nd determined to get Clifford off her mind. She didn't want to hate him. She didn't want to be mixed up very intimately with him in any sort of feeling. She wanted him not to know anything at all about herself: and especially, not to know anything about her feeling for the keeper. This squabble of her attitude to the servants was an old one. He found her too familiar, she found him stupidly insentient, tough and indiarubbery where other people were concerned.

她火冒三丈，上楼回到房间，嘴里还念叨着：“那家伙，只知道用钱买人！幸亏，他没有买下我，所以我也没有义务跟他继续过下去。死鱼般的绅士，明胶做成的灵魂！他们最擅长的就是行骗，装出温文尔雅、多愁善感、和蔼可亲的样子。他们跟明胶没什么不同，根本没有任何感情。”她谋划着晚上如何出去，决定将克利福德抛诸脑后。她并不想恨他。她不想在感情上跟他有任何瓜葛。她不想他知晓自己的事情，尤其是自己对守林人的感情。因为她对待仆从的态度，两人早就争吵过多次。他觉得她太容易亲近，她认为他对其他人过于无情，麻木不仁地就像块橡胶。

She went downstairs calmly, with her old demure bearing, at dinner-time. He was still yellow at the gills: in for one of his liver bouts, when he was really very queer.— He was reading a French book.

晚餐时间已到，她气定神闲地走下楼来，保持着旧日端庄娴静的仪态。而他两腮的颜色依然没有改变，他的确很不舒服时，就势必遭受肝火的折磨——他正在读一本法语书。

"Have you ever read Proust?" he asked her.

“你读过普鲁斯特（注：1871-1922，法国作家）的作品吗？”他问道。

"I've tried, but he bores me.” "He's really very extraordinary.” "Possibly! But he bores me: all that sophistication! He doesn't have feelings, he only has streams of words about feelings. I'm tired of self-important mentalities.” "Would you prefer self-important animalities?” "Perhaps! But one might possibly get something that wasn't self-important.” "Well, I like Proust's subtlety and his well-bred anarchy.” "It makes you very dead, really." "There speaks my evangelical little wife." They were at it again, at it again! But she couldn't help fighting him. He seemed to sit there like a skeleton, sending out a skeleton's cold grizzly will against her. Almost she could feel the skeleton clutching her and pressing her to its cage of ribs. He too was really up in arms: and she was a little afraid of him.

“读过，可实在太无趣了。”“他的确非常优秀。”“可能吧！但却让我感到很沉闷，通篇都是强词夺理的语句！他的作品缺乏感情色彩，只是将描写感情的语句堆叠起来