第十七章（第2/18页）
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。