《達洛衛夫人》 Mrs. Dalloway （1925）

 作者：維吉尼亞‧吳爾夫 Author: Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

達洛衛夫人說她自己要去買花。

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning--fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

因為露西已經有活幹了：先把鉸鏈拿起來將門打開，倫珀爾梅厄公司要派人來了。然而，克蕾麗莎‧達洛衛夫人思索自忖：多好的早晨啊──空氣那麼清新，彷彿孩子們在海灘上所散發般的氣息。

What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, "Musing among the vegetables?"--was that it?--"I prefer men to cauliflowers"--was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace--Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished--how strange it was!--a few sayings like this about cabbages.

多美好阿！多痛快阿！似乎就像以前在布爾頓的時候，當她一下子推開落地窗，奔向戶外，她總有這種感覺；此刻耳邊還能依稀聽到推窗時鉸鏈發出的吱吱聲。清晨空氣多麼的清新，多寧靜，當然比目前的更靜謐；宛如波浪拍擊，或是浪花輕撫；寒意襲人，況且（對她那樣花樣年華的十八歲來說）又顯得氣氛肅穆；當時站在打開的窗前，彷彿預感到有些可怖的事即將發生；她觀賞鮮花，眺望樹木間霧靄繚繞，白嘴鴨飛上飛下；她凝視佇立，直到彼得‧沃爾什的聲音傳來：「在菜園沉思嗎？」──說的是這句話嗎？──「我喜歡人，不太喜歡花椰菜。」──還有這句嗎？有一天早晨吃早餐時，當她已經走到外面平台上，他──彼得‧沃爾什肯定說過這樣的話。最近就會從印度歸來了，不是六月就是七月，她記不清了；因為他的信總是寫的枯燥的荒，到是能叫人記住，還有他的眼睛、他的小刀、他的微笑，以及他的壞脾氣；萬般往事已是煙消雲散，而──說來也奇怪！──類似大白菜的話卻會牢記心頭。

She stiffened a little on the kerb, waiting for Durtnall's van to pass. A charming woman, Scrope Purvis thought her (knowing her as one does know people who live next door to one in Westminster); a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white since her illness. There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross, very upright.

她在人行道邊石上微微站著，等待杜特奈爾公司的貨運車開過。斯克羅普‧珀維斯認為她是一個可愛的女人（他很瞭解她，正如在西敏寺特區的緊鄰們都互相熟悉）；她身輕如燕的氣質，猶如碧綠的鰹鳥，輕快、活潑，儘管她已年過半百，而且自生病後顯得相當蒼白。她停在路邊，身子筆挺，等待著穿過大街，絲毫沒注意到他。

For having lived in Westminster--how many years now? over twenty,--one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.

可以確定克蕾麗莎，在西敏寺特區住過後──幾年了呢？二十多年了吧──即使置身於車水馬龍的大街上，或是午夜夢迴時，都感受到特殊的寂靜，或肅穆的氣氛，一種說不出的凝滯，屏氣凝神的等待大笨鐘敲響前提心吊膽之感（人們說，這種類似流行感冒而使得她心臟衰弱的緣故）。聽！鐘聲隆隆地響了。開始是預報，音調悅耳；隨即報時，分毫不差；沉重的音波在空氣中逐漸消逝。她穿過維多利亞大街，她思考著：我們都是笨蛋。只有天知道人為何如此熱愛生活，又如何看待生活，一面在自己的周圍構建空中樓閣，一面又推翻它，每時每刻開創新花樣；甚至那些衣衫襤褸的老古董，坐在街頭前垂頭喪氣的可憐蟲（酗酒使他們潦倒不堪）也這樣對待生活。人們熱愛生活：正是如此，連議會法令有不能干涉；這一點，她是深信不疑的。在人們眼裡輕快飄移的步履，徘徊的腳步，跋涉的步態；轟鳴與喧囂；川流不息的馬車、汽車、公共汽車和貨運車；胸前掛著廣告招牌的人們（時而蹣跚，時而大搖大擺）；銅管樂隊、手搖風琴車的聲音；一片喜氣洋洋，叮噹的鈴聲，頭頂上飛機發出的怪異尖嘯聲──這便是她熱愛的：生活、倫敦、此時此刻的六月。

Continued to be…