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Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green. The twins’ horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair; and around the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.
外面，陽光斜照到場地上，映照著一簇簇的白色花朵在綠色的背景中顯得分外鮮艷。孿生兄弟起來的馬就拴在車道上，那是兩匹高頭大馬，毛色紅得象主人的頭發；馬腿旁邊有一群吵吵嚷嚷一直跟隨著主人的獵犬。稍稍遠一點的地方躺著一條白色帶有黑花斑的隨車大狗，它把鼻子貼在前爪上，耐心等待著兩個小伙子回家去吃晚飯。
Between the hounds and the horses and the twins there was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companionship. They were all healthy, thoughtless young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited, the boys as mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal, sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them.
在這些獵犬、馬匹和兩個孿生兄弟之間，有著一種比通常更親密的關系。他們都是年輕、健康而毫無思想的動物，也同樣圓滑、優雅，兩個小伙子和他們所騎的馬一樣精神，但都帶有危險性，可同時對于那些知道怎樣駕馭他們的人又是可愛的。
Although born to the ease of plantation life, waited on hand and foot since infancy, the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor soft. They had the vigor and alertness of country people who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with dull things in books.
雖然坐在走廊里的人，都同生在優裕的莊園主家庭，從小由仆人細心服侍著，但他們的臉顯得并不懶散。他們像一輩子生活在野外、很少在書本上的鄉巴佬一樣，顯得強壯而畗有活力。
Life in the north Georgia county of Clayton was still new and, according to the standards of Augusta, Savannah and Charleston, a little crude. The more sedate and older sections of the South looked down their noses at the up-country Georgians, but here in north Georgia, a lack of the niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart in the things that mattered. And raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one’s liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered.
生活在北佐治亞的克萊頓縣，與奧古斯塔、薩凡納和查爾斯頓比較起來還有一點粗獷風味。南部開化得較早的文靜居民不遜內地佐治亞人，可在北佐亞這兒，人們并不以缺乏高雅的傳統文化教育為恥，只要在那些在他們認為重要的事情上學得精明就行了。他們心目中所關注的事，就是種好棉花，騎馬匹得好，打槍打得準，跳舞跳得輕快，善于體面地追逐女人，像個溫文爾雅的紳士喝酒。
