第十七章（第4/13页）

埃斯梅拉达别墅确实很远，坐落于泻湖旁边，正对着吉奥吉亚镇。别墅的历史并不悠久，且适宜居住，在露台上可以远眺大海，庞大的私家园林中树木葱郁，临近泻湖边的地方砌有围墙。

Their host was a heavy, rather coarse Scotchman who had made a good fortune in Italy before the war, and had been knighted for his ultrapatriotism during the war. His wife was a thin, pale, sharp kind of person with no fortune of her own, and the misfortune of having to regulate her husband's rather sordid amorous exploits. He was terribly tiresome with the servants. But having had a slight stroke during the winter, he was now more manageable.

别墅主人是个身材臃肿的苏格兰人，形容丑陋，大战前在意大利发了笔横财，因为战时的爱国行径，被册封为爵士。其妻身材瘦弱，面容苍白，但却尖酸刻薄，娘家并无遗财，因丈夫颇爱窃玉偷香，她不得不倾尽心力来制约他的无耻行径。就连仆人们也对他怨声载道。但去年冬天他出现轻微中风的迹象，因此也变得容易驾驭许多。

The house was pretty full. Besides Sir Malcolm and his two daughters, there were seven more people, a Scotch couple, again with two daughters; a young Italian Contessa, a widow; a young Georgian prince, and a youngish English clergyman who had had pneumonia and was being chaplain to Sir Alexander for his health's sake. The prince was penniless, good-looking, would make an excellent chauffeur, with the necessary impudence, and basta! The Contessa was a quiet little puss with a game on somewhere. The clergyman was a raw simple fellow from a Bucks vicarage: luckily he had left his wife and two children at home. And the Guthries, the family of four, were good solid Edinburgh middle class, enjoying everything in a solid fashion, and daring everything while risking nothing.

别墅差不多已经满员。除了马尔科姆爵士和他的两个女儿，总共还有七位房客，分别是一对苏格兰夫妇，同样带着两位千金；一位意大利的伯爵夫人，年纪轻轻便已守寡；一位年轻的格鲁吉亚亲王，还有一位英国牧师，人在中年，因生过肺炎，目前正在亚历山大爵士的礼拜堂供职，借机会调养身体。那位亲王虽然长得雍容华贵，但穷困潦倒，言行粗鲁，雇来做车夫再合适不过！伯爵夫人如猫咪般娴静，但也会耍些手段。牧师本在白金汉教区供职，头脑有些简单，幸好他没把妻子和两个孩子带来。而那四口之家姓格思里，来自爱丁堡，是家资殷实的中产阶级，乐于享受生活，但行事谨慎，敢于尝试一切，但以不冒风险为前提。

Connie and Hilda ruled out the prince at once. The Guthries were more or less their own sort, substantial, hut boring: and the girls wanted husbands. The chaplain was not a bad fellow, but too deferential. Sir Alexander, after his slight stroke, had a terrible heaviness his joviality, but he was still thrilled at the presence of so many handsome young women. Lady Cooper was a quiet, catty person who had a thin time of it, poor thing, and who watched every other woman with a cold watchfulness that had become her second nature, and who said cold, nasty little things which showed what an utterly low opinion she had of all human nature. She was also quite venomously overbearing with the servants, Connie found: but in a quiet way. And she skilfully behaved so that Sir Alexander should think that he was lord and monarch of the whole caboosh, with his stout, would-be-genial paunch, and his utterly boring jokes, his humourosity, as Hilda called it.

康妮和希尔达立即就将亲王踢出局。格思里一家跟她们也算是同类人，有钱有势，但单调乏味，两个女儿都待字闺中。牧师生性良善，可惜太拘于俗礼。而亚历山大爵士，自从出现中风的迹象之后，好交际的乐天性格中掺杂进可怕的沉滞，可家里住进这么多风姿绰约的女子，还是令他意乱情迷。库珀夫人沉默寡言，却工于心计，总是臭着脸，时时刻刻提防着其他女人，已经成为她的第二天性。她总是冷言冷语，话中有话，表现出对所有人类天性的不屑一顾。康妮发现，这恶婆娘对仆人总是专横跋扈，不过表面装出温文尔雅的样子而已。她行事巧妙，让亚历山大爵士自认为自己才是一家之主，说一不二，因为他那肥硕却自诩为随和象征的大肚腩，还有那毫无逗趣效果的笑话，希尔达称之为滑稽的本性。

Sir Malcolm was painting. Yes, he still would do a Venetian lagoonscape, now and then, in contrast to his Scottish landscapes. So in the morning he was rowed off with a huge canvas, to his 'site'. A little later, Lady Cooper would he rowed off into the heart of the city, with sketching-block and colours. She was an inveterate watercolour painter, and the house was full of rose-coloured palaces, dark canals, swaying bridges, medieval facades, and so on. A little later the Guthries, the prince, the countess, Sir Alexander, and sometimes Mr. Lind, the chaplain, would go off to the Lido, where they would bathe; coming home to a late lunch at half past one.

马尔科姆爵士最近热衷于绘画。没错，他想找个时间，画一幅威尼斯水景，毕竟意大利水城与苏格兰的景致迥然不同。于是，每天清晨，他便带着大画布，乘船外出，寻找合适的取景地点。稍迟一会儿，库珀夫人则会带着写生簿和油彩，乘船赶往市中心。她沉迷于水彩画，家里摆满她的画作，玫瑰色的宫殿、阴暗的河道、摇摆着的索桥、中世纪的建筑物，诸如此类。再晚些时候，格思里一家、亲王、伯爵夫人、亚历山大爵士则会集体出行，前往利多岛畅泳，有时候牧师林德先生也会同往，大家都回来得比较晚，午餐通常在一点半开席。

The house-party, as a house-party, was distinctly boring. But this did not trouble the sisters. They were out all the time. Their father took them to the exhibition, miles and miles of weary paintings. He took them to all the cronies of his in the Villa Lucchese, he sat with them on warm evenings in the piazza, having got a table at Florian's: he took them to the theatre, to the Goldoni plays. There were illuminated water-fêtes, there were dances. This was a holiday-place of all holiday-places. The Lido, with its acres of sun-pinked or pyjamaed bodies, was like a strand with an endless heap of seals come up for mating. Too many people in the piazza, too many limbs and trunks of humanity on the Lido, too many gondolas, too many motor-launches, too many steamers, too many pigeons, too many ices, too many cocktails, too many menservants wanting tips, too many languages rattling, too much, too much sun, too much smell of Venice, too many cargoes of strawberries, too many silk shawls, too many huge, raw-beef slices of watermelon on stalls: too much enjoyment, altogether far too much enjoyment!