(完整word版)-Unit 11 On lf-respect

2024年3月15日发(作者：家国情怀作文)

On Self-Respect

John Didion

1. 一个干燥的季节，有一次我在摊开的笔记本两页间，用硕大的字写下这么一句话：

当一个人 失去了认为是自己最好的幻想之后，纯真就逝去了。尽管现在，许多年后，我惊

异于这种否 定了（它）的想法，它本应该在每次发作时都会带来痛苦的回忆，却让我难以

名状的回想起 那些特别让人忏悔难过往事的味道。这就是对自尊的曲解。

Once in a dry ason, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook

that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes onelf.

Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itlf should

have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with

embarrassing clarity the flavor of tho particular ashes. It was a matter of

misplaced lf-respect.

2. 我未能入选美国大学优等生荣誉学会，这次失败原本早已料到（我仅仅是没有成

绩） ，这点 很清楚，但我却因此而失落了。一直以来我觉得自己就是学科上的

Raskolnikov，因果关系能 束缚别人，却束缚不了我。尽管我只是个毫无幽默感的 19 岁

女孩，也早已意识到环境没有 真正的悲剧色彩，但我没有入选美国优等生荣誉学会的那天，

确实标志着某种东西的结束， “纯真”也许就是这种东西的最好指代。我失去了阳光总能

为我带来希望的坚强信念；也不 再欣然地肯定那些能使我自小就赢得赞许的天生丽质， 它

们都赋予了我， 不仅是美国优等生 荣誉学会中的重要人物，还有快乐、光荣和一个好男

人的爱情；还失去了某种对诸如优雅的 举止、 干净的头发和在比奈年上公认的能力等等

图腾式魔力的虔诚信仰。 我的自尊依附于这 些令人怀疑的护身符上，直到我那一天感受

到：如同突然遇到一个吸血鬼，手上却没有十字 架的保护，那种不知所措的惊慌的感觉。

I had not been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. This failure could scarcely have been

more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was

unnerved by it; I had somehow thought mylf a kind of academic Raskolnikov,

curiously exempt from the cau-effect relationships which hampered others.

Although even the humorless nineteen-year-old that I was must have recognized

that the situation lacked real tragic stature, the day I did not make Phi Beta Kappa

nonetheless marked the end of something, and innocence may well be the word

for it. I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant

certainty that tho rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child

automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa but happiness, honor, and

the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good

manners, clean hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such

doubtful amulets had my lf-respect been pinned, and I faced mylf that day

with the nonplusd apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire

and has no crucifix at hand.

3. 尽管遭遇挫折，大不了就是一件不安的事情，就好像试图拿着借来的证件过境一样，

但在我 看来， 现在第一要紧的事就是重新建立真正的自尊。 尽管我们大多数的陈词滥调

都表明自欺 是没有用的。对别人起作用的小把戏，实质上毫无用处，因为在亮堂堂的后巷，

自己清楚自 己些什么：这儿没有迷人的微笑，没有什么好心好意粉饰自己，只有直白

的面对自己。 在心底飞快地回想那些做的不合适的事情——另有企图的做好事， 没付出

真正努力就获得成 功，倍感羞愧而做成的英雄事迹，自尊与他人的赞许没有关联，别人毕

竟还是很好欺骗的； 自尊也同名誉无关，正如白瑞德告诉斯佳丽那样，勇敢的人没有名誉