I suppose that even then — or rather, especially then, when our compact is so new, so unproved, its threads still slender and weak — I suppose that even then I might draw back, unloose myself from the tugging of his ambition. I believe I wake thinking I will; for the room — the room in which, in whispers, at the hush of midnight, he took my hand, unfolded his dangerous plan, like a man putting back the rustling wrappers about a poison — the room reassembles itself in the chill half-hour of dawn into all its rigid familiar lines. I lie and watch it. I know every curve and angle. I know them, too well. I remember weeping, as a girl of eleven, at the strangeness of Briar — at the silence, the stillness, the turning passages and cluttered walls. I supposed then that those things would be strange to me for ever, I felt their strangeness make me strange — make me a thing of points and hooks, a burr, a splinter in the gullet of the house. But Briar crept on me. Briar absorbed me. Now I feel the simple weight of the woollen cloak with which I have covered myself and think, I shall never escape! I am not meant to escape! Briar will never let me!
我觉得，即便那时——或者更应该这么说，尤其在我和理查德勾结伊始，我们的联盟尚未经受考验，彼此关联尚不紧密的时候——我想，那时我是要退出的，我要将自己从他野心勃勃的煽动中释放出来。我记得我头脑清晰地想到要退出。因为那个房间——在子夜时分的静谧里，他握着我的手，窃窃私语中，将他铤而走险的计划和盘托出，就好象一个人剥下了毒药的包装纸——这个房间，在拂晓清冷的半个小时里，又回复到原先刻板僵硬的线条中去。我躺下来审视着这个房间。我熟悉其中每条曲线、每个角落，我太熟悉这个房间了。我记得我还是个十一岁的小姑娘，为布莱尔的陌生——那寂静，那弯弯曲曲的走道和令人迷惑的墙壁，而痛哭起来。那时我就想，这些事物对于我，将永远陌生，我觉得是那陌生令我古怪——令我怪形怪状，浑身是刺，成为象下水道里的杂碎一般的东西。布莱尔逐渐消磨了我，将我据为己有。这时，我感觉到裹在身上的羊毛斗篷轻飘飘的分量，心里念叨着：永远也摆脱不了！我不想逃跑！布莱尔永远不会让我走！
But, I am wrong. Richard Rivers has come into Briar like a spore of yeast into dough, changing it utterly. When I go, at eight o’clock, to the library, I am sent away: he is there with my uncle, looking over the prints. They pass three hours together. And when, in the afternoon, I am summoned downstairs to make my farewells to the gentlemen, it is only Mr Hawtrey and Mr Huss that I must give my hand to. I find them in the hall, fastening their greatcoats, drawing on their gloves, while my uncle leans upon his cane and Richard stands, a little way off, his hands in his pockets, looking on. He sees me first. He meets my gaze, but makes no gesture. Then the others hear my step and lift their heads to watch me. Mr Hawtrey smiles.
然而，我错了，理查德·瑞富斯来到布莱尔，象一粒酵母粉落进面团里，彻底改变了布莱尔。次日八时，我去书房，随即就被打发走了：他跟我舅舅在那儿研究画。他们在一起待了三个小时。然后到中午，我被叫到楼下，跟绅士们告别，只有霍粹先生和哈斯先生要走。我在大厅见到他们，他们正忙着穿戴，我舅舅斜支在手杖上，理查德站在一旁，手揣在口袋里。是他先看到我。他与我对视一眼，但未做任何示意。这时其他人听到脚步声，都扭过头来注视着我。霍粹先生微笑着。
Mr Huss has put on his hat. Now he takes it off. “The nymph,” he asks, his eyes on my face, “or the statue?”
哈斯先生本已戴上帽子，此刻他脱帽说道，“你指水边的仙女，”他眼睛停在我脸上，“还是那个雕像？”
“Here comes fair Galatea,” he says.
“美丽的葛莱缇娅来了。”他说道。
“Well, both,” Mr Hawtrey says; “but I meant the statue. Miss Lilly shows as pale, don’t you think?” He takes my hand. “How my daughters would envy you! They eat clay, you know, to whiten their complexions? Pure clay.” He shakes his head. “I do think the fashion for pallor a most unhealthy one. As for you, Miss Lilly, I am struck again — as I always am, when I must leave you! — by the unfairness of your uncle keeping you here in such a miserable, mushroom-like way.”
“啊，二者皆是。”霍粹先生；“不过我是指那个雕像。李小姐跟雕像一样白皙，你看是不是？”他拉起我的手。“我家里的姑娘们该多么嫉妒你啊！她们吃黏土，你知道吗？为了美白肌肤，那是黏土啊。”他摇头叹息。“我觉得追求惨白的面色是一种最不健康的风气。至于你，李小姐，正如每次要离开你时我所感到的，我再次为你舅舅给予你的不公正待遇而感到愤慨，他让你待在这个不见天日的地方，象养蘑菇一样待你。”
“I am quite used to it,” I say quietly. “Besides, I think the gloom makes me show paler than I am. Does Mr Rivers not go with you?”
“我已习以为常。”我低声说道。“另外，我觉得光线幽暗一些会让我皮肤更白皙。瑞富斯先生不跟你们一起走？”
“Say never, then. Rivers, gas poisons books. Did you know?”
“那就是说永远都不用喽。瑞富斯，瓦斯灯会弄坏书籍，你知道吗？”
“Not while I keep books,” says my uncle.
“只要我还收藏书，我就不会用。”我舅舅说道。
“The gloom is the culprit. Really, Mr Lilly, I can barely make out the buttons on my coat. Do you mean never to join civilised society, and bring gas to Briar?”
“幽暗，说真的，李先生，我差点要看不清外套上的扣子了。你打算永远都不融入文明社会，永远都不给布莱尔装瓦斯灯吗？”
“I did not,” says Richard. Then he turns to me, and adds, in a lower voice: “No, Miss Lilly, I am not to go up to London just yet. Your uncle has been kind enough to offer me a little work among his prints. We share a passion, it seems, for Morland.”
“不知道。”理查德说道。然后他转向我，低声加了一句：“不，李小姐，我暂时不回伦敦。你舅舅心地慈善，给了我一份整理他藏画的小差事，我俩似乎都对莫兰德抱有热诚。”
“She should not,” says my uncle.
“她不想去。”我舅舅说道。
His eye is dark — if a blue eye can be dark. Mr Hawtrey says, “Now Mr Lilly, how’s this for an idea: What say, while the mounting of the prints is in progress, you let your niece make a visit to Holywell Street? Shouldn’t you like a holiday, Miss Lilly, in London? There, I see by your look that you should.”
他眼睛是暗色的——如果蓝眼睛能变成暗色的。霍粹先生说道，“李先生，你觉得这个主意如何：这个，藏画装订期间，你可允许你外甥女拜访一下霍尼威尔街我的书店？你不想有一个假期吗？李小姐？到伦敦？瞧，我从你脸上看出来你十分乐意。”
Mr Huss draws close. His coat is thick and he is sweating. He takes the tips of my fingers. “Miss Lilly,” he says. “If I might ever –“
哈斯凑过来。他外套太厚，人都出汗了。他拈起我的指尖说道，“李小姐，如果我何时能够——”
“Fools,” he says, when the gentlemen have gone. “Eh, Rivers? But come, I’m impatient to begin. You have your tools?”
“一群傻瓜。”等绅士们都走了，他说道。“哦，瑞富斯？来吧，我都有些迫不及待了，你带了工具来？”
“I can fetch them, sir, in a moment.”
“我去拿，先生，去去就来。”
“Come come,” says my uncle. “Now you grow tedious. Here’s my coachman, look. Maud, do you step back from the door.”
“走吧走吧，”我舅舅说道。“你越来越罗嗦。看，我的马车夫等着呢。莫德，你退后点，不要站在门边上…”
He bows, and goes. My uncle makes to follow. Then he turns, to look at me. He looks, in a considering sort of way, then beckons me closer. “Give me your hand, Maud,” he says. I think he means to have me support him on the stairs. But when I offer him my arm he takes it, holds it, raises my wrist to his face, draws back the sleeve and squints at the strip of skin exposed. He peers at my cheek. “Pale, do they say? Pale as mushroom? Hmm?” He works his mouth. “You know what kind of matter mushrooms spring from? — Ho!” He laughs.”Not pale, now!”
他弯腰示意，然后走开了。我舅舅本要跟着他，忽又停住，转身望着我。他招手命我上前。“手给我，莫德，”他说道。我以为他要我搀扶他上楼梯。可我伸出胳膊，他就一把抓住，牢牢攥着，把我手腕拽到他面前，撸开袖子，斜眼盯着我手臂上露出的皮肤。他又盯着我的面颊。“白皙？他们是这么说的？白得象蘑菇似的？嗯？”他就嘴巴在动。“你知道蘑菇是从什么东西上长出来的吗？嚯！”他笑了。“现在不白了吧！”
I have coloured and drawn away. Still laughing, he lets fall my hand, turns from me, begins to mount the stairs alone. He wears a pair of soft list slippers, that show his stockinged heels; and I watch him climb, imagining my spite a whip, a stick, with which I could lash at his feet and make him stumble.
我脸上变了颜色，抽回手臂。他笑着放开我的手，转身独自拾级而去。他穿了双软底鞋，后面露出他穿着袜子的脚踝。我望着他的脚步，想象着我的恼恨幻化成一根鞭子，一根藤条，我执鞭抽到他脚上，让他摔个狗啃屎。
The sight makes me giddy. I imagine the house walls cracking — gaping — collapsing in the concussion of his presence. I am only afraid they will do so before I have had my chance to escape.
这景象令我晕眩。在我想象中，这宅子的墙壁因他的出现而大受冲击，四分五裂，支离破碎，分崩离析。而我生怕这一切会在我抓住机会逃走前发生。
But I am afraid, too, of escaping. I think he knows it. He cannot speak privately with me, once Mr Huss and Mr Hawtrey have gone; and he does not dare to steal his way, a second time, to my own rooms. But he knows he must secure me to his plan. He waits, and watches. He takes his supper with us, still; but sits at my uncle’s side, not mine.
然而，我也害怕逃脱本身。我想他清楚这一点。哈斯先生和霍粹先生一走，他就不能跟我单独讲话了。他不会胆大包天到再次摸进我的房间。他也清楚，我加入计划，他才好高枕无忧。他耐心等待，小心观察。他还是跟我们一起用晚餐；却是坐在我舅舅旁边，而不是我旁边。
I am standing, thinking this, hearing his step fade, when Richard returns to the gallery from the floors above. He does not look for me, does not know that I am there, still there, in the shadow of the fastened front door. He only walks; but he walks briskly, his fingers drumming the gallery rail. I think perhaps he even whistles, or hums. We are not used to such sounds at Briar, and with my passion raised and set smarting by my uncle’s words they strike me now as thrilling, perilous, like a shifting of timbers and beams. I think the dust must be rising in a cloud from the antique carpets beneath his shoes; and when I raise my eyes to follow his tread I am sure I can see fine crumbs of paint flake and tumble from the ceiling.
我站在那儿寻思着，耳听得他脚步声渐渐隐去，这时理查德从楼上回来经过过厅，他没看我，他不知道我在，不知道我还站在紧闭大门边的暗处。他走过去了，步履轻快，手指点着过厅的扶栏。我想，也许他还吹着口哨呢，不然就是哼着小曲。在布莱尔，我们不常听到这种声音，而我血性渐起，正体味到我舅舅言辞给我的刺痛，这声音在我听来，充满危险，令我毛骨悚然，犹如危梁悬顶时那若有若无的滑动声。我觉得他走过去时，脚下古旧地毯上的灰尘升腾而起，云雾阵阵的；我目光追随他的脚步，我确信，我看到天花板上的油漆碎片都扑簌簌飞舞下来。
“What, never? — Forgive me, Mr Lilly. Your niece strikes one as being so competent a mistress of the general run of the female arts, I should have said — But, you know, we might remedy this, with very little trouble. Miss Lilly could take lessons from me, sir. Might I not teach her, in my afternoons? I have a little experience in the field: I taught drawing for all of one season at Paris, to the daughters of a Comte.”
“什么？没学过？——原谅我，李先生。我早就想说，你外甥女才艺出众，令人印象深刻——不过，你知道，只要稍下些工夫，我们就可以弥补这个遗憾。先生，李小姐可以跟我学习绘画课程。我可以用中午时间教她吗？这方面我颇有心得：以前在巴黎，我给一位伯爵家的小姐们上了一个季度的绘画课。”
“Then I wish I might do something, to make the burden of your days a little lighter. Have you no work — no painting or sketching, material of that sort — that I might mount for you, in my own time? I think you must. For I see you have many handsome prospects, from the windows of the house.”
“那么，我希望能为你排解烦闷，效犬马之劳。你是否有什么作品，比方说画作，草稿，诸如此类的东西，可以容我帮你装订？我想你肯定有。因为从贵府窗户望出去，窗外有许多美丽景致。”
“The books?” I say. Then, letting my gaze fall to my plate of broken meat: “Very much, of course.”
“书籍？”我说道。我眼帘垂下来，望着盘中的碎肉：“当然了，非常想。”
He raises a brow, as a conductor of music might raise a baton. Of course, I am nothing if not obedient. I say, “I cannot paint, or draw. I have never been taught it.”
他一边眉毛扬起来，就仿佛指挥家扬起指挥棒。当然，我惟有服从。我说道，“我不会油画，也不会素描。我没学过绘画。”
One night, however, he breaks their conversation to say this: “It troubles me, Miss Lilly, to think of how bored you must be, now I have come and taken your uncle’s attention from his Index. I imagine you are longing to return to your work among the books.”
有天晚上，他终于岔开话题说道，“李小姐，我来到贵府，令你舅父不能专注于索引编纂，一想到你该多么烦闷，我就满怀歉疚。我想你心中盼望着再回到书籍中，重拾乐趣吧。”
“For its own sake?” My uncle blinks at me. “Maud, what do you say?”
“为画而学画？”我舅舅目光闪动，望着我。“莫德，你怎么说？”
My uncle screws up his eyes. “Drawing?” he says. “What would my niece want with that? Do you mean to assist us, Maud, in the making up of the albums?”
我舅舅翻翻眼睛。“绘画？”他说道。“我外甥女干什么要学那个？莫德，你想帮我们装订画册吗？”
“I mean drawing for its own sake, sir,” says Richard gently, before I can reply.
我还没应声，理查德就轻声说道，“我是说为画而学画，先生。”
“No skill? Well, that may be true. Certainly your hand, when I first had you here, was ungainly enough; and tends to slope, even now. Tell me, Rivers: should a course of instruction in drawing help the firmness of my niece’s hand?”
“并无才能？是，好象是这么回事。当初我带你来这，你手可够笨的；到现在还有点斜肩膀。瑞富斯，你跟我说说，绘画指导对我外甥女手的稳定性有帮助吗？”
“Then, Maud, do you let Mr Rivers teach you. I don’t care, anyhow, to imagine you idle. Hmm?”
“那好，莫德，让瑞富斯先生教你吧。反正，我不喜欢见你闲着。嗯？”
“I should say it would, sir, most definitely.”
“有帮助，先生，千真万确。”
“I’m afraid I have no skill.”
“只怕我并无才能。”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“是，先生。”我说道。
Richard looks on, a sheen of blandness across his gaze like the filmy lid that guards a cat’s eye as it slumbers. My uncle bending to his plate, however, he quickly meets my look: then the film draws back, the eye is bared; and the sudden intimacy of his expression makes me shudder.
理查德见状，眼里闪过一丝柔光，仿佛猫睡着时眼珠上覆着的朦胧水膜。然而待我舅舅低头吃饭，他飞快与我对视一眼：那层膜隐退了，他的眼神暴露无遗；他神情中那突如其来的亲近之意令我不寒而栗。
Don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think me more scrupulous than I am. It’s true I shudder in fear — fear of his plot — fear of its success, as well as of its failure. But I tremble, too, at the boldness of him — or rather, his boldness sets me quivering, as they say a vibrating string will find out unsuspected sympathies in the fibres of idle bodies. I saw: in ten minutes what your life has made of you, he said to me, that first night. And then: I think you are half a villain already. He was right. If I never knew that villainy before — or if, knowing it, I never named it — I know it, name it, now.
不要误会我的意思。不要把我想得那么谨慎小心。我确因恐惧而战栗——为他的计划而恐惧——怕他的计划成功，也怕他失败。而同时，我也为他的胆大妄为而战栗——毋宁说，是他的胆大妄为让我战栗，正如人所说，言者无心，听者有意。只消十分钟，我就看出，你的生活已将你造就成了什么样儿，那个晚上，他对我这么说。接下来他还说，我想你已算得上半个坏人。他说得对。假使说，从前我不知邪恶为何物——又或者，我知其实而不知其名——那么现在，我都知道了，有名有实。
I know it, when he comes each day to my room, raises my hand to his mouth, touches his lips to my knuckles, rolls his cold, blue, devilish eyes. If Agnes sees, she does not understand. She thinks it gallantry. It is gallantry! — The gallantry of rogues. She will watch while we put out paper, leads and paints. She will see him take his place at my side, guide my fingers in the making of curves and crooked lines. He will drop his voice. Men’s voices do badly in murmurs, as a rule — they break, they jar, they long to rise — but his can fall, insinuate, and yet, like a musical note, stay clear; and while she sits and sews, half the length of a room away, he will take me, in secret, point by point across his scheme, until the scheme is perfect.
当他每天来到我的房间，将我的手举到他唇边，嘴唇轻触我手指，恶魔般冷酷湛蓝的双眸滴溜溜乱转时，我便体会到邪恶为何物。要是给阿格尼丝看见了，她也不会明白。她以为这是献殷勤。还殷勤呢！——流氓无赖的殷勤。我们拿出纸，笔，颜料，她就在一旁望着。她还看到他挪到我身边，把着我的手画各种线条。他会压低了声音讲话。一般而言，男人轻言细语时声音不甚动听——要么破了音，要么尖细刺耳，要么一个劲往高里扯——而他能将声音慢慢压低了，还保持清晰吐字，就象悦耳的音符；等她坐在离我们有半个房间远那儿的地方做针线时，他就会拖住我，秘密地，一字一句地，跟我商议他的计划，直到计划完美无缺为止。
He will smile. He will straighten and put back his hair. He will look at Agnes and find her eyes on his. Her gaze will flutter away.
他会面露微笑。他会站直了，把头发捋到后面。他会望着阿格尼丝，然后发觉她也在看他。她会慌乱地跳开目光。
“Very good,” he’ll say — like a proper drawing-master with an able girl. “Very good. You learn quickly.”
“非常好，”他会如此说道——就好似一位正经的绘画师傅在指导有才能的女学生。“非常好，你学的很快。”
“Well, Agnes,” he’ll say, marking her nervousness like a hunter marks his bird, “what do you say to your mistress’s gifts as an artist?”
“好了，阿格尼丝，”他会这么说，瞄住了她的紧张，就好象猎人瞄住了猎物，“你觉得你家小姐的艺术天赋如何？”
Once he takes her fingers. She colours scarlet at his touch.
他一抓住她的手指，她就因他的触碰而面红耳赤。
“Do you blush?” he says then, in amazement. “You don’t suppose I mean to insult you?”
“你脸红了？”他惊讶地说道。“你不会以为我有意冒犯你吧？”
He might take up a pencil, go closer to her. “You see how I have Miss Lilly hold the lead? Her grip is a lady’s grip, however, and needs firming. I think your hand, Agnes, would bear a pencil better. Here, won’t you try?”
他会拿起一支铅笔，走到她跟前。“你看到我让李小姐如何拿笔吧？不过她拿笔的手法是女士手法，应该稳当点。阿格尼丝，我觉得你的手拿笔应该更稳。来吧，你不试试吗？”
“Oh, sir! I couldn’t hope to judge.”
“噢，先生！我可没想过点评。”
“No, sir!”
“没有，先生。”
“I am only a little warm, sir.”
“我就是有点热，先生。”
“Well, why do you blush?”
“那就好，那你脸怎么红了？”
And so on. He has a talent for torment, quite as polished as my own; and I ought, in observing this, to grow cautious. I do not. The more he teases, the more bewildered Agnes becomes, the more — like a top, revolving faster at the goading of a whip!– the more I taunt her myself.
诸如此类的话语。他有种折磨人的天赋，在这方面他跟我旗鼓相当。而我见到这副景象，本应当日益警醒。我没有。他愈是挑逗，阿格尼丝就愈慌乱——就好象一个陀螺，鞭子越是抽，就越是转的欢！——而我，也愈发要嘲弄她奚落她。
“Warm, in December –?”
“热？九月份也热？”
“Agnes,” I say, while she undresses me or brushes out my hair, “what are you thinking of? Of Mr Rivers?” I stop her wrist, feel the grinding of the bones inside it. “Do you think him handsome, Agnes? You do, I see it in your eye! And don’t young girls want handsome men?”
待她给我更衣或梳头时，我说道，“阿格尼丝，你心里怎么想瑞富斯先生？”我攥住她手腕，感觉到其中骨骼摩擦。“你觉得他英俊吗？阿格尼丝？你觉得，我从你眼睛里看出来了！年轻姑娘们不都是喜欢英俊小生吗？”
“Indeed, miss, I don’t know!”
“说真的，小姐，我也不知道！”
“Do you say that? Then you’re a liar.” I pinch her, in some soft part of her flesh — for of course, by now I know them all. “You’re a liar and a flirt. Will you put those crimes upon your list, when you kneel beside your bed and ask your Father to forgive you? Do you think He will forgive you, Agnes? I think He must forgive a red-headed girl, for she can’t help it that she’s wicked, it’s in her nature to be so. He would be cruel indeed, to put a passion in her, and then to punish her for feeling it. Don’t you think? Don’t you feel your passion, when Mr Rivers gazes at you? Don’t you listen for the sound of his quick step?”
“你这么说？那你就是个说谎精。”我在她身上某柔嫩处掐了一下——当然，现如今我对这些了如指掌。“你是个说谎精，你是个浪荡女。当你跪在床边请求圣父宽恕时，你会把这些罪恶一一历数出来吗？你觉得他老人家会宽恕你吗？阿格尼丝？我想他定然会原谅那个红发姑娘，因为她忍不住要使坏，她生来就是个坏胚子。其实他也残忍，将情种播撒在她心里，然后又惩罚她，叫她为情所困。你不这么想吗？瑞富斯先生盯着你的时候，你没感觉到自己春情萌动吗？你没有竖起耳朵，倾听见他轻快的脚步声吗？”
She says she doesn’t. She swears it, against her own mother’s life! God knows what she really thinks. She must only say it, or the play will founder. She must say it and be bruised, and keep the habit of her innocence complete; and I must bruise her. I must bruise her, for all the commonplace wanting of him that — were I an ordinary girl, with an ordinary heart — I would surely feel myself. I never do feel it. Don’t imagine I do. Does de Merteuil feel it, for Valmont? I don’t want to feel it. I should hate myself, if I did! For I know it, from my uncle’s books, for too squalid a thing — an itch, like the itch of inflamed flesh, to be satisfied hecticly, wetly, in closets and behind screens. What he has called up in me, set stirring in my breast — that dark propinquity — is something altogether rarer. I might say, it rises like a shadow in the house, or creeps like a bloom across its walls. But the house is full of shadows and stains, already; and so noone marks it. No-one, perhaps, save Mrs Stiles. For I think only she, of anyone there, ever gazes at Richard and wonders if he is all the gentleman he claims to be. I catch her look, sometimes. I believe she sees through him. I believe she thinks he has come to cheat me and do me harm. But, thinking it — and hating me — she keeps the thought to herself; and nurses her hope of my ruin, smiling, as she once nursed her dying child.
她矢口否认。她发誓赌咒，以她母亲的性命做担保！上帝知道她心里怎么想。她必须且只能这么说，否则这出戏就玩完了。她必须这么说，然后给我掐，她必须使她一贯的清白保全无缺，而我也必须掐她。我必须掐她，为了她对他平凡无奇的想念——如果我是平常人家的姑娘，有一颗平常人的心——那本应由我感受到的想念之苦。我从未感受到。别异想天开，以为我会想念他，梅特伊想念过瓦尔蒙特吗？我也不想有此感受。如果我有，那我真会痛恨自己！因为我从我舅舅藏书里了解到，这件事太过肮脏龌龊——就好似发炎红肿的肉体感受到的刺痒，那种刺痒须在秘室之中，帷幕之后，于满面通红、器官潮湿中得到满足。他在我身体里唤起的，那激荡在我胸中的——那暗中的勾结——则是一种更为罕见的情愫。我可以说，这种情愫的产生，就好似这宅子中的一片阴影逐渐蔓延开来，或者，好象墙壁上的爬山藤开出的小花。而这宅子中早已暗影重重，污迹斑斑；于是没谁会注意到这些事。没谁注意到，或许，除了斯黛尔太太。我想只有她，在这些人里面，曾经仔细端详过理查德，心里起过疑心，他是否如其所宣扬的那样，是位正人君子。有时我看到她注视的目光。我觉得她看穿了他。我觉得，她以为他来此地就是为拐骗我，陷害我。然而，每念及此——以及对我的恨意——她自己保守着秘密；笑脸迎人，守护着眼见我步向毁灭的心愿，正如她曾经守护着她那垂死的女儿。
“And you understand how?”
“那你知道怎么做吗？”
He says it in a whisper, with his eyes upon her, as she sits at the window bent over her work. He says it so coolly, with so steady a gaze, I am almost afraid of him. I think I draw back. Then he looks at me.
他以喃喃耳语说出这番话，眼睛还停在她身上，她坐在窗边低头忙活。他如此冷酷地说出这番话，眼睛一瞬也不瞬，我几乎对他心生惧意。我想到我要甩手不干。这时，他望着我。
“You know that we must,” he says.
“你清楚，我们必须这么做。”他说道。
“It’s quite the only way,” he goes on, “with virtuous girls like that. Will stop up a mouth, better even than menaces, or coins…” He has picked up a paintbrush, puts the hairs to his lip and begins to run them, idly, back and forth. “Don’t trouble with the details,” he says smoothly. “There’s not much to it. Not much, at all –” He smiles. She has looked up from her work, and he has caught her eye.
“对那种规矩的好姑娘，”他继续说道。“其实也只有一个办法。既能堵住她们的嘴，又比威胁和贿赂都管用…”他拿起一支画笔，将笔刷凑到嘴边，来回轻触嘴唇。“你就别为细节操心了。”他轻飘飘地说道。“也没什么细节，根本就没什么细节——”他微笑。她从活计中抬头望过来，他迎着她的目光。
“We must get rid of Agnes.”
“我们必须除掉阿格尼丝。”
“Of course.”
“当然。”
“Quite fair, sir.”
“晴空万里，先生。”
These, then, are the metals with which our trap is made, the forces that prime it and sharpen its teeth. And when it is all complete — “Now,” says Richard, “our work begins.”
当时，这就是我们阴谋的实质内容，是阴谋日渐完满，日渐狰狞的驱动力。等万事具备——“现在，”理查德如是说，“演出开始了。”
“How is the day, Agnes?” he calls. “Still fair?”
“今天天气如何？阿格尼丝？”他唤道。“还是个晴天？”
“Good. Very good…” Then she must I suppose lower her head, for the kindness sinks from his face. He puts the paintbrush to his tongue and sucks the hairs into a point.
“好，真好…”这时我估计她又把头低下了，因为他脸上的和善神色消失了。他将笔刷凑到舌头上，将刷毛吮成尖头。
I have not, until this moment. Now I see his face.
到这会儿，我都还没概念。我望着他的脸。
“I’ll do it tonight,” he says, thoughtfully. “Shall I? I will. I’ll make my way to her room, as I made my way to yours. All you must do is, give me fifteen minutes alone with her” — again he looks at me — “and not come, if she cries out.”
“我今晚就动手。”他若有所思地说道。“我会动手吗？我会的。我要摸到她房间里，就象上次我摸到你房间里。你所要做的就是，让我跟她单独待十五分钟”——他再次注视着我——“如果她叫喊，你不要过来。”
It has seemed, until this point, a sort of game. Don’t gentlemen and young ladies, in country houses, play games — flirt and intrigue? Now comes the first failing, or shrinking back, of my heart.
在当时，这种事还算是一种游戏。乡间的善男信女们不都会耍这种你追我赶，买弄风情的游戏吗？此时，我心中第一次感到失落和退缩。
When Agnes undresses me that night, I cannot look at her. I turn my head. “You may close the door to your room, this once,” I say; and I feel her hesitate — perhaps catch the weakness in my voice, grow puzzled. I do not watch her leave me. I hear the clicking of the latch, the murmur of her prayers; I hear the murmur broken off, when he comes to her door. She does not cry out, after all. Should I really be able to keep from going to her, if she did? I do not know. But, she does not, her voice only lifts high, in surprise, in indignation and then — I suppose — a kind of panic; but then it drops, is stifled or soothed, gives way in a moment to whispers, to the rub of linen or limbs… Then the rub becomes silence. And the silence is worst of all: not an absence of sound, but teeming — as they say clear water teems, when viewed through a lens — with kicks and squirming movements. I imagine her shuddering, weeping, her clothes put back — but her freckled arms closing, despite herself, about his plunging back, her white mouth seeking out his — I put my hands to my own mouth; and feel the dry chafe of my gloves. Then I stop up my ears. I don’t hear it when he leaves her. I don’t know what she does when he is gone. I let the door stay closed; take drops, at last, to help me sleep; and then, next day, wake late.
那天夜里，阿格尼丝为我更衣时，我不敢正视她的眼睛。我将头别过去。“今天晚上你可以把那个门关上。”我说道；我感觉她犹疑了一下——也许她觉察出我声音里的心虚，倒疑心起来。我没看她离去。我听见门插销的声音，听见她喃喃地祈祷；当他摸到她门前，我听见那喃喃低语中断了。她没叫没喊。假使她叫了喊了，我就真能充耳不闻？坐视不管？我也不知道。不过，她没叫喊，只是声音抬高，为惊讶，为不甘，也为了——我猜想——某种恐慌；可是随即，这声音就低落下去，要么是被按捺住了，要么是被安抚下来，一下变成窃窃私语，变成肤发厮磨…接下来，厮磨归于沉寂。沉寂是恶中之最恶：绝不是声音有所缺失，而是——正象人们所说的，将洁净的水放在显微镜下，将看到水中内容万千——随着蠕动踢打，变得丰富细碎。我想象着她抽泣着，衣裳褪下——尽管百般不情愿，她那布满雀斑的手臂还是缠住他起伏的肩背，她白色的嘴唇寻求着他的亲吻——我手捂住嘴，感觉到手套干燥的摩擦。然后我捂住耳朵。我没听到他何时离开。我也不知道他离开后，她做了些什么。我让那门一直关着；最后，为了能睡着，我还服了药；结果次日，我就起晚了。
“Scarlet fever,” she whispers, not meeting my gaze.
“猩红热，”她并不看我的眼睛，低声说道。
There are fears, then, of infection. Fears, of that! She is moved to an attic, and plates of vinegar burned in her room — the smell makes me sick. I see her again, but only once, the day she comes to make me her good-bye. She seems thin, and dark about the eye; and her hair is cut. I reach for her hand, and she flinches, perhaps expecting a blow; I only kiss her, lightly, on her wrist.
于是，大家都惊慌失措，害怕传染。他们居然怕这个！她被转移到一间小阁楼里，阁楼里烧着一盘醋——那味道令我作呕。后来我又见到她，却是最后一次，那天她来告别。她好象瘦了，眼圈发黑；头发剪短了。我拉起她的手，她畏缩着，似乎以为我要打她；我只是轻轻地亲吻了她的手腕。
I hear her calling, weakly, from her bed. She says she is ill. She parts her lips, to show me the lining of her mouth. It is red and raised and swollen.
我听到她在床上有气无力地叫唤。她说她病了。她张开嘴，给我看她嘴里的红肿患处。
Then she looks at me in scorn.
她望着我，神情颇不屑。
“You are soft on me now,” she says, drawing back her arm, pulling down her sleeve, “now you’ve another to be hard to. Good luck to you trying. I’d like to see you bruise him, before he bruises you.”
“这会儿你对我好了。”她抽回胳膊，撸下袖子。“现在你有新人可折磨了。祝你好运。在他收拾你之前，我非常乐意看到你先收拾他。”
Her words shake me a little — but only a little; and when she is gone, it seems to me that I forget her. For Richard is also gone — gone three days before, on my uncle’s business, and on ours — and my thoughts are all with him, with him and with London.
她的话令我颇有触动——可也就那么一点；等她走了，我好象就将她全抛到脑后了。因为理查德也走了——他三天前就走了，为操办我舅舅的事，也为了我们的事——我的心思都在他身上，都在他身上，都在伦敦。
I lie upon my bed and try to imagine the house that I will take, in London. I cannot do it. I see only a series of voluptuous rooms — dim rooms, close rooms, rooms-within-rooms — dungeons and cells — the rooms of Priapus and Venus. — The thought unnerves me. I give it up. The house will come clearer in time,
我躺在床上，试图在脑海中描绘出将来在伦敦住的房子。我描绘不出。我只想得出一间间奢侈华丽的屋子——昏暗，封闭，屋子里还套着屋子——牢房和暗室——普瑞艾波斯和维纳斯的屋子。——这念想令我身心俱疲，我不要再想了。反正时候到了，就自然会搞清楚这屋子是何面貌，对此我很有把握。
London! where I have never been, but which I have imagined so fiercely, so often, I am sure I know. London, where I will find my liberty, cast off my self, live to another pattern — live without patterns, without hides and bindings — without books! I will ban paper from my house!
伦敦！虽然我从未涉足，可它令我朝思暮想，魂不守舍，我甚至相信我对它了如指掌。伦敦，我将在那儿寻找到自由，将本来的我完全隐没，以另一种方式生活——不要既定模式，不要不见天日，不要种种束缚——不要书！我的家里要纸张绝迹！
I am sure of it. I rise and walk and think again of Richard, making his passage across the city, picking his way through the night to the dark thieves’ den, close to the river. I think of him roughly greeted by crooks, I think of him casting off his coat and hat, warming his hands at a fire, looking about him. I think of him, Macheath-like, counting off a set of vicious faces — Mrs Vixen, Betty Doxy, Jenny Diver, Molly Brazen — until he finds the face he seeks… Suky Tawdry.
我站起身走动起来，又想起了理查德，他横穿都市，星夜奔波，到达河边的阴暗贼穴。我想象着他跟江湖骗子们吆五喝六地寒暄，我想象着他甩开衣帽，凑到火边烤手，打量着周围，象马奇斯（Macheath）似的，目光逐一掠过一张张牛鬼蛇神般的面孔——饶舌妇的脸，淫妇的脸，包打听的脸，厚颜无耻者的脸——直到发现他要寻找的那张脸…俗气的茶壶面孔。
She’s ours, he writes.
她是我们的了，他在信中如是写道。
I think I am dreaming of her when Margaret comes to my room with a letter, from him.
我想玛格丽特来到我房间时，我正好在做这个梦。玛格丽特带来一封信，是他来的信。
She is due at Marlow at three o’clock. I send William Inker for her, in good time. But though I sit and seem to feel her drawing close, the trap comes back without her: the trains are late, there are fogs. I pace, and cannot settle. At five o’clock I send William again — again he comes back. Then I must take supper with my uncle. While Charles pours out my wine I ask him, “Any news yet, of Miss Smith?” — My uncle hearing me whisper, however, he sends Charles away.
她预计三点钟到梅洛站。我命威廉·英克尔速去接站。尽管我坐在屋里好象感觉到她在靠近布莱尔，然而，马车回来了，没接到她：起大雾了，火车晚点。我来回度步，坐立不安。五点一到，我又打发威廉英克尔去接站——他又一个人回来。这时，我必须陪我舅舅用晚餐了。当查尔斯给我倒酒时，我问道，“有史密斯小姐的消息吗？”——却被我舅舅听到我低声发问，他挥手命查尔斯退下。
Her. I think of her. I think so hard of her I think I know her colour — fair — her figure — plump — her walk, the shade of her eye. — I am sure it is blue. I begin to dream of her. In the dreams she speaks and I hear her voice. She says my name, and laughs.
就是她。我想到了她。我苦苦思索，想像着她，我觉得我熟悉她的肤色——是白皙的，她的轮廓——是丰满的，她的步态，她眼窝里的阴影。——我觉得那肯定是蓝色的。我开始梦到她。在那些梦里，她开口说话，我听到她的声音。她叫出我的名字，还笑了。
I read it, then fall back upon my pillow and hold the letter to my mouth. I put my lips to the paper. He might be my lover, after all — or, she might. For I could not want her now, more than I could a lover.
读到此言，我跌落到枕头上，紧紧抓着信纸，贴在嘴边。我亲吻着信纸。姑且当他是我的情人——要不然，她也可以。我渴求她到来的心情，比渴望情人到来的心情更迫切。
But I could not want a lover, more than I want freedom.
而我对自由的渴求，比对情人的渴求更迫切。
I put his letter upon the fire, then draw up my reply: Send her at once. I am sure I shall love her. She shall be the dearer to me for coming from London, where you are! — we settled on the wording before he left. That done, I need only wait, one day and then another. The day after that is the day she comes.
我把他的信丢到火里，随即拟就回信：马上把她送来。我肯定会善待她。她来自您身处的伦敦，这令我倍感亲近。——他离去之前，我们已商定好通信措辞。做完这些，我只须坐等，等了一天，又一天。等到第三天，她就来了。
“Do you prefer to talk with servants, Maud, than with me?” he says. He is peevish, since Richard left us.
“莫德，你宁肯跟下人说话，也不肯跟我说话？”他说道。理查德走后，他变得暴躁易怒。
He chooses a book of little punishments for me to read from, after the meal: the steady recitation of cruelty makes me calmer. But when I go up to my chill and silent rooms, I grow fretful again; and after Margaret has undressed me and put me into my bed, I rise, and walk — stand now at the fire, now at the door, now at the window, looking out for the light of the trap. Then I see it. It shows feebly in the fog — seems to glow, rather than to shine — and to flash, with the motion of the horse and the passage of the trap behind the trees, like a thing of warning. I watch it come, my hand at my heart. It draws close — slows, narrows, fades — I see beyond it, then, the horse, the cart, William, a vaguer figure. They drive to the rear of the house, and I run to Agnes’s room — Susan’s room, it will be now — and stand at the window there; and finally see her.
餐后，他挑了一本有些许体罚内容的书让我诵读：四平八稳地诵读那些酷虐文字，倒令我头脑冷静下来。可当我上楼，回到那寒冷寂静的房间时，我又忐忑不安起来；在玛格丽特给我更衣，服侍我上床之后，我又起身，走来走去——一下到壁炉前，一下到门后，一下站到窗边，眺望马车的灯光。终于我看到了。那灯火在雾中朦胧嬴弱，随车马行进，在树林里跳动闪烁，如警示信号一般，忽明忽暗——更似余烬残光，而非指路明灯。我望着那灯火，手捂住心口。那灯火一点点地近了——慢吞吞地，变弱，隐没——这时，我看到灯火之后，马匹，马车，威廉，还有一个模糊的身影。他们将马车驶入宅子后院，我跑进阿格尼斯的房间——如今是苏珊的房间——站在窗边；终于看到她了。
She is lifting her head, gazing up at the stables, the clock. William jumps from his seat and helps her to the ground. She holds a hood about her face. She is dressed darkly, and seems small.
她抬起头，望着马厩，还有大钟。威廉从座位上跳下来，扶她落地。她抓着帽子，帽子包着脸。她身穿暗色衣裳，看上去似乎身形瘦小。
But, she is real. The plot is real. — I feel the force of it all at once, and tremble. It is too late to receive her, now. Instead I must wait further, while she is given a supper and brought to her room; and then I must lie, hearing her step and murmur, my eyes upon the door — an inch or two of desiccated wood! — that lies between her chamber and mine.
然而，她是实实在在的。那个计划也是实实在在的。——刹那间，我感受到那计划的狰狞，不由得颤抖起来。此时夜色已深，不宜接待她。随不能立即见到她，我仍会等待，然后我得躺下，倾听她的脚步声和喃喃自语，我眼睛盯着那扇矗立在我和她之间的门——那区区一两寸厚的硬邦邦的门板！
“Well, we must be kind to her. It will seem dull to her here, perhaps, after London.”
“不错，我们要善待她。她从伦敦来，这儿对她来说，也许有点冷清无趣。”
She says nothing.
她没接话。
“As girl to me.”
“做我的贴身女仆。”
“Do, miss?”
“做什么？小姐？”
“Do you think she will do?”
“你觉得她会做吗？”
She tosses her head. “Seemed rather low in her manners,” she says. “Been half a dozen times to France and I don’t know where, though. Made sure Mr Inker knew that.”
她甩甩头。“举止好象很低贱，”她说道。“说去过六七趟法国，不过我也不清楚去过哪儿。她跟英克尔先生说得有鼻子有眼儿呢。”
“Will you have Mrs Stiles bring her to me, so soon as she has taken her breakfast?”
“你让斯黛尔太太吃过早饭就马上带她来见我。”
“Yes, miss.”
“是的，小姐。”
Once I rise and go stealthily to it, and put my ear to the panels; but hear nothing.
我曾起身走到门边，耳朵贴在门上；可什么动静也没听到。
Next morning I have Margaret carefully dress me, and while she pulls at my laces I say, “I believe Miss Smith has come. Did you see her, Margaret?”
次日一早，玛格丽特为我穿衣，她帮我拽带子的时候，我说道，“我相信史密斯小姐已经到了。你见到她了吗？玛格丽特？”
There comes a knock upon my door. How should I stand? I stand at the fire. Does my voice sound queer, when I call out? Does she mark it? Does she hold her breath? I know I hold mine; then I feel myself colour, and will the blood from my face. The door is opened. Mrs Stiles comes first and, after a moment’s hesitation, she is before me: Susan — Susan Smith — Suky Tawdry — the gullible girl, who is to take my life from me and give me freedom.
门上响起叩门声。我该如何是好？我站在壁炉旁。我招呼她的声音，听上去会否有些怪异？她是否屏住了呼吸？我知道我是；然后我自觉脸上变了颜色，我强自抑住涌起的血色。门开了。斯黛尔太太先进来，有一瞬的犹疑，她出现在我面前：苏珊——是苏珊·史密斯——茶壶面孔——轻信的女孩，她将自我处得到我的一切，然后赋予我自由新生。
I have lain all night, sometimes sleeping, sometimes waking, oppressed with the nearness and obscurity of her. I must see her now, before I go to my uncle, or I fear I will grow ill. At last, at half-past seven or so, I hear an unfamiliar tread in the passage that leads from the servants’ staircase; and then Mrs Stiles’s murmur: “Here we are.”
我在床上躺了一整夜，时睡时醒，心中压抑着她人在近旁而形象未明的念想。我必须马上见到她，在去舅舅书房之前，否则我怕我会病倒。最后，大约七点半光景，我听得走廊上响起一串陌生的脚步声，那声音来自仆人通道；随即是斯黛尔太太的低语：“到了，就这儿。”
Sharper than expectation, comes dismay. I have supposed she will resemble me, I have supposed she will be handsome: but she is a small, slight, spotted thing, with hair the colour of dust. Her chin comes almost to a point. Her eyes are brown, darker than mine. Her gaze is now too frank, now sly: she gives me a single, searching look that takes in my gown, my gloves, my slippers, the very clocks upon my stockings.
比期望来得更强烈的，是失望。我还以为她外貌与我相似，我还以为她也美丽动人：可她是个瘦小，嬴弱，脏兮兮的小人物，发色如同尘色。她下巴尖尖，眼眸褐色，比我的颜色深沉。她眼神时而过分憨直，时而狡猾灵动：她看了我一眼，探究的目光一扫，我的长袍，手套，鞋子，袜子上的每条花边都尽收眼底。
We are watched by Mrs Stiles. Her look says plainly: “Here is the girl you sent for, to London. She is about good enough for you, I think.”
斯黛尔太太在旁观望。她的表情很坦白，仿佛在说：“这就是你从伦敦找来的姑娘，我觉得给你用，她绰绰有余呢。”
“You need not stay, Mrs Stiles,” I say. And then, as she turns to go: “But you will have been kind to Miss Smith, I know.” I look again at Susan. “You’ve heard, perhaps, that I am an orphan, Susan; like you. I came to Briar as a child — very young, and with no-one at all to care for me. I cannot tell you all the ways in which Mrs Stiles has made me know what a mother’s love is, since that time…”
“你不必待在这儿，斯黛尔太太。”我说道。然后，待她转身欲离去：“不过我知道，你会善待史密斯小姐的。”我又望着苏姗。“你也许听说过，我是个孤儿，苏珊，跟你一样。我很小就来到布莱尔——很小，根本没人喜欢我。从那时起，斯黛尔太太就无微不至照料我，让我了解母爱为何物，她待我好得难以言表。”
Then she blinks — remembers her training, I suppose — makes a hasty curtsey. She is pleased with the curtsey, I can tell. She is pleased with me. She thinks me a fool. The idea upsets me, more than it should. I think, You have come to Briar to ruin me. I step to take her hand. Won’t you colour, or tremble, or hide your eyes? But she returns my gaze and her fingers — which are bitten, about the nails — are cold and hard and perfectly steady in mine.
然后她眨眨眼——我猜是记起了她得到的训示——向我草草地行了个屈膝礼。我敢说她对这个屈膝礼颇感满足。她对我也颇感满意。她觉得我是个傻瓜。这想法令我不爽，而我本不该为此烦恼。我想，你到布莱尔来，来毁灭我。我上前，拉起她的手。你就不脸红吗？不颤抖吗？眼神不闪躲吗？而她迎着我的目光，她的手指——那指甲被啃过——冰冷僵硬，在我手中沉稳异常。
I say this, smiling. The tormenting of my uncle’s housekeeper is too routine an occupation, however, to hold me. It is Susan I want; and when Mrs Stiles has twitched and coloured and left us, I draw her to me, to lead her to the fire. She walks. She sits. She is warm and quick. I touch her arm. It is as slender as Agnes’s, but hard. I can smell beer upon her breath. She speaks. Her voice is not at all how I have dreamed it, but light and pert; though she tries to make it sweeter. She tells me of her journey, of the train from London — when she says the word, London, she seems conscious of the sound; I suppose she is not in the habit of naming it, of considering it a place of destination or desire. It is a wonder and a torment to me that a girl so slight, so trifling as she, should have lived her life in London, while mine has been all at Briar; but a consolation, also — for if she can thrive there, then might not I, with all my talents, thrive better?
我微笑着说出这番话。其实，折腾我舅舅的管家，对我而言，实在太过稀松平常。我想要的是苏珊；斯黛尔太太抽搐一下，脸色一变，退下了。我拉着她的手，带她到了壁炉边。她跟着我，坐下来。她温暖而轻快。我碰到她的胳膊。她胳膊跟阿格尼丝的一样纤细，却更结实。我闻到她气息中的啤酒味，她说话，声音跟我梦到的完全不同，语音轻盈跳跃，颇有些粗鲁；虽然她尽力使声音柔美。她给我讲述旅途种种，从伦敦来时火车上的种种——当她提到那个字眼，伦敦，她似乎对此颇有感触。我猜她是不习惯直呼其名，不习惯将其当作向往之地或思念之乡。象她这么一个如此渺小，如此微不足道的姑娘，都能生活在伦敦，而我却在布莱尔苦熬，这个想法对于我，既是个问题，又是种折磨；不过其中也有少许安慰——因为，如果她能在伦敦讨生活，那以我的天赋才能，不是更会如鱼得水吗？
“Lady Alice always said so, miss,” she says.
“爱丽丝小姐一直这么说，小姐。”她说道。
“Yes, miss.”
“是的，小姐。”
She looks so taken with this — so taken in, by her own fiction — so innocent, not sly — I sit a moment and regard her in silence. Then I take her hand again. “You are a good girl, Susan, I think,” I say. She smiles and looks modest. Her fingers move in mine.
她看上去对此坚信不疑——对她的想象坚信不疑——如此单纯，毫不虚伪——我静坐片刻，于沉默中注视着她。这时，我又拉起她的手。“我觉得你是个好姑娘，苏珊。”我说道。她笑了，面露谦逊。她手在我手中动了动。
So I tell myself, while describing her duties. Again I see her eye my gown and slippers and now, recognising the pity in her gaze as well as the scorn, I think I blush. I say, “Your last mistress, of course, was quite a fine lady? She would laugh, I suppose, to look at me!”
跟她交代职责时，我如是告诉自己。我再次看到她眼睛盯着我的长袍和鞋子，看到那目光中流露出的怜悯和不屑，我觉得自己脸红了。我说道，“你前一位主人定然是位美丽时髦的太太吧？我猜想，假使她见到我，要笑话我了。”
“Did she?”
“是吗？”
My voice is not quite steady. But if there is a bitterness to my tone, she does not catch it. Instead, “Oh, no, miss,” she says. “She was far too kind a lady. And besides, she always said that grand clothes weren’t worth buttons; but that it was the heart inside them that counts.”
我的声音不太稳定。不过，如果我语气中有一丝酸涩，她也毫无察觉。相反，她说道，“噢，不会的，小姐，她是一位心地非常非常好的女士。另外，她总是讲，衣冠楚楚不值一文；看人终究要看衣冠下面的内心。”
Then she remembers something. She pulls from me, reaches into her pocket, and brings out a letter. It is folded, sealed, directed in an affected feminine hand; and of course comes from Richard. I hesitate, then take it — rise and walk, unfold it, far from her gaze.
然后她想起什么事。她抽回手，从口袋里掏出一封信。那信折着，蜡封封好的，地址以做作的女式字体写就；当然，那是理查德的信。我犹豫着，接过信——站起来，走到一旁，远远避开她的目光，打开信封。
No names! it says; — but I think you know me. Here is the girl who will make us rich — that fresh little fmgersmith, I’ve had cause in the past to employ her skills, and can commend her. She is watching as I write this, and oh! her ignorance is perfect. I imagine her now, gazing at you. She is luckier than I, who must pass two filthy weeks before enjoying that pleasure. — Burn this, will you?
没有抬头！信里说；——我想你知道我。这就是那个能令我们发横财的姑娘——那个初入江湖的小蟊贼，此前我找借口试探过她的功夫，也已令她听命于我。写到这儿，她正看着我呢，噢，她的无知可真是天公作美。我想此时此刻，她正盯着你吧。她运气比我好，享受此中乐趣前，我还得再待他娘的两个星期。——看完烧掉，好吗？
I have thought myself as cool as he. I am not, I am not, I feel her watching — just as he describes! — and grow fearful. I stand with the letter in my hand, then am aware all at once that I have stood too long. If she should have seen! — I fold the paper, once, twice, thrice — finally it will not fold at all. I do not yet know that she cannot read or write so much as her own name; when I learn it I laugh, in an awful relief. But I don’t quite believe her. “Not read?” I say. “Not a letter, not a word?” — and I hand her a book. She does not want to take it; and when she does, she opens its covers, turns a page, gazes hard at a piece of text — but all in a way that is wrong, indefinably anxious and wrong, and too subtle to counterfeit. — At last, she blushes.
我原以为我跟他一样冷静镇定。我不是的，我不是的，我感受到她的注视——跟他说的一样——渐渐恐慌起来。我拿着信立在原地，随即意识到我站的太久了。如果她看过那信——！我折起信纸，一折，再折，又折——折到不能再折。我尚不知她不会读写，连自己名字都写不出。当我听闻此事，我笑起来，心中大石落地。不过我还不太相信她。“不识字？”我说道。“一个字母也不认得？一个词也不认得？”——于是我递给她一本书。她并不想接那本书；等她拿到书，打开封面，翻了一页，牢牢瞪着一篇文章——可她看文章的方式完全错了，难以言状的紧张，错误的方式，那种微妙感觉是装不出的。最后，她满面通红。
Then I take the book back. “I am sorry,” I say. But I am not sorry, I am only amazed. Not to read! It seems to me a kind of fabulous insufficiency — like the absence, in a martyr or a saint, of the capacity for pain.
我把书拿回来。“我很抱歉，”我说道。但其实，我并不觉得抱歉，我只觉惊奇。不识字！这于我而言，似乎是一种神奇的缺陷——就好象烈士或圣徒失却了痛觉。
What she does while alone in my chambers I cannot say, but I imagine her fingering the silks of my gowns, trying out my boots, my gloves, my sashes. Does she take an eye-glass to my jewels? Perhaps she is planning already what she will do, when they are hers: this brooch she will keep, from this she will prise the stones to sell them, the ring of gold that was my father’s she will pass to her young man…
她独自待在我房间里时都会做些什么？我也说不出，不过我想象着她手指抚过我的丝质长裙，她试穿我的鞋子，试戴我的手套，试佩我的腰带。也许她已计划周详，等那些东西归她所有，该派什么用场：这个领针她要留着，她可以把上面的宝石剥下来卖掉，我父亲的那个金项圈，她可以送给她的小相好…
The eight o’clock sounds, to call me to my uncle. At the door I pause. I must, after all, make some blushing reference to Richard; and I say what I ought and her look, as it should, becomes suddenly crafty and then grows clear. She tells me how kind he is. She says it — again — as if she believes it. Perhaps she does. Perhaps kindness is measured to a different standard, where she comes from. I feel the points and edges of the folded note he has sent by her hand, in the pocket of my skirt.
八点的钟声响起，召唤我去舅舅的书房。走到门边，我踌躇一下。毕竟，我应该为理查德做出些羞红了脸的表示；我说了我该说的话，她的表情，正如计划中那样，忽然闪过一丝狡黠，随即又变得坦然。她告诉我他是多么地好。她说着他的好话——再一次地——她仿佛相信她说的那些话是真的。或许她确实那么想。或许她出身的地方，衡量善恶另有一套标准。我感到裙子口袋中那叠起的信纸的边边角角，那是他经她之手传送给我的信。
“What would they make of you upon the wards, I wonder,” he says, in a different voice, “with all that you know now?”
“我正想知道，他们让你在病房里，如今你也明白那些事了？”他说道，声音变了。“他们会怎么待你呢？”
“No, sir,” I say.
“没有，先生。”我说道。
“You are distracted, Maud,” my uncle says. “Have you another occupation to which you would rather attend?”
“你有点心烦意乱，莫德。”我舅舅说道。“你还有别的职业吗？”
“It would be a simple matter enough, to summon Mrs Stiles and have her take you back. You are sure you don’t desire me to do that? — send for William Inker and the dog-cart?” As he speaks, he leans to study me, his weak gaze fierce behind the spectacles that guard it. Then he pauses again, and almost smiles.
“这事儿再简单不过了，招斯黛尔太太来，命她将你送回去。你确定，不愿我如此办理？——招呼威廉·英克尔和马车来？”他一边说，一边凑过来端详我，眼镜片后的模糊眼神凶狠起来。这时他又停顿，脸上似笑非笑。
“Perhaps you begrudge me your little labour. Perhaps you wish that I had left you at the madhouse, all those years ago. Forgive me: I had supposed myself performing you some service, by taking you from there. But perhaps you would rather dwell among lunatics, than among books? Hmm?”
“也许，你并不情愿为我尽这举手之劳，也许你希望我当初能把你留在疯人院。恕我直言：我本以为带你来这儿，能为你提供些许便利，不过也许，你心中更愿置身于疯人院，而非书籍中？嗯？”
“No, Uncle.”
“不是的，舅舅。”
He pauses. I think he will return to his notes. But he goes on.
他停顿片刻，我以为他要回到书堆里，不料他却走过来。
He says it slowly, then mumbles the question over; as if it is a biscuit that has left crumbs beneath his tongue. I do not answer, but lower my gaze until he has worked his humour out. Presently he twists his neck and looks again at the pages upon his desk.
他一字一句说来，细细玩味着这个问题；仿佛玩味着舌头下面的饼干渣。我没作答，只是低垂着眼睛，直待他品味完自己的幽默。然后，他扭扭脖子，目光又落到满桌的纸堆上。
It is from this that I am reading when she comes to take me back to my drawing-room. She stands at the door, looking over the walls of books, the painted windows. She hovers at the pointing finger that my uncle keeps to mark the bounds of innocence at Briar, just as I once did; and — again, like me — in her innocence she does not see it, and tries to cross it. I must keep her from that, more even than my uncle must! — and while he jerks and screams I go softly to her, and touch her. She flinches at the feel of my fingers. I say, “Don’t be frightened, Susan.” I show her the brass hand in the floor. I have forgotten that, of course, she might look at anything there, anything at all, it would be so much ink upon paper. Remembering, I am filled again with wonder — and then with a spiteful kind of envy. I have to draw back my hand from her arm, for fear I will pinch her.
她来接我回房间时，我正读着这本书。她立在门口，望着满墙的书，还有漆过的窗户。她如我曾经那样，踯躅在那手指标记旁，那是我舅舅刻画在布莱尔的清白界限；然后——又如我曾经那样——不明就里的她没看到那手指，正欲跨过它。我得拦住她，我甚至比我舅舅更需将她拦在外面！——当他吃了一惊，大喝一声时，我脚步轻柔地走过去，一把拽住她。她感觉到我手指的触碰，退缩一下。我说道，“别怕，苏珊。”我将地板上的黄铜手指指给她看。我都忘了，当然，她可以看到这儿的一切事物，一切的一切，那对她不过是纸上墨迹而已。想到这，我又满心好奇——随即是某种恶意的嫉妒。我必须收回拽着她的那支手，我怕会掐到她。
“So, so. The Whipping Milliners. Read me the second volume, with the punctuation all complete; and mark — the paging is irregular. I’ll note the sequence here.”
“好了，好了，《挥舞鞭子的货郎》，给我读读第二卷，标点符号都读出来；注意——页码是乱的。我会把顺序记下来。”
You have come to Briar, I think, to swallow up me.
你来到布莱尔，我心想，来吞没我。
We sit at lunch. I have no appetite, and pass my plate to her. I lean back in my chair, and watch as she runs her thumb along the edge of china, admires the weave of the napkin she spreads on her knee. She might be an auctioneer, a house-agent: she holds each item of cutlery as if gauging the worth of the metal from which it is cast. She eats three eggs, spooning them quickly, neatly into her mouth — not shuddering at the yielding of the yolk, not thinking, as she swallows, of the closing of her own throat about the meat. She wipes her lips with her fingers, touches her tongue to some spot upon her knuckle; then swallows again.
我们坐在一起吃午餐。我没胃口，将盘子递给她。我靠在椅子上，看她拇指划过瓷器边缘，艳羡的目光扫过铺在膝上的餐巾花边。她好似是个拍卖人，或者房产代理：拿起每样餐具，都仿佛在估算这件餐具的价值。她吃了三个鸡蛋，用调羹挖出来送到嘴里，吃的干净利落——不为蛋黄溢出而困扰，吞咽时也不为鸡蛋哽喉而费思量。她用手指擦拭嘴巴，舌头点过指节；然后再吞下去。
I ask her, as we walk to my room, What does she think of my uncle? She believes him composing a dictionary.
待我们走回房间，我问她，怎么看待我舅舅？她以为他在编纂一本字典。
But of course, I want her to do it. I need her to do it. And already I seem to feel myself beginning to give up my life. I give it up easily, as burning wicks give up smoke, to tarnish the glass that guards them; as spiders spin threads of silver, to bind up quivering moths. I imagine it settling, tight, about her. She does not know it. She will not know it until, too late, she will look and see how it has clothed and changed her, made her like me. For now, she is only tired, restless, bored: I take her walking about the park, and she follows, lead-enly; we sit and sew, and she yawns and rubs her eyes, gazing at nothing. She chews her fingernails — stops, when she sees me looking; then after a minute draws down a length of hair and bites the tip of that.
不过当然，我心甘情愿让她吞没我。我需要她这么做。而且，我似乎感觉到，我已经开始放开自己的生活了。我轻而易举地放开了它，好似燃烧的灯芯吐出黑烟，染黑了玻璃灯罩，又似蜘蛛吐出银丝，裹住挣扎的飞蛾。我想象着那银丝紧紧纠缠着她。她对此毫不知情。待她明白过来，也为时已晚，她将亲眼目睹那银丝将她包裹，将她改变，将她变成我。而现在，她只是疲倦，无所事事，空虚无聊：我带她到花园散步，她步履蹒跚地跟着；我们坐下来一起做针线，她又是打哈欠，又是揉眼睛，目光呆滞。她还啃指甲——看到我在看她，她马上停下不啃了，过一会儿又拽过一缕头发，放到嘴里嚼那发丝。
“Are you cold, miss?” she says. Perhaps I have shivered. She rises, to fetch me a shawl. I watch her walk. Diagonally she goes, over the carpet — heedless of the design, the lines and diamonds and squares, beneath her feet.
“你冷吗？小姐？”她说道。可能我刚才稍有颤栗。她起身去给我拿披肩。我望着她从地毯的一角走过去，走到对角线那头儿的一角——完全无视脚下地毯的花样，无视那些线条和方块。
Ladies, I said, like me. There are no ladies like me, however; and for a second I have a clear and frightening picture of myself in London, alone, unvisited — But I am alone and unvisited, now. And I shall have Richard there, Richard will guide and advise me. Richard means to take us a house, with rooms, with doors that will fasten —
女士，我刚才说，象我这样的女士。然而，根本就没有哪位女士象我；稍顷，我眼前浮现出我在伦敦生活的图景，清晰而骇人，孤苦伶仃，无人问津——可我现在就孤苦伶仃，无人问津。届时，我还有理查德，理查德会指导我，帮助我。理查德要给我们找座宅子，有好多房间，有可以上锁的门——
She does not know. She is making it up. I am sure she is making it up! Even so, I think over her words and my heart beats suddenly hard.
她也不知道。她在胡编乱造。我清楚她在胡编乱造！即便如此，我还是玩味着她的话语，我心跳忽然沉重起来。
“Visits?”
“走亲访友？”
“Ah.”
“噢。”
She looks about her. Then, after a second: “Make visits, miss?”
她眼睛转了转。想了一下：“她们走亲访友，小姐。”
I watch and watch her. I cannot look too long, too narrowly at her, in her easy doing of commonplace things. At seven o’clock she makes me ready for supper with my uncle. At ten she puts me into my bed. After that, she stands in her room and I hear her sighing, and I lift my head and see her stretch and droop. Her candle lights her, very plainly; though I lie hidden in the dark. Quietly she passes, back and forth across the doorway — now stooping to pick up a fallen lace; now taking up her cloak and brushing mud from its hem. She does not kneel and pray, as Agnes did. She sits on her bed, out of my sight, but lifts her feet: I see the toe of one shoe put to the heel of the other and work it down. Now she stands, to undo the buttons of her gown; now she lets it fall, steps awkwardly out of her skirt; unlaces her stays, rubs her waist, sighs again. Now she steps away. I lift my head, to follow. She comes back, in her nightgown — shivering. I shiver, in sympathy. She yawns. I also yawn. She stretches — enjoying the stretch — liking the approach of slumber! Now she moves off — puts out her light, climbs into her bed — grows warm I suppose, and sleeps…
我仔细留意着她，我又不能一直盯着她，看她轻轻松松地料理日常事宜。到七点钟，她将我收拾停当，准备与我舅舅共进晚餐。十点钟，她服侍我上床。之后，她站在自己的房中，我听到她叹息，我抬起头，看到她伸懒腰，伸完懒腰她委顿下来。她的烛光将她暴露无遗；而我躺在黑暗里。她脚步轻缓，在屋里走来走去——一下俯身拾起落在地上的衣带；一下撑起斗篷，刷掉斗篷边儿的泥巴。她没有象阿格尼丝那样跪下祈祷。她坐在床上，人虽离开了我的视线，可我能看到她抬起了脚，鞋尖碰鞋跟，将鞋脱下来，接着她站起来，结开裙子上的钮儿，任裙子落下，再笨笨地走出来；解下胸衣，揉揉腰肢，又叹一口气。然后她走开了。我转过脑袋，追随着她。她走回来，穿着睡衣——浑身哆嗦着。我不禁也哆嗦起来。她打哈欠，我也打哈欠。她伸懒腰——心满意足的懒腰——为睡意降临而心满意足！她走到一旁——吹熄蜡烛，跳进被窝——我猜，她身体渐暖，沉入梦乡。
“To other ladies?”
“拜访别的女士们。”
She lifts her head. “London, miss?”
她回过神来。“伦敦？小姐？”
“Ladies, like me.”
“象我这样的女士。”
“Ladies, miss?”
“女士？小姐？”
I nod. “What do ladies do there, at this hour in the day?”
我点头。“那儿的女士，在一天中的这个时间都做些什么？”
“You are thinking of London,” I say.
“你在想念伦敦。”我说道。
How effortless it seems! But when I have locked my mother’s face away I lie, uneasily. My uncle’s clock shudders and strikes. Some animal shrieks, like a child, in the park. I close my eyes and think — what I have not thought so vividly of, in years — of the madhouse, my first home; of the wild-eyed women, the lunatics; and of the nurses. I remember all at once the nurses’ rooms, the mattings of coir, a piece of text on the limewashed wall: My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. I remember an attic stair, a walk upon the roof, the softness of lead beneath my fingernail, the frightful drop to the ground — I must fall into sleep, thinking this. I must plunge to the deepest layers of the night.
这多么容易啊！可待我锁好母亲的画像，却辗转难眠。我舅舅的钟吱呀作响，不时有动物的叫声，象孩子的嘶叫，从花园里传过来。我闭上眼睛，想起了疯人院——多年来，我都没如此栩栩如生地想到过那儿——那是我第一个家；我想起那些目光狂乱的疯女人，还有那些护士。我立即又记起了护士们的房间，棕席，石灰粉过的墙上有一句话：我的食物就是遵行差我者的旨意、作成他的工（My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me。——《圣经》约翰福音第三十四条）。我想起阁楼上的小楼梯，屋顶上的漫步，铅条在我指甲下的柔软，惊心动魄地坠落至地——我定然是于沉睡中想起这些。我定然是沉入了黑夜的最底层。
She sleeps, in a sort of innocence. So did I, once. I wait a moment, then take out my mother’s picture and hold it close to my mouth.
她没心没肺地睡着了，如同往昔的我。我稍等片刻，又拿出我母亲的小画像，凑到嘴边。
But then, I am woken — or, not quite woken, not quite drawn free from the tugging of the dark. For I open my eyes and am bewildered — perfectly bewildered — and filled with dread. I look at my form in the bed and it seems shifting and queer — now large, now small, now broken up with spaces; and I cannot say what age I am. I begin to shake. I call out. I call for Agnes. I have quite forgotten that she has gone. I have forgotten Richard Rivers, and all our plot. I call for Agnes, and it seems to me she comes; but she comes, to take away my lamp. I think she must do it to punish me.
忽然，我被惊醒——也许似醒非醒，尚未完全自黑暗的牵引中脱身。我睁开眼睛，昏昏然不知所措——全然不知所措——随即是满心恐惧。我看看自己躺在床上的形态，似乎飘摇怪异——忽大忽小，忽而又分裂开来；我不知今夕何夕。我开始战抖，我叫喊出来，我喊阿格尼丝。我忘记她已走了。我也忘了理查德。瑞富斯，忘了我们的阴谋。我喊阿格尼斯来，恍惚中她好象来了，可她来，来把我的灯拿走，我觉得她这么做是为了惩罚我。
That’s her, I whisper. That’s her. She’s your daughter now!
就是她。我低语。就是她。现在她是你的女儿。
“Dreaming?”
“做梦？”
She says, in a voice that is strange to me: “It’s Sue, miss. Only Sue. You see me? You are dreaming.”
她说话，用一种全然陌生的声音：“小姐，我是苏。就是苏，你看清了吗？你在做梦。”
“Don’t take the light!” I say; but she takes it, she leaves me in the terrible darkness and I hear the sighing of doors, the passage of feet, beyond the curtain. It seems to me then that much time passes before the light comes back. But when Agnes lifts it and sees my face, she screams.
“别把灯拿走！”我说道；可她还是拎起了灯，她把我留在可怕的黑暗中，我听见帷幔外有门的吱呀声，扑通通的脚步声。而当阿格尼丝举起灯，看到我的面孔时，她惊叫起来。
“Don’t look at me!” I cry. And then: “Don’t leave me!” For I have a sense that, if she will only stay, some calamity, some dreadful thing — I do not know it, cannot name it — will be averted; and I — or she — will be saved. I hide my face against her and seize her hand. But her hand is pale where it used to be freckled. I gaze at her, and do not know her.
“别这样看着我！”我叫道。随即：“别丢下我！”因为我有一种感觉，只要她留下，某些灾难，某些恐怖的事——我也不知是什么，难以名状的——就会被化解；那么我——或者她——就得救了。我将脸埋到她身上，牢牢攥住她的手。然而她手上平常生着雀斑的地方此时却是惨白的。我瞪着她，我认不出她了。
I swim in black confusion for another moment; then the dream slips from me all at once and I know her, and know myself — my past, my present, my ungaugeable future. She is a stranger to me, but part of it all.
混沌中，我晕晕乎乎地呆了片刻，随后梦境从我脑中散去，我记起她了，也记起了我自己——我的过往，现今，和我不可预知的未来。她是个陌生人，却也是我未来的一分子。
She touches my cheek. She smooths my hair — not like Agnes, after all, but like — Like no-one. She says again, “It’s Sue. That Agnes had the scarlatina, and is gone back home. You must lie down now, or the cold will make you ill. You mustn’t be ill.”
她抚过我的脸颊，理理我的头发——一点也不象阿格尼丝，倒是象——谁也不象。她又说道，“我是苏。阿格尼丝生猩红热，回老家了。你得躺下，不然要受风着凉了。你可不能生病。”
“Don’t leave me, Sue!” I say.
“别丢下我，苏！”我说道。
She is cold, and makes me cold. I shiver, but soon lie still. There,” she says then. She murmurs it. I feel the movement of her breath and, deep in the bone of my cheek, the gentle rumble of her voice. “There. Now you’ll sleep — won’t you? Good girl.”
她身子冰凉，我战抖着，不过很快就安定下来。“好了，”这时她说道。我感觉到她气息吹动，还有她声音在我颧骨内里产生的振动。“好了，现在睡吧——好吗？好姑娘。”
I feel her hesitate. When she draws away, I grip her tighter. But she moves only to climb across me, and she comes beneath the sheet and lies with her arm about me, her mouth against my hair.
我觉出她稍有犹疑。她欲放手离去，我抓她抓的更紧了。而她只是跳过我，钻进被窝，躺下来，胳膊抱住我，嘴唇贴着我头发。
Good girl, she says. How long has it been since anyone at Briar believed me good? But she believes it. She must believe it, for the working of our plot. I must be good, and kind, and simple. Isn’t gold said to be good? I am like gold to her, after all. She has come to ruin me; but, not yet. For now she must guard me, keep me sound and safe as a hoard of coins she means, at last, to squander — I know it; but cannot feel it as I should.
好姑娘，她这么说。布莱尔的每个人都不觉得我好，有多久了？可她以为我是好姑娘。她定然对此坚信不疑，因为我们的阴谋使然。我也必须是个好姑娘，单纯而善良。人们不是说“再好也好不过金子”吗？反正我对她而言就是金子。她为毁灭我而来，只是时机未到。此时她得保护我，让我结结实实，稳稳当当，就好象一罐她存起来打算最后挥霍掉的金币——我很清楚；我本应觉察到她的重重心机，然而我却感觉不到。
I sleep in her arms, dreamless and still, and wake to the warmth and closeness of her. She moves away as she feels me stir. She rubs her eye. Her hair is loose and touches my own. Her face, in sleep, has lost a little of its sharpness. Her brow is smooth, her lashes powdery, her gaze, when it meets mine, quite clear, untinged with mockery or malice…
我在她怀抱中睡去，平静无梦，又在她的亲近和温暖中醒来。当她感到我醒来，她就移开身子。她揉着眼睛，头发披散开，跟我的头发混做一处。她睡梦中的面孔，少了些许精明相。她额头光洁，睫毛上仿佛扑了粉，她的眼神，如果遇到我的目光，就十分清澈，并无一丝轻蔑或恶意混杂…
She is changed with me. She is surer, kinder. Margaret brings water, and she fills me a bowl. “Ready, miss?” she says. “Better use it quick.” She wets a cloth and wrings it and, when I stand and undress, passes it, unasked, across my face and beneath my arms. I have become a child to her. She makes me sit, so she may brush my hair. She tuts: “What tangles! The trick with tangles is, to start at the bottom…”
她对我的态度有了变化。她更自如，也更和善了。玛格丽特捎来热水，她帮我倒进盆里，说道，“好了吗？小姐？最好快点用热水。”我站在一旁，还没换上衣裳，她打湿毛巾再拧干，问也不问就过来帮我擦脸和胳肢窝。对她而言，我成了个孩子。她让我坐着，这样她好帮我梳头。她啧啧有声：“真乱！乱中取胜的诀窍就是从头开始…”
She smiles. She yawns. She rises. The blanket lifts and falls, and sour heat comes gusting. I lie and remember the night. Some feeling — shame, or panic — flutters about my heart. I put my hand to the place where she has lain, and feel it cool.
她微笑，她打哈欠，她坐起身来。毯子掀起又落下，酸热的气味扑面而来。我躺着，回想起夜晚种种。某种情愫——羞愧，或者是恐慌——在我心中上下翻腾。我将手放在她躺过的地方，那里已经变凉了。
Now I sit for Susan — Sue, she called herself, in the night — now I sit patiently while Sue draws out the knots from my hair, my eyes upon my own face in the glass… Good girl.
现在，我为了苏珊而坐下来——那天夜里，她称自己是苏——现在，我耐心地坐着，眼睛望着镜中自己的面庞…好姑娘。
Agnes had used to wash and dress me with quick and nervous fingers, wincing with every catching of the comb. One time I struck her with a slipper — so hard, she bled.
阿格尼丝也曾帮我洗漱，帮我更衣，她手脚忙乱，全无章法，梳子一被头发缠住，她就畏畏缩缩的。有一回我用鞋抽她——抽得好重，她都流血了。
Then: “Thank you, Sue,” I say.
这时，我说道，“谢谢你，苏。”
I say it often, in the days and nights that follow. I never said it to Agnes. Thank you, Sue.”
此后的日日夜夜里，我经常对苏道谢。我从没跟阿格尼丝道过谢。“谢谢你，苏。”
No, I am not cold. — But she likes to look me over as we walk, to be quite sure; will gather my cloak a little higher about my throat, to keep off draughts.
不，我不冷。——可当我们散步时，她喜欢仔细地照料我，确保周全；她将我的斗篷拉到喉咙，防止我受风。
“Yes, Sue,” when she bids me sit or stand, lift an arm or foot.
“好的，苏。”如果她要我坐着或者站着，抬起胳膊或者脚。
“No, Sue,” when she is afraid my gown must pinch me.
“不，苏。”如果她担心我的袍子将箍得我太紧。
I must not catch cold, at any cost. I must not tire. “Wouldn’t you say you had walked enough, miss?” I mustn’t grow ill. “Here is all your breakfast, look, untouched. Won’t you take a little more?” I mustn’t grow thin. I am a goose that must be plump, to be worth its slaughter.
我绝不能着凉，无论如何也不能着凉。我绝不能累着。她会说：“小姐，你不是说走这么远就够了吗？”我绝不能身体不适。她会说：“看，你的午饭，碰也没碰。你不再多吃点？”我绝不能消瘦。我就是一只鹅，须养肥了才好被宰掉。
Of course, though she does not know it, it is she who must be plump — she who will learn, in time, to sleep, to wake, to dress, to walk, to a pattern, to signals and bells. She thinks she humours me. She thinks she pities me! She learns the ways of the house, not understanding that the habits and the fabrics that bind me will, soon, bind her. Bind her, like morocco or like calf… I have grown used to thinking of myself as a sort of book. Now I feel myself a book, as books must seem to her: she looks at me with her unreading eyes, sees the shape, but not the meaning of the text. She marks the white flesh — “Ain’t you pale!” she says — but not the quick, corrupted blood beneath.
当然，她不明就里，其实她才是须肥起来的那个人——她才是那个很快会适应这儿的人，适应这儿的起居、穿戴、进出，种种规矩和指令。她以为她迁就我，她以为她怜悯我！她适应了这所宅子里的条条框框，却不明白，那些束缚着我的条条框框，很快也要将她束缚起来，就好象摩洛哥皮或小牛皮…我早已惯于将自己当成某本书。此时我就感觉自己对她而言好似一本书，她目不识丁，她望着我，看到形状，却不明其义。她注意到表面——“你皮肤可真白！”她如是说——却注意不到皮肤下急速奔流的腐败血液。
No, my boots are not taking in the dew. — But she’ll slide a finger between my stockinged ankle and the leather of my shoe, for certainty’s sake.
不，我的鞋子没沾到露水。——可她会将手指探进我穿了袜子的脚踝和鞋子间，以防万一。
I oughtn’t to do it. I cannot help it. I am too compelled by her idea — her idea of me as a simple girl, abused by circumstance, prone to nightmare. No nightmares come, while she sleeps at my side; and so, I find ways to bring her to my bed, a second night and a third. — At last she comes, routinely. I think her wary, at first; but it is only the canopy and drapes that trouble her: she stands each time with a lifted candle, peering into the folds of cloth. “Don’t you think,” she says, “of the moths and spiders that might be up there, miss, and waiting to drop?” She seizes a post, and shakes it; a single beetle falls, in a shower of dust. Once grown used to that, however, she lies easily enough; and from the neat and comfortable way she holds her limbs, I think that she must be used to sleeping with someone; and wonder who.
我本不应如此。我身不由己。我就范于她的想象——她以为我是个单纯的姑娘，为环境所迫，噩梦不断。她睡在我身边时，噩梦再没降临；正因如此，第二天和第三天，我设法让她又来我床上睡。最后她例行公事般地每晚都来。刚开始我觉得她是谨慎，后来才知道，是床顶篷和帷幔令她不安：每回她举着蜡烛站在床边，将信将疑地望着帷幔的褶皱处。“小姐，你不觉得，”她说道，“那上面随时会有蛾子、蜘蛛掉下来吗？”她攥住一根立柱，用力摇了摇；扑簌簌一片灰尘中，一只甲虫落将下来。而一旦习惯了这些，她就躺的很自在了；她的睡相自然而规矩，我想她肯定习惯跟人一起睡，我颇好奇，会是谁呢？
“Not as I know of,” she says.
“就我所知没有，”她说道。
“Do you have sisters, Sue?” I ask her once, perhaps a week after she has come. We are walking by the river.
“苏，你有姐妹吗？”有回我问她，大概在她到布莱尔一周后。当时我们在河边散步。
“No, miss.”
“没有，小姐。”
“Brothers?”
“兄弟呢？”
“And so you grew up — like me — quite alone?”
“那你跟我一样，是一个人长大的？”
“Cousins. You mean, your aunt’s children?”
“表亲，你是说，你姨妈的孩子？”
“Well, miss, not what you would call, alone… Say, with cousins all about.”
“这个，小姐，倒也不是你说的那种，一个人…怎么说呢，我有不少表亲。”
“Your aunt, Mr Rivers’s nurse.”
“你姨妈，瑞富斯先生的保姆。”
“My aunt?” She looks blank.
“我姨妈？”她没反应过来。
“Never mind,” I say — like any kindly mistress with an unhappy maid. “Look, here is a barge. You may send your wishes with it. We shall both send wishes, to London.” To London, I think again, more darkly. Richard is there. I will be there, a month from now. I say, “The Thames will take them, even if the boat does not.”
“别难过了，”我说道——就象所有好心的小姐对闷闷不乐的女仆那样。“瞧，那边有条拖船，你可以对它许个愿，我们都对它许个愿，让它带到伦敦去。”到伦敦去，我内心深处又念了一遍。理查德在伦敦，一个月之后，我也会在伦敦。我说道，“如果这船不能将我们的愿望带到，泰晤士河会帮我们带到的。”
She looks, however, not at the barge, but at me.
而她没有望着那船，却望着我。
“Oh!” She blinks. “Yes, miss. To be sure…”
“哦！”她反应过来了，目光闪烁。“对，小姐，确实是…”
She turns away, and her look grows vague. She is thinking of her home. I try to imagine it; and cannot. I try to imagine her cousins: rough boys and girls, sharp-faced like her, sharp-tongued, sharp-fingered — Her fingers are blunt, however; though her tongue — for sometimes, when putting the pins to my hair, or frowning over slithering laces, she shows it — her tongue has a point. I watch her sigh.
她脸转过去了，神色捉摸不透。她想起了她的家。我试着想象出她的家，可我想不出。我试着想象出她的表亲：粗鲁的小伙和姑娘，跟她一样，满脸精明相，口齿伶俐，身手利落——她的手指倒颇迟钝；当然她的舌头——有时，她给我梳头上别针，或为滑溜溜的衣带而皱眉头，她就会吐舌头——她舌头很尖。我看她叹息。
“The Thames?” she says.
“泰晤士河？”她说道。
This trifling bit of water, the Thames? Oh, no, miss.” She laughs, uncertainly.
“这么一条小河，是泰晤士河？噢，不会的，小姐。”她难以置信地笑起来。
“The river,” I answer. “This river, here.”
“这条河，”我答道。“就是这条河。”
“How can that be? The Thames is very wide” — she holds her hands far apart — “and this is narrow. Do you see?”
“怎么可能？泰晤士河好宽”——她伸开双手，比画一下——“这条河好窄，你看见吗？”
I say, after a moment, that I have always supposed that rivers grow wider as they flow. She shakes her head.
停了一刻，我说我一直以为河流都是越到下游，河面越宽的。
“This trifling bit of water?” she says again. “Why, the water we have from our taps, at home, has more life to it than this. — There, miss! Look, there.” The barge has passed us. Its stern is marked in six-inch letters, ROTHERHITHE; but she is pointing, not to them, but to the wake of grease spreading out from the spluttering engine.
“这么一条小河啊？”她又说道。“那儿，小姐！瞧那儿。”驳船已经开过去了，船尾上用六寸的字：罗斯希瑟；而她所指并非船名，而是发动机喷出的机油在河面上绽开的油花。
“See that?” she says excitedly. “That’s how the Thames looks. That’s how the Thames looks, every day of the year. Look at all those colours. A thousand colours…”
“看到那个吗？”她兴奋地说道。“那就是泰晤士河的样子，那就是泰晤士河每天的样子，看看那些色彩。成千上万种颜色…”
She smiles. Smiling, she is almost handsome. Then the wake of grease grows thin, the water browns, her smile quite falls; and she looks like a thief again.
她笑了，她笑起来几乎有些俏丽。待那油花散去，河水恢复本色，她的笑脸也落回原状；恢复蟊贼样貌。
You must understand, I have determined to despise her. For how, otherwise, will I be able to do what I must do? — how else deceive and harm her? It is only that we are put so long together, in such seclusion. We are obliged to be intimate. And her notion of intimacy is not like Agnes’s — not like Barbara’s — not like any lady’s maid’s. She is too frank, too loose, too free. She yawns, she leans. She rubs at spots and grazes. She will sit picking over some old dry cut upon her knuckle, while I sew. Then, “Got a pin, miss?” she will ask me; and when I give her a needle from my case she will spend ten minutes probing the skin of her hand with that. Then she will give the needle back to me.
你须理解，我已决心看低她。否则，我如何做到我应做的本分？——我又如何能骗过她，加害于她？只是在这个与世隔绝的地方，我们朝夕相对，难免日益亲近。我们不可以太亲密。而且她亲近的举动不象阿格尼丝那样——也不象巴巴拉那样——完全不象小姐的女仆。她太率直，太散漫，太自由。她打哈欠，她东斜西靠。她抓挠身上的斑点和伤口。她会坐下来，在我的注视下，抚弄指节上旧伤结的痂。这时她会问我：“小姐，有针吗？”待我从针线包里找出针来递给她，她会花一番工夫，用针挑拨手上的皮肤。然后将针还给我。
She has Margaret bring extra coals for my fires, from Mr Way. Such a simple thing to do! — and yet no-one has thought to do it before, for my sake; even I have not thought to do it; and so I have gone cold, through seven winters. The heat makes the windows cloud. She likes to stand, then, and draw loops and hearts and spirals upon the glass.
她让玛格丽特从魏先生那儿多给我拿些了煤上来。这事儿办起来多么简单啊！——此前却无人为我着想，去打个招呼；就连我自己都没想到；就这么捱寒受冻过了七个冬天。热气让窗户结了一层水雾。她喜欢站在窗前，在玻璃上画圆圈、心型和罗纹线。
But she will give it, taking care to keep the point from my soft fingers. “Don’t hurt yourself,” she will say — so simply, so kindly, I quite forget that she is only keeping me safe for Richard’s sake. I think that she forgets it, too. One day she takes my arm as we are walking. It is nothing to her; but I feel the shock of it, like a slap. Another time, after sitting, I complain that my feet are chilled: she kneels before me, unlaces my slippers, takes my feet in her hands and hold and chafes them — finally dips her head and carelessly breathes upon my toes. She begins to dress me as she pleases; makes little changes to my gowns, my hair, my rooms. She brings flowers: throws away the vases of curling leaves that have always stood on my drawing-room tables, and finds primroses in the hedges of my uncle’s park to put in their place. “Of course, you don’t get the flowers that you get in London, in the country,” she says, as she sets them in the glass; “but these are pretty enough, ain’t they?”
有天我们散步时，她挽起我的胳膊。这对她来不算什么，而我却有如身领棒喝，深受震动。另一回，久坐后我抱怨脚凉：她在我面前跪下来，解开我的鞋带，将我的双脚捧在手中揉搓着——最后还低下头，大口大口往我脚趾上呵气。她开始按自己的喜好装扮我；在我的裙子上、头发上乃至房间里搞了些小花样。她拿来鲜花，将一直摆在我客厅桌上花瓶中的枯枝残叶都扔了，又从我舅舅花园的篱笆上找了些报春花。“当然，在乡下，你找不到伦敦的那些鲜花。”当她把花放入花瓶时如是说道。“不过这些花也够漂亮了，不是吗？”
One time she brings me back from my uncle’s room and I find the luncheontable spread with playing-cards. My mother’s cards, I suppose; for these are my mother’s rooms, and filled with her things; and yet for a second it quite disconcerts me, to imagine my mother here — actually here — walking here, sitting here, setting out the coloured cards upon the cloth. My mother, unmarried, still sane — perhaps, idly leaning her cheek upon her knuckles — perhaps, sighing — and waiting, waiting…
有一次，她将我从我舅舅的书房里接回来，我发现午餐桌上散乱地摆着些扑克牌。我猜那是我母亲的扑克牌。因为那是我母亲的房间，有许多她的旧物。紧接着，想到我母亲在这儿——居然在这儿——在这儿走动，坐在这儿，在裙子上摆开花花绿绿的纸牌，这念头令我仓皇无措。我母亲，人未出阁，神智尚全——也许，百无聊赖地托着腮——也许，还叹着气——等啊，等啊…
I take up a card. It slides against my glove. But in Sue’s hands, the deck is changed: she gathers and sorts it, shuffles and deals it, neatly and nimbly; and the golds and reds are vivid between her fingers, like so many jewels. She is astonished, of course, to learn I cannot play; and at once makes me sit, so she may teach me. The games are things of chance and simple speculation, but she plays earnestly, almost greedily — tilting her head, narrowing her eye as she surveys her fan of cards. When I grow tired, she plays alone — or else, will stand the cards upon their ends and tilt their tips together, and from doing this many times will build a rising structure, a kind of pyramid of cards — always keeping back, for the top-most point, a king and a queen.
我拿起一张牌。牌从我戴着手套的手中滑落下去。可是放在苏的手里，纸牌脾气变了：她将牌收集起来，拣出一副，开始洗牌、切牌，动作干净利落；牌上的金色线条和红色图案在她手中上下翻飞，如同一堆金银财宝般，令人眼花缭乱。当然，她听说我不会玩牌，非常惊讶；随即让我坐下，她来教我玩。玩纸牌游戏无非是凭运道和头脑简单的孤注一掷，而她却玩得很投入，几乎不知飨足——她心里激起了玩牌的兴趣，歪着头，眯缝着眼，沉浸其中。如果我玩累了，她就自己玩——要不就将纸牌一张张立在桌上，头碰头斜靠着，一层层地搭上去，搭得很高，搭成一个纸牌金字塔——K和Q总是留到塔顶。
“Look here,” she says, when she has finished. “Look here, miss. Do you see?”
待她搭完，她说道，“瞧这儿。瞧这儿，小姐。看到吗？”
She will laugh. The sound is as strange, at Briar, as I imagine it must be in a prison or a church.
她会哈哈大笑。那笑声在布莱尔是如此突兀，在我想象中，就好象监狱或教堂里的笑声。
Sometimes, she will sing. Once we talk of dancing. She rises and lifts her skirt, to show me a step. Then she pulls me to my feet, and turns and turns me; and I feel, where she presses against me, the quickening beat of her heart — I feel it pass from her to me and become mine.
有时候她还唱歌。有一回我们聊到跳舞。她站起身，提溜着裙子，给我演示了几步。接着她将我拉起来，抓着我转啊转；从她手抓着我的地方，我能感觉到她越来越快的心跳——我觉得那跳动从她传到我身上，变成了我的心跳。
Finally I let her smooth a pointed tooth with a silver thimble.
终于，我让她用一个银顶针帮我磨平一颗顶出来的牙。
Then she will ease a card from the pyramid’s foundation; and as the structure topples, she will laugh.
然后她挪开一张金字塔底的牌；眼见金字塔落将下来，她会哈哈大笑。
“Let me look,” she says. She has seen me rubbing my cheek. “Come to the light.”
“让我看看，”她说道。她看着我，捏着我的面颊。“到亮处来。”
“Than a serpent’s tooth, Sue?”
“就象蛇的大毒牙吗？苏？”
I stand at the window, put back my head. Her hand is warm, her breath — with the yeast of beer upon it — warm also. She reaches, and feels about my gum.
我站在窗边，仰着头。她的手很温暖，她的呼吸——带着啤酒味——也很温暖。她手指探进我嘴里，轻抚我的牙龈。
“Well, that is sharper,” she says, drawing back her hand, “than –“
“是的，是有些尖。”她收回手，说道，“就象——”
“Than a needle, I was going to say.” She looks about her. “Do snakes have teeth, miss?”
“要我说，就象针一样”她环顾四周。“蛇有牙齿吗？小姐？”
“I think they must, since they are said to bite.”
“我觉得蛇肯定有牙，因为据说蛇会咬人。”
“That’s true,” she says distractedly. “Only, I had imagined them gummier…”
“那倒是，”她心不在焉地应着。“只是，我以前觉得蛇黏乎乎——”
“Well, perhaps at the Zoo.”
“哦，可能就是动物园里吧。”
She has gone to my dressing-room. I can see, through the open door, the bed and, pushed well beneath it, the chamber-pot: she has warned me, more than once, of how china pots may break beneath the toes of careless risers and make them lame. She has cautioned me, in a similar spirit, against the stepping on, in naked feet, of hairs (since hairs — like worms, she says — may work their way into the flesh, and fester); the darkening of eye-lashes with impure castor-oil; and the reckless climbing — for purposes of concealment, or flight — of chimneys.
她进了我的卧室。我能从开着的门里看到大床，还有推到床下的夜壶：她不止一次提醒我，说马大哈的人起了床，会将这瓷罐踢碎了，更会被这玩意弄瘸了腿。秉承同样的热忱，她还叮嘱我，不要光着脚踩到头发上（因为头发——她说跟虫儿一样——会钻进肉里，令肉生疮化脓）；想眼睫毛变黑，就不要用不纯的蓖麻油；不要冒冒失失地爬烟囱——藏身也好，逃命也好，都不要爬。
“A snake-bite, miss?” She reappears, still frowning. “In London? Do you mean, at the Zoo?”
“被蛇咬死？小姐？”她又出现了，仍旧皱着眉。“你是说，在伦敦的动物园吗？”
Now, looking through the items on my dressing-table, she says no more. I wait, then call. “Don’t you know anyone who died from a snake-bite, Sue?”
这时，她在我梳妆台上找东西，没说话。我等了片刻，然后叫道，“你知道有谁是被蛇咬死的吗？苏”
“I can’t say as I do.”
“我可真不知道。”
“Curious. I was certain, you know, that you would.”
“奇怪。我以为你应该知道。”
It does not hurt, I do not scream. But it makes for a queer mix of sensations: the grinding of the metal, the pressure of her hand holding my jaw, the softness of her breath. As she studies the tooth she files, I can look nowhere but at her face; and so I look at her eyes: one is marked, I see now, with a fleck of darker brown, almost black.
果然不疼，我也没叫。然而，种种感觉奇异地混作一处：金属的摩擦，她手把住我下巴的压力，她轻盈的气息。当她仔细盯着手里打磨着的牙时，我目光无可回避地落到她脸上；于是我望着她的眼睛：此刻我看到，她有一只眼颜色深些，虹膜的褐色略深沉些，几乎成了黑色。
“Are you sure?”
“您确定？”
I smile, though she does not. Then she shows me her hand, with the thimble on it; I see for the first time what she means to do, and perhaps look strange. “It won’t hurt you,” she says, watching my changing face.
我笑了，她却没笑。这时，她摊开手给我看，她手上有枚顶针；我才明白她要做什么，也许我神情也变了。她望着我神色不定的脸说道，“一点也不疼。”
I look at the line of her cheek — which is smooth; and her ear — which is neat, its lobe pierced through for the wearing of hoops and pendants. “Pierced, how?” I asked her once, going close to her, putting my fingertips to the little dimples in the curving flesh. “Why, miss, with a needle,” she said, “and a bit of ice…” The thimble rubs on.
我望着她颧骨的线条——流畅柔美；她的耳朵——精巧优雅，耳垂上为戴耳环、耳坠穿了耳洞。有次我问她，“耳洞怎么穿的？”我凑近她，指尖抚到她耳垂那小小的肉窝上。“这个，小姐，用针，”她说道，“还有一点冰块…”顶针还在磨。
“Yes, miss. If I hurt, you may scream; and then I will stop.”
“是的，小姐。如果你疼，就叫出来，我马上停手。”
She smiles. “My aunty does this,” she says as she works, “for babies. I dare say she done it for me. — Almost got it! Ha!” She grinds more slowly, then pauses, to test the tooth. Then she rubs again. “Tricky thing to do to an infant, of course. For if you happen to let slip the thimble — well. I know several as were lost like that.”
她微笑。“我姨妈就给小宝贝们，”她边磨边说道，“磨过牙。她肯定也给我磨过。——快磨好了！哈！”她手里慢下来，停顿一下，查看那颗牙。接着她又磨起来。“当然，给小孩磨牙得万分小心。因为你会不小心就会把顶针落到小孩嘴里——好了。我知道有几个就那么没了。”
I do not know if she means thimbles, or infants. Her fingers, and my lips, are becoming wet. I swallow, then swallow again. My tongue rises and moves against her hand. Her hand seems, all at once, too big, too strange; and I think of the tarnish on the silver — I think my breath must have made it wet and set it running, I think I can taste it.
我不知她说没了，意指顶针，还是小孩。她的手和我的嘴唇都变湿润了。我咽了下唾沫，又咽了一下。我舌头翘起来，碰到她的手。她的手好象，忽然间，变得好大，好怪；我想到银顶针上的磨痕——我觉得我的呼吸定然弄湿了顶针，令它滑将下去，我想我能尝尝顶针的味道。
Perhaps, if she were to work a little longer at the tooth, I should fall into a sort of panic; but now the thimble rubs slower again, and soon, she stops. She tests again with her thumb, keeps her hand another second at my jaw, and then draws back.
或许，若她再多磨一会儿，我就会堕入某种惶恐中；而此时顶针又慢了，随即她停住。她用大拇指摸摸那颗牙，手捏着我的下巴，过了一秒钟，她才放开手。
I emerge from her grip a little unsteadily. She has held me so tight, so long, when she moves away the cold air leaps to my face. I swallow, then run my tongue across my blunted tooth. I wipe my lips. I see her hand: her knuckles marked red and white from the pressure of my mouth; her finger also marked, and with the thimble still upon it. The silver is bright — not tarnished, not tarnished at all. What I have tasted, or imagine I have tasted, is the taste of her; only that.
我从她的把持中松懈下来，颇有点漂移不定的感觉。刚才她将我下巴握得太紧、太久，待她退后，凉空气扑面而来。我咽了下唾沫，舌头舔舔磨过的牙。我擦擦嘴唇，我看到她的手：她指节因为按压我的脸，留下些红红白白的印子，她手指上也有些印子，顶针还戴在手上。银顶针光亮依旧——没有磨痕，完全没有磨痕。适才我品尝到的，或者说，在想象中我品尝到的，是她的味道；并无其他。
May a lady taste the fingers of her maid? She may, in my uncle’s books. — The thought makes me colour.
一个小姐可以品尝她女仆的手指之味吗？她可以的，在我舅舅的书里可以。——这念头令我脸红。
And it is as I am standing, feeling the blood rush awkwardly into my cheek, that a girl comes to my door with a letter, from Richard. I have forgotten to expect it. I have forgotten to think of our plan, our flight, our marriage, the looming asylum gate. I have forgotten to think of him. I must think of him now, however. I take the letter and, trembling, break its seal.
正当我立在原地，感到血流不加掩饰地涌到脸上，一个女仆进来，捎来一封信，理查德的信。我已忘却了对此信的期盼。我已忘却了盘算我们的计划，我们的远走高飞，我们的婚姻，疯人院那若隐若现的大门。我早已将他抛到脑后，而我现在必须想起他。我接过信，颤抖着，拆开蜡封。
Are you as impatient as I? he writes. I know that you are. Do you have her with you, now? Can she see your face? Look glad. Smile, simper, all of that. Our waiting is over. My business in London is done, and I am coming!
你是否跟我一样急不可耐？他写道。我明白你也是。她现在在你身旁吗？她能看到你的脸吗？样子要开心点，微笑，傻笑，这就够了。我们的等待结束了。伦敦的事务已办妥，我就要过来了！
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