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内圈(节选) The Inner Ring (Excerpt)(2)

you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the 26)drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.
  如果你出于某种有益身心的想法,不想受任何圈子的束缚——比方说,你是因为真的喜欢音乐而想加入一个音乐社团——那么你还有可能获得满足感。你会发现自己参与表演四重奏,并乐在其中。但是如果你想要的只是了解内幕,那么你的快乐将是短暂的。当你身处圈内时,这个圈子的魅力是无法跟你在圈外看它时的感觉相提并论的。随着你一步步地被认可,它就会失去其魔力。一旦最初的新鲜感减退后,这圈子的成员也就跟你的老朋友差不多,无甚新鲜趣味可言。为什么他们一定要有趣呢?你又不是想从他们身上看到美德、善良、忠诚、幽默、学问,或者是智慧,又或者是任何一样可以欣赏的东西。你仅仅是想“进去”而已。而那种快乐并不持久。一旦你的新伙伴对你来说已经不再新鲜了,你就会去寻找另一个圈子。彩虹的尽头仍然会在你的前方。如今旧圈子只会成为你立志进入新圈子的乏味背景。
  
  And you will always find them hard to enter, for a reason you very well know. You yourself, once you are in, want to make it hard for the next 27)entrant, just as those who are already in made it hard for you. Naturally. In any wholesome group of people which holds together for a good purpose, the exclusions are in a sense accidental. Three or four people who are together for the sake of some piece of work exclude others because there is work only for so many or because the others can’t in fact do it. Your little musical group limits its numbers because the rooms they meet in are only so big. But your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence.
  而且你会发现这些圈子都很难进入,其中原因你再清楚不过了。你自己,一旦进去了,就会设法让下一个希望进入的人难以进入,就像那些曾经给你设下种种难关的人那样。这是很自然的。在那些人们由于良好的意图而建立的有益彼此身心健康的群体里,排外只是偶然的情况。三四个人因为工作的原因聚集到一起,他们如果排挤他人,是因为这些活儿只够这么多人做,或者因为其他人根本无法胜任。你那小乐队限制成员人数,是因为举行集会的小房间只有那么大。但是你那真正的内圈却是为了排他而存在的。如果没有圈外人的话,就毫无乐趣可言了。除非大多数人都错站在边界线外头,否则这条无形的界线就没有存在的意义了。在内圈里,排他不是偶然事件,而是其本质所在。
  
  The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all 28)unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the 29)sound 30)craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you 31)consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed32)snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a byproduct, and no one was led 33)thither by the lure of the34)esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. 35)Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
  苦苦追求进入内圈会令你伤心,除非你打破这种内圈的限制。但一旦你打破它,就会有惊人的结果出现。在你工作时间内,如果你把工作看做目标,不久你就会不经意地发现自己处于这个专业的唯一一个重要的圈子中。你将成为其中一个杰出的“匠人”,而其他杰出的“匠人”也会知晓。这群“匠人”组成的小组跟那些“内圈”或“重要人物”或“知情人”所组成的小组截然不同。它不会改变行业政策或者激发起用来对抗公众的专业影响力:它也不会像那些内圈那样引发周期性的丑闻或者危机。但是它会做该行业需要做的事情,并且长期致力于为该行业赢得其应有的尊敬,这是做多少演讲和卖多少广告都无法争取到的。如果在空余时间里,你和自己喜欢的人来往,你又会发现自己不经意地身处一个真正的圈子里:身处其中时,你会感觉舒适而安全,而这个圈子从外头看来很像“内圈”。但是不同之处在于,在这里,秘密是偶然产生的,排他性只是一个副产品,没人因为受到圈内人的诱惑而想进入:因为它仅仅是四五个互相喜欢的人聚集在一起做他们喜欢的事情而已。这叫做友谊。亚里士多德把它列为美德之一。世上大概半数的幸福快意由此而生,而这是任何内圈都无法拥有的。






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