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编者按：

最沉重的负担同时也是一种生活最为充实的象征。负担越沉，我们的生活也就贴近大地，越趋近真切和实在。

相反，完全没有负担，人变得比大气还轻，会高高地飞起，离别大地亦即离别真实的生活。他将变得似真非真，运动自由而毫无意义。

①If 1)eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness. But, is heaviness truly 2)deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us. We sink beneath it. It pins us to the ground. The heaviest of burdens is, therefore, 3)simultaneously an image of life’s most intense 4)fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth; the more real and truthful they become.

5)Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being and become only half real, his movements as free as they are 6)insignificant.

What then shall we choose; weight or lightness?

3
I have been thinking about Tomas for many years. But only in the light of these reflections did I see him clearly. I saw him standing at the window of his 7)flat and looking across the courtyard at the opposite walls, not knowing what to do.

He had first met Tereza about three weeks earlier in a small Czech town. They had spent 8)scarcely an hour together. She had accompanied him to the station and waited with him until he boarded the train. Ten days later she paid him a visit. They made love the day she arrived.

That night she came down with a fever and stayed a whole week in his flat with the flu. He had come to feel an 9)inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger. She seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a 10)bulrush basket 11)docked with pitch and sent 12)downstream for Tomas to 13)fetch under the riverbank of his bed.

He knelt down next to her. Her feverous breath quickened and she gave out a weak 14)moan. He pressed his face to hers and whispered calming words into her sleep. And all at once he 15)fancied she had been with him for many years and was dying. He had a sudden clear feeling that he would not survive her death. He would lie down beside her and want to die with her. He pressed his face into the pillow beside her head and kept it there for a long time.

Now he was standing at the window trying to call that moment to account. What could it have been if not love declaring itself to him? But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly 16)exaggerated; he had seen her only once before in his life. Was it simply the 17)hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his 18)inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it? His 19)unconscious was so 20)cowardly that the best partner he could choose for his little comedy were this miserable 21)provincial waitress with practically no chance at all to enter his life.

He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he really wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to want because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

There is no means of testing which decision is better because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?

②“Einmal ist keinmal”, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German 22)adage, might as well not have happened at all.

If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.

词汇解释

参考译文

一 轻与重

2
……

如果永劫回归是最沉重的负担，那么我们的生活就能以其全部辉煌的轻松，来与之抗衡。可是，沉重便真的悲惨，而轻松便真的辉煌吗？最沉重的负担压得我们崩塌了，沉没了，将我们钉在地上。由此，最沉重的负担同时也是一种生活最为充实的象征。负担越沉，我们的生活也就贴近大地，越趋近真切和实在。

相反，完全没有负担，人变得比大气还轻，会高高地飞起，离别大地亦即离别真实的生活。他将变得似真非真，运动自由而毫无意义。

那么我们将选择什么呢？沉重还是轻松？

3

多少年来，我一直想着托马斯，似乎只有凭借回想的折光，我才能看清他这个人。我看见他站在公寓的窗台前不知所措，越过庭院的目光，落在对面的墙上。

他与特丽莎初识于三个星期前捷克的一个小镇上，两人呆在一起还不到一个钟头，她就陪他去了车站，一直等到他上火车。十天后她去看他，而且两人当天便做爱。不料夜里她发起烧来，是流感，她在他的公寓里呆了一个星期。对于这个几乎是完全陌生的人，他慢慢地感到了一种莫名其妙的爱。对他来说，她像个孩子，被人放在树脂涂覆的草筐里顺水漂来，而他在床榻之岸顺手捞起了她。

他跪在她的床边，见她烧得呼吸急促，微微呻吟。他用脸贴在她的脸，轻声安慰她，直到她睡着。刹那间，他幻想着自己与她在一起已有漫漫岁月，而现在她正行将死去。他突然清楚地意识到自己不能挺过她死去的这一劫，他得躺在她身边，与她一同赴死。他挨着她的头，把脸埋在枕头里过了许久。

现在他站在窗前，极力回想那一刻的情景。若他所清楚感受到的这种感情不是爱，又会是什么呢？但这是爱吗？那种想死在她身边的情感显然有些夸张：在这以前他仅仅见了她一面！那么，明明知道这种爱不甚适当，难道这只是一个歇斯底里的男人感到自欺之需而作出的伪举吗？他的无意识是如此懦弱，一个小小的玩笑就使他选择了这样一个可怜的、压根儿不可能进入他生活的乡间女招待，来作为他的最佳伴侣！

他生着自己的气，直到他弄明白自己的茫然无措其实也很自然。我们是永远也不知道自己要什么的，因为人的生命只有一次，我们既不能把它与我们前世相比较，也无法使其在后世完美度过。

没有比较的基点，因此没有任何办法可以检验何种选择更好。我们经历着生活中突然临头的一切，毫无防备，就象演员进入初排。如果生活的第一排练便是生活本身，那生活有什么价值呢？

“Einmal ist Keinmal”托马斯自言自语。这句德国谚语说，只发生过一次的事就象压根儿没有发生过。如果生命属于我们只有一次，我们当然也可以说根本没有过生命。

（译文参考自作家出版社译本）

① 这里提到“eternal return”是指尼采学说里著名的永劫回归观，套用一个现在用得颇泛的佛家名词，就是“无间道”：我们的生命、甚至历史都只是在反复地重复而已。本选段出自全书的第一章，是作者为全书定的一个基调——大环境不断轮回、不可逆转的无奈。

② 我认为这句德国谚语是作者对人类实境的反击。对于沉重的现实，我们只有选择轻装上阵，人生没有可比性，生命属于我们只有一次，一切选择都失去了充足理由的同时，一切结果也都变得十分合理。抓住自己幸福的选择就是合理的！

本篇相关图书简介

生命中不能承受之轻
By Milan Kundera
（捷克）米兰·昆德拉

《生命中不能承受之轻》（1984），是全世界公认最受欢迎的畅销书之一，也是作者昆德拉才华得到集中体现的一部作品。

这是一部小说，描述了在1968年苏联入侵捷克时期（史称“布拉格之春”），民主改革的气息演变成专横压榨之风潮，捷克普通的知识分子在这个大时代中命运多变的复杂故事。主线有两条：其一是著名外科医生托马斯对国家的诚实和对妻子特丽莎的爱——很重，因为他要为此付出巨大的牺牲，名利、自由皆失。其二是托马斯的情人萨宾娜对生活方式的选择，以及对托马斯和弗兰茨的感情——很轻，因为她随心而为，追求无限制的自由。

这更是一部哲学小说，人物不过是哲学中的代码，情节也不过是哲学中的情境。作者以一个哲人的睿智将人类的生存情景加以描述和思辩，使故事与哲学浑然一体。或许我们也是这些代码之一吧，是那沉重却踏实的“重”呢，还是那轻盈却虚无的“轻”呢？如何选择？

About Author:

Milan Kundera (born April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech and French writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile[逃亡] in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting[笑忘书], and The Joke[玩笑].

In 1985, Kundera received the Jerusalem Prize. It has also been rumored[传闻] that he was considered for the Nobel Prize for literature In 2000, he was awarded the international Herder Prize. In 2007, he was awarded the Czech State Literature Prize.（对于一个被放逐多年的作家，得到本国的承认应是个莫大的安慰。）

Chapter One Lightness and Weight