(雙語)月亮和六便士 第46章(3)

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But I do not think he was a happy man. He suffered from dyspepsia, and he might often be seen sucking a tablet of pepsin; in the morning his appetite was poor; but this affliction alone would hardly have impaired his spirits. He had a greater cause of discontent with life than this. Eight years before he had rashly married a wife. There are men whom a merciful Providence has undoubtedly ordained to a single life, but who from wilfulness or through circumstances they could not cope with have flown in the face of its decrees. There is no object more deserving of pity than the married bachelor. Of such was Captain Nichols. I met his wife. She was a woman of twenty-eight, I should think, though of a type whose age is always doubtful; for she cannot have looked different when she was twenty, and at forty would look no older. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white drill she wore had all the effect of black bombazine. I could not imagine why Captain Nichols had married her, and having married her why he had not deserted her. Perhaps he had, often, and his melancholy arose from the fact that he could never succeed. However far he went and in howsoever secret a place he hid himself, I felt sure that Mrs. Nichols, inexorable as fate and remorseless as conscience, would presently rejoin him. He could as little escape her as the cause can escape the effect.

然而我認為他生活得并不幸福。他長期患消化不良癥，嘴里經(jīng)常含著一片胃蛋白酶藥片。每天上午他的胃口都不很好，但是如果只是這一病痛還不致于使他的精神受到傷害。他的生活還有一樁更大的不幸：八年以前他輕率地同一個女人結(jié)了婚。有一些男人，慈悲的天意注定叫他們終生作個單身漢，但是他們有的人由于任性，有的人由于拗不過環(huán)境，卻違背了上帝的意旨。再沒有誰比這種結(jié)了婚的單身漢更叫人可憐了。尼柯爾斯船長就是這樣一個人。我看見過他的老婆；我想，她的年齡不過二十七八歲，但是她是那種永遠讓人摸不清究竟多大歲數(shù)的女人，這種人二十歲的時候不比現(xiàn)在樣子年輕，到了四十歲也不會顯得更老。她給我的印象是皮緊肉瘦，一張并不標致的面孔緊繃繃的，嘴唇只是薄薄的一條線，全身皮膚都緊包著骨頭。她輕易不露笑容，頭發(fā)緊貼在頭上，衣服瘦瘦的，白斜紋料子看去活象是黑色的邦巴辛毛葛。我想象不出，為什么尼柯爾斯船長要同她結(jié)婚，既然結(jié)了婚為什么又不把她甩掉。也許他已經(jīng)不止一次這樣做過，他的悲哀就來源于哪次都沒有成功。不論他跑多么遠，不論他藏身多么隱秘，尼柯爾斯太太就象命運一樣無可逃避，象良心一樣毫無憐憫，馬上就會來到他身邊。他逃不脫她，就象有因必有果一樣。