第十章（第7/25页）

他回身走进漆黑的树林。万籁俱寂，月亮也已沉下。但暗夜中的喧嚣声仍不绝于耳，斯塔克斯门采煤的机器仍在轰鸣，还有主干道上车流的熙攘。他攀上草木凋零的山丘，步履沉重。置身山顶，夜间的村落尽收眼底，斯塔克斯门成行的灯光异常明亮，特弗沙尔矿场的却稍显黯淡，还有各家各户昏黄的灯火，星星点点，散满黑暗的大地。远处隐约可见暗粉色的熔炉，夜空朗朗，白热的钢水倾泻而出后，立即着上玫瑰的色泽。斯塔克斯门刺眼的灯光，那样令人生厌！难以言喻的罪恶本性隐藏其间！英格兰中部工业区的夜晚充斥着不安，恐惧源源不绝。他听到斯塔克斯门的卷扬机吱扭作响，把七点当班的矿工们送到井底。矿场采取的是三班轮转制。

He went down again into the darkness and seclusion of the wood. But he knew that the seclusion of the wood was illusory. The industrial noises broke the solitude, the sharp lights, though unseen, mocked it. A man could no longer be private and withdrawn. The world allows no hermits. And now he had taken the woman, and brought on himself a new cycle of pain and doom. For he knew by experience what it meant.

他走下山岗，回归与世隔绝的阴暗丛林。但他清楚这丛林的超然物外，不过是幻象而已。现代工业的喧嚣打破了这里的宁静，耀目的灯光虽无法穿透树木的遮蔽，但也极尽挖苦之能事。孑然独居，隐遁世外已成不切实际的奢望。这世界已没有隐士存活的乐土。如今，他已与她行过周公之礼，而这也会给他带来新的一轮的痛苦和厄运。以往的经历告诉他这意味着什么。

It was not woman's fault, nor even love's fault, nor the fault of sex. The fault lay there, out there, in those evil electric lights and diabolical rattlings of engines. There, in the world of the mechanical greedy, greedy mechanism and mechanized greed, sparkling with lights and gushing hot metal and roaring with traffic, there lay the vast evil thing, ready to destroy whatever did not conform. Soon it would destroy the wood, and the bluebells would spring no more. All vulnerable things must perish under the rolling and running of iron.

这罪责不应由女人来承担，更与情爱和性欲无关。过错源自那里，就在那里，在那邪恶的灯光中，在那恶魔般格格乱吼的机械里。在那里，在这机械化的贪婪世界里，贪婪的机械化和机械化的贪婪交织纠缠，放射出刺目的灯光，喷吐出炽热的金属，咆哮出嘈杂的车流声。那里便是无尽罪恶的根源，奉行着逆我者亡的信条。用不了多久，这片树林就将被毁灭殆尽，风铃草也将无处容身。面对钢筋铁骨的冲击滚碾，所有脆弱的东西都将被碾得粉碎。

He thought with infinite tenderness of the woman. Poor forlorn thing, she was nicer than she knew, and oh! So much too nice for the tough lot she was in contact with. Poor thing, she too had some of the vulnerability of the wild hyacinths, she wasn't all tough rubber-goods and platinum, like the modern girl. And they would do her in! As sure as life, they would do her in, as they do in all naturally tender life. Tender! Somewhere she was tender, tender with a tenderness of the growing hyacinths, something that has gone out of the celluloid women of today. But he would protect her with his heart for a little while. For a little while, before the insentient iron world and the Mammon of mechanized greed did them both in, her as well as him.

他那千番柔情都在思念着那个女人。那孤独无依的可怜女人，她从不知道自己多么地优雅善良，噢！那样善良的女人却遭遇如此艰难的命运。可怜的女人，她柔弱得像朵娇嫩的野风信子，怎么能跟那些现代女孩相比，她们如橡胶和铂金那般强韧。它们会将她摧毁！千真万确，它们会将她扼杀，就像扼杀所有天生柔弱的生命。柔弱！她那样柔弱，好像尚未长成的风信子，而这些恰恰是如今那些造作女子所无法比拟的。但他愿意倾尽所有心力，保护她一段时间。一段时间，直到残酷无情的钢铁世界和全副武装的贪欲之神将他俩吞噬，他与她都注定难逃劫数。

He went home with his gun and his dog, to the dark cottage, lit the lamp, started the fire, and ate his supper of bread and cheese, young onions and beer. He was alone, in a silence he loved. His room was clean and tidy, but rather stark. Yet the fire was bright, the hearth white, the petroleum lamp hung bright over the table, with its white oil-cloth. He tried to read a book about India, but tonight he could not read. He sat by the fire in his shirt-sleeves, not smoking, but with a mug of beer in reach. And he thought about Connie.

他挎着猎枪，带着爱犬，回到漆黑的农舍，点上油灯，燃起炉火，晚餐吃的是面包、奶酪和小洋葱，还喝了些啤酒。他孤单一人，重归笃爱的寂静之中。房间干净整洁，但却空荡荡的。然而，炉火通明，灶台洁净，饭桌铺着白色油布，煤油灯悬在桌子上方，将小屋照得亮堂堂的。他本想读本有关印度的书，但今晚却有些心不在焉。他身着长袖衬衣，坐在壁炉旁，香烟没有点燃，而手边却放着一大杯啤酒。他的心里全是康妮。

To tell the truth, he was sorry for what had happened, perhaps most for her sake. He had a sense of foreboding. No sense of wrong or sin; he was troubled by no conscience in that respect. He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society, or fear of oneself. He was not afraid of himself. But he was quite consciously afraid of society, which he knew by instinct to be a malevolent, partly-insane beast.

说心里话，他为发生那档子事感到懊恼，或许主要是为她感到不值。他有种预感。他并不认为那样做是过错乃至罪恶，他从未在这方面受过良心的谴责。他知道，所谓是非之心不过是对社会的畏惧，或者对自我的胆怯。他从不害怕自我。但他却对社会充满敬畏，并将之视为几近疯狂的凶恶野兽，这样想完全出自本能。

The woman! If she could be there with him, arid there were nobody else in the world! The desire rose again, his penis began to stir like a live bird. At the same time an oppression, a dread of exposing himself and her to that outside Thing that sparkled viciously in the electric lights, weighed down his shoulders. She, poor young thing, was just a young female creature to him; but a young female creature whom he had gone into and whom he desired again.

那个女人！要是能与她朝夕相处，且世间再无他人，那该多好！欲望再度点燃，他的阳具兴奋起来，像只活蹦乱跳的鸟儿。与此同时，苦恼的情绪重重地压在他的肩头，担心自己与她再度暴露在外物面前，那东西在刺眼的灯光中闪烁着邪恶的光亮。她，那可怜的女人，对他而言，她不过是正处妙龄的姑娘，但却是曾承过他的雨露、且令他日思夜想的妙龄女子。