第十章（第22/25页）

他想起自己海外从军的经历。从印度到埃及，再回到印度，与马为伍的生活无需多想其他事情。上校对他欣赏有加，他也对上校极为崇敬。数载军官生涯，他担当中尉，并极有希望被提拔成上尉。之后，上校死于肺炎，他自己也险些性命不保，健康受损，心绪不宁，因此他告别行伍，回转英格兰，再度沦为劳工。

He was temporizing with life. He had thought he would be safe, at least for a time, in this wood. There was no shooting as yet: he had to rear the pheasants. He would have no guns to serve. He would be alone, and apart from life, which was all he wanted. He had to have some sort of a background. And this was his native place. There was even his mother, though she had never meant very much to him. And he could go on in life, existing from day to day, without connexion and without hope. For he did not know what to do with himself.

他在蹉跎岁月。他曾认为，隐藏在这片树林里，至少能够保一时无忧。狩猎期尚未到来，他只需饲养野鸡。不必侍候围猎的贵族老爷。他孑然独居，远离尘嚣，而这也是他梦寐以求的。他需要安身立命之所。而这里是他的故乡。甚至他的母亲也住在此地，虽然两人的感情相当淡漠。而他可以继续生存下去，日复一日，无牵无挂，无欲无求。因为他已经失去人生的目标。

He did not know what to do with himself. Since he had been an officer for some years, and had mixed among the other officers and civil servants, with their wives and families, he had lost all ambition to "get on'. There was a toughness, a curious rubbernecked toughness and unlivingness about the middle and upper classes, as he had known them, which just left him feeling cold and different from them.

他已经失去人生的目标。由于他做过几年军官，终日与其他军官、公务员及其眷属混在一起，已经失去进取之心。他发现中上阶层的人们个个残酷无情，凶残暴戾，毫无人性，他感到不寒而栗，觉得自己无法融入其中。

So, he had come back to his own class. To find there, what he had forgotten during his absence of years, a pettiness and a vulgarity of manner extremely distasteful. He admitted now at last, how important manner was. He admitted, also, how important it was even to PRETEND not to care about the halfpence and the small things of life. But among the common people there was no pretence. A penny more or less on the bacon was worse than a change in the Gospel. He could not stand it.

因此，他重新回归社会底层。想找回从军数载已经忘却的东西，卑微的身份以及粗俗到令人不齿的举止。他现在不得不承认，举止何其重要。他承认，装出对蝇头小利及生活琐事不屑一顾何其重要。但对劳苦大众而言，一切都是实实在在的。熏猪肉价格的些微变化，比修改福音书还要重要。对此，他简直无法忍受。

And again, there was the wage-squabble. Having lived among the owning classes, he knew the utter futility of expecting any solution of the wage-squabble. There was no solution, short of death. The only thing was not to care, not to care about the wages.

劳资纠纷的情况再度出现。与有产阶级共处的时光告诉他，希冀解决劳资纠纷，根本是无望的空想。根本无法解决，死路一条。唯一可行的办法就是别去在意，别去在意自己到底挣几个子儿。

Yet, if you were poor and wretched you HAD to care. Anyhow, it was becoming the only thing they did care about. The care about money was like a great cancer, eating away the individuals of all classes. He refused to CARE about money.

但是，如果你真的穷困潦倒，又必须在意这些。总之，金钱渐渐成为劳苦大众唯一在意的东西。对金钱的执着，像个巨大的毒瘤，慢慢吞噬着所有阶级的每个个体。他却宁愿看轻金钱。

And what then? What did life offer apart from the care of money? Nothing.

可那又怎样？除了追逐金钱，生活还剩下什么呢？虚无。

Yet he could live alone, in the wan satisfaction of being alone, and raise pheasants to be shot ultimately by fat men after breakfast. It was futility, futility to the NTH power.

不过，他仍可以孤单度日，满足于形单影只的病态感觉，饲养野鸡，为的是让那些脑满肠肥的家伙们用罢早餐后射杀它们。一切都是徒劳，没有半点意义。

But why care, why bother? And he had not cared nor bothered till now, when this woman had come into his life. He was nearly ten years older than she. And he was a thousand years older in experience, starting from the bottom. The connexion between them was growing closer. He could see the day when it would clinch up and they would have to make a life together. "For the bonds of love are ill to loose!" And what then? What then? Must he start again, with nothing to start on? Must he entangle this woman? Must he have the horrible broil with her lame husband? And also some sort of horrible broil with his own brutal wife, who hated him? Misery! Lots of misery! And he was no longer young and merely buoyant. Neither was he the insouciant sort. Every bitterness and every ugliness would hurt him: and the woman!

但为什么要在意，为什么要烦忧呢？他从不牵肠挂肚，从不愁思满腹，直到这个女人闯入他的生活。他比她年长将近十岁。若论人生历练，甚至比她老上千年。但两人间的关系却愈发亲密。他能预见到，终有一天，两人会难分难离，共同生活在一起。“爱的纠葛总难解！”可那又怎样？那又怎样？他必须重头再来，白手起家？他必须跟这女人纠缠在一起？他必须跟她那残废的丈夫斗个不可开交？甚至连他那野蛮的妻子也牵扯其中？到现在为止，那泼妇还对他怀有恨意。痛苦！无尽的痛苦！他已不再年轻，虽说尚有活力。而且他也不是那种无忧无虑的乐天派。任何苦难和丑恶都会让他受伤，当然还有他心爱的女人！

But even if they got clear of Sir Clifford and of his own wife, even if they got clear, what were they going to do? What was he, himself going to do? What was he going to do with his life? For he must do something. He couldn't be a mere hanger-on, on her money and his own very small pension.

但即使能够摆脱克利福德爵士和那离家的悍妇，即使能获得自由，他俩又该何去何从呢？他自己将会如何？他将会怎样面对自己的生活？他必须找到谋生的方法。他不愿成为寄生虫，靠她的积蓄以及自己微薄的抚恤金过活。

It was the insoluble. He could only think of going to America, to try a new air. He disbelieved in the dollar utterly. But perhaps, perhaps there was something else.