雅各布的房间(外研社双语读库)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：Virginia Woolf 弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫

出版社：外语教学与研究出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

雅各布的房间(外研社双语读库)试读：

CHAPTER ONE

第一章

"So of course," wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, "there was nothing for it but to leave."“因此，当然,”贝蒂·弗兰德斯写道，同时将鞋跟踩入沙子更深的地方，“没有别的办法，只能离开了。”

Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib, pale blue ink dissolved the full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed, and tears slowly filled them. The entire bay quivered; the lighthouse wobbled; and she had the illusion that the mast of Mr. Connor's little yacht was bending like a wax candle in the sun. She winked quickly. Accidents were awful things. She winked again. The mast was straight; the waves were regular; the lighthouse was upright; but the blot had spread.

她的金笔停在句号上，从笔尖缓缓流出的淡蓝色墨水，将句号浸得一片模糊；她眼睛一动不动，泪水慢慢涌了上来。整个海湾都在颤抖；灯塔摇晃着；她有种幻觉——康纳先生小艇上的桅杆像烈日下晒软的蜡烛一样弯曲下来。她飞快地眨了眨眼睛。事故是很可怕的。她又眨了眨眼睛。桅杆笔直；海浪也并不汹涌；灯塔耸立；但墨渍已经漾开。

"...nothing for it but to leave," she read.“……没有别的办法，只能离开了。”她念道。

"Well, if Jacob doesn't want to play" (the shadow of Archer, her eldest son, fell across the notepaper and looked blue on the sand, and she felt chilly—it was the third of September already), "if Jacob doesn't want to play"—what a horrid blot! It must be getting late.“哎，如果雅各布不想玩的话”（她的长子阿彻的影子横落在便笺上，影子在沙地上的部分则呈蓝色，她感到了凉意——已是九月三号了），“如果雅各布不想玩的话”——多可怕的一滩墨渍！时候肯定不早了。

"Where IS that tiresome little boy?" she said. "I don't see him. Run and find him. Tell him to come at once." "...but mercifully," she scribbled, ignoring the full stop, "everything seems satisfactorily arranged, packed though we are like herrings in a barrel, and forced to stand the perambulator which the landlady quite naturally won't allow...."“那讨厌的小鬼在哪儿呢？”她问。“我没见着他。跑去找找他。叫他马上过来。”“……幸好，”她不理会那团句号，潦草地写道，“似乎一切都安排得令人满意，尽管我们像木桶里的鲱鱼一样挤着，还要被迫忍受那辆婴儿车，房东太太打心眼儿里不同意……”

Such were Betty Flanders's letters to Captain Barfoot—many-paged, tear-stained. Scarborough is seven hundred miles from Cornwall: Captain Barfoot is in Scarborough: Seabrook is dead. Tears made all the dahlias in her garden undulate in red waves and flashed the glass house in her eyes, and spangled the kitchen with bright knives, and made Mrs. Jarvis, the rector's wife, think at church, while the hymn-tune played and Mrs. Flanders bent low over her little boys' heads, that marriage is a fortress and widows stray solitary in the open fields, picking up stones, gleaning a few golden straws, lonely, unprotected, poor creatures. Mrs. Flanders had been a widow for these two years.

这就是贝蒂·弗兰德斯写给巴富特上尉的信——洋洋洒洒数页，上面泪痕斑斑。斯卡伯勒距康沃尔有七百英里：巴富特上尉就在斯卡伯勒：西布鲁克已经过世了。泪光中，她花园里的大丽花起起伏伏，宛若红色的波浪，玻璃暖房在她眼中反射出光芒，刀具在厨房里闪烁着光芒——这让教区牧师的妻子贾维斯太太想到在教堂是，当圣歌的曲调响起，弗兰德斯太太向她的小家伙们低低地俯下身的情景——婚姻是个堡垒，寡妇们则孤零零地游荡在旷野上，捡些石块，拾几根金黄色的麦秆，孤独，无依，可怜的人儿。弗兰德斯太太守寡已有两个年头了。

"Ja—cob! Ja—cob!" Archer shouted.“雅——各布！雅——各布！”阿彻高声呼喊。

"Scarborough," Mrs. Flanders wrote on the envelope, and dashed a bold line beneath; it was her native town; the hub of the universe. But a stamp? She ferreted in her bag; then held it up mouth downwards; then fumbled in her lap, all so vigorously that Charles Steele in the Panama hat suspended his paint-brush.“斯卡巴勒。”弗兰德斯太太在信封上写道，并在下面匆匆划上一条粗线；那是她的故乡；在波士顿市。可邮票呢？她在先手提包里翻找，后来又把包整个翻过来，在兜裙里找着。她找得如此充满激情，使得戴着巴拿马草帽的查尔斯·斯蒂尔停下了手中的画笔。

Like the antennae of some irritable insect it positively trembled. Here was that woman moving—actually going to get up—confound her! He struck the canvas a hasty violet-black dab. For the landscape needed it. It was too pale—greys flowing into lavenders, and one star or a white gull suspended just so—too pale as usual. The critics would say it was too pale, for he was an unknown man exhibiting obscurely, a favourite with his landladies' children, wearing a cross on his watch chain, and much gratified if his landladies liked his pictures—which they often did.

那画笔像是某种受到刺激的昆虫的触须，剧烈地颤抖着。看，那个女人在移动——竟然还要站起来——她可真讨厌！他匆匆地在画布上抹下少许墨紫色。这是绘画需要。颜色过于苍白——灰色汇成淡紫色，一颗星或是一只白色的海鸥鸥就这样悬着——和以前一样，太苍白了。批评家们会说颜色太过苍白，因为他是一个无名小卒，不过他深受房东太太们的孩子们喜爱。他在表链上挂了个十字架。如果房东太太们喜欢他的画，他就感到十分欣慰——她们通常都是喜欢的。

"Ja—cob! Ja—cob!" Archer shouted.“雅——各布！雅——各布！”阿彻大声叫着。

Exasperated by the noise, yet loving children, Steele picked nervously at the dark little coils on his palette.

这噪声让斯蒂尔很恼火，不过他很喜爱小孩子，就神经质地抓弄着调色板上黑色的小线圈。

"I saw your brother—I saw your brother," he said, nodding his head, as Archer lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling at the old gentleman in spectacles.“我瞧见你弟弟了——我瞧见你弟弟了。”当阿彻拖着铲子，慢慢吞吞地从他身边走过，还一脸不悦地瞪着他这个戴眼镜的老先生时，他点着头说道。

"Over there—by the rock," Steele muttered, with his brush between his teeth, squeezing out raw sienna, and keeping his eyes fixed on Betty Flanders's back.“在那边——岩石边上。”斯蒂尔叼着画笔喃喃说道，同时挤出些黄赭色的颜料，而眼睛却盯着贝蒂·弗兰德斯的后背。

"Ja-cob! Ja-cob!" shouted Archer, lagging on after a second.“雅——各布！雅——各布！”阿彻高声喊道，不一会儿就继续慢吞吞地向前挪。

The voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from all passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking against rocks—so it sounded.

那声音里有着一种不寻常的忧伤。这声音听上去就像是挣脱了所有的躯壳，不带一丁点儿激情，进入这尘世间，孤单而没有回应，撞碎在岩石之上。

Steele frowned; but was pleased by the effect of the black—it was just THAT note which brought the rest together. "Ah, one may learn to paint at fifty! There's Titian..." and so, having found the right tint, up he looked and saw to his horror a cloud over the bay.

斯蒂尔蹙起眉头；不过他对黑色的效果还是满意的——这就是将其他颜色调和在一起的那种色彩。“啊，人到了五十岁还能学画画呢！有提香的影子……。”找到合适的色彩后，他抬起头来，却惊恐地发现海湾上空压着一层云团。

Mrs. Flanders rose, slapped her coat this side and that to get the sand off, and picked up her black parasol.

弗兰德斯太太站起身，左右拍打掉外套上的沙子，然后拿起她黑色的阳伞。

The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top.

那块岩石是那种褐色的，更确切地说是黑色的，从沙地中冒出来，像是某些原始的东西。褶皱层叠的帽贝使岩石十分粗糙不平，还有几绺干海藻散落其间，小男孩必须把双腿伸得很开开，并且确实还要有点英雄气概，才能爬到岩石顶上。

But there, on the very top, is a hollow full of water, with a sandy bottom; with a blob of jelly stuck to the side, and some mussels. A fish darts across. The fringe of yellow-brown seaweed flutters, and out pushes an opal-shelled crab—

而岩石顶端有一个蓄满水的凹坑，坑底铺满沙子；坑边上粘着一团胶状物和一些贻贝。一条鱼儿倏地横穿而过。黄褐色的海藻的边缘飘舞着，有一只白壳螃蟹爬了出来。

"Oh, a huge crab," Jacob murmured—and begins his journey on weakly legs on the sandy bottom. Now! Jacob plunged his hand. The crab was cool and very light. But the water was thick with sand, and so, scrambling down, Jacob was about to jump, holding his bucket in front of him, when he saw, stretched entirely rigid, side by side, their faces very red, an enormous man and woman.“噢，一只大螃蟹。”雅各布小声嘀咕道——然后用柔弱的腿脚踩在坑底的沙上，开始了他的探险。就在这时，雅各布猛地将手扎进水里。这螃蟹凉凉的，很轻。可是水因沙的缘故变得浑浊了，于是雅各布要爬下岩石，他将小桶举在胸前，正要往下跳时，看见一对块头很大的男人和女人，肩并肩直挺挺地躺着，他们的脸很红。

An enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched motionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side, within a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls gracefully skirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.

这身形巨大的一男一女（这是提早收工的日子）并排躺在距海水几英尺的地方，一动不动，他们的脑袋枕在手绢上；三两只海鸥优雅地避开涌上滩岸的海浪，落在他们靴子旁边。

The large red faces lying on the bandanna handkerchiefs stared up at Jacob. Jacob stared down at them. Holding his bucket very carefully, Jacob then jumped deliberately and trotted away very nonchalantly at first, but faster and faster as the waves came creaming up to him and he had to swerve to avoid them, and the gulls rose in front of him and floated out and settled again a little farther on. A large black woman was sitting on the sand. He ran towards her.

枕着印花大手帕的那两张红通通的大脸庞向上盯着雅各布。雅各布向下盯着他们。雅各布小心翼翼地提着他的小桶，不慌不忙地跳了下来，先是从容不迫地一路小跑，然后越跑越快，因为他不得不闪来闪去以避开向他涌来的海浪泡沫，海鸥在他前方飞起，停在稍远一点的地方。沙滩上坐着一位身形硕大的黑人妇女。他朝她跑去。

"Nanny! Nanny!" he cried, sobbing the words out on the crest of each gasping breath.“奶奶！奶奶！”他上气不接下气地大声喊道。

The waves came round her. She was a rock. She was covered with the seaweed which pops when it is pressed. He was lost.

海浪涌向她的四周。她是块岩石。岩石上覆盖着海藻，那海藻一被摁下去就噗噗作响。雅各布迷路了。

There he stood. His face composed itself. He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull—perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held the skull in his arms.

他站在那里。神色镇定了下来。当他正准备大喊的时候，瞅见了在悬崖下乌漆麻黑的树枝稻草间，有一块完整的头骨——可能是块牛头骨，上面可能还带着牙齿。他仍在抽泣着，但是已经有些心不在焉了。他越跑越远，直到将那块头骨抱在怀里。

"There he is!" cried Mrs. Flanders, coming round the rock and covering the whole space of the beach in a few seconds. "What has he got hold of? Put it down, Jacob! Drop it this moment! Something horrid, I know. Why didn't you stay with us? Naughty little boy! Now put it down. Now come along both of you," and she swept round, holding Archer by one hand and fumbling for Jacob's arm with the other. But he ducked down and picked up the sheep's jaw, which was loose.“他在那里！”弗兰德斯太太叫道。几秒钟的时间，她就穿过整个海滩，绕到了岩石这边。“他拿的是什么？放下，雅各布！马上扔掉！我就知道是个可怕的东西。为什么不和我们待在一起？捣蛋的小鬼！立刻扔掉那东西。现在，你们两个跟我走。”她说着，迅速走过来，一只手牵起阿彻，另一只摸索着去抓雅各布的手臂。可他身子一蹲闪开了，然后拾起散了架的羊颚骨。

Swinging her bag, clutching her parasol, holding Archer's hand, and telling the story of the gunpowder explosion in which poor Mr. Curnow had lost his eye, Mrs. Flanders hurried up the steep lane, aware all the time in the depths of her mind of some buried discomfort.

弗兰德斯太太甩着手提包，紧握遮阳伞，抓着阿彻的手，讲述着那起使可怜的克诺先生失去了一只眼睛的火药爆炸的事故，她急匆匆地走在陡峭的小路上，觉察到内心深处总有某种潜在的不安。

There on the sand not far from the lovers lay the old sheep's skull without its jaw. Clean, white, wind-swept, sand-rubbed, a more unpolluted piece of bone existed nowhere on the coast of Cornwall. The sea holly would grow through the eye-sockets; it would turn to powder, or some golfer, hitting his ball one fine day, would disperse a little dust—No, but not in lodgings, thought Mrs. Flanders. It's a great experiment coming so far with young children. There's no man to help with the perambulator. And Jacob is such a handful; so obstinate already.

一块缺了下颌的老羊头骨被搁置在离那对恋人不远的沙滩上。干净、洁白、风蚀、沙磨，在康沃尔的海滩上，再也找不到比这更洁净的骨头了。海冬青将会从它的眼眶里长出来；它会化为齑粉，或者在一个风和日丽的日子，某位高尔夫球手击球时会打散一块小小的遗骸 ——不，不在出租的房间里，弗兰德斯太太想道。带着年幼的孩子们来到这么远的地方，真是个伟大的冒险。没有男人帮忙收拾婴儿车。况且雅各布这样难以控制；他已经这么倔强了。

"Throw it away, dear, do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her; and the wind rising, she took out her bonnet-pin, looked at the sea, and stuck it in afresh. The wind was rising. The waves showed that uneasiness, like something alive, restive, expecting the whip, of waves before a storm. The fishing-boats were leaning to the water's brim. A pale yellow light shot across the purple sea; and shut. The lighthouse was lit. "Come along," said Betty Flanders. The sun blazed in their faces and gilded the great blackberries trembling out from the hedge which Archer tried to strip as they passed.“扔掉它，亲爱的，扔掉。”当他们走到马路上时，她说道；但雅各布扭着身子跑开了；起风了，她望着大海，拿出帽子的别针，重新别好。起风了。海浪显示出那种风暴前的焦躁，像是个有生命的东西，躁动不安，认定波浪会如皮鞭般落下。渔船倾斜着，齐着水面。一道淡黄色的光迅速掠过紫色的海面；又灭了。灯塔亮了起来。“跟上。”贝蒂·弗兰德斯说道。太阳映照在他们的脸上，树篱笆后颤巍巍地伸出来的硕大的黑莓被镀上了金边。当他们路过时，阿彻试图将黑莓都摘下来。

"Don't lag, boys. You've got nothing to change into," said Betty, pulling them along, and looking with uneasy emotion at the earth displayed so luridly, with sudden sparks of light from greenhouses in gardens, with a sort of yellow and black mutability, against this blazing sunset, this astonishing agitation and vitality of colour, which stirred Betty Flanders and made her think of responsibility and danger. She gripped Archer's hand. On she plodded up the hill.“别磨蹭，孩子们。你们可是没衣裳换了。”贝蒂说着，拉起他们往前走，她带着不安的情绪看着大地呈现出如此的耀眼光彩，花园里的温室突然光芒四射，黄色黑色交错变换，映衬着这耀眼的晚霞，这色彩剧烈变化，活力惊人，令贝蒂激动起来，使她想到了责任和危险。她紧紧握住阿彻的手，步履沉重地向山上走去。

"What did I ask you to remember?" she said.“我要你们记住什么？”她问道。

"I don't know," said Archer.“我不知道。”阿彻回答。

"Well, I don't know either," said Betty, humorously and simply, and who shall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion, mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing daring, humour, and sentimentality—who shall deny that in these respects every woman is nicer than any man?“好吧，我也不知道。”贝蒂幽默而简洁地说道。谁能否认，当这种思想的空白，和丰富充沛，天生智慧，无稽之谈，偶然之道，惊人鲁莽的瞬间，诙谐幽默，以及多愁善感结合在一起时——谁能否认，在这些方面每一个女人都比男人更优越些？

Well, Betty Flanders, to begin with.

哦，首先，贝蒂·弗兰蒂斯就是这样。

She had her hand upon the garden gate.

她已将手放在了花园的大门上。

"The meat!" she exclaimed, striking the latch down.“肉！”她惊呼起来，扳下门栓。

She had forgotten the meat.

她把肉给忘了。

There was Rebecca at the window.

窗边站着丽贝卡。

The bareness of Mrs. Pearce's front room was fully displayed at ten o'clock at night when a powerful oil lamp stood on the middle of the table. The harsh light fell on the garden; cut straight across the lawn; lit up a child's bucket and a purple aster and reached the hedge. Mrs. Flanders had left her sewing on the table. There were her large reels of white cotton and her steel spectacles; her needle-case; her brown wool wound round an old postcard. There were the bulrushes and the Strand magazines; and the linoleum sandy from the boys' boots. A daddy-long-legs shot from corner to corner and hit the lamp globe. The wind blew straight dashes of rain across the window, which flashed silver as they passed through the light. A single leaf tapped hurriedly, persistently, upon the glass. There was a hurricane out at sea.

夜晚十点钟的时候，当一盏明晃晃的油灯立在桌子中央时，皮尔斯太太前屋的空荡就暴露无遗。刺眼的灯光落到花园上，径直切过草地；照亮了一个孩童的提桶和一丛紫菀，然后落在树篱上。桌子上留着弗兰德斯太太的针线活。上面有她的大卷轴白棉线和钢制眼镜；她的针线盒；她的缠绕在旧明信片上的棕色绒线。还有一些香蒲和几本《海滨》杂志；地板油毡上留有从孩子们的靴子上掉下的沙粒。一只长腿昆虫从一个角落窜向另一个角落，然后撞在了圆灯罩上。风裹挟着雨直扫过窗前，吹过灯光时闪出银光。一片孤叶急促而持续地拍打着窗玻璃。外面的海上刮起飓风。

Archer could not sleep.

阿彻无法入睡。

Mrs. Flanders stooped over him. "Think of the fairies," said Betty Flanders. "Think of the lovely, lovely birds settling down on their nests. Now shut your eyes and see the old mother bird with a worm in her beak. Now turn and shut your eyes," she murmured, "and shut your eyes."

弗兰德斯太太朝他俯下身。“想想仙女吧。”贝蒂·弗兰德斯说道。“想想可爱的、可爱的鸟儿安住在他们的巢里。现在，闭上眼睛，想想年老的鸟妈妈嘴里叼着一只虫子。现在，翻个身，闭上眼睛。”她喃喃说道，“闭上眼睛。”

The lodging-house seemed full of gurgling and rushing; the cistern overflowing; water bubbling and squeaking and running along the pipes and streaming down the windows.

这间出租屋好像充斥着水流的汩汩声和冲刷声；蓄水池的水正往外溢；水发出噗噗吱吱的声响，顺着管道沿着窗户流了下来。

"What's all that water rushing in?" murmured Archer.“怎么了，水都涌进来了吗？”阿彻喃喃问道。

"It's only the bath water running away," said Mrs. Flanders.“不过是在放掉洗澡水而已。”弗兰德斯太太说道。

Something snapped out of doors.

门外有什么东西啪地一响。

"I say, won't that steamer sink?" said Archer, opening his eyes.“哎呀，难道那条汽船不会沉吗？”阿彻睁开眼睛说道。

"Of course it won't," said Mrs. Flanders."The Captain's in bed long ago.Shut your eyes, and think of the fairies, fast asleep, under the flowers."“当然不会，”弗兰德斯太太回答道，“船长早就睡了。闭上眼睛，想想在花丛下酣睡的仙女。”

"I thought he'd never get off—such a hurricane," she whispered to Rebecca, who was bending over a spirit-lamp in the small room next door. The wind rushed outside, but the small flame of the spirit-lamp burnt quietly, shaded from the cot by a book stood on edge.“我还以为他永远都不会睡着呢——多大的风暴啊。”她轻声对丽贝卡说，丽贝卡正在隔壁的小房间里弯身俯向一盏酒精灯。屋外的风呼呼作响，但酒精灯的小小火焰静静地燃烧着，旁边立着一本书，挡住了射向婴儿床的光线。

"Did he take his bottle well?" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca nodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders bent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The window shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.“他奶吃得还好吗？”弗兰德斯太太轻声问道，丽贝卡点点头，走到婴儿床边，将被子往下拉了拉，弗兰德斯太太俯下身，忧虑地看着婴儿，孩子睡着了，却蹙着眉头。窗户在摇晃，丽贝卡像只猫一样悄悄地走过去，将窗楔紧。

The two women murmured over the spirit-lamp, plotting the eternal conspiracy of hush and clean bottles while the wind raged and gave a sudden wrench at the cheap fastenings.

酒精灯的上方，两个女人窃窃私语，策划着关于哄孩子、刷奶瓶的无休无止的阴谋，此时狂风怒吼，不时地突袭拧扯着廉价的门栓。

Both looked round at the cot. Their lips were pursed. Mrs. Flanders crossed over to the cot.

两人都扭头看婴儿床。她们的嘴唇都噘着。弗兰德斯太太走到了婴儿床边。

"Asleep?" whispered Rebecca, looking at the cot.“睡着的吧？”丽贝卡看着婴儿床，小声地问。

Mrs. Flanders nodded.

弗兰德斯太太点点头。

"Good-night, Rebecca," Mrs. Flanders murmured, and Rebecca called her ma'm, though they were conspirators plotting the eternal conspiracy of hush and clean bottles.“晚安，丽贝卡。”弗兰德斯太太低声说道，而丽贝卡则称呼她为夫人，尽管她们两人刚刚共同谋划关于哄孩子和刷奶瓶的无止尽的阴谋。

Mrs. Flanders had left the lamp burning in the front room. There were her spectacles, her sewing; and a letter with the Scarborough postmark. She had not drawn the curtains either.

弗兰德斯太太还没熄掉前屋的灯。那儿有她的眼镜，她的针线活儿；还有一封盖有斯卡巴勒邮戳的信。她也还没拉上窗帘。

The light blazed out across the patch of grass; fell on the child's green bucket with the gold line round it, and upon the aster which trembled violently beside it. For the wind was tearing across the coast, hurling itself at the hills, and leaping, in sudden gusts, on top of its own back. How it spread over the town in the hollow! How the lights seemed to wink and quiver in its fury, lights in the harbour, lights in bedroom windows high up! And rolling dark waves before it, it raced over the Atlantic, jerking the stars above the ships this way and that.

灯光照亮了整块小草坪；落在孩子那带有金色线圈的绿色小桶上，落在小桶旁边那丛剧烈摇摆的紫菀上。这是因为，狂风横扫过海岸，撞向山岗，阵阵强风突然袭来，一浪高过一浪。这风暴是如何横扫过这座山谷里的小城的啊！在狂暴的风中，这些灯光如何地闪动颤抖啊，海港的灯光，卧室高窗里的灯光！狂风推着黑色的海浪，疾驰着穿越大西洋，猛地拽着轮船上空的星星，忽而扯向这边，忽而扯向那边。

There was a click in the front sitting-room. Mr. Pearce had extinguished the lamp. The garden went out. It was but a dark patch. Every inch was rained upon. Every blade of grass was bent by rain. Eyelids would have been fastened down by the rain. Lying on one's back one would have seen nothing but muddle and confusion—clouds turning and turning, and something yellow-tinted and sulphurous in the darkness.

前边的起居室里传来咔嗒一声。皮尔斯先生已经熄灯了。花园消失了。不过是漆黑一片。大雨滂沱，寸土尽染。每一片草叶都被雨水打得趴下了腰。眼皮也会被雨水紧扣。如果仰面躺下，你什么也看不见，唯有困惑和混乱——云团不断翻卷，黑暗中有种东西略显黄色和硫磺色。

The little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and lay under the sheets. It was hot; rather sticky and steamy. Archer lay spread out, with one arm striking across the pillow. He was flushed; and when the heavy curtain blew out a little he turned and half-opened his eyes. The wind actually stirred the cloth on the chest of drawers, and let in a little light, so that the sharp edge of the chest of drawers was visible, running straight up, until a white shape bulged out; and a silver streak showed in the looking-glass.

前边的卧室里，小家伙们踢掉了毛毯，躺在被单下。天气很热；相当闷热潮湿。阿彻一只胳膊横在枕头上，四仰八叉地躺着。他面色潮红；当厚重的窗帘被吹开一条缝时，他翻了个身，半睁着眼睛。风居然吹开了五斗柜的罩布，一些光线溜了进来，因此能看见五斗柜轮廓分明的边沿，笔直向上，直至一块白色的凸起物；并在镜子里映出一道银色的条痕。

In the other bed by the door Jacob lay asleep, fast asleep, profoundly unconscious. The sheep's jaw with the big yellow teeth in it lay at his feet. He had kicked it against the iron bed-rail.

雅各布睡在门边的另一张床上，睡得很香，一点儿知觉也没有。那只带有大黄牙的羊下颌骨搁在他的脚边。他已经把它踢到了床的铁栏杆边上。

Outside the rain poured down more directly and powerfully as the wind fell in the early hours of the morning. The aster was beaten to the earth. The child's bucket was half-full of rainwater; and the opal-shelled crab slowly circled round the bottom, trying with its weakly legs to climb the steep side; trying again and falling back, and trying again and again.

凌晨时分，风势减弱，而雨势愈加猛烈了，直直地倾盆而下。紫菀丛被雨打得贴在了地上。孩子的小提桶里注了半桶雨水；白壳螃蟹缓缓地在桶底绕圈儿爬行，试图用无力的腿脚攀爬陡峭的桶壁，屡试屡败，又屡败屡试。

CHAPTER TWO

第二章

"MRS.FLANDERS"—"Poor Betty Flanders"—"Dear Betty"—"She's very attractive still"—"Odd she don't marry again!" "There's Captain Barfoot to be sure—calls every Wednesday as regular as clockwork, and never brings his wife.”“弗兰德斯太太”——“可怜的贝蒂·弗兰德斯”——“亲爱的贝蒂”——“她依然很迷人”——“奇怪，她怎么没有再婚！”“没错，是有个巴富特上尉——每周三都去拜访她，雷打不动，而且从来不带他的妻子。”

"But that's Ellen Barfoot's fault," the ladies of Scarborough said."She don't put herself out for no one."“但那是埃伦·巴富特的不是，”斯卡巴勒的女士们说道，“她不会替别人考虑。”

"A man likes to have a son—that we know.”“男人都想要个儿子——这我们都知道。”

"Some tumours have to be cut; but the sort my mother had you bear with for years and years, and never even have a cup of tea brought up to you in bed."“有的瘤子一定得切除；但我母亲得的那种，就得年复一年地忍受，卧病在床甚至都没人端杯茶过来。”

(Mrs. Barfoot was an invalid.)（巴富特太太是个病人。）

Elizabeth Flanders, of whom this and much more than this had been said and would be said, was, of course, a widow in her prime. She was half-way between forty and fifty. Years and sorrow between them; the death of Seabrook, her husband; three boys; poverty; a house on the outskirts of Scarborough; her brother, poor Morty's, downfall and possible demise— for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she looked along the road for Captain Barfoot—yes, there he was, punctual as ever; the attentions of the Captain—all ripened Betty Flanders, enlarged her figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes for no reason that any one could see perhaps three times a day.

这些闲言碎语所提及的人正是伊丽莎白·弗兰德斯，关于她的评论还不止这些，过去一直有人说，将来还会继续说下去。当然了，她是个风华正茂的寡妇。她的年龄介于四十到五十岁之间。这些年满是岁月的流逝和悲伤：她丈夫西布鲁克的死亡；三个年幼的男孩；穷困；一所在斯卡巴勒郊区的房子；她的兄弟，可怜的莫迪，潦倒不堪，可能已经不在人世了——他在哪儿呢？他干些什么工作？她用手遮着眼睛，顺着马路寻找巴富特上尉的身影——是的，他来了，一如既往地准时；上尉的殷勤使贝蒂·弗兰德斯愈发成熟，使她体态丰满，面带欢颜，任谁都可能一天三次地看见她眼里无端端溢满泪水。

True, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone, though plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the widow brought her boys to stand there one felt kindly towards her. Hats were raised higher than usual; wives tugged their husbands' arms. Seabrook lay six foot beneath, dead these many years; enclosed in three shells; the crevices sealed with lead, so that, had earth and wood been glass, doubtless his very face lay visible beneath, the face of a young man whiskered, shapely, who had gone out duck-shooting and refused to change his boots.

的确，为自己的丈夫哭泣无伤大雅，而且他丈夫的墓碑尽管普通，却也十分牢实，夏日里，当寡妇带着儿子们站在墓碑前时，人们都对她示以友好。帽子举得比平时要高些；妻子们挽着自己丈夫的臂弯。西布鲁克躺在六英尺黄土之下，已经去世好些个年头了；他被包裹在三层的保护壳里；缝隙处都用铅封上，这样，如果泥土和棺木是玻璃的话，毫无疑问，他埋在下面的脸清晰可见——一张年轻男子的脸，络腮胡子，样貌端正，他曾经外出打野鸭，还拒绝换靴子。

"Merchant of this city," the tombstone said; though why Betty Flanders had chosen so to call him when, as many still remembered, he had only sat behind an office window for three months, and before that had broken horses, ridden to hounds, farmed a few fields, and run a little wild— well, she had to call him something. An example for the boys.

墓碑上刻着“本市的商人”几个字；贝蒂·弗兰德斯也不知道为什么选择这个职业来称呼他，许多人仍然记得，他仅仅在办公室的玻璃窗下坐过三个月而已，此前驯过马，带着猎犬狩过猎，种过几亩地，有点儿不羁——嗯，她总得给他一个称呼。为孩子们树个榜样。

Had he, then, been nothing? An unanswerable question, since even if it weren't the habit of the undertaker to close the eyes, the light so soon goes out of them. At first, part of herself; now one of a company, he had merged in the grass, the sloping hillside, the thousand white stones, some slanting, others upright, the decayed wreaths, the crosses of green tin, the narrow yellow paths, and the lilacs that drooped in April, with a scent like that of an invalid's bedroom, over the churchyard wall. Seabrook was now all that; and when, with her skirt hitched up, feeding the chickens, she heard the bell for service or funeral, that was Seabrook's voice—the voice of the dead.

那么，他是否是个无名小卒呢？这是个无法回答的问题，因为即使送葬人没有给死者合眼的习惯，那眼里的光芒也很快就熄灭了。起初，他是她的一部分；现在，他已经融进青草地、斜山坡、上千块白石碑（有些歪斜着，有些直立着），朽了的花圈，绿色锡皮做的十字架，狭窄的黄色小道，以及凋零在四月天的丁香花（花朵带着病人卧室的气味，探出了墓地墙头）之中，成为了他们中的一员。现在，西布鲁克就是所有这一切；而当她提起裙摆去喂鸡，听见做礼拜或举行葬礼的钟声时，那就是西布鲁克的声音——亡者之声。

The rooster had been known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went to feed the fowls.

那只公鸡总是飞上她的肩膀啄她的脖子，所以现在她去喂鸡时，会带上一只木棍或是一个孩子。

"Wouldn't you like my knife, mother?" said Archer. Sounding at the same moment as the bell, her son's voice mixed life and death inextricably, exhilaratingly.“妈妈，你不喜欢我的刀子吗？”阿彻问道。儿子的声音与钟声同时响起，将生与死交织在一起，无法剥离，令人亢奋。

"What a big knife for a small boy!" she said. She took it to please him. Then the rooster flew out of the hen-house, and, shouting to Archer to shut the door into the kitchen garden, Mrs. Flanders set her meal down, clucked for the hens, went bustling about the orchard, and was seen from over the way by Mrs. Cranch, who, beating her mat against the wall, held it for a moment suspended while she observed to Mrs. Page next door that Mrs. Flanders was in the orchard with the chickens.“对一个小男孩来说，这把刀可太大了！”她说道。为了让他高兴，她接过了刀。此时，那只公鸡飞出了鸡窝，弗兰德斯太太大声喊着让阿彻关上通往菜园子的门，她放下鸡食，咯咯地唤着母鸡，又到果园里忙活。路对面的克兰奇太太正往墙上拍打垫子，她望见了弗兰德斯太太，便拿着垫子停了一会儿，对隔壁的佩奇太太说，弗兰德斯太太和鸡在果园里。

Mrs. Page, Mrs. Cranch, and Mrs. Garfit could see Mrs. Flanders in the orchard because the orchard was a piece of Dods Hill enclosed; and Dods Hill dominated the village. No words can exaggerate the importance of Dods Hill. It was the earth; the world against the sky; the horizon of how many glances can best be computed by those who have lived all their lives in the same village, only leaving it once to fight in the Crimea, like old George Garfit, leaning over his garden gate smoking his pipe. The progress of the sun was measured by it; the tint of the day laid against it to be judged.

佩奇太太、克兰奇太太和加菲特太太都能看见弗兰德斯太太在果园里，因为那果园是在多兹山上圈出来的一块地；而多兹山则俯视着全村。多兹山的重要性，无论怎样强调都不为过。它是大地；是天底下的世界；最好算算有多少人终身生活在这个村落里，那是他们目所能及的地平线，他们唯一一次离开，是为了参加克里米亚战争，那位依靠在自家花园大门上吸着烟斗的老乔治·加菲特就是如此。多兹山衡量着太阳的东升西落；投射在多兹山上的白昼的色彩是判断的标准。

"Now she's going up the hill with little John," said Mrs. Cranch to Mrs. Garfit, shaking her mat for the last time, and bustling indoors. Opening the orchard gate, Mrs. Flanders walked to the top of Dods Hill, holding John by the hand. Archer and Jacob ran in front or lagged behind; but they were in the Roman fortress when she came there, and shouting out what ships were to be seen in the bay. For there was a magnificent view —moors behind, sea in front, and the whole of Scarborough from one end to the other laid out flat like a puzzle. Mrs. Flanders, who was growing stout, sat down in the fortress and looked about her.“现在她正带着小约翰往山上去呢。”克兰奇太太对加菲特太太说着，最后一次抖了抖手中的垫子，然后匆匆回屋去了。弗兰德斯太太打开果园的门，牵着约翰的手，向多兹山顶走去。阿彻和雅各布时而跑到前头，时而又落在后面；当她到达山顶时，他们已经在那座罗马堡垒里了，他们大声说在海湾里将会看见什么轮船。这里的景致十分壮丽——后头是沼泽地，前面是大海，而整个斯卡巴勒，从这一头到那一头，像块拼图一样平躺在眼前。有点儿发福的弗兰德斯太太在堡垒中坐下，四下观望。

The entire gamut of the view's changes should have been known to her; its winter aspect, spring, summer and autumn; how storms came up from the sea; how the moors shuddered and brightened as the clouds went over; she should have noted the red spot where the villas were building; and the criss-cross of lines where the allotments were cut; and the diamond flash of little glass houses in the sun. Or, if details like these escaped her, she might have let her fancy play upon the gold tint of the sea at sunset, and thought how it lapped in coins of gold upon the shingle. Little pleasure boats shoved out into it; the black arm of the pier hoarded it up. The whole city was pink and gold; domed; mist-wreathed; resonant; strident. Banjoes strummed; the parade smelt of tar which stuck to the heels; goats suddenly cantered their carriages through crowds. It was observed how well the Corporation had laid out the flower-beds. Sometimes a straw hat was blown away. Tulips burnt in the sun. Numbers of sponge-bag trousers were stretched in rows. Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs. Triangular hoardings were wheeled along by men in white coats. Captain George Boase had caught a monster shark. One side of the triangular hoarding said so in red, blue, and yellow letters; and each line ended with three differently coloured notes of exclamation.

这景致的变换，她早已全然知晓；它冬天的景致，春天，夏天和秋天；海上如何卷起风暴；云团翻滚之时，沼泽地是如何地战栗又快活；她应该留意到了那片红色的地方，在那里别墅群正拔地而起；那纵横交错的界线把分配的地块分隔开；阳光下小小的温室发出钻石般的光芒。或者，如果她没留意到这些细节的话，她应该让自己的想象力在落日时分驰骋于泛着金光的大海上，思量着大海是如何用金币拍打着岸上的鹅卵石的。几个小小的游船被推进了大海；码头那黝黑臂弯将大海收拢起来。整个城市都是粉红与金色相间的；半球形；云雾缭绕；空谷回音；尖锐刺耳。班卓琴漫不经心地弹奏着；游行的队伍有股粘在鞋跟上的柏油的气味；浪荡子们突然策马，马车慢跑着穿过人群。可以看见，公司将花坛布置得多么好啊。时不时有一顶草帽被风吹掉。阳光下，郁金香尽情绽放。许多穿着防水裤子的人成排成排地在沙滩上舒展身体。紫色的女式软帽包着一张张枕在沙滩椅枕头上的娇柔而粉嫩的脸，脸上满是牢骚。穿着白色上衣的男子们推着三角形的围板走过。乔治·博厄斯上尉曾捕到过一条巨鲨。在三角形围板的一面用红、蓝、黄三色的字这样写着；每一行的末尾都打上了三种不同颜色的感叹号。

So that was a reason for going down into the Aquarium, where the sallow blinds, the stale smell of spirits of salt, the bamboo chairs, the tables with ash-trays, the revolving fish, the attendant knitting behind six or seven chocolate boxes (often she was quite alone with the fish for hours at a time) remained in the mind as part of the monster shark, he himself being only a flabby yellow receptacle, like an empty Gladstone bag in a tank. No one had ever been cheered by the Aquarium; but the faces of those emerging quickly lost their dim, chilled expression when they perceived that it was only by standing in a queue that one could be admitted to the pier. Once through the turnstiles, every one walked for a yard or two very briskly; some flagged at this stall; others at that.

所以，这不失为下到水族馆里去的一个理由，那里灰黄色的百叶窗，盐酸的馊味，竹椅子，放着烟灰缸的桌子，来回游动的鱼，在六七个巧克力盒子后头织毛线的服务员（她常常一连数小时只和鱼呆在一块儿）作为巨鲨的一部分留存在脑海里，那巨鲨本身也仅仅是只软啪啪的黄色容器，就像是鱼池里一只空空的手提旅行包。从来没有人曾在水族馆里感到快乐过；但是当出现在这里的人们得知必须排队才能进入码头时，他们脸上暗淡、冰冷的表情一扫而光。一旦通过转门，每个人都非常轻快地走上个一两码的距离；一些在这个货摊上停停；一些在那些货摊上看看。

But it was the band that drew them all to it finally; even the fishermen on the lower pier taking up their pitch within its range.

但最终把他们都吸引过去的是乐队；就连更低处的码头的渔民也把他们的摊位搬至乐声所及的范围内。

The band played in the Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board. It was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse-dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same blurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at their feet they could see the green summer waves, peacefully, amiably, swaying round the iron pillars of the pier.

乐队在摩尔风格的亭子里表演。黑板上写着第九个曲目。是华尔兹。苍白的姑娘们，那个老寡妇，三个寄宿在同一家旅馆的犹太人，纨绔子弟，少校，贩马商，以及那位有着独立收入的绅士，他们所有人的脸上都是一副迷离的、麻木的表情，透过脚下木板的缝隙，他们可以看见夏日碧绿的波浪，波浪平静地、温柔地在码头的铁柱周围荡漾。

But there was a time when none of this had any existence (thought the young man leaning against the railings). Fix your eyes upon the lady's skirt; the grey one will do—above the pink silk stockings. It changes; drapes her ankles—the nineties; then it amplifies—the seventies; now it's burnished red and stretched above a crinoline—the sixties; a tiny black foot wearing a white cotton stocking peeps out. Still sitting there? Yes—she's still on the pier. The silk now is sprigged with roses, but somehow one no longer sees so clearly. There's no pier beneath us. The heavy chariot may swing along the turnpike road, but there's no pier for it to stop at, and how grey and turbulent the sea is in the seventeenth century! Let's to the museum. Cannon-balls; arrow-heads; Roman glass and a forceps green with verdigris. Jaspar Floyd dug them up at his own expense early in the forties in the Roman camp on Dods Hill—see the little ticket with the faded writing on it.

但是曾几何时，这一切都不存在（那位倚靠在栏杆上的年青人心里这样想）。将你的目光定格在女士的裙子上；那条灰色的就行——在粉红色长丝袜的上面。它在不断变化；盖过她的脚踝——是九十年代的；然后变肥大了——是七十年代的；现在它又闪着红光，舒展在衬裙架上——是六十年代的；一只穿着白色棉袜的小黑脚隐约地露了出来。还坐在那里吗？是的——她仍在码头上。现在的绸子上点缀着玫瑰花枝，但不知怎的，人们再也不能看得那么清晰了。我们脚下没有码头。沉重的四轮马车可以轻驰在付费公路上，但没有码头能让它停靠了，十七世纪的海洋是多么阴沉狂暴啊！我们去博物馆吧。加农炮弹；弓箭头；古罗马的杯子以及一把布满铜绿的钳子。早在四十年代，贾斯帕·弗洛伊德自己掏腰包在多兹山上的罗马营地里挖出了这些东西——看看这张字迹已经褪色的小标签。

And now, what's the next thing to see in Scarborough?

而现在，下一步该在斯卡巴勒看什么了？

Mrs. Flanders sat on the raised circle of the Roman camp, patching Jacob's breeches; only looking up as she sucked the end of her cotton, or when some insect dashed at her, boomed in her ear, and was gone.

弗兰德斯太太坐在罗马营地凸起的围场上，给雅各布缝马裤；仅仅在抿棉线头的时候，或当小飞虫朝她冲过来，在她耳边嗡嗡叫然后飞走的时候，她才抬眼看一看。

John kept trotting up and slapping down in her lap grass or dead leaves which he called "tea," and she arranged them methodically but absent-mindedly, laying the flowery heads of the grasses together, thinking how Archer had been awake again last night; the church clock was ten or thirteen minutes fast; she wished she could buy Garfit's acre.

约翰总是一路小跑，将他称作“茶”的草或者枯叶使劲塞进她的裙兜里，而她则有条不紊又心不在焉地把它们整理好，将小草带有花的一端放在一起，想着昨夜里阿彻怎么又醒了；教堂的钟快了十或十三分钟；她希望能买下加菲特的那一英亩地。

"That's an orchid leaf, Johnny. Look at the little brown spots. Come, my dear. We must go home.“那是片兰花叶子，约翰尼。看看这些褐色的小点点。过来，亲爱的。我们要回家了。

Ar-cher! Ja-cob!”"Ar-cher! Ja-cob!" Johnny piped after her, pivoting round on his heel, and strewing the grass and leaves in his hands as if he were sowing seed. Archer and Jacob jumped up from behind the mound where they had been crouching with the intention of springing upon their mother unexpectedly, and they all began to walk slowly home.

阿——彻！雅——各布！”“阿——彻！雅——各布！”约翰尼跟着她尖起嗓子喊，以脚跟为轴转着，一面撒着手中的草和叶子，好像他正在播种似的。阿彻和雅各布从一个土丘后面一跃而起，他们一直蹲伏在那里，打算出其不意吓妈妈一跳，他们开始慢慢地走回家去。

"Who is that?" said Mrs. Flanders, shading her eyes.“那人是谁？”弗兰德斯太太用手挡着眼睛问道。

"That old man in the road?" said Archer, looking below.“路上的那个老头儿吗？”阿彻边说边向下望。

"He's not an old man," said Mrs. Flanders. "He's—no, he's not—I thought it was the Captain, but it's Mr. Floyd. Come along, boys."“他不是老头儿。”弗兰德斯太太说。“他是——不，他不是——我以为是上尉，不过他是弗洛伊德先生。快点，孩子们。”

"Oh, bother Mr. Floyd!" said Jacob, switching off a thistle's head, for he knew already that Mr. Floyd was going to teach them Latin, as indeed he did for three years in his spare time, out of kindness, for there was no other gentleman in the neighbourhood whom Mrs. Flanders could have asked to do such a thing, and the elder boys were getting beyond her, and must be got ready for school, and it was more than most clergymen would have done, coming round after tea, or having them in his own room —as he could fit it in—for the parish was a very large one, and Mr. Floyd, like his father before him, visited cottages miles away on the moors, and, like old Mr. Floyd, was a great scholar, which made it so unlikely—she had never dreamt of such a thing. Ought she to have guessed? But let alone being a scholar he was eight years younger than she was. She knew his mother—old Mrs. Floyd. She had tea there. And it was that very evening when she came back from having tea with old Mrs. Floyd that she found the note in the hall and took it into the kitchen with her when she went to give Rebecca the fish, thinking it must be something about the boys.“哦，讨厌的弗洛德先生！”雅各布一面说一面将一根蓟草的顶上的部分拧下来，因为他已经知道弗洛伊德先生将要来教授他们拉丁文，而事实上，出于好心，他利用空余时间来教拉丁文已有三年了，因为在这一地区，弗兰德斯太太找不到其他先生来教孩子，她已经管不住两个大点儿的孩子了，而且她也必须准备送孩子上学了。在他能够挤出时间的时候——在下午茶后前来拜访，或是在他自己的房间里教他们，绝大多数牧师都不会这样做，因为这是个非常大的教区，弗洛伊德先生像他父亲先前那样，造访几英里以外的沼泽地里的农舍，而且，像老弗洛伊德先生一样，他是个大学问家，这使得这件事太不可能了——她做梦也没想过这样的事情。她应该猜得到吗？但是，他比她小八岁呢，且不说还是个学者。她认识他的母亲——老弗洛伊德太太。她在那儿喝过下午茶。就在她与老弗洛伊德太太喝过下午茶回来的那天傍晚，她在门厅走廊上发现了那张便条，就拿着它走进厨房，把鱼交给丽贝卡，寻思着肯定是关于孩子们的什么事情。

"Mr. Floyd brought it himself, did he?—I think the cheese must be in the parcel in the hall—oh, in the hall—” for she was reading. No, it was not about the boys.“弗洛伊德先生自己送来的，是吗？——我想奶酪肯定是在走廊上的袋子里——哦，在走廊里——”因为她正在读信。不，谈的不是关于孩子们的事。

"Yes, enough for fish-cakes to-morrow certainly—Perhaps Captain Barfoot—” she had come to the word "love." She went into the garden and read, leaning against the walnut tree to steady herself. Up and down went her breast. Seabrook came so vividly before her. She shook her head and was looking through her tears at the little shifting leaves against the yellow sky when three geese, half-running, half-flying, scuttled across the lawn with Johnny behind them, brandishing a stick.“是的，肯定够明天做鱼饼用的了——也许巴富特上尉——”她读到了“爱”字。她走进花园里去看信，靠着胡桃树稳住身体。她的胸脯上下起伏。西布鲁克的形象生动地展现在她面前。她摇摇头，透过泪水看见摇摆着的小树叶映衬在黄色的天空下，三只白鹅半飞半跑着急促地穿过草坪，约翰尼挥舞着棍子在后头撵着。

Mrs. Flanders flushed with anger.

弗兰德斯太太气得满脸通红。

"How many times have I told you?" she cried, and seized him and snatched his stick away from him.“我给你说过多少次了？”她边喊边抓住约翰尼，把木棍从他手里夺下来。

"But they'd escaped!" he cried, struggling to get free.“可它们逃出来了呀！”他哭喊道，挣扎着要逃脱。

"You're a very naughty boy. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. I won't have you chasing the geese!" she said, and crumpling Mr. Floyd's letter in her hand, she held Johnny fast and herded the geese back into the orchard.“你可真是个淘气包。我告诉过不下一千遍了。不许你去追赶那些鹅！“她一面说着，一面将弗洛伊德的信揉在手里，紧拽住约翰尼，把鹅群赶回果园里。

"How could I think of marriage!" she said to herself bitterly, as she fastened the gate with a piece of wire. She had always disliked red hair in men, she thought, thinking of Mr. Floyd's appearance, that night when the boys had gone to bed. And pushing her work-box away, she drew the blotting-paper towards her, and read Mr. Floyd's letter again, and her breast went up and down when she came to the word "love," but not so fast this time, for she saw Johnny chasing the geese, and knew that it was impossible for her to marry any one—let alone Mr. Floyd, who was so much younger than she was, but what a nice man—and such a scholar too.“我怎么能考虑结婚呢！”她用一条铁丝扣牢大门时，心酸地自言自语道。那天夜里，孩子们上床睡觉后，回想起弗洛伊德先生的样貌，她觉得自己向来不喜欢红头发的男人。她推开针线盒，拉过一张吸墨纸，又读了一遍弗洛伊德先生的来信，当看到“爱”字时，她的胸脯上下起伏，但这一次没那么急促了，因为当看见约翰尼追着鹅跑时，她就知道她不可能和任何人结婚——更不用说弗洛伊德先生了，这个比她年轻许多的人，可他是多好的一个男人啊——还饱读诗书呢。

"Dear Mr. Floyd," she wrote.—"Did I forget about the cheese?" she wondered, laying down her pen. No, she had told Rebecca that the cheese was in the hall. "I am much surprised..." she wrote.“亲爱的弗洛伊德先生，”她写道。—— “我忘了奶酪了吗？”她寻思着放下了笔。不，她已经告诉丽贝卡奶酪在门厅走廊里。“我非常震惊……”她写道。

But the letter which Mr. Floyd found on the table when he got up early next morning did not begin "I am much surprised," and it was such a motherly, respectful, inconsequent, regretful letter that he kept it for many years; long after his marriage with Miss Wimbush, of Andover; long after he had left the village. For he asked for a parish in Sheffield, which was given him; and, sending for Archer, Jacob, and John to say good-bye, he told them to choose whatever they liked in his study to remember him by. Archer chose a paper-knife, because he did not like to choose anything too good; Jacob chose the works of Byron in one volume; John, who was still too young to make a proper choice, chose Mr. Floyd's kitten, which his brothers thought an absurd choice, but Mr. Floyd upheld him when he said: "It has fur like you." Then Mr. Floyd spoke about the King's Navy (to which Archer was going); and about Rugby (to which Jacob was going); and next day he received a silver salver and went—first to Sheffield, where he met Miss Wimbush, who was on a visit to her uncle, then to Hackney—then to Maresfield House, of which he became the principal, and finally, becoming editor of a well-known series of Ecclesiastical Biographies, he retired to Hampstead with his wife and daughter, and is often to be seen feeding the ducks on Leg of MuttoAs for Mrs. Flanders's letter—when he looked for it the other day he could not find it, and did not like to ask his wife whether she had put it away. Meeting Jacob in Piccadilly lately, he recognized him after three seconds. But Jacob had grown such a fine young man that Mr. Floyd did not like to stop him in the street.

但次日清早，弗洛伊德先生起床后，在桌子上看到的那封信的开头却不是“我非常震惊”，那是一封慈母般的、语气恭谦的、前后矛盾的、充满歉意的信，多年以后他还保留着那封信；在他与来自安多弗的温布什小姐结婚许久后，在他离开村子许久后。因为他得到了他申请的在谢菲尔德地区的一个教区；派人把阿彻、雅各布和约翰叫去道别，他让他们在他的书房了随便挑点什么用以怀念他。阿彻选了一把裁纸刀，因为他不愿意挑太好的东西；雅各布挑了一卷拜伦作品集；约翰还太小，无法做出合适的选择，就要了弗洛伊德先生的小猫，他的哥哥们都认为这个选择太荒谬了，但弗洛伊德先生支持他，说：“它和你一样，毛绒绒的。”然后弗洛伊德先生谈论了皇家海军（阿彻要参加海军）；谈论了橄榄球（雅各布要参加）；隔天他收到了一个银盘子，就走了——先前往谢菲尔德，在那里他遇见了温布什小姐，她正在她叔叔家做客，然后去哈克尼——然后抵达梅尔斯菲尔德学校，他成为了那里的校长，并最终做了著名的教会传记丛书的编辑，退休后，他与妻女搬到了汉普斯特德，人们常常能看见他在羊腿池边喂鸭子。至于弗兰德斯太太的信——前几天他要找这封信却找不到了，他又不愿意问太太是否她已将那封信扔了。不久前，他在皮卡迪利碰见了雅各布，三秒钟内就认出了他。而雅各布已经成长为一个英俊青年，弗洛伊德先生不愿意在大街上叫住他。

"Dear me," said Mrs. Flanders, when she read in the Scarborough and Harrogate Courier that the Rev.Andrew Floyd, etc., etc., had been made Principal of Maresfield House, "that must be our Mr. Floyd."“天哪。”弗兰德斯太太在《斯卡巴勒和哈罗盖特信使》报上看到安德鲁·弗洛伊德牧师，等等，等等，被任命为梅尔斯菲尔德学校的校长时说道，“一定就是我们的那位弗洛伊德先生。”

A slight gloom fell upon the table. Jacob was helping himself to jam; the postman was talking to Rebecca in the kitchen; there was a bee humming at the yellow flower which nodded at the open window. They were all alive, that is to say, while poor Mr. Floyd was becoming Principal of Maresfield House.

一丝淡淡的忧郁笼罩着餐桌。雅各布正自得其乐地吃着果酱；邮差在厨房里和丽贝卡说着话；那冲着敞开的窗户上下摆动的黄色花朵上，一只蜜蜂正嗡嗡飞舞。也就是说，正当可怜的弗洛伊德先生成为梅尔斯菲尔德学校校长的时候，他们都充满活力。

Mrs. Flanders got up and went over to the fender and stroked Topaz on the neck behind the ears.

弗兰德斯太太站起身，走到壁炉挡护板的旁边，轻抚着托帕斯耳朵后面的脖子。

"Poor Topaz," she said (for Mr. Floyd's kitten was now a very old cat, a little mangy behind the ears, and one of these days would have to be killed).“可怜的托帕斯。”她说道（因为弗洛伊德先生的小猫现在已经是一只老猫了，耳后有一块疥藓，几天内就要将它处死了）。

"Poor old Topaz," said Mrs. Flanders, as he stretched himself out in the sun, and she smiled, thinking how she had had him gelded, and how she did not like red hair in men. Smiling, she went into the kitchen.“可怜的老托帕斯。”弗兰德斯太太说道，当老猫在太阳下伸懒腰时，她笑了，想起她是如何让人把它阉割了，她又是如何不中意红头发的男人。她微笑着走进了厨房。

Jacob drew rather a dirty pocket-handkerchief across his face. He went upstairs to his room.

雅各布扯出一条脏兮兮的手绢，擦了擦脸。他上楼回自己屋里去了。

The stag-beetle dies slowly (it was John who collected the beetles). Even on the second day its legs were supple. But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in a broiling sun. A fritillary basked on a white stone in the Roman camp. From the valley came the sound of church bells. They were all eating roast beef in Scarborough; for it was Sunday when Jacob caught the pale clouded yellows in the clover field, eight miles from home.

鹿角甲虫慢慢死去（约翰收集甲虫）。即使到了第二天，甲虫的腿脚还是柔软的。但蝴蝶已经死了。纹黄蝶散发出臭鸡蛋的怪味儿，它们徒劳地穿过果园，飞上多兹山，然后又飞往沼泽地，时而消失在金雀花丛后，时而又慌乱地飞在炽热的太阳下。罗马营地里一块白色的石头上，一只豹纹蝶在享受日光。山谷里传来教堂的钟声。在斯卡巴勒，人们都在吃着烤牛肉；因为雅各布在离家八英里远的苜蓿地里抓住纹黄蝶的那一天是星期天。

Rebecca had caught the death's-head moth in the kitchen.

丽贝卡曾在厨房里捉到了骷髅天蛾。

A strong smell of camphor came from the butterfly boxes.

蝴蝶盒子里散发出浓烈的樟脑气味。

Mixed with the smell of camphor was the unmistakable smell of seaweed. Tawny ribbons hung on the door. The sun beat straight upon them.

与樟脑气味混合在一起的，毫无疑问，是海藻的气味。海藻是黄褐色的，一条条地挂在门上。阳光直射在上面。

The upper wings of the moth which Jacob held were undoubtedly marked with kidney-shaped spots of a fulvous hue. But there was no crescent upon the underwing. The tree had fallen the night he caught it. There had been a volley of pistol-shots suddenly in the depths of the wood. And his mother had taken him for a burglar when he came home late. The only one of her sons who never obeyed her, she said.

雅各布捏着的蛾子的前翅清楚地标记着黄褐色的肾形斑点。但后翅上却没有半月斑。在树倒下的那个夜晚，他捉住了这只蛾子。树林深处突然传来连续的枪响。他很晚才回到家，他的母亲还把他当成是个夜贼。他是几个儿子里唯一一个从来不听她话的，她说。

Morris called it "an extremely local insect found in damp or marshy places." But Morris is sometimes wrong. Sometimes Jacob, choosing a very fine pen, made a correction in the margin.

莫里斯说它是“一只在潮湿地带或沼泽地找到的当地土生土长的昆虫。”但有时莫里斯是错的。有时，雅各布选用一只非常纤细的笔，在页边空白处做更正。

The tree had fallen, though it was a windless night, and the lantern, stood upon the ground, had lit up the still green leaves and the dead beech leaves. It was a dry place. A toad was there. And the red underwing had circled round the light and flashed and gone. The red underwing had never come back, though Jacob had waited. It was after twelve when he crossed the lawn and saw his mother in the bright room, playing patience, sitting up.

树倒了，尽管那夜没有风，立在地面上的提灯照亮了仍然绿油油的叶子和枯死了的山毛榉树叶。这是一处干燥的地方。有一只蟾蜍。红色的蛾子绕着灯光一圈一圈地飞，然后一闪，就不见了。红蛾子再也没有飞回来，尽管雅各布等待了许久。他穿过草坪时已过了十二点，他看见母亲在明亮的屋里，熬着夜，玩单人纸牌游戏。

"How you frightened me!" she had cried. She thought something dreadful had happened. And he woke Rebecca, who had to be up so early.“你吓死我了！”她大声喊道。她以为发生了什么可怕的事情。他惊醒了必须要早早起身的丽贝卡。

There he stood pale, come out of the depths of darkness, in the hot room, blinking at the light.

从黑暗深处钻出来，走进热烘烘的房间里，他面色苍白地站在那里，灯光晃得他直眨眼睛。

No, it could not be a straw-bordered underwing.

不，那不可能是一只后翅边缘是浅黄色的蛾子。

The mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's window, and it creaked—creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked again.

割草机总是得上润滑油。在雅各布的窗下，巴尼特将割草机调了个头，割草机咯吱咯吱地响，咔哒咔哒地穿过草地，又咯吱咯吱地响了起来。

Now it was clouding over.

这会儿，天上布满了云。

Back came the sun, dazzlingly.

太阳又探出头来，灿烂耀眼。

It fell like an eye upon the stirrups, and then suddenly and yet very gently rested upon the bed, upon the alarum clock, and upon the butterfly box stood open. The pale clouded yellows had pelted over the moor; they had zigzagged across the purple clover. The fritillaries flaunted along the hedgerows. The blues settled on little bones lying on the turf with the sun beating on them, and the painted ladies and the peacocks feasted upon bloody entrails dropped by a hawk. Miles away from home, in a hollow among teasles beneath a ruin, he had found the commas. He had seen a white admiral circling higher and higher round an oak tree, but he had never caught it. An old cottage woman living alone, high up, had told him of a purple butterfly which came every summer to her garden. The fox cubs played in the gorse in the early morning, she told him. And if you looked out at dawn you could always see two badgers. Sometimes they knocked each other over like two boys fighting, she said.

它像只眼睛一样落在了马蹬上，然后突然地，而又十分轻柔地栖息在床上，在闹钟上，在那打开着的装蝴蝶的盒子上。纹黄蝶快速地飞过沼泽地；它们曲折飞过紫色的苜蓿地。豹纹蝶沿着灌木篱墙肆意地翻飞。草地的小骨头上，停落着蓝蝴蝶，太阳直射着它们，苧胥和孔雀尽情地享用从一只老鹰嘴里掉下来的血淋淋的内脏。在离家几英里开外的地方，他在一处废墟下长着起绒草丛的凹地里，发现了银纹多角蛱蝶。他发现一只白色的蛱蝶绕着一棵橡树盘旋而飞，越飞越高，但他始终没捉到它。一位独自住在高处的老村妇曾告诉过他，有一种紫色的蝴蝶每年夏天都会飞到她的花园子里。清晨，狐狸幼仔在金雀花丛里玩耍，她告诉他。并且在破晓时分，如果向外张望，你总能看见两只獾。有时他们将对方撞倒，就像两个打架的男孩，她说道。

"You won't go far this afternoon, Jacob," said his mother, popping her head in at the door, "for the Captain's coming to say good-bye." It was the last day of the Easter holidays.“今天下午，你别走远了，雅各布。”他的母亲从门口伸进头来对他说，“因为上尉要来道别。”这是复活节假期的最后一天。

Wednesday was Captain Barfoot's day. He dressed himself very neatly in blue serge, took his rubber-shod stick—for he was lame and wanted two fingers on the left hand, having served his country—and set out from the house with the flagstaff precisely at four o'clock in the afternoon.

星期三是巴富特上尉的日子。他给自己穿上非常整洁的蓝色哔叽呢服装，拿上橡胶头的手杖——他走路有点跛，左手缺了两根手指，他是为国家效过力的——下午四点钟他准时从有旗杆的那所房子出发。

At three Mr. Dickens, the bath-chair man, had called for Mrs. Barfoot.

三点钟，推轮椅的狄更斯先生来接巴富特太太。

"Move me," she would say to Mr. Dickens, after sitting on the esplanade for fifteen minutes. And again, "That'll do, thank you, Mr. Dickens." At the first command he would seek the sun; at the second he would stay the chair there in the bright strip.“挪动一下吧。”在平坦的空地呆上十五分钟后，她会对狄更斯先生说。然后又说，“行了，谢谢你，狄更斯先生。”照着第一个指令，他往有太阳的地方推；照着第二个指令，他将轮椅停在阳光灿烂的地带。

An old inhabitant himself, he had much in common with Mrs. Barfoot— James Coppard's daughter. The drinking-fountain, where West Street joins Broad Street, is the gift of James Coppard, who was mayor at the time of Queen Victoria's jubilee, and Coppard is painted upon municipal watering-carts and over shop windows, and upon the zinc blinds of solicitors' consulting-room windows. But Ellen Barfoot never visited the Aquarium (though she had known Captain Boase who had caught the shark quite well), and when the men came by with the posters she eyed them superciliously, for she knew that she would never see the Pierrots, or the brothers Zeno, or Daisy Budd and her troupe of performing seals. For Ellen Barfoot in her bath-chair on the esplanade was a prisoner— civilization's prisoner—all the bars of her cage falling across the esplanade on sunny days when the town hall, the drapery stores, the swimming-bath, and the memorial hall striped the ground with shadow.

作为一个老居民，他和巴富特太太——詹姆斯·科珀德的女儿，有许多共同之处。西街和宽街交汇处的自动饮水机是詹姆斯·科珀德捐赠的，他在维多利亚女王银禧庆典时期是市长，科珀德被画在了市政洒水车、商店的橱窗以及律师事务所咨询室窗户的锌质百叶窗上。但艾伦·巴富特不曾参观过水族馆（尽管她与捕获鲨鱼的博斯上尉很熟络），而每当有人拿着海报走过时，她高傲地看着他们，因为她明白她永远都不会去看江湖小丑，或泽诺兄弟，或戴西·巴迪和她的海豹们的表演。因为坐在空地上轮椅里的艾伦·巴富特是个囚徒——文明的囚徒——艳阳高照的日子里，当市政厅、布店、室内游泳池和纪念碑在地面上留下剪影时，她牢笼上所有的栏杆就散落在空地上。

An old inhabitant himself, Mr. Dickens would stand a little behind her, smoking his pipe. She would ask him questions—who people were—who now kept Mr. Jones's shop—then about the season—and had Mrs. Dickens tried, whatever it might be—the words issuing from her lips like crumbs of dry biscuit.

狄更斯先生，一个本地老居民，会站在她身后稍远一点儿的位置，吸着烟斗。她会问他几个问题——这些人是谁——琼斯先生的店铺现在是谁在经营——接着是关于季节的问题——狄更斯太太试过没有，不管是什么——从她唇上蹦出的字眼，就像是干干的饼干屑。

She closed her eyes. Mr. Dickens took a turn. The feelings of a man had not altogether deserted him, though as you saw him coming towards you, you noticed how one knobbed black boot swung tremulously in front of the other; how there was a shadow between his waistcoat and his trousers; how he leant forward unsteadily, like an old horse who finds himself suddenly out of the shafts drawing no cart. But as Mr. Dickens sucked in the smoke and puffed it out again, the feelings of a man were perceptible in his eyes. He was thinking how Captain Barfoot was now on his way to Mount Pleasant; Captain Barfoot, his master. For at home in the little sitting-room above the mews, with the canary in the window, and the girls at the sewing-machine, and Mrs. Dickens huddled up with the rheumatics—at home where he was made little of, the thought of being in the employ of Captain Barfoot supported him. He liked to think that while he chatted with Mrs. Barfoot on the front, he helped the Captain on his way to Mrs. Flanders.

她闭上了双眼。狄更斯先生转悠了一圈。他还没有完全失去一个男人的情感，尽管当你看见他朝你走过来，你会注意到一只圆头黑靴子是如何微颤颤地摇到另一只的前面；在他的马甲和裤子之间有怎样的一块阴影；他又是怎样摇摇晃晃地向前倾斜着，像一匹突然发现自己已经卸下车辕不再拉车的老马。但在狄更斯先生吞云吐雾之际，能明显觉察到他眼里的那种男人的情怀。他在思忖着巴富特上尉此刻正在前往普莱森特山的路上；巴富特上尉，他的雇主。因为在家里，在马房上面的那间窗前挂着金丝雀的小小起居室里，女儿们在缝纫机上干着活，狄更斯太太因风湿而蜷缩在一旁——在家里他是没地位的，受雇于巴富特上尉的想法支撑着他。他愿意这么想，当他和巴富特太太在前边聊天时，他帮了上尉，让他能前往弗兰德斯太太那儿。

He, a man, was in charge of Mrs. Barfoot, a woman. Turning, he saw that she was chatting with Mrs. Rogers. Turning again, he saw that Mrs. Rogers had moved on. So he came back to the bath-chair, and Mrs. Barfoot asked him the time, and he took out his great silver watch and told her the time very obligingly, as if he knew a great deal more about the time and everything than she did. But Mrs. Barfoot knew that Captain Barfoot was on his way to Mrs. Flanders.

他，一个男人，负责照顾巴富特太太，一个女人。转过身，他看见她正在和罗杰斯太太聊天。再次回过身时，他看见罗杰斯太太已经走开了。因此他走回轮椅边，巴富特太太问他时间，他掏出他那硕大的银表，非常亲切地告诉她时间，好像他知晓时间及其他一切事物，比她所知的要多得多。但巴富特太太知道巴富特上尉正在去往弗兰德斯太太家的路上。

Indeed he was well on his way there, having left the tram, and seeing Dods Hill to the south-east, green against a blue sky that was suffused with dust colour on the horizon. He was marching up the hill. In spite of his lameness there was something military in his approach. Mrs. Jarvis, as she came out of the Rectory gate, saw him coming, and her Newfoundland dog, Nero, slowly swept his tail from side to side.

确实如此，他在前往那里的路上已经走了很远了，他已经下了电车，望见多兹山在东南方向，绿莹莹地映衬在蓝天下，天地交接处弥漫着尘土的颜色。他正大步地向山上行进。尽管是跛足，但他仍具有某种军人的风度。贾维斯太太走出教区长宅第的大门时，看见他正走过来，她那只纽芬兰狗，尼罗，慢悠悠地左右摇动着尾巴。

"Oh, Captain Barfoot!" Mrs. Jarvis exclaimed.“哦，巴富特上尉！”贾维斯太太喊道。

"Good-day, Mrs. Jarvis," said the Captain.“日安，贾维斯太太。”上尉说。

They walked on together, and when they reached Mrs. Flanders's gate Captain Barfoot took off his tweed cap, and said, bowing very courteously:

他们一起向前走去，当到达弗兰德斯太太家的大门时，巴富特上尉摘下花呢帽子，非常礼貌地躬身说道：

"Good-day to you, Mrs. Jarvis.”“祝您日安，贾维斯太太。”

And Mrs. Jarvis walked on alone.

贾维斯太太则独自继续往前走。

She was going to walk on the moor. Had she again been pacing her lawn late at night? Had she again tapped on the study window and cried: "Look at the moon, look at the moon, Herbert!"

她要前往沼泽地。她是否又在深夜时分，在自家的草坪上踱来踱去？她是否又敲着书房的窗户，大声嚷道：“看那月亮，看那月亮，赫伯特！”

And Herbert looked at the moon.

于是，赫伯特就看那月亮。

Mrs. Jarvis walked on the moor when she was unhappy, going as far as a certain saucer-shaped hollow, though she always meant to go to a more distant ridge; and there she sat down, and took out the little book hidden beneath her cloak and read a few lines of poetry, and looked about her. She was not very unhappy, and, seeing that she was forty-five, never perhaps would be very unhappy, desperately unhappy that is, and leave her husband, and ruin a good man's career, as she sometimes threatened.

每当贾维斯太太不开心时，她就在沼泽地散步，一直走到某个碟形凹处，尽管她总是想走到更远一点儿的山脊那里；她在那里坐下，掏出藏在斗篷下的一本小书，读几行诗，又四下里看看。她并不是非常不开心，而且，就她四十五岁的年龄来看，也许永远不会非常不开心了，就是那种令人绝望的不开心，以致要离开她的丈夫，从而毁了一个好男人的事业，就像她有时威胁的那样。

Still there is no need to say what risks a clergyman's wife runs when she walks on the moor. Short, dark, with kindling eyes, a pheasant's feather in her hat, Mrs. Jarvis was just the sort of woman to lose her faith upon the moors—to confound her God with the universal that is— but she did not lose her faith, did not leave her husband, never read her poem through, and went on walking the moors, looking at the moon behind the elm trees, and feeling as she sat on the grass high above Scarborough... Yes, yes, when the lark soars; when the sheep, moving a step or two onwards, crop the turf, and at the same time set their bells tinkling; when the breeze first blows, then dies down, leaving the cheek kissed; when the ships on the sea below seem to cross each other and pass on as if drawn by an invisible hand; when there are distant concussions in the air and phantom horsemen galloping, ceasing; when the horizon swims blue, green, emotional—then Mrs. Jarvis, heaving a sigh, thinks to herself, "If only some one could give me... if I could give some one...." But she does not know what she wants to give, nor w

不过，没有必要说明当一个牧师的妻子在沼泽地散步时，要冒什么风险。矮矮的个子，微黑的皮肤，加上一双明亮的眼睛，帽子上插着一根雉鸡的羽毛，贾维斯太太是那种会在沼泽地上丧失信仰的女人——以一般性的概念让她的上帝感到惶恐——但她并没有失去她的信仰，没有离开她的丈夫，未曾从头到尾地读过诗歌，然后继续行走在沼泽地上，看看榆树后的月亮，当她坐在斯卡巴勒高处的草坪时感受着……是的，是的，当云雀高飞，当羊群向前移动一两步，吃着草儿，与此同时它们身上的铃儿叮当作响；当清风第一次吹起，又渐渐消失，留下被轻抚过的面颊；当下方海上的轮船来来往往，似相互交织，似被一只无形的手拉着；空中传来远远的震动，幻影骑士策马疾驰，收缰急停；当地平线上泛起蓝色、绿色，叫人激动——此刻，贾维斯太太发出一声叹息，暗自思忖，“要是谁能给我就好了……如果我能给谁……”但她并不知道她想给予什么，也不知道谁能给她。

"Mrs. Flanders stepped out only five minutes ago, Captain," said Rebecca. Captain Barfoot sat him down in the arm-chair to wait. Resting his elbows on the arms, putting one hand over the other, sticking his lame leg straight out, and placing the stick with the rubber ferrule beside it, he sat perfectly still. There was something rigid about him. Did he think? Probably the same thoughts again and again. But were they "nice" thoughts, interesting thoughts? He was a man with a temper; tenacious, faithful. Women would have felt, "Here is law. Here is order. Therefore we must cherish this man. He is on the Bridge at night," and, handing him his cup, or whatever it might be, would run on to visions of shipwreck and disaster, in which all the passengers come tumbling from their cabins, and there is the captain, buttoned in his pea-jacket, matched with the storm, vanquished by it but by none other. "Yet I have a soul," Mrs. Jarvis would bethink her, as Captain Barfoot suddenly blew his nose in a great red bandanna handkerchief, "and it's the man's stupidity that's the cause of this, and the storm's my storm as well as his"... so Mrs. Jarvis would bethink her when the Captain dropped in to see them and found Herbert out, and spent two or three hours, almost silent, sitting in the arm-chair. But Betty Flanders thought nothing of the kind.“弗兰德斯太太五分钟前刚刚出去，上尉。”丽贝卡说。巴富特上尉在手扶椅上坐下等待。他一动不动地坐在那里，胳膊放在椅子的扶手上，一只手放在另一只手上面，那只跛足直挺挺地伸将出去，橡胶包头的手杖放在腿边上。他身上有某种刻板的东西。他思考吗？可能会反复地想同一个问题。但它们是“好的”思想，有趣的想法吗？他是个有脾气的男人；他固执、忠实。女人们会感受到：“这里有法律。这里有秩序。因此，我们必须珍爱这个男人。夜里他总在驾驶台里。”并且，递给他杯子，或者别的什么的时候，会看到海难和灾难的景象，所有的乘客都跌跌撞撞地从各自的船舱里出来，而上尉就在这里，与风暴相衬的粗呢大衣扣得整整齐齐，除了风暴什么也不能将他击垮。“然而我有灵魂。”当巴富特上尉突然用一条红色的班丹纳大手绢擤鼻涕时，贾维斯太太这样想，“男人的愚蠢是造成灾难的原因，而我的风暴也正是他的风暴”……因此上尉顺道拜访他们，发现赫伯特不在，就几乎一言不发地在扶手椅上坐了两三个小时，贾维斯太太这样认为。但弗兰德斯太太并不这样想。

"Oh, Captain," said Mrs. Flanders, bursting into the drawing-room, "I had to run after Barker's man... I hope Rebecca... I hope Jacob..."“哦，上尉，”弗兰德斯太太冲进客厅，说道，“我不得不去追赶巴克公司的人……我希望丽贝卡……我希望雅各布……”

She was very much out of breath, yet not at all upset, and as she put down the hearth-brush which she had bought of the oil-man, she said it was hot, flung the window further open, straightened a cover, picked up a book, as if she were very confident, very fond of the Captain, and a great many years younger than he was. Indeed, in her blue apron she did not look more than thirty-five. He was well over fifty.

她上气不接下气，却并不心烦，当她放下从送油工那里买来的炉刷时，她说天气太热了，就将窗子开得更大些，将罩子拉直，拿起一本书，好像她非常自信，非常喜欢上尉，并且比他年轻许多岁似的。确实，穿着蓝色围裙的她看上去还没有三十五岁。他则五十好几了。

She moved her hands about the table; the Captain moved his head from side to side, and made little sounds, as Betty went on chattering, completely at his ease—after twenty years.

她的手在桌上摩挲；上尉左右晃着脑袋，发出小小的动静，贝蒂一直在喋喋不休，他则完全轻松悠闲——已经过去二十年了。

"Well," he said at length, "I've heard from Mr. Polegate."“唔，”他终于开口了，“我收到波尔盖特先生的来信了。”

He had heard from Mr. Polegate that he could advise nothing better than to send a boy to one of the universities.

他收到波尔盖特先生的来信，信上说最好的建议就是送一个男孩上大学。

"Mr. Floyd was at Cambridge... no, at Oxford... well, at one or the other," said Mrs. Flanders.“弗洛伊德先生在剑桥……不，在牛津……嗯，反正在其中一个。”弗兰德斯太太说道。

She looked out of the window. Little windows, and the lilac and green of the garden were reflected in her eyes.

她望向窗外。小窗户、丁香以及花园的翠绿映入她的眼帘。

"Archer is doing very well," she said. "I have a very nice report from Captain Maxwell."“阿彻的表现非常好。”她说道。“我从马克斯韦尔上尉那儿收到了不错的报告。”

"I will leave you the letter to show Jacob," said the Captain, putting it clumsily back in its envelope.“我给你留下这封信，让雅各布看看。”上尉说道，将信笨拙地塞回信封里。

"Jacob is after his butterflies as usual," said Mrs. Flanders irritably, but was surprised by a sudden afterthought, "Cricket begins this week, of course."“雅各布仍旧摆弄他的蝴蝶，”弗兰德斯太太烦躁地说，但又惊喜地突然想起，“当然，板球赛这一周就要开始了。”

"Edward Jenkinson has handed in his resignation," said Captain Barfoot.“爱德华·詹金森已经递交辞呈了。”巴弗特上尉说。

"Then you will stand for the Council?" Mrs. Flanders exclaimed, looking the Captain full in the face.“那么你将竞选市议员了？”弗兰德斯太太直盯着上尉的脸，大声说道。

"Well, about that," Captain Barfoot began, settling himself rather deeper in his chair.“嗯，差不多吧。”巴富特上尉说道，同时让自己在椅子里陷得更深。

Jacob Flanders, therefore, went up to Cambridge in October, 1906.

因此，1906年10月，雅各布进入了剑桥大学。

CHAPTER THREE

第三章

"This is not a smoking-carriage," Mrs. Norman protested, nervously but very feebly, as the door swung open and a powerfully built young man jumped in. He seemed not to hear her. The train did not stop before it reached Cambridge, and here she was shut up alone, in a railway carriage, with a young man.“这不是吸烟车厢。”当车厢门打开时，一个魁梧的年轻人跳了进来，诺曼太太紧张而无力地抗议道。他好像没听见她说什么。火车在抵达剑桥之前是不会停的，而她却被单独和一位年轻男子关在这里，在一节火车的车厢里。

She touched the spring of her dressing-case, and ascertained that the scent-bottle and a novel from Mudie's were both handy (the young man was standing up with his back to her, putting his bag in the rack). She would throw the scent-bottle with her right hand, she decided, and tug the communication cord with her left. She was fifty years of age, and had a son at college. Nevertheless, it is a fact that men are dangerous. She read half a column of her newspaper; then stealthily looked over the edge to decide the question of safety by the infallible test of appearance.... She would like to offer him her paper. But do young men read the Morning Post? She looked to see what he was reading—the Daily Telegraph.

她碰了一下化妆箱的弹簧，确认香水瓶和从米迪那里借来的小说都在手边（这个年轻人正背对着她站着，把他的书包放在了行李架上）。她将用右手掷香水瓶，她下定决心，用左手扯报警索。她五十岁了，有一个上大学的儿子。然而，男人是危险的，这是事实。她看了半栏报纸后，偷偷地从报纸上沿望过去，用对外貌的观察这种万无一失的办法来确认自己是否安全……她很想把报纸递给他看。但年轻人看《晨邮报》吗？她留心看他在看什么报纸——《每日电讯报》。

Taking note of socks (loose), of tie (shabby), she once more reached his face. She dwelt upon his mouth. The lips were shut. The eyes bent down, since he was reading. All was firm, yet youthful, indifferent, unconscious—as for knocking one down! No, no, no! She looked out of the window, smiling slightly now, and then came back again, for he didn't notice her. Grave, unconscious... now he looked up, past her... he seemed so out of place, somehow, alone with an elderly lady... then he fixed his eyes—which were blue—on the landscape. He had not realized her presence, she thought. Yet it was none of HER fault that this was not a smoking-carriage—if that was what he meant.

留心他的袜子（松垮垮的）和领带（很寒酸），她再次将目光移到他的脸上。她仔细研究他的嘴。双唇紧闭。因为正在看报纸的缘故，他眼睛朝下。他结实有力，却又年轻、冷淡、旁若无人——至于说将人掀倒！不，不，不！此时，她望向窗外，轻轻地微笑着，然后收回目光，因为他没有注意到她。严肃、旁若无人……这会儿他抬起眼，越过她……他看上去有点不得其所，不知怎的，单独与一位老太太相处……于是他将双眼——蓝色的眸子——凝望着风景。他没有意识到她的存在，她想。可是这里不是吸烟车厢并不是她的过错，——如果他是这个意思的话。

Nobody sees any one as he is, let alone an elderly lady sitting opposite a strange young man in a railway carriage. They see a whole—they see all sorts of things—they see themselves.... Mrs. Norman now read three pages of one of Mr. Norris's novels. Should she say to the young man (and after all he was just the same age as her own boy): "If you want to smoke, don't mind me"? No: he seemed absolutely indifferent to her presence... she did not wish to interrupt.

没人能看清别人是谁，更不用说在一节火车车厢里，坐在一个陌生年轻男子对面的老太太了。他们看见了一个整体——他们看见了各种事物——他们看见了自身……诺曼太太此刻读了三页诺里斯的小说。她是否应该对这位年轻男子（毕竟他不过和她自己的儿子一般大）说：“如果你想吸烟的话，不必介意我”？不：他看起来当她完全不存在……她不想去打搅他。

But since, even at her age, she noted his indifference, presumably he was in some way or other—to her at least—nice, handsome, interesting, distinguished, well built, like her own boy? One must do the best one can with her report. Anyhow, this was Jacob Flanders, aged nineteen. It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done—for instance, when the train drew into the station, Mr. Flanders burst open the door, and put the lady's dressing-case out for her, saying, or rather mumbling: "Let me" very shyly; indeed he was rather clumsy about it.

但是因为，即使在她这个岁数，她还是留意到他的冷淡，想来在某些方面他有些——至少对她来说——友善、英俊、有趣、优秀、强壮，就像她自己的儿子一样？一个人必须尽其所能将事情讲述好。不管怎样，这就是雅各布，十九岁的雅各布。没必要试图去总结别人如何。人要懂得领会暗示，而不是具体说了什么，也不是完全做了什么——打个比方，火车驶进车站，弗兰德斯先生猛地拉开车厢门，替她将化妆箱拎出去，说道，或者倒不如说是非常腼腆地咕哝道：“让我来吧。”他的举止言谈确实是挺笨拙的。

"Who..." said the lady, meeting her son; but as there was a great crowd on the platform and Jacob had already gone, she did not finish her sentence. As this was Cambridge, as she was staying there for the week-end, as she saw nothing but young men all day long, in streets and round tables, this sight of her fellow-traveller was completely lost in her mind, as the crooked pin dropped by a child into the wishing-well twirls in the water and disappears for ever.“那个谁……”这位夫人见到儿子时说；但站台人山人海，雅各布已经走了，她没能把话说完。因为这里是剑桥，因为她只在这里停留一个周末，因为从早到晚她在街上、餐桌旁看到的全是年轻男子，脑海里那位同路人的情景她完全忘记了，就像是一枚曲别针被一个孩子扔进一口许愿池里，在水里快速旋转后，永远地消失了。

They say the sky is the same everywhere. Travellers, the shipwrecked, exiles, and the dying draw comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you are of a mystical tendency, consolation, and even explanation, shower down from the unbroken surface. But above Cambridge—anyhow above the roof of King's College Chapel—there is a difference. Out at sea a great city will cast a brightness into the night. Is it fanciful to suppose the sky, washed into the crevices of King's College Chapel, lighter, thinner, more sparkling than the sky elsewhere? Does Cambridge burn not only into the night, but into the day?

他们说不论在哪里，天空都是一样的。旅行者、海难幸存者、流亡者以及濒死者都从这样的想法中得到了宽慰，毫无疑问，如果你有神秘主义倾向，那么慰籍、甚至解释都会从无垠的天空表面倾洒下来。但在剑桥的上空——至少说在国王学院小教堂屋顶的上空——情况却有所不同。在远处海面上，一座宏大的城市会将夜晚照得通亮。如果说被冲洗进国王学院教堂的缝隙里的天空比别处的天空更加明亮、轻盈、闪闪发光，这种想法是不是很离奇呢？剑桥是不是不但在夜晚发光，而且在白天都是通亮的呢？

Look, as they pass into service, how airily the gowns blow out, as though nothing dense and corporeal were within. What sculptured faces, what certainty, authority controlled by piety, although great boots march under the gowns. In what orderly procession they advance. Thick wax candles stand upright; young men rise in white gowns; while the subservient eagle bears up for inspection the great white book.

看，他们进去礼拜，长袍被风吹得轻快地飘起来，好像长袍里没有密度，没有肉体。他们的脸庞如雕塑一般，笃信和权威是怎样被虔诚所控制的啊，尽管长袍之下，一双靴子在行进。他们行进时队列是多么整齐有序啊。一根根粗大的蜡烛直立着；穿白长袍的年轻人起立；恭顺的鹰形经台托起白色的大部头圣经以供查阅。

An inclined plane of light comes accurately through each window, purple and yellow even in its most diffused dust, while, where it breaks upon stone, that stone is softly chalked red, yellow, and purple. Neither snow nor greenery, winter nor summer, has power over the old stained glass. As the sides of a lantern protect the flame so that it burns steady even in the wildest night—burns steady and gravely illumines the tree-trunks—so inside the Chapel all was orderly.

一片倾斜的光精准地穿过每一扇窗户，即便在灰尘最为弥漫的地方也呈现出紫色和黄色，当光线落在石头上时，那块石头被轻柔地涂上了红色、黄色和紫色。无论是白雪还是绿树，无论是冬天还是夏天，都无法驾驭这古老的彩花玻璃。就像提灯的几个面，保护着火焰，这样即使是在风暴最为猛烈的夜晚，火焰也能稳稳地燃烧——稳稳地燃烧，并且肃穆地照亮树干——因此，小教堂里的一切都井然有序。

Gravely sounded the voices; wisely the organ replied, as if buttressing human faith with the assent of the elements. The white-robed figures crossed from side to side; now mounted steps, now descended, all very orderly. ... If you stand a lantern under a tree every insect in the forest creeps up to it—a curious assembly, since though they scramble and swing and knock their heads against the glass, they seem to have no purpose—something senseless inspires them. One gets tired of watching them, as they amble round the lantern and blindly tap as if for admittance, one large toad being the most besotted of any and shouldering his way through the rest. Ah, but what's that? A terrifying volley of pistol-shots rings out—cracks sharply; ripples spread— silence laps smooth over sound. A tree—a tree has fallen, a sort of death in the forest. After that, the wind in the trees sounds melancholy.

声音听起来肃穆庄严；管风琴智慧地应和着，好像在用大自然的力量赞同、巩固着人类的信念。穿着白色衣袍的人们从一边穿到另一边；时而拾阶而上，时而走下台阶，一切都井然有序。……如果你在一棵树下放置一盏提灯，树林里所有的虫子都会向它爬来——一场奇特的集会，因为即便它们攀爬、摆动，并用它们的脑袋敲打玻璃，它们看上去也毫无目的——无意识的东西在激励它们。它们绕着提灯转悠，瞎撞着好像要求进去，最着迷的一只大癞蛤蟆用肩膀推搡着往前爬，看着它们让人心生厌烦。哈！可那是什么？一声可怕的枪击声突然响起——尖锐的噼啪声；四下里荡漾开去——寂静平滑地盖过了声音。一棵树——一棵树倒了下来，森林中的一种死亡。那之后，林间的风声听起来使人忧伤。

But this service in King's College Chapel—why allow women to take part in it? Surely, if the mind wanders (and Jacob looked extraordinarily vacant, his head thrown back, his hymn-book open at the wrong place), if the mind wanders it is because several hat shops and cupboards upon cupboards of coloured dresses are displayed upon rush-bottomed chairs. Though heads and bodies may be devout enough, one has a sense of individuals—some like blue, others brown; some feathers, others pansies and forget-me-nots. No one would think of bringing a dog into church. For though a dog is all very well on a gravel path, and shows no disrespect to flowers, the way he wanders down an aisle, looking, lifting a paw, and approaching a pillar with a purpose that makes the blood run cold with horror (should you be one of a congregation—alone, shyness is out of the question), a dog destroys the service completely. So do these women—though separately devout, distinguished, and vouched for by the theology, mathematics, Latin, and Greek of their husbands. Heaven knows why it is. For one thing, thought Jacob, they're as ugly as sin.

但这次在国王学院小教堂里的礼拜仪式——为什么允许妇女参加呢？毫无疑问，如果思想开小差的话（雅各布看上去尤其心不在焉，他的脑袋向后仰，圣歌诗集也翻错了页码），如果思想开小差了，那是因为好几家帽店的帽子和一橱柜又一橱柜的五颜六色的衣裙摊在有灯芯草垫的椅子上。即使身心都非常虔诚，人还是具有个人感觉——一些人喜欢蓝色，其他人喜欢棕色；一些人喜欢羽毛，另一些人则喜欢三色堇和勿忘我。没有人会想到带一只狗进教堂。因为尽管一只狗会乖乖地走在砂石路上，不会对花儿表示无礼，可它沿着过道溜达，四处张望，抬抬爪子，向一根柱子走去，其目的会让人惊恐得毛骨悚然（如果你是会众之一——单独一人，不存在难为情的问题），那么它就会彻底毁了这场礼拜仪式。女人们也是如此——尽管每个人都很虔诚、优秀，而且有着他们丈夫的神学、数学、拉丁文和希腊文做担保。天晓得为什么会是这样。首先，雅各布心想，她们全都丑陋无比。

Now there was a scraping and murmuring. He caught Timmy Durrant's eye; looked very sternly at him; and then, very solemnly, winked.

这时响起了刮擦声和低语声。他引起了蒂米·杜兰特的注意；后者非常严厉地瞪着他；然后，非常严肃地眨了眨眼睛。

"Waverley," the villa on the road to Girton was called, not that Mr. Plumer admired Scott or would have chosen any name at all, but names are useful when you have to entertain undergraduates, and as they sat waiting for the fourth undergraduate, on Sunday at lunch-time, there was talk of names upon gates.

那座位于通往格尔顿路上的别墅叫做“威弗利”，不是因为普卢默先生崇拜司各特，或是随意挑了一个名字，而是因为当你要招待大学生时，名字是有用的，周日午饭时间当他们坐在那里等第四个大学生到来时,会谈论起大门上那个名字。

"How tiresome," Mrs. Plumer interrupted impulsively. "Does anybody know Mr. Flanders?"“真叫人厌烦。”普卢默太太冲动地打断谈话。“有谁认得弗兰德斯先生吗？”

Mr. Durrant knew him; and therefore blushed slightly, and said, awkwardly, something about being sure—looking at Mr. Plumer and hitching the right leg of his trouser as he spoke. Mr. Plumer got up and stood in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Plumer laughed like a straightforward friendly fellow. In short, anything more horrible than the scene, the setting, the prospect, even the May garden being afflicted with chill sterility and a cloud choosing that moment to cross the sun, cannot be imagined. There was the garden, of course. Every one at the same moment looked at it. Owing to the cloud, the leaves ruffled grey, and the sparrows—there were two sparrows.

杜兰特先生认识他；因此微微有点儿脸红，尴尬地说了一些肯定的话——一面看着普卢默先生，一面扯着自己的右裤腿。普卢默先生起身站在壁炉前面。普卢默太太笑了起来，像个率真友好的家伙。总而言之，难以想象还有什么比这景象、这环境、这视野更可怕的了，甚至这五月的花园也遭受着荒凉贫瘠的折磨，一团云也选择在那一刻遮蔽了太阳。有座花园，当然。在那一时刻，每个人都看着花园。因为云团的缘故，树叶子灰蒙蒙地乱舞着，还有麻雀——这里有两只麻雀。

"I think," said Mrs. Plumer, taking advantage of the momentary respite, while the young men stared at the garden, to look at her husband, and he, not accepting full responsibility for the act, nevertheless touched the bell.“我想。”当年轻人都盯着花园时，普卢默太太趁着这休息的片刻，看着她的丈夫说，而他，虽然不愿意为自己的行为承担全部责任，仍然按了下门铃。

There can be no excuse for this outrage upon one hour of human life, save the reflection which occurred to Mr. Plumer as he carved the mutton, that if no don ever gave a luncheon party, if Sunday after Sunday passed, if men went down, became lawyers, doctors, members of Parliament, business men—if no don ever gave a luncheon party—

没有理由这样糟蹋生命中的一小时，除了普卢默先生在切羊肉时的所思所想，如果大学老师都不曾举办过午餐会，如果一个周日又一个周日地过去，如果人们离开，成为了律师、医生、议员、商人——大学老师不曾举办过午餐会的话——

"Now, does lamb make the mint sauce, or mint sauce make the lamb?" he asked the young man next him, to break a silence which had already lasted five minutes and a half.“我说，是羊腿成就了薄荷酱，还是薄荷酱成就了羊腿？”他问坐在他身边的年轻人，打破了已经持续了五分半钟的沉默。

"I don't know, sir," said the young man, blushing very vividly.“我不知道，先生。”年轻人回答道，他的脸涨得通红。

At this moment in came Mr. Flanders. He had mistaken the time.

正在这时，弗兰德斯先生进来了。他记错时间了。

Now, though they had finished their meat, Mrs. Plumer took a second helping of cabbage. Jacob determined, of course, that he would eat his meat in the time it took her to finish her cabbage, looking once or twice to measure his speed—only he was infernally hungry. Seeing this, Mrs. Plumer said that she was sure Mr. Flanders would not mind—and the tart was brought in. Nodding in a peculiar way, she directed the maid to give Mr. Flanders a second helping of mutton. She glanced at the mutton. Not much of the leg would be left for luncheon.

现在，尽管他们已经吃完了肉，普卢默太太又要了一份卷心菜。当然，雅各布决定在她吃卷心菜的时间里把肉吃了，他看了她一两次，以估计自己的速度——只是他真的饿坏了。普卢默太太看在眼里，说她确信弗兰德斯先生不介意——于是果馅饼端了上来。她以特别的方式点了点头，指示女佣再给弗兰德斯先生添一份羊肉。她扫了眼羊肉。没多少羊腿肉剩下给下一顿午餐了。

It was none of her fault—since how could she control her father begetting her forty years ago in the suburbs of Manchester? and once begotten, how could she do other than grow up cheese-paring, ambitious, with an instinctively accurate notion of the rungs of the ladder and an ant-like assiduity in pushing George Plumer ahead of her to the top of the ladder? What was at the top of the ladder? A sense that all the rungs were beneath one apparently; since by the time that George Plumer became Professor of Physics, or whatever it might be, Mrs. Plumer could only be in a condition to cling tight to her eminence, peer down at the ground, and goad her two plain daughters to climb the rungs of the ladder.

这不是她的错——因为她又如何能控制她的父亲四十年前在曼彻斯特郊区有了她呢？而一旦被生了下来，她又怎么能不锱铢必较、野心勃勃地成长，凭着对社会阶层本能的、精准的看法并且以蚁族的勤恳在后面推着乔治·普卢默爬到阶梯的最顶端呢？在梯子的最顶端是什么呢？显然，一个感觉就是所有的台阶都在你下面了；因为就在乔治·普卢默成为物理系教授，或不管是其他什么的时候，普卢默太太只可能处于一种状态中——紧攥着她的显赫声名，向下盯着地面，驱使她那两个平凡无奇的女儿沿着阶梯往上爬。

"I was down at the races yesterday," she said, "with my two little girls."“我昨天去看赛马了，”她说道，“和我的两个小女儿一起去的。”

It was none of THEIR fault either. In they came to the drawing-room, in white frocks and blue sashes. They handed the cigarettes. Rhoda had inherited her father's cold grey eyes. Cold grey eyes George Plumer had, but in them was an abstract light. He could talk about Persia and the Trade winds, the Reform Bill and the cycle of the harvests. Books were on his shelves by Wells and Shaw; on the table serious six-penny weeklies written by pale men in muddy boots—the weekly creak and screech of brains rinsed in cold water and wrung dry—melancholy papers.

这也不是她们的过错。她们走进客厅，穿着白色的上衣，系着蓝色的腰带。她们递香烟。罗达遗传了她父亲冷漠的灰色眸子。乔治·普卢默有着冷漠的灰眼睛，但灰眼睛里闪烁着深奥的光芒。他能对波斯以及信风，改革法案和收获周期侃侃而谈。书架上摆放着韦尔斯和萧伯纳的作品；桌上放着由穿着满是污泥的靴子、面色苍白的人写的严肃的六便士一本的周刊——这是在冷水里漂洗过又拧干的脑袋每周发出的嘎吱声和尖叫声——令人抑郁的报刊。

"I don't feel that I know the truth about anything till I've read them both!" said Mrs. Plumer brightly, tapping the table of contents with her bare red hand, upon which the ring looked so incongruous.“我并不觉得我了解事情的真相，除非我都读过。”普卢默太太爽朗地说道，一面用她那赤裸的红手轻扣着目录表，手上的戒指显得很不协调。

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" exclaimed Jacob, as the four undergraduates left the house. "Oh, my God!"“哦，天哪，哦，天哪，哦，天哪！”当四个大学生离开那所房子时，雅各布大叫道。“哦，我的上帝啊！”

"Bloody beastly!" he said, scanning the street for lilac or bicycle— anything to restore his sense of freedom.“糟透了！”他一面说，一面扫视大街，寻找丁香花或自行车——任何东西，以恢复他无拘无束的感觉。

"Bloody beastly," he said to Timmy Durrant, summing up his discomfort at the world shown him at lunch-time, a world capable of existing—there was no doubt about that—but so unnecessary, such a thing to believe in— Shaw and Wells and the serious sixpenny weeklies! What were they after, scrubbing and demolishing, these elderly people? Had they never read Homer, Shakespeare, the Elizabethans? He saw it clearly outlined against the feelings he drew from youth and natural inclination. The poor devils had rigged up this meagre object. Yet something of pity was in him. Those wretched little girls—“糟透了。”他对蒂米·杜兰特说道，他总结了对午餐时看到的世界的不满，一个有能力存在下去的世界——这一点不用怀疑——但毫无存在的必要，真是让人难以置信——萧伯纳和韦尔斯和六便士的严肃周刊！这些老一辈人刮擦、破坏，追求的是什么？难道他们从未读过荷马、莎士比亚和伊丽莎白时代的作家？借着从青春和自然天性中汲取的感觉，他看清了它的轮廓。可怜的家伙们已经整出了这么个微不足道的目标。然而，他还是感到了几分遗憾。那些可怜的小姑娘们。

The extent to which he was disturbed proves that he was already agog. Insolent he was and inexperienced, but sure enough the cities which the elderly of the race have built upon the skyline showed like brick suburbs, barracks, and places of discipline against a red and yellow flame. He was impressionable; but the word is contradicted by the composure with which he hollowed his hand to screen a match. He was a young man of substance.

他心神不安的程度表明他已经急不可耐了。他傲慢无礼又缺乏经验，但毫无疑问，老一辈建在地平线上的城市，映衬着红色、黄色的火焰，看上去像是个用砖砌的郊区、兵营，是纪律严明的地方。他生性敏感；但这么说与他圈起手来划火柴时的镇定是矛盾的。他是个有钱的年轻人。

Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty—the world of the elderly—thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable—"I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. Wells and Shaw and the serious sixpenny weeklies will sit on its head. Every time he lunches out on Sunday—at dinner parties and tea parties—there will be this same shock—horror—discomfort—then pleasure, for he draws into him at every step as he walks by the river such steady certainty, such reassurance from all sides, the trees bowing, the grey spires soft in the blue, voices blowing and seeming suspended in the air, the springy air of May, the elastic air with its particles—chestnut bloom, pollen, whatever it is that gives the May air its potency, blurring the trees, gumming the buds, daubing the green. And the river too runs past, not at flood, nor swiftly, but cloying the oar that dips in it and drops white drops from the blade, swimming green and deep over the bowed rushes, as if lavishly caressing them.

总之，不论是大学生还是店员，是男人还是女人，在二十岁左右的年纪都会感到震惊——老一辈的世界——以这样的黑色轮廓抛在我们的属性上；抛在现实中；抛在沼泽地和拜伦上；抛在大海和灯塔上；抛在有着黄牙齿的羊的下颌骨上；抛在固执倔强的、抑制不住的信念上，这信念使青春变得如此讨厌、难以忍受——“我就是我，不会改变。”世上没有这种形式，除非雅各布为自己创造一个出来。普卢默夫妇将会尽力阻止他这么做。韦尔斯、萧伯纳和六便士的严肃周刊会骑在它的头上。每当他周日外出吃午餐——在晚宴和茶会上——总有类似的震惊——恐怖——不适——然后是愉悦，因为当他在河边散步时，每走一步，他都能从四周为自己汲取如此坚定的信念和保证——树在鞠躬，灰色的穹顶柔和地矗立在蓝天下，风吹送来人声，好像是悬挂在空中一般，五月活泼的空气，那带着微粒的、富有弹性的空气——栗树开花、花粉以及不论什么赋予五月的空气力量的事物，都使树木变得朦朦胧胧，蓓蕾胶结，挥洒着绿意。而那河水也从旁流过，没有涨水，流得也不快，却牵绊住了浸泡在河水里的桨，白色的水珠从桨翼上滴落下来，弯弯的蒲草漂浮在绿莹莹的、深深的河里，好似它们在被纵情地爱抚着。

Where they moored their boat the trees showered down, so that their topmost leaves trailed in the ripples and the green wedge that lay in the water being made of leaves shifted in leaf-breadths as the real leaves shifted. Now there was a shiver of wind—instantly an edge of sky; and as Durrant ate cherries he dropped the stunted yellow cherries through the green wedge of leaves, their stalks twinkling as they wriggled in and out, and sometimes one half-bitten cherry would go down red into the green. The meadow was on a level with Jacob's eyes as he lay back; gilt with buttercups, but the grass did not run like the thin green water of the graveyard grass about to overflow the tombstones, but stood juicy and thick. Looking up, backwards, he saw the legs of children deep in the grass, and the legs of cows. Munch, munch, he heard; then a short step through the grass; then again munch, munch, munch, as they tore the grass short at the roots. In front of him two white butterflies circled higher and higher round the elm tree.

在他们泊船之处，树枝低垂，如此一来，树冠顶上的叶子就可以在轻波中荡漾，当真的树叶移动时，那徜徉在水里的、由片片树叶组成的楔形绿色地带也跟着移动。此时，一阵微风吹过——立即露出一线天空；杜兰特吃着樱桃，他将发育不良的黄色樱桃扔进那树叶形成的绿色楔形里，当这些樱桃浮浮沉沉时，樱桃的梗闪闪发亮，有时一个被咬了一半儿的樱桃会沉下去，红色融入绿色里。雅各布躺下时，草地与他眼睛齐平；毛茛将草地镀上了一层金色，但这里的草只是水灵灵地、茂盛地挺立着，不像墓地里的草，如绿色细流般几乎要没过墓碑。他抬起头，向后望去，看见深深地没在草地里的孩子们的腿，以及奶牛的腿。他听见嚓嚓的声音；然后在草丛里迈了一小步；接着又是嚓、嚓、嚓的声音，好像奶牛齐着草根咬断牧草。他的面前有两只蝴蝶，绕着榆树越飞越高。

"Jacob's off," thought Durrant looking up from his novel. He kept reading a few pages and then looking up in a curiously methodical manner, and each time he looked up he took a few cherries out of the bag and ate them abstractedly. Other boats passed them, crossing the backwater from side to side to avoid each other, for many were now moored, and there were now white dresses and a flaw in the column of air between two trees, round which curled a thread of blue—Lady Miller's picnic party. Still more boats kept coming, and Durrant, without getting up, shoved their boat closer to the bank.“雅各布真怪。”杜兰特心想着，从他的小说上抬起眼睛。他连续看上几页，然后奇怪地、有条有理地抬头向上看，每一次向上看时，他都从袋子里掏出几颗樱桃来，心不在焉地吃着。别的船只经过他们，从这片死水的一边穿到另一边，以避开彼此。因为此时有许多船停泊在那儿，还有白色的衣裙，两棵树之间的空气柱出现了瑕疵，周围升腾起一缕青烟——米勒夫人的野餐会。还有更多的船不断地靠过来，杜兰特没有站起身，而是将船驶到了离岸更近的地方。

"Oh-h-h-h," groaned Jacob, as the boat rocked, and the trees rocked, and the white dresses and the white flannel trousers drew out long and wavering up the bank.“啊——啊——”船摇动时雅各布叹息着，树也摇晃起来，白色的衣裙和白色的法兰绒裤子拉得长长的，摇摆着上了岸。

"Oh-h-h-h!" He sat up, and felt as if a piece of elastic had snapped in his face.“啊——啊——！”他坐起身，感到好似有一条松紧带在他脸上啪地一声断了。

"They're friends of my mother's," said Durrant. "So old Bow took no end of trouble about the boat."“他们是我妈妈的朋友。”杜兰特说。“所以老鲍在船上可花心思了。”

And this boat had gone from Falmouth to St. Ives Bay, all round the coast. A larger boat, a ten-ton yacht, about the twentieth of June, properly fitted out, Durrant said...

这条船从法尔莫斯开往圣艾夫斯，全程沿着海岸线。一条更大的船，十吨的游艇，大概在六月二十号前后能彻底装备完毕，杜兰特说……

"There's the cash difficulty," said Jacob.“经济上有困难。”雅各布说。

"My people'll see to that," said Durrant (the son of a banker, deceased).“我家人会解决的。”杜兰特（一位已故银行家的儿子）说道。

"I intend to preserve my economic independence," said Jacob stiffly. (He was getting excited.)“我还是想保持经济上的独立。”雅各布生硬地说道。（他开始激动起来。）

"My mother said something about going to Harrogate," he said with a little annoyance, feeling the pocket where he kept his letters.“我母亲说起过要去哈罗盖特的事。”他有点懊恼地说道，一面摸摸他放信件的口袋。

"Was that true about your uncle becoming a Mohammedan?" asked Timmy Durrant.“真的吗？你舅舅成了一位伊斯兰教徒？”蒂米·杜兰特问道。

Jacob had told the story of his Uncle Morty in Durrant's room the night before.

前一晚，在杜兰特的房间里，雅各布说了他舅舅莫特的事。

"I expect he's feeding the sharks, if the truth were known," said Jacob. "I say, Durrant, there's none left!" he exclaimed, crumpling the bag which had held the cherries, and throwing it into the river. He saw Lady Miller's picnic party on the island as he threw the bag into the river.“我猜他正在喂鲨鱼呢，如果人们知道真相的话。”雅各布说。“我说，杜兰特，吃个精光！”他大声说道，将装樱桃的袋子揉成一团，抛进河里。当他将袋子抛进河里时，他看见了岸上米勒夫人的野餐会。

A sort of awkwardness, grumpiness, gloom came into his eyes.

他的眼中浮现出一种别扭、乖张、阴郁的神情。

"Shall we move on... this beastly crowd..." he said.“我们继续向前划吗……这讨厌的人群……”他说。

So up they went, past the island.

于是，他们向上游划去，划过了小岛。

The feathery white moon never let the sky grow dark; all night the chestnut blossoms were white in the green; dim was the cow-parsley in the meadows.

又柔又白的月光使夜空不曾变黑；整个夜晚绿叶丛里栗树开着白色的花；草地上的峨参看起来朦朦胧胧。

The waiters at Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms, however, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out of breath; but he wasn't there. Dining in Hall, presumably. It will be quite dark in Neville's Court long before midnight, only the pillars opposite will always be white, and the fountains. A curious effect the gate has, like lace upon pale green. Even in the window you hear the plates; a hum of talk, too, from the diners; the Hall lit up, and the swing-doors opening and shutting with a soft thud. Some are late.

从大院就能听见盘碟刀叉碰撞的声音，三清学院的侍者肯定是像洗牌一样将瓷盘移来移去。不过，雅各布的房间在内维尔院；在顶层；所以，到达他房门口的人都有些气喘吁吁；但他不在那里。想来是在食堂用餐。早在午夜到来之前，内维尔院就漆黑一片了，只有对面的柱子总是白色的，还有那喷泉。那大门有着奇特的效果，像是浅绿色上的蕾丝花边。即便是在窗旁，你也能听见杯盘的声音；还有用餐者嗡嗡的谈话声；食堂灯火通明，弹簧门开开关关，发出轻柔的砰砰声。有些人来得晚。

Jacob's room had a round table and two low chairs. There were yellow flags in a jar on the mantelpiece; a photograph of his mother; cards from societies with little raised crescents, coats of arms, and initials; notes and pipes; on the table lay paper ruled with a red margin—an essay, no doubt—"Does History consist of the Biographies of Great Men?" There were books enough; very few French books; but then any one who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, with extravagant enthusiasm. Lives of the Duke of Wellington, for example; Spinoza; the works of Dickens; the Faery Queen; a Greek dictionary with the petals of poppies pressed to silk between the pages; all the Elizabethans. His slippers were incredibly shabby, like boats burnt to the water's rim. Then there were photographs from the Greeks, and a mezzotint from Sir Joshua—all very English. The works of Jane Austen, too, in deference, perhaps, to some one else's standard. Carlyle was a prize. There were books upon the Italian painters of the Renaissance, a Manual of the Diseases of the Horse, and all the usual text-books. Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks, though no one sits there.

雅各布的房间里有一张圆桌和两把矮椅子。壁炉上的一只罐子里插着黄色的旗子；一张他母亲的照片；各种社团的卡片，上面印有小小的、凸起的月牙儿印记、，盾徽和缩写字母；记事本和烟斗；桌上放着划出红色页边的纸——是篇文章，毫无疑问——“历史是由名人传记构成的吗？”屋里的书可够多的；没几本法文书；不过任何有些价值的人，当兴头来时，都会以极大的热情读自己的喜爱的书。比如，威灵顿公爵的生平；斯宾诺莎；狄更斯的作品；《仙后》；一本希腊文词典，页码间夹着压得薄如绢丝的罂粟花瓣；伊丽莎白一世时代的所有作家的作品。他的拖鞋破烂不堪，像是被烧到水线的船。不过，有几张希腊人的照片，乔舒亚爵士的金属版画——都很有英伦风。还有简·奥斯丁的作品，也许是表示对另一个人的标准的尊重。卡莱尔的书是奖品。有几本关于文艺复兴时期意大利画家的书，一本《马的疾病手册》，以及所有普普通通的教科书。空荡荡的房间里空气也显得没精打采，只是将窗帘吹起来；罐子里的花动了动。柳条手扶椅上一根纤维咯吱作响，尽管并没有人坐在那里。

Coming down the steps a little sideways [Jacob sat on the window-seat talking to Durrant; he smoked, and Durrant looked at the map], the old man, with his hands locked behind him, his gown floating black, lurched, unsteadily, near the wall; then, upstairs he went into his room. Then another, who raised his hand and praised the columns, the gate, the sky; another, tripping and smug. Each went up a staircase; three lights were lit in the dark windows.

老先生微斜着身子走下台阶［雅各布坐在窗座上和杜兰特说着话；他吸着烟，杜兰特看着地图]，他双手背在身后，黑色的长袍衣袂飘飘，在靠近墙的地方没走稳，打了个趔趄；然后上楼走进了自己的房间。然后，另外一个人抬起手，赞美柱子、大门、天空；又有一个人脚步矫健、沾沾自喜。每个人都走上了楼梯；一片黑黑的窗户，亮起了三盏灯。

If any light burns above Cambridge, it must be from three such rooms; Greek burns here; science there; philosophy on the ground floor. Poor old Huxtable can't walk straight;—Sopwith, too, has praised the sky any night these twenty years; and Cowan still chuckles at the same stories. It is not simple, or pure, or wholly splendid, the lamp of learning, since if you see them there under its light (whether Rossetti's on the wall, or Van Gogh reproduced, whether there are lilacs in the bowl or rusty pipes), how priestly they look! How like a suburb where you go to see a view and eat a special cake! "We are the sole purveyors of this cake." Back you go to London; for the treat is over.

如果剑桥上空有什么光在燃烧的话，那一定是从三个这样的房间里照射出去的；希腊文在这里燃烧；自然科学在那里燃烧；哲学则在一楼。可怜的老赫克斯特布尔连路都走不直了；——索普威思每天晚上都赞美天空，二十年如一日；考恩仍然对着相同的故事咯咯发笑。知识之灯并不简单，也不纯粹或壮观非凡，因为如果你看见他们在灯光的照射之下（不论是墙上罗塞蒂的画像，还是梵高的复制品，不论钵碗里是丁香花还是生锈了的烟斗），他们看上去多像教士啊！多像你去观赏一道风景，品尝一块特别的蛋糕的郊区啊！“我们是这种蛋糕唯一的供应商。”你回到伦敦；因为招待已结束。

Old Professor Huxtable, performing with the method of a clock his change of dress, let himself down into his chair; filled his pipe; chose his paper; crossed his feet; and extracted his glasses. The whole flesh of his face then fell into folds as if props were removed. Yet strip a whole seat of an underground railway carriage of its heads and old Huxtable's head will hold them all. Now, as his eye goes down the print, what a procession tramps through the corridors of his brain, orderly, quick-stepping, and reinforced, as the march goes on, by fresh runnels, till the whole hall, dome, whatever one calls it, is populous with ideas. Such a muster takes place in no other brain. Yet sometimes there he'll sit for hours together, gripping the arm of the chair, like a man holding fast because stranded, and then, just because his corn twinges, or it may be the gout, what execrations, and, dear me, to hear him talk of money, taking out his leather purse and grudging even the smallest silver coin, secretive and suspicious as an old peasant woman with all her lies. Strange paralysis and constriction—marvellous illumination. Serene over it all rides the great full brow, and sometimes asleep or in the quiet spaces of the night you might fancy that on a pillow of stone he lay triumphant.

老赫克斯特布尔教授如时钟般精准地更换了衣服，坐进自己的椅子里；填满烟斗；挑选报纸；交叉双腿；然后取下眼镜。然后，他脸上的肌肉全都下垂了，叠了起来，就好像支架被移走了似的。然而，就算剥离掉一节地铁车厢里所有座位上的脑袋里东西，老赫克斯特布尔的脑袋都能装得下。此时，当他的眼睛随着印刷字向下移动时，在他大脑里的长廊上行进着怎样的队列啊，整齐划一、步伐迅速，行进当中不断有新鲜细流加入，直到整个大厅、穹顶，不管你怎么称呼它，都挤满了想法。这样的集合不会发生在其他人的大脑里。然而，有时他在那儿一坐就是数小时，紧抓住椅子的扶手，像个受困的人一样死死抓住，然后，因为他的鸡眼发作，或者可能是痛风，怎样的诅咒啊，天啊，听听他谈金钱，掏出皮夹子，哪怕是最小面值的银币都吝啬不舍、遮遮掩掩、疑神疑鬼，像个说谎的老农妇。奇特的麻木不仁和约束限制——了不起的启示。宁静安详制服了宽大的前额，有时你会想象在他睡着时，或夜深人静之际，他枕着石枕得意地躺着。

Sopwith, meanwhile, advancing with a curious trip from the fire-place, cut the chocolate cake into segments. Until midnight or later there would be undergraduates in his room, sometimes as many as twelve, sometimes three or four; but nobody got up when they went or when they came; Sopwith went on talking. Talking, talking, talking—as if everything could be talked—the soul itself slipped through the lips in thin silver disks which dissolve in young men's minds like silver, like moonlight. Oh, far away they'd remember it, and deep in dulness gaze back on it, and come to refresh themselves again.

与此同时，索普威思从壁炉那边以一种奇异的轻快步伐走上前来，将巧克力蛋糕切成几小块。直到半夜或者更迟，他的房里都会有大学生在，有时多达十二个，有时三四个；但是当他们进来或离开时，没有人站起来；索普威思一直在谈论着。说啊，说啊，说啊——好像所有的事儿都能拿来说——灵魂自个儿从唇间滑进了薄薄的银碟子里，那银碟子融化于青年人的思想里，如银子一般，如月色一般。哦，他们远远地记着它，沉迷于无聊时回望它，再一次地振作自己。

"Well, I never. That's old Chucky. My dear boy, how's the world treating you?" And in came poor little Chucky, the unsuccessful provincial, Stenhouse his real name, but of course Sopwith brought back by using the other everything, everything, "all I could never be"—yes, though next day, buying his newspaper and catching the early train, it all seemed to him childish, absurd; the chocolate cake, the young men; Sopwith summing things up; no, not all; he would send his son there.“嗯，我从不。那是老查基。我亲爱的小伙子，这世界对你如何？”可怜的小查基进来了，一个不成功的外省人，他的真名叫斯坦豪斯。但是，当然，索普威思叫他的外号，使他回忆起其他所有的事情，所有的事情，“我永远无法成就的一切”——是的，尽管第二天他买了报纸，搭上早班火车，这一切在他看来都是孩子气的、荒谬的；巧克力蛋糕，年轻人；索普威思把事情总结了一下；不，不是所有的事情；他还要送他的儿子到那里去。

He would save every penny to send his son there. Sopwith went on talking; twining stiff fibres of awkward speech—things young men blurted out—plaiting them round his own smooth garland, making the bright side show, the vivid greens, the sharp thorns, manliness. He loved it. Indeed to Sopwith a man could say anything, until perhaps he'd grown old, or gone under, gone deep, when the silver disks would tinkle hollow, and the inscription read a little too simple, and the old stamp look too pure, and the impress always the same—a Greek boy's head. But he would respect still. A woman, divining the priest, would, involuntarily, despise.

他要节省每一分钱，送儿子到那里去。索普威思继续说着；将并不流利的言辞的硬邦邦的纤维缠绕起来——年轻人冲口而出的内容——绕着他自己平整的花环编织，让闪亮的一面示人，鲜活的绿色，尖利的刺，男人的气概。他热衷于此。实际上，在索普威思看来，一个男人要能够无所不谈，也许一直说到老朽，或者死去、被深埋，当银碟盘空洞地叮当作响，碑铭读着过于简单，旧印记太过纯粹，印象总是如出一辙——一个希腊男孩的头。但他仍会示以敬意。一个女人，感受到教士的存在时，蔑视之情油然而生。

Cowan, Erasmus Cowan, sipped his port alone, or with one rosy little man, whose memory held precisely the same span of time; sipped his port, and told his stories, and without book before him intoned Latin, Virgil and Catullus, as if language were wine upon his lips. Only—sometimes it will come over one—what if the poet strode in? "THIS my image?" he might ask, pointing to the chubby man, whose brain is, after all, Virgil's representative among us, though the body gluttonize, and as for arms, bees, or even the plough, Cowan takes his trips abroad with a French novel in his pocket, a rug about his knees, and is thankful to be home again in his place, in his line, holding up in his snug little mirror the image of Virgil, all rayed round with good stories of the dons of Trinity and red beams of port. But language is wine upon his lips. Nowhere else would Virgil hear the like. And though, as she goes sauntering along the Backs, old Miss Umphelby sings him melodiously enough, accurately too, she is always brought up by this question as she reaches Clare Bridge: "But if I met him, what should I wear?"—and then, taking her way up the avenue towards Newnham, she lets her fancy play upon other details of men's meeting with women which have never got into print. Her lectures, therefore, are not half so well attended as those of Cowan, and the thing she might have said in elucidation of the text for ever left out. In short, face a teacher with the image of the taught and the mirror breaks. But Cowan sipped his port, his exaltation over, no longer the representative of Virgil. No, the builder, assessor, surveyor, rather; ruling lines between names, hanging lists above doors. Such is the fabric through which the light must shine, if shine it can— the light of all these languages, Chinese and Russian, Persian and Arabic, of symbols and figures, of history, of things that are known and things that are about to be known. So that if at night, far out at sea over the tumbling waves, one saw a haze on the waters, a city illuminated, a whiteness even in the sky, such as that now over the Hall of Trinity where they're still dining, or washing up plates, that would be the light burning there—the light of Cambridge.

考恩，伊拉兹马斯·考恩，独酌波尔图葡萄酒，或者和一个在相同的时段里，有着完全相同的记忆的、面色红润的小个子男人一起，品饮波尔图葡萄酒，讲述故事，吟诵拉丁文，面前并没有书本，维吉尔和卡图鲁斯，就好像语言是他唇上的美酒。只是——有时突然想起一个念头——要是诗人大步踏了进来，将会如何？“这，就是我的形象？”他可能会指着这个圆胖的男人这样问道，毕竟，他的大脑是维吉尔在我们之中的代表，尽管他暴饮暴食，而且至于说到武器、蜜蜂或者甚至是犁，考恩在国外旅行时口袋里都揣着一本法国小说，一条盖在膝上的毯子，再次回到家里甚感欣慰，回到他的位置，他生活的轨道，在他整洁的小镜子里保留有维吉尔的形象，一切都包围在三一学院教师们精彩的故事和波尔图葡萄酒红色的光束里。但语言是他唇上的美酒。在其他任何地方，维吉尔都听不到同样的东西。尽管，当老昂费尔比小姐沿着后园悠闲走来，为他歌唱，旋律相当优美，曲调也很准确，不过她到达克莱尔桥时，总是冒出这样的问题：“但如果我要去见他，我该穿什么呢？”——然后，她沿着大道朝纽纳姆学院走去，她任由自己想象着男人和女人会面时的其他细节，这些书上可从来没有写过。因此，来上她课的人还不及上考恩课的一半，她本来要说阐明课文的内容的话，总是会漏掉了。总而言之，一位老师面对被教授的学生的形象时，镜子就碎了。但是考恩呷了一口波尔图葡萄酒，他的得意劲头已过，不再是维吉尔的代表。不，而是建设者、估价员、测量员；在名字之间画上线条，将名单挂着门的上方。这就是光线必须照射穿透的织物，如果光线可以的话——所有的这些语言的光芒，汉语和俄语，波斯语和阿拉伯语，符号和象征的光芒，历史的光芒，已知事物的光芒和将要被了解的事物的光芒。因此，如果在夜晚，在辽远的大海汹涌的波涛之上，人看见水面的一团雾霭，一个灯火通明的城市，甚至天空里的一团洁白，就像此刻，在人们还进着餐，或着洗刷着杯盘的三清学院大厅的上空，燃烧的光芒之所在——剑桥之光。

"Let's go round to Simeon's room," said Jacob, and they rolled up the map, having got the whole thing settled.“我们到西蒙的屋里去吧。”雅各布说道，解决了所有的事情后，他们卷起了地图。

All the lights were coming out round the court, and falling on the cobbles, picking out dark patches of grass and single daisies. The young men were now back in their rooms. Heaven knows what they were doing. What was it that could DROP like that? And leaning down over a foaming window-box, one stopped another hurrying past, and upstairs they went and down they went, until a sort of fulness settled on the court, the hive full of bees, the bees home thick with gold, drowsy, humming, suddenly vocal; the Moonlight Sonata answered by a waltz.

院落四周都亮起了灯，灯光落在鹅卵石上，点衬出草地上片片暗黑和株株雏菊。现在，年轻人都回到他们的房间里了。天晓得他们在做些什么。能像这样砰的一声坠落的东西是什么？一个人屈身伏在泡沫材料做的窗槛花箱上，叫住了匆匆路过的另一个人，他们上楼，又下楼，直到院子里有一种满满当当的感觉，蜂巢挤满蜜蜂，蜜蜂们满载着财宝回到家里，昏昏欲睡，嗡嗡作响，突然唱起歌来；华尔兹和着月光奏鸣曲。

The Moonlight Sonata tinkled away; the waltz crashed. Although young men still went in and out, they walked as if keeping engagements. Now and then there was a thud, as if some heavy piece of furniture had fallen, unexpectedly, of its own accord, not in the general stir of life after dinner. One supposed that young men raised their eyes from their books as the furniture fell. Were they reading? Certainly there was a sense of concentration in the air. Behind the grey walls sat so many young men, some undoubtedly reading, magazines, shilling shockers, no doubt; legs, perhaps, over the arms of chairs; smoking; sprawling over tables, and writing while their heads went round in a circle as the pen moved— simple young men, these, who would—but there is no need to think of them grown old; others eating sweets; here they boxed; and, well, Mr. Hawkins must have been mad suddenly to throw up his window and bawl: "Jo—seph! Jo—seph!" and then he ran as hard as ever he could across the court, while an elderly man, in a green apron, carrying an immense pile of tin covers, hesitated, balanced, and then went on. But this was a diversion. There were young men who read, lying in shallow arm-chairs, holding their books as if they had hold in their hands of something that would see them through; they being all in a torment, coming from midland towns, clergymen's sons. Others read Keats. And those long histories in many volumes—surely some one was now beginning at the beginning in order to understand the Holy Roman Empire, as one must. That was part of the concentration, though it would be dangerous on a hot spring night— dangerous, perhaps, to concentrate too much upon single books, actual chapters, when at any moment the door opened and Jacob appeared; or Richard Bonamy, reading Keats no longer, began making long pink spills from an old newspaper, bending forward, and looking eager and contented no more, but almost fierce. Why? Only perhaps that Keats died young—one wants to write poetry too and to love—oh, the brutes! It's damnably difficult. But, after all, not so difficult if on the next staircase, in the large room, there are two, three, five young men all convinced of this—of brutality, that is, and the clear division between right and wrong. There was a sofa, chairs, a square table, and the window being open, one could see how they sat—legs issuing here, one there crumpled in a corner of the sofa; and, presumably, for you could not see him, somebody stood by the fender, talking. Anyhow, Jacob, who sat astride a chair and ate dates from a long box, burst out laughing. The answer came from the sofa corner; for his pipe was held in the air, then replaced. Jacob wheeled round. He had something to say to THAT, though the sturdy red-haired boy at the table seemed to deny it, wagging his head slowly from side to side; and then, taking out his penknife, he dug the point of it again and again into a knot in the table, as if affirming that the voice from the fender spoke the truth—which Jacob could not deny. Possibly, when he had done arranging the date-stones, he might find something to say to it—indeed his lips opened—only then there broke out a roar of laughter.

月光奏鸣曲叮当渐远；华尔兹戛然而止。然而，年轻人仍然进进出出，想要去赴约一样走着。间或有一声重响，好似一件沉重的家具自个儿意外地倒了，而不是宴会后社交的喧闹所致。你料想一下，家具倒下时，年轻人从书本上抬起眼睛。他们在读吗？当然，空气里有一种聚精会神的气氛。在灰色墙面之后，坐着这么多的年轻人，一些人无疑是在看书，看杂志，看廉价的惊悚小说，毋庸置疑；腿，可能，架在椅子的扶手上；吸着烟；摊开在桌子上写着，他们的脑袋随着钢笔的移动转着圈儿——这些单纯的年轻人，他们将——但无需去考虑他们变老；其他人吃着甜食；这边他们在打拳击；还有，哦，霍金斯先生肯定突然恼火了，他猛地摔开窗户，大叫道：“约——瑟夫！约——瑟夫！”然后他拼命地跑过院子，同时一个系着绿色围裙的老人家，拿着一大摞白铁皮盖子，犹豫着，保持好平衡，然后继续向前走去。但这只是一件分散注意力的事情。有些年轻人在阅读，他们躺在浅浅的手扶椅子里，端着书，就好像他们手里拿着什么能看穿他们的东西；他们来自中部小城，是牧师的儿子，都在忍受着痛苦。另外一些人读济慈。多卷集里的长篇历史书籍——肯定有人才开始从头看，是为了了解神圣罗马帝国，因为这是必须要了解的。这是聚精会神的一部分，尽管在一个炎热的春夜里这样是很危险的——过于聚精会神于一本书、具体篇章，门随时门会被打开，雅各布会出现，因而可能是危险的；或者理查德·博纳米不再读济慈，而开始用废报纸制作长长的、粉红色的纸捻，身体向前倾，一副焦虑的样子，不再是志得意满，而几乎是一副凶悍的样子。为什么？仅仅可能是因为济慈英年早逝——你也非常想写诗，想恋爱——哦，畜生！这难得惊人。但，毕竟，在隔壁的楼道就没有这么困难了，在大房间里，有两个、三个、五个年轻人都相信这一点——确信残忍的存在，确信对与错界线了了分明。那儿有一张沙发、几把椅子、一张方桌，窗子敞开着，你可以看见他们是如何坐着的——这里伸出几条腿，一个人蜷在沙发的角落里；可以想象有人站在壁炉围栏旁说着话，你看不见他。不管怎样，雅各布两腿分开跨过椅子坐着，吃着长盒子里的枣儿，突然放声大笑。从沙发的角落传来了应答；因为他将烟斗举在半空中，然后又放回原处。雅各布转过身来。对于那一点他有话要说，然而桌旁那个壮硕的红发男孩缓缓地左右摇着头，好像并不同意；然后，他掏出他的铅笔刀，反复地将刀尖扎进桌子上的一个节疤里，似乎在肯定从壁炉围栏传来的声音讲的都是真理——这一点雅各布无法否认。或许，在他放好枣核的时候，他应该找到了就此可说的什么话——实际上他的嘴唇张开了——仅仅爆发出一阵狂笑。

The laughter died in the air. The sound of it could scarcely have reached any one standing by the Chapel, which stretched along the opposite side of the court. The laughter died out, and only gestures of arms, movements of bodies, could be seen shaping something in the room. Was it an argument? A bet on the boat races? Was it nothing of the sort?

笑声消散在空气里。这笑声几乎无法传到站在教堂旁的任何人的耳朵里，这教堂沿着院子的对面延展开来。笑声消失了，仅看见房间里有手臂的姿势，身体的动作在塑造着什么。是一场辩论吗？关于划船赛事的打赌？根本就不是这么回事儿？

What was shaped by the arms and bodies moving in the twilight room? A step or two beyond the window there was nothing at all, except the enclosing buildings—chimneys upright, roofs horizontal; too much brick and building for a May night, perhaps. And then before one's eyes would come the bare hills of Turkey—sharp lines, dry earth, coloured flowers, and colour on the shoulders of the women, standing naked-legged in the stream to beat linen on the stones. The stream made loops of water round their ankles. But none of that could show clearly through the swaddlings and blanketings of the Cambridge night. The stroke of the clock even was muffled; as if intoned by somebody reverent from a pulpit; as if generations of learned men heard the last hour go rolling through their ranks and issued it, already smooth and time-worn, with their blessing, for the use of the living.

在那昏暗的房间里，手臂和身体移动表示的是什么呢？离窗户一两步开外，什么也没有，除了封闭的建筑——笔直的烟囱，平直的屋顶；对于一个五月的夜晚来说，砖瓦和建筑都太多了，也许吧。接着，你的眼前会浮现土耳其光秃秃的山丘——轮廓鲜明的线条，干涸的土地，五颜六色的花朵，以及女人们肩膀上的色彩，她们赤脚站在溪流中，在石块上捶洗亚麻织物。溪水绕着她们的脚踝，形成许多圈圈。但是，在剑桥黑夜的襁褓里，在剑桥黑夜的毯子下，这一切都无法清晰地显露出来。甚至连时钟的敲击声都被捂起来了；好似某个虔诚的人从布道坛发出的吟诵；好像一代代博学之人听见过去的这一个小时从他们的阶层滚滚而出，带着他们的祝福，将这已经柔和古老的声音传播出来，以供苍生使用。

Was it to receive this gift from the past that the young man came to the window and stood there, looking out across the court? It was Jacob. He stood smoking his pipe while the last stroke of the clock purred softly round him. Perhaps there had been an argument. He looked satisfied; indeed masterly; which expression changed slightly as he stood there, the sound of the clock conveying to him (it may be) a sense of old buildings and time; and himself the inheritor; and then to-morrow; and friends; at the thought of whom, in sheer confidence and pleasure, it seemed, he yawned and stretched himself.

年轻人来到窗前，伫足于此，越过院子向外张望，是为了得到这来自过去的礼物吗？那是雅各布。当最后一声钟响将他轻柔地包围时，他吸着烟斗站在那里。也许曾经有过一场辩论。他看上去很满意；事实上是志得意满；他站在那里，表情有了一丝变化，钟声传递给了他（也许）一种古建筑和时间的感觉；而他本人是后继者；然后是明天；还有朋友们；想到他们使他看上去十分自信和欢喜，他打了个呵欠，伸了伸懒腰。

Meanwhile behind him the shape they had made, whether by argument or not, the spiritual shape, hard yet ephemeral, as of glass compared with the dark stone of the Chapel, was dashed to splinters, young men rising from chairs and sofa corners, buzzing and barging about the room, one driving another against the bedroom door, which giving way, in they fell. Then Jacob was left there, in the shallow arm-chair, alone with Masham? Anderson? Simeon? Oh, it was Simeon. The others had all gone.

与此同时，他们在他身后的塑造的形态，心灵的形态，无论是否基于辩论，虽坚硬却短暂，比起教堂的深色石头就像玻璃一样被撞得粉碎，年轻人从椅子上和沙发角落里站起来，嘈杂地在屋子里走来走去，一个人抵着卧室的门，挤推另一个人，门吃不住劲儿，两人都跌进了门里。而雅各布还留在那里，在浅浅的手扶椅上，是单独和马萨姆呆在一块儿吗？还是安德森？西米恩？哦，是西米恩。其他人都走了。

"... Julian the Apostate...." Which of them said that and the other words murmured round it? But about midnight there sometimes rises, like a veiled figure suddenly woken, a heavy wind; and this now flapping through Trinity lifted unseen leaves and blurred everything. "Julian the Apostate"—and then the wind. Up go the elm branches, out blow the sails, the old schooners rear and plunge, the grey waves in the hot Indian Ocean tumble sultrily, and then all falls flat again.“……朱利安，变节者……”他们当中是谁谈起这个话题，并围绕这个话题低声嘟囔其他有关的话的？但午夜时分，有时会刮起强风，就像一个戴面罩的人突然醒了过来；这阵风此刻正拍着翅膀蹿过三一学院，卷起看不见的树叶，使一切都模糊不清。“变节者朱利安”——然后是风。榆树枝丫扫向空中，船帆吹得鼓起来，旧的双桅纵帆船上下颠簸，酷热的印度洋上，灰色的波涛狂暴地翻腾，然后一切重归平静。

So, if the veiled lady stepped through the Courts of Trinity, she now drowsed once more, all her draperies about her, her head against a pillar.

于是，如果那位戴面纱的女士穿过三清学院的院子，现在她又昏昏欲睡，裹着各种毛织物，她的头依靠在柱子上。

"Somehow it seems to matter."“不知怎么回事，这好像很重要。”

The low voice was Simeon's.

这低沉的声音是西米恩的。

The voice was even lower that answered him. The sharp tap of a pipe on the mantelpiece cancelled the words. And perhaps Jacob only said "hum," or said nothing at all. True, the words were inaudible. It was the intimacy, a sort of spiritual suppleness, when mind prints upon mind indelibly.

回答他的声音更为低沉。烟斗在壁炉台上尖利的敲击声盖过了话音。雅各布可能仅仅“哼”了一声，或者根本什么也没说。确实，那些话听不清。当一颗心灵在另一颗心灵上烙下不可磨灭的印记时，那是一种亲昵的行为，一种精神的轻柔。

"Well, you seem to have studied the subject," said Jacob, rising and standing over Simeon's chair. He balanced himself; he swayed a little. He appeared extraordinarily happy, as if his pleasure would brim and spill down the sides if Simeon spoke.“那么，看起来你已经研究过这个题目了。”雅各布说道，一面起身，站在西米恩的椅子旁。他平衡了一下自己；他微微有些摇晃。他显得特别开心，好像如果西米恩开口说话，他的快乐就会满溢，沿四周流泻下来。

Simeon said nothing. Jacob remained standing. But intimacy—the room was full of it, still, deep, like a pool. Without need of movement or speech it rose softly and washed over everything, mollifying, kindling, and coating the mind with the lustre of pearl, so that if you talk of a light, of Cambridge burning, it's not languages only. It's Julian the Apostate.

西米恩一言不发。雅各布还站在那里。但亲密感——充盈着整个房间的亲密感，静止，深切，如一潭水。不需要动作或言语，它轻柔地升起，冲刷着一切，用珍珠般的光泽抚慰、点燃和覆盖着心灵，所以如果你谈论光芒，谈论剑桥燃烧的光芒，就不仅仅是语言。那是变节者朱利安。

But Jacob moved. He murmured good-night. He went out into the court. He buttoned his jacket across his chest. He went back to his rooms, and being the only man who walked at that moment back to his rooms, his footsteps rang out, his figure loomed large. Back from the Chapel, back from the Hall, back from the Library, came the sound of his footsteps, as if the old stone echoed with magisterial authority: "The young man— the young man—the young man-back to his rooms.”

但雅各布离开了。他低声道了晚安。他走出房间，进入院子里。他将胸前夹克的扣子扣好。他回自己屋里，他是唯一在那一刻走回自己房间里的人，他的脚步声响起，他的身影赫然显现。他的脚步声，从小教堂传了过来，从大厅传了过来，从图书馆传了过来，好像古老的石头带着威严的权威发出回响：“年轻人——年轻人——年轻人——回自己的房间。”

CHAPTER FOUR

第四章

What's the use of trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those little thin paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together with sea-water? Although the plays of Shakespeare had frequently been praised, even quoted, and placed higher than the Greek, never since they started had Jacob managed to read one through. Yet what an opportunity!

努力地读莎士比亚，有什么用呢？特别是读读这种小小的薄纸版本，这种版本的书页一下子就皱了，要不就被海水粘在一起了。尽管莎翁的戏剧不断得到赞颂，甚至被引用，并被置于古希腊作品之上，但雅各布从未努力通读过一本。然而，多好的一次机会啊！

For the Scilly Isles had been sighted by Timmy Durrant lying like mountain-tops almost a-wash in precisely the right place. His calculations had worked perfectly, and really the sight of him sitting there, with his hand on the tiller, rosy gilled, with a sprout of beard, looking sternly at the stars, then at a compass, spelling out quite correctly his page of the eternal lesson-book, would have moved a woman. Jacob, of course, was not a woman. The sight of Timmy Durrant was no sight for him, nothing to set against the sky and worship; far from it. They had quarrelled. Why the right way to open a tin of beef, with Shakespeare on board, under conditions of such splendour, should have turned them to sulky schoolboys, none can tell. Tinned beef is cold eating, though; and salt water spoils biscuits; and the waves tumble and lollop much the same hour after hour—tumble and lollop all across the horizon. Now a spray of seaweed floats past—now a log of wood. Ships have been wrecked here. One or two go past, keeping their own side of the road. Timmy knew where they were bound, what their cargoes were, and, by looking through his glass, could tell the name of the line, and even guess what dividends it paid its shareholders. Yet that was no reason for Jacob to turn sulky.

因为蒂米·杜兰特发现锡力群岛像几乎被淹没的群山之巅般卧在该在的地方，毫厘不爽。他计算得相当完美，真的，看见他坐在那里，手放在舵上，两颊红扑扑的，还有新长出来的胡子，坚定地看着星星，然后看看罗盘，完全正确地阐释那永恒的教科书中他的那一页，这个样子是会打动一个女人的。雅各布，当然不是个女人。蒂米·杜兰特的样子不入他的法眼，蓝天之下无事值得顶礼膜拜；差得远呢。他们发生口角了。船上有着莎士比亚，条件又如此优越，为什么怎样正确打开一听牛肉罐头这种事情会将他们变得像愠怒的学童一样，没人能说得清。可是，牛肉罐头是冰冷的事物；咸海水糟蹋了饼干；海浪或翻滚或漫卷，一小时又一小时地重复——或翻滚或漫卷，穿过地平线。时而一丛海草漂过——时而是一段木头。这儿曾有船只失事。一条或两条船各沿自己的航道，开了过去。蒂米知道它们要驶向哪里，它们装了些什么货物，并且，通过望远镜他能够说出航运公司的名称，甚至猜出股东能分到多少红利。然而，雅各布没有理由为此生气。

The Scilly Isles had the look of mountain-tops almost a-wash.... Unfortunately, Jacob broke the pin of the Primus stove.

锡利群岛看上去像是几乎被淹没的山顶……不幸的是，雅各布折断了普里默斯炉子的插销。

The Scilly Isles might well be obliterated by a roller sweeping straight across. But one must give young men the credit of admitting that, though breakfast eaten under these circumstances is grim, it is sincere enough. No need to make conversation. They got out their pipes.

锡利群岛可能会被直直地横扫而过的巨浪彻底抹去。但是你必须给年轻人以信任，尽管在这样的情况下用早餐很是糟糕，却是真心实意的。无需交流。他们掏出了烟斗。

Timmy wrote up some scientific observations; and—what was the question that broke the silence—the exact time or the day of the month? anyhow, it was spoken without the least awkwardness; in the most matter-of-fact way in the world; and then Jacob began to unbutton his clothes and sat naked, save for his shirt, intending, apparently, to bathe.

蒂米记下了科学的观察；还有——打破沉默的问题是什么——准确的时间或是日期？不管怎样，开口说话了，没有一点儿难为情；用这世界上最为实事求是的方法说话了；接着雅各布开始解开衣服的扣子，光着身子坐下，只穿了一件衬衫，显然是想游泳。

The Scilly Isles were turning bluish; and suddenly blue, purple, and green flushed the sea; left it grey; struck a stripe which vanished; but when Jacob had got his shirt over his head the whole floor of the waves was blue and white, rippling and crisp, though now and again a broad purple mark appeared, like a bruise; or there floated an entire emerald tinged with yellow. He plunged. He gulped in water, spat it out, struck with his right arm, struck with his left, was towed by a rope, gasped, splashed, and was hauled on board.

锡利群岛逐渐变成浅蓝色；突然，海面上闪耀着蓝色、紫色和绿色；最后剩下灰茫茫一片；一道光线照射下来，又消失了；但当雅各布将衬衫掀过头顶时，整个海面呈现蓝色和白色，波光粼粼，涛声阵阵，尽管偶尔出现一大片紫色水纹，像是一片瘀伤；或是漂浮着整整一大片略带黄色的翡翠绿。他一猛子扎进水里。他吸进一口水，又吐了出来，右手划，左手划，被一根绳子拖着，喘着气，溅起水花，然后被拉上了甲板。

The seat in the boat was positively hot, and the sun warmed his back as he sat naked with a towel in his hand, looking at the Scilly Isles which—confound it! the sail flapped. Shakespeare was knocked overboard. There you could see him floating merrily away, with all his pages ruffling innumerably; and then he went under.

船上的座位烫得不行，太阳暖暖地晒着他的后背，他赤裸着身子坐下，手里拿着一条毛巾，望向锡利群岛——活见鬼！船帆飘动着。莎士比亚被撞落水中。你可以看见他在水里快活地漂流，所有的书页不停地翻动；然后他沉入水中。

Strangely enough, you could smell violets, or if violets were impossible in July, they must grow something very pungent on the mainland then. The mainland, not so very far off—you could see clefts in the cliffs, white cottages, smoke going up—wore an extraordinary look of calm, of sunny peace, as if wisdom and piety had descended upon the dwellers there. Now a cry sounded, as of a man calling pilchards in a main street. It wore an extraordinary look of piety and peace, as if old men smoked by the door, and girls stood, hands on hips, at the well, and horses stood; as if the end of the world had come, and cabbage fields and stone walls, and coast-guard stations, and, above all, the white sand bays with the waves breaking unseen by any one, rose to heaven in a kind of ecstasy.

真是奇怪，你能闻到紫罗兰的香气，或者如果七月不会有紫罗兰的话，他们一定在大陆上种植了什么气味浓烈的东西。大陆，并不是非常遥远——你能看见悬崖上的裂缝、白色的农舍、炊烟袅袅——看上去极其宁静，乐观平和，好像智慧和虔诚降临到那里的居民的身上。这时响起了一声叫喊，好像一个男人在主街道上叫卖沙丁鱼。那地方看上去显得特别虔诚宁静，好像上了年纪的人依靠在门边吸烟，姑娘们站在水井边，手放在屁股上，一旁站着马儿；好像世界的末日已经来临，卷心菜地和石头墙，海岸防卫站，还有，最重要的，海浪拍打着的白沙海滩，没人看得见，在一种狂喜中，升上天堂。

But imperceptibly the cottage smoke droops, has the look of a mourning emblem, a flag floating its caress over a grave.

但是农舍的炊烟不知不觉间已低垂了下来，看上去像是哀伤的象征，像是墓地上一面飘动着爱抚的旗帜。

The gulls, making their broad flight and then riding at peace, seem to mark the grave. No doubt if this were Italy, Greece, or even the shores of Spain, sadness would be routed by strangeness and excitement and the nudge of a classical education. But the Cornish hills have stark chimneys standing on them; and, somehow or other, loveliness is infernally sad. Yes, the chimneys and the coast-guard stations and the little bays with the waves breaking unseen by any one make one remember the overpowering sorrow. And what can this sorrow be?

海鸥振翅高飞，然后平静地滑翔，好像要标明墓地的方位。毫无疑问，如果这是意大利、希腊，或者即使是西班牙的海岸，悲伤会被新奇、兴奋以及古典教育的推波助澜所击溃。但科尼什群山上耸立着僵直的烟囱；而且，莫名其妙的是，美景叫人无比感伤。是的，这烟囱和边防站以及无人看见的、海浪拍打着的小小海湾，让人忆起排山倒海的悲伤。而这是怎样的悲伤呢？

It is brewed by the earth itself. It comes from the houses on the coast. We start transparent, and then the cloud thickens. All history backs our pane of glass. To escape is vain.

它是大地自己酝酿的。它来自海岸边的房舍。我们开始是透明的，然后云层变厚了。所有的历史都后退至我们的玻璃窗格之后。逃避是徒劳的。

But whether this is the right interpretation of Jacob's gloom as he sat naked, in the sun, looking at the Land's End, it is impossible to say; for he never spoke a word. Timmy sometimes wondered (only for a second) whether his people bothered him.... No matter. There are things that can't be said. Let's shake it off. Let's dry ourselves, and take up the first thing that comes handy.... Timmy Durrant's notebook of scientific observations.

但无法说清这是否能正确解释雅各布的忧郁，这时他赤裸地坐在日头下，眺望着陆地的尽头；因为他一直沉默。有时蒂米琢磨（只有一秒钟），是不是他的家人打扰了他……不要紧。有许多事是没法说出来的。让我们把它摆脱掉。让我们擦干自己，处理来到手边的第一件事情……蒂米·杜兰特的科学观察笔记本。

"Now..." said Jacob.“现在……”雅各布说道。

It is a tremendous argument.

这是一场激烈的争论。

Some people can follow every step of the way, and even take a little one, six inches long, by themselves at the end; others remain observant of the external signs.

有些人能够步步紧跟，并且在最后，他们自己甚至也能迈出一小步，六英寸远；其他人则停留在对外部迹象的观察上。

The eyes fix themselves upon the poker; the right hand takes the poker and lifts it; turns it slowly round, and then, very accurately, replaces it. The left hand, which lies on the knee, plays some stately but intermittent piece of march music. A deep breath is taken; but allowed to evaporate unused. The cat marches across the hearth-rug. No one observes her.

眼睛都紧紧地盯着火钳；右手拿着火钳，举了起来；慢慢转动，然后非常准确地放回原处。放在膝盖上的左手弹奏着某支进行曲，庄严，但断断续续。深吸一口气；但还没用上就任凭它散发掉了。猫正步走过壁炉前的小地毯。没有人注意到她。

"That's about as near as I can get to it," Durrant wound up.“这大概就是我所能解释的了。”杜兰特结束了他的话。

The next minute is quiet as the grave.

下一分钟寂静得如同墓地。

"It follows..." said Jacob.“也就是说……”雅各布说道。

Only half a sentence followed; but these half-sentences are like flags set on tops of buildings to the observer of external sights down below. What was the coast of Cornwall, with its violet scents, and mourning emblems, and tranquil piety, but a screen happening to hang straight behind as his mind marched up?

只跟了半句话；但是这些半句半句的话对于在下面观看表面风景的人来说，就像插在建筑物顶上的旗帜。康沃尔海岸是什么？有着紫罗兰的芬芳，哀伤的象征，宁静的虔诚，不过是一块屏幕，在他的思维正在进行之时，恰巧直直地挂在了身后？

"It follows..." said Jacob.“也就是说……”雅各布说道。

"Yes," said Timmy, after reflection. "That is so."“是的，”蒂米思考了一会儿说道，“就是这样。”

Now Jacob began plunging about, half to stretch himself, half in a kind of jollity, no doubt, for the strangest sound issued from his lips as he furled the sail, rubbed the plates—gruff, tuneless—a sort of pasan, for having grasped the argument, for being master of the situation, sunburnt, unshaven, capable into the bargain of sailing round the world in a ten-ton yacht, which, very likely, he would do one of these days instead of settling down in a lawyer's office, and wearing spats.

这时，雅各布开始左冲右突，一半是为了舒展一下身体，一半是为了寻开心，毫无疑问，因为当他卷起船帆，擦拭板块时，一种古怪的声音从他唇间发出——沙哑，不成曲调——某种凯歌，因为他已经掌控了争论，因为已经驾驭了局面，晒得黝黑黝黑的，没刮脸，能够驾一艘十吨的游艇环游世界，非常有可能，他总有一天会这样做，而不是呆在一家律师事务所，还穿着鞋套。

"Our friend Masham," said Timmy Durrant, "would rather not be seen in our company as we are now." His buttons had come off.“我们的朋友马萨姆，”蒂姆·杜兰特说，“是不会愿意让人看到他与现在这个样子的我们为伍的。”他的纽扣掉了。

"D'you know Masham's aunt?" said Jacob.“你认识马萨姆的姨妈吗？”雅各布问道。

"Never knew he had one," said Timmy.“我从不知道他还有一个姨妈呢。”蒂米回答。

"Masham has millions of aunts," said Jacob.“马萨姆的姨妈多不胜数。”雅各布说道。

"Masham is mentioned in Domesday Book," said Timmy.“在《末日审判书》中有马萨姆的名字。”蒂米说道。

"So are his aunts," said Jacob.“也有他姨妈的名字。”雅各布说道。

"His sister," said Timmy, "is a very pretty girl."“他的妹妹，”蒂米说，“是个可人儿。”

"That's what'll happen to you, Timmy," said Jacob.“这就是你将会遇到的事情，蒂米。”雅各布说。

"It'll happen to you first," said Timmy.“你会先遇到。”蒂米说。

"But this woman I was telling you about—Masham's aunt—”“但我跟你说起的这个女人——马萨姆的姨妈——”

"Oh, do get on," said Timmy, for Jacob was laughing so much that he could not speak.“噢，快说吧。”蒂米说，因为雅各布笑得连话都说不了了。

"Masham's aunt..."“马萨姆的……”

Timmy laughed so much that he could not speak.

蒂米笑得连话都说不了了。

"Masham's aunt..."“马萨姆的姨妈……”

"What is there about Masham that makes one laugh?" said Timmy.“关于马萨姆有什么让人发笑的？“蒂姆说。

"Hang it all—a man who swallows his tie-pin," said Jacob.“真该死——一个把领带夹吞下去的男人。”雅各布说道。

"Lord Chancellor before he's fifty," said Timmy.“他五十岁前会当大法官的。”蒂米说。

"He's a gentleman," said Jacob.“他是个绅士。”雅各布说道。

"The Duke of Wellington was a gentleman," said Timmy.“威灵顿公爵是位绅士。”蒂米说道。

"Keats wasn't."“济慈不是。”

"Lord Salisbury was."“索尔兹伯里勋爵是。”

"And what about God?" said Jacob.“那么上帝呢？”雅各布问。

The Scilly Isles now appeared as if directly pointed at by a golden finger issuing from a cloud; and everybody knows how portentous that sight is, and how these broad rays, whether they light upon the Scilly Isles or upon the tombs of crusaders in cathedrals, always shake the very foundations of scepticism and lead to jokes about God.

此时此刻的锡利群岛看上去像是被从云端伸出的金手指径直点着；人人都知道这景象是多么奇特不祥，这一道道宽阔的光线，不论它们是照射在锡利群岛上还是照射在大教堂里十字军战士的坟冢上，总会动摇怀疑主义的根基，从而引起了对上帝的玩笑。

"Abide with me: Fast falls the eventide; The shadows deepen; Lord, with me abide," sang Timmy Durrant.“求主同住：黄昏薄暮速降临；阴影愈深沉；主啊，请与我同在。”蒂米·杜兰特唱道。

"At my place we used to have a hymn which beganGreat God, what do I see and hear?" said Jacob.“在我家乡，我们曾有过一首赞美诗，是这样开头的：伟大的上帝，我看见并听到了什么？”雅各布说。

Gulls rode gently swaying in little companies of two or three quite near the boat; the cormorant, as if following his long strained neck in eternal pursuit, skimmed an inch above the water to the next rock; and the drone of the tide in the caves came across the water, low, monotonous, like the voice of some one talking to himself.

三两只海鸥结伴飞翔在船的附近，轻柔地摆动着翅膀；那鸬鹚，好像追随着自己那长长的、绷紧的脖子，永不止歇地追捕，离水面一英寸高，飞快地掠过，落在下一块岩石上；水面上传来溶洞里的潮水发出的嗡嗡的声音，低沉而单调，像某个自言自语的人的声音。

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee," sang Jacob.“古老的岩石，为我裂开吧，让我藏身于你之中。”雅各布唱道。

Like the blunt tooth of some monster, a rock broke the surface; brown; overflown with perpetual waterfalls.

一块岩石探出了水面，就像某个怪兽的不锋利的牙齿；棕褐色；漫溢着永不停息的瀑布。

"Rock of Ages,"“古老的岩石。”

Jacob sang, lying on his back, looking up into the sky at midday, from which every shred of cloud had been withdrawn, so that it was like something permanently displayed with the cover off.

雅各布仰面躺着，唱着，望向正午的天空，天空里的每一缕云彩都已经消失了，因此看上去好像一件被掀去了盖子的东西，永恒不变，一览无余。

By six o'clock a breeze blew in off an icefield; and by seven the water was more purple than blue; and by half-past seven there was a patch of rough gold-beater's skin round the Scilly Isles, and Durrant's face, as he sat steering, was of the colour of a red lacquer box polished for generations. By nine all the fire and confusion had gone out of the sky, leaving wedges of apple-green and plates of pale yellow; and by ten the lanterns on the boat were making twisted colours upon the waves, elongated or squat, as the waves stretched or humped themselves. The beam from the lighthouse strode rapidly across the water. Infinite millions of miles away powdered stars twinkled; but the waves slapped the boat, and crashed, with regular and appalling solemnity, against the rocks.

六点钟的时候，一阵微风从冰原上吹来；七点钟时海水更接近紫色而不是蓝色；七点半时锡利群岛四周就像是一块金箔工人粗糙的皮肤，当杜兰特坐着掌舵时，他的脸呈现出历经世代打磨过的红色清漆盒的色彩。九点的时候，所有的霞光和变幻都从天空中消退了，唯留下楔形的苹果绿和片片浅黄；十点钟时，波浪里映出船上的提灯曲曲折折的色彩，时而拉长，时而变短，随着波浪起起伏伏。灯塔的光柱快速地跨过水面。密布的群星在无数个百万英里之外眨着眼睛；但波浪拍打小船，规律的浪花击碎在岩石上，充满骇人的肃穆。

Although it would be possible to knock at the cottage door and ask for a glass of milk, it is only thirst that would compel the intrusion. Yet perhaps Mrs. Pascoe would welcome it. The summer's day may be wearing heavy. Washing in her little scullery, she may hear the cheap clock on the mantelpiece tick, tick, tick ... tick, tick, tick. She is alone in the house. Her husband is out helping Farmer Hosken; her daughter married and gone to America. Her elder son is married too, but she does not agree with his wife. The Wesleyan minister came along and took the younger boy. She is alone in the house. A steamer, probably bound for Cardiff, now crosses the horizon, while near at hand one bell of a foxglove swings to and fro with a bumble-bee for clapper. These white Cornish cottages are built on the edge of the cliff; the garden grows gorse more readily than cabbages; and for hedge, some primeval man has piled granite boulders. In one of these, to hold, an historian conjectures, the victim's blood, a basin has been hollowed, but in our time it serves more tamely to seat those tourists who wish for an uninterrupted view of the Gurnard's Head. Not that any one objects to a blue print dress and a white apron in a cottage garden.

尽管可以敲开农舍的门，讨要一杯牛奶，只有干渴会迫使人去打扰。不过，也许帕斯科太太会欢迎的。也许夏日炎炎令人疲乏。在她那小小的洗碗槽里洗刷时，她可能听见壁炉上那只廉价的钟嘀嗒，嘀嗒，嘀嗒……嘀嗒，嘀嗒，嘀嗒。她独自一人在家。她的丈夫外出给农场主霍斯肯帮忙去了；她的女儿已嫁人，去了美国。她的长子也结婚了，但她和她儿媳合不来。卫斯理公会的牧师过来将小儿子带走了。她独自一人在家。此刻，一艘汽船驶过地平线，也许是开往加的夫的, 而在近处，一棵毛地黄的铃荚来来回回地摆动着，一只大黄蜂停在铃舌上。这些白色的科尼什农舍都是建在悬崖边上的；花园里的金雀花明显比卷心菜长得茂盛；至于篱笆呢，某位先民用花岗岩垒起了围墙。其中一块石头被凿出一个盆形，据史学家推测，是用来盛牺牲者的鲜血的，但在我们的年代，它的用途要温和得多，供那些想不间断地观赏古纳德角的旅游者歇脚。这倒不是说人们不喜欢看到农舍花园里的一条蓝色印花裙子和一条白色围裙。

"Look—she has to draw her water from a well in the garden.”“看——她要自己从花园里的一口井里打水呢。”

"Very lonely it must be in winter, with the wind sweeping over those hills, and the waves dashing on the rocks."“冬天肯定非常荒凉，风席卷过那些山岗，海浪冲刷岩石。”

Even on a summer's day you hear them murmuring.

即使在夏日，你也能听见他们在低语。

Having drawn her water, Mrs. Pascoe went in. The tourists regretted that they had brought no glasses, so that they might have read the name of the tramp steamer. Indeed, it was such a fine day that there was no saying what a pair of field-glasses might not have fetched into view. Two fishing luggers, presumably from St. Ives Bay, were now sailing in an opposite direction from the steamer, and the floor of the sea became alternately clear and opaque. As for the bee, having sucked its fill of honey, it visited the teasle and thence made a straight line to Mrs. Pascoe's patch, once more directing the tourists' gaze to the old woman's print dress and white apron, for she had come to the door of the cottage and was standing there.

打好水，帕斯科太太走进屋里。游客们遗憾没带望远镜，否则他们就可以看清那艘不定期货船的名字了。实际上，天气非常好，很难说有什么是一副望远镜可能看不到的风景。两条小渔船，看样子是从圣艾夫斯湾驶来的，此刻正在与货船反向航行。海底变得时而清晰时而浑浊。至于那只蜜蜂，在吸饱了蜂蜜之后，拜访了起绒草，然后从那里径直飞到帕斯科太太的园子里，再一次将游客的目光指引到老妇人那印花的裙子和白色的围裙上，因为她已经来到农舍的门口，正站在那里。

There she stood, shading her eyes and looking out to sea.

她站在那里，手搭在眼睛上面，眺望大海。

For the millionth time, perhaps, she looked at the sea. A peacock butterfly now spread himself upon the teasle, fresh and newly emerged, as the blue and chocolate down on his wings testified. Mrs. Pascoe went indoors, fetched a cream pan, came out, and stood scouring it. Her face was assuredly not soft, sensual, or lecherous, but hard, wise, wholesome rather, signifying in a room full of sophisticated people the flesh and blood of life. She would tell a lie, though, as soon as the truth. Behind her on the wall hung a large dried skate. Shut up in the parlour she prized mats, china mugs, and photographs, though the mouldy little room was saved from the salt breeze only by the depth of a brick, and between lace curtains you saw the gannet drop like a stone, and on stormy days the gulls came shuddering through the air, and the steamers' lights were now high, now deep. Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's night.

也许，这是她第一百万次眺望大海。此时，一只孔雀蛱蝶在起绒草上展翅，它两翼上蓝色和巧克力色的绒毛，证明了它是新生的，刚刚才破茧而出。帕斯科太太走进门去，取了一只奶油平底锅，走了出来，然后站在那里洗刷。她的脸确实是既不温柔、感性，也不耽于肉欲，但坚定、睿智，更确切地说是健康的，在一屋子世故圆滑的人中，她意味着生命的血与肉。尽管，她也会撒谎，就像说真话一样。在她身后的墙上挂着一只巨大的干鳐。她非常珍视的垫子、瓷杯子，还有照片，都藏在客厅里，尽管这个有些霉味的、小小的房间不受带有盐分的海风侵袭，仅仅是受益于一砖之厚的墙壁，透过蕾丝窗帘，你可以看见塘鹅像一块石头掉了下来，在风暴的日子，海鸥颤抖着飞过天空，货船的灯光时明时暗。冬夜里的声音忧郁感伤。

The picture papers were delivered punctually on Sunday, and she pored long over Lady Cynthia's wedding at the Abbey. She, too, would have liked to ride in a carriage with springs. The soft, swift syllables of educated speech often shamed her few rude ones. And then all night to hear the grinding of the Atlantic upon the rocks instead of hansom cabs and footmen whistling for motor cars. ... So she may have dreamed, scouring her cream pan. But the talkative, nimble-witted people have taken themselves to towns. Like a miser, she has hoarded her feelings within her own breast. Not a penny piece has she changed all these years, and, watching her enviously, it seems as if all within must be pure gold.

星期天，画报准时派送到，她长时间地凝视着辛西娅夫人在大教堂举行的婚礼。她也想乘坐带有弹簧的马车。有教养的谈话的那种柔和又轻快的音节，常常使她对自己粗鲁的发音感到羞愧。然后，她整晚都听到大西洋在岩石上摩擦的声音，而不是双轮双座马车和侍者吹哨召唤汽车的声音。……她可以就这样梦想着，一面洗刷着奶油平底锅。但是健谈的、机智的人们都已经到城里去了。像个守财奴一样，她一直将自己的情感埋藏在心里。这些年来，她没有一丝改变，而且，人们羡慕地看着她时，好像她内心必定全是纯金。

The wise old woman, having fixed her eyes upon the sea, once more withdrew. The tourists decided that it was time to move on to the Gurnard's Head.

这位睿智的老妇人定睛望着大海，之后，再一次回到屋里去。游客决定，是时候继续前往古纳德角了。

Three seconds later Mrs. Durrant rapped upon the door.

三秒钟之后，杜兰特太太来敲门了。

"Mrs. Pascoe?" she said.“是帕斯科太太吗？”她问。

Rather haughtily, she watched the tourists cross the field path. She came of a Highland race, famous for its chieftains.

她相当傲慢地看着游客们穿过田间小路。她来自一个高地民族，这个民族的酋长非常有名。

Mrs. Pascoe appeared.

帕斯科太太出现了。

"I envy you that bush, Mrs. Pascoe," said Mrs. Durrant, pointing the parasol with which she had rapped on the door at the fine clump of St. John's wort that grew beside it. Mrs. Pascoe looked at the bush deprecatingly.“我羡慕你的那丛灌木，帕斯科太太。”杜兰特太太说道，用刚才她用来敲门的太阳伞指着那丛漂亮的圣约翰草。帕斯科太太不赞同地看着那丛灌木丛。

"I expect my son in a day or two," said Mrs. Durrant. "Sailing from Falmouth with a friend in a little boat. ... Any news of Lizzie yet, Mrs. Pascoe?"“我猜，我儿子一两天之内就回来了。”杜兰特太太说。“和一位朋友乘一条小船从法尔茅斯来。……利齐有什么消息吗？帕斯科太太？”

Her long-tailed ponies stood twitching their ears on the road twenty yards away. The boy, Curnow, flicked flies off them occasionally. He saw his mistress go into the cottage; come out again; and pass, talking energetically to judge by the movements of her hands, round the vegetable plot in front of the cottage. Mrs. Pascoe was his aunt. Both women surveyed a bush. Mrs. Durrant stooped and picked a sprig from it. Next she pointed (her movements were peremptory; she held herself very upright) at the potatoes. They had the blight. All potatoes that year had the blight. Mrs. Durrant showed Mrs. Pascoe how bad the blight was on her potatoes. Mrs. Durrant talked energetically; Mrs. Pascoe listened submissively. The boy Curnow knew that Mrs. Durrant was saying that it is perfectly simple; you mix the powder in a gallon of water; "I have done it with my own hands in my own garden," Mrs. Durrant was saying.

她那几匹长尾矮种马站在二十码开外的路上，抽动着耳朵。马童柯瑙间或给它们赶赶苍蝇。他看见女主人走进农舍；又走出来；绕过农舍前的菜园子，从她的手势来看，正聊得起劲呢。帕斯科太太是他的姨妈。这两个女人观察一丛灌木丛。杜兰特太太俯身，拾起一根树枝。接着，她指向（她的举止很傲慢；她挺得直直的）土豆。土豆得了枯萎病。那一年，所有的土豆都得了枯萎病。杜兰特太太指给帕斯科太太看她的土豆的枯萎病有多厉害。杜兰特太太劲头十足地说着；帕斯科太太恭顺地听着。马童克诺知道杜兰特太太正在说，这是一件相当简单的事情；你将粉末与一加仑水搅和，“我在自家园子里已经亲手做过了。”杜兰特太太正说着。

"You won't have a potato left—you won't have a potato left," Mrs. Durrant was saying in her emphatic voice as they reached the gate. The boy Curnow became as immobile as stone.“你一个土豆也不会落下——你一个土豆也不会落下。”当杜兰特走到大门时，她以强调的口吻说着。马童柯瑙一动不动，像块石头。

Mrs. Durrant took the reins in her hands and settled herself on the driver's seat.

杜兰特太太手握缰绳，坐在车夫的位置上。

"Take care of that leg, or I shall send the doctor to you," she called back over her shoulder; touched the ponies; and the carriage started forward. The boy Curnow had only just time to swing himself up by the toe of his boot. The boy Curnow, sitting in the middle of the back seat, looked at his aunt.“小心腿，要不然我要给你请医生了。”她回过头大声说道；她碰了一下小马；马车开始向前驶去。马童柯瑙仅有一点时间踮起脚跃上马车。马童柯瑙坐着后座中间，看着他姨妈。

Mrs. Pascoe stood at the gate looking after them; stood at the gate till the trap was round the corner; stood at the gate, looking now to the right, now to the left; then went back to her cottage.

帕斯科太太站在门边，目送他们远去；站在门边，直到马车拐弯；站在门边，时而看看右边，时而看看左边；然后返回她的农舍。

Soon the ponies attacked the swelling moor road with striving forelegs. Mrs. Durrant let the reins fall slackly, and leant backwards. Her vivacity had left her. Her hawk nose was thin as a bleached bone through which you almost see the light. Her hands, lying on the reins in her lap, were firm even in repose. The upper lip was cut so short that it raised itself almost in a sneer from the front teeth. Her mind skimmed leagues where Mrs. Pascoe's mind adhered to its solitary patch. Her mind skimmed leagues as the ponies climbed the hill road. Forwards and backwards she cast her mind, as if the roofless cottages, mounds of slag, and cottage gardens overgrown with foxglove and bramble cast shade upon her mind. Arrived at the summit, she stopped the carriage. The pale hills were round her, each scattered with ancient stones; beneath was the sea, variable as a southern sea; she herself sat there looking from hill to sea, upright, aquiline, equally poised between gloom and laughter. Suddenly she flicked the ponies so that the boy Curnow had to swing himself up by the toe of his boot.

很快，小马撒开前蹄向泥泞的沼泽路前进。杜兰特太太任由缰绳松弛着，身子向后倚靠。她的轻松快活已消失了。她的鹰钩鼻薄得像一块脱了色的骨头，你几乎能透过它看见光亮。她的双手置于膝盖的缰绳上，即使在休息时仍然坚实。上唇被裁剪的如此短小，以至于总是翘起，露出门牙，仿佛总在冷笑。她的思维掠过广阔的范围，而帕斯科太太的思维则拘泥于那孤零零的一小块地上。当小马爬上山路时，她的思维掠过广阔的范围。她思前想后，好像没有屋顶的农舍，成堆的矿渣，她的脑子里满是农舍园子里疯长的毛地黄和荆棘投下的阴影。到达山顶，她停下马车。周围是灰白的山丘，每一座都散落着古老的石头；山下是大海，就像南方的大海一样变幻无常；她自个儿坐在那里，从山看到海，挺得直直的，像只老鹰，在郁闷和欢笑之间寻找平衡。突然她轻弹了一下小马，使得马童柯瑙不得不踮起脚尖，跳上马车去。

The rooks settled; the rooks rose. The trees which they touched so capriciously seemed insufficient to lodge their numbers. The tree-tops sang with the breeze in them; the branches creaked audibly and dropped now and then, though the season was midsummer, husks or twigs. Up went the rooks and down again, rising in lesser numbers each time as the sager birds made ready to settle, for the evening was already spent enough to make the air inside the wood almost dark. The moss was soft; the tree-trunks spectral. Beyond them lay a silvery meadow. The pampas grass raised its feathery spears from mounds of green at the end of the meadow. A breadth of water gleamed. Already the convolvulus moth was spinning over the flowers. Orange and purple, nasturtium and cherry pie, were washed into the twilight, but the tobacco plant and the passion flower, over which the great moth spun, were white as china. The rooks creaked their wings together on the tree-tops, and were settling down for sleep when, far off, a familiar sound shook and trembled—increased —fairly dinned in their ears—scared sleepy wings into the air again— the dinner bell at the house.

白嘴鸦落下又飞起。它们恣意栖息的树木似乎不足以容纳这样数量的白嘴鸦。群鸦之间，树冠与轻风和唱；能听见树枝咯吱的开裂声，还不时落下荚壳和细枝，尽管还是仲夏时节。白嘴鸦飞起又落下，当较为聪明的鸟儿准备休憩时，白嘴鸦飞起的数量就一次比一次少了，因为夜晚降临有一阵子了，林子几乎黑了。青苔是松软的；树干如幽灵一般。树林以外是一片银色的草地。蒲苇草从草地尽头的团团绿色中抬起它羽毛般的叶片。一片宽阔的水面上闪着亮光。旋花飞蛾已经盘旋于花丛间。橙色和紫色的旱金莲和樱桃花已融入于暮色之中，但烟叶和西番莲洁白如瓷，有大飞蛾在上面飞旋。白嘴鸦扑棱着翅膀聚集在树冠上，正当它们安顿下来准备睡觉时，从远处传来一个熟悉的声音，震撼且颤抖——越来越响——在它们的耳朵里鼓噪个不停——吓得原本困乏的翅膀们再次飞到空中——是房子里晚餐的铃声。

After six days of salt wind, rain, and sun, Jacob Flanders had put on a dinner jacket. The discreet black object had made its appearance now and then in the boat among tins, pickles, preserved meats, and as the voyage went on had become more and more irrelevant, hardly to be believed in. And now, the world being stable, lit by candle-light, the dinner jacket alone preserved him. He could not be sufficiently thankful. Even so his neck, wrists, and face were exposed without cover, and his whole person, whether exposed or not, tingled and glowed so as to make even black cloth an imperfect screen. He drew back the great red hand that lay on the table-cloth. Surreptitiously it closed upon slim glasses and curved silver forks. The bones of the cutlets were decorated with pink frills and yesterday he had gnawn ham from the bone! Opposite him were hazy, semi-transparent shapes of yellow and blue. Behind them, again, was the grey-green garden, and among the pear-shaped leaves of the escallonia fishing-boats seemed caught and suspended. A sailing ship slowly drew past the women's backs. Two or three figures crossed the terrace hastily in the dusk. The door opened and shut. Nothing settled or stayed unbroken. Like oars rowing now this side, now that, were the sentences that came now here, now there, from either side of the table.

经历了六天的咸海风、雨水和烈日后，雅各布·弗兰德斯穿上了晚礼服。这个不惹眼的黑家伙在船上和罐头、泡菜、腌肉搁在一块，偶尔露个脸儿，随着旅程的持续进行，变得越来越不相干，简直叫人难以相信它的存在。现在，变得稳固的世界被烛光托举着，仅有这件晚礼服在保护他。他感激不尽。即便如此，他的脖子、手腕和脸庞还是暴露无遗，还有他整个人，不论暴露与否，都在闪亮发光，以至于黑色的衣服成了不甚完美的保护屏。他抽回放在桌布上的红色大手。它鬼鬼祟祟地伸向纤细的玻璃杯和曲柄银叉。炸肉排的骨头上装饰有粉红色的褶边——而昨天他还在啃火腿骨头！在他对面是模模糊糊的、半透明的人影，黄黄蓝蓝的。在这些人影之后，又是灰绿的园子，渔船似乎卷入并悬浮在虎耳草梨形叶丛之间。一条帆船缓缓地驶过女人们的身后。暮色中，三两个身影匆匆地穿过露台。门开了，又关上了。没有什么东西毫发无损地安定或留存下来。就像船桨时而在这一面划划，时而在那一面划划，一句一句的话语一会儿从餐桌的这一侧传来，一会儿从餐桌的那一侧传来。

"Oh, Clara, Clara!" exclaimed Mrs. Durrant, and Timothy Durrant adding, "Clara, Clara," Jacob named the shape in yellow gauze Timothy's sister, Clara. The girl sat smiling and flushed. With her brother's dark eyes, she was vaguer and softer than he was. When the laugh died down she said: "But, mother, it was true. He said so, didn't he? Miss Eliot agreed with us. ..."“哦，克拉拉，克拉拉！”杜兰特太太喊道，而后蒂莫西·杜兰特也喊道，“克拉拉，克拉拉。”雅各布确定了那位穿黄色纱衣的身影是蒂莫西的妹妹，克拉拉。女孩微笑地坐在那里，两颊绯红。她有着和哥哥一样的黑眼睛，却比哥哥的眼睛更加朦胧和温柔。当笑意退去，她说：“可是，妈妈，这是真的。他就是这么说的，不是吗？艾略特小姐赞成我们……”

But Miss Eliot, tall, grey-headed, was making room beside her for the old man who had come in from the terrace. The dinner would never

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