评论
打印
As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a prisoner in the centre of an armed camp.
这些思绪接踵浮上他的心头，阿切尔感觉自己像个囚犯，被包围在一伙武装分子中间。
He looked about the table, and guessed at the inexorableness of his captors from the tone in which, over the asparagus from Florida, they were dealing with Beaufort and his wife.
他打量餐桌四周，从交谈的语气推测到，追捕他的人个个铁面无私，他们正一面吃着佛罗里达的龙须菜，一面谈论博福特和他妻子的问题。
"It's to show me," he thought, "what would happen to ME--" and a deathly sense of the superiority of implication and analogy over direct action, and of silence over rash words, closed in on him like the doors of the family vault.
“这是做给我看的，”他心想，“我将是什么下场--”一种死到临头的感觉向他袭来：暗示与影射比直截了当的行动更恶毒，沉默比激烈的言辞更凶狠--它们就像家族地下灵堂里一道道的门向他合拢过来。
He laughed, and met Mrs. van der Luyden's startled eyes.
他放声笑了起来，他的目光遇到了范德卢顿太太投来的惊异目光。
"You think it laughable?" she said with a pinched smile.
“你认为挺可笑吧？”她脸上一副苦笑说。
"Of course poor Regina's idea of remaining in New York has its ridiculous side, I suppose;" and Archer muttered: "Of course."
“可怜的里吉纳想留在纽约，我想这主意当然有它荒唐的一面。”阿切尔喃喃地说：“当然。”
At this point, he became conscious that Madame Olenska's other neighbour had been engaged for some time with the lady on his right.
这时候，他意识到奥兰斯卡夫人另一位邻座与他右边这位夫人交谈已经有了一段时间。
At the same moment he saw that May, serenely enthroned between Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, had cast a quick glance down the table.
同时他也见到端坐于范德卢顿先生与塞尔弗里奇·梅里先生中间的梅，顺着餐桌迅速使了个眼色。
It was evident that the host and the lady on his right could not sit through the whole meal in silence.
很显然，他这位主人与他右边的夫人总不能一顿饭下来一直保持沉默，互不交谈。
He turned to Madame Olenska, and her pale smile met him. "Oh, do let's see it through," it seemed to say.
他转向奥兰斯卡夫人，她以淡然的笑容迎着他，似乎在说：“哦，我们坚持到底吧。”
"Did you find the journey tiring?" he asked in a voice that surprised him by its naturalness; and she answered that, on the contrary, she had seldom travelled with fewer discomforts.
“你觉得旅行很累吧？”他问。他的声音十分自然，让他自己都吃了一惊。她回答说恰好相反，她在旅行中很少感到有什么不适。
"Except, you know, the dreadful heat in the train," she added; and he remarked that she would not suffer from that particular hardship in the country she was going to.
“只是火车上太热，你知道，”她又说。他则说，到了她行将奔赴的那个国家，她就不会再受那份罪了。
"I never," he declared with intensity, "was more nearly frozen than once, in April, in the train between Calais and Paris."
“有一年四月，”他加强了语气说，“我在加莱至巴黎的火车上，有好几次差点儿给冻僵。”
She said she did not wonder, but remarked that, after all, one could always carry an extra rug, and that every form of travel had its hardships; to which he abruptly returned that he thought them all of no account compared with the blessedness of getting away.
她说这并不奇怪；但又说毕竟还是有办法的，可以多带上一块围毯嘛；她还说，每一种旅行方式都有自身的困难。
She changed colour, and he added, his voice suddenly rising in pitch: "I mean to do a lot of travelling myself before long."
对此，他冷不了地回答说，他认为，与远走高飞的幸福相比，这一切都算不了什么。
A tremor crossed her face, and leaning over to Reggie Chivers, he cried out: "I say, Reggie, what do you say to a trip round the world: now, next month, I mean? I'm game if you are--"
她脸色大变，他突然又提高嗓门说：“我打算不久以后一个人进行漫长的旅行。”她脸上一阵震颤。他朝里吉·奇弗斯探过身去大声道：“我说里吉，去漫游世界你看怎么样--我是说现在，下个月就走？你敢我就敢--”
at which Mrs. Reggie piped up that she could not think of letting Reggie go till after the Martha Washington Ball she was getting up for the Blind Asylum in Easter week; and her husband placidly observed that by that time he would have to be practising for the International Polo match.
听到这里，里吉太太尖声说，不过了马撒·华盛顿的舞会，她决不会放里吉走。那个舞会是她准备在复活节那一周为盲人院安排的活动。她丈夫则温和地说，到那时他就得为准备国际马球赛进行训练了。
But Mr. Selfridge Merry had caught the phrase "round the world," and having once circled the globe in his steam-yacht, he seized the opportunity to send down the table several striking items concerning the shallowness of the Mediterranean ports.
然而塞尔弗里奇·梅里却抓住了“漫游世界”这句话，因为他曾经乘自己的汽艇环行地球一周，于是抓住机会给餐桌周围的人提供了几条有关地中海沿岸那些港口水深太浅的惊人见闻。
Though, after all, he added, it didn't matter; for when you'd seen Athens and Smyrna and Constantinople, what else was there?
他补充道，可说到底，这事倒无足轻重；因为，你若是见过了雅典、士麦那和康斯坦丁堡，其他还有什么地方值得一游呢？
And Mrs. Merry said she could never be too grateful to Dr. Bencomb for having made them promise not to go to Naples on account of the fever.
梅里太太说，她太感激本克姆医生了，是他让他们俩答应不去那不勒斯的，因为那儿有热病。
"But you must have three weeks to do India properly," her husband conceded, anxious to have it understood that he was no frivolous globe-trotter.
“可你必须花三周时间才能游遍印度，”他丈夫让步说，他急于让大家明白，他决不是个轻浮的环球旅行家。
And at this point the ladies went up to the drawing- room.
就在这时，女士们起身到客厅去了。
In the library, in spite of weightier presences, Lawrence Lefferts predominated.
在图书室里，劳伦斯·莱弗茨无视几位要人的在场而占据了支配地位。
The talk, as usual, had veered around to the Beauforts, and even Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, installed in the honorary arm-chairs tacitly reserved for them, paused to listen to the younger man's philippic.
像平时那样，话题又转回到博福特夫妇身上。就连范德卢顿先生和塞尔弗里奇·梅里先生也坐在大家心照不宣地为他们留出的体面扶手椅里，等着听这位年轻人的猛烈抨击。
Never had Lefferts so abounded in the sentiments that adorn Christian manhood and exalt the sanctity of the home.
莱弗茨从来没有像现在这样充满美化高尚人格。
Indignation lent him a scathing eloquence, and it was clear that if others had followed his example, and acted as he talked, society would never have been weak enough to receive a foreign upstart like Beaufort-no, sir, not even if he'd married a van der Luyden or a Lanning instead of a Dallas.
歌颂家庭神圣的感情，义愤使他谈锋犀利。显然，假如别人都效法他的榜样，以他的话为行为指南，那么，上流社会决不会软弱到去接纳一个像博福特这样的外籍暴发户--不会的，老兄，即使他娶的不是达拉斯家的人，
And what chance would there have been, Lefferts wrathfully questioned, of his marrying into such a family as the Dallases, if he had not already wormed his way into certain houses, as people like Mrs. Lemuel Struthers had managed to worm theirs in his wake?
而是范德卢顿家或拉宁家的，那也不会的。莱弗茨愤怒地质问道，假如博福特不是早已慢慢钻进了某些家庭--莱姆尔·斯特拉瑟斯太太之流就是紧步他的后尘--他怎么能有机会与达拉斯这样的家庭联姻呢？
If society chose to open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great, though the gain was doubtful; but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration-and at no distant date.
假如上流社会主动向平民女子敞开大门，是否有益虽然值得怀疑，但危害还不是太大；而一旦开始容忍出身微贱、钱财肮脏的男人，那么，其结局必然是彻底的崩溃--而且为期不会很远。
"If things go on at this pace," Lefferts thundered, looking like a young prophet dressed by Poole, and who had not yet been stoned, "we shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers' houses, and marrying Beaufort's bastards."
“假如事态照这种速度发展，”莱弗茨咆哮着，那神态好像是普耳装扮的年轻预言家，只是还没有变成石头。“那么，我们就会看到我们的下一代争抢诈骗犯的请柬，跟博福特家的杂种结亲。”
"Oh, I say--draw it mild!" Reggie Chivers and young Newland protested, while Mr. Selfridge Merry looked genuinely alarmed, and an expression of pain and disgust settled on Mr. van der Luyden's sensitive face.
“咳，我说--不要太过火嘛！”里吉·奇弗斯和小纽兰抗议说。这时，塞尔弗里奇·梅里先生更是大惊失色，痛苦与厌恶的表情也浮现在范德卢顿先生那张敏感的脸上。
