【書摘】蓋爾芒特家那邊—拉貝瑪 (About la Berma) 2-1
La voix de la Berma, en laquelle ne subsistait plus un seul déchet de matière inerte et réfractaire à l’esprit, ne laissait pas discerner autour d’elle cet excédent de larmes qu’on voyait couler, parce qu’elles n’avaient pu s’y imbiber, sur la voix de marbre d’Aricie ou d’Ismène, mais avait été délicatement assouplie en ses moindres cellules comme l’instrument d’un grand violoniste chez qui on veut, quand on dit qu’il a un beau son, louer non pas une particularité physique mais une supériorité d’âme ; et comme dans le paysage antique où à la place d’une nymphe disparue il y a une source inanimée, une intention discernable et concrète s’y était changée en quelque qualité du timbre, d’une limpidité étrange, appropriée et froide.
(l’édition Gallimard, Paris, 1946-47)
在拉貝瑪的聲音中，不再存留任何無生氣的和不聽使喚的殘渣餘屑，它不讓人看出在它周圍有過剩的眼淚，可是在阿里西或伊斯梅爾大理石般的聲音上，可以看到有淚珠在滾動，因為淚珠沒有被吸收；聲音融於最小的細胞內，變得微妙地輕柔，猶如大提琴家的提琴，當大家誇獎它音質優美時，想稱讚的不是它的物理屬性，而是它的高尚靈魂；又如一幅古代風景畫，畫面上仙女消逝的地方有一潭靜靜的泉水，一個可辨別的具體的用意變成了一種具有音色特徵的東西，清澈得出奇，明淨而又冰冷。
(p.46~47 追憶似水年華 III蓋爾芒特家那邊 聯經版 1992)
Berma’s voice, in which not one atom of lifeless matter refractory to the mind remained undissolved, did not allow any sign to be discernible around it of that overflow of tears which one could feel, because they had not been able to absorb it in themselves, trickling over the marble voice of Aricie or Ismène, but had been brought to an exquisite perfection in each of its tiniest cells like the instrument of a master violinist, in whom one means, when one says that his music has a fine sound, to praise not a physical peculiarity but a superiority of soul; and, as in the classical landscape where in the place of a vanished nymph there is an inanimate waterspring, a clear and concrete intention had been transformed into a certain quality of tone, strangely, appropriately, coldly limpid.
(Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff)
La Berma’s voice, which retained no scrap of inert matter refractory to the mind, betrayed no sign of the excessive tears which, because they had been unable to soak into it, could be seen trickling down the marble of the voices of Aricie or Ismène; it had been rendered supple and sensitive down to its smallest cells, like the instrument of a great violinist in whom, when one says that he produces a beautiful sound, one means to praise not a physical property but a superiority of soul; and as in a classical landscape where in the place of a vanished nymph there is an inanimate spring, discernible and conscious intention had become a strangely limpid quality of tone, apt and cold.
(Translated by Mark Treharne)
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