Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

置身悲惨时代已是不可改变的事实，因此我们更需保持乐观的态度。大难已然降临，身处残垣断壁之中，我们着手修建自己的小小家园，心怀微弱的新的希冀。这的确并非易事：通往未来的道路绝无坦途，但我们仍需曲折前行，攀过重重阻碍。即使天崩地裂，生活仍要继续。

This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

康斯坦斯·查泰莱夫人的境遇大致就是如此。战争给她带来塌天横祸。也让她意识到人必须活在世间，生而学之。

She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month's honeymoon. Then he went back to Flanders: to be shipped over to England again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine.

1917年，克利福德·查泰莱告了一个月的假，返回家乡，同康斯坦斯结了婚。两人得以共度一个月的新婚时光。之后，他再赴佛兰德，不想仅仅六个月过去，就被运回英格兰，几乎是遍体鳞伤。当时他29岁，妻子康斯坦斯23岁。

His hold on life was marvellous. He didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor's hands. Then he was pronounced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever.

克利福德的求生欲望令人惊异。他居然活了下来，支离破碎的身体似乎也重新愈合了。医生花费整整两年的时光医治他，总算起到回春之效，克利福德好歹保住性命，只是腰部以下的下半身永远瘫痪了。

This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family "seat". His father had died, Clifford was now a baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the Chatterleys on a rather inadequate income. Clifford had a sister, but she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the Chatterley name alive while he could.

时间已经是1920年。克利福德携康斯坦斯返回家乡，入住祖传的拉格比府。父亲已经辞世，克利福德承袭爵位，成为克利福德男爵，而康斯坦斯也成为查泰莱男爵夫人。置身于查泰莱家这座有点凄清的祖宅，夫妻俩操持家务，依靠稍显微薄的收入，过起日子来。克利福德有个姐姐，但已经离开。此外她们再无近亲。其兄死于战火。克利福德清楚自己注定终生残废，无望有后，重回烟雾缭绕的米德兰（注：英格兰中部地区的旧称），为的只是在自己的有生之年，让查泰莱家不至于断绝香火。

He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a bath-chair with a small motor attachment, so he could drive himself slowly round the garden and into the line melancholy park, of which he was really so proud, though he pretended to be flippant about it.

他并未因此而十分郁郁寡欢。他可以摇着轮椅，四处游逛，而驾着那个装有小型马达的巴斯轮椅（注：旧时一种供残疾人使用的轮椅，多带有蓬盖），更能够悠哉游哉地在花园中徜徉，进入那片树木成行、凄清阴郁的庭院中去。拥有如此气派的园林，他其实颇为得意，只是装出一副满不在乎的模样而已。

Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him. He remained strange and bright and cheerful, almost, one might say, chirpy, with his ruddy, healthy-looking face, arid his pale-blue, challenging bright eyes. His shoulders were broad and strong, his hands were very strong. He was expensively dressed, and wore handsome neckties from Bond Street. Yet still in his face one saw the watchful look, the slight vacancy of a cripple.

经历诸多苦难，克利福德对痛苦的承受能力有点离他而去。他依然古怪，总是满面春风，笑逐颜开，脸色健康红润，淡蓝色的双眸神采奕奕，说他是乐天派也不为过。其双肩宽厚强壮，两手结实有力。其人衣着华贵，颈部总系着邦德街（注：位于伦敦西部上流住宅区的一条商业街，从18世纪繁盛至今）买回的漂亮的领带。但从他的脸上，还是能看到那种残疾人特有的警惕表情，以及略显空洞的眼神。

He had so very nearly lost his life, that what remained was wonderfully precious to him. It was obvious in the anxious brightness of his eyes, how proud he was, after the great shock, of being alive. But he had been so much hurt that something inside him had perished, some of his feelings had gone. There was a blank of insentience.

他曾去鬼门关走过一遭，因此对余生倍加珍视。一双明眸分明闪烁着焦虑，流露出对自己大难不死的得意神色。但所受的创伤确实太过深重，他内心的某些东西已然泯灭，某些情感也都消失不见了。只有失去知觉后的空白。

Constance, his wife, was a ruddy, country-looking girl with soft brown hair and sturdy body, and slow movements, full of unusual energy. She had big, wondering eyes, and a soft mild voice, and seemed just to have come from her native village. It was not so at all. Her father was the once well-known R.A., old Sir Malcolm Reid. Her mother had been one of the cultivated Fabians in the palmy, rather pre-Raphaelite days. Between artists and cultured socialists, Constance and her sister Hilda had had what might be called an aesthetically unconventional upbringing. They had been taken to Paris and Florence and Rome to breathe in art, and they had been taken also in the other direction, to the Hague and Berlin, to great Socialist conventions, where the speakers spoke in every civilized tongue, and no one was abashed.

其妻康斯坦斯，面若桃花，一副乡下姑娘的模样，满头柔软的棕发，体格结实强壮，行动慢条斯理，精力异常充沛。她那一对杏眼，充满好奇，嗓音温软，像是刚从故乡的村子里走出。但事实并非如此。其父老马尔科姆·里德爵士，曾是尽人皆知的皇家艺术学会（注：位于英国伦敦的著名艺术机构）会员。在那段前拉斐尔派（注：1848年在英国兴起的美术改革运动，对后世的英国绘画有着深远的影响）还如日中天的繁荣时期，其母也是位学识渊博的费边社（注：英国社会改良主义团体，1884年成立于伦敦，主张采取缓慢渐进的策略来达到社会改良的目的）社员。受到艺术家及有教养的社会主义者的熏陶，康斯坦斯与妹妹希尔达可以算是受到了新颖的美学上的教养。她们曾随父母到过巴黎、佛罗伦萨以及罗马，呼吸那里的艺术气息，也去过海牙与柏林，参与社会主义者的盛会，在那里形形色色的演说者操着各国语言，谈吐文雅，举止大方�

The two girls, therefore, were from an early age not the least daunted by either art or ideal politics. It was their natural atmosphere. They were at once cosmopolitan and provincial, with the cosmopolitan provincialism of art that goes with pure social ideals.

对于艺术或者理想主义政治，姐妹俩从小就没有半点胆怯之心。她们反倒对此习以为常。她们大气广博，又不失乡土本色，她们那交融着世界性及地方色彩的艺术品味，与纯粹的社会理想相辅相成。

They had been sent to Dresden at the age of fifteen, for music among other things. And they had had a good time there. They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women. And they tramped off to the forests with sturdy youths bearing guitars, twang-twang! They sang the Wandervogel songs, and they were free. Free! That was the great word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning, with lusty and splendid-throated young fellows, free to do as they liked, and—above all—to say what they liked. It was the talk that mattered supremely: the impassioned interchange of talk. Love was only a minor accompaniment.

15岁时，她们被送往德累斯顿（注：德国中东部城市），学习音乐和其他知识。她们在那里度过了愉快的时光。学校的生活是那样的无拘无束，她们常与男同学争论哲学、社会学以及艺术方面的问题。姐妹俩的学识丝毫不逊男子，甚至更胜一筹——因为她们是女子。当她们相伴在林间漫步时，同行的英挺少年总会不时拨响随身携带的六弦琴，砰砰作响！高唱起候鸟协会（注：德语，意为候鸟，此处指１19世纪末20世纪初的德国青年运动，倡导摆脱社会的限制，返璞归真，追求自由）的歌谣，如此地自由自在。自由！多么美妙的字眼。在空旷的野外，在清晨的森林，与歌喉动人的欢快少年们自由地做喜欢的事情，尤其是畅所欲言。谈话无疑极为重要，那热情洋溢的交谈。爱情不过是微不足道的陪衬。

Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen. The young men with whom they talked so passionately and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were so humble and craving. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself? So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only a sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connexions and subjections.

希尔达和康斯坦斯均在18岁时初尝爱情的滋味。和她们热烈交谈，纵情欢唱，在树下自由露营的小伙子们自然会对肌肤之亲充满渴望。女孩们起初犹豫未决，但关于此事，双方已经探讨过多次，均认为它如此重要。况且小伙子们又是如此低声下气地渴求。为什么女孩不能如女王施恩一般，将自己赐予对方呢？于是两人都委身于谈论问题时与自己最为交心，关系最为亲密的少年。高谈阔论，据理力争，才是举足轻重之事，而男女之欢不过是种回归原始的行为，甚至有点扫兴。云雨过后，女孩对男孩的爱意反倒减少了，甚至生出些许怨恨，仿佛是他侵犯了自己的私隐，以及内在的自由。因为身为女子，全部的尊严，以及生存的真谛，都自然在于自由的实现，这种自由无可挑剔，尽善尽美，难觅瑕疵，高贵无比。女子的一生除此之外还有什么意义？是摆脱陈腐的、可鄙的交媾和从属关系。

And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.

无论被赋予多少浪漫情怀，性事仍是一种古老的、污秽的交合行为和从属关系。歌颂性爱的诗人多是男子。女子却往往深知，世间还存在着更加美好、更加崇高的事物。而如今，这种信念比以往还要明确许多。对于女人而言，完美纯粹的自由如此令人向往，而这是任何性爱都无法企及的。不过糟糕的是，男人对此事的观念依旧停滞落后。他们对性的强烈需求，与兽类无异。

And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connexion and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.

女子只得委曲求全。男人好似贪嘴的孩童。当女人不肯屈就于他们的欲望时，他们就可能会摆出臭脸，盛怒而去，活脱脱像个孩子，将原本融洽的关系搞得一团糟。但女人就算屈从于男子，仍可以保有心底自由的真我。那些乐谈性事的诗人和谈论者，好像没有对这给予充分说明。即使委身于人，女子仍能不流露自己内心的真实情感，自然也能做到不受对方的掌控。相反，她们甚至可以巧妙地利用性事，将男人玩弄于股掌之中。她们只须在交媾时抑制住自己的情绪，避免高潮的到来，等到对方弹药耗尽、丢盔卸甲后，就可以将欢好时间延长，享受极度的快感，而此时男人扮演的角色只不过是她的纵欲工具。

Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months… this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!—had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.

战火燃起，姐妹俩匆匆赶回家，而在此之前，两人都已有过恋爱的经验。陷入爱河，皆因双方能够倾心交谈，彼此深有好感，愿意互诉衷肠。数月间，能与颖悟绝伦的少男时以继时，日以继日地忘情交谈，那种兴奋的感受真是美妙至极、深奥莫测、难以置信……而这些只有在亲身经历过后，才能真正认识得到。神的许诺：尔将交到可以交心的男子！——从未透露，这个许诺却在恋人们尚未知晓之前，就已兑现。

And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme.

生动的、启迪灵魂的交谈，使恋人间的关系变得亲昵，若此时云情雨意已无法抑制，那就不妨顺其自然。这标志着一个篇章的终结。其本身也伴随着强烈的快感：肉体深处莫可名状的震颤，最终释放欲望时的痉挛，像是文章末尾激奋人心的字眼，更像是段落结尾处一连串的星号，预示着主题思想戛然而止。

When the girls came home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father could see plainly that they had had the love experience.

适逢1913年暑期，姐妹俩返回故乡，那时希尔达20岁，康妮18岁，其父一眼便看出她们已经有了爱情经验。

L'amour avait possé par là, as somebody puts it. But he was a man of experience himself, and let life take its course. As for the mother, a nervous invalid in the last few months of her life, she wanted her girls to be "free", and to "fulfil themselves". She herself had never been able to be altogether herself: it had been denied her. Heaven knows why, for she was a woman who had her own income and her own way. She blamed her husband. But as a matter of fact, it was some old impression of authority on her own mind or soul that she could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously hostile, high-spirited wife to rule her own roost, while he went his own way.

正如某人所说：爱情已经来临过。然而他自己已是过来人，索性听之任之。至于她们的母亲，疯疯癫癫的她已经时日无多，只剩几个月的活头，期望女儿们能够“自由自在”，“充实自我”。她从未做过真正的自己，这个权利被剥夺了。天晓得原因为何，毕竟她是个经济独立、行事果敢的女子。她归咎于自己的丈夫。但事实上，只是陈腐的伦常对其思想或灵魂的影响太过深重，以至于她始终都无法摆脱出来。这跟马尔科姆爵士绝无半点干系。他对妻子神经质的敌视和执着熟视无睹，心安理得地我行我素。

So the girls were 'free', and went back to Dresden, and their music, and the university and the young men. They loved their respective young men, and their respective young men loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things the young men thought and expressed and wrote, they thought and expressed and wrote for the young women. Connie's young man was musical, Hilda's was technical. But they simply lived for their young women. In their minds and their mental excitements, that is. Somewhere else they were a little rebuffed, though they did not know it.

姐妹俩自然不会受到什么约束，她们再赴德累斯顿，回归高校继续研修音乐，也得以重返年轻的情郎的怀抱。两对恋人都全身心地深爱着彼此。少男们所想、所说、所写的一切美妙事物，全都是为了自己心爱的女孩。康妮的爱郎学习音乐，而希尔达的则主修理工。但他们生活的重心完全放在自己的恋人身上。更确切地说，从思想及情感方面来讲尤是如此。而在其他方面，他们却并未被完全接受，虽说二人始终没有察觉到这一点。

It was obvious in them too that love had gone through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what a subtle but unmistakable transmutation it makes, both in the body of men and women: the woman more blooming, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened, and her expression either anxious or triumphant: the man much quieter, more inward, the very shapes of his shoulders and his buttocks less assertive, more hesitant.

显而易见，爱情，干柴烈火的肉体之爱，已经在她俩身上留下痕迹。奇妙的是，肉体之爱会让情侣们的身体发生细微但却显而易见的变化：女孩变得更加丰腴圆润，好似盛放的花朵，少女时期的棱角渐渐被磨平，取而代之的是抑或忧心忡忡，抑或洋洋得意的丰富表情；男孩则变得更加沉静内敛，肩膀和臀部的线条少了几分斩钉截铁，多了几分犹豫不决。

In the actual sex-thrill within the body, the sisters nearly succumbed to the strange male power. But quickly they recovered themselves, took the sex-thrill as a sensation, and remained free. Whereas the men, in gratitude to the woman for the sex experience, let their souls go out to her. And afterwards looked rather as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Connie's man could be a bit sulky, and Hilda's a bit jeering. But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason.

身体内部真切的性快感，让姐妹俩几乎要对男性的奇异力量俯首称臣。但二人旋即重拾自我，将性快感归于官能的刺激，坚守着心灵的自由。反观她们的情郎，却因为对佳人以身相许心存感念，将灵魂也尽数交托给对方。但过不多时，他们就发觉这似乎有些得不偿失。康妮的爱侣不时板起脸孔，而希尔达的则经常冷嘲热讽。男人就是这副臭德行！薄情寡幸，贪得无厌。对其敬而远之，他们便心生怨恨；与其如胶似漆，也会招致其他缘由的厌烦。

Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.