Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen

It was a misty dawn in August.The dense fogs of the night, being warmed by the sun, were spreading and shrinking into mounds, which hid themselves in the hollows, in the woods, where they gathered, until at last they were all gone. Because of the mist, the sun also became strange, with a human face and a human feeling. To express it clearly, you have to use masculine pronouns.His present appearance, together with the absence of a human figure in the scene, immediately explained the ancient sun-worship.You can feel that there is no religion in the whole world more reasonable than his.This luminous object is a living being, with golden hair, soft eyes, and high spirits, like God, full of youthful vitality, staring at the earth intently, as if the earth is full of things that he finds interesting.

After a while his light, passing through the chinks in the shutters of the cottage, fell like red-hot cleaning rods on the cupboards, chests of drawers, and other furniture; The farmers of the crops. But the reddest of all the red objects that morning were two broad wooden supports, painted red, that stood on the edge of a blond cornfield close to the village of Marlott.Together with the two wooden supports below, they form the revolving Maltese cross on the harvester, which was brought to the ground yesterday to be used today.The red paint painted on the cross makes its color more vivid when the sun shines on it, making it look like the cross is soaked in red liquid flames.

① Maltese cross (Maltese cros), there are various styles of crosses, the main ones are Latin, Greek and Maltese.Maltese crosses are wider on the outside and narrower at the base. That piece of wheat field has been "cut"; that is to say, around this wheat field, someone has hand-cut the wheat circle around, opened a path a few feet wide, so that the beginning of cutting Horses and machines were able to pass when Maishi. Two groups of people had come on the cut path in the wheat field, one group was men and boys, and the other group was women. When the heads of the two harvesters were bathed in the morning glow, their feet were still in the dawn.On either side of the fence gate in the nearby wheat field were two stone pillars, between which the reapers went and disappeared.

Soon, there was a "chacha" sound in the wheat field, which seemed to be the sound of grasshoppers talking about love.The machine started to harvest wheat. Looking from the side of the fence gate, I saw three horses walking side by side pulling the rickety rectangular machine mentioned above. A horse pulling the machine rode a driver. On the seat of the machine sits a watcher.The mechanical chariot moved forward along one side of the wheat field, and the arm of the machine's wheat harvesting machine slowly turned, and it drove over the hillside and disappeared completely from sight.After a while, it reappeared with the same regular speed on the other side of the wheat field; when the wheat cutting machine appeared over the stubble field, the first thing to see was the shining copper star on the forehead of the horse in front, and then the The bright red arm of the machine harvesting the wheat, the whole machine last seen.

Every time the wheat harvesting machine makes a circle, the narrow strip of wheat stubble around the wheat field widens by one layer. As the morning slowly passes, there is only a small piece of wheat field still growing.The big hare, the little hare, the worm, the big mouse, and the little mouse all retreated to the interior of the wheat field together, as if they were going to hide in a fortress, but they didn't realize that their refuge was only temporary, and they didn't realize that they were destructive. Destiny is waiting for them. Today, when the place where they hide is shrinking and shrinking, and finally becomes a terrible small piece, no matter whether they are friends or enemies, they will be crowded and hiding together. When the last few hundred yards of wheat were cut down, the reapers would take sticks and stones and beat them to death one by one.

The reaper cuts the wheat and leaves it behind the machine in small piles, each pile just big enough to make a sheaf; the binders are busy where there are piles and are binding the wheat by hand —The sheaves are mainly women, but there are also men who wear calico shirts and trousers tied at the waist with a belt so that the two buttons at the back are useless, Every time they moved, the buttons flashed in the sun like eyes on their backs. But among the group of sheaves of wheat, it is the women who are the most interesting, because once a woman is out of doors and becomes a part of nature, she is no longer just an object placed there as usual. , they were particularly attractive at that time.A man in the field is just a person in the field; a woman in the field is an integral part of the field; she loses the boundary with the field in some respects, absorbs the essence of the surrounding environment, and makes herself integrated with the surrounding environment. into one.

The women—or rather girls, since they were mostly young—were wearing ruched millinery hats with wide brims to keep out the sun, and gloves on their hands to protect them from the sun. Stubble scratches.Among them was a man in a pink blouse, another in a cream gown with narrow sleeves, and another in a short skirt as red as a reaper's cross; the other women were all older These were all in brown smocks or overcoats--the old-fashioned dress most suitable for women working in the fields, and young girls no longer wore them.This morning all eyes were drawn to the girl in the pink cotton blouse, who had the slimmest and most elastic figure of all the girls.But her hat was drawn low over her forehead, so that when she was sheaving she could not see her face at all, except for a strand or two of dark brown hair that fell from under the brim of her hat. , you can roughly guess the color of her skin, she can't avoid the occasional attention of others, maybe there is a reason that she doesn't want others to pay attention to her, and other women's eyes are always wandering around.

She went on tying wheat as monotonously as a clock.She took a handful of ears from the freshly tied sheaf, and patted the heads with the palm of her left hand to straighten them.Then, bending forward, she brought the heap to her knees with both hands, and her gloved left hand passed under the heap to meet the other right hand, hugging the wheat in her arms as if embracing a lover. arms.She gathered the ends of the sheaf of wheat sheaves bound and knelt on the sheaf to tie it tight, and the breeze blew her skirt up and she kept pulling it back.Between the sleeve of her dress and the soft dark yellow leather glove, a bare arm could be seen; and as the day wore on, the girl's round arm was punctured by the stubble and bleeding.

Now and then she stood up to rest, to refasten a disheveled apron, or to straighten a hat on her head.At this time, you can see a young and beautiful girl with a duck-egg-shaped face, dark eyes, and long, thick hair that is smooth and smooth, as if no matter what it is scattered on, it will be caught. Stick tightly.Her cheeks were whiter, her teeth more regular, and her red lips thinner than that of an ordinary country girl. She was Tess Durbeyfield, or d'Urberville, more or less changed—the same and not the same; at this stage of her existence she lived like a stranger. , or a foreigner here, in fact, the place where she lives is not unfamiliar to her at all.She hid at home for a long time, and then she made up her mind to go out and find some work in the village, because it was the busiest season of the year in the countryside at that time, and anything she did in the house would be It is not as much money as harvesting crops in the field at that time.

The other women bound the wheat in much the same way as Tess did. Each of them tied a sheaf, like a quadrille, gathered from all sides, and stood up their sheaves against the others. Eventually piles of ten or twelve were formed, or, as the natives say, a stack. They went to breakfast, went back to the field, and went back to work as usual.Near eleven o'clock, anyone watching her would have noticed that Tess looked sadly at the top of the hill from time to time, but she did not stop tying the wheat in her hands.Just before eleven o'clock, a group of children, ranging in age from six to fourteen, emerged from a high stubble-covered spot on the hillside.

Tess blushed a little, but the sheaves were still tied. The oldest of the group was a girl, wearing a triangular shawl with one end trailing in the stubble, and she was holding in her arms what at first appeared to be a doll, which turned out to be a clothed baby .The other has lunch in hand.The reapers stopped working, took out their food, and sat down against the pile of wheat.It was here that they began to eat, and the men drank casually from a stone jug, passing glasses from one to the other. Tess Durbeyfield was the last to stop what she was doing.She sat down at the other end of the pile, turning her face away from her companion.When she sat down on the ground, a man with a rabbit fur hat on his head and a red handkerchief tucked into his waistband held a wine glass and offered her a drink from the top of the wheat pile.But she did not accept his attentions.As soon as her lunch was set, she called the older child, her sister, and took the baby from her hand, and her sister, who was enjoying herself, ran to another pile of corn to play with the other children. stand up.As the blush grew on Tess' cheeks, with a quiet but bold movement she unbuttoned her blouse and began to nurse the baby. The men who sat there closest to her thoughtfully turned their faces to the other side of the floor, and a few of them started smoking; there was also a forgetful man who touched the wine jar regretfully, and the wine jar was gone again Not a single drop came out.All the women except Tess began to talk enthusiastically, as they straightened the messy knots of their hair. When the baby was full, the young mother put him on her lap, made him sit upright, and played with her knees, but her eyes were looking into the distance, her face was sad and indifferent, almost like a baby. Then, she bent her face down and kissed the baby's face dozens of times, as if she could never get enough. In her violent kisses, there was a strange mixture of love and disdain, and the child also Wept loudly after being kissed. "Actually, she only likes that child in her heart. Regardless of what she says, I hope that both the child and herself are dead," said a woman in a red dress. "It won't be long before she says those things," a man in yellow replied. "Lord, it's really unexpected that after a long time, a person can get used to that kind of thing!" "I think it wasn't just a matter of coaxing. One night last year, someone heard someone crying in the hunting park; if someone had gone in at that time, it might have been difficult for them." "Well, anyway, it's such a thing that happens to no one else, and it's a pity that it happened to her. But it's always the prettiest kind of thing! Ugly girl, sure. None--well, don't you, Jenny?" The speaker said, turning to a girl in the crowd, that if he said she was ugly, he was right. Very pitiful indeed; and Tess, as she sat there, could not have been pitiable to her enemies, with her lips like a flower, and her eyes, large and soft, neither black nor blue. colored, neither grey, nor purple; all these colors were blended together, and a hundred others were added, which you could tell by looking at the iridescence of her eyes. --a color after another--a color within a color--the depths round her pupils; she was almost a woman, but there was something in her character An indiscretion inherited from her family. She had been hiding at home for several months, and this week she went to work in the field for the first time, and her courage surprised even herself.She was ignorant of the world, so she had to stay alone in the family army, using all kinds of regretful methods to torture and consume her beating heart. Later, common sense made her understand.She felt that there was something more she could do to make herself useful—she would give anything for a taste of the sweetness of her new independence.The past is past after all; no matter what happened in the past, it no longer exists.Whatever the consequences of the past, time will cover them up; after a few years, they will be as if nothing happened, and she herself will be covered by grass and forgotten.At this time, the trees are still green as usual, the birds are still singing as usual, and the sun is still as bright as usual.The environment she is familiar with around her will not be depressed for her because of her sadness, nor will she be sad for her because of her pain. Perhaps she saw what was holding her head up so utterly—it was her belief that the world cared about her situation—an idea based entirely on illusion.No one but herself cares about her existence, encounters, feelings, and complex feelings.To all those around Tess, they thought of her only occasionally.Even her friends, they just think of her a lot.If she tortured herself day and night by being away from others, it was all she could do to them—"Oh, she's just asking for trouble." And if she takes pleasure in it, they'll think of her again--"Oh, she can bear it." And, if she's living alone on a desert island, will she torture herself for what happened to her?unlikely.If she had just been created by God to find herself a widowed mother who had borne a child, knowing nothing but that she was the mother of an unnamed baby, was she Do you still feel hopeless about your situation?No, she would just take it in stride and have fun with it.Most of her pain was caused by her worldly delusions, not by her inherent feelings. Whatever Tess reasoned, some spirit urged her, and she dressed as before, and went out into the field, for at that time there was a great need for hands to harvest the crops.It was because of this that she built up her dignity. Even with the child in her arms, she dared to look up at people occasionally, and she didn't feel afraid anymore. The harvest men stood up from the stacks, stretched their limbs, and extinguished the fireworks in their pipes.The horse that had been unloaded before was full and was put on the red harvester again. Tess quickly finished her meal and beckoned her eldest sister to come over and let her take the child away, so she buttoned up her clothes He put on soft yellow leather gloves, walked up to the last sheaf of wheat, bent down, and took out a bunch of wheat from it, and went to bind another heap of wheat. In the afternoon and evening, the morning work continued, and Tess remained with the reapers until dark.When work was over, they all rode into the largest carriage, and they set out for home with the pale full moon just rising on the eastern horizon, the moon's face like a moth-eaten Tuscan sanctuary. Like a halo of dull gold leaf pasted on the head.Tess's companions sang to express their sympathy and joy at Tess's return to work, though they could not resist the mischief of singing a few ballads about a girl who had walked into the green Merry Wood However, when he came back, he changed his appearance.There was always balance and compensation in life; the same thing that made Tess a social vigilante also made Tess the most striking figure in the eyes of many in the village.Their friendliness took her away from her old self, and their vivaciousness was contagious, so she almost cheered up too. Now her moral sorrow was slowly dying away, but a new sorrow arose in her nature, which knew nothing of the laws of nature.When she got home, she was very sad to hear that her child had suddenly fallen ill that afternoon.The child's physique was thin and delicate, and illness was expected, but this incident still surprised her. The birth of a child into the world is a crime against society, but the young mother has forgotten this crime; the wish in her heart is to save the child's life and let this crime continue.But it soon became clear that the time for the little prisoner of the body to be freed was coming. She thought of the worst outcome, but she didn't expect it to come so early.She saw this, and she fell into grief, even greater than the simple death of the child.Her child has not yet been baptized. ① Baptism (Bapitism), according to the Christian concept, baptism has two meanings, one is to wash away the original sin carried on the body, and the other is to allow to enter heaven.Children who die without baptism cannot enter heaven, but suffer in hell. Tess had entered into a state of mind where she had passively accepted a remedy, that if she deserved to be burned for her actions, she should be burned, which was also a kind of closure.Like all the girls in the village, everything is based on the "Bible". I have carefully studied the history of Ahola and Aholiba, ②Aholah and Aholibah, see Chapter 23 of the Book of Ezekiel in the Bible.There were two women who committed adultery in Egypt. The name of the sister was Oholah, and the name of the sister was Oholibah."A righteous man will judge them, because they are harlots," says the LORD. "And I will send many against them, and I will throw them about and plunder them; and they will stone them, and they will kill them with the sword, And killed their sons and daughters, and burned their houses with fire, so that all the women might be warned." coc2 concludes by reasoning from it.But when the same problem that arises is related to her child, it takes on a different color.Her darling was dying, her soul was dying before it was saved. It was nearly bedtime, but she hurried downstairs to ask if she would send for the priest.At that time, her father had just returned from drinking once a week at the Rolliver's Hotel. It happened to be the time when he felt most strongly about his family being an ancient aristocrat, and it was also the time when he felt the most important thing about Tess to this aristocrat. The most publicized stain on the home is felt most sensitively.He declared that no clergyman should be allowed to enter his house, and pry into his privacy, for at that time her shame was more necessary than ever to be concealed.He locked the door and put the key into his pocket. The whole family went to bed, and Tess, too miserable to be more miserable, was obliged to go to bed too.She lay in bed and kept waking up, and in the middle of the night she found that the child was getting worse.It was obvious that the child was dying—quietly and without pain, but dying. She tossed and turned in pain.The clock strikes the solemn one o'clock in the morning, when fantasy rises above reason and terrible possibility becomes unassailable fact.In her imagination, because of the two great sins of not being baptized and being illegitimate, the child was thrown into the deepest corner of hell; she saw the devil leader holding a three-edged steel fork in his hand, Forking her child back and forth, the same steel fork used to light the oven when baking bread; It was spoken to young people in this Christian country.There was silence in the room where she slept, and the horror scene was so intense that her imagination became more realistic. She broke out in a cold sweat and drenched her pajamas, her heart was beating violently, and every time she beat, the bed would feel the same. Just shake it. The baby's breathing became more and more difficult, and the mother's tension increased.She kissed the child in vain; she could not stay in bed any longer, and paced anxiously about the room. "O merciful God, have mercy; have mercy on me, poor child!" she cried. "Take your wrath upon me, I will; but pity my child!" Leaning on the chest of drawers, she murmured a prayer intermittently for half a day, then jumped up suddenly. "Ah! Maybe the child can be saved! Maybe it's all the same!" When she spoke, her face also became very cheerful, as if the face hidden in the darkness also shone with light. She lit a candle, went to the second and third beds against the wall, and woke up her brother and sister, who were all sleeping in the same room with her.She pulled out the washstand again, stood behind the washstand herself, poured some water from the pitcher, made her brother and sister kneel around her, stretched out their hands, stretched out their fingers and closed them together.At that time, the children hadn't fully woken up yet. Seeing her like that, they felt majestic and terrifying, so they kept that posture and opened their eyes wider and wider.She picked up the baby from the bed - she was a child's child - she was not yet fully grown, and she almost seemed unworthy of the title of mother to that child.Tess, with the baby in her arms, stood erect by the washbasin, and her eldest sister stood before her with the prayer-book open, like a church clerk with an open prayer-book. The book stood before the priest; and thus the girl began to baptize her child. She stood there in her long white pajamas, very tall and majestic, with a thick black braid hanging from the back of her head to her waist.The weak, gentle light of the candle concealed the little ailments of her body and face—the scratches on her wrists from the wheat stubble, the weariness in her eyes, which might have been revealed in daylight.Her high passions had beautified the face which had once killed her, and expressed a pure beauty, with a majesty almost queenly.The group of children knelt around her, their sleepy eyes red and blinking, waiting for her to get ready.They were full of curiosity in their hearts, but they were too sleepy to understand the curiosity in their hearts. One of them felt the most, and said: "Are you really going to christen him, Tess?" The teenage mother answered in the affirmative with dignity. "What will you name him?" She didn't think about choosing a name, but when she continued the baptism ceremony, she suddenly thought of a sentence in "Genesis". A name was mentioned in that sentence, and she read it casually: "Bitter, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son."① ①The sixteenth chapter of the third chapter of "Bible Genesis" says: "I will increase your pain in conception, and you will suffer more when you give birth to your children." She sprinkled the water on the baby and was silent for a moment. "Children, say 'Amen.'" After listening to her words, a small voice said "Amen". Tess continued: "We take the boy,"—wait—"cross him in the sign of the cross." After reading this, she put her hand into the washbasin, enthusiastically drew a big cross on the child with her index finger, and then continued to read those routine sentences, such as bravely fighting against evil, the world and the devil, and always Be a faithful warrior and servant to the end of your life.She continued to say the Lord's Prayer as was customary, and the children, whispering like mosquitoes, followed her, and at the end they all raised their voices to the level of the minister's assistant and said "Amen" together. , and then there is no sound at all. Afterwards, their sister's confidence in the efficacy of the baptism increased greatly, and from the depths of her heart she said a prayer of thanksgiving to God, which she said boldly, in organ-harmonic tones, With a triumphant tone, it was a voice that those who knew her would never forget.The ecstasy of her faith sanctified her; her face was radiant, and a blush appeared in the middle of each cheek; and the shadows of the candlelight cast into the pupils of her eyes shone like two diamonds.The children looked up at her in growing awe, no longer in the mood to ask questions.To the children she was no longer their sister now, but a great, majestic, and admirable figure—a goddess who had nothing in common with them. Poor wretch, who struggles against sin, the world, and the devil, is doomed to a limited amount of glory--fortunately for himself, perhaps, considering how he came into the world.In the gloom of the morning, when the weak soldier breathed his last, the children burst into tears when they understood, and begged their sister for a beautiful little child. Tess had been at peace since her baptism, and her peace remained after the death of the child.After daybreak she did feel that her fears for the child's soul were somewhat exaggerated; Because the non-standard baptism does not allow children to enter heaven, then whether it is for herself or for her children, she will no longer value this kind of heaven. Thus died the unwelcome misery--an uninvited man, the natural gift and bastard of a disgraceful disrespect for social propriety; For him, the space of a hut is the whole universe, the atmosphere of a week is the climate of a year, the period of infancy is the existence of human beings, and the suckling Instinct is human knowledge. Tess thought long and hard about the baptism in her mind, and wondered whether there would be enough reason to give the child a Christian funeral.No one but the vicar of the parish could tell her that the vicar was new and did not know her.When evening came, she came to the parsonage, and stood by the door, but not yet courageous enough to go in.When she turned to leave, she happened to meet the pastor who was going home. If not, her plan would have been abandoned by her.In the hazy night, she didn't care to say things clearly. "I want to ask you something, sir." He offered to hear what she asked, and she told him about the sickness of the child, and about the impromptu baptism she had given him. "Now, sir," she added earnestly, "won't you tell me if this is the same thing as you baptized him?" He had the natural feeling of a businessman, and when he found that a job he should have been called to do was being done clumsily for him by his customers, he wanted to answer her that it was different.But as soon as he saw the solemn look of the girl, as soon as he heard the strange softness of her voice, the noble feeling in his heart was aroused, or in his attempt to graft mechanical belief on practical skepticism. And after decades of hard work, what little emotion remained in him was revived.Man and priest were at war in his heart, and man was victorious. "My dear girl," said he, "it's all the same." "Then you'll give him a Christian funeral?" she asked hastily. The pastor felt himself stumped.Hearing that the child was sick, he once found out his conscience and went to baptize the child after dark, but he didn't know that it was Tess's father, not Tess herself, who forbade him to enter, so he could not accept that Tess had to do this. A defense of informal baptism. "Ah—that's another matter," he said. "It's another matter--why?" asked Tess, looking very excited. "Well—if it were just the two of us, I'd be willing to do it for you. But, for some other reason, I can't." "Just this once, sir!" "I really can't do it." "Ah, sir!" she said, taking the priest's hand. The priest withdrew his hand and shook his head. "Then I don't like you!" she burst out, "and I'll never go to your church again." "Don't speak so lightly." "If you don't baptize him, will it be all the same to him? ... Is it all the same? For God's sake, please don't talk to me like a saint talks to a sinner, but like yourself Say the same thing about me—I'm so poor!" The priest has his own strict ideas about these questions, but how he reconciles them with his answers is quite beyond our mortal comprehension.The pastor was moved, and replied thus: "It's exactly the same." So that night the baby was put into a little fir box, covered with a woman's old shawl, and at the expense of a shilling and a pint of beer, the deacon was hired to bring him down by the light of a lantern. Buried in that shabby corner God allotted.There grows nettles, and all unbaptized babies, notorious drunkards, cowards who commit suicide, and a few others who are going to hell, are buried in one haphazard way.However, despite the bad surroundings, Tess still bravely made a cross with two pieces of wood and a rope, tied flowers on it, ran into the churchyard one night when no one was paying attention, and put A cross was erected on the grave, and the same flowers were placed in a small vase.The bottle holds water which will not wilt the flowers.On the outside of the bottle, the words "Givel's Jam Company" can be seen at a glance, but what does that matter?Eyes with maternal love cannot see these words, but only something more noble.