About Love 关于爱情的种种你了解多少？

［俄］安东·契诃夫

About Love

Anton Chekhov

第二天的午饭是非常美味的馅饼，小龙虾和羊肉片。我们正吃饭时，厨子尼卡诺来问客人们晚上想吃些什么。他是一个中等身材，胖脸，小眼睛的人，齐胡子根刮了脸，这使得看起来他的胡子仿佛不是刮掉的，而是被连根拔掉的。阿列恒告诉我们美丽的帕拉吉爱上了这个厨子，因为他喝酒且性格粗暴，帕拉吉不想嫁给她，但是愿意与他婚外同居。厨子是个很虔诚的人，他的宗教信仰不允许他“过着有罪的生活”。他坚持帕拉吉嫁给他，此外其它的事都答应她，可是他喝醉时经常大骂帕拉吉，甚至打她。无论何时厨子喝醉了酒，帕拉吉就习惯于躲到楼上哭泣，每当这个时候阿列恒和仆人们就待在屋里准备万一需要保护帕拉吉。

At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.

我们开始谈论爱情。

“爱情是如何产生的呢？”阿列恒说，“为什么帕拉吉在身心上不像爱自己一样地爱别人，她为什么会爱上尼卡诺，那个丑陋的猪嘴——我们所有人都叫尼卡诺‘猪嘴’——个人的幸福跟爱情的结果有多大关系——所有这些问题我们都不明所以；个人能获得的见解只是他从中希望获得的罢了。迄今为止，说到爱唯一无可置疑的事实就是：‘爱是一个大大的谜。’关于爱所说和所写下的一切都不是结论，而只是这个仍然没有答案的问题的陈述罢了。这个解释似乎只适合一份份单独的爱情，而不适用于其它众多的例子。在我看来，最好的做法就是单独解说每一份爱情，而不要企图归纳爱情。就像医生们说的，我们应该个别对待每一个例子。”

“完全正确。”伯京同意。

We began talking about love.

“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”

“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.

“我们这些受过教育的俄国阶层都偏爱那些还没有答案的问题。爱情通常都被诗意化，用玫瑰、夜莺来装饰。我们俄国人却用些重大的问题来装饰爱情，且选择了其中最无趣的部分。在莫斯科读书时，我有一位与我一起生活的朋友，一位迷人的女士，每次我把她抱在怀里，她就在想我这是允许她帮我料理一个月的家务以及一磅牛肉多少钱。同样地，坠入爱河时我们总不厌其烦地问自己：这是合乎名誉的还是违背名誉的，明智的还是愚蠢的，这份爱在通往何处，等等。想这些问题是好事还是坏事我不知道，但是这些问题困扰着你，找不到答案且令人气恼，我就十分清楚了。”

“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresti