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The season was drawing to its dusty end, and everyone I knew was arranging to go away. Mrs. Strickland was taking her family to the coast of Norfolk, so that the children might have the sea and her husband golf. We said good-bye to one another, and arranged to meet in the autumn. But on my last day in town, coming out of the Stores, I met her with her son and daughter; like myself, she had been making her final purchases before leaving London, and we were both hot and tired. I proposed that we should all go and eat ices in the park. |
无聊之夏正逐渐接近尾声，我认识的每个人都在计划安排外出。司太太准备带着全家到瑙福珂海滨，这样孩子们可以在海边玩，丈夫可以打高尔夫球。我们互道珍重，约定秋天再相见。但就在我要离开伦敦的前一天，我刚从陆海军商店里出来，却遇到司太太和她的一双儿女；同我一样，她也是在离开伦敦之前做最后一次采购。我俩又热又累，我提议我们一起到公园走走，顺便吃些冰品。 |
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I think Mrs. Strickland was glad to show me her children, and she accepted my invitation with alacrity. They were even more attractive than their photographs had suggested, and she was right to be proud of them. I was young enough for them not to feel shy, and they chattered merrily about one thing and another. They were extraordinarily nice, healthy young children. It was very agreeable under the trees. |
我觉得司太太很乐意给我炫耀她的两个孩子，她欣然爽快地接受了我的邀请。两个孩子比他们的照片甚至更招人喜欢，她有理由为他们而感到骄傲。我当时还年轻，俩孩子在我面前一点也不害羞，他俩满心欢喜，叽叽喳喳地有一搭没一搭地说着闲话。这俩孩子都异常听话，身体结实。树荫之下，一派称心惬意的景象。 |
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When in an hour they crowded into a cab to go home, I strolled idly to my club. I was perhaps a little lonely, and it was with a touch of envy that I thought of the pleasant family life of which I had had a glimpse. They seemed devoted to one another. They had little private jokes of their own which, unintelligible to the outsider, amused them enormously. Perhaps Charles Strickland was dull judged by a standard that demanded above all things verbal scintillation; but his intelligence was adequate to his surroundings, and that is a passport, not only to reasonable success, but still more to happiness. Mrs. Strickland was a charming woman, and she loved him. I pictured their lives, troubled by no untoward adventure, honest, decent, and, by reason of those two upstanding, pleasant children, so obviously destined to carry on the normal traditions of their race and station, not without significance. They would grow old insensibly; they would see their son and daughter come to years of reason, marry in due course—the one a pretty girl, future mother of healthy children; the other a handsome, manly fellow, obviously a soldier; and at last, prosperous in their dignified retirement, beloved by their descendants, after a happy, not unuseful life, in the fullness of their age they would sink into the grave. |
一个钟头过后，他们仨挤上一辆出租马车回家去了。我百无聊赖，溜达着来到了我的俱乐部。我或许感到有些孤单，回想刚才我瞥见的天伦之乐，一股酸溜溜的醋意涌上心头。他们看上去似乎相互关爱着彼此。他们私下里有些小玩笑，会把他们自己逗得前仰后合，而外人根本听不懂这些笑话。如果把锦心绣口作为高于各个方面的一个标准，人们也许会认定司查尔无趣乏味；但在职场中，他的智力水平还算差强人意，这不仅是小有成就的通行证，而且更多的是生活幸福的保障卡。司太太是个富有魅力的女性，她爱着自己的丈夫。我心里勾画着他们夫妇的生活，他们不会因为突如其来的出轨艳遇而困扰，他们为人忠厚老实，作风正派。一双儿女更是正直诚实，讨人喜欢，显而易见，他们注定会传承这个家族血脉和社会地位的标准传统，人生对他们而言并非毫无价值。他们夫妇俩在不经意间会变老，看着儿女长大成人，到了适婚年龄娶妻嫁人——儿子娶了一位漂亮姑娘，这姑娘将来还会生儿育女，为人母亲，并陪着孩子健康成长；女儿嫁了一位英俊阳刚的小伙，很显然是一位军人。这对夫妇最终功成名退，儿孙承欢膝下，尽享天伦之乐，晚年养尊处优。他们一生幸福快乐，并非百无一用，颐养天年之后，直到入土为安。 |
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That must be the story of innumerable couples, and the pattern of life it offers has a homely grace. It reminds you of a placid rivulet, meandering smoothly through green pastures and shaded by pleasant trees, till at last it falls into the vasty sea; but the sea is so calm, so silent, so indifferent, that you are troubled suddenly by a vague uneasiness. Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature, strong in me even in those days, that I felt in such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss. I recognised its social values, I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course. There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights. In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could only have change—change and the excitement of the unforeseen. |
这一定是无数对夫妇的故事。这种生活方式给人一种安详优雅的感觉，使人想到一条静静流淌的小溪，蜿蜒曲折顺利穿过绿色草原，小溪两岸是郁郁葱葱的树木，树荫铺在溪水表面，直到最后溪流落入广袤无际的大海。但大海如此平静安详、如此沉默寡言、如此无动于衷，一种模模糊糊、忐忑不安的感觉会突然困扰着你。也许这只是我天性中的一种奇思妙想，那些日子里这种奇思妙想在我体内如此强烈，我觉得绝大多数人的生活方式都是如此，好像某个地方出了差错。我认识到这种生活方式的社会价值，我看得到这种生活方式井然有序的幸福感，但我的血液里一团火热，渴望踏上一条更狂野的征程。这种轻松快乐中好像有某种令人毛骨悚然的东西。我的内心渴望一种更惊险的生活。只要我的生活有所变化——这种变化加上无法预料的刺激，对于参差不齐的悬岩峭壁以及暗流汹涌的礁石浅滩，我并非没有准备好前去应对。 |
