Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, ……. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends.
…….
But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
韓媚蘭(Melanie Hamilton Wilkes)
She was a tiny, frailly built girl, who gave the appearance of a child masquerading in her mother's enormous hoop skirts—an illusion that was heightened by the shy, almost frightened look in her too large brown eyes. …… it was a sweet, timid face but a plain face, and she had no feminine tricks of allure to make observers forget its plainness. She looked--and was--as simple as earth, as good as bread, astransparent as spring water. But for all her plainness of feature and smallness of stature, there was a sedate dignity about her movements that was oddly touching and far older than her seventeen years.
衛希禮(Ashley Wilkes )
For Ashley was born of a line of men who used their leisure for thinking, not doing, for spinning brightly colored dreams that had in them no touch of reality. He moved in an inner world that was more beautiful than Georgia and came back to reality with reluctance. He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened. He accepted the universe and his place in it for what they were and, shrugging, turned to his music and books and his better world. 白瑞德(Rhett Butler)
…… her eyes again fell on the man called Rhett Butler who stood alone …….Evidently he had overheard the whole conversation, for he grinned up at her as maliciously as a tomcat, and again his eyes went over her, in a gaze totally devoid of the deference she was accustomed to.
"God's nightgown!" said Scarlett to herself in indignation, using Gerald's favorite oath. "He looks as if--as if he knew what I looked like without my shimmy," and, tossing her head, she went up the steps.
……. Butsomehow, unbidden, she had a feeling of respect for Rhett Butlerfor refusing to marry a girl who was a fool.
Part 1. It seemed strange now that when she was growing up Ashley had never seemed so very attractive to her. In childhood days, she had seen him come and go and never given him a thought. But since that day two years ago when Ashley, newly home from his three years' Grand Tour in Europe, had called to pay his respects, she had loved him. It was as simple as that.
……She had wanted him, in that first instant, wanted him as simply and unreasoningly as she wanted food to eat, horses to ride and a soft bed on which to lay herself……. She loved him and she wanted him and she did not understand him.
Melanie lay in the bed, her figure under the counterpane shrunken and flat like a little girl's. Two black braids fell on either side of her face and her closed eyes were sunken in twin purple circles. At the sight of her Scarlett stood transfixed, leaning against the door. Despite the gloom of the room, she could see that Melanie's face was of a waxy yellow color. It was drained of life's blood and there was a pinched look about the nose. Until that moment, Scarlett had hoped Dr. Meade was mistaken. But now she knew. In the hospitals during the war she had seen too many faces wearing this pinched look not to know what it inevitably presaged.
Melanie was dying, but for a moment Scarlett's mind refused to take it in. Melanie could not die. It was impossible for her to die. God wouldn't let her die when she, Scarlett, needed her so much. Never before had it occurred to her that she needed Melanie. But now, the truth surged in, down to the deepest recesses of her soul. She had relied on Melanie, even as she had relied upon herself, and she had never known it. Now, Melanie was dying and Scarlett knew she could not get along without her. Now, as she tiptoed across the room toward the quiet figure, panic clutching at her heart, she knew that Melanie had been her sword and her shield, her comfort and her strength.
……
"Ashley," she said. "Ashley and you--" Her voice faltered into stillness.
At the mention of Ashley's name, Scarlett's heart stood still, cold as granite within her. Melanie had known all the time. Scarlett dropped her head on the coverlet and a sob that would not rise caught her throat with a cruel hand. Melanie knew. Scarlett was beyond shame now, beyond any feeling save a wild remorse that she had hurt this gentle creature throughout the long years. Melanie had known--and yet, she had remained her loyal friend. Oh, if she could only live those years over again! She would never even let her eyes meet those of Ashley.
"O God," she prayed rapidly, "do, please, let her live! I'll make it up to her. I'll be so good to her. I'll never even speak to Ashley again as long as I live, if You'll only let her get well!"
"Ashley," said Melanie feebly and her fingers reached out to touch Scarlett's bowed head. Her thumb and forefinger tugged with no more strength than that of a baby at Scarlett's hair. Scarlett knew what that meant, knew Melanie wanted her to look up. But she could not, could not meet Melanie's eyes and read that knowledge in them.
"Ashley," Melanie whispered again and Scarlett gripped herself. When she looked God in the face on the Day of Judgment and read her sentence in His eyes, it would not be as bad as this. Her soul cringed but she raised her head.
She saw only the same dark loving eyes, sunken and drowsy with death, the same tender mouth tiredly fighting pain for breath. No reproach was there, no accusation and no fear--only an anxiety that she might not find strength for words.
For a moment Scarlett was too stunned to even feel relief. Then, as she held Melanie's hand more closely, a flood of warm gratitude to God swept over her and, for the first time since her childhood, she said a humble, unselfish prayer.
"Thank You, God. I know I'm not worth it but thank You for not letting her know."
Only death could have forced that disloyalty from Melanie.
"Look after him, Scarlett--but--don't ever let him know."
"I'll look after him and the business too, and I'll never let him know. I'll just kind of suggest things to him."
Melanie managed a small smile but it was a triumphant one as her eyes met Scarlett's again. Their glance sealed the bargain that the protection of Ashley Wilkes from a too harsh world was passing from one woman to another and that Ashley's masculine pride should never be humbled by this knowledge.
Now the struggle went out of the tired face as though with Scarlett's promise, ease had come to her.
……
"Promise me--" came the whisper, very softly now.
"Anything, darling."
"Captain Butler--be kind to him. He--loves you so."
"Rhett?" thought Scarlett, bewildered, and the words meant nothing to her.
"Yes, indeed," she said automatically and, pressing a light kiss on the hand, laid it back on the bed.
……Behind that door, Melanie was going and, with her, the strength upon which she had relied unknowingly for so many years. Why, oh, why, had she not realized before this how much she loved and needed Melanie? But who would have thought of small plain Melanie as a tower of strength? Melanie who was shy to tears before strangers, timid about raising her voice in an opinion of her own, fearful of the disapproval of old ladies, Melanie who lacked the courage to say Boo to a goose? And yet--Scarlett's mind went back through the years to the still, hot noon at Tara when gray smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles' saber in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: "How silly! Melly couldn't even heft that sword!" But now she knew that had the necessity arisen, Melanie would have charged down those stairs and killed the Yankee--or been killed herself.
"Ashley!" she said, and made an impatient gesture. "I--I don't believe I've cared anything about him for ages. It was--well, a sort of habit I hung onto from when I was a little girl. Rhett, I'd never even thought I cared about him if I'd ever known what he was really like. He's such a helpless, poor-spirited creature, for all his prattle about truth and honor and--"
"No," said Rhett. "If you must see him as he really is, see him straight. He's only a gentleman caught in a world he doesn't belong in, trying to make a poor best of it by the rules of the world that's gone."
……
"Then, you certainly gave a good imitation of it--up till tonight. Scarlett, I'm not upbraiding you, accusing you, reproaching you. That time has passed. So spare me your defenses and your explanations. If you can manage to listen to me for a few minutes without interrupting, I can explain what I mean. Though God knows, I see no need for explanations. The truth's so plain."
……
"Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman? Loved you for years before I finally got you? During the war I'd go away and try to forget you, but I couldn't and I always had to come back. After the war I risked arrest, just to come back and find you. I cared so much I believe I would have killed Frank Kennedy if he hadn't died when he did. I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip."
……
"I knew you didn't love me when I married you. I knew about Ashley, you see. But, fool that I was, I thought I could make you care. Laugh, if you like, but I wanted to take care of you, to pet you, to give you everything you wanted. I wanted to marry you and protect you and give you a free rein in anything that would make you happy--just as I did Bonnie. You'd had such a struggle, Scarlett. No one knew better than I what you'd gone through and I wanted you to stop fighting and let me fight for you. I wanted you to play, like a child--for you were a child, a brave, frightened, bullheaded child. I think you are still a child. No one but a child could be so headstrong and so insensitive."
……
"It was so obvious that we were meant for each other. So obvious that I was the only man of your acquaintance who could love you after knowing you as you really are--hard and greedy and unscrupulous, like me. I loved you and I took the chance. I thought Ashley would fade out of your mind. But," he shrugged, "I tried everything I knew and nothing worked. And I loved you so, Scarlett. If you had only let me, I could have loved you as gently and as tenderly as ever a man loved a woman. But I couldn't let you know, for I knew you'd think me weak and try to use my love against me. And always--always there was Ashley. It drove me crazy. I couldn't sit across the table from you every night, knowing you wished Ashley was sitting there in my place. And I couldn't hold you in my arms at night and know that--well, it doesn't matter now. I wonder, now, why it hurt. That's what drove me to Belle. There is a certain swinish comfort in being with a woman who loves you utterly and respects you for being a fine gentleman--even if she is an illiterate whore. It soothed my vanity. You've never been very soothing, my dear."
"And then, that night when I carried you upstairs--I thought—I hoped--I hoped so much I was afraid to face you the next morning, for fear I'd been mistaken and you didn't love me. I was so afraid you'd laugh at me I went off and got drunk. And when I came back, I was shaking in my boots and if you had come even halfway to meet me, had given me some sign, I think I'd have kissed your feet. But you didn't."
……
"Oh, well," he said. "It seems we've been at cross purposes, doesn't it? But it doesn't matter now. I'm only telling you, so you won't ever wonder about it all. When you were sick and it was all my fault, I stood outside your door, hoping you'd call for me, but you didn't, and then I knew what a fool I'd been and that it was all over."
……
"But then, there was Bonnie and I saw that everything wasn't over, after all. I liked to think that Bonnie was you, a little girl again, before the war and poverty had done things to you. She was so like you, so willful, so brave and gay and full of high spirits, and I could pet her and spoil her--just as I wanted to pet you. But she wasn't like you--she loved me. It was a blessing that I could take the love you didn't want and give it to her. . . . When she went, she took everything."
……
"My darling, you're such a child. You think that by saying, 'I'm sorry,' all the errors and hurts of years past can be remedied, obliterated from the mind, all the poison drawn from old wounds. . . . Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief."
……
"How old are you, my dear? You never would tell me."
"Twenty-eight," she answered dully, muffled in the handkerchief.
"That's not a vast age. It's a young age to have gained the whole world and lost your own soul, isn't it? Don't look frightened. I'm not referring to hell fire to come for your affair with Ashley. I'm merely speaking metaphorically. Ever since I've known you, you've wanted two things. Ashley and to be rich enough to tell the world to go to hell. Well, you are rich enough and you've spoken sharply to the world and you've got Ashley, if you want him. But all that doesn't seem to be enough now."
……
"I still laugh--but I've reached the end of roaming, Scarlett. I'm forty-five--the age when a man begins to value some of the things he's thrown away so lightly in youth, the clannishness of families, honor and security, roots that go deep-- Oh, no! I'm not recanting, I'm not regretting anything I've ever done. I've had a hell of a good time--such a hell of a good time that it's begun to pall and now I want something different. No, I never intend to change more than my spots. But I want the outer semblance of the things I used to know, the utter boredom of respectability--other people's respectability, my pet, not my own--the calm dignity life can have when it's lived by gentle folks, the genial grace of days that are gone. When I lived those days I didn't realize the slow charm of them--"
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ReplyDeleteGone with the wind
ReplyDeleteMargaret Munnerlyn Mitchell
Group 3- Kelly Angel Roger
作者生平
作者：瑪格麗特•芒內爾林•米切爾（Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell）
出生地：美國喬治亞州的亞特蘭大
家庭簡介：父親為尤金•米切爾，為一位律師，母親為碼麗•伊麗莎白。哥哥史蒂芬大她四歲，她的童年生活大多在其母親的一位遠房親戚家度過。
學習歷程：華盛頓神學院畢業後，她進入馬薩諸塞州的路易斯學院就讀，后因母親病逝，家中需要她來主持家務，于是不得不中途退學。之後，她無心學業，在亞特蘭大新聞週刊找到工作，並用佩琪‧米切爾的筆名為《亞特蘭大日報》撰稿週日專欄。
代表作品：《Gone with the wind》《飄》
重要事件
-1900年 出生於美國喬治亞州的亞特蘭大
-1918年 她母親死於西班牙型流行性感冒後，便搬回亞特蘭大
-1922年 開始用筆名“佩吉”為《亞特蘭大日報》撰稿
-1925年 與佐治亞熱力公司的廣告部主任約翰•馬施結婚
-1926年 因腿部負傷，瑪格麗特辭去報社的工作， 開始致力於創作
-1935年 出版小說《tomorrow is the other day》《明天是新的一天》
-1936年 將小說改名為《隨風而去》 （《飄》）
-1937年 榮獲’’普利茲獎’’ ‘’美國出版商協會獎’’
-1939年 依小說《飄》改編成的電影 ‘’亂世佳人’’上映
-1949年 發生車禍 與世長辭
背景簡介
作者生於1900年，美國喬治亞州的亞特蘭大。亞特蘭大曾於1864年(南北戰爭期間)落入北方聯邦軍將領Sherman之手，瑪格麗特從小就常常聽到父母親經歷過南北戰爭的親戚們和亞特蘭大的老兵們說過許多事蹟，因此當瑪格麗特26歲時，決定創作一部有關南北戰爭的小說，自然以亞特蘭大為背景。南北戰爭發生於林肯總統就任期間，我們都讀過，此內戰起因之一為南方支持奴隸制與北方反奴隸制形成對立。西南方的棉花經濟盛行，加深南方對奴隸的依賴，而反奴隸制的《湯姆叔叔的小屋》出版後，讓北方人民更知道奴隸的辛酸血淚，小說在某種程度上激化了內戰的局部衝突。《飄》的故事從19世紀南北戰爭爆發的前夕開始，女主角是美國南方少女，小說中有不少種族歧視的言論，例如思嘉從陷落的亞特蘭大回到塔拉以後，曾說過：「黑人是多麼愚蠢啊！他們從來不會去想任何事情，除非你去命令他們。」
主角介紹
郝思嘉(Scarlett O'Hara)
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, ……. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends.
…….
But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
韓媚蘭(Melanie Hamilton Wilkes)
She was a tiny, frailly built girl, who gave the appearance of a child masquerading in her mother's enormous hoop skirts—an illusion that was heightened by the shy, almost frightened look in her too large brown eyes. …… it was a sweet, timid face but a plain face, and she had no feminine tricks of allure to make observers forget its plainness. She looked--and was--as simple as earth, as good as bread, astransparent as spring water.
But for all her plainness of feature and smallness of stature, there was a sedate dignity about her movements that was oddly touching and far older than her seventeen years.
衛希禮(Ashley Wilkes )
For Ashley was born of a line of men who used their leisure for thinking, not doing, for spinning brightly colored dreams that had in them no touch of reality. He moved in an inner world that was more beautiful than Georgia and came back to reality with reluctance. He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened. He accepted the universe and his place in it for what they were and, shrugging, turned to his music and books and his better world.
白瑞德(Rhett Butler)
…… her eyes again fell on the man called Rhett Butler who stood alone …….Evidently he had overheard the whole conversation, for he grinned up at her as maliciously as a tomcat, and again his eyes went over her, in a gaze totally devoid of the deference she was accustomed to.
"God's nightgown!" said Scarlett to herself in indignation, using Gerald's favorite oath. "He looks as if--as if he knew what I looked like without my shimmy," and, tossing her head, she went up the steps.
……. Butsomehow, unbidden, she had a feeling of respect for Rhett Butlerfor refusing to marry a girl who was a fool.
故事內容
ReplyDelete郝思嘉的愛情為主軸 南北戰爭為背景
此處節錄南北戰爭開始前的某個章節與最後兩個章節分析郝思嘉的愛情
Part 1.
It seemed strange now that when she was growing up Ashley had never seemed so very attractive to her. In childhood days, she had seen him come and go and never given him a thought. But since that day two years ago when Ashley, newly home from his three years' Grand Tour in Europe, had called to pay his respects, she
had loved him. It was as simple as that.
……She had wanted him, in that first instant, wanted him as simply and unreasoningly as she wanted food to eat, horses to ride and a soft bed on which to lay herself……. She loved him and she wanted him and she did not understand him.
Part 2.
ReplyDeleteMelanie lay in the bed, her figure under the counterpane shrunken and flat like a little girl's. Two black braids fell on either side of her face and her closed eyes were sunken in twin purple circles. At the sight of her Scarlett stood transfixed, leaning
against the door. Despite the gloom of the room, she could see that Melanie's face was of a waxy yellow color. It was drained of life's blood and there was a pinched look about the nose. Until that moment, Scarlett had hoped Dr. Meade was mistaken. But now she knew. In the hospitals during the war she had seen too many faces wearing this pinched look not to know what it inevitably presaged.
Melanie was dying, but for a moment Scarlett's mind refused to take it in. Melanie could not die. It was impossible for her to die. God wouldn't let her die when she, Scarlett, needed her so much. Never before had it occurred to her that she needed Melanie. But now, the truth surged in, down to the deepest recesses of her soul.
She had relied on Melanie, even as she had relied upon herself, and she had never known it. Now, Melanie was dying and Scarlett knew she could not get along without her. Now, as she tiptoed across the room toward the quiet figure, panic clutching at her heart, she knew that Melanie had been her sword and her shield, her comfort and her strength.
……
"Ashley," she said. "Ashley and you--" Her voice faltered into stillness.
At the mention of Ashley's name, Scarlett's heart stood still, cold as granite within her. Melanie had known all the time. Scarlett dropped her head on the coverlet and a sob that would not rise caught her throat with a cruel hand. Melanie knew. Scarlett was beyond shame now, beyond any feeling save a wild remorse that she
had hurt this gentle creature throughout the long years. Melanie had known--and yet, she had remained her loyal friend. Oh, if she could only live those years over again! She would never even let her eyes meet those of Ashley.
"O God," she prayed rapidly, "do, please, let her live! I'll make it up to her. I'll be so good to her. I'll never even speak to Ashley again as long as I live, if You'll only let her get well!"
"Ashley," said Melanie feebly and her fingers reached out to touch Scarlett's bowed head. Her thumb and forefinger tugged with no more strength than that of a baby at Scarlett's hair. Scarlett knew what that meant, knew Melanie wanted her to look up. But she could not, could not meet Melanie's eyes and read that knowledge in
them.
"Ashley," Melanie whispered again and Scarlett gripped herself. When she looked God in the face on the Day of Judgment and read her sentence in His eyes, it would not be as bad as this. Her soul cringed but she raised her head.
She saw only the same dark loving eyes, sunken and drowsy with death, the same tender mouth tiredly fighting pain for breath. No reproach was there, no accusation and no fear--only an anxiety that she might not find strength for words.
For a moment Scarlett was too stunned to even feel relief. Then, as she held Melanie's hand more closely, a flood of warm gratitude to God swept over her and, for the first time since her childhood, she said a humble, unselfish prayer.
"Thank You, God. I know I'm not worth it but thank You for not letting her know."
"What about Ashley, Melly?"
ReplyDelete"You'll--look after him?"
"Oh, yes."
"He catches cold--so easily."
There was a pause.
"Look after--his business--you understand?"
"Yes, I understand. I will."
She made a great effort.
"Ashley isn't--practical."
Only death could have forced that disloyalty from Melanie.
"Look after him, Scarlett--but--don't ever let him know."
"I'll look after him and the business too, and I'll never let him know. I'll just kind of suggest things to him."
Melanie managed a small smile but it was a triumphant one as her eyes met Scarlett's again. Their glance sealed the bargain that the protection of Ashley Wilkes from a too harsh world was passing from one woman to another and that Ashley's masculine pride should never be humbled by this knowledge.
Now the struggle went out of the tired face as though with Scarlett's promise, ease had come to her.
……
"Promise me--" came the whisper, very softly now.
"Anything, darling."
"Captain Butler--be kind to him. He--loves you so."
"Rhett?" thought Scarlett, bewildered, and the words meant nothing to her.
"Yes, indeed," she said automatically and, pressing a light kiss on the hand, laid it back on the bed.
……Behind that door, Melanie was going and, with her, the strength upon which she had relied unknowingly for so many years. Why, oh, why, had she not realized before this how much she loved and needed Melanie? But who would have thought of small plain Melanie as a tower of strength? Melanie who was shy to tears before strangers, timid about raising her voice in an opinion of her own, fearful of the disapproval of old ladies, Melanie who lacked the courage to say Boo to a goose? And yet--Scarlett's mind went back through the years to the still, hot noon at Tara when gray smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles' saber in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: "How silly! Melly couldn't even heft that sword!" But now she knew that had the necessity arisen, Melanie would have charged down those stairs and killed the Yankee--or been killed herself.
Part 3.
ReplyDelete"Ashley!" she said, and made an impatient gesture. "I--I don't believe I've cared anything about him for ages. It was--well, a sort of habit I hung onto from when I was a little girl. Rhett, I'd never even thought I cared about him if I'd ever known what he was really like. He's such a helpless, poor-spirited creature, for
all his prattle about truth and honor and--"
"No," said Rhett. "If you must see him as he really is, see him straight. He's only a gentleman caught in a world he doesn't belong in, trying to make a poor best of it by the rules of the world that's gone."
……
"Then, you certainly gave a good imitation of it--up till tonight. Scarlett, I'm not upbraiding you, accusing you, reproaching you. That time has passed. So spare me your defenses and your explanations. If you can manage to listen to me for a few minutes without interrupting, I can explain what I mean. Though God knows,
I see no need for explanations. The truth's so plain."
……
"Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman? Loved you for years before I finally got you? During the war I'd go away and try to forget you, but I couldn't and I always had to come back. After the war I risked arrest, just to come back and find you. I cared so much I believe I would have
killed Frank Kennedy if he hadn't died when he did. I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip."
……
"I knew you didn't love me when I married you. I knew about Ashley, you see. But, fool that I was, I thought I could make you care. Laugh, if you like, but I wanted to take care of you, to pet you, to give you everything you wanted. I wanted to marry you and protect you and give you a free rein in anything that would make you happy--just as I did Bonnie. You'd had such a struggle, Scarlett. No one knew better than I what you'd gone through and I wanted you to stop fighting and let me fight for you. I wanted you to play, like a child--for you were a child, a brave, frightened, bullheaded child. I think you are still a child. No one but a child could be so headstrong and so insensitive."
……
"It was so obvious that we were meant for each other. So obvious that I was the only man of your acquaintance who could love you after knowing you as you really are--hard and greedy and unscrupulous, like me. I loved you and I took the chance. I thought Ashley would fade out of your mind. But," he shrugged, "I tried everything I knew and nothing worked. And I loved you so, Scarlett. If you had only let me, I could have loved you as gently and as tenderly as ever a man loved a woman. But I couldn't let you know, for I knew you'd think me weak and try to use my love against me. And always--always there was Ashley. It drove me crazy. I couldn't sit across the table from you every night, knowing you wished Ashley was sitting there in my place. And I couldn't hold you in my arms at night and know that--well, it doesn't matter now. I wonder, now, why it hurt. That's what drove
me to Belle. There is a certain swinish comfort in being with a woman who loves you utterly and respects you for being a fine gentleman--even if she is an illiterate whore. It soothed my vanity. You've never been very soothing, my dear."
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"And then, that night when I carried you upstairs--I thought—I hoped--I hoped so much I was afraid to face you the next morning, for fear I'd been mistaken and you didn't love me. I was so afraid you'd laugh at me I went off and got drunk. And when I came back, I was shaking in my boots and if you had come even halfway to meet me, had given me some sign, I think I'd have kissed your feet. But you didn't."
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"Oh, well," he said. "It seems we've been at cross purposes, doesn't it? But it doesn't matter now. I'm only telling you, so you won't ever wonder about it all. When you were sick and it was all my fault, I stood outside your door, hoping you'd call for me, but you didn't, and then I knew what a fool I'd been and that it was all over."
……
"But then, there was Bonnie and I saw that everything wasn't over, after all. I liked to think that Bonnie was you, a little girl again, before the war and poverty had done things to you. She was so like you, so willful, so brave and gay and full of high spirits, and I could pet her and spoil her--just as I wanted to pet you. But she wasn't like you--she loved me. It was a blessing that I could take the love you didn't want and give it to her. . . . When she went, she took everything."
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"My darling, you're such a child. You think that by saying, 'I'm sorry,' all the errors and hurts of years past can be remedied, obliterated from the mind, all the poison drawn from old wounds. . . . Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any
crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief."
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"How old are you, my dear? You never would tell me."
"Twenty-eight," she answered dully, muffled in the handkerchief.
"That's not a vast age. It's a young age to have gained the whole world and lost your own soul, isn't it? Don't look frightened. I'm not referring to hell fire to come for your affair with Ashley. I'm merely speaking metaphorically. Ever since I've known you, you've wanted two things. Ashley and to be rich enough to tell the
world to go to hell. Well, you are rich enough and you've spoken sharply to the world and you've got Ashley, if you want him. But all that doesn't seem to be enough now."
……
"I still laugh--but I've reached the end of roaming, Scarlett. I'm forty-five--the age when a man begins to value some of the things he's thrown away so lightly in youth, the clannishness of families, honor and security, roots that go deep-- Oh, no! I'm not recanting, I'm not regretting anything I've ever done. I've had a hell of a
good time--such a hell of a good time that it's begun to pall and now I want something different. No, I never intend to change more than my spots. But I want the outer semblance of the things I used to know, the utter boredom of respectability--other people's respectability, my pet, not my own--the calm dignity life can have when it's lived by gentle folks, the genial grace of days that are
gone. When I lived those days I didn't realize the slow charm of them--"
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