Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping rabbits and hares. But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked.
周围的一切沉浸在黑暗和寂静中。在他们的四周，都是猎苑里长的密密麻麻的古老的水杉和橡树，树上栖息的温柔小鸟还在睡最后的一觉；在树林中间，大大小小的野兔在悄悄地蹦来跳去。但是恐怕有人要问，苔丝的保护天使在哪儿呢？她一心信仰的上帝在哪儿呢？也许，就像爱讽刺的提什比①说到另一个上帝一样，他也许正在聊天，或者正在狩猎，或者正在旅行的路上，要不就是睡着了还没有被人叫醒。

Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
这片美丽的女性织品，就像游丝一样的敏感，又实在像白雪一样的洁白，为什么就像她命中注定要接受的那样，一定要在上面画上粗鄙的图案；为什么粗鄙的常常就这样占有了精美的，不该占有这个女人的男人占有了这个女人，不该占有这个男人的女人占有了这个男人，好几千年来，善于分析的哲学家们都没有能够按照我们对于秩序的观念解释清楚。的确，一个人也许认为，在现在这场悲剧里，可能暗藏有报应的因素。毫无疑问，苔丝·德北菲尔德有些身披铠甲的祖先，在他们战斗以后嬉闹着回家的时候，对他们那个时代的农民的女儿们也有过同样的行径，甚至更加粗暴野蛮。不过祖先的罪孽报应在子孙的身上，虽然对诸神来说是一种再好不过的道德准则，但是普通的人类天性对此却不屑一顾；因而对这件事也就毫无用处。

As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It was to be.' There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm.
在那些穷乡僻壤的地方，苔丝自己家里的人总是用宿命论的口气互相不厌其烦地说：“这是命中注定的。”这正是叫人遗憾的地方。因此，从今以后我们这个女主角的品格，同当初她从母亲家门口走出来到特兰里奇的养鸡场碰运气的原来的她自己的联系，就被一条深不可测的社会鸿沟完全割断了。

①提什比（Tishbite），指预言家以利亚，“旧约”“列王纪”第十七章把他描写为“提什比人以利亚”。他向贝阿尔的先知们挑战，把一头小公牛作为祭祀他们的神的奖品。当贝阿尔对他的信徒的祈祷不能作答时，以利亚就讽刺说：“无论他在聊天，还是在狩猎，还是在睡觉，你们应该叫醒他。”（“列王纪”第十八章第二十七节）