So take this new opportunity to look about and fill your lungs with that fantastic land, while it and you are still there. That was a most curious and interesting remark you made about feeling, occasionally, very childish, in certain situations.
所以趁現在這個機會四處看看，趁你還站在那片土地上，盡情的呼吸吧。有時在特定情況下，你對情感發表的最奇怪和有趣的見解，非常地幼稚。
Nicholas, don’t you know about people this first and most crucial fact: every single one is, and is painfully every moment aware of it, still a child. To get beyond the age of about eight is not permitted to this primate — except in a very special way, which I’ll try to explain.
尼古拉斯，難道你不了解人類第一個也是最重要的事實：其實每個人，每個時刻都痛苦地意識到，自己仍然是一個孩子。這種情況不適用8歲以上者——除非是通過一種極特殊的方式，下面我試著來解釋一下。
When I came to Lake Victoria, it was quite obvious to me that in some of the most important ways you are much more mature than I am. And your self-reliance, your independence, your general boldness in exposing yourself to new and to-most-people-very-alarming situations, and your phenomenal ability to carry through your plans to the last practical detail (I know it probably doesn’t feel like that to you, but that’s how it looks to the rest of us, who simply look on in envy), is the sort of real maturity that not one in a thousand ever come near. As you know.
當我來到維多利亞湖的時候，很明顯，在我看來，在一些最重要的方面，你比我成熟得多。你的自立，獨立，你在面對新情況和尋常人非常擔憂的境況時的大膽，以及你將計劃貫徹到最后實際細節的非凡能力(我知道你可能不這么認為，但這就是包括我在內的其他人的看法，他們只是羨慕地看著)，這種真正的成熟是千分之一的人所無法企及的。如你所知。
But in many other ways obviously you are still childish — how could you not be, you alone among mankind? It’s something people don’t discuss, because it’s something most people are aware of only as a general crisis of sense of inadequacy, or helpless dependence, or pointless loneliness, or a sense of not having a strong enough ego to meet and master inner storms that come from an unexpected angle.
但在許多其他方面，顯然你依舊擺脫不了幼稚的-你怎能不這樣，你在蕓蕓眾生中獨樹一幟？而這是人們不愿意討論的話題，因為大多數人只意識到這是一種普遍的危機，一種不適感，一種無助的依賴感，一種毫無意義的孤獨感，或者一種沒有足夠強大的自我來應對和掌控來自意想不到的角度的內心風暴的感覺。
But not many people realise that it is, in fact, the suffering of the child inside them. Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it.
但沒有多少人意識到，事實上，這是孩子們內心的痛苦。每個人都試圖保護那些脆弱的2到8歲的孩子，學習技能和能力來應對可能會壓垮他們的局面。
So everybody develops a whole armour of secondary self, the artificially constructed being that deals with the outer world, and the crush of circumstances. And when we meet people this is what we usually meet. And if this is the only part of them we meet we’re likely to get a rough time, and to end up making ‘no contact’.
是以，人人都鍛造出一副完整保護自我的盔甲——一種處理外部世界以及環境壓迫的人工構造的存在。與人交際，這樣一種狀態隨處可見。如果這成為我們與他人交際的唯一部分，那我們可能會度過一段艱難的時光，最終以“失去聯系”畫上句點。
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