第十章（第3/25页）

She went fairly often to the hut, in the morning or in the afternoon, but he was never there. No doubt he avoided her on purpose. He wanted to keep his own privacy.

清晨或午后，她常去小屋，但从未碰到过他。毫无疑问，他是有意回避她。他希望保持那份清静。

He had made the hut tidy, put the little table and chair near the fireplace, left a little pile of kindling and small logs, and put the tools and traps away as far as possible, effacing himself. Outside, by the clearing, he had built a low little roof of boughs and straw, a shelter for the birds, and under it stood the live coops. And, one day when she came, she found two brown hens sitting alert and fierce in the coops, sitting on pheasants' eggs, and fluffed out so proud and deep in all the heat of the pondering female blood. This almost broke Connie's heart. She, herself was so forlorn and unused, not a female at all, just a mere thing of terrors.

他把小屋收拾得干干净净，将小桌和椅子放在壁炉旁，留一小堆引火用的柴枝和木块，工具及兽夹都搁得远远的，尽量抹去自己的痕迹。屋外空地旁，他用树枝和稻草搭了个矮棚，为母鸡们遮风挡雨，棚下摆着鸡笼。之后的一天，她来时发现，笼里添了两支棕色母鸡，正卧在那里孵着雉鸡蛋，显得机警而凶悍。它们骄傲地震颤着自己的羽毛，炽热的雌性本能在血液中奔涌。此情此景，让康妮怅然心碎。她孤苦伶仃，毫无价值，哪里还算得上女人，根本只是个微不足道的可怜鬼。

Then all the live coops were occupied by hens, three brown and a grey and a black. All alike, they clustered themselves down on the eggs in the soft nestling ponderosity of the female urge, the female nature, fluffing out their feathers. And with brilliant eyes they watched Connie, as she crouched before them, and they gave short sharp clucks of anger and alarm, but chiefly of female anger at being approached.

后来，所有五个笼子都被母鸡占据，三只棕色的，灰色黑色各有一只。五只母鸡紧紧伏在蛋上，温情款款，动作笨拙，羽毛抖动，彰显着雌性的本能。康妮在笼前蹲下来，母鸡明亮的眼睛圆睁着，喉咙里发出短促而尖利的咯咯声，愤怒地警告她不要靠近，但主要是出于雌性被接近时露出愤怒的本能。

Connie found corn in the corn-bin in the hut. She offered it to the hens in her hand. They would not eat it. Only one hen pecked at her hand with a fierce little jab, so Connie was frightened. But she was pining to give them something, the brooding mothers who neither fed themselves nor drank. She brought water in a little tin, and was delighted when one of the hens drank.

在小屋的粮仓里，康妮找来谷粒。她捧在手里，去喂母鸡。它们理都不理。只有其中一只向她的手猛啄过去，吓了康妮一跳。但她还是想方设法地喂它们，这些一心只想着孵蛋的母亲们却不吃也不喝。她端来一小罐水，其中一只喝了一口，这让她开心不已。

Now she came every day to the hens, they were the only things in the world that warmed her heart. Clifford's protestations made her go cold from head to foot. Mrs. Bolton's voice made her go cold, and the sound of the business men who came. An occasional letter from Michaelis affected her with the same sense of chill. She felt she would surely die if it lasted much longer.

现在，她每天都来看母鸡，它们成为世间唯一能温暖她心房的生灵。克利福德的信誓旦旦让她全身凉透。博尔顿太太的温言软语，到访实业家们的高谈阔论，都无法让她感到丝毫暖意。米凯利斯偶尔的飞鸿同样让她冷彻心扉。她觉得如果再这样继续下去，自己只有死路一条。

Yet it was spring, and the bluebells were coming in the wood, and the leaf-buds on the hazels were opening like the spatter of green rain. How terrible it was that it should be spring, and everything cold-hearted, cold-hearted. Only the hens, fluffed so wonderfully on the eggs, were warm with their hot, brooding female bodies! Connie felt herself living on the brink of fainting all the time.

但毕竟已经春回大地，风铃草再现树林，榛树萌发出的嫩叶就像是漫天飘舞的碧绿雨滴。春色烂漫，但万事万物却依旧冷酷，依然无情，这实在糟糕透顶。只有那些孵蛋的母鸡，优雅地在蛋上展开自己的羽毛，它们热切的雌性身躯，才能令人感到一丝暖意。康妮觉得自己随时随地都可能昏厥过去。

Then, one day, a lovely sunny day with great tufts of primroses under the hazels, and many violets dotting the paths, she came in the afternoon to the coops and there was one tiny, tiny perky chicken tinily prancing round in front of a coop, and the mother hen clucking in terror. The slim little chick was greyish brown with dark markings, and it was the most alive little spark of a creature in seven kingdoms at that moment. Connie crouched to watch in a sort of ecstasy. Life, life! Pure, sparky, fearless new life! New life! So tiny and so utterly without fear! Even when it scampered a little, scrambling into the coop again, and disappeared under the hen's feathers in answer to the mother hen's wild alarm-cries, it was not really frightened, it took it as a game, the game of living. For in a moment a tiny sharp head was poking through the gold-brown feathers of the hen, and eyeing the Cosmos.

某个阳光明媚的日子，榛树旁大簇的樱草花盛放着，小径上星星点点地散布着紫罗兰。午饭过后，她再次来到鸡笼旁。一只小不点鸡宝宝正在缓缓学步，欢快地在笼前踱来踱去，而它的母亲则忧心忡忡，不断发出咯咯声。这只纤细的小鸡有灰褐色的羽毛，身上点缀着黑斑，在那个瞬间，它就是天底下最具活力的小生命。康妮蹲下身子，看得入了迷。生命，生命！纯洁无暇、充满生机、无所畏惧的新生命！新生命！如此瘦小纤细，但却丝毫不知畏惧！甚至当它听到母亲惊恐万分的尖叫声，蹦跳着仓促钻进笼中，藏身于妈妈的羽毛里，也并非因为心生畏惧，它只把这一切当做游戏，生存的游戏。因为，没过一会儿，那颗尖尖的小脑袋又从母亲金棕色的羽毛中探出来，打量着眼前的大千世界。

Connie was fascinated. And at the same time, never had she felt so acutely the agony of her own female forlornness. It was becoming unbearable.

康妮看得着了魔。而与此同时，身为女性的她，深切地体验到孤独之苦，那种感受前所未有地强烈。已经到达无法承受的程度。

She had only one desire now, to go to the clearing in the wood. The rest was a kind of painful dream. But sometimes she was kept all day at Wragby, by her duties as hostess. And then she felt as if she too were going blank, just blank and insane.