尺素寸心(汉英对照).doc

尺素寸心
尺素寸心
Thus Friends Absent Speak
余光中
Written by Yu Guangzhong and Translated by David Pollard 
接读朋友的来信，尤其是远自海外犹带着异国风云的航空信，确是人生一大快事，如果无须回信的话。回信，是读信之乐的一大代价。久不回信，屡不回信，接信之乐必然就相对减少，以致于无，这时，友情便暂告中断了，直到有一天在赎罪的心情下，你毅然回起信来。磋砣了这么久，接信之乐早变成欠信之苦，我便是这么一位累犯的罪人，交游千百，几乎每一位朋友都数得出我的前科来的。
To get letters from friends, especially airmail letters from overseas that bear the stamp of exotic climes, is unquestionably one of life’s greatest pleasures, provided, that is, that they do not call for a reply. Answering letters is a heavy price to pay for the enjoyment of reading letters. The inevitable consequence of tardiness or infrequency in answering letters is a corresponding reductioning, and ultimate cessation of, the pleasure of receiving letters, in which case friendship is prematurely broken off, until the day in sackcloth and ashes you summon up the willpower to put pen to paper again. Through this dilly-sallying the pleasure of receiving letters has turned to the misery of owing letters. I am an old lag in this respect: practically every one of the friends I have made in my comings and goings can recite from my crime sheet.
英国诗人奥登曾说，他常常搁下重要的信件不回，躲在家里看他的侦探小说。王尔德有一次对韩黎说：“我认得不少人，满怀光明的远景来到伦敦，但是几个月后就整个崩溃了，因为他们有回信的习惯。”显然王尔德认为，要过好日子，就得戒除回信的恶习。可见怕回信的人，原不止我一个。
W. H. Auden once admitted that he was in the habit of shelving important letters, preferring instead to curl up with a detective novel; while Oscar Wilde remarked to Henley: “I have known men come to London full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters.” Clearly Wilde’s view was that to enjoy life one should renounce the bad habit of answering letters. So I am not the only one to be faint-hearted in the regard.
回信，固然可畏，不回信，也绝非什么乐事。书架上经常叠着百多封未回之信，“债龄”或长或短，长的甚至一年以上，那样的压力，也绝非一个普通的罪徒所能负担的。一叠未回的信，就像一群不散的阴魂，在我罪深孽重的心底幢幢作祟。理论上说来，这些信当然是要回的。我可以坦然向天发誓，在我清醒的时刻，我绝未存心不回人信。问题出在技术上。给我一整个夏夜的空间，我该先回一年半前的那封信呢，还是七个月前的这封信？隔了这么久，恐怕连谢罪自谴的有效期也早过了吧。在朋友的心目中，你早已沦为不值得计较的妄人。“莫名其妙！”是你在江湖上一致的评语。
If it is conceded that replying to letters is to be dreaded, on the other hand not replying to letters is by no means a matter of unalloyed bliss. Normally a hundred or so letters are stacked on my bookshelf, of diverse maturity of debt outstanding, the longest being over a year. That kind of pressure is more than an ordinary sinner can bear. A stack of unanswered letters battens on me like a bevy of plaintive ghosts and plays havoc with my smitten conscience. In principle the letters are there for replying to. I can swear in all honesty that I have never while of sound mind determined not to answer people’s letters. The problem is a technical one. Suppose I had a whole summer night at my disposal: should I first answer the letter that was sent eighteen months ago, or that one that was sent seven months ago? After such a long delay even the expiry date for apology and self-recrimination would surely have passed? In your friends’ eyes, you have already stepped beyond the pale, are of no account. On the grapevine your reputation is “that impossible fellow”.
其实，即使终于鼓起全部的道德勇气，坐在桌前，准备偿付信债于万一，也不是轻易能如愿的。七零八落的新简旧信，漫无规则地充塞在书架上，抽屉里，有的回过，有的未回，“只在此山中，云深不知处”，要找到你决心要回的那一封，耗费的时间和精力，往往数倍于回信本身。再想象朋友接信时的表情，不是喜出望外，而是余怒重炽，你那一点决心就整个崩溃了。你的债，永无清偿之日。
Actually even if you screw up all your moral courage and settle down at you desk to pay off your letter debt come what may, the thing is easier said than done. Old epistles and new missives are jumbled up together and stuffed in the drawers or strewn on shelves; some have been answered, some not. As the poet was told about the recluse he was looking for: “I know he’s in these mountains, but in this mist I can’t tell where.” The time and energy you would spend to find the letter you have decided to answer would be several times that needed to write the reply itself. If you went on to anticipate that your friend’s reaction to receiving your letter would be less “surprised by joy” than “resentment rekindled”, then your marrow would turn to water, and your debt would never be cleared.
不回信，绝不等于忘了朋友，正如世上绝无忘了债主的负债人。在你惶恐的深处，恶魇的尽头，隐隐约约，永远潜伏着这位朋友的怒眉和冷眼，不，你永远忘不了他。你真正忘掉的，而且忘得那么心安理得，是那些已经得你回信的朋友。
To leave letters unanswered is not equivalent to forgetting friends, no more than it is conceivable that debtors can forget their creditors. At the bottom of such disquietude, at the end of your nightmares, there forever lurks the shadowy presence of this friend with his angry frown and baleful looks: no, you can never forget him. Those who you really put out of your mind, and do so without qualm, are those friends who have already been replied to.