【国外文学】My Life and Loves.docx

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1、【国外文学】My Life and LovesChapter i. Childhood Days.Memory is the Mother of the Muses, the prototype of the Artist. As a rule she selects and relieves out the important, omitting what is accidental or trivial. Now and then, however, she makes mistakes like all other artists. Nevertheless I take Memory

2、in the main as my guide.I was born on the 14th of February 1855, and named James Thomas, after my fathers two brothers: my father was in the Navy, a lieutenant in command of a revenue cutter or gunboat, and we children saw him only at long intervals.My earliest recollection is being danced on the fo

3、ot of my fathers brother James, the Captain of an Indiaman, who paid us a visit in the south of Kerry when I was about two. I distinctly remember repeating a hymn by heart for him, my mother on the other side of the fireplace, prompting: then I got him to dance me a little more, which was all I want

4、ed. I remember my mother telling him I could read, and his surprise.The next memory must have been about the same time: I was seated on the floor screaming when my father came in and asked: “Whats the matter?”“Its only Master Jim”, replied the nurse crossly,“hes just screaming out of sheer temper, S

5、ir, look, theres not a tear in his eye”.A year or so later, it must have been, I was proud of walking up and down a long room while my mother rested her hand on my head, and called me her walking stick.Later still I remember coming to her room at night: I whispered to her and then kissed her, but he

6、r cheek was cold and she didnt answer, and I woke the house with my shrieking: she was dead. I felt no grief, but something gloomy and terrible in the sudden cessation of the usual household activities.A couple of days later I saw her coffin carried out, and when the nurse told my sister and me that

7、 we would never see our mother again, I was surprised merely and wondered why.My mother died when I was nearly four, and soon after we moved to Kingstown near Dublin. I used to get up in the night with my sister Annie, four years my senior and go foraging for bread and jam or sugar. One morning abou

8、t daybreak I stole into the nurses room, and saw a man beside her in bed, a man with a red moustache. I drew my sister in and she too saw him. We crept out again without waking them. My only emotion was surprise, but next day the nurse denied me sugar on my bread and butter and I said: “Ill tell” I

9、dont know why: I had then no inkling of modern journalism.“Tell what?” she asked.“There was a man in your bed”, I replied, “last night.”“Hush, hush!” she said, and gave me the sugar.After that I found all I had to do was to say “Ill tell!” to get whatever I wanted. My sister even wished to know one

10、day what I had to tell, but I would not say. I distinctly remember my feeling of superiority over her because she had not had sense enough to exploit the sugar mine.When I was between four and five, I was sent with Annie to a girls boarding-school in Kingstown kept by a Mrs. Frost. I was put in the

11、class with the oldest girls on account of my proficiency in arithmetic, and I did my best at it because I wanted to be with them, though I had no conscious reason for my preference. I remember how the nearest girl used to lift me up and put me in my high-chair and how I would hurry over the sums set

12、 in compound long division and proportion, for as soon as I had finished, I would drop my pencil on the floor, and then turn round and climb down out of my chair, ostensibly to get it, but really to look at the girls legs. Why? I couldnt have said.I was at the bottom of the class and the legs got bi

13、gger and bigger towards the end of the long table, and I preferred to look at the big ones.As soon as the girl next me missed me, she would move her chair back and call me, and Id pretend to have just found my slate-pencil, which I said had rolled, and shed lift me back into my high-chair.One day I

14、noticed a beautiful pair of legs on the other side of the table, near the top. There must have been a window behind the girl; for her legs up to the knees were in full light and they filled me wth emotion giving me an indescribable pleasure. They were not the thickest legs, which surprised me. Up to

15、 that moment, I had thought it was the thickest legs I liked best; but now I saw that several girls, three anyway, had bigger legs, but none like hers, so shapely, with such slight ankles and tapering lines. I was enthralled and at the same time a little scared.I crept back into my chair with one id

16、ea in my little head: could I get close to those lovely legs and perhaps touch them breathless expectancy. I knew I could hit my slate-pencil and make it roll up between the files of legs. Next day I did this and crawled right up till I was close to the legs that made my heart beat in my throat and

17、yet gave me a strange delight. I put out my hand to touch them; suddenly the thought came that the girl would simply be frightened by my touch and pull her legs back and I should be discovered and I was frightened.I returned to my chair to think, and soon found the solution. Next day I again crouche

18、d before the girls legs, choking with emotion. I put my pencil near her toes, and reached round between her legs with my left hand as if to get it, taking care to touch her calf. She shrieked, and drew back her legs, holding my hand tight between them, and cried: “What are you doing there!”“Getting

19、my pencil”, I said humbly, “it rolled.”“There it is”, she said, kicking it with her foot.“Thanks” I replied, overjoyed, for the feel of her soft legs was still on my hand.“Youre a funny little fellow”, she said, but I didnt care; I had had my first taste of Paradise and the forbidden fruit authentic

20、 heaven!I have no recollection of her face: it seemed pleasant; thats all I remember. None of the girls made any impression on me but I can still recall the thrill of admiration and pleasure her shapely limbs gave me.I record this incident at length, because it stands alone in my memory, and because

21、 it proves that sex-feeling may show itself in early childhood.One day about 1890 I had Meredith, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde dining with me in Park Lane and the time of sex-awakening was discussed. Both Pater and Wilde spoke of it as a sign of puberty; Pater thought it began about 13 or 14 and Wil

22、de to my amazement set it as late as 16. Meredith alone was inclined to put it earlier.“It shows sporadically”, he said, “and sometimes before puberty”.I recalled the fact that Napoleon tells how he was in love before he was five years old with a school-mate called Giacominetta, but even Meredith la

23、ughed at this and would not believe that any real sex-feeling could show itself so early. To prove the point, I gave my experience as I have told it here, and brought Meredith to pause: “very interesting”, he thought, “but peculiar!”“In her abnormalities”, says Goethe, “Nature reveals her secrets”;

24、here is an abnormality, perhaps as such, worth noting.I hadnt another sensation of sex till nearly six years later when I was eleven, since which time such emotions have been almost incessant.My exaltation to the oldest class in arithmetic got i ue into trouble by bringing me into relations with the

25、 headmistress, Mrs. Frost, who was very cross and seemed to think that I should spell as correctly as I did sums. When she found I couldnt, she used to pull my ears and got into the habit of digging her long thumbnail into my ear till it bled. I didnt mind the smart; in fact, I was delighted, for he

26、r cruelty brought me the pity of the elder girls who used to wipe my ears with their pocket-handkerchiefs and say that old Frost was a beast and a cat.One day my father sent for me and I went with a petty officer to his vessel in the harbor: my right ear had bled on to my collar. As soon as my fathe

27、r noticed it and saw the older scars, he got angry and took me back to the school and told Mrs. Frost what he thought of her, and her punishments.Immediately afterwards, it seems to me I was sent to live with my eldest brother Vernon, ten years older than myself, who was in lodgings with friends in

28、Galway while going to the College.There I spent the next five years, which passed leaving a blank. I learned nothing in those years except how to play “tig”, “hide and seek”, “footer” and ball. I was merely a healthy, strong, little animal without an ache or pain or trace of thought.Then I remember

29、an interlude at Belfast where Vernon and I lodged with an old Methodist who used to force me to go to church with him and drew on a little black skullcap during the Service, which filled me with shame and made me hate him. There is a period in life when every thing peculiar or individual, excites di

30、slike and is in itself an offense.I learned here to “mitch” and lie simply to avoid school and to play, till my brother found I was coughing and having sent for a doctor, was informed that I had congestion of the lungs; the truth being that I played all day and never came home for dinner, seldom ind

31、eed before seven oclock, when I knew Vernon would be back. I mention this incident because, while confined to the house, I discovered under the old Methodists bed, a set of doctors books with colored plates of the insides and the pudenda of men and women. I devoured all the volumes and bits of knowl

32、edge from them stuck to me for many a year. But curiously enough the main sex fact was not. revealed to me then; but in talks a little later with boys of my own age.I learned nothing in Belfast but rules of games and athletics. My brother Vernon used to go to a gymnasium every evening and exercise a

33、nd box. To my astonishment he was not among the best; so while he was boxing I began practicing this and that, drawing myself up till my chin was above the bar, and repeating this till one evening Vernon found I could do it thirty times running: his praise made me proud.About this time, when I was t

34、en or so, we were all brought together in Carrickfergus; my brothers and sisters then first became living, individual beings to me. Vernon was going to a bank as a clerk, and was away all day. Willie, six years older than I was, Annie four years my senior, and Chrissie two years my junior, went to t

35、he same day-school, though the girls went to the girls entrance and had women teachers. Willie and I were in the same class; though he had grown to be taller than Vernon, I could beat him in most of the lessons. There was, however, one important branch of learning, in which he was easily the best in

36、 the school. The first time I heard him recite “The Battle of Ivry” by Macaulay, I was carried off my feet. He made gestures and his voice altered so naturally that I was lost in admiration.That evening my sisters and I were together and wo talked of Willies talent. My eldest sister was enthusiastic

37、, which I suppose stirred envy and emulation in me, for I got up and imitated him, and to my sisters surprise I knew the whole poem by heart. “Who taught you?” Annie wanted to know, and when she heard that I had learned it just from hearing Willie recite it once, she was astonished and must have tol

38、d our teacher, for the next afternoon he asked me to follow Willie and told me I was very good. From this time on, the reciting class was my chief education. I learned every boys piece and could imitate them all perfectly, except one redheaded rascal who could recite the “African Chief” better than

39、anyone else, better even than the master. It was pure melodrama; but Redhead was a born actor and swept us all away by the realism of his impersonation. Never shall I forget how the boy rendered the words:“Look, feast thy greedy eyes on gold,Long kept for sorest need;Take it, thou askest sums untold

40、And say that I am freed.Take it; my wife the long, long dayWeeps by the cocoa-tree,And my young children leave their playAnd ask in vain for me.”I havent seen or heard the poem these fifty odd years. It seems tawdry stuff to me now; but the boys accents were of the very soul of tragedy and I realize

41、d clearly that I couldnt recite that poem as well as he did. He was inimitable. Every time his accents and manner altered; now he did these verses wonderfully, at another time those, so that I couldnt ape him; always there was a touch of novelty in his intense realization of the tragedy. Strange to

42、say it was the only poem he recited at all well.An examination came and I was first in the school in arithmetic and first too in elocution; Vernon even praised me, while Willie slapped me and got kicked on the shins for his pains. Vernon separated us and told Willie he should be ashamed of hitting o

43、ne only half as big as he was. Willie lied promptly, saying I had kicked him first. I disliked Willie; I hardly know why, save that he was a rival in the school-life.After this Annie began to treat me differently and now I seemed to see her as she was and was struck by her funny ways. She wished bot

44、h Chrissie and myself to call her “Nita”; it was short for “Anita”, she said, which was the stylish French way of pronouncing Annie. She hated “Annie” it was “common and vulgar”; I couldnt make out why.One evening we were together and she had undressed Chrissie for bed, when she opened her own dress

45、 and showed us how her breasts had grown while Chrissies still remained small, and indeed “Nitas” were ever so much larger and prettier and round like apples. Nita let us touch them gently and was evidently very proud of them. She sent Chrissie to bed in the next room while I went on learning a less

46、on beside her. Nita left the room to get something,. I think, when Chrissie called me and I went into the bedroom wondering what she wanted. She wished me to know that her breasts would grow too, and be just as pretty as Nitas. “Dont you think so?” she asked, and taking my hand put it on them, and I

47、 said, “Yes” for indeed I liked her better than Nita who was all airs and graces and full of affectations.Suddenly Nita called me, and Chrissie kissed me, whispering “dont tell her” and I promised. I always liked Chrissie and Vernon. Chrissie was very clever and pretty, with dark curls and big hazel

48、 eyes, and Vernon was a sort of hero and always very kind to me.I learned nothing from this happening. I had hardly any sex-thrill with either sister, indeed, nothing like so much as I had had, five years before, through the girls legs in Mrs. Frosts school, and I record the incident here chiefly fo

49、r another reason. One afternoon about 1890, Aubrey Beardsley and his sister Mabel, a very pretty girl, had been lunching with me in Park Lane Afterwards we went into the Park. I accompanied them as far as Hyde Park Corner. For some reason or other, I elaborated the theme that men of thirty or forty usually corrupted young girl