評論
打印
Mr. Jackson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the mournful butler had handed him with a look as sceptical as his own, and had rejected the mushroom sauce after a scarcely perceptible sniff. He looked baffled and hungry, and Archer reflected that he would probably finish his meal on Ellen Olenska.
杰克遜先生吃了一片那位臉色陰沉的男仆帶著跟他相同的懷疑目光遞給他的半冷不熱的魚片。他用讓人難以覺察的動作嗅了嗅蘑菇澆頭，拒絕了它。他臉色沮喪，樣子很餓。阿切爾心想，他很可能要靠談論埃倫·奧蘭斯卡來充饑了。
Mr. Jackson leaned back in his chair, and glanced up at the candlelit Archers, Newlands and van der Luydens hanging in dark frames on the dark walls.
杰克遜先生在椅子里向后靠了靠，抬眼看了看燭光下掛在昏暗墻壁上深色相框里的阿切爾們、紐蘭們，以及范德盧頓們。
"Ah, how your grandfather Archer loved a good dinner, my dear Newland!" he said, his eyes on the portrait of a plump full-chested young man in a stock and a blue coat, with a view of a white-columned country-house behind him. "Well--well--well ... I wonder what he would have said to all these foreign marriages!"
“唉，你的祖父阿切爾多么喜愛豐盛的晚餐啊，親愛的紐蘭！”他說，眼睛盯著一位胖胖的胸部飽滿的年輕人的畫像，那人打著寬領帶，穿一件藍外套，身后是一所帶白色圓柱的鄉間別墅。“可——可——可不知他會如何看待這些異國婚姻！”
Mrs. Archer ignored the allusion to the ancestral cuisine and Mr. Jackson continued with deliberation: "No, she was NOT at the ball."
阿切爾太太沒有理睬他有關老祖母的菜肴的話，杰克遜先生從容地接下去說：“不，她沒到舞會上去。”
"Ah--" Mrs. Archer murmured, in a tone that implied: "She had that decency."
“噢——”阿切爾太太低聲說，那口氣仿佛是說：“她總算還知禮。”
"Perhaps the Beauforts don't know her," Janey suggested, with her artless malice.
“也許博福特夫婦不認識她，”詹尼帶著不加掩飾的敵意推測說。
Mr. Jackson gave a faint sip, as if he had been tasting invisible Madeira. "Mrs. Beaufort may not--but Beaufort certainly does, for she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue this afternoon with him by the whole of New York."
杰克遜先生輕輕呷了一口，仿佛是在想象中品嘗馬德拉葡萄酒。“博福特太太可能不認識，但博福特卻肯定認識，因為今天下午全紐約的人都看見她和他一起沿第五大街散步。”
"Mercy--" moaned Mrs. Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy.
“我的天——”阿切爾太太痛苦地呻吟道。她顯然明白，想把外國人的這種行徑與高雅的概念掛上鉤簡直是徒勞。
