Will a High IQ Make You Happier?

By Daniel Keyes

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人人都希望自己拥有高智商，但经过人工干预提高智商却会带来各种新的问题和烦恼。Flowers for Algernon（《献给阿尔吉侬的花束》）里的主人公查理·戈登就是这样的一个例子。查理在面包房做工，整天受到周围人的刁难和嘲笑，因为他在别人眼中始终是傻瓜。他最大的心愿是通过学习使自己聪明起来。斯特劳斯博士在做一项实验，期望手术能改变人的智商。渴望变得聪明的查理便接受了手术，手术后的查理智力超过常人，然而过去跟他友好相处的同事和朋友们却无法适应高智商的全新的查理。他回到多年未归的家，母亲已经变得精神恍惚，当查理告诉她自己已经变成一个高智商的人时，她从恍惚中醒过来高兴了一小会儿，随后又回到恍惚似梦的状态，不相信面前就是自己的儿子。查理陷入深深的苦恼，而通过手术获得的高智商时间短暂，最后查理重新回到了从前的弱智状态。

美国作家丹尼尔·凯斯（1927—2014）的作品以科幻小说为主，其中以（《献给阿尔吉侬的花束》）最广为人知，他试图通过这个故事促使人类思考人工干预智力水平给个人及社会带来的问题，并提醒人们对此保持警惕。

At the end of the hallway, the door through which Rose had fled was locked,and for a moment I stood undecided.“Open the door.”

The answer was the high-pitched yapping（尖声狂吠）of a small dog. It took me by surprise（趁人不备）.

“All right,” I said. “I don’t intend to hurt you or anything, but I’ve come a long way and I’m not leaving without talking to you. If you don’t open the door, I’m going to break it down.”

I heard her saying: “Shhhh, Nappie... Here,into the bedroom you go.” A moment later I heard the click of the lock（门锁“咔嗒”一声）. The door opened and she stood there staring at me.

“Ma,” I whispered, “I’m not going to do anything. I just want to talk to Keyes, Daniel—you.You’ve got to understand, I’m not the same as I was. I’ve changed. I’m normal now. Don’t you understand? I’m not retarded（智力迟钝的）any more. I’m not a moron（痴呆）. I’m just like anyone else. I’m normal—just like you and Matt and Norma.”

I tried to keep talking, babbling（喋喋不休）so she wouldn’t close the door. I tried to tell her the whole thing, all at once. “They changed me, performed an operation on me and made me different, the way you always wanted me to be. Didn’t you read about it in the newspapers? A new scienti fic experiment that changes your capacity for intelligence, and I’m the first one they tried it on. Can’t you understand? Why are you looking at me that way? I’m 183 smart（智商IQ=183）now, smarter than Norma, or Uncle Herman,or Matt. I know things even college professors don’t know. Talk to me! You can be proud of me now and tell the neighbors. You don’t have to hide me in the cellar（地下室）when company comes. Just talk to me. Tell me about things, the way it was when I was a little boy, that’s all I want. I won’t hurt you. I don’t hate you. But I’ve got to know about myself, to understand myself before it’s too late. Don’t you see,I can’t be a complete person unless I can understand myself, and you’re the only one in the world who can help me now. Let me come in and sit down for a little while.”

It was the way I spoke rather than what I said that hypnotized（催眠）her. She stood there in the doorway and stared at me. Without thinking, I pulled my bloody hand out of my pocket and clenched（紧握）it in my pleading（恳求）. When she saw it her expression softened.

“You hurt yourself...” She didn’t necessarily feel sorry for me. It was the sort of thing she might have felt for a dog that had torn its paw, or a cat that had been gashed（砍入很深）in a fight. It wasn’t because I was her Charlie, but in spite of it.

“Come in and wash it. I’ve got some bandage（绷带）and iodine（碘酒）.”

I followed her to the cracked sink with the corrugated（有波纹的）drain-board（排水板）at which she had so often washed my face and hands after I came in from the back yard, or when I was ready to eat or go to sleep. She watched me roll up my sleeves（衣袖）. “You shouldn’t have broke the window. The landlord’s gonna be sore（恼火的）,and I don’t have enough money to pay for it.” Then,as if impatient with the way I was doing it, she took the soap from me and washed my hand. As she did it, she concentrated so hard that I kept silent, afraid of breaking the spell（打破咒语）. Occasionally she clucked（人用舌头发出咯咯声）her tongue, or sighed（叹气）, “Charlie, Charlie, always getting yourself into a mess. When are you going to take care of yourself?” She was back twenty- five years earlier when I was her little Charlie and she was willing to fight for my place in the world.

When the blood was washed off and she had dried my hands with paper toweling, she looked up into my face and her eyes went round with frights “Oh, my GOD” she gasped（喘着气说）, and backed away.

I started talking again, softly, persuasively（令人信服地） to convince her that nothing was wrong and I meant no harm. But as I spoke I could tell her mind was wandering. She looked around vaguely（茫然地）, put her hand to her mouth and groaned（呻吟）as she looked at me again. “The house is such a mess,”she said. “I wasn’t expecting company. Look at those windows, and that woodwork over there.”

“That’s all right, Ma. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ve got to wax those floors（给地板打蜡）again.It’s got to be clean.” She noticed some fingermarks on the door and taking up her washrag（毛巾）she scrubbed（用劲擦）them away.

When she looked up and saw me watching her, she frowned. “Have you come about the electric bill（电费账单）?”

Before I could say no, she wagged（摇摆）her finger, scolding, “I intend to send a check out the first of the month, but my husband is out of town on business. I told them all they don’t have to worry about the money, because my daughter gets paid this week,and we’ll be able to take care of all our bills. So there’s no need bothering me for money. ”

“Is she your only child? Don’t you have any other children?”

She started, and then her eyes looked far away. “I had a boy. So brilliant that all the other mothers were jealous of him. And they put the evil eye（恶毒的眼光）on him. They called it the I. Q. but it was the evil—I.Q. He would have been a great man, if not for that. He was really very bright—exceptional, they said. He could have been a genius...”

She picked up a scrub brush（板刷）. “Excuse me now. I’ve got to get things ready. My daughter has a young man coming for dinner, and I’ve got to get this place clean.” She got down on her knees and started to scrub the already shining floor. She didn’t look up again.

She was muttering（喃喃而语）to herself now,and I sat down at the kitchen table. I would wait until she came out of it, until she recognized me and understood who I was. I couldn’t leave until she knew that I was her Charlie. Somebody had to understand.

She had started humming（哼曲子）sadly to herself, but she stopped, her rag poised（停止在）midway between the bucket and the floor, as if suddenly aware of my presence behind her.

She turned, her face tired and her eyes glistening（发光）, and cocked her head. “How could it be? I don’t understand. They told me you could never be changed.”

“They performed an operation on me, and that changed me. I’m famous now. They’ve heard of me all over the world. I’m intelligent now, Mom. I can read and write, and I can—”

“Thank God,” she whispered. “My prayers—all these years I thought He didn’t hear me, but He was listening all the time, just waiting His own good time to do His will.”

She wiped her face in her apron（围裙）, and when I put my arm around her, she wept freely on my shoulder. All the pain was washed away, and I was glad I had come.

作者丹尼尔·凯斯

“I’ve got to tell everyone,” she said, smiling, “all those teachers at the school. Oh, wait till you see their faces when I tell them. And the neighbors. And Uncle Herman—I’ve got to tell Uncle Herman. He’ll be so pleased. And wait until your father comes home, and your sister! Oh, she’ll be so happy to see you. You have no idea.”

She hugged me, talking excitedly, making plans for the new life we were going to have together. I hadn’t the heart to（不忍心）remind her that most of my childhood teachers were gone from this school, that the neighbors had long moved away, that Uncle Herman had died many years ago, and that my father had left her. The nightmare of all those years had been pain enough. I wanted to see her smiling and know I had been the one to make her happy. For the first time in my life, I had brought a smile to her lips.

Then after a while, she paused thoughtfully as if remembering something. I had the feeling her mind was going to wander. “No!” I shouted, startling（使吓一跳）her back to reality, “Wait, Ma! There’s something else.Something I want you to have before I go.”

“Go? You can’t go away now.”

“I have to go, Ma. I have things to do. But I’ll write to you, and I’ll send you money.”

“But when will you come back?”

“I don’t know—yet. But before I go, I want you to have this.”

“A magazine?”

“Not exactly. It’s a scienti fic report I wrote. Very technical. Look, it’s called The Algernon-Gordon Effect（Algernon是实验小白鼠，Gordon是本文主人公）. Something I discovered, and it’s named partly after me. I want you to keep a copy of the report so that you can show people that your son turned out to be more than a dummy after all.”

She took it and looked at it in awe. “It’s…it’s your name. I knew it would happen. I always said it would happen someday. I tried everything I could.You were too young to remember, but I tried. I told them all that you’d go to college and become a professional man and make your mark（出人头地）in the world. They laughed, but I told them.”

She smiled at me through tears, and then a moment later she wasn’t looking at me any more.She picked up her rag and began to wash the woodwork around the kitchen door, humming—more happily, I thought—as if in a dream.