能否让我握握你的柔荑？”他突然问道，两眼完全集中在她的身上，放射出近乎催眠的目光，那无可比拟的感染力直接震撼着她的子宫。

She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly dim and dazed, looking down in a sort of amazement at the rather tender nape of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning dismay, she could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless nape of his neck, and he trembled, with a deep shudder.

她呆呆地望着他，感到头晕目眩，不知所措。他走上前来，跪在她的身旁，两手紧握住她的双足，把脸深埋进她的裙摆，一动不动。她的脑袋一片空白，讶异地望着他那白皙柔嫩的后颈，感觉到他的脸庞挤压着自己的大腿。尽管热血沸腾，心如鹿撞，她还是禁不住将手抚上那毫无防备的脖颈，充满柔情与怜爱，而跪在地上的他则剧烈地颤抖起来。

Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his full, glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it. From her breast flowed the answering, immense yearning over him; she must give him anything, anything.

接着，他抬起头来望着她，炽热的目光中饱含着骇人的感染力。这目光让她完全失去抵抗的能力。胸中充溢着不可遏制的强烈欲求，那是对他求欢举动的回应。她要将自己的身心完全交托给眼前的这个男人，完全地。

He was a curious and very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, trembling uncontrollably, and yet at the same time detached, aware, aware of every sound outside.

作为情人，他难得地温柔体贴，很懂得怜香惜玉，情不自禁地颤抖着，同时又能游离在情爱之外，对四周的每点声响都保持警惕。

To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still, quite still. Then, with dim, compassionate fingers, she stroked his head, that lay on her breast.

对康妮而言，除了委身于他之外，其他的都已被抛诸脑后。云收雨毕，他终于不再战栗，静静地躺在那里，动也不动。然后，她伸出充满爱怜的纤指，轻抚着他依偎在自己胸前的头。

When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, in their suède slippers, and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire.

温存过后，他站起身来，亲吻着她的双手，以及她穿着麂皮拖鞋的双脚，然后默不作声地走到房间尽头，背对着她立在那里。沉默持续了数分钟之久。然后他转过身来，再度回到她的身边，此时康妮则回到壁炉旁刚才坐的位置。

"And now, I suppose you'll hate me!" he said in a quiet, inevitable way.

“我猜，此刻你想必会恨我的！”他平静的语调中流露出听天由命的意味。

She looked up at him quickly.

她旋即仰起头看着他。

"Why should I?" she asked.

“我为什么该恨你？”她问。

"They mostly do," he said; then he caught himself up. "I mean...a woman is supposed to." "This is the last moment when I ought to hate you," she said resentfully.

“她们大都如此，”他解释说，接着又纠正起自己的说法，“我的意思是……女人多半都会这样想。”“就算应该恨你，也不会是在此刻。”她气鼓鼓地说。

"I know! I know! It should be so! You're FRIGHTFULLY good to me..." he cried miserably.

“我知道！我了解！应该是这样没错！你对我简直太好了……”他叫道，语调中满是悲切。

She wondered why he should be miserable. "Won't you sit down again?" she said. He glanced at the door.

她搞不懂这悲切是何来由。“你干嘛不再坐下来？”她问。而他的眼神却瞥向房门。

"Sir Clifford!" he said, "won't he...won't he be...?” She paused a moment to consider. "Perhaps!" she said.

“克利福德爵士！”他说，“他会不会……他会不会觉察……？”她沉思片刻。“或许会！”她答道。

And she looked up at him.

说着抬头凝视着他。

"I don't want Clifford to know not even to suspect. It WOULD hurt him so much. But I don't think it's wrong, do you?” "Wrong! Good God, no! You're only too infinitely good to me...I can hardly bear it.” He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.

“我不想让克利福德知道，甚至不愿他有所怀疑。那会使他异常痛苦。况且我不觉得这样做有什么错误，你觉得呢？”“错误！仁慈的上帝，当然没有！你只是对我太好了……几乎让我承担不起。”他扭过脸去，她看得出他几乎就要哽咽。

"But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?" she pleaded. "It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody." "Me!" he said, almost fiercely; "he'll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!" he laughed hollowly, cynically, at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her:" May I kiss your hand arid go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there, if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate me?—and that you won't?”—he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.

“但咱们没必要让克利福德知道，不是么？”她央求道。“那样只会伤他的心。只要他不明真相，不曾起疑，也就不会有人受到伤害。”“我！”他说，用近乎斩钉截铁的语气，“他绝不会从我口中知道任何事！”不信你就瞧着吧。我竟然会出卖自己？！哈！哈！”他的笑声空洞，显示出对这种想法的不屑一顾。她不明就里地望着他。他再次提出请求：“可否让我在动身前亲吻你的手？我想我要去趟谢菲尔德，可能的话，在那里吃顿午餐，下午茶的时候回来。有什么可以为你效劳的么？我当真可以确信你没有恨我？以后也永远不会恨我？”结束时的语气有强烈的讥诮意味。

"No, I don't hate you," she said. "I think you're nice.” "Ah!" he said to her fiercely, "I'd rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more… Till afternoon then. I've plenty to think about till then.” He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.

“放心，我不恨你，”她说，“反倒觉得你是个好人。”“啊！”他的语调饱含热情，“这句话甚至比你说爱我还要令我感动！对我而言，它意味着更多……那么下午见。在那之前，我有好多事情要好好思考一下。”他恭顺地吻了她的双手，转身离去。

"I don't think I can stand that young man," said Clifford at lunch.

吃午餐的时候，克利福德说：“我真有点受不了那小子。”

"Why?" asked Connie.

“为什么？”康妮问。

"He's such a bounder underneath his veneer...just waiting to bounce us.” "I think people have been so unkind to him," said Connie.

“揭去光鲜的外表，他就是个不折不扣的下流坯……随时可能给我们带来威胁。”“我倒觉得是人们对他太不友善。”康妮说。

"Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing deeds of kindness?" "I think he has a certain sort of generosity." "Towards whom?" "I don't quite know.” "Naturally you don't. I'm afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for generosity.” Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. Yet the unscrupulousness of Michaelis had a certain fascination for her. He went whole lengths where Clifford only crept a few timid paces. In his way he had conquered the world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means...? Were those of Michaelis more despicable than those of Clifford? Was the way the poor outsider had shoved and bounced himself forward in person, and by the back doors, any worse than Clifford's way of advertising himself into prominence? The bitch-goddess, Success, was trailed by thousands of gasping, dogs with lolling tongues. So Michaelis could keep his tail up. The queer thing was, he didn't.

“你感到不解么？难不成你以为他整日行善积德？”“我认为他有种宽宏的气度。”“对谁？”“我不太清楚。”“你当然不清楚。恐怕你只是误把寡廉鲜耻当成了宽宏大量。”康妮无言以对。当真如此么？确有这种可能。但正是米凯利斯不知廉耻的品性让她为之着迷。相对于克利福德的蹒跚学步，他早已功成名就。他以自己的方式征服世界，而这正是克利福德梦寐以求的。至于方法和途径……？米凯利斯所用的手段比克利福德的更加卑劣么？这个被社会边缘化的倒霉蛋，凭借自身的奋斗以及偷偷摸摸的伎俩扬名立万，而克利福德则依靠自我标榜和吹嘘上位，难道两者有什么本质的不同？成功，这位堕落女神，被千万只耷拉着舌头的狗，气喘吁吁地尾随在后。因此，米凯利斯大可以趾高气昂地翘起尾巴。但出人意料的是，他并没有如此地得意忘形。

He came back towards tea-time with a large handful of violets and lilies, and the same hang-dog expression. Connie wondered sometimes if it were a sort of mask to disarm opposition, because it was almost too fixed. Was he really such a sad dog? His sad-dog sort of extinguished self persisted all the evening, though through it Clifford felt the inner effrontery. Connie didn't feel it, perhaps because it was not directed against women; only against men, and their presumptions and assumptions. That indestructible, inward effrontery in the meagre fellow was what made men so down on Michaelis. His very presence was an affront to a man of society, cloak it as he might in an assumed good manner.

他果然在下午茶时分回到拉格比，手里捧着一大束紫罗兰和百合，垂头丧气的卑怯表情依然如故。康妮有时怀疑，这种神态是否是他用来瓦解对方敌对的面具，因为他总是那副可鄙的模样。他当真是只丧家犬么？整晚他都摆出那副可怜巴巴的丧气相，而在克利福德眼中，这不过是为了掩饰其厚颜无耻的本质。康妮却并不这么认为，或许这样的伎俩不会用在女人身上，而只针对男人，针对他们的专横和狂妄。这个瘦小枯干的家伙厚颜无耻到根深蒂固的程度，而正因为此，人们才会对他如此地深恶痛绝。无论装得多么斯文得体，他的存在对于上流社会的人们而言，都无异于公然侮辱。

Connie was in love with him, but she managed to sit with her embroidery and let the men talk, and not give herself away. As for Michaelis, he was perfect; exactly the same melancholic, attentive, aloof young fellow of the previous evening, millions of degrees remote from his hosts, but laconically playing up to them to the required amount, and never coming forth to them for a moment. Connie felt he must have forgotten the morning. He had not forgotten. But he knew where he was...in the same old place outside, where the born outsiders are. He didn't take the love-making altogether personally. He knew it would not change him from an ownerless dog, whom everybody begrudges its golden collar, into a comfortable society dog.

康妮爱上了他，但还是竭力坐在那里刺绣，聆听着男人们谈天说地，不露出任何蛛丝马迹。至于米凯利斯，他表现得无懈可击，依然是昨晚那个忧郁专注而又冷漠的青年，与克利福德夫妇远远地保持着距离，说话时言简意赅，既能投其所好，又做到适可而止，绝不大献殷勤。康妮甚至感觉他准是已经忘记上午的缠绵。他并未遗忘。但他深知自己所处的位置……被边缘化的处境未曾改变，依然游离在上流社会之外。他并没有太把那次偷情放在心上。他明白这并不能让自己从一只无主的流浪狗，摇身一变成为生活安逸的贵族狗，脖颈上套着的金项圈依然是人们嫉恨的目标。

The final fact being that at the very bottom of his soul he WAS an outsider, and anti-social, and he accepted the fact inwardly, no matter how Bond-Streety he was on the outside. His isolation was a necessity to him; just as the appearance of conformity and mixing-in with the smart people was also a necessity.

但最终的真相是，在灵魂深处，米凯利斯的确与上流社会格格不入，他厌恶虚情假意的交际，甚至在心底早已接受了这一事实，不管外表装扮得如何光鲜亮丽。孤独是其性格中不可或缺的组成部分，就像他表现出来的见贤思齐、力争跻身上流同样必不可少。

But occasional love, as a comfort arid soothing, was also a good thing, and he was not ungrateful. On the contrary, he was burningly, poignantly grateful for a piece of natural, spontaneous kindness: almost to tears. Beneath his pale, immobile, disillusioned face, his child's soul was sobbing with gratitude to the woman, and burning to come to her again; just as his outcast soul was knowing he would keep really clear of her.

偶尔涉足爱河，给身心以慰藉，倒也是件好事，而他也并非忘恩负义之辈。相反却对真诚自然的情感，抱有强烈而深切的感激，几乎因此潸然泪下。那张苍白的面孔流露出沉静寂寥的神态，而隐藏在其后的那孩童般的灵魂，更是对眼前女子感激涕零，迫不及待地想再度与她亲近，但那颗被放逐的心灵却深知，自己应该与她划清界限。

He found an opportunity to say to her, as they were lighting the candles in the hall: "May I come?" "I'll come to you," she said.

借着在走廊燃亮蜡烛的机会，他对她说：“我能去找你么？”“我会去找你的。”她应道。

"Oh, good!" He waited for her a long time...but she came.

“哦，太好了！”他等了很久……她姗姗而来。

He was the trembling excited sort of lover, whose crisis soon came, and was finished. There was something curiously childlike and defenceless about his naked body: as children are naked. His defences were all in his wits and cunning, his very instincts of cunning, and when these were in abeyance he seemed doubly naked and like a child, of unfinished, tender flesh, and somehow struggling helplessly.

床笫上的他总是激动异常，全身战栗，高潮来得快，去得也快。他赤裸的身体尤其如同婴孩般无助，因为孩童们总会不着一缕。全赖机智的头脑与狡黠的天性，他才能保全自我，而当此两者无从发挥之时，他就变得加倍赤裸，愈发与孩童无异，肉体娇嫩纤弱，发育尚未完全，徒劳的挣扎显得那样无力。

He roused in the woman a wild sort of compassion and yearning, and a wild, craving physical desire. The physical desire he did not satisfy in her; he was always come and finished so quickly, then shrinking down on her breast, and recovering somewhat his effrontery while she lay dazed, disappointed, lost.

他激发出康妮狂野的怜爱和渴望，还有疯狂的、按耐不住的情欲。但他却无法令她的欲望得以满足，来去匆匆的高潮过后，就会蜷缩在她的胸口，逐渐恢复他无耻的嘴脸，而她却只能怔怔地躺在那里，怅然若失。

But then she soon learnt to hold him, to keep him there inside her when his crisis was over. And there he was generous and curiously potent; he stayed firm inside her, giving to her, while she was active...wildly, passionately active, coming to her own crisis.

但很快，她就学会掌控他，当高潮过后，仍把他留在体内。他也积极配合，始终保持充盈状态，在她的体内坚挺不倒，将整个身体交托给她，任她摇摆……狂热地摇摆，疯狂地摇摆，直到她的高潮来临。

And as he felt the frenzy of her achieving her own orgasmic satisfaction from his hard, erect passivity, he had a curious sense of pride and satisfaction.

他感受到了自己顺从的坚挺给她带来的高潮的极度快感，莫名的自豪和愉悦油然而生。

"Ah, how good!" she whispered tremulously, and she became quite still, clinging to him. And he lay there in his own isolation, but somehow proud.

“啊，太美妙了！”她喃喃道，身子抖动着。一会儿后就安静下来，紧紧依偎着他。而他平躺着，享受着孤寂之中的些许自豪。

He stayed that time only the three days, and to Clifford was exactly the same as on the first evening; to Connie also. There was no breaking down his external man.

那次他只逗留了三天，在克利福德看来，他跟第一天晚上没什么两样，康妮也没有看出任何破绽。他的表面功夫做得可算无懈可击。

He wrote to Connie with the same plaintive melancholy note as ever, sometimes witty, and touched with a queer, sexless affection. A kind of hopeless affection he seemed to feel for her, and the essential remoteness remained the same. He was hopeless at the very core of him, and he wanted to be hopeless. He rather hated hope. "UNE IMMENSE ESPÉRANCE A TRAVERSÉ LA TERRE”, he read somewhere, and his comment was: “—AND IT'S DARNED-WELL DROWNED EVERYTHING WORTH HAVING.” Connie never really understood him, but, in her way, she loved him. And all the time she felt the reflection of his hopelessness in her. She couldn't quite, quite love in hopelessness. And he, being hopeless, couldn't ever quite love at all.

他给康妮写信时，哀怨忧郁的口吻一如既往，时而点缀着机智，某种怪异的情感掺杂其中，却不带有任何情欲的成分。他似乎对彼此间的感情并不抱希望，因此从来不会表现得过于亲近。在内心深处，他从不相信希望的存在，也不愿与希望扯上任何干系。他甚至对希望怀有厌恶之情。他曾在某处读到过这样的诗句：“希望的狂潮席卷大地。”而他给出的评价则是：“它将一切有价值的东西尽数淹没。”康妮从未真正了解过他，但却以自己的方式爱着他。她始终有这样的感觉，即他对这段感情不抱希望。她却无法在希望无存的状态下，全身心地去爱对方。而他，因为与希望绝缘，自然也从未能够深爱过某人。

So they went on for quite a time, writing, and meeting occasionally in London. She still wanted the physical, sexual thrill she could get with him by her own activity, his little orgasm being over. And he still wanted to give it her. Which was enough to keep them connected.

两人的私情维系了很久，飞鸿传情，间或在伦敦幽会。她依然渴望那种令人迷醉的性快感，虽然只是在对方短暂的高潮结束后，靠自己的挺动得来的。而他也仍旧愿意满足她的欲求。而这已经足够延续两人之间的关系。

And enough to give her a subtle sort of self-assurance, something blind and a little arrogant. It was an almost mechanical confidence in her own powers, and went with a great cheerfulness.

更使她产生某种微妙的自得，盲目而又带有些许傲慢。那几乎是对自身力量机械的自信，同时伴随着强烈的愉悦感。

She was terrifically cheerful at Wragby. And she used all her aroused cheerfulness and satisfaction to stimulate Clifford, so that he wrote his best at this time, and was almost happy in his strange blind way. He really reaped the fruits of the sensual satisfaction she got out of Michaelis' male passivity erect inside her. But of course he never knew it, and if he had, he wouldn't have said thank you!

身在拉格比的她也雀跃异常。她也以所有被唤醒的愉悦心情和满足感来激励克利福德，因此，这段时间他的作品质量最为上乘，而不明真相的他也几乎奇怪地被妻子的快乐所感染。她从米凯利斯被动的坚挺中得到性快感，而他也从这种肉体的满足感中受益匪浅。当然，他始终被蒙在鼓里，如果知道事情的真相，他绝不会有半点感激之意！

Yet when those days of her grand joyful cheerfulness and stimulus were gone, quite gone, and she was depressed and irritable, how Clifford longed for them again! Perhaps if he'd known he might even have wished to get her and Michaelis together again.

但当那妙不可言的愉悦和刺激消逝得无踪无影后，她变得意志消沉，烦躁易怒，而克利福德多么希望那过去的好时光能够重来！若他明晰个中缘由，或许甚至会希望妻子与米凯利斯鸳梦重温也未可知。