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"Hello! theres Milial! " said somebody near me. I looked at the man who had been pointed out as I had been wishing for a long time to meet this Don Juan.
“嘿！是米利阿尔！” 我身边有人说道。我看向那个被指着的人，那位我早想结识的 “唐璜” 。
He was no longer young. His gray hair looked a little like those fur bonnets worn by certain Northern peoples, and his long beard, which fell down over his chest, had also somewhat the appearance of fur. He was talking to a lady, leaning toward her, speaking in a low voice and looking at her with an expression full of respect and tenderness.
他已不再年轻。他头发灰白，看起来有点像某些北方人所戴的毛皮帽；长长的胡须垂到胸前，看上去也有几分像动物的皮毛。他正与一位女士说话，只见他身体向她倾斜，说话的声音低低的，用一副充满敬意和温柔的表情看着她。
I knew his life, or at least as much as was known of it. He had loved madly several times, and there had been certain tragedies with which his name had been connected. When I spoke to women who were the loudest in his praise, and asked them whence came this power, they always answered, after thinking for a while: "I dont know—he has a certain charm about him.
我知道他的一生，或者说至少知道大家所知道的那些。他疯狂地爱过几次，还有过某些悲剧，他的名字还被牵扯进去了。当我跟那些盛赞他的女人们说话，问及他的这种力量来自于哪里的时候，她们总会在思考片刻后回答说： “我不知道——他就是有某种魅力。”
He was certainly not handsome. He had none of the elegance that we ascribe to conquerors of feminine hearts. I wondered what might be his hidden charm. Was it mental? I never had heard of a clever saying of his. In his glance? Perhaps. Or in his voice? The voices of some beings have a certain irresistible attraction, almost suggesting the flavor of things good to eat. One is hungry for them, and the sound of their words penetrates us like a dainty morsel. A friend was passing. I asked him: "Do you know Monsieur Milial? "
无疑，他并不英俊。我们认为征服女人心应该具有的风流潇洒，他一丝也没有。我想知道他隐藏起来的魅力会是什么。是智力上的吗？我从没有听说过有关他聪明的说法。是在他的目光里吗？或许吧。又或者是在他的嗓音里？有些人的嗓音有着某种令人无法抗拒的诱惑力，几乎使人想起了美食的滋味。人们对那些声音如饥似渴，他们的说话声犹如好吃的东西一般渗透到我们的全身。一位朋友路过。我问他： “你认识米利阿尔先生吗？”
"Yes. "
“是的。”
"Introduce us. "
“给我们相互引见一下吧。”
A minute later we were shaking hands and talking in the doorway. What he said was correct, agreeable to hear; it contained no irritable thought. The voice was sweet, soft, caressing, musical; but I had heard others much more attractive, much more moving. One listened to him with pleasure, just as one would look at a pretty little brook. No tension of the mind was necessary in order to follow him, no hidden meaning aroused curiosity, no expectation awoke interest. His conversation was rather restful, but it did not awaken in one either a desire to answer, to contradict or to approve, and it was as easy to answer him as it was to listen to him. The response came to the lips of its own accord, as soon as he had finished talking, and phrases turned toward him as if he had naturally aroused them.
一分钟之后，我们握了握手，并在门口交谈起来。他说的话正确得体，听了令人愉快，话里没有什么急躁的想法。嗓音甜美、温柔、亲切、悦耳，不过我听过比这还要吸引人、还要触动人的嗓音。听他说话人们会心情愉快，就像看到一条美丽的小溪。要领会他的意思，不需要精神紧张，没有什么言外之意能引起好奇，没有什么故弄玄虚可唤起兴趣。他的谈话相当令人安宁，但没有激起听话人回答、反驳或是赞成的欲望，就算是回应，也跟听他讲话一样轻松。他一说完，回应的话语就自动地跳到嘴边，那些话语向他倾倒而出，就好像他自然地唤醒了它们。
One thought soon struck me. I had known him for a quarter of an hour, and it seemed as if he were already one of my old friends, that I had known all about him for a long time; his face, his gestures, his voice, his ideas. Suddenly, after a few minutes of conversation, he seemed already to be installed in my intimacy. All constraint disappeared between us, and, had he so desired, I might have confided in him as one confides only in old friends.
我突然有了一个想法。我结识他才一刻钟，却感觉他似乎已经是我的一个老朋友了，我早已熟悉他的一切：他的脸，他的手势，他的声音，他的想法。交谈了一会儿之后，忽然之间，他好像已经成为我的知己。我们之间所有的拘束都消失了，如果他希望，我会向他吐露心声，吐露一个人只有在面对老朋友时才会吐露的真心话。
Certainly there was some mystery about him. Those barriers that are closed between most people and that are lowered with time when sympathy, similar tastes, equal intellectual culture and constant intercourse remove constraint—those barriers seemed not to exist between him and me, and no doubt this was the case between him and all people, both men and women, whom fate threw in his path.
无疑他有些神秘之处。那些隔阂——那些大多数人之间封闭着的、随着时间而削弱的隔阂，那些当相投的意气、同样的爱好、对等的才智修养和不断的交流才能去除约束的隔阂——看起来并不存在于我和他之间，而且毫无疑问，也不存在于他和所有那些注定要遇见他的男男女女之间。
After half an hour we parted, promising to see each other often, and he gave me his address after inviting me to take luncheon with him in two days.
半小时之后我们分开了，约好经常见面，他还邀请我在两天内去与他共进午餐，然后把地址给了我。
I forgot what hour he had stated, and I arrived too soon; he was not yet home. A correct and silent domestic showed me into a beautiful, quiet, softly lighted parlor. I felt comfortable there, at home. How often I have noticed the influence of apartments on the character and on the mind! There are some which make one feel foolish; in others, on the contrary, one always feels lively. Some make us sad, although well lighted and decorated in light—colored furniture; others cheer us up, although hung with sombre material. Our eye, like our heart, has its likes and dislikes, of which it does not inform us, and which it secretly imposes on our temperament. The harmony of furniture, walls, the style of an ensemble, act immediately on our mental state, just as the air from the woods, the sea or the mountains modifies our physical natures.
我忘了他定的时间，早早就到了，他还没回家。一名举止得体、沉默寡言的家仆带我进入一间漂亮、安静、光线柔和的客厅。在那儿我感到舒适，就像在家一样。多少次我注意到房间对性格和头脑的影响！有一些房间让人感觉愚蠢；相反，另一些使人感觉充满活力。有些，尽管采光好，装饰有浅色的家具，却令人觉得难过；另有些，尽管用暗淡的材质作装饰，却让我们感到高兴。我们的眼睛像我们的心一样，有其好恶，它并不将好恶告知于我们，而是偷偷地作用于我们的性情。家具、墙壁和整体的风格直接对我们的精神状态起作用，正如来自森林、海洋或山脉的空气改变我们的身体状况一样。
I sat down on a cushion—covered divan and felt myself suddenly carried and supported by these little silk bags of feathers, as if the outline of my body had been marked out beforehand on this couch.
我坐到铺着垫子的长沙发上，感觉自己突然被这些装着羽毛的小丝绸袋子撑起来、托起来，仿佛我身体的轮廓事先就被划在这个沙发上。
Then I looked about. There was nothing striking about the room; everywhere were beautiful and modest things, simple and rare furniture, Oriental curtains which did not seem to come from a department store but from the interior of a harem; and exactly opposite me hung the portrait of a woman. It was a portrait of medium size, showing the head and the upper part of the body, and the hands, which were holding a book. She was young, bareheaded; ribbons were woven in her hair; she was smiling sadly. Was it because she was bareheaded, was it merely her natural expression? I never have seen a portrait of a lady which seemed so much in its place as that one in that dwelling. Of all those I knew I have seen nothing like that one. All those that I know are on exhibition, whether the lady be dressed in her gaudiest gown, with an attractive headdress and a look which shows that she is posing first of all before the artist and then before those who will look at her or whether they have taken a comfortable attitude in an ordinary gown. Some are standing majestically in all their beauty, which is not at all natural to them in life. All of them have something, a flower or, a jewel, a crease in the dress or a curve of the lip, which one feels to have been placed there for effect by the artist. Whether they wear a hat or merely their hair one can immediately notice that they are not entirely natural. Why? One cannot say without knowing them, but the effect is there. They seem to be calling somewhere, on people whom they wish to please and to whom they wish to appear at their best advantage; and they have studied their attitudes, sometimes modest, Sometimes haughty.
接着我环顾四周。这间房没有什么突出的地方，哪里都是美丽而质朴的东西，简单而少见的家具，东方式的帘子，这帘子并不像是从百货店里买来的，倒像是来自深闺里的。在我的正对面，挂着一幅女人的画像。那是一幅中等大小的画像，画出了头部和上半身，还有一双捧着书的手。她年轻，没有戴帽子，头发上编着丝带，忧愁地微笑着。那忧愁是因为她没有戴帽子？还是那只是她固有的表情？我从没有看到过哪幅女士的画像像这幅这样，放在住所里这么适合它的地方。在所有我知道的那些当中，我从没有看过哪幅像那幅这样。我所知道的那些都是在展览中，要么那位女士身穿最花哨的礼服，头戴吸引人的头饰，一副神态表露出她是先在艺术家前摆好姿势，再在看画者面前摆好；要么她们是穿着普通的礼服，摆出舒适的姿态。有些庄严地站着，美貌无比，却根本不是生活中的自然状态。她们所有人的身上都有点什么东西，一朵花或是一件珠宝，衣服上的褶子或是嘴唇上的曲线，那些都让人觉得是艺术家为了达到效果而加上去的。不管她们是戴着帽子还是只见头发，人们可以立即注意到她们并不完全是自然状态。为什么呢？人们不了解她们，不能说出什么原因，但是效果就摆在那儿。她们似乎在向哪儿召唤，召唤她们想要取悦的人，想要以最佳的姿态展示于前的人。她们研究过自己的姿势，有时谦恭，有时傲慢。
What could one say about this one? She was at home and alone. Yes, she was alone, for she was smiling as one smiles when thinking in solitude of something sad or sweet, and not as one smiles when one is being watched. She seemed so much alone and so much at home that she made the whole large apartment seem absolutely empty. She alone lived in it, filled it, gave it life. Many people might come in and converse, laugh, even sing; she would still be alone with a solitary smile, and she alone would give it life with her pictured gaze.
而关于这一位，人们能说些什么呢？她呆在家里，而且是独自一人。是的，她是独自一人，因为她的微笑，是一个人在孤独中想到伤心或甜蜜的事时才会露出的微笑，并不是被人注视时的微笑。她看起来那么孤独，那么安适自在，使得偌大的房间似乎完全空洞起来。她一个人住在里面，填充着它，给予它生命。很多人可能会走进来，谈话、说笑，甚至唱歌，而她仍是独自一人，带着孤独的微笑，单单她一人就能用其被画出来的凝视使这个房间充满生气。
That look also was unique. It fell directly on me, fixed and caressing, without seeing me. All portraits know that they are being watched, and they answer with their eyes, which see, think, follow us without leaving us, from the very moment we enter the apartment they inhabit. This one did not see me; it saw nothing, although its look was fixed directly on me. I remembered the surprising verse of Baudelaire:
那目光也很独特。它直直地落在我身上，专注、亲切，却没有看着我。所有的画像都知道她们被观看，于是她们用她们的眼睛作出回应，那眼睛从我们踏进她们房间的那一刻起就看着、想着、跟着我们，寸步不离。这一幅没有看我，她什么也没看，尽管她的目光直直地投在我身上。我想起了博德莱尔的那句令人惊叹的诗句：
And your eyes, attractive as those of a portrait.
而你的眼睛，像画像里的眼睛一样那么迷人。
They did indeed attract me in an irresistible manner; those painted eyes which had lived, or which were perhaps still living, threw over me a strange, powerful spell. Oh, what an infinite and tender charm, like a passing breeze, like a dying sunset of lilac rose and blue, a little sad like the approaching night, which comes behind the sombre frame and out of those impenetrable eyes! Those eyes, created by a few strokes from a brush, hide behind them the mystery of that which seems to be and which does not exist, which can appear in the eyes of a woman, which can make love blossom within us.
画像里的眼睛的的确确以一种让人无法抗拒的方式迷住了我，那双画出来的眼睛，那双曾经活过，又或许还仍然活着的眼睛，抛给我一种奇异的、强大的魔力。啊，多么无穷而温情的魅力，犹如拂过的微风，犹如垂暮的淡玫瑰色和蓝色的黄昏，一丝忧愁犹如逼近的夜晚。这些都来自于那深色的画框之下，来自于那双深邃的眼睛。那双用画笔寥寥几笔创作出来的眼睛后面似乎藏着谜，但又不存在的谜，那些能出现在女人眼里的谜，那些能够让爱情在我们心中萌芽的谜。
The door opened and M. Milial entered. He excused himself for being late. I excused myself for being ahead of time. Then I said: "Might I ask you who is this lady? "
门开了，米利阿尔先生走了进来。他为自己的迟到请求原谅。我则为自己的早到请求原谅。接着我说道： “我可以问问您这位女士是谁吗？”
He answered: "That is my mother. She died very young. "
他回答说： “那是我母亲。她很年轻的时候就去世了。”
Then I understood whence came the inexplicable attraction of this man.
于是，我明白了这个男人无法解释的吸引力是从何而来的。