语，话中有话，表现出对所有人类天性的不屑一顾。康妮发现，这恶婆娘对仆人总是专横跋扈，不过表面装出温文尔雅的样子而已。她行事巧妙，让亚历山大爵士自认为自己才是一家之主，说一不二，因为他那肥硕却自诩为随和象征的大肚腩，还有那毫无逗趣效果的笑话，希尔达称之为滑稽的本性。

Sir Malcolm was painting. Yes, he still would do a Venetian lagoonscape, now and then, in contrast to his Scottish landscapes. So in the morning he was rowed off with a huge canvas, to his 'site'. A little later, Lady Cooper would he rowed off into the heart of the city, with sketching-block and colours. She was an inveterate watercolour painter, and the house was full of rose-coloured palaces, dark canals, swaying bridges, medieval facades, and so on. A little later the Guthries, the prince, the countess, Sir Alexander, and sometimes Mr. Lind, the chaplain, would go off to the Lido, where they would bathe; coming home to a late lunch at half past one.

马尔科姆爵士最近热衷于绘画。没错，他想找个时间，画一幅威尼斯水景，毕竟意大利水城与苏格兰的景致迥然不同。于是，每天清晨，他便带着大画布，乘船外出，寻找合适的取景地点。稍迟一会儿，库珀夫人则会带着写生簿和油彩，乘船赶往市中心。她沉迷于水彩画，家里摆满她的画作，玫瑰色的宫殿、阴暗的河道、摇摆着的索桥、中世纪的建筑物，诸如此类。再晚些时候，格思里一家、亲王、伯爵夫人、亚历山大爵士则会集体出行，前往利多岛畅泳，有时候牧师林德先生也会同往，大家都回来得比较晚，午餐通常在一点半开席。

The house-party, as a house-party, was distinctly boring. But this did not trouble the sisters. They were out all the time. Their father took them to the exhibition, miles and miles of weary paintings. He took them to all the cronies of his in the Villa Lucchese, he sat with them on warm evenings in the piazza, having got a table at Florian's: he took them to the theatre, to the Goldoni plays. There were illuminated water-fêtes, there were dances. This was a holiday-place of all holiday-places. The Lido, with its acres of sun-pinked or pyjamaed bodies, was like a strand with an endless heap of seals come up for mating. Too many people in the piazza, too many limbs and trunks of humanity on the Lido, too many gondolas, too many motor-launches, too many steamers, too many pigeons, too many ices, too many cocktails, too many menservants wanting tips, too many languages rattling, too much, too much sun, too much smell of Venice, too many ca