Chapter 6 Portrait Of A Lady（1）

Chapter 6 Portrait Of A Lady
I
‘You look very nice and brown, dear,’ said Aunt Matilda, surveying himappreciatively. ‘That’s Malaya, I suppose. If it was Malaya you went to? Orwas it Siam or Thailand? They change the names of all these places andreally it makes it very difficult. Anyway, it wasn’t Vietnam, was it? Youknow, I don’t like the sound of Vietnam at all. It’s all very confusing, NorthVietnam and South Vietnam and the Viet-Cong and the Viet–whatever theother thing is and all wanting to fight each other and nobody wanting tostop. They won’t go to Paris or wherever it is and sit round tables and talksensibly. Don’t you think really, dear– I’ve been thinking it over and Ithought it would be a very nice solution–couldn’t you make a lot of foot-ball fields and then they could all go and fight each other there, but withless lethal¹ weapons. Not that nasty palm burning stuff. You know. Just hiteach other and punch each other and all that. They’d enjoy it, everyonewould enjoy it and you could charge admission for people to go and seethem do it. I do think really that we don’t understand giving people thethings they really want.’
‘I think it’s a very fine idea of yours, Aunt Matilda,’ said Sir Stafford Nyeas he kissed a pleasantly perfumed, pale pink wrinkled cheek. ‘And howare you, my dear?’
‘Well, I’m old,’ said Lady Matilda Cleckheaton. ‘Yes, I’m old. Of courseyou don’t know what it is to be old. If it isn’t one thing it’s another.
Rheumatism² or arthritis³ or a nasty bit of asthma⁴ or a sore throat or anankle you’ve turned. Always something, you know. Nothing very import-ant. But there it is. Why have you come to see me, dear?’
Sir Stafford was slightly taken aback by the directness of the query⁵.
‘I usually come and see you when I return from a trip abroad.’
‘You’ll have to come one chair nearer,’ said Aunt Matilda. ‘I’m just thatbit deafer since you saw me last. You look different…Why do you look dif-ferent?’
‘Because I’m more sunburnt. You said so.’
‘Nonsense, that’s not what I mean at all. Don’t tell me it’s a girl at last.’
‘A girl?’
‘Well, I’ve always felt it might be one some day. The trouble is you’ve gottoo much sense of humour.’
‘Now why should you think that?’
‘Well, it’s what people do think about you. Oh yes, they do. Your sense ofhumour is in the way of your career, too. You know, you’re all mixed upwith all these people. Diplomatic and political. What they call youngerstatesmen and elder statesmen and middle statesmen too. And all thosedifferent Parties. Really I think it’s too silly to have too many Parties. Firstof all those awful, awful Labour people.’ She raised her Conservative noseinto the air. ‘Why, when I was a girl there wasn’t such a thing as a LabourParty. Nobody would have known what you meant by it. They’d have said“nonsense”. Pity it wasn’t nonsense, too. And then there’s the Liberals, ofcourse, but they’re terribly wet. And then there are the Tories, or the Con-servatives as they call themselves again now.’
‘And what’s the matter with them?’ asked Stafford Nye, smiling slightly.
‘Too many earnest women. Makes them lack gaiety, you know.’
‘Oh well, no political party goes in for gaiety much nowadays.’
‘Just so,’ said Aunt Matilda. ‘And then of course that’s where you gowrong. You want to cheer things up. You want to have a little gaiety and soyou make a little gentle fun at people and of course they don’t like it. Theysay “Ce n’est pas un gar?on sérieux,” like that man in the fishing.’
Sir Stafford Nye laughed. His eyes were wandering round the room.
‘What are you looking at?’ said Lady Matilda.
‘Your pictures.’
‘You don’t want me to sell them, do you? Everyone seems to be sellingtheir pictures nowadays. Old Lord Grampion, you know. He sold his Turn-ers and he sold some of his ancestors as well. And Geoffrey Gouldman. Allthose lovely horses of his. By Stubbs, weren’t they? Something like that.
Really, the prices one gets!
‘But I don’t want to sell my pictures. I like them. Most of them in thisroom have a real interest because they’re ancestors. I know nobody wantsancestors nowadays but then I’m old-fashioned. I like ancestors. My ownancestors, I mean. What are you looking at? Pamela?’
‘Yes, I was. I was thinking about her the other day.’
‘Astonishing how alike you two are. I mean, it’s not even as though youwere twins, though they say that different sex twins, even if they aretwins, can’t be identical, if you know what I mean.’
‘So Shakespeare must have made rather a mistake over Viola and Se-bastian.’
‘Well, ordinary brothers and sisters can be alike, can’t they? You andPamela were always very alike–to look at, I mean.’
‘Not in any other way? Don’t you think we were alike in character?’
‘No, not in the least. That’s the funny part of it. But of course you andPamela have what I call the family face. Not a Nye face. I mean the Bald-wen-White face.’
Sir Stafford Nye had never quite been able to compete when it camedown to talking on a question of genealogy⁶ with his great-aunt.
‘I’ve always thought that you and Pamela both took after Alexa,’ shewent on.
‘Which was Alexa?’
‘Your great-great–I think one more great–grandmother. Hungarian. AHungarian countess or baroness⁷ or something. Your great-great-grand-father fell in love with her when he was at Vienna in the Embassy. Yes.
Hungarian. That’s what she was. Very sporting too. They are sporting, youknow, Hungarians. She rode to hounds, rode magnificently.’
‘Is she in the picture gallery?’
‘She’s on the first landing. Just over the head of the stairs, a little to theright.’
‘I must go and look at her when I go to bed.’
‘Why don’t you go and look at her now and then you can come back andtalk about her.’
‘I will if you like.’ He smiled at her.
He ran out of the room and up the staircase. Yes, she had a sharp eye,old Matilda. That was the face. That was the face that he had seen and re-membered. Remembered not for its likeness⁸ to himself, not even for itslikeness to Pamela, but for a closer resemblance still to this picture here. Ahandsome girl brought home by his Ambassador great-great-great-grand-father if that was enough greats. Aunt Matilda was never satisfied withonly a few. About twenty she had been. She had come here and been high-spirited and rode a horse magnificently and danced divinely and men hadfallen in love with her. But she had been faithful, so it was always said, togreat-great-great-grandfather, a very steady and sober member of the Dip-lomatic Service. She had gone with him to foreign Embassies and returnedhere and had had children–three or four children, he believed. Throughone of those children the inheritance of her face, her nose, the turn of herneck had been passed down to him and to his sister, Pamela. He wonderedif the young woman who had doped his beer and forced him to lend herhis cloak and who had depicted⁹ herself as being in danger of death unlesshe did what she asked, had been possibly related as a fifth or sixth cousinremoved, a descendant of the woman pictured on the wall at which helooked. Well, it could be. They had been of the same nationality, perhaps.
Anyway their faces had resembled each other a good deal. How uprightshe’d sat at the opera, how straight that profile, the thin, slightly archedaquiline nose. And the atmosphere that hung about her.

1 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。

2 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

3 arthritis   

n.关节炎

参考例句：

• Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
• He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。

4 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。

5 query   

n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑

参考例句：

• I query very much whether it is wise to act so hastily.我真怀疑如此操之过急地行动是否明智。
• They raised a query on his sincerity.他们对他是否真诚提出质疑。

6 genealogy   

n.家系，宗谱

参考例句：

• He had sat and repeated his family's genealogy to her,twenty minutes of nonstop names.他坐下又给她细数了一遍他家族的家谱，20分钟内说出了一连串的名字。
• He was proficient in all questions of genealogy.他非常精通所有家谱的问题。

7 baroness   

n.男爵夫人，女男爵

参考例句：

• I'm sure the Baroness will be able to make things fine for you.我相信男爵夫人能够把家里的事替你安排妥当的。
• The baroness,who had signed,returned the pen to the notary.男爵夫人这时已签过字，把笔交回给律师。

8 likeness   

n.相像，相似（之处）

参考例句：

• I think the painter has produced a very true likeness.我认为这位画家画得非常逼真。
• She treasured the painted likeness of her son.她珍藏她儿子的画像。

9 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。