I awoke once during the night. I pushed the
canopy1 aside and looked out. The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was
perfectly2 clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained
brilliance3 that it seemed absurd to call the night dark. The sea lay quietly, bathed in a shy, light-footed light, a dancing play of black and silver that extended without limits all about me. The volume of things was confounding - the volume of air above me, the volume of water around and beneath me. I was half-moved, half-terrified. I felt like the
sage4 Markandeya, who fell out of Vishnu's mouth while Vishnu was sleeping and so
beheld5 the entire universe, everything that there is. Before the sage could die of fright, Vishnu awoke and took him back into his mouth. For the first time I noticed - as I would notice repeatedly during my
ordeal6, between one throe of agony and the next - that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and
insignificant7, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right. (It was daylight that brought my protest: "No! No! No! My suffering does matter. I want to live! I can't help but mix my life with that of the universe. Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness - how can I not dwell on this brief,
cramped8 view I have of things? This peephole is all I've got!") I
mumbled9 words of Muslim prayer and went back to sleep.
第六十章
夜 里，我醒了一次。我把顶篷推开，向外面望去。天空异常明净，一轮弯月挂在天上，轮廓十分清晰。星星如此耀眼地平静地闪烁着，要说夜晚是黑暗的，似乎很荒 唐。海静静地躺着，沐浴在羞怯的轻盈的光里，那是跳动摇曳的黑色与银色，在我周围无限伸展。周围的一切多得令我不知所措——我周围的空气那么多，我四周和 下面的水那么多。我半是感动，半是害怕。我感到自己就像圣人马肯得亚，在毗湿奴睡着的时候从他嘴里掉了出来，于是他看见了整个的宇宙，所有的一切。就在他 快被吓死的时候毗湿奴醒了，把他放回了嘴里。我第一次注意到——在我的苦难经历中，在一阵剧烈的痛苦和下一阵剧烈的痛苦之间，我还将不断地注意到——我的 痛苦是在一个宏伟庄严的环境中发生的。我从痛苦本身去看待它，认为它是有限的、不重要的，而我是静止不动的。找意识到自己的痛苦并不算什么。我能接受痛 苦。这没关系。（是白昼让我抗议：“不！不！不！我的痛苦有关系。我想要活！我情不自禁地要把自己的生命和宇宙的生命融合在一起。生命就是一个窥孔，是通 向广袤无垠的惟一一个小小的人口——我怎么能不凝视我看到的这短暂而狭小的景象呢——这个窥孔就是我的全部所有啊！”）我咕哝了几句穆斯林祷告词，又接着 睡了。
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