美丽新世界Brave New World 第7章(3)

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　　“老了？”她重复道，“可是主任也老了，许多人都老了，却都不像那样。”

　　"That's because we don't allow them to be like that. We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions¹ artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium².

　　“那是因为我们不让他们像那样。我们给他们保健，不让他们生病，人工维持他们的内分泌，使内分泌平衡，像年轻人一样。

　　We don't permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty.

　　我们不让他们的镁钙比值降低到三十岁时以下。

　　We give them transfusion³ of young blood. We keep their metabolism⁴ permanently⁵ stimulated⁶.

　　我们给他们输进年轻人的血液，保证他们的新陈代谢永远活跃。

　　So, of course, they don't look like that. Partly," he added, "because most of them die long before they reach this old creature's age.

　　因此他们就不会老。还有，”他又说，“这儿大部分人还没有活到这位老人的年龄就死了。

　　Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then, crack! the end."

　　很年轻，几乎毫发无损，然后，突然就完了。”

　　But Lenina was not listening. She was watching the old man.

　　可是列宁娜已经不再听他的。她在看着那老头。

　　Slowly, slowly he came down. His feet touched the ground. He turned.

　　老头非常缓慢地往下爬着，脚踩到了地上，转过了身子。

　　In their deep-sunken orbits his eyes were still extraordinarily⁷ bright. They looked at her for a long moment expressionlessly, without surprise, as though she had not been there at all. Then slowly, with bent⁸ back the old man hobbled past them and was gone.

　　他那深陷在眼窝里的眼睛异常明亮，没有表情地望了她许久，并不惊讶，好像她根本不在那儿，然后才慢慢躬着身子从他们身边擦过，趔趔趄趄走掉了。

　　"But it's terrible," Lenina whispered. "It's awful. We ought not to have come here."

　　“可这很可怕，”列宁娜低声说，“很可怕。我们不该来的。”

　　She felt in her pocket for her soma–only to discover that, by some unprecedented⁹ oversight¹⁰, she had left the bottle down at the rest-house.

　　她到口袋里去摸唆麻，却发现由于从来没有过的粗心把唆麻瓶忘在宾馆里了。

　　Bernard's pockets were also empty.

　　伯纳的口袋里也是空的。

　　Lenina was left to face the horrors of Malpais unaided. They came crowding in on her thick and fast.

　　列宁娜只好孤苦无靠地面对马尔佩斯的种种恐怖，而恐怖也确实接踵而至。

　　The spectacle of two young women giving breast to their babies made her blush and turn away her face.

　　两个年轻的妇女给孩子喂奶臊得她转过了脸。

　　She had never seen anything so indecent in her life.

　　她一辈子也没有见过这么猥亵的事。

　　And what made it worse was that, instead of tactfully ignoring it, Bernard proceeded to make open comments on this revoltingly viviparous scene.

　　更糟糕的是，伯纳对这令人作呕的胎生场面不但不是巧妙地置之不理，反倒公开发表起了意见。

　　Ashamed, now that the effects of the soma had worn off, of the weakness he had displayed that morning in the hotel, he went out of his way to show himself strong and unorthodox.

　　唆麻效力已经过去，他已为早上在宾馆的软弱表现感到羞耻，便一反常态，表现起自己的坚强与非正统来。

　　"What a wonderfully intimate relationship," he said, deliberately¹¹ outrageous¹².

　　“这种亲密关系多么美妙呀，”他故意叫人难堪地说，

　　"And what an intensity¹³ of feeling it must generate!

　　“它会激发出多么深厚的感情呀！

　　I often think one may have missed something in not having had a mother.

　　我常常在想，我们因为没有母亲可能失去了什么，

　　And perhaps you've missed something in not being a mother, Lenina.

　　而你因为没有做过母亲也可能失去了一些东西，列宁娜。

　　Imagine yourself sitting there with a little baby of your own. …"

　　想象你自己坐在那儿喂着自己的婴儿吧……。”

　　"Bernard! How can you?" The passage of an old woman with ophthalmia and a disease of the skin distracted her from her indignation.

　　“伯纳！你怎么能这样？”一个患结膜炎和皮肤病的老年妇女吸引了她的注意，岔开了她的义愤。

　　"Let's go away," she begged. "I don't like it."

　　“咱们走吧，”她求他，“我不喜欢这儿。”

　　But at this moment their guide came back and, beckoning¹⁴ them to follow, led the way down the narrow street between the houses.

　　但是这时他们的向导已经回来。他招呼他们跟在身后，带着他们沿着房屋之间的狭窄街道走去，

　　They rounded a corner. A dead dog was lying on a rubbish heap; a woman with a goitre was looking for lice in the hair of a small girl.

　　绕过了一个街角。一条死狗躺在垃圾堆上；一个长着瘤子的妇女正在一个小姑娘的头发里捉虱子。

　　Their guide halted at the foot of a ladder, raised his hand perpendicularly¹⁵, then darted¹⁶ it horizontally forward.

　　向导在一架梯子旁边停住了，用手垂直一举，然后向水平方向一挥。

　　They did what he mutely commanded–climbed the ladder and walked through the doorway¹⁷, to which it gave access, into a long narrow room, rather dark and smelling of smoke and cooked grease and long-worn, long-unwashed clothes.

　　他们按照他的无言指示做——爬上了梯子，穿过了梯子通向的门，进了一个狭长的房间。房间相当暗，发出烟味、煮过的油腻味、穿了很久没洗的衣服味。

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