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The season was drawing to its dusty end, and everyone I knew was arranging to go away. Mrs. Strickland was taking her family to the coast of Norfolk, so that the children might have the sea and her husband golf. We said good-bye to one another, and arranged to meet in the autumn. But on my last day in town, coming out of the Stores, I met her with her son and daughter; like myself, she had been making her final purchases before leaving London, and we were both hot and tired. I proposed that we should all go and eat ices in the park. |
無聊之夏正逐漸接近尾聲，我認識的每個人都在計劃安排外出。司太太準備帶著全家到瑙福珂海濱，這樣孩子們可以在海邊玩，丈夫可以打高爾夫球。我們互道珍重，約定秋天再相見。但就在我要離開倫敦的前一天，我剛從陸海軍商店裏出來，卻遇到司太太和她的一雙兒女；同我一樣，她也是在離開倫敦之前做最後一次采購。我倆又熱又累，我提議我們一起到公園走走，順便吃些冰品。 |
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I think Mrs. Strickland was glad to show me her children, and she accepted my invitation with alacrity. They were even more attractive than their photographs had suggested, and she was right to be proud of them. I was young enough for them not to feel shy, and they chattered merrily about one thing and another. They were extraordinarily nice, healthy young children. It was very agreeable under the trees. |
我覺得司太太很樂意給我炫耀她的兩個孩子，她欣然爽快地接受了我的邀請。兩個孩子比他們的照片甚至更招人喜歡，她有理由為他們而感到驕傲。我當時還年輕，倆孩子在我麵前一點也不害羞，他倆滿心歡喜，嘰嘰喳喳地有一搭沒一搭地說著閑話。這倆孩子都異常聽話，身體結實。樹蔭之下，一派稱心愜意的景象。 |
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When in an hour they crowded into a cab to go home, I strolled idly to my club. I was perhaps a little lonely, and it was with a touch of envy that I thought of the pleasant family life of which I had had a glimpse. They seemed devoted to one another. They had little private jokes of their own which, unintelligible to the outsider, amused them enormously. Perhaps Charles Strickland was dull judged by a standard that demanded above all things verbal scintillation; but his intelligence was adequate to his surroundings, and that is a passport, not only to reasonable success, but still more to happiness. Mrs. Strickland was a charming woman, and she loved him. I pictured their lives, troubled by no untoward adventure, honest, decent, and, by reason of those two upstanding, pleasant children, so obviously destined to carry on the normal traditions of their race and station, not without significance. They would grow old insensibly; they would see their son and daughter come to years of reason, marry in due course—the one a pretty girl, future mother of healthy children; the other a handsome, manly fellow, obviously a soldier; and at last, prosperous in their dignified retirement, beloved by their descendants, after a happy, not unuseful life, in the fullness of their age they would sink into the grave. |
一個鍾頭過後，他們仨擠上一輛出租馬車回家去了。我百無聊賴，溜達著來到了我的俱樂部。我或許感到有些孤單，回想剛才我瞥見的天倫之樂，一股酸溜溜的醋意湧上心頭。他們看上去似乎相互關愛著彼此。他們私下裏有些小玩笑，會把他們自己逗得前仰後合，而外人根本聽不懂這些笑話。如果把錦心繡口作為高於各個方麵的一個標準，人們也許會認定司查爾無趣乏味；但在職場中，他的智力水平還算差強人意，這不僅是小有成就的通行證，而且更多的是生活幸福的保障卡。司太太是個富有魅力的女性，她愛著自己的丈夫。我心裏勾畫著他們夫婦的生活，他們不會因為突如其來的出軌豔遇而困擾，他們為人忠厚老實，作風正派。一雙兒女更是正直誠實，討人喜歡，顯而易見，他們注定會傳承這個家族血脈和社會地位的標準傳統，人生對他們而言並非毫無價值。他們夫婦倆在不經意間會變老，看著兒女長大成人，到了適婚年齡娶妻嫁人——兒子娶了一位漂亮姑娘，這姑娘將來還會生兒育女，為人母親，並陪著孩子健康成長；女兒嫁了一位英俊陽剛的小夥，很顯然是一位軍人。這對夫婦最終功成名退，兒孫承歡膝下，盡享天倫之樂，晚年養尊處優。他們一生幸福快樂，並非百無一用，頤養天年之後，直到入土為安。 |
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That must be the story of innumerable couples, and the pattern of life it offers has a homely grace. It reminds you of a placid rivulet, meandering smoothly through green pastures and shaded by pleasant trees, till at last it falls into the vasty sea; but the sea is so calm, so silent, so indifferent, that you are troubled suddenly by a vague uneasiness. Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature, strong in me even in those days, that I felt in such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss. I recognised its social values, I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course. There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights. In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could only have change—change and the excitement of the unforeseen. |
這一定是無數對夫婦的故事。這種生活方式給人一種安詳優雅的感覺，使人想到一條靜靜流淌的小溪，蜿蜒曲折順利穿過綠色草原，小溪兩岸是鬱鬱蔥蔥的樹木，樹蔭鋪在溪水表麵，直到最後溪流落入廣袤無際的大海。但大海如此平靜安詳、如此沉默寡言、如此無動於衷，一種模模糊糊、忐忑不安的感覺會突然困擾著你。也許這隻是我天性中的一種奇思妙想，那些日子裏這種奇思妙想在我體內如此強烈，我覺得絕大多數人的生活方式都是如此，好像某個地方出了差錯。我認識到這種生活方式的社會價值，我看得到這種生活方式井然有序的幸福感，但我的血液裏一團火熱，渴望踏上一條更狂野的征程。這種輕鬆快樂中好像有某種令人毛骨悚然的東西。我的內心渴望一種更驚險的生活。隻要我的生活有所變化——這種變化加上無法預料的刺激，對於參差不齊的懸岩峭壁以及暗流洶湧的礁石淺灘，我並非沒有準備好前去應對。 |
