(雙語)月亮和六便士 第6章(1)

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Chapter 6

六

But when at last I met Charles Strickland, it was under circumstances which allowed me to do no more than just make his acquaintance. One morning Mrs. Strickland sent me round a note to say that she was giving a dinner-party that evening, and one of her guests had failed her. She asked me to stop the gap. She wrote:

但是最后我同查理斯·思特里克蘭德見面，并不是在思特里克蘭德太太說的那種情況下。她請我吃飯的那天晚上，除了她丈夫以外，我還結(jié)識了另外幾個人。這天早上，思特里克蘭德太太派人給我送來一張條子，告訴我她當天晚上要請客，有一個客人臨時有事不能出席。她請我填補這個空缺。條子是這么寫的：

It's only decent to warn you that you will be bored to extinction. It was a thoroughly dull party from the beginning, but if you will come I shall be uncommonly grateful. And you and I can have a little chat by ourselves.

我要預先聲明，你將會厭煩得要命。從一開始我就知道這是一次枯燥乏味的宴客。但是如果你能來的話，我是非常感激的。咱們兩個人總還可以談一談。

It was only neighbourly to accept.

我不能不幫她這個忙；我接受了她的邀請。

When Mrs. Strickland introduced me to her husband, he gave me a rather indifferent hand to shake. Turning to him gaily, she attempted a small jest.

當思特里克蘭德太太把我介紹給她丈夫的時候，他不冷不熱地同我握了握手。思特里克蘭德太太的情緒很高，轉(zhuǎn)身對他說了一句開玩笑的話。

I asked him to show him that I really had a husband. I think he was beginning to doubt it.

“我請他來是要叫他看看我真的是有丈夫的。我想他已經(jīng)開始懷疑了?！?/p>

Strickland gave the polite little laugh with which people acknowledge a facetiousness in which they see nothing funny, but did not speak. New arrivals claimed my host's attention, and I was left to myself. When at last we were all assembled, waiting for dinner to be announced, I reflected, while I chatted with the woman I had been asked to "take in," that civilised man practises a strange ingenuity in wasting on tedious exercises the brief span of his life. It was the kind of party which makes you wonder why the hostess has troubled to bid her guests, and why the guests have troubled to come. There were ten people. They met with indifference, and would part with relief. It was, of course, a purely social function. The Stricklands "owed" dinners to a number of persons, whom they took no interest in, and so had asked them; these persons had accepted. Why? To avoid the tedium of dining tete-a-tete, to give their servants a rest, because there was no reason to refuse, because they were "owed" a dinner.

思特里克蘭德很有禮貌地笑了笑，就象那些承認你說了一個笑話而又不覺得有什么可笑的人一樣，他并沒有說什么。又來了別的客人，需要主人去周旋，我被丟在一邊。當最后客人都已到齊，只等著宣布開飯的時候，我一邊和一位叫我“陪同”的女客隨便閑談，一邊思忖：文明社會這樣消磨自己的心智，把短促的生命浪費在無聊的應(yīng)酬上實在令人莫解。拿這一天的宴會來說，你不能不感到奇怪為什么女主人要請這些客人來，而為什么這些客人也會不嫌麻煩，接受邀請。當天一共有十位賓客。這些人見面時冷冷淡淡，分手時更有一種如釋重負的感覺。當然了，這只是完成一次社交義務(wù)。思特里克蘭德夫婦在人家吃過飯，“欠下”許多人情，對這些人他們本來是絲毫不感興趣的。但是他們還是不得不回請這些人，而這些人也都應(yīng)邀而來了。為什么這樣做？是為了避免吃飯時總是夫妻對坐的厭煩，為了讓仆人休息半天，還是因為沒有理由謝絕，因為該著吃別人一頓飯？誰也說不清。

The dining-room was inconveniently crowded. There was a K.C. and his wife, a Government official and his wife, Mrs. Strickland's sister and her husband, Colonel MacAndrew, and the wife of a Member of Parliament. It was because the Member of Parliament found that he could not leave the House that I had been invited. The respectability of the party was portentous. The women were too nice to be well dressed, and too sure of their position to be amusing. The men were solid. There was about all of them an air of well-satisfied prosperity.

餐廳非常擁擠，讓人感到很不舒服。這些人中有一位皇家法律顧問和夫人，一位政府官員和夫人，思特里克蘭德太太的姐姐和姐夫麥克安德魯上校，還有一位議員的妻子。正是因為議員發(fā)現(xiàn)自己不能離開議院我才臨時被請來補缺。這些客人的身份都非常高貴。女太太們因為知道自己的氣派，所以并不太講究衣著，而且因為知道自己的地位，也不想去討人高興。男人們個個雍容華貴?？傊羞@里的人都帶著一種殷實富足、躊躇滿志的神色。