第六章（第5/9页）

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.