THE WEEK passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set out for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet haze. By the road the black-thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was full of a new creation.
When the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously plashing, issuing from the lake.
The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree, and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was shadowy with coming summer.
Suddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in its swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water.
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戈珍站在石墙边看着。
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Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching.
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“我真羡慕他呀。”她低沉、满怀渴望地说。
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`How I envy him,’ she said, in low, desirous tones.
`Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!’ The sisters stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and arched over with mist and dim woods.
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“你不希望这是你自己吗?”戈珍看着厄秀拉问。
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`Don’t you wish it were you?’ asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula.
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“我希望这样,”厄秀拉说,“不过我不敢肯定,这水太凉了。”
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`I do,’ said Ursula. `But I’m not sure -- it’s so wet.’
`No,’ said Gudrun, reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them.
And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw them and he exulted to himself because of his own advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He could see the girls watching him a way off, outside, and that pleased him. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them.
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“他在挥动胳膊呢。”厄秀拉说。
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`He is waving,’ said Ursula.
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“是啊。”戈珍回答道。她们仍然看着他。他又一次挥舞着手臂,表示看到了她们,那动作很怪。
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`Yes,’ replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange movement of recognition across the difference.
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“很象一个尼伯龙根家的人。①”厄秀拉笑道。可戈珍什么也没说,仍然默立着俯视水面。
①参见德国英雄史诗《尼伯龙根之歌》。
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`Like a Nibelung,’ laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood still looking over the water.
Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just himself in the watery world.
Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that she felt herself as if damned, out there on the high-road.
`The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!’ cried Gudrun, strangely flushed and brilliant. `You’re a man, you want to do a thing, you do it. You haven’t the thousand obstacles a woman has in front of her.’
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厄秀拉弄不清戈珍脑子里在想些什么,怎么会这样突如其来地大叫。她不明白。
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Ursula wondered what was in Gudrun’s mind, to occasion this outburst. She could not understand.
`Nothing,’ cried Gudrun, in swift refutation. `But supposing I did. Supposing I want to swim up that water. It is impossible, it is one of the impossibilities of life, for me to take my clothes off now and jump in. But isn’t it ridiculous, doesn’t it simply prevent our living!’
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戈珍的脸涨得通红,她太生气了,这让厄秀拉不知所措。
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She was so hot, so flushed, so furious, that Ursula was puzzled.
The two sisters went on, up the road. They were passing between the trees just below Shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house, dim and glamorous in the wet morning, its cedar trees slanting before the windows. Gudrun seemed to be studying it closely.
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“你不觉得它迷人吗,厄秀拉?”戈珍问。
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`Don’t you think it’s attractive, Ursula?’ asked Gudrun.
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“太迷人了,”厄秀拉说,“淡泊而迷人。”
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`Very,’ said Ursula. `Very peaceful and charming.’
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“它是有一定风格的,属于某个时期。”
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`It has form, too -- it has a period.’
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“哪个时期?”
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`What period?’
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“肯定是十八世纪,朵拉茜·华滋华斯①和简·奥斯汀那个时代,你说呢?”
①朵拉茜·华滋华斯(1771—1855),女批评家,威廉·华滋华斯的妹妹。
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`Oh, eighteenth century, for certain; Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, don’t you think?’
`Perhaps. But I don’t think the Criches fit the period. I know Gerald is putting in a private electric plant, for lighting the house, and is making all kinds of latest improvements.’
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戈珍迅速耸耸肩说:“那当然,这是不可避免的嘛。”
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Gudrun shrugged her shoulders swiftly.`Of course,’ she said, `that’s quite inevitable.’
`Quite,’ laughed Ursula. `He is several generations of youngness at one go. They hate him for it. He takes them all by the scruff of the neck, and fairly flings them along. He’ll have to die soon, when he’s made every possible improvement, and there will be nothing more to improve. He’s got go, anyhow.’
`Certainly, he’s got go,’ said Gudrun. `In fact I’ve never seen a man that showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does his go go to, what becomes of it?’
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“我知道,”厄秀拉说,“就是推行最新的机器呗!”
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`Oh I know,’ said Ursula. `It goes in applying the latest appliances!’
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“太对了!”戈珍说。
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`Exactly,’ said Gudrun.
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“你知道他杀死了他的弟弟吗?”厄秀拉问。
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`You know he shot his brother?’ said Ursula.
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“杀死他弟弟?”戈珍大叫着皱起了眉头,似乎她不同意这么说。
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`Shot his brother?’ cried Gudrun, frowning as if in disapprobation.
`Didn’t you know? Oh yes! -- I thought you knew. He and his brother were playing together with a gun. He told his brother to look down the gun, and it was loaded, and blew the top of his head off. Isn’t it a horrible story?’
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“多么可怕!”戈珍叫道,“不过这是很久以前的事了吧?”
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`How fearful!’ cried Gudrun. `But it is long ago?’
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“对,当他们很小的时候。”厄秀拉说,“我觉得这是我所知道的最可怕的事儿。”
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`Oh yes, they were quite boys,’ said Ursula. `I think it is one of the most horrible stories I know.’
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“他并不知道枪里上着子弹,对吗?”
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`And he of course did not know that the gun was loaded?’
`Yes. You see it was an old thing that had been lying in the stable for years. Nobody dreamed it would ever go off, and of course, no one imagined it was loaded. But isn’t it dreadful, that it should happen?’
`Frightful!’ cried Gudrun. `And isn’t it horrible too to think of such a thing happening to one, when one was a child, and having to carry the responsibility of it all through one’s life. Imagine it, two boys playing together -- then this comes upon them, for no reason whatever -- out of the air. Ursula, it’s very frightening! Oh, it’s one of the things I can’t bear. Murder, that is thinkable, because there’s a will behind it. But a thing like that to happen to one --’
`Perhaps there was an unconscious will behind it,’ said Ursula. `This playing at killing has some primitive desire for killing in it, don’t you think?’
`Desire!’ said Gudrun, coldly, stiffening a little. `I can’t see that they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, "You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what happens." It seems to me the purest form of accident.’
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“不,”厄秀拉说。“如果别人低头看枪口时,我是不会扣动板机的。人的本能使得人不会这样做,不会的。”
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`No,’ said Ursula. `I couldn’t pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in the world, not if some-one were looking down the barrel. One instinctively doesn’t do it -- one can’t.’
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戈珍沉默了,但心里十分不服气。
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Gudrun was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement.
`Of course,’ she said coldly. `If one is a woman, and grown up, one’s instinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of boys playing together.’
`Yes,’ persisted Ursula. At that moment they heard a woman’s voice a few yards off say loudly:`Oh damn the thing!’ They went forward and saw Laura Crich and Hermione Roddice in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura Crich struggling with the gate, to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and helped to lift the gate.
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“谢谢您,”劳拉说着抬起头,脸红得象个悍妇,不解地说:“铰链掉了。”
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`Thanks so much,’ said Laura, looking up flushed and amazon-like, yet rather confused. `It isn’t right on the hinges.’
`How do you do,’ sang Hermione, from out of the field, the moment she could make her voice heard. `It’s nice now. Are you going for a walk? Yes. Isn’t the young green beautiful? So beautiful -- quite burning. Good morning -- good morning -- you’ll come and see me? -- thank you so much -- next week -- yes -good-bye, g-o-o-d b-y-e.’
Gudrun and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and down, and waving her hand slowly in dismissal, smiling a strange affected smile, making a tall queer, frightening figure, with her heavy fair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off, as if they had been dismissed like inferiors. The four women parted.
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她们走到比较远的地方时,厄秀拉红着脸说:“我觉得她太没礼貌了。”
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As soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said, her cheeks burning,`I do think she’s impudent.’
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“谁?赫麦妮·罗迪斯?”戈珍问,“为什么?”
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`Who, Hermione Roddice?’ asked Gudrun. `Why?’
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“她待人的态度,没礼貌!”
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`The way she treats one -- impudence!’
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“怎么了,厄秀拉,她哪点没礼貌了?”戈珍有点冷漠地问。
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`Why, Ursula, what did you notice that was so impudent?’ asked Gudrun rather coldly.
`Her whole manner. Oh, It’s impossible, the way she tries to bully one. Pure bullying. She’s an impudent woman. "You’ll come and see me," as if we should be falling over ourselves for the privilege.’
`I can’t understand, Ursula, what you are so much put out about,’ said Gudrun, in some exasperation. `One knows those women are impudent -- these free women who have emancipated themselves from the aristocracy.’
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“可是这太庸俗了,多余。”厄秀拉叫道。
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`But it is so Unnecessary -- so vulgar,’ cried Ursula.
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“不,我看不出来。如果我发现了这一点,我就不允许她对我无礼。”
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`No, I don’t see it. And if I did -- pour moi, elle n’existe pas. I don’t grant her the power to be impudent to me.’
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“你认为她喜欢你吗?”厄秀拉问。
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`Do you think she likes you?’ asked Ursula.
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“哦,不,我不这么以为。”
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`Well, no, I shouldn’t think she did.’
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“那她为什么请你去布莱德比作客?”
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`Then why does she ask you to go to Breadalby and stay with her?’
`After all, she’s got the sense to know we’re not just the ordinary run,’ said Gudrun. `Whatever she is, she’s not a fool. And I’d rather have somebody I detested, than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own set. Hermione Roddice does risk herself in some respects.’
`I doubt it,’ she replied. `Really she risks nothing. I suppose we ought to admire her for knowing she can invite us -- school teachers -- and risk nothing.’
`Precisely!’ said Gudrun. `Think of the myriads of women that daren’t do it. She makes the most of her privileges -- that’s something. I suppose, really, we should do the same, in her place.’
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“才不呢,”厄秀拉说,“不,那会烦死我。我才不花时间做她这种游戏呢。那太失身份了。”
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`No,’ said Ursula. `No. It would bore me. I couldn’t spend my time playing her games. It’s infra dig.’
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这姐妹两人象一把剪刀,谁从她们中间穿过都会被她们剪断;或者又象一把刀和一块磨刀石相互磨擦。
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The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other.
`Of course,’ cried Ursula suddenly, `she ought to thank her stars if we will go and see her. You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than ever she is or was, and to my thinking, a thousand times more beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural, like a flower, always old, thought-out; and we are more intelligent than most people.’
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“一点不错!”戈珍说。
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`Undoubtedly!’ said Gudrun.
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“这一点应该得到承认才是。”厄秀拉说。
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`And it ought to be admitted, simply,’ said Ursula.
`Certainly it ought,’ said Gudrun. `But you’ll find that the really chic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary, so perfectly commonplace and like the person in the street, that you really are a masterpiece of humanity, not the person in the street actually, but the artistic creation of her --’
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“太好了!”厄秀拉叫道。
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`How awful!’ cried Ursula.
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“当然啦,厄秀拉,是太好了。你无法超脱尘世,十足的朴实才是艺术创造出来的平凡。”
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`Yes, Ursula, it is awful, in most respects. You daren’t be anything that isn’t amazingly a terre, so much a terre that it is the artistic creation of ordinariness.’
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“打扮自己打扮不好可太没意思了。”厄秀拉笑道。
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`It’s very dull to create oneself into nothing better,’ laughed Ursula.
`Very dull!’ retorted Gudrun. `Really Ursula, it is dull, that’s just the word. One longs to be high-flown, and make speeches like Corneille, after it.’
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戈珍妙语连珠地说着,脸红了,心儿激动起来。
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Gudrun was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness.
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“而且高视阔步,”厄秀拉说,“人们总想象鹅群中的白天鹅一样高视阔步。”
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`Strut,’ said Ursula. `One wants to strut, to be a swan among geese.’
`They are all so busy playing the ugly duckling,’ cried Ursula, with mocking laughter. `And I don’t feel a bit like a humble and pathetic ugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese -- I can’t help it. They make one feel so. And I don’t care what they think of me. fe m’en fiche.’
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戈珍抬头看看厄秀拉,心里有点奇怪,说不出的妒忌与厌恶。
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Gudrun looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike.
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“当然,唯一可以做的就是不理睬他们,就这样。”她说。
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`Of course, the only thing to do is to despise them all -- just all,’ she said.
The sisters went home again, to read and talk and work, and wait for Monday, for school. Ursula often wondered what else she waited for, besides the beginning and end of the school week, and the beginning and end of the holidays. This was a whole life! Sometimes she had periods of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away, and be gone, without having been more than this. But she never really accepted it. Her spirit was active, her life like a shoot that is growing steadily, but which has not yet come above ground.