嬌怯柔弱或不讓鬚眉？中華書局《福爾摩斯偵探案全集》中的女性形象

Docile or Determined?--Female Images in the Zhonghua Book Company’s Sherlock Holmes Stories

英國作家柯南道爾(Arthur Conan Doyle) 以福爾摩斯(Sherlock Holmes) 為主角，於1886 至1927 年間創作了五十六篇短篇故事及四篇長篇小說。此系列偵探小說譯介進入中國後亦大受讀者歡迎，中華書局於1916 年出版《福爾摩斯偵探案全集》，出版時間早、收羅亦廣，全書由十位譯者合譯而成，其中除了劉半儂屬於改革派文人外，其餘皆可歸類為鴛鴦蝴蝶派的作家。在福爾摩斯系列作品中，除了擔任配角的房東太太及女僕外，委託福爾摩斯辦案的客戶中，亦不乏外貌、性格立體鮮明的女性；行凶或策劃不法情事的反派中也有女子的身影。而在清末民初的譯作中，常可看到中國傳統文化及價值觀的影子，尤其女性形象時常因此有所轉變，以和原本大不相同的面貌出現在中文讀者面前。本文挑選七篇福爾摩斯系列的長短篇小說，現身其中的女性角色包括案件委託人、目擊者、甚至是凶手，本文旨在檢視當時譯者面對女性角色外貌神態、行為舉止的描寫時，是否受到傳統女性形象或審美觀的影響，這些傳統文化的因素又會如何影響其譯作。

British author Arthur Conan Doyle created a total of fifty-six short stories and four novels, featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes, during the period 1886-1927. After being translated into Chinese at the turn of the 20th century, during the late Qing and early Republic period, Doyle’s detective stories became very popular with Chinese readers. In 1916, Zhonghua Book Company published the Sherlock Holmes Detective Series; it was one of the earliest collections of translated Sherlock Holmes stories in China. This series was the collaborative effort of ten translators, most of whom were categorized as “yuan yang hu die pai” writers except for Liou Ban-Nong, who was mainly thought of as a reformist. In these stories there were quite a few female characters including landladies, maids, clients, and even villains. They tended to either be very beautiful or have strong personalities--or both. But due to the Chinese aesthetic standards and expectations at that time about how a proper woman should behave, the female images conveyed by the translators were quite different from those originally created by the author. This essay looks closely at the heroines in seven Sherlock Holmes stories--who include clients, witnesses, and even murderers--and tries to determine whether the translators were affected by the traditional Chinese values and stereotypes regarding women, and if so then how they were affected.