现代大学英语精读第二版（第五册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——4 - Professions for Women（女性的职业）

Unit 4 - Professions for Women

Professions for Women

Virginia Woolf

When your secretary invited me to come here, she told me that your Society is concerned with the employment of women and she suggested that I might tell you something about my own professional experiences. It is true I am a woman; it is true I am employed; but what professional experiences have I had?

It is difficult to say. My profession is literature; and in that profession there are fewer experiences for women than in any other, with the exception of the stage—fewer, I mean, that are peculiar to women. For the road was cut many years ago—by Fanny Burney, by Aphra Behn, by Harriet Martineau, by Jane Austen, by George Eliot—many famous women, and many more unknown and forgotten, have been before me, making the path smooth, and regulating my steps.

Thus, when I came to write, there were very few material obstacles in my way. Writing was a reputable and harmless occupation. The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen. No demand was made upon the family purse. For ten and sixpence one can buy paper enough to write all the plays of Shakespeare—if one has a mind that way. Pianos and models, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, masters and mistresses, are not needed by a writer.

The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in the other professions.

But to tell you my story—it is a simple one. You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand. She had only to move that pen from left to right from ten o'clock to one. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough after all—to slip a few of those pages into an envelope, fix a penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner. It was thus that I became a journalist; and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following month—a very glorious day it was for me—by a letter from an editor containing a cheque for one pound ten shillings and sixpence.

But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butcher's bills, I went out and bought a cat—a beautiful cat, a Persian cat, which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbours.

What could be easier than to write articles and to buy Persian cats with the profits? But wait a moment. Articles have to be about something. Mine, I seem to remember, was about a novel by a famous man. And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom.

And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her, after the heroine of a famous poem, "The Angel in the House." It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her.

You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her—you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was a chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it—in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others.

Above all—I need not say it—she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty—her blushes, her great grace. In those days—the last of Queen Victoria—every house had its Angel. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: "My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex.

Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure. And she made as if to guide my pen. I now record the one act for which I take some credit to myself, though the credit rightly belongs to some excellent ancestors of mine who left me a certain sum of money—shall we say five hundred pounds a year? —so that it was not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living.

I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. And all these questions, according to the Angel in the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women; they must charm, they must conciliate, they must—to put it bluntly—tell lies if they are to succeed.

Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. She was always creeping back when I thought I had dispatched her. Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end, the struggle was severe; it took much time that had better have been spent upon learning Greek grammar; or in roaming the world in search of adventures. But it was a real experience; it was an experience that was bound to befall all women writers at that time. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.

But to continue my story. The Angel was dead; what then remained? You may say that what remained was a simple and common object—a young woman in a bedroom with an inkpot. In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is "herself”？ I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill. That indeed is one of the reasons why I have come here—out of respect for you, who are in process of showing us by your experiments what a woman is, who are in process of providing us, by your failures and successes, with that extremely important piece of information.

But to continue the story of my professional experiences. I made one pound ten and six by my first review; and I bought a Persian cat with the proceeds. Then I grew ambitious. A Persian cat is all very well, I said; but a Persian cat is not enough. I must have a motor car. And it was thus that I became a novelist—for it is a very strange thing that people will give you a motor car if you will tell them a story. It is a still stranger thing that there is nothing so delightful in the world as telling stories. It is far pleasanter than writing reviews of famous novels. And yet, if I am to obey your secretary and tell you my professional experiences as a novelist, I must tell you about a very strange experience that befell me as a novelist.

And to understand it you must try to imagine a novelist's state of mind. I hope I am not giving away professional secrets if I say that a novelist's chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity. He wants to see the same faces, to read the same books, to do the same things day after day, month after month, while he is writing, so that nothing may break the illusion in which he is living—so that nothing may disturb or disquiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings round, darts, dashes and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination. I suspect that this state is the same both for men and women.

Be that as it may, I want you to imagine me writing a novel in a state of trance. I want you to figure to yourselves a girl sitting with a pen in her hand, which for minutes, and indeed for hours, she never dips into the inkpot. The image that comes to my mind when I think of this girl is the image of a fisherman lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held out over the water. She was letting her imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged in the depths of our unconscious being. Now came the experience, the experience that I believe to be far commoner with women writers than with men. The line raced through the girl's fingers. Her imagination had rushed away. It had sought the pools, the depths, the dark places where the largest fish slumber.

And then there was a smash. There was an explosion. There was foam and confusion. The imagination had dashed itself against something hard. The girl was roused from her dream. She was indeed in a state of the most acute and difficult distress. To speak without figure she had thought of something, something about the body, about the passions which it was unfitting for her as a woman to say. Men, her reason told her, would be shocked. The consciousness of what men will say of a woman who speaks the truth about her passions had roused her from her artist's state of unconsciousness. She could write no more. The trance was over. Her imagination could work no longer. This I believe to be a very common experience with women writers—they are impeded by the extreme conventionality of the other sex. For though men sensibly allow themselves great freedom in these respects, I doubt that they realize or can control the extreme severity with which they condemn such freedom in women.

These then were two very genuine experiences of my own. These were two of the adventures of my professional life. The first—killing the Angel in the House—I think I solved. She died. But the second, telling the truth about my own experiences as a body, I do not think I solved. I doubt that any woman has solved it yet. The obstacles against her are still immensely powerful and yet they are very difficult to define. Outwardly, what is simpler than to write books? Outwardly, what obstacles are there for a woman rather than for a man? Inwardly, I think, the case is very different; she has still many ghosts to fight, many prejudices to overcome. Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down to write a book without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against. And if this is so in literature, the freest of all professions for women, how is it in the new professions which you are now for the first time entering?

Those are the questions that I should like, had I time, to ask you. And indeed, if I have laid stress upon these professional experiences of mine, it is because I believe that they are, though in different forms, yours also. Even when the path is nominally open—when there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant—there are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe, looming in her way. To discuss and define them is, I think, of great value and importance; for thus only can the labour be shared, the difficulties be solved.

But besides this, it is necessary also to discuss the ends and the aims for which we are fighting, for which we are doing battle with these formidable obstacles. Those aims cannot be taken for granted; they must be perpetually questioned and examined. The whole position, as I see it—here in this hall surrounded by women practising for the first time in history I know not how many different professions—is one of extraordinary interest and importance. You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able, though not without great labour and effort, to pay the rent. You are earning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. How are you going to furnish it, how are you going to decorate it? With whom are you going to share it, and upon what terms?

These, I think are questions of the utmost importance and interest. For the first time in history you are able to ask them; for the first time you are able to decide for yourselves what the answers should be. Willingly would I stay and discuss those questions and answers—but not tonight. My time is up; and I must cease.

参考译文——女性的职业

女性的职业

弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫

你们的秘书邀请我来到这里时告诉我，你们的妇女服务团关注女性就职问题。她建议我讲一讲我自己的职业体验。我的确是一个女人，也的确有工作，但是我又有什么职业体验呢？

这就很难说了。我以文学写作为职业。对女人来说，这个职业，当然戏剧行业例外，并没有像从事其他的职业那么特别的体验，我是说没有那么多女性的特别的体验。很多年前，范妮·伯尼、阿芙拉·贝恩、哈丽雅特、马蒂诺、简·奥斯汀、乔治·艾略特这些著名的女性作家以及更多的不那么出名或被遗忘的作家已经打通了这条路，指引我前行。

所以，当我开始从事写作时，已没有什么实际的障碍！写作是一个名声好且没有危害的职业。家庭的节奏不会因为写作的沙沙声而打乱。写作不需要家庭开销，如果愿意，任何人都可以花上16便士买下纸张。这些纸足够写出莎士比亚的戏剧全集了。钢琴和模特，去巴黎、维也纳和柏林，或者是请家庭教师——作家不需要这些！

写作用纸的廉价当然就是女性先于其他行业而首先能够以写作为职业的原因。

但是我要告诉大家我的故事。很简单。你们只需自己想象一下，一个女孩儿在卧室里手里握着一支笔，她需要左右地移动它，从十点写到一点。然后她就想到了一件很简单，而且不用花很多钱的事：选出一些纸放到信封里，在一个角上贴上一便士邮票，把信封投到街角的红箱子里。我就是这样成为一个撰稿人的。下个月的第一天，我的努力得到了回报。那对我来说是快乐的一天，因为编辑寄来一封信，里面有一张一英镑十先令六便士的支票。

但是我要告诉你们，我不配被称作一个职业女性，也不知道生活中的挣扎与困苦，因为我得承认，我并没有拿这笔钱买食物、付房租、买鞋袜和肉，而是出去买了一只猫，一只漂亮的波斯猫，它使我在不久后与邻居发生严重纠纷。

有什么能比写文章并用其报酬来买波斯猫更容易的事呢？但是，请等一下。文章要有内容。我记得那篇文章评论了一位男性名人的一部小说。写这篇评论时，我发现，如果我想写书评，我需要与某个鬼影抗争。

这个鬼影就是女人。当我进一步了解她后，我就借一首著名诗歌中女主人公之名用“家里的天使”来称呼她。我写评论时，就是她总出现在我和我的文章之间。她不停地困扰我，浪费我的时间，折磨我，所以，最终我杀死了她。

你们年轻快乐的一代或许没听说过她，可能不知道我所说的“家里的天使”是什么意思。我将尽可能简短地描述一下。她极富同情心，极有魅力，毫不自私，擅长家庭生活的各项髙难度技能，天天自我牺牲。如果家里吃鸡，她只吃鸡腿；如果家里有穿堂风，她坐在风口。她就是这样一个人，从来没有想到过自己的想法与期望，总是喜欢按照别人的想法和期待来做出牺牲。

总之，我不必说她是纯洁的。她的纯洁应该被看作是她主要的动人之处：她常常脸红，举止优雅。在维多利亚时代后期，每个家庭都有个天使。每当我开始写作，她总会在我刚刚写出几个字时就出现。她翅膀的影子映在我的纸上；我在房间里能听到她的裙子沙沙作响。当我提笔要为一个名人的小说写书评时，她就溜到我身后轻声对我说：“亲爱的，你是一个年轻女子。你所评的这本书是男人写的。你要有同情心，要温柔、要奉承、要欺骗，用尽女人所有的小把戏。永远别让别人知道你有自己的思想。最重要的是，要纯洁。”她似乎在控制我的笔。

下面我要说说多少是我自己决定做的一件事情，当然做此事的功劳主要还应归功于我的了不起的祖先，是他们给我留下了一笔财产——比如说每年五百英镑吧——这样我就不必完全靠女人的魅力去谋生了。

我发起进攻，扼住她的喉咙。我尽全力杀死了她。如果把我诉上法庭，那么我的辩词将是正当防卫。如果我不杀死她，她就会杀死我。她会泯灭我写作的灵魂。因为我发现，在提笔之时，如果没有自己的思想，不能表达关于人与人的关系、道德及性的真理，我连对一部小说的评论也写不出来。按照“家里的天使”的规矩，女人不可以自由、公开地讨论这些问题。女人只能展示魅力，女人只能让步。直率地说，要想成功，她们必须说谎。

所以，每当我在纸上感到她翅膀的影子或是光晕时，我就会拿起墨水瓶向她砸去。杀死她很难。虚幻的本质给了她极大的帮助。杀死现实中的人易，杀死鬼影难。我认为已经将她杀死，可她却总是悄然再至。我因最终铲除了她而感到欣慰，但铲除的斗争过程却十分激烈，耗时很多，都不如把这些时间花在学习希腊语法或是周游世界去冒险好了。可这都是真实的经历；这种经历注定会发生在所有女作家的身上。杀死“家里的天使”是女作家职业的分内之事。

现在继续我的故事。天使死了，还有什么？你们也许认为余下的就是一个简单又普通的事：卧室里一个年轻姑娘和墨水瓶。换句话说，既然她已经摆脱虚假，那么这个年轻姑娘可以独善其身了。那么，什么是“自己”？我是说，什么是女人呢？我很确定地告诉大家，我不知道。我想你们也不知道。我相信，妇女只有在人类知识所涉及的全部艺术和专业领域中用创造形式表达自己的情感后，她们才能知道什么是妇女。这就是我今天来到这里的原因，是出于对你们的尊敬，因为你们正在用你们的经验告诉我们妇女是什么，并正在通过你们的成功与失败，为我们提供尤为重要的信息。

接着讲我的职业经历。我第一篇评论赚回了一英镑十先令六便士，我用那笔钱买了一只波斯猫。我变得雄心勃勃，我说，波斯猫很好，可一只波斯猫还不够，我一定要有辆汽车。这就是为什么我成了一个小说家。说来奇怪，你给人们讲故亊他们就会给你一辆汽车。更奇怪的是，世界上没有比讲故事更令人快乐的事。讲故事远比为一些著名小说写评论更有趣。下面，我听从你们秘书的建议，接着讲述我作为小说家的职业体验。我要告诉大家作为作家的一个极为奇特的体验。

要想理解这一点，大家必须努力想象出小说家的心理状态。如果我说小说家的重大愿望是尽量处于无意识状态，我希望我没有泄露行业秘密。他需要使自己进入持续傭懒的状态；他要过一种最最安静、最最规律的生活。他希望在他写作时，他每天见的人、读的书、做的事都是相同的，这样任何事物都不会打破他生活的幻想，也不会搅乱他的四处探求、摸索以及对那令人难以捉摸的容易被吓跑的东西——想象力的突然发现。我认为男人和女人都同样具有这种状态。

尽管如此，我还是想说我是在似睡非睡的状态中创作小说。请大家想象出一个女孩坐在桌旁，手里握着笔，几分钟，甚至几个小时都没有把笔蘸到墨瓶里。想到这女孩时，我的脑海里浮现出一个湖边垂钓者的形象。在深深的湖水边，他手持鱼竿，深浸梦境。她的想象自由驰骋在无意识深处世界的每个角落和缝隙。这就是体验。我认为女作家的体验要比男作家的更加常见。鱼线在女孩的指间飞速滑走，她的想象也随之而去，搜寻着池塘、深水和最大的鱼沉睡的暗处。

随即，突然传来了猛烈的撞击声、爆炸声、水花和混乱。想象与具象相碰撞。女孩从昏睡中惊醒。她的确沉陷于最深刻、最艰难的痛苦状态。明白地说，她想到了，想到了她作为女人不易言说的身体和激情。理智告诉她，男人会感到震惊。男人们对一个敢于直言激情的女人的评价使她从艺术家的无意识状态中惊醒，她无法继续写作，昏睡状态结束，想象力随之中断。这就是女作家共同的切身体验——男性极端的因循守旧观念阻碍着她们。在这些方面，男人可以在理智上允许自我放任，可我怀疑他们未必会意识到或者能够控制住自己对这种女人的表达自由给予极其强烈的抨击。

这就是我自己的两个真实的经历，是我职业生涯中两大冒险。第一个：杀死“家里的天使”。我已经做到了。她死了。但第二个：真实地表达自我亲身的体验，我还没有解决。我怀疑是否有任何女性解决了这个问题。那些障碍仍然力量强大，也很难下定义。从表面看，有什么比写书更容易呢？从表面看，什么样的障碍只针对女人而不是男人呢？但是从内心世界看，情况则极为不同。她还要与许多恶魔斗争，还要克服许多偏见。我敢肯定，如果女人不找到并杀死鬼影、不击碎岩石般的阻碍，就不能够坐下来专心写作。这还需要很长时间。如果不是在女性所能享有的最自由的文学领域，那么在你们第一次踏入的新职业里情况又将如何？

如果还有时间，这些就是我向大家提出的问题。我之所以强调我自己的这些职业经验是因为我认为它们在不同的形式上和你们的问题是一样的。即使这条道路在表面上畅通无阻，没有什么能阻止女人成为医生、律师和公务员，但是正如我想的，在这条路上还是会有很多鬼影和障碍挡道。我认为讨论和界定这些障碍是十分重要的，因为只有如此我们才能共同努力并克服困难。

除此之外，我们还必须讨论我们为之奋斗而必须克服巨大障碍的目的。那些目的是什么，对这个问题我们不能想当然地认为已经解决了，而要不断地提出疑问和进行审视。在有史以来首次由追求多种职业的妇女参加的聚会大厅里，我认为，我们的立场是我们特别感兴趣和重要的内容之一。在这个一直由男人控制的房子里，你们已经贏得了自己的房间。虽然不得不付出艰辛的劳动和努力，但是你们已经能够自付房租，你们已经能够每年赚出自己的五百英镑。但是，这个自由只是个开端，现在屋子是你自己的了，但它依然是空的，它需要装修和装饰，需要与人分享。你准备置办什么样的家具，准备进行什么样的装饰，准备和谁一起分享，有什么条件？

我认为这些都是最为重要的目标所在。有史以来你们第一次提出这些问题，第一次能够自己回答这些问题。我非常愿意留下来和大家一起讨论这些问题和答案，但今晚不行，时间到了，就讲到这里吧。

Key Words:

butcher ['butʃə]

n. 屠夫，刽子手，肉商，小贩

sympathize ['simpəθaiz]

v. 同情，同感

sympathetic [.simpə'θetik]

adj. 同情的，共鸣的

charm [tʃɑ:m]

n. 魅力，迷人，吸引力，美貌

slumber ['slʌmbə]

n. 睡眠，微睡，休止状态 v. 睡觉，打盹，静止，休眠

参考资料：

现代大学英语精读(第2版)第五册:U4 Professions for Women(8)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语