🔊 The Prince had always liked his London, when it had come to him; he was one of the modern Romans who find by the Thames a more convincing image of the truth of the ancient state than any they have left by the Tiber. Brought up on the legend of the City to which the world paid tribute, he recognised in the present London much more than in contemporary Rome the real dimensions of such a case. If it was a question of an Imperium, he said to himself, and if one wished, as a Roman, to recover a little the sense of that, the place to do so was on London Bridge, or even, on a fine afternoon in May, at Hyde Park Corner.

亲王一直很喜欢他的伦敦,当这座城市终于属于他时；他是现代罗马人之一,觉得在泰晤士河畔能找到比他们留在台伯河畔更令人信服的古国真实面貌。他在世界朝贡之城的传说中长大,认识到在当今的伦敦远比在当代的罗马更能体现这种情形的真实规模。如果这是关于一个帝国的问题,他对自己说,而作为一个罗马人,想重新找回一点那种感觉,那么该去的地方就是伦敦桥,甚至是在五月的一个晴朗下午,到海德公园角去。

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convincing /kənˈvɪnsɪŋ/

adj. 令人信服的➕

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image /ˈɪmɪdʒ/

n. 形象；图像➕

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ancient /ˈeɪnʃənt/

adj. 古代的➕

🔊 It was not indeed to either of those places that these grounds of his predilection, after all sufficiently vague, had, at the moment we are concerned with him, guided his steps; he had strayed, simply enough, into Bond Street, where his imagination, working at comparatively short range, caused him now and then to stop before a window in which objects massive and lumpish, in silver and gold, in the forms to which precious stones contribute, or in leather, steel, brass, applied to a hundred uses and abuses, were as tumbled together as if, in the insolence of the Empire, they had been the loot of far-off victories.

不过,他这些说到底相当模糊的偏爱理由,在他此刻我们所关注的时刻,并没有指引他的脚步走向上述任何一个地方；他只是漫不经心地溜达进了邦德街,在那儿,他相对短距离的想象,时不时让他驻足在某个橱窗前--橱窗里摆满了银质和金质的巨大而笨重的物件,那些由宝石构成的形状,或皮革、钢铁、黄铜制成、应用于百种用途和滥用的东西--它们杂乱地堆在一起,仿佛帝国狂妄下远方胜利的战利品。

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predilection /ˌpredlˈekʃn/

n. 偏爱；偏好➕

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vague /veɪɡ/

adj. 模糊的；不明确的➕

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massive /ˈmæsɪv/

adj. 大量的；巨大的➕

🔊 The young man's movements, however, betrayed no consistency of attention--not even, for that matter, when one of his arrests had proceeded from possibilities in faces shaded, as they passed him on the pavement, by huge beribboned hats, or more delicately tinted still under the tense silk of parasols held at perverse angles in waiting victorias. And the Prince's undirected thought was not a little symptomatic, since, though the turn of the season had come and the flush of the streets begun to fade, the possibilities of faces, on the August afternoon, were still one of the notes of the scene.

然而,年轻人的行动并未显示出任何持续的专注--甚至,当他有一次停下来,是因为人行道上与他擦肩而过的脸庞,被系着巨大缎带的帽子遮荫,或在等待的维多利亚马车中以怪异角度撑着的阳伞紧绷丝绸下色彩更为柔和,这些可能性引起了他的注意。而王子漫无目的的想法不无症兆,因为尽管季节已转,街道的繁华开始褪色,但在八月的下午,脸孔的可能性仍然是场景的基调之一。

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consistency /kənˈsɪstənsi/

n. 一致性；连贯性➕

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proceeded /prəˈsiːdɪd/

v. 继续进行；开始做➕

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symptomatic /ˌsɪmptəˈmætɪk/

adj. 有症状的；表明的➕

🔊 He was too restless--that was the fact--for any concentration, and the last idea that would just now have occurred to him in any connection was the idea of pursuit. He had been pursuing for six months as never in his life before, and what had actually unsteadied him, as we join him, was the sense of how he had been justified. Capture had crowned the pursuit--or success, as he would otherwise have put it, had rewarded virtue; whereby the consciousness of these things made him, for the hour, rather serious than gay.

他太不安了--事实如此--无法集中精神,而现在任何场合下都不会浮现在他脑海中的念头就是追求。六个月来,他像有生以来从未有过的那样追求着,而当我们加入他的行列时,实际上使他不安的是他意识到自己一直多么有道理。捕获为追求加冕--或者成功,正如他本可以换个说法--回报了美德；因此,对这些事情的意识在那一刻让他显得严肃而非愉悦。

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restless /ˈrestləs/

adj. 不安的；焦躁的➕

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concentration /ˌkɒnsnˈtreɪʃn/

n. 专注；集中➕

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pursuit /pərˈsuːt/

n. 追求；追赶➕

🔊 A sobriety that might have consorted with failure sat in his handsome face, constructively regular and grave, yet at the same time oddly and, as might be, functionally almost radiant, with its dark blue eyes, its dark brown moustache and its expression no more sharply "foreign" to an English view than to have caused it sometimes to be observed of him with a shallow felicity that he looked like a "refined" Irishman. What had happened was that shortly before, at three o'clock, his fate had practically been sealed, and that even when one pretended to no quarrel with it the moment had something of the grimness of a crunched key in the strongest lock that could be made. There was nothing to do as yet, further, but feel what one had done, and our personage felt it while he aimlessly wandered. It was already as if he were married, so definitely had the solicitors, at three o'clock, enabled the date to be fixed, and by so few days was that date now distant. He was to dine at half-past eight o'clock with the young lady on whose behalf, and on whose father's, the London lawyers had reached an inspired harmony with his own man of business, poor Calderoni, fresh from Rome and now apparently in the wondrous situation of being "shown London," before promptly leaving it again, by Mr. Verver himself, Mr. Verver whose easy way with his millions had taxed to such small purpose, in the arrangements, the principle of reciprocity. The reciprocity with which the Prince was during these minutes most struck was that of Calderoni's bestowal of his company for a view of the lions. If there was one thing in the world the young man, at this juncture, clearly intended, it was to be much more decent as a son-in-law than lots of fellows he could think of had shown themselves in that character. He thought of these fellows, from whom he was so to differ, in English; he used, mentally, the English term to describe his difference, for, familiar with the tongue from his earliest years, so that no note of strangeness remained with him either for lip or for ear, he found it convenient, in life, for the greatest number of relations. He found it convenient, oddly, even for his relation with himself--though not unmindful that there might still, as time went on, be others, including a more intimate degree of that one, that would seek, possibly with violence, the larger or the finer issue--which was it?--of the vernacular. Miss Verver had told him he spoke English too well--it was his only fault, and he had not been able to speak worse even to oblige her. "When I speak worse, you see, I speak French," he had said; intimating thus that there were discriminations, doubtless of the invidious kind, for which that language was the most apt.

一种可能与失败相伴的严肃挂在他英俊的脸上,那张脸结构规整而严肃,却同时又古怪地、并且可以说功能性地几乎容光焕发,深蓝的眼睛,深棕色的小胡子,以及那种表情对于英国人来说,并不比有人曾肤浅地评说他看起来像“有教养的”爱尔兰人更显“外国”。发生的事情是,就在不久之前,下午三点钟,他的命运实际上已被注定,即便一个人假装对此毫无怨言,那一刻也带有某种像是最坚固的锁里咬碎的钥匙那样的冷酷。目前除了感受自己所做的事之外,无事可做；而我们的主角在漫无目的地游荡时感受到了这一点。仿佛他已经结婚了--三点钟时律师们如此明确地确定了日期,而那个日期现在已近在咫尺。他将在八点半与那位年轻女士共进晚餐--为了她和她父亲的利益,伦敦的律师已与刚从罗马来的可怜的卡尔德罗尼--他自己的业务经理--达成了灵感十足的和谐一致；后者显而易见处于一种奇妙的状态中:在立即离开之前,由弗维尔先生本人“带他去游览伦敦”--弗维尔先生轻松地处理着他的数百万财富,在安排中几乎没怎么用到互惠原则。而在这些时刻最打动王子的互惠,是卡尔德罗尼将他的陪伴给予对方以便游览名胜。如果这个世界上的事情中有一件年轻人在此刻明确打算的,那就是作为一个女婿要比他知道的那些许多家伙表现得体面得多。他用英语想着这些家伙,他要与他们不同；他内心用英语术语来描述他的不同,因为他从幼年起就熟悉这种语言,无论唇舌还是耳朵都不再有任何生疏感,他发现生活中这种语言对最大数量的关系都很方便。奇怪的是,他甚至觉得它在与自己的关系中也方便--尽管他并未忘记,随着时间推移,可能还会有其他关系,包括更亲密的层次,它们可能（也许粗暴地）寻求本地方言的更大或更精细的表达--究竟是哪种呢？弗维尔小姐告诉他,他的英语说得太好了--这是他唯一的缺点,而他甚至无法为了讨好她把话说得更差。“当我说得更差时,你看,我就说法语,”他说；暗示着无疑有某种歧视,或许是令人反感的,而法语最适合表达那种歧视。

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sobriety /səˈbraɪəti/

n. 清醒；稳重➕

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radiant /ˈreɪdiənt/

adj. 容光焕发的；光芒四射的➕

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personage /ˈpɜːrsənɪdʒ/

n. 要人；名流➕

🔊 The girl had taken this, she let him know, as a reflection on her own French, which she had always so dreamed of making good, of making better; to say nothing of his evident feeling that the idiom supposed a cleverness she was not a person to rise to. The Prince's answer to such remarks--genial, charming, like every answer the parties to his new arrangement had yet had from him--was that he was practising his American in order to converse properly, on equal terms as it were, with Mr. Verver. His prospective father-in-law had a command of it, he said, that put him at a disadvantage in any discussion; besides which--well, besides which he had made to the girl the observation that positively, of all his observations yet, had most finely touched her. "You know I think he's a real galantuomo--'and no mistake.' There are plenty of sham ones about. He seems to me simply the best man I've ever seen in my life." "Well, my dear, why shouldn't he be?" the girl had gaily inquired. It was this, precisely, that had set the Prince to think. The things, or many of them, that had made Mr. Verver what he was seemed practically to bring a charge of waste against the other things that, with the other people known to the young man, had failed of such a result. "Why, his 'form,' " he had returned, "might have made one doubt." "Father's form?" She hadn't seen it. "It strikes me he hasn't got any." "He hasn't got mine--he hasn't even got yours." "Thank you for 'even'!" the girl had laughed at him. "Oh, yours, my dear, is tremendous. But your father has his own. I've made that out. So don't doubt it. It's where it has brought him out--that's the point." "It's his goodness that has brought him out," our young woman had, at this, objected. "Ah, darling, goodness, I think, never brought anyone out. Goodness, when it's real, precisely, rather keeps people in." He had been interested in his discrimination, which amused him. "No, it's his way. It belongs to him." But she had wondered still. "It's the American way. That's all." "Exactly--it's all. It's all, I say! It fits him--so it must be good for something." "Do you think it would be good for you?" Maggie Verver had smilingly asked. To which his reply had been just of the happiest. "I don't feel, my dear, if you really want to know, that anything much can now either hurt me or help me. Such as I am--but you'll see for yourself. Say, however, I am a galantuomo--which I devoutly hope: I'm like a chicken, at best, chopped up and smothered in sauce; cooked down as a creme de volaille, with half the parts left out. Your father's the natural fowl running about the bassecour.

姑娘将这话理解为对她法语水平的批评,而她一直梦想着把它说好、说得更好；更不用说他明显觉得那种习语暗示着她无法企及的聪明。亲王对这种说法的回答--和蔼、迷人,就像他的新安排中双方每次从他那里得到的回答一样--是他正在练习他的美式英语,以便与弗维尔先生恰当地交谈,达到同等水平。他说,他未来的岳父对美式英语的掌握,使得他在任何讨论中都处于劣势；除此之外--嗯,除此之外,他对姑娘说了一句观察,迄今为止所有观察中,这句最触动她。“你知道,我认为他是一位真正的正人君子--‘没错。’周围有很多假冒的。他对我来说简直是我一生中见过的最好的人。”“嗯,亲爱的,他为什么不该是呢？”姑娘愉快地问道。正是这一点让王子陷入了思考。使弗维尔先生成为现在这个样子的那些事物--或者说其中许多事物--似乎实际上对其他事物,以及年轻人所认识的其他人的那些未能产生同样结果的事物,构成了浪费的指控。“哎呀,他的‘形式’,”他回答说,“本来可能会让人怀疑。”“父亲的形式？”她没看出来。“我觉得他根本没有形式。”“他没有我的--他甚至没有你的。”“谢谢你的‘甚至’！”姑娘对他笑道。“哦,你的,亲爱的,了不得。但你父亲有他自己的。我看出来了。所以别怀疑。这正是让他脱颖而出之处--这才是关键。”“是他的善良让他脱颖而出,”年轻女士对此反驳道。“啊,亲爱的,我认为善良从未让任何人脱颖而出。善良,当它是真实的时候,恰恰相反,反而让人止步不前。”他对自己的区分很感兴趣,觉得好笑。“不,是他的方式。那是属于他的。”但她仍然不解。“那是美国方式。仅此而已。”“没错--就是它。我说,就是它！它适合他--所以它一定有点用处。”“你觉得它会对你有用吗？”玛吉·弗维尔微笑着问。对此他的回答恰如其分。“亲爱的,如果你真的想知道,我觉得现在没什么能伤害我或帮助我。我就是这副模样--但你自己会看到的。不过,假设我是一个正人君子--我虔诚地希望如此--我充其量就像一只被切碎、埋在酱汁里的鸡；炖成鸡肉浓汤,一半的部件都省略了。你父亲是院子里到处跑的天然家禽。

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reflection /rɪˈflekʃn/

n. 思考；反映；反射➕

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genial /ˈdʒiːniəl/

adj. 亲切的；友好的➕

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prospective /prəˈspektɪv/

adj. 未来的；潜在的➕

🔊 His feathers, movements, his sounds--those are the parts that, with me, are left out." "All, as a matter of course--since you can't eat a chicken alive!" The Prince had not been annoyed at this, but he had been positive. "Well, I'm eating your father alive--which is the only way to taste him. I want to continue, and as it's when he talks American that he is most alive, so I must also cultivate it, to get my pleasure. He couldn't make one like him so much in any other language." It mattered little that the girl had continued to demur--it was the mere play of her joy. "I think he could make you like him in Chinese." "It would be an unnecessary trouble. What I mean is that he's a kind of result of his inevitable tone. My liking is accordingly for the tone--which has made him possible." "Oh, you'll hear enough of it," she laughed, "before you've done with us." Only this, in truth, had made him frown a little. "What do you mean, please, by my having 'done' with you?" "Why, found out about us all there is to find." He had been able to take it indeed easily as a joke. "Ah, love, I began with that. I know enough, I feel, never to be surprised. It's you yourselves meanwhile," he continued, "who really know nothing. There are two parts of me"--yes, he had been moved to go on. "One is made up of the history, the doings, the marriages, the crimes, the follies, the boundless betises of other people--especially of their infamous waste of money that might have come to me. Those things are written--literally in rows of volumes, in libraries; are as public as they're abominable. Everybody can get at them, and you've, both of you, wonderfully, looked them in the face. But there's another part, very much smaller doubtless, which, such as it is, represents my single self, the unknown, unimportant, unimportant--unimportant save to you--personal quantity. About this you've found out nothing." "Luckily, my dear," the girl had bravely said; "for what then would become, please, of the promised occupation of my future?" The young man remembered even now how extraordinarily clear--he couldn't call it anything else--she had looked, in her prettiness, as she had said it. He also remembered what he had been moved to reply. "The happiest reigns, we are taught, you know, are the reigns without any history." "Oh, I'm not afraid of history!" She had been sure of that. "Call it the bad part, if you like--yours certainly sticks out of you. What was it else," Maggie Verver had also said, "that made me originally think of you? It wasn't--as I should suppose you must have seen--what you call your unknown quantity, your particular self.

他的羽毛、动作、声音--那些就是在我身上被去除的部分。”“当然,因为死鸡不能吃！”亲王对此并未生气,但他很肯定。“嗯,我在生吃你父亲--这是品尝他的唯一方式。我想继续这样,而因为他讲美式英语时最生动,所以我也必须培养它,以获得乐趣。他无法用任何其他语言让人如此喜欢他。”姑娘继续表示异议,但无关紧要--那只是她喜悦的流露。“我觉得他可以用中文让你喜欢他。”“那会是多此一举。我的意思是,他是他那不可避免的语气的一种结果。因此我喜欢那种语气--它让他成为可能。”“哦,在我们和你了结之前,你会听够的,”她笑了。不过,这句话确实让他微微皱起眉头。“请问,你说和我‘了结’是什么意思？”“就是发现我们的一切。”他当然能把它当作玩笑来对待。“啊,亲爱的,我一上来就开始做了。我觉得我了解得够多了,永远不会惊讶。同时,是你们自己,”他继续说,“真正一无所知。我有两部分”--是的,他忍不住继续说下去。“一部分由历史、行为、婚姻、罪行、愚蠢、别人的无穷无尽的蠢事构成--尤其是他们本来可能属于我的钱的可恶浪费。那些东西被记录成书--在图书馆里排成几排；它们既是公开的,也是可憎的。每个人都能看到它们,而你们两人,令人惊叹地,正视了它们。但还有另一部分,无疑小得多,但尽管如此,它代表了我单独的自我--未知的、不重要的（不重要的--除了对你而言）个人分量。关于这一点,你们一无所知。”“幸运的是,亲爱的,”姑娘勇敢地说,“否则,请问,我未来许诺的消遣会变成什么呢？”年轻男子甚至现在还记得,她说这话时多么异常清楚--他找不到别的词来形容--她的美丽中带着那份清楚。他还记得自己当时感动地回答了什么。“我们所受的教育告诉我们,最幸福的统治是没有历史的统治。”“哦,我不怕历史！”她对此很肯定。“如果你愿意,可以称之为坏的部分--你的那部分确实显而易见。是什么别的,”玛吉·弗维尔也说,“让我最初想到你？不是--我想你该看到了--你所谓的未知量,你独特的自我。

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cultivate /ˈkʌltɪveɪt/

v. 培养；耕作➕

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inevitable /ɪnˈevɪtəbl/

adj. 不可避免的➕

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reigns /reɪnz/

n. 统治时期；主权➕

🔊 It was the generations behind you, the follies and the crimes, the plunder and the waste--the wicked Pope, the monster most of all, whom so many of the volumes in your family library are all about. If I've read but two or three yet, I shall give myself up but the more--as soon as I have time--to the rest. Where, therefore"--she had put it to him again--"without your archives, annals, infamies, would you have been?" He recalled what, to this, he had gravely returned. "I might have been in a somewhat better pecuniary situation." But his actual situation under the head in question positively so little mattered to them that, having by that time lived deep into the sense of his advantage, he had kept no impression of the girl's rejoinder. It had but sweetened the waters in which he now floated, tinted them as by the action of some essence, poured from a gold-topped phial, for making one's bath aromatic. No one before him, never--not even the infamous Pope--had so sat up to his neck in such a bath. It showed, for that matter, how little one of his race could escape, after all, from history. What was it but history, and of their kind very much, to have the assurance of the enjoyment of more money than the palace-builder himself could have dreamed of? This was the element that bore him up and into which Maggie scattered, on occasion, her exquisite colouring drops. They were of the colour--of what on earth? of what but the extraordinary American good faith? They were of the colour of her innocence, and yet at the same time of her imagination, with which their relation, his and these people's, was all suffused. What he had further said on the occasion of which we thus represent him as catching the echoes from his own thoughts while he loitered--what he had further said came back to him, for it had been the voice itself of his luck, the soothing sound that was always with him. "You Americans are almost incredibly romantic." "Of course we are. That's just what makes everything so nice for us." "Everything?" He had wondered. "Well, everything that's nice at all. The world, the beautiful, world--or everything in it that is beautiful. I mean we see so much." He had looked at her a moment--and he well knew how she had struck him, in respect to the beautiful world, as one of the beautiful, the most beautiful things. But what he had answered was: "You see too much--that's what may sometimes make you difficulties. When you don't, at least," he had amended with a further thought, "see too little." But he had quite granted that he knew what she meant, and his warning perhaps was needless.

而是你身后的几代人,那些愚蠢和罪行,掠夺和浪费--邪恶的教皇,尤其是那个怪物,你家图书馆里那么多书都在讲他。如果我才读了两三本,我会更加投入--等我有时间--读完剩下的。那么,因此” --她又一次问他-- “没有你的档案、年鉴、丑事,你会在哪里？”他记得自己对此严肃地回答了什么。“我的经济状况可能会好一些。”但他在这个问题上的实际处境对他们来说如此微不足道,以至于到那时他已经深深感受到自己的优势,对姑娘的回答没有留下印象。那只是使他现在漂浮的水更甜美,用某种精华的色调给它们着色,仿佛从金塞瓶中倒出,用来使浴缸芳香。在他之前,没有人--甚至臭名昭著的教皇--像这样坐在齐颈深的浴缸里。这顺便说明了,他的种族终究无法逃避历史。确信自己要比那位宫殿建造者本人梦想的还要享用更多金钱,这难道不是历史,而且是他们那种历史吗？这个元素托着他,玛吉有时在其中洒下她精致的色滴。那是什么颜色--到底是什么？除了美国式真诚的非凡颜色？那是她纯真的颜色,同时也是她想象的颜色,他们之间--他和这些人之间--的关系充满了这种颜色。在他闲逛时我们这样表现他捕捉自己思绪的回声--他当时进一步说的话又回到了他耳边,因为那正是他运气的嗓音,总是伴随着他的抚慰之声。“你们美国人几乎难以置信地浪漫。”“我们当然是。这正是让一切对我们如此美好之处。”“一切？”他感到好奇。“嗯,一切美好的东西。世界,美丽的世界--或者其中一切美丽的东西。我是说我们看到了那么多。”他看了她一会儿--他深知她在他眼中如何,在美丽的世界方面,她是美丽事物中最美丽的一件。但他回答的是:“你们看得太多--有时可能会给你们带来困难。至少当你们,”他带着进一步的思考修正道,“不看得太少的时候。”但他完全承认他明白她的意思,他的警告也许是多余的。

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plunder /ˈplʌndər/

n. 掠夺；赃物➕

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archives /ˈɑːrkaɪvz/

n. 档案；档案室➕

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exquisite /ɪkˈskwɪzɪt/

adj. 精致的；优美的➕

🔊 He had seen the follies of the romantic disposition, but there seemed somehow no follies in theirs--nothing, one was obliged to recognise, but innocent pleasures, pleasures without penalties. Their enjoyment was a tribute to others without being a loss to themselves. Only the funny thing, he had respectfully submitted, was that her father, though older and wiser, and a man into the bargain, was as bad--that is as good--as herself. "Oh, he's better," the girl had freely declared "that is he's worse. His relation to the things he cares for--and I think it beautiful--is absolutely romantic. So is his whole life over here--it's the most romantic thing I know." "You mean his idea for his native place?" "Yes--the collection, the Museum with which he wishes to endow it, and of which he thinks more, as you know, than of anything in the world. It's the work of his life and the motive of everything he does." The young man, in his actual mood, could have smiled again--smiled delicately, as he had then smiled at her. "Has it been his motive in letting me have you?" "Yes, my dear, positively--or in a manner," she had said. "American City isn't, by the way, his native town, for, though he's not old, it's a young thing compared with him--a younger one. He started there, he has a feeling about it, and the place has grown, as he says, like the programme of a charity performance. You're at any rate a part of his collection," she had explained--"one of the things that can only be got over here. You're a rarity, an object of beauty, an object of price. You're not perhaps absolutely unique, but you're so curious and eminent that there are very few others like you--you belong to a class about which everything is known. You're what they call a morceau de musee." "I see. I have the great sign of it," he had risked--"that I cost a lot of money." "I haven't the least idea," she had gravely answered, "what you cost"--and he had quite adored, for the moment, her way of saying it. He had felt even, for the moment, vulgar. But he had made the best of that. "Wouldn't you find out if it were a question of parting with me? My value would in that case be estimated." She had looked at him with her charming eyes, as if his value were well before her. "Yes, if you mean that I'd pay rather than lose you." And then there came again what this had made him say. "Don't talk about me--it's you who are not of this age. You're a creature of a braver and finer one, and the cinquecento, at its most golden hour, wouldn't have been ashamed of you. It would of me, and if I didn't know some of the pieces your father has acquired, I should rather fear, for American City, the criticism of experts.

他见过浪漫性格的愚蠢,但他们身上似乎没有愚蠢--只得承认,只有无辜的乐趣,没有惩罚的乐趣。他们的享受是对他人的敬意,而不伤害自己。只是有趣的是,他恭敬地指出,她父亲虽然更年长、更明智,而且是个男人,却和她一样糟糕--也就是说一样好。“哦,他更好,”姑娘坦率地宣布,“也就是说他更糟糕。他在意的那些事物--我认为这很美丽--完全是浪漫的。他在此地的整个生活也是如此--这是我知道的最浪漫的事。”“你是指他对故乡的想法？”“是的--那批收藏品,他想捐赠给故乡的博物馆,你知道,他对此比世上任何事情都更看重。这是他毕生的事业,也是他一切行为的动机。”年轻人在他当下的心情下可以又微笑一下--他当时对她微妙地微笑过。“这是他让我拥有你的动机吗？”“是的,亲爱的,当然--或者说在一定程度上,”她说。“顺便说一下,美国城并非他的故乡城镇,虽然他不老,但和他相比它更年轻--更年轻一些。他在那里起步,他对它有感情,而那个地方,如他所说,就像慈善演出的节目单一样发展起来了。你无论如何是他收藏的一部分,”她解释道--“是只能在这里得到的东西之一。你是一件珍品,一件美丽的物品,一件有价值的物品。你也许并非绝对独一无二,但如此奇特和卓越,很少有类似你的--你属于一个一切尽人皆知的类别。你就是他们所谓的博物馆珍品。”“我明白了。我有个显著特征,”他冒险说--“我花了很多钱。”“我完全不知道,”她严肃地回答,“你花了多少钱”--他此刻几乎崇拜她说话的方式。他甚至一时感到庸俗。但他充分利用了这一点。“如果涉及放弃我,你不会找出答案吗？那样我的价值就会被评估。”她用迷人的眼睛看着他,仿佛他的价值就在她眼前。“是的,如果你是指我宁愿付出代价也不愿失去你。”然后又有她的话让他说的东西。“不要谈论我--你才不属于这个时代。你是一个更勇敢、更优雅时代的造物,而十六世纪风格,在其最黄金的时刻,也不会为你感到羞耻。它会为我感到羞耻,如果我不知道你父亲获得的一些作品,我反而会担心美国城受到专家的批评。

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disposition /ˌdɪspəˈzɪʃn/

n. 性情；倾向➕

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endow /ɪnˈdaʊ/

v. 捐赠；赋予➕

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eminent /ˈemɪnənt/

adj. 杰出的；著名的➕

🔊 Would it at all events be your idea," he had then just ruefully asked, "to send me there for safety?" "Well, we may have to come to it." "I'll go anywhere you want." "We must see first--it will be only if we have to come to it. There are things," she had gone on, "that father puts away--the bigger and more cumbrous of course, which he stores, has already stored in masses, here and in Paris, in Italy, in Spain, in warehouses, vaults, banks, safes, wonderful secret places. We've been like a pair of pirates--positively stage pirates, the sort who wink at each other and say 'Ha-ha!' when they come to where their treasure is buried. Ours is buried pretty well everywhere--except what we like to see, what we travel with and have about us. These, the smaller pieces, are the things we take out and arrange as we can, to make the hotels we stay at and the houses we hire a little less ugly. Of course it's a danger, and we have to keep watch. But father loves a fine piece, loves, as he says, the good of it, and it's for the company of some of his things that he's willing to run his risks. And we've had extraordinary luck"--Maggie had made that point; "we've never lost anything yet. And the finest objects are often the smallest. Values, in lots of cases, you must know, have nothing to do with size. But there's nothing, however tiny," she had wound up, "that we've missed." "I like the class," he had laughed for this, "in which you place me! I shall be one of the little pieces that you unpack at the hotels, or at the worst in the hired houses, like this wonderful one, and put out with the family photographs and the new magazines. But it's something not to be so big that I have to be buried." "Oh," she had returned, "you shall not be buried, my dear, till you're dead. Unless indeed you call it burial to go to American City." "Before I pronounce I should like to see my tomb." So he had had, after his fashion, the last word in their interchange, save for the result of an observation that had risen to his lips at the beginning, which he had then checked, and which now came back to him. "Good, bad or indifferent, I hope there's one thing you believe about me." He had sounded solemn, even to himself, but she had taken it gaily. "Ah, don't fix me down to 'one'! I believe things enough about you, my dear, to have a few left if most of them, even, go to smash. I've taken care of that. I've divided my faith into watertight compartments. We must manage not to sink." "You do believe I'm not a hypocrite? You recognise that I don't lie or dissemble or deceive? Is that watertight?" The question, to which he had given a certain intensity, had made her, he remembered, stare an instant, her colour rising as if it had sounded to her still stranger than he had intended.

无论如何,你的想法是,”他随后不无遗憾地问道,“把我送到那里去安全？”“嗯,我们可能不得不这么做。”“我愿意去任何你想去的地方。”“我们必须先看看--只有当我们不得不这样做时才会。有一些东西,”她继续说,“父亲收起来--当然是那些更大更笨重的,他已经大量储存,这里,巴黎,意大利,西班牙,仓库,金库,银行,保险柜,奇妙的秘密地方。我们就像一对海盗--简直是舞台上的海盗,那种互相使眼色说‘哈哈！’当他们来到埋藏宝藏的地方。我们的宝藏几乎埋得到处都是--除了我们喜欢看的、旅行时随身携带的东西。这些,较小的作品,是我们取出并尽可能摆放,以使我们住的旅馆和租的房子不那么丑陋。当然这有风险,我们必须小心看管。但父亲喜欢一件精美的作品,喜欢,如他所说,它的好处,而为了有他的一些东西做伴,他愿意冒风险。而我们运气出奇地好”--玛吉指出这一点；“我们至今从未丢过任何东西。最精美的物品往往是最小的。在许多情况下,价值,你一定知道,与大小无关。但没有任何东西,无论多小,”她总结道,“我们错过过。”“我喜欢你把我归入的类别！”他为此笑了。“我将是你在旅馆里解开的小件之一,或者在最坏的情况下,在租来的房子里,像这个奇妙的地方一样,和家庭相片以及新杂志一起摆出来。但总算不至于大到要被埋起来。”“哦,”她回答说,“你不会被埋起来,亲爱的,除非你死了。除非你管去美国城叫作埋葬。”“在我表态之前,我想看看我的坟墓。”于是,按照他的风格,他在他们的交谈中占了上风,除了他在开始时浮现到嘴边的一个观察结果--当时被他抑制了--现在又回到了他脑中。“好、坏、或一般,我希望你相信我有一件事。”他听起来很严肃,甚至对自己也是如此,但她愉快地接受了。“啊,别把我限定在‘一件事’！我关于你的信仰足够多,亲爱的,即使大部分都破灭,也还剩下一些。我已经注意了这一点。我把我的信仰分成了水密隔舱。我们必须设法不沉没。”“你确实相信我不是伪君子？你承认我不说谎、不掩饰、不欺骗？那个隔舱是水密的吗？”这个问题,他给了它一定强度,让她--他记得--愣了一瞬,她的脸红了,仿佛这个问题在她听来比他预想的更奇怪。

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cumbrous /ˈkʌmbrəs/

adj. 笨重的；累赘的➕

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burial /ˈberiəl/

n. 埋葬；葬礼➕

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hypocrite /ˈhɪpəkrɪt/

n. 伪君子➕

🔊 He had perceived on the spot that any serious discussion of veracity, of loyalty, or rather of the want of them, practically took her unprepared, as if it were quite new to her. He had noticed it before: it was the English, the American sign that duplicity, like "love," had to be joked about. It couldn't be "gone into." So the note of his inquiry was--well, to call it nothing else--premature; a mistake worth making, however, for the almost overdone drollery in which her answer instinctively sought refuge. "Watertight--the biggest compartment of all? Why, it's the best cabin and the main deck and the engine-room and the steward's pantry! It's the ship itself--it's the whole line. It's the captain's table and all one's luggage--one's reading for the trip." She had images, like that, that were drawn from steamers and trains, from a familiarity with "lines," a command of "own" cars, from an experience of continents and seas, that he was unable as yet to emulate; from vast modern machineries and facilities whose acquaintance he had still to make, but as to which it was part of the interest of his situation as it stood that he could, quite without wincing, feel his future likely to bristle with them.

他当场就看出,任何关于诚实、忠诚--或者不如说关于缺乏这些--的严肃讨论,实际上都让她措手不及,好像这对她来说相当新奇。他以前就注意过:这是英语世界的标志,即欺瞒,像“爱情”一样,必须被当作玩笑。它不能“深入探讨”。所以他的询问的基调是--嗯,只好说--过早的；但这却是一个值得犯的错误,因为她的回答本能地在几乎过度的滑稽中寻求庇护。“水密--最大的隔舱？那是最好的船舱,主甲板,引擎室,管事食品室！它本身就是船--是整个航线。是船长的餐桌和所有行李--旅途的读物。”她有这样的意象,来自轮船和火车,来自对“航线”的熟悉,对“专有”车辆的掌控,来自对大陆和海洋的体验--这些他还无法企及；来自庞大的现代机器和设施,他仍需熟悉它们,但作为他目前处境的有趣之处的一部分,他可以毫不退缩地感受到自己的未来很可能充满这些。

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veracity /vəˈræsəti/

n. 诚实；真实性➕

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duplicity /duˈplɪsəti/

n. 欺骗；口是心非➕

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emulate /ˈemjuleɪt/

v. 模仿；效仿➕

🔊 It was in fact, content as he was with his engagement and charming as he thought his affianced bride, his view of that furniture that mainly constituted our young man's "romance"--and to an extent that made of his inward state a contrast that he was intelligent enough to feel. He was intelligent enough to feel quite humble, to wish not to be in the least hard or voracious, not to insist on his own side of the bargain, to warn himself in short against arrogance and greed. Odd enough, of a truth, was his sense of this last danger--which may illustrate moreover his general attitude toward dangers from within. Personally, he considered, he hadn't the vices in question--and that was so much to the good. His race, on the other hand, had had them handsomely enough, and he was somehow full of his race. Its presence in him was like the consciousness of some inexpugnable scent in which his clothes, his whole person, his hands and the hair of his head, might have been steeped as in some chemical bath: the effect was nowhere in particular, yet he constantly felt himself at the mercy of the cause. He knew his antenatal history, knew it in every detail, and it was a thing to keep causes well before him. What was his frank judgment of so much of its ugliness, he asked himself, but a part of the cultivation of humility? What was this so important step he had just taken but the desire for some new history that should, so far as possible, contradict, and even if need be flatly dishonour, the old? If what had come to him wouldn't do he must make something different. He perfectly recognised--always in his humility--that the material for the making had to be Mr. Verver's millions. There was nothing else for him on earth to make it with; he had tried before--had had to look about and see the truth. Humble as he was, at the same time, he was not so humble as if he had known himself frivolous or stupid. He had an idea--which may amuse his historian--that when you were stupid enough to be mistaken about such a matter you did know it. Therefore he wasn't mistaken--his future might be scientific. There was nothing in himself, at all events, to prevent it. He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? His life would be full of machinery, which was the antidote to superstition, which was in its turn, too much, the consequence, or at least the exhalation, of archives. He thought of these--of his not being at all events futile, and of his absolute acceptance of the developments of the coming age to redress the balance of his being so differently considered. The moments when he most winced were those at which he found himself believing that, really, futility would have been forgiven him.

事实上,尽管他对自己订婚感到满意,并认为他的未婚妻迷人,但他对这些“家具”的看法主要构成了我们年轻人的“浪漫”--其程度如此之深,以至于他内心状态形成了一种对比,而他有足够的智慧感受到这一点。他足够明智,感到谦卑,不想有丝毫苛刻或贪婪,不想坚持自己在这场交易中的得失,简而言之,要警告自己不要傲慢和贪婪。说真的,他对后一种危险的感觉够奇怪的了--这也许还可以说明他对外部危险的总体态度。就个人而言,他认为自己没有那些恶习--那自然是好事。另一方面,他的种族却有足够多的这些恶习,而他在某种程度上充满了他的种族。它在他身上的存在,就像某种难以根除的气味,他的衣服、整个身体、双手和头发可能都浸泡在某种化学浴中:这种效果没有特定所在,但他不断感觉自己受制于原因。他知道自己的出生前历史,知道每一个细节,而这是一件要让他保持原因清晰的事情。他对自己心中那么多丑恶之处直言不讳的判断,他扪心自问,难道不是谦卑修养的一部分吗？他刚刚迈出的这重要一步,难道不正是渴望一段新的历史,尽可能与旧历史相矛盾,甚至必要时公然羞辱旧历史吗？如果来到他面前的东西不够好,他必须创造些不同的东西。他完全承认--总是在他的谦卑中--创造的材料必须是弗维尔先生的数百万。他在世上没有别的东西可以用来创造；他以前尝试过--不得不四处看看,认清真相。但同时,他谦卑,却还没谦卑到觉得自己轻浮或愚蠢。他有一个想法--这也许会让他的历史学家觉得有趣--当你足够愚蠢到在这样一件事情上犯错时,你是知道的。因此他没有错--他的未来可能是科学的。他自己身上到底没有什么东西能阻止这一点。他正在与科学结盟,因为科学不就是没有偏见加上金钱存在吗？他的生活将充满机器,那是迷信的解药,而迷信反过来又是档案的后果或至少是其散发物。他想到这些--想到自己无论如何不是徒劳的,并且他完全接受即将到来的时代的发展来平衡他被如此不同看待的处境。他最畏缩的时刻,是当他发现自己相信,真的,徒劳本可以被原谅。

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engagement /ɪnˈɡeɪdʒmənt/

n. 订婚；约定；参与➕

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voracious /vəˈreɪʃəs/

adj. 贪婪的；如饥似渴的➕

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antidote /ˈæntɪdoʊt/

n. 解毒剂；对策➕

🔊 Even with it, in that absurd view, he would have been good enough. Such was the laxity, in the Ververs, of the romantic spirit. They didn't, indeed, poor dears, know what, in that line--the line of futility--the real thing meant. He did--having seen it, having tried it, having taken its measure. This was a memory in fact simply to screen out--much as, just in front of him while he walked, the iron shutter of a shop, closing early to the stale summer day, rattled down at the turn of some crank. There was machinery again, just as the plate glass, all about him, was money, was power, the power of the rich peoples. Well, he was of them now, of the rich peoples; he was on their side--if it wasn't rather the pleasanter way of putting it that they were on his. Something of this sort was in any case the moral and the murmur of his walk.

即使他徒劳,按照那荒谬的观点,他也足够好了。这就是弗维尔一家浪漫精神的松弛之处。的确,可怜的亲爱的,他们不知道,在那一方面--徒劳的方面--真正的东西意味着什么。他知道--见过它,试过它,衡量过它。这其实是一段需要屏蔽的记忆--就像他走路时正前方一家商店的铁皮卷帘门,因为夏日沉闷而提早关门,在某种曲柄转动下嘎吱作响地拉下来。又是机器,就像他周围所有的平板玻璃是金钱、是权力、是富人的力量一样。嗯,他现在是他们中的一员,富人之列；他站在他们一边--如果说不是更愉快地说是他们站在他这一边。无论如何,类似的东西在他散步时的道理和低语中。

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absurd /əbˈsɜːrd/

adj. 荒谬的；可笑的➕

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laxity /ˈlæksəti/

n. 松懈；疏忽➕

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murmur /ˈmɜːrmər/

n. 低语；喃喃声➕

🔊 It would have been ridiculous--such a moral from such a source--if it hadn't all somehow fitted to the gravity of the hour, that gravity the oppression of which I began by recording. Another feature was the immediate nearness of the arrival of the contingent from home. He was to meet them at Charing Cross on the morrow: his younger brother, who had married before him, but whose wife, of Hebrew race, with a portion that had gilded the pill, was not in a condition to travel; his sister and her husband, the most anglicised of Milanesi, his maternal uncle, the most shelved of diplomatists, and his Roman cousin, Don Ottavio, the most disponible of ex-deputies and of relatives--a scant handful of the consanguineous who, in spite of Maggie's plea for hymeneal reserve, were to accompany him to the altar. It was no great array, yet it was apparently to be a more numerous muster than any possible to the bride herself, having no wealth of kinship to choose from and making it up, on the other hand, by loose invitations. He had been interested in the girl's attitude on the matter and had wholly deferred to it, giving him, as it did, a glimpse, distinctly pleasing, of the kind of ruminations she would in general be governed by--which were quite such as fell in with his own taste. They hadn't natural relations, she and her father, she had explained; so they wouldn't try to supply the place by artificial, by make-believe ones, by any searching of highways and hedges. Oh yes, they had acquaintances enough--but a marriage was an intimate thing. You asked acquaintances when you had your kith and kin--you asked them over and above. But you didn't ask them alone, to cover your nudity and look like what they weren't. She knew what she meant and what she liked, and he was all ready to take from her, finding a good omen in both of the facts. He expected her, desired her, to have character; his wife should have it, and he wasn't afraid of her having much. He had had, in his earlier time, to deal with plenty of people who had had it; notably with the three four ecclesiastics, his great-uncle, the Cardinal, above all, who had taken a hand and played a part in his education: the effect of all of which had never been to upset him. He was thus fairly on the lookout for the characteristic in this most intimate, as she was to come, of his associates. He encouraged it when it appeared. He felt therefore, just at present, as if his papers were in order, as if his accounts so balanced as they had never done in his life before and he might close the portfolio with a snap.

如果这样的道理来自这样的源头,那本来是荒谬的--如果不是它全都以某种方式契合了时刻的严肃性,那种我在开头记录的压抑感。另一个特点是国内派遣队即将到达的近在眼前。他明天要去查令十字接他们:他弟弟,比他先结婚,但妻子是希伯来血统,有一份镀了药的嫁妆,现在不便旅行；他妹妹和妹夫,最英国化的米兰人；他舅舅,最被冷藏的外交官；还有他的罗马表兄,唐·奥塔维奥,最空闲的前议员和亲戚--一小撮同族,尽管玛吉恳求婚礼要低调,他们还是要陪他到圣坛。人数不多,但显然比新娘可能召集的要多,因为她没有那么多亲戚可以挑选,另一方面她靠随意邀请来凑数。他对姑娘在这个问题上的态度很感兴趣,并完全顺从了她,因为这给了他一个瞥见,显然令人愉快,她通常会被什么样的思考所支配--那完全符合他自己的品味。她和父亲没有血亲,她解释说；所以他们不会试图用人为的、虚假的、在街边路边搜罗的东西来填补这个空缺。哦,是的,他们有足够多的熟人--但婚姻是私密的事情。有亲戚时你才会邀请熟人--你额外邀请他们。但你不会只邀请他们,来遮盖你的赤裸,装成他们不是的样子。她知道自己是什么意思,喜欢什么,而他完全准备接受她,从两个事实中都找到了好兆头。他期望她、希望她有性格；他的妻子应该有性格,而且他不怕她有很多性格。他早年曾与很多有性格的人打过交道；特别是与三四位神职人员,尤其是他的叔祖父,那位红衣主教,曾参与他的教育:所有这些从未让他感到困扰。因此他相当期待他最亲密的伴侣身上的这种特质。他鼓励这种特质出现。所以他此刻觉得,他的文件都已就绪,他的账目比一生中任何时候都平衡,他可以啪的一声合上文件夹。

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gravity /ˈɡrævəti/

n. 重力；严肃；重要性➕

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oppression /əˈpreʃn/

n. 压迫；压抑➕

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consanguineous /ˌkɒnsæŋˈɡwɪniəs/

adj. 同宗的；血亲的➕

🔊 It would open again, doubtless, of itself, with the arrival of the Romans; it would even perhaps open with his dining tonight in Portland Place, where Mr. Verver had pitched a tent suggesting that of Alexander furnished with the spoils of Darius.

它无疑会随着罗马人的到来而自动重新打开；甚至可能随着他今晚在波特兰广场的晚餐打开--弗维尔先生在那里搭起了一座帐篷,让人联想到亚历山大的帐篷,里面摆满了大流士的战利品。

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doubtless /ˈdaʊtləs/

adv. 无疑地；必定➕

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pitched /pɪtʃt/

v. 投掷；搭（帐篷）；定调➕

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spoils /spɔɪlz/

n. 战利品；掠夺物➕

🔊 But what meanwhile marked his crisis, as I have said, was his sense of the immediate two or three hours. He paused on corners, at crossings; there kept rising for him, in waves, that consciousness, sharp as to its source while vague as to its end, which I began by speaking of--the consciousness of an appeal to do something or other, before it was too late, for himself. By any friend to whom he might have mentioned it the appeal could have been turned to frank derision. For what, for whom indeed but himself and the high advantages attached, was he about to marry an extraordinarily charming girl, whose "prospects," of the solid sort, were as guaranteed as her amiability? He wasn't to do it, assuredly, all for her. The Prince, as happened, however, was so free to feel and yet not to formulate that there rose before him after a little, definitely, the image of a friend whom he had often found ironic. He withheld the tribute of attention from passing faces only to let his impulse accumulate. Youth and beauty made him scarcely turn, but the image of Mrs. Assingham made him presently stop a hansom. Her youth, her beauty were things more or less of the past, but to find her at home, as he possibly might, would be "doing" what he still had time for, would put something of a reason into his restlessness and thereby probably soothe it. To recognise the propriety of this particular pilgrimage--she lived far enough off, in long Cadogan Place--was already in fact to work it off a little. A perception of the propriety of formally thanking her, and of timing the act just as he happened to be doing--this, he made out as he went, was obviously all that had been the matter with him. It was true that he had mistaken the mood of the moment, misread it rather, superficially, as an impulse to look the other way--the other way from where his pledges had accumulated. Mrs. Assingham, precisely, represented, embodied his pledges--was, in her pleasant person, the force that had set them successively in motion. She had made his marriage, quite as truly as his papal ancestor had made his family--though he could scarce see what she had made it for unless because she too was perversely romantic. He had neither bribed nor persuaded her, had given her nothing--scarce even till now articulate thanks; so that her profit--to think of it vulgarly--must have all had to come from the Ververs. Yet he was far, he could still remind himself, from supposing that she had been grossly remunerated. He was wholly sure she hadn't; for if there were people who took presents and people who didn't she would be quite on the right side and of the proud class. Only then, on the other hand, her disinterestedness was rather awful--it implied, that is, such abysses of confidence.

但与此同时,正如我所说,标上他的危机标志的东西,是他对即将到来的两三个小时的感受。他在街角、在交叉路口停下；对他来说,不断涌起那种意识--我开始时说的那种意识,源头清晰而结尾模糊--一种在太晚之前为自己做点什么的召唤。任何他可能向其提及此召唤的朋友,都可能将其转为彻底的嘲弄。因为,除了他自己和与之相伴的巨大优势,他还为了谁、为了什么要娶一个极其迷人的姑娘呢？她的“前景”,那种坚实的,像她的和蔼可亲一样有保障。他当然不是为了她而做这一切。然而,亲王恰好如此自由地去感受却不表述,以至于过了一会儿,在他面前确切地浮现出一位他经常觉得讽刺的朋友的形象。他不再留意路过的面孔,只是让冲动积累。青春和美丽几乎不让他转头,但阿辛厄姆夫人的形象让他立刻叫住了一辆汉瑟姆马车。她的青春、美丽或多或少已成为过去,但若能在她家找到她--他可能做到--便是“做”了他还有时间做的事,会为他的不安提供一点理由,从而可能平息它。意识到这次特定拜访的合宜性--她住得相当远,在长长的卡多根广场--实际上已经稍微缓解了一些。他一边走一边弄明白,正式感谢她,并恰巧在他所做之际安排这一行动--显然,这就是当初困扰他的全部。诚然,他误判了那一刻的情绪,表面性地把它理解为一种朝另一个方向看的冲动--背离他誓言积累的方向。阿辛厄姆夫人恰好代表、体现了他立下的誓言--是她,以令人愉快的姿态,推动了它们接连实现。她促成了他的婚姻,就像他的教皇祖先促成了他的家族一样真实--尽管他几乎看不出她为何促成此事,除非也是因为她同样反常地浪漫。他没有贿赂或说服她,没有给过她任何东西--甚至直到现在也几乎没明确感谢过她；所以她的利益--粗俗地说--一定全部来自弗维尔一家。然而他远非,他仍能提醒自己,认为她得到了丰厚的报酬。他完全相信她没有；因为如果有人收礼有人不收礼,她肯定站在正派一边,属于骄傲的阶级。但另一方面,她的无私奉献相当可怕--也就是说,它暗示了如此深不可测的信任。

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crisis /ˈkraɪsɪs/

n. 危机；紧要关头➕

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consciousness /ˈkɒnʃəsnɪs/

n. 意识；知觉➕

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appeal /əˈpiːl/

n. 呼吁；吸引力➕

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derision /dɪˈrɪʒn/

n. 嘲笑；嘲弄➕

🔊 She was admirably attached to Maggie--whose possession of such a friend might moreover quite rank as one of her "assets"; but the great proof of her affection had been in bringing them, with her design, together. Meeting him during a winter in Rome, meeting him afterwards in Paris, and "liking" him, as she had in time frankly let him know from the first, she had marked him for her young friend's own and had then, unmistakably, presented him in a light. But the interest in Maggie--that was the point--would have achieved but little without her interest in him. On what did that sentiment, unsolicited and unrecompensed, rest? what good, again--for it was much like his question about Mr. Verver--should he ever have done her? The Prince's notion of a recompense to women--similar in this to his notion of an appeal--was more or less to make love to them. Now he hadn't, as he believed, made love the least little bit to Mrs. Assingham--nor did he think she had for a moment supposed it. He liked in these days, to mark them off, the women to whom he hadn't made love: it represented--and that was what pleased him in it--a different stage of existence from the time at which he liked to mark off the women to whom he had. Neither, with all this, had Mrs. Assingham herself been either aggressive or resentful. On what occasion, ever, had she appeared to find him wanting? These things, the motives of such people, were obscure--a little alarmingly so; they contributed to that element of the impenetrable which alone slightly qualified his sense of his good fortune. He remembered to have read, as a boy, a wonderful tale by Allan Poe, his prospective wife's countryman--which was a thing to show, by the way, what imagination Americans could have: the story of the shipwrecked Gordon Pym, who, drifting in a small boat further toward the North Pole--or was it the South?--than anyone had ever done, found at a given moment before him a thickness of white air that was like a dazzling curtain of light, concealing as darkness conceals, yet of the colour of milk or of snow. There were moments when he felt his own boat move upon some such mystery. The state of mind of his new friends, including Mrs. Assingham herself, had resemblances to a great white curtain. He had never known curtains but as purple even to blackness--but as producing where they hung a darkness intended and ominous. When they were so disposed as to shelter surprises the surprises were apt to be shocks. Shocks, however, from these quite different depths, were not what he saw reason to apprehend; what he rather seemed to himself not yet to have measured was something that, seeking a name for it, he would have called the quantity of confidence reposed in him.

她对玛吉忠诚得令人钦佩--拥有这样的朋友甚至可以被视为她的“资产”之一；但她感情的伟大证明是带着她的计划,让他们走到了一起。在冬天于罗马遇见他,之后在巴黎遇见他,并且从一开始就让他知道她“喜欢”他,她便把他留给了她年轻的朋友,然后,毋庸置疑地,以正面的眼光呈现了他。但对玛吉的兴趣--这才是关键--如果没有对他的兴趣,恐怕收获甚微。那情感,未经请求、没有回报,又基于什么呢？他再次--这很像他对弗维尔先生的疑问--为她做过什么好事？亲王对女人的回报的概念--在这点上与他对召唤的概念类似--多少是向她们求爱。如今他认为自己一点也没有向阿辛厄姆夫人求过爱--他也没觉得她有过片刻的误会。他这些天喜欢区分那些他没有求过爱的女人:这构成了一个不同的生存阶段--取悦于他--与那个他喜欢区分他曾经求过爱的女人的时期相对。此外,阿辛厄姆夫人本人也从未表现出攻击性或怨恨。她究竟在什么场合看起来觉得他不够格？这些事情,这些人的动机,是模糊的--有点令人不安地模糊；它们促成了难以看透的因素,这唯一地稍微影响了他对自己好运的感受。他记得小时候读过爱伦·坡写的一个奇妙故事--也就是他未婚妻的同乡--顺便说一下,这表明美国人能有怎样的想象力:关于船难者戈登·皮姆的故事,他乘着小船漂向比任何人都更远的北极--还是南极？--在某个时刻,在他面前出现一股白色的空气,像一面耀眼的帷幕,像黑暗一样隐藏,却有牛奶或雪的颜色。有些时候,他感到自己的船也在某种奥秘上移动。他的新朋友--包括阿辛厄姆夫人--的心态,类似于一块巨大的白色帷幕。他只知道紫色的帷幕,甚至黑得发暗--悬挂之处带出阴森的黑暗。当它们被设置成庇护惊喜时,惊喜往往是震惊。然而,来自这些全然不同深度的震惊,并不是他认为有理由担忧的；他似乎还没有衡量出的,是某种东西,他在寻找名字时,会称之为对他信任的数量。

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assets /ˈæsets/

n. 资产；财产➕

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sentiment /ˈsentɪmənt/

n. 情感；情绪➕

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unsolicited /ˌʌnsəˈlɪsɪtɪd/

adj. 主动提供的；未经请求的➕

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notion /ˈnəʊʃn/

n. 概念；观念➕

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aggressive /əˈɡresɪv/

adj. 侵略的；好斗的➕

🔊 He had stood still, at many a moment of the previous month, with the thought, freshly determined or renewed, of the general expectation--to define it roughly--of which he was the subject. What was singular was that it seemed not so much an expectation of anything in particular as a large, bland, blank assumption of merits almost beyond notation, of essential quality and value. It was as if he had been some old embossed coin, of a purity of gold no longer used, stamped with glorious arms, medieval, wonderful, of which the "worth" in mere modern change, sovereigns and half crowns, would be great enough, but as to which, since there were finer ways of using it, such taking to pieces was superfluous. That was the image for the security in which it was open to him to rest; he was to constitute a possession, yet was to escape being reduced to his component parts. What would this mean but that, practically, he was never to be tried or tested? What would it mean but that, if they didn't "change" him, they really wouldn't know--he wouldn't know himself--how many pounds, shillings and pence he had to give? These at any rate, for the present, were unanswerable questions; all that was before him was that he was invested with attributes. He was taken seriously. Lost there in the white mist was the seriousness in them that made them so take him. It was even in Mrs. Assingham, in spite of her having, as she had frequently shown, a more mocking spirit. All he could say as yet was that he had done nothing, so far as to break any charm. What should he do if he were to ask her frankly this afternoon what was, morally speaking, behind their veil. It would come to asking what they expected him to do. She would answer him probably: "Oh, you know, it's what we expect you to be!" on which he would have no resource but to deny his knowledge. Would that break the spell, his saying he had no idea? What idea in fact could he have? He also took himself seriously--made a point of it; but it wasn't simply a question of fancy and pretension. His own estimate he saw ways, at one time and another, of dealing with: but theirs, sooner or later, say what they might, would put him to the practical proof. As the practical proof, accordingly, would naturally be proportionate to the cluster of his attributes, one arrived at a scale that he was not, honestly, the man to calculate. Who but a billionaire could say what was fair exchange for a billion? That measure was the shrouded object, but he felt really, as his cab stopped in Cadogan Place, a little nearer the shroud. He promised himself, virtually, to give the latter a twitch.

在过去的整整一个月里,他在许多时刻停下脚步,带着重新确定或更新的想法--对他所承受的普通期待--粗略地说。特别之处在于,这与其说是对具体事物的期待,不如说是一个广阔、柔和、空白的假设,假设他具有几乎无法言喻的优点、本质品质和价值。仿佛他是一枚古老的浮雕硬币,金子纯度已不再使用,印着辉煌的纹章,中世纪的,奇妙的,其“价值”仅以现代零钱、金币和半克朗衡量就已足够大,但既然有更精细的使用方式,把它拆开就是多余的。那是他得以安心的安全感形象；他构成一份财产,却又免于被还原成组成部分。这意味着什么？岂不是实际上他永远不会受到考验或检验？这意味着什么？岂不是意味着,如果他们不“兑换”他,他们真的不会知道--他自己也不会知道--他有多少英镑、先令和便士要付出？这些无论如何,目前是无法回答的问题；摆在他面前的一切就是他具备各种属性。他被认真对待。迷失在白色迷雾中的是,他们身上那种使他被如此对待的严肃性。甚至阿辛厄姆夫人也有这种严肃性,尽管她经常表现出更嘲讽的精神。到目前为止他所能说的是,他没有做过任何打破魔咒的事。如果他今天下午坦率地问她,他们那层面纱背后,道德上说,是什么,他会怎么做？这实际上会变成问他们期望他做什么。她可能会回答他:“哦,你知道,我们期望你成为什么样的人！”对此他将别无选择,只能否认他知道。他说他不知道,是否会打破魔咒？他究竟能有什么想法？他也认真对待自己--把这当作一件事；但这不仅仅是幻想和伪装的问题。他自己的评估,他时不时能找到处理的方法；但他们的评估,迟早,不管他们说什么,都会把他置于实际考验之中。因此,实际考验自然将与他的属性簇成比例,于是得出一个他诚实地说无法计算的尺度。除了亿万富翁,谁能说清与亿万财富公平交换的是什么？那个尺度是被遮盖的对象,但当他的马车在卡多根广场停下时,他真的感觉离那裹尸布近了一点。他实际上对自己承诺,要把它拉一下。

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expectation /ˌekspekˈteɪʃn/

n. 期望；预期➕

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assumption /əˈsʌmpʃn/

n. 假设；假定➕

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essential /ɪˈsenʃl/

adj. 基本的；必要的➕

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veil /veɪl/

n. 面纱；遮蔽物➕

Part First – Chapter one (第一章)