雙語·《刀鋒》 第一章 四

CHAPTER ONE 4
第一章 四

If I have given the reader an impression that Elliott Templeton was a despicable character I have done him an injustice.
假如我的描述讓讀者覺得艾略特·鄧普頓是個卑鄙小人，那可就冤枉他了。

He was for one thing what the French call serviable, a word for which, so far as I know, there is no exact equivalent in English. The dictionary tells me that serviceable in the sense of helpful, obliging, and kind is archaic.That is just what Elliott was.He was generous, and though early in his career he had doubtless showered flowers, candy, and presents on his acquaintance from an ulterior motive, he continued to do so when it was no longer necessary.It caused him pleasure to give.He was hospitable.His chef was as good as any in Paris and you could be sure at his table of having set before you the earliest delicacies of the season.His wine proved the excellence of his judgement.It is true that his guests were chosen for their social importance rather than because they were good company, but he took care to invite at least one or two for their powers of entertainment, so that his parties were almost always amusing.People laughed at him behind his back and called him a filthy snob, but nevertheless accepted his invitations with alacrity.His French was fluent and correct and his accent perfect.He had taken great pains to adopt the manner of speech as it isspoken in England and you had to have a very sensitive ear to catch now and then an American intonation.He was a good talker if only you could keep him off the subject of dukes and duchesses, but even about them, now that his position was unassailable, he allowed himself, especially when you were alone with him, to be amusing.He had a pleasantly malicious tongue and there was no scandal about these exalted personages that did not reach his ears.From him I learnt who was the father of the Princess X's last child and who was the mistress of the Marquis de Y.I don't believe even Marcel Proust knew more of the inner life of the aristocracy than Elliott Templeton.
從某種意義上講，他可以稱得上法國人說的serviable。據(jù)我所知，這個詞在英語詞匯庫里還沒有完全對應(yīng)的詞。我查了查字典，發(fā)現(xiàn)該詞有助人為樂、樂善好施的含意，按傳統(tǒng)的說法就是“厚道”。艾略特正是這么一個人。他為人慷慨；雖則在早期的生涯中，那種送花、送糖、送禮的豪舉無疑有他的用心，但是到后來沒有這種必要時，他還是照送。贈人以物，他樂此不疲。他熱情好客，所聘用的廚子能和巴黎的任何一個高廚比高低。有一點是肯定的：擺上餐桌的全都是最為可口的時令菜。他提供的酒可以證明他在這方面有很高的鑒賞力。他挑選客人看的是社會地位，而不是看客人本人如何，這是事實，可他也會至少請上一兩個能說會笑的，所以他的宴會桌上幾乎總是充滿歡聲笑語。一些人在背后嘲笑他，說他是個齷齪小人，可一旦受到他的邀請，卻又會欣然接受。他講法語字正腔圓，既流利又準(zhǔn)確，音色很是純正。他還曾經(jīng)模仿英國人說話，使出了九牛二虎的力氣，你的聽力必須非常敏銳，才能聽出他的英語中夾雜著一些美音。只要不以公爵和公爵夫人們?yōu)樵掝}，他什么都說；現(xiàn)在即便以公爵和公爵夫人們?yōu)樵掝}，他也放得開，敢于說些風(fēng)趣的話了，特別是跟你單獨在一起的時候，因為他的地位現(xiàn)已固若金湯。他風(fēng)趣，又喜歡挖苦人，而那些高官顯貴的丑聞逸事沒有一件會不傳到他的耳朵里來的。X公主最近產(chǎn)一子，其生身父親是誰，Y侯爵的情婦是何人，這些我都是從他口中得知的。我敢斷言，對于高官顯貴的私生活，就連馬塞爾·普魯斯特恐怕也不如艾略特·鄧普頓知道的那么多。

When I was in Paris we used often to lunch together, sometimes at his apartment and sometimes at a restaurant. I like to wander about the antiquity shops, occasionally to buy but more often to look, and Elliott was always enchanted to go with me.He had knowledge and a real love of beautiful objects.I think he knew every shop of the kind in Paris and was on familiar terms with the proprietor.He adored haggling and when we started out would say to me：
在巴黎時，我時常跟他一起吃午飯，有時在他公寓里，有時在飯館里。我喜歡逛古董商店，偶爾也買些，不過更多的是只看不買，而艾略特總是興沖沖陪我一起去逛。他是個行家，真心實意地?zé)釔鬯囆g(shù)品。我覺得巴黎的每一家這類商店，他沒有不熟悉的，并且跟每家店的老板都很熟稔。他特別愛砍價，出門前總是要叮嚀我：

“If there's anything you want don't try to buy it yourself. Just give me a hint and let me do the rest.”
“你要是相中了哪樣?xùn)|西，先不要急著買。你只需給我使個眼色，下來就看我的了?！?/p>

He would be delighted when he had got for me something I fancied for half the asking price. It was a treat to watch him bargain.He would argue, cajole, lose his temper, appeal to the seller's better nature, ridicule him, point out the defects of the object in question, threaten never to cross his threshold again, sigh, shrug his shoulders, admonish, start for the door in frowning anger, and when finally he had won his point shake his head sadly as though he accepted defeat with resignation.Then he would whisper to me in English.
我喜歡上哪樣?xùn)|西，他就幫著壓價，最終以一半價錢成交，這會叫他高興得不得了。看他玩這種討價還價的游戲?qū)嵲谶^癮。他會爭論、哄騙、發(fā)脾氣、以情動人、說風(fēng)涼話、挑出商品的毛病、威脅再也不邁入這家店鋪的門檻、嘆氣、聳肩、好言相勸以及滿臉怒容地朝外走，最后達到自己的理想價位之后，他還會悲哀地?fù)u搖頭，就好像他吃了敗仗，只好認(rèn)命一樣。然后，他會壓低聲音用英語對我說：

“Take it with you. It would be cheap at double the money.”
“買吧。就是再多一倍的錢也還是便宜的?！?/p>

Elliott was a zealous Catholic. He had not lived long in Paris before he met an abbé who was celebrated for his success in bringing infidels and heretics back to the fold.He was a great diner-out and a noted wit.He con-fined his ministrations to the rich and the aristocratic.It was inevitable that Elliott should be attracted by a man who, though of humble origins, was a welcome guest in the most exclusive houses, and he confided to a wealthy American lady who was one of the abbé’s recent converts that, though his family had always been Episcopalian, he had for long been interested in the Catholic Church.She asked Elliott to meet the abbé at dinner one evening, just three of them, and the abbé was scintillating.Elliott’s hostess brought the conversation around to Catholicism and the abbé spoke of it with unction, but without pedantry, as a man of the world, though a priest, speaking to another man of the world.Elliott was flattered to discover that the abbé knew all about him.
艾略特是個有激情的天主教徒。他在巴黎住下不久，就碰見一位神父。那人善于勸說異教徒皈依天主教，導(dǎo)引許多迷途的羊羔回到了羊圈里，因此而頗負(fù)盛名。此人飯局特多，能說會道遠近聞名。他的教務(wù)活動只限于富貴人家。雖然出身寒門，卻被許多大戶人家尊為座上賓，艾略特見了自然便動了心思。他悄悄告訴一位在神父的勸說下皈依正教的美國闊太太，說他家里雖然一直信奉圣公會教義，而他本人卻是對天主教會向往已久。一天晚上，闊太太請艾略特吃飯，跟神父見個面。飯桌旁僅有他們?nèi)?，神父說話口若懸河。女主人將話題引到天主教之上時，神父講得天花亂墜、地涌金蓮，而且絲毫不迂腐。雖則身為神父，但也是江湖上的人，對另一個江湖上的人是要說些入行的話的。艾略特發(fā)現(xiàn)神父竟然知道自己的來頭，有點受寵若驚。

“The Duchesse de Vend?me was speaking of you the other day.She told me that she thought you highly intelligent.”
“范多姆公爵夫人那天還跟我談起你來呢，她覺得你是個很有頭腦的人?！?/p>

Elliott flushed with pleasure. He had been presented to Her Royal Highness, but it had never occurred to him that she would give him a second thought.The abbé spoke of the faith with wisdom and benignity；he was broad-minded, modern in his outlook, and tolerant.He made the Church seem to Elliott very like a select club that a well-bred man owed it to himself to belong to.Six months later he was received into it.His conversion, combined with the generosity he showed in his contributions to Catholic charities, opened several doors that had been closed to him before.
艾略特快活得滿臉通紅。公爵夫人他是拜謁過的，可是，怎么也沒想到她會對他留意在心。神父心地寬廣、觀點入時，有著海納百川的胸襟，一番關(guān)于天主教的議論談得既高明又溫和。根據(jù)他的高談闊論，艾略特覺得天主教會就像個高級俱樂部，任何有教養(yǎng)的人如果不加入就對不起自己。六個月后，艾略特就入了教。皈依了天主教，再加上熱衷于天主教的慈善事業(yè)，慷慨解囊，好多家以前對他關(guān)著的大門也被他叩開了。

It may be that his motives in abandoning the faith of his fathers were mixed, but there could be no doubt of his devoutness when he had done so. He attended Mass every Sunday at the church frequented by the best people, went to confession regularly, and made periodical visits to Rome.In course of time he was rewarded for his piety by being made a papal chamberlain, and the assiduity with which he performed the duties of his office was rewarded by the order of, I think, the Holy Sepulchre.His career as a Catholic was in fact no less successful than his career as an homme du monde.
他改弦更張，放棄父輩的宗教信仰，也許動機不純，但自從皈依之后，他對天主教的虔誠之心卻是無可置疑的。他每逢周日去上流社會人士經(jīng)常光顧的教堂做彌撒，定期懺悔，每隔一段時間就去參拜一次羅馬圣地。久而久之，教廷因他虔誠，封他做羅馬教皇內(nèi)侍，又見他兢兢業(yè)業(yè)、恪盡職守，獎給他一枚圣墓勛章。說實在話，他在天主教方面所取得的成功不亞于他混跡社會所獲得的成果。

I often asked myself what was the cause of the snobbishness that obsessed this man who was so intelligent, so kindly, and so cultivated. He was no upstart.His father had been president of one of the southern universi-ties and his grandfather a divine of some eminence.Elliott was too clever not to see that many of the persons who accepted his invitations did so only to get a free meal and that of these some were stupid and some worthless.The glamour of their resounding titles blinded him to their faults.I can only guess that to be on terms of intimate familiarity with these gentlemen of ancient lineage, to be the faithful retainer of their ladies, gave him a sensation of triumph that never palled；and I think that at the back of it all was a passionate romanticism that led him to see in the weedy little French duke the crusader who had gone to the Holy Land with Saint Louis, and in the blustering, fox-hunting English earl the ancestor who had attended Henry the Eighth to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.In the company of such as these he felt that he lived in a spacious and gallant past.I think when he turned the pages of the Almanach de Gotha his heart beat warmly as one name after another brought back to him recollections of old wars, historic sieges, and celebrated duels, diplomatic intrigues, and the love affairs of kings.Such anyhow was Elliott Templeton.
我時常問自己，是什么原因使得這樣一個聰明、和藹、有教養(yǎng)的人迷了心竅，成了一個趨炎附勢者？他不是暴發(fā)戶，其父在南方一個大學(xué)當(dāng)過校長，祖父是名聲顯赫的神學(xué)家。以他的聰明機靈，決不會看不出那些應(yīng)他邀請的人大多只是混一頓吃喝，有些是沒腦子的，有些毫不足道。那些人響亮的頭銜搞得他眼花繚亂，令他對那些人的缺點視而不見。我只能這樣猜想，跟這些家世古老的紳士混個關(guān)系熟，充當(dāng)貴婦人們的忠實侍衛(wèi)，給他一種永不厭煩的勝利感。他的心底可能涌動著一股浪漫的激情，使得他在這些弱智的法國小公爵身上能看到當(dāng)年跟隨圣路易到圣地去征戰(zhàn)的十字軍戰(zhàn)士，從外強中干、沉迷于狩獵狐貍的英國伯爵身上能看到他們侍奉亨利八世前往“金布之地”的祖先。跟這些人在一起，他覺得就像生活在天地廣闊、英雄氣十足的古代里一樣。大概他在翻閱《哥達年鑒》時，心里會激情勃發(fā)，那一個又一個姓氏令他產(chǎn)生懷古之幽思，想到古代的戰(zhàn)爭、史冊上的攻伐、外交場上的詭譎風(fēng)云以及宮闈情話。艾略特·鄧普頓就是這么一個性情中人。