正文 目录 文库目录 文库收藏 中文百科 Wiki百科
故园风雨后|Brideshead Revisited

第九章 暴风雨中两个孤儿|Chapter 9

属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 伊夫林-沃] 阅读:[99662]
字+字- 页+页- 字+字- 页+页-
1
-

我的主题是回忆,战时的一个阴郁早晨,那群带有羽翼的东西就在我旁边飞。

1
-

MY theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time.

2
-

那些回忆之于我,就是我的生命本身——我们除了过往,也没有什么能够真正拥有了。这些回忆就像圣马可教堂外的鸽子,无处不在,在我脚边,或是单个,或是一双,甜蜜悦耳地咕咕叫;俯首,神气活现地踱着步子;眯起眼睛,梳理颈间柔软的羽毛,我要是站着不动,它们有时便会落在我的肩上。直到突然一阵中午的枪炮声,它们立刻全颤动翅膀扑棱棱飞起来,人行道上空荡荡的,整片天空被嗡嗡喧哗的小飞禽遮得黑压压的。战争时期的那个阴郁早晨就是这样。

2
-

These memories, which are my life - for we possess nothing certainly except the past - were always with me. Like the pigeons of St Mark’s, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting , winking , rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl . Thus it was that morning of war-time.

3
-

和科迪莉娅的那个晚上之后是死寂的十年。我隐忍地走在一条充满变数和偶然的道路上。在这个时期——除了绘画时,不过间隔也是越来越长了——再没有像和塞巴斯蒂安在一起的那些日子那么灵动、有生气过。我觉得正在流逝的不是岁月,而是青春。绘画是我的支柱——就因为当初选了自己能做好的事情,做得一天更比一天好,又喜欢。附带说一句,绘画在当时是没有什么人愿意干的。我成了一位建筑画家。

3
-

For nearly ten dead years after that evening with Cordelia I was borne along a road outwardly full of change and incident, but never during that time, except sometimes in my painting - and that at longer and longer intervals - did I come alive as I had been during the time of my friendship with Sebastian. I took it to be youth, not life, that I was losing. My work upheld me, for I had chosen to do what I could do well, did better daily, and liked doing; incidentally it was something which no one else at that time was attempting to do. I became an architectural painter.

4
-

相较于伟大的建筑大师们的作品,我更爱那些静静矗立了好几个世纪的建筑,这些建筑物保留和记录了每一代的精华,同时,时间限制了艺术家们的骄傲和腓力斯人[1]的市侩粗鄙,却也弥补了那些平庸匠人的拙劣。这类建筑物在英格兰比比皆是,英国人在近十年的鼎盛中似乎第一次对于以前视若无物的东西重新有了认识,并且在建筑物行将变成遗物的当儿还歌颂起它们的成就来了。所以说我的幸运远远超过我的成绩,我的作品也不值一提,无非是技巧日益娴熟而已,我对建筑主体充满热忱,独立于流行观点。

[1]有市侩气、没有文化教养的、实利主义的意思,形容对文化艺术无知的人、文化修养低的人。
4
-

More even than the work of the great architects, I loved buildings that grew silently with the centuries, catching and keeping the best of each generation, while time curbed the artist’s pride and the Philistine’s vulgarity, and repaired the clumsiness of the dull workman. In such buildings England abounded , and, in the last decade of their grandeur , Englishmen seemed for the first time to become conscious of what before was taken for granted, and to salute their achievement at the moment of extinction . Hence my prosperity, far beyond my merits; my work had nothing to recommend it except my growing technical skill, enthusiasm for my subject, and independence of popular notions.

5
-

这一时期的经济萧条让好些画家找不到事做,却让我更加成功,当然,这样的情形实际上是经济衰退的征兆:泉眼干涸了,人们自然会想到望梅止渴。我在举办了首次画展之后,就被邀请去全国各地给那些马上就要荒废颓败的老房子画像。的的确确,我通常会比拍卖行早两步到那儿,厄运的先兆。

5
-

The financial slump of the period, which left many painters without employment, served to enhance my success, which was, indeed, itself a symptom of the decline.  When the water-holes were dry people sought to drink at the mirage . After my first exhibition I was called to all parts of the country to make portraits of houses that were soon to be deserted or debased; indeed, my arrival seemed often to be only a few paces ahead of the auctioneer’s, a presage of doom .

6
-

我还出版了三部光彩夺目的画册——即《赖德的乡间别墅》《赖德的英国住宅》《赖德的乡村建筑和外省建筑》,以每本五畿尼[2]的价钱卖了上千套。我很少会使人不满意,跟我的主顾之间不起摩擦,雇用双方要求一致。不过,这么多年过去了,我开始为马奇梅因公馆客厅那些我熟悉的却没能表现出来的东西感到悲伤,自那以后,我有过一两次电光石火地认识到那就是绘画的表现力和单一性,我相信有些东西仅只靠手是表现不出来的——一言以蔽之,得靠灵感。

[2]英国旧时金币,值一英镑一先令。
6
-

I published three splendid folios - Ryder’s Country Seats, Ryder’s English Homes, and Ryder’s Village and Provincial Architecture, which each sold its thousand copies at five guineas apiece. I seldom failed to please, for there was no conflict between myself and my patrons, we both wanted the same thing. But, as the years passed, I began to mourn the loss of something I had known in the drawing-room of Marchmain House and once or twice since, the intensity and singleness and the belief that it was not all done by hand - in a word, the inspiration.

7
-

为寻回那日渐泯灭的灵感之光,我以一种古典的奥古斯都[3]方式,携带了大量我们这行所需要的工具,出国到各种异域情调里浸淫了两年。我没去欧洲。欧洲的珍品很安全,太安全了,专门设置了重重屏障,而且被顶礼膜拜的人们弄得五脊六兽的。欧洲可以缓一缓再去。我觉得早晚有时间会去的。等我需要有人帮我安放画架,背着我那些画画的家什的时候;等到我从一家上等旅馆走不出一小时以上的路程的时候;等到我一整天都沐浴在轻风和煦日下的时候……我就会用我的一双老眼看向德国和意大利,这样的日子很快就要来到了。现在,趁我还有力气,我要去那些蛮荒之地,那里的人们放弃了他们的哨岗,密密的丛林正慢慢侵入古老的堡垒。

[3]古罗马帝国皇帝,文艺全盛时期的作家。
7
-

In quest of this fading light I went abroad, in the augustan manner, laden with the apparatus of my trade, for two years’ refreshment among alien styles. I did not go to Europe; her treasures were safe, too safe, swaddled in expert care, obscured by reverence . Europe could wait. There would be a time for Europe, I thought; all too soon the days would come when I should need a man at my side to put up my easel and carry my paints; when I could not venture more than an hour’s journey from a good hotel; when I should need soft breezes and mellow sunshine all day long; then I would take my old eyes to Germany and Italy. Now while I had the strength I would go to the wild lands where man had deserted his post and the jungle was creeping back to its old strongholds.

8
-

据此,经历了缓慢却不很轻松的几个阶段,我穿越了墨西哥和中美洲——一个有着我需要的一切的世界,远离园林和高堂,那样的情景变化使我身手更加敏捷,更能关照自己的内心了。宫殿的内里已经荡然无存,修道院的回廊野草没径,教堂被废弃,吸血的蝙蝠像豆荚一样倒挂在穹顶上,只有蚂蚁们挤作一堆,忙着在肥沃的牲畜棚不停歇地打洞。城市间不通公路,高大阴森的房子里只有一家像害了疟疾一样打着寒战的印第安人家在躲雨……所有这一切都是我灵感汲取的源泉。我吃了千辛万苦、抵抗了病痛,时不时还要有一点生命危险,创作了《赖德的拉丁美洲》画册的最初几幅作品。

8
-

Accordingly, by slow but not easy stages, I travelled through Mexico and Central America in a world which had all I needed, and the change from parkland and hall should have quickened me and set me right with myself. I sought inspiration among gutted palaces and cloisters embowered in weed, derelict churches where the vampire-bats hung in the dome like dry seed-pods and only the ants were ceaselessly astir tunnelling in the rich stalls; cities where no road led, and mausoleums where a single, agued family of Indians sheltered from the rains. There in great labour, sickness, and occasionally in some danger, I made the first drawings for Ryder’s Latin America.

9
-

过几个星期我就要休息一下,一次又一次置身于商业区和游览区,以此来恢复元气,建立了自己的画室,把速写细细誊画出来,着急忙慌地把画完的画作打好包,寄给我纽约的代理商。然后再次出发,带着我的小跟班踏入荒地。

9
-

Every few weeks I came to rest, finding myself once more in the zone of trade or tourism, recuperated , set up my studio, transcribed my sketches , anxiously packed the complete canvases, dispatched them to my New York agent, and then set out again, with my small retinue , into the wastes.

10
-

我不那么费心地跟英国保持联系。遵循当地人的建议去安排行程,也不设固定路线,结果很多邮件一直没能寄到我手里,即使这样,收到的邮件攒起来也到了坐下来一次都读不完的程度。

10
-

I was in no great pains to keep in touch with England. I followed local advice for my itinerary and had no settled route, so that much of my mail never reached me, and the rest accumulated until there was more than could be read at a sitting.

11
-

我常常把一捆信塞进袋子,等哪天有兴致再去看。可看信这件事与当时所处的环境往往很不搭:躺在吊床上晃来晃去;在蚊帐里,就着防风灯的光;坐在独木舟上漂浮着顺流而下,船夫懒散地划着船,小心不让我们的鼻子碰到两边的岸,幽深的水流就在身侧;坐在绿荫里,巨树直插云天,猿猴在森林屋顶的花丛中高高挂着在阳光下尖叫;在风景宜人的大牧场阳台上,耳畔有冰块在杯中搅动的轻响,还有掷骰子的声音,一只虎斑猫在修剪过的草坪上玩着脖子上的链子……信件仿佛是离自己十分遥远的声音,不具意义。信上说的事情如过眼云烟,只闪了一闪就过去了,不留痕迹,就像在美洲火车的车厢里,萍水相逢的旅客随意讲起自己的故事,听过了也就过去了。

11
-

I used to stuff a bundle of letters into my bag and read them when I felt inclined, which was in circumstances so incongruous swinging in my hammock, under the net, by the light of a storm-lantern; drifting down river, amidships in the canoe, with the boys astern of me lazily keeping our nose out of the bank, with the dark water keeping pace with us, in the green shade, with the great trees towering above us and the monkeys screeching in the sunlight, high overhead among the flowers on the roof of the forest; on the veranda of a hospitable ranch , where the ice and the dice clicked, and a tiger cat played with its chain on the mown grass - that they seemed voices so distant as to be meaningless; their matter passed clean through the mind, and out leaving no mark, like the facts about themselves which fellow travellers distribute so freely in American railway trains.

12
-

尽管与世隔绝,长期旅居于陌生的国度,我却没变,有一小块地方始终如一,我用这一小块地方假装那就是全部的我。和我出发时一样,我把这两年的经历连同热带用的成套用具一股脑儿甩到一边,回到了纽约。我满载而归——十一幅油画、五十幅素描——等我最终把这些作品在伦敦展览的时候,许多迄今为止仍旧带着俯就屈尊的调调儿的艺术评论家,在我的成功的感召下,褒赞、推崇说我的作品传达出崭新和更加丰富的内容。

12
-

But despite this isolation and this long sojourn in a strange world, I remained unchanged, still a small part of myself pretending to be whole. I discarded the experiences of those two years with my tropical kit and returned to New York as I had set out. I had a fine haul - eleven paintings and fifty odd drawings and when eventually I exhibited them in London, the art critics many of whom hitherto had been patronizing in tone, as my success invited, acclaimed a new and richer note in my work.

13
-

他们中的一位最受尊敬的人写道:赖德先生,他像一条鲜活的皮下注射了新文化的幼鳟鱼一样崛起,这也揭示了他无限潜力中的一个极强大的存在……通过将其优雅和博学的传统元素着眼于野蛮的漩流之上,赖德先生终于发现了自己的存在。

13
-

Mr Ryder, the most respected of them wrote, rises like a fresh young trout to the hypodermic injection of a new culture and discloses a powerful facet in the vista of his potentialities....By focusing the frankly traditional battery of his elegance and erudition on the maelstrom of barbarism, Mr Ryder has at last found himself.?

14
-

这些溢美之词,那个,唉,还不敌一根长粉笔来得实在。我妻子越过千山万水到纽约来见我,在她看到我们分居两地的成果展示在代理人办公室的时候,她总结得才叫好,她说:“当然,看得出来它们很棒,用邪恶阴险的方式表现出来还格外美丽。可不知道怎么回事,我就是觉得这些画不‘你’。”

14
-

Grateful words, but, alas , not true by a long chalk. My wife, who crossed to New York to meet me and saw the fruits of our separation displayed in my agent’s office, summed the thing up better by saying: ‘Of course, I can see they’re perfectly brilliant and really rather beautiful in a sinister way, but somehow I don’t feel they are quite you.’

15
-

我妻子的穿衣风格比较张扬,简约漂亮又极其清洁卫生,所以在欧洲有时就会被当成是美国人。而真正在美国,她又十分英国范儿,将英伦的柔和与隐忍自持表现得淋漓尽致。她比我先到一两天,我的船抵达港口时,她在码头上迎候。

15
-

In Europe my wife was sometimes taken for an American because of her dapper and jaunty way of dressing , and the curiously hygienic quality of her prettiness; in America she assumed an English softness and reticence . She arrived a day or two before me, and was on the pier when my ship docked.

16
-

“好久好久不见了啊。”我们一见面她就高兴地说。

16
-

‘It has been a long time,’ she said fondly when we met. 

17
-

她没有参加这次探险。她对我们的朋友们解释说这是因为那个国家与她不相适宜,况且家里还有个儿子。她还说,现在又有了女儿,我这才想起来出发前我们一直说起这事,这也成为她留下来的另一个理由。在她写来的信里也有提到。其时天色已晚,晚餐的聚会已经结束,在一家有歌舞表演的餐馆又逗留了几个小时以后,终于发现只有我们两个人独自在旅馆里了。“你一定没看我的信吧。”她说。

17
-

She had not joined the expedition; she explained to our friends that the country was unsuitable and she had her son at home. There was also a daughter now, she remarked, and it came back to me that there had been talk of this before I started, as an additional reason for her staying behind. There had been some mention of it, too, in her letters.? ‘I don’t believe you read my letters,’ she said that night, when at last, late, after a dinner party and some hours at a cabaret, we found ourselves alone in our hotel bedroom.

18
-

“有些信寄丢了。我记得很清楚,你的信上说果园里的水仙花是做梦看到了,还有保姆就是一颗珠宝,能干得不得了,还找到了一张摄政时期[4]的四柱床,可是说老实话我真不记得你说过给新生婴儿取了卡罗琳这个名字……你怎么想到要起这个名字的?”

[4]指1811—1820年间,由威尔士亲王乔治摄政,也就是后来的乔治四世。
18
-

‘Some went astray. I remember distinctly your telling me that the daffodils in the orchard were a dream, that the nursery-maid was a jewel, that the Regency four-poster was a find, but frankly I do not remember hearing that your new baby was called Caroline’. Why did you call it that?’

19
-

“当然是随着查尔斯起的嘛。”

19
-

‘After Charles, of course.’

20
-

“我让波莎·范·霍尔特做孩子的教母。我考虑她肯定会送一份像样的礼物。你知道她送了什么吗?”

20
-

‘I made Bertha Van Halt godmother. I thought she was safe for a good present. What do you think she gave?’

21
-

“波莎·范·霍尔特出了名地坑人……她送了什么呢?”

21
-

Bertha Van Halt is a well-known trap. What?’

22
-

“一张价值十五先令的书籍代金券。既然约翰约翰有了一个伴儿——”

22
-

‘A fifteen shilling book-token. Now that Johnjohn has a companion - ‘

23
-

“谁?”

23
-

‘Who?’

24
-

“你儿子呀,亲爱的。你没把他也忘了吧?”

24
-

‘Your son, darling. You haven’t forgotten him, too?’

25
-

“看在基督的份上,”我说,“你怎么叫他这个?”

25
-

‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘why do you call him that?’

26
-

“这个名字是他自己创造发明的。你不觉得它甜蜜蜜的吗?照我说啊,既然约翰约翰已经有了一个伴儿,所以我认为在一段时间里我们最好还是不再要孩子了,你觉得呢?”

26
-

‘It’s the name he invented for himself. Don’t you think it sweet? Now that Johnjohn has a companion I think we’d better not have any more for some time, don’t you?’

27
-

“都听你的,我怎么都行。”

27
-

‘Just as you please.’

28
-

“约翰约翰常念叨你。他每天晚上都祈祷你能平安归来呢。”

28
-

‘Johnjohn talks of you such a lot. He prays every night for your safe return.’

29
-

她一边这么说着,一边尽量漫不经心地脱掉衣服。坐在梳妆台前,用一把梳子梳理着头发,拿她的裸背对着我,看着镜中的自己,她说道:“我要不要把脸藏到床上了?”

29
-

She talked in this way while she undressed with an effort to appear at ease; then she sat at the dressing table, ran a comb through her hair, and with her bare back towards me, looking at herself in the glass, said: ‘Shall I put my face to bed?’

30
-

这是我很熟悉的表达法,也很不喜欢。她的意思是说她该不该去掉脸上的脂粉,抹上面油,然后再戴上发网。

30
-

It was a familiar phrase, one that I did not like; she meant should she remove her make-up, cover herself with grease and put her hair in a net.?

31
-

“不要,”我说,“先别急。”

31
-

‘No,’ I said, ‘not at once.’

32
-

她就明白需要做什么事了。在那事儿上她也同样清洁卫生,不过听完我说这话,她脸上表示喜欢的微笑中还带着宽慰和胜利。不久我们分开了,各自躺在双人床上,中间隔着一两码,吸着烟。我看了看表,已经四点了,但我们都了无睡意,这城市的空气中带着神经衰弱的病症,却常使人误以为是精力旺盛。

32
-

Then she knew what was wanted. She had neat, hygienic ways for that too, but there were both relief and triumph in her smile of welcome; later we parted and lay in our twin beds a yard or two distant, smoking. I looked at my watch; it was four o’clock, but neither of us was ready to sleep, for in that city there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.

33
-

“我看你一点儿也没变,查尔斯。”

33
-

‘I don’t believe you’ve changed at all, Charles.’

34
-

“不错,想必是没变。”

34
-

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

35
-

“你想有所改观吗?”

35
-

‘D’you want to change?’

36
-

“变化是活着的唯一证明。”

36
-

‘It’s the only evidence of life.’

37
-

“不过你可能会变得不再爱我了。”

37
-

‘But you might change so that you didn’t love me any more.’

38
-

“有这风险。”

38
-

‘There is that risk.’

39
-

“查尔斯,你还爱我呢。”

39
-

‘Charles, you haven’t stopped loving me.’

40
-

“你自己才说的我没有变。”

40
-

‘You said yourself I hadn’t changed.’

41
-

“唔,我现在开始觉得你变了。我没有。”

41
-

‘Well, I’m beginning to think you have. I haven’t.’

42
-

“没有,”我说道,“没有,这我看得出来。”

42
-

‘No,’ I said, ‘no; I can see that.’

43
-

“你今天和我见面一点也不发慌吗?”

43
-

‘Were you at all frightened at meeting me today?’

44
-

“一点儿也不。”

44
-

‘Not the least.’

45
-

“你也不想知道我在这期间有没有爱上别人吗?”

45
-

‘You didn’t wonder if I should have fallen in love with someone else in the meantime?’

46
-

“没想过啊。你爱上谁了吗?”

46
-

‘No. Have you?’

47
-

“你知道我没爱上别人,那你呢?”

47
-

‘You know I haven’t. Have you?’

48
-

“没有。我就没有恋爱。”

48
-

‘No. I’m not in love.’

49
-

我妻子对这个回答看来相当满意。我是六年前办第一次画展那阵儿和她结婚的。从那时起,为了推进我们的事业她做了很多事情。人人都说是她“造就”了我,不过她自己只承认给我提供了一个相得益彰的背景支持我这么一点。她对我的天分和“艺术气质”坚信不疑,并且还深信一条准则,偷偷摸摸背着人干的事情根本就不是事儿。

49
-

My wife seemed content with this answer. She had married me six years ago at the time of my first exhibition, and had done much since then to push our interests. People said she had ‘made’ me, but she herself took credit only for supplying me with a congenial background; she had firm faith in my genius and in the ‘artistic temperament’, and in the principle that things done on the sly are not really done at all. 

50
-

过了一会儿她说:“现在盼着回家吗?(我父亲送给我一笔房钱作为结婚礼金,后来我在妻子的家乡买了一所教区神父的老房子。)我有个惊喜给你。”

50
-

Presently she said: ‘Looking forward to getting home?’ (My father gave me as a wedding present the price of a house, and I bought an. old rectory in my wife’s part of the country.) ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

51
-

“是吗?”

51
-

‘Yes?’

52
-

“我已经把那间旧谷仓给你改成画室了,这样不管是孩子们还是留下来的客人都不会打扰你了。我叫埃姆登改的。大家都说改得棒极了。

52
-

‘I’ve turned the old barn into a studio for you, so that you needn’t be disturbed by the children or when we have people to stay. I got Emden to do it. Everyone thinks it a great success.

53
-

“《乡村生活》上还有一篇文章说到这件事,我买了一份给你看。”

53
-

There was an article on it in Country Life; I bought it for you to see.’

54
-

她给我看那篇文章:“……建筑形式美学的绝佳范例……约瑟夫·埃姆登爵士独具匠心,把传统材料改变成适合今日需求……”还刊登了几幅大照片。泥土地铺上了宽大的实橡木地板,北面墙上开了一个高高的石框悬窗,巨大的木屋顶之前全部陷在阴影里,而现在雄踞而出,鲜明闪亮,房檩还涂上洁白的石膏,谷仓看上去变得很像乡公所。我还记得那地方的气味,现在一定消失了吧。

54
-

She showed me the article: ‘...happy example of architectural good manners...Sir Joseph Emden’s tactful adaptation of traditional material to modern needs...’; there were some photographs; wide oak boards now covered the earthen floor; a high, stone-mullioned bay-window had been built in the north wall, and the great timbered roof, which before had been lost in shadow, now stood out stark , well lit, with clean white plaster between the beams; it looked like a village hall. I remembered the smell of the place, which would now be lost.

55
-

“我更喜欢谷仓。”我说。

55
-

‘I rather liked that barn.’ I said.

56
-

“可是你现在可以在那儿画画了呀,对吧?”

56
-

‘But you’ll be able to work there, won’t you?’

57
-

“在一团蜇人的飞蚊阵里,”我说,“头顶上的烈日能把除了镇纸之外的东西都烤焦了……此后,就算让我在公共汽车的车顶上我也能画了。我想教区牧师大概会很乐意借这个地方搞个惠斯特牌会的。”

57
-

‘After squatting in a cloud of sting-fly,’ I said, ‘under a sun which scorched the paper off the block as I drew, I could work on the top of an omnibus. I expect the vicar would like to borrow the place for whist drives.’

58
-

“有大把工作在等着你呢。我已经答应了安克瑞奇夫人,你一回去就画安克瑞奇公馆。那房子也要给推了,知道吧——要改成底下是铺子上面是两居室的房子。你没想到吧,查尔斯,你那些所有异国情调的画儿会把你毁了,会让你再画不了英国建筑的,你想到没有?”

58
-

‘There’s a lot of work waiting for you. I promised Lady Anchorage you would do Anchorage House as soon as you got back. That’s coming down, too, you know - shops underneath and two-roomed flats above. You don’t think, do you, Charles, that all this exotic work you’ve been doing, is going to spoil you for that sort of thing?’

59
-

“怎么会?!”

59
-

‘Why should it?’

60
-

“哦,两者完全不同呀。你别发火啊。”

60
-

‘Well, it’s so different. Don’t be cross.’

61
-

“只不过是将要被另一片丛林侵略到的地方。”

61
-

‘It’s just another jungle closing in.’

62
-

“我完全明白你的感受,亲爱的。‘乔治风’[5]已经整到这步田地了,我们却做不了什么……那你收到我说博伊的那封信了吗?”

[5]乔治风指于1937年成立,旨在保存乔治王朝风格的艺术之风。
62
-

‘I know just how you feel, darling. The Georgian Society made such a fuss, but we couldn’t do anything...Did you ever get my letter about Boy?’

63
-

“我不知道啊,信上说什么了?”

63
-

‘Did I? What did it say?’

64
-

(博伊·马尔卡斯特是她哥哥。)

64
-

(‘Boy’ Mulcaster was her brother.)

65
-

“是关于他订婚的事,现在已经不重要了,事情全结束了。不过这事儿搞得爸爸妈妈很难过。她是个糟糕透顶的姑娘。后来他们还是给了她钱才算了事。”

65
-

‘About his engagement. It doesn’t matter now because it’s all off, but father and mother were terribly upset. She was an awful girl. They had to give her money in the end.’

66
-

“没有,我一点儿也没听说博伊的事。”

66
-

‘No, I heard nothing of Boy.’

67
-

“他现在和约翰约翰是铁哥们儿了。看着他们俩在一起让人心里甜蜜蜜的。他不管什么时候来,都径直把车先开到老教区去。进了屋,任谁也不理,马上就喊:‘我的死党约翰约翰在哪里呀?’约翰约翰听见了就歪歪扭扭地从楼上跑下来,然后他们上小树林里也能一连玩上好几个小时。你想啊,要是听到他们俩说话,你还以为这两人一般大呢。

67
-

‘He and Johnjohn are tremendous friends, now. It’s so sweet to see them together.  Whenever he comes the first thing he does is to drive straight to the Old Rectory. He just walks into the house, pays no attention to anyone else, and hollers out: “Where’s my chum Johnjohn?” and Johnjohn comes tumbling downstairs and off they go into the spinney together and play for hours. You’d think, to hear them talk to each other, they were the same age.

68
-

就是约翰约翰让他明白了那姑娘的道理。说真的,你知道,他精得要死。他可能是听到我和妈妈说什么了,等博伊又来了他就说啊:‘博伊舅舅不要撇下约翰约翰跟那个糟糕姑娘结婚。’也就是他跟博伊说的那一天,博伊没上法庭,花了两千英镑把这事私了了。约翰约翰对博伊崇拜得不得了,什么事都学他。这对他们两人都挺好。”

68
-

It was really Johnjohn who made him see reason about that girl; seriously, you know, he’s frightfully sharp. He must have heard mother and me talking because next time Boy came he said: “Uncle Boy shan’t marry horrid girl and leave Johnjohn,” and that was the very day he settled for two thousand pounds out of court.? Johnjohn admires Boy so tremendously and imitates him in everything. It’s so good for them both.’

69
-

我走到房间那头,再一次徒劳地想把暖气调到一个合适的温度。我喝了些冰水,把窗子打开,可是飘进来的不只是寒夜的空气,还有隔壁屋子的音乐,那里有人正开着收音机。又关上窗户,掉转过身朝我妻子走去。

69
-

I crossed the room and tried once more, ineffectively, to moderate the heat of the radiators ; I drank some iced water and opened the window, but, besides the sharp night air, music was borne in from the next room where they were playing the wireless . I shut it and turned back towards my wife.

70
-

她又开始事无巨细地说开了,带着困倦的睡意……“花园里长得可茂盛了……你种的黄杨树篱去年一年长高了五英寸……我从伦敦找了几个人把网球场给修整好了……当时最棒的厨子……”下面的整个城市正在苏醒,我们两人却睡着了,只是没过多久,电话铃声响起,一个欢快的、辨不出男女的声音说道:“萨沃伊——卡尔顿——旅馆——早安。现在是七点四十五分。”

70
-

At length she began talking again, more drowsily ‘The garden’s come on a lot...The box hedges you planted grew five inches last year...I had some men down from London to put the tennis court right...first-class cook at the moment...’ As the city below us began to wake, we both fell asleep, but not for long; the telephone rang and a voice of hermaphroditic gaiety said: ‘Savoy-Carlton-Hotel-goodmorning. It is now a quarter of eight.’

71
-

“你看看,我没要求叫早服务呀。”

71
-

‘I didn’t ask to be called, you know.’

72
-

“您说什么?”

72
-

‘Pardon me?’

73
-

“噢,没事儿。”

73
-

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

74
-

“没关系。”

74
-

‘You’re welcome.’

75
-

我刮脸时,我妻子在浴室中说道:“就跟以前一样。我再也不担心了,查尔斯。”

75
-

As I was shaving, my wife from the bath said: ‘Just like old times. I’m not worrying any more, Charles.’

76
-

“很好。”

76
-

‘Good.’

77
-

“我以前真担心两年时间兴许会产生什么嫌隙来着。现在我知道了,我们完全可以哪里停下的再在哪里重新开始。”

77
-

‘I was so terribly afraid that two years might have made a difference. Now I know we can start again exactly where we left off.’

78
-

“什么时候的事儿啊?”我问道,“你在说什么?我们什么时候停下什么了?”

78
-

‘When?’ I asked. ‘What? When we left off what?’

79
-

“自然是你离开的时候。”

79
-

When you went away, of course.’

80
-

“你在想别的事呢吧?才过了这么一小会儿。”

80
-

‘You are not thinking of something else, a little time before?’

81
-

“哟,查尔斯,都是老黄历了。没什么了。从来也没有什么事。事情过去这么久了,我早忘了。”

81
-

‘Oh, Charles, that’s old history. That was nothing. It was never anything. It’s all over and forgotten.’

82
-

“我只是想知道,”我说,“我们又回到我出国前那样了,是不是?”

82
-

‘I just wanted to know,’ I said. ‘We’re back as we were the day I went abroad, is that it?’

83
-

就这样,我们恰恰又在两年前我们停下来的地方重新开始了,我妻子流了眼泪。

83
-

So we started that day exactly where we left off two years before, with my wife in tears.

84
-

我妻子的温柔和英国人的冷静自持,她细小整齐的白牙,整洁的玫瑰色指甲,天真调皮的女学生样子和打扮,她那些重金打造的,可远远看上去却好像是批量生产的时髦首饰,她脸上常常挂着的应酬的微笑,她对我的尊敬和服从,她对我的爱好的热情,还有她每天都要给家里的保姆拍电报的慈母之心——总而言之,她所独有的个人魅力——使她在美国人当中很吃得开。启程那天,我们的船舱里堆满了她认识不过一个星期的朋友们送的玻璃纸包装的大包小包礼品——鲜花、水果、糖、书籍和孩子们的玩具,等等。

84
-

My wife’s softness and English reticence , her very white, small regular teeth, her neat rosy finger-nails, her schoolgirl air of innocent mischief and her schoolgirl dress, her modern jewellery, which was made at great expense to give the impression, at a distance, of having been mass produced, her ready, rewarding smile, her deference to me and her zeal in my interests, her motherly heart which made her cable daily to the nanny at home - in short, her peculiar charm - made her popular among the Americans, and our cabin on the day of departure was full of cellophane packages - flowers, fruit, sweets, books, toys for the children - from friends she had known for a week.

85
-

而服务员也像育婴堂的修女一样,常常根据礼品的数量和价值来判断旅客的身份高低。因此航行开始时我们就已受到格外的尊重了。一上了船,我妻子首先想到的就是旅客名单。

85
-

Stewards , like sisters in a nursing home, used to judge their passengers’ importance by the number and value of these trophies ; we therefore started the voyage in high esteem .? My wife’s first thought on coming aboard was of the passenger list.?

86
-

“有这么多朋友,”她说,“这次旅行一定会很妙。今天晚上我们举办一次鸡尾酒会吧。”

86
-

‘Such a lot of friends,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a lovely trip. Let’s have a cocktail party this evening.’

87
-

登船的舷梯才撤走,她就忙着打起电话来。

87
-

The companion-ways were no sooner cast off than she was busy with the telephone. 

88
-

“茱丽娅吗?我是西莉娅——西莉娅·赖德。发现你也在船上真的太好了。你这一向可好吗?今天晚上到我这儿来参加鸡尾酒会吧,咱们好好聊聊。”

88
-

‘Julia. This is Celia - Celia Ryder. It’s lovely to find you on board. What have you been up to? Come and have a cocktail this evening and tell me all about it.’

89
-

“哪个茱丽娅?”

89
-

‘Julia who?’

90
-

“茱丽娅·莫特拉姆呀。我好多年没有看见她了。”

90
-

‘Mottram. I haven’t seen her for years.’

91
-

我也好多年没见她了。事实上,自从我的婚礼那天起,我就再也没见过她;从我的画展预展之后就再也没有跟她说过话。在那次画展上,我画的那四幅马奇梅因公馆的油画——布莱兹赫德借出的——挂在一起十分引人注目。这些画就是我和弗莱特家的最后联系了。我们的生活密切交织在一起有一两年,然后就分开了。我知道塞巴斯蒂安还在国外,至于雷克斯和茱丽娅,只是时有耳闻说他们在一起并不幸福。

91
-

Nor had I; not, in fact, since my wedding day, not to speak to for any time, since the private view of my exhibition where the four canvases of Marchmain House, lent by Brideshead, had hung together attracting much attention. Those pictures were my last contact with the Flytes; our lives, so close for a year or two, had drawn apart. Sebastian, I knew, was still abroad; Rex and Julia, I sometimes heard said, were unhappy together.

92
-

雷克斯没有完全像原先预测的那样飞黄腾达,他仍然游离于政府边缘,名头不小,但却让人隐隐生疑。他身处大富豪间,可是讲演却似乎更加倾向于革命政策,在共产党和法西斯之间左右逢迎。

92
-

Rex was not prospering quite as well as had been predicted; he remained on the fringe of the Government, prominent but vaguely suspect. He lived among the very rich, and in his speeches seemed to incline to revolutionary policies, flirting , with Communists and Fascists .

93
-

人们在谈话中会提到莫特拉姆的姓氏。在翻着报纸不耐烦地等什么人的时候,会时不时地瞥见他们的面孔登在《闲谈者报》上,但是他们和我已经走在两条道上了。人们在英国,且只有在英国,才会处于彼此隔离的两个世界,处于各自的人际关系自行旋转着的小星球上。此一过程或许可以在物理学上找到很贴切的比喻,我朦朦胧胧地领悟到,能量粒子群会重组到不同的磁场中。对于一个能够夸夸其谈这类物理现象的人来说,这个比喻是现成的。可对我却不适用,我只能说这种厘清远近亲疏的小圈子在英国比比皆是。所以就我和茱丽娅的情形来说,就算我们同在伦敦,住在同一条街上,时常在同一时刻看到几英里外乡间的地平线,而且我们可能互有好感,温和地关心对方的命运,甚至会为分离怅惘,深知每一方只要拿起电话筒,在枕边就能够跟对方说上几句,借以享受仿佛随着早餐的橙汁和阳光一块儿来的见面的亲昵……但是因为受到我们各自所处星球的向心力影响,以及星球外部冷寂的星际空间所限,我们不能这样做。

93
-

I heard the Mottrams’ names in conversation; I saw their faces now and again peeping from the Tatler, as I turned the pages impatiently waiting for someone to come, but they and I had fallen apart, as one could in England and only there, into separate worlds, little spinning planets of personal relationship; there is probably a perfect metaphor for the process to be found in physics, from the way in which, I dimly apprehend , particles of energy group and regroup themselves in separate magnetic systems; a metaphor ready to hand for the man who can speak of these things with assurance; not for me, who can only say that England abounded in these small companies of intimate friends, so that, as in this case of Julia and myself, we could live in the same street in London, see at times, a few miles distant, the rural horizon, could have a liking one for the other, a mild curiosity about the other’s fortunes, a regret, even, that we should be separated, and the knowledge that either of us had only to pick up the telephone and speak by the other’s pillow, enjoy the intimacies of the levee, coming in, as it were, with the morning orange juice and the sun, yet be restrained from doing so by the centripetal force of our own worlds, and the cold, interstellar space between them.?

94
-

我妻子高高地坐在堆满玻璃纸和彩色丝带的沙发背上,继续打她的电话,兴致勃勃地查阅旅客名单……“是,当然要带他来,听说他那么甜蜜……对,我终于把查尔斯从蛮夷之地弄回来了,不可爱吗……在登记簿上看到你的名字是有多么好呀!这使我的旅程……亲爱的,我们也是住在萨沃伊-卡尔顿旅馆呢,怎么就错过了?”……有时她转过身来对我说,“我非得看看你是不是真的在那儿,现在还有点儿不习惯。”

94
-

My wife, perched on the back of the sofa in a litter of cellophane and silk ribbons, continued telephoning, working brightly through the passenger list...’Yes, do of course bring him, I’m told he’s sweet...Yes, I’ve got Charles back from the wilds at last; isn’t it lovely...What a treat seeing your name in the list! It’s made my trip...darling, we were at the Savoy-Carlton, too; how can we have missed you?’...Sometimes she turned to me and said: ‘I have to make sure you’re still really there. I haven’t got used to it yet.’

95
-

我走出舱外,轮船缓慢地驶入河道,我走向一扇大玻璃窗,旅客们正站在窗前凝视着向后滑去的陆地。“这么多朋友在呢。”我妻子刚才说的。看着这素不相识的一群人,刚才告别的激情正在冷却,有些人直到最后一刻还在和来送行的碰杯话别,此时更是热情澎湃;还有些人则在盘算着去哪儿弄一张甲板座椅;乐队不为人注意地演奏着——这一切就像一群蚂蚁一般无序。

95
-

I went up and out as we steamed slowly down the river to one of the great glass cases where the passengers stood to watch the land slip by. ‘Such a lot of friends,’ my wife had said. They looked a strange crowd to me; the emotions of leave-taking were just beginning to subside ; some of them, who had been drinking till the last moment with those who were seeing them off, were still boisterous ; others were planning where they, would have their deck chairs; the band played unnoticed - all were as restless as ants.?

96
-

我转身进了几个大厅,很大,但并不堂皇,就像本来就设计成放大了好几倍的列车车厢似的。

96
-

I turned into some of the halls of the ship, which were huge without any splendour, as though they had been designed for a railway coach and preposterously magnified.

97
-

走过一道巨大的青铜大门,上面錾刻着纸片一样薄的亚述动物;吸墨纸一样颜色的地毯;彩绘墙壁嵌板也像吸墨纸一样——平淡乏味的幼儿园手工制品——墙与墙之间是一码又一码未经木匠加工过的淡褐色木头,还有墙角里弯成圆角的镶木,它们经过蒸、挤、抛光,严丝合缝地一片一片拼接好;吸墨纸地毯上四处摆着可能由公共厕所的设计师设计的桌子和填充块料,块料上是方形凹陷,装上了垫子,可以一屁股坐上去。这些东西看上去同样也是吸墨纸。大厅灯光从几十个孔中散射出来,光线均匀,没有光影——整个大厅里充斥着上百个通风机的嗡嗡声,和下面运转的巨大蒸汽汽轮机的震动声。

97
-

I passed through vast bronze gates on which paper-thin Assyrian animals cavorted ; I trod carpets the colour of blotting paper; the painted panels of the walls were like blotting paper, too - kindergarten work in flat, drab colours - and between the walls were yards and yards of biscuit-coloured wood which no carpenter’s tool had ever touched, wood that had been bent round comers, invisibly joined strip to strip, steamed and squeezed and polished; all over the blotting-paper carpet were strewn tables designed perhaps by a sanitary engineer, square blocks of stuffing, with square holes for sitting in, and upholstered, it seemed, in blotting paper also; the light of the hall was suffused from scores of hollows, giving an even glow, casting no shadows - the whole place hummed from its hundred ventilators and vibrated with the turn of the great engines below.?

98
-

“我回来了,”我想着,“从密林、遗迹中回来了。这里的财富已不再让人目眩神迷,权力也不再彰显。‘寂无人烟的城市就像这样屹立在那里’[6]。”(我以前听到过这句伟大的哀歌,一次是科迪莉娅在马奇梅因公馆客厅里引用的,另一次是大约一年前在危地马拉听一个混血儿唱诗班唱的。)

[6]原文为拉丁文。
98
-

‘Here I am,’ I thought, ‘back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity. Quomodo sedet sola civitas’ (for I had heard that great lament , which Cordelia once quoted to me in the drawing-room of Marchmain House, sung by a half-caste choir in Guatemala, nearly a year ago).?

99
-

一个服务员走到我面前。

99
-

A steward came up to me.

100
-

“先生,您需要点儿什么吗?”

100
-

‘Can I get you anything, sir?’

101
-

“一杯威士忌和苏打水,不加冰。”

101
-

‘A whisky and soda , not iced.’

102
-

“非常抱歉,所有的苏打水都是冰镇的。”

102
-

‘I’m sorry, sir, all the soda is iced.’

103
-

“水也冰镇了吗?”

103
-

‘Is the water iced, too?’

104
-

“哦,是的,先生。”

104
-

‘Oh yes, sir.’

105
-

“那好吧,没关系。”

105
-

‘Well, it, doesn’t matter.’

106
-

他小跑着走开了,让人费解地在弥漫的嗡嗡声中无声无息地走开了。

106
-

He trotted off, puzzled, soundless in the pervading hum.

107
-

“查尔斯。”

107
-

‘Charles.’

108
-

我回过头去,看见茱丽娅就坐在一个吸墨纸一样的方垫子上,双手叠放在膝头,太安静了以至于我经过时一点儿没注意到她。

108
-

I looked behind me. Julia was sitting in a cube of blotting paper, her hands folded in her lap, so still that I had passed by without noticing her. 

109
-

“我听说你也在这船上。西莉娅打电话告诉我的。见到你真高兴。”

109
-

‘I heard you were here. Celia telephoned to me. It’s delightful .’

110
-

“你在干什么呢?”

110
-

‘What are you doing?’

111
-

她松开放在腿上的空空的双手,优雅地做了个手势。“等着呢。女人正在整理行李。我们离开英国后她就一直拧拧巴巴的,现在又抱怨起我的客舱来了。也不知道有什么可抱怨的……好像我要的喝的来了。”

111
-

She opened the empty hands in her lap with a little eloquent gesture. ‘Waiting. My maid’s unpacking ; she’s been so disagreeable ever since we left England. She’s complaining now about my cabin. I can’t think why. It seems a lap to me.’

112
-

那个服务员又回来了,端着威士忌和两个杯子,一杯是冰水,另一杯是开水。我把酒和水兑在一起使温度适宜。他一边看着一边说:“先生,我得记住你是怎么兑的酒。”

112
-

The steward returned with whisky and two jugs , one of iced water, the other of boiling water; I mixed them to the rig ht temperature. He watched and said: ‘I’ll remember that’s how you take it, sir.’

113
-

大部分旅客都有自己的偏好,雇他来就是为了增强旅客的自信心的。茱丽娅要了一杯热巧克力。我挨着她坐在另一个方垫上。

113
-

Most passengers had fads ; he was paid to fortify their self-esteem. Julia asked for a cup of hot chocolate. I sat by her in the next cube.

114
-

“刚才根本没看到你,”她说,“但凡我喜欢的我就永远也看不见似的。不知道这是怎么回事。”

114
-

‘I never see you now, ‘ she said. ‘I never seem to see anyone I like. I don’t know why.’

115
-

她的口吻听上去仿佛我们只隔了几个星期没见,而不是好多年,并且在分别前两人就已经是相当熟稔的朋友一样。时间建立起了自己的防线,伪装好薄弱的环节,并且除了少数几条人来人往的小路之外到处都埋了雷,因而我们多半只能在缠得乱七八糟的电线的这一头,向对方发个信号而已。这样的不期而遇会与一般经验相左,我和她向来谈不上是好朋友,但现在却以长久亲密无间的关系在这里相遇了。

115
-

But she spoke as though it were a matter of weeks rather than of years; as though, too, before our parting we had been firm friends. It was dead contrary to the common experience of such encounters, when time is found to have built its own defensive lines, camouflaged vulnerable points, and laid a field of mines across all but a few well-trodden paths, so that, more often than not, we can only signal to one another from either side of the tangle of wire. Here she and I, who were never friends before, met on terms of long and unbroken intimacy

116
-

“你在美国都做些什么?”

116
-

‘What have you been doing in America?’

117
-

她喝着热巧克力,慢慢抬起头来,美丽而严肃的眼睛注视着我,说:“你不知道吗?那我以后什么时候再告诉你好了……我是个十足的傻瓜。我以为自己爱上了一个人,但根本不是那么回事。”

117
-

She looked up slowly from her chocolate and, her splendid, serious eyes in mine, said: ‘Don’t you know? I’ll tell you about it sometimes I’ve been a mug. I thought I was in love with someone, but it didn’t turn out that way.’

118
-

这时我的思绪回到了十年前在布莱兹赫德的那个夜晚,当时这个可爱的、细手细脚的十九岁姑娘,像是才从育婴室给带出来待一个小时,会因为大人不注意她而焦虑不安,当时她说:“我也在引起别人的焦虑呢,你知道。”当时我作为男人会想:“这些姑娘把个恋爱看得是有多重。”现在我却几乎再也没有这样的想法了。现在情况不一样了,她说话的态度除了谦卑和友好的坦率之外,什么也没有了。

118
-

And my mind went back ten years to the evening at Brideshead, when that lovely, spidery child of nineteen, as though brought in for an hour from the nursery and nettled by lack of attention from the grown-ups, had said: ‘I’m causing anxiety, too, you know,’ and I had thought at the time, though scarcely, it now seemed to me, in long trousers myself, ‘How important these girls make themselves with their love affairs.’ Now it was different; there was nothing but humility and friendly candour in the way she spoke.

119
-

我想对她的信任有所反应,做出某些欣然接受的表示来,可在我过去乏善可陈的岁月里,又委实没有可以与她共享的东西。便只好跟她谈谈那些丛林日子、遇到过的滑稽可笑的人物。游历过的废墟遗址,可是多年故交的心境却把故事讲得磕磕绊绊,最后还突然中断了。

119
-

I wished I could respond to her confidence, give some token of acceptance, but there was nothing in my last, flat, eventful years that I could share with her. I began instead to talk of my time in the jungle, of the comic characters I had met and the lost places I had visited, but in this mood of old friendship the tale faltered and came to an end abruptly

120
-

“我渴望看看你的画儿。”她说道。

120
-

‘I long to see the paintings,’ she said.

121
-

“西莉娅为了鸡尾酒会也希望我能拿出一些挂在客舱里,这我办不到。”

121
-

‘Celia wanted me to unpack some and stick them round the cabin for her cocktail party. I couldn’t do that.’

122
-

“不行啊……西莉娅还是以前那么美吧?我一直觉得与当年我们那些女孩子比起来,她是最漂亮的姑娘。”

122
-

‘No...is Celia as pretty as ever? I always thought she had the most delicious looks of any girl of my year.’

123
-

“她没有什么变化。”

123
-

‘She hasn’t changed.’

124
-

“你变了,查尔斯。你瘦多了,严肃多了。一点儿也不是当年塞巴斯蒂安带回家来的那个漂亮男孩子了。也更坚强了。”

124
-

‘You have, Charles. So lean and grim; not at all the pretty boy Sebastian brought home with him. Harder, too.’

125
-

“而你却更温柔了。”

125
-

‘And you’re softer.’

126
-

“是啊,我也这么觉得……而且现在特别有耐心。”

126
-

‘Yes, I think so...and very patient now.’

127
-

她还不到三十岁,正走向她美丽的顶峰,原本就蕴涵丰富的潜在美已经完全显露出来了。她已经不似当年风行一时的那种四肢纤细的模样了。而我曾经认为她带着文艺复兴时期风情的脑袋多多少少与她的身体不那么相称,现在真正成了她自己,跟佛罗伦萨再搭不上边。她的美与绘画、艺术或除她自己之外的任何东西都没有任何关系,所以想把她的美类化或者分析是毫无意义的。这美植根于她的本质。只有在她、她的认同,和我不久就将产生的对她的爱中才能知道。

127
-

She was not yet thirty, but was approaching the zenith of her loveliness, all her rich promise abundantly fulfilled. She had lost that fashionable, spidery look; the head that I used to think quattrocento, which had sat a little oddly on her, was now part of herself and not at all Florentine; not connected in any way with painting or the arts or with anything except herself, so that it would be idle to itemize and dissect her beauty, which was her own essence, and could only be known in her and by her authority and in the love I was soon to have for her.

128
-

岁月还造成了另一种变化,于她而言,不是含蓄狡黠的蒙娜丽莎式微笑,岁月要比“七弦竖琴和长笛的声音”更使她忧郁。她仿佛在说:“看看我。我尽了我的本分。我是美丽的。我的美非同寻常。我是为快乐而生的,可是我从中得到了什么呢?我的奖赏又在哪里呢?”这就是她十年来的变化;这确实就是她的报酬,那种令人魂牵梦绕的具有魔力的哀伤,它直接向心灵倾诉并使人沉默。这就是她的美的顶峰。

128
-

Time had wrought another change, too; not for her the sly, complacent smile of la Gioconda; the years had been more than ‘the sound of lyres and flutes’, and had saddened her. She seemed to say: ‘Look at me. I have done my share. I am beautiful. It is something quite out of the ordinary, this beauty of mine. I am made for delight. But what do I get out of it? Where is my reward?’ That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.

129
-

“也更哀伤了。”我说道。

129
-

‘Sadder, too,’ I said.

130
-

“噢,不错,哀伤得多了。”

130
-

‘Oh yes, much sadder.’

131
-

两小时后我回到客舱,我妻子正精神饱满意气风发的。

131
-

My wife was in exuberant spirits when, two hours later, I returned to the cabin.

132
-

“我必须一切都准备停当。看上去怎么样?”

132
-

‘I’ve had to do everything. How does it look?’

133
-

我们没有多付钱,就有一套宽大的舱房为我们准备好了,其中一间大得除了这家轮船公司的董事们之外很少会预订出去,在大多数的航行中,经事务长同意,这套舱房常常会安排给他要致敬的客人。(我妻子很擅长获得这种小小的实惠,先是用她的美丽和我的声望给很吃这一套的人以深刻印象,一旦优势上来并且巩固住了,马上换上一种讨人喜欢的亲切姿态来。)

133
-

We had been given, without paying more for it, a large suite of rooms, one so large, in fact, that it was seldom booked except by directors of the line, and on most voyages, the chief purser admitted, was given to those he wished to honour. (My wife was adept in achieving such small advantages, first impressing the impressionable with her chic and my celebrity and, superiority once firmly established, changing quickly to a pose of almost flirtatious affability.)

134
-

为了表示她的谢意,她邀请了事务长来参加鸡尾酒会,而他为了表示他的谢意,在赴宴之前送了一只和实物一般大小的冰雕天鹅像,里面还填满了鱼子酱。这件寒气逼人的豪礼傲视群雄,摆在房子中央的桌子上,它渐渐融化,冰水顺着天鹅喙滴下,落在盛它的那只银盘子里。早上送来的鲜花尽可能地把镶板都遮住了(这间客舱是上面那个吓人的大厅的微型版)。

134
-

In token of her appreciation the chief purser had, been asked to our party and he, in token of his appreciation, had sent before him the life-size effigy of a swan, moulded in ice and filled with caviar. This chilly piece of magnificence now dominated the room, standing on a table in the centre, thawing gently, dripping at the beak into its silver dish. The flowers of the morning delivery hid as much as possible of the panelling (for this room was a miniature of the monstrous hall above).

135
-

“你得赶快换礼服了。你刚才一直在哪儿呀?”

135
-

‘You must get dressed at once. Where have you been all this time?’

136
-

“跟茱丽娅·莫特拉姆聊天。”

136
-

‘Talking to Julia Mottram.’

137
-

“你认识她?噢,自然啦,你是她那个酒鬼哥哥的朋友嘛。谢天谢地,她还挺有魅力吧!”

137
-

‘D’you know her? Oh, of course, you were a friend of the dipso brother. Goodness, her glamour !’

138
-

“她也极为赞赏你。”

138
-

‘She greatly admires your looks, too.’

139
-

“她以前是博伊的女朋友之一。”

139
-

‘She used to be a girl friend of Boy’s.’

140
-

“不能够吧?”

140
-

‘Surely not?’

141
-

“他自己老这么说。”

141
-

‘He always said so.’

142
-

“你考虑过没有,”我问道,“你的客人们怎么吃里面的鱼子酱呢?”

142
-

‘Have you considered,’ I asked, ‘how your guests are going to eat this caviar?’

143
-

“考虑是考虑过了。不好办。不过东西这儿全有啦。”——她给我看了装满几个托盘的透明的美味小吃——“反正来参加酒会的人总会找到吃东西的法子的。你还记得我们有一次用一把裁纸刀吃虾罐头吗?”

143
-

‘Did we?’

144
-

“是吗?”

144
-

‘Darling’ it was the night you popped the question.’

145
-

“亲爱的,就是你求婚的那个晚上呀。”

145
-

‘As I remember, you popped.’

146
-

“我记得是你求的婚。”

146
-

‘Well, the night we got engaged. But you haven’t said how you like the, arrangements.’

147
-

“好啦,反正是我们订婚的那个晚上。可是你还没有说你觉得安排得如何呢。”

147
-

The arrangements, apart from the swan and the flowers, consisted of a steward already inextricably trapped in the corner behind an improvised bar, and another steward, tray in hand, in comparative freedom.

148
-

所谓安排,除了那只天鹅和那些鲜花以外,还包括一个无法脱身、被困在临时柜台后面一角的服务员,和另外一个端着托盘的、相对自由一点的服务员。

148
-

‘A cinema actor’s dream,’ I said.

149
-

“电影演员之梦。”我说。

149
-

‘Cinema actors,’ said my wife; ‘that’s what I want to talk about.’

150
-

“电影演员,”我的妻子说,“我正想说这事呢。”

150
-

She came with me to my dressing-room and talked while I changed. It had occurred to her that, with my interest in architecture, my true métier was designing scenery for the films, and she had asked two Hollywood magnates to the party with whom she wished to ingratiate me.

151
-

她跟着我来到更衣室,我一边换衣服,她一边跟我叨唠。她脑子一转便想到,既然建筑方面是我的兴趣之所在,那我真正的专长就是给电影设计布景,所以她邀请了两位好莱坞巨头参会,并且希望我巴结巴结他们。

151
-

We returned to the sitting-room

152
-

我们又回到起居室。

152
-

‘Darling, I believe you’ve taken against my bird. Don’t be beastly about it in front of the purser. It was sweet of him to think of it. Besides, you know, if you had read about it in the description of a sixteenth-century banquet in Venice, you would have said those were the days to live.’

153
-

“亲爱的,我知道你对咱们的这只鸟很反感。在事务长面前可别对它太凶恶了。他能想到这个真的挺不赖的。再说,你知道,如果你在描述十六世纪威尼斯宴会的书里读到过这天鹅的话,那你就会说这是那个时代的再现。”

153
-

‘In sixteenth-century Venice it would have been a somewhat different shape.’

154
-

“十六世纪威尼斯天鹅的造型会有些不同的。”

154
-

‘Here is Father Christmas. We were just in raptures over your swan.’

155
-

“圣诞老人来了。我们对你送的天鹅喜欢得发狂呢。”

155
-

The chief purser came into the room and shook hands, powerfully.?

156
-

事务长走进客舱,大力与人握手。

156
-

‘Dear Lady Celia,’ he said, ‘if you’ll put on your warmest clothes and come on an expedition into the cold storage with me tomorrow, I can show you a whole Noah’s Ark of such objects. The toast will be along in a minute. They’re keeping it hot.’

157
-

“亲爱的西莉娅夫人,”他说道,“赶明儿,你要是愿意穿上暖和衣服,跟我到冷库里探探险的话,我还能让你看到装着这种东西的一整个挪亚方舟。吐司一会儿就到。他们正把它烤热一下。”

157
-

‘Toast!’ said my wife, as though this was something beyond the dreams of gluttony.

158
-

“烤吐司!”我妻子惊叹道,听语气仿佛烤吐司是什么饕餮大餐一样。

158
-

‘Do you hear that Charles? Toast.’

159
-

“你听见了吗,查尔斯?烤吐司来着。”

159
-

Soon the guests began to arrive; there was nothing to delay them. ‘Celia,’ they said, ‘what a grand cabin and what a beautiful swan!’ and, for all that it was one of the largest in the ship, our room was soon painfully crowded; they began to put out their cigarettes in the little pool of ice-water which now surrounded the swan. 

160
-

客人们很快陆续来了。也没有什么事情可耽搁的。“西莉娅,”客人们都说,“多大的客舱啊!多漂亮的天鹅啊!”尽管这间客舱是全船最大的,这里还是很快就挤得满满的了。客人们也开始在环绕着那只天鹅的小小冰水池里按熄他们的烟头了。

160
-

The purser made a sensation, as sailors like to do, by predicting a storm. ‘How can you be so beastly?’ asked my wife, conveying the flattering suggestion that not only the cabin and the caviar, but the waves, too, were at his command. ‘Anyway, storms don’t affect a ship like this, do they?’

161
-

这时事务长照水手们的习惯预言一场暴风雨即将来临,于是造成了一波小骚动。“你怎么这么狠心啊?”我妻子问道,言下之意带着种讨好奉承的感觉,似乎不仅这客舱、这鱼子酱,还有风浪也都要受事务长的调遣似的。“无论如何,暴风雨怎么着也不致影响到这样一艘客轮吧?”

161
-

The purser made a sensation, as sailors like to do, by predicting a storm. ‘How can you be so beastly?’ asked my wife, conveying the flattering suggestion that not only the cabin and the caviar, but the waves, too, were at his command. ‘Anyway, storms don’t affect a ship like this, do they?’

162
-

“大概会稍稍阻碍一下我们的航行。”

162
-

‘Might hold us back a bit.’

163
-

“不过不会使我们晕船吧?”

163
-

‘But it wouldn’t make us sick?’

164
-

“那就要看你晕不晕船了。在暴风雨中我总是晕,打小就这样。”

164
-

‘Depends if you’re a good sailor. I’m always sick in storms, ever since I was a boy.’

165
-

“我才不信呢。他就是故意吓唬人的。到这儿来,我给你看点儿东西。”

165
-

‘I don’t believe it. He’s just being sadistic. Come over here, there’s something I want to show you.’

166
-

那是一张她孩子们的近照。“查尔斯还没有见过卡罗琳呢。看了一定会快乐得发抖啦。”

166
-

It was the latest photograph of her children. ‘Charles hasn’t even seen Caroline yet. Isn’t it thrilling for him?’

167
-

这里没有我的朋友,不过参加酒会的有三成人我认识。我拿腔带调地和他们一直文明地聊着天。一个老女人跟我说,“你就是查尔斯啊。西莉娅谈你谈得可多呢,我觉得从头到脚都了解你了。”

167
-

There were no friends of mine there, but I knew about a third of the party, and talked away civilly enough. An elderly woman said to me, ‘So you’re Charles. I feel I know you through and through, Celia’s talked so much about you.’

168
-

“从头到脚,”我在心里想,“从头到脚的了解需要很长时间呢,夫人。难道你真能看穿我那些花花肠子里最最隐秘的阴暗角落吗?难道你能告诉我,亲爱的斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人——如果我没有听错的话,我妻子是这样称呼你的——为什么就在此刻,我和你在这里谈着我即将举办的画展,心里却一直在想茱丽娅什么时候会来呢?为什么我能跟你这样聊天,跟她却不能呢?为什么我把她和自己都置身于世俗之外了呢?你知道我最隐秘的心思发生了什么事吗?你敢这么瞎说八道?斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人,你在捏造些什么呢?”

168
-

‘Through and through,’ I thought. ‘Through and through is a long way, madam. Can you indeed see into those dark places where my own eyes seek in vain to guide me? Can you tell me, dear Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander - if I am correct in thinking that is how I heard my wife speak of you - why it is that at this moment, while I talk to you, here, about my forthcoming exhibition, I am thinking all the time only of when Julia will come? Why can I talk like this to you, but not to her? Why have I already set her apart from humankind, and myself with her? What is going on in those secret places of my spirit with which you make so free? What is cooking, Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander?’

169
-

茱丽娅还没来,这间房子本来由于太大而没人租用,现在二十余人的喧闹却成了一大群人的喧闹。

169
-

Still Julia did not come, and the noise of twenty people in that tiny room, which was so large that no one hired it, was the noise of a multitude.

170
-

这时我看到一个很奇怪的家伙。那边有一个红头发的小个子男人,看来没谁认识他,邋里邋遢的样子不像是我妻子的客人。他一直站在鱼子酱旁边,有二十分钟了,嘴巴动得跟兔子吃食一样快。这时他用手帕揩揩嘴,显然一时冲动了,他朝前探探身子,又轻轻地揩了揩天鹅的喙,揩掉一滴已经凝在那里马上就要滴下来的水珠。然后他偷摸着四下里张望了一下,看看是不是有人注意他,碰到我的眼光后就紧张地咯咯笑起来。

170
-

Then I saw a curious thing. There was a little red-headed man whom no one seemed to know, a dowdy fellow quite unlike the general run of my wife’s guests; he had been standing by the caviar for twenty minutes eating as fast as a rabbit. Now he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and, on the impulse apparently , leaned forward and dabbed the beak of the swan, removing the drop of water that had been swelling there and would soon have fallen. Then he looked round furtively to see if he had been observed, caught my eye, and giggled nervously

171
-

“早就想这样好久了,”他说道,“猜你不知道一分钟滴多少滴。我知道,我数过了。”

171
-

‘Been wanting to do that for a long time,’ he said. ‘Bet you don’t know how many drops to the minute. I do, I counted.’

172
-

“我不知道。”

172
-

‘I’ve no idea.’

173
-

“猜猜看。猜错了就给六便士,猜对了半美元。公平合理。”

173
-

‘Guess. Tanner if you’re wrong; half a dollar if you’re right. That’s fair.’

174
-

“三滴。”我说。

174
-

‘Three,’ I said.

175
-

“哦哟,真聪明。你一定数着吧。”不过看他并没有要给钱的意思,而只是说,“你怎么想出来的啊。我生长在英国,不过这是头一次在大西洋上。”

175
-

‘Coo, you’re a sharp one. Been counting ‘em yourself.’ But he showed no inclination to pay this debt. Instead he said: ‘How d’you figure this out. I’m an Englishman born and bred, but this is my first time on the Atlantic.’

176
-

“大概你是坐飞机出国的吧?”

176
-

‘You flew out perhaps?’

177
-

“不,没坐过飞机。”

177
-

‘No, nor over it.’

178
-

“那我猜你环绕地球,是从太平洋那边绕过来的吧?”

178
-

‘Then I presume you went round the world and came across the Pacific.’

179
-

“你真聪明,没错。我为这事跟别人争得很厉害。”

179
-

‘You are a sharp one and no mistake. I’ve made quite a bit getting into arguments over that one.’

180
-

“那你走的是哪条路线呢?”我问道,想要投其所好。

180
-

‘What was your route?’ I asked, wishing to be agreeable.

181
-

“啊,那可就说来话长了。算了,我先赶快跑路吧,回见!”

181
-

‘Ah, that’d be telling. Well, I must skedaddle. So long.’

182
-

“查尔斯,”我妻子说,“这位就是星际电影公司的克拉姆先生。”

182
-

‘Charles, said my wife, ‘this is Mr Kramm, of Interastral Films.’

183
-

“您就是查尔斯·赖德先生。”克拉姆说。

183
-

‘So you are Mr Charles Ryder,’ said Mr Kramm.

184
-

“是我。”

184
-

‘Yes.’

185
-

“好,好,好。”他停下来了,我等着。“船上的事务长说我们就要碰上暴风雨了。您还知道什么情况?”

185
-

‘Well, well., well,’ he paused. I waited. ‘The purser here says we’re heading for dirty weather. What d’you know about that?’

186
-

“比事务长知道的差多了。”

186
-

‘Far less than the purser.’

187
-

“不好意思,赖德先生,我不十分明白您的意思。”

187
-

‘Pardon me, Mr Ryder, I don’t quite get you.’

188
-

“我的意思是说我所知道的比事务长少。”

188
-

‘I mean I know less than the purser.’

189
-

“这样啊?好好好。我很高兴能跟你谈话。希望以后有机会能多谈谈。”

189
-

‘Is that so? Well, well, well. I’ve enjoyed our talk very much. I hope that it will be the first of many.’

190
-

这时一个英国女人说道:“啊,瞧这只天鹅!在美国待了六个星期,对冰真是腻味到家了。你非得跟我说说不可,分别两年再见到西莉娅是什么感受?我知道我就会觉得像个不甚体面的婚礼似的。不过话说西莉娅从来也没把她头上的香橙花冠完全取下来过,是不是?”

190
-

An Englishwoman said: ‘Oh, that swan! Six weeks in America has given me an absolute phobia of ice. Do tell me, how did it feel meeting Celia again after two years? I know I should feel indecently bridal. But Celia’s never quite got the orange blossom out of her hair, has she?’

191
-

另一个女人说道:“一边说着再见,一边又知道我们半个小时后又会见,天天半小时就见一面该有多好呀!”

191
-

Another woman said: ‘Isn’t it heaven saying good-bye and knowing we shall meet again in half an hour and go on meeting every half-hour for days?’

192
-

客人们陆续告辞了,每个人走的时候都要告诉我,我妻子已经承诺了在不久的将来我要给他们做些什么事什么事。这个晚上话题的中心就是:我们大家要常常碰面,以及我们之间形成了一个只有物理学家才能说得出来的分子结构体系。最后那只天鹅也用轮子车推走了,我对我妻子说,“茱丽娅一直没来。”

192
-

Our guests began to go, and each on leaving informed me of something my wife had promised to bring me to in the near future; it was the theme of the evening that we should all be seeing a lot of each other, that we had formed one of those molecular systems that physicists can illustrate. At last the swan was wheeled out, too, and I said to my wife, ‘Julia never came.’

193
-

“不来了,她打过电话了。我听不清她说什么,一直太吵了——好像是一件衣服的问题。没来也是走运,这儿连个能活动的地方都没有了。酒会挺不错吧?你讨厌它?你表现得好极了,看上去也派头十足。你那个红头发的朋友是谁呀?”

193
-

‘No, she telephoned. I couldn’t hear what she said, there was such a noise going on - something about a dress. Quite lucky really, there wasn’t room for a cat. It was a lovely party, wasn’t it? Did you hate it very much? You behaved beautifully and looked so distinguished. Who was your red-haired chum?’

194
-

“不是我朋友。”

194
-

‘No chum of mine.’

195
-

“那可太奇怪了!你跟克拉姆先生说过去好莱坞工作的事吗?”

195
-

‘How very peculiar! Did you say anything to Mr Kramm about working in Hollywood?’

196
-

“当然没有。”

196
-

‘Of course not.’

197
-

“唉,查尔斯,你真是让我有操不完的心。光是站在那儿摆出个尊贵的派头,只是像个为艺术献身的人是不够的。咱们吃晚饭去吧。去船长那张桌上吃。我猜今晚他大概不会下来吃饭,不过我们得守时才够礼貌。”

197
-

‘Oh, Charles, you are a worry to me. It’s not enough just stand about looking distinguished and a martyr for Art. Let’s go to dinner. We’re at the. Captain’s table. I don’t suppose he’ll dine down tonight, but it’s polite to be fairly punctual.’

198
-

我们到桌前时其他人已经就座了。空着的船长座椅两边坐着茱丽娅和斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人。除了她们,还有一位英国外交官和他的妻子,还有参议员斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德,还有一位美国教士,这时他孤零零坐在给各两张空椅子夹在中间的一张椅子上。这位教士后来把自己说成是——似乎有些多余——一位圣公会的主教。餐桌旁夫妻都是坐在一起的。这时我妻子当机立断,尽管服务员想指派我们另外一个坐法,可她还是与我分开坐下了,她挨着参议员,我挨着主教。茱丽娅对我们两人表露出一丝忧郁的同情来。

198
-

By the time that we reached the table the rest of the party had arranged themselves.On either side of the Captain’s empty chair sat Julia and Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander;besides them there was an English diplomat and his wife, Senator Stuyvesant Oglander, and an American clergyman at present totally isolated between two pairs of empty chairs. This clergyman later described himself - redundantly it seemed - as an Episcopalian Bishop. Husbands and wives sat together here. My wife was confronted with a quick decision, and although the steward attempted to direct us otherwise, sat so that she had the senator and I the Bishop. Julia gave us both a little dismal signal of sympathy.

199
-

“说到鸡尾酒会真让人沮丧,”她说道,“当时我那可恨的女仆和我所有的衣服都不见了。她半小时前才回来。原来是打乒乓球去了。”

199
-

‘I’m miserable about the party,’ she said, ‘my beastly maid totally disappeared with every dress I have. She only turned up half an hour ago. She’d been playing ping-pong.’

200
-

“我跟上议员说了他错过了些什么,”斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人说,“西莉娅无论在哪儿,你准会发现所有有头有脸的人物她都认识。”

200
-

‘I’ve been telling the Senator what he missed,’ said Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander.‘Wherever Celia is, you’ll find she knows all the significant people.’

201
-

“我右边的,”那位主教说,“预料会来的是一对重要人物。他们要不是事先得到通知说船长会大驾光临,就在自己的客舱里用餐了。”

201
-

‘On my right,’ said the Bishop, ‘a significant couple are expected. They take all their meals in their cabin except when they have been informed in advance that the Captain will be present.’

202
-

我们是乏味透顶的一圈人。连我妻子那么喜欢社交的精神都动摇了。我不时听到她和别人交谈的只言片语。

202
-

We were a gruesome circle; even my wife’s high social spirit faltered. At moments I heard bits of her conversation.

203
-

“……一个与众不同的红头发的小个子男人,像福尔纳夫船长[7]一般模样的人。”

[7]J. B.莫顿在《每日邮报》专栏所创作的人物,喜欢伪装成上流人物。
203
-

‘...an extraordinary little red-haired man. Captain Foulenough in person.’

204
-

“但我认为您的意思是说,西莉娅小姐,你并不认识他。”

204
-

‘But I understood you to say, Lady Celia, that you were unacquainted with him.’

205
-

“我是说他像福尔纳夫船长。”

205
-

‘I meant he was like Captain Foulenough.’

206
-

“那我有点儿懂了……他是为了参加你的酒会而冒充你的那位朋友。”

206
-

‘I begin to comprehend. He impersonated this friend of yours in order to come to your party.’

207
-

“不,不。福尔纳夫船长不过是个带有喜感的角色。”

207
-

‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is simply a comic character.’

208
-

“另外,这个人听起来也没有多大意思啊。你朋友是一个喜剧演员吗?”

208
-

‘There seems to have been nothing very amusing about this other man. Your friend is a comedian?’

209
-

“不是,不是。福尔纳夫船长是英国报纸上的虚构人物。你知道……就像你们的‘大力水手’一样。”

209
-

‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is an imaginary character in an English paper. You know, like your “Popeye”.’

210
-

那位参议员放下手里的刀叉。“简而言之:有个骗子参加了你的宴会,你接纳了他,因为他和一部动画片里的一个虚构人物相像得不得了。”

210
-

The senator laid down knife and fork. ‘To recapitulate : an impostor came to your party and you admitted him because of a fancied resemblance to a fictitious character in a cartoon.’

211
-

“是的,我想确实是这样。”

211
-

‘Yes, I suppose that was it really.’

212
-

参议员看着他的妻子似乎在说:“有头有脸的人物,嘘!”

212
-

The senator looked at his wife as much as to say: ‘Significant people, huh!’

213
-

我听见桌子对面茱丽娅正在替那个外交官追溯她那些匈牙利和意大利表兄妹之间的姻亲关系。她头上和手间的钻石哗哗闪着光辉,可是手却神经质地不住把面包捏成小碎球,亮闪闪的头也绝望地垂下了。

213
-

I heard Julia across the table trying to trace, for the benefit of the diplomat, the marriage-connections of her Hungarian and Italian cousins. The diamonds flashed in her hair and on her fingers, but her hands were nervously rolling little balls of crumb , and her starry head drooped in despair.

214
-

主教告诉我他去巴塞罗那担负着友好亲善的使命……“一项卓有意义的消除隔阂的工作业已完成,赖德先生。是时候重建更加广阔的基础了。我定下的目标是:让所谓的无政府主义者和所谓的共产主义者和解。以此为目的,我和我的委员会也已经深入研究了关于这个问题的一切有利用价值的文件。赖德先生,我们的结论是一致的。两种意识形态之间并没有根本分歧。分歧是个性的问题,赖德先生,凡是由于个性而产生分歧的问题,个性也可以再把它们统一起来……”

214
-

The Bishop told me of the goodwill mission on which he was travelling to Barcelona...’a very, very valuable work of clearance has been performed, Mr Ryder. The time has now come to rebuild on broader foundations. I have made it my aim to reconcile the so-called Anarchists and the so-called Communists, and with that in view I and my committee have digested all the available documentation of the subject. Our conclusion, Mr Ryder, is unanimous. There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. It is a matter of personalities , Mr Ryder, and what personalities have put asunder personalities can unite...’

215
-

在另一边我听到说:“我能否斗胆问一句,是什么机构发起您丈夫考察的?”外交官夫人勇敢地跨过把他们隔开来的鸿沟和主教攀谈起来。

215
-

On the other side I heard: ‘And may I make so bold as to ask what institutions sponsored your husband’s expedition?’ The diplomat’s wife bravely engaged the Bishop across the gulf that separated them.

216
-

“你到了巴塞罗那,打算说哪一种语言呢?”

216
-

‘And what language will you speak when you get to Barcelona?’

217
-

“说理性和兄弟情深的语言,夫人。”然后他又转过身来对我说,“下一个世纪,说话将用思想而不是用言词。难道你不同意吗,赖德先生?”

217
-

‘The language of Reason and Brotherhood , madam,’ and, turning back to me, ‘The speech of the coming century is in thoughts not in words. Do you not agree, Mr Ryder?’

218
-

“同意,”我说,“同意。”

218
-

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

219
-

“什么是言词呢?”主教说。

219
-

‘What are words?’ said the Bishop.

220
-

“确实,什么是言词呢?”

220
-

‘What indeed?’

221
-

“无非是传统的符号罢了,赖德先生,这个时代恰恰是怀疑传统符号的时代。”

221
-

Mere conventional symbols, Mr Ryder, and this is an age rightly sceptical of conventional symbols.’

222
-

我已经觉得天旋地转了。经历了我妻子办的吵吵嚷嚷的酒会、下午那种难以探底的情愫,经历了我妻子在纽约的恣意享乐,在充满绿荫和流水的丛林里孤单生活了好几个月之后,当下的情景实在无法忍受。我觉得自己就像原野上的李尔王,像被疯子逼到绝路的马尔菲公爵夫人一样。我呼唤着狂风暴雨,像施了魔法似的,我的召唤马上就应验了。

222
-

My mind reeled; after the parrot-house fever of my wife’s party, and unplumbed emotions of the afternoon, after all the exertions of my wife’s pleasures in New York, after the months of solitude in the steaming, green shadows of the jungle, this was too much. I felt like Lear on the heath, like the Duchess of Malfi bayed by madmen. I summoned cataracts and hurricanoes, and as if by conjury the call was immediately answered.

223
-

有片刻,尽管我不清楚是不是神经紧张所产生的幻觉,我感到一种不断增长的运动——宽敞的餐厅猛然膨胀和震颤,像人睡得酣沉时起伏的前胸一样。我妻子扭过头对我说:“不是我有点醉了,就是暴风雨来了。”就在她说话的当儿,我们就坐在椅子上歪到一边去了。靠墙放着的刀叉餐具掉下来发出一片叮当作响的磕碰声,桌上的酒杯倾倒滚动着,每个人都试图稳住盘子叉子,从外交官太太满面惊恐到茱丽娅的怡然淡定,表情各异地望着别人。

223
-

For some time now, though whether it was a mere trick of the nerves I did not then know, I had felt a recurrent and persistently growing motion - a heave and shudder of the large dining-room as of the breast of a man in deep sleep. Now my wife turned to me and said: ‘Either I am a little drunk or it’s getting rough,’ and, even as she spoke we found ourselves leaning sideways in our chairs; there was a crash and tinkle of falling cutlery by the wall, and on our table the wine glasses all together toppled and rolled over, while each of us steadied the plate and forks and looked at the other with expressions that varied between frank horror in the diplomat’s wife and relief in Julia. 

224
-

我们这个封闭的小天地里听不到、看不到也感受不到外面的八级狂风,在天上刮了一个小时后,改变了风向,正朝着船头猛扑过来。激烈的碰撞声过后是一片寂静,随后又爆发出一气儿很大的、神经质的笑声。服务员们把餐巾铺在洒出来的葡萄酒上。大家还想接着谈话,可是又都在等待着,就像那红头发的小个子男人盯着水滴从天鹅喙上滴落那样,等待着下一次的巨大冲击。冲击来了,比上一次还猛。

224
-

The gale which, unheard, unseen, unfelt, in our enclosed and insulated world had, for an hour, been mounting over us, had now veered and fallen full on our bows.? Silenced followed the crash, then a high, nervous babble of laughter. Stewards laid napkins on the pools of spilt wine. We tried to resume the conversation, but all were waiting, as the little ginger man had watched the drop swell and fall from the swan’s beak, for the next great blow; it came, heavier than the last.

225
-

“我要跟大家告辞了。”外交官太太说着站起身来。

225
-

‘This is where I say good night to you all,’ said the diplomat’s wife, rising.

226
-

她丈夫带她回舱。整个餐厅一下子便空落落了。很快就只剩下茱丽娅、我妻子和我还在餐桌旁,心灵感应一般地,茱丽娅说道:“像李尔王。”

226
-

Her husband led her to their cabin. The dining-room was emptying fast. Soon only Julia, my wife, and I were left at the table, and, telepathically, Julia said, ‘Like King Lear.’

227
-

“我们三个活生生就是他们三个。”

227
-

‘Only each of us is all three of them.’

228
-

“你说的是什么意思?”我妻子说道。

228
-

‘What can you mean?’ asked my wife.

229
-

“李尔王、肯特和弄臣。”

229
-

‘Lear, Kent, Fool.’

230
-

“哦,亲爱的,别又是要再来一遍刚才那折磨人的福尔纳夫船长了吧。不要再解释了吧。”

230
-

‘Oh dear, it’s like that agonizing Foulenough conversation over again. Don’t try and explain.’

231
-

“我怀疑我能不能解释得了。”我说。

231
-

‘I doubt if I could,’ I said.

232
-

又上去了,又猛地掉下来。值班的服务员把东西系牢,关好,迅速将搁不稳当的装饰悉数拿走。

232
-

Another climb, another vast drop. The stewards were at work making things fast, shutting things up, hustling away unstable ornaments.

233
-

“好了,我们吃完了晚饭,显出英国人的镇定来了。”我妻子说,“走吧,去瞧瞧有什么好玩的。”

233
-

‘Well, we’ve finished dinner and set a fine example of British phlegm,’ said my wife.‘Let’s go and see what’s on.’

234
-

去往休息厅的路上,有一次我们三个人不得不紧紧抱住一根柱子。到休息厅时,看到那里几乎没有人了,乐队奏着曲子,没有人跳舞。摆了几张玩汤博拉纸牌的桌子,可是没人玩。船上的长官专门用下级水手的顺口溜来报数——“甜蜜十六,没亲过嘴儿——房门上的钥匙,二十——敲巴敲巴,六十六”——这时他正和他的同事们有一搭无一搭地聊着天,大厅里稀稀拉拉还有二十来位看小说的、一两桌打桥牌的,吸烟室里还有几个人在喝白兰地。我们两小时以前的客人都不见了。

234
-

Once, on our way to the lounge, we had all three to cling to a pillar; when we got there we found it almost deserted; the band played but no one danced; the tables were set for tombola but no one bought a card, and the ship’s officer, who made a speciality of calling the numbers with all the patter of the lower deck - ‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed - key of the door, twenty-one - clickety-click, sixty-six’ - was idly talking to his colleagues; there were a score of scattered novel readers, a few games of bridge, some brandy drinking in the smoking-room, but all our guests of two hours before had disappeared.

235
-

我们三人在空荡荡的舞池旁坐了片刻。我妻子有一肚子主意,按照她的主意,我们可以不失体统地挪到餐厅另一张桌子上去。“去餐馆吃饭的都疯了,”她说,“一样的饭菜,还得额外付钱。总而言之,只有电影圈的人才去船上餐馆。我不知道我们为什么非得去那儿不可。”

235
-

The three of us sat for a little by the empty dance floor- my wife was full of schemes by which, without impoliteness, we could move to another table in the dining-room. ‘It’s crazy to go to the restaurant,’ she said, ‘and pay extra for exactly the same dinner. Only film people go there, anyway. I don’t see why we should be made to.’

236
-

过了一会儿她说:“我的头都疼了,累了。我打算上床睡觉去了。”

236
-

Presently she said: ‘It’s making my head ache and I’m tired, anyway. I’m going to bed.’

237
-

茱丽娅和她一起走了。我在船上四处转悠,在一片覆着篷顶的甲板上,狂风呼啸,浪花从黑暗中跳起来,撞在巨大的玻璃窗上,碎成白色褐色的水沫。有人看着,不让乘客们到露天甲板上去。我也下到舱里来了。

237
-

Julia went with her. I walked round the ship, on one of the covered decks where the wind howled and the spray leaped up from the darkness and smashed white and brown against the glass screen; men were posted to keep the passengers off the open decks.Then I, too, went below.

238
-

在我的更衣室里,所有易碎物品都收妥了,通往客舱的门敞着,被从外面钩开了,我妻子哀怨地在里面呼号。

238
-

In my dressing-room everything breakable had been stowed away, the door to the cabin was hooked open, and my wife called plaintively from within. 

239
-

“我觉得太不舒服了。我不知道这么大的船会颠簸成这个样子。”她说道,眼里充满惶恐和怨怼,像是在最后关头终于明白了的产妇,知道不论小型私人医院多么豪华,不论医生收费多么昂贵,她分娩的痛苦却在所难免。轮船的起落就像分娩时的阵痛一样有规律。

239
-

‘I feel terrible. I didn’t know a ship of this size could pitch like this, she said, and her eyes were full of consternation and resentment , like those of a woman who, at the end of her time, at length realizes that however luxurious the nursing home, and however well paid the doctor, her labour is inevitable ; and the lift and fall of the ship came regularly as the pains of childbirth.

240
-

我睡在隔壁房间,或者不如说是我躺在那儿,似睡非睡的。要是睡在一张狭窄的铺位、一张硬床垫上,也许我还可以休息一下,但这里的床铺又大又软。我把能找到的垫子都搜集起来,拼命用垫子把自己固定住,可是一整夜我都随着船一起摇晃、颠簸——此时不仅上下颠簸,而且还左右摇晃起来——我的脑袋里回响着吱吱嘎嘎砰砰砰的声音。

240
-

I slept next door; or, rather, I lay there between dreaming and waking. In a narrow bunk , on a hard mattress , there might have been rest, but here the beds were broad and buoyant; I collected what cushions I could find and tried to wedge myself firm, but through the night I turned with each swing and twist of the ship - she was rolling now as well as pitching - and my head rang with the creak and thud

241
-

黎明前一小时,我妻子像个幽灵一样出现在门口,她两手扶着门两侧支撑着自己,说:“你醒着吧?能不能想点办法?能不能上医生那儿拿点药?”

241
-

Once, an hour before dawn, my wife appeared like a ghost in the doorway , supporting herself with either hand on the jambs, saying: ‘Are you awake? Can’t you do something?? Can’t you get something from the doctor?’

242
-

我按铃叫来了夜间服务员,他那儿有备好的药,能让她舒服一些。

242
-

I rang for the night steward, who had a draught ready prepared, which comforted her a little.

243
-

一整夜都没睡实,半梦半醒之间想的都是茱丽娅。在我短暂的梦境里她变幻出上百种奇异可怕又模糊不清的样子,我一醒,她在我脑海里的形象又复原成哀伤的、宝石光芒闪耀发间的样子来——晚饭时我看见的她的样子。

243
-

And all night between dreaming and waking I thought of Julia; in my brief dreams she took a hundred fantastic and terrible and obscene forms, but in my waking thoughts she returned with her sad, starry head just as I had seen her at dinner.

244
-

第一道曙光出现以后,我又睡了一两个小时,醒来时脑子非常清楚,还带着某种愉快的期待。

244
-

After first light I slept for an hour or two, then awoke clearheaded, with a joyous sense of anticipation

245
-

服务员告诉我风有所减弱,可依然猛烈,巨浪滔天。“没有比巨浪更糟糕的东西了,没有什么比它更能毁了旅客的享受。”他说道,“今天早上要早餐的客人着实不多。”

245
-

The wind had dropped a little, the steward told me, but was still blowing hard and there was a very heavy swell; ‘which there’s nothing worse than a heavy swell’, he said, ‘for the enjoyment of the passengers. There’s not many breakfasts wanted this morning.’

246
-

我看了一眼我妻子,她还在睡,把我们之间的门关关好,吃了三文鱼片和冷火腿,然后打电话叫理发师来给我理发修面。

246
-

I looked in at my wife, found her sleeping, and closed the door between us; then I ate salmon kedgeree and cold Bradenham ham and telephoned for a barber to come and shave me.

247
-

“起居室有夫人的一堆东西,”那个服务员说,“要不要暂时先把东西留在那儿?”

247
-

‘There’s a lot of stuff in the sitting-room for the lady,’ said the steward; ‘shall I leave it for the time?’

248
-

我走过去看了看。原来是船上商店送来的第二批玻璃纸包装的大小包裹,有些是纽约的朋友拍电报订购的,他们的秘书没有及时把我们要离开的消息通知他们,有些是我们的客人在离开鸡尾酒会时买来送我们的。这种天气可不是鼓捣花瓶的好时候。我叫服务员把花瓶都挪到地板上去,又灵机一动,把克拉姆先生送的玫瑰花上的名片取下来,叫人把花和我的情意一起给茱丽娅送去。

248
-

I went to see. There was a second delivery of cellophane parcels from the shops on board, some ordered by radio from friends in New York whose secretaries had failed to remind them of our departure in time, some by our guests as they left the cocktail party.  It was no day for flower vases; I told him to leave them on the floor and then, struck by the thought, removed the card from Mr Kramm’s roses and sent them with my love to Julia.

249
-

我刮脸的时候她来了电话。

249
-

She telephoned while I was being shaved.

250
-

“查尔斯,你干了多么惊叹的事啊!这可真不像你!”

250
-

‘W hat a deplorable thing to do, Charles! How unlike you!’

251
-

“你不喜欢那些花吗?”

251
-

‘Don’t you like them?’

252
-

“这种天气里你让我怎么处置这些玫瑰?”

252
-

‘What can I do with roses on a day like this?’

253
-

“闻闻花香好了。”

253
-

‘Smell them.’

254
-

停顿片刻,随后是一阵拆包装的沙沙声响。“这些花完全没有香味了。”

254
-

There was a pause and a rustle of unpacking. ‘They’ve absolutely no smell at all.’

255
-

“你早餐吃了什么吗?”

255
-

‘What have you had for breakfast?’

256
-

“麝香葡萄和蜜瓜。”

256
-

Muscat grapes and cantaloupe

257
-

“我什么时候能见你?”

257
-

‘When shall I see you?’

258
-

“午饭前。再之前有一位女按摩师来给我做按摩。”

258
-

‘Before lunch. I’m busy till then with a masseuse.’

259
-

“女按摩师?”

259
-

‘A masseuse?’

260
-

“是的,不觉得很奇怪吗?我以前从来没有做过按摩,除了有一回打猎伤了肩膀。每个人在船上都会现出电影明星一样的派头来,这是怎么回事?”

260
-

‘Yes, isn’t it peculiar? I’ve never had one before, except once when I hurt my shoulder hunting. What is it about being on a boat that makes everyone behave like a film star?’

261
-

“我可没有。”

261
-

‘I don’t.’

262
-

“那送来这些让人为难的玫瑰花,又是什么派头呢?”

262
-

‘How about these very embarrassing roses?’

263
-

那位理发师异常敏捷地理着发——确实是很灵活,他站着像一位芭蕾舞中的剑客,时常用两个脚尖轮番站着,轻巧地把刀刃上的泡沫抹下来,船一恢复平稳了,他就飞快地刮我的下巴,可我自己连安全剃刀都不敢用。这时电话铃又响了。是我妻子打来的。

263
-

‘The barber did his work with extraordinary dexterity indeed, with agility , for he stood like a swordsman in a ballet sometimes on the point of one foot, sometimes on the other, lightly flicking the lather off his blade, and swooping back to my chin as the ship righted herself; I should not have dared use a safety razor on myself.  The telephone rang again.It was my wife.

264
-

“你好吗,查尔斯?”

264
-

‘How are you Charles?’

265
-

“累了。”

265
-

‘Tired.’

266
-

“你不来看看我吗?”

266
-

‘Aren’t you coming to see me?’

267
-

“我来了一次了。这就再来。”

267
-

‘I came once. I’ll be in again.’

268
-

我把起居室里的花带给了她。这些花让她在这间客舱里创造出的产房气氛完满了。女服务员身上就有助产士风骨,她站在床边,俨然穿着浆洗过的亚麻布衫的安稳支柱。我妻子在枕头上转过头来,凄凉地挤出一丝微笑。她伸出一只光溜溜的胳膊,用指尖抚弄着那把最大花束的玻璃罩纸和缎带。

268
-

I brought her the flowers from the sitting-room; they completed the atmosphere of a maternity ward which she had managed to create in the cabin; the stewardess had the air of a midwife, standing by the bed, a pillar of starched linen and composure. My wife turned her head on the pillow and smiled wanly ; she stretched out a bare arm and caressed with the tips of her fingers the cellophane and silk ribbons of the largest bouquet.

269
-

“人们多可爱啊。”她有气无力地说着,仿佛这场八级风只是她一个人的大不幸,别人都要她表示诚挚的慰问。

269
-

‘How sweet people are, ‘ she said faintly, as though the gale were a private misfortune of her own for which the world in its love was condoling with her. 

270
-

“我还以为你没起床呢。”

270
-

‘I take it you’re not getting up.’

271
-

“哦,没有,克拉克太太人很好的。”她总是很快就知晓人们的名字。

271
-

‘Oh no, Mrs Clark is being so sweet’; she was always quick to get servants’ names.

272
-

“不是特别麻烦的话,就时常进来跟我说说外面的情况吧。”

272
-

‘Don’t bother. Come in sometimes and tell me what’s going on.’

273
-

“喂,喂,亲爱的,”那位女服务员说,“今天越少打扰我们越好。”

273
-

‘Now, now, dear,’ said the stewardess, ‘the less we are disturbed today the better.’

274
-

即使是晕个船,我妻子都把它变成一种庄严的女性仪式。我知道茱丽娅的客舱就在我们下面一层。我在主甲板扶梯旁边等着她。等她来了我们就绕着这块甲板散步。我扶住栏杆;她挽着我另一只手臂。走起来挺不容易,透过流淌着雨水的玻璃窗,看到的是一个灰色的天空和黑暗的海面易位了的世界。

274
-

My wife seemed to make a sacred, female rite even of sea-sickness.  Julia’s cabin, I knew, was somewhere below ours. I waited for her by the lift on the main deck; when she came we walked once round the promenade ; I held the rail; she took my other arm. It was hard going; through the streaming glass we saw a distorted world of grey sky and black water.

275
-

船又摇晃得厉害了,我将她转过身来,让她能用另外一只手抓住栏杆。呼号的狂风弱下来了,可船仍旧嘎嘎吱吱地响动。我们又兜了一圈,这时茱丽娅说道:“天气可真不好。那个女按摩师真够呛。我觉得身子软极了。还是坐下来吧。”

275
-

When the ship rolled heavily I swung her round so that she could hold the rail with her other hand; the howl of the wind was subdued , but the whole ship creaked with strain. We made the circuit once, then Julia said: ‘It’s no good. That woman beat hell out of me, and I feel limp, anyway. Let’s sit down.’

276
-

休息厅的黄铜大门已经脱了钩了,正随着船的晃动而晃动。大门有节奏地,看起来又势不可挡地张开又合上,先是这扇,随后又是那扇,每转上半圈时就停顿一下,然后又慢慢移动,随着一记响亮的碰撞再飞速回转。

276
-

The great bronze doors of the lounge had torn away from their hooks and were swinging free with the roll of the ship; regularly and, it seemed, irresistibly , first one, then the other, opened and shut; they paused at the completion of each half circle, began to move slowly and finished fast with a resounding clash.

277
-

要通过这两扇大门并没有什么真正的危险,只要不滑倒,不被飞速的最后一下撞上。不慌不忙地走过去的时间是有的,不过看到这么个失控的、沉重的金属家伙来回摆动还是让人胆寒。胆小的人大约会畏缩不前,或是赶紧跳过去。过这个门时,我感觉出茱丽娅挽我手臂的手非常稳,知道我在她身边时她完全不害怕,便心下感到欢喜。

277
-

There was no real risk in passing them, except of slipping and being caught by that swift, final blow; there was ample time to walk through unhurried but there was something forbidding in the sight of that great weight of uncontrolled metal, flapping to and fro, which might have made a timid man flinch or skip through too quickly; I rejoiced to feel Julia’s hand perfectly steady on my arm and know, as I walked beside her, that she was wholly undismayed.

278
-

“妙极了,”坐在附近的一个男人看到我们说,“我承认我是从另一条路绕过来的。不知怎么搞的,我就是不喜欢这两扇门的样子。他们一上午都在设法把这两扇门修好。”

278
-

Bravo,’ said a man sitting nearby. ‘I confess I went round the other way. I didn’t like the look of those doors somehow. They’ve been trying to fix them all the morning.’

279
-

那一天没几个人,有的这几个也是被互相尊重的革命友谊聚到一起的。他们只是愁眉不展地坐在扶手椅里,偶尔喝一两口酒,互相为彼此都没晕船道着贺。

279
-

There were few people about that day, and that few seemed bound together by a camaraderie of reciprocal esteem; they did nothing except sit rather glumly in their armchairs, drink occasionally, and exchange congratulations on not being seasick. 

280
-

“你是我见到的第一位夫人。”那个男人说。

280
-

‘You’re the first lady I’ve seen,’ said the man.

281
-

“我很幸运。”

281
-

‘I’m very lucky.’

282
-

“我们都很幸运,”话音未落,他起先像是鞠躬一样,结果扑倒在自己膝盖上。我们之间那块吸墨纸色的地板突然呼地往下一沉,这下摇晃把我们从男人边上抛开了,我们紧紧抓住对方,好在还是站住了,赶紧在与人离得更远的那边坐下。休息厅里已经横着拉上了救生索,我们便成了索内的拳击手。

282
-

‘We are very lucky,’ he said, with a movement which began as a bow and ended as a lurch forward to his knees, as the blotting-paper floor dipped steeply between us. The roll carried us away from him, clinging together but still on our feet, and we quickly sat where our dance led us, on the further side, in isolation; a web of life-lines had been stretched across the lounge, and we seemed like boxers , roped into the ring.

283
-

服务员们走过来。“还是原样吗,先生?威士忌和温水,我想是这样吧。夫人要点什么呢?我可以建议来些香槟吗?”

283
-

The steward approached. ‘Your usual, sir? Whisky and tepid water, I think. And for the lady? Might I suggest a nip of champagne?’

284
-

“你知道吧,事情糟就糟在我总是非常喜欢喝香槟,”茱丽娅说,“多美好的人生呀——玫瑰,半小时按摩,现在还有香槟酒!”

284
-

‘D’you know, the awful thing is I would like champagne very much,’ said Julia. ‘What a life of pleasure - roses, half an hour with a female pugilist, and now champagne!’

285
-

“希望你不要总是提那些玫瑰花了。这可不是我的主意。是人家送给西莉娅的。”

285
-

‘I wish you wouldn’t go on about the roses. It wasn’t my idea in the first place.Someone sent them to Celia.’

286
-

“哟,那可就是两回事了。你是痛快了,可把我的按摩给搞糟了。”

286
-

‘Oh, that ‘s quite different. It lets you out completely. But it makes my massage worse.’

287
-

“那时我正在床上让人刮脸呢。”

287
-

‘I was shaved in bed.’

288
-

“我很喜欢那些玫瑰花,”茱丽娅说,“坦白讲,这些花让我大吃一惊呢。它们让我觉得我们这天才开始就不对。”

288
-

‘I’m glad about the roses,’ said Julia. ‘Frankly, they were a shock. They made me think we were starting the day on the wrong foot.’

289
-

我懂她话里的意思,这时我感到,冰封十年落在我身上的那些尘埃和沙粒我已经抖掉了一些了。从那时起到现在,不论她怎么跟我说话,是把话只说出来一半,还是只说几个字,是说当时流行的隐晦语,还是用眼睛、嘴唇或是难以觉察出的手势,不论她的思想是多么难以言表,也不管以当时看来有多遥远空灵,更不管这想法是怎么直接从表面深入更深层的地方——像她经常那样——我都懂她的意思。即使是那天,即使我站在了爱的边缘,却还懂她是什么意思。

289
-

I knew what she meant, and in that moment felt as though I had shaken off some of the dust and grit of ten dry years; then and always, however she spoke to me, in half sentences, single words, stock phrases of contemporary jargon , in scarcely perceptible movements of eyes or lips or hands, however inexpressible her thought, however quick and far it had glanced from the matter in hand, however deep it had plunged , as it often did, straight from the surface to the depths, I knew; even that day when I still stood on the extreme verge of love, I knew what she meant.

290
-

我们喝着葡萄酒,不大一会儿我们那位新朋友就沿着救生索跌跌撞撞朝我们走过来。

290
-

We drank our wine and soon our new friend came lurching towards us down the life-line.

291
-

“介意跟你们一起吗?没有什么比一场暴风雨更能把人聚到一起了。这是我第十次渡过海峡,可从来没有碰见过这样的天气。年轻的夫人,看得出来,你坐船的经验很丰富啊。”

291
-

‘Mind if I join you? Nothing like a bit of rough weather for bringing people together.  This is my tenth crossing, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I can see you are an experienced sailor, young lady.’

292
-

“不。事实上我除了去纽约还从未在海上航行过,当然,还是渡过英吉利海峡的。我没晕船,感谢上帝,但是很累。一开始我还以为是按摩闹的,不过我现在敢断定是这条船的缘故。”

292
-

‘No. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been at sea before except coming to New York and, of course, crossing the Channel. I don’t feel sick, thank God, but I feel tired. I thought at first it was only the massage, but I’m coming to the conclusion it’s the ship.’

293
-

“我妻子的状态可就糟透了。她是个经验老到的旅客……不过可能只是表面上吧,是不是?”

293
-

‘My wife’s in a terrible way. She’s an experienced sailor. Only shows, doesn’t it?’

294
-

他和我们一起吃了午饭,我不太在意是不是有他在。但是很明显他已经喜欢上茱丽娅了,他还以为我们是夫妇呢。他的这种误解和殷勤反倒使我和她更亲密了。“昨天晚上我看到你们俩在船长的餐桌上,”他说道,“和那些名流一起。”

294
-

He joined us at luncheon , and I did not mind his being there; he had clearly taken a fancy to Julia, and he thought we were man and wife; this misconception and his gallantry seemed in some way to bring her and me closer together. ‘Saw you two last night at the Captain’s table,’ he said, ‘with all the nobs.’

295
-

“无聊的名流。”

295
-

‘Very dull nobs.’

296
-

“照我看来,我就会说名流都无聊都乏味。碰上这样的暴风雨,就会看出人是什么货色来了。”

296
-

‘If you ask me, nobs always are. When you get a storm like this you find out what people are really made of.’

297
-

“你更偏爱不晕船的客人吧?”

297
-

‘You have a predilection for good sailors?’

298
-

“嗯,要是这样说,我倒不知道我有这偏爱——我是说啊,暴风雨让大家聚在一起罢了。”

298
-

‘Well, put like that I don’t know that I do - what I mean is, it makes for getting together.’

299
-

“那是。”

299
-

‘Yes.’

300
-

“比如我们吧。要不是这场暴风雨,也许我们永远遇不上。我的一生中,是曾经在海上遇到过几件浪漫事的。夫人请恕我无礼,我很愿意讲讲我在里昂湾碰到的一次小小艳遇,那时我比现在年轻。”

300
-

‘Take us for example. But for this we might never have met. I’ve had some very romantic encounters at sea in my time. If the lady will excuse me, I’d like to tell you about a little adventure I had in the Gulf of Lions when I was younger than I am now.’

301
-

我们俩都很累,睡眠不够,噪声不断,一举一动所需要的过度劳动让我们累到不行。这天下午我们就待在各自的客舱里。我睡了一觉,醒来时海浪依然凶猛,乌云依然密布,玻璃窗上依然淌着水珠,不过在睡眠中我已经习惯了这场暴风雨,我身体的节奏变成了与它相适应的节奏,让自己变成暴风雨的一部分。我醒来时精神头和自信心都很饱满。茱丽娅也已经起来了,神色如常。

301
-

We were both weary; lack of sleep, the incessant din , and the strain every movement required, wore us down. We spent that afternoon apart in our cabins. I slept and when I awoke the sea was as high as ever, inky clouds swept over us, and the glass streamed still with water, but I had grown used to the storm In my sleep, had made its rhythm mine, had become part of it, so that I arose strongly and confidently and found Julia already up and in the same temper.

302
-

“你看怎么样?”她说道,“那个人今天晚上要为所有不晕船的旅客在吸烟室里举行一次‘聚会’。他邀请我带我丈夫一起去。”

302
-

‘What d’you think?’ she said. ‘That man’s giving a little “get together party” tonight in the smoking-room for all the good sailors. He asked me to bring my husband.’

303
-

“我们去吗?”

303
-

‘Are we going?’

304
-

“当然……我不知道我应不应该像我们那位朋友去巴塞罗那途中遇到的那位夫人那样……我不像她,查尔斯,一点都不像。”

304
-

‘Of course...I wonder if I ought to feel like the lady our friend met on the way to Barcelona. I don’t, Charles not a bit.’

305
-

“聚会”上一共来了十八个人。除了都不晕船以外,毫无共同之处。我们喝着香槟酒,过了一会儿东道主说:“我可要说了,我这儿有个轮盘赌的盘子,可麻烦就出在我妻子身上,我们不能去我的客舱里玩,可公开的地方又不允许玩轮盘赌。”

305
-

There were eighteen people at the ‘get-together party’; we had nothing in common except immunity from seasickness. We drank champagne, and presently our host said:‘Tell you what, I’ve got a roulette wheel. Trouble is we can’t go to my cabin on account of the wife, and we aren’t allowed to play in public.’

306
-

于是聚会改到我的起居室继续,我们以小注开始,一直玩到深夜,当茱丽娅离开的时候,那位东道主已经喝得东倒西歪了,所以知道她和我原来并不在一间房里已经感觉不到诧异了。大家都散去了,只有他一个人在椅子上睡着,我也就让他待在那儿。这是我最后一次看见他,因为后来——服务员把轮盘赌具送回那个人的客舱后对我讲——他在走廊里把大腿骨摔折了,被抬到船上的医务室去了。

306
-

So the party adjourned to my sitting-room and we played for low stakes until late into the night, when Julia left and our host had drunk too much wine to be surprised that she and I were not in the same quarters. When all but he had gone, he fell asleep in his chair, and I left him there. It was the last I saw of him, for later - so the steward told me when he came from returning the roulette things to the man’s cabin - he broke his thigh , falling in the corridor, and was taken to the ship’s hospital. 

307
-

第二天一整天我和茱丽娅无人打搅地一起度过。我们说着话,很少走动,由于浪很大,我们一直坐在椅子上。吃过午饭,最后一拨儿禁折腾的旅客也回房休息了,只有我们两个人,这个地方好像是专为我们清理出来的一样,好像大家都很有自知之明,人人踮着脚尖悄悄走掉了,只剩下我们两个人。

307
-

All next day Julia and I spent together without interruption; talking, scarcely moving, held in our chairs by the swell of the sea. After luncheon the last hardy passengers went to rest and we were alone as though the place had been cleared for us, as though tact on a titanic scale had sent everyone tip-toeing out to leave us to one another.

308
-

休息厅那两扇黄铜门已经被固定住了,不过那也是两个海员重伤之后的事了。他们试了各种各样的办法,先用绳子捆,不行再用钢缆绑,可是无论什么东西都无法把这两扇大门固紧。最后,他们往大门底下楔上木楔子——趁两扇大门全张开的片刻把楔子打进去——这才稳住了那两扇门。

308
-

The bronze doors of the lounge had been fixed, but not before two seamen had been badly injured. They had tried various devices, lashing with ropes and, later, when these failed, with steel hawsers , but there was nothing to which they could be made fast; finally, they drove wooden wedges under them, catching them in the brief moment of repose when they were full open, and these held firm.

309
-

晚饭以前,她回自己的客舱去做准备(那晚没人穿礼服),我跟着她,未经邀请,也没有被反对。我随手把门关上,搂住她,第一次吻了她。下午的那种心境一直持续。

309
-

When, before dinner, she went to her cabin to get ready (no one dressed that night) and I came with her, uninvited, unopposed, expected, and behind closed doors took her in my arms and first kissed her, there was no alteration from the mood of the afternoon. 

310
-

后来,我在床上随着船的颠簸辗转反侧,在这个漫长的、孤独的、睡意沉沉的黑夜里,心下反复想着这件事,忆起消逝了十年的爱恋。出去前我一面打领带,把栀子花插在扣眼里,一面盘算着这个晚上,盘算着在什么时候,利用什么机会,要冲出起跑线,不计成败开始进攻。“这场仗拖得够久了,”我想着,“必须做决定了。”而对茱丽娅来说却没有阶段,没有起跑线,并且完全没有什么战术。

310
-

Later, turning it over in my mind, as I turned in my bed with the rise and fall of the ship, through the long, lonely, drowsy night, I recalled the courtships of the past, dead, ten years; how, knotting my tie before setting out, putting the gardenia in my buttonhole, I would plan my evening and think at such and such a time, at such and such an opportunity, I shall cross the start-line and open my attack for better or worse; ‘this phase of the battle has gone on long enough’, I would think; ‘a decision must be reached.’ With Julia there were no phases, no start-line, no tactics at all.?

311
-

可是那天晚上晚些时候,她回去睡觉,我跟她到她门前时,她拦住了我。

311
-

But later that night when she went to bed and I followed her to her door, she stopped me.

312
-

“不,查尔斯,还不行。也许永远不行。我不知道,我不知道是不是需要爱。”

312
-

‘No, Charles, not yet. Perhaps never. I don’t know. I don’t know if I want love.’

313
-

然后,有某种东西,某种从死去的十年存活下来的幽灵驱使我说(一个人死掉,哪怕只是片刻,也必然会有一些损失):“爱?我要的不是爱。”

313
-

Then something, some surviving ghost from those dead ten years - for one cannot die, even for a little, without some loss made me say, ‘Love? I’m not asking for love.’

314
-

“不,查尔斯,你要的是爱。”她说着,抬起手温柔地抚摸我的脸颊,随后关上了她的舱门。

314
-

‘Oh yes, Charles, you are,’ she said, and putting up her hand gently stroked my cheek; then shut her door.

315
-

我摇摇晃晃地往回走,沿着漫长的、光线柔和而又空旷的走廊,先是靠在这边墙壁上,后来又靠在那边。暴风雨似乎具象成一种圆环的形式,一整天我们都在它静止的中心航行,而这时我们又一次处在风口浪尖上了——这一夜的风浪,比前一夜更加汹涌了。

315
-

And I reeled back, first on one wall, then on the other, of the long, softly lighted, empty corridor; for the storm, it appeared, had the form of a ring; all day we had been sailing through its still centre; now we were once more in the full fury of the wind and that night was to be rougher than the one before.

316
-

长达十个小时的谈话:我们有些什么要说的呢?事实上大部分很明显,是我们两人的生活经历,久远漫长,天各一方,而现在又联结成为一体,在这个狂风暴雨的夜晚,我整夜都在咀嚼她跟我说过的那些话。她不再是那个轮番变幻的魔女和前夜星空灿烂的幻影;她已经把她过去所有可以交付的东西都交付给我保管了。

316
-

Ten hours of talking: what had we to say? Plain fact mostly, the record of our two lives, so long widely separate, now being knit to one. Through all that storrn-tossed night I rehearsed what she had told me; she was no longer the alternate succubus and starry, vision of the night before; she had given all that was transferable of her past into my keeping.

317
-

她把自己的恋爱和结婚的经过告诉了我,前面我已经讲过,她仿佛在深情地翻阅一本当年育婴室的记录一样,给我讲了她的童年,于是我伴随她在草地上共同度过了充满阳光的悠长时光,保姆霍金斯坐在轻便折椅上,科迪莉娅睡在婴儿车里,在穹顶下安睡的夜晚,摇床四面是褪了色的宗教绘画,夜色阑珊,壁炉里余灰未烬。

317
-

She told me, as I have already retold, of her courtship and marriage; she told me, as though fondly turning the pages of an old nursery-book, of her childhood, and I lived long, sunny days with her in the meadows, with Nanny Hawkins on her camp stool and Cordelia asleep in the pram , slept quiet nights under the dome with the religious pictures fading round the cot as the nightlight burned low and the embers settled in the grate.

318
-

她向我讲述了她和雷克斯的生活,和这次秘密的、邪恶的、灾难性的逃亡。她也同样有她死寂的十年。她告诉我说,为了是否要一个孩子,她和雷克斯长年地争执不休。最初是她想要孩子,可是过了一年以后她知道需要动手术才能生孩子,此时她和雷克斯已经没有爱情了。但他还是想要自己的孩子,她终于同意了,可是生下来的却是死婴。

318
-

She told me of her life with Rex and of the secret, vicious, disastrous escapade that had taken her to New York. She, too, had had her dead years.? She told me of her long struggle with Rex as to whether she should have a child; at first she wanted one, but learned after a year that an operation was needed to make it possible; by that time Rex and she were out of love, but he still wanted his child, and when at last she consented, it was born dead.

319
-

“雷克斯从来没有刻意对我不好过,”她说,“问题在于他根本就不是一个真正的人。他只不过是人的几种高度发展的本能罢了,其余的什么都没有。才从伦敦度完蜜月回来两个月,我就发现他和布伦达·钱皮恩还藕断丝连着,他竟想不出他这样会叫我伤心。”

319
-

‘Rex has never been unkind to me intentionally,’ she said. ‘It’s just that he isn’t a real person at all; he’s just a few faculties of a man highly developed; the rest simply isn’t there. He couldn’t imagine why it hurt me to find two months after we came back to London from our honeymoon , that he was still keeping up with Brenda Champion.’

320
-

“可我发现西莉娅不忠的时候我倒很高兴,”我说,“我觉得这么一来我讨厌她就理所当然了。”

320
-

‘I was glad when I found Celia was unfaithful,’ I said. ‘I felt it was all right for me to dislike her.’

321
-

“她对你不忠?你很高兴?那我也很高兴。我也不喜欢她。但你为什么要和她结婚呢?”

321
-

‘Is she? Do you? I’m glad. I don’t like her either. Why did you marry her?’

322
-

“生理上的吸引吧。还有野心。所有人都认为她是一个画家的理想妻子。还因为孤独,失去了塞巴斯蒂安。”

322
-

‘Physical attraction. Ambition. Everyone agrees she’s the ideal wife for a painter.Loneliness, missing Sebastian.’

323
-

“你爱他,对不对?”

323
-

‘You loved him, didn’t you?’

324
-

“哦,是的。他是一个先行者。”

324
-

‘Oh yes. He was the forerunner.’

325
-

茱丽娅理解了。

325
-

Julia understood.

326
-

轮船发出吱吱嘎嘎的声音,战战兢兢、起起伏伏的,我妻子在隔壁门里叫我:“查尔斯,你在那儿吗?”

326
-

The ship creaked and shuddered , rose and fell. My wife called to me from the next room: ‘Charles, are you there?’

327
-

“在。”

327
-

‘Yes.’

328
-

“我睡了好长时间。现在几点了?”

328
-

‘I’ve been asleep such a long while. What time is it?’

329
-

“三点半了。”

329
-

‘Half past three.’

330
-

“天气还不见好,是吗?”

330
-

‘It’s no better, is it?’

331
-

“更坏了。”

331
-

‘Worse.’

332
-

“但我觉得好一些了。你觉得我要是拉铃的话,他们会给我端点茶水之类的来吗?”

332
-

‘I feel a little better, though. D’you think they’d bring me some tea or something if I rang the bell?’

333
-

我从夜班服务员那里给她弄来些茶和饼干。

333
-

I got her some tea and biscuits from the night steward.

334
-

“你晚上过得有意思吗?”

334
-

‘Did you have an amusing evening?’

335
-

“大家都晕船了。”

335
-

‘Everyone’s seasick.’

336
-

“可怜的查尔斯。这将会是很愉快的旅行的。也许明天会好一些吧。”

336
-

‘Poor Charles. It was going to have been such a lovely trip, too. It may be better tomorrow.’

337
-

我把灯关了,然后关上我们之间那扇门。

337
-

I turned out the light and shut the door between us.

338
-

我一会儿醒,一会儿又睡过去,漫漫长夜一直让人极度紧张,船嘎吱作响,忽起忽落,我用力伸展开四肢控制住摇晃,稳稳地仰躺着,在黑夜里大睁着眼,想着茱丽娅。

338
-

Waking and dreaming, through the strain and creak and heave of the long night, firm on my back with my arms and legs spread wide to check the roll, and my eyes open to the darkness, I lay thinking of Julia.

339
-

“我以为妈妈过世后爸爸也许会回英国,或者是再婚,可是他一如既往。我和雷克斯经常去看他。我也渐渐喜欢起他来……塞巴斯蒂安杳无音信……科迪莉娅跟着一个战地救护队去了西班牙……布赖德还过着他自己那种古怪的日子。

339
-

‘...We thought papa might come back to England after mummy died, or that he might marry again, but he lives just as he did. Rex and I often go to see him now. I’ve grown fond-of him... Sebastian’s disappeared completely...Cordelia’s in Spain with anambulance...Bridey leads his own extraordinary life.

340
-

妈妈去世以后,他打算关闭布莱兹赫德,可是爸爸出于某种原因不愿意关,现在就是我和雷克斯住在那儿。布赖德在上面穹顶里挨着保姆霍金斯占了两间屋子,原先是育婴室的一部分。他像极了契诃夫笔下的人物,我们有时在图书室外面或者在楼梯上遇见他——我根本不知道他什么时候在家——突然之间,像个幽灵一样进来吃饭,出乎人的意料。

340
-

He wanted to shut Brideshead after mummy died, but papa wouldn’t have it for some reason, so Rex and I live there now, and Bridey has two rooms up in the dome, next to Nanny Hawkins, part of the old nurseries. He’s like a character from Chekhov. One meets him sometimes coming out of the library or on the stairs - I never know when he’s at home - and now and then he suddenly comes in to dinner like a ghost quite unexpectedly.?

341
-

“……哦,雷克斯那帮子人呀!还不就是政治和金钱。除了为钱,别的什么都不干。他们在池塘边散步,非得打赌看到几只天鹅……一坐就到夜里两点钟,拿雷克斯带来的姑娘们开心逗乐,听她们讲闲话,十五子棋嗒嗒响个不停,男人们玩扑克牌,吸雪茄烟。那股子烟味臭的!我早上醒来头发里闻得到雪茄味;晚上换衣服,衣服里也有这种味。现在我身上还有烟味吗?你觉得给我按摩的那个女人今天会不会闻出我皮肤里有烟味?

341
-

‘...Rex’s parties! Politics and money. They can’t do anything except for money; if they walk round the lake they have to make bets about how many swans they see...sitting up till two, amusing Rex’s girls, hearing them gossip, rattling away endlessly on the backgammon board while the men play cards and smoke cigars. The cigar smoke. I can smell it in my hair when I wake up in the morning; it’s in my clothes when I dress at night. Do I smell of it now? D’you think that woman who rubbed me, felt it in my skin?

342
-

“……起初我还老跟着雷克斯去他那些朋友家里小住几日,现在他再也不让我去了。他认为我没表现出他希望我表现出的样子来,他就觉得不光彩,上了当。又不是他廉价买来的。他看不出我的优点,可是每当他一认定我没有好处,他就觉得过瘾。但是他所尊重的那些男人,甚至还有一些女人都很喜欢我,这让他吃惊不小。他突然看出我和他们对这世界知之甚广,而他却一无所知……我一走开,他就心烦意乱的。要能使我回去他会很快乐。我对他一直忠心不二,直至发生最后这件事情。

342
-

‘...At first I used to stay away with Rex in his friends’ houses. He doesn’t make me any more. He was ashamed of me when he found I didn’t cut the kind of figure he wanted, ashamed of himself for having been taken in. I wasn’t at all the article he’d bargained for. He can’t see the point of me, but whenever he’s made up his mind there isn’t a point and he’s begun to feel comfortable, he gets a surprise - some man, or even woman, he respects, takes a fancy to me and he suddenly sees that there is i whole world of things we understand and he doesn’t ... he was upset when I went away.He’ll be delighted to have me back. I was faithful to’ him until this last thing came along.

343
-

好教养最最难得。你知道吗,就在去年,我想有孩子的时候,我决定把他教育成天主教徒。以前我从来没有考虑过宗教信仰的问题,那以后也没有了;可恰恰在我即将分娩的时候,我想,这是我可以给她的一样东西。宗教没有带给我很多好处,但是我的孩子该有宗教信仰。奇怪吧,一个人是会想着把自己失去的东西给下一代。可是到头来我连生命都给不了她。我没有看见过她,那时我病得太厉害了,无从知道发生了什么事情,很长一段时间之后,直到现在,我还是不愿意谈到她——是个女孩,所以她没了,雷克斯也不在乎。

343
-

There’s nothing like a good upbringing. Do you know last year, when I thought I was going to have a child, I’d decided to have it brought up a Catholic? I hadn’t thought about religion before; I haven’t since; but just at that time, when I was waiting for the birth, I thought, “That’s one thing I can give her. It doesn’t seem to have done me much good, but my child shall have it.” It was odd, wanting to give something one had - lost oneself. Then, in the end, I couldn’t even give that: I couldn’t even give her life. I never saw her; I was too ill to know what was going on, and afterwards, for a long time, until now, I didn’t want to speak about her - she was a daughter, so Rex didn’t so much mind her being dead.

344
-

“因为和雷克斯结婚我多少受到些小惩罚。你知道,这样的事我没法从脑子里连根拔掉,尤其是——死亡、最后的审判、地狱、保姆霍金斯,还有《教义问答》,等等。如果一个人很小就受到这种影响,那么它就会成为一个人的一部分了。我希望我的孩子也拥有这些……我觉得刚刚发生的就会让我受到惩罚。这也许就是你和我这样在一起的原因吧……都是天意。”

344
-

‘I’ve been punished a little for marrying Rex. You see, I can’t get all that sort of thing out of my mind, quite - Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell, Nanny Hawkins, and the catechism. It becomes part of oneself, if they give it one early enough. And yet I wanted my child to have it...now I suppose I shall be punished for what I’ve just done. Perhaps that is why you and I are here together like this...part of a plan.’

345
-

这是我要到下面舱里去把她留在舱门口时她对我说的最后的话——都是天意。

345
-

That was almost the last thing she said to me -‘part of a plan’ - before we went below and I left her at the cabin door.

346
-

第二天风势又减弱了,而我们仍然在摇摆颠簸中晃来晃去。大家很少再谈晕船,说得更多的是摔断骨头的事。夜晚人们会摔在地上,光洗澡间的地板上就已经发生了许多起令人不快的事故了。

346
-

Next day the wind had again dropped, and again we were wallowing in the swell. The talk was less of seasickness now than of broken bones; people had been thrown about in the night, and there had been many nasty accidents on bathroom floors. 

347
-

我和茱丽娅前一天已经说了那么多了,又因为我们不得不说的只需要几个字,所以这一天我们便很少说话。我们都带着书,茱丽娅发现了她喜欢的一种游戏。长久的沉默过后,一说起话来就发现我们的思想十分同步。

347
-

That day, because we had talked so much the day before and because what we had to say needed few words, we spoke little. We had books; Julia found a game she liked.? When after long silences we spoke, our thoughts, we found, had kept pace together side by side.

348
-

有一次我说道:“你是在护卫着你的悲伤。”

348
-

Once I said, ‘You are standing guard over your sadness.’

349
-

“这就是我得到的一切。你昨天说过。我的报酬啊。”

349
-

‘It’s all I have earned. You said yesterday. My wages.’

350
-

“这是从生活中得到的一张借据。保兑凭证。”

350
-

‘An I.O.U. from life. A promise to pay on demand.’

351
-

中午雨停了。到傍晚,云消雾散,太阳从船后突然射到休息厅里我们坐的地方来,登时让所有灯光黯然失色了。

351
-

Rain ceased at midday; at evening the clouds dispersed and the sun, astern of us, suddenly broke into the lounge where we sat, putting all the lights to shame. 

352
-

“夕阳西下,”茱丽娅说,“我们的一天也过完了。”她站起身,尽管船的摇晃和颠簸似乎并没有减弱,她却把我带到船甲板上。她挽住我的胳膊,她的手放在我的手里,揣进我的大衣口袋。甲板上是干的,没有人。只有船疾驶时掠过的风。

352
-

‘Sunset, ‘ said Julia, ‘the end of our day.’ She rose And, though the roll and pitch of the ship seemed unabated, led me up to the boat-deck. She put her arm through mine and her hand into mine, in my great-coat pocket. The deck was dry and empty, swept only by the wind of the ship’s speed.

353
-

我们踉跄费力地朝前走着,躲开从烟囱里飞出来的煤烟渣滓,我们俩轮流挤在一起,然后又紧紧地拥抱住,接着又被扯开,我扶住了栏杆,茱丽娅紧紧地抓住我,我们的手指和胳膊都盘结在一起,又撞到一起,又被拉开,在一次更剧烈的颠簸中,我觉得自己都被抛到她身上了,把她紧紧地压在栏杆上,我用胳膊抱住她的两侧免得撞上她,当船下沉到了底仿佛是要积蓄着力量再上升而蓄势停顿的时刻,我们就这样拥抱着站着,光天化日之下,脸贴脸,她的头发拂到我的眼睛上。原本翻腾的黑暗海平线上,这时放出金光,停在我们头上,接着又急转直下,我的眼睛透过茱丽娅乌黑的发梢凝视着辽阔的金色天空,她被甩过来靠在我胸前,我的手撑在栏杆上,她的脸依然紧贴在我的脸上。

353
-

As we made our halting, laborious way forward, away from the flying smuts of the smokestack, we were alternately jostled together, then strained, nearly sundered , arms and fingers interlocked as I held the rail and Julia clung to me, thrust together again, drawn apart; then, in a plunge deeper than the rest, I found myself flung across her, pressing her against the rail, warding myself off her with the arms that held her prisoner on either side, and as the ship paused at the end of its drop as though gathering strength for the ascent , we stood thus embraced, in the open, cheek against cheek, her hair blowing across my eyes; the dark horizon of tumbling water, flashing now with gold, stood still above us, then came sweeping down till I was staring through Julia’s dark hair into a wide and golden sky, and she was thrown forward on my heart, held up by my hands on the rail, her face still pressed to mine.

354
-

这时候,她的嘴唇贴在我的耳朵上,咸腥的海风中是她热热的鼻息,我一直没讲话,茱丽娅说:“好吧,现在。”船平稳下来暂且冲入平静的大海,茱丽娅带我下到舱里。

354
-

In that minute, with her lips to my ear and her breath warm in the salt wind, Julia said, though. I had not spoken, ‘Yes, now,’ and as the ship righted herself and for the moment ran into calmer waters, Julia led me below.

355
-

馥郁华贵的甜蜜还不到时候,到了,自然会随着燕子和香橙花一起来临。在波涛翻滚的海上,就要合礼仪,仅此而已。仿佛占有她的纤细腰身的转让契约已经拟定并且盖了章。我作为一笔财产的完全所有人正把它划入我的私囊,这财产我要不慌不忙地享用和开发。

355
-

It was no time for the sweets of luxury; they would come, in their season, with the swallow and the lime flowers. Now on the rough water there was a formality to be observed, no more. It was as though a deed of conveyance of her narrow loins had been drawn and sealed. I was making my first entry as the freeholder of a property I would enjoy and develop at leisure.

356
-

那个晚上我们在船的最高处——船上餐馆——吃的晚饭,从船舷的窗子看到星星出来,慢慢变得繁星满天,跟我记忆中自己在牛津也曾看过在塔楼和三角屋顶上的满天星斗一样。餐馆服务员打着保票说第二天晚上乐队又将演奏,届时这里一定客满。他们说要是我们想占一张好桌子,最好现在就订好座位。

356
-

We dined that night high up in the ship, in the restaurant, and saw through the bow windows the stars come out and sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep above the towers and gables of Oxford. The stewards promised that tomorrow night the band would play again and the place be full. We had better book now, they said, if we wanted a good table’.

357
-

“亲爱的,”茱丽娅说,“在好天气里我们能躲到哪儿去呢?我们是暴风雨中的两个孤儿。”

357
-

‘Oh dear,’ said Julia, ‘where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm?’

358
-

这个晚上我离不开她,不过第二天清晨,在又一次沿着走廊回去的时候,我发现走起路来不费力了。轮船在平静的海面上轻松航行,我知道,我们与世隔绝的独处被打破了。

358
-

I could not leave her that night, but early next morning, as once again I made my way back along the corridor, I found I could walk without difficulty; the ship rode easily on a smooth sea, and I knew that our solitude was broken.

359
-

我妻子从她的客舱里高兴地叫道:“查尔斯,查尔斯,我感觉很不错。你知道我正在吃什么早饭吗?”

359
-

My wife called joyously from her cabin: ‘Charles, Charles, I feel so well. What do you think I am having for breakfast?’

360
-

我走过去看,她正在吃一块牛排。

360
-

I went to see. She was eating a beef-steak.

361
-

“我已经和发型师预约好时间了——你知道他们要到下午四点才能给我做头发呢,怎么突然间这么忙?所以我要到晚上才能露面,不过今天早晨有很多人来看咱们,我已经请了迈尔斯和珍妮特来我们房里一起午餐。恐怕这两天我对你来说已经是一位派不上用场的妻子了……你一直在做什么?”

361
-

‘I’ve fixed up for a visit to the hairdresser - do you know they couldn’t take me till four o’clock this afternoon, they’re so busy suddenly? So I shan’t appear till the evening, but lots of people are coming in to see us this morning, and I’ve asked Miles and Janet to lunch with us in our sitting-room. I’m afraid I’ve been a worthless wife to you the last two days. What have you been up to?’

362
-

“一个快活的晚上,”我说道,“我们玩轮盘一直玩到夜里两点,就在隔壁,东道主还喝晕过去了。”

362
-

‘One gay evening,’ I said, ‘we played roulette till two o’clock, next door in the sitting-room, and our host passed out.’

363
-

“天哪。听着甚是失礼啊。查尔斯,你没有逾矩吧?你没有勾搭上海上迷人心智的妖女吧?”

363
-

‘Goodness. It sounds very disreputable. Have you been behaving, Charles? You haven’t been picking up sirens?’

364
-

“几乎就没有女人。大部分时间我都是和茱丽娅过的。”

364
-

‘There was scarcely a woman about. I spent most of the time with Julia.’

365
-

“噢,那好。我一直盼着你们俩能弄到一起。我就知道她是一个你会喜欢的我的朋友,我希望你是她的天赐良友呢。她近来郁闷得不得了。不过我估计她不会提这些事的……”这时我的妻子开始讲起关于茱丽娅纽约之行的看法。“今天早上,我要请她来参加鸡尾酒会。”她这么决定了。

365
-

‘Oh, good. I always wanted to bring you together. She’s one of my friends I knew you’d like. I expect you were a godsend to her. She’s had rather a gloomy time lately. I don’t expect she mentioned it, but...’ my wife proceeded to relate a current version of Julia’s journey to New York. ‘I’ll ask her to cocktails this morning,’ she concluded.?

366
-

茱丽娅和其他人一起来,只是离她近一些,我都感到十分幸福。

366
-

Julia came among the others, and it was happiness enough, now merely to be near her.

367
-

“听说你一直替我照料我丈夫来着。”我妻子说。

367
-

‘I hear you’ve been looking after my husband for me,’ my wife said.

368
-

“是啊,我们已经是很好的朋友了。我和他,还有一个不知道名字的男人。”

368
-

‘Yes, we’ve become very matey. He and I and a man whose name we don’t know.’

369
-

“克拉姆先生,你的胳膊怎么搞的?”

369
-

‘Mr Kramm, what have you done to your arm?’

370
-

“就怪洗澡间的地板。”克拉姆说,他详加解释起他是如何摔倒的。

370
-

‘It was the bathroom floor, ‘ said Mr Kramm, and explained at length how he had fallen.

371
-

这天晚上船长在他的桌上吃饭,人都到齐了,有两个要求参加的人坐在主教右手,是两个日本人,他们对主教的世界亲善计划表现出浓厚的兴趣。船长一个劲儿地拿茱丽娅在暴风雨中的抗击打能力打趣,表示要雇她当水手。多年的远洋航行使这位船长在任何场合都开得出玩笑。

371
-

That night the captain dined at his table and the circle was complete, for claimants came to the chairs on the Bishop’s right, two Japanese who expressed deep interest in his projects for world-brotherhood. The captain was full of chaff at Julia’s endurance in the storm, offering to engage her as a seaman ; years of sea-going had given him jokes for every occasion.

372
-

我妻子从理发室出来时容光焕发,将三天来备受折磨的痕迹一扫而光,在许多人的眼里,她比茱丽娅要更加明艳照人。茱丽娅的哀伤忧愁不见了,代之以某种无可言传的满足和宁静。不只对我,对所有人都不可言传。我和她被众人隔开,被人紧紧包围着单独坐在一起,就像前天晚上我们拥抱着彼此那样。

372
-

My wife, fresh from the beauty parlour, was unmarked by her three days of distress , and in the eyes of many seemed to outshine Julia, whose sadness had gone and been replaced by an incommunicable content and tranquillity ; incommunicable save to me; she and I, separated by the crowd, sat alone together close enwrapped, as we had lain in each other’s arms the night before.?

373
-

当晚,船上洋溢着欢快的节日气氛。尽管一到天亮大家就要起身收拾行装,可所有人还是打定主意,这一晚要尽情享受险些被暴风雨剥夺的快乐。船上就没有一个清静的地方,每个角落都是人。到处是舞曲和激情热烈的谈话,服务员们端着装满玻璃杯的托盘四处穿插游走,还可以听到那个负责汤博拉纸牌的官员的声音——“凯利之眼,一号;双腿,十一号;要‘摇袋’啰”——斯图伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人戴着顶纸帽,克拉姆缠着绷带,那两个日本人彬彬有礼地扔着纸飘带,发出鹅叫的声音。

373
-

There was a gala spirit in the ship that night. Though it meant rising at dawn to pack, everyone was determined that for this one night he would enjoy the luxury the storm had denied him. There was no solitude. Every corner of the ship was thronged ; dance music and high, excited chatter , stewards darting everywhere with trays of glasses, the voice of the officer in charge of tombola - ‘Kelly’s eye - number one; legs, eleven; and we’ll Shake the Bag’ - Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander in a paper cap, Mr Kramm and his bandages, the two Japanese decorously throwing paper streamers and hissing like geese.

374
-

我没有跟茱丽娅说话,整晚都一个人待着。

374
-

I did not speak to Julia, alone, all that evening.

375
-

第二天,我们在船的右舷见了一小会儿,那时大家都涌到左舷去看出现在船上的长官们,眺望远远的德文郡的绿色海岸线。

375
-

We met for a minute next day on the starboard side of the ship while everyone else crowded to port to see the officials come aboard and to gaze at the green coastline of Devon.

376
-

“你有什么打算?”

376
-

‘What are your plans?’

377
-

“在伦敦待几天。”

377
-

‘London for a bit, ‘ she said.

378
-

“西莉娅要直接回家去。她想看孩子们。”

378
-

‘Celia’s going straight home. She wants to see the children.’

379
-

“你也回家吗?”

379
-

‘You too?’

380
-

“不。”

380
-

‘No.’

381
-

“那就在伦敦待着。”

381
-

‘In London then.’

382
-

“查尔斯,那个红头发的矮个子男人——那就是福尔纳夫。你看见了吗?两个便衣警察把他带走了。”

382
-

‘Charles, the little red-haired man Foulenough. Did you see? Two plain clothes police have taken him off.’

383
-

“我错过了。船那边挤太多人了。”

383
-

‘I missed it. There was such a crowd on that side of the ship.’

384
-

“我看了火车时刻表,也拍了个电报。晚饭前我们就可以到家了。孩子们已经睡着了,也许我们可以叫醒约翰约翰,就这一次。”

384
-

‘I found out the trains and sent a telegram. We shall be home by dinner. The children will be asleep. Perhaps we might wake Johnjohn up, just for once.’

385
-

“你回去吧,”我说道,“我还得在伦敦待几天。”

385
-

‘You go down,’ I said. ‘I shall have to stay in London.’

386
-

“哦,可是查尔斯,你一定得回去。你还没见过卡罗琳呢。”

386
-

‘Oh, but Charles, you must come. You haven’t seen Caroline.’

387
-

“难道一两个星期她就大变样了?”

387
-

‘Will she change much in a week or two?’

388
-

“亲爱的,她每天都在长,每天都在变呢。”

388
-

‘Darling, she changes every day.’

389
-

“为什么非要现在见她不可呢?我很抱歉,亲爱的,可我必须得把画拆包,看看这一趟跋涉让它们怎么样了。还得立刻把展览的事商量定了。”

389
-

‘Then what’s the point of seeing her now? I’m sorry, my dear, but I must get the pictures unpacked and see how they’ve travelled. I must fix up for the exhibition right away.’

390
-

“你非这样不可?”她说道。我知道,一旦我搬出我这职业的奇妙能量的时候,她就没法儿再坚持了。“太让人失望了。再者说了,我不知道安德鲁和辛西娅会不会离开公寓。他们本来是租到这个月底的。”

390
-

‘Must you?’ she said, but I knew that her resistance ended when I appealed to the mysteries of my trade. ‘It’s very disappointing. Besides, I don’t know if Andrew and Cynthia will be out of the flat. They took it till the end of the month.’

391
-

“我可以去住旅馆。”

391
-

‘I can go to an hotel.’

392
-

“可是这样就未免太残忍了。我可受不了回家头一天我就让你一个人在外头住。我也留下来住一晚,明天再回家。”

392
-

‘But that’s so grim. I can’t bear you to be alone your first night home. I’ll stay and go down tomorrow.’

393
-

“你不能让孩子们失望。”

393
-

‘You mustn’t disappoint the children.’

394
-

“不行。”她的孩子们,我的艺术,我们各自的两个秘密撒手锏。

394
-

‘No.’ Her children, my art, the two mysteries of our trades.

395
-

“那你回来过周末吗?”

395
-

‘Will you come for the week-end?’

396
-

“能回就回。”

396
-

‘If I can.’

397
-

“所有持英国护照的旅客请到吸烟室去。”一个服务员喊道。

397
-

‘All British passports to the smoking-room, please,’ said a steward. 

398
-

“我已经安排好让那个可爱的外交官跟我们一桌吃饭,请他带我们早些下船。”我妻子说。

398
-

‘I’ve arranged with that sweet Foreign Office man at our table to get us off early with him,’ said my wife.

1 ..... 10 11 12 13 14 15
简典