評論
打印
He came back to their tiny apartment and laid the goods out on the dining room table.
回到他們的小公寓把這些東西放在起居室桌子上。
Regina began to cut the gingham, small sizes for toddlers,
瑞吉娜開始裁剪棉布，小的給初學走路的孩子，
larger for small children, until she had forty aprons. She began to sew.
大的給小孩子。知道她做了40個圍裙。她開始縫紉。
At midnight, she went to bed and Louis took up where she had left off.
午夜十分，她才睡覺。然后路易斯接著干她沒干完的活。
At dawn, she rose and began cutting buttonholes and adding buttons.
拂曉時，她起來開始挖紐扣眼，加紐扣。
By ten in the morning, the aprons were finished.
早上10點，圍裙做完了。
Louis gathered them up over his arm and ventured out onto Hester Street.
路易斯拿著這些圍裙冒險到郝思特街上賣賣看。
"Children's aprons! Little girls' aprons! Colored ones, ten cents.
“兒童圍嘴！小女孩的！花的10分錢，
White ones, fifteen cents! Little girls' aprons!" By one o'clock, all forty were gone.
白色的15分錢！小女孩的圍嘴！”到1點鐘的時候，40個全賣光了。
"Ma, we've got our business," she shouted out to Regina, after running all the way home from Hester Street.
“孩子他媽，我們找到好生意了，”他從這街上一路飛奔回家后對老婆高喊著，
"We made two dollars and sixty cents in three hours of selling."
“三小時里咱們賣了兩美元六十美分。”
He grabbed her by ther waist and began swinging her around and around.
他抓著她的腰開始轉圈。
"You've got to help me," he cried out. "We'll work together! Ma, this is our business."
“你一定要幫助我”，他喊著。“我們一起努力工作，孩子媽，這是我們的事業。”
Jewish immigrants like the Floms and the Borgenichts
弗洛姆和鮑各尼特家這樣的有猶太移民
and the Janklows were not like the other immigrants who came to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
還有詹克洛家都不像那些在19世紀和20世紀早期來到美國的移民。
The Irish and the Italians were peasants, tenants farmers from the impoverished countryside of Europe.
愛爾蘭和意大利的移民主要是來自歐洲貧窮鄉下的農民和佃戶。
Not so the Jews. For centuries in Europe, they had been forbidden from owning land,
但猶太人不是，幾個實際以來在歐洲，他們被迫離開自己的土地，
and so they had clustered in cities and towns, taking up urban trades and professions.
擁擠在城市和城鎮里，從事鄉村貿易和職業。
Seventy percent of the Eastern European Jews who came through Ellis Island in the thirty years
東歐的70%的猶太人30年中主要來自艾麗斯島，
or so before the first World War had some kind of occupational skill.
或在一戰前有著某種職業技能。
They had owned small groceries or jewelry stores.
他們有小雜貨店或珠寶店。
They had been bookbinders or watch makers.
他們一直是書籍裝訂商或鐘表匠。
Overwhelmingly, though, their experience lay in the clothing trade.
但總體來說，他們的經驗在服裝貿易方面。
They were tailors and dress makers, hat and cap makers, and furriers and tanners.
他們是裁縫和服裝制造者，帽子制造者，皮革制造商。
Louis Borgenicht, for example, left the impoverished home of his parents at age twelve
舉例來說，路易斯·鮑各尼特在12歲的時候就離開了父母貧窮的家
to work as a salesclerk in a general store in the Polish town of Brzesko.
開始在布熱斯科的波蘭鎮的雜貨店做店員。
When the opportunity came to work in Schnittwaren Handlung
當他有機會在SchnittwarenHandlung店
(literally, the handling of cloth and fabrics or "piece goods," as they were known), he jumped at it.
（字面意思就是，如大家知道的處理布料和紡織品或“布匹”）里工作時，他加入了這個行業。
"In those days, the piece-goods man was clothier to the world," he writes,
“布匹行業的人對世界來說就是衣商”，他寫道，
"and of the three fundamentals required for life in that simple society, food and shelter were humble.
“在那個簡單社會里必須的三個基本要素，食物和簡陋的庇護所。
Clothing was the aristocrat.
服飾是貴族的東西。
