《少年维特的烦恼·第一部·1771 年 5 月至 9 月》第41节
AUGUST 15. There can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as love. I observe that Charlotte could not lose me without a pang, and the very children have but one wish; that is, that I should visit them again to-morrow. I went this afternoon to tune Charlotte's piano. But I could not do it, for the little ones insisted on my telling them a story; and Charlotte herself urged me to satisfy them. I waited upon them at tea, and they are now as fully contented with me as with Charlotte; and I told them my very best tale of the princess who was waited upon by dwarfs. I improve myself by this exercise, and am quite surprised at the impression my stories create. If I sometimes invent an incident which I forget upon the next narration, they remind one directly that the story was different before; so that I now endeavour to relate with exactness the same anecdote in the same monotonous tone, which never changes. I find by this, how much an author injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.
注释摘要
这一节表面上是田园诗般的家庭欢乐，但在语气与细节里已经能读出维特情感的进一步内转。开头的断定——“在这个世界上，没有什么像爱那样不可或缺”——不是泛泛之论，而是他为自己整个存在方式寻找的根据。爱在这里已不仅是一种激情，而成了他理解自己何以还留在此地的唯一理由。值得注意的是，他首先给出的证据不是夏绿蒂本人的态度，而是孩子们的反应：他们会因为见不到他而难过，他…