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ELLEN O’HARA was thirty-two years old, and, according to the standards of her day, she was a middle-aged woman, one who had borne six children and buried three. She was a tall woman, standing a head higher than her fiery little husband, but she moved with such quiet grace in her swaying hoops that the height attracted no attention to itself. Her neck, rising from the black taffeta sheath of her basque, was creamy-skinned, rounded and slender, and it seemed always tilted slightly backward by the weight of her luxuriant hair in its net at the back of her head. From her French mother, whose parents had fled Haiti in the Revolution of 1791, had come her slanting dark eyes, shadowed by inky lashes, and her black hair; and from her father, a soldier of Napoleon, she had her long straight nose and her square-cut jaw that was softened by the gentle curving of her cheeks. But only from life could Ellen’s face have acquired its look of pride that had no haughtiness, its graciousness, its melancholy and its utter lack of humor.
愛倫·奧哈拉現年３２歲，依當時的標準已是個中年婦人，她生有六個孩子，但其中三個已經夭折。她高高的，比那位火爆性子的矮個兒丈夫高出一頭，不過她的舉止是那么文靜，走起路來只見那條長裙子輕盈地搖擺，這樣也就不顯得怎么高了。她那奶酪色的脖頸圓圓的，細細的，從緊身上衣的黑綢圓領中端端正正地伸出來，但由于腦后那把戴著網套的豐盈秀發頗為濃重，便常常顯得略后向仰。她母親是法國人，是一對從1791年革命中逃亡到海地來的夫婦所生，她給愛倫遺傳了這雙在墨黑睫毛下略略傾斜的黑眼睛和這一頭黑發。她父親是拿破侖軍隊中的一名士兵，傳給她一個長長的、筆直的鼻子和一個有棱有角的方顎，只不過后者在她兩頰的柔美曲線的調和下顯得不那么惹眼了。同時愛倫的臉也僅僅通過生活才養馬了現在這副莊嚴而并不覺得傲慢的模樣，這種優雅，這種憂郁而毫無幽默感的神態。
She would have been a strikingly beautiful woman had there been any glow in her eyes, any responsive warmth in her smile or any spontaneity in her voice that fell with gentle melody on the ears of her family and her servants. She spoke in the soft slurring voice of the coastal Georgian, liquid of vowels, kind to consonants and with the barest trace of French accent. It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at Tara, where her husband’s blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded.
如果她的眼神中有一點煥發的光采，她的笑容中帶有一點殷勤的溫煦，她那使兒女和仆人聽來感到輕柔的聲音中有一點自然的韻味，那她便是一個非常漂亮的女人了。她說話用的是海濱佐治亞人那種柔和而有點含糊的口音，元音是流音，子音咬得不怎么準，略略帶法語腔調。這是一種即使命令仆人或斥責兒女時也從不提高的聲音，但也是在塔拉農場人人都隨時服從的聲音，而她的丈夫的大喊大叫在那里卻經常被悄悄地忽略了。
As far back as Scarlett could remember, her mother had always been the same, her voice soft and sweet whether in praising or in reproving, her manner efficient and unruffled despite the daily emergencies of Gerald’s turbulent household, her spirit always calm and her back unbowed, even in the deaths of her three baby sons. Scarlett had never seen her mother’s back touch the back of any chair on which she sat. Nor had she ever seen her sit down without a bit of needlework in her hands, except at mealtime, while attending the sick or while working at the bookkeeping of the plantation.
從思嘉記得的最早時候起，她母親便一直是這個樣子，她的聲音，無論在稱贊或者責備別人時，總是那么柔和而甜蜜；她的態度，盡管杰拉爾德在紛紛擾擾的家事中經常要出點亂子，卻始終是那么沉著，應付自如；她的精神總是平靜的，脊背總是挺直的，甚至在她的三個幼兒夭折時也是這樣。思嘉從沒見過母親坐著時將背靠在椅子背上，也從沒見過她手里不拿點針線活兒便坐下來（除了吃飯），即使是陪伴病人或審核農場賬目的時候。
It was delicate embroidery if company were present, but at other times her hands were occupied with Gerald’s ruffled shirts, the girls’ dresses or garments for the slaves. Scarlett could not imagine her mother’s hands without her gold thimble or her rustling figure unaccompanied by the small negro girl whose sole function in life was to remove basting threads and carry the rosewood sewing box from room to room, as Ellen moved about the house superintending the cooking, the cleaning and the wholesale clothes-making for the plantation.
在有客人在場時，她手里是精巧的刺繡，別的時候則是縫制杰拉爾德的襯衫、女孩子的衣裳或農奴們的衣服。思嘉很難想象母親手上不戴那個金頂針，或者她那一路啊啊啊啊的身影后面沒有那個黑女孩，后者一生中唯一的任務是給她拆繃線，以及當愛倫為了檢查烹飪、洗滌和大批的縫紉活兒而在滿屋子四處亂跑動時，捧著那個紅木針線拿兒從一個房間走到另一個房間。
