Smiley's People汉译88
A Toulouse-Lautrec face, Smiley thought, peering in wonder—caught as the eyes slid away to some intense and perhaps erotic distraction. Ann would have taken to him immediately; he had the dangerous edge she liked. A Toulouse-Lautrec face, caught as a stray shard of fair-ground light fired one gaunt and travelled cheek. A hewn face, peaked and jagged, of which the brow and nose and jaw seemed all to have succumbed to the same eroding gales. A Toulouse-Lautrec face, swift and attaching. A waiter’s face, never a diner’s. With a waiter’s anger burning brightest behind a subservient smile. Ann would like that side less well. Leaving the print where it lay, Smiley clambered slowly to his feet in order to keep himself awake, and lumbered round the room, trying to place it, failing, wondering whether it was all imagining. Some people transmit, he thought. Some people—you meet them, and they bring you their whole past as a natural gift. Some people are intimacy itself.At Ann’s writing-table he paused to stare at the telephone again. Hers. Hers and Haydon’s. Hers and everybody’s. Trimline, he thought. Or was it Slimline? Five pounds extra to the Post Office for the questionable pleasure of its outmoded, futuristic lines. My tart’s phone, she used to call it. The little warble for my little loves, the loud woo-hoo for my big ones. He realised it was ringing. Had been ringing a long while, the little warble for the little loves. He put down his glass, still staring at the telephone while it trilled. She used to leave it on the floor among her records when she was playing music, he remembered. She used to lie with it—there, by the fire, over there—one haunch carelessly lifted in case it needed her. When she went to bed, she unplugged it and took it with her, to comfort her in the night. When they made love, he knew he was the surrogate for all the men who hadn’t rung. For the First Eleven. For Bill Haydon, even though he was dead.
斯迈利想，这是一张图卢兹-劳特累克（19世纪法国画家——译注）作品中的脸，开始好奇地注视着什么，然后被某种感觉更强烈的东西，也许是色情的东西转移了注意力，视线移过去了。安马上就会喜欢上他的，因为他有她喜欢的让人感到危险的气质。一张图卢兹-劳特累克作品中的脸，就像游乐场的几束光线突然照在他憔悴的，饱经风霜的脸颊。一张粗粝的脸，凹凸不平，五官棱角分明，眉毛、鼻子和下巴似乎都受到了狂风的侵蚀。一张图卢兹-劳特累克作品中的脸，敏捷而迷人。这是一张服务生的脸，而不是食客的脸。服务生的怒火在顺从的微笑背后燃烧得最旺盛。安不会太喜欢这张面孔的。斯迈利把照片放在原地，慢慢爬起来，好让自己保持清醒，然后在房间里踱来踱去，试图理解这个人的意义，但失败了，他想这是否都只是想象而已。他想，有些人会不露声色地传递信息。有些人——你一碰到他们，他们就会把自己的过去一五一十告诉你，好像是很自然地给你的一份礼物。有些人一认识就跟你亲密得不得了。
在安的写字台前，他停了下来，再次盯着电话。她的。她和海登的。她和所有人的。他想，这个型号是叫特里姆林，还是斯里姆林？多给了邮局五镑，就为了这既过时又有点未来主义的外形设计，真不知道有什么快乐可言。她以前常把它叫做“我的浪女电话”，我的小情人用“嗡嗡”铃声，我的大情人用“呜呜”铃声。他意识到电话铃在响。已经响了很久了，那是小情人用的小声铃音。他放下酒杯，仍然盯着电话，电话还在发出颤声。他记得，她放音乐的时候，经常把电话和地板上的唱片放在一起。她还常常和电话躺在一起——在那里，在火炉边，在那里——臀部随意地抬起一点，这样万一有来电，可以方便接电话。她上床睡觉时，会拔掉电源，带着它，在夜里安慰自己。当他们做爱的时候，他知道他是所有没有来电话的男人的替代品。前十一个人的替代品。也是比尔·海登的替代品，虽然他已经死了。
It had stopped ringing.
What does she do now? Try the Second Eleven? To be beautiful and Ann is one thing, she had said to him not long ago; to be beautiful and Ann’s age will soon be another. And to be ugly and mine is another again, he thought furiously. Taking up the contact print, he resumed, with fresh intensity, his contemplations.
Shadows, he thought. Smudges of light and dark, ahead of us, behind us, as we lurch along our ways. Imp’s horns, devil’s horns, our shadows so much larger than ourselves. Who is he? Who was he? I met him. I refused to. And if I refused to, how do I know him? He was a supplicant of some kind, a man with something to sell—intelligence, then? Dreams? Wakefully now, he stretched out on the sofa—anything rather than go upstairs to bed—and with the print before him, began plodding through the long galleries of his professional memory, holding the lamp to the half-forgotten portraits of charlatans, gold-markers, fabricators, pedlars, middlemen, hoods, rogues, and occasionally heroes who made up the supporting cast of his multitudinous acquaintance; looking for the one hollowed face that, like a secret sharer, seemed to have swum out of the little contact photograph to board his faltering consciousness. The lamp’s beam flitted, hesitated, returned. I was deceived by the darkness, he thought. I met him in the light. He saw a ghastly, neon-lit hotel bedroom—Muzak and tartan wallpaper, and the little stranger perched smiling in a corner, calling him Max. A little ambassador—but representing what cause, what country? He recalled an overcoat with velvet tabs, and hard little hands jerking out their own dance. He recalled the passionate, laughing eyes, the crisp mouth opening and closing swiftly, but he heard no words. He felt a sense of loss—of missing the target—of some other, looming shadow being present while they spoke.
Maybe, he thought. Everything is maybe. Maybe Vladimir was shot by a jealous husband after all, he thought, as the front doorbell screamed at him like a vulture, two rings.
铃声已经停了。
她现在在做什么？试试下一批十一个人吗？她不久前对他说过，现在美丽和安是同一回事；美丽和安的年龄很快又会是两回事。而美人迟暮和做我的女人又是另外的两回事，他愤懑地想。他拿起照片，重新集中注意力仔细研究。
阴影，他想。在我们蹒跚前行的路上，前方，后方，明暗交错，都是影子。小妖精的角，魔鬼的角，我们的影子比我们自己大得多。他是谁？他是谁？我见过他。我拒绝见他。但如果我拒绝见他，我怎么会认识他？他是某种东西的提供者，是个兜售什么东西的人——是卖情报的吧？我在做梦？现在他清醒了，在沙发上伸了个懒腰——无论如何也不愿上楼去睡觉——拿着面前的照片，开始在职业记忆的长廊中蹒跚而行，拿着灯对着那些半被遗忘的肖像，这些肖像包括江湖骗子、黄金贩子、造假者、小贩、中间商、流氓、无赖，偶尔还有英雄，在他认识的人当中，这些人扮演了配角的角色。他在寻找那张凹陷的脸，那张脸似乎和他分享着一个秘密，已经从那张小小的照片中游了出来，登上了他脑海里颠簸的小船。灯的光束闪烁着，犹豫着，又回来了。他想，我被黑暗欺骗了。我在灯光下和他见过面。他看到的是一间霓虹灯照亮的可怕的酒店卧室——嘈杂的音乐和格子呢墙纸，小个子陌生人微笑着坐在角落里，叫他“马克斯”。一个小大使——但代表什么事业、什么国家呢？他想起了一件带天鹅绒标签的大衣，一双硬邦邦的小手正跳着自己的舞蹈。他想起了那双热情洋溢、带着笑意的眼睛，6.轮廓分明的嘴巴迅速地张开又合上，但他听不到任何言语。他有一种失落感——错过了目标——在他们说话的时候，另一个若隐若现的影子也在场。
也许，他想。一切都是也许。他想，也许弗拉基米尔终究是被戴绿帽子的丈夫枪杀的，这时前门的门铃响了两声，好像秃鹫在尖叫一样。
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