并非人人都读懂了毛姆？《月亮与六便士》中译本的一些普遍误读(5)

第三个普遍误读的节点是：like a standing sacrifice。Standing在英语里有“持久的”含义，但standing也可以是stand的现在分词，意为“站立着的”，引申为“活的”。艺术作品本身就是持久的，如果standing取“持久的”之义，就是重复而无意义的表达了。祭品（sacrifice）通常都是被宰杀了的动物，就像那些艺术家本人的个性被扼杀了的艺术作品，而那些袒露着艺术家灵魂隐秘的艺术作品，相对来说就像是奉上了一份活的祭品。因此，此处standing应为“站立的、活的”之义。
第一章临近末尾的一段话也是很容易被误读之处。
（2）
It is not strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked out their scanty recollections with a lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough in the little that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there was much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character something outrageous, and in his fate not a little that was pathetic.
因此，也难怪那些写他的人用生动的想象来弥补他们稀疏的记忆。他生活中多得是奇怪、可怕的事情，他性格里不乏离经叛道的成分，他的命运也足够悲惨。显然，对于他的不多了解也使得他们足以对他进行浪漫的描述。
一些译本把这一段理解成：这些人因为对他了解不多，而进行胡编乱造，在这些人笔下，他的生活就变得古怪而可怕……这显然与原文的意思是有出入的。
第一章中的原文附注中也有一个普遍被遗漏的细节是值得注意的。
（3）
since my friend, Mr. Edward Leggatt, an able writer as well as an admirable painter, has exhaustively discussed Charles Strickland"s work in a little book.