Henry James - Too Distinguished to be a Personality 汉译

When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A gentleman--with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision of sitters. Sitters my visitors in this case proved to be; but not in the sense I should have preferred. However, there was nothing at first to indicate that they might not have come for a portrait......It was a truth of which I had for some time been conscious that a figure with a good deal of frontage was, as one might say, almost never a public institution. A glance at the lady helped to remind me of this paradoxical law: She also looked too distinguished to be a “personality”. Moreover one would scarcely come across two variations together.

当守门人的妻子（她一向是在应门的）来通报说：“先生，有一位绅士带了一位女客来了。”因为愿望是思想的根源，正如我在当时所常有的情形一样，现在一听说有客人来，心理马上就想到是找我画像的人来了。这次来找我的人，果真是为画像而来的，不过却不是我所指望的对象。虽然如此，起初并没有一点什么迹象显示他们可能不是为画像而来的。……从不久以前起，我就留意到了一个事实，那就是一个风度翩翩的人物，我们不妨说，他差不多从来不会是一个社会上的名人。那个女客，一眼看去，就使我想起这种逆说的定则：她看去也是太杰出而不成其为一个名人呢。而且我们极少会同时遇到两个例外的。