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When we left I walked away with Miss Waterford, and the fine day and her new hat persuaded us to saunter through the Park.
離開思特里克蘭德太太家的時候，我是同瓦特爾芙德小姐一同走的。因為天氣很好，又加上她這頂新帽子提了興致，我們決定散一會步，從圣杰姆斯公園穿出去。
"That was a very nice party," I said.
“剛才的聚會很不錯。”我說。
"Did you think the food was good? I told her that if she wanted writers she must feed them well."
“你覺得菜做得不壞，是不是？我告訴過她，如果她想同作家來往，就得請他們吃好的。”
"Admirable advice," I answered. "But why does she want them?"
“你給她出的主意太妙了，”我回答。“可是她為什么要同作家來往呢？”
Miss Waterford shrugged her shoulders.
瓦特爾芙德小姐聳了聳肩膀。
"She finds them amusing. She wants to be in the movement. I fancy she's rather simple, poor dear, and she thinks we're all wonderful. After all, it pleases her to ask us to luncheon, and it doesn't hurt us. I like her for it."
“她覺得作家有意思。她想迎合潮流。我看她頭腦有些簡單，可憐的人，她認為我們這些作家都是了不起的人。不管怎么說，她喜歡請我們吃飯，我們對吃飯也沒有反感。我喜歡她就是喜歡這一點。”
Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance, but the romance of London. She had a real passion for reading (rare in her kind, who for the most part are more interested in the author than in his book, in the painter than in his pictures), and she invented a world of the imagination in which she lived with a freedom she never acquired in the world of every day. When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till then she had known only from the other side of the footlights. She saw them dramatically, and really seemed herself to live a larger life because she entertained them and visited them in their fastnesses. She accepted the rules with which they played the game of life as valid for them, but never for a moment thought of regulating her own conduct in accordance with them. Their moral eccentricities, like their oddities of dress, their wild theories and paradoxes, were an entertainment which amused her, but had not the slightest influence on her convictions.
現在回想起來，在那些慣愛結交文人名士的人中，思特里克蘭德太太要算心地最單純的了，這些人為了把獵物捕捉到手，從漢普斯臺德的遠離塵囂的象牙塔一直搜尋到柴納街的寒酸破舊的畫室。思特里克蘭德太太年輕的時候住在寂靜的鄉間，從穆迪圖書館借來的書籍不只使她閱讀到不少浪漫故事，而且也給她的腦子里裝上了倫敦這個大城市的羅曼史。她從心眼里喜歡看書（這在她們這類人中是少見的，這些人大多數對作家比對作家寫的書、對畫家比對畫家畫的畫興趣更大），她為自己創造了一個幻想的小天地，生活于其中，感到日常生活所無從享受到的自由。當她同作家結識以后，她有一種感覺，仿佛過去只能隔著腳燈了望的舞臺，這回卻親身登上去了。她看著這些人粉墨登場，好象自己的生活也擴大了，因為她不僅設宴招待他們，而且居然闖進這些人的重門深鎖的幽居里去。對于這些人游戲人生的信條她認為無可厚非，但是她自己卻一分鐘也不想按照他們的方式調整自己的生活。這些人道德倫理上的奇行怪癖，正如他們奇特的衣著、荒唐背理的言論一樣，使她覺得非常有趣，但是對她自己立身處世的原則卻絲毫也沒有影響。
"Is there a Mr. Strickland?" I asked
“有沒有一位思特里克蘭德先生啊？”我問。
"Oh yes; he's something in the city. I believe he's a stockbroker. He's very dull."
“怎么沒有啊。他在倫敦做事。我想是個證券經紀人吧。沒有什么風趣。”
"Are they good friends?"
“他們倆感情好嗎？”
"They adore one another. You'll meet him if you dine there. But she doesn't often have people to dinner. He's very quiet. He's not in the least interested in literature or the arts."
“兩個人互敬互愛。如果你在他們家吃晚飯，你會見到他的。但是她很少請人吃晚飯。他不太愛說話，對文學藝術一點兒也不感興趣。”
"Why do nice women marry dull men?"
“為什么討人喜歡的女人總是嫁給蠢物啊？”
"Because intelligent men won't marry nice women."
“因為有腦子的男人是不娶討人喜歡的女人的。”
I could not think of any retort to this, so I asked if Mrs. Strickland had children.
我想不出什么反駁的話來，于是我就把話頭轉開，打聽思特里克蘭德太太有沒有孩子。
"Yes; she has a boy and a girl. They're both at school."
“有，一個男孩和一個女孩。兩個人都在上學。”
The subject was exhausted, and we began to talk of other things.
這個題目已經沒有好說的了。我們又扯起別的事來。
