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从昨晚大概一两点钟吧，我就一直在寻思这个问题，想来想去还是觉得老爷对您自己不好。" Tom said this with his back to his master, and his hand on the door-knob. St. Clare felt his face flush crimson, but he laughed. 汤姆说这话时，背对着主人，一只手扶着门把。圣克莱尔感到自己的脸一下子就红了，但他却笑了起来。 "O, that's all, is it?" he said, gayly." 哦，就为了这点小事吗？"他愉快地问道。 "All!" said Tom, turning suddenly round and falling on his knees. "O, my dear young Mas'r; I'm 'fraid it will be _loss of all--all_--body and soul. The good Book says, `it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder!' my dear Mas'r!"" 小事？"汤姆突然转过身来，跪到地上，说："亲爱的老爷，您还年轻，我真怕你会因为酗酒而送掉性命和灵魂呀。《圣经》上说，酒会像毒蛇一样要你的命！亲爱的老爷！" Tom's voice choked, and the tears ran down his cheeks. 汤姆不禁哽咽起来，泪流满面。 
可怜的傻瓜！"圣克莱尔也不禁流下眼泪，"汤姆，起来，我不值得你掉眼泪。" But Tom wouldn't rise, and looked imploring. 可汤姆仍然不肯起来，而是用一种恳求的目光看着主人。 "Well, I won't go to any more of their cursed nonsense, Tom," said St. Clare; "on my honor, I won't. I don't know why I haven't stopped long ago. I've always despised _it_, and myself for it,--so now, Tom, wipe up your eyes, and go about your errands. Come, come," he added, "no blessings. I'm not so wonderfully good, now," he said, as he gently pushed Tom to the door. "There, I'll pledge my honor to you, Tom, you don't see me so again," he said; and Tom went off, wiping his eyes, with great satisfaction." 好吧，汤姆，我再也不去参加那些该死的应酬了，我保证。我也不知道为什么不早点这么做，其实我一向都是很鄙视这种应酬的，为了这个我也很瞧不起自己。好啦，汤姆，擦干眼泪，去办事吧。别再祝福了，我还没有好到你说的那个份上！"圣克莱尔一边说，一边把汤姆轻轻地推到门口，"好了，汤姆，我向你保证，你再也不会看到我昨晚的那副样子了。"于是，汤姆擦掉眼泪，满意地走了。 "I'll keep my faith with him, too," said St. Clare, as he closed the door." 我一定要遵守诺言。"圣克莱尔一边关门，一边自言自语道。 And St. Clare did so,--for gross sensualism, in any form, was not the peculiar temptation of his nature. 圣克莱尔果然言出必行，因为一切世俗的物质享受对于他这种人来说，本来就没有什么诱惑力。 
这段时间，我们是不是该来谈谈我们的那位奥菲利亚小姐呢？说说她担负这个南方家庭的家政事务后所经历的种种苦恼呢？ There is all the difference in the world in the servants of Southern establishments, according to the character and capacity of the mistresses who have brought them up.South as well as north, there are women who have an extraordinary talent for command, and tact in educating. Such are enabled, with apparent ease, and without severity, to subject to their will, and bring into harmonious and systematic order, the various members of their small estate,--to regulate their peculiarities, and so balance and compensate the deficiencies of one by the excess of another, as to produce a harmonious and orderly system. 在南方家庭中，由于女主人的性格和能力各不相同，因而教养出来的黑奴也不一样。无论在南方还是北方，有不少家庭主妇有着很好的管理才能和教导方式。她们不费什么劲儿，也不用什么强制手段，就能把庄园中的黑奴管理得很听话，使庄园气氛和谐，井然有序。她们会按照黑奴们各自不同的特点安排他们做不同的事情。 Such a housekeeper was Mrs. Shelby, whom we have already described; and such our readers may remember to have met with. If they are not common at the South, it is because they are not common in the world. They are to be found there as often as anywhere; and, when existing, find in that peculiar state of society a brilliant opportunity to exhibit their domestic talent. 希尔比太太就是这样一位管家。这种人我们见得多了。当然，如果在南方我们没有见到，只是因为这种人全世界都不多见。也就是说，如果别的地方能够见到，南方也能见到。这些人一旦存在，就会把那个特定的社会环境看作施展自己治家才能的好地方。 Such a housekeeper Marie St. Clare was not, nor her mother before her. Indolent and childish, unsystematic and improvident, it was not to be expected that servants trained under her care should not be so likewise; and she had very justly described to Miss Ophelia the state of confusion she would find in the family, though she had not ascribed it to the proper cause. 玛丽·圣克莱尔和她的母亲都不是这样的人。玛丽懒散，做事缺乏条理和远见，因而谁也不会奢望她训练出来的奴隶会比她强到哪里去。她倒是十分坦诚地告诉奥菲利亚小姐家里的混乱局面，但她没有说出造成这种局面的真正根源是什么。 The first morning of her regency, Miss Ophelia was up at four o'clock; and having attended to all the adjustments of her own chamber, as she had done ever since she came there, to the great amazement of the chambermaid, she prepared for a vigorous onslaught on the cupboards and closets of the establishment of which she had the keys. 让那些管理内务的女仆们十分惊讶的是，奥菲利亚小姐自从来到圣克莱尔庄园，一直就是亲自收拾卧室。在她走马上任的第一天，她清晨四点就起了床，整理好自己的卧室后，就开始对家里所有的衣橱、壁柜进行彻底的革命。她把家里所有柜橱的钥匙都拿在手里。 
那天，储室、衣柜、瓷器柜、厨房和地窖都被进行了严格的检查，那些藏在暗处的东西统统被清理出来，其数量之多，令厨房和卧室里干活的人都咋舌，而且在他们中间引起不少对"北方小姐太太们"的困惑和议论。 Old Dinah, the head cook, and principal of all rule and authority in the kitchen department, was filled with wrath at what she considered an invasion of privilege. No feudal baron in _Magna Charta_ times could have more thoroughly resented some incursion of the crown. 首席厨师老黛娜可以说是厨房里的主管和权威人士，她对奥菲利亚小姐的行为感到愤愤不平，觉得她这样做是侵犯了自己的权利。她的愤慨并不弱于大宪章时代各封建诸侯对朝廷侵犯其权益而表现出的不满情绪。 Dinah was a character in her own way, and it would be injustice to her memory not to give the reader a little idea of her. She was a native and essential cook, as much as Aunt Chloe,-- cooking being an indigenous talent of the African race; but Chloe was a trained and methodical one, who moved in an orderly domestic harness, while Dinah was a self-taught genius, and, like geniuses in general, was positive, opinionated and erratic, to the last degree. 黛娜在她的圈子里可算得上是个有影响力的人物。如果不向读者介绍一下她，恐怕对她还真不够公平。和克鲁伊大婶一样，她天生做得一手好饭菜，仿佛烹饪是非洲人固有的本领。不同之处在于克鲁伊训练有素，总是有条有理地安排各项事务；而黛娜则是自学成才，像所有天才一样，她独断专行，让别人难以捉摸。 Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly scorned logic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in intuitive certainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No possible amount of talent, or authority, or explanation, could ever make her believe that any other way was better than her own, or that the course she had pursued in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This had been a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie's mother; and "Miss Marie," as Dinah always called her young mistress, even after her marriage, found it easier to submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruled supreme. This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of that diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of manner with the utmost inflexibility as to measure. 和现代某派哲学家-样，黛娜对逻辑和理性不屑一顾，做事总是凭自己的直觉。她非常固执，不管怎么样都不可能让她相信别的方法会比她的更好，也别奢望她会对哪怕是极小的事情做出丝毫的改变，这全是被玛丽的妈妈给宠成的。而玛丽小姐则认为听之任之，顺其自然会比强加干涉省事得多。所以，黛娜享有最高统治权，再加上她精通外交手腕，擅长结合最恭顺的态度和最不能变通的措施，因而她管起家政来得心应手。 Dinah was mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse-making, in all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with her that the cook can do no wrong; and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain her own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure, there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it; and it was the fault undeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing zeal.But it was very seldom that there was any failure in Dinah's last results. Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meandering and circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time and place,--though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arranged by a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places for each cooking utensil as there were days in the year,--yet, if one would have patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner in perfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure could find no fault. 黛娜还懂得各种寻找借口的手段。的确，她一直认为厨师是不会有任何差错的。在南方家庭中，厨师可以找到很多人代替自己承担一切罪责和过失，以保持自己的清白。假如有哪顿饭没做好，黛娜可以找出几十条理由证明是其他几十个人造成的错，而且黛娜还会狠狠地训斥他们一番。然而，事实上黛娜确实很少将饭菜做坏过。尽管她做事缺乏条理，没有时间地点观念，总是把厨房弄得乱七八糟，厨具、餐具放得到处都是，好像刚刮过一阵旋风。可是，只要你耐心地等待，黛娜会像变魔术一样将饭菜一样一样摆到你的面前，她那高超的厨技让特别讲究的人也没法挑剔。 
现在正好是准备饭菜的时候。黛娜做事总是一副悠闲的样子，时不时停下手来想想自己的心事或者休息一下。这时，她正坐在厨房的地板上，抽着一支粗短的烟袋。她有很大的烟瘾，每当她需要灵感时，她总会点上烟袋，把它当作一住香火，来祈求女神给以指点。 Seated around her were various members of that rising race with which a Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements,--Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps," as she phrased it. It was the spirit of the system under which she had grown up, and she carried it out to its full extent. 黛娜身边坐着一群小黑奴，他们正忙着剥豌豆、削土豆、拔鸡毛或别的准备工作。黛娜呢，时不时地从沉思中回过神来，拿起布丁棒，对着那几个小黑奴们，这儿敲一下，那儿捅一下。实际上，她就是用一根铁棒来管束这帮小家伙的。在她看来，他们降生到这个世上，只是为了"让她少跑几步路"（这是她自己的话）。而她自己也是在这种管制下长大的，现在，她自己也要用同样的方法来管制这群小黑奴们。
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