評論
打印
Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladles' magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.
后來，新一代成了鎮上的骨干和靈魂，那些學畫的孩子已經長大成人，相繼離開了，她們沒有讓自己的女兒帶著調色盒、討厭的畫筆和從女士雜志上剪下的圖畫到艾米莉小姐家學繪畫。最后一個學生走后，前門就關了，而且再也沒有打開過。鎮上實行免費郵遞時，唯獨艾米莉小姐拒絕在她家門上訂金屬門牌號，附設郵箱。她也不聽他們解釋。
Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow greyer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
日復一日，月復一月，年復一年。只見那黑人，頭發白了，背也駝了，依然提著菜籃子進進出出。每年十二月，我們都寄給她一張納稅通知單，但一星期后，又被郵局退了回來，無人認領。時不時地，我們在樓下的一個窗口——顯然她把自己封閉在閣樓上了——還可看到她的身影。那身影活像神龕中供奉的無頭神像，是不是在看我們，我們也拿不準。就這樣，一代又一代過去了，她始終保持著——高貴傲然，臨危不懼，性格倔強，鎮定自如，怪僻乖張。
And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.
她就這樣走了。死前，她病倒在一棟塵埃遍地、魅影幢幢的屋子里，只有一個老態龍鐘的黑人侍候她。她病倒了，連我們都不知道，我們也懶得從黑人那兒打聽消息了。況且，那黑人見誰也不吭聲，恐怕見了她也是如此。由于長期不吭聲，他的嗓子早已沙啞了。
She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her grey head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.
她死在樓下一間屋子里，笨重的胡桃木床掛著床幃，她那長滿鐵灰色的頭枕著枕頭，因長年不見陽光，枕頭已經泛黃發霉了。
Ⅴ
第五節
The negro met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
黑人站在前門口迎接第一批婦女，把她們引進了屋子。她們悄聲細語，好奇地東瞧瞧西瞅瞅。黑人轉眼就不見了。他穿過屋子，出了后門，再也不見蹤影了。
