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Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladles' magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.
后来，新一代成了镇上的骨干和灵魂，那些学画的孩子已经长大成人，相继离开了，她们没有让自己的女儿带着调色盒、讨厌的画笔和从女士杂志上剪下的图画到艾米莉小姐家学绘画。最后一个学生走后，前门就关了，而且再也没有打开过。镇上实行免费邮递时，唯独艾米莉小姐拒绝在她家门上订金属门牌号，附设邮箱。她也不听他们解释。
Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow greyer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
日复一日，月复一月，年复一年。只见那黑人，头发白了，背也驼了，依然提着菜篮子进进出出。每年十二月，我们都寄给她一张纳税通知单，但一星期后，又被邮局退了回来，无人认领。时不时地，我们在楼下的一个窗口——显然她把自己封闭在阁楼上了——还可看到她的身影。那身影活像神龛中供奉的无头神像，是不是在看我们，我们也拿不准。就这样，一代又一代过去了，她始终保持着——高贵傲然，临危不惧，性格倔强，镇定自如，怪僻乖张。
And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro. He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.
她就这样走了。死前，她病倒在一栋尘埃遍地、魅影幢幢的屋子里，只有一个老态龙钟的黑人侍候她。她病倒了，连我们都不知道，我们也懒得从黑人那儿打听消息了。况且，那黑人见谁也不吭声，恐怕见了她也是如此。由于长期不吭声，他的嗓子早已沙哑了。
She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her grey head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.
她死在楼下一间屋子里，笨重的胡桃木床挂着床帏，她那长满铁灰色的头枕着枕头，因长年不见阳光，枕头已经泛黄发霉了。
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第五节
The negro met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
黑人站在前门口迎接第一批妇女，把她们引进了屋子。她们悄声细语，好奇地东瞧瞧西瞅瞅。黑人转眼就不见了。他穿过屋子，出了后门，再也不见踪影了。
