| Chapter VIII On reading over what I have written of the Stricklands, I am conscious that they must seem shadowy. I have been able to invest them with none of those characteristics which make the persons of a book exist with a real life of their own; and, wondering if the fault is mine, I rack my brains to remember idiosyncrasies which might lend them vividness. I feel that by dwelling on some trick of speech or some queer habit I should be able to give them a significance peculiar to themselves. As they stand they are like the figures in an old tapestry; they do not separate themselves from the background, and at a distance seem to lose their pattern, so that you have little but a pleasing piece of colour. My only excuse is that the impression they made on me was no other. There was just that shadowiness about them which you find in people whose lives are part of the social organism, so that they exist in it and by it only. They are like cells in the body, essential, but, so long as they remain healthy, engulfed in the momentous whole. The Stricklands were an average family in the middle class. A pleasant, hospitable woman, with a harmless craze for the small lions of literary society; a rather dull man, doing his duty in that state of life in which a merciful Providence had placed him; two nice-looking, healthy children. Nothing could be more ordinary. I do not know that there was anything about them to excite the attention of the curious. | 第八章 我把我筆下司查爾夫婦的故事通讀了一遍，意識到他倆的形象看上去肯定陰影重重，模糊不清。對一本書中的各個人物進行性格特征的刻畫，可使他們變得真實生動，而我卻一點沒把這些因素賦予他倆。為了弄清楚這個過錯是否在我，我絞盡腦汁，回憶他倆的各種怪癖，以便可以給他們增加一些鮮明生動的性格特征。我覺得通過詳細描寫他倆的某些奇言怪行，就應該可以重點突出隻屬於他倆的性格特征。像他倆現在這樣站著，就好比一幅舊掛毯上的兩個人形，無法從背景中分離開來；如果從遠處看，好像他倆的模樣從掛毯上消失殆盡，除了令人賞心悅目的各種顏色，其他就所剩無幾了。我唯一的借口就是他們給我留下的印象就是這樣，別無其他。有些人的生活隻是社會有機體的一部分，他們隻能在其中存活，並隻能賴其存活，給人留下的印象模糊不清。他們如同身體內的各個細胞，不可或缺，但隻要他們健康存活著，就會被吞噬在龐然整體之中。司查爾一家屬於平凡的中產階級。妻子和藹可親、熱情好客，狂熱癡迷於結交文藝圈中小有名氣的人物，這無傷大雅；丈夫乏味無趣，在仁慈的造物主已經給他安置的那種生活中履行職責；他們有兩個漂亮健康的孩子。沒有什麽比這一家人更平凡了。我不知道這一家人有什麽能引起獵奇者的注意。 |
| When I reflect on all that happened later, I ask myself if I was thick-witted not to see that there was in Charles Strickland at least something out of the common. Perhaps. I think that I have gathered in the years that intervene between then and now a fair knowledge of mankind, but even if when I first met the Stricklands I had the experience which I have now, I do not believe that I should have judged them differently. But because I have learnt that man is incalculable, I should not at this time of day be so surprised by the news that reached me when in the early autumn I returned to London. I had not been back twenty-four hours before I ran across Rose Waterford in Jermyn Street. "You look very gay and sprightly," I said. "What's the matter with you?" She smiled, and her eyes shone with a malice I knew already. It meant that she had heard some scandal about one of her friends, and the instinct of the literary woman was all alert. "You did meet Charles Strickland, didn't you?" | 我反思後來所發生的一切時捫心自問，是否我腦子太笨，沒看出來司查爾至少有些非同尋常。我想也許是吧。從那時到現在已經間隔好多年，通過收集整理，我認為自己對人類已經有了相當的了解，但即使我初遇他們夫婦時就有現在這種認識，我相信我對他們的判斷也不會有什麽不同。但我已認清了人心叵測，那年初秋，我回倫敦後，聽到了那則消息。若是擱在今天，我就不會那麽驚訝了。 我回倫敦還不到一整天，就在哲敏街上碰見了沃玫瑰。 “你氣色看上去不錯，”我說道，“究竟發生了什麽事？看把你高興的跟什麽似的。” 她笑著，閃爍的目光中流露著我早已熟知的不良居心。這說明她聽說了有關她的一個朋友的某些醜聞，這位女文人的直覺永遠保持高度警覺狀態。 “你已經見過司查爾了，是不是？” |
| Not only her face, but her whole body, gave a sense of alacrity. I nodded. I wondered if the poor devil had been hammered on the Stock Exchange or run over by an omnibus. "Isn't it dreadful? He's run away from his wife." Miss Waterford certainly felt that she could not do her subject justice on the curb of Jermyn Street, and so, like an artist, flung the bare fact at me and declared that she knew no details. I could not do her the injustice of supposing that so trifling a circumstance would have prevented her from giving them, but she was obstinate. "I tell you I know nothing," she said, in reply to my agitated questions, and then, with an airy shrug of the shoulders: "I believe that a young person in a city tea-shop has left her situation." | 不僅她的麵孔，而且她的整個身體給人一種欣然快樂，迫不及待的感覺。我點了點頭。我懷疑那個可憐的家夥要麽是在證券交易所折了本，要麽是讓公共汽車軋傷了。 “難道這還不夠嚇人嗎？他丟下老婆跑了。” 沃小姐肯定覺得，在哲敏街的馬路牙子上討論這個話題有失公允，於是她像藝術家那樣拋出赤裸裸的事實，然後聲明她對此事的詳情一無所知。如果假定隻是因為這樣一種隨隨便便的環境妨礙她透露此事的細節，我還真不能冤枉她，但她卻固執己見。 “我跟你說了，我一無所知，”針對我焦躁不安的問題，她回答道，然後漫不經心地兩肩一聳說道：“我敢肯定倫敦的某家茶館有個年輕姑娘已經離職了。” |
| She flashed a smile at me, and, protesting an engagement with her dentist, jauntily walked on. I was more interested than distressed. In those days my experience of life at first hand was small, and it excited me to come upon an incident among people I knew of the same sort as I had read in books. I confess that time has now accustomed me to incidents of this character among my acquaintance. But I was a little shocked. Strickland was certainly forty, and I thought it disgusting that a man of his age should concern himself with affairs of the heart. With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself. And this news was slightly disconcerting to me personally, because I had written from the country to Mrs. Strickland, announcing my return, and had added that unless I heard from her to the contrary, I would come on a certain day to drink a dish of tea with her. This was the very day, and I had received no word from Mrs. Strickland. Did she want to see me or did she not? It was likely enough that in the agitation of the moment my note had escaped her memory. Perhaps I should be wiser not to go. On the other hand, she might wish to keep the affair quiet, and it might be highly indiscreet on my part to give any sign that this strange news had reached me. I was torn between the fear of hurting a nice woman's feelings and the fear of being in the way. I felt she must be suffering, and I did not want to see a pain which I could not help; but in my heart was a desire, that I felt a little ashamed of, to see how she was taking it. I did not know what to do. | 她朝我閃過一絲笑容，鄭重聲明說她約了要去看牙，便洋洋得意地走了。我聽到剛才的那件事後，與其說傷心難過，倒不如說興致勃勃。在那些日子裏，我的生活閱曆很少，我過去在書本中看到過同類事件，現在竟然發生在我認識的人身上，我感到非常興奮。坦白說，在我認識的熟人中，此類事情已經是司空見慣了。但是我當時聽到這個消息後，還是感到有些震驚。司查爾那時肯定年已不惑，我認為到了他這把年紀的人再把自己牽扯到風流韻事中，著實令人感到惡心。當時我年少輕狂，妄自尊大，認為一個男人要想墜入愛河而且自己不出洋相，三十五歲就算是頂到頭的年齡極限了。這則新聞也令我個人感到有那麽一點不安，因為之前我在鄉下就給司太太寫了信，把我回倫敦的日期告訴了她，並且在信中還說，如果事與願違，我沒收到她的回信，我將在某一天去找她一起喝壺茶。那天我正好遇見沃小姐，可我並未收到司太太的任何音訊。她到底是想見我還是不想見我？她在心煩意亂時完全有可能把我信中所寫內容拋諸腦後了。也許我應該學乖一點，不去看望她。但另一方麵，她也許想息事寧人，要是從我這邊放出任何信號，說明這件怪事已經傳到我的耳朵裏了，那或許我就顯得太不謹慎小心了。我心裏非常糾結，既怕傷害這位討人喜歡的婦人的感情，又怕去了她家妨礙她的正常生活。我感覺她一定正在痛苦煎熬著，對於我無法幫助解決的痛苦，我不願去看；但在我心裏又非常渴望看到司太太如何承受這件事，對此想法我多少感到有些難為情。我不知該如何是好。 |
