第七章（第4/10页）

“依我看，随着文明程度的提高，大可以把那些无用的身体机能统统去除。”克利福德说，“比如说性爱，就没有存在的必要。我的意思是，如果孩子可以人工培育，那禁除性爱自然顺理成章。”“不行！”奥利夫大叫起来，“那只是为了留给女人更多的享乐空间。”“在我看来，”本奈利夫人若有所思地说，“如果性爱真的不复存在，总会有别的东西取而代之。说不定会是吗啡。空气中充斥着淡淡的吗啡味道。定能让所有人感到神清气爽，飘飘欲仙。”“每逢周六，政府就在空气中施放乙醚，好让人们过个愉快的周末！”杰克说，“听着倒是个好主意，但到礼拜三，我们又该何去何从呢？”“只要能够忘掉肉体的存在，就可以品尝到快乐。”本奈利夫人说，“若对肉体念念不忘，便会痛苦不堪。如果文明确有好处，那么就帮我们忘却肉体的存在吧，这样一来，时间便会在不知不觉中快乐地逝去。”“干脆帮我们彻底摆脱肉体得了，”温特斯洛说，“人类是时候完善自己的本性了，尤其是肉体的层面。”“试想一下，我们像烟尘般飘来荡去。”康妮憧憬道。

"It won't happen," said Dukes. "Our old show will come flop; our civilization is going to fall. It's going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!” "Oh do! DO be impossible, General!" cried Olive.

“根本就不可能发生，”杜克斯说，“我们的老把戏将彻底失败，文明也将土崩瓦解。它将堕入无底深渊，再无重振之日。相信我，横跨在深渊之上的唯一桥梁，就是男人的阳具！”“噢！请别瞎说，将军！”奥利夫叫道。

"I believe our civilization is going to collapse," said Aunt Eva.

“我也认为文明将会走向覆灭。”伊娃姑妈说。

"And what will come after it?" asked Clifford.

“那之后会发生什么？”克利福德问。

"I haven't the faintest idea, but something, I suppose," said the elderly lady.

“我不知道，但在我想来，总会有些了不起的事情发生。”老妇人说。

"Connie says people like wisps of smoke, and Olive says immunized women, and babies in bottles, and Dukes says the phallus is the bridge to what comes next. I wonder what it will really be?" said Clifford.

“康妮说人能化作缕缕青烟，奥利夫期盼试管婴儿能够让女人得到解放，而杜克斯则认为阳具是文明免于覆灭的救命稻草。我想知道真相到底会是怎样？”克利福德说。

"Oh, don't bother! Let's get on with today," said Olive. "Only hurry up with the breeding bottle, and let us poor women off." "There might even be real men, in the next phase," said Tommy. "Real, intelligent, wholesome men, and wholesome nice women! Wouldn't that be a change, an enormous change from us? WE'RE not men, and the women aren't women. We're only cerebrating make-shifts, mechanical and intellectual experiments. There may even come a civilization of genuine men and women, instead of our little lot of clever-jacks, all at the intelligence-age of seven. It would be even more amazing than men of smoke or babies in bottles.” "Oh, when people begin to talk about real women, I give up," said Olive.

“哎，何必自找麻烦！今朝有酒今朝醉吧。”奥利夫说。“只盼着育婴试管赶紧研制出来，好让我们这些可怜的女人得到解脱。”“或许不久就会出现真正意义的男人，”汤米说，“聪明绝伦、身强体壮的真男人，还有身心健康的好女人！与我们相比，那的确意味着变革，翻天覆地的大变革。我们根本称不上男人，而如今女人也算不得女人。我们充其量只是拥有思维的过渡产品，用以进行体能及智能方面的实验。将来或许会出现高度文明，缔造者是那些名副其实的男男女女，而非我们这群聪明的小丑，智商只与七岁顽童旗鼓相当。不管是烟尘般漂浮的人，或者试管里培育的婴孩，都难与之相提并论。”“唉，每当聊起真女人之类的话题，我总会选择缄默。”奥利夫说。

"Certainly nothing but the spirit in us is worth having," said Winterslow.

“毫无疑问，我们所拥有的最宝贵的东西，就是精神。”温特斯洛说。

"Spirits!" said Jack, drinking his whisky and soda.

“精神！”杰克说，一边抿着他的威士忌苏打。

"Think so? Give me the resurrection of the body!" said Dukes.

“都这样认为吗？我却更渴望肉体的重生！”杜克斯说。

"But it'll come, in time, when we've shoved the cerebral stone away a bit, the money and the rest. Then we'll get a democracy of touch, instead of a democracy of pocket.” Something echoed inside Connie: "Give me the democracy of touch, the resurrection of the body! " She didn't at all know what it meant, but it comforted her, as meaningless things may do.

“只要抛开精神上的重负，忘却金钱以及其他桎梏，浴火重生的时刻就会到来。那时，我们将获得官能的解放，而非只是摆脱金钱的束缚。”康妮的心底回荡着这样的话：“让官能得到解放，肉体得以重生！”她根本不明白其中的含义，但这些话却让她感到宽慰，就像许多并无意义的事物都能达到此种效果一样。

Anyhow everything was terribly silly, and she was exasperatedly bored by it all, by Clifford, by Aunt Eva, by Olive and Jack, and Winterslow, and even by Dukes. Talk, talk, talk! What hell it was, the continual rattle of it!

但归根结底，这些夸夸其谈都是极端无聊的，她烦透了这一切，厌倦了克利福德、伊娃姑妈、奥利夫和杰克、还有温特斯洛，甚至连杜克斯都不再可亲。瞎扯，瞎扯，还是瞎扯！这样喋喋不休下去，究竟是为了什么呢！

Then, when all the people went, it was no better. She continued plodding on, but exasperation and irritation had got hold of her lower body, she couldn't escape. The days seemed to grind by, with curious painfulness, yet nothing happened. Only she was getting thinner; even the housekeeper noticed it, and asked her about herself Even Tommy Dukes insisted she was not well, though she said she was all right. Only she began to be afraid of the ghastly white tombstones, that peculiar loathsome whiteness of Carrara marble, detestable as false teeth, which stuck up on the hillside, under Tevershall church, and which she saw with such grim painfulness from the park. The bristling of the hideous false teeth of tombstones on the hill affected her with a grisly kind of horror. She felt the time not far off when she would be buried there, added to the ghastly host under the tombstones and the monuments, in these filthy Midlands.