Ours is essentially¹ a tragic² age, so we refuse to take it tragically³. The cataclysm⁴ has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble⁵ over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month's honeymoon⁶. Then he went back to Flanders: to be shipped over to England again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine.

His hold on life was marvellous. He didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor's hands. Then he was pronounced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips⁷ down, paralysed for ever.

This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family `seat'. His father had died, Clifford was now a baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the Chatterleys on a rather inadequate⁹ income. Clifford had a sister, but she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the Chatterley name alive while he could.

He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a bath-chair with a small motor attachment¹⁰, so he could drive himself slowly round the garden and into the line melancholy¹¹ park, of which he was really so proud, though he pretended to be flippant about it.

Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him. He remained strange and bright and cheerful, almost, one might say, chirpy, with his ruddy, healthy-looking face, arid¹² his pale-blue, challenging bright eyes. His shoulders were broad and strong, his hands were very strong. He was expensively dressed, and wore handsome neckties from Bond Street. Yet still in his face one saw the watchful¹³ look, the slight vacancy¹⁴ of a cripple.

He had so very nearly lost his life, that what remained was wonderfully precious to him. It was obvious in the anxious brightness of his eyes, how proud he was, after the great shock, of being alive. But he had been so much hurt that something inside him had perished, some of his feelings had gone. There was a blank of insentience.

Constance, his wife, was a ruddy, country-looking girl with soft brown hair and sturdy body, and slow movements, full of unusual energy. She had big, wondering eyes, and a soft mild voice, and seemed just to have come from her native village. It was not so at all. Her father was the once well-known R. A., old Sir Malcolm Reid. Her mother had been one of the cultivated Fabians in the palmy, rather pre-Raphaelite days. Between artists and cultured socialists¹⁶, Constance and her sister Hilda had had what might be called an aesthetically¹⁷ unconventional upbringing. They had been taken to Paris and Florence and Rome to breathe in art, and they had been taken also in the other direction, to the Hague and Berlin, to great Socialist¹⁵ conventions, where the speakers spoke¹⁸ in every civilized¹⁹ tongue, and no one was abashed²⁰.

The two girls, therefore, were from an early age not the least daunted²¹ by either art or ideal politics. It was their natural atmosphere. They were at once cosmopolitan²² and provincial²³, with the cosmopolitan provincialism of art that goes with pure social ideals.

They had been sent to Dresden at the age of fifteen, for music among other things. And they had had a good time there. They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical²⁴, sociological and artistic²⁵ matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women. And they tramped off to the forests with sturdy youths bearing guitars, twang-twang! They sang the Wandervogel songs, and they were free. Free! That was the great word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning, with lusty and splendid-throated young fellows, free to do as they liked, and---above all---to say what they liked. It was the talk that mattered supremely²⁶: the impassioned interchange of talk. Love was only a minor²⁷ accompaniment.

Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen. The young men with whom they talked so passionately²⁸ and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were so humble²⁹ and craving³⁰. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself?

So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only a sort of primitive³¹ reversion and a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had trespassed³² on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid³³ connexions and subjections.

And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified³⁴ it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely³⁵ more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.

And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently³⁶ into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse³⁷, and let him finish and expend³⁸ himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connexion and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.

Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months...this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!---had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.

And if after the roused intimacy³⁹ of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable⁴⁰, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm⁴¹ of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks⁴² that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme.

When the girls came home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father could see plainly that they had had the love experience.

L'amour avait possé par⁸ là, as somebody puts it. But he was a man of experience himself, and let life take its course. As for the mot a nervous invalid⁴³ in the last few months of her life, she wanted her girls to be `free', and to `fulfil themselves'. She herself had never been able to be altogether herself: it had been denied her. Heaven knows why, for she was a woman who had her own income and her own way. She blamed her husband. But as a matter of fact, it was some old impression of authority on her own mind or soul that she could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously⁴⁴ hostile, high-spirited wife to rule her own roost, while he went his own way.

So the girls were `free', and went back to Dresden, and their music, and the university and the young men. They loved their respective young men, and their respective young men loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things the young men thought and expressed and wrote, they thought and expressed and wrote for the young women. Connie's young man was musical, Hilda's was technical. But they simply lived for their young women. In their minds and their mental excitements, that is. Somewhere else they were a little rebuffed, though they did not know it.

It was obvious in them too that love had gone through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what a subtle but unmistakable transmutation it makes, both in the body of men and women: the woman more blooming, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened⁴⁵, and her expression either anxious or triumphant⁴⁶: the man much quieter, more inward, the very shapes of his shoulders and his buttocks less assertive⁴⁷, more hesitant.

In the actual sex-thrill within the body, the sisters nearly succumbed⁴⁸ to the strange male power. But quickly they recovered themselves, took the sex-thrill as a sensation, and remained free. Whereas the men, in gratitude⁴⁹ to the woman for the sex experience, let their souls go out to her. And afterwards looked rather as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Connie's man could be a bit sulky, and Hilda's a bit jeering⁵⁰. But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.

However, came the war, Hilda and Connie were rushed home again after having been home already in May, to their mother's funeral. Before Christmas of 1914 both their German young men were dead: whereupon the sisters wept, and loved the young men passionately, but underneath⁵¹ forgot them. They didn't exist any more.

Both sisters lived in their father's, really their mother's, Kensington housemixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for `freedom' and flannel⁵² trousers, and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy⁵³, and a whispering, murmuring sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner. Hilda, however, suddenly married a man ten years older than herself, an elder member of the same Cambridge group, a man with a fair amount of money, and a comfortable family job in the government: he also wrote philosophical essays. She lived with him in a smallish house in Westminster, and moved in that good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they're talking about, or talk as if they did.

Connie did a mild form of war-work, and consorted⁵⁴ with the flannel-trousers Cambridge intransigents, who gently mocked at everything, so far. Her `friend' was a Clifford Chatterley, a young man of twenty-two, who had hurried home from Bonn, where he was studying the technicalities of coal-mining. He had previously⁵⁵ spent two years at Cambridge. Now he had become a first lieutenant⁵⁶ in a smart regiment⁵⁷, so he could mock at everything more becomingly in uniform.

Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter.

But Clifford, while he was better bred than Connie, and more `society', was in his own way more provincial and more timid. He was at his ease in the narrow `great world', that is, landed aristocracy society, but he was shy and nervous of all that other big world which consists of the vast hordes⁵⁸ of the middle and lower classes, and foreigners. If the truth must be told, he was just a little bit frightened of middle-and lower-class humanity, and of foreigners not of his own class. He was, in some paralysing way, conscious of his own defencelessness, though he had all the defence of privilege. Which is curious, but a phenomenon of our day.

Therefore the peculiar⁵⁹ soft assurance of a girl like Constance Reid fascinated him. She was so much more mistress of herself in that outer world of chaos⁶⁰ than he was master of himself.

Nevertheless he too was a rebel: rebelling even against his class. Or perhaps rebel is too strong a word; far too strong. He was only caught in the general, popular recoil⁶¹ of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate⁶² one supremely so. And governments were ridiculous: our own wait-and-see sort especially so. And armies were ridiculous, and old buffers⁶³ of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely. Even the war was ridiculous, though it did kill rather a lot of people.

In fact everything was a little ridiculous, or very ridiculous: certainly everything connected with authority, whether it were in the army or the government or the universities, was ridiculous to a degree. And as far as the governing class made any pretensions⁶⁴ to govern, they were ridiculous too. Sir Geoffrey, Clifford's father, was intensely ridiculous, chopping down his trees, and weeding men out of his colliery to shove them into the war; and himself being so safe and patriotic⁶⁵; but, also, spending more money on his country than he'd got.

When Miss Chatterley---Emma---came down to London from the Midlands to do some nursing work, she was very witty⁶⁶ in a quiet way about Sir Geoffrey and his determined⁶⁷ patriotism⁶⁸. Herbert, the elder brother and heir, laughed outright⁶⁹, though it was his trees that were falling for trench⁷⁰ props⁷¹. But Clifford only smiled a little uneasily. Everything was ridiculous, quite true. But when it came too close and oneself became ridiculous too...? At least people of a different class, like Connie, were earnest about something. They believed in something.

They were rather earnest about the Tommies, and the threat of conscription, and the shortage of sugar and toffee for the children. In all these things, of course, the authorities were ridiculously at fault. But Clifford could not take it to heart. To him the authorities were ridiculous ab ovo, not because of toffee or Tommies.

And the authorities felt ridiculous, and behaved in a rather ridiculous fashion, and it was all a mad hatter's tea-party for a while. Till things developed over there, and Lloyd George came to save the situation over here. And this surpassed even ridicule⁷², the flippant young laughed no more.

In 1916 Herbert Chatterley was killed, so Clifford became heir. He was terrified even of this. His importance as son of Sir Geoffrey, and child of Wragby, was so ingrained in him, he could never escape it. And yet he knew that this too, in the eyes of the vast seething⁷³ world, was ridiculous. Now he was heir and responsible for Wragby. Was that not terrible? and also splendid and at the same time, perhaps, purely⁷⁴ absurd?

Sir Geoffrey would have none of the absurdity⁷⁵. He was pale and tense, withdrawn⁷⁶ into himself, and obstinately⁷⁷ determined to save his country and his own position, let it be Lloyd George or who it might. So cut off he was, so divorced from the England that was really England, so utterly⁷⁸ incapable⁷⁹, that he even thought well of Horatio Bottomley. Sir Geoffrey stood for England and Lloyd George as his forebears had stood for England and St George: and he never knew there was a difference. So Sir Geoffrey felled timber and stood for Lloyd George and England, England and Lloyd George.

And he wanted Clifford to marry and produce an heir. Clifford felt his father was a hopeless anachronism. But wherein was he himself any further ahead, except in a wincing⁸⁰ sense of the ridiculousness of everything, and the paramount⁸¹ ridiculousness of his own position? For willy-nilly he took his baronetcy and Wragby with the last seriousness.

The gay excitement had gone out of the war...dead. Too much death and horror. A man needed support arid comfort. A man needed to have an anchor in the safe world. A man needed a wife.

The Chatterleys, two brothers and a sister, had lived curiously⁸² isolated⁸³, shut in with one another at Wragby, in spite of all their connexions. A sense of isolation⁸⁴ intensified⁸⁵ the family tie, a sense of the weakness of their position, a sense of defencelessness, in spite of, or because of, the title and the land. They were cut off from those industrial Midlands in which they passed their lives. And they were cut off from their own class by the brooding, obstinate, shut-up nature of Sir Geoffrey, their father, whom they ridiculed⁸⁶, but whom they were so sensitive about.

The three had said they would all live together always. But now Herbert was dead, and Sir Geoffrey wanted Clifford to marry. Sir Geoffrey barely mentioned it: he spoke very little. But his silent, brooding insistence⁸⁷ that it should be so was hard for Clifford to bear up against.

But Emma said No! She was ten years older than Clifford, and she felt his marrying would be a desertion and a betrayal of what the young ones of the family had stood for.

Clifford married Connie, nevertheless, and had his month's honeymoon with her. It was the terrible year 1917, and they were intimate as two people who stand together on a sinking ship. He had been virgin⁸⁸ when he married: and the sex part did not mean much to him. They were so close, he and she, apart from that. And Connie exulted⁸⁹ a little in this intimacy which was beyond sex, and beyond a man's `satisfaction`. Clifford anyhow was not just keen on his `satisfaction', as so many men seemed to be. No, the intimacy was deeper, more personal than that. And sex was merely an accident, or an adjunct, one of the curious obsolete⁹⁰, organic processes which persisted in its own clumsiness, but was not really necessary. Though Connie did want children: if only to fortify⁹¹ her against her sister-in-law Emma.

But early in 1918 Clifford was shipped home smashed, and there was no child. And Sir Geoffrey died of chagrin⁹².

我们根本就生活在一个悲剧的时代，因此我们不愿惊惶自忧。大灾难已经来临，我们处于废墟之中，我们开始建立一些新的小小的栖息地，怀抱一些新的微小的希望。这是一种颇为艰难的工作。现在没有一条通向未来的康庄大道，但是我们却迂回前进，或攀援障碍而过。不管天翻地覆，我们都得生活。

这大概就是康士丹斯·查太莱夫人的处境了。她曾亲尝世界大战的灾难，因此她了解了一个人必要生活，必要求知。

她在一九一七年大战中和克利福·查太莱结婚，那时他请了一个月的假回到英国来。他们度了一个月的蜜月后，克利福回到佛兰大斯前线去。六个月后，他一身破碎地被运返英国来，那时康士丹斯二十三岁，他是二十九岁。

他有一种惊奇的生命力。他并没有死。他的一身破碎似乎重台了。医生把他医治了两年了，结果仅以身免。可是腰部以下的半身，从此永久成了疯瘫。

一九二零年，克利福和康士丹斯回到他的世代者家勒格贝去。他的父亲已死了；克利福承袭了爵位，他是克利福男爵，康士丹斯便是查太莱男爵夫人了。他们来到这有点零丁的查太莱老家里，开始共同的生活，收入是不太充裕的。克利福除了一个不在一起住的姊妹外，并没有其他的近亲，他的长兄在大战中阵亡了。克利福明知自己半身残疾，生育的希望是绝灭了，因此回到烟雾沉沉的米德兰家里来，尽人事地使查泰莱家的烟火维持下去。

他实在并不颓丧。他可以坐在一轮椅里，来去优游。他还有一个装了发动机的自动椅，这一来，他可以自己驾驶着，慢慢地绕过花园而到那美丽的凄清的大林园里去；他对于这个大林园，虽然表示得满不在乎的样子，其实他是非常得意的。

他曾饱经苦难，致他受苦的能力都有点穷乏了。可是他却依然这样奇特、活泼、愉快，红润的健康的脸容，挑拨人的闪光的灰蓝眼睛，他简直可说是个乐天安命的人。他有宽大强壮的肩膊，两只有力的手。他穿的是华贵的衣服，结的是帮德街买来的讲究的领带。可是他的脸上却仍然表示着一个残废者的呆视的状态和有点空虚的样子。

他因为曾离死只间一发，所以这剩下的生命，于他是十分可贵的。他的不安地闪着光的眼睛，流露着死里生还的非常得意的神情，但是他受的伤是太重了，他里面的什么东西已经死灭了，某种感情已经没有了，剩下的只是个无知觉的空洞。

康士丹斯是个健康的村姑佯儿的女子，软软的褐色的头发，强壮的身体，迟缓的举止，但是富有非常的精力。她有两只好奇的大眼睛。温软的声音，好象是个初出乡庐的人，其实不然。她的父亲麦尔·勒德爵士，是个曾经享有鼎鼎大名的皇家艺术学会的会员。母亲是个有教养的费边社社员。在艺术家与社会主义者的谊染中，康士丹斯和她的婉妹希尔达，受了一种可以称为美育地非传统的教养。她们到过巴黎、罗马、佛罗伦斯呼吸艺术的空气，她们也到过海牙、柏林去参加社会主义者的大会，在这些大会里，演说的人用着所有的文明语言，毫无羞愧。

这样，这婉妹俩从小就尽情地生活在美术和政治的氛围中，她们已习损了。她们一方面是世界的，一方面又是乡土的。她们这种世界而又乡土的美术主义，是和纯洁的社会理想相吻合的。

她们十五岁的时候，到德国德累斯顿学习音乐。她们在那里过的是快活的日子。她们无园无束地生活在学生中间，她们和男子们争论着哲学、社会学和艺术上的种种问题。她们的学识并不下于男子；因为是女子，所以更胜于他们了。强壮的青年男子们，带着六弦琴和她们到林中漫游。她们歌唱着，歌喉动人的青年们，在旷野间，在清晨的林中奔窜，自由地为所欲为，尤其是自由地谈所欲谈。最要紧的还是谈话，热情的谈话，爱情不过是件小小的陪衬品。

希尔达和康士丹斯婉妹俩，都曾在十八岁的时候初试爱情。那些热情地和她们交谈，欢快地和她们歌唱，自由自在地和她们在林中野宿的男子们，不用说都欲望勃勃地想更进一步。她们起初是踌躇着；但是爱情这问题已经过许多的讨论，而且被认为是最重要的东西了，况且男子们又是这样低声下气地央求。为什么一个少女不能以身相就，象一个王后似的赐予思惠呢？

于是她们都赐身与平素最微妙、最亲密在一起讨论的男子了。辩论是重要的事情，恋爱和性交不过是一种原始的本能；一种反应，事后，她们对于对手的爱情冷挑了，而且有点憎很他们的倾向，仿佛他们侵犯了她们的秘密和自由似的。因为一个少女的尊严，和她的生存意义，全在获得绝对的、完全的、纯粹的、高尚的自由。要不是摆脱了从前的污秽的两性关系和可耻的主奴状态，一个少女的生命还有什么意义。

无论人怎样感情用事，性爱总是各种最古老、最宿秽的结合和从属状态之一。歌颂性爱的诗人们大都是男子。女子们‘向就知道有更好更高尚的东西。现在她们知之更确了。一个人的美丽纯洁的自由，是比任何性爱都可爱的。不过男子对于这点的看法太落后了，她们象狗似的坚要性的满足。

可是女人不得不退让，男于是象孩子般的嘴馋的，他要什么女人便得绘什么，否则他便孩子似的讨厌起来，暴躁起来把好事弄糟。，但是个女人可以顺从男子，而不恨让她内在的、自由的自我。那些高谈性爱的诗人和其他的人好象不大注意到这点。一个女人是可以有个男子，而不真正委身r让他支配的。反之，她可以利用这性爱去支配他。在性交的时候，她自己忍持着，让男子尽先尽情地发泄完了，然而她便可以把性交延长，而把他当作工具去满足她自目的性欲。

当大战爆发，她们急忙回家的时候，婉妹俩都有了爱情的经验了。她们所以恋爱，全是因为对手是可以亲切地、热烈地谈心的男子。和真正聪明的青年男子，一点钟又一点钟地，一天又一天地，热情地谈话，这种惊人的、深刻的、意想不到的美妙，是她们在经验以前所不知道的，天国的诺言：“您将有可以谈心的男子。”还没有吐露，而这奇妙的诺言却在她们明白其意义之前实现了。

在这些生动的、毫无隐讳的、亲密的谈心过后，性行为成为不可避免的了，那只好忍受。那象是一章的结尾，它本身也是令人情热的；那是肉体深处的一种奇特的、美妙的震颤，最后是一种自我决定的痉挛。宛如最后—个奋激的宇，和一段文字后一行表示题意中断的小点子一样。

一九一三年暑假她们回家的时候，那时希尔达二十岁，康妮①十八岁，她们的父亲便看出这婉妹俩已有了爱的经验了。

①康妮，康士丹斯的呢称。

好象谁说的：“爱情已在那儿经历过了。”但是他自已是个过来人，所以他听其自然。至于她们的母亲呢，那时她患着神经上的疯疾，离死不过几月了，她但愿她的女儿们能够“自由”，能够“成就”。但是她自己从没有成就过什么，她简直不能。上代知道那是什么缘故，因为她是个人进款和意志坚强的人。她埋怨她的丈夫。其实只是因为她不能摆脱心灵上的某种强有力的压制罢了。那和麦尔肯爵士是无关的，他不理她的埋怨和仇视，他们各行其事。所以妹妹俩是“自由”的。她们回到德累斯顿，重度往日学习音乐，在大学听讲，与年青男子们交际的生活。她们各自恋着她们的男子，她们的男子也热恋着她们。所有青年男子所能想，所能说所能写的美妙的东西，他们都为这两个少妇而想、而说、而写。康妮的情人是爱音乐的，希尔达的情人是技术家。至少在精神方面，他们全为这两个少妇生活着。另外的什么方面，他们是被人厌恶的；但是他们自己并不知道。

狠明显；爱情——肉体的爱——已在他们身上经过了。肉体的爱，使男子身体发生奇异的、微妙的、显然的变化。女子是更艳丽了，更微妙地圆满了，少女时代的粗糙处全消失了，脸上露出渴望的或胜利的情态。男子是更沉静了，更深刻了，即肩膊和臀部也不象从前硬直了。

这姊妹俩在性的快感中，几乎在男性的奇异的权力下面屈服了。但是很快她们便自拨了，把性的快感看作一种感觉，而保持了她们的自由。至于她们的情人呢，因为感激她们所赐与的性的满足，便把灵魂交给她们。但是不久，他们又有点觉得得不尝失了。康妮的男子开始有点负气的样子，希尔达的对手也渐渐态度轻蔑起来。但是男子们就是这样的；忘恩负义而永不满足！你要他们的时候，他们憎恨你，因为你要他们。你不睬他们的时候，他们还是憎恨你，因为旁的什么理由。或者毫无理由。他们是不知足的孩子，无论得到什么，无论女子怎样，都不满意的。

大战爆发了。希尔达和康妮又匆匆回家——她们在五月已经回家一次，那时是为了母亲的丧事。她们的两个德国情人，在一九一四年圣诞节都死了，姊妹俩恋恋地痛哭了一场，但是心里却把他们忘掉了，他们再也不存在了。

她们都住在新根洞她们父亲的——其实是她们母亲的家里。她们和那些拥护“自由”，穿法兰绒裤和法兰绒开领衬衣的剑桥大学学生们往来。这些学生是一种上流的感情的无政府主义者，说起话来，声音又低又浊，仪态力求讲究。希尔达突然和一个比她大十岁的人结了婚。她是这剑桥学生团体的一个者前辈，家财富有，而且在政府里有个好差事，他也写点哲学上的文章。她和他住在威士明斯泰的一所小屋里，来往的是政府人物，他们虽不是了不起的人，却是——或希望是——国中有权威的知识分子。他们知道自己所说的是什么或者装做知道。

康妮得了个战时轻易的工作，和那些嘲笑一切的，穿法兰绒裤的剑桥学生常在一块。她的朋友是克利福·查太莱，一个二十二岁的青年。他原在德国被恩研究煤矿技术，那时他刚从德国匆匆赶回来，他以前也在剑桥大学待过两年，现在，他是个堂堂的陆军中尉，穿上了军服，更可以目空一切了。

在社会地位上看来，克利福·查太莱是比康妮高的，康妮是属于小康的知识阶级；但他却是个贵族。虽不是大贵族，但总是贵族。他的父亲是个男爵，母亲是个子爵的女儿。

克利福虽比康妮出身高贵，更其上流，但却没有她磊落大方。在地主贵族的狭小的上流社会里，他便觉得安适，但在其他的中产阶级、民众和外国人所组合的大社会里，他却觉得怯懦不安了。说实话，他对于中下层阶级的大众和与自己不同阶级的外国人，是有点惧怕的。他自己觉得麻木了似的毫无保障；其实他有着所有优先权的保障。这是可怪的，但这是我们时代的一种稀有的现象。

这是为什么，一个雍容自在的少女康士丹斯·勒德使他颠倒了。她在那复杂浑沌的社会上，比他自然得多了。

然而，他却是个叛徒，甚至反叛他自己的阶级。也许反叛这字用得过火了，太过火了。他只是跟着普通一般青年的愤恨潮流，反对旧习惯，反对任何权势罢了。父辈的人都是可笑的，他自己的顽固的父亲，尤其可笑。一切政府都是可笑的，投机主义的英国政府，特别可笑，车队是可笑的，尤其是那些老而不死的将军们，至于那红脸的吉治纳将军②更是可笑之至了。甚至战争也是可笑的，虽然战争要杀不少人。

②吉治纳K(itchener)一九一四一一六年英国陆军部长。

总之，一切都有点可笑，或十分可笑，一切有权威的东西，无论军队、政府或可笑到绝点。自命有统治能力的统治阶级，也可笑。佐佛来男爵，克利福的父亲，尤其可笑。砍伐着他园里的树木，调拨着他煤矿场里的矿工，和败草一般地送到战场上去，他自己便安然在后方，高喊救国，可是他却人不敷出地为国花钱。

当克利福的姊妹爱玛·查太莱小姐从米德兰到伦敦去做看护工作的时候，她暗地里嘲笑着佐佛来男爵和他的刚愎的爱国主义。至于他的长于哈白呢，却公然大笑，虽然砍给战壕里用的树木是他自己的。但是克利福只是有点不安的微笑。一切都可笑，那是真的；但这可笑若挨到自己身上来的时候？其他阶级的人们，如康妮，是郑重其事的；他们是有所信仰的。

他们对于军队，对于征兵的恐吓，对于儿童们的糖与糖果的缺乏，是颇郑重其事的。这些事情，当然，都是当局的罪过。但是克利福却不关心，在他看来，当局本身就是可笑的，而不是因为糖果或军队问题。

当局者自己也觉得可笑，却有点可笑地行动着，一时紊乱得一塌糊涂。直至前方战事严重起来，路易·佐治出来救了国内的局面，这是超乎可笑的，于是目空一切的青年们不再嘲笑了。

一九—六年，克利福的哥哥哈白阵亡了。因此克利福成了唯一的继承人。甚至这个也使他害怕起来。他早就深知生在这查太莱世家的勒格贝，作佐佛来男爵儿子，是多么重要的，他决不能逃避他的命运。可是他知道在这沸腾的外面世界的人看来，也是可笑的。现在他是继承人，是勒格贝世代老家的负责人，这可不是骇人的事？这可不是显赫而同时也许是十分荒唐的事？

佐佛来男爵却不以为有什么荒唐的地方。他脸色苍白地、紧张地固执着要救他的祖国和他的地位，不管在位的是路易·佐治或任何人。他拥护英国和路易。佐治，正如他的祖先们拥护英国和圣佐治一样；他永不明白那儿有什么不同的地方。所以佐佛来男爵吹伐他的树木，拥护英国和路易·佐治。

他要克利福结婚，好生个嗣于，克利福觉得他的父亲是个不可救药的者顽固。但是他自己，除了会嘲笑一切，和极端嘲笑他自己的处境外，还有什么比他父亲更新颖的呢？因为不管他心愿与否，他是十分郑重其事地接受这爵衔和勒格贝家产了。

太战起初时的狂热消失了。死灭了。因为死的人太多了，恐怖太大了。男子需要扶持和安慰，需要一个铁锚把他碇泊在安全地下，需要一个妻子。

从前，查太莱兄弟姊妹三人，虽然认识的人多，却怪孤独地住在勒格贝家里，他们三人的关系是很密切的，因为他们三人觉得孤独，虽然有爵位和土地(也许正因为这个)，他们却觉得地位不坚，毫无保障。他们和生长地的米德兰工业区完全隔绝；他们甚至和同阶级的人也隔绝了，因为佐佛来男爵的性情是古怪的，”固执的，不喜与人交往的。他们嘲笑他们的父亲，但是他们却不愿人嘲笑他。

他们说过要永久的住在一块，但是现在哈白已死了。而佐佛来男爵又要克利福成婚。父亲这欲望并不正式表示，i他是很少说话的人，但是他的无言的、静默地坚持，是使克利福难以反抗的。

但是，爱玛却反对这事！她比克利福大十岁，她觉得克利福如果结婚，那便是离叛他们往日的约言。

然而，克利福终于娶了康妮，和她过了一个月的蜜月生活。那正在可怕的一九一七那一年；夫妇俩亲切得恰如正在沉没的船上的两个难人。结婚的时候，他还是个童男，所以性的方面，于他是没有多大意义的。他们只知相亲相爱，康妮觉得这种超乎性欲的男子不求“满足”的相亲相爱，是可喜的。而克利福也不象别的男子般的追求“满足”。不，亲情是比性交更深刻，更直接的。性交不过是偶然的、附带的事，不过是一种笨拙地坚持着的官能作用，并不是真正需要的东西。可是康妮却希翼着生些孩子，好使自己的地位强国起来，去反抗爱玛。

然而，一九一八年开始的时候，克利福伤得一身破碎。被运了回来，孩子没有生成。佐佛来男爵也忧愤中死去了。