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。