第九章（第3/12页）

有时候，康妮很想对他说：“看在上帝的份上，千万别被那女人玩弄于股掌！”但她还是没有说出口，因为她发觉，从长远考虑，自己并不太在乎他会怎样。

It was still their habit to spend the evening together, till ten o'clock. Then they would talk, or read together, or go over his manuscript. But the thrill had gone out of it. She was bored by his manuscripts. But she still dutifully typed them out for him. But in time Mrs. Bolton would do even that.

不过，他俩还是照老习惯，每晚一起呆到十点。在那段时间，他们仍会交谈，品读书籍，不然就是校对手稿。但兴致早已荡然无存。他的书稿让她感到厌倦。但她还是尽职尽责，帮他完成打字的工作。但终有一天，这项任务也会由博尔顿太太接手。

For Connie had suggested to Mrs. Bolton that she should learn to use a typewriter. And Mrs. Bolton, always ready, had begun at once, and practised assiduously. So now Clifford would sometimes dictate a letter to her, and she would take it down rather slowly, but correctly. And he was very patient, spelling for her the difficult words, or the occasional phrases in French. She was so thrilled, it was almost a pleasure to instruct her.

因为康妮提议博尔顿太太学习打字。而博尔顿太太保持着时刻待命的作风，立刻投入练习，态度极为勤勉。于是，现在克利福德有时会口述信件给她听，虽然她敲字的速度慢得要命，但从不会犯错。而他也显得很有耐心，每逢生僻单词，或者偶尔的法语词句，都会逐字母地拼读出来。她总是兴致勃勃，因此教导她几乎可说是件乐事。

Now Connie would sometimes plead a headache as an excuse for going up to her room after dinner.

现在，晚饭过后，康妮有时会借口头疼，上楼回到自己的房间。

"Perhaps Mrs. Bolton will play piquet with you," she said to Clifford.

“博尔顿太太会陪你打皮克牌（注：一种两人玩的纸牌游戏）。”她对克利福德说。

"Oh, I shall be perfectly all right. You go to your own room and rest, darling." But no sooner had she gone, than he rang for Mrs. Bolton, and asked her to take a hand at piquet or bezique, or even chess. He had taught her all these games. And Connie found it curiously objectionable to see Mrs. Bolton, flushed and tremulous like a little girl, touching her queen or her knight with uncertain fingers, then drawing away again. And Clifford, faintly smiling with a half-teasing superiority, saying to her: "You must say j'adoube!"

“我会好好照顾自己。你回房休息去吧，亲爱的。”但她前脚刚走，他会立马按铃，把博尔顿太太唤来，一起打皮克牌或者波齐克牌（注：一种两人或四人玩的纸牌游戏），甚至是下象棋。他教会她所有诸如此类的游戏。而博尔顿太太总是面色绯红，小女孩似的战战兢兢，犹豫不决地摩挲着自己的后或者马，然后又抽回手来。这样的场面让康妮感到莫名的反感。而克利福德则面露微笑，洋洋自得，用略带嘲弄的口吻，对博尔顿太太说：“你得说，我还需斟酌！”

She looked up at him with bright, startled eyes, then murmured shyly, obediently: "J'adoube!” Yes, he was educating her. And he enjoyed it, it gave him a sense of power. And she was thrilled. She was coming bit by bit into possession of all that the gentry knew, all that made them upper class: apart from the money. That thrilled her. And at the same time, she was making him want to have her there with him. It was a subtle deep flattery to him, her genuine thrill.

她抬头看着他，明亮的双眼里写满惊讶，接着羞答答地照办，低声说：“我还需斟酌！”没错，他在调教她。他乐此不疲，从中体验到某种权力感。而她更是激动不已。她正逐步掌握贵族们才懂的东西，具备那些足以跻身上流社会的品质，当然金钱并不包括在内。这令他为之迷醉。而且，她渐渐使克利福德感觉离不开自己。她的整个身心都陶醉其中，这对他而言，是种无法言喻的恭维。

To Connie, Clifford seemed to be coming out in his true colours: a little vulgar, a little common, and uninspired; rather fat. Ivy Bolton's tricks and humble bossiness were also only too transparent. But Connie did wonder at the genuine thrill which the woman got out of Clifford. To say she was in love with him would be putting it wrongly. She was thrilled by her contact with a man of the upper class, this titled gentleman, this author who could write books and poems, and whose photograph appeared in the illustrated newspapers. She was thrilled to a weird passion. And his "educating" her roused in her a passion of excitement and response much deeper than any love affair could have done. In truth, the very fact that there could be no love affair left her free to thrill to her very marrow with this other passion, the peculiar passion of knowing, knowing as he knew.