江入大荒流
縱浪大化中 不喜也不懼 應盡便須盡 無複獨多慮
Letter to a Child Never Born
(Lettera a un Bambino Mai nato)
by Oriana Fallaci
Translated by John Shepley
To those who do not fear doubt—
To those who wonder why
without growing tired and at the cost
of suffering and dying—
To those who pose themselves the dilemma
of giving life or denying it—
this book is dedicated
by a woman
for all women.
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Last night I knew you existed: a drop of life escaped from nothingness. I was lying, my eyes wide open in the darkness, and all at once I was certain you were there. You existed. It was as if a bullet had struck me. My heart stopped. And when it began to pound again, in gun bursts of wonder, I had the feeling I had been flung into a well so deep that everything was unsure and terrifying. Now I am locked in fear that soaks my face, my hair, my thoughts. I am lost in it. It is not fear of others. I don’t care about others. It’s not fear of God. I don’t believe in God. It’s not fear of pain. I have no fear of pain. It is fear of you, of the circumstance that has wrenched you out of nothingness to attach yourself to my body. I was never eager to welcome you, even though I’ve known for some time that you might exist someday. In that sense I have long awaited you. But still I’ve always asked myself the terrible question: What if you don’t want to be born? What if some day you were to cry out to reproach me: “Who asked you to bring me into the world, why did you bring me into it, why?” Life is such an effort, Child. It’s a war that is renewed each day, and its moments of joy are brief parentheses for which you pay a cruel price. How can I know that it wouldn’t be better to throw you away? How can I tell that you wouldn’t rather be returned to the silence? You cannot speak to me; our drop of life is only a cluster of cells that has scarcely begun. Perhaps it’s not even life, only the mere possibility of life. I wish that you could help me with even a nod, a slight sign. My mother claims that I gave her such a sign, and that was the reason she brought me into the world.
You see, my mother didn’t want me. I was begun in a moment of other people’s carelessness. And hoping I wouldn’t be born, she dissolved some medicine in a glass of water each night. Then, weeping, she drank it. She drank it faithfully until the night I moved inside her belly and gave her a kick to tell her not to throw me away. She was lifting the glass to her lips when I signaled. She turned it upside down immediately and spilled the fluid out. Some months later I was lolling victoriously in the sun. Whether that was good or bad I don’t know; when I’m happy I think it was good, when I’m unhappy I think it was bad. But even when I’m miserable, I think I would have regretted not being born, since nothing is worse than nothingness. Let me say again: I’m not afraid of pain. We are born with pain; it grows with us, and we get used to it just as to the fact we have two arms and legs. Actually, I’m not even afraid of dying, dying means you at least were born, you escaped from nothingness. What I’m truly afraid of is nothingness, not being, never having existed, even by chance, by mistake, by the carelessness of others.
A lot of women ask themselves why they should bring a child into the world. So that it will be hungry, so that it will be cold, so that it will be betrayed and humiliated, so that it will be slaughtered by war of disease? They reject the hope that its hunger will be satisfied, its cold warmed, that loyalty and respect will accompany it through life, that it will devote a life to the effort to eliminate war and disease. Maybe they’re right. But is nothingness preferable to suffering? Even when I weep over my failures, my disillusions, my torments, I am sure that suffering is preferable to nothingness. And if I extend this to life, to the dilemma of being born or not, every nerve in my body cries out that it is better to be born than not to be. But can I impose such reasoning on you? Doesn’t that mean that I am bringing you into the world for myself alone and no one else? I’m not interested in bringing you into the world only for myself and no one else. I don’t need you at all.
(To Be Continued)
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本人辛苦錄入，如欲轉載，請注明出處，不勝感激。
圖雅說，‘活著不容易，死，誰還怕了’
不同語境，不同處境，一個being, 一個living，一樣的不容易，一樣的值得。