On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
70年代初一个一月的晚上，克里斯廷·尼尔森在纽约音乐院演唱歌剧《浮士德》。

Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances "above the Forties," of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music.
虽然人们早就议论要在第40街以北的远郊兴建一座新的歌剧院，其造价与壮观将和欧洲那些著名首都的歌剧院媲美，然而上流社会却依然满足于每年冬天在这座历史悠久的音乐院红黄两色的旧包厢里进行社交聚会。保守派的人们欣赏它的窄小不便，这样可以把纽约社会开始惧怕但又为之吸引的“新人”拒之门外；多愁善感的人们因为它引起许多历史的联想而对它恋恋不舍；而音乐爱好者则留恋它精美的音响效果。在专为欣赏音乐而修建的厅堂中，音响效果向来都是个棘手的质量问题。

It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as "an exceptionally brilliant audience" had gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery, snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient "Brown coupe" To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving as in one's own carriage; and departure by the same means had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.
这是尼尔森夫人当年冬天的首场演出。那些被日报称为“超凡脱俗的听众”已经云集来听她的演唱。他们或乘私人马车、或乘宽敞的家庭双篷马车、或者乘档次较低却更为便利的“布朗四轮马车”，经过溜滑多雪的街道来到了这里。乘坐布朗马车来听歌剧，几乎跟坐自己的马车一样体面；而且，离开剧场时还有极大的优越性（对民主原则开一句玩笑）：你可以抢先登上线路上第一辆布朗马车，而不用等待自己的那因寒冷和烈酒而充血的红鼻子车夫在音乐院门廊下面显现。美国人想离开娱乐场所比想去的时候更加迫切，这可是那位了不起的马车行店主凭绝妙的直觉获得的伟大发现。

When Newland Archer opened the door at the back of the club box the curtain had just gone up on the garden scene. There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier, for he had dined at seven, alone with his mother and sister, and had lingered afterward over a cigar in the Gothic library with glazed black-walnut bookcases and finial-topped chairs which was the only room in the house where Mrs. Archer allowed smoking. But, in the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was "not the thing" to arrive early at the opera; and what was or was not "the thing" played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago.
当纽兰·阿切尔打开包厢后面的门时，花园一场的帷幕刚刚升起。这位年轻人本可以早一点来到。他7点钟和母亲与妹妹一起用了餐，其后又在哥特式图书室里慢慢吞吞地吸了一支雪茄。那间放了光亮的黑色胡桃木书橱和尖顶椅子的房间，是这所房子里阿切尔太太惟一允许吸烟的地方。然而，首先，纽约是个大都市，而他又十分清楚，在大都市里听歌剧早到是“不合宜”的。而是否“合宜”，在纽兰·阿切尔时代的纽约，其意义就像几千年前支配了他祖先命运的不可思议的图腾恐惧一样重要。