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It was impossible to make the confession more dispassionately, or in a tone less encouraging to the vanity of the person addressed.
没有比这更不动声色的坦白了，或者说，没有比这更能激发听者虚荣心的口吻了。
Archer reddened to the temples, but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock about it if it were left undisturbed.
阿切尔的脸红到了太阳穴，他却既不敢动弹又不敢开口：仿佛她的话是只珍稀的蝴蝶，只要有一点儿轻微的响动，便会令它振动受惊的翅膀飞走；而若不受惊扰，它便会在周围引来一群蝴蝶。
"At least," she continued, "it was you who made me understand that under the dullness there are things so fine and sensitive and delicate that even those I most cared for in my other life look cheap in comparison.
“至少，”她接下去说，“是你使我认识到，在愚钝的背后还有那么美好、敏感而优雅的东西，它使我在另一种生活中喜爱的事物也相形见细。
I don't know how to explain myself"--she drew together her troubled brows-"but it seems as if I'd never before understood with how much that is hard and shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures may be paid."
我不知该怎样表达--”她苦恼地皱起了眉头。“但我以前似乎从不知道为了那些高雅的乐趣，我要付出多少艰辛和屈辱。”
"Exquisite pleasures--it's something to have had them!" he felt like retorting; but the appeal in her eyes kept him silent.
“高雅的乐趣--是值得追求的啊！”他想这样顶她一句，但她恳求的目光使他沉默了。
"I want," she went on, "to be perfectly honest with you--and with myself.
她接着说：“我想非常诚实地对待你--和我自己。
For a long time I've hoped this chance would come: that I might tell you how you've helped me, what you've made of me--"
很久以来，我就盼望有这样一次机会，能告诉你，你怎样帮助了我，你怎样改变了我--”
Archer sat staring beneath frowning brows. He interrupted her with a laugh.
阿切尔坐在那儿，紧锁眉头，睁大了眼睛。他笑了一声打断了她的话。
"And what do you make out that you've made of me?"
“可你知道你如何改变了我吗？”
She paled a little. "Of you?"
她脸色有些苍白地问：“改变了你？”
"Yes: for I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine.
“对，你改变我的东西远比我改变你的要多。
I'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to."
我娶了一个女人是因为另一个女人要我这么做。”
Her paleness turned to a fugitive flush. "I thought-- you promised--you were not to say such things today."
她苍白的脸色顿时红了。“我以为--你答应过--今天不讲这些事。”
"Ah--how like a woman! None of you will ever see a bad business through!"
“啊--真是个十足的女人啊！你们这些女人谁都不肯把一件糟糕的事解决好！”
She lowered her voice. "IS it a bad business--for May?"
她压低声音说：“那是糟糕的事吗--对梅来说？”
He stood in the window, drumming against the raised sash, and feeling in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken her cousin's name.
他站在窗口，敲打着拉起的吊窗框，每根神经都感受到她提起表妹的名字时那种眷恋之情。
"For that's the thing we've always got to think of-- haven't we--by your own showing?" she insisted.
“因为这正是我们一直不得不考虑的--不是吗--你自己的表现不也说明如此吗？”她坚持说。
"My own showing?" he echoed, his blank eyes still on the sea.
“我自己的表现？”他重复说，茫然的双眼仍然望着大海。
"Or if not," she continued, pursuing her own thought with a painful application, "if it's not worth while to have given up, to have missed things, so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery-then everything I came home for, everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them-all these things are a sham or a dream--"
“如果不是，”她接着说，痛苦专注地继续追寻着自己的思路，“如果说，为了让别人免于幻灭与痛苦而放弃和失去一些东西是不值得的--那么，我回家来的目的，使我的另一段生活因为没人关心而显得空虚可悲的一切--不都变成了虚假的梦幻--”
He turned around without moving from his place.
他原地转过身来。
"And in that case there's no reason on earth why you shouldn't go back?" he concluded for her.
“如果是这样，那你就更没有理由不回去了？”他替她下结论说。
Her eyes were clinging to him desperately. "Oh, IS there no reason?"
她绝望地两眼紧盯着他说：“啊，是没有理由吗？”
"Not if you staked your all on the success of my marriage.
“没有--如果你把全部赌注都押在我婚姻的成功上。
My marriage," he said savagely, "isn't going to be a sight to keep you here." She made no answer, and he went on:
我的婚姻，”他粗暴地说，“不会成为留住你的一道风景。”她没有作声，阿切尔继续说：
"What's the use? You gave me my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring--that's all."
“这有什么意义呢？你使我第一次认识了真正的生活，而同时，你又要求我继续过虚伪的生活。这是任何人都无法忍受的--仅此而已。”
"Oh, don't say that; when I'm enduring it!" she burst out, her eyes filling.
“啊，别这样说；我在忍受着呢。”她嚷道，眼睛里噙满了泪水。
Her arms had dropped along the table, and she sat with her face abandoned to his gaze as if in the recklessness of a desperate peril.
她的双臂顺着桌子垂下去，她坐在那儿，任他凝视着自己的脸，仿佛对面临的严重危险已毫无顾忌。
The face exposed her as much as if it had been her whole person, with the soul behind it: Archer stood dumb, overwhelmed by what it suddenly told him.
这张脸仿佛把她整个儿袒露了出来，让人看到里面的灵魂。阿切尔站在那儿目瞪口呆，被这种突然的表示吓得不知所措。
"You too--oh, all this time, you too?"
“你也--啊，这些日子，你也在忍受吗？”
For answer, she let the tears on her lids overflow and run slowly downward.
作为回答，她让噙着的泪珠溢出眼睑，缓缓流淌下来。
