清晨，阳光慢慢爬上窗台，以慵懒且温和方式提醒人们新的一天到来。
或许是因为心事，岑越崎一夜无梦，只记得很多单词手牵手围着他转圈，叽叽喳喳闹着和他玩猜猜我是谁的游戏。
未等闹铃响起，他变猛的起身，深吸一口气。
随即叼了块面包，脚步轻快地背起背包出门。
等把最后一口面包塞进嘴里时，他已经顺利落座图书馆。
今天的任务仍旧艰巨，他简单列了张计划，便投入备考之中。
今天的阅读材料比昨日的要简单些，却更抽象。岑越崎揉了揉鼻梁，强迫自己专注眼前的文字。
I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect（昆虫）. I tell you solemnly,（庄严的） that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that.
I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious（意志清醒的） is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.
For man's everyday needs, it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is, half or a quarter of the amount which falls to the lot of （降临到……头上）a cultivated man of our unhappy nineteenth century, espe- cially one who has the fatal ill-luck（倒霉） to inhabit（居住） Petersburg（圣彼得堡）, the most theoretical and intentional town on the whole terrestrial（陆生的） globe.
(There are intentional and unintentional towns.)
It would have been quite enough, for instance, to have the consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and men of action live.
I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation（矫揉造作）, to be witty （诙谐的）at the expense （损失）of men of action; and what is more, that from ill-bred（粗野的） affectation, I am clanking （发出叮当声）a sword（剑） like my officer.
But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger（炫耀） over them?
Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone. We will not dispute it; my contention（争论） was absurd.
But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. I stick to that.
Let us leave that, too, for a minute.
Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very（恰好）, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement（文雅） of all that is "sublime（庄严的） and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that ... Well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed.
The more conscious I was of goodness（善良） and of all that was "sublime and beautiful," the more deeply I sank into my mire（泥潭） and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.
But the chief（重要的） point was that all this was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though it were bound to （必然）be so.
It was as though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease or depravity（堕落）, so that at last all desire in me to struggle against this depravity passed.
It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition.
But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle!
I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret.
I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable（卑劣的） enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely（尖锐的） conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome（令人憎恨的） action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly （思想上的）gnawing（痛苦的）, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming（消耗） myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last - into positive real enjoyment!
Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment!
I insist upon that.
I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment?
I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one's own degradation（堕落）; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.
And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute （过度敏锐）consciousness, and with the inertia（惯性） that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing.
Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel（恶棍）; as though that were any consolation （安慰）to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel.
But enough.... Ech, I have talked a lot of nonsense（废话）, but what have I explained? How is enjoyment in this to be explained?
But I will explain it.
I will get to the bottom of it!（水落石出）
That is why I have taken up my pen....
I, for instance, have a great deal of（许多） AMOUR PROPRE（自尊心）. I am as suspicious and prone（倾向于） to take offence as a humpback（驼背） or a dwarf（侏儒）.
But upon my word I sometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped （被掴耳光）in the face I should, perhaps, have been positively glad of it.
I say, in earnest（坦诚地讲）, that I should probably have been able to discover even in that a peculiar（特殊的） sort of enjoyment - the enjoyment, of course, of despair; but in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.
And when one is slapped in the face - why then the consciousness of being rubbed into a pulp （纸浆）would positively overwhelm one.
The worst of it is, look at it which way one will, it still turns out that I was always the most to blame in everything.
And what is most humiliating（丢脸的） of all, to blame for no fault of my own but, so to say, through the laws of nature.
In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me.
(I have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me, and sometimes, would you beli- eve it, have been positively ashamed of it.At any rate, I have all my life, as it were, turned my eyes away and never could look people straight in the face.)
To blame, finally, because even if I had had magnanimity,（宽宏大量） I should only have had more suffering from the sense of its uselessness.
I should certainly have never been able to do anything from being magnanimous - neither to forgive, for my assailant（攻击者） would perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature, and one cannot forgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were owing to the laws of nature, it is insulting（无礼的） all the same.
Finally, even if I had wanted to be anything but magnanimous, had desired on the contrary to revenge（报复） myself on my assailant, I could not have revenged myself on any one for anything because I should certainly never have made up my mind to do anything, even if I had been able to.
Why should I not have made up my mind?
About that in particular I want to say a few words.
或许是因为这篇文章实在诙谐，岑越崎忽然理解了英语的魅力，可以跨越时空跨越空间和几百年前的人们思考同样的问题，进行心灵上的对话。
因为痛苦绝对不是孤立存在的，个体的痛苦往往和时代洪流交织穿插，在历史长河中不断重演。
岑越崎合上书页，叹了口气。
窗外不知何时起淅淅沥沥下起了雨，打在玻璃上，留下一道道雨痕。他抬起头，若有所思地望向窗外。
天气时有晴雨，生活常有困境，但人们总归不是能被任意摆布的。
只要还有思考，就还有力量，还有反抗的勇气，还有重建的信心。
那他就祝自己的命运同着随风摇荡的如芦苇般的思想一样自由。
注：文段摘自陀思妥耶夫斯基的《地下室手记》（Notes from the Underground）
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第4章 Freedom Is Consciousness
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