双语·《刀锋》 第四章 七

CHAPTER FOUR 7
第四章 七

I mentioned Suzanne Rouvier at the beginning of this book. I had known her for ten or twelve years and at the date which I have now reached she must have been not far from forty.She was not beautiful；in fact she was rather ugly.She was tall for a Frenchwoman, with a short body, long legs, and long arms, and she held herself gawkily as though she didn't know how to cope with the length of her limbs.The colour of her hair changed according to her whim, but most often it was a reddish brown.She had a small square face, with very prominent cheekbones vividly rouged, and a large mouth with heavily-painted lips.None of this sounds attractive, but it was；it is true that she had a good skin, strong white teeth, and big, vividly blue eyes.They were her best feature, and she made the most of them by painting her eyelashes and her eyelids.She had a shrewd, roving, friendly look and she combined great good nature with a proper degree of toughness.In the life she had led she needed to be tough.Her mother, the widow of a small official in the government, had on his death returned to her native village in Anjou to live on her pension, and when Suzanne was fifteen she apprenticed her to a dress-maker in the neighbouring town, which was near enough for her to be able to come home on Sundays.It was during her fortnight's holiday, when she had reached the age of seventeen, that she was seduced by an artist who was spending his summer in the village to paint landscape.She already knew very well that without a penny to bless herself with her chance of marriage was remote and when the painter, at the end of the summer, proposed taking her to Paris she consented with alacrity.He took her to live with him in a rabbit-warren of studios in Montmartre, and she spent a very pleasant year in his company.At the end of this he told her that he had not sold a single canvas and could no longer afford the luxury of a mistress.She had been expecting the news for some time and was not disconcerted by it.He asked her if she wanted to go home and when she said she didn't, told her that another painter in the same block would be glad to have her.The man he named had made a pass at her two or three times and though she had rebuffed him it had been with so much good humour that he was not affronted.She did not dislike him and so accepted the proposition with placidity.It was convenient that she did not have to go to the expense of taking a taxi to transport her trunk.Her second lover, a good deal older than the first, but still presentable, painted her in every conceivable position, clothed and in the nude；and she passed two happy years with him.She was proud to think that with her as a model he had made his first real success and she showed me a reproduction cut out of an illustrated paper of the picture that had brought it about.It had been purchased by an American gallery.It was a nude, life-size, and shewas lying in something of the same position as Manet's Olympe.The artist had been quick to see that there was something modern and amusing in her proportions, and, fining down her thin body to emaciation, he had elongated her long legs and arms, he had emphasized her high cheekbones and made her blue eyes extravagantly large.From the reproduction I naturally could not tell what the colour was like, but I was sensible of the elegance of the design.The picture brought him sufficient notoriety to enable him to marry an admiring widow with money, and Suzanne, well aware that a man had to think of his future, accepted the rupture of their cordial relations without acrimony.
在本书开篇的时候，我曾提到过苏姗娜·鲁维埃。我认识此人已有十一二年了，此时再提起，她恐怕已近不惑之年了。她并不漂亮，其实可以说其貌不扬。在法国女人里面，她个子算是高的，短身躯，长胳臂长腿，笨手笨脚，仿佛真不知如何摆布那么长的四肢才好。她凭着自己的心情将头发染成各种颜色，但多数时间她的头发是红褐色的。她有一张小小的四方脸，颧骨特别高，浓妆艳抹，大嘴巴，嘴唇上涂着厚厚的一层唇膏。这一说，好像她全无动人之处了，但偏偏还是有人看上了她。话又说回来，她皮肤很好，有一口结实的白牙和一双炯炯有神的蓝色大眼睛。眼睛算是她身上最漂亮的部位了，所以她便把睫毛和眼皮都染黑加以渲染。她看上去既精明又和善，像是见过世面的，本性既有宽厚的一面又有强硬的一面。在她的人生中，是不得不强硬的。她父亲是一个政府部门的小公务员，死后母亲守寡，回到安茹州她原来那个村庄，靠抚恤金过活。苏姗娜十五岁那年，被送到邻镇一个服装店里当学徒，那儿离家近，星期天可以回家。十七岁那年夏天，苏姗娜有两个星期假期，就在休假期间被一个来村子里画风景的画家勾引上了。她心里很清楚，家里一分钱的嫁妆也出不起，嫁人的事遥遥无期。所以，在夏天快完时，画家提出要带她到巴黎去，她便欣然答应了。他带她来到巴黎的蒙马特高地，住进一个兔子窝般大小的画室，二人相依相伴，度过了一年快乐的时光。末了，他告诉她，说自己连一幅画也没有卖出去，再也养不起情妇了。她早就料到会有这一天，没有为之感到慌乱。他问她想不想回老家，她说不想，于是他就说同一个街区有个画家愿意跟她一起生活。他说的那个人曾经勾引过她两三次，被她拒绝了，但没伤和气，没有令对方感到难堪。对那人她并不感到讨厌，所以泰然地接受了这项提议。搬家很方便，用不着花钱叫出租车，提着箱子就过去了。这第二个情人比第一个年龄大许多，但仍像模像样的，让她摆各种姿势为她画像，有穿衣服的，也有裸体的。二人同居，高高兴兴度过了两年的时光。想起来让她感到自豪的是，他的第一张真正成功的画作是以她当模特儿的。她曾经让我看过那幅画，是从一份介绍此画的画报上剪下来的。这幅画后来被美国的一家画廊买了去。这是一幅裸体画，真人一般大小——她呈卧式，姿势和马奈的油画《奥林普》差不多。这个画家敏锐地发现她的身体比例有一种现代情趣，于是采用夸张的手法，将她原本消瘦的身子画得骨瘦如柴，把她的长胳膊长腿画得更长，两个高颧骨更为突出，一双蓝眼睛大得出奇。从剪下来的画上看不出用的是什么色调，但构图相当有看头。此画叫他名声大噪，赢得了一个阔寡妇的敬仰，二人喜结良缘。苏姗娜深知男人得以自己的前程为重，没吵没闹，和他断绝了这段你亲我爱的关系。

For by now she knew her value. She liked the artistic life, it amused her to pose, and after the day's work was over she found it pleasant to go to the café and sit with painters, their wives and mistresses, while they discussed art, reviled dealers, and told bawdy stories.On this occasion, having seen the break coming, she had made her plans.She picked out a young man who was unattached and who, she thought, had talent.She chose her opportunity when he was alone at the café，explained the circumstances, and without further preamble suggested that they should live together.
此时，她已认识到了自身的价值。她喜欢艺术家的那种生活，喜欢给画家当模特儿。干完一天的活，就去泡咖啡馆，跟画家们、画家的妻子和情妇坐在一起，听画家们谈论艺术，诅咒画商，讲些下流故事，她觉得这种生活很有情趣。在这期间，她已看到了自己与那位画家的关系快到了头，便打起了小算盘。她相中了一个身边没女人的年轻画家，觉得他很有才气。她瞅准机会，一次见这位画家单独坐在咖啡馆里，便向他讲了自己的处境，开门见山地提出想跟他一道过日子。

“I'm twenty and a good housekeeper. I'll save you money there and I'll save you the expense of a model.Look at your shirt, it's a disgrace, and your studio is a mess.You want a woman to look after you.”
“我今年二十岁，持家有方，在家务方面能为你省下一笔钱，还能为你省下雇用模特儿的开销。瞧瞧你的衬衫，简直不像个样子，你的画室乱得像鸡窝。你需要有个女人照应你。”

He knew she was a good sort. He was amused at her proposal and she saw he was inclined to accept.
画家早就知道她很能干，听了她的提议，产生了兴趣。她见对方有接受的意思，便接着说道：

“After all, there's no harm in trying，”she said.“If it doesn't work we shall neither of us be worse off than we are now.”
“先试试反正也没有害处。万一行不通，咱俩谁也不会有损失的。”

He was a non-representative artist and he painted portraits of her in squares and oblongs. He painted her with one eye and no mouth.He painted her as a geometrical arrangement in black and brown and grey.He painted her in a criss-cross of lines through which you vaguely saw a human face.She stayed with him for a year and a half and left him of her own accord.
他是个非表现派的画家，给她画像画的全是些四方块和长方块；画她只有一只眼睛，没有嘴；把她画成一幅黑、棕、灰色交织的几何图案；画成一大堆杂乱无章的线条，从中勉强可以看出一张人脸。她和他同居了一年半，后来自动离开了他。

“Why?”I asked her.“Didn't you like him?”
“为什么要走？”我问她，“你不喜欢他吗？”

“Yes, he was a nice boy. I didn't think he was getting any further.He was repeating himself.”
“喜欢倒是喜欢，他是个挺不错的小伙子，只是觉得他再不会有进步了，老是重复自己。”

She found no difficulty in discovering a successor. She remained faithful to artists.
没费吹灰之力，她又傍上了一个画家。不管跟谁，她始终都不离开画家圈子。

“I've always been in painting，”she said.“I was with a sculptor for six months, but I don't know why, it said nothing to me.”
“我一直都在画界打转。”她说，“我和一个雕塑家待过半年，但不知为什么总觉得没情没趣的。”

She was pleased to think that she had never separated from a lover with unpleasantness. She was not only a good model, but a good housewife.She loved working about the studio she happened for a while to be living in and took pride in keeping it in apple-pie order.She was a good cook and could turn out a tasty meal at the smallest possible cost.She mended her lovers'socks and sewed buttons on their shirts.
每次跟情人分手，从没有出现过叫人不愉快的事情，这让她想起来都感到高兴。她不仅是个出色的模特儿，也是个能干的主妇。不管住进哪个画室，她都喜欢那一方之地，把画室收拾得整整齐齐，并以此而感到自豪。她厨艺精湛，花很少一点钱就能烧出极为可口的饭菜。情人的袜子破了她给补，情人衣服上的扣子掉了她给缝。

“I never saw why because a man was an artist he shouldn't be neat and tidy.”
“我简直就不明白为什么一个人因为是个画家，就不能穿得整整齐齐的。”

She only had one failure. This was a young Englishman who had more money than anyone she had known before and he had a car.
她只有一次日子过不下去的。那是和一个英国小伙子的往事。那人比她以前的任何一个情人都有钱，而且还有一辆汽车。

“But it didn't last long，”she said.“He used to get drunk and then he was tiresome. I wouldn't have minded that if he'd been a good painter, but, my dear, it was grotesque.I told him I was going to leave him and he began to cry.He said he loved me.
“不过，我们俩没多久便分手了。”她说，他酗酒成性，一喝醉便叫人心烦。如果他的画好，我也不会在乎的，可是，亲爱的，他的那些画全是涂鸦之作。我跟他说要离开他了，他就哭了起来，说他爱我。

“‘My poor friend，'I said to him.‘Whether you love me or not isn't of the smallest consequence. What is of consequence is that you have no talent.Return to your own country and go into the grocery business.That is all you're fit for.'”
“‘我可怜的朋友，’我对他说，‘你爱不爱我都无关紧要。关键是你没有绘画的天赋。还是回到你们国家去吧，开家杂货铺。你适合干那一行。’”

“What did he say to that?”I asked.
“他听了后怎么说？”我问。

“He flew into a passion and told me to get out. But it was good advice I gave him, you know.I hope he took it, he wasn't a bad fellow；only a bad artist.”
“他听了勃然大怒，让我赶快滚蛋。你知道，忠言是逆耳的。真希望他能听人劝。他不是个坏人，只是画技太差。”

Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult to a light woman, but the profession Suzanne had adopted had its ups and downs like any other. There was the Scandinavian for instance.She was so imprudent as to fall in love with him.
在风月场上，对于一个风尘女子而言，世情练达、心地善良是有好处的，可以化解一部分困难，但欲海情波中毕竟有许多沉浮，苏姗娜也不例外。她和那个斯堪的纳维亚人的恋情堪为借鉴。她千不该万不该，就不该坠入那张情网。

“He was a god, my dear，”she told me.“He was immensely tall, as tall as the Eiffel Tower, with great broadshoulders and a magnificent chest, a waist that you could almost put your hands round, a belly flat, but flat like the palm of my hand, and muscles like a professional athlete's. He had golden, wavy hair and a skin of honey.And he didn't paint badly.I liked his brush work, it was bold and dashing, and he had a rich vivid palette.”
“他简直就是天神一样的人物，”她告诉我说，“个子特别高，高得就像埃菲尔铁塔，宽肩膀、阔胸脯，腰细得用两只手几乎就可以围过来，肚子扁平，平得和我的手掌一样，肌肉结实得像个职业运动员，一头金黄色的卷发，皮肤细如白瓷。他的画技也不错。我喜欢他的笔触——大胆而有力，他的着色丰富活泼。”

She made up her mind to have a child by him. He was against it, but she told him she would take the responsibility.
她算计着想和他生个孩子。对方坚决反对，可她说孩子由她负责抚养。

‘He liked it well enough when it was born. Oh, such a lovely baby, rosy, fair-haired and blue-eyed like her papa.It was a girl.”
“后来生了个女孩，他爱如掌上明珠。那孩子可爱极了，玫瑰色的皮肤，金色的头发，蓝色的眼睛，酷似她的爸爸。”

Suzanne lived with him for three years.
苏姗娜和他同居，度过了三年的时光。

“He was a little stupid and sometimes he bored me, but he was very sweet and so beautiful that I didn't really mind.”
“他有点愚蠢，有时候叫人心烦。不过，他十分殷勤，而且长得那么英俊，我也就不太在乎了。”

Then he got a telegram from Sweden to say his father was dying and he must come back at once. He promised to return, but she had a premonition that he never would.He left her all the money he had.She didn't hear from him for a month and then she got a letter from him saying that his father had died, leaving his affairs in confusion, and that he felt it his duty to remain by his mother and go into the lumber business.He enclosed a draft for ten thousand francs.Suzanne was not the woman to give way to despair.She came to the conclusion very quickly that a child would hamper her activities, so she took the baby girl down to her mother's and left her, along with the ten thousand francs, in her care.
后来，他接到瑞典的一封电报，说他父亲病危，要他立刻回家。他满口答应一定回来，可是苏姗娜有个预感，觉得他会一去不复返。他把所有的钱都留给了苏姗娜，走后一个月杳无音信。后来，苏姗娜收到他的一封信，说父亲已去世，一大堆乱麻一样的事情需要料理，说自己必须对母亲尽孝，留下来经营木材生意。信中附了一张一万法郎的支票。苏姗娜可不是那种遇事便一蹶不振的人。她当下就做出了判断，认为有个孩子在身边会妨碍她做那半掩门的生意。故而，她将小女儿带到乡下，把女儿连同那一万法郎交给自己的母亲，托她代为抚养。

“It was heart-rending, I adored that child, but in life one has to be practical.”
“我的心都快碎了。我爱那孩子，但过日子得讲求实际呀。”

“What happened then?”I asked.
“以后的情况怎样？”

“Oh, I got along. I found a friend.”
“唉，混日子呗。我又找到了一个朋友。”

But then came her typhoid. She always spoke of it as“my typhoid”as a millionaire might speak of“my place at Palm Beach”or“my grouse moor”.She nearly died of it and was in the hospital for three months.When she left she was nothing but skin and bone, as weak as a rat, and so nervous that she could do nothing but cry.She wasn't much use to anyone then, she wasn't strong enough to pose and she had very little money.
后来，她染上了伤寒。提起那病，她总是说“我的伤寒”，就像百万富翁炫耀自己的度假地时说“我的棕榈滩”或者“我的松鸡泽”一样。那场病差点要了她的命，让她在医院里躺了三个月。出院时，她已骨瘦如柴，弱不禁风，神经脆弱得动不动就想哭。她成了个没有价值的窝囊废，当模特儿吧，身体支撑不下来，口袋里的钱已所剩无几。

“Oh la, la，”she said，“I passed through some hard times. Luckily I had good friends.But you know what artists are, it's a struggle for them to make both ends meet, anyway.I was never a pretty woman, I had something of course, but I wasn't twenty any more.Then I ran into the cubist I'd been with；he'd been married and divorced since we lived together, he'd given up cubism and become a surrealist.He thought he could use me and said he was lonely；he said he’d give me board and lodgings and I promise you, I was glad to accept.”
“哎呀呀，”她说道，“那是一段艰难的日月。幸亏我还有些好朋友帮忙。不过，你也知道画家的窘境，个个日子都过得紧巴巴的。我从来就不怎么漂亮，只是有点魅力罢了。但毕竟不再是二十岁的青春女子了。后来碰上了那个曾经跟我同居过的立体派画家。自从我们分手之后，他结了婚，随即又离了。他已放弃了立体派画风，秉承了超现实派的衣钵。他觉得可以利用我，于是说自己单身很孤独，提出和我一道生活，给我提供食宿。实不相瞒，我当下就同意了。”

Suzanne stayed with him till she met her manufacturer. The manufacturer was brought to the studio by a friend on the chance that he might buy one of the ex-cubist's pictures, and Suzanne, anxious to effect a sale, set herself out to be as agreeable to him as she knew how.He could not make up his mind to buy on the spur of the moment, but said he would like to come and see the pictures again.He did, a fortnight later, and this time she received the impression that he had come to see her rather than works of art.When he left, still without buying, he pressed her hand with unnecessary warmth.Next day the friend who had brought him waylaid her when she was on her way to market to buy the day's provisions and told her that the manufacturer had taken a fancy to her and wanted to know if she would dine with him next time he came to Paris, because he had a proposition to make to her.
就这样，苏姗娜一直和这位画家生活在一起，直至那位制造商出现。制造商是一个朋友领到画室来的，指望着能买一幅这位前立体派画家的画。苏姗娜一心想促成这笔生意，于是施展出手段来热情待客。制造商不能当场决定买还是不买，但是说过后再来看看。两个星期后，他果然来了。这一次，苏姗娜有个印象：他是来看她的，而非看画。离开时，他仍旧没有买，跟她握手时用了一点劲，显得有些过分亲热。次日，那个领制造商来看画的朋友趁她到菜市场买菜之际，半路截住了她，说制造商看上了她，下次来巴黎时，想请她吃顿饭，到时候有话跟她说。

“What does he see in me, d'you suppose?”she asked.
“你觉得他看上了我什么呢？”她问道。

“He's an amateur of modern art. He's seen portraits of you.You intrigue him.He's a provincial and a business-man.You represent Paris to him, art, romance, everything that he misses in Lille.”
“他是现代艺术的爱好者，见过你的肖像画，极为倾倒。他是外省人，而且是做生意的。你在他眼中代表着巴黎、艺术、爱情——这些都是他在生活中所缺乏的。”

“Has he money?”she asked in her sensible way.
“他有钱吗？”她理智地问。

“Plenty.”
“有许多钱。”

“Well, I'll dine with him. There's no harm hearing what he's got to say.”
“那好，我愿意和他吃饭。他有什么话，听听也无妨。”

He took her to Maxim's, which impressed her；she had dressed very quietly, and she felt as she looked at the women around her that she could pass very well for a respectable married woman. He ordered a bottle of champagne, and this persuaded her that he was a gentleman.When they came to coffee he put his proposition before her.Shethought it very handsome.He told her that he came to Paris regularly once a fortnight to attend a board meeting, and it was tiresome in the evening to dine alone and if he felt the need of feminine society to go to a brothel.Being a married man with two children, he thought that an unsatisfactory arrangement for a man in his position.Their common friend had told him all about her and he knew she was a woman of discretion.He was no longer young and he had no wish to get entangled with a giddy girl.He was something of a collector of the modern school and her connexion with it was sympathetic to him.Then he came down to brass tacks.He was prepared to take an apartment for her and furnish it and provide her with an income of two thousand francs a month.In return for this he wished to enjoy her company for one night every fourteen days.Suzanne had never had the spending of so much money in her life, and she quickly reckoned that on such a sum she could not only live and dress as such an advancement in the world evidently demanded, but provide for her daughter and put away something for a rainy day.But she hesitated for a moment.She had always been“in painting”，as she put it, and there was no doubt in her mind that it was a come-down to be the mistress of a businessman.
制造商带她去马克西姆饭店吃饭，给她留下了好印象。她的穿着十分素雅。瞧瞧周围的女人，相比之下，她觉得自己看起来不错，非常像一个体面的已婚女子。他叫了一瓶女士香槟，让她觉得他很有绅士风度。饭后喝咖啡的时候，他将开出的条件摆在了她面前。她一听，认为对方很是慷慨。他告诉她，说自己每两个星期要来巴黎开一次董事会。晚上吃饭老是孤零零的一个人，想女人就去找青楼女子，日子过得味如嚼蜡。他结了婚，有两个孩子，但以他这种身份的人，过这种日子难以令人满意。他们俩都认识的那个朋友把她的情况如实告诉了他，他觉得她是个识进退的女子。他已不再年轻，不愿跟不懂事的女孩子纠缠在一起。他怎么也算是个现代艺术的收藏家，而她和画界联系紧密，跟他有共同语言。接下来，他讲了具体安排，说准备给她租套公寓，然后装修一下，每月给她两千法郎的零花钱。作为交换，他希望每两个星期能和她共同度过一个良夜佳宵。苏姗娜以前从未有过这许多钱供她私用。她飞快计算了一下，觉得这笔钱不仅够她吃饭穿衣，过衣食无忧的日子，还可以供养女儿，另外能再积攒一些以备不时之需。不过，她还是犹豫了一下。她素来以“画界人”自居，显然还是觉得给一个生意人当情妇未免有些掉价。

“C'est à prendre ou à laisser，”he said.“You can take it or leave it.”
“Cest à prendre ou à laisser，”他说，“你可以接受，也可以不接受。”

He was not repulsive to her and the rosette of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole proved that he was a man of distinction. She smiled.
她并不讨厌他，而且看见了他纽扣孔里镶嵌的玫瑰花状的荣誉胸章，认定他是个有头有脸的人，于是冲他嫣然一笑。

“Je prends，”she replied.“I'll take it.”
“Je prends，”她回答说，“我接受。”