婚姻的肖像

四個人的悲劇⋯⋯

Harold總說Violet is poison，但是在我看來，最poison的可能是Vita。Vita自己也說，她最愛的是自己，這也是為什麼她在這兩段關係裡顯得被動又寡斷，對兩個人都無法敞開心扉，完全信任。或許他是知道，但由於愛得過於深切，抑或是想要逃避殘酷的現實，以至於將一切都歸罪於Violet。

儘管很同情這兩位男性的遭遇，但是還是很反感他們身上流露的一些男權社會的思想。Denys自信於Violet終歸會嫁給他，Harold認為Vita在家種花育兒便是快樂的，等等。

我個人其實很不喜歡Vita，她對待Violet的態度，無論是得知Violet要結婚後將她拽入房中，還是後面掐著Violet的臉質問房事，都讓我反感，彷彿Violet之於她只是一件物品。

Violet的率性和勇敢，倒很是令我感動。她有那種飛蛾撲火的熱情，她大方承認自己的「邪惡」、自己的隨心所欲，相比之下，Harold顯得怯懦多了。這或許也是Vita醉心於她的原因之一吧，like drug in tedious life。

她們倆是絕配的，但我覺得肯定也只能是短暫的，一個燃燒得過於熾烈注定難以長久，而另一個無法承諾長久。

從一開始，或許就已經能望到結局。但人生難道只求一個結果嗎？

最近看了本讲英国作家住宅的书《优雅的相遇》，其中有些关于薇塔的背景资料，转抄过来。

1，诺尔庄园

薇塔出生并成长于诺尔庄园，诺尔庄园是英格兰最大的庄园住宅，大宅周围是占地一千多英亩的壮丽园林和鹿园。诺尔庄园大宅原是坎特伯雷大主教的豪华住宅，后来赠给亨利八世，再后来由伊丽莎白一世赠给了（表兄）托马斯·萨克维尔。庄园大宅内部有365个房间，52个楼梯，12个大门入口，7个庭院。弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙曾经估计，“那一片建筑”很可能“有牛津一半那么大”。薇塔称：“我对诺尔庄园深深的爱胜过我生命中的一切”。

然而，只有男性家族成员才可继承庄园。在薇塔36岁时，他父亲去世，庄园由他的伯父继承。弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙非常理解薇塔的失落感，她在日记中写道，“昨天我和薇塔路过诺尔庄园，被迫转过脸去不看这座没有主人、没有旗帜的庄园。这是她最介意的。”1928年，伍尔芙送给薇塔一份不同寻常的礼物，终于为她保存对诺尔庄园的记忆找到了一个可行途径，那就是《奥兰多》。《奥兰多》大量运用了诺尔庄园的历史素材，使薇塔看得“眼花缭乱，心醉神迷”。

第二次世界大战初期，诺尔庄园已经岌岌可危。1946年第四任萨克维尔男爵把诺尔庄园以及一笔维护费用一同捐给了国民托管组织。两年后，薇塔·萨克维尔-韦斯特写出了第一本国民托管组织认可的诺尔庄园导游指南。

2，西辛赫斯特城堡（Sissinghurst Castle）

由于长子继承制的缘故，薇塔被剥夺了继承诺尔庄园的权利。1930年，薇塔夫妇在西辛赫斯特城堡开始的新生活，薇塔对西辛赫斯特城堡一见钟情。,

最初，条件非常简陋。他们夫妇二人只能睡在潮湿的野营床上，在烛光下读书。改造西辛赫斯特城堡的挑战非常艰巨。但是尼科尔森和萨克维尔-韦斯特不辞辛苦，努力劳作了很长时间，很像生意上的合作伙伴。她负责园艺工作，他则负责整体设计。

1938年，薇塔很不情愿地把西辛赫斯特城堡对公众开放。她傲慢地把游客们称为“先令客”，因为当时的参观门票售价为一先令（5便士）。如今门票售价不可避免地有所提高，然而游客们却能领略到丰富多彩的各种园艺乐趣。

西辛赫斯特城堡的塔楼是她作家生涯中极其重要的一个地方，那是她幽居独处的场所，游客在这里不受欢迎。萨克维尔-韦斯特平时写作用的那个房间在塔楼中层，通过一段螺旋式楼梯进入室内。这个房间至今没有任何变动，四周墙壁上仍然摆放着已经长久被人遗忘的出版物。其中一些同园艺、历史和旅游等方面的内容有关。她在自己挚爱的塔楼小屋里总共写出了20本书。1946至1961年间，她每周都要为《观察家报》（Observer）撰写一篇备受期待的园艺专栏文章。她喜欢从塔楼顶端向下凝视自己的劳动成果——那座她非常珍爱的花园。

西辛赫斯特城堡藏书室现已对游客开放，里面有数千册图书。其中许多是尼科尔森收藏的赠阅本图书。他在西辛赫斯特城堡的南舍写作，那里更加便利。他的妻子则在塔楼的小房间里寻找宁静，不受外界打扰。出乎预料的是，尼科尔森是西辛赫斯特城堡里更为多产的作家。他轮流使用三台打字机（分别被称为里基、蒂基利、大维）写下了共300万字的日记，“从没想过发表”。

薇塔-萨克维尔-韦斯特搬到西辛赫斯特城堡时已经是一位富有的女人。但是她在去世时却身无分文，因为她的个人财产全部都花在了住宅和花园上；她花费了难以计数的时间来实现自己的梦想。她曾经写道，西辛赫斯特城堡“让我累弯了腰，弄破了指甲，有时也让我感到非常伤心”。

她去世后，西辛赫斯特庄园转让给了国民托管组织，代替遗产税。如今该组织雇用了九名园丁维护保管她创造的那片美丽园地。

另，网上资料：

西辛赫斯特城堡花园是英格兰最漂亮、最出名的世界级花园之一。

薇塔1962年去世，她将这座城堡花园赠与更热爱乡村田园生活的次子Nigel。薇塔的长子Bennidict，是艺术史家；次子Nigel,作家，记者，出版家，议员。他撰写的关于父母的书《一幅婚姻的肖像》获得过最佳传记奖，并被拍成了电视连续剧。2004年Nigel去世，他的儿子Adam和妻子继续住在这个城堡里。Adam也是作家，他写的关于祖先花园的《西辛赫斯特》获得2009年英国皇家文学协会的“翁达杰奖”，以及最佳家庭历史书籍奖。

(1) Violet Keppel, Don't Look Round (1952)

No one had told me that Vita (Sackville-West) had turned into a beauty. The knobs and knuckles had all disappeared. She was tall and graceful. The profund, hereditary Sackville eyes were as pools from which the morning mists had lifted. A peach might have envied her complexion. Round her revolved several enamoured young men.

(2) Vita Sackville-West, Autobiography (1920)

I hate writing this, but I must, I must. When I began this I swore I would shirk nothing, and no more I will. So here is the truth: I was never so much in love with Rosamund as during those weeks in Italy and the months that followed. It may seem that I should have missed Harold more. I admit everything, to my shame, but I have never pretended to have anything other than a base and despicable character. I seem to be incapable of fidelity, as much then as now. But, as a sole justification, I separate my loves into two halves: Harold, who is unalterable, perennial, and best; there has never been anything but absolute purity in my love for Harold, just as there has never been anything but absolute purity in his nature. And on the other hand stands my perverted nature, which loved and tyrannized over Rosamund and ended by deserting her without one heart-pang, and which now is linked irremediably with Violet. I have here a scrap of paper on which Violet, intuitive psychologist, has scribbled, "The upper half of your face is so pure and grave - almost childlike. And the lower half is so domineering, sensual, almost brutal - it is the most absurd contrast, and extraordinarily symbolical of your Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde personality." That is the whole crux of the matter, and I see now that my whole curse has been a duality with which I was too weak and too self-indulgent to struggle.

(3) Violet Trefusis, letter to Vita Sackville-West (March 1919)

My own sweet love, I am writing this at 2 o'clock in the morning at the conclusion of the most cruelly ironical clay I have spent in my life.

This evening I was taken to a ball of some good people. Chinday had previously told all her friends I was engaged so I was congratulated by everyone I knew there. I could have screamed aloud. Mitya, I can't face this existence. I shall see you once again on Monday and it depends on you whether we shall ever see each other again.

It is really wicked and horrible. I am losing every atom of self-respect I ever possessed. I hate myself. 0 Mitya, what have you done to me? 0 my darling, precious love, what is going to become of use

I want you every second and every hour of the day, yet I am being slowly and inexorably tied to somebody else... Sometimes I am flooded by an agony of physical longing for you... a craving for your nearness and your touch. At other times I feel I should be quite content if I could only hear the sound of your voice. I try so hard to imagine your lips on mine. Never was there such a pitiful imagining.... Darling, whatever it may cost us, my mother won't be cross with you any more. I suppose this ridiculous engagement will set her mind at rest....

Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased, to tear to pieces if such had been your will. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world I clamour for you.... You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination - the most powerful in the world.

(4) Nigel Nicolson, Portrait of a Marriage (1973)

She (Vita) didn't know how strong and dangerous such passion could be, until Violet replaced Rosamund. Of course she knew that "such a thing existed", but she did not give it a name, and felt no guilt about it. At the time of her marriage she may have been ignorant that men could feel for other men as she had felt for Rosamund, but when she had made this discovery in Harold himself, it did not come as a great shock to her, for she had the romantic notion that it was natural and salutary for "people" to love each other, and the desire to kiss and touch was simply the physical expression of affection, and it made no difference whether it was affection between people of the same sex or the opposite.

It was fortunate that both were made that way. If only one of them had been, their marriage would probably have collapsed. Violet did not destroy their physical union; she simply provided the alternative for which Vita was unconsciously seeking at the moment when her physical passion for Harold, and his for her, had begun to cool. In Harold's life at that time there was no male Violet, luckily for him, since his love for Vita might not have survived two rivals simultaneously. Before he met Vita he had been half-engaged to another girl, Eileen Wellesley. He was not driven to homosexuality by Vita's temporary desertion of him, because it had always been latent, but his loneliness may have encouraged this tendency to develop, since with his strong sense of duty (much stronger than Vita's) he felt it to be less treacherous to sleep with men in her absence than with other women. When he was left stranded in Paris, he once confessed to Vita that he was "spending his time with rather low people, the demi-monde", and this could have meant young men. When she returned to him, it certainly did. Lady Sackville noted in her diary, "Vita intends to be very platonic with Harold, who accepts it like a lamb.' They never shared a bedroom after that.

来源：//spartacus-educational.com/Wtrefusis.htm

比我年纪还大的一部短剧，BBC出的又一款经典，可以让人克服那个年代的渣画质。全剧四个小时，节奏紧凑。我几乎分不清这是爱情还是欲望还是什么。片子的元素乍一看有同妻、出轨、婚外恋、女女。要说Mar和Violet之间是爱情、是欲望、是想要占有对方，应该不会有人反对。但是Mar与她丈夫之间到底是一种什么感情，Violet与她丈夫之间又是什么关系，总感觉三言两语说不清道不明。一个人会同时爱上两个人吗？女主对丈夫是恋人还是朋友间的爱？Violet依旧与丈夫保持关系这是欲望的贪婪还只是逢场作戏？亦或者Violet真的没有对女主不忠？一切都是合约婚姻？每个人对这些关系的理解肯定不尽相同。在我看来，女主与丈夫友大于爱，Violet是一个诱惑人的小妖精，及时行乐，追求欲望的满足。两位丈夫都还算绅士，虽然有对妻子有所不满，却仍然关心爱护与尊重他们。

剧情有起有伏，起伏中突出了女主对追求真爱放弃婚姻这一决定的摇摆不定，也为最后决定离开家庭铺垫了许多，使得她们两个之间的感情表现得更加浓烈。四个人之间的关系往往被拆成三个人一起展示，角色间有制衡，使戏剧张力更强。

我羡慕剧中那种觉得失去彼此就不能活的神仙爱情，可能正因为我没有得到过如此热烈的爱情，我才无法理解眼里容不得一点沙子那般对身体忠诚的洁癖。

看完《婚姻的肖像》和《薇塔与维吉尼亚》，做一个简单的时间线梳理。

Vita Sackville-West，全名 Victoria Mary Sackville-West，生卒年1892-1962，终年70岁。

童年：1906–1910

童年时期，Vita 在女子学校 Helen Wolff's school 上学。此时她并不合群，时常觉得孤独，深夜在 Knole 不停写作。不过，此时她认识了初恋们 Violet Keppel 和 Rosamund Grosvenor。

1910年，Vita 正式进入社交圈。

初恋：Rosamund Grosvenor

Rosamund Grosvenor 比 Vita 大四岁，对 Vita 的性取向有非常重要的影响。Rosamund 可能是 Vita 爱上的第一个女人，她在日记里写到，「Oh, I dare say I realized vaguely that I had no business to sleep with Rosamund, and I should certainly never have allowed anyone to find it out」。 她们在1911年就热恋中了。但1912年 Vita 的日记里写到「这种关系是肤浅的，纯粹是身体上的，因为坦率地说，我发现她非常烦人，但是我很喜欢她，她性格柔和但愚蠢」。

1913年 21岁的 Vita 嫁给 Harold Nicolson，两人关系破裂。1924年 Rosamund 结婚。二战中担任护士，1944年被炸死于伦敦 Savoy Chapel 医院，时年55岁。

此生不渝：Violet Keppel

Violet Keppel（1894-1972）十岁那年遇见了比她大两岁的 Vita，结为好友。14岁那年，Violet 向 Vita 告白，送给 Vita 那枚古老的戒指（剧中她一直戴的那枚）。但两人并没有生活在一起。 直到1910年，Violet 一家搬回 London 的 Grosvenor Street。Violet 发现了 Vita 和 Rosamund Grosvenor 的关系并且很快要结婚了，于是订婚使 Vita 吃醋…… 1918年，两人身处热恋状态中，作出很多当时社会规范觉得出格的事情，比如一起去巴黎玩…… 1919年，Violet 结婚。 1020年，两人私奔到巴黎，两位丈夫前来寻妻，Vita 的丈夫 Harold 告诉她 Violet 对她不忠（对象是她丈夫），Vita 非常生气，两人关系破裂。 1921年，两人最后在法国又旅行了一次。在 Harold 的威胁下，两人正式分手。Violet 被送往意大利，被禁止给 Vita 写信。她写了一份特别绝望的信给她们共同的朋友 Pat Dansey。 1940年，因为二战 Violet 回到伦敦，两人时隔二十年再见，又恢复了情真意切的通信。直至1962年 Vita 去世。十年后 Violet 去世。

对这段关系颇为了解的伍尔夫写了一本《奥兰多》送给 Vita，主角就是 Vita，Violet 在里面是俄罗斯公主 Sasha。

灵魂伴侣：Virginia Woolf

1922年，Vita 在一场聚会上认识了伍尔夫。1925年两人相恋，持续了十年，高峰期在1925-1928年左右。她们之间有很多情意绵绵的情书，比如：

1926，Vita to 伍尔夫， （此时 Vita 去非洲旅行了）

I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — but oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”

伍尔夫回复，

Your letter came this morning — But why do you think I don’t feel, or that I make phrases? “Lovely phrases” you say which rob things of reality. Just the opposite. Always, always, always I try to say what I feel. Will you then believe that after you went last Tuesday — exactly a week ago — out I went into the slums of Bloomsbury, to find a barrel organ. But it did not make me cheerful … And ever since, nothing important has happened — Somehow it’s dull and damp. I have been dull; I have missed you. I do miss you. I shall miss you. And if you don’t believe it, you’re a longeared owl and ass.

1927，伍尔夫 to Vita（我心中的情书最佳），

Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.” 看这儿，Vita——忘却你的男人吧，然后我们就去汉普顿宫，在河边共进晚餐，在月光下的花园里散步，晚点儿回家，再喝上一瓶红酒。我会将我脑海里的一切都倾诉给你，千万百万，无穷无尽——岁月不能使它们浑浊，唯有幽黯的长河才能。想想那些吧。我说了，忘掉你的男人，跟我来。

当然，什么都比不过伍尔夫的那本《奥兰多》。Vita 的儿子，Nigel Nicolson 说这本书是「the longest and most charming love-letter in literature.」

我好看我人人爱我就是不能有空窗期我要脚踏很多条船

其他同性恋人包括： 1927年，Mary Garman，布鲁姆斯伯里团体（包括作家、艺术家和知识分子）的一员（Vita 你真喜欢文学圈啊……忘了说 Violet Keppel 也是作家） 1929-1931，Hilda Matheson，bbc制作人。 1931，Vita 和新闻记者Evelyn Irons 和记者的情人 Olive Rinder 玩3p……但记者第二年遇见了 Joy McSweeney 甩了 Vita。

最后

补充一封 Violet to Vita 的情书（引自：Primary Article Sources） Violet Trefusis, letter to Vita Sackville-West (March 1919)

My own sweet love, I am writing this at 2 o'clock in the morning at the conclusion of the most cruelly ironical clay I have spent in my life. This evening I was taken to a ball of some good people. Chinday had previously told all her friends I was engaged so I was congratulated by everyone I knew there. I could have screamed aloud. Mitya, I can't face this existence. I shall see you once again on Monday and it depends on you whether we shall ever see each other again. It is really wicked and horrible. I am losing every atom of self-respect I ever possessed. I hate myself. 0 Mitya, what have you done to me? 0 my darling, precious love, what is going to become of use I want you every second and every hour of the day, yet I am being slowly and inexorably tied to somebody else... Sometimes I am flooded by an agony of physical longing for you... a craving for your nearness and your touch. At other times I feel I should be quite content if I could only hear the sound of your voice. I try so hard to imagine your lips on mine. Never was there such a pitiful imagining.... Darling, whatever it may cost us, my mother won't be cross with you any more. I suppose this ridiculous engagement will set her mind at rest.... Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased, to tear to pieces if such had been your will. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world I clamour for you.... You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination - the most powerful in the world.