Ⅲ
第三節
That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough to Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.
而這時,人們才開始真正為她感到難過。我們鎮上的人想起了了艾米莉小姐的姑奶奶懷亞特,這老太太后來完全變成了一個瘋子;我們都相信格利爾遜一家人都太過自命清髙了。年輕男人在艾米莉小姐這類的女人看來都不是什么好貨色。長久以往,我們都把她們這家人看作一幅活人畫:艾米莉小姐身材苗條,立于父親身后;父親站在前面,雙腳叉開,背對艾米莉,手里握著馬鞭;二人站在一扇后開的前門中間。所以當她接近三十歲,依然孑然一身,準確地說,我們并沒有欣喜之心,反而覺得我們先前的看法得到了證實。即使她家有瘋癲的遺傳,要是遇到機會;她也不應斷然放棄。
When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.
父親死后,傳說那幢房子全部留給了她;人們也有點髙興。他們終于可以向她表達憐憫之情了。孤單清苦,她早該懂人情世故了。如今她也該體會到多一分錢則喜,少一分錢則愁的那種人之常情了。
The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.
她父親死后的第二天,鎮上所有的女人都準備去她家吊唁和提供幫助,這是我們的習俗。艾米莉小姐在家門口接待了她們,依著和往日一樣,臉上也沒有絲毫悲傷。她告訴來訪者,她父親沒有死。連續三天都這樣,無論是來訪的牧師們,還是醫生們,都勸她讓他們把尸體處理掉。正當他們準備訴諸法律和武力時,艾米莉崩潰了,這時,他們才趕緊把她父親給埋掉了。
We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.
我們并不是說她當時就瘋了,反倒認為她的反常是身不由己,還記得,她父親把所有的青年小伙都驅趕走了,也知道她如今一無所有了,才死死地抓住剝奪她一切的那個人,其實,是人都會這樣。