No one was kinder to me at that time than Rose Waterford. —
在那个时候对我最好的人莫过于罗斯·沃特福德。 —

She combined a masculine intelligence with a feminine perversity, and the novels she wrote were original and disconcerting. —
她将男性的智慧与女性的古怪结合在一起，她写的小说既独特又令人困惑。 —

It was at her house one day that I met Charles Strickland’s wife. —
就是在她家的一天，我遇见了查尔斯·斯特里克兰的妻子。 —

Miss Waterford was giving a tea-party, and her small room was more than usually full. —
沃特福德小姐正在举办茶话会，她的小房间比往常更加拥挤。 —

Everyone seemed to be talking, and I, sitting in silence, felt awkward; —
每个人似乎都在谈话，而我坐在那里沉默不语，感到尴尬； —

but I was too shy to break into any of the groups that seemed absorbed in their own affairs. —
但我太害羞了，无法加入那些似乎专心自己事务的人群中。 —

Miss Waterford was a good hostess, and seeing my embarrassment came up to me.
沃特福德小姐是一位好女主人，看到我尴尬的样子就走过来。

“I want you to talk to Mrs. Strickland, ” she said. “She’s raving about your book. “
“我希望你去和斯特里克兰夫人聊天，”她说道。“她对你的书赞不绝口。”

“What does she do?” I asked.
“她是做什么的？”我问。

I was conscious of my ignorance, and if Mrs. Strickland was a well-known writer I thought it as well to ascertain the fact before I spoke to her.
我意识到自己的无知，如果斯特里克兰夫人是一个有名的作家，我觉得最好在和她说话之前弄清这一点。

Rose Waterford cast down her eyes demurely to give greater effect to her reply.
罗斯·沃特福德忧郁地垂下眼睛，以增加她回答的效果。

“She gives luncheon-parties. You’ve only got to roar a little, and she’ll ask you. “
”她经常举办午餐派对。只需要大声一点，她就会邀请你。”

Rose Waterford was a cynic. She looked upon life as an opportunity for writing novels and the public as her raw material. —
罗斯·沃特福德是个愤世嫉俗的人。她把生活看作写小说的机会，将公众当作她创作的原材料。 —

Now and then she invited members of it to her house if they showed an appreciation of her talent and entertained with proper lavishness. —
偶尔她会邀请其中的成员来她家，只要他们对她的才华表示赞赏，并以适当的慷慨款待他们。 —

She held their weakness for lions in good-humoured contempt, but played to them her part of the distinguished woman of letters with decorum.
她对他们对文学名人的嗜好深表轻蔑，但作为备受尊敬的文字女士，她表现得得体。

I was led up to Mrs. Strickland, and for ten minutes we talked together. —
我被带到斯特里克兰太太面前，我们聊了十分钟。 —

I noticed nothing about her except that she had a pleasant voice. —
我注意到她除了有一个愉快的声音之外，没有其他什么特别之处。 —

She had a flat in Westminster, overlooking the unfinished cathedral, and because we lived in the same neighbourhood we felt friendly disposed to one another. —
她在威斯敏斯特有一套公寓，可以俯瞰未完工的大教堂，因为我们住在同一地区，所以我们对彼此感到友善。 —

The Army and Navy Stores are a bond of union between all who dwell between the river and St. James’s Park. Mrs. Strickland asked me for my address, and a few days later I received an invitation to luncheon.
陆军和海军百货公司是连接泰晤士河与圣詹姆斯公园之间所有居民的纽带。斯特里克兰太太询问了我的地址，几天后我收到了邀请参加午餐的邀请函。

My engagements were few, and I was glad to accept. —
我的安排不多，很高兴接受邀请。 —

When I arrived, a little late, because in my fear of being too early I had walked three times round the cathedral, I found the party already complete. —
当我到达时稍微迟了一点，因为我害怕太早到达，曾绕着大教堂走了三圈，我发现聚会已经完毕。 —

Miss Waterford was there and Mrs. Jay, Richard Twining and George Road. We were all writers. —
沃特福德小姐，杰伊太太，里查德.特温宁和乔治.罗德都在那儿。我们都是作家。 —

It was a fine day, early in spring, and we were in a good humour. We talked about a hundred things. —
那是一个晴朗的春日，我们情绪良好。我们谈论了很多事情。 —

Miss Waterford, torn between the aestheticism of her early youth, when she used to go to parties in sage green, holding a daffodil, and the flippancy of her maturer years, which tended to high heels and Paris frocks, wore a new hat. —
沃特福德小姐在早年的审美主义与成熟中的轻薄之间摇摆不定，曾在时髦浅绿色裙子上挽着一朵水仙花参加聚会, 现在戴着一顶新帽子。 —

It put her in high spirits. I had never heard her more malicious about our common friends. —
这使她兴高采烈。我从未听她对我们共同的朋友如此恶意。 —

Mrs. Jay, aware that impropriety is the soul of wit, made observations in tones hardly above a whisper that might well have tinged the snowy tablecloth with a rosy hue. —
杰伊太太知道不端行为是机智的灵魂，低声发表观察，几乎可以瞬息间让洁白的餐桌布染上玫瑰色。 —

Richard Twining bubbled over with quaint absurdities, and George Road, conscious that he need not exhibit a brilliancy which was almost a by-word, opened his mouth only to put food into it. —
里查德.特温宁充满奇异荒谬的言论，而乔治.罗德清楚自己无需展示几乎成为褒义言之成理的闪烁才华，他只在张开嘴巴时放下食物。 —

Mrs. Strickland did not talk much, but she had a pleasant gift for keeping the conversation general; and when there was a pause she threw in just the right remark to set it going once more. —
斯特里克兰太太并不多说话，但她有一种让谈话保持通用性的愉快天赋;当有停顿时，她恰到好处地插入一句话来重新启动谈话。 —

She was a woman of thirty-seven, rather tall and plump, without being fat; —
她是一个三十七岁的女人，相当高大丰满，但并不肥胖； —

she was not pretty, but her face was pleasing, chiefly, perhaps, on account of her kind brown eyes. —
她并不漂亮，但她的脸庞令人愉悦，或许主要是因为她亲切的棕色眼睛。 —

Her skin was rather sallow. Her dark hair was elaborately dressed. —
她的肤色有点苍白。她的黑发做得很精致。 —

She was the only woman of the three whose face was free of make-up, and by contrast with the others she seemed simple and unaffected.
她是三个女人中唯一一位没有化妆的，与其他人形成鲜明对比，她显得朴实和自然。

The dining-room was in the good taste of the period. It was very severe. —
餐厅的装饰符合那个时代的审美。它非常朴素。 —

There was a high dado of white wood and a green paper on which were etchings by Whistler in neat black frames. —
墙上有一片高高的白木饰板，上面挂着一幅Whistler的深色画作，被整齐的黑色相框装饰着。 —

The green curtains with their peacock design, hung in straight lines, and the green carpet, in the pattern of which pale rabbits frolicked among leafy trees, suggested the influence of William Morris. —
那带有孔雀图案的绿色窗帘垂直悬挂着，地毯的绿色图案中淡淡的兔子在绿树间嬉戏，这些都让人联想到William Morris的影响。 —

There was blue delft on the chimneypiece. —
壁炉台上有蓝色的荷兰瓷器。 —

At that time there must have been five hundred dining-rooms in London decorated in exactly the same manner. —
当时伦敦大约有五百个餐厅的装饰方式完全一样。 —

It was chaste, artistic, and dull.
它朴实、艺术但沉闷。

When we left I walked away with Miss Waterford, and the fine day and her new hat persuaded us to saunter through the Park.
我们离开时，我和沃特福德小姐一起走。良好的天气和她新的帽子说服我们在公园漫步。

“That was a very nice party, ” I said.
“那是一个非常愉快的聚会，”我说。

“Did you think the food was good? I told her that if she wanted writers she must feed them well. “
“你觉得食物好吃吗?我告诉她，如果她想要作家，就必须给他们好好吃。

“Admirable advice, ” I answered. “But why does she want them?”
“出色的建议，”我回答说。”但她为什么要他们?”

Miss Waterford shrugged her shoulders.
沃特福德小姐耸了耸肩。

“She finds them amusing. She wants to be in the movement. —
“她觉得他们很有趣。她想融入这个运动。 —

I fancy she’s rather simple, poor dear, and she thinks we’re all wonderful. —
我想她可能很朴素，可怜的人，她觉得我们都很了不起。” —

After all, it pleases her to ask us to luncheon, and it doesn’t hurt us. —
总之，她请我们吃午餐很高兴，这对我们没有伤害。 —

I like her for it. “
我喜欢她这样做。

Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie’s Library brought with them not only their own romance, but the romance of London. —
回想起来，我认为斯特里克兰夫人在所有狮猎人中算最无害的一个，从汉普斯特德的高峰到切恩沃克的最底层工作室，这些狮猎人无孔不入。她在乡下度过了非常宁静的青年时代，从穆迪图书馆借来的书不仅带来它们自己的浪漫，还有伦敦本身的浪漫。 —

She had a real passion for reading (rare in her kind, who for the most part are more interested in the author than in his book, in the painter than in his pictures), and she invented a world of the imagination in which she lived with a freedom she never acquired in the world of every day. —
她对阅读有着真正的热情（这在她这个阶层中是很罕见的，他们大多更感兴趣的是作者而不是书本，是画家而不是画作），她在想象的世界中创作一个与日常世界中从未拥有的自由。 —

When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till then she had known only from the other side of the footlights. —
当她开始认识作家时，就像冒险涉足一个舞台，这个舞台以前她只是从弱势群体的一侧看到过。 —

She saw them dramatically, and really seemed herself to live a larger life because she entertained them and visited them in their fastnesses. —
她戏剧性地看待他们，她似乎真正因为招待他们并访问他们的堡垒而过着更丰富多彩的生活。 —

She accepted the rules with which they played the game of life as valid for them, but never for a moment thought of regulating her own conduct in accordance with them. —
她接受了他们以这种本，也从未想过要按照他们的规则来规范自己的行为。 —

Their moral eccentricities, like their oddities of dress, their wild theories and paradoxes, were an entertainment which amused her, but had not the slightest influence on her convictions.
他们的道德怪癖，就像他们的古怪服饰，他们的狂野理论和悖论一样，给她带来了娱乐，但并没有对她的信仰产生丝毫影响。

“Is there a Mr. Strickland?” I asked
“斯特里克兰有先生吗？”我问道。

“Oh yes; he’s something in the city. I believe he’s a stockbroker. He’s very dull. “
“哦，有的，他在城里做些什么。我相信他是一个股票经纪人。他非常乏味。”

“Are they good friends?”
“他们是好朋友吗？”

“They adore one another. You’ll meet him if you dine there. —
“他们彼此崇拜。如果你在那里吃饭，你会见到他的。他非常沉默。” —

But she doesn’t often have people to dinner. He’s very quiet. —
“她很少请人吃晚饭。” —

He’s not in the least interested in literature or the arts. “
“他一点也不对文学或艺术感兴趣。”

“Why do nice women marry dull men?”
“为什么好女人嫁给乏味的男人？”

“Because intelligent men won’t marry nice women. “
因为聪明的男人不会娶好女人。

I could not think of any retort to this, so I asked if Mrs. Strickland had children.
我无法想出任何反驳，于是我问斯特里克兰夫人有孩子吗。

“Yes; she has a boy and a girl. They’re both at school. “
“是的；她有一个男孩和一个女孩。他们都在上学。”

The subject was exhausted, and we began to talk of other things.
话题已经讨论完毕，我们开始谈论其他事情。