经济学人145:阁楼下的生活 仆人的自述

　　Domestics in Britain
英国佣人
Life below stairs
阁楼下的生活
Servants—in their own words
仆人的自述
WINSTON CHURCHILL'S valet always said the great man could not dress himself: “He sat there like a dummy¹ and you dressed him.” Whether anyone ironed the wartime prime minister's shoe laces, washed his loose change or made sure the yolks in his boiled eggs were centred, Lucy Lethbridge does not say. But as she shows in this absorbing history, much of it in the words of servants, such things were the rule in some houses.
WINSTON CHURCHILL的男仆总是说，该伟大的男人无法自己更衣：“他笨拙地坐在那里，让你给他穿衣。” Lucy Lethbridge并没说战时是否有仆人为首相熨鞋带、洗零钱、确保餐桌上有水煮蛋蛋黄。但她在书里展现的这段历史引人入胜，用仆人的话来说，这些都是作为仆人的义务。
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This is the extreme end of Ms Lethbridge's survey—a vivid sweep from ducal palace to suburban² villa³, from lordly butler to Barnardo's orphan⁴, from decaying gentry⁵ and aspiring⁶ middles to the foreign nannies and cleaners of today. Her subject is many-branched and full of pressing issues, not least, the status of housework itself. All the same, there is a peculiar⁷ fascination⁸ about the old order, with its skivvies and tweenies and gentlemen's gentlemen. This is where the class system most resembled a theatre of the absurd, where maids became invisible by turning their faces to the wall as their master walked by. Virginia Woolf captures the ethos brilliantly in “Mrs Dalloway”, where a society lunch is apparently⁹ magicked into existence. Tables self-spread with glass and silver, food self-cooks and is served, not by working women, but by handmaidens, “adepts in a mystery”.
Ms Lethbridge向我们展现了截然不同的生活场景—从公爵官邸里忙碌的大扫除到僻静的郊区住宅，从贵族男管家到Barnardo的孤儿，从衰落的贵族、兴起的中产阶级到外国保姆，如今的清洁工。所列议题广而紧迫，尤其是家务劳动本身的情形。但过去关于下等佣人、女仆、贴身男仆的约定俗成也同样令人好奇。 这就是阶级体系与荒诞派戏剧最为相似的部分，一看到主人，女仆们就要扭头脸贴墙变成隐形人。Virginia Woolf在《达洛维夫人》一书中绝妙地捕捉了这种社会现象。社交午餐何其充满了魔力，餐桌自己摆上了杯具和刀叉，食物自己煮好端上桌。其实这些并非职业女性所为，而是出自“善于隐形”的女仆之手。
Ms Lethbridge is good on the mystifications that enveloped¹⁰ both employers and employed. Most servants were drudges¹¹ or “slaveys”. It was estimated that a maid carried three tonnes of hot water up and down stairs each week. And they were expected to be grateful for a place in a home rather than a factory (often they were). A home, so the myth went, was a haven¹² of moral purity and order. Even its furniture was sanctified. According to one advice book, a maid should keep a place in her heart for it, next only to family. No amount of digging with chapped fingers into greasy¹³ saucepans could shake the employers' sense of conferring a privilege.
Ms Lethbridge擅长刻画雇主与佣工身上的神秘莫测。大多数仆人过去做过苦力，当过“奴隶”。据估计，一个女仆每周要拎三公吨的热水楼上楼下地忙碌。对此他们心存感激，因为他们可以住在称作家的地方，而不是住在工厂。家如同神话般被视为纯洁的道德和秩序的庇护所。就连家具都充满了神圣感。一本指南里写道，女仆应当忠于它们仅次于忠于这个家庭。女仆用皲裂的双手清洗油锅洗得再多也不会动摇雇主享受特权的信念。
Nor could anything modernise¹⁴ them. American innovations, such as rubber gloves, detergents¹⁵ and vacuum cleaners, took decades to arrive in Britain. True cachet lay in the old and customary. There is a wonderful story of footmen having to remove for cleaning all the electric lamps each morning, as if they were oil lamps. As for Lloyd George's 1911 bill to bring in compulsory¹⁶ insurance and unemployment benefits for servants, there was uproar¹⁷; the delicate balance between employer and servant would be destroyed, it was said.
没有事物能让英国佣人与时俱进。美国的发明创造，像是橡胶手套、洗涤剂、吸尘器，过了几十年才在英国流行起来。老派的作风习惯体现了真正的贵族威望。有个有趣的故事是说一名男仆每早起来都要卸下灯泡并清洁，搞得它们跟煤油灯似的。就在1911年，Lloyd George专门为仆人开设法定保险与失业津贴一事引起骚动；舆论说这将打破雇主与佣人间微妙的平衡。
Victorian and early-20th-century domestics were the largest single group of workers in Britain after agricultural labourers. Yet histories of the working class have neglected them. Scorned by their peers as flunkeys, they felt constrained¹⁸ by their position from doing much more than sing rudely over the washing-up. In telling their story so fully¹⁹ and humanely²⁰, Ms Lethbridge manages to suggest what the words to that song might have been.
维多利亚及二十世纪初期的英国，佣人是继劳农群体后最大的工人群体。而工人阶级的史料中却遗漏了这一群体。同阶层的工人蔑视他们，认为他们是奴仆，社会地位让他们无路可寻，只能边洗餐盘边唱悲歌。Ms Lethbridge通过完整人道的故事叙述，成功说明了那些歌声到底意味着什么。

1 dummy   

n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头

参考例句：

• The police suspect that the device is not a real bomb but a dummy.警方怀疑那个装置不是真炸弹，只是一个假货。
• The boys played soldier with dummy swords made of wood.男孩们用木头做的假木剑玩打仗游戏。

2 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

3 villa   

n.别墅，城郊小屋

参考例句：

• We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
• We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。

4 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。

5 gentry   

n.绅士阶级，上层阶级

参考例句：

• Landed income was the true measure of the gentry.来自土地的收入是衡量是否士绅阶层的真正标准。
• Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry.宁做自由民之首，不居贵族之末。

6 aspiring   

adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求

参考例句：

• Aspiring musicians need hours of practice every day. 想当音乐家就要每天练许多小时。
• He came from an aspiring working-class background. 他出身于有抱负的工人阶级家庭。 来自辞典例句

7 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

8 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

9 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

10 enveloped   

v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was enveloped in a huge white towel. 她裹在一条白色大毛巾里。
• Smoke from the burning house enveloped the whole street. 燃烧着的房子冒出的浓烟笼罩了整条街。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 drudges   

n.做苦工的人，劳碌的人( drudge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He drudges daily with no hope of bettering himself. 他每日做苦工，而毫无改善自己境遇的希望。 来自互联网
• I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers. 我说职业作家是很少能见到其他作家的孤家寡人。 来自互联网

12 haven   

n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所

参考例句：

• It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后，这真是一个安乐窝。
• The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。

13 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

14 modernise   

vt.使现代化

参考例句：

• If it works,it would help to modernise the entire economy.这项（改革）一旦实施起效，将有助于整体经济的现代化进程。
• They attempted in vain to modernise these antiquated industries.他们企图使这些陈旧的工业现代化，结果劳而无功。

15 detergents   

n.洗涤剂( detergent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Such detergents do not yellow the wool as alkali tends to do. 这种洗涤剂不会象碱那样使羊毛发黄。 来自辞典例句
• Development of detergents has required optimization of the surfactants structure. 发展洗涤剂时，要求使用最恰当的表面活性剂结构。 来自辞典例句

16 compulsory   

n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的

参考例句：

• Is English a compulsory subject?英语是必修课吗？
• Compulsory schooling ends at sixteen.义务教育至16岁为止。

17 uproar   

n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸

参考例句：

• She could hear the uproar in the room.她能听见房间里的吵闹声。
• His remarks threw the audience into an uproar.他的讲话使听众沸腾起来。

18 constrained   

adj.束缚的,节制的

参考例句：

• The evidence was so compelling that he felt constrained to accept it. 证据是那样的令人折服，他觉得不得不接受。
• I feel constrained to write and ask for your forgiveness. 我不得不写信请你原谅。

19 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

20 humanely   

adv.仁慈地；人道地；富人情地；慈悲地

参考例句：

• Is the primary persona being treated humanely by the product? 该产品对待首要人物角色时是否有人情味？ 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• In any event, China's interest in treating criminals more humanely has limits. 无论如何，中国对更人道地对待罪犯的兴趣有限。 来自互联网