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钟形罩|The Bell Jar

第7章|Seven

属类： 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 西尔维娅-普拉斯] 阅读：[20421]
这本小说以作者早年生活经历为蓝本，叙述了19岁的大二女生埃斯特· 格林伍德经历了充当某知名杂志社的客座编辑、参加写作班被拒、自杀未遂、接受心理治疗、重树自信期待返回社会，展开新生活的一系列过程。本文从“榜样缺失”的角度出发，结合当时美国的实际，探讨埃斯特作为女性，在其成长过程中男性社会压抑下所产生的孤独、绝望与挣扎的心灵历程以及反抗的必然性。
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1
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的确，康斯坦丁的个头实在太矮了，可他自有英俊之处——浅褐色的头发，深蓝色的眼睛，生动鲜活吸引人的表情。他皮肤是古铜色，一口白牙，很接近美国人了，可我一眼就能看出他不是。他有我见过的美国人所不具备的东西，那就是直觉。

1
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Of course, Constantin was much too short, but in his own way he was handsome, with light brown hair and dark blue eyes and a lively, challenging expression. He could almost have been an American, he was so tan and had such good teeth, but I could tell straight away that he wasn’t. He had what no American man I’ve ever met has had, and that’s intuition.

2
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才刚认识，康斯坦丁就猜出我不是威拉德太太的什么后辈。我不时挑挑眉毛，干笑几声，很快，我俩就公然痛批起威拉德太太。我心想：“这个康斯坦丁不会介意我个子太高，不懂几门外语，没去过欧洲。他一眼就能看透我是怎样的人。”

2
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From the start Constantin guessed I wasn’t any protégée of Mrs. Willard’s. I raised an eyebrow here and dropped a dry little laugh there, and pretty soon we were both openly raking Mrs. Willard over the coals and I thought, “This Constantin won’t mind if I’m too tall and don’t know enough languages and haven’t been to Europe, he’ll see through all that stuff to what I really am.”

3
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康斯坦丁开着他的绿色老式敞篷车带我去联合国大楼。棕色的皮革座椅虽然开裂了，坐着却很舒服，敞篷顶也打开了。他告诉我，他古铜色的肌肤是打网球晒的。我们并肩坐在敞篷车里，沿着马路飞驰，阳光沐浴在身上，他拉起我的手紧握了一下，瞬间我的幸福感爆发。自从九岁那年的夏天，和父亲在炎热的白沙滩上奔跑，我就再也没有感受过这样的快乐——那之后不久，父亲就去世了。

3
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Constantin drove me to the UN in his old green convertible with cracked, comfortable brown leather seats and the top down. He told me his tan came from playing tennis, and when we were sitting there side by side flying down the streets in the open sun he took my hand and squeezed it, and I felt happier than I had been since I was about nine and running along the hot white beaches with my father the summer before he died.

4
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到了联合国大楼，康斯坦丁带我坐进一间肃穆豪华的旁听室，旁边是一个未施脂粉、严肃冷峻、肌肉发达的俄国女孩。她和康斯坦丁一样，也是同声传译员。此时，我突然想到，真是奇怪，以前怎么从没意识到我只在九岁之前感受过单纯的快乐。

4
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And while Constantin and I sat in one of those hushed plush auditoriums in the UN, next to a stern muscular Russian girl with no makeup who was a simultaneous interpreter like Constantin, I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old.

5
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父亲去世后——母亲节衣缩食，让我参加女童子军，学钢琴、水彩画和舞蹈，参加帆船夏令营，最后还供我上大学，让我能够一早在雾霭中扬帆，能够吃着黑底巧克力派(1)，每天的新点子像爆竹一样噼里啪啦往外冒——我再没有真正地开心过。

(1) 这种巧克力派之所以叫黑底派，是因其底部有一层加有巧克力的黑色蛋粉。
5
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After that—in spite of the Girl Scouts and the piano lessons and the water-color lesson sand the dancing lessons and the sailing camp, all of which my mother scrimped to give me, and college, with crewing in the mist before breakfast and blackbottom pies and the little new firecrackers of ideas going off every day—I had never been really happy again.

6
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我直盯着那个俄国女孩。她穿着灰色双排扣套装，用母语连珠炮似的说出一个又一个我听不懂的习惯用语。康斯坦丁说，英语和俄语的习语翻译是同声传译中最难的部分，因为它们之中没有相对应的习语。我无比希望能够附身于她，余生就用来说出一个个习语。这或许不会让我快乐多少，但至少会让我积攒的象征才能的小石头再多上那么一颗。

6
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I stared through the Russian girl in her double-breasted gray suit, rattling off idiom after idiom in her own unknowable tongue—which Constantin said was the most difficult part because the Russians didn’t have the same idioms as our idioms—and I wished with all my heart I could crawl into her and spend the rest of my life barking out one idiom after another. It mightn’t make me any happier, but it would be one more little pebble of efficiency among all the other pebbles.

7
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然后，康斯坦丁和俄国女译员以及一群在贴有标签的麦克风后争论的肤色或黑或白或黄的男人，似乎都在离我远去。我看见他们的嘴一开一合，却听不到任何声音，好像他们正坐在即将起航的船的甲板上，独留我一人搁浅于广漠无垠的寂静中。

7
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Then Constantin and the Russian girl interpreter and the whole bunch of black and white and yellow men arguing down there behind their labeled microphones seemed to move off at a distance. I saw their mouths going up and down without a sound, as if they were sitting on the deck of a departing ship, stranding me in the middle of a huge silence.

8
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我开始细数自己不会做的事情。

8
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I started adding up all the things I couldn’t do.

9
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从烹饪开始。

9
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I began with cooking.

10
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我的外婆和母亲都烧得一手好菜，所以我把做菜的事都交给她们了。她们一直想教我做一两道菜，但我总是随便看上两眼，应付两句：“好，好，我会了。”祖传的烹饪秘诀犹如耳边风，过脑即忘，煮出的每道菜的味道也可想而知，于是再也无人要我掌勺做菜。

10
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My grandmother and my mother were such good cooks that I left everything to them. They were always trying to teach me one dish or another, but I would just look on and say, “Yes, yes, I see,” while the instructions slid through my head like water, and then I’d always spoil what I did so nobody would ask me to do it again.

11
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我想起乔蒂，她是我大一时最好的朋友，也是当时我唯一的女性朋友。有一天早上，她在家炒蛋给我吃。那炒蛋尝起来别有风味，我问她里面是不是加了特别的调料，她说只有奶酪和蒜盐。我又问是谁教她的，她说没人教，自个儿琢磨的。不过本来嘛，她就是个务实的人，学的又是社会学。

11
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I remember Jody, my best and only girlfriend at college in my freshman year, making me scrambled eggs at her house one morning. They tasted unusual, and when I asked her if she had put in anything extra, she said cheese and garlic salt. I asked who told her to do that, and she said nobody, she just thought it up. But then, she was practical and a sociology major.

12
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我也不会速记。

12
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I didn’t know shorthand either.

13
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这意味着我大学毕业后找不到好工作。妈妈一直告诉我，没人会雇一个不具备其他技能的英语系毕业生。但是，如果英语系毕业，又会速记，那就另当别论了，人人都抢着要。许多前程似锦的年轻男人会找上门来，口述一封封精彩的求职信，让她誊抄。

13
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This meant I couldn’t get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand was something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter.

14
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问题在于，我就是不喜欢伺候男人，不论是以何种方式。我想口述我自己精彩的信件，让别人为我誊抄。再说，妈妈给我看的书里那些小小的速记符号，简直跟用t等于时间、用s等于距离之类的东西一样讨厌。

14
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The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters. Besides, those little shorthand symbols in the book my mother showed me seemed just as bad as let t equal time and let s equal the total distance.

15
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我做不来的事情还有很多。

15
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My list grew longer.

16
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我的舞跳得很糟。唱歌老是跑调。平衡感又差——每次体育课上要伸平双臂头顶书走平衡木时，我总会跌下来。我最想参加的两项活动是骑马和滑雪，但因为花费太高，所以我也不会。我不会说德语，看不懂希伯来文，不会写中文。我甚至不知道眼前这几位肤色各异的联合国翻译员所属的古老遥远的国家在地图上的哪个角落。

16
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I was a terrible dancer. I couldn’t carry a tune. I had no sense of balance, and when we had to walk down a narrow board with our hands out and a book on our heads in gym class I always fell over. I couldn’t ride a horse or ski, the two things I wanted to do most, because they cost too much money. I couldn’t speak German or read Hebrew or write Chinese. I didn’t even know where most of the old out-of-the-way countries the UN men in front of me represented fitted in on the map.

17
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我坐在联合国大楼的核心位置，身处隔音环境，一边是会打网球还会同声传译的康斯坦丁，另一边是深谙大量习语的俄国女孩，我平生第一次惊恐地发现自己一无是处。问题是，我向来一无是处，只是未曾自觉罢了。

17
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For the first time in my life, sitting there in the soundproof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneouly interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it.

18
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我擅长的一件事就是拿奖学金，拿各种奖，而这样的日子快到头了。

18
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The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

19
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我觉得自己就像一匹失去了跑道的赛马，或者一个要穿着西装走上华尔街的大学足球运动员，他的昔日荣光都化作壁炉上的小小金杯，杯身上烙印的日期就像墓碑上镌刻的生卒年。

19
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I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

20
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我看见我的人生伸展出许多枝丫，就像那则短篇小说里的绿色无花果树。

20
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I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

21
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每条枝丫的顶端都挂着一颗饱满的紫色无花果，那是美好的未来在向我招手和眨眼。这一颗果实是相夫教子、家庭和美，那一颗是扬名诗坛，下一颗是杰出教授，另一颗是著名编辑伊·吉，又一颗是游历欧洲、非洲和南美，再一颗是康斯坦丁、苏格拉底、阿提拉等一群名字怪异、职业另类的爱人，还有一颗是奥运女子划船赛冠军。除了这些，还有许多其他我看不清的果实。

21
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From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

22
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我看见自己坐在这株无花果树的枝丫上，饿得要死，只因下不了决心采下哪颗果子。每一颗我都想要，可是选择一颗就代表着失去其他颗。当我干坐着犹豫不决时，果子开始干瘪发黑，一颗接一颗地掉落在我脚下。

22
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I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

23
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康斯坦丁挑选的餐厅弥漫着草药、香料和酸奶油的气味。来到纽约的这段时间，我还没来过这样的餐厅。我找的都是“汉堡天堂”那类地方，供应巨无霸汉堡和今日例汤，四款花哨的蛋糕摆在一尘不染的柜台上，对面是亮晃晃的一溜长镜子。

23
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Constantin’s restaurant smelt of herbs and spices and sour cream. All the time I had been in New York I had never found such a restaurant. I only found those Heavenly Hamburger places, where they serve giant hamburgers and soup-of-the-day and four kinds of fancy cake at a very clean counter facing a long glarey mirror.

24
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餐厅位于一个类似地窖的地方，要走下七级昏暗的台阶才能进入。

24
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To reach this restaurant we had to climb down seven dimly lit steps into a sort of cellar.

25
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贴在烟黑色墙上的旅游海报，宛如一扇扇观景窗台，眺望着瑞士的湖泊、日本的山峦和非洲的大草原。厚重的蜡烛杯布满尘埃，彩色烛泪仿佛哭泣了几百年般层层堆积，红叠着蓝，蓝又叠着绿，围成立体精致的花边。蜡烛在桌上投下光晕，桌边一张张容颜浮现，脸色绯红恰似烛焰。

25
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Travel posters plastered the smoke-dark walls, like so many picture windows overlooking Swiss lakes and Japanese mountains and African velds, and thick, dusty bottle-candles, that seemed for centuries to have wept their colored waxes red over blue over green in a fine, three-dimensional lace, cast a circle of light round each table where the faces floated, flushed and flamelike themselves.

26
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我不知道自己吃的是什么，但是第一口下去，我立刻觉得好多了。我突然想到，刚才之所以会幻想出无花果树和肥厚果实的萎缩凋零，全是腹中空空给闹的。

26
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I don’t know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach.

27
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康斯坦丁不停地往我们的杯里添酒，这种希腊甜酒尝起来有股松树皮的清香。我发现自己不停地说想学德语，想去欧洲，想当一个像玛姬·希金斯一样优秀的战地记者。

27
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Constantin kept refilling our glasses with a sweet Greek wine that tasted of pine bark, and I found myself telling him how I was going to learn German and go to Europe and be a war correspondent like Maggie Higgins.

28
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等到酸奶和草莓果酱上桌时，我感觉超好，当下决定要让康斯坦丁引诱我。

28
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I felt so fine by the time we came to the yogurt and strawberry jam that I decided I would let Constantin seduce me.

29
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自从巴迪·威拉德告诉我他跟女服务员的事，我就在想，我也该出去找个人上床。跟巴迪·威拉德做爱不算，因为这样他睡过的人还是比我多一个。我得另找他人。

29
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Ever since Buddy Willard had told me about that waitress I had been thinking I ought to go out and sleep with somebody myself. Sleeping with Buddy wouldn’t count, though, because he would still be one person ahead of me, it would have to be with somebody else.

30
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我只跟一个男孩聊过床笫之事。那是个长着鹰钩鼻的南方人，在耶鲁读书，有一个周末他来我们学校找女友，却发现就在前一天她已经跟一个出租车司机私奔了。那女孩和我住同一栋宿舍楼，恰巧当晚楼里只剩我一人，所以安慰他的任务非我莫属了。

30
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The only boy I ever actually discussed going to bed with was a bitter, hawk-nosed Southerner from Yale, who came up to college one weekend only to find his date had eloped with a taxi driver the day before. As the girl had lived in my house and I was the only one home that particular night, it was my job to cheer him up.

31
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我们找了家附近的咖啡店，窝在椅背高耸的隐秘雅座里，木墙上刻着好几百个的人名。我们喝了一杯又一杯的黑咖啡，直言不讳地畅谈与性有关的论题。

31
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At the local coffee shop, hunched in one of the secretive, high-backed booths with hundreds of people’s names gouged into the wood, we drank cup after cup of black coffee and talked frankly about sex.

32
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这个名叫艾瑞克的男生，说我们学校里某些女生的行为真是令人作呕。深夜一点宵禁前，她们经常站在门廊的灯光下，或没遮没拦的矮树丛里，与男友狂热地耳鬓厮磨，路过的人看得一清二楚。艾瑞克尖刻地说，人类经过百万年的进化，结果却成了什么？还是禽兽。

32
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This boy—his name was Eric—said he thought it disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in plain view, necking madly before the one o’clock curfew, so everybody passing by could see them. A million years of evolution, Eric said bitterly, and what are we? Animals.

33
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接着，艾瑞克说起他第一次和女人上床的事。

33
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Then Eric told me how he had slept with his first woman.

34
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那时他去了南方一所预科学校念书，这所大学的特色是培养素质全面的绅士。学校有条不成文的规定，每个人毕业前必须了解一个女人。艾瑞克说，是《圣经》上的那种“了解”。

34
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He went to a Southern prep school that specialized in building all-round gentlemen, and by the time you graduated it was an unwritten rule that you had to have known a woman. Known in the Biblical sense, Eric said.

35
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所以某个周六，艾瑞克和几位同班同学搭公交车到最近的城市，去了一家颇有名声的妓院。接待艾瑞克的妓女甚至连裙子都没脱。那是个肥胖的中年女人，染了一头红发，嘴唇厚得让人起疑，皮肤呈鼠灰色。她不乐意关灯，所以艾瑞克只好在沾满蝇粪的二十五瓦灯泡下享用了她。男女之事根本不像大家所说的那样刺激，他只觉得像上厕所一样无聊。

35
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So one Saturday Eric and a few of his classmates took a bus into the nearest city and visited a notorious whorehouse. Eric’s whore hadn’t even taken off her dress. She was a fat, middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and suspiciously thick lips and rat-colored skin and she wouldn’t turn off the light, so he had had her under a fly-spotted twenty-five-watt bulb, and it was nothing like it was cracked up to be. It was boring as going to the toilet.

36
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我说，如果你爱她，做爱也许就不会无聊了。但是艾瑞克说，一想到自己所爱的女人跟其他人一样，也会做出此等苟且之事，什么好感都没了。所以，如果他爱某个人，他绝不会和她上床。实在有需要，他宁可去找妓女，也不让自己爱的女人沾染这种龌龊之事。

36
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I said maybe if you loved a woman it wouldn’t seem so boring, but Eric said it would be spoiled by thinking this woman too was just an animal like the rest, so if he loved anybody he would never go to bed with her. He’d go to a whore if he had to and keep the woman he loved free of all that dirty business.

37
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那时，我突然起了个念头，或许艾瑞克是个上床的好对象，因为他有经验，而且他说起这事时，也不像一般男生那样猥琐或愚蠢。可是紧接着，艾瑞克给我写了封信，说他很有可能爱上我了，因我聪明愤世，却又一脸和气，与他的姐姐惊人的相似。于是我知道没戏了，他永远不可能跟我上床。于是我回信说，真可惜，我就快和青梅竹马的恋人结婚了。

37
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It had crossed my mind at the time that Eric might be a good person to go to bed with, since he had already done it and, unlike the usual run of boys, didn’t seem dirty-minded or silly when he talked about it. But then Eric wrote me a letter saying he thought he might really be able to love me, I was so intelligent and cynical and yet had such a kind face, surprisingly like his older sister’s; so I knew it was no use, I was the type he would never go to bed with, and wrote him I was unfortunately about to marry a childhood sweetheart.

38
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在纽约搭上一个同声传译员，这主意我越想越觉得不错。康斯坦丁各方面看起来都成熟而又体贴，而且这里也没有我认识的人可供他事后吹嘘——那些大学男生最爱和舍友或篮球队友吹嘘自己如何跟女孩车震。再说，跟威拉德太太介绍给我认识的男人上床，简直是一大讽刺，要怪就怪她好了，想来真是解恨。

38
-

The more I thought about it the better I liked the idea of being seduced by a simultaneous interpreter in New York City. Constantin seemed mature and considerate in every way. There were no people I knew he would want to brag to about it, the way college boys bragged about sleeping with girls in the backs of cars to their roommates or their friends on the basketball team. And there would be a pleasant irony in sleeping with a man Mrs. Willard had introduced me to, as if she were, in a roundabout way, to blame for it.

39
-

所以，当康斯坦丁问我是否想去他的公寓欣赏俄国特有的巴拉莱卡琴(2)唱片时，我暗自偷笑。我的母亲总是告诫我，晚上和男人约会时，无论如何都不能跟他回家，因为这种举动只有一种含义。

(2) 巴拉莱卡琴（Balalaika），俄罗斯的一种弦乐器，琴腹呈三角形，有三根弦。
39
-

When Constantin asked if I would like to come up to his apartment to hear some balalaika records I smiled to myself. My mother had always told me never under any circumstances to go with a man to a man’s rooms after an evening out, it could mean only the one thing.

40
-

“我非常喜欢巴拉莱卡奏出的音乐。”我说。

40
-

“I am very fond of balalaika music,” I said.

41
-

康斯坦丁的公寓有个阳台，俯瞰下方的河流，听到黑暗中传来拖船的声音，我不禁心动，胸中柔情似水，非常确定自己接下来要做什么。

41
-

Constantin’s room had a balcony, and the balcony overlooked the river, and we could hear the hooing of the tugs down in the darkness. I felt moved and tender and perfectly certain about what I was going to do.

42
-

我知道这样可能会怀孕，可这个念头模模糊糊遥不可及，丝毫干扰不了我的决定。就像我母亲从《读者文摘》里剪下来并寄到学校给我看的那篇文章所言，没有百分百安全的避孕措施。这篇名为《捍卫贞操》的文章的作者是个已经结婚生子的女律师。

42
-

I knew I might have a baby, but that thought hung far and dim in the distance and didn’t trouble me at all. There was no one hundred percent sure way not to have a baby, it said in an article my mother cut out of the Reader’s Digest and mailed to me at college. This article was written by a married woman lawyer with children and called “In Defense of Chastity.”

43
-

文章列举各种理由，力陈女孩不该和除丈夫以外的男人上床，即使是丈夫，也必须在婚后才能发生关系。

43
-

It gave all the reasons a girl shouldn’t sleep with anybody but her husband and then only after they were married.

44
-

它的主要观点是，男人的世界跟女人不同，男人的情感也与女人迥异，唯有婚姻是妥善融合两个世界和两类情感的解药。我母亲说，女孩总要等到为时已晚才能明白个中道理，所以最好听取专家的意见，譬如一个已婚的女人。

44
-

The main point of the article was that a man’s world is different from a woman’s world and a man’s emotions are different from a woman’s emotions and only marriage can bring the two worlds and the two different sets of emotions together properly. My mother said this was something a girl didn’t know about till it was too late, so she had to take the advice of people who were already experts, like a married woman.

45
-

这位女律师说，最好的男人愿意为妻子守贞，而即便他们已非纯洁之身，他们仍希望自己是妻子的性爱启蒙者。当然，他们会千方百计哄着女孩上床，答应日后娶她为妻，可是一旦她同意，他们就会看轻她，认为她既然能跟他们上床，也能跟别的男人睡觉。于是，他们便会选择结束，而女孩悲惨的一生就此开始。

45
-

This woman lawyer said the best men wanted to be pure for their wives, and even if they weren’t pure, they wanted to be the ones to teach their wives about sex. Of course they would try to persuade a girl to have sex and say they would marry her later, but as soon as she gave in, they would lose all respect for her and start saying that if she did that with them she would do that with other men and they would end up by making her life miserable.

46
-

这位女专家的结论是，防患于未然，安全总比伤心好。况且，没有什么方法可以确保不怀孕，一旦未婚先孕，你的人生就彻底毁了。

46
-

The woman finished her article by saying better be safe than sorry and besides, there was no sure way of not getting stuck with a baby and then you’d really be in a pickle.

47
-

依我看，这篇文章没有考虑到的，恰恰是女孩的感受。

47
-

Now the one thing this article didn’t seem to me to consider was how a girl felt.

48
-

如果女孩纯洁，又嫁与同样纯洁的男子，这当然很好。可万一两人婚后，男人才像巴迪·威拉德一样，突然承认自己早已和别人上过床，一切又当如何？女人就得守身如玉，男人却可以过着一面纯洁一面放荡的双重生活，这样的观点我无法苟同。

48
-

It might be nice to be pure and then to marry a pure man, but what if he suddenly confessed he wasn’t pure after we were married, the way Buddy Willard had? I couldn’t stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.

49
-

最后，我拿定了主意，既然要找到一个聪明强壮、到二十一岁仍保有童男之身的人实非易事，我何不干脆抛开贞操的负累，找个同样有过性经验的人结婚就好。他要是让我的日子过得不舒服，我也可以让他不好过。

49
-

Finally I decided that if it was so difficult to find a red-blooded intelligent man who was still pure by the time he was twenty-one I might as well forget about staying pure myself and marry somebody who wasn’t pure either. Then when he started to make my life miserable I could make his miserable as well.

50
-

我十九岁的时候，贞操可是个大事。

50
-

When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue.

51
-

在我看来，世界并非分为天主教徒和新教徒、共和党和民主党、白人和黑人，甚至也不是以男人和女人来划分的，而是分作跟人上过床的和没跟人上过床的。贞操，似乎是人与人之间唯一真正重要的差异。

51
-

Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn’t, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another.

52
-

我觉得，当我跨越这条界限的那一天，我定会发生惊人的改变。

52
-

I thought a spectacular change would come over me the day I crossed the boundary line.

53
-

我觉得，这变化可能与我去一趟欧洲发生的变化相同。回到家中，凑近镜子，我会看到眼眸深处有一座小小的白色阿尔卑斯山。而明天照镜子的时候，我应该会看到一个玩偶大小的康斯坦丁安坐在我的眼眸里，对着我微笑。

53
-

I thought it would be the way I’d feel if I ever visited Europe. I’d come home, and if I looked closely into the mirror I’d be able to make out a little white Alp at the back of my eye. Now I thought that if I looked into the mirror tomorrow I’d see a doll-size Constantin sitting in my eye and smiling out at me.

54
-

我们在康斯坦丁家的阳台待了差不多一个小时，慵懒地分坐在两张躺椅上，两人之间堆放着巴拉莱卡琴唱片，留声机里乐声不断。乳白色的氤氲灯光笼罩着我们，分不清是来自街灯、半月、车灯还是星光。可是康斯坦丁就只握着我的手，毫无诱惑我的意图。

54
-

Well, for about an hour we lounged on Constantin’s balcony in two separate slingback chairs with the victrola playing and the balalaika records stacked between us. A faint milky light diffused from the street lights or the half moon or the cars or the stars, I couldn’t tell what, but apart from holding my hand Constantin showed no desire to seduce me whatsoever.

55
-

我问他是否订了婚，或者有没有交往的女孩，心想也许这是他没有行动的症结所在。但他都否认了，他说不想受这种关系的羁绊。

55
-

I asked if he was engaged or had any special girlfriend, thinking maybe that’s what was the matter, but he said no, he made a point of keeping clear of such attachments.

56
-

终于，一股浓浓的睡意袭来，先前饮过的带有松树皮清香的希腊甜酒顺着血管把倦意带遍全身。

56
-

At last I felt a powerful drowsiness drifting through my veins from all the pine-bark wine I had drunk.

57
-

“我要进屋躺一会儿。”我说。

57
-

“I think I’ll go in and lie down,” I said.

58
-

我若无其事地晃进房间，弯腰脱掉鞋子。干净的床铺就像一张安稳的小船，在我面前轻摆。我伸展四肢，阖上眼睛。然后，我听见康斯坦丁叹了口气，从阳台进来。他的鞋子咚咚落在地板上，接着他在我身侧躺下。

58
-

I strolled casually into the bedroom and stooped over to nudge off my shoes. The clean bed bobbed before me like a safe boat. I stretched full length and shut my eyes. Then I heard Constantin sigh and come in from the balcony. One by one his shoes clonked on to the floor, and he lay down by my side.

59
-

我借着一缕垂下的头发遮掩，偷偷打量着他。

59
-

I looked at him secretly from under a fall of hair.

60
-

他仰面躺着，双手枕在头下，盯着天花板。浆过的白衬衫袖子卷到肘部，在昏暗的夜色中折射出诡异的白光，而古铜的肤色现在看起来几乎是黑的。我想，他肯定是我平生所见的男人中最帅的一个。

60
-

He was lying on his back, his hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. The starched white sleeves of his shirt, rolled up to the elbows, glimmered eerily in the half dark and his tan skin seemed almost black. I thought he must be the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

61
-

我又想，假如我的五官更立体些，或者能把政治谈得头头是道，或者是个有名的作家，康斯坦丁没准儿会有兴趣和我上床。

61
-

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with.

62
-

但随后我又想，没准他刚喜欢上我，就沦为我眼中的凡间俗物；等他爱上我，我会不停地对他吹毛求疵，就像我对待巴迪·威拉德和在他之前的那些中意我的男生那样。

62
-

And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness,and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.

63
-

同样的事情一再地发生。

63
-

The same thing happened over and over:

64
-

我远远地看着一个男人，觉得他完美无瑕，可当他一靠近，我立刻觉得他完全不合适。

64
-

I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn’t do at all.

65
-

这正是我永远不想结婚的理由之一。我最不想要的就是无限的安全感，不想成为男人射向未来之箭的起点。我想要变化与刺激，想让自己像国庆日的璀璨烟火一样，射向四面八方。

65
-

That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.

66
-

我被雨声吵醒。

66
-

I woke to the sound of rain.

67
-

四周一片漆黑。过了一会儿，我才分辨出陌生窗户的模糊轮廓。不时有一道光束划过墙壁，像一根鬼魅的手指在探究着什么，然后一切又消失于无形。

67
-

It was pitch dark. After a while I deciphered the faint outlines of an unfamiliar window. Every so often a beam of light appeared out of thin air, traversed the wall like a ghostly, exploratory finger, and slid off into nothing again.

68
-

然后，我听见了呼吸的声音。

68
-

Then I heard the sound of somebody breathing.

69
-

起初，我以为是我自己，食物中毒后躺在黑暗的旅馆房间里，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息。可是我屏住呼吸，那个声音还在。

69
-

At first I thought it was only myself, and that I was lying in the dark in my hotel room after being poisoned. I held my breath, but the breathing kept on.

70
-

身侧有只绿眼睛发着幽光，像个罗盘一样被分成数等份。我慢慢伸出手，抓住它一提，没想到连带着抓起一只手臂。手臂的主人正在沉睡，所以手臂死沉死沉的，却也挺暖和。

70
-

A green eye glowed on the bed beside me. It was divided into quarters like a compass. I reached out slowly and dosed my hand on it. I lifted it up. With it came an arm, heavy as a dead man’s, but warm with sleep.

71
-

康斯坦丁的手表正指向三点钟。

71
-

Constantin’s watch said three o’clock.

72
-

他和衣而卧，身上的衬衫、长裤和袜子仍是我坠入梦乡时的那一套。等眼睛适应了黑暗之后，我渐渐分辨出他苍白的眼皮，挺直的鼻梁，说话宽容、漂亮有型的嘴。可它们看来又如此虚无缥缈，仿佛雾中的一幅画。我倾身靠近他，细细地端详了好一会儿。我还从来没在男人身边睡着过。

72
-

He was lying in his shirt and trousers and stocking feet just as I had left him when I dropped asleep, and as my eyes grew used to the darkness I made out his pale eyelids and his straight nose and his tolerant, shapely mouth, but they seemed insubstantial, as if drawn on fog. For a few minutes I leaned over, studying him. I had never fallen asleep beside a man before.

73
-

我试着想象成为康斯坦丁太太的感觉。

73
-

I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband.

74
-

这意味着我得早上七点起床，给他煎好蛋和培根，准备好面包片和咖啡。他出门上班后，我穿着睡袍，别着发卷，忙着洗盘子、铺床。等他在外面度过充满活力的美好一天后，他期待着回家吃上一顿丰盛的晚餐，然后我只好整晚不停地洗更多的盘子，倒在床上时已然精疲力竭。

74
-

It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he’d left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he’d expect a big dinner, and I’d spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted.

75
-

对于一个十五年寒窗苦读门门功课全A的女孩来说，这种枯燥的生活无异于虚度光阴，但我知道婚姻就是这么回事，因为巴迪·威拉德的母亲即便身为私立学校的老师，还嫁给了大学教授，也逃不脱从早到晚洒扫烹煮这些事。

75
-

This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s, but I knew that’s what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard’s mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself.

76
-

有一次我去找巴迪，威拉德太太正用威拉德先生旧西装上拆下的毛线织毯子。她已经织了好几个礼拜，而我也很喜欢穗带上棕绿蓝三色交织的图案。照我的想法，毯子织好后一定要挂在墙上好好欣赏，可威拉德太太竟把它当作厨房的地垫来用。没几天它就变得又脏又丑，跟便宜小店里零售价不到一美元的垫子毫无二致。

76
-

Once when I visited Buddy I found Mrs.Willard braiding a rug out of strips of wool from Mr. Willard’s old suits. She’d spent weeks on that rug, and I had admired the tweedy browns and greens and blues patterning the braid, but after Mrs. Willard was through, instead of hanging the rug on the wall the way I would have done, she put it down in place of her kitchen mat, and in a few days it was soiled and dull and indistinguishable from any mat you could buy for under a dollar in the five and ten.

77
-

我知道，男人在婚前会为女人献上玫瑰、热吻和烛光晚餐，可婚礼结束后，他私心里真正想要的，却是女人臣服于他的脚下，如同威拉德太太厨房里的垫脚布一样。

77
-

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard’s kitchenmat.

78
-

母亲不是早就告诉过我吗？她刚刚和我父亲离开雷诺(3)——我父亲之前结过婚，他得在雷诺办理离婚手续——踏上蜜月之旅时，我父亲就欢呼着对她说：“终于解脱了，现在我们总算可以放下伪装，做回自己。”从那天起，母亲就一日也不得安宁了。

(3) 雷诺（Reno），位于美国内华达州西部，素有“离婚城市”之名。只需在该市住满三个月，就可依法实现离婚之目的。
78
-

Hadn’t my own mother told me that as soon as she and my father left Reno on their honeymoon—my father had been married before, so he needed a divorce—my father said to her, “Whew, that’s a relief, now we can stop pretending and be ourselves?” —and from that day on my mother never had a minute’s peace.

79
-

我还记得，有一次巴迪·威拉德用了然一切、不怀好意的口吻说，等我有了孩子之后，感觉就会不同，不会再想写什么诗了。所以，我开始觉得结婚生子的过程有如洗脑，婚后你会像活在秘密极权国度里的奴隶一样麻木。

79
-

I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn’t want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.

80
-

我低头凝视康斯坦丁，犹如看着深井底部一颗遥不可及的闪亮水晶。忽然，他睁开眼直直地看向我，眼里满是爱意。我默然无语。我看着他眨眨眼睛认出了我，他眼中隐约的柔情一闪而过，就像按下了快门，大大的瞳孔亮如漆皮，却无法再探及他的心底。

80
-

As I stared down at Constantin the way you stare down at a bright, unattainable pebble at the bottom of a deep well, his eyelids lifted and he looked through me, and his eyes were full of love. I watched dumbly as a shutter of recognition clicked across the blur of tenderness and the wide pupils went glossy and depthless as patent leather.

81
-

康斯坦丁起身坐好，打了个呵欠。“几点了？”

81
-

Constantin sat up, yawning. “What time is it?”

82
-

“三点。”我淡淡地说，“我该回去了。明天一早还要上班呢。”

82
-

“Three,” I said in a flat voice. “I better go home. I have to be at work first thing in the morning.”

83
-

“我开车送你。”

83
-

“I’ll drive you.”

84
-

我们背对彼此，分坐在床的两侧笨拙地穿着鞋。床头灯发出刺目的白光，着实讨厌。我察觉到康斯坦丁转过身来，问我：“你的头发一直都是这样吗？”

84
-

As we sat back to back on our separate sides of the bed fumbling with our shoes in the horrid cheerful white light of the bed lamp, I sensed Constantin turn round. “Is your hair always like that?”

85
-

“什么样？”

85
-

“Like what?”

86
-

他并不回答，只是伸出手指穿过我的头发，像梳子一样缓缓地从发根捋至发梢。一道小小的电流击过我的身体，我僵住了。从小我就喜欢别人帮我梳头的感觉，这让我平静和放松，直欲睡去。

86
-

He didn’t answer but reached over and put his hand at the root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the tip ends like a comb. A little electric shock flared through me and I sat quite still. Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful.

87
-

“啊，我知道了。”康斯坦丁说，“你刚洗过头。”

87
-

“Ah, I know what it is,” Constantin said. “You’ve just washed it.”

88
-

然后，他弯腰系好网球鞋带。

88
-

And he bent to lace up his tennis shoes.

89
-

一小时后，我躺在旅馆的房间里，倾听雨声。听起来不像雨声，倒像是水龙头倾泻。左腿胫骨中段的旧伤开始隐隐作痛，反正七点前是睡不着了。七点一到，收音机闹钟就会用苏沙(4)激越的演奏吵醒我。

(4) 苏沙，即约翰·菲利普·苏沙（John Philip Sousa），美国著名作曲家、指挥家。
89
-

An hour later I lay in my hotel bed, listening to the rain. It didn’t even sound like rain, it sounded like a tap running. The ache in the middle of my left shin bone came to life, and I abandoned any hope of sleep before seven, when my radio-alarm clock would rouse me with its hearty renderings of Sousa.

90
-

每逢雨天，我的断腿旧伤似乎就想起了自己的存在，那是种钝钝的痛。

90
-

Every time it rained the old leg-break seemed to remember itself, and what it remembered was a dull hurt.

91
-

于是我想：“是巴迪·威拉德令我摔断了腿。”

91
-

Then I thought, “Buddy Willard made me break that leg.”

92
-

转念又一想：“不，是我自己弄断的。我故意这么做，这是卑鄙者的自惩。”

92
-

Then I thought, “No, I broke it myself. I broke it on purpose to pay myself back for being such a heel.”

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

intuition

[ˌɪntju’ɪʃn]

n.直觉;直觉的知识

rake

[reɪk]

n.耙子;耙状物

felted

[’feltɪd]

v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)

interpreter

[ɪn’tɜːprɪtə(r)]

n.口译员;演绎的人;【计算机】解释程序

scout

[skaʊt]

n.童子军;侦察员;守卫

firecracker

[’faɪəkrækə(r)]

n.爆竹;鞭炮

rattle

[’rætl]

vi. 发出格吱声；呱哒响;

idiom

[’ɪdiəm]

n.成语;惯用语;方言;风格;特色

bark

[bɑːk]

v.(狗)吠;咆哮

pebble

[’pebl]

n.鹅卵石

microphone

[’maɪkrəfəʊn]

n.麦克风;

shorthand

[’ʃɔːthænd]

n.速记;缩写

thrill

[θrɪl]

n.激动;引起激动的事物;震颤(医学)

inadequate

[ɪn’ædɪkwət]

adj.不适当的;不充分的

tombstone

[’tuːmstəʊn]

n.墓碑

fig

[fɪɡ]

n.【植】无花果

grind

[ɡraɪnd]

v.磨;压迫;碾碎;磨得吱吱响;逐渐停顿

fancy

[’fænsi]

n. 【C】设想；幻想；空想;

cellar

[’selə(r)]

n.地窖;地下室

flush

[flʌʃ]

v.冲洗;发红;将某人赶出

void

[vɔɪd]

a. 空的；没人占的;

Maggie

[’mægɪ]

n.玛吉(女子名)

seduce

[sɪ’djuːs]

vt.引诱;怂恿;勾引

waitress

[’weɪtrəs]

n.女侍者;女服务员

gouge

[ɡaʊdʒ]

v.用圆凿子挖;挖出;欺骗

bitterly

[’bɪtəli]

adv.残酷地;痛苦地

Eric

[’erɪk]

n.1. 埃里克(男子名,涵义:领导者)

bore

[bɔː(r)]

【1】 v.使厌烦 【2】 vt. 钻(孔)；镗(孔)；开凿

whore

[hɔː(r)]

n.妓女;不道德的人

sweetheart

[’swiːthɑːt]

n.心上人;甜心

roundabout

[’raʊndəbaʊt]

adj.绕道的;迂回的

balalaika

[ˌbælə’laɪkə]

n.俄式三弦琴

Chastity

[’tʃæstəti]

n.贞节;纯洁

miserable

[’mɪzrəbl]

adj.痛苦的;悲惨的;贫乏的;狼狈的

pickle

[’pɪkl]

n.腌汁;泡菜;淘气鬼;困境

pureness

[’pjuːənɪs]

n.清洁;清净;纯粹

democrat

[’deməkræt]

n.民主主义者

whatsoever

[ˌwɒtsəʊ’evə]

adv.任何(用于否定句中以加强语气)

vein

[veɪn]

n.静脉;血管

stretchable

[stretʃəbl]

v.伸展;延伸;张开;夸大

eerily

[’ɪəri]

adj.怪诞的;可怕的;奇异的;害怕的

shrewd

[ʃruːd]

adj.精明的;敏锐的;狡猾的

flawless

[’flɔːləs]

adj.完美的;无瑕疵的

infinite

[’ɪnfɪnət]

adj.无穷的;无限的

ghostly

[’ɡəʊstli]

adj.幽灵的;鬼似的;可怕的;灵魂的

poison

[’pɔɪzn]

n.毒药;毒害;败坏道德之事

liftable

[lɪftəbl]

a.1. 可以举起的

insubstantial

[ˌɪnsəb’stænʃl]

adj.脆弱的;无实体的;非实质的

utterly

[’ʌtəli:]

adv.完全;全然;绝对

dreary

[’drɪəri]

adj.沉闷的;令人沮丧的;情绪低落的

indistinguishable

[ˌɪndɪ’stɪŋɡwɪʃəbl]

adj.不能区别的;不易觉察的;难以理解的

flatten

[’flætn]

vt.使变平;打倒

Whew

[hwjuː]

int.(表示宽慰或惊讶)哟;唷

totalitarian

[təʊˌtælə’teəriən]

adj.极权主义的

glossy

[’ɡlɒsi]

adj.光滑的;有光泽的

horrid

[’hɒrɪd]

adj.可怕的;恐怖的;讨厌的;很不友好的

sleepy

[’sliːpi]

adj.欲睡的;困倦的

lace

[leɪs]

n.鞋带;饰带;花边;缎带

hearty

[’hɑːti]

adj.亲切友好的;衷心的;热烈的;丰盛的;健壮的(尤指老人)

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