■德伯家的苔丝
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
◎Thomas Hardy/托马斯·哈代
The serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.
Tess appeared on the threshold—not at all as he had expected to see her—bewilderingly otherwise, indeed. Her great natural beauty was, if not heightened, rendered more obvious by her attire. She was loosely wrapped in a cashmere[17] dressing-gown of gray-white,embroidered[18] in half-mourning tints, and she wore slippers of the same hue. Her neck rose out of a frill of down, and her well-remembered cable of dark-brown hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the back of her head and partly hanging on her shoulder—the evident result of haste.
He had held out his arms, but they had fallen again to his side; for she had not come forward, remaining still in the opening of the doorway. Mere yellow skeleton that he was now he felt the contrast between them, and thought his appearance distasteful to her.
作品导读
凡是有甜美的鸟歌唱的地方，也都有毒蛇嘶嘶鸣叫。
苔丝出现在门口——完全不是他料想的样子——他感到很费解。她本来就天生丽质，她这一身装扮，就算没有更美，也让她更耀眼了。她身上松松垮垮地裹着件灰白色的羊绒睡衣，衣服上绣着素白的花色，脚上穿着同一色调的拖鞋。衣服领边有一圈毛绒褶边，那头让他记忆深刻的棕黑色头发半绾在脑后、半零碎地披在肩头，显然，她是匆忙出来的。
他伸出双臂，但又放了回来，因为她没有走上前来，还保持着原来的姿势站在门边。他觉得自己现在依旧面黄肌瘦，与她差距太大，而且认为自己的样子会让她心生厌恶。
“Tess!” he said huskily, “can you forgive me for going away? Can’t you—come to me? How do you get to be—like this?”
“It is too late,” said she, her voice sounding hard through the room, her eyes shining unnaturally.
“I did not think rightly of you—I did not see you as you were!” he continued to plead.“I have learnt to since, dearest Tessy mine!”
“Too late, too late!” she said, waving her hand in the impatience of a person whose tortures[19] cause every instant to seem an hour.“Don’t come close to me, Angel! No—you must not. Keep away.”
“But don’t you love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled down by illness? You are not so fickle—I am come on purpose for you—my mother and father will welcome you now!”
“Yes—O, yes, yes! But I say, I say it is too late.” She seemed to feel like a fugitive in a dream, who tries to move away, but cannot.“Don’t you know all—don’t you know it? Yet how do you come here if you do not know?”
“I inquired here and there, and I found the way.”
“I waited and waited for you,” she went on, her tones suddenly resuming their old fluty pathos.“But you did not come! And I wrote to you, and you did not come! He kept on saying you would never come any more, and that I was a foolish woman. He was very kind to me, and to mother, and to all of us after father’s death. He—”
“I don’t understand.”
“He has won me back to him.”
Clare looked at her keenly, then, gathering her meaning, flagged like one plague-stricken, and his glance sank; it fell on her hands, which, once rosy, were now white and more delicate.
“苔丝！”他的声音有些沙哑，“你能原谅我曾弃你而去吗？你难道不能——过来我身边吗？你怎么是——这个样子？”
“太晚了。”苔丝说着，听起来冷酷无情的声音响彻在房间里。她的眼睛不自然地闪着。
“是我误会你了——我没有看清你的内心！”他继续恳求道，“我最亲爱的苔丝，我已经知道错了！”
“太晚了，太晚了！”她一边说着，一边不耐烦地挥着手，似乎这是一种折磨，每一分钟都好像一个小时那么长。“不要接近我，安琪尔！不要——一定不要。离我远点。”
“但是，难道你不再爱我了吗？我亲爱的妻子，就因为我被病魔折磨得形同枯槁？你不会这么快就变心——我今天是专门来找你的——我的父母也会很欢迎你！”
“是的，哦，是的是的！但是，我说了，我说现在太晚了。”她感觉自己仿佛是梦里的逃亡者，努力想挣脱，却动也动不了。“你难道不知道所有的事——你不知道？可是，你要是不知道，怎么会来这？”
“我到处打听，才找到了这个地方。”
“我一直等你，等啊等，”她继续说，语气突然重新变成他们以前的对话那样温婉哀凉，“但是你没来！我也给你写了信，你还是没来！他一直跟我说你永远都不会再回来了，说我是个傻女人。我父亲去世后，他对我，对我母亲，对我们所有人都和和气气。他——”
“我不明白你的意思。”
“他重新赢得了我的心。”
克莱尔看了她一眼，目光强烈，也明白了她的意思，然后就像被瘟疫侵袭了一般，瘫软下来。他的目光下沉，落在她的双手上，那原本蔷薇色的双手，现在也变得白白嫩嫩，更加光滑细致。
She continued—
“He is upstairs. I hate him now, because he told me a lie—that you would not come again; and you have come! These clothes are what he’s put upon me: I didn’t care what he did wI’me! But—will you go away, Angel, please, and never come any more?”
They stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their eyes with a joylessness pitiful to see. Both seemed to implore something to shelter them from reality.
“Ah—it is my fault!” said Clare.
But he could not get on. Speech was as inexpressive as silence. But he had a vague consciousness of one thing, though it was not clear to him till later; that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognize the body before him as hers—allowing it to drift, like a corpse upon the current, in a direction dissociated from its living will.
A few instants passed, and he found that Tess was gone. His face grew colder and more shrunken as he stood concentrated on the moment, and a minute or two after he found himself in the street, walking along he did not know whither.
她继续说——
“他在楼上。现在我很恨他，因为他对我撒谎——他说你不会回来了；但你现在就在我面前！这身衣服是他要我穿的：我并不在意他要我做什么！但——你走吧，安琪尔，请不要再来了，行不行？”
他们定定地站着，不知所措，伤心欲绝地看着彼此，让人看了难受。他们都想找到些什么，来将他们与现实隔离开。
“啊——都是我的错！”克莱尔说。
但他无法继续说下去。任何言语都如同沉默般苍白无力。但他模模糊糊地意识到一件事，尽管到后来才清晰起来；那就是苔丝从精神上已经无法意识到站在他面前的肉体是她自己——她任由自己的肉体像一具尸体一样，在水流里漂漂浮浮，远离她生命的意愿任意漂走。
几分钟过去了，他发现苔丝已经离开了。他全神贯注地站在那儿看了一会儿，感觉脸越发冰凉疲惫。一两分钟后，他发现自己已经身处街道中，他也不知道自己将何去何从。