第十一章（第14/20页）

乡绅温特像个真正的斗士，选择顽抗到底。但晚饭过后，他不再去自家园林散步。他几乎终日闭门不出。一次，他光头没戴帽，穿着黑漆皮鞋和紫色丝袜，陪康妮走向园林大门，滔滔不绝地跟康妮聊天，依然是那“哈哈”不离口的高雅谈吐。但当两人与一小群矿工擦肩而过，他们并不行礼致意，只是站在那里盯着他。康妮觉得这位风度翩翩的清瘦老人有些畏缩，笼中优雅的羚羊面对粗俗的凝视也会如此。矿工们跟他并无私怨，半点皆无。但他们的心灵却异常冷漠，希冀着将他推翻。而深埋在其心底的，是不可估量的怨恨。他们“为他做工”。由于自身的粗鄙和丑陋，他们憎恨这位优雅讲究、出身高贵的老人。“他是谁呀！”真正招致怨恨的，是彼此间的差异。

And somewhere, in his secret English heart, being a good deal of a soldier, he believed they were right to resent the difference. He felt himself a little in the wrong, for having all the advantages. Nevertheless he represented a system, and he would not be shoved out.

他那颗英格兰人独有的审慎之心，充满昂扬的斗志，似乎也认为他们对阶级差异的憎恨合情合理。他认为自己生来养尊处优，确有不妥之处。然而，他毕竟代表着某种体制，并不甘心被淘汰出局。

Except by death. Which came on him soon after Connie's call, suddenly. And he remembered Clifford handsomely in his will.

死亡是个例外。康妮到访后不久，老乡绅突然撒手人寰。他没有忘记克利福德，留给他可观的遗产。

The heirs at once gave out the order for the demolishing of Shipley. It cost too much to keep up. No one would live there. So it was broken up. The avenue of yews was cut down. The park was denuded of its timber, and divided into lots. It was near enough to Uthwaite. In the strange, bald desert of this still-one-more no-man's-land, new little streets of semi-detacheds were run up, very desirable! The Shipley Hall Estate!

几位继承人立即下令拆毁了希普利府。维持这样大的宅邸，花费实在太高。没人愿意住在这里。因此它只能被毁掉。林荫道两侧的紫杉被伐倒。园林中的树木被砍光，分割成小块。那儿离乌斯维特仅有咫尺之遥。在这片奇异荒凉的“无主之地”上，全新的半独立式住宅小区拔地而起，人人趋之若鹜。希普利府住宅区！

Within a year of Connie's last call, it had happened. There stood Shipley Hall Estate, an array of red-brick semi-detached "villas" in new streets. No one would have dreamed that the stucco hall had stood there twelve months before.

所有这些事均发生在康妮到访后的一年时间内。希普利府住宅区迅速崛起，新铺的街道上排列着红砖砌成的半独立式别墅。人们做梦也想不到，12个月之前，这里屹立着的还是座灰泥宅邸。

But this is a later stage of King Edward's landscape gardening, the sort that has an ornamental coal-mine on the lawn.

但这确是爱德华王执政后期的园艺风格，用煤矿来装点自家的草坪。

One England blots out another. The England of the Squire Winters and the Wragby Halls was gone, dead. The blotting out was only not yet complete.

旧日的英格兰被今时的所湮没。以乡绅温特和拉格比为代表的英格兰已经土崩瓦解，寿终正寝。而摧毁肃清的进程还未告终。

What would come after? Connie could not imagine. She could only see the new brick streets spreading into the fields, the new erections rising at the collieries, the new girls in their silk stockings, the new collier lads lounging into the Pally or the Welfare. The younger generation were utterly unconscious of the old England. There was a gap in the continuity of consciousness, almost American: but industrial really. What next? Connie always felt there was no next. She wanted to hide her head in the sand: or, at least, in the bosom of a living man.