3. However, throughout this time I did in a sense engage in literary activities. To begin with there was the made-to-order stuff which I produced quickly, easily and without much pleasure to myself. Apart from school work, I wrote vers d' occasion, semicomic poems which I could turn out at what now seems to me astonishing speed -- at fourteen I wrote a whole rhyming play, in imitation of Aristophanes, in about a week -- and helped to edit school magazines, both printed and in manuscript. These magazines were the most pitiful burlesque stuff that you could imagine, and I took far less trouble with them than I now would with the cheapest journalism. But side by side with all this, for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite different kind: this was the making up of a continuous "story" about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind. I believe this is a common habit of children and adolescents. As a very small child I used to imagine that I was, say, Robin Hood, and picture myself as the hero of thrilling adventures, but quite soon my "story "ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw. For minutes at a time this kind of thing would be running through my head: "He pushed the door open and entered the room. A yellow beam of sunlight, filtering through the muslin curtains, slanted on to the table, where a matchbox, half open, lay beside the inkpot. With his right hand in his pocket he moved across to the window. Down in the street a tortoiseshell cat was chasing a dead leaf," etc., etc. This habit continued till I was about twenty-five, right through my non-literary years. Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside. The "story" must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remember it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality.
    3)然而，在这期间，我从某种意义上说的确是在从事文学活动。首先，完成别人的约稿。这些我轻松、迅速地写出，但不觉得有什么快乐。除了学校的写作任务，我还写些半诙谐的“应景诗”。我写这些诗的速度现在看来真使我吃惊。14岁时我模仿亚里斯多芬的笔调写了整整一出押韵诗剧，才用了一个星期。我还参加编辑校刊，这些有印刷的，也有以手稿的形式传阅的。这种杂志是些拙劣的玩意儿，要多荒唐有多荒唐。在这上花的功夫比现在用在最廉价的新闻报道上还少。但与此同时，整整十五六年的时间里，我一直在进行另一种文学练习。这就是杜撰描写自己的故事。这故事像日记一样延绵不绝，只存活在心里。我认为这是儿童和少年的共同癖性。还是个小孩子的时候我就爱把自己想像成惊险传奇中的主人公，例如把自己想像成罗宾汉。但不久，我的故事不再是粗糙简单的自我欣赏了。它开始趋向描摹我的行动和我所见所闻的人事。一连几分钟我脑子里常会有类似这样的描述：“他推开门，走进屋。一缕昏黄的阳光，透过薄纱窗帘，斜照在桌上。桌上一个火柴盒，半开着，在墨水瓶旁边。他右手插在兜里，朝窗户走去。窗下的街心，一只龟甲猫正在追逐着一片败叶。”等等，等等。我在真正从事文学创作之前，一直保持着这种描述习惯。虽然我必须搜寻，而且也的确在寻觅恰如其分的字眼，可我这种描述似乎是不由自主的，是迫于一种外界的压力。我在不同时期崇仰风格迥异的作家。我想，这些“故事”中一定能见出这些作家的文笔风格的痕迹。但是我记得，这些描述又总是有细致入微，纤毫毕现的特点。