Of Human Bondage 人性的枷锁 Chapter 62

Philip did not surrender himself willingly to the passion that consumed him. He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing ¹. Love was like a parasite ² in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else. He had been used to delight in the grace of St. James' Park, and often he sat and looked at the branches of a tree silhouetted ³ against the sky, it was like a Japanese print; and he found a continual magic in the beautiful Thames with its barges ⁴ and its wharfs ⁵; the changing sky of London had filled his soul with pleasant fancies. But now beauty meant nothing to him. He was bored and restless when he was not with Mildred. Sometimes he thought he would console his sorrow by looking at pictures, but he walked through the National Gallery like a sight-seer; and no picture called up in him a thrill of emotion. He wondered if he could ever care again for all the things he had loved. He had been devoted ⁶ to reading, but now books were meaningless; and he spent his spare hours in the smoking-room of the hospital club, turning over innumerable periodicals. This love was a torment ⁷, and he resented bitterly the subjugation ⁸ in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom., ,Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing; his soul leaped, for he thought he was free; he loved no longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet. Though he yearned ⁹ for Mildred so madly he despised her. He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn ¹⁰., ,Philip, burrowing ¹¹ as was his habit into the state of his feelings, discussing with himself continually his condition, came to the conclusion that he could only cure himself of his degrading passion by making Mildred his mistress. It was sexual hunger that he suffered from, and if he could satisfy this he might free himself from the intolerable chains that bound him. He knew that Mildred did not care for him at all in that way. When he kissed her passionately ¹² she withdrew herself from him with instinctive ¹³ distaste. She had no sensuality. Sometimes he had tried to make her jealous by talking of adventures in Paris, but they did not interest her; once or twice he had sat at other tables in the tea-shop and affected ¹⁴ to flirt ¹⁵ with the waitress who attended them, but she was entirely ¹⁶ indifferent. He could see that it was no pretence ¹⁷ on her part., , ,This was not a fact, but she did not contradict him. Even if his desertion meant nothing to her he would have been grateful if she had pretended it did. A reproach would have been balm to his soul., ,'I think it's silly of you to sit at the same table every day. You ought to give the other girls a turn now and again.', ,His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火 。,The lazy man was a parasite on his family.那懒汉是家里的寄生虫
。