The dining-room was in the good taste of the period. It was very severe (朴素的). There was a high dado of white wood and a green paper on which were etchings (蚀刻版画) by Whistler in neat (雅致的) black frames. {1}
The green curtains with their peacock (孔雀) design, hung in straight lines, and the green carpet, in the pattern of which pale rabbits frolicked (嬉戏) among leafy trees, suggested the influence of William Morris.
There was blue delft (代夫特陶器) on the chimneypiece (壁炉架).
At that time there must have been five hundred dining-rooms in London decorated in exactly the same manner. It was chaste, artistic, and dull.
When we left I walked away with Miss Waterford, and the fine day and her new hat persuaded us to saunter (闲逛) through the Park.
"That was a very nice party," I said.
"Did you think the food was good? I told her that if she wanted writers she must feed them well."
"Admirable advice," I answered. "But why does she want them?"
Miss Waterford shrugged her shoulders.
"She finds them amusing. She wants to be in the movement. I fancy (认为) she's rather simple, poor dear, and she thinks we're all wonderful.
"After all, it pleases her to ask us to luncheon, and it doesn't hurt us. I like her for it."
Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry (猎物) from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost (最下面的) studios of Cheyne Walk.
She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance, but the romance of London. {2}
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She had a real passion for reading (rare in her kind, who for the most part are more interested in the author than in his book, in the painter than in his pictures), and she invented a world of the imagination in which she lived with a freedom she never acquired in the world of every day.
When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till then she had known only from the other side of the footlights.
She saw them dramatically, and really seemed herself to live a larger life because she entertained them and visited them in their fastnesses (本意为堡垒，这里指作家的幽居).
She accepted the rules with which they played the game of life as valid for them, but never for a moment thought of regulating her own conduct in accordance with them.
Their moral eccentricities (古怪), like their oddities (古怪) of dress, their wild theories and paradoxes (悖论), were an entertainment which amused her, but had not the slightest influence on her convictions (坚定的信仰).
"Is there a Mr. Strickland?" I asked.
"Oh yes; he's something in the city. I believe he's a stockbroker (证券经纪人). He's very dull."
"Are they good friends?"
"They adore one another. You'll meet him if you dine there. But she doesn't often have people to dinner. He's very quiet. He's not in the least interested in literature or the arts."
"Why do nice women marry dull men?"
"Because intelligent (有才智的) men won't marry nice women."
I could not think of any retort (反驳) to this, so I asked if Mrs. Strickland had children.
"Yes; she has a boy and a girl. They're both at school."
The subject was exhausted, and we began to talk of other things.
During the summer I met Mrs. Strickland not infrequently. I went now and then to pleasant little luncheons at her flat, and to rather more formidable (令人惊叹的) tea-parties.
We took a fancy to one another. I was very young, and perhaps she liked the idea of guiding my virgin steps on the hard road of letters (文坛); while for me it was pleasant to have someone I could go to with my small troubles, certain of an attentive ear and reasonable counsel.
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Mrs. Strickland had the gift of sympathy.
It is a charming faculty (能力), but one often abused by those who are conscious of its possession: for there is something ghoulish (丑恶的) in the avidity (欲望) with which they will pounce upon the misfortune of their friends so that they may exercise their dexterity (机敏). {3}
It gushes forth like an oil-well, and the sympathetic (指富有同情心的那类人) pour out their sympathy with an abandon (狂热) that is sometimes embarrassing to their victims.
There are bosoms (胸怀) on which so many tears have been shed that I cannot bedew them with mine. Mrs. Strickland used her advantage with tact (老练).
You felt that you obliged (施恩惠) her by accepting her sympathy. When, in the enthusiasm of my youth, I remarked on this to Rose Waterford, she said:
"Milk is very nice, especially with a drop of brandy in it, but the domestic cow is only too glad to be rid of it. A swollen (肿胀的) udder (牛、羊等的乳房) is very uncomfortable."
Rose Waterford had a blistering tongue. No one could say such bitter things; on the other hand, no one could do more charming ones.
There was another thing I liked in Mrs. Strickland. She managed her surroundings with elegance (高雅).
Her flat was always neat and cheerful, gay with flowers, and the chintzes (印花棉布) in the drawing-room, notwithstanding (尽管) their severe design, were bright and pretty.
The meals in the artistic little dining-room were pleasant; the table looked nice, the two maids (女仆) were trim and comely (清秀的); the food was well cooked.
It was impossible not to see that Mrs. Strickland was an excellent housekeeper. And you felt sure that she was an admirable mother.
There were photographs in the drawing-room of her son and daughter.
The son -- his name was Robert -- was a boy of sixteen at Rugby; and you saw him in flannels (法兰绒衣服) and a cricket (板球) cap, and again in a tail-coat and a stand-up collar.
He had his mother's candid brow (眉毛) and fine, reflective eyes. He looked clean, healthy, and normal.
"I don't know that he's very clever," she said one day, when I was looking at the photograph, "but I know he's good. He has a charming character."
The daughter was fourteen. Her hair, thick and dark like her mother's, fell over her shoulders in fine profusion, and she had the same kindly expression and sedate (安静的), untroubled eyes.
"They're both of them the image of you," I said.
"Yes; I think they are more like me than their father."
"Why have you never let me meet him?" I asked.
"Would you like to?" She smiled, her smile was really very sweet, and she blushed a little; it was singular that a woman of that age should flush so readily.
Perhaps her naivete (天真烂漫) was her greatest charm.
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"You know, he's not at all literary," she said. "He's a perfect philistine (俗气的人)."
She said this not disparagingly (以贬抑的口吻), but affectionately rather, as though, by acknowledging the worst about him, she wished to protect him from the aspersions (诋毁) of her friends. {4}
