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He had been, in short, what people were beginning to call "a good citizen."
总之，他一直是个人们开始称之为“好公民”的人。
In New York, for many years past, every new movement, philanthropic, municipal or artistic, had taken account of his opinion and wanted his name.
在纽约，在过去的许多年间，每一项新的运动，不论是慈善性质的还是市政或艺术方面的，都曾考虑过他的意见，需要过他的名字。
People said: "Ask Archer" when there was a question of starting the first school for crippled children, reorganising the Museum of Art, founding the Grolier Club, inaugurating the new Library, or getting up a new society of chamber music.
在开办第一所残疾儿童学校的时候，在改建艺术博物馆、建立格罗里埃俱乐部。创办新图书馆、组织室内音乐学会的时候--遇到难题，人们便说：“去问阿切尔。”
His days were full, and they were filled decently. He supposed it was all a man ought to ask.
他的岁月过得很充实，而且很体面。他以为这应是一个人的全部追求。
Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life.
他知道他失落了一件东西：生命的花朵。
But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery.
不过现在他认为那是非常难以企及的事，为此而牢骚满腹不啻因为抽彩抓不到头奖而苦恼。
There were a hundred million tickets in HIS lottery, and there was only one prize; the chances had been too decidedly against him.
彩票千千万万，头奖却只有一个，机缘分明一直与他作对。
When he thought of Ellen Olenska it was abstractly, serenely, as one might think of some imaginary beloved in a book or a picture: she had become the composite vision of all that he had missed.
当他想到埃伦·奥兰斯卡的时候心情是平静的、超脱的，就像人们想到书中或电影里爱慕的人物那样。他所失落的一切都会聚在她的幻影里，
That vision, faint and tenuous as it was, had kept him from thinking of other women.
这幻影尽管依稀缥缈，却阻止他去想念别的女人。
He had been what was called a faithful husband; and when May had suddenly died-carried off by the infectious pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child-he had honestly mourned her.
他属于人们所说的忠诚丈夫，当梅突然病故时--她被传染性肺炎夺去了生命，生病期间正哺养着他们最小的孩子--他衷心地哀悼了她。
Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.
他们多年的共同生活向他证明，只要婚姻能维持双方责任的尊严，即使它是一种枯燥的责任，也无关紧要。失去了责任的尊严，婚姻就仅仅是一场丑恶欲望的斗争。
Looking about him, he honoured his own past, and mourned for it.
回首往事，他尊重自己的过去，同时也为之痛心。
After all, there was good in the old ways.
说到底，旧的生活方式也有它好的一面。
His eyes, making the round of the room--done over by Dallas with English mezzotints, Chippendale cabinets, bits of chosen blue-and-white and pleasantly shaded electric lamps-came back to the old Eastlake writing- table that he had never been willing to banish, and to his first photograph of May, which still kept its place beside his inkstand.
他环视这间屋子--它已被达拉斯重新装修过，换上了英国的楼板、切宾代尔式的摆设柜，几枚精选的蓝白色小装饰，光线舒适的电灯--目光又回到那张他一直不愿舍弃的旧东湖书桌上，回到他得到的梅的第一张照片上--它依然占据着墨水台旁边的位置。
There she was, tall, round-bosomed and willowy, in her starched muslin and flapping Leghorn, as he had seen her under the orange-trees in the Mission garden.
她站在那儿，高高的个子，丰满的胸部，苗条的身材，穿一身浆过的棉布服装，戴一顶帽边下垂的宽边草帽，就像他在教区花园桔树底下见到她时那样。
And as he had seen her that day, so she had remained; never quite at the same height, yet never far below it: generous, faithful, unwearied; but so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change.
后来，她就一直保持着他那天见到她的那副样子，没有长进，也没有退步。她慷慨大度，忠心耿耿，不知疲倦；但却特别缺乏想像力，特别难有长进，以致她青年时代的那个世界分崩离析又进行了重塑，她都没有觉察。这种视而不见的状态显然会使她的见解一成不变。
This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered.
由于她不能认清时代的变化，结果孩子们也跟阿切尔一样向她隐瞒自己的观点。
Her incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a joint pretence of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated.
这事从一开始就存在一种共同的借口，一种家人间并无恶意的虚伪，不知不觉地把父亲与孩子们联合了起来。
And she had died thinking the world a good place, full of loving and harmonious households like her own, and resigned to leave it because she was convinced that, whatever happened, Newland would continue to inculcate in Dallas the same principles and prejudices which had shaped his parents' lives, and that Dallas in turn when Newland followed her would transmit the sacred trust to little Bill.
她去世时依然认为人世间是个好地方，到处是像她自己家那样可爱和睦的家庭。她顺从地离开了人间，确信不管发生什么事，阿切尔都会向达拉斯灌输塑造他父母生命的那些准则与成见，而达拉斯,等阿切尔随她而去,也会将这一神圣的信赖转达给小比尔。
And of Mary she was sure as of her own self. So, having snatched little Bill from the grave, and given her life in the effort, she went contentedly to her place in the Archer vault in St. Mark's, where Mrs. Archer already lay safe from the terrifying "trend" which her daughter-in-law had never even become aware of.
至于玛丽，她对她就像对自己那样有把握。于是，在死亡的边缘保住了小比尔之后，她便精殚力竭地撒手而去，心满意足地到圣马克墓地阿切尔家的墓穴中归位。而阿切尔太太早已安然躺在那儿，避开了她儿媳甚至都没察觉到的可怕的“潮流”。
Opposite May's portrait stood one of her daughter.
在梅的照片对面，还立着她女儿的一张。
Mary Chivers was as tall and fair as her mother, but large-waisted, flat-chested and slightly slouching, as the altered fashion required.
玛丽·奇弗斯跟母亲一样高，一样漂亮，不过她腰身粗壮，胸部扁平，略显疲态，符合已经变化了的时尚的要求。
Mary Chivers's mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twenty-inch waist that May Archer's azure sash so easily spanned.
假如她的腰只有20英寸，能用梅·阿切尔那根天蓝色腰带束腰，玛丽·奇弗斯非凡的运动才能就无从发挥了。
And the difference seemed symbolic; the mother's life had been as closely girt as her figure.
母女间的这一差别颇具象征意义，母亲的一生犹如她的形体那样受到了严紧的束缚。
Mary, who was no less conventional, and no more intelligent, yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views. There was good in the new order too.
玛丽一样地传统，也并不比母亲聪明，然而她的生活却更为开阔，观念更加宽容。看来，新秩序也有它好的一面。
The telephone clicked, and Archer, turning from the photographs, unhooked the transmitter at his elbow.
电话铃嘀嘀地响了，阿切尔从两张照片上移开目光，转过身摘下旁边的话机。
How far they were from the days when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's only means of quick communication!
他们离开那些日子多么遥远了--那时候，穿铜纽扣衣服的信差的两条腿是快速通讯的惟一工具。
"Chicago wants you."
“芝加哥有人要和你通话。”
Ah--it must be a long-distance from Dallas, who had been sent to Chicago by his firm to talk over the plan of the Lakeside palace they were to build for a young millionaire with ideas.
啊--一定是达拉斯来的长途，他被公司派往芝加哥，去谈判他们为一位有见地的年轻富翁修建湖畔宅邸的计划。
The firm always sent Dallas on such errands.
公司经常派达拉斯执行这类任务。
