈子,你会来到“学校圈子”的边上,而宿舍圈子只是学校圈子的“卫星”而已。很有可能学校这个圈子还挨着学院院长的圈子。事实上,你只是刚开始刺穿洋葱的层层表皮而已。
I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. This desire, in one of its forms, has indeed had ample 18)justice done to it in literature. I mean, in the form of snobbery. Victorian fiction is full of characters who are 19)hagridden by the desire to get inside that particular Ring which is, or was, called 20)Society. But it must be clearly understood that “Society,” in that sense of the word, is merely one of a hundred Rings, and snobbery therefore only one form of the longing to be inside.
我相信在所有人生活的某些时期,以及大多数人从婴儿到老年的所有时期,心头一大欲望就是要打进当地的圈子,且对被排挤在外恐惧不已。这种欲望的其中一种形式在文学作品中得到了充分的表现。我指的是“势利”这种表现形式。维多利亚时期的小说里满是那种被欲望所驱动而力争进入那个特殊的圈子(或者称之为“上流社会”)的。但必须清楚了解的是,这种“上流社会”只是上百个圈子里的其中一个,因而“势利”也只是渴望进入这个圈子的其中一种形式而已。
…
If you want to be made free of a certain circle for some 21)wholesome reason—if, 22)say you want to join a musical society because you really like music—then there is a possibility of satisfaction. You may find yourself playing in a quartet and you may enjoy it. But if all you want is to be 23)in the know, your pleasure will be short lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic. Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humor or learning or wit or any of the things that can really be enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new 24)associates have been 25)staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the 26)drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.
如果你出于某种有益身心的想法,不想受任何圈子的束缚——比方说,你是因为真的喜欢音乐而想加入一个音乐社团——那么你还有可能获得满足感。你会发现自己参与表演四重奏,并乐在其中。但是如果你想要的只是了解内幕,那么你的快乐将是短暂的。当你身处圈内时,这个圈子的魅力是无法跟你在圈外看它时的感觉相提并论的。随着你一步步地被认可,它就会失去其魔力。一旦最初的新鲜感减退后,这圈子的成员也就跟你的老朋友差不多,无甚新鲜趣味可言。为什么他们一定要有趣呢?你又不是想从他们身上看到美德、善良、忠诚、幽默、学问,或者是智慧,又或者是任何一样可以欣赏的东西。你仅仅是想“进去”而已。而那种快乐并不持久。一旦你的新伙伴对你来说已经不再新鲜了,你就会去寻找另一个圈子。彩虹的尽头仍然会在你的前方。如今旧圈子只会成为你立志进入新圈子的乏味背景。
And you will always find them hard to enter, for a reason you very well know. You yourself, once you are in, want to make it hard for the next 27)entrant, just as those who are already in made it hard for you. Naturally. In any wholesome group of people which holds together for a good purpose, the exclusions are in a sense accidental. Three or four people who are together for the sake of some piece of work exclude others because there is work only for so many or because the others can’t in fact do it. Your little musical group limits its numbers because the rooms they meet in are only so big. But your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence.
而且你会发现这些圈子都很难进入,其中原因你再清楚不过了。你自己,一旦进去了,就会设法让下一个希望进入的人难以进入,就像那些曾经给你设下种种难关的人那样。这是很自然的。在那些人们由于良好的意图而建立的有益彼此身心健康的群体里,排外只是偶然的情况。三四个人因为工作的原因聚集到一起,他们如果排挤他人,是因为这些活儿只够这么多人做,或者因为其他人根本无法胜任。你那小乐队限制成员人数,是因为举行集会的小房间只有那么大。但是你那真正的内圈却是为了排他而存在的。如果没有圈外人的话,就毫无乐趣可言了。除非大多数人都错站在边界线外头,否则这条无形的界线就没有存在的意义了。在内圈里,排他不是偶然事件,而是其本质所在。
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all 28)unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the 29)sound 30)craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you 31)consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed32)snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a byproduct, and no one was led 33)thither by the lure of the34)esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. 35)Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
苦苦追求进入内圈会令你伤心,除非你打破这种内圈的限制。但一旦你打破它,就会有惊人的结果出现。在你工作时间内,如果你把工作看做目标,不久你就会不经意地发现自己处于这个专业的唯一一个重要的圈子中。你将成为其中一个杰出的“匠人”,而其他杰出的“匠人”也会知晓。这群“匠人”组成的小组跟那些“内圈”或“重要人物”或“知情人”所组成的小组截然不同。它不会改变行业政策或者激发起用来对抗公众的专业影响力:它也不会像那些内圈那样引发周期性的丑闻或者危机。但是它会做该行业需要做的事情,并且长期致力于为该行业赢得其应有的尊敬,这是做多少演讲和卖多少广告都无法争取到的。如果在空余时间里,你和自己喜欢的人来往,你又会发现自己不经意地身处一个真正的圈子里:身处其中时,你会感觉舒适而安全,而这个圈子从外头看来很像“内圈”。但是不同之处在于,在这里,秘密是偶然产生的,排他性只是一个副产品,没人因为受到圈内人的诱惑而想进入:因为它仅仅是四五个互相喜欢的人聚集在一起做他们喜欢的事情而已。这叫做友谊。亚里士多德把它列为美德之一。世上大概半数的幸福快意由此而生,而这是任何内圈都无法拥有的。
