第十三章（第3/11页）

"Their lives are industrialized and hopeless, and so are ours," she cried.

“他们的生活是工业化的，丝毫没有希望，我们的生活也一般无二。”她喊道。

"I don't think they are. That's just a romantic figure of speech, a relic of the swooning and die-away romanticism. You don't look at all a hopeless figure standing there, Connie my dear.” Which was true. For her dark-blue eyes were flashing, her colour was hot in her cheeks, she looked full of a rebellious passion far from the dejection of hopelessness. She noticed, ill the tussocky places of the grass, cottony young cowslips standing up still bleared in their down. And she wondered with rage, why it was she felt Clifford was so wrong, yet she couldn't say it to him, she could not say exactly where he was wrong.

“我可不这样认为。这只是不切实际的形象比喻，是浪漫主义的可耻残余，这种想法会让人神魂颠倒，但却难以长久。我亲爱的康妮，你好端端地站在那里，根本没有一丁点儿绝望的样子。”此话不假。她深蓝色的双眸光华四射，两颊发热，似乎充满桀骜不驯的热情，全然没有绝望者的沮丧神态。她注意到，乱蓬蓬的草丛中，毛茸茸的报春花娇柔嫩弱，亭亭玉立，依然未脱绒毛。她气呼呼地想，为什么明明知道克利福德有错，却不能对他明言，不能直截了当地告诉他错在哪里。

"No wonder the men hate you," she said.

“难怪他们都恨你。”她说。

"They don't!” He replied. "And don't fall into errors: in your sense of the word, they are not men. They are animals you don't understand, and never could. Don't thrust your illusions on other people. The masses were always the same, and will always be the same. Nero's slaves were extremely little different from our colliers or the Ford motor-car workmen. I mean Nero's mine slaves and his field slaves. It is the masses: they are the unchangeable. An individual may emerge from the masses. But the emergence doesn't alter the mass. The masses are unalterable. It is one of the most momentous facts of social science. PANEM ET CIRCENSESP! Only today education is one of the bad substitutes for a circus. What is wrong today is that we've made a profound hash of the circuses part of the programme, and poisoned our masses with a little education.” When Clifford became really roused in his feelings about the common people, Connie was frightened. There was something devastatingly true in what he said. But it was a truth that killed.

“他们并不恨我！”他回应道。“不要陷入误区：依照你的理解，他们根本算不上人。他们不过是你无法理解的兽类，你也永远无法理解他们的想法。不要对他人抱有幻想。无论过去或者将来，老百姓都是这副德行。尼禄（注：37-68，古罗马帝国的暴君）豢养的奴隶，与我们的矿工或者福特汽车公司的技工，并无本质区别。我说的是尼禄的矿奴和农奴。老百姓就是如此，他们总是死性不改。或许会有人脱颖而出。但这并不会让群体发生变化。老百姓就是冥顽不灵。这是社会科学领域最基本的事实之一。面包和杂耍！时至今日，教育才取杂耍而代之，可惜只是滥竽充数。当今社会的症结在于，我们把节目单上杂耍的部分搞得乱七八糟，然后用微不足道的教育荼毒大众。”克利福德吐露出自己对于平民百姓的真实想法，康妮禁不住感到恐惧。他的话里包含着压倒一切的真理。但却是杀人的真理。

Seeing her pale and silent, Clifford started the chair again, and no more was said till he halted again at the wood gate, which she opened.

眼见她面色苍白，沉默不语，克利福德再度发动轮椅，径直来到园林门口，康妮为他打开门，他才再度开口。

"And what we need to take up now," he said, "is whips, not swords. The masses have been ruled since time began, and till time ends, ruled they will have to be. It is sheer hypocrisy and farce to say they can rule themselves." "But can you rule them?" She asked.

“如今我们需要拿起的，”他说，“是皮鞭，而非刀剑。从创世之初到世界末日，平头百姓都扮演着被统治的角色，而且只能被统治。如果说他们能够自治，那可真是痴人说梦。”“可你就统治得了他们吗？”她问。

"I? Oh yes! Neither my mind nor my will is crippled, and I don't rule with my legs. I can do my share of ruling: absolutely, my share; and give me a son, and he will be able to rule his portion after me.” "But he wouldn't be your own son, of your own ruling class; or perhaps not," she stammered.

“我么？当然能！我拥有健全的心智和顽强的意志，实施统治无须用双腿。我能够尽到本分，完成统治者的职责，这毫无疑问；给我生个儿子，他就能将我的统治延续下去。”“但他并非你亲生，甚至并非来自你所在的统治阶级，或许不是吧。”她支吾起来。

"I don't care who his father may be, so long as he is a healthy man not below normal intelligence. Give me the child of any healthy, normally intelligent man, and I will make a perfectly competent Chatterley of him. It is not who begets us, that matters, but where fate places us. Place any child among the ruling classes, and he will grow up, to his own extent, a ruler. Put kings' and dukes' children among the masses, and they'll be little plebeians, mass products. It is the overwhelming pressure of environment.” "Then the common people aren't a race, and the aristocrats aren't blood," she said.

“他的父亲是谁都无所谓，只要他身体健康，智力不低于平常。只要那个男人身心健全，智力正常，我就能将他的孩子塑造成为查泰莱家族合格的继承人。至关重要的并非是谁生养我们，而是命运将我们置于何处。将任何孩童置于统治阶级当中，他都会成长为合格的统治者。将王爵家的子嗣置于平民百姓当中，他也只会沦为庶民，乌合之后。客观环境的压力不可逆转。”“如此说来，平民百姓并非生来卑贱，王孙贵族也不是血统使然。”她说。

"No, my child! All that is romantic illusion. Aristocracy is a function, a part of fate. And the masses are a functioning of another part of fate. The individual hardly matters. It is a question of which function you are brought up to and adapted to. It is not the individuals that make an aristocracy: it is the functioning of the aristocratic whole. And it is the functioning of the whole mass that makes the common man what he is.” "Then there is no common humanity between us all!" "Just as you like. We all need to fill our bellies. But when it comes to expressive or executive functioning, I believe there is a gulf and an absolute one, between the ruling and the serving classes. The two functions are opposed. And the function determines the individual." Connie looked at him with dazed eyes.