🔊 Next day the light of the October morning was falling in dusty shafts through the uncurtained windows, and the hum of traffic rose from the street. London then was winding itself up again; the factory was astir; the machines were beginning. It was tempting, after all this reading, to look out of the window and see what London was doing on the morning of the 26th of October 1928. And what was London doing? Nobody, it seemed, was reading Antony and Cleopatra. London was wholly indifferent, it appeared, to Shakespeare's plays. Nobody cared a straw-and I do not blame them-for the future of fiction, the death of poetry or the development by the average woman of a prose style completely expressive of her mind. If opinions upon any of these matters had been chalked on the pavement, nobody would have stooped to read them. The nonchalance of the hurrying feet would have rubbed them out in half an hour. Here came an errand-boy; here a woman with a dog on a lead. The fascination of the London street is that no two people are ever alike; each seems bound on some private affair of his own. There were the business-like, with their little bags; there were the drifters rattling sticks upon area railings; there were affable characters to whom the streets serve for clubroom, hailing men in carts and giving information without being asked for it. Also there were funerals to which men, thus suddenly reminded of the passing of their own bodies, lifted their hats. And then a very distinguished gentleman came slowly down a doorstep and paused to avoid collision with a bustling lady who had, by some means or other, acquired a splendid fur coat and a bunch of Parma violets. They all seemed separate, self-absorbed, on business of their own.

翌日,十月晨光透过未挂帘幕的窗户,落下道道尘影,街市车马声嗡然四起。伦敦正在重新上紧发条:工厂苏醒,机器始作。读罢方才那许多文字,不免令人想凭窗眺望,看看一九二八年十月二十六日的清晨,伦敦在做些什么。伦敦又在做些什么呢？似乎没人在读《安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉》。看来伦敦对莎士比亚的戏剧全不在意。无人关心--我也不责怪他们--小说的未来、诗歌的消亡,或是寻常妇女能否发展出一种足以充分表达其思想的散文风格。即使有人在人行道上用粉笔写下关于这些问题的见解,也无人会俯身去读。匆匆步履那不经意的践踏,不出半小时便足以将其磨灭。那边来了个跑腿的小伙计；这边来了个牵着狗的妇人。伦敦街头的迷人之处,在于绝无两个相同的人；人人似乎都在为自己的私事奔忙。有那办事利落的,提着小公文包；有那漫无目的的闲人,用手杖敲打着屋前栏杆；有那和善的人物,把街道当作俱乐部的吸烟室,向马车上的熟人脱帽致意,并且不等询问就主动提供信息。还有出殡的行列,男人们看到,突然想到自己肉体的终局,便举帽致意。接着,一位气度不凡的绅士慢慢步下门前台阶,驻足避让一位行色匆匆的女士--她不知怎地弄到了一件华贵的皮大衣,还捧着一束帕尔马紫罗兰。他们全都显得各自分离、全神贯注,忙于自己的事务。

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uncurtained /ʌnˈkɜːrtnd/

adj. 没有挂窗帘的➕

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astir /əˈstɜːr/

adj. 骚动起来的；活动的➕

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fascination /ˌfæsɪˈneɪʃn/

n. 魅力；入迷➕

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business-like /ˈbɪznəslaɪk/

adj. 有条理的；有效率的；公事公办的➕

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affable /ˈæfəbl/

adj. 和蔼可亲的；友善的➕

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funerals /ˈfjuːnərəlz/

n. 葬礼（复数）➕

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distinguished /dɪˈstɪŋɡwɪʃt/

adj. 杰出的；高贵的➕

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self-absorbed /ˌself əbˈzɔːrbd/

adj. 专注于自己事务的；自我专注的➕

🔊 At this moment, as so often happens in London, there was a complete lull and suspension of traffic. Nothing came down the street; nobody passed. A single leaf detached itself from the plane tree at the end of the street, and in that pause and suspension fell. Somehow it was like a signal falling, a signal pointing to a force in things which one had overlooked. It seemed to point to a river, which flowed past, invisibly, round the corner, down the street, and took people and eddied them along, as the stream at Oxbridge had taken the undergraduate in his boat and the dead leaves. Now it was bringing from one side of the street to the other diagonally a girl in patent leather boots, and then a young man in a maroon overcoat; it was also bringing a taxi-cab; and it brought all three together at a point directly beneath my window; where the taxi stopped; and the girl and the young man stopped; and they got into the taxi; and then the cab glided off as if it were swept on by the current elsewhere. The sight was ordinary enough; what was strange was the rhythmical order with which my imagination had invested it; and the fact that the ordinary sight of two people getting into a cab had the power to communicate something of their own seeming satisfaction. The sight of two people coming down the street and meeting at the corner seems to ease the mind of some strain, I thought, watching the taxi turn and make off. Perhaps to think, as I had been thinking these two days, of one sex as distinct from the other is an effort. It interferes with the unity of the mind. Now that effort had ceased and that unity had been restored by seeing two people come together and get into a taxi-cab. The mind is certainly a very mysterious organ, I reflected, drawing my head in from the window, about which nothing whatever is known, though we depend upon it so completely. Why do I feel that there are severances and oppositions in the mind, as there are strains from obvious causes on the body? What does one mean by 'the unity of the mind'? I pondered, for clearly the mind has so great a power of concentrating at any point at any moment that it seems to have no single state of being. It can separate itself from the people in the street, for example, and think of itself as apart from them, at an upper window looking down on them. Or it can think with other people spontaneously, as, for instance, in a crowd waiting to hear some piece of news read out. It can think back through its fathers or through its mothers, as I have said that a woman writing thinks back through her mothers. Again if one is a woman one is often surprised by a sudden splitting off of consciousness, say in walking down Whitehall, when from being the natural inheritor of that civilisation, she becomes, on the contrary, outside of it, alien and critical. Clearly the mind is always altering its focus, and bringing the world into different perspectives. But some of these states of mind seem, even if adopted spontaneously, to be less comfortable than others. In order to keep oneself continuing in them one is unconsciously holding something back, and gradually the repression becomes an effort. But there may be some state of mind in which one could continue without effort because nothing is required to be held back. And this perhaps, I thought, coming in from the window, is one of them. For certainly when I saw the couple get into the taxi-cab the mind felt as if, after being divided, it had come together again in a natural fusion. The obvious reason would be that it is natural for the sexes to co-operate. One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favour of the theory that the union of man and woman makes for the greatest satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness? And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man's brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman's brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually co-operating. If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilised and uses all its faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine, I thought. But it would be well to test what one meant by man-womanly, and conversely by woman-manly, by pausing and looking at a book or two.

此时,如同伦敦常见的景象,街上一片寂静,交通完全中断。没有车辆驶来；也没有行人经过。街头那棵法国梧桐上,一片叶子独自脱落,在这片停顿与静止中翩然飘落。不知怎地,这就像一道信号落下,指向了一种被人们忽视的、存在于万物之中的力量。它仿佛指向一条河流,那河看不见地流过,绕过街角,沿着街道,载着人们,打着旋涡将他们卷走,正如牛剑的河流载走小舟上的大学生与枯叶那般。此刻,它正斜对角地将一个穿漆皮靴的姑娘从街的一侧带到另一侧,接着又带来一个穿栗色大衣的年轻男子；它还带来一辆出租汽车；它将这三者恰好汇聚在我窗下的一个点上；出租车停了下来；姑娘和年轻男子也停了下来；他们坐进车里；接着汽车便滑行而去,仿佛被水流冲往他处。这景象再寻常不过；奇怪的是我为其想象所赋予的那种富有韵律的秩序；以及两个人坐进出租车这样一个寻常景象,竟能传递出几分他们自己那种似乎满意的神情。望着出租车拐弯驶离,我想,看着两个人沿街走来,在街角相遇,似乎能缓解心灵的某种紧张。也许像我这两天这样,去思考一种性别与另一种性别的截然不同,本身便是一种劳神费力。它干扰了心灵的统一。现在,这一努力已然停止,那统一也因看见两个人走到一起、坐进出租车而得以恢复。心灵的的确确是个非常神秘的器官,我从窗前收回身子,心里想着,我们对它一无所知,却又全然依赖着它。为何我感觉到心灵里存在种种分裂与对立,正如身体因明显的原因而感到紧张一样？“心灵的统一”又是指什么呢？我思索着,因为显然,心灵拥有如此巨大的力量,可以随时集中于任何一点,以至于它似乎没有一个单一的存在状态。它可以把自己与街上的人分隔开,例如,将自己想象为独立于他们,在楼上的窗口俯视着他们。它也可以自发地与他人一同思考,譬如,在人群中等待聆听某条新闻被宣读时。它可以通过父亲或母亲去追溯思考,正如我曾说过的,女性写作时是通过她的母亲们去追溯的。再者,如果身为女性,意识往往会突然发生分裂,让人惊讶,比如说在走过白厅时,她会从那份文明的天然继承者,反而变成置身其外,疏离而批判。显然,心灵总是在改变它的焦点,将世界置于不同的视角下。但这些心态中,有些似乎即使自发产生,也比其他心态更令人不适。为了让自己持续处于这些心态中,人在无意识地压抑着什么,渐渐地这压抑就成了劳神费力之事。但或许存在某种心态,人可以在其中毫不费力地持续下去,因为没有什么需要被压抑。而从窗前回身的我想,这或许就是其中一种心态。因为当我看见那一对坐进出租车时,心灵的感觉就像是,在分裂之后,又自然而然地融合为一了。显而易见的理由是,两性合作乃天性使然。人们有一种深刻（虽则不合逻辑）的本能,倾向于认为男女结合能带来最大的满足、最完整的幸福。但那一对人坐进出租车的情景以及它带给我的满足感,也让我不禁自问:心灵是否如同身体,也有两性之分？是否也需要二者结合,才能获得完整的满足与幸福？我继而像个外行般勾勒起灵魂的蓝图:我们每个人内心都并存着两种力量,一为男性,一为女性；在男性大脑中,男性力量占主导；在女性大脑中,女性力量占主导。正常而舒适的存在状态,是二者和谐共处,精神上合作无间。若身为男子,头脑中的女性部分也须发挥作用；而女子也须与内在的男性力量交流。柯勒律治说伟大的心灵是雌雄同体的,或许指的就是这个。唯有当这种融合发生时,心灵才得以充分受孕,并运用其全部官能。我想,纯粹男性的心灵或许无法创造,正如纯粹女性的心灵也不能。但最好还是停下来,翻看一两本书,来检验一下我们所说的男性化的女性以及反过来说女性化的男性究竟何指。

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lull /lʌl/

n. 暂停；间歇；平静期➕

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suspension /səˈspenʃn/

n. 中止；暂停；悬置➕

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detached /dɪˈtætʃt/

adj. 分离的；脱离的；超然的➕

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overlooked /ˌoʊvərˈlʊkt/

v. 忽视；忽略；俯瞰（过去分词）➕

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diagonally /daɪˈæɡənəli/

adv. 对角地；斜向地➕

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maroon /məˈruːn/

adj. 褐红色的➕

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rhythmical /ˈrɪðmɪkl/

adj. 有节奏的；有韵律的➕

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severances /ˈsevərənsɪz/

n. 分离；断绝；解雇（复数）➕

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spontaneously /spɒnˈteɪniəsli/

adv. 自发地；自然地➕

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alien /ˈeɪliən/

adj. 外国的；陌生的；相异的；疏远的➕

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repression /rɪˈpreʃn/

n. 压抑；压制；抑制➕

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fusion /ˈfjuːʒn/

n. 融合；熔合；合并➕

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amateurishly /ˈæmətərɪʃli/

adv. 外行地；业余地➕

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preside /prɪˈzaɪd/

v. 主持；担任主席；掌管➕

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predominates /prɪˈdɒmɪneɪts/

v. 占主导地位；占优势➕

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androgynous /ænˈdrɒdʒənəs/

adj. 雌雄同体的；兼具两性特征的➕

🔊 Coleridge certainly did not mean, when he said that a great mind is androgynous, that it is a mind that has any special sympathy with women; a mind that takes up their cause or devotes itself to their interpretation. Perhaps the androgynous mind is less apt to make these distinctions than the single-sexed mind. He meant, perhaps, that the androgynous mind is resonant and porous; that it transmits emotion without impediment; that it is naturally creative, incandescent and undivided. In fact one goes back to Shakespeare's mind as the type of the androgynous, of the man-womanly mind, though it would be impossible to say what Shakespeare thought of women. And if it be true that it is one of the tokens of the fully developed mind that it does not think specially or separately of sex, how much harder it is to attain that condition now than ever before. Here I came to the books by living writers, and there paused and wondered if this fact were not at the root of something that had long puzzled me. No age can ever have been as stridently sex-conscious as our own; those innumerable books by men about women in the British Museum are a proof of it. The Suffrage campaign was no doubt to blame. It must have roused in men an extraordinary desire for self-assertion; it must have made them lay an emphasis upon their own sex and its characteristics which they would not have troubled to think about had they not been challenged. And when one is challenged, even by a few women in black bonnets, one retaliates, if one has never been challenged before, rather excessively. That perhaps accounts for some of the characteristics that I remember to have found here, I thought, taking down a new novel by Mr. A, who is in the prime of life and very well thought of, apparently, by the reviewers. I opened it. Indeed, it was delightful to read a man's writing again. It was so direct, so straightforward after the writing of women. It indicated such freedom of mind, such liberty of person, such confidence in himself. One had a sense of physical well-being in the presence of this well-nourished, well-educated, free mind, which had never been thwarted or opposed, but had had full liberty from birth to stretch itself in whatever way it liked. All this was admirable. But after reading a chapter or two a shadow seemed to lie across the page. It was a straight dark bar, a shadow shaped something like the letter 'I'. One began dodging this way and that to catch a glimpse of the landscape behind it. Whether that was indeed a tree or a woman walking I was not quite sure. Back one was always hailed to the letter 'I'. One began to be tired of 'I'. Not but what this 'I' was a most respectable 'I'; honest and logical; as hard as a nut, and polished for centuries by good teaching and good feeding. I respect and admire that 'I' from the bottom of my heart. But-here I turned a page or two, looking for something or other-the worst of it is that in the shadow of the letter 'I' all is shapeless as mist. Is that a tree? No, it is a woman. But... she has not a bone in her body, I thought, watching Phoebe, for that was her name, coming across the beach. Then Alan got up and the shadow of Alan at once obliterated Phoebe. For Alan had views and Phoebe was quenched in the flood of his views. And then Alan, I thought, has passions; and here I turned page after page very fast, feeling that the crisis was approaching, and so it was. It took place on the beach under the sun. It was done very openly. It was done very vigorously. Nothing could have been more indecent. But... I had said 'but' too often. One cannot go on saying 'but'. One must finish the sentence somehow, I rebuked myself. Shall I finish it, 'But-I am bored!' But why was I bored? Partly because of the dominance of the letter 'I' and the aridity, which, like the giant beech tree, it casts within its shade. Nothing will grow there. And partly for some more obscure reason. There seemed to be some obstacle, some impediment in Mr. A's mind which blocked the fountain of creative energy and shored it within narrow limits. And remembering the lunch party at Oxbridge, and the cigarette ash and the Manx cat and Tennyson and Christina Rossetti all in a bunch, it seemed possible that the impediment lay there. As he no longer hums under his breath, 'There has fallen a splendid tear from the passion-flower at the gate', when Phoebe crosses the beach, and she no longer replies, 'My heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a water'd shoot', when Alan approaches what can he do? Being honest as the day and logical as the sun, there is only one thing he can do. And that he does, to do him justice, over and over (I said turning the pages) and over again. And that, I added, aware of the awful nature of the confession, seems somehow dull. Shakespeare's indecency uproots a thousand other things in one's mind, and is far from being dull. But Shakespeare does it for pleasure; Mr. A, as the nurses say, does it on purpose. He does it in protest. He is protesting against the equality of the other sex by asserting his own superiority. He is therefore impeded and inhibited and self-conscious as Shakespeare might have been if he too had known Miss Clough and Miss Davies. Doubtless Elizabethan literature would have been very different from what it is if the woman's movement had begun in the sixteenth century and not in the nineteenth.

柯勒律治说伟大的心灵是雌雄同体的,他当然不是指那种对女性抱有特别同情、支持她们的事业或致力于诠释她们的心灵。或许,雌雄同体的心灵比单一性别的心灵更不倾向于作此区分。他的意思或许是,雌雄同体的心灵是共鸣的、可渗透的；它能毫无阻碍地传递情感；它天生富有创造力,炽热发光,浑融一体。事实上,人们会回溯到莎士比亚的心灵,视其为雌雄同体的典范,是男性化的女性的心灵,尽管我们不可能确知莎士比亚对女性作何感想。如果说,一个充分发展成熟的心灵的标志之一,便是不再特别或分离地思考性别问题,那么,如今要达致这一境界,比以往任何时候都更艰难了。这时我转向在世作家的作品,停了下来,思忖这一事实是否正是长久以来令我困惑的某事的根源。从未有哪个时代像我们这个时代这般强烈地意识到性别差异；大英博物馆里那些男人写的关于女人的无数书籍便是明证。选举权运动无疑是罪魁祸首。它必定在男人心中激起了非同寻常的自我主张欲望；必定让他们过分强调自身的性别及其特征--若非受到挑战,他们原本懒得去思考这些。而当一个人受到挑战时（哪怕挑战者只是几个戴黑色软帽的女人）,倘若他从未受过挑战,他的反击往往会有些过火。我想,这或许解释了我记得在此发现过的某些特征。我取下一本A先生新出的小说,他正值壮年,显然颇受评论界好评。我翻开书。的确,再次读到男人的文字令人愉悦。它如此直接,如此坦率,与女性的文字截然不同。它显示出思想的自由,个性的独立,以及强烈的自信。面对这颗营养充足、教养良好、自由自在的心灵--它从未受过阻挠或反对,自诞生起便享有充分的自由,可以随心所欲地舒展--人感到一种生理上的康泰。这一切都令人钦佩。但读了一两章后,一片阴影似乎横亘在书页之上。那是一条笔直的黑杠,形状有点像字母“我”。人开始左躲右闪,想瞥见它背后的风景。那究竟是一棵树还是一个行走的女人,我都不太确定。思绪总是被唤回到那个“我”字上。人开始厌倦这个“我”了。倒不是说这个“我”不值得尊敬；它诚实而合乎逻辑；坚硬如坚果,数百年来经良好教养与丰足饮食的打磨而光润。我从心底里尊重并钦佩这个“我”。但是--我翻了两三页,寻找着什么--最糟糕的是,在字母“我”的阴影下,一切都像雾一样模糊不清。那是棵树吗？不,是个女人。但是……看着菲比（那是她的名字）走过海滩,我想,她身上连一根骨头都没有。接着艾伦站起来,艾伦的影子立刻淹没了菲比。因为艾伦有见解,而菲比则在他的见解洪流中湮没无闻。然后我想,艾伦还有激情；于是我飞快地一页页翻过去,感觉高潮即将来临,果然如此。它在阳光下、海滩上发生。做得非常公开。做得非常卖力。没有比这更不得体的了。但是……“但是”我说得太多了。人不能老是说“但是”。总得想办法把句子说完,我责备自己道。我是否该这样收尾:“但是--我腻烦了！”可我为何腻烦呢？部分原因是那个“我”字的支配地位及其造成的贫瘠--如同巨大的山毛榉投下的阴影,其下寸草不生。部分则由于某些更隐晦的原因。在A先生的心灵中,似乎存在某种障碍,某种阻滞,堵塞了创造力的源泉,将其局限在狭窄的范围里。回想起牛剑的那次午宴,香烟灰、曼岛猫、丁尼生和克里斯蒂娜·罗塞蒂统统混为一谈,似乎那阻滞可能就在那里。当菲比走过海滩时,他不再低声哼唱“门边的西番莲上滴落了璀璨的泪珠”,而当艾伦走近时,她也不再回应“我的心像一只鸣鸟,巢居在润泽的嫩枝上”--他还能做什么呢？他诚实如白昼,逻辑如太阳,能做的只有一件事。而且,平心而论,他确实一遍又一遍（我一边翻书页一边说）地做了这件事。而这件事,我补充道,意识到这番供认的可怕性质--不知怎地,似乎有点乏味。莎士比亚的不得体能拔除你心中千百样东西,远非乏味可比。但莎士比亚是为乐趣而做；A先生,正如护士们说的,是故意为之。他是在抗议。他通过主张自身的优越来抗议另一性别的平等。因此,他受到阻滞、压抑,自觉不自然,正如莎士比亚倘若也认识克拉夫小姐和戴维斯小姐的话,或许也会如此。毫无疑问,倘若妇女运动始于十六世纪而非十九世纪,伊丽莎白时代的文学将会与现在大不相同。

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resonant /ˈrezənənt/

adj. 共鸣的；洪亮的；引起共鸣的➕

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porous /ˈpɔːrəs/

adj. 多孔的；可渗透的➕

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impediment /ɪmˈpedɪmənt/

n. 阻碍；障碍；口吃➕

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incandescent /ˌɪnkænˈdesnt/

adj. 炽热的；白热的；明亮的；激情的➕

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undivided /ˌʌndɪˈvaɪdɪd/

adj. 未分开的；专一的；完整的➕

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stridently /ˈstraɪdntli/

adv. 刺耳地；尖锐地；强烈地➕

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innumerable /ɪˈnuːmərəbl/

adj. 无数的；数不清的➕

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Suffrage /ˈsʌfrɪdʒ/

n. 选举权；投票权（常大写特指妇女参政运动）➕

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self-assertion /ˌself əˈsɜːrʃn/

n. 坚持己见；自作主张；自我肯定➕

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retaliates /rɪˈtælieɪts/

v. 报复；反击➕

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excessively /ɪkˈsesɪvli/

adv. 过分地；过度地➕

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straightforward /ˌstreɪtˈfɔːrwərd/

adj. 直率的；简单的；易懂的➕

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thwarted /θwɔːrtɪd/

v. 阻挠；挫败；使受挫折（过去分词）➕

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admirable /ˈædmərəbl/

adj. 令人钦佩的；极好的➕

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dodging /ˈdɒdʒɪŋ/

v. 躲闪；躲避；推脱（现在分词）➕

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logical /ˈlɒdʒɪkl/

adj. 合乎逻辑的；合理的➕

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obliterated /əˈblɪtəreɪtɪd/

v. 抹去；消灭；覆盖（过去分词）➕

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quenched /kwentʃt/

v. 熄灭；解（渴）；压制（过去分词）➕

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vigorously /ˈvɪɡərəsli/

adv. 强有力地；精力充沛地➕

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indecent /ɪnˈdiːsnt/

adj. 下流的；不体面的；不合适的➕

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dominance /ˈdɒmɪnəns/

n. 主导地位；优势；支配➕

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aridity /əˈrɪdəti/

n. 干旱；贫瘠；枯燥➕

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shored /ʃɔːrd/

v. 支撑；加固（过去分词）➕

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splendid /ˈsplendɪd/

adj. 灿烂的；辉煌的；极好的➕

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confession /kənˈfeʃn/

n. 坦白；供认；忏悔➕

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uproots /ʌpˈruːts/

v. 根除；连根拔起；使离开家园➕

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inhibited /ɪnˈhɪbɪtɪd/

adj. 受抑制的；拘谨的➕

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self-conscious /ˌself ˈkɒnʃəs/

adj. 自觉的；不自然的；害羞的➕

🔊 What, then, it amounts to, if this theory of the two sides of the mind holds good, is that virility has now become self-conscious-men, that is to say, are now writing only with the male side of their brains. It is a mistake for a woman to read them, for she will inevitably look for something that she will not find. It is the power of suggestion that one most misses, I thought, taking Mr. B the critic in my hand and reading, very carefully and very dutifully, his remarks upon the art of poetry. Very able they were, acute and full of learning; but the trouble was that his feelings no longer communicated; his mind seemed separated into different chambers; not a sound carried from one to the other. Thus, when one takes a sentence of Mr. B into the mind it falls plump to the ground-dead; but when one takes a sentence of Coleridge into the mind, it explodes and gives birth to all kinds of other ideas, and that is the only sort of writing of which one can say that it has the secret of perpetual life. But whatever the reason may be, it is a fact that one must deplore. For it means-here I had come to rows of books by Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. Kipling-that some of the finest works of our greatest living writers fall upon deaf ears. Do what she will a woman cannot find in them that fountain of perpetual life which the critics assure her is there. It is not only that they celebrate male virtues, enforce male values and describe the world of men; it is that the emotion with which these books are permeated is to a woman incomprehensible. It is coming, it is gathering, it is about to burst on one's head, one begins saying long before the end. That picture will fall on old Jolyon's head; he will die of the shock; the old clerk will speak over him two or three obituary words; and all the swans on the Thames will simultaneously burst out singing. But one will rush away before that happens and hide in the gooseberry bushes, for the emotion which is so deep, so subtle, so symbolical to a man moves a woman to wonder. So with Mr. Kipling's officers who turn their backs; and his Sowers who sow the Seed; and his Men who are alone with their Work; and the Flag-one blushes at all these capital letters as if one had been caught eavesdropping at some purely masculine orgy. The fact is that neither Mr. Galsworthy nor Mr. Kipling has a spark of the woman in him. Thus all their qualities seem to a woman, if one may generalise, crude and immature. They lack suggestive power. And when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within.

那么,如果这种关于心灵两面性的理论成立,归结起来就是:男性气质如今已变得自我意识过强--也就是说,男人们现在只用他们大脑中男性的一面来写作。女人读这些书是个错误,因为她必然寻找某种她找不到的东西。我想,手中拿着评论家B先生的著作,仔细而尽责地读着他关于诗歌艺术的评论,人最怀念的,是那种暗示的力量。这些评论非常出色,敏锐而博学；但问题在于,他的感受不再能传达出来；他的心灵似乎被分割成不同的隔间；声音无法从一个传到另一个。因此,当你把B先生的一句话纳入心中,它便扑通一声坠落在地--死了；而当你把柯勒律治的一句话纳入心中,它会爆炸,并催生出无数其他念头,而只有这种文字,才堪称拥有不朽生命的奥秘。但无论原因为何,这都是一个令人遗憾的事实。因为这意味着一-此刻我面前摆着高尔斯华绥先生和吉卜林先生的一排排著作--我们最伟大的在世作家们的一些最优秀作品,遭遇了聋子的耳朵。无论她如何努力,女人都无法在这些作品中找到评论家们向她保证存在的那股不朽的生命之泉。这不仅是因为它们颂扬男性的美德,强化男性的价值观,描绘男人的世界；还因为这些作品所渗透的情感,对女人而言是无法理解的。它就要来了,它正在聚集,它即将在你头顶爆发--人在结局到来前许久就开始这么说了。那幅画会砸在老乔里恩头上；他会震惊而死；老职员会在他遗体前说上两三句悼词；泰晤士河上所有的天鹅会同时引吭高歌。但在那发生之前,人就会逃开,躲进醋栗丛中,因为那种对男人而言如此深沉、如此微妙、如此象征化的情感,只会让女人感到诧异。吉卜林先生笔下那些背转身去的军官也是如此；那些播种的播种者；那些与工作独处的男人；还有那面旗帜--面对所有这些大写字母,人就像无意中撞见了一场纯粹男性狂欢时偷听被抓一样,脸红起来。事实是,无论是高尔斯华绥先生还是吉卜林先生,身上都没有一星半点的女性气质。因此,如果允许笼统而论的话,他们所有的品质在女人看来都显得粗糙而不成熟。他们缺乏暗示的力量。而一本书若缺乏暗示的力量,无论它如何有力地撞击心灵的表面,也无法穿透其内里。

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virility /vəˈrɪləti/

n. 男子气概；刚劲；雄浑➕

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acute /əˈkjuːt/

adj. 敏锐的；尖锐的；剧烈的➕

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perpetual /pərˈpetʃuəl/

adj. 永恒的；持续的；不间断的➕

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deplore /dɪˈplɔːr/

v. 谴责；痛惜；强烈反对➕

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permeated /ˈpɜːrmieɪtɪd/

v. 渗透；弥漫；充满（过去分词）➕

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incomprehensible /ɪnˌkɒmprɪˈhensəbl/

adj. 无法理解的；费解的➕

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obituary /əˈbɪtʃuəri/

adj. 讣告的；死亡的（作定语）➕

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simultaneously /ˌsɪmlˈteɪniəsli/

adv. 同时地➕

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eavesdropping /ˈiːvzdrɒpɪŋ/

n. 偷听➕

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orgy /ˈɔːrdʒi/

n. 纵欲；狂欢；无节制➕

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generalise /ˈdʒenrəlaɪz/

v. 概括；归纳；推广➕

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crude /kruːd/

adj. 粗糙的；未加工的；粗鲁的➕

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immature /ˌɪməˈtjʊər/

adj. 不成熟的；未发育完全的➕

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penetrate /ˈpenətreɪt/

v. 穿透；渗入；洞察➕

🔊 And in that restless mood in which one takes books out and puts them back again without looking at them I began to envisage an age to come of pure, of self-assertive virility, such as the letters of professors (take Sir Walter Raleigh's letters, for instance) seem to forebode, and the rulers of Italy have already brought into being. For one can hardly fail to be impressed in Rome by the sense of unmitigated masculinity; and whatever the value of unmitigated masculinity upon the state, one may question the effect of it upon the art of poetry. At any rate, according to the newspapers, there is a certain anxiety about fiction in Italy. There has been a meeting of academicians whose object it is 'to develop the Italian novel'. 'Men famous by birth, or in finance, industry or the Fascist corporations' came together the other day and discussed the matter, and a telegram was sent to the Duce expressing the hope 'that the Fascist era would soon give birth to a poet worthy of it'. We may all join in that pious hope, but it is doubtful whether poetry can come out of an incubator. Poetry ought to have a mother as well as a father. The Fascist poem, one may fear, will be a horrid little abortion such as one sees in a glass jar in the museum of some county town. Such monsters never live long, it is said; one has never seen a prodigy of that sort cropping grass in a field. Two heads on one body do not make for length of life.

在这种焦躁不安、拿起书又放回去而不翻阅的心境中,我开始设想一个纯粹、自我张扬的男性气质时代即将到来,正如教授们的书信（例如沃尔特·雷利爵士的书信）似乎预示的那样,而意大利的统治者们已经将其变为现实。因为在罗马,人们很难不被那种毫不妥协的男性气质所震撼；无论这种毫不妥协的男性气质对国家有何价值,人们或许会质疑它对诗歌艺术的影响。无论如何,据报纸所言,意大利对小说存在着某种忧虑。学者们召开了一次会议,旨在“发展意大利小说”。“出身名门、或在金融、工业或法西斯社团中享有声望的男士们”日前齐聚一堂讨论此事,并向领袖发去电报,表达“希望法西斯时代能很快诞生一位与之相称的诗人”的愿望。我们或许都会赞同这一虔诚的愿望,但诗歌能否从孵卵器中诞生,却令人怀疑。诗歌应当既有父亲,也有母亲。人们或许担忧,法西斯诗歌将是一个可怕的小怪胎,就像在某郡博物馆玻璃罐里看到的那种。据说这样的怪物活不长；人也从未见过那样的异类在田野里吃草。一个身体上长两个脑袋,不利于长寿。

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envisage /ɪnˈvɪzɪdʒ/

v. 设想；展望；面对➕

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forebode /fɔːrˈboʊd/

v. 预示；预感（不祥）➕

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unmitigated /ʌnˈmɪtɪɡeɪtɪd/

adj. 十足的；未减轻的；绝对的➕

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masculinity /ˌmæskjəˈlɪnəti/

n. 男性气概；阳刚之气➕

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academicians /əˌkædəˈmɪʃnz/

n. 院士；学会会员（复数）➕

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Fascist /ˈfæʃɪst/

adj. 法西斯主义的➕

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Duce /ˈduːtʃeɪ/

n. 领袖（特指意大利法西斯头目墨索里尼）➕

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pious /ˈpaɪəs/

adj. 虔诚的；敬神的；伪善的➕

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incubator /ˈɪŋkjubeɪtər/

n. 孵化器；恒温箱；培育基地➕

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abortion /əˈbɔːrʃn/

n. 流产；堕胎；失败的计划➕

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prodigy /ˈprɒdədʒi/

n. 奇才；天才；奇观➕

🔊 However, the blame for all this, if one is anxious to lay blame, rests no more upon one sex than upon the other. All seducers and reformers are responsible: Lady Bessborough when she lied to Lord Granville; Miss Davies when she told the truth to Mr. Greg. All who have brought about a state of sex-consciousness are to blame, and it is they who drive me, when I want to stretch my faculties on a book, to seek it in that happy age, before Miss Davies and Miss Clough were born, when the writer used both sides of his mind equally. One must turn back to Shakespeare then, for Shakespeare was androgynous; and so were Keats and Sterne and Cowper and Lamb and Coleridge. Shelley perhaps was sexless. Milton and Ben Jonson had a dash too much of the male in them. So had Wordsworth and Tolstoi. In our time Proust was wholly androgynous, if not perhaps a little too much of a woman. But that failing is too rare for one to complain of it, since without some mixture of the kind the intellect seems to predominate and the other faculties of the mind harden and become barren. However, I consoled myself with the reflection that this is perhaps a passing phase; much of what I have said in obedience to my promise to give you the course of my thoughts will seem out of date; much of what flames in my eyes will seem dubious to you who have not yet come of age. Even so, the very first sentence that I would write here, I said, crossing over to the writing-table and taking up the page headed Women and Fiction, is that it is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilised. Brilliant and effective, powerful and masterly, as it may appear for a day or two, it must wither at nightfall; it cannot grow in the minds of others. Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the art of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness. There must be freedom and there must be peace. Not a wheel must grate, not a light glimmer. The curtains must be close drawn. The writer, I thought, once his experience is over, must lie back and let his mind celebrate its nuptials in darkness. He must not look or question what is being done. Rather, he must pluck the petals from a rose or watch the swans float calmly down the river. And I saw again the current which took the boat and the undergraduate and the dead leaves; and the taxi took the man and the woman, I thought, seeing them come together across the street, and the current swept them away, I thought, hearing far off the roar of London's traffic, into that tremendous stream.

然而,倘若非要归咎,这一切的责任并不在某一性别身上,双方都有份。所有的诱惑者与改革者都难辞其咎:贝斯伯勒夫人向格兰维尔勋爵撒谎时如此；戴维斯小姐向格雷格先生说实话时亦如此。所有导致性别意识状态的人都该受责备,正是他们驱使着我,当我想在一本书上舒展心智时,便去那幸福的年代里寻找--那是在戴维斯小姐和克拉夫小姐出生之前,作家能平等运用其心灵两面的时代。我们必须回溯到莎士比亚,因为莎士比亚是雌雄同体的；济慈、斯特恩、考珀、兰姆和柯勒律治也是如此。雪莱或许是无性的。弥尔顿和本·琼森身上的男性气质则稍嫌过多。华兹华斯和托尔斯泰亦然。在我们这个时代,普鲁斯特完全是雌雄同体的,甚至或许女性气质还稍多了一点。但这种缺点过于罕见,不值得抱怨,因为若无某种此类混合,理智似乎便会占据上风,而心灵的其他官能则硬化、变得贫瘠。不过,我用这样的反思来安慰自己:这或许只是一个过渡阶段；为履行向你们陈述我思想历程的承诺而说的许多话,将显得过时；在我眼中炽烈燃烧的许多东西,对于尚未成年的你们来说,将显得可疑。即便如此,我一边说,一边走到写字台前,拿起那页题为“女性与小说”的稿纸,我要写下的第一句话就是:对于任何写作的人来说,想到自己的性别是致命的。纯粹简单地做男人或女人是致命的；人必须是女性化的男性或男性化的女性。女人最微末地强调任何冤屈、甚至正义地申辩任何事业、有意识地以女人身份发言,都是致命的。致命绝非修辞；任何带有这种有意识偏见的文字都注定消亡。它不再能受孕结胎。无论它在一两天内显得如何才华横溢、卓有成效、强劲有力、精湛娴熟,日暮时分必会凋萎；它无法在他人心中生长。在创作艺术得以完成之前,心灵中必须发生女人与男人的某种合作。某种对立物的联姻必须圆满达成。如果我们想感受到作家正在完满无缺地传达他的经验,整个心灵必须全然敞开。必须有自由,也必须有宁静。不容一个齿轮发出刺响,不容一丝光亮摇曳。帘幕必须拉得严严实实。我想,作家一旦经历结束,必须躺下,让他的心灵在黑暗中庆祝其婚礼。他不可以观看,也不可以询问正在发生什么。相反,他必须从玫瑰上摘下花瓣,或者看着天鹅静静顺流而下。我又看见了那载走小舟、大学生与枯叶的河流；出租车载走了男人和女人,我想,看着他们穿过街道走到一起；那河流将他们卷走,我想,听着远处伦敦车马的喧嚣,汇入那浩瀚巨流之中。

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seducers /sɪˈdjuːsəz/

n. 诱惑者；诱奸者（复数）➕

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reformers /rɪˈfɔːrmərz/

n. 改革者；改良者（复数）➕

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sex-consciousness /ˈseks ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/

n. 性别意识➕

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barren /ˈbærən/

adj. 贫瘠的；不生育的；无结果的➕

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consoled /kənˈsoʊld/

v. 安慰；慰藉（过去分词）➕

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obedience /əˈbiːdiəns/

n. 服从；顺从➕

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dubious /ˈdjuːbiəs/

adj. 可疑的；不确定的；靠不住的➕

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masterly /ˈmɑːstərli/

adj. 精湛的；巧妙的；高明的➕

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wither /ˈwɪðər/

v. 枯萎；凋谢；衰弱➕

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collaboration /kəˌlæbəˈreɪʃn/

n. 合作；协作；通敌➕

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consummated /ˈkɒnsəmeɪtɪd/

v. 完成；使完美；完婚（过去分词）➕

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nuptials /ˈnʌpʃlz/

n. 婚礼（复数,正式用语）➕

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petals /ˈpetlz/

n. 花瓣（复数）➕

🔊 * * * * *

* * * * *

🔊 Here, then, Mary Beton ceases to speak. She has told you how she reached the conclusion-the prosaic conclusion-that it is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry. She has tried to lay bare the thoughts and impressions that led her to think this. She has asked you to follow her flying into the arms of a Beadle, lunching here, dining there, drawing pictures in the British Museum, taking books from the shelf, looking out of the window. While she has been doing all these things, you no doubt have been observing her failings and foibles and deciding what effect they have had on her opinions. You have been contradicting her and making whatever additions and deductions seem good to you. That is all as it should be, for in a question like this truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error. And I will end now in my own person by anticipating two criticisms, so obvious that you can hardly fail to make them.

至此,玛丽·贝顿的讲述告一段落。她已向你们说明了她如何得出那个平淡无奇的结论:若要写小说或诗歌,就必须有五百英镑的年金和一间带锁的房间。她试图袒露那些引导她如此思考的思绪与印象。她请你们跟随她飞奔到一位校役怀中,在这里吃午餐,在那里进晚餐,在大英博物馆里画素描,从书架上取书,向窗外眺望。当她做着所有这些事的时候,你们无疑也在观察她的缺点与怪癖,并判断这些对她的见解有何影响。你们一直在反驳她,并按照你们认为合适的方式补充或删减。这一切都理所应当,因为在这样一个问题上,真理只能通过汇集各式各样的错误来获得。现在,我将以本人的身份结束演讲,预先回应两个显而易见的批评--你们几乎不可能不提出来。

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prosaic /prəˈzeɪɪk/

adj. 平淡的；乏味的；散文体的➕

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foibles /ˈfɔɪblz/

n. 小缺点；弱点；怪癖（复数）➕

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deductions /dɪˈdʌkʃnz/

n. 推论；演绎；扣除（复数）➕

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anticipating /ænˈtɪsɪpeɪtɪŋ/

v. 预料；预期；期望（现在分词）➕

🔊 No opinion has been expressed, you may say, upon the comparative merits of the sexes even as writers. That was done purposely, because, even if the time had come for such a valuation-and it is far more important at the moment to know how much money women had and how many rooms than to theorise about their capacities-even if the time had come I do not believe that gifts, whether of mind or character, can be weighed like sugar and butter, not even in Cambridge, where they are so adept at putting people into classes and fixing caps on their heads and letters after their names. I do not believe that even the Table of Precedency which you will find in Whitaker's Almanac represents a final order of values, or that there is any sound reason to suppose that a Commander of the Bath will ultimately walk into dinner behind a Master in Lunacy. All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are 'sides', and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster himself a highly ornamental pot. As people mature they cease to believe in sides or in Headmasters or in highly ornamental pots. At any rate, where books are concerned, it is notoriously difficult to fix labels of merit in such a way that they do not come off. Are not reviews of current literature a perpetual illustration of the difficulty of judgement? 'This great book', 'this worthless book', the same book is called by both names. Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.

你们或许会说,关于两性作为写作者的比较价值,并未提出任何见解。这是故意的,因为,即使评估的时机已经到来--而此刻,了解女人有多少钱、有多少房间,远比理论化她们的能力更为重要--即使时机已到,我也不相信天赋（无论是心智还是品格上的）可以像糖和黄油一样被称量,即使在剑桥（他们最擅长把人分门别类、戴上学位帽、名字后加上头衔字母）也不行。我不相信你们能在惠特克年鉴里找到的位次表代表着价值的最终秩序,也不相信有任何确凿理由可以假设一位巴斯勋位司令最终会走在一位精神病主事官后面进入餐厅。所有这些以性别对抗性别、以品质对抗品质；所有这些声称优越、归咎低劣的行为,都属于人类存在的私立学校阶段,那里有“阵营”之分,一个阵营必须打败另一个阵营,并且走上讲台,从校长本人手中接过一个极为华丽的奖杯,是至关重要的事。当人们成熟后,便不再相信阵营,不再相信校长,也不再相信极其华丽的奖杯。无论如何,就书籍而言,要贴上一个经久不褪的品质标签,是出了名的困难。难道当前的文学评论不正是判断困难的水恒例证吗？“这本伟大的书”,“这本毫无价值的书”,同一本书被冠以两个名号。赞扬与责备同样毫无意义。不,尽管衡量比较的消遣或许令人愉快,但它却是最徒劳无益的事,而屈从于衡量者的裁决,则是最卑躬屈膝的态度。只要你写你想写的,这才是唯一要紧的事；至于它要紧一个世纪还是仅仅一小时,无人能断言。但是,为了顺从某个手持银杯的校长,或某个袖藏量尺的教授,而牺牲你的远见卓识中一丝一毫的毛发、一抹一毫的色彩,那便是最可鄙的背叛；与之相比,曾被视作人类最大灾祸的财富与贞洁的牺牲,不过是蚊蚋一叮罢了。

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valuation /ˌvæljuˈeɪʃn/

n. 估价；评价；估值➕

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theorise /ˈθɪəraɪz/

v. 理论化；建立理论；推理➕

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adept /əˈdept/

adj. 熟练的；擅长的➕

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Precedency /ˈpresɪdənsi/

n. 优先；领先；位次➕

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Almanac /ˈɔːlmənæk/

n. 年鉴；历书➕

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imputing /ɪmˈpjuːtɪŋ/

v. 归咎于；归因于（现在分词）➕

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ornamental /ˌɔːrnəˈmentl/

adj. 装饰性的；观赏用的➕

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notoriously /nəʊˈtɔːriəsli/

adv. 众所周知地；臭名昭著地➕

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futile /ˈfjuːtaɪl/

adj. 无用的；无效的；徒劳的➕

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servile /ˈsɜːrvaɪl/

adj. 奴性的；卑躬屈膝的；过分顺从的➕

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deference /ˈdefərəns/

n. 遵从；尊敬；顺从➕

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abject /ˈæbdʒekt/

adj. 卑劣的；可怜的；凄惨的➕

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treachery /ˈtretʃəri/

n. 背叛；背信弃义➕

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chastity /ˈtʃæstəti/

n. 贞洁；纯洁；禁欲➕

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flea-bite /ˈfliː baɪt/

n. 蚤咬；小麻烦；微不足道的事情➕

🔊 Next I think that you may object that in all this I have made too much of the importance of material things. Even allowing a generous margin for symbolism, that five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate, that a lock on the door means the power to think for oneself, still you may say that the mind should rise above such things; and that great poets have often been poor men. Let me then quote to you the words of your own Professor of Literature, who knows better than I do what goes to the making of a poet. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch writes: 'What are the great poetical names of the last hundred years or so? Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Landor, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, Rossetti, Swinburne-we may stop there. Of these, all but Keats, Browning, Rossetti were University men; and of these three, Keats, who died young, cut off in his prime, was the only one not fairly well to do. It may seem a brutal thing to say, and it is a sad thing to say: but, as a matter of hard fact, the theory that poetical genius bloweth where it listeth, and equally in poor and rich, holds little truth. As a matter of hard fact, nine out of those twelve were University men: which means that somehow or other they procured the means to get the best education England can give. As a matter of hard fact, of the remaining three you know that Browning was well to do, and I challenge you that, if he had not been well to do, he would no more have attained to write Saul or The Ring and the Book than Ruskin would have attained to writing Modern Painters if his father had not dealt prosperously in business. Rossetti had a small private income; and, moreover, he painted. There remains but Keats; whom Atropos slew young, as she slew John Clare in a mad-house, and James Thomson by the laudanum he took to drug disappointment. These are dreadful facts, but let us face them. It is-however dishonouring to us as a nation-certain that, by some fault in our commonwealth, the poor poet has not in these days, nor has had for two hundred years, a dog's chance. Believe me-and I have spent a great part of ten years in watching some three hundred and twenty elementary schools,-we may prate of democracy, but actually, a poor child in England has little more hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born.'

其次,我想你们或许会反对,在所有这些论述中,我过分强调了物质条件的重要性。即使慷慨地考虑到象征意义--五百英镑年金代表着沉思冥想的能力,门上的锁意味着独立思考的能力--你们仍然可以说,心灵应当超越这些事物；伟大的诗人往往曾是穷人。那么,让我引述你们自己的文学教授的话,他比我更懂得造就诗人的要素。阿瑟·奎勒-库奇爵士写道:“过去一百年左右伟大的诗人名字有哪些？柯勒律治、华兹华斯、拜伦、雪莱、兰多、济慈、丁尼生、布朗宁、阿诺德、莫里斯、罗塞蒂、斯温伯恩--我们可以就此打住。这其中,除了济慈、布朗宁、罗塞蒂,其余都是大学毕业生；而在这三人中,早逝的济慈是唯一家境不算优裕的。说来可能显得残酷,也确实令人悲哀:但就冷酷的事实而言,认为诗才如风随意吹拂,不分贫富皆可降临的理论,几乎没有多少真实性。就冷酷的事实而言,那十二人中九人是大学毕业生:这意味着他们设法获得了接受英格兰所能提供的最好教育的条件。就冷酷的事实而言,在剩下的三人中,你们知道布朗宁家境优裕,而且我敢断言,倘若他家境不优裕,他就不可能写出《扫罗》或《指环与书》,正如倘若罗斯金的父亲生意不曾兴隆,他也不可能写出《现代画家》。罗塞蒂有一小笔私人收入；而且,他还画画。只剩下济慈了；阿特洛波斯在他年轻时便夺去了他的生命,正如她在疯人院里夺去了约翰·克莱尔的生命,又用鸦片酊夺去了詹姆斯·汤姆森的生命（他服药是为了麻醉失望之情）。这些都是可怕的事实,但让我们直面它们。这是--无论对我们这个国家多么不光彩--可以肯定的:由于我们社会制度的某种缺陷,贫穷的诗人如今没有,并且两百年来也从未有过一丝半点的机会。请相信我--我曾花费近十年时间的大部分来观察大约三百二十所小学--我们可以空谈民主,但实际上,英格兰的一个穷孩子,并不比雅典奴隶的儿子更有希望被解放到那种产生伟大作品的智识自由之中。”

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margin /ˈmɑːrdʒɪn/

n. 边缘；余地；利润➕

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symbolism /ˈsɪmbəlɪzəm/

n. 象征主义；象征意义➕

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contemplate /ˈkɒntəmpleɪt/

v. 沉思；注视；考虑➕

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brutal /ˈbruːtl/

adj. 残酷的；野蛮的；严酷的➕

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procured /prəˈkjʊərd/

v. 获得；取得；（尤指通过努力）实现（过去分词）➕

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prosperously /ˈprɒspərəsli/

adv. 繁荣地；成功地；兴旺地➕

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laudanum /ˈlɔːdnəm/

n. 鸦片酊（一种含鸦片的止痛药）➕

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commonwealth /ˈkɒmənwelθ/

n. 共和国；联邦；公益➕

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prate /preɪt/

v. 喋喋不休；空谈；瞎聊➕

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democracy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/

n. 民主；民主国家➕

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Athenian /əˈθiːniən/

adj. 雅典的；雅典人的➕

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emancipated /ɪˈmænsɪpeɪtɪd/

v. 解放；使获得自由（过去分词）➕

🔊 Nobody could put the point more plainly. 'The poor poet has not in these days, nor has had for two hundred years, a dog's chance... a poor child in England has little more hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born.' That is it. Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own. However, thanks to the toils of those obscure women in the past, of whom I wish we knew more, thanks, curiously enough to two wars, the Crimean which let Florence Nightingale out of her drawing-room, and the European War which opened the doors to the average woman some sixty years later, these evils are in the way to be bettered. Otherwise you would not be here to-night, and your chance of earning five hundred pounds a year, precarious as I am afraid that it still is, would be minute in the extreme.

没人能把这一点说得更明白了。“贫穷的诗人如今没有,并且两百年来也从未有过一丝半点的机会……英格兰的一个穷孩子,并不比雅典奴隶的儿子更有希望被解放到那种产生伟大作品的智识自由之中。”正是如此。智识自由依赖物质条件。诗歌依赖智识自由。而女人向来贫穷,不止两百年来如此,而是从创世之初便是如此。女人比雅典奴隶的儿子更缺乏智识自由。因此,女人连一丝半点的写诗机会都不曾有过。这就是我如此强调金钱和一间自己的房间的原因。然而,多亏了那些过往的无名女性（真希望我们对她们了解更多）的辛勤劳作,并且,说来奇怪,多亏了两场战争--克里米亚战争让弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔走出了客厅,而大约六十年后的欧洲战争则为普通女性打开了大门--这些弊端正在得到改善。否则你们今晚就不会坐在这里,而你们挣得五百英镑年金的希望（尽管我担心这希望依然渺茫）也将是微乎其微。

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precarious /prɪˈkeəriəs/

adj. 不稳定的；危险的；不确定的➕

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Crimean /kraɪˈmiːən/

adj. 克里米亚的➕

🔊 Still, you may object, why do you attach so much importance to this writing of books by women when, according to you, it requires so much effort, leads perhaps to the murder of one's aunts, will make one almost certainly late for luncheon, and may bring one into very grave disputes with certain very good fellows? My motives, let me admit, are partly selfish. Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading-I like reading books in the bulk. Lately my diet has become a trifle monotonous; history is too much about wars; biography too much about great men; poetry has shown, I think, a tendency to sterility, and fiction-but I have sufficiently exposed my disabilities as a critic of modern fiction and will say no more about it. Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. For I am by no means confining you to fiction. If you would please me-and there are thousands like me-you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy. Moreover, if you consider any great figure of the past, like Sappho, like the Lady Murasaki, like Emily Brontë, you will find that she is an inheritor as well as an originator, and has come into existence because women have come to have the habit of writing naturally; so that even as a prelude to poetry such activity on your part would be invaluable.

不过,你们或许仍会反对:既然照你所说,写作需要付出如此巨大的努力,或许会导致谋杀某位姨妈,几乎肯定会让人赶不上午餐,还可能让人与某些极好的人士发生严重争执,那你为何还要如此重视女人的写作呢？请容我承认,我的动机部分是自私的。像大多数未受教育的英国女性一样,我喜欢阅读--我喜欢大量地读书。近来我的精神食粮变得有点单调乏味；历史书太多关于战争；传记太多关于伟人；诗歌,我觉得,已显露出贫瘠的倾向；而小说--但我已经充分暴露了我作为现代小说评论家的无能,就此打住吧。因此,我请求你们写各种各样的书,不要在任何题材面前犹豫,无论它多么琐碎或多么宏大。无论如何,我希望你们能拥有足够的金钱去旅行、去闲荡,去思索世界的未来或过去,在书本上梦想,在街头巷尾徘徊,让思想的钓线深深沉入溪流。因为我绝非将你们局限于小说创作。如果你们想取悦我--以及成千上万如我这样的人--你们就该写旅行与冒险的书,研究与学术的书,历史与传记的书,批评与哲学与科学的书。通过这样做,你们必定会惠及小说艺术。因为书籍自有相互影响之道。小说与诗歌和哲学并肩而立,将获益良多。而且,如果你们细想任何一位过去的伟大人物,如萨福,如紫式部,如艾米莉·勃朗特,你们会发现她既是继承者,也是开创者,她的存在是因为女性已然养成了自然而然的写作习惯；因此,即使在诗歌的序曲阶段,你们的此类活动也将是无价之宝。

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aunts /ɑːnts/

n. 姑母；姨母；舅母；阿姨（复数）➕

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luncheon /ˈlʌntʃən/

n. 午餐；午宴（正式用语）➕

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disputes /dɪˈspjuːts/

n. 争论；纠纷；争端（复数）➕

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motives /ˈməʊtɪvz/

n. 动机；目的（复数）➕

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monotonous /məˈnɒtənəs/

adj. 单调的；乏味的➕

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biography /baɪˈɒɡrəfi/

n. 传记➕

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sterility /stəˈrɪləti/

n. 不育；无菌；贫瘠➕

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disabilities /ˌdɪsəˈbɪlətiːz/

n. 残疾；缺陷；无能（复数）➕

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trivial /ˈtrɪviəl/

adj. 琐碎的；不重要的➕

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loiter /ˈlɔɪtər/

v. 闲逛；游荡；徘徊➕

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scholarship /ˈskɒləʃɪp/

n. 学术；奖学金；学问➕

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criticism /ˈkrɪtɪsɪzəm/

n. 批评；评论➕

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philosophy /fɪˈlɒsəfi/

n. 哲学；人生观；基本原理➕

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cheek by jowl /ˌtʃiːk baɪ ˈdʒaʊl/

phrase. 紧靠着；亲密地➕

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inheritor /ɪnˈherɪtər/

n. 继承者；后继者➕

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originator /əˈrɪdʒɪneɪtər/

n. 创始人；发明者；起源➕

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prelude /ˈpreljuːd/

n. 前奏；序幕；序曲➕

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invaluable /ɪnˈvæljuəbl/

adj. 极宝贵的；无价的➕

🔊 But when I look back through these notes and criticise my own train of thought as I made them, I find that my motives were not altogether selfish. There runs through these comments and discussions the conviction-or is it the instinct?-that good books are desirable and that good writers, even if they show every variety of human depravity, are still good human beings. Thus when I ask you to write more books, I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large. How to justify this instinct or belief I do not know, for philosophical words, if one has not been educated at a university, are apt to play one false. What is meant by “reality”? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable-now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech-and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us. So at least I infer from reading Lear or Emma or La Recherche du Temps Perdu. For the reading of these books seems to perform a curious couching operation on the senses; one sees more intensely afterwards; the world seems bared of its covering and given an intenser life. Those are the enviable people who live at enmity with unreality; and those are the pitiable who are knocked on the head by the thing done without knowing or caring. So that when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.

但当我回顾这些笔记,并批评自己写下它们时的思路时,我发现我的动机并非全然自私。贯穿这些评论与讨论的,是一种信念--或者说本能？--即好书是令人向往的,而优秀的作家,即使他们展现出人类各式各样的堕落,仍然是优秀的人类。因此,当我请求你们多写书时,我是在敦促你们去做那将对你们自身、也对整个世界的福祉有益的事。如何为这种本能或信念辩护,我并不知道,因为哲学的词汇,倘若未曾受过大学教育,很容易误导人。“现实”意味着什么？它似乎是某种非常反复无常、非常不可靠的东西--时而在一条尘土飞扬的路上,时而在街头一片报纸碎片中,时而又在阳光下的一朵水仙花里。它照亮房间里的一群人,使某句随意的话语留下印记。它让在星光下漫步回家的人感到震撼,使寂静的世界比言语的世界更真实--接着它又出现在皮卡迪利喧嚣的公共汽车里。有时,它似乎也栖居于形态过于遥远、我们无法辨明其本质的事物之中。但它触及的一切,它都加以固定,使其永恒。那是白昼的表皮被丢弃到树篱后所残留的东西；那是过去的时光以及我们的爱恨所遗存的东西。现在,我想,作家比其他任何人更有机会生活在这种现实面前。他的职责便是发现它、收集它,并将其传达给我们其余的人。至少,我是从阅读《李尔王》或《爱玛》或《追忆似水年华》中推断出这一点的。因为阅读这些书似乎对感官进行了一种奇妙的矫正手术；过后,人看得更清晰了；世界似乎剥去了它的覆盖物,被赋予了更强烈的生命。那些与现实为敌的人是令人羡慕的；而那些被盲目完成的事物击中脑袋、既不知情也不在意的人,则是可悲的。因此,当我请求你们挣钱并拥有一间自己的房间时,我是在请求你们生活在现实面前,过一种充满活力的生活--无论能否将其传达给他人,这生活本身似乎便是如此。

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depravity /dɪˈprævəti/

n. 堕落；腐败；邪恶➕

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justify /ˈdʒʌstɪfaɪ/

v. 证明合理；为...辩护➕

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erratic /ɪˈrætɪk/

adj. 不稳定的；古怪的；不规则的➕

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undependable /ˌʌndɪˈpendəbl/

adj. 不可靠的；靠不住的➕

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daffodil /ˈdæfədɪl/

n. 水仙花➕

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overwhelms /ˌəʊvəˈwelmz/

v. 淹没；压倒；使不知所措➕

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omnibus /ˈɒmnɪbəs/

n. 公共汽车；文集；总括的➕

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uproar /ˈʌprɔːr/

n. 喧嚣；骚动；吵闹➕

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discern /dɪˈsɜːn/

v. 识别；觉察；看出➕

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permanent /ˈpɜːmənənt/

adj. 永久的；固定的➕

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infer /ɪnˈfɜːr/

v. 推断；推论；暗示➕

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couching /ˈkaʊtʃɪŋ/

n. （白内障）摘除术；表达方式（文中指比喻意义上的“摘除”,使感官更清晰）➕

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intenser /ɪnˈtensər/

adj. 更强烈的（比较级）➕

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enviable /ˈenviəbl/

adj. 令人羡慕的；引起忌妒的➕

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enmity /ˈenməti/

n. 敌意；仇恨；敌对➕

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pitiable /ˈpɪtiəbl/

adj. 可怜的；令人怜悯的➕

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invigorating /ɪnˈvɪɡəreɪtɪŋ/

adj. 振奋人心的；使人精力充沛的➕

🔊 Here, then, I must stop. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I have done my best to warn you of your dangers and of your opportunities. That such advice, however, is beyond the power of man to give, I admit. I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion. I will not trouble you with that moral, for it is plain enough for all to see-that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. I have done what I could do. But as I have warned you, the stability of money and the privacy of a room are the first necessities. Without them, the finest mind in the world may be crippled, as I have tried to show. With them, even the average mind may produce something that is genuine and lasting. I do not think, therefore, that I have wasted your time or my own by this rambling talk. It is, rather, a beginning; and from this beginning, if you choose to make it so, may grow a more serious study of women and fiction. But for the moment, I have said enough.

那么,我必须就此打住了。倘若我被传唤到法庭,我的辩护将是:我已尽力警告你们面临的危险与机遇。然而,我承认,这样的建议非人力所能及。我规避了得出结论的责任。我不会用那条教训来麻烦你们,因为它已足够明显,人人都能看见--女人若要写小说,就必须有钱和一间自己的房间；而这,如你们所见,却留下了关于女性真正本质和小说真正本质的宏大问题悬而未决。我已尽我所能。但正如我曾警告你们的,金钱的稳定和房间的私密是首要的必需条件。没有这些,世界上最优秀的心智也可能残废,正如我已试图表明的那样。有了这些,即便是寻常的心智也能产生真实而持久的东西。因此,我不认为我这番散漫的谈话浪费了你们或我自己的时间。相反,它是一个开端；从这个开端出发,如果你们选择的话,可以生长出关于女性与小说的更为严肃的研究。但此刻,我已说得够多了。

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crippled /ˈkrɪpld/

v. 使残废；严重削弱（过去分词）➕

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genuine /ˈdʒenjuɪn/

adj. 真正的；真诚的➕

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rambling /ˈræmblɪŋ/

adj. 漫谈的；散漫的；布局凌乱的➕

Chapter six (第六章)

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