英译汉短篇小说——(11-2)

Brooksmith (Ⅱ)

布鲁克史密斯

BY HENRY JAMES

亨利·詹姆斯 著

肖湘武 译

The first day Mr. Offord's door was closed was therefore a dark date in contemporary history. It was raining hard and my umbrella was wet, but Brooksmith received it from me exactly as if this were a preliminary for going upstairs. I observed however that instead of putting it away he held it poised and trickling over the rug, and I then became aware that he was looking at me with deep acknowledging eyes—his air of universal responsibility. I immediately understood—there was scarce need of question and answer as they passed between us. When I took in that our good friend had given up as never before, though only for the occasion, I exclaimed dolefully: "What a difference it will make—and to how many people! "

因此，奥福德先生家门关闭的日子实乃当代史上黑暗的一天。那天雨下得大，伞都淋湿了，但布鲁克史密斯从我手中接过雨伞时的举止，恰似是准备上楼。但我还发现，他并没有收起雨伞，而是稳稳地握着它，任凭雨水滴落在地毯上。此时我恍然大悟，他正以其深邃而理解的目光看着我，一幅万事操心的神态。在我们四目相遇的刹那，我明白了我们之间已建立了默契，无需问答。我明白这位好友平生第一次认输了，虽然只是暂时的，我仍不无悲伤地感叹，“关闭沙龙这事影响太大了，要影响到多少人啊！”

"I shall be one of them, sir! " said Brooksmith; and that was the beginning of the end.

“我就是受害者之一，先生！”布鲁克史密斯说，因为沙龙从此开始消失了。

Mr. Offord came down again, but the spell was broken, the great sign being that the conversation was for the first time not directed. It wandered and stumbled, a little frightened, like a lost child—it had let go the nurse's hand. "The worst of it is that now we shall talk about my health—c'est la fin de tout." Mr. Offord said when he reappeared; and then I recognized what a note of change that would be—for he had never tolerated anything so provincial. We "ran" to each other's health as little as to the daily weather. The talk became ours, in a word not his; and as ours, even when he talked, it could only be inferior. In this form it was a distress to Brooksmith, whose attention now wandered from it altogether: he had so much closer a vision of his master's intimate conditions than our superficialities represented. There were better hours, and he was more in and out of the room, but I could see he was conscious of the decline, almost of the collapse, of our great institution. He seemed to wish to take counsel with me about it, to feel responsible for it’s going on in some form or other. When for the second period—the first had lasted several days—he had to tell me that his employer didn't receive, I half-expected to hear him say after a moment "Do you think I ought to, sir, in his place?"—as he might have asked me, with the return of autumn, if I thought he had better light the drawing-room fire.

奥福德先生又下楼来了，但魔咒已然打破，其最明显的迹象就是，这次谈话没有事先预定方向，反倒像个松开保姆的手的、迷途且受到惊吓的小孩，漫无目的，跌跌撞撞地走着。“最糟糕的是要讨论我的健康——一切都结束了，”奥福德再次现身时说。这时我意识到变化实在太大了，因为此前他不能容忍谈论如此庸俗不堪的话题。就像不谈天气一样，我们聊天几乎从不“跑到”健康。现在我们是谈话的主角，换句话说他是配角。既然我们主导谈话，那他就算发言也不会有啥分量。这样一来，谈话让布鲁克史密斯感受痛苦，因此他也就彻底不关心这个谈话了。相比我们的一知半解，他更加清楚主人的身体情况。可惜时光不再，他已不能那么频繁地进出主人的房间，但我看得出，他体察到了我们这个伟大沙龙的衰败乃至倒闭。看样子他想咨询我，因为他自觉有责任让沙龙屹立不倒。前一阵子他主人就已数日不见客人，现在他只好告诉我主人依然不能见客，此时我几乎预料到，他马上就会说“先生，您觉得我该替他见客吗？”如同他会询问，待秋天归来时，我是否觉得他该点燃客厅里的壁炉。

He had a resigned philosophic sense of what his guests—our guests, as I came to regard them in our colloquies—would expect. His feeling was that he wouldn't absolutely have approved of himself as a substitute for Mr. Offord; but he was so saturated with the religion of habit that he would have made, for our friends, the necessary sacrifice to the divinity. He would take them on a little further and till they could look about them. I think I saw him also mentally confronted with the opportunity to deal—for once in his life—with some of his own dumb preferences, his limitations of sympathy, weeding a little in prospect and returning to a purer tradition. It was not unknown to me that he considered that toward the end of our host's career a certain laxity of selection had crept in.

至于客人有什么期盼，布鲁克史密斯则秉持着超然物外、听之任之的态度。其实也不能说是他自己的客人，因为我已将客人看作我们共同的客人。他原本觉得自己绝不同意取代奥福德先生，但他对习惯有着宗教般的虔诚和固守，这会让他为了朋友，在这尊大神面前做出必要的牺牲，因为他还要带领朋友继续前行，直到他们能够审时度势定位人生。我似乎还看见了在内心深处他正面对着这生平唯一的机遇——摒弃某些愚蠢的偏嗜，丰富其恻隐之情，剔除心中杂念，进而回归愈加纯粹的传统。我知道布鲁克史密斯想的是，垂暮之年的奥福德先生就连选择接班人这何等严肃之事都已悄然有所懈怠了。

At last it came to be the case that we all found the closed door more often than the open one; but even when it was closed Brooksmith managed a crack for me to squeeze through; so that practically I never turned away without having paid a visit. The difference simply came to be that the visit was to Brooksmith. It took place in the hall, at the familiar foot of the stairs, and we didn't sit down, at least Brooksmith didn't; moreover it was devoted wholly to one topic and always had the air of being already over—beginning, so to say, at the end. But it was always interesting—it always gave me something to think about. It's true that the subject of my meditation was ever the same—ever "It's all very well, but what will become of Brooksmith?" Even my private answer to this question left me still unsatisfied. No doubt Mr. Offord would provide for him, but what would he provide?—that was the great point. He couldn't provide society; and society had become a necessity of Brooksmith's nature. I must add that he never showed a symptom of what I may call sordid solicitude anxiety on his own account. He was rather livid and intensely grave, as befitted a man before whose eyes the "shade of that which once was great" was passing away. He had the solemnity of a person winding up, under depressing circumstances, a long-established and celebrated business; he was a kind of social executor or liquidator. But his manner seemed to testify exclusively to the uncertainty of our future. I couldn't in those days have afforded it—I lived in two rooms in Jermyn Street and didn't "keep a man"; but even if my income had permitted I shouldn't have ventured to say to Brooksmith (emulating Mr. Offord) "My dear fellow, I'll take you on." The whole tone of our intercourse was so much more an implication that it was I who should now want a lift. Indeed there was a tacit assurance in Brooksmith's whole attitude that he should have me on his mind.

到最后，我们都发现了，沙龙之门可谓关多开少，但即使关闭着，布鲁克史密斯也会设法留条缝好让我挤进去，所以我的拜访每次都能遂愿，但也只能见到布鲁克史密斯而已，而且我俩还是站在客厅里熟悉的楼梯口那儿谈话，至少他不坐下。每次我们只谈一个话题，氛围是那种开始即结束的感觉，可以说谈话是从结尾开始的，不过这倒也蛮有趣，因为它总能引我思考。诚然，我的思考主题从未改变，永远都是“他替奥福德先生见客虽说挺好，但他本人的命运将会如何呢？”对此问题，我自己虽有答案，却是既不能满意更不敢示人。毋庸置疑，奥福德先生会给他提供生活保障，可提供怎样的保障才是关键所在。比如奥福德先生提供不了社交圈子，可偏偏社交早已凝入了他的性情。我必须说他从未因自身原因而表现出任何可被称作卑鄙之自我焦虑的症状。他脸色乌青，神情肃穆，这倒符合那种“往昔辉煌的影子”正从其眼前掠过的男人。他神情肃穆，似乎在困境之中、重压之下，勉为其难地承担起某种执行人或清算师的职责，无奈地关停了一家历史悠久、信誉卓著的企业。但他这个举动恰恰证明了我们俩人前途的扑朔迷离，而这在当时则是我之不可承受之重。那时我住在杰明街的一套二居室，没钱“请雇工”，但即使收入允许，我也不敢对布鲁克史密斯说（请允许我模仿奥福德先生）“亲爱的朋友，我会雇你的。” 我们之间互动的主基调是我向他暗示求助，而他的沉默仿佛是在向我保证：放心吧，想着你呢。

One of the most assiduous members of our circle had been Lady Kenyon, and I remember his telling me one day that her ladyship had in spite of her own infirmities, lately much aggravated, been in person to inquire. In answer to this I remarked that she would feel it more than any one. Brooksmith had a pause before saying in a certain tone—there's no reproducing some of his tones—"I'll go and see her." I went to see her myself and learned he had waited on her; but when I said to her, in the form of a joke but with a core of earnest, that when all was over some of us ought to combine, to club together, and set Brooksmith up on his own account, she replied a trife disappointingly: "Do you mean in a public-house? " I looked at her in a way that I think Brooksmith himself would have approved, and then I answered: "Yes, the Offord Arms." What I had meant of course was that for the love of art itself we ought to look to it that such a peculiar faculty and so much acquired experience shouldn't be wasted. I really think that if we had caused a few black-edged cards to be struck off and circulated—"Mr. Brooksmith will continue to receive on the old premises from four to seven; business carried on as usual during the alterations"—the greater number of us would have rallied.

肯扬夫人是我们这个圈子里最勤奋的成员之一。记得曾有一天布鲁克史密斯告诉我，尽管身体孱弱，且近期恶化严重，肯扬夫人仍亲自过问关闭沙龙这事儿。我说那是因为关闭沙龙令肯扬夫人受伤最深。布鲁克史密斯稍作停顿，语气坚定地说（他的音色无法完全复制重现），“我去看看她。” 后来等我自己去看望肯扬夫人时才得知，布鲁克史密斯曾是她的仆人，可当我开玩笑地说（但我内心是认真的），等风波过后，我们几个应该凑点儿钱帮布鲁克史密斯自主创业时，她却说，“你是说开间酒吧吗？”这回答就不免令人有些失望了。我看着夫人答道，“是的，奥福德分店”。我看她的眼神或许是布鲁克史密斯所欣赏的。当然，我的意思是，出于爱才之故，我们应确保他那份独特的才能派上用场，从而其丰富的经验不被虚掷。我相信先制作发行一些黑卡片，再请布鲁克史密斯依旧每天四点到七点之间在老地方接待客人，甚至房屋布局变动期间待客照常，这样子我们中大多数人就会振作起来。

Several times he took me upstairs—always by his own proposal—and our dear old friend, in bed (in a curious flowered and brocaded casaque which made him, especially as his head was tied up in a handkerchief to match, look, to my imagination, like the dying Voltaire) held for ten minutes a sadly shrunken little salon. I felt indeed each time as if I were attending the last coucher of some social sovereign. He was royally whimsical about his sufferings and not at all concerned—quite as if the Constitution provided for the case about his successor. He glided over our sufferings charmingly, and none of his jokes—it was a gallant abstention, some of them would have been so easy—were at our expense. Now and again, I confess, there was one at Brooksmith's, but so pathetically sociable as to make the excellent man look at me in a way that seemed to say: "Do exchange a glance with me, or I shan't be able to stand it." What he wasn't able to stand was not what Mr. Offord said about him, but what he wasn't able to say in return. His notion of conversation, for himself, was giving you the convenience of speaking to him; and when he went to ‘see’ Lady Kenyon, for instance, it was to carry her the tribute of his receptive silence. Where would the speech of his betters have been if proper service had been a manifestation of sound? In that case the fundamental difference would have to be shown by their dumbness, and many of them, poor things, were dumb enough without that provision. Brooksmith took an unfailing interest in the preservation of the fundamental difference; it was the thing he had most on his conscience.

有几次布鲁克史密斯主动带我上楼，这位亲爱的老友都会躺在床上和我们交谈十分钟。他身穿奇特的绣花袍，脑袋包一块蛮搭配的手帕，那模样跟我想象中垂死的伏尔泰一色一样。只是这种谈话已无意义可言，每次我都觉得像是在蒙受某位社交巨擘的最后召见。对自己的病痛他异想天开，全不在意，好像宪法已替他指定了继任者。我们的苦难他总是一语带过，从不拿我们开玩笑，有时开涮很方便但他也不会，这真是英雄般的克制与忍让啊。不过我承认，布鲁克史密斯那儿时常有这么一位，他可怜兮兮地太想社交，弄得这位优秀男子会看着我，仿佛在说，“与我交换个眼神吧，不然我真受不了了。” 其实他不能忍受的不是奥福德先生对他的评价，而是不能用话语做出回应，因为在他看来，谈话是给予别人跟他说话的机会。举个例子，他去‘看望’肯扬夫人时一言不发，其实是他用倾听来向夫人致敬。倘若适切的服务表现于声音，那么前辈的话语而今安在？倘若适切的服务表现于声音，那么根本差别则只能体现于前辈的沉默。假设没有上述说法，许多前辈早已足够沉默了，可怜的人啊。布鲁克史密斯始终在维护着这个根本差别，这份坚持才是他最大的魂牵梦绕。

What had become of it, however, when Mr. Offord passed away like any inferior person—was relegated to eternal stillness like a butler upstairs? His aspect on the event—for the several successive days—may be imagined and the multiplication by funereal observance of the things he didn't say. When everything was over—it was late the same day—I knocked at the door of the house of mourning as I so often had done before. I could never call on Mr. Offord again, but I had come literally to call on Brooksmith. I wanted to ask him if there was anything I could do for him, tainted with vagueness as this enquiry could only be. My presumptuous dream of taking him into my own service had died away; my service wasn't worth his being taken into. My offer could only be to help him to find another place, and yet there was an indelicacy, as it were, in taking for granted that his thoughts would immediately be fixed on another. I had a hope that he would be able to give his life a different form—though certainly not the form, the frequent result of such bereavements, of his setting up a little shop. That would have been dreadful; for I should have wished to forward any enterprise he might embark in, yet how could I have brought myself to go and pay him shillings and take back coppers over a counter? My visit then was simply an intended compliment. He took it as such, gratefully and with all the tact in the world. He knew I really couldn't help him and that I knew he knew I couldn't; but we discussed the situation—with a good deal of elegant generality—at the foot of the stairs, in the hall already dismantled, where I had so often discussed other situations with him. The executors were in possession, as was still more apparent when he made me pass for a few minutes into the dining-room, where various objects were muffled up for removal.

但是，在奥福德先生像个下人般卑贱地死去，如同楼上的男管家被“贬”入永恒的寂静时，那个根本差别怎样了呢？在治丧的那几天里，他对待主人之死的态度，葬礼上他有太多的话要讲可又只能憋在心里，这些都能想象得出来。葬礼当天晚些时候，当诸事已毕，我来到停尸房轻叩门环。我不是拜访奥福德先生，但我真是来拜访布鲁克史密斯的，想问问有什么可以帮忙。我的询问或许语焉不详，但也只好如此。我曾想收他为我所用，但这狂妄的美梦此时已然幻灭，因为这根本值不得人家思量。我想主动帮他换个工作，可这想法又欠妥当，好像我认定主人一死，人家立刻就移情别恋似的。我希望他能换个活法，但肯定不是开家小店那种，因为人们常常因丧亲而做出这种改变。这也太可怕了。既然他干啥我都愿帮，那么隔着柜台先付先令再取铜板儿的事我怎么忍心做得出呢？我来拜访其实是故作恭维，而他也作如是观，同时也机智巧妙地表达了感谢。他知道我没有能力帮他，而且我知道他知道我帮不了他，但我们还是在被拆掉的厅堂的楼梯口处，那个我们原来常常讨论其它问题的地方，说着文雅却空泛的措辞讨论了我们当时面临的窘境。显然，遗嘱执行人已经接管了房子，而在他让我进入餐厅几分钟后，这事就愈发明显了，因为餐厅里堆满了各种要搬走的物件。

Two definite facts, however, he had to communicate; one being that he was to leave the house for ever that night (servants, for some mysterious reason, seem always to depart by night), and the other—he mentioned it only at the last and with hesitation—that he was already aware his late master had left him a legacy of eighty pounds. "I'm very glad," I said, and Brooksmith was of the same mind: "It was so like him to think of me." This was all that passed between us on the subject, and I know nothing of his judgement of Mr. Offord's memento. Eighty pounds are always eighty pounds, and no one has ever left me an equal sum; but, all the same, for Brooksmith, I was disappointed. I don't know what I had expected, but it was almost a shock. Eighty pounds might stock a small shop—a very small shop; but, I repeat, I couldn't bear to think of that. I asked my friend if he had been able to save a little, and he replied: "No, sir; I've had to do things." I didn't enquire what things they might have been; they were his own affair, and I took his word for them as assentingly as if he had had the greatness of an ancient house to keep up; especially as there was something in his manner that seemed to convey a prospect of further sacrifice.

然而，有两个不争的事实他得说清楚，其一是他将于当晚永别这所房子（出于某种神秘莫名的原因，仆人都是趁着夜色离开）；其二是直到最后他才犹犹豫豫地说自己早就知道已故主人留给他八十英镑的遗产。“我很高兴，”我说，而布鲁克史密斯也作如是想，“他这人就是总想着我。”关于这个话题我们俩仅聊了这几句，因此他怎么看奥福德先生留下的遗产我无从知晓。八十英镑啊，没有谁曾留给我这么大笔钱，不过，算了吧，我对布鲁克史密斯感到失望。现在我想不起当时对他有何期待，但那期待应该出乎意料之外。八十英镑或许可以撑起一爿小店，特小一店面，但请允许我重说，想到开店我就难以忍受。我问这位朋友是否攒了些钱，他回答说，“没有，先生。我的钱都用来做事了。”我也没问他做了些什么，因为那与我无关。我信他的话，就当是他花钱保住了这栋老房子的高贵，尤其是他的言谈话语暗示着，他可能还要为这房子做出更多的牺牲。

"I shall have to turn round a bit, sir—I shall have to look about me," he said; and then he added indulgently, magnanimously: "If you should happen to hear of anything for me—"

“我是得改善改善了，先生，就从身边开始寻找吧，”他说。他又大度地补充说，“如果你碰巧听说有什么适合我的工作…。”

I couldn't let him finish; this was, in its essence, too much in the really grand manner. It would be a help to my getting him off my mind to be able to pretend I could find the right place, and that help he wished to give me, for it was doubtless painful to him to see me in so false a position. I interposed with a few words to the effect of how well aware I was that wherever he should go, whatever he should do, he would miss our old friend terribly—miss him even more than I should, having been with him so much more. This led him to make the speech that has remained with me as the very text of the whole episode.

我赶紧打断了他。让我给他找工作，简直太夸张了。不过我还是假装能找到，其实只是为了忘掉他，而且他也如是想，因为看到我处境尴尬，他肯定痛苦不堪。我插了几句嘴，大意是我很清楚不管他去那儿干啥活，他都忘不了我们共同的老朋友，因为他跟老友相处远多于我，故其思念之深亦远超于我，这令他感慨陈词，其言辞发乎真情，永存我心。

"Oh sir, it's sad for you, very sad indeed, and for a great many gentlemen and ladies; that it is, sir. But for me, sir, it is, if I may say so, still graver even than that: it's just the loss of something that was everything. For me, sir," he went on with rising tears, "he was just all, if you know what I mean, sir. You have others, sir, I dare say—not that I would have you understand me to speak of them as in any way tantamount. But you have the pleasures of society, sir; if it's only in talking about him, sir, as I dare say you do freely—for all his blest memory has to fear from it—with gentlemen and ladies who have had the same honour. That's not for me, sir, and I've to keep my associations to myself. Mr. Offord was my society, and now, you see, I just haven't any. You go back to conversation, sir, after all, and I go back to my place," Brooksmith stammered, without exaggerated irony or dramatic bitterness, but with a flat unstudied veracity and his hand on the knob of the street-door. He turned it to let me out and then he added: "I just go downstairs, sir, again, and I stay there."

“呃，先生，你悲伤，你很悲伤，许多先生女士都很悲伤。不过也就仅此而已，先生。可对我而言，先生，或许可以说，岂止悲伤呢。一物失而万物亡。对我，就是这样，先生，”他不停地说着，眼里泛起泪花，“他就是我的全部，能解我意吗？先生。我相信你还有别的友人，先生，当然你不要以为我觉得你的那些朋友可以跟他相提并论。但先生，你要享受社交之愉悦，要是唯有聊他才快乐，那就跟曾经有幸与他交往的男男女女去尽情地聊他吧，尽管这美好的追思令人害怕。但于我则不然，我的社交不能与人分享。奥福德先生曾是我的贵人，可现在，你看，我什么都没有了。算了，不说了，你去继续聊吧，我要回到岗位上去，”手握临街房门的把手，布鲁克史密斯结结巴巴地说着，既无夸张的讽刺也没有特别的苦涩，反倒是平淡真诚。他转动把手让我出去，说，“我只是下楼去，先生，再一次，然后待在那儿。”

作者简介

亨利·詹姆斯 (1843—1916)，出身于纽约一富裕的高级知识分子家庭，其父为富翁，其兄威廉·詹姆斯是著名哲学家，其本人是英籍美裔小说家、文学批评家、剧作家和散文家，代表作有长篇小说《美国人》(The American)，《一位贵妇的画像》(The Portrait of a Lady)，《鸽翼》(The Wings of the Dove)，《使节》(The Ambassadors)和《金碗》(The Golden Bowl)等。亨利·詹姆斯一生共创作了22部小说和113个短篇，曾于1911年、1912年以及1916年三次获得诺贝尔文学奖提名。亨利·詹姆斯是一位现代主义小说创作的探索者，他把小说当作一门艺术，并开创了被称为“心理现实主义”(psychological realism)的小说创作新手法，这即是“意识流”的先声。他的写作风格晦涩难懂，因此作品在其生前并未得到重视，直到20世纪30年代才得到世人认可。他的创作体现了欧、美文化的冲突与融合。他创造性地将现实主义小说创作从外部世界移向内心世界，在欧美文学史上起着承上启下的作用。他还认为，一个真正伟大的小说家，同时应该是一个哲学家，他要为人的本性服务，关心的是“对一位有道德、有责任的人来说艺术与人性的关系。”