It was no mature woman with a long dark vista of intrigue behind her who was tormented thus; but a girl of simple life, not yet one-and-twenty, who had been caught during her days of immaturity like a bird in a springe. To calm herself the more completely she rose from her little stool and left the room, overturning the stool with her skirts as she went.
这样遭受折磨的并不是一个在过去有许多见不得人的风流艳史的成熟女人,而是一个生活单纯不过二十一岁的姑娘,还在她不通世事的年代,她就像一只小鸟,陷入了罗网,被人捉住了。为了让自己完全平静下来,她就从小凳子上站起来,离开了房间,在她走的时候,裙角把凳子带翻了。

He sat on by the cheerful firelight thrown from a bundle of green ash-sticks laid across the dogs; the sticks snapped pleasantly, and hissed out bubbles of sap from their ends. When she came back she was herself again.
他坐在壁炉的旁边,在壁炉里薪架上,燃烧着一堆绿色的桦树枝,上面闪耀着欢乐的火苗;树枝烧得劈劈啪啪地直响,树枝的端头烧得冒出了白沫。苔丝进来时,她已经恢复平静了。

'Do you not think you are just a wee bit capricious, fitful, Tess?' he said, good humouredly, as he spread a cushion for her on the stool, and seated himself in the settle beside her. 'I wanted to ask you something, and just then you ran away.'
“你不觉得你有点儿喜怒无常吗,苔丝?”他高兴地问她,一边为她在小凳上铺上垫子,自己在她的旁边坐下来。“我想问你一点儿事,你却正好走了。”

'Yes, perhaps I am capricious,' she murmured. She suddenly approached him, and put a hand upon each of his arms. 'No, Angel, I am not really so - by Nature, I mean!' The more particularly to assure him that she was not, she placed herself close to him in the settle, and allowed her head to find a resting-place against Clare's shoulder. 'What did you want to ask me - I am sure I will answer it,' she continued humbly.
“是的,也许我有些情绪波动,”她小声说。她突然走到他的面前,一手握住他的一只胳膊。“不,安琪尔,我真的不是这样的——我是说,我本来不是这样的。”她为了要向他保证她不是喜怒无常的,就坐在他的对面,把头靠在克莱尔的肩膀上。“你想问我什么呢——我一定会回答你的。”她温顺地接着说。

'Well, you love me, and have agreed to marry me, and hence there follows a thirdly, "When shall the day be?"
“啊,你爱我,也同意嫁给我,因此接着而来的是第三个问题,‘我们什么时候结婚呢?’”

'I like living like this.'
“我喜欢这个样子生活下去。”

'But I must think of starting in business on my own hook with the new year, or a little later. And before I get involved in the multifarious details of my new position, I should like to have secured my partner.'
“可是,在明年,或者在稍晚一点儿的时候,我想我一定得开始我自己的事业了。在我被新的繁杂的琐事缠住以前,我想我应该把我伴侣的事情肯定下来。”