Tidings of the Comer
On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling1 way, the majestic2 calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment3 of stagnation4 merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence6. But here, away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere5 walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile7 not yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously8 watching from hillocks at a safe distance.
The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the dwelling9, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the old man looking on.
It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the winter solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded11 from northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded12 the change.
Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping13 chimney-corner. The air was still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered the recess14, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft15, with its cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with a pallid16 glare upon the tatters of soot17 draping the flue as seaweed drapes a rocky fissure18.
She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the voices were those of the workers.
Her grandfather joined in the conversation. "That lad ought never to have left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best, and the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these new moves in families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have been if I had had one."
"The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother's caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and what 'twill be next God knows."'"
"A good many of us knew as well as He before long," said the captain, chuckling19. "I lived seven years under water on account of it in my boyhood--in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho....And so the young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some such thing, is he not?"
"Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to, so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far as diments go."
"I can well mind when he left home," said Sam.
"'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. "A sight of times better to be selling diments than nobbling about here."
"It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place."
"A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. "Yes, you may make away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton20."
"They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing21 man, with the strangest notions about things. There, that's because he went to school early, such as the school was."
"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too much of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for shame sometimes. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble22 such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was all the better for it."
"Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in her head that comes from books as anybody about here?"
"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head it would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after which he walked away.
"I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there couldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's family is as good as hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; but his mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better than to see them two man and wife."
"They'd look very natty23, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used to be."
"They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I'd stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for'n; though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes."
"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"
"Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."
"That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a man. It makes the family look small."
"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide24 entirely25 indoors. We never see her out now, scampering26 over the furze with a face as red as a rose, as she used to do."
"I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her."
"You have? 'Tis news to me."
While the furze-gatherers had desultorily27 conversed28 thus Eustacia's face gradually bent29 to the hearth30 in a profound reverie, her toe unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
The subject of their discourse31 had been keenly interesting to her. A young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively32 coupled her and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.
That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental vacuity33 do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed in the morning that her colourless inner world would before night become as animated34 as water under a microscope, and that without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the invading Bard's prelude35 in the Castle of Indolence, at which myriads36 of imprisoned37 shapes arose where had previously38 appeared the stillness of a void.
Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a walk at this her usual time; and she determined39 that her walk should be in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and the present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere, and why should she not go that way? The scene of the daydream40 is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the palings before the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessary performance. Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an important errand.
She put on her bonnet41, and, leaving the house, descended42 the hill on the side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede10 yet further from the path on each side, till they were diminished to an isolated43 one here and there by the increasing fertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings, which marked the verge44 of the heath in this latitude45. They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet46. Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view of the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about to return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French capital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world.
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1
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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somnolence
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| n.想睡，梦幻；欲寐；嗜睡；嗜眠 | |
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reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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12
heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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glutton
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| n.贪食者，好食者 | |
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perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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natty
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| adj.整洁的，漂亮的 | |
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bide
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| v.忍耐；等候；住 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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desultorily
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| adv. 杂乱无章地, 散漫地 | |
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conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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31
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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33
vacuity
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| n.(想象力等)贫乏，无聊，空白 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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daydream
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| v.做白日梦，幻想 | |
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41
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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42
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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43
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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45
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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46
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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