PART FIVE Lightness and Weight

五、轻与重

When Tereza unexpectedly came to visit Tomas in Prague, he made love to her, as I pointed out in Part One, that very day, or rather, that very hour, but suddenly thereafter she became feverish. As she lay in his bed and he stood over her, he had the irrepressible feeling that she was a child who had been put in a bulrush basket and sent downstream to him.

如我在第一章中所述，特丽莎出其不意来到布拉格那天，托马斯与她做爱。就在那一天，或者说就在那一刻，特丽莎突然发起烧来。他站在她床前，看着她躺在床上，不禁想到她是一个被置入草篮里的孩子，顺水漂到了他的面前。

The image of the abandoned child had consequently become dear to him, and he often reflected on the ancient myths in which it occurred. It was apparently with this in mind that he picked up a translation of Sophocles' Oedipus.

这种弃儿的幻想总是使他感到亲切，而他常常思索着那些有关弃儿的古老神话。显然，正是这种思绪使他读了索福克勒斯的《俄狄浦斯》译本。

The story of Oedipus is well known: Abandoned as an infant, he was taken to King Polybus, who raised him. One day, when he had grown into a youth, he came upon a dignitary riding along a mountain path. A quarrel arose, and Oedipus killed the dignitary. Later he became the husband of Queen Jocasta and ruler of Thebes. Little did he know that the man he had killed in the mountains was his father and the woman with whom he slept his mother. In the meantime, fate visited a plague on his subjects and tortured them with great pestilences. When Oedipus realized that he himself was the cause of their suffering, he put out his own eyes and wandered blind away from Thebes.

俄狄浦斯的故事是众所周知的：他是一个被遗弃的婴孩，被波里布斯国王收养，长大成人。一天，他遇见一位显贵官员沿着山路骑马而来。一场口角，他竞把那人给杀了。后来，他成了伊俄卡斯达王后的丈夫，当了底比斯国的国王。他一点儿也不知道他在山里杀的人就是自己的父亲，而与他同床共枕的竟是他母亲。正在这时，命运之神降灾于他的臣民，瘟疫蔓延，人们痛苦不堪。俄狄浦斯得知自己正是灾祸之源，便自刺双目，离开底比斯流浪而去。

Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.

任何一个认为中欧某些共产党当局是一种罪恶特产的人，都看出了一个基本事实：罪恶的当局并非由犯罪分子们组成，而是由热情分子组成的。他们确认自己发现了通往天堂的唯一通道，如此英勇地捍卫这条通道，竞可以迫不得已地处死许多人。后来的现实清楚表明，没有什么天堂，只是热情分子成了杀人凶手。

Then everyone took to shouting at the Communists: You're the ones responsible for our country's misfortunes (it had grown poor and desolate), for its loss of independence (it had fallen into the hands of the Russians), for its judicial murders!

随后，人人都开始对追随当局者们叫嚷：你们应该对我们祖国的不幸负责（它已变得如此贫穷荒凉），你们应该对我们祖国的主权失落负责（它落入苏联之手），你们还应该对那些合法的谋杀负责！

And the accused responded: We didn't know! We were deceived! We were true believers! Deep in our hearts we are innocent!

被指控的人却回答：我们不知道！我们上当了！我们是真正的信奉者！我们内心深处天真无邪！

In the end, the dispute narrowed down to a single question: Did they really not know or were they merely making believe?

未了，这场争论归结为一个问题：他们是真的不知道呢还是在遮入耳目？

Tomas followed the dispute closely (as did his ten million fellow Czechs) and was of the opinion that while there had definitely been Communists who were not completely unaware of the atrocities (they could not have been ignorant of the horrors that had been perpetrated and were still being perpetrated in postrevolutionary Russia), it was probable that the majority of the Communists had not in fact known of them.

托马斯（与他的一千万捷克同胞一样）密切关注着这场争论。他认为，肯定有那么一些人，并非不知道这种暴行的后果（他们不会对俄国革命后以及现在仍在继续的罪行视而不见），倒是有可能，大多数共产党人对这一切的确缺乏了解。

But, he said to himself, whether they knew or didn't know is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?

但他心里想，无论他们知道或不知道，这不是主要问题；主要问题是，是不是因为一个人不知道他就一身清白？难道坐在王位上的因为是个傻子，就可以对他的臣民完全不负责吗？

Let us concede that a Czech public prosecutor in the early fifties who called for the death of an innocent man was deceived by the Russian secret police and the government of his own country. But now that we all know the accusations to have been absurd and the executed to have been innocent, how can that selfsame public prosecutor defend his purity of heart by beating himself on the chest and proclaiming, My conscience is clear! I didn't know! I was a believer! Isn't his I didn't know! I was a believer! at the very root of his irreparable guilt?

我们承认，五十年代初期，某个制造冤案处死无事的检查宫，是被俄国秘密警察和他自己的政府给骗了。可现在，我们都知道那些宣判荒诞不经，被处死者冤屈清白，这位检查宫先生怎么还可以捶胸顿足大声疾呼地为自己的心灵纯洁辩护呢？我的良心是好的！我不知道！我是个信奉者！难道不正是他的“我不知道”，“我是个信奉者”造成了无可弥补的罪孽么？

It was in this connection that Tomas recalled the tale of Oedipus: Oedipus did not know he was sleeping with his own mother, yet when he realized what had happened, he did not feel innocent. Unable to stand the sight of the misfortunes he had wrought by not knowing, he put out his eyes and wandered blind away from Thebes.

由于这种联想，托马斯回顾了俄狄浦斯的故事：俄狄浦斯不知道他娶的是自己的母亲。他知道事实真相后，不认为自己是清白无辜的，他无法忍受这种“不知道”造成的惨景。他刺瞎了双眼，从底比斯出走流浪。

When Tomas heard Communists shouting in defense of their inner purity, he said to himself, As a result of your "not knowing", this country has lost its freedom, lost it for centuries, perhaps, and you shout that you feel no guilt? How can you stand the sight of what you've done? How is it you aren't horrified? Have you no eyes to see? If you had eyes, you would have to put them out and wander away from Thebes!

当托马斯听到追随当局者为自己的内心纯洁辩护时，他想，由于你们的“不知道”，这个国家失去了自由，也许几百年都将失去自由，你们还能叫叫嚷嚷不感到内疚吗？你们能正视你们所造成的一切？你们怎么不感到恐惧呢？你们有眼睛看吗？如果有的话，你们该把眼睛刺掉，远离底比斯流浪去！

The analogy so pleased him that he often used it in conversation with friends, and his formulation grew increasingly precise and elegant.

这种类比使他如此高兴，跟朋友交谈时也时常引用，而且表达得越来越准确，越来越风趣。

Like all intellectuals at the time, he read a weekly newspaper published in three hundred thousand copies by the Union of Czech Writers. It was a paper that had achieved considerable autonomy within the regime and dealt with issues forbidden to others. Consequently, it was the writers' paper that raised the issue of who bore the burden of guilt for the judicial murders resulting from the political trials that marked the early years of Communist power.

他和当时所有的知识分子们一样，常读一种印数达三十万份的捷克作家联盟的周报。这家周报从当局那里获得了相当的自主权，而且还涉及一些犯禁的问题。正是这家报纸提出了这个问题：当局执政初期记录在案的政治审判及其杀人事件，谁来承担罪责。

Even the writers' paper merely repeated the same question: Did they know or did they not? Because Tomas found this question second-rate, he sat down one day, wrote down his reflections on Oedipus, and sent them to the weekly. A month later he received an answer: an invitation to the editorial offices. The editor who greeted him was short but as straight as a ruler. He suggested that Tomas change the word order in one of the sentences. And soon the text made its appearance—on the next to the last page, in the Letters to the Editor section.

即便是这家作家报纸，也只是重复同一个问题：他们知道还是不知道？托马斯认为这个问题是次要的，于是自己坐下来写了那篇有关俄狄浦斯的感想，把它送给了周报。一个月后，他得到了回答，让他去报社编辑室。简短的寒暄之后，编辑便开门见山直入本题。他建议托马斯把一个句子的语序改一改。很快，这篇文章在倒数第二版见报了，登在“读者来信”栏目内。

Tomas was far from overjoyed. They had considered it necessary to ask him to the editorial offices to approve a change in word order, but then, without asking him, shortened his text by so much that it was reduced to its basic thesis (making it too schematic and aggressive). He didn't like it anymore.

托马斯根本谈不上高兴。他们为了改变一个句子的语序，不惜叫他务必去编辑室跑一趟，而大删大砍他的文章却不请他。这一来，削弱了他的基本论点（使文章变得太图解化，太过分），他一点儿也不喜欢这篇文章。

All this happened in the spring of 1968. Alexander Dubcek was in power, along with those Communists who felt guilty and were willing to do something about their guilt.

这一切都发生在1968年春天。亚历山大·杜布切克还在当政，他与他那共产主义者们一起感到了内疚，并愿意为此而做点什么。

But the other Communists, the ones who kept shouting how innocent they were, were afraid that the enraged nation would bring them to justice. They complained daily to the Russian ambassador, trying to drum up support. When Tomas's letter appeared, they shouted: See what things have come to! Now they're telling us publicly to put our eyes out!

但另一些共产党人，老叫喊自己清白的那些人，害怕愤怒的民族将把他们送交法庭审判。他们天天到俄国大使馆去诉苦，力图取得支持。托马斯的信一见报，他们便嚷开了：看看都会出些什么事吧！他们现在公开告诉我们，要挖我们的眼睛啦！

Two or three months later the Russians decided that free speech was inadmissible in their gubernia, and in a single night they occupied Tomas's country with their army.

两三个月之后，俄国人决定在他们的管辖区内取消言论自由，而且在一夜之间用武力攻占了托马斯的祖国。

When Tomas came back to Prague from Zurich, he took up in his hospital where he had left off. Then one day the chief surgeon called him in.

托马斯从苏黎世回布拉格以后，继续在他原来的医院工作。一天，主治医生把他叫去。

You know as well as I do, he said, that you're no writer or journalist or savior of the nation. You're a doctor and a scientist. I'd be very sad to lose you, and I'll do everything I can to keep you here. But you've got to retract that article you wrote about Oedipus. Is it terribly important to you?

“我不说你也知道，”他说，“你既不是作家、新闻记者，也不是这个民族的救星。你是个医生，一个科学工作者。失去你我会非常难过的。我将竭尽全力把你留在这里。但你不得不收回那篇关于俄狄浦新的文章，这件事对于你来说是极其重要的么？”

To tell you the truth, said Tomas, recalling how they had amputated a good third of the text, "it couldn't be any less important."

托马斯想起他们把那篇文章删掉了足足三分之一：“跟你说实话，没有比这更不重要的了。”

"You know what's at stake," said the chief surgeon.

“你知道这件事关系到什么？”主治医生说。

He knew, all right. There were two things in the balance: his honor (which consisted in his refusing to retract what he had said) and what he had come to call the meaning of his life (his work in medicine and research).

他是知道的。面前有两样东西得权衡一下：一样是他的声誉（取决于他是否拒绝收回自己说过的话），另一样便是他称为生命意义的东西（他的医务工作与科学研究）。

The chief surgeon went on: "The pressure to make public retractions of past statements—there's something medieval about it. What does it mean, anyway, to 'retract' what you've said? How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid? In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted. And since to retract an idea is impossible, merely verbal, formal sorcery, I see no reason why you shouldn't do as they wish. In a society run by terror, no statements whatsoever can be taken seriously. They are all forced, and it is the duty of every honest man to ignore them. Let me conclude by saying that it is in my interest and in your patients' interest that you stay on here with us."

主治医生继续说：“迫使人公开收回过去的声明——有点象过时的搞法。把你说出去的话‘收回’来，究竟是什么意思？谁能明确地宣布他以前的一个想法不再有效了？在现代，是的，一种观念可以被驳倒，但不可以被收回。那么，既然收回一种观念是不可能的，仅仅是口头上的，是一种形式上的巫术，我看你没有理由不照他们希望的去做。一个靠恐吓专政的社会里，什么样的声明也不必认真。它们都是强迫的产物，任何一个诚实的人都有责任不去理会它们。最后我得说的是，从我个人的利益和你的病人的利益出发，你该留在这里和我们一起。”

"You're right, I'm sure," said Tomas, looking very unhappy.

“您是对的，我肯定。”托马斯显得很不高兴。

"But?" The chief surgeon was trying to guess his train of thought.

“可是？”主治医生想揣度他的思路。

"I'm afraid I'd be ashamed."

“我恐怕会难为情的。”

"Ashamed! You mean to say you hold your colleagues in such high esteem that you care what they think?"

“难为情！你的意思是说你如此仰仗你的同事，所以要考虑他们怎么想？”

"No, I don't hold them in high esteem," said Tomas.

“不，不是仰仗他们。”托马斯说。

"Oh, by the way," the chief surgeon added, "you won't have to make a public statement. I have their assurance. They're bureaucrats. All they need is a note in their files to the effect that you've nothing against the regime. Then if someone comes and attacks them for letting you work at the hospital, they're covered. They've given me their word that anything you say will remain between you and them. They have no intention of publishing a word of it."

“哦，对了，”主治医生补充道，“你不必作公开声明，他们对我保证了的。他们都是些官僚，所需要的只是档案里有张条子，意思是你没有反政权的意思。以后如果有人攻击他们，说他们还让你在医院工作，他们有个遮掩。他们给了我许诺，你所说的只让你与他们之间知道，他们不打算发表其中的一个宇。”

"Give me a week to think it over," said Tomas, and there the matter rested.

“给我一个星期想一想。”托马斯把这事搁下来了。

Tomas was considered the best surgeon in the hospital. Rumor had it that the chief surgeon, who was getting on towards retirement age, would soon ask him to take over. When that rumor was supplemented by the rumor that the authorities had requested a statement of self-criticism from him, no one doubted he would comply.

人们公认托马斯是医院里最好的外科医生。谣传主治医生已接近退休年龄，很快会让托马斯接手。作为补充的是另一个谣言，说当局让托马斯写自我批评的声明。人们都相信他会从命。

That was the first thing that struck him: although he had never given people cause to doubt his integrity, they were ready to bet on his dishonesty rather than on his virtue.

使他震惊的第一件事是：尽管他从未让人们有理由怀疑他的正直，但他们已准备打赌，宁可相信他的不诚实而不相信他的德行。

The second thing that struck him was their reaction to the position they attributed to him. I might divide it into two basic types:

第二件使他震惊的事是：他们认定他如何如何以后，便纷纷作出反应。我得把这些反应归结为基本两大类：

The first type of reaction came from people who themselves (they or their intimates) had retracted something, who had themselves been forced to make public peace with the occupation regime or were prepared to do so (unwillingly, of course—no one wanted to do it).

第一类反应来自那些曾经收回过什么东西的人（他们自己或亲友）。他们一直被迫与占领当局公开言归于好，或者正打算这么做（当然是不愿意的——没有人愿意这样）。

These people began to smile a curious smile at him, a smile he had never seen before: the sheepish smile of secret conspiratorial consent. It was the smile of two men meeting accidentally in a brothel: both slightly abashed, they are at the same time glad that the feeling is mutual, and a bond of something akin to brotherhood develops between them.

这些人开始对他古怪地笑，这种笑他从来没有见过：一种有着秘密勾当时会意而又忸怩的笑，正象两个男人在一家妓院偶然相逢时的笑，双方都有些窘迫，同时又都高兴地觉得他们有着共同感情，一种类乎友爱的默契在他们之间滋生了。

Their smiles were all the more complacent because he had never had the reputation of being a conformist. His supposed acceptance of the chief surgeon's proposal was therefore further proof that cowardice was slowly but surely becoming the norm of behavior and would soon cease being taken for what it actually was. He had never been friends with these people, and he realized with dismay that if he did in fact make the statement the chief surgeon had requested of him, they would start inviting him to parties and he would have to make friends with them.

又因为托马斯从没有过遵奉于人的名声，他们于是笑得更加自鸣得意。关于他接受主治医生建议的假想，已经进一步证实懦弱这东西正在缓慢地但是必然地成为人们行为的规范，而且会很快扭转人们现在对懦弱的看法。他从没与这些人交过朋友。他沮丧地意识到，如果真的照主治医生说的去作一个声明，他们就会开始请他去参加众多晚会，他就不得不与之为伍。

The second type of reaction came from people who themselves (they or their intimates) had been persecuted, who had refused to compromise with the occupation powers or were convinced they would refuse to compromise (to sign a statement) even though no one had requested it of them (for instance, because they were too young to be seriously involved).

第二种类型的反应来自那些受过迫害的人（他们自己或者亲友）。他们曾经拒绝与占领当局握手言欢，或者确信自己将来也不会妥协（签发一个声明），尽管没有人要求他们这样做。（比方说，因为他们还太年轻，不必对他们认真对待。）

One of the latter, Doctor S., a talented young physician, asked Tomas one day, "Well, have you written it up for them?"

S医生就属于后一类型，是一位颇具才华的年轻内科医生。一天，他问托马斯：“喂，你给他们写了没有？”

"What in the world are you talking about?" Tomas asked in return.

“你说的是什么？”托马斯反问他。

"Why, your retraction," he said. There was no malice in his voice. He even smiled. One more smile from that thick herbal of smiles: the smile of smug moral superiority.

“怎么啦，你的收回声明啊。”他语气中没有恶意，甚至笑了，一种从厚厚的笑容标本集里挑出来的微笑；有精神优越感和沾沾自喜的味道。

"Tell me, what do you know about my retraction?" said Tomas. "Have you read it?"

“告诉我，我收回观点的事，你都知道些什么？”托马斯问，“你读过吗？”

"No," said S.

“没有。”S说。

"Then what are you babbling about?"

“那你还罗嗦什么？”

Still smug, still smiling, S. replied, "Look, we know how it goes. You incorporate it into a letter to the chief surgeon or to some minister or somebody, and he promises it won't leak out and humiliate the author. Isn't that right?"

还是沾沾自喜，还是微笑，S回答：“瞧，我们知道这事怎么处置。你给主治医生或某个部长或者某个人写封信，表说你收回前言，他将答应不泄漏出去，不羞辱作者。是不是这样？”

Tomas shrugged his shoulders and let S. go on.

托马斯耸耸肩，让S继续说下去。

"But even after the statement is safely filed away, the author knows that it can be made public at any moment. So from then on he doesn't open his mouth, never criticizes a thing, never makes the slightest protest. The first peep out of him and into print it goes, sullying his good name far and wide. On the whole, it's rather a nice method. One could imagine worse."

“可是，即使那个声明已经安全归档，作者也知道，任何时候都有可能将其公之于众的。于是，从那以后，他便不开口了，再不会说长道短，再不会有丝毫异议。只要他一露头，声明就会变成铅字，他就臭名远扬。总之，这是个相当好的办法，没有比这更好了。”

"Yes, it's a very nice method," said Tomas, "but would you mind telling me who gave you the idea I'd agreed to go along with it?"

“是呵，真是个好办法，”托马斯说，“但麻烦你告诉我，是谁对你说我同意写那玩意儿？”

S. shrugged his shoulders, but the smile did not disappear from his face.

S耸耸肩，脸上始终带着笑。

And suddenly Tomas grasped a strange fact: everyone was smiling at him, everyone wanted him to write the retraction; it would make everyone happy! The people with the first type of reaction would be happy because by inflating cowardice, he would make their actions seem commonplace and thereby give them back their lost honor. The people with the second type of reaction, who had come to consider their honor a special privilege never to be yielded, nurtured a secret love for the cowards, for without them their courage would soon erode into a trivial, monotonous grind admired by no one.

托马斯突然捕捉了一个奇怪的事实：人人都朝他笑，人人都希望他写那个收回声明，人人都会因此而高兴！第一种人高兴，是因为他将他们的懦弱抬高身价，使他们过去的行为看来是小事一桩，能归还他们失去的名声。第二种人高兴，是因为他们能视自己的荣耀为特权，决不愿意让出，甚至会慢慢培养出一种对懦弱者的暗暗喜爱。要是没有这些懦弱者，他们的英勇将会立即变成一种无人景仰羡慕的苦差事，平凡而单调。

Tomas could not bear the smiles. He thought he saw them everywhere, even on the faces of strangers in the street. He began losing sleep. Could it be? Did he really hold those people in such high esteem? No. He had nothing good to say about them and was angry with himself for letting their glances upset him so. It was completely illogical. How could someone who had so little respect for people be so dependent on what they thought of him?

托马斯受不了这些笑。他认为自己处处都看见这种笑，连街上陌生人的脸上也莫不如此。他开始失眠。事情能这样吗？他真的那么仰仗那些人吗？不，他对他们没好话可说，自己居然让他们的眼色搞得如此不安，实在使他气愤。这是完全不合逻辑的。一个这么不在乎别人的人怎么会这样受制于别人的想法呢？

Perhaps his deep-seated mistrust of people (his doubts as to their right to decide his destiny and to judge him) had played its part in his choice of profession, a profession that excluded him from public display. A man who chooses to be a politician, say, voluntarily makes the public his judge, with the naive assurance that he will gain its favor. And if the crowd does express its disapproval, it merely goads him on to bigger and better things, much in the way Tomas was spurred on by the difficulty of a diagnosis.

也许，这种根深蒂固的对人的不信任感（他怀疑那些人有权决定他的命运和对他给予评判），在他选择职业时起了作用。眼下的职业使他可以回避公开露面。比方说，一个选择政治家职业的人，当然会乐意去当众指手划脚评头品足，怀着幼稚的自信，以为如此会获得民众的欢心。如果群众表示了不赞同，那只会刺激他继续干下去力争做得更多更好。同样，托马斯也受到刺激，不过他的刺激来自疾病的诊断难点。

A doctor (unlike a politician or an actor) is judged only by his patients and immediate colleagues, that is, behind closed doors, man to man. Confronted by the looks of those who judge him, he can respond at once with his own look, to explain or defend himself. Now (for the first time in his life) Tomas found himself in a situation where the looks fixed on him were so numerous that he was unable to register them. He could answer them neither with his own look nor with words. He was at everyone's mercy. People talked about him inside and outside the hospital (it was a time when news about who betrayed, who denounced, and who collaborated spread through nervous Prague with the uncanny speed of a bush telegraph); although he knew about it, he could do nothing to stop it. He was surprised at how unbearable he found it, how panic-stricken it made him feel. The interest they showed in him was as unpleasant as an elbowing crowd or the pawings of the people who tear our clothes off in nightmares.

一个医生不象政治家，也不象演员，只是被他的病人以及同行医生所评价，就是说，是一种关上门后个人对个人的评价。面对那些品评者的目光，他能立即用自己的目光回答他们，为自己解释或者辩护。现在，托马斯生平第一次发现自己陷入了困境，数不清的目光都凝聚在他身上，他无法接应它们，既不能用目光也不能用言语来回答它们。他听任每一个人的摆布，听任人们在医院内外议论着他（其时紧张的布拉格正谣言四起，谁背叛，谁告密，谁勾结，传谣速度快如电报不可思议）。他虽然知道但毫无办法。他对谣言如此不堪忍受感到惊奇，对自己如此病苦焦灼感到不可理解。他们对他的兴趣令人不快，如同你碰我撞的挤迫，如同噩梦中一伙人七手八脚将我们的衣服撕扯。

He went to the chief surgeon and told him he would not write a word.

他去了主治医生那里，告诉对方他不会写一个字。

The chief surgeon shook his hand with greater energy than usual and said that he had anticipated Tomas's decision.

主治医生异乎寻常地用力跟他握了握手，说他对托马斯的决定早有预料。

"Perhaps you can find a way to keep me on even without a statement," said Tomas, trying to hint that a threat by all his colleagues to resign upon his dismissal would suffice.

“即使没有那个声明，也许您也能有办法留我继续工作吧。”托马斯竭力暗示对方，他的解雇足以使所有的同事以辞职来威胁当局。

But his colleagues never dreamed of threatening to resign, and so before long (the chief surgeon shook his hand even more energetically than the previous time—it was black and blue for days), he was forced to leave the hospital.

但他的同事做梦也没想到要用辞职来吓唬谁。不久（主治医生比前次更为有力地握了，握他的手——几天来他的手都是青一块紫一块的），他被迫离开了医院。

First he went to work in a country clinic about fifty miles from Prague. He commuted daily by train and came home exhausted. A year later, he managed to find a more advantageous but much inferior position at a clinic on the outskirts of Prague. There, he could no longer practice surgery, and became a general practitioner. The waiting room was jammed, and he had scarcely five minutes for each patient; he told them how much aspirin to take, signed their sick-leave documents, and referred them to specialists. He considered himself more civil servant than doctor.

开始，他在一家离布拉格约五十英里的乡村诊所里混，每天乘火车往返两地，回家就精疲力尽了。一年后，他设法找一个强些的差事，得到的却是布拉格郊外某个诊所里更低的职位。他在那里不可能干自己的外科本行，成了什么都干的通用品。候诊室里总是挤成一团糟，他对付每一个病人还不要五分钟，无非是告诉他们吃多少阿斯匹林，给他们开开病假条，送他们去找某些专科大夫。他看自己与其是医生，还不如说是个管家仆人。

One day, at the end of office hours, he was visited by a man of about fifty whose portliness added to his dignity. He introduced himself as representing the Ministry of the Interior, and invited Tomas to join him for a drink across the street.

一天，门诊时间完了，一个约摸五十岁的男人拜访了他，那人举止的庄重增添了几分高贵气。他自我介绍，是国家内务部的代表，想邀请托马斯到马路那边去喝一杯。

He ordered a bottle of wine. "I have to drive home," said Tomas by way of refusal. "I'll lose my license if they find I've been drinking."

他要了一杯葡萄酒，托马斯表示拒绝：“我还得开车回家，他们发现我喝了酒，会没收我的执照。”

The man from the Ministry of the Interior smiled. "If anything happens, just show them this." And he handed Tomas a card engraved with his name (though clearly not his real name) and the telephone number of the Ministry.

内务部的人笑着说：“真要碰上什么事，给他们看看这个就行了。”他递给托马斯一张名片（显然那不是他真正的名字），上面还有部里的电话号码。

He then went into a long speech about how much he admired Tomas and how the whole Ministry was distressed at the thought of so respected a surgeon dispensing aspirin at an outlying clinic. He gave Tomas to understand that although he couldn't come out and say it, the police did not agree with drastic tactics like removing specialists from their posts.

然后，他大谈特谈他如何钦佩托马斯，大谈特谈整个部里的人如何难过，不忍心想到一位受人尊敬的外科医生竟在一所偏远的小诊所里分发阿斯匹林。他让托马斯懂得，虽然他不能出来说话，警察是不同意采用这么严厉的措施，把专家们从自己的岗位上赶走的。

Since no one had thought to praise Tomas in quite some time, he listened to the plump official very carefully, and he was surprised by the precision and detail of the man's knowledge of his professional career. How defenseless we are in the face of flattery! Tomas was unable to prevent himself from taking seriously what the Ministry official said.

从来没有谁想到过要表扬托马斯，于是他非常仔细地听这位胖官员的讲话，对那人在医学方面的知识精确和细节熟悉感到惊讶。当我们面对奉承时，是多么没有防备啊！托马斯无法使自己不把部里官员的话当成一回事。

But it was not out of mere vanity. More important was Tomas's lack of experience. When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have a hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true, that nothing is sincere. Maintaining nonbelief (constantly, systematically, without the slightest vacillation) requires a tremendous effort and the proper training—in other words, frequent police interrogations. Tomas lacked that training.

这不只是出于虚荣，更重要的是托马斯缺乏经验。当你对面坐着一个使人愉快、值得尊敬、有礼貌的人时，你要提醒自己说，他说的都不是实话，没有一句出自真诚，是不容易的。保持不相信（经常地、完备地、毫不犹豫地），需要有极大的努力和适当的训练——换句话说，要常常经受警察的盘问。而托马斯缺乏这种训练。

The man from the Ministry went on: “We know you had an excellent position in Zurich, and we very much appreciate your having returned. It was a noble deed. You realized your place was here. And then he added, as if scolding Tomas for something, But your place is at the operating table, too!”

部里来的人继续说：“我们知道，你在苏黎世有极好的职位，我们非常赞赏你的回国。这是一种高尚的行为，你认识到了你的岗位在这里。”他又象责怪托马斯似的说：“可你的岗位应该在手术台上才对！”

“I couldn't agree more,” said Tomas.

“我太同意了。”托马斯说。

There was a short pause, after which the man from the Ministry said in mournful tones, “Then tell me, Doctor, do you really think that Communists should put out their eyes? You, who have given so many people the gift of health?”

稍停了一下，部里来的人用悲哀的语调说：“那么告诉我，大夫，你真的认为共产党员应该挖掉自己的眼睛吗？你，一位给那么多人赐予过健康的人，会这么认为吗？”

"But that's preposterous!“ Tomas cried in self-defense. ”Why don't you read what I wrote?"

“太荒谬了！”托马斯自卫地吼道，“你为什么不去读读我写的东西？”

“I have read it,” said the man from the Ministry in a voice that was meant to sound very sad.

“我读过的。”部里来的人说。声音听起来似乎非常难受。

"Well, did I write that Communists ought to put out their eyes?"

“我写了共产党员应该把眼睛挖去么？”

“That's how everyone understood it,” said the man from the Ministry, his voice growing sadder and sadder.

“人人都是这么理解的。”部里来的人说。声音变得越来越悲哀。

If you'd read the complete version, the way I wrote it originally, you wouldn't have read that into it. The published version was slightly cut.

“你去读全部的文章，我原先写的那样。你不会谈到它的，登出来的文章被删掉了一些。”

“What was that?” asked the man from the Ministry, pricking up his ears. “You mean they didn't publish it the way you wrote it?”

“是吗？”部里来的人警觉起来，“你是说他们不是按你写的那样发表的吗？”

"They cut it."

“他们删节了。”

"A lot?"

“很多吗？”

"By about a third."

“大约三分之一。”

The man from the Ministry appeared sincerely shocked. "That was very improper of them."

部里来的人看来真的吃了一惊：“他们这样做是非常不合适的。”

Tomas shrugged his shoulders.

托马斯耸了耸肩。

"You should have protested! Demanded they set the record straight immediately!"

“你应该抗议！他们责无旁贷地应该迅速刊登原稿。”

"The Russians came before I had time to think about it. We all had other things to think about then."

“俄国人来以前，我还有闲工夫想想这事，那以后，我还有其它事要想。”

"But you don't want people to think that you, a doctor, wanted to deprive human beings of their right to see!"

“但你总不愿意人们认为你，一个医生，要剥夺人看东西的权利吧！”

"Try to understand, will you? It was a letter to the editor, buried in the back pages. No one even noticed it. No one but the Russian embassy staff, because it's what they look for."

“你想想，你懂吗？这是一封给编辑的信，藏在报纸的角落里，没有人注意它，除了俄国使馆的人员。只有他们才去找它。”

"Don't say that! Don't think that! I myself have talked to many people who read your article and were amazed you could have written it. But now that you tell me it didn't come out the way you wrote it, a lot of things fall into place. Did they put you up to it?"

“别那么说！别那么想！我亲自与很多人谈过，他们读过你的文章，对你这么写感到吃惊。可你现在对我说，那文章与你写的不相符合，有很多地方不对，是他们让你写的吗？”

"To writing it? No. I submitted it on my own."

“你是说那篇文章？不，我自己写了交给他们的。”

"Do you know the people there?"

“你认识那里的人吗？”

"What people?"

“什么人？”

"The people who published your article."

“给你登文章的人呀。”

"No."

“不。”

"You mean you never spoke to them?"

“你是说你从未跟他们说过话？”

"They asked me to come in once in person."

“他们叫我亲自去过一次。”

"Why?"

“干嘛？”

"About the article."

“还是关于文章。”

"And who was it you talked to?"

“你跟谁谈的？”

"One of the editors."

“一位编辑。”

"What was his name?"

“他叫什么名字？”

Not until that point did Tomas realize that he was under interrogation. All at once he saw that his every word could put someone in danger. Although he obviously knew the name of the editor in question, he denied it: "I'm not sure."

直到这时，托马斯才意识到自已是在被审讯。他马上明白了，他说的每一个字都有可能使某个人陷入危险。他显然知道那位编辑的名字，却否认了：“我不清楚。”

"Now, now," said the man in a voice dripping with indignation over Tomas's insincerity, "you can't tell me he didn't introduce himself!"

“好啦，好啦，”那人的声音中透出对托马斯不老实的恼怒，“你总不能说，他连自我介绍都没有？”

It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. We do not know how to lie. The Tell the truth! imperative drummed into us by our mamas and papas functions so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman during an interrogation. It is simpler for us to argue with him or insult him (which makes no sense whatever) than to lie to his face (which is the only thing to do).

这真是令人哭笑不得的事实，我们良好的教养竟成了秘密警察的帮凶。我们不知道如何撤谎。我们的爸爸妈妈们老是命令我们“说实话”。这种思想灌输变成了一种如此自觉的行为，以至我仍在审讯中对秘密警察撒谎都感到羞耻。对我们来说，与他争一场或骂一顿（我们可以无动于衷），比当着他的面撤谎（这是唯一可行的），要简单得多。

When the man from the Ministry accused him of insincerity, Tomas nearly felt guilty; he had to surmount a moral barrier to be able to persevere in his lie: "I suppose he did introduce himself, he said, but because his name didn't ring a bell, I immediately forgot it."

部里的人指责他不老实时，托马斯几乎要感到内疚了，他不得不逾越道德的障碍来坚持谎言：“我想，他的确作了介绍，但他的名字不响亮，我马上就给忘了。”

"What did he look like?"

“他什么样子？”

The editor who had dealt with him was a short man with a light brown crew cut. Tomas tried to choose diametrically opposed characteristics: "He was tall," he said, "and had long black hair."

他打交道的那位编缉是一个浅棕色头发、剪平头的矮个子男人，托马斯现在尽力选择与他相反的特征：“高个子，留着长长的黑头发。”他说。

"Aha," said the man from the Ministry, "and a big chin!"

“呵，”部里来的人说，“有个大下巴！”

"That's right," said Tomas.

“对了。”托马斯说。

"A little stooped."

“背有点驼。”

"That's right," said Tomas again, realizing that now the man from the Ministry had pinpointed an individual. Not only had Tomas informed on some poor editor but, more important, the information he had given was false.

“对了。”托马斯心想，部里来的人现在已经认准某个人了。重要的不是托马斯说出了某个可怜的编辑，而是他说出的情况是不真实的。

"And what did he want to see you about? What did you talk about?"

“那么他要见你是为了什么呢？你们谈了些什么呢？”

"It had something to do with word order."

“有关词序的问题。”

It sounded like a ridiculous attempt at evasion. And again the man from the Ministry waxed indignant at Tomas's refusal to tell the truth: "First you tell me they cut your text by a third, then you tell me they talked to you about word order! Is that logical?"

这听起来象是在可笑地捏造借口。部里来的人对于托马斯拒绝讲实话更恼火了：“你开始说他们删掉了你的文章的三分之一，接下来又对我说，他们跟你只谈了词序的问题！这合逻辑吗？”

This time Tomas had no trouble responding, because he had told the absolute truth. "It's not logical, but that's how it was." He laughed. "They asked me to let them change the word order in one sentence and then cut a third of what I had written."

这回托马斯回答得毫不为难，因为他讲的绝对是实话：“是不合逻辑，但事实就是这样。”他笑起来，“他们要求我允许他们改变一个句子的语序，随后便把我写的东西砍去了三分之一。”

The man from the Ministry shook his head, as if unable to grasp so immoral an act. "That was highly irregular on their part."

部里来的人摇摇头，似乎不能理解如此缺德的行为：“他们这样做太乱弹琴了。”

He finished his wine and concluded:" You have been manipulated, Doctor, used. It would be a pity for you and your patients to suffer as a result. We are very much aware of your positive qualities. We'll see what can be done."

他喝完了酒就作总结：“你是被人操纵了，大夫，被人利用了。遗憾的是你和你的病人都吃了苦头。我们非常了解你积极的品质，我们知道该怎么办。”

He gave Tomas his hand and pumped it cordially. Then each went off to his own car.

他向托马斯把手伸过来，热情地握了握手，然后各自乘自己的车走了。

After the talk with the man from the Ministry, Tomas fell into a deep depression. How could he have gone along with the jovial tone of the conversation? If he hadn't refused to have anything at all to do with the man (he was not prepared for what happened and did not know what was condoned by law and what was not), he could at least have refused to drink wine with him as if they were friends! Supposing someone had seen him, someone who knew the man. He could only have inferred that Tomas was working with the police! And why did he even tell him that the article had been cut? Why did he throw in that piece of information? He was extremely displeased with himself.

与那位部里来的人谈过以后，托马斯深深地陷入了消沉之中。他怎么能一直用快活的语调进行那场谈话呢？如果说，当初他未能拒绝与那人打交道的话（他对于突如其来的事毫无准备，不知道法律宽容的限度），他至少可以拒绝象老朋友似的跟他喝酒嘛！假如有人看见他了，而且还认识那个人，必定推断出托马斯在为警察局工作！而且，他为什么要告诉对方文章删节一事呢？干嘛要多嘴多舌？他对自己不高兴到了极点。

Two weeks later, the man from the Ministry paid him another visit. Once more he invited him out for a drink, but this time Tomas requested that they stay in his office.

两周后，部里来的人又拜访了他，又一次邀他出去喝酒。但这一次托马斯提出要呆在自己的办公室里。

"I understand perfectly, Doctor," said the man, with a smile.

“我完全理解你，大夫。”那人笑着说。

Tomas was intrigued by his words. He said them like a chess player who is letting his opponent know he made an error in the previous move.

托马斯对他的话产生了好奇。对方说那些话，就象一个棋手在告诉对手：你先走错了一步。

They sat opposite each other, Tomas at his desk. After about ten minutes, during which they talked about the flu epidemic raging at the time, the man said, "We've given your case a lot of thought. If we were the only ones involved, there would be nothing to it. But we have public opinion to take into account. Whether you meant to or not, you fanned the flames of anti-Communist hysteria with your article. I must tell you there was even a proposal to take you to court for that article. There's a law against public incitement to violence."

他们相对而坐，托马斯坐在办公桌旁。他们大约谈了十分钟当时猖獗一时的流行性感冒，然后那人说：“我们为你的事想了很多。如果仅仅是我们处理这事，那就不会有什么问题。可我们还得考虑社会舆论。无论你是有意还是无意，你那篇文章煽起了歇斯底里的反共之火。我得告诉你，有人甚至就因为你这篇文章，建议到法院去告你。法律中有一条。就是针对公开煽动暴力而言的。”

The man from the Ministry of the Interior paused to look Tomas in the eye. Tomas shrugged his shoulders. The man assumed his comforting tone again. "We voted down the proposal. No matter what your responsibility in the affair, society has an interest in seeing you use your abilities to the utmost. The chief surgeon of your hospital speaks very highly of you. We have reports from your patients as well. You are a fine specialist. Nobody requires a doctor to understand politics. You let yourself be carried away. It's high time we settled this thing once and for all. That's why we've put together a sample statement for you. All you have to do is make it available to the press, and we'll make sure it comes out at the proper time." He handed Tomas a piece of paper.

从内务部来的人停下来盯着托马斯。托马斯耸了耸肩。那人又用安慰的口气说：“我们否决了这个建议。不论你在这件事上的责任有多大，从社会利益来看，需要你最大限度地发挥才能。你们医院的主治医生对你有极高的评价，我们也从病人那儿听到了一些汇报。你是个优秀的专家。谁也不会要求一个医生懂政治。是你把自己给推远了。现在时机很好，我们把这个问题一次性了结吧。因此，我们为你准备了一份声明样稿。你所要做的，只是让它在报上的发表合法。我们会在适当的时候把它发表出来。”他交给托马斯一张纸。

Tomas read what was in it and panicked. It was much worse than what the chief surgeon had asked him to sign two years before. It did not stop at a retraction of the Oedipus article. It contained words of love for the Soviet Union, vows of fidelity to the Communist Party; it condemned the intelligentsia, which wanted to push the country into civil war; and, above all, it denounced the editors of the writers' weekly (with special emphasis on the tall, stooped editor; Tomas had never met him, though he knew his name and had seen pictures of him), who had consciously distorted his article and used it for their own devices, turning it into a call for counterrevolution: too cowardly to write such an article themselves, they had hid behind a naive doctor.

托马斯读了上面写的东西，给吓了一跳。这比两年前主治医生要他签的声明糟糕多了。不是停留在收回俄狄浦斯读后感的问题，还包含了亲苏、许愿效忠当局、谴责知识分子、说他们是想挑起内战等等内容。除此之外，声明还痛斥那位周报编辑（特别强调那个高个头、驼背的编辑，托马斯知道此人的名字并见过他的照片，但从未见到过他），说他有意曲解托马斯的文章，为他们自己的目的服务，把那篇文章变成了一篇反革命宣言：他们竟躲在一位天真的医生背后写这样一篇文章，也未免太胆小了。

The man from the Ministry saw the panic in Tomas's eyes. He leaned over and gave his knee a friendly pat under the table. "Remember now, Doctor, it's only a sample! Think it over, and if there's something you want to change, I'm sure we can come to an agreement. After all, it's your statement!"

部里来的人从托马斯眼中看出了惊愕，把身子凑过去，在桌子下面将他的膝盖友好地拍了拍。“别忘了，大夫，这只是个样稿！好好想一想，如果有什么地方要改动，我想我们会达成协议的。毕竟，这是你的声明！”

Tomas held the paper out to the secret policeman as if he were afraid to keep it in his hands another second, as if he were worried someone would find his fingerprints on it.

托马斯把那张纸推还给秘密警察，好象害怕这张纸在手上多呆一秒钟，好象担心什么人将发现这纸上有他的指纹。

But instead of taking the paper, the man from the Ministry spread his arms in feigned amazement (the same gesture the Pope uses to bless the crowds from his balcony). "Now why do a thing like that, Doctor? Keep it. Think it over calmly at home."

那人没有接纸，反而假作惊奇地抬了抬双臂（象罗马教皇在阳台上向教民们祝福时的那种姿态），“怎么能这样于呢？大夫，留着吧，回家去冷静地想想。”

Tomas shook his head and patiently held the paper in his outstretched hand. In the end, the man from the Ministry was forced to abandon his papal gesture and take the paper back.

托马斯摇了摇头，耐着性子用伸出去的手捏着那张纸，末了，部里来的人不得不放弃罗马教皇的姿势，把纸收回去。

Tomas was on the point of telling him emphatically that he would neither write nor sign any text whatever, but at the last moment he changed his tone and said mildly, "I'm no illiterate, am I? Why should I sign something I didn't write myself?"

托马斯打算向对方强调，他既不会写什么，也不会签署什么，但他在最后一刻改变了语气，温和地说：“我不是个文盲，对不对？我为什么要签字？我自己不会写？”

"Very well, then, Doctor. Let's do it your way. You write it up yourself, and we'll go over it together. You can use what you've just read as a model."

“很好，那么，大夫，就按你的办。你自己写，我们再一起看看。你可以把你刚才看过的东西作为样子。”

Why didn't Tomas give the secret policeman an immediate and unconditional no?

为什么托马斯没有立刻给秘密警察一个无条件的“不”呢？

This is what probably went through his head: Besides using a statement like that to demoralize the nation in general (which is clearly the Russian strategy), the police could have a concrete goal in his case: they might be gathering evidence for a trial against the editors of the weekly that had published Tomas's article.

他也许是这样想的：一般说来，警察局无非是要用这样的声明使整个民族混乱（很明显这是入侵者的战略），除此之外，他们在他身上还有一个具体目的：收集罪证准备审判发表托马斯文章的周报编辑。

If that was so, they would need his statement for the hearing and for the smear campaign the press would conduct against them.

如果是这样，他们需要他的声明为审讯作准备，为新闻界诽谤那些编辑的运动作准备。

Were he to refuse flatly, on principle, there was always the danger that the police would print the prepared statement over his signature, whether he gave his consent or not.

假若他断然拒绝，从原则上来讲，总是有危险的。警察局会不管他同意与否，把早准备好的并带有他签名的声明印发出去。

No newspaper would dare publish his denial. No one in the world would believe that he hadn't written or signed it.

没有报纸斗胆登载他的否认声明。世界上也没有人会相信他不曾写声明和不曾签字。

People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation.

人们从他们同胞的精神耻辱中得到的快乐太多了，将不愿意听劳什子解释而空喜一场。

By giving the police the hope that he would write a text of his own, he gained a bit of time.

他说愿意自己来写，给了警察局一点希望，也给自己争取了一点时间。

The very next day he resigned from the clinic, assuming (correctly) that after he had descended voluntarily to the lowest rung of the social ladder (a descent being made by thousands of intellectuals in other fields at the time), the police would have no more hold over him and he would cease to interest them.

就在第二天，他在那个诊所辞了职，估计（正确地）在他自愿降到社会等级的最低一层之后（当时各个领域内有成千上万的知识分子都这样下放了），警察不会再抓住他不放，不会对他再有所兴趣。

Once he had reached the lowest rung on the ladder, they would no longer be able to publish a statement in his name, for the simple reason that no one would accept it as genuine. Humiliating public statements are associated exclusively with the signatories' rise, not fall.

一旦他落到阶梯的最低一级，他们就再不能以他的名义登什么声明了。道理很简单，没有人会信以为真。这种耻辱性的公开声明只会与青云直上的签名者有关，而不会与栽跟头的签名者有缘。

But in Tomas's country, doctors are state employees, and the state may or may not release them from its service.

在托马斯的国家里，医生是国家的雇员，国家可以让也可以不让他们工作。

The official with whom Tomas negotiated his resignation knew him by name and reputation and tried to talk him into staying on.

与托马斯谈辞职事宜的那名官员，听说过他的名字和声望，力图说服他继续工作。

Tomas suddenly realized that he was not at all sure he had made the proper choice, but he felt bound to it by then by an unspoken vow of fidelity, so he stood fast. And that is how he became a window washer.

托马斯意识到他根本不能肯定这个选择是否合适，但他突然感到，他心中对忠诚的无言许诺使他当时非如此不可。他坚持立场岿然不动。于是，他成了一名窗户擦洗工。

Leaving Zurich for Prague a few years earlier, Tomas had quietly said to himself, Es muss sein! He was thinking of his love for Tereza. No sooner had he crossed the border, however, than he began to doubt whether it actually did have to be.

前几年，托马斯离开苏黎世回布拉格的时候，他想着对特丽莎的爱，默默对自己说：“非如此不可。”一过边境，他却开始怀疑是否真的非如此不可。

Later, lying next to Tereza, he recalled that he had been led to her by a chain of laughable coincidences that took place seven years earlier (when the chief surgeon's sciatica was in its early stages) and were about to return him to a cage from which he would be unable to escape.

后来，他躺在特丽莎身边，回想起七年前发生的那一系列可笑的巧合（第一幕就是那位主治医生的坐骨神经痛），把他引向了她，现在又把他带回了一个不可冲破的牢笼。

Does that mean his life lacked any Es muss sein!, any overriding necessity? In my opinion, it did have one. But it was not love, it was his profession.

这意昧着他生活中的“非如此不可”太少吗？压倒一切的必然性太少吗？以我之见，有一种必然他并不缺乏，但这不是他的爱情，是他的职业。

He had come to medicine not by coincidence or calculation but by a deep inner desire.

他从事医学不是出自巧合，也不是出于算计，是出于他内心深处的一种欲望。

Insofar as it is possible to divide people into categories, the surest criterion is the deep-seated desires that orient them to one or another lifelong activity.

把人划分为某些类别几乎是可能的，而分类中最可靠的标准，莫过于那种把人们一生光阴导向这种或那种活动的深层欲望。

Every Frenchman is different. But all actors the world over are similar—in Paris, Prague, or the back of beyond.

每一个法国人都是不一样的，但世界上所有的演员都彼此相似——无论她们在巴黎、布拉格，甚至天涯海角。

An actor is someone who in early childhood consents to exhibit himself for the rest of his life to an anonymous public.

当演员的人，从小就愿意把自己展示给一个隐名的公众以至终身。这种愿望与天资无关，却比天资要深刻。

Without that basic consent, which has nothing to do with talent, which goes deeper than talent, no one can become an actor. Similarly, a doctor is someone who consents to spend his life involved with human bodies and all that they entail.

没有这种基本的愿望，任何人也成不了演员。同样，一个当医生的人愿意毕其一生与人体以及人体的疾病打交道。

That basic consent (and not talent or skill) enables him to enter the dissecting room during the first year of medical school and persevere for the requisite number of years.

这种基本的愿望（不是天资与技巧），使得他从医学院的第一年起就敢于进入解剖室，而且能坚持在那里度过必要的漫长岁月。

Surgery takes the basic imperative of the medical profession to its outermost border, where the human makes contact with the divine.

外科把医疗职业的基本责任推到了最边缘的界线，人们在那个界线上与神打着交道。

When a person is clubbed violently on the head, he collapses and stops breathing. Some day, he will stop breathing anyway. Murder simply hastens a bit what God will eventually see to on His own. God, it may be assumed, took murder into account; He did not take surgery into account.

一个人的头部被棍子狠狠击中，倒了下来，然后停止呼吸。他在某一天总会停止呼吸的，杀人只是比上帝亲自最终完成使命提早了一点点。也许可以这样假定，上帝对杀人还是早有考虑的，却不曾对外科有所考虑。

He never suspected that someone would dare to stick his hand into the mechanism He had invented, wrapped carefully in skin, and sealed away from human eyes.

上帝从未想到有人胆敢把手伸到他发明的装置中去，然后小心包合皮肤使之不露痕迹。

When Tomas first positioned his scalpel on the skin of a man asleep under an anesthetic, then breached the skin with a decisive incision, and finally cut it open with a precise and even stroke (as if it were a piece of fabric—a coat, a skirt, a curtain), he experienced a brief but intense feeling of blasphemy.

当年，托马斯面对一个麻醉中睡着了的男人，第一次把手术刀放在他的皮肤上果断地切开一道口子，切得准确而乎整（就象切一块布料——做大衣、裙子或窗帘），他体验到一种强烈的亵渎之感。

Then again, that was what attracted him to it! That was the Es muss sein! rooted deep inside him, and it was planted there not by chance, not by the chief's sciatica, or by anything external.

随后，他再一次觉得有一种东西吸引他这样做！正是那种深深扎根于他心底的“非如此不可”！这种精神的根源蒂固并非出于偶然，绝非什么主治医生的坐骨神经痛．更不是任何别的外界原因。

But how could he take something so much a part of him and cast it off so fast, so forcefully, and so lightly?

可是，他一生中耗费了这么多精力的东西，他现在怎么能如此迅速、坚决而且轻松地给予抛弃呢？

He would respond that he did it so as not to let the police misuse him. But to be quite frank, even if it was theoretically possible (and even if a number of cases have actually occurred), it was not too likely that the police would make public a false statement over his signature.

他会说，这么做是为了不让警察缠着他。然而坦白地说，这种解释即使在理论上讲得通，警察要把一个带有他签字的假声明公之于众实在是不大可能（即使有数桩这样的事发生过）。

Granted, a man has a right to fear dangers that are less than likely to occur. Granted, he was annoyed with himself and at his clumsiness, and desired to avoid further contact with the police and the concomitant feeling of helplessness.

我们可以说，一个人有权害怕即便是不大可能发生的危险。还可以说，托马斯对自己的笨拙恼火，想避开与警察的进一步接触，避免随之而来的孤立无助之感。

And granted, he had lost his profession anyway, because the mechanical aspirin-medicine he practiced at the clinic had nothing in common with his concept of medicine.

我们还可以说，他反正已经丢失了职业，小诊所里机械的阿斯匹林疗法与他的医学概念毫无关联。

Even so, the way he rushed into his decision seems rather odd to me. Could it perhaps conceal something else, something deeper that escaped his reasoning?

尽管如此，他这样匆匆忙忙地作出决定，在我看来仍然是很奇怪的。这里是不是还深藏着什么别的东西？深得逃离了他理智的东西呢？

Even though he came to love Beethoven through Tereza, Tomas was not particularly knowledgeable about music, and I doubt that he knew the true story behind Beethoven's famous Muss es sein? Es muss sein! motif.

托马斯通过特丽莎渐渐地喜欢起贝多芬来，但对音乐还是不甚了解。我怀疑他是否知道，在贝多芬著名的“非如此不可？非如此不可！”这一主题之后，藏着一个真实的故事。

This is how it goes: A certain Dembscher owed Beethoven fifty florins, and when the composer, who was chronically short of funds, reminded him of the debt, Dembscher heaved a mournful sigh and said, "Muss es sein?" To which Beethoven replied, with a hearty laugh, "Es muss sein!" and immediately jotted down these words and their melody.

故事是这样的：一个叫德门伯斯彻的人欠了贝多芬五十个弗罗林金币。我们这位作曲家长期来手头拮据，那天他提起这笔帐，德门伯斯彻伤感地叹了口气说：“非如此不可吗？”贝多芬开怀大笑道：“非如此不可！”并且草草记下了这些词与它们的音调。

On this realistic motif he then composed a canon for four voices: three voices sing "Es muss sein, es muss sein, ja, ja, ja, ja!" (It must be, it must be, yes, yes, yes, yes!), and the fourth voice chimes in with Heraus mit dem Beutel! (Out with the purse!).

根据这个现实生活中的音乐动机，他谱写了一首四人唱的二重轮唱：其中三个人唱“Esmusssein，esmusssein，ja，ja，ja，ja！”（非如此不可，非如此不可，是的，是的，是的，是的！）再由第四个人插进来唱“HerausmitdemBeutel！”（拿出钱来！）

A year later, the same motif showed up as the basis for the fourth movement of the last quartet, Opus 155.

一年以后，这一音乐动机在他第135曲，也就是他最后一部四重奏的第四乐章里，作为基本动机重现了。

By that time, Beethoven had forgotten about Dembscher's purse. The words Es muss sein! had acquired a much more solemn ring; they seemed to issue directly from the lips of Fate.

那时候，贝多芬已经忘记了德氏的钱，“非如此不可”取得了较之从前庄严得多的情调，象是从命运的喉头直接吐出来的指令。

In Kant's language, even Good morning, suitably pronounced, can take the shape of a metaphysical thesis.

用康德的话来说，连“早上好”一词用适当的声音读出来，也能成为某种形而上命题的具体表现形式。

German is a language of heavy words. Es muss sein! was no longer a joke; it had become der schwer gefasste Entschluss (the difficult or weighty resolution).

德文是一种语词凝重的语言。“非如此不可”不再是一句戏谑，它已成为“derschwergefasste Entschluss”（艰难或沉重的决心）。

So Beethoven turned a frivolous inspiration into a serious quartet, a joke into metaphysical truth.

贝多芬把琐屑的灵感变成了严肃的四重奏，把一句戏谑变成了形而上的真理。

It is an interesting tale of light going to heavy or, as Parmenides would have it, positive going to negative.

一个轻松的有趣传说变成了沉重，或者按巴门尼德的说法，积极变成了消极。

Yet oddly enough, the transformation fails to surprise us. We would have been shocked, on the other hand, if Beethoven had transformed the seriousness of his quartet into the trifling joke of a four-voice canon about Dembscher's purse.

然而，相当奇怪，这种变化并不使我们谅讶。换一个角度看，如果贝多芬把他那四重奏的严肃变成关于德氏债款那无聊玩笑般的四声二部轮唱曲，我们倒会感到震惊。

Had he done so, however, he would have been in the spirit of Parmenides and made heavy go to light, that is, negative to positive!

假如他这样做了，那么他的做法例与巴门尼德的精神相吻合，使重变成了轻，也就是，消极变成了积极！

First (as an unfinished sketch) would have come the great metaphysical truth and last (as a finished masterpiece)—the most frivolous of jokes! But we no longer know how to think as Parmenides thought.

开始（作为一支未完成的短曲），他的曲子触及伟大的形而上真理，而最后（作为一首成功的杰作），却落入最琐屑的戏言？

It is my feeling that Tomas had long been secretly irritated by the stern, aggressive, solemn Es muss sein! and that he harbored a deep desire to follow the spirit of Parmenides and make heavy go to light.

但我们再也不知道怎样象巴门尼德那样去思考了。我感到，那严厉、庄重、咄咄逼人的“非如此不可”，长期以来一直使托马斯暗暗恼火。他怀有一种深切的欲望，去追寻巴门尼德的精神，要把重变成轻。

Remember that at one point in his life he broke completely with his first wife and his son and that he was relieved when both his parents broke with him.

记得他生活的那一刻，他与第一个妻子以及儿子完全决裂，也领受了父母对他的决裂，他得到了解脱。

What could be at the bottom of it all but a rash and not quite rational move to reject what proclaimed itself to be his weighty duty, his Es muss sein!' ?

在整个事情的最深层，他除了反抗自称为他沉重责任的东西，除了抵制他的“非如此不可”，除了由此而产生的躁动、匆忙和不甚理智的举动，还能有什么呢？

That, of course, was an external Es muss sein! reserved for him by social convention, whereas the Es muss sein! of his love for medicine was internal. So much the worse for him. Internal imperatives are all the more powerful and therefore all the more of an inducement to revolt.

当然，那是一种外在的“非如此不可！”是社会习俗留给他的。而他热爱医学的那个“非如此不可”，则是内在的。他经历的磨难如此之多，内在的使命感越是强烈，导致反叛的诱惑也就越多。

Being a surgeon means slitting open the surface of things and looking at what lies hidden inside. Perhaps Tomas was led to surgery by a desire to know what lies hidden on the other side of Es muss sein! ; in other words, what remains of life when a person rejects what he previously considered his mission. The day he reported to the good-natured woman responsible for the cleanliness of all shop windows and display cases in Prague, and was confronted with the result of his decision in all its concrete and inescapable reality, he went into a state of shock, a state that kept him in its thrall during the first few days of his new job.

当一个医生，就意味着解剖事物的表层，看看里面隐藏着什么。也许使托马斯离开外科道路的，正是一种欲望，他想去探询“非如此不可”的另一面藏着些什么。换句话说，现在他想知道当一个人抛弃了他原先视为使命的东西时，他的生活里还将留下一些什么，这一天，他去报到。一位好脾气的女人，主管着布拉格全城的商店玻璃清洗和陈设事宜。从他们见面起，他就面临着自己选择所带来的后果，各种具体而不可回避的现实问题。

But once he got over the astounding strangeness of his new life (it took him about a week), he suddenly realized he was simply on a long holiday.

他进入一种震惊状态，新工作开始的几天，都一直被这种震掠所缠绕。

Here he was, doing things he didn't care a damn about, and enjoying it. Now he understood what made people (people he always pitied) happy when they took a job without feeling the compulsion of an internal Es muss sein! and forgot it the moment they left for home every evening.

但一旦克服了新生活中令人震惊的陌生感（大约有一周之久），他突然意识到自己简直在享受一个长长的假日。他干活可以无所用心，自得其乐。现在，他明白了人们（他通常可怜的人们）的快乐，全在于他们接受一项工作时没有那种内在的“非如此不可”的强迫感，每天晚上一旦回家，就把工作忘得干干净净。

This was the first time he had felt that blissful indifference. Whenever anything went wrong on the operating table, he would be despondent and unable to sleep. He would even lose his taste for women. The Es muss sein! of his profession had been like a vampire sucking his blood.

他第一次体会到其乐融融的无所谓，而不象从前，无论何时只要手术台上出了问题，他就沮丧、失眠，甚至失去对女人的兴趣。他职业中的“非如此不可”，一直象一个吸血鬼吸吮着他的鲜血。

Now he roamed the streets of Prague with brush and pole, feeling ten years younger.

现在，他拿着刷子和长竿，在布拉格大街上逛荡，感到自己年轻了十岁。

The salesgirls all called him doctor (the Prague bush telegraph was working better than ever) and asked his advice about their colds, aching backs, and irregular periods. They seemed almost embarrassed to watch him douse the glass with water, fit the brush on the end of the pole, and start washing. If they could have left their customers alone in the shops, they would surely have grabbed the pole from his hands and washed the windows for him.

卖货的姑娘叫他“大夫”（布拉格的任何消息都不翼而飞，比以前更甚），向他请教有关她们感冒、背痛、经期不正常的问题。看着他往玻璃上浇水，把刷子绑在长竿的一端，开始洗起来，她们似乎有些不好意思。只要她们有机会摆脱开顾客，就一定会从他手里夺过长竿，帮他去洗。

Most of Tomas's orders came from large shops, but his boss sent him out to private customers, too.

托马斯主要是为大商店干活，也被头头遣派去为一些私人客户服务。

People were still reacting to the mass persecution of Czech intellectuals with the euphoria of solidarity, and when his former patients found out that Tomas was washing windows for a living, they would phone in and order him by name. Then they would greet him with a bottle of champagne or slivovitz, sign for thirteen windows on the order slip, and chat with him for two hours, drinking his health all the while.

此时的人们，还在以群情振奋的一致团结，来反抗对捷克知识分子的大规模迫害。托马斯以前的病人一旦发现他正在靠洗窗子为生，往往就打电话点名把他请去，然后用香槟或一种叫斯利沃维兹的酒款待他，给他签一张十三个橱窗的工单，与他叙谈两小时，不时为他的健康干杯。

Tomas would move on to his next flat or shop in a capital mood. While the families of Russian officers settled in throughout the land and radios intoned ominous reports of police functionaries who had replaced cashiered broadcasters, Tomas reeled through the streets of Prague from one glass of wine to the next like someone going from party to party.

托马斯于是就能至极好的心情朝下一家客户或另一家商店走去。也正是在这个时刻，占领军军官的家属一批批在这片土地上四处定居，警务人员代替了被撤职的播音员从收音机里播出不祥的报道，而托马斯在布拉格大街上晕晕乎乎地前行，从一个酒杯走向另一个酒杯，如同参加一个又一个酒会。

It was his grand holiday.

这是他伟大的节日。

He had reverted to his bachelor existence. Tereza was suddenly out of his life. The only times he saw her were when she came back from the bar late at night and he woke befuddled from a half-sleep, and in the morning, when she was the befuddled one and he was hurrying off to work.

他又回到了单身汉的日子。特丽莎在他的生活中突然不存在了，唯一能与她见面的时间就是半夜她从酒吧回来之后，当时他迷迷糊蝴半睡半醒，或者是早晨，轮到她迷迷糊糊半睡半醒，他却要急着去上班。

Each workday, he had sixteen hours to himself, an unexpected field of freedom.

每个工作日，他都有属于自己的十六个小时，一块没有料想到的自由天地。

And from Tomas's early youth that had meant women.

从他少年时开始，这种自由天地就意昧着女人。

When his friends asked him how many women he had had in his life, he would try to evade the question, and when they pressed him further he would say, Well, two hundred, give or take a few. The envious among them accused him of stretching the truth. That's not so many, he said by way of self-defense. I've been involved with women for about twenty-five years now. Divide two hundred by twenty-five and you'll see it comes to only eight or so new women a year. That's not so many, is it?

朋友曾问他这一辈子搞过多少女人，他尽量回避这个问题，被进一步追逼，就说：“好啦，两百个左右吧。”朋友中的羡慕者说他吹牛，他用自卫的口气说：“这不算怎么多。现在我已经同女人打了二十五年交道了。用两百除二十五，你看，一年才八个新的女人，不算多，对不对？”

But setting up house with Tereza cramped his style.

与特丽莎成家以后，他这种生活方式有所束缚。

Because of the organizational difficulties it entailed, he had been forced to relegate his erotic activities to a narrow strip of time (between the operating room and home) which, though he had used it intensively (as a mountain farmer tills his narrow plot for all it is worth), was nothing like the sixteen hours that now had suddenly been bestowed on him. (I say sixteen hours because the eight hours he spent washing windows were filled with new salesgirls, housewives, and female functionaries, each of whom represented a potential erotic engagement.)

安排上有些麻烦是必然的，他不得不强迫自己把性活动压缩到一段有限的时间之内（从手术室到家里之间）。他精密地充分利用了那段时间（如一位山民充分利用自己有限的土地），但与现在突然赐予他的十六个小时相比，那段时间简直不值一提。（照我说，十六小时中他用来擦洗橱窗的八个小时里，周围都是新的女招待、家庭主妇，以及女职员，她们每一个人都代表着一次潜在的性活动约定。）

What did he look for in them? What attracted him to them? Isn't making love merely an eternal repetition of the same?

他在她们中间寻找什么呢？她们的什么东西吸引着他？难道做爱不仅仅就是永远重复同一过程吗？

Not at all. There is always the small part that is unimaginable. When he saw a woman in her clothes, he could naturally imagine more or less what she would look like naked (his experience as a doctor supplementing his experience as a lover), but between the approximation of the idea and the precision of reality there was a small gap of the unimaginable, and it was this hiatus that gave him no rest.

完全不是那么回事。总有一些细微末节是想象不到的。当他看到一个穿着衣服的女人时，能自然地多多少少想象出她裸体的样子（他作医生的经验更丰富了他作情人的经验），但这种近似的意念与准确的现实之间，有一道无法想象的鸿沟，正是这点空白使他不得安宁。

And then, the pursuit of the unimaginable does not stop with the revelations of nudity; it goes much further: How would she behave while undressing?

而且，他追求不可猜想的部分并不满足于裸体的展露，它将大大深入下去：她脱衣时是什么姿态？

What would she say when he made love to her? How would her sighs sound? How would her face distort at the moment of orgasm?

与她做爱时她会说些什么？她将怎样叹气？她在高潮的那一刻脸会怎样变形？

What is unique about the I hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common.

这就是独一无二的“我”，确实隐藏在人不可猜想的部分。我们所能想象的只是什么使一个人爱另一个人，什么是人的共同之处。

The individual I is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.

这各自的“我”正是与这种一般估计不同的地方，也就是说，它不可猜测亦不可计算，它必须被揭示，被暴露，被征服。

Tomas, who had spent the last ten years of his medical practice working exclusively with the human brain, knew that there was nothing more difficult to capture than the human I. There are many more resemblances between Hitler and Einstein or Brezhnev and Solzhenitsyn than there are differences.

托马斯在最近十年来的医务实践中，专门与人的大脑打交道，知道最困难的就莫过于攻克人类的这个“我”了。希特勒与爱因斯坦之间，普列汉诺夫与索尔仁尼琴之间，相同之处比不同之处要多得多。

Using numbers, we might say that there is one-millionth part dissimilarity to nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine millionths parts similarity.

用数字来表示的话，我们可以说有百万分之一是不同的，而百万分之九十九万九千九百九十九都相同类似。

Tomas was obsessed by the desire to discover and appropriate that one-millionth part; he saw it as the core of his obsession.

托马斯着迷于对这百万分之一的发现与占有，把这看成自己迷恋的核心。

He was not obsessed with women; he was obsessed with what in each of them is unimaginable, obsessed, in other words, with the one-millionth part that makes a woman dissimilar to others of her sex.

他并非迷恋女人，是迷恋每个女人身内不可猜想的部分，或者说，是迷恋那个使每个女人做爱时异于他人的百万分之一部分。

(Here too, perhaps, his passion for surgery and his passion for women came together. Even with his mistresses, he could never quite put down the imaginary scalpel. Since he longed to take possession of something deep inside them, he needed to slit them open.)

（这里，也许还可以说，他对外科的激情和他对女人的激情是同为一体的。即使对情妇，他也从末放下过想象中的解剖刀。他既然渴望占有她们体内深藏的东西，就需要把她们剖开来。）

We may ask, of course, why he sought that millionth part dissimilarity in sex and nowhere else. Why couldn't he find it, say, in a woman's gait or culinary caprices or artistic taste?

当然，我们也许可以问，为什么他从性面不从其它方面来探寻这个百万分之一呢？为什么不——比方说，从女人的步态、烹饪特点或艺术趣味上去找这种区别呢？

To be sure, the millionth part dissimilarity is present in all areas of human existence, but in all areas other than sex it is exposed and needs no one to discover it, needs no scalpel.

可以肯定，这百万分之一的区别体现于人类生存的各个方面，但除了性之外，其它领域都是开放的，无须人去发现，无须解剖刀。

One woman prefers cheese at the end of the meal, another loathes cauliflower, and although each may demonstrate her originality thereby, it is an originality that demonstrates its own irrelevance and warns us to pay it no heed, to expect nothing of value to come of it.

一位女人吃饭时最后想吃奶酪，另一个厌恶花菜，虽然每一个人都会表现自己的特异，然而这些特异都显得有点鸡毛蒜皮，它提醒我们不必留意，不可指望从中获得什么有价值的东西。

Only in sexuality does the millionth part dissimilarity become precious, because, not accessible in public, it must be conquered.

只有性问题上的百万分之一的区别是珍贵的，不是人人都可以进入的领域，只能用攻克来对付它。

As recently as fifty years ago, this form of conquest took considerable time (weeks, even months!), and the worth of the conquered object was proportional to the time the conquest took. Even today, when conquest time has been drastically cut, sexuality seems still to be a strongbox hiding the mystery of a woman's I.

就在离现在的五十年前，这种形式的攻克还得花费相当的时间（数星期，甚至数月！），攻克对象的价值也随攻克时间的长短成比例增长。即使今天，攻克时间已大大减少，性爱看起来仍然是一个保险箱，隐藏着女人那个神秘的“我”。

So it was a desire not for pleasure (the pleasure came as an extra, a bonus) but for possession of the world (slitting open the outstretched body of the world with his scalpel) that sent him in pursuit of women.

所以，不是一种求取欢乐的欲望（那种欢乐如同一份额外收入或一笔奖金），是一种要征服世界的决心（用手术刀把这个世界外延的躯体切开来），使托马斯谴寻着女人。

Men who pursue a multitude of women fit neatly into two categories. Some seek their own subjective and unchanging dream of a woman in all women.

追求众多女色的男人差不多都属两种类型。其一，是在所有女人身上寻求一个女人，这个女人存在于他们一如既往的主观梦想之中。

Others are prompted by a desire to possess the endless variety of the objective female world.

另一类，则是想占有客观女性世界里无穷的种种姿色，他们被这种欲念所诱惑。

The obsession of the former is lyrical: what they seek in women is themselves, their ideal, and since an ideal is by definition something that can never be found, they are disappointed again and again. The disappointment that propels them from woman to woman gives their inconstancy a kind of romantic excuse, so that many sentimental women are touched by their unbridled philandering.

前者的迷恋是抒情性的：他们在女人身上寻求的是他们自己，他们的理想，又因为理想是注定永远寻求不到的，于是他们会一次又一次失望。这种推动他们从一个女人到另一个女人的失望，又给他们由感情多变找到了一种罗漫蒂克的借口，以至于不少多情善感的女人被他们的放纵追逐所感动。

The obsession of the latter is epic, and women see nothing the least bit touching in it: the man projects no subjective ideal on women, and since everything interests him, nothing can disappoint him. This inability to be disappointed has something scandalous about it. The obsession of the epic womanizer strikes people as lacking in redemption (redemption by disappointment).

后者的迷恋是叙事性的，女人们在这儿找不到一点能打动她们的地方：这种男人对女人不带任何主观的理想。对一切都感兴趣，也就没有什么失望。这种从不失望使他们的行为带上了可耻的成分，使叙事式的女色追求给人们一种欠帐不还的印象（这种帐得用失望来偿还）。

Because the lyrical womanizer always runs after the same type of woman, we even fail to notice when he exchanges one mistress for another. His friends perpetually cause misunderstandings by mixing up his lovers and calling them by the same name.

抒情性的好色之徒总是追逐同一类型的女人，我们甚至搞不清他什么时候又换了一个情人。他的朋友们老是把他的情人搞混，用一个名字来叫她们，从而引起了误会。

In pursuit of knowledge, epic womanizers (and of course Tomas belonged in their ranks) turn away from conventional feminine beauty, of which they quickly tire, and inevitably end up as curiosity collectors. They are aware of this and a little ashamed of it, and to avoid causing their friends embarrassment, they refrain from appearing in public with their mistresses.

叙事性的风流老手（托马斯当然属于这一类），则在知识探求中对常规的女性美不感兴趣，他们很快对此厌倦，也必然象珍奇收集家那样了结。他们意识到这一点，感到有些不好意思，为了避免朋友们的难为情，他们从不与情妇在公众场合露面。

Tomas had been a window washer for nearly two years when he was sent to a new customer whose bizarre appearance struck him the moment he saw her.

托马斯当了差不多两年的窗户擦洗工。这天他被派去见一位新主顾，对方奇特的面容从他一看见她起，就震动了他。

Though bizarre, it was also discreet, understated, within the bounds of the agreeably ordinary (Tomas's fascination with curiosities had nothing in common with Fellini's fascination with monsters): she was very tall, quite a bit taller than he was, and she had a delicate and very long nose in a face so unusual that it was impossible to call it attractive (everyone would have protested!), yet (in Tomas's eyes, at least) it could not be called unattractive. She was wearing slacks and a white blouse, and looked like an odd combination of giraffe, stork, and sensitive young boy.

尽管奇特，也还算周全，将就将就，没有超出一般允许的范围（托马斯对奇特事物的兴致与费利尼对鬼怪的兴致不一样）：她非常高，比他还高出一截，不同寻常的脸上有修长细窄的鼻子。恐怕不能说那张脸是有吸引力的（人人都会抗议！），也不能（至少在托马斯眼中）说它毫无吸引力。她穿着便裤和白色罩衫，象一个长颈鹿、锻，以及机敏男孩的奇怪化合体。

She fixed him with a long, careful, searching stare that was not devoid of irony's intelligent sparkle.

她久久地、仔细地、探寻地盯着他，眼中不乏嘲意的智慧闪光。

"Come in, Doctor," she said.

“请进，大夫，”她说。

Although he realized that she knew who he was, he did not want to show it, and asked, "Where can I get some water?"

他意识到她知道自己是谁，但不想有所表示，问：“水在哪里？”

She opened the door to the bathroom.

她打开了浴室的门。

He saw a washbasin, bathtub, and toilet bowl; in front of bath, basin, and bowl lay miniature pink rugs.

他看见了一个洗脸盆、一个浴盆以及肥皂盒；在脸盆、浴盆与盒子前面，放着粉红色的小地毯。

When the woman who looked like a giraffe and a stork smiled, her eyes screwed up, and everything she said seemed full of irony or secret messages.

又象鹿又象鹊的女人微微一笑，挤了一下眼，话里象是充满了反语或暗示。

"The bathroom is all yours," she said. "You can do whatever your heart desires in it."

“浴室都归你所有，你可以在那里随心所欲做一切事。”她说。

"May I have a bath?" Tomas asked.

“可以洗个澡吗？”托马斯问。

"Do you like baths?" she asked.

“你喜欢洗澡？”她问。

He filled his pail with warm water and went into the living room.

他往自己的桶里灌满热水，走进起居室。

"Where would you like me to start?"

“你想叫我先从哪里动手？”

"It's up to you," she said with a shrug of the shoulders.

“随你的便。”她耸了耸肩。

"May I see the windows in the other rooms?"

“可以看看其它房子的窗户吗？”

"So you want to have a look around?" Her smile seemed to indicate that window washing was only a caprice that did not interest her.

“你想到处都瞧瞧罗？”她的笑似乎在暗示，洗玻璃仅仅是她毫无兴趣的一个古怪念头而已。

He went into the adjoining room. It was a bedroom with one large window, two beds pushed next to each other, and, on the wall, an autumn landscape with birches and a setting sun.

他走进隔壁的房子，这间卧室里有一个大窗子，两张挨在一起的床，墙上有一幅画，是落日与白样树的秋景。

When he came back, he found an open bottle of wine and two glasses on the table. "How about a little something to keep your strength up during the big job ahead?"

他转回来，发现桌上放着一瓶开了盖子的酒以及两只酒杯：“在你开始大干以前，来点小东西提提神怎么样？”

"I wouldn't mind a little something, actually," said Tomas, and sat down at the table.

“说实在的，我对小东西不介意。”托马斯在桌子旁坐下。

"You must find it interesting, seeing how people live," she said.

“能看看人们怎么过日子，你一定觉得有趣吧？”她说。

"I can't complain," said Tomas.

“我不能抱怨。”托马斯说。

"All those wives at home alone, waiting for you."

“所有的妻子都一个人在家里等你。”

"You mean grandmothers and mothers-in-law."

“你是说那些老奶奶，老岳母。”

"Don't you ever miss your original profession?"

“你不想你原来的工作吗？”

"Tell me, how did you find out about my original profession?"

“告诉我，你怎么了解到我原来的工作？”

"Your boss likes to boast about you," said the stork-woman.

“你的老板喜欢吹捧你哩。”鹤女人说。

"After all this time!" said Tomas in amazement.

“这一次罢了！”托马斯显得惊讶。

"When I spoke to her on the phone about having the windows washed, she asked whether I didn't want you. She said you were a famous surgeon who'd been kicked out of the hospital. Well, naturally she piqued my curiosity."

“我给她打电话说要洗窗户，她问我要不要你，说你是被医院赶出来的著名外科医生。这样，很自然，激起了我的好奇心。”

"You have a fine sense of curiosity," he said.

“你有一种敏感的好奇心。”他说。

"Is it so obvious?"

“这样明显吗？”

"Yes, in the way you use your eyes."

“看你眼睛的用法。”

"And how do I use my eyes?"

“我眼睛怎么啦？”

"You squint.And then, the questions you ask"

“你眯眼，随后，就有问题要问。”

"You mean you don't like to respond?"

“你的意思是不想应答？”

Thanks to her, the conversation had been delightfully flirtatious from the outset. Nothing she said had any bearing on the outside world; it was all directed inward, towards themselves. And because it dealt so palpably with him and her, there was nothing simpler than to complement words with touch. Thus, when Tomas mentioned her squinting eyes, he stroked them, and she did the same to his. It was not a spontaneous reaction; she seemed to be consciously setting up a do as I do kind of game. And so they sat there face to face, their hands moving in stages along each other's bodies.

多亏她，谈话一开始就是心旷神怡的调情。她说的每一句话都与外部世界无关，都是内趋的，有关他们自己。谈及他和她可以触知的东西，没有什么比触摸性的补充更简单明白了。于是，托马斯提到她眯眼时，在她眼上摸了一下，她也在他的眼上摸了摸。不是一种本能的反应，看来她是有意设置了一种“照我做”的游戏。他们面对面地坐下，两个人的手都顺着对方的身体摸下去。

Not until Tomas reached her groin did she start resisting. He could not quite guess how seriously she meant it. Since much time had now passed and he was due at his next customer's in ten minutes, he stood up and told her he had to go.

直到托马斯的手触到了她的下体，她才开始拒绝，他还猜不透她到底有几分认真。现在时间已经过去一大截了，十分钟以后他得去另一位主顾家。他站起来，说他不得不走了。

Her face was red. "I have to sign the order slip," she said.

她的脸红红的：“我还得填那张工单呀。”

"But I haven't done a thing," he objected.

“我什么也没做。”他反驳道。

"That's my fault." And then in a soft, innocent voice she drawled, "I suppose I'll just have to order you back and have you finish what I kept you from starting."

“都怪我。”她用一种温和而纯真的嗓音慢慢地说，“我想，我只好再约你来一次，让你完成我没让你干的话。”

When Tomas refused to hand her the slip to sign, she said to him sweetly, as if asking him for a favor, "Give it to me. Please?" Then she squinted again and added, "After all, I'm not paying for it, my husband is. And you're not being paid for it, the state is. The transaction has nothing whatever to do with the two of us."

托马斯拒绝把单子交给她签字，她似乎在乞求施舍，对他甜甜地说：“给我，好吗？”又眯了眯眼，加上两句，“反正我也没付这笔钱，是我丈夫给的，你也没得这笔钱，是国家得了。这笔交易跟咱们俩谁也没关系。”

The odd asymmetry of the woman who looked like a giraffe and a stork continued to excite his memory: the combination of the flirtatious and the gawky; the very real sexual desire offset by the ironic smile; the vulgar conventionality of the flat and the originality of its owner. What would she be like when they made love? Try as he might, he could not picture it. He thought of nothing else for several days.

既象鹿又象鹤的女人有一种奇怪的不协调，不时激起他的回想：她的调情与腼腆结合，千真万确的性欲被嘲弄的微笑抵消，公寓的粗俗一般和主人的独特不凡相对照。要是与她做爱，她是什么样子呢？他尽力去揣度却无法想象出来，几天来他老想着这件事。

The next time he answered her summons, the wine and two glasses stood waiting on the table. And this time everything went like clockwork. Before long, they were standing face to face in the bedroom (where the sun was setting on the birches in the painting) and kissing. But when he gave her his standard Strip! command, she not only failed to comply but counter-commanded, No, you first!

应她的召唤，他第二次去她那儿。酒和杯子都在桌上等着。这一次，一切都自动地进行。不一会儿，他们便在卧房里面对面地站着接吻（那里，墙上画中的太阳正落在白桦树上）。他给她下达自己的标准口令：“脱！”她不但不服从，而且反过来命令：“不，你先脱。”

Unaccustomed to such a response, he was somewhat taken aback. She started to open his fly. After ordering Strip! several more times (with comic failure), he was forced to accept a compromise. According to the rules of the game she had set up during his last visit ( do as I do ), she took off his trousers, he took off her skirt, then she took off his shirt, he her blouse, until at last they stood there naked. He placed his hand on her moist genitals, then moved his fingers along to the anus, the spot he loved most in all women's bodies. Hers was unusually prominent, evoking the long digestive tract that ended there with a slight protrusion. Fingering her strong, healthy orb, that most splendid of rings called by doctors the sphincter, he suddenly felt her fingers on the corresponding part of his own anatomy. She was mimicking his moves with the precision of a mirror.

他被顶了回来，对这样的反应很不习惯。她开始解开他罩衣的扣子。“脱”的命令下达好几次（伴随着喜剧性的失败）之后，他终于被迫接受妥协。根据他上一次来访时她制订的游戏规则（“照我做”），她脱掉他的裤子，他脱掉她的裙子，然后她脱掉他的衬衣，他脱掉她的罩衫，直到最后他们都赤裸裸地站着。他把手放在她湿润的阴部，他突然感到自己身体的同一部位上也有她的指触，对方象镜子一样准确地模仿着自己的动作。

Even though, as I have pointed out, he had known approximately two hundred women (plus the considerable lot that had accrued during his days as a window washer), he had yet to be faced with a woman who was taller than he was, squinted at him, and fingered his anus. To overcome his embarrassment, he forced her down on the bed.

如我所述，他已熟知了将近两百名妇女（加上他当窗户擦洗工期间为数可观的新人选），但他还没有遇见过这样的女人，比他还高，朝他眯眼睛，还用手摸他的肛门。为了压住自己的难堪，他把她按倒在床上。

So precipitous was his move that he caught her off guard. As her towering frame fell on its back, he caught among the red blotches on her face the frightened expression of equilibrium lost. Now that he was standing over her, he grabbed her under the knees and lifted her slightly parted legs in the air, so that they suddenly looked like the raised arms of a soldier surrendering to a gun pointed at him.

他的动作如此急促，使她毫无戒备。她那高塔一般的骨架仰面躺下时，他从她脸上红色的斑点中，看到了失去平衡以后害怕的表情。现在，他站在她上方了，一把托住她的膝下，把她叉开的双腿微微向上举起。那双腿猛一看去，就象一个战士举起双臂对着瞄准他的枪筒投降。

Clumsiness combined with ardor, ardor with clumsiness— they excited Tomas utterly. He made love to her for a very long time, constantly scanning her red-blotched face for that frightened expression of a woman whom someone has tripped and who is falling, the inimitable expression that moments earlier had conveyed excitement to his brain.

笨拙加热情，热情加笨拙——托马斯被它们弄得亢奋至极。他久久地跟她干，不时仔细地察看她那有红色斑点的脸，看一个女人被绊翻后倒落时的恐惧表情，那无可仿制的表情顷刻间早已把亢奋传人他的大脑。

Then he went to wash in the bathroom. She followed him in and gave him long-drawn-out explanations of where the soap was and where the sponge was and how to turn on the hot water. He was surprised that she went into such detail over such simple matters. At last he had to tell her that he understood everything perfectly, and motioned to her to leave him alone in the bathroom.

他去浴室洗洗，她跟着进去，并罗罗嗦嗦地解释肥皂在哪里，海绵在哪里，怎样放热水。他很惊奇她把如此简单的事也弄得如此繁琐。最后，他不得不对她说，他完全明白一切，示意对方让自已一个人留在浴室里。

"Won't you let me stay and watch?" she begged.

“你不愿意让我呆在这儿看看你吗？”她乞求。

At last he managed to get her out. As he washed and urinated into the washbasin (standard procedure among Czech doctors), he had the feeling she was running back and forth outside the bathroom, looking for a way to break in. When he turned off the water and the flat was suddenly silent, he felt he was being watched. He was nearly certain that there was a peephole somewhere in the bathroom door and that her beautiful eye was squinting through it.

他终于把她弄了出去。他洗完身子，把尿拉在盆子里（捷克医生们的标准程序），感到她在浴室外面前前后后地跑来跑去，想找一个破门而入的法子。他把水关掉，整个寓所突然安静了。他感到自己被人注视着，差不多可以断定，浴室门上的某个地方有一个窥视孔，她那漂亮的眼睛正眯缝着看进来。

He went off in the best of moods, trying to fix her essence in his memory, to reduce that memory to a chemical formula capable of defining her uniqueness (her millionth part dissimilarity). The result was a formula consisting of three givens:

他心境极佳地告辞走了，极力想把她的要素存入记忆，把这种记忆归纳为一个化学公式，用以界定她的特质（她那百万分之一的不同之处）。其结果是得出了这个由三个已知项组成的公式：

1) clumsiness with ardor,

（1）笨拙加热情。

2) the frightened face of one who has lost her equilibrium and is falling, and

（2）失去平衡地倒下之后脸上的恐惧表情以及

3) legs raised in the air like the arms of a soldier surrendering to a pointed gun.

（3）双腿举在空中，象一个士兵对着枪筒举起投降的双臂。

Going over them, he felt the joy of having acquired yet another piece of the world, of having taken his imaginary scalpel and snipped yet another strip off the infinite canvas of the universe.

回想了这几条，他感到快乐，象是获得了这个世界的另一些点点滴滴，用他想象中的解剖刀，又在宇宙那无际的天幕上划了一刀。

At about the same time, he had the following experience: He had been meeting a young woman in a room that an old friend put at his disposal every day until midnight. After a month or two, she reminded him of one of their early encounters: they had made love on a rug under the window while it was thundering and lightning outside; they had made love for the length of the storm; it had been unforgettably beautiful!

差不多是同时，他还有如下经历：每天半夜之前，他在某位老朋友提供的一间房子里，与一位年轻女人会面。一两个月之后，她向他提起以前他们见面的事：当时外面正是雷雨交加，他们在窗子下面的一张小地毯上做爱，一直干到风暴平息。那真是难以忘怀的美妙！

Tomas was appalled. Yes, he remembered making love to her on the rug (his friend slept on a narrow couch that Tomas found uncomfortable), but he had completely forgotten the storm! It was odd. He could recall each of their times together; he had even kept close track of the ways they made love (she refused to be entered from behind); he remembered several of the things she had said during intercourse (she would ask him to squeeze her hips and to stop looking at her all the time); he even remembered the cut of her lingerie; but the storm had left no trace.

托马斯给震惊了。是的，他记得与她在地毯上做爱（他的朋友睡在一张托马斯发现极不舒服的窄沙发上），但他完全忘记了风暴！这太奇怪了。他能回想起他们每次在一块干时的情景，甚至能牢牢记住每一次做爱的方式（她不愿意他从后面干她），他记得他们交合时她讲的好些事（她总是要他搂住她的屁股，不要老看着她），他甚至还记得她内裤的式样，而风暴却无影无踪。

Of each erotic experience his memory recorded only the steep and narrow path of sexual conquest: the first piece of verbal aggression, the first touch, the first obscenity he said to her and she to him, the minor perversions he could make her acquiesce in and the ones she held out against. All else he excluded (almost pedantically) from his memory. He even forgot where he had first seen one or another woman, if that event occurred before his sexual offensive began.

对于每一次性经历，他的记忆只录下了性征服中那险峻而窄狭的通道：第一声言语挑逗，第一次触模，第一件她对他和他对她说的猥亵之事，以及被对默许和有时遭到反对的小小的性反常行为。他（几乎是学究式地）把其他一切从记忆中排斥出去，甚至记不起自己与这位或那个女人是在什么地方第一次见面，如果这事发生在他性进攻之前的话。

The young woman smiled dreamily as she went on about the storm, and he looked at her in amazement and something akin to shame: she had experienced something beautiful, and he had failed to experience it with her. The two ways in which their memories reacted to the evening storm sharply delimit love and nonlove.

年轻姑娘继续谈着风暴，向往地笑了。他惊奇地望着她，心中油然生出某种近乎羞愧的东西：她经历了美好的事情，他却未能与她共同体验。对那场夜晚风暴的两种反应和记忆方式，明的标明了爱情与非爱情。

By the word nonlove I do not wish to imply that he took a cynical attitude to the young woman, that, as present-day parlance has it, he looked upon her as a sex object; on the contrary, he was quite fond of her, valued her character and intelligence, and was willing to come to her aid if ever she needed him. He was not the one who behaved shamefully towards her; it was his memory, for it was his memory that, unbeknown to him, had excluded her from the sphere of love.

我不希望“非爱情”这个词使人联想到他对那年轻姑娘采取一种玩世不恭的态度，也就是按现在的说法，把她看成一个性器具。相反，他非常喜欢她，珍视她的性格与智慧，愿意在她需要的时候去帮助她。他不是那种在她面前厚颜无耻的人。但这是他的记忆，不为他自已知道的记忆，把她从爱情的领域中排斥掉了。

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.

人脑中看样子具有一块我们可以称为诗情记忆的区域。那里记下来诱人而动人的一切，使我们的生命具有美感。从他遇到特丽莎起，再没有女人有权利在他大脑的那一区域中留下一丝印痕。

Tereza occupied his poetic memory like a despot and exterminated all trace of other women. That was unfair, because the young woman he made love to on the rug during the storm was not a bit less worthy of poetry than Tereza. She shouted, Close your eyes! Squeeze my hips! Hold me tight! ; she could not stand it that when Tomas made love he kept his eyes open, focused and observant, his body ever so slightly arched above her, never pressing against her skin. She did not want him to study her. She wanted to draw him into the magic stream that may be entered only with closed eyes. The reason she refused to get down on all fours was that in that position their bodies did not touch at all and he could observe her from a distance of several feet. She hated that distance. She wanted to merge with him. That is why, looking him straight in the eye, she insisted she had not had an orgasm even though the rug was fairly dripping with it. It's not sensual pleasure I'm after, she would say, it's happiness. And pleasure without happiness is not pleasure. In other words, she was pounding on the gate of his poetic memory. But the gate was shut. There was no room for her in his poetic memory. There was room for her only on the rug.

特丽莎占据着他的诗情记忆区，象一位暴君消灭掉了其他一切女人的痕迹。这是不公正的，那位与他在暴雨之夜的小地毯上做爱的姑娘，一点也不比特丽莎缺乏待意。她叫着：“闭上眼！搂着我的屁股！把我搂紧！”她不能忍受托马斯干她的时候睁着眼睛，专注而敏锐地盯着她；不能忍受他的身子总是在她上方那样微微弓起，从不压在她的皮肤上。她不希望他研究她。把对方带进那神奇的爱流里，也许只有闭上眼睛才能做到。她拒绝趴在地上，其原因就是那种姿势使他们的身体根本接不到一起，而他却可以从几码远的地方来观察打量她。她恨那距离，要与他合为一体。正因为如此，她冲着他瞪眼，坚持说自己没有高潮，尽管地毯已经明显地湿漉漉的了。她还是说：“我不是指快感，是指幸福，没有幸福的快感算不了快感。”换句话说，她是在敲打他诗情记忆的大门。但门是关闭的，他的诗情记忆里没有她的位置，她的位置只是在地毯上。

His adventure with Tereza began at the exact point where his adventures with other women left off. It took place on the other side of the imperative that pushed him into conquest after conquest. He had no desire to uncover anything in Tereza. She had come to him uncovered. He had made love to her before he could grab for the imaginary scalpel he used to open the prostrate body of the world. Before he could start wondering what she would be like when they made love, he loved her.

在他与其他女人冒险活动完全不存在的那一点上，才开始了他与特丽莎的冒险。那是推动他一次次征服的职责之外的某种东西。他无意揭示特丽莎身上的什么，她也用不着揭示地来到他面前。他在能抓住想象中的解剖刀之前，在剖开这个世界的屈服之躯以前，就与她做爱了。在她开始想知道他们做爱时她会是什么样子之前，他就爱上她了。

Their love story did not begin until afterward: she fell ill and he was unable to send her home as he had the others. Kneeling by her as she lay sleeping in his bed, he realized that someone had sent her downstream in a bulrush basket. I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

他们的爱情故事是后来才开始的：她病了，他不能象对别人那样把她送回家。她睡在他床上时，他跪在她身边，意识到是什么人把她放在草篮里顺水漂来。我以前说过，比喻是危险的。爱情始于一个比喻，这就是说，当一个女人往我们的诗情记忆里送入第一个词，这一刻便开始了爱情。

Recently she had made another entry into his mind. Returning home with the milk one morning as usual, she stood in the doorway with a crow wrapped in her red scarf and pressed against her breast. It was the way gypsies held their babies. He would never forget it: the crow's enormous plaintive beak up next to her face.

最近，她又一次进入了他的大脑。一天早晨，她和往常一样取牛奶回家时，站在门道里，怀里揣着一只用她的红头巾包着的乌鸦，那样子就象吉普赛人抱着自己的小孩。他总忘不了：就在她的脸旁，乌鸦极为哀怨地嘴向上翘着。

She had found it half-buried, the way Cossacks used to dig their prisoners into the ground. It was children, she said, and her words did more than state a fact; they revealed an unexpected repugnance for people in general.

她发现有人用象哥萨克活埋俘虏一样的方式把乌鸦埋了半截。“是孩子们干的。”她的话不光是陈述事实，还流露出一种意料不到的对人们总的深恶痛绝。

It reminded him of something she had said to him not long before: "I'm beginning to be grateful to you for not wanting to have children."

这使他想起不久前她对他讲的话来：“我开始感谢你了，你没想要孩子。”

And then she had complained to him about a man who had been bothering her at work. He had grabbed at a cheap necklace of hers and suggested that the only way she could have afforded it was by doing some prostitution on the side. She was very upset about it. More than necessary, thought Tomas. He suddenly felt dismayed at how little he had seen of her the last two years; he had so few opportunities to press her hands in his to stop them from trembling.

随后，她向他抱怨，说有个男人老在她工作时找麻烦，还抓住她脖子上廉价的项链，说她只有靠额外的卖淫收入才买得起那东西。她对此极为心烦意乱。也许过分认真了，托马斯想。他突然觉得难过，近两年来他能见到她的时候是何其少，他几乎没有机会握住她的手使之停止颤抖。

The next morning he had gone to work with Tereza on his mind. The woman who gave the window washers their assignments told him that a private customer had insisted on him personally. Tomas was not looking forward to it; he was afraid it was still another woman. Fully occupied with Tereza, he was in no mood for adventure.

他第二天早晨去干活，脑子里还牵挂着特丽莎。给玻璃擦洗工分配工作的文人说，一位私人顾主坚持点名让托马斯去。托马斯不想去，担心又是另外某个女人，此刻他的心让特丽莎完全占据着，没有冒险的兴致。

When the door opened, he gave a sigh of relief. He saw a tall, slightly stooped man before him. The man had a big chin and seemed vaguely familiar.

打开门，他松了一口气。面前是一位高个头、背有点驼的男人，下巴大大的，看上去似乎有些面熟。

"Come in," said the man with a smile, taking him inside.

“请进。”那人笑着把他让进屋。

There was also a young man standing there. His face was bright red. He was looking at Tomas and trying to smile.

还有个青年人站在那里，脸色红亮，望着托马斯试图笑一笑。

"I assume there's no need for me to introduce you two," said the man.

“我想，没有必要让我给你们两位作什么介绍吧。”那男人说。

"No," said Tomas, and without returning the smile he held out his hand to the young man. It was his son.

“当然，”托马斯仍然笑着，把手伸向那年轻人。这是他的儿子。

Only then did the man with the big chin introduce himself.

接下来，只等着大下巴的人介绍他自己了。

"I knew you looked familiar!" said Tomas. "Of course! Now I place you. It was the name that did it."

“我看你好面熟！”托马斯说，“对了，现在对上号了。就是那名字。”

They sat down at what was like a small conference table. Tomas realized that both men opposite him were his own involuntary creations. He had been forced to produce the younger one by his first wife, and the features of the older one had taken shape when he was under interrogation by the police.

他们在一张小会议桌一般的桌子旁边坐下来，托马斯意识到对面的两个男人都是自己过失的产物，他的第一个妻子迫使他养下了这位少年的，而他被警察审讯时，对这位老者的尊容作过描绘。

To clear his mind of these thoughts, he said, "Well, which window do you want me to start with?"

为了理清思绪，他说：“好了，你们要我先洗哪个窗户？”

Both men burst out laughing.

那两个人都哈哈大笑起来。

Clearly windows had nothing to do with the case. He had not been called in to do the windows; he had been lured into a trap. He had never before talked to his son. This was the first time he had shaken hands with him. He knew him only by sight and had no desire to know him any other way. As far as he was concerned, the less he knew about his son the better, and he hoped the feeling was mutual.

很明显，事情与窗户无关。他们不是叫他来洗窗户的，只是设了个骗他来的圈套。他从没与儿子谈过话，这还是第一次与他握手。他只是熟悉儿子的面容却无意了解其它。他所关心的是，他对儿子知道得越少越好，但愿双方都这么想。

"Nice poster, isn't it?" said the editor, pointing at a large framed drawing on the wall opposite Tomas.

“好画，不是吗？”那编辑指着托马斯对面墙上一幅镶框的大宣传画说。

Tomas now glanced around the room. The walls were hung with interesting pictures, mostly photographs and posters. The drawing the editor had singled out came from one of the last issues of his paper before the Russians closed it down in 1969. It was an imitation of a famous recruitment poster from the Russian Civil War of 1918 showing a soldier, red star on his cap and extraordinarily stern look in his eyes, staring straight at you and aiming his index finger at you. The original Russian caption read: "Citizen, have you joined the Red Army?" It was replaced by a Czech text that read: "Citizen, have you signed the Two Thousand Words?"

托马斯这才扫了那屋子一眼。四壁都接着有趣的画，大多数是照片和宣传画。编辑挑出的那张曾经登在1969年入侵者封闭他们报纸前的最后一期上。那张画模仿了1918年苏联国内战争征兵时的一张著名宣传画，画上有一个士兵，帽子上戴着红五星用分外严峻的眼神直瞪瞪地盯着你，将食指指向你。原画的俄文标题是：“公民，你加入了红军吗？”取而代之的捷文标题是：“公民，你在两千字宣言上签了名吗？”

That was an excellent joke! "The Two Thousand Words was the first glorious manifesto of the 1968 Prague Spring. It called for the radical democratization of the Communist regime. First it was signed by a number of intellectuals, and then other people came forward and asked to sign, and finally there were so many signatures that no one could quite count them up. When the Red Army invaded their country and launched a series of political purges, one of the questions asked of each citizen was 'Have you signed the Two Thousand Words?' Anyone who admitted to having done so was summarily dismissed from his job."

真是个绝妙的玩笑。“两千字宣言是1968年布拉格之春中第一个光荣的宣言，呼吁着当局的激进民主化。开始只有一些知识分子签名，后来其他人也出来要求签名，最后签名的人太多，就没法统计人数了。红军侵占他们国土之后，发动了一系列的政治清洗运动，每个公民都回答一个问题：‘你在两千字宣言上签了名吗？’承认自己签了的人，都被立即解雇。”

"A fine poster," said Tomas. "I remember it well."

“是张好画，”托马斯说，“我记得很牢”。

"Let's hope the Red Army man isn't listening in on us," said the editor with a smile.

“但愿那位红军没有在听我们的话。”编辑笑着说。

Then he went on, without the smile: "Seriously though, this isn't my flat. It belongs to a friend. We can't be absolutely certain the police can hear us; it's only a possibility. If I'd invited you to my place, it would have been a certainty."

然后，他脸上的笑容消失了，继续说：“尽管我们认真对付，但这不是我的公寓，是我一位朋友的。我们不能绝对地确认警察在偷听我们，有可能而已。如果请你到我那里去，就可以打包票了。”

Then he switched back to a playful tone. "But the way I' look at it, we've got nothing to hide. And think of what a boon it will be to Czech historians of the future. The complete recorded lives of the Czech intelligentsia on file in the police archives! Do you know what effort literary historians have put into reconstructing in detail the sex lives of, say, Voltaire or Balzac or Tolstoy? No such problems with Czech writers. It's all on tape. Every last sigh."

他又换了一种开玩笑的语调：“可照我看来，我们也没有什么可以藏藏掩掩的。想想看，它今后对捷克未来的历史学家们不知道会带来多少好处哩。捷克所有知识分子的所有活动，都在警察局的档案夹中记录在案！你知道那些史传文学家们：象伏尔泰、巴尔扎克，或者托尔斯泰，他们要费多大的劲去重新构想人们性生活的细节吗？捷克作家们不存在这样的问题，一切都记在录音带上，包括每一声最后的叹息。”

And turning to the imaginary microphones in the wall, he said in a stentorian voice, "Gentlemen, as always in such circumstances, I wish to take this opportunity to encourage you in your work and to thank you on my behalf and on behalf of all future historians."

他转向墙中那想象的麦克风，用洪亮的声音说：“先生们，象以前一样，我想借此机会鼓励你们努力工作，我谨代表我自己以及所有未来的历史学家向你们表示感谢。”

After the three of them had had a good laugh, the editor told the story of how his paper had been banned, what the artist who designed the poster was doing, and what had become of other Czech painters, philosophers, and writers. After the Russian invasion they had been relieved of their positions and become window washers, parking attendants, night watchmen, boilermen in public buildings, or at best—and usually with pull—taxi drivers.

他们三个人一场好笑，编辑又讲了他们报纸怎么被查禁的经过，讲了那位设计这张宣传画的画家现在在干什么，还有其他捷克画家、哲学家以及作家们的处境。入侵之后，他们都下放改行，成了窗户擦洗工，停车场看守员，守夜的，公共楼宅烧锅炉的，或者最好的——通常得有门路——出租车司机。

Although what the editor said was interesting enough, Tomas was unable to concentrate on it. He was thinking about his son. He remembered passing him in the street during the past two months. Apparently these encounters had not been fortuitous. He had certainly never expected to find him in the company of a persecuted editor. Tomas's first wife was an orthodox Communist, and Tomas automatically assumed that his son was under her influence. He knew nothing about him. Of course he could have come out and asked him what kind of relationship he had with his mother, but he felt that it would have been tactless in the presence of a third party.

编辑说得满有风趣，但托马斯还是想着自己的儿子，不能集中精力听。他记得最近两个月内他老在街上从自己身边走道。显然，这些相遇并非偶然。他绝对没有料到他竟会和一位受迫害的编辑在一起。托马斯的前妻是一个正统的共产主义者，托马斯自然会设想他儿子是在她的影响之下。他对儿子一无所知。当然，他可以问问儿子他与母亲的关系怎么样，但他觉得当着第三者的面这样问不够得体。

At last the editor came to the point. He said that more and more people were going to prison for no offense other than upholding their own opinions, and concluded with the words:"And so we've decided to do something."

最后，编辑讲到问题的关键了。他说，越来越多的人仅仅是坚持自己的意见，便无缘无故地被送进了监狱，他的结论是：“所以，我们决定要做点什么。”

"What is it you want to do?" asked Tomas.

“你们究竟要做什么？”托马斯问。

Here his son took over. It was the first time he had ever heard him speak. He was surprised to note that he stuttered.

他的儿子替对方回答了。这是他第一次听到儿于说话，惊奇地注意到他说话结结巴巴。

"According to our sources," he said, "political prisoners are being subjected to very rough treatment. Several are in a bad way. And so we've decided to draft a petition and have it signed by the most important Czech intellectuals, the ones who still mean something."

“根据我们的消息来源，”他说，“政治犯受到了，非常粗暴的虐待，有几个，处境险恶。我们，决定起草一份请愿书，由捷克最重要的知识分子，签名。这些人物，还算得上，什么的。”

No, it wasn't actually a stutter; it was more of a stammer, slowing down the flow of speech, stressing or highlighting every word he uttered whether he wanted to or not. He obviously felt himself doing it, and his cheeks, which had barely regained their natural pallor, turned scarlet again.

不，事实上这还不只是结结巴巴，比口吃更严重。他越讲越慢，无论有意与否，发每个字音都用重读，或者用最强音。他自己显然也感到了这一点，两额还未恢复到原有的苍白，又涨得绯红。

"And you've called me in for advice on likely candidates in my field?" Tomas asked.

“你们叫我来，让我参谋一下我那一行的可能人选吗？”托马斯问。

"No," the editor said, laughing. "We don't want your advice. We want your signature!"

“不，”编辑笑了，“不是要你参谋，我们要你签名！”

And again he felt flattered! Again he enjoyed the feeling that he had not been forgotten as a surgeon! He protested, but only out of modesty, "Wait a minute. Just because they kicked me out doesn't mean I'm a famous doctor!"

他又一次得意了！又一次自得地感到人们还没有忘记他是个医生。他表示推辞，仅仅是出于谦让：“等等，光凭他们把我踢出来，并不能说明我是个著名医生呵！”

"We haven't forgotten what you wrote for our paper," said the editor, smiling at Tomas.

“你为我们报纸写过稿，我们是不会忘记的。”编辑又朝托马斯微笑。

"Yes," sighed Tomas's son with an alacrity Tomas may have missed.

“是的。”托马斯的儿子欣然地叹了一口气，托马斯可能没有察觉。

"I don't see how my name on a petition can help your political prisoners. Wouldn't it be better to have it signed by people who haven't fallen afoul of the regime, people who have at least some influence on the powers that be? "

“我看不出，我的名字出现在请愿书上会帮助你们的政治犯。让那些与当局没有冲突过的人签名，也许会好一些。那些人起码对当权者们还有些影响。是不是？”

The editor smiled. "Of course it would."

编辑笑了；“当然是这样。”

Tomas's son smiled, too; he smiled the smile of one who understands many things. "The only trouble is, they'd never sign!"

托马斯的儿子也笑了，是一种谙熟世事者的笑：“唯一困难的，是他们绝不会签名！”

"Which doesn't mean we don't go after them, the editor continued, or that we're too nice to spare them the embarrassment." He laughed. "You should hear the excuses they give. They're fantastic!"

“这倒不是说，我们不去跟他们周旋，或者说我心肠好得怕他们难堪，”他笑了，“你该听听他们找出的借口，稀奇古怪！”

Tomas's son laughed in agreement.

托马斯的儿子笑着表示赞成。

"Of course they all begin by claiming they agree with us right down the line," the editor went on. "We just need a different approach, they say. Something more prudent, more reasonable, more discreet. They're scared to sign and worried that if they don't they'll sink in our estimation."

“当然，他们开始都表示同意我们，完全站在这一边。”编辑继续说，“他们说，只是需要一个不同的方式，更慎重，更理智，更周全。他们对签名怕得要命，不签呢，又担心我们瞧不起。”

Again Tomas's son and the editor laughed together.

托马斯的儿子和编辑一起笑了。

Then the editor gave Tomas a sheet of paper with a short text calling upon the president of the republic, in a relatively respectful manner, to grant amnesty to all political prisoners.

编辑交给托马斯一张纸，上面短短几行，用一种较为客气的方式，呼吁共和国主席赦免所有的政治犯。

Tomas ran the idea quickly through his mind. Amnesty to political prisoners? Would amnesty be granted because people jettisoned by the regime (and therefore themselves potential political prisoners) request it of the president? The only thing such a petition would accomplish was to keep political prisoners from being amnestied if there happened to be a plan afoot to do so!

托马斯飞快地运转着思绪。赦免政治犯？就靠这些被当局抛弃了的人（他们自己就是潜在的政治犯）对主席提出要求？即便当局碰巧有赦免政治犯的计划，这样的请愿书，唯一结果也只能是适得其反！

His son interrupted his thoughts. "The main thing is to make the point that there still are a handful of people in this country who are not afraid. And to show who stands where. Separate the wheat from the chaff."

他儿子打断了他的思路，“重要的，是要指出，在这个国家仍有一帮人没有被吓住。大家都表明立场。把麦子与麦壳，分别清楚。”

True, true, thought Tomas, but what had that to do with political prisoners? Either you called for an amnesty or you separated the wheat from the chaff. The two were not identical.

不错，不错，托马斯想，可那与政治犯们有什么关系呢？你要求赦免也好，要分清麦子与麦壳也好，这不是一码事。

"On the fence?" the editor asked.

“骑墙吗？”编辑问。

Yes. He was on the fence. But he was afraid to say so. There was a picture on the wall, a picture of a soldier pointing a threatening finger at him and saying, "Are you hesitating about joining the Red Army?" or "Haven't you signed the Two Thousand Words yet?" or "Have you too signed the Two Thousand Words?" or "You mean you don't want to sign the amnesty petition?!" But no matter what the soldier said, it was a threat.

是的，他是在骑墙观望，只是不敢这么说。墙上有一幅画，士兵威胁地指着他说：“你对参加红军犹豫不决吗？”或者说：“你还没有在两千字宣言上签名吗？”或者说：“你在两千字宣言上签过名吗？”或者说：“你的意思是你不愿意在赦免请愿书上签名吗？！”不论这个士兵怎么说，反正是在威胁。

The editor had barely finished saying what he thought about people who agree that the political prisoners should be granted amnesty but come up with thousands of reasons against signing the petition. In his opinion, their reasons were just so many excuses and their excuses a smoke screen for cowardice. What could Tomas say?

编辑刚刚已经说了，有些人同意赦免政治犯，却又提出千万条理由来反对在请愿书上签名。在他看来，他们的理由只是许许多多的借口而已，都是怯懦者的烟幕弹。那托乌斯还能说什么呢？

At last he broke the silence with a laugh, and pointing to the poster on the wall, he said, "With that soldier threatening me, asking whether I'm going to sign or not, I can't possibly think straight."

他终于用笑声打破了沉默，指着墙上的宣传画：“有这个当兵的逼我，问我签还是不签，我不可能想清楚了。”

Then all three laughed for a while.

于是，三个人又笑了一阵。

"All right," said Tomas after the laughter had died down. "I'll think it over. Can we get together again in the next few days?"

“好了，”托马斯笑过以后说，“我想想吧，过几天我们还能碰碰头吗？”

"Any time at all," said the editor, "but unfortunately the petition can't wait. We plan to get it off to the president tomorrow."

“什么时候都可以，”编辑说，“不幸的是，请愿书等不了，我们打算明天就将它递交主席。”

"Tomorrow?" And suddenly Tomas recalled the portly policeman handing him the denunciation of none other than this tall editor with the big chin. Everyone was trying to make him sign statements he had not written himself.

“明天？”托马斯突然想起那位递给他声明书的胖警察，与这位大下巴编辑没什么两样，人们都是试图让他在一份不是自己写的声明上签名。

"There's nothing to think over anyway," said his son. Although his words were aggressive, his intonation bordered on the supplicatory. Now that they were looking each other in the eye, Tomas noticed that when concentrating the boy slightly raised the left side of his upper lip. It was an expression he saw on his own face whenever he peered into the mirror to determine whether it was clean-shaven. Discovering it on the face of another made him uneasy.

“没有什么要想的。”儿子的话虽然咄咄逼人，语调却近乎祈求。现在，他们双双对视着，托马斯注意到孩子全神贯注时上嘴唇的左角微微翘起，这正是自己平常从镜子里看胡须是否刮干净了时，在自己脸上看到的一种表情。从其他人脸上发现这一点，使他感到不安。

When parents live with their children through childhood, they grow accustomed to that kind of similarity; it seems trivial to them or, if they stop and think about it, amusing. But Tomas was talking to his son for the first time in his life! He was not used to sitting face to face with his own asymmetrical mouth!

当父母与自己的孩子在一起度过孩子的童年时，他们会慢慢习惯这种相似性，他们会觉得这些太平常了，如果他们中断这种相似以后再回头想到这些，或者还会觉得有趣。但托马斯有生以来是第一次与儿子谈话！他还不习惯与自己这张不相称的嘴巴面对面地坐在一起！

Imagine having an arm amputated and implanted on someone else. Imagine that person sitting opposite you and gesticulating with it in your face. You would stare at that arm as at a ghost. Even though it was your own personal, beloved arm, you would be horrified at the possibility of its touching you!

试想你有一条断臂移植在别人身上，试想那人就坐在你对面，用你的手臂冲着你打手势，你一定会死死盯着那手臂如同见了魔鬼。即使那是你自己的、心爱的手臂，它接触你的可能想必会使你魂飞魄散！

"Aren't you on the side of the persecuted?" his son added, and Tomas suddenly saw that what was really at stake in this scene they were playing was not the amnesty of political prisoners; it was his relationship with his son. If he signed, their fates would be united and Tomas would be more or less obliged to befriend him; if he failed to sign, their relations would remain null as before, though now not so much by his own will as by the will of his son, who would renounce his father for his cowardice.

“你不站在受迫害的一边吗？”他儿子补充说。托马斯突然明白了，他们所演的这一幕中，要害所在不是政治犯的赦免，而是他与儿子的关系。他签字，他们的命运就联系在一起了，托马斯多多少少得尽责地与他友好；不签字呢，他们的关系就会象以前一样不存在。不取决于儿子的意志也不取决于他的意志，儿子会因为他的懦弱而拒绝承认他。

He was in the situation of a chess player who cannot avoid checkmate and is forced to resign. Whether he signed the petition or not made not the slightest difference. It would alter nothing in his own life or in the lives of the political prisoners.

他处在一种棋场败局的境地，—无法回避对方的将军，将被迫放弃这一局。他签与不签都没有丝毫区别。这对他的生活或者对那些政治犯们，都不能改变什么。

"Hand it over," he said, and took the sheet of paper.

“拿来吧。”他接过那张纸。

As if rewarding him for his decision, the editor said, "That was a fine piece you wrote about Oedipus."

似乎是要报偿他的决定，编辑说：“你写的那篇俄狄浦斯的文章真是妙。”

Handing him a pen, his son added, "Some ideas have the force of a bomb exploding."

儿子把笔递给他，又加上一句：“有些思想，象炸弹一样有力。”

Although the editor's words of praise pleased him, his son's metaphor struck him as forced and out of place. "Unfortunately, I was the only casualty," he said. "Thanks to those ideas, I can no longer operate on my patients."

编辑的赞许使他高兴，但儿子的比喻使他感到不自然而且不适当：“不幸得很，受害者就我一个，”他说，“多亏了这些思想，我再也不能给我的病人做手术了。”

It sounded cold, almost hostile.

话语听起来很冷，甚至含有敌意。

Apparently hoping to counteract the discordant note, the editor said, by way of apology, "But think of all the people your article helped! "

编辑显然是希望缓和这种不协调的语气，带有歉意地说：“可是，想想吧，你的文章拯救了所有的人！”

From childhood, Tomas had associated the words helping people with one thing and one thing only: medicine. How could an article help people? What were these two trying to make him swallow, reducing his whole life to a single small idea about Oedipus or even less: to a single primitive "no!" in the face of the regime.

从孩童时代起，托马斯就把“拯救”这个词与一样东西相联系，只与这一样东西相联系：医药。文章如何能够救人？这两个人极力要使他接受的，就是要把他整个一生归结为单是一个关于俄狄浦斯的小小观点，甚至归结得更少一些：冲著当局吐一个简单的字，“不！”

"Maybe it helped people, maybe it didn't," he said (in a voice still cold, though he probably did not realize it), "but as a surgeon I know I saved a few lives."

“也许它救了人，也许它没有，”他说（声音仍是冷冷的，虽然自己也许没有意识到），“但作为一个医生，我知道我救过几条命。”

Another silence set in. Tomas's son broke it. "Ideas can save lives, too."

又沉默了下来。托马斯的儿子打破沉默：“思想，也能拯救性命。”

Watching his own mouth in the boy's face, Tomas thought How strange to see one's own lips stammer.

托马斯从孩子的脸上看到了自己的嘴，心想，看着自己的嘴结结巴巴是多么奇怪。

"You know the best thing about what you wrote?" the boy went on, and Tomas could see the effort it cost him to speak. "Your refusal to compromise. Your clear-cut sense of what's good and what's evil, something we're beginning to lose. We have no idea anymore what it means to feel guilty. The Communists have the excuse that Stalin misled them. Murderers have the excuse that their mothers didn't love them. And suddenly you come out and say: there is no excuse. No one could be more innocent, in his soul and conscience, than Oedipus. And yet he punished himself when he saw what he had done."

“你知道，你写得最好的，是什么吗？”孩子继续说，而托马斯只能看到他说话付出的努力。“你对妥协的拒绝，你那些，我们都已开始失去了的，善恶分明。我们一点儿都不知道，内疚意昧着什么。杀人犯的借口，是母亲不爱他们。可是，你突然出来说：没有什么借口。没有人的灵魂和良心，比俄狄浦斯，更纯洁，他明白了自己的所作所为，就自己惩罚了自已。”

Tomas tore his eyes away from his son's mouth and tried to focus on the editor. He was irritated and felt like arguing with them. "But it's all a misunderstanding! The border between good and evil is terribly fuzzy. I wasn't out to punish anyone, either. Punishing people who don't know what they've done is barbaric. The myth of Oedipus is a beautiful one, but treating it like this. . ." He had more to say, but suddenly he remembered that the place might be bugged. He had not the slightest ambition to be quoted by historians of centuries to come. He was simply afraid of being quoted by the police. Wasn't that what they wanted from him, after all? A condemnation of the article? He did not like the idea of feeding it to them from his own lips. Besides, he knew that anything anyone in the country said could be broadcast over the radio at any time. He held his tongue.

托马斯把视线从儿子的嘴上拉开，努力想投向那编辑。他有些恼怒了，象是跟他们争辩起来：“但这统统是误解！善恶的分野彻底给搞混了。我也不是存心要惩罚什么人。惩罚那些不知道自己做了什么的人是野蛮的，而俄狄浦斯的神话是美的，但把它弄成这个样……”他有很多话要说，但突然记起这地方也许安装了窃听器。他没有丝毫野心要让未来的历史学家们来广征博引，只害怕被警察局寻章摘句。这不正是他们要从他这儿得到的么？不正是对那篇文章的谴责吗？他不愿意把这一思想从自己嘴里喂给他们。除此之外，他还知道在这个国家里，任何时候都可能把任何人的任何事拿去广播。他闭了嘴。

"I wonder what's made you change your mind," said the editor.

“我想知道，是什么东西使你改变了主意。”编辑说。

"What I wonder is what made me write the thing in the first place," said Tomas, and just then he remembered: She had landed at his bedside like a child sent downstream in a bulrush basket. Yes, that was why he had picked up the book and gone back to the stories of Romulus, Moses, and Oedipus. And now she was with him again. He saw her pressing the crow wrapped in red to her breast. The image of her brought him peace. It seemed to tell him that Tereza was alive, that she was with him in the same city, and that nothing else counted.

“我想知道的是，原先是什么东西使我写了个东西。”托马斯马上想起来了：她象一个放在草篮里的孩子，顺水漂到了他的床边。是的，他因此才拿起了那本书，追随那些罗慕路斯、摩西以及俄狄浦斯的故事。现在，她又与他在一起了，他看见她用红头巾把乌鸦包起来拥在胸前。她的幻象使他平静下来，似乎在告诉他，特丽莎还活着，与他住在同一座城市里，其他什么都是无所谓的。

This time, the editor broke the silence. "I understand. I don't like the idea of punishment, either." After all, he added, smiling, "we don't call for punishment to be inflicted; we call for it to cease."

这回是编辑打破了沉默：“我懂了。我毕竟也不喜欢那种惩罚观念。”他笑着补充，“我们不是为了惩罚而呼吁惩罚，是要用惩罚来消灭惩罚。”

"I know." said Tomas. In the next few moments he would do something possibly noble but certainly, and totally, useless (because it would not help the political prisoners) and unpleasant to himself (because it took place under conditions the two of them had imposed on him).

“我知道。”托马斯说。几秒钟之后，他可能就要做一件很高尚的事，却是完全、绝对毫无用处的事（因为这不能帮助政治犯），还是一件使他不高兴的事（因为这是那两个人压着他干的）。

"It's your duty to sign," his son added, almost pleading.

“签字是你的责任。”他儿于几乎是在恳求。

Duty? His son reminding him of his duty? That was the worst word anyone could have used on him! Once more, the image of Tereza appeared before his eyes, Tereza holding the crow in her arms. Then he remembered that she had been accosted by an undercover agent the day before. Her hands had started trembling again. She had aged. She was all that mattered to him. She, born of six fortuities, she, the blossom sprung from the chief surgeon's sciatica, she, the reverse side of all his Es muss sein! —she was the only thing he cared about.

责任？他儿子向他提起责任？这是任何人能向他使用的最糟糕的字眼！再一次，特丽莎的幻影又浮现在他的眼前。他记起特丽莎用手臂抱着那只乌鸦，记起她前天曾被一位密探勾引，记起她的手又开始颤抖。她老了，她是他的一切。她，六个偶然性的产物；她，那位主治大夫坐骨神经痛带来的果实；她，他所有“非如此不可”的对立面——是他唯一关心的东西。

Why even think about whether to sign or not? There was only one criterion for all his decisions: he must do nothing that could harm her. Tomas could not save political prisoners, but he could make Tereza happy. He could not really succeed in doing even that. But if he signed the petition, he could be fairly certain that she would have more frequent visits from undercover agents, and that her hands would tremble more and more.

为什么竟然去想什么签还是不签？他的一切决定都只能有一个准则：就是不能做任何伤害她的事。托马斯救不了政治犯，但能使特丽莎幸福。他甚至并不能真正做到那一点。但如果他在请愿书上签名，可以确信，密探们会更多地去光顾她，她的手就会颤抖得更加厉害。

"It is much more important to dig a half-buried crow out of the ground," he said, "than to send petitions to a president."

“把一只半死的乌鸦从地里挖出来，比交给主席的请愿书重要得多。”他说。

He knew that his words were incomprehensible, but enjoyed them all the more for it. He felt a sudden, unexpected intoxication come over him. It was the same black intoxication he had felt when he solemnly announced to his wife that he no longer wished to see her or his son. It was the same black intoxication he had felt when he sent off the letter that meant the end of his career in medicine. He was not at all sure he was doing the right thing, but he was sure he was doing what he wanted to do.

他知道，他的话是不能被理解的，但能使他玩味无穷。他感到一种突如其来、毫无预料的陶醉之感向他袭来。当年他严肃地向妻子宣布再不希望见到她和儿子时，就有这种相同的黑色陶醉。他送掉那封意味着断送自己医学事业的文章时，就有这种相同的黑色陶醉。他不能肯定自已是否做对了，但能肯定他做了自己愿意做的事。

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm not going to sign."

“对不起，”他说，“我不签名。”

Several days later he read about the petition in the papers.

几天后，他从报纸上读到了有关请愿书的一些文章。

There was not a word, of course, about its being a politely worded plea for the release of political prisoners. None of the papers cited a single sentence from the short text. Instead, they went on at great length and in vague, menacing terms about an anti-state proclamation meant to lay the foundation for a new campaign against socialism. They also listed all the signatories, accompanying each of their names with slanderous attacks that gave Tomas gooseflesh.

当然，那些文章里，没有一个字提及它是在彬彬有礼地呼吁释放政治犯。没有一份报纸引用那篇短文的只言片语。相反，它们用大量的篇幅，用含混的恐吓之词，谈着一份旨在为一场新的反社会主义运动奠定基础的反政府宣言。它们还列举了所有的签名者，每个人名下都伴有使托马斯起鸡皮疙瘩的诽谤与攻击。

Not that it was unexpected. The fact that any public undertaking (meeting, petition, street gathering) not organized by the Communist Party was automatically considered illegal and endangered all the participants was common knowledge. But it may have made him sorrier he had not signed the petition.Why hadn't he signed? He could no longer quite remember what had prompted his decision.

这并非出人意外。任何不是当局组织的公开活动（会议、请愿、街头聚众），都理所当然地视为非法，所有参与者都会陷入危险，这已成为常识。但是，也许这会使托马斯对自己没有为请愿签名更加感到歉疚。他为什么没有签？他再也记不起是什么原因促成了他的决定。

And once more I see him the way he appeared to me at the very beginning of the novel: standing at the window and staring across the courtyard at the walls opposite.

我再一次看见他，象小说开头时那样出现在我跟前：他站在窗前，目光越过庭院落在那边的墙上。

This is the image from which he was born. As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.

这就是产生他的意象。我前面指出过，作品中的人物不象生活中的人，不是女人生出来的，他们诞生于一个情境，一个句子，一个隐喻。简单说来那隐喻包含着一种基本的人类可能性，在作者看来它还没有被人发现或没有被人扼要地谈及。

But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?

但是，一个作者只能写他自己，难道不是真的吗？

Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own stomach during a moment of love; betraying, yet lacking the will to abandon the glamorous path of betrayal; raising one's fist with the crowds in the Grand March; displaying one's wit before hidden microphones—I have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own I ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become. But enough. Let us return to Tomas.

穿越庭院的凝视以及不知所措的茫然；热恋中的女人听到自己胃里顽固的咕咕声响；缺乏意志抛弃自己背叛魔途的背叛；伟大进军中与人们一起举起的拳头；在暗藏的窃听器前的智慧表演——我知道这一切情境，我自己都经历过，但这一切未能产生我提纲勾勒中和作品描绘中的人物。我小说中的人物是我自己没有意识到的种种可能性。正因为如此，我对他们都一样地喜爱，也一样地被他们惊吓。他们每一个人都已越过了我自己固定的界线。对界线的跨越（我的“我”只存在于界线之内）最能吸引我，因为在界线那边就开始了小说所要求的神秘。小说已不是作者的自白，是对人类生活——生活在已经成为罗网的世界里——的调查。但是够了，让我们还是回到托马斯吧。

Alone in his flat, he stared across the courtyard at the dirty walls of the building opposite. He missed the tall, stooped man with the big chin and the man's friends, whom he did not know, who were not even members of his circle. He felt as though he had just met a beautiful woman on a railway platform, and before he could say anything to her, she had stepped into a sleeping car on its way to Istanbul or Lisbon.

他一个人在公离里，目光越过庭院，落在对面那幢建筑的脏墙上。他想念那高个；驼背以及大下巴的编辑，还有他的朋友们。他并不认识他们，他们甚至从未进入他的生活圈子。他感到自己仿佛刚在火车月台上碰到一位漂亮女人，还来不及跟她说什么，她就步入卧车厢，去了伊斯坦布尔或里斯本。

Then he tried again to think through what he should have done. Even though he did his best to put aside everything belonging to the realm of the emotions (the admiration he had for the editor and the irritation his son caused him), he was still not sure whether he ought to have signed the text they gave him.

他再一次极力想着自己应该怎么办。他尽了最大的努力排除每一点感情上的因素（比如他对那位编辑的崇拜以及儿子给他的恼怒），但仍然拿不定主意，究竟该不该在他们给的文件上签名。

Is it right to raise one's voice when others are being silenced? Yes.

万马齐喑时的大声疾呼是对的吗？是的。

On the other hand, why did the papers devote so much space to the petition? After all, the press (totally manipulated by the state) could have kept it quiet and no one would have been the wiser. If they publicized the petition, then the petition played into the rulers' hands! It was manna from heaven, the perfect start and justification for a new wave of persecution.

从另一方面讲，为什么报纸提供这么多篇幅对请愿书大做文章呢？新闻界（全部由国家操纵）毕竟可以保持沉默，没有比这更明智的了。他们把请愿书大肆张扬，请愿书随即被统治者玩于股掌之中！真是天赐神物，为一场新的迫害浪潮提供了极好的开端和辩解词。

What then should he have done? Sign or not?

那么他该怎么办？签还是不签？

Another way of formulating the question is, Is it better to shout and thereby hasten the end, or to keep silent and gain thereby a slower death?

用另一种方式提出问题就是：是大叫大喊以加速灭亡好呢，还是保持沉默得以延缓死期强呢？

Is there any answer to these questions?

这些问题还有其他答案吗？

And again he thought the thought we already know: Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.

他又一次回到了我们已经知道的思索：人类生命只有一次，我们不能测定我们的决策孰好孰坏，原因就是在一个给定的情境中，我们只能作一个决定。我们没有被赐予第二次、第三次或第四次生命来比较各种各样的决断。

History is similar to individual lives in this respect. There is only one history of the Czechs. One day it will come to an end as surely as Tomas's life, never to be repeated.

在这一方面，历史与个人生命是类似的。捷克只有一部历史，某一天它将象托马斯的生命一样有个确定的终结，不再重复。

In 1618, the Czech estates took courage and vented their ire on the emperor reigning in Vienna by pitching two of his high officials out of a window in the Prague Castle. Their defiance led to the Thirty Years War, which in turn led to the almost complete destruction of the Czech nation. Should the Czechs have shown more caution than courage? The answer may seem simple; it is not.

1618年，捷克的各阶层敢作敢为，把两名高级官员从布拉格城堡的窗子里扔了出去，发泄他们对维也拉君主统治的怒火。他们的挑衅引起了三十年战争，几乎导致整个捷克民族的毁灭。捷克人应该表现比勇气更大的谨慎么？回答也许显得很简单：不。

Three hundred and twenty years later, after the Munich Conference of 1938, the entire world decided to sacrifice the Czechs' country to Hitler. Should the Czechs have tried to stand up to a power eight times their size? In contrast to 1618, they opted for caution. Their capitulation led to the Second World War, which in turn led to the forfeit of their nation's freedom for many decades or even centuries. Should they have shown more courage than caution? What should they have done?

三百二十年过去了，1938年的慕尼黑会议之后，全世界决定把捷克的国土牺牲给希特勒。捷克人应该努力奋起与比他们强大八倍的力量抗衡吗？与1618年相对照，他们选择了谨慎。他们的投降条约导致了第二次世界大战，继而丧失自己的民族自主权几十年，或者甚至是几百年之久。他们应该选择比谨慎更多的勇气吗？他们应该怎么办呢？

If Czech history could be repeated, we should of course find it desirable to test the other possibility each time and compare the results. Without such an experiment, all considerations of this kind remain a game of hypotheses.

如果捷克的历史能够重演，我们当然应该精心试验每一次的其他可能性，比较其结果。没有这样的实验，所有这一类的考虑都只是一种假定性游戏。

Einmal ist keinmal. What happens but once might as well not have happened at all. The history of the Czechs will not be repeated, nor will the history of Europe. The history of the Czechs and of Europe is a pair of sketches from the pen of mankind's fateful inexperience. History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.

EinmalistKeinmal。只发生一次的事，就是压根儿没有发生过的事。捷克人的历史不会重演了，欧洲的历史也不会重演了。捷克人和欧洲的历史的两张草图，来自命中注定无法有经验的人类的笔下。历史和个人生命一样，轻得不能承受，轻若鸿毛，轻如尘埃，卷入了太空，它是明天不复存在的任何东西。

Once more, and with a nostalgia akin to love, Tomas thought of the tall, stooped editor. That man acted as though history were a finished picture rather than a sketch. He acted as though everything he did were to be repeated endlessly, to return eternally, without the slightest doubt about his actions. He was convinced he was right, and for him that was a sign not of narrowmindedness but of virtue. Yes, that man lived in a history different from Tomas's: a history that was not (or did not realize it was) a sketch.

托马斯再一次怀着爱情般的怀念之情，想起了高个驼背的编辑。那个人干起来似乎把历史看成一幅完成了的图画而不是草图。他于起来似乎认为自己所做的一切都永无休止地重演，会永劫回归，丝毫也不怀疑自己的行为。他自信自己是对的，在他看来，那不是一种心胸狭窄而是美德的标志。是的，那人生活在与托马斯不一样的历史之中：一部不是草图的历史（或者没有意识到而已）。

Several days later, he was struck by another thought, which I record here as an addendum to the preceding chapter: Somewhere out in space there was a planet where all people would be born again. They would be fully aware of the life they had spent on earth and of all the experience they had amassed here.

几天后，他又被另一种思想所打动，我把它记在这里作为上一节的补充：在太空以外的什么地方有一颗星球，所有的人都能在那里再生，对于自己在地球上所经历的生活和所积累的经验，都有充分的感知。

And perhaps there was still another planet, where we would all be born a third time with the experience of our first two lives.

或许还有另一颗星球，我们将在那儿带着前两次生命的经验，第三次再生。

And perhaps there were yet more and more planets, where mankind would be born one degree (one life) more mature.

或许还有更多更多的星球，人类将在那里诞生于更成熟的层次（一个层次即一次生命）。

That was Tomas's version of eternal return.

这就是托马斯版本的永劫回归观。

Of course we here on earth (planet number one, the planet of inexperience) can only fabricate vague fantasies of what will happen to man on those other planets. Will he be wiser? Is maturity within man's power? Can he attain it through repetition?

当然，我们立足于地球（第一号星球，无经验的星球），对于其他星球上的人将会如何，只能杜撰出朦朦胧胧的异想。他会比我们更聪明？人的能力中有更多的成熟？他能通过重复经验获得这种成熟？

Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.

只有从这样一个乌托邦的观念出发，才有可能充分正确地使用悲观主义和乐观主义的概念：乐观主义者无非是认为第五号星球上的人类史将会少一些血污，悲观主义者则不这样看。

One of Jules Verne's famous novels, a favorite of Tomas's in his childhood, is called Two Years on Holiday, and indeed two years is the maximum. Tomas was in his third year as a window washer.

朱尔斯.弗恩的一部著名小说《两年的假日》，是托马斯少年时最爱读的。两年的确是一个极大的数字。托马斯当窗户擦洗工已逾三年了。

In the last few weeks, he had come to realize (half sadly, half laughing to himself) that he had grown physically tired (he had one, sometimes two erotic engagements a day), and that although he had not lost his zest for women, he found himself straining his forces to the utmost. (Let me add that the strain was on his physical, not his sexual powers; his problem was with his breath, not with his penis, a state of affairs that had its comical side.)

几个星期以来，他渐渐意识到（半悲哀、半自嘲地）自己正在变得精疲力竭（他每天有一次甚至有时是两次的性约会）。他并末失去对女人的兴趣，但发现自己已将气力使到了极限。（让我补充一下，极限是指他的体力，不是指他的性功能；他的问题是气喘吁吁，而与生殖器无关，事物状态都有其喜剧性的一面。）

One day he was having trouble reaching a prospect for his afternoon time slot, and it looked as though he was going to have one of his rare off days. He was desperate. He had phoned a certain young woman about ten times. A charming acting student whose body had been tanned on Yugoslavia's nudist beaches with an evenness that called to mind slow rotation on a mechanized spit.

一天，他正为自己下午要抽空子了愿赴约而遭难，看上去象要度一个稀罕的假日。他渴望至极，给一个年轻女人打了差不多十次电话。对方是个妩媚的表演专业学生，皮肤在南斯拉夫平整的裸泳海滩上晒得黑黝黝的，那种海滩使人联想起机动烤肉板上慢慢的旋转烧烤。

After making one last call from his final job of the day and starting back to the office at four to hand in his signed order slips, he was stopped in the center of Prague by a woman he failed to recognize. "Wherever have you disappeared to? I haven't seen you in ages!"

他干完活，打了最后一次电话，四点钟动身去办公室递交自己的工单。在布拉格市中心，他被一位未能认出来的女人拦住了：“你究竟躲到哪儿去啦？我八辈子都没见到你啦！”

Tomas racked his brains to place her. Had she been one of his patients? She was behaving like an intimate friend. He tried to answer in a manner that would conceal the fact that he did not recognize her. He was already thinking about how to lure her to his friend's flat (he had the key in his pocket) when he realized from a chance remark who the woman was: the budding actress with the perfect tan, the one he had been trying to reach all day.

托马斯搜索枯肠，想记出她是谁。是他以前的一位病人吗？那样子倒象个亲密朋友。他尽力搭着腔以掩盖自己没认出她来的事实。好一阵，他才从一个偶然的记号认出了那姑娘：晒得黑黑的小演员，就是他成天一直在找的那一位。他这才着手打主意，如何把对方引诱到朋友的公寓里去（他口袋里有钥匙）。

This episode both amused and horrified him: it proved that he was as tired mentally as physically. Two years of holiday could not be extended indefinitely.

这段插曲使他好笑，又使他害怕：这证明他的脑力和体力一样都消耗殆尽了。两年的假期不能再无限期地延续下去。

The holiday from the operating table was also a holiday from Tereza.

告别手术台的假日，也是告别特丽莎的假日。

After hardly seeing each other for six days, they would finally be together on Sundays, full of desire; but, as on the evening when Tomas came back from Zurich, they were estranged and had a long way to go before they could touch and kiss.

六天很难见面的日子后，他们最终能充满着爱欲在星期天相聚；但是象托马斯从苏黎世回来的那天晚上，他们显得疏远，很长一段时间之后才能接触和亲吻。

Physical love gave them pleasure but no consolation. She no longer cried out as she had in the past, and, at the moment of orgasm, her grimace seemed to him to express suffering and a strange absence.

生理的爱给他们愉悦，但没有慰藉。她不再象以前那样大声喊叫，高潮时脸上的扭曲，在他看来是痛苦的表示和奇怪的心不在焉。

Only at night, in sleep, were they tenderly united. Holding his hand, she would forget the chasm (the chasm of daylight) that divided them.

只有在夜里睡着了，他们才温柔地依偎在一起。握着他的手，她忘记了那一道将他们隔开的深渊（白昼的深渊）。

But the nights gave him neither the time nor the means to protect and take care of her. In the mornings, it was heartrending to see her, and he feared for her: she looked sad and infirm.

夜里，托马斯既没时间也无办法去保护她和关怀她。而早上，看见她是令人伤心和害怕的：她显得又悲哀又虚弱。

One Sunday, she asked him to take her for a ride outside Prague. They drove to a spa, where they found all the streets relabeled with Russian names and happened to meet an old patient of Tomas's.

一个星期天，她请他开车把她带到布拉格城外去。他们去了一个矿泉区，发现那里所有的街道都换了俄国名字，还碰巧遇到了托马斯以前的一位病人。

Tomas was devastated by the meeting. Suddenly here was someone talking to him again as to a doctor, and he could feel his former life bridging the divide, coming back to him with its pleasant regularity of seeing patients and feeling their trusting eyes on him, those eyes he had pretended to ignore but in fact savored and now greatly missed.

托马斯被这次召见击垮了。他在这儿突然作为一个医生与别人谈起话来，能感觉出以前那种生活，带着按部就班看见病人的愉悦，带着病人们信任的目光，正跨越岁月的断层向他扑来。他曾经装作对这些目光视而不见，事实上他是滋滋有昧，现在更是极其思念。

Driving home, Tomas pondered the catastrophic mistake he had made by returning to Prague from Zurich.

回家的路上，他思索着，这一灾难性的大错都是从苏黎世回布拉格造成的。

He kept his eyes trained on the road so as to avoid looking at Tereza. He was furious with her. Her presence at his side felt more unbearably fortuitous than ever. What was she doing here next to him?

他老盯着路面，避免去看特丽莎。他对她很恼火。她在身边的出现比往日更显得是一种忍受不了的偶然。

Who put her in the basket and sent her downstream? Why was his bed chosen as her shore?

她在他身边干什么？是谁把她放在草篮里并让她顺水漂下来？为什么把他的床选作了堤岸？

And why she and not some other woman?

为什么是她而不是一个别的女人？

Neither of them said a word the whole way.

一路上谁也没讲一句话。

When they got home, they had dinner in silence.

回到家里，他们也默默地吃饭。

Silence lay between them like an agony. It grew heavier by the minute. To escape it they went straight to bed. He woke her in the middle of the night. She was crying.

沉默，象一片云海横在他们中间，随着时间分分秒秒地过去，越来越沉重。他们逃离这片苦海，径直上了床。半夜里他把她叫醒了。她正在哭。

I was buried, she told him. "I'd been buried for a long time. You came to see me every week. Each time you knocked at the grave, and I came out. My eyes were full of dirt."

她告诉他：“我被埋掉了，给埋了许久许久。你每周来看我一次，每次你都敲敲坟墓，我就出来了。我眼里都是泥。”

"You'd say, 'How can you see?' and try to wipe the dirt from my eyes."

“你总是说，‘你怎么会看得见的？’你想把我眼里的泥擦掉。”

"And I'd say, 'I can't see anyway. I have holes instead of eyes.'

“我总是说，‘我还是看不见，我的眼睛已经成了空洞。’

"And then one day you went off on a long journey, and I knew you were with another woman. Weeks passed, and there was no sign of you. I was afraid of missing you, and stopped sleeping. At last you knocked at the grave again, but I was so worn down by a month of sleepless nights that I didn't think I could make it out of there. When I finally did come out, you seemed disappointed. You said I didn't look well. I could feel how awful I looked to you with my sunken cheeks and nervous gestures."

“后来有一天，你要去长途旅行。我知道你是同另一个女人一起去的。几个星期过去了，不见你的影子。我害怕同你错过，就不睡觉了。最后，你又敲着坟墓，但是我整整一个月没有睡觉了，已经累坏了。我想我是不能再从那里出来了。我终于又出来的时候，你显得失望。你说我看来不舒服。我感觉得出，我下塌的两颊和紧张的姿态使你觉得多么难看。

"I'm sorry,' I apologized. 'I haven't slept a wink since you left.'

“我道歉说，‘对不起，你走以后我没合一下眼。’

You see?' you said in a voice full of false cheer. 'What you need is a good rest. A month's holiday!'"

‘是吗？’你的声音里全是装出来的高兴。‘你需要好好的休息，需要一个月的假期！’”

"As if I didn't know what you had in mind! A month's holiday meant you didn't want to see me for a month, you had another woman. Then you left and I slipped down into my grave, knowing full well that I'd have another month of sleepless nights waiting for you and that when you came back and I was uglier you'd be even more disappointed."

“好象我不知道你想的什么！一个月假，意味着你一个月不愿来看我，你有另一个女人。你走了，我又掉进了坟墓。心里完全明白，我又会有不能睡觉的一个月来等着你。你再来的时候，我会更加丑，你会更加失望。”

He had never heard anything more harrowing. Holding her tightly in his arms and feeling her body tremble, he thought he could not endure his love.

他从来没听到过比这更令人惨痛的东西，他紧紧搂着她，感到她的身体在颤抖哆嗦。他想，他再也不能承受这种爱了。

Let the planet be convulsed with exploding bombs, the country ravished daily by new hordes, all his neighbors taken out and shot—he could accept it all more easily than he dared admit. But the grief implicit in Tereza's dream was something he could not endure.

让炸弹把这个星球炸得晃荡起来，让这个国家每天都被新的群蛮掠夺，让他的同胞们都被带出去枪毙——他更能接受这一切，只是比较难于大胆承认。但是，特丽莎梦中的悲伤之梦却使他承受不了。

He tried to reenter the dream she had told him. He pictured himself stroking her face and delicately—she mustn't be aware of it—brushing the dirt out of her eye sockets. Then he heard her say the unbelievably harrowing:"I can't see anyway. I have holes instead of eyes."

他企图重新进入她讲述的梦，想象自己抚摸她的脸庞，轻巧地——一定不让她知道这一点——把她眼窝里的泥擦掉。然后，他听到她话中难以置信的悲怆：“我还是看不见，我的眼睛已经成了空洞。”

His heart was about to break; he felt he was on the verge of a heart attack.

他的心要碎了，感到自己正处于心肌梗死的边缘。

Tereza had gone back to sleep; he could not. He pictured her death. She was dead and having terrible nightmares; but because she was dead, he was unable to wake her from them. Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.

特丽莎又睡着了。他睡不着，想象着她的死亡。她带着可怕的题梦死了，由于她死了，他再也不能把她从噩梦中唤醒。是的，这就是死亡：特丽莎带着可怕的噩梦睡着了，而他再也不能将她唤醒。

During the five years that had passed since the Russian army invaded Tomas's country, Prague had undergone considerable changes.

托马斯的祖国被侵占已经五年了，布拉格发生了可观的变化。

The people Tomas met in the streets were different. Half of his friends had emigrated, and half of the half that remained had died.

托马斯在街上遇到的人不一样了，朋友们有一半去了国外，留下的有一半已经死去。

For it is a fact which will go unrecorded by historians that the years following the Russian invasion were a period of funerals: the death rate soared.

将来不为历史学家们记载的事实是，入侵后的这些年是一个葬礼的时代：死亡率急剧上升。

I do not speak only of the cases (rather rare, of course) of people hounded to death, like Jan Prochazka, the novelist. Two weeks after his private conversations were broadcast daily over the radio, he entered the hospital.

我不是说人们都是象小说家普罗恰兹卡一样，是被逼致死的（当然不多）。这位小说家的私人谈话在电台播了两个星期之后，他便住进了医院。

The cancer that had most likely lain dormant in his body until then suddenly blossomed like a rose. He was operated on in the presence of the police, who, when they realized he was doomed anyway, lost interest in him and let him die in the arms of his wife. But many also died without being directly subjected to persecution; the hopelessness pervading the entire country penetrated the soul to the body, shattering the latter. Some ran desperately from the favor of a regime that wanted to endow them with the honor of displaying them side by side with its new leaders. That is how the poet Frantisek Hrubin died—fleeing from the love of the Party. The Minister of Culture, from whom the poet did everything possible to hide, did not catch up with Hrubin until his funeral, when he made a speech over the grave about the poet's love for the Soviet Union. Perhaps he hoped his words would ring so outrageously false that they would wake Hrubin from the dead. But the world was too ugly, and no one decided to rise up out of the grave.

到那时为止一直潜伏在他体内的癌细胞，突然象玫瑰花一样开放了。他在警察的陪同下接受了手术。他们发现他危在旦夕，才对他失去了兴趣，让他死在他妻子的怀里。但有许多并没有直接受到迫害的人也死了，绝望之感在整个国家弥漫，渗入人们的灵魂和肉体，把人们摧垮。有些人不顾一切地从当局的宠爱下逃出来，不愿意接受与新领导人握手言欢，充作展品的荣幸。诗人赫鲁宾正是这样死的——他逃离了当局的爱。他尽一切可能躲着那位文化部长，而部长直到他的葬礼时也没能抓住他，只能在他的墓前演说中大谈诗人对苏联的热爱。也许他希望自己的话会虚假得令入勃然大怒，使赫鲁宾从死亡中震醒过来。但这个世界太丑陋了，没有人决意从坟墓中重新站出来。

One day, Tomas went to the crematorium to attend the funeral of a famous biologist who had been thrown out of the university and the Academy of Sciences. The authorities had forbidden mention of the hour of the funeral in the death announcement, fearing that the services would turn into a demonstration. The mourners themselves did not learn until the last moment that the body would be cremated at half past six in the morning.

一天，托马斯到火葬场去参加一位著名生物学家的葬礼，此人曾被大学和科学院赶了出来。当局禁止在讣告中提到葬礼的时间，害怕葬礼会变成一次示威。哀悼者们直到最后一刻才知道尸体将于清晨六时半火化。

Entering the crematorium, Tomas did not understand what was happening: the hall was lit up like a film studio. Looking around in bewilderment, he noticed cameras set up in three places. No, it was not television; it was the police. They were filming the funeral to study who had attended it. An old colleague of the dead scientist, still a member of the Academy of Sciences, had been brave enough to make the funeral oration. He had never counted on becoming a film star.

进入火葬场，托马斯不明白发生了什么事：大厅里亮极了，象是个摄影棚。他迷惑地看了看四周，发现有三处地方设置了摄像机。不，这不是拍电视，是警察局安的，要拍下葬礼去研究是哪些人参加葬礼。死者的一位老同事现在仍然是科学院的成员，足够勇敢地作了墓前演讲。他从没打算过要成为电影明星。

When the services were over and everyone had paid his respects to the family of the deceased, Tomas noticed a group of men in one corner of the hall and spotted the tall, stooped editor among them. The sight of him made Tomas feel how much he missed these people who feared nothing and seemed bound by a deep friendship. He started off in the editor's direction with a smile and a greeting on his lips, but when the editor saw him he said, “Careful! Don't come any closer.”

葬礼完了，大家向死者的家属致敬。托马斯发现大厅一角有一圈人，那位高个驼背的编辑也在其中。看到他，托马斯感到自己是多么想念这些无所畏惧情同手足的人。他笑着打招呼，开始朝编辑那边走去。编辑看见他便说：“小心！不要靠近！”

It was a strange thing to say. Tomas was not sure whether to interpret it as a sincere, friendly warning ("Watch out, we're being filmed; if you talk to us, you may be hauled in for another interrogation") or as irony ("If you weren't brave enough to sign the petition, be consistent and don't try the old-pals act on us"). Whatever the message meant, Tomas heeded it and moved off. He had the feeling that the beautiful woman on the railway platform had not only stepped into the sleeping car but, just as he was about to tell her how much he admired her, had put her finger over his lips and forbidden him to speak.

说来真是一件怪事。托马斯弄不清是否能把这句话理解为一句诚恳友好的忠告（“看着点，我们正在被拍照；你与我们讲话，又会卷入另一次审讯。”），或者把它理解为一句嘲讽（“既然你不能勇敢地在请愿书上签名，那就始终如一吧，别同我们攀老交情了。”）。无论这话是什么意思，托马斯听取了劝告，走开了。他感到那月台上的漂亮女人不仅仅步入了卧车厢，而且，正当他要表示自己是多么崇拜她时，对方却把手指压在他嘴上，不让他说出来。

That afternoon, he had another interesting encounter. He was washing the display window of a large shoe shop when a young man came to a halt right next to him, leaned up close to the window, and began scrutinizing the prices.

那天下午，他还有一次有趣的遭遇。他正在洗一个大商店的橱窗，一个小伙子在他右边站住，靠近橱窗，开始细细查看牌价。

"Prices are up," said Tomas without interrupting his pursuit of the rivulets trickling down the glass.

“涨价啦。”托马斯没停下手中冲洗玻璃的水柱。

The man looked over at him. He was a hospital colleague of Tomas's, the one I have designated S., the very one who had sneered at Tomas while under the impression that Tomas had written a statement of self-criticism. Tomas was delighted to see him (naively so, as we delight in unexpected events), but what he saw in his former colleague's eyes (before S. had a chance to pull himself together) was a look of none-too-pleasant surprise.

那人看看托马斯。他就是托马斯在医院时的同事，曾经以为托马斯写了自我批评的声明而加以讥笑的那个人。我曾经把他称为S。托马斯很高兴见到他（如此天真，正如我们对没有料到的事情感到高兴一样），但他从老同事眼中看到的（在S面前，他有机会使自己镇定一下），是一种不甚愉快的惊讶。

How are you? S. asked.

“你好吗？”S问。

Before Tomas could respond, he realized that S. was ashamed of having asked. It was patently ridiculous for a doctor practicing his profession to ask a doctor washing windows how he was.

托马斯还没应答，就看出S对这样提问颇觉羞愧。一个干着本行的医生问一个正洗着橱窗的医生近来如何，显然是可笑的。

To clear the air Tomas came out with as sprightly a "Fine, just fine!" as he could muster, but he immediately felt that no matter how hard he tried (in fact, because he tried so hard), his "fine" sounded bitterly ironic. And so he quickly added, "What's new at the hospital?"

为了消除紧张气氛，托马斯尽可能轻松地说出几个字来：“好，还好！”他马上感到，无论他说得多么费力（事实上，因为他太费力），他的“好”听起来象是苦涩的反语。他很快加上一句，“医院里有什么新鲜事？”

"Nothing," S. answered. "Same as always."

“没什么，”S回答，“还是老样子。”

His response, too, though meant to be as neutral as possible, was completely inappropriate, and they both knew it. And they knew they both knew it. "How can things be the same as always" when one of them is washing windows?

他回答得尽可能不失分寸，但也显得极不合适。两人都知道这一点，两人都知道他们都知道这一点。他们中的一个正在洗窗户，怎么能说“还是老样子”呢？

"How's the chief?" asked Tomas.

“主治大夫怎么样？”托玛斯问。

"You mean you don't see him?" asked S.

“你是说你没有见过他罗？”S问。

"No," said Tomas.

“没有。”托马斯说。

It was true. From the day he left, he had not seen the chief surgeon even once. And they had worked so well together; they had even tended to think of themselves as friends. So no matter how he said it, his "no" had a sad ring, and Tomas suspected that S. was angry with him for bringing up the subject: like the chief surgeon, S. had never dropped by to ask Tomas how he was doing or whether he needed anything.

这是真的。从他离开医院那天起，他一次也没见过主治医生。他们曾一起工作得那么好，甚至都开始把对方视为自己的朋友。所以无论他怎么说，他的“没有”中有一种悲凉的震颤。托马斯怀疑S对他提出这个话题颇觉愠怒：象主治医生一样，S也从未顺路探访过托马斯，没问他工作怎么样或者是否需要什么。

All conversation between the two former colleagues had become impossible, even though they both regretted it, Tomas especially. He was not angry with his colleagues for having forgotten him. If only he could make that clear to the young man beside him. What he really wanted to say was "There's nothing to be ashamed of! It's perfectly normal for our paths not to cross. There's nothing to get upset about! I'm glad to see you!" But he was afraid to say it, because everything he had said so far failed to come out as intended, and these sincere words, too, would sound sarcastic to his colleague.

两位老同事之间的任何谈话都是不可能的，尽管双方都感到遗憾，特别是托马斯。他并不因为同事忘记了他而生气。如果他能对身边的年轻人说清楚什么的话，他真正想说的是：“没有什么可羞愧的，我们各走各的路这完全正常。也没有什么可以不安的，我很高兴见到你！”但他不敢这么说。到眼下为止，他说出来的一切都好象出于某种心计，这些诚恳的话在他的同事听来，也同样是嘲讽。

"I'm sorry," said S. after a long pause, "I'm in a real hurry." He held out his hand. "I'll give you a buzz."

“对不起，”S停了很久才说，“我实在是有急事，”他伸出了手，“我会给你打电话的。”

During the period when his colleagues turned their noses up at him for his supposed cowardice, they all smiled at him. Now that they could no longer scorn him, now that they were constrained to respect him, they gave him a wide berth.

那阵子，同事们假定他为懦夫而对他嗤之以鼻时，他们都对他微笑；现在，他们不能再鄙视他了，不得不尊敬他了，却对他敬而远之。

Then again, even his old patients had stopped sending for him, to say nothing of greeting him with champagne. The situation of the declasse intellectual was no longer exceptional; it had turned into something permanent and unpleasant to confront.

还有，即使是他的老病人，也不再邀请他了，不再用香槟酒欢迎他了。这种落魄知识分子的处境不再显得优越，已变成了一种必须正视的永恒，以及令人不快的东西。

He went home, lay down, and fell asleep earlier than usual. An hour later he woke up with stomach pains. They were an old malady that appeared whenever he was depressed. He opened the medicine chest and let out a curse: it was completely empty; he had forgotten to keep it stocked. He tried to keep the pain under control by force of will and was, in fact, fairly successful, but he could not fall asleep again. When Tereza came home at half past one, he felt like chatting with her. He told her about the funeral, about the editor's refusal to talk to him, and about his encounter with S.

他回到家里躺下来，比往常睡得早，一小时之后却被胃痛醒。每当他消沉的时候，老毛病就冒了出来。他打开药箱，骂了一句：箱子里空荡荡的，他忘了给它配药。他试图用意志力控制住疼痛，也确实相当有效，但再也无法成眠。特丽莎一点半钟才回家，他觉得自己想跟她闲聊点什么，于是讲了葬礼，讲了编辑拒绝跟他讲话，还有他与S的相遇。

"Prague has grown so ugly lately," said Tereza.

“布拉格近来变得这么丑恶了。”特丽莎说。

"I know," said Tomas.

“我知道。”托马斯说。

Tereza paused and said softly, "The best thing to do would be to move away."

特丽莎停了一下，温柔地说：“最好的办法是搬走。”

"I agree," said Tomas, "but there's nowhere to go."

“我同意，”托马斯说，“但是没有什么地方可去。”

He was sitting on the bed in his pajamas, and she came and sat down next to him, putting her arms around his body from the side.

他穿着睡衣坐在床上，她也过来坐在他旁边，从侧面搂住他的身体。

"What about the country?" she said.

“到乡下去怎么样？”她说。

"The country?" he asked, surprised.

“乡下？”他感到惊讶。

"We'd be alone there. You wouldn't meet that editor or your old colleagues. The people there are different. And we'd be getting back to nature. Nature is the same as it always was."

“我们可以独自在那里过日子，你不会碰到那个编辑，或者你的老同事。那里的人是不一样的。我们回到大自然去，大自然总是原来的样子。”

Just then Tomas felt another stab in his stomach. It made him feel old, feel that what he longed for more than anything else was peace and quiet.

正在这时，托马斯又一阵胃痛，感到全身发冷，感到自己渴望的莫过于平静与安宁。

"Maybe you're right," he said with difficulty. The pain made it hard for him to breathe.

“也许你是对的。”他艰难地说，疼痛使呼吸都很困难。

"We'd have a little house and a little garden, but big enough to give Karenin room for a decent run."

“我们会有一所小房子，一个小花园，但要足够的大，给卡列宁一个象样的活动场地。”

"Yes," said Tomas.

“是的。”托马斯说。

He was trying to picture what it would be like if they did move to the country. He would have difficulty finding a new woman every week. It would mean an end to his erotic adventures.

他努力想象搬下乡去以后生活将是个什么样子。他很难每个星期都找到新的女人，这意味着性冒险的终结。

"The only thing is, you'd be bored with me in the country, said Tereza as if reading his mind."

特丽莎象猜透了他的心思：“唯一的问题，在乡下，你会对我厌烦的。”

The pain grew more intense. He could not speak. It occurred to him that his womanizing was also something of an "Es muss sein!" —an imperative enslaving him. He longed for a holiday. But for an absolute holiday, a rest from all imperatives, from all "Es muss sein!", If he could take a rest (a permanent rest) from the hospital operating table, then why not from the world operating table, the one where his imaginary scalpel opened the strongbox women use to hide their illusory one-millionth part dissimilarity?

疼痛更加剧烈了，使他说不出话来。他突然觉得自己的女色追求，也是一种“非如此不可！”——一种奴役着他的职责。他渴望假日，然而是一个绝对的假日，从所有职责中解脱，从一切“非如此不可”中解脱。他能告假离开医院的手术台（一种永久的休息），为什么不能告假离开世界的手术台？离开女人们那百万分之一的虚幻的差异？离开那把想象中切开女人们保险箱的解剖刀？

"Your stomach is acting up again!" Tereza exclaimed, only then realizing that something was wrong.

“你的胃又捣蛋了！”特丽莎这才意识到有些不对头，叫了起来。

He nodded.

他点了点头。

"Have you had your injection?"

“打针了吗？”

He shook his head. "I forgot to lay in a supply of medication."

他摇了摇头：“我忘了给药箱补充药品。”

Though annoyed at his carelessness, she stroked his forehead, which was beaded with sweat from the pain.

她顾不上嗔怪他的粗心大意，摸了模他的前额，那里有因为痛楚而冒出来的密密汗珠。

I feel a little better now.

"Lie down, she said, and covered him with a blanket. She went off to the bathroom and in a minute was back and lying next to him."

Without lifting his head from the pillow, he turned to her and nearly gasped: the grief burning in her eyes was unbearable.

他的头没有离开枕头，朝她转过来，几乎是气喘吁吁：对方眼中燃烧着不堪忍受的悲伤。

"Tell me, Tereza, what's wrong? Something's been going on inside you lately. I can feel it. I know it."

“告诉我，特丽莎，怎么啦？最近你有心事，我能感觉得出来，我知道。”

"No." She shook her head. "There's nothing wrong."

“没有，”她摇摇头，“没有什么事。”

"There's no point in denying it."

“你否认也没有用。”

"It's still the same things," she said.

“都是些老事情。”她说。

"The same things" meant her jealousy and his infidelities.

“老事情”意味着她的嫉妒和他的不忠。

But Tomas would not let up. "No, Tereza. This time it's something different. It's never been this bad before."

但托马斯不愿意收场：“不，特丽莎，这一次有点不同。以前从没有这样严重。”

"Well then, I'll tell you," she said. "Go and wash your hair."

“那好吧，我来告诉你，”她说，“去，洗洗你的头发吧。”

He did not understand.

他不明白。

The tone of her explanation was sad, unantagonistic, almost gentle. "For months now your hair has had a strong odor to it. It smells of female genitals. I didn't want to tell you, but night after night I've had to breathe in the groin of some mistress of yours."

她解释的语调是伤感的，没有敌意的，差不多是柔和的：“几个月了，你的头发上有一种强烈的气味，是女性生殖器的气味。我本不想告诉你，可是一夜又一夜，我一直闻着你某个情妇下体的气味。”

The moment she finished, his stomach began hurting again. He was desperate. The scrubbings he'd put himself through! Body, hands, face, to make sure not the slightest trace of their odors remained behind. He'd even avoided their fragrant soaps, carrying his own harsh variety with him at all times. But he'd forgotten about his hair! It had never occurred to him!

听她说完，他的胃又开始痛起来。简直要命。他总是把自己洗得很彻底！身上，手上，脸上，确认没有留下丝毫她们的气味。甚至避免用她们的香皂，每次都执行自己种种苛刻的规程。但他忘记了自己的头发！居然从未想到过这一点！

Then he remembered the woman who had straddled his face and wanted him to make love to her with it and with the crown of his head. He hated her now. What stupid ideas! He saw there was no use denying it. All he could do was laugh a silly laugh and head for the bathroom to wash his hair.

他回忆起那个女人冲着自己的脸叉开双腿，要他用脸和头顶跟她干。多么愚蠢的主意！他现在恨她。他看出抵赖也没有用处，所能做的事，只是傻傻地笑笑，去浴室里洗头发。

But she stroked his forehead again and said, "Stay here in bed. Don't bother washing it out. I'm used to it by now."

她又摸了摸他的额头：“呆在床上吧，别费心去洗那东西了，我现在都习惯了。”

His stomach was killing him, and he longed for peace and quiet. "I'll write to that patient of mine, the one we met at the spa. Do you know the district where his village is?"

他的胃真是痛杀了他，他渴望平静与安宁。“我会给我那位病人写信的，就是我们在矿泉遇到的那位。你知道他村子的那个地区吗？”

"No."

Tomas was having great trouble talking. All he could say was, "Woods . . . rolling hills . . ."

托马斯极难谈下去了，所能说的只是：“树林子……环绕的山……”

"That's right. That's what we'll do. We'll go away from here. But no talking now . . ." And she kept stroking his forehead. They lay there side by side, neither saying a word. Slowly the pain began to recede. Soon they were both asleep.

“没有关系，这是以后的事。我们要离开这里，但现在别说了……”她还是一直摸着他的额头。两人并排躺在那儿，不再言语。慢慢地，痛感消退了，他们很快进入梦乡。

In the middle of the night, he woke up and realized to his surprise that he had been having one erotic dream after the other. The only one he could recall with any clarity was the last: an enormous naked woman, at least five times his size, floating on her back in a pool, her belly from crotch to navel covered with thick hair. Looking at her from the side of the pool, he was greatly excited.

半夜里他醒来了，惊讶地发现自己在做着一个又一个的春梦。唯一能回想清楚的是最后一个：一个巨大的裸体女人，至少是他体积的五倍，仰浮在一个水池里。从她两腿分叉处一直到脐眼的小腹部，都盖着厚厚的毛。他从池子一边看着她，亢奋至极。

How could he have been excited when his body was debilitated by a gastric disorder? And how could he be excited by the sight of a woman who would have repelled him had he seen her while conscious?

身体被胃病折腾得虚弱不堪之时，他怎么亢奋得起来？看到一个他清楚地意识到会拒绝自己的女人，怎么会使他亢奋？

He thought: In the clockwork of the head, two cogwheels turn opposite each other. On the one, images; on the other, the body's reactions. The cog carrying the image of a naked woman meshes with the corresponding erection-command cog. But when, for one reason or another, the wheels go out of phase and the excitement cog meshes with a cog bearing the image of a swallow in flight, the penis rises at the sight of a swallow.

他以为：在人脑机件里，有两个朝相反方向转动的齿轮。一个载着想象，另一个载着肉体的反应。载有裸身女人想象的齿轮，带动着相应的勃起指令齿轮。但有些时候，由于这种或那种原因，齿轮错位了，亢奋齿轮会与一个载着飞燕想象的齿轮相配合。一只燕子的景象会带来阴茎的勃起。

Moreover, a study by one of Tomas's colleagues, a specialist in human sleep, claimed that during any kind of dream men have erections, which means that the link between erections and naked women is only one of a thousand ways the Creator can set the clockwork moving in a man's head.

此外，托马斯的一位同事是研究人类睡眠的专家。他的研究表明，在任何一种梦境中，男人们都有勃起现象，这说明勃起现象与裸体女人之间的联系，只是造物主塞进入脑机件中一千种运动方式中的一种。

And what has love in common with all this? Nothing. If a cogwheel in Tomas's head goes out of phase and he is excited by seeing a swallow, it has absolutely no effect on his love for Tereza.

那么爱情与这有什么关系呢？什么关系也没有。托马斯头脑中的齿轮不协调了，他会因为看见一只燕子而亢奋，这对他与特丽莎的爱绝对没有影响。

If excitement is a mechanism our Creator uses for His own amusement, love is something that belongs to us alone and enables us to flee the Creator. Love is our freedom. Love lies beyond Es muss sein!

如果说，性亢奋是我们的造物主为了自己取乐而用的一种装置，那么爱就是唯独属于我们自己的东西，能使我们摆脱造物主。爱情是我们的自由，爱情处于“非如此不可”的规则之外。

Though that is not entirely true. Even if love is something other than a clockwork of sex that the Creator uses for His own amusement, it is still attached to it. It is attached to it like a tender naked woman to the pendulum of an enormous clock.

虽然这不完全是真的。即使爱情有别于造物主为自己取乐而设置的机件，爱仍然是从属于它的。爱从属于性，象一位秀美的裸体女人服从一座巨钟的钟摆。

Thomas thought: Attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had.

托马斯以为：使爱从属于性，是造物主最稀奇古怪的主意之一。

He also thought: One way of saving love from the stupidity of sex would be to set the clockwork in our head in such a way as to excite us at the sight of a swallow.

他还认为，把爱情从愚蠢的性爱中拯救出来，办法之一就是在我们头脑中设置某种机件，能让我们看见一只燕子也亢奋。

And with that sweet thought he started dozing off. But on the very threshold of sleep, in the no-man's-land of muddled concepts, he was suddenly certain he had just discovered the solution to all riddles, the key to all mysteries, a new utopia, a paradise: a world where man is excited by seeing a swallow and Tomas can love Tereza without being disturbed by the aggressive stupidity of sex.

他带着甜甜的思索开始打盹。就在他即将入睡的那一刻，在众多概念浑浑沌沌的无人区中，他突然确信自已发现了所有的谜底，一切神秘的关键，一个新的乌托邦，一座天堂：在那个世界里，男人因看见一只燕子而亢奋，托马斯对特丽莎的爱情，不会被性爱的愚蠢干犯所侵扰。

Then he fell asleep.

于是，他安睡了。

Several half-naked women were trying to wind themselves around him, but he was tired, and to extricate himself from them he opened the door leading to the next room. There, just opposite him, he saw a young woman lying on her side on a couch. She, too, was half-naked: she wore nothing but panties. Leaning on her elbow, she looked up at him with a smile that said she had known he would come.

几个半裸的女人尽力缠着他，但是他累了，一心摆脱她们，打开了通向隔壁房间的门。他看见一位年轻女朗，正面对着他侧卧在一张沙发上，也是半裸着身子，除了短裤什么也没穿。她撑着臂肘，面带微笑看着他，看来知道他会到来。

He went up to her. He was filled with a feeling of unutterable bliss at the thought that he had found her at last and could be there with her. He sat down at her side, said something to her, and she said something back. She radiated calm. Her hand made slow, supple movements. All his life he had longed for the calm of her movements. Feminine calm had eluded him all his life.

他向她走过来，难以形容的狂喜之情注满身心，想到自己终于找到了她，终于能在这里与她相会。他坐在她身旁，对她说了些什么。她也说了些什么，显出一种镇定，一只手缓慢而轻柔地摆动。他一生追求的就是她这种举动的镇定，女性的镇定是他一辈子困惑不解的问题。

But just then the dream began its slide back to reality. He found himself back in that no-man's-land where we are neither asleep nor awake. He was horrified by the prospect of seeing the young woman vanish before his eyes and said to himself, God, how I'd hate to lose her! He tried desperately to remember who she was, where he'd met her, what they'd experienced together. How could he possibly forget when she knew him so well? He promised himself to phone her first thing in the morning. But no sooner had he made the promise than he realized he couldn't keep it: he didn't know her name. How could he forget the name of someone he knew so well? By that time he was almost completely awake, his eyes were open, and he was asking himself, Where am I? Yes, I'm in Prague, but that woman, does she live here too? Didn't I meet her somewhere else? Could she be from Switzerland? It took him quite some time to get it into his head that he didn't know the woman, that she wasn't from Prague or Switzerland, that she inhabited his dream and nowhere else.

正在这时，梦境又滑回现实。他发现自己回到了那种似睡非睡的无人区。遇见女人的情景在他眼前渐渐消逝，使他惊吓恐惧。他对自己说，上帝，失去她是何等可恨呵！他竭尽全力想回忆起她是谁，在哪里遇见过她，他们一起经历道什么。她对他如此熟悉，他怎么可能忘了她呢？他答应早晨第一件事就是打电话绘她，但刚答应便意识到这无法兑现：他不知道她的名字。他怎么能把这么熟悉的人的名字给忘了呢？这时，他几乎完全醒了，眼睛是睁开的，他在问自己，我在哪里？是的，在布拉格，但那女人也住在这里吗？我不是在别的什么地方见到她吗？她是从瑞士来的吗？他花了很长的时间才弄明白，他并不认识那个女人，她既不是来自布拉格也不是来自瑞士，她就住在自己的梦里而不是别的地方。

He was so upset he sat straight up in bed. Tereza was breathing deeply beside him. The woman in the dream, he thought, was unlike any he had ever met. The woman he felt he knew most intimately of all had turned out to be a woman he did not even know. And yet she was the one he had always longed for. If a personal paradise were ever to exist for him, then in that paradise he would have to live by her side. The woman from his dream was the Es muss sein! of his love.

他如此惶惶不安，直挺挺地在床上坐起来。特丽莎在他身旁深深地呼吸。他想，梦中的女人与他见过的任何女人都不一样，他认为自已最熟知的女人结果是他不曾相识的女人，但她还是他一直向往着的人。如果他有一个个人的伊甸乐园，他一定将陪伴着她生活其中。这个来自梦境的女人是他爱情中的“非如此不可”。

He suddenly recalled the famous myth from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

他突然回想起柏拉图《对话录》中的著名假说：原来的人都是两性人，自从上帝把人一劈为二，所有的这一半都在世界上漫游着寻找那一半。爱情，就是我们渴求着失去了的那一半自己。

Let us suppose that such is the case, that somewhere in the world each of us has a partner who once formed part of our body. Tomas's other part is the young woman he dreamed about. The trouble is, man does not find the other part of himself. Instead, he is sent a Tereza in a bulrush basket. But what happens if he nevertheless later meets the one who was meant for him, the other part of himself? Whom is he to prefer? The woman from the bulrush basket or the woman from Plato's myth?

让我们假设这样一种情况，在世界的某一地方，每一个人都有一个曾经是自己身体一部分的伙伴。托马斯的另一半就是他梦见的年轻女子。问题在于，人找不到自己的那一半。相反，有一个人用一个草篮把特丽莎送给了他。假如后来他又碰到了那位意味着自己的一半的女郎，那又怎么办呢？他更衷爱哪一位？来自草篮的女子，还是来自柏拉图假说的女子？

He tried to picture himself living in an ideal world with the young woman from the dream. He sees Tereza walking past the open windows of their ideal house. She is alone and stops to look in at him with an infinitely sad expression in her eyes. He cannot withstand her glance. Again, he feels her pain in his own heart. Again, he falls prey to compassion and sinks deep into her soul. He leaps out of the window, but she tells him bitterly to stay where he feels happy, making those abrupt, angular movements that so annoyed and displeased him. He grabs her nervous hands and presses them between his own to calm them. And he knows that time and again he will abandon the house of his happiness, time and again abandon his paradise and the woman from his dream and betray the Es muss sein! of his love to go off with Tereza, the woman born of six laughable fortuities.

他试图想象，自己与那梦中女子生活在理想的世界里，他看见在他们理想房舍敞开的窗前，特丽莎孤零零地一个人走过，停下来朝他打望，眼中流露出无尽的悲哀。他受不了她的那一瞥，又一次感到她的痛楚痛在自己心里，又一次被同情所折磨，深深地沉入特丽莎的灵魂。他从窗子里跳出去，但她苦涩地要他呆在他感觉快乐的地方，做出那些唐突、生硬的动作，使他烦闷不快。他抓住对方那双紧张的手，压在自己的双手之间使它们镇定。他知道，眼下以及将来，他将抛弃快乐的房舍，眼下以及将来，他将放弃他的天堂和梦中女郎，他将背叛他爱情的“非如此不可”，伴随特丽莎离去，伴随那六个偶然性所生下来的女人。

All this time he was sitting up in bed and looking at the woman who was lying beside him and holding his hand in her sleep. He felt an ineffable love for her. Her sleep must have been very light at the moment because she opened her eyes and gazed up at him questioningly.

他一直坐在床上，看着躺在身旁的这位女人，在睡梦中还抓着他的手。他觉出一种对她无法言表的爱。这一刻她一定睡得不沉，因为她睁开了双眼，用疑虑的目光打量着他。

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

“你在看什么呢？”她问。

He knew that instead of waking her he should lull her back to sleep, so he tried to come up with an answer that would plant the image of a new dream in her mind.

他知道不该弄醒她，应该哄她继续睡觉。他试图作出一种回答，往她脑子里种下一种新的梦境。

"I'm looking at the stars," he said.

“我在看星星。”他说。

"Don't say you're looking at the stars. That's a lie. You're looking down."

“不要说你在看星星了，你骗我。你在往下看。”

"That's because we're in an airplane. The stars are below us."

“那是因为我们在飞机上，星星在我们下面。”

"Oh, in an airplane," said Tereza, squeezing his hand even tighter and falling asleep again. And Tomas knew that Tereza was looking out of the round window of an airplane flying high above the stars.

“哦，飞机上。”特丽莎把他的手攥得更紧了，随后又昏昏欲睡。托马斯知道，特丽莎正从飞机的圆形窗户往外看，飞机正在群星之上高高飞翔。