They were everywhere. They slept six in a bed, all their pee mixing together in the night as they wet their beds each in his own candy-and-potato-chip dream. In the long, hot days, they idled away, picking plaster from the walls and digging into the earth with sticks. They sat in little rows on street curbs, crowded into pews at church, taking space from the nice, neat, colored children; they clowned on the playgrounds, broke things in dime stores, ran in front of you on the street, made ice slides on the sloped sidewalks in winter. The girls grew up knowing nothing of girdles, and the boys announced their manhood by turning the bills of their caps backward. Grass wouldn't grow where they lived. Flowers died. Shades fell down. Tin cans and tires blossomed where they lived. They lived on cold black-eyed peas and orange pop. Like flies they hovered; like flies they settled. And this one had settled in her house. Up over the hump of the cat's back she looked.
她們無所不在。她們在馬路牙子上和教堂里成排地擠坐著，占據(jù)了穿著整齊利索的有色孩子的位置；她們在操場上出洋相，在便宜商店里碰壞商品，在馬路上連跑帶跳，到了冬天則在人行道結(jié)冰的斜坡上滑行。女孩子到了成年也不知束腰為何物，男孩子則把帽檐朝后戴以表示他們已長大成人。他們居住的地方寸草不生，花木凋岑，陰影籠罩，而罐頭盒和汽車輪胎則生長繁茂。他們吃黑豆喝冷飲長大，像蒼蠅一樣成群結(jié)隊地飛行，像蒼蠅一樣散落下來。其中之一就落到了她家，她正從弓著的貓背后朝她望著。
Get out, she said, her voice quiet. "You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house."
“出去，”她說道，嗓音低沉，“你這討厭的小黑丫頭，從我家滾出去。”
The cat shuddered and flicked his tail.
那只貓抖動了一下，搖了搖尾巴。
Pecola backed out of the room, staring at the pretty milk-brown lady in the pretty gold-and-green house who was talking to her through the cat's fur. The pretty lady's words made the cat fur move; the breath of each word parted the fur. Pecola turned to find the front door and saw Jesus looking down at her with sad and unsurprised eyes, his long brown hair parted in the middle, the gay paper flowers twisted around his face.
佩科拉倒退著出了門，眼睛一直看著住在金綠兩色的漂亮房子里、透過貓毛跟自己說話的漂亮的淺棕色皮膚的太太。那位漂亮太太說話時嘴里冒出的熱氣使貓毛抖動、分開。佩科拉轉(zhuǎn)過身去找到前門，看見耶穌正用傷感但又極其冷靜的目光看著她。他長長的棕色頭發(fā)從中間分開，臉的四周圍著一圈紙花。
Outside, the March wind blew into the rip in her dress. She held her head down against the cold. But she could not hold it low enough to avoid seeing the snowflakes falling and dying on the pavement.
屋外，三月的風(fēng)吹進(jìn)她裙子的破裂處。在冷風(fēng)里她低著頭。可是即使低著頭，她還是看見了飄落的雪花，雪花落在地上，隨即消失。
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