When Philip returned to Amitrano’s he found that Fanny Price was no longer working there. She had given up the key of her locker . He asked Mrs. Otter whether she knew what had become of her; and Mrs. Otter, with a shrug of the shoulders, answered that she had probably gone back to England. Philip was relieved. He was profoundly bored by her ill-temper. Moreover she insisted on advising him about his work, looked upon it as a slight when he did not follow her precepts , and would not understand that he felt himself no longer the duffer he had been at first.
Soon he forgot all about her. He was working in oils now and he was full of enthusiasm. He hoped to have something done of sufficient importance to send to the following year’s Salon . Lawson was painting a portrait of Miss Chalice . She was very paintable, and all the young men who had fallen victims to her charm had made portraits of her. A natural indolence, joined with a passion for picturesque attitude, made her an excellent sitter; and she had enough technical knowledge to offer useful criticisms.
Since her passion for art was chiefly a passion to live the life of artists, she was quite content to neglect her own work. She liked the warmth of the studio, and the opportunity to smoke innumerable cigarettes; and she spoke in a low, pleasant voice of the love of art and the art of love. She made no clear distinction between the two.
Lawson was painting with infinite labour, working till he could hardly stand for days and then scraping out all he had done. He would have exhausted the patience of anyone but RuthChalice. At last he got into a hopeless muddle .
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5
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"看来只得换块画布,重砌炉灶罗,"他说。"这回我心里有底了,不消多久就能画成的。"
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5
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‘The only thing is to take a new canvas and start fresh,’ he said. ‘I know exactly what I want now, and it won’t take me long.’
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6
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当时菲利普正好也在场,查利斯小姐对他说:
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6
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Philip was present at the time, and Miss Chalice said to him:
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7
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"你干吗不也来给我画一张?你观摩劳森先生作画,一定会学到不少东西的。"
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7
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‘Why don’t you paint me too? You’ll be able to learn a lot by watching Mr. Lawson.’
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8
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查利斯小姐对他的情人一律以姓氏相称--这也是她待人接物细致入微的地方。
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8
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It was one of Miss Chalice’s delicacies that she always addressed her lovers by their surnames.
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9
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"要是劳森不介意,我当然非常乐意罗。"
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9
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‘I should like it awfully if Lawson wouldn’t mind.’
It was the first time that Philip set about a portrait, and he began with trepidation but also with pride. He sat by Lawson and painted as he saw him paint. He profited by the example and by the advice which both Lawson and Miss Chalice freely gave him. At last Lawson finished and invited Clutton in to criticise . Clutton had only just come back to Paris. From Provence he had drifted down to Spain, eager to see Velasquez at Madrid, and thence he had gone to Toledo. He stayed there three months, and he was returned with a name new to the young men: he had wonderful things to say of a painter called El Greco, who it appeared could only be studied in Toledo.
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12
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"哦,对了,这个人我听说过,"劳森说,"他是个古典大师,其特色却在于他的作品同现代派一样拙劣。"
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‘Oh yes, I know about him,’ said Lawson, ‘he’s the old master whose distinction it is that he painted as badly as the moderns.’
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克拉顿比以往更寡言少语,这会儿他不作任何回答,只是脸带讥讽地瞅了劳森一眼。
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Clutton, more taciturn than ever, did not answer, but he looked at Lawson with a sardonic air.
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14
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"你打算让咱们瞧瞧你从西班牙带回来的大作吗?"
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‘Are you going to show us the stuff you’ve brought back from Spain?’ asked Philip.
‘I thought things out. I believe I’m through with the Impressionists; I’ve got an idea they’ll seem very thin and superficial in a few years. I want to make a clean sweep of everything I’ve learnt and start fresh. When I came back I destroyed everything I’d painted. I’ve got nothing in my studio now but an easel, my paints, and some clean canvases.’
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18
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"那你打算干什么呢?"
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‘What are you going to do?’
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"我说不上来。今后要干什么我还只有一点模糊的想法。"
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19
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‘I don’t know yet. I’ve only got an inkling of what I want.’
He spoke slowly, in a curious manner, as though he were straining to hear something which was only just audible. There seemed to be a mysterious force in him which he himself did not understand, but which was struggling obscurely to find an outlet . His strength impressed you. Lawson dreaded the criticism he asked for and had discounted the blame he thought he might get by affecting a contempt for any opinion of Clutton’s; but Philip knew there was nothing which would give him more pleasure than Clutton’s praise. Clutton looked at the portrait for some time in silence, then glanced at Philip’s picture, which was standing on an easel.
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"那是什么玩意儿?"他问。
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‘What’s that?’ he asked.
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"哦,我也试着画画人像。"
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‘Oh, I had a shot at a portrait too.’
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23
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"依着葫芦学画瓢,"他嘟哝了一句。
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‘The sedulous ape,’ he murmured.
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他再转过身去看劳森的画布。菲利普涨红了脸,没吱声。
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He turned away again to Lawson’s canvas. Philip reddened but did not speak.
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25
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"嗯,阁下高见如何?"最后劳森忍不住问道。
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‘Well, what d’you think of it?’ asked Lawson at length.
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"很有立体感,"克拉顿说,"我看画得挺好。"
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‘The modelling’s jolly good,’ said Clutton. ‘And I think it’s very well drawn .’
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27
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"你看明暗层次是不是还可以?"
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‘D’you think the values are all right?’
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"相当不错。"
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‘Quite.’
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劳森喜得咧开了嘴。他像条落水狗似的,身子连着衣服一起抖动起来。
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Lawson smiled with delight. He shook himself in his clothes like a wet dog.
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"嘿,你喜欢这幅画,我说不出有多高兴。"
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‘I say, I’m jolly glad you like it.’
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"我才不呢!我认为这幅画毫无意思。"
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‘I don’t. I don’t think it’s of the smallest importance.’
Lawson’s face fell, and he stared at Clutton with astonishment : he had no notion what he meant, Clutton had no gift of expression in words, and he spoke as though it were an effort. What he had to say was confused, halting, and verbose ; but Philip knew the words which served as the text of his rambling discourse . Clutton, who never read, had heard them first from Cronshaw; and though they had made small impression, they had remained in his memory; and lately, emerging on a sudden, had acquired the character of a revelation: a good painter had two chief objects to paint, namely, man and the intention of his soul. The Impressionists had been occupied with other problems, they had painted man admirably, but they had troubled themselves as little as the English portrait painters of the eighteenth century with the intention of his soul.
‘But when you try to get that you become literary,’ said Lawson, interrupting. ‘Let me paint the man like Manet, and the intention of his soul can go to the devil.’
‘That would be all very well if you could beat Manet at his own game, but you can’t get anywhere near him. You can’t feed yourself on the day before yesterday, it’s ground which has been swept dry. You must go back. It’s when I saw the Grecos that I felt one could get something more out of portraits than we knew before.’
‘No—you see, he went for morality: I don’t care a damn for morality: teaching doesn’t come in, ethics and all that, but passion and emotion. The greatest portrait painters have painted both, man and the intention of his soul; Rembrandt and El Greco; it’s only the second-raters who’ve only painted man. A lily of the valley would be lovely even if it didn’t smell, but it’s more lovely because it has perfume. That picture’—he pointed to Lawson’s portrait—‘well, the drawing’s all right and so’s the modelling all right, but just conventional; it ought to be drawn and modelled so that you know the girl’s a lousyslut. Correctness is all very well: El Greco made his people eight feet high because he wanted to express something he couldn’t get any other way.’
渐渐地,米格尔以其民族所特有的那种浮夸辩才,向菲利普披露了自己的抱负。他正在写一部长篇小说,希望能借此一举成名。他深受左拉的影响,把巴黎作为自己小说的主要生活场景。他详细地给菲利普讲了小说的情节。在菲利普听来,作品内容粗俗而无聊,有关秽行的幼稚描写--c’est la vie,mon cher,c’est la vie,他叫道--反而更衬托出故事的陈腐俗套。他置身于难以想象的困境之中,坚持写了两年,含辛茹苦,清心寡欲,舍弃了当初吸引他来巴黎的种种生活乐趣,为了艺术而甘心忍饥挨饿;他矢志不移,任何力量也阻挡不了实现毕生宏愿的决心。这种苦心孤诣的精神倒真了不起呢。