女性的自由与独立，从拥有一间自己的房间开始
弗吉尼亚·吴尔夫（Virginia Woolf，1882—1941）
20世纪英国最有影响力的作家之一，被誉为20世纪现代主义与女性主义文学的先锋。《一间自己的房间》堪称其随笔的代表作，今天我们节选了这本书中的精彩内容， 与大家分享。
It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman.
任何写作者，念念不忘自己的性别，都是致命的。任何纯粹的、单一的男性或女性，都是致命的；你必须成为男性化的女人或女性化的男人。女人哪怕去计较一点点委屈，哪怕不无道理地去诉求任何利益，哪怕或多或少刻意像女人那样去讲话，都是致命的。
And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilized. Brilliant and effective, powerful and masterly, as it may appear for a day or two, it must wither at nightfall; it cannot grow in the minds of others. Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the art of creation can be accomplished.
致命不是个恰当的字眼儿；任何写作，只要怀有此类有意识的偏见，注定都将死亡。它无法再接受营养。或许一两天内，它是华丽的、显眼的、强烈的、精妙的，但到了日暮时分，它就会枯萎；它难以在别人头脑中升华。任何创造性行为，都必须有男性与女性之间心灵的某种协同。
……
‘The poor poet has not in these days, nor has had for two hundred years, a dog’s chance … a poor child in England has little more hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born.’ That is it. Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom.
“贫穷诗人在那些年月里，乃至在此后的二百年，却往往时乖命蹇……英国的穷孩子却少有出头之日，就像雅典奴隶的儿子，很难求得心灵自由，帮助他写出伟大的作品。”一点儿不错，心灵的自由依赖物质的东西。诗歌依赖心灵的自由。
And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog’s chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one’s own.
女性始终是贫困的，不仅仅二百年来如此，有史以来就是这样了。说到心灵自由，女人还不如雅典奴隶的儿子。女人时乖命蹇，没有机会写诗。这就是为什么我会一味强调金钱和一间自己的房间。Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us. So at least I infer from reading Lear or Emma or La Recherche du Temps Perdu. 照我的想法，作家才有机会比别人更多地生活在这一现实中。他的任务就是发现、搜集、向其他人传达现实。至少，我读过《李尔王》或《爱玛》或《追忆逝水年华》后，就产生了这样的推断。
For the reading of these books seems to perform a curious couching operation on the senses; one sees more intensely afterwards; the world seems bared of its covering and given an intenser life. Those are the enviable people who live at enmity with unreality; and those are the pitiable who are knocked on the head by the thing done without knowing or caring. 阅读这些作品，像是在对五官实施奇特的去障手术，此后你的感觉才会更敏锐；世界似乎光裸无遮蔽，生活益发显示出它的强烈，书中有些令人的人他们从不生活在虚幻之中；书中有些值得同情的人，给懵懵懂懂做下的事情得头破血流。
So that when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.因此，我所以要大家去挣钱或拥有一间自己的房间，是劝大家生活在现实当中，不管你能不能说出自已的感觉，看起来，这都是一种活泼泼的生活。
... a peroration addressed to women should have something, you will agree, particularly exalting and ennobling about it. I should implore you to remember your responsibilities, to be higher, more spiritual; I should remind you how much depends upon you, and what an influence you can exert upon the future.……针对女性的结语，大家想必同意，应当有些激昂的、崇高的东西。我应当请求大家记住你们的责任，努力向上，追求精神生活：我应当提醒大家留心自己肩负的重任，留心你们将对未来产生多么大的影响。
When I rummage in my own mind I find no noble sentiments about being companions and equals and influencing the world to higher ends. I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make it sound exalted. Think of things in themselves.当我绞尽脑汁，想找些高尚的情感，说明应当作为伙伴和平等的人，为了更远大的目标影响世界时，却发现自己平平淡淡地讲出，做自己要比任何事情都更重要。如果我知道怎样把话说得更好，我会说，不要想着去影响别人。事情是怎样，就是怎样。
（以上摘自“名著名译英汉对照读本”《一间自己的房间》第六章）
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