Justine 淑女的眼泪 Chapter 9

"Oh Madame," I said to Dubois, asking her leave to reply to her execrable sophistries ¹, "do you not at all feel that your damnation is writ ² in what you have just uttered? At the very most, such principles could only befit the person powerful enough to have nothing to dread ³ from others; but we, Madame, perpetually in fear and humiliated ⁴; we, proscribed ⁵ by all honest folk, condemned ⁶ by every law, should we be the exponents ⁷ of doctrines ⁸ which can only whet ⁹ the sword blade suspended above our heads? Would we find ourselves in this unhappy position were we in the center of society; were we to be where, that is to say, we ought to be, without our misconduct and delivered from our miseries ¹⁰, do you fancy such maxims ¹¹ could be any more fitting to us? How would you have him not perish who through blind egoism wishes all alone to strive against the combined interests of others? Is not society right never to suffer in its midst the man who declares himself hostile to it? And can the isolated ¹² individual fight against everyone? Can he flatter himself he is happy and tranquil ¹³ if, refusing to submit to the social contract, he does not consent to give up a little of his happiness to insure the rest? Society is maintained only by the ceaseless interexchange of considerations and good works, those are the bonds which cement the edifices ¹⁴; such a one who instead of positive acts offers naught ¹⁵ but crimes, having therefore to be dreaded ¹⁶, will necessarily be attacked if he is the strongest, laid low by the first he offends if he is the weakest; but destroyed at any rate, for there is in man a powerful instinct which compels him to safeguard his peace and quiet and to strike whosoever seeks to trouble them; that is why the long endurance of criminal associations is virtually impossible: their well-being ¹⁷ suddenly confronted by cold steel, all the others must promptly ¹⁸ unite to blunt the threatening point. Even amongst ourselves, Madame, I dare add; how can you lull ¹⁹ yourself into believing you can maintain concord ²⁰ amongst ourselves when you counsel each to heed ²¹ nothing but his own self-interest? Would you have any just complaints to make against the one of us who wanted to cut the throats of the others, who did so in order to monopolize ²² for himself what has been shared by his colleagues? Why, 'tis a splendid panegyric ²³ to Virtue ²⁴, to prove its necessity in even a criminal society... to prove for a certainty that this society would disintegrate ²⁵ in a trice were it not sustained by Virtue!", ,"Your objections, Therese," said Coeur-de-fer, "not the theses Dubois has been expounding ²⁶, are sophistries; our criminal fraternities are not by any means sustained by Virtue; rather by self-interest, egoism, selfishness; this eulogy ²⁷ of Virtue, which you have fabricated out of a false hypothesis, miscarries; it is not at all owing to virtuousness ²⁸ that, believing myself, let us suppose, the strongest of the band, I do not use a dagger ²⁹ on my comrades in order to appropriate their shares, it is because, thereupon finding myself all alone, I would deprive myself of the means which assure me the fortune I expect to have with their help; similarly, this is the single motive ³⁰ which restrains them from lifting their arms against me. Now this motive, as you, Therese, perfectly ³¹ well observe, is purely ³² selfish, and has not even the least appearance of virtue; he who wishes to struggle alone against society's interests must, you say, expect to perish; will he not much more certainly perish if, to enable him to exist therein, he has nothing but his misery ³³ and is abandoned by others ? What one terms the interest of society is simply the mass of individual interests unified ³⁴, but it is never otherwise than by ceding ³⁵ that this private interest can accommodate and blend with the general interest; well, what would you have him cede ³⁶ who has nothing he can relinquish ³⁷? And he who had much? Agree that he should see his error grow apace with the discovery that he was giving infinitely ³⁸ more than he was getting in return; and, such being the case, agree that the unfairness of the bargain should prevent him from concluding it. Trapped in this dilemma ³⁹, the best thing remaining for this man, don't you agree, is to quit this unjust society, to go elsewhere, and to accord prerogatives ⁴⁰ to a different society of men who, placed in a situation comparable to his, have their interest in combating, through the coordination ⁴¹ of their lesser ⁴² powers, the broader authority that wished to extract from the poor man what little he possessed ⁴³ in exchange for nothing at all. But you will say, thence will be born a state of perpetual warfare ⁴⁴., ,Excellent! is that not the perpetual state of Nature? Is it not the only state to which we are really adapted ? All men are born isolated, envious ⁴⁵, cruel and despotic; wishing to have everything and surrender nothing, incessantly ⁴⁶ struggling to maintain either their rights or achieve their ambition, the legislator comes up and says to them: Cease thus to fight; if each were to retreat a little, calm would be restored. I find no fault with the position implicit ⁴⁷ in the agreement, but I maintain that two species of individuals cannot and ought not submit to it, ever; those who feel they are the stronger have no need to give up anything in order to be happy, and those who find themselves the weaker also find themselves giving up infinitely more than what is assured them. However, society is only composed of weak persons and strong; well, if the pact ⁴⁸ must perforce displease ⁴⁹ both weak and strong, there is great cause to suppose it will fail to suit society, and the previously ⁵⁰ existing state of warfare must appear infinitely preferable, since it permitted everyone the free exercise of his strength and his industry, whereof he would discover himself deprived by a society's unjust pact which takes too much from the one and never accords enough to the other; hence, the truly intelligent person is he who, indifferent to the risk of renewing the state of war that reigned ⁵¹ prior to the contract, lashes ⁵² out in irrevocable violation ⁵³ of that contract, violates it as much and often as he is able, full certain that what he will gain from these ruptures ⁵⁴ will always be more important than what he will lose if he happens to be a member of the weaker class; for such he was when he respected the treaty; by breaking it he may become one of the stronger; and if the laws return him to the class whence he wished to emerge, the worst that can befall him is the loss of his life, which is a misfortune infinitely less great than that of existing in opprobrium ⁵⁵ and wretchedness. There are then two positions available to us: either crime, which renders us happy, or the noose ⁵⁶, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation ⁵⁷, lovely Therese, and where will your little mind find an argument able to combat that one ?"#p#分页标题#e#, , ,"Who? No one, Therese, absolutely no one; it is in no wise necessary that the misfortunate be avenged ⁶⁴; they flatter themselves with the notion because they would like to be, the idea comforts them, but it is not on that account the less false: better still, it is essential that the misfortunate suffer; their humiliation ⁶⁵, their anguishes ⁶⁶ are included in what Nature decrees, and their miserable ⁶⁷ existence is useful to the general scheme, as is that of the prosperity which crushes them; such is the truth which should stifle ⁶⁸ remorse ⁶⁹ in the tyrant's soul or in the malefactor's; let him not constrain ⁷⁰ himself; let him blindly, unthinkingly deliver himself up to causing every hurt the idea for which may be born in him, it is only Nature's voice which suggests this idea; such is the only fashion in which she makes us her laws' executors., ,When her secret inspirations dispose us to evil, it is evil she wishes, it is evil she requires, for the sum of crimes not being complete, not sufficient to the laws of equilibrium ⁷¹, the only laws whereby she is governed, she demands that there be crimes to dress the scales; therefore let him not be afraid, let him not pause, whose brain is driven to concerting ill; let him unheeding commit wrong immediately he discerns the impulsion, it is only by lagging and snuffling he outrages ⁷² Nature. But let us ignore ethics ⁷³ for a moment, since it's theology you want. Be advised then, young innocent, that the religion you fall back upon, being nothing but the relationship between man and God, nothing but the reverence ⁷⁴ the creature thinks himself obliged to show his creator, is annihilated ⁷⁵ instantly this creator's existence is itself proven illusory. " Primitive ⁷⁶ man, terrified by the phenomena ⁷⁷ which harried ⁷⁸ him, had necessarily to believe that a sublime ⁷⁹ being unknown to him had the direction of their operation and influence; it is native to weakness to suppose strength and to fear it; the human mind, then too much in its infancy ⁸⁰ to explore, to discover in Nature's depths the laws of motion, the unique springs of the entire mechanism ⁸¹ that struck him with awe ⁸², found it simpler to fancy a motor in this Nature than to view Nature as her own mover, and without considering that he would have to go to much more trouble to edify ⁸³, to define this gigantic master, than through the study of Nature to find the cause of what amazed him, he acknowledged this sovereign being, he elaborated rituals to worship it: from this moment each nation composed itself an overlord in conformance with its peculiar ⁸⁴ characteristics, its knowledge, and its climate; soon there were as many religions on earth as races and peoples and not long after, as many Gods as families; nevertheless, behind all these idols ⁸⁵ it was easy to recognize the same absurd illusion, first fruit of human blindness. They appareled it differently, but it was always the same thing. Well, tell me, Therese, merely because these idiots talk drivel about the erection of a wretched chimera ⁸⁶ and about the mode of serving him, must it follow that an intelligent man has got to renounce ⁸⁷ the certain and present happiness of life; like Aesop's dog, must he abandon the bone for the shadow and renounce his real joys for hallucinations? No, Therese, no, there is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author; once supposed, that author is naught but a decayed version of herself, is merely what we describe in school by the phrase, a begging of the question. A God predicates a creation, that is to say, an instant when there was nothing, or an instant when all was in chaos ⁸⁸., ,This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本
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