现在已是黄昏了。
于是那女预言者爱尔美差说：愿这一日，这地方，和你讲说的心灵都蒙福佑。
他回答说，说那话的是我么？我不也是一个听者么？
他走下殿阶，一切的人都跟着他，他上了船，站在舱面。
转面向着大众，他提高了声音说：
阿法利斯的民众呵，风命令我离开你们了。
我虽不像风那样地迅急，我也必须去了。
我们这些漂泊者，永远地寻求更寂寞的道路，我们不在安歇的时地启程，朝阳与落日也不在同一地方看见我们。
大地在睡眠中时，我们仍在行路。
我们是那坚牢植物的种子，在我们的心成熟丰满的时候，就交给大风纷纷吹散。
我在你们中间的日子是非常短促的，而我所说的话是更短了。
但等到我的声音在你们的耳中模糊，我的爱在你们的记忆中消灭的时候，我要重来。我要以更丰满的心，更爱灵感的嘴唇说话。
是的，我要随着潮水归来，虽然死要遮蔽我，更大的沉默要包围我，我却仍要寻求你们的了解。
而且我这寻求不是徒然的。
假如我所说的都是真理，这真理要在更清澈的声音中，更明白的言语里显示出来。
阿法利斯的民众呵，我将与风同去，却不是坠入虚空；
假如这一天不是你们的需要和我的爱的满足，那就让这个算是一个应许，直到践言的一天。
人的“需要”会变换，但他的爱是不变的，他的“爱必满足需要”的愿望，也是不变的。
所以你要知道，我将在更大的沉默中归来。
那在晓光中消散，只留下露水的田间的烟雾，要上升凝聚在云中，化雨下降。
我也不是不像这烟雾。
在夜的寂静中，我曾在你们的街市上行走，我的心魂曾进入你们的院宅。
你们的心跳曾在我的心中，你们的呼吸曾在我的脸上，我都认识你们。
是的，我知道你们的喜乐与哀痛。在你们的睡眠中，你们的梦就是我的梦。
我在你们中间常像山间的湖水。
我照见了你们的高峰与危崖，以及你们思想和愿望的徘徊的云影。
你们的孩子的欢笑，和你们的青年的想望，都溪泉似的流到我的寂静之中。
当它流入我心之深处的时候，这溪泉仍是不停地歌唱。
但还有比欢笑还甜柔，比想望还伟大的东西流到。
那是你们身中的“无穷性”；
你们在这巨人里面，都不过是血脉与筋腱，
在他的吟诵中，你们的歌音只不过是无声的颤动。
只因为在这巨人里，你们才伟大。
我因为关心他，才关心你们，怜爱你们。
因为若不是在这阔大的空间里，爱能达到多远呢？
有什么幻象、什么期望、什么臆断能够无碍地高翔呢？
在你们本性中的巨人，如同一株缘满苹花的大橡树。
他的神力把你缠系在地上，他的香气把你超升入高空，在他的永存之中，你永不死。
你们曾听说过，像一条锁链，你们是脆弱的链环中最脆弱的一环。
但这不完全是真的。你们也是坚牢的链环中最坚牢的一环。
用你最小的事功来衡量你，如同用柔弱的泡沫来核计大海的威权。
用你的失败来论断你，就是怨责四季之常变。
是呵，你们是像大海。
那重载的船舶，停在你的岸边待潮。你们虽像大海，也不能催促你的潮水。
你们也像四季。
虽然你们在冬天的时候，拒绝了春日。
你们的春日，和你们一同静息，它在睡中微笑，并不怨嗔。
不要想我说这话是要使你们彼此说：“他夸奖得好，他只看见我们的好处。”
我不过用言语说出你们意念中所知道的事情。
言语的知识不只是无言的知识的影子么？
你们的意念和我的言语，都是从封缄的记忆里来的波浪，这记忆是保存下来的我们的昨日，也是大地还不认识我们也不认识她自己，正在混沌中受造的太古的白日和黑夜的记录。
哲人们曾来过，将他们的智慧给你们。我来却是领取你们的智慧：
要知道我找到了比智慧更伟大的东西。
那就是你们心里愈聚愈旺的火焰似的心灵。
你却不关心它的发展，只哀悼你岁月的凋残。
那是生命在宇宙的大生命中寻求扩大，而躯壳却在恐惧坟墓。
这里没有坟墓。
这些山岭和平原只是摇篮和垫脚石，
无论何时你从祖宗坟墓上走过，你若留意，你就会看见你们自己和子女们在那里携手跳舞。
真的，你们常在不知不觉中作乐。
别人曾来到这里，为了他们在你们信仰上的黄金般的应许，你们所付与的只是财富、权力与光荣。
我所给予的还不及应许，而你们待我却更慷慨。
你们将生命的更深的渴求给予了我。
真的，对那把一切目的变作枯唇，把一切生命变作泉水的人，没有比这个更大的礼物了。
这便是我的荣誉和报酬——
当我到泉边饮水的时候，我觉得那流水也在渴着；
我饮水的时候，水也饮我。
你们中有人责备我对于领受礼物上太狷傲、太羞怯了。
在领受劳金上我是太骄傲了，在领受礼物上却不如此。
虽然在你们请我赴席的时候，我却在山中采食浆果。
在你们款留我的时候，我却在庙宇的廊下睡眠。
但岂不是你们对我的日夜的关怀，使我的饮食有味，使我的魂梦甜美么？
为此我正要祝福你们：
“你们给予了许多，却不知道你们已经给予。
真的，慈悲自己看镜的时候，变成石像。
“善行”自赐嘉名的时候，变成了咒诅的根源。”
你们中有人说我高蹈，与我自己的‘孤独’对饮。
你们也说过：“他和山林谈论却不和人说话。
“他独自坐在山巅，俯视我们的城市。”
我确会攀登高山，孤行远地。
但除了在更高更远之处，我怎能看见你们呢？
除了相远之外，人们怎能相近呢？
还有人在无言中对我呼唤，他们说：“异乡人，异乡人，‘至高’的爱慕者，为什么你住在那鹰鸟作巢的山峰上呢？
为什么你要追求那不能达到的事物呢？
在你的窝巢中，你要网罗甚样的风雨，
要捕取天空中哪一种虚幻的飞鸟呢？
加入我们罢。
你下来用我们的面包充饥，用我们的醇酒解渴罢。”
在他们灵魂的静默中，他们说了这些话；但是他们若再静默些，他们就知道我所要网罗的，只是你们的欢乐和哀痛的奥秘。
我所要捕取的，只是你们在天空中飞行的“大我”。
但是猎者也曾是猎品。
因为从我弓上射出的箭儿，有许多只是瞄向我自己的心胸的。
并且那飞翔者也曾是爬行者；
因为我的翅翼在日下展开的时候，在地上的影儿是一个龟鳖。
我是信仰者也曾是怀疑者；
因为我常常用手指抚触自己的伤痕，使我对你们有更大的信仰和认识。
凭着这信仰和认识，我说：
你们不是幽闭在躯壳之内，也不是禁锢在房舍与田野之中。
你们的“真我”是住在云间，与风同游。
你们不是在日中匍匐取暖，在黑暗里钻穴求安的一只动物，却是一件自由的物事，一个包涵大地在以太中运行的魂灵。
如果这是模棱的言语，就不必寻求把这些话弄明白。
模糊和混沌是万物的起始，却不是终结。
我愿意你们把我当作个起始。
生命，和一切有生，都隐藏在烟雾里，不在水晶中。
谁知道水晶就是凝固的云雾呢？
在忆念我的时候，我愿你们记着这个：
你们心中最软弱、最迷乱的，就是那最坚决、最刚强的。
不是你的呼吸使你的骨骼竖立坚强么？
不是一个你觉得从未做过的梦，建造了你的城市，形成了城中的一切么？
你如能看见你呼吸的潮汐，你就看不见别的一切。
你如能听见那梦想的微语，你就听不见别的声音。
你看不见，也听不见，这却是好的。
那蒙在你眼上的轻纱，也要被包扎这纱的手揭去；
那塞在你耳中的泥土，也要被那填塞这泥土的手指戳穿。
你将要看见。
你将要听见。
你也不为曾经聋聩而悲悔。
因为在那时候，你要知道万物的潜隐的目的，你要祝福黑暗，如同祝福光明一样。
他说完这些话，望着四周，他看见他船上的舵工凭舵而立，凝视着那胀满的风帆，又望着无际的天末。
他说：
耐心的，我的船主是太耐心的了。
大风吹着，帆篷也烦躁了；
■ 记忆是相会的一种形式，忘记是自由的一种形式。
■ 信仰是心中的绿洲，思想的骆驼队是永远走不到的。
连船舵也急要启程；
我的船主却静候着我说完话。
我的水手们，听见了那更大的海的啸歌，他们也耐心地听着我。
现在他们不能再等待了。
我预备好了。
山泉已流入大海，那伟大的母亲又把他的儿子抱在胸前。
别了，阿法利斯的民众呵。
这一天完结了。
他在我们心上闭合，如同一朵莲花在她自己的“明日”上合闭。
在这里所付与我们的，我们要保藏起来。
如果这还不够，我们还必须重聚，齐向那给予者伸手。
不要忘了我还要回到你们这里来。
一会儿的工夫，我的愿望又要聚些泥土，形成另一个躯壳。
一会儿的工夫，在风中休息片刻，另一个妇人又要孕怀着我，我向你们，和我曾在你们中度过的青春告别了。
不过是昨天，我们曾在梦中相见。
在我的孤寂中，你们曾对我歌唱。为了你们的渴慕，我曾在空中建立了一座高塔。
但现在我们的睡眠已经飞走，我们的梦想已经过去，也不是破晓的时候了。
中天的日影正照着我们，我们的半醒已变成了完满的白日，我们必须分手了。
如果在记忆的朦胧中，我们再要会见，我们再在一起谈论，你们也要对我唱更深沉的歌曲。
如果在另一个梦中，我们要再握手，我们要在空中再建一座高塔。
说着话，他向水手们挥手作势，他们立刻拔起锚儿，放开船儿，向东驶行。
从人民口里发出的同心的悲号，在尘沙中飞扬，在海面上奔越，如同号角的声响。
只有爱尔美差静默着，凝望着，直至那船渐渐消失在烟雾之中。
大众都星散了，她仍独自站在海岸上，在她的心中忆念着他所说的：
“一会儿的工夫，在风中休息片刻，另一个妇人又要孕怀着我。”
28
The Farewell
And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day.
Man's needs change, but not his love, nor his desire that his love should satisfy his needs.
Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers.
And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing.
But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency.
Ay, you are like an ocean,
And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.
And like the seasons you are also,
And though in your winter you deny your spring,
Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended.
Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us."
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought.
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself,
And of nights when earth was upwrought with contusion,
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.
There are no graves here.
These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone.
Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.
Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me deeper thirsting after lite.
Surely there is no greater gilt to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward,
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;
And it drinks me while I drink it.
Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive gifts.
To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you would have had me sit at your hoard,
And slept in the portico of the temple where you would gladly have sheltered me,
Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
For this I bless you Most:
You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,
And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.
And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness,
And you have said, "Ile holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.
He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city."
True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places.
How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance?
How can one be indeed near unless he be far?
And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said,
Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine."
In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted:
For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;
Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built it tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent. gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying.
"A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind. and another woman shall bear me."
■ 思想是天空中的鸟，在语言的笼里，也许会展翼，却不会飞翔。
■ 友谊永远是一个甜蜜的责任，从来不是一种机会。
■ 当你的朋友向你倾吐胸臆的时候，你不要怕说出心中的“否”也不要瞒住你心中的“可”。当他静默的时候，你的心仍要倾听他的心；因为在友谊里，不用言语，一切的思想，一切的愿望，一切的希冀，都在无声的喜乐中发生而共享了。
■ 我宁可做人类中有梦想和有完成梦想的愿望的、最渺小的人，而不愿做一个最伟大的、无梦想、无愿望的人。
■ 有限的爱情要求占有对方，而无限的爱情则只要求爱的本身。