月亮和六便士 第四十三章(4)

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Because they were obvious and striking, I have written of his relations to women; and yet they were but an insignificant¹ part of his life. 因为他同女人的关系非常明显，也着实有令人震骇的地方，我就如实地记载下来，但实际上这只是他生活中一个非常微不足道的部分。

It is an irony² that they should so tragically³ have affected⁴ others. 尽管这种关系惨痛地影响了别的人，那也不过是命运对人生的嘲弄。

His real life consisted of dreams and of tremendously hard work. 实际上，思特里克兰德的真正生活既包括了梦想，也充满了极为艰辛的工作的。

Here lies the unreality of fiction. 小说之所以不真实正在这里。

For in men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, 一般说来，爱情在男人身上只不过是一个插曲，是日常生活中许多事务中的一件事，

and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. 但是小说却把爱情夸大了，给予它一个违反生活真实性的重要的地位。

There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not very interesting ones; 尽管也有很少数男人把爱情当作世界上的头等大事，但这些人常常是一些索然寡味的人；

even women, with whom the subject is of paramount⁵ interest, have a contempt for them. 即便对爱情感到无限兴趣的女人，对这类男子也不太看得起。

They are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy feeling that they are poor creatures. 女人会被这样的男人吸引，会被他们奉承得心花怒放，但是心里却免不了有一种不安的感觉——这些人是一种可怜的生物。

But even during the brief intervals⁶ in which they are in love, men do other things which distract their mind; 男人们即使在恋爱的短暂期间，也不停地干一些别的事分散自己的心思：

the trades by which they earn their living engage their attention; 赖以维持生计的事务吸引了他们的注意力；

they are absorbed in sport; they can interest themselves in art. 他们沉湎于体育活动；他们还可能对艺术感到兴趣。

For the most part, they keep their various activities in various compartments⁷, and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion⁸ of the other. 在大多数情况下，他们把自己的不同活动分别安排在不同的间隔里，在进行一种活动时，可以暂时把另一种完全排除。

They have a faculty⁹ of concentration on that which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them if one encroaches on the other. 他们有本领专心致志进行当时正在从事的活动；如果一种活动受到另一种侵犯，他们会非常恼火。

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times. 作为坠入情网的人来说，男人同女人的区别是：女人能够整天整夜谈恋爱，而男人却只能有时有晌儿地干这种事。

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