第六章（第7/15页）

"Thank you," piped the child.

“谢谢。”女孩尖声细气地说。

"There's a dear!" laughed Connie, and she moved away, saying "Good morning", heartily relieved to get away from the contact.

“真是乖孩子！”康妮笑着回应，道别后，便转身远去，能摆脱这对祖孙，她感觉如释重负。

Curious, she thought, that that thin, proud man should have that little, sharp woman for a mother!

她心中暗自诧异，那个身材瘦削、目中无人的男子，居然有位五短身材、却精明强干的母亲！

And the old woman, as soon as Connie had gone, rushed to the bit of mirror in the scullery, and looked at her face. Seeing it, she stamped her foot with impatience. "Of COURE she had to catch me in my coarse apron, and a dirty face! Nice idea she'd get of me!” Connie went slowly home to Wragby. "Home!——it was a warm word to use for that great, weary warren. But then it was a word that had had its day. It was somehow cancelled. All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. As for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while, then left you more raggy than ever. Frayed! It was as if the very material you were made of was cheap stuff, and was fraying out to nothing.

康妮前脚刚走，那老妪就忙不迭地跑到洗碗池旁，对着一块小镜子，端详起自己的脸来。看到鼻头的黑渍，她气急败坏地跺着脚。“她一准看见我的粗布围裙，还有脏兮兮的脸！她肯定把我当作笑柄！”康妮缓步向拉格比家中走去。“家！——这个词给那栋沉郁的大宅平添几分温暖。但如今，这个词已经过了时。不知何故被剔除了。康妮觉得，似乎所有美妙的字眼都与自己这代人绝缘：爱情，快乐，幸福，家庭，母亲，父亲，丈夫。所有这些生机盎然的绝佳词汇，现在都已半死不活，逐渐走向衰亡。家庭乃存身之地，爱情不容自欺，快乐用来形容热舞时的感受，幸福是蒙蔽他人的虚伪用词，父亲只懂享受自己的生活，丈夫与你同住一个屋檐下，又要你打起精神与他一起生活。至于性爱，所有伟大词汇的终结篇，不过是个牵强附会的字眼，用以形容某种亢奋的状态，它能瞬间将你送上快乐的巅峰，紧接着让你变得支离破碎，比以往更加不堪。一点点被磨碎！好像你是用最廉价材料做成的次品，只会逐渐被消磨殆尽，直到尸骨无存。

All that really remained was a stubborn stoicism: and in that there was a certain pleasure. In the very experience of the nothingness of life, phase after phase, Étape After Étape, there was a certain grisly satisfaction. So that's that! Always this was the last utterance: home, love, marriage, Michaelis: So that's that! And when one died, the last words to life would be: So that's that!

硕果仅存的只剩那难以摆脱的淡漠，而在其中能够品味到某种愉悦。空虚的生命之旅一段又一段，一程又一程，而体验到的是某种令人胆战心惊的满足感。仅此而已！这句话总作为演说的结语：家庭，爱情，婚姻，米凯利斯，仅此而已！寿终正寝时，留给人生的告别辞仍是：仅此而已！

Money? Perhaps one couldn't say the same there. Money one always wanted. Money, Success, the bitch-goddess, as Tommy Dukes persisted in calling it, after Henry James, that was a permanent necessity. You couldn't spend your last sou, and say finally: So that's that! No, if you lived even another ten minutes, you wanted a few more sous for something or other. Just to keep the business mechanically going, you needed money. You had to have it. Money you HAVE to have. You needn't really have anything else. So that's that!