懺悔錄A Confession Ch-4

by Leo Tolstoy

1882

Bill Lin 譯

4.

我的生命停滯了。我會呼吸、飲食、和睡覺，我是不由自主的在做這些事；但卻像行屍走肉般的沒有生命，因為沒有任何一個希望的達成，被我認為是有理性的。假若我渴望任何東西，我早就知道，不管是否滿足了我的需求，都不會有什麼結果的。假如一個仙女出現了，應許要滿足我的慾望，我會不知道該要求什麼。假如在醉夢中我感覺到某些東西，雖然這不是一個希望，而是原先的希望留下來的一個習慣，那麼在清醒的時候我知道，這是一個幻覺，沒有什麼可希望的。我甚至不能希望知道真相，因為那是我的猜測。真相是，生命毫無意義。我看來像是活著，活著，走著，走著，一直走到了一個懸崖，很清楚的看到，前面除了毀滅以外，空無一物。進退維谷，無法閉上眼睛或者不去看前面的空盪，僅存的就是痛苦和真正的死亡—完全的滅絕。

事情已經到了這樣的地步，我這樣一個健康、幸運的人，感到活不下去了：某種不可抗拒的力量逼我要採取任一方式，來拋棄我自己的生命。我不能說是我*想要*自殺。這股要把我拖離生命的力量是比任一單單的願望來得更強大、充沛、和全面性。這力量和以前的要努力活下去是很類似的，只是方向相反而已。我全身所有的力道，要把我拖離我的生命。現在，自我毀滅的念頭，就像以往要如何改善我的生活的念頭一樣，來得一樣的自然，而且它是有誘惑性的，我自己必須和自己算計才不至於一下子就落實了。我不想快死，因為我要用盡所有努力來解脫這個事端。「假如我不能解決事情，有的是時間。」而且在那時，像我這麼富有的人，我把一條繩子藏起來，使我每個晚上在自己的房間獨自更衣時，不至於把自己吊死在隔間的橫樑上，同時我不再出去做手槍射擊，避免被如此簡易方式的誘惑，來結束自己的生命。我自己不支蹈我要什麼：我愛怕生活，渴望逃避它，但是還希望它有某些東西。

當這一切發生在我的身上時，正是在我週遭所有的人，都認為我擁有最完美的福氣。我還沒到50歲；有一個愛我的好老婆，我也愛她，乖巧的孩子們，還有一大堆資產，我不需費太多功夫，它們就變得更多更好。我的相關人和朋友們，尊敬我到無以復加。我被人讚美，而且不需要太自欺，就可以自認我是著名的。沒有神經錯亂和心理疾病，和現狀相反的，我享有健康的身心，在當時我們這種人當中是少見的；體力上，我可以比美做耕種勞動的農夫，在心理上，我可以努力連續工作8至10個小時而沒有不良後果。在這種情形下，我會弄到活不下去，而且為了怕死，必須謀算自我，才能避免了斷自己的性命。

我看出我的心理狀況是這樣的：我的生命，像是某人在我的身上開了一個愚蠢惡毒的玩笑。雖然我不認為有個“某人”創造了我，只是這樣的講法—藉著把我生在這世上，某人在我的身上開了一個邪惡愚蠢的玩笑—是一個我覺得最自然的表達的方式。

自然而然的，整件事依我看來就像是，在某個地方，有某個人，他自己很高興的，看著我活了三、四十年：學習，發展，身心都成熟了，而且如何的有了成熟的精神力量達到了生命的最高峰，從那裡一切都擺在我的眼前，我站在頂點—像拱門上的傻子—很清楚的看到生命裡空無一物，一向都是這樣，以後也是空無一物，這樣*他*就樂了。

但是，不管這個在笑我的 “某人”存在與否，我都不會更好過。我無法對任何單一行動或是我的整個生命給予合理的意義。我只是驚訝，我居然可以在最早先的時候，不去了解這件事—這早就是人人皆知的事。今天或明天，生病和死亡會來到 (它們已經來了)那些我所愛的人，或我的頭上；除了惡臭和蛆以外，一無存留。遲早我的總總，不管是什麼，將被忘懷，我也不存在了。所以，還努力什麼呢？…人怎麼可能看不到這個呢？怎麼可能繼續活下去呢？那就是我的驚訝！一個人只能醉生夢死的活著；一旦清醒，不可能看到這一切只是個騙局，一個愚蠢的騙局！那正是如此：一點也不好玩也不風趣，只是殘酷和愚蠢。

很久以前有一個東方的寓言，有關一個旅客在平原上遇到一頭猛獸。在逃避猛獸時，他跳進一口乾井，但他看到井底有一條龍，張開大口要吞食他。這個不幸的人，既不敢爬出來，怕被猛獸咬死，又不敢跳下井底，怕被龍吞掉，只好抓住長在井壁裂縫中的樹藤，吊在半空中。他的雙手越來越虛弱，他感到，他不久就得放棄，讓在上面的，或在下面的來毀滅自己，但他還是緊抓著。然後他看到有兩隻老鼠，一黑一白，在他抓住的那根樹藤上，定期的爬上爬下啃著那樹藤。很快的這樹藤本身就會斷掉，他就會掉進龍的牙縫。旅客看到這個，知道他將難免一死；但當他還吊著的時候，他四下張望，發現樹藤的葉上有幾滴蜜，於是就伸出舌頭舔蜜。這樣子，我也是掛在生命的樹藤上，知道那象徵著死亡的龍不可避免的在等著我，準備把我撕成碎片；我不理解為什麼我會遭到這樣的折磨。我試著要舔那早先使我寬慰的蜜，但那些蜜不再帶給我歡樂，而白鼠和黑鼠，就是白天和黑夜，都在啃著我懸掛的樹枝。我清楚地看到龍，而蜜嚐起來也不甘甜。我只看到逃避不了的龍和老鼠，無法把我的視線從它們身上挪開。這不是一個寓言，而是真正的、沒有答案的、每個人都可以理解的事實。

生活的歡樂的錯覺在過去緩和了我對龍的恐懼，現在不再能欺騙我了。不管多少次有人對我說：「你既不能明白生命的意義，就別想了，只有活下去。」我不能再這樣做：我已經這樣做得太久了。現在我不能不看到，時間日以繼夜的在引我走向死亡。那就是我全部所看到的，因為就只有那個是真實的，其餘的一切都是虛假。

使我的眼睛，從嚴酷的真實轉移開來最久的那兩滴蜜：我對家庭的愛，和寫作—我稱之為藝術—對我來說已經不再是甜蜜的了。

「家庭，」…我自言自語。但是我的家庭—妻子、兒女—他們也是人。他們的處境和我一樣：他們要不就是活在虛偽之中，或是得看那可怕的事實。他們為什麼要活下去？我為什麼要愛他們，保護、養育和照顧他們？為的是使他們可能走到和我一樣絕望的地步？或是做個愚蠢的人？愛他們，我不能對他們隱藏真相：知識上的每一步都引他們走向這個事實。 而這個事實就是死亡。

「藝術，詩？」…在成功和人們的讚美的影響下，我一直使自己相信，這是一件可以做的事，雖然死亡正在逼近—死亡毀滅所有的東西，包括我的作品和對它們的記憶；只是我很快的發現這也是個騙局。我很清楚的知道，藝術是一個生命的裝飾品，一種生命的誘惑。當生命不再對我有吸引力的時候，我如何能用它去吸引別人呢？只要是我並非活在自己的生命裡，而是為著其他的生命逐波而流—只要是我相信生命有個意義，甚至是我都不能表達的—生命在詩裡面的回影，和各樣的藝術所帶給我的樂趣：從藝術的鏡子裡看人生是很愉快的。但是當我開始尋找生命的意義，而且感到需要活出自己的生命的時候，那面鏡子對我來說，就變成不需要，多餘，荒謬和令人難過的。當我現在從鏡子裡，看到我的處境是愚蠢和絕望時，我不能再使自己感到舒緩。只有當我在我的靈魂的深處，我相信我的生命有個意義，才能很愉快的欣賞這個景象。然後戲劇的燈光—喜劇、悲劇、感動、美麗和糟糕—在生活中才能使我歡娛。不管蜜有多甜，當我看到那條龍和老鼠囓走我的支撐時，都不能使我感到任何的甘甜。

這還不夠。如果我只是明白生命沒有意義，我或許能安靜的忍受，把它當成是自己的命運。如果我是生活在森林中的人，知道走不出這座森林，那麼我還能夠生活下去。但我像一個在森林中迷了路的人，因為迷路而感到恐怖，到處亂轉，希望走到正道上，知道每一步無非是更加糊塗，但又不能不來回折騰。

真的很恐怖。為了擺脫這種恐怖，我想自殺。我經歷的恐怖是從等著我的未來而來—我知道這恐怖會比我目前的情況更糟，但是我無法坐以待斃。不管任一種情況的立論多令人信服，有一天我的哪一條心血管總會報銷了，或著某些東西也會爆裂，一切就完了，我不能坐以待斃。那對黑暗的恐懼非常強烈，有時我想儘快地用套索或子彈幫自己得到解脫。就是這樣的思緒強烈的吸引我去自殺。

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My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfill my desires I should not have know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guessed of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked, walked, till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was nothing ahead of me but destruction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death - complete annihilation.

It had come to this, that I, a healthy, fortunate man, felt I could no longer live: some irresistible power impelled me to rid myself one way or other of life. I cannot say I *wished* to kill myself. The power which drew me away from life was stronger, fuller, and more widespread than any mere wish. It was a force similar to the former striving to live, only in a contrary direction. All my strength drew me away from life. The thought of self-destruction now came to me as naturally as thoughts of how to improve my life had come formerly, and it was seductive that I had to be cunning with myself lest I should carry it out too hastily. I did not wish to hurry, because I wanted to use all efforts to disentangle the matter. "If I cannot unravel matters, there will always be time." and it was then that I, a man favored by fortune, hid a cord from myself lest I should hang myself from the crosspiece of the partition in my room where I undressed alone every evening, and I ceased to go out shooting with a gun lest I should be tempted by so easy a way of ending my life. I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still.

And all this befell me at a time when all around me I had what is considered complete good fortune. I was not yet fifty; I had a good wife who loved me and whom I loved, good children, and a large estate which without much effort on my part improved and increased. I was respected by my relations and acquaintances more than at any previous time. I was praised by others and without much self-deception could consider that my name was famous. And far from being insane or mentally diseased, I enjoyed on the contrary a strength of mind and body such as I have seldom met with among men of my kind; physically I could keep up with the peasants at mowing, and mentally I could work for eight and ten hours at a stretch without experiencing any ill results from such exertion. And in this situation I came to this - that I could not live, and, fearing death, had to employ cunning with myself to avoid taking my own life.

My mental condition presented itself to me in this way: my life is a stupid and spiteful joke someone has played on me. Though I did not acknowledge a "someone" who created me, yet such a presentation - that someone had played an evil and stupid joke on me by placing me in the world - was the form of expression that suggested itself most naturally to me.

Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit - like an arch-fool - seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And *he* was amused. ...

But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning - it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort? ... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveler overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes a twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. And this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.

The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing - art as I called it - were no longer sweet to me.

"Family,"... said I to myself. But my family - wife and children - are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.

"Art, poetry?"...Under the influence of success and the praise of men, I had long assured myself that this was a thing one could do though death was drawing near - death which destroys all things, including my work and its remembrance; but soon I saw that that too was a fraud. It was plain to me that art is an adornment of life, an allurement to life. But life had lost its attraction for me, so how could I attract others? As long as I was not living my own life but was borne on the waves of some other life - as long as I believed that life had a meaning, though one I could not express - the reflection of life in poetry and art of all kinds afforded me pleasure: it was pleasant to look at life in the mirror of art. But when I began to seek the meaning of life and felt the necessity of living my own life, that mirror became for me unnecessary, superfluous, ridiculous, or painful. I could no longer soothe myself with what I now saw in the mirror, namely, that my position was stupid and desperate. It was all very well to enjoy the sight when in the depth of my soul I believed that my life had a meaning. Then the play of lights - comic, tragic, touching, beautiful, and terrible - in life amused me. No sweetness of honey could be sweet to me when I saw the dragon and saw the mice gnawing away my support.

Nor was that all. Had I simply understood that life had no meaning I could have borne it quietly, knowing that that was my lot. But I could not satisfy myself with that. Had I been like a man living in a wood from which he knows there is no exit, I could have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood who, horrified at having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road. He knows that each step he takes confuses him more and more, but still he cannot help rushing about.

It was indeed terrible. And to rid myself of the terror I wished to kill myself. I experienced terror at what awaited me - knew that that terror was even worse than the position I was in, but still I could not patiently await the end. However convincing the argument might be that in any case some vessel in my heart would give way, or something would burst and all would be over, I could not patiently await that end. The horror of darkness was too great, and I wished to free myself from it as quickly as possible by noose or bullet. That was the feeling which drew me most strongly towards suicide.