2、suited（中英合并版） ...
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SuitedbyWishing-for-a-Wand
It was March, and as rainy a March as Maycomb County had ever seen. If April showers were guarantees of flowers in May, the prolific amount of rain we\'d received that March seemed to herald only equally bountiful mud. But my brother and I had never been accused of fearing mud, and we squelched our way through rivers of the stuff in our treks around the neighborhood. Only once did we make the mistake of squelching into Calpurnia\'s kitchen.
现在是三月，但梅科姆镇从来没有过下雨的三月。如果说四月的阵雨是五月鲜花盛开的保证，那么这个三月的丰富雨水似乎只预示着同样丰富的泥浆。我和我的哥哥还从来没被人说过害怕泥浆，因为我们在附近街道穿梭时总是嘎吱嘎吱地踩过泥水坑。唯一一次的犯错是因为我们不小心穿着沾着泥浆的鞋子进了卡尔·布尼亚的厨房。
We were still up to our ankles in mud - Cal said because we hadn\'t the sense to attempt going around - but this Saturday was sunshine filled, the first in awhile. Accordingly, Jem and I were about the front yard. Though we\'d have likely been there had it been blowing in a hurricane.
我们仍然踩着到脚踝的泥浆——卡尔说那是因为我们从没想过去别的地方转转。但这个周六居然阳光明媚，要知道，这可是近几个星期以来第一次好天气。所以，杰姆和我坐在了前院里。（虽然我们在刮飓风的时候也坐在那里）
Jem was persuaded to push me in the tire swing for a time, but a pensive mood had overtaken him, and he\'d retreated farther up the tree where the view of our street was better. His busted arm was all but fully recovered, and he dangled from it, feet perched precariously. Though he\'d put distance between us, I sensed he was still in the mood for talking, and so I broached a subject that had been on my mind a long while.
我让杰姆推着我荡了会用轮胎做的秋千，但一股忧郁的情绪一直笼罩着他，所以他推了会秋千后就爬上了一棵可以将镇子的景色看得更清楚的树。他曾被折断的手臂已经几乎完全恢复了，他自然地摆动着那条手臂，脚晃晃悠悠地悬在空中。虽然他拉开了我们两之间的距离，但我感觉他还是想找人聊天，所以我把脑子里一个想了好久的问题提了出来。
\"Jem, do you ever figure Uncle Jack\'s crazy\" I asked, making eye contact with the soles of his shoes.
My brother shrugged. \"Everybody thinks that about their uncles,\" he said knowingly, and I resolved to start asking more folks about their more eccentric relations. \"How do you mean\"
“杰姆，你觉得杰克叔叔是不是疯了？”我抬头问道，但只能看到他的鞋底。我的哥哥耸了耸肩：“每个人都是这么想他们的叔叔的。”他故作深沉地说道。我于是决定问问他大部分人们对于这种古怪关系的看法：“你是什么意思？”
I scooted forward in the tire, pushing off against the tree. \"He keeps asking Miss Maudie to marry him. And she ain\'t never gonna say yes.\"
我让秋千停下来，轮胎靠着那棵大树：“他一直在向莫迪小姐求婚，但她从来没答应过。”
I felt more than saw Jem turn in the direction of our neighbor\'s house, where she was enjoying the sunny day and working her flowerbeds. Every year come Christmas, our uncle would arrive from the city and shout a marriage proposal across the street. Miss Maudie had yet to dignify it with an actual response. More peculiar still was the fact that Uncle Jack never once looked surprised or disappointed.
杰姆转向了我们那个邻居房子的方向，但我感觉他不仅仅只是为了看那里。莫迪小姐在那正乘着明媚的阳光打理她的花圃。每年圣诞节前夕，杰克叔叔就会从城市里回来，然后隔着条街对莫迪小姐大喊着求婚。莫迪小姐还没做出真正的回应。更奇怪的是，杰克叔叔从来没对这件事感到一丝惊奇或失望。
\"Ah, he knows that,\" Jem said. \"It\'s just their way of saying hello.\"
“这个啊，他自己知道的，”杰姆说：“这只是他们相互问好的方式而已。”
\"Never heard anybody else say it like that.\"
“可我从没听说过其他人也这么相互问好。”
Jem lowered himself to a seat, taking the pressure off his arm. He was seated straight above me, and his voice carried conversationally. \"Atticus says that Miss Maudie and Uncle Jack were like you and Dill growing up. Always sniping at each other then pretending to get engaged.\"
杰姆在树上换了个坐姿以减轻手臂的压力。他正好坐在我头顶上，所以他的声音非常清晰地传过来：“阿迪克斯说莫迪小姐和杰克叔叔就像成年版的你和迪尔。总是相互攻击又假装和对方订了婚。”
My nose wrinkled. Even though I had the suspicion that he was baiting me, I swallowed the lure. \"That ain\'t like Dill and me.\"
\"Anyhow, they just carry on the game as grown folks. He doesn\'t really want to marry her,\" Jem reassured me.
我皱起了鼻子。即使我知道他在给我下套，但我还是吞下了他给的诱饵：“那不像我和迪尔。”
“总之，他们只是在玩他们的、大人的游戏而已。他并不是真的想娶她。”杰姆安抚我道。
I swung in the tire again, swaying the branch he sat on a little. \"That\'s good, I guess.\" Imagining Uncle Jack married to anybody was a strange picture, and there seemed something especially wrong with the thought of him wedding Miss Maudie. \"I don\'t think they\'d fit together.\"
我又荡起了秋千，使他坐着的树枝晃了晃：“我想这很好。”我认为杰克叔叔和任何人结婚都是一幅奇怪的画面，但如果他和莫迪小姐结婚，画面就更加奇怪了：“我不认为他们很般配。”
Jem\'s face appeared above me, upside down, hair tickling the branch. \"They weren\'t going to ask you.\"
杰姆的脸在我上方出现，他的头朝下，头发蹭着树枝：“他们可不会来问你。”
It suddenly seemed important that he understand the feeling that was niggling at me. I left the tire so that I could stand in the yard looking at my brother in the tree. \"Think about it, Jem. Uncle Jack and Miss Maudie don\'t make any sense.\" I looked for a way to underline my point and it popped straight into my brain and out of my mouth. \"She\'s better suited with Atticus.\"
他突然好像明白了困扰我的那种感觉。我离开了轮胎，站在院子中间以便和我在树上的哥哥对视：“想一想，杰姆。杰克叔叔和莫迪小姐一点儿也不般配。”我试图找到一种方法去强调我的观点，但一句话直直地冲进我的脑子，于是我脱口而出：“她明明和阿迪克斯更合适。”
The thought seemed to strike us both with a measure of surprise. My mouth stayed open, and Jem\'s eyebrows seemed stuck slightly higher on his forehead. He made a show of flipping his body over the tire swing branch and lowering himself to the ground. He looked at me. \"Say that again, Scout.\"
这种想法使我们俩都相当吃惊。我的嘴巴还张着，杰姆的眉毛似乎挑高了一点。他从树上一跃而下，身体还在空中翻转了几圈，像是在表演。他看着我道：“再说一次，斯库特。”
It wasn\'t something I\'d imagined before, but the thoughts seemed to come plenty fast as soon as I opened the door to them. \"Miss Maudie and Atticus would be a better match for each other, wouldn\'t they\" I said, a dual statement and question.
我从没想过这种可能，但它似乎在我打开思路的一瞬间就喷涌而出。“莫迪小姐和阿迪克斯回事更般配的一对，不是吗？”我又重复了一遍我的观点，或者说是问题。
Jem looked contemplative, as though there were thoughts barging into his mind, too. \"Never really considered it.\"
Having thought it up first, I was ready to defend the assertion. \"Doesn\'t really need considering; it\'s plain enough,\" I told him.
\"Why do you say that\"
杰姆沉思了一会，看起来那些想法也冲到他的脑袋里去了。“我还从来没考虑过这种情况。”
我先有了想法，已经准备好证明我的观点了：“这完全不需要考虑：它已经足够清晰明了了。”
“你为什么这么说？”
I slid through a mud puddle to the front steps. Wrapping an arm around a porch pillar, I turned back to him. \"Miss Maudie and Uncle Jack don\'t have anything in common, do they And before folks become sweethearts, they\'re supposed to like some of the same things, right\" It was becoming plainer to me by the second. \"Like how Dill and I both like catching toads and knocking loose apples from Miss Rachel\'s tree with our slingshots.\"
我踩过一个泥水坑，走到第一级台阶上，用一只手环绕着门前的廊柱，转身看向他：“莫迪小姐和杰克叔叔没有一处共同点，不是吗？在人们成为情侣之前，他们应该喜欢一些相同的东西，对不对？”那一刻我明白了：“就像迪尔和我都喜欢抓蟾蜍，都喜欢用我们的弹弓去弹蕾切尔小姐家树上的苹果。”
That line of thinking had me both counting down the days til summer and hankering for one of Calpurnia\'s apple turnovers. Jem joined me on the porch, and I began a citation of my sources.
这种想法让我既在为夏天的到来而倒计时，又让我渴望着卡尔·布尼亚种的苹果大丰收。
\"Well, Miss Maudie and Atticus both like checkers. That\'s why they play in his study most every evening.\" Sometimes they\'d play at her house or on one of our front porches when the weather was best. It was a newer arrangement, but in our father\'s routine life it had hardly gone unnoticed. Not that Jem nor I minded.
“嗯，莫迪小姐和阿迪克斯都喜欢下棋。这就是为什么他们几乎每个晚上都在他的书房里玩。”有时候他们也会在莫迪小姐的房间里下棋，如果天气晴朗，则会在我们家的前廊里玩。这是一个较新的安排，但在父亲的日常生活中，这很少被忽视。我和杰姆对此都不介意。
I recalled Miss Maudie once telling me that my father was the best checker player in three counties when they were coming up. She\'d gone on to inform me that Atticus had let me win each and every time I\'d managed to eke out a victory. However, Miss Maudie, too, had her share of victories against our father, and we both knew that she\'d holler at him if she even suspected he was letting her win. I told Jem as much, and he nodded, grinning as he pictured what was likely a factual scenario. \"Guess that\'s true.\"
我想起来莫迪小姐有一次告诉我，我的父亲是附近三个镇子里最好的棋手。她还说，每次我获得胜利都是因为阿迪克斯让着我。然而，莫迪小姐也有战胜我们父亲的时候，但如果她怀疑这是阿迪克斯故意的，她就会冲他大吼大叫。我把我想到的告诉了杰姆，然后他点了点头，想象着这个场景，咧开嘴笑了：“我猜这是真的。”
\"That\'s not all either,\" I said, caught up in all the evidence that was springing to mind. \"They both love to read. I don\'t figure that there\'s a book in Maycomb County that one or the other hasn\'t stuck their nose into.\" I plopped down on the steps, belatedly spotting the mud cuffing my trousers and knowing it would cost me a scolding from Cal later. \"Miss Maudie and Uncle Jack don\'t have one thing in common, but she and Atticus have got loads.
“这还不是全部！”我说道，仍尽力抓住在我脑子里跳跃的一切证据：“他们都喜欢看书，我不知道梅科姆县还有哪本书他们俩没看过。”我“扑通”一声坐到门前的台阶上，之后才发现那上面的泥浆溅到了我的裤脚上，我明白这件事一会儿会让我遭到卡尔的责骂，但我毫不在意：“莫迪小姐和杰克叔叔没有一个共同的爱好，但是她和阿迪克斯有很多！”
\"She likes flowers more\'n he does,\" I allowed, \"and I don\'t think Miss Maudie enjoys talking law as much as Atticus, but they\'re supposed to like their own things, too.\"
“她比他更喜欢花，”我说道，“我也不认为莫迪小姐和阿迪克斯一样喜欢谈论法律，但他们总该有点自己喜欢的东西。”
Jem perched on the railing. It seemed as though my thoughts had taken root in his mind, and were beginning to sprout. \"Atticus couldn\'t grow so much as a blade of nut grass,\" he said, naming Miss Maudie\'s most frequently cursed garden invader. \"But he\'ll always stop to talk to Miss Maudie about what she\'s planting. And Miss Maudie\'s never practiced law a day in her life, but I\'ve heard Atticus ask her for her thoughts, and she always listens to the things that bother him.\"
杰姆趴在栏杆上。看起来我的想法已经在他的脑子里扎根发芽了。“阿迪克斯连一根坚果草都长不出来，”他说，提到了莫迪小姐对于没礼貌的花园入侵者的经常性的咒骂内容。“但他总是会停下来问莫迪小姐她新种的花是什么品种。莫迪小姐一天也没学过法律，但她总是会默默听着阿迪克斯说那些困扰他的事情。”
These contributions were even more substantial evidence than checkers. \"See Seems like they\'re pretty well suited to each other.\" With all of this in mind, it struck me as odd that I\'d only ever heard Miss Maudie proposed to by one Finch man.
这些贡献比我说的“下棋事件”有意义多了。“看到了吗？他们确实更适合对方。”这些事情一直在我脑子里转悠，但奇怪的是，我只看到过一个芬奇家的男人（指杰克叔叔）向莫迪小姐求婚。
My brother put a hand on my arm, like he was trying to hold back my imagination but would settle for keeping my body in place. \"It\'s not as simple as that, Scout. There\'ve got to be feelings and stuff, too.\"
\"Oh, I know that. Folks are supposed to love each other before they get engaged. And Atticus and Miss Maudie don\'t.\" I turned to Jem. \"Do they\"
He kept hold of my arm. \"Scout, have you said anything about this to Atticus\"
\"No, I haven\'t.\"
He nodded. \"Good. Don\'t.\"
\"How come\" I wanted to know.
我的哥哥拽住我的手臂，像是试图拉回我的想象，但他实际上只让我的身体保持了原位。“这没有那么简单，斯库特。他们自己会有感觉的。”
“噢，我知道。人们总是希望他们在订婚前就彼此相爱，但阿迪克斯和莫迪小姐没有，”我转向杰姆：“对不对？”
他仍然拉着我的胳膊：“斯库特，你对阿迪克斯说过这件事吗？”
“还没有呢。”
他点点头：“那就好，别去跟他说。”
“这是为什么？”我想知道原因。
Jem slid down beside me on the steps. \"Because grown ups are real funny about things like this. Don\'t bring it up to Atticus,\" he said, and I respected his concern for our parent, even if it did seem the sort of thing Atticus should be made aware of. Jem shook my arm a little. \"And for heaven\'s sake, don\'t say anything about it in front of Miss Stephanie.\"
杰姆也走到了台阶上，坐在我旁边。“因为大人们对这种事情的反应总是很有意思。别把这件事告诉阿迪克斯。”他说。我尊重他对我们家长的关心，即使这件事看起来应该让阿迪克斯知道。
杰姆摇了摇我的手臂：“看在上帝的面子上，别在斯蒂芬妮小姐面前谈论这件事。”
I had lived in this neighborhood long enough to make the last just insulting. \"How dumb do you think I am I know better than to say anything important where Miss Stephanie can hear me.\"
\"Good,\" Jem said. \"We\'ll just keep it to ourselves. We\'ll have to keep an eye out though.\" He hauled me to my feet, and the two of us splashed back through the mud puddle into the yard.
\"On what, Jem\"
As part of his answer, Jem nodded across the street. \"Atticus and Miss Maudie.\"
我在这里住了那么长时间，这些时间足以让我把他的这句话理解成一种侮辱：“你以为我是有多蠢？我非常清楚的知道不应该在斯蒂芬妮小姐能听到的地方说任何重要的话。”
“好样的，”杰姆说，“我们得保住这个秘密，还得随时保持警惕。”他把我从地上拉了起来，于是我们俩踩着泥坑回到了院子里。
“为什么呢，杰姆？”
他朝街对面点了点头，代替了他的回答：“阿迪克斯和莫迪小姐。”
Miss Maudie was still out in her yard, but she had paused in her work to entertain a visitor. Our father had returned from court earlier than expected and without our notice. They stood talking over her fence, she holding a pair of hedge clippers, and he pushing his hat back on his head. They both wore smiles.
I tugged at my brother\'s sleeve. \"Ah, shoot, Jem. They\'re just as they always are.\"
He nodded after a moment, considering the sight in front of him even though it was one we\'d seen a hundred times. I could tell that to him it seemed different now, but he didn\'t look angry. Instead he looked almost hopeful. \"Yeah.\"
莫迪小姐还在她的院子里，但她已经停下了手中的活，正招待着一位客人。我们的父亲今天从法院提前回来了，但我们居然没注意到这件事。他们正隔着篱笆交流，莫迪小姐拿着把修树篱的剪子，阿迪克斯把他的帽子往后推了推。他们脸上都带着笑。
我使劲拉着我哥哥的袖子：“啊，该死的，他们还是一如既往。”
杰姆过了一会才点点头，思考着眼前的这幅我们看了起码一百次的景象。我可以说，现在这景象对他来说已经有什么不同了，但他看起来并不生气。相反，他看起来充满希望：“是的。”
It seemed that the emotion I\'d spotted on my brother\'s features had indeed been hope, and that it had been well founded. For the first time in recent memory, Uncle Jack made a trip to Maycomb for an occasion other than Christmas. And for the first time, he made no marriage proposal to our neighbor. Atticus has done that already. The rains endured all through the month of April, resulting in the most spectacular flowers for Miss Maudie\'s wedding bouquet that May.
我在他脸上发现的情绪是真实的希望，而且是显而易见的希望。近年来第一次，杰克叔叔在不是圣诞节的日子回到了梅科姆镇，也是第一次，他没有对我们的邻居求婚。阿迪克斯已经这么做了。
小雨仍淅淅沥沥地下着，下了一整个四月，于是五月份时，莫迪小姐的婚礼上开满了最绚丽的花朵。
作者有话说
第2章 suited（中英合并版）
