第十九章（第2/16页）

“您不想让我请医生来吗？”“对！我不需要医生。”他的声音似乎从坟墓中传来。

"Oh, but Sir Clifford, you're ill, and I daren't take the responsibility. I must send for the doctor, or I shall be blamed.” A pause: then the hollow voice said: "I'm not ill. My wife isn't coming back.”— It was as if an image spoke.

“噢，可克利福德爵士，您贵体有恙，这责任我可承担不起。我可得派人去请医生来，不然大家会埋怨我失职的。”片刻的沉默之后，那空洞的声音再度响起：“我没生病。我妻子不回来了。”——好像是雕像在开口说话。

"Not coming back? you mean her ladyship?" Mrs. Bolton moved a little nearer to the bed. "Oh, don't you believe it. You can trust her ladyship to come back.” The image in the bed did not change, but it pushed a letter over the counterpane.

“不回来了？你是说从男爵夫人？”博尔顿太太往床边凑了凑。“噢，您别相信那些鬼话。你请放宽心，夫人保准会回来的。”床上的雕像丝毫没有动容，只是将一封信推过床单。

"Read it!" said the sepulchral voice.

“读吧！”还是那鬼魅般的声音。

"Why, if it's a letter from her ladyship, I'm sure her ladyship wouldn't want me to read her letter to you, Sir Clifford. You can tell me what she says, if you wish.” "Read it!" repeated the voice.

“哎呀，要是夫人来的信，我相信她不会愿意我担任读信的角色，克利福德爵士。如果您愿意的话，不妨告诉我其中的内容。”“读吧！”那声音再次响起。

"Why, if I must, I do it to obey you, Sir Clifford," she said. And she read the letter.

“呃，您非要我读的话，我只好从命，克利福德爵士。”她说。她读完了康妮的来信。

"Well, I am surprised at her ladyship," she said. "She promised so faithfully she'd come back!” The face in the bed seemed to deepen its expression of wild, but motionless distraction. Mrs. Bolton looked at it and was worried. She knew what she was up against: male hysteria. She had not nursed soldiers without learning something about that very unpleasant disease.

“唉，夫人的做法真让我惊讶。”她说。“她曾经那样坚定，信誓旦旦地说会回到您身边！”那塑像般凝注的面孔变得更加狂乱，更加心神不宁。博尔顿太太目睹这一切，心里担心不已。她已经明晰自己将要面对怎样的状况：歇斯底里的男人。她以前照料伤兵的时候，就曾对这种狂躁的癔病略知一二。

She was a little impatient of Sir Clifford. Any man in his senses must have known his wife was in love with somebody else, and was going to leave him. Even, she was sure, Sir Clifford was inwardly absolutely aware of it, only he wouldn't admit it to himself. If he would have admitted it, and prepared himself for it: or if he would have admitted it, and actively struggled with his wife against it: that would have been acting like a man. But no! he knew it, and all the time tried to kid himself it wasn't so.

她渐渐对克利福德失去耐心。只要头脑清醒，任何男人都会清楚自己的妻子已经爱上别人，将要弃他而去。当然，她也晓得，其实克利福德心里如同明镜一般，只是不愿向自己承认而已。如果他早点承认现实，早些做好准备，或者积极行动起来，尽量避免这种情况的发生，那样做才像是大丈夫所为。但他恰恰相反！他心里比谁都明白，却总在欺哄自己，说事实并非如此。

He felt the devil twisting his tail, and pretended it was the angels smiling on him. This state of falsity had now brought on that crisis of falsity and dislocation, hysteria, which is a form of insanity. "It comes", she thought to herself, hating him a little, "because he always thinks of himself. He's so wrapped up in his own immortal self, that when he does get a shock he's like a mummy tangled in its own bandages. Look at him!” But hysteria is dangerous: and she was a nurse, it was her duty to pull him out. Any attempt to rouse his manhood and his pride would only make him worse: for his manhood was dead, temporarily if not finally. He would only squirm softer and softer, like a worm, and become more dislocated.