情，而关系到他是否是真正的男子汉。没错，或许私底下可能还恨他入骨。但如果他确实是如假包换的男子汉，个人恩怨又算得了什么呢？这并非个人的情感问题。

It had rained as usual, and the paths were too sodden for Clifford's chair, but Connie would go out. She went out alone every day now, mostly in the wood, where she was really alone. She saw nobody there.

阴雨连绵，路面湿滑，克利福德无法驾轮椅出行，但康妮却常常出门散步。现在，她每天都会独自外出，多数时间是去林中徜徉，在那里她真正体验到独处的感觉。不会被任何人打扰。

This day, however, Clifford wanted to send a message to the keeper, and as the boy was laid up with influenza, somebody always seemed to have influenza at Wragby, Connie said she would call at the cottage.

这天，克利福德要捎口信给守林人，但跑腿的小厮因患流感，卧床不起——拉格比似乎总有人与流感结缘，而康妮表示她愿意代劳。

The air was soft and dead, as if all the world were slowly dying. Grey and clammy and silent, even from the shuffling of the collieries, for the pits were working short time, and today they were stopped altogether. The end of all things!

空气轻柔凝滞，似乎整个世界都慢慢陷入濒死的境地。一切都灰暗阴郁，冰冷潮湿，寂静无声，甚至连几处煤矿都没有半点动静，原因是矿区缩短了工时，而今天更是干脆就没开工。世间万物都停止了运转！

In the wood all was utterly inert and motionless, only great drops fell from the bare boughs, with a hollow little crash. For the rest, among the old trees was depth within depth of grey, hopeless inertia, silence, nothingness.

林中万籁俱寂，只有大颗的水滴从光秃秃的枝桠上落下，发出微弱的声响。除此之外，古老的树林中只有那无穷无尽的灰暗，挥之不去的绝望，以及寂静和空虚。

Connie walked dimly on. From the old wood came an ancient melancholy, somehow soothing to her, better than the harsh insentience of the outer world. She liked the inwardness of the remnant of forest, the unspeaking reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were only waiting for the end; to be cut down, cleared away, the end of the forest, for them the end of all things. But perhaps their strong and aristocratic silence, the silence of strong trees, meant something else.

康妮在微光中继续前行。历尽沧桑的树林散发出某种久远的忧郁，这种气息抚慰着她的心灵，至少远远好过外面世界的残酷无情。她喜欢这片残余森林的内敛，青睐古老树木的沉默寡言。它们拥有某种沉默的力量，又显示出旺盛的生命力。它们同样在