Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress
一个老情妇对年轻妻子的忠告
By Michael Drury

    英语单词mistress的含义可以是“（一家的）主妇”，也可以是“情妇”。笔者一位友人将本文标题中的mistress理解为前者，所以，就难以理解和赏读全文。
    何谓情妇（mistress）?《现代汉语词典》对“情妇”的解释是：男女两人，一方或双方已有配偶，他们之间发生性爱的违法行为，女方是男方的情妇。
    作者Michael Drury,一个男性化的名字，其实，是一位女性。她是一位freelance writer(不受雇于人的自由作家)。
    作者如何会沦为“情妇”？她坦诚撩起了“隐私”的面纱：
    I was once a wife, too, and in love---but childlessness wrecked our marriage. Eventually we divorced---against my wishes at first, though the marriage was by then a shell.
In two years’ time, I met a man through work. He was married, and I knew he world never of his own accord undo it. So when he suggested a relationship between us. I was astonished. What we did was wrong.
    不少国人对性开放的西方社会历来心存误解，好像“情妇”现象是西方社会所容忍、所欣赏的。否！上段的末句（What we did was wrong）就是一明证。
文章在别处还写道：
    …society assumes that because a mistress is in the wrong, she has nothing to say to a woman in the right.
    Being a mistress is bad for society—and for one’s children, home, security, old age.
    由此可见，西方社会对“情妇”现象持完全否定的态度，并认为此现象为害甚烈。
    那么，作为一名遭受社会谴责的“情妇”，怎么有资格对young wife进行说教呢？其说教的内容又是什么呢？——这正是本文的价值与可读性之所在。
     Michael Drury成此文时，也许垂垂老矣。回首“情妇”生涯，坎坷人生，百感齐袭！人之将死，其言也善。
    刊登本文的美国一家著名期刊，使用一句话总结本文：Surprising insight from a surprising source。
    细读此文，对千千万万初为人妻者，也许会在她们的心灵之海激起层层涟漪。
    此文出自作家之手，文字功力自然不凡。虽然本文观点不尽适合国人的婚姻生活，但是，读者仍可发现本文积极观点叠现，有益建议层出：
1. 婚姻不是例行公事
2. 应当学会被爱
3. 魅力来自“犹抱琵琶半遮面”
4. 为妻者不必置喙丈夫事业
5. 计划未来，毋忘立足目前
6. 不要让“爱”淹没在家务中
7. 性生活应体现想象与活力
8. 不要注重表象的和谐
9. 妻子应有个人爱好
    文章弥漫着一种含蓄美，朦胧中，读者可以见仁见智，本文好像是专门写给女同胞，尤其是新婚女子的，它的结尾经得起仔细琢磨：
    When one is young, and a new wife, it is easy to forget that the first and last requirement is to be a woman.
    真是耐人寻味的结尾！读者朋友，您同意吗？

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I am more like you that you might suppose. I was once a wife, too, and in love---but childlessness wrecked our marriage. Eventually we divorced---against my wishes at first, though the marriage was by then a shell.
我远比你想象的更像你。我也一样曾是位妻子，沐浴在爱河中。但婚后无子的生活使我们的婚姻陷入了危机。尽管婚姻有如一层空壳，起先我也并不同意，不过最终我们还是离婚了。
In two years’ time, I met a man through work. He was married, and I knew he would never of his own accord undo it. So when he suggested a relationship between us. I was astonished. What we did was wrong; we made no defense for it.
两年之后，我在工作中结识了一个已婚男人，我知道他绝无可能自愿地解除婚约。所以当他希望我们俩进一步交往时，我很惊讶。我们的所作所为是一种错误，根本无法为它做任何辩解。
1 was once young and now I am old. From my mountain peak of years of experience, I can only conclude that if a mistress knows more of romance and a wife more of practicalities, there is some wholeness there worth exploring. Wives and mistresses can learn from one another. But they rarely do, since society assumes that because a mistress is in the wrong, she has nothing to say to a woman in the right. But she does.
我也曾年轻过，现在却垂垂老矣。根据我多年的生活经验，我只能作这样的总结，如果一个情人谙熟浪漫，一个主妇精通家政，那么，两者的结合是值得探讨的。妻子和情人间可以相互学习，但是她们很少这么做。因为社会普遍认为情妇是一种错误的存在，她在良家妇女面前没有发言权。但事实上她有。
Not by Bread Alone. Marriage is unquestionably more convenient than a love affair. That in itself ought to warn a wise wife against letting it become a mere convenience, like a membership in a good club.
婚姻不是例行公事。无疑，风流韵事要偷偷摸摸，而婚姻生活则简单得多。正因为此，一个聪明的妻子应该引起警惕，不要让婚姻生活仅仅流于形式，就好像一个高档俱乐部的成员一样。
Being a mistress is bad for society—and for one’s children, home, security, old age. But a love affair imparts adventure, and adventure is as needful to the soul as food is to the body.
情妇是一种社会危害，对一个人的孩子、家庭、安全感和晚年来说都是如此。但是这种风花雪月给了人们一种刺激感，我们内心深处对冒险的渴求就好像我们身体对食物的需要一样。
Men and women are both taught to put aside adventure with adolescence. But if a man does not live by bread alone, neither does he by a paycheck and enough insurance and coming home at the same time each day. Men — and women — must be bold or die inside. Marriage produces its own downfall when it tries to prevent boldness and sew up the future, and daring and hope, in a bag.
男人，女人在成长的过程中都被告知不要冒险。然而，一个人并不是仅仅依靠面包生活，也不是靠着薪金，充裕的保险以及每天按时回家来过日子。男人，还有女人，都得敢作敢为，否则，其心将死。如果婚姻扼杀敢作敢为，或者把前途、勇气和希望都封杀了，那么婚姻将走向没落。
On Being Loved. A successful mistress knows how to be loved; it seldom occurs to a wife that it is necessary to learn. Few things could be more misleading than the precept that the way to be loved is—just to love.
应当学会被爱。一个成功的情人知道如何来获得宠爱；而一名妻子很少想到这也是需要学习的。只要去爱就能得到爱，没有比这更误导人的箴言了。
If there is a secret to being loved it lies in not having to be loved. It is this ability a mistress must accommodate. Once she understands that were the love affair to end, she herself would survive, she has the power to be loved, almost to command it.
如果有什么秘诀来得到宠爱那就是不强求被爱。这是一个情人必须掌握的能力。一旦她知道那些风流往事已成过眼云烟时，她会泰然处之，她就是有这种惹人怜爱的本领，几乎是谙于此道。
We are responsible for ourselves. The men and women who face this fact without blinking are the most attractive people on earth. They will always be loved, because they have learned how.
我们要对自己负责。能正视这些问题眼皮也不眨的男女就是这世上最有魅力的人。他们总是被人喜爱，因为他们知道如何去做。
On Keeping Love. A man I once knew returned from war duty on unexpected leave to find his wife living with another man. Stunned and furious, he threw the man out, bodily, then walked away himself. Months passed while he delayed action on the pending divorce, and when I asked him why, he said, “I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m through-- there’s no doubt. Only I would have sworn I knew her down to her fingertips. That I obviously didn’t makes me — well, half-attracted again. She’s like a stranger.”
魅力来自“犹抱琵琶半遮面”。我曾经认识一个在服役的男子意外请假回到家里,却发现自己的妻子和另一个男人同居！他惊呆了，然后怒不可遏地将那男子整个扔了出去，接着他自己也离去了。几个月过去，在待决的离婚中他却迟迟没有采取行动。当被问及为什么时，他说：“我明白这毫无意义，我已经想开了——这没什么可疑问的。只是我曾经满以为我对她了如指掌。显然，我不了解她，这个事实，怎么说呢，使我又有几分被她吸引住了。她就像一个路人。”
If you would stay loved, stay unpredictable a little. Maintain a reserve of mind and heart. That is neither self-indulgence nor a conjurer’s trick; it is a clause you must obey in order to make a happy marriage.
如果你希望让爱情常驻，最好保持点神秘感。保留一点私人的空间。这不是任性也不是耍小把戏；而是为了让婚姻幸福你必须遵循的条款。
Don’t Meddle. Too many wives like to help the husband’s career and are dismayed when it is not appreciated. Any man worth his salt wants to get there on his own volition. The cliche of the man discarding the wife who helped him become successful is both a truism and a rough justice. In a way, his leaving is almost as necessary as his going out from his mother’s earlier help.
为妻者不必置喙丈夫事业。有太多的妻子们喜欢在事业上帮助自己的丈夫，又通常因为得不到对方的赞许而沮丧不已。每个称职的男人都希望通过自己的努力来获得成功。呆板迂腐的男人通过妻子的帮助而取得成功，最终却将她们抛弃的例子并不少见而且也不无道理。某种程度上，他的离开就如挣脱母亲的怀抱一样，是必需的。
One of the best marriages I ever witnessed was based in part upon the clearheadedness of the husband who, as a bridegroom, took his wife’s hands and said, “My dear, I love you and 1 want to have a home and children with you, and a meeting of true minds. But leave my work alone!”
我见过的一场最成功的婚姻，主要是得益于丈夫清醒的头脑，作为新郎他挽着妻子的手说，“亲爱的，我爱你，我希望和你共建家庭、养儿育女，永远心心相印。但是请别干涉我的工作！”
That man was just beginning a career as a novelist and playwright. His wife nurtured dreams of opening nights, being coaxed onstage in mink coat to share a bow. She saw herself bringing sandwiches to his study, and instead discovered her husband worked in a grubby office that was virtually off-limits. Once she told him the place was cold, and he yelled, “I like it that way!” But when his first book was published, he dedicated it to his wife.
这个男人是位小说家和剧作家，事业刚刚起步。他妻子的梦想，是在明朗的夜晚，穿着貂皮大衣站在台上向大家鞠躬致意。她亲自把三明治端进他的书房，却发现丈夫的房间脏乱不堪，简直没法走进去。有一次她告诉丈夫说这个地方很冷，他却吼道，“我就喜欢这样！”但当他的第一本书出版时，他将此书献给了妻子。
Living in the Moment. Wives and mistresses have different clocks. A wife can become so engrossed with the future that she ceases to live today. Everything is for tomorrow: the children’s education, the bigger house, retirement. A mistress lives perhaps too much in the present, but this immediacy is a lodestar.
计划未来，勿忘立足目前。妻子和情人的时钟大不相同。一位妻子对未来过于关注，好像此时此刻的生活对她来说毫无意义。她做的每件事都是为了明天：孩子的教育、更大的房子，退休问题。一个情人则可能过分注重此情此景，活在当下就是她的指导原则。
Anybody with common sense looks a little to the future, but not without enjoying the present. A young widow struggling to make ends meet said to me, “I’m glad every day for all the reckless thing we did. If we had waited till we could afford them, now it would be too late.”
任何有常识的人都会多少考虑下未来，但也懂得享受现在。一个年轻的寡妇量入为出、生活艰难，她对我说，“我很高兴我和他曾经不计后果享受了生活，如果我们等到能够担负得起时，一切都会太晚了。”
On Housework. The man whose mistress I was once said to me, in a fit, I suppose, of home-grown annoyance, “If you ever want me to leave you, do housework.” He did not mean it didn’t have to be done; he meant not to make it the focus of our lives. Nor did he mean housework alone; he meant triviality of any kind.
不要让“爱”淹没在家务中。一个男人——我曾是他的情人，有一次对我说，“如果你希望我离开你，就去忙家务活吧。”我想他是因为自家的一些烦心事而一时失口。他意思并不是家务活不需要做；而是不要让它成为生活的中心；他也不仅仅是说做家务；而是指所有那些生活琐事。
Mistresses are not glamorous creatures who never sweep a floor or mend; they are surprisingly domestic. I have never known one who was not a superb cook or did not take pleasure in entertaining. Yet all such daily chores are muted, not merely in deference to others but in justice to herself.
情妇们并不是从不做扫地修补活的“花瓶”；她们善理家务。我认识的每个情妇都精于厨艺，也乐于招待。然而，她对所做的日常家务都不予声张，不仅出于对他人的尊重，也是对自己作出应有的评价。
There is a world out there, a portion of which each man and woman is born to inherit. Study something, learn something, risk more than you think you can—if in truth you wish to be loved.
这个世界就在我们眼前，每个男人和女人都要从它那里继承些什么。如果你真的想惹人喜爱——研究点东西，学习点东西，去冒险做些你自己都意想不到的事情。
On Sex. Even as a young child, I occasionally intercepted a look between my father and mother that was unmistakable. It was plain that here was a secret man-woman magic that would one day be mine. My mother would not have dreamed of detailing the sex act to us. But neither did she gloss over its existence, its practicalities, power and loveliness.
性生活应体现想象与活力。即使在我很小的时候，我就偶尔撞见父母在一起的场景，我绝对没有弄错。很显然，某一天我也会经历这种神奇的男女之事。母亲从来不会想要将做爱的细节详细说给我们听，但她也从不否认性的存在、实用、力量和魅力。
I am opposed to the modern form of sex education. We are not minds or bodies or sex urges or case histories any more than we are mechanisms for breathing or digesting.
我对现今的性教育是持反对意见的。我们不是机械的头脑、身体、性需求或者病例，正如我们不是机械的呼吸或者消化装置一样。
What shocks me is the dehumanization of sex by young wives who reduce that powerful force to a technique no different from driving a car or mastering the methods of good grooming. Have women no instincts anymore, no mystery or mettle? Must everything be subjected to instruction and manuals, as if love were a kind of cooking school?
让我震惊的是年轻的妻子们在性问题上渐失人性化的处理，她们把这种强大的力量降级为一种无异于开车或喂饲的技巧。女人们都失去本能，没有一点神秘感或渴求了吗？难道什么事都必须照着指示或者手册上说的去做，好像爱情就是某种厨师学校一样？
I know the current cult: if physical rapture is lacking, the mechanism needs tuning up, and the wise couple seeks professional help. The very concept is self-defeating. The more conscious they become of what “ought” to be, the further removed they are from the spontaneity, skill, surprise and delight they desire.
我知道如今的惯用伎俩：如果生理上缺乏激情，我们就要想办法调整，聪明的夫妻们会去寻求专家的帮助。正是这种观念让事情弄巧成拙了。他们越是有意识地去做那些“应该”做的事，那他们就越是远离了自发性，技巧，惊喜和所期待的喜悦。
What sex desperately needs is not education but imagination. A mistress cares nothing for theories and norms. She is immediately and intensely caught up in one man, and in her own experience with him.
性生活所迫切需要的不是教育指导而是想像力。一个情人从不关心什么理论和标准。她会马上被某个男人强烈地吸引，然后用自己的方法与之缠绵。
On Appearances. All newcomers to marriage are inescapably amateur, a little clumsy, too earnest, certainly they have arrived at a triumphant culmination instead of a precarious takeoff.
不要注重表象的和谐。所有新人们都免不了是一个新手，有一点笨拙又太过热情，显然她们已经达到了胜利的顶峰——走进了婚姻的殿堂，而不是战战兢兢地开始相处。
Amateurs are determined to make things go by rules. The amateur cook measures every drop and granule, frets if the pan is half an inch longer than the recipe specifies. The professional improvises, and disregards the book.
新手们都喜欢依章办事。她们烧饭时过于注重点点滴滴，斤斤计较于锅的大小是否完全与食谱上写的吻合。经验老道的过来人都是临时准备，才不管书上怎么写的。
A married woman can get along nicely by fulfilling the outward forms of a relationship, running a home well, savoring a social life. There is nothing wrong with that. But the wife who would not remain an amateur values these forms correctly, not mistaking them for love.
通过一些他们之间关系外在的表现形式，一个已婚的妇女可以看上去生活得很好，比如把家把持得仅仅有条，在社交活动中如鱼得水。这些都没什么错。但不再是新手的妻子会正确地判断这些表象，不会错误地把它们当成是爱情。
On Cultivating Intelligence. A wise wife cultivates at least one field to her liking and sows new seed in it continually. If children and household suffer somewhat from it, that cannot be avoided. Both will suffer far more if the marriage bogs down in monotony and indifference.
妻子应有个人爱好。一个聪明的妻子应该至少在某一方面有兴趣爱好并不断培养。如果因此少了一些给孩子和家庭的时间，那这也是不可避免的。假如婚姻陷入了单调和平淡，那孩子和家庭受到的损失会更大。
It would never occur to a mistress that keeping her mind clothed and working was dangerous to her romance; quite the opposite. This achievement doesn’t have to be of genius caliber. I have seen it in women making bread, gathering grapes, binding books, packing parachutes. But some intellectual mastery is fundamental to lasting love because it is fundamental to personality, and it is difficult to love a non-person.
一个情妇绝不会让自己思想裹足不前，也不会觉得工作会对浪漫有损；她们想的其实正相反。这些兴趣爱好不一定非得是极富天才之作。我见过妇女们把做面包，采葡萄，装订书籍，包装降落伞当作自己的兴趣爱好。但是拥有一些彰显才智的技艺是爱情历久如新的基石，因为这也正是我们个性的基础，要喜欢上一个什么也不会的人实在太难了。
Love cannot long endure where there are no selves, no terminals between which the spark can alternate: it is just that simple.
爱情是不能在没有自我，没有终点中持久的，但只要有一点火花闪现就能改变这一切：就是这么简单。
OVER THE YEARS, most of my women friends have been solidly married wives. At times we have talked, a little cautiously, about men and women, and a look of amazed acceptance would pass between us. I knew then that wives and mistresses, if they learn anything at all, learn pretty much the same things. We take different roads, but we arrive at the same destination. When one is young, and a new wife, it is easy to forget that the first and last requirement is to be a woman.
这么多年过去了，我大部分的女性朋友都成了不折不扣的家庭主妇。有时候我们在一起，带着些许慎重，谈论着关于男人和女人的话题，我们之间交换的意见都惊人的相同。于是我知道妻子和情人们要学的东西其实相当一致。我们其实殊途同归。一个年轻、新婚的妻子很容易忘记，成为一个女人才是她始终要做的事情。