第十章（第30/34页）

他回忆起自己在特弗沙尔的童年时光，还有持续五六年的婚姻生活。他想起自己的妻子，这让他痛苦不堪。她是那样蛮横无理。好在他1915年春天入伍后，再未与那泼妇谋面。但她就在那里，住在不足三英里外的地方，剽悍的程度犹胜以往。他希望有生之年再别与她碰面。

He thought of his life abroad, as a soldier. India, Egypt, then India again: the blind, thoughtless life with the horses: the colonel who had loved him and whom he had loved: the several years that he had been an officer, a lieutenant with a very fair chance of being a captain. Then the death of the colonel from pneumonia, and his own narrow escape from death: his damaged health: his deep restlessness: his leaving the army and coming back to England to be a working man again.

他想起自己海外从军的经历。从印度到埃及，再回到印度，与马为伍的生活无需多想其他事情。上校对他欣赏有加，他也对上校极为崇敬。数载军官生涯，他担当中尉，并极有希望被提拔成上尉。之后，上校死于肺炎，他自己也险些性命不保，健康受损，心绪不宁，因此他告别行伍，回转英格兰，再度沦为劳工。

He was temporizing with life. He had thought he would be safe, at least for a time, in this wood. There was no shooting as yet: he had to rear the pheasants. He would have no guns to serve. He would be alone, and apart from life, which was all he wanted. He had to have some sort of a background. And this was his native place. There was even his mother, though she had never meant very much to him. And he could go on in life, existing from day to day, without connexion and without hope. For he did not know what to do with himself.

他在蹉跎岁月。他曾认为，隐藏在这片树林里，至少能够保一时无忧。狩猎期尚未到来，他只需饲养野鸡。不必侍候围猎的贵族老爷。他孑然独居，远离尘嚣，而这也是他梦寐以求的。他需要安身立命之所。而这里是他的故乡。甚至他的母亲也住在此地，虽然两人的感情相当淡漠。而他可以继续生存下去，日复一日，无牵无挂，无欲无求。因为他已经失去人生的目标。

He did not know what to do with himself. Since he had been an officer for some years, and had mixed among the other officers and civil servants, with their wives and families, he had lost all ambition to "get on'. There was a toughness, a curious rubbernecked toughness and unlivingness about the middle and upper classes, as he had known them, which just left him feeling cold and different from them.

他已经失去人生的目标。由于他做过几年军官，终日与其他军官、公务员及其眷属混在一起，已经失去进取之心。他发现中上阶层的人们个个残酷无情，凶残暴戾，毫无人性，他感到不寒而栗，觉得自己无法融入其中。

So, he had come back to his own class. To find there, what he had forgotten during his absence of years, a pettiness and a vulgarity of manner extremely distasteful. He admitted now at last, how important manner was. He admitted, also, how important it was even to PRETEND not to care about the halfpence and the small things of life. But among the common people there was no pretence. A penny more or less on the bacon was worse than a change in the Gospel. He could not stand it.

因此，他重新回归社会底层。想找回从军数载已经忘却的东西，卑微的身份以及粗俗到令人不齿的举止。他现在不得不承认，举止何其重要。他承认，装出对蝇头小利及生活琐事不屑一顾何其重要。但对劳苦大众而言，一切都是实实在在的。熏猪肉价格的些微变化，比修改福音书还要重要。对此，他简直无法忍受。

And again, there was the wage-squabble. Having lived among the owning classes, he knew the utter futility of expecting any solution of the wage-squabble. There was no solution, short of death. The only thing was not to care, not to care about the wages.

劳资纠纷的情况再度出现。与有产阶级共处的时光告诉他，希冀解决劳资纠纷，根本是无望的空想。根本无法解决，死路一条。唯一可行的办法就是别去在意，别去在意自己到底挣几个子儿。

Yet, if you were poor and wretched you HAD to care. Anyhow, it was becoming the only thing they did care about. The care about money was like a great cancer, eating away the individuals of all classes. He refused to CARE about money.

但是，如果你真的穷困潦倒，又必须在意这些。总之，金钱渐渐成为劳苦大众唯一在意的东西。对金钱的执着，像个巨大的毒瘤，慢慢吞噬着所有阶级的每个个体。他却宁愿看轻金钱。

And what then? What did life offer apart from the care of money? Nothing.

可那又怎样？除了追逐金钱，生活还剩下什么呢？虚无。