卿卿如晤-第三章

卿卿如晤 A Grief Observed

C. S. Lewis

1961

曾珍珍譯

第三章

說我一天到晚想念她，與實情不符。工作時，與人交談時，怎能分神去想她呢？不過，那些不想她的時刻，恐怕是我最糟糕的時刻，因為雖已暫時將緣由抛諸腦後，却依稀覺得像有什麼事出了岔，整個人不由得悵然若失起來。這就像在那一類的夢境中，什麼可怕的事都没發生—吃早飯時，你若把夢裡的情景說給人聽，任誰也不以為稀奇—但是，整個夢的氛圍和味道却活像你遇見了鬼。就是這樣的感覺。我看見山梨果開始變紅了，却一時想不起來到底為什麼在所有東西中，它特别引我黯然神傷。我聽到鐘响，那裡頭向來有的一種音質兀然消失了。這世界怎度搞的？變得如此平板、破落、疲憊？這時，我才想起為什麼。

這是我所怕的事之一。心頭的劇痛、午夜的驚狂終於逃不過自然的定律，势必平息下來。但随之而來的是什麽呢？就是這種麻木嗎？這種茍延残喘？是否這樣的時刻終於會來到，我不再繼續求問為什麽這世界看起來像一條鄙陋的大街，因為我將對污穢視若無睹？是否喪妻之慟終會式微、退落，我整個人將變得百無聊賴，成天頭暈暈的，直想吐。

感覺，感覺，層出不窮的感覺。且撇在一旁，静下心來思考吧。從理性的觀點看，她的死給宇宙的問題引進了什麼新的因素？它提供了什麼理由，讓我對自己的信仰產生全盤的懷疑？這些事，甚至更糟的事，天天都在發生，這是我早就知道的。應該說，這些我都曾考慮過。我已警告過自己—不要顧念塵世的幸福。而且，所應許給我們的，原也包括種種的苦難。這是整套計劃的一部分。我們甚至已被告知：「哀哭的人有福了」，這句話，我從前也接受。可以說，我所得到的，没有一件不是事先講明的。當然，不幸的事臨到自己，而非别人；成了事實，而不再是想像，就有天壤之别。是的，但對一個頭腦清醒的人，應該造成這麼大的差别嗎？不，對一個有真實信心又向來真切關懷他人愁苦的人，不應是這樣子的。這情形太明顯了。如果我的房子不堪一擊，這就意味著它原是一間紙片叠成的的房子。那「曾把這些事考慮進去」的信心便不是信心，而是想像。把它們考慮進去的用心，也不是真正的同情。如果我家自己所認為的那樣，真心誠意關懷世人的愁苦，當自己的愁苦臨到時，不應這麼潦倒的。原來，這只是想像出來的信心，用没有危害性的筹碼下註，雖然上面標著「疾病」、「疼痛」、「死亡」、和「孤獨」。我向來以為自己信得過這條繩子，直到它能否栓得住我變成生死攸關。現在，它的確具有千鈞一髮的重要性，而我發現自己信不過它。

玩橋牌的人告訴我，非得用錢打賭不可，（否則，没有人會認真打牌。）顯然，就是這麽一回事。倘若不涉及任何重大的賭註，你叫牌時—有神或無神，神是良善或宇宙的虐待狂，生命是無止境的或虚空一場—就不可能當真。而且，你不可能發現事情有多嚴肅，直到賭註抬高到嚇人的地步；直到你發現，白己不是在為筹碼或六便士打賭，而是為今生所擁有的每一分每一毫打賭。少於這個的話，不足以把人—至少像我這樣的人—從拘泥字句的思考和純粹概念化的信仰中撼醒。他必須被擊打得整個人都傻掉了，才能清醒過來。只有酷刑才能把真理催逼出來。只有在嚴酷的責打之下，他才會親自去發現真理。

而我確實必須承認—她也會三言兩語就逼我承認—倘若我的房子果真是紙片叠成的，那麼，愈早被砸碎，愈好。而且，只有苦難能作成這事。若接受了這點，說他是宇宙的虐待狂或永存的活物解剖者，似乎都變成莫須有的假設了。

上一則手記是不是一種症状，恰好指出我的無可救藥？當事實把我的夢砸成碎片時，初受震撼，我忽而抑鬱，忽而咆哮，過後，却又耐心地、痴愚地重新把它拼凑回來？而且，向來如此？不管紙片叠的房子塌了多少回，我總又重新搭盖？此刻，我是否正作著同一件事？

的確，極有可能，那將被我稱為「信心重建」的，終究只是一棟紙叠的房子。是這樣嗎？我無法得知，直到下一個打擊來襲——譬如，我的躯体也被診断得了絕症，或戰争發生了，或由於工作上出了離奇的差錯，我把自己毁了。不過，這裡頭有兩個問題，從哪一層意義看，這是一棟紙叠的房子呢？因為我所信的只是一場夢？或我不過夢見自己相信罷了？

至於事物的本相，憑什麼我一個星期前的思想要比此刻顯然較為良質的思想可信呢？大体而言，現在的我肯定比一個星期前清醒。為什麼一個頭暈目眩的人在絕境中的胡思亂想——我曾說過，像腦部受到震盪——特别可靠？。

因為在那些胡思亂想裡，没有一廂情願的思想？而且，正由於其可怕，所以，較可能是真的？但是，除了有願望獲得滿足的夢之外，也有讓懼怕得逞的夢。這類的思想難道不討人嫌嗎？不，從某個角度說，我還蛮喜歡的。我甚至察覺與之相反的思想，自己還挺不情願接受。其實，那些有關宇宙虐待狂的講論，與其說是思想的表達，不如說是恨。從中，我嘗到了在極端痛苦中的人所能嘗到的唯一樂趣——反擊的樂趣。它們的確就是市井間常可聽聞的那類專門談來污穢人的話（有種的話，且讓神聽聽我怎麼数落他！）——真是乖謬到了家。當然，像在所有污穢語中一樣，「我認為這樣」並不意味「我認為真有這一回事」。所在乎的是，我這樣認為是否最能惹火祂（和祂的崇拜者）。說這類的話從來都讓人覺得痛快淋漓。（一吐胸中塊壘），一時之間，你覺得舒服多了。

情緒的宣泄不能當作証據。對向它開刀的人，猫當然會咆哮、吐口水、其至反咬，但是，問題的症結在於這人是獸医呢？還是專門從事活物解剖的人？對真正的答案，猫的髒話提供不了任何指引。

所思索的若是自己的苦難，我可以相信他是個獸医。若思索她的，就難些了。喪偶之慟與肉体的痛苦比較起來，哪一種劇烈呢？不管愚頑人怎麼說，肉体的痛苦大過二十倍。人的心智天生具有某種退避的能力。最糟的情况，莫過於人無法忍受的思想一再地回潮。但是，肉体的疼痛却有可能持續不断。喪偶之慟像一架轟炸機在上空盤旋，每飛一圈，下一顆炸弹。肉体的疼痛則像第一次世界大戰中的壕溝戰，槍林弹雨連續幾個小時，没有片刻的停歇。思想永遠不會瘀積不動；疼痛通常會。

我算那門子的情人？念念不忘的盡是自己的折磨，較少顧念她的。甚至那惶亂的嘶喊（歸來吧 ！，也全是為了自己。我甚至從未質疑過，這樣的歸來，若有可能，對她好嗎？我渴望她魂兮歸來，以便能挽回自己的過去。對她，我能希冀比這更糟糕的事嗎？她已嘗過了死味，叫她再回陽，等到將來的某個日子，再經歷一次死亡？人們稱司提反為第一個殉道者；其實，拉撒路所遭遇的豈不更慘烈？。

我開始明白了，我對她的愛與我對神的信心，本質上，竟有許多相同的地方，雖然我不擬過度渲染。信心裡是否容不得一點想像的成分，愛裡是否絕無自我？神知道，我不知道。也許有那麼一些些吧，尤其在我對她的愛裡。但兩者皆非我所以為的那樣。我理念中的兩音皆頗有紙叠城堡的味道。

我的哀傷如何演化，或者我如何調理這樣的情緒，於事無補嗎？我如何悼念她，或者我是否悼念她，幹卿底事？成這或那，都無法减輕或加重她那已逝的身心劇痛。

已逝的身心劇痛？我怎知她所有的痛苦都已過去了？我從來都不相信——我認為十二萬分的不可能——那絕對信靠神的靈魂在咽下最後一口氣的霎那，能直接進人完美和安息。現在，若這樣相信，是帶有報復意味的非非之想。她是個相當精彩的人，一條率直、明銳、經過千錘百煉的靈魂，像一把劍。然而，她絕非一個已臻完美的聖徒，而是一個仍帶著罪性的女人，嫁給我這個仍帶著罪性的男人；我們是神的兩個病人，正等著他医治。我深知不只眼淚需被擦乾，還有污點需被磨拭。要它更明銳，這把劍還需再磨拭。

但是，神啊！輕輕地。當她還披戴著肉身時，接連幾個月，幾星期，你周而復始地凌遲她的躯体。這樣還不够嗎？。

恐怖的是，做這種事，一個完全良善的神可能比宇宙的虐待狂更叫人害怕。愈相信神擊打人是為了医治，便愈難相信懇求他輕柔下手是行得通的事。一個心很手辣的人，你可以收買他。而且，怎麼倒行逆施，他總有疲倦的時候——偶而也會發點慈悲，就像醉鬼也有酒醒的片刻。然而，若你遇見的是一位外科医生，仁心仁術。那麼，他愈仁慈、敬業，開刀時愈難手下留情。如果他聽了你的哀求，在手術尚未完成之前停手，那麼，你先前所忍受的疼痛豈不白費了？這這麼嚴酷地責打，對我們而言，是完全必須的嗎？這說得過去嗎？就自己抉擇吧！酷刑發生了，如果是多餘的，那麼，若非没有神，便是神並不良善。如果神是良善的，那些酷刑便是必須的，因為若是多餘的，稍有良知良能的生靈都會不忍心將它加諸在人身上的，或者根本不容許它發生。

或這或那，我們都接受了。

有人說：「我不怕神，因它是良善的。」這句話什麼意思？難道他没看過牙医？。

這可是十分難捱的事！接著，你或許會脱口而出：「讓我來承担吧，無論多糟糕，怎樣都無所謂，只要不是她。」但是，誰也不知道這樣的打賭有多嚴重，因為不涉及任何的賭註。除非突然間真有這種可能了，我們才會發現自己到底有幾分當真。不過，這種事容許發生嗎？。

經上告訴我們，這樣的事曾被容許發生在那「唯一的一位」身上。而此刻我發現。自己又能重新相信他已代替我們作成一切可代替我們作的事了。對我們脱口而出的豪語，他的回答是：「你辦不到的，而且，你不敢。我辦得到，而且，我敢。」。

出乎意料的事情發生了。是今天一大早發生的，由多重原因促成，一點也不神秘。我的心情是幾個星期以來最輕鬆的。有一點，我想，肉体的疲憊已恢復了大半。而且，昨天，我過了極端累人却有益身心的十二個小時。晚上，又睡了飽飽的一覺。而經過十天的陰霾，和郁積不去的濕熱，陽光終於又普照大地，微風陣陣吹來。突然間，就在我最不為她哀傷的霎那，她清晰地浮現在我的心頭，比記憶更具体，一種瞬間的，讓人來不及回應的印象。說這恰是重逢，有點太過。然而，是有那樣的意味，使人忍不住想要用類似的字眼。似乎愁懷一釋除，障隔就挪開了。

為什麽没有人告訴我這樣的事？别人若有同樣的處境，有多大的可能我會對他作出同樣錯誤的判断？我也許會說：「他過關了，終於把太太忘了。」其實，真相是：「正因他稍能釋懷，所以，能更貼切地懷想她。」這才是事實，而我相信自己能為這現象說出個道理來。淚眼婆娑時，你什麼都看不清。被你要得死去活來的東西，多半，你是要不到的。至少，你得不到它的菁華。「現在，讓我們認真地討論。」這話一出，每個人都噤若寒蟬。「今晚一定要好好睡它一覺。」這下子好了，保証你幾小時無法合上眼。可口的飲料供渴得半死的人咕嚕牛飲，簡直是浪費。同樣，那使鐵幕深垂的，使我們緬懷故人時只覺眼前横陳一片空茫的，豈不正是過度强烈的眷戀？無論如何，「求索太急切的人」就是得不到，或許是無法得到。

或許，求告神也是這樣。我已漸漸醒轉過來，不再覺得門緊緊閉着或上了栓。那使門當著我的面砰然關閉，豈不正是我自己惶亂的索求？當你的靈魂裡除了求救呼喊之外空無一物，也許正是神無法給你任何救援的時候——就像溺水而無法獲救的人，通常因為他拚命抓拿。也許，是自己重覆呼喊使你耳聾了，聽不見想聽的声音。

另一方面，「叩門的，就給他開門」不過，叩門是否意味著捶們或踢門。然而，又有話說，「凡有的，還要加給他。」畢竟，你必須有接受的能力，否則，甚至全能者也無法給你什麽。也許是你自己的激情暫時把這接受的能力給蒙蔽了。

因為，求告神的事，什麼樣的錯誤都可能發生。許久以前，那時我們還未結婚，有一整個早上，她一面作家事，一面隱隱約約地覺得神就在「肘旁」要求她的註意。當然，由於不是完美的聖徒，她直覺可能涉及某樁未認的罪，或某件瑣碎的義務，像通常有的情况。後來，她終於投降了——我知道人多麽善於推拖——停下手邊的工作，面對祂。結果，神給她的話是：「我要把某樣東西賜給你」，她立刻進入喜樂中。

我想我開始体會出為什麼守喪感覺上像把事情懸擱着。這感覺是從許多慣性的衝動受到挫折而來的。向來，許多的想法、感覺、和行動接二連三產生，都是以她為目標。現在，目標消失了，由於慣性，我仍繼續把箭搭在弦上，等到猛然想起，才又把箭擱下。那麼多的路径引我想起她，我欣然踏上其中的一條，眼前却横豎着一面「邊塞要地，請勿逾越」的牌子。曾經條條是通衢大道，現在却四處窮途末路。

因為在一個好妻子的裡面的確涵括了太多人的角色。對我而言，她無所不是。她是我的女兒兼母親，我的學生兼老師，我的臣民兼君王。而且無時不刻，把這些角色兼容並蓄了，還是我的同志、朋友、船伴和同胞。她固然是我的情人，但同時又具備了任何男性朋友（我不乏這類的知交）所能給我的，也許給得還更多。我們如果未曾墬入情網，應該也會成天膩在一塊，引來各種閑言閑語。基於這樣的感受，有一天，我稱讚她，讓她具有男性的美德，她馬上堵住我的口，問我可喜歡别人稱讚我具有女性的美德。這反擊真是厲害的一招！卿卿。不過，你的確有點像亞瑪森、潘瑟西雷雅和克蜜拉（註）。而你自己，我亦然，都頗得意你有這樣的特質。我能察覺你的這種特質，你蛮欣慰的。

所羅門稱他的新婦妹子。一個女人能算是個完整的妻嗎？除非，霎那間，在某種特殊的情境裡，她的男人忍不住要呼她一声「哥哥」。

「太完美了，所以，不能長久。」我忍不住要這樣形容她和我的婚姻。不過，這樣說可有兩層意義。一層意義悲觀得讓人悚然心驚——好似神一見造物中有兩人鶼鰈情深，便得立刻拆散他們——「此情只應天上有」。神又好像社交酒會的女東主，一見兩位客人露出傾心交談的迹象，按例便得即刻把他們拉開。然而，這句話也可能意味著「這個婚姻已臻人造化至境，達到婚姻應有的樣子，所以，不必再延續下去。」好似神說：「好極了，你們已精通此藝，到達炉火純青的境界。我非常滿意。現在，且準備往下一步去。」當你已學會二次方程式，而且駕輕就熟，你不可能繼續在這範圍逗留太久的，老師會催促你更上一層楼。

因為，在婚姻中，我們的確有所學習和成長。兩件之間，或隱或現，確實經常劍拔弩張，直到完全的結合使双方重歸和好。對男人而言，在女人身上看見率真、講義氣、和古道熱腸的性子，便稱之為「男性化」，是大男人主義作祟。對女人而言，形容一個男人的敏感、細膩、温柔為「女性化」，也可視為大女人主義。不過，那些所謂十足的男人和十足的女人所擁有的人性，必定相當貧乏、偏狭、片面，才能使這種隱形的驕矜心理顯明出來。婚姻恰好根治了這毛病。兩個人合起來成為「完足的人」。「神按着自己的形像造男造女」，就這樣，看似矛盾，兩性靈肉一致的結合，把眾人帶離了性别的囿限。

接著，兩人中的一個亡故了。我們將這視為被截断的愛情，有如舞過半場，戛然中止；或即將盛開的花朵小幸被折了花苞；又像某物平空被鋸掉一截，因此，失去了它應有的形状。對這說法，我不以為然。倘若正如我不得不懷疑的，死者也能感受到離别的痛苦（這也許只是他們在煉獄中必須承受的痛苦之一），那麼，對兩個彼此相愛的人而言，對天下一切有情人而言，毫無例外地，死别正是戀愛經驗中普遍化的、不可或缺的一環。它随著婚姻而來，本是一種常態，正如婚姻随著戀愛或秋天随著夏天而來一樣。並非整個過程被攔腰一截，而是其中的一個段落。不是舞蹈的中場受挫，而是轉人下一回旋。當所愛的人活著時，我們為她而「忘我」，然後，當整部舞中悲劇的回旋臨到時，雖然她肉体的存在已被撤回，我們仍需學會「忘我」——愛她本人，而非退縮回去愛自己的過去、回憶、哀愁、無憂、甚或愛情。

驀然回首，我發現，不久以前，我還十分担心自己對她所在的記憶，唯恐它變得虚幻不實。由於某個原因，我已經不再担心這件事了。——体會到神的慈悲、良善，是我唯一想得出的原因。值得註意的是，我一停止懮慮，她似乎便随時在每一個角落與我相遇。「相遇」這個字太强烈。我所意味的，與顯靈或声音的再現無關，甚至也非意味在任何特定時刻所感受到的令人震顫的經驗。而是一種絕不突兀、瀰漫一切的感覺，覺得她像從前一樣，不折不扣，是個讓人輕慢不得的事實。

「輕慢不得」也許不是挺恰當的說法。乍聽之下，有如她是一把打仗用的斧鈸。怎樣說才妥切呢？「具有份量的實存」或「頑强的實在」？行嗎？經驗的本身似乎在對我說：「喏，現在，你可高興了。根據所發生的，她果真仍是個事實。不過，請記住，她之仍為事實這件事並非取決於你的好惡。」。

我已到達什麼地步？我想與另一類型的鰥夫差不多吧。對人們好奇的探問，他會停下來，靠在鋤把上，這樣回答：「謝謝你的關心，但請别過問。我的確擺脱不掉與她有關的一些令人魂縈夢牽的回憶。人人說這些回憶是被喚來審判我們的。」我與這位仁兄可謂半斤八兩。他用鋤頭，我，目前不善於挖土，用的是自己特有的工具。不過，「喚來審判我們的」這句話，需要正確地領會。神從未以實驗的方法測知我的信心或愛情到底属於何性質。他早就知道了，不知道的是我。在這個審判中，他讓我們同時處在被告席、証人席和審判席上。他一直都知道我的聖殿是紙叠的房子，唯一能讓我察覺這事實的方法是將它砸碎。

這麼快就痊愈了？不過，用詞還有點含糊不清。說病人接受了盲腸手術之後已經痊愈了，是一回事；說他一只脚被切除了之後已經痊愈了，又是另一回事。手術之後，這個人或残肢愈合了，或死了。如果愈合了，那劇烈、持續的疼痛會停止。不久，他將恢復体力，可以頂著木製義肢到處走動。他已「痊愈」了，但鋸掉的那條腿可能一輩子都會間歇性地作痛，而且，恐怕還蛮痛的。此外，他將永遠是個獨脚漢。同時，可能片刻也忘不了這個事實。洗澡時、穿衣時、坐下、起來，甚至躺在床上，都和從前不一樣了。他的整個生活方式都發生了變化。從前認為理所當然的各類樂趣和活動，都被迫取消了，職責亦然。目前，我正學習拄着拐杖到處走動。也許，不久會裝上義肢。然而，無論如何，我再也不是双脚健全的人了。

然而，不可否認的，就某層意義而言，我的確比從前「好多了」。随之而來的却是一種羞愧感，以及覺得有義務要盡量珍惜、醞釀、延續自己的哀傷。我曾從書中讀到有關這類的情緒，但作夢也想不到自己會有同樣的傾向。我明知她不會讚同的。她會叫我别作傻瓜。我也十分清楚神亦然。這類的感覺背後是什麽？。

無疑的，多少與虚荣有關。我們要向自己証明自己是個超級情人、悲劇英雄，不只是有親人亡故的芸芸眾生中的一個，日子照樣得過下去，勉强在那裡蹣跚向前。不過，這樣的解釋不够周全。

我想，還有一種混淆有待厘清。其實，我們所需要的並不是悲慟——尤其是初期的心理劇痛——延續下去：没有人受得了的、但是，我們却需要另一種東西——悲慟只是其中反覆出現的一種症状，而我們誤把症状當作事情的本身。前晚，我寫說，死别並非婚姻之愛的截断，而是固定會發生的一環——像蜜月一樣。我們所應自我期許的是好好享受婚姻生活，然後，忠實地度過這一悲傷的階段。如果它讓人心痛（絕對會的），便應接受痛苦乃是這階段不可或缺的一部分。我們不願以抛棄或離婚為代價逃避它，這等於叫死者死兩次。夫妻本為一体，現在既已被切割為二，我們不願假裝仍是完好無缺的整体。不過，婚姻仍然存在，我們仍在彼此戀慕着。所以，還會心痛。然而，畢竟不是為了心痛而心痛——如果我們够了解自己的話。其實，婚姻既能繼續保存，愈不悲慟，愈好。在死者與生者之間的婚姻裡，愈多喜樂，愈好。

在許多方面都是更好的，因為，正如我已發現的，激切的傷慟非但不能使我們與死者相遇，反而會切断彼此的連續。這是愈來愈清楚的事。就在那些我最不悲傷的時刻——晨澡通常是這樣的時刻——一她會突然湧上我的心頭，帶著十足的真實感——她那有别於我的個性；絕非那在我最凄慘的時刻，被我的哀愁矮化，顯得過度悲戚、莊嚴的她，而是她最泰然自若的樣子。這太美妙了，叫人精神為之一振。

我似乎能記得——雖然此刻無法随手摘引——在形形色色的歌謠和民間傳說裡，死者總是告訴生者切勿哀悼他們，這樣反而有害。他們懇求生者停止哀哭。這裡頭或許有比我所了解的更啟人深思的道理。果真如此，我們祖父輩的作法簡直太離譜了。那些「有時延續一輩子」的哀悼儀式——掃墓、守忌日；將空下來的寝室，依死者的習慣，保持原樣：或者完全不提死者，或者總用特别的声調提起；或甚至（像維多利亞女王）每晚用餐時，擺出死者的衣服——簡直可以媲美製作木乃她的習俗，反而使故人已死的事實更强烈地呈現出來。

或許這正是它「潛在」的目的，可能有極其原始的因素在其中作祟。使死者完完全全的死去，確定他們不再回到陽界來凑興，是野蛮的心靈最在意的一件事——不計一切代價，要讓死者「人土為安」。上述的儀式行為的確强調了死者已死的事實。也許，正如崇奉儀式的人所相信的，這樣的結果，人並作不樂於接受，有時這正是他們所要的。

不過，我實在不必費神去論断他們，一切都純属臆測。我最好好自為之。至少未來的計劃已有明顯的定案。我將快快樂樂地盡可能常常依偎她，我甚至應用爽朗的笑容迎接她。愈不哀悼她，愈能親近她。

這是一個令人讚嘆的計劃。不幸的是，無法實現。今夜，新的哀愁又像地獄一般轟然洞開了；狂亂的囈語、苦毒的怨恨、胃裡的翻攪、夢靨似的虚空。潸潸不止的淚水——因為，對哀慟中的人没有「人土為安」這件事。你不断從一個階段掙扎出來，但一個循環接一個循環，它總是重覆再現。我是否原地繞著圈子打轉？我爬的可是一道螺旋梯？若是螺旋梯，我正往上爬呢？還是往下爬？

多少回——難道永遠這樣「去」嗎？——無垠的虚空，像從末見過的事物乍然襲來，一再讓我驚駭莫名，我不断重覆喟嘆：「直到這一到，我才恍然大悟，明白自己失落了什麼。」同一只脚一次又一次地被切除。那刀子戳進肉裡的痛楚，我一而再，再而三捱受着。

他們說：「儒夫死幹回。」有愛的人亦然、那以普羅米修斯的肝臟果腹的蒼鷹，它每天所攫食的，豈不都是長回原樣的新肝？

　　

註：亞瑪森（Amazon ）是希腊神話中一個純由驍勇善戰的女傑組成的部落名稱，潘瑟西雷雅（Penthesileia）是這個部落的女王，在她的率領下，亞瑪森眾雌参與了特洛伊戰争，是特洛伊人的盟軍。在一場戰役中，潘瑟西雷雅為希腊名將阿契裡斯（Achilles）所殺。克密拉（Camilla）出現在味吉爾所著的羅馬建国史詩中,也是一位英氣凛人的女豪杰。

CHAPTER THREE

It’s not true that I’m always thinking of H. Work and conversation make that impossible. But the times when I’m not are perhaps my worst. For then, though I have forgotten the reason, there is spread over everything a vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss. Like in those dreams where nothing terrible occurs—nothing that would sound even remarkable if you told it at breakfast-time—but the atmosphere, the taste, of the whole thing is deadly. So with this. I see the rowan berries reddening and don’t know for a moment why they, of all things, should be depressing. I hear a clock strike and some quality it always had before has gone out of the sound. What’s wrong with the world to make it so flat, shabby, worn-out looking? Then I remember.

This is one of the things I’m afraid of. The agonies, the mad midnight moments, must, in the course of nature, die away. But what will follow? Just this apathy, this dead flatness? Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea?

Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead. From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.’s death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the programme. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accepted it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn’t for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people’s sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which ‘took these things into account’ was not faith but imagination. The taking them into account was not real sympathy. If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came. It has been an imaginary faith playing with innocuous counters labelled ‘Illness,’ ‘Pain,’ ‘Death,’ and ‘Loneliness.’ I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Now it matters, and I find I didn’t.

Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game ‘or else people won’t take it seriously.’ Apparently it’s like that. Your bid—for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity—will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man—or at any rate a man like me— out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.

And I must surely admit—H. would have forced me to admit in a few passes—that, if my house was a house of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better. And only suffering could do it. But then the Cosmic Sadist and Eternal Vivisector becomes an unnecessary hypothesis.

Is this last note a sign that I’m incurable, that when reality smashes my dream to bits, I mope and snarl while the first shock lasts, and then patiently, idiotically, start putting it together again? And so always? However often the house of cards falls, shall I set about rebuilding it? Is that what I’m doing now?

Indeed it’s likely enough that what I shall call, if it happens, a ‘restoration of faith’ will turn out to be only one more house of cards. And I shan’t know whether it is or not until the next blow comes— when, say, fatal disease is diagnosed in my body too, or war breaks out, or I have ruined myself by some ghastly mistake in my work. But there are two questions here. In which sense may it be a house of cards? Because the things I am believing are only a dream, or because I only dream that I believe them?

As for the things themselves, why should the thoughts I had a week ago be any more trustworthy than the better thoughts I have now? I am surely, in general, a saner man than I was then. Why should the desperate imaginings of a man dazed—I said it was like being concussed—be especially reliable?

Because there was no wishful thinking in them? Because, being so horrible, they were therefore all the more likely to be true? But there are fear-fulfillment as well as wish-fulfillment dreams. And were they wholly distasteful? No. In a way I liked them. I am even aware of a slight reluctance to accept the opposite thoughts. All that stuff about the Cosmic Sadist was not so much the expression of thought as of hatred. I was getting from it the only pleasure a man in anguish can get; the pleasure of hitting back. It was really just Billingsgate—mere abuse; ‘telling God what I thought of Him.’ And of course, as in all abusive language, ‘what I thought’ didn’t mean what I thought true. Only what I thought would offend Him (and His worshippers) most. That sort of thing is never said without some pleasure. Gets it ‘off your chest.’ You feel better for a moment.

But the mood is no evidence. Of course the cat will growl and spit at the operator and bite him if she can. But the real question is whether he is a vet or a vivisector. Her bad language throws no light on it one way or the other.

And I can believe He is a vet when I think of my own suffering. It is harder when I think of hers. What is grief compared with physical pain? Whatever fools may say, the body can suffer twenty times more than the mind. The mind has always some power of evasion. At worst, the unbearable thought only comes back and back, but the physical pain can be absolutely continuous. Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours of it with no let-up for a moment. Thought is never static; pain often is.

What sort of a lover am I to think so much about my affliction and so much less about hers? Even the insane call, ‘Come back,’ is all for my own sake. I never even raised the question whether such a return, if it were possible, would be good for her. I want her back as an ingredient in the restoration of my past. Could I have wished her anything worse? Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal?

I begin to see. My love for H. was of much the same quality as my faith in God. I won’t exaggerate, though. Whether there was anything but imagination in the faith, or anything but egoism in the love, God knows. I don’t. There may have been a little more; especially in my love for H. But neither was the thing I thought it was. A good deal of the card-castle about both.

What does it matter how this grief of mine evolves or what I do with it? What does it matter how I remember her or whether I remember her at all? None of these alternatives will either ease or aggravate her past anguish.

Her past anguish. How do I know that all her anguish is past? I never believed before—I thought it immensely improbable—that the faithfulest soul could leap straight into perfection and peace the moment death has rattled in the throat. It would be wishful thinking with a vengeance to take up that belief now. H. was a splendid thing; a soul straight, bright, and tempered like a sword. But not a perfected saint. A sinful woman married to a sinful man; two of God’s patients, not yet cured. I know there are not only tears to be dried but stains to be scoured. The sword will be made even brighter.

But oh God, tenderly, tenderly. Already, month by month and week by week you broke her body on the wheel whilst she still wore it. Is it not yet enough?

The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed—might grow tired of his vile sport—might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.

Either way, we’re for it.

What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?

Yet this is unendurable. And then one babbles—‘If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her.’ But one can’t tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it. If it suddenly became a real possibility, then, for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it. But is it ever allowed?

It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done. He replies to our babble, ‘You cannot and you dare not. I could and dared.’

Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. And I’d had a very tiring but very healthy twelve hours the day before, and a sounder night’s sleep; and after ten days of low hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness, the sun was shining and there was a light breeze. And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.

Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation? I might have said, ‘He’s got over it. He’s forgotten his wife,’ when the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’

Such was the fact. And I believe I can make sense out of it. You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have a real good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead? ‘Them as asks’ (at any rate ‘as asks too importunately’) don’t get. Perhaps can’t.

And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.

On the other hand, ‘Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? And there’s also ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity.

For all sorts of mistakes are possible when you are dealing with Him. Long ago, before we were married, H. was haunted all one morning as she went about her work with the obscure sense of God (so to speak) ‘at her elbow,’ demanding her attention. And of course, not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a question, as it usually is, of some unrepented sin or tedious duty. At last she gave in—I know how one puts it off—and faced Him. But the message was, ‘I want to give you something’ and instantly she entered into joy.

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontierpost across it. So many roads once; now so many culs de sac.

For a good wife contains so many persons in herself. What was H. not to me? She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My

mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more. If we had never fallen in love we should have none the less been always together, and created a scandal. That’s what I meant when I once praised her for her ‘masculine virtues.’ But she soon put a stop to that by asking how I’d like to be praised for my feminine ones. It was a good riposte, dear. Yet there was something of the Amazon, something of Penthesileia and Camilla. And you, as well as I, were glad it should be there. You were glad I should recognize it.

Solomon calls his bride Sister. Could a woman be a complete wife unless, for a moment, in one particular mood, a man felt almost inclined to call her Brother?

‘It was too perfect to last,’ so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic—as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He stopped it (‘None of that here!’). As if He were like the Hostess at the sherry-party who separates two guests the moment they show signs of having got into a real conversation. But it could also mean ‘This had reached its proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would not be prolonged.’ As if God said, ‘Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next.’ When you have learned to do quadratics and enjoy doing them you will not be set them much longer. The teacher moves you on.

For we did learn and achieve something. There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’ But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. ‘In the image of God created He them.’ Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes.

And then one or other dies. And we think of this as love cut short; like a dance stopped in mid-career or a flower with its head unluckily snapped off—something truncated and therefore, lacking its due shape. I wonder. If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer. It is not a truncation of the process but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure. We are ‘taken out of ourselves’ by the loved one while she is here. Then comes the tragic figure of the dance in which we must learn to be still taken out of ourselves though the bodily presence is withdrawn, to love the very Her, and not fall back to loving our past, or our memory, or our sorrow, or our relief from sorrow, or our own love.

Looking back, I see that only a very little time ago I was greatly about my memory of H. and how false it might become. For some reason—the merciful good sense of God is the only one I can think of—I have stopped bothering about that. And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering about it, she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. I don’t mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don’t mean even any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be taken into account.

‘To be taken into account’ is perhaps an unfortunate way of putting it. It sounds as if she were rather a battle-axe. How can I put it better? Would ‘momentously real’ or ‘obstinately real’ do? It is as if the experience said to me, ‘You are, as it happens, extremely glad that H. is still a fact. But remember she would be equally a fact whether you liked it or not. Your preferences have not been considered.’

How far have I got? Just as far, I think, as a widower of another sort who would stop, leaning on his spade, and say in answer to our inquiry, ‘Thank’ee. Mustn’t grumble. I do miss her something dreadful. But they say these things are sent to try us.’ We have come to the same point; he with his spade, and I, who am not now much good at digging, with my own instrument. But of course one must take ‘sent to try us’ the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off it is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.

Still, there’s no denying that in some sense I ‘feel better,’ and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one’s unhappiness. I’ve read about that in books, but I never dreamed I should feel it myself. I am sure H. wouldn’t approve of it. She’d tell me not to be a fool. So I’m pretty certain, would God. What is behind it?

Partly, no doubt, vanity. We want to prove to ourselves that we are lovers on the grand scale, tragic heroes; not just ordinary privates in the huge army of the bereaved, slogging along and making the best of a bad job. But that’s not the whole of the explanation.

I think there is also a confusion. We don’t really want grief, in its first agonies, to be prolonged: nobody could. But we want something else of which grief is a frequent symptom, and then we confuse the symptom with the thing itself. I wrote the other night that bereavement is not the truncation of married love but one of its regular phases—like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase too. If it hurts (and it certainly will) we accept the pains as a necessary part of this phase. We don’t want to escape them at the price of desertion or divorce. Killing the dead a second time. We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don’t want to pretend that it is whole and complete. We will be still married, still in love. Therefore we shall still ache. But we are not at all—if we understand ourselves—seeking the aches for their own sake. The less of them the better, so long as the marriage is preserved. And the more joy there can be in the marriage between dead and living, the better.

The better in every way. For, as I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This become clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow—getting into my morning bath is usually one of them—that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic.

I seem to remember—though I couldn’t quote one at the moment—all sorts of ballads and folktales in which the dead tell us that our mourning does them some kind of wrong. They beg us to stop it. There may be far more depth in this than I thought. If so, our grandfathers’ generation went very far astray. All that (sometimes lifelong) ritual of sorrow—visiting graves, keeping anniversaries, leaving the empty bedroom exactly as ‘the departed’ used to keep it, mentioning the dead either not at all or always in a special voice, or even (like Queen Victoria) having the dead man’s clothes put out for dinner every evening—this was like mummification. It made the dead far more dead.

Or was that (unconsciously) its purpose? Something very primitive may be at work here. To keep the dead thoroughly dead, to make sure that they won’t come sidling back among the living, is a main pre-occupation of the savage mind. At all costs make them ‘stay put.’ Certainly these rituals do in fact emphasize their deadness. Perhaps this result was not really so unwelcome, not always, as the ritualists believed.

But I’ve no business to judge them. All guesswork; I’d better keep my breath to cool my own porridge. For me at any rate the programme is plain. I will turn to her as often as possible in gladness. I will even salute her with a laugh. The less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her.

An admirable programme. Unfortunately it can’t be carried out. Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often—will it be for always?—how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, ‘I never realized my loss till this moment’? The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.

They say, ‘The coward dies many times’; so does the beloved. Didn’t the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?