双语小说连载:纯真年代 The Age of Innocence(7)

 
Mrs. Henry van der Luyden listened in silence to her cousin Mrs. Archer's narrative.
亨利·范德卢顿太太默不作声地听着表妹阿切尔太太的叙说。

It was all very well to tell yourself in advance that Mrs. van der Luyden was always silent, and that, though non-committal by nature and training, she was very kind to the people she really liked. Even personal experience of these facts was not always a protection from the chill that descended on one in the high-ceilinged white-walled Madison Avenue drawing-room, with the pale brocaded armchairs so obviously uncovered for the occasion, and the gauze still veiling the ormolu mantel ornaments and the beautiful old carved frame of Gainsborough's "Lady Angelica du Lac."
范德卢顿太太一向不爱讲话；而且，她的性格和所受的训练都使她不肯轻易作出承诺，但她对真心喜欢的人还是很有同情心的。对于这些情况，提前做好思想准备固然不错，但即使你有过亲身体验，也难保就能抵御得住麦迪逊大街白壁高顶的客厅里袭来的阵阵寒意。浅色锦缎的扶手椅显然是为这次接待刚刚揭去盖罩，一层薄纱依然罩着镀金的壁炉装饰及雕刻精美的盖恩斯巴罗所画的“安吉莉卡·杜拉克小姐”画像的像框。

Mrs. van der Luyden's portrait by Huntington (in black velvet and Venetian point) faced that of her lovely ancestress. It was generally considered "as fine as a Cabanel," and, though twenty years had elapsed since its execution, was still "a perfect likeness." Indeed the Mrs. van der Luyden who sat beneath it listening to Mrs. Archer might have been the twin-sister of the fair and still youngish woman drooping against a gilt armchair before a green rep curtain. Mrs. van der Luyden still wore black velvet and Venetian point when she went into society--or rather (since she never dined out) when she threw open her own doors to receive it. Her fair hair, which had faded without turning grey, was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead, and the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only a little more pinched about the nostrils than when the portrait had been painted. She always, indeed, struck Newland Archer as having been rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence, as bodies caught in glaciers keep for years a rosy life-in-death.
由亨廷顿绘制的范德卢顿太太的画像（身着带威尼斯针绣花边的黑丝绒），面对着她那位可爱的女前辈的像。这张画像被普遍认为“像卡巴内尔的作品一样精致”，虽然已经画了20年，至今仍然显得“维妙维肖”。的确，坐在画像下面听阿切尔太太讲话的范德卢顿太太，与画框中那位靠在绿布窗帘前那把镀金扶手椅上、眼睛低垂的年轻美女很像一对孪生姐妹。范德卢顿太太参加社交活动——或者不如说她打开自己的家门迎接社交活动（因为她从不外出用餐）的时候，仍然穿着带威尼斯针绣花边的黑丝绒，她的金发虽然已经褪色，但并未变成灰白，依然从额前的交叠部位平分开。两只淡蓝色眼睛中间笔直的鼻子，仅仅在鼻孔附近比画像制作时略显消瘦。实际上，她总是让纽兰·阿切尔觉得，仿佛她一直被可怕地保存在一个没有空气的完美实体之中，就像那些被冷冻在冰川中的尸体，好多年还保持着虽死犹生的红润。

Like all his family, he esteemed and admired Mrs. van der Luyden; but he found her gentle bending sweetness less approachable than the grimness of some of his mother's old aunts, fierce spinsters who said "No" on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked.
跟家中所有的成员一样，他敬重并崇拜范德卢顿太太，不过他发现，她那略带压制的亲切态度还不如母亲几位老姑的严厉容易让人接近，那几位恶狠狠的老处女不等弄清别人的要求，就会照例说一声“不行”。

Mrs. van der Luyden's attitude said neither yes nor no, but always appeared to incline to clemency till her thin lips, wavering into the shadow of a smile, made the almost invariable reply: "I shall first have to talk this over with my husband."
范德卢顿太太的态度看不出是与否，不过总显示出仁慈宽厚的样子，直至她的薄嘴唇撇出一丝笑意，才几乎是千篇一律地回答说：“我得先和我丈夫商量一下。”