This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs Durbeyfield's still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover him at Rolliver's, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval, made her happy. A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there. She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character, and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover.
到酒店里走一趟，尋找她的沒有出息的丈夫，仍然是德北菲爾德太太在撫養(yǎng)孩子的又臟又累的生活中的一件樂事。在羅利弗酒店里把丈夫找到，在酒店里同丈夫一起坐一兩個(gè)鐘頭，暫時(shí)把帶孩子的煩惱丟在一邊，這是使她感到愉快的一件事。這時(shí)候，她的生活中顯現(xiàn)出一種光明，一種玫瑰色的夕照。一切煩惱和現(xiàn)實(shí)中的事情都化作了抽象的虛無縹緲的東西，變成了僅僅供人沉思默想的精神現(xiàn)象，再也不是折磨肉體和靈魂的緊迫的具體的東西。她生的一群小孩子，一旦不在眼前，就似乎不是叫人討厭，而是叫人感到聰明可愛；坐在那兒，日常生活中的瑣事也就有了幽默和歡樂。在她現(xiàn)在嫁的這個(gè)丈夫當(dāng)年向她求婚的同一地點(diǎn)，她坐在他的身邊，對(duì)他身上的缺點(diǎn)視而不見，只是把他看成一個(gè)理想化了的情人，她又多少感覺到了當(dāng)時(shí)有過的感情。

Tess, being left alone with the younger children, went first to the outhouse with the fortune-telling book, and stuffed it into the thatch. A curious fetichistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and hither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted. Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folk-lore, dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter, with her trained National teachings and Standard knowledge under an infinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed.
苔絲一個(gè)人留下來，同弟弟和妹妹呆在一起，就先拿著那本算命的書走到屋外，把它塞進(jìn)茅草屋頂里。對(duì)這本恐怖的書，她的母親有一種奇怪的物神崇拜的恐懼，從來不敢整夜把它放在屋內(nèi)，所以每次用完以后，都要把它送回原處。母親身上還帶著正在迅速消亡的迷信、傳說、土話和口頭相傳的民謠，而女兒則按照不斷修訂的新教育法規(guī)接受過國(guó)民教育和學(xué)習(xí)過標(biāo)準(zhǔn)知識(shí)，因此在母親和女兒之間，依照通常的理解就有一條兩百年的鴻溝。當(dāng)她們母女倆在一起的時(shí)候，就是雅各賓時(shí)代和維多利亞時(shí)代放在一起加以對(duì)照。

Returning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could have wished to ascertain from the book on this particular day. She guessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not divine that it solely concerned herself. Dismissing this, however, she busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried during the daytime, in company with her nine-year-old brother Abraham, and her sister Eliza-Louisa of twelve and a half, called ''Liza-Lu', the youngest ones being put to bed. There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her Juniors. Next in juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then a boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year.
當(dāng)苔絲沿著花園的小道回屋時(shí)，心里默默地想，母親在今天這個(gè)特別的日子里是想從書中查找什么。她猜想這本書同最近她們家祖先的發(fā)現(xiàn)有關(guān)，但是她卻不曾預(yù)料到同它有關(guān)的只是她自己。但是她不去猜想了，又忙著往白天晾干的衣服上噴了一些水。這時(shí)同苔絲在一起的，是已經(jīng)上床睡覺的九歲的弟弟亞伯拉罕，十二歲的妹妹伊麗薩·露易莎，她又叫麗莎·露，還有一個(gè)嬰孩。苔絲同挨近她的妹妹相差四歲多，在這段時(shí)間空白里，還有兩個(gè)孩子在襁褓中死了，因此當(dāng)她單獨(dú)同弟弟妹妹相處時(shí)，她身上的態(tài)度就像一個(gè)代理母親。比亞伯拉罕小的是兩個(gè)女孩子盼盼和素素；然后是一個(gè)三歲的男孩，最后是一個(gè)剛剛滿一周歲的嬰孩。