第二章

Connie and Clifford came home to Wragby in the autumn of 1920. Miss Chatterley, still disgusted at her brother's defection, had departed and was living in a little flat in London.

1920年秋，康妮随克利福德返回格拉比家中。而爱玛则仍因弟弟的背信弃义而忿忿不平，离家住进伦敦的一所小公寓。

Wragby was a long low old house in brown stone, begun about the middle of the eighteenth century, and added on to, till it was a warren of a place without much distinction.

拉格比府是座狭长低矮的旧宅，用褐色岩石堆砌而成，始建于18世纪中叶，后来几经扩建，直至变成一个其貌不扬、迷宫般的场所。

It stood on an eminence in a rather line old park of oak trees, but alas, one could see in the near distance the chimney of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke, and on the damp, hazy distance of the hill the raw straggle of Tevershall village, a village which began almost at the park gates, and trailed in utter hopeless ugliness for a long and gruesome mile: houses, rows of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses, with black slate roofs for lids, sharp angles and wilful, blank dreariness.

它矗立在高岗之上，周围为栽满橡树的古老园林所环抱，但可惜的是，依然能看到不远处特弗沙尔矿坑烟囱，以及它吐出的团团蒸汽和浓烟。而在潮湿山坡上散落着的特弗沙尔村也依稀可见。那村落从园林门外起绵延长达一英里的距离，展现出赤裸裸、无可救药的丑陋图景。房屋，一排排肮脏污秽的低矮砖房，黑石板搭盖的顶棚，尖锐的棱角，肆意地透露着难言的凄凉氛围。

Connie was accustomed to Kensington or the Scotch hills or the Sussex downs: that was her England. With the stoicism of the young she took in the utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands at a glance, and left it at what it was: unbelievable and not to be thought about. From the rather dismal rooms at Wragby she heard the rattle-rattle of the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink of shunting trucks, and the hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives. Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench of this sulphurous combustion of the earth's excrement. But even on windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur, iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom.

康妮习惯了肯辛顿的生活，看惯了苏格兰式的高地，或是萨塞克斯（注：英国南部一郡，濒临英吉利海峡）的丘陵：那才是她心目中的英格兰。她以年轻人那种淡然的目光审视过煤铁矿林立的米德兰，将那种缺少灵魂的、如假包换的丑陋尽收眼底，之后便听之任之。她不愿相信它的存在，更加不想费神去思索。置身于拉格比府阴森森的房间里，康妮听到矿坑筛煤机的咔嗒声、卷扬机的噗噗声、载重卡车的叮当声、以及运煤机车汽笛的嘶鸣声。特弗沙尔矿坑口依然烈焰滚滚，将其扑灭想必需要花费大笔金钱。所以只好任它继续燃烧。每逢常见的顺风天气，格拉比府就会充溢着难闻的恶臭，那是腐土遇硫磺燃烧而产生的气味。甚至是无风的日子，空气中也充斥着来自地底的味道：硫磺、煤铁、或是酸性物质。就连圣诞蔷薇上也不可思议地经年附满煤尘，好似厄日天空降下的黑色甘露。

Well, there it was: fated like the rest of things! It was rather awful, but why kick? You couldn't kick it away. It just went on. Life, like all the rest! On the low dark ceiling of cloud at night red blotches burned and quavered, dappling and swelling and contracting, like burns that give pain. It was the furnaces. At first they fascinated Connie with a sort of horror; Then she got used to them. And in the morning it rained.