【正“学”美译】《人性的枷锁》—一种错觉

An Illusion

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.

William Somerest Maugham (1874—1965)：Of Human Bondage

一种错觉

以为青春是快乐的，这是一种错觉，是青春已逝的人的错觉；年轻人知道自己是不幸的。因为他们充满被灌输而来的不切实际的理想，他们每次只要接触到现实，就会碰得头破血流。他们看来就像一场阴谋的牺牲品，因为他们读的书由于精选过而变得完美，长辈回首往事时，隔了健忘这一层玫瑰色薄雾，用他们的话为年轻人准备了不真实的生活。年轻人必须自己去发现，他们所读来听来的事情，全都是谎言、谎言、谎言；每一次的这种发现，都像是一根钉子，把身体钉在生活的十字架上。奇怪的是，每个人在经过这种青涩的幻灭之后，因内心某种不能控制自己的力量，而无意识地为其增添了幻觉。

毛姆《人性的枷锁》

注：中文翻译仅供参考。