第十章（第5/42页）

Now she came every day to the hens, they were the only things in the world that warmed her heart. Clifford's protestations made her go cold from head to foot. Mrs. Bolton's voice made her go cold, and the sound of the business men who came. An occasional letter from Michaelis affected her with the same sense of chill. She felt she would surely die if it lasted much longer.

现在，她每天都来看母鸡，它们成为世间唯一能温暖她心房的生灵。克利福德的信誓旦旦让她全身凉透。博尔顿太太的温言软语，到访实业家们的高谈阔论，都无法让她感到丝毫暖意。米凯利斯偶尔的飞鸿同样让她冷彻心扉。她觉得如果再这样继续下去，自己只有死路一条。

Yet it was spring, and the bluebells were coming in the wood, and the leaf-buds on the hazels were opening like the spatter of green rain. How terrible it was that it should be spring, and everything cold-hearted, cold-hearted. Only the hens, fluffed so wonderfully on the eggs, were warm with their hot, brooding female bodies! Connie felt herself living on the brink of fainting all the time.

但毕竟已经春回大地，风铃草再现树林，榛树萌发出的嫩叶就像是漫天飘舞的碧绿雨滴。春色烂漫，但万事万物却依旧冷酷，依然无情，这实在糟糕透顶。只有那些孵蛋的母鸡，优雅地在蛋上展开自己的羽毛，它们热切的雌性身躯，才能令人感到一丝暖意。康妮觉得自己随时随地都可能昏厥过去。

Then, one day, a lovely sunny day with great tufts of primroses under the hazels, and many violets dotting the paths, she came in the afternoon to the coops and there was one tiny, tiny perky chicken tinily prancing round in front of a coop, and the mother hen clucking in terror. The slim little chick was greyish brown with dark markings, and it was the most alive little spark of a creature in seven kingdoms at that moment. Connie crouched to watch in a sort of ecstasy. Life, life! Pure, sparky, fearless new life! New life! So tiny and so utterly without fear! Even when it scampered a little, scrambling into the coop again, and disappeared under the hen's feathers in answer to the mother hen's wild alarm-cries, it was not really frightened, it took it as a game, the game of living. For in a moment a tiny sharp head was poking through the gold-brown feathers of the hen, and eyeing the Cosmos.

某个阳光明媚的日子，榛树旁大簇的樱草花盛放着，小径上星星点点地散布着紫罗兰。午饭过后，她再次来到鸡笼旁。一只小不点鸡宝宝正在缓缓学步，欢快地在笼前踱来踱去，而它的母亲则忧心忡忡，不断发出咯咯声。这只纤细的小鸡有灰褐色的羽毛，身上点缀着黑斑，在那个瞬间，它就是天底下最具活力的小生命。康妮蹲下身子，看得入了迷。生命，生命！纯洁无暇、充满生机、无所畏惧的新生命！新生命！如此瘦小纤细，但却丝毫不知畏惧！甚至当它听到母亲惊恐万分的尖叫声，蹦跳着仓促钻进笼中，藏身于妈妈的羽毛里，也并非因为心生畏惧，它只把这一切当做游戏，生存的游戏。因为，没过一会儿，那颗尖尖的小脑袋又从母亲金棕色的羽毛中探出来，打量着眼前的大千世界。

Connie was fascinated. And at the same time, never had she felt so acutely the agony of her own female forlornness. It was becoming unbearable.

康妮看得着了魔。而与此同时，身为女性的她，深切地体验到孤独之苦，那种感受前所未有地强烈。已经到达无法承受的程度。

She had only one desire now, to go to the clearing in the wood. The rest was a kind of painful dream. But sometimes she was kept all day at Wragby, by her duties as hostess. And then she felt as if she too were going blank, just blank and insane.

此刻的她只有一个愿望，那就是置身于这片林中空地。其他的一切都是痛苦的梦境。但为了尽到女主人的职责，她有时需要全天都留在拉格比。此时，她只觉自己变得无比空虚，极度茫然，几乎陷入疯狂的境地。