月亮与六便士【中英字幕】

I lived nearVictoria Station, and I recall long excursions by bus to the hospitable housesof the literary. In my timidity I wandered up and down the street while Iscrewed up my courage to ring the bell; and then, sick with apprehension, wasushered into an airless room full of people. I was introduced to thiscelebrated person after that one, and the kind words they said about my bookmade me excessively uncomfortable. I felt they expected me to say cleverthings, and I never could think of any till after the party was over. I triedto conceal my embarrassment by handing round cups of tea and rather ill-cutbread-and-butter. I wanted no one to take notice of me, so that I could observethese famous creatures at my ease and listen to the clever things they said.

I have arecollection of large, unbending women with great noses and rapacious eyes, whowore their clothes as though they were armour; and of little, mouse-likespinsters, with soft voices and a shrewd glance. I never ceased to befascinated by their persistence in eating buttered toast with their gloves on,and I observed with admiration the unconcern with which they wiped theirfingers on their chair when they thought no one was looking. It must have beenbad for the furniture, but I suppose the hostess took her revenge on thefurniture of her friends when, in turn, she visited them.

我住在维多利亚车站附近；我还记得我到一些殷勤好客的文艺家庭中去作客总要乘车在市区兜很大的圈子，因为羞怯的心理作祟，我往往在街上来来回回走好几遍才鼓起勇气去按门铃。然后，我心里捏着一把汗，被让进一间高朋满座、闷得透不过气的屋子。我被介绍给这位名士、那位巨擘，这些人对我的著作所说的恭维话让我感到坐立不安。我知道他们都等着我说几句隽词妙语，可是直到茶会开完了，我仍然想不出什么有风趣的话来。为了遮盖自己窘态，我就张罗着给客人倒茶送水，把切得不成形的涂着黄油的面包递到人们手里。我希望的是谁都别注意我，让我心神宁静地观察一下这些知名人士，好好听一听他们妙趣横生的言语。

我记得我遇见不少身材壮硕、腰板挺得笔直的女人。这些女人生着大鼻头，目光炯炯，衣服穿在她们身上好象披着一挂甲胄；我也看到许多象小老鼠似的瘦小枯干的老处女，说话柔声细气，眼睛滴溜溜乱转。我对她们那种总是戴着手套吃黄油吐司的怪毛病常常感到十分好笑；她们认为没有人看见的时候就偷偷在椅子上揩手指头，这让我看着也十分佩服。这对主人的家具肯定不是件好事，但是我想在轮到主人到这些人家里作客的时候，肯定也会在她朋友的家具上进行报复的。

But all this isby the way.

I was veryyoung when I wrote my first book. By a lucky chance it excited attention, andvarious persons sought my acquaintance.

It is notwithout melancholy that I wander among my recollections of the world of lettersin London when first, bashful but eager, I was introduced to it. It is longsince I frequented it, and if the novels that describe its presentsingularities are accurate much in it is now changed. The venue is different.Chelsea and Bloomsbury have taken the place of Hampstead, Notting Hill Gate,and High Street, Kensington. Then it was a distinction to be under forty, butnow to be more than twenty-five is absurd. I think in those days we were alittle shy of our emotions, and the fear of ridicule tempered the more obviousforms of pretentiousness. I do not believe that there was in that genteelBohemia an intensive culture of chastity, but I do not remember so crude apromiscuity as seems to be practised in the present day. We did not think ithypocritical to draw over our vagaries the curtain of a decent silence. Thespade was not invariably called a bloody shovel. Woman had not yet altogethercome into her own.

但是这一切都是题外之言。

我写第一本书的时候非常年轻，但由于偶然的因缘这本书引起了人们的注意，不少人想要同我结识。

我刚刚被引进伦敦文学界的时候，心情又是热切又是羞涩；现在回忆起当时的种种情况，不无凄凉之感。很久我没有到伦敦去了，如果现在出版的小说里面的描写是真，伦敦一定发生了很大变化了。文人聚会的地点已经改变了。柴尔西和布鲁姆斯伯里取代了汉普斯台德、诺廷山门、高街和肯星顿的地位。当时年纪不到四十岁就被看作了不起的人物，如今过了二十五岁就会让人觉得滑稽可笑了。我想在过去的日子里我们都羞于使自己的感情外露，因为怕人嘲笑，所以都约束着自己不给人以傲慢自大的印象。我并不认为当时风雅放浪的诗人作家执身如何端肃，但我却不记得那时候文艺界有今天这么多风流韵事。我们对自己的一些荒诞不经的行为遮上一层保持体面的缄默，并不认为这是虚伪。我们讲话讲究含蓄，并不总是口无遮拦，说什么都直言不讳。女性们那时也还没有完全取得绝对自主的地位。

 Mr.Crabbe was as dead as mutton, but Mr. Crabbe continued to write moral storiesin rhymed couplets. I have read de sul to rily the writings of the youngergeneration. It may be that among them a more fervid Keats, a more etherealShelley, has already published numbers the world will willingly remember. Icannot tell. I admire their polish -- their youth is already so accomplishedthat it seems absurd to speak of promise -- I marvel at the felicity of theirstyle; but with all their copiousness (their vocabulary suggests that theyfingered Roget's Thesaurus in their cradles) they say nothing to me: to my mindthey know too much and feel too obviously; I cannot stomach the heartiness withwhich they slap me on the back or the emotion with which they hurl themselveson my bosom; their passion seems to me a little anaemic and their dreams atrifle dull. I do not like them. I am on the shelf. I will continue to writemoral stories in rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice a fool if I did it foraught but my own entertainment.

克莱布先生已经陈腐过时了，但是克莱布先生还是孜孜不倦地继续写他的押韵对句诗。我也断断续续读了一些我们这一时代的年轻人的诗作，他们当中可能有一位更炽情的济慈或者更一尘不染的雪莱，而且已经发表了世界将长久记忆的诗章，这我说不定。我赞赏他们的优美词句——尽管他们还年轻，却已才华横溢，因此如果仅仅说他们很有希望，就显得荒唐可笑了——，我惊叹他们精巧的文体；但是虽然他们用词丰富（从他们的语汇看，倒仿佛这些人躺在摇篮里就已经翻读过罗杰特的《词汇宝库》了），却没有告诉我们什么新鲜东西。在我看来，他们知道的太多，感觉过于肤浅；对于他们拍我肩膀的那股亲热劲儿同闯进我怀抱时的那种感情，我实在受不了。我觉得他们的热情似乎没有血色，他们的梦想也有些平淡。我不喜欢他们。我已经是过时的老古董了。我仍然要写押韵对句的道德故事。但是如果我对自己写作除了自娱以外还抱有其它目的，我就是个双料的傻瓜了。

Sometimes aman survives a considerable time from an era in which he had his place into onewhich is strange to him, and then the curious are offered one of the mostsingular spectacles in the human comedy. Who now, for example, thinks of GeorgeCrabbe? He was a famous poet in his day, and the world recognised his geniuswith a unanimity which the greater complexity of modern life has renderedinfrequent. He had learnt his craft at the school of Alexander Pope, and hewrote moral stories in rhymed couplets. Then came the French Revolution and theNapoleonic Wars, and the poets sang new songs. Mr. Crabbe continued to writemoral stories in rhymed couplets. I think he must have read the verse of theseyoung men who were making so great a stir in the world, and I fancy he found itpoor stuff. Of course, much of it was. But the odes of Keats and of Wordsworth,a poem or two by Coleridge, a few more by Shelley, discovered vast realms ofthe spirit that none had explored before.

有时候一个人早已活过了他享有一定地位的时期，进入了一个他感到陌生的新世纪，这时候人们便会看到人间喜剧中一幅最奇特的景象。譬如说，今天还有谁想得到乔治·克莱布①呢？在他生活的那一时代，他是享有盛名的，当时所有的人一致承认他是个伟大的天才，这在今天更趋复杂的现代生活中是很罕见的事了。他写诗的技巧是从亚历山大·蒲柏②派那里学习来的，他用押韵的对句写了很多说教的故事。后来爆发了法国大革命和拿破仑战争，诗人们唱起新的诗歌来。克莱布先生继续写他的押韵对句的道德诗，我想他一定读过那些年轻人写的风靡一时的新诗，而且我还想象他一定认为这些诗不堪卒读。当然，大多数新诗确实是这样子的。但是象济慈同华兹华斯写的颂歌，柯勒律治的一两首诗，雪莱的更多的几首，确实发现了前人未曾探索过的广阔精神领域。

Now the warhas come, bringing with it a new attitude. Youth has turned to gods we of anearlier day knew not, and it is possible to see already the direction in whichthose who come after us will move. The younger generation, conscious ofstrength and tumultuous, have done with knocking at the door; they have burstin and seated themselves in our seats. The air is noisy with their shouts. Oftheir elders some, by imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuadethemselves that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest, butthe war cry sounds hollow in their mouth; they are like poor wantons attemptingwith pencil, paint and powder, with shrill gaiety, to recover the illusion oftheir spring. The wiser go their way with a decent grace. In their chastenedsmile is an indulgent mockery. They remember that they too trod down a satedgeneration, with just such clamor and with just such scorn, and they foreseethat these brave torch-bearers will presently yield their place also. There isno last word. The new evangel was old when Nineveh reared her greatness to thesky. These gallant words which seem so novel to those that speak them were saidin accents scarcely changed a hundred times before. The pendulum swingsbackwards and forwards. The circle is ever travelled anew.

战争来了，战争也带来了新的生活态度。年轻人求助于我们老一代人过去不了解的一些神祇，已经看得出继我们之后而来的人要向哪个方向活动了。年轻的一代意识到自己的力量，吵吵嚷嚷，早已经不再叩击门扉了。他们已经闯进房子里来，坐到我们的宝座上，空中早已充满了他们喧闹的喊叫声。老一代的人有的也模仿年轻人的滑稽动作，努力叫自己相信他们的日子还没有过去；这些人同那些最活跃的年轻人比赛喉咙，但是他们发出的呐喊听起来却那么空洞，他们有如一些可怜的浪荡女人，虽然年华已过，却仍然希望靠涂脂抹粉，靠轻狂浮荡来恢复青春的幻影。聪明一点儿的则摆出一副端庄文雅的姿态。他们的莞尔微笑中流露着一种宽容的讥诮。他们记起了自己当初也曾经把一代高踞宝座的人践踏在脚下，也正是这样大喊大叫、傲慢不逊；他们预见到这些高举火把的勇士们有朝一日同样也要让位于他人。谁说的话也不能算最后拍板。当尼尼微城昌盛一时、名震遐迩的时候，新福音书已经老旧了。说这些豪言壮语的人可能还觉得他们在说一些前人未曾道过的真理，但是实际上连他们说话的腔调前人也已经用过一百次，而且丝毫也没有变化。钟摆摆过来又荡过去，这一旅程永远反复循环。

But I seekrefuge in no such excuses. I forget who it was that recommended men for theirsoul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and itis a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up andI have gone to bed. But there is in my nature a strain of asceticism, and Ihave subjected my flesh each week to a more severe mortification. I have neverfailed to read the Literary Supplement of The Times. It is a salutarydiscipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fairhopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaitsthem. What chance is there that any book will make its way among thatmultitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heavenknows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has enduredand what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxationor to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews,many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone totheir composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour of alifetime. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in thepleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thought; and,indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure orsuccess.

但是我并不想以这些事为自己辩解。我不记得是谁曾经建议过，为了使灵魂宁静，一个人每天要做两件他不喜欢的事。说这句话的人是个聪明人，我也一直在一丝不苟地按照这条格言行事：因为我每天早上都起床，每天也都上床睡觉。但是我这个人生来还有苦行主义的性格，我还一直叫我的肉体每个星期经受一次更大的磨难。《Times》的文学增刊我一期也没有漏掉。想到有那么多书被辛勤地写出来，作者看著书籍出版，抱着那么殷切的希望，等待着这些书又是什么样的命运，这真是一种有益身心的修养。一本书要能从这汪洋大海中挣扎出来希望是多么渺茫啊！即使获得成功，那成功又是多么瞬息即逝的事啊！天晓得，作者为他一本书花费了多少心血，经受多少磨折，尝尽了多少辛酸，只为了给偶然读到这本书的人几小时的休憩，帮助他驱除一下旅途中的疲劳。如果我能根据书评下断语的话，很多书是作者呕心沥血的结晶，作者为它绞尽了脑汁，有的甚至是孜孜终生的成果。我从这件事取得的教训是，作者应该从写作的乐趣中，从郁积在他心头的思想的发泄中取得写书的酬报；对于其他一切都不应该介意，作品成功或失败，受到称誉或是诋毁，他都应该淡然处之。

When so muchhas been written about Charles Strickland, it may seem unnecessary that Ishould write more. A painter's monument is his work. It is true I knew him moreintimately than most: I met him first before ever he became a painter, and Isaw him not infrequently during the difficult years he spent in Paris; but I donot suppose I should ever have set down my recollections if the hazards of thewar had not taken me to Tahiti. There, as is notorious, he spent the last yearsof his life; and there I came across persons who were familiar with him. I findmyself in a position to throw light on just that part of his tragic careerwhich has remained most obscure. If they who believe in Strickland's greatnessare right, the personal narratives of such as knew him in the flesh can hardlybe superfluous. What would we not give for the reminiscences of someone who hadbeen as intimately acquainted with El Greco as I was with Strickland?

关于查理斯·思特里克兰德的文章既已写了这么多，看来我似乎没有必要再多费笔墨了。为画家树碑立传归根结底还是他的作品。当然喏，我比大多数人对他更为熟悉；我第一次和他会面远在他改行学画以前。在他落魄巴黎的一段坎坷困顿的日子里，我经常和他见面。但如果不是战争的动乱使我有机会踏上塔希提岛的话，我是不会把我的一些回忆写在纸上的。众所周知，他正是在塔希提度过生命中最后几年；我在那里遇见不少熟悉他的人。我发现对他悲剧的一生中人们最不清晰的一段日子，我恰好可以投掷一道亮光。如果那些相信思特里克兰德伟大的人看法正确的话，与他有过亲身接触的人对他的追述便很难说是多余的了。如果有人同埃尔·格列柯象我同思特里克兰德那样熟稔，为了读到他写的格列柯回忆录，有什么代价我们不肯付呢？

Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholzwas an enthusiastic admirer of Charles Strickland, and there was no danger thathe would whitewash him. He had an unerring eye for the despicable motive inactions that had all the appearance of innocence. He was a psycho-pathologist,as well as a student of art, and the subconscious had few secrets from him. Nomystic ever saw deeper meaning in common things. The mystic sees the ineffable,and the psycho-pathologist the unspeakable. There is a singular fascination inwatching the eagerness with which the learned author ferrets out everycircumstance which may throw discredit on his hero. His heart warms to him whenhe can bring forward some example of cruelty or meanness, and he exults like aninquisitor at the auto da fe of an heretic when with some forgotten story hecan confound the filial piety of the Rev. Robert Strickland. His industry hasbeen amazing. Nothing has been too small to escape him, and you may be surethat if Charles Strickland left a laundry bill unpaid it will be given you in extenso,and if he forebore to return a borrowed half-crown no detail of the transactionwill be omitted.

魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士是查理斯·思特里克兰德的一位热心的崇拜者，如果他想为思特里克兰德涂脂抹粉本来是不会有什么危险的。但他的目光敏锐，一眼就望穿了隐含在一些天真无邪的行为下的可鄙的动机。他既是一个艺术研究者，又是一个心理——病理学家。他对一个人的潜意识了如指掌。没有哪个探索心灵秘密的人能够象他那样透过普通事物看到更深邃的意义。探索心灵秘密的人能够看到不好用语言表达出来的东西，心理病理学家却看到了根本不能表达的事物。我们看到这位学识渊深的作家如何热衷于搜寻出每一件使这位英雄人物丢脸的细节琐事，真是令人拍案叫绝。每当他列举出主人公一件冷酷无情或者卑鄙自私的例证，他的心就对他更增加一分同情。在他寻找到主人公某件为人遗忘的轶事用来嘲弄罗伯特·思特里克兰德牧帅的一片孝心时，他就象宗教法庭的法官审判异教徒那样乐得心花怒放。他写这篇文章的那种认真勤奋劲儿也着实令人吃惊。没有哪件细小的事情被他漏掉，如果查理斯·思特里克兰德有一笔洗衣账没有付清，这件事一定会被详细记录下来；如果他欠人家一笔借款没有偿还，这笔债务的每一个细节也绝对不会遗漏；这一点读者是完全可以放心的。

RobertStrickland's innocent biography that it is difficult to avoid feeling a certainsympathy for the unlucky parson. His decent reticence is branded as hypocrisy,his circumlocutions are roundly called lies, and his silence is vilified astreachery. And on the strength of peccadillos, reprehensible in an author, butexcusable in a son, the Anglo-Saxon race is accused of prudishness, humbug,pretentiousness, deceit, cunning, and bad cooking.

Personally Ithink it was rash of Mr. Strickland, in refuting the account which had gainedbelief of a certain "unpleasantness" between his father and mother,to state that Charles Strickland in a letter written from Paris had describedher as "an excellent woman, " since Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz was ableto print the letter in facsimile, and it appears that the passage referred toran in fact as follows: God damn my wife. She is an excellent woman. I wish shewas in hell. It is not thus that the Church in its great days dealt withevidence that was unwelcome.

魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士在评论罗伯特·思特里克兰德牧师那部天真的传记时所用的词句，读起来很难叫人对这位不幸的牧师不感到同情。凡是这位牧师为了维护体面不便畅言的地方都被攻击为虚伪，凡是他铺陈赘述的章节则率直地被叫作谎言，作者对某些事情保持缄默则干脆被魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹斥之为背叛。作品中的这些缺陷，从一个传记作家的角度来看，固然应该受到指摘，但作为传记主人公的儿子倒也情有可原；倒霉的是，竟连盎格鲁-萨克逊民族也连带遭了殃，被魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士批评为假装正经、作势吓人、自命不凡、狡猾欺心，只会烹调倒人胃口的菜饭。讲到我个人的意见，我认为思特里克兰德牧师在驳斥外间深入人心的一种传述——关于他父母之间某些“不愉快”的事件时，实在不够慎重。他在传记里引证查理斯· 思特里克兰德从巴黎写的一封家信，说他父亲称呼自己的妻子为“了不起的女人”，而魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹却把原信复制出来；原来思特里克兰德牧师引证的这段原文是这样的：“叫上帝惩罚我的妻子吧！这个女人太了不起了，我真希望叫她下地狱。”在教会势力鼎盛的日子，它们并不是用这种方法对待不受欢迎的事实的。

⑤泰伯利欧斯·克劳迪乌斯·尼禄（公元前42—公元37），罗马皇帝。

It is due tono accident that when one of his most important works, The Woman of Samaria,(4) was sold at Christie's shortly after the discussion which followed thepublication of Mr. Strickland's biography, it fetched POUNDS 235 less than ithad done nine months before when it was bought by the distinguished collectorwhose sudden death had brought it once more under the hammer. Perhaps CharlesStrickland's power and originality would scarcely have sufficed to turn thescale if the remarkable mythopoeic faculty of mankind had not brushed asidewith impatience a story which disappointed all its craving for theextraordinary. And presently Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz produced the work whichfinally set at rest the misgivings of all lovers of art.

Dr.Weitbrecht-Rotholz belongs to that school of historians which believes thathuman nature is not only about as bad as it can be, but a great deal worse; andcertainly the reader is safer of entertainment in their hands than in those ofthe writers who take a malicious pleasure in representing the great figures ofromance as patterns of the domestic virtues. For my part, I should be sorry tothink that there was nothing between Anthony and Cleopatra but an economicsituation; and it will require a great deal more evidence than is ever likelyto be available, thank God, to persuade me that Tiberius was as blameless amonarch as King George V. Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz has dealt in such terms withthe Rev.

特里克兰德的最重要的一幅作品《萨玛利亚的女人》④九个月以前曾经卖给一位有名的收藏家。由于这位收藏家后来突然逝世，这幅画再度拍卖，又被克利斯蒂购去。这次拍卖正值思特里克兰德牧师的传记出版、人们议论纷纷之际，这幅名画的价格竟比九个月以前降低了二百三十五镑；这显然不是一件偶合。如果不是人们对神话的喜爱，叫他们对这个使他们的猎奇心大失所望的故事嗤之以鼻的话，只靠思特里克兰德个人的权威和独特也许无力挽回大局的。说也凑巧，没有过多久魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士的文章就问世了，艺术爱好者们的疑虑不安终于消除了。

③《思特里克兰德，生平与作品》，画家的儿子罗伯特·思特里克兰德撰写，1913年海因曼出版。（作者注）

④根据克利斯蒂藏画目录的描述，这幅画的内容是：一个裸体女人，社会岛的土人，躺在一条小溪边的草地上，背景是棕榈树、芭蕉等热带风景。60英寸×48英寸。（作者注）

魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士隶属的这一历史学派不只相信“人之初，性本恶”，而且认为其恶劣程度是远远超过人们的想象的；用不着说，比起那些把富有浪漫色彩的人物写成道貌岸然的君子的使人败兴的作家来，这一派历史学者的著作肯定能够给予读者更大的乐趣。对于我这样的读者，如果把安东尼和克莉奥佩特拉的关系只写作经济上的联盟，我是会觉得非常遗憾的；要想劝说我让我把泰伯利欧斯⑤看作是同英王乔治五世同样的一位毫无瑕疵的君主，也需要远比手头掌握的多得多的证据（谢天谢地，这种证据看来很难找到）。