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The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers.
第二天晚上，老西勒頓·杰克遜先生前來與阿切爾一家共進晚餐。
Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture.
阿切爾太太是位靦腆的女人。她畏避社交界，但對其中的種種活動卻喜歡了解得一清二楚。她的老朋友西勒頓·杰克遜善于將收藏家的耐心與博物學家的知識應(yīng)用于對朋友們私事的調(diào)查，而與他同住的胞妹索菲·杰克遜，受到那些無法接觸她那位廣受歡迎的兄長的人們的款待，則把閑言碎語帶回家來，有效地充實他的生動描述。
Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed.
因此，每有阿切爾太太想了解的事情發(fā)生，她便請杰克遜先生前來一聚。由于蒙她邀請的人寥若晨星，由于她與她的女兒詹尼都是極出色的聽眾，杰克遜先生通常都是親自赴約，而不是派他的妹妹代勞。假如一切都能由他作主，他會選擇紐蘭不在家的晚上前來，這并非因為年輕人與他情趣不投（他兩人在俱樂部相處甚篤），而是由于這位喜談軼聞的老人有時候感到，紐蘭有一種惦量他的證據(jù)的傾向，這在女眷們身上卻是絕對見不到的。
Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and the Archer-Newland- van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure.
假如能做到盡善盡美，杰克遜先生還會要求阿切爾太太的飯菜稍加改善。然而那時的紐約上流社會，自人們能記得的時候起就一直分成兩大派。一派是明戈特與曼森兩姓及其宗族，他們關(guān)心吃、穿與金錢；另一派是阿切爾一紐蘭一范德盧頓家族，他們傾心于旅游、園藝以及最佳的小說，對粗俗的享樂形式則不屑一顧。
You couldn't have everything, after all. If you dined with the Lovell Mingotts you got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun"; and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'--it will do me good to diet at Adeline's."
畢竟，一個人不可能好事樣樣有份。假如你與洛弗爾·明戈特一家共餐，你可以享用灰背野鴨、水龜和陳年佳釀；而在艾德琳·阿切爾家，你卻可以高談闊論阿爾卑斯山的風景和“大理石的半人半羊神像”，而且幸運的是，那位阿切爾·馬迪拉曾經(jīng)游歷過好望角。因此，當阿切爾太太發(fā)來友好的召喚時，喜歡兼收并蓄的杰克遜先生往往會對妹妹說：“上次在洛弗爾·明戈特家吃飯以后我一直有點痛風——到艾德琳家忌忌口對我會有好處的。”
Mrs. Archer, who had long been a widow, lived with her son and daughter in West Twenty-eighth Street. An upper floor was dedicated to Newland, and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen, collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good Words," and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere. (They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a gentleman," and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.)
寡居多年的阿切爾太太與兒子、女兒住在西28街。二樓全部歸紐蘭專用，兩個女人擠在樓下的小房間里。一家人興趣愛好和諧一致，他們在沃德箱內(nèi)種蕨類植物，織花邊飾帶，用亞麻布做毛繡，收藏獨立戰(zhàn)爭時期上釉的器皿，訂閱《名言》雜志，并為了追求意大利情調(diào)而讀韋達的小說。（由于風景描寫與情調(diào)歡快的緣故，他們更愛讀反映農(nóng)民生活的小說，盡管總體上他們是喜歡描寫上流社會人物的作品，因為這些人的動機與習慣容易理解。他們不喜歡狄更斯，因為此人從未刻畫過一位紳士。他們還認為，對貴族社會薩克雷不及布爾沃通曉，不過人們已開始覺得后者已經(jīng)過時。）
