第239期：简·奥斯汀的一天

想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。 一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。 《简·奥斯汀的一天》 A Day in the Life of Jane Austen At Chawton1), Jane Austen revised her first three novels and wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. She rose early, getting up to practice the piano without disturbing her mother, her sister and her best friend, Martha Lloyd, who lived with them. We can suppose that Jane also wanted time to herself before the day’s round of visits from friends, relatives and neighbours began. Her piano would have had the soft tones of the 1810 Clementi one now housed in the Jane Austen’s house museum. Jane, like her creations Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility and Jane Fairfax in Emma, was a very good pianist. Apart from piano practice, Jane’s other early morning duty was to make tea and coffee. Tea, coffee and chocolate are all mentioned in her novels. Miss Bates in Emma never drinks coffee, while greedy Arthur Parker in Sanditon2) loves hot chocolate and is proud of his toast-making skills. Meals of the Day Breakfast was eaten a few hours after a family had got up, so after quite a portion of the day’s work had been done. It wasn’t the full English—heartier3) breakfasts were a Victorian4) innovation—but people sat down together, and at Chawton Cottage they could be spied through the window if you happened to be on a passing coach. Lunch was also a simple affair. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language defined it (around 20 years before Jane’s birth) as “as much food as one’s hand can hold.” Dinner was the main meal of the day and served any time in the afternoon or early evening. In Pride and Prejudice the Bennets have their dinner at half past four, while the Bingleys at Netherfield eat it at half past six. In The Watsons, Tom Musgrave boasts of not eating dinner until 8 pm. The times given in Jane’s novels reflect the way particular families were influenced by society fashions. Georgian5) dinners would consist of two courses or more, each of sweet and savoury6) dishes served at the same time. Supper was a light affair, often served to visitors such as those who come to play cards with Mr Woodhouse in Emma. Most people didn’t want it to be quite as light as he did: “Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart7)—a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome8) preserves9) here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine? A small half glass—put into a tumbler of water?” (Emma, Chapter 3) Sewing and Socialising Sewing occupied much of the Austen women’s time. A quilt Jane made with Cassandra and their mother consists of more than 3,000 diamonds10) of 64 different dressmaking and furnishing fabrics. It is today on display at Jane Austen’s House Museum. Jane’s most comfortable outfit of the day was worn first thing11)—a loose cambric12) morning gown that would only have been seen by family and close friends. Ladies changed to go out walking, shopping and visiting, and again for dinner. An endless stream of visitors took a toll on13) Jane’s ability to work. Before the coming of the railways, travelling took such a long time that guests would often stay for several weeks. This is from a letter to Cassandra dated 8 September 1816 after some guests had just departed: “... I was not sorry when Friday came. It had been a busy week, and I wanted a few days quiet and exemption14) from the thought and contrivancy15) which any sort of company gives … Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints16) of mutton and doses of rhubarb17).” Jane liked to work by a window in the dining room. Her view was of the road through the village and she enjoyed a little distraction. On 23 June 1814 she wrote to Cassandra about some neighbours nearly missing the coach (Collier’s) that left from the centre of the village: “Mrs. Driver, &c. , are off by Collier, but so near being too late that she had not time to call and leave the keys herself. I have them, however. I suppose one is the key of the linen-press18), but I do not know what to guess the other. The coach was stopped at the blacksmith’s, and they came running down with Triggs and Browning, and trunks, and birdcages. Quite amusing.” From this it is only a short step to the scene Jane paints of Highbury where Emma looks out from Ford’s, the shop at the centre of the village: “… Emma went to the door for amusement. Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury; Mr. Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office door, Mr. Cole’s carriage horses returning from exercise, or a stray19) letter-boy on an obstinate20) mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect… “She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law [Frank Churchill]; they were walking into Highbury; to Hartfield21) of course. They were stopping, however, in the first place at Mrs. Bates’s; whose house was a little nearer Randalls than Ford’s; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their eye…” (Emma, Chapter 27) This scene was pioneering for its realism and use of point of view. We see the world through Emma’s eyes and are led to believe that Frank Churchill, whom Emma spies coming down the road, is on the way to see her, not Jane Fairfax. Jane’s Writing Kit Jane wrote in small homemade booklets (quires) which could easily be tidied away or hidden under blotting paper22) if somebody disturbed her. She liked to give people the impression that she was writing letters. Paper was expensive during the Napoleonic Wars23), as the same raw materials were required for bandages. It was sold by the sheet and then cut to the required size. Watermarks24) of year of manufacture and the maker’s name help to date manuscripts; some of Jane’s paper was used a few years after it was made or bought. She produced her manuscripts economically , adding patches with pins where necessary. The watermarks of these patches show how time elapsed between composition and editing. For hundreds of years, ink was made using oak apples. Jane Austen used this oak apple ink. It could be bought in powder form or made from scratch at home. It appears greyish when it is first used but dries much darker. It fades with time to the brown we associate with old letters, a return to the colour of oak apples in autumn. Jane fitted writing around other activities, sometimes absenting herself from card games or suddenly getting up and hurrying to her desk, laughing out loud at what she had thought of. But we have very little primary material to help us understand her working methods. Family recollections and Jane’s letters shed some light onto her habits—that she rose early but worked at other times of day too, and also that she spent periods in London working on her proofs25). Her writing box (the Georgian equivalent of a laptop) was bought by her father in Basingstoke in December 1794, so was probably a present for her 19th birthday. It seems to have gone with her everywhere. Jane described herself and her friend Martha Lloyd as “desperate walkers,” and only the very worst weather could keep them indoors. Walks were likely a key part of Jane’s plotting and planning process. The little notebooks that she made could be carried in her pocket with a pencil. These were Jane’s Chawton days. When she was in London her time was spent very differently: at the theatre, exhibitions and parties and working with her publishers. She wrote to Cassandra on 24 May 1813: “I had great amusement among the pictures; and the driving about, the carriage being open, was very pleasant. I liked my solitary elegance very much, and was ready to laugh all the time at my being where I was.” 在查顿小镇，简·奥斯汀修订了她最早写的三部小说，并创作了《曼斯菲尔德庄园》《爱玛》和《劝导》。她日常早起练习钢琴，但不会吵醒妈妈、姐姐以及和她们同住的好友玛莎·劳埃德。我们可以推测出，简想在朋友、亲戚和邻居当天轮番来访前拥有一些自己的时间。 她的钢琴应该会有现今收藏于奥斯汀故居博物馆的那架1810年产克莱门蒂牌钢琴的轻柔音质。像她在《理智与情感》中所塑造的玛丽安·达什伍德和在《爱玛》中所塑造的简·菲尔费克斯一样，简是一位非常出色的钢琴家。除了练琴以外，简早起的另一项任务是煮茶和咖啡。茶、咖啡和巧克力在她的小说中都有所提及。《爱玛》中的贝茨小姐从来不喝咖啡，而《桑迪顿》中贪婪的亚瑟·帕克却钟爱热巧克力且对自己烤面包的手艺引以为豪。 一日三餐 早餐开饭时间在一家人起床的几小时之后，这样当天相当一部分工作都已经做完了。此时吃的不是全套英式早餐——更为丰盛的早餐要到维多利亚时代才出现——但是人们会坐在一起共享。你如果碰巧乘马车路过他们在查顿的房舍，可以通过窗户看到他们。 午餐也很简单。塞缪尔·约翰逊的《约翰逊字典》(大约在简出生前20年完成)将其定义为“差不多一只手能拿得住的食物”。晚餐是一天的正餐，开饭时间可以是下午或傍晚的任何时候。在《傲慢与偏见》中，贝纳特一家下午四点半用晚餐，而内瑟菲尔德庄园的宾利一家则在傍晚六点半吃晚餐。在《沃森一家》中，汤姆·马斯格雷夫吹嘘说，自己要到晚上八点才吃晚饭。简的小说中提到的不同的晚餐时间反映了特定的家庭受到社会潮流影响的不同情况。 乔治王时代的晚餐会包括两道或两道以上的菜品，这些香甜可口的菜肴是同时端上饭桌的。夜宵则清淡，通常供应给像《爱玛》中来与伍德豪斯先生打牌这样的客人。大多数客人都不愿意夜宵像伍德豪斯先生吃得那样清淡：“贝茨小姐，让爱玛帮你夹一小块水果馅饼——很小的一块。我们家的馅饼都是苹果馅的。您不必担心，这里没有对身体不利的果酱。我不劝你吃蛋奶糕。戈尔德太太，来半杯葡萄酒怎么样？就小半杯——兑上一杯水吧？”(《爱玛》，第三章) …………………… 文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2017年7月号