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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.?
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.’
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.
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16
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“好久好久不见了啊。”我们一见面她就高兴地说。
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16
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‘It has been a long time,’ she said fondly when we met.
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.
‘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 Regencyfour-poster was a find, but frankly I do not remember hearing that your new baby was called Caroline’. Why did you call it that?’
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19
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“当然是随着查尔斯起的嘛。”
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19
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‘After Charles, of course.’
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20
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“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?”
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20
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‘I made Bertha Van Halt godmother. I thought she was safe for a good present. What do you think she gave?’
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21
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“波莎·范·霍尔特出了名地坑人……她送了什么呢?”
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21
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‘Bertha Van Halt is a well-known trap. What?’
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22
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“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——”
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22
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‘A fifteen shilling book-token. Now that Johnjohn has a companion - ‘
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23
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“谁?”
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23
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‘Who?’
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24
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“你儿子呀,亲爱的。你没把他也忘了吧?”
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24
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‘Your son, darling. You haven’t forgotten him, too?’
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25
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“看在基督的份上,”我说,“你怎么叫他这个?”
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25
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‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘why do you call him that?’
‘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?’
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27
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“都听你的,我怎么都行。”
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27
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‘Just as you please.’
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28
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“约翰约翰常念叨你。他每天晚上都祈祷你能平安归来呢。”
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28
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‘Johnjohn talks of you such a lot. He prays every night for your safe return.’
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?’
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30
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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。
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30
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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.?
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.
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33
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“我看你一点儿也没变,查尔斯。”
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33
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‘I don’t believe you’ve changed at all, Charles.’
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34
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“不错,想必是没变。”
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34
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‘No, I’m afraid not.’
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35
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“你想有所改观吗?”
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35
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‘D’you want to change?’
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36
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“变化是活着的唯一证明。”
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36
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‘It’s the only evidence of life.’
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37
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“不过你可能会变得不再爱我了。”
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37
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‘But you might change so that you didn’t love me any more.’
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38
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“有这风险。”
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38
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‘There is that risk.’
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39
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“查尔斯,你还爱我呢。”
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39
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‘Charles, you haven’t stopped loving me.’
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40
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“你自己才说的我没有变。”
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40
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‘You said yourself I hadn’t changed.’
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41
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“唔,我现在开始觉得你变了。我没有。”
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41
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‘Well, I’m beginning to think you have. I haven’t.’
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42
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“没有,”我说道,“没有,这我看得出来。”
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42
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‘No,’ I said, ‘no; I can see that.’
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43
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“你今天和我见面一点也不发慌吗?”
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43
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‘Were you at all frightened at meeting me today?’
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44
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“一点儿也不。”
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44
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‘Not the least.’
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45
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“你也不想知道我在这期间有没有爱上别人吗?”
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45
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‘You didn’t wonder if I should have fallen in love with someone else in the meantime?’
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.
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.’
‘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.
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53
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“《乡村生活》上还有一篇文章说到这件事,我买了一份给你看。”
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53
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There was an article on it in Country Life; I bought it for you to see.’
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.
‘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.’
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘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.
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.’
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.
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 hermaphroditicgaiety said: ‘Savoy-Carlton-Hotel-goodmorning. It is now a quarter of eight.’
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71
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“你看看,我没要求叫早服务呀。”
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71
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‘I didn’t ask to be called, you know.’
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72
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“您说什么?”
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72
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‘Pardon me?’
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73
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“噢,没事儿。”
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73
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‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
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74
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“没关系。”
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74
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‘You’re welcome.’
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75
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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。”
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75
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As I was shaving, my wife from the bath said: ‘Just like old times. I’m not worrying any more, Charles.’
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.
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.?
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86
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“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。”
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86
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‘Such a lot of friends,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a lovely trip. Let’s have a cocktail party this evening.’
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87
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登船的舷梯才撤走,她就忙着打起电话来。
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87
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The companion-ways were no sooner cast off than she was busy with the telephone.
‘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.’
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.
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 .
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.?
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.’
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.?
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96
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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。
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96
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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.
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.?
‘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).?
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99
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一个服务员走到我面前。
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99
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A steward came up to me.
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100
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“先生,您需要点儿什么吗?”
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100
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‘Can I get you anything, sir?’
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101
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“一杯威士忌和苏打水,不加冰。”
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101
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‘A whisky and soda , not iced.’
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102
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“非常抱歉,所有的苏打水都是冰镇的。”
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102
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‘I’m sorry, sir, all the soda is iced.’
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103
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“水也冰镇了吗?”
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103
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‘Is the water iced, too?’
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104
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“哦,是的,先生。”
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104
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‘Oh yes, sir.’
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105
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“那好吧,没关系。”
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105
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‘Well, it, doesn’t matter.’
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106
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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。
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106
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He trotted off, puzzled, soundless in the pervading hum.
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.’
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.’
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
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.’
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.
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
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120
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“我渴望看看你的画儿。”她说道。
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120
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‘I long to see the paintings,’ she said.
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121
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“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。”
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121
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‘Celia wanted me to unpack some and stick them round the cabin for her cocktail party. I couldn’t do that.’
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122
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“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。”
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122
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‘No...is Celia as pretty as ever? I always thought she had the most delicious looks of any girl of my year.’
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.
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.
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129
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“也更哀伤了。”我说道。
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129
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‘Sadder, too,’ I said.
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130
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“噢,不错,哀伤得多了。”
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130
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‘Oh yes, much sadder.’
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131
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两小时后我回到客舱,我妻子正精神饱满意气风发的。
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131
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My wife was in exuberant spirits when, two hours later, I returned to the cabin.
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 flirtatiousaffability.)
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).
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135
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“你得赶快换礼服了。你刚才一直在哪儿呀?”
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135
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‘You must get dressed at once. Where have you been all this time?’
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136
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“跟茱丽娅·莫特拉姆聊天。”
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136
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‘Talking to Julia Mottram.’
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137
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“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!”
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137
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‘D’you know her? Oh, of course, you were a friend of the dipso brother. Goodness, her glamour !’
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138
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“她也极为赞赏你。”
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138
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‘She greatly admires your looks, too.’
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139
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“她以前是博伊的女朋友之一。”
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139
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‘She used to be a girl friend of Boy’s.’
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140
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“不能够吧?”
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140
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‘Surely not?’
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141
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“他自己老这么说。”
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141
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‘He always said so.’
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142
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“你考虑过没有,”我问道,“你的客人们怎么吃里面的鱼子酱呢?”
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142
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‘Have you considered,’ I asked, ‘how your guests are going to eat this caviar?’
‘Darling’ it was the night you popped the question.’
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145
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“亲爱的,就是你求婚的那个晚上呀。”
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145
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‘As I remember, you popped.’
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146
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“我记得是你求的婚。”
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146
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‘Well, the night we got engaged. But you haven’t said how you like the, arrangements.’
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147
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“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。”
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147
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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.
‘Cinema actors,’ said my wife; ‘that’s what I want to talk about.’
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150
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“电影演员,”我的妻子说,“我正想说这事呢。”
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150
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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.
‘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.’
‘In sixteenth-century Venice it would have been a somewhat different shape.’
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154
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“十六世纪威尼斯天鹅的造型会有些不同的。”
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154
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‘Here is Father Christmas. We were just in raptures over your swan.’
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155
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“圣诞老人来了。我们对你送的天鹅喜欢得发狂呢。”
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155
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The chief purser came into the room and shook hands, powerfully.?
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156
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事务长走进客舱,大力与人握手。
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156
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‘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.’
‘Toast!’ said my wife, as though this was something beyond the dreams of gluttony.
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158
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“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。
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158
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‘Do you hear that Charles? Toast.’
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159
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“你听见了吗,查尔斯?烤吐司来着。”
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159
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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.
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?’
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?’
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162
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“大概会稍稍阻碍一下我们的航行。”
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162
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‘Might hold us back a bit.’
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163
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“不过不会使我们晕船吧?”
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163
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‘But it wouldn’t make us sick?’
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164
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“那就要看你晕不晕船了。在暴风雨中我总是晕,打小就这样。”
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164
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‘Depends if you’re a good sailor. I’m always sick in storms, ever since I was a boy.’
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165
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“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。”
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165
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‘I don’t believe it. He’s just being sadistic. Come over here, there’s something I want to show you.’
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166
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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。”
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166
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It was the latest photograph of her children. ‘Charles hasn’t even seen Caroline yet. Isn’t it thrilling for him?’
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.’
‘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?’
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169
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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。
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169
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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.
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
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171
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“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。”
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171
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‘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.’
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172
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“我不知道。”
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172
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‘I’ve no idea.’
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173
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“猜猜看。猜错了就给六便士,猜对了半美元。公平合理。”
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173
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‘Guess. Tanner if you’re wrong; half a dollar if you’re right. That’s fair.’
‘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.’
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176
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“大概你是坐飞机出国的吧?”
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176
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‘You flew out perhaps?’
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177
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“不,没坐过飞机。”
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177
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‘No, nor over it.’
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178
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“那我猜你环绕地球,是从太平洋那边绕过来的吧?”
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178
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‘Then I presume you went round the world and came across the Pacific.’
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179
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“你真聪明,没错。我为这事跟别人争得很厉害。”
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179
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‘You are a sharp one and no mistake. I’ve made quite a bit getting into arguments over that one.’
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180
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“那你走的是哪条路线呢?”我问道,想要投其所好。
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180
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‘What was your route?’ I asked, wishing to be agreeable.
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181
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“啊,那可就说来话长了。算了,我先赶快跑路吧,回见!”
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181
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‘Ah, that’d be telling. Well, I must skedaddle. So long.’
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182
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“查尔斯,”我妻子说,“这位就是星际电影公司的克拉姆先生。”
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182
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‘Charles, said my wife, ‘this is Mr Kramm, of Interastral Films.’
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183
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“您就是查尔斯·赖德先生。”克拉姆说。
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183
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‘So you are Mr Charles Ryder,’ said Mr Kramm.
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184
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“是我。”
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184
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‘Yes.’
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185
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“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?”
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185
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‘Well, well., well,’ he paused. I waited. ‘The purser here says we’re heading for dirty weather. What d’you know about that?’
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186
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“比事务长知道的差多了。”
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186
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‘Far less than the purser.’
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187
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“不好意思,赖德先生,我不十分明白您的意思。”
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187
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‘Pardon me, Mr Ryder, I don’t quite get you.’
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188
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“我的意思是说我所知道的比事务长少。”
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188
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‘I mean I know less than the purser.’
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189
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“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。”
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189
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‘Is that so? Well, well, well. I’ve enjoyed our talk very much. I hope that it will be the first of many.’
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?’
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191
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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!”
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191
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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?’
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.’
‘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?’
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194
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“不是我朋友。”
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194
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‘No chum of mine.’
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195
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“那可太奇怪了!你跟克拉姆先生说过去好莱坞工作的事吗?”
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195
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‘How very peculiar! Did you say anything to Mr Kramm about working in Hollywood?’
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
‘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.’
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202
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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。
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202
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We were a gruesome circle; even my wife’s high social spirit faltered. At moments I heard bits of her conversation.
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203
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“……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。
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203
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‘...an extraordinary little red-haired man. Captain Foulenough in person.’
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204
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“但我认为您的意思是说,西莉娅小姐,你并不认识他。”
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204
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‘But I understood you to say, Lady Celia, that you were unacquainted with him.’
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205
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“我是说他像福尔纳夫船长。”
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205
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‘I meant he was like Captain Foulenough.’
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206
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“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。”
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206
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‘I begin to comprehend. He impersonated this friend of yours in order to come to your party.’
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207
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“不,不。福尔纳夫船长不过是个带有喜感的角色。”
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207
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‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is simply a comic character.’
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208
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“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?”
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208
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‘There seems to have been nothing very amusing about this other man. Your friend is a comedian?’
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209
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“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。”
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209
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‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is an imaginary character in an English paper. You know, like your “Popeye”.’
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.’
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211
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“是的,我想确实是这样。”
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211
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‘Yes, I suppose that was it really.’
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参议员看着他的妻子似乎在说:“有头有脸的人物,嘘!”
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The senator looked at his wife as much as to say: ‘Significant people, huh!’
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.
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...’
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.
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“你到了巴塞罗那,打算说哪一种语言呢?”
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216
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‘And what language will you speak when you get to Barcelona?’
‘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?’
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“同意,”我说,“同意。”
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‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
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“什么是言词呢?”主教说。
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‘What are words?’ said the Bishop.
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220
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“确实,什么是言词呢?”
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220
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‘What indeed?’
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221
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“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。”
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221
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Mere conventional symbols, Mr Ryder, and this is an age rightly sceptical of conventional symbols.’
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.
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.
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.
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“我要跟大家告辞了。”外交官太太说着站起身来。
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‘This is where I say good night to you all,’ said the diplomat’s wife, rising.
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.’
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227
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“我们三个活生生就是他们三个。”
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227
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‘Only each of us is all three of them.’
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228
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“你说的是什么意思?”我妻子说道。
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‘What can you mean?’ asked my wife.
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229
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“李尔王、肯特和弄臣。”
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229
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‘Lear, Kent, Fool.’
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230
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“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。”
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‘Oh dear, it’s like that agonizing Foulenough conversation over again. Don’t try and explain.’
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“我怀疑我能不能解释得了。”我说。
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‘I doubt if I could,’ I said.
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232
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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。
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Another climb, another vast drop. The stewards were at work making things fast, shutting things up, hustling away unstable ornaments.
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233
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“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。”
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233
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‘Well, we’ve finished dinner and set a fine example of British phlegm,’ said my wife.‘Let’s go and see what’s on.’
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.
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.’
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过了一会儿她说:“我的头都疼了,累了。我打算上床睡觉去了。”
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Presently she said: ‘It’s making my head ache and I’m tired, anyway. I’m going to bed.’
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.
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238
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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。
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238
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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.
‘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.
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.
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?’
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242
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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。
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242
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I rang for the night steward, who had a draught ready prepared, which comforted her a little.
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.
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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。
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244
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After first light I slept for an hour or two, then awoke clearheaded, with a joyous sense of anticipation
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.’
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.
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247
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“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?”
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‘There’s a lot of stuff in the sitting-room for the lady,’ said the steward; ‘shall I leave it for the time?’
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.
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249
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我刮脸的时候她来了电话。
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249
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She telephoned while I was being shaved.
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250
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“查尔斯,你干了多么惊叹的事啊!这可真不像你!”
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250
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‘W hat a deplorable thing to do, Charles! How unlike you!’
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251
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“你不喜欢那些花吗?”
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251
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‘Don’t you like them?’
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252
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“这种天气里你让我怎么处置这些玫瑰?”
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252
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‘What can I do with roses on a day like this?’
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253
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“闻闻花香好了。”
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253
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‘Smell them.’
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254
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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。”
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254
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There was a pause and a rustle of unpacking. ‘They’ve absolutely no smell at all.’
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255
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“你早餐吃了什么吗?”
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255
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‘What have you had for breakfast?’
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256
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“麝香葡萄和蜜瓜。”
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256
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‘Muscat grapes and cantaloupe’
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257
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“我什么时候能见你?”
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257
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‘When shall I see you?’
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258
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“午饭前。再之前有一位女按摩师来给我做按摩。”
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258
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‘Before lunch. I’m busy till then with a masseuse.’
‘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?’
‘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.
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.
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269
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“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。
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‘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.
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270
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“我还以为你没起床呢。”
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270
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‘I take it you’re not getting up.’
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271
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“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。
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271
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‘Oh no, Mrs Clark is being so sweet’; she was always quick to get servants’ names.
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272
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“不是特别麻烦的话,就时常进来跟我说说外面的情况吧。”
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272
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‘Don’t bother. Come in sometimes and tell me what’s going on.’
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273
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“喂,喂,亲爱的,”那位女服务员说,“今天越少打扰我们越好。”
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‘Now, now, dear,’ said the stewardess, ‘the less we are disturbed today the better.’
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.
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.’
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.
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.
‘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.’
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.
‘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.
‘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!’
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285
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“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。”
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285
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‘I wish you wouldn’t go on about the roses. It wasn’t my idea in the first place.Someone sent them to Celia.’
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286
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“哟,那可就是两回事了。你是痛快了,可把我的按摩给搞糟了。”
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286
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‘Oh, that ‘s quite different. It lets you out completely. But it makes my massage worse.’
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.
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290
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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。
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We drank our wine and soon our new friend came lurching towards us down the life-line.
‘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.’
‘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.’
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293
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“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?”
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293
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‘My wife’s in a terrible way. She’s an experienced sailor. Only shows, doesn’t it?’
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.’
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295
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“无聊的名流。”
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295
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‘Very dull nobs.’
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296
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“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。”
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296
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‘If you ask me, nobs always are. When you get a storm like this you find out what people are really made of.’
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297
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“你更偏爱不晕船的客人吧?”
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297
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‘You have a predilection for good sailors?’
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298
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“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。”
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298
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‘Well, put like that I don’t know that I do - what I mean is, it makes for getting together.’
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.?
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311
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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。
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311
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But later that night when she went to bed and I followed her to her door, she stopped me.
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312
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“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。”
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312
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‘No, Charles, not yet. Perhaps never. I don’t know. I don’t know if I want love.’
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.’
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314
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“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。
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‘Oh yes, Charles, you are,’ she said, and putting up her hand gently stroked my cheek; then shut her door.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
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320
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“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。”
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320
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‘I was glad when I found Celia was unfaithful,’ I said. ‘I felt it was all right for me to dislike her.’
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321
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“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?”
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321
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‘Is she? Do you? I’m glad. I don’t like her either. Why did you marry her?’
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322
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“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。”
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322
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‘Physical attraction. Ambition. Everyone agrees she’s the ideal wife for a painter.Loneliness, missing Sebastian.’
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323
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“你爱他,对不对?”
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323
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‘You loved him, didn’t you?’
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324
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“哦,是的。他是一个先行者。”
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324
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‘Oh yes. He was the forerunner.’
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325
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茱丽娅理解了。
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325
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Julia understood.
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326
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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?”
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326
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The ship creaked and shuddered , rose and fell. My wife called to me from the next room: ‘Charles, are you there?’
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327
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“在。”
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327
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‘Yes.’
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328
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“我睡了好长时间。现在几点了?”
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328
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‘I’ve been asleep such a long while. What time is it?’
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329
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“三点半了。”
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329
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‘Half past three.’
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330
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“天气还不见好,是吗?”
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330
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‘It’s no better, is it?’
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331
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“更坏了。”
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331
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‘Worse.’
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332
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“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?”
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332
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‘I feel a little better, though. D’you think they’d bring me some tea or something if I rang the bell?’
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333
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我从夜班服务员那里给她弄来些茶和饼干。
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333
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I got her some tea and biscuits from the night steward.
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334
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“你晚上过得有意思吗?”
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334
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‘Did you have an amusing evening?’
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335
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“大家都晕船了。”
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335
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‘Everyone’s seasick.’
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336
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“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。”
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336
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‘Poor Charles. It was going to have been such a lovely trip, too. It may be better tomorrow.’
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337
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我把灯关了,然后关上我们之间那扇门。
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337
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I turned out the light and shut the door between us.
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.
‘...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.
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.?
‘...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?
‘...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.
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.
‘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.’
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345
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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。
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345
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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.
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.
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.
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348
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有一次我说道:“你是在护卫着你的悲伤。”
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348
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Once I said, ‘You are standing guard over your sadness.’
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349
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“这就是我得到的一切。你昨天说过。我的报酬啊。”
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349
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‘It’s all I have earned. You said yesterday. My wages.’
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350
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“这是从生活中得到的一张借据。保兑凭证。”
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350
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‘An I.O.U. from life. A promise to pay on demand.’
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351
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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。
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351
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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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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357
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“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。”
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357
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‘Oh dear,’ said Julia, ‘where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm?’
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.
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359
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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?”
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359
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My wife called joyously from her cabin: ‘Charles, Charles, I feel so well. What do you think I am having for breakfast?’
‘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?’
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362
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“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。”
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362
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‘One gay evening,’ I said, ‘we played roulette till two o’clock, next door in the sitting-room, and our host passed out.’
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363
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“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?”
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363
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‘Goodness. It sounds very disreputable. Have you been behaving, Charles? You haven’t been picking up sirens?’
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364
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“几乎就没有女人。大部分时间我都是和茱丽娅过的。”
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364
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‘There was scarcely a woman about. I spent most of the time with Julia.’
‘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.?
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366
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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。
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366
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Julia came among the others, and it was happiness enough, now merely to be near her.
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367
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“听说你一直替我照料我丈夫来着。”我妻子说。
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367
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‘I hear you’ve been looking after my husband for me,’ my wife said.
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368
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“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。”
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368
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‘Yes, we’ve become very matey. He and I and a man whose name we don’t know.’
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369
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“克拉姆先生,你的胳膊怎么搞的?”
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369
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‘Mr Kramm, what have you done to your arm?’
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370
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“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。
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370
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‘It was the bathroom floor, ‘ said Mr Kramm, and explained at length how he had fallen.
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.
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.?
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.
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374
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我没有跟茱丽娅说话,整晚都一个人待着。
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374
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I did not speak to Julia, alone, all that evening.
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.
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376
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“你有什么打算?”
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376
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‘What are your plans?’
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377
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“在伦敦待几天。”
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377
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‘London for a bit, ‘ she said.
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378
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“西莉娅要直接回家去。她想看孩子们。”
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378
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‘Celia’s going straight home. She wants to see the children.’
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379
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“你也回家吗?”
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379
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‘You too?’
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380
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“不。”
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380
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‘No.’
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381
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“那就在伦敦待着。”
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381
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‘In London then.’
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382
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“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。”
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382
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‘Charles, the little red-haired man Foulenough. Did you see? Two plain clothes police have taken him off.’
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383
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“我错过了。船那边挤太多人了。”
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383
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‘I missed it. There was such a crowd on that side of the ship.’
‘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.’
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385
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“你回去吧,”我说道,“我还得在伦敦待几天。”
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385
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‘You go down,’ I said. ‘I shall have to stay in London.’
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386
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“哦,可是查尔斯,你一定得回去。你还没见过卡罗琳呢。”
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386
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‘Oh, but Charles, you must come. You haven’t seen Caroline.’
‘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.’
‘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.’