第 5 页

She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared.

In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile.

"Of course you know already--about May and me," he said, answering her look with a shy laugh. "She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd."

The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand.

"Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer.

In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind.

第二天，进行了第一轮例行的订婚互访。在这类事情上，纽约的礼规一丝不苟，毫无变动可言。遵照这一礼节，纽兰•阿切尔先与母亲、妹妹一起去拜访了韦兰太太，然后再与韦兰太太和梅乘车去曼森•明戈特老太太家接受这位尊敬的老祖宗的祝福。

拜访曼森•明戈特太太永远是年轻人的一件乐事。那房子本身就是一个历史的见证，尽管它自然不会像大学区与第五大街南部某些住宅那样令人肃然起敬。那些住宅清一色是1830年建的，里面那些百叶蔷该图案的地毯、黄檀木的蜗形支腿桌案、黑大理石面饰的圆拱形壁炉，还有锃亮的红木大书橱，显得既古板又协调。而明戈特老太太的住宅建得晚一些，她悉数摈弃了年轻时代那些笨重的家具，将第二帝国轻浮的室内装饰品与明戈特的传家宝熔为一炉。她坐在一楼客厅的窗户后面，仿佛是在安详地等候着社交活动与时尚的潮流滚滚北上，流向她冷落的门坎。她看起来并不急于让它们来到，因为她的耐心与她的信心不相上下。她深信那些囤积物与猎获物，那些单层的厅房、荒芜花园里的木制暖房以及山羊登临的石基，不久就会随着新住宅的推进而提前消逝，而那些新的宅邸将跟她的家一样富丽堂皇——或许（她是个不带偏见的女人）比她的更为壮观。而且，那些老式公共马车卡嗒卡嗒颠簸于其上的卵石路也将被平滑的柏油路面取代，就像人们传闻在巴黎见过的那样。同时，由于她乐于接见的人全都过来看她（她能像博福特夫妇那样，轻而易举把她家的客厅塞满，而且无须往晚餐菜单里加一道菜），她也并不因为住处偏僻而受与世隔绝之苦。

脂肪的激增在她中年时期突然降临，就像火山熔岩降临一个行将覆没的城市那样凶猛，使她由一位丰满好动、步伐灵活的小巧女人变成如自然奇观般的庞然大物。她像对待其他一切磨难一样达观地接受了这一大灾大难。如今，她在耄耋之年终于得到了报偿：镜子里的她，是一堆几乎没有皱纹的白里透红的结实肌肤，在其中央，一张小小的面孔形迹犹存，仿佛在等待着挖掘；光溜溜的双下巴下方，是掩映在雪白的麦斯林纱底下令人眩目的雪白的胸膛，一枚已故明戈特先生的微形像章固定其间；四周及以下部位，一波接一波的黑丝绸在大扶手椅的边棱上流泻而下，两只雪白的小手摆在那里犹如海面上的两只海鸥。

曼森•明戈特太太脂肪的负担早已使她无法上下楼梯，她以特有的独立精神将客厅设在楼上，并且（公然违背纽约的所有行为规范）在住宅的一楼居住；因此，与她一起坐在起居室的窗口，就能意外地（透过始终开着的门和卷起的打环黄锦缎门帘）看到卧室。里面有一张装饰得像沙发一样的特大矮床，一张梳妆台，上面摆着花哨的丝带荷叶边，还有一面镀金框架的镜子。

客人们对这种布置的异国情调既惊讶又为之倾倒。它使人想起法国小说中的那些场景，以及单纯的美国人做梦也不会想到的那些伤风败俗行径的建筑学诱因。在旧时不道德的上流社会里，那些偷情的女人其住所都是如此。在她们居住的公寓里，所有的房间都在同一层，从而可以使她们能像小说中描写的那样轻而易举地暗度陈仓。想象她在通奸的舞台背景中过着白壁无瑕的生活，纽兰•阿切尔（他暗中把《卡莫斯先生》中的爱情场面确定在明戈特太太的卧室里）觉得颇为有趣，但与此同时，他又在心里津津有味地想道：假如有个情人符合她的要求，这位刚毅的女人一定也会投入他的怀抱。

令大家都感到宽慰的是，在这对订婚青年造访时，奥兰斯卡伯爵夫人并不在她祖母的客厅里。明戈特太太说她外出了。在这样一个阳光明媚的日子，又是在“购物时间”，一个受过创伤的女子外出，本身虽不算得体，但不管怎样，却免去了他俩面对她的窘境，还避免了她不幸的过去可能投到他们光辉前程上的淡淡阴影。正如事前预料的那样，这次拜访进展十分顺利。明戈特老太太对这桩婚事很中意，留心的亲戚们早有预见，并在家族的会议上给予了认可。那枚订婚戒指镶着一块很厚的大蓝宝石，嵌在几个隐形的爪内，得到了她毫无保留的赞赏。

“是新式镶嵌：宝石当然显得十分完美，不过老眼光的人觉得它有点秃，”韦兰太太解释说，一面用眼睛的余光安抚地看着她未来的女婿。

“老眼光？我希望你不是指我吧，亲爱的？我喜欢一切新奇的东西，”老祖母说着，把钻戒举到她那双明亮的小眼睛跟前，她的眼睛从未受过眼镜的损伤。“非常漂亮，”她又说，一面把钻戒还回去，“非常独特。我年轻的时候，用一块彩玉镶在几颗珍珠之间就觉得很好了。不过戒指是靠手来衬托的，对吧，亲爱的阿切尔先生？”她挥动着一只留了尖指甲的小手说，老年肥胖形成的圈圈如象牙手镯一般环绕着她的手腕。“我的戒指是罗马著名的费里加尼设计的。你该找人为梅定做，毫无疑问他会的，我的孩子。她的手很大——现在的这些运动把人的关关节节都变大了——不过皮肤还是很白的。——可婚礼什么时候举行呢？”她收住话头，两眼紧盯着阿切尔的脸。

“哦——”韦兰太太嗫嚅道。年轻人却朝未婚妻露出笑脸，回答说：“越快越好，明戈特太太，只要你肯支持我。”

“妈妈，我们得给他们时问，让他们互相多了解一点，”韦兰太太插言说，同时又恰如其分地装出一副不情愿的样子。老祖母回言道：“互相了解？瞎说！在纽约，谁不了解谁！让年轻人按他自己的方式去办吧，我亲爱的，可别等得美酒走了味。大斋节前就让他们成婚。到了冬天我哪一天都可能染上肺炎，可我还想给他们举办婚礼喜宴呢。”

对她接二连三的表态，客人相宜作出了喜悦、怀疑、感激的反应。正在这时，门被打开，迎进来了奥兰斯卡伯爵夫人。她戴着帽子和面纱进了屋，身后还跟着个不期而至的朱利叶斯•博福特。温和愉悦的叙谈气氛中断了。

夫人与小姐愉快地说起表姐妹间的悄悄话，明戈特太太则把费里加尼款式的戒指拿给银行家看。“哈！博福特，这可是难得的优待！”（她用奇特的异国方式直呼男士的姓。）

“多谢多谢，我希望这种事多有几次，”客人妄自尊大地从容说道。“我老是脱不开身；在麦迪逊广场遇上了埃伦伯爵夫人，她十分客气地要我陪她回家。”

“啊——既然埃伦回来了，我希望这个家热闹起来！”明戈特太太毫无顾忌地大声说。“请坐——请坐，博福特：把那把黄扶手椅推过来；既然你来了，咱们就要好好聊一聊。听说你家的舞会叭叭叫，据我所知，你还邀请了勒姆尔•斯特拉瑟斯太太？哎——我倒很想亲自见见那个女人。”

她忘记了自己的亲眷，他们正在埃伦•奥兰斯卡带领下向外面的门厅移动。明戈特老太太一贯显得对朱利叶斯•博福特非常赞赏，他们俩在专横无理及对待传统的删繁就简方面有某种相似之处。此时她急于了解是什么原因促使博福特夫妇下决心（首次）邀请了斯特拉瑟斯的“鞋油”寡妇勒姆尔•斯特拉瑟斯太太。她一年前刚结束在欧洲漫长的启蒙侨居，回来围攻纽约这个坚固的小城堡。“当然，如果你和里吉纳请了她，事情就成定局了。嗯，我们需要新鲜血液和新鲜钱——而且我听说她依然十分漂亮，”这位爱吃肉的老夫人断言说。

门厅里，韦兰太太与梅在穿毛皮外衣的时候，阿切尔见奥兰斯卡伯爵夫人略有疑问地对他微笑着。

“当然你已经知道了——我和梅的事，”他说，并腼腆地一笑回答她的注视。“她责备我昨晚在歌剧院没把消息告诉你：她曾嘱咐我把我们订婚的事告诉你——但守着那么多人，我未能办到。”

笑容从奥兰斯卡夫人的眼睛传到她的双唇，她看上去更年轻了，更像他孩提时那个大胆的棕发小姑娘埃伦•明戈特。“是的，我当然知道，而且非常高兴。不过这样的事是不会在拥挤的人群中首先宣布的。”另两位女士已经到了门口，她伸出手来。

“再见。改日过来看我，”她说，眼睛依然看着阿切尔。

沿第五大街下行，他们在马车里重点谈论的是明戈特太太：她的年纪，她的精神，以及她那些不可思议的性情。没有人提及埃伦•奥兰斯卡；然而阿切尔知道韦兰太太心里正在想：“埃伦的露面是个错误——就在她刚回来的第二天，在拥挤时刻与朱利叶斯•博福特一起沿第五大街大摇大摆地走——”而年轻人心里补充道：“她还应当知道，一个刚订婚的男人一般是不会花时间去拜访已婚女子的。不过我敢说，在她生活过的那个圈子里，他们一定是那样做的——保准没错。”而且，尽管他自夸了解那些大都市人的观点，却谢天谢地自己是个纽约人，而且就要与他的一位同类联姻。

Chapter 5

The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers.

Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture.

Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed.

Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and the Archer-Newland- van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure.

You couldn't have everything, after all. If you dined with the Lovell Mingotts you got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun"; and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'--it will do me good to diet at Adeline's."

Mrs. Archer, who had long been a widow, lived with her son and daughter in West Twenty-eighth Street. An upper floor was dedicated to Newland, and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen, collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good Words," and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere. (They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a gentleman," and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.) Mrs. and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery. It was what they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels abroad; considering architecture and painting as subjects for men, and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin. Mrs. Archer had been born a Newland, and mother and daughter, who were as like as sisters, were both, as people said, "true Newlands"; tall, pale, and slightly round-shouldered, with long noses, sweet smiles and a kind of drooping distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits. Their physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint had not stretched Mrs. Archer's black brocade, while Miss Archer's brown and purple poplins hung, as the years went on, more and more slackly on her virgin frame.

Mentally, the likeness between them, as Newland was aware, was less complete than their identical mannerisms often made it appear. The long habit of living together in mutually dependent intimacy had given them the same vocabulary, and the same habit of beginning their phrases "Mother thinks" or "Janey thinks," according as one or the other wished to advance an opinion of her own; but in reality, while Mrs. Archer's serene unimaginativeness rested easily in the accepted and familiar, Janey was subject to starts and aberrations of fancy welling up from springs of suppressed romance.

Mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and brother; and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration, and by his secret satisfaction in it. After all, he thought it a good thing for a man to have his authority respected in his own house, even if his sense of humour sometimes made him question the force of his mandate.

On this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr. Jackson would rather have had him dine out; but he had his own reasons for not doing so.

Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska, and of course Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell. All three would be slightly embarrassed by Newland's presence, now that his prospective relation to the Mingott clan had been made known; and the young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn the difficulty.

They began, obliquely, by talking about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers.

"It's a pity the Beauforts asked her," Mrs. Archer said gently. "But then Regina always does what he tells her; and BEAUFORT--"

"Certain nuances escape Beaufort," said Mr. Jackson, cautiously inspecting the broiled shad, and wondering for the thousandth time why Mrs. Archer's cook always burnt the roe to a cinder. (Newland, who had long shared his wonder, could always detect it in the older man's expression of melancholy disapproval.)

"Oh, necessarily; Beaufort is a vulgar man," said Mrs. Archer. "My grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother: `Whatever you do, don't let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls.' But at least he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen; in England too, they say. It's all very mysterious--" She glanced at Janey and paused. She and Janey knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery, but in public Mrs. Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for the unmarried.

"But this Mrs. Struthers," Mrs. Archer continued; "what did you say SHE was, Sillerton?"

"Out of a mine: or rather out of the saloon at the head of the pit. Then with Living Wax-Works, touring New England. After the police broke THAT up, they say she lived--" Mr. Jackson in his turn glanced at Janey, whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids. There were still hiatuses for her in Mrs. Struthers's past.

"Then," Mr. Jackson continued (and Archer saw he was wondering why no one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife), "then Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertiser used the girl's head for the shoe-polish posters; her hair's intensely black, you know--the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he-- eventually--married her." There were volumes of innuendo in the way the "eventually" was spaced, and each syllable given its due stress.

"Oh, well--at the pass we've come to nowadays, it doesn't matter," said Mrs. Archer indifferently. The ladies were not really interested in Mrs. Struthers just then; the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh and too absorbing to them. Indeed, Mrs. Struthers's name had been introduced by Mrs. Archer only that she might presently be able to say: "And Newland's new cousin--Countess Olenska? Was SHE at the ball too?"

There was a faint touch of sarcasm in the reference to her son, and Archer knew it and had expected it. Even Mrs. Archer, who was seldom unduly pleased with human events, had been altogether glad of her son's engagement. ("Especially after that silly business with Mrs. Rushworth," as she had remarked to Janey, alluding to what had once seemed to Newland a tragedy of which his soul would always bear the scar.)

There was no better match in New York than May Welland, look at the question from whatever point you chose. Of course such a marriage was only what Newland was entitled to; but young men are so foolish and incalculable--and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous--that it was nothing short of a miracle to see one's only son safe past the Siren Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity.

All this Mrs. Archer felt, and her son knew she felt; but he knew also that she had been perturbed by the premature announcement of his engagement, or rather by its cause; and it was for that reason--because on the whole he was a tender and indulgent master--that he had stayed at home that evening. "It's not that I don't approve of the Mingotts' esprit de corps; but why Newland's engagement should be mixed up with that Olenska woman's comings and goings I don't see," Mrs. Archer grumbled to Janey, the only witness of her slight lapses from perfect sweetness.