‘THE worst place we’ve struck yet,’ said the commanding officer; ‘no facilities, no amenities, and Brigade sitting right on top of us. There’s one pub in Flyte St Mary with capacity for about twenty - that, of course, will be out of bounds for officers; there’s a Naafi in the camp area. I hope to run transport once a week to Melstead Carbury. Marchmain is ten miles away and damn-all when you get there. It will therefore be the first concern of company officers to organize recreation for their men. M.O., I want you to take a look at the lakes to see if they’re fit for bathing.’
‘Brigade expects us to clean up the house for them. I should have thought some of those half-shaven scrim-shankers I see lounging round Headquarters might have saved us the trouble; however...Ryder, you will find a party of fifty and report to the Quartering Comandant at the house at 1045 hours; he’ll show you what we’re taking over.’
‘Our predecessors do not seem to have been very enterprising. The valley has great potentialities for an assault course and a mortar range. Weapon-training officer, make a recce this morning and get something laid on before Brigade arrives.’
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6
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“是,长官。”
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6
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‘Very good, sir.’
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7
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“我要亲自和副官出去侦察一下训练区域。有谁碰巧知道这个地方吗?”
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7
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‘I’m going out myself with the adjutant to recce training areas. Anyone happen to know this district?’
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8
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我没说话。
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8
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I said nothing.
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9
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“那就这样,干活吧。”
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9
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‘That’s all then, get cracking.’
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10
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“就其自身而言,这个旧宅子了不起,”营指挥官说,“可惜毁得太厉害了。”
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10
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‘Wonderful old place in its way,’ said the Quartering Commandant; ‘pity to knock it about too much.’
He was an old, retired, re-appointed lieutenant-colonel from some miles away. We met in the space before the main doors, where I had my half-company fallen-in, waiting for orders. ‘Come in. I’ll soon show you over. It’s a great warren of a place, but we’ve only requisitioned the ground floor and half a dozen bedrooms. Everything else upstairs is still private property, mostly cram-full of furniture; you never saw such stuff, priceless some of it.
‘There’s a caretaker and a couple of old servants live at the top - they won’t be any trouble to you - and a blitzed R.C. padre whom Lady Julia gave a home to -jittery old bird, but no trouble. He’s opened the chapel; that’s in bounds for the troops; surprising lot use it, too.
‘The place belongs to Lady Julia Flyte, as she calls herself now. She was married to Mottram, the Minister of-whatever-it-is. She’s abroad in some woman’s service, and I try to keep an eye on things for her. Queer thing the old marquis leaving everything to her - rough on the boys.
‘Now this is where the last lot put the clerks; plenty of room, anyway. I’ve had the walls and fireplaces boarded up you see valuable old work underneath. Hullo, someone seems to have been making a beast of himself here; destructive beggars, soldiers are! Lucky we spotted it, or it would have been charged to you chaps.
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15
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“这是另一间大房子,里面过去都是挂毯和绒绣。我建议你把这间屋子当会议室。”
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15
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‘This is another good-sized room, used to be full of tapestry. I’d advise you to use this for conferences.’
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16
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“我只是来这儿打扫的,长官。以后旅部的人会分配房间。”
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16
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‘I’m only here to clean up, sir. Someone from Brigade will allot the rooms.’
‘Oh, well, you’ve got an easy job. Very decent fellows the last lot. They shouldn’t have done that to the fireplace though. How did they manage it? Looks solid enough. I wonder if it can be mended?
‘I expect the brigadier will take this for his office; the last did. It’s got a lot of painting that can’t be moved, done on the walls. As you see, I’ve covered it up as best I can, but soldiers get through anything - as the brigadier’s done in the corner. There was another painted room, outside under pillars - modern work but, if you ask me, the prettiest in the place; it was the signal office and they made absolute hay of it; rather a shame.
‘This eyesore is what they used as the mess; that’s why I didn’t cover it up; not that it would matter much if it did get damaged; always reminds me of one of the costlier knocking-shops, you know - “ Maison Japonaise”...and this was the ante-room...’
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20
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没花多长时间我们就看完了这些说话有回声的空房间。随后,我们出来走到露台上。
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20
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It did not take us long to make our tour of the echoing rooms. Then we went outside on the terrace.
‘Those are the other ranks’ latrines and wash-house; can’t think why they built them just there; it was done before I took the job over. All this used to be cut off from the front. We laid the road through the trees joining it up with the main drive; unsightly but very practical; awful lot of transport comes in and out; cuts the place up, too. Look where one careless devil went smack through the box-hedge and carried away all that balustrade; did it with a three-ton lorry, too; you’d think he had a Churchill tank at least.
‘That fountain is rather a tender spot with our landlady; the young officers used to lark about in it on guest nights and it was looking a bit the worse for wear, so I wired it in and turned the water off. Looks a bit untidy now; all the drivers throw their cigarette-ends and the remains of the sandwiches there, and you can’t get to it to clean it up, since I put the wire round it. Florid great thing, isn’t it?...
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23
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“哎,要是你所有地方都看过了,那我可就走了。祝你今天顺利。”
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23
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‘Well, if you’ve seen everything I’ll push off. Good day to you.’
His driver threw a cigarette into the dry basin of the fountain; saluted and opened the door of the car. I saluted and the Quartering Commandant drove away through the new, metalled gap in the lime trees.
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25
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“胡珀,”我叫道,这时我看到我的人已经开始干起来了,“你看这伙人让你带半小时行不行?”
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25
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‘Hooper,’ I said, when I had seen my men started, ‘do you think I can safely leave you in charge of the work-party for half an hour?’
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26
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“刚才我一直在琢磨,不知道我们能在什么地方搞些茶叶来。”
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26
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‘I was just wondering where we could scrounge some tea.’
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27
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“看在基督的份上,”我说道,“他们才刚刚开始。”
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27
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‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘they’ve only just begun work.’
I did not spend long in the desolate ground-floor rooms, but went upstairs and wandered down the familiar corridors, trying doors that were locked, opening doors into rooms piled to the ceiling with furniture. At length I met an old housemaid carrying a cup of tea. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘isn’t it Mr Ryder?’
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32
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“是我。我正在想什么时候能碰到一个认得的人呢。”
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32
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‘It is. I was wondering when I should meet someone I know.’
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33
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“霍金斯太太正在上面她的老房间里呢。我这是给她端茶过去。”
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33
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‘Mrs Hawkins is up in her old room. I was just taking her some tea.’
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34
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“我替你拿给她。”我说,穿过一扇扇挂着粗呢布的门,走上没铺地毯的楼梯,到了育婴室。
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34
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‘I’ll take it for you, I said, and passed through the baize doors, up the uncarpeted stairs, to the nursery.
Nanny Hawkins did not recognize me until I spoke, and my arrival threw her into some confusion; it was not until I had been sitting some time by her fireside that she recovered her old calm. She, who had changed so little in all the years I knew her, had lately become greatly aged. The changes of the last years had come too late in her life to be accepted and understood; her sight was failing, she told me, and she could see only the coarsest needlework. Her speech, sharpened by years of gentle conversation, had reverted now to the soft, peasant tones of its origin.
‘...only myself here and the two girls and poor Father Membling who was blown up, not a roof to his head nor a stick of furniture till Julia took him in with the kind heart she’s got, and his nerves something shocking...Lady Brideshead, too, Marchmain it is now, who I ought by rights to call her Ladyship now, but it doesn’t come natural, it was the same with her.
First, when Julia and Cordelia left to the war, she came here with the two boys and then the military turned them out, so they went to London, nor they hadn’t been in their house not a month, and Bridey away with the yeomanry the same as his poor Lordship, when they were blown up too, everything gone, all the furniture she brought here and kept in the coach-house. Then she had another house outside London, and the military took that, too, and there she is now, when I last heard, in a hotel at the seaside, which isn’t the same as your own home, is it? It doesn’t seem right.?
‘...Did you listen to Mr Mottram last night? Very nasty he was about Hitler. I said to the girl Effie who does for me: “If Hitler was listening, and if he understands English, which I doubt, he must feel very small.”
Who would have thought of Mr Mottram doing so well? And so many of his friends, too, that used to stay here? I said to Mr Wilcox, who comes to see me regular on the bus from Melstead twice a month, which is very good of him and I appreciate it, I said: “We were entertaining angels unawares,” because Mr Wilcox never liked Mr Mottram’s friends, which I never saw, but used to hear about from all of you, nor Julia didn’t like them, but they’ve done very well, haven’t they?’
‘From Cordelia, only last week, and they’re together still as they have been all the time, and Julia sent me love at the bottom of the page. They’re both very well, though they couldn’t say where, but Father Membling said, reading between the lines, it was Palestine, which is where Bridey’s yeomanry is, so that’s very nice for them all. Cordelia said they were looking forward to coming home after the war, which I am sure we all are, though whether I live to see it, is another story.’
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42
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我在她那儿待了半个小时,离开时答应常来看她。我走到走廊时,发现人们没有干活的迹象,胡珀一脸内疚。
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42
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I stayed with her for half an hour, and left promising to return often. When I reached the hall I found no sign of work and Hooper looking guilty.
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43
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“他们都得去拉垫床的草去了。布洛克中士告诉我我才知道。我不知道他们是不是快回来了。”
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43
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‘They had to go off to draw the bed-straw. I didn’t know till Sergeant Block told me. I don’t know whether they’re coming back.’
‘Yes, very well. It belongs to friends of mine,’ and as I said the words they sounded as odd in my I ears as Sebastian’s had done, when, instead of saying, ‘It is my home,’ he said, ‘It is where my family live.’
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51
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“这也看不出有什么意义啊——这么大地方的一个家。有什么用呢?”
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51
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‘It doesn’t seem to make any sense - one family in a place this size. What’s the use of it?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘not what it was built for. Perhaps that’s one of the pleasures of building, like having a son, wondering how he’ll grow up. I don’t know; I never built anything, and I forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I’m homeless, childless, middle-aged, loveless, Hooper.’ He looked to see if I was being funny, decided that I was, and laughed. ‘Now go back to camp, keep out of the C.O.’s way, if he’s back from his recce, and don’t let on to anyone that we’ve made a nonsense of the morning.’
There was one part of the house I had not yet visited, and I went there now. The chapel showed no ill-effects of its long neglect; the art-nouveau paint was as fresh and bright as ever; the art-nouveau lamp burned once more before the altar. I said a prayer, an ancient, newly-learned form of words, and left, turning towards the camp; and as I walked back, and the cook-house bugle sounded ahead of me, I thought:
‘The builders did not know the uses to which their work would descend; they made a new house with the stones of the old castle; year by year, generation after generation, they enriched and extended it; year by year the great harvest of timber in the park grew to ripeness; until, in sudden frost, came the age of Hooper; the place was desolate and the work all brought to nothing; Quomodo sedet sola civitas. vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
‘And yet,’ I thought, stepping out more briskly towards the camp, where the bugles after a pause had taken up the second call and were sounding ‘Pick-em-up, pick-em-up, hot potatoes’, ‘and yet that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.
‘Something quite remote from anything the builders intended, has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time; a small red flame - a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.’
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60
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我加快步子,赶到了我们用作会客室的小屋。
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60
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I quickened my pace and reached the hut which served us for our ante-room.
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61
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“你今天看来不是一般的愉快。”那位副指挥官说。
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61
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‘You’re looking unusually cheerful today,’ said the second-in-command.