評論
打印
From them he learned what he found useful, and the rest he dismissed. He found poker the most useful of all Southern customs, poker and a steady head for whisky; and it was his natural aptitude for cards and amber liquor that brought to Gerald two of his three most prized possessions, his valet and his plantation. The other was his wife, and he could only attribute her to the mysterious kindness of God.
從他們那里他學到了他發現有用的東西，其余的便拒絕了。他發現玩撲克牌是所有的南方習俗中最有用的，只要會打撲克，加上一個喝威士忌的海量，就行了。玩牌和喝酒是杰拉爾德的天生癖性，給他帶來了平生三樣最受贊賞的財富中的兩位，即他的管家和他的農常另一樣便是他的妻子，他只能把她看作是上帝的神奇賜予了。
The, valet. Pork by name, shining black, dignified and trained in all the arts of sartorial elegance, was the result of an all-night poker game with a planter from St. Simons Island, whose courage in a bluff equaled Gerald’s but whose head for New Orleans rum did not. Though Pork’s former owner later offered to buy him back at twice his value, Gerald obstinately refused, for the possession of his first slave, and that slave the “best damn valet on the Coast,” was the first step upward toward his heart’s desire, Gerald wanted to be a slave owner and a landed gentleman.
他的管家叫波克，舉止莊嚴，黑得又光又亮，且有全副出色的裁縫手藝，是他打了個通宵的撲克牌從一位圣·西蒙斯島的地主手中贏來的。那個地主在敢于虛張聲勢方面與杰拉爾德不相上下，可是喝起新奧爾良朗姆酒來就不行了。盡管波克原先的主人后來要求以雙倍的價錢把他買回去，杰拉爾德卻斷然地拒絕了，因為這是他占有的第一個奴隸，而且絕對是"海濱最好的管家"，稱得上是他實現平生渴望的好開端，怎么能放棄呀？杰拉爾德一心一意要當奴隸主和擁有地主的上等人呢。
