評論
打印
Then the hand of Fate and a hand of poker combined to give him the plantation which he afterwards called Tara, and at the same time moved him out of the Coast into the upland country of north Georgia.
過了一些時候，命運之手和一手撲克牌兩相結合，給了他一個他后來取名為塔拉的農場，同時讓他從海濱適移到北佐治亞的丘陵地區來了。
It was in a saloon in Savannah, on a hot night in spring, when the chance conversation of a stranger sitting near by made Gerald prick up his ears. The stranger, a native of Savannah, had just returned after twelve years in the inland country. He had been one of the winners in the land lottery conducted by the State to divide up the vast area in middle Georgia, ceded by the Indians the year before Gerald came to America. He had gone up there and established a plantation; but, now the house had burned down, he was tired of the “accursed place” and would be most happy to get it off his hands.
那是一個很暖的春天夜晚，在薩凡納的一家酒店，鄰座的一位生客的偶爾談話引起灰拉爾德的側耳細聽。那位生客是薩凡納本地人，在內地居住了十二年之后剛剛回來。他是從一位圣·在州里舉辦的抽彩分配土地時的一個獲獎者。原來杰拉爾德來到美洲前一年，印第安人放棄了佐治亞中部廣大的一起土地，佐治亞州當局便以這種方式進行分配。他遷徙到了那里，并建立了一個農場，但是現在他的房子因失火被燒掉了，他對那個可詛咒的"地方"，已感到厭煩，因此很樂意將它脫手。
Gerald, his mind never free of the thought of owning a plantation of his own, arranged an introduction, and his interest grew as the stranger told how the northern section of the state was filling up with newcomers from the Carolinas and Virginia. Gerald had lived in Savannah long enough to acquire a viewpoint of the Coast—that all of the rest of the state was backwoods, with an Indian lurking in every thicket.
杰拉爾德心里一直沒有放棄那個念頭，想擁有一個自己的農場，于是經過介紹，他同那個陌生人談起來，而當對方告訴他，那個州的北部已經從卡羅來納的弗吉尼亞涌進了大批大批的新人時，他的興趣就更大了。杰拉爾德在薩凡納已住了很久，了解了海濱人的觀點，即認為這個州的其余部分都是嬤嬤的森林地帶，每個灌木叢中都潛伏著印第安人。
