名声日隆，收益颇丰。自然少不了有慕名到访者。康妮几乎天天都要款待各色宾朋。但他们不是鲭鱼，就是鲱鱼，偶尔会见到鲶鱼，或者海鳗。

There were a few regular men, constants; men who had been at Cambridge with Clifford. There was Tommy Dukes, who had remained in the army, and was a Brigadier-General. "The army leaves me time to think, and saves me from having to face the battle of life," he said.

其中也有几位常客，算是克利福德的至交好友，曾在剑桥求学时就已熟稔。名唤汤米·杜克斯的那位仍在军界效力，此时已荣升准将。他说：“置身军旅让我有更多的时间去思考，使我得以摆脱生活的争斗。”

There was Charles May, an Irishman, who wrote scientifically about stars. There was Hammond, another writer. All were about the same age as Clifford; the young intellectuals of the day. They all believed in the life of the mind. What you did apart from that was your private affair, and didn't much matter. No one thinks of inquiring of another person at what hour he retires to the privy. It isn't interesting to anyone but the person concerned.

名叫查尔斯·梅的那位来自爱尔兰，写些介绍天体的科普作品。而叫做哈蒙德的那位同样身为作家。他们都跟克利福德年龄相仿，均是当时年轻有为的知识分子。他们都无一例外地笃信精神生活。除此之外，其他的都是无关痛痒的私事。没人会想去打听人家何时如厕。这种事情只与自己有关，其他人不会有半点兴趣。

And so with most of the matters of ordinary life...how you make your money, or whether you love your wife, or if you have "affairs". All these matters concern only the person concerned, and, like going to the privy, have no interest for anyone else.

多数日常琐事均是如此……你怎么捞钱，与妻子是否恩爱，有没有风流韵事。所有这些都只是个人私事，跟上厕所没啥两样，不会引起他人的兴趣。

"The whole point about the sexual problem," said Hammond, who was a tall thin fellow with a wife and two children, but much more closely connected with a typewriter, "is that there is no point to it. Strictly there is no problem. We don't want to follow a man into the w.c., so why should we want to follow him into bed with a woman? And therein lie the problem. If we took no more notice of the one thing than the other, there'd be no problem. It's all utterly senseless and pointless; a matter of misplaced curiosity.” "Quite, Hammond, quite! But if someone starts making love to Julia, you begin to simmer; and if he goes on, you are soon a