on her, he needed her every moment. Big and strong as he was, he was helpless. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a sort of bath-chair with a motor attachment, in which he could puff slowly round the park. But alone he was like a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him he existed at all.

但他对妻子的依赖已经到达无可附加的地步，时时刻刻需要她陪在身旁。他虽然魁梧健硕，却无法自立。他能够驱动轮椅四处走走，还可以驾着装有马达的巴斯轮椅，缓缓地在自家园林里兜圈。但每当独处，他就像只迷途的羔羊。他需要康妮伴随左右，只有如此，才能确信自己真真切切地活在世间。

Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories; curious, very personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful, and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.

虽然身残，但克利福德依然不失鸿鹄之志。他醉心于小说的创作。这些作品描述的是他身边熟悉的人物个人的奇特故事。笔触聪颖机智，流露出些许恶毒之感，却又因情节神秘莫测而缺乏深意。其出色的观察力异乎常人。但缺少与他人实际的接触和沟通。他笔下的一切似乎都发生在虚无缥缈的空中楼阁里。由于如今的人们多半生活在人造光线点亮的舞台之上，克利福德的小说倒是与现代的生活和现代人的心理颇为契合。

Clifford was almost morbidly sensitive about these stories. He wanted everyone to think them good, of the best, NE PLUS ULTRA. They appeared in the most modern magazines, and were praised and blamed as usual. But to Clifford the blame was torture, like knives goading him. It was as if the whole of his being were in his stories.

克利福德对这些小说的在意，几乎达到病态的地步。他渴望世人都为之拍案叫绝，将其视为无可匹敌的巅峰之作。他的作品发表在最时兴的杂志上，得到的评价自然也是毁誉参半。但对于克利福德来说，毁訾无异于痛苦的折磨，简直就像用刀剜他的肉。好像他生命的全部意义都存在于小说之中。

Connie helped him as much as she could. At first she was thrilled. He talked everything over with her monotonously, insistently, persistently, and she had to respond with all her might. It was as if her whole soul and body and sex had to rouse up and pass into theme stories of his. This thrilled her and absorbed her.

康妮竭尽所能地帮助他。刚开始倒也醉心其中。他凡事都会跟她进行探讨，用那种一成不变的语调，没完没了，无休无止，而她也必须殚精毕力，奉陪到底。似乎她的灵与肉，情与性