> 杨宪益、戴乃迭译：Now Tai-yu naturally preferred solitude to society. She reasoned, "Coming together can only be followed by parting. The more pleasure people find in parties, the more lonely and unhappy they must feel when the parties break up. So better not forgather in the first place. The same is true of flowers: the delight people when in bloom, but it's so heart-rending to see them fade that it would be better if they never blossomed."
> A Dream of Red Mansions Volume I (Cao Xueqin, Gao E.), Foreign languages Press, Beijing, China, 1994 (First Published in hardback in 1978) 【第一册 P452】ISBN: 9787119006437
> David Hawkes 译：Dai-yu had a natural aversion to gatherings, which she rationalized by saying that since the inevitable consequence of getting together was parting, and since parting made people feel lonely and feeling lonely made them unhappy, *ergo* it was better for them not to get together in the rst place. In the same way she argued that since the owers, which give us so much pleasure when they open, only cause us a lot of extra sadness when they die, it would be better if they didn’t come out at all.
> 翻译来源：Wen Xuan or Selections of Refined Literature, Volume III: Rhapsodies on Natural Phenomena, Birds and Animals, Aspirations and Feelings, Sorrowful Laments, Literature, Music, and Passions, compiled by Xiao Tong (501-531) , David R. Knechtges【P9】
> "The worm is in man’s heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of experience to flight from light."
> Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering.
>
> What then is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. All healthy men having thought of their own suicide, it can be seen, without further explanation, that there is a direct connection between this feeling and the longing for death.
> A Dream of Red Mansions Volume II (Cao Xueqin, Gao E.), Foreign languages Press, Beijing, China, 1994 (First Published in hardback in 1978) 【第二册 P672】ISBN: 9787119006437
> 霍本译：It is not to be thought that a shrinking flower could withstand the whirlwind’s blast, or a tender willow-tree be proof against the buffetings of the tempest.
> 戴本译：No search can be made for the incense that revives the dead, as the way to Fairy Tales is lost. No medicine that restores life can be obtained, as the Magic Barge is gone. Only yesterday I was painting those bluish eyebrows; today, who will warm her cold fingers with the jade rings?
>
> *Magic Barge*: Magic Barge: A Chinese legend said this belonged to the immortals and sailed in the Sky River, Milky Way.
> A Dream of Red Mansions Volume II (Cao Xueqin, Gao E.), Foreign languages Press, Beijing, China, 1994 (First Published in hardback in 1978) 【第二册 P672】ISBN: 9787119006437
> It were a hard thing to hunt out the Isle of the Blest from among the multitudinous islands of the ocean and bring back the immortal herb that should restore her: the raft is lost that went to look for it.
>
> It was but yesterday that I painted those delicate smoke-black eyebrows; and who is there today to warm the cold jade rings for her fingers?
