第五章（第11/13页）
“省省吧！……他会痛痛快快地跟你离婚。我们干脆结婚吧。我想娶你。我深知这对我而言是最佳的选择……成家，过安稳的日子。我现在过得简直糟透了，简直要被活生生地撕成碎片。听我说，你和我，咱俩是天造地设的一对……就像手和手套那般相配。为什么我们不结成连理？实在找不到任何理由阻止我们这样做。”康妮表情错愕地看着他，心里依然没有一丝波澜。这些男人们，全都是一丘之貉，心里只考虑自己。他们好像爆竹般一个劲儿地往上窜，还希望你也能够拉住他们的小细棍儿，一起飞上天去。
"But I am married already," she said. "I can't leave Clifford, you know.” "Why not? but why not?" he cried. "He'll hardly know you've gone, after six months. He doesn't know that anybody exists, except himself. Why the man has no use for you at all, as far as I can see; he's entirely wrapped up in himself.” Connie felt there was truth in this. But she also felt that Mick was hardly making a display of selflessness.
“但我已经是别人的妻子，”她说，“我不能丢下克利福德，这点你很清楚。”“为什么不能？原因究竟是什么？”他叫嚷着。“不出半年，他就会忘记你离去的事实。除了他自己，他不在乎任何人的存在。依我看，他对你而言没有半点用处，心里也只想着自己。”康妮觉得他的话切中要害。但她也清楚，米克这席话只不过彻底地展示出他有多么自私。
"Aren't all men wrapped up in themselves?" she asked.
“男人们心里不都存不下别人么？”她问。
"Oh, more or less, I allow. A man's got to be, to get through. But that's not the point. The point is, what sort of a time can a man give a woman? Can he give her a damn good time, or can't he? If he can't he's no right to the woman...” He paused and gazed at her with his full, hazel eyes, almost hypnotic. "Now I consider," he added, "I can give a woman the darndest good time she can ask for. I think I can guarantee myself." "And what sort of a good time?" asked Connie, gazing on him still with a sort of amazement, that looked like thrill; and underneath feeling nothing at all.
“哦，或多或少，这一点我承认。男人也是不得已而为之，只有这样才能到达成功的彼岸。但这并非问题的关键所在。关键在于，男人能让女人过怎样的生活。他是否能够带给女人快乐？如果答案是否定的，那么他就无权拥有这个女人……”他顿了顿，用那双淡褐色的大眼睛盯着康妮，几乎达到催眠的效果。“我认为，”他补充道，“我能满足女人的愿望，将她送上快乐的巅峰。这一点我极有把握。”“怎样的快乐呢？”康妮问，依然用惊诧的目光凝视着他，甚至看起来有些着迷，但心底却依然平静如水。
"Every sort of a good time, damn it, every sort! Dress, jewels up to a point, any nightclub you like, know anybody you want to know, live the pace...travel and be somebody wherever you go… Darn it, every sort of good time.” He spoke it almost in a brilliancy of triumph, and Connie looked at him as if dazzled, and really feeling nothing at all. Hardly even the surface of her mind was tickled at the glowing prospects he offered her. Hardly even her most outside self responded, that at any other time would have been thrilled. She just got no feeling from it, she couldn't "go off". She just sat and stared and looked dazzled, and felt nothing, only somewhere she smelt the extraordinarily unpleasant smell of the bitch-goddess.
“各种各样的快乐，妈的，五彩缤纷的快乐！高档的衣服，名贵的首饰，你想去哪家夜店就去，想结交哪位名流都没问题，想买什么都可以……去哪里旅行都会被敬若上宾……见鬼，五光十色的快乐生活。”他说得眉飞色舞，而康妮也用似乎是惊异的眼神看着他，但心里却无动于衷。他所许诺的美好图景，甚至不能在她的心湖荡起丝毫涟漪。甚至连她最外在的自我都没有半点反应，若换个时间，她说不定早就热血沸腾了。她对此毫无感觉，没法“找到兴奋点”。她只是干坐在那里，注视着眼前的男人，摆出一副意乱情迷的模样，但内心却丝毫不为所动，只是嗅到堕落女神那极令人反感的骚味。
Mick sat on tenterhooks, leaning forward in his chair, glaring at her almost hysterically: and whether he was more anxious out of vanity for her to say Yes! Or whether he was more panic-stricken for fear she should say Yes!—who can tell? "I should have to think about it," she said. "I couldn't say now. It may seem to you Clifford doesn't count, but he does. When you think how disabled he is...” "Oh damn it all! If a fellow's going to trade on his disabilities, I might begin to say how lonely I am, and always have been, and all the rest of the my-eye-Betty-Martin sob-stuff! Damn it all, if a fellow's got nothing but disabilities to recommend him...” He turned aside, working his hands furiously in his trousers pockets. That evening he said to her: "You're coming round to my room tonight, aren't you? I don't darn know where your room is.” "All right!" she said. He was a more excited lover that night, with his strange, small boy's frail nakedness. Connie found it impossible to come to her crisis before he had really finished his. And he roused a certain craving passion in her, with his little boy's nakedness and softness; she had to go on after he had finished, in the wild tumult and heaving of her loins, while he heroically kept himself up, and present in her, with all his will and self-offering, till she brought about her own crisis, with weird little cries.