6
Marxism
马克斯兄弟式思维
1. When we look at someone (an angel) from a position of unrequited love and imagine the pleasures that being in heaven with them might bring us, we are prone to overlook a significant danger: how soon their attractions might pale if they began to love us back. We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as ideal as we are corrupt. But what if such a being were one day to turn around and love us back? We can only be shocked. How could they be divine as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us? If in order to love, we must believe that the beloved surpasses us in some way, does not a cruel paradox emerge when we witness this love returned? 'If s/he really is so wonderful, how could s/he could love someone like me?'当我们从单恋者的角度审视自己爱恋的人（一个天使），想象和他们厮守在人间天堂的无限幸福时，我们易于忽视一个重大的危险：如果他们开始回应我们的爱，那么他们的吸引力也许很快就褪色消逝。钟情之人美丽、聪慧、诙谐，而我们丑陋、愚蠢、呆滞，我们之所以去爱是因为希望藉心上人的完美来逃避我们自身的弱点。但是如果这样一个完人有一天决定来爱我们，那么又将是怎样的情形？我们只能有些震惊——品位如此之低，竟然看上我们这类人，他们怎么可能如我们希望的那样美好？如果为了爱，我们必须相信心上人在某些方面胜过我们，那么他们同样以侬回应我们难道不是一件残酷和背谬之事吗？我们被引向这样的疑问：她/他真的那么完美吗？她/他怎么可能会爱上我这样的人呢？
2. There is no richer territory for students of romantic psychology than the atmosphere of the morning after. But Chloe had other priorities upon stumbling out of sleep. She went to wash her hair in the bathroom next door and I awoke to hear water crashing on tiles. I remained in bed, encasing myself in the shape and smell of her body that lingered in the sheets. It was Saturday morning, and the timid rays of a December sun were filtering through the curtains. It was a privilege to be curled up in Chloe's inner sanctum, looking at the objects that made up her daily life, at the walls she woke to every morning, at her alarm clock, a packet of aspirins, her watch and her earrings on the bedside table. My love manifested itself as a fascination for everything Chloe owned, for the material signs of a life I had yet fully to discover but that seemed infinitely rich, full of the wonder the everyday takes on in the hands of an extraordinary being. There was a bright yellow radio in one corner, a print by Matisse was leaning against a chair, her clothes from the night before were hanging in the wardrobe by the mirror. On the chest of drawers there was a pile of paperbacks, next to it, her handbag and keys, a bottle of mineral water, and Guppy the elephant. By a form of transference, I fell in love with everything she owned, it all seemed so intriguing, tasteful, different from what one could ordinarily buy in the shops.对于人类心理学专业的学生来说，再也找不到比第二天早晨更丰富的现象供研究的了。但是克洛艾迷迷糊糊醒来以后还有其他的事要先做：她在隔壁的浴室里冲洗头发，我醒来听到水冲击瓷砖的声音。身在床上，我把自己裹入她尚留在订单上的体形的气息里。这是星期六的早晨，十二月的第一缕阳光透过窗帘，射进房间。我私下打量这屋子，是查看者，也是偷窥者；是爱恋者，也是被爱恋者的人类学家，为她所展示的每一点修养而神魂颠倒。我蜷曲着身体，躺在她的卧室里、她的床铺上、她的被单下，瞧着这些构成她日常生活的物品，盯着她每天清晨醒来时面对的四壁、她的闹钟、一袋阿司匹林、床头柜上的手表和耳环，这对我来说是一种特权。爱意就是通过兴趣及迷恋来证实其存在的，感兴趣于克洛艾拥有的一切，迷恋于我发现的一种无限丰富、每天都有巧手在创造奇迹的生活中的诸多物质标志。在一个角落，有一个嫩芮色的收音机，一幅马蒂斯的油画靠在一把椅子边，她头天晚上穿的衣服挂在镜子旁的壁橱里。五斗橱上有一叠平装书，旁边是她的手袋、钥匙、一瓶矿泉水和那只格皮象。爱屋及乌，我迷恋上她拥有的一切，所有这些看上去都那么完美、趣味高雅，与平常从商店买来的迥然相异（尽管不久前我曾在牛津大街上看到过一模一样的收音机）。这些都是隔壁浴室里正在洗发的美人鱼的化身和情欲的替代物，成为我恋物的对象。
3. 'Have you been trying on my underwear?' asked Chloe a moment later, emerging from the bathroom wrapped in a fluffy white robe and a towel around her head. 'What have you been doing all this time? You have to get out of bed, we can't waste our day.'
I sighed playfully.
'I'm going to go and prepare us some breakfast, so why don't you have a shower in the meantime. There's some clean towels in the cupboard. And how about a kiss?'
“你一直在试穿我的内衣吗？”过了一会儿，克洛艾裹着蓬松的浴巾，头上包着一条毛巾从浴室里走出来，问道，“你在做什么？现在该起床了，我得收拾床铺了。”
我叹着气，“嗬嗬嗬嗬”地边打哈欠边从床上起来。
“我要去准备早餐，你干嘛不利用这个时间冲个澡？壁橱里有干净毛巾。来亲一下怎么样？”
4. The bathroom was another chamber of wonders, full of jars, lotions, and perfumes: the shrine of her body, my visit a watery pilgrimage. I washed my hair, sang like a hyena beneath the cascade, dried myself, and made use of a new toothbrush Chloe had given me. When I returned to the bedroom some fifteen minutes later, she was gone, the bed was made, the room tidied and the curtains opened.浴室是另一个奇妙未知的世界，满是瓶罐、洗液、药剂、香水，是她身体的圣殿，人的参观成了水淋淋的朝觐。我一边冲洗头发，一边像只土狼一样在水花下嚎歌。擦干身体后，又用克洛艾拿给我的牙刷刷牙。十五分钟后当我回到卧室时，她已经去准备早餐了，房间收拾得整整齐齐，窗帘也拉开了。
5. Chloe had not just made toast, she'd prepared a feast. There was a basket of croissants, orange juice, a pot of fresh coffee, some eggs and toast, and a huge bowl of yellow and red flowers in the centre of the table.克洛艾做的不只是吐司，她简直准备了一顿早宴。一篮羊角面包、橙汁、一罐新煮的咖啡、鸡蛋、吐司，桌子中央还摆放了一大盆红黄相间的鲜花。
6. 'It's fantastic,' I said, 'you prepared all this in the time it took me to have a shower and get dressed.'“真是奇迹，”我说，“我冲澡穿衣这一会儿你就把这些都弄好了。”
'That's because I'm not lazy like you. Come on, let's eat before everything gets cold.'“因为我不像你那么懒。来吃吧，别让东西都冷了。”
'You're so sweet to have done this.'“你真好。”
'Rubbish.'“废话。”
'No seriously, you are. It's not every day I get breakfast cooked for me,' I said, and put my arms around her waist. “你别真像那么回事似的。我可不是每天早上都饭来张口，”我说着，用手臂揽过她的腰。
She didn't turn to look at me, but took my hand in hers and squeezed it for a moment.她没有转过身来，而是把我的手放在她的手里紧攥了一会儿。
'Don't flatter yourself, it's not for you I did this, I eat like this every weekend.'“别臭美了，我又不是专门为你做的，我每个周末都这样吃。”
Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter of fact, stoic, yet at heart, she was the opposite: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as mushy.我知道她在说谎。她一向为自己模仿浪漫而不显得多愁善感、讲究实际，但又心境淡泊感到自豪。然而在她的内心深处却完全相反，她是理想主义者，爱梦想、愿付出，深深地着迷于被她口头上斥为感伤多情的一切。
7. In the course of a supremely mushy breakfast, I realized something that might perhaps have seemed obvious, but that struck me as both unexpected and complicated: that Chloe had begun to feel for me a little of what I had for many weeks felt for her. Objectively, this was not an unusual thought, but in falling in love with her, I had somehow entirely overlooked the possibility of reciprocation. I had counted more on loving than being loved. And if I had concentrated largely on the former dynamic, it was perhaps because being loved is always the more complicated of the two emotions, Cupid's arrow easier to send than receive.从这美好而缠绵的早餐中，我意识到一些也许再明显不过但又出乎我的预料、让我深感复杂的事情——克洛艾开始对我产生了我很早就对她怀有的那种感觉。客观地说，这想法并没有什么异乎寻常之处，但当我倾心于她时，我几乎完全忽视了自己的爱会得到回应的可能性。这并非令我不高兴，我只是不曾考虑过这一点，我关注的是去爱而非被爱。如果说我注重的是前者，那么也许是因为被爱在两者中总是更为复杂。丘比特和发射比接收更容易，给予比接受更轻松。
8.It was this difficulty of receiving that struck me over breakfast, for though the croissants could not have been more buttery and the coffee more aromatic, something about the attention and affection they symbolized disturbed me. Chloe had opened her body to me the night before, in the morning she had opened her kitchen, but I could not now prevent a sense of uneasiness, that bordered on irritation, and amounted to the muffled thought: 'What have I done to deserve this?'就是这接受的困难引起我在早餐时候的情绪波动。尽管羊角面包是地道的法国风味，咖啡也芳香四溢，然而负载在它们之上和关心和深情却让我心乱如麻。昨夜克洛艾已向我敞开了她的胴体，而今晨她又向我打开了她的厨房，但是我却有挥之不去的心神不宁（这甚至到了恼怒的边缘），甚至产生了一个模糊不清的念头：“我凭什么得到这些？”
9. If one is not wholly convinced of one's own lovability, receiving affection can appear like being bestowed an honour for a feat one feels no connection with. Lovers unfortunate enough to prepare breakfast for such types must brace themselves for the recriminations due to all false flatterers.只有当人们知道自己是另一个人的所爱时，才会既欣喜若狂又惶恐不安。如果完全没有认识到自己值得爱恋，那么接受他人的爱情时的感受就如同被授予了巨大的荣誉却不知这荣誉的凭藉。
无论我怎样深爱着克洛艾，她对我的关爱还是让我有些心慌意乱。有人把这视为是对自己长久以来的疑虑不定的一种首肯——他们生来就值得爱恋。然而于那些缺少信心的人而言，他们则不敢轻易相信这爱的垂怜。由于自己错误地向这类人献了殷情——准备早餐，所以不幸的情人们就得承受这殷勤招致的责难。
10. What arguments are about is never as important as the discomfort for which they are an excuse. Ours started over strawberry jam.争论的内容只是借口，并不重要，重要的是争论带来的不适。我们的争论从草莓酱开始。
'Do you have any strawberry jam?' I asked Chloe, surveying the laden table.“有没有草莓酱？”我边问克洛艾，边在堆得满满的桌子上找。
'No, but there's raspberry here, do you mind?'“没有，不过有木莓酱，行吗？”
'Sort of, yes.'“不太好。”
'Well, there's blackberry as well.'“噢，还有黑莓酱。”
'I hate blackberry, do you like blackberry?'“我讨厌黑莓，你喜欢？”
'Yeah, why not?'“是啊，为什么不喜欢？”
'It's horrible. So there's no decent jam?'“太难吃了。难道没有像样的果酱吗？”
'I wouldn't put it quite like that. There's five pots of jam on the table, there's just no strawberry'“我不这么认为。桌子上有五瓶果酱，恰好没有草莓的。”
'I see.'“我知道。”
'Why are you making such a big deal of it?'“为什么你那么苛求呢？”
'Because I hate having breakfast without decent jam.'“因为我讨厌早餐没有像样的果酱。”
'But there is decent jam, just not the one you like.'“但是这些挺好呀，只不过正好没有你要的。”
'Is the shop far?'“商店远不远？”
'Why?'“干什么？”
'I am going out to buy some.'“我去买点儿来。”
'For Christ's sake, we've just sat down, everything will be cold if you go now.'“看在上帝的份上，坐下来吧，
'I'll go.'“我非去不可。”
'Why, if everything's going to get cold?'“为什么？如果吃的都冷了怎么办？”
'Because I need jam, that's why.'“因为我要果酱，这就是原因。”
'What's up with you?'“你出什么毛病了？”
'Nothing, why?'“没有，怎么了？”
'You're being ridiculous.'“你简直可笑。”
'No, I'm not.'“我才不呢。”
'Yes you are.'“你就是可笑。”
'I just need jam.'“我只是想要果酱。”
'Why are you being so impossible? I've cooked you this whole breakfast and all you can do is make a fuss about some pot of jam. If you really want your jam, just get the hell out of here and eat it in someone else's company.'“你怎么就这么讨厌？我为你准备了这么多吃的，可你所做的却是对果酱吹毛求疵。如果你真的想要你的果酱，就滚出去，到别人那里去吃吧。”
11. There was a silence, Chloe's eyes glazed, then abruptly she stood up and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I remained at the table, listening to what might have been crying, feeling like a fool for upsetting the woman I claimed to love.一阵寂静，克洛艾的眼睛黯淡了。她突然站起来走进卧室，砰地一声关上门。我坐在桌边，听见她好像哭了，我感觉自己就像一个白痴，竟然令我自己说爱她的这个女人伤心。
12. Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bitter-sweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt to take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.没有回应的爱情也许痛苦难耐，但却是一种安全的痛苦，因为它只会伤及本人而无害于他人，是自我导致的个人痛苦，甘苦交织。但是一旦爱情得到回应，那么人们就必须准备放弃仅仅是被动地受到伤害，而承担起去伤害自己的责任。
13. The repugnance I felt towards myself for hurting Chloe was momentarily turned against her. I hated her for all the efforts she had made with me, for her weakness in believing in me, for her bad taste in allowing me to upset her. It suddenly seemed pitiable that she had given me her toothbrush, prepared breakfast for me, and begun to cry in the bedroom like a child. I gave way to an overwhelming urge to punish her for her weakness.但是责任可能成为最大的负担。我因为伤害了克洛艾而对自己产生的厌恶，瞬息之间转化为对她的反感。我恨她为我做的一切，恨她轻易相信我，恨她允许我令她失望。她给我她的牙刷、为我做早饭、以及在卧室里开始像孩子一样地哭泣，突然之间似乎显得过于多愁善感，几乎令人生厌。我恨她使我和我的情绪产生了这种敏感，我的心头充满了因她的这个缺点而想惩罚她的念头。
14. What had turned me into such a monster? The fact that I had always been something of a Marxist.是什么使我成为这样一个怪物？是因为我一直属于马克斯兄弟那号人。
15. There is the old joke made by the Marx who laughed about not deigning to belong to a club that would accept someone like him as a member, a truth as appropriate in love as it is in club membership. We laugh at the Marxist position because of its absurd contradictions:
How is it possible that I should both wish to join a club, and yet lose that wish as soon as it comes true?
How was it that I might have wished Chloe to love me,
but have been irritated by her when she did so?
马克斯曾演绎过一个古老的笑话，他笑话自己不想俯就那个愿接纳他这种人为会员的俱乐部。这是一个既适合俱乐部会员，又适合爱情游戏的真理。马克斯令人发笑的地方，在于其荒唐的矛盾性：
我怎么会既希望加入俱乐部，
但当希望实现时又不想加入了呢？
同样，
我怎么会既希望克洛艾爱我，
但当她爱我时我又恼怒至极呢？
16. Perhaps because the origins of a certain kind of love lie in an impulse to escape ourselves and our weaknesses by an alliance with the beautiful and noble. But if the loved ones love us back, we are forced to return to ourselves, and are hence reminded of the things that had driven us into love in the first place. Perhaps it was not love we wanted after all, perhaps it was simply someone in whom to believe, but how can we continue to believe in the beloved now that they believe in us? 也许是因为有一种爱情源于一种念头，希望通过爱的结盟，和美丽而强大的上帝、俱乐部、她/他的结盟，使我们能够摆脱自己的弱点。但是一旦心上人来爱我们（如果上帝回应我们的祷告，如果成为俱乐部的会员），我们则被迫回到自己身边，而后又记起当初促使我们去爱的那些东西。也许我们寻找的根本不是爱，只是一个值得我们依赖的人，然而如果我们爱的人转而依赖我们，我们又怎可再继续依赖他们？
17. I wondered how Chloe could be justified in even thinking she could base her emotional life around a scoundrel like me. If she appeared to be a little in love, was this not simply because she had misunderstood me? 我不知克洛艾有何理由把我这样的坏蛋作为她情感生活的中心。如果她对我有一点爱意，难道不仅仅是因为她错误地理解了我？
这是典型的马克斯兄弟崇拜者的思想：渴望爱情，但又不可能接受爱情，因为害怕当心上人真实的自我显露出来时，接踵而来的将是失望——一个通常早已产生（也许早在父母怀中之时）但会继续投射到将来的失望。马克斯兄弟崇拜者感到他们的中心自我是那样的无法接受，以至亲密一定会暴露出其骗子的真实身份。因此如果爱肯定会随之消失，为什么还要接受爱的恩惠呢？如果你现在爱我，那只是你没有看到完整的我，马克斯兄弟崇拜者认为，但如果你没有看到完整的我，而我却还要努力习惯你的爱直到你看到，那真是疯了。
18. Though from a position of unrequited love they long to see their love returned, Marxists unconsciously prefer that their dreams remain in the realm of fantasy. Why should others think any better of them than they of themselves? Only so long as the loved one believes the Marxist to be more or less nothing, can the Marxist continue to believe the loved one to be more or less everything. If Chloe had been lowered in my estimation because she had slept with me, it was because she had in the process caught a bad case of I-infection.由于这些原因，正统的马克斯兄弟崇拜者的结合建立在感情不平等交换的基础之上，并且依靠这个基础维持下去。尽管从无回报的爱情的立场看，他们希望看到自己的爱得到回应，但马克斯兄弟崇拜者潜意识中宁愿他们的梦想停留在想象的领域，宁愿自己的爱只为人所知即可，宁愿心上人不要过于频繁地打来电话，或宁愿大多数时候不能得到心上人的感情，这与他们的价值观是一致的——凭什么他人给予的评价要高于自我评价？如果心上人偶尔认为他们相当不错（与他们上床、对他们微笑以及为他们做早饭），那么马克斯兄弟崇拜者第一个冲动可能就是打破这田园诗般的情境，不是因为它让人讨厌，而是因为他感觉自己不应该得到。只有当心上人把他或多或少看作是微不足道的人时，这个马克斯兄弟崇拜者才能继续把心上人看作几乎是他的一切。对心上人来说，一旦开始去爱，他们就将不幸地与坏蛋联系到一起，会直接玷污他们的完美。如果克洛艾与我上床、对我很好，从而让我降低了对她的尊重，那么不也是因为她在此过程中受到了我的传染，危险地亲近了一个马克斯兄弟崇拜者。
19. I had often seen Marxism at work in others. At the age of sixteen, I was for a while in love with a fifteen-year-old girl, who was both captain of her school volleyball team, very beautiful, and a committed Marxist.我经常在他人身上看到马克斯兄弟式思维。十六岁时，我爱上一个十五岁的女孩。她既是学校排球队的队长，长得很漂亮，又是一个坚定的马克斯兄弟崇拜者。
'If a man says he'll call me at nine,' she once told me over a glass of orange squash that I bought for her at the school cafeteria, 'and he does actually ring at nine, I'll refuse to take the call. After all, what's he so desperate for? The only guy I like is the one who'll keep me waiting, by nine thirty I'll do anything for him.'“如果哪个男人说他将在九点钟打电话给我，”有次在学校餐厅里我给她买了一杯橙汁，她边喝边告诉我，“并且真的在九点钟打了，那么我将拒绝接听电话。他那么急切地盼着什么？我只喜欢那种让我等待的人，如果九点半打过来，我就愿意为他做一切。”
I must at that age have had an intuitive understanding of her Marxism, for I remember efforts to seem uninterested in anything she said or did. My reward came with our first kiss a few weeks later, but though she was unquestionably beautiful (and as adept at the arts of love as she was at volleyball), the relationship did not last. It was too tiring to make a point of always calling late.那个年龄的我对她的马克斯兄弟式思维可能已经有了一种直觉的领会，因为我至今还记得自己当时使劲装出毫不在意她的所言所行。我的奖赏来了，几周后我们第一次接吻了。但是尽管她美丽迷人（以及她对爱情技巧的熟练如同她排球技术的熟练），我们的关系并没有持续下去。我发现总得晚一些打电话真是令人讨厌。
20.A few years later, I was seeing another girl, who (like a good Marxist) believed that men should in some way defy her in order to earn her love. One morning, before going out for a walk with her in the park, I had put on an old and particularly off-putting electric-blue pullover.几年后，我认识了另一个女孩（像一个坚定的马克斯兄弟崇拜者）认为男人想要得到她的爱，就应该在某种程度上与她针锋相对。一天早晨，在和她到公园散步之前，我穿上了一件特别让人讨厌的铁蓝色旧套衫。
'Well, one thing is for sure, I'm not going out with you looking like that,' exclaimed Sophie when she saw me coming down the stairs. 'You've got to be joking if you think I'll be seen with someone with that kind of jumper on.'“有一点可以肯定，你这样子我不会和你一起出去的，”索菲亚看着我走下楼梯，叫道，“如果你认为我会和穿这种套衫的人在一起，那你真是开玩笑。”
'Sophie, what does it matter what I'm wearing? We're only going for a walk in the park,' I replied, half-fearing she was serious.“索菲亚，我穿什么衣服有什么紧要？我们只是到公园里散步，”我虽然嘴上这么说，但还是有些害怕她是当真的。
'I don't care where we're going, I tell you, I'm not going to the park with you unless you change.'“我不管去哪儿，我跟你说，除非你把衣服换了，否则我不会和你去公园的。”
But pig-headedness descended on me and I refused to do as Sophie wanted, arguing the case of the electric jumper with such force that a while later we headed for the Royal Hospital Gardens with the offending garment still in place. When we reached the gates of the park, Sophie, who had till then been in a mild sulk, suddenly broke the silence, took my arm, gave me a kiss, and said in words that perhaps provide us with an essence of Marxism, 'Don't worry, I'm not angry with you, I'm glad you kept the old horror on, I would have thought you were so weak if you'd done what I told you.'但是我的倔脾气来了，就是不按照她说的去做，和她激烈地争论着。后来我还是穿着那件令人讨厌的衣服，和她去了皇家医院公园。到公园门口时，一直有些愠怒的索菲亚突然打破僵局，挽起我的胳膊，吻了我一下，她的话也许可以让我们认识马克斯兄弟思维的本质，“别担心，我不气你，我喜欢你坚持穿这件讨厌的旧衣服。如果你按照我说的去做，我会认为你过于软弱。”
因此马克斯兄弟崇拜者的呼唤自相矛盾，“拒绝我，那么我就爱你。不要准时打电话给我，那么我就吻你。不要和我上床，那么我就崇拜你。”如果在园艺领域对之进行阐述，那么马克斯兄弟式思维就是一个情结：对面的草坪总是更绿。我们站在自家的园子里，却贪婪地盯着邻居家的绿地（或克洛艾的美目或她梳头的方式）。并不是邻居家的草坪本身比我们自己的更翠绿茂盛（也即克洛艾的眼睛并非必定比旁人的更美或同样的梳子并非不能梳理出同样的效果）。草坪之所以显得更绿，让人喜爱，只是因为它不为我们所有，而是属于邻居，没有沾染上我。
但是，如果邻居突然之间爱上我们，向市政会申请拆除两家中间的围墙，又会有怎样的结局？这难道不会威胁我们对草坪的妒忌？邻居家的草坪难道不会逐渐失去吸引力，看上去如我们自己的一样枯萎破败？也许我们寻找的不一定是更绿的草坪，而是并非为我们拥有从而可以赞赏的草坪（不论它的好坏）。
21.To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' ?when subjectively, we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.被人爱恋使人们意识到，他人与自己一样需要依靠，当初正是寻求这种依靠，人们才会去爱。
如果我们什么都不缺乏，那么就不会有爱的生成。但矛盾的是，他人同样也缺少依靠，这令我们恼怒无比。本希望在另一个人身上找到答案，结果发现他们面临同样的难题。我们意识到他们也需要一个偶像，我们明了心上人不能逃脱类似我们的无助感。为了承担起拯救和被拯救的双重责任，我们不得不丢弃躲藏在上帝般的赞赏和崇拜中的幼稚被动。
阿尔伯特·加缪说，我们爱上别人是因为从外部看，他们是那么完整如一，肉体是完整的，情感是“统一”的，而我们主观感觉自己是那样的涣散和迷惘。我们缺乏思路清晰的表述能力、稳定的个性、坚定的方向、明确的主旨，因而幻想他人具备这些品质。我对克洛艾的爱慕中不正包含着这种幻想吗？从外部看（床第之欢以前），她有很好的自控能力，拥有明确而稳定的性格。但是肌肤之亲后，她在我眼中则脆弱不堪、易于崩溃、精神涣散、内心贫乏。这不正是尼采学说中的自我吗？因此也是鲍伯·戴兰在泪水流淌下来时欢唱“（今夜）别为我心碎”的回声。
对马克斯兄弟崇拜者来说，非平衡是行为的准则，于是，被爱之人必须给马克斯兄弟崇拜者恰当的平衡，在过分软弱和过分独立之间保持平衡。克洛艾的泪水使我惊愕，因为它们无意中提醒了我对她的敏感。我惧怕自己不能摆脱对他人的依赖，同样，我也指责克洛艾逃脱不了这种依赖。然而无论脆弱存在怎样的问题，当我见识了那些用傲慢的冷漠否定自己需要爱人的女人时，我知道独立同样是个问题。克洛艾有一个艰难的任务：为了让我有所依赖，她不能太脆弱；为了否定我的脆弱，她又不能太独立。
22. A long, gloomy tradition in Western thought argues that love is in its essence an unreciprocated, Marxist emotion and that desire can only thrive on the impossibility of mutuality. According to this view, love is simply a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal, the possession (in bed or otherwise) of the loved one. The whole of troubadour poetry of twelfth-century Provence was based on coital delay, the poet repeating his plaints to a woman who repeatedly declined a desperate gentleman's offers. Centuries later, Montaigne declared that, 'In love, there is nothing but a frantic desire for what flees from us' ?an idea echoed by Anatole France's maxim that, 'It is not customary to love what one has.' Stendhal believed that love could be brought about only on the basis of a fear of losing the loved one and Denis de Rougemont confirmed, 'The most serious obstruction is the one preferred above all. It is the one most suited to intensifying passion.' To listen to this view, lovers cannot do anything save oscillate between the twin poles of yearning for someone and longing to be rid of them.西方思想中有一个悠久而阴森的传统，这个传统认为爱最终只能被认为是一种无法得到回应的东西，是一种倾慕，是马克斯兄弟崇拜者的行事：看到爱情得到回报的可能越渺茫，欲望就越旺盛。根据这个观点，爱只是一个方向，不是一个地点，达到目的，拥有被爱之人（在床上或以其他方式得到）后会自行销蚀。十二世纪普罗旺斯的行吟诗人所有诗歌的主题都是性爱的延迟，诗人反复倾吐濒临绝望男子的幽怨，因为他们已经多次被自己爱慕的女人拒绝。四个世纪之后，蒙田对于爱的产生发表了同样的观点，他断言：“爱，只是对那些逃离我们身边的人的疯狂渴求。”——这个观点得到阿纳多尔·法朗士的极大响应：“爱自己已经拥有的东西，是不合乎习惯的。”司汤达相信，只有在害怕失去心上人的基础上，爱才会产生。丹尼斯·德·罗杰蒙特认为：“最难得到的人是你最喜欢的人，也是最容易增强你激情的人。”而罗兰·巴特则把欲望仅视为是对无法得到的事物的渴求。
根据这个观点，情人们除了徘徊于渴望和烦恼两极之间，别无他途。爱情没有中间地带，只是一种方向，它所渴望的是可望而不可及的事物。爱情达到目的之后，它也随之销蚀；欲望得到满足后，它也随之熄灭。
23. There was a danger that Chloe and I would trap ourselves in just such a Marxist spiral. But a happier resolution emerged. I returned home from the breakfast guilty, shamefaced, apologetic, and ready to do anything to win Chloe back. It wasn't easy. She hung up on me at first, then asked me whether I made a point of behaving like a 'small-time suburban punk' with women I had slept with. But after apologies, insults, laughter, and tears, Romeo and Juliet were to be seen together later that afternoon, mushily holding hands in the dark at a four-thirty screening of Love and Death at the National Film Theatre. Happy endings ?for now at least.克洛艾和我会危险地陷于这马克斯兄弟式思维的螺旋运动中，一方爱意加浓使另一方爱意消减，直到爱螺旋地消亡。一个更愉快的解决办法出现了。我怀着对早餐的歉疚回到家中，满脸羞愧，充满歉意，准备尽一切努力赢回克洛艾。这并不容易（她起初不接我的电话，后来又问我说，我对待与自己有了肌肤之亲的女人，是不是像个“既渺小又土气的小流氓”），但是经过道歉、羞辱、笑脸和眼泪，那天下午，罗密欧与朱丽叶终于和好了，在国家电影院的黑暗中痴情地手握着手，看着四点半的电影《爱情与死神》。结局终于是幸福的，至少眼下是。
24.There is usually a Marxist moment in every relationship, the moment when it becomes clear that love is reciprocated. The way it is resolved depends on the balance between self-love and self-hatred. If self-hatred gains the upper hand, then the one who has received love will declare that the beloved (on some excuse or other) is not good enough for them (not good enough by virtue of associating with no-goods). But if self-love gains the upper hand, both partners may accept that seeing their love reciprocated is not proof of how low the beloved is, but of how lovable they have themselves turned out to be.在绝大多数的男女关系中都经常会有马克斯兄弟式的思维（当爱明显得到回应时），这种思维的解决得借助自我喜爱和自我痛恨之间的平衡。如果自我痛恨占了上风，那么接受的一方就会断言心上人（有各种各样的理由）不适合自己（因为和坏东西有了联系）；如果自我喜爱占了上风，那么双方都会接受这样一种看法：爱得到回应不是因为心上人低贱，而是因为自己原本值得爱恋。