Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook thatinnocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing?clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.
曾經在一個干燥的季節里，我煩躁地在攤開的筆記本上奮力寫道：當一個人喜歡自己的妄想被剝奪時，無辜感也就逝去了。盡管多年以后的現在，我驚異于自我異化的大腦原本應該記住每一次痛苦，但竟然沒有。不過即使這樣，我依然可以清晰地嗅到了如塵埃般、令人尷尬的那些瞬間的味道。那是放錯位了的自尊。
I had not been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. This failure could scarcely have been more?predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was unnerved by?it; I had somehow thought myself a kind of academic Raskolnikov, curiously exempt?from the cause-effect relationships which hampered others. Although even the humorless?nineteen-year-old that I was must have recognized that the situation lacked real tragic?stature, the day that I did not make Phi Beta Kappa nonetheless marked the end of?something, and innocence may well be the word for it. I lost the conviction that lights?would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues?which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta?Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching?faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proved competence on the?Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I?faced myself that day with the nonplussed apprehension of someone who has come?across a vampire and has no crucifix at hand.
我未能入選美國大學優等生榮譽學會，這次失敗原本早已料到（我僅僅是沒有成績），這點很清楚，但我卻因此而失落了。一直以來我覺得自己就是學科上的Raskolnikov，因果關系能束縛別人，卻束縛不了我。盡管我只是個毫無幽默感的19歲女孩，也早已意識到環境沒有真正的悲劇色彩，但我沒有入選美國優等生榮譽學會的那天，確實標志著某種東西的結束，“純真”也許就是這種東西的最好指代。我失去了陽光總能為我帶來希望的堅強信念；也不再欣然地肯定那些能使我自小就贏得贊許的天生麗質，它們都賦予了我，不僅是美國優等生榮譽學會中的重要人物，還有快樂、光榮和一個好男人的愛情；還失去了某種對諸如優雅的舉止、干凈的頭發和在比奈年上公認的能力等等圖騰式魔力的虔誠信仰。我的自尊依附于這些令人懷疑的護身符上，直到我那一天感受到：如同突然遇到一個吸血鬼，手上卻沒有十字架的保護，那種不知所措的驚慌的感覺。
Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to?cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary?to the beginnings of real self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-?deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for?nothing in that well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself; no winning?smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in?vain through one’s marked cards – the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent?triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been?shamed. The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others?– who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as?Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without.
盡管遭遇挫折，大不了就是一件不安的事情，就好像試圖拿著借來的證件過境一樣，但在我看來，現在第一要緊的事就是重新建立真正的自尊。盡管我們大多數的陳詞濫調都表明自欺是沒有用的。對別人起作用的小把戲，實質上毫無用處，因為在亮堂堂的后巷，自己清楚自己干了些什么：這兒沒有迷人的微笑，沒有什么好心好意粉飾自己，只有直白的面對自己。在心底飛快地回想那些做的不合適的事情——另有企圖的做好事，沒付出真正努力就獲得成功，倍感羞愧而做成的英雄事跡，自尊與他人的贊許沒有關聯，別人畢竟還是很好欺騙的；自尊也同名譽無關，正如白瑞德告訴斯佳麗那樣，勇敢的人沒有名譽也能完成。這是一個令人很難過的事實。
To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an?interminable documentary that deals one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh?footage spliced in for every screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the?hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see?how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond?the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet,?counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly?broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However?long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed,?the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether?or not we respect ourselves.
另一方面，沒有自尊的去做事，就像做一個不情愿的觀眾，觀看記錄自己失敗的冗長的記錄片一樣，這種失敗既有現實的，又有虛幻的。每回想起一個失誤就發現更多的失誤。例如：生氣時你摔碎了玻璃；看那，某人臉上有你打過的痕跡；下一幕中，某人從休斯敦回來，你沒有接待他。沒有自尊的活著就如同某個晚上躺著睡不著，沒有溫牛奶、安眠藥和拍著手入眠，數著因小罪疏忽造成的罪行、背叛的信任、巧妙違背的謊言，和由于懶惰、怯懦或粗心而無可挽回的浪費了的才能。無論我們躲避多久，最終還是要獨自睡在那張自己給自己做的聲名狼藉的不舒服的床上。我們能否會睡在其上，當然就要看我們能否尊重自己了。
To protest that some fairly improbable people, some people who could not possibly?respect themselves, seem to sleep easily enough is to miss the point entirely, as surely as?those people miss it who think that self-respect has necessarily to do with not having?safety pins in one’s underwear. There is a common superstition that “self-respect” is a?kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some?unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It?does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate?peace, a private reconciliation. Although the careless, suicidal Julian English in?Appointment in Samara and the careless, incurably dishonest Jordan Baker in The Great?Gatsby seem equally improbably candidates for self-respect, Jordan Baker had it, Julian?English did not. With that genius for accommodation more often seen in women than?men, Jordan took her own measure, made her own peace, avoided threats to that peace: “I?hate careless people,” she told Nick Carraway. “It takes two to make an accident.”
有人反對說：相當一部分不大可能發生上述情況的沒有自尊的人，似乎睡的挺安穩。他們完全沒有理解自尊的重要性，確如那些根本就沒有自尊的人，他們認為自尊和在貼身內衣里不帶安全別針之間有著必然的聯系。還有一種常見的迷信，認為自尊是一種驅邪的信物，有了自尊就能在永恒的伊甸園里有一席之地，一般還能避開死亡之床、捉摸不透談話和麻煩。事實上并非如此。自尊和這些沒有什么關系，相反卻和獨自的平靜、個人的和諧有關。盡管在《薩馬拉的會合》中馬虎、自殺了的Julian English和《偉大的蓋茨比》中粗心、不忠實的Jordan Baker看起來都能成為更有自尊的典型。但實際上，Jordan Baker有自尊，而Julian English沒有。女人比男人有更強的適應能力，憑著這種天賦，Jordan有她自己的一套方法，創造了她自己的寧靜，并避開了對其寧靜的威脅，“我憎惡粗心的人”，她對Nick Carraway說“一般要兩個人出事故”。
Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. The?know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running,?in an excess of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do?they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named?co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of?moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although?approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable?virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in?connection with homely children and United States senators who have been defeated,?preferably in the primary, for reelection. Nonetheless, character – the willingness to?accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.
就像Jordan Baker那樣，有自尊的人能勇敢的面對他們的錯誤。他們知道犯錯的代價，如果他們選擇了與人通奸，完后并不跑掉，而是良心發現的去獲得受害方的寬恕；他們也不過多的抱怨不公平，及被人指責為通奸的不應得的難堪。簡而言之，有自尊的人展現給我們一種堅強、一種道德的勇氣；顯示出以前所謂的性格，也就是在理論上被贊同，有時卻讓位于更多變的柔弱特性。自尊的日漸衰弱的重要性體現在人們常常把它僅僅與丑孩子和那些在初選就被淘汰下來的美國參議員聯系起來。可是，這種樂意接受個人生活中的責任的品格，正是自尊的源泉。
Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all?about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by?doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side,?by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible,?comforts. It seemed to the nineteenth century admirable, but not remarkable, that Chinese?Gordon put on a clean white suit and held Khartoum against the Mahdi; it did not seem?unjust that the way to free land in California involved death and difficulty and dirt. In a?diary kept during the winter of 1846, an emigrating twelve-year-old named Narcissa?Cornwall noted coolly: “Father was busy reading and did not notice that the house was?being filled with strange Indians until Mother spoke out about it.” Even lacking any clue?as to what Mother said, one can scarcely fail to be impressed by the entire incident: the?father reading, the Indians filing in, the mother choosing the words that would not alarm,?the child duly recording the event and noting further that those particular Indians were?not, “fortunately for us,” hostile. Indians were simply part of the donnee.
我們的祖輩清楚地知道什么是自尊，不管他們是不是擁有自尊。在很小的時候，他們就灌輸了一定的訓練和意識：活著就要去做自己并不是特別想做的事情，一面要忍受恐懼和擔憂，一面又要權衡今生今世的幸福和來生來世的更大不可能得到的幸福。1846年冬天里的一篇日記里，12歲的移民孩子Narcissa Corwall 冷靜地寫道：“爸爸忙著看報并沒有注意到房子里到處都是陌生的印第安人，一直到媽媽告訴他。”有關媽媽到底說了什么，這里并沒有具體記錄，即使如此，也能對整個事件留下深刻的印象：爸爸讀著報紙，印第安人魚貫而入，媽媽小心翼翼地說盡量不驚動他們的話，孩子適時地記錄了這件事，而沒有任何關于這些印第安人對我們不友好、敵意的話語。印第安人只是這個主題的一部分。
In one guise or another, Indians always are. Again, it is a question of recognizing that?anything worth having has its price. People who respect themselves are willing to accept?the risk that the Indians will be hostile, that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison?may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday because you’re married to me.?They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when?they do play, they know the odds.
無論怎樣裝扮，印第安人總是在那里。而且，應該意識到這個問題：任何事都是要付出代價。自尊的人情愿接受：印第安人有敵意的冒險，投資的倒閉和并非因為你嫁給了我而使每天都成為假日的婚姻。他們樂于拿個人的東西冒險：他們也許不會去賭博，但只要賭了就知道其中的機會。
That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can?be developed, trained, coaxed forth. It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to?crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason,?something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is?incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in?Wuthering Heights with one’s head in a Food Fair bag. There is a similar case for all the?small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any kind of swoon,?commiserative or carnal, in a cold shower.
那種自尊是一種修養，不能偽裝，卻能進一步培養訓練和諄諄教誨的心態。以前，我有一種哭的對策，就是把頭放進紙袋里。所以如此有其確切的生理原因：生物需要氧氣正常運作；但光有生理效應也不足以解釋；很難繼續想象自己就是《呼嘯山莊》里的把頭套在食品袋里的凱瑟琳。所有的小的修養，雖然本身并不重要，但它們都有相似之處，想象獲得任何的陶醉，令人同情、肉欲的沖著冷水澡。
But those small disciplines are valuable only insofar as they represent larger ones. To say?that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton is not to say that Napoleon might?have been saved by a crash program in cricket; to give formal dinners in the rain forest?would be pointless did not the candlelight flickering on the liana call forth deeper,?stronger disciplines, values instilled long before. It is a kind of ritual, helping us to?remember who and what we are. In order to remember it, one must have known it.
但那些小訓練只有當它們代表著更大的美德時才有價值。如果說滑鐵盧戰役在伊頓學院的操場上進行的話，也并不是說拿破侖能通過調整打板球的緊急計劃而獲勝；如果樹藤上閃爍的燭光不能喚起更深、更堅強的修養和以前灌輸的美德的話，那么在雨林中舉行正式的會餐將毫無意義。自尊是一種儀式，幫助我們記住我們是誰，我們是干什么的。為了記住它，人本來早已知道了自尊。
To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to?have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is?to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we?do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few?resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal?weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously?determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notion of us. We?flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gift for?imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca?to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced,?no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play?roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the?urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.
有了組成的內在價值的感覺，就可能已經擁有了一切：區分的能力，愛和保持平淡的能力。缺乏自尊如同自我封閉，同時不能擁有愛和保持平常心。如果我們不再擁有自尊：那么一方面我們被迫輕視那些與我們聯系較少、對我們的致命弱點缺少了解的人；另一方面，我們尤其受我們所見的每一個人的束縛：注定受他們觀點的影響而活著，因為我們自己的自我形象是那么不堪一擊，這種自我形象是他們對我們的錯誤觀念。我們自欺欺人，把這種被迫去討好別人當作一個優秀品質：一種想象的移情作用的關鍵，我們自愿對這些做出強有力的證明。當然，我對polo而扮演Francesca，會為任何一個人的Annie Sullivan而扮演Helen Keller：任何期待怎么離譜都不過分，任何角色怎么離奇都不過分。受這些人的支配，我們只能輕視，只能扮演注定要失敗的角色，在這些角色未開始之前，每次失敗在占卜和預見對我們所做的下一個要求的急需條件下都會產生新的失望。
It is the phenomenon sometimes called “alienation from self.” In its advanced stages, we?no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could?say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter?demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small?as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out?of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the?expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular?power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one?runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.
這是一種有時被稱為“自我疏遠”的現象，達到嚴重程度時，我們會因為某人可能要某樣東西，而不再給他回電話。而那種接了別人的電話一口回絕但又不陷入自責的情況，就另當別論了。每次經歷都需要消耗很多東西：消磨勇氣，消耗意志。一封信不回就耿耿于懷，內疚越積越多，所以回信就不可能了，對于未回信件要給予它適當的重要性，把我們從別人的期待中解脫出來，找回自我，這只有自尊的人才能做到。沒有了自尊，我們終將發現我們處于螺母滑絲般的困境：我們總是跑出去尋找自我，卻往往只能發現一個空虛內心。
