雙語小說連載:純真年代 The Age of Innocence(4)
In the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits were exchanged. The New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters; and in conformity with it Newland Archer first went with his mother and sister to call on Mrs. Welland, after which he and Mrs. Welland and May drove out to old Mrs. Manson Mingott's to receive that venerable ancestress's blessing.
第二天，進行了第一輪例行的訂婚互訪。在這類事情上，紐約的禮規一絲不苟，毫無變動可言。遵照這一禮節，紐蘭·阿切爾先與母親、妹妹一起去拜訪了韋蘭太太，然後再與韋蘭太太和梅乘車去曼森·明戈特老太太家接受這位尊敬的老祖宗的祝福。
A visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott was always an amusing episode to the young man. The house in itself was already an historic document, though not, of course, as venerable as certain other old family houses in University Place and lower Fifth Avenue. Those were of the purest 1830, with a grim harmony of cabbage- rose-garlanded carpets, rosewood consoles, round-arched fire-places with black marble mantels, and immense glazed book-cases of mahogany; whereas old Mrs. Mingott, who had built her house later, had bodily cast out the massive furniture of her prime, and mingled with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of the Second Empire. It was her habit to sit in a window of her sitting-room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors. She seemed in no hurry to have them come, for her patience was equalled by her confidence. She was sure that presently the hoardings, the quarries, the one-story saloons, the wooden green-houses in ragged gardens, and the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene, would vanish before the advance of residences as stately as her own--perhaps (for she was an impartial woman) even statelier; and that the cobble- stones over which the old clattering omnibuses bumped would be replaced by smooth asphalt, such as people reported having seen in Paris. Meanwhile, as every one she cared to see came to HER (and she could fill her rooms as easily as the Beauforts, and without adding a single item to the menu of her suppers), she did not suffer from her geographic isolation.
拜訪曼森·明戈特太太永遠是年輕人的一件樂事。那房子本身就是一個歷史的見證，儘管它自然不會像大學區與第五大街南部某些住宅那樣令人肅然起敬。那些住宅清一色是1830年建的，裏面那些百葉薔該圖案的地毯、黃檀木的蝸形支腿桌案、黑大理石面飾的圓拱形壁爐，還有鋥亮的紅木大書櫥，顯得既古板又協調。而明戈特老太太的住宅建得晚一些，她悉數擯棄了年輕時代那些笨重的傢俱，將第二帝國輕浮的室內裝飾品與明戈特的傳家寶熔爲一爐。她坐在一樓客廳的窗戶後面，彷彿是在安詳地等候着社交活動與時尚的潮流滾滾北上，流向她冷落的門坎。她看起來並不急於讓它們來到，因爲她的耐心與她的信心不相上下。她深信那些囤積物與獵獲物，那些單層的廳房、荒蕪花園裏的木製暖房以及山羊登臨的石基，不久就會隨着新住宅的推進而提前消逝，而那些新的宅邸將跟她的家一樣富麗堂皇 ——或許（她是個不帶偏見的女人）比她的更爲壯觀。而且，那些老式公共馬車卡嗒卡嗒顛簸於其上的卵石路也將被平滑的柏油路面取代，就像人們傳聞在巴黎見過的那樣。同時，由於她樂於接見的人全都過來看她（她能像博福特夫婦那樣，輕而易舉把她家的客廳塞滿，而且無須往晚餐菜單里加一道菜），她也並不因爲住處偏僻而受與世隔絕之苦。
The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. A flight of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still-snowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr. Mingott; and around and below, wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair, with two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows.
脂肪的激增在她中年時期突然降臨，就像火山熔岩降臨一個行將覆沒的城市那樣兇猛，使她由一位豐滿好動、步伐靈活的小巧女人變成如自然奇觀般的龐然大物。她像對待其他一切磨難一樣達觀地接受了這一大災大難。如今，她在耄耋之年終於得到了報償：鏡子裏的她，是一堆幾乎沒有皺紋的白裏透紅的結實肌膚，在其中央，一張小小的面孔形跡猶存，彷彿在等待着挖掘；光溜溜的雙下巴下方，是掩映在雪白的麥斯林紗底下令人眩目的雪白的胸膛，一枚已故明戈特先生的微形像章固定其間；四周及以下部位，一波接一波的黑絲綢在大扶手椅的邊棱上流瀉而下，兩隻雪白的小手擺在那裏猶如海面上的兩隻海鷗。
The burden of Mrs. Manson Mingott's flesh had long since made it impossible for her to go up and down stairs, and with characteristic independence she had made her reception rooms upstairs and established herself (in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties) on the ground floor of her house; so that, as you sat in her sitting-room window with her, you caught (through a door that was always open, and a looped- back yellow damask portiere) the unexpected vista of a bedroom with a huge low bed upholstered like a sofa, and a toilet-table with frivolous lace flounces and a gilt-framed mirror.
曼森·明戈特太太脂肪的負擔早已使她無法上下樓梯，她以特有的獨立精神將客廳設在樓上，並且（公然違背紐約的所有行爲規範）在住宅的一樓居住；因此，與她一起坐在起居室的窗口，就能意外地（透過始終開着的門和捲起的打環黃錦緞門簾）看到臥室。裏面有一張裝飾得像沙發一樣的特大矮牀，一張梳妝檯，上面擺着花哨的絲帶荷葉邊，還有一面鍍金框架的鏡子。
Her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this arrangement, which recalled scenes in French fiction, and architectural incentives to immorality such as the simple American had never dreamed of. That was how women with lovers lived in the wicked old societies, in apartments with all the rooms on one floor, and all the indecent propinquities that their novels described. It amused Newland Archer (who had secretly situated the love-scenes of "Monsieur de Camors" in Mrs. Mingott's bedroom) to picture her blameless life led in the stage-setting of adultery; but he said to himself, with considerable admiration, that if a lover had been what she wanted, the intrepid woman would have had him too.
客人們對這種佈置的異國情調既驚訝又爲之傾倒。它使人想起法國小說中的那些場景，以及單純的美國人做夢也不會想到的那些傷風敗俗行徑的建築學誘因。在舊時不道德的上流社會裏，那些偷情的女人其住所都是如此。在她們居住的公寓裏，所有的房間都在同一層，從而可以使她們能像小說中描寫的那樣輕而易舉地暗度陳倉。想象她在通姦的舞臺背景中過着白壁無瑕的生活，紐蘭·阿切爾（他暗中把《卡莫斯先生》中的愛情場面確定在明戈特太太的臥室裏）覺得頗爲有趣，但與此同時，他又在心裏津津有味地想道：假如有個情人符合她的要求，這位剛毅的女人一定也會投入他的懷抱。
To the general relief the Countess Olenska was not present in her grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. Mrs. Mingott said she had gone out; which, on a day of such glaring sunlight, and at the "shopping hour," seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do. But at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence, and the faint shadow that her unhappy past might seem to shed on their radiant future. The visit went off successfully, as was to have been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was delighted with the engagement, which, being long foreseen by watchful relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council; and the engagement ring, a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws, met with her unqualified admiration.
令大家都感到寬慰的是，在這對訂婚青年造訪時，奧蘭斯卡伯爵夫人並不在她祖母的客廳裏。明戈特太太說她外出了。在這樣一個陽光明媚的日子，又是在 “購物時間”，一個受過創傷的女子外出，本身雖不算得體，但不管怎樣，卻免去了他倆面對她的窘境，還避免了她不幸的過去可能投到他們光輝前程上的淡淡陰影。正如事前預料的那樣，這次拜訪進展十分順利。明戈特老太太對這樁婚事很中意，留心的親戚們早有預見，並在家族的會議上給予了認可。那枚訂婚戒指鑲着一塊很厚的大藍寶石，嵌在幾個隱形的爪內，得到了她毫無保留的讚賞。
"It's the new setting: of course it shows the stone beautifully, but it looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes," Mrs. Welland had explained, with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law.
“是新式鑲嵌：寶石當然顯得十分完美，不過老眼光的人覺得它有點禿，”韋蘭太太解釋說，一面用眼睛的餘光安撫地看着她未來的女婿。
"Old-fashioned eyes? I hope you don't mean mine, my dear? I like all the novelties," said the ancestress, lifting the stone to her small bright orbs, which no glasses had ever disfigured. "Very handsome," she added, returning the jewel; "very liberal. In my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient. But it's the hand that sets off the ring, isn't it, my dear Mr. Archer?" and she waved one of her tiny hands, with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the wrist like ivory bracelets. "Mine was modelled in Rome by the great Ferrigiani. You should have May's done: no doubt he'll have it done, my child. Her hand is large--it's these modern sports that spread the joints--but the skin is white.--And when's the wedding to be?" she broke off, fixing her eyes on Archer's face.
“老眼光？我希望你不是指我吧，親愛的？我喜歡一切新奇的東西，”老祖母說着，把鑽戒舉到她那雙明亮的小眼睛跟前，她的眼睛從未受過眼鏡的損傷。 “非常漂亮，”她又說，一面把鑽戒還回去，“非常獨特。我年輕的時候，用一塊彩玉鑲在幾顆珍珠之間就覺得很好了。不過戒指是靠手來襯托的，對吧，親愛的阿切爾先生？”她揮動着一隻留了尖指甲的小手說，老年肥胖形成的圈圈如象牙手鐲一般環繞着她的手腕。“我的戒指是羅馬著名的費里加尼設計的。你該找人爲梅定做，毫無疑問他會的，我的孩子。她的手很大——現在的這些運動把人的關關節節都變大了——不過皮膚還是很白的。——可婚禮什麼時候舉行呢？”她收住話頭，兩眼緊盯着阿切爾的臉。
"Oh--" Mrs. Welland murmured, while the young man, smiling at his betrothed, replied: "As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs. Mingott."
“哦——”韋蘭太太囁嚅道。年輕人卻朝未婚妻露出笑臉，回答說：“越快越好，明戈特太太，只要你肯支持我。”
"We must give them time to get to know each other a little better, mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of reluctance; to which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and I want to give the wedding-breakfast."
“媽媽，我們得給他們時問，讓他們互相多瞭解一點，”韋蘭太太插言說，同時又恰如其分地裝出一副不情願的樣子。老祖母回言道：“互相瞭解？瞎說！在紐約，誰不瞭解誰！讓年輕人按他自己的方式去辦吧，我親愛的，可別等得美酒走了味。大齋節前就讓他們成婚。到了冬天我哪一天都可能染上肺炎，可我還想給他們舉辦婚禮喜宴呢。”
These successive statements were received with the proper expressions of amusement, incredulity and gratitude; and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort.
對她接二連三的表態，客人相宜作出了喜悅、懷疑、感激的反應。正在這時，門被打開，迎進來了奧蘭斯卡伯爵夫人。她戴着帽子和麪紗進了屋，身後還跟着個不期而至的朱利葉斯·博福特。溫和愉悅的敘談氣氛中斷了。
There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs. Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort, this is a rare favour!" (She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by their surnames.)
夫人與小姐愉快地說起表姐妹間的悄悄話，明戈特太太則把費里加尼款式的戒指拿給銀行家看。“哈！博福特，這可是難得的優待！”（她用奇特的異國方式直呼男士的姓。）
"Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the visitor in his easy arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied down; but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with her."
“多謝多謝，我希望這種事多有幾次，”客人妄自尊大地從容說道。“我老是脫不開身；在麥迪遜廣場遇上了埃倫伯爵夫人，她十分客氣地要我陪她回家。”
"Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs. Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit down, Beaufort: push up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself."
“啊——既然埃倫回來了，我希望這個家熱鬧起來！”明戈特太太毫無顧忌地大聲說。“請坐——請坐，博福特：把那把黃扶手椅推過來；既然你來了，咱們就要好好聊一聊。聽說你家的舞會叭叭叫，據我所知，你還邀請了勒姆爾·斯特拉瑟斯太太？哎——我倒很想親自見見那個女人。”
She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared.
她忘記了自己的親眷，他們正在埃倫·奧蘭斯卡帶領下向外面的門廳移動。明戈特老太太一貫顯得對朱利葉斯·博福特非常讚賞，他們倆在專橫無理及對待傳統的刪繁就簡方面有某種相似之處。此時她急於瞭解是什麼原因促使博福特夫婦下決心（首次）邀請了斯特拉瑟斯的“鞋油”寡婦勒姆爾·斯特拉瑟斯太太。她一年前剛結束在歐洲漫長的啓蒙僑居，回來圍攻紐約這個堅固的小城堡。“當然，如果你和裏吉納請了她，事情就成定局了。嗯，我們需要新鮮血液和新鮮錢——而且我聽說她依然十分漂亮，”這位愛吃肉的老夫人斷言說。
In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile.
門廳裏，韋蘭太太與梅在穿毛皮外衣的時候，阿切爾見奧蘭斯卡伯爵夫人略有疑問地對他微笑着。
"Of course you know already--about May and me," he said, answering her look with a shy laugh. "She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd."
“當然你已經知道了——我和梅的事，”他說，並靦腆地一笑回答她的注視。“她責備我昨晚在歌劇院沒把消息告訴你：她曾囑咐我把我們訂婚的事告訴你——但守着那麼多人，我未能辦到。”
The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand.
笑容從奧蘭斯卡夫人的眼睛傳到她的雙脣，她看上去更年輕了，更像他孩提時那個大膽的棕發小姑娘埃倫·明戈特。“是的，我當然知道，而且非常高興。不過這樣的事是不會在擁擠的人羣中首先宣佈的。”另兩位女士已經到了門口，她伸出手來。
"Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer.
“再見。改日過來看我，”她說，眼睛依然看着阿切爾。
In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind.
沿第五大街下行，他們在馬車裏重點談論的是明戈特太太：她的年紀，她的精神，以及她那些不可思議的性情。沒有人提及埃倫·奧蘭斯卡；然而阿切爾知道韋蘭太太心裏正在想：“埃倫的露面是個錯誤——就在她剛回來的第二天，在擁擠時刻與朱利葉斯·博福特一起沿第五大街大搖大擺地走——”而年輕人心裏補充道：“她還應當知道，一個剛訂婚的男人一般是不會花時間去拜訪已婚女子的。不過我敢說，在她生活過的那個圈子裏，他們一定是那樣做的——保準沒錯。”而且，儘管他自誇瞭解那些大都市人的觀點，卻謝天謝地自己是個紐約人，而且就要與他的一位同類聯姻。
雙語小說連載:純真年代 The Age of Innocence(3)
