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He broke off. "I don't think this is interesting you.
他忽然打住了。“我认为这不会使您感到有趣。
The rest will interest you even less.
其余的部分就更引不起您的兴趣了。
There are no ideas in it, and I wish that I had not troubled you to come. We are too different, mother."
其中没有什么思想意念，我真希望当初我不麻烦您来。我们太不相同了，母亲。”
She told him to continue. "It was evening before I climbed the bank.
她叫他继续讲下去。“我还没有爬上岸边，就已是傍晚了。
The sun had very nearly slipped out of the sky by this time, and I could not get a good view.
这时太阳差不多已经溜出天外，我不能看到清晰的全景。
You, who have just crossed the Roof of the World,
您，刚刚跨过世界屋脊的人，
will not want to hear an account of the little hills that I saw – low colourless hills.
不会要听我说我所看到的那些小山的——那些矮矮的、色彩暗淡的小山——
But to me they were living and the turf that covered them was a skin,
不过对我来说，它们是活生生的，那覆盖着它们的草根土乃是它们的皮，
under which their muscles rippled, and I felt that those hills had called with incalculable force to men in the past,
在这层皮下，它们的肌肉如同细浪般地波动着，我也感到，那些小山在过去曾经以不可估计的力量召唤着人们，
and that men had loved them. Now they sleep – perhaps for ever.
人们也曾经热爱过它们。现在它们沉睡着——说不定永远睡下去。
They commune with humanity in dreams.
它们在梦里同人类交谈。
Happy the man, happy the woman, who awakes the hills of Wessex.
那在威赛克斯山中醒来的男人是幸福的，那在威赛克斯山中醒来的女人也是幸福的。
For though they sleep, they will never die."
即使他们沉睡着，他们会永远不死的。”
His voice rose passionately.
他的说话声激动地高昂起来。
"Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying,
“难道您看不到，难道所有像您这样的演说家们都看不到，就要死亡的正是我们，
and that down here the only thing that really lives in the Machine?
而在下面这里，唯一活着的东西就是那大机器吗？
We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now.
我们创造了大机器，是来执行我们的意志，可是现在我们却无法使它执行我们的意志。
It was robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch,
它已经夺去了我们的空间意识和我们的触觉官能，
it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act,
它抹煞了人与人的种种关系，并及把爱情贬低到性行为，
it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it.
它瘫痪了我们的身体和意志，现在又迫使我们崇拜它。
The Machine develops – but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds – but not to our goal.
大机器发展着——但不是按照我们的路线。大机器前进着——但不是走向我们的目标。
We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.
我们存在着，只不过像流过它的大动脉的一些血球，要是它没有我们也能工作的话，它就会让我们死掉。
Oh, I have no remedy – or, at least, only one – to tell men again and again
呶，我没有什么补救的办法——也可以说，至多只有一个办法，就是反复地告诉人们，
that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Alfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes.
我已经看见了威赛克斯的那些小山，就像阿尔弗里德在他打垮丹麦人的时候看到了它们那样。”
"So the sun set. I forgot to mention that a belt of mist lay between my hill and other hills, and that it was the colour of pearl."
“这时太阳落下去了，我忘记提到的是，一条迷迷朦朦的雾带平铺在我所在的那座山头和别的山头之间，它是珍珠色的。”
He broke off for the second time.
他第三次突然停了下来。
"Go on," said his mother wearily.
“讲下去吧。”他母亲疲惫地说。
He shook his head. "Go on. Nothing that you say can distress me now. I am hardened."
他摇了摇头。“继续说下去吧。你现在说不出什么能够使我心烦意乱的东西了。我已经变得坚强起来。”
"I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot: I know that I cannot: good-bye."
“我原来有意把其余的一切都合诉您，不过我不能：我知道我不能的。再见吧。”
Vashti stood irresolute. All her nerves were tingling with his blasphemies. But she was also inquisitive.
瓦西蒂站着犹豫不决。她的全部神经被他那番亵渎话弄得震颤着。但她还经受打听打听。
"This is unfair," she complained. "You have called me across the world to hear your story, and hear it I will.
“这是不公道的，”她抱怨说。“你叫我横跨整个世界来听听你的经历，那我就—‘定得听听。
Tell me – as briefly as possible, for this is a disastrous waste of time – tell me how you returned to civilization."
告诉我——尽可能地简短些，因为达简直足时间的惨重浪费——告诉我，你怎么回到文明里来的。”
