Everyday-Use原文+译文

Everyday Use Alice Walker I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yester day afternoon A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know It is not just a yard It is like an extended living room When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny irregular grooves anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes she will stand hopelessly in corners homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand that no is a word the world never learned to say to her You ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has made it is confronted as a surprise by her own mother and father tottering in weakly from backstage A Pleasant surprise of course What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other s face Sometimes the mother and father weep the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help I have seen these programs Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort Out of a cark and soft seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people There I meet a smiling gray sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tear s in her eyes She pins on my dress a large orchid even though she has told me once that she thinks or chides are tacky flowers In real life I am a large big boned woman with rough man working hands In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man My fat keeps me hot in zero weather I can work outside all day breaking ice to get water for washing I can eat pork liver cooked over the open tire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill be fore nightfall But of course all this does not show on television I am the way my daughter would want me to be a hundred pounds lighter my skin like an uncooked barley pan cake My hair glistens in the hot bright lights Johnny Car son has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue But that is a mistake I know even before I wake up Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye It seems to me I have talked to them always with one toot raised in flight with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them Dee though She would always look anyone in the eye Hesitation was no part of her nature How do I look Mama Maggie says showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she s there almost hidden by the door Come out into the yard I say Have you ever seen a lame animal perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind of him That is the way my Maggie walks She has been like this chin on chest eyes on ground feet in shuffle ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground Dee is lighter than Maggie with nicer hair and a fuller figure She s a woman now though sometimes I forget How long ago was it that the other house burned Ten twelve years Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie s arms sticking to me her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes Her eyes seemed stretched open blazed open by the flames reflect ed in them And Dee I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of a look at concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house tall in toward the red hot brick chimney Why don t you do a dance around the ashes I d wanted to ask her She had hated the house that much I used to think she hated Maggie too But that was before we raised the money the church and me to send her to Augusta to school She used to read to us without pity forcing words lies other folks habits whole lives upon us two sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice She washed us in a river of make believe burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn t necessarily need to know Pressed us to her with the serious way she read to shove us away at just the moment like dimwits we seemed about to understand Dee wanted nice things A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school black pumps to match a green suit she d made from an old suit somebody gave me She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time Often I fought off the temptation to shake her At sixteen she had a style of her own and knew what style was 回答人的补充 2009 09 30 18 43 I never had an education myself After second grade the school was closed down Don t ask me why in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now Sometimes Maggie reads to me She stumbles along good naturedly but can t see well She knows she is not bright Like good looks and money quickness passed her by She will marry John Thomas who has mossy teeth in an earnest face and then I ll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself Although I never was a good singer Never could carry a tune I was always better at a man s job 1 used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in 49 Cows are soothing and slow and don t bother you unless you try to milk them the wrong way I have deliberately turned my back on the house It is three rooms just like the one that burned except the roof is tin they don t make shingle roofs any more There are no real windows just some holes cut in the sides like the portholes in a ship but not round and not square with rawhide holding the shutter s up on the outside This house is in a pasture too like the other one No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down She wrote me once that no matter where we choose to live she will manage to come see us But she will never bring her friends Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me Mama when did Dee ever have any friends She had a few Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school Nervous girls who never laughed Impressed with her they worshiped the well turned phrase the cute shape the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye She read to them When she was courting Jimmy T she didn t have much time to pay to us but turned all her faultfinding power on him He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people She hardly had time to recompose herself When she comes I will meet but there they are Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house in her shuffling way but I stay her with my hand Come back here I say And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee Her feet were always neat looking as it God himself had shaped them with a certain style From the other side of the car comes a short stocky man Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail I hear Maggie suck in her breath Uhnnnh is what it sounds like Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your toot on the road Uhnnnh Dee next A dress down to the ground in this hot weather A dress so loud it hurts my eyes There are yel lows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out Earrings gold too and hanging down to her shoulders Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits The dress is loose and flows and as she walks closer I like it I hear Maggie go Uhnnnh again It is her sister s hair It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears Wa su zo Tean o she says coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with Asalamalakim my mother and sister He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back right up against the back of my chair I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin Don t get up says Dee Since I am stout it takes something of a push You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it She turns showing white heels through her sandals and goes back to the car Out she peeks next with a Polaroid She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car and comes up and kisses me on the forehead Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie s hand Maggie s hand is as limp as a fish and probably as cold despite the sweat and she keeps trying to pull it back It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy Or maybe he don t know how people shake hands Anyhow he soon gives up on Maggie Well I say Dee No Mama she says Not Dee Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo What happened to Dee I wanted to know She s dead Wangero said I couldn t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicle I said Dicie is my sister She named Dee We called her Big Dee after Dee was born But who was she named after asked Wangero I guess after Grandma Dee I said And who was she named after asked Wangero Her mother I said and saw Wangero was getting tired That s about as far back as I can trace it I said Though in fact I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches Well said Asalamalakim there you are Uhnnnh I heard Maggie say There I was not I said before Dicie cropped up in our family so why should I try to trace it that far back He just stood there grinning looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head How do you pronounce this name I asked You don t have to call me by it if you don t want to said Wangero Why shouldn t I I asked If that s what you want us to call you we ll call you I know it might sound awkward at first said Wangero I ll get used to it I said Ream it out again Well soon we got the name out of the way Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim a barber I wanted to ask him was he a barber but I didn t really think he was so I don t ask You must belong to those beet cattle peoples down the road I said They said Asalamalakirn when they met you too but they didn t Shake hands Always too busy feeding the cattle fixing the fences putting up salt lick shelters throwing down hay When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight Hakim a barber said I accept some of their doctrines but farming and raising cattle is not my style They didn t tell me and I didn t ask whether Wangero Dee had really gone and married him We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn t eat collards and pork was unclean Wangero though went on through the chitlins and corn bread the greens and every thing else She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes Everything delighted her Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn t afford to buy chairs Oh Mama she cried Then turned to Hakim a barber I never knew how lovely these benches are You can feel the rump prints she said running her hands underneath her and along the bench Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee s butter dish That s it she said I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood the milk in it clabber by now She looked at the churn and looked at it This churn top is what I need she said Didn t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have Yes I said Uh huh she said happily And I want the dasher too Uncle Buddy whittle that too asked the barber Dee Wangero looked up at me Aunt Dee s first husband whittled the dash said Maggie so low you almost couldn t hear her His name was Henry but they called him Stash Maggie s brain is like an elephants Wanglero said laughing I can use the churn top as a center piece for the alcove table she said sliding a plate over the churn and I ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher 回答人的补充 2009 09 30 18 56 When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out I took it for a moment in my hands You didn t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood In fact there were a lot of small sinks you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood It was beautiful light yellow wood from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived After dinner Dee Wangero went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan Out came Wangero with two quilts They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them One was in the Lone Star pattern The other was Walk Around the Mountain In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago Bit sand pieces of Grandpa Jarrell s Paisley shirts And one teeny faded blue piece about the size of a penny matchbox that was from Great Grandpa Ezra s uniform that he wore in the Civil War Mama Wangero said sweet as a bird Can I have these old quilts I heard something fall in the kitchen and a minute later the kitchen door slammed Why don t you take one or two of the others 1 asked These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died No said Wangero I don t want those They are stitched around the borders by machine That ll make them last better I said That s not the point said Wanglero These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear She did all this stitching by hand Imagine She held the quilts securely in her arms stroking them Some of the pieces like those lavender ones come from old clothes her mother handed down to her I said moving up to touch the quilts Dee Wangero moved back just enough so that I couldn t reach the quilts They already belonged to her Imagine she breathed again clutching them closely to her bosom The truth is I said I promised to give them quilts to Maggie for when she marries John Thomas She gasped like a bee had stung her Maggie can t appreciate these quilts she said She d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use I reckon she would I said God knows I been savage em for long enough with nobody using em I hope she will I didn t want to bring up how I had offered Dee Wangero a quilt when she went away to college Then she had told me they were old fashioned out of style But they re priceless she was saying now furiously for she has a temper Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they d be in rags Less than that She can always make some more I said Maggie knows how to quilt Dee Wangero looked at me with hatred You just will not understand The point is these quilts these quilts Well I said stumped What would you do with them Hang them she said As it that was the only thing you could do with quilts Maggie by now was standing in the door I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other She can have them Mama she said like somebody used to never winning anything or having anything reserved for her I can member Grandma Dee without the quilts I looked at her hard She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey hangdog look It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn t mad at her This was Maggie s portion This was the way she knew God to work When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet Just like when I m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout I did something I never had done before hugged Maggie to me then dragged her on into the room snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero s hands and dumped them into Maggie s lap Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open Take one or two of the others I said to Dee But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim a barber You just don t understand she said as Maggie and I came out to the car What don t I under stand I wanted to know Your heritage she said And then she turned to Maggie kissed her and said You ought to try to make some thing of yourself too Maggie It s really a new day for us But from the way you and Mama still live you d never know it She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin Maggie smiled maybe at the sunglasses But a real mile not scared After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff And then the two of us sat there just enjoying until it was time to go in the house and go to bed NOTES 1 Alice Walker born 1944 in Eatonton Georgia America and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College Her books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland 1970 Meridian 1976 The Color Purple 1982 etc 2 made it to become a success to succeed either in specific endeavor or in general 3 Johnny Carson a man who runs a late night talk show 4 hooked injured by the horn of the cow being milked 5 Jimmy T T is the initial of the surname of the boy Dee was courting 6 Wa su zo Tean o phonetic rendering of an African dialect salutation 7 Asalamalakim phonetic rendering of a Muslim greeting 8 Polaroid a camera that produces instant pictures 9 the Civil War the war between the North and the South in the U S 1861 1865 10 branches branches or divisions of a family descending from a common ancestor 11 Ream it out again Ream is perhaps an African dialect word meaning unfold display Hence the phrase may mean repeat or say it once again 12 pork was unclean Muslims are forbidden by their religion to eat pork because it is considered to be unclean 13 Chitlins also chitlings or chitterlings the small intestines of pigs used for food a common dish in Afro American households 14 rump prints depressions in the benches made by constant sitting 15 sink depressions in the wood of the handle left by the thumbs and fingers 外婆的日用家当 艾丽斯 沃克尔 我就在这院子里等候她的到来 我和麦姬昨天下午已将院子打扫得干干净净 地面上还留着清晰 的扫帚扫出的波浪形痕迹 这样的院子比一般人想象的要舒服 它不仅仅是一个院子 简直就像一间扩大 了的客厅 当院子的泥土地面被打扫得像屋里的地板一样干净 四周边缘的细沙面上布满不规则的细纹时 任何人都可以进来坐一下 一边抬头仰望院中的榆树 一边等着享受从来吹不进屋内的微风 麦姬在她姐姐离去之前将会一直心神不定 她将会神情沮丧地站在角落里 一面为自己的丑陋面 孔和胳膊大腿上晒出的累累疤痕而自惭形秽 一面怀着既羡慕又敬畏的心情怯生生地看着她姐姐 她觉得 她姐姐真正是生活的主人 想要什么便能得到什么 世界还没有学会对她说半个 不 字 你一定从电视片上看到过 闯出了江山 的儿女突然出乎意料地出现在那跌跌撞撞从后台走出来 的父母面前的场面 当然 那场面必定是令人喜悦的 假如电视上的父母和儿女之间相互攻击辱骂 他 们该怎么样呢 在电视上 母亲和儿女见面总是相互拥抱和微笑 有时父母会痛哭流涕 而那发迹了的 孩子就会紧紧地拥抱他们 并隔着桌子伸过头来告诉他们说若没有他们的帮助 她自己就不会有今日的成 就 我自己就看过这样的电视节目 有时候我在梦里梦见迪伊和我突然成了这种电视节目的剧中人 我从一辆黑色软