第十五章

There was a letter from Hilda on the breakfast-tray. "Father is going to London this week, and I shall call for you on Thursday week, June 17th. You must be ready so that we can go at once. I don't want to waste time at Wragby, it's an awful place. I shall probably stay the night at Retford with the Colemans, so I should be with you for lunch, Thursday. Then we could start at teatime, and sleep perhaps in Grantham. It is no use our spending an evening with Clifford. If he hates your going, it would be no pleasure to him.” So! She was being pushed round on the chess-board again.

早餐盘上搁着希尔达的来信。“爸爸这个礼拜要去伦敦，六月十七日周四那天，我会去你家。你要提前准备好，我们就可以即刻启程。我不想在拉格比多做停留，那里实在太糟糕。我周三可能在雷特福德的科尔曼家过夜，周四应该可以与你共进午餐。下午茶的时候，我们便可动身，晚上或许留宿在格兰瑟姆。跟克利福德共度夜晚，对我们毫无益处。要是他不愿放你走，那只会让他更加难受。”看吧！她再度置身棋盘之上，任人摆布。

Clifford hated her going, but it was only because he didn't feel safe in her absence. Her presence, for some reason, made him feel safe, and free to do the things he was occupied with. He was a great deal at the pits, and wrestling in spirit with the almost hopeless problems of getting out his coal in the most economical fashion and then selling it when he'd got it out. He knew he ought to find some way of using it, or converting it, so that he needn't sell it, or needn't have the chagrin of failing to sell it. But if he made electric power, could he sell that or use it? And to convert into oil was as yet too costly and too elaborate. To keep industry alive there must be more industry, like a madness.

克利福德不愿她离开，但那只是因为她不在时，他会失去安全感。不知为什么，有她陪在身边，他会感到心安，可以放手去忙自己的事情。他多数时间呆在矿坑，绞尽脑汁地钻研着那些几乎无解的难题，怎样的采煤方式更省钱，如何才能将采出来的煤卖掉。他知道自己要找到利用煤的方式，或者将它转化成其他能源，这样就不必非得卖掉，自然也就无需担心销路。但如果将其转化为电能，出售好呢，还是自己使用好呢？如果将其转化成石油，代价过于高昂，且工艺过于繁复。要让产业存活下去，就必须创造出更多与之相关的产业，这确实是疯狂之举。

It was a madness, and it required a madman to succeed in it. Well, he was a little mad. Connie thought so. His very intensity and acumen in the affairs of the pits seemed like a manifestation of madness to her, his very inspirations were the inspirations of insanity.

既然是癫狂的举动，那么自然只有疯子才能取得成功。哦，他已经有些疯狂的味道。康妮就这样认为。对她而言，他对矿务的执着和敏感本身就是疯狂的表现，而他极端的灵感同样因癫狂而激发。

He talked to her of all his serious schemes, and she listened in a kind of wonder, and let him talk. Then the flow ceased, and he turned on the loudspeaker, and became a blank, while apparently his schemes coiled on inside him like a kind of dream.

他总将自己的宏伟计划讲给妻子听，而她只会故作惊讶，任他自说自话。口若悬河地讲完，他便会拧开收音机，变得死气沉沉，那些雄图大略则沦为某种梦境，深埋进他的内心世界。

And every night now he played pontoon, that game of the Tommies, with Mrs. Bolton, gambling with sixpences. And again, in the gambling he was gone in a kind of unconsciousness, or blank intoxication, or intoxication of blankness, whatever it was. Connie could not bear to see him. But when she had gone to bed, he and Mrs. Bolton would gamble on till two and three in the morning, safely, and with strange lust. Mrs. Bolton was caught in the lust as much as Clifford: the more so, as she nearly always lost.