'But you be glad that you 'm going to marry a gentleman?'
“可是你要是嫁给了一个绅士,你一定会高兴的了?”

'What?' said Tess, lifting her face.
“你说什么?”苔丝说,抬起了她的脸。

'That our great relation will help 'ee to marry a gentleman.'
“我是说我们的那个阔亲戚会帮忙,让你嫁给一个绅士。”

'I? Our great relation? We have no such relation. What has put that into your head?'
“我?我们的那个阔亲戚?我可没有这样的亲戚。你头脑里怎么会有了这种想法?”

'I heard 'em talking about it up at Rolliver's when I went to find father. There's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and mother said that if you claimed kin with the lady, she'd put 'ee in the way of marrying a gentleman.'
“我去找父亲的时候,我听见他们正在罗利弗酒店谈论这件事。在特兰里奇那边有我们家的一个阔亲戚,母亲说要是你同那位夫人认了亲戚,她就会帮你嫁给一个绅士。”

His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering silence. Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance than for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no account. He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face made observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life. He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the other side of them. But ever and anon his childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination even more deeply than the wonders of creation. If Tess were made rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a spyglass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as Nettlecombe-Tout?
他的姐姐突然坐在那儿一动也不动了,陷入沉思默想之中。亚伯拉罕继续说着,只图自己说得痛快,而不管听的人怎样,因此没有注意到他的姐姐在那儿出神。他仰身向后靠在蜂箱上,仰着脸观察天上的星星,星星冷清的脉搏在头顶上漆黑的夜空里搏动着,静寂无声,同人类生命中这两个小生命相隔遥远。她问姐姐那些眨眼的星星离他们究竟有多远,问上帝是不是就在那些星星的背后。不过毕竟他只是一个孩子,所以他的唠叨就又回到了比创造的奇迹更为深入的想象的话题上了。假如苔丝嫁给了一个绅士而变得富有了,她会不会有足够多的钱买一架大望远镜,大得能够把星星拉到跟前来,就跟荨麻越一样近?

The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole family, filled Tess with impatience.
重新提起这个似乎充斥在全家人头脑中的话题,使苔丝很不耐烦。

'Never mind that now!' she exclaimed.
“现在不要再提那个了!”苔丝大声说。

'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?'
“苔丝,你说每一个星星都是每一个世界吗?”

'Yes.'
“是的。”

'All like ours?'
“都跟我们的世界一样吗?”