第十九章（第11/13页）

目前的工业人口如此庞大，无数张嘴等着吃饭，因此，这该死的西洋景还得继续下去。女人比男人更敢于表达自己的观点，而且如今她们比男人自信得多。男人往往打不起精神，深感大难即将临头，只是得过且过，仿佛已无挽回的余地。虽然发表意见时都争先恐后，但没人知道到底该做些什么，年轻人渐渐陷入癫狂，因为他们已经囊中空空。他们生活的全部都取决于金钱，而如今他们已经一贫如洗。这恰恰是人类文明和教育所倡导的，将大众的生活完全建构于金钱之上，而现在金钱却已消耗殆尽。矿坑每周只开两天或者两天半的工，即使冬天来临，也没有丝毫好转的迹象。这就意味着男人养家糊口的钱只有25到30先令。女人本就是最为疯狂的动物。但现在，最令她们发疯的是无钱可花。

If you could only tell them that living and spending isn't the same thing! But it's no good. If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend, they could manage very happily on twentyfive shillings. If the men wore scarlet trousers as I said, they wouldn't think so much of money: if they could dance and hop and skip, and sing and swagger and be handsome, they could do with very little cash. And amuse the women themselves, and be amused by the women. They ought to learn to be naked and handsome, and to sing in a mass and dance the old group dances, and carve the stools they sit on, and embroider their own emblems. Then they wouldn't need money. And that's the only way to solve the industrial problem: train the people to be able to live and live in handsomeness, without needing to spend. But you can't do it. They're all onetrack minds nowadays. Whereas the mass of people oughtn't even to try to think, because they can't. They should be alive and frisky, and acknowledge the great god Pan. He's the only god for the masses, forever. The few can go in for higher cults if they like. But let the mass be forever pagan.

真应该告诉他们生活与花钱并非一码事！但这显然毫无用处。如果现行的教育能够告诉人们如何生活，而不是怎样挣钱和花钱，那么25先令就足够他们过得快快乐乐。如果男人们像我说的那样，穿上鲜红的裤子，他们就不会总把金钱放在心上。如果他们能够起舞欢歌，昂首阔步，打扮得风流倜傥，即使囊中羞涩，也会过得充实满足。男人要学会取悦女人，同样享受女人带来的幸福。他们理应学会丢掉伪装，变得潇洒漂亮，齐声高歌，携手同跳古老的舞蹈，自己雕刻矮凳，绣出民族的图腾。这样的话，他们便不再需要金钱。解决工业疑难的唯一途径，是教会人们如何生活，如何潇洒的生活，而无需因金钱而苦恼。可这显然只是天方夜谭。现在的人脑袋都是一根筋。然而平民百姓甚至不应该尝试去思考，因为这对他们而言，是无法完成的任务。他们应该过着充实愉快的生活，对伟大的神祗潘（注：希腊神话中的畜牧神）心怀崇敬。他是唯一为百姓存在的神灵，且永远为劳苦大众着想。至于少数人，如果他们愿意，尽可以去对其他神通广大的神祗顶礼膜拜。可让劳苦大众远离基督教的荼毒吧。

But the colliers aren't pagan, far from it. They're a sad lot, a deadened lot of men: dead to their women, dead to life. The young ones scoot about on motorbikes with girls, and jazz when they get a chance, but they're very dead. And it needs money. Money poisons you when you've got it, and starves you when you haven't.

可矿工们连异教徒都算不得。他们只是些无可救药的可怜虫，半死不活，在女人面前毫无男子气概，对于生命同样麻木不仁。年轻小伙儿们逮到机会，便骑着摩托车，载着姑娘出去兜风，大跳爵士舞。可在他们身上，却寻不到半点生气。而寻欢作乐需要金钱作为基础。有钱时便遭其荼毒，无钱时则只能挨饿。

I'm sure you're sick of all this. But I don't want to harp on myself, and I've nothing happening to me. I don't like to think too much about you, in my head, that only makes a mess of us both. But, of course, what I live for now is for you and me to live together. I'm frightened, really. I feel the devil in the air, and he'll try to get us. Or not the devil, Mammon: which I think, after all, is only the masswill of people, wanting money and hating life. Anyhow, I feel great grasping white hands in the air, wanting to get hold of the throat of anybody who tries to live, to live beyond money, and squeeze the life out. There's a bad time coming. There's a bad time coming, boys, there's a bad time coming! If things go on as they are, there's nothing lies in the future but death and destruction, for these industrial masses. I feel my inside turn to water sometimes, and there you are, going to have a child by me. But never mind. All the bad times that ever have been, haven't been able to blow the crocus out: not even the love of women. So they won't be able to blow out my wanting you, nor the little glow there is between you and me. We'll be together next year. And though I'm frightened, I believe in your being with me. A man has to fend and fettle for the best, and then trust in something beyond himself. You can't insure against the future, except by really believing in the best bit of you, and in the power beyond it. So I believe in the little flame between us. For me now, it's the only thing in the world. I've got no friends, not inward friends. Only you. And now the little flame is all I care about in my life. There's the baby, but that is a side issue. It's my Pentecost, the forked flame between me and you. The old Pentecost isn't quite right. Me and God is a bit uppish, somehow. But the little forked flame between me and you: there you are! That's what I abide by, and will abide by, Cliffords and Berthas, colliery companies and governments and the moneymass of people all notwithstanding.