Chapter18-双语名著无障碍阅读丛书——《月亮与六便士The Moon and Sixpence》

Chapter XVIII In point of fact,I met Strickland before I had been a fortnight in Paris. I quickly found myself a tiny apartment on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue des Dames,and for a couple of hundred francs bought at a second-hand dealer's enough furniture to make it habitable.I arranged with the concierge to make my coffee in the morning and to keep the place clean.Then I went to see my friend Dirk Stroeve. Dirk Stroeve was one of those persons whom,according to your character,you cannot think of without derisive laughter or an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon.He was a painter,but a very bad one,whom I had met in Rome,and I still remembered his pictures.He had a genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace.His soul palpitating with love of art,he painted the models who hung about the stairway of Bernini in the Piazza de Spagna,undaunted by their obvious picturesqueness;and his studio was full of canvases on which were portrayed moustachioed large-eyed peasants in peaked hats,urchins in becoming rags,and women in bright petticoats.Sometimes they lounged at the steps of a church,and sometimes dallied among eypresses against a cloudless sky;sometimes they made love by a Renaissance well-head,and sometimes ·146 十八 事实上，我到了巴黎还不到两个星期就碰见斯特里 克兰德了。 我很快给自己找了个安身之处一达姆路一幢房子 五层的一间小公寓。我花了二百法郎在一家旧货店购置 了几件家具，屋子就能住人了，又同看门的人谈妥了： ①derisive[di'raisiv]a.嘲笑 她每天早晨给我煮咖啡，给我打扫房间。然后，我就去 的，取笑的 看我的朋友戴尔克·施特略夫了。 ②buffoon[ba'fu:n]n.(马 戏、喜剧等的)小丑 戴尔克·施特略夫是这么一种人，人的性格不同， ③palpitate[paelpiteit)k(心 想到他时的反应也不同：有人在想到他的时候嘲讽地笑 脏)悸动；跳动 undaunted [An'do:ntid]a. 笑，有人为难地耸耸肩。造物主把他制造成一个搞笑的 不害怕的 小丑。他是一位画家，却是一个水平非常低的画家。我 5picturesqueness [.piktfa're- sk如isn.逼真，栩栩如 是在罗马认识他的，我还记得他画的那些画。他对于平 生 凡抱有真正的热情。他酷爱艺术，心灵为此而跳动，他 moustachioed [ma'sta:fiaud] a.有髭的，有八字须的 画那些在西班牙广场贝尼尼'式台阶闲逛的模特，不怕 ⑦urchin[:tinn.顽童， 出现明显的失真。他画室里到处都是画像，上面画着蓄 淘气鬼 着八字胡、长着大眼晴、头戴尖顶帽的农民，还有衣衫 8 petticoat ['petikout]n. 裙（尤指妇女或幼儿穿 褴楼、人衣和谐的街头顾童，以及穿着色彩鲜艳裙子的 的裙子)】 女人。这些画中人物有的在教堂门口台阶上闲荡，有时 lounge[aund]片闲荡， 闲逛 候在万里无云的碧空下的柏树丛中调情，有的在有着文 dally「deli的？调戏，调 艺复兴时期建筑风格的喷泉边做爱，也有时候跟在牛车 情，调笑 cypress[saipris】n.【植 1乔凡尼·罗伦索·贝尼尼(1598一1680)，意大利巴洛克派雕塑 物】柏树 家、建筑家和画家。 ·147· Chapter XVIII they wandered through the Campagna by the side of an ox-waggon.They were carefully drawn and carefully painted.A photograph could not have been more exact.One of the painters at the Villa Medici had called him Le Maitre de la Boite a Chocoloats.To look at his pictures you would have thought that Monet, Manet,and the rest of the Impressionists had never been. "I don't pretend to be a great painter,"he said,"I'm not a Michael Angelo, no,but I have something.I sell.I bring romance into the homes of all sorts of people.Do you know,they buy my pictures not only in Holland,but in Norway and Sweden and Denmark?It's mostly merchants who buy them,and rich tradesmen.You can't imagine what the winters are like in those countries,so long and dark and cold.They like to think that Italy is like my pictures.That's what they expect.That's what I expected Italy to be before I came here." And I think that was the vision that had remained with him always,dazzling his eyes so that he could not see the truth;and notwithstanding the brutality of fact,he continued to see with the eyes of the spirit an Italy of romantic brigands and picturesque ruins.It was an ideal that he painted-a poor one,common and shop-soiled,but still it was an ideal;and it gave his character a peculiar charm. It was because I felt this that Dirk Stroeve was not to me,as to others, merely an object of ridicule.His fellow-painters made no secret of their contempt for his work,but he earned a fair amount of money,and they did not hesitate to make free use of his purse.He was generous,and the needy,laughing at him because he believed so naively their stories of distress,borrowed from him with effrontery.He was very emotional,yet his feeling,so easily aroused, had in it something absurd,so that you accepted his kindness,but felt no gratitude.To take money from him was like robbing a child,and you despised ·148· 十八 旁，在意大利田野上漫游。这些人物画得秋毫毕现，着 色精细。摄影师的照片也没有这么栩栩如生。住在梅迪 其别墅的一位画家曾经把施特略夫称为“巧克力糖盒子 的大画师”。看了他的画，你会觉得莫奈2、马奈3以及其 他印象派画家从来都未曾出现过。 “我不想伪装成一个伟大的画家，”他对我说，“我 不是米开朗琪罗，我不是，可我有料。我有买主。我把 浪漫的调调带给形形色色的人，带进千家万户。你知道 吗？他们买我的画，岂止是荷兰，就连挪威、瑞典和丹 麦也有。买画的主要是商人，财大气粗的生意人。你无 法想象那些国家冬天是什么样子吧？阴暗、寒冷，还那 么漫长。他们愿意认为意大利就是我画中的模样，那是 他们所期待的意大利，也是我没来这里以前想象中的意 大利。” 我觉得这属于他的幻象，这种幻象让他眼花缭乱， 让他无法看到真实的景象。他对眼前严酷的现实视而不 brigand [brigond].土匪， 强盗，歹徒 见，继续用自己的精神之眼注视着有着浪漫的义侠气息 和如画的废墟的意大利。他画的是他的理想，尽管他的 理想幼稚可笑、稀松平常、迂腐陈旧，然而毕竞是个理 想：这无疑给他的性格平添了魅力。 正因为我有这种感觉，所以我不像别人那样，把戴 尔克·施特略夫仅仅视为嘲弄的对象。他的画家同行毫 不掩饰他们对他作品的轻蔑，但是他却赚得盆满体满， 而他们却把他的钱包看作是自己的钱包，想用就用，绝 不迟疑。他也慷慨大方。于是，那些手头拮据的人一面 嘲笑他头脑那么简单，竟然轻信他们编造出来的生活困 难的故事，一面恬不知耻地伸手向他借钱。他特别重 情，可是他也很容易动情，这种情里面带有某种愚蠢的 因素，让你接受着他的善意的同时，却感受不到有丝毫 的感恩。跟他借钱，就好似从小孩手里抢东西：因为他 1 原文为法语。 2克劳德·莫奈(1840一1926)，法国画家。 3埃多瓦·马奈(1832-1883)，法国画家 ·149· Chapter XVIII him because he was so foolish.I imagine that a pickpocket,proud of his light fingers,must feel a sort of indignation with the careless woman who leaves in a cab a vanity-bag with all her jewels in it.Nature had made him a butt,but had denied him insensibility.He writhed under the jokes,practical and otherwise, which were perpetually made at his expense,and yet never ceased,it seemed wilfully,to expose himself to them.He was constantly wounded,and yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice:the viper might sting him,but he never learned by experience,and had no sooner recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom.His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout farce.Because I did not laugh at him he was grateful to me,and he used to pour into my sympathetic ear the long list of his troubles.The saddest thing about them was that they were grotesque,and the more pathetic they were,the more you wanted to laugh. But though so bad a painter,he had a very delicate feeling for art,and to go with him to picture-galleries was a rare treat.His enthusiasm was sincere and his criticism acute.He was catholic.He had not only a true appreciation of the old masters,but sympathy with the moderns.He was quick to discover talent, and his praise was generous.I think I have never known a man whose judgment was surer.And he was better educated than most painters.He was not,like most of them,ignorant of kindred arts,and his taste for music and literature gave depth and variety to his comprehension of painting.To a young man like myself his advice and guidance were of incomparable value. When I left Rome I corresponded with him,and about once in two months received from him long letters in queer English,which brought before me vividly his spluttering,enthusiastic,gesticulating conversation.Some time before I went to Paris he had married an Englishwoman,and was now settled in a studio in Montmartre.I had not seen him for four years,and had never met his wife. ·150· 十八 愚蠢，所以你鄙视他。我可以想象得出，一个以眼疾手 快自诩的扒手，对于一个把装满珠宝首饰的皮包丢在出 租车上的粗心大意的女人，内心的感觉一定是有些义愤 ①writhe[raid书盘绕，缠 的。而造物主对于施特略夫的态度也是如此，一面把他 绕，蜿蜒移动 制造成一个笑柄，一面又让他感觉敏锐。他却好像故意 @perpetually [pa'petfuali; 给人创造伤害自己的机会似的，所以，人们一直拿他取 uad.永远地：永恒地 笑，不论是符合实际的还是不实之词，全都永远以伤害 ③viper'vaipa]n.毒蛇 他为代价，而且还根本停不下来。他不断地受伤，可是 他的性格又是那么温良，从来都不肯对人怀恨在心：就 算被毒蛇咬了，他也永远不吸取教训，疼劲儿还没过， knockabout ['nokabaut]a. 喧闹的，欢闹的 就会慈悲地把蛇再次抱在怀里。他的生活就如同根据打 ⑤farce[fas]n.笑剧，闹 打闹闹的滑稽剧写成的一出悲剧。因为我不曾嘲笑过他， 剧，滑稽戏 所以他对我心存感激，他也时常把自己长长的一串烦恼 灌进我恻侧隐的耳朵里。最可悲的是他的烦恼总是荒唐可 笑的，内容越是凄惨可怜，你就越忍俊不禁。 然而，尽管施特略夫是一个这么整脚的画家，他对 艺术的鉴赏力却很精微，跟他一同参观画廊是一种不可 ⑥acute[b'kju:ta.尖锐的， 敏锐的 多得的享受。他的热情是真真切切的，他的评论是深刻 透彻的。他是个天主教徒，他不仅对古典派绘画大师由 衷地赞赏，对于现代派画家也赞同有加。他善于短时间 内发现人才，而且从不吝惜自己的赞美之词。我认为他 ⑦kindred[kindrid]a.有血 所下的判断是我所认识的人中最不容置疑的。与大多数 缘关系的 画家相比，他的学养更为深厚，对于姊妹艺术的认知更 高，不像他们那样无知。他的音乐和文学品味使他对绘 画的理解更有深度，更加多样化。对于我这样的年轻人 来说，他的导引具有无可比拟的价值。 ⑧splutter[splAt句g语无伦 我离开罗马以后，跟他也没有中断联系，大约每两 次 个月，我就会收到他用怪怪的英语写的一封长信，而他 gesticulate [d3es'tikjuleit] 谈话时的热情洋溢、语无伦次、手舞足蹈的样子历历在 ,(讲话时)做（或用） 手势 目。在我去巴黎前不久，他娶了一个英国女人，在蒙特 玛特尔区一间画室里安了家。我已经有四年没有见他了， 而他的妻子我也尚未谋面。 ·151·