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我們一起進入英語的世界。你的轉發，將是對我們最大的鼓勵，O(∩_∩)O謝謝。
What Exactly Is the Innocence of Childhood?
What is it that is most appealing about children? Is it simply their physical beauty? Is it their openness to loving and being loved? Their playfulness, their innate humor? Beyond these things, in my view, children are beautiful because they possess something that we have all lost—the quality of innocence.
兒童最吸引人的是什麼呢？僅僅是他們的外表可愛？還是他們對愛與被愛都毫無掩飾的率真？是他們喜歡嬉鬧的天性，還是他們與生俱來的幽默？撇開這些不說，在我看來，兒童之美在於他們擁有一種我們都已失去的品性——純真。
Innocence is not merely lovely; it is heartbreaking because it represents Housman’s “blue remember’d hills” … the “happy highways where I went/and cannot come again.”
純真不僅可愛，還使人憂傷，因為它代表著豪斯曼筆下“記憶中的碧綠青山”……“我曾經走過的快樂公路/卻永不再來”。
The gap between innocence and experience is endlessly explored, like a gap in a tooth, by artists and writers. I have felt in exile ever since childhood—not as a result of some traumatic experience, but the simple, slow dimmer switch (調光器；亮度調節開關) of time passing and imagination coarsening (變粗糙).
藝術家和作家不厭其煩地探索著純真與經驗之間的距離，就像在不停地舔牙齒上的牙洞那樣。自童年之後，我就一直有一種流落異鄉的感覺——不是因為我曾遭受過某種創傷，而是因為荏苒的時光和豐富的想象力就像裝上了調光器，就那樣慢慢地黯淡下去。
But what is innocence? Like St Augustine on the subject of Time, “If you do not ask me what time is, I know it; if you ask me, I do not know.”
但到底什麼是純真呢？正如聖奧古斯丁在談及時間時所說的那樣：“何謂時間？你若不問，我倒還知道；你若問我，我反而不知。”
When I watch my youngest daughter, Louise, playing for an hour with Sylvanian Families (“森林家族”系列動物玩偶), singing to herself, I know I see it. When I watch my 10-year-old, Eva, dancing as if no one is watching, I know I am also seeing it. But it is ineffable (言語難以表達的).
當我看到我最小的女兒露易絲一邊哼著歌，一邊擺弄森林家族的玩偶，一玩就是一小時，我知道那就是純真。當我看到我十歲的女兒伊娃旁若無人地跳著舞，我知道那也是純真。但純真的確難以言表。
It is, at one level, a rarefied (脫離普通人和現實生活的) quality of ignorance. To not grasp imaginatively that death will come. To believe in the irrational—Santa Claus, fairies, monsters under the bed. And, of course, the myth of the infinite power and goodness of parents.
從某一層面來說，純真是一種常人難懂的無知。即不去富於想象地認為死亡終會到來，而去相信那些荒誕的東西——聖誕老人、仙子，還有床底下的怪物。當然，還有相信父母具有無所不能的力量，是慈愛善良的化身。
This is perhaps the hardest part of all innocence to let go of. My eldest, Jean, nowadays seems perpetually disappointed in me and I can only ascribe this to the fact that I have let her down by proving unable to either be perfect or protect her against the world. After all, she was forced to face the separation of her parents when she was only six years old. But I feel, self-defensively perhaps, that her disappointment is more about her particular loss of what we all must lose.
這也許是一切純真最難以割捨的東西。我的大女兒吉恩近來似乎不斷對我失望，而我只能將其歸結於一個事實，那就是我通過證明自己既不完美，也不能保護她免受這個世界的傷害而讓她失望了。畢竟，她在只有六歲的時候就不得不面對父母的分居。但我卻認為，也許這樣說是在為自己辯解，她的失望更多是因為她失去了我們每個人都必定會失去的東西。
Innocence goes deeper than ignorance. It is some mysterious operation of the imagination, the part that can enter into mental universes from which one is soon to be forever excluded. I have my own particular recollection of this.
純真不僅僅是無知。它是想象力的某種神秘運作，人們能夠憑其進入某種精神世界，但很快就將被這一世界永久地拒之門外。對此，我有自己獨特的記憶。
Every year from when I was of reading age, I was given a Rupert the Bear annual for Christmas and every Christmas day I fell upon it with a passion, losing myself in the mysterious tales of wizards and sea-gods and wood sprites. Then one year I picked up the annual and could not “get into it.” It was just a book with pictures and a story. I could no longer enter its portal and inhabit its world.
從我能讀書時起，每年我都會收到一本《魯珀特熊》的年刊作為聖誕禮物，而每年聖誕節我都會興致勃勃地拿起這本書，沉浸在由巫師、海神和森林精靈組成的神秘世界中。然而有一年，我拿著那本年刊卻無法“讀進去”。它成了一本帶插圖的普通故事書。我再也無法進入它的大門，生活在其中的世界。
Even now I remember the sting of disappointment. My wife thought I was mad when last year I bought a large painting of Rupert from the artist Mark Manning (who has done a series depicting scenes from Nutwood (納特伍德村，小熊魯珀特的居住地)). But I suppose therein lies the explanation.
即使現在，我仍然記得那種失望的刺痛。去年，我從畫家馬克·曼寧那裡購買了一幅魯珀特熊的大幅油畫(他畫了一系列取材於納特伍德的油畫)，妻子覺得我瘋了。但我認為這就是最好的解釋。
Innocence is also the growth of self-consciousness, perhaps the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” referred to in the story of Adam and Eve. Perhaps you are thrown out into a world bled (使褪色) of color and meaning and spend your life trying to regain it.
純真也意味著自我意識的增長，也許這就是亞當與夏娃的故事裡所說的那棵“能使人分辨善惡的智慧樹”。也許你被拋入了一個逐漸失去色彩與意義的世界，而你一生都在試圖將其找回。
But can you regain it? Not in its original form, certainly. But sometimes, now I am growing older, I feel shadows of my ancient innocence in the night sky, in the song of birds, in the earth’s breathing out of white and pink blossoms.
但你能找回嗎？當然再也無法找回其原來的樣子。但隨著年歲的增長，有時我會感受到那久已失去的純真的影子出現在夜空，出現在鳥兒的歌聲裡，出現在土地上綻放的潔白的、粉紅的花朵裡。
I am unlearning all the things I have been taught in life, and perhaps this, as well as the more tragic meaning, is what Shakespeare talked of when he wrote that the final age of man is:
我正在拋卻生活所教給我的一切，而這一點及其所蘊含的更具悲劇性的意義，也許就是莎士比亞在作品中談到人生的最後階段時所說的：
“Last scene of all,
“最後一場，
That ends this strange eventful history,
結束了這出奇怪多事的史劇，
Is second childishness and mere oblivion (遺忘).”
是重來的童真，全然的遺忘。
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