It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson. The moment happened to be one at which her father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket.那時快到睡覺的時候了，但是她卻急忙跑到樓下，問要不要去請牧師。就在那個時候，她的父親剛剛從每星期一次的羅利弗酒店酗酒回來，恰巧正是他對自己家是古老貴族這件事感覺最強烈的時候，也是他對苔絲給這個貴族之家染上的被宣揚得沸沸揚揚的污點感到最敏感的時候。他宣布絕不允許牧師進他的家門，探聽他的隱私，因為那個時候，她的恥辱比過去更有必要掩蓋起來。他就鎖上門，把鑰匙裝進了自己的口袋里。

The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse. It was obviously dying - quietly and painlessly, but none the less surely.一家人都上床睡覺了，苔絲痛苦得無以復加，也只好上床睡了。她躺在床上，老是不斷醒來，到了半夜，她發現孩子的病情更重了。很明顯，孩子快要死了——安安靜靜地，也沒有痛苦，但是確實快要死了。

In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts. She thought of the child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy; saw the arch-fiend tossing it with his three-pronged fork, like the one they used for heating the oven on baking days; to which picture she added many other quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the young in this Christian country. The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook with each throb of her heart.她在痛苦中翻來覆去。時鐘敲響了莊嚴的凌晨一點，就在那個時候，幻想才得以超脫理智，恐怖的可能才成為牢不可破的事實。在她的想象里，因為孩子沒有受洗和是私生的這兩重大罪，所以被打進了地獄中最深的一個角落里；她看見那個魔鬼頭子手里拿起一把三刃的鋼叉，把她的孩子又來叉去，那根鋼叉和在烤面包時用來燒爐子的鋼叉一樣；在這幅圖畫里，她又添加了許多其它稀奇古怪的孩子遭受折磨的細節，那都是在這個基督教國家里給年輕人講過的。睡覺的屋子里一片寂靜，恐怖的場面太強烈了，因而她的想象也就更逼真，嚇出了一身冷汗，把睡衣都濕透了，她的心猛烈地跳動著，每跳動一次，床也就震動一下。

The infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the mother's mental tension increased. It was useless to devour the little thing with kisses; she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about the room.嬰兒的呼吸變得越來越困難了，母親心里的緊張也跟著增加了。她無論怎樣去吻那個孩子都無濟于事；她在床上再也躺不住了，就焦急地在房間里走來走去。

'O merciful God, have pity; have pity upon my poor baby!' she cried. 'Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome; but pity the child!'“啊，慈悲的上帝啊，你發發慈悲吧；可憐可憐我這個苦命的孩子吧！”她大聲喊著。“把你的憤怒盡管加在我的身上吧，我是心甘情愿的；但是你要可憐我的孩子呀！”

She leant against the chest of drawers, and murmured incoherent supplications for a long while, till she suddenly started up.她倚靠在五斗櫥上，斷斷續續地低聲作了半天祈禱，后來突然跳起來。

'Ah! perhaps baby can be saved! Perhaps it will be just the same!'“啊！也許這孩子還可以得救！也許那樣辦完全是一樣的！”

She spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have shone in the gloom surrounding her.她說話的時候，臉上也變得十分開朗了，仿佛掩藏在陰暗中的臉也發出了亮光。

She lit a candle, and went to a second and a third bed under the wall, where she awoke her young sisters and brothers, all of whom occupied the same room. Pulling out the washing-stand so that she could get behind it, she poured some water from a jug, and made them kneel around, putting their hands together with fingers exactly vertical. While the children, scarcely awake, awe-stricken at her manner, their eyes growing larger and larger, remained in this position, she took the baby from her bed - a child's child - so immature as scarce to seem a sufficient personality to endow its producer with the maternal title. Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin, the next sister held the Prayer Book open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her child.她點燃一根蠟燭，走到墻邊第二張和第三張床的跟前，弟弟和妹妹都同她睡在一個房間里，她就把他們都給叫了起來。她又把洗臉架拉了出來，自己站到洗臉架的后面，從水罐里倒出一些水，讓弟弟和妹妹跪在自己周圍，把雙手伸出來，五指伸直合攏在一起。那時候孩子們還沒有完全清醒過來，見了她那個樣子，直覺得莊嚴可怕，就保持著那種姿勢，眼睛越睜越大。她從床上抱起嬰兒——她是一個孩子的孩子——她還沒有完全成熟起來，簡直似乎沒有資格享有那個孩子的母親的稱號。苔絲懷里抱著那個嬰兒，筆直地站在臉盆的旁邊，她的大妹妹站在她的面前，手里拿著已經翻開的祈禱書，就好像教堂的牧師助手拿著打開的祈禱書站在牧師面前一樣；那個女孩子就這樣開始為她的孩子洗禮。