The Moon And Sixpence 1.9

RobertStrickland's innocent biography that it is difficult to avoid feeling a certainsympathy for the unlucky parson. His decent reticence is branded as hypocrisy,his circumlocutions are roundly called lies, and his silence is vilified astreachery. And on the strength of peccadillos, reprehensible in an author, butexcusable in a son, the Anglo-Saxon race is accused of prudishness, humbug,pretentiousness, deceit, cunning, and bad cooking.

Personally Ithink it was rash of Mr. Strickland, in refuting the account which had gainedbelief of a certain "unpleasantness" between his father and mother,to state that Charles Strickland in a letter written from Paris had describedher as "an excellent woman, " since Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz was ableto print the letter in facsimile, and it appears that the passage referred toran in fact as follows: God damn my wife. She is an excellent woman. I wish shewas in hell. It is not thus that the Church in its great days dealt withevidence that was unwelcome.

魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士在评论罗伯特·思特里克兰德牧师那部天真的传记时所用的词句，读起来很难叫人对这位不幸的牧师不感到同情。凡是这位牧师为了维护体面不便畅言的地方都被攻击为虚伪，凡是他铺陈赘述的章节则率直地被叫作谎言，作者对某些事情保持缄默则干脆被魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹斥之为背叛。作品中的这些缺陷，从一个传记作家的角度来看，固然应该受到指摘，但作为传记主人公的儿子倒也情有可原；倒霉的是，竟连盎格鲁-萨克逊民族也连带遭了殃，被魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹博士批评为假装正经、作势吓人、自命不凡、狡猾欺心，只会烹调倒人胃口的菜饭。讲到我个人的意见，我认为思特里克兰德牧师在驳斥外间深入人心的一种传述——关于他父母之间某些“不愉快”的事件时，实在不够慎重。他在传记里引证查理斯· 思特里克兰德从巴黎写的一封家信，说他父亲称呼自己的妻子为“了不起的女人”，而魏特布瑞希特-罗特霍尔兹却把原信复制出来；原来思特里克兰德牧师引证的这段原文是这样的：“叫上帝惩罚我的妻子吧！这个女人太了不起了，我真希望叫她下地狱。”在教会势力鼎盛的日子，它们并不是用这种方法对待不受欢迎的事实的。

⑤泰伯利欧斯·克劳迪乌斯·尼禄（公元前42—公元37），罗马皇帝。