【经典名著阅读】《德伯家的苔丝》第二十六章（中）

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        In their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right whatever to the title he claimed for the unknown young woman, Mr and Mrs Clare began to feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that she at least was sound in her views; especially as the conjunction of the pair must have arisen by an act of Providence; for Angel never would have made orthodoxy a condition of his choice. They said finally that it was better not to act in a hurry, but that they would not object to see her.克莱尔先生和克莱尔太太很有些怀疑他们的儿子声明那个他们不认识的年轻姑娘拥有的资格，他们的儿子自己是不是就有权利要求得到他说的那种资格，他们开始觉得有一个不能忽视的优点，那就是他的见解至少是正确的；他们尤其感到，他们的儿子和那个姑娘的缘分，必定是出于上帝的一种安排；因为克莱尔从来也不会把正统信仰看作他选择配偶的条件的。他们终于说，他最好不要匆忙行事，但是他们也不反对见见她。
        Angel therefore refrained from declaring more particulars now. He felt that, single-minded and self-sacrificing as his parents were, there yet existed certain latent prejudices of theirs, as middle-class people, which it would require some tact to overcome. For though legally at liberty to do as he chose, and though their daughter-in-law's qualifications could make no practical difference to their lives, in the probability of her living far away from them, he wished for affection's sake not to wound their sentiment in the most important decision of his life.因此，安琪尔现在也就对其它的细节避而不谈了。他总觉得，虽然他的父母心地单纯，有自我牺牲的精神，但是他们作为中产阶级的人，心中不免潜藏着某些偏见，这需要用点儿机智才能克服。虽然在法律上他有自由作主的权利，而且他们将来也可能要远远地离开他们生活，因此媳妇的身分就不会对父母的生活产生什么实际影响，但是为了父母的对自己的呵护，他希望在对自己一生作出最重要的决定时，不要伤害了父母的感情。
        He observed his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in Tess's life as if they were vital features. It was for herself that he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance - not for her skill in the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certainly not for her simple formal faith-professions. Her unsophisticated open-air existence required no varnish of conventionality to make it palatable to him. He held that education had as yet but little affected the beats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness depends. It was probable that, in the lapse of ages, improved systems of moral and intellectual training would appreciably, perhaps considerably, elevate the involuntary and even the unconscious instincts of human nature; but up to the present day culture, as far as he could see, might be said to have affected only the mental epiderm of those lives which had been brought under its influence. This belief was confirmed by his experience of women, which, having latterly been extended from the cultivated middle-class into the rural community, had taught him how much less was the intrinsic difference between the good and wise woman of one social stratum and the good and wise woman of another social stratum, than between the good and bad, the wise and the foolish, of the same stratum or class.他在详述苔丝生活中的一些偶然事件时，把它们当成了最重要的特点，因此自己也觉得言不由衷。他爱苔丝，完全是为了苔丝自己；为了她的灵魂，为了她的心性，为了她的本质——而不是因为她有奶牛场里的技艺，有读书的才能，更不是因为她有纯洁的正统的宗教信仰。她那种天真纯朴的自然本色，无需习俗的粉饰，就能让他喜欢。他认为家庭幸福所依靠的感情和激情的搏动，教育对它们的影响是微乎其微的。经过许多个世纪以后，道德和知识训练的体系大概也有了改进，就会在一定程度上，也许在相当大的程度上提高人类天性中不自觉的、甚至是无意识的本能。但是就他看来，直到今天，也许可以说文化对于那些被置于它的影响之下的人，才在他们的表皮上产生了一点儿影响。他的这种信念，由于他同妇女接触的经验而得到证实，他同妇女的接触，近来已经从受过教育的中产阶级发展到了农村社会，并从中得出一个真理，一个社会阶层中贤惠聪明的女子和另一个社会阶层中贤惠聪明的女子，跟同一个阶层或阶级中的贤惠与凶恶、聪明与愚笨的女子比起来，她们本质上的差别是多么地小。

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        It was the morning of his departure. His brothers had already left the vicarage to proceed on a walking tour in the north, whence one was to return to his college, and the other to his curacy. Angel might have accompanied them, but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart at Talbothays. He would have been an awkward member of the party; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. To neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.那天早晨是他离家的时候。他的两个哥哥早已经离开牧师住宅，往北徒步旅行去了，旅行完了，就一个回他的学院，另一个回到他的副牧师职位上去。安琪尔本来可以和他们一块儿去旅行，但是他更愿意回泰波塞斯去，好同他心爱的人会面。要是他们三个人一块儿去旅行，他一定会觉得很别扭，因为在三个人中间，虽然他是最有欣赏力的人文主义者，最有理想的宗教家，甚至是三个人中对基督最有研究的学者，但是他总觉得同他们的标准思想已经有了疏远，同他们为他准备的方圆格格不入。因此无论是对费利克斯还是卡斯伯特，他都没有提起过苔丝。
        His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him, on his own mare, a little way along the road. Having fairly well advanced his own affairs Angel listened in a willing silence, as they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's account of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother clergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of the New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious Calvinistic doctrine.他的母亲亲自给他做了一些三明治，他的父亲骑上自己的一匹母马，陪着他走了一段路。既然自己的事情已经有了相当不错的进展，他也就心甘情愿地听父亲谈话，而自己一声不吭。他们骑着马一起在林阴路上一颠一颠地走着，他的父亲也就一边向他诉说教区上的困难，说他受到他所爱的同行牧师的冷淡，原因就是他按照加尔文的学说严格解释了《新约》，而他的同行们则认为加尔文学说是有害的。
        'Pernicious!' said Mr Clare, with genial scorn; and he proceeded to recount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea. He told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he had been the instrument, not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and well-to-do; and he also candidly admitted many failures.“有害的！”老克莱尔先生用温和的鄙夷口气说；他接着又述说了过去的种种经历，用以说明那种思想是荒谬的。他列举了许多他亲自把浪子劝化过来的惊人例子，这些人中不仅有穷人，也有富人和中产阶级的人；同时他也坦率地承认，还有许多浪子没有被他劝化过来。
        As an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a young upstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in the neighbourhood of Trantridge.在没有被劝化过来的人里面，他提到一个例子。那个人的名字叫德贝维尔，是一个年轻的暴发户，住在特兰里奇，离这儿有四十里远近。
        'Not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and other places?' asked his son. 'That curiously historic worn-out family with its ghostly legend of the coach-and-four?'“在金斯伯尔那些地方，有一户古老的德贝维尔人家，他是不是这户人家里的人？”儿子问。“关于这户衰败了的人家，在它的离奇的历史里，还有一段四马大车的鬼怪传说呢。”