双语·《刀锋》 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.
假如我的描述让读者觉得艾略特·邓普顿是个卑鄙小人，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.
从某种意义上讲，他可以称得上法国人说的serviable。据我所知，这个词在英语词汇库里还没有完全对应的词。我查了查字典，发现该词有助人为乐、乐善好施的含意，按传统的说法就是“厚道”。艾略特正是这么一个人。他为人慷慨；虽则在早期的生涯中，那种送花、送糖、送礼的豪举无疑有他的用心，但是到后来没有这种必要时，他还是照送。赠人以物，他乐此不疲。他热情好客，所聘用的厨子能和巴黎的任何一个高厨比高低。有一点是肯定的：摆上餐桌的全都是最为可口的时令菜。他提供的酒可以证明他在这方面有很高的鉴赏力。他挑选客人看的是社会地位，而不是看客人本人如何，这是事实，可他也会至少请上一两个能说会笑的，所以他的宴会桌上几乎总是充满欢声笑语。一些人在背后嘲笑他，说他是个龌龊小人，可一旦受到他的邀请，却又会欣然接受。他讲法语字正腔圆，既流利又准确，音色很是纯正。他还曾经模仿英国人说话，使出了九牛二虎的力气，你的听力必须非常敏锐，才能听出他的英语中夹杂着一些美音。只要不以公爵和公爵夫人们为话题，他什么都说；现在即便以公爵和公爵夫人们为话题，他也放得开，敢于说些风趣的话了，特别是跟你单独在一起的时候，因为他的地位现已固若金汤。他风趣，又喜欢挖苦人，而那些高官显贵的丑闻逸事没有一件会不传到他的耳朵里来的。X公主最近产一子，其生身父亲是谁，Y侯爵的情妇是何人，这些我都是从他口中得知的。我敢断言，对于高官显贵的私生活，就连马塞尔·普鲁斯特恐怕也不如艾略特·邓普顿知道的那么多。

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：
在巴黎时，我时常跟他一起吃午饭，有时在他公寓里，有时在饭馆里。我喜欢逛古董商店，偶尔也买些，不过更多的是只看不买，而艾略特总是兴冲冲陪我一起去逛。他是个行家，真心实意地热爱艺术品。我觉得巴黎的每一家这类商店，他没有不熟悉的，并且跟每家店的老板都很熟稔。他特别爱砍价，出门前总是要叮咛我：

“If there's anything you want don't try to buy it yourself. Just give me a hint and let me do the rest.”
“你要是相中了哪样东西，先不要急着买。你只需给我使个眼色，下来就看我的了。”

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.
我喜欢上哪样东西，他就帮着压价，最终以一半价钱成交，这会叫他高兴得不得了。看他玩这种讨价还价的游戏实在过瘾。他会争论、哄骗、发脾气、以情动人、说风凉话、挑出商品的毛病、威胁再也不迈入这家店铺的门槛、叹气、耸肩、好言相劝以及满脸怒容地朝外走，最后达到自己的理想价位之后，他还会悲哀地摇摇头，就好像他吃了败仗，只好认命一样。然后，他会压低声音用英语对我说：

“Take it with you. It would be cheap at double the money.”
“买吧。就是再多一倍的钱也还是便宜的。”

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.
艾略特是个有激情的天主教徒。他在巴黎住下不久，就碰见一位神父。那人善于劝说异教徒皈依天主教，导引许多迷途的羊羔回到了羊圈里，因此而颇负盛名。此人饭局特多，能说会道远近闻名。他的教务活动只限于富贵人家。虽然出身寒门，却被许多大户人家尊为座上宾，艾略特见了自然便动了心思。他悄悄告诉一位在神父的劝说下皈依正教的美国阔太太，说他家里虽然一直信奉圣公会教义，而他本人却是对天主教会向往已久。一天晚上，阔太太请艾略特吃饭，跟神父见个面。饭桌旁仅有他们三人，神父说话口若悬河。女主人将话题引到天主教之上时，神父讲得天花乱坠、地涌金莲，而且丝毫不迂腐。虽则身为神父，但也是江湖上的人，对另一个江湖上的人是要说些入行的话的。艾略特发现神父竟然知道自己的来头，有点受宠若惊。

“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还跟我谈起你来呢，她觉得你是个很有头脑的人。”

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.
艾略特快活得满脸通红。公爵夫人他是拜谒过的，可是，怎么也没想到她会对他留意在心。神父心地宽广、观点入时，有着海纳百川的胸襟，一番关于天主教的议论谈得既高明又温和。根据他的高谈阔论，艾略特觉得天主教会就像个高级俱乐部，任何有教养的人如果不加入就对不起自己。六个月后，艾略特就入了教。皈依了天主教，再加上热衷于天主教的慈善事业，慷慨解囊，好多家以前对他关着的大门也被他叩开了。

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.
他改弦更张，放弃父辈的宗教信仰，也许动机不纯，但自从皈依之后，他对天主教的虔诚之心却是无可置疑的。他每逢周日去上流社会人士经常光顾的教堂做弥撒，定期忏悔，每隔一段时间就去参拜一次罗马圣地。久而久之，教廷因他虔诚，封他做罗马教皇内侍，又见他兢兢业业、恪尽职守，奖给他一枚圣墓勋章。说实在话，他在天主教方面所取得的成功不亚于他混迹社会所获得的成果。

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.
我时常问自己，是什么原因使得这样一个聪明、和蔼、有教养的人迷了心窍，成了一个趋炎附势者？他不是暴发户，其父在南方一个大学当过校长，祖父是名声显赫的神学家。以他的聪明机灵，决不会看不出那些应他邀请的人大多只是混一顿吃喝，有些是没脑子的，有些毫不足道。那些人响亮的头衔搞得他眼花缭乱，令他对那些人的缺点视而不见。我只能这样猜想，跟这些家世古老的绅士混个关系熟，充当贵妇人们的忠实侍卫，给他一种永不厌烦的胜利感。他的心底可能涌动着一股浪漫的激情，使得他在这些弱智的法国小公爵身上能看到当年跟随圣路易到圣地去征战的十字军战士，从外强中干、沉迷于狩猎狐狸的英国伯爵身上能看到他们侍奉亨利八世前往“金布之地”的祖先。跟这些人在一起，他觉得就像生活在天地广阔、英雄气十足的古代里一样。大概他在翻阅《哥达年鉴》时，心里会激情勃发，那一个又一个姓氏令他产生怀古之幽思，想到古代的战争、史册上的攻伐、外交场上的诡谲风云以及宫闱情话。艾略特·邓普顿就是这么一个性情中人。