Presently there arose from within a ticking like the love-making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on the seat of the implement. Along one side of the field the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper revolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same equable pace; the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the whole machine.
不久,麦地里传来一种“嚓嚓”声,好像是蚂蚱情说爱的声音。机器开始割麦了,从栅栏门这边看过去,只见三匹马并排拉着前面说过的摇摇晃晃的长方形机器向前走着,有一匹拉机器的马上骑着一个赶马的,机器的座位上坐着一个看机器的。机器战车沿着麦地的一边向前开动,机器割麦子的手臂慢慢转动着,一直开过了山坡,完全从眼前消失了。过了一会儿,它又以同样均匀的速度出现在麦地的另一边;割麦子的机器在麦茬地上出现时,最先看见的是前面那匹马额上闪闪发光的铜星,然后看见的是机器割麦子的鲜红色手臂,最后看见的才是整部机器。

The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters.
割麦子的机器每走一圈,麦地周围狭长的麦茬长带就加宽一层,随着早晨的时光慢慢过去,还长有麦子的麦地就只剩下不大的一块了。大野兔、小野兔、长虫、大老鼠、小耗子,都一起向麦田的内地退去,好像要躲进堡垒里,却没有意识到它们避难的地方也只能是暂时的,没有意识到它们毁灭的命运正在后面等着它们,当今天它们躲避的地方越缩越小,最后变成可怕的一小块时,它们无论是朋友还是仇敌,都要拥挤着躲藏在一块儿了,等到收割机把地上最后剩下的几百码麦子割倒后,收庄稼的人就会拿起棍子和石头,把它们一个个打死。

The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands - mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back.
割麦子的机器割倒麦子,一小堆一小堆地留在机器后面,每一堆刚好可以捆作一捆;捆麦子的人在有麦堆的地方忙着,正在用手把麦子捆起来——捆麦子的人主要是妇女,但也有些人是男人,他们上穿印花布衬衣,下穿长裤,长裤用皮带系在腰间,这样后面的两颗扣子也就失去了用处,他们每动一下,扣子就在阳光下一闪,仿佛是他们后腰上长的一双眼睛。

But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she has somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it.
但是在这一群捆麦子的人中间,还是那些女子们最能引起人的兴致,因为女人一旦在户外变成了大自然的一部分,不再和平时那样,仅仅只是摆放在那儿的一件物品,那时候她们就特别具有魅力。一个男人在地里只是地里的一个人;一个女人在地里却是田地的组成部分;她在某些方面同田地失去了界限,吸收了周围环境的精华,使自己同周围的环境融成了一体。

The women - or rather girls, for they were mostly young - wore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured tight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough 'wropper' or over-all-the old-established and most appropriate dress of the field-woman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them.
妇女们——不如说是女孩子们,因为她们大多青春年少——都戴着打着皱折的女帽,帽子上宽大的帽檐可以遮挡太阳,她们的手上戴的手套可以保护双手不被麦茬划伤。在她们中间,有一个人穿着粉红色上衣,有一个人穿着奶油色的窄袖长衫,还有一个人穿着短裙,短裙的颜色红得就像收割机的十字架一样;其他的妇女们年纪都要大些,都穿着棕色的粗布罩衫或者外套——那是妇女在地里劳动穿的最合适的老式样的服装,年轻的女孩子们都已经不再穿它们了。这天早晨,大家的目光都被吸引到那个穿粉红色棉布上衣的姑娘身上,在所有的女孩子中间,她的身材最苗条和最富有弹性。但是她的帽子拉得低低的,盖住了她的额头,所以在她捆麦子的时候,一点儿也看不见她的脸,不过从她的帽檐下面散落出来的一两绺深褐色头发上,大致可以猜测出她的皮肤的颜色来,她不能躲避别人的偶尔注意,也许有一个原因就是她不想别人注意她,而其他的妇女们的眼睛总是流波四顾的。