第十六章（第4/24页）

"At least," he said, subsiding, "you'll be lucky if you've got off without a severe cold.” "Oh, I haven't got a cold," she replied. She was thinking to herself of the other man's words: Tha's got the nicest woman's arse of anybody! She wished, she dearly wished she could tell Clifford that this had been said her, during the famous thunderstorm. However! She bore herself rather like an offended queen, and went upstairs to change.

“至少，”他说，情绪渐渐平复下来，“如果你不会因此患上重感冒，那就算是万幸了。”“噢，我没感冒。”她回应道。她心里想着另一个男人的话：恁拥有世间最美的女人的屁股！她希望，由衷地希望能够告诉克利福德，在那场倾盆暴雨中，有人这样赞美她。但话到嘴边又咽下。她端起架子，活像位被冒犯的女王，上楼换衣服去了。

That evening, Clifford wanted to be nice to her. He was reading one of the latest scientific-religious books: he had a streak of a spurious sort of religion in him, and was egocentrically concerned with the future of his own ego. It was like his habit to make conversation to Connie about some book, since the conversation between them had to be made, almost chemically. They had almost chemically to concoct it in their heads.

那天晚上，克利福德极力想要讨好她。他正在读最新出版的一本有关科学的宗教书籍，他对宗教的笃信只不过是惺惺作态，心里真正关心的只不过是自己的前途。自从他俩间的谈话变成没话找话，几乎有些要去制造化学反应的意味，克利福德总习惯跟康妮谈论书籍。他们在脑海里炮制着谈话的内容，很像是在进行化学实验。

"What do you think of this, by the way?" He said, reaching for his book. "You'd have no need to cool your ardent body by running out in the rain, if only we have a few more aeons of evolution behind us.” Ah, here it is!—— "The universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other it is spiritually ascending.” Connie listened, expecting more. But Clifford was waiting. She looked at him in surprise.

“我说，你觉得这种说法如何？”他说着，伸手拿过书。“如果人类再经过更多个纪元的进化，你就不需要去雨中奔跑，以求冷却自己炽热的身躯。呵，就是这句话！——‘宇宙向我们展现出两种趋势，物质被损耗，精神在上升。’”康妮听着，期待着他继续说下去。但克利福德却在等待。她诧异地看着他。

"And if it spiritually ascends," she said, "what does it leave down below, in the place where its tail used to be?" "Ah!" He said. "Take the man for what he means. ASCENDING is the opposite of his WASTING, I presume." "Spiritually blown out, so to speak!" "No, but seriously, without joking: do you think there is anything in it?” She looked at him again.

“如果说精神在上升，”她反驳道，“从前尾巴存在的位置，又剩下什么东西呢？”“啊！”他说。“细细领会作者的意思。我猜，对他而言，上升恰好与损耗相对立。”“也就是说，精神完全崩溃！”“不，说正经的，不开玩笑，你觉得这种观点如何？”她再度将目光转向他。

"Physically wasting?" She said. "I see you getting fatter, and I'm not wasting myself. Do you think the sun is smaller than he used to be? He's not to me. And I suppose the apple Adam offered Eve wasn't really much bigger, if any, than one of our orange pippins. Do you think it was?” Well, hear how he goes on: "It is thus slowly passing, with a slowness inconceivable in our measures of time, to new creative conditions, amid which the physical world, as we at present know it, will he represented by a ripple barely to be distinguished from nonentity." She listened with a glisten of amusement. All sorts of improper things suggested themselves. But she only said: "What silly hocus-pocus! As if his little conceited consciousness could know what was happening as slowly as all that! It only means he's a physical failure on the earth, so he wants to make the whole universe a physical failure. Priggish little impertinence!” "Oh, but listen! Don't interrupt the great man's solemn words!— The present type of order in the world has risen from an unimaginable past, and will find its grave in an unimaginable future. There remains the inexhaustive realm of abstract forms, and creativity with its shifting character ever determined afresh by its own creatures, and God, upon whose wisdom all forms of order depend.— There, that's how he winds up!” Connie sat listening contemptuously.