The traveller in school-books, who vouched in dryest tones for the fidelity to fact of the following narrative, used to add a ring of truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's personality. People were wrong, he declared, when they surmised that Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions or character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hate—so ran the general opinion. That she showed few positive qualities was true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces of active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a mine.
课本中讲故事的流浪者会扯着干哑的嗓子吹嘘下面故事的真实性。他在开场白中常常对女主角的性格稍加评论，让故事显得很真实。他声称，人们把巴普蒂斯塔·特鲁森看作是一个几乎没有感情、性格模糊的年轻女子，这种看法是错误的。她身上既没有可爱之处，也没有可憎之处——一般人都这么认为。诚然，她身上很少能展现出优良的品质。她不同于一些活泼女子，任何外部事情的变化都不能让她的面容有一丝变化。但静水流深，早年的她没经历过危难，因此她那如矿藏般深藏的内心也就无从显示出来。
She was the daughter of a small farmer in St. Maria's, one of the Isles of Lyonesse beyond Off-Wessex, who had spent a large sum, as there understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland for two years. At nineteen she was entered at the Training College for Teachers, and at twenty-one nominated to a school in the country, near Tor-upon-Sea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas examination and holidays.
她是一个小农场主的女儿，来自外威塞克斯里昂尼斯群岛上的圣玛丽亚岛，她的父亲在她的教育上不惜重金（在当地看来是这样的），将她送往内陆学习了两年。她十九岁进入师范学院，二十一岁到“多赫海”附近的一所乡村学校任教，圣诞节考试和假期结束后，她前往那里任教。
The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista applied herself to her new duties as best she could, till an uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her bearing as she walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the traits of a person who had something on her mind. A widow, by name Mrs. Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a sitting-room and bedroom till the school-house should be built, noticed this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last ventured to press her with a few questions.
冬去春来，春末夏至，几个月过去了，巴普蒂斯塔尽最大努力集中精神履行新的职责，平淡的一年就这么过去了。后来，在每天两次往返的路上，她的神情举止有些心不在焉，看起来一副心事重重的样子。在校舍完工前，巴普蒂斯塔·特鲁森暂时住在寡妇韦斯夫人的家里，韦斯夫人向她提供了一间起居室和卧室。这时，韦斯夫人注意到了她的这位年轻房客身上所发生的变化，终于鼓起勇气，问了几个问题。
"It has nothing to do with the place, nor with you," said Miss Trewthen.
“不是住处或者您的关系。”特鲁森小姐说道。
"Then it is the salary?"
“那就是薪水了？”
"No, nor the salary."
“不，也不是薪水。”
"Then it is something you have heard from home, my dear."
“那就是收到家里的什么信了吧，亲爱的。”
Baptista was silent for a few moments. "It is Mr. Heddegan," she murmured. "Him they used to call David Heddegan before he got his money."
巴普蒂斯塔沉默了一会儿。“是赫德甘先生，”她喃喃地说道，“在他发迹前，人们叫他大卫·赫德甘。”
"And who is the Mr. Heddegan they used to call David?"
“人们曾经称之为大卫·赫德甘的那位先生是谁？”
An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St. Maria's, with no relations whatever, who lives about a stone's throw from father's. When I was a child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some day. Now I am a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious to do it. And father and mother says I can't do better than have him."
“是圣玛丽亚巨人镇的一个单身汉，无亲无故，住处离我父亲家约一箭之遥。我小的时候，他常常抱我坐到他的膝盖上，说有一天要娶我。现在我长大了，玩笑话成了真，现在他急着娶我。我父母跟我说，嫁给他是最好的选择了。”
He's well off?"
“他很有钱？”
Yes—he's the richest man we know—as a friend and neighbour."
“是的——他是我们认识的邻里朋友中最有钱的。”
"How much older did you say he was than yourself?"
“你刚才说他比你大多少？”
"I didn't say. Twenty years at least."
“我刚才没说。至少二十岁。”
"And an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps?"
“而且这个人还很讨厌，对不对？”
"No—he's not unpleasant."
“不，也不是令人讨厌。”
"Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement if it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable here, in my little house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so cheerful, since my poor husband left me to wear his wings, as I've been with 'ee as my lodger."
“哦，孩子，我能说的就是，如果你不喜欢这门婚事的话，我会反对的。我希望你在我的小房子里住得舒适。整个教区都喜欢你，自从我可怜的丈夫去世后，我从来没有像你住过来之后这么快乐。”
The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the sentiment. "But here comes my perplexity," she said. "I don't like keeping school. Ah, you are surprised—you didn't suspect it. That's because I've concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate school. I don't care for children—they are unpleasant, troublesome little things, whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen down dead. Yet I would even put up with them if it was not for the inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly. And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you don't know what to teach, and what to leave untaught. I think father and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress if I dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by marrying Mr. Heddegan. Between us two, I like him better than school; but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to marry him."
女教师向女房东保证，会报答她的这份情谊。“但是我要讲我的困惑了。”她说，“我不喜欢在学校工作。哦，您觉得意外——您没这么想过。那是因为我一直以来掩藏了自己的感受。唉，我就是讨厌学校。我不喜欢孩子——这些小东西不但讨人厌，还会惹麻烦，听到你倒地死了，他们会高兴得要命。即使这样，如果不是学监的话，我还可以忍受他们。距离他来视察还有三个月，我就睡不着觉了。校董会总是改变教学规则，你都不知道哪些该教，哪些不该教。我觉得父母说得对。他们说，如果我这么不喜欢教书，老师肯定当不好，因此，我应该嫁给赫德甘先生，过安定的生活。与学校相比，我更喜欢赫德甘，但我对他的喜欢也没到想嫁给他的程度。”
These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till at length the young girl's elderly friend and landlady threw in her opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things considered, she declared, the uncertainty of the school, the labour, Baptista's natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take what fate offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her father's old neighbour and prosperous friend.
这些谈话一旦开始，就一天一天地继续下去，直到最后，这位上了年纪的朋友兼房东站到了特鲁森小姐父母这一边。她表示，考虑各方面因素，如学校工作既不安定又辛苦、巴普蒂斯塔天生讨厌教书等等，最好还是听从命运的安排，嫁给这位富有的老邻居兼父亲的老朋友，则可能是最好的选择。
The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as usual in her native isle, going by train into Off-Wessex and crossing by packet from Pen-zephyr. When she returned in the middle of April her face wore a more settled aspect.
复活节到来，巴普蒂斯塔与以往一样回到小岛上的家乡度过假期。她先坐火车到外威塞克斯，再从彭热法尔坐邮船过海。四月中旬她从家中回到学校后，脸上的神情更加安定了。
"Well?" said the expectant Mrs. Wace.
“怎么样？”韦斯夫人满怀期待地说。
"I have agreed to have him as my husband," said Baptista, in an off-hand way. "Heaven knows if it will be for the best or not. But I have agreed to do it, and so the matter is settled."
“我已经答应嫁给他了，”她脱口而出，“天知道这是不是最好的选择。但我已经决定嫁给他，事情就这么定了。”
Mrs. Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them. Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending; that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had given notice of leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on she announced more specifically that her marriage was to take place immediately after her return home at the beginning of the month aforesaid.
韦斯夫人称赞了她一番，但巴普蒂斯塔不愿意在这个问题上过多细谈，因此之后两个人也很少谈及这方面的事情。但在谈论其他事情的时候，她也不时在寡居的房东面前简略地提及，婚礼真的临近了，就安排在夏天，她已经通知学校，将会在八月假期离开学校。后来，她更明确地告诉房东，八月初回家后，马上就举行婚礼。
She now corresponded regularly with Mr. Heddegan. Her letters from him were seen, at least on the outside, and in part within, by Mrs. Wace. Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional sentences shown her by Baptista she would have perceived that the scratchy, rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed conveyed little more matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his preparations for the same, with innumerable "my dears" sprinkled in disconnectedly, to show the depth of his affection without the inconveniences of syntax.
现在她与赫德甘先生定期通信。韦斯夫人至少看到了赫德甘来信的信封和部分内容。如果韦斯夫人能够读到更多内容而非仅仅巴普蒂斯塔给她看的只言片语，她就会发现，特鲁森小姐未婚夫潦草生疏的字迹写的几乎全是未来家务的细节以及他对处理家务的打算，中间不连贯地夹杂着无数个“亲爱的”表达深情，但没影响到句式表述。
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