J*******g
发帖数: 8775 | 1 九
天主、我的天主，这时我经受了多少忧患、多少欺骗！当时对童年的我提示出正当生活
是在乎听从教诲，为了日后能出人头地，为了擅长于为人间荣华富贵服务的词令。因此
，我被送进学校去读书，那时我还不识读书的用处，但如果读得懈怠，便受责打。大人
们都赞成这种办法，并且以前已有许多人过着这样的生活，为我们准备了艰涩的道路，
强迫我们去走，增加了亚当子孙的辛劳与痛苦。
但是，主，我们也碰到了向你祷告的人，从他们那里，我们也尽可能地学习到、从而意
识到你是一个伟大人物，你虽则未尝呈现在我们面前，却能倾听我们、帮助我们。因为
我在童年时已开始祈求你，作为我的救援和避难所，我是滔滔不绝地向你呼吁，我年龄
虽小却怀着很大的热情，求你保佑我在学校中不受夏楚。每逢你为了我的好没有听从我
时，大人们、甚至决不愿我吃苦的父母们都笑受扑责：这在当时是我重大的患难。
主啊，是否有人怀着如此伟大的精神，以无比的热情依恋着你，我说，是否有人——因
为有时由于愚昧无知也能到此地步——虔诚依恋着你，抱着宏伟的毅力，身受世界上谁
都惊怖战栗、趋避惟恐不及的木马刑、铁爪刑等楚毒的刑罚，而竟处之泰然，甚至还热
爱着战慑失色的人们，一如我们的父母嘲笑孩子受老师的扑责？我是非常怕打，切求你
使我避免责打，但我写字、读书、温课，依旧不达到要求，依旧犯罪。
主啊，我并不缺乏你按照年龄而赋畀的记忆和理解力；但我欢喜游戏，并受到同样从事
游戏者的责罚。大人们的游戏被认为是正经事，而孩子们游戏便受大人们责打，人们既
不可怜孩子，也不可怜大人。但一个公正的人是否能赞成别人责打我，由于我孩子时因
打球游戏而不能很快读熟文章，而这些文章在我成年后将成为更恶劣的玩具？另一面，
责打我的人怎样呢？假如他和同事吵架，被同事打败，那他便发出比我打球输给同学时
更大的嫉恨！
CHAPTER IX
14. O my God! What miseries and mockeries did I then experience when it was
impressed on me that obedience to my teachers was proper to my boyhood
estate if I was to flourish in this world and distinguish myself in those
tricks of speech which would gain honor for me among men, and deceitful
riches! To this end I was sent to school to get learning, the value of which
I knew not--wretch that I was. Yet if I was slow to learn, I was flogged.
For this was deemed praiseworthy by our forefathers and many had passed
before us in the same course, and thus had built up the precedent for the
sorrowful road on which we too were compelled to travel, multiplying labor
and sorrow upon the sons of Adam. About this time, O Lord, I observed men
praying to thee, and I learned from them to conceive thee--after my capacity
for understanding as it was then--to be some great Being, who, though not
visible to our senses, was able to hear and help us. Thus as a boy I began
to pray to thee, my Help and my Refuge, and, in calling on thee, broke the
bands of my tongue. Small as I was, I prayed with no slight earnestness that
I might not be beaten at school. And when thou didst not heed me--for that
would have been giving me over to my folly--my elders and even my parents
too, who wished me no ill, treated my stripes as a joke, though they were
then a great and grievous ill to me.
15. Is there anyone, O Lord, with a spirit so great, who cleaves to thee
with such steadfast affection (or is there even a kind of obtuseness that
has the same effect)--is there any man who, by cleaving devoutly to thee, is
endowed with so great a courage that he can regard indifferently those
racks and hooks and other torture weapons from which men throughout the
world pray so fervently to be spared; and can they scorn those who so
greatly fear these torments, just as my parents were amused at the torments
with which our teachers punished us boys? For we were no less afraid of our
pains, nor did we beseech thee less to escape them. Yet, even so, we were
sinning by writing or reading or studying less than our assigned lessons.
For I did not, O Lord, lack memory or capacity, for, by thy will, I
possessed enough for my age. However, my mind was absorbed only in play, and
I was punished for this by those who were doing the same things themselves.
But the idling of our elders is called business; the idling of boys, though
quite like it, is punished by those same elders, and no one pities either
the boys or the men. For will any common sense observer agree that I was
rightly punished as a boy for playing ball--just because this hindered me
from learning more quickly those lessons by means of which, as a man, I
could play at more shameful games? And did he by whom I was beaten do
anything different? When he was worsted in some small controversy with a
fellow teacher, he was more tormented by anger and envy than I was when
beaten by a playmate in the ball game. |
