The sale was to take place on the 16th. A day’s interval had been left between the visiting days and the sale, in order to give time for taking down the hangings, curtains, etc. —
出售活动将在16日举行。为了给拆卸装饰和窗帘等工作留出时间，访问日和出售活动之间间隔了一天。 —

I had just returned from abroad. It was natural that I had not heard of Marguerite’s death among the pieces of news which one’s friends always tell on returning after an absence. —
我刚从国外回来。我当然没有听说过玛格丽特去世的消息，这是因为在离开后回来时，朋友总是会告诉一些消息。 —

Marguerite was a pretty woman; but though the life of such women makes sensation enough, their death makes very little. —
玛格丽特是个漂亮的女人；但是这种女人的生活总会引起轰动，而她们去世后却引起的轰动很小。 —

They are suns which set as they rose, unobserved. —
她们就像太阳一样照耀着，默默无闻地落下。 —

Their death, when they die young, is heard of by all their lovers at the same moment, for in Paris almost all the lovers of a well-known woman are friends. —
她们年轻去世时，所有的情人都会同时听到这个消息，在巴黎，几乎所有一位知名女人的情人都是朋友。 —

A few recollections are exchanged, and everybody’s life goes on as if the incident had never occurred, without so much as a tear.
一些回忆交换后，每个人的生活就像没有发生这件事情一样继续，甚至没有一滴眼泪。

Nowadays, at twenty-five, tears have become so rare a thing that they are not to be squandered indiscriminately. —
如今，25岁时，泪水已经变得如此稀少，不能随意浪费。 —

It is the most that can be expected if the parents who pay for being wept over are wept over in return for the price they pay.
如果为付出报酬而付出代价的父母希望得到同等的哭泣回报，那么这已经是能够期望到的最多了。

As for me, though my initials did not occur on any of Marguerite’s belongings, that instinctive indulgence, that natural pity that I have already confessed, set me thinking over her death, more perhaps than it was worth thinking over. —
至于我自己，虽然在玛格丽特的遗物中没有出现我的名字缩写，但我已经承认的本能纵容和内心的怜悯使我对她的死亡反思得更多，也许超过了值得反思的程度。 —

I remembered having often met Marguerite in the Bois, where she went regularly every day in a little blue coupé drawn by two magnificent bays, and I had noticed in her a distinction quite apart from other women of her kind, a distinction which was enhanced by a really exceptional beauty.
我记得曾经在树林里经常遇到过玛格丽特，在那里她每天都坐着一辆蓝色的小轿车由两匹华丽的赛马拉着，而且我注意到她与其他同类女性截然不同，她的卓越之处还有一个真正非凡的美丽。

These unfortunate creatures whenever they go out are always accompanied by somebody or other. —
这些可怜的女人出门时总是要有人陪伴着。 —

As no man cares to make himself conspicuous by being seen in their company, and as they are afraid of solitude, they take with them either those who are not well enough off to have a carriage, or one or another of those elegant, ancient ladies, whose elegance is a little inexplicable, and to whom one can always go for information in regard to the women whom they accompany.
因为没有人愿意显眼地和她们在一起，而她们又怕孤独，所以她们带上的人要么是那些没有财力坐马车的人，要么是那些优雅、年迈的女士之一，她们的优雅有点让人难以理解，但却总是能告诉你关于她们陪伴的女人的信息。

In Marguerite’s case it was quite different. —
在玛格丽特的情况下完全不同。 —

She was always alone when she drove in the Champs-Elysées, lying back in her carriage as much as possible, dressed in furs in winter, and in summer wearing very simple dresses; —
当她在香榭丽舍大道上驾驶时，她总是独自一人，尽可能地躺在马车里，冬天穿着毛皮，夏天穿着非常简单的服装； —

and though she often passed people whom she knew, her smile, when she chose to smile, was seen only by them, and a duchess might have smiled in just such a manner. —
尽管她经常经过认识的人，当她选择微笑时，她的微笑只被他们看到，一个公爵夫人可能会以这样的方式微笑。 —

She did not drive to and fro like the others, from the Rond-Point to the end of the Champs-Elysées. —
她没有像其他人一样来回开车，从德龙广场到香榭丽舍大道的尽头。 —

She drove straight to the Bois. There she left her carriage, walked for an hour, returned to her carriage, and drove rapidly home.
她直接开车去了布瓦勒封。在那里她下了车，步行了一个小时，然后回到车上，迅速回家。

All these circumstances which I had so often witnessed came back to my memory, and I regretted her death as one might regret the destruction of a beautiful work of art.
我记起了我曾经亲眼见证过的所有这些情况，我为她的死感到后悔，就像一个美丽作品的毁灭一样后悔。

It was impossible to see more charm in beauty than in that of Marguerite. —
在玛格丽特身上，美的魅力可谓无与伦比。 —

Excessively tall and thin, she had in the fullest degree the art of repairing this oversight of Nature by the mere arrangement of the things she wore. —
她身材高挑而瘦削，却在物品搭配的巧妙安排中恰到好处地修饰了这个疏忽。 —

Her cashmere reached to the ground, and showed on each side the large flounces of a silk dress, and the heavy muff which she held pressed against her bosom was surrounded by such cunningly arranged folds that the eye, however exacting, could find no fault with the contour of the lines. —
她的羊绒披风垂至地面，两侧露出了丝质裙子的大摺边，她抱在胸前的厚重手袋则被巧妙地摆放的褶皱所包围，无论多么挑剔的眼睛也找不出线条轮廓的瑕疵。 —

Her head, a marvel, was the object of the most coquettish care. —
她那头令人惊叹的发型也是她最妩媚打理过的地方。 —

It was small, and her mother, as Musset would say, seemed to have made it so in order to make it with care.
小巧玲珑，如同穆塞说的那样，似乎是为了精心打理而创造的。

Set, in an oval of indescribable grace, two black eyes, surmounted by eyebrows of so pure a curve that it seemed as if painted; —
它位于一个难以形容的优雅椭圆中，两只黑眼睛凸显出眉毛的纯净轮廓，仿佛是绘画而成的。 —

veil these eyes with lovely lashes, which, when drooped, cast their shadow on the rosy hue of the cheeks; —
用可爱的睫毛轻轻遮住这双眼睛，当它们垂下时，投射出阴影，与脸颊上的粉色相映。 —

trace a delicate, straight nose, the nostrils a little open, in an ardent aspiration toward the life of the senses; —
描绘出一只精致而挺直的鼻子，鼻孔微微张开，热切地向感官世界渴望。 —

design a regular mouth, with lips parted graciously over teeth as white as milk; —
勾勒出一个匀称的嘴巴，嘴唇优雅地张开，露出牙齿洁白如奶的笑容。 —

colour the skin with the down of a peach that no hand has touched, and you will have the general aspect of that charming countenance. —
用无人触摸的桃子绒毛来渲染肌肤，这样你就会得到那张迷人面容的整体形象。 —

The hair, black as jet, waving naturally or not, was parted on the forehead in two large folds and draped back over the head, leaving in sight just the tip of the ears, in which there glittered two diamonds, worth four to five thousand francs each. —
头发乌黑如墨，自然而然地波浪起伏，额头上分开成两束大卷发，盖住头顶，只露出耳尖位置，两颗耳朵上闪耀着两颗钻石，每颗价值四到五千法郎。 —

How it was that her ardent life had left on Marguerite’s face the virginal, almost childlike expression, which characterized it, is a problem which we can but state, without attempting to solve it.
对于Marguerite的生活如何让她的脸上留下这种童贞般的神情，这是一个我们只能陈述而不能解答的问题。

Marguerite had a marvellous portrait of herself, by Vidal, the only man whose pencil could do her justice. —
Marguerite有一幅由Vidal绘制的令人惊叹的肖像，他是唯一一个能够真实地描绘她的人。 —

I had this portrait by me for a few days after her death, and the likeness was so astonishing that it has helped to refresh my memory in regard to some points which I might not otherwise have remembered.
在她去世后的几天里，我把这幅肖像放在身边，相似之处如此惊人，以至于帮助我回忆起一些我可能不会记得的细节。

Some among the details of this chapter did not reach me until later, but I write them here so as not to be obliged to return to them when the story itself has begun.
这一章的一些细节直到后来才传达给我，但我在这里写下它们，以免在故事本身开始时不得不回过头来提及它们。

Marguerite was always present at every first night, and passed every evening either at the theatre or the ball. —
Marguerite总是出席每一个首映式，每天晚上要么去剧院，要么去舞会。 —

Whenever there was a new piece she was certain to be seen, and she invariably had three things with her on the ledge of her ground-floor box: —
每当有一部新作品上演，她肯定会出现，而她的包厢一层的棚上总是摆放着三样东西：她的歌剧望远镜，一袋糖果和一束山茶花。 —

her opera-glass, a bag of sweets, and a bouquet of camellias.
她的歌剧望远镜、一袋糖果和一束山茶花，总是放在她的一楼包厢的棚上。

For twenty-five days of the month the camellias were white, and for five they were red; —
一个月中有二十五天的时间，韵味高雅的山茶花都是洁白无暇的，而在另外五天，它们则妖娆艳丽油滋生。 —

no one ever knew the reason of this change of colour, which I mention though I can not explain it; —
没有人知道这种变色的原因，虽然我提到了它，但却无法解释。 —

it was noticed both by her friends and by the habitués of the theatres to which she most often went. —
无论是她的朋友还是她经常去的剧院的常客都注意到了这一点。 —

She was never seen with any flowers but camellias. —
除了山茶花，从未有人见过她戴过别的花。 —

At the florist’s, Madame Barjon’s, she had come to be called “the Lady of the Camellias, ” and the name stuck to her.
她在花店巴尔容夫人那儿已经被称为“山茶花女士”，这个名字一直保留着。

Like all those who move in a certain set in Paris, I knew that Marguerite had lived with some of the most fashionable young men in society, that she spoke of it openly, and that they themselves boasted of it; —
和我一样，在巴黎的某个圈子里活动的人都知道，玛格丽特曾与一些最时尚的年轻人在一起生活过，她公开说过，并且他们本人也在夸耀，所以似乎大家都对此感到满意。 —

so that all seemed equally pleased with one another. —
因此，彼此相处都很愉快。 —

Nevertheless, for about three years, after a visit to Bagnères, she was said to be living with an old duke, a foreigner, enormously rich, who had tried to remove her as far as possible from her former life, and, as it seemed, entirely to her own satisfaction.
然而，据说在参观巴涅尔后的三年中，她与一位老公爵同居，这位外国人非常富有，他试图把她从她以前的生活中尽可能远离，并且似乎完全使她满意。

This is what I was told on the subject. In the spring of 1847 Marguerite was so ill that the doctors ordered her to take the waters, and she went to Bagnères. —
这就是我对此事听到的。在1847年春天，玛格丽特病得很重，医生建议她去汤泉疗养，她就去了巴涅尔。 —

Among the invalids was the daughter of this duke; —
在病人中有这位公爵的女儿； —

she was not only suffering from the same complaint, but she was so like Marguerite in appearance that they might have been taken for sisters; —
她不仅患有相同的疾病，而且在外貌上与玛格丽特如此相像，以至于可能被误认为是姐妹； —

the young duchess was in the last stage of consumption, and a few days after Marguerite’s arrival she died. —
年轻的公爵夫人患有晚期结核病，在玛格丽特到达几天后去世了。 —

One morning, the duke, who had remained at Bagnères to be near the soil that had buried a part of his heart, caught sight of Marguerite at a turn of the road. —
一天早晨，留在巴涅尔守著埋葬了他心中一部分的土壤的公爵，在路的转弯处看到了玛格丽特。 —

He seemed to see the shadow of his child, and going up to her, he took her hands, embraced and wept over her, and without even asking her who she was, begged her to let him love in her the living image of his dead child. —
他似乎看到了他孩子的影子，走近她，握住她的手，拥抱她，哭泣着，甚至没有问她是谁，恳求她让他在她身上爱他逝去孩子的生动形象。 —

Marguerite, alone at Bagnères with her maid, and not being in any fear of compromising herself, granted the duke’s request. —
玛格丽特，独自在巴格内尔和她的女仆在一起，并且不担心自己的名声受到损害，答应了公爵的请求。 —

Some people who knew her, happening to be at Bagnères, took upon themselves to explain Mademoiselle Gautier’s true position to the duke. —
一些认识她的人碰巧在巴格内尔，他们自愿向公爵解释了高蒂耶小姐的真实情况。 —

It was a blow to the old man, for the resemblance with his daughter was ended in one direction, but it was too late. —
这对老人是一个打击，因为与他女儿的相似之处在某种程度上已经结束了，但为时已晚。 —

She had become a necessity to his heart, his only pretext, his only excuse, for living. —
她已经成为他心中的一种必需品，他生活的唯一借口，他唯一的原因。 —

He made no reproaches, he had indeed no right to do so, but he asked her if she felt herself capable of changing her mode of life, offering her in return for the sacrifice every compensation that she could desire. She consented.
他没有责备她，实际上他没有权利这样做，但他问她是否有能力改变自己的生活方式，为了这个牺牲，他给予她可以期望的一切补偿。她同意了。

It must be said that Marguerite was just then very ill. —
必须说，玛格丽特当时病得很重。 —

The past seemed to her sensitive nature as if it were one of the main causes of her illness, and a sort of superstition led her to hope that God would restore to her both health and beauty in return for her repentance and conversion. —
过去对她敏感的天性来说，就像是她疾病的主要原因之一，一种迷信使她希望上帝会因为她的忏悔和归依而使她恢复健康和美貌。 —

By the end of the summer, the waters, sleep, the natural fatigue of long walks, had indeed more or less restored her health. —
到了夏末，水源、睡眠以及漫长步行的自然疲劳确实或多或少地恢复了她的健康。 —

The duke accompanied her to Paris, where he continued to see her as he had done at Bagnères.
公爵陪伴她来到巴黎，在那里和在巴涅尔见面一样继续见她。

This liaison, whose motive and origin were quite unknown, caused a great sensation, for the duke, already known for his immense fortune, now became known for his prodigality. —
这段关系的动机和起源完全不为人所知，引起了很大轰动，因为已知拥有巨额财富的公爵如今以他的挥霍而闻名。 —

All this was set down to the debauchery of a rich old man, and everything was believed except the truth. —
这一切都归咎于一个富有的老人的放荡生活，除了真相，一切都被当做事实。 —

The father’s sentiment for Marguerite had, in truth, so pure a cause that anything but a communion of hearts would have seemed to him a kind of incest, and he had never spoken to her a word which his daughter might not have heard.
父亲对玛格丽特的感情，确实是如此纯洁的原因，以至于任何非心灵的亲密关系都会使他觉得像是一种乱伦，他从未对她说过一句他女儿不能听到的话。

Far be it from me to make out our heroine to be anything but what she was. —
远不是我描绘我们的女主角成为她不是的样子。 —

As long as she remained at Bagnères, the promise she had made to the duke had not been hard to keep, and she had kept it; —
只要她还在巴涅尔，她对公爵的承诺并不难实现，而且她也一直在履行着。 —

but, once back in Paris, it seemed to her, accustomed to a life of dissipation, of balls, of orgies, as if the solitude, only interrupted by the duke’s stated visits, would kill her with boredom, and the hot breath of her old life came back across her head and heart.
但是一旦回到巴黎，对于一个习惯狂欢、舞会和荒淫生活的人来说，孤独，只被公爵定期的造访所打破，似乎会让她无聊得要死，她头脑和心脏间重燃起旧日生活的炽热气息。

We must add that Marguerite had returned more beautiful than she had ever been; —
值得一提的是玛格丽特回来后比以往任何时候都更加美丽。 —

she was but twenty, and her malady, sleeping but not subdued, continued to give her those feverish desires which are almost always the result of diseases of the chest.
她只有二十岁，而她那仍在睡眠但未消退的疾病，持续给她带来那种发热的欲望，这种欲望几乎总是胸部疾病的结果。

It was a great grief to the duke when his friends, always on the lookout for some scandal on the part of the woman with whom, it seemed to them, he was compromising himself, came to tell him, indeed to prove to him, that at times when she was sure of not seeing him she received other visits, and that these visits were often prolonged till the following day. —
当他的朋友们时刻警惕着这个女人，总以为他和她有某种牵连，告诉他，甚至向他证明，即使在她确定不会看到他的时候，她也接待了其他人，并且这些访问经常延长到第二天，这让公爵非常伤心。 —

On being questioned, Marguerite admitted everything to the duke, and advised him, without arrière-pensée, to concern himself with her no longer, for she felt incapable of carrying out what she had undertaken, and she did not wish to go on accepting benefits from a man whom she was deceiving. —
在被质问之后，玛格丽特对公爵坦白了一切，并真心建议他不要再关心她了，因为她觉得自己无法完成她所承诺的事情，而且她不想继续从一个被她欺骗的人那里接受好处。 —

The duke did not return for a week; it was all he could do, and on the eighth day he came to beg Marguerite to let him still visit her, promising that he would take her as she was, so long as he might see her, and swearing that he would never utter a reproach against her, not though he were to die of it.
公爵一周没有回来；这是他所能做的全部，第八天他来请求玛格丽特让他继续拜访她，承诺他愿意接受她现在的状态，只要能见到她，发誓永远不会指责她，即使因此而死。

This, then, was the state of things three months after Marguerite’s return; —
这就是玛格丽特回来后三个月的情况； —

that is to say, in November or December, 1842.
也就是说，是在1842年11月或12月。