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相约星期二|Tuesdays with Morrie

The Seventh Tuesday We Talk About the Fear o f Aging

属类： 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 米奇-艾尔邦] 阅读：[11614]
The Professor, Part Two
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莫里输掉了这场较量。现在得有人替他擦洗屁股了。

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他以一种特有的勇气去面对这个现实。当他上完厕所后无法自己擦洗时，他把这一最新的情况告诉了康尼。

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"让你帮我擦洗你会觉得难堪吗"

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她说不会。

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我觉得他不同寻常，因为他最先求助的是康尼。

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这不是一下子就能适应的，莫里承认道，因为从某种意义上说，这是完全向疾病屈服的表现。现在连做最隐私，最基本的事情的权力也被剥夺了--上厕所，擦鼻涕，擦洗自己的身体，除了呼吸和咽食外，他几乎一切都得依赖于别人。

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我问莫里他是如何保持乐观态度的。

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"米奇，这很滑稽，"他说。"我是个独立的人，因此我内心总在同这一切抗争--依赖车子，让人替我穿衣服等等。我有一种羞耻感，因为我们的文化告诉我们说，如果你不能自已擦洗屁股，你就应该感到羞耻。但我又想，忘掉文化对我们的灌输。我的大半生都没有去理睬这种文化。我没有必要感到羞耻。这有什么关系呢？

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"你知道吗？真是太奇怪了，"

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是什么？

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"我感觉到了依赖别人的乐趣。现在当他们替我翻身，在我背上涂擦防止长疮的乳霜时，我感到是一种享受。当他们替我擦脸或按摩腿部时，我同样觉得很受用，我会闭上眼睛陶醉在其中。一切都显得习以为常了。

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"这就像重新回到了婴儿期。有人给你洗澡，有人抱你，有人替你擦洗。我们都有过当孩子的经历，它留在了你的大脑深处。对我而言，这只是在重新回忆起儿时的那份乐趣罢了。

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"事实上，当母亲搂抱我们，轻摇我们，抚摸我们时--我们没人嫌这份呵护太多，在某种程度上，我们甚至渴望回到完全由人照顾的年代去--这是一种无保留的爱，无保留的呵护。许多人都缺少这份爱。

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"我就是。"

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我望着莫里，顿时明白了他为什么喜欢我探过身去帮他扶正话筒、抬抬枕头或擦拭眼睛。人类的接触。七十八岁的他像成人那样给予，又像孩子那样接受。

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那天晚些时候，我们谈到了年龄和衰老。或者说谈到了对衰老的恐惧--另一个列在我的目录上，困惑着我们这一代人的问题。我从波士顿机场开车来这儿的路上，注意到了许多印着俊男靓女的广告牌。一个英俊的牛仔在抽香烟，两个漂亮的姑娘对着洗发水嫣然而笑，一个举止撩人的女郎穿着敞开扣子的牛仔裤，一个身穿黑丝绒礼服的性感女子和一个身穿无尾礼服的男子依偎在苏格兰威士忌的酒杯旁。

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我从未在广告牌上见过年龄超过三十五岁的模特。我对莫里说，虽然我竭力想停留在华年的巅峰，但我已有了桑榆暮景的感觉。我经常锻炼，注意饮食结构，在镜子里查看有没有自发。我从原来颇为自己的年龄自豪一因为我觉得自己是少年有成--到不愿提起年龄，害怕自己步人不惑之年后就再也没有事业上的成就感了。

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莫里以一种更独特的视角来看待年龄问题。

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"那是因为人们过于强调了年轻的价值--我不接受这种价值观，"他说。"我知道年轻也会是一种苦恼，所以别向我炫耀年轻的魅力。那些来找我的孩子都有他们的烦恼：矛盾、迷惘、不成熟、活着感到累，有的甚至想自杀……

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"而且，年轻人还不够明智。他们对生活的理解很有限。如果你对生活一无所知的话，你还愿意一天天过下去吗？当人们在影响你，对你说使用这种香水可以变得漂亮，或穿这条牛仔裤可以变得性感时，你往往就相信了。其实那都是胡扯。"

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你从来没有害怕过变老？我问。

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"米奇，我乐于接受老。"

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乐于接受？

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"这很简单。随着年龄的增加，你的阅历也更加丰富。如果你停留在二十二岁的年龄阶段，你就永远是二十二岁的那般浅薄。要知道，衰老并不就是衰败。它是成熟。接近死亡并不一定是坏事，当你意识到这个事实后，它也有十分积极的一面，你会因此而活得更好。"

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是啊，我说，可如果变老是那么有价值的话，为什么人们总说，"啊，但愿我变得年轻。"你从来没有听人这么说过，"但愿我已经六十五岁了。"

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他笑了。"你知道这反映了什么？生活的不满足，生活的不充实，生活的无意义。因为你一旦找到了生活的意义，你就不会想回到从前去。你想往前走。你想看得更多，做得更多。你想体验六十五岁的那份经历。

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"听着，你应该懂得一个哲理。所有年轻人都应该懂得这个哲理。如果你一直不愿意变老，那你就永远不会幸福，因为你终究是要变老的。

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"米奇？"

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他放低了声音。

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"事实是，你总是要死的。"

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我点点头。

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"这不取决于你对自己怎么说。"

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我知道。

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他神态平静地闭上了眼睛，接着叫我帮他调节一下枕头的位置，他的身体需要不停地挪动，不然会难受。他整个人凹陷在那只堆满了白枕头、黄海绵和蓝毛巾的躺椅里。一瞥之下，你会以为莫里是在被装箱送去海运呢。

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"谢谢，"我移动枕头时他对我低声说。

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没关系，我说。

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"米奇，你在想什么？"

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我迟疑了一下。好吧，我说。我在想你怎么一点也不羡慕年轻、健康的人。

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"哦，我想我是羡慕他们的。"他闭上了眼睛。"我羡慕他们可以去健身俱乐部，可以去游泳，可以跳舞。尤其是跳舞。但当这种感情到来时，我先感受它，然后便离开它。还记得我说过的超脱吗？离它而去。对自己说，’这是忌妒，我要离开它。’然后我就离开了。"

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他又咳嗽起来--一阵声音刺耳的长咳--他把一张手中纸递到嘴边，无力地吐着痰。坐在那里，我觉得自己比他要强壮得多--多么荒唐可笑的念头--我觉得能把他提起来像一袋面粉一样扛在肩上。我为这一优越感而感到害臊，因为在其它任何方面我一点也不比他优越。

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你怎么一点也不羡慕……

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"什么？"

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他笑了。

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"米奇，老年人不可能不羡慕年轻人，但问题是你得接受现状并能自得其乐。这是你三十几岁的好时光。我也有过三十几岁的岁月，而我现在是七十八岁。

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"你应该发现你现在生活中的一切美好。真实的东西，回首过去会使你产生竞争的意识，而年龄是无法竞争的。"

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他长吁了口气，垂下眼睛，好像注视着他的呼吸消散在空气里。

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"实际上，我分属于不同的年龄阶段。我是个三岁的孩子，也是个五岁的孩子；我是个三十七岁的中年人，也是个五十岁的中年人。这些年龄阶段我都经历过，我知道它们是什么样的。当我应该是个孩子时，我乐于做个孩子；当我应该是个聪明的老头时，我也乐于做个聪明的老头。我乐于接受自然赋于我的一切权力。我属于任何一个年龄，直到现在的我，你能理解吗？"

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我点点头。

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"我不会羡慕你的人生阶段--因为我也有过这个人生阶段。"

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"命运屈从于

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无数个种类：只有一个

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会危及它自己。"

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莫里最喜欢的诗人

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The Morrie I knew, the Morrie so many others knew, would not have been the man he was without the years he spent working at a mental hospital just outside Washington, D.C., a place with the deceptively peaceful name of Chestnut Lodge. It was one of Morrie’s first jobs after plowing through a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Having rejected medicine, law, and business, Morrie had decided the research world would be a place where he could contribute without exploiting others.

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Morrie was given a grant to observe mental patients and record their treatments. While the idea seems common today, it was groundbreaking in the early fifties. Morrie saw patients who would scream all day. Patients who would cry all night. Patients soiling their underwear. Patients refusing to eat, having to be held down, medicated, fed intravenously.

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One of the patients, a middle-aged woman, came out of her room every day and lay facedown on the tile floor, stayed there for hours, as doctors and nurses stepped around her. Morrie watched in horror. He took notes, which is what he was there to do. Every day, she did the same thing: came out in the morning, lay on the floor, stayed there until the evening, talking to no one, ignored by everyone. It saddened Morrie. He began to sit on the floor with her, even lay down alongside her, trying to draw her out of her misery. Eventually, he got her to sit up, and even to return to her room. What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want-someone to notice she was there.

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Morrie worked at Chestnut Lodge for five years. Although it wasn’t encouraged, he befriended some of the patients, including a woman who joked with him about how lucky she was to be there "because my husband is rich so he can afford it. Can you imagine if I had to be in one of those cheap mental hospitals?"

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Another woman-who would spit at everyone else took to Morrie and called him her friend. They talked each day, and the staff was at least encouraged that someone had gotten through to her. But one day she ran away, and Morrie was asked to help bring her back. They tracked her down in a nearby store, hiding in the back, and when Morrie went in, she burned an angry look at him.

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"So you’re one of them, too," she snarled.

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"One of who?"

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"My jailers."

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Morrie observed that most of the patients there had been rejected and ignored in their lives, made to feel that they didn’t exist. They also missed compassion-something the staff ran out of quickly. And many of these patients were well-off, from rich families, so their wealth did not buy them happiness or contentment. It was a lesson he never forgot.

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I used to tease Morrie that he was stuck in the sixties. He would answer that the sixties weren’t so bad, compared to the times we lived in now.

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He came to Brandeis after his work in the mental health field, just before the sixties began. Within a few years, the campus became a hotbed for cultural revolution. Drugs, sex, race, Vietnam protests. Abbie Hoffman attended Brandeis. So did Jerry Rubin and Angela Davis. Morrie had many of the "radical" students in his classes.

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That was partly because, instead of simply teaching, the sociology faculty got involved. It was fiercely antiwar, for example. When the professors learned that students who did not maintain a certain grade point average could lose their deferments and be drafted, they decided not to give any grades. When the administration said, "If you don’t give these students grades, they will all fail," Morrie had a solution: "Let’s give them all A’s." And they did.

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Just as the sixties opened up the campus, it also opened up the staff in Morrie’s department, from the jeans and sandals they now wore when working to their view of the classroom as a living, breathing place. They chose discussions over lectures, experience over theory. They sent students to the Deep South for civil rights projects and to the inner city for fieldwork. They went to Washington for protest marches, and Morrie often rode the busses with his students. On one trip, he watched with gentle amusement as women in flowing skirts and love beads put flowers in soldiers’ guns, then sat on the lawn, holding hands, trying to levitate the Pentagon.

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"They didn’t move it," he later recalled, "but it was a nice try."

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One time, a group of black students took over Ford Hall on the Brandeis campus, draping it in a banner that read MALCOLM X UNIVERSITY. Ford Hall had chemistry labs, and some administration officials worried that these radicals were making bombs in the basement. Morrie knew better. He saw right to the core of the problem, which was human beings wanting to feel that they mattered.

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The standoff lasted for weeks. And it might have gone on even longer if Morrie hadn’t been walking by the building when one of the protesters recognized him as a favorite teacher and yelled for him to come in through the window.

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An hour later, Morrie crawled out through the window with a list of what the protesters wanted. He took the list to the university president, and the situation was diffused.

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Morrie always made good peace.

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At Brandeis, he taught classes about social psychology, mental illness and health, group process. They were light on what you’d now call "career skills" and heavy on "personal development."

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And because of this, business and law students today might look at Morrie as foolishly naive about his contributions. How much money did his students go on to make? How many big-time cases did they win?

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Then again, how many business or law students ever visit their old professors once they leave? Morrie’s students did that all the time. And in his final months, they came back to him, hundreds of them, from Boston, New York, California, London, and Switzerland; from corporate offices and inner city school programs. They called. They wrote. They drove hundreds of miles for a visit, a word, a smile.

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"I’ve never had another teacher like you," they all said.

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As my visits with Morrie go on, I begin to read about death_, how different cultures view the final passage. There is a tribe in the North American Arctic, for example, who believe that all things on earth have a soul that exists in a miniature form of the body that holds it-so that a deer has a tiny deer inside it, and a man has a tiny man inside him. When the large being dies, that tiny form lives on. It can slide into something being born nearby, or it can go to a temporary resting place in the sky, in the belly of a great feminine spirit, where it waits until the moon can send it back to earth.

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Sometimes, they say, the moon is so busy with the new souls of the world that it disappears from the sky. That is why we have moonless nights. But in the end, the moon always returns, as do we all.

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That is what they believe.

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