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双语·夜色温柔 第一篇 第十二章

所属教程:译林版·夜色温柔

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2022年05月01日

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They were at Voisins waiting for Nicole, six of them, Rosemary, the Norths, Dick Diver and two young French musicians. They were looking over the other patrons of the restaurant to see if they had repose—Dick said no American men had any repose, except himself, and they were seeking an example to confront him with. Things looked black for them—not a man had come into the restaurant for ten minutes without raising his hand to his face.

“We ought never to have given up waxed mustaches,” said Abe.“Nevertheless Dick isn’t the only man with repose—”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

“—but he may be the only sober man with repose.”

A well-dressed American had come in with two women who swooped and fluttered unself-consciously around a table. Suddenly, he perceived that he was being watched—whereupon his hand rose spasmodically and arranged a phantom bulge in his necktie. In another unseated party a man endlessly patted his shaven cheek with his palm, and his companion mechanically raised and lowered the stub of a cold cigar. The luckier ones fingered eyeglasses and facial hair, the unequipped stroked blank mouths, or even pulled desperately at the lobes of their ears.

A well-known general came in, and Abe, counting on the man’s first year at West Point—that year during which no cadet can resign and from which none ever recovers—made a bet with Dick of five dollars.

His hands hanging naturally at his sides, the general waited to be seated. Once his arms swung suddenly backward like a jumper’s and Dick said, “Ah!” supposing he had lost control, but the general recovered and they breathed again—the agony was nearly over, the gar?on was pulling out his chair….

With a touch of fury the conqueror shot up his hand and scratched his gray immaculate head.

“You see,” said Dick smugly, “I’m the only one.”

Rosemary was quite sure of it and Dick, realizing that he never had a better audience, made the group into so bright a unit that Rosemary felt an impatient disregard for all who were not at their table. They had been two days in Paris but actually they were still under the beach umbrella. When, as at the ball of the Corps des Pages the night before, the surroundings seemed formidable to Rosemary, who had yet to attend a Mayfair party in Hollywood, Dick would bring the scene within range by greeting a few people, a sort of selection—the Divers seemed to have a large acquaintance, but it was always as if the person had not seen them for a long, long time, and was utterly bowled over, “Why, where do you keep yourselves?”—and then re-create the unity of his own party by destroying the outsiders softly but permanently with an ironic coup de grace. Presently Rosemary seemed to have known those people herself in some deplorable past, and then got on to them, rejected them, discarded them.

Their own party was overwhelmingly American and sometimes scarcely American at all. It was themselves he gave back to them, blurred by the compromises of how many years.

Into the dark, smoky restaurant, smelling of the rich raw foods on the buffet, slid Nicole’s sky-blue suit like a stray segment of the weather outside. Seeing from their eyes how beautiful she was, she thanked them with a smile of radiant appreciation. They were all very nice people for a while, very courteous and all that. Then they grew tired of it and they were funny and bitter, and finally they made a lot of plans. They laughed at things that they would not remember clearly afterward—laughed a lot and the men drank three bottles of wine. The trio of women at the table were representative of the enormous flux of American life. Nicole was the granddaughter of a self-made American capitalist and the granddaughter of a Count of the House of Lippe Weissenfeld. Mary North was the daughter of a journeyman paper-hanger and a descendant of President Tyler. Rosemary was from the middle of the middle class, catapulted by her mother onto the uncharted heights of Hollywood. Their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man’s world—they preserved their individuality through men and not by opposition to them. They would all three have made alternatively good courtesans or good wives not by the accident of birth but through the greater accident of finding their man or not finding him.

So Rosemary found it a pleasant party, that luncheon, nicer in that there were only seven people, about the limit of a good party. Perhaps, too, the fact that she was new to their world acted as a sort of catalytic agent to precipitate out all their old reservations about one another. After the table broke up, a waiter directed Rosemary back into the dark hinterland of all French restaurants, where she looked up a phone number by a dim orange bulb, and called Franco-American Films. Sure, they had a print of “Daddy’s Girl”—it was out for the moment, but they would run it off later in the week for her at 341 rue des Saints Anges—ask for Mr. Crowder.

The semi-booth gave on the vestiaire and as Rosemary hung up the receiver she heard two low voices not five feet from her on the other side of a row of coats.

“—So you love me?”

“Oh, do I!”

It was Nicole—Rosemary hesitated in the door of the booth—then she heard Dick say:

“I want you terribly—let’s go to the hotel now.” Nicole gave a little gasping sigh. For a moment the words conveyed nothing at all to Rosemary—but the tone did. The vast secretiveness of it vibrated to herself.

“I want you.”

“I’ll be at the hotel at four.”

Rosemary stood breathless as the voices moved away. She was at first even astonished—she had seen them in their relation to each other as people without personal exigencies—as something cooler. Now a strong current of emotion flowed through her, profound and unidentified. She did not know whether she was attracted or repelled, but only that she was deeply moved. It made her feel very alone as she went back into the restaurant, but it was touching to look in upon, and the passionate gratitude of Nicole’s “Oh, do I!” echoed in her mind. The particular mood of the passage she had witnessed lay ahead of her; but however far she was from it her stomach told her it was all right—she had none of the aversion she had felt in the playing of certain love scenes in pictures.

Being far away from it she nevertheless irrevocably participated in it now, and shopping with Nicole she was much more conscious of the assignation than Nicole herself. She looked at Nicole in a new way, estimating her attractions. Certainly she was the most attractive woman Rosemary had ever met—with her hardness, her devotions and loyalties, and a certain elusiveness, which Rosemary, thinking now through her mother’s middle-class mind, associated with her attitude about money. Rosemary spent money she had earned—she was here in Europe due to the fact that she had gone in the pool six times that January day with her temperature roving from 99° in the early morning to 103°, when her mother stopped it.

With Nicole’s help Rosemary bought two dresses and two hats and four pairs of shoes with her money. Nicole bought from a great list that ran two pages, and bought the things in the windows besides. Everything she liked that she couldn’t possibly use herself, she bought as a present for a friend. She bought colored beads, folding beach cushions, artificial flowers, honey, a guest bed, bags, scarfs, love birds, miniatures for a doll’s house and three yards of some new cloth the color of prawns. She bought a dozen bathing suits, a rubber alligator, a travelling chess set of gold and ivory, big linen handkerchiefs for Abe, two chamois leather jackets of kingfisher blue and burning bush from Hermès—bought all these things not a bit like a high-class courtesan buying underwear and jewels, which were after all professional equipment and insurance—but with an entirely different point of view. Nicole was the product of much ingenuity and toil. For her sake trains began their run at Chicago and traversed the round belly of the continent to California; chicle factories fumed and link belts grew link by link in factories; men mixed toothpaste in vats and drew mouthwash out of copper hogsheads; girls canned tomatoes quickly in August or worked rudely at the Five-and-Tens on Christmas Eve; half-breed Indians toiled on Brazilian coffee plantations and dreamers were muscled out of patent rights in new tractors—these were some of the people who gave a tithe to Nicole, and as the whole system swayed and thundered onward it lent a feverish bloom to such processes of hers as wholesale buying, like the flush of a fireman’s face holding his post before a spreading blaze. She illustrated very simple principles, containing in herself her own doom, but illustrated them so accurately that there was grace in the procedure, and presently Rosemary would try to imitate it.

It was almost four. Nicole stood in a shop with a love bird on her shoulder, and had one of her infrequent outbursts of speech.

“Well, what if you hadn’t gone in that pool that day—I sometimes wonder about such things. Just before the war we were in Berlin—I was thirteen, it was just before Mother died. My sister was going to a court ball and she had three of the royal princes on her dance card, all arranged by a chamberlain and everything. Half an hour before she was going to start she had a side ache and a high fever. The doctor said it was appendicitis and she ought to be operated on. But Mother had her plans made, so Baby went to the ball and danced till two with an ice pack strapped on under her evening dress. She was operated on at seven o’clock next morning.”

It was good to be hard, then; all nice people were hard on themselves. But it was four o’clock and Rosemary kept thinking of Dick waiting for Nicole now at the hotel. She must go there, she must not make him wait for her. She kept thinking, “Why don’t you go?” and then suddenly, “Or let me go if you don’t want to.” But Nicole went to one more place to buy corsages for them both and sent one to Mary North. Only then she seemed to remember and with sudden abstraction she signalled for a taxi.

“Good-by,” said Nicole. “We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Loads of fun,” said Rosemary. It was more difficult than she thought and her whole self protested as Nicole drove away.

罗斯玛丽和诺思夫妇、迪克·戴弗以及两个年轻的法国音乐家,共六个人,一道在沃伊津餐馆等候尼科尔。他们一边等一边观察餐馆里的其他顾客,看他们是否气度雍容。迪克夸了海口,说除了他以外,没有哪个美国人能在举止上做到从容不迫。大家伙正是要找一个典型例子予以反驳。但情形看来不妙——凡是进餐馆的人,不出十分钟,无不抓耳挠腮。

“男人实在不应该把上蜡的胡子刮干净。”阿贝说,“不过,迪克绝对不是唯一举止得体的人……”

“瞧着吧,我就是唯一的。”

“要说唯一,恐怕应该是镇定自若的人中唯一清醒的。”

正说着,只见一个衣着考究的美国男子携两个女伴走了进来。那两个女伴一进门就慌慌张张地冲过去占了一张餐桌。突然,那男子发觉有人在注视他,不由抬起手整了整领带,仿佛领带上鼓了个包一样。另有一群人走进来,还没有落座,其中的一个男子一个劲儿用手拍他那刮得光溜溜的脸颊,还有一个人手里拿着已熄灭的雪茄烟头,机械地忽而举起忽而放下。别的人即便没有这般举动,也会摆弄眼镜或拈胡须,而没有胡须的人则摩挲他们光溜溜的下巴,要不然就抓耳挠腮。

接着,一位大名鼎鼎的将军走了进来。阿贝断言此人在西点军校上过学,西点军校的第一学年不准任何学员打退堂鼓,要求之严令学员们终生难忘。阿贝跟迪克赌五美元,说此人一定举止得体。

只见将军两手自然垂放于身体两侧,耐心地等待座位。接着,他的胳膊突然向后一摆,姿势有点像跳水那样,惊得迪克叫出了声,以为他失去了控制,可是那位将军马上又恢复了原样,让大家松了口气。眼看危机就要过去,侍者把将军的椅子拉出来……

将军却突然抬起手,动作快得如流星赶月,猛地搔了搔他那纹丝不乱的灰白色头发。

“看到了吧?”迪克得意地说,“我就是唯一的。”

罗斯玛丽对此深信不疑。迪克意识到罗斯玛丽是他最忠实的听众,于是他谈笑风生,让他们这个小圈子洋溢着欢乐的气氛。一时间,罗斯玛丽竟将别的餐桌的顾客视若无物。他们虽说来到巴黎已经两天,但实际上他们好像仍觉得像躺在沙滩遮阳伞下那般。前天晚上他们一道参加了贵族军事院校的联欢舞会。罗斯玛丽曾参加过好莱坞上流社交界的晚会,相形之下便觉得军事院校的联欢舞会难以应对。迪克却如鱼得水,不断跟人寒暄(当然,他在结交朋友方面也是有选择的)。戴弗夫妇似乎交际很广,而每次见到朋友都很亲热,好像长时间没见十分想念一样,会显出一副惊讶的神情说:“喂,你们这一向躲到哪里去了?”接着重新组建自己的朋友圈子,对于外人则口气委婉但永久地谢绝入内。罗斯玛丽似乎很快也学会了区别对待——对于那些自己在不得意的时候认识的人,但后来她识破了他们,厌恶他们,将他们弃之不理。

他们的聚会有时美国味儿很浓,有时又没那么美式。迪克使他们恢复自我,任岁月蹉跎,也不知度过了多少个年头。

餐馆里光线暗淡、烟雾缭绕,餐架上的生鲜食品散发出的气味弥漫在空气中。正当大家伙望眼欲穿的时候,尼科尔翩然而至,穿一身天蓝色衣服,犹如一朵云飘了进来。从众人的目光可以看出,大家都在欣赏她的美丽,于是她粲然一笑以示感激。起初,大家温文尔雅,一副正人君子相,后来便有些忘乎所以,尽情打趣和相互嘲笑,最后还畅想未来,列了一大堆规划。他们具体都说了些什么、笑了些什么,过后谁都记不清楚,反正他们笑声不断。男人们把三瓶葡萄酒灌下了肚,三个女人则各有各的风度,堪称美国不同阶层妇女的代表人物——尼科尔是一位白手起家的美国资本家的孙女,也是利普·韦森菲尔德家族一位伯爵的外孙女;玛丽·诺思是一位熟练的裱糊匠的女儿,同时也是泰勒总统的后裔;罗斯玛丽则出身于中产阶级的中等阶层,被她的母亲送进好莱坞,提升到了一个意想不到的高度。这三个女性彼此相似,与许许多多美国其他女性却有着不同。她们与众不同之处在于:她们都喜欢跟男性打交道,周旋于男性世界里,而非游离其外,同时又保持独立的个性。她们不是根据自己的出身,而是凭着运气物色如意郎君——找到如意郎君,就变身为贤妻良母;找不到,则沦为混迹于上流社会的风尘女子。

罗斯玛丽觉得此次午餐气氛融洽,叫人心情愉快,部分原因在于午宴的人数——在座的只有七人,而这个数字是一个精彩午宴的极值。也许还有一个原因:她是这个圈子的新鲜血液,起到了催化剂的作用,使得圈内人彼此之间的龃龉一时消散。散席后,她请一位侍者将她引到了后边的一个昏暗的电话间里(法国餐馆的后边都有这样的电话间),借着橘黄色的灯光查了号码,随即给法美联合电影公司拨通了电话。对方说《父女情深》的拷贝他们肯定是有的,只是目前租了出去,但他们这个星期的晚些时候将会在圣安吉斯大街三百四十一号为她放映这部影片,让她到时候找克劳德先生即可。

电话间是个半隔间,紧邻衣帽间。罗斯玛丽挂上电话,听见五英尺远的一排衣服后面传来了两个人压低的声音。

“这么说,你还是爱我的?”

“当然爱,我对天发誓!”

罗斯玛丽听出女的是尼科尔,于是站在电话间门口犹豫了一下,不知该不该出去。

就在她犹豫不定时,却听到了迪克的声音:“我太想要你了,咱们现在就回旅馆去吧!”尼科尔轻轻地呻吟了一声。罗斯玛丽一时不知道他们在说什么,但从语气却可以听出所以然来。那两人神神秘秘的,这叫她心里一阵激动。

“我想要你。”迪克说。

“我四点钟回旅馆。”尼科尔说。

罗斯玛丽大气都不敢出地站在那儿,直到那两人说话的声音远去。起初,她甚至感到惊愕,因为据她观察那对夫妻并无如胶似漆的感情,相互之间比较淡漠。此时此刻,一股难以名状的激情传遍了她的全身。她不知自己对此是羡慕还是反感,只觉得自己的内心受到了深深的触动。回餐厅的路上,她感到孤零零的。不过,回想起刚才的情景,她心潮起伏——尼科尔那句充满激情的话“当然爱,我对天发誓!”久久回响在她心中。刚才目睹的一幕让她有一种特殊的情绪,尽管跟她本人关系不大,但回味起来,她内心感到那是合情合理、天经地义的,因而她绝无一丝一毫出演爱情片时所产生的那种厌恶感。

虽然这件事与她无关,可现在她却深陷其中。同尼科尔一起去购物时,她仍在思索迪克和尼科尔的约会,甚至比尼科尔本人更上心。她开始用新的眼光看待尼科尔,重新评估尼科尔的魅力,深深感到尼科尔是她所见过的最有魅力的女性——尼科尔端庄、虔诚、忠实,身上有一种含而不露的东西。她用母亲那种中产阶级的观点细细想来,尼科尔的这种素质也反映在了她对金钱的态度上。罗斯玛丽的钱是靠她自己努力奋斗挣来的——她之所以能来欧洲旅游,是因为她为了拍片子能够在一月份的大冷天一天往水里跳六次(她的体温一大清早便从99度上升到了103度,后来还是母亲出面拦住了她)。

在尼科尔的指点下,罗斯玛丽用自己的钱买了两件衣服、两顶帽子和四双鞋子。尼科尔则按两页纸长的购物清单买东西,另外还买了些陈列在橱窗里的商品。她喜欢什么就买什么,而所购物品并非全都自己用,有些是送给一个朋友的。她买了彩色珠子、沙滩上用的折叠软垫、人造花、蜂蜜、客人用的床、皮包、围巾、鹦鹉、玩具房间中的小摆设以及三码长的对虾色新布料。她还买了十几件泳装、一条橡胶鳄鱼、一副黄金和象牙制成的旅行象棋、几块要送给阿贝的大号亚麻手帕和两件麂皮夹克(一件是翠鸟蓝色,一件是大红色,均购于爱马仕商店)。她的购物观完全不同于上流社会的风尘女子——她们只买内衣和珠宝,说到底是购买职业装备或者说买保险品,而她在购物时则随心所欲。为了她,许许多多的人奉献出了聪明才智和辛勤的劳动。为了她,火车从芝加哥出发,穿过广袤的大地,抵达加利福尼亚;橡胶厂浓烟滚滚,各个工厂的传送带不停地运转;男工在缸里搅拌牙膏,从铜制的桶里汲取漱口剂;女工在八月里手脚麻利地将番茄酱装入罐头盒中,或在圣诞夜前夕的杂货店里忙得不可开交;印第安混血儿在巴西的咖啡种植园里辛勤劳作,一辆辆新型拖拉机在田间耕作(这些拖拉机不再是某些发明家独享的专利)。为尼科尔做贡献的人数量庞大,以上所述仅仅是其中的一部分。这是一个完整的体系,每个环节都干得热火朝天、轰轰烈烈,最后就有了尼科尔潇洒购物的场面——此时的尼科尔情绪亢奋,犹如一个面对熊熊燃烧的大火绝不退却的消防队员,脸上焕发出红光。她的人生准则非常简单,其中也隐含了她不祥的命运,只不过被她诠释得异常确切,显得典雅大方,势必会被后起之秀罗斯玛丽亦步亦趋地加以仿效。

快到四点钟的时候,只见尼科尔立在一家商店里,肩头站着一只鹦鹉,平时并不多话的她突然说出了一长串话:“那天你拍电影,要是不跳水就好了……对这种事情,我有时感到很纠结。第一次世界大战前我们家住在柏林,我当时十三岁,家母尚在人世。我姐姐要去参加一个宫廷舞会,请帖上列着三位王子的名字(这些都是皇帝的侍从一手安排的)。谁知就在动身前半小时,她突然感到下腹疼痛,发起了高烧。医生说她得了急性阑尾炎,需要做手术。但家母有她的打算,于是姐姐就在晚礼服下缚了一只冰袋去参加舞会,一直跳到两点,第二天上午七点才接受了手术。”

看来,自我约束不无好处;所有体面人物对自身都是很严格的。转眼到了四点钟,罗斯玛丽老想着此刻迪克在旅馆里等着尼科尔,于是盼着尼科尔赶快去,免得让他久等。她心里急得不得了,嘀咕着:“你为什么还不去呀?”突然,她冒出了这样一个念头:“你要是不愿去,就让我去好啦!”而尼科尔却不疾不徐,又进了另一家商店,为她俩买了紧身衣,还买了一件送给玛丽·诺思。直到这时,她才好像想起了什么似的,于是像是丢了魂般招手叫了辆出租车。

“再见,”她对罗斯玛丽说道,“今天很开心,你说是不是?”

“简直开心极了。”罗斯玛丽答道。说出这句话比她想象的要困难,当尼科尔乘车离去时,她整个身心都在表示抗议。

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