"You see, Hilda," said Connie after lunch, when they were nearing London, "you have never known either real tenderness or real sensuality: and if you do know them, with the same person, it makes a great difference.” "For mercy's sake don't brag about your experiences!" said Hilda.

“你知道，希尔达，”吃过午饭，伦敦已经在望，康妮说，“你从未体验过难分难舍的温情或者如胶似漆的性爱，如果能在同一个男人身上兼得两者，那更会让你有与众不同的美妙感觉。”“行行好，别再夸耀你的丰富经验了！”希尔达说。

"I've never met the man yet who was capable of intimacy with a woman, giving himself up to her. That was what I wanted. I'm not keen on their self-satisfied tenderness, and their sensuality. I'm not content to be any man's little petsy-wetsy, nor his Chair À Plaisir either. I wanted a complete intimacy, and I didn't get it. That's enough for me.”

“能跟女人亲密无间，将全部身心尽数奉献的男人，我还真没遇到过。我需要的正是这种男人。至于那种自以为是的温情和性欲，我根本就没放在眼里。我不想做任何男人的玩偶，或者沦为泄欲的工具。我想要亲密无间的感情，但并未得到。对我来说那就够了。”

Connie pondered this. Complete intimacy! She supposed that meant revealing everything concerning yourself to the other person, and his revealing everything concerning himself. But that was a bore. And all that weary self-consciousness between a man and a woman! a disease!

康妮思考着姐姐的话。亲密无间的感情！依照她的猜想，这意味着彼此完全坦诚相见，毫无私隐。可这该多无聊呀。在男女情感中，无法完全忘却自我，最终会让双方都筋疲力尽！那简直就是种心理疾病！

"I think you're too conscious of yourself all the time, with everybody," she said to her sister.

“依我看，你和别人相处的时候，往往太在乎自己。”她提醒姐姐。

"I hope at least I haven't a slave nature," said Hilda.

“我只希望自己不要沾染上奴性。”希尔达说。

"But perhaps you have! Perhaps you are a slave to your own idea of yourself." Hilda drove in silence for some time after this piece of unheard of insolence from that chit Connie.

“可或许你恰恰就无法摆脱这种天性！大概奴役你的正是自我意识。”有一段时间，希尔达只是一声不吭地开着车，心里想着，康妮这小丫头，竟然说出如此无礼的言语。

"At least I'm not a slave to somebody else's idea of me: and the somebody else a servant of my husband's," she retorted at last, in crude anger.

“至少我不会受别人思想的支配，更不会听我丈夫的奴仆指手画脚。”她终于忍无可忍，发起反击。

"You see, it's not so," said Connie calmly.

“并非你想象的那样。”康妮平静地回应道。

She had always let herself be dominated by her elder sister. Now, though somewhere inside herself she was weeping, she was free of the dominion of other women. Ah! that in itself was a relief, like being given another life: to be free of the strange dominion and obsession of other women.

她向来甘愿接受姐姐的支配。而此时此刻，虽然内心在泣血，但她却从另一个女人的掌控中解脱出来。啊！这本身就是种解脱，好像重获新生，摆脱其他女人的控制和纠缠。

How awful they were, women!

女人是多么可怕的动物呀！

She was glad to be with her father, whose favourite she had always been. She and Hilda stayed in a little hotel off Pall Mall, and Sir Malcolm was in his club. But he took his daughters out in the evening, and they liked going with him.

与父亲重聚，让康妮很开心，因为她始终是父亲的宠儿。她和希尔达住在帕尔玛尔的小旅馆里，而马尔科姆爵士则留在俱乐部里。但到晚上，他就会带着两个女儿出去玩，她俩也都愿意跟父亲同往。

He was still handsome and robust, though just a little afraid of the new world that had sprung up around him. He had got a second wife in Scotland, younger than himself and richer. But he had as many holidays away from her as possible: just as with his first wife.

他依然丰神俊朗，精力充沛，虽然身边迅速涌现的新生事物让他略感害怕。他在苏格兰续了弦，妻子更加年轻富有。但他却总会寻找机会，丢下她去各地旅行，就像对待亡故的发妻一样。

Connie sat next to him at the opera. He was moderately stout, and had stout thighs, but they were still strong and well-knit, the thighs of a healthy man who had taken his pleasure in life. His good-humoured selfishness, his dogged sort of independence, his unrepenting sensuality, it seemed to Connie she could see them all in his well-knit straight thighs. Just a man! And now becoming an old man, which is sad. Because in his strong, thick male legs there was none of the alert sensitiveness and power of tenderness which is the very essence of youth, that which never dies, once it is there.

欣赏歌剧时，康妮坐在父亲旁边。他略微发福，大腿很粗，但却依然结实强健。这位身强体壮的男人显然曾经尽享人生乐趣。他乐天但却自私的脾气，执拗但却独立的秉性，还有对肉欲不知悔改的追求，康妮感觉这些都能从他笔直强壮的大腿上看出来。真是个地地道道的男人！可令人伤怀的是，他如今已经步入暮年。因为在他粗壮的男性双腿中，敏捷以及温情的力量已经无踪无影，而那些恰恰是青春的本质，只要拥有青春，它们便不会消逝。

Connie woke up to the existence of legs. They became more important to her than faces, which are no longer very real. How few people had live, alert legs! She looked at the men in the stalls. Great puddingy thighs in black pudding-cloth, or lean wooden sticks in black funeral stuff, or well-shaped young legs without any meaning whatever, either sensuality or tenderness or sensitiveness, just mere leggy ordinariness that pranced around. Not even any sensuality like her father's. They were all daunted, daunted out of existence.

康妮突然认识到双腿的重要意义。在她看来，腿远比脸重要得多，因为后者已经不再那样真实。而鲜活灵敏的腿已经不再多见！她扫视着在前排落座的男人们。他们的腿要么像扎着黑布袋的大号软布丁，要么像裹着黑丧布的细木棍，要么就只是年轻好看，但却毫无意义，不性感，不温柔，更不敏感，只是些修长苗条，只会四处瞎逛的平庸之腿。其性感程度甚至赶不上她的父亲。这些腿表现不出半点勇气和胆识，根本没有存在的价值。

But the women were not daunted. The awful mill-posts of most females! really shocking, really enough to justify murder!

可女人们却是勇气可嘉。大多数女人的腿都粗得好像风车！确实触目惊心，甚至足以想让人犯下谋杀的罪行！

Or the poor thin pegs! or the trim neat things in silk stockings, without the slightest look of life! Awful, the millions of meaningless legs prancing meaninglessly around!

不然就是又细又瘦，可怜巴巴，像些木桩！或者是藏匿于裁剪精致的长筒丝袜里，毫无生命的迹象！多么可怕，偌大城市中的数百万条腿，竟然都一无是处，终日只知无谓的徜徉！

But she was not happy in London. The people seemed so spectral and blank. They had no alive happiness, no matter how brisk and good-looking they were. It was all barren. And Connie had a woman's blind craving for happiness, to be assured of happiness.

她在伦敦过得并不开心。面无表情的人们形同鬼魅。尽管看上去光鲜亮丽，活力四射，但却从不知生活的幸福为何物。过着空洞乏味的日子。而康妮恰恰拥有女人对幸福的执着追求，渴望将幸福握在手中。

In Paris at any rate she felt a bit of sensuality still. But what a weary, tired, worn-out sensuality. Worn-out for lack of tenderness. Oh! Paris was sad. One of the saddest towns: weary of its now-mechanical sensuality, weary of the tension of money, money, money, weary even of resentment and conceit, just weary to death, and still not sufficiently Americanized or Londonized to hide the weariness under a mechanical jig-jig-jig! Ah, these manly he-men, these flâneurs, the oglers, these eaters of good dinners! How weary they were! weary, worn-out for lack of a little tenderness, given and taken. The efficient, sometimes charming women knew a thing or two about the sensual realities: they had that pull over their jigging English sisters. But they knew even less of tenderness. Dry, with the endless dry tension of will, they too were wearing out. The human world was just getting worn out. Perhaps it would turn fiercely destructive. A sort of anarchy! Clifford and his conservative anarchy! Perhaps it wouldn't be conservative much longer. Perhaps it would develop into a very radical anarchy.

而在巴黎，她总算还能体验到些许官能的愉悦。但那种纸醉金迷却让人筋疲力竭，兴味索然。心神交瘁的原因，在于缺少温情的抚慰。噢！巴黎充满哀怨。可算世间最感伤的都市：厌倦了如今毫无感情机械式的欲望，厌倦了对金钱和财富的渴望，甚至厌倦了怨恨和自负的情绪，厌倦至死，却仍无法企及美国或伦敦那样的超然，能用歌舞升平的虚华景象将厌倦掩饰得不露痕迹。啊，这些自以为是的大丈夫，游手好闲的浪荡公子，轻佻浮夸的好色之徒，好吃懒做的寄生虫！他们如此疲倦！因为得不到半点温情，也没有半点温情可给予，他们只得力敝筋疲地透支着自己的生命。那些精明能干、有时娇媚动人的女性对性欲的真相略知一二，在这方面，她们比那些只知纵情歌舞的英国女同胞稍胜一筹。但对于温情，她们知之更少。冷若冰霜，无穷无尽的冷漠意志，她们同样透支着自己的生命。人类世界正慢慢被榨干。或许它将变得极具毁灭性。陷入某种无政府主义的状态里。克利福德和他那谨小慎微的无政府主义！或许也不再会被界定为保守。而将进化成为极端激进的类型。

Connie found herself shrinking and afraid of the world. Sometimes she was happy for a little while in the Boulevards or in the Bois or the Luxembourg Gardens. But already Paris was full of Americans and English, strange Americans in the oddest uniforms, and the usual dreary English that are so hopeless abroad.

康妮感觉自己正步步退缩，对这世界充满恐惧。漫步林荫大道，畅游茂密的丛林或者卢森堡公园，康妮有时能够体验到片刻的欢愉。可如今的巴黎充斥着美国人和英国人，前者总是奇装异服，怪模怪样，而后者则一贯表情阴郁，出国旅行更是紧张兮兮。

She was glad to drive on. It was suddenly hot weather, so Hilda was going through Switzerland and over the Brenner, then through the Dolomites down to Venice. Hilda loved all the managing and the driving and being mistress of the show. Connie was quite content to keep quiet.

康妮很高兴能继续行程。气温陡然升高，所以希尔达取道瑞士，途经勃伦纳山口（注：阿尔卑斯山的主要山口之一，连接意大利与奥地利），跨越多罗米山脉，来到威尼斯。希尔达负责驾驶的同时，还热衷于打理一切，事必躬亲。而康妮则满足于清闲自在。

And the trip was really quite nice. Only Connie kept saying to herself: Why don't I really care! Why am I never really thrilled? How awful, that I don't really care about the landscape any more! But I don't. It's rather awful. I'm like Saint Bernard, who could sail down the lake of Lucerne without ever noticing that there were even mountain and green water. I just don't care for landscape any more. Why should one stare at it? Why should one? I refuse to.

旅途确实令人心旷神怡。只不过，康妮不断自问：为何我始终提不起兴趣！为何我体验不到丝毫兴奋？实在糟糕，就连沿途的美景都无法让我感动！可事实就是如此。这简直太糟糕了。我简直就像圣伯尔纳（注：1090-1153，法国神学家，西多会的创始人），当年他横渡卢塞恩湖，但却连沿途青山绿水都未曾注意到。风光就是无法令我动容。为何非要强迫自己去欣赏呢？为什么？我偏不这样做。

No, she found nothing vital in France or Switzerland or the Tyrol or Italy. She just was carted through it all. And it was all less real than Wragby. Less real than the awful Wragby! She felt she didn't care if she never saw France or Switzerland or Italy again. They'd keep. Wragby was more real.

没错，无论在法国，瑞士，蒂罗尔（注：奥地利西部和意大利北部一地区）或者意大利，她都找寻不到充满生机的景物。自始至终，她都被当做货物般运来运去。所经之地比拉格比更加虚假。连糟糕透顶的拉格比都赶不上！她觉得，即使以后再也不来法国，瑞士或者意大利，也没有关系。这些国度都不过如此。拉格比远比它们真实。

As for people! People were all alike, with very little difference. They all wanted to get money out of you: or, if they were travellers, they wanted to get enjoyment, perforce, like squeezing blood out of a stone. Poor mountains! Poor landscape! it all had to be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed again, to provide a thrill, to provide enjoyment.

至于人！他们全大同小异，没什么区别。他们会想方设法挣光你的钱，而作为游客的，则一心只顾取乐，执着得简直能从石头里面挤出血来。可怜的山峦！可怜的风光！它们不得不接受反复的压榨，带给游客快乐和享受。

What did people mean, with their simply determined enjoying of themselves? No! said Connie to herself I'd rather be at Wragby, where I can go about and be still, and not stare at anything or do any performing of any sort.

那些醉心于享乐的家伙们，到底有什么意义呢？不！康妮自语道。我宁可呆在拉格比，可以四处走走，安然度日，也不愿游山玩水，装腔作势。

This tourist performance of enjoying oneself is too hopelessly humiliating: it's such a failure.

游客们故作快活的行径实在令人汗颜，是彻头彻尾的无聊举动。

She wanted to go back to Wragby, even to Clifford, even to poor crippled Clifford. He wasn't such a fool as this swarming holidaying lot, anyhow.

她想回到拉格比，甚至回到克利福德身边，回去陪伴可怜兮兮、半身瘫痪的克利福德。无论如何，比起这些成群结队、四处瞎逛的傻瓜，他要精明得多。

But in her inner consciousness she was keeping touch with the other man. She mustn't let her connexion with him go: oh, she mustn't let it go, or she was lost, lost utterly in this world of riff-raffy expensive people and joy-hogs. Oh, the joy-hogs! Oh "enjoying oneself"! Another modern form of sickness.

在她的内心世界，她始终保持着与另一个男人的联系。她无法容忍割断与他的关联：噢，绝不能将它忘怀，否则她就会完全迷失，与乌七八糟的富人和只知享乐的猪猡为伍。噢，四处寻欢的猪猡！噢，只知享乐！又一种令人作呕的时髦玩意。

They left the car in Mestre, in a garage, and took the regular steamer over to Venice. It was a lovely summer afternoon, the shallow lagoon rippled, the full sunshine made Venice, turning its back to them across the water, look dim.

她们把车寄存在梅斯特雷的车行里，乘坐定期的汽船前往威尼斯。那是个宜人的夏日午后，浅浅的湖水荡起微波，对岸的威尼斯背对着她们，阳光耀眼，辨不清整座城市的样貌。

At the station quay they changed to a gondola, giving the man the address. He was a regular gondolier in a white-and-blue blouse, not very good-looking, not at all impressive.

在码头登岸后，她俩换乘凤尾船，将目的地告知船夫。船夫身穿蓝白相间的上衣，相貌平平，并无特别之处。

"Yes! The Villa Esmeralda! Yes! I know it! I have been the gondolier for a gentleman there. But a fair distance out!" He seemed a rather childish, impetuous fellow. He rowed with a certain exaggerated impetuosity, through the dark side-canals with the horrible, slimy green walls, the canals that go through the poorer quarters, where the washing hangs high up on ropes, and there is a slight, or strong, odour of sewage.

“行！埃斯梅拉达别墅！没问题！我知道那地方！那里的一位先生光顾过我的船。可离这儿还挺远呢！”他稚气未脱，冒冒失失的。他急冲冲地划着船，穿过水质混浊的分支河道，岸两边是黏糊糊的绿色墙壁。河道经过城中的贫民区，洗过的衣物晾在绳子上，阴沟的恶臭时浓时淡。

But at last he came to one of the open canals with pavement on either side, and looping bridges, that run straight, at right-angles to the Grand Canal. The two women sat under the little awning, the man was perched above, behind them.

他终于将船划进主河道，岸两边铺设有人行道，河上架设着弯弯的拱桥。河道笔直，跟大运河形成直角。姐妹俩坐在船篷下面，船夫则站在两人背后翘起的船头处。

"Are the signorine staying long at the Villa Esmeralda?" he asked, rowing easy, and "wiping his perspiring face with a white-and-blue handkerchief.

“两位小姐要在埃斯梅拉达别墅长住吗？”他问道，边轻松地操纵着小船，边用蓝白相间的手帕拭去脸上的汗水。

"Some twenty days: we are both married ladies," said Hilda, in her curious hushed voice, that made her Italian sound so foreign.

“大概住二十天左右，我俩都结婚了。”希尔达的语调怪异而沙哑，她的意大利语外国腔十足。

"Ah! Twenty days!" said the man.

“啊！二十天呢！”船夫说。

There was a pause. After which he asked: "Do the signore want a gondolier for the twenty days or so that they will stay at the Villa Esmeralda? Or by the day, or by the week?" Connie and Hilda considered. In Venice, it is always preferable to have one's own gondola, as it is preferable to have one's own car on land.

沉默片刻。他又问：“两位夫人，逗留期间要不要雇船？按天计算，或者按周计算都可以。”康妮和希尔达考虑着他的提议。置身水城威尼斯，雇条凤尾船确实方便得多，就好比在陆地上拥有自己的汽车一样。

"What is there at the Villa? What boats?" "There is a motor-launch, also a gondola. But—” The but meant: they won't be your property.

“别墅里有什么？配有什么船只？”“有只摩托艇，还有条凤尾船。只是……”话锋一转的意思是说，别墅的船你们无法随便调用。

"How much do you charge?" It was about thirty shillings a day, or ten pounds a week.

“你要多少钱？”他的要价为每天30先令，每周10英镑。

"Is that the regular price?" asked Hilda.

“这是市价吗？”希尔达问。

"Less, Signora, less. The regular price—” The sisters considered.

“便宜，夫人，便宜得多。目前的市价是——”姐妹俩思忖着。

"Well," said Hilda, "come tomorrow morning, and we will arrange it. What is your name?" His name was Giovanni, and he wanted to know at what time he should come, and then for whom should he say he was waiting. Hilda had no card. Connie gave him one of hers. He glanced at it swiftly, with his hot, southern blue eyes, then glanced again.

“哦，”希尔达说，“你明早过来吧，到时候咱们再定。你叫什么？”船夫名叫乔瓦尼，他询问碰面的时间，到时候找哪位合适。希尔达没有名片。康妮给他一张自己的。他匆匆瞥了一眼，南欧人那双热烈的蓝色眸子转动着，又看了一遍。

"Ah!" He said, lighting up. "Milady! Milady, isn't it?” "Milady Costanza!" said Connie.

“啊！”他说，脸上泛起光彩。“从男爵夫人！从男爵夫人，是吗？”“康斯坦萨夫人！”康妮答道。

He nodded, repeating: "Milady Costanza!" And putting the card carefully away in his blouse.

他点点头，重复着：“康斯坦萨夫人！”接着，小心翼翼地把名片揣进衣兜里。

The Villa Esmeralda was quite a long way out, on the edge of the lagoon looking towards Chioggia. It was not a very old house, and pleasant, with the terraces looking seawards, and below, quite a big garden with dark trees, walled in from the lagoon.

埃斯梅拉达别墅确实很远，坐落于泻湖旁边，正对着吉奥吉亚镇。别墅的历史并不悠久，且适宜居住，在露台上可以远眺大海，庞大的私家园林中树木葱郁，临近泻湖边的地方砌有围墙。

Their host was a heavy, rather coarse Scotchman who had made a good fortune in Italy before the war, and had been knighted for his ultrapatriotism during the war. His wife was a thin, pale, sharp kind of person with no fortune of her own, and the misfortune of having to regulate her husband's rather sordid amorous exploits. He was terribly tiresome with the servants. But having had a slight stroke during the winter, he was now more manageable.

别墅主人是个身材臃肿的苏格兰人，形容丑陋，大战前在意大利发了笔横财，因为战时的爱国行径，被册封为爵士。其妻身材瘦弱，面容苍白，但却尖酸刻薄，娘家并无遗财，因丈夫颇爱窃玉偷香，她不得不倾尽心力来制约他的无耻行径。就连仆人们也对他怨声载道。但去年冬天他出现轻微中风的迹象，因此也变得容易驾驭许多。

The house was pretty full. Besides Sir Malcolm and his two daughters, there were seven more people, a Scotch couple, again with two daughters; a young Italian Contessa, a widow; a young Georgian prince, and a youngish English clergyman who had had pneumonia and was being chaplain to Sir Alexander for his health's sake. The prince was penniless, good-looking, would make an excellent chauffeur, with the necessary impudence, and basta! The Contessa was a quiet little puss with a game on somewhere. The clergyman was a raw simple fellow from a Bucks vicarage: luckily he had left his wife and two children at home. And the Guthries, the family of four, were good solid Edinburgh middle class, enjoying everything in a solid fashion, and daring everything while risking nothing.

别墅差不多已经满员。除了马尔科姆爵士和他的两个女儿，总共还有七位房客，分别是一对苏格兰夫妇，同样带着两位千金；一位意大利的伯爵夫人，年纪轻轻便已守寡；一位年轻的格鲁吉亚亲王，还有一位英国牧师，人在中年，因生过肺炎，目前正在亚历山大爵士的礼拜堂供职，借机会调养身体。那位亲王虽然长得雍容华贵，但穷困潦倒，言行粗鲁，雇来做车夫再合适不过！伯爵夫人如猫咪般娴静，但也会耍些手段。牧师本在白金汉教区供职，头脑有些简单，幸好他没把妻子和两个孩子带来。而那四口之家姓格思里，来自爱丁堡，是家资殷实的中产阶级，乐于享受生活，但行事谨慎，敢于尝试一切，但以不冒风险为前提。

Connie and Hilda ruled out the prince at once. The Guthries were more or less their own sort, substantial, hut boring: and the girls wanted husbands. The chaplain was not a bad fellow, but too deferential. Sir Alexander, after his slight stroke, had a terrible heaviness his joviality, but he was still thrilled at the presence of so many handsome young women. Lady Cooper was a quiet, catty person who had a thin time of it, poor thing, and who watched every other woman with a cold watchfulness that had become her second nature, and who said cold, nasty little things which showed what an utterly low opinion she had of all human nature. She was also quite venomously overbearing with the servants, Connie found: but in a quiet way. And she skilfully behaved so that Sir Alexander should think that he was lord and monarch of the whole caboosh, with his stout, would-be-genial paunch, and his utterly boring jokes, his humourosity, as Hilda called it.

康妮和希尔达立即就将亲王踢出局。格思里一家跟她们也算是同类人，有钱有势，但单调乏味，两个女儿都待字闺中。牧师生性良善，可惜太拘于俗礼。而亚历山大爵士，自从出现中风的迹象之后，好交际的乐天性格中掺杂进可怕的沉滞，可家里住进这么多风姿绰约的女子，还是令他意乱情迷。库珀夫人沉默寡言，却工于心计，总是臭着脸，时时刻刻提防着其他女人，已经成为她的第二天性。她总是冷言冷语，话中有话，表现出对所有人类天性的不屑一顾。康妮发现，这恶婆娘对仆人总是专横跋扈，不过表面装出温文尔雅的样子而已。她行事巧妙，让亚历山大爵士自认为自己才是一家之主，说一不二，因为他那肥硕却自诩为随和象征的大肚腩，还有那毫无逗趣效果的笑话，希尔达称之为滑稽的本性。

Sir Malcolm was painting. Yes, he still would do a Venetian lagoonscape, now and then, in contrast to his Scottish landscapes. So in the morning he was rowed off with a huge canvas, to his 'site'. A little later, Lady Cooper would he rowed off into the heart of the city, with sketching-block and colours. She was an inveterate watercolour painter, and the house was full of rose-coloured palaces, dark canals, swaying bridges, medieval facades, and so on. A little later the Guthries, the prince, the countess, Sir Alexander, and sometimes Mr. Lind, the chaplain, would go off to the Lido, where they would bathe; coming home to a late lunch at half past one.

马尔科姆爵士最近热衷于绘画。没错，他想找个时间，画一幅威尼斯水景，毕竟意大利水城与苏格兰的景致迥然不同。于是，每天清晨，他便带着大画布，乘船外出，寻找合适的取景地点。稍迟一会儿，库珀夫人则会带着写生簿和油彩，乘船赶往市中心。她沉迷于水彩画，家里摆满她的画作，玫瑰色的宫殿、阴暗的河道、摇摆着的索桥、中世纪的建筑物，诸如此类。再晚些时候，格思里一家、亲王、伯爵夫人、亚历山大爵士则会集体出行，前往利多岛畅泳，有时候牧师林德先生也会同往，大家都回来得比较晚，午餐通常在一点半开席。

The house-party, as a house-party, was distinctly boring. But this did not trouble the sisters. They were out all the time. Their father took them to the exhibition, miles and miles of weary paintings. He took them to all the cronies of his in the Villa Lucchese, he sat with them on warm evenings in the piazza, having got a table at Florian's: he took them to the theatre, to the Goldoni plays. There were illuminated water-fêtes, there were dances. This was a holiday-place of all holiday-places. The Lido, with its acres of sun-pinked or pyjamaed bodies, was like a strand with an endless heap of seals come up for mating. Too many people in the piazza, too many limbs and trunks of humanity on the Lido, too many gondolas, too many motor-launches, too many steamers, too many pigeons, too many ices, too many cocktails, too many menservants wanting tips, too many languages rattling, too much, too much sun, too much smell of Venice, too many cargoes of strawberries, too many silk shawls, too many huge, raw-beef slices of watermelon on stalls: too much enjoyment, altogether far too much enjoyment!

别墅里的宴会跟普通的家庭聚会没什么两样，令人兴致索然。但这并不会给姐妹俩造成困扰。她俩整天不着家。父亲带她们去欣赏展览，绵延数英里的画作沉闷乏味。他还会带她们去卢切塞别墅探望旧友，共赴广场的热闹晚会，在弗洛里安咖啡馆（注：坐落于威尼斯圣马尔科广场的著名咖啡馆，始建于1720年）小坐，或者是去剧院欣赏哥尔多尼（注：1707-1793，意大利剧作家，现代喜剧的创始人）的戏剧。此外，还有灯火通明的水上游乐会以及舞会。这里堪称度假胜地中的度假胜地。而利多岛的海滩上，则充斥着无数慕名而来的游客，那些镀上古铜色的或者身着肥大衣裤的肉体，活像来此交配的海豹。太多的游客在广场上徜徉，太多的肉体拥挤于利多海滩，太多的凤尾船，太多的汽艇，太多的轮船，太多的鸽子，太多的冷饮，太多的鸡尾酒，太多的侍从渴求小费，太多的语言叽里呱啦，太多，太多的阳光，太多的威尼斯气息，太多的草莓充斥着船舱，太多的丝绸围巾，太多的西瓜切得好像生牛肉片摆在水果摊上：太多的娱乐，无穷无尽的消遣！

Connie and Hilda went around in their sunny frocks. There were dozens of people they knew, dozens of people knew them. Michaelis turned up like a bad penny. "Hullo! Where you staying? Come and have an ice-cream or something! Come with me somewhere in my gondola.” Even Michaelis almost sun-burned: though sun-cooked is more appropriate to the look of the mass of human flesh.

康妮和希尔达穿着轻薄的连衣裙，四处游逛。她们认识的人不少，认识她们的人也挺多。米凯利斯像个讨厌鬼似的出现了。“嘿！你们在哪儿落脚？来吃点冰激凌或者别的怎样？乘我的凤尾船出去哪里玩吧。”就连白皙的米凯利斯都快被晒黑了，但鉴于着上如此肤色的人为数众多，似乎说是被太阳烤熟了更为贴切。

It was pleasant in a way. It was ALMOST enjoyment. But anyhow, with all the cocktails, all the lying in warmish water and sunbathing on hot sand in hot sun, jazzing with your stomach up against some fellow in the warm nights, cooling off with ices, it was a complete narcotic. And that was what they all wanted, a drug: the slow water, a drug; the sun, a drug; jazz, a drug; cigarettes, cocktails, ices, vermouth. To be drugged! Enjoyment! Enjoyment!

相对而言，这样的生活确实算得上舒适。几乎可以说是享受。但无论如何，痛饮美酒，尽情畅泳，沐浴阳光，纵情歌舞，饱尝冷饮，一切都是完美的麻醉剂。男男女女们渴望的都是麻醉自己的精神，海水，阳光，爵士舞，香烟，鸡尾酒，冷饮，苦艾酒，林林总总，效果相同。麻醉自我！纵情享乐！尽情欢愉！

Hilda half liked being drugged. She liked looking at all the women, speculating about them. The women were absorbingly interested in the women. How does she look! What man has she captured? What fun is she getting out of it?— The men were like great dogs in white flannel trousers, waiting to be patted, waiting to wallow, waiting to plaster some woman's stomach against their own, in jazz.

希尔达对麻醉半推半就。她热衷于审视所有的女子，揣度着她们。女人总是对女人充满好奇。她长得怎样？她搭上怎样的情郎？她如何取乐？——男人们身着法兰绒长裤，好像渴望被爱抚的大狗，渴望就地打滚，渴望跟女人肚皮贴肚皮，大跳爵士舞。

Hilda liked jazz, because she could plaster her stomach against the stomach of some so-called man, and let him control her movement from the visceral centre, here and there across the floor, and then she could break loose and ignore 'the creature'. He had been merely made use of. Poor Connie was rather unhappy. She wouldn't jazz, because she simply couldn't plaster her stomach against some 'creature's' stomach. She hated the conglomerate mass of nearly nude flesh on the Lido: there was hardly enough water to wet them all. She disliked Sir Alexander and Lady Cooper. She did not want Michaelis or anybody else trailing her.

希尔达热爱爵士舞，因为她乐得跟那些色厉内荏的男人们纠缠，在舞池内紧紧相拥，任他掌控着脚步的移动，四处打转，数曲跳罢，她便可以将那些可怜的家伙丢到一旁。他不过是被利用的对象。可怜的康妮却郁闷不已。她不愿跟臭男人们紧紧相拥，拒绝步入爵士舞场。她更讨厌利多海滩上无穷无尽的半裸肉体，就算深不见底的海水也无法将他们浸湿。她讨厌亚历山大爵士夫妇。她更不愿搭理米凯利斯和其他狂蜂浪蝶。

The happiest times were when she got Hilda to go with her away across the lagoon, far across to some lonely shingle-bank, where they could bathe quite alone, the gondola remaining on the inner side of the reef.

最愉快的时光，莫过于她说服希尔达，横渡泻湖，来到人迹罕至的砂石海滩。在那儿，她俩可以不受任何人打扰，自在地享受海水浴，而将凤尾船停泊在礁石后面。

Then Giovanni got another gondolier to help him, because it was a long way and he sweated terrifically in the sun. Giovanni was very nice: affectionate, as the Italians are, and quite passionless. The Italians are not passionate: passion has deep reserves. They are easily moved, and often affectionate, but they rarely have any abiding passion of any sort.

乔瓦尼找来另一名船夫帮忙，航程过长，炽热的阳光总让他挥汗如雨。乔瓦尼人很随和，总是深情款款，跟其他意大利人一样，但追求的只是短暂的激情。意大利人并非感性的民族，因为情感需要日积月累的沉淀。他们容易动情，总是含情脉脉，但他们的感情总是来去匆匆。

So Giovanni was already devoted to his ladies, as he had been devoted to cargoes of ladies in the past. He was perfectly ready to prostitute himself to them, if they wanted hint: he secretly hoped they would want him. They would give him a handsome present, and it would come in very handy, as he was just going to be married. He told them about his marriage, and they were suitably interested.