菲利普突然想起那些张口呆看的游览观光者，那些手捧旅游指南、大腹便便的异国客，以及那些为满足不足挂齿的欲念和俗不可耐的爱好而蜂拥挤人商店的平庸之辈，他们都是人，最终都不免一死。他们也有所爱，但是，终究都得同他们心爱的人永世分离，儿子要同母亲诀别，妻子要同丈夫永别，说不定他们生死别离的场面将更为凄惨，因为他们一辈子都过的是丑恶的、下贱的日子。他们连究竟是什么给世界带来美这一点都一无所知。一块漂亮的墓石上刻着两个年轻人手携手的浅浮雕像，那恬淡的线条，朴实的画面，都令人感到那位雕刻家是带着一种真诚的情感从事创作的。这幅浅浮雕像，并不是为友谊而是为世界赐予人类又一件珍品这件事而竖立的一座丰碑。菲利普目不转睛地仰望着雕像，这当儿，他感觉自己的眼眶渗出了泪水。他想起了海沃德。他们俩初次相遇时，他对海沃德怀有热切的钦佩之情，可后来心中的偶像幻灭了，接着就是互相冷淡，最后只有习惯与旧日情谊才把他们维系在一起。这一幕幕往事一一掠过菲利普的脑际。生活中就有这样的事：你接连数月每天都碰见一个人，于是你同他的关系便十分亲密起来，你当时甚至会想没有了这个人还不知怎么生活呢。随后两人分离了，但一切仍按先前的格局进行着。你原先认为一刻也离不开的伙伴，此时却变得可有可无，日复一日，久而久之，你甚至连想都不想他了。菲利普回想起早先在海德尔堡的日子。那会儿海沃德完全有能力于出一番轰轰烈烈的事业来，对未来怀有满腔激情，可后来随着时光的流逝，他不知怎么的却一事无成，最后竟自暴自弃，心甘情愿地成了一名败北者。现在他死了。他活得毫无意义，死得毫无价值。他极不光彩地死于一种愚昧的病症，直到生命终止时，还是功不成，名不就，一事无成，仿佛世上从来就没有过他这个人似的。

Philip asked himself desperately what was the use of living at all. It all seemed inane. It was the same with Cronshaw: it was quite unimportant that he had lived; he was dead and forgotten, his book of poems sold in remainder by second-hand booksellers; his life seemed to have served nothing except to give a pushing journalist occasion to write an article in a review. And Philip cried out in his soul:

‘What is the use of it?’

菲利普一个劲儿地问着自己：人活着究竟有什么意义？世间万物，一切皆空。拿克朗肖来说，情况何尝不是如此。他活着，不过是个碌碌之辈，无声无息；他一死，就被人忘得一干二净。他余下的那几本诗集只是摆在旧书摊上出售。他的一生似乎只是提供个机会给人写篇评论文章，除此之外，就别无意义。于是菲利普内心不由得呐喊起来：

"这又有什么意思呢？"

The effort was so incommensurate with the result. The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment. Pain and disease and unhappiness weighed down the scale so heavily. What did it all mean? He thought of his own life, the high hopes with which he had entered upon it, the limitations which his body forced upon him, his friendlessness, and the lack of affection which had surrounded his youth. He did not know that he had ever done anything but what seemed best to do, and what a cropper he had come! Other men, with no more advantages than he, succeeded, and others again, with many more, failed. It seemed pure chance. The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.

人们一生中所作的努力同其最后结局显得多么不相称啊。人们却要为年轻时对未来的美好憧憬，付出饱尝幻灭之苦的惨重代价。痛苦、疾病和不幸，重重地压在人生这杆天平的一侧，把它压倾斜了。这一切意味着什么呢？菲利普联想到自己的一生，想起了开始步入人生时自己所有的凌云大志，想起了他身患残疾给他带来的种种限制，想起了他举目无亲、形单影只的景况，想起了他在没有疼爱、无人过问的环境中度过的青春岁月。除了做些看上去是最好的事情以外，他不知道自己还有没有做过别的什么事情。即使如此，他还是一个倒栽葱摔了下来，陷入了深深的不幸之中。有些人并不比他菲利普高强多少，却一个个飞黄腾达；还有些人要比他菲利普不知高强多少倍，可就是郁郁不得志。一切似乎纯粹是靠碰机会。人无论是正直的还是不正直的，雨露毫无偏向地统统洒在他们身上。这里面是没有什么道理可讲的。

Thinking of Cronshaw, Philip remembered the Persian rug which he had given him, telling him that it offered an answer to his question upon the meaning of life; and suddenly the answer occurred to him: he chuckled: now that he had it, it was like one of the puzzles which you worry over till you are shown the solution and then cannot imagine how it could ever have escaped you. The answer was obvious. Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet’s history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end:man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment.Philip remembered the story of the Eastern King who, desiring to know the history of man, was brought by a sage five hundred volumes; busy with affairs of state, he bade him go and condense it; in twenty years the sage returned and his history now was in no more than fifty volumes, but the King, too old then to read so many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten it once more; twenty years passed again and the sage, old and gray, brought a single book in which was the knowledge the King had sought; but the King lay on his death-bed, and he had no time to read even that; and then the sage gave him the history of man in a single line; it was this: he was born, he suffered, and he died. There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip’s eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months.

‘Oh, life,’ he cried in his heart, ‘Oh life, where is thy sting?’

在思念克朗肖的当儿，菲利普记起了他送给自己的那条波斯地毯。当时克朗肖曾说那条地毯可以为他揭示生活的奥秘。蓦然间，菲利普悟出了道理，不觉扑哧笑出声来。啊，终于找到了答案。这好比猜谜语，百思不得其解，但一经点破谜底，你简直不能想象自己怎么会一下被这谜语所难倒的。答案最明显不过了：生活毫无意义。地球不过是一颗穿越太空的星星的卫星罢了。在某些条件的作用下，生物便在地球上应运而生，而这些条件正是形成地球这颗行星的一部分。既然在这些条件的作用下，地球开始有了生物，那么，在其他条件的作用下，万物的生命就有个终结。人，并不比其他有生命的东西更有意义；人的出现，并非是造物的顶点，而不过是自然对环境作出的反应罢了。菲利普想起了有关东罗马帝国国王的故事。那国王迫切希望了解人类的历史。一天，一位哲人给他送来了五百卷书籍，可国王朝政缠身，日理万机，无暇披卷破帙，便责成哲人将书带回，加以压缩综合。转眼过了二十年，哲人回来时，那部书籍经压缩只剩了五十卷，可此时，国王年近古稀，已无力啃这些伤脑筋的古籍了，便再次责成哲人将书缩短。转眼又过了二十年，老态龙钟、白发苍苍的哲人来到国王跟前，手里拿着一本写着国王孜孜寻求的知识的书，但是，国王此时已是奄奄一息，行将就木，即使就这么一本书，他也没有时间阅读了。这时候，哲人把人类历史归结为一行字，写好后呈上，上面写道：人降生世上，便受苦受难，最后双目一闭，离世而去。生活没有意义，人活着也没有目的。出世还是不出世，活着还是死去，均无关紧要。生命微不足道，而死亡也无足轻重。想到这里，菲利普心头掠过一阵狂喜，正如他童年时当摆脱了笃信上帝的重压后所怀有的那种心情一样。在他看来，生活最后一副重担从肩上卸了下来，他平生第一次感到彻底自由了。原先他以为自己人微言轻，无足轻重，而眼下却觉得自己顶天立地，强大无比。陡然间，他仿佛觉得自己同一直在迫害着他的残酷的命运势均力敌，不相上下了。既然生活毫无意义，尘世也就无残忍可言。不论是做过的还是没来得及做的事，一概都无关宏旨。失败毫不足奇，成功也等于零。他不过是暂时占据在地球表层的芸芸众生中间的一个最不起眼的动物而已；然而，他又无所不能，因为他能从一片混饨之中探出其奥秘来。菲利普思想活跃，脑海里思潮翻腾；他感到乐不可支，心满意足，不禁深深地吸了几口气。他真想手舞足蹈，放喉高歌一番。几个月来，他还没有像此刻这么心舒神爽。

"啊，生活，"他心里喟然长叹道，"啊，生活，你的意趣何在？"。

For the same uprush of fancy which had shown him with all the force of mathematical demonstration that life had no meaning, brought with it another idea; and that was why Cronshaw, he imagined, had given him the Persian rug.As the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end but the pleasure of his aesthetic sense, so might a man live his life, or if one was forced to believe that his actions were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life, that it made a pattern. There was as little need to do this as there was use. It was merely something he did for his own pleasure.Out of the manifold events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a design, regular, elaborate, complicated, or beautiful; and though it might be no more than an illusion that he had the power of selection, though it might be no more than a fantastic legerdemain in which appearances were interwoven with moonbeams, that did not matter: it seemed, and so to him it was. In the vast warp of life (a river arising from no spring and flowing endlessly to no sea), with the background to his fancies that there was no meaning and that nothing was important, a man might get a personal satisfaction in selecting the various strands that worked out the pattern. There was one pattern, the most obvious, perfect, and beautiful, in which a man was born, grew to manhood, married, produced children, toiled for his bread, and died; but there were others, intricate and wonderful, in which happiness did not enter and in which success was not attempted; and in them might be discovered a more troubling grace. Some lives, and Hayward’s was among them, the blind indifference of chance cut off while the design was still imperfect; and then the solace was comfortable that it did not matter; other lives, such as Cronshaw’s, offered a pattern which was difficult to follow, the point of view had to be shifted and old standards had to be altered before one could understand that such a life was its own justification. Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions. His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realised that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now would be one more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be.

Philip was happy.

这股突如其来的思潮，以其无对辩驳的力量，向菲利普明白无误地表明了生活毫无意义这一道理。在这同时，菲利普心中又萌生出另一个念头。他想原来克朗肖就是为了向他说明这一点才送给他波斯地毯的呀。地毯织工把地毯的格局编得错综复杂，并非出自某种目的，不过是满足其美感的乐趣罢了。正如地毯织工那样，一个人也是这样度过其一生的。倘若一个人不得不相信其行动是不由自主的，那么，他也可以以同样的观点来看待其人生，人生也不过是一种格局而已，生活既无意义，也无必要，生活只不过是满足一个人的乐趣而已。从生活、行为、感情和思想的五花八门的事件中剪辑些材料，他完全可能设计出一种有一定规律可循的图案，一种错综复杂的图案，或者一种色彩缤纷的漂亮的图案。虽说这兴许充其量不过是一种他认为自己可自由选择的幻想，虽说这兴许总是一种荒诞不经的幻象与缕缕月光混杂在一起的戏法而已，但这一切均无关紧要，生活看上去就是如此，而在菲利普看来生活也确实是这样的。眼下，菲利普认为生活没有意义，一切都微不足道。在这种思想背景下，他认为一个人可以从那宽阔无垠的生活长河（这是一汪无源之水，奔腾不息，却不汇入大海）中掬起几滴不同的水，拼凑成那种格局，从而使自己心满意足。有一种格局，最明显，最完美无缺，同时也最漂亮动人。这种格局是一个人呱呱坠地来到人间，渐渐长大成人，恋爱结婚，生儿育女，为挣片面包而含辛茹苦，最终登腿弃世而去。但是生活还有别的样式的格局，这些格局虽杂乱无章，却是妙不可言，幸福从未涉足其间，人们也不追逐功名，但从中可以感觉到一种更加乱人心思的雅趣。有些人的一生，其中也包括海沃德的一生，他们的人生格局尚未完美之前，盲目的、冷漠的机会却使它突然中断了。于是，有人就说些安慰话，虽暖人心窝，却于事无补还有些人的一生，正如克朗肖的一生那样，为人们提供了一个难以效法的格局：人们还没来得及认识到他们哪些人的一生本身就证明其人生是正当的，观点就要改变，传统的标准就又得修改了。菲利普认为他抛弃了追求幸福的欲念，便是抛弃了他的最后一个不切实际的幻想。用幸福这根尺来衡量，那他的生活就显得很可怕；然而当他意识到还有别的尺来衡量他的生活时，顿然觉得浑身充满了力量。幸福跟痛苦一样的微不足道，它们的降临，跟生活中出现的其他细节一样，不过是使得人生格局更趋纷繁复杂罢了。霎时间，他仿佛超然物外了，感到生活中的种种意外和不测再也不能像从前那样使他的情绪为之波动了。眼下，无论发生什么事情，都不过是使得生活的格局更趋复杂罢了，而且当最后的日子到来之际，他会为这格局的完成而感到由衷的高兴。这将是一件艺术珍品，将丝毫不减它那动人的光彩，因为唯独只有他才知道它的存在，而随着他的死亡，它也就立即消失。

想到这里，菲利普心里有说不出的高兴。

内容简介：

小说主人公菲利普·凯里自幼父母双亡，不幸又先天残疾，在冷漠而陌生的环境中度过了童年，性格因此孤僻而敏感。在寄宿学校度过的岁月让他饱受了不合理的学校制度的摧残，而当他走入社会后，又在爱情上经历了伤痛。在坎坷的人生道路上，他每跨一步，都要付出艰辛的挣扎，但思想和个性都独立不羁的凯里，一直努力挣脱宗教和小市民意识这两条禁锢自己精神的桎梏，力图在混沌纷扰的生活漩流中，寻求人生的真谛。

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham’s masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, he settles in London to train as a doctor where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a tortured and masochistic affair.

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