朴告：布洛克·阿斯特尔与莱昂娜·海茉斯利

Brooke Astor and Leona Helmsley

布洛克·阿斯特尔与莱昂娜·海茉斯利

Aug 23rd 2007
From The Economist print edition

Brooke Astor and Leona Helmsley, grandes dames of New York, died on August 13th and 20th respectively, aged 105 and 87

纽约市最显赫的两位女士，布洛克·阿斯特尔和莱昂娜·海茉斯丽，分别于八月十三日和二十日辞世，一位高寿105岁，另一位87岁。

THE concept of richesse oblige has various dimensions. The bottom line is that those who have come into oodles of money should give some of it back; the second-to-bottom line is that they should cut a certain style while doing so. Both Brooke Astor and Leona Helmsley, who died within a few days of each other, gave millions of dollars away. And their similarities ended there.

富者施惠的观念有多种版本，基本要点是说那些获得大笔财产的人应该把其中一部分返还社会，至少是在做慈善之举时要给人以行之无悔的印象。布洛克·阿斯特尔和莱昂娜·海茉斯丽的去世时间彼此相隔仅区区几天，却同样选择了捐赠出去数百万美圆的财产。不过她们的相似也仅止于次。

Mrs Astor was as small, delicate and fine as a Meissen cup, her tailoring exquisite and her jewels unobtrusive. Mrs Helmsley, though not large, favoured loud trouser suits and chunky diamond clips, with her mouth made big and cruel by scarlet lipstick. Mrs Astor set great store by good manners, civility, kind remarks and the careful handling of umbrellas; Mrs Helmsley believed in loud words and elbows. Mrs Astor had dogs as well-behaved as herself, silky and smooth-haired to pose for photographers or to have their portraits in her 19th-century collection on the staircase of ＊Holly Hill＊(注1), her weekend retreat. Mrs Helmsley had a Maltese ＊bitch＊(注2) called Trouble, tied with pink ribbons and small enough to stuff in a purse, who sniffed at diners' legs in her restaurants and nipped their heels until they bled.

阿 斯特尔夫人身材娇小，体态纤细而幽雅，宛如精美的迈斯酒杯，她衣着裁剪精当，戴得体的珠宝。海茉斯丽夫人虽然身材也不高大，但是却钟爱花哨的女衫裤套装以 及肥大的镶嵌钻石的皮夹子，她有一张被猩红的唇膏渲染得又大又残忍的嘴唇。阿斯特尔夫人重视礼议，行为端庄，说话时态度和蔼可亲，总是审慎地举着雨伞；海 茉斯丽夫人则信奉大喝雷鸣与肘关节(即武力)。阿斯特尔夫人有只和她一样温文尔雅的狗，它常常为摄影师摆出造型，展示丝一样光滑柔顺的毛发；或者阿斯特尔夫人周末休息的时候，会在她位于冬青山(注1)的楼梯间那些19世纪的收藏品之间为它画肖像。海茉斯丽则有一只被粉红色带子拴住的名叫“麻烦”的马尔它＊母狗＊，它小得简直可以装进一个钱包里头，常常缠住在主人饭店里就餐的客人，在他们腿边嗅来嗅去，直到把他们的脚踝蹭得渗出血来。

(注1:冬青山，即霍丽山，著名的好莱坞就在此地，房产主人一般都是社会名流和电影明星)

(注2：bitch，俚语中相当于汉语的“婊子”，原意母狗)

The Astor money, more than $120m by the time it was Brooke's to disburse, was old, from New York land and the fur trade. The Helmsley money, $5 billion by the time Leona got her hands on it, was pretty new, from property speculation. Both fortunes came from late third marriages to cunning husbands. But whereas Mrs Astor, aside from writing features for House & Garden, merely let the markets increase her pile and relished spending the capital (something, she admitted, that John Jacob Astor would have thought as outrageous as dancing naked in the street), Mrs Helmsley worked like a dragon to build up and expand her husband Harry's hotel empire. As a Manhattan hatter's daughter with several competitive siblings, she was used to graft and struggle. Mrs Astor, a solitary and dreamy child who had come by money almost magically, treated it like fairy dust to the end of her days.

阿斯特尔家族的财产大都来源于过去位于纽约的地产收入和毛皮生意，其中超过1.2亿美圆可供布洛克自由支配。海茉斯利家族的财产则是新近物业投机所得，大约有50亿由莱昂娜主手打理。 两人的财富都可归因于最近的第三任丈夫精打细算。不过，相比较而言，阿斯特尔夫人除去为《家园》杂志写写稿子之外，唯一做的事情就是让拥有的财富自然升值，她只管轻松地尽情花消，(她有时也承认，约翰·雅各布·阿斯特尔估计会认为她的行为和在大街上光着身子跳舞一样丢人)海 茉斯利夫人则象龙一样不知疲倦地为建设和扩张她丈夫亨利的酒店帝国而工作。由于有若干个争强好胜的兄弟姐妹，生为曼哈顿制帽商的女儿，海茉斯利夫人已经习 惯于生活中的尔虞我诈和拼死挣扎。阿斯特尔夫人则是个充满幻想的独生子女，她几乎象变戏法似的被钱堆到了成年，因而直到她生命的最后一刻，依然视钱财如尘 土。

Both, in their wildly different ways, were peremptory. Well into old age, Mrs Astor wore out the staffers of the Astor Foundation with her insistence on seeing every group and project that was asking her for money, and visiting them frequently to check that things were done as required. A run-down section of 130th Street in Harlem, Astor Row, had to have its porches and decorative brackets immaculately restored; a start-up furniture service for the poor had to include tea-cups and saucers. Meanwhile, at Helmsley hotels across Manhattan, underneath giant portraits of the “Queen” herself, quaking bellhops with huge armloads of laundry submitted to the scarlet, pecking fingernails and the icy tiara smile. “I won't stand for skimpy towels; why should you?” cried Mrs Helmsley's adverts in the New York Times.

她们迥异的生活方式中的共同之处在于同样的独断专横。阿斯特尔夫人在她步入老年的日子里，固执于查看每个需要用钱的团体和项目，时不时地去走访一下看看事情进展如何，这些事让阿斯特尔基金会的工作人员筋疲力尽。哈莱姆区第130大街有一部分年久失修的房子，阿斯特尔·洛非要把那些门廊和装饰梁托重新翻修一新；为穷人安家提供基本家具的服务则必须包含茶杯和托盘。同样的，在遍布曼哈顿的海茉斯利饭店里海茉斯利夫人自己巨副“女王”肖像下面，战战兢兢的旅店侍者抱着一大堆需要洗熨的衣服，恭顺地服从于穿猩红色衣服、戴宝石坠饰的海茉斯利夫人的指指点点的手指和冷酷的微笑。“我不会提倡少用毛巾，你们怎么能那么做？”海茉斯利夫人在纽约时报上大张旗鼓地作广告。

Gloves and paper cups手套和纸杯

The arrogance of big money, Mrs Astor wrote once, “is one of the most unappealing of characteristics”. Mrs Helmsley, though fun to her friends, was arrogance personified: “Rhymes with rich”, was Newsweek's caption for her portrait on its cover. “We don't pay taxes,” she was said to have told a housekeeper once; “only the little people pay taxes.” Mrs Astor, a gentle soul, was upset when her first father-in-law, a colonel, yelled at his secretaries. Mrs Helmsley believed staff existed to be barked at, slapped and called fags if appropriate; two of them sued her for firing them because they were gay. On visits to underprivileged areas Mrs Astor, gloved and immaculate because this was what the ordinary person expected of the rich, would happily sip from a paper cup and praise the hot-dog mustard on her paper plate. At the sight of a paper-cup-carrier in any of her reception areas, Mrs Helmsley would get her doormen to throw the offender out.

阿斯特尔夫人曾写到：财大气粗的傲慢，是最让人讨厌的个性特征之一。海茉斯利和她的朋友们却乐此不彼，她们把傲慢比做“财富的旋律”。《新闻周刊》封面上曾刊登过她的肖像，肖像的标题就是这几个字。 “我 们不纳税，”有传闻说她有一次告诉一个领班：“只有小人物才纳税。”当阿斯特尔夫人的第一任任职陆军上校的岳父在办公室里大嚷大叫时，拥有一颗高贵心灵的 她感到很沮丧。海茉斯利夫人则相信，雇员就是被雇来被呼来喝去的，要时刻敲打他们，恰当点来说他们该被称做苦工；这些雇员中有两人指控她，说她因为他们是 同x恋 而开除了他们。阿斯特尔夫人拜访下层社会的贫困社区时，总是衣着整洁并戴着手套，因为这是普通大众心目中的富人形象。她会愉快地喝着纸杯中的水，对热狗面 包中的芥菜味道赞口不绝。凡是海茉斯利夫人眼界所触范围之内，任何人只要敢在她的地盘上手拿纸杯，她就会命令看门人对那个冒失鬼下逐客令。

Vulgar showiness was also seldom seen in the Astor household. True, the glasses, silver and finger bowls bore the Astor initials or the Astor crest, but it was not half as obvious as the “H” on Leona's plastic soap-compacts. Mrs Astor could sport massed sapphires if one-upmanship seemed called for; but she owned only two country houses, not several, and her birthday was never marked, as Leona's once was, by a display of red, white and blue lights on the Helmsley-owned Empire State Building. Vulgarity led to trouble; which was why Leona, accused of “naked greed” by the judge, spent 18 months in Camp Fed in 1992-94 for tax evasion, when it was fairly clear that her real crime was to be both abrasive and rich.

阿斯特尔家中很少有粗陋的标记。确切的来说，在眼镜、银器和洗指碗(注：餐桌上盛水供餐后洗指头用的碗)上刻有阿斯特尔的缩写或者纹饰。尽管如此，这些标记还没有莱昂娜的塑料肥皂盒上的“H”一半大。有时似乎是为了显示自己胜人一筹，阿斯特尔夫人会展示出成堆的蓝宝石炫耀；但是她只拥有两套乡村别墅，而不是好几处，她的生日也从来不象莱昂娜一贯的那样招摇。莱昂娜的生日总是绚丽夺目地在海茉斯利家族拥有的Empire State Building举行。麻烦总是粗俗的邻居；这就是莱昂娜被法官指控为“赤裸裸的贪婪”的原因，她因此指控于1992-1994年间在Camp Fed呆了十八个月。事情相当清楚，她真正的罪名其实是既粗俗又富有。

New York gained hugely from both women. Mrs Astor gave to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rockefeller University, the Bronx Zoo and, her special favourite, the New York Public Library; Mrs Helmsley gave to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the Weill Cornell Medical College and, her spell in prison evidently softening her, to poor children and hurricane victims. Both ended sadly, left alone with their dogs and the ghosts of their husbands in dust-draped city apartments or empty summer homes. But in the memory of most New Yorkers one was a saint and the other a sinner. Richesse oblige.

纽 约市从这两位女士那里获益巨大。阿斯特尔夫人把财产给予了大都会艺术博物馆、洛克菲勒大学、布郎克斯动物园、以及她的最爱：纽约公立图书馆；海茉斯利夫人 则给予了纽约长老会医院、魏尔·康奈尔医学院以及穷困儿童和飓风受害者，看来在监狱的那段时光的确感化了她。两人去世的情形都让人伤感，她们都被亲人所抛 弃，孤独地住在窗帘上满是灰尘的城市公寓或者空空如野的避暑别墅中，唯一陪伴她们的是狗和丈夫的鬼魂。但是在纽约人的记忆中，她们一个是圣人，另一个是罪 人。富者施惠。