第七章

When Connie went up to her bedroom she did what she had not done for a long time: took off all her clothes, and looked at herself naked in the huge mirror. She did not know what she was looking for, or at, very definitely, yet she moved the lamp till it shone full on her.

康妮上楼回到卧室，做了件许久未曾尝试的事情：脱掉所有衣服，对着大镜子端详起自己的裸体。她不清楚自己到底要寻觅什么，或欣赏什么，只是把灯移到近前，让光线洒满整个身体。

And she thought, as she had thought so often, what a frail, easily hurt, rather pathetic thing a human body is, naked; somehow a little unfinished, incomplete!

她陷入沉思，思考着以往就时常思考的问题，赤裸着的身体多么地脆弱，容易受伤，惹人怜爱，却有着不可言喻的欠缺，实在算不得完美！

She had been supposed to have rather a good figure, but now she was out of fashion: a little too female, not enough like an adolescent boy. She was not very tall, a bit Scottish and short; but she had a certain fluent, down-slipping grace that might have been beauty. Her skin was faintly tawny, her limbs had a certain stillness, her body should have had a full, down-slipping richness; but it lacked something.

她曾被认为拥有曲线玲珑的身材，但现在却有些落伍：女人味太浓，缺少几分少年的飒爽英姿。她个子不高，有几分苏格兰姑娘的娇小气质，但线条优美，凹凸有致，倒也是位俏丽佳人。她的皮肤呈浅褐色，举手投足轻柔舒缓，娇躯本应丰盈性感，但却缺少些什么。

Instead of ripening its firm, down-running curves, her body was flattening and going a little harsh. It was as if it had not had enough sun and warmth; it was a little greyish and sapless.

日渐成熟的身体本应拥有更加挺拔流畅的曲线，但却背道而驰，变得有些扁平僵硬。它似乎缺少足够的阳光和热量，变得暗沉，没有活力。

Disappointed of its real womanhood, it had not succeeded in becoming boyish, and unsubstantial, and transparent; instead it had gone opaque.

虽然这副躯体不满自己妩媚的女人味，但也无法变得像少年那般纤细轻盈，晶莹澄澈，相反却晦浊暗淡。

Her breasts were rather small, and dropping pear-shaped. But they were unripe, a little bitter, without meaning hanging there. And her belly had lost the fresh, round gleam it had had when she was young, in the days of her German boy, who really loved her physically. Then it was young and expectant, with a real look of its own. Now it was going slack, and a little flat, thinner, but with a slack thinness. Her thighs, too, they used to look so quick and glimpsy in their female roundness, somehow they too were going flat, slack, meaningless.

丁香小乳垂落在胸前，如梨子般圆润。但它们尚未成熟，稍带苦涩，索然寡味地悬在那里。而她的腹部也褪去了昔日饱满圆润的光泽，当年的德国情郎曾为她的胴体神魂颠倒。那时，她的腹部细腻柔嫩，饱含着希望，拥有别具一格的美感。现在却变得松垮，略显扁平，失去往日的丰盈，又并不紧实。大腿也不若以往那般浑圆饱满，柔软细嫩，变得暗淡松弛，美感全失。

Her body was going meaningless, going dull and opaque, so much insignificant substance. It made her feel immensely depressed and hopeless. What hope was there? She was old, old at twenty-seven, with no gleam and sparkle in the flesh. Old through neglect and denial, yes, denial. Fashionable women kept their bodies bright like delicate porcelain, by external attention. There was nothing inside the porcelain; but she was not even as bright as that. The mental life! Suddenly she hated it with a rushing fury, the swindle!

她的身体暗沉无光，失去应有的魅力，沦落成毫无活力的物质。这让她陷入苦闷绝望的深渊。希望究竟在何方？她不再青春洋溢，27岁便老态尽显，肉体并无半点光泽与亮度。即使回避和否认，也无法改变衰老的事实，没错，就算矢口否认也无济于事。追求时尚的贵妇们总通过悉心护理，把自己的娇躯保养得明艳照人，堪比娇美的瓷器。虽然瓷器内里空空如也，但她就连这点外表的光鲜都没有。精神生活！霎时间，她对精神生活恨得咬牙切齿，那彻头彻尾的空中楼阁！

She looked in the other mirror's reflection at her back, her waist, her loins. She was getting thinner, but to her it was not becoming. The crumple of her waist at the back, as she bent back to look, was a little weary; and it used to be so gay-looking. And the longish slope of her haunches and her buttocks had lost its gleam and its sense of richness. Gone! Only the German boy had loved it, and he was ten years dead, very nearly. How time went by! Ten years dead, and she was only twenty-seven. The healthy boy with his fresh, clumsy sensuality that she had then been so scornful of! Where would she find it now? It was gone out of men. They had their pathetic, two-seconds spasms like Michaelis; but no healthy human sensuality, that warms the blood and freshens the whole being.

她从另一面镜子中，审视着自己的脊背、腰肢以及臀部。她日渐消瘦，但瘦削的体型却与她格格不入。她扭回身，注意到腰部的折皱，顿觉灰心丧气，以往这腰肢是多么地艳丽动人。而修长的臀部曲线失去曾经的光彩，也不再圆润丰腴。不复存在！只有那位德国小伙曾为之倾倒，而再过不久，就是他十周年的忌辰。时光荏苒！昔日情郎故去已有十载，而她如今也仅有27岁。欢好之时，那健康壮硕的少年总显得青涩稚嫩，笨手笨脚，为此她曾经嗤之以鼻。可现在，去哪里找如此如意的情侣呢？男子汉早已绝迹。只剩下米凯利斯这种挺不过两秒的可怜虫，再也找不着精力旺盛的完整性爱，体验不到让血液沸腾、让身心振奋的美好感觉。

Still she thought the most beautiful part of her was the long-sloping fall of the haunches from the socket of the back, and the slumberous, round stillness of the buttocks. Like hillocks of sand, the Arabs say, soft and downward-slipping with a long slope. Here the life still lingered hoping. But here too she was thinner, and going unripe, astringent.

不过，她仍觉得自己身体最美丽的部分是绵延起伏的臀部曲线，以腰眼处为起点，还有那饱满沉静的臀丘。正如阿拉伯人所说，就像沙堆般柔和舒缓地下降。生命唯一的希望仍存于此处。但就连这里也变得纤瘦，褪去成熟圆顺的美感。

But the front of her body made her miserable. It was already beginning to slacken, with a slack sort of thinness, almost withered, going old before it had ever really lived. She thought of the child she might somehow bear. Was she fit, anyhow? She slipped into her nightdress, and went to bed, where she sobbed bitterly. And in her bitterness burned a cold indignation against Clifford, and his writings and his talk: against all the men of his sort who defrauded a woman even of her own body.