After thirty years of married happiness, he could still remind himself that Victoria was endowed with every charm except the thrilling touch of human frailty（虛弱，弱點(diǎn)）. Though her perfection discouraged pleasures, especially the pleasures of love, he had learned in time to feel the pride of a husband in her natural frigidity（冷淡，寒冷）. For he still clung, amid the decay of moral platitudes（陳詞濫調(diào)，平凡）, to the discredited ideal of chivalry. In his youth the world was suffused with the after-glow of the long Victorian age, and a graceful feminine style had softened the manners, if not the natures, of men. At the end of that interesting epoch, when womanhood was exalted from a biological factsintosa miraculous power, Virginius Littlepage, the younger son of an old and affluent family, had married Victoria Brooke, the grand-daughter of a tobacco planter, who had made a satisfactory fortune by forsaking his plantation and converting tobaccos into cigarettes. While Virginius had been trained by stern tradition to respect every woman who had not stooped to folly, the virtue peculiar to her sex was among the least of his reasons for admiring Victoria. She was not only modest, which was usual in the nineties, but she was beautiful, which is unusual in any decade.
    In the beginning of their acquaintance he had gone even further and ascribed intellect to her; but a few months of marriage had shown this to be merely one of the many delusions created by perfect features and noble expression. Everything about her had been smooth and definite, even the tones of her voice and the way her light brown hair, which she wore a la Pompadour, was rolled stiffly back from her forehead and coiled in a burnished（錚亮的，光潔的） rope on the top of her head.
    A serious young man, ambitious to attain a place in the world more brilliant than the secluded（隱蔽的） seat of his ancestors, he had been impressed at their first meeting by the compactness and precision of Victoria's orderly mind. For in that earnest period the minds, as well as the emotions, of lovers were orderly. It was an age when eager young men flocked to church on Sunday morning, and eloquent divines discoursed upon the Victorian poets in the middle of the week. He could afford to smile now when he recalled the solemn Browning class in which he had first lost his heart. How passionately he had admired Victoria's virginal features! How fervently he had envied her competent but caressing way with the poet!
    Incredible as it seemed to him now, he had fallen in love with her while she recited from the more ponderous passages in The Ring and the Book. He had fallen in love with her then, though he had never really enjoyed Browning, and it had been a relief to him when the Unseen, in company with its illustrious poet, had at last gone out of fashion. Yet, since he was disposed to admire all the qualities he did not possess, he had never ceased to respect the firmness with which Victoria continued to deal in other forms with the Absolute.
    As the placid years passed, and she came to rely less upon her virginal features, it seemed to him that the ripe opinions of her youth began to shrink and flatten as fruit does that has hung too long on the tree. She had never changed, he realized, since he had first known her; she had become merely riper, softer, and sweeter in nature.
    Her advantage rested where advantage never fails to rest, in moral fervour. To be invariably right was her single wifely failing. For his wife, he sighed, with the vague unrest of a husband whose infidelities are imaginary, was a genuinely good woman. She was as far removed from pretence as she was from the posturing virtues that flourish in the credulous（輕信的） world of the drama. The pity of it was that even the least exacting husband should so often desire something more piquant than goodness.
    經(jīng)過三十年的幸?；橐?，他仍能時(shí)常提醒自己，維多利亞擁有除了驚險(xiǎn)觸摸人性的脆弱每魅力（虛弱，弱點(diǎn)）。盡管她的完美減少了樂趣，尤其是愛情的樂趣，他漸漸感覺到丈夫在她的自然冷淡傲慢（冷淡，寒冷）。他仍然堅(jiān)持，在道德陳詞濫調(diào)的衰減（陳詞濫調(diào)，平凡），于名譽(yù)的騎士風(fēng)范。在他年輕的泛著余輝的維多利亞時(shí)代，和優(yōu)雅的女性化風(fēng)格已經(jīng)軟化的禮貌，如果不是本性，人。在這個(gè)有趣的時(shí)代的結(jié)束，當(dāng)女性被從生物學(xué)factsintosa神奇的力量，維琪涅斯李特佩吉，一歲的富裕家庭的小兒子，娶了維多利亞布魯克，一個(gè)煙草種植園主的大女兒，他拋棄了他的種植園和轉(zhuǎn)換成香煙煙草發(fā)了財(cái)。在維琪涅斯曾訓(xùn)練嚴(yán)格的傳統(tǒng)尊重每一個(gè)女人誰沒有彎腰愚蠢的美德，她的性別特有的是其中他愛慕維多利亞的原因。她不只是謙虛，這在九十年代是正常的，但她是美麗的，這是不尋常的任何十年。
    在他們相識(shí)的開始，他走得更遠(yuǎn)，賦予她智慧，但幾個(gè)月的婚姻已經(jīng)表明，這僅僅是一個(gè)完美的功能和高尚的表達(dá)創(chuàng)造的許多妄想之一。她的一切都是光滑的，明確的，甚至連她的聲音和她的淺棕色的頭發(fā)，她戴著一個(gè)音調(diào)，拉頭，從前額向后地卷纏繞在磨光（錚亮的，光潔的）頭頂上的繩子。
    一個(gè)嚴(yán)肅的年輕人，雄心勃勃的實(shí)現(xiàn)在世界上的地位比幽更輝煌（隱蔽的）他的祖先的座位給他留下了深刻的印象，在他們第一次見面的維多利亞的頭腦的密實(shí)度和精度。在那一段認(rèn)真的時(shí)期，思想，以及對戀人的感情都是有秩序的。這一時(shí)期是當(dāng)你年輕男子星期日早晨都涌向教堂，牧師和雄辯的論述了維多利亞時(shí)代的詩人中的一周。他回憶起他第一次失去了自己的心的莊嚴(yán)的褐化，他現(xiàn)在也能微笑了。如何熱情他欣賞維多利亞清純的容顏！如何熱切他羨慕她有能力但愛撫方式與詩人！
    現(xiàn)在看起來真是難以置信，他愛上了她，而她背誦更沉重的通道的戒指和書。他愛上了她，盡管他從來沒有真正喜歡過布朗寧，和這是一個(gè)救濟(jì)他時(shí)，看不見的，在公司以其杰出的詩人，終于不再時(shí)興。然而，由于他對他所不具備的所有品質(zhì)都有了欣賞，他從未停止過對維多利亞繼續(xù)以絕對的方式處理其他形式的堅(jiān)定性的尊重。
    隨著平靜歲月的流逝，她就在她的處女特點(diǎn)的依賴，他似乎覺得她年輕時(shí)的成熟見解開始萎縮了，就像果實(shí)一樣，在樹上掛得過久。她從未改變，他意識(shí)到，自從他第一次見到她；她只是變得更加成熟，更柔軟，更甜美的性質(zhì)。
    她的優(yōu)勢優(yōu)勢在哪里永遠(yuǎn)不能休息休息，在道德狂熱。是對她妻子的不單是。他的妻子，他嘆了口氣，對丈夫的不忠是虛構(gòu)的模糊的不安，是一個(gè)真正的好女人。她遠(yuǎn)離假裝她從作秀那在輕信（輕信的）的戲劇世界。但遺憾的是，即使是最挑剔的丈夫也往往更有趣的比善良愿望。