张爱玲《红玫瑰与白玫瑰》（英文版）.pdf

红玫瑰与白玫瑰
RED ROSE, WHITE ROSE
Translated by Karen S. Kingsbury

THERE were two women in Zhenbao's life: one he called his white rose, the
other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. Isn't that
just how the average man describes a chaste widow's devotion to her husband's
memory -as spotless, and passionate too?
Maybe every man has had two such women-at least two. Marry a red rose and
eventually she'll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one
is "moonlight in front of my bed." Marry a white rose, and before long she'll be a
grain of sticky rice that's gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet
beauty mark just over your heart.
But Zhenbao wasn't like that; he was logical and thorough. He was, in this
respect, the ideal modern Chinese man. If he did bump into something that was less
than ideal, he bounced it around in his mind for a while and-poof!-it was idealized:
then everything fell into place.
Zhenbao had launched his career the proper way, by going to the West to get his
degree and factory training. He was smart and well educated, and having worked his
way through school, he had the energy and determination of a self-made man. Now he
held an upper-level position in a well-known foreign pany. His wife was a
university graduate, and she came from a good family. She was gentle and pretty, and
she'd never been a party girl. One daughter, age nine: already they'd made plans for
her college tuition.
Never had a son been more filial, more considerate, than Zhenbao was to his
mother; never was a brother more thought-ful or helpful to his siblings. At work he
was the most hard-working and devoted of colleagues; to his friends, the kindest,
truest, and most generous of men. Zhenbao's life was -plete ess. If he had
believed in reincarnation-he didn't-he'd have hoped simply to pick up a new name,
e back and live the same life all o