評論
打印
He was sixty years old and his crisp curly hair was silver-white, but his shrewd face was unlined and his hard little blue eyes were young with the unworried youthfulness of one who has never taxed his brain with problems more abstract than how many cards to draw in a poker game. His was as Irish a face as could be found in the length and breadth of the homeland he had left so long ago—round, high colored, short nosed, wide mouthed and belligerent.
他６０歲了，一頭波浪式的鬈發已經白如銀絲，但是他那精明的臉上還沒有一絲皺紋，兩只藍眼睛也煥發著青年人無憂無慮的神采，這說明他從來不為什么抽象的問題傷腦筋，只想些簡單實際的事，如打撲克時要抓幾張牌，等等。他那張純粹愛爾蘭型的臉，同他已離別多年的故鄉的那些臉一模一樣，是圓圓的、深色的、短鼻子，寬嘴巴，滿臉好戰的神情。
Beneath his choleric exterior Gerald O’Hara had the tenderest of hearts. He could not bear to see a slave pouting under a reprimand, ho matter how well deserved, or hear a kitten mewing or a child crying; but he had a horror of having this weakness discovered. That everyone who met him did discover his kindly heart within five minutes was unknown to him; and his vanity would have suffered tremendously if he had found it out, for he liked to think that when he bawled orders at the top of his voice everyone trembled and obeyed. It had never occurred to him that only one voice was obeyed on the plantation—the soft voice of his wife Ellen. It was a secret he would never learn, for everyone from Ellen down to the stupidest field hand was in a tacit and kindly conspiracy to keep him believing that his word was law.
雖然杰拉爾德·奧哈拉外表粗暴，但心地卻十分善良。他不忍心看到奴隸們受懲罰時的可憐相，即使是應該的也罷；也不喜歡聽到貓叫或小孩蹄哭。不過他很害怕別人發現他的這個弱點。他還不知道人家遇到他不過五分鐘就明白他是好心腸的人了。可是如果他覺察到這一點，他的虛榮心就要大受傷害，因為他喜歡設想，只要自己大喊大叫地發號施令，誰都會戰戰兢兢地服從呢。他從來不曾想到過，在這個農場里人人都服從的只有一個聲音，那就是太太愛倫的柔和的聲音。他永遠也不會知道這個秘密，因為自愛倫以下直到最粗笨的大田勞工，都在暗中串通一起，讓他始終相信自己的話便是圣旨。
Scarlett was impressed less than anyone else by his tempers and his roarings. She was his oldest child and, now that Gerald knew there would be no more sons to follow the three who lay in the family burying ground, he had drifted into a habit of treating her in a man-to-man manner which she found most pleasant. She was more like her father than her younger sisters, for Carreen, who had been born Caroline Irene, was delicate and dreamy, and Suellen, christened Susan Elinor, prided herself on her elegance and ladylike deportment.
思嘉比誰都更不在乎他的嬤嬤和吼叫。她是他的頭生孩子，而且杰拉爾德也清楚，在三個兒子相繼向進了家庭墓地之后，他不會再有兒子了，因此他已逐漸養成習慣，以男人對男人的態度來對待她，而這是她最樂意接受的。她比幾個妹妹更像父親，因為卡琳生來體格纖弱，多愁善感，而蘇倫又自命不凡，總覺得自己文雅，有貴婦人派頭。
