第十七章（第15/21页）

She did a rash thing. She sent a letter to Ivy Bolton, enclosing a note to the keeper, and asking Mrs. Bolton to give it him. And she wrote to him: I am very much distressed to hear of all the trouble your wife is making for you, but don't mind it, it is only a sort of hysteria. It will all blow over as suddenly as it came. But I'm awfully sorry about it, and I do hope you are not minding very much. After all, it isn't worth it. She is only a hysterical woman who wants to hurt you. I shall be home in ten days' time, and I do hope everything will be all right. A few days later came a letter from Clifford. He was evidently upset.

她做了件鲁莽的事。她写信给艾维·博尔顿，里面附着给守林人的短笺，拜托博尔顿太太转交。她写给他的信内容如下：听说你妻子给你造成的种种麻烦，我深感苦恼，但千万不要介意，这不过是种歇斯底里的表现。这将来也匆匆，去也匆匆。但我对此深感遗憾，衷心希望你不要太过挂怀。毕竟，这种事不值得如此耿耿于怀。她不过是个疯婆子，一心只想伤害你。我10天后就会回去，希望届时一切都已云开雾散。几天后，她受到克利福德的来信。他显然心有忐忑。

I am delighted to hear you are prepared to leave Venice on the sixteenth. But if you are enjoying it, don't hurry home. We miss you, Wragby misses you. But it is essential that you should get your full amount of sunshine, sunshine and pyjamas, as the advertisements of the Lido say. So please do stay on a little longer, if it is cheering you up and preparing you for our sufficiently awful winter. Even today, it rains.

听说你准备16日从威尼斯动身，我深感高兴。可若你的确享受着旅行的乐趣，倒也不必急着回家。我们想念你，拉格比想念你。但更为重要的还是你能够畅享和煦的阳光，正如利多岛旅游广告所标榜的，阳光与泳衣。因此，如果度假确实令你感到愉快，能赋予你更加健康的身体，来应对这里严酷的寒冬，那不妨再多作逗留。即使是今天，拉格比依然在下雨。

I am assiduously, admirably looked after by Mrs. Bolton. She is a queer specimen. The more I live, the more I realize what strange creatures human beings are. Some of them might Just as well have a hundred legs, like a centipede, or six, like a lobster. The human consistency and dignity one has been led to expect from one's fellow-men seem actually nonexistent. One doubts if they exist to any startling degree even is oneself.

博尔顿太太任劳任怨，无微不至地照顾着我。她是个奇怪的生物。随着岁月的流逝，我越来越感觉人类是如此奇异的生物。有些人或许真能像蜈蚣那样，拥有百只足，或者像龙虾那样，生有六条腿。人类希望彼此身上体现出诚信和尊严，但其实那并不存在。就连我们，也不禁要怀疑，自己的这些品质是否还明显地存在着。

The scandal of the keeper continues and gets bigger like a snowball. Mrs. Bolton keeps me informed. She reminds me of a fish which, though dumb, seems to be breathing silent gossip through its gills, while ever it lives. All goes through the sieve of her gills, and nothing surprises her. It is as if the events of other people's lives were the necessary oxygen of her own.

守林人的丑事愈演愈烈，好像雪球般越滚越大。从博尔顿太太那里，我随时能够得知最新的消息。她让我联想起鱼类，虽然不会说话，但只要活着，就能在呼吸时，通过两腮传播无声的流言。流言蜚语都经过她两腮的过滤，没什么新闻能令她感到讶异。似乎别人的家长里短，就是她生存必须的氧气。

She is preoccupied with tie Mellors scandal, and if I will let her begin, she takes me down to the depths. Her great indignation, which even then is like the indignation of an actress playing a role, is against the wife of Mellors, whom she persists in calling Bertha Courts. I have been to the depths of the muddy lies of the Bertha Couttses of this world, and when, released from the current of gossip, I slowly rise to the surface again, I look at the daylight its wonder that it ever should be.