"Oh, I know: the secretary," the young man took him up. "Nonsense, mother; Janey's grown-up. They say, don't they," he went on, "that the secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband, who kept her practically a prisoner? Well, what if he did? I hope there isn't a man among us who wouldn't have done the same in such a case."
“噢，我知道：是說那個秘書，”年輕人打斷他的話說。“沒關系，母親，詹尼是大人了。人們不就是說，”他接下去講，“是那個秘書幫她離開了把她當囚犯看待的那個畜牲丈夫嗎？哎，是又怎么樣？我相信，我們這些人遇到這種情況，誰都會這么干的。”

Mr. Jackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad butler: "Perhaps . . . that sauce . . . just a little, after all--"; then, having helped himself, he remarked: "I'm told she's looking for a house. She means to live here."
杰克遜先生從肩頭斜視了一眼那位臉色陰沉的男仆說：“也許……那個佐料……就要一點，總之——”他吃了一口又說：“我聽說她在找房子，打算住在這兒。”

"I hear she means to get a divorce," said Janey boldly.
“我聽說她打算離婚，”詹尼冒失地說。

"I hope she will!" Archer exclaimed.
“我希望她離婚！”阿切爾大聲地說。

The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-room. Mrs. Archer raised her delicate eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: "The butler--" and the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public, hastily branched off into an account of his visit to old Mrs. Mingott.
這話像一塊炸彈殼落在了阿切爾家高雅、寧靜的餐廳里，阿切爾太太聳起她那優雅的眉毛，那根特殊的曲線表示：“有男仆——”而年輕人自己也意識到公開談論這類私事有傷風雅，于是急忙把話題岔開，轉而去講他對明戈特老太太的拜訪。

After dinner, according to immemorial custom, Mrs. Archer and Janey trailed their long silk draperies up to the drawing-room, where, while the gentlemen smoked below stairs, they sat beside a Carcel lamp with an engraved globe, facing each other across a rosewood work-table with a green silk bag under it, and stitched at the two ends of a tapestry band of field-flowers destined to adorn an "occasional" chair in the drawing- room of young Mrs. Newland Archer.
晚餐之后，按照自古以來的習慣，阿切爾太太與詹尼拖著長長的綢裙到樓上客廳里去了。當紳士們在樓下吸煙的時候，她們在一臺帶摟刻燈罩的卡索式燈旁，面對面地在一張黃檀木縫紉桌兩邊坐下，桌底下掛一個綠色絲綢袋，兩人在一塊花罩毯兩端縫綴起來。那以鮮花鋪底的罩毯是預定用來裝飾小紐蘭·阿切爾太太的客廳里那把“備用”椅子的。

While this rite was in progress in the drawing-room, Archer settled Mr. Jackson in an armchair near the fire in the Gothic library and handed him a cigar. Mr. Jackson sank into the armchair with satisfaction, lit his cigar with perfect confidence (it was Newland who bought them), and stretching his thin old ankles to the coals, said: "You say the secretary merely helped her to get away, my dear fellow? Well, he was still helping her a year later, then; for somebody met 'em living at Lausanne together."
這一儀式在客廳里進行的同時，在那間哥特式的圖書室里，阿切爾正讓杰克遜先生坐進火爐近處的一把扶手椅，并遞給他一支雪茄。杰克遜先生舒舒服服坐在椅子里，信心十足地點著了雪茄（這是紐蘭買的）。他把瘦削的腳踝朝煤爐前伸了伸，說：“你說那個秘書僅僅是幫她逃跑嗎。親愛的？可一年之后他仍然在繼續幫助她呢。有人在洛桑親眼看見他們住在一起。”

Newland reddened. "Living together? Well, why not? Who had the right to make her life over if she hadn't? I'm sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots."
紐蘭臉紅了。“住在一起？哎，為什么不可以？假如她自己沒有結束她的人生，又有誰有權去結束呢？把她這樣年輕的女子活活葬送，而她的丈夫卻可以與娼妓在一起鬼混。我痛恨這種偽善的觀點。”

He stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar. "Women ought to be free--as free as we are," he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences.
他打住話頭，氣憤地轉過身去點著雪茄。“女人應當有自由——跟我們一樣的自由，”他斷然地說。他仿佛有了一種新的發現，而由于過分激動，還無法估量其可怕的后果。

Mr. Sillerton Jackson stretched his ankles nearer the coals and emitted a sardonic whistle.
西勒頓·杰克遜先生把腳踝伸得離爐火更近一些，嘲諷地打了一個唿哨。

"Well," he said after a pause, "apparently Count Olenski takes your view; for I never heard of his having lifted a finger to get his wife back."
“嗯，”他停了一下說，“奧蘭斯卡伯爵顯然和你持相同的觀點；因為我從未聽說他動過一根指頭去把妻子弄回來。”

雙語小說連載:純真年代 The Age of Innocence(4)