第五章

On a frosty morning with a little February sun, Clifford and Connie went for a walk across the park to the wood. That is, Clifford chuffed in his motor-chair, and Connie walked beside him.

二月的某个清晨，阳光并不耀眼，霜冻尚未消融，查泰莱夫妇外出散步，两人穿过花园，走向树林。克利福德驱动着他的巴斯轮椅，康妮则步行相随。

The hard air was still sulphurous, but they were both used to it. Round the near horizon went the haze, opalescent with frost and smoke, and on the top lay the small blue sky; so that it was like being inside an enclosure, always inside. Life always a dream or a frenzy, inside an enclosure.

酷寒的空气中仍是那挥之不去的硫磺味道，不过，两人对此早就习以为常。不远处的地平线为乳白色的浓雾所笼罩，那雾气由霜花和烟尘交织而成，顶上露出片小小的蓝色天空，让人感觉像是身处牢笼，总是挣脱不得。而生活就是牢笼中的一场幻梦，或是一阵狂乱。

The sheep coughed in the rough, sere grass of the park, where frost lay bluish in the sockets of the tufts. Across the park ran a path to the wood-gate, a fine ribbon of pink. Clifford had had it newly gravelled with sifted gravel from the pit-bank. When the rock and refuse of the underworld had burned and given off its sulphur, it turned bright pink, shrimp-coloured on dry days, darker, crab-coloured on wet. Now it was pale shrimp-colour, with a bluish-white hoar of frost. It always pleased Connie, this underfoot of sifted, bright pink. It's an ill wind that brings nobody good.

羊群在杂乱的枯草丛中轻咳，草窝里凝结着蓝色晶莹的霜花。一条小径横穿花园，通向木质的大门，像条上好的粉色缎带。最近，克利福德命仆从用矿坑中筛选出的砾石，将它铺设一新。地底下的岩石和废料燃烧过后褪去硫磺，在干燥的日子里，呈现出鲜亮的粉红色，像是虾的颜色，而遇到潮湿的空气，颜色就会变得更深，跟螃蟹的色泽类似。此刻，它显现出淡粉色，覆着一层蓝白色的霜淞。踩在这条亮粉色碎石小径上，康妮的心情总会愉悦起来。使人人遭殃的风才是恶风——凡事皆有利有弊。

Clifford steered cautiously down the slope of the knoll from the hall, and Connie kept her hand on the chair. In front lay the wood, the hazel thicket nearest, the purplish density of oaks beyond. From the wood's edge rabbits bobbed and nibbled. Rooks suddenly rose in a black train, and went trailing off over the little sky.

克利福德倍加小心地驾着轮椅，从拉格比府坐落的山坡上驶下来，康妮的手则始终没有离开过丈夫的轮椅。树林出现在正前方，近处的是低矮的榛树丛，稍远处则是淡紫色茂密的橡树林。野兔在丛林边缘来回蹦跳，小口啃食着青草。数只乌鸦霍然腾空而起，黑沉沉的一列飞上那片小小的蓝天。

Connie opened the wood-gate, and Clifford puffed slowly through into the broad riding that ran up an incline between the clean-whipped thickets of the hazel. The wood was a remnant of the great forest where Robin Hood hunted, and this riding was an old, old thoroughfare coming across country. But now, of course, it was only a riding through the private wood. The road from Mansfield swerved round to the north.

康妮推开木门，克利福德驱动轮椅，缓缓驶上门外宽阔的马道。这条路向上爬升，形成倾斜的坡面，两侧是系束整齐的榛丛。这树林昔日曾是片广袤无垠的森林，留下过侠盗罗宾汉（注：英国民间传说中劫富济贫的侠盗）游猎的足迹，而这条马道从前也是横穿田野的要衢。但时至今日，它只是私人林地中不起眼的马道而已。从曼斯菲尔德（注：英格兰诺丁汉郡最大的镇）来的道路从此处折向北方。

In the wood everything was motionless, the old leaves on the ground keeping the frost on their underside. A jay called harshly, many little birds fluttered. But there was no game; no pheasants. They had been killed off during the war, and the wood had been left unprotected, till now Clifford had got his game-keeper again.

林中鸦雀无声，地上的枯叶掩住冰霜。松鸦的嘶鸣惊起许多小鸟。但这里早已没有可供猎取的飞禽走兽，连只野鸡的踪影也见不到。战争期间，它们早被斩尽诛绝，树林也多年无人照管，直到最近，克利福德才又雇来一位守林人。

Clifford loved the wood; he loved the old oak-trees. He felt they were his own through generations. He wanted to protect them. He wanted this place inviolate, shut off from the world.

克利福德深爱这片树林，深爱那一株株古老的橡树。他觉得它们世世代代都归他所有。他希望保护它们免受损害。他希望使这片净土不受侵扰，成为与世隔绝的桃源。

The chair chuffed slowly up the incline, rocking and jolting on the frozen clods. And suddenly, on the left, came a clearing where there was nothing but a ravel of dead bracken, a thin and spindly sapling leaning here and there, big sawn stumps, showing their tops and their grasping roots, lifeless. And patches of blackness where the woodmen had burned the brushwood and rubbish.