《月亮與六便士》既是對愛德華七世的諷刺，也是一部高更的傳記...

The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by Maugham first published in April 15th, 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is in part based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin.

《月亮與六便士》是毛姆於1919年4月15日首次出版的小說。故事以情景的形式從第一人稱進行講述，描寫了一系列關於主人公查爾斯•思特里克蘭德的心靈和靈魂的故事。主人公是一位中年英國股票經紀人，爲了追求成爲藝術家的願望，他突然拋棄了妻子和孩子。這個故事有一部分是基於畫家保羅·高更的生平寫成的。

The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator, a young, aspiring writer and playwright in London. Certain chapters entirely comprise accounts of events by other characters, which the narrator recalls from memory (selectively editing or elaborating on certain aspects of dialogue, particularly Strickland's, as Strickland is said by the narrator to have a very poor ability to express himself in words). The narrator first develops an acquaintance with Strickland's wife at literary parties, and later meets Strickland himself, who appears to be an unremarkable businessman with no interest in his wife's literary or artistic tastes.

這部小說主要是從倫敦一位年輕、有抱負的作家和劇作家的敘述者的角度來寫的。某些章節完全由其他人物的故事組成，而敘述者從記憶中回憶(選擇性地編輯或闡述對話的某些方面，尤其是思特里克蘭德的，因爲敘述者說思特里克蘭德的語言表達能力很差)。文中的主人公先是在文學聚會上結識了思特里克蘭德的妻子，後來又遇到了思特里克蘭德本人。思特里克蘭德本人似乎是個平凡的商人，對他妻子的文學或藝術興趣不大。

Strickland is a well-off, middle-class stockbroker in London sometime in late 19th or early 20th century. Early in the novel, he leaves his wife and children and goes to Paris. He lives a destitute but defiantly content life there as a painter, lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both illness and hunger. Strickland, in his drive to express through his art what appears to continually possess and compel him on the inside, cares nothing for physical discomfort and is indifferent to his surroundings. He is helped and supported by a commercially successful but hackneyed Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, who recognises Strickland's genius as a painter. After helping Strickland recover from a life-threatening illness, Stroeve is repaid by having his wife, Blanche, abandon him for Strickland. Strickland later discards the wife; all he really sought from Blanche was a model to paint, not serious companionship, and it is hinted in the novel's dialogue that he indicated this to her and she took the risk anyway. Blanche then commits suicide – yet another human casualty in Strickland's single-minded pursuit of art and beauty; the first casualties being his own established life and those of his wife and children.

思特里克蘭德是一位活躍在19世紀末或20世紀初中間的倫敦富裕的中產階級股票經紀人。在小說的開頭，他離開妻子和孩子去了巴黎。作爲一名畫家，他在那裏過着貧困而又滿足的生活，住在破舊的旅館裏，飽受疾病和飢餓的折磨。思特里克蘭德竭力用他的藝術來表達他內心似乎一直佔有並強迫着他的東西。此時，他並不在乎身體上的不適，也不在乎周圍的環境如何。一位在商業上取得了成功的荷蘭畫家德克·施特略夫也一直支持他，幫助他。施特略夫承認思特里克蘭德是一位天才畫家。在幫助思特里克蘭德從一場危及生命的疾病中康復之後，施特略夫卻受到了報應：他的妻子布蘭奇爲了思特里克蘭德拋棄了他。思特里克蘭德後來拋棄了布蘭奇，因爲他真正想從布蘭奇那裏得到的只是一個畫畫的模特，而不是認真的陪伴。從小說的對話中可以看出，他向她暗示了這一點，而布蘭奇還是冒了這個險。然後布蘭奇自殺了——這是思特里克蘭德一心追求藝術和美的過程中又一個犧牲品——第一個受到傷害的是他自己的優越生活，以及他妻子和孩子的人生。

After the Paris episode, the story continues in Tahiti. Strickland has already died, and the narrator attempts to piece together his life there from recollections of others. He finds that Strickland had taken up a native woman, had two children by her, one of whom dies, and started painting profusely. We learn that Strickland had settled for a short while in the French port of Marseilles before traveling to Tahiti, where he lived for a few years before dying of leprosy. Strickland left behind numerous paintings, but his magnum opus, which he painted on the walls of his hut before losing his sight to leprosy, was burnt after his death by his wife per his dying orders.

巴黎之章結束之後，故事繼續在塔希提島展開。此時，思特里克蘭德已經去世了，而敘述者試圖從別人的回憶中拼湊出他在那裏的生活。他發現思特里克蘭德在那裏娶了一個本地女人，和她生了兩個孩子，但其中一個已經死了。我們知道，思特里克蘭德在去塔希提島之前，曾在法國馬賽港住過一段時間。他在塔希提島住了幾年，後來他死於麻風病。思特里克蘭德留下了許多畫，但是他在患麻風病失明之前在他的小屋裏的牆上所畫的鉅著，在他死後被他的妻子按照他臨終前的囑咐燒掉了。

The Moon and Sixpence is not, of course, a life of Paul Gauguin in the form of fiction. It is founded on what I had heard about him, but I used only the main facts of his story and for the rest trusted to such gifts of invention as I was fortunate enough to possess.

當然，《月亮和六便士》並不是保羅·高更真實生活的小說版。它是建立在我所聽到的關於他的事情的基礎上的，但是我只使用了他故事的主要事實，其餘的都是我有幸擁有的發明創造的天賦。

Writing in 1953, Maugham describes the idea for the book arising during a year that he spent living in Paris in 1904: "...I met men who had known him and worked with him at Pont-Aven. I heard much about him. It occurred to me that there was in what I was told the subject of a novel". The idea remained in his mind for ten years, until a visit to Tahiti in 1914, where Maugham was able to meet people who had known Gauguin, inspired him to start writing.

1953年的文字中，毛姆提及自己在1904年他在巴黎生活的那一年，他萌生了寫這本書的想法:“……我見過一些認識他的人，他們和他一起在伯亞文工作。我聽說過很多關於他的事。我突然想到，這些符合我小說主題中的有一些東西。”這個想法在他腦海裏縈繞了10年，直到1914年他訪問塔希提島，在那裏毛姆結識了認識高更的人，而這激發了他開始寫作。

The critic Amy Dickson examines the relationship between Gauguin and Strickland. She contrasts the novel's description of Strickland, "his faults are accepted as the necessary complement of his merits... but one thing can never be doubtful, and that is that he had genius," with Gauguin's description of himself, "I am an artist and you are right, you're not mad, I am a great artist and I know it. It's because I know it that I have endured such sufferings. To have done otherwise I would consider myself a brigand -- which is what many people think I am." Dickson sums up the novel as follows: "Maugham was fascinated by the impact of the arrival of modernism from Europe on an insular British consciousness and the emergence of the cult of the modernist artist-genius -- The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satire of Edwardian mores and a Gauguin biography."

評論家艾米·迪克森研究了高更和思特里克蘭德之間的關係。她對比了小說中對思特里克蘭德的描述，“他的缺點被認爲是他優點的必要補充……但有一點是毋庸置疑的，那就是他有天賦”。高更曾經這樣描述自己，“我是一個藝術家，你是對的，你沒有瘋，我是一個偉大的藝術家，我知道這一點。因爲我知道我已經忍受了這樣的痛苦。否則，我就會認爲自己是個強盜——就像許多人認爲的那樣。”迪克森對小說的總結認爲:“毛姆着迷於歐洲現代主義的到來對狹隘的英國意識的影響，以及對現代主義藝術家天才的崇拜的出現——《月亮與六便士》既是對愛德華七世道德規範的諷刺，也是一部高更的傳記。”

According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage in which the novel's protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as "so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet." According to a 1956 letter from Maugham, "If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don't look up, and so miss the moon." Maugham's title echoes the description of Gauguin by his contemporary biographer, Meier-Graefe (1908): "He [Gauguin] may be charged with having always wanted something else."

根據小道消息, 書中沒有明確透露的標題的具體意思，在對毛姆的小說《人性枷鎖》的書評中，小說的主人公菲利普·凱莉將標題的意義描述爲“忙着渴望月亮,他從未見過六便士在他的腳下。”根據毛姆1956年的一封信，“因爲你在地上尋找一枚六便士硬幣，而你沒有擡頭，所以錯過了月亮。”毛姆的書名與他同時代的傳記作家邁爾-格拉芙(1908)對高更的描述相呼應:“他(高更)可能被認爲一直想要別的東西。”