FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD《远离尘嚣》（ISBN=9780553213317）pdf/txt下载_在线阅读全文

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内容简介

Graced with the splendid illustrations executed by Helen Paterson for the first edition of the novel, this special Collector's Edition of Far from the Madding Crowd also features handwritten letters and drawings by Hardy, as well as rare and intimate portraits of the author and his first wife, Emma. Here, too, readers are granted a fascinating and touching glimpse of how two great imaginative writers interact with one another: This edition reproduces the handwritten pages from Virginia Woolf's diary in which she recounts her now-famous visit with the very aged Thomas Hardy at his home, Max Gate, in 1926.

作者简介

Margaret Drabble edited The Oxford Companion to English Literature and The Genius of Thomas Hardy. Her novels include The Waterfall and The Gates of Ivory, and, most recently, The Witch of Exmoor and The Peppered Moth. She lives in England.

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Chapter I Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident

When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till theywere within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes werereduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them,extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentarysketch of the rising sun.

His Christian name was Gabriel,and on working days he was a youngman of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general goodcharacter. On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given topostponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon thewhole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middlespace of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communionpeople of the parish and the drunken section,—that is, he went tochurch, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reachedthe Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinnerwhen he meant to be listening to the sermon. Or, to state hischaracter as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when hisfriends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather abad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; whenthey were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind ofpepper-and-salt mixture.

Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak'sappearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own—themental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him beingalways dressed in that way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spreadout at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in highwinds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson's,4 his lower extremities beingencased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large,affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that anywearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing ofdamp—their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured tocompensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension andsolidity.

Chapter I Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident 
 
When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they
were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were
reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them,
extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary
sketch of the rising sun. 
 
His Christian name was Gabriel,and on working days he was a young
man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good
character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to
postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the
whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle
space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion
people of the parish and the drunken section,—that is, he went to
church, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached
the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner
when he meant to be listening to the sermon. Or, to state his
character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his
friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a
bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when
they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of
pepper-and-salt mixture. 
 
Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak's
appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own—the
mental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being
always dressed in that way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread
out at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high
winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson's,4 his lower extremities being
encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large,
affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that any
wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of
damp—their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to
compensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and
solidity. 
 
Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a
small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and
intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument being
several years older than Oak's grandfather, had the peculiarity of
going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of its hands, too,
occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the
minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of
the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch
Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil
consequences from the other two defects by constant comparisons
with and observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing his
face close to the glass of his neighbours' windows, till he could
discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within. It
may be mentioned that Oak's fob being difficult of access, by
reason of its somewhat high situation in the waistband of his
trousers (which also lay at a remote height under his waistcoat),
the watch was as a necessity pulled out by throwing the body to one
side, compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of ruddy flesh
on account of the exertion, and drawing up the watch by its chain,
like a bucket from a well. 
 
But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of
his fields on a certain December morning—sunny and exceedingly
mild—might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these.
In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of
youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter
crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have
been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been
exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have,
rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than
flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by
their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty that would
have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him
that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked
unassumingly, and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct
from a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in
an individual if he depends for his valuation more upon his
appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did
not. 
 
He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing to
be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one. He was at the brightest
period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were
clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the
influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character
of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they
become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the
influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and
a bachelor. 
 
The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe
Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster
and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming
down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted
yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking
alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with
household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat
a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for
more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a
standstill just beneath his eyes. 
 
"The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the
waggoner. 
 
"Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, though not
particularly low voice. "I heard a noise I could not account for
when we were coming up the hill." 
 
"I'll run back." 
 
"Do," she answered. 
 
The sensible horses stood perfectly still, and the waggoner's steps
sank fainter and fainter in the distance. 
 
The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by
tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle,
and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and
cactuses, together with a caged canary—all probably from the
windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow
basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she gazed with
half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds
around. 
 
The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the
only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up
and down the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively
downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an
oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. She turned
her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in
sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming
to run upon what was inside it. At length she drew the article into
her lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing looking-glass
was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself
attentively. She parted her lips and smiled. 
 
It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the
crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright
face and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed
around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they
invested the whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl
with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed her to indulge in such
a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and
unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators,—whether the smile
began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,—nobody
knows; it ended certainly in a real smile. She blushed at herself,
and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more. 
 
The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such
an act—from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling
out of doors—lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not
intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman's
prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had
clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference
was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous
though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for
her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her
hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that
any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She
simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine
kind, her thoughts seeming to glide into far-off though likely
dramas in which men would play a part—vistas of probable
triumphs—the smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were
imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the
whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it rash to
assert that intention had any part in them at all. 
 
The waggoner's steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the
paper, and the whole again into its place. 
 
When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of
espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the
turnpike-gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the
object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll.
About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he
heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between
the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar. 
 
"Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that's
enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she won't pay any
more." These were the waggoner's words. 
 
"Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," said the
turnpike-keeper, closing the gate. 
 
Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and f...

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