毛姆的Middle_Age,_Old_Age

I think I have been more than most men conscious of my age. My youth slipped past me unnoticed and I was always burdened with the sense that I was growing old. Because for my years I had seen much of the world and travelled a good deal, because I was somewhat widely read and my mind was occupied with matters beyond my years, I seemed always older than my contemporaries. But it was not till the outbreak of the war in 1914 that I had an inkling that I was no longer a young man. I found then to my consternation that a man of forty was old. I consoled myself by reflecting that this was only for military purposes, but not so very long afterwards I had an experience which put the matter beyond doubt. I had been lunching with a woman whom I had known a long time and her niece, a girl of seventeen. After luncheon we took a taxi to go somewhere or other. The woman got in and then her niece. But the niece sat down on the strapontin leaving the empty seat at the back beside her aunt for me to sit on. It was the civility of youth (as opposed to the rights of sex) to a gentleman no longer young. I realized that she looked upon me with the respect due to age. It is not a very pleasant thing to recognize that for the young you are no longer an equal. You belong to a different generation. For them your race is run. They can look up to you; they can admire you; but you are apart from them, and in the long run they will always find the companionship of persons of their own age more grateful than yours. But middle age has its compensations. Youth is bound hand and foot with the shackles of public opinion. Middle age enjoys freedom. I remember that when I left school I said to myself: “Henceforward I can get up when I like and go to bed when I like.” That of course was an exaggeration, and I soon found that the trammeled life of the civilized man only permits of a modified independence. Whenever you have an aim you must sacrifice something of freedom to achieve it. But by the time you have reached middle age you have discovered how much freedom it is worthwhile to sacrifice in order to achieve any aim that you have in view. When I was a boy I was tortured by shyness, and middle age has to a great extent brought me a relief from this. I was never of great physical strength and long walks used to tire me, but I went through them because I was ashamed to confess my weakness. I have now no such feeling and I save myself much discomfort. I always hated cold water, but for many years I took cold baths and bathed in cold seas because I wanted to be like everybody else. I used to dive from heights that made me nervous. I was mortified because I played games worse than other people. When I did not know a thing I was ashamed to confess my ignorance. It was not till quite late in life that I disc overed how easy it is to say: “I don’t know.” I find with middle age that no one expects me to walk five and twenty miles, or to play a scratch game of golf, or to dive from a height of thirty feet. This is all to the good and makes life pleasant: but I should no longer care if they did. That is what makes youth unhappy, the vehement anxiety to be like other people, and that is what makes middle age tolerable, the reconciliation with oneself. Yesterday I was seventy years old. As one enters upon each succeeding decade it is natural, though perhaps irrational, to look upon it as a significant event. When I was thirty my brother said to me: “Now you are a boy no longer, you are a man and you must be a man.” When I was forty I said to myself: “That is the end of youth.” On my fiftieth birthday I said: “It’s no good fooling myself, this is middle age and I may just as well accept it.” At sixty I said: “Now it’s time to put my affairs in order, for this is the threshold of old age and I must settle my accounts.” I decided to withdraw from the theatre and I wrote The Summing Up2, in which I tried to review for my own comfort what I had learnt of life and literature, what I had done and what satisfaction it had brought me. But of all anniversaries I think the seventieth is the most momentous. One has reached the three score years and ten which one is accustomed to accept as the allotted span of man, and one can but look upon such years as remain to one as uncertain contingencies stolen while old Time with his scythe has his head turned the other way. At seventy one is no longer on the threshold of old age. One is just an old man. On the continent of Europe they have an amiable custom when a man who has achieved some distinction reaches that age. His friends, his colleagues, his disciples (if he has any) join together to write a volume of essays in his honor. In England we give our eminent men no such flattering mark of our esteem. At the utmost we give a dinner, and we don’t do that unless he is very eminent indeed…… My own birthday passed without ceremony. I worked as usual in the morning and in the afternoon went for a walk in the solitary woods behind my house…… I went back to my house, made myself a cup of tea and read till dinner time. After dinner I read again, played two or three games of patience, listened to the news on the radio and took a detective story to bed with me. I finished it and went to sleep. Except for a few words to my colored maids I had not spoken to a soul all day. So I passed my seventieth birthday and so I would have wished to pass it. I mused. Two or three years ago I was walking with Liza3and she spoke, I don’t know why, of the horror with which the thought of old age filled her. “Don’t forget,” I told her, “that when you’re old you won’t ha ve the desire to do various things that make life pleasant to you now. Old age has its compensations.” “What?” she asked. “Well, you need hardly ever do anything you don’t want to. You can enjoy music, art and literature, differently from when you were young, but in that different way as keenly. You can get a good deal of fun out of observing the course of events in which you are no longer intimately concerned. If your pleasures are not so vivid your pains also have lost their sting.” I could see that all this seemed cold comfort, and even as I spoke I realized that it afforded a somewhat grey prospect. When later I came to think it over, it occurred to me that the greatest compensation of old age is its freedom of spirit. I suppose that is accompanied by a certain indifference to many of the things that men in their prime think important. Another compensation is that it liberates you from envy, hatred and malice. I do not believe that I envy anyone. I have made the most I could of such gifts as nature provided me with; I do not envy the success of others. I am quite willing to vacate the little niche I have occupied so long and let another step into it. I no longer mind what people think of me. They can take me or leave me. I am mildly pleased when they appear to like me and undisturbed if I know they don’t. I have long known that there is something in me that antagonizes certain persons; I think it very natural, no one can like everyone; and their ill will interests rather than discomposes me. I am only curious to know what it is in me that is antipathetic to them. Nor do I mind what they think of me as a writer. On the whole I have done what I set out to do, and the rest does not concern me. I have never much cared for the notoriety which surrounds the successful writer and which many of us are simple enough to mistake for fame, and I have often wished that I had written under a pseudonym so that I might have passed through the world unnoticed. I did indeed write my first novel under one, and only put my own name to it because my publisher warned me that the book might be violently attacked and I did not wish to hide myself under a made-up name. I suppose few authors can help cherishing a secret hope that they will not be entirely forgotten the moment they die, and I have occasionally amused myself by weighing the chances I have of survival for a brief period…… I have been asked on occasion whether I would like to live my life over again. On the whole it has been a pretty good life, perhaps better than most peop le’s, but I should see no point in repeating it. It would be as idle as to read again a detective story that you have read before. But supposing there were such a thing as reincarnation, belief in which is explicitly held by three quarters of the human race, and one could choose whether or no one would enter upon a new life on earth, I have in the past sometimes thought that I should be willing to try the experiment on the chance that I might enjoy experiences which circumstances and my own idiosyncrasies, spiritual and corporeal, have prevented me from enjoying, and learn the many things that I have not had the time or the occasion to learn. But now I should refuse. I have had enough. I neither believe in immortality nor desire it. I should like to die quickly and painlessly, and I am content to be assured that with my last breathe my soul, with its aspirations and its weaknesses, will dissolve into nothingness. I have taken to heart what Epicurus4 wrote to Menoeceus5: “Become accustomed to the belief that d eath is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. 中年,老年 威·萨·毛姆 我想我一向是比多数人都更在意自己的年龄。我的青年时期已经不知不觉地从我身边溜走,而过去经常压在我心头的却是我一天比一天老的感觉。就我的年龄而论,我阅历已经不少,游历之处颇多,我也相当广泛地阅读过许多书籍,满脑子考虑的都是些超过我年龄的事情,结果显得我比同龄人更老一些。但是我隐隐意识到自己不再是年轻人,那还是1914年爆发战争以后的事。当时我惊讶地发现,一个人到四十岁就已经老了。当时我还安慰自己,心想这只是征兵时的标准。但是此后不久发生的一件事让我对此确信不疑。我同一位相识多年的妇女共进午餐,同席还有她十七岁的侄女。吃完饭后,我们打了一辆出租车去个地方。那位妇女先上车,她侄女跟着上去。可是做侄女的却坐在一张折叠椅上,把车后她姨妈旁边的空位留给我。这是青年人对于一个不复年轻的绅士表示礼貌的举动(这和妇女的优先权利相对应)。我意识到她是把我当作一个上了年纪的人而加以尊敬的。 认识到你对青年人来说已非其同辈中人,这并不是让人愉快的发现。你已经属于另一代人了。在他们看来,你的赛跑已经完结。他们可以尊敬你,钦佩你;但你已经和他们分开来,最终他们总会觉得跟他们的同龄人在一起,比跟你在一起更加开心。 但是人到中年也有补偿。青年人的手脚都被公众舆论束缚着。中年人却享受到了自由。记得离开中学时我曾对自己说:“从今往后,我高兴什么时候起床就什么时候起床,高兴什么时候睡觉就什么时候睡觉。”这当然有些夸张,可是很快我就发现,文明人的生活并非无拘无束,能享受到的自由是有限度的。人一旦有了目标,就得牺牲一些自由去实现这个目标。步入中年的人会发现,为实现心中目标,究竟牺牲多少自由才值得。年少时我深为自己害羞的性格所苦,步入中年却在很大程度上使我在这方面的得到解脱。年轻的我体格向来不很强壮,路走多了就感到累,但我还是挺过来了,因为我羞于承认自己的弱点。如今我没有这种感觉了,也不会因此再受罪了。我一向不喜欢冷水,可是多年以来我都洗冷水澡,到冰冷的海水里洗浴,就因为我不想与众不同。高台跳水使我紧张,但我以前照跳不误。竞技类游戏我总玩不过别人,这也让我心里很难过。遇到自己不了解的事,也不好意思承认自己无知。直到年纪相当大了,我才发现,说“我不知道”原来是多么容易。我觉得活到中年,也没人指望我走上二十五英里,或是打一局临时应战的高尔夫球,或是从三十英尺的高处跳水。这一切都蛮好,生活也因此而愉快:哪怕再有什么提议,我都不会在乎。而正是这些使得青年时光不快活,急煎煎地要跟别人一样。这也使得中年岁月还可以忍受,使中年人和自我取得和解。 昨天我年满七十岁了。每当一个人步入下一个十年的时候,将其视为一件大事也很自然,尽管这也许不尽合理。我三十岁的时候,我哥哥对我说:“现在你不再是个孩子了,你长大了,应该有个大人样儿。”我四十岁的时候,曾经对自己说:“年轻时光到此为止了。”五十岁生日那天,我说过:“骗自己没什么好处,我已经是上岁数的人了,还是承认这一点吧。”六十岁时我说:“现在该是整理我东西的时候了,迈过老年 这个门槛,也该清点一下帐目了。”我决定不再进行戏剧创作,写了《总结》一书,书中试图对我从生活、文学中学到的东西,我的所作所为,以及随之而来的快慰,一一加以回顾。但是所有这些生日纪念当中,最为重要的我想要算七十岁生日了。一个人活到七十,也就是到了通常认为的人生寿限,剩下的有生之年,只能看作是一个极不稳定的未知数,就当是趁着手持镰刀的时光老人头冲着别处的时候偷来的。活到七十,就 不再站在老年的门槛上。他已经是一个老人了。 在欧洲大陆,一个相当有成就的人活到七十岁时,那里的人有一个很亲切的习俗。他的好友、同事和弟子们(要是他有的话)会联手撰写一本论文集为他祝寿。在英国,我们对本国的名人却没有这样表示尊敬、赞扬的做法。我们最多不过举行一次祝寿宴会,而且此人还真的要很有名气…… 我七十岁生日那天没有举行任何礼节仪式。上午照常工作,下午则到屋后孤寂的树林散步…… 回屋后,我给自己烧了一杯茶,一直看书看到吃晚饭。晚饭后接着看书,玩了一会儿单人纸牌游戏,听了收音机的新闻报道,拿起一本侦探小说上床。看完小说就睡觉了。除了跟几个黑人女佣说过几句话之外,我一整天没和任何人说过一句话。 我就这样度过了七十岁生日,我本来也就想这么过。我陷入沉思。 两三年前,我有一次和莉莎散步,不知怎么,她谈到人要变老时心中就充满了恐惧。 “别忘了,”我告诉她,“将来你老了,你就没心思做那些现在让你生活愉快的各种事情了。岁数大了有岁数大的好处。” “什么好处?”她问。 “比如说,你再也用不着去做自己不想做的事了。你可以欣赏音乐、艺术和文学,欣赏方式和你年轻时有所不同,但一样敏锐。你可以冷眼旁观一些不再和你密切相关的事态发展,从中可以得到很多乐趣。如果你快乐起来没以前那么强烈,那遇到痛苦也不会那么伤心。” 我看得出这一席话不过是空洞的安慰,甚至在说的时候我就意识到所描述的前景并不美妙。事后我又考虑一遍这件事。我想到岁数大的最大补偿是精神自由。我看相伴而来的是一种诸事与己无关的心态,年轻人眼里很重要的事情并不能激起老人们的兴趣。另外一个补偿就是老年使你从妒忌、怨恨和恶意中解放出来。我不再相信谁还能让我妒忌。我已充分利用上天赋予我的种种天赋;别人成功我也不眼红。我完全愿意把我占据已久的一隅之地让给他人。别人对我有什么看法我也不在乎。他们可以对我表示善意,也可以不理我。要是他们好像还对我有一丝好感,我会感到些许高兴,要是知道他们讨厌我,我也不以为忤。我早就知道自己身上有种东西使某些人视我为敌;我想这也是人之常情,没有哪个人见谁都喜欢;别人的恶意只会让我感兴趣,不会搅扰我的安宁。我只想知道我哪方面引起他们的反感。我也不在乎他们对我身为作家有何感想。总的说来,我原先打算要做的如今都做到了,此外我无所牵挂。我向来不在乎一位成功作家的名气,我们当中的不少人竟天真地把这名气错当成美誉。我常常希望以前写作用笔名就好了,那我就可以平淡度过一生而不引起世人瞩目。我写第一部小说用的就是笔名,后来因为出版商警告我说,这本书可能会遇到猛烈的抨击,而我又不愿借助一个假名充当挡箭牌,这才用了自己的真名。我想很少有作家不会私下企望,当他们离开人世时,世人不要把他们完全忘却。而我有时也不禁私自忖度并以此自娱,我死后短期内不被人遗忘的可能性有多大…… 一次有人问我,愿不愿意把我过去的生活重新过一次。总的说来,我这一生还是挺不错的,也许比多数人更好些,但我找不出什么理由再过一次。这就像重读已经读过一遍的侦探小说一样乏味。但假如真有轮回转世之事(现在人类四分之三都毫不隐瞒地对此表示相信),并且能选择是否投生世间开始新生活,我过去倒也动心了,挺想试一试,说不定我会欣赏一些以前因具体环境以及精神肉体的特殊之处使我未曾享受的经历,要么学到从前没时间或没机会学的很多东西。可是现在我不想这么做了。我已经满足了。我既不相信永生,也不指望自己长生不死。我倒情愿死得干脆利索,毫无痛苦,在生命最后一息时,如得知自己的灵魂随其志向和嗜好肯定都化为乌有的话,我就很满足了。伊壁鸠鲁写给默内墨斯的话我已铭记在心:“要习惯这个信念:死亡对我们来说算不上什么。一切善恶都存于感觉,死亡会剥夺任何感觉。所以正确把握了死亡对我们算不了什么这个道理,就可以使有生之年变得愉快,这并非因为死亡增加了无尽的时间,而是因为清除了对永生的渴求。人一旦真正明白死亡并不可怕,对他而言世上就没什么能让他感到恐惧的了。” 继续阅读