Before reading the letter he was led to suspect that its contents were of a somewhat serious kind by catching sight of the signature-- which was in her full name, never used in her correspondence with him since her first note:
MY DEAR JUDE,--I have something to tell you which perhaps you will not be surprised to hear, though certainly it may strike you as being accelerated (as the railway companies say of their trains). Mr. Phillotson and I are to be married quite soon-- in three or four weeks.
We had intended, as you know, to wait till I had gone through my course of training and obtained my certificate, so as to assist him, if necessary, in the teaching. But he generously says he does not see any object in waiting, now I am not at the training school. It is so good of him, because the awkwardness of my situation has really come about by my fault in getting expelled.
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5
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给我道喜吧。务必记住我要你这样做,不得拒绝!你的亲爱的表亲
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5
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Wish me joy. Remember I say you are to, and you mustn’t refuse!-- Your affectionate cousin,
Jude staggered under the news; could eat no breakfast; and kept on drinking tea because his mouth was so dry. Then presently he went back to his work and laughed the usual bitter laugh of a man so confronted. Everything seemed turning to satire. And yet, what could the poor girl do? he asked himself: and felt worse than shedding tears.
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8
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“唉,苏珊娜·弗洛仑·马利呀!”他一边干活一边说。“你可不知道结婚是什么滋味哟!”
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8
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"O Susanna Florence Mary!" he said as he worked. "You don’t know what marriage means!"
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9
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上回他醉醺醺跑到她那儿去,逼得她订了婚,难道这一回因为他对她讲了自己结婚的事,又逼得她走这一步吗?
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9
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Could it be possible that his announcement of his own marriage had pricked her on to this, just as his visit to her when in liquor may have pricked her on to her engagement?
To be sure, there seemed to exist these other and sufficient reasons, practical and social, for her decision; but Sue was not a very practical or calculating person; and he was compelled to think that a pique at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way to Phillotson’s probable representations, that the best course to prove how unfounded were the suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off-hand, as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement. Sue had, in fact, been placed in an awkward corner. Poor Sue!
He determined to play the Spartan; to make the best of it, and support her; but he could not write the requested good wishes for a day or two. Meanwhile there came another note from his impatient little dear:
Jude, will you give me away? I have nobody else who could do it so conveniently as you, being the only married relation I have here on the spot, even if my father were friendly enough to be willing, which he isn’t. I hope you won’t think it a trouble? I have been looking at the marriage service in the prayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all.
According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don’t choose him. Somebody GIVES me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views of woman, O churchman! But I forget: I am no longer privileged to tease you.--Ever,
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14
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苏珊娜·弗洛仑·马利·柏瑞和
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14
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SUSANNA FLORENCE MARY BRIDEHEAD.
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15
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裘德一咬牙,亮出了英雄气概,回信说:
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15
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Jude screwed himself up to heroic key; and replied:
MY DEAR SUE,--Of course I wish you joy! And also of course I will give you away. What I suggest is that, as you have no house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend’s, but from mine. It would be more proper, I think, since I am, as you say, the person nearest related to you in this part of the world.
What had jarred on him even more than the signature was a little sting he had been silent on--the phrase "married relation"-- What an idiot it made him seem as her lover! If Sue had written that in satire, he could hardly forgive her; if in suffering-- ah, that was another thing!
His offer of his lodging must have commended itself to Phillotson at any rate, for the schoolmaster sent him a line of warm thanks, accepting the convenience. Sue also thanked him. Jude immediately moved into more commodious quarters, as much to escape the espionage of the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of Sue’s unpleasant experience as for the sake of room.
Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Jude decided, after inquiry, that she should come into residence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days’ stay in the city prior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing a nominal residence of fifteen.
She arrived by the ten o’clock train on the day aforesaid, Jude not going to meet her at the station, by her special request, that he should not lose a morning’s work and pay, she said (if this were her true reason). But so well by this time did he know Sue that the remembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises might, he thought, have weighed with her in this. When he came home to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment.
She lived in the same house with him, but on a different floor, and they saw each other little, an occasional supper being the only meal they took together, when Sue’s manner was something like that of a scared child. What she felt he did not know; their conversation was mechanical, though she did not look pale or ill. Phillotson came frequently, but mostly when Jude was absent.
On the morning of the wedding, when Jude had given himself a holiday, Sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this curious interval; in his room--the parlour-- which he had hired for the period of Sue’s residence. Seeing, as women do, how helpless he was in making the place comfortable, she bustled about.
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24
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“你怎么啦,裘德?”她突然说。
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24
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"What’s the matter, Jude?" she said suddenly.
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25
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他胳臂肘支在桌子上,手托着下巴颏,眼盯着桌布,仿佛上面画出来一幅飘渺的未来景象。
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25
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He was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, looking into a futurity which seemed to be sketched out on the tablecloth.
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26
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“哦——没事儿!”
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26
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"Oh--nothing!"
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27
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“你知道,你现在是‘爸爸’啦。凡是主婚人,人家都这么叫他。”
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27
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"You are ’father’, you know. That’s what they call the man who gives you away."
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28
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裘德本想说“费乐生的年纪才够格让人叫爸爸呢!”可是他不想这么庸俗地抵她。
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28
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Jude could have said "Phillotson’s age entitles him to be called that!" But he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort.
She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection, and before the meal was over both he and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new view of things, and had taken breakfast apart. What oppressed Jude was the thought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding and abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead of imploring and warning her against it. It was on his tongue to say, "You have quite made up your mind?"
After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremoniouscompanionship. By the irony of fate, and the curious trick in Sue’s nature of tempting Providence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street--a thing she had never done before in her life--and on turning the corner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a low-pitched roof-- the church of St. Thomas.
He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, and they entered by the western door. The only person inside the gloomy building was a charwoman cleaning. Sue still held Jude’s arm, almost as if she loved him. Cruelly sweet, indeed, she had been to him that morning; but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were tempered by an ache:
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36
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……我无从感受也无从验证落在男人头上的打击,一旦降临你们女子身上,是何等样沉重!
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36
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... I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood!
They strolled undemonstratively up the nave towards the altar railing, which they stood against in silence, turning then and walking down the nave again, her hand still on his arm, precisely like a couple just married. The too suggestive incident, entirely of her making, nearly broke down Jude.
"They are interesting, because they have probably never been done before. I shall walk down the church like this with my husband in about two hours, shan’t I!"
"Ah--you are vexed!" she said regretfully, as she blinked away an access of eye moisture. "And I promised never to vex you! ... I suppose I ought not to have asked you to bring me in here. Oh, I oughtn’t! I see it now. My curiosity to hunt up a new sensation always leads me into these scrapes. Forgive me! ... You will, won’t you, Jude?"
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45
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她的求恕满含着悔恨,裘德握紧了她的手,表示原谅,自己的眼睛比她的还湿。
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45
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The appeal was so remorseful that Jude’s eyes were even wetter than hers as he pressed her hand for Yes.