Silas's face showed that sort of transfiguration, as he sat in his arm-chair and looked at Eppie. She had drawn7 her own chair towards his knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered gold—the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling her how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly8 desolate9 till she was sent to him.
"At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across me now and then," he was saying in a subdued10 tone, "as if you might be changed into the gold again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemed to see the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it, and find it was come back. But that didn't last long. After a bit, I should have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove you from me, for I'd got to feel the need o' your looks and your voice and the touch o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie, when you were such a little un—you didn't know what your old father Silas felt for you."
"But I know now, father," said Eppie. "If it hadn't been for you, they'd have taken me to the workhouse, and there'd have been nobody to love me."
"Eh, my precious child, the blessing11 was mine. If you hadn't been sent to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery12. The money was taken away from me in time; and you see it's been kept—kept till it was wanted for you. It's wonderful—our life is wonderful."
Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the money. "It takes no hold of me now," he said, ponderingly—"the money doesn't. I wonder if it ever could again—I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. I might come to think I was forsaken13 again, and lose the feeling that God was good to me."
At that moment there was a knocking at the door; and Eppie was obliged to rise without answering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the tenderness of gathering14 tears in her eyes and a slight flush on her cheeks, as she stepped to open the door. The flush deepened when she saw Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made her little rustic15 curtsy, and held the door wide for them to enter.
"We're disturbing you very late, my dear," said Mrs. Cass, taking Eppie's hand, and looking in her face with an expression of anxious interest and admiration16. Nancy herself was pale and tremulous.
Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs. Cass, went to stand against Silas, opposite to them.
"Well, Marner," said Godfrey, trying to speak with perfect firmness, "it's a great comfort to me to see you with your money again, that you've been deprived of so many years. It was one of my family did you the wrong—the more grief to me—and I feel bound to make up to you for it in every way. Whatever I can do for you will be nothing but paying a debt, even if I looked no further than the robbery. But there are other things I'm beholden—shall be beholden to you for, Marner."
Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed between him and his wife that the subject of his fatherhood should be approached very carefully, and that, if possible, the disclosure should be reserved for the future, so that it might be made to Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged this, because she felt strongly the painful light in which Eppie must inevitably17 see the relation between her father and mother.
Silas, always ill at ease when he was being spoken to by "betters", such as Mr. Cass—tall, powerful, florid men, seen chiefly on horseback—answered with some constraint—
"Sir, I've a deal to thank you for a'ready. As for the robbery, I count it no loss to me. And if I did, you couldn't help it: you aren't answerable for it."
"You may look at it in that way, Marner, but I never can; and I hope you'll let me act according to my own feeling of what's just. I know you're easily contented19: you've been a hard-working man all your life."
"Yes, sir, yes," said Marner, meditatively20. "I should ha' been bad off without my work: it was what I held by when everything else was gone from me."
"Ah," said Godfrey, applying Marner's words simply to his bodily wants, "it was a good trade for you in this country, because there's been a great deal of linen-weaving to be done. But you're getting rather past such close work, Marner: it's time you laid by and had some rest. You look a good deal pulled down, though you're not an old man, are you?"
"Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said Silas.
"Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer—look at old Macey! And that money on the table, after all, is but little. It won't go far either way—whether it's put out to interest, or you were to live on it as long as it would last: it wouldn't go far if you'd nobody to keep but yourself, and you've had two to keep for a good many years now."
"Eh, sir," said Silas, unaffected by anything Godfrey was saying, "I'm in no fear o' want. We shall do very well—Eppie and me 'ull do well enough. There's few working-folks have got so much laid by as that. I don't know what it is to gentlefolks, but I look upon it as a deal—almost too much. And as for us, it's little we want."
"Only the garden, father," said Eppie, blushing up to the ears the moment after.
"You love a garden, do you, my dear?" said Nancy, thinking that this turn in the point of view might help her husband. "We should agree in that: I give a deal of time to the garden."
"Ah, there's plenty of gardening at the Red House," said Godfrey, surprised at the difficulty he found in approaching a proposition which had seemed so easy to him in the distance. "You've done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen years. It 'ud be a great comfort to you to see her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looks blooming and healthy, but not fit for any hardships: she doesn't look like a strapping21 girl come of working parents. You'd like to see her taken care of by those who can leave her well off, and make a lady of her; she's more fit for it than for a rough life, such as she might come to have in a few years' time."
A slight flush came over Marner's face, and disappeared, like a passing gleam. Eppie was simply wondering Mr. Cass should talk so about things that seemed to have nothing to do with reality; but Silas was hurt and uneasy.
"I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered, not having words at command to express the mingled22 feelings with which he had heard Mr. Cass's words.
"Well, my meaning is this, Marner," said Godfrey, determined23 to come to the point. "Mrs. Cass and I, you know, have no children—nobody to benefit by our good home and everything else we have—more than enough for ourselves. And we should like to have somebody in the place of a daughter to us—we should like to have Eppie, and treat her in every way as our own child. It 'ud be a great comfort to you in your old age, I hope, to see her fortune made in that way, after you've been at the trouble of bringing her up so well. And it's right you should have every reward for that. And Eppie, I'm sure, will always love you and be grateful to you: she'd come and see you very often, and we should all be on the look-out to do everything we could towards making you comfortable."
A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under some embarrassment24, necessarily blunders on words that are coarser than his intentions, and that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible25 feelings. While he had been speaking, Eppie had quietly passed her arm behind Silas's head, and let her hand rest against it caressingly26: she felt him trembling violently. He was silent for some moments when Mr. Cass had ended—powerless under the conflict of emotions, all alike painful. Eppie's heart was swelling27 at the sense that her father was in distress28; and she was just going to lean down and speak to him, when one struggling dread29 at last gained the mastery over every other in Silas, and he said, faintly—
"Eppie, my child, speak. I won't stand in your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."
Eppie took her hand from her father's head, and came forward a step. Her cheeks were flushed, but not with shyness this time: the sense that her father was in doubt and suffering banished30 that sort of self-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Cass and then to Mr. Cass, and said—
"Thank you, ma'am—thank you, sir. But I can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him. And I don't want to be a lady—thank you all the same" (here Eppie dropped another curtsy). "I couldn't give up the folks I've been used to."
Eppie's lips began to tremble a little at the last words. She retreated to her father's chair again, and held him round the neck: while Silas, with a subdued sob31, put up his hand to grasp hers.
The tears were in Nancy's eyes, but her sympathy with Eppie was, naturally, divided with distress on her husband's account. She dared not speak, wondering what was going on in her husband's mind.
Godfrey felt an irritation32 inevitable33 to almost all of us when we encounter an unexpected obstacle. He had been full of his own penitence34 and resolution to retrieve35 his error as far as the time was left to him; he was possessed36 with all-important feelings, that were to lead to a predetermined course of action which he had fixed37 on as the right, and he was not prepared to enter with lively appreciation38 into other people's feelings counteracting39 his virtuous40 resolves. The agitation41 with which he spoke18 again was not quite unmixed with anger.
"But I've a claim on you, Eppie—the strongest of all claims. It's my duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my own child—her mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her that must stand before every other."
Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie's answer, from the dread lest his mind should be in opposition42 to hers, felt the spirit of resistance in him set free, not without a touch of parental43 fierceness. "Then, sir," he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in him since the memorable44 day when his youthful hope had perished—"then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you've no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in."
"I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I've repented45 of my conduct in that matter," said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of Silas's words.
"I'm glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with gathering excitement; "but repentance46 doesn't alter what's been going on for sixteen year. Your coming now and saying "I'm her father" doesn't alter the feelings inside us. It's me she's been calling her father ever since she could say the word."
"But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner," said Godfrey, unexpectedly awed47 by the weaver's direct truth-speaking. "It isn't as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that you'd never see her again. She'll be very near you, and come to see you very often. She'll feel just the same towards you."
"Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly than ever. "How'll she feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o' the same bit, and drink o' the same cup, and think o' the same things from one day's end to another? Just the same? that's idle talk. You'd cut us i' two."
Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy48 of Marner's simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him that the weaver was very selfish (a judgment49 readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was undoubtedly50 for Eppie's welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for her sake, to assert his authority.
"I should have thought, Marner," he said, severely—"I should have thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You ought to remember your own life's uncertain, and she's at an age now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from what it would be in her father's home: she may marry some low working-man, and then, whatever I might do for her, I couldn't make her well-off. You're putting yourself in the way of her welfare; and though I'm sorry to hurt you after what you've done, and what I've left undone51, I feel now it's my duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty."
It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by this last speech of Godfrey's. Thought had been very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her old long-loved father and this new unfamiliar52 father who had suddenly come to fill the place of that black featureless shadow which had held the ring and placed it on her mother's finger. Her imagination had darted53 backward in conjectures54, and forward in previsions, of what this revealed fatherhood implied; and there were words in Godfrey's last speech which helped to make the previsions especially definite. Not that these thoughts, either of past or future, determined her resolution—that was determined by the feelings which vibrated to every word Silas had uttered; but they raised, even apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards the offered lot and the newly-revealed father.
Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, and alarmed lest Godfrey's accusation55 should be true—lest he should be raising his own will as an obstacle to Eppie's good. For many moments he was mute, struggling for the self-conquest necessary to the uttering of the difficult words. They came out tremulously.
"I'll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."
Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of her own affections, shared her husband's view, that Marner was not justifiable56 in his wish to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed57 himself. She felt that it was a very hard trial for the poor weaver, but her code allowed no question that a father by blood must have a claim above that of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life to plenteous circumstances and the privileges of "respectability", could not enter into the pleasures which early nurture58 and habit connect with all the little aims and efforts of the poor who are born poor: to her mind, Eppie, in being restored to her birthright, was entering on a too long withheld59 but unquestionable good. Hence she heard Silas's last words with relief, and thought, as Godfrey did, that their wish was achieved.
"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter, not without some embarrassment, under the sense that she was old enough to judge him, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love and gratitude60 to one who's been a father to you so many years, and we shall want to help you to make him comfortable in every way. But we hope you'll come to love us as well; and though I haven't been what a father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my power for you for the rest of my life, and provide for you as my only child. And you'll have the best of mothers in my wife—that'll be a blessing you haven't known since you were old enough to know it."
"My dear, you'll be a treasure to me," said Nancy, in her gentle voice. "We shall want for nothing when we have our daughter."
Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she had done before. She held Silas's hand in hers, and grasped it firmly—it was a weaver's hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to such pressure—while she spoke with colder decision than before.
"Thank you, ma'am—thank you, sir, for your offers—they're very great, and far above my wish. For I should have no delight i' life any more if I was forced to go away from my father, and knew he was sitting at home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone1. We've been used to be happy together every day, and I can't think o' no happiness without him. And he says he'd nobody i' the world till I was sent to him, and he'd have nothing when I was gone. And he's took care of me and loved me from the first, and I'll cleave61 to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me."
"But you must make sure, Eppie," said Silas, in a low voice—"you must make sure as you won't ever be sorry, because you've made your choice to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes and things, when you might ha' had everything o' the best."
His sensitiveness on this point had increased as he listened to Eppie's words of faithful affection.
"I can never be sorry, father," said Eppie. "I shouldn't know what to think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as I haven't been used to. And it 'ud be poor work for me to put on things, and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as 'ud make them as I'm fond of think me unfitting company for 'em. What could I care for then?"
Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained questioning glance. But his eyes were fixed on the floor, where he was moving the end of his stick, as if he were pondering on something absently. She thought there was a word which might perhaps come better from her lips than from his.
"What you say is natural, my dear child—it's natural you should cling to those who've brought you up," she said, mildly; "but there's a duty you owe to your lawful62 father. There's perhaps something to be given up on more sides than one. When your father opens his home to you, I think it's right you shouldn't turn your back on it."
"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. "I've always thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend63 and do everything for him: I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't brought up to be a lady, and I can't turn my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their victuals64, and their ways. And," she ended passionately65, while the tears fell, "I'm promised to marry a working-man, as'll live with father, and help me to take care of him."
Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face and smarting dilated66 eyes. This frustration67 of a purpose towards which he had set out under the exalted68 consciousness that he was about to compensate69 in some degree for the greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the air of the room stifling70.
"Let us go," he said, in an under-tone.
"We won't talk of this any longer now," said Nancy, rising. "We're your well-wishers, my dear—and yours too, Marner. We shall come and see you again. It's getting late now."
In this way she covered her husband's abrupt71 departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the door, unable to say more.
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1
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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weaver
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| n.织布工；编织者 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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strapping
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| adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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counteracting
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的现在分词 ) | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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45
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pregnancy
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| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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53
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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cleave
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| v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋 | |
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lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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fend
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| v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开 | |
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victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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