安德鲁读信泰德休斯给爱子的信(3)
But when you develop a strong divining sense for the child behind that armour, and you make your dealings and negotiations only with that child, you find that everybody becomes, in a way, like your own child. It’s an intangible thing. But when they too, sense when that is what you are appealing to, and they respond with an impulse of real life, you get a little flash of the essential person, which is the child.
不过，当你对那副盔甲后的孩子产生了一种强烈的预感，并且只和那个孩子打交道和谈判时，你会发现，在某种程度上，每个人都变成了你的孩子。这是一种无形之物。但当他们也同样意识到这就是你所吸引的地方时，他们会用现实的冲动来做出回应，你会看到真实人物的些许闪光点，而那就是孩子。
Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It’s been protected by the efficient armour, it’s never participated in life, it’s never been exposed to living and to managing the person’s affairs, it’s never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it’s never properly lived. That’s how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced.
通常，那孩子是一个可怜、孤立且未发育的小生命。被强硬的盔甲呵护着，也从未入世，更别提接触生活和管理个人事务了，从来没人让它承担首当其冲的责任。它从来没有像样地生活过。几乎人人如此。那个小家伙就坐在那儿，躲在盔甲后面，透过裂缝窥视着外界。而就其自身而言，它仍然脆弱、无能、缺乏经验。
Every single person is vulnerable to unexpected defeat in this inmost emotional self. At every moment, behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the whole world of the person’s childhood is being carefully held like a glass of water bulging above the brim.
每个人都很容易在这种内心情感的自我中遭受意想不到的失败。每时每刻，在看似最有效的成人外表背后，一个人童年的整个世界都被小心翼翼地捧着，就像一杯水快要溢出似的。
And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It’s their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can’t understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That’s the carrier of all the living qualities. It’s the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn’t come out of that creature isn’t worth having, or it’s worth having only as a tool — for that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful.
事实上，那个孩子是他们身上唯一真实的东西。是他们的人性，他们真正的个性，那个无法理解自己为什么会出现，却知道无论在多么拥挤的地方，自己终将会孤独地死去的孩子。这是所有生活品质的载体。它是所有可能的魔法和启示的中心。从那个生物身上得不到的东西不值得拥有，或者它只值得作为一种工具——让那个生物使用，思考，去创造有意义的东西。