(雙語)月亮和六便士 第8章(1)

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Chapter 8

八

On reading over what I have written of the Stricklands, I am conscious that they must seem shadowy. I have been able to invest them with none of those characteristics which make the persons of a book exist with a real life of their own; and, wondering if the fault is mine, I rack my brains to remember idiosyncrasies which might lend them vividness. I feel that by dwelling on some trick of speech or some queer habit I should be able to give them a significance peculiar to themselves. As they stand they are like the figures in an old tapestry; they do not separate themselves from the background, and at a distance seem to lose their pattern, so that you have little but a pleasing piece of colour. My only excuse is that the impression they made on me was no other. There was just that shadowiness about them which you find in people whose lives are part of the social organism, so that they exist in it and by it only. They are like cells in the body, essential, but, so long as they remain healthy, engulfed in the momentous whole. The Stricklands were an average family in the middle class. A pleasant, hospitable woman, with a harmless craze for the small lions of literary society; a rather dull man, doing his duty in that state of life in which a merciful Providence had placed him; two nice-looking, healthy children. Nothing could be more ordinary. I do not know that there was anything about them to excite the attention of the curious.

回過頭來讀了讀我寫的思特里克蘭德夫婦的故事，我感到這兩個(gè)人被我寫得太沒有血肉了。要使書中人物真實(shí)動(dòng)人，需要把他們的性格特征寫出來，而我卻沒有賦予他們?nèi)魏翁厣?。我想知道這是不是我的過錯(cuò)，我苦思苦想，希望回憶起一些能使他們性格鮮明的特征。我覺得如果我能夠詳細(xì)寫出他們說話的某些習(xí)慣或者他們的一些離奇的舉止，或許就能夠突出他們的特點(diǎn)了。象我現(xiàn)在這樣寫，這兩個(gè)人好象是一幅古舊掛毯上的兩個(gè)人形，同背景很難分辨出來；如果從遠(yuǎn)處看，那就連輪廓也辨別不出，只剩下一團(tuán)花花綠綠的顏色了。我只有一種辯解：他們給我的就是這樣一個(gè)印象。有些人的生活只是社會(huì)有機(jī)體的一部分，他們只能生活在這個(gè)有機(jī)體內(nèi)，也只能依靠它而生活，這種人總是給人以虛幻的感覺；思特里克蘭德夫婦正是這樣的人。他們有如體內(nèi)的細(xì)胞，是身體所決不能缺少的，但是只要他們健康存在一天，就被吞沒在一個(gè)重大的整體里。思特里克蘭德這家人是普普通通的一個(gè)中產(chǎn)階級(jí)家庭。一個(gè)和藹可親、殷勤好客的妻子，有著喜歡結(jié)交文學(xué)界小名人的無害的癖好；一個(gè)并不很聰明的丈夫，在慈悲的上帝安排給他的那種生活中兢兢業(yè)業(yè)、恪盡職責(zé)：兩個(gè)漂亮、健康的孩子。沒有什么比這一家人更為平凡的了。我不知道這一家人有什么能夠引起好奇的人注意的。

When I reflect on all that happened later, I ask myself if I was thick-witted not to see that there was in Charles Strickland at least something out of the common. Perhaps. I think that I have gathered in the years that intervene between then and now a fair knowledge of mankind, but even if when I first met the Stricklands I had the experience which I have now, I do not believe that I should have judged them differently. But because I have learnt that man is incalculable, I should not at this time of day be so surprised by the news that reached me when in the early autumn I returned to London.

當(dāng)我想到后來發(fā)生的種種事情時(shí)，不禁自問：是不是當(dāng)初我過于遲鈍，沒有看出查理斯·思特里克蘭德身上與常人不同的地方?。恳苍S是這樣的。從那個(gè)時(shí)候起到現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)過了這么多年，在此期間我對(duì)人情世故知道了不少東西，但是即使當(dāng)初我認(rèn)識(shí)他們夫婦時(shí)就已經(jīng)有了今天的閱歷，我也不認(rèn)為我對(duì)他們的判斷就有所不同。只不過有一點(diǎn)會(huì)和當(dāng)年不一樣：在我了解到人是多么玄妙莫測(cè)之后，我今天決不會(huì)象那年初秋我剛剛回到倫敦時(shí)那樣，在聽到那個(gè)消息以后會(huì)那樣大吃一驚了。