双语对照 ● 罗素论爱 Russell on Affection
■ 罗素论爱 Russell on Affection
◎ Russell
The best type of affection is reciprocally[100] life-giving; each receives affection with joy and gives it without effort, and each finds the whole world more interesting in consequence of the existence of this reciprocal happiness. There is, however, another kind, by no means uncommon, in which one person sucks the vitality of the other, one receives what the other gives, but gives almost nothing in return.
最好的那种爱是能让彼此愉快的爱；彼此很愉快地接受，很自然地给予，并且因为有了这种互利互惠的快乐，彼此都觉得这个世界变得更加有趣。然而，还有一种并不罕见的爱，那就是一方吸收着另一方的活力，接受着另一方的给予，而对另一方却毫无回报。
Some very vital people belong to this bloodsucking type. They extract the vitality from one victim after another, but while they prosper and grow interesting, those upon whom they live grow pale and dim[101] and dull. Such people use others as means to their own ends, and never consider them as ends in themselves. Fundamentally[102] they are not interested in those whom for the moment they think they love; they are interested only in the stimulus to their own activities, perhaps of a quite impersonal sort.
那些生命力极其旺盛的人就属于这吸血的一类。他们把一个又一个受害者的活力吸尽，然而，当他们越发生机勃勃、兴致盎然的时候，那些受害者却变得越来越苍白、黯淡和迟钝。这些人将他人当成自己实现最终目标的工具，却从不考虑他人也有自己的目标。他们一时以为自己很爱那些人，但其实他们根本就对那些人不感兴趣；他们感兴趣的是给自己的活动添加的刺激，而他们的活动可能也是属于毫无人情味可言的。
Evidently this springs from some defect in their nature, but it is one not altogether easy either to diagnose or to cure. It is a characteristic frequently associated with great ambition, and is rooted, I should say, in an unduly one-sided view of what makes human happiness. Affection in the sense of a genuine reciprocal interest of two persons in each other, not solely as means to each other’s good, but rather as a combination having a common good, is one of the most important elements of real happiness, and the man whose ego is so enclosed within steel walls that this enlargement of it is impossible misses the best that life has to offer, however successful he may be in his career. A too powerful ego is a prison from which a man must escape if he is to enjoy the world to the full. A capacity for genuine affection is one of the marks of the man who has escaped from this prison of self. To receive affection is by no means enough; affection which is received should liberate the affection which is to be given, and only where both exist in equal measure does affection achieve its best possibilities.
显然，这种情况源于他们本性上的某种缺陷，但这种缺陷不容易诊断或治愈。它往往和野心有关，我必须说，同时也是由于总是不恰当地从单方面考虑世间幸福的缘故。两个人相互关心意义上的爱，不仅是促进彼此幸福的手段，还是促进共同幸福的手段，是影响真正幸福的最重要因素之一。凡是把自己禁锢起来的人，无论他在事业上取得了多大的成功，他都必将错失人生中最好的东西。太强的自我就如一座监狱，如果你想充分地享受人生，那就必须先从那座监狱中逃脱。仅仅接受爱是远远不够的；接受的爱应该是能激发你也献出自己的爱，只有接受的爱和释放的爱等量存在时，爱才能达到它的最佳状态。
From Russell’s Views on Life
选自《罗素论人生》
