659.托尔斯泰/Exupéry/

Reader86

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy

Somehow, this famous line is sometimes explained through an analogy to animal domestication.

To domesticate a wild animal, several conditions must all be satisfied; none can be missing. Once all are met, the animal can be domesticated. A family is similar: for it to be happy, multiple conditions must be fulfilled at the same time. When they are, the result tends to look alike—hence happy families are similar.

Unhappy families, however, fail to meet one or more of these conditions. Because the missing conditions differ, their unhappiness takes different forms.

In a nutshell: Happiness requires many things to go right at once; unhappiness can arise in many different ways.

”幸福的家庭都是一样的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。” 托尔斯泰

这句名言是根据驯化动物的科学原理而来。

要把野生的动物驯化为家养，几个条件，必需全部满足，缺一不可。一旦满足，都为家养。家庭一样 ， 要幸福，必需同时满足几个条件，满足后都是幸福家庭，都满足这些条件，因此幸福家庭是一样的。

不幸福的家庭，就是其中一个或者多个条件不能满足，因此不幸福的家庭，不满足的条件各自不同，因此不同。

Reader86

Of course I will hurt you. Of course you will hurt me. Of course we will hurt. But this is the condition of existence. To make oneself a spring is to take the risk of winter. To make oneself present is to take the risk of absence. It is the risk of pain that comes with knowing my joy.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Reader86

以下是针对这三个部分的中文翻译：

1. 爱情是一种“痛苦的绝症”

在《在天鹅家那边》（Swann's Way）中，普鲁斯特将爱情的降临描述为一种身体与精神的折磨，而非喜悦。他认为，只有当我们为所爱之人感到痛苦或焦虑时，我们才是在真正地爱着。

“对自己所爱的人冷酷而欺诈，这是多么自然的事！……我们对他人刻薄时，远不如对自己刻薄时那样胆怯；相比于我们可能给所爱之人带来的痛苦，我们更害怕因为对他们刻薄而给自己带来的痛苦。”

In Swann’s Way, Proust describes the onset of love not as a joy, but as a physical and mental affliction. He suggests that we only truly love when we are suffering or anxious about the beloved.

To be harsh and deceitful to the person one loves is so natural! ... We are less afraid of being unkind to others than of being unkind to ourselves, and we are more afraid of the suffering we may cause ourselves by being unkind to the person we love than of the suffering we may cause that person.

-- Proust



2. 痛苦的必要性（即“虐”的元素）

普鲁斯特有一个著名的论点：一个人若要对我们变得“必不可少”，他/她必须让我们受苦。他相信，如果一个人总是召之即来且温柔体贴，我们的欲望最终会枯竭。

“爱情是一种无药可救的疾病……它是我们心灵中一个或多或少独立于其他部分的存在，它比其他任何部分都更重要，并执着地要求那个‘施暴者’——即那个让你受伤的人——来亲手治愈它。”

Love is an incurable disease... It is a portion of our mind more or less detached from the rest, more important than the rest, which insists on being 'healed' by the very person who has inflicted the wound.

-- Proust

The Necessity of Suffering Proust famously argued that for a person to become "necessary" to us, they must make us suffer. He believed that if someone is entirely available and kind, our desire for them eventually dies.



3. 嫉妒的“缝合点”

在普鲁斯特看来，爱情几乎等同于嫉妒。他主张，只有当我们意识到“对方”拥有我们无法控制的生活、思想以及潜在的情人时，我们才会珍视对方。这种掌控感的缺失，正是维持爱情生命力的“酷刑”。

“嫉妒的功能之一，就是向我们揭示出：外界事实的真相以及内心的情感，在多大程度上其实都是未知的因素，它们为无止境的猜疑提供了温床。”

The "Stitch Point" of Jealousy Proustian love is almost synonymous with jealousy. He posits that we only value the "other" when we realize they have a life, thoughts, and potential lovers that we cannot control. This lack of control is the "torture" that keeps the love alive."

It is one of the faculties of jealousy to reveal to us how much the reality of external facts and the feelings of the heart are an unknown element which lends itself to endless suppositions.

-- Proust