第十三章（第4/19页）

“哈！可这是逃避的表现。你已经拥有这种身份，这是命运的安排。你不应让它蒙羞。是谁让矿工得到这值得拥有的一切：政治自由，教育机会，诸如此类，还有卫生条件，医疗保健，书籍，音乐，一切的一切？是谁给予他们这一切？是矿工自己吗？不！英格兰所有的拉格比和希普利们已然人尽其责，并将继续履行自己的使命。这就是你的责任。”康妮听着，脸涨得通红。

"I'd like to give something," she said. "But I'm not allowed. Everything is to be sold and paid for now; and all the things you mention now, Wragby and Shipley SELL them to the people, at a good profit. Everything is sold. You don't give one heart-beat of real sympathy. And besides, who has taken away from the people their natural life and manhood, and given them this industrial horror? Who has done that?” "And what must I do?" He asked, green. "Ask them to come and pillage me?" "Why is Tevershall so ugly, so hideous? Why are their lives so hopeless?" "They built their own Tevershall, that's part of their display of freedom. They built themselves their pretty Tevershall, and they live their own pretty lives. I can't live their lives for them. Every beetle must live its own life.” "But you make them work for you. They live the life of your coal-mine.” "Not at all. Every beetle finds its own food. Not one man is forced to work for me.

“我倒愿意给予些什么。”她说。“但却得不到允许。如今，所有的东西都是商品，明码标价，你刚才提到的全部，都由拉格比和希普利卖给穷苦大众，以博取高额的利润。所有的东西都需要用钱来买。你们从不屑施舍半点真正的同情。还有，是谁让劳苦大众英年早丧，毫无半点做人的尊严，对工业的发展充满畏惧？罪魁祸首究竟是谁？”“那么我应该怎样做？”他反问道，脸色铁青。“请他们来掠夺我？”“为什么特弗沙尔如此丑陋，如此粗鄙？为什么他们的生活毫无希望？”“他们按照自己的意愿建设特弗沙尔，这也是他们享有自由的体现。他们建设出自以为美好的特弗沙尔，过着自得其乐的生活。他们选择怎样的生活方式，我无法做主。就算是甲壳虫也要过自己的生活。”“但你逼他们为你干活。他们根本是为你的煤矿而活。”“一派胡言。就算是甲壳虫也能为自己觅得食物。我从未强迫任何人来煤矿做工。”

"Their lives are industrialized and hopeless, and so are ours," she cried.

“他们的生活是工业化的，丝毫没有希望，我们的生活也一般无二。”她喊道。

"I don't think they are. That's just a romantic figure of speech, a relic of the swooning and die-away romanticism. You don't look at all a hopeless figure standing there, Connie my dear.” Which was true. For her dark-blue eyes were flashing, her colour was hot in her cheeks, she looked full of a rebellious passion far from the dejection of hopelessness. She noticed, ill the tussocky places of the grass, cottony young cowslips standing up still bleared in their down. And she wondered with rage, why it was she felt Clifford was so wrong, yet she couldn't say it to him, she could not say exactly where he was wrong.

“我可不这样认为。这只是不切实际的形象比喻，是浪漫主义的可耻残余，这种想法会让人神魂颠倒，但却难以长久。我亲爱的康妮，你好端端地站在那里，根本没有一丁点儿绝望的样子。”此话不假。她深蓝色的双眸光华四射，两颊发热，似乎充满桀骜不驯的热情，全然没有绝望者的沮丧神态。她注意到，乱蓬蓬的草丛中，毛茸茸的报春花娇柔嫩弱，亭亭玉立，依然未脱绒毛。她气呼呼地想，为什么明明知道克利福德有错，却不能对他明言，不能直截了当地告诉他错在哪里。