A WEEK LATER I was standing at her door again.
For a week I had tried not to think about her. But I had nothing else to occupy or distract me; the doctor was not ready to let me go back to school, I was bored stiff with books after months of reading, and although friends still came to see me, I had been sick for so long that their visits could no longer bridge the gap between their daily lives and mine, and became shorter and shorter. I was supposed to go for walks, a little further each day, without overexerting myself. I could have used the exertion.
Being ill when you are a child or growing up is such an enchanted interlude! The outside world, the world of free time in the yard or the garden or on the street, is only a distant murmur in the sickroom. Inside, a whole world of characters and stories proliferates out of the books you read. The fever that weakens your perception as it sharpens your imagination turns the sickroom into someplace new, both familiar and strange; monsters come grinning out of the patterns on the curtains and the carpet, and chairs, tables, bookcases, and wardrobes burst out of their normal shapes and become mountains and buildings and ships you can almost touch although they’re far away. Through the long hours of the night you have the church clock for company and the rumble of the occasional passing car that throws its headlights across the walls and ceiling. These are hours without sleep, which is not to say that they’re sleepless, because on the contrary, they’re not about lack of anything, they’re rich and full. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again. They are hours when anything is possible, good or bad.
This passes as you get better. But if the illness has lasted long enough, the sickroom is impregnated with it and although you’re convalescing and the fever has gone, you are still trapped in the labyrinth.
I awoke every day feeling guilty, sometimes with my pajama pants damp or stained. The images and scenes in my dreams were not right. I knew I would not be scolded by my mother, or the pastor who had instructed me for my confirmation and whom I admired, or by my older sister who was the confidante of all my childhood secrets. But they would lecture me with loving concern, which was worse than being scolded. It was particularly wrong that when I was not just idly dreaming, I actively fantasized images and scenes.
I don’t know where I found the courage to go back to Frau Schmitz. Did my moral upbringing somehow turn against itself? If looking at someone with desire was as bad as satisfying the desire, if having an active fantasy was as bad as the act you were fantasizing—then why not the satisfaction and the act itself? As the days went on, I discovered that I couldn’t stop thinking sinful thoughts. In which case I also wanted the sin itself.
There was another way to look at it. Going there might be dangerous. But it was obviously impossible for the danger to act itself out. Frau Schmitz would greet me with surprise, listen to me apologize for my strange behavior, and amicably say goodbye. It was more dangerous not to go; I was running the risk of becoming trapped in my own fantasies. So I was doing the right thing by going. She would behave normally, I would behave normally, and everything would be normal again.
That is how I rationalized it back then, making my desire an entry in a strange moral accounting, and silencing my bad conscience. But that was not what gave me the courage to go to Frau Schmitz. It was one thing to tell myself that my mother, my admired pastor, and my older sister would not try to stop me if they really thought about it, but would in fact insist that I go. Actually going was something else again. I don’t know why I did it. But today I can recognize that events back then were part of a lifelong pattern in which thinking and doing have either come together or failed to come together—I think, I reach a conclusion, I turn the conclusion into a decision, and then I discover that acting on the decision is something else entirely, and that doing so may proceed from the decision, but then again it may not. Often enough in my life I have done things I had not decided to do. Something—whatever that may be—goes into action; “it” goes to the woman I don’t want to see anymore, “it” makes the remark to the boss that costs me my head, “it” keeps on smoking although I have decided to quit, and then quits smoking just when I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a smoker and always will be. I don’t mean to say that thinking and reaching decisions have no influence on behavior. But behavior does not merely enact whatever has already been thought through and decided. It has its own sources, and is my behavior, quite independently, just as my thoughts are my thoughts, and my decisions my decisions.
一個星期以后，我又站在了她的門口。
我試了一個星期不去想她。可我又無所事事，沒有任何事情可以轉(zhuǎn)移我的注意力，醫(yī)生還不允許我去上學。讀了幾個月書以后，讀書也令我感到厭倦。朋友們雖然來看我，但我已經(jīng)病了這么久，他們的來訪已經(jīng)不能在我們之間的日常生活中架起橋梁，再說，他們逗留的時間也越來越短。他們說我該去散步，一天比一天多走一點，又不要累著。其實，我需要這種累。
童年和少年時代生病是多么討厭！外部世界，庭院里、花園里或大街上的休閑世界的喧囂只是隱隱約約地傳到病房中。里面的病人在閱讀，書中的歷史和人物世界在屋里滋長。發(fā)燒使知覺減弱，使幻想敏銳，病房成了新的即熟悉又陌生的房間。蓬萊蕉在窗簾上顯出它的圖案，墻壁紙在做鬼臉，桌子、椅子、書架和衣柜堆積如山，像樓房，像輪船，它們近得觸手可及，但又十分遙遠。伴隨病人們度過漫長夜晚的是教堂的鐘聲，是偶爾開過的汽車的鳴笛聲和它的前燈反射到墻上和被子上的燈光。那是些無限但并非失眠的夜晚，不是空虛而是充實的夜晚。病人們時而渴望什么，時而沉浸在回憶中，時而又充滿恐懼，時而又快樂不已，這是些好事壞事都可能發(fā)生的夜晚。
如果病人的病情有所好轉(zhuǎn)，這種情形就會減少。但如果病人久病不愈，那么．病房就會籠罩上這種氣氛，即使是不發(fā)燒也會產(chǎn)生這種錯亂。
我每天早上醒來都問心有愧，有時睡褲潮濕污*，因為夢中的情景不正經(jīng)。我知道，母親，還有我所尊敬的、為我施堅信禮的牧師以及我可以向其傾吐我童年時代秘密的姐姐，他們都不會責怪我，相反，他們會以一種慈愛的、關心的方式來安慰我。但對我來說，安慰比責怪更讓我難受。特別不公平的是，如果不能在夢中被動他夢到那些情景，我就會主動地去想象。
我不知道，我哪兒來的勇氣去了史密芝女士那兒。難道道德教育在一定程度上適得其反嗎？如果貪婪的目光像肉欲的滿足一樣惡劣，如果主動想象和幻想行為一樣下流的話，那么，為什么不選擇肉欲的滿足和幻想的行為呢？我一天比一天地清楚，我無法擺脫這種邪念。這樣，我決定把邪念付諸行動。
我有一個顧慮，認為去她那兒一定會很危險。但實際上不可能發(fā)生這種危險。史密芝女士將會對我的出現(xiàn)表示驚訝，但她會歡迎我，聽我為那天的反常行為向她道歉，然后和我友好地告別。不去才危險呢，不去我就會陷入危險的幻想中而不能自拔。去是對的，她的舉止會很正常，我的舉止也會很正常，一切都會重新正常起來。
就這樣，我當時理智地把我的情欲變成了少見的道德考慮，而把內(nèi)疚隱而不宣。但這并沒有給我勇氣去史密芝女士那兒。我想，母親、尊敬的牧師還有姐姐在仔細考慮后不阻止我，反而鼓勵我到她那兒去，這是一回事；真的到她那兒去卻完全是另一回事。我不知道我為什么去了?，F(xiàn)在，在當時發(fā)生的事情中我看到了一種模式，一種我的思想和行為始終都沒有跳出的模式：凡事我先思考，然后得出一種結(jié)論，在做決定時堅持這種結(jié)論，然后才知道，做事有其自身的規(guī)律，它可能跟著決定走，但也可能不跟著它走。在我的一生中，我做了許多我沒有決定去做的事，而有許多我決定去做的事卻沒去做。但不管做什么都在做。我去見了我不想再見到的女人，在審判長面前拼命地解釋一些問題，盡管我決定戒煙了，而且也放棄了吸煙，但當我意識到我是個吸煙者并且想要保持這種狀態(tài)時，我又繼續(xù)吸煙了。我不是說思維和決定對行為沒有影響，但行為并非總是按事先想好或已決定的那樣發(fā)生。行為有它自己的方式，同樣我的行為也有它自己獨特的方式，就像我的思想就是我的思想，我的決定就是我的決定一樣。
For a week I had tried not to think about her. But I had nothing else to occupy or distract me; the doctor was not ready to let me go back to school, I was bored stiff with books after months of reading, and although friends still came to see me, I had been sick for so long that their visits could no longer bridge the gap between their daily lives and mine, and became shorter and shorter. I was supposed to go for walks, a little further each day, without overexerting myself. I could have used the exertion.
Being ill when you are a child or growing up is such an enchanted interlude! The outside world, the world of free time in the yard or the garden or on the street, is only a distant murmur in the sickroom. Inside, a whole world of characters and stories proliferates out of the books you read. The fever that weakens your perception as it sharpens your imagination turns the sickroom into someplace new, both familiar and strange; monsters come grinning out of the patterns on the curtains and the carpet, and chairs, tables, bookcases, and wardrobes burst out of their normal shapes and become mountains and buildings and ships you can almost touch although they’re far away. Through the long hours of the night you have the church clock for company and the rumble of the occasional passing car that throws its headlights across the walls and ceiling. These are hours without sleep, which is not to say that they’re sleepless, because on the contrary, they’re not about lack of anything, they’re rich and full. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again. They are hours when anything is possible, good or bad.
This passes as you get better. But if the illness has lasted long enough, the sickroom is impregnated with it and although you’re convalescing and the fever has gone, you are still trapped in the labyrinth.
I awoke every day feeling guilty, sometimes with my pajama pants damp or stained. The images and scenes in my dreams were not right. I knew I would not be scolded by my mother, or the pastor who had instructed me for my confirmation and whom I admired, or by my older sister who was the confidante of all my childhood secrets. But they would lecture me with loving concern, which was worse than being scolded. It was particularly wrong that when I was not just idly dreaming, I actively fantasized images and scenes.
I don’t know where I found the courage to go back to Frau Schmitz. Did my moral upbringing somehow turn against itself? If looking at someone with desire was as bad as satisfying the desire, if having an active fantasy was as bad as the act you were fantasizing—then why not the satisfaction and the act itself? As the days went on, I discovered that I couldn’t stop thinking sinful thoughts. In which case I also wanted the sin itself.
There was another way to look at it. Going there might be dangerous. But it was obviously impossible for the danger to act itself out. Frau Schmitz would greet me with surprise, listen to me apologize for my strange behavior, and amicably say goodbye. It was more dangerous not to go; I was running the risk of becoming trapped in my own fantasies. So I was doing the right thing by going. She would behave normally, I would behave normally, and everything would be normal again.
That is how I rationalized it back then, making my desire an entry in a strange moral accounting, and silencing my bad conscience. But that was not what gave me the courage to go to Frau Schmitz. It was one thing to tell myself that my mother, my admired pastor, and my older sister would not try to stop me if they really thought about it, but would in fact insist that I go. Actually going was something else again. I don’t know why I did it. But today I can recognize that events back then were part of a lifelong pattern in which thinking and doing have either come together or failed to come together—I think, I reach a conclusion, I turn the conclusion into a decision, and then I discover that acting on the decision is something else entirely, and that doing so may proceed from the decision, but then again it may not. Often enough in my life I have done things I had not decided to do. Something—whatever that may be—goes into action; “it” goes to the woman I don’t want to see anymore, “it” makes the remark to the boss that costs me my head, “it” keeps on smoking although I have decided to quit, and then quits smoking just when I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a smoker and always will be. I don’t mean to say that thinking and reaching decisions have no influence on behavior. But behavior does not merely enact whatever has already been thought through and decided. It has its own sources, and is my behavior, quite independently, just as my thoughts are my thoughts, and my decisions my decisions.
一個星期以后，我又站在了她的門口。
我試了一個星期不去想她。可我又無所事事，沒有任何事情可以轉(zhuǎn)移我的注意力，醫(yī)生還不允許我去上學。讀了幾個月書以后，讀書也令我感到厭倦。朋友們雖然來看我，但我已經(jīng)病了這么久，他們的來訪已經(jīng)不能在我們之間的日常生活中架起橋梁，再說，他們逗留的時間也越來越短。他們說我該去散步，一天比一天多走一點，又不要累著。其實，我需要這種累。
童年和少年時代生病是多么討厭！外部世界，庭院里、花園里或大街上的休閑世界的喧囂只是隱隱約約地傳到病房中。里面的病人在閱讀，書中的歷史和人物世界在屋里滋長。發(fā)燒使知覺減弱，使幻想敏銳，病房成了新的即熟悉又陌生的房間。蓬萊蕉在窗簾上顯出它的圖案，墻壁紙在做鬼臉，桌子、椅子、書架和衣柜堆積如山，像樓房，像輪船，它們近得觸手可及，但又十分遙遠。伴隨病人們度過漫長夜晚的是教堂的鐘聲，是偶爾開過的汽車的鳴笛聲和它的前燈反射到墻上和被子上的燈光。那是些無限但并非失眠的夜晚，不是空虛而是充實的夜晚。病人們時而渴望什么，時而沉浸在回憶中，時而又充滿恐懼，時而又快樂不已，這是些好事壞事都可能發(fā)生的夜晚。
如果病人的病情有所好轉(zhuǎn)，這種情形就會減少。但如果病人久病不愈，那么．病房就會籠罩上這種氣氛，即使是不發(fā)燒也會產(chǎn)生這種錯亂。
我每天早上醒來都問心有愧，有時睡褲潮濕污*，因為夢中的情景不正經(jīng)。我知道，母親，還有我所尊敬的、為我施堅信禮的牧師以及我可以向其傾吐我童年時代秘密的姐姐，他們都不會責怪我，相反，他們會以一種慈愛的、關心的方式來安慰我。但對我來說，安慰比責怪更讓我難受。特別不公平的是，如果不能在夢中被動他夢到那些情景，我就會主動地去想象。
我不知道，我哪兒來的勇氣去了史密芝女士那兒。難道道德教育在一定程度上適得其反嗎？如果貪婪的目光像肉欲的滿足一樣惡劣，如果主動想象和幻想行為一樣下流的話，那么，為什么不選擇肉欲的滿足和幻想的行為呢？我一天比一天地清楚，我無法擺脫這種邪念。這樣，我決定把邪念付諸行動。
我有一個顧慮，認為去她那兒一定會很危險。但實際上不可能發(fā)生這種危險。史密芝女士將會對我的出現(xiàn)表示驚訝，但她會歡迎我，聽我為那天的反常行為向她道歉，然后和我友好地告別。不去才危險呢，不去我就會陷入危險的幻想中而不能自拔。去是對的，她的舉止會很正常，我的舉止也會很正常，一切都會重新正常起來。
就這樣，我當時理智地把我的情欲變成了少見的道德考慮，而把內(nèi)疚隱而不宣。但這并沒有給我勇氣去史密芝女士那兒。我想，母親、尊敬的牧師還有姐姐在仔細考慮后不阻止我，反而鼓勵我到她那兒去，這是一回事；真的到她那兒去卻完全是另一回事。我不知道我為什么去了?，F(xiàn)在，在當時發(fā)生的事情中我看到了一種模式，一種我的思想和行為始終都沒有跳出的模式：凡事我先思考，然后得出一種結(jié)論，在做決定時堅持這種結(jié)論，然后才知道，做事有其自身的規(guī)律，它可能跟著決定走，但也可能不跟著它走。在我的一生中，我做了許多我沒有決定去做的事，而有許多我決定去做的事卻沒去做。但不管做什么都在做。我去見了我不想再見到的女人，在審判長面前拼命地解釋一些問題，盡管我決定戒煙了，而且也放棄了吸煙，但當我意識到我是個吸煙者并且想要保持這種狀態(tài)時，我又繼續(xù)吸煙了。我不是說思維和決定對行為沒有影響，但行為并非總是按事先想好或已決定的那樣發(fā)生。行為有它自己的方式，同樣我的行為也有它自己獨特的方式，就像我的思想就是我的思想，我的決定就是我的決定一樣。