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儿子与情人
  《儿子与情人》是性爱小说之父劳伦斯的第一部长篇小说。小说风靡世界文坛90年,魅力至今不减。1961年美国俄克拉荷马发起了禁书运动,在租用的一辆被称之为“淫秽书籍曝光车”所展示的不宜阅读的书籍中,《儿子与情人》被列在首当其冲的位置。
  
  《儿子与情人》视角独特,对人性中隐秘的“恋母情结”有深刻、形象的挖掘。一般认为,小说中的儿子保罗就是劳伦斯的化身,而莫雷尔太太就是劳伦斯的母亲莉蒂娅,保罗的女友米丽安就是劳伦斯的初恋情人杰茜。
  
  《儿子与情人》的主线之一是以劳伦斯和杰茜的私情为蓝本,而劳伦斯母亲那强烈变态的母爱足以扼杀劳伦斯任何正常的爱情。劳伦斯曾对自己的情人说:“你知道我一直爱我的母亲。我像情人一样爱她,所以我总也无法爱你。”这些折磨人的日子在《儿子与情人》中有很详尽的描述。
  《儿子与情人》-小说背景
  
  小说背景是劳伦斯的出生地——诺丁汉郡矿区。父亲莫瑞尔是矿工,由于长年沉重的劳动和煤井事故使他变得脾气暴躁,母亲出身
  
  于中产家庭,有一定教养。结婚后,夫妇不和,母亲开始厌弃丈夫,把全部感情和希望倾注在孩子身上,由此产生畸形的母爱。长子威廉为伦敦律师当文书,但为了挣钱劳累致死。母亲从此对小儿子保罗寄予厚望。小说前半部着重写了保罗和其母亲之间奥狄甫斯式的感情。后半部则着重写了保罗和两位情人克拉拉和米里艾姆之间两种不同的爱。前者情欲爱,后者是柏拉图式的精神之恋。保罗在母亲阴影之下,无法选择自己的生活道路。直到母亲病故后,他才摆脱了束缚,离别故土和情人,真正成人。
  
  
  劳伦斯通过现实主义和心理分析的写作方法,描写了十九世纪末叶英国工业社会中下层人民的生活和特定环境下母子间和两性间的复杂、变态的心理。他强调人的原始本能,把理智作为压抑天性的因素加以摒弃,主张充分发挥人的本能。小说中,劳伦斯还对英国生活中工业化物质文明和商业精神进行了批判。
  
  《儿子与情人》-内容介绍
  
  《儿子与情人》小说主人公保罗的父母莫瑞尔夫妇。他们两人是在一次舞会上结识的,可以说是一见钟情,婚后也过了一段甜蜜、幸福的日子。但是,两人由于出身不同,性格不合,精神追求迥异,在短暂的激情过后,之间便产生了无休止的唇枪舌剑,丈夫甚至动起手来,还把怀有身孕的妻子关在门外。
  
  小说中的夫妇之间只有肉体的结合,而没有精神的沟通、灵魂的共鸣。父亲是一位浑浑噩噩的煤矿工人,贪杯,粗俗,常常把家里的事和孩子们的前程置之度外。母亲出身于中产阶级,受过教育,对嫁给一个平凡的矿工耿耿于怀,直到对丈夫完全绝望。于是,她把时间、精力和全部精神希冀转移、倾注到由于肉体结合而降生于人世间的大儿子威廉和二儿子保罗身上。
  
  她竭力阻止儿子步父亲的后尘,下井挖煤;她千方百计敦促他们跳出下层人的圈子,出人头地,实现她在丈夫身上未能实现的精神追求。她的一言一行、一举一动不但拉大了她和丈夫之间的距离,并最终使之成为不可逾越的鸿沟,而且影响了子女,使他们与母亲结成牢固的统一战线,去共同对付那虽然肉体依旧光滑、健壮,而精神日渐衰败、枯竭的父亲。
  
  母亲和孩子们的统一战线给孤立无援的父亲带来了痛苦和灾难,也没有给莫瑞尔家里的任何其他一个人带来好处。发生在父母身上那无休止的冲突,特别是无法和解的灵与肉的撞击重演在母亲和儿子的身上。相比之下,夫妻之间的不和对莫瑞尔太太来说并没有带来太大的精神上的折磨,因为她对丈夫失去了信心,而且本来就没有抱多大的希望。
  
  没有让母亲扬眉吐气的大儿子死后,二儿子保罗就逐渐成了母亲惟一的精神港湾,也成了母亲发泄无名之火和内心痛苦的一个渠道。她爱儿子,恨铁不成钢,一个劲儿地鼓励、督促保罗成名成家,跻身于上流社会,为母亲争光争气;她也想方设法从精神上控制儿子,使他不移情他人,特别是别的女人,以便满足自己婚姻的缺憾。这种强烈的带占有性质的爱使儿子感到窒息,迫使他一有机会就设法逃脱。而在短暂的逃离中,他又常常被母亲那无形的精神枷锁牵引着,痛苦得不能自已。
  
  和女友米莉安的交往过程也是年轻的保罗经历精神痛苦的过程。他们由于兴趣相投,接触日渐频繁,产生了感情,成了一对应该说是十分相配的恋人。然而可悲的是,米莉安也过分追求精神满足,非但缺乏激情,而且像保罗的母亲一样,企图从精神上占有保罗,从灵魂上吞噬保罗。这使她与保罗的母亲成了针锋相对的“情敌”,命里注定要败在那占有欲更强,又可依赖血缘关系轻易占上风的老太太手下。
  
  保罗身边的另一个名叫克拉拉的女人同样是一个灵与肉相分离的畸形人。她生活在社会下层,与丈夫分居,一段时间内与保罗打得火热。保罗从这位“荡妇”身上得到肉体上的满足。然而这种“狂欢式”的融合,是一种没有生命力的、一瞬即逝的结合。由于从米莉安身上找不到安慰,保罗需要从心理上寻求自我平衡,需要从性上证明自己的男性能力。由于从丈夫身上得不到满足,克拉拉也需要展示自己的魅力,从肉体上寻求自我平衡。
  
  做为母亲,与儿子尤其是与二儿子保罗之间的情结,那种撕肝裂肺的灵魂上的争斗则给可怜的母亲带来了无法愈合的创伤,直到她郁郁寡欢,无可奈何,离开人世。
  《儿子与情人》-人物分析
  
  《儿子与情人》中,保罗母亲对丈夫的失望、不满和怨恨使莫瑞尔太太把自己的感情、爱怜和精神寄托转向了儿子,或者说,莫瑞尔太太把自己经历过的精神磨难和一心要解决的问题“折射”到了儿子的身上,于是一场灵与肉的冲撞又在母子之间展开。
  
  母亲的这种性变态使儿子心酸,惆怅,无所适从。有了母亲,保罗就无法去爱别的女人。在母亲几乎是声嘶力竭地哀叹“我从来没有过一个丈夫”、一个“真正”的丈夫时,保罗禁不住深情地抚摸起母亲的头发,热吻起母亲的喉颈。这种“恋母情结”在很大程度上变成了一种“固恋”,使他失去了感情和理智的和谐,失去了“本我”和 “超自我”之间的平衡。因此,保罗的情感无法发展、升华,他的性心理性格无法完善、成熟,从而导致了他一生的痛苦和悲剧。
  
  幼年时期的“恋母”情结,使保罗成了感情上和精神上的“痴呆儿”。他虽然爱恋着米莉安,但却不能像一位正常的血肉之躯,理直气壮地去爱她。这不但使自己陷入了困境,也给米莉安造成了巨大的精神痛苦。保罗见不到米莉安的时候会感到闷得慌,可是一旦跟她在一起却要争争吵吵,因为米莉安总是显得“超凡脱俗”或非常地“精神化”,使保罗觉得像跟母亲在一起那样不自在。
  
  保罗只要跟别的女人在一起,灵魂就会被母亲那无形的精神枷锁控制着,感到左右为难,无法获得自由。在他和米莉安俨然像一对夫妇在亲戚家生活的日子里,保罗得到了米莉安的肉体,而在精神上,保罗仍然属于自己的母亲。米莉安只是带着浓厚的宗教成分,为了心爱的人做出了 “牺牲”。所以,在那段日子里,他们也并没有能够享受青年男女之间本该享受到的愉悦。实际上,肉体间的苟合,只是加速了他们之间爱情悲剧的进程。
  
  在这一次次灵与肉的冲撞后,小说中的主要人物一个个伤痕累累,肉体和精神均遭受了巨大的摧残。保罗的父亲在家里、在亲人面前永远成为格格不入的“边缘人”。保罗的母亲在精神上从来没有过一个“真正的丈夫”,只能从儿子身上寻找情感的慰藉,而这种努力又常常被其他女人所挫败,后来心理、生理衰竭,得了不治之症,早早撒手人寰。米莉安虽然苦苦挣扎,忍辱负重,但并没有得到保罗的心,保罗直到摆脱母亲的精神羁绊,可以与她重归于好,永结良缘时,最终还是狠下心来,拒绝了她的婚求,孑然一人,继续做精神上的挣扎。
  
  只沉迷于肉体欲望的克拉拉也很快结束了与保罗的风流,回到性格粗俗、暴烈、无所作为的丈夫身边。可以说,在这些灵与肉的冲撞中,我们看到的是一个个沮丧、可悲的失败者,找不到一个最终的赢家。其实,在人们赖以繁衍生息的大自然被破坏,在人性被扭曲,在人类的和谐关系不断被威胁的社会中,灵与肉的争斗本来就是残酷无情的,到头来谁也成不了赢家,成不了一个完整的、有血有肉的人。
  《儿子与情人》-作品影响
  
  《儿子与情人》是劳伦斯在一次世界大战之前最优秀的作品之一。戴维•赫伯特•劳伦斯是一位天才的作家,他的作品洞察人类生命中最深层的领地—人的心理,生动描述人类诸如挣扎、痛苦、危机、欢娱等种种情感和感受。他致力于开启人类心深处的“黑匣子”,穿透意识的表面,触及隐藏的血的关联“,从而揭示原型的自我。
  
  在这部小说里,他对女性的心理进行了大胆、透彻的探索,其小说中的女性也因此体现出更为强烈的审美情趣和艺术表现力,细腻准确地反映出劳伦斯的写作主题。
  
  戴维•赫伯特•劳伦斯用精神分析的方法对《儿子与情人》中的三种女性爱情心理模式进行描述,这三种模式将成为此论文的三部分。第一部分—精神模式,,此模式对本能的欲望进行抵制和轻视。《儿子与情人》中的米莉亚姆就是这个模式的典型代表。第二部分 ——肉欲模式,这种心理会放纵她们自己个人的本能的欲望而又忽视了灵魂的交流。这部小说中的克拉拉就是一个典型的例子。第三部分——情节模式,这种模式对某个东西或某一种感情显示出一种极端的态度。莫瑞尔太太就这样的一个对家庭和儿子们有极端的占有欲的女人。
  
  戴维•赫伯特•劳伦斯通过对《儿子与情人》中的三种女性爱情心理模式的分析,阐述其局限性,揭示健康自然的女性爱情心理,对于成就完整的生命及追求中女性的成功有重要作用。


  Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence.
  
  Plot introduction and history
  
  The third published novel of D. H. Lawrence, taken by many to be his earliest masterpiece, tells the story of Paul Morel, a young man and budding artist. Richard Aldington explains the semi-autobiographical nature of this masterpiece:
  
   When you have experienced Sons and Lovers you have lived through the agonies of the young Lawrence striving to win free from his old life. Generally, it is not only considered as an evocative portrayal of working-class life in a mining community, but also an intense study of family, class and early sexual relationships.[citation needed]
  
  The original 1913 edition was heavily edited by Edward Garnett who removed 80 passages, roughly a tenth of the text. The novel is dedicated to Garnett. Garnett, as the literary advisor to the publishing firm Duckworth, was an important figure in leading Lawrence further into the London literary world during the years 1911 and 1912. It was not until the 1992 Cambridge University Press edition was released that the missing text was restored.
  
  Lawrence began working on the novel in the period of his mother's illness, and often expresses this sense of his mother's wasted life through his female protagonist Gertrude Morel. Letters written around the time of its development clearly demonstrate the admiration he felt for his mother - viewing her as a 'clever, ironical, delicately moulded woman' - and her apparently unfortunate marriage to his coal mining father, a man of 'sanguine temperament' and instability. He believed that his mother had married below her class status. Rather interestingly, Lydia Lawrence wasn't born into the middle-class. This personal family conflict experienced by Lawrence provided him with the impetus for the first half of his novel - in which both William, the older brother, and Paul Morel become increasingly contemptuous of their father - and the subsequent exploration of Paul Morel's antagonizing relationships with both his lovers, which are both invariably affected by his allegiance to his mother.
  
  The first draft of Lawrence's novel is now lost and was never completed, which seems to be directly due to his mother's illness. He did not return to the novel for three months, at which point it was titled 'Paul Morel'. The penultimate draft of the novel coincided with a remarkable change in Lawrence's life, as his health was thrown into tumult and he resigned his teaching job in order to spend time in Germany. This plan was never followed, however, as he met and married the German minor aristocrat, Frieda Weekley. According to Frieda's account of their first meeting, she and Lawrence talked about Oedipus and the effects of early childhood on later life within twenty minutes of meeting.
  
  The third draft of 'Paul Morel' was sent to the publishing house Heinemann, which was repulsively responded to by William Heinemann himself. His reaction captures the shock and newness of Lawrence's novel, 'the degradation of the mother [as explored in this novel], supposed to be of gentler birth, is almost inconceivable', and encouraged Lawrence to redraft the novel one more time. In addition to altering the title to a more thematic 'Sons and Lovers', Heinemann's response had reinvigorated Lawrence into vehemently defending his novel and its themes as a coherent work of art. In order to justify its form Lawrence explains, in letters to Garnett, that it is a 'great tragedy' and a 'great book', one that mirrors the 'tragedy of thousands of young men in England'.
  Explanation of the novel's title
  
  Lawrence rewrote the work four times until he was happy with it. Although before publication the work was usually called Paul Morel, Lawrence finally settled on Sons and Lovers. Just as the new title makes the work less focused on a central character, many of the later additions broadened the scope of the work, thereby making the work less autobiographical. While some of the edits by Garnett were on the grounds of propriety or style, others would once more narrow the emphasis back upon Paul.
  Plot summary
  
  Part I:
  
  The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance. But soon after her marriage to Walter Morel, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons beginning with the oldest, William.
  
  As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he doesn't enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Eventually, he leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London, where he begins to rise up into the middle class. He is engaged, but he detests the girl's superficiality. He dies and Mrs. Morel is heartbroken, but when Paul catches pneumonia she rediscovers her love for her second son.
  
  Part II:
  
  Both repulsed by and drawn to his mother, Paul is afraid to leave her but wants to go out on his own, and needs to experience love. Gradually, he falls into a relationship with Miriam, a farm girl who attends his church. The two take long walks and have intellectual conversations about books but Paul resists, in part because his mother looks down on her. At work, Paul meets Clara Dawes who has separated from her husband, Baxter.
  
  Paul leaves Miriam behind as he grows more intimate with Clara, but even she cannot hold him and he returns to his mother. When his mother dies soon after, he is alone.
  
  Lawrence summarized the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 12 November 1912:
  
   It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. It's rather like Goethe and his mother and Frau von Stein and Christiana — As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there's a split. William gives his sex to a fribble, and his mother holds his soul. But the split kills him, because he doesn't know where he is. The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul — fights his mother. The son loves his mother — all the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The battle goes on between the mother and the girl, with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother's hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realizes what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress, attends to his mother dying. He is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death.
  
  Literary significance & criticism
  
  In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Sons and Lovers ninth on a list of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century.
  
  It contains a frequently quoted use of the English dialect word "nesh". The speech of several protagonists is represented in Lawrence's written interpretation of the Nottinghamshire dialect, which also features in several of his poems .
  Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
  Main article: Sons and Lovers (film)
  
  Sons and Lovers has been adapted for the screen several times, including the Academy Award winning 1960 film, a 1981 BBC TV serial and another on ITV1 in 2003. The 2003 serial has been issued on DVD by Acorn Media UK.
  Standard editions
  
   * Sons and Lovers (1913), edited by Helen Baron and Carl Baron, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-24276-2
  
   * Paul Morel (1911–12), edited by Helen Baron, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-56009-8, an early manuscript version of Sons and Lovers
  《恋爱中的女人》是D.H .劳伦斯最伟大、最有代表性、最脸炙人口的两部长篇小说之一(另一部是《虹》),他本人也认为它是他的“最佳作品”;它以英国小说中没有先例的热情与深度探索了有关恋爱的心理问题,代表了劳伦斯作品的最高成就,因此它同《虹》成为了现代小说的先驱。
  D.H.劳伦斯是英国小说家、诗人、散文家,20世纪英国最重要和最有争议的小说家之一,20世纪世界文坛上最有天分与影响力的人物之一。他与福斯特、乔伊斯、理查森、伍尔芙同是20世纪英国小说的创始人,是中国读者最熟悉与喜爱的西方作家之一。


  Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow (1915), and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an industrialist. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula and Rupert Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the author. The emotional relationships thus established are given further depth and tension by a homoerotic attraction between Gerald and Rupert. The novel ranges over the whole of British society at the time of the First World War and eventually ends high up in the snows of the Swiss Alps.
  
  As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter. One early reviewer said of it, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps — festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven."
  
  Plot summary
  
  Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are two sisters living in the Midlands of England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich. The four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun eventually begins a love affair with Gerald.
  
  All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of his youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her, while her parents sleep in another room.
  
  Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The four vacation in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke, by Gudrun's verbal abuse, and by his own destructive nature, tries to murder Gudrun. After failing, he retreats back over the mountains and falls to his death in the snow.
  Publication
  
  Women in Love was originally published in New York City as a limited edition (1250 books), available only to subscribers; this was due to the controversy caused by his previous work, The Rainbow. Originally, the two books were written as parts of a single novel. The publisher had decided to publish them separately and in rapid succession. The first book's treatment of sexuality, while tame by 21st Century standards, was rather too frank for the Edwardian era. There was an obscenity trial and The Rainbow was banned in the U.K. for 11 years, although it was available in the U.S. The publisher then backed out of publishing the second book in the U.K., so it first appeared in the U.S.
  Film adaptation
  
  Screenwriter and producer Larry Kramer and director Ken Russell adapted the novel in the Academy Award-winning 1969 film, Women in Love, (for which Glenda Jackson won for Best Actress). It was one of the first theatrical movies to show male genitals, when Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) and Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) wrestle in the nude in front of a roaring fireplace, in addition to several early skinny dipping shots and an explicit sequence of Birkin running naked in the forest after being hit on the head by his spurned former mistress, Hermione Roddice (Eleanor Bron).
  Editions
  
   * Women in Love (New York: Privately Printed by Thomas Seltzer, 1920).
   * Women in Love (London: Martin Seeker, 1921).
   * Women in Love, ed. Charles L. Ross (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982).
   * Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). This edition is a volume in The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence
   * Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen [with an Introduction and Notes by Mark Kinkead-Weekes] (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995).
   * Women in Love, ed.David Bradshaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
   * The First Women in Love (1916-17) edited by John Worthen and Lindeth Vasey,Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-521-37326-3. This edition is a volume in The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence and displays significant differences to the final published version
   * The 'Prologue' to Women in Love is a discarded section of an early version of the novel and is set four years after Gerald and Birkin have returned from a skiing holiday in Tyrol. It is published as an appendix to the Cambridge edition, pp489-506
   * The First Women in Love Oneworld Classics, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84749-005-6
  
  Literary criticism
  
   * Richard Beynon, (ed.), D. H. Lawrence: The Rainbow and Women in Love (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1997).
   * Michael Black (2001) Lawrence's England: The Major Fiction, 1913 - 1920 (Palgrave-MacMillan)
   * Paul Delaney (1979) D. H. Lawrence's Nightmare: The Writer and his Circle in the Years of the Great War (Hassocks: Harvester Press)
   * F. R. Leavis (1955) D. H. Lawrence: Novelist (London, Chatto and Windus)
   * F. R. Leavis (1976) Thought, Words and Creativity: Art and Thought in D. H. Lawrence (London, Chatto and Windus)
   * Joyce Carol Oates (1978) "Lawrence's Götterdämmerung: The Apocalyptic Vision of Women in Love"
   * Charles L. Ross (1991) Women in Love: A Novel of Mythic Realism (Boston, Mass.: Twayne)
   * John Worthen, The Restoration of Women in Love, in Peter Preston and Peter Hoare (eds.)(1989), D. H. Lawrence in the Modern World (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp 7-26
  《查太莱夫人的情人》源于一个真实的故事,只因书中有毫不避讳的性爱描写,而曾一度列为禁书。从现今的文学作品来看,大胆而露骨的色情描写,比比皆是,甚至并非出于情节需要,只是为了满足大众窥私的欲望,而不惜笔墨大肆渲染。但是情色与色情终究是有差别的,情色给人带来的是美感,是愉悦,是对人性的思考,能激发人对美好的向往;色情带来的却是污秽,是一时变态的疯狂,而后留下的只有空虚。
  《查太莱夫人的情人》-作品影响
  
  对于劳伦斯,性交是一种含蓄主义的艺术。在他化腐朽为神奇的文笔之下,性爱是一层深似一层,一次细过一次的飞逸着的旋涡,是暧昧而激情、细腻而诗意、深刻而又空虚的终级高潮。性在层层神秘和敏感的压力下,仍然是男女之间最直接实际与最自然的交流。
  
  劳伦斯和这本书,一直以来都是禁忌的代名词,然而,“一旦能够得到适当的处理,这部小说的重大意义便显示出来”。劳伦斯认为一个人,不必定要求幸福,不必定要求伟大,但求知道“生活”,而做个真正的人。要做真正的人,要过真正的生活‘便要使生命澎湃般的激动。这种激动是从接触 (Contact)中,从合一(togetherness)一起中产生出来的,而世界,正是通过这种人类原始情欲的面貌,来接近我们。
  
  在一九二八——二九年两年间,欧美文坛上最令人震惊、最引起争执的书,大概莫过于劳伦斯(D.H.Lawrence)的这本《查太莱夫人的情人》了。跟着,一九三零年劳伦斯逝世。盖冠论定,世界文坛又为这本书热闹了一番。在现世纪的小说家中,决没有一个象劳伦斯一样,受过世人这样残酷地辱骂的;而同时,在英国现代作家中,要找到一个象劳伦斯一样的,受着精英的青年知识阶级所极端崇拜的人,却是罕见的,劳伦斯的这本书,把虚伪的卫道者们弄癫了,他把腐败的近代文明的狰狞面孔,太不容情地暴露了。但是,劳伦斯却在这些“狗人穷巷”的卫道者们的癫狂反攻之下,在这种近代文明的凶险的排击之下,成为无辜的牺牲者:他的天才的寿命,给排山倒海的嘲讽和诽谤所结束了。现在,正如劳伦劳动保护夫人说,《查太莱夫人的情人》的作者,是象一只小鸟似的,被埋葬在中海的灿烂的阳光之下的一个寂寞的坟墓里了。但是,这本文艺杰构,却在敌人的仇恨的但是无可奈何的沉默态度之下,继续吐露光芒,它不但在近代文艺界放了一线熔人的光彩,而且在近乎黑暗的生活下,燃起了一盏光亮的明灯。
  《查太莱夫人的情人》-影片简介
  
  故事发生在一战后的英格兰。从战场上归来的克利福特。查太莱爵士由于在战争中受伤而导致下半身瘫痪,终年只能坐在轮椅上。查太莱和他的新婚妻子康妮回到老家的庄园,准备过一种与世无争的田园生活。年轻貌美的康妮是一个心地善良的女子,她明知等待着自己的将是漫长孤寂的日子,却仍然接受了命运的安排,甘愿留在丈夫身边。
  
  这天,康妮有事去找庄园的看林人米尔斯,米尔斯正在院子空地上淋浴。康妮无意间瞥见了他裸露而健壮的身体,不由在心里荡起一阵涟漪。米尔斯显然也被典雅温婉的康妮吸引住了。为了使家族能够传承下去,克利福特向康妮提出,希望她能给这个家生个孩子,但却遭到康妮的断然拒绝。当晚的圣诞舞会上,客人们都在尽情狂欢,惟康妮独坐一旁,心情郁闷。爸爸和妹妹都为她担心,纷纷劝她要珍惜自己的青春,要设法开辟自己的生活。
  
  在妹妹希尔达的帮助下,克利福特聘请了一位寡妇伯尔顿太太随身伺候。康妮由此得以从病人身旁脱身,得到一些自由时间。康妮经常独自到林间散步,和米尔斯有了一些接触。天长日久,两人逐渐产生了感情。康妮开始越来越不能忍受查太莱大宅中华丽但却刻板苍白的生活了,她觉得自己已被压迫得奄奄一息,她向往外面的大自然,向往米尔斯身上焕发出来的活力。终于,康妮投入了米尔斯的怀抱。他们如痴如醉地做爱,这是两个健康肉体之间的完满的性爱、全身心投入的性爱、相互尊重理解善意回应的性爱,这种性爱由最初纯粹的肉体吸引慢慢转化成了一种灵魂的相互碰撞,米尔斯用爱抚与热情使康妮变成了一个真正的女人,康妮惊奇地发现自己深深爱上了这个粗鲁没有文化但却深沉热情的男子。康妮和米尔斯成了灵欲合一的情人,当康妮晚上悄悄地从查太莱大宅里跑向在一旁守候她的米尔斯的时候,她已经完全沉醉于这段感情了。
  
  一个雨天,康妮与米尔斯在林中小屋幽会。激情澎湃的康妮冲向屋外,脱去身上的长袍,裸着身体在雨中奔跑,米尔斯也欢叫着追了出去。康妮完美无瑕的胴体在葱绿的森林中显得那么自然和谐,两人像快乐的精灵一样在雨中嬉戏。之后,他们用鲜花装点彼此,犹如回归伊甸园的亚当与夏娃。这时,横亘在他们之间的等级障碍早已荡然无存。
  
  终于,康妮怀上了米尔斯的孩子。在外出旅游期间,她把自己的故事坦诚地告诉了希尔达,希尔达对康妮的做法不以为然,还积极地要为孩子物色一个贵族父亲,却被康妮拒绝。康妮难以割舍对米尔斯的思念,提前回到庄园,却发现米尔斯迫于压力已经辞职,并遭到毒打,被遣送到矿上烧煤。昔日的小木屋也已不再是他们的乐园,两人似乎已经走投无路。
  
  米尔斯决心离开英国,去加拿大谋生,康妮面临抉择。终于,康妮向克利福特提出离婚,并告诉他,她所爱的人是看林人米尔斯。克利福特得知后,犹如堕入陷阱的困兽,狂怒道:“天哪!你竟和我的仆人发生关系!”最后,康妮与米尔斯这一对多难的情人终于相遇在前往加拿大的船上。两个人的明天是光明而充满希望的,康妮放弃了雍容奢华但却死气沉沉的贵妇生活,奔向了自由与爱情,两个来自不同阶层的人终于冲破世俗的障碍,获得新生。
  《查太莱夫人的情人》-作品背景
  
  原著在英国被禁30年,出版该书的企鹅出版社被控出版淫秽作品,直至1960年才被宣告无罪,小说亦同时解禁。由于小说的敏感,根据小说改编的电影同样引起人们的普遍关注。
  
  影片《查太莱夫人的情人》根据英国20世纪小说家戴卫.赫伯特.劳伦斯创作于 1928年的同名小说改编。劳伦斯的这部经典名著自问世起就备受争议,在英国被禁30年,但却不妨碍世人对它的喜爱和传阅。小说曾多次被搬上银幕,1992年英国大导演肯。拉赛尔受BBC电视台之邀,将其再度搬上银幕,拍成了一部长达4个多小时、总共4集的电视剧,并剪辑出一个长约2小时、供影院放映的电影“缩减本”。
    
  本片导演肯。拉赛尔以拍摄音乐家传记片而闻名。此前,他也曾两度改编劳伦斯的小说《虹》和《恋爱中的女人》。
  《查太莱夫人的情人》-主题思想
  
  从福楼拜的《包法利夫人》、托尔斯泰的《安娜。卡列琳娜》到劳伦斯的《查太莱夫人的情人》,西方现代小说一直反复探讨着一个主题,即在急遽变化的社会中,已婚女性对世俗的社会价值所做的反叛及其后果。本片再次以电影的形式对这一主题做出呼应。导演肯。拉塞尔力求忠实于劳伦斯的原著,保留了原著的大部分情节和对白,在结构上也没有大的调整,比较准确地传达出原著中所蕴涵的深刻主题,以唯美的视觉语言揭示了女性独立性意识的自我萌发和自我救赎。影片在揭示男女情爱的同时,将性爱描写上升到哲学和美学的高度,伴随着炽烈的性爱体验的,则是对历史、政治、宗教、经济等社会问题的严肃思考。查太莱夫妇的结合是一种不和谐的畸形婚姻。半身瘫痪、失去男性能力的丈夫和正值芳年的妻子,这是一个残酷的组合,何况克利福特是个虚伪自私的人,在他的心目中,康妮只不过是一件美丽的附庸和传宗接代的工具。克利福特不能满足康妮的正常情欲,米尔斯则帮助康妮实现了自我,唤醒了她身上的女性本能。最终,两人的契合由肉欲之爱升华到心灵的交融,康妮反叛了她所从属的那个阶级,在那个封建保守的时代,她的勇敢选择,无疑具有女性个体的积极意义。
  
  劳伦斯毕生致力于男女性爱题材小说的创作,他认为,小说《查泰莱夫人的情人》“最好拿给所有17岁的少女们看看”。在他看来,人类的性爱具有至高无上的价值。这个世界上,恐怕再没有哪一个作家能像劳伦斯那样,以宗教般的热忱赞美人间性爱、以细腻微妙的笔触描绘两性关系中那种欲仙欲死的至高境界。劳伦斯的小说一向以大胆而详尽的性描写著称,导演肯.拉塞尔亦不愧为用视觉语言讲述故事、编织情欲的高手,影片中性爱场面的展现不仅含蓄优美,而且富有诗意,导演没有在情色场面上做过多的渲染和铺陈,只是点到为止,但却将人体与情欲诗意化,将诗意视觉化,把影片主人公情感故事拍得恍若童话仙境。
  
  本片的服装和布景制作也十分考究,生动地再现了20世纪初叶英国上流社会的风情,通过女主角康妮那一款款优雅精致的服饰、华丽而空洞的室内布景,以及考究的用具、繁琐的生活细节,反衬出上流社会人们精神上的空虚与苍白。
  《查太莱夫人的情人》-劳伦斯私印、自售作品
  
  《查太莱夫人的情人》劳伦斯
  虽然在写出《查太莱夫人的情人》之前,劳伦斯已以《彩虹》、《恋爱中的妇女》、《儿子与情人》等作品享有了相当名声,可是,眼下的这部书,仍然叫出版商、朋友甚至劳伦斯自己感到为难。最后,劳伦斯只好自己在异国去私自出版,出版后又自己发售。当然,正因为这种形式,也最早地、毋需官方认可地将这部注定要引起轩然大波的作品推向了社会。
    
  1926年,劳伦斯便开始了《查太莱夫人的情人》的写作,并在不算长的时间,完成了第一稿。当时,他已经在试图联系出版了,可很快,他便打消了这样的想法。他当时的心情是矛盾的。在致某位出版界人士的信中,他开始了预先的辩解:
    
  “关于我的小说《查太莱夫人的情人》,现在我真是左右为难,世人将会认为这部小说是不正派的。可你知道它并非不正派。我始终苦心孤诣地在做同一件事情,就是使人们在提到性关系时,应感到是正当和珍贵的,而不是羞愧。这部小说是我在这一方面所做的进一步努力。在我看来,性是美好的、温柔的,但又如赤裸着的人那样脆弱。”
    
  劳伦斯仍在不停地调整着这部作品,第二稿、第三稿……可即使这样,在现实社会中,他仍然由于这部作品而招致麻烦,他甚至找不到为他服务的打字员。劳伦斯当时住在意大利的佛罗伦萨,最先他找到当地一位愿意替他打字的女子,可在打到第五章时,这位女子不干了,将稿子退了回来,说她不能再打下去,因为作品内容太污秽、肮脏……
    
  面对这样的反应和自己的心理预期,劳伦斯一度不想出版这部作品,可是,一方面由于经济压力,一方面基于他倔强的性格,在1927年11月时,劳伦斯开始试图私下印制《查太莱夫人的情人》了。由于自己的心理预感,他暂时不指望在英语世界的英国或美国谋求出版,而打算在意大利将它印出来。原因除去佛罗伦萨的印刷很便宜,还有身处异地,起码不至于在印刷时便引起不必要的麻烦。
    
  按劳伦斯当时的打算,自己私下印制,第一次印刷上700部,每册定价两个畿尼(当时每畿尼相当21先令),这样下来,就会赚到600到700英镑。这在当时是一笔不小的收入了。不久,对此书销售的估计和自己经济拮据的压迫,劳伦斯又想提高印数——1000部。按照先前定价,他就可以赚到1000英镑。为了能够为读者接受,他甚至一度打算将这部作品名字改为《柔情蜜意》或《约翰•托马斯和简夫人》,因为这样看起来没有《查太莱夫人的情人》那样刺眼。
    
  在《查太莱夫人的情人》交付出版商之前,劳伦斯让几位友人读了这部书稿。反应不一,有强烈反差。一些朋友认为这部书不错,说他们“非常喜欢这本书”;一位女士在读到这部小说后却“大发雷霆”——道德上的愤怒。这反应使劳伦斯感到有趣起来。他给另一位还未读到此书的友人说:“我希望你不会讨厌这部小说—— 尽管你很可能不喜欢它。这部小说本身就是一场革命——一颗小小的炸弹。”
    
  劳伦斯终于要将这炸弹引爆了。交出书稿几天之后,劳伦斯便致函美国诗人威特•宾纳。他们两人曾经一起去墨西哥旅行过。在信中,劳伦斯希望他能够为此书做一些销售工作。在给另一位住在纽约的汉密尔顿•埃姆斯夫人的信里,劳伦斯也希望她能帮助销售这部作品:“这是一部温柔的,生殖器的小说。现在你结婚了,自然会理解它的。由于世俗的公众容不得对生殖器的描写,我只得在这里出版这部小说。如果你不嫌麻烦,请把那些订单散发给那些愿意购买这部小说的人们。我认为这部小说是值得一买的。”在给他在美国的文学代理人柯蒂斯•布朗的信中,劳伦斯写的直捷得多:“我真希望这部小说能卖出一千册,或者卖出去大部分,否则我就会破产。我想直接把书给购买者寄去。我准备给你寄上一些订单,你能否为我找一些订购者?只要他们寄来两英镑,我就会把书寄给他们。”当然,更多的订单寄往了英国,这毕竟是劳伦斯的祖国。尽管他知道这颗“炸弹”的威力,可这里也可能有更多的知音。
    
  劳伦斯所寻找的佛罗伦萨这家印刷厂,恰好印刷商和印刷厂都没有人懂得英文。在劳伦斯看来,这倒成了自己的“福气”。这家印刷厂全部手工操作,排字很仔细,用的也是一种精致的手工制作的意大利纸张,所以,印出的书效果十分吸引人。劳伦斯自己为这部小说设计封面:下部是火焰飞扬的红色底子,中间一只黑色的凤凰图案,颇有“凤凰涅槃”的味道。这个图案,后来正式出版的企鹅版封面也沿用了下来。
    
  很快,劳伦斯的努力得到回报。先是他的祖国——英国——寄来了多份小说订单,然后是美国,订单也在逐渐寄回。这边,劳伦斯在紧张地校对清样。4月、5月、6月……到了28日这一天,这部注定要引发大震动的书——《查太莱夫人的情人》,按照劳伦斯自己坚持的书名出版了。
    
  在劳伦斯祖国的英国,当时人们观念还相当保守,所以,帮助他推销该书的朋友,是冒着被判高额罚款的危险来工作的。一位英国的朋友后来回忆说,劳伦斯当时给他们的宣传词为:这是一部伟大的著作,是“二十世纪光荣的象征。”这也许是激发他们甘冒风险的缘由之一。很快,英国的读者产生了反应。接到友人告知消息的电报,劳伦斯既紧张又兴奋:这部小说像一颗炸弹,在我大多数英国朋友中间爆炸开来,他们现在仍忍受着弹震症的痛苦。“我感到我已扔出去一颗炸弹,来轰炸他们虚伪的性感和虚伪性……”
    
  不过,一部分寄往美国的邮件被扣住了。可一切已经无法阻拦。书十分好销,劳伦斯加印200册来应付,其余的,就只能看着盗印本横行市场,借此大赚其钱了。第一批书寄到美国不到一个月,偷印本便出来了。由于偷印本仿制水平很高,连书店老板都辨认不出,并且售价高于原版:十五元,而原版价仅十元。很快,第二种、第三种……盗印本在纽约出现了。很快,伦敦和巴黎,《查太莱夫人的情人》的盗印本出笼了,售价高达每本三英镑或两英镑。
    
  巴黎一家书店,一口气自印了1500册,充斥市场。劳伦斯找来一本看看,只能苦笑,因为盗印本还很认真地将原版中的一些错误给改正了。可这本印制很不错的书没有给劳伦斯带来任何效益。它批发给书店是每本100法郎,卖给读者成了300、400甚至500法郎。这些欧洲的盗印者甚至向劳伦斯提出建议,希望能够给他们授权,承认他们的印本。这样,劳伦斯就可以在盗印本中,抽取一些版税。本来,劳伦斯几乎都同意了这项建议,可自尊心最后阻止了他。他只能决意在法国出一种自己认可的版本。自己祖国——英国的发行家,劝劳伦斯将该书加以删改,出一个“洁本”,并答应给他丰厚的报酬,可劳伦斯无法接受,他认为,那样“就等于用剪刀裁剪我自己的鼻子。书流血了。”
    
  可不管怎么说,劳伦斯以私印、自售的方式推出《查太莱夫人的情人》,现在看来仍然是处理得当的一件事。如人们所知,该书后来被查禁多年,出版社正式出版全本(其间有删节本印出),已是几十年之后的事情。当初倘若劳伦斯不采取私印,自售方式,那么,他在有生之年(书出版两年之后的1930年2月,这位极具才华的作家病逝),决然见不到这部作品问世。之后,一切事情决难预料。也许,他的手稿会随时湮灭;那么,一部注定要引起公众兴趣,法庭辩论,文学界长期讨论的著述,就可能永久在黑暗中沉没。最起码,会推迟数十年问世。这种结果,或许作者本人已有预感,所以,采取非正常手段及时推出它,是十分必要的。
    
  其次,《查太莱夫人的情人》的出版,仅仅从经济角度考虑,它也达到了使劳伦斯摆脱困窘的目的。尽管后来盗印本从中吮吸了作者大量的心血,可一千多部印本仍然为他赚了一千多英镑。这个数目,在当时是相当大的。这使很长一段时间内,劳伦斯可以自足地对朋友说:“所以我现在不愁没钱用了。”
  
  在今天看来,劳伦斯产生最大影响的作品,依然是这册《查太莱夫人的情人》。这部作品,在多个国家,在相当长时间,被禁止出版。在作者家乡本土的英国,这部书甚至被推上法庭。以该书出版八十年后的今天眼光看,《查太莱夫人的情人》还是如作者自己认识的:“是正当和珍贵的”,即使在性的描写上,它也是“温柔、敏感”,甚至是诚挚的。从这些方面去认识,当年劳伦斯以私印、自售的方式发行此书,可以说意义非常。


  Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1928. The first edition was printed in Florence, Italy; it could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960. (A private edition was issued by Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in 1929). The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical relationship between a working-class man and an aristocratic woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and its use of (at the time) unprintable words.
  
  The story is said to have originated from events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Eastwood in Nottinghamshire where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story. Lawrence at one time considered calling the novel Tenderness and made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition. It has been published in three different versions.
  
  Plot introduction
  
  The story concerns a young married woman, Constance (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class husband, Clifford Chatterley, has been paralyzed and rendered impotent. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. This novel is about Constance's realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically.
  Main characters
  
   * Lady Chatterley is the protagonist of the novel. Before her marriage, she is simply Constance Reid, an intellectual and social progressive from a Scottish bourgeois family, the daughter of Sir Malcolm and the sister of Hilda. When she marries Clifford Chatterley, a minor nobleman, Constance (or, as she is known throughout the novel, Connie) assumes his title, becoming Lady Chatterley. Lady Chatterley's Lover chronicles Connie's maturation as a woman and as a sensual being. She comes to despise her weak, ineffectual husband, and to love Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper on her husband's estate. In the process of leaving her husband and conceiving a child with Mellors, Lady Chatterley moves from the heartless, bloodless world of the intelligentsia and aristocracy into a vital and profound connection rooted in sensuality and sexual fulfillment.
   * Oliver Mellors is the lover in the novel's title. Mellors is the gamekeeper on Clifford Chatterley's estate, Wragby Hall. He is aloof, sarcastic, intelligent and noble. He was born near Wragby, and worked as a blacksmith until he ran off to the army to escape an unhappy marriage. In the army, he rose to become a commissioned lieutenant — an unusual position for a member of the working classes — but was forced to leave the army because of a case of pneumonia, which left him in poor health. Surprisingly, we learn from different characters' accounts that Mellors was in fact finely educated in his childhood, has good table manners, is an extensive reader, and can speak English 'like a gentleman', but chooses to behave like a commoner and speak broad Derbyshire dialect, probably in an attempt to fit into his own community. Disappointed by a string of unfulfilling love affairs, Mellors lives in quiet isolation, from which he is redeemed by his relationship with Connie: the passion unleashed by their lovemaking forges a profound bond between them. At the end of the novel, Mellors is fired from his job as gamekeeper and works as a laborer on a farm, waiting for a divorce from his old wife so he can marry Connie. Mellors is a man with an innate nobility but who remains impervious to the pettiness and emptiness of conventional society, with access to a primal flame of passion and sensuality.
   * Clifford Chatterley is Connie's husband. Clifford Chatterley is a young, handsome baronet who becomes paralyzed from the waist down during World War I. As a result of his injury, Clifford is impotent. He retires to his familial estate, Wragby Hall, where he becomes first a successful writer, and then a powerful businessman. But the gap between Connie and him grows ever wider; obsessed with financial success and fame, he is not truly interested in love, and she feels that he has become passionless and empty. He turns for solace to his nurse and companion, Mrs. Bolton, who worships him as a nobleman even as she despises him for his casual arrogance. Clifford is portrayed as a weak, vain man, but declares his right to rule the lower classes, and he soullessly pursues money and fame through industry and the meaningless manipulation of words. His impotence is symbolic of his failings as a strong, sensual man, and could also represent the increasing loss of importance and influence of the ruling classes in a modern world.
   * Mrs. Bolton, also known as Ivy Bolton, is Clifford's nurse and caretaker. She is a competent, still-attractive middle-aged woman. Years before the action in this novel, her husband died in an accident in the mines owned by Clifford's family. Even as Mrs. Bolton resents Clifford as the owner of the mines — and, in a sense, the murderer of her husband — she still maintains a worshipful attitude towards him as the representative of the upper class. Her relationship with Clifford - she simultaneously adores and despises him, while he depends and looks down on her - is probably one of the most complex relationships in the novel.
   * Michaelis is a successful Irish playwright with whom Connie has an affair early in the novel. Michaelis asks Connie to marry him, but she decides not to, realizing that he is like all other intellectuals: a slave to success, a purveyor of vain ideas and empty words, passionless.
   * Hilda Reid is Connie's older sister by two years, the daughter of Sir Malcolm. Hilda shared Connie's cultured upbringing and intellectual education. She remains unliberated by the raw sensuality that changed Connie's life. She disdains Connie's lover, Mellors, as a member of the lower classes, but in the end she helps Connie to leave Clifford.
   * Sir Malcolm Reid is the father of Connie and Hilda. He is an acclaimed painter, an aesthete and a bohemian who despises Clifford for his weakness and impotence, and who immediately warms to Mellors.
   * Tommy Dukes, one of Clifford's contemporaries, is a brigadier general in the British Army and a clever and progressive intellectual. Lawrence intimates, however, that Dukes is a representative of all intellectuals: all talk and no action. Dukes speaks of the importance of sensuality, but he himself is incapable of sensuality and uninterested in sex. Of Clifford's circle of friends, he is the one who Connie becomes closest to.
   * Duncan Forbes is an artist friend of Connie and Hilda. Forbes paints abstract canvases, a form of art Mellors seems to despise. He once loved Connie, and Connie originally claims to be pregnant with his child.
   * Bertha Coutts, although never actually appearing in the novel, has her presence felt. She is Mellors' wife, separated from him but not divorced. Their marriage faltered because of their sexual incompatibility: she was too rapacious, not tender enough. She returns at the end of the novel to spread rumors about Mellors' infidelity to her, and helps get him fired from his position as gamekeeper. As the novel concludes, Mellors is in the process of divorcing her.
  
  Themes
  
  In Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lawrence comes full circle to argue once again for individual regeneration, which can be found only through the relationship between man and woman (and, he asserts sometimes, man and man). Love and personal relationships are the threads that bind this novel together. Lawrence explores a wide range of different types of relationships. The reader sees the brutal, bullying relationship between Mellors and his wife Bertha, who punishes him by preventing his pleasure. There is Tommy Dukes, who has no relationship because he cannot find a woman whom he respects intellectually and, at the same time, finds desirable. There is also the perverse, maternal relationship that ultimately develops between Clifford and Mrs. Bolton, his caring nurse, after Connie has left.
  Mind and body
  
  Richard Hoggart argues that the main subject of Lady Chatterley's Lover is not the sexual passages that were the subject of such debate but the search for integrity and wholeness. Key to this integrity is cohesion between the mind and the body for "body without mind is brutish; mind without body...is a running away from our double being." Lady Chatterley's Lover focuses on the incoherence of living a life that is "all mind", which Lawrence saw as particularly true among the young members of the aristocratic classes, as in his description of Constance's and her sister Hilda's "tentative love-affairs" in their youth:
  
   So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax.
  
  The contrast between mind and body can be seen in the dissatisfaction each has with their previous relationships: Constance's lack of intimacy with her husband who is "all mind" and Mellors's choice to live apart from his wife because of her "brutish" sexual nature. These dissatisfactions lead them into a relationship that builds very slowly and is based upon tenderness, physical passion, and mutual respect. As the relationship between Lady Chatterley and Mellors develops, they learn more about the interrelation of the mind and the body; she learns that sex is more than a shameful and disappointing act, and he learns about the spiritual challenges that come from physical love.
  
  Neuro-psychoanalyst Mark Blechner identifies the "Lady Chatterley phenomenon" in which the same sexual act can affect people in different ways at different times, depending on their subjectivity. He bases it on the passage in which Lady Chatterley feels disengaged from Mellors and thinks disparagingly about the sex act: "And this time the sharp ecstasy of her own passion did not overcome her; she lay with hands inert on his striving body, and do what she might, her spirit seemed to look on from the top of her head, and the butting of his haunches seemed ridiculous to her, and the sort of anxiety of his penis to come to its little evacuating crisis seemed farcical. Yes, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the poor insignificant, moist little penis." Shortly thereafter, they make love again, and this time, she experiences enormous physical and emotional involvement: "And it seemed she was like the sea, nothing but dark waves rising and heaving, heaving with a great swell, so that slowly her whole darkness was in motion, and she was ocean rolling its dark, dumb mass."
  Class system and social conflict
  
  Besides the evident sexual content of the book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover also presents some views on the British social context of the early 20th century. For example, Constance’s social insecurity, arising from being brought up in an upper middle class background, in contrast with Sir Clifford’s social self-assurance, becomes more evident in passages such as:
  
   Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount’s daughter.
  
  There are also signs of dissatisfaction and resentment of the Tevershall coal pit’s workers, the colliers, against Clifford, who owned the mines. By the time Clifford and Connie had moved to Wragby Hall, Clifford's father's estate in Nottinghamshire, the coal industry in England seemed to be in decline, although the coal pit still was a big part in the life of the neighbouring town of Tevershall. References to the concepts of anarchism, socialism, communism, and capitalism permeate the book. Union strikes were also a constant preoccupation in Wragby Hall. An argument between Clifford and Connie goes:
  
   ‘’Oh good!, said Connie. “If only there aren’t more strikes!”
  
   “What would be the use of their striking again! Merely ruin the industry, what’s left of it; and surely the owls are beginning to see it!”
  
   “Perhaps they don’t mind ruining the industry,” said Connie.
  
   “Ah, don’t talk like a woman! The industry fills their bellies, even if it can’t keep their pockets quite so flush,” he said, using turns of speech that oddly had a twang of Mrs. Bolton.
  
  The most obvious social contrast in the plot, however, is that of the affair of an aristocratic woman (Connie) with a working class man (Mellors). Mark Schorer, an American writer and literary critic, considers a familiar construction in D.H. Lawrence's works the forbidden love of a woman of relatively superior social situation who is drawn to an "outsider" (a man of lower social rank or a foreigner), in which the woman either resists her impulse or yields to it. Schorer believes the two possibilities were embodied, respectively, in the situation into which Lawrence was born, and that into which Lawrence married, therefore becoming a favorite topic in his work.
  Controversy
  
  An authorized abridgment of Lady Chatterley's Lover that was heavily censored was published in America by Alfred E. Knopf in 1928. This edition was subsequently reissued in paperback in America both by Signet Books and by Penguin Books in 1946.
  British obscenity trial
  
  When the full unexpurgated edition was published by Penguin Books in Britain in 1960, the trial of Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 act (introduced by Roy Jenkins) had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. Another objection involves the use of the word "cunt".
  
  Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including E. M. Forster, Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Norman St John-Stevas, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty". This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
  
  The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom."
  
  In 2006, the trial was dramatised by BBC Wales as The Chatterley Affair.
  Australia
  Main article: Censorship in Australia
  
  Not only was the book banned in Australia, but a book describing the British trial, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, was also banned. A copy was smuggled into the country and then published widely. The fallout from this event eventually led to the easing of censorship of books in the country, although the country still retains the Office of Film and Literature Classification. In early October 2009, the federal institution of Australia Post banned the sale of this book in their stores and outlets claiming that books of this nature don't fit in with the 'theme of their stores'.
  Canada
  
  In 1945, McGill University Professor of Law and Canadian modernist poet F. R. Scott appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada to defend Lady Chatterley's Lover from censorship. However, despite Scott's efforts, the book was banned in Canada for 30 years due to concerns about its use of "obscene language" and explicit depiction of sexual intercourse. On November 15, 1960 an Ontario panel of experts, appointed by Attorney General Kelso Roberts, found that novel was not obscene according to the Canadian Criminal Code.
  United States
  
  In 1930, Senator Bronson Cutting proposed an amendment to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was then being debated, ending the practice of having U.S. Customs censor allegedly obscene books imported to U.S. shores. Senator Reed Smoot vigorously opposed such an amendment, threatening to publicly read indecent passages of imported books in front of the Senate. Although he never followed through, he included Lady Chatterley's Lover as an example of an obscene book that must not reach domestic audiences, declaring "I've not taken ten minutes on Lady Chatterley's Lover, outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"
  
  Lady Chatterley's Lover was one of a trio of books (the others being Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill), the ban on which was fought and overturned in court with assistance by lawyer Charles Rembar in 1959.
  
  A French film (1955) based on the novel and released by Kingsley Pictures was in the United States the subject of attempted censorship in New York on the grounds that it promoted adultery. The Supreme Court held that the law prohibiting its showing was a violation of the First Amendment's protection of Free Speech.
  
  The book was famously distributed in the U.S. by Frances Steloff at the Gotham Book Mart, in defiance of the book ban.
  Japan
  
  The publication of a full translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover by Ito Sei in 1950 led to a famous obscenity trial in Japan, extending from May 8, 1951 to January 18, 1952, with appeals lasting to March 13, 1957. Several notable literary figures testified for the defense, but the trial ultimately ended in a guilty verdict with a ¥100,000 for Ito and a ¥250,000 fine for his publisher.
  India
  
  In 1964, bookseller Ranjit Udeshi in Bombay was prosecuted under Sec. 292 of the Indian Penal Code (sale of obscene books) for selling an unexpurgated copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
  
  Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1968 SC 881) was eventually laid before a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India, where Chief Justice Hidayatullah declared the law on the subject of when a book can be regarded as obscene and established important tests of obscenity such as the Hicklin test.
  
  The judgement upheld the conviction, stating that:
  
   When everything said in its favour we find that in treating with sex the impugned portions viewed separately and also in the setting of the whole book pass the permissible limits judged of from our community standards and as there is no social gain to us which can be said to preponderate, we must hold the book to satisfy the test we have indicated above.
  
  Cultural influence
  
  In the United States, the free publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover was a significant event in the "sexual revolution". At the time, the book was a topic of widespread discussion and a byword of sorts. In 1965, Tom Lehrer recorded a satirical song entitled "Smut", in which the speaker in the song lyrics cheerfully acknowledges his enjoyment of such material; "Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?/I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley."
  
  British poet Philip Larkin's poem "Annus Mirabilis" begins with a reference to the trial:
  
  Sexual intercourse began
  In nineteen sixty-three
  (which was rather late for me) -
  Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
  And The Beatles' first LP.
  
  By the 1970s, the story had become sufficiently safe in Britain to be parodied by Morecambe and Wise; a "play wot Ernie wrote" was obviously based on it, with Michele Dotrice as the Lady Chatterley figure. Introducing it, Ernie explained that his play was "about a man who has an accident with a combine harvester, which unfortunately makes him impudent".
  Standard editions
  
   * Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), edited by Michael Squires, Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-521-22266-4.
   * The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels, edited by Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-47116-8. These two books, The First Lady Chatterley and John Thomas and Lady Jane were earlier drafts of Lawrence's last novel.
   * The Second Lady Chatterley's Lover, Oneworld Classics 2007, ISBN 978-1-84749-019-3
  
  In 1946 an English hardcover edition, copyright Jan Förlag, was published by Victor Pettersons Bokindustriaktiebolag Stockholm, Sweden. It is marked "Unexpurgated authorized edition". A paperback edition followed in 1950.
  Adaptations
  Radio
  
  Lady Chatterley's Lover has been adapted for BBC Radio 4 by acclaimed writer Michelene Wandor and was first broadcast in September 2006.
  Film and television
  
  Lady Chatterley's Lover has been adapted for film several times:
  
   * In 1955, starring Danielle Darrieux; was banned in the United States.
   * In 1961, actor Michael Gough, playing a seemingly sinister but ultimately heroic butler named Fisk, is seen reading Lady Chatterley's Lover in the British horror comedy film What a Carve Up! (aka No Place Like Homicide! in the USA).
   * 1981 film version by Just Jaeckin starring Sylvia Kristel and Nicholas Clay.
   * In 1993 a lengthy television mini-series entitled Lady Chatterley directed by Ken Russell starring Joely Richardson and Sean Bean for BBC Television. This film incorporates some material from the longer second version John Thomas and Lady Jane.
   * In 1998, Viktor Polesný filmed a Czech-Language television version with Zdena Studenková (Constance), Marek Vašut (Clifford) and Boris Rösner (Mellors).
   * In 2006, the French director Pascale Ferran filmed a French-Language version with Marina Hands as Constance and Jean-Louis Coulloc'h as the game keeper, which won the Cesar Award for Best Film in 2007. Marina Hands was awarded best actress at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The film was based on John Thomas and Lady Jane, Lawrence's second version of the story. It was broadcast on the French television channel Arte on 22 June 2007 as Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois (Lady Chatterley and the Man of the Woods).
  
  Theatre
  
  Lawrence's novel was successfully dramatised for the stage in a three-act play by a young British playwright named John Harte. Although produced at The Arts Theatre in London in 1961 (and elsewhere later on), his play was written in 1953. It was the only D. H. Lawrence novel ever to be staged and his dramatisation was the only one to be read and approved by Lawrence's widow, Frieda. Despite her attempts to obtain the copyright for Harte to have his play staged in the 1950s, Baron Philippe de Rothschild did not relinquish the dramatic rights until his film was released in France.
  
  Only the Old Bailey trial against Penguin Books for alleged obscenity in publishing the unexpurgated paperback edition of the novel prevented the play's transfer to the much bigger Wyndham's Theatre, for which it had already been licensed by the Lord Chamberlain's Office on 12 August 1960 with passages censored. It was fully booked out for its limited run at The Arts Theatre and well reviewed by Harold Hobson, the prevailing West End theatre critic of the time.
吉米与绝望的女人

劳伦斯 David Herbert Lawrence
  短篇小说《吉米与绝望的女人》同他的多数小说的主题一样,描写的是两性之间的故事。作品表现了一个有过婚史的文化男人的奇特的寻偶方式,以及在此过程中他的情感与心理活动。
    --------------------
    “他是个讨人喜欢的人,绝对无可挑剔,不过他少不了一个能照顾他的贤妻。”女人们通常都这样评论他,充满了善意,这使他得意,使他欢喜,也使他愤慨。
    自从他和他那迷人、聪慧的妻子离婚后,他的愤慨便占了上风。整整10年,她都按照上述的评论在和他过日子,直到她实在厌倦了贤内助的角色。
    “要是我不知道吉米这可怜的小子转眼间就会投入随便哪个女人的怀抱,我倒是愿意看到这世界上有他这么一个人。
    他就是这么傻,哪怕能够自持10分钟也好啊,可他就是不行,除此之外,他倒是好歹有一些不多见的优点。”
    这就是克拉丽莎得出的结论,这时她已翩然飘入一个年轻富有的美国人怀中。年轻富有的美国人听到吉米的名字,颇有点闷闷不乐,如今克拉丽莎终于成了他的妻子,但有时她又装出好像仍和吉米保持着婚姻关系的样子。
    吉米不是这样来看待这些评价的。他内心难以平静,几经起伏,愤怒的情绪占了上风。他很清楚,克拉丽莎是如何看待他、议论他的。他自己认为,他不是什么可以随便投进哪个女人怀抱的“可怜的小子”,对他来说,“讨人喜欢”,“无可挑剔”,或者“不多见”这些形容词,以及她惯用的口气“他就是他”,听起来更顺耳一些。
    “我一点也不觉得,”他竭力申明,“我是一个可以随便投进哪个女人怀抱的可怜小子,等我发现了某个合适的女人,到时瞧吧,看到底是谁投进谁的怀抱!”
    他现在35岁,是不是投入怀抱成了对他的一种考验,随时都可能叫他暴露弱点。他想象找这么个女人,在她眼里,他只是讨人喜欢,只是无可挑剔,而不至于还来不及喘一口气就成了可怜的小子。为什么找不到一个小家碧玉,一个村姑,为什么?世界上有的是这样的人呀。
    不幸的根源在于,他从来没遇见过一个那样的姑娘,他遇见的都是些天资颇高的女子,这样的话他就没机会和真正的、普通的人在一起。我们很多人都有同样的遭遇,只有那些我们碰不到的人,才拥有真正的、自然的、普通的、纯朴的、无邪的灵魂,这些人我们从来碰不到,就是这么倒霉!
    其实,这样的人是有的!总有地方有的!只是我们找不到她们罢了。
    比如说,吉米的职务是个关键问题,它在妨碍着我们的吉米。他遇见各种各样的人,但就是没有合适的,从来没遇见真正的、普通的、自然的、无邪的,如此这般,等等,等等。
    他是一家有相当名气的杂志社的编辑,他那相当独特、不凡的文笔给他带来一大批读者。另外,他的外表很漂亮,而且只要他愿意,他会显得非常可爱,即使是批评起别人,也很有分寸,由此人们可以判断,他会得到多少敬重、钦佩和支持。
    首先看看他漂亮的外表。他的面部轮廊十分清秀,修长的面颊,有力的下巴,高鼻梁微微隆起,一双妙不可言的深蓝色眼睛忽闪着长长的睫毛,两条眉毛又黑又密,当他一脸嘲讽神情时——他常常露出这副神情,他的黑眉毛便高高扬起,蓝眼睛里闪出讽刺的神气,鼻子和嘴都会撅起来,看上去就像神话中性感的神一样,这是吉米的最佳表情,至少他的男性朋友是这么认为的。
    他自己认为他是神话中饱受折磨的那位神,浑身上下中了箭,血汨汨地往外流,要是他还能数数的话,真应该数一下流了多少滴血。所以有时候,比如克拉丽莎扬言要去年轻富有的美国人那儿时,又比如一提到她是否应该和他离婚或者他是否应该和她离婚时,他便会觉得像有一群群蚊子“嗡嗡”地向他飞来,把他扎得浑身窟窿,血不停地往外淌,根本数不清有多少滴。
    他就是这么看待自己的,因此他递上了离婚诉状。
    在他的男性朋友眼中,他是个好色的神,或者说,看上去像。他的女友们则认为他是个深诸世故的、迷人的小伙子,他会像对待女王一样地对待一个女人,当然这不会是指什么别的,而是指他善于怂恿一个女人摆架子。
    他非常有可能一鸣惊人,名声鹊起,特别是在他离婚之后,但他没这么做,一个秘不可宣的原因就是,他已经决定,不再像对待女王一样地对待任何女人。该是轮到女人们像对待国王一地样对待他了。
    他理想中的女人必须无邪、平庸、充满活力,不像所罗门国王理想中的女人①——聪明、美丽、富有。对吉米来说,只有那女人的经济状况窘迫,才能显示出他有钱——他年薪3000英镑,还买得起一小幢位于汉普郡的别墅。她必须出身于平民百姓,这样就可以摆脱那讨厌的高智商。但无论如何,不能要巷子里那些只会咋咋呼呼的蹩脚货色。
    他收到许多信,无以数计的信、诗、小说、文章或者私人邮件,他一一阅览,耐心地打开如潮的信件中的一封,沙沙地写些什么,再叠好,这里面可能会有什么引起他的注意——不是信件,而是女作者:埃米莉娅·皮纳格太太,住在约克郡的矿工区。很不幸,她显然已经结婚。
    对这北方煤矿阴森荒凉的矿工区,吉米向来就有一种神秘分给二妇,一妇同意,一妇反对。所罗门于是将婴儿判给后者。——译者。
    莫测的敬畏感。他本人还从没向牛津以北的任何地方挪过一步。他有这种感觉,那儿除了地下开采之外就没有别的了。皮纳格,这算哪门子姓氏,喂!还有埃米莉娅!
    她寄来一首诗,另外附上一小段内容提要,要是《评论家》的编辑觉得它毫无意义,完全可以删去。吉米发现诗意不俗,附的那封信之简洁明快也给他以深刻的印象。不过他对是不是要送去发排还是举棋不定,于是给皮纳格太太回了一封信,问她还有没有别的什么?
    几番书信往来之后,皮纳格太太终于对他提出的一些问题作出如下答复:
    “您问到了我本人的情况,我该说什么呢?我是一个31岁的妇女,有一个孩子,是女儿,八九岁了。我结了婚,丈夫虽然和我住在同一幢房子,却总往另一个女人那儿跑,我试着写些抒情诗,也许真是抒情的,因为没有任何别的方式可以让我表达自己的情感,即使除了我以外,再也没有人欣赏这些诗,我还是觉得,应该通过什么方式渲泄自己的情绪,以免得癌症或者别的什么妇女容易得的病。我结婚前是个教师,如果我做得到,我愿重新当教师,独立生活。但是已婚的女教师找不到工作,如今这是被禁止的……”矿工
    ——其妻如是说
    辅助机喷出蒸汽,
    煤渣筛摇来晃去,
    我听着,疑是他的心跳,
    我感受,宛如他的呼吸。
    野外无处不见他——
    瓦砾堆上腾起的浓烟,
    底下深深、深深蔓延的烈焰,
    是他早已开始燃烧的胸怀。
    传煤斗升上来,合着他呼吸的节拍,
    他渴望能象嗡嗡的风扇,
    吞吸流转的空气;噢,他的灵魂,
    同机器一般生活在陌生的地带。
    这是男人的生活,他是这样的男人,
    我是他的妻子,我知道说的是啥,
    从煤的内脏中蹦出,来到世上,
    日日受尽苦痛,无以复加。
    就是这首诗,他作为《评论家》的编辑犹豫不决,不知该不该发,他似乎觉得,皮纳格太太绝对不属于那种家庭妇女式的、俗气的、天资不高的类型。不知什么攫住了他——
    也许是她心中的无望和凄惨吧。
    来者不拒
    倘若你问我,
    什么叫白天?
    ——当夜幕降临的时刻,
    我不知道——击鼓声是那样地刺耳。
    长长的一队人,
    行进在黄昏的幽光中,
    击鼓者是个陌生人,
    朦朦胧胧——为了啥事儿?
    黑色使我迷惑,
    我沉醉于白天之所见所闻
    无非就是棚屋后的景象
    ——瓦砾和垃圾。
    鼓声不在这儿敲击,
    沉闷的鼓声发自内心,
    我无法自持地倾听,
    我思索——这是何意。
    死神要击碎鼓皮?
    击鼓的陌生人,
    满怀希望,
    在编织罕见的新节奏?
    无济于事,
    白天周而复始——在灰蒙蒙有煤烟中,
    能忍——这般活下去,
    不能忍——来者不拒。
    在《评论家》编辑的眼中,这首诗把无望和凄惶抒发得那样真切,于是他决定刊登它,还想结识一下诗的女作者。他写信给她,问和她见一面是否妥当,他正好要去她居住的地区,在谢菲尔德市作一场报告。她的答复是:对她没什么不合适。
    那天下午,他作完了题为《书中的人们和生活中的人们》的报告之后(当然他首先谈的是书中的人们)启程,坐火车去皮纳格家所住的矿区。
    正是2月,肮脏的雪泥掩盖着地面,吉米到达密尔村时,夜幕已经降临。夜色就像一个肥胖、臃肿的黑色幽灵,说着一口土里土气的方言,拖着沉重的脚步游荡在这一带,地下矿井喷出难闻的气味,一切都丑陋、阴森。他知道,他开始爬上通往小商场的山坡,他一边走,一边回头,只见山谷里的点点灯光就像一群群魔鬼簇拥在那儿,空气中弥漫着幽幽的硫磺味和煤灰尘。
    他问了到新伦敦巷该怎么走,又爬上一个坡,看到面前的景象,不由惊呆了。眼前一片阴森、恐怖,连空气都坚硬得好象是从冰雪和岩石中散发出来的。谢天谢地,他看不清楚别的东西,也就不怎么容易被人看清楚。问路的时候,人们给他的回答硬梆梆的,象什么木块掷在他脑门上一样。经过一番东寻西找、四处问路之后他终于来到一条树木掩映的大道,2月的冰雪尚未完全溶化,路上满是肮脏的泥浆,矿井显然就在这小镇边缘被泥浆遮盖住的地面下。透过树丛可以看见数盏微弱的红灯照着通往矿井的小道。这里翻腾着硫磺气味,他就象个现代俄底修斯①,迷失在海克特城郊,和那个左拥右抱着的塞壬、西拉的俄底修斯相比,他这个站在矿井、工厂中的现代俄底修斯该有多少悲凉,多少凄楚!就这么苦苦思索着,他一脚高,一脚低,踩着冰冷的泥浆,走在充满硫磺气味的路上,头上沉闷的夜空低低地压过来,似乎要把电灯光掐灭。这儿的一切无不让人觉得荒芜、寂寞,如同夜间的热带丛林。
    最后他终于发现了几点灯光从简陋的住所中透出来。新辟的狭窄街道边,零零星星地点缀着几盏路灯,房子里的灯几乎都已熄了。吉米停住了脚步,荒漠凄凉的感觉笼罩住他。
    这时跑出3个小孩,他问了一声,他们指给他一幢房子,他摸索着走进一条通道,小小的后院闪烁着一盏灯。他敲敲门,有点紧张,一个个子挺高大的妇女开了门,站在上一级台阶,打量地看着他。
    “是皮纳格太太?”
    “噢,那您就是……菲斯先生?进来吧。”
    他走进厨房耀眼的灯光中,皮纳格太太站在他面前,她是个高个子女人,带着一脸总是被激怒似的表情,冷冷地看着他,他一下子就感觉到了自己的窘迫和难堪,赶忙慌乱地伸出手。
    “路太难走,”他说,“我怕会把您的屋子搞脏。”他看了看自己那双满是污泥的靴子。
    “没关系,她回答,“您喝过茶了吗?”
    “没有,不过别麻烦您了!”
    一个金黄头发的小女孩跑了进来,额上留着一排刘海,一双羞怯的蓝眼睛忽闪忽闪,手里拿着两只洋娃娃,她的出现缓和了他的紧张情绪。“这是您的女儿?”他问,“多可爱的孩子,她叫什么?”
    “珍妮。”
    “你好,珍妮。”他说,不过珍妮只瞪看一对疑惑、害怕的大眼睛看看他,这样的孩子,一眼就能看出,她的父母感情不和。
    皮纳格太太在桌上摆好茶、面包、白脱、果酱,然后在他对面坐下。她挺漂亮,灰色的眼睛有一双棕黄色的瞳仁,眉毛很重,显得很有力。她定定地看着他,脸上显出惯于自持的表情,漂亮的眼睛是她脸上最大的优点,交融着善良的和女性的坚强意志,鼻子和嘴的线条挺直,如同希腊面具,她的表情有点僵滞,看上去就像是这么一种人:知道自己犯了错误却不想去改正或者弥补,因为她无法做到。
    他感到不自在。他个子不高,不修边幅,这个女人使他意识到自己此刻的难堪。她一言不发,只是看着他喝茶,带着那种女人特有的看待男人、看待命运的目光。那个金黄色头发的小女孩在厨房的角落玩着两只洋娃娃,也默默地用两只明亮的蓝眼睛看着他。
    “这是个荒凉的地区。”吉米说。
    “没错,非常荒凉。”她回答了一句。
    “您应该试一试,离开这儿。”他说了下去。这下她以死一般的沉默作为答复,他觉得要把谈话继续下去实在太不容易了,于是他把话题转向她的丈夫,她瞥了一眼厨房的钟。
    “他9点回来。”她说。
    “他在矿里吗?”
    是的,他上夜班。”
    小孩一声也不吭。
    “珍妮不爱说话?”他问。
    “说得不多。”母亲说着,飞快地看了孩子一眼。
    他略略谈了谈他在谢菲尔德市作的报告以及伦敦。这女人没表现出多大兴趣,始终是一种寡言、疏远的态度。在他看来,她仿佛是一个耽于报复的人,被海水冲到沙滩,在礁石上把她的敌人撞得粉碎之后,还不消停,漫天边际地在水中飘荡,搞不清是怎样报复的,是为了什么而报复的。
    “是啊,您该离开这儿。”吉米又说了一遍。
    “那么去哪儿呢?”她问道。
    他作了个模糊的手势:“随便哪儿,只要是离开这儿?”
    她锁起重重的眉毛,似乎在思索什么。“我看不出那会有什么结果,”她说着,看了看小女孩:“我想,除非一个人完全从这世界上消失,不然就不存在什么根本的区别。我还得为她想想。”
    吉米终于开始害怕了,他很不习惯去克制这样一种恼怒的情绪,另一方面,他又感到兴奋,这个漂亮、寡言的少妇一头柔软的棕发,一双冷艳的眼中金黄色的瞳仁,对他来说多少是一种挑战,她身上总还有一颗心在跳动,什么东西能打动这颗心?是什么东西使这颗心静如止水?她是在和自己过意不去……
    突然,出于他那游戏人生的本性,他说:“您为什么不去我那儿,和我一起生活?”
    他的脸上浮起一种奇异的、充满矛盾的笑容。作为一个游戏者,他接受了她引起的挑战,他嗅出这将是一场幸运的游戏,这使他兴奋,在这场游戏中他不会毁掉自己,不过同时,他对她又感到害怕,他决定暂且忘却这种恐惧。
    她坐在那里观察看他,好看的唇边泛起一丝恼怒的微笑,“您怎么想的,和您在一起生活?”她打算进一步了解些什么。
    “嗯,我说的就是这个意思,”他带着自信的笑容回答道,“您在这儿显然不幸福,不顺心,而您具有不凡的天份。好吧,您走就是了,我对您说,去我那儿和我一起生活,我心里很明白我说的是什么,去伦敦做我的妻子吧,如果您愿意,您能离婚,咱们就结婚,好吧,就这样。”
    吉米这番话与其说是对皮纳格太太说的,不如说是对他自己说的,这符合他的性格。他考虑这些问题,只想到它们和自己有关,思考的同时,他流露出一种奇特的表情,眨着左眼,耷拉着脑袋,盯着自己的身体瞧,好像一个人在自言自语。
    她惊奇地打量了他,这是她所不熟悉的,他令人瞠目的果敢决定把她从麻木不仁中拉了出来。
    “好吧,”她说,“不过还得仔细考虑一下,她怎么办?”她用脑袋指了指角落里那个大眼睛女孩,珍妮神情漠然地蹲在她的位置上,微微张着嘴,恍恍惚惚地,既像大人一样地听着他们的谈话,又象孩子般的茫然无知。母亲望着她,孩子用热切、羞怯、几乎是愧疚的蓝眼睛回答了母亲,她们俩没说一句话,无声地交流着。
    吉米说:“是啊,她当然一起来。”皮纳格太太又转向他,他继续往下说:“这不是突如其来、不经思考的。我已经想了相当长一段时间了,从我收到您的第一首诗和信开始。”
    他总是说得像什么都只和他有关似的,皮纳格太太的目光停留在他身上。
    “在您还没有见到我之前?”她疑惑地问。
    “对,当然,当然是在见到您之前,不然的的话我根本不会来见您。进门之前我就有这么一种感觉……”他像醉汉一样笨手笨脚地作些手势,也像醉汉那样说着话,眼睛看着自己的身体,好像在自言自语,这个女人就像幽灵般地在他的心中游荡,而他则是在对着心中的这个幽灵说话。
    现实中的女人木呆呆地沉浸在惊异中,这对她来说实在太新鲜了。
    “好,现在,您在这里见到我了,您真的愿意让我跟您一起去伦敦?”说这话时她带着一种郁闷、不信的声调。这对她来说简直太荒谬了,不过为什么不呢?应该有这种荒谬把她从她正坐着的这座坟墓里拉出来。
    “当然我愿意这么做!”他叫了起来,甩甩头,“我确确实实地看见了您,也就愿意确确实实地拥有您!”他还是不正眼瞧她,他的眼睛总是注意着自己的内心,宛如醉汉般地自言自语。这时,他发现了角落里那个孩子热切的蓝眼睛和微红的脸颊,便不好意思地笑了起来。
    “行了,我不敢指望能真真实实地拥有这么多,”他继续说,“能拥有你和珍妮两个!真真实实的,对于我,这就意味着真正的生活!”他还是这种古怪、紧张的声调,有点儿醉意。
    他抬起头,第一次正视面前这个女人的脸。
    “那您什么时候想让我去?”她有点冷冰冰地问道。
    “越快越好,您明天就和我一起走,如果您愿意,我在圣约翰伍德有一幢小房子等待着您,您明天就和我一起走吧,再简单不过了。”
    她观察着他,看他低垂着脑袋坐在那里,像醉汉一样。他的后脑勺有点秃,黑色的鬈发薄薄地铺在那里。“明天不行,我得准备几天。”她说。
    她想看看他的脸,她觉得,她似乎已经忘了这个无事生非的奇特男人的模样。他抬起头,眼睛好像还是瞎了一样。这时他看上去像瞎了的梅菲斯特一样,那个高高扬起眉毛,在大街上乞讨的瞎眼梅菲斯特。
    “妙极了,这对我来说真是太好了。”这下他说得坚定有力。
    “我早完了,彻底完了,在克拉丽莎还没离开我时,我就完了。不过,她走了以后,我完全独立了,我想,我大概再也没有前途了。真是奇迹,我现在能这样好,能够遇见您……
    您和珍妮……是的,还有珍妮……不,真的,真是太好了,这一切都是真的。”他笑得有点歇斯底里。
    皮纳格太太和珍妮惊慌失措地看着他。
    “不过,我首先得和我丈夫谈谈,”她沉思着说,“您想见见他吗?”
    “天哪,我,”他摆摆手表示拒绝,“我觉得毫无意义,不过,如果您认为,那样做会更好些的话,那我就照您的意思办。”
    “是的,我觉得这样比较合适。”她说。
    “好吧,如果您希望这样,我就和他谈谈。”
    “他9点钟回家。”她说。
    “好吧,好,这样更好。不过首先我得找个地方过夜,但愿还不太晚。”
    “不晚,我和您一起出去,帮您问问。”
    “不,真的,您不用忙,只要告诉我,最好往哪儿走就行……”他现在是用一种保护者的口气说话,他得保护她不受他自己以及流言蜚语的侵犯。这种牛津式的绅士风度,是远远超过她的水准的,也是她所不熟悉的。
    他一头扎进北方黑沉沉的夜色中,他知道这儿的夜有多么地可憎,但他必须完成他在这里令人兴奋的奇遇。
    在她指给他的那家糕饼店里,他问了问能不能住宿,可没人愿理他,他的外表不讨人喜欢。小客栈里也只见到人们摇头,他们都不愿和他打交道。他用足了他那种牛津式风度指手指划脚:“您听着,您不可以让一位先生睡在灌木丛中,我能见见老板娘吗?”
    他说服了老板娘,让他在餐厅的大长发沙上睡觉,那里壁炉的火烧得通红。他说好了10点钟回来,然后踩着污泥又踏上去新伦敦巷的路。
    此时孩子已经上床。炉子上炖着一锅汤,皮纳格太太的面部表情已经缓和过来,她在桌上铺了一块白桌布。吉米一声不吭,他觉得,她似乎没注意他的存在,无疑她很忙,因为丈夫快回家了。吉米坐在沙发上等,他感到紧张极了,他只要一紧张,就什么事都敢对付了。
    只听见9点钟的塞壬①们从矿上回来了。皮纳格太太把汤从火上端开,走进洗衣间。吉米闻到一股煮土豆的味儿,他静静地坐着,眼下他既不用说什么,也不用做什么,他戴上他的黑边眼镜,毫无表情地等待着,他的脸就象一个好疑的哲学家的面具,经历了无数时代,已经区分不出哪儿是生,哪儿是死。
    这时一阵脚步声走近房子,一个男人一阵风似地扑进门来,金黄色的胡子在满是黑灰的脸上十分显眼,野蛮的蓝眼睛被煤尘遮得只看得见眼白。
    “这位是菲斯先生,”埃米莉娅·皮纳格这样介绍了来访的客人。
    吉米站起身来,向这男人伸出手,带着一点儿牛津腔问了一声好。
    “我不能和您握手,我的手太脏了,”矿工说道,“您坐。”
    “煤灰又不可耻,”吉米回答着又坐到沙发上,“它是干净的肮脏。”
    “是这么说的。”皮纳格应道。
    他是个中等身材的男人,瘦而结实。他妻子拧开炉子上的黄铜水龙头,接了一盆热水。皮纳格在一只有靠手的椅子上重重地坐下,弯腰脱掉那双沉重的灰色矿工靴,套上拖鞋,站了起来,拿着靴子走进洗衣间,他妻子端着一盆热水跟在他后面,片刻又转了回来,把一条粗毛巾搭在壁炉的铁架子上,吉米听得见那男人怎样在昏暗的洗手间里用肥皂擦身,谁都不说一句话,皮纳格太太在悉心准备她丈夫的晚餐。
    过了一会儿,他走出来,上半身赤裸着,又折回去,蹲在壁炉边上烤火,他的头、脸、胸都是湿的,背上还是黑乎乎的,没有洗掉。他从炉架上拿过毛巾,粗鲁地猛擦脑袋和脸,他的太太抓过一块擦满肥皂的布,默默地替他擦洗背部。
    她男人已经完全忘却了来访的客人,这样的清洗身体对煤矿工人来说犹如一种庄严的礼仪,此时此刻,一切似乎都不存在,皮纳格太太俯身站在蹲在壁炉边上的男人背后,眼中流露出阴沉、蔑视的表情,她一定是厌恶什么人或什么东西,但吉米还不足以聪明到能猜出那是什么人或什么东西。
    对他来说这完全是一种新的体验:作为一个旁观者观看一场陌生的私人宗教仪式。这矿工拚命地擦胸部和腹部,好像他的身体是一台正在清洗的机器,而就在这同时,他的妻子却用另一条毛巾慢得出奇地帮他擦干背部。
    擦完以后,她把毛巾拿出去。男人的身体干了,他还蹲着,手放在膝盖上,在火边恍恍惚惚地看着壁炉,这好像也是他的夜间宗教仪式之一,他的脸上有了血色,心不在焉地捻着金黄胡子,眼睛还盯着壁炉里面,炉火把他的上半身映得通红。
    他约摸35岁光景,正值壮年,皮肤平整,浑身没有一块多余的肉,肌肉虽不能算特别发达,然而很灵活,充满活力,看上去就像一台休息待命的机器,他的眼睛是那种深深的冰蓝色。
    他看看四周,还是没有想起坐在他沙发上的来客。女人从柜子里拿出一叠衣服,放到他伸过来的手中,很少见到这么细长、柔韧的胳膊能有一双如此粗糙、多茧、结实而干净的手。
    他拿起内衣、衬衫、就着火略烤一下,然后把两件衣服往脑袋上一套,脑袋钻出来。衣服还没有完全拉好,他便懒洋洋地走进洗衣间,顺便从柜子里抽出他的睡裤。他妻子拿走毛巾,把晚饭摆上桌子:浇有褐色烧烤汁的洋葱烤饼,煮土豆和一杯茶。男人从洗衣间走出,衣服、法兰绒裤子穿得整整齐齐,头发笔直地往后梳着,他从桌边拉开木靠椅,重重地坐下吃饭。
    这时他才将目光投向吉米,就像一个有点敌意的男人不经意地注视另一个男人。
    “您对这儿不熟悉?”他说,他的口气有点太客套,甚至可以说太夸张了些。
    “完全不熟悉。”吉米回答,一脸表情说不清楚是哭还是笑。
    皮纳格在碟子里蘸了点芥末,仔细看看他的食品是否配胃口。
    “您从远道来吗?”他问道,开始吃起来,他大嚼着,似乎又忘记了吉米的存在,他低头看着盘子,吃着,一边慢吞吞地大口大口地往嘴里塞,一边显然思索着什么事。
    “从伦敦来。”吉米说。
    “噢,伦敦。”皮纳格漫不经心地说了一声,眼皮也没抬。
    女人又走了进来,默默地坐在灯下的摇椅中。
    “是什么把你吸引到这儿来的?”皮纳格问道,搅了搅他的茶。
    吉米挪了挪在沙发上的坐姿。“嗯,我是来看望皮纳格太太的。”
    “那您和她认识?”男人说着,还是没看吉米,侧面对着他。
    “是啊,刚认识,”吉米说了下去,“今晚以前我还不认识您太太,她给《评论家》寄来一些诗稿,我是那儿的编辑,我觉得不错,便回信给她,接着便产生了来这儿看看的想法,趁此机会结识结识她,她同意我这打算,于是我就来了。”
    男人切下一块面包,咬了起来。“您觉得这好吗?”他转向吉米,用一种孩子般好奇的目光看看他,似乎想了解些什么,“您将在您的报纸上登吗?”
    “是的,我准备采用。”吉米说。
    “她的诗我只读过一首,是说一个矿工,她了解他的一切,因为她嫁给了他。”他粗声粗气地说,带着一种揶揄的口气。
    吉米不吭声。这种粗鲁的、寻衅的口气唬住了他。
    “《评论家》对我个人来说毫无意义,”皮纳格说着,把他的盘子推向一边,抓过饭后甜食,“我觉得它太罗嗦,说了半天,什么结果也没有。”
    “有可能的,”吉米答道,有点支支吾吾,“不过怎么样才是有趣的?……如今这世道能有什么结果呢!况且一本杂志……”“我不知道,”皮纳格说,“《解放者》里有时就有一些有趣的东西,《两面神》也有点见解,我个人不赞同人们所谓的感情,这将使人一无所获。”
    “对,不过,”吉米一笑,“问题是,会有什么结果呢?人们总是说得很动听很漂亮,一切都应该有结果,不过在哪里?
    这世上哪里有什么结果呢?我泛泛地想过,如果一个人想在矿山得个较好的职位,好,可以说,他能得到,但是如果想得到生活中的‘什么结果’,那么,他就得想明白,他到底要什么。”
    “您听着,我是个男人,不是吗?”皮纳格突然说得很轻很坚定。
    “一个男人,好,”吉米回答说,“不过,这意味着什么呢?
    您是一个男人,怎么呢?”
    “我有没有权利说,我不愿被人利用?”皮纳格说得很慢、很粗野、很沉重。
    “您当然有这权利,”吉米说,“不过,这说明什么呢?从乔治国王开始至今,我们都被利用。您吃布丁的同时,您就在利用上百个人,包括您的太太。”
    “我知道,我知道,不用再说什么了,反正我不愿被人利用。”
    吉米耸了耸肩膀,“妙,妙!好多人说话都是这么一种方式。”
    矿工静静地坐在他的椅子上,脸上浮现出一种生硬、冰冷的表情,他似乎是在思考什么,好像有什么东西是他的眼中钉、肉中刺,他的脸就像刷过浆糊那样绷得紧紧的。
    “我除了被利用以外什么都不是,”他自言自语地说着,眼睛盯着不知什么地方,“在矿井下我被利用,得到我该得到工资,在家里我也被利用,我老婆给在我桌上摆上饭菜,好像我是店里的顾客。”
    “是啊,不过您等待什么呢?”吉米大声说。
    “我?等待?什么也没有,不过有一句话我可以对您说,我对两个都不满意。”
    “您知不知道,您有什么不满意?”
    “我不愿我老婆写诗,不愿她的诗让那么多她见也没见过的人看到,我不愿每当我回家时,看见我老婆像伯阿蒂西娅女王那样坐着,脸像只有两个窟窿的石头像。她的心情怎么样,我不知道,她自己也不知道。不过,她愿干什么就干什么,对我来说都一样。”
    “当然!”吉米叫道,虽然并没有什么可让他说“当然”的。
    “她对您讲过没有,我还有一个?”
    “讲过。”
    “那我来告诉您为什么吧。自从我干上矿工这一行,每天得在坑道里做整整8小时的牛马,别人让我怎么干就怎么干。”
    “您是想说,”吉米讲,“您的妻子应该多为您考虑,——
    是啊,这确实是问题,您得有个能多为您考虑的妻子。”这话从吉米口中说出实在是令人惊讶,他坐在这里,侃侃而谈,俨然是个道貌岸然的传教士在布道,完全忘了他过去岁月中与克拉丽莎之间破灭的爱情梦。
    “我需要一个待我好的女人,她得想着,要待我好。”矿工这么说。
    “别人为什么得对你好?”他妻子冷冷地问。
    “可爱的孩子,我的小女儿也有待我好的意愿,如果她母亲允许她这么做的话。我告诉您——”他转向吉米,深蓝色的眼珠里略带愠意,“我想有个待我好的女人,她必须有待我的好的意愿,我家里没有这样的女人,那我只好去别的地方找。”
    “我希望她待你还不错。”女人说着,在椅子里轻轻地晃了晃。
    “她待我当然好罗。”
    “那为什么你不干脆和她住一起?”
    “我为什么不这样做吗?因为我已经有了一个家,我有家,有老婆,老婆愿意怎么样就怎么样,反正已经在一起过日子了,我还有一个孩子,为什么要破坏这已经存在的一切呢?”
    “那我呢?”她冷冷地、生气地问。
    “你?你有一个家,你有孩子,你有一个为你做牛做马的丈夫,你需要的你都有了,你爱干什么就干什么。”
    “这样的,我能这样?”她讥诮地问。
    “没错,除了你要干的一点家务活,你爱干啥都行。什么时候想走了,你也可以走。不过,只要你还住在我的家,你就得放尊重一点,你不能带任何男人来这儿,你知道不知道。”
    “你,尊重你的家?”
    “当然罗!自从我有了一个待我好的女人,我什么都不用你给了,我所要求你的是,必须尽到一个家庭主妇的义务。”
    “还要替你洗屁股。”她极力挖苦,吉米听来觉得有点粗俗。
    “还要替我洗屁股,没错,如果我需要你来洗的话。”他说。
    “那么另一个呢?她应该干这个!”
    “这儿是我的家。”
    皮纳格太太做了个很特别的动作,好像神志有点不甚清醒似的,吉米坐在那里,吓得脸色苍白。矿工平静的外表下面隐藏着积聚已久的怨愤及犟头倔脑的脾性,他狭长的脸上几乎没有肉,只看得见那种男性特有的粗犷骨架,似乎他作为一个男人的所有灵魂、精神全蕴于满是骨头的脑袋里。
    吉米对这有着一张骨瘦如柴的脸庞的男人的逻辑产生了一种莫名其妙的愤恨,他无法忍受这男人麻木不仁的冷漠和自以为是的固执。
    “您听着,”他用他那口牛津腔说道,“您说,您太太是自由的,爱干什么就干什么,这样的话您恐怕不会反对她离开这儿去和我一起生活吧。”
    男人惊愕地望着编辑那苍白的脸,吉米把脸偏向一边,谁都不看,望着不知什么地方,他眉眼中流露出梅菲斯特般的神气。
    “她愿意吗?”皮纳格万般不信地问道。他的妻子轻蔑地微笑着,她看透了这男人由于无能而产生的空虚,她要用另一个男人来取代他。
    “这您可以自己问她,”吉米说,“就是因为这缘故我才来这里问她,是否愿意去我那儿和我一起生活,把孩子也带上。”
    “您来这儿向她提这个建议,而在这之前您还没见过她?”
    男人益发感到惊讶。
    “没错,”吉米激动地说着,喝醉酒般地点点头,“没错,这之前还没见过她。”
    “这次你弄诗可弄到一只怪鸟了。”他狎昵地说着,转向他妻子,她可真讨厌这种大大咧咧的丈夫派头。
    “那你又弄到一只什么样的怪鸟?”她回敬了一句。
    “你是用什么东西弄来的?”
    “用粘鸟胶。”她冷冷地一笑。3个人都坐着,一言不发,气氛相当紧张。终于,皮纳格开口了:“那你是怎么回答他的?”
    吉米抬起头,脸上挂着幸灾乐祸的微笑,这种表情反而使他变得漂亮起来,他朝坐在椅子上看着他的女人笑笑,算是鼓动。
    “我说,好。”她冷静地回答。
    她丈夫僵直地坐在靠椅上,眼睛不知望着哪里,什么都不说,好像在注意观察,有什么东西从他内心腾起,离他而去,他不打算使自己的内心再有什么激动,他无法相信,女人会如此轻易地抛弃他。
    “我可以肯定,”吉米又说开了,“这样对大家都好,您并没失去什么,”他有点不安地加上一句,“要是她将孩子也带走呢?我敢担保,这样对孩子有好处。”
    矿工看着他,好象他远在几里这外,但吉米知道,他是在克制内心的激动,不让任何感情在他那男性的、满是骨着头的脸上反映出来。
    “我让她自由,”男人说,“随她的便。”
    “出于父爱还是出于利己?”女人说。
    “就我来说,她可以随她自己高兴。”他神志恍惚地重复了一遍。
    “我说呀,你可真大方!”她第一次露出失望的样子。
    吉米看了看表,已经很晚了,有可能无法再进他住的地方,他起身说,明天早上再过来,中午还得赶火车回伦敦。
    他又走进荒芜地带阴暗的夜色中,他的心中升起一种莫名其妙的感觉,也稍稍有点害怕,不过他是需要有点害怕的感觉,不致于心里空荡荡的。在恐惧中,他想起小房里那两个相对而坐、缄默的人,他还从没经历过比这更动人心魄的时刻,他需要和解、体谅、同情,和皮纳格太太可以达成这样的默契,和埃米莉娅,埃米莉娅——他得习惯叫这个名字,应该叫埃米莉才对,埃米莉娅听上去有点怪诞,但他从来不曾遇见过一个埃米莉。
    害怕和兴奋,他干了多么了不起的事啊!他好像没有爱上她,上帝知道,他只是想把她从丈夫身边拉走,同时他也需要她所意味的奇遇,她是一个奇遇。他感到兴奋,感到自豪,感到像个男人。
    早晨,他怀着忐忑不安的心情走进皮纳格的房子,天气仍然阴沉,像是要下雨,黑色的树木,黑色的街道,黑色的灌木丛,熏黑的砖瓦房,煤矿的气味、烟雾和嗓音,又开始了暗无天日的一天。这就是陌生的地狱生活。
    孩子替他开了门,金黄色的头发,红润的脸蛋,热切的深蓝色眼睛。
    “早!珍妮。”他说。
    母亲僵直地站在厨房桌子边,很高大,她用不安的目光看着他。她很漂亮,但皮肤不理想,生活的磨难给她的健康带来很大的影响。吉米向她轻柔、动人地笑笑,他这特有的微笑点能打动女人的心,当他接触到她那金黄色瞳仁的眼睛时,发现她也在注视他,而且一点也不友好,他想:“天哪,我怎么能和这样的女人睡觉?”不过此时,他良好的愿望占了上风,他得这么做。
    看到坐在壁炉边上的矿工那张无肉、呆滞的脸和瘦长的身形,他的良好愿望就更加强烈了——他必须战胜这个男人!
    “您搭哪一班火车?”皮纳格太太问。
    “12点30分的那班。”他冲她一笑,孩子气十足,非常可爱,她感激地接受了这个微笑。拿这微笑和她丈夫阴沉、固执的眼睛相比,那种紧张、瘦削对她来说始终是一种威胁,而这个男人波斯猫般的眼睛却隐藏着果敢、羞怯的诱惑,她被吸引住了。
    “您得早一点吃午饭。”她说。
    “不,”他叫了起来,在那个男人的眼睛注视下吃饭,几乎可以说是可怕,“不,我吃了一顿丰盛的早餐,在谢菲尔德市转车时我可以在车站吃一块黄油面包,真的!”
    她准备出去买点东西,她说等她回来后,陪他去车站,那时刚过11点。
    “不过、您听着,”吉米同时看了看她,又看了看那男人,他坐在那里若无其事地看报,“有件事我们得说妥,我想让皮纳格太太及孩子和我一起过,她也同意了,是不是最好今天就一起走?您收拾些必需品放进手提包,走吧,为什么还要推迟呢?”
    “我说行,”男人回答,“她随时可以离开,随她的便。”
    “那太好了!您愿不愿意马上一起走?”吉米很有把握地说,以为她会无条件地服从。
    “这不行,”她果断地说,“今天不行。”
    “但是为什么不行?为什么不趁我还在这里的时候一起走?您有自由,可以随便干您所愿……”“自由对我暂时还没用,”她生硬地说,“反正今天不行。”
    “那什么时候行?”他紧逼着问道:“越快越好!”
    “星期一。”她直截了当地说。
    “星期一?”他重复了一遍,非常吃惊,然后他咬紧牙齿,点了点头。“好吧,今天是星期六,那么,星期一就星期一吧。”
    “如果您能谅解我的话,”她说,“我现在得出去买点东西,回来后就陪您去车站。”
    她给珍妮穿上一件天蓝色的上衣,自己披上深黑色的过冬大衣,戴上黑帽子走了。吉米和矿工坐在房间里,觉得很不自在。皮纳格戴着眼镜,现在他摘掉它,把报纸放在一边,随口谈了点关于社会民主党政府的事。
    “确实如此,”吉米说,“这很自然,只要人们想到民主,就一定会选社会民主党的,我个人认为这个政府比别的都强。”
    “也许吧,”皮纳格说,“不过,有些事或早或晚会发生。”
    “可以这么说。”吉米应了一句,他们又一次陷入沉默中。
    “您结过婚吗?”过了一会儿,皮纳格问。
    “结过,我离婚了。”
    “我想,您一定希望我同意离婚罗。”皮纳格说。
    “……当然,这再好不过了。”
    “我无所谓,”皮纳格说,“离婚或者不离,我和另一个一起生活,不过不和另一个结婚。就这样,我感到很好,不过如果她要离婚就离吧。”
    “这当然再好不过了。”吉米说。
    停顿。他真希望女人回来。
    “我把您看作某类工具,”皮纳格说,“准有什么会完蛋,您只是这类工具。”
    吉米发现,他怎么和这男人攀谈起来了?他恨自己做不到和他坐在一个房间里而不受他的影响。
    “我老婆,”皮纳格几乎是讥诮、嘲讽地重新拾起话题,“恨不得她离开我后,我就被车轱辘辗死,这是她最后的一丝希望。”
    吉米无言以对,另一个则静静地坐着,像一个被判无期徒刑的囚徒,坐在角落,望着窗子等待着什么。
    这就是塞壬说的一切。吉米双膝发软,回到家中。星期天早上他心惊胆战地写了一封信,不知开头该怎样称呼,“亲爱的皮纳格太太”或“亲爱的埃米莉娅”,对他来说不是显得已经过时就是为时过晚,干脆什么“爱”都不写,空着抬头。
    “我希望您在动身前收到这封信。也许我们太草率了,我请您无论如何,在来之前作最后的定夺,如果您不是完全出于自己的决定,那么就别来,哪怕还心存一丝动摇,您就该等着,等着,一直到您自己完全决定了,这样或那样去做。如果您不愿来,我也会理解的,只是希望你来封电报。您要是来的话,我会衷心欢迎您和孩子的,永远是您的J·F·”他付给差役一笔旅费,另外又给了3英镑,让他坐星期日火车把这封信送去。
    差役晚上就回来了,说是已经将信送到,但没有回复可带来。
    一个不好受的星期天晚上,一个令人心烦的星期一早晨!
    电报终于来了:12:50和珍妮坐玛丽雷邦号抵。埃米莉娅。
    吉米咬紧两排牙齿,来到火车站,她牵着孩子的手,慢慢走下火车,当他遇见她浓眉下凝重的目光时,他差点晕过去。一丝病态的微笑浮现在他的脸上,他向她伸出手:
    “您来这里,我真是太高兴了!”
    他们坐进出租车后,他对她产生出一种扭曲的、强烈的情欲,简直无法自制。他清清楚楚地感觉到另外一个男人也同时拥有着她,于是他就像喝了许多酒似地,醉醺醺的,另外还有一个男人!他不知怎么地总感到另外一个躯体在场——那个丈夫!女人在他的怀抱中扭动着,她将和他结婚,这是无可挽回的了。
    吉米仿佛喝了威士忌一样,他更应该把两个中的哪一个人摁倒在地上:这个女人,还是那个男人?
    苏建文译
  作者:劳伦斯
  第一部
  一、两姐妹
  二、初涉爱河
  三、悉尼奇遇
  四、裸体模特
  五、父亲之死
  六、“雨魂”骑手
  七、别墅之恋
  八、雪山欲海
  九、不愿做情妇
  第二部
  一、旧梦重温
  二、乱伦
  三、绵绵此情
  四、欲海横流
  五、柔情似水
  六、精诚所致
  七、同床异梦
  第三部
  一、妒火中烧
  二、魂牵梦萦
  三、乘虚而入
  四、相聚
  五、蓦然回首,那人却在灯火阑珊处
  作者:D.H.劳伦斯[英]
  黑马 译
  《袋鼠》第十二章中描写主人公索默斯离别英国的这段凄婉文字,恰恰是劳伦斯经历了第一次世界大战期间的精神重创,怀着对英国爱恨交织的复杂情感惜别故土时的真实写照。他怎能不爱生他养他的祖国?他怎能不爱这片给了他文学灵感的古老而美丽的故乡?即使他不爱英国这个国家,他又怎能不爱那造就了他非凡文学灵魂的诺丁汉家乡?但残酷的现实是:劳伦斯成了英国的逐客,他命中注定浪迹天涯,客死他乡。有文学史家评说,因为与这个把持英国文学报于的圈子不睦,劳伦斯损失惨重,其被承认的时间推迟了一代。这是“文人相轻”的典型例子,令人无奈、扼腕。剑桥一布鲁姆斯伯里圈子固然尊贵高雅,但终归是高处不胜寒。
  第01章 托里斯汀
  第02章 芳邻
  第03章 喂,看左舷!
  第04章 杰克与杰兹
  第05章 咕咕宅
  第06章 袋鼠
  第07章 舌战
  第08章 火山迹象
  第09章 迷惘的婚姻
  第10章 退伍兵
  第11章 威利·特劳瑟斯与袋鼠
  第12章 噩梦
  第13章 复仇
  第14章 碎闻
  第15章 杰克反击
  第16章 城中骚乱
  第17章 袋鼠死了
  第18章 别了,澳大利亚
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