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The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men--some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years.
說來，兩位堂姐妹就來了，他們第二天就舉行了葬禮，全鎮(zhèn)的人都來吊唁鮮花覆蓋的艾米莉，棺材架上方掛著她父親的炭筆畫像，表情嚴(yán)肅深沉；女人們悄聲細(xì)語(yǔ)、戰(zhàn)戰(zhàn)兢兢。而那些老年男人呢——有些還穿上刷洗干凈的南方同盟軍制服——在走廊里、草坪上議論著艾米莉小姐，仿佛她就是他們同時(shí)代的人，還說，跟她跳過舞，興許還向她求過婚呢，他們按數(shù)學(xué)級(jí)數(shù)來推算，混淆了時(shí)間，這是老年人的通病。對(duì)老人來說，過去不是一條越走越窄的路，而是一片沒有冬天的大草地，而只是最近十年才像窄小的瓶頸般將他們與過去隔斷了。
Already we knew that there was one room in that region abovestairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.
我們?cè)缇椭伲瑯巧夏莻€(gè)地方有一間屋子，四十年了誰(shuí)也沒有進(jìn)去過，只能踹門而入了。艾米莉小姐下葬后，他們才去開門。
The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valence curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks.
門砰地一下踹開了，頓時(shí)屋里仿佛彌漫著灰塵。房間仿佛曾是一間裝飾一新的新房，如今如墳?zāi)挂话惆l(fā)出淡淡的、嗆人的氣味，四處滲透出陰森森氣氛：褪色了的玫瑰色窗簾，陰暗的玫瑰色燈光，梳妝臺(tái)，一排精細(xì)的水晶飾品，還有白銀底色的盥洗用品，不過白銀制品已經(jīng)失去了光澤，連刻在上面的字跡也都看不清了。其中有一條硬領(lǐng)和領(lǐng)帶，仿佛是從身上取下來的，然后提起來，在臺(tái)面上留下淡淡的月牙形塵埃痕跡。椅子上掛著一套精心折疊的衣服；椅子下是兩只寂寞的鞋子，還有一雙丟棄的襪子。
The man himself lay in the bed.
床上躺著那個(gè)男人。
For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.
我們?cè)谀莾赫玖撕靡粫?huì)兒，俯視著那枯瘦陰森、齜牙咧嘴的頭顱；尸體躺在那兒，那躺姿明顯是曾一度擁抱過，但如今的長(zhǎng)眠比愛情更加長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)，甚至戰(zhàn)勝愛情的折磨，徹底讓他馴服了。破爛的睡衣下，軀體腐爛后的遺骸與他躺著的床早已難分難解了。在他身上，在他身旁的枕頭上，均勻地鋪滿了長(zhǎng)年累月積下來的灰塵。
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-grey hair.
后來，在旁邊的枕頭上，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)有人頭壓過的痕跡。有人從上面提起某種東西，湊近一看，一股淡淡的、無形的、干燥嗆人的塵埃味撲鼻而來，原來是一綹長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的鐵灰色頭發(fā)。
