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Thinking as a Hobby
把思考作为爱好
William Golding
威廉·戈尔丁
While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and that I myself could not think at all.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我便得出了这样的结论：思考可分为三个层次，而我本人则根本不会思考。
It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the subject of thinking before me. He had some statuettes in his study. They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther; and since she had no arms, shewas in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched the statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet. Beyond the leopard was a naked, muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chinon his fist and his elbow on his knee. He seemed utterly miserable.
首先把思考这个问题摆在我面前的是我的小学校长。他在书房里有几尊小雕像，放在他书桌后面高高的柜子上。一尊雕像是个女人，她光着身子，只披一条浴巾。她似乎凝固在永久的惶恐之中，唯恐浴巾再向下滑；而由于她没有双臂，根本不可能将浴巾向上拉，因此显得特别狼狈。在她旁边伏卧着一尊豹子的雕像，一副随时都会扑下来跳到文件柜顶层抽屉上的样子。豹子后面是一个肌肉发达的裸体男子的雕像，他坐在那里，目光朝下，一只拳头托着脸颊，胳膊肘撑在膝上。一副痛苦的样子。
Some time later, I learned about these statuettes. The headmaster had placed them where they would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him the whole of life. The naked lady was Venus. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was Nature, and he was being natural. The muscular gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought.
后来我才知道这几尊雕像是怎么回事。校长之所以把他们放在那儿，让它们冲着犯了错误的孩子们，是因为这些雕像对于他来说象征着生活的全部。那裸体妇人是女神维纳斯，她是爱的化身。她并不是在为随时可能滑落的浴巾而担忧。她只是忙于展现自己的美。那豹子代表自然，它是在忙着展现自己的自然风采。那肌肉健壮的男子也并不痛苦悲惨，他是罗丹的《思想者》，是纯粹思维的象征。
