評論
打印
Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years.
１８６１年四月一個晴朗的下午，思嘉同塔爾頓家的孿生兄弟斯圖爾特和布倫特坐在她父親的塔拉農場陰涼的走廊里，她的美貌顯得更明媚如畫了。她穿一件新綠花布衣裳，長長的裙子在裙箍上舒展著，配上她父親從亞特蘭大給她帶來的新綠羊皮便鞋，顯得很相稱。她的腰圍不過１７英寸，是附近三個縣里最細小的了，而這身衣裳更把腰肢襯托得更完整，加上里面那件繃得緊緊的小馬甲，使她的只有１６歲但已發育得很好的乳房便躍然顯露了。
But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
不過，無論她散開的長裙顯得多么老實，發髻梳在后面顯得多么端莊，那雙交疊在膝頭上的小手顯得多么文靜，她的本來面目終歸是藏不住的。那雙綠色的眼睛生在一張甜美的臉上，卻仍然是任性的，充滿活力的，與她的裝束儀表很不相同。她的舉止是由她母親和嬤嬤的嚴厲管教強加給她的，但她的眼睛屬于她自己。
On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.
她的兩旁，孿生兄弟懶懶地斜靠在椅子上，斜望著從新裝的玻璃窗透過來的陽光談笑著，四條穿著高統靴和因經常騎馬而鼓脹的長腿交疊在那里。他們現有１９歲，身高六英尺二英寸，長長骨骼，肌肉堅實，曬得黑黑的臉膛，深褐色的頭發，眼睛里閃著快樂的神色。他們穿著同樣的藍上衣和深黃色褲子，長相也像兩個棉桃似的。
