Looking back, I realise that what I have written about Charles Strickland must seem very unsatisfactory. —
回顾过去，我意识到我关于查尔斯·斯特里克兰德所写可能显得很不尽如人意。 —

I have given incidents that came to my knowledge, but they remain obscure because I do not know the reasons that led to them. —
我提到了我知道的一些事件，但它们仍然显得模糊，因为我不知道导致这些事件的原因。 —

The strangest, Strickland’s determination to become a painter, seems to be arbitrary; —
最奇怪的是，斯特里克兰德决心成为一名画家，似乎很武断； —

and though it must have had causes in the circumstances of his life, I am ignorant of them. —
虽然这必定有其生活环境中的原因，但我一无所知。 —

From his own conversation I was able to glean nothing. —
从他自己的谈话中，我一窍不通。 —

If I were writing a novel, rather than narrating such facts as I know of a curious personality, I should have invented much to account for this change of heart. —
如果我是在写小说，而不是叙述一个奇特个性的事实，我应该会编造很多来解释这种转变。 —

I think I should have shown a strong vocation in boyhood, crushed by the will of his father or sacrificed to the necessity of earning a living; —
我认为我应该展示他童年时的强烈职业感，被父亲的意志压制或为了谋生的需要而牺牲； —

I should have pictured him impatient of the restraints of life; —
我应该描绘他对生活束缚的不耐烦； —

and in the struggle between his passion for art and the duties of his station I could have aroused sympathy for him. —
在童年职业需求与社会责任的斗争中，我可以为他引起同情。 —

I should so have made him a more imposing figure. —
这样我会让他更加雄伟。 —

Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus. —
也许有可能把他看作是一个新普罗米修斯。 —

There was here, maybe, the opportunity for a modern version of the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself to the agonies of the damned. —
也许在这里存在着一个现代版本的英雄，为了人类的利益，自愿忍受痛苦。 —

It is always a moving subject.
这总是一个感人的题材。

On the other hand, I might have found his motives in the influence of the married relation. —
另一方面，我可能会发现他的动机在于已婚关系的影响。 —

There are a dozen ways in which this might be managed. —
有十几种方式可以处理这个问题。 —

A latent gift might reveal itself on acquaintance with the painters and writers whose society his wife sought; —
一个潜在的才华可能会在与他妻子交往的画家和作家中显露出来; —

or domestic incompatability might turn him upon himself; —
或者家庭不和可能使他独来独往; —

a love affair might fan into bright flame a fire which I could have shown smouldering dimly in his heart. —
一段恋情可能使他内心燃起一团明亮的火焰，我本可以看到这团火在他心中微弱地闷烧。 —

I think then I should have drawn Mrs. Strickland quite differently. —
我觉得我应该用另一种方式来刻画斯特里克兰夫人。 —

I should have abandoned the facts and made her a nagging, tiresome woman, or else a bigoted one with no sympathy for the claims of the spirit. —
我应该抛开事实，让她成为一个唠叨、令人厌烦的女人，或者一个对精神需求没有同情心的狭隘之人。 —

I should have made Strickland’s marriage a long torment from which escape was the only possible issue. —
我应该让斯特里克兰的婚姻成为一段漫长的折磨，逃脱是唯一可能的选择。 —

I think I should have emphasised his patience with the unsuitable mate, and the compassion which made him unwilling to throw off the yoke that oppressed him. —
我认为我原本应该强调他对不合适配偶的耐心，以及他那种怜悯之心，不愿意摆脱那个压迫他的枷锁。 —

I should certainly have eliminated the children.
我应该肯定要删去孩子们的角色。

An effective story might also have been made by bringing him into contact with some old painter whom the pressure of want or the desire for commercial success had made false to the genius of his youth, and who, seeing in Strickland the possibilities which himself had wasted, influenced him to forsake all and follow the divine tyranny of art. —
也许也可以通过让他接触到某位老画家来制作一个有效的故事，这位老画家受到物质的需求或商业成功的渴望让他背叛了年轻时的天才，而看到斯特里克兰身上的潜力，从而影响他放弃一切，跟随艺术的神圣至高。 —

I think there would have been something ironic in the picture of the successful old man, rich and honoured, living in another the life which he, though knowing it was the better part, had not had the strength to pursue.
我认为这幅图中会有一些讽刺意味，成功的老人，富裕受尊敬，在另一个人身上过着自己本应拥有却没有勇气追求的生活。

The facts are much duller. Strickland, a boy fresh from school, went into a broker’s office without any feeling of distaste. —
事实却要无聊得多。斯特里克兰，一个刚从学校毕业的男孩，进了一家经纪公司，并没有任何反感之情。 —

Until he married he led the ordinary life of his fellows, gambling mildly on the Exchange, interested to the extent of a sovereign or two on the result of the Derby or the Oxford and Cambridge Race. I think he boxed a little in his spare time. —
直到结婚前，他过着和同龄人一样的普通生活，在交易所上轻度赌博，对德比赛马或牛津剑桥赛马的结果感兴趣几镑钱的程度。我想他闲暇时也会拳击一下。 —

On his chimney-piece he had photographs of Mrs. Langtry and Mary Anderson. —
他的壁炉台上摆放着朗特里太太和玛丽·安德森的照片。 —

He read Punch and the Sporting Times. He went to dances in Hampstead.
他看《幽默画报》和《体育时报》。他去汉普斯特德跳舞。

It matters less that for so long I should have lost sight of him. —
这段时间失去了对他的关注重要性并不大。 —

The years during which he was struggling to acquire proficiency in a difficult art were monotonous, and I do not know that there was anything significant in the shifts to which he was put to earn enough money to keep him. —
他努力学习一门困难艺术的岁月是单调的，我不知道他为了赚到足够的钱而做出的种种努力是否有任何重要意义。 —

An account of them would be an account of the things he had seen happen to other people. —
描述这些事情将是描述他看到其他人经历的事情。 —

I do not think they had any effect on his own character. —
我认为这些事情并没有对他自己的性格产生任何影响。 —

He must have acquired experiences which would form abundant material for a picaresque novel of modern Paris, but he remained aloof, and judging from his conversation there was nothing in those years that had made a particular impression on him. —
他一定积累了许多经历，足够写一部现代巴黎的浪漫小说，但他却保持着冷漠，从他的谈话中可以判断，那些年并没有在他身上留下特别的印象。 —

Perhaps when he went to Paris he was too old to fall a victim to the glamour of his environment. —
也许当他去巴黎时，已经太大年纪，无法沉溺于周围环境的魅力。 —

Strange as it may seem, he always appeared to me not only practical, but immensely matter-of-fact. —
尽管看起来很奇怪，但他总让我感觉他不仅实际，而且极度务实。 —

I suppose his life during this period was romantic, but he certainly saw no romance in it. —
我想他在这个时期的生活是浪漫的，但他显然没有看到其中的浪漫之处。 —

It may be that in order to realise the romance of life you must have something of the actor in you; —
或许要想领略生活的浪漫，你必须具备一些演员的特质； —

and, capable of standing outside yourself, you must be able to watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed. —
你必须能够超脱自己，以一种既超然又全神贯注的方式观察自己的行为。 —

But no one was more single-minded than Strickland. I never knew anyone who was less self-conscious. —
但没有人比Strickland更专注。我从未见过一个比他更不自我意识的人。 —

But it is unfortunate that I can give no description of the arduous steps by which he reached such mastery over his art as he ever acquired; —
但很遗憾，我无法描述他在达到如今所获得的对艺术的精湛掌握时所经历的艰难过程； —

for if I could show him undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of self-doubt, which is the artist’s bitterest enemy, I might excite some sympathy for a personality which, I am all too conscious, must appear singularly devoid of charm. —
因为如果我能展示他在失败面前不屈不挠，毫不畏惧地对抗绝望，面对最苦涩的敌人——自我怀疑，坚决不懈，我可能唤起对一个显得极度缺乏魅力的个性的某种同情。 —

But I have nothing to go on. I never once saw Strickland at work, nor do I know that anyone else did. —
但是我没有任何依据。我从未看到Strickland工作过，也不知道其他人是否看到过。 —

He kept the secret of his struggles to himself. —
他把战斗的秘密独自留给自己。 —

If in the loneliness of his studio he wrestled desperately with the Angel of the Lord he never allowed a soul to divine his anguish.
如果在孤独的工作室里，他痛苦地与主的天使搏斗，他从未让一个灵魂猜透他的痛苦。

When I come to his connection with Blanche Stroeve I am exasperated by the fragmentariness of the facts at my disposal. —
当我提及他与布兰奇·斯特罗夫的联系时, 我对我手头的事实零碎感到恼火。 —

To give my story coherence I should describe the progress of their tragic union, but I know nothing of the three months during which they lived together. —
为了让我的故事有连贯性, 我应该描述他们悲剧般结合的进展, 但我对他们一起生活的三个月一无所知。 —

I do not know how they got on or what they talked about. —
我不知道他们相处得好不好, 或者他们谈论些什么。 —

After all, there are twenty-four hours in the day, and the summits of emotion can only be reached at rare intervals. —
毕竟, 一天有二十四小时, 情感的高峰只能间或出现。 —

I can only imagine how they passed the rest of the time. —
我只能想象他们其余时间是如何度过的。 —

While the light lasted and so long as Blanche’s strength endured, I suppose that Strickland painted, and it must have irritated her when she saw him absorbed in his work. —
在光线仍在, 并且布兰奇还有力气的情况下, 我想史崔克兰会画画, 当看到他全神贯注于工作时, 这定会激怒她。 —

As a mistress she did not then exist for him, but only as a model; —
作为情妇, 在那时她对他不过是个模特; —

and then there were long hours in which they lived side by side in silence. —
然后有长时间他们一起沉默相处。 —

It must have frightened her. When Strickland suggested that in her surrender to him there was a sense of triumph over Dirk Stroeve, because he had come to her help in her extremity, he opened the door to many a dark conjecture. —
这一定吓到她了。 当史崔克兰暗示她对他的屈从是对德克·斯特罗夫的胜利, 因为他在她极端困境时帮助了她, 他打开了许多阴暗的猜测。 —

I hope it was not true. It seems to me rather horrible. —
我希望那不是真的。 这对我来说相当可怕。 —

But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? —
但谁能洞悉人类内心微妙之处呢? —

Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions. —
当然不是那些只期待端庄情感和正常情绪的人。 —

When Blanche saw that, notwithstanding his moments of passion, Strickland remained aloof, she must have been filled with dismay, and even in those moments I surmise that she realised that to him she was not an individual, but an instrument of pleasure; —
当布兰奇看到, 尽管有激情时刻, 史崔克兰仍保持疏远时, 她一定充满恐惧, 甚至在那些时刻我推测她意识到对他而言她不是个个体, 而是快乐的工具; —

he was a stranger still, and she tried to bind him to herself with pathetic arts. —
他对舒适毫不在意, 她却试图用可怜的手段将他拴住。 —

She strove to ensnare him with comfort and would not see that comfort meant nothing to him. —
她力图以舒适困住他, 却不愿意看到对他而言舒适毫无意义。 —

She was at pains to get him the things to eat that he liked, and would not see that he was indifferent to food. —
她不遗余力地给他准备他喜欢吃的东西，却没有看到他对食物漠不关心。 —

She was afraid to leave him alone. She pursued him with attentions, and when his passion was dormant sought to excite it, for then at least she had the illusion of holding him. —
她害怕把他单独留下。她照顾他，当他的激情沉寂时试图激发它，因为那时至少她有控制他的幻觉。 —

Perhaps she knew with her intelligence that the chains she forged only aroused his instinct of destruction, as the plate-glass window makes your fingers itch for half a brick; —
也许她用她的聪明才智知道她所铸造的那些枷锁只会激发他的毁灭本能，就像铺满玻璃的窗户让你心生投掷砖块的冲动； —

but her heart, incapable of reason, made her continue on a course she knew was fatal. —
但她那无法理智的心让她继续走她知道是致命的道路。 —

She must have been very unhappy. But the blindness of love led her to believe what she wanted to be true, and her love was so great that it seemed impossible to her that it should not in return awake an equal love.
她一定很不幸。但爱的盲目使她相信她所愿成真，并且她的爱是如此之深，以至于她觉得不可能她所爱的人不会同样地回应。

But my study of Strickland’s character suffers from a greater defect than my ignorance of many facts. Because they were obvious and striking, I have written of his relations to women; —
但对斯特里克兰性格的研究受到了比许多事实的无知更大的缺陷的影响。因为他们显而易见而引人注目，我写了他和女人的关系； —

and yet they were but an insignificant part of his life. —
然而，这些关系只是他生活中无足轻重的一部分。 —

It is an irony that they should so tragically have affected others. —
这让人感到讽刺的是，他们却对其他人产生了如此悲剧性的影响。 —

His real life consisted of dreams and of tremendously hard work.
他真实的生活由梦想和极度努力的工作组成。

Here lies the unreality of fiction. For in men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. —
这里就存在小说的虚幻性。因为在大多数情况下，爱情只是他们一天中其他事务之间的一个插曲，小说中对此的强调给了它一个在现实生活中不真实的重要性。 —

There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not very interesting ones; —
很少有男人把它视为世界上最重要的事情，而且他们也不是很有趣的人； —

even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. —
甚至对于女性，这个话题是至关重要的，她们对此看不起他们。 —

They are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy feeling that they are poor creatures. —
她们被他们感到受宠和兴奋，但同时又对他们有一种贫乏的感觉。 —

But even during the brief intervals in which they are in love, men do other things which distract their mind; —
即使在短暂的恋爱间隙中，男人也会做其他分散注意力的事情； —

the trades by which they earn their living engage their attention; they are absorbed in sport; —
他们从事维持生计的行业吸引他们的注意力；他们专心致志于运动； —

they can interest themselves in art. For the most part, they keep their various activities in various compartments, and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of the other. —
他们可以对艺术产生兴趣。大多数情况下，他们把各种活动存在不同的隔间里，可以暂时排除其他活动而专心追求其中之一。 —

They have a faculty of concentration on that which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them if one encroaches on the other. —
他们有集中注意力的能力，一旦被吸引，如果其他事物打扰就会觉得烦躁。 —

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
作为恋人，男女之间的区别在于女性可以整天恋爱，但男性只在某些时候。

With Strickland the sexual appetite took a very small place. It was unimportant. It was irksome. —
对于斯特里克兰德来说，性欲所占的地位很小。它并不重要。它是讨厌的。 —

His soul aimed elsewhither. He had violent passions, and on occasion desire seized his body so that he was driven to an orgy of lust, but he hated the instincts that robbed him of his self-possession. —
他的灵魂朝着别处追求。他有强烈的激情，偶尔欲望会占据他的身体，导致他陷入淫乱的狂欢，但他憎恨那些剥夺他自我控制的本能。 —

I think, even, he hated the inevitable partner in his debauchery. —
我认为，甚至他也讨厌他淫乱行为中那不可避免的伙伴。 —

When he had regained command over himself, he shuddered at the sight of the woman he had enjoyed. —
当他重新掌控自己时，看到他享受过的女人，他感到恶心。 —

His thoughts floated then serenely in the empyrean, and he felt towards her the horror that perhaps the painted butterfly, hovering about the flowers, feels to the filthy chrysalis from which it has triumphantly emerged. —
他的思想当时在天国里平静漂浮，他对她感到恶心，就像或许那只在花朵周围盘旋的彩蝶，对它终于挣脱出来的肮脏的蛹羽化昆虫感到的恶心。 —

I suppose that art is a manifestation of the sexual instinct. —
我认为，艺术是性冲动的一种表现。 —

It is the same emotion which is excited in the human heart by the sight of a lovely woman, the Bay of Naples under the yellow moon, and the Entombment of Titian. —
人类心中被美丽女人、纳波利湾月下的景色和提香的“耶稣受难”所激发的是同样的情感。 —

It is possible that Strickland hated the normal release of sex because it seemed to him brutal by comparison with the satisfaction of artistic creation. —
斯特里克兰德可能讨厌正常的性释放，因为与艺术创作的满足相比，他觉得那非常粗暴。 —

It seems strange even to myself, when I have described a man who was cruel, selfish, brutal and sensual, to say that he was a great idealist. The fact remains.
当我描述了一个残忍、自私、野蛮和肉欲的人时，说他是一个伟大的理想主义者，似乎有点奇怪。但事实就是这样。

He lived more poorly than an artisan. He worked harder. —
他的生活比工匠还要苦。他工作更加努力。 —

He cared nothing for those things which with most people make life gracious and beautiful. —
他不在乎大多数人认为使生活优雅和美丽的事物。 —

He was indifferent to money. He cared nothing about fame. —
他对金钱漠不关心。他对于名誉不在乎。 —

You cannot praise him because he resisted the temptation to make any of those compromises with the world which most of us yield to. —
你不能赞扬他，因为他抵制了与世界进行的大多数妥协，而我们大多数人都屈服于诱惑。 —

He had no such temptation. It never entered his head that compromise was possible. —
他没有这种诱惑。他从未想过妥协是可能的。 —

He lived in Paris more lonely than an anchorite in the deserts of Thebes. —
他在巴黎生活得比底比斯的荒漠中的隐士还要孤独。 —

He asked nothing his fellows except that they should leave him alone. —
他并不要求同伴什么，只是希望他们不要打扰他。 —

He was single-hearted in his aim, and to pursue it he was willing to sacrifice not only himself – many can do that – but others. He had a vision.
他的目标始终如一，为了追求它，他愿意牺牲的不仅仅是他自己 –很多人都可以做到这一点 – 还有别人。他有一个愿景。

Strickland was an odious man, but I still think be was a great one.
史特里克兰德是一个讨厌的人，但我仍然认为他是一个伟大的人。