【经典英文名著阅读】《德伯家的苔丝》第二十五章（中）
'How much longer is he to bide here?' asked Izz Huett, the only one of the gloom-stricken bevywho could trust her voice with the question.“他在这儿还要住多久呢？”伊茨·休特问，在一群满怀忧郁的姑娘中间，只有她还敢相信自己说话的声音不会泄露自己的感情。
The others waited for the dairyman's answer as if their lives hung upon it; Retty, with parted lips, gazing on the table-cloth, Marian with heat added to her redness, Tess throbbing and looking out at the meads.
其他的姑娘等着奶牛场老板的答话，仿佛这个问题关系到她们的生命一样；莱蒂张大了嘴，两眼盯着桌布，玛丽安脸上发烧，变得更红了，苔丝心里怦怦直跳，两眼望着窗外的草地。
'Well, I can't mind the exact day without looking at my memorandum-book,' replied Crick, with the same intolerable unconcern. 'And even that may be altered a bit. He'll bide to get a little practice in the calvingout at the straw-yard, for certain. He'll hang on till the end of the year I should say.'
“啊，我要看看我的备忘录，不然我不记得准确的日子，”克里克回答说，说话里同样带着叫人无法忍受的漠不关心。“即使那样也是会有一点儿变化的。我可以肯定，他还要住在这儿实习一段时间，学习在干草场里饲养小牛。我敢说不到年底他是不会离开这儿的。”
Four months or so of torturing ecstasyin his society - of 'pleasure girdledabout with pain'. After that the blackness of unutterable night.
和他相处还有四个月左右的时间，这都是痛苦的和快乐的日子——是快乐包裹着痛苦的日子。在那以后，就是无法形容的漫长黑夜了。
At this moment of the morning Angel Clare was riding along a narrow lane ten miles distant from the breakfasters, in the direction of his father's vicarageat Emminster, carrying, as well as he could, a little basket which contained some black-puddings and a bottle of mead, sent by Mrs Crick, with her kind respects, to his parents. The white lane stretched before him, and his eyes were upon it; but they were staring into next year, and not at the lane. He loved her; ought he to marry her? Dared he to marry her? What would his mother and his brothers say? What would he himself say a couple of years after the event? That would depend upon whether the germs of staunchcomradeshipunderlay the temporary emotion, or whether it were a sensuousjoy in her form only, with no substratumof everlastingness.
就在早晨的这个时候，安琪尔·克莱尔骑着马正在沿着一条狭窄的小路走着，离开吃早饭的人已经有十英里远了，他正朝着爱敏寺他父亲的牧师住宅的方向走，他还尽其所能地带着一个篮子，里面装着克里克太太送给他的一些血肠和一瓶蜜酒，那是用来对他的父母表示友好和尊敬的。白色的小路伸展在他的面前，他的一双眼睛看着路面，但是思考的却是明年的事情，而不是这条小路。他是爱上她了，但是应不应该娶她呢？他敢不敢娶她呢？他的母亲和兄弟会说什么呢？在结婚一两年后，他又怎样看呢？那就要看在这番暂时感情之下牢固的友谊会不会生长发育了，或者说，是不是仅仅因为她的美貌而生出的一种感官上的爱慕，实际上却缺少了永久的性质。
His father's hill-surrounded little town, the Tudor church-tower of red stone, the clumpof trees near the vicarage, came at last into view beneath him, and he rode down towards the well-known gate. Casting a glance in the direction of the church before entering his home, he beheld standing by the vestry-door a group of girls, of ages between twelve and sixteen, apparently awaiting the arrival of some other one, who in a moment became visible; a figure somewhat older than the school-girls, wearing a broad-brimmedhat and highly-starched cambricmorning-gown, with a couple of books in her hand.
他走到后来，终于望见了他父亲住的那个四面环山的小镇，望见了用红色石头建造的都蜂王朝时期的教堂塔楼，以及牧师住宅附近的一片树林，于是他骑着马朝下面那个他熟悉不过的大门走去。他在进自己的家门之前，朝教堂的方向瞥了一眼，看见有一群女孩子站在小礼拜室的门口，年纪在十二岁到十六岁之间，显然在那儿等候某个人的到来，不一会儿，那个人果然出现了；看样子她的年纪比那些女孩子的年纪都要大，戴一顶宽边软帽，穿一件浆洗得发硬的细纱长衫，手里拿着两本书。
Clare knew her well. He could not be sure that she observed him; he hoped she did not, so as to render it unnecessary that he should go and speak to her, blameless creature that she was. An overpowering reluctanceto greet her made him decide that she had not seen him. The young lady was Miss Mercy Chant, the only daughter of his father's neighbour and friend, whom it was his parents quiet hope that he might wedsome day. She was great at Antinomianism and Bible-classes, and was plainlygoing to hold a class now. Clare's mind flew to the impassioned, summer steeped heathens in the Var Vale, their rosy faces court-patched with cow-droppings; and to one the most impassioned of them all.
这个人克莱尔很熟。他不敢肯定她是不是看见他了；虽然她是一个没有过错的女孩子，但是他希望她没有看见自己，这样就不必上前去同她打招呼了。他决心不去同她打招呼，因此认定她没有看见自己。那个年轻的姑娘名叫梅茜·羌特，是他父亲的邻居和朋友的独生女儿，他的父母心里也暗暗盼望将来有一天他能够娶了她。她精通唯信仰主义的理论和《圣经》教义，现在显然是来上课的。但是克莱尔的心又飞到了瓦尔谷中那一群感情热烈和生活在盛夏气候中的异教徒身边了，想起了她们的玫瑰色双颊上的美人痣，其实那是沾上的牛粪形成的；他特别想起了她们中间最热情奔放和情意深重的那一位。
It was on the impulseof the moment that he had resolved to trotover to Emminster, and hence had not written to apprisehis mother and father, aiming, however, to arrive about the breakfast hour, before they should have gone out to their parishduties. He was a little late, and they had already sat down to the morning meal. The group at table jumped up to welcome him as soon as be entered. They were his father and mother, his brother the Reverend Felix - curateat a town in the adjoiningcounty, home for the inside of a fortnight - and his other brother, the Reverend Cuthbert, the classical scholar, and Fellow and Dean of his College, down from Cambridge for the long vacation. His mother appeared in a cap and silver spectacles, and his father looked what in fact he was - an earnest, God-fearing man, somewhat gaunt, in years about sixty-five, his pale face lined with thought and purpose. Over their heads hung the picture of Angel's sister, the eldest of the family, sixteen years his senior, who had married a missionaryand gone out to Africa.
他是由于一时的冲动而决定回爱敏寺的，因此他事先并没有写信告诉他的母亲和父亲，不过他希望能够在吃早饭的时候到家，在他的父母还没有出门去教区工作之前见到他们。他比预计的时间到得晚了些，那时父母已经坐下来吃早饭了。一看见他走进门来，坐在桌子边的一群人都跳起来欢迎他。他们是他的父亲、母亲，大哥费利克斯牧师，他现在已经是附近郡里一个镇上的副牧师了，正好请了两个礼拜的假回家。他的另一个哥哥卡斯伯特也是牧师，他还是一个古典学者，剑桥大学一个学院的院长和董事，现在从学校回家度假。他的母亲头上戴一顶软帽，鼻梁上架一副银边眼镜，他的父亲还是从前的样子，貌如其人，热心、诚恳、敬仰上帝，他有点儿憔悴，大约六十五岁的年纪，苍白的脸上刻满了思想和意志的印迹。从他们的头上看过去，墙上挂着安琪尔姐姐的画像，她是家中最大的孩子，比安琪尔大十六岁，嫁给一个传教的牧师到非洲去了。
Old Mr Clare was a clergyman of a type which, within the last twenty years, has wellnighdropped out of contemporary life. A spiritual descendantin the direct line from Wycliff, Huss, Luther, Calvin; an Evangelical of the Evangelicals, a Conversionist, a man of Apostolic simplicity in life and thought, he had in his raw youth made up his mind once for all on the deeper questions of existence, and admitted no further reasoning on them thenceforward. He was regarded even by those of his own date and school of thinking as extreme; while, on the other hand, those totally opposed to him were unwillingly won to admiration for his thoroughness, and for the remarkable power he showed in dismissing all question as to principles in his energy for applying them. He loved Paul of Tarsus, liked St John, hated St James as much as he dared, and regarded with mixed feelings Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. The New Testament was less a Christiad than a Pauliad to his intelligence - less an argument than an intoxication. His creedof determinismwas such that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite amounted, on its negative side, to a renunciativephilosophy which had cousinship with that of Schopenhauer and Leopardi. He despised the Canons and Rubric, swore by the Articles, and deemed himself consistent through the whole category which in a way he might have been. One thing he certainly was - sincere.
在最近二十年里，老克莱尔先生这样的牧师都差不多在现代人的生活里消失了。他是从威克利夫、胡斯、马丁·路德和加尔文一派传下来的真正传人，福音教派中的福音教徒，一个劝人信教的传教士，他是一个在生活和思想方面都像基督使徒一样简朴的人，在他毫无人生经验的年轻时候，对于深奥的存在问题就拿定了主意，再也不许有别的理由改变它们。和他同时代的人，还有和他一派的人，都认为他是一个极端的人；同时在另一方面，那些完全反对他的人，看到他那样彻底，看到他在倾注全部的热情运用原理时对所有的疑问都弃之不顾，表现出非同寻常的毅力，也不得不对他表示尊敬佩服。他爱的是塔苏斯的保罗，喜欢的是圣约翰，恨得最厉害的是圣詹姆斯，对提摩西、提多和腓力门则是既爱又恨的复杂感情。按照他的理解，《新约全书》与其说是记载基督的经典，不如说是宣扬保罗的史书——与其说是为了说服人，不如说是为了麻醉人。他深深地信仰宿命论，以至于这种信仰都差不多成了一种毒害，在消极方面简直就和放弃哲学一样，和叔本华与雷奥巴狄的哲学同出一源。他瞧不起法典和礼拜规程，却又坚信宗教条例，并且自己认为在这类问题上是始终如一的——这从某方面说他是做到了的。有一点肯定如此，那就是他的诚实。
To the aesthetic, sensuous, paganpleasure in natural life and lush womanhood which his son Angel had lately been experiencing in Var Vale, his temper would have been antipatheticin a high degree, had he either by inquiry or imagination been able to apprehendit. Once upon a time Angel had been so unlucky as to say to his father, in a moment of irritation, that it might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had been the source of the religion of modern civilization, and not Palestine; and his father's grief was of that blank description which could not realize that there might lurka thousandth part of a truth, much less a half truth or a whole truth, in such a proposition. He had simply preachedausterelyat Angel for some time after. But the kindness of his heart was such that he never resented anything for long, and welcomed his son to-day with a smile which was as candidlysweet as a child's.
在瓦尔谷，他儿子克莱尔近来过的是自然的生活，接触的是鲜美的女性，得到的是美学的、感官的和异教的快乐，假如他通过打听或者想象知道了，按他的脾性对儿子是会毫不留情的。曾经有一次，安琪尔因为烦恼不幸对他的父亲说，假如现代文明的宗教是从希腊起源的，不是从巴勒斯坦起源的，结果可能对人类要好得多；他的父亲听了这句实实在在的话，不禁痛苦万分，一点儿也没有想到这句话里面会有干分之一的真理，更不用说会认识到里面有一半的真理或者是百分之百的真理了。后来，他不分青红皂白地把儿子狠狠地教训了好些日子。不过，他的内心是那样慈爱，对任何事情也不会恨得很久，看见儿子回家，就微笑着欢迎他，真诚可爱得像一个孩子。
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