I love the Victorian era. So I decided to live in it.
我热爱维多利亚时代，所以决定生活于其中。
My husband and I study history, specifically the late Victorian era of the 1880s and ’90s. Our methods are quite different from those of academics. Everything in our daily life is connected to our period of study, from the technologies we use to the ways we interact with the world.
我丈夫和我都研究历史，具体说是维多利亚时代晚期，即1880至1890年代。我们跟学院派的方法极为不同。我们日常生活中的所有事物，从我们所用的技术到我们与世界沟通的方式，都跟我们所研究的时代有关联。
Five years ago we bought a house built in 1888 in Port Townsend, Washington State — a town that prides itself on being a Victorian seaport. When we moved in, there was an electric fridge in the kitchen: We sold that as soon as we could. Now we have a period-appropriate icebox that we stock with block ice. Every evening, and sometimes twice a day during summer, I empty the melt water from the drip tray beneath its base.
五年前，我们买了栋建于1888年的宅子，位于华盛顿州的汤森港——一座以曾为维多利亚时期海港自傲的城镇。当我们搬进去时，厨房里还有台电冰箱。我们立马把它给卖了。现在我们使用一个跟时代相吻合的冰盒，里面储藏冰块。每天傍晚，我都要清空冰盒底下滴水盘中的融水，如果是夏天，有可能每天要清两次。
Every morning I wind the mechanical clock in our parlor. Each day I write in my diary with an antique fountain pen that I fill with liquid ink using an eyedropper. My inkwell and the blotter I use to dry the ink on each page before I turn it are antiques from the 1890s; I buy my ink from a company founded in 1670. My sealing wax for personal letters comes from the same company, and my letter opener was made sometime in the late Victorian era from a taxidermied deer foot.
每天早上我要给客厅里的机械钟上发条。每天写日记，我用的都是一支古董自来水笔，并用点眼药水的滴管给它灌墨水。我的墨水池和我翻页之前用于吸干墨水的吸墨纸都是1890年代的古董；我从一家成立于1670年的公司购买墨水。我在私人信件上所用的封蜡也是同一家公司所产，开信刀则制造于维多利亚时代晚期的某个时候，原料是一只经标本剥制术处理的鹿脚。
There are no modern lightbulbs in our house. When Gabriel and I have company we use early electric lightbulbs, based on the first patents of Tesla and Edison. When it’s just the two of us, we use oil lamps. When we started using period illumination every day, we were amazed by how much brighter the light is from antique oil lamps than from modern reproductions.
我们家没有现代灯泡。我和Gabriel之外另有客人在时，我们就用早期的白炽灯，这种灯还是基于特斯拉和爱迪生最早的专利。如果只有我们两个，我们就用油灯。当初，我们开始每天都使用时代照明时，我们都感到很惊讶，来自古董油灯的光线可比来自其现代复制品的亮得多。
Our heat comes from 19th-century gas heaters and from an antique kerosene space heater. In the winter we tuck hot water bottles into bed with us, and even the cotton covers that I sewed for those bottles are made from period-appropriate fabric (its designs are copies of fabric patterns from the late 19th century).
我们用19世纪的煤气炉和一个古董煤油小暖炉取暖。冬天，我们把热水瓶子塞到我们的被子里，连我为这些瓶子缝棉套子时所用的布料都与时代吻合（其设计复制自19世纪末的织物图案）。
Our bed itself is an antique from our period of study, and since it didn’t have a mattress when we bought it, I sewed one by hand and stuffed it with feathers.
我们用的床本身就是我们所研究的那个时代的古董，而因为买来的时候没有床垫，我手缝了一个，里面填充的是羽毛。
I bake all our bread from scratch, using a sourdough culture I keep constantly bubbling in the back corner of our kitchen in a bowl that belonged to my grandmother. When I want whipped cream or an omelet, I use an antique rotary eggbeater; when we want to grind something, we have a Victorian food chopper as well as mortars and pestles.
烤面包时，我都是从最初的原料开始准备，要用到的酵种被我装在一个我祖母用过的碗里，放在厨房的墙角养着，不停冒泡。需要打奶油或者煎蛋饼时，我用的是一个古董旋转打蛋器；要研磨东西时，我们有维多利亚时代的食品搅拌机、研钵和研槌。
Whenever I’m inside my house I have an antique chatelaine hanging from my waist — a marvelous 19th-century accessory that combines elements that would remind a modern person of a charm bracelet, multi-tool, and organizer all in one. Mine usually holds a notebook, pincushion, and scissors, but I also have attachments for it ranging from a thimble holder to a matchbox, a coin box, or a pair of tweezers.
任何时候只要我呆在屋子里，腰上总是系着一根古董腰链——一种神奇的19世纪饰品，其组成元素可让现代人感觉它是漂亮手镯、多功能器具和整理器的多合一。我这根腰链通常挂着笔记本、针插和剪刀，不过也有其它坠物，从顶针夹到火柴盒、硬币盒或小镊子不等。
I bathe with a bowl and pitcher every morning, and for a nice long soak I use our cast-iron clawfoot bathtub. I wash my hair using Castile bar soap from a company established in 1839. (Shampooing with Castile soap is a piece of beauty advice I found in a Victorian magazine from about the time our house was built.) My hairbrush is a 130-year-old design, and my toothbrush has natural boar bristles.
我每天早上洗澡用的是盆和水罐，要泡个舒服的长澡时就用我们那个带铸铁爪足的浴缸。洗头发用的是卡斯提尔橄榄条皂，生产公司始建于1839年。（用卡斯提尔橄榄条皂洗发是我从一本维多利亚时期的杂志上得到的美容建议，这本杂志的发行大概与我们房子的建立同期）。我用的梳子是个已有130年历史的工艺品，牙刷则含有天然猪鬃。
Neither my husband nor I have ever had a cellphone; I’ve never even had a driver’s license. On special outings when Gabriel and I go cycling together, I ride a copy of a high-wheel tricycle from the 1880s. Gabriel has three high-wheel bicycles, and he has ridden them hundreds of miles.
我和我丈夫都从没用过手机；我连驾照都没有拿过。某些特别的日子，我和Gabriel会一起骑车出游，我骑的是一辆仿自1880年代的高轮三轮车。Gabriel有三辆高轮双轮车，他已经骑了有好几百英里。
On our vacation just last week, we rode our high-wheel cycles more than 75 miles along a historic railroad route between abandoned silver mines. I kept thinking of an article we had read in an 1883 cycling magazine about wheelmen riding bikes just like Gabriel’s when they took a trip out to a mine.
就在上周的假期，我们就曾沿着几个废弃银矿之间的一条历史铁路线骑行，用我们的高轮自行车跑了75英里多。那时我就一直在想我们从一本1883年的骑行杂志上读过的一篇文章，讲的正是骑行者们蹬着与Gabriel那部一样的自行车，去往一个矿地远游。
The process didn’t happen all at once. It’s not as though someone suddenly dropped us into a ready-furnished Victorian existence one day— that sort of thing only happens in fairy tales and Hollywood. We had to work hard for our dreams. The life we now enjoy came bit by bit, through gifts we gave each other. The greatest gift we give each other is mutual support in moving forward with our dreams.
这一转变并非一蹴而就。并不是说某人某天突然就将我们拉入了一个配备齐全的维多利亚式生活——这种事只会发生于童话故事或好莱坞中。我们得为我们的梦想辛苦奔忙。我们现在所享受的生活是通过我们送给彼此的礼物而一点一点得来的。我们所赠与彼此的最美好礼物就是伴着梦想相濡以沫的走下去。
Even before I met Gabriel, we both saw value in older ways of looking at the world. He had been homeschooled as a child, and he never espoused the strict segregation that now seems to exist between life and learning. As adults, we both wanted to learn more about a time that fascinated each of us. But it took mutual support to challenge society’s dogmas of how we should live, how we should learn. We came into it gradually — and together.
早在我与Gabriel相识之前，我们就都已看到了老式世界观的价值所在。他小时候接受过家庭式教育，从不赞成生活与学习之间如今看似存在的那种严格分离。长大以后，我们都渴望更多地了解那个让我们都无比着迷的时代。但要挑战社会关于我们应该如何生活、应该如何学习的成见，这需要共同渡过。我们是逐渐——也是共同——步入这一点的。
It’s hard to say who started it. I was the first to start wearing Victorian clothes, but Gabriel, who knew how I’d always admired Victorian ideals and aesthetics, gave them to me as presents, a way for both of us to research a culture we found fascinating. I was so intrigued by those clothes that I hand-sewed copies I could wear every day.
很难说我们之间是谁最先开始这么做的。其实是始于我穿维多利亚式的服装，不过Gabriel知道我素来崇尚维多利亚式的理念和审美，是他把那些服饰送给我作礼物的，这也是我们研究这种令我俩都着迷的文化的一种方式。我被这些衣物深深地迷住，以至于我手缝了许多件类似的，可以每日做伴。
Soon after, I gave Gabriel an antique suit of his own, but tailoring men’s clothes is a separate skill set, and it took him a while to find a seamstress who could make Victorian men’s clothing with the same painstaking attention to historic detail that I was putting into my own garments.
随后不久，我又送了Gabriel一套古董西装，不过缝制男士服装需要另一种技能，所以他花了段时间才找到一位女裁缝。这位裁缝能为他缝制维多利亚式的男装，并像我对待我的衣物一样，为其历史细节煞费苦心。
Wearing 19th-century clothes on a daily basis gave us insights into intimate life of the past, things so private and yet so commonplace they were never written down. Features of posture, movement, balance; things as subtle as the way my ankle-length skirts started to act like a cat’s whiskers when I wore them every single day.
在日常生活中穿着19世纪的服装，为我们提供了有关过往私密生活的洞见，这类事物如此隐私却又如此日常，以至于从未被人书写过。姿势、动作与平衡的特征；一些无比微妙的事物，比如当我每天都穿着及踝长裙时，它们开始像猫须一样飘逸。
I became so accustomed to the presence and movements of my skirts, they started to send me little signals about my proximity to the objects around myself, and about the winds that rustled their fabric — even the faint wind caused by the passage of a person or animal close by.
对于裙子的存在和运动，我变得无比熟稔，以至于当我接近身边的事物时，当风与布面摩擦作响时——即便是临近的人或动物穿过时导致的那种微弱的风，它们都会给我传递小小的信号。
I never had to analyze these signals, and after a while I stopped even thinking about them much; they became a peripheral sense, a natural part of myself. Gabriel said watching me grow accustomed to Victorian clothes was like seeing me blossom into my true self.
我从不需要去分析这些信号，而且一段时间以后技艺已熟练于心；它们成为了一种外围感官，我自己的自然的一部分。Gabriel曾说，看着我逐渐适应维多利亚式衣服，就像是看到我那个绽放的真实自我。
When we realized how much we were learning just from the clothes, we started wondering what other everyday items could teach us.
当我们意识到仅仅从衣服上我们学到的就何其之多时，我们开始琢磨其它的日常用品能够教给我们什么。
When cheap modern things in our lives inevitably broke, we replaced them with sturdy historic equivalents instead of more disposable modern trash. Every birthday and anniversary became an excuse to hunt down physical artifacts from our favorite time period, which we could then study and use together.
当我们生活中便宜的现代物品不可避免地破损时，我们就代之以结实耐用的历史对应物，而不再用那种不能重复使用的现代垃圾。每个生日和纪念日都变成了搜罗我们最钟爱时代的人工制品的理由，然后它们就可以供我们一起研究和使用。
Everything escalated organically from there, and now our whole life revolves around this ongoing research project. No one pays us for it, but we take it more seriously than many people take their paying jobs.
一切都从那里开始有机的成长了起来，如今我们整个生活都围绕着这个持续进行的研究项目打转。没人为此向我们提供资金，但我们对待它，可比许多人对待他们的有偿工作更为严肃。
The artifacts in our home represent what historians call “primary source materials,” items directly from the period of study. Anything can be a primary source, although the term usually refers to texts. The books and magazines the Victorians themselves wrote and read constitute the vast bulk of our reading materials — and since reading is our favorite pastime, they fill a large percentage of our days.
我们家中的人工制品代表的是历史学家所谓“一手材料”，都是直接来自所研究时代的物品。任何事物都可以是一手的，尽管这个词汇通常指涉文本。维多利亚时代的人们自身所写作和阅读的书籍和杂志构成了我们的阅读材料的主要部分——并且由于阅读是我们最爱的消遣，它们也占据了我们一天中的很大一部分时间。
There is a universe of difference between a book or magazine article about the Victorian era and one actually written in the period. Modern commentaries on the past can get appallingly like the game “telephone”: One person misinterprets something, the next exaggerates it, a third twists it to serve an agenda, and so on. Going back to the original sources is the only way to learn the truth.
关于维多利亚时代的书籍或杂志，和写于这一时期的书籍或杂志，两者之间有着天壤之别。对于过往的现代评论有可能像“打电话”游戏一样令人吃惊：某人曲解了某事，另一人进一步夸大，第三个人出于某个目的对其加以扭曲，如此持续。回顾原始材料是了解真相的唯一办法。
We’re devoted to getting our own insights and perspectives on the era, not just parroting stereotypes that “everyone knows.” The late Victorian era was an incredibly dynamic time, with so many new and extraordinary inventions it seemed anything was possible.
我们矢志于获得我们自己对这一时代的见解和观点，而不是仅仅人云亦云“众所周知”的刻板印象。晚期维多利亚时代是个充满活力的时期，有许多全新而非凡的发明，看起来似乎无所不能。
Interacting with tangible items from that time helps us connect with and share that optimism. They help us understand the culture that created them — a culture that believed in engineering durable, beautiful items that could be repaired by their users.
与源于这一时期的实物接触，能帮助我们了解并分享这种乐观主义。它们有助于我们理解那一创造了它们的文化——一种对制造耐用、美观且能由使用者修理的物品存有信念的文化。
Constantly using them helps us comprehend their context. Absorbing the lessons our artifacts teach us shapes our worldview. They are our teachers. Seeing their beauty every day elevates and inspires us, as it did their original owners.
在不断使用它们的过程中，我们领悟其内涵。吸收由我们的物品教给我们的教训，也塑造了我们的世界观。它们是我们的老师。欣赏它们的美，也提升并鼓舞了我们，就像它们曾提升鼓舞了其最初的主人一样。
It’s a life that keeps us far more in touch with the natural seasons, too. Much of modern technology has become a collection of magic black boxes: Push a button and light happens, push another button and heat happens, and so on. The systems that dominate people’s lives have become so opaque that few Americans have even the foggiest notion what makes most of the items they touch every day work — and trying to repair them would nullify the warranty.
这也让我们能无比贴近天然的四季轮替。多数现代技术都已然变成了一堆魔法黑箱子：按这个按钮就有光，按另一个按钮就有热，如此等等。主导人们生活的种种系统已变得如此晦涩，以至极少有美国人对他们每天碰到的物品都是如何运作的具有哪怕是模糊的概念——试着去修理它们还会使质保单作废。
The resources that went into making those items are treated as nothing more than a price tag to grumble about when the bills come due. Very few people actually watch those resources decreasing as they use them. It’s impossible to watch fuel disappearing when it’s burned in a power plant hundreds of miles away, and convenient to forget there’s a connection.
用于制造这些物品的资源，仅仅是被当做一个价签来对待，在账单到期时供人们抱怨几句。极少有人在使用这些资源时真的看到它们在减少。当燃料是在几百英里以外的发电站里烧掉的时候，我们不可能看到它们消失；自然而然也就忘记这之间存在关联了。
When we use resources through technology that has to be tended, we’re far more careful about how we use them. To use our antique space heater in the winter, I have to fill its reservoir with kerosene and keep its wick and flame spreader clean; when we want to use it, I have to open and light it. It’s not a burdensome process, but it’s certainly a more mindful one than flicking a switch.
当我们通过那些需要照看的技术来使用资源时，我们对于如何使用它们会更加仔细。冬天里，要用我们那件古董小暖炉的时候，我得往它的储液器里添煤油，保持灯芯和扩焰器干净；要用它时，我得打开它，然后点燃。这并非一件繁琐的事，但它确实比弹开一个开关要更费心思一些。
Not everyone necessarily wants to live the same lifestyle we have chosen, of course. But anyone can benefit from choices that increase their awareness of their surroundings and the way things they use every day affect them.
当然，未必所有人都想要过和我们选择的这般生活方式。但任何人都可以从这样一种选择中受益：这些选择将让他们更清晰的意识到周遭事物以及他们每日所用之物如何影响着他们。
Watching the level of kerosene diminish in the reservoir heightens our awareness of how much we’re using, and makes us ask ourselves what we truly need. Learning to use all these technologies gives us confidence to exist in the world on our own terms.
看着储液器里煤油油位的下降，会提高我们对自己用了多少煤油的意识，促使我们追问自己，我们的真实需求是什么。学着使用所有这些技术，能让我们依照自己的方式充满自信地存在于这个世界。
And that, really, is the resource we find ourselves more and more in need of. My husband and I have slowly, gradually worked to base our lives around historical artifacts and ideals because — quite frankly — we love living this way.
而这，我们发现，确实是我们日益需要的东西。我丈夫和我已经慢慢地、逐步地将我们的生活建基于历史物品和历史理念之上，因为——坦率地说——我们忠爱这种生活方式。
People assume the hard part of our lifestyle comes from the life itself, but using Victorian items every day brings us great joy and fulfillment. The truly hard part is dealing with other people’s reactions.
人们以为我们生活方式的难处会在于这种生活本身，但是每天使用维多利亚时代的物品给我们带来的是极大的愉悦和满足。然而真正的困难却在于应付别人对此的反应。
We live in a world that can be terribly hostile to difference of any sort. Societies are rife with bullies who attack nonconformists of any stripe.
我们所生活的世界，对于任何差异都可能极为敌视。社会上充斥着欺凌，攻击任何形式的不循常规者。
Gabriel’s workout clothes were copied from the racing outfit of a Victorian cyclist, and when he goes swimming, his hand-knit wool swim trunks raise more than a few eyebrows — but this is just the least of the abuse we’ve taken.
Gabriel的运动服是某位维多利亚骑行者所用竞赛服的复制品，而当他去游泳时，他的手织羊毛制泳裤所得到的可不止是一点点异样眼光——这还只是我们所受伤害中最轻微的一类。
We have been called “freaks,” “bizarre,” and an endless slew of far worse insults. We’ve received hate mail telling us to get out of town and repeating the word “kill … kill … kill.” Every time I leave home I have to constantly be on guard against people who try to paw at and grope me.
我们曾被称为“变态”、“怪异”，以及无穷尽的一堆更为不堪的辱骂。我们还收到过恐吓信，让我们离开镇子，并重复写有“杀……杀……杀”这个词。每次出门，我都得时刻保持警惕，防止人们抓我或者摸我。
Dealing with all these things and not being ground down by them, not letting other people’s hostile ignorance rob us of the joy we find in this life — that is the hard part. By comparison, wearing a Victorian corset is the easiest thing in the world.
应付所有这类事情，不被它们打翻，不让其他人充满敌意的无知剥夺我们在这种生活中找到的快乐——这才是难点。与之相比，穿件维多利亚式的紧身胸衣就是世上最容易的事了。
This is why more people don’t follow their dreams: They know the world is a cruel place for anyone who doesn’t fit into the dominant culture. Most people fear the bullies so much that they knuckle under simply to be left alone. In the process, they crush their own dreams.
这就是为什么更多的人没有追随自己的梦想：他们知道，对于任何不一致遵从主导文化的人来说，世界是个残忍的地方。多数人如此恐惧欺凌，以至于轻言放弃，以便免受干扰。在此过程中，他们碾碎了自己的梦想。
翻译：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）
校对：龟海海
编辑：辉格@whigzhou