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天哪，小姐，这可不是太太小姐们该做的事呀。我可从来没见过太太小姐们做这种事，老太太和玛丽都没干过，再说，我看也没这个必要。"黛娜说完，一脸不高兴地走来走去。奥菲利亚小姐则开始动手将盘子分门别类地放好，把分散在十几只碗里的糖合放到一只中，把要洗的餐巾、毛巾或台布都清理出来，亲自动手清洗、整理，其动作之迅速令黛娜大为惊讶。 "Lor now! if dat ar de way dem northern ladies do, dey an't ladies, nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe hearing distance. "I has things as straight as anybody, when my clarin' up times comes; but I don't want ladies round, a henderin', and getting my things all where I can't find 'em."" 天啦！如果北方的小姐太太们都来做这些事的话，那她们还算什么小姐太太啊！"当奥菲利亚和她隔开一段距离，听不到她说话的声音时，黛娜对下手们说："等大扫除时，我肯定会把东西收拾得整整齐齐，完全用不着太太小姐们在这儿指手画脚，把东西弄得到处都是，让我找也不好找。" To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxyms of reformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin' up times," when she would begin with great zeal, and turn every drawer and closet wrong side outward, on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion seven-fold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe, and leisurely go over her arrangements, looking things over, and discoursing upon them; making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things, and keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of confusion, which she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers, by the remark that she was a "clarin' up." "She couldn't hev things a gwine on so as they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer young ones keep better order;" for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged the illusion that she, herself, was the soul of order, and it was only the _young uns_, and the everybody else in the house, that were the cause of anything that fell short of perfection in this respect. When all the tins were scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that could offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, Dinah would dress herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high, brilliant Madras turban, and tell all marauding "young uns" to keep out of the kitchen, for she was gwine to have things kept nice. Indeed, these periodic seasons were often an inconvenience to the whole household; for Dinah would contract such an immoderate attachment to her scoured tin, as to insist upon it that it shouldn't be used again for any possible purpose,--at least, till the ardor of the "clarin' up" period abated. 说老实话，黛娜有时也会冲动一下，给厨房来次彻底的清扫，她把这个日子称作"大扫除日"。每到这个时候，她都会把抽屉和柜子里的东西全部倒在地板或桌子上，使得本来就很杂乱的房间更加乱成一团。之后，她就点燃烟袋，悠然自得地慢慢整理起来，把东西翻来倒去，嘴巴里还不住地唠叨着，吩咐小黑奴们使劲地擦拭锡器。她会一直忙上几个小时，而且无论碰上谁，她都会自鸣得意地解释说自己在做"大扫除"。她不能让厨房老是那么乱七八糟的，她要让那帮小家伙们保持厨房的整洁干净。黛娜总抱有这种幻觉，认为她自己是特别讲究整洁的，如果有什么不好的话，全是那帮小家伙和其他人的过错。等到所有的锡器都被擦净，桌子刷干净，所有乱七八糟的东西都被塞到角落里以后，黛娜便会把自己仔细打扮一番，穿上一件漂亮的衣服，系上一条干净的围裙，再扎上那又大、又长、又好看的马德拉斯布头巾，然后命令那些"小家伙们"们不要在厨房里跑来跑去，因为她打算让厨房保持那份干净、整洁。每到这个时候，所有人都会感到特别的不方便，因为黛娜变得格外珍爱那些擦得十分干净的锡器，而且规定无论在什么场合都不准使用，要用的话，必须得等到黛娜那股"大扫除"的热情劲儿过去以后。 Miss Ophelia, in a few days, thoroughly reformed every department of the house to a systematic pattern; but her labors in all departments that depended on the cooperation of servants were like those of Sisyphus or the Danaides. In despair, she one day appealed to St. Clare. 奥菲利亚小姐在几天之内就对家中各个方面进行了全面彻底的整顿，把一切都安排得十分有条理。可是由于黑奴们并不配合，所以她的一番努力只是白费功夫，就如同西绪福斯和达那伊德斯姐妹服的苦役一样。终于有一天，她觉得自己的苦心付诸流水而心灰意冷，便向圣克莱尔诉说起自己的苦衷来。 "There is no such thing as getting anything like a system in this family!"" 我觉得在这个家里，根本不可能有什么秩序！" 
我也是这么认为的。" "Such shiftless management, such waste, such confusion, I never saw!"" 我从来没见到像这个家一样如此混乱、糟糕的管理。" "I dare say you didn't."" 我相信也是这样。" "You would not take it so coolly, if you were housekeeper."" 如果让你来管理这个家，我想你不可能对目前这种状况置之不理吧。" "My dear cousin, you may as well understand, once for all, that we masters are divided into two classes, oppressors and oppressed. We who are good-natured and hate severity make up our minds to a good deal of inconvenience. If we _will keep_ a shambling, loose, untaught set in the community, for our convenience, why, we must take the consequence. Some rare cases I have seen, of persons, who, by a peculiar tact, can produce order and system without severity; but I'm not one of them,--and so I made up my mind, long ago, to let things go just as they do. I will not have the poor devils thrashed and cut to pieces, and they know it,--and, of course, they know the staff is in their own hands."" 亲爱的表姐，我实话跟你说吧，我们这些当主人的大概分为两类：压迫者和被压迫者。像我们这样脾气好又不爱惩治别人的人，就只好给自己带来诸多不便了。如果为了省心，我们养了一群懒惰而无知的黑奴，那我们就只得自认倒霉。当然，我也认识几个特别有本事的主人，他们不必采取什么严酷的手段就能把家治理得有条有理，可我就没有这种能力。所以，我早就决定让一切顺其自然，采取听之任之的态度。家里的仆人们都知道我不愿把他们打得皮开肉绽，所以，他们明白棍棒实际上是操纵在他们自己手中。" 
可是，整个家怎么可以像这样毫无章法，乱成一团呢？怎么可以像这样没有时间和地点概念？" "My dear Vermont, you natives up by the North Pole set an extravagant value on time! What on earth is the use of time to a fellow who has twice as much of it as he knows what to do with? As to order and system, where there is nothing to be done but to lounge on the sofa and read, an hour sooner or later in breakfast or dinner isn't of much account. Now, there's Dinah gets you a capital dinner,--soup, ragout, roast fowl, dessert, ice-creams and all,--and she creates it all out of chaos and old night down there, in that kitchen. I think it really sublime, the way she manages. But, Heaven bless us! if we are to go down there, and view all the smoking and squatting about, and hurryscurryation of the preparatory process, we should never eat more! My good cousin, absolve yourself from that! It's more than a Catholic penance, and does no more good. You'll only lose your own temper, and utterly confound Dinah. Let her go her own way."" 亲爱的表姐，你们这些北方人太看重时间了。时间对于那些觉得时间太多而不知如何打发的人又算得了什么。至于说到条理，在这儿除了躺在沙发上看闲书外，真没有别的事可做。提前或推后一个小时吃饭也没什么关系。只要黛娜每顿饭能做出可口的饭菜、汤、烤鸡、烤肉、冰淇淋，我们也就非常满足了--而这些都是在她那间杂乱的厨房里做出来的，她还真是了不起。如果我们到厨房去，看到那儿的油烟，看到那帮人做饭时手忙脚乱的样子，我们怎么可能还会有胃口去吃饭！好堂姐，你就别自寻烦恼了。这真是比天主教徒的苦行还困难，而且还吃力不讨好。自己搞得心情不好，生一肚子闷气，还弄得黛娜不知如何是好。干脆就由她去吧，她看怎么干就怎么干。" But, Augustine, you don't know how I found things."" 可是，奥古斯丁，你真不知道厨房里那个乱哟，简直没办法看。" "Don't I? Don't I know that the rolling-pin is under her bed, and the nutmeg-grater in her pocket with her tobacco,--that there are sixty-five different sugar-bowls, one in every hole in the house,--that she washes dishes with a dinner-napkin one day, and with a fragment of an old petticoat the next? But the upshot is, she gets up glorious dinners, makes superb coffee; and you must judge her as warriors and statesmen are judged, _by her success_."" 我怎么会不知道。难道我会不知道她把擀面杖扔到床下；把肉豆蔻磋子和烟叶一起塞进口袋里；把家里几十个糖碗扔得到处都是；今天用一块餐巾洗盘子，明天又换作一块旧的衬裙布去洗吗？可是她烧的饭菜绝对是很讲究的，煮出来的咖啡是非常香的，你应该像评价一位将军或者政治家那样，多看看她的功绩。" "But the waste,--the expense!"" 但是如此大的浪费和开销，让人怎么受得了！" 
不如这样吧，你把能锁上的东西全锁上，自己保管钥匙，把东西定量分给下人们。那些琐碎的小事就大可不必去理睬，事情管得太多也没什么好处。" "That troubles me, Augustine. I can't help feeling as if these servants were not _strictly honest_. Are you sure they can be relied on?"" 奥古斯丁，可我的心里还是不舒服，我总觉得这些人不够诚实，你觉得他们真的值得信任吗？" Augustine laughed immoderately at the grave and anxious face with which Miss Ophelia propounded the question. 奥古斯丁看到奥菲利亚小姐那副严肃而焦虑的神情，不禁大笑起来。 "O, cousin, that's too good,--_honest!_--as if that's a thing to be expected! Honest!--why, of course, they arn't. Why should they be? What upon earth is to make them so?"" 堂姐，真是太可笑了。诚实！你居然还有如此高的期望。他们当然是不诚实的。他们为什么要诚实呢？我们怎么做才能让他们诚实呢？" "Why don't you instruct?"" 教训和引导呀！" 
你认为我们该怎样去教训和引导他们呢？你看我是这种人吗？还是玛丽会去这么做？如果让她去管理这些下人们，她一定有法把整个庄园的奴隶全部整死，但她还是不可能让他们改掉欺骗的习性。" "Are there no honest ones?"" 难道就没有诚实可言了吗？" "Well, now and then one, whom Nature makes so impracticably simple, truthful and faithful, that the worst possible influence can't destroy it. But, you see, from the mother's breast the colored child feels and sees that there are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get along no other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master and missie play-fellows. Cunning and deception become necessary, inevitable habits. It isn't fair to expect anything else of him. He ought not to be punished for it. As to honesty, the slave is kept in that dependent, semi-childish state, that there is no making him realize the rights of property, or feel that his master's goods are not his own, if he can get them. For my part, I don't see how they _can_ be honest. Such a fellow as Tom, here, is,--is a moral miracle!"" 当然，也会有少数几个天性善良、朴实、忠诚的黑奴，即使最恶劣的环境也无法改变他们好的品质。可你要明白，那些黑孩子从小是在充满欺骗的环境里长大的，而长大之后，和父母、主母以及一起玩到大的少爷、小姐们一起相处自然就学会了欺骗。狡猾和欺骗成为他们难以避免的不可缺少的习惯，期望他们不欺骗是不公平的事情，我们不能因为他们欺骗别人而惩罚他们。至于诚实，由于黑奴处于一种依赖和半孩童的地位，他们无法理解产权意味着什么。如果他们能弄到主人家的东西，他们一定会认为那属于他们自己。你让他们怎么去懂得诚实！像汤姆这样的人，简直就是道德的奇迹！"
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