Miss Welland's face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him with radiant eyes. "If you can persuade Mamma," she said; "but why should we change what is already settled?" He made no answer but that which his eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling: "Tell my cousin yourself: I give you leave. She says she used to play with you when you were children."
韋蘭小姐的臉變成曙光般的玫瑰紅色,她兩眼發(fā)光地看著他?!叭绻隳苷f服媽媽的話,”她說,“不過,已經(jīng)定了的事,干嗎要改變呢?”他沒有說話,只用眼睛做了回答。她信心更足地笑著補(bǔ)充說:“你自己告訴我表姐吧,我允許你。她說你還是孩子的時(shí)候,她常和你一起玩耍?!?/FONT>
She made way for him by pushing back her chair, and promptly, and a little ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should see what he was doing, Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenska's side.
她把椅子向后推了推,給他讓出了路。阿切爾懷著一種讓全場(chǎng)的人都能看見自己的舉動(dòng)的愿望,立刻示威性地坐到了奧蘭斯卡伯爵夫人身邊。
"We DID use to play together, didn't we?" she asked, turning her grave eyes to his. "You were a horrid boy, and kissed me once behind a door; but it was your cousin Vandie Newland, who never looked at me, that I was in love with." Her glance swept the horse-shoe curve of boxes. "Ah, how this brings it all back to me--I see everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalettes," she said, with her trailing slightly foreign accent, her eyes returning to his face.
“我們過去的確常在一起玩,不是嗎?”她問道,一面用嚴(yán)肅的目光看著他的眼睛?!澳隳菚r(shí)是個(gè)很討厭的男孩,有一次你在門后面吻了我,但那時(shí)我愛上的卻是你的堂兄范迪·紐蘭,可他從來不看我一眼?!彼哪抗鈷咭曋切R蹄形排列的包廂。“啊,這場(chǎng)面多讓我回想起過去的一切啊——我發(fā)現(xiàn)這里人人都穿燈籠褲或?qū)捤裳潱彼龓е晕⑼祥L(zhǎng)的異國(guó)口音說,目光又回到他的臉上。
Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked that they should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhat stiffly: "Yes, you have been away a very long time."
這番話盡管表達(dá)的感情是令人愉快的,卻竟然使他想到了威嚴(yán)的法庭,這一不相稱的聯(lián)想令年輕人感到震驚。而此時(shí)此刻,這個(gè)法庭就擺在她的面前,她的案子正在進(jìn)行審理。沒有什么東西比不合時(shí)宜的輕率更有傷大雅了。他有點(diǎn)生硬地回答說:“是啊,你離開這兒已經(jīng)很久了?!?/FONT>
"Oh, centuries and centuries; so long," she said, "that I'm sure I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;" which, for reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even more disrespectful way of describing New York society.
“啊,好像有好幾百年了。太久了,”她說,“讓我覺得自己已經(jīng)死了,被埋掉了,而這方親切的故土就是天堂?!闭f不清是什么理由,紐蘭·阿切爾只覺得這樣形容紐約社會(huì)就更加失禮了。
雙語小說連載:純真年代 The Age of Innocence(1)