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Chapter 6
第六章
That evening, after Mr. Jackson had taken himself away, and the ladies had retired to their chintz-curtained bedroom,
这天晚上，杰克逊先生离开之后，两位女士回到她们挂着印花布窗帘的卧室，
Newland Archer mounted thoughtfully to his own study.
纽兰·阿切尔沉思着上楼进了自己的书房。
A vigilant hand had, as usual, kept the fire alive and the lamp trimmed;
勤快的仆人已跟平时一样把炉火燃旺，调好了灯的光亮。
and the room, with its rows and rows of books,
屋子里放着一排排的书，
its bronze and steel statuettes of "The Fencers" on the mantelpiece and its many photographs of famous pictures,
壁炉炉台上放着一个个铜制与钢制的“击剑者”小雕像，墙上挂着许多名画的照片——
looked singularly home-like and welcoming.
这一切看起来格外温馨。
As he dropped into his armchair near the fire his eyes rested on a large photograph of May Welland,
他坐进自己那把扶手椅时，目光落在梅·韦兰的一张大照片上，
which the young girl had given him in the first days of their romance, and which had now displaced all the other portraits on the table.
那是他们恋爱初期那位年轻姑娘送给他的，如今已经取代了桌子上所有其他的画像。
With a new sense of awe he looked at the frank forehead, serious eyes and gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose soul's custodian he was to be.
他带着一种敬畏的新感觉注视着她那坦诚的前额、庄重的眼睛，以及天真快乐的嘴巴。他就要成为这位年轻女子的灵魂监护人了，
That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything,
作为他归属并信奉的这个社会制度的令人惊叹的产物，这位年轻姑娘对一切都全然不知，却又期待着得到一切。
looked back at him like a stranger through May Welland's familiar features;
她像一个陌生人，借助梅·韦兰那熟悉的容貌回望着他；
and once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think,
他又一次深刻地认识到：婚姻并非如他惯常认为的那样，是一个安全的港湾，
but a voyage on uncharted seas.
而是在未知的大洋上的航行。
The case of the Countess Olenska had stirred up old settled convictions and set them drifting dangerously through his mind.
奥兰斯卡伯爵夫人的事搅乱了那些根深蒂固的社会信条，并使它们在他的脑海里危险地飘移。
His own exclamation: "Women should be free—as free as we are,"
他个人的断言——“女人应当是自由的——跟我们一样自由”——
struck to the root of a problem that it was agreed in his world to regard as non-existent.
击中了一个问题的要害，而这个问题在他那个圈子里却一致认为是不存在的。
"Nice" women, however wronged, would never claim the kind of freedom he meant,
“有教养”的女子，无论受到怎样的伤害，都决不会要求他讲的那种自由，
and generous-minded men like himself were therefore—in the heat of argument—
而像他这样心胸博大的男人却因此越发豪侠地——在激烈辩论中——
the more chivalrously ready to concede it to them.
准备把这种自由授与她们。
Such verbal generosities were in fact only a humbugging disguise of the inexorable conventions
这种口头上的慷慨陈词实际上只是骗人的幌子而已，
that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern.
在它背后止是束缚世事、让人因袭守旧的不可动摇的习俗。
But here he was pledged to defend, on the part of his betrothed's cousin, conduct that,
不过，他在这里发誓为之辩护的未婚妻的表姐的那些行为，
on his own wife's part, would justify him in calling down on her all the thunders of Church and State.
若是出现在自己妻子身上，他即使请求教会和国家给她最严厉的惩罚也会是正当的。
