第九章（第4/12页）

在康妮看来，克利福德正慢慢露出本来面目：庸俗不堪，平淡无奇，单调乏味，笨头笨脑。艾维·博尔顿的鬼把戏，还有那故作恭顺实作威福的态度，都太过明显。但她居然为克利福德意乱情迷，也让康妮大为不解。若说她堕入情网，确实过于牵强。她之所以激动，是因为有幸常伴克利福德左右，而他含着金汤匙出生，拥有从男爵头衔，擅长舞文弄墨，照片更是屡在报上刊登。她心醉不已，无法理解的热情才应运而生。他的调教，将她的热情彻底激发出来，让她更加积极地做出回应，其效果较爱情尤甚。实际上，正是不担心萌发恋情，使她可以忘我地投入到别样的热情中去，这种热情源自求知欲，渴望像他那样博古通今。

There was no mistake that the woman was in some way in love with him: whatever force we give to the word love. She looked so handsome and so young, and her grey eyes were sometimes marvellous. At the same time, there was a lurking soft satisfaction about her, even of triumph, and private satisfaction. Ugh, that private satisfaction. How Connie loathed it!

从某种角度来讲，这女人确实爱上了克利福德，无论我们赋予“爱”字怎样的含义。她面容娇好，青春未逝，灰白色的双眸有时倒也神采奕奕。同时，隐约可见的满足神情在她脸上闪现，志得意满，欲盖弥彰。唷，那欲盖弥彰的满足感。康妮真是腻歪透了！

But no wonder Clifford was caught by the woman! She absolutely adored him, in her persistent fashion, and put herself absolutely at his service, for him to use as he liked. No wonder he was flattered!

不过，克利福德被那女人俘获，倒也不足为奇！她对他的崇拜达到无以附加的程度，没有片刻懈怠，没有半点杂念，只愿服侍他，任他随意差遣。难怪他会有飘飘然的感觉！

Connie heard long conversations going on between the two. Or rather, it bas mostly Mrs. Bolton talking. She had unloosed to him the stream of gossip about Tevershall village. It was more than gossip. It was Mrs. Gaskell and George Eliot and Miss Mitford all rolled in one, with a great deal more, that these women left out." Once started, Mrs. Bolton was better than any book, about the lives of the people. She knew them all so intimately, and had such a peculiar, flamey zest in all their affairs, it was wonderful, if just a trifle humiliating to listen to her. At first she had not ventured to "talk Tevershall", as she called it, to Clifford. But once started, it went on. Clifford was listening for "material", and he found it in plenty. Connie realized that his so-called genius was just this: a perspicuous talent for personal gossip, clever and apparently detached. Mrs. Bolton, of course, was very warm when she "talked Tevershall". Carried away, in fact. And it was marvellous, the things that happened and that she knew about. She would have run to dozens of volumes.

康妮曾听过他俩间的长谈。或者说，那基本上是博尔顿太太的个人演说。她将特弗沙尔村的家长里短，向克利福德和盘托出。甚至超越流言蜚语的范畴。张家长，李家短，周家的孩子四只眼。博尔顿太太打开话匣子，讲起街坊四邻的日常琐事，远比小说精彩得多。她对其中的主人公再熟悉不过，对他们那些鸡毛蒜皮的俗事饶有兴致，听她滔滔不绝，也觉不乏精彩之处，但仍不免感到低俗庸陋。起初，她还不敢在克利福德面前“大话特弗沙尔”——她这样称呼自己的闲扯。但话锋一起，便收声不住。克利福德听她东拉西扯，为的是搜集素材，也发觉其中可用的确实不少。康妮终于认清，他所谓的天赋不过尔尔，通晓借用坊间传闻之道，加以理解吸收，但却装出置身事外的超然态度。当然，博尔顿太太“大话特弗沙尔”时，总是热情高涨。甚至激动得难以自持。村里发生的事，她所知晓的事，都确实令人赞叹。写上十几部小说也绰绰有余。

Connie was fascinated, listening to her. But afterwards always a little ashamed. She ought not to listen with this queer rabid curiosity. After all, one may hear the most private affairs of other people, but only in a spirit of respect for the struggling, battered thing which any human soul is, and in a spirit of fine, discriminative sympathy. For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore, the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is in the PASSIONAL secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.