目 录 上一节 下一节 
奥莉芜正在念着一本描写将来世界的书，说将来孩子们是要在瓶子里用人工培养出来的，妇于们是可以"超脱"的。 Jolly good thing too!' she said. Then a woman can live her own life.' Strangeways wanted children, and she didn't. " 那是件美妙的事哟。"她说，"那时妇女们便可以享受她们的生活了。"原来她的丈夫同登治魏是希望生个孩子的；她呢，却不。 How'd you like to be immunized?' Winterslow asked her, with an ugly smile. " 你喜欢怎样的超脱呢？"文达斯罗狞笑着问她。 I hope I am; naturally,' she said. Anyhow the future's going to have more sense, and a woman needn't be dragged down by her functions.' " 我希望我自然地超脱出来。"她说，无论如何，将来是要比现在更台理的，而妇女们不会再给她们的'天职'累坏了" Perhaps she'll float off into space altogether,' said Dukes. " 也许她们都要飘飘欲仙了。"督克斯说。 
我实在觉得如果文明是名副其实的话，便应该把肉体的弱点大加排除。"克利福说，拿性爱不说，这便是很可以不必有的东西。我想，假如我们可以用人工在孩子里培养孩子，这种东西是要消灭的。" No!' cried Olive. That might leave all the more room for fun.' " 不！"奥莉芙叫道："那也许要给我们更多好玩的东西呢。" I suppose,' said Lady Bennerley, contemplatively, if the love-business went, something else would take its place. Morphia, perhaps. A little morphine in all the air. It would be wonderfully refreshing for everybody.' " 我想，"本纳利夫人带着一种沉思的样子说："假如性爱这东西消灭了，定会有旁的什么东西来代替的。吗啡，也许。整个空气中浮散着一点吗啡，那时人人定要觉得了不得的爽快呢。" The government releasing ether into the air on Saturdays, for a cheerful weekend!' said Jack. Sounds all right, but where should we be by Wednesday?' " 每到星期六，政府便在社会散布些以太，这一来星期天全国人民准快活！"贾克说："那似乎好得很；但是星期三，我们又怎样呢？" So long as you can forget your body you are happy,' said Lady Bennerley. And the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So, if civilization is any good, it has to help us to forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it.' " 只要你给忘却你的肉体，你便快活。"本纳利夫人说，"你一想起了你的肉体，你使苦痛。所以，假如文明有点什么用处的话，它便要帮助我们忘掉肉体，那时候时间便可以优哉游哉地过去了。" 
还要帮助我们把肉体完全除掉呢。"文达斯罗说，"现在正是时候了，人类得开始把分的本性改良了，尤其是肉体方面人本性。" Imagine if we floated like tobacco smoke,' said Connie. " 想想看，假如，我们象香烟的烟似地漂浮着，那就妙了！"康妮说。 It won't happen,' said Dukes. Our old show will come flop; our civilization is going to fall. It's going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!' " 那是不会有的事。"督克斯说，"我们的老把戏就要完了；我们的文明就要崩毁了！我们文明正向着无底的井中、深渊中崩毁下去。相信我，将来深渊上唯一的桥梁便是一条'法乐士'" Oh do! do be impossible, General!' cried Olive. " 唉呀，将军，请你不要胡说乱道了！"奥莉英叫道。 I believe our civilization is going to collapse,' said Aunt Eva. " 是的，我相信我们的文明是要倒塌了。"爱娃姑母说。 
倒塌了以后要来些什么呢？"克利福问道。 I haven't the faintest idea, but something, I suppose,' said the elderly lady. " 我一点儿也不知道，但是我想总会来些东西的。"老夫人道。 Connie says people like wisps of smoke, and Olive says immunized women, and babies in bottles, and Dukes says the phallus is the bridge to what comes next. I wonder what it will really be?' said Clifford. " 康妮说，来些象是烟波似的人，奥莉英说，来些超脱的妇女，和瓶子里养的孩子。达克斯说，'法乐士'便是渡到将来去的桥梁。我奇怪究竟要来些什么东西？"克利福说。 Oh, don't bother! let's get on with today,' said Olive. Only hurry up with the breeding bottle, and let us poor women off.' " 呵，不要担心这个！"奥莉芜说，"但请赶快制造些养孩子的瓶子，而社我们这些可怜的妇女们清静好了。" There might even be real men, in the next phase,' said Tommy. Real, intelligent, wholesome men, and wholesome nice women! Wouldn't that be a change, an enormous change from us? We're not men, and the women aren't women. We're only cerebrating make-shifts, mechanical and intellectual experiments. There may even come a civilization of genuine men and women, instead of our little lot of clever-jacks, all at the intelligence-age of seven. It would be even more amazing than men of smoke or babies in bottles.' " 在将来的时代，也许要来些真正的人。"唐米说："真正的，有智慧的，健全的男人，和一些健全的可爱的女人！这可不是一个转变，一个大转变么？我信今日的男子并不是真男子，而妇人们并不是妇人。我们只演着权宜之计的把戏，做着机械的智慧和实验罢了。将来也许要来一个真男真女的文明。这些真男真女将代替我们这一小群聪明的小丑--只有七岁孩童的智慧的我们。那一定要比虚无缥缈的人和瓶子里养的孩子更其奇观。" 
呵，男人们如果开始讲什么真正的妇人的话，我不谈了。"奥独笑说。 Certainly nothing but the spirit in us is worth having,' said Winterslow. " 当然啊，我们所有的唯一可贵的东西，便是精神。"文达斯罗说。 Spirits!' said Jack, drinking his whisky and soda. " 精神！"。贾克一边说，一边饮着他的威士忌苏打。 Think so? Give me the resurrection of the body!' said Dukes. But it'll come, in time, when we've shoved the cerebral stone away a bit, the money and the rest. Then we'll get a democracy of touch, instead of a democracy of pocket.' Something echoed inside Connie: Give me the democracy of touch, the resurrection of the body!' She didn't at all know what it meant, but it comforted her, as meaningless things may do. " 你以为那样么？我呢，我以为最可贵的是肉体的复活！达克斯说，"但是肉体的复活总会到来的，假如我们能把精神上的重载；金钱及其他，推开一些，那时我们便要有接触的德漠克拉西，是肉体的复活！"她实在一点都不知道那是什么意思，但是那使她得到安慰，好象其他不知意义的东西有时使人得到安慰一样。 Anyhow everything was terribly silly, and she was exasperatedly bored by it all, by Clifford, by Aunt Eva, by Olive and Jack, and Winterslow, and even by Dukes. Talk, talk, talk! What hell it was, the continual rattle of it! 然而一切事物都是可怖的愚蠢。这一切，克利福、爱娃姑母、奥莉芙、贾克及文达斯罗，甚至督克斯，都使她厌烦不堪。空话'空话，只是些空话！这不尽的空谈，令人难受得象人地狱一般。 
但是，当客人都走了时，她也不觉得好过些。她继续着作她的忧郁的散步，但是愤懑的激怒，占据着她的全身，她不能逃避。日子好象发着咬牙声似地过去，使她痛苦，却毫无新的东西来到，她渐渐地消瘦了。甚至又管家也注意到了，问她是不是有什么不舒服，甚至唐米·督克斯也重复说她的身体日见不好，虽然她并承认。只是那达娃斯哈教堂下的小山旁直立着的那些不祥的白色墓石，开始使她惧怕了。这些墓石有一种奇特的、惨白的颜色，象加拿拉的大理石一样，象假牙齿一样的可憎，她可发从园中清楚地望见。这些假牙似的丑恶的墓石，耸立在那小山上，难她一种阴森的恐怖，她觉得她不久便要被埋葬在那儿，加入那墓石和墓碑下的鬼群中，在这污秽的米德兰地方。 She needed help, and she knew it: so she wrote a little cri du coeur to her sister, Hilda. I'm not well lately, and I don't know what's the matter with me.' 她知道她是需要帮助的。于是她写了一封信给她的姊姊希尔达，露了一点她的心的呼喊："我近来觉得不好，我不知道是怎么回事。" Down posted Hilda from Scotland, where she had taken up her abode. She came in March, alone, driving herself in a nimble two-seater. Up the drive she came, tooting up the incline, then sweeping round the oval of grass, where the two great wild beech-trees stood, on the flat in front of the house. 希尔达从苏格兰赶了来。那是三月时候，她自己驶着一部两入座的轻便小汽车。响着喇叭，沿着马路驶了上来，然后绕着屋前面的有两株山毛榉树的那块椭圆形的草坪。 Connie had run out to the steps. Hilda pulled up her car, got out, and kissed her sister. 康妮忙赶到门口台阶上去接她。希尔达把四停了，走了出来抱吻了她的妹妹。 But Connie!' she cried. Whatever is the matter?' " 啊，康妮哟！"她说，"怎么样了？" 
没有怎么！"康妮有点难过地说，但是她知道她自己和她姊姊是恰恰地相反的，这一点使她痛苦着。从前，这姊妹俩，有着同样的光辉而带点金黄的肉色，同样的棕色的柔软的头发，同样的天然地强壮丽温热的体质。但是现在呢，康妮瘦了，颜容惨淡，她的颈项从胸衣上挺出来，又瘦又带点黄色。
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