罗素散文 《我的一生》

老枪按： 罗素是20世纪最伟大的人物之一，是哲学家，数理学家，文学家。1950年，还由于其文学成就，获得了诺贝尔文学奖。
他的散文《我的一生》，深邃隽永，优美纾缓，值得一读。 读了或多版本都不大满意，所以老枪试着自己翻译一遍。

罗素散文 《我的一生》

三种单纯而强烈的激情支配着我的一生，那就是对于爱情的渴望，对于知识的追求，以及对于人类苦难无可忍受的怜悯。这些激情犹如狂风，把我在深深的苦海上面，悠来荡去，放逐到绝望的边缘，使我的生活没有定向。

我追求爱情，因为它叫我销魂。销魂的爱情犹如火苗与飞蛾，那瞬间的灿烂足以使我舍取一切而奋身向前。我追求爱情，又因为它能聊慰孤独——那种几近绝望的孤独，如一个渺小无助的灵魂万分恐慌地在世界的边缘窥望那恒大垣古而冰冷无情的永恒。我追求爱情，还因为爱的结合使我在一种神秘的缩影中，提前看到了圣者和诗人幻想过的天堂。这就是我所追求的，尽管人的生活似乎还不配享有，但它的确是我最终找到的东西。

我以同样的激情追求知识。我想理解人类的心灵。我想了解星辰为何灿烂。我还试图弄懂毕达哥拉斯学说，它认为数是高居于感性流变之上的永恒力量。我在这方面略有成就，但不多。

爱情和知识，但若出现，总是引我向上通往天堂。但是，怜悯又总是把我带回人间。痛苦的呼喊在我心中回荡。孩子们受饥荒煎熬，无辜者受压迫者折磨，无助的老人被自己的儿子抛弃变成可恶的累赘，以及世上触目皆是的孤独、贫困和痛苦，这些都是对人类体面生活的嘲弄。我渴望能减少罪恶，所以我也倍受煎熬。

这就是我的一生。我觉得这一生价有所值，如果再给我一次机会，我会欣然前往。
 

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a way－ward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy — ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy.  I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness — that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what — at last — I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole of loneliness, poverty， and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

From Russell' s Views on Life