生命中不能承受之輕

《生命中不能承受之輕》（1984），是全世界公認最受歡迎的暢銷書之一，也是作者昆德拉才華得到集中體現的一部作品。

這是一部小說，描述了在1968年蘇聯入侵捷克時期（史稱“布拉格之春”），民主改革的氣息演變成專橫壓榨之風潮，捷克普通的知識分子在這個大時代中命運多變的復雜故事。主線有兩條：其一是著名外科醫生托馬斯對國家的誠實和對妻子特麗莎的愛——很重，因為他要為此付出巨大的犧牲，名利、自由皆失。其二是托馬斯的情人薩賓娜對生活方式的選擇，以及對托馬斯和弗蘭茨的感情——很輕，因為她隨心而為，追求無限制的自由。

這更是一部哲學小說，人物不過是哲學中的代碼，情節也不過是哲學中的情境。作者以一個哲人的睿智將人類的生存情景加以描述和思辯，使故事與哲學渾然一體。或許我們也是這些代碼之一吧，是那沉重卻踏實的“重”呢，還是那輕盈卻虛無的“輕”呢？如何選擇？

About Author:

Milan Kundera (born on 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[笑忘書]， and The Joke[玩笑].

In 1985， Kundera received the Jerusalem Prize. It has also been rumored[傳聞] 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.（對于一個被放逐多年的作家，得到本國的承認應是個莫大的安慰。）

Chapter One

Lightness and Weight

2

…

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?

②②“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.

一

輕與重

2

……

如果永劫回歸是最沉重的負擔，那么我們的生活就能以其全部輝煌的輕松，來與之抗衡。可是，沉重便真的悲慘，而輕松便真的輝煌嗎？最沉重的負擔壓得我們崩塌了，沉沒了，將我們釘在地上。由此，最沉重的負擔同時也是一種生活最為充實的象征。負擔越沉，我們的生活也就貼近大地，越趨近真切和實在。

相反，完全沒有負擔，人變得比大氣還輕，會高高地飛起，離別大地亦即離別真實的生活。