【经典名著阅读】《德伯家的苔丝》第十八章（中）

英语自学网

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        'I will do without Cambridge,' said Angel at last. 'I feel that I have no right to go there in the circumstances.'“我不上剑桥大学也行，”安琪尔后来说。“我觉得在目前情况下，我没有权利进剑桥大学。”
        The effects of this decisive debate were not long in showing themselves. He spent years and years in desultory studies, undertakings, and meditations; he began to evince considerable indifference to social forms and observances. The material distinctions of rank and wealth he increasingly despised. Even the 'good old family' (to use a favourite phrase of a late local worthy) had no aroma for him unless there were good new resolutions in its representatives. As a balance to these austerities, when he went to live in London to see what the world was like, and with a view to practising a profession or business there, he was carried off his head, and nearly entrapped by a woman much older than himself, though luckily he escaped not greatly the worse for the experience.这场关键性的辩论结束了，它的影响不久也显现出来。多少年来，他进行了许多漫无边际的研究，尝试过多次杂乱无章的计划，进行过无数毫无系统的思考；开始对社会习俗和礼仪明显表现出满不在乎的态度。他越来越鄙夷地位、财富这种物质上的差别。在他看来，即使“古老世家”（使用近来故去的一个本地名人的字眼儿）也没有了香味，除非它的后人能有新的良好变化。为了使这种严酷单调的生活得到平衡，他就到伦敦去住，要看看伦敦的世界是什么样子，同时也为了从事一种职业或者生意在那儿进行锻炼，他在那儿遇上了一个年纪比他大得多的女人，被她迷昏厂头脑，差一点儿掉进她的陷阱，幸好他摆脱开了，没有因为这番经历吃了大亏。
        Early association with country solitudes had bred in him an unconquerable, and almost unreasonable, aversion to modern life, and shut him out from such success as he might have aspired to by following a mundane calling in the impracticability of the spiritual one. But something had to be done; he had wasted many valuable years; and having an acquaintance who was starting on a thriving life as a Colonial farmer, it occurred to Angel that this might be a lead in the right direction. Farming, either in the Colonies, America, or at home - farming, at any rate, after becoming well qualified for the business by a careful apprenticeship - that was a vocation which would probably afford an independence without the sacrifice of what he valued even more than a competency - intellectual liberty.他的幼年生活同乡村幽静生活的联系，使他对现代城市生活生出一种不可抑制的几乎是非理性的厌恶来，因此也使他同另一种成功隔离开来，使他既不愿从事精神方面的工作，也不愿立志追求一种世俗的职业。但是他不能不做一件工作；他已经虚度了许多年的宝贵光阴；后来认识了一个在殖民地务农而发达起来的朋友，因此他想到这也许是一条正确的途径。在殖民地，在美国，或者在国内务农——通过认真地学习务农，无论如何，在学会了这件事之后——也许务农是使他得到独立的一种职业，而不用牺牲他看得比可观的财产更为宝贵的东西，即精神自由。
        So we find Angel Clare at six-and-twenty here at Talbothays as a student of kine, and, as there were no houses near at hand in which he could get a comfortable lodging, a boarder at the dairyman's. His room was an immense attic which ran the whole length of the dairy-house. It could only be reached by a ladder from the cheese-loft, and had been closed up for a long time till he arrived and selected it as his retreat. Here Clare had plenty of space, and could often be heard by the dairy-folk pacing up and down when the household had gone to rest. A portion was divided off at one end by a curtain, behind which was his bed, the outer part being furnished as a homely sitting-room.因此，我们就看到安琪尔·克莱尔在二十六岁时来到泰波塞斯，做一个学习养牛的学徒，同时，因为附近找不到一个舒适的住处，所以他吃住都和奶牛场的老板在一起。他的房间是一个很大的阁楼，同整个牛奶房的长度一样长。奶酪间里有一架楼梯，只有从那儿才能上楼去，阁楼已经关闭了很长时间，他来了以后才把它打开作他的住处。克莱尔住在这儿，拥有大量空间，所有的人都睡了，奶牛场的人还听见他在那儿走来走去。阁楼的一头用帘子隔出了一部分，里面就是他的床铺，外面的部分则被布置成一个朴素的起居室。

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        At first he lived up above entirely, reading a good deal, and strumming upon an old harp which he had bought at a sale, saying when in a bitter humour that he might have to get his living by it in the streets some day. But he soon preferred to read human nature by taking his meals downstairs in the general dining-kitchen, with the dairyman and his wife, and the maids and men, who all together formed a lively assembly; for though but few milking hands slept in the house, several joined the family at meals. The longer Clare resided here the less objection had he to his company, and the more did he like to share quarters with them in common.起初他完全住在楼上，读了大量的书，弹一弹廉价买来的一架旧竖琴，在他感到心情苦恼无奈的时候，就说有一天他要在街上弹琴挣饭吃。可是后来不久，他就宁肯下楼到那间大饭厅里去体察人生，同老板、老板娘和男女工人一起吃饭了，所有这些人一起组成了一个生动的集体；因为只有很少的挤奶工人住在奶牛场里，但是同牛奶场老板一家吃饭的人倒有好几个。克莱尔在这儿住的时间越长，他同他的伙伴们的隔阂就越少，也愿意同他们多增加相互的往来。
        Much to his surprise he took, indeed, a real delight in their companionship. The conventional farm-folk of his imagination - personified in the newspaper-press by the pitiable dummy known as Hodge - were obliterated after a few days' residence. At close quarters no Hodge was to be seen. At first, it is true, when Clare's intelligence was fresh from a contrasting society, these friends with whom he now hobnobbed seemed a little strange. Sitting down as a level member of the dairyman's household seemed at the outset an undignified proceeding. The ideas, the modes, the surroundings, appeared retrogressive and unmeaning. But with living on there, day after day, the acute sojourner became conscious of a new aspect in the spectacle. Without any objective change whatever, variety had taken the place of monotonousness. His host and his host's household, his men and his maids, as they became intimately known to Clare, began to differentiate themselves as in a chemical process. The thought of Pascal's was brought home to him: `A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit, on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de difference entre les hommes.' The typical and unvarying Hodge ceased to exist. He had been disintegrated into a number of varied fellow-creatures - beings of many minds, beings infinite in difference; some happy, many serene, a few depressed, one here and there bright even to genius, some stupid, others wanton, others austere; some mutely Miltonic, some potentially Cromwellian; into men who had private views of each other, as he had of his friends; who could applaud or condemn each other, amuse or sadden themselves by the contemplation of each other's foibles or vices; men every one of whom walked in his own individual way the road to dusty death.使他大感意外的是，他的确真的喜欢与他们为伍了。他想象中的世俗农夫——报纸上所说的典型人物，著名的可怜笨伯霍吉——他住下来没有几天就从他心中消失了。同他们一接近，霍吉是不存在的。说真的，起初克莱尔从一个完全不同的社会来到这里，他感到同他朝夕相处的这些朋友呆在一起似乎有点儿异样。作为奶牛场老板一家人中的一个平等成员坐在一起，他在开头还觉得有失身分。他们的思想观念、生活方式和周围的环境似乎都是落后的、毫无意义的。但是他在那儿住下来，同他们天天生活在一起，于是寄居在这儿的这个眼光敏锐的人，就开始认识到这群平常人身上的全新的一面。虽然他看到的人并没有发生什么变化，但是丰富多采已经取代了单调乏味。老板和老板娘、男工和女工都变成了克莱尔熟悉的朋友，他们像发生化学变化一样开始显示出各自不同的特点。他开始想到帕斯卡说过的话：“一个人自身的心智越高，就越能发现别人的独特之处。平庸的人是看不出人与人之间的差别的。”①那种典型的没有变化的霍吉已经不存在了。他已经分化了，融进了大量的各色各样的人中间去了——成了一群思想丰富的人，一群差别无穷的人；有些人快乐，多数人沉静，还有几个人心情忧郁，其间也有聪明程度达到天才的人，也有一些人愚笨，有些人粗俗，有些人质朴；有些人是沉默无声的弥尔顿式的人物，有些人则是锋芒毕露的克伦威尔式的人物②；他们就像他认识自己的朋友一样，相互之间都有着自己的看法；他们也会相互赞扬，或者相互指责，或者因为想到各自的弱点或者缺点而感到好笑和难过；他们都按照各自的方式在通往尘土的死亡道路上走着。
        ①帕斯卡（Pascal，1623-1662），法国数学家和哲学家，引文引自其《沉思录》“总序”。
        ②该文出自于英国诗人托玛斯·葛雷的《墓园挽歌》一诗的第十五节。