国外英文文学系列 Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged.docx

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1、国外英文文学系列 Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged ATLAS SHRUGGED 作为一部乌托邦作品，阿特拉斯耸耸肩描绘了一个由自私而精明的商人、科学家、艺术家等社会精英组成的世外桃源，有着田园诗般的诗意和现实社会中的欲望的满足。在这里，维系着一切的不是道德而是金钱，金钱被视作为崇拜的偶像，是自由交换和公平正义的象征，每个人都是独立的创造者和思考者。小说结尾，由于强者罢工、抛弃了弱者，世界陷入了无边的黑暗，而乌托邦里则是一片和谐幸福。同时，兰德借书中主人公约翰高尔特之口来说明了她的客观主义哲学：财富观财富是人类生活的一种工具，是人类思想力的结晶。当你判断某人德性的时候，请听他

2、对金钱的理解：诅咒金钱的人通过不正当的手段获取金钱，尊敬金钱的人则依自己的本事赚取金钱。金钱是社会美德的气压计，远离告诉你钱是万恶之源的人。历史观文明就是一个逐步将个人解放出来的过程。人天生便会思考，让那些叫嚣说人的思想自由在创建工业文明后便毫无用处的吃人者从大学的经济系主任的位置上退下来，让他们拿起弓箭，穿起兽皮。每个独裁者都是神秘论者，每个神秘论者都是潜在的独裁者。道德观你生命中的道德的唯一目的是去获得幸福，让自己得到快乐便是他的最高道德目标。“牺牲”就是为了你并不在乎的东西而放弃你所看重的。人的生命是道德的标准，在生命里，快乐是成功的状态，痛苦则通向死亡。正如你不能对大自然进行伪装一样，

3、你同样也不能对人的品格进行假造。武力与头脑是截然对立的；枪声一响，道德无存。价值观人类是真正的英雄：以自己的幸福作为生活的道德准则，以实质性的成就作为最高贵的行动，以理性为自己唯一的主宰。人不应该为他人而活，也不应该要求他人为自己而活。思考是人的唯一最根本的美德，其它的一切皆因它而生。自豪就是承认你是自己的最高价值，这和一个人所有的价值一样，需要去赢得。哲学观A就是A，一个东西就是它本身。存在是特性，意识是鉴明。存在是存在着的。每个问题都有两面，一面是正确，一面是错误，夹在对与错中间的则是邪恶。 CONTENTS PART I NON-CONTRADICTION I THE THEME II

4、THE CHAIN III THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM IV THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS V THE CLIMAX OF THE DANCONIAS VI THE NON-COMMERCIAL VII THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED VIII THE JOHN GALT LINE IX THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE X WYATTS TORCH PART II EITHER-OR I THE MAN WHO BELONGED ON EARTH II THE ARISTOCRACY OF PULL III

5、WHITE BLACKMAIL IV THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM V ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN VI MIRACLE METAL VII THE MORATORIUM ON BRAINS VIII BY OUR LOVE IX THE FACE WITHOUT PAIN OR FEAR OR GUILT X THE SIGN OF THE DOLLAR PART III A IS A I ATLANTIS II THE UTOPIA OF GREED III ANTI-GREED IV ANTI-LIFE V THEIR BROTHERS KEEPERS V

6、I THE CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE VII THIS IS JOHN GALT SPEAKING VIII THE EGOIST IX THE GENERATOR X IN THE NAME OF THE BEST WITHIN US PART I NON-CONTRADICTION CHAPTER I THE THEME Who is John Galt? The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bums face. The bum had said it simply, wi

7、thout expression. But from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the eyes looked straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still-as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him. Why did you say that? asked Eddie Willers, his voice tense

8、. The bum leaned against the side of the doorway; a wedge of broken glass behind him reflected the metal yellow of the sky. Why does it bother you? he asked. It doesnt, snapped Eddie Willers. He reached hastily into his pocket. The bum had stopped him and asked for a dime, then had gone on talking,

9、as if to kill that moment and postpone the problem of the next. Pleas for dimes were so frequent in the streets these days that it was not necessary to listen to explanations, and he had no desire to hear the details of this bums particular despair. Go get your cup of coffee, he said, handing the di

10、me to the shadow that had no face. Thank you, sir, said the voice, without interest, and the face leaned forward for a moment. The face was wind-browned, cut by lines of weariness and cynical resignation; the eyes were intelligent. Eddie Willers walked on, wondering why he always felt it at this tim

11、e of day, this sense of dread without reason. No, he thought, not dread, theres nothing to fear: just an immense, diffused apprehension, with no source or object. He had become accustomed to the feeling, but he could find no explanation for it; yet the bum had spoken as if he knew that Eddie felt it

12、, as if he thought that one should feel it, and more: as if he knew the reason. Eddie Willers pulled his shoulders straight, in conscientious self-discipline. He had to stop this, he thought; he was beginning to imagine things. Had he always felt it? He was thirty-two years old. He tried to think ba

13、ck. No, he hadnt; but he could not remember when it had started. The feeling came to him Suddenly, at random intervals, and now it was coming more often than ever. Its the twilight, he thought; I hate the twilight. The clouds and the shafts of skyscrapers against them were turning brown, like an old

14、 painting in oil, the color of a fading masterpiece. Long streaks of grime ran from under the pinnacles down the slender, soot-eaten walls. High on the side of a tower there was a crack in the shape of a motionless lightning, the length of ten stories. A jagged object cut the sky above the roofs; it

15、 was half a spire, still holding the glow of the sunset; the gold leaf had long since peeled off the other half. The glow was red and still, like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire, but a dying one which it is too late to stop. No, thought Eddie Willers, there was nothing disturbing in the

16、 sight of the city. It looked as it had always looked. He walked on, reminding himself that he was late in returning to the office. He did not like the task which he had to perform on his return, but it had to be done. So he did not attempt to delay it, but made himself walk faster. He turned a corn

17、er. In the narrow space between the dark silhouettes of two buildings, as in the crack of a door, he saw the page of a gigantic calendar suspended in the sky. It was the calendar that the mayor of New York had erected last year on the top of a building, so that citizens might tell the day of the mon

18、th as they told the hours of the day, by glancing up at a public tower. A white rectangle hung over the city, imparting the date to the men in the streets below. In the rusty light of this evenings sunset, the rectangle said: September 2. Eddie Willers looked away. He had never liked the sight of th

19、at calendar. It disturbed him, in a manner he could not explain or define. The feeling seemed to blend with his sense of uneasiness; it had the same quality. He thought suddenly that there was some phrase, a kind of quotation, that expressed what the calendar seemed to suggest. But he could not reca

20、ll it. He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it nor dismiss it. He glanced back. The white rectangle stood above the roofs, saying in immovable finality: September 2. Eddie Willers shifted his glance down to the street, to a vegetable pushca

21、rt at the stoop of a brownstone house. He saw a pile of bright gold carrots and the fresh green of onions. He saw a clean white curtain blowing at an open window. He saw a bus turning a corner, expertly steered. He wondered why he felt reassured-and then, why he felt the sudden, inexplicable wish th

22、at these things were not left in the open, unprotected against the empty space above. When he came to Fifth Avenue, he kept his eyes on the windows of the stores he passed. There was nothing he needed or wished to buy; but he liked to see the display of good?, any goods, objects made by men, to be u

23、sed by men. He enjoyed the sight of a prosperous street; not more than every fourth one of the stores was out of business, its windows dark and empty. He did not know why he suddenly thought of the oak tree. Nothing had recalled it. But he thought of it and of his childhood summers on the Taggart es

24、tate. He had spent most of his childhood with the Taggart children, and now he worked for them, as his father and grandfather had worked for their father and grandfather. The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot of the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, aged seven, liked

25、to come and look at that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing

26、 the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak trees presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength. One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it the next morning. It lay brok

27、en in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside-just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it l

28、eft had not been able to stand without it. Years later, he heard it said that children should be protected from shock, from their first knowledge of death, pain or fear. But these had never scarred him; his shock came when he stood very quietly, looking into the black hole of the trunk. It was an im

29、mense betrayal-the more terrible because he could not grasp what it was that had been betrayed. It was not himself, he knew, nor his trust; it was something else. He stood there for a while, making no sound, then he walked back to the house. He never spoke about it to anyone, then or since. Eddie Wi

30、llers shook his head, as the screech of a -rusty mechanism changing a traffic light stopped him on the edge of a curb. He felt anger at himself. There was no reason that he had to remember the oak tree tonight. It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness-and somewhere within hi

31、m, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark. He wanted no sadness attached to his childhood; he loved its memories: any day of it he remembered now seemed flooded by a still, brilliant sunlight. It seemed to him

32、 as if a few rays from it reached into his present: not rays, more like pinpoint spotlights that gave an occasional moments glitter to his job, to his lonely apartment, to the quiet, scrupulous progression of his existence. He thought of a summer day when he was ten years old. That day, in a clearin

33、g of the woods, the one precious companion of his childhood told him what they would do when they grew up. The words were harsh and glowing, like the sunlight. He listened in admiration and in wonder. When he was asked what he would want to do, he answered at once, Whatever is right, and added, You

34、ought to do something great . . . I mean, the two of us together. What? she asked. He said, I dont know. Thats what we ought to find out. Not just what you said. Not just business and earning a living. Things like winning battles, or saving people out of fires, or climbing mountains. What for? she a

35、sked. He said, The minister said last Sunday that we must always reach for the best within us. What do you suppose is the best within us? I dont know. Well have to find out. She did not answer; she was looking away, up the railroad track. Eddie Willers smiled. He had said, Whatever is right, twenty-

36、two years ago. He had kept that statement unchallenged ever since; the other questions had faded in his mind; he had been too busy to ask them. But he still thought it self-evident that one had to do what was right; he had never learned how people could want to do otherwise; he had learned only that

37、 they did. It still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple that things should be right, and incomprehensible that they werent. He knew that they werent. He thought of that, as he turned a corner and came to the great building of Taggart Transcontinental. The building stood over the street

38、 as its tallest and proudest structure. Eddie Willers always smiled at his first sight of it. Its long bands of windows were unbroken, in contrast to those of its neighbors. Its rising lines cut the sky, with no crumbling corners or worn edges. It seemed to stand above the years, untouched. It would

39、 always stand there, thought Eddie Willers. Whenever he entered the Taggart Building, he felt relief and a sense of security. This was a place of competence and power. The floors of its hallways were mirrors made of marble. The frosted rectangles of its electric fixtures were chips of solid light. B

40、ehind sheets of glass, rows of girls sat at typewriters, the clicking of their keys like the sound of speeding train wheels. And like an answering echo, a faint shudder went through the walls at times, rising from under the building, from the tunnels of the great terminal where trains started out to

41、 cross a continent and stopped after crossing it again, as they had started and stopped for generation after generation. Taggart Transcontinental, thought Eddie Willers, From Ocean to Ocean-the proud slogan of his childhood, so much more shining and holy than any commandment of the Bible. From Ocean

42、 to Ocean, forever-thought Eddie Willers, in the manner of a rededication, as he walked through the spotless halls into the heart of the building, into the office of James Taggart, President of Taggart Transcontinental. James Taggart sat at his desk. He looked like a man approaching fifty, who had c

43、rossed into age from adolescence, without the intermediate stage of youth. He had a small, petulant mouth, and thin hair clinging to a bald forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the confid

44、ent poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale and veiled, with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past things in eternal resentment of their existence. He looked obstinate and drain

45、ed. He was thirty-nine years old. He lifted his head with irritation, at the sound of the opening door. Dont bother me, dont bother me, dont bother me, said James Taggart. Eddie Willers walked toward the-desk. Its important, Jim, he said, not raising his voice. All right, all right, what is it? Eddi

46、e Willers looked at a map on the wall of the office. The maps colors had faded under the glass-he wondered dimly how many Taggart presidents had sat before it and for how many years. The Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, the network of red lines slashing the faded body of the country from New York

47、to San Francisco, looked like a system of blood vessels. It looked as if once, long ago, the blood had shot down the main artery and, under the pressure of its own overabundance, had branched out at random points, running all over the country. One red streak twisted its way from Cheyenne, Wyoming, d

48、own to El Paso, Texas-the Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental. New tracing had been added recently and the red streak had been extended south beyond El Paso-but Eddie Willers turned away hastily when his eyes reached that point. He looked at James Taggart and said, Its the Rio Norte Line. He noticed Taggarts glance moving down to a corner of the desk. Weve had another wreck. Railroad accidents happen every day. Did you have to bother me about that? You know what Im