第四章（第5/7页）

“亲爱的克利福德，想想我们互相议论的样子吧，我们所有人。我本人就是其中最为恶劣的一个。因为我宁愿被咬牙切齿地痛恨，也不愿接受惺惺作态的奉承，因为那些跟毒药无异。若我开始对克利福德大肆吹捧，说你如何出色，如何优秀，那么克利福德这家伙就实在可怜。看在上帝的份上，拜托各位，请尽量说我的坏话吧，最起码这样还说明你们把我放在眼里。收起那些甜言蜜语，不然我就完了。”“哦，可是我真的认为咱们之间是真诚地互相喜欢的。”哈蒙德说。

"I tell you we must...we say such spiteful things to one another, about one another, behind our backs! I'm the worst.” "And I do think you confuse the mental life with the critical activity. I agree with you, Socrates gave the critical activity a grand start, but he did more than that," said Charlie May, rather magisterially. The cronies had such a curious pomposity under their assumed modesty. It was all so EX CATHEDRA , and it all pretended to be so humble.

“我可以肯定地告诉你……我们背地里都没少说彼此的坏话！而我更是其中最坏的一个。”“我想你准是把精神生活和现实的批评混为一谈了。你说的没错，苏格拉底确实开创了批评之风，但他的功绩绝非仅此一桩。”查理·梅一本正经地说。这帮好友们个个自命不凡，表面上却装出温恭自谦的样子。虽然自认为是绝对权威，但仍勉为其难，假作谦谦君子。

Dukes refused to be drawn about Socrates.

杜克斯就此打住，再也不提苏格拉底半字。

"That's quite true, criticism and knowledge are not the same thing," said Hammond.

“说得没错，批评和知识根本不是一码事。”哈蒙德说。

"They aren't, of course," chimed in Berry, a brown, shy young man, who had called to see Dukes, and was staying the night.

“当然是两回事。”贝里附和道。这位有着褐色头发的腼腆青年专程来找杜克斯，夜间便留宿拉格比。

They all looked at him as if the ass had spoken.

所有人都将目光转移到他身上，好像听见驴子开口说话了。

"I wasn't talking about knowledge… I was talking about the mental life," laughed Dukes. "Real knowledge comes out of the whole corpus of the consciousness; out of your belly and your penis as much as out of your brain and mind. The mind can only analyse and rationalize. Set the mind and the reason to cock it over the rest, and all they can do is to criticize, and make a deadness. I say ALL they can do. It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticizing today...criticizing to death. Therefore let's live the mental life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show. But, mind you, it's like this: while you live your life, you are in some way an Organic whole with all life. But once you start the mental life you pluck the apple. You've severed the connexion between, the apple and the tree: the organic connexion. And if you've got nothing in your life but the mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple...you've fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as it's a natural necessity for a plucked apple to go bad.” Clifford made big eyes: it was all stuff to him. Connie secretly laughed to herself.

“我说的不是知识……而是精神生活。”杜克斯笑道。“真正的知识来源自意识的整个躯体，不但来自头脑和心灵，而且来自腹部甚至生殖器。借助思维，我们仅能分析和推理。如果让思维和理性占据上风，那么所能做的就只剩下批评，扼杀一切。除此之外，没有其他事可做。批评的作用举足轻重。天呐，当今世界简直太需要批评了……一针见血的批评。那么，就让我们活在自己的精神世界中吧，以被仇视为荣，戳穿那陈腐的老把戏。但是，需要提醒各位的是：当你置身于现实生活，只不过是和其他生命共同组成一个有机的整体。然而一旦开启精神生活，就好比将苹果从树上摘下来。切断了苹果与树之间的联系，那种有机的联系。如果除了精神生活，你一无所有，那么你就成了一颗被摘下来的苹果……已然从树上坠落。这样一来，仇视一切就成为合乎情理的需要，就像被摘下来的苹果必然会慢慢腐烂一样。”克利福德瞪大了眼睛：这席话对于他来说简直毫无意义。康妮不禁暗自发笑。

"Well then we're all plucked apples," said Hammond, rather acidly and petulantly.

“那么，大家都变成摘下来的苹果了。”哈蒙德的语气中包含着嘲讽和愠怒。

"So let's make cider of ourselves," said Charlie.

“倒是可以用自己来酿苹果酒。”查理说。

"But what do you think of Bolshevism?" put in the brown Berry, as if everything had led up to it.

“可你们对布尔什维主义有什么高见呢？”棕发的贝里再度插话道，好像之前所说的一切都是为此做的铺垫。

"Bravo!" roared Charlie. "What do you think of?" "Come on! Let's make hay of Bolshevism!

“妙啊！”查理叫道，“你们对布尔什维主义有什么看法？”“来吧！让布尔什维主义见鬼去吧！”杜克斯说。

"I'm afraid Bolshevism is a large question," said Hammond, shaking his head seriously.

“恐怕这个问题有些复杂。”哈蒙德神情严肃地摇摇头。

"Bolshevism, it seems to me," said Charlie, "is just a superlative hatred of the thing they call the bourgeois; and what the bourgeois is, isn't quite defined. It is Capitalism, among other things. Feelings and emotions are also so decidedly bourgeois that you have to invent a man without them.

“对我而言，”查理说，“布尔什维克对他们所谓的资产阶级恨之入骨，至于资产阶级到底作何解释，并没有确切的定义。首先，它必须是资本主义的。既然感情和理智都被界定为资产阶级的范畴，因此布尔什维克就肯定是不具备这二者的群体。

"Then the individual, especially the personal man, is bourgeois: so he must be suppressed. You must submerge yourselves in the greater thing, the Soviet-social thing. Even an organism is bourgeois: so the ideal must be mechanical. The only thing that is a unit, non-organic, composed of many different, yet equally essential parts, is the machine. Each man a machine-part, and the driving power of the machine, hate...hate of the bourgeois. That, to me, is Bolshevism.” "Absolutely!" said Tommy. "But also, it seems to me a perfect description of the whole of the industrial ideal. It's the factory-owner's ideal in a nut-shell; except that he would deny that the driving power was hate. Hate it is, all the same; hate of life itself. Just look at these Midlands, if it isn't plainly written up...but it's all part of the life of the mind, it's a logical development.” "I deny that Bolshevism is logical, it rejects the major part of the premisses," said Hammond.