ToRoomNineteenDORISLESSIN十九号房英文原文.docx

1、ToRoomNineteenDORISLESSIN十九号房英文原文To-Room-NineteenDORIS-LESSIN十九号房英文原文DORIS LESSINGLessing1 /les/, Doris (May) (b.1919), British novelist and short-story writer, brought up in Rhodesia. An active Communist in her youth, she frequently deals with social and political conflicts in her fiction, especial

2、ly as they affect women; The Golden Notebook (1962) was hailed as a landmark by the womens movement. Other works include The Grass is Singing (1950) about interracial relationships in Africa, and a quintet of science-fiction novels collectively entitled Canopus in Argus: Archives (1979-83). She won

3、Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.To Room NineteenThis is a story, I suppose, about a failure in intelligence: the Rawlings marriage was grounded in intelligence.They were older when they married than most of their married friends: in their well-seasoned late twenties. Both had had a number of affa

4、irs, sweet rather than bitter; and when they fell in lovefor they did fall in lovehad known each other for some time. They joked that they had saved each other “for the real thing.” That they had waited so long (but not too long) for this real thing was to them a proof of their sensible discriminati

5、on. A good many of their friends had married young, and now (they felt) probably regretted lost opportunities; while others, still unmarried, seemed to them arid, self-doubting, and likely to make desperate or romantic marriages.Not only they, but others, felt they were well matched: their friends d

6、elight was an additional proof of their happiness. They had played the same roles, male and female, in this group or set, if such a wide, loosely connected, constantly changing constellation of people could be called a set. They had both become, by virtue of their moderation, their humour, and their

7、 abstinence from painful experience people to whom others came for advice. They could be, and were, relied on. It was one of those cases of a man and a woman linking themselves whom no one else had ever thought of linking, probably because of their similarities. But then everyone exclaimed: Of cours

8、e! How right! How was it we never thought of it before!And so they married amid general rejoicing, and because of their foresight and their sense for what was probable, nothing was a surprise to them.Both had well-paid jobs. Matthew was a subeditor on a large London newspaper, and Susan worked in an

9、 advertising firm. He was not the stuff of which editors or publicised journalists are made, but he was much more than “a subeditor,” being one of the essential background people who in fact steady, inspire and make possible the people in the limelight. He was content with this position. Susan had a

10、 talent for commercial drawing. She was humorous about the advertisements she was responsible for, but she did not feel strongly about them one way or the other.Both, before they married, had had pleasant flats, but they felt it unwise to base a marriage on either flat, because it might seem like a

11、submission of personality on the part of the one whose flat it was not. They moved into a new flat in South Kensington on the clear understanding that when their marriage had settled down (a process they knew would not take long, and was in fact more a humorous concession to popular wisdom than what

12、 was due to themselves) they would buy a house and start a family.And this is what happened. They lived in their charming flat for two years, giving parties and going to them, being a popular young married couple, and then Susan became pregnant, she gave up her job, and they bought a house in Richmo

13、nd. It was typical of this couple that they had a son first, then a daughter, then twins, son and daughter. Everything right, appropriate, and what everyone would wish for, if they could choose. But people did feel these two had chosen; this balanced and sensible family was no more than what was due

14、 to them because of their infallible sense for choosing right.And so they lived with their four children in their gardened house in Richmond and Were happy. They had everything they had wanted and had plannedfor.And yet . Well, even this was expected, that there must be a certain flatness.Yes, yes,

15、of course, it was natural they sometimes felt like this. Like what?Their life seemed to be like a snake biting its tail. Matthews job for the sake of Susan, children, house, and gardenwhich caravanserai needed a well-paid job to maintain it. And Susans practical intelligence for the sake of Matthew,

16、 the children, the house and the gardenwhich unit would have collapsed in a week without her.But there was no point about which either could say: “For the sake of this is all the rest.” Children? But children cant be a centre of life and a reason for being. They can be a thousand things that are del

17、ightful, interesting, satisfying, but they cant be a wellspring to live from. Or they shouldnt be. Susan and Matthew knew that well enough.Matthews job? Ridiculous. It was an interesting job, but scarcely a reason for living. Matthew took pride in doing it well; but he could hardly be expected to be

18、 proud of the newspaper: the newspaper he read, his newspaper, was not the one he worked for.Their love for each other? Well, that was nearest it. If this wasnt a centre, what was? Yes, it was around this point, their love, that the whole extraordinary structure revolved. For extraordinary it certai

19、nly was. Both Susan and Matthew had moments of thinking so, of looking in secret disbelief at this thing they had created: marriage, four children, big house, garden, charwomen, presumably it wasnt important either when Matthew and I first went to bed with each other that afternoon whose delight eve

20、n now (like a very long shadow at sundown) lays a long, wand-like finger over us. (Why did I say sundown?) Well, if what we felt that afternoon was not important, nothing is important, because if it hadnt been for what we felt, we wouldnt be Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings with four children, etc., etc. The w

21、hole thing is absurdfor him to have come home and told me was absurd. For him not to have told me was absurd. For me to care, or for that matter not to care, is absurd . and who is Myra Jenkins? Why, no one at all.There was only one thing to do, and of course these sensible people did it: they put t

22、he thing behind them, and consciously, knowing what they were doing, moved forward into a different phase of their marriage, giving thanks for past good fortune as they did so.For it was inevitable that the handsome, blond, attractive, manly man, Matthew Rawlings, should be at times tempted (oh, wha

23、t a word!) by the attractive girls at parties she could not attend because of the four children; and that sometimes he would succumb (a word even more repulsive, if possible) and that she, a good-looking woman in the big well-tended garden at Richmond, would sometimes be pierced as by an arrow from

24、the sky with bitterness. Except that bitterness was not in order, it was out of court. Did the casual girls touch the marriage? They did not. Rather it was they who knew defeat because of the handsome Matthew Rawlings marriage body and soul to Susan Rawlings.In that case why did Susan feel (though l

25、uckily not for longer than a few seconds at a time) as if life had become a desert, and that nothing mattered, and that her children were not her own?Meanwhile her intelligence continued to assert that all was well. What if her Matthew did have an occasional sweet afternoon, the odd affair? For she

26、knew quite well, except in her moments of aridity, that they were very happy, that the affairs were not important.Perhaps that was the trouble? It was in the nature of things that the adventures and delights could no longer be hers, because of the four children and the big house that needed so much

27、attention. But perhaps she was secretly wishing, and even knowing that she did, that the wildness and the beauty could be his. But he was married to her. She was married to him. They were married inextricably. And therefore the gods could not strike him with the real magic, not really. Well, was it

28、Susans fault that after he came home from an adventure he looked harassed rather than fulfilled? (In fact, that was how she knew he had been unfaithful, because of his sullen air, and his glances at her, similar to hers at him: What is it that I share with this person that shields all delight from m

29、e?) But none of it by anybodys fault. (But what did they feel ought to be somebodys fault?) Nobodys fault, nothing to be at fault, no one to blame, no one to offer or to take it . and nothing wrong, either, except that Matthew never was really struck, as he wanted to be, by joy; and that Susan was m

30、ore and more often threatened by emptiness. (It was usually in the garden that she was invaded by this feeling: she was coming to avoid the garden, unless the children or Matthew were with her.) There was no need to use the dramatic words, unfaithful, forgive, and the rest: intelligence forbade them

31、. Intelligence barred, too, quarrelling, sulking, anger, silences of withdrawal, accusations and tears. Above all, intelligence forbids tears.A high price has to be paid for the happy marriage with the four healthy children in the large white gardened house.And they were paying it, willingly, knowin

32、g what they were doing. When they lay side by side or breast to breast in the big civilised bedroom overlooking the wild sullied river, they laughed, often, for no particular reason; but they knew it was really because of these two small people, Susan and Matthew, supporting such an edifice on their

33、 intelligent love. The laugh comforted them; it saved them both, though from what, they did not know.They were now both fortyish. The older children, boy and girl were ten and eight, at school. The twins, six, were still at home. Susan did not have nurses or girls to help her: childhood is short; and sh