So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished some time since--was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.
霍默·巴倫走了后,我們一點也不感到驚奇,因為街道鋪設工程完工已經有好一陣子了。讓我們感到有點失望的是缺少了吹吹打打的歡送場面,但我們還是相信霍默·巴倫走了是去準備迎娶艾米莉小姐,或者給她一個機會好打發走兩個堂妹。(當時我們形成了一個私黨,力挺艾米莉小姐,幫她收拾這對堂姐妹。)一點不錯,過了一星期,這對堂姐妹就走了。不出所料,霍默·巴倫又回來到了鎮上。一個鄰居目睹了艾來莉家的黑仆在一個黃昏把他從廚房門接了進去。
And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die.
那是我們最后一次見到霍默·巴倫。艾米莉小姐呢,我們則有一段時間沒有見過她了。黑人倒是提著籃子進進出出,但前門總是關著。偶爾還可以從窗戶上看到她的身影閃現,就像人們撒石灰那天晚上見到的情景一樣,但幾乎有六個月沒見她上過街了。我們知道,這一切也是可以預料的;好像父親的性格對她這樣的女人的生活增添了不少的麻煩,而這種性格似乎太惡毒、太極端了,至今難以消除。
When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew greyer and greyer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron gray, like the hair of an active man.
再次見到艾米莉小姐時,她已經身體發福,而頭發逐漸灰白起來。隨后幾年里,她的頭發越來越灰,變成了白鹽摻胡椒般的鐵灰色,隨后再也沒有變過。到了她七十四歲過世時,都保持著她那旺盛的鐵灰色,像是正值當年的男人的頭發。
From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been remitted.
從那時起,她的前門再也沒有打開過,只有她四十開外時,大約有六七年時間前門開過。在那段時間,她開課教授瓷器彩繪。她在樓下的一間房里布置了一間畫室。薩特里斯上校同時代的人都把女兒、孫女送到她那兒去學習,而且很按時,那精神與禮拜天把她們送去教堂,給她們二毛五分硬幣以備放在募捐盤中的情形沒什么區別。那時,她的稅收早巳豁免了。