I did not know why Strickland had suddenly offered to show them to me. I welcomed the opportunity. —
我不知道斯特里克兰为什么突然提出要给我看这些。我很高兴有这个机会。 —

A man’s work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from little actions, of which he is unconscious, and from fleeting expressions, which cross his face unknown to him. —
一个人的工作会显露出他自己。在社交中，他会展示出他希望世界接受的表面，你只能通过他不自觉的小行动和他脸上的瞬间表情推断出他的真实面孔。 —

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. —
有时候人们将他们假装的面具做到了完美，最终他们会真的成为他们表面所展现出来的那个人。 —

But in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. —
但是在他的书或画中，真正的人会毫无保留地展现自己。 —

His pretentiousness will only expose his vacuity. —
他的虚荣将只会暴露出他的空虚。 —

The lathe painted to look like iron is seen to be but a lathe. —
被粉饰成铁的车床其实只是个车床。 —

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. —
任何奇怪的做作都无法掩盖一个平凡的思想。 —

To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.
对于敏锐的观察者来说，没有人可以制造出最随意的作品，而不暴露心灵的内在秘密。

As I walked up the endless stairs of the house in which Strickland lived, I confess that I was a little excited. —
当我走上斯特里克兰住的房子里的无尽楼梯时，我承认我有点兴奋。 —

It seemed to me that I was on the threshold of a surprising adventure. —
对我来说，我似乎正站在一个令人惊讶的冒险的门槛。 —

I looked about the room with curiosity. It was even smaller and more bare than I remembered it. —
我好奇地环顾四周的房间。这个房间甚至比我记得的时候更小更空荡。 —

I wondered what those friends of mine would say who demanded vast studios, and vowed they could not work unless all the conditions were to their liking.
我想知道那些要求宽敞工作室的朋友们会说些什么，他们发誓除非所有条件都符合他们的喜好，否则他们无法工作。

“You’d better stand there, ” he said, pointing to a spot from which, presumably, he fancied I could see to best advantage what he had to show me.
“你最好站在那里，”他说，指着一个位置，大概他认为我可以最好地看到他要给我看的东西。

“You don’t want me to talk, I suppose, ” I said.
“我猜你不希望我说话，对吧，”我说。

“No, blast you; I want you to hold your tongue. “
“不，该死的；我希望你闭嘴。”

He placed a picture on the easel, and let me look at it for a minute or two; —
他把一幅画放在画架上，让我看了一两分钟； —

then took it down and put another in its place. I think he showed me about thirty canvases. —
然后拿下来放上另一幅。我想他给我看了大约三十幅画布。 —

It was the result of the six years during which he had been painting. He had never sold a picture. —
这是他绘画的六年成果。他从未卖过一幅画。 —

The canvases were of different sizes. The smaller were pictures of still-life and the largest were landscapes. —
画布大小不同。较小的是静物画，最大的是风景画。 —

There were about half a dozen portraits.
大约有六幅肖像画。

“That is the lot, ” he said at last.
“就这些了，”他最后说道。

I wish I could say that I recognised at once their beauty and their great originality. —
我真希望能够说我立刻认出它们的美和独创性。 —

Now that I have seen many of them again and the rest are familiar to me in reproductions, I am astonished that at first sight I was bitterly disappointed. —
现在我再次看到其中的许多，其他的则通过复制品对我很熟悉，我感到惊讶的是，一开始我是如此失望。 —

I felt nothing of the peculiar thrill which it is the property of art to give. —
我丝毫没有感到艺术应该给予的特殊震撼。 —

The impression that Strickland’s pictures gave me was disconcerting; —
Strickland的画给我的印象令人困扰； —

and the fact remains, always to reproach me, that I never even thought of buying any. —
事实始终让我自责，我甚至从未考虑过购买任何一幅。 —

I missed a wonderful chance. Most of them have found their way into museums, and the rest are the treasured possessions of wealthy amateurs. —
我错失了一个绝佳的机会。它们大多被收藏在博物馆里，剩下的则是富有的业余爱好者的珍贵物品。 —

I try to find excuses for myself. I think that my taste is good, but I am conscious that it has no originality. —
我试图为自己找借口。我觉得自己的品味不错，但我意识到它缺乏独创性。 —

I know very little about painting, and I wander along trails that others have blazed for me. —
我对绘画了解甚少，我沿着别人为我开辟的路径徘徊。 —

At that time I had the greatest admiration for the impressionists. —
那时我最钦佩印象派画家。 —

I longed to possess a Sisley and a Degas, and I worshipped Manet. His Olympia seemed to me the greatest picture of modern times, and Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe moved me profoundly. —
我渴望拥有一幅西斯莱和一幅德加，而我崇拜马奈。他的《奥林匹亚》在我看来是现代最伟大的作品，而《野餐》让我深受感动。 —

These works seemed to me the last word in painting.
这些作品在我看来是绘画的最高境界。

I will not describe the pictures that Strickland showed me. —
我不愿描述斯特里克兰展示给我的那些画作。 —

Descriptions of pictures are always dull, and these, besides, are familiar to all who take an interest in such things. —
描述画作总是乏味的，而且这些也都是所有对此感兴趣的人耳熟能详的。 —

Now that his influence has so enormously affected modern painting, now that others have charted the country which he was among the first to explore, Strickland’s pictures, seen for the first time, would find the mind more prepared for them; —
现在，由于他的影响巨大地影响了现代绘画，由于其他人已经勾画出他是最早探索的那片土地，第一次看到斯特里克兰的画作，我的思绪对它们更加准备就绪； —

but it must be remembered that I had never seen anything of the sort. —
但必须记住我从未见过这样的画。 —

First of all I was taken aback by what seemed to me the clumsiness of his technique. —
首先，我对他那我认为笨拙的技术感到惊讶。 —

Accustomed to the drawing of the old masters, and convinced that Ingres was the greatest draughtsman of recent times, I thought that Strickland drew very badly. —
习惯了古代大师的画法，并确信安格尔是近代最伟大的素描家，我觉得斯特里克兰画得很糟糕。 —

I knew nothing of the simplification at which he aimed. —
我对他的简化目标一无所知。 —

I remember a still-life of oranges on a plate, and I was bothered because the plate was not round and the oranges were lop-sided. —
我记得一幅盘子上的橙子静物画，我困扰于盘子不是圆的，橙子也是歪的。 —

The portraits were a little larger than life-size, and this gave them an ungainly look. —
肖像画有点比真实大小大，这让它们看起来笨拙。 —

To my eyes the faces looked like caricatures. —
在我看来，这些脸看起来像漫画。 —

They were painted in a way that was entirely new to me. The landscapes puzzled me even more. —
它们的画法对我来说是全新的。风景画让我更加困惑。 —

There were two or three pictures of the forest at Fontainebleau and several of streets in Paris: —
有两三幅画是在方丹布洛森林和几条巴黎街道上： —

my first feeling was that they might have been painted by a drunken cabdriver. —
我最初的感觉是它们可能是由一个醉酒的出租车司机画的。 —

I was perfectly bewildered. The colour seemed to me extraordinarily crude. —
我感到完全困惑。颜色对我来说格外粗糙。 —

It passed through my mind that the whole thing was a stupendous, incomprehensible farce. —
我觉得整件事是一个巨大、令人不可理解的闹剧。 —

Now that I look back I am more than ever impressed by Stroeve’s acuteness. —
现在回想起来，我对斯特罗夫的敏锐很是印象深刻。 —

He saw from the first that here was a revolution in art, and he recognised in its beginnings the genius which now all the world allows.
他从一开始就看到这是一场艺术革命，他认识到了世界都承认的那种天才在起步阶段所展现出的才华。

But if I was puzzled and disconcerted, I was not unimpressed. —
虽然我感到迷惑和困惑，但并不是没有被感动。 —

Even I, in my colossal ignorance, could not but feel that here, trying to express itself, was real power. —
就算我是一个无知之辈，也不得不感觉到这里有着真正的力量在试图表达自己。 —

I was excited and interested. I felt that these pictures had something to say to me that was very important for me to know, but I could not tell what it was. —
我感到兴奋和感兴趣。我觉得这些画作对我来说有着非常重要的信息需要我了解，但我却说不清楚是什么。 —

They seemed to me ugly, but they suggested without disclosing a secret of momentous significance. —
它们对我而言看起来很丑陋，但暗示着却没有揭露的重要秘密。 —

They were strangely tantalising. They gave me an emotion that I could not analyse. —
它们让我百思不得其解。它们引起了我无法分析的情感。 —

They said something that words were powerless to utter. —
它们传达着一种无法用言辞诉说的东西。 —

I fancy that Strickland saw vaguely some spiritual meaning in material things that was so strange that he could only suggest it with halting symbols. —
我想斯特里克兰模糊地看到了物质中某种神秘意义，以至于只能用支离破碎的象征来暗示。 —

It was as though he found in the chaos of the universe a new pattern, and were attempting clumsily, with anguish of soul, to set it down. —
仿佛他在宇宙的混沌中找到了一种新的模式，并在痛苦的灵魂之中笨拙地试图描述出来。 —

I saw a tormented spirit striving for the release of expression.
我看到一个受折磨的灵魂正在为表达而努力。

I turned to him.
我转向他。

“I wonder if you haven’t mistaken your medium, ” I said.
“我想你是不是错过了你的媒介，” 我说道。

“What the hell do you mean?”
“你到底是什么意思？”

“I think you’re trying to say something, I don’t quite know what it is, but I’m not sure that the best way of saying it is by means of painting. “
“我觉得你想说些什么，我不太清楚是什么，但我不确定用绘画的方式来表达是最好的。”

When I imagined that on seeing his pictures I should get a clue to the understanding of his strange character I was mistaken. —
当我想象着看到他的画作我应该能理解他奇怪性格的线索时，我错了。 —

They merely increased the astonishment with which he filled me. I was more at sea than ever. —
他只是让我更加惊讶。比以往更加摸不着头脑。 —

The only thing that seemed clear to me – and perhaps even this was fanciful – was that he was passionately striving for liberation from some power that held him. —
唯一清楚的是 - 也许这也是幻想 - 他在极力追求摆脱某种束缚的力量。 —

But what the power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure. —
但是这个力量是什么，解放会采取什么方式，却依然模糊。 —

Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. —
在这个世界上每个人都是孤独的。他被困在一个黄铜塔里，只能通过符号与他人沟通，而这些符号没有共同的价值，所以它们的意义模糊而不确定。 —

We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. —
我们卑微地试图向别人传达心中的珍宝，但他们没有能力接受，所以我们孤独地走着，肩并肩但不在一起，无法了解他人，也不为他人所了解。 —

We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. —
我们就像生活在一个自己几乎不懂语言的国家里的人，有很多美丽而深刻的东西可讲，却被判处说话手册中的陈词滥调。 —

Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener’s aunt is in the house.
他们的大脑充满了思绪，却只能告诉你花园管理员的姨妈的伞在房子里。

The final impression I received was of a prodigious effort to express some state of the soul, and in this effort, I fancied, must be sought the explanation of what so utterly perplexed me. —
我最后的印象是他努力表达某种心灵状态，我想，在这种努力中应该寻找我如此困惑的解释。 —

It was evident that colours and forms had a significance for Strickland that was peculiar to himself. —
很明显，颜色和形式对Strickland有着他独有的意义。 —

He was under an intolerable necessity to convey something that he felt, and he created them with that intention alone. —
他不得不传达他感受到的某种东西，并且他创造这些只是为了这个目的。 —

He did not hesitate to simplify or to distort if he could get nearer to that unknown thing he sought. —
如果能更接近他所追求的未知之物，他会毫不犹豫地简化或扭曲。 —

Facts were nothing to him, for beneath the mass of irrelevant incidents he looked for something significant to himself. —
事实对他来说无关紧要，因为在琐碎的事件背后，他寻找着对自己有意义的东西。 —

It was as though he had become aware of the soul of the universe and were compelled to express it.
好像他已经意识到了宇宙的灵魂，并被迫表达出来。

Though these pictures confused and puzzled me, I could not be unmoved by the emotion that was patent in them; —
尽管这些图片让我感到困惑和不解，但我无法不被其中显而易见的情感所感动； —

and, I knew not why, I felt in myself a feeling that with regard to Strickland was the last I had ever expected to experience. —
而且，我不知道为什么，我自己心里涌起一种感觉，对于 Strickland，这是我从来没有预料过的最后一种感受。 —

I felt an overwhelming compassion.
我感到一种无比的怜悯。

“I think I know now why you surrendered to your feeling for Blanche Stroeve, ” I said to him.
“我现在明白你为什么向 Blanche Stroeve 屈服了，”我对他说。

“Why?”
“为什么？”

“I think your courage failed. The weakness of your body communicated itself to your soul. —
“我认为你的勇气消失了。你身体的虚弱影响了你的灵魂。 —

I do not know what infinite yearning possesses you, so that you are driven to a perilous, lonely search for some goal where you expect to find a final release from the spirit that torments you. —
我不知道你追求着何种无限渴求，以至于驱使你进行危险而孤独的探索，寻找某个目标，你期望从那里找到释放你折磨你的精神的最终归宿。 —

I see you as the eternal pilgrim to some shrine that perhaps does not exist. —
我看到你是永恒的朝圣者，前往一个也许并不存在的神殿。 —

I do not know to what inscrutable Nirvana you aim. Do you know yourself? —
我不知道你的目标是何等难以捉摸的涅槃。你自己知道吗？ —

Perhaps it is Truth and Freedom that you seek, and for a moment you thought that you might find release in Love. I think your tired soul sought rest in a woman’s arms, and when you found no rest there you hated her. —
也许是真理和自由是你寻求的，而你曾一度以为爱中可能找到解脱。我觉得你疲倦的灵魂在一个女人的怀抱中寻找休息，当你在那里找不到安宁时，你恨她。 —

You had no pity for her, because you have no pity for yourself. —
你对她没有怜悯，因为你对自己也没有怜悯。 —

And you killed her out of fear, because you trembled still at the danger you had barely escaped. “
你杀了她是出于恐惧，因为你仍在颤抖于你勉强逃脱的危险。”

He smiled dryly and pulled his beard.
他干笑着，拽着胡子。

“You are a dreadful sentimentalist, my poor friend. “
“你是个可怕的感伤主义者，我可怜的朋友。”

A week later I heard by chance that Strickland had gone to Marseilles. I never saw him again.
一周后，我偶然听说斯特里克兰去了马赛。我再也没有见过他。