狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第27章Part 15

'You know he has bought me,' she resumed. 'Or that he will, to-morrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy to-morrow. God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!'
Compress into one handsome face the conscious self-abasement, and the burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and in pride; and there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms.
'What do you mean?' returned the angry mother. 'Haven't you from a child - '
'A child!' said Edith, looking at her, 'when was I a child? What childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride tonight'
And as she spoke, she struck her hand upon her beautiful bosom, as though she would have beaten down herself.

'Look at me,' she said, 'who have never known what it is to have an honest heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when children play; and married in my youth - an old age of design - to one for whom I had no feeling but indifference. Look at me, whom he left a widow, dying before his inheritance descended to him - a judgment on you! well deserved! - and tell me what has been my life for ten years since.'
'We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a good establishment,' rejoined her mother. 'That has been your life. And now you have got it.'
'There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been, for ten shameful years,' cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the same bitter emphasis on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have fools, have profligates, have boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by one rejected me, and fallen off, because you were too plain with all your cunning: yes, and too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost come to be notorious? The licence of look and touch,' she said, with flashing eyes, 'have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the map of England? Have I been hawked and vended here and there, until the last grain of self-respect is dead within me, and I loathe myself? Has been my late childhood? I had none before. Do not tell me that I had, tonight of all nights in my life!'

“你知道他已買了我，”她繼續說道，“或者他明天將買我。他已考慮好這宗買賣；他已把它向朋友們顯示；他甚至還很得意；他覺得它對他很合適，價錢也許還很便宜；他明天就要買了。上帝啊，我就是爲了這而活着的，我感覺到了這一點！”
有意識的自卑自賤，一百個極爲激動與高傲的女人的熾烈的憤怒，全都凝集在一張美麗的臉孔中；這張臉孔掩藏在兩隻雪白的胳膊中。
“你是什麼意思？”發怒的母親回答道，“難道你不是從小就——”
“從小！”伊迪絲看着她，說道，“當我是個孩子的時候？你讓我度過了什麼樣的童年？在我認識我自己或認識你之前，甚至在我明白我每新學會一種炫示自己的手段所包藏的卑鄙與邪惡的目的之前，我早已成了個女人，狡猾，奸詐，唯利是圖，設下圈套去引誘男人。你生下的就是個女人。你看看她吧，今晚正是她最得意的時候。”
她一邊說，一邊用手敲打着自己美麗的胸脯，彷彿她想要把自己打倒似的。

“看着我吧，”她說道，“我從來就不知道誠實的心和愛情是什麼樣的。看着我吧，小時候跟小朋友一起做遊戲的時候，我就被教會了耍花招，設圈套；我在青年時代——就老謀深算來說，已可以稱得上是老年了——，被嫁給了一個我對他毫無感情而只是漠不關心的人。看着我吧，他讓我當上了寡婦，他自己則在還沒有繼承遺產之前就死去了——這是上帝對你的最後審判！罪有應得！——你再告訴我吧，從那時以來的這十年，我的生活是個什麼樣的生活！”
“我們一直來竭盡一切努力，設法使你得到一個好家庭，”她的母親回答道，“這就是你一直來的生活。現在你已經得到它了。”
“市場上沒有一個奴隸，市集上沒有一匹馬曾經像我在這可恥的十年中這樣被展出，被開價，被細細觀察和被誇耀的，媽媽！”伊迪絲滿臉怒火地喊道，她用同樣譏諷的語氣說出了那兩個字，“難道不是這樣嗎？難道我沒有成爲各種男子的笑柄嗎？難道傻瓜、色鬼、小夥子、老頭子不都曾來糾纏過我，又都一個個地拋棄我和離開我了嗎？因爲你儘管狡猾，但卻太露骨了；是的，你儘管有那些虛僞的口實，但你的真情實意是太清楚了，所以後來我們幾乎聲名狼藉了，“她眼中閃着怨憤的光芒，說道，“難道我不曾逆來順受，容許在英國地圖上一半的遊樂場所被觀看和觸摸嗎？難道我不曾在這裏、那裏被麼喝和出賣，直到我失去最後一點自尊心並厭惡我自己爲止嗎？難道這就是我最近的童年嗎？我以前不曾有過童年，無論如何也別在今晚對我說，我有過童年。”