The reason was a good one, so far as it went. His influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions. And to leave her in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with him. He wished to have her under his charge for another reason. His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and as no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention, he judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social assistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal - her presentation to his mother at the Vicarage.
到目前为止，这是最好的一个理由。他对她的影响是如此明显，以至于她都学会了他的神态、习惯、话语、词汇、爱好、憎恶。要是把她留在农场上，她就会倒退回去，不会同他融洽了。他希望把她留在自己的身边还有另外一个原因，那就是在他把她带到远方如英国的某地或殖民地安家立业以前，他的父母自然希望至少见她一面。因为他不会让父母的意见影响自己的意图，所以他认为在他寻找开创事业的有利机会期间，带上她在寓所里住上一两个月，这就会在社会习俗方面给她提供帮助，然后再带她到牧师住宅会见他母亲，她就不会有一种被审判的痛苦的感觉了。

Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill, having an idea that he might combine the use of one with corn-growing. The proprietor of a large old water-mill at Wellbridge - once the mill of an Abbey - had offered him the inspection of his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations for a few days, whenever he should choose to come. Clare paid a visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time, to inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening. She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge flour-mills. And what had determined him? Less the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville family. This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing to do with them. They decided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead of journeying to towns and inns.
其次，他还希望见习一下面粉厂的工作情形，他一直有一种想法，就是把面粉厂同种麦子结合起来。井桥有一处古老的很大的磨坊产业……过去曾经是寺院的产业……磨坊主已经答应了他，让他去参观磨坊古老的生产模式，或者去帮忙操作几天，什么时间去都行。那个磨坊离这儿有几英里远，有一天克莱尔到那儿去过一次，打听过详细情况，到晚上才返回泰波塞斯。苔丝发现，他已经决定到井桥的面粉厂去住一段时间。是什么让他作出这个决定的？这倒不是有机会去考察磨面筛面的事，而是出于一个偶然的事实：刚好在那座农屋里有住处出租，而那座农屋在独立出来之前，曾经是德贝维尔家族的一个支系的宅邸。克莱尔一直是这样来解决实际问题的；全凭一时的兴趣，而不管与实际问题是否有关。他们决定婚礼一结束就立即到那儿去，在那儿住两个星期，而不到城里去住旅馆。

'Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of London that I have heard of,' he said, 'and by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and mother.'
“我听说伦敦的那边有一些农场，以后我们到那儿去看看，”他说，“在三月份或四月份我们再去看望我的父亲和母亲。”

Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day, the incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in the near future. The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was the date. His wife, she said to herself. Could it ever be? Their two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared by them; why not? And yet why?
诸如此类的问题提了出来也就过去了，那一天，简直是叫人不敢相信的一天，在那一天，她就要变成他的人，那一天很快就要来到了。那个日子就是十二月三十一日，那一天也是除夕。她就要成为他的妻子了，她自言自语地说。真的会有这样的事吗？他们两个人就要结合在一起了，什么也不能把他们分开了，他们要共同分担一切事情；为什么不那样呢？又为什么要那样呢？