Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own code of morality. The levity of some of the younger women in and about Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect; it drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and smock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would enter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime.

The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market town two or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the once independent inns.

For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages. But under pressure from matrons not much older than herself - for a fieldman's wages being as high at twenty one as at forty, marriage was early here - Tess at length consented to go. Her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected, the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her monotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and again. Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the momentarythreshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some shy regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence, though sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she always searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection of their companionshiphomeward.

This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account. Tess's occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades reached the town long before her. It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hair-like lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it. Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along.

She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk. Her limited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to look about for some of the Trantridge cottagers.

At first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of them had gone to what they called a private little jig at the house of a hay-trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their farm. He lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in trying to find her course thither her eyes fell upon Mr d'Urberville standing at a street corner.

`What - my Beauty? You here so late?' he said.

She told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward.

`I'll see you again,' said he over her shoulder as she went on down the back lane.

Approaching the hay-trussers she could hear the fiddled notes of a reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of dancing was audible - an exceptional state of things for these parts, where as a rule the stamping drowned the music. The front door being open she could see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing to her knock she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the outhouse whence the sound had attracted her.

It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at first Tess thought to be illuminated smoke. But on drawing nearer she perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candies within the outhouse, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of the doorway into the wide night of the garden.

When she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up and down to the figure of the dance, the silence of their footfalls arising from their being overshoe in `scroff' - that is to say, the powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other products, the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the nebulosity that involved the scene. Through this floating, fusty débris of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of the dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the muted fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the spirit with which the measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed as they coughed. Of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the high lights - the indistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs - a multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to elude Priapus, and always failing.

At intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and the haze no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved themselves into the homely personalities of her own next door neighbours. Could Trantridge in two or three short hours have metamorphosed itself thus madly!

Some Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall; and one of them recognized her.

`The maids don't think it respectable to dance at "The Flower-de-Luce",' he explained. `They don't like to let everybody see which be their fancy-men. Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their lints begin to get greased. So we come here and send out for liquor.'

`But when be any of you going home?' asked Tess with some anxiety.

`Now - almost directly. This is all but the last jig.'

She waited. The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in the mind for starting. But others would not, and another dance was formed. This surely would end it, thought Tess. But it merged in yet another. She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so long, it was necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and, though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown. Had she been near Marlott she would have had less dread.

`Don't ye be nervous, my dear good soul,'expostulated, between his coughs, a young man with a wet face, and his straw hat so far back upon his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint. `What's yer hurry? Tomorrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep it off in church time. Now, have a turn with me?' She did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here. The movement grew more passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminouspillar of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong side of the bridge or with the back of the bow. But it did not matter; the panting shapes spun onwards.

They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to previous ones. Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair, and by this time every couple had been suitably matched. It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.

Suddenly there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen, and lay in a mixed heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress, came toppling over the obstacle. An inner cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room, in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible.

`You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!' burst in female accents from the human heap - those of the unhappy partner of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be a warm understanding.

A loud laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden, united with the titter within the room. She looked round, and saw the red coal of a cigar: Alec d'Urberville was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him.

`Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?'

She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him - that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home, because the road at night was strange to her. `But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I will wait no longer.'

`Certainly do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come to "The Flower-de-Luce", and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with me.'

Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with the work folk. So she answered that she was much obliged to him, but would not trouble him. `I have said that I will wait for 'em, and they will expect me to now.'

`Very well, Miss Independence. Please yourself... Then I shall not hurry... My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!'

He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them had perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a consideration of how the time was flying. As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes.

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It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night by the light of the moon.

Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thought, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.

Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's house, that the discovery of their condition spoilt the pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she stuck to the party, for reasons above given.

In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now their route was through a field-gate, and the foremostfinding a difficulty in opening it they closed up together.

This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy, Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with arms akimbo.

`Well - whatever is that a-creeping down the back, Car Darch?' said one of the group suddenly.

All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue.

`'Tis her hair falling down,' said another.

No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, mid it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays of the moon.

`'Tis treacle,' said an observant matron.

Treacle it was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.

By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and independently of the help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself over it upon her elbows.

The laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts, rested on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the spectacle of Car. Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with the rest.

It was a misfortune - in more ways than one. No sooner did the dark queen hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other work people than a long smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness. She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her dislike.

`How darest th' laugh at me, hussy!' she cried.

`I couldn't really help it when toothers did,' apologized Tess, still tittering.

`Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest first favourite with He just now! But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit! I'm as good as two of such! look here here's at 'ee!'

To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown - which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of - till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country girl.

She closed her fists and squared up at Tess.

`Indeed, then, I shall not fight!' said the latter majestically; `and if I had known you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself down as to come with such a whorage as this is!'

The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the relations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united with the latter against the common enemy. Several other women also chimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so fatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had passed. Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending her; but the result of that attempt was directly to increase the war.

Tess was indignant and ashamed. She no longer minded the loneliness of the way and the lateness of the hour; her one object was to get away from the whole crew as soon as possible. She knew well enough that the better among them would repent of their passion next day. They were all now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush off alone when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of the hedge that screened the road, and Alec d'Urberville looked round upon them.

`What the devil is all this row about, work-folk?' he asked.

The explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did not require any. Having heard their voices while yet some way off he had ridden creepingly forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself.

Tess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate. He bent over towards her. `Jump up behind me' he whispered, `and we'll get shot of the screaming cats in a jiffy!'

She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis. At almost any other moment of her life she should have refused such profferer aid and company, as she had refused them several times before; and now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her to do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious revellers became aware of what had happened.

The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood beside the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young woman - all with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the horse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the road.

`What be ye looking at?' asked a man who had not observed the incident.

`Ho-ho-ho!' laughed dark Car.

`Hee-hee-hee!' laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on the arm of her fond husband.

`Heu-heu-heu!' laughed dark Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explained laconically: `Out of the frying-pan into the fire!'

Then these children of the open air, whom even excess of alcohol could scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the field-path; and as they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of each one's head, a circle of opalixed light, formed by the moon's rays upon the glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow, whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and persistently beautified it; till the erratic motions seemed an inherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing a component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of wine.

所有的村庄都有自己的特点、结构，甚至也有自己的道德准则。在特兰里奇及其附近，有一些年轻妇女的轻佻惹人注意，这种轻佻也许就是控制附近那块坡地上人们精神的征兆。这个地方还有一个根深蒂固的毛病，就是酗酒很厉害。附近农庄上常谈的主要话题是攒钱没有用处；身穿粗布罩衫的数学家们，倚着锄头或者犁歇息时，就会开始精确地计算，来证明人老后教区提供的全额救济金，比一个人从一生中挣的工资中积攒起来的钱还要更充足。

　　这些哲学家们的主要快乐，就是在每个星期六的晚上收工后到两三英里以外的已经衰败了的市镇猎苑堡去；一直到深夜过后的第二天凌晨，他们才回到家里，在星期天睡上一整天，把他们喝的那种有碍消化的混合饮料消化掉，这种饮料是从前独立经营的酒店的垄断者们作为啤酒卖给他们的。

　　长期以来，苔丝都没有参加这些每星期一次的豪饮活动。但是她迫于年纪比她大不了多少的妇女的压力--因为一个种地的工人，在二十岁时挣的工钱同四十岁的工人挣的工钱一样多--苔丝最终还是同意去了。她第一次到那儿去的经历使她得到了她没有想到的快乐，整整一个星期她都在鸡场过着照顾鸡的单调生活，因此别人的快乐都是很能感染她的。她去了又去。她容貌美丽，逗人喜爱，而且又正处在即将发育成熟的年龄，所以她一在猎苑堡的大街上出现，就引来街上游手好闲的人偷偷瞟过来的目光。因此，有时候她虽然是独自一人到那个镇上去，但是在黄昏的时候她总要找她的同伴一起走，以便回家的时候能得到同伴们的照应。

　　这种情况持续了一两个月，到了九月的一个星期六，这一天定期集市和集市刚好碰到了一起；因此特兰里奇的人就都到猎苑堡的酒店里去寻找双重的快乐。苔丝工作没有干完，出发得晚了，因此她的伙伴们到达镇上时比她早了许多。这是九月里一个美好的傍晚，正是太阳落山的时候，黄色的亮光同蓝色的暮霭相互争斗，变成了一缕缕发丝一样的光线，大气本身就构成了一种景色，除了在大气中展翅乱舞的无数飞虫而外，它根本就不需要更多的实体的帮助。苔丝就在这种暗淡的暮霭中，不慌不忙地向前走去。

　　她一直走到了目的地，才发现集市碰巧遇到了定期集市，这时候天色已经接近黄昏。她要买的东西不多，很快就买完了；然后她就像往常一样，开始去寻找从特兰里奇来的几个村民。

　　她起初没有找到他们，后来有人告诉她说，他们大多数都去参加一个私人小舞会去了，在一个同他们的农场有生意往来的卖干草和土煤的商人屋子里。那个商人住在这个小镇的偏僻角落里，她在寻路到商人屋子那儿去的时候，眼睛看见了站在街角处的德贝维尔先生。

　　"怎么啦--我的美人儿？这样晚了你还在这儿？"他说。

　　她告诉他说，她只是在这儿等着同伴一块儿回家。

　　"等会儿再见，"他在她走进后面的巷子里时从她的后面说。

　　她慢慢走近了干草商的家，听见了从后面一座屋子里传出来的小提琴声，那是为跳里尔舞①的人伴奏的；但是她听不见跳舞的声音--在这一带这是十分少有的情形，因为这儿一贯的情形是跳舞的脚步声淹没了音乐声。前门打开着，她从屋子里一眼看过去，能够在苍茫的夜色中远远地看见屋子后面的花园；她敲了敲门，没有人开门，她就穿过这座屋子走上了通往户外小屋的那条小路，那儿发出的音乐声吸引着她。

　　

　　①里尔舞（Reel），一种轻快的苏格兰或爱尔兰舞，通常由两对或四对舞者共舞。

　　户外小屋是一座没有窗子的建筑，用来堆放东西的，从打开的房门里，有一股黄色的发亮的烟雾飘出来，溶进屋外的昏暗中，起初苔丝把它们当成了被灯光照亮的烟雾。但是当她走得更近些后，她才发现那只是一片飞扬的尘土，是被屋内的烛光照亮的，烛光照在那层薄雾上，把门厅的轮廓投射到园子中的茫茫夜色里。

　　她走到屋前往里一看，看见一群模糊的人影正按照跳舞的队形来回奔跑着，然而他们跳舞的脚步却没有声音，因为他们脚底下铺的是一层软垫--也就是说，铺了一层堆放土煤和其它产品的煤粉草渣，经过他们混乱脚步的搅动，就扬起一片烟云，笼罩了整个场地。由发着霉湿味的土煤和干草的粉末组成的烟云，同跳舞的人的汗液和体温掺和在一起，形成了一种植物和人类的混合粉末，装有弱音器的小提琴发出软弱无力的声音，同踩着它的节拍而跳出来的兴高采烈形成了鲜明对比。他们一边跳舞一边咳嗽，一边咳嗽又一边欢笑。一对对跳舞的人冲来撞去，也只能在光线最强的地方才看得出他们的影子--在一片模糊之中，他们变成了森林之神萨堤洛斯们①，怀中抱着仙女宁芙②们--一大群潘③和一大群给任克斯④尽情旋转着；罗提斯⑤想躲开普里阿波斯⑥，但总是躲不开。

　　

　　①萨堤洛斯（Satyrs），希腊罗马神话中的森林之神。在古希腊时代早期的艺术中，萨堤洛斯们被描绘成半人半羊形状，长着山羊耳朵，拖着山羊或马的尾巴，头发散乱，鼻子扁平上翘。在古典时期，他们形象中的动物特征开始消失。萨堤洛斯是酒神狄俄倪索斯的侍从，以好酒跳舞玩耍出名。

　　②宁芙（Nymph），希腊神话中的仙女。海洋、河川、山泉、溪流、群山、森林等均有仙女，如海洋仙女、水泽仙女、草地仙女等。

　　③潘（Pan），在古代希腊，潘被尊为牧人、猎人、养蜂人和渔夫的守护神。潘出生时，浑身毛发，头上长角，有山羊的蹄子和弯鼻子，有胡须和尾巴。潘常常徜徉于群山与森林之中，吹奏着自己发明的芦笛，和仙女们翩翩起舞。

　　④绪任克斯（Syrinx），水泽仙女，为潘所爱，为逃避潘，便躲藏在河里，把自己变成一棵芦苇。潘便用这棵芦苇削制成一支芦笛，供自己吹奏。

　　⑤罗提斯（Lotis），罗马神话中的仙女，她为了摆脱普里阿波斯的追求，将自己变成莲花。

　　⑥普里阿波斯（Priapus），希腊神话中的果园、田野之神，后又成为淫乐之神，曾追求过仙女罗提斯。