by Leo Tolstoy
1882
Bill Lin 譯
2.
有一天我要敘述我的青年時期，那十年當中的既感人又有教育性的生活過往。我想許多人都有同樣的經驗。我盡心盡意的想做個好人，但是我年輕，熱情，又孓然一身，當我追求良善時，我是全然的孤獨。每當我試著表現出我最真誠的意願，就是要做一個道德良善的人，我遇到的是鄙視和嘲笑；但是當我一屈服於低劣的情慾，我馬上受到讚美和鼓勵。
野心、權欲、貪婪、好色、驕傲、憤怒和報復──都受到尊敬。
依從於這些情慾，我就像一個成年人而且感覺到別人對我的認同。那位撫養我的仁慈的姑媽，一個非常純潔的人，老是對我說，她最希望我與有夫之婦發生關係：「Rien ne
forme un jeune home une liaison avecune femme comme il faut」（註：「沒有什麼能比與貴婦人發生關係更能塑造一個年輕人了。」）。另一種幸福她希望我能得到的，就是成為副官，最好是皇帝的副官。但是最大的幸福則是我和一位很富有的女孩結婚，並因而獲得很多農奴，越多越好。
想到那幾年，我總感到恐怖、憎惡和心痛。在戰時我殺人，我向人們挑戰決鬥為的是殺他們。我賭博輸了，我消費農民的勞力，判刑處罰他們，生活放蕩，還欺騙民眾。說謊、偷盜、各樣的姦淫、酗酒、暴力、謀殺──各種罪行我都幹過，不管人們讚美我的行徑，我的同一時代的人總認為我是一個比較有道德的人。
我這樣子生活了十年。
在那時，出於虛榮、貪婪和驕傲，我開始寫作。在我的寫作當中，我的所作所為與生活中完全相同。為了獲取名利，這是我寫作的目的，我必須把良善隱藏起來，而去呈現邪惡。我這樣做，經常在我的作品中，故意的把那些我努力追求，使我的生活有意義的良善隱藏在冷漠，甚至嘲弄的偽裝下！我做到了這些，也得到了讚美。
26歲(註：實際上他是27歲)戰爭結束後，我回到彼得堡，和作家們交往。他們把我當成他們中間的一員，也很抬舉我。轉眼間，我已經採納了那一群和我混在一起的作者的人生觀，而這些觀點完全抹殺了所有我以前努力想改進的──他們為我的生活放蕩正當化找到了一種說法。
我的作家同伴們的人生觀是這樣的：生命總是在不斷的發展，在這發展中，我們──有思想的人──佔了重要的角色；在有思想的人當中，我們──藝術家和詩人──有最大的影響力。我們的職業是教育人類。而最簡單明顯的問題：我知道什麼，能教人什麼？在這個理論上的解釋是──不需要知道，而且藝術家詩人們的教導是無意識的。我被認為是一個優秀的藝術家和詩人，因此我很自然的接受了這個理論。我，藝術家和詩人，寫作和教導連自己都不知道的東西。為此人家付我錢；我有好的食物，住屋，女人，社交圈；還有好名聲，足以證明我所教的都很好。
相信詩的意義和生命的發展是一種宗教，我就是它的一個教士。當教士是很愉快和有利可圖的。我在這信仰裡活了一段不算短的時間，沒有去懷疑它的確實性。可是這樣生活到第二年，特別是第三年，我開始懷疑這一宗教的無誤性，並開始查驗它了。使我懷疑的第一因是，我發現這一宗教的教士們，在他們之間並不都一致。有人說：我們是最好的和有貢獻的老師；我們教導有用的東西，但是其他的人教錯了。其他人說：不！我們才是真正的老師，你們教得不對。他們紛爭、吵架、辱罵、詐欺，互耍手段。我們當中許多人根本不關心誰是誰非，只想藉著我們的吵吵鬧鬧，簡單的靠邊站來達到他們的貪婪的目的。這一切使得我懷疑我們的信條的確實性。
還有，由於已經開始懷疑作家的信條本身的真實性，我也開始更加細心觀察它的教士們，並且確信，幾乎所有這一宗教的教士們，也就是作家們，都不道德，而且大部分都是不好，人品毫無價值的人，比我以前虛晃和當軍人的時候見到的要低下得多；但是他們很自信，自我陶醉，就像只有十分聖潔的人或者對聖潔一無所知的人才能如此。這些人令我反感，我變得對自己反感，而且我看清了這種信仰是騙人的。
奇怪的是，雖然我明白這個騙局，並且拋棄了它，但是我捨不得拋棄這些人給予我的頭銜：藝術家、詩人、老師的稱號。我天真地想像我是一個詩人、藝術家，我能夠教導每一個人，而不需要知道自己在教什麼。我就是這樣子演出。
由於與這些人親近，我沾染上了一個新的惡習：過度擴展的驕傲與瘋狂的自信，認為我的職責就是教導人們，卻不知道教什麼。
回想那時，自己和那些人的心態（現今像他們就有數千人），是可悲，可怕，和可笑，而產生正像是在瘋人院裡才能體驗到的感覺。
那時我們都認為，講話、寫作、出版必須要盡量快，盡量多，而這一切都是人類幸福所必需的。我們數千人，相互否定、辱罵，全都寫下來，印出來──用來教導別人。不但不覺得自己一無所知，連最簡單的生活上的問題：什麼是良善，什麼是邪惡？我們都不知道怎樣回答，我們全都一起講話，不聽對方說什麼，有時互相附和吹捧，以便大家輪流附和吹捧，有時大家吵成一團──正像在一個瘋人院裡。
千萬的工人日夜拚命幹活，排字，印刷了千百萬字，郵局把它們分發到俄國各地，而我們還是繼續的教，沒完沒了，而且覺得時間總是來不及，教得總是不夠，還一直生氣，大家對我們沒有付出足夠的注意力。
它是很怪異，但現在我完全理解了。我們真正內心深處所關心的，就是賺得金錢和讚賞，越多越好。為了達到這個目的，我們除了寫書和出版報紙以外，什麼也不會做。我們就是這樣做。但是為了要做這些無聊的工作，而且要確信我們是非常重要的人物，我們需要有一個能為我們的活動合理化的理論。所以我們就想出了這樣的論點：「所有存在的都是合理的，所有存在的都在進展。所有的進展都是藉著文明。而文明是以書籍和報紙的銷售量來衡量。人家付錢給我們，尊敬我們，是因為我們寫書和報紙，因此我們是最有用和最好的人。」要是我們大家意見一致，這種理論當然很好，但是我們裡面一個人表示出來的想法往往與另一個人的想法截然相反，我們應該為此反省。然而我們忽略了這點；人們付我們錢，同夥讚賞我們，因此我們我們每個人，都認為自己正當有理。
現在我清楚了，這正是像在一個瘋人院裡；但那時我只是稍稍的懷疑，而且和所有的精神病患一樣，稱所有的人都是瘋子，只是把自己除外。
Some day I
will narrate the touching and instructive history of my life during those ten
years of my youth. I think very many people have had a like experience. With
all my soul I wished to be good, but I was young, passionate and alone,
completely alone when I sought goodness. Every time
I tried to express my most sincere desire, which was to be morally good, I met
with contempt and ridicule, but as soon as I yielded to low passions I was
praised and encouraged.
Ambition,
love of power, covetousness, lasciviousness, pride, anger, and revenge - were
all respected.
Yielding to
those passions I became like the grown-up folk and felt that they approved of
me. The kind aunt with whom I lived, herself the purest of beings, always told
me that there was nothing she so desired for me as that I should have relations
with a married woman: 'Rien ne forme un jeune homme, comme une liaison avec une
femme comme il faut'. [Footnote: Nothing so forms a young man as an intimacy
with a woman of good breeding.] Another happiness she desired for me was that I
should become an aide-de-camp, and if possible aide-de-camp to the Emperor. But
the greatest happiness of all would be that I should marry a very rich girl and
so become possessed of as many serfs as possible.
I cannot
think of those years without horror, loathing and heartache. I killed men in war
and challenged men to duels in order to kill them. I lost at cards, consumed
the labor of the peasants, sentenced them to punishments, lived loosely, and
deceived people. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence,
murder - there was no crime I did not commit, and in spite of that people
praised my conduct and my contemporaries considered and consider me to be a
comparatively moral man.
So I lived
for ten years.
During that
time I began to write from vanity, covetousness, and pride. In my writings I
did the same as in my life. To get fame and money, for the sake of which I
wrote, it was necessary to hide the good and to display the evil. And I did so.
How often in my writings I contrived to hide under the guise of indifference,
or even of banter, those strivings of mine towards goodness which gave meaning
to my life! And I succeeded in this and was praised.
At
twenty-six years of age [Footnote: He was in fact 27 at the time.] I returned
to Petersburg
The view of
life of these people, my comrades in authorship, consisted in this: that life
in general goes on developing, and in this development we - men of thought -
have the chief part; and among men of thought it is we - artists and poets -
who have the greatest influence. Our vocation is to teach mankind. And lest the
simple question should suggest itself: What do I
know, and what can I teach? It was explained in this theory that this
need not be known, and that the artist and poet teach unconsciously. I was
considered an admirable artist and poet, and therefore it was very natural for
me to adopt this theory. I, artist and poet, wrote and taught without myself
knowing what. For this I was paid money; I had excellent food, lodging, women,
and society; and I had fame, which showed that what I taught was very good.
This faith in the meaning of poetry and in the development of life was a
religion, and I was one of its priests. To be its priest was very pleasant and profitable. And I
lived a considerable time in this faith without doubting its validity. But in
the second and still more in the third year of this life I began to doubt the
infallibility of this religion and to examine it. My first cause of doubt was
that I began to notice that the priests of this
religion were not all in accord among themselves. Some said: We are the
best and most useful teachers; we teach what is needed, but the others teach
wrongly. Others said: No! we are the real teachers, and you teach wrongly. And they disputed, quarrelled, abused, cheated, and
tricked one another. There were also many among us who did not care who was
right and who was wrong, but were simply bent on attaining their covetous aims
by means of this activity of ours. All this obliged me to doubt the validity of
our creed.
Moreover, having begun to doubt the truth of the authors' creed itself,
I also began to observe its priests more attentively, and I became convinced
that almost all the priests of that religion, the writers, were immoral, and
for the most part men of bad, worthless character, much inferior to those whom
I had met in my former dissipated and military life; but they were self-
confident and self-satisfied as only those can be who are quite holy or who do
not know what holiness is. These people revolted me, I became revolting to myself, and I realized
that that faith was a fraud.
But strange
to say, though I understood this fraud and renounced it, yet I did not renounce
the rank these people gave me: the rank of artist, poet, and teacher. I naively
imagined that I was a poet and artist and could teach everybody without myself
knowing what I was teaching, and I acted accordingly.
From my intimacy with these men I acquired a new vice: abnormally
developed pride and an insane assurance that it was my vocation to teach men,
without knowing what.
To remember
that time, and my own state of mind and that of those men (though there are
thousands like them today), is sad and terrible and ludicrous, and arouses
exactly the feeling one experiences in a lunatic asylum.
We were all
then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak, write, and print as
quickly as possible and as much as possible, and that it was all wanted for the
good of humanity. And thousands of us, contradicting and abusing one another,
all printed and wrote - teaching others. And without noticing that we knew
nothing, and that to the simplest of life's questions: What is good and what is
evil? we did not know how to reply, we all talked at the same time, not
listening to one another, sometimes seconding and praising one another in order
to be seconded and praised in turn, sometimes getting angry with one another -
just as in a lunatic asylum.
Thousands
of workmen labored to the extreme limit of their strength day and night,
setting the type and printing millions of words which the post carried all over
Russia
It was
terribly strange, but is now quite comprehensible. Our real innermost concern
was to get as much money and praise as possible. To gain that end we could do
nothing except write books and papers. So we did that. But in order to do such
useless work and to feel assured that we were very important people we required
a theory justifying our activity. And so among us this theory was devised:
"All that exists is reasonable. All that exists develops. And it all
develops by means of Culture. And Culture is measured by the circulation of
books and newspapers. And we are paid money and are respected because we write
books and newspapers, and therefore we are the most useful and the best of
men." This theory would have been all very well if we had been unanimous,
but as every thought expressed by one of us was always met by a diametrically
opposite thought expressed by another, we ought to have been driven to
reflection. But we ignored this; people paid us money and those on our side
praised us, so each of us considered himself justified.
It is now
clear to me that this was just as in a lunatic asylum; but then I only dimly
suspected this, and like all lunatics, simply called all men lunatics except
myself.
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