Love Days
After a hasty breakfast, of which she remembered nothing but that she had eaten it, Susanna found herself on the street car bound for college.
苏珊娜匆匆吃了一顿早餐，除了吃完之外什么都不记得了，苏珊娜发现自己坐上了开往大学的有轨电车。
She had indeed been dimly aware of the states through which she had passed up to the time of her presence in the car; had known that getting out of bed felt cold and premature; that bathing felt pleasurably hot; that her hair fixed itself becomingly this morning, and that she looked well in the mirror over the dressing table.
她确实模模糊糊地意识到，直到她出现在车上时，她所经历的状态；我知道起床感觉很冷而且还为时过早；洗澡的感觉很热；今天早上，她的头发自然地梳理得恰到好处，梳妆台上方的镜子里的她看起来也很好。
But her only fully conscious moments, when thoughts and sensations met in focused attention, were those spent before that other mirror situated in the recesses of the right hand corner of her dressing-room which a shaft of light, penetrating from the bedroom, struck, and partially illumined.
但她唯一完全清醒的时刻，当思想和感觉集中注意力时，是在更衣室右手角凹处的另一面镜子前度过的，一束光从卧室穿透进来，照射到它并部分照亮。
For in this mirror Susanna suddenly became beautiful.
因为在这面镜子里，苏珊娜突然变得美丽起来。
But it was not because she became beautiful that Susanna contemplated herself with sharp attention, it was because unhappily she suspected that in beautifying her this enchanted mirror had coincidently transformed her into some one totally unlike herself.
但苏珊娜并不是因为她变得美丽，而是因为她不幸地怀疑，这面魔镜在美化她的过程中，恰巧把她变成了一个完全不像自己的人。
She suspected—: she was not certain; in spite of her eighteen years of life, and the very pronounced interest she took in her appearance, she had in truth only the faintest idea of what “she looked like.” And in critically illumined moments she knew that she did not know how she really looked, and it disturbed her deeply.— It even disconcerted her to remember what had occurred not long ago, one evening, when she was sitting out a dance with Mr. Whitney, who admired her, and whose admiration, flowing from so difficult a source, flattered her.
她怀疑——：她不确定；尽管她已经十八岁了，而且对自己的外表非常感兴趣，但实际上她对“她的样子”只有最模糊的了解。在受到批判的时刻，她知道自己不知道自己到底是什么样子，这让她深深地不安。——甚至想起不久前发生的事情，一个晚上，当她和惠特尼先生一起跳舞时，她感到不安，惠特尼先生钦佩她，而惠特尼先生的钦佩，从如此困难的来源流淌出来，让她感到受宠若惊。
To this source of admiration, then, reputedly run dry through years of wasted sentimental experience, she had à propos of some compliment boldly remarked: “Oh, I know that my face isn’t regular; it’s only interesting.”
对于这种钦佩之源，据说多年浪费的情感经历已经枯竭，她大胆地提出了一些赞美：“哦，我知道我的脸不规则；它只是有趣。”
“But you’re quite mistaken, Miss Susanna,” the oldish livedout-to-the-point-of-being-devoid-of-tact Mr. Whitney, aged thirty-three, had replied, with a flicker in his fishy eye; “your features are quite perfectly regular, and your countenance is entirely charming, but not, as yet, unusually interesting.”
“但是你大错特错了，苏珊娜小姐，”三十三岁的惠特尼先生回答说，他的鱼眼里闪烁着一丝闪烁的光芒。 “你的五官非常规整，你的面容非常迷人，但还没有显得异常有趣。”
Indeed, whenever Susanna recalled this conversational occurrence, or, more accurately put, whenever this occurrence recalled itself to Susanna, as it did with unpleasant persistency, and preferably at this mirror, bringing a blush along with it posthumously as it were,—Susanna wondered whether she had deserved to have this upsetting liberty taken by Mr. Whitney.
事实上，每当苏珊娜回忆起这件事，或者更准确地说，每当这件事让苏珊娜想起自己时，就像它以令人不快的坚持做的那样，最好是在这面镜子前，在死后带来脸红，苏珊娜想知道她是否应该让惠特尼先生采取这种令人不安的自由。
Deserved it for having been so very personal herself.
因为她本人非常有个性，这是她应得的。
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For, in accordance with what were generally held to be purely-social-intercoursemanners, she had of course transgressed; she had not, of course, conformed to the standards implicit in conversations ending abruptly with “oh, if you are going to be personal, we had better change the subject.” But, in accordance with her own feelings it was quite as natural and quite as fascinating to jump into a personal conversation as for a child to play with fire.
因为，按照通常被认为是纯粹的社交礼仪，她当然已经违规了。当然，她没有遵守谈话中隐含的标准，谈话中突然以“哦，如果你想谈个人隐私，我们最好换个话题。”但是，根据她自己的感觉，跳入私人谈话就像孩子玩火一样自然，也一样令人着迷。
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And in regard to the resultant burn, Susanna felt doubtful whether she would have known it to be an unpleasant pain if she had not so insistently been told so,—because, really, in feeling, it was rather a pleasant pain.
至于由此产生的烧伤，苏珊娜怀疑，如果不是有人如此坚持地告诉她，她是否会知道这是一种不愉快的疼痛，因为，实际上，在感觉上，这是一种相当愉快的疼痛。
Thus, gazing into the mirror situated in the shadows, in which she became so dramatically beautiful a creature in the style of a chiaroscuro photograph, Susanna’s thoughts, feelings and sensations fused in a moment of full and complex consciousness.
因此，凝视着阴影中的镜子，苏珊娜在镜子中变得如此美丽，就像明暗照片风格的生物一样，苏珊娜的思想、感情和感觉融合在一个完整而复杂的意识时刻。
It contained not only her unhappy suspicion that she was decidedly less goodlooking than this strange simulacrum,—it contained not only the frustrated wish to know just how goodlooking she really was, and how goodlooking a, b, and c thought her, but it crystallized finally into a sharp worry lest her looks and her character did not sufficiently match one another.
这不仅包含了她不愉快的怀疑，即她显然不如这个奇怪的拟像好看——它不仅包含了挫败的愿望，想知道她到底有多好看，a、b、c认为她有多好看，但它最终结晶成一种尖锐的担忧，担心她的外表和她的性格彼此不够匹配。
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She suddenly feared that this physical type of hers, which she found so difficult to realize, might somehow restrict her spiritual development within its own limits, as a frame limits and delimits its picture.
她突然担心自己的这种身体类型（她发现很难实现）可能会以某种方式将她的精神发展限制在其自身的范围内，就像一个框架限制和划定了它的画面一样。
And how—Susanna reflected uneasily—could she or anyone else realize and define a type which from the front view was one, and from the side view another.
苏珊娜不安地想道，她或其他任何人如何才能认识并定义一种从正面看是一种类型，从侧面看是另一种类型。
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As now, for instance, she viewed herself in this mirror, she saw an oval the colour of pale ivory, an aureole of shining copper hair, wide open serious grey eyes with straight brows that rose a little at the inner ends, bowshaped, full but compressed lips, an ordinary straight nose;—in combination an even, regular, almost classical face, a face a little like a passport face, she thought,—but she thought it very low, so to say, because she instinctively disliked the strange self-face to overhear these critical thoughts that had a way of obtruding themselves without her permission.
比如说，现在，她在镜子里看着自己，她看到了一个淡象牙色的椭圆形，闪亮的铜色头发的光环，睁着严肃的灰色眼睛，笔直的眉毛在内端稍稍上扬，弓形的，丰满但压缩的嘴唇，普通的直鼻子；——结合一张均匀，规则，几乎古典的脸，一张有点像护照脸，她想，——但她认为它很低，可以这么说，因为她本能地不喜欢这张奇怪的自己的脸无意中听到这些批评性的想法，这些想法在未经她许可的情况下就会闯入。
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On the other hand—she reflected—looked at from the side, this baffling but beloved face was totally changed.
另一方面——她想——从侧面看，这张令人困惑却又可爱的脸却完全变了。
The oval became pointed; the nose springy and uplifted; the lips developed dimpled corners; the eyes were chiefly lashes, and the general air was that of frivolity.
椭圆形变得尖了；鼻子有弹性且隆起；嘴唇角部有酒窝；眼睛主要是睫毛，整体神情轻浮。
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And when she smiled!
当她微笑时！
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Oh, she gave it up, this getting a whole out of incongruous aspects!
哦，她放弃了，这一切都摆脱了不协调的方面！
She would simply adopt the full face and ignore the rest, which wasn’t there anyway unless one arranged the mirrors in a certain way, an operation that took time; and time was her most precious possession.
她只会简单地采用整张脸，而忽略其余部分，除非以某种方式排列镜子，否则其余部分是不存在的，而这是一项需要时间的操作；而时间，就是她最宝贵的财产。
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And after all, Susanna concluded for the time being, with an expression that made her full face match her side face exactly, one thing was certain: she was goodlooking enough for all practical purposes, and far better looking than most people; and if it should turn out that she was in any way very wonderful looking, so much the better; and if it didn’t, and she wasn’t, why then it was just as well not to know it now!
毕竟，苏珊娜暂时以全脸与侧脸完全吻合的表情得出结论，有一件事是确定的：她长得足够漂亮，而且比大多数人好看多了；如果事实证明她长得非常漂亮，那就更好了。如果没有，而她也没有，那为什么现在不知道也好呢！
And as for that other matter, the matter of being personal,— even though it entailed some embarrassment, and some real and potential blushes, wasn’t finding things out worth these discomforts—supposing them to be discomforts and not merely an exciting game?
至于另一件事，关于个人的问题，尽管它会带来一些尴尬，以及一些真实的和潜在的脸红，但发现事情不值得这些不舒服吗？假设它们是不舒服的，而不仅仅是一场令人兴奋的游戏？
Might it not indeed be one’s duty to be personal as a means to knowledge?
个人作为获取知识的手段难道不是一个人的责任吗？
Yes, it may be my duty to be extremely personal and direct in my dealings with my fellow men, Susanna told herself, lingering on the “may.” For she liked the mood “may”: finality was distasteful to her.
是的，在与同胞打交道时，我的责任可能是极其个人化和直接的，苏珊娜告诉自己，在“可能”上徘徊。因为她喜欢“可能”的语气：最终结果对她来说是令人厌恶的。
Finality, she thought, definitely closed paths and thereby ended that doubt whence sprang inquiry, knowledge, and freedom,—as Dewey and Descartes put it for her in a more systematized region of the mind.
她认为，最终结果肯定关闭了道路，从而结束了产生探究、知识和自由的怀疑——正如杜威和笛卡尔在心灵的一个更系统化的区域中为她所说的那样。
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But with “may” and its vision of infinite possibilities stretching in all directions, her own chances of spiritual becoming multiplied into infinity.
但随着“可能”及其向各个方向延伸的无限可能性的愿景，她自己的精神成长的机会成倍增加到无限。
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And having smiled expectantly at her more limited and stationary self, and having clasped an amber chain under the chin that was round in the full view and pointed in the side, she had turned herself and her thoughts from the mirror.
她对自己更加有限和静止的自己满怀期待地微笑，并在下巴下扣紧一条琥珀链，下巴在全景中呈圆形并指向侧面，她将自己和她的思绪从镜子中转移了出来。
Susanna hung to a strap in the crowded car, and critically surveyed the seated crowd spreading just below, from which no one had separated and individualized himself by giving her a seat.
苏珊娜在拥挤的车厢里挂着一根带子，批判性地审视着下面散开的坐着的人群，没有人从中分离出来，也没有人给她让座，以彰显自己的个性。
Yet several of the men were young and fat and perfectly fitted for the performance of such an act.
然而，其中有几个人又年轻又胖，非常适合表演这种行为。
They think I’m a schoolgirl, Susanna observed to herself, pursing her lips into what she conceived to be a subtle sarcastic sneer, and squeezing a little the Aristotle she carried under her arm together with Kidding’s Sociology and a volume of Morley.
他们认为我是个女学生，苏珊娜自言自语道，她撅起嘴唇，露出一种她认为是微妙的讽刺的冷笑，并捏了捏腋下夹着的亚里士多德书、基丁的《社会学》和一本莫利的书。
And feeling pleasantly misunderstood and undervalued and hence a shade romantic, she carried her sarcastic-feeling and naïve-looking stare from one to the other of these strange people, of whom but one thing seemed conclusively certain: that they wished to remain seated.
她感到愉快地被误解和低估，因此有一种浪漫的感觉，她带着讽刺的感觉和天真的目光，从这些奇怪的人中一个人转向另一个人，在他们身上，只有一件事似乎是绝对确定的：他们希望继续坐着。
There were among them—she thought to see—worried nervous little women, gazing into the past or into the future,—absent from the present at any rate; there were apathetic stout ones, fully occupied with just sitting there; there were elderly men concealed somewhere back of beards, eyeglasses and newspapers; middle-aged clean-shaven ones whose minds were in their offices and whose persons were travelling there a little more slowly; and then there were those who like herself were young.
他们中间有——她想看到——忧心忡忡、紧张的小女人，凝视着过去或未来——无论如何，他们都不在眼前；有的粗壮无动于衷，全神贯注地坐在那里。有些老人藏在胡须、眼镜和报纸背后的某个地方。胡子刮得干干净净的中年人，他们的心思都在办公室里，他们的行进速度要慢一些；还有一些像她一样年轻的人。
Yet even these were not alert and alive to the moment, to its complexity and fulness.
然而，即使是这些人也没有意识到当下的复杂性和完整性。
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Even they, thought Susanna, are not concrete.
苏珊娜想，即使是它们也不是具体的。
Yes, that is it, that is the solution of these dumb and deadish human beings and their lack of expression: they are at present, when in isolation and unoccupied, not so much abstracted, as really abstract.
是的，就是这样，这就是这些愚蠢而死气沉沉的人类以及他们缺乏表达的解决方案：他们目前处于孤立和无所事事的状态，与其说是抽象的，不如说是真正抽象的。
They possess the faculties of thinking and feeling,—but latently, as it were, that is to say, they are potentially individuals, but actually nothing individual is happening to them, or in them, or through their agency.
他们拥有思考和感觉的能力，但潜在地，也就是说，他们是潜在的个体，但实际上没有任何个体发生在他们身上，或者在他们身上，或者通过他们的代理机构。
Hence, actually, each is only in so far an individual as he partakes of the general concept—the idea—of humanity.
因此，实际上，每个人只是在参与了人性的一般概念（理念）时才是一个个体。
Susanna was pleased, quite charmed, in fact, with this Platonically flavoured analysis.
事实上，苏珊娜对这种柏拉图式的分析很满意，甚至很着迷。
What, she wondered, would Dr. Miller of Philosophy 4., or Dr. Duke have thought of it.
她想知道哲学 4 的米勒博士或杜克博士会怎么想。
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And her lips parted sweetly in a smile of imagined satisfaction, and her eyes grew large and bright with a warm flame just when, in their progressive survey, they alighted on a remote passenger, one of the suitable, stout young men.
她的嘴唇甜甜地张开，带着想象中的满足的微笑，她的眼睛变得又大又明亮，闪烁着温暖的火焰，就在他们逐渐观察时，他们落在了一位遥远的乘客身上，他是一个合适的、粗壮的年轻人。
And here in the wide, welcoming and inviting smile of his response their flame was instantly and definitely extinguished.
在他的回应中，他露出了灿烂、热情、诱人的微笑，他们的火焰立刻就彻底熄灭了。
Withdrawing her offended eyes into her head, as it were, Susanna moved bodily away, as far as possible, from contact with this experience.
苏珊娜将她那被冒犯的目光收回到脑海中，尽可能地远离这种经历。
She frowned; her lips compressed themselves; her chin lifted: indignation filled her.
她皱起眉头；她的嘴唇紧闭；她抬起下巴：愤怒充满了她。
How dared he.
他怎么敢。
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how loathsome were these cars.
这些汽车多么令人厌恶啊。
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why didn’t Auntie have a motor anyway instead of those lazy horses, she would have to sooner or later—: this was all that formulated itself in her mind, while her feelings registered nothing more definite than impatience and resentment.
为什么阿姨没有马达，而是有那些懒马，她迟早得有——：这就是她脑海中浮现出来的一切，而她的感情除了不耐烦和怨恨之外没有什么更明确的。
Yet, all of a sudden everything had changed for her.— She now sensed a chaos of new things—: coughs and yawns and snorts and sighs and stampings and scrapings and the clanging of the bell and the voices of the people and the smell of their various perfumes and their various dampnesses.
然而，突然之间，她的一切都变了。——她现在感觉到了新事物的混乱——：咳嗽、打哈欠、打喷嚏、叹息、跺脚、刮擦、钟声、人们的声音、他们各种香水和各种潮湿的气味。
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She now felt the heat and the cold of the opening and closing of the door, and the stuffiness of the air, and the touch of the clothed bodies that brushed against her.
她现在感觉到了门的开关的热和冷，还有空气的闷热，还有穿着衣服的身体擦过她的触感。
She now felt tightly encompassed—almost smothered—by surrounding happenings.
她现在感觉自己被周围发生的事情紧紧包围——几乎窒息。
Things were no longer dead or even abstract—Susanna could think no more until she had left that car.
一切不再死气沉沉，甚至不再抽象——苏珊娜无法再思考，直到她离开那辆车。
From Love Days by Ettie Stettheimer.
摘自埃蒂·史蒂海默的《爱情日》。
Used with permission of the publisher, Mandylion Press.
经出版商 Mandylion Press 许可使用。
Copyright © 2026.
版权所有 © 2026。