第九章（第8/9页）

从某种程度来讲，博尔顿将让克利福德塑造成真正的男子汉，而这是康妮从未企及的。康妮对他若即若离，让他变得极为敏感，对自己和自己的状态有清醒的认识。博尔顿太太则让他只管放眼外界。在内心深处，他变得软弱不堪。而从表面看来，他却显得斗志昂扬。

He even roused himself to go to the mines once more: and when he was there, he went down in a tub, and in a tub he was hauled out into the workings. Things he had learned before the war, and seemed utterly to have forgotten, now came back to him. He sat there, crippled, in a tub, with the underground manager showing him the seam with a powerful torch. And he said little. But his mind began to work.

他甚至振奋精神，重返矿场。他乘着矿车下到井底，被拖拽着审查过各个矿坑。大战爆发前，他熟知矿场的一切，而这些曾彻底被抛诸脑后，此刻却又再度回到原位。下肢瘫痪的他坐在矿车里，井下主管则用强力矿灯照亮矿层，便于他审视。他很少做声。但心里却开始盘算起什么。

He began to read again his technical works on the coal-mining industry, he studied the government reports, and he read with care the latest things on mining and the chemistry of coal and of shale which were written in German. Of course the most valuable discoveries were kept secret as far as possible. But once you started a sort of research in the field of coal-mining, a study of methods and means, a study of by-products and the chemical possibilities of coal, it was astounding the ingenuity and the almost uncanny cleverness of the modern technical mind, as if really the devil himself had lent fiend's wits to the technical scientists of industry. It was far more interesting than art, than literature, poor emotional half-witted stuff, was this technical science of industry. In this field, men were like gods, or demons, inspired to discoveries, and fighting to carry them out. In this activity, men were beyond any mental age calculable. But Clifford knew that when it did come to the emotional and human life, these self-made men were of a mental age of about thirteen, feeble boys. The discrepancy was enormous and appalling.

他重新开始阅读有关采煤业的技术著作，研究政府公报，留意着有关采矿、煤炭化学以及岩层化学的最新资料，这些资料均用德文写成。当然，科学家们会竭尽所能，保证其最具价值的成果不被泄露。一旦涉足采煤领域的研究，探索各种方式方法，钻研煤矿的副产品和其他可能出现的化学产品，准会因现代技术的精巧和绝妙而感到惊异，仿佛是魔鬼将自己的才智赋予了那些科学家们。与艺术、文学之类这些可怜兮兮、愚蠢透顶的情感伎俩相比，工业技术科学要有趣得多。在这一领域，人们像被神魔附体，一心追求新成果，并努力将其付诸实践。在科学活动中，人类的精神年龄无法估量。但克利福德深知，若论及情感和人类生活，这些天赋异禀的家伙们大概只有13岁左右，只是些尚未成熟的孩童。这样巨大的不协调确实令人震惊。

But let that be. Let man slide down to general idiocy in the emotional and 'human' mind, Clifford did not care. Let all that go hang. He was interested in the technicalities of modern coal-mining, and in pulling Tevershall out of the hole.

但随它去好了。任人类在情感及人性的领域滑进低能的深渊好了，克利福德毫不在乎。让这一切都见鬼去吧。他感兴趣的是现代采煤技术，还有如何重振特弗沙尔。

He went down to the pit day after day, he studied, he put the general manager, and the overhead manager, and the underground manager, and the engineers through a mill they had never dreamed of. Power! He felt a new sense of power flowing through him: power over all these men, over the hundreds and hundreds of colliers. He was finding out: and he was getting things into his grip.

他每天都亲下矿坑，不知疲倦地钻研着，对井上、井下和一般事务的经理和工程师们严加约束，其程度远远超出他们的想象。权力！他觉得新鲜的权力感流遍全身，所有管理阶层都须听命于他，成百上千的矿工都唯他马首是瞻。他慢慢发现，一切尽在自己的掌握之中。

And he seemed verily to be re-born. NOW life came into him! He had been gradually dying, with Connie, in the isolated private life of the artist and the conscious being. Now let all that go. Let it sleep. He simply felt life rush into him out of the coal, out of the pit. The very stale air of the colliery was better than oxygen to him. It gave him a sense of power, power. He was doing something: and he was going to do something. He was going to win, to win: not as he had won with his stories, mere publicity, amid a whole sapping of energy and malice. But a man's victory.

他似乎真的重获新生。如今，他又充满活力！以往，虽有康妮相伴，但艺术家和精神活动者所过的与世隔绝的生活，将他推向濒死的境地。现在，大可将这一切尽数抛开。跟那种生活诀别。他觉得生命力从煤炭、从矿坑中喷涌而出，注入自己的身体。对他而言，矿场陈腐的空气比氧气还要带劲儿。让他充分体验到大权在握的感觉。他此刻已经起步，将来势必有番大作为。他追求成功，渴望胜利。以小说在文学领域取得的成功，不过是哗众取宠，是对精神和意志的双重消耗。他需要的是男子汉般辉煌的胜利。

At first he thought the solution lay in electricity: convert the coal into electric power. Then a new idea came. The Germans invented a new locomotive engine with a self feeder, that did not need a fireman. And it was to be fed with a new fuel, that burnt in small quantities at a great heat, under peculiar conditions.

刚开始，解决之道在于发电，他认为可以将煤炭转化为电能。后来，他又萌发出新点子。德国人研制出某种新型机车，能够自供燃料，无需配备司炉工。它使用的新燃料，在特定的条件下，只需微量便可产生极大的热能。

The idea of a new concentrated fuel that burnt with a hard slowness at a fierce heat was what first attracted Clifford. There must be some sort of external stimulus of the burning of such fuel, not merely air supply. He began to experiment, and got a clever young fellow, who had proved brilliant in chemistry, to help him.

一种新型浓缩燃料，能够产生巨大的热能，且能持久使用，这个想法立刻吸引住克利福德。但此种燃料仅在空气中无法燃烧，必须借助某种外部催化剂。他开始投入实验，并得到某位聪颖青年的帮助，那人在化学领域颇有建树。

And he felt triumphant. He had at last got out of himself. He had fulfilled his life-long secret yearning to get out of himself. Art had not done it for him. Art had only made it worse. But now, now he had done it.