The late Booth Tarkington always said: "I could take anything that life could force upon me except one thing: blindness. I could never endure that."
已故的布斯•塔金頓常常掛在嘴邊的一句話就是："我能承受人生旅途上的任何苦難,可唯有一樣例外-失明.那是我永遠都無法承受的."
Then one day, when he was along in his sixties, Tarkington glanced down at the carpet on the floor. The colors were blurred. He couldn't see the pattern. He went to a specialist. He learned the tragic truth: he was losing his sight. One eye was nearly blind;the other would follow. That which he feared most had come upon him.
後來,到了六十多歲的時候,有一天,塔金頓低頭看著地毯,發現地毯的色彩開始變得模糊不清.他根本無法看清花紋的樣式.塔金頓隨即去找了一位眼科專家,最終得知了那個不幸的噩耗：自己正在逐漸喪失視力,有一隻眼差不多已經失明瞭,而另一隻眼情況也不容樂觀.他最擔心的事情最終還是發生了.
And how did Tarkington react to this "worst of all disasters?" Did he feel: "This is it! This is the end of my life?" No, to his amazement, he felt quite gay. He even called upon his humor.
塔金頓是如何對待這種"災難性的打擊"呢?他是不是認為"這就是我的人生,我的一生就這麼完了"呢?沒有,令他自己吃驚的是,他感到開心,甚至還不失幽默.
Floating "specks" annoyed him; they would swim across his eyes and cut off his vision. Yet when the largest of these specks would swim across his sight, he would say: "Hello! There's Grandfather again! Wonder where he's going on this fine morning!"
那些浮動在眼前的"黑斑"曾經讓他很苦惱.這些"黑斑"會阻擋他的眼睛,並讓他無法看清眼前的東西.不過現在的情形是,當那些最大的黑斑浮過眼睛時,他就會說："你好啊!黑斑爺爺又來了!猜猜今天這麼好的天氣,它想到哪裡去啊!"
How could fate ever conquer a spirit like that? The answer is it couldn't. When total blindness closed in, Tarkington said: "I found I could take the loss of my eyesight, just as a man can take anything else. If I lost all five of my senses, I know I could live on inside my mind. For it is in the mind we see, and in the mind we live, whether we know it or not."
在這樣的情況下,命運能否戰勝我們的精神呢?回答是否定的!當塔金頓徹底失明後,他說："我覺得自己能夠接受這一事實,如同別人能夠承受其他事情一樣.如果我喪失了五種感官功能,我知道自己還可以生活在自己的思想裡.因為無論我們清楚與否,我們唯有通過思想才能看清生活,唯有通過思想才能體驗生活."
In the hope of restoring his eyesight, Tarkington had to go through more than twelve operations within one year. With local anaesthetic! Did he rail against this? He knew it had to be done. He knew he couldn't escape it, so the only way to lessen his suffering was to take it with grace. He refused a private room at the hospital and went into a ward, where he could be with other people who had troubles, too.
為了恢復視力,塔金頓不得不在一年之內經歷了12次手術,而且手術用的麻醉劑還是當地生產的!他是否為此擔心過呢?沒有,因為他知道這些都是他必須承受的,他知道沒有逃避的餘地,所以勇敢地接受它才是唯一能夠減輕痛苦的方法.他放棄了醫院裡的私人病房,選擇與其他病友一起住在大病房裡.
He tried to cheer them up. And when he had to submit to repeated operations-fully conscious of what was being done to his eyes-he tried to remember how fortunate he was. "How wonderful!" he said. "How wonderful, that science now has the skill to operate on anything so delicate as the human eye!"
他費盡周折讓其他病友精神振奮.當他不得不面對那反反覆覆的手術時-他心裡十分明白眼科手術的難度,他仍竭盡全力地想象自己有多麼幸運.他說："實在太神奇了!實在太神奇了!現在的科學已經可以為任何東西做手術了,想不到連這麼脆弱的眼睛也可以!"
The average man would have been a nervous wreck if he had had to endure more than twelve operations and blindness. Yet Tarkington said, "I would not exchange this experience for a happier one." It taught him acceptance. It taught him that nothing life could bring him was beyond his strength to endure. It taught him, as John Milton discovered, that "It is not miserable to be blind, it is only miserable not to be able to endure blindness."
如果一個人經歷了12次以上的手術,仍生活在黑暗中,恐怕他的精神早就崩潰了.然而,塔斯頓說："我可不願意把這樣的經歷換成一些更開心的事情."正是這次特殊的經歷教他學會了接受,教他懂得了,生活裡的一切根本沒有什麼是他能力所不及的,也沒有什麼是他無法承受的.他懂得了富爾頓所說的："失明並不可怕,可怕的是你無法接受失明."
If we rail and kick against it and grow bitter, we won't change the inevitable;but we will change ourselves.I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played the fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I brought upon myself everything I didn't want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I had to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn't possibly alter.
有一次,因為我不願認可一件不可避免的事情,於是便做了一件傻事-我反抗它,抱怨它.結果一連幾個夜晚,我都無法閤眼,而且還使自己痛苦不堪.經過一整年的自我虐待,我終於承認了這些不可改變的事實.
I should have cried out years ago with old Walt Whitman.
一年前,我就應該大聲朗讀惠特曼的詩句：
Oh, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accident, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
哦,去面對黑夜、暴風雨、飢餓、愚弄、意外和挫折吧!就像樹和動物一樣
閱讀更多 英語學習閣 的文章
