查太莱夫人的情人(外研社双语读库)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：D. H. Lawrence D. H. 劳伦斯

出版社：外语教学与研究出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

查太莱夫人的情人(外研社双语读库)试读：

CHAPTER 1

第一章

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

置身悲惨时代已是不可改变的事实，因此我们更需保持乐观的态度。大难已然降临，身处残垣断壁之中，我们着手修建自己的小小家园，心怀微弱的新的希冀。这的确并非易事：通往未来的道路绝无坦途，但我们仍需曲折前行，攀过重重阻碍。即使天崩地裂，生活仍要继续。

This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

康斯坦斯·查泰莱夫人的境遇大致就是如此。战争给她带来塌天横祸。也让她意识到人必须活在世间，生而学之。

She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month's honeymoon. Then he went back to Flanders: to be shipped over to England again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine.

1917年，克利福德·查泰莱告了一个月的假，返回家乡，同康斯坦斯结了婚。两人得以共度一个月的新婚时光。之后，他再赴佛兰德，不想仅仅六个月过去，就被运回英格兰，几乎是遍体鳞伤。当时他29岁，妻子康斯坦斯23岁。

His hold on life was marvellous. He didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor's hands. Then he was pronounced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever.

克利福德的求生欲望令人惊异。他居然活了下来，支离破碎的身体似乎也重新愈合了。医生花费整整两年的时光医治他，总算起到回春之效，克利福德好歹保住性命，只是腰部以下的下半身永远瘫痪了。

This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family "seat". His father had died, Clifford was now a baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the Chatterleys on a rather inadequate income. Clifford had a sister, but she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the Chatterley name alive while he could.

时间已经是1920年。克利福德携康斯坦斯返回家乡，入住祖传的拉格比府。父亲已经辞世，克利福德承袭爵位，成为克利福德男爵，而康斯坦斯也成为查泰莱男爵夫人。置身于查泰莱家这座有点凄清的祖宅，夫妻俩操持家务，依靠稍显微薄的收入，过起日子来。克利福德有个姐姐，但已经离开。此外她们再无近亲。其兄死于战火。克利福德清楚自己注定终生残废，无望有后，重回烟雾缭绕的米德兰（注：英格兰中部地区的旧称），为的只是在自己的有生之年，让查泰莱家不至于断绝香火。

He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a bath-chair with a small motor attachment, so he could drive himself slowly round the garden and into the line melancholy park, of which he was really so proud, though he pretended to be flippant about it.

他并未因此而十分郁郁寡欢。他可以摇着轮椅，四处游逛，而驾着那个装有小型马达的巴斯轮椅（注：旧时一种供残疾人使用的轮椅，多带有蓬盖），更能够悠哉游哉地在花园中徜徉，进入那片树木成行、凄清阴郁的庭院中去。拥有如此气派的园林，他其实颇为得意，只是装出一副满不在乎的模样而已。

Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him. He remained strange and bright and cheerful, almost, one might say, chirpy, with his ruddy, healthy-looking face, arid his pale-blue, challenging bright eyes. His shoulders were broad and strong, his hands were very strong. He was expensively dressed, and wore handsome neckties from Bond Street. Yet still in his face one saw the watchful look, the slight vacancy of a cripple.

经历诸多苦难，克利福德对痛苦的承受能力有点离他而去。他依然古怪，总是满面春风，笑逐颜开，脸色健康红润，淡蓝色的双眸神采奕奕，说他是乐天派也不为过。其双肩宽厚强壮，两手结实有力。其人衣着华贵，颈部总系着邦德街（注：位于伦敦西部上流住宅区的一条商业街，从18世纪繁盛至今）买回的漂亮的领带。但从他的脸上，还是能看到那种残疾人特有的警惕表情，以及略显空洞的眼神。

He had so very nearly lost his life, that what remained was wonderfully precious to him. It was obvious in the anxious brightness of his eyes, how proud he was, after the great shock, of being alive. But he had been so much hurt that something inside him had perished, some of his feelings had gone. There was a blank of insentience.

他曾去鬼门关走过一遭，因此对余生倍加珍视。一双明眸分明闪烁着焦虑，流露出对自己大难不死的得意神色。但所受的创伤确实太过深重，他内心的某些东西已然泯灭，某些情感也都消失不见了。只有失去知觉后的空白。

Constance, his wife, was a ruddy, country-looking girl with soft brown hair and sturdy body, and slow movements, full of unusual energy. She had big, wondering eyes, and a soft mild voice, and seemed just to have come from her native village. It was not so at all. Her father was the once well-known R.A., old Sir Malcolm Reid. Her mother had been one of the cultivated Fabians in the palmy, rather pre-Raphaelite days. Between artists and cultured socialists, Constance and her sister Hilda had had what might be called an aesthetically unconventional upbringing. They had been taken to Paris and Florence and Rome to breathe in art, and they had been taken also in the other direction, to the Hague and Berlin, to great Socialist conventions, where the speakers spoke in every civilized tongue, and no one was abashed.

其妻康斯坦斯，面若桃花，一副乡下姑娘的模样，满头柔软的棕发，体格结实强壮，行动慢条斯理，精力异常充沛。她那一对杏眼，充满好奇，嗓音温软，像是刚从故乡的村子里走出。但事实并非如此。其父老马尔科姆·里德爵士，曾是尽人皆知的皇家艺术学会（注：位于英国伦敦的著名艺术机构）会员。在那段前拉斐尔派（注：1848年在英国兴起的美术改革运动，对后世的英国绘画有着深远的影响）还如日中天的繁荣时期，其母也是位学识渊博的费边社（注：英国社会改良主义团体，1884年成立于伦敦，主张采取缓慢渐进的策略来达到社会改良的目的）社员。受到艺术家及有教养的社会主义者的熏陶，康斯坦斯与妹妹希尔达可以算是受到了新颖的美学上的教养。她们曾随父母到过巴黎、佛罗伦萨以及罗马，呼吸那里的艺术气息，也去过海牙与柏林，参与社会主义者的盛会，在那里形形色色的演说者操着各国语言，谈吐文雅，举止大方。

The two girls, therefore, were from an early age not the least daunted by either art or ideal politics. It was their natural atmosphere. They were at once cosmopolitan and provincial, with the cosmopolitan provincialism of art that goes with pure social ideals.

对于艺术或者理想主义政治，姐妹俩从小就没有半点胆怯之心。她们反倒对此习以为常。她们大气广博，又不失乡土本色，她们那交融着世界性及地方色彩的艺术品味，与纯粹的社会理想相辅相成。

They had been sent to Dresden at the age of fifteen, for music among other things. And they had had a good time there. They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women. And they tramped off to the forests with sturdy youths bearing guitars, twang-twang! They sang the Wandervogel songs, and they were free. Free! That was the great word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning, with lusty and splendid-throated young fellows, free to do as they liked, and—above all—to say what they liked. It was the talk that mattered supremely: the impassioned interchange of talk. Love was only a minor accompaniment.

15岁时，她们被送往德累斯顿（注：德国中东部城市），学习音乐和其他知识。她们在那里度过了愉快的时光。学校的生活是那样的无拘无束，她们常与男同学争论哲学、社会学以及艺术方面的问题。姐妹俩的学识丝毫不逊男子，甚至更胜一筹——因为她们是女子。当她们相伴在林间漫步时，同行的英挺少年总会不时拨响随身携带的六弦琴，砰砰作响！高唱起候鸟协会（注：德语，意为候鸟，此处指１19世纪末20世纪初的德国青年运动，倡导摆脱社会的限制，返璞归真，追求自由）的歌谣，如此地自由自在。自由！多么美妙的字眼。在空旷的野外，在清晨的森林，与歌喉动人的欢快少年们自由地做喜欢的事情，尤其是畅所欲言。谈话无疑极为重要，那热情洋溢的交谈。爱情不过是微不足道的陪衬。

Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen. The young men with whom they talked so passionately and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were so humble and craving. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself? So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only a sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connexions and subjections.

希尔达和康斯坦斯均在18岁时初尝爱情的滋味。和她们热烈交谈，纵情欢唱，在树下自由露营的小伙子们自然会对肌肤之亲充满渴望。女孩们起初犹豫未决，但关于此事，双方已经探讨过多次，均认为它如此重要。况且小伙子们又是如此低声下气地渴求。为什么女孩不能如女王施恩一般，将自己赐予对方呢？于是两人都委身于谈论问题时与自己最为交心，关系最为亲密的少年。高谈阔论，据理力争，才是举足轻重之事，而男女之欢不过是种回归原始的行为，甚至有点扫兴。云雨过后，女孩对男孩的爱意反倒减少了，甚至生出些许怨恨，仿佛是他侵犯了自己的私隐，以及内在的自由。因为身为女子，全部的尊严，以及生存的真谛，都自然在于自由的实现，这种自由无可挑剔，尽善尽美，难觅瑕疵，高贵无比。女子的一生除此之外还有什么意义？是摆脱陈腐的、可鄙的交媾和从属关系。

And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.

无论被赋予多少浪漫情怀，性事仍是一种古老的、污秽的交合行为和从属关系。歌颂性爱的诗人多是男子。女子却往往深知，世间还存在着更加美好、更加崇高的事物。而如今，这种信念比以往还要明确许多。对于女人而言，完美纯粹的自由如此令人向往，而这是任何性爱都无法企及的。不过糟糕的是，男人对此事的观念依旧停滞落后。他们对性的强烈需求，与兽类无异。

And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connexion and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.

女子只得委曲求全。男人好似贪嘴的孩童。当女人不肯屈就于他们的欲望时，他们就可能会摆出臭脸，盛怒而去，活脱脱像个孩子，将原本融洽的关系搞得一团糟。但女人就算屈从于男子，仍可以保有心底自由的真我。那些乐谈性事的诗人和谈论者，好像没有对这给予充分说明。即使委身于人，女子仍能不流露自己内心的真实情感，自然也能做到不受对方的掌控。相反，她们甚至可以巧妙地利用性事，将男人玩弄于股掌之中。她们只须在交媾时抑制住自己的情绪，避免高潮的到来，等到对方弹药耗尽、丢盔卸甲后，就可以将欢好时间延长，享受极度的快感，而此时男人扮演的角色只不过是她的纵欲工具。

Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months…this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!—had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.

战火燃起，姐妹俩匆匆赶回家，而在此之前，两人都已有过恋爱的经验。陷入爱河，皆因双方能够倾心交谈，彼此深有好感，愿意互诉衷肠。数月间，能与颖悟绝伦的少男时以继时，日以继日地忘情交谈，那种兴奋的感受真是美妙至极、深奥莫测、难以置信……而这些只有在亲身经历过后，才能真正认识得到。神的许诺：尔将交到可以交心的男子！——从未透露，这个许诺却在恋人们尚未知晓之前，就已兑现。

And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme.

生动的、启迪灵魂的交谈，使恋人间的关系变得亲昵，若此时云情雨意已无法抑制，那就不妨顺其自然。这标志着一个篇章的终结。其本身也伴随着强烈的快感：肉体深处莫可名状的震颤，最终释放欲望时的痉挛，像是文章末尾激奋人心的字眼，更像是段落结尾处一连串的星号，预示着主题思想戛然而止。

When the girls came home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father could see plainly that they had had the love experience.

适逢1913年暑期，姐妹俩返回故乡，那时希尔达20岁，康妮18岁，其父一眼便看出她们已经有了爱情经验。

L'amour avait posse par là, as somebody puts it. But he was a man of experience himself, and let life take its course. As for the mother, a nervous invalid in the last few months of her life, she wanted her girls to be "free", and to "fulfil themselves". She herself had never been able to be altogether herself: it had been denied her. Heaven knows why, for she was a woman who had her own income and her own way. She blamed her husband. But as a matter of fact, it was some old impression of authority on her own mind or soul that she could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously hostile, high-spirited wife to rule her own roost, while he went his own way.

正如某人所说：爱情已经来临过。然而他自己已是过来人，索性听之任之。至于她们的母亲，疯疯癫癫的她已经时日无多，只剩几个月的活头，期望女儿们能够“自由自在”，“充实自我”。她从未做过真正的自己，这个权利被剥夺了。天晓得原因为何，毕竟她是个经济独立、行事果敢的女子。她归咎于自己的丈夫。但事实上，只是陈腐的伦常对其思想或灵魂的影响太过深重，以至于她始终都无法摆脱出来。这跟马尔科姆爵士绝无半点干系。他对妻子神经质的敌视和执着熟视无睹，心安理得地我行我素。

So the girls were 'free', and went back to Dresden, and their music, and the university and the young men. They loved their respective young men, and their respective young men loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things the young men thought and expressed and wrote, they thought and expressed and wrote for the young women. Connie's young man was musical, Hilda's was technical. But they simply lived for their young women. In their minds and their mental excitements, that is. Somewhere else they were a little rebuffed, though they did not know it.

姐妹俩自然不会受到什么约束，她们再赴德累斯顿，回归高校继续研修音乐，也得以重返年轻的情郎的怀抱。两对恋人都全身心地深爱着彼此。少男们所想、所说、所写的一切美妙事物，全都是为了自己心爱的女孩。康妮的爱郎学习音乐，而希尔达的则主修理工。但他们生活的重心完全放在自己的恋人身上。更确切地说，从思想及情感方面来讲尤是如此。而在其他方面，他们却并未被完全接受，虽说二人始终没有察觉到这一点。

It was obvious in them too that love had gone through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what a subtle but unmistakable transmutation it makes, both in the body of men and women: the woman more blooming, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened, and her expression either anxious or triumphant: the man much quieter, more inward, the very shapes of his shoulders and his buttocks less assertive, more hesitant.

显而易见，爱情，干柴烈火的肉体之爱，已经在她俩身上留下痕迹。奇妙的是，肉体之爱会让情侣们的身体发生细微但却显而易见的变化：女孩变得更加丰腴圆润，好似盛放的花朵，少女时期的棱角渐渐被磨平，取而代之的是抑或忧心忡忡，抑或洋洋得意的丰富表情；男孩则变得更加沉静内敛，肩膀和臀部的线条少了几分斩钉截铁，多了几分犹豫不决。

In the actual sex-thrill within the body, the sisters nearly succumbed to the strange male power. But quickly they recovered themselves, took the sex-thrill as a sensation, and remained free. Whereas the men, in gratitude to the woman for the sex experience, let their souls go out to her. And afterwards looked rather as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Connie's man could be a bit sulky, and Hilda's a bit jeering. But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason.

身体内部真切的性快感，让姐妹俩几乎要对男性的奇异力量俯首称臣。但二人旋即重拾自我，将性快感归于官能的刺激，坚守着心灵的自由。反观她们的情郎，却因为对佳人以身相许心存感念，将灵魂也尽数交托给对方。但过不多时，他们就发觉这似乎有些得不偿失。康妮的爱侣不时板起脸孔，而希尔达的则经常冷嘲热讽。男人就是这副臭德行！薄情寡幸，贪得无厌。对其敬而远之，他们便心生怨恨；与其如胶似漆，也会招致其他缘由的厌烦。

Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.

或是根本没有因由，他们只是牢骚满腹的孩子，无论得到什么，无论女子付出再多，也不会感到满足。

However, came the war, Hilda and Connie were rushed home again after having been home already in May, to their mother's funeral. Before Christmas of 1914 both their German young men were dead: whereupon the sisters wept, and loved the young men passionately, but underneath forgot them. They didn't exist any more.

大战烽火燃起，希尔达和康妮被迫再度匆忙返乡避祸，那年五月，她们就曾回过家，为了料理母亲的后事。1914年圣诞节来临前，两人的德国情郎双双殒命，为此姐妹俩垂泪许久，毕竟彼此间有过轰轰烈烈的爱情，但在心底却已渐渐将他们遗忘。毕竟已是阴阳相隔。

Both sisters lived in their father's, really their mother's, Kensington housemixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for 'freedom' and flannel trousers, and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy, and a whispering, murmuring sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner. Hilda, however, suddenly married a man ten years older than herself, an elder member of the same Cambridge group, a man with a fair amount of money, and a comfortable family job in the government: he also wrote philosophical essays. She lived with him in a smallish house in Westminster, and moved in that good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they're talking about, or talk as if they did.

姐妹俩住进肯辛顿（注：位于伦敦西部的行政区划）父亲家里，确切地讲，那里本来属于母亲，与剑桥大学学生团体的年轻成员们混居一处。这些家伙都标榜“自由”，穿法兰绒开领衫，配法兰绒长裤，满腹教养，笃信情感无政府主义，嗓音低沉含混，仪态反应异常灵敏。没料想，希尔达突然成婚，丈夫比她年长十岁，是该学生团体的资深成员，家财殷实，在政府中充当僚属，也常写点哲学文章。她跟随丈夫，住进威斯敏斯特一处不大的寓所，交往的都是政府阶层，虽说算不得头面人物，但也都是或者将会成为英国的真正智囊。他们知道自己在谈论些什么，或者装作自己无所不知。

Connie did a mild form of war-work, and consorted with the flannel-trousers Cambridge intransigents, who gently mocked at everything, so far. Her "friend" was a Clifford Chatterley, a young man of twenty-two, who had hurried home from Bonn, where he was studying the technicalities of coal-mining. He had previously spent two years at Cambridge. Now he had become a first lieutenant in a smart regiment, so he could mock at everything more becomingly in uniform.

康妮得到份清闲的战时工作，常与那些穿法兰绒长裤的剑桥学生为伴，他们有着独立的政治见解，总会措辞文雅地揶揄时事。她的“男友”名叫克利福德·查泰莱，时年22岁，当时正在德国波恩学习煤矿开采技术，刚刚匆忙赶回英伦。此前，他在剑桥修习过两年。如今则是一个厉害的军团里的陆军中尉，身着军装，更可以随意睥睨一切了。

Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter.

克利福德·查泰莱的出身高过康妮。康妮出自富裕的知识分子家庭，而他却属于贵族阶层。虽说不是名门显族，但仍然沾得上边。其父为准男爵，其母未出阁时，也是子爵家的千金。

But Clifford, while he was better bred than Connie, and more "society", was in his own way more provincial and more timid. He was at his ease in the narrow "great world", that is, landed aristocracy society, but he was shy and nervous of all that other big world which consists of the vast hordes of the middle and lower classes, and foreigners. If the truth must be told, he was just a little bit frightened of middle-and lower-class humanity, and of foreigners not of his own class. He was, in some paralysing way, conscious of his own defencelessness, though he had all the defence of privilege. Which is curious, but a phenomenon of our day.

虽说克利福德的教养及身份都优于康妮，但却更加狭隘羞怯。置身狭小的“上流社会”——地主贵族阶层，他尚且感觉自在，但一旦与其他阶层——包括人数众多的中产阶级、下层民众、甚至外国人相处，他便羞怯不前，紧张兮兮。说白了，他对中低阶层的人们有些心怀畏惧，对并非贵族的外国人也有些抵触。虽然享有的特权都得到极力捍卫，但他仍然会觉得自己有些麻木但又惶惑无助。这种现象的确怪异，但却真实存在于我们这个时代。

Therefore the peculiar soft assurance of a girl like Constance Reid fascinated him. She was so much more mistress of herself in that outer world of chaos than he was master of himself.

也难怪康斯坦斯·里德那份与众不同的温婉自得，让他深深着迷。身处纷乱复杂的外部世界中，康妮显得更加镇定自若，这点远非他所能比。

Nevertheless he too was a rebel: rebelling even against his class. Or perhaps rebel is too strong a word; far too strong. He was only caught in the general, popular recoil of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate one supremely so. And governments were ridiculous: our own wait-and-see sort especially so. And armies were ridiculous, and old buffers of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely. Even the war was ridiculous, though it did kill rather a lot of people.

然而，他同样是个离经叛道者，甚至公然对抗自己的阶级。或许离经叛道这个词过于强烈，太过激烈。他不过是跟普通青年大众一样愤世嫉俗，反对传统，挑战任何形式的权威。父辈们都是愚蠢可笑的，他那位冥顽不灵的父亲尤是如此。政府当局都是极端荒谬的，总是抱有投机心理的英国政府尤是如此。军队都是荒唐透顶的，那些垂垂老矣的将军们，面色酡红的基奇纳（注：1850-1916，英国陆军元帅，在一战前期起到过举足轻重的作用。）尤是如此。甚至战争本身都是毫无意义的，虽然成千上万的人们因它而丢掉性命。

In fact everything was a little ridiculous, or very ridiculous: certainly everything connected with authority, whether it were in the army or the government or the universities, was ridiculous to a degree.

事实上，世间万物都有些荒诞的色彩，或者说是非常荒诞，尤其是所有与权威相关的东西，无论是军队、政府或者高等院校，无一例外地荒诞至极。

And as far as the governing class made any pretensions to govern, they were ridiculous too. Sir Geoffrey, Clifford's father, was intensely ridiculous, chopping down his trees, and weeding men out of his colliery to shove them into the war; and himself being so safe and patriotic; but, also, spending more money on his country than he'd got.

至于那些自命不凡的统治阶层，同样是值得奚落的对象。克利福德的父亲，杰弗里爵士，更是荒唐到极点。他伐尽园中的树木，将自家矿场里的工人一股脑地赶上前线，而自己则在后方高枕无忧，高喊救国口号，不过，他也确实为国家慷慨解囊，甚至到了入不敷出的地步。

When Miss Chatterley—Emma—came down to London from the Midlands to do some nursing work, she was very witty in a quiet way about Sir Geoffrey and his determined patriotism. Herbert, the elder brother and heir, laughed outright, though it was his trees that were falling for trench props. But Clifford only smiled a little uneasily. Everything was ridiculous, quite true. But when it came too close and oneself became ridiculous too...? At least people of a different class, like Connie, were earnest about something. They believed in something.

查泰莱家的大小姐艾玛，从中部地区南下伦敦，从事一些医护工作，动身前，就曾气定神闲地对父亲和他那坚定不移的爱国主义大加调侃。而身为继承人的长兄赫伯特，当场报以大笑，虽然那些被砍伐用以修筑战壕的树木是他的财产。而克利福德只是露出点局促不安的微笑。一切都是足可嘲笑的对象，这一点毫无疑问。但当自己身临其境，是否也会沦为笑柄呢……？至少非贵族阶层的人们，比如康妮，还能以诚挚的态度来对待某些事情。他们的心中还存有信仰。

They were rather earnest about the Tommies, and the threat of conscription, and the shortage of sugar and toffee for the children. In all these things, of course, the authorities were ridiculously at fault. But Clifford could not take it to heart. To him the authorities were ridiculous AB OVO, not because of toffee or Tommies.

他们极为关心前线的英国兵，对征兵的威胁感到忧心忡忡，而食糖和乳糖的短缺给孩童们造成的影响，同样让他们惴惴不安。当然，所有这些事的罪魁祸首，是荒唐的当局政府。但克利福德却始终并未因此感到困扰。对他而言，无能的政府才是罪恶的根源，而供应不足的糖果或是浴血奋战的士兵，都并非症结所在。

And the authorities felt ridiculous, and behaved in a rather ridiculous fashion, and it was all a mad hatter's tea-party for a while. Till things developed over there, and Lloyd George came to save the situation over here. And this surpassed even ridicule, the flippant young laughed no more.

连当权者自己也觉得有些荒唐，但其所作所为依然愚蠢透顶，一时间活像是场疯狂的茶话会。直到前方战事日趋紧张，此时劳埃德·乔治（注：英国政治家，1916-1922年任英国首相，对一战的胜利以及战后的欧洲重建，起到过至关重要的作用。）走马上任，才算挽回国内的危局。而这些已经超越可笑的范畴，连愤世嫉俗的青年们也乖乖闭上了嘴。

In 1916 Herbert Chatterley was killed, so Clifford became heir. He was terrified even of this. His importance as son of Sir Geoffrey, and child of Wragby, was so ingrained in him, he could never escape it. And yet he knew that this too, in the eyes of the vast seething world, was ridiculous. Now he was heir and responsible for Wragby. Was that not terrible? and also splendid and at the same time, perhaps, purely absurd? Sir Geoffrey would have none of the absurdity. He was pale and tense, withdrawn into himself, and obstinately determined to save his country and his own position, let it be Lloyd George or who it might. So cut off he was, so divorced from the England that was really England, so utterly incapable, that he even thought well of Horatio Bottomley. Sir Geoffrey stood for England and Lloyd George as his forebears had stood for England and St. George: and he never knew there was a difference. So Sir Geoffrey felled timber and stood for Lloyd George and England, England and Lloyd George.

1916年，赫伯特·查泰莱阵亡，于是克利福德成为继承人。他甚至因此而感到害怕。他深知作为杰弗里爵士的子嗣、拉格比的少主，有着多么重要的意义，他无法回避自己所需肩负的责任。他也清楚这些在广大的处于水深火热中的人们看来，是多么地不着边际。现在他已经成为继承人，要对拉格比负责。这难道不会使人心生畏惧么？充分体验到满足感的同时，当事人同时也会觉得荒谬透顶。但杰弗里爵士却丝毫感觉不到任何荒谬的意味。他面色苍白，总是一副紧张兮兮的神情，一门心思决心拯救他的国家，保住自己的贵族地位。至于在位的究竟是劳埃德·乔治，或是别的什么人，对他而言毫无干系。身处与世隔绝的境地，他跟当今的现实英国社会完全脱节，因此根本就是心有余而力不足，这位爵爷甚至对霍雷肖·博顿利（注：1860-1933，英国金融家，政治骗子，内阁成员）评价颇高。杰弗里爵士支持英国及劳埃德·乔治，与他的先辈拥护祖国和圣乔治（注：260-303，罗马骑兵军官，死后被英格兰等欧洲国家奉为保护圣徒）别无二致，他从来搞不清其中有什么差异。因此，他伐倒自家的树木，为的只是支持劳埃德·乔治与英国，英国与劳埃德·乔治。

And he wanted Clifford to marry and produce an heir. Clifford felt his father was a hopeless anachronism. But wherein was he himself any further ahead, except in a wincing sense of the ridiculousness of everything, and the paramount ridiculousness of his own position? For willy-nilly he took his baronetcy and Wragby with the last seriousness.

他希望克利福德早日成家，传宗接代。而在克利福德眼中，父亲是个不可救药的脱离时代的老顽固。但他自己除了对一切事物的荒谬，尤其是自己处境的极端荒谬怀有畏缩之意外，并没有什么地方强过父亲。被迫也好，自愿也罢，他最终还是郑重其事地接受了准男爵爵位以及拉格比的财产。

The gay excitement had gone out of the war...dead. Too much death and horror. A man needed support and comfort. A man needed to have an anchor in the safe world. A man needed a wife.

战争初期的狂热已经烟消云散，灰飞烟灭。死亡人数不断攀升，血色恐惧肆意弥漫。男人们需要支持和抚慰。需要在战火未曾波及的所在，找到可以依赖的支点。需要个知疼知热的妻子。

The Chatterleys, two brothers and a sister, had lived curiously isolated, shut in with one another at Wragby, in spite of all their connexions. A sense of isolation intensified the family tie, a sense of the weakness of their position, a sense of defencelessness, in spite of, or because of, the title and the land. They were cut off from those industrial Midlands in which they passed their lives. And they were cut off from their own class by the brooding, obstinate, shut-up nature of Sir Geoffrey, their father, whom they ridiculed, but whom they were so sensitive about.

查泰莱三兄妹虽认识的人不少，但在拉格比却过着奇怪的、与世隔绝的生活，把自己封锁起来。内心的孤独将亲情的纽带系得更紧，虽然他们拥有爵位和土地，但或许正因为此，才会忧心地位不保，感到莫名的无助。虽然生活在工业化的米德兰地区，但他们却与外部世界阻隔开来。他们甚至与同阶层的人们也不相往来，这都拜其父杰弗里爵士所赐，他那阴郁倔强、沉默寡言的性格让人敬而远之。虽然兄妹三人总是将父亲作为奚落的对象，但心里却又很在意他。

The three had said they would all live together always. But now Herbert was dead, and Sir Geoffrey wanted Clifford to marry. Sir Geoffrey barely mentioned it: he spoke very little. But his silent, brooding insistence that it should be so was hard for Clifford to bear up against.

他们甚至承诺过彼此永不分离。但如今，赫伯特已不在人世，杰弗里爵士希望克利福德成家立室。他极少提及此事，因为本来就鲜于言辞。但他总是默不作声，郁郁寡欢，却又固执己见，使得克利福德根本无力反抗。

But Emma said No! She was ten years older than Clifford, and she felt his marrying would be a desertion and a betrayal of what the young ones of the family had stood for.

但是艾玛却反对弟弟的婚事！她长克利福德十岁，认为弟弟娶妻就是将自己弃之不顾，违背了他们昔日的约誓。

Clifford married Connie, nevertheless, and had his month's honeymoon with her. It was the terrible year 1917, and they were intimate as two people who stand together on a sinking ship. He had been virgin when he married: and the sex part did not mean much to him. They were so close, he and she, apart from that. And Connie exulted a little in this intimacy which was beyond sex, and beyond a man's "satisfaction". Clifford anyhow was not just keen on his 'satisfaction', as so many men seemed to be. No, the intimacy was deeper, more personal than that. And sex was merely an accident, or an adjunct, one of the curious obsolete, organic processes which persisted in its own clumsiness, but was not really necessary. Though Connie did want children: if only to fortify her against her sister-in-law Emma.

尽管如此，克利福德仍与康妮完婚，共渡蜜月。那时正值兵荒马乱的1917年，小两口好似矗立在行将沉没的船舶之上一样亲密无间、不肯分离。结婚时克利福德还是童子之身，而性爱对他而言形同鸡肋。除此之外两人爱得如胶似漆。这种与性事和男子欲望满足无关的亲密，让康妮欣喜若狂。克利福德并不像许多男人那般，沉迷于他的欲望满足之中。或者应该这样说，这种情感远比单纯的性爱更笃厚，更私密。而性事只能偶尔为之，或当成某种点缀，那只是一种奇妙的却又过气笨拙的器官交合的过程，并非不可或缺。康妮渴望生下一儿半女，以此来巩固自己的地位，对抗丈夫的姐姐艾玛。

But early in 1918 Clifford was shipped home smashed, and there was no child. And Sir Geoffrey died of chagrin.

但天不遂人愿，1918年年初，遍体鳞伤的克利福德被送回国内，留下子嗣的希望随之泯灭。杰弗里爵士也郁郁而终。

CHAPTER 2

第二章

Connie and Clifford came home to Wragby in the autumn of 1920. Miss Chatterley, still disgusted at her brother's defection, had departed and was living in a little flat in London.

1920年秋，康妮随克利福德返回格拉比家中。而爱玛则仍因弟弟的背信弃义而忿忿不平，离家住进伦敦的一所小公寓。

Wragby was a long low old house in brown stone, begun about the middle of the eighteenth century, and added on to, till it was a warren of a place without much distinction.

拉格比府是座狭长低矮的旧宅，用褐色岩石堆砌而成，始建于18世纪中叶，后来几经扩建，直至变成一个其貌不扬、迷宫般的场所。

It stood on an eminence in a rather line old park of oak trees, but alas, one could see in the near distance the chimney of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke, and on the damp, hazy distance of the hill the raw straggle of Tevershall village, a village which began almost at the park gates, and trailed in utter hopeless ugliness for a long and gruesome mile: houses, rows of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses, with black slate roofs for lids, sharp angles and wilful, blank dreariness.

它矗立在高岗之上，周围为栽满橡树的古老园林所环抱，但可惜的是，依然能看到不远处特弗沙尔矿坑烟囱，以及它吐出的团团蒸汽和浓烟。而在潮湿山坡上散落着的特弗沙尔村也依稀可见。那村落从园林门外起绵延长达一英里的距离，展现出赤裸裸、无可救药的丑陋图景。房屋，一排排肮脏污秽的低矮砖房，黑石板搭盖的顶棚，尖锐的棱角，肆意地透露着难言的凄凉氛围。

Connie was accustomed to Kensington or the Scotch hills or the Sussex downs: that was her England. With the stoicism of the young she took in the utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands at a glance, and left it at what it was: unbelievable and not to be thought about. From the rather dismal rooms at Wragby she heard the rattle-rattle of the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink of shunting trucks, and the hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives. Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench of this sulphurous combustion of the earth's excrement. But even on windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur, iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom.

康妮习惯了肯辛顿的生活，看惯了苏格兰式的高地，或是萨塞克斯（注：英国南部一郡，濒临英吉利海峡）的丘陵：那才是她心目中的英格兰。她以年轻人那种淡然的目光审视过煤铁矿林立的米德兰，将那种缺少灵魂的、如假包换的丑陋尽收眼底，之后便听之任之。她不愿相信它的存在，更加不想费神去思索。置身于拉格比府阴森森的房间里，康妮听到矿坑筛煤机的咔嗒声、卷扬机的噗噗声、载重卡车的叮当声、以及运煤机车汽笛的嘶鸣声。特弗沙尔矿坑口依然烈焰滚滚，将其扑灭想必需要花费大笔金钱。所以只好任它继续燃烧。每逢常见的顺风天气，格拉比府就会充溢着难闻的恶臭，那是腐土遇硫磺燃烧而产生的气味。甚至是无风的日子，空气中也充斥着来自地底的味道：硫磺、煤铁、或是酸性物质。就连圣诞蔷薇上也不可思议地经年附满煤尘，好似厄日天空降下的黑色甘露。

Well, there it was: fated like the rest of things! It was rather awful, but why kick? You couldn't kick it away. It just went on. Life, like all the rest! On the low dark ceiling of cloud at night red blotches burned and quavered, dappling and swelling and contracting, like burns that give pain. It was the furnaces. At first they fascinated Connie with a sort of horror; Then she got used to them. And in the morning it rained.

没错，事实就是如此，一切都是命中注定！虽然令人生畏，但抗争又有什么意义呢？摆脱命运的束缚如同痴人说梦。它仍会循路而行。生活也同样如此！夜晚黑压压的低矮云层中，燃烧着的斑驳的红点不断颤动，时而膨胀，时而收缩，如同让人疼痛难忍的灼伤。那是矿区炼煤的高炉。起初，康妮曾因此被某种恐惧攫住，但后来也渐渐习惯了这一切。早晨的时候，天下起了雨来。

Clifford professed to like Wragby better than London. This country had a grim will of its own, and the people had guts. Connie wondered what else they had: certainly neither eyes nor minds. The people were as haggard, shapeless, and dreary as the countryside, and as unfriendly. Only there was something in their deep-mouthed slurring of the dialect, and the thresh-thresh of their hob-nailed pit-boots as they trailed home in gangs on the asphalt from work, that was terrible and a bit mysterious.

克利福德声称比起伦敦，他还是更加青睐拉格比。这里拥有独树一帜的顽强意志，民众个个胆识过人。康妮怀疑除此以外，他们还有什么，高瞻远瞩和真知灼见跟他们是毫不沾边的。这里的居民个个形容枯槁，面貌丑陋，表情阴郁，态度冷漠，一如生养他们的这片土地。只有那低沉含混的土语，以及放工结伙回家时平头钉鞋踩在柏油路上发出的低沉作响踢踏声，让外来者既害怕又好奇。

There had been no welcome home for the young squire, no festivities, no deputation, not even a single flower. Only a dank ride in a motor-car up a dark, damp drive, burrowing through gloomy trees, out to the slope of the park where grey damp sheep were feeding, to the knoll where the house spread its dark brown facade, and the housekeeper and her husband were hovering, like unsure tenants on the face of the earth, ready to stammer a welcome.

当这对年轻的贵族夫妇返回故里，没有听到诚挚热情的问候，没有享受到接风洗尘的宴席，没有看到列队迎候的村众，甚至连朵鲜花都没有见到。只是体验到阴湿寒冷的旅程，汽车驶过漆黑潮湿的大道，钻进阴暗的密林，攀上放牧着湿漉漉的灰色羊群的坡地，停在那座深褐色建筑物坐落的山丘上。女管家及其丈夫正在那里来回踱步，像两个心神不宁的佃户，结结巴巴地编排着欢迎词。

There was no communication between Wragby Hall and Tevershall village, none. No caps were touched, no curtseys bobbed. The colliers merely stared; the tradesmen lifted their caps to Connie as to an acquaintance, and nodded awkwardly to Clifford; that was all. That was all. Gulf impassable, and a quiet sort of resentment on either side. At first Connie suffered from the steady drizzle of resentment that came from the village. Then she hardened herself to it, and it became a sort of tonic, something to live up to. It was not that she and Clifford were unpopular, they merely belonged to another species altogether from the colliers. Gulf impassable, breach indescribable, such as is perhaps nonexistent south of the Trent. But in the Midlands and the industrial North gulf impassable, across which no communication could take place. You stick to your side, I'll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.

拉格比府与特弗沙尔村并无半点瓜葛，毫不往来。男人不脱帽致敬，女人不屈膝行礼。矿工们只是瞪眼凝视着他们，商贩们向康妮举举帽子，像是遇到相熟的人，对克里福德则会尴尬地点点头，仅此而已。仅此而已。双方被难以逾越的鸿沟隔开，心中深埋着无言的仇恨。起初，康妮因村民们细雨般不绝的仇恨颇觉苦恼。但还是逐渐硬起心肠，将这种恨意当作赖以为生的某种强身药剂。并非她与丈夫不受欢迎，只是他们与矿工们完全属于不同的阶层而已。人际间难以逾越的鸿沟，无法言喻的裂痕，或许在特伦特河以南的地区难觅其踪。但在中北部的工业区，这种不可调和的分歧却让不同阶级的人们断绝往来。你走你的阳关道，我过我的独木桥！这对人性中共通的情感是种无端地否定。

Yet the village sympathized with Clifford and Connie in the abstract. In the flesh it was—You leave me alone!—on either side.

然而在抽象中，村民们仍对查泰莱夫妇深感同情。而在实际中，双方却都坚守着“你别来管我！”的信条。

The rector was a nice man of about sixty, full of his duty, and reduced, personally, almost to a nonentity by the silent—You leave me alone!—of the village. The miners' wives were nearly all Methodists. The miners were nothing. But even so much official uniform as the clergyman wore was enough to obscure entirely the fact that he was a man like any other man. No, he was Mester Ashby, a sort of automatic preaching and praying concern.

年过花甲的教区长和蔼可亲，尽职尽责，但村民们这种各扫门前雪的冷漠态度，却让他几乎变成可有可无的人物。矿工的妻子们几乎是清一色的卫理公会信徒。矿工们却不信教。但身着牧师法袍，已经足够彻底掩饰他是个普通人这个事实。他不是普通人，他是阿什比牧师大人，一种讲道和祈祷自动机械。

This stubborn, instinctive—We think ourselves as good as you, if you are Lady Chatterley!—puzzled and baffled Connie at first extremely. The curious, suspicious, false amiability with which the miners' wives met her overtures; the curiously offensive tinge of—Oh dear me! I AM somebody now, with Lady Chatterley talking to me! But she needn't think I'm not as good as her for all that!—which she always heard twanging in the women's half-fawning voices, was impossible.“就算你被尊为查泰莱夫人，但其实跟我们没有什么区别！”起初，村民们这种本能的固执的态度，让康妮感到十分困扰和为难。每当她主动向矿工家眷示好，总会换来怪里怪气、将信将疑的虚情假意，还有那莫名其妙的咄咄逼人的言语：我的天呢！现在我可是大人物了，查泰莱夫人跟我说话来着！可她也别认为这样就可以看扁我！主妇们那半是阿谀的话语中带着浓重的鼻音，在康妮的耳边时时回荡，确实让人难以忍受。

There was no getting past it.

但却是无法回避的。

It was hopelessly and offensively nonconformist.

这些不皈依国教的乡下佬简直无可救药，令人反感。

Clifford left them alone, and she learnt to do the same: she just went by without looking at them, and they stared as if she were a walking wax figure. When he had to deal with them, Clifford was rather haughty and contemptuous; one could no longer afford to be friendly. In fact he was altogether rather supercilious and contemptuous of anyone not in his own class. He stood his ground, without any attempt at conciliation. And he was neither liked nor disliked by the people: he was just part of things, like the pit-bank and Wragby itself.

克利福德从不搭理他们，康妮也学着依样照做：每次擦身而过，总是目不斜视，而村民们则不约而同地盯着她看，仿佛在凝视一座会走路的蜡像。当不得不跟他们打交道时，克利福德总是摆出傲慢骄横的神态，给这些家伙好脸色并不是明智的选择。事实上，他对于所有非其阶层的人们，都保持着这种不屑一顾的高傲态度。他固守着自己的阵地，没有任何修好的意图。村民们对克利福德无甚好感，但也并不讨厌：他不过是生活的组成部分，跟矿坑和格拉比府没什么两样。

But Clifford was really extremely shy and self-conscious now he was lamed. He hated seeing anyone except just the personal servants. For he had to sit in a wheeled chair or a sort of bath-chair. Nevertheless he was just as carefully dressed as ever, by his expensive tailors, and he wore the careful Bond Street neckties just as before, and from the top he looked just as smart and impressive as ever. He had never been one of the modern ladylike young men: rather bucolic even, with his ruddy face and broad shoulders. But his very quiet, hesitating voice, and his eyes, at the same time bold and frightened, assured and uncertain, revealed his nature. His manner was often offensively supercilious, and then again modest and self-effacing, almost tremulous.

然而自从意识到自己再也无法行走，克利福德就变得极端怯懦。除了自家的仆从，他不愿见到任何其他的人。因为残废的他只能坐在轮椅或者巴斯椅上。然而，他仍会像以往一样，穿着高级裁缝为他量身剪裁的高档服装，系着邦德街买回的精致领带，若仅看上半身，他依旧风流倜傥，气度非凡。克利福德本就没有时下青年的那副娘娘腔，红润的脸庞，外加宽厚的肩膀，让他看起来倒有几分牧民的气质。但他那细微迟疑的声音，兼具果敢与畏缩、自信与不安的眼神，则透露出他的本性。他的举止有时傲慢得让人难以忍受，有时却谨慎谦恭到怯懦战栗的地步。

Connie and he were attached to one another, in the aloof modern way. He was much too hurt in himself, the great shock of his maiming, to be easy and flippant. He was a hurt thing. And as such Connie stuck to him passionately.

康妮和他彼此依恋，又相互疏远，这可是时下夫妻间最盛行的相处之道。因伤致残对克利福德的打击过重，使其心灵倍受煎熬，再也无法像过去那般轻松释然。可怜的他身心俱伤。而康妮则对他情根深种，不离不弃。

But she could not help feeling how little connexion he really had with people. The miners were, in a sense, his own men; but he saw them as objects rather than men, parts of the pit rather than parts of life, crude raw phenomena rather than human beings along with him. He was in some way afraid of them, he could not bear to have them look at him now he was lame. And their queer, crude life seemed as unnatural as that of hedgehogs.

但她还是不禁觉得丈夫与他人缺乏沟通。矿工们可以说都是他的仆从，但他始终把他们当作没有生命的物体、而非活生生的人来看待，当他们是矿场而非生活的组成部分，是粗鄙天然事物，而非和自己一般无二的人类。克利福德甚至有些惧怕他们，受不了让他们看到自己如今这副残缺不全的模样。而他们过着古怪粗劣的生活，简直跟反常的刺猬没什么两样。

He was remotely interested; but like a man looking down a microscope, or up a telescope. He was not in touch. He was not in actual touch with anybody, save, traditionally, with Wragby, and, through the close bond of family defence, with Emma. Beyond this nothing really touched him. Connie felt that she herself didn't really, not really touch him; perhaps there was nothing to get at ultimately; just a negation of human contact.

他远远地关注着他们的行为举动，像是通过显微镜或者望远镜去观察事物一样。但却跟他们没有半点往来。除了跟拉格比府的传统纽带、以及和艾玛的血亲关系，他几乎与其他任何人都没有实质性的接触。除此之外，没有什么能真正触及他的内心。康妮觉得连自己也无法真正确实地拨动丈夫的心弦，或许根本没有什么能做到这一点，克利福德的存在恰恰是对人际交往的某种否定。

Yet he was absolutely dependent on her, he needed her every moment. Big and strong as he was, he was helpless. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a sort of bath-chair with a motor attachment, in which he could puff slowly round the park. But alone he was like a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him he existed at all.

但他对妻子的依赖已经到达无可附加的地步，时时刻刻需要她陪在身旁。他虽然魁梧健硕，却无法自立。他能够驱动轮椅四处走走，还可以驾着装有马达的巴斯轮椅，缓缓地在自家园林里兜圈。但每当独处，他就像只迷途的羔羊。他需要康妮伴随左右，只有如此，才能确信自己真真切切地活在世间。

Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories;curious, very personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful, and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.

虽然身残，但克利福德依然不失鸿鹄之志。他醉心于小说的创作。这些作品描述的是他身边熟悉的人物个人的奇特故事。笔触聪颖机智，流露出些许恶毒之感，却又因情节神秘莫测而缺乏深意。其出色的观察力异乎常人。但缺少与他人实际的接触和沟通。他笔下的一切似乎都发生在虚无缥缈的空中楼阁里。由于如今的人们多半生活在人造光线点亮的舞台之上，克利福德的小说倒是与现代的生活和现代人的心理颇为契合。

Clifford was almost morbidly sensitive about these stories. He wanted everyone to think them good, of the best, NE PLUS ULTRA. They appeared in the most modern magazines, and were praised and blamed as usual. But to Clifford the blame was torture, like knives goading him. It was as if the whole of his being were in his stories.

克利福德对这些小说的在意，几乎达到病态的地步。他渴望世人都为之拍案叫绝，将其视为无可匹敌的巅峰之作。他的作品发表在最时兴的杂志上，得到的评价自然也是毁誉参半。但对于克利福德来说，毁訾无异于痛苦的折磨，简直就像用刀剜他的肉。好像他生命的全部意义都存在于小说之中。

Connie helped him as much as she could. At first she was thrilled. He talked everything over with her monotonously, insistently, persistently, and she had to respond with all her might. It was as if her whole soul and body and sex had to rouse up and pass into theme stories of his. This thrilled her and absorbed her.

康妮竭尽所能地帮助他。刚开始倒也醉心其中。他凡事都会跟她进行探讨，用那种一成不变的语调，没完没了，无休无止，而她也必须殚精毕力，奉陪到底。似乎她的灵与肉，情与性都被唤醒，跟小说的主题融为一体。这样美妙的感觉让她为之兴奋不已，深深着迷。

Of physical life they lived very little. She had to superintend the house. But the housekeeper had served Sir Geoffrey for many years, arid the dried-up, elderly, superlatively correct female you could hardly call her a parlour-maid, or even a woman...who waited at table, had been in the house for forty years. Even the very housemaids were no longer young. It was awful! What could you do with such a place, but leave it alone! All these endless rooms that nobody used, all the Midlands routine, the mechanical cleanliness and the mechanical order!

而在物质层面，他们的生活实在是再贫乏不过。她必须操持家务。女管家伺候杰弗里爵士多年，她身体干瘪，年老色衰，且刚愎自用，非但不像个女侍，甚至连是否算得女人都成问题……40年来，都是她服侍查泰莱爵士一家用餐。就连那些真正的女佣也都垂垂老矣。这真是糟糕透顶！身临其中，除了听其自然，确实别无他法。这里有无穷无尽的空房间，米德兰地区世代相传的繁文缛节，还有那机械呆板的整洁有序。

For the rest the place seemed run by mechanical anarchy. Everything went on in pretty good order, strict cleanliness, and strict punctuality; even pretty strict honesty.

至于这里的其他地方，似乎在机械的无政府状态下运行着。一切都进行得有条不紊，干脆利落，严守时间，从无遮掩欺瞒。

And yet, to Connie, it was a methodical anarchy. No warmth of feeling united it organically. The house seemed as dreary as a disused street.

但对康妮来说，这不过是种井然有序的混乱状态。缺乏温情的有机维系。整座府邸阴郁凄清，如同废弃的街道。

What could she do but leave it alone? So she left it alone. Miss Chatterley came sometimes, with her aristocratic thin face, and triumphed, finding nothing altered. She would never forgive Connie for ousting her from her union in consciousness with her brother. It was she, Emma, who should be bringing forth the stories, these books, with him; the Chatterley stories, something new in the world, that they, the Chatterleys, had put there.

除了顺其自然，她还能做些什么呢？因此，她也只好听之任之。查泰莱小姐偶尔也会过府探望，她面容瘦削却满脸傲气，发现家中一切都依然如故，颇觉志得意满。她永远也无法原谅康妮，正是这个外来者切断了自己与弟弟的情感纽带。只有她，艾玛，本该与克利福德构思和创作小说,那可是专属于查泰莱家族的作品，世间绝无仅有的新颖物事，由查泰莱的家人一手缔造。

There was no other standard. There was no organic connexion with the thought and expression that had gone before. Only something new in the world: the Chatterley books, entirely personal.

此外别无标准可以评断。跟前人的思想和言论毫无关联。查泰莱家族的作品是全新的创作，充满个性意味的文学作品。

Connie's father, where he paid a flying visit to Wragby, and in private to his daughter: As for Clifford's writing, it's smart, but there's nothing in it. It won't last!

康妮的父亲曾在拉格比府有过短暂的逗留，期间他私下对女儿说：“克利福德的作品确实精巧雅致，但内里却空洞无物。根本不会长久流传！”

Nothing in it!

空洞无物！

What did he mean by nothing in it? If the critics praised it, and Clifford's name was almost famous, and it even brought in money…what did her father mean by saying there was nothing in Clifford's writing? What else could there be? For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.

父亲这么说究竟是何意思？若连评论家都赞美他的作品，克利福德几乎要跻身知名小说家的行列，而且甚至已经赚到稿酬……而父亲却认为女婿的作品空洞无物，这么说究竟是何用意？除了名和利，文学作品还能带来别的什么吗？康妮秉承的是年轻一代的生活准则：眼下拥有的就是一切。时刻彼此相继，但却无需彼此相属。

It was in her second winter at Wragby her father said to her: "I hope, Connie, you won't let circumstances force you into being a demi-vierge.”"A demi-vierge! Why not? Why not? Why? Why not?”"Unless you like it, of course!" said her father hastily. To Clifford he said the same, when the two men were alone: "I'm afraid it doesn't quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.”"A half-virgin!" replied Clifford, translating the phrase to be sure of it.

她在拉格比度过的第二个冬天，父亲嘱咐她道：“康妮，我不想眼睁睁看你因为形势所迫而守活寡。”“守活寡！为什么不呢？为什么不呢？为什么呢？为什么不呢？”“当然，除非你真的心甘情愿。”父亲忙解释道。而和克利福德独处时，他也跟女婿说过同样的话：“恐怕守活寡的角色并不适合康妮。”“活寡妇！”克利福德换了种说法诠释岳父的用词，以便更明确地理解他的意思。

He thought for a moment, then flushed very red. He was angry and offended.

他凝思片刻，脸涨得通红。显然是被触怒了。

"In what way doesn't it suit her?" he asked stiffly.“到底哪里不适合她呢？”他态度生硬地反问道。

"She's getting thin...angular. It's not her style. She's not the pilchard sort of little slip of a girl, she's a bonny Scotch trout.”"Without the spots, of course!" said Clifford.“她变瘦了……削瘦。她本来可不是这副模样。她不像沙丁鱼那般瘦削纤细，而像苏格兰鳟鱼一样丰腴健美。”“她身上可没有斑纹。”克利福德抢白道。

He wanted to say something later to Connie about the demi-vierge business...the half-virgin state of her affairs. But he could not bring himself to do it. He was at once too intimate with her and not intimate enough. He was so very much at one with her, in his mind and hers, but bodily they were non-existent to one another, and neither could bear to drag in the corpus delicti. They were so intimate, and utterly out of touch.

后来，他想找康妮谈谈守活寡的事……聊聊她有名无实的婚姻状态。但他始终羞于启口。两人既亲密无间，又彼此疏离。精神层面相互交融，但肉体层面却从无交集，而小夫妻又都不愿谈及这令人难堪的事实。两人情深意笃，但全无床笫之乐。

Connie guessed, however, that her father had said something, and that something was in Clifford's mind. She knew that he didn't mind whether she were demi-vierge or demi-monde, so long as he didn't absolutely know, and wasn't made to see. What the eye doesn't see and the mind doesn't know, doesn't exist.

康妮猜出父亲肯定跟克利福德说过什么，而丈夫心中却有些事难以启齿。她明白，自己独守空闺或是红杏出墙，丈夫并不介怀，只要不让他抓到把柄，或者撞个正着。眼不见、心不知的事情，自然就是不存在的。

Connie and Clifford had now been nearly two years at Wragby, living their vague life of absorption in Clifford and his work. Their interests had never ceased to flow together over his work. They talked and wrestled in the throes of composition, and felt as if something were happening, really happening, really in the void.

转眼间，康妮和克利福德已在拉格比府住了将近两年，过着混沌不清的日子，全部精力都集中在克利福德和他的作品上。创作的过程中，两人的兴趣不断高涨、彼此交融。他们相互交换意见，反复推敲，仔细斟酌，深尝创作的艰辛，感觉到那些虚无的故事里，果然发生着什么，的确发生着什么。

And thus far it was a life: in the void. For the rest it was non-existence. Wragby was there, the servants...but spectral, not really existing. Connie went for walks in the park, and in the woods that joined the park, and enjoyed the solitude and the mystery, kicking the brown leaves of autumn, and picking the primroses of spring. But it was all a dream; or rather it was like the simulacrum of reality. The oak-leaves were to her like oak-leaves seen ruffling in a mirror, she herself was a figure somebody had read about, picking primroses that were only shadows or memories, or words. No substance to her or anything...no touch, no contact! Only this life with Clifford, this endless spinning of webs of yarn, of the minutiae of consciousness, these stories Sir Malcolm said there was nothing in, and they wouldn't last. Why should there be anything in them, why should they last? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Sufficient unto the moment is the appearance of reality.

而这就是迄今为止他们生活的全部——无尽的虚空。此外并无真实的存在。拉格比府仍巍然耸立，仆从们依旧来回奔忙……但这些都如同幽灵般虚幻，并非真实地存在着。康妮时常独自去花园里散步，在通往花园的树林中徜徉，踢踩秋日泛黄的落叶，摘撷春天的樱草花，体味着那里的幽静和神秘。但这一切都只是梦境，或者更像是现实的幻影。在她看来，橡树叶仿佛在镜中摇曳，而自己也化身成书中的人物，采撷着那些投影于镜像中、深埋于记忆里、或者记叙于文字间的樱草花。对她而言，一切都是虚无缥缈的……没有联系，缺少沟通！只有与克利福德的生活，那无穷无尽、曲折离奇的故事情节，细小琐碎的心理变化，还有马尔科姆爵士口中空洞无物、不会长久流传的小说。为什么非要有内涵呢？为什么非得长久流传呢？眼下烦恼已不少，莫为将来空自扰。今朝有酒今朝醉，明日愁来明日忧。

Clifford had quite a number of friends, acquaintances really, and he invited them to Wragby. He invited all sorts of people, critics and writers, people who would help to praise his books. And they were flattered at being asked to Wragby, and they praised. Connie understood it all perfectly. But why not? This was one of the fleeting patterns in the mirror. What was wrong with it? She was hostess to these people...mostly men. She was hostess also to Clifford's occasional aristocratic relations. Being a soft, ruddy, country-looking girl, inclined to freckles, with big blue eyes, and curling, brown hair, and a soft voice, and rather strong, female loins she was considered a little old-fashioned and 'womanly'. She was not a 'little pilchard sort of fish', like a boy, with a boy's flat breast and little buttocks. She was too feminine to be quite smart.

克利福德朋友众多，但都只是泛泛之交，因此拉格比府也时常宾客盈门。受邀前来的朋友形形色色，其中有评论家及作家，都是些能为他的作品唱颂歌的家伙。能被请来拉格比府做客，他们个个受宠若惊，说些趋炎附势的恭维话也再正常不过。康妮自然是心知肚明。但这又有什么不妥呢？这也不过是镜中转瞬即逝的幻象而已。没什么可大惊小怪的。身为女主人，她要招待这些来宾，其中大多是男性。还要款待克利福德那些不常登门的贵族亲朋。她性情温和，面色红润，如同乡下女孩般平易近人，脸上总生有雀斑，一对湛蓝色阔目，一头棕色卷发，再加上温柔的嗓音，强健的腰身，大家都认为她虽然略显老气，但却有“女人味”。她跟干瘪的沙丁鱼扯不上半点关系，也不像男孩般平胸瘦臀。反倒是过分的柔美让她显得不够时髦。

So the men, especially those no longer young, were very nice to her indeed. But, knowing what torture poor Clifford would feel at the slightest sign of flirting on her part, she gave them no encouragement at all. She was quiet and vague, she had no contact with them and intended to have none. Clifford was extraordinarily proud of himself.

因此，男人们，尤其是那些老家伙们，当真对她殷勤备至。但康妮清楚，只要自己稍显轻佻，可怜的克利福德就会备受煎熬，所以她从来不会给那些狂蜂浪蝶以可乘之机。她寡言少语，态度冷淡，从不与他们多做纠缠，甚至根本没有这样的想法。克利福德为此得意不已。

His relatives treated her quite kindly. She knew that the kindliness indicated a lack of fear, and that these people had no respect for you unless you could frighten them a little. But again she had no contact. She let them be kindly and disdainful, she let them feel they had no need to draw their steel in readiness. She had no real connexion with them.

夫家的亲戚们待她倒也非常友善。康妮清楚这种态度说明自己并不会让他们感到畏惧，如果你没法使他们怕你三分，也就难以赢得他们的尊重。但她与这些人也并无深交。和风细雨也好，盛气凌人也罢，她都处之泰然，那种淡定让他们觉得无须如此咄咄逼人。她跟他们又并非血亲。

Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was so beautifully out of contact. She and Clifford lived in their ideas and his books. She entertained...there were always people in the house. Time went on as the clock does, half past eight instead of half past seven.

时光荏苒。过往种种都好像未曾发生，因为她总能优雅地做到置身事外。她和克利福德生活在思想世界中，只为创作小说而存在。她热情款待着宾客们，拉格比府也总是高朋满座。钟表滴答作响，时间悄然逝去，转瞬八点半已将七点半抛到身后。

CHAPTER 3

第三章

Connie was aware, however, of a growing restlessness. Out of her disconnexion, a restlessness was taking possession of her like madness. It twitched her limbs when she didn't want to twitch them, it jerked her spine when she didn't want to jerk upright but preferred to rest comfortably. It thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere, till she felt she must jump into water and swim to get away from it; a mad restlessness. It made her heart beat violently for no reason. And she was getting thinner.

然而，康妮觉察到不安的情绪一天天在累积。与世隔绝的生活，使得烦乱的感觉近乎疯狂地将她攫住。这种情绪不合时宜地牵动她的四肢，当她想舒适地休息时，又突如其来地拉直她的脊骨。这种情绪在她的体内震颤，在子宫的什么地方，为了将其摆脱，她必须得跃入水中畅泳，一种疯狂的纷乱。这种情绪总让她的心房无端地猛跳。于是，康妮日渐消瘦。

It was just restlessness. She would rush off across the park, abandon Clifford, and lie prone in the bracken. To get away from the house...she must get away from the house and everybody. The work was her one refuge, her sanctuary.

正是因为这种不安。她会抛开克利福德，疾奔着穿过花园，俯卧在蕨草丛中。为的只是摆脱拉格比府，她必须摆脱那座宅邸，摆脱所有的人。树林成为她的那个避难处，她的庇护所。

But it was not really a refuge, a sanctuary, because she had no connexion with it. It was only a place where she could get away from the rest. She never really touched the spirit of the wood itself...if it had any such nonsensical thing.

但树林也并非逃避现实的理想处所，因为她和那里同样没有任何干系。置身此地，只能让康妮体验到暂时的孑然。她从未触及到林木的灵魂……假如当真有如此荒诞的东西。

Vaguely she knew herself that she was going to pieces in some way. Vaguely she knew she was out of connexion: she had lost touch with the substantial and vital world. Only Clifford and his books, which did not exist...which had nothing in them! Void to void. Vaguely she knew. But it was like beating her head against a stone.

她隐隐约约地意识到，自己正走向崩溃的边缘。她模模糊糊地感觉到，自己身处与世隔绝的真空状态，与充满生机的物质世界完全脱离。只有克利福德和他的小说，那些虚构的、空洞无物的东西！除了虚空，还是虚空。她隐约地觉察到事情的真相。但又感觉自己脑袋往石头上撞。

Her father warned her again: "Why don't you get yourself a beau, Connie? Do you all the good in the world.”That winter Michaelis came for a few days. He was a young Irishman who had already made a large fortune by his plays in America. He had been taken up quite enthusiastically for a time by smart society in London, for he wrote smart society plays. Then gradually smart society realized that it had been made ridiculous at the hands of a down-at-heel Dublin street-rat, and revulsion came. Michaelis was the last word in what was caddish and bounderish. He was discovered to be anti-English, and to the class that made this discovery this was worse than the dirtiest crime. He was cut dead, and his corpse thrown into the refuse can.

父亲再次提醒她：“你为什么不给自己找个情人，康妮？这样做对你而言大有好处。”那天冬天，米凯利斯来拉格比小住过几天。这个爱尔兰青年是位剧作家，编写的剧本在美国公演，让他赚得盆满钵满。曾几何时，因为写了几部时兴的社会剧，他一度成为伦敦时髦社交圈的风云人物。可当社交名流们慢慢发觉，自己竟然被这个不入流的都柏林小混混所嘲弄，对他的态度也来了个一百八十度大转弯。米凯利斯也成为下流粗鄙的代名词。有人揭发他有反英情绪，而对于捅出此事的贵族阶层而言，这简直比最恶劣的犯罪还难以宽宥。他遭到伦敦上流社会最无情的唾弃。

Nevertheless Michaelis had his apartment in Mayfair, and walked down Bond Street the image of a gentleman, for you cannot get even the best tailors to cut their low-down customers, when the customers pay.

尽管臭名昭著，米凯利斯仍在梅费尔区（注：伦敦西部的高级住宅区）拥有自己的公寓，当他在邦德街徜徉，绅士派头依然不减。因为只要付钱，即使身份卑微，也能让最棒的裁缝乖乖为你服务。

Clifford was inviting the young man of thirty at an inauspicious moment in this young man's career. Yet Clifford did not hesitate. Michaelis had the ear of a few million people, probably; and, being a hopeless outsider, he would no doubt be grateful to be asked down to Wragby at this juncture, when the rest of the smart world was cutting him. Being grateful, he would no doubt do Clifford 'good' over there in America. Kudos! A man gets a lot of kudos, whatever that may be, by being talked about in the right way, especially "over there". Clifford was a coming man; and it was remarkable what a sound publicity instinct he had.

克利福德却向这个已过而立、正处事业低谷的年轻人发出邀请。然而对此，克利福德没有半点犹豫。米凯利斯差不多拥有数百万忠实听众，作为人人避之不及的过街老鼠，在遭到社交界遗弃的无助时刻，受邀来到拉格比，他无疑会感激涕零。因为心存感激，他自然会“帮助”克利福德在美利坚扬名。名声大噪！只要以正确的方式予以吹捧，你就会声名鹊起，无论是什么名声，尤其是在遥远的大洋彼岸。克利福德将是文坛冉冉升起的明日之星，拥有如此强烈的自我推销意识，更是非同凡响。

In the end Michaelis did him most nobly in a play, and Clifford was a sort of popular hero. Till the reaction, when he found he had been made ridiculous.

后来，米凯利斯果真在自己的剧作中将克利福德塑造成为极为崇高的形象，受人追捧的英雄人物。直到听闻到评论界的反应，克利福德才发觉自己充当的不过是被嘲弄的对象。

Connie wondered a little over Clifford's blind, imperious instinct to become known: known, that is, to the vast amorphous world he did not himself know, and of which he was uneasily afraid; known as a writer, as a first-class modern writer. Connie was aware from successful, old, hearty, bluffing Sir Malcolm, that artists did advertise themselves, and exert themselves to put their goods over. But her father used channels ready-made, used by all the other R.A.s who sold their pictures. Whereas Clifford discovered new channels of publicity, all kinds. He had all kinds of people at Wragby, without exactly lowering himself. But, determined to build himself a monument of a reputation quickly, he used any handy rubble in the making.

对于丈夫这种盲目迫切的成名欲求，康妮颇感诧异。克利福德希望成为闻名遐迩的作家，第一流的文坛尖兵。让整个世界都知道他的名字，这个让他捉摸不透的广阔世界，这个他知之甚少、甚至心怀畏惧的无常世界。父亲马尔科姆爵士本就卓有名望，老谋深算，满怀激情，且善于造势，从他身上康妮意识到，艺术家确实需要懂得经营自己，竭尽所能地把自己的作品推销出去。但父亲用的还是老一套，其他皇家艺术学会的成员兜售画作时惯用的手段。而克利福德却发掘出五花八门的新颖造势渠道。他把三教九流的各色人等请到拉格比，还无需自降身份。但决意尽快在文坛闯出赫赫声名，他还是无所不用其极。

Michaelis arrived duly, in a very neat car, with a chauffeur and a manservant. He was absolutely Bond Street! But at right of him something in Clifford's county soul recoiled. He wasn't exactly…not exactly…in fact, he wasn't at all, well, what his appearance intended to imply. To Clifford this was final and enough. Yet he was very polite to the man; to the amazing success in him. The bitch-goddess, as she is called, of Success, roamed, snarling and protective, round the half-humble, half-defiant Michaelis' heels, and intimidated Clifford completely: for he wanted to prostitute himself to the bitch-goddess, Success also, if only she would have him. Michaelis obviously wasn't an Englishman, in spite of all the tailors, hatters, barbers, booters of the very best quarter of London. No, no, he obviously wasn't an Englishman: the wrong sort of flattish, pale face and bearing; and the wrong sort of grievance. He had a grudge and a grievance: that was obvious to any true-born English gentleman, who would scorn to let such a thing appear blatant in his own demeanour. Poor Michaelis had been much kicked, so that he had a slightly tail-between-the-legs look even now. He had pushed his way by sheer instinct and sheerer effrontery on to the stage and to the front of it, with his plays. He had caught the public. And he had thought the kicking days were over. Alas, they weren't…They never would be. For he, in a sense, asked to be kicked. He pined to be where he didn't belong...among the English upper classes. And how they enjoyed the various kicks they got at him! And how he hated them! Nevertheless he travelled with his manservant and his very neat car, this Dublin mongrel.

米凯利斯如约而至，座驾奢侈豪华，私人司机和贴身男仆左右相陪。身上穿的是如假包换的邦德街行头！刚打照面，克利福德那颗乡下人的胆怯心灵便畏缩不前了。他并不真是……不真是……事实上，他龌龊的内心根本与光鲜的外表不搭调。对克利福德而言，这点是确定无疑的。不过，他还是对米凯利斯毕恭毕敬，对他取得的非凡成就崇拜不已。米凯利斯既谦卑又趾高气昂，而“成功”——人们常称之为“母狗女神”的——徘徊在他的脚边，肆意咆哮着，担当着保镖的角色。这阵仗彻底把克利福德吓住了，他又何尝不想主动献身给成功女神，只要她愿意跟他春风一度。就算伦敦最上流街区的裁缝、帽商、理发师以及鞋匠们都调动起来，也没法把米凯利斯打扮得像个英国人。不，不，他显然不像是英国人，无论是苍白扁平的脸孔，举手投足间的风度，还是愤世嫉俗的性格，都与英伦风范不合。他总是恨意满腔，牢骚满腹，这根本逃不过地道英国绅士的眼睛，他们从不屑让这种情绪在自己的举止间流露出来。可怜的米凯利斯之前饱受摧残，以至于现在都没有摆脱夹着尾巴做人的丧气相。凭借单纯的直觉以及更加彻底的厚颜无耻，依靠自己的作品，他在戏剧舞台占据一席之地，甚至成为个中翘楚。他赢得观众的青睐。本以为备受蹂躏的日子总算过去。没料想，事实并非如此...它们永远也不会终结。或者可以说，米凯利斯是个自讨苦吃的家伙。他奢求涉足自己不可企及的领域...跻身英国上流社会。而他们想方设法地践踏他，并乐在其中。而他对他们也只有切齿的痛恨。而这个都柏林狗杂种依然带着跟班，乘着名车，招摇过市。

There was something about him that Connie liked. He didn't put on airs to himself, he had no illusions about himself. He talked to Clifford sensibly, briefly, practically, about all the things Clifford wanted to know. He didn't expand or let himself go. He knew he had been asked down to Wragby to be made use of, and like an old, shrewd, almost indifferent business man, or big-business man, he let himself be asked questions, and he answered with as little waste of feeling as possible.

米凯利斯有些优点深得康妮青睐。他从不装腔作势，懂得脚踏实地。一旦攀谈起来，他总能做到条理清晰，简明扼要，实事求是，将克利福德想要了解的一切和盘托出。他从不夸大事实，从不得意忘形。他深知克利福德请自己到拉格比来，只是为了加以利用，而他像位经验老道、从容不迫的商人，甚至可以说是位巨贾，任你如何发问，他都能尽可能自若地回答。

"Money!" he said. "Money is a sort of instinct. It's a sort of property of nature in a man to make money. It's nothing you do. It's no trick you play. It's a sort of permanent accident of your own nature; once you start, you make money, and you go on; up to a point, I suppose.”"But you've got to begin," said Clifford.“金钱！”他感慨道。“金钱是种本能。挣钱是人类与生俱来的天性。无论你怎么做。无论你耍什么花招。在我看来，这是人类天性中不可变更的运数；一旦掌握要领，钱就会滚滚而来，一发不可收拾，直至富埒陶白。“但总得掌握入门的诀窍。”克利福德说。

"Oh, quite! You've got to get in. You can do nothing if you are kept outside. You've got to beat your way in. Once you've done that, you can't help it.”"But could you have made money except by plays?" asked Clifford.“没错，的确如此！入门确实至关重要。置身其中才能施展拳脚。必须想方设法找到挣钱的门路。一旦深谙此道，就会欲罢不能。”“除了写剧本，你还有其他挣钱的门道么？”克利福德问。

"Oh, probably not! I may be a good writer or I may be a bad one, but a writer and a writer of plays is what I am, and I've got to be. There's no question of that.”"And you think it's a writer of popular plays that you've got to be?" asked Connie. "There, exactly!" he said, turning to her in a sudden flash. "There's nothing in it! There's nothing in popularity. There's nothing in the public, if it comes to that. There's nothing really in my plays to make them popular. It's not that. They just are like the weather...the sort that will have to be...for the time being.”He turned his slow, rather full eyes, that had been drowned in such fathomless disillusion, on Connie, and she trembled a little. He seemed so old...endlessly old, built up of layers of disillusion, going down in him generation after generation, like geological strata; and at the same time he was forlorn like a child. An outcast, in a certain sense; but with the desperate bravery of his rat-like existence.“哦，或许没有吧！拥有生花妙笔也好，作品不堪卒读也罢，都无法改变我身为剧作家的事实，而且这也是我唯一的出路。这一点毋庸置疑。”“那你觉得自己注定会成为尽人皆知的剧作家么？”康妮问道。“没错，千真万确！”他答道，霍地把脸扭向康妮。“其实也算不得什么！家喻户晓也没有什么了不起。说白了，广大观众也就是那么回事。其实我的剧本并无出众之处。受欢迎的关键不在于此。一切就好似天气……不过是水到渠成的事情……至少目前看来是这样。”他那对迟钝的大眼睛凝视着康妮，眼神中饱含着无穷无尽的幻灭，四目相对，康妮不禁微微战栗了一下。他看上去如此苍老……久历岁月的沧桑，经年累月的幻灭层叠起来，在他身上沉积汇聚，如同地层的形成过程；但与此同时，他又像个孤立无助的孩子。某种意义上，一个被抛弃者，却有着老鼠般抗争的勇敢气概。

"At least it's wonderful what you've done at your time of life," said Clifford contemplatively.“至少你年纪轻轻就有如此成就，仅这一点就令人叹服。”克利福德若有所思地说。

"I'm thirty...yes, I'm thirty!" said Michaelis, sharply and suddenly, with a curious laugh, hollow, triumphant, and bitter.“我30岁了……的确，我已过而立之年！”米凯利斯的声调突然拔高，嘴角流露出诡异的笑容，虚伪空洞，志得意满，却又渗透着丝丝苦涩。

"And are you alone?" asked Connie.“你独身一人？”康妮问。

"How do you mean?“你的意思是？

Do I live alone? I've got my servant. He's a Greek, so he says, and quite incompetent. But I keep him. And I'm going to marry. Oh, yes, I must marry.”"It sounds like going to have your tonsils cut," laughed Connie. "Will it be an effort?"He looked at her admiringly. "Well, Lady Chatterley, somehow it will! I find…excuse me…I find I can't marry an Englishwoman, not even an Irishwoman...”"Try an American," said Clifford.

我独自过活？我有个仆人。他自称来自希腊，什么都做不好。但我还是没有解雇他。我已经有结婚的打算。嗯，没错，我必须结婚。”“听你的口气，就像要去割扁桃体，”康妮调侃道，“成家真的就那么艰难？”他望着康妮，倾慕之情溢于言表。“怎么说呢，查泰莱夫人，确实有些困难。我发觉……请恕我冒昧……我发觉自己没办法娶位英国妻子，甚至连爱尔兰姑娘也不太合适……”“试试美国妞。”克利福德提议道。

"Oh, American!"He laughed a hollow laugh.“噢，美国妞！”米凯利斯挤出干巴巴的笑容。

"No, I've asked my man if he will find me a Turk or something...something nearer to the Oriental.”Connie really wondered at this queer, melancholy specimen of extraordinary success; it was said he had an income of fifty thousand dollars from America alone. Sometimes he was handsome: sometimes as he looked sideways, downwards, and the light fell on him, he had the silent, enduring beauty of a carved ivory Negro mask, with his rather full eyes, and the strong queerly-arched brows, the immobile, compressed mouth; that momentary but revealed immobility, an immobility, a timelessness which the Buddha aims at, and which Negroes express sometimes without ever aiming at it; something old, old, and acquiescent in the race! Aeons of acquiescence in race destiny, instead of our individual resistance. And then a swimming through, like rats in a dark river. Connie felt a sudden, strange leap of sympathy for him, a leap mingled with compassion, and tinged with repulsion, amounting almost to love. The outsider! The outsider! And they called him a bounder! How much more bounderish and assertive Clifford looked! How much stupider!“不，我已跟仆人打过招呼，让他从土耳其……或者更靠近东方的国度，帮我寻觅一位佳偶。”康妮惊奇于这个取得非凡成就，却古怪忧郁的家伙。坊间传闻，仅在美国他就有5万英镑入账。有时康妮觉得他如此地英挺俊朗：当他侧过脸，或者垂下头，在光线的映照下，他的面孔呈现出宁静而持久的美感，像是戴着一副象牙精雕成的黑人面具。双眸炯炯有神，浓眉斜插入鬓，静止不动的嘴唇紧紧抿着；那短暂的瞬间，却揭示出佛陀所希冀的永恒，而黑人们常在不经意间流露出那种神情，是古老民族经年累月积淀而成的、默认的某种东西。那是黑人千百年来对自身种族命运的默认，与我们白人所倡导的个人反抗迥然不同。突然某种微妙的情感悄然流入康妮的意识之中，如同黑暗河道中潜游的老鼠。莫名的怜悯之意在康妮心中陡然升腾，混合着同情，掺杂着厌恶，汇聚成接近于男女之爱的奇异情感。被社会遗弃的倒霉蛋！被社会唾弃的可怜虫！还要背负下流胚的恶名！若论下流无耻，独断专行，克利福德与他相比，更是有过之而无不及。而且更加无知愚钝！

Michaelis knew at once he had made an impression on her. He turned his full, hazel, slightly prominent eyes on her in a look of pure detachment. He was estimating her, and the extent of the impression he had made. With the English nothing could save him from being the eternal outsider, not even love. Yet women sometimes fell for him...Englishwomen too.

米凯利斯很快就察觉到康妮对他的好感。他那双淡褐色、稍显凸出的大眼睛，始终以康妮为视线的焦点，但同时又摆出一副毫不在意的超然表情。他在揣摩着她的想法，猜测着自己在这位可人儿心中究竟占据何种位置。只要和英国佬共处，他就永难摆脱被边缘化的境地，就算是在爱情的领域也不例外。但女人们却时常为他而倾倒……就连英国女人也难以抗拒他的魅力。

He knew just where he was with Clifford. They were two alien dogs which would have liked to snarl at one another, but which smiled instead, perforce. But with the woman he was not quite so sure.

他深知自己与克利福德之间的关系。他们就是两个水火不容的卑鄙小人，本应彼此谩骂叫嚣，却因相互利用的需要，不得不携手言欢。但与这个女人的关系，他却有些拿不准。

Breakfast was served in the bedrooms;Clifford never appeared before lunch, and the dining-room was a little dreary. After coffee Michaelis, restless and ill-sitting soul, wondered what he should do. It was a fine November...day fine for Wragby. He looked over the melancholy park. My God! What a place!

众人在各自卧室用过早餐。午餐前从不见克利福德的踪影，饭厅显得有些冷清。用罢咖啡，米凯利斯感觉心神不宁，如坐针毡，心里盘算着自己该做点什么。这是十一月一个天气晴好的日子，至少对拉格比而言是如此。他起身俯瞰屋外那片阴郁的园林。天呢！这到底是个什么鬼地方！

He sent a servant to ask, could he be of any service to Lady Chatterley: he thought of driving into Sheffield. The answer came, would he care to go up to Lady Chatterley's sitting-room.

他差仆人前去询问，是否能够为查泰莱夫人效犬马之劳，他打算乘车去谢菲尔德逛逛。得到的答复是，请他到夫人的起居室一叙。

Connie had a sitting-room on the third floor, the top floor of the central portion of the house. Clifford's rooms were on the ground floor, of course. Michaelis was flattered by being asked up to Lady Chatterley's own parlour. He followed blindly after the servant...he never noticed things, or had contact with Isis surroundings. In her room he did glance vaguely round at the fine German reproductions of Renoir and Cezanne.

康妮的起居室位于三楼，也就是拉格比府中央部分的顶层。由于克利福德行动不便，他的房间自然都在底层。受邀去查泰莱夫人的私人会客室，米凯利斯有点受宠若惊。他茫然地跟在仆人身后，对沿路的陈设毫不在意，也没有留心观察周遭颇具伊西斯风格的装饰。而步入她的房间后，他却模模糊糊地瞥见雷诺阿（注：1841-1912，法国画家、雕塑家，印象派的代表人物）和塞尚（注：1839-1906，法国画家，后期印象派的主将。）精美的德国复制品。

"It's very pleasant up here," he said, with his queer smile, as if it hurt him to smile, showing his teeth. "You are wise to get up to the top.""Yes, I think so," she said.“楼上的房间果然令人心旷神怡，”他说，脸上显出露齿的怪异笑容，好像这样的微笑会使他感到痛苦，“住在顶楼是个明智的选择。”“没错，我也有同感。”她说。

Her room was the only gay, modern one in the house, the only spot in Wragby where her personality was at all revealed. Clifford had never seen it, and she asked very few people up.

她的房间是整座府邸唯一色彩鲜活、具有现代气息的地方，也是整个拉格比唯一能够彰显她全部个性的所在。克利福德从没到过这个房间，她也很少请人上来做客。

Now she and Michaelis sit on opposite sides of the fire and talked. She asked him about himself, his mother and father, his brothers...other people were always something of a wonder to her, and when her sympathy was awakened she was quite devoid of class feeling. Michaelis talked frankly about himself, quite frankly, without affectation, simply revealing his bitter, indifferent, stray-dog's soul, then showing a gleam of revengeful pride in his success.

此刻，她和米凯利斯在壁炉两侧落座，畅谈起来。她问及他自己、他的父母兄弟……康妮对别人的事总有几分好奇，而当心底的同情被唤醒，等级意识便荡然无存。米凯利斯开诚布公地讲起自己，没有丝毫隐瞒，不做半点矫饰，将自己满怀怨恨、麻木不仁、如同丧家犬般的灵魂，彻彻底底地展现在康妮面前，而在讲述自己的成功经历时，则掺杂着复仇的快感以及骄傲的情绪。

"But why are you such a lonely bird?"Connie asked him; and again he looked at her, with his full, searching, hazel look.“但你为何孤独地好似离群之鸟？”康妮问道。而米凯利斯则又瞪着那双淡褐色的大眼睛，注视着她，目光中含有探寻的意味。

"Some birds ARE that way," he replied. Then, with a touch of familiar irony: "but, look here, what about yourself? Aren't you by way of being a lonely bird yourself?”Connie, a little startled, thought about it for a few moments, and then she said: "Only in a way! Not altogether, like you!""Am I altogether a lonely bird?" he asked, with his queer grin of a smile, as if he had toothache; it was so wry, and his eyes were so perfectly unchangingly melancholy, or stoical, or disillusioned or afraid.“有些人本就是如此，”他答道，接着又换上康妮熟悉的嘲讽腔调，“但也不要忘记眼前之人，你自己呢？你又何尝不是某种离群的孤雁？”康妮心中一惊，沉吟片刻后说：“倒也有些道理。但并非像你那样，完全与孤独为伴。”“我拥有的就只是寂寞？”他反问道，咧嘴露出古怪的笑容，脸庞扭曲得好像饱受牙痛的折磨，眼神仍是一成不变的忧郁，或是坚忍，或是幻灭，又或是恐惧。

"Why?" she said, a little breathless, as she looked at him. "You are, aren't you?”She felt a terrible appeal coming to her from him, that made her almost lose her balance.“为何这么说？”她问，与他目光相接时，不禁有些呼吸急促。“难道你并非如此么？”康妮感到自己被他那股强烈的吸引力慑住，有些心旌旗摇。

"Oh, you're quite right!" he said, turning his head away, and looking sideways, downwards, with that strange immobility of an old race that is hardly here in our present day. It was that that really made Connie lose her power to see him detached from herself.“嗯，你说得太对了！”他说，扭头把脸侧向一边，目光低垂，呈现出那种古老民族独有、现今罕见的静止状态。眼见对方如此冷淡地对待自己，康妮感到非常气馁。

He looked up at her with the full glance that saw everything, registered everything. At the same time, the infant crying in the night was crying out of his breast to her, in a way that affected her very womb.

他抬起头，饱含深情地凝望着她，将眼前的女子完完全全地收入眼底，也把自己心中的情意彻彻底底地传递出来。与此同时，他的胸腔中发出如同婴儿夜啼的声响，不知为何，这哭声让她的子宫都为之震颤。

"It's awfully nice of you to think of me," he said laconically.“你能如此为我着想，真是太令人感动了。”他毫不掩饰心中的情感。

"Why shouldn't I think of you?" she exclaimed, with hardly breath to utter it.“我为何不该为你着想呢？”她惊叫道，激动地几乎透不过气。

He gave the wry, quick hiss of a laugh.

他面容扭曲着快速地发出轻笑。

"Oh, in that way!...“哦，确实应该！……

May I hold your hand for a minute?" he asked suddenly, fixing his eyes on her with almost hypnotic power, and sending out an appeal that affected her direct in the womb.

能否让我握握你的柔荑？”他突然问道，两眼完全集中在她的身上，放射出近乎催眠的目光，那无可比拟的感染力直接震撼着她的子宫。

She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly dim and dazed, looking down in a sort of amazement at the rather tender nape of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning dismay, she could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless nape of his neck, and he trembled, with a deep shudder.

她呆呆地望着他，感到头晕目眩，不知所措。他走上前来，跪在她的身旁，两手紧握住她的双足，把脸深埋进她的裙摆，一动不动。她的脑袋一片空白，讶异地望着他那白皙柔嫩的后颈，感觉到他的脸庞挤压着自己的大腿。尽管热血沸腾，心如鹿撞，她还是禁不住将手抚上那毫无防备的脖颈，充满柔情与怜爱，而跪在地上的他则剧烈地颤抖起来。

Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his full, glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it. From her breast flowed the answering, immense yearning over him; she must give him anything, anything.

接着，他抬起头来望着她，炽热的目光中饱含着骇人的感染力。这目光让她完全失去抵抗的能力。胸中充溢着不可遏制的强烈欲求，那是对他求欢举动的回应。她要将自己的身心完全交托给眼前的这个男人，完全地。

He was a curious and very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, trembling uncontrollably, and yet at the same time detached, aware, aware of every sound outside.

作为情人，他难得地温柔体贴，很懂得怜香惜玉，情不自禁地颤抖着，同时又能游离在情爱之外，对四周的每点声响都保持警惕。

To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still, quite still. Then, with dim, compassionate fingers, she stroked his head, that lay on her breast.

对康妮而言，除了委身于他之外，其他的都已被抛诸脑后。云收雨毕，他终于不再战栗，静静地躺在那里，动也不动。然后，她伸出充满爱怜的纤指，轻抚着他依偎在自己胸前的头。

When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, in their suède slippers, and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire.

温存过后，他站起身来，亲吻着她的双手，以及她穿着麂皮拖鞋的双脚，然后默不作声地走到房间尽头，背对着她立在那里。沉默持续了数分钟之久。然后他转过身来，再度回到她的身边，此时康妮则回到壁炉旁刚才坐的位置。

"And now, I suppose you'll hate me!" he said in a quiet, inevitable way.“我猜，此刻你想必会恨我的！”他平静的语调中流露出听天由命的意味。

She looked up at him quickly.

她旋即仰起头看着他。

"Why should I?" she asked.“我为什么该恨你？”她问。

"They mostly do," he said; then he caught himself up. "I mean...a woman is supposed to.""This is the last moment when I ought to hate you," she said resentfully.“她们大都如此，”他解释说，接着又纠正起自己的说法，“我的意思是……女人多半都会这样想。”“就算应该恨你，也不会是在此刻。”她气鼓鼓地说。

"I know! I know! It should be so! You're FRIGHTFULLY good to me..." he cried miserably.“我知道！我了解！应该是这样没错！你对我简直太好了……”他叫道，语调中满是悲切。

She wondered why he should be miserable. "Won't you sit down again?" she said. He glanced at the door.

她搞不懂这悲切是何来由。“你干嘛不再坐下来？”她问。而他的眼神却瞥向房门。

"Sir Clifford!" he said, "won't he...won't he be...?”She paused a moment to consider. "Perhaps!" she said.“克利福德爵士！”他说，“他会不会……他会不会觉察……？”她沉思片刻。“或许会！”她答道。

And she looked up at him.

说着抬头凝视着他。

"I don't want Clifford to know not even to suspect. It WOULD hurt him so much. But I don't think it's wrong, do you?”"Wrong! Good God, no! You're only too infinitely good to me...I can hardly bear it.”He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.“我不想让克利福德知道，甚至不愿他有所怀疑。那会使他异常痛苦。况且我不觉得这样做有什么错误，你觉得呢？”“错误！仁慈的上帝，当然没有！你只是对我太好了……几乎让我承担不起。”他扭过脸去，她看得出他几乎就要哽咽。

"But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?" she pleaded. "It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody.""Me!" he said, almost fiercely; "he'll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!" he laughed hollowly, cynically, at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her:" May I kiss your hand arid go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there, if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate me?—and that you won't?”—he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.“但咱们没必要让克利福德知道，不是么？”她央求道。“那样只会伤他的心。只要他不明真相，不曾起疑，也就不会有人受到伤害。”“我！”他说，用近乎斩钉截铁的语气，“他绝不会从我口中知道任何事！”不信你就瞧着吧。我竟然会出卖自己？！哈！哈！”他的笑声空洞，显示出对这种想法的不屑一顾。她不明就里地望着他。他再次提出请求：“可否让我在动身前亲吻你的手？我想我要去趟谢菲尔德，可能的话，在那里吃顿午餐，下午茶的时候回来。有什么可以为你效劳的么？我当真可以确信你没有恨我？以后也永远不会恨我？”结束时的语气有强烈的讥诮意味。

"No, I don't hate you," she said. "I think you're nice.”"Ah!" he said to her fiercely, "I'd rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more…Till afternoon then. I've plenty to think about till then.”He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.“放心，我不恨你，”她说，“反倒觉得你是个好人。”“啊！”他的语调饱含热情，“这句话甚至比你说爱我还要令我感动！对我而言，它意味着更多……那么下午见。在那之前，我有好多事情要好好思考一下。”他恭顺地吻了她的双手，转身离去。

"I don't think I can stand that young man," said Clifford at lunch.

吃午餐的时候，克利福德说：“我真有点受不了那小子。”

"Why?" asked Connie.“为什么？”康妮问。

"He's such a bounder underneath his veneer...just waiting to bounce us.”"I think people have been so unkind to him," said Connie.“揭去光鲜的外表，他就是个不折不扣的下流坯……随时可能给我们带来威胁。”“我倒觉得是人们对他太不友善。”康妮说。

"Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing deeds of kindness?""I think he has a certain sort of generosity.""Towards whom?""I don't quite know.”"Naturally you don't. I'm afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for generosity.”Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. Yet the unscrupulousness of Michaelis had a certain fascination for her. He went whole lengths where Clifford only crept a few timid paces. In his way he had conquered the world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means...? Were those of Michaelis more despicable than those of Clifford? Was the way the poor outsider had shoved and bounced himself forward in person, and by the back doors, any worse than Clifford's way of advertising himself into prominence? The bitch-goddess, Success, was trailed by thousands of gasping, dogs with lolling tongues. So Michaelis could keep his tail up. The queer thing was, he didn't.“你感到不解么？难不成你以为他整日行善积德？”“我认为他有种宽宏的气度。”“对谁？”“我不太清楚。”“你当然不清楚。恐怕你只是误把寡廉鲜耻当成了宽宏大量。”康妮无言以对。当真如此么？确有这种可能。但正是米凯利斯不知廉耻的品性让她为之着迷。相对于克利福德的蹒跚学步，他早已功成名就。他以自己的方式征服世界，而这正是克利福德梦寐以求的。至于方法和途径……？米凯利斯所用的手段比克利福德的更加卑劣么？这个被社会边缘化的倒霉蛋，凭借自身的奋斗以及偷偷摸摸的伎俩扬名立万，而克利福德则依靠自我标榜和吹嘘上位，难道两者有什么本质的不同？成功，这位堕落女神，被千万只耷拉着舌头的狗，气喘吁吁地尾随在后。因此，米凯利斯大可以趾高气昂地翘起尾巴。但出人意料的是，他并没有如此地得意忘形。

He came back towards tea-time with a large handful of violets and lilies, and the same hang-dog expression. Connie wondered sometimes if it were a sort of mask to disarm opposition, because it was almost too fixed. Was he really such a sad dog? His sad-dog sort of extinguished self persisted all the evening, though through it Clifford felt the inner effrontery. Connie didn't feel it, perhaps because it was not directed against women; only against men, and their presumptions and assumptions. That indestructible, inward effrontery in the meagre fellow was what made men so down on Michaelis. His very presence was an affront to a man of society, cloak it as he might in an assumed good manner.

他果然在下午茶时分回到拉格比，手里捧着一大束紫罗兰和百合，垂头丧气的卑怯表情依然如故。康妮有时怀疑，这种神态是否是他用来瓦解对方敌对的面具，因为他总是那副可鄙的模样。他当真是只丧家犬么？整晚他都摆出那副可怜巴巴的丧气相，而在克利福德眼中，这不过是为了掩饰其厚颜无耻的本质。康妮却并不这么认为，或许这样的伎俩不会用在女人身上，而只针对男人，针对他们的专横和狂妄。这个瘦小枯干的家伙厚颜无耻到根深蒂固的程度，而正因为此，人们才会对他如此地深恶痛绝。无论装得多么斯文得体，他的存在对于上流社会的人们而言，都无异于公然侮辱。

Connie was in love with him, but she managed to sit with her embroidery and let the men talk, and not give herself away. As for Michaelis, he was perfect; exactly the same melancholic, attentive, aloof young fellow of the previous evening, millions of degrees remote from his hosts, but laconically playing up to them to the required amount, and never coming forth to them for a moment. Connie felt he must have forgotten the morning. He had not forgotten. But he knew where he was...in the same old place outside, where the born outsiders are. He didn't take the love-making altogether personally. He knew it would not change him from an ownerless dog, whom everybody begrudges its golden collar, into a comfortable society dog.

康妮爱上了他，但还是竭力坐在那里刺绣，聆听着男人们谈天说地，不露出任何蛛丝马迹。至于米凯利斯，他表现得无懈可击，依然是昨晚那个忧郁专注而又冷漠的青年，与克利福德夫妇远远地保持着距离，说话时言简意赅，既能投其所好，又做到适可而止，绝不大献殷勤。康妮甚至感觉他准是已经忘记上午的缠绵。他并未遗忘。但他深知自己所处的位置……被边缘化的处境未曾改变，依然游离在上流社会之外。他并没有太把那次偷情放在心上。他明白这并不能让自己从一只无主的流浪狗，摇身一变成为生活安逸的贵族狗，脖颈上套着的金项圈依然是人们嫉恨的目标。

The final fact being that at the very bottom of his soul he WAS an outsider, and anti-social, and he accepted the fact inwardly, no matter how Bond-Streety he was on the outside. His isolation was a necessity to him; just as the appearance of conformity and mixing-in with the smart people was also a necessity.

但最终的真相是，在灵魂深处，米凯利斯的确与上流社会格格不入，他厌恶虚情假意的交际，甚至在心底早已接受了这一事实，不管外表装扮得如何光鲜亮丽。孤独是其性格中不可或缺的组成部分，就像他表现出来的见贤思齐、力争跻身上流同样必不可少。

But occasional love, as a comfort arid soothing, was also a good thing, and he was not ungrateful. On the contrary, he was burningly, poignantly grateful for a piece of natural, spontaneous kindness: almost to tears. Beneath his pale, immobile, disillusioned face, his child's soul was sobbing with gratitude to the woman, and burning to come to her again; just as his outcast soul was knowing he would keep really clear of her.

偶尔涉足爱河，给身心以慰藉，倒也是件好事，而他也并非忘恩负义之辈。相反却对真诚自然的情感，抱有强烈而深切的感激，几乎因此潸然泪下。那张苍白的面孔流露出沉静寂寥的神态，而隐藏在其后的那孩童般的灵魂，更是对眼前女子感激涕零，迫不及待地想再度与她亲近，但那颗被放逐的心灵却深知，自己应该与她划清界限。

He found an opportunity to say to her, as they were lighting the candles in the hall: "May I come?""I'll come to you," she said.

借着在走廊燃亮蜡烛的机会，他对她说：“我能去找你么？”“我会去找你的。”她应道。

"Oh, good!"He waited for her a long time...but she came.“哦，太好了！”他等了很久……她姗姗而来。

He was the trembling excited sort of lover, whose crisis soon came, and was finished. There was something curiously childlike and defenceless about his naked body: as children are naked. His defences were all in his wits and cunning, his very instincts of cunning, and when these were in abeyance he seemed doubly naked and like a child, of unfinished, tender flesh, and somehow struggling helplessly.

床笫上的他总是激动异常，全身战栗，高潮来得快，去得也快。他赤裸的身体尤其如同婴孩般无助，因为孩童们总会不着一缕。全赖机智的头脑与狡黠的天性，他才能保全自我，而当此两者无从发挥之时，他就变得加倍赤裸，愈发与孩童无异，肉体娇嫩纤弱，发育尚未完全，徒劳的挣扎显得那样无力。

He roused in the woman a wild sort of compassion and yearning, and a wild, craving physical desire. The physical desire he did not satisfy in her; he was always come and finished so quickly, then shrinking down on her breast, and recovering somewhat his effrontery while she lay dazed, disappointed, lost.

他激发出康妮狂野的怜爱和渴望，还有疯狂的、按耐不住的情欲。但他却无法令她的欲望得以满足，来去匆匆的高潮过后，就会蜷缩在她的胸口，逐渐恢复他无耻的嘴脸，而她却只能怔怔地躺在那里，怅然若失。

But then she soon learnt to hold him, to keep him there inside her when his crisis was over. And there he was generous and curiously potent; he stayed firm inside her, giving to her, while she was active...wildly, passionately active, coming to her own crisis.

但很快，她就学会掌控他，当高潮过后，仍把他留在体内。他也积极配合，始终保持充盈状态，在她的体内坚挺不倒，将整个身体交托给她，任她摇摆……狂热地摇摆，疯狂地摇摆，直到她的高潮来临。

And as he felt the frenzy of her achieving her own orgasmic satisfaction from his hard, erect passivity, he had a curious sense of pride and satisfaction.

他感受到了自己顺从的坚挺给她带来的高潮的极度快感，莫名的自豪和愉悦油然而生。

"Ah, how good!" she whispered tremulously, and she became quite still, clinging to him. And he lay there in his own isolation, but somehow proud.“啊，太美妙了！”她喃喃道，身子抖动着。一会儿后就安静下来，紧紧依偎着他。而他平躺着，享受着孤寂之中的些许自豪。

He stayed that time only the three days, and to Clifford was exactly the same as on the first evening; to Connie also. There was no breaking down his external man.

那次他只逗留了三天，在克利福德看来，他跟第一天晚上没什么两样，康妮也没有看出任何破绽。他的表面功夫做得可算无懈可击。

He wrote to Connie with the same plaintive melancholy note as ever, sometimes witty, and touched with a queer, sexless affection. A kind of hopeless affection he seemed to feel for her, and the essential remoteness remained the same. He was hopeless at the very core of him, and he wanted to be hopeless. He rather hated hope. "UNE IMMENSE ESPÉRANCE A TRAVERSÉ LA TERRE”, he read somewhere, and his comment was: “—AND IT'S DARNED-WELL DROWNED EVERYTHING WORTH HAVING.”Connie never really understood him, but, in her way, she loved him. And all the time she felt the reflection of his hopelessness in her. She couldn't quite, quite love in hopelessness. And he, being hopeless, couldn't ever quite love at all.

他给康妮写信时，哀怨忧郁的口吻一如既往，时而点缀着机智，某种怪异的情感掺杂其中，却不带有任何情欲的成分。他似乎对彼此间的感情并不抱希望，因此从来不会表现得过于亲近。在内心深处，他从不相信希望的存在，也不愿与希望扯上任何干系。他甚至对希望怀有厌恶之情。他曾在某处读到过这样的诗句：“希望的狂潮席卷大地。”而他给出的评价则是：“它将一切有价值的东西尽数淹没。”康妮从未真正了解过他，但却以自己的方式爱着他。她始终有这样的感觉，即他对这段感情不抱希望。她却无法在希望无存的状态下，全身心地去爱对方。而他，因为与希望绝缘，自然也从未能够深爱过某人。

So they went on for quite a time, writing, and meeting occasionally in London. She still wanted the physical, sexual thrill she could get with him by her own activity, his little orgasm being over. And he still wanted to give it her. Which was enough to keep them connected.

两人的私情维系了很久，飞鸿传情，间或在伦敦幽会。她依然渴望那种令人迷醉的性快感，虽然只是在对方短暂的高潮结束后，靠自己的挺动得来的。而他也仍旧愿意满足她的欲求。而这已经足够延续两人之间的关系。

And enough to give her a subtle sort of self-assurance, something blind and a little arrogant. It was an almost mechanical confidence in her own powers, and went with a great cheerfulness.

更使她产生某种微妙的自得，盲目而又带有些许傲慢。那几乎是对自身力量机械的自信，同时伴随着强烈的愉悦感。

She was terrifically cheerful at Wragby. And she used all her aroused cheerfulness and satisfaction to stimulate Clifford, so that he wrote his best at this time, and was almost happy in his strange blind way. He really reaped the fruits of the sensual satisfaction she got out of Michaelis' male passivity erect inside her. But of course he never knew it, and if he had, he wouldn't have said thank you!

身在拉格比的她也雀跃异常。她也以所有被唤醒的愉悦心情和满足感来激励克利福德，因此，这段时间他的作品质量最为上乘，而不明真相的他也几乎奇怪地被妻子的快乐所感染。她从米凯利斯被动的坚挺中得到性快感，而他也从这种肉体的满足感中受益匪浅。当然，他始终被蒙在鼓里，如果知道事情的真相，他绝不会有半点感激之意！

Yet when those days of her grand joyful cheerfulness and stimulus were gone, quite gone, and she was depressed and irritable, how Clifford longed for them again! Perhaps if he'd known he might even have wished to get her and Michaelis together again.

但当那妙不可言的愉悦和刺激消逝得无踪无影后，她变得意志消沉，烦躁易怒，而克利福德多么希望那过去的好时光能够重来！若他明晰个中缘由，或许甚至会希望妻子与米凯利斯鸳梦重温也未可知。

CHAPTER 4

第四章

Connie always had a foreboding of the hopelessness of her affair with Mick, as people called him. Yet other men seemed to mean nothing to her. She was attached to Clifford. He wanted a good deal of her life and she gave it to him. But she wanted a good deal from the life of a man, and this Clifford did not give her; could not. There were occasional spasms of Michaelis. But, as she knew by foreboding, that would come to an end. Mick COULDN'T keep anything up. It was part of his very being that he must break off any connexion, and be loose, isolated, absolutely lone dog again. It was his major necessity, even though he always said: She turned me down!

康妮总预感自己与米克——人们总是这样称呼他——的私情不会有什么结果。可其他男人又很难让她提起兴趣。克利福德对她充满依恋。他需要她将大量精力倾注在自己身上，而她也满足他的要求。但她也需要某个男人的大量精力，可克利福德没有也无法做到这些。她不时与米凯利斯欢愉一番。但预感告诉她，这种关系迟早都将结束。米克做任何事都是有始无终。他的天性就是如此，必须将所有情感的羁绊尽数断绝，重新做回那只自由自在、无牵无挂、绝对孤单的流浪狗。他迫切地需要如此，尽管总是将这样的话挂在嘴边：是她拒绝我的！

The world is supposed to be full of possibilities, but they narrow down to pretty few in most personal experience. There's lots of good fish in the sea...maybe...but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea.

世界本就充满无限可能，但具体到个人经历，就往往变得极其有限。大海里有林林总总的优良鱼种……或许……其中绝大多数似乎都是鲭鱼或者鲱鱼，如果你不在其列，就很可能发现不了多少好鱼。

Clifford was making strides into fame, and even money. People came to see him. Connie nearly always had somebody at Wragby. But if they weren't mackerel they were herring, with an occasional cat-fish, or conger-eel.

克利福德名声日隆，收益颇丰。自然少不了有慕名到访者。康妮几乎天天都要款待各色宾朋。但他们不是鲭鱼，就是鲱鱼，偶尔会见到鲶鱼，或者海鳗。

There were a few regular men, constants; men who had been at Cambridge with Clifford. There was Tommy Dukes, who had remained in the army, and was a Brigadier-General. "The army leaves me time to think, and saves me from having to face the battle of life," he said.

其中也有几位常客，算是克利福德的至交好友，曾在剑桥求学时就已熟稔。名唤汤米·杜克斯的那位仍在军界效力，此时已荣升准将。他说：“置身军旅让我有更多的时间去思考，使我得以摆脱生活的争斗。”

There was Charles May, an Irishman, who wrote scientifically about stars. There was Hammond, another writer. All were about the same age as Clifford; the young intellectuals of the day. They all believed in the life of the mind. What you did apart from that was your private affair, and didn't much matter. No one thinks of inquiring of another person at what hour he retires to the privy. It isn't interesting to anyone but the person concerned.

名叫查尔斯·梅的那位来自爱尔兰，写些介绍天体的科普作品。而叫做哈蒙德的那位同样身为作家。他们都跟克利福德年龄相仿，均是当时年轻有为的知识分子。他们都无一例外地笃信精神生活。除此之外，其他的都是无关痛痒的私事。没人会想去打听人家何时如厕。这种事情只与自己有关，其他人不会有半点兴趣。

And so with most of the matters of ordinary life...how you make your money, or whether you love your wife, or if you have "affairs". All these matters concern only the person concerned, and, like going to the privy, have no interest for anyone else.

多数日常琐事均是如此……你怎么捞钱，与妻子是否恩爱，有没有风流韵事。所有这些都只是个人私事，跟上厕所没啥两样，不会引起他人的兴趣。

"The whole point about the sexual problem," said Hammond, who was a tall thin fellow with a wife and two children, but much more closely connected with a typewriter, "is that there is no point to it. Strictly there is no problem. We don't want to follow a man into the w.c., so why should we want to follow him into bed with a woman? And therein lie the problem. If we took no more notice of the one thing than the other, there'd be no problem. It's all utterly senseless and pointless; a matter of misplaced curiosity.”"Quite, Hammond, quite! But if someone starts making love to Julia, you begin to simmer; and if he goes on, you are soon at boiling point."...Julia was Hammond's wife.“说到性的问题，其要点就是没有要点。”身材细高的哈蒙德打开话匣子，他跟发妻育有两子，但却跟个打字员搞得火热。“严格来说，这根本就算不得问题。我们不会想跟着人家进厕所，那么干嘛要去关心别人跟哪个女的上床呢？这就是问题所在。如果我们能将二者同等看待，问题自然也就不复存在了。本就是索然寡味至极的事情，不过是好奇心错用了地方而已。”“说的没错，哈蒙德，一针见血！但要是有人试图追求茱莉亚，你准会怒不可遏；要是他还敢纠缠不休，你很快就会怒气冲天了。”，茱莉亚是哈蒙德的妻子。

"Why, exactly! So I should be if he began to urinate in a corner of my drawing-room. There's a place for all these things.”"You mean you wouldn't mind if he made love to Julia in some discreet alcove?”Charlie May was slightly satirical, for he had flirted a very little with Julia, and Hammond had cut up very roughly.“那当然！如果有人胆敢在我家客厅墙角撒尿，总该在合适的地点做恰当的事。”“你是说如果有人跟茱莉亚背地里卿卿我我，你反倒会毫不介意？”查理·梅语略带讽刺，当日这位仁兄就曾跟茱莉亚眉目传情，搞得哈蒙德大为光火。

"Of course I should mind. Sex is a private thing between me and Julia; and of course I should mind anyone else trying to mix in.""As a matter of fact," said the lean and freckled Tommy Dukes, who looked much more Irish than May, who was pale and rather fat: "As a matter of fact, Hammond, you have a strong property instinct, and a strong will to self-assertion, and you want success. Since I've been in the army definitely, I've got out of the way of the world, and now I see how inordinately strong the craving for self-assertion and success is in men. It is enormously overdeveloped. All our individuality has run that way. And of course men like you think you'll get through better with a woman's backing. That's why you're so jealous. That's what sex is to you...a vital little dynamo between you and Julia, to bring success. If you began to be unsuccessful you'd begin to flirt, like Charlie, who isn't successful. Married people like you and Julia have labels on you, like travellers' trunks. Julia is labelled MRS ARNOLD B. HAMMOND —just like a trunk on the railway that belongs to somebody. And you are labelled ARNOLD B. HHAMMOND, C/O MRS ARNOLD B. HAMMOND. Oh, you're quite right, you're quite right! The life of the mind needs a comfortable house and decent cooking. You're quite right. It even needs posterity. But it all hinges on the instinct for success. That is the pivot on which all things turn.”Hammond looked rather piqued. He was rather proud of the integrity of his mind, and of his NOT being a time-server. None the less, he did want success.“我当然介意。性爱本是我们夫妻的私事，别人妄想横插一杠，我怎么会无动于衷？”“说实话，”汤米·杜克斯接过话茬，他身材干瘦，满脸雀斑，若论长相，比白皙肥硕的梅更像爱尔兰人，“说实话，哈蒙德，你欲壑难填，骄横自负，对成功充满渴望。因为我身在行伍，便少涉世事，如今却发现世人争名逐利的欲求已经强烈到无可附加的地步。这种趋势如火如荼，不可抑制。几乎人人都沉迷此道。当然，你这样的男人认为有贤内助的支持，会更接近成功。因此才会妒火中烧。性爱对你而言……是台不可或缺的小发动机，用来维系你与茱莉亚的感情，以便获得最终的成功。如果遭遇挫折，就会投身情场，失意的查理便是如此。你和茱莉亚这样的已婚夫妇都贴有标签，好像旅行者拖的行李箱。茱莉亚的标签上面写着‘阿诺德·B·哈蒙德太太’——如同火车上某人托运的皮箱。而你的上面则有如此的字样‘阿诺德·B·哈蒙德，由其夫人转交。’噢，你做得很对，毫无差错！舒适的住处，美味的饭菜都是精神生活的必需品。你的想法无可指摘。繁衍后代更是必不可少的。但对成功的渴望是绝对的轴心。一切都围绕着它运转。”哈蒙德显得异常恼火。他自诩清正高洁，从不屑于趋炎附势，因此也颇为得意。尽管如此，他确实对成功充满渴求。

"It's quite true, you can't live without cash," said May. "You've got to have a certain amount of it to be able to live and get along...even to be free to think you must have a certain amount of money, or your stomach stops you. But it seems to me you might leave the labels off sex. We're free to talk to anybody; so why shouldn't we be free to make love to any woman who inclines us that way?”"There speaks the lascivious Celt," said Clifford.“说得太对了，没钱确实无法过活。”梅说。“要生存，要度日，可得有不小的一笔钱……甚至自由思考都是如此，否则肚子可不会答应。但依我看，在性爱的领域，你大可把标签揭去。既然可以跟任何人畅所欲言，为何不能跟属意自己的女子尽情欢好呢？”“淫荡无耻的凯尔特人才会这么说。”克利福德说。

"Lascivious! well, why not—? I can't see I do a woman any more harm by sleeping with her than by dancing with her...or even talking to her about the weather. It's just an interchange of sensations instead of ideas, so why not?”"Be as promiscuous as the rabbits!" said Hammond.“淫荡无耻！哟，为什么不呢——？跟女人同寝也好，共舞……或者谈论天气也罢，我不觉得前者会对她带来更大的伤害。只不过是感觉的交流代替了思想的交换，那么何乐而不为呢？”“像兔子那样肆意苟合！”哈蒙德说。

"Why not? What's wrong with rabbits? Are they any worse than a neurotic, revolutionary humanity, full of nervous hate?”"But we're not rabbits, even so," said Hammond.“有什么不妥么？兔子招谁惹谁了？比起神经兮兮、叫嚣着革命、满脑袋仇恨的人类，它们难道还要恶劣几分么？”“但我们终归不是兔子。”哈蒙德说。

"Precisely! I have my mind: I have certain calculations to make in certain astronomical matters that concern me almost more than life or death. Sometimes indigestion interferes with me. Hunger would interfere with me disastrously. In the same way starved sex interferes with me. What then?”"I should have thought sexual indigestion from surfeit would have interfered with you more seriously," said Hammond satirically.“确实如此！我们拥有思想意识，对我而言，计算一些天文学问题甚至比生死来得更重要。有时消化不良会妨碍我的工作。饥饿带来的影响会更加严重。性饥渴也会起到同样的效果。该怎么来应对这些问题呢？”“如果我猜得没错，纵欲过度引起的性消化不良，恐怕对你的影响尤甚。”哈蒙德挖苦道。

"Not it! I don't over-eat myself and I don't over-fuck myself. One has a choice about eating too much. But you would absolutely starve me.”"Not at all! You can marry.""How do you know I can? It may not suit the process of my mind. Marriage might...and would...stultify my mental processes. I'm not properly pivoted that way...and so must I be chained in a kennel like a monk? All rot and funk, my boy. I must live and do my calculations. I need women sometimes. I refuse to make a mountain of it, and I refuse anybody's moral condemnation or prohibition. I'd be ashamed to see a woman walking around with my name-label on her, address and railway station, like a wardrobe trunk.”These two men had not forgiven each other about the Julia flirtation.“一派胡言！我从不暴饮暴食，也绝不会纵欲过度。人完全可以控制自己的食量。但如果没得吃，就不得不接受成为饿殍的命运。”“才不会呢！你可以娶妻呀。”“你怎么知道我愿意结婚？婚姻或许不太符合我的思想观念。婚姻也许……会让我变得反应迟钝。我还没打定主意要结婚……难道我就该像僧侣一样，把自己锁在狗笼里么？这实在是陈腐不堪的愚蠢念头，我的朋友。我必须存活下去，为的是继续自己的天文学事业。偶尔我也会需要女人。这没什么值得小题大做的，任何人都无权以道德为由，来指责或者阻止我。如果看到哪个女人贴着写有我名字的标牌四处招摇，就像写明地址和火车班次的行李箱，我准会羞愧难当。”这两个男人显然还在为茱莉亚调情的事情耿耿于怀。

"It's an amusing idea, Charlie," said Dukes, "that sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them. I suppose it's quite true. I suppose we might exchange as many sensations and emotions with women as we do ideas about the weather, and so on. Sex might be a sort of normal physical conversation between a man and a woman. You don't talk to a woman unless you have ideas in common: that is you don't talk with any interest. And in the same way, unless you had some emotion or sympathy in common with a woman you wouldn't sleep with her. But if you had...”"If you have the proper sort of emotion or sympathy with a woman, you ought to sleep with her," said May. "It's the only decent thing, to go to bed with her. Just as, when you are interested talking to someone, the only decent thing is to have the talk out. You don't prudishly put your tongue between your teeth and bite it. You just say out your say. And the same the other way.”"No," said Hammond. "It's wrong. You, for example, May, you squander half your force with women. You'll never really do what you should do, with a fine mind such as yours. Too much of it goes the other way.”"Maybe it does...and too little of you goes that way, Hammond, my boy, married or not. You can keep the purity and integrity of your mind, but it's going damned dry. Your pure mind is going as dry as fiddlesticks, from what I see of it. You're simply talking it down.”Tommy Dukes burst into a laugh.“你的想法可真有趣，查理，”杜克斯说，“性爱只是另一种交流方式，用实际行动把言语表达出来，而不是用嘴巴说出来。依我看，这种观点再正确不过。我们或许可以像交换对天气以及其他问题的看法一样，同异性分享彼此的感觉和情绪。性爱是男女之间习以为常的身体对话方式。如果你与某位异性看法相悖，就不会同她交谈，也就是说沟通要以兴趣为根本的出发点。同样的道理，如果在情感维度缺少共鸣，你也不会产生与异性双宿双栖的欲望。但如果你确实……”“如果确实与某位异性情感相通，一拍即合，就应该跟她共度春宵，”梅说，“和她颠鸾倒凤是唯一该做的事情。就像你跟某人聊得热火朝天，唯一该做的事就是畅所欲言。而不会故作扭捏，闭口不言。只会痛痛快快地将心里的话说出来。两者有异曲同工之处。”“错，”哈蒙德矢口否认，“大错特错。就拿你来说吧，梅，你把半数的精力挥霍在女人身上。虽然才华横溢，但却从未得到淋漓尽致的发挥。在左道旁门上花的心思太多。”“此话或许有理……但哈蒙德，我的朋友，不管婚配与否，你却在男女之事上不够用心。你能够保持心灵的纯洁和正直没错，但它却会逐渐干涸。在我看来，你那颗纯净的心就会枯干得像根小提琴弓。你的高谈阔论恰恰是对自我心灵的贬低。”汤米·杜克斯勃然大笑。

"Go it, you two minds!" he said. "Look at me...I don't do any high and pure mental work, nothing but jot down a few ideas. And yet I neither marry nor run after women. I think Charlie's quite right; if he wants to run after the women, he's quite free not to run too often. But I wouldn't prohibit him from running. As for Hammond, he's got a property instinct, so naturally the straight road and the narrow gate are right for him. You'll see he'll be an English Man of Letters before he's done A.B.C. from top to toe. Then there's me. I'm nothing. Just a squib. And what about you, Clifford? Do you think sex is a dynamo to help a man on to success in the world?”Clifford rarely talked much at these times. He never held forth; his ideas were really not vital enough for it, he was too confused and emotional. Now he blushed and looked uncomfortable.“别争了，两位大思想家！”他说，“看看我……我从不从事高尚纯洁的思想事业，只是草草记下几个想法。我没结婚，也不去追求女人。我完全认同查理的观点，要是他想追求异性，大可以放手去做，而只需注意适可而止。但我不会阻止他这么做。至于哈蒙德，由于强烈的占有欲作祟，因此对他而言，安分守己和防患未然也是正确的选择。等着瞧吧，有朝一日，他会跻身英国大文豪的行列，从头到脚散发着书卷的气息。而我呢，简直无足轻重。只是喜欢信口胡言而已。你呢，克利福德？性爱是男人功成名就的助推器，对此你怎么看？”每逢这种场合，克利福德都绝少开口说话。从不会滔滔不绝地发表意见，他的观点也的确摆不上台面，往往连他自己都捋不清头绪，又太过感情用事。现在，他的脸涨得通红，表情很是尴尬。

"Well!" he said, "being myself HORS DE COMBAT, I don't see I've anything to say on the matter.”"Not at all," said Dukes, "the top of you's by no means HORS DE COMBAT. You've got the life of the mind sound and intact. So let us hear your ideas.”"Well," stammered Clifford, "even then I don't suppose I have much idea...I suppose marry—and—have—done—with—it would pretty well stand for what I think. Though of course between a man and woman who care for one another, it is a great thing.”"What sort of great thing?" said Tommy.“呃！”克利福德迟疑道，“我已是残废之人，关于这个问题没什么好说的。”“此言差矣，”杜克斯说，“你的上半身可是完好无缺。且精神生活也没有受到丝毫影响。不妨让我们听听你的高论。”“那好，”克利福德吞吞吐吐地说，“尽管如此，我还是没什么意见……或许‘结婚完事’足以代表我的想法。当然，对于相互倾慕的男女而言，性爱的确至关重要。”“怎么个重要法呢？”汤米追问道。

"Oh...it perfects the intimacy," said Clifford, uneasy as a woman in such talk.“嗯……它可以拉近彼此的情感。”克利福德说，涉及到这一话题时，他局促不安的样子活像个女人。

"Well, Charlie and I believe that sex is a sort of communication like speech. Let any woman start a sex conversation with me, and it's natural for me to go to bed with her to finish it, all in due season. Unfortunately no woman makes any particular start with me, so I go to bed by myself; and am none the worse for it…I hope so, anyway, for how should I know? Anyhow I've no starry calculations to be interfered with, and no immortal works to write. I'm merely a fellow skulking in the army...”Silence fell. The four men smoked. And Connie sat there and put another stitch in her sewing…Yes, she sat there! She had to sit mum. She had to be quiet as a mouse, not to interfere with the immensely important speculations of these highly-mental gentlemen. But she had to be there. They didn't get on so well without her; their ideas didn't flow so freely. Clifford was much more hedgy and nervous, he got cold feet much quicker in Connie's absence, and the talk didn't run. Tommy Dukes came off best; he was a little inspired by her presence. Hammond she didn't really like; he seemed so selfish in a mental way. And Charles May, though she liked something about him, seemed a little distasteful and messy, in spite of his stars.“这样啊，我和查理都认为性爱和谈话没啥两样，不过是种交流的方式。要是那名女子要跟我展开性对话，一旦时机成熟，我自然不会放过在床上跟她成其好事的机会。不幸的是，没有女人要和我进行此种交流，因此我只好独守空床，而这也没什么不好的……至少我希望如此，不管怎样，我怎么能够通晓天机呢？我没有天文学问题要去烦忧，也没有不朽著作要去书写。我只是个躲在行伍间、逃避世事的家伙而已……”沉默再度降临。四个男人一声不吭地吸着烟。坐在一旁的康妮继续摆弄着手上的针线活……没错，她就坐在那里！她不得不默不作声地坐在那里。她必须静默得像只老鼠，以免打扰这些才思敏捷的绅士们做出惊世骇俗的推断。但她又必须在场。没有她的存在，男人们的谈论不会如此热火朝天，他们的思路也不会如此敏捷灵活。妻子不在身边，克利福德会变得更加拘谨和胆怯，甚至更快失去发言的勇气，谈话自然也就无法进行下去。汤米·杜克斯的表现最为抢眼，显然是康妮的在场让他颇受鼓舞。她对哈蒙德不太感冒，那家伙的精神太过狭隘。至于查尔斯·梅，虽说也有几分讨她欢喜，但这位仁兄尽管以星辰为研究对象，其谈吐却粗俗无礼，条理混乱。

How many evenings had Connie sat and listened to the manifestations of these four men! these, and one or two others. That they never seemed to get anywhere didn't trouble her deeply. She liked to hear what they had to say, especially when Tommy was there. It was fun. Instead of men kissing you, and touching you with their bodies, they revealed their minds to you. It was great fun! But what cold minds!

无数个夜晚康妮就坐在那里，静静听着这四个男人闲扯。这四位是固定组合，偶尔也会有其他一两人加入其中。他们探讨的话题似乎永无定论，这一点康妮并不怎么在意。她热衷于听他们说出心底的话，尤其是汤米在场的时候。这是种有趣的经历。非是亲吻，非是身体上的爱抚，此刻男人们是在向你吐露自己的心声。这确实是妙趣横生的体验！但是他们的心声竟然也冷酷异常！

And also it was a little irritating. She had more respect for Michaelis, on whose name they all poured such withering contempt, as a little mongrel arriviste, and uneducated bounder of the worst sort. Mongrel and bounder or not, he jumped to his own conclusions. He didn't merely walk round them with millions of words, in the parade of the life of the mind.

有时康妮也会感到忿忿不平。她对米凯利斯的敬重之情远胜这些自命不凡的家伙，可他们却极尽诋毁之能事，将他斥为争名逐利不择手段的小杂种，没有教养的下流胚。杂种也好，无赖也罢，米凯利斯总会快速得出自己的结论。而不会只是漫无边际地夸夸其谈，炫耀自己的精神生活。

Connie quite liked the life of the mind, and got a great thrill out of it. But she did think it overdid itself a little. She loved being there, amidst the tobacco smoke of those famous evenings of the cronies, as she called them privately to herself. She was infinitely amused, and proud too, that even their talking they could not do, without her silent presence. She had an immense respect for thought...and these men, at least, tried to think honestly. But somehow there was a cat, and it wouldn't jump. They all alike talked at something, though what it was, for the life of her she couldn't say. It was something that Mick didn't clear, either.

对于精神生活，康妮倒是颇有好感，并且从中得到极大的愉悦。但在她看来，他们对此有点过分看重。她喜欢呆在那里，置身于烟雾缭绕的良朋之夜——她私底下这样称呼他们的聚会。若她缺席，他们就会失去谈天说地的劲头，为此，康妮觉得着实有趣，也很是得意。她对思想极其敬畏……也对这些男人们心怀敬佩，至少他们还愿意一本正经地去思考问题。但不知何故，她始终无法参透其中的秘密究竟为何。他们周而复始地大谈特谈，但究竟话题的中心是什么，就算穷尽一生的时间，她也不能说出所以然来。就算是米克也搞不清楚。

But then Mick wasn't trying to do anything, but just get through his life, and put as much across other people as they tried to put across him. He was really anti-social, which was what Clifford and his cronies had against him. Clifford and his cronies were not anti-social; they were more or less bent on saving mankind, or on instructing it, to say the least.

不过，米凯利斯已经失去进取之心，只求消磨光阴，若是被人欺骗，就会以彼之道还施彼身。他确实与社会潮流背道而驰，而这正是克利福德及其好友们切齿痛恨他的关键。他们一向依照社会惯例行事，甚至有些决心拯救全人类，或者至少扮演教化世人的角色。

There was a gorgeous talk on Sunday evening, when the conversation drifted again to love.

周日晚间的聚会，大家谈得兴致盎然，话题的焦点再度转回到爱情上。

"Blest be the tie that bindsOur hearts in kindred something—or—other”— said Tommy Dukes. "I'd like to know what the tie is…The tie that binds us just now is mental friction on one another. And, apart from that, there's damned little tie between us. We bust apart, and say spiteful things about one another, like all the other damned intellectuals in the world. Damned everybodies, as far as that goes, for they all do it. Else we bust apart, and cover up the spiteful things we feel against one another by saying false sugaries. It's a curious thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite, ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at Socrates, in Plato, and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all, just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits…Protagoras, or whoever it was! And Alcibiades, and all the other little disciple dogs joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, there's something wrong with the mental life, radically. It's rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit.”"I don't think we're altogether so spiteful," protested Clifford.“祝福那连接心灵的纽带，无论是亲情或是其他情感……”汤米·杜克斯说。“我想搞明白这纽带到底是什么……此刻连接你我的纽带，是彼此心智的角力。然而除此之外，我们之间的联系就少得可怜。一旦分道扬镳，就会恶语相向，像所有其他彼此相轻的文人没啥两样。在这个事情上，任何人都不能免俗，因为现实的状况就是如此。或者，我们会将对彼此的恨意用虚假的甜言蜜语加以掩饰。若非深植于无法理解、难以言喻的怨恨之中，精神生活似乎就很难出现欣欣向荣的景象，原因何在，确实让人无法理解。自古以来就是如此。看看柏拉图（注：约前427年－前347年，古希腊哲学家，思想家）如何评价苏格拉底（注：公元前469年－公元前399年，古希腊哲学家，思想家，柏拉图的老师）吧，还有追随他左右的那帮拥趸！毫不掩饰心中的怨恨，以将对方驳得体无完肤为乐事……普罗塔哥拉（注：约公元前481年－公元前411年，古希腊哲学家，诡辩学派的代表人物），或是管他叫什么呢！还有亚西比德（注：约公元前450年－404年，古希腊政治家，军事家），以及其他参与论战的门徒弟子们！我不得不承认，相对而言，佛陀无疑更值得崇敬，他静坐在菩提树下参悟禅理，还有耶稣基督，他平心静气地向门徒布道，从无意气之争。或者说，精神生活根本就存在着问题。它在怨恨和妒忌，妒忌与怨恨之中生根发芽。正所谓见其果而知其树。”“我不相信大家如此仇视彼此。”克利福德提出异议。

"My dear Clifford, think of the way we talk each other over, all of us. I'm rather worse than anybody else, myself. Because I infinitely prefer the spontaneous spite to the concocted sugaries; now they ARE poison; when I begin saying what a fine fellow Clifford is, etc., etc., then poor Clifford is to be pitied. For God's sake, all of you, say spiteful things about me, then I shall know I mean something to you. Don't say sugaries, or I'm done.”"Oh, but I do think we honestly like one another," said Hammond.“亲爱的克利福德，想想我们互相议论的样子吧，我们所有人。我本人就是其中最为恶劣的一个。因为我宁愿被咬牙切齿地痛恨，也不愿接受惺惺作态的奉承，因为那些跟毒药无异。若我开始对克利福德大肆吹捧，说你如何出色，如何优秀，那么克利福德这家伙就实在可怜。看在上帝的份上，拜托各位，请尽量说我的坏话吧，最起码这样还说明你们把我放在眼里。收起那些甜言蜜语，不然我就完了。”“哦，可是我真的认为咱们之间是真诚地互相喜欢的。”哈蒙德说。

"I tell you we must...we say such spiteful things to one another, about one another, behind our backs! I'm the worst.”"And I do think you confuse the mental life with the critical activity. I agree with you, Socrates gave the critical activity a grand start, but he did more than that," said Charlie May, rather magisterially. The cronies had such a curious pomposity under their assumed modesty. It was all so EX CATHEDRA , and it all pretended to be so humble.“我可以肯定地告诉你……我们背地里都没少说彼此的坏话！而我更是其中最坏的一个。”“我想你准是把精神生活和现实的批评混为一谈了。你说的没错，苏格拉底确实开创了批评之风，但他的功绩绝非仅此一桩。”查理·梅一本正经地说。这帮好友们个个自命不凡，表面上却装出温恭自谦的样子。虽然自认为是绝对权威，但仍勉为其难，假作谦谦君子。

Dukes refused to be drawn about Socrates.

杜克斯就此打住，再也不提苏格拉底半字。

"That's quite true, criticism and knowledge are not the same thing," said Hammond.“说得没错，批评和知识根本不是一码事。”哈蒙德说。

"They aren't, of course," chimed in Berry, a brown, shy young man, who had called to see Dukes, and was staying the night.“当然是两回事。”贝里附和道。这位有着褐色头发的腼腆青年专程来找杜克斯，夜间便留宿拉格比。

They all looked at him as if the ass had spoken.

所有人都将目光转移到他身上，好像听见驴子开口说话了。

"I wasn't talking about knowledge…I was talking about the mental life," laughed Dukes. "Real knowledge comes out of the whole corpus of the consciousness; out of your belly and your penis as much as out of your brain and mind. The mind can only analyse and rationalize. Set the mind and the reason to cock it over the rest, and all they can do is to criticize, and make a deadness. I say ALL they can do. It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticizing today...criticizing to death. Therefore let's live the mental life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show. But, mind you, it's like this: while you live your life, you are in some way an Organic whole with all life. But once you start the mental life you pluck the apple. You've severed the connexion between, the apple and the tree: the organic connexion. And if you've got nothing in your life but the mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple...you've fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as it's a natural necessity for a plucked apple to go bad.”Clifford made big eyes: it was all stuff to him. Connie secretly laughed to herself.“我说的不是知识……而是精神生活。”杜克斯笑道。“真正的知识来源自意识的整个躯体，不但来自头脑和心灵，而且来自腹部甚至生殖器。借助思维，我们仅能分析和推理。如果让思维和理性占据上风，那么所能做的就只剩下批评，扼杀一切。除此之外，没有其他事可做。批评的作用举足轻重。天呐，当今世界简直太需要批评了……一针见血的批评。那么，就让我们活在自己的精神世界中吧，以被仇视为荣，戳穿那陈腐的老把戏。但是，需要提醒各位的是：当你置身于现实生活，只不过是和其他生命共同组成一个有机的整体。然而一旦开启精神生活，就好比将苹果从树上摘下来。切断了苹果与树之间的联系，那种有机的联系。如果除了精神生活，你一无所有，那么你就成了一颗被摘下来的苹果……已然从树上坠落。这样一来，仇视一切就成为合乎情理的需要，就像被摘下来的苹果必然会慢慢腐烂一样。”克利福德瞪大了眼睛：这席话对于他来说简直毫无意义。康妮不禁暗自发笑。

"Well then we're all plucked apples," said Hammond, rather acidly and petulantly.“那么，大家都变成摘下来的苹果了。”哈蒙德的语气中包含着嘲讽和愠怒。

"So let's make cider of ourselves," said Charlie.“倒是可以用自己来酿苹果酒。”查理说。

"But what do you think of Bolshevism?" put in the brown Berry, as if everything had led up to it.“可你们对布尔什维主义有什么高见呢？”棕发的贝里再度插话道，好像之前所说的一切都是为此做的铺垫。

"Bravo!" roared Charlie. "What do you think of?""Come on! Let's make hay of Bolshevism!“妙啊！”查理叫道，“你们对布尔什维主义有什么看法？”“来吧！让布尔什维主义见鬼去吧！”杜克斯说。

"I'm afraid Bolshevism is a large question," said Hammond, shaking his head seriously.“恐怕这个问题有些复杂。”哈蒙德神情严肃地摇摇头。

"Bolshevism, it seems to me," said Charlie, "is just a superlative hatred of the thing they call the bourgeois; and what the bourgeois is, isn't quite defined. It is Capitalism, among other things. Feelings and emotions are also so decidedly bourgeois that you have to invent a man without them.“对我而言，”查理说，“布尔什维克对他们所谓的资产阶级恨之入骨，至于资产阶级到底作何解释，并没有确切的定义。首先，它必须是资本主义的。既然感情和理智都被界定为资产阶级的范畴，因此布尔什维克就肯定是不具备这二者的群体。

"Then the individual, especially the personal man, is bourgeois: so he must be suppressed. You must submerge yourselves in the greater thing, the Soviet-social thing. Even an organism is bourgeois: so the ideal must be mechanical. The only thing that is a unit, non-organic, composed of many different, yet equally essential parts, is the machine. Each man a machine-part, and the driving power of the machine, hate...hate of the bourgeois. That, to me, is Bolshevism.”"Absolutely!" said Tommy. "But also, it seems to me a perfect description of the whole of the industrial ideal. It's the factory-owner's ideal in a nut-shell; except that he would deny that the driving power was hate. Hate it is, all the same; hate of life itself. Just look at these Midlands, if it isn't plainly written up...but it's all part of the life of the mind, it's a logical development.”"I deny that Bolshevism is logical, it rejects the major part of the premisses," said Hammond.

那么，单独的个体，尤其是具有自我意识的个体，自然属于资产阶级，因此必然受到镇压。要做的是忘记小我，投身到更伟大的事物——苏维埃社会中去。甚至连有机体都是资产阶级的，因此最理想的状态必须是机械的。唯一合理的就是无机的单位，由许多不同的、但却同等重要的部件所组成，这便是机器。每个人都是这台机器的零件，而其驱动力则是仇恨……对资产阶级的满腔仇恨。在我看来，这就是所谓布尔什维主义。”“说得太对了！”汤米赞叹道。“不过，对我而言，这同样是对整个工业化理想的绝好诠释。简单来说，这就是工厂主的理想，当然他们会否认驱动力源自仇恨。但仇恨却依然存在，那是生命本身的仇恨。不妨审视一下英国中部的这些地区，仇恨不是昭然在目吗……不过，它同样属于精神生活的领域，是合乎情理的产物。”“我不接受布尔什维主义合乎逻辑的论调，它否定了绝大部分的前提。”哈蒙德反驳道。

"My dear man, it allows the material premiss; so does the pure mind...exclusively.""At least Bolshevism has got down to rock bottom," said Charlie.“亲爱的朋友，它并不反对物质的前提，纯粹的精神同样如此……甚至只接受物质的前提。”“至少布尔什维主义已经是强弩之末了。”查理说。

"Rock bottom! The bottom that has no bottom! The Bolshevists will have the finest army in the world in a very short time, with the finest mechanical equipment.“强弩之末！没有底限的末端！布尔什维克们很快就将拥有世界最顶尖的军队，并配备最精良的武器。”

"But this thing can't go on...this hate business. There must be a reaction..." said Hammond.“但这种仇恨的状态无法长久维持下去。暴动注定难以避免……”哈蒙德说。

"Well, we've been waiting for years...we wait longer. Hate's a growing thing like anything else. It's the inevitable outcome of forcing ideas on to life, of forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings we force according to certain ideas. We drive ourselves with a formula, like a machine. The logical mind pretends to rule the roost, and the roost turns into pure hate. We're all Bolshevists, only we are hypocrites. The Russians are Bolshevists without hypocrisy.”"But there are many other ways," said Hammond, "than the Soviet way. The Bolshevists aren't really intelligent.”"Of course not. But sometimes it's intelligent to be half-witted: if you want to make your end. Personally, I consider Bolshevism half-witted; but so do I consider our social life in the west half-witted. So I even consider our far-famed mental life half-witted. We're all as cold as cretins, we're all as passionless as idiots. We're all of us Bolshevists, only we give it another name. We think we're gods...men like gods! It's just the same as Bolshevism. One has to be human, and have a heart and a penis if one is going to escape being either a god or a Bolshevist...for they are the same thing: they're both too good to be true.”Out of the disapproving silence came Berry's anxious question:"You do believe in love then, Tommy, don't you?”"You lovely lad!" said Tommy. "No, my cherub, nine times out of ten, no! Love's another of those half-witted performances today. Fellows with swaying waists fucking little jazz girls with small boy buttocks, like two collar studs! Do you mean that sort of love? Or the joint-property, make—a—success—of—it, My—husband—my—wife sort of love? No, my fine fellow, I don't believe in it at all!”"But you do believe in something?""Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say 'shit!' in front of a lady.”“没错，多年来，我们一直等待着这一天的到来……我们还要继续等下去。仇恨跟其他事物无异，总会不断地滋长。这是将思想观念、将最强烈的冲动强加于生活所产生的必然结果，我们强迫自己最深切的情感去迎合某种思想意识。用既定的模式来推动自己，就像运转一台机器。精于逻辑思维的人们以为可以主宰一切，但一切只转化成为彻底的仇恨。我们都是布尔什维克，只不过不愿露出本来面目而已。俄国佬才是露出本来面目的布尔什维克。”“可我们还有很多其他的道路可走，”哈蒙德说，“不见得非要选择苏维埃制度。布尔什维克们可是群愚钝的家伙。”“他们的确并不明智。不过，若想达到最终目的，假作愚钝往往是最明智的选择。就个人而言，我认为布尔什维主义确实愚蠢至极，但我们西方世界的社会生活何尝不是如此呢？我甚至觉得我们一贯标榜的精神生活同样荒唐透顶。我们都像痴呆那般冷淡漠然，像傻瓜一样缺少激情。我们都是布尔什维克，唯一的差异是叫法不同。我们拿自己当神看待……近似神的人类！这样的想法与布尔什维主义如出一辙。如果既不想当神，也不愿做布尔什维克，那么你就必须成为如假包换的人，拥有心脏与阳具……因为前两者确实难分伯仲，都太过完美，显得不够真实。”其他人虽然心存异议，但都默不作声，只有贝里急不可耐地提出疑问：“你真的相信爱情么，汤米？”“可爱的小家伙！”汤米说。“不，我的小天使，十次里有九次我会给出否定的答案。如今，爱情是另一出愚蠢的闹剧。细腰摇摆如杨柳的浪荡子，跟屁股扁平如领扣的爵士女郎肆意交欢。你说的就是这种爱情么？或者是那种财产共有、共图成功的夫妻之情呢？不，我的好朋友，我压根就不相信什么爱情！”“可你总得相信点什么吧？”“我？噢，理智的说，我相信拥有强健的心脏，生气勃勃的阴茎，无穷的智慧，以及敢在贵妇面前骂娘的勇气。”

"Well, you've got them all," said Berry.“原来如此，这些优点你完全具备。”贝里说。

Tommy Dukes roared with laughter. "You angel boy! If only I had! If only I had! No; my heart's as numb as a potato, my penis droops and never lifts its head up, I dare rather cut him clean off than say "shit!" in front of my mother or my aunt...they are real ladies, mind you; and I'm not really intelligent, I'm only a "mental-lifer”.

汤米·杜克斯哈哈大笑。“你这个可爱的孩子！要是真有就好了！要是真有就好了！你错了，我的心脏麻木得像颗土豆，我的阴茎总是耷拉着脑袋，我宁可把自己阉了，也不敢在我的母亲和姑妈面前骂娘……她们可是地道的贵妇，请注意；我也根本算不上睿智，充其量是个沉迷于精神世界的可怜鬼而已。”

It would be wonderful to be intelligent: then one would be alive in all the parts mentioned and unmentionable. The penis rouses his head and says: How do you do?—to any really intelligent person. Renoir said he painted his pictures with his penis...he did too, lovely pictures! I wish I did something with mine. God! When one can only talk! Another torture added to Hades! And Socrates started it.”"There are nice women in the world," said Connie, lifting her head up and speaking at last.

拥有智慧是多么美妙的事情，它会让身体所有的部位都活跃起来，无论是刚刚提到过的，还是不便提及的。阳具会高昂起头颅，跟所有冰雪聪明的女子问好。雷诺阿说他用阳具作画……他的确这么做的，创造出的作品也的确让人爱不释手！我也希望自己的阳具也能派上点什么用场。神啊！只能逞逞嘴上能耐！冥府里又添一种酷刑！而这一切的罪魁祸首就是苏格拉底。”“世上也不乏蕙质兰心的女子。”康妮终于打破沉默，抬起头来说。

The men resented it...she should have pretended to hear nothing. They hated her admitting she had attended so closely to such talk.

男人们颇感不悦……她分明应该装作什么都没听到才对。他们不愿接受女流之辈如此关切地参与到这种谈话中来。

"My God! IF THEY BE NOT NICE TO ME WHAT CARE I HOW NICE THEY BE?""No, it's hopeless! I just simply can't vibrate in unison with a woman. There's no woman I can really want when I'm faced with her, and I'm not going to start forcing myself to it…My God, no! I'll remain as I am, and lead the mental life. It's the only honest thing I can do. I can be quite happy talking to women; but it's all pure, hopelessly pure. Hopelessly pure! What do you say, Hildebrand, my chicken?”"It's much less complicated if one stays pure," said Berry.“我的上帝！若她们对我虚情假意，我又何必在乎她们是否温婉贤淑？”“不，毫无希望可言！我根本无法跟女子心意相通。任何女子都无法让我有半点心动，而心为形役又非我所愿……上帝啊，不要如此折磨我！我将依然如故，享受自己的精神生活。这是我唯一能做的诚心事。能和女人们交谈，我就深感满足，但那却是最最纯洁的行为，心中没有半点邪念。没有丝毫非份之想。你说呢，希尔德布兰德，我亲爱的小伙子？”“如果人人都能洁身自好，生活就不会如此杂乱无章。”贝里说。

"Yes, life is all too simple!"“没错，生活实在太过简单！”

CHAPTER 5

第五章

On a frosty morning with a little February sun, Clifford and Connie went for a walk across the park to the wood. That is, Clifford chuffed in his motor-chair, and Connie walked beside him.

二月的某个清晨，阳光并不耀眼，霜冻尚未消融，查泰莱夫妇外出散步，两人穿过花园，走向树林。克利福德驱动着他的巴斯轮椅，康妮则步行相随。

The hard air was still sulphurous, but they were both used to it. Round the near horizon went the haze, opalescent with frost and smoke, and on the top lay the small blue sky; so that it was like being inside an enclosure, always inside. Life always a dream or a frenzy, inside an enclosure.

酷寒的空气中仍是那挥之不去的硫磺味道，不过，两人对此早就习以为常。不远处的地平线为乳白色的浓雾所笼罩，那雾气由霜花和烟尘交织而成，顶上露出片小小的蓝色天空，让人感觉像是身处牢笼，总是挣脱不得。而生活就是牢笼中的一场幻梦，或是一阵狂乱。

The sheep coughed in the rough, sere grass of the park, where frost lay bluish in the sockets of the tufts. Across the park ran a path to the wood-gate, a fine ribbon of pink. Clifford had had it newly gravelled with sifted gravel from the pit-bank. When the rock and refuse of the underworld had burned and given off its sulphur, it turned bright pink, shrimp-coloured on dry days, darker, crab-coloured on wet. Now it was pale shrimp-colour, with a bluish-white hoar of frost. It always pleased Connie, this underfoot of sifted, bright pink. It's an ill wind that brings nobody good.

羊群在杂乱的枯草丛中轻咳，草窝里凝结着蓝色晶莹的霜花。一条小径横穿花园，通向木质的大门，像条上好的粉色缎带。最近，克利福德命仆从用矿坑中筛选出的砾石，将它铺设一新。地底下的岩石和废料燃烧过后褪去硫磺，在干燥的日子里，呈现出鲜亮的粉红色，像是虾的颜色，而遇到潮湿的空气，颜色就会变得更深，跟螃蟹的色泽类似。此刻，它显现出淡粉色，覆着一层蓝白色的霜淞。踩在这条亮粉色碎石小径上，康妮的心情总会愉悦起来。使人人遭殃的风才是恶风——凡事皆有利有弊。

Clifford steered cautiously down the slope of the knoll from the hall, and Connie kept her hand on the chair. In front lay the wood, the hazel thicket nearest, the purplish density of oaks beyond. From the wood's edge rabbits bobbed and nibbled. Rooks suddenly rose in a black train, and went trailing off over the little sky.

克利福德倍加小心地驾着轮椅，从拉格比府坐落的山坡上驶下来，康妮的手则始终没有离开过丈夫的轮椅。树林出现在正前方，近处的是低矮的榛树丛，稍远处则是淡紫色茂密的橡树林。野兔在丛林边缘来回蹦跳，小口啃食着青草。数只乌鸦霍然腾空而起，黑沉沉的一列飞上那片小小的蓝天。

Connie opened the wood-gate, and Clifford puffed slowly through into the broad riding that ran up an incline between the clean-whipped thickets of the hazel. The wood was a remnant of the great forest where Robin Hood hunted, and this riding was an old, old thoroughfare coming across country. But now, of course, it was only a riding through the private wood. The road from Mansfield swerved round to the north.

康妮推开木门，克利福德驱动轮椅，缓缓驶上门外宽阔的马道。这条路向上爬升，形成倾斜的坡面，两侧是系束整齐的榛丛。这树林昔日曾是片广袤无垠的森林，留下过侠盗罗宾汉（注：英国民间传说中劫富济贫的侠盗）游猎的足迹，而这条马道从前也是横穿田野的要衢。但时至今日，它只是私人林地中不起眼的马道而已。从曼斯菲尔德（注：英格兰诺丁汉郡最大的镇）来的道路从此处折向北方。

In the wood everything was motionless, the old leaves on the ground keeping the frost on their underside. A jay called harshly, many little birds fluttered. But there was no game; no pheasants. They had been killed off during the war, and the wood had been left unprotected, till now Clifford had got his game-keeper again.

林中鸦雀无声，地上的枯叶掩住冰霜。松鸦的嘶鸣惊起许多小鸟。但这里早已没有可供猎取的飞禽走兽，连只野鸡的踪影也见不到。战争期间，它们早被斩尽诛绝，树林也多年无人照管，直到最近，克利福德才又雇来一位守林人。

Clifford loved the wood; he loved the old oak-trees. He felt they were his own through generations. He wanted to protect them. He wanted this place inviolate, shut off from the world.

克利福德深爱这片树林，深爱那一株株古老的橡树。他觉得它们世世代代都归他所有。他希望保护它们免受损害。他希望使这片净土不受侵扰，成为与世隔绝的桃源。

The chair chuffed slowly up the incline, rocking and jolting on the frozen clods. And suddenly, on the left, came a clearing where there was nothing but a ravel of dead bracken, a thin and spindly sapling leaning here and there, big sawn stumps, showing their tops and their grasping roots, lifeless. And patches of blackness where the woodmen had burned the brushwood and rubbish.

轮椅缓慢地攀爬着斜坡，在冰冻的土块上摇摆颠簸。陡然间，左侧现出一片空地，只有几棵枯萎的蕨草缠绕其间，几株纤细的树苗东倒西歪，几根被锯断的粗大树桩袒露着顶部以及盘曲的根系，感受不到半点生气。还有几块黑漆漆的地方，那是樵夫焚烧断枝杂草和废物时留下的痕迹。

This was one of the places that Sir Geoffrey had cut during the war for trench timber. The whole knoll, which rose softly on the right of the riding, was denuded and strangely forlorn. On the crown of the knoll where the oaks had stood, now was bareness; and from there you could look out over the trees to the colliery railway, and the new works at Stacks Gate. Connie had stood and looked, it was a breach in the pure seclusion of the wood. It let in the world. But she didn't tell Clifford.

杰弗里爵士战时支援前线堑壕修筑的木料，有部分就出自这里。马道右侧矗立着的小丘线条柔和，但却寸草不生，一片诡异的凄凉景象。小丘之上也曾橡树成荫，如今却是满目荒凉，从那里透过树梢极目远望，运煤的铁道和斯塔克斯门的新厂房便映入眼帘。康妮曾经站在那里向外张望，若说这片树林是远离尘嚣的世外桃源，小丘的顶端便是唯一的缺口。那里与凡尘俗世相连接。然而，她却从未与克利福德提及此事。

This denuded place always made Clifford curiously angry. He had been through the war, had seen what it meant. But he didn't get really angry till he saw this bare hill. He was having it replanted. But it made him hate Sir Geoffrey.

这块不毛之地总让克利福德无名火起。他曾亲历大战烽火，深知战争的意义何在。但只有亲眼目睹这里的荒凉景象，才会不由得怒从心头起。他已调动人手，在这里重新栽种树木。但这仍使他对亡父平添几分怨恨。

Clifford sat with a fixed face as the chair slowly mounted. When they came to the top of the rise he stopped; he would not risk the long and very jolty down-slope. He sat looking at the greenish sweep of the riding downwards, a clear way through the bracken and oaks. It swerved at the bottom of the hill and disappeared; but it had such a lovely easy curve, of knights riding and ladies on palfreys.

轮椅继续缓慢地向上爬升，克利福德脸上没有任何表情。两人在坡顶停住脚步，克利福德不愿冒险尝试那漫长而又崎岖的下坡旅程。他呆坐在原地，眼望着绿色坡地向下延伸，从蕨草和橡树间穿过。最后在山脚下转个弯，便从视线中消失不见。然而它的蜿蜒曲折是那样的优雅从容，让人不禁想起旧日策马徐行的骑士和贵妇。

"I consider this is really the heart of England," said Clifford to Connie, as he sat there in the dim February sunshine.“我认为这里才是英格兰的中心。”克利福德对康妮说，沐浴在二月朦胧的阳光中。

"Do you?" she said, seating herself in her blue knitted dress, on a stump by the path.“是么？”康妮说，她身着蓝色毛织连衣裙，坐在道旁的树墩上。

"I do! this is the old England, the heart of it; and I intend to keep it intact.""Oh yes!" said Connie. But, as she said it she heard the eleven-o'clock hooters at Stacks Gate colliery. Clifford was too used to the sound to notice.“当然！这里才是古老的英格兰，是其核心所在，我要将它完好无损地保存下去。”“哦，没错！”康妮应道。刚一开口，耳边便传来斯塔克斯门煤矿11点钟的汽笛声。而对此司空见惯的克利福德根本没有注意到。

"I want this wood perfect...untouched. I want nobody to trespass in it," said Clifford.“我希望这树林完美无缺……毫发无伤。不愿意看到任何人擅入其中。”克利福德接着说。

There was a certain pathos. The wood still had some of the mystery of wild, old England; but Sir Geoffrey's cuttings during the war had given it a blow. How still the trees were, with their crinkly, innumerable twigs against the sky, and their grey, obstinate trunks rising from the brown bracken! How safely the birds flitted among them! And once there had been deer, and archers, and monks padding along on asses. The place remembered, still remembered.

他的话语中透出几分悲凉的意味。这片树林依然保有古老英伦那份原始的神秘感，但战时杰弗里爵士的砍伐却使它遭受重创。其间的树木是多么地静谧，无数虬曲的枝条伸向天空，灰白的树干倔强地从棕色蕨草丛中挺直腰身！盘旋飞舞的鸟儿在这里不会受到半点威胁！曾几何时，这里还曾经有鹿出没，还见得到弓箭手，甚至是端坐驴背、四海为家的游方僧人。这片净土记得过往的一切，半点不曾遗忘。

Clifford sat in the pale sun, with the light on his smooth, rather blond hair, his reddish full face inscrutable.

克利福德依然安坐着，暗淡的阳光照耀着他那柔顺的金发，那难以捉摸的绯红脸庞。

"I mind more, not having a son, when I come here, than any other time," he said.“身处此地，我比任何时候都感到没有子嗣的缺憾。”他感慨道。

"But the wood is older than your family," said Connie gently.“但这树林比查泰莱家族更加古老。”康妮柔声说。

"Quite!" said Clifford. "But we've preserved it. Except for us it would go...it would be gone already, like the rest of the forest. One must preserve some of the old England!”"Must one?" said Connie. "If it has to be preserved, and preserved against the new England? It's sad, I know.”"If some of the old England isn't preserved, there'll be no England at all," said Clifford. "And we who have this kind of property, and the feeling for it, must preserve it."There was a sad pause. "Yes, for a little while," said Connie.“说的没错！”克利福德说。“然而却是我们把它保存下来。假若没有我们，它早已灰飞烟灭……消失得无踪无影，就像森林的其他部分。必须为保护英格兰古老的精髓而努力！”“必须这样做么？”康妮提出疑问。“即使保护它意味着与新英格兰背道而驰？我明白，这实在令人难过。”“如果对古老的留存不管不顾，那么英格兰将无从寻觅踪迹了。”克利福德说。“因此，既然我们拥有此类产业，且对其怀有深情，就必须为保存它尽心竭力。”两人双双陷入沉默，只剩空气中飘荡的哀伤气氛。“话虽如此，但也只能保存相当短的时间。”康妮说。

"For a little while! It's all we can do. We can only do our bit. I feel every man of my family has done his bit here, since we've had the place. One may go against convention, but one must keep up tradition.”Again there was a pause.“相当短的时间！这已经是我们所能做的一切。我们只能做好自己的分内的事。我觉得自从拥有这片土地，查泰莱家族的每名成员都尽到了自己的本分。反对陋俗固然可行，但保留传统更加必要。”沉默再度降临。

"What tradition?" asked Connie.“什么传统？”康妮问。

"The tradition of England! of this!""Yes," she said slowly.“英格兰的传统！拉格比的传统！”“是的。”她慢吞吞地应道。

"That's why having a son helps; one is only a link in a chain," he said.“因此，有个儿子才能作数；每个人都不过是链条中的一环而已。”他解释道。

Connie was not keen on chains, but she said nothing. She was thinking of the curious impersonality of his desire for a son.

康妮有些反感关于链条的话题，但却并没有表露出来。她在想，丈夫求子的愿望实在有些难以理解，又不切实际。

"I'm sorry we can't have a son," she said.“很遗憾我们没法拥有自己的儿子。”她说。

He looked at her steadily, with his full, pale-blue eyes.

他那淡蓝色的双眸目不转睛地注视着她。

"It would almost be a good thing if you had a child by another man, he said. "If we brought it up at Wragby, it would belong to us and to the place. I don't believe very intensely in fatherhood. If we had the child to rear, it would be our own, and it would carry on. Don't you think it's worth considering?”Connie looked up at him at last. The child, her child, was just an "it" to him. It...it...it! "But what about the other man?" she asked.“如果你和其他男人生个孩子，也算是个不错的主意。”他说。“只要我们在拉格比将它养育成人，它就会属于我们，属于这片土地。我对血脉传承不太感冒。只要我们将它养大，它就是我们的孩子，让查泰莱的姓氏得以延续。难道你不认为这值得考虑么？”康妮终于抬起头，望着眼前这个男人。孩子，她的孩子，对于他而言，只是“它”而已，跟没有生命的东西无异。它……只不过是件工具……延续香火的工具！“可那个男人怎么办？”她问。

"Does it matter very much? Do these things really affect us very deeply?... You had that lover in Germany...what is it now? Nothing almost. It seems to me that it isn't these little acts and little connexions we make in our lives that matter so very much. They pass away, and where are they? Where…Where are the snows of yesteryear?... It's what endures through one's life that matters; my own life matters to me, in its long continuance and development. But what do the occasional connexions matter? And the occasional sexual connexions especially! If people don't exaggerate them ridiculously, they pass like the mating of birds. And so they should. What does it matter? It's the life-long companionship that matters. It's the living together from day to day, not the sleeping together once or twice. You and I are married, no matter what happens to us. We have the habit of each other. And habit, to my thinking, is more vital than any occasional excitement. The long, slow, enduring thing...that's what we live by...not the occasional spasm of any sort. Little by little, living together, two people fall into a sort of unison, they vibrate so intricately to one another. That's the real secret of marriage, not sex; at least not the simple function of sex. You and I are interwoven in a marriage. If we stick to that we ought to be able to arrange this sex thing, as we arrange going to the dentist; since fate has given us a checkmate physically there.”Connie sat and listened in a sort of wonder, and a sort of fear. She did not know if he was right or not. There was Michaelis, whom she loved; so she said to herself. But her love was somehow only an excursion from her marriage with Clifford; the long, slow habit of intimacy, formed through years of suffering and patience. Perhaps the human soul needs excursions, and must not be denied them. But the point of an excursion is that you come home again.“这何足挂齿？这样的小事怎会对你我的感情产生影响？……你在德国就曾有过情人……如今重演旧事又何妨？根本算不得什么。在我看来，生命中的那些小情事、小暧昧，统统无足轻重。它们消逝后便踪影不见，又有谁知道它们去了哪里？去了哪里呢……去年的积雪如今在何处？……一生中能够持久存续的东西才至关重要；对我来说，自己的生命最紧关截要，自己生命的绵延与发展尤其如此。那些露水情缘算得了什么？那些偶然的鱼水之欢更是微不足道！如果人们不可笑地添油加醋，乱加渲染，其本身跟鸟类交尾没什么区别。也应该就是如此。这又有什么大不了的？终生相守、相濡以沫才算弥足珍贵。重要的是白头偕老而非一夜销魂。你我已缔结连理，就算世事变迁，这一点也不会改变。我们已经培养出共同的习惯。依我看，长久的习惯比任何短暂的欢愉重要得多。恒久绵长、历经岁月考验的东西，才是我们赖以为生的基础，绝非那些转瞬即逝的激情时刻。夫妻双方朝夕相处，累积生活中的点点滴滴，直至情深意笃，琴瑟和鸣。这才是婚姻的真谛，性并非关键所在，至少不是单纯的官能刺激。你我因婚姻而彼此结合。如果我们守住底线，那么就可以像去看牙医一样，实施借种的计划，既然由于命运的阻挠，我们已经无法在肉体上完成结合。”康妮坐在旁边静静听着，心里又惊又惧。她也拿不准丈夫的话正确与否。米凯利斯是个不错的选项，那是她爱着的男人，康妮在心底默默对自己说。但在与克利福德漫漫的婚姻长路上，她的爱情不过是段偏离方向的短暂行程，去逃离经年累月的痛苦和忍耐衍生出的长久迟缓的亲密习惯。或许出轨本就源自人类灵魂的需要，而且这样的偏离往往无法抗拒。但经历这短暂行程之后，还是要再度回归家庭生活。

"And wouldn't you mind what man's child I had?" she asked.“难道你不在乎我怀的是谁的孩子么？”她问。

"Why, Connie, I should trust your natural instinct of decency and selection. You just wouldn't let the wrong sort of fellow touch you.”She thought of Michaelis! He was absolutely Clifford's idea of the wrong sort of fellow.“为何要在乎呢？康妮，对你端庄的本性以及选人的眼光，我应该有足够的信心。你绝不会准许那些下流胚碰自己。”米凯利斯的身影浮现在她的脑海！在克利福德眼中，自己的情郎可是不折不扣的下流胚。

"But men and women may have different feelings about the wrong sort of fellow," she said.“但对于品性的判断，男人和女人有着不同的标准。”她说。

"No," he replied. "You care for me. I don't believe you would ever care for a man who was purely antipathetic to me. Your rhythm wouldn't let you.”She was silent. Logic might be unanswerable because it was so absolutely wrong.“我不这样认为，”他回应道，“你在乎我的感受。相信你不会选择一个让我深恶痛绝的男人。你的直觉也会阻止你这么做。”她沉默半晌。这种逻辑关系简直是错得离谱，因此或许根本无法回答。

"And should you expect me to tell you?" she asked, glancing up at him almost furtively.“假若有这样的事，你希望我告知实情么？”她边说，边偷偷地瞥了丈夫一眼。

"Not at all, I'd better not know…But you do agree with me, don't you, that the casual sex thing is nothing, compared to the long life lived together? Don't you think one can just subordinate the sex thing to the necessities of a long life? Just use it, since that's what we're driven to? After all, do these temporary excitements matter? Isn't the whole problem of life the slow building up of an integral personality, through the years? living an integrated life? There's no point in a disintegrated life. If lack of sex is going to disintegrate you, then go out and have a love-affair. If lack of a child is going to disintegrate you, then have a child if you possibly can. But only do these things so that you have an integrated life, that makes a long harmonious thing. And you and I can do that together…don't you think?... If we adapt ourselves to the necessities, and at the same time weave the adaptation together into a piece with our steadily-lived life. Don't you agree?”Connie was a little overwhelmed by his words. She knew he was right theoretically. But when she actually touched her steadily-lived life with him she...hesitated. Was it actually her destiny to go on weaving herself into his life all the rest of her life? Nothing else? Was it just that? She was to be content to weave a steady life with him, all one fabric, but perhaps brocaded with the occasional flower of an adventure. But how could she know what she would feel next year? How could one ever know? How could one say Yes? for years and years? The little yes, gone on a breath! Why should one be pinned down by that butterfly word? Of course it had to flutter away and be gone, to be followed by other yes's and no's! Like the straying of butterflies. "I think you're right, Clifford. And as far as I can see I agree with you. Only life may turn quite a new face on it all.”"But until life turns a new face on it all, you do agree?""Oh yes! I think I do, really."She was watching a brown spaniel that had run out of a side-path, and was looking towards them with lifted nose, making a soft, fluffy bark. A man with a gun strode swiftly, softly out after the dog, facing their way as if about to attack them; then stopped instead, saluted, and was turning downhill. It was only the new game-keeper, but he had frightened Connie, he seemed to emerge with such a swift menace. That was how she had seen him, like the sudden rush of a threat out of nowhere.“完全没有必要，我最好被蒙在鼓里……不过，你确实跟我持同样的观点，认为较之天长地久的夫妻情感，昙花一现的鱼水之欢实在不值一提？难道你不赞同性爱应该以长期生活的需要为前提？只是对其加以利用，因为我们只是不得已而为之？话说回来，片刻的欢愉怎谈得上重要？生命的全部课题不就是经过岁月的磨砺，潜移默化出完整的人格么？不就是过完备的生活么？不完备的生活根本毫无意义。如果性欲得不到满足，让你觉得有缺憾，那么大可去外面寻找新的恋情。如果没有子嗣，让你感到不够完美，那么只要你愿意，跟其他男人生个也无妨。可做所有这些都是以拥有完备的生活为根本目标，只有这样，一切才会变得持久而又和谐。你我可以携手去实现这一目标……难道你不是这样想么？……只要我们适应这种需要，并将它与我们按部就班的生活融为一体。难道你不这样认为么？”这席话让康妮感到有些不知所措。她清楚，从理论上讲，丈夫的话无可指摘。但想到自己真的要和眼前的男人过按部就班的生活……她就不禁踌躇起来。难道自己的余生真的注定和他纠缠在一起？再无别的出路？仅此而已么？她只能满足于和他安安稳稳地过日子，像块平常的布料，或许偶尔能够编织出几朵冒险之花。但她如何能知道明年的想法呢？人怎样能够知道呢？谁能够轻而易举地点头称是？并保证此承诺长期有效呢？简简单单的一个“是”字，脱口便可说出！人为何会被这个轻如蝴蝶的字眼缚住手脚？它准会振翅飞远，消失不见，被其他的“是”与“不是”所取代！就像是零乱的蝶群。“我想你是对的，克利福德。在可以预见的范围内，我赞同你的想法。只不过，生活难免不会有沧海桑田的变化。”“但在此种剧变发生之前，你确实同意我的观点？”“没错！我想我同意，绝无虚言。”她看到一只褐色西班牙猎犬从岔路冲出来，扬起头盯着他们，低声吼叫着。紧随其后的是个陌生男人，他手持猎枪，脚步轻快地走上前来，似乎作势要向他们开火；然而却停住脚步，弯腰行礼，转身向山下走去。原来只是那个新来的守林人，但他着实把康妮吓得够呛，他陡然现身，犹如凶神恶煞。在康妮眼中，这家伙简直就是从天而降的混世魔王。

He was a man in dark green velveteens and gaiters...the old style, with a red face and red moustache and distant eyes. He was going quickly downhill.

他身穿深绿色棉绒长裤，系着绑腿……打扮老派，面色红润，生着红色的髭须，目光冷峻。此刻他正快步向山下奔去。

"Mellors!" called Clifford.“梅勒斯！”克利福德喊道。

The man faced lightly round, and saluted with a quick little gesture, a soldier! "Will you turn the chair round and get it started? That makes it easier," said Clifford. The man at once slung his gun over his shoulder, and came forward with the same curious swift, yet soft movements, as if keeping invisible. He was moderately tall and lean, and was silent. He did not look at Connie at all, only at the chair.

那男子稍稍扭过头来，动作利落地敬了个礼，他显然当过兵。“你把我的轮椅掉过来，然后推它一把。这样驱动起来会更容易些。”克利福德说。那男人立刻把枪扛到肩头，以先前那种迅捷的速度走上前来，他的步伐如此之轻，好像不愿让人发觉似的。他中等身高，没有半点赘肉，沉默寡言。他看都不看康妮，目光全部集中在轮椅上。

"Connie, this is the new game-keeper, Mellors. You haven't spoken to her ladyship yet, Mellors?”"No, Sir!" came the ready, neutral words.“康妮，这就是新来的守林人，梅勒斯。你还没跟夫人说过话吧，梅勒斯？”“没有，爵爷！”他的回答脱口而出，不带有任何感情。

The man lifted his hat as he stood, showing his thick, almost fair hair. He stared straight into Connie's eyes, with a perfect, fearless, impersonal look, as if he wanted to see what she was like. He made her feel shy. She bent her head to him shyly, and he changed his hat to his left hand and made her a slight bow, like a gentleman; but he said nothing at all. He remained for a moment still, with his hat in his hand.

那男人站在那里举举帽子，露出一头浓密的近乎金色的头发。他毫不避讳地直视着康妮的眼睛，炯炯的目光异常平静，毫无惧意，好像要将康妮看穿似的。康妮觉得脸上有些发烧。她羞怯地向他点点头，他把帽子交到左手，绅士般地轻鞠一躬，但却只字不言。他手拿帽子，站在原地动也不动。

"But you've been here some time, haven't you?" Connie said to him.“你来这里有段日子了吧？”康妮问他。

"Eight months, Madam...your Ladyship!" he corrected himself calmly.“八个月了，女士……夫人！”他纠正了自己的错误，没有半点慌乱。

"And do you like it?"She looked him in the eyes. His eyes narrowed a little, with irony, perhaps with impudence.“喜欢这儿么？”她凝视着他的眼睛。他的双目微微眯起，眼神中满是嘲讽，又或是傲慢。

"Why, yes, thank you, your Ladyship! I was reared here..."He gave another slight bow, turned, put his hat on, and strode to take hold of the chair. His voice on the last words had fallen into the heavy broad drag of the dialect...perhaps also in mockery, because there had been no trace of dialect before. He might almost be a gentleman. Anyhow, he was a curious, quick, separate fellow, alone, but sure of himself.“哦，喜欢，谢谢您的关心，夫人！我在这儿长大……”他再次轻鞠一躬，转过身，戴上帽子，跨步向前抓住轮椅。他的话最后几个字带有明显的拖腔，本地的方言就是如此……但或许又是有意取笑，因为他之前说话时根本不带口音。他几乎称得上是位绅士。然而，也是个身手敏捷、独来独往的怪家伙，孑然一身，但却自信满满。

Clifford started the little engine, the man carefully turned the chair, and set it nose-forwards to the incline that curved gently to the dark hazel thicket.

克利福德发动微型引擎，梅勒斯小心翼翼地调转轮椅，前端对着弯弯曲曲的下坡路，通向幽暗的榛丛。

"Is that all then, Sir Clifford?" asked the man.“还有什么吩咐，克利福德爵士？”他问。

"No, you'd better come along in case she sticks. The engine isn't really strong enough for the uphill work.”The man glanced round for his dog...a thoughtful glance. The spaniel looked at him and faintly moved its tail. A little smile, mocking or teasing her, yet gentle, came into his eyes for a moment, then faded away, and his face was expressionless. They went fairly quickly down the slope, the man with his hand on the rail of the chair, steadying it. He looked like a free soldier rather than a servant. And something about him reminded Connie of Tommy Dukes.“嗯，你还是与我们同行的好，万一轮椅又被卡住。上坡的时候，这台引擎确实有点马力不足。”那男人瞥了一眼自己的狗……眼神中充满关切。那猎犬望着主人，轻轻摇动着尾巴。他面露浅笑，柔和的目光中闪过一丝嘲讽或是戏谑，停留片刻便消失不见，又换上那张全无表情的脸孔。下坡时行进的速度相当快，那男人用手扶住轮椅，力求让它走得稳些。他看上去并不像仆从，反倒有自由战士的风范。他身上的某些气质让康妮想起出身行伍的汤米·杜克斯。

When they came to the hazel grove, Connie suddenly ran forward, and opened the gate into the park. As she stood holding it, the two men looked at her in passing, Clifford critically, the other man with a curious, cool wonder; impersonally wanting to see what she looked like. And she saw in his blue, impersonal eyes a look of suffering and detachment, yet a certain warmth. But why was he so aloof, apart? Clifford stopped the chair, once through the gate, and the man came quickly, courteously, to close it.

三人走到榛树丛处，康妮突然跑上前去，敞开通往花园的大门。她站在原地，手扶着门，两个男人通过时，视线都集中在她身上。克利福德面露不悦，守林人那冷峻的目光中则蕴含着讶异与不解，似乎只想要仔细端详她的模样。而从他浅蓝色的冷漠眼神中，康妮窥见的是历经苦难后的超然，但也有某种温情隐藏其间。可他为何表现得如此淡然，不愿与人亲近呢？刚刚踏进花园，克利福德就止住轮椅，那男人则快步走回门前，礼貌地将它合上。

"Why did you run to open?" asked Clifford in his quiet, calm voice, that showed he was displeased. "Mellors would have done it.""I thought you would go straight ahead," said Connie. "And leave you to run after us?" said Clifford.“你干嘛跑去开门？”克利福德问，低沉平静的语气中现出不快。“这种事梅勒斯会做的。”“我以为你想要径直通过。”康妮说。“让你跟在我们后面跑？”克利福德说。

"Oh, well, I like to run sometimes!"Mellors took the chair again, looking perfectly unheeding, yet Connie felt he noted everything. As he pushed the chair up the steepish rise of the knoll in the park, he breathed rather quickly, through parted lips. He was rather frail really. Curiously full of vitality, but a little frail and quenched. Her woman's instinct sensed it.“哦，偶尔跑跑也不错！”梅勒斯再度扶住轮椅，似乎根本没留意两人的交谈，但康妮觉得刚才的话都没有逃过他的耳朵。推着轮椅，走上花园中那坡度甚陡的小丘，他张开嘴，急促地喘着气。他其实相当虚弱。虽然莫名充满活力，但体格却算不得强壮。女人敏感的天性察觉到这一点。

Connie fell back, let the chair go on. The day had greyed over; the small blue sky that had poised low on its circular rims of haze was closed in again, the lid was down, there was a raw coldness. It was going to snow. All grey, all grey! The world looked worn out.

康妮放缓脚步，任凭轮椅继续前进。天色变得阴沉，那小小的蓝天原本低悬于浓雾环状边缘的上方，如今却再度被遮蔽，盖子已被合拢，刺骨的寒意肆意弥漫。雪眼看就要落下。一切都是灰暗的，都是阴霾的！整个世界都显得筋疲力竭。

The chair waited at the top of the pink path. Clifford looked round for Connie.

轮椅等在粉色小径的尽头。克利福德回过头望着康妮。

"Not tired, are you?" he said.“没感觉到累吧？”他问。

"Oh, no!" she said.“哦，不累！”她应道。

But she was. A strange, weary yearning, a dissatisfaction had started in her. Clifford did not notice: those were not things he was aware of. But the stranger knew. To Connie, everything in her world and life seemed worn out, and her dissatisfaction was older than the hills.

然而，她却真切地感觉到疲倦。莫名的渴望透支着她的身体，不满的情绪在心中升腾。克利福德对此全然不觉，这些根本就不是他能意识到的。但那个陌生人却心如明镜。对康妮而言，周遭生活中的一切似乎都疲惫不堪，心底堆积的不满比周遭起伏的山丘还要古老。

They came to the house, and around to the back, where there were no steps. Clifford managed to swing himself over on to the low, wheeled house-chair; he was very strong and agile with his arms. Then Connie lifted the burden of his dead legs after him.

他们回到拉格比府，绕到后门，那里没有台阶。克利福德摆荡着身体，换到稍低的家用轮椅中，他的双臂强健而灵活。接着，康妮搬起丈夫那两条沉重且全无知觉的残腿。

The keeper, waiting at attention to be dismissed, watched everything narrowly, missing nothing. He went pale, with a sort of fear, when he saw Connie lifting the inert legs of the man in her arms, into the other chair, Clifford pivoting round as she did so. He was frightened.

守林人候在旁边，等着克利福德命他退下，他紧紧地注视着发生的一切，没有半点遗漏。看到康妮将克利福德麻木的双腿抱在怀中，放进另一台轮椅里，他的脸色变得惨白，表情愕然。克利福德掉转轮椅，康妮也回过身来。他显然吃惊非小。

"Thanks, then, for the help, Mellors," said Clifford casually, as he began to wheel down the passage to the servants'quarters.“谢谢，多亏有你帮忙，梅勒斯。”克利福德漫不经心地说着，开始驱动轮椅驶下走廊，直奔佣人房。

"Nothing else, Sir?" came the neutral voice, like one in a dream.“没别的吩咐了吗，爵爷？”仍是那漠然的腔调，如同梦中的呓语。

"Nothing, good morning!""Good morning, Sir.""Good morning! It was kind of you to push the chair up that hill...I hope it wasn't heavy for you," said Connie, looking back at the keeper outside the door.“没有，再见！”“再见，爵爷。”“再见！幸好有你帮忙推轮椅上坡……希望你不会觉得太重。”康妮说，转头望着门外的守林人。

His eyes came to hers in an instant, as if wakened up. He was aware of her.

四目相接，他如梦方醒。这才意识到康妮在向他道谢。

"Oh no, not heavy!" he said quickly. Then his voice dropped again into the broad sound of the vernacular: "Good mornin' to your Ladyship!”"Who is your game-keeper?”. Connie asked at lunch“哦，不，不重！”他连忙说。又换上那种刻意的本地土语：“回见，夫人！”“那个守林人叫什么？”午饭时，康妮问。

"Mellors! You saw him," said Clifford.“梅勒斯！你见过的。”克利福德答道。

"Yes, but where did he come from?""Nowhere! He was a Tevershall boy...son of a collier, I believe.""And was he a collier himself?""Blacksmith on the pit-bank, I believe: overhead smith. But he was keeper here for two years before the war...before he joined up. My father always had a good Opinion of him, so when he came back, and went to the pit for a blacksmith's job, I just took him back here as keeper. I was really very glad to get him...its almost impossible to find a good man round here for a gamekeeper...and it needs a man who knows the people.”"And isn't he married?”"He was. But his wife went off with...with various men...but finally with a collier at Stacks Gate, and I believe she's living there still.”"So this man is alone?""More or less! He has a mother in the village...and a child, I believe."Clifford looked at Connie, with his pale, slightly prominent blue eyes, in which a certain vagueness was coming. He seemed alert in the foreground, but the background was like the Midlands atmosphere, haze, smoky mist. And the haze seemed to be creeping forward. So when he stared at Connie in his peculiar way, giving her his peculiar, precise information, she felt all the background of his mind filling up with mist, with nothingness. And it frightened her. It made him seem impersonal, almost to idiocy.“嗯，他是何方人氏？”“什么也不是！他在特弗沙尔长大……父亲大概是名矿工。”“他自己也干这行？”“他是矿区的铁匠，我想应该是井上铁匠。大战爆发前，他曾在这里做过两年守林人……后来就应征入伍了。我父亲对他的评价始终很高，因此他复员后，到矿区申请再当铁匠时，我就让他做回守林人的老本行。他能回来，我的确很开心……能在本地找到适合的守林人实属不易……前提是他要熟稔附近的居民。”“他成家了么？”“他结过婚。但妻子弃他而去……到处跟别的男人乱搞……最后跟斯塔克斯门的某个矿工厮混在一起，或许现在还住在那里呢。”“这样说来，他现在是独身？”“可以这么说！他母亲住在村里……好像还帮他照看着孩子。”克利福德望着康妮，那双微凸的淡蓝色眼睛中弥漫着茫然的神色。他外表看起来精明强干，但内心却好似英格兰中部的天气，阴霾迷蒙，烟雾缭绕。这雾气好像正在向外蔓延。当他用独有的方式凝视着康妮，用别具一格的口吻，简明扼要地向她述说着一切时，康妮感到他的心底充满迷惘和空虚。这让她觉得不寒而栗。被这样的状态所支配，他变得感情淡漠，简直跟白痴无异。

And dimly she realized one of the great laws of the human soul: that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only appearance. It is really only the mechanism of the re-assumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which Only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.

她隐约认识到人类灵魂的重要法则之一：当感性的心灵遭受重创，若肉体没有因此毁灭，随着肉体的复原，心灵也会痊愈。但这仅仅是表象。仅仅是习惯再度起作用的心理过程。心灵的创伤慢条斯理地迈开肆虐的脚步，就像青肿的瘀伤，随着时间的推移，剧烈的疼痛只会逐渐加深，直到填满灵魂的每个角落。当我们以为自己已经痊愈，并把伤痛抛诸脑后，此时可怕的后效才露出其最尖利的獠牙。

So it was with Clifford. Once he was "well", once he was back at Wragby, and writing his stories, and feeling sure of life, in spite of all, he seemed to forget, and to have recovered all his equanimity. But now, as the years went by, slowly, slowly, Connie felt the bruise of fear and horror coming up, and spreading in him. For a time it had been so deep as to be numb, as it were non-existent. Now slowly it began to assert itself in a spread of fear, almost paralysis. Mentally he still was alert. But the paralysis, the bruise of the too-great shock, was gradually spreading in his affective self.

克利福德便是个活生生的例子。他死中得活，重返故宅拉格比，开始小说的创作，再度鼓起生命的风帆。过去的种种磨难似乎都已烟消云散，心绪也完全恢复平静。但如今，数年光阴过去，康妮渐渐感觉到骇人的创伤又卷土重来，在他的心里蔓延开来。那创伤一度太过深切，以至于痛到麻木，好像已经不复存在。而现在，它却又露出狰狞的面目，将恐惧扩散开来，几乎让整个身心陷入麻痹。在精神层面，他依然机智敏捷。但半身瘫痪的现实，巨大打击过后留下的创伤，却逐渐将他的情感世界占据。

And as it spread in him, Connie felt it spread in her. An inward dread, an emptiness, an indifference to everything gradually spread in her soul. When Clifford was roused, he could still talk brilliantly and, as it were, command the future: as when, in the wood, he talked about her having a child, and giving an heir to Wragby. But the day after, all the brilliant words seemed like dead leaves, crumpling up and turning to powder, meaning really nothing, blown away on any gust of wind. They were not the leafy words of an effective life, young with energy and belonging to the tree. They were the hosts of fallen leaves of a life that is ineffectual.

它在克利福德的心底肆虐，就连康妮也深感其害。内心的恐惧与茫然，对任何事物都漠不关心，这种消极的情绪一点点攫住康妮的灵魂。情绪昂扬时，克利福德仍能够口若悬河地谈天说地，甚至似乎可以牢牢把握住自己的未来。就像在树林里，他与康妮谈到借腹生子，为拉格比府培养继承人。但一夜之间，那些连珠妙语都散落成遍地的枯叶，片片碎裂，化作齑粉，毫无意义可言，清风拂过，留不下半点痕迹。那些语句并非生机盎然的叶片，充满青春活力，与树身紧紧相连。只是一堆了无生气的落叶而已。

So it seemed to her everywhere. The colliers at Tevershall were talking again of a strike, and it seemed to Connie there again it was not a manifestation of energy, it was the bruise of the war that had been in abeyance, slowly rising to the surface and creating the great ache of unrest, and stupor of discontent. The bruise was deep, deep, deep...the bruise of the false inhuman war. It would take many years for the living blood of the generations to dissolve the vast black clot of bruised blood, deep inside their souls and bodies. And it would need a new hope.

在康妮看来，此法则似乎万试万灵。特弗沙尔的矿工们又在筹划罢工，对康妮而言，这并非示威的方式，而是深埋多时的战争创伤慢慢浮出水面，带来动荡的剧痛，以及不满现状的麻木。那创伤实在太过深重……因虚伪而野蛮的战争造成。需要多年的时光，几代人鲜血的浇注，才能消解他们身心深处淤结的巨大黑色血块。而且这需要新希望的诞生。

Poor Connie! As the years drew on it was the fear of nothingness In her life that affected her. Clifford's mental life and hers gradually began to feel like nothingness. Their marriage, their integrated life based on a habit of intimacy, that he talked about: there were days when it all became utterly blank and nothing. It was words, just so many words. The only reality was nothingness, and over it a hypocrisy of words.

可怜的康妮！时光荏苒，对空虚生活的恐惧始终困扰着她。她渐渐认清，自己与克利福德的精神生活，都不过是虚幻的东西。他们的婚姻，他口中两人基于亲密习惯而构建起的完美生活，随着时间的推移，都变得苍白无力，虚无缥缈。一切都只是空话，只是滔滔不绝的空话。唯一的现实就是空虚，而凌驾其上的则是那些伪善的言语。

There was Clifford's success: the bitch-goddess! It was true he was almost famous, and his books brought him in a thousand pounds. His photograph appeared everywhere. There was a bust of him in one of the galleries, and a portrait of him in two galleries. He seemed the most modern of modern voices. With his uncanny lame instinct for publicity, he had become in four or five years one of the best known of the young "intellectuals". Where the intellect came in, Connie did not quite see. Clifford was really clever at that slightly humorous analysis of people and motives which leaves everything in bits at the end. But it was rather like puppies tearing the sofa cushions to bits; except that it was not young and playful, but curiously old, and rather obstinately conceited. It was weird and it was nothing. This was the feeling that echoed and re-echoed at the bottom of Connie's soul: it was all flag, a wonderful display of nothingness; At the same time a display. A display! a display! A display! Michaelis had seized upon Clifford as the central figure for a play; already he had sketched in the plot, and written the first act. For Michaelis was even better than Clifford at making a display of nothingness. It was the last bit of passion left in these men: the passion for making a display. Sexually they were passionless, even dead. And now it was not money that Michaelis was after. Clifford had never been primarily out for money, though he made it where he could, for money is the seal and stamp of success. And success was what they wanted. They wanted, both of them, to make a real display...a man's own very display of himself that should capture for a time the vast populace.

克利福德终于得到成功——那位堕落女神的垂青！他几乎已经跻身名作家行列，这是无可争议的事实，其稿费收入也达到一千英镑。其照片随处可见。某家画廊摆放着他的半身塑像，另外两家则悬着他的画像。他俨然已是时尚潮流最前沿的代言人。凭借出众的自我推销的本能，仅用四五年的时间，身体残疾的他便脱胎换骨，成为最闻名遐迩的年轻才俊之一。可他的才气究竟在哪里，康妮也搞不太清楚。克利福德真正的长处，在于略带幽默地分析人物及其动机，而此种解析最终往往会让所有的一切处于分崩离析的状态。这跟小狗将沙发垫扯成碎片有异曲同工之妙，但不同之处是，执行者没有半点年轻的活力，也并非在嬉戏玩耍，相反却出人意料地苍老，且极端顽固和自负。这怪诞而又空洞。在康妮的灵魂深处反复回荡着这样的感受：那些都是不切实际的，是对空虚的完美诠释，同时更是一种炫耀。炫耀！炫耀！没完没了的炫耀！米凯利斯将克利福德塑造成新剧的主角，他已经完成情节的构思，并写出第一幕。在炫耀空虚方面，米凯利斯甚至比克利福德更胜一筹。这也是他们体内仅存的最后一丁点热情：炫耀的热情。而性方面，他俩则毫无激情，甚至死气沉沉。如今，金钱已非米凯利斯追求的目标。克利福德则更是从未将挣钱放在首位，但机会摆在眼前时，他也绝不会放过，因为金钱毕竟是成功的代名词。而成功才是他们梦寐以求的。他们渴望，两人都是如此，来一场彻头彻尾的炫耀……完美地将自己展现在世人面前，并立竿见影地吸引他们的所有注意。

It was strange...the prostitution to the bitch-goddess. To Connie, since she was really outside of it, and since she had grown numb to the thrill of it, it was again nothingness. Even the prostitution to the bitch-goddess was nothingness, though the men prostituted themselves innumerable times. Nothingness even that.

这真是令人费解的选择……将自己出卖给堕落女神。由于完全置身事外，丝毫体验不到激动的感觉，因此，在康妮眼中，成功同样难以跳脱虚无的藩篱。虽然这两个男人无数次地向堕落女神献身，但这种出卖灵魂的行为也根本没有任何意义。一切都只是虚无而已。

Michaelis wrote to Clifford about the play. Of course she knew about it long ago. And Clifford was again thrilled. He was going to be displayed again this time, somebody was going to display him, and to advantage. He invited Michaelis down to Wragby with Act I.

米凯利斯写信给克利福德，探讨剧本的创作。对此，康妮当然早已知情。克利福德再度陷入亢奋的状态。这次又捞到机会炫耀自己，且是假他人之手来吹嘘和抬高自己。他邀请米凯利斯带着剧本的第一幕，到拉格比做客。

Michaelis came: in summer, in a pale-coloured suit and white suede gloves, with mauve orchids for Connie, very lovely, and Act I was a great success. Even Connie was thrilled...thrilled to what bit of marrow she had left. And Michaelis, thrilled by his power to thrill, was really wonderful...and quite beautiful, in Connie's eyes. She saw in him that ancient motionlessness of a race that can't be disillusioned any more, an extreme, perhaps, of impurity that is pure. On the far side of his supreme prostitution to the bitch-goddess he seemed pure, pure as an African ivory mask that dreams impurity into purity, in its ivory curves and planes.

夏日时分，米凯利斯如约而至，身着浅色西装，手戴麂皮手套，将淡紫色兰花送给康妮，举止深情款款，而第一幕也写得精彩绝伦。甚至连康妮也激动不已……连骨髓里仅存的角落也为之陶醉。米凯利斯对自己非凡的魅力深感得意，康妮更是认为他无与伦比……玉树临风。在他身上，康妮发现不再幻灭的古老民族根深蒂固的静谧，某种猥亵到极致的纯洁。急不可耐地献身堕落女神固然可耻，但从远处端详，他却又似乎极其纯洁，如同毫无瑕疵的非洲象牙面具，那精雕细琢而成的曲线和平面，让人将所有的污点都想象成纯洁。

His moment of sheer thrill with the two Chatterleys, when he simply carried Connie and Clifford away, was one of the supreme moments of Michaelis' life. He had succeeded: he had carried them away. Even Clifford was temporarily in love with him...if that is the way one can put it.

米凯利斯与查泰莱夫妇相处得极其融洽，两人都为他而倾倒，这堪称其生命中的巅峰时刻之一。他获得了成功，让夫妻俩神魂颠倒。甚至克利福德都一度爱上了他……如果这个词能被用在同性之间。

So next morning Mick was more uneasy than ever; restless, devoured, with his hands restless in his trousers pockets. Connie had not visited him in the night...and he had not known where to find her. Coquetry!...at his moment of triumph.

因此，次日清晨，米克更觉得全身不自在，他坐立不安，心急火燎，插在裤兜里的双手也片刻不宁。康妮昨晚没来与他幽会……而他也不晓得到哪儿才能找到她。她竟然吊他的胃口！在他正觉春风得意的时刻。

He went up to her sitting-room in the morning. She knew he would come. And his restlessness was evident. He asked her about his play...did she think it good? He had to hear it praised: that affected him with the last thin thrill of passion beyond any sexual orgasm. And she praised it rapturously. Yet all the while, at the bottom of her soul, she knew it was nothing.

上午，他上楼去起居室找她。她早料到他会来。他烦乱的情绪表露无疑。他征求她对剧本的意见……问她是否觉得出色？他渴望听到她的赞美，这种赞美能够让他体验到最后一丝激动，甚至超过任何性高潮时的快感。她眉飞色舞地对剧本大加褒奖。但在内心深处，她却深知那作品其实毫无价值。

"Look here!" he said suddenly at last. "Why don't you and I make a clean thing of it? Why don't we marry?”"But I am married," she said, amazed, and yet feeling nothing.“听我说！”最后他突然说。“为何你我不干脆把事情挑明？为何你不嫁给我？”“但我已经身为人妇。”她惊讶地说，但却没有丝毫多余的感觉。

"Oh that!.. he'll divorce you all right. Why don't you and I marry? I want to marry. I know it would be the best thing for me...marry and lead a regular life. I lead the deuce of a life, simply tearing myself to pieces. Look here, you and I, we're made for one another...hand and glove. Why don't we marry? Do you see any reason why we shouldn't?”Connie looked at him amazed: and yet she felt nothing. These men, they were all alike, they left everything out. They just went off from the top of their heads as if they were squibs, and expected you to be carried heavenwards along with their own thin sticks.“省省吧！……他会痛痛快快地跟你离婚。我们干脆结婚吧。我想娶你。我深知这对我而言是最佳的选择……成家，过安稳的日子。我现在过得简直糟透了，简直要被活生生地撕成碎片。听我说，你和我，咱俩是天造地设的一对……就像手和手套那般相配。为什么我们不结成连理？实在找不到任何理由阻止我们这样做。”康妮表情错愕地看着他，心里依然没有一丝波澜。这些男人们，全都是一丘之貉，心里只考虑自己。他们好像爆竹般一个劲儿地往上窜，还希望你也能够拉住他们的小细棍儿，一起飞上天去。

"But I am married already," she said. "I can't leave Clifford, you know.”"Why not? but why not?" he cried. "He'll hardly know you've gone, after six months. He doesn't know that anybody exists, except himself. Why the man has no use for you at all, as far as I can see; he's entirely wrapped up in himself.”Connie felt there was truth in this. But she also felt that Mick was hardly making a display of selflessness.“但我已经是别人的妻子，”她说，“我不能丢下克利福德，这点你很清楚。”“为什么不能？原因究竟是什么？”他叫嚷着。“不出半年，他就会忘记你离去的事实。除了他自己，他不在乎任何人的存在。依我看，他对你而言没有半点用处，心里也只想着自己。”康妮觉得他的话切中要害。但她也清楚，米克这席话只不过彻底地展示出他有多么自私。

"Aren't all men wrapped up in themselves?" she asked.“男人们心里不都存不下别人么？”她问。

"Oh, more or less, I allow. A man's got to be, to get through. But that's not the point. The point is, what sort of a time can a man give a woman? Can he give her a damn good time, or can't he? If he can't he's no right to the woman...”He paused and gazed at her with his full, hazel eyes, almost hypnotic. "Now I consider," he added, "I can give a woman the darndest good time she can ask for. I think I can guarantee myself.""And what sort of a good time?" asked Connie, gazing on him still with a sort of amazement, that looked like thrill; and underneath feeling nothing at all.“哦，或多或少，这一点我承认。男人也是不得已而为之，只有这样才能到达成功的彼岸。但这并非问题的关键所在。关键在于，男人能让女人过怎样的生活。他是否能够带给女人快乐？如果答案是否定的，那么他就无权拥有这个女人……”他顿了顿，用那双淡褐色的大眼睛盯着康妮，几乎达到催眠的效果。“我认为，”他补充道，“我能满足女人的愿望，将她送上快乐的巅峰。这一点我极有把握。”“怎样的快乐呢？”康妮问，依然用惊诧的目光凝视着他，甚至看起来有些着迷，但心底却依然平静如水。

"Every sort of a good time, damn it, every sort! Dress, jewels up to a point, any nightclub you like, know anybody you want to know, live the pace...travel and be somebody wherever you go…Darn it, every sort of good time.”He spoke it almost in a brilliancy of triumph, and Connie looked at him as if dazzled, and really feeling nothing at all. Hardly even the surface of her mind was tickled at the glowing prospects he offered her. Hardly even her most outside self responded, that at any other time would have been thrilled. She just got no feeling from it, she couldn't "go off". She just sat and stared and looked dazzled, and felt nothing, only somewhere she smelt the extraordinarily unpleasant smell of the bitch-goddess.“各种各样的快乐，妈的，五彩缤纷的快乐！高档的衣服，名贵的首饰，你想去哪家夜店就去，想结交哪位名流都没问题，想买什么都可以……去哪里旅行都会被敬若上宾……见鬼，五光十色的快乐生活。”他说得眉飞色舞，而康妮也用似乎是惊异的眼神看着他，但心里却无动于衷。他所许诺的美好图景，甚至不能在她的心湖荡起丝毫涟漪。甚至连她最外在的自我都没有半点反应，若换个时间，她说不定早就热血沸腾了。她对此毫无感觉，没法“找到兴奋点”。她只是干坐在那里，注视着眼前的男人，摆出一副意乱情迷的模样，但内心却丝毫不为所动，只是嗅到堕落女神那极令人反感的骚味。

Mick sat on tenterhooks, leaning forward in his chair, glaring at her almost hysterically: and whether he was more anxious out of vanity for her to say Yes! Or whether he was more panic-stricken for fear she should say Yes!—who can tell? "I should have to think about it," she said. "I couldn't say now. It may seem to you Clifford doesn't count, but he does. When you think how disabled he is...”"Oh damn it all! If a fellow's going to trade on his disabilities, I might begin to say how lonely I am, and always have been, and all the rest of the my-eye-Betty-Martin sob-stuff! Damn it all, if a fellow's got nothing but disabilities to recommend him...”He turned aside, working his hands furiously in his trousers pockets. That evening he said to her:"You're coming round to my room tonight, aren't you? I don't darn know where your room is.”"All right!" she said. He was a more excited lover that night, with his strange, small boy's frail nakedness. Connie found it impossible to come to her crisis before he had really finished his. And he roused a certain craving passion in her, with his little boy's nakedness and softness; she had to go on after he had finished, in the wild tumult and heaving of her loins, while he heroically kept himself up, and present in her, with all his will and self-offering, till she brought about her own crisis, with weird little cries.

米克如坐针毡，身体前倾，用近乎歇斯底里的目光死死盯着她，究竟是急于听到她肯定的答案，以满足自己的虚荣心，还是口不对心，惊慌失措地唯恐她答应呢？这只有老天才晓得。“我得考虑一下，”她说，“现在没法给你答复。或许你认为可以不必顾及克利福德，但我做不到。只要想到他终身残废的事实……”“真他妈见鬼！要是有人总拿自己是残废来做借口，我还想说自己多么孤单呢，自始至终都孑然一身，还有那些琐碎无聊的屁事！见鬼去吧，要是哪个家伙只靠自己残疾的身体来博取同情……”他转过身去，双手在裤兜里抓狂似地乱动。傍晚时分，他央求她说：“夜里来我房间，好么？我根本搞不清你的房间在哪儿。”“好的！”她说。那晚他兴奋异常，他的赤裸的肌体在康妮面前如同一个陌生的小男孩一样柔弱。康妮发觉，自己根本还没有达到高潮，他就一泄如注了。他小男孩般的赤裸的柔软身躯挑起她体内炽烈的情欲。在他射精之后，她还得继续扭动，臀部高低起伏，而他仍然英勇地保持着坚挺，调动全部的性意念和奉献情怀，在她的体内支撑着，直到她达到性欲的巅峰，发出奇异而细微的呻吟。

When at last he drew away from her, he said, in a bitter, almost sneering little voice:"You couldn't go off at the same time as a man, could you? You'd have to bring yourself off! You'd have to run the show!”This little speech, at the moment, was one of the shocks of her life. Because that passive sort of giving himself was so obviously his only real mode of intercourse.

终于可以抽身而退时，他用挖苦甚至是嘲讽的口吻轻声说：“难道你就不能和男人同时达到高潮么？你总是我行我素！总要将指挥权握在手中！”在这样的时刻，听到如此的埋怨，康妮感到无比震惊。因为事情是明摆着的，被动配合是他完成交媾的唯一方式。

"What do you mean?" she said.“你的意思是？”她问。

"You know what I mean. You keep on for hours after I've gone off...and I have to hang on with my teeth till you bring yourself off by your own exertions.”She was stunned by this unexpected piece of brutality, at the moment when she was glowing with a sort of pleasure beyond words, and a sort of love for him. Because, after all, like so many modern men, he was finished almost before he had begun. And that forced the woman to be active.“你清楚我什么意思。我早就完事了，你却还没完没了……我只好咬牙坚持，直到你自己努力彻底爽翻。”康妮原本还沉浸在难以言喻的快感里，陶醉在对情郎的丝丝爱意中，但这番突如其来的粗鲁言语，让她感到无所适从。因为他像现在的许多男人一样，属于速战速决的典型。使得女人不得不采取主动。

"But you want me to go on, to get my own satisfaction?" she said.“可是，你不想要我继续下去，达到自己的满足么？”她问。

He laughed grimly: "I want it!" he said. "That's good! I want to hang on with my teeth clenched, while you go for me!”"But don't you?" she insisted.

他阴郁地笑着：“我想！”他说：“简直再好不过！我想紧咬牙关，让你随意折腾！”“难道你不愿意么？”她追问道。

He avoided the question. "All the darned women are like that," he said. "Either they don't go off at all, as if they were dead in there...or else they wait till a chap's really done, and then they start in to bring themselves off, and a chap's got to hang on. I never had a woman yet who went off just at the same moment as I did.”Connie only half heard this piece of novel, masculine information. She was only stunned by his feeling against her...his incomprehensible brutality. She felt so innocent.

米凯利斯顾左右而言他。“女人都他妈的一个德行。”他说。“要么死猪似的躺在那儿，没有半点激情；要么等男人完事了才来劲，让男人硬挺着伺候她们。我从来就没碰到过能和我一起高潮的女人。”康妮对这些新鲜的男性生理知识毫无兴趣。只是他那对自己的抵触情绪，以及那种难以理解的粗鲁态度，让她感到瞠目结舌。她觉得自己很无辜。

"But you want me to have my satisfaction too, don't you?" she repeated.“可你不想让我也得到满足么？”她再次重复着自己的问题。

"Oh, all right! I'm quite willing. But I'm darned if hanging on waiting for a woman to go off is much of a game for a man...”This speech was one of the crucial blows of Connie's life. It killed something in her. She had not been so very keen on Michaelis; till he started it, she did not want him. It was as if she never positively wanted him. But once he had started her, it seemed only natural for her to come to her own crisis with him. Almost she had loved him for it...almost that night she loved him, and wanted to marry him.“哦，没错！我的确想。但要是说硬挺着苦等女人达到高潮对男人来讲是愉快的，那才是怪事呢……”这番抱怨是康妮有生以来遭受过的最大打击。她心底某些美好的东西毁于一旦。她以前并未对米凯利斯有过热切渴望，他主动勾引他之前，她没有过跨越雷池的想法。她好像从未十足地向往过他。但毕竟是他挑起了她的欲望，她也觉得从他身上得到满足是理所应当的。为此她差点陷入爱河……那个夜晚，她差点爱上他，甚至想要嫁给他。

Perhaps instinctively he knew it, and that was why he had to bring down the whole show with a smash; the house of cards. Her whole sexual feeling for him, or for any man, collapsed that night. Her life fell apart from his as completely as if he had never existed.

或许他本能地察觉到她的情感波动，才会将一切美好的憧憬、虚构的幻象击得粉碎。她对他，或者说对所有男人的欲望，在当晚都土崩瓦解。两人自此再无过往，就好像他在自己的生活中从未存在过。

And she went through the days drearily. There was nothing now but this empty treadmill of what Clifford called the integrated life, the long living together of two people, who are in the habit of being in the same house with one another.

她继续郁郁寡欢地过活。所有的梦想都已破灭，只剩克利福德口中的完美生活空洞单调地重复着，两个人无休无止地共同生活在一起，只是因为习惯了与彼此同住一室。

Nothingness! To accept the great nothingness of life seemed to be the one end of living. All the many busy and important little things that make up the grand sum-total of nothingness!

空虚！人生的最终结局似乎就是要接受这生命中漫无边际的空虚。而构成这巨大空虚实体的，则是所有那些纷乱繁复的琐事！

CHAPTER 6

第六章

"Why don't men and women really like one another nowadays?" Connie asked Tommy Dukes, who was more or less her oracle.“为何如今的男女之间已经没有真爱？”康妮请教汤米·杜克斯，这位军爷在她的心中，简直就是位先知。

Connie asked Tommy Dukes, who was more or less her oracle.

康妮请教汤米·杜克斯，这位军爷在她的心中，简直就是位先知。

"Oh, but they do! I don't think since the human species was invented, there has ever been a time when men and women have liked one another as much as they do today. Genuine liking! Take myself. I really like women better than men; they are braver, one can be more frank with them.”Connie pondered this.“噢，他们当然深爱彼此！依我看，自人类诞生以来，从未有过哪个时代的男女之爱甚于今日。情深意笃的爱恋！就拿我来说吧。在我眼中，女人确实优于男人，她们能够更加勇敢地面对一切，与她们更可开露心意，坦诚相待。”康妮思忖着他话中的玄机。

"Ah, yes, but you never have anything to do with them!" she said.“啊，话虽如此，可你从来没跟她们有过牵连！”她说。

"I? What am I doing but talking perfectly sincerely to a woman at this moment?""Yes, talking...""And what more could I do if you were a man, than talk perfectly sincerely to you?""Nothing perhaps. But a woman...""A woman wants you to like her and talk to her, and at the same time love her and desire her; and it seems to me the two things are mutually exclusive.""But they shouldn't be!”“我吗？”难道我此时不是正和一位女士推心置腹地倾谈么？”“是，交谈……”“若你是男人，那除了倾心交谈之外，我还能做些什么呢？”“或许什么也做不了。但若换成女人……”“女人渴望博得异性的好感，与他们倾心交谈，同时又能给她炽热的爱恋，对她朝思暮想。但在我看来，这两者根本风马牛不相及。”“但事情并非如你所言！”

"No doubt water ought not to be so wet as it is; it overdoes it in wetness. But there it is! I like women and talk to them, and therefore I don't love them and desire them. The two things don't happen at the same time in me.”"I think they ought to.""All right. The fact that things ought to be something else than what they are, is not my department.“水本不该如此湿润，它的润泽情况确实超出想象。但这恰恰就是它的本质。我对女性深有好感，愿意跟她们攀谈，但正因为这样，我无法燃起爱火，也不会对她们魂牵梦绕。对我而言，此二者绝不可能兼顾。”“我认为完全可以兼顾。”“好吧。事情往往失去其本来面目，这并非我所能控制的。”

Connie considered this. "It isn't true," she said. "Men can love women and talk to them. I don't see how they can love them WITHOUT talking, and being friendly and intimate. How can they?”"Well," he said, "I don't know. What's the use of my generalizing? I only know my own case. I like women, but I don't desire them. I like talking to them; but talking to them, though it makes me intimate in one direction, sets me poles apart from them as far as kissing is concerned. So there you are! But don't take me as a general example, probably I'm just a special case: one of the men who like women, but don't love women, and even hate them if they force me into a pretence of love, or an entangled appearance.

康妮思忖着他的言语。“此言差矣，”她反驳道，“彼此相爱的人本就应该倾心交谈。我搞不懂，如果没有交流，没有友好亲昵的关系，怎么能算相爱呢？这种事情怎么能够发生呢？”“哦，”他说，“我也说不准。何必因我片面的结论而以偏概全呢？我只清楚自己的情况。我会对女性产生好感，但却不会想要拥有她们。我愿意跟她们交谈，而且这样确实会在某方面拉近彼此的距离，但我从来没有亲吻她们的想法。你眼前的家伙就是如此！但以己推人未免过于主观，或许我只是个特例：一个喜欢异性，但却不会爱上她们的家伙，如果她们要我假作陷入爱河，或者陶醉其中，我甚至还会恨她们呢。”

"But doesn't it make you sad?”"Why should it? Not a bit! I look at Charlie May, and the rest of the men who have affairs…No, I don't envy them a bit! If fate sent me a woman I wanted, well and good. Since I don't know any woman I want, and never see one...why, I presume I'm cold, and really like some women very much.”"Do you like me?""Very much! And you see there's no question of kissing between us, is there?”"None at all!" said Connie. "But oughtn't there to be?”"Why, in God's name? I like Clifford, but what would you say if I went and kissed him?”"But isn't there a difference?”"Where does it lie, as far as we're concerned? We're all intelligent human beings, and the male and female business is in abeyance. Just in abeyance. How would you like me to start acting up like a continental male at this moment, and parading the sex thing?”"I should hate it.""Well then! I tell you, if I'm really a male thing at all, I never run across the female of my species. And I don't miss her, I just like women. Who's going to force me into loving or pretending to love them, working up the sex game?”"No, I'm not. But isn't something wrong?”"You may feel it, I don't.”"Yes, I feel something is wrong between men and women. A woman has no glamour for a man any more.""Has a man for a woman?"She pondered the other side of the question.“可你不会因此感到沮丧么？”“为何要沮丧？压根儿没有！看到查理·梅之流偷腥的家伙……我一点儿也不羡慕他们！如果命运使然，让我遇到中意的女子，那再好不过。因为从未有任何女子能令我倾倒……哎，多半是因为我太过冷淡，但对某些异性，我的确极有好感。”“你对我有好感么？”“很有好感！不过，你看，咱俩之间就没发生接吻之类的亲昵行为，对吗？”“当然没有！”康妮说。“可这些难道不应该发生么？”“为什么？以上帝的名义？我同样不反感克利福德，如果我跟他接吻，你会作何感想呢？”“但两者终归存在差别，不是么？”“差别究竟在何处，就拿你我为例？我们都是聪慧之人，从不牵扯男欢女爱。从不涉及到那种事。如果此刻，我表现得像个举止轻佻的浪荡子，张嘴闭嘴大谈性事，你会有何想法？”“我会感到厌恶。”“这不就得了！听我说，如果我当真是如假包换的男子汉，绝对碰不到性情相投的女子。我也不会日思夜盼她的到来，只是保留着对异性的好感。又有谁会勉强我去爱她们，装出堕入情网的模样，只为片刻的欢愉呢？”“不，我不会那样做。但是不是哪里出了问题？”“或许你察觉到什么，但我却意识不到。”“对，我觉得男女间的关系有些异样。对于男人而言，女人不再有任何魅力。”“男人之于女人呢？”变换角度的问法让她陷入沉思。

"Not much," she said truthfully.“也没什么吸引力。”她坦言。

"Then let's leave it all alone, and just be decent and simple, like proper human beings with one another. Be damned to the artificial sex-compulsion! I refuse it!”Connie knew he was right, really. Yet it left her feeling so forlorn, so forlorn and stray. Like a chip on a dreary pond, she felt. What was the point, of her or anything? It was her youth which rebelled. These men seemed so old and cold. Everything seemed old and cold. And Michaelis let one down so; he was no good. The men didn't want one; they just didn't really want a woman, even Michaelis didn't.“那么不妨听其自然，做个情操高尚的纯粹之人，真诚得体地对待彼此。至于那些矫揉造作的性爱欲求，就让它们见鬼去吧！我不会与之有任何干系！”康妮清楚他说的的确在理。但她却深感凄清孤寂，惆怅迷惘。好似荒凉池塘中摇摆的草芥。她或者是其他任何事物，存在的意义又是什么呢？体内的青春气息不甘屈服，奋起抗争。这些男人们都显得苍老而又冷酷。万事万物也似乎都陈腐且寡然无味。米凯利斯伤透女人的心，他实在不是理想的对象。男人不愿跟女人纠缠，他们对异性无甚兴趣，甚至连米凯利斯都是如此。

And the bounders who pretended they did, and started working the sex game, they were worse than ever.

而那些装作沉浸其中、好为性事的下流胚，更是不可原谅。

It was just dismal, and one had to put up with it. It was quite true, men had no real glamour for a woman: if you could fool yourself into thinking they had, even as she had fooled herself over Michaelis, that was the best you could do. Meanwhile you just lived on and there was nothing to it. She understood perfectly well why people had cocktail parties, and jazzed, and Charlestoned till they were ready to drop. You had to take it out some way or other, your youth, or it ate you up. But what a ghastly thing, this youth! You felt as old as Methuselah, and yet the thing fizzed somehow, and didn't let you be comfortable. A mean sort of life! And no prospect! She almost wished she had gone off with Mick, and made her life one long cocktail party, and jazz evening. Anyhow that was better than just mooning yourself into the grave.

这确实令人沮丧，但除了忍受也别无他法。千真万确，对女人来说，男人全无吸引力可言：若你掩耳盗铃，幻想他们依然魅力非凡，甚至像康妮那样被米凯利斯蒙蔽双眼，这倒也是自我安慰的妙招。但即使如此，你仍只是浑噩度日，生活依然空洞虚无。她彻底弄明白，人们为何流连鸡尾酒会，醉心爵士乐，狂跳查尔斯顿舞，直到精疲力竭，才肯罢休。你得想尽方法挥霍自己的青春，否则就只能被它活活吞噬。青春多么地可怕呀！你感觉自己如玛士撒拉（注：《圣经·创世记》中的人物,据传享年９６９岁）般老态龙钟，但那东西却在体内翻腾奔涌，使你不得安生。何等庸碌的生活啊！看不到半点希望！她甚至后悔当初没跟米克一走了之，将生活变成声色犬马的无尽长夜。那也比虚度光阴，郁郁而终要强。

On one of her bad days she went out alone to walk in the wood, ponderously, heeding nothing, not even noticing where she was. The report of a gun not far off startled and angered her.

某个情绪低落的日子，康妮独自去林中散步，心事满腹，漫无目的地走着，甚至没留意自己身在何处。不远处的一声枪响将她惊醒，也让她心头火起。

Then, as she went, she heard voices, and recoiled. People! She didn't want people. But her quick ear caught another sound, and she roused; it was a child sobbing. At once she attended; someone was ill-treating a child. She strode swinging down the wet drive, her sullen resentment uppermost. She felt just prepared to make a scene.

她循音觅去，耳边传来说话声，不禁有些畏缩。有人！她不愿碰到任何人。可她灵敏的耳朵却捕捉到另一种声响，不由得警惕起来；那是孩子的抽泣声。她立即警觉起来，准是什么人在虐待孩子。她沿着潮湿的马道，快步向前走去，满腔的怒火已经不可抑止。她知道自己准要大吵大闹一番。

Turning the corner, she saw two figures in the drive beyond her: the keeper, and a little girl in a purple coat and moleskin cap, crying.

转过弯，她看到马道上出现两个人的身影：那护林人，和一个身穿紫色外套、头戴斜纹棉帽的小女孩，发出哭声正是她。

"Ah, shut it up, tha false little bitch!" came the man's angry voice, and the child sobbed louder.“呀，闭嘴，臭丫头！”那男人怒气冲冲地呵斥着，孩子的哭声更响了。

Constance strode nearer, with blazing eyes. The man turned and looked at her, saluting coolly, but he was pale with anger.

康斯坦斯大步走到近前，怒目横眉。那男人转过脸看着他，态度冷淡地躬身施礼，脸气得煞白。

"What's the matter? Why is she crying?" demanded Constance, peremptory but a little breathless.“怎么回事？她为什么啼哭？”康斯坦斯逼问道，语气斩钉截铁，但心里还是不免有些不敢大声出气。

A faint smile like a sneer came on the man's face. "Nay, yo mun ax'er," he replied callously, in broad vernacular.

那男人脸上闪过一丝睥睨的微笑。“恁自己去问她就是。”他冷冷地答道，仍操着那口浓重的方言。

Connie felt as if he had hit her in the face, and she changed colour. Then she gathered her defiance, and looked at him, her dark blue eyes blazing rather vaguely.

康妮感觉像挨了一记耳光，气得颜色更变。她调动起所有轻蔑，瞪着眼前的男人，可深蓝色双眸中闪烁着的光芒依然游移。

"I asked you," she panted.“我问的是你。”她呼吸急促。

He gave a queer little bow, lifting his hat. "You did, your Ladyship," he said; then, with a return to the vernacular: "but I canna tell yer." And he became a soldier, inscrutable, only pale with annoyance.

他扬起帽子，姿势怪异地轻鞠一躬。“没错，夫人，”他说，接着又换成那套土腔土调，“可俺不能不告诉恁。”此刻的他俨然变成战士，难以捉摸，只是因为恼怒而面色铁青。

Connie turned to the child, a ruddy, black-haired thing of nine or ten. "What is it, dear? Tell me why you're crying!" she said, with the conventionalized sweetness suitable. More violent sobs, self-conscious. Still more sweetness on Connie's part.

康妮转向那女孩，小姑娘大概九岁或十岁，脸蛋红扑扑的，头发乌黑。“怎么回事，宝贝？告诉我你为什么哭。”她换上哄小孩的温柔口吻。或许是感觉有所倚靠，孩子哭得更凶了。而康妮的态度则愈发温和。

"There, there, don't you cry! Tell me what they've done to you!”...an intense tenderness of tone. At the same time she felt in the pocket of her knitted jacket, and luckily found a sixpence.“好啦，好啦，别哭了。告诉我他们对你做了什么。”……语调中饱含着柔情。她边说，边在毛衣口袋里摸索着，幸运地找到一枚六便士硬币。

"Don't you cry then!" she said, bending in front of the child. "See what I've got for you!”Sobs, snuffles, a fist taken from a blubbered face, and a black shrewd eye cast for a second on the sixpence. Then more sobs, but subduing. "There, tell me what's the matter, tell me!" said Connie, putting the coin into the child's chubby hand, which closed over it.“不要哭了，”她弯下腰，对女孩说，“看看我给你找到什么。”女孩呜咽着，抽着鼻涕，一个小拳头从布满泪痕的脸蛋上移开，露出一只机灵的黑眼睛，目光在硬币上停留片刻。接着又抽泣起来，但哭声已经减弱许多。“听话，告诉我到底怎么回事，乖乖跟我说。”康妮说着，把硬币塞进女孩胖乎乎的手里，那只小手紧紧将钱攥住。

"It's the...it's the...pussy!”Shudders of subsiding sobs.“是因为……是因为……猫咪！”抽噎声逐渐减弱，身体瑟瑟发抖。

"What pussy, dear?"After a silence the shy fist, clenching on sixpence, pointed into the bramble brake.“什么猫咪，亲爱的？”沉默半晌，她怯生生地抬起拳头，指向不远处的荆棘丛，手里依然紧握着那枚硬币。

"There!"“在那儿！”

Connie looked, and there, sure enough, was a big black cat, stretched out grimly, with a bit of blood on it.

康妮望过去，发现是只硕大的黑猫，面目狰狞地躺在那里，血迹斑斑。

"Oh!" she said in repulsion.“噢！”她嫌恶地叫道。

"A poacher, your Ladyship," said the man satirically.“是只偷腥的野猫，夫人。”那男子话中有话。

She glanced at him angrily. "No wonder the child cried," she said, "if you shot it when she was there. No wonder she cried!"

她气呼呼地瞥了他一眼。“难怪孩子会哭，”她说，“你居然当着她的面杀生。怪不得她会哭呢！”

He looked into Connie's eyes, laconic, contemptuous, not hiding his feelings. And again Connie flushed; she felt she had been making a scene, the man did not respect her.

他凝视着康妮的双眼，片刻停留后移开，毫不掩饰自己的轻蔑。康妮的脸再度泛起红潮，觉得大发脾气有些不妥，这才会招致他的鄙视。

"What is your name?" she said playfully to the child. "Won't you tell me your name?”Sniffs; then very affectedly in a piping voice: "Connie Mellors!""Connie Mellors! Well, that's a nice name! And did you come out with your Daddy, and he shot a pussy? But it was a bad pussy!”The child looked at her, with bold, dark eyes of scrutiny, sizing her up, and her condolence.“你叫什么名字？”她又逗弄起那女孩来。“告诉我你的名字好不好？”小姑娘抽着鼻子，嗲声嗲气地回答：“康妮·梅勒斯！”“康妮·梅勒斯！哦，多好听的名字呀！你跟爸爸出门，他打死了猫咪？可那是只坏猫咪！”孩子忽闪着那双皂白分明的眼睛，毫无怯意地打量着康妮，揣度着她，掂量着她的同情心。

"I wanted to stop with my Gran," said the little girl.“我本来想和奶奶呆在一起的。”小姑娘说。

"Did you? But where is your Gran?"The child lifted an arm, pointing down the drive. "At th'cottidge.”"At the cottage! And would you like to go back to her?"Sudden, shuddering quivers of reminiscent sobs. "Yes!""Come then, shall I take you? Shall I take you to your Gran? Then your Daddy can do what he has to do."She turned to the man. "It is your little girl, isn't it?”He saluted, and made a slight movement of the head in affirmation.“是么？可你奶奶在哪儿呢？”女孩抬起胳膊，顺着马道指向前方。“屋子里。”“小屋里。你想回去找她吗？”女孩突然全身颤抖，想起奶奶，眼泪又禁不住流下来。“想！”“那来吧，我带你去好吗？我带你去奶奶身边？这样一来，你爸爸就可以去办自己的事了。”她转过头问孩子父亲。“这是你女儿，对吧？”他再次行礼，微微颔首以示肯定。

"I suppose I can take her to the cottage?" asked Connie.“可以让我送她回家去吗？”康妮问。

"If your Ladyship wishes."Again he looked into her eyes, with that calm, searching detached glance. A man very much alone, and on his own.“只要夫人想这么做。”两人的眼神再度交汇，他的目光依旧那样镇定自若，超然物外，似乎能够洞察一切。这是位独来独往，我行我素的男子汉。

"Would you like to come with me to the cottage, to your Gran, dear?"The child peeped up again. "Yes!" she simpered.“你愿意跟我回家，去奶奶身边吗，宝贝？”女孩又提高了声音。“愿意！”她扭捏地笑着。

Connie disliked her; the spoilt, false little female. Nevertheless she wiped her face and took her hand. The keeper saluted in silence.

康妮并不喜欢这小丫头，她备受溺爱，全然没有孩子的纯真。尽管如此，她照样给他拭去泪痕，牵过她的小手。那守林人默不作声，行礼致谢。

"Good morning!" said Connie.“再见！”康妮说。

It was nearly a mile to the cottage, and Connie senior was well red by Connie junior by the time the game-keeper's picturesque little home was in sight. The child was already as full to the brim with tricks as a little monkey, and so self-assured.

大约有一英里路程，当守林人那别具一格的小农舍映入眼帘，大康妮已经彻底受够了小康妮。这孩子鬼灵精怪，活像只小猴子，而且很自以为是。

At the cottage the door stood open, and there was a rattling heard inside. Connie lingered, the child slipped her hand, and ran indoors.

小屋的门没关，里面传出咔嗒咔嗒的声响。康妮放缓脚步，女孩挣出手来，跑进屋去。

"Gran! Gran!"“奶奶！奶奶！”

"Why, are yer back a'ready!”“咋回事？这会儿就回来了！”

The grandmother had been blackleading the stove, it was Saturday morning. She came to the door in her sacking apron, a blacklead-brush in her hand, and a black smudge on her nose. She was a little, rather dry woman.

那是周六的早晨，女孩的祖母正用黑铅粉漆着炉灶。她系着粗布围裙，走到门口来，手拿沾满铅粉的毛刷，鼻头上有块黑渍。她五短身材，形容颇为枯槁。

"Why, whatever?" she said, hastily wiping her arm across her face as she saw Connie standing outside.“哎呀，啥事情？”她说，看到康妮站在屋外，忙不迭地抬起手臂去抹脸。

"Good morning!"said Connie. "She was crying, so I just brought her home."The grandmother looked around swiftly at the child:"Why, wheer was yer Dad?"The little girl clung to her grandmother's skirts and simpered.“早安！”康妮说。“她哭个不停，我就把她送回家来了。”孩子祖母麻利地转过来望向自己的孙女。“我说，你爹上哪去了？”小姑娘扯着奶奶的裙摆，哧哧笑着。

"He was there," said Connie, "but he'd shot a poaching cat, and the child was upset.”"Oh, you'd no right t'ave bothered, Lady Chatterley, I'm sure! I'm sure it was very good of you, but you shouldn't 'ave bothered. Why, did ever you see! and the old woman turned to the child: "Fancy Lady Chatterley takin' all that trouble over yer! Why, she shouldn't ave bothered!”“他在那边呢，”康妮解释说，“可他击毙一只野猫，把孩子给吓着了。”“哦，真是太麻烦您了，查泰莱夫人。您的心肠实在太好了，可真不应该给您添麻烦。嘿，你瞧见没？老人转向孩子道：“恁给好查泰莱夫人添了不少麻烦！唉，麻烦她真是过意不去！”

"It was no bother, just a walk," said Connie smiling.“没什么麻烦的，我正好也散散步。”康妮笑着说。

"Why, I'm sure 'twas very kind of you, I must say! So she was crying! I knew there'd be something afore they got far. She's frightened of 'im, that's wheer it is. Seems 'e's almost a stranger to 'er, fair a stranger, and I don't think they're two as'd hit it off very easy. He's got funny ways.”Connie didn't know what to say.“哎呀，您真是大好人，这可是掏心掏肺的话！也难怪这丫头会哭！他俩还没走远，我就知道会出岔子。她怕她爹，这是根本原因。她几乎把他当作外人，地地道道的外人，他俩压根儿就合不来。他的脾气可怪呢。”康妮不知如何回应。

"Look, Gran!" simpered the child.“奶奶，快看！”女孩笑着说。

The old woman looked down at the sixpence in the little girl's hand.

老妇人低头看到女孩手中的硬币。

"An'sixpence an'all! Oh, your Ladyship, you shouldn't, you shouldn't. Why, isn't Lady Chatterley good to yer! My word, you're a lucky girl this morning!”She pronounced the name, as all the people did: Chat'ley. Connie was moving away... "Well, thank you ever so much, Lady Chat'ley, I'm sure. Say thank you to Lady Chat'ley!"——this last to the child.”“六便士呢！噢，尊敬的夫人，您何必这样呢，您不必这样的。天呢，查泰莱夫人对恁多好！哎呀，你这丫头今儿早上真是交运了！”跟所有村民一样，她把查泰莱读作查莱。康妮正打算抽身离去。“哦，从心底感谢您，查莱夫人。跟查莱夫人说谢谢！”最后这句是跟孙女说的。

"Thank you," piped the child.“谢谢。”女孩尖声细气地说。

"There's a dear!" laughed Connie, and she moved away, saying "Good morning", heartily relieved to get away from the contact.“真是乖孩子！”康妮笑着回应，道别后，便转身远去，能摆脱这对祖孙，她感觉如释重负。

Curious, she thought, that that thin, proud man should have that little, sharp woman for a mother!

她心中暗自诧异，那个身材瘦削、目中无人的男子，居然有位五短身材、却精明强干的母亲！

And the old woman, as soon as Connie had gone, rushed to the bit of mirror in the scullery, and looked at her face. Seeing it, she stamped her foot with impatience. "Of COURE she had to catch me in my coarse apron, and a dirty face! Nice idea she'd get of me!”Connie went slowly home to Wragby. "Home!——it was a warm word to use for that great, weary warren. But then it was a word that had had its day. It was somehow cancelled. All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. As for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while, then left you more raggy than ever. Frayed! It was as if the very material you were made of was cheap stuff, and was fraying out to nothing.

康妮前脚刚走，那老妪就忙不迭地跑到洗碗池旁，对着一块小镜子，端详起自己的脸来。看到鼻头的黑渍，她气急败坏地跺着脚。“她一准看见我的粗布围裙，还有脏兮兮的脸！她肯定把我当作笑柄！”康妮缓步向拉格比家中走去。“家！——这个词给那栋沉郁的大宅平添几分温暖。但如今，这个词已经过了时。不知何故被剔除了。康妮觉得，似乎所有美妙的字眼都与自己这代人绝缘：爱情，快乐，幸福，家庭，母亲，父亲，丈夫。所有这些生机盎然的绝佳词汇，现在都已半死不活，逐渐走向衰亡。家庭乃存身之地，爱情不容自欺，快乐用来形容热舞时的感受，幸福是蒙蔽他人的虚伪用词，父亲只懂享受自己的生活，丈夫与你同住一个屋檐下，又要你打起精神与他一起生活。至于性爱，所有伟大词汇的终结篇，不过是个牵强附会的字眼，用以形容某种亢奋的状态，它能瞬间将你送上快乐的巅峰，紧接着让你变得支离破碎，比以往更加不堪。一点点被磨碎！好像你是用最廉价材料做成的次品，只会逐渐被消磨殆尽，直到尸骨无存。

All that really remained was a stubborn stoicism: and in that there was a certain pleasure. In the very experience of the nothingness of life, phase after phase, Étape After Étape, there was a certain grisly satisfaction. So that's that! Always this was the last utterance: home, love, marriage, Michaelis: So that's that! And when one died, the last words to life would be: So that's that!

硕果仅存的只剩那难以摆脱的淡漠，而在其中能够品味到某种愉悦。空虚的生命之旅一段又一段，一程又一程，而体验到的是某种令人胆战心惊的满足感。仅此而已！这句话总作为演说的结语：家庭，爱情，婚姻，米凯利斯，仅此而已！寿终正寝时，留给人生的告别辞仍是：仅此而已！

Money? Perhaps one couldn't say the same there. Money one always wanted. Money, Success, the bitch-goddess, as Tommy Dukes persisted in calling it, after Henry James, that was a permanent necessity. You couldn't spend your last sou, and say finally: So that's that! No, if you lived even another ten minutes, you wanted a few more sous for something or other. Just to keep the business mechanically going, you needed money. You had to have it. Money you HAVE to have. You needn't really have anything else. So that's that!

金钱呢？或许只能另当别论。人生在世，总离不开金钱。金钱意味着成功，而成功则是汤米·杜克斯口中常提到的堕落女神，他借用了亨利·詹姆斯（注：1843-1916，美国小说家、评论家）的比喻。这些始终是人类需要的东西。花掉最后的铜板，用“仅此而已！”来给人生作结，没人能够做到这一点。这显然行不通，即使生命仅剩十分钟，还是需要更多的钱来做这做那。要使任何事有效地进行下去，都需要金钱作为后盾。它是生活的必需品。你必须拥有金钱。其余所有的东西都可以抛到一边。仅此而已！

Since, of course, it's not your own fault you are alive. Once you are alive, money is a necessity, and the only absolute necessity. All the rest you can get along without, at a pinch. But not money. Emphatically, that's that!

当然，活在世上并不是你的错。可只要活着，就得有钱，它是世间唯一必不可少的东西。紧关截要时，其他的一切都可以抛开。而金钱除外。再度重申，仅此而已！

She thought of Michaelis, and the money she might have had with him; and even that she didn't want. She preferred the lesser amount which she helped Clifford to make by his writing. That she actually helped to make. 'Clifford and I together, we make twelve hundred a year out of writing'; so she put it to herself. Make money! Make it! Out of nowhere. Wring it out of the thin air! The last feat to be humanly proud of! The rest all—my—eye—Betty—Martin.

她回忆起米凯利斯，想到与他私奔后可能会拥有的财富；但即使如此，她仍然不稀罕！她宁愿帮助克利福德完成创作，以获得那为数不多的收入。那份钱里凝聚着她的心血。“我和克利福德共同努力，每年靠写作，就能赚回1200英镑。”她这样对自己说。赚钱！赚钱！无中生有。凭空杜撰！这是她生活中唯一可以标榜的事情！其他的都是鬼话连篇。

So she plodded home to Clifford, to join forces with him again, to make another story out of nothingness: and a story meant money. Clifford seemed to care very much whether his stories were considered first-class literature or not. Strictly, she didn't care. Nothing in it! said her father. Twelve hundred pounds last year! was the retort simple and final.

于是，她步履沉重地回到家中，回到克利福德身边，继续与他凭空捏造出又一部小说，一部能够换回金钱的小说。克利福德似乎很在意自己的小说是否被界定为一流作品。她却对此漠不关心。空洞无物！父亲如此评价。去年就挣回1200英镑！她的反驳简单而决绝。

If you were young, you just set your teeth, and bit on and held on, till the money began to flow from the invisible; it was a question of power. It was a question of will; a subtle, subtle, powerful emanation of will out of yourself brought back to you the mysterious nothingness of money a word on a bit of paper. It was a sort of magic, certainly it was triumph. The bitch-goddess! Well, if one had to prostitute oneself, let it be to a bitch-goddess! One could always despise her even while one prostituted oneself to her, which was good.

若你正青春年少，只需咬紧牙关，坚持到底，财富便会从天而降，这与你的才能息息相关。这同样与决心有关，意志力散发的过程难以捉摸，却又立竿见影，为你带回神秘虚无的金钱——那印有文字的小纸片。金钱拥有某种魔力，当然也意味着成功。那堕落女神！唉，如果卖身已经不可避免，那么就选择堕落女神好了！即使卖身于她，仍可以保留着心中的那份蔑视，这确实是理想的选择。

Clifford, of course, had still many childish taboos and fetishes. He wanted to be thought "really good", which was all cock-a-hoopy nonsense. What was really good was what actually caught on. It was no good being really good and getting left with it. It seemed as if most of the "really good" men just missed the bus. After all you only lived one life, and if you missed the bus, you were just left on the pavement, along with the rest of the failures.

克利福德当然仍保留着许多孩子气的忌讳和情结。他期望跻身“杰出”的行列，但这一自负的想法显然只是痴人说梦。真正的杰出意味着受到公众的广泛认可。才华出众却无人问津，是件糟糕的事情。似乎绝大多数的真正杰出人士都与机遇擦肩而过。人生苦短，若错失良机，就只能与其他失败者一道，体味被遗弃的苦涩。

Connie was contemplating a winter in London with Clifford, next winter. He and she had caught the bus all right, so they might as well ride on top for a bit, and show it.

康妮打算来年冬天与克利福德共赴伦敦。他俩都已将机遇握在手中，因此或许可能体验到那居高临下的畅快瞬间，并且大肆炫耀一番。

The worst of it was, Clifford tended to become vague, absent, and to fall into fits of vacant depression. It was the wound to his psyche coming out. But it made Connie want to scream. Oh God, if the mechanism of the consciousness itself was going to go wrong, then what was one to do? Hang it all, one did one's bit! Was one to be let down ABSOLUTELY? Sometimes she wept bitterly, but even as she wept she was saying to herself: Silly fool, wetting hankies! As if that would get you anywhere!

可糟糕的是，克利福德逐渐变得迷惘，心不在焉，时常堕入空虚与抑郁之中，不可自拔。这是心灵的创伤慢慢在显现。但这一切逼得康妮想要尖叫。噢，上帝，如果意识运行机制出现偏差，该怎么办才好呢？真是活见鬼，但也只能尽人事听天命。难道还能彻底放弃不成？有时她也会痛哭流涕，但就算泪流满面，她也会提醒自己：傻瓜，把手帕都沾湿了！流泪根本无济于事！

Since Michaelis, she had made up her mind she wanted nothing. That seemed the simplest solution of the otherwise insoluble. She wanted nothing more than what she'd got; only she wanted to get ahead with what she'd got: Clifford, the stories, Wragby, the Lady-Chatterley business, money and fame, such as it was...she wanted to go ahead with it all. Love, sex, all that sort of stuff, just water-ices! Lick it up and forget it. If you don't hang on to it in your mind, it's nothing. Sex especially...nothing! Make up your mind to it, and you've solved the problem. Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to about the same thing.

自从与米凯利斯决裂，她已下定决心杜绝任何欲求。这似乎是唯一行之有效的解决方法。她不再奢求其他任何东西，只会好好珍惜目前拥有的：克利福德，小说，拉格比，从男爵夫人的地位，金钱与名誉，诸如此类……她想将这一切都好好经营下去。爱情，性爱，这些都只是爽口的冰糕！浅尝过后便可尽数遗忘。若不为之牵肠挂肚，它就无足轻重。性爱尤其如此……根本无关紧要！只要下定决心，所有问题都会迎刃而解。性爱像杯鸡尾酒，两者持续的时间大致相当，起到的效果也不相上下，因此没什么本质区别。

But a child, a baby! That was still one of the sensations. She would venture very gingerly on that experiment. There was the man to consider, and it was curious, there wasn't a man in the world whose children you wanted. Mick's children! Repulsive thought! As lief have a child to a rabbit! Tommy Dukes? he was very nice, but somehow you couldn't associate him with a baby, another generation. He ended in himself. And out of all the rest of Clifford's pretty wide acquaintance, there was not a man who did not rouse her contempt, when she thought of having a child by him. There were several who would have been quite possible as lover, even Mick. But to let them breed a child on you! Ugh! Humiliation and abomination.

但孩子与之不同，康妮仍希望拥有自己的宝宝。这样的想法仍会让她激动不已。她打算从长计议，绝不草率行事。必须选择一个合适的男人，但奇怪的是，天底下居然找不到康妮中意的对象，让她心甘情愿地为之生子。米克的孩子！想想就觉得恶心！宁可跟一只兔子下崽！汤米·杜克斯？他人品极佳，但不知为何，总是难以把他跟孩子、跟下一代联系起来。这位仁兄宁愿孤独终老。至于克利福德为数众多的亲朋好友，想到其中一位将成为孩子的父亲，她就会觉得可鄙。有几位倒是挺适合做情人，甚至米克。但为他们产下后代！呸！想想就觉得羞耻又恶心。

So that was that!

仅此而已！

Nevertheless, Connie had the child at the back of her mind. Wait! Wait! She would sift the generations of men through her sieve, and see if she couldn't find one who would do. "Go ye into the streets and by ways of Jerusalem, and see if you can find a man."It had been impossible to find a man in the Jerusalem of the prophet, though there were thousands of male humans. But a MAN! C'EST UNE AUTRECHOSE!

尽管如此，康妮心底还是渴望拥有自己的孩子。等等！再等等！她要将这一代男人悉数筛选一遍，看看是否当真就没有合意的目标。“前往耶路撒冷的大街小巷，看看是否能够找到真正的男子汉。”在先知之城耶路撒冷，都找不到真正的男子汉，虽说男人倒是成千上万。但说到男子汉，可就是另外一码事！

She had an idea that he would have to be a foreigner: not an Englishman, still less an Irishman. A real foreigner.

她甚至想过找个外国人，既不是英国人，更不是爱尔兰人。真正的外国人。

But wait! Wait! Next winter she would get Clifford to London; the following winter she would get him abroad to the South of France, Italy. Wait! She was in no hurry about the child. That was her own private affair, and the one point on which, in her own queer, female way, she was serious to the bottom of her soul. She was not going to risk any chance comer, not she! One might take a lover almost at any moment, but a man who should beget a child on one...wait! Wait! It's a very different matter. "Go ye into the streets and byways of Jerusalem..."It was not a question of love; it was a question of a man. Why, one might even rather hate him, personally. Yet if he was the man, what would one's personal hate matter? This business concerned another part of oneself.

但等等！先等等！明年冬天，她会带克利福德去伦敦；后年冬天，她要带他去法国南部，去意大利。耐心等待！她并不着急要孩子。这是她的私事，身为女子的她有着独特的处理方式，在灵魂深处，她对于此事的态度极为慎重。她不会选择与露水情人生子，这不符合她的原则。共度春宵的对象随时都能找到，但与之诞下婴孩的异性……还是等等再说！再等等！这可是与众不同的大事。“前往耶路撒冷的大街小巷……”这件事并不涉及爱情，而关系到他是否是真正的男子汉。没错，或许私底下可能还恨他入骨。但如果他确实是如假包换的男子汉，个人恩怨又算得了什么呢？这并非个人的情感问题。

It had rained as usual, and the paths were too sodden for Clifford's chair, but Connie would go out. She went out alone every day now, mostly in the wood, where she was really alone. She saw nobody there.

阴雨连绵，路面湿滑，克利福德无法驾轮椅出行，但康妮却常常出门散步。现在，她每天都会独自外出，多数时间是去林中徜徉，在那里她真正体验到独处的感觉。不会被任何人打扰。

This day, however, Clifford wanted to send a message to the keeper, and as the boy was laid up with influenza, somebody always seemed to have influenza at Wragby, Connie said she would call at the cottage.

这天，克利福德要捎口信给守林人，但跑腿的小厮因患流感，卧床不起——拉格比似乎总有人与流感结缘，而康妮表示她愿意代劳。

The air was soft and dead, as if all the world were slowly dying. Grey and clammy and silent, even from the shuffling of the collieries, for the pits were working short time, and today they were stopped altogether. The end of all things!

空气轻柔凝滞，似乎整个世界都慢慢陷入濒死的境地。一切都灰暗阴郁，冰冷潮湿，寂静无声，甚至连几处煤矿都没有半点动静，原因是矿区缩短了工时，而今天更是干脆就没开工。世间万物都停止了运转！

In the wood all was utterly inert and motionless, only great drops fell from the bare boughs, with a hollow little crash. For the rest, among the old trees was depth within depth of grey, hopeless inertia, silence, nothingness.

林中万籁俱寂，只有大颗的水滴从光秃秃的枝桠上落下，发出微弱的声响。除此之外，古老的树林中只有那无穷无尽的灰暗，挥之不去的绝望，以及寂静和空虚。

Connie walked dimly on. From the old wood came an ancient melancholy, somehow soothing to her, better than the harsh insentience of the outer world. She liked the inwardness of the remnant of forest, the unspeaking reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were only waiting for the end; to be cut down, cleared away, the end of the forest, for them the end of all things. But perhaps their strong and aristocratic silence, the silence of strong trees, meant something else.

康妮在微光中继续前行。历尽沧桑的树林散发出某种久远的忧郁，这种气息抚慰着她的心灵，至少远远好过外面世界的残酷无情。她喜欢这片残余森林的内敛，青睐古老树木的沉默寡言。它们拥有某种沉默的力量，又显示出旺盛的生命力。它们同样在等待，倔强而又坚忍地等待着，在沉默中散发出潜能。或许它们等待的只是末日的降临，被砍伐，被运走，对它们而言，森林的毁灭，对其来说就是一切的终结。但它们那坚韧而高贵的沉默，那属于强悍树木的静默，蕴含着其他的深意。

As she came out of the wood on the north side, the keeper's cottage, a rather dark, brown stone cottage, with gables and a handsome chimney, looked uninhabited, it was so silent and alone. But a thread of smoke rose from the chimney, and the little railed-in garden in the front of the house was dug and kept very tidy. The door was shut.

康妮从北端走出树林，守林人的农舍出现在眼前。这是栋深褐色的石屋，屋顶呈人字形，烟囱甚是美观。它显得那么沉静孤独，像是杳无人迹。但烟囱里升腾起袅袅青烟，屋前的小花园围着篱笆，土壤刚刚松过，打理得十分整洁。门合着。

Now she was here she felt a little shy of the man, with his curious far-seeing eyes. She did not like bringing him orders, and felt like going away again. She knocked softly, no one came. She knocked again, but still not loudly. There was no answer. She peeped through the window, and saw the dark little room, with its almost sinister privacy, not wanting to be invaded.

站在那儿，想起那男人古怪而锐利的目光，康妮觉得脸上有些发烧。她不再想给他捎什么口信，甚至打起退堂鼓来。她轻叩屋门，没人回应。再敲几下，但依然不够响。仍旧无人应门。她透过窗户向内窥视，幽暗的小房间映入眼帘，里面陈列的私人物品几乎透出不祥之气，不容任何人侵犯。

She stood and listened, and it seemed to her she heard sounds from the back of the cottage. Having failed to make herself heard, her mettle was roused, she would not be defeated.

她站在原地，侧耳倾听，有声音似乎从农舍后面传来。那家伙居然没听到敲门声，康妮再次鼓起勇气，她不愿畏缩不前。

So she went round the side of the house. At the back of the cottage the land rose steeply, so the back yard was sunken, and enclosed by a low stone wall. She turned the corner of the house and stopped. In the little yard two paces beyond her, the man was washing himself, utterly unaware. He was naked to the hips, his velveteen breeches slipping down over his slender loins. And his white slim back was curved over a big bowl of soapy water, in which he ducked his head, shaking his head with a queer, quick little motion, lifting his slender white arms, and pressing the soapy water from his ears, quick, subtle as a weasel playing with water, and utterly alone. Connie backed away round the corner of the house, and hurried away to the wood. In spite of herself, she had had a shock. After all, merely a man washing himself, commonplace enough, Heaven knows!

于是，她迈步向屋后绕去。农舍后面的地势陡然升高，因此后院是凹进去的，被一道低矮的石墙围绕着。她绕过房角，停住脚步。玲珑小巧的院落中，距她两步远的地方，那男人正在沐浴，全然没有觉察她的到来。他上半身不着一缕，棉绒马裤滑落到纤细的腰间。他那白皙修长的脊背，弯向满是肥皂沫的大盆，头浸在水里，以一种奇怪的方式，迅速地小幅度摆动着。他抬起细白的双臂，挤出流进耳朵里的肥皂水，动作迅捷轻盈，如同戏水的鼬鼠，享受着透彻的孤单。康妮退到屋角，急匆匆地向树林走去。不知不觉，她心里大为震颤。其实，只是个男人在沐浴而已，实在不足为奇，天晓得她为何这么吃惊！

Yet in some curious way it was a visionary experience: it had hit her in the middle of the body. She saw the clumsy breeches slipping down over the pure, delicate, white loins, the bones showing a little, and the sense of aloneness, of a creature purely alone, overwhelmed her. Perfect, white, solitary nudity of a creature that lives alone, and inwardly alone. And beyond that, a certain beauty of a pure creature. Not the stuff of beauty, not even the body of beauty, but a lambency, the warm, white flame of a single life, revealing itself in contours that one might touch: a body!

然而奇怪的是，刚才的经历让她浮想联翩，身体中的某个部分被深深触动。她看到那条肥大的马裤向下滑落，耷拉在纯净优雅且白皙的腰际，胯骨隐约可见。那种属于孤单生灵的落寞感，彻底征服了她。那副完美无瑕，孤独寂寞的纯白胴体，属于那个独居且内心孑然的生命。除此之外，还有那纯洁生命的独特美感。那既非物质之美，又非身体之美，而是某种轻柔的光芒，孤单生命燃烧着的温暖白色火焰，显露出自己足可触碰的身体轮廓。

Connie had received the shock of vision in her womb, and she knew it; it lay inside her. But with her mind she was inclined to ridicule. A man washing himself in a back yard! No doubt with evil-smelling yellow soap! She was rather annoyed; why should she be made to stumble on these vulgar privacies? So she walked away from herself, but after a while she sat down on a stump. She was too confused to think. But in the coil of her confusion, she was determined to deliver her message to the fellow. She would not he balked. She must give him time to dress himself, but not time to go out. He was probably preparing to go out somewhere.

感官的冲击震撼着康妮的子宫，她心知肚明，这种感觉已经深刻肺腑。而在意识层面，她更想把这件事视为玩笑。在自家后院洗澡的男人！用的肯定还是臭气熏天的硫磺皂。她不禁有些恼火，为何自己偏偏碰上这档子不雅的私事？她逃离现场，好在没被发觉，可走了一会，就在一个树桩上坐下来。她心如乱麻，根本无从思考。但尽管心绪烦乱，她还是决定完成自己捎口信的任务。她不愿无功而返。她得留出工夫，让他穿好衣服，但时间又不能太长，以免他走掉。这家伙很像是正准备要出门。

So she sauntered slowly back, listening. As she came near, the cottage looked just the same. A dog barked, and she knocked at the door, her heart beating in spite of herself.

于是，她放缓脚步，往小屋走去，留意着四周的动静。当她再度走近时，并未发现小屋有任何变化。狗吠声响起，她敲敲门，心不禁砰砰乱跳。

She heard the man coming lightly downstairs. He opened the door quickly, and startled her. He looked uneasy himself, but instantly a laugh came on his face.

那男人下楼梯的声音传进耳朵，步伐甚是轻盈。他忽地打开门，吓了康妮一跳。他的表情也不太自然，但随即便露出笑颜。

"Lady Chatterley!" he said. "Will you come in?"His manner was so perfectly easy and good, she stepped over the threshold into the rather dreary little room.“查泰莱夫人！”他说，“请进。”他的举止大方得体，彬彬有礼，她迈过门槛，踏入这间颇为阴郁的小屋。

"I only called with a message from Sir Clifford," she said in her soft, rather breathless voice.“克利福德爵士让我给你捎个口信。”她语调轻柔，但呼吸急促。

The man was looking at her with those blue, all-seeing eyes of his, which made her turn her face aside a little. He thought her comely, almost beautiful, in her shyness, and he took command of the situation himself at once.

那男人凝视着她，那双蓝眼睛似乎能够洞察一切，她感觉有些害羞，微微别过脸去。他觉得含羞的她标致可爱，几乎称得上美艳动人，他立刻就掌握了主动。

"Would you care to sit down?" he asked, presuming she would not. The door stood open.“请坐。”他说，心里清楚她不会坐。门是敞开着的。

"No thanks! Sir Clifford wondered if you would... and she delivered her message, looking unconsciously into his eyes again. And now his eyes looked warm and kind, particularly to a woman, wonderfully warm, and kind, and at ease.“不了，多谢！克利福德想让你……”她传完口信，又不自觉地望向他的双眸。他的眼神温暖和善，对于异性，更是格外热情亲切，没有半点拘谨。

"Very good, your Ladyship. I will see to it at once."Taking an order, his whole self had changed, glazed over with a sort of hardness and distance. Connie hesitated, she ought to go. But she looked round the clean, tidy, rather dreary little sitting-room with something like dismay.“好的，夫人。我立刻就办。”接受命令时，他变了一副模样，显得冷若冰霜，仿佛要拒人千里之外。康妮有些迟疑，她应该回去了。但她却有点沮丧地环顾起这个干净整洁，但又有些阴郁的小起居室。

"Do you live here quite alone?" she asked.“你一个人住在这儿么？”她问。

"Quite alone, your Ladyship.""But your mother...?""She lives in her own cottage in the village.""With the child?" asked Connie.“就我自己，夫人。”“那你母亲呢……？”“她在村里有自己的住处。”“和孩子一起？”她问。

"With the child!"And his plain, rather worn face took on an indefinable look of derision. It was a face that changed all the time, baking.“跟孩子同住。”他那张饱经风霜的淳朴面孔上，流露出一丝难以琢磨的嘲讽。这张脸上的表情总是变幻莫测，令人困惑。

"No," he said, seeing Connie stand at a loss, "my mother comes and cleans up for me on Saturdays; I do the rest myself."Again Connie looked at him. His eyes were smiling again, a little mockingly, but warm and blue, and somehow kind. She wondered at him. He was in trousers and flannel shirt and a grey tie, his hair soft and damp, his face rather pale and worn-looking. When the eyes ceased to laugh they looked as if they had suffered a great deal, still without losing their warmth. But a pallor of isolation came over him, she was not really there for him.

发觉康妮疑惑不解，他连忙解释说：“我母亲每周六过来，帮我打扫一下，其余时间我自己收拾。”康妮再度望向他。那双眼睛重新泛起笑意，夹杂着些许嘲弄，但却温暖澄蓝，显得颇为友好亲切。他让她惊讶不已。他身着长裤，配法兰绒衬衫、灰色领带，头发柔软湿润，脸色苍白，仿佛饱经沧桑。笑容褪去时，他的双眸看上去像是曾经历尽苦难，但仍未丧失热情。然而，他苍白的面容透露出孤独的气质，她来这儿并非为了他。

She wanted to say so many things, and she said nothing. Only she looked up at him again, and remarked:"I hope I didn't disturb you?”The faint smile of mockery narrowed his eyes.

她有满腹的话语想要倾诉，但却只字未言。她只是再次抬头看着他，说：“希望没有打搅你。”略带嘲讽的微笑让他眯起眼睛。

"Only combing my hair, if you don't mind. I'm sorry I hadn't a coat on, but then I had no idea who was knocking. Nobody knocks here, and the unexpected sounds ominous.”He went in front of her down the garden path to hold the gate. In his shirt, without the clumsy velveteen coat, she saw again how slender he was, thin, stooping a little. Yet, as she passed him, there was something young and bright in his fair hair, and his quick eyes. He would be a man about thirty-seven or eight.“我刚刚在梳头，请您不要见怪。我还没来得及穿上外套，但我真的不晓得是谁在敲门。从来没人敲过门，乍一听到，敲门声还真让我有些紧张。”他走在前面，将她引领到花园尽头，为她打开门。他只穿着衬衫，没套那件笨重的棉绒外衣，那修长清瘦的身材康妮尽览无疑，而且稍稍有点驼背。然而，从他身边走过时，康妮透过其金黄的发丝、敏锐的双眼，发现洋溢着的青春活力。他大概三十七八岁。

She plodded on into the wood, knowing he was looking after her; he upset her so much, in spite of herself.

她步履沉重地走进树林，清楚他正在背后望向自己，他让她如此意乱情迷，难以自持。

And he, as he went indoors, was thinking: "She's nice, she's real! She's nicer than she knows.”She wondered very much about him; he seemed so unlike a game-keeper, so unlike a working-man anyhow; although he had something in common with the local people. But also something very uncommon.

而他呢，往回走的路上也陷入沉思：“她的确优雅大方，毫不做作！她比自己所知道的还要优秀。”她对他充满好奇，他根本不像是个守林人，怎么样也跟工人阶层扯不上边，虽说跟当地村民有相同之处。但他也有出类拔萃的地方。

"The game-keeper, Mellors, is a curious kind of person," she said to Clifford; "he might almost be a gentleman.""Might he?" said Clifford. "I hadn't noticed.”"But isn't there something special about him?”Connie insisted.“那个守林人，梅勒斯，是个古怪的家伙，”她对克利福德说，“他简直就是位绅士。”“真的吗？”克利福德不以为然，“我没太留意。”“可你不认为他有些与众不同么？”康妮不肯罢休。

"I think he's quite a nice fellow, but I know very little about him. He only came out of the army last year, less than a year ago. From India, I rather think. He may have picked up certain tricks out there, perhaps he was an officer's servant, and improved on his position. Some of the men were like that. But it does them no good, they have to fall back into their old places when they get home again.”Connie gazed at Clifford contemplatively. She saw in him the peculiar tight rebuff against anyone of the lower classes who might be really climbing up, which she knew was characteristic of his breed.“我觉得他确有可取之处，但对他并无太多了解。他去年刚刚退伍，至今还未满一年。没记错的话，他是从印度回来的。他本可闯出点名堂的，好像是哪位高官的勤务兵，后来职位得到擢升。许多军人都有这样的经历。但他们难以从中受益，一旦退伍返乡，就只能各归各位。”康妮两眼盯着克利福德，陷入沉思。她看得出，丈夫对有机会平步青云的下等人极端抵触，也深知这是贵族阶层的通病。

"But don't you think there is something special about him?" she asked.“可是，难道你不觉得他有些异乎寻常吗？”她问。

"Frankly, no! Nothing I had noticed."He looked at her curiously, uneasily, half-suspiciously. And she felt he wasn't telling her the real truth; he wasn't telling himself the real truth, that was it. He disliked any suggestion of a really exceptional human being. People must be more or less at his level, or below it.“说实话，一点也没有！我没注意有什么特别的。”他不解地看着她，显得心意烦乱，将信将疑。她感觉丈夫没有吐露实情，他压根没对自己说实话，这才是根本原因。他讨厌承认有什么人是超凡脱俗的。他只能接受别人与自己难分伯仲，或者仅是瞠乎其后。

Connie felt again the tightness, niggardliness of the men of her generation. They were so tight, so scared of life!

康妮再次体验到这一代男性的鼠肚鸡肠，心胸狭隘。他们的气量如此狭小，对生活如此充满畏惧！

CHAPTER 7

第七章

When Connie went up to her bedroom she did what she had not done for a long time: took off all her clothes, and looked at herself naked in the huge mirror. She did not know what she was looking for, or at, very definitely, yet she moved the lamp till it shone full on her.

康妮上楼回到卧室，做了件许久未曾尝试的事情：脱掉所有衣服，对着大镜子端详起自己的裸体。她不清楚自己到底要寻觅什么，或欣赏什么，只是把灯移到近前，让光线洒满整个身体。

And she thought, as she had thought so often, what a frail, easily hurt, rather pathetic thing a human body is, naked; somehow a little unfinished, incomplete!

她陷入沉思，思考着以往就时常思考的问题，赤裸着的身体多么地脆弱，容易受伤，惹人怜爱，却有着不可言喻的欠缺，实在算不得完美！

She had been supposed to have rather a good figure, but now she was out of fashion: a little too female, not enough like an adolescent boy. She was not very tall, a bit Scottish and short; but she had a certain fluent, down-slipping grace that might have been beauty. Her skin was faintly tawny, her limbs had a certain stillness, her body should have had a full, down-slipping richness; but it lacked something.

她曾被认为拥有曲线玲珑的身材，但现在却有些落伍：女人味太浓，缺少几分少年的飒爽英姿。她个子不高，有几分苏格兰姑娘的娇小气质，但线条优美，凹凸有致，倒也是位俏丽佳人。她的皮肤呈浅褐色，举手投足轻柔舒缓，娇躯本应丰盈性感，但却缺少些什么。

Instead of ripening its firm, down-running curves, her body was flattening and going a little harsh. It was as if it had not had enough sun and warmth; it was a little greyish and sapless.

日渐成熟的身体本应拥有更加挺拔流畅的曲线，但却背道而驰，变得有些扁平僵硬。它似乎缺少足够的阳光和热量，变得暗沉，没有活力。

Disappointed of its real womanhood, it had not succeeded in becoming boyish, and unsubstantial, and transparent; instead it had gone opaque.

虽然这副躯体不满自己妩媚的女人味，但也无法变得像少年那般纤细轻盈，晶莹澄澈，相反却晦浊暗淡。

Her breasts were rather small, and dropping pear-shaped. But they were unripe, a little bitter, without meaning hanging there. And her belly had lost the fresh, round gleam it had had when she was young, in the days of her German boy, who really loved her physically. Then it was young and expectant, with a real look of its own. Now it was going slack, and a little flat, thinner, but with a slack thinness. Her thighs, too, they used to look so quick and glimpsy in their female roundness, somehow they too were going flat, slack, meaningless.

丁香小乳垂落在胸前，如梨子般圆润。但它们尚未成熟，稍带苦涩，索然寡味地悬在那里。而她的腹部也褪去了昔日饱满圆润的光泽，当年的德国情郎曾为她的胴体神魂颠倒。那时，她的腹部细腻柔嫩，饱含着希望，拥有别具一格的美感。现在却变得松垮，略显扁平，失去往日的丰盈，又并不紧实。大腿也不若以往那般浑圆饱满，柔软细嫩，变得暗淡松弛，美感全失。

Her body was going meaningless, going dull and opaque, so much insignificant substance. It made her feel immensely depressed and hopeless. What hope was there? She was old, old at twenty-seven, with no gleam and sparkle in the flesh. Old through neglect and denial, yes, denial. Fashionable women kept their bodies bright like delicate porcelain, by external attention. There was nothing inside the porcelain; but she was not even as bright as that. The mental life! Suddenly she hated it with a rushing fury, the swindle!

她的身体暗沉无光，失去应有的魅力，沦落成毫无活力的物质。这让她陷入苦闷绝望的深渊。希望究竟在何方？她不再青春洋溢，27岁便老态尽显，肉体并无半点光泽与亮度。即使回避和否认，也无法改变衰老的事实，没错，就算矢口否认也无济于事。追求时尚的贵妇们总通过悉心护理，把自己的娇躯保养得明艳照人，堪比娇美的瓷器。虽然瓷器内里空空如也，但她就连这点外表的光鲜都没有。精神生活！霎时间，她对精神生活恨得咬牙切齿，那彻头彻尾的空中楼阁！

She looked in the other mirror's reflection at her back, her waist, her loins. She was getting thinner, but to her it was not becoming. The crumple of her waist at the back, as she bent back to look, was a little weary; and it used to be so gay-looking. And the longish slope of her haunches and her buttocks had lost its gleam and its sense of richness. Gone! Only the German boy had loved it, and he was ten years dead, very nearly. How time went by! Ten years dead, and she was only twenty-seven. The healthy boy with his fresh, clumsy sensuality that she had then been so scornful of! Where would she find it now? It was gone out of men. They had their pathetic, two-seconds spasms like Michaelis; but no healthy human sensuality, that warms the blood and freshens the whole being.

她从另一面镜子中，审视着自己的脊背、腰肢以及臀部。她日渐消瘦，但瘦削的体型却与她格格不入。她扭回身，注意到腰部的折皱，顿觉灰心丧气，以往这腰肢是多么地艳丽动人。而修长的臀部曲线失去曾经的光彩，也不再圆润丰腴。不复存在！只有那位德国小伙曾为之倾倒，而再过不久，就是他十周年的忌辰。时光荏苒！昔日情郎故去已有十载，而她如今也仅有27岁。欢好之时，那健康壮硕的少年总显得青涩稚嫩，笨手笨脚，为此她曾经嗤之以鼻。可现在，去哪里找如此如意的情侣呢？男子汉早已绝迹。只剩下米凯利斯这种挺不过两秒的可怜虫，再也找不着精力旺盛的完整性爱，体验不到让血液沸腾、让身心振奋的美好感觉。

Still she thought the most beautiful part of her was the long-sloping fall of the haunches from the socket of the back, and the slumberous, round stillness of the buttocks. Like hillocks of sand, the Arabs say, soft and downward-slipping with a long slope. Here the life still lingered hoping. But here too she was thinner, and going unripe, astringent.

不过，她仍觉得自己身体最美丽的部分是绵延起伏的臀部曲线，以腰眼处为起点，还有那饱满沉静的臀丘。正如阿拉伯人所说，就像沙堆般柔和舒缓地下降。生命唯一的希望仍存于此处。但就连这里也变得纤瘦，褪去成熟圆顺的美感。

But the front of her body made her miserable. It was already beginning to slacken, with a slack sort of thinness, almost withered, going old before it had ever really lived. She thought of the child she might somehow bear. Was she fit, anyhow? She slipped into her nightdress, and went to bed, where she sobbed bitterly. And in her bitterness burned a cold indignation against Clifford, and his writings and his talk: against all the men of his sort who defrauded a woman even of her own body.

但身体的正面更使她难过不已。它已经开始变得松弛消瘦，近乎枯萎，还未曾体验过生活的美好，就已走向衰老。康妮想到自己或许还要诞下婴孩。这样的她是否还能做个合格的母亲？她穿上睡袍，卧在闺床，痛哭失声。酸楚中燃烧着愤懑的怒火，克利福德，他空洞的作品和伪善的言谈，还有所有跟他沆瀣一气的家伙们，康妮都对之深恶痛绝。那些臭男人只会欺骗女人的感情，甚至不会放过她们的身体。

Unjust! Unjust! The sense of deep physical injustice burned to her very soul.

不公平！这不公平！强烈的愤慨燃透身体，在灵魂深处肆虐。

But in the morning, all the same, she was up at seven, and going downstairs to Clifford. She had to help him in all the intimate things, for he had no man, and refused a woman-servant. The housekeeper's husband, who had known him as a boy, helped him, and did any heavy lifting; but Connie did the personal things, and she did them willingly. It was a demand on her, but she had wanted to do what she could.

可次日清晨，她同样要在七点准时起床，下楼去服侍克利福德。她必须照顾他梳洗更衣这等私事，因为克利福德没有贴身男仆，又拒绝差遣女佣。女管家的丈夫看着他长大，帮他做些搬搬抬抬的力气活，而康妮则负责照料他的一切私务，倒也做得心甘情愿。克利福德需要她这样做，她也愿意尽到妻子的责任。

So she hardly ever went away from Wragby, and never for more than a day or two; when Mrs. Betts, the housekeeper, attended to Clifford. He, as was inevitable in the course of time, took all the service for granted. It was natural he should.

因此，她几乎寸步不离拉格比，即使离开，也最多在外逗留一两天，那时便将克利福德交托给女管家贝茨太太。而他也把妻子的照顾当作是理所应当，时间一久，有这样的想法不可避免。他这样想也是天性使然。

And yet, deep inside herself, a sense of injustice, of being defrauded, had begun to burn in Connie. The physical sense of injustice is a dangerous feeling, once it is awakened. It must have outlet, or it eats away the one in whom it is aroused. Poor Clifford, he was not to blame. His was the greater misfortune. It was all part of the general catastrophe.

但现在，康妮心底燃起怒火，感到被欺骗，而忿忿不平。愤懑的感觉一旦苏醒，就会变得异常危险。必须找到发泄的途径，否则就会被它生生吞噬。可怜的克利福德，这并非他的过错。比起康妮，他更加不幸。这都不过是战争浩劫的余波而已。

And yet was he not in a way to blame? This lack of warmth, this lack of the simple, warm, physical contact, was he not to blame for that? He was never really warm, nor even kind, only thoughtful, considerate, in a well-bred, cold sort of way! But never warm as a man can be warm to a woman, as even Connie's father could be warm to her, with the warmth of a man who did himself well, and intended to, but who still could comfort it woman with a bit of his masculine glow.

可是，他没有半点可指摘的地方么？冷酷无情，缺少简单直接、温暖真诚的身体接触，这些不是他的过错吗？他总是冷若冰霜，态度淡漠，凡事经过深思熟虑，面面俱到，保持着知识分子的那份冷傲！在他身上，找不到男人对异性的如火热情，甚至连康妮自己的父亲都赶不上。其父虽然养尊处优，自私自利，但也会用男性的热烈去安慰异性。

But Clifford was not like that. His whole race was not like that. They were all inwardly hard and separate, and warmth to them was just bad taste. You had to get on without it, and hold your own; which was all very well if you were of the same class and race. Then you could keep yourself cold and be very estimable, and hold your own, and enjoy the satisfaction of holding it. But if you were of another class and another race it wouldn't do; there was no fun merely holding your own, and feeling you belonged to the ruling class. What was the point, when even the smartest aristocrats had really nothing positive of their own to hold, and their rule was really a farce, not rule at all? What was the point? It was all cold nonsense.

但克利福德却并不是这样。他这类人都不屑如此。他们都是铁石心肠，自视清高，对他们而言，热诚待人实在不可取。冷酷无情，自命不凡，若身处同等阶层和出身倒也无可厚非。你完全可以孤芳自赏，以期赢得别人的尊敬，装腔作势，并享受其中的满足感。但如果你属于另一阶层和出身，这些就完全行不通，装腔作势，以统治阶层自居，并不是件有趣的事情。这样做有什么意义呢？今时今日，就连最精明的贵族都失去了可维系的地位，他们的统治不过是荒唐的笑柄，根本支配不了任何人或事。这样做还有什么意义呢？简直可笑无聊至极。

A sense of rebellion smouldered in Connie. What was the good of it all? What was the good of her sacrifice, her devoting her life to Clifford? What was she serving, after all? A cold spirit of vanity, that had no warm human contacts, and that was as corrupt as any low-born Jew, in craving for prostitution to the bitch-goddess, Success.

抵触的情绪在康妮心中酝酿。自己所做的一切有什么意义？她甘愿牺牲，为克利福德奉献生命，可这样做换回的又是什么？她究竟为什么而活？空虚虚伪的灵魂，从不愿以诚待人，跟出身低微的犹太人那般自甘堕落，急不可耐地想要献身给堕落女神，以期功成名就。

Even Clifford's cool and contactless assurance that he belonged to the ruling class didn't prevent his tongue lolling out of his mouth, as he panted after the bitch-goddess. After all, Michaelis was really more dignified in the matter, and far, far more successful. Really, if you looked closely at Clifford, he was a buffoon, and a buffoon is more humiliating than a bounder.

就连克利福德这种自以为是、高高在上，自诩为统治阶级的家伙，都不能免俗，吐着舌头，气喘吁吁地在她身后猛追。其实，在这方面，米凯利斯反倒有尊严得多，所取得的成就也远胜克利福德。说实话，若仔细观察，克利福德不过是跳梁小丑，甚至比泼皮无赖更加恬不知耻。

As between the two men, Michaelis really had far more use for her than Clifford had. He had even more need of her. Any good nurse can attend to crippled legs! And as for the heroic effort, Michaelis was a heroic rat, and Clifford was very much of a poodle showing off.

这两个男人相比较，米凯利斯对她的用处远大于克利福德。而米凯利斯也更需要她。任何优秀的护士都能照顾好瘫痪的病人。论及自强不息的精神，米凯利斯算得过街鼠中的好汉，而克利福德不过是只哗众取宠的卷毛狗。

There were people staying in the house, among them Clifford's Aunt Eva, Lady Bennerley. She was a thin woman of sixty, with a red nose, a widow, and still something of a grande DAME. She belonged to one of the best families, and had the character to carry it off. Connie liked her, she was so perfectly simple and rank, as far as she intended to be frank, and superficially kind. Inside herself she was a past-mistress in holding her own, and holding other people a little lower. She was not at all a snob: far too sure of herself. She was perfect at the social sport of coolly holding her own, and making other people defer to her.

家里最近住了好些客人，其中有伊娃·本奈利夫人，克利福德的姑妈。她六十多岁，丈夫早亡，身材干瘦，酒糟鼻，但仍不失贵妇的派头。她出身名门，举手投足间显出大家风范。康妮对她颇有好感，只要她打算直抒胸臆，就会开诚布公，毫无保留，而且外表更是和蔼可亲。至于装腔作势，抬高自己，她更是行家里手。但她绝非势利小人，只是太过夜郎自大。她深谙社交技巧，总能端足架势，让别人唯自己马首是瞻。

She was kind to Connie, and tried to worm into her woman's soul with the sharp gimlet of her well-born observations.

她对康妮甚是友好，试图用自己锐利如锥的高贵眼光，穿透康妮那颗细腻的女人心。

"You're quite wonderful, in my opinion," she said to Connie. "You've done wonders for Clifford. I never saw any budding genius myself, and there he is, all the rage.”Aunt Eva was quite complacently proud of Clifford's success. Another feather in the family cap! She didn't care a straw about his books, but why should she? "Oh, I don't think it's my doing," said Connie.“我觉得你确实了不起。”她称赞康妮。“你帮克利福德取得惊人的成就。我从未见过如此前程远大的天才作家，而他就是其中之一，如今的确红得发紫。”对于侄儿的成功，伊娃姑妈沾沾自喜，深感骄傲。这可是光宗耀祖的大事！而对于他的作品，她却毫不关心，可她又有什么理由要关心呢？“噢，我认为那并非我的功劳。”康妮说

"It must be! Can't be anybody else's. And it seems to me you don't get enough out of it.”"How?""Look at the way you are shut up here. I said to Clifford: If that child rebels one day you'll have yourself to thank!“当然得归功于你！除你之外，还有谁呢？在我看来，你并没有得到应有的回报。”“此话怎讲？”“终日闭门不出可不行。我跟克利福德说过：要是哪天那孩子造起反来，也全是你自食其果！”

"But Clifford never denies me anything," said Connie.“但克利福德从没阻止我做任何事。”康妮说。

"Look here, my dear child'—and Lady Bennerley laid her thin hand on Connie's arm. "A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it. Believe me!"And she took another sip of brandy, which maybe was her form of repentance.“听我说，好孩子，”本奈利夫人用她瘦削的手抓住康妮的胳膊，“女人得过自己想要的生活，不然，就会悔之晚矣。相信我！”她又呷了一口白兰地，这或许就是她懊悔的方式吧。

"But I do live my life, don't I?”"Not in my idea! Clifford should bring you to London, and let you go about. His sort of friends are all right for him, but what are they for you? If I were you I should think it wasn't good enough. You'll let your youth slip by, and you'll spend your old age, and your middle age too, repenting it.”Her ladyship lapsed into contemplative silence, soothed by the brandy.“可我不正过着自己想要的生活么？”“我可不这么看！克利福德应该带你去伦敦，让你四处走走。他那些朋友和他倒是志趣相投，但对你而言则是另一回事。如果换成我，准会感到不满。这样下去，只会让青春从指缝中溜走，而你将在悔恨中度过自己的后半生。”在白兰地的慰藉下，这位贵妇慢慢陷入沉思，不再做声。

But Connie was not keen on going to London, and being steered into the smart world by Lady Bennerley. She didn't feel really smart, it wasn't interesting. And she did feel the peculiar, withering coldness under it all; like the soil of Labrador, which his gay little flowers on its surface, and a foot down is frozen.

但康妮对去伦敦不太感冒，不想涉足本奈利夫人口中那个五光十色的世界。她跟那个花花世界格格不入，觉得没什么兴趣。她深切地感觉到，那时尚社会的底层存在异乎寻常、足以摧毁一切的酷寒，就像拉布拉多（注：北美洲最大的半岛，位于加拿大东部，哈德逊湾与大西洋及圣劳伦斯湾之间。）冰冻的土壤。地表上生长着欣欣向荣的娇艳花朵，而地表下一英尺的地方则完全被冻结。

Tommy Dukes was at Wragby, and another man, Harry Winterslow, and Jack Strangeways with his wife Olive. The talk was much more desultory than when only the cronies were there, and everybody was a bit bored, for the weather was bad, and there was only billiards, and the pianola to dance to.

汤米·杜克斯也在拉格比，此外还有哈里·温特斯洛，以及杰克·斯特兰韦斯和他的妻子奥利夫。谈话有些漫无边际，不像只是朋友间闲聊那么放得开，大家都觉得有点沉闷，天气也不太好，而可以作为消遣的，除了打台球，就是随着钢琴的伴奏跳跳舞。

Olive was reading a book about the future, when babies would be bred in bottles, and women would be "immunized'.

奥利夫在读一本关于未来世界的书，说到时候婴儿都可以通过试管，进行人工培育，而女人们则可以置身事外。

"Jolly good thing too!" she said. "Then a woman can live her own life."Strangeways wanted children, and she didn't.“真是太棒了！”她感叹道。“这样的话，女人就可以尽情享受生活。”斯特兰韦斯想要孩子，但她却不愿意生。

"How'd you like to be immunized?”Winterslow asked her, with an ugly smile.“你很想置身事外吗？”温特斯洛问道，脸上露出丑陋的微笑。

"I hope I am; naturally," she said. "Anyhow the future's going to have more sense, and a woman needn't be dragged down by her FUNCTIONS.”"Perhaps she'll float off into space altogether," said Dukes.“那当然，我希望如此。”她说。“无论如何，未来世界将更趋于合理，女人也不必再为生理机能所累。”“那她们还不乐得飞上天去呀。”杜克斯说。

"I do think sufficient civilization ought to eliminate a lot of the physical disabilities," said Clifford. "All the love-business for example, it might just as well go. I suppose it would if we could breed babies in bottles.”"No!" cried Olive. "That might leave all the more room for fun.""I suppose," said Lady Bennerley, contemplatively, "if the love-business went, something else would take its place. Morphia, perhaps. A little morphine in all the air. It would be wonderfully refreshing for everybody.”"The government releasing ether into the air on Saturdays, for a cheerful weekend!" said Jack. "Sounds all right, but where should we be by Wednesday?""So long as you can forget your body you are happy," said Lady Bennerley. "And the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So, if civilization is any good, it has to help us to forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it.""Help us to get rid of our bodies altogether," said Winterslow. "It's quite time man began to improve on his own nature, especially the physical side of it.”"Imagine if we floated like tobacco smoke," said Connie.“依我看，随着文明程度的提高，大可以把那些无用的身体机能统统去除。”克利福德说，“比如说性爱，就没有存在的必要。我的意思是，如果孩子可以人工培育，那禁除性爱自然顺理成章。”“不行！”奥利夫大叫起来，“那只是为了留给女人更多的享乐空间。”“在我看来，”本奈利夫人若有所思地说，“如果性爱真的不复存在，总会有别的东西取而代之。说不定会是吗啡。空气中充斥着淡淡的吗啡味道。定能让所有人感到神清气爽，飘飘欲仙。”“每逢周六，政府就在空气中施放乙醚，好让人们过个愉快的周末！”杰克说，“听着倒是个好主意，但到礼拜三，我们又该何去何从呢？”“只要能够忘掉肉体的存在，就可以品尝到快乐。”本奈利夫人说，“若对肉体念念不忘，便会痛苦不堪。如果文明确有好处，那么就帮我们忘却肉体的存在吧，这样一来，时间便会在不知不觉中快乐地逝去。”“干脆帮我们彻底摆脱肉体得了，”温特斯洛说，“人类是时候完善自己的本性了，尤其是肉体的层面。”“试想一下，我们像烟尘般飘来荡去。”康妮憧憬道。

"It won't happen," said Dukes. "Our old show will come flop; our civilization is going to fall. It's going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!”"Oh do! DO be impossible, General!" cried Olive.“根本就不可能发生，”杜克斯说，“我们的老把戏将彻底失败，文明也将土崩瓦解。它将堕入无底深渊，再无重振之日。相信我，横跨在深渊之上的唯一桥梁，就是男人的阳具！”“噢！请别瞎说，将军！”奥利夫叫道。

"I believe our civilization is going to collapse," said Aunt Eva.“我也认为文明将会走向覆灭。”伊娃姑妈说。

"And what will come after it?" asked Clifford.“那之后会发生什么？”克利福德问。

"I haven't the faintest idea, but something, I suppose," said the elderly lady.“我不知道，但在我想来，总会有些了不起的事情发生。”老妇人说。

"Connie says people like wisps of smoke, and Olive says immunized women, and babies in bottles, and Dukes says the phallus is the bridge to what comes next. I wonder what it will really be?" said Clifford.“康妮说人能化作缕缕青烟，奥利夫期盼试管婴儿能够让女人得到解放，而杜克斯则认为阳具是文明免于覆灭的救命稻草。我想知道真相到底会是怎样？”克利福德说。

"Oh, don't bother! Let's get on with today," said Olive. "Only hurry up with the breeding bottle, and let us poor women off.""There might even be real men, in the next phase," said Tommy. "Real, intelligent, wholesome men, and wholesome nice women! Wouldn't that be a change, an enormous change from us? WE'RE not men, and the women aren't women. We're only cerebrating make-shifts, mechanical and intellectual experiments. There may even come a civilization of genuine men and women, instead of our little lot of clever-jacks, all at the intelligence-age of seven. It would be even more amazing than men of smoke or babies in bottles.”"Oh, when people begin to talk about real women, I give up," said Olive.“哎，何必自找麻烦！今朝有酒今朝醉吧。”奥利夫说。“只盼着育婴试管赶紧研制出来，好让我们这些可怜的女人得到解脱。”“或许不久就会出现真正意义的男人，”汤米说，“聪明绝伦、身强体壮的真男人，还有身心健康的好女人！与我们相比，那的确意味着变革，翻天覆地的大变革。我们根本称不上男人，而如今女人也算不得女人。我们充其量只是拥有思维的过渡产品，用以进行体能及智能方面的实验。将来或许会出现高度文明，缔造者是那些名副其实的男男女女，而非我们这群聪明的小丑，智商只与七岁顽童旗鼓相当。不管是烟尘般漂浮的人，或者试管里培育的婴孩，都难与之相提并论。”“唉，每当聊起真女人之类的话题，我总会选择缄默。”奥利夫说。

"Certainly nothing but the spirit in us is worth having," said Winterslow.“毫无疑问，我们所拥有的最宝贵的东西，就是精神。”温特斯洛说。

"Spirits!" said Jack, drinking his whisky and soda.“精神！”杰克说，一边抿着他的威士忌苏打。

"Think so? Give me the resurrection of the body!" said Dukes.“都这样认为吗？我却更渴望肉体的重生！”杜克斯说。

"But it'll come, in time, when we've shoved the cerebral stone away a bit, the money and the rest. Then we'll get a democracy of touch, instead of a democracy of pocket.”Something echoed inside Connie: "Give me the democracy of touch, the resurrection of the body! " She didn't at all know what it meant, but it comforted her, as meaningless things may do.“只要抛开精神上的重负，忘却金钱以及其他桎梏，浴火重生的时刻就会到来。那时，我们将获得官能的解放，而非只是摆脱金钱的束缚。”康妮的心底回荡着这样的话：“让官能得到解放，肉体得以重生！”她根本不明白其中的含义，但这些话却让她感到宽慰，就像许多并无意义的事物都能达到此种效果一样。

Anyhow everything was terribly silly, and she was exasperatedly bored by it all, by Clifford, by Aunt Eva, by Olive and Jack, and Winterslow, and even by Dukes. Talk, talk, talk! What hell it was, the continual rattle of it!

但归根结底，这些夸夸其谈都是极端无聊的，她烦透了这一切，厌倦了克利福德、伊娃姑妈、奥利夫和杰克、还有温特斯洛，甚至连杜克斯都不再可亲。瞎扯，瞎扯，还是瞎扯！这样喋喋不休下去，究竟是为了什么呢！

Then, when all the people went, it was no better. She continued plodding on, but exasperation and irritation had got hold of her lower body, she couldn't escape. The days seemed to grind by, with curious painfulness, yet nothing happened. Only she was getting thinner; even the housekeeper noticed it, and asked her about herself Even Tommy Dukes insisted she was not well, though she said she was all right. Only she began to be afraid of the ghastly white tombstones, that peculiar loathsome whiteness of Carrara marble, detestable as false teeth, which stuck up on the hillside, under Tevershall church, and which she saw with such grim painfulness from the park. The bristling of the hideous false teeth of tombstones on the hill affected her with a grisly kind of horror. She felt the time not far off when she would be buried there, added to the ghastly host under the tombstones and the monuments, in these filthy Midlands.

结果，当人去楼空，康妮的情绪却没有好转。她仍拖着沉重的步履艰难前行，愤懑之情紧紧攫住她的下半身，没有半点摆脱的可能。时间似乎放慢了脚步，生活中充斥着莫名的痛苦，日子就这么平淡无奇地过着。只是康妮日渐消瘦，甚至女管家都注意到这一点，问她是否身体有恙。就连汤米·杜克斯都坚持认为她多半病了，可康妮却说自己没关系。特弗沙尔教堂下方的山坡上，耸立着惨白色的墓碑，卡拉拉（注：意大利托斯卡纳大区一城市，以出产白色及蓝灰色大理石闻名）大理石那奇异的色泽，如同假牙般令人生厌，每当在自家园林中望见这恐怖的景象，康妮总会感到不寒而栗。那些假牙似的阴森墓碑，竖满整个山岗，让康妮体验到毛骨悚然的感觉。她觉得，过不了多久，自己也将被埋葬在那里，在这污秽不堪的中英格兰，长眠在墓石与墓碑之下，与群鬼为伍。

She needed help, and she knew it: so she wrote a little CRI DU COEUR to her sister, Hilda. "I'm not well lately, and I don't know what's the matter with me.”Down posted Hilda from Scotland, where she had taken up her abode. She came in March, alone, driving herself in a nimble two-seater. Up the drive she came, tooting up the incline, then sweeping round the oval of grass, where the two great wild beech-trees stood, on the flat in front of the house.

她需要帮助，她清楚这一点，因此便给姐姐希尔达去信，吐露心声。“最近我感觉不太舒服，至于到底出了什么问题，我自己也不明白。”希尔达匆匆从苏格兰赶来，她早已迁居到那里。希尔达赶到拉格比时，已是初春时节，她独自驾着自己那辆轻巧的双座轿车。她顺着车道驶上山坡，喇叭嘟嘟作响，绕过有两株高大野山毛榉的椭圆形草坪，停在屋前的平地上。

Connie had run out to the steps. Hilda pulled up her car, got out, and kissed her sister.

康妮跑到门外的台阶处迎接姐姐。希尔达停好车，走下来亲吻妹妹。

"But Connie!" she cried. "Whatever is the matter?""Nothing!" said Connie, rather shamefacedly; but she knew how she had suffered in contrast to Hilda. Both sisters had the same rather golden, glowing skin, and soft brown hair, and naturally strong, warm physique. But now Connie was thin and earthy-looking, with a scraggy, yellowish neck, that stuck out of her jumper.“康妮！”她呼喊着妹妹的名字。“到底怎么回事？”“没什么。”康妮说，面有愧色，她知道自己与希尔达相比显得多么憔悴。曾何几时，姐妹俩都拥有健康的肌肤，闪耀着金黄色的光泽，搭配着柔顺的棕色秀发，以及与生俱来的健康热烈的体魄。可如今的康妮却变得消瘦，粗陋不堪，又细又黄的脖子从毛衣领口探出。

"But you're ill, child!" said Hilda, in the soft, rather breathless voice that both sisters had alike. Hilda was nearly, but not quite, two years older than Connie.“可你分明是病了，孩子！”希尔达说，她的嗓音柔和，但也有些气喘吁吁，那是姐妹俩共有的特点。希尔达比康妮大将近两岁。

"No, not ill. Perhaps I'm bored," said Connie a little pathetically.“不，我没病。或许只是闷得慌。”康妮的语气有些哀怨。

The light of battle glowed in Hilda's face; she was a woman, soft and still as she seemed, of the old amazon sort, not made to fit with men.

希尔达的脸庞闪耀着战斗的光芒，虽然身为女子，且温柔娴静，但却拥有亚马逊女战士的气度，从不会对男人屈膝逢迎。

"This wretched place!" she said softly, looking at poor, old, lumbering Wragby with real hate. She looked soft and warm herself, as a ripe pear, and she was an amazon of the real old breed.“这地方真是糟透了！”她轻声说，扫视着凄凉衰败的拉格比，眼中充满厌恶。她看上去温和热情，像熟透的梨子，但骨子里却是位地道的女战士。

She went quietly in to Clifford. He thought how handsome she looked, but also he shrank from her. His wife's family did not have his sort of manners, or his sort of etiquette. He considered them rather outsiders, but once they got inside they made him jump through the hoop.

她面色平静，进门去找克利福德。他心想这女人真是英姿飒爽，可暗地里却惧她三分。他妻子的家人不像他这般讲究规矩和礼节。他将他们视为外人，可每次康妮娘家来人，他也不得不勉为其难，假亲假近。

He sat square and well-groomed in his chair, his hair sleek and blond, and his face fresh, his blue eyes pale, and a little prominent, his expression inscrutable, but well-bred. Hilda thought it sulky and stupid, and he waited. He had an air of aplomb, but Hilda didn't care what he had an air of; she was up in arms, and if he'd been Pope or Emperor it would have been just the same.

他衣装笔挺，在靠椅中端坐，满头金发光洁顺滑，面容清秀，淡蓝色的眸子稍稍外凸，表情难以捉摸，但却显得很有教养。希尔达看不惯妹夫这副德行，觉得那张阴沉着的脸乏味透顶。而克利福德则在等待着。他摆出一副镇定自若的神态，可希尔达并不关心他的神态如何，她已经摆好架势，就算面前的是天王老子，她也不放在眼里。

"Connie's looking awfully unwell," she said in her soft voice, fixing him with her beautiful, glowering grey eyes. She looked so maidenly, so did Connie; but he well knew the tone of Scottish obstinacy underneath.“康妮的样子太糟糕了。”她语调轻柔地说，那对灰色妙目怒气冲冲地瞪着克利福德。她的面容如康妮般羞怯，但他却深知那背后隐藏着的执拗，那是苏格兰人的性格特征之一。

"She's a little thinner," he said.“她是比过去瘦点。”他说。

"Haven't you done anything about it?”"Do you think it necessary?" he asked, with his suavest English stiffness, for the two things often go together.“难道你没采取过什么措施？”“有这个必要吗？”他反问道，彬彬有礼，但却带着英国佬的生硬傲慢，因为此二者通常混在一起。

Hilda only glowered at him without replying; repartee was not her forte, nor Connie's; so she glowered, and he was much more uncomfortable than if she had said things.

希尔达没有回应，只是怒视着他，妙语巧辩并非她所擅长，同样也不是康妮的强项。因此，她只是目光不错地瞪着他，而反倒比作答更令克利福德感觉难堪。

"I'll take her to a doctor," said Hilda at length. "Can you suggest a good one round here?""I'm afraid I can't.”"Then I'll take her to London, where we have a doctor we trust.”Though boiling with rage, Clifford said nothing.“我要带她去看医生。”希尔达最后说。“你能就近推荐位好医生么？”“恐怕我做不到。”“那我就带她去伦敦，那儿有我们信赖的医生。”虽然怒不可遏，但克利福德还是一声没吭。

"I suppose I may as well stay the night," said Hilda, pulling off her gloves, "and I'll drive her to town tomorrow.”Clifford was yellow at the gills with anger, and at evening the whites of his eyes were a little yellow too. He ran to liver. But Hilda was consistently modest and maidenly.“我想我最好在这里过夜，”希尔达边说，边摘掉手套。“明天再开车带她去伦敦。”克利福德气得脸色蜡黄，傍晚时分，连眼白都泛出黄色。他的脸变成猪肝色。但希尔达依然保持着端庄温柔的姿态。

"You must have a nurse or somebody, to look after you personally. You should really have a manservant," said Hilda as they sat, with apparent calmness, at coffee after dinner. She spoke in her soft, seemingly gentle way, but Clifford felt she was hitting him on the head with a bludgeon.“你得雇个护士，或者别的什么人，来照顾你的生活起居。你早就应该找个男仆。”希尔达说。吃过晚饭，大家围坐在一起，看似心平气和地品着咖啡。她的语气轻柔，如同和风细雨，而在克利福德听来，却好似当头棒喝。

"You think so?" he said coldly.“是么？”他冷冷地说。

"I'm sure! It's necessary. Either that, or Father and I must take Connie away for some months. This can't go on.”"What can't go on?”"Haven't you looked at the child!" asked Hilda, gazing at him full stare. He looked rather like a huge, boiled crayfish at the moment; or so she thought.“那当然！必须这么做。要么你答应雇人，不然父亲和我得把康妮接走几个月。这种情况不可以再继续下去。”“哪种情况不能再继续下去？”“难道你没看到康妮憔悴的样子吗？”希尔达质问道，圆睁二目，死死盯着克利福德。怒火中烧的他此时活像只煮熟的大个龙虾，至少她这么认为。

"Connie and I will discuss it," he said.“我会和康妮商量此事。”他说。

"I've already discussed it with her," said Hilda.“我已经和她商量过了。”希尔达寸步不让。

Clifford had been long enough in the hands of nurses; he hated them, because they left him no real privacy. And a manservant!...he couldn't stand a man hanging round him. Almost better any woman. But why not Connie? The two sisters drove off in the morning, Connie looking rather like an Easter lamb, rather small beside Hilda, who held the wheel. Sir Malcolm was away, but the Kensington house was open.

克利福德曾长年接受护士的照料，他对她们并无好感，因为有她们存在，自己便不得清静。至于男仆！……他无法忍受一个男人不离自己左右。但凡是女人就比男仆强。可为什么就不能由康妮来照看自己呢？次日清晨，姐妹俩乘车离开拉格比，康妮活像只复活节羔羊，坐在开车的希尔达旁边，显得又瘦又小。马尔科姆爵士此刻没在伦敦，但肯辛顿的房子却可供他们落脚。

The doctor examined Connie carefully, and asked her all about her life. "I see your photograph, and Sir Clifford's, in the illustrated papers sometimes. Almost notorieties, aren't you? That's how the quiet little girls grow up, though you're only a quiet little girl even now, in spite of the illustrated papers. No, no! There's nothing organically wrong, but it won't do! It won't do! Tell Sir Clifford he's got to bring you to town, or take you abroad, and amuse you. You've got to be amused, got to! Your vitality is much too low; no reserves, no reserves. The nerves of the heart a bit queer already: oh, yes! Nothing but nerves; I'd put you right in a month at Cannes or Biarritz. But it mustn' go on, MUST'T, I tell you, or I won't be answerable for consequences. You're spending your life without renewing it. You've got to be amused, properly, healthily amused. You're spending your vitality without making any. Can't go on, you know. Depression! Avoid depression!”Hilda set her jaw, and that meant something.

医生仔细为康妮做完检查，又询问了她日常生活的情况。“我在图片新闻报上见过几次你的照片，还有克利福德爵士的。倒也算是名声在外，没错吧？昔日文静的小姑娘就这样长成大人，现在虽说你上过几回报纸，但还是个羞涩的小女孩。别担心，别担心！身体器官都很健康，但不能这样继续下去！不能这样浑噩下去！告诉克利福德爵士，让他带你到伦敦来，或者去国外，放松一下心情。你必须要快活起来，必须！你的精力几近衰竭，又缺乏足够的储备。心脏的神经状况有些异常，哦，没错！只是精神方面的问题，去戛纳（注：法国东南部港口城市，度假胜地）或者比亚里茨（注：法国西南部旅游胜地）玩上一个月，保证可以恢复如常。但千万不能再这样生活下去，必须牢记我的话，否则后果将不堪设想。你一味消耗着自己的生命，让它无法恢复元气。你必须找点乐子，找到适合自己、同时有益健康的消遣方式。你的活力几乎耗尽，但却从不补充。决不能再继续下去，你得清楚。意志消沉！不要消沉下去！”希尔达咬碎银牙，难掩心中的愤怒。

Michaelis heard they were in town, and came running with roses. "Why, whatever's wrong?" he cried. "You're a shadow of yourself. Why, I never saw such a change! Why ever didn't you let me know? Come to Nice with me! Come down to Sicily! Go on, come to Sicily with me. It's lovely there just now. You want sun! You want life! Why, you're wasting away! Come away with me! Come to Africa! Oh, hang Sir Clifford! Chuck him, and come along with me. I'll marry you the minute he divorces you. Come along and try a life! God's love! That place Wragby would kill anybody. Beastly place! Foul place! Kill anybody! Come away with me into the sun! It's the sun you want, of course, and a bit of normal life.”But Connie's heart simply stood still at the thought of abandoning Clifford there and then. She couldn't do it. No...no! She just couldn't. She had to go back to Wragby.

米凯利斯听说他们到了伦敦，忙不迭地捧着玫瑰赶来。“怎么会这样？到底哪里不舒服？”他嚷道。“你简直瘦得脱了相。天呢，简直换了一个人！为什么瞒着我？跟我去尼斯吧！跟我去西西里！现在就起程，跟我去西西里！眼下那儿正是风光明媚。你需要阳光！需要真正的生活！噢，你已经虚弱成这副模样！跟我走吧！去非洲！啊，该死的克利福德！甩了他，跟我走。你俩一离婚，我立刻就娶你。来尝试全新的生活吧！上帝啊！拉格比那种鬼地方，任谁都会被闷死。丑陋的地方！肮脏的地方！谁都会被闷死的！跟我走，去享受阳光！你需要阳光的照耀，需要过点正常的生活。”但想到就此弃克利福德于不顾，康妮于心不忍。她没办法那样绝情。不行……不可以！她就是做不到。她得回拉格比去。

Michaelis was disgusted. Hilda didn't like Michaelis, but she ALMOST preferred him to Clifford. Back went the sisters to the Midlands.

米凯利斯心浮气躁。希尔达讨厌米凯利斯，但还是觉得他要比克利福德强些。姐妹俩启程返回中英格兰。

Hilda talked to Clifford, who still had yellow eyeballs when they got back. He, too, in his way, was overwrought; but he had to listen to all Hilda said, to all the doctor had said, not what Michaelis had said, of course, and he sat mum through the ultimatum.

两人回到格拉比，希尔达随即找克利福德摊牌，而他的眼睛依然呈现出病态的黄色。他同样有些心力交瘁，但又必须认真聆听希尔达的话，了解医生的嘱托，米凯利斯的胡言乱语自然没有被转达。他呆若木鸡地坐在那儿，听着希尔达的最后通牒。

"Here is the address of a good manservant, who was with an invalid patient of the doctor's till he died last month. He is really a good man, and fairly sure to come.”"But I'm NOT an invalid, and I will NOT have a manservant," said Clifford, poor devil.“按这个地址，可以找到一个得力的男仆，他常年伺候那位医生的病人，直到上个月那患者与世长辞。他的确非常优秀，而且肯定愿意来拉格比。”“可我没有病，也不需要什么男仆。”可怜鬼克利福德强辩道。

"And here are the addresses of two women; I saw one of them, she would do very well; a woman of about fifty, quiet, strong, kind, and in her way cultured..."Clifford only sulked, and would not answer.“这分别是两位女仆的地址，我曾见过其中一位，她能很好地胜任这份工作，大概50岁上下，性格沉稳，身体健壮，待人和气，也算是有修养……”克利福德只是沉着脸，不愿答话。

"Very well, Clifford. If we don't settle something by to-morrow, I shall telegraph to Father, and we shall take Connie away.”"Will Connie go?" asked Clifford.“好吧，克利福德。如果明天依然无法有个定论，我就给父亲发电报，我们会把康妮接走。”“康妮会离我而去吗？”克利福德问。

"She doesn't want to, but she knows she must. Mother died of cancer, brought on by fretting. We're not running any risks.”So next day Clifford suggested Mrs. Bolton, Tevershall parish nurse. Apparently Mrs. Betts had thought of her. Mrs. Bolton was just retiring from her parish duties to take up private nursing jobs. Clifford had a queer dread of delivering himself into the hands of a stranger, but this Mrs. Bolton had once nursed him through scarlet fever, and he knew her.“她不愿意离开，但也清楚必须这样做。我们的母亲死于癌症，这病因焦虑而起。我们不能再掉以轻心。”于是，第二天，克利福德提议雇用博尔顿太太，特弗沙尔教区的护士。显然是女管家贝茨太太想起了她。博尔顿太太正要从教区的职位上退下来，打算从事私人护理的工作。克利福德有种怪癖，害怕把自己交给陌生人照料，但博尔顿太太曾在他生猩红热期间伺候过他，所以也算是旧相识。

The two sisters at once called on Mrs. Bolton, in a newish house in a row, quite select for Tevershall. They found a rather good-looking woman of forty-odd, in a nurse's uniform, with a white collar and apron, just making herself tea in a small crowded sitting-room.

两姐妹立即登门拜访博尔顿太太，她的寓所崭新，位于特弗沙尔村较为整饬的街道上。她们见到的是位40多岁、面容姣好的中年女子，穿着护士制服，衣领和围裙均为白色，正忙着在局促的起居室里煮茶。

Mrs. Bolton was most attentive and polite, seemed quite nice, spoke with a bit of a broad slur, but in heavily correct English, and from having bossed the sick colliers for a good many years, had a very good opinion of herself, and a fair amount of assurance. In short, in her tiny way, one of the governing class in the village, very much respected.

博尔顿太太态度殷勤，礼数周全，看上去人也颇为正派，说话有些含混不清，但操一口纯正的英语。由于长年负责照看伤病的矿工，她自视甚高，信心满满。总而言之，在特弗沙尔这个弹丸之地，她属于管理阶层，很受村民尊重。

"Yes, Lady Chatterley's not looking at all well! Why, she used to be that bonny, didn't she now? But she's been failing all winter! Oh, it's hard, it is. Poor Sir Clifford! Eh, that war, it's a lot to answer for.”And Mrs. Bolton would come to Wragby at once, if Dr Shardlow would let her off. She had another fortnight's parish nursing to do, by rights, but they might get a substitute, you know.“是啊，查泰莱夫人脸色太难看了！哎呀，她过去多么健康美丽啊，不是吗？可一个冬天就瘦成这副模样！噢，日子如此难熬。可怜的克利福德爵士！唉，战争，都是战争惹的祸。”博尔顿太太愿意立刻赶往；拉格比，前提是沙德洛医生同意她辞职。按理说，她两周后才能退休，但他们或许可以找到替代人选。

Hilda posted off to Dr Shardlow, and on the following Sunday Mrs. Bolton drove up in Leiver's cab to Wragby with two trunks. Hilda had talks with her; Mrs. Bolton was ready at any moment to talk. And she seemed so young! The way the passion would flush in her rather pale cheek. She was forty-seven.

希尔达马不停蹄，找到沙德洛医生谈妥此事。下个星期日，博尔顿太太便带着两只行李箱，乘马车来到拉格比。希尔达跟她聊了会儿，博尔顿太太倒也非常健谈。而且她也显得很年轻。激动时，苍白的面颊便会泛起红潮。她今年47岁。

Her husband, Ted Bolton, had been killed in the pit, twenty-two years ago, twenty-two years last Christmas, just at Christmas time, leaving her with two children, one a baby in arms. Oh, the baby was married now, Edith, to a young man in Boots Cash Chemists in Sheffield. The other one was a schoolteacher in Chesterfield; she came home weekends, when she wasn't asked out somewhere. Young folks enjoyed themselves nowadays, not like when she, Ivy Bolton, was young.

其夫泰德·博尔顿22年前死于矿难，那时正值圣诞节，撇下她和两个孩子，年幼的还未脱襁褓。噢，昔日的婴孩如今已经嫁做人妇，她名叫伊迪斯，丈夫在谢菲尔德市布茨凯什药剂公司任职。长女在切斯特菲尔德任教，每逢周末，只要没有约会，都会回家探望母亲。如今的年轻人都懂得享受生活，不像她艾薇·博尔顿年轻时那般安分守己。

Ted Bolton was twenty-eight when lie was killed in an explosion down th' pit. The butty in front shouted to them all to lie down quick, there were four of them. And they all lay down in time, only Ted, and it killed him. Then at the inquiry, on the masters' side they said Ted had been frightened, and trying to run away, and not obeying orders, so it was like his fault really. So the compensation was only three hundred pounds, and they made out as if it was more of a gift than legal compensation, because it was really the man's own fault. And they wouldn't let her have the money down; she wanted to have a little shop. But they said she'd no doubt squander it, perhaps in drink! So she had to draw it thirty shillings a week. Yes, she had to go every Monday morning down to the offices, and stand there a couple of hours waiting her turn; yes, for almost four years she went every Monday. And what could she do with two little children on her hands? But Ted's mother was very good to her. When the baby could toddle she'd keep both the children for the day, while she, Ivy Bolton, went to Sheffield, and attended classes in ambulance, and then the fourth year she even took a nursing course and got qualified. She was determined to be independent and keep her children. So she was assistant at Uthwaite hospital, just a little place, for a while. But when the Company, the Tevershall Colliery Company, really Sir Geoffrey, saw that she could get on by herself, they were very good to her, gave her the parish nursing, and stood by her, she would say that for them. And she'd done it ever since, till now it was getting a bit much for her; she needed something a bit lighter, there was such a lot of traipsing around if you were a district nurse.

泰德·博尔顿因矿井爆炸殒命时，年仅28岁。走在前面的工头高喊快点卧倒，当时他们一行四人。大家都及时趴在地上，只有泰德除外，他就这样丢了性命。调查事故起因时，矿主们声称泰德因为惊慌失措，试图逃跑，而且违背命令，所以过失主要在他。因此，赔偿金只有可怜的300镑，而且矿方还认为这是法外施恩，因为过失全在个人。而且，他们还不肯一次把钱付清，她起初想用这笔钱开个小店。可矿主们说若一次付清，她准会将其挥霍干净，天天买醉也说不定。所以她只好每周去领30先令。没错，每周一早晨她都得去趟办公室，站在那儿等上一两个钟头；是的，整整四年时间，她几乎风雨不误。可有两个孩子嗷嗷待哺，她又能怎么做呢？幸而泰德的母亲对她很好。从伊迪斯蹒跚开始学步，她就接过白天照看姐妹俩的责任，而她，艾薇·博尔顿，则去谢菲尔德参加了战地医院培训班，学到第四年，她甚至修习了护理课程，并顺利拿到文凭。她决定自食其力，把两个孩子拉扯成人。于是，她便在乌斯维特医院谋得助理的职位，在那个小地方工作了一段时间。后来公司，特弗沙尔煤矿公司，说白了就是老板杰弗里爵士，看到她如此自强自立，为照顾孤儿寡母，给了她担任教区护士的机会，还处处关照她，博尔顿太太将过往种种原原本本地告诉康妮姐俩。从那时起，她就一直在教区工作，直到感觉有些力不从心，她打算做点稍微轻松的差事，担当教区护士需要四处奔波、忙个不停。

"Yes, the Company's been very good to me, I always say it. But I should never forget what they said about Ted, for he was as steady and fearless a chap as ever set foot on the cage, and it was as good as branding him a coward. But there, he was dead, and could say nothing to none of "em."It was a queer mixture of feelings the woman showed as she talked. She liked the colliers, whom she had nursed for so long; but she felt very superior to them. She felt almost upper class; and at the same time a resentment against the ruling class smouldered in her. The masters! In a dispute between masters and men, she was always for the men. But when there was no question of contest, she was pining to be superior, to be one of the upper class. The upper classes fascinated her, appealing to her peculiar English passion for superiority. She was thrilled to come to Wragby; thrilled to talk to Lady Chatterley, my word, different from the common colliers' wives! She said so in so many words. Yet one could see a grudge against the Chatterleys peep out in her; the grudge against the masters.“没错，公司待我不薄，我总是把这挂在嘴边。但我无法忘记他们对泰德的评价，因为他是个勇敢坚定的好矿工，但却无端地被打上胆小鬼的烙印。可现在，他已身故多年，再也没有申辩的机会。”这女人的言谈话语中，有多种情感奇异地交错着。对自己多年来护理过的矿工，她饱含深情，但又自觉比他们优越许多。她几乎认为自己是个上等人，同时在心底又涌动着对统治阶级的切齿仇恨。作威作福的家伙们！当矿主与工人发生冲突，她总是向工友们伸出援手。但当两方相安无事，她又羡慕那高高在上的优越感，渴望成为上层阶级的一份子。上层阶级的身份让她日思夜想，激起了她对优越感的极度渴望，那是英国人特有的性格特征。来到拉格比，让她兴奋不已，能和查泰莱夫人交谈，更使她激动万分，哎呀，普通矿工家的婆娘哪能跟她相提并论！她滔滔不绝地表达着自己的仰慕之情。但她的言行举止，还是透露出对查泰莱家族的忌恨，对上层阶级的仇视。

"Why, yes, of course, it would wear Lady Chatterley out! It's a mercy she had a sister to come and help her. Men don't think, high and low-alike, they take what a woman does for them for granted. Oh, I've told the colliers off about it many a time. But it's very hard for Sir Clifford, you know, crippled like that. They were always a haughty family, standoffish in a way, as they've a right to be. But then to be brought down like that! And it's very hard on Lady Chatterley, perhaps harder on her. What she misses! I only had Ted three years, but my word, while I had him I had a husband I could never forget. He was one in a thousand, and jolly as the day. Who'd ever have thought he'd get killed? I don't believe it to this day somehow, I've never believed it, though I washed him with my own hands. But he was never dead for me, he never was. I never took it in.”This was a new voice in Wragby, very new for Connie to hear; it roused a new ear in her.“哎，没错，这样肯定会把查泰莱夫人累垮的！幸好她有姐姐过来帮忙。男人们从不会考虑这些，无论身份高低，他们将女人所做的一切都当作天经地义。噢，这些话我不知道跟矿工们说过多少回。但克利福德爵士也确实够难的，他毕竟身有残疾。查泰莱家族历来趾高气昂，对人爱搭不理，因为人家确实有资格这么做。但不想后来遭此重创！查泰莱夫人也真不容易，或许肩头的压力更重。她失去的太多了！我和泰德只做了三年夫妻，可说实话，拥有他，我便拥有一个永生难忘的伴侣。他是千里挑一的好丈夫，总是那样乐观快活。谁能想到他突然就命丧黄泉？直到今天，我依然无法相信这是真的，我无法接受这一事实，虽然入殓前是我亲手帮他擦洗。但在我心里，他未曾死去，他还活得好好的。我难以接受这一噩耗。”拉格比终于迎来新声音，康妮倍感新鲜，也饶有兴趣地听她倾诉衷肠。

For the first week or so, Mrs. Bolton, however, was very quiet at Wragby, her assured, bossy manner left her, and she was nervous. With Clifford she was shy, almost frightened, and silent. He liked that, and soon recovered his self-possession, letting her do things for him without even noticing her.

可是，来到拉格比仅仅一周多时间，博尔顿太太就变得沉默寡言，她那满满的自信消失不见，颐指气使的神气劲也无踪无影，相反却变得紧张兮兮。在克利福德面前，她显得羞怯，甚至是恐惧，大气都不敢出。他巴不得她这样，很快就恢复了以往的泰然自若，任她忙东忙西，而置若罔闻。

"She's a useful nonentity!" he said. Connie opened her eyes in wonder, but she did not contradict him. So different are impressions on two different people!“她是个有用的透明人！”他评价道。康妮惊得瞪大眼睛，但她没有反驳。不同的头脑产生的印象截然相异。

And he soon became rather superb, somewhat lordly with the nurse. She had rather expected it, and he played up without knowing. So susceptible we are to what is expected of us! The colliers had been so like children, talking to her, and telling her what hurt them, while she bandaged them, or nursed them. They had always made her feel so grand, almost super-human in her administrations. Now Clifford made her feel small, and like a servant, and she accepted it without a word, adjusting herself to the upper classes.

不久，他变得趾高气昂，对女佣表现出骄横跋扈的态度。这早在康妮的意料之中，他恢复贵族老爷的派头，自己却全然不知。他人的期待总会对我们产生极大的影响！过去她为受伤的矿工包扎，照料他们，而矿工们也温顺得像是孩子，跟她倾谈，吐露自己心中的伤痛。这让她觉得自己从事护理工作时，是如此的不可或缺，超凡脱俗。而现在，克利福德使她感觉自己如此微不足道，跟下人没什么两样，她只能默默接受这一切，调整自己的心态，努力迎合上层阶级。

She came very mute, with her long, handsome face, and downcast eyes, to administer to him. And she said very humbly: "Shall I do this now, Sir Clifford? Shall I do that?""No, leave it for a time. I'll have it done later.”"Very well, Sir Clifford.""Come in again in half an hour.""Very well, Sir Clifford.""And just take those old papers out, will you?""Very well, Sir Clifford."She went softly, and in half an hour she came softly again. She was bullied, but she didn't mind. She was experiencing the upper classes. She neither resented nor disliked Clifford; he was just part of a phenomenon, the phenomenon of the high-class folks, so far unknown to her, but now to be known. She felt more at home with Lady Chatterley, and after all it's the mistress of the house matters most.

服侍克利福德的时候，她总是噤若寒蝉，一张端庄秀丽的瓜子脸，双目低垂。她唯唯诺诺地说：“我现在该做这个吗，克利福德爵士？”那个呢？”“不用，过会再说。需要的时候我会吩咐你。”“遵命，克利福德爵士。”“过半小时再来吧。”“遵命，克利福德爵士。”“把这些旧报纸捎走吧。”“遵命，克利福德爵士。”她轻手轻脚地退出去，半小时后，又悄无声息地回来。她被呼来喝去，但却毫不介意。她在体验统治阶级高高在上的感觉。她并不怨恨克利福德，对他也不反感，他只代表着某种现象，代表着与众不同的上层阶级。她对这个阶级尚不了解，而现在正开始慢慢熟悉。在查泰莱夫人面前，她要放松许多，毕竟这座府邸是女主人当家。

Mrs. Bolton helped Clifford to bed at night, and slept across the passage from his room, and came if he rang for her in the night. She also helped him in the morning, and soon valeted him completely, even shaving him, in her soft, tentative woman's way. She was very good and competent, and she soon knew how to have him in her power. He wasn't so very different from the colliers after all, when you lathered his chin, and softly rubbed the bristles. The stand-offishness and the lack of frankness didn't bother her; she was having a new experience.

博尔顿太太每晚都要伺候克利福德就寝，自己则睡在走廊对面的房间，如果他夜里按铃，她就得随叫随到。早上她还要服侍他起床，并很快接管男主人所有的饮食起居，甚至还要替他刮脸，以女性特有的方式，柔情款款，小心翼翼地照料着他。她称职又能干，很快就知道如何掌控克利福德。当你在他下颚涂满肥皂泡，轻轻地摩挲着胡茬，这位爵爷倒也跟低贱的矿工没什么不同。他冷漠而不坦诚的性格，并未让她感到难堪，反倒觉得是在体会新的经验。

Clifford, however, inside himself, never quite forgave Connie for giving up her personal care of him to a strange hired woman. It killed, he said to himself, the real flower of the intimacy between him and her. But Connie didn't mind that. The fine flower of their intimacy was to her rather like an orchid, a bulb stuck parasitic on her tree of life, and producing, to her eyes, a rather shabby flower.

然而，在克利福德心里，始终无法原谅康妮，认为妻子把自己的分内之事推给陌生的女佣。他对自己说，这种行为活活将夫妻之间的亲密之花扼杀。但康妮并不在乎他的感受。对她而言，这朵优雅的亲密之花更像是兰花，球茎寄生在她的生命之树上，在她眼里，结出一支破烂不堪的花朵。

Now she had more time to herself she could softly play the piano, up in her room, and sing: "Touch not the nettle, for the bonds of love are ill to loose." She had not realized till lately how ill to loose they were, these bonds of love. But thank Heaven she had loosened them! She was so glad to be alone, not always to have to talk to him. When he was alone he tapped-tapped-tapped on a typewriter, to infinity. But when he was not "working", and she was there, he talked, always talked; infinite small analysis of people and motives, and results, characters and personalities, till now she had had enough. For years she had loved it, until she had enough, and then suddenly it was too much. She was thankful to be alone.

如今，她拥有更多独处的时间，可以端坐在楼上的起居室里，优雅地弹奏起钢琴，高唱着：“路边荨麻莫采撷，爱的纠葛总难解。”直到现在，她才晓得这纠葛，这爱情的纠葛，是何等难解。但谢天谢地，她终于从束缚中摆脱出来！她很享受这种形影相吊的时光，再也不必总和克利福德瞎扯。女仆不在身边的时候，他就咔嗒咔嗒地轻敲着打字机，片刻也不停歇。但当他处于闲暇状态，碰巧她又在身边，他又会口若悬河，滔滔不绝，没完没了地细致分析着人物形象和作品主题，故事结局和人物性格，而现在她已经烦透了这些。多年以来，她始终很享受这种倾谈，而如今，她已经厌倦了这一切，突然无法再容忍下去了。能清清静静的，真是谢天谢地。

It was as if thousands and thousands of little roots and threads of consciousness in him and her had grown together into a tangled mass, till they could crowd no more, and the plant was dying. Now quietly, subtly, she was unravelling the tangle of his consciousness and hers, breaking the threads gently, one by one, with patience and impatience to get clear. But the bonds of such love are more ill to loose even than most bonds; though Mrs. Bolton's coming had been a great help.

仿佛两人的心灵深处有成千上万的根须和细丝相互连结，缠绕成纷乱繁复的一团，直至再也无法孽生，生命之树奄奄一息。现在，她得以解开两人心灵间纠结的乱麻，从容不迫，慢条斯理，轻柔地将细丝一根根扯断，时而耐心，时而急躁，让自己从束缚中摆脱出来。但畸爱的束缚往往最难解开，而博尔顿太太的到来帮了大忙。

But he still wanted the old intimate evenings of talk with Connie: talk or reading aloud. But now she could arrange that Mrs. Bolton should come at ten to disturb them. At ten o'clock Connie could go upstairs and be alone. Clifford was in good hands with Mrs. Bolton.

但克利福德仍需要保留与康妮倾谈的亲密夜晚，谈天说地，或是高声朗读。但现在，她会安排博尔顿太太十点进房来打断他们。这样，十点一到，康妮就可以自己上楼去，享受独处的时光。博尔顿太太会悉心照顾好克利福德。

Mrs. Bolton ate with Mrs. Betts in the housekeeper's room, since they were all agreeable. And it was curious how much closer the servants'quarters seemed to have come; right up to the doors of Clifford's study, when before they were so remote. For Mrs. Betts would sometimes sit in Mrs. Bolton's room, and Connie heard their lowered voices, and felt somehow the strong, other vibration of the working people almost invading the sitting-room, when she and Clifford were alone. So changed was Wragby merely by Mrs. Bolton's coming.

博尔顿太太和贝茨太太在管家的房间里共同用餐，因为两人相处得十分融洽。佣人房似乎变得那么近，好像就在克利福德书房门口，而以前却遥不可及，这种感觉真是妙不可言。原因是贝茨太太会时常来博尔顿太太坐坐，康妮则会听到她们在窃窃私语，不知怎的，当与克利福德独处时，她觉得劳动者的嗓音正强有力地震颤着，几乎已经将起居室占据。仅仅是博尔顿太太的到来，就让拉格比发生了天翻地覆的变化。

And Connie felt herself released, in another world, she felt she breathed differently. But still she was afraid of how many of her roots, perhaps mortal ones, were tangled with Clifford's. Yet still, she breathed freer, a new phase was going to begin in her life.

康妮感觉自己已经得到解脱，置身于崭新的世界，就连呼吸都远比以往畅快。但她心里仍在担忧，自己的根结，或许是最至关重要的根结，还有多少依然跟克利福德的紧紧相连。不过，她总算得以更自由地呼吸，其生命全新的阶段也即将展开。

CHAPTER 8

第八章

Mrs. Bolton also kept a cherishing eye on Connie, feeling she must extend to her her female and professional protection. She was always urging her ladyship to walk out, to drive to Uthwaite, to be in the air. For Connie had got into the habit of sitting still by the fire, pretending to read; or to sew feebly, and hardly going out at all.

博尔顿太太对康妮同样关爱有加，她觉得有必要让女主人也体验到自己细致入微的职业看护。她常劝夫人外出散步，驾车去乌斯维特逛逛，呼吸新鲜的空气。因为康妮已经习惯每天呆坐在壁炉旁，装作在读书，又或是慵懒地做着针线活，几乎足不出户。

It was a blowy day soon after Hilda had gone, that Mrs. Bolton said: "Now why don't you go for a walk through the wood, and look at the daffs behind the keeper's cottage? They're the prettiest sight you'd see in a day's march. And you could put some in your room; wild daffs are always so cheerful-looking, aren't they?”Connie took it in good part, even daffs for daffodils. Wild daffodils! After all, one could not stew in one's own juice. The spring came back…"Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn.”And the keeper, his thin, white body, like a lonely pistil of an invisible flower! She had forgotten him in her unspeakable depression. But now something roused…"Pale beyond porch and portal"...the thing to do was to pass the porches and the portals.

那是个有风的日子，希尔达刚刚告辞返家，博尔顿太太提议说：“您干嘛不去树林走走呢，到守林人农舍去，欣赏屋后的水仙？信步闲游后，便能将那最美丽的景色尽收眼底。您还可以采几朵，用来点缀房间，野水仙总能令人心旷神怡，不是吗？”康妮欣然接受了博尔顿太太的建议，甚至对她提及水仙花时使用省略语都没有介意。娇艳的野水仙！总不能自己折磨自己。春天已经回归……“季节轮转，但那愉快的日子，甜蜜的晨昏，却不再回来。”（注：引自英国诗人弥尔顿的长篇史诗《失乐园》）而那守林人，他那白皙修长的身体，像寂寥的花蕊，生在不起眼的小花上。在那些极为消沉的日子里，她甚至已经将他遗忘。而此刻，某种情感被悄然唤醒……“苍白，在走廊及大门之外”（注：出自英国诗人斯温伯恩的《珀尔塞福涅的花园》）……所要做的只是穿过走廊，迈出门去。

She was stronger, she could walk better, and in the wood the wind would not be so tiring as it was across the bark, flatten against her. She wanted to forget, to forget the world, and all the dreadful, carrion-bodied people. "Ye must be born again! I believe in the resurrection of the body! Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it shall by no means bring forth. When the crocus cometh forth I too will emerge and see the sun!"In the wind of March endless phrases swept through her consciousness. Little gusts of sunshine blew, strangely bright, and lit up the celandines at the wood's edge, under the hazel-rods, they spangled out bright and yellow. And the wood was still, stiller, but yet gusty with crossing sun. The first windflowers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor. "The world has grown pale with thy breath."But it was the breath of Persephone, this time; she was out of hell on a cold morning. Cold breaths of wind came, and overhead there was an anger of entangled wind caught among the twigs. It, too, was caught and trying to tear itself free, the wind, like Absalom. How cold the anemones looked, bobbing their naked white shoulders over crinoline skirts of green. But they stood it. A few first bleached little primroses too, by the path, and yellow buds unfolding themselves.

她较以往结实许多，走起路来也更加有力，树林里的风比吹过花园时轻柔许多，不再那样咄咄逼人。她想忘却，忘却整个世界，忘却那些行尸走肉般丑恶嘴脸。“你必须重生（注：引自《新约·约翰福音》）！我深信肉体的复活！一粒麦子不落在地里死了，仍旧是一粒，若是死了，就结出许多子粒来。（注：引自《新约·约翰福音》）当报春花怒放之际，我也将再度复苏，仰望光芒万丈的太阳！”沐浴着三月的春风，无穷无尽的辞藻在她的脑海中涌现。缕缕阳光在树影间跳跃，奇异的光线照亮树林边缘的白屈菜，它们躺在榛树下，闪烁着灼灼的黄光。树林依然寂静，甚至更为寂静，只是偶尔射进来几束阳光。赶早的银莲花已经绽放，星星点点地散满颤巍巍的地面，整个树林似乎都被它们染成苍白色。“在你的气息中，世界已然苍白。”（注：引自斯温伯恩的《珀尔塞福涅赞歌》）但那是珀尔塞福涅（注：希腊神话中冥王哈德斯的妻子）的呼吸，在这清冷的早晨，她从地狱来到人间。阵阵冷风呼啸而来，在头顶上被枝桠纠缠住，而发出怒号。它也和押沙龙（注：《圣经》中犹太王大卫的第三子，因反叛其父，最终被杀）一样，被树枝困住，奋力想要挣脱出来。白莲花身着翠绿色衬裙，坦露着雪白的肩膀，冷得瑟瑟发抖。但它们却能抵挡住严寒的侵袭。还有那路边初放的樱草花，稍稍泛白，黄色的蓓蕾开始绽放。

The roaring and swaying was overhead, only cold currents came down below. Connie was strangely excited in the wood, and the colour flew in her cheeks, and burned blue in her eyes. She walked ploddingly, picking a few primroses and the first violets, that smelled sweet and cold, sweet and cold. And she drifted on without knowing where she was.

风在头顶盘旋怒号，阵阵凉气向下袭来。康妮漫步林间，心情莫名激动，两颊泛红，双目闪着蓝光。她放慢脚步，采摘樱草花以及乍放的紫罗兰，花朵嗅起来芳香扑鼻，但又寒意逼人。她漫无目的地走着，全然不知自己身在何处。

Till she came to the clearing, at the end of the wood, and saw the green-stained stone cottage, looking almost rosy, like the flesh underneath a mushroom, its stone warmed in a burst of sun. And there was a sparkle of yellow jasmine by the door; the closed door. But no sound; no smoke from the chimney; no dog barking.

她来到森林尽头的空旷所在，那座绿色的石屋映入眼帘，远远望去几乎是玫瑰色的，像菌盖背面的色泽，整座石屋沐浴在温暖的阳光中。大门紧闭，门边几簇黄色素馨花闪闪发光。但四周寂静无声，烟囱没有冒烟，耳边也未闻犬吠。

She went quietly round to the back, where the bank rose up; she had an excuse, to see the daffodils.

康妮悄悄绕到屋后，那里地势陡升，她是来看水仙花的，这是个不错的托词。

And they were there, the short-stemmed flowers, rustling and fluttering and shivering, so bright and alive, but with nowhere to hide their faces, as they turned them away from the wind.

它们就生长在那儿，花梗较短，瑟瑟响，摇摆着，颤抖着，色泽鲜亮，充满生命活力，风儿吹来，它们便背过脸去，却不知将粉面藏在何处。

They shook their bright, sunny little rags in bouts of distress. But perhaps they liked it really; perhaps they really liked the tossing.

花瓣鲜亮娇小，痛苦地摆动着。但或许它们其实喜欢如此，喜欢在风中摇曳着身姿。

Constance sat down with her back to a young pine-tree, that wayed against her with curious life, elastic, and powerful, rising up. The erect, alive thing, with its top in the sun! And she watched the daffodils turn golden, in a burst of sun that was warm on her hands and lap. Even she caught the faint, tarry scent of the flowers. And then, being so still and alone, she seemed to bet into the current of her own proper destiny. She had been fastened by a rope, and jagging and snarring like a boat at its moorings; now she was loose and adrift.

康斯坦斯坐了下来，倚着一棵小松树，那树在她背后起伏摇摆，展现出非同寻常的生命力和柔韧性，向上弹起时力道十足。它充满活力，腰杆挺拔，在阳光中高昂着头颅。阳光瞬间变得异常灿烂，给水仙花镀上金色，康妮目睹着这一切，感觉自己的四肢也温暖起来。她甚至闻到花朵淡淡的芬芳。如此静谧，如此寂寥，她似乎置身于自己命运的洪流中。她曾经被绳索拴住，像系泊在水边的小船，随着波浪颠簸摇摆，而如今，却得以摆脱束缚，任意漂流。

The sunshine gave way to chill; the daffodils were in shadow, dipping silently. So they would dip through the day and the long cold night. So strong in their frailty!

阳光让位于寒冷，水仙花为阴影所笼罩，静默地垂下了头。它们就这样低垂粉颈，度过白天，熬过凄冷的长夜。看似弱不禁风，实则坚忍不拔！

She rose, a little stiff, took a few daffodils, and went down. She hated breaking the flowers, but she wanted just one or two to go with her. She would have to go back to Wragby and its walls, and now she hated it, especially its thick walls. Walls! Always walls! Yet one needed them in this wind.

她站起身来，腿脚稍感麻木，采几朵水仙，随即转身离去。她不愿折断花枝，但却只想要采撷一两朵与己相伴。她不得不回转拉格比，回到那难以逾越的墙壁中去，然而现在，却对那宅邸，尤其是厚重的墙壁，满怀恨意。墙壁！总是墙壁！但在这凛冽的寒风中，人往往需要它们的庇护。

When she got home Clifford asked her:"Where did you go?""Right across the wood! Look, aren't the little daffodils adorable? To think they should come out of the earth!”"Just as much out of air and sunshine," he said.

她回到家，克利福德问道：“你去哪儿了？”“径直穿过树林！看，这些水仙花多么讨人喜欢啊！想想看，它们竟然生发自泥土！”“也少不了空气和阳光。”他补充说。

"But modelled in the earth," she retorted, with a prompt contradiction, that surprised her a little.“但却是在泥土中长成的。”康妮随即作出反驳，速度之快让她自己都暗暗吃惊。

The next afternoon she went to the wood again. She followed the broad riding that swerved round and up through the larches to a spring called John's Well. It was cold on this hillside, and not a flower in the darkness of larches. But the icy little spring softly pressed upwards from its tiny well-bed of pure, reddish-white pebbles. How icy and clear it was! Brilliant! The new keeper had no doubt put in fresh pebbles. She heard the faint tinkle of water, as the tiny overflow trickled over and downhill. Even above the hissing boom of the larchwood, that spread its bristling, leafless, wolfish darkness on the down-slope, she heard the tinkle as of tiny water-bells.

次日过午，她再度前往树林。她沿着宽阔的马道前行，道路穿过落叶松林，蜿蜒而上，来到某个唤作约翰井的泉眼处。这侧的山坡气温较低，松林的荫翳下见不到半点花影。可彻骨的细流仍从井台上喷涌而出，那窄小的井台用略带红色的纯白卵石砌成。泉水那样冰凉，那样清澈！闪闪发光！新来的守林人想必又添加过石子。这涓涓细流从泉眼中溢出，向山下流去，发出微弱的叮当声。就算是漫山遍野黑沉沉的松林发出低沉的怒吼，都无法掩盖这银铃般清脆的叮当声。

This place was a little sinister, cold, damp. Yet the well must have been a drinking-place for hundreds of years. Now no more. Its tiny cleared space was lush and cold and dismal.

这地方颇为阴森可怖，寒冷潮湿。几百年来，这眼泉想必始终扮演着水源的角色。而如今却已荒弃。井台狭小的空地四周野草丛生，阴冷而又凄凉。

She rose and went slowly towards home. As she went she heard a faint tapping away on the right, and stood still to listen. Was it hammering, or a woodpecker? It was surely hammering.

她站起身，缓步踏上归途。轻微的敲击声从右侧传来，她停住脚步，侧耳倾听。是锤击声，还是啄木鸟在劳作？肯定是锤击声。

She walked on, listening. And then she noticed a narrow track between young fir-trees, a track that seemed to lead nowhere. But she felt it had been used. She turned down it adventurously, between the thick young firs, which gave way soon to the old oak wood. She followed the track, and the hammering grew nearer, in the silence of the windy wood, for trees make a silence even in their noise of wind.

她循声而进。不久，她发现新栽的杉树丛中有条窄径，似乎通不到任何去处。但她觉得这条小径准有人走过。她壮着胆子，踏上这条林间小路，没走多久，两边幼嫩的杉树便被古老的橡树所取代。她继续前进，距离敲击声越来越近，有风的树林依然宁静，因为即使风声不绝于耳，树木仍能营造出静默的氛围。

She saw a secret little clearing, and a secret little hot made of rustic poles. And she had never been here before! She realized it was the quiet place where the growing pheasants were reared; the keeper in his shirt-sleeves was kneeling, hammering. The dog trotted forward with a short, sharp bark, and the keeper lifted his face suddenly and saw her. He had a startled look in his eyes.

一小块隐蔽的空地出现在眼前，还有座粗糙圆木搭成的秘密小屋。她之前从未到过这里！她恍然大悟，这个安静的所在是饲养雉鸡的地方。那守林人身着衬衣，正跪在地上，敲打着什么。狗儿快步向她冲来，发出短促而尖利的叫声，守林人猛地抬起头，这才发现她。他的双眼流露出错愕的神情。

He straightened himself and saluted, watching her in silence, as she came forward with weakening limbs. He resented the intrusion; he cherished his solitude as his only and last freedom in life.

他起身行礼，默默看着她四肢无力地走上前来。她不请自来，让他感到非常不满。他无比珍视这方净土，只有在这里，他才能远离尘嚣，安享自由。

"I wondered what the hammering was," she said, feeling weak and breathless, and a little afraid of him, as he looked so straight at her.“我在奇怪这锤声是怎么回事。”康妮说，感到全身无力，呼吸急促，被他逼视，让她心里稍有畏惧。

"Ah'm gettin' th' coops ready for th' young bods," he said, in broad vernacular.“俺在给鸡仔搭窝。”他操着浓重的土语解释道。

She did not know what to say, and she felt weak. "I should like to sit down a bit," she said.

她不知道如何作答，只是感到虚弱无力。“我想稍坐片刻。”她说。

"Come and sit 'ere i'th'ut," he said, going in front of her to the hut, pushing aside some timber and stuff, and drawing out a rustic chair, made of hazel sticks.“进屋坐吧。”他说完，便将她引进小屋，将柴火和杂物推到一旁，拉出把榛条做成的粗木靠椅。

"Am Ah t'light yer a little fire?" he asked, with the curious naïvete of the dialect.“俺给恁生点火吧？”他的土腔土调中透出难得的质朴。

"Oh, don't bother," she replied.“噢，不用麻烦了。”她答道。

But he looked at her hands; they were rather blue. So he quickly took some larch twigs to the little brick fire-place in the corner, and in a moment the yellow flame was running up the chimney. He made a place by the brick hearth.

可他发觉她的双手都冻青了。于是，他急忙拾起松枝，填进角落里砖砌的壁炉，不一会儿，金黄色的火焰便蹿向烟囱。他在壁炉旁给她设座。

"Sit 'ere then a bit, and warm yer," he said.“坐这儿，待会儿就暖和过来了。”他说。

She obeyed him. He had that curious kind of protective authority she obeyed at once. So she sat and warmed her hands at the blaze, and dropped logs on the fire, whilst outside he was hammering again. She did not really want to sit, poked in a corner by the fire; she would rather have watched from the door, but she was being looked after, so she had to submit.

她照他的话去做了。不知怎的，他让康妮体验到莫名的安全感，似乎不容置疑，她未加思索，立马照办。她坐在壁炉旁，任火焰温暖着双手，不时往里加点柴火，而他则出去继续敲敲打打。她不想就这么干坐着，蜷缩在角落里烤火，宁愿去门旁看他干活，但既然人家如此照顾，她也只能服从他的安排。

The hut was quite cosy, panelled with unvarnished deal, having a little rustic table and stool beside her chair, and a carpenter's bench, then a big box, tools, new boards, nails; and many things hung from pegs: axe, hatchet, traps, things in sacks, his coat. It had no window, the light came in through the open door. It was a jumble, but also it was a sort of little sanctuary.

小屋温暖舒适，四壁用未着漆的冷杉板镶嵌而成。她所坐的靠椅旁，还有一张粗制的小桌和一张矮凳、一条木工用长凳，然后是一只大箱子、数件工具，几块没用过的木板，一堆钉子。墙上还挂着长柄斧、短把斧、兽夹、盛满物件的口袋以及他的外套。屋里没有窗户，光线只能从敞开的门射进来。虽说这里杂乱无章，但仍不失为一个小小的庇护所。

She listened to the tapping of the man's hammer; it was not so happy. He was oppressed. Here was a trespass on his privacy, and a dangerous one! A woman! He had reached the point where all he wanted on earth was to be alone. And yet he was powerless to preserve his privacy; he was a hired man, and these people were his masters.

她聆听着锤子的敲击声，传递出的情绪并不快活。他有些压抑。他的私隐遭到侵扰，而且是危险的侵扰！一个女人！他本已心灰意冷，人世间唯一渴望的状态就是孑然一身。然而，此刻他却无力保持自己的清静，因为他只是个雇工，而这些家伙都是主子。

Especially he did not want to come into contact with a woman again. He feared it; for he had a big wound from old contacts. He felt if he could not be alone, and if he could not be left alone, he would die. His recoil away from the outer world was complete; his last refuge was this wood; to hide himself there!

更何况，他不再想和女人扯上关系。他对男女关系充满恐惧，过去失败的婚姻曾让他深受重创。他的想法是，如果不能保持孑然独立的状态，如果遭到他人的侵扰，那还不如一死了之。他已经完全与外界脱离开来，而最后的避难所就是这片树林，他可以藏身于此！

Connie grew warm by the fire, which she had made too big: then she grew hot. She went and sat on the stool in the doorway, watching the man at work. He seemed not to notice her, but he knew. Yet he worked on, as if absorbedly, and his brown dog sat on her tail near him, and surveyed the untrustworthy world.

坐在炉火旁，康妮渐渐暖和过来，但她却又把火生得太旺，搞得自己燥热不安。她离开壁炉，坐在门边的板凳上，注视着劳作的男人。他似乎没有注意到她，但其实心中有数。他不动声色，继续干活，似乎非常专注，那条棕色的猎犬蹲在一旁，审视着眼前这个难以捉摸的世界。

Slender, quiet and quick, the man finished the coop he was making, turned it over, tried the sliding door, then set it aside. Then he rose, went for an old coop, and took it to the chopping log where he was working. Crouching, he tried the bars; some broke in his hands; he began to draw the nails. Then he turned the coop over and deliberated, and he gave absolutely no sign of awareness of the woman's presence.

他身材修长，朴素沉静，动作敏捷，把鸡笼做好，随即翻转过来，试过拉门，便放在一旁。接着，他起身去取旧鸡笼，把它放在刚才干活的木墩上。他蹲下来，试试木条是否依然坚固，不觉便扯断几根，然后又开始拔钉子。他把笼子倒过来，思索应该如何处理，装作毫未觉察康妮在注视着自己。

So Connie watched him fixedly. And the same solitary aloneness she had seen in him naked, she now saw in him clothed: solitary, and intent, like an animal that works alone, but also brooding, like a soul that recoils away, away from all human contact. Silently, patiently, he was recoiling away from her even now. It was the stillness, and the timeless sort of patience, in a man impatient and passionate, that touched Connie's womb. She saw it in his bent head, the quick quiet hands, the crouching of his slender, sensitive loins; something patient and withdrawn. She felt his experience had been deeper and wider than her own; much deeper and wider, and perhaps more deadly. And this relieved her of herself; she felt almost irresponsible.

康妮的目光完全聚焦在他身上。无论是当日上身赤裸的他，还是现在衣着整齐的他，所透露出的那份孤寂都未曾变过。孤独而又专注，像头离群独居的野兽，自生自灭，但却也常苦思冥想，像个形单影只的灵魂，远离尘嚣。而此时此刻，他正以静默坚忍的态度，努力逃避着她关注的目光。性格焦躁、热情似火的七尺男儿，却能如此沉稳安静，拥有持久的耐心，正是这点触动了康妮的心灵。从他低垂着的头，灵活沉着的双手，以及伏着的纤细敏感的腰身，康妮体会到的是内敛和隐忍。她感觉他的人生历练远比自己深广，所遭所遇或许更加残酷。这样的想法让她感到释然，顿觉肩头的责任减轻许多。

So she sat in the doorway of the hut in a dream, utterly unaware of time and of particular circumstances. She was so drifted away that he glanced up at her quickly, and saw the utterly still, waiting look on her face. To him it was a look of waiting. And a little thin tongue of fire suddenly flickered in his loins, at the root of his back, and he groaned in spirit. He dreaded with a repulsion almost of death, any further close human contact. He wished above all things she would go away, and leave him to his own privacy. He dreaded her will, her female will, and her modern female insistency. And above all he dreaded her cool, upper-class impudence of having her own way. For after all he was only a hired man. He hated her presence there.

她坐在石屋门旁，如坠梦中，时间也好，特殊的环境也罢，她都浑然不觉。他抽冷子抬头向她望去，却发现那心旗摇曳的女人正呆呆发愣，脸上写满期待。对他而言，这是种渴望的神情。些许细小的火苗在他的腰部，后背下部的位置摇曳，他心底不由得发出呻吟。他不愿跟别人深交，甚至对此厌恶到极点。他盼着她能乖乖走开，还自己以清净的空间。她的意志，女性的欲望，还有那现代女性不达目的不罢休的态度，都让他心悸。而最令他感到害怕的，则是这种贵妇人的傲慢冷淡，我行我素。因为他毕竟只是受雇于人。她的到来让他心生反感。

Connie came to herself with sudden uneasiness. She rose. The afternoon was turning to evening, yet she could not go away. She went over to the man, who stood up at attention, his worn face stiff and blank, his eyes watching her.

突如其来的不安情绪，让康妮从白日梦中惊醒。她站起身。时间已从下午转到黄昏，但她仍不愿离去。她向那男人走去，而他则笔管条直地站在原地，沧桑的面庞略显僵硬，看不出半点表情，只是双眼凝视着她。

"It is so nice here, so restful," she said. "I have never been here before.""No?""I think I shall come and sit here sometimes."“这儿真美，让人心旷神怡。”她赞叹道。“我从未来过这里。”“没有吗？”“我想以后可以常来坐坐。”

"Yes?""Do you lock the hut when you're not here?”"Yes, your Ladyship.""Do you think I could have a key too, so that I could sit here sometimes? Are there two keys?""Not as Ah know on, ther' is na.”He had lapsed into the vernacular. Connie hesitated; he was putting up an opposition. Was it his hut, after all? "Couldn't we get another key?" she asked in her soft voice, that underneath had the ring of a woman determined to get her way.“是么？”“你不在的时候，会把屋门锁上吗？”“是的，夫人。”“可以给我把钥匙吗？好让我能常来坐坐。有两把钥匙吗？”“据俺所知，没多余的。”他又搬出土话来。康妮感到迟疑，他显然有些抵触情绪。可毕竟那小屋并不属于他。“再配把钥匙不行么？”她问道，轻柔的语调透露出坚决，这女人打算独行其道。

"Another!" he said, glancing at her with a flash of anger, touched with derision.“再弄一把！”他说，双目中闪烁着怒火，又带有几分嘲弄。

"Yes, a duplicate," she said, flushing.“对，再配一把。”她说，脸已泛红。

“'Appen Sir Clifford 'ud know," he said, putting her off.“大概克利福德爵士那儿会有。”他搪塞着她。

"Yes!" she said, "he might have another. Otherwise we could have one made from the one you have. It would only take a day or so, I suppose. You could spare your key for so long.""Ah canna tell yer, m'Lady! Ah know no'dy as ma'es keys round 'ere.”Connie suddenly flushed with anger.“没错！”她说，“他或许有。不过，我们另配一把也无妨。我想这只消一天的工夫。这段时间你可以先别用自己的钥匙。”“那可说不准，夫人。俺不晓得周遭哪个会配钥匙。”康妮听完，气得满脸通红。

"Very well!" she said. "I'll see to it.”"All right, your Ladyship."Their eyes met. His had a cold, ugly look of dislike and contempt, and indifference to what would happen. Hers were hot with rebuff.“很好！”她说。“我自己想办法。”“悉听尊便，夫人。”四目相对。他的眼神冷漠阴郁，充满厌恶与鄙夷，似乎康妮接下来要怎么做，与他毫无干系。而她的目光则因遭拒而燃起怒火。

But her heart sank, she saw how utterly he disliked her, when she went against him. And she saw him in a sort of desperation.

可她的情绪随即坠入谷底，她亲眼目睹，两人针锋相对时，他是多么厌恶自己。她看见他处于些许绝望之中。

"Good afternoon! "Afternoon, my Lady! He saluted and turned abruptly away. She had wakened the sleeping dogs of old voracious anger in him, anger against the self-willed female. And he was powerless, powerless. He knew it!“再见！”“回见，夫人！”他行过礼，立即转身离去。他心中沉睡已久的暴怒已被唤醒，眼前这个任性胡为的女人让他气撞顶梁。但他却无计可施，无可奈何。他深知这一点！

And she was angry against the self-willed male. A servant too! She walked sullenly home.

而她也同样因为这个冥顽不灵的男人怒不可遏。不过是个下人而已！她怏怏地往回走。

She found Mrs. Bolton under the great beech-tree on the knoll, looking for her.

山坡上那棵硕大的山毛榉树下，站着的正是博尔顿太太，她正盼着女主人快些归来。

"I just wondered if you'd be coming, my Lady," the woman said brightly.“我正琢磨着，您差不多该回来了，夫人。”她高兴地说。

"Am I late?" asked Connie.“我回来晚了吗？”康妮问。

"Oh only Sir Clifford was waiting for his tea.""Why didn't you make it then?”"Oh, I don't think it's hardly my place. I don't think Sir Clifford would like it at all, my Lady.”"I don't see why not," said Connie.“哦……只是克利福德爵士急着要喝茶。”“你干嘛不给他弄呢？”“噢，我觉得自己没法替您做这些。克利福德爵士也根本不希望由我来做，夫人。”“我真搞不懂他为何不愿意。”康妮说。

She went indoors to Clifford's study, where the old brass kettle was simmering on the tray.

她回到家，径直来到克利福德的书房，那把旧铜壶正在托盘上冒着热气。

"Am I late, Clifford?" she said, putting down the few flowers and taking up the tea-caddy, as she stood before the tray in her hat and scarf. "I'm sorry! Why didn't you let Mrs. Bolton make the tea?”"I didn't think of it," he said ironically. "I don't quite see her presiding at the tea-table.”"Oh, there's nothing sacrosanct about a silver tea-pot," said Connie.“我回来得有些晚吧，克利福德？”她说着，在托盘前站定，搁下采来的水仙，顺手取过茶叶盒，帽子和围巾都没来得及摘掉。“很抱歉！可你为什么不让博尔顿太太给你泡茶呢？”“我就没这样想过。”他语带讽刺地说。“我觉得茶桌上的事她无法胜任。”“啊，区区银茶壶，也没什么神圣之处。”康妮说。

He glanced up at her curiously.

他诧异地扫了她一眼。

"What did you do all afternoon?" he said.“你整个下午都做什么去了？”他问。

"Walked and sat in a sheltered place. Do you know there are still berries on the big holly-tree?”She took off her scarf, but not her hat, and sat down to make tea. The toast would certainly be leathery. She put the tea-cosy over the tea-pot, and rose to get a little glass for her violets. The poor flowers hung over, limp on their stalks.“散步，然后坐在背风处小憩。你知道么？大冬青树还结有果实呢。”她解下围巾，但没摘帽子，坐下来沏茶。烤面包肯定变得硬而不脆了。她给茶壶套上保护套，站起来拿过一个小玻璃瓶，准备用来插紫罗兰。那些可怜的花在花茎上耷拉着脑袋，无精打采。

"They'll revive again!" she said, putting them before him in their glass for him to smell.“它们会振作起来的！”她边说，边把花瓶端到丈夫跟前让他闻。

"Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes," he quoted.“比朱诺的眉眼还要可爱。”他引用莎翁的名句。（注：这句话出自莎士比亚的剧作《冬天的故事》）

"I don't see a bit of connexion with the actual violets," she said. "The Elizabethans are rather upholstered."She poured him his tea.“我觉得这句诗跟真正的紫罗兰毫不搭界。”她说。“伊丽莎白时期的人都有些华而不实。”她给他斟茶。

"Do you think there is a second key to that little hut not far from John's Well, where the pheasants are reared?" she said.“约翰井附近那个养野鸡的小屋，有没有备用钥匙？”她问。

"There may be. Why?""I happened to find it today—and I'd never seen it before. I think it's a darling place. I could sit there sometimes, couldn't I?”"Was Mellors there?""Yes! That's how I found it: his hammering. He didn't seem to like my intruding at all. In fact he was almost rude when I asked about a second key.”"What did he say?""Oh, nothing: just his manner; and he said he knew nothing about keys.”"There may be one in Father's study. Betts knows them all, they're all there. I'll get him to look.”"Oh do!" she said.“或许有。怎么？”“我今天无意间发现的——之前从来没留意。我觉得那儿挺招人爱的。我想时常过去坐坐，可以吗？”“梅勒斯在那儿吗？”“在！把我引到那里的，正是他的锤击声。他似乎很反感我贸然闯入。我问起有没有备用钥匙时，他的反应简直有些粗鲁。”“他说了什么？”“哦，没什么，只是态度不太礼貌，他说钥匙的事他半点不知。”“父亲书房里好像有一把。贝茨认得，所有钥匙都在那儿。我让他去找找看。”“噢，拜托你！”她说。

"So Mellors was almost rude?""Oh, nothing, really! But I don't think he wanted me to have the freedom of the castle, quite.”"I don't suppose he did.”"Still, I don't see why he should mind. It's not his home, after all! It's not his private abode. I don't see why I shouldn't sit there if I want to.”"Quite!" said Clifford. "He thinks too much of himself, that man.""Do you think he does?""Oh, decidedly! He thinks he's something exceptional. You know he had a wife he didn't get on with, so he joined up in 1915 and was sent to India, I believe. Anyhow he was blacksmith to the cavalry in Egypt for a time; always was connected with horses, a clever fellow that way. Then some Indian colonel took a fancy to him, and he was made a lieutenant. Yes, they gave him a commission. I believe he went back to India with his colonel, and up to the north-west frontier. He was ill; he was a pension. He didn't come out of the army till last year, I believe, and then, naturally, it isn't easy for a man like that to get back to his own level. He's bound to flounder. But he does his duty all right, as far as I'm concerned. Only I'm not having any of the Lieutenant Mellors touch.”"How could they make him an officer when he speaks broad Derbyshire?""He doesn't...except by fits and starts. He can speak perfectly well, for him. I suppose he has an idea if he's come down to the ranks again, he'd better speak as the ranks speak.”"Why didn't you tell me about him before?”"Oh, I've no patience with these romances. They're the ruin of all order. It's a thousand pities they ever happened.”Connie was inclined to agree. What was the good of discontented people who fitted in nowhere? In the spell of fine weather Clifford, too, decided to go to the wood. The wind was cold, but not so tiresome, and the sunshine was like life itself, warm and full.“你刚才说梅勒斯对你无礼？”“啊，没什么，真的！不过，他似乎不愿见我在他的地盘自由出入。”“我想也是。”“可我就不明白，他为什么那样介怀。那又不是他的家！也不是他的私人领地。真搞不明白，只要我喜欢，为何不能去那儿坐坐。”“的确如此！”克利福德说。“那家伙太自以为是。”“你这么认为？”“嗯，这很明显！他觉得自己与众不同。他因为和妻子闹别扭，1915年参军，被派往印度。在埃及，他曾给骑兵营做过铁匠活，总是跟马匹打交道，在那方面倒也有两把刷子。后来，他被某位驻印度的上校相中，晋升为中尉。是的，他们授予他军衔。他追随长官回到印度，前往西北边陲。他疾病缠身，因而得到一份抚恤金。他去年才退伍，当然，这种清高的家伙，被打回原形，自然有些难以接受。内心肯定会挣扎不已。但据我所知，他还算尽职尽责。只是我可不想看到他摆出梅勒斯中尉的神气。”“他满口浓重的德比郡土话，怎么还能被提拔成军官呢？”“他并不常说土话……只是时而说说。他的英语说得相当地道。据我猜测，他准是这样考虑的，既然重新沦为平头百姓，那么最好还是说老百姓说的话。”“你以前为何没跟我提过这些事？”“哦，我可没耐性扯这些传奇故事。这些事对维护社会秩序没啥好处。它们根本就不该发生。”康尼觉得克利福德说得有理。这种家伙与现实格格不入，却又心怀不满，他们有什么好呢？好天气的持续，让克利福德也打算去树林走走。风依然寒冷，但却已经可以承受，阳光则是生机勃勃，温暖而又饱满。

"It's amazing," said Connie, "how different one feels when there's a really fresh fine day. Usually one feels the very air is half dead. People are killing the very air.”"Do you think people are doing it?" he asked.“多奇妙啊，”康妮感慨道，“风和丽日的日子里，人的感觉也完全不同。平日里，你会觉得空气都死气沉沉的。空气正遭到毁灭性的破坏。”“你这么认为？”他问。

"I do. The steam of so much boredom, and discontent and anger out of all the people, just kills the vitality in the air. I'm sure of it.”"Perhaps some condition of the atmosphere lowers the vitality of the people?" he said.

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