She had been reared in the tradition of great ladies, which had taught her how to carry her burden and still retain her charm, and she intended that her three daughters should be great ladies also.
她是在上等妇女的传统教养下长大的，这使她学会怎样承担自己的职责而不丧失其温柔可爱之处。她有意要把自己的三个女儿也教育成高尚的女性，
With her younger daughters, she had success, for Suellen was so anxious to be attractive she lent an attentive and obedient ear to her mother's teachings, and Carreen was shy and easily led.
attentive:细心的;关心的;专心的;注意的;留心
但是只在那两个小的身上成功了，因为苏伦渴望当一名出色的闺秀，很用心听母亲的教诲，卡琳也是个腼腆听话的女孩。
But Scarlett, child of Gerald, found the road to ladyhood hard.
可是思嘉，杰拉尔德的货真价实的孩子，却觉得那条当上等妇女的路实在太艰难了。
To Mammy's indignation, her preferred playmates were not her demure sisters or the well-brought-up Wilkes girls but the negro children on the plantation and the boys of the neigh-borhood,
思嘉叫嬷嬷生气的一个毛病是不喜欢跟那两个谨慎的妹妹或威尔克斯家很有教养的几位姑娘在一起玩，却乐意同农场上的黑孩子或邻居家的男孩子们厮混，
and she could climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them.
跟他们一样爬树，一样掷石子。
Mammy was greatly perturbed that Ellen's daughter should display such traits and frequently adjured her to "act like a little lady."
perturbed:烦恼的;担心的;不安的;
嬷嬷感到十分难过，怎么爱伦的女儿会有这样的怪癖，并且经常劝诫她“要学得像个小姐那样”。
But Ellen took a more tolerant and long-sighted view of the matter.
但是爱伦对问题看得更宽容，更远。
She knew that from childhood playmates grew beaux in later years, and the first duty of a girl was to get married.
她懂得从青梅竹马中能产生未来的终身伴侣的道理，而一个姑娘的头等大事无非结婚成家而已。
She told herself that the child was merely full of life and there was still time in which to teach her the arts and graces of being attractive to men.
她暗自念叨着：这孩子只不过精力旺盛些罢了，至于教育她学会那些德貌兼备的优点，成为一个使男人倾心的可爱姑娘，那还有的是时间呢。
To this end, Ellen and Mammy bent their efforts, and as Scarlett grew older she became an apt pupil in this subject, even though she learned little else.
抱着这个目的，爱伦和嬷嬷同心协力，因此到思嘉年龄大些时便在这方面学习得相当不错了。她甚至还学会了一些旁的东西。
Despite a succession of gover-nesses and two years at the near-by Fayetteville Female Acad-emy, her education was sketchy,
尽管接连请了几位家庭女教师，又在附近的费耶特维尔女子学校念了两年书，她受的教育仍是不怎么完全的，
but no girl in the County danced more gracefully than she.
不过在跳舞这一门上却是全县最出色的一位姑娘，真是舞姿翩翩，美妙无比。
She knew how to smile so that her dimples leaped,
how to walk pigeon-toed so that her wide hoop skirts swayed entrancingly,
怎样扭着走路才能让宽大的裙子迷人地摇摆，
how to look up into a man's face and then drop her eyes and bat the lids rapidly so that she seemed a-tremble with gentle emotion.
怎样首先仰视一个男人的面孔，然后垂下眼来，迅速地掀动眼帘，显出自己是在略带激情地颤抖似的。
Most of all she learned how to conceal from men a sharp intelligence beneath a face as sweet and bland as a baby's.
她最擅长的一手是在男人面前装出一副婴儿般天真烂漫的表情，藉以掩饰自己腹中一个精明的心计。
Ellen, by soft-voiced admonition, and Mammy, by constant carping, labored to inculcate in her the qualities that would make her truly desirable as a wife.
爱伦用细声细气的训诫，嬷嬷则用滔滔不绝的唠叨，都在尽力将那些作为淑女贤妻所不可少的品质栽培到她身上去。
“You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate," Ellen told her daughter.
“你必须学会温柔一些，亲切一些，文静一些，”爱伦对女儿说，
“You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.”
“男人们说话时千万别去插嘴，哪怕你真的认为自己比人家知道得多。男人总是不喜欢快嘴快舌的姑娘的。”
“Young misses that frowns an pushes out they chins and says ‘Ah will’ and ‘Ah wan't mos' gener'ly don't catch husbands," prophesied Mammy gloomily.
“小姑娘家要是皱着眉头、嘟着嘴，说什么俺要这样不要那样，她们就休想找到丈夫，”嬷嬷忧郁地告诫说，
"Young misses should cast down they eyes and say, Well, such, Ah knew’and‘Just as you say, such.’"
“小姑娘家应当低着头回答：‘好吧，先生，俺知道了，’或者说：‘听您的吩咐，先生。’”
Between them, they taught her all that a gentlewoman should know, but she learned only the outward signs of gentility.
她们两人把凡是大家闺秀应该知道的东西都教给了她，可是她仅仅学到了表面的礼貌。
The inner grace from which these signs should spring, she never learned nor did she see any reason for learning it.
至于这些皮毛所应当体现的内在文雅，她却既不曾学到也不知道为什么要学。
Appearances were enough, for the appearances of ladyhood won her popularity and that was all she wanted.
有了外表就行了，因为上等妇女身份的仪表会给她赢来好名声，而她所需要的也不过如此而已。
Gerald bragged that she was the belle of five counties, and with some truth,
杰拉尔德吹嘘说她是周围五个县的美女，这话有几分真实，
for she had received proposals from nearly all the young men in the neighborhood and many from places as far away as Atlanta and Savannah.
因为邻近一带几乎所有的青年，以及远到亚特兰大和萨凡纳某些地方的许多人，都向她求过婚呢。
At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate.
到了十六岁，她就显得娇媚动人了，这应当归功于嬷嬷和爱伦的培养，不过她同时也变得任性、虚荣而固执起来。
She had the easily stirred pas-sions of her Irish father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother's unselfish and forbearing nature.
forbearing :克制;自制;忍住(不说话或不做某事);
她有着和她的爱尔兰父亲一样容易感情冲动的气质，可是像她母亲那样无私而坚忍的天性却压根儿没有，只不过学到了一点点表面的虚饰。
Ellen never fully realized that it was only a veneer, for Scarlett always showed her best face to her mother, concealing her escapades,.
escapades:(危险而愚蠢的)冒险行为，恶作剧;
爱伦从来不曾充分认识到这只是一点虚饰，因为思嘉经常在她跟前显示自己最好的一面，而将她的大胆妄为掩藏起来，
curbing her temper and appear-ing as sweet-natured as she could in Ellen's presence,
并且克制着自己的脾气，表现得如她母亲所要求的那样性情温婉，
for her mother could shame her to tears with a reproachful glance.
reproachful :表示责备的
要不然，母亲那责备的一瞥管叫她羞愧得会掉泪呢。
But Mammy was under no illusions about her and was constantly alert for breaks in the veneer.
但是嬷嬷对她不存幻想，倒是经常警觉地观察着这种虚饰上的破绽。
Mammy's eyes were sharper than Ellen's, and Scarlett could never recall in all her life having fooled Mammy for long.
嬷嬷的眼睛比爱伦的锐利得多，思嘉实在想不起来这一辈子有哪件事是长期瞒过了她的。
It was not that these two loving mentors deplored Scarlett's high spirits, vivacity and charm.
这两位钟爱的良师并不为思嘉的快乐、活泼和娇媚担忧。
These were traits of which Southern women were proud.
这些特征正是南方妇女引以自豪之处。
It was Gerald's headstrong and impetuous nature in her that gave them concern, and they sometimes feared they would not be able to conceal her damaging qualities until she had made a good match.
她们担心的是杰拉尔德的倔强而暴躁的天性在她身上的表现，有时还生怕她们无法将她身上这些破坏性的东西掩盖起来，直到她选中一个如意郎君为止。
But Scarlett intended to marry-and marry Ashley--and she was willing to appear demure, pliable and scatterbrained, if those were the qualities that attracted men.
可是思嘉想要结婚——要同艾希礼结婚——并且乐意装出一副貌似庄重、温顺而没有主见的模样，如果这些品性真正能够吸引男人的话。
Just why men should be this way, she did not know. She only knew that such methods worked.
至于男人们为什么喜欢这样，思嘉是不清楚的。她只知道这样的方法能行得通。
It never interested her enough to try to think out the reason for it, for she knew nothing of the inner workings of any human being's mind, not even her own.
她从来没有多大兴趣去思考这件事的道理，因为她对人的内心活动，甚至她自己的内心活动，都一无所知。
She knew only that if she did or said thus-and-so, men would unerringly respond with the complementary thus-and-so.
她只明白，要是她如此这般地做了说了，男人们便会准确无误地用如此这般的恭维来回报她。
It was like a mathematical formula and no more difficult, for mathematics was the one subject that had come easy to Scarlett in her schooldays.
这像一个数学公式似的一点也不困难，因为思嘉在学校念书时数学这门功课学得相当轻松。
If she knew little about men's minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less.
如果说她不怎么懂得男人的心理，那么她对女人的心就知道得更少了，原因是她对她们更加不感兴趣。
She had never had a girl friend, and she never felt any lack on that account.
她从来不曾有过一个女朋友，也从来不因此感到遗憾。
To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey-man.
对于她来说，所有的女人，包括她的两个妹妹在内，在追逐共同的猎物——男人时，都是天然的仇敌。
All women with the one exception of her mother.
所有的女人，除她母亲以外，都是如此。
Ellen O'Hara was different, and Scarlett regarded her as some-thing holy and apart from all the rest of humankind.
爱伦·奥哈拉却不一样，思嘉把她看做一种有别于人类中其他人的神圣人物。
When Scarlett was a child, she had confused her mother with the Virgin Mary, and now that she was older she saw no reason for changing her opinion.
当思嘉还是个小孩时，她就把母亲和圣母马利亚混淆在一起了，如今她虽已长大成人，也看不出有什么理由要改变这种看法。
To her, Ellen represented the utter security that only Heaven or a mother can give.
对她来说，爱伦代表着只有上帝或一位母亲才能给予的那种安全可靠的保证。
She knew that her mother was the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom-a great lady.
embodiment:(体现一种思想或品质的)典型，化身;
她认为她的母亲是正义、真理、慈爱和睿智的化身，是个伟大的女性。
Scarlett wanted very much to be like her mother.
思嘉非常希望做一个像母亲那样的人。
The only difficulty was that by being just and truthful and tender and unselfish, one missed most of the joys of life, and certainly many beaux.
惟一的困难是，要做一个公正、真诚、慈爱、无私的人，你就得牺牲许多人生乐趣，而且一定会失掉许多漂亮的男人。
And life was too short to miss such pleasant things.
可是人生太短促，要丧失这样可爱的事物就未免太可惜了。
Some day when she was married to Ashley and old, some day when she had time for it, she intended to be like Ellen. But, until then ...
等到有一天她嫁给了艾希礼，并且年纪老了，有了这样做的机会时，她便着意去模仿爱伦。可是，在那以前……
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