悠游度過一天的24小時：第一章 每日奇跡

CHAPTER I The Daily Miracle

第一章 每日奇跡

"Yes, he's one of those men that don't know how to manage. Good situation. Regular income. Quite enough for luxuries as well as needs. Not really extravagant. And yet the fellow's always in difficulties. Somehow he gets nothing out of his money. Excellent f lat—half empty! Always looks as if he'd had the brokers in. New suit—old hat! Magnificent necktie—baggy trousers! Asks you to dinner: cut glass—bad mutton, or Turkish coffee—cracked cup! He can't understand it. Explanation simply is that he fritters his income away. Wish I had the half of it! I'd show him—” “對，他就是那種不知怎樣妥善安排的人。條件優(yōu)越，收入穩(wěn)定，完全夠買各種必需品和奢侈品，不過也不是那么奢華。但這家伙卻經(jīng)常陷入窘境，不知為何花錢買不到什么。上好的寓所——空了一半！看起來似乎總有中介光顧。新套裝——配頂舊帽子！漂亮的領(lǐng)帶——配條寬松下垂的燈籠褲！邀你進餐：用雕花玻璃碗——裝糟羊肉或土耳其咖啡——杯子是裂的！他搞不明白為什么。原因很簡單，他的收入花得都不是地方。要是我有他一半的收入就好了！我會教他——” So we have most of us criticised, at one time or another, in our superior way. We are nearly all chancellors of the exchequer: it is the pride of the moment. Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on suchand-such a sum, and these articles provoke a correspondence whose violence proves the interest they excite. Recently, in a daily organ, a battle raged round the question whether a woman can exist nicely in the country on £85 a year. I have seen an essay, How to Live on Eight Shillings a Week."" But I have never seen an essay, ""How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day."" Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money—usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has."

我們大多數(shù)人時不時地、不無優(yōu)越地批評別人。我們幾乎都是財政大臣，那不過是一時的驕傲罷了。報紙上充斥著教人如何靠一定量的錢過日子的文章，這些文章引起的反響特別熱烈，人們對這個問題的興趣可見一斑。最近，某日報談?wù)摰脑掝}為一個女人是否一年只需85英鎊就能在這個國家過得舒適，由此引發(fā)了激烈論戰(zhàn)。我曾見過一篇文章，名為《如何靠8先令過一星期》，但我還從沒見過名為《怎樣度過一天24小時》的文章。然而，早就有人說過時間就是金錢。該諺語低估了時間的重要性，時間比金錢寶貴得多。如果你有時間，你就會有金錢——通常如此。然而，即使你和卡爾頓飯店寄存間的服務(wù)員一樣富有，你也不能用金錢換來比我或火爐邊的貓多哪怕一分鐘的時間。

Philosophers have explained space. They have not explained time. It is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself!

哲學(xué)家闡釋了空間，但沒有闡明過時間。時間是萬物難以言喻的原材料。擁有時間，一切皆有可能；沒有時間，萬事皆空。時間的供給，的確是每天發(fā)生的奇跡，仔細想想，這著實令人驚詫。早晨醒來，瞧！你的錢包里神奇地裝上了24小時，這是你整個生命世界里未嘗加工的一部分。這24小時是屬于你的最寶貴的財富。時間是相當(dāng)特殊的商品，總是以一種和這商品本身一樣特殊的方式大量地贈予你！

For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.

注意！沒人可以奪走你的時間。時間是偷不走的。別人得到的時間不會比你多，也不會比你少。

Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. No mysterious power will say:—"This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter." It is more certain than consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.

說說理想的民主吧！在時間的領(lǐng)域里，財富沒有特權(quán)，知識也沒有特權(quán)。即便是天才，每天也不可能比別人多擁有哪怕一小時。同樣，也沒有時間上的懲罰。即使你肆意浪費這無比貴重的商品，你的時間之源也并不會喪失。沒有某種神秘的力量會說：“這人如果不是無賴，一定是傻瓜。他不配擁有時間；應(yīng)將他的時間供應(yīng)從計量表中切斷。”時間比長期債券更可靠，時間的支付不受是不是禮拜天的影響。再者，你不能預(yù)支未來，因此不會欠下時間債！浪費的只可能是過去那一刻，而不可能浪費明天，明天給你預(yù)留著呢；你也不能浪費接下來的一小時，它也為你保留著。

I said the affair was a miracle. Is it not?

我說過這就是奇跡，難道不是嗎？

You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality. All depends on that. Your happiness—the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my friends!—depends on that. Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they are, are not full of "How to Live on a Given Income of Time," instead of "How to Live on a Given Income of Money"! Money is far commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is just about the commonest thing there is. It encumbers the earth in gross heaps.

每天你得靠這24小時生活。從這每天的24小時里，你要擁有健康、獲取快樂、掙得財富、獲得滿足和尊重以及你不朽靈魂的升華。怎樣恰當(dāng)、有效地利用時間是一個最急迫、最令人振奮的實際問題。一切都取決于怎樣利用時間。你的快樂——你們都竭力追求卻難得擁有的歡樂——都取決于對時間的利用，我的朋友們！奇怪的是，各報載文盡管看上去頗有創(chuàng)意又新潮，卻鮮有文章談?wù)?ldquo;怎樣用固定的時間收入過活”，而更多的是“怎樣靠固定的金錢收入過日子”！金錢遠比時間平常。細想一下，就會發(fā)現(xiàn)金錢是世界上最普通的東西。累累金錢，觸目皆是。

If one can't contrive to live on a certain income of money, one earns a little more—or steals it, or advertises for it. One doesn't necessarily muddle one's life because one can't quite manage on a thousand pounds a year; one braces the muscles and makes it guineas1, and balances the budget. But if one cannot arrange that an income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper items of expenditure, one does muddle one's life definitely. The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.

如果一個人不能靠一定的收入過活，那么他要么去多掙錢，要么去偷盜，要么就登廣告去討錢。一個人一年一千英鎊都不夠花，并不意味著他一定會把生活搞糟；他鼓足干勁多賺錢，把一千英磅變成一千幾尼，就能平衡收支。但是如果一個人不能妥善利用一天得到的這24小時來支付所有時間開銷，他的生活絕對是一團糟。盡管時間的供應(yīng)固定，讓人欣慰，可同時時間有限得近乎殘酷。

Which of us lives on twenty-four hours a day? And when I say lives, I do not mean exists, nor "muddles through." Which of us is free from that uneasy feeling that the "great spending departments" of his daily life are not managed as they ought to be? Which of us is quite sure that his fine suit is not surmounted by a shameful hat, or that in attending to the crockery he has forgotten the quality of the food? Which of us is not saying to himself—which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: "I shall alter that when I have a little more time"?

我們中有誰過好了一天的24小時？我說的過好意思不是活著或“渾渾噩噩地活著”。日常生活的“重大消耗部”沒掌管好，誰不曾有過這樣的不安？誰能肯定自己筆挺的西裝搭上寒酸的帽子，風(fēng)度不會減損？誰又能肯定自己因?qū)Ｐ挠^賞盛裝食物的陶器而忽略了食物本身的品質(zhì)？我們誰不正在乃至一生都在對自己說：“等我有多一點時間了，將會有所改變”？

We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is. It is the realisation of this profound and neglected truth (which, by the way, I have not discovered) that has led me to the minute practical examination of daily time-expenditure.

我們永遠不會有更多的時間。我們現(xiàn)在跟以往一樣，所有的時間也就這么多。正是意識到這一深刻而又往往被人忽略的真理（順便說一句，這并非是我的發(fā)現(xiàn)），我才來仔細研究實際生活中我們每天是如何花費時間的。

(1)幾尼，1663年英國發(fā)行的一種金幣，1813年停止流通，后僅指等于1.05英磅的幣值單位。