THE last pages to which the chronicler of these lives would ask the reader’s attention are concerned with the scene in and out of Jude’s bedroom when leafy summer came round again.
His face was now so thin that his old friends would hardly have known him. It was afternoon, and Arabella was at the looking-glasscurling her hair, which operation she performed by heating an umbrella-stay in the flame of a candle she had lighted, and using it upon the flowing lock.
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等她穿戴齐了,回头望了望裘德,看样子他是睡着了,不过他身子是半躺半坐的,因为他的病不容他平躺下来。
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When she had finished this, practised a dimple, and put on her things, she cast her eyes round upon Jude. He seemed to be sleeping, though his position was an elevated one, his malady preventing him lying down.
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阿拉贝拉戴着帽子,也戴着手套,整装待发,不过她还是坐下来等着,似乎巴望着有谁来接她的护士班。
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Arabella, hatted, gloved, and ready, sat down and waited, as if expecting some one to come and take her place as nurse.
Certain sounds from without revealed that the town was in festivity, though little of the festival, whatever it might have been, could be seen here. Bells began to ring, and the notes came into the room through the open window, and travelled round Jude’s head in a hum. They made her restless, and at last she said to herself: "Why ever doesn’t Father come!"
She looked again at Jude, critically gauged his ebbing life, as she had done so many times during the late months, and glancing at his watch, which was hung up by way of timepiece, rose impatiently.
Still he slept, and coming to a resolution she slipped from the room, closed the door noiselessly, and descended the stairs. The house was empty. The attraction which moved Arabella to go abroad had evidently drawn away the other inmates long before.
It was a warm, cloudless, enticing day. She shut the front door, and hastened round into Chief Street, and when near the theatre could hear the notes of the organ, a rehearsal for a coming concert being in progress. She entered under the archway of Oldgate College, where men were putting up awnings round the quadrangle for a ball in the hall that evening.
People who had come up from the country for the day were picnicking on the grass, and Arabella walked along the gravel paths and under the aged limes. But finding this place rather dull she returned to the streets, and watched the carriages drawing up for the concert, numerous dons and their wives, and undergraduates with gay female companions, crowding up likewise. When the doors were closed, and the concert began, she moved on.
The powerful notes of that concert rolled forth through the swinging yellow blinds of the open windows, over the housetops, and into the still air of the lanes. They reached so far as to the room in which Jude lay; and it was about this time that his cough began again and awakened him.
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他眼睛还闹着,一到能开口说话,就嘟嘟囔囔:“来点水哟,劳驾。”
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As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyes still closed: "A little water, please."
The room remained still as before. Presently he gasped again: "Throat--water--Sue--darling--drop of water--please--oh please!"
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没人递水。风琴声继续传到屋里,轻得像蜜蜂嗡嗡。
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No water came, and the organ notes, faint as a bee’s hum, rolled in as before.
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就在他这样靠着咳着、脸色大变的当口,从河那边传来喊叫声、欢呼声。
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While he remained, his face changing, shouts and hurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.
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“啊——对啦!寄思日赛船哪!”他嘟嘟囔囔的。“我还在这儿,苏成了落汤花啦!”
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"Ah--yes! The Remembrance games," he murmured. "And I here. And Sue defiled!"
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欢呼声又起来了,淹没了风琴声。裘德的脸色变得更厉害了,他慢慢地小声说,烧于的嘴唇动都没怎么动:
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The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faint organ notes. Jude’s face changed more: he whispered slowly, his parched lips scarcely moving:
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“愿我生的那日和说怀了男胎的那夜都灭没。”
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"LET THE DAY PERISHWHEREIN I WAS BORN, AND THE NIGHT IN WHICH IT WAS SAID, THERE IS A MAN-CHILD CONCEIVED."
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(“加油!”)
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("Hurrah!")
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“愿那日变为黑暗,愿上帝不从上面寻找它,愿亮光不照于其上。愿那夜被幽暗夺取,不在年中的日子同乐。”
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"LET THAT DAY BE DARKNESS; LET NOT GOD REGARD IT FROM ABOVE, NEITHER LET THE LIGHT SHINE UPON IT. LO, LET THAT NIGHT BE SOLITARY, LET NO JOYFUL VOICE COME THEREIN."
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(“加油!”)
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("Hurrah!")
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“我为何不出母胎而死,为何不出母腹就绝气?……不然我就早已安静躺卧。我早已安睡,早已安息!”
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"WHY DIED I NOT FROM THE WOMB? WHY DID I NOT GIVE UP THE GHOST WHEN I CAME OUT OF THE BELLY? ... FOR NOW SHOULD I HAVE LAIN STILL AND BEEN QUIET. I SHOULD HAVE SLEPT: THEN HAD I BEEN AT REST!"
"THERE THE PRISONERS REST TOGETHER; THEY HEAR NOT THE VOICE OF THE OPPRESSOR.... THE SMALL AND THE GREAT ARE THERE; AND THE SERVANT IS FREE FROM HIS MASTER. WHEREFORE IS LIGHT GIVEN TO HIM THAT IS IN MISERY, AND LIFE UNTO THE BITTER IN SOUL?"
Meanwhile Arabella, in her journey to discover what was going on, took a short cut down a narrow street and through an obscure nook into the quad of Cardinal. It was full of bustle, and brilliant in the sunlight with flowers and other preparations for a ball here also. A carpenter nodded to her, one who had formerly been a fellow-workman of Jude’s.
A corridor was in course of erection from the entrance to the hall staircase, of gay red and buff bunting. Waggon-loads of boxes containing bright plants in full bloom were being placed about, and the great staircase was covered with red cloth. She nodded to one workman and another, and ascended to the hall on the strength of their acquaintance, where they were putting down a new floor and decorating for the dance.
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近边大教堂这时正好响起钟声,原来是宣告五点钟礼拜开始了。
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The cathedral bell close at hand was sounding for five o’clock service.
"I should not mind having a spin there with a fellow’s arm round my waist," she said to one of the men. "But Lord, I must be getting home again-- there’s a lot to do. No dancing for me!"
When she reached home she was met at the door by Stagg, and one or two other of Jude’s fellow stoneworkers. "We are just going down to the river," said the former, "to see the boat-bumping. But we’ve called round on our way to ask how your husband is."
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“他这会儿睡得挺香,谢谢大家。”阿拉贝拉说。
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"He’s sleeping nicely, thank you," said Arabella.
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“那就好。呢,这么着,福来太太,你还能给自个儿放半个钟头假,跟咱们一块儿去轻松轻松,好不好?”
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"That’s right. Well now, can’t you give yourself half an hour’s relaxation, Mrs. Fawley, and come along with us? ’Twould do you good."
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“我想是想去。”她说。“我压根儿没看过赛船呢。我听说怪好玩的。”
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"I should like to go," said she. "I’ve never seen the boat-racing, and I hear it is good fun."
"How I WISH I could!" She looked longingly down the street. "Wait a minute, then. I’ll just run up and see how he is now. Father is with him, I believe; so I can most likely come."
They waited, and she entered. Downstairs the inmates were absent as before, having, in fact, gone in a body to the river where the procession of boats was to pass. When she reached the bedroom she found that her father had not even now come.
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“怎么搞的,他没来嘛!”她焦躁地说。“他自个儿想看赛船就是了——岂有此理!”
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"Why couldn’t he have been here!" she said impatiently. "He wants to see the boats himself--that’s what it is!"
However, on looking round to the bed she brightened, for she saw that Jude was apparently sleeping, though he was not in the usual half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped down, and lay flat.
A second glance caused her to start, and she went to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold, though his body was still warm. She listened at his chest. All was still within. The bumping of near thirty years had ceased.
After her first appalled sense of what had happened the faint notes of a military or other brass band from the river reached her ears; and in a provoked tone she exclaimed, "To think he should die just now! Why did he die just now!" Then meditating another moment or two she went to the door, softly closed it as before, and again descended the stairs.
"Here she is!" said one of the workmen. "We wondered if you were coming after all. Come along; we must be quick to get a good place.... Well, how is he? Sleeping well still? Of course, we don’t want to drag ’ee away if--"
On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionably arrayed in green, pink, blue, and white. The blue flag of the boat club denoted the centre of interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the notes she had already heard in the death-chamber.
Collegians of all sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for "our" boat, darted up and down. While she regarded the lively scene somebody touched Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.