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.
我远远看见她站在她经常从其中挖树胶的那棵香枫胶树底下，望着屋上最后一块烧成灰黑色的木板朝着烧红了的滚烫的砖砌烟囱方向塌下来时，她脸上呈现出一幅非常专注的神色。
Why don't you do a dance around the ashes?
你干吗不在那堆废墟上跳个舞？
I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.
我当时像这样问她。她对那所房屋恨得要命。
I used to think she hated Maggie, too.
过去我以为她也讨厌麦姬。
But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school.
但是那是在教堂和我筹钱送她到奥古斯塔上学之前的事。
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.
那时她常给我们读点什么，读时毫无同情之心，将文字、谎言、别人的习惯以及整个生活强加于我俩。
She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know.
我和麦姬毫无办法，一无所知地困坐在那里，她的声音凌驾于我们之上。
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.
她对我们灌输一大堆编造出来的事物以及我们不需要掌握的知识。她严肃地强迫我们听她读书，把我们两人看成傻瓜一样，刚有点似懂非懂的时候又把我们挥之而去。
Deewanted nice things.
迪伊好打扮。
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.
中学毕业时她要一件黄色玻璃纱连衣裙穿着去参加毕业典礼；为了与她用别人送我的一套旧衣服改制的绿色套服配着穿，她又要了一双黑色浅口皮鞋。
She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts.
她要什么东西时总是不顾一切地拼命地要，不达目的不罢休，
Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time.
她可以一连好几分钟不眨眼地死瞪着你。
Often I fought off the temptation to shake her.
我常常是费了好大的劲才克制住自己没把她抓着使劲摇抖。
At sixteen she had a style of her own' and knew what style was.
到十六岁时她的言谈举止开始形成自己的风格，她也知道什么叫时髦。