| Chapter IV No one was kinder to me at that time than Rose Waterford. She combined a masculine intelligence with a feminine perversity, and the novels she wrote were original and disconcerting. It was at her house one day that I met Charles Strickland's wife. Miss Waterford was giving a tea-party, and her small room was more than usually full. Everyone seemed to be talking, and I, sitting in silence, felt awkward; but I was too shy to break into any of the groups that seemed absorbed in their own affairs. Miss Waterford was a good hostess, and seeing my embarrassment came up to me. | 第四章 當時沒有哪個人會比沃玫瑰那樣對我更加友好了。她身上結合了男性的聰明才智和女性的反複無常。她寫的小說別出心裁，讀了令人心潮澎湃。正是在她家裏，有一天我見到了司查爾的妻子。那天沃小姐正在家裏舉辦茶會，她的那個小屋子裏賓客盈門，來得比平時多，擠得水泄不通。在座的每個人好像都在和其他人聊天，隻有我默默坐在一邊，心裏感覺尷尬別扭；既然大家都在全神貫注地聊著各自的事情，我太過靦腆，不好意思冒然闖入其中任何一組。沃小姐招待體貼，看到我的窘相，便向我走了過來。 |
| "I want you to talk to Mrs. Strickland," she said. "She's raving about your book." "What does she do?" I asked. I was conscious of my ignorance, and if Mrs. Strickland was a well-known writer I thought it as well to ascertain the fact before I spoke to her. Rose Waterford cast down her eyes demurely to give greater effect to her reply. "She gives luncheon-parties. You've only got to roar a little, and she'll ask you." Rose Waterford was a cynic. She looked upon life as an opportunity for writing novels and the public as her raw material. Now and then she invited members of it to her house if they showed an appreciation of her talent and entertained with proper lavishness. She held their weakness for lions in good-humoured contempt, but played to them her part of the distinguished woman of letters with decorum. | “我想讓你和司太太聊聊，”她說道，“她對你寫的書簡直到了癡迷瘋狂的地步。” “她是幹什麽工作的？”我問道。 我意識到自己孤陋寡聞，如果司太太是位知名作家，我想最好還是把實情弄清楚，然後再和她聊。 沃小姐為了讓她的回答更加有實效，故意把兩眼一沉，擺出一副鄭重其事的樣子。 “她專門組織午餐會。你隻要輕輕吼一聲，她就會邀請你去參加。” 沃玫瑰是個逢場作戲，玩世不恭之人。她把生活看成是她寫小說的良好時機，把公眾看成是她的小說素材。如果有人對她的才華表示欣賞，而且使用適度讚譽之辭哄她開心，她會時不時邀請他們到她家做客。這些人對文壇名流的嗜好令她感到既可笑又可鄙，但在他們麵前她卻舉止得體，扮演著一位優秀女作家的角色。 |
| I was led up to Mrs. Strickland, and for ten minutes we talked together. I noticed nothing about her except that she had a pleasant voice. She had a flat in Westminster, overlooking the unfinished cathedral, and because we lived in the same neighbourhood we felt friendly disposed to one another. The Army and Navy Stores are a bond of union between all who dwell between the river and St. James's Park. Mrs. Strickland asked me for my address, and a few days later I received an invitation to luncheon. | 我被領到司太太麵前，我和她一起聊了十分鍾。她除了說話聲音悅耳外，我沒有留意到她有什麽其他特別之處。她在威斯敏斯特區有套公寓，俯瞰著尚未落成的大教堂。因為我也住在同一街區，我倆就覺得關係上親近了一層。對於泰晤士河同聖甄姆斯公園之間的左鄰右舍而言，陸海軍商店好像是一條把他們聯結起來的紐帶。司太太要了我的住址，沒過幾天我便收到她給我送來的一封午餐邀請函。 |
| My engagements were few, and I was glad to accept. When I arrived, a little late, because in my fear of being too early I had walked three times round the cathedral, I found the party already complete. Miss Waterford was there and Mrs. Jay, Richard Twining and George Road. We were all writers. It was a fine day, early in spring, and we were in a good humour. We talked about a hundred things. Miss Waterford, torn between the aestheticism of her early youth, when she used to go to parties in sage green, holding a daffodil, and the flippancy of her maturer years, which tended to high heels and Paris frocks, wore a new hat. It put her in high spirits. I had never heard her more malicious about our common friends. Mrs. Jay, aware that impropriety is the soul of wit, made observations in tones hardly above a whisper that might well have tinged the snowy tablecloth with a rosy hue. Richard Twining bubbled over with quaint absurdities, and George Road, conscious that he need not exhibit a brilliancy which was almost a by-word, opened his mouth only to put food into it. Mrs. Strickland did not talk much, but she had a pleasant gift for keeping the conversation general; and when there was a pause she threw in just the right remark to set it going once more. She was a woman of thirty-seven, rather tall and plump, without being fat; she was not pretty, but her face was pleasing, chiefly, perhaps, on account of her kind brown eyes. Her skin was rather sallow. Her dark hair was elaborately dressed. She was the only woman of the three whose face was free of make-up, and by contrast with the others she seemed simple and unaffected. The dining-room was in the good taste of the period. It was very severe. There was a high dado of white wood and a green paper on which were etchings by Whistler in neat black frames. The green curtains with their peacock design, hung in straight lines, and the green carpet, in the pattern of which pale rabbits frolicked among leafy trees, suggested the influence of William Morris. There was blue delft on the chimney-piece. At that time there must have been five hundred dining-rooms in London decorated in exactly the same manner. It was chaste, artistic, and dull. | 我的交際應酬寥寥無幾，便欣然接受了邀請。我到她家時稍微有點晚，因為害怕到得過早，我繞著大教堂先溜達了三圈。進門後我才發現客人們都已到齊。沃小姐在場，另外還有甄太太、頹瑞查和柔昭之。在座的各位都是作家。時值早春，陽光明媚，大家顯得興致勃勃。我們暢所欲言，所聊之事差不多有上百件。沃小姐少女時期一身灰綠，手持一朵水仙花；少婦時期腳登高跟鞋、身披巴黎裝。今天她的這身打扮在少女時期的清純唯美和少婦時期的風情萬種之間相互撕扯，除此之外她還戴了頂新帽子。這頂帽子令她情緒高漲，我之前還從未聽過她用比今天更刻薄惡毒的言語議論我們共同的朋友。甄太太意識到信口雌黃是機智風趣的靈魂，輕聲細氣表達著自己的種種看法，音量高不過竊竊私語，就連潔白如雪的桌布聽了也會羞得染上一道玫瑰色的紅暈。頹瑞查滿嘴冒泡，滔滔不絕地發表著離奇古怪的荒唐謬論。柔昭之意識到自己的高談闊論幾乎已成了人們的口頭禪，所以無須施展才華，隻見他張開大口直把飯菜往自己嘴裏送。司太太言語不多，但她天生有一套討人喜歡的本領，令大家圍繞著一個共同話題交談；一旦出現冷場，她甩出一句正好使得談話可以繼續下去。司太太當時三十七歲，身材高挑，體態豐滿，但不肥胖。她算不上漂亮，但她的臉蛋討人喜歡，這很可能主要歸功於她的那雙棕色眼睛，目光和善。她皮膚有些蠟黃，一頭黑發，發型精巧別致。這三位女士中，隻有司太太脂粉未施，但同其他兩位相比，她好像顯得單純樸素，一點都不矯揉造作。 餐廳風格品味較高，非常冷峻樸素。白色護牆木板很高，綠色牆紙上掛著威藪樂的蝕刻版畫，這些版畫鑲有精致的黑色鏡框。綠色窗簾印有孔雀圖案，懸掛在筆直的窗簾繩上。綠色的地毯上，幾隻灰白兔子在枝葉茂密的樹林中嬉戲玩耍，處處顯示出是受了毛威廉繪畫的影響。壁爐架上擺著各式各樣的青花瓷器。當時的倫敦一定有五百間餐廳的裝潢風格同這裏簡直可以說是一模一樣，樸素、優雅，而且乏味。 |
| When we left I walked away with Miss Waterford, and the fine day and her new hat persuaded us to saunter through the Park. "That was a very nice party," I said. "Did you think the food was good? I told her that if she wanted writers she must feed them well." "Admirable advice," I answered. "But why does she want them?" Miss Waterford shrugged her shoulders. "She finds them amusing. She wants to be in the movement. I fancy she's rather simple, poor dear, and she thinks we're all wonderful. After all, it pleases her to ask us to luncheon, and it doesn't hurt us. I like her for it." | 我同沃小姐一起離開司太太家時，天朗氣清，加上她的那頂新帽子引誘著我們決定漫步穿過聖甄姆斯公園。 “剛才的聚會很不錯，”我開口道。 “你覺得菜還合你的口味嗎？我告訴過她，如果她想認識作家，就得讓他們吃好才行。” “這主意妙，”我答道。“可她為啥想認識作家呢？” 沃小姐聳了聳她的雙肩。 “她覺得作家能讓人開心。她想附庸風雅。我覺得她頭腦過於簡單，可憐的乖乖，她認為我們作家都非同尋常。無論如何，她能請我們共進午餐，她就開心，而且這對我們也無關痛癢。我就喜歡她這點。” |
| Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance, but the romance of London. She had a real passion for reading (rare in her kind, who for the most part are more interested in the author than in his book, in the painter than in his pictures), and she invented a world of the imagination in which she lived with a freedom she never acquired in the world of every day. When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till then she had known only from the other side of the footlights. She saw them dramatically, and really seemed herself to live a larger life because she entertained them and visited them in their fastnesses. She accepted the rules with which they played the game of life as valid for them, but never for a moment thought of regulating her own conduct in accordance with them. Their moral eccentricities, like their oddities of dress, their wild theories and paradoxes, were an entertainment which amused her, but had not the slightest influence on her convictions. | 現在回想起來，我認為在攀高結貴的所有人中，司太太最不會使壞，其他人捕獲獵物，可以從漢普思戴德地區空氣稀薄的各個高地一直追到切恩道最底層的各個畫室。司太太年少時住在鄉間，生活安謐，從穆迪圖書館借來的書不僅帶給她各種傳奇故事，而且也帶給她具有傳奇色彩的倫敦。她對閱讀真地有股子激情（這種情況在像她這類人中很少見，他們大多數對作家和畫家更敢興趣，而不是他們所寫的書和所作的畫），她為自己虛構了一個充滿想象的世界，自由地生活在其中，而這種自由她在日常的現實世界中從未獲得過。當她開始認識了一些作家後，她感覺好像自己壯著膽子隻身登上了一個舞台。而在此之前，她對舞台的了解程度，隻是作為舞台腳燈背麵的一名台下觀眾。她看著他們亂哄哄你方唱罷我登場，感覺真地好像自己的生活圈也跟著變大了，原因是她不僅設宴款待過他們，而且她也進入到了他們固若金湯的堡壘中拜訪過他們。她認為他們遊戲人生的做法對他們而言有效合理，而她自己卻一刻也沒想過要按他們的方式調整改變她自己的行為舉止。這些人道德倫理上的種種怪癖，如同他們稀奇古怪的穿戴、荒誕無稽的各種理論和悖論，就是令她開心的一種娛樂消遣，但她生活中的各種信念卻絲毫不受影響。 |
| "Is there a Mr. Strickland?" I asked "Oh yes; he's something in the city. I believe he's a stockbroker. He's very dull." "Are they good friends?" "They adore one another. You'll meet him if you dine there. But she doesn't often have people to dinner. He's very quiet. He's not in the least interested in literature or the arts." "Why do nice women marry dull men?" "Because intelligent men won't marry nice women." I could not think of any retort to this, so I asked if Mrs. Strickland had children. "Yes; she has a boy and a girl. They're both at school." The subject was exhausted, and we began to talk of other things. | “是不是有一位司先生？”我問道。 “有的。他在倫敦小有名氣。我想他是位股票經紀人。他這人很乏味無趣。” “他們夫妻感情好嗎？” “他倆相敬如賓。如果你和他們一起吃晚餐的話，你會見到他。但她很少邀請人去她家共進晚餐。司先生不太愛說話，他對文學藝術絲毫不感興趣。” “為啥巧婦常嫁呆拙郎？” “因為智者不娶巧嬌娘。” 我想不出用什麽話來反駁她，於是我就向她詢問司太太是否有孩子。 “有，一兒一女，倆孩子都在上學。” 這個話題已經聊得徹底枯竭了，於是我們又開始聊其他事情。 |
