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If the educational equipment which Gerald brought to America was scant, he did not even know it. Nor would he have cared if he had been told. His mother had taught him to read and to write a clear hand. He was adept at ciphering. And there his book knowledge stopped. The only Latin he knew was the responses of the Mass and the only history the manifold wrongs of Ireland. He knew no poetry save that of Moore and no music except the songs of Ireland that had come down through the years. While he entertained the liveliest respect for those who had more book learning than he, he never felt his own lack. And what need had he of these things in a new country where the most ignorant of bogtrotters had made great fortunes? in this country which asked only that a man be strong and unafraid of work?
到美国来之前，杰拉尔德没有受过多少教育，可是他对此并不怎么有自知之明。其实，即使别人给他指出，他也不会在意。他母亲教过他读书写字。他很善于作算术题。他的书本知识就只这些。他唯一懂得的拉丁文是作弥撒时应答牧师的用语，唯一的历史知识则是爱尔兰的种种冤屈。他在诗歌方面，只知道穆尔的作品，音乐则限于历代流传下来的爱尔兰歌曲。他尽管对那些比他较有学问的人怀有敬意，可是从来也不感觉到自己的缺陷。而且，在一个新的国家，在一个连那些最愚昧的爱尔兰人也在此发了大财的国家，在一个只要求你强壮不怕干活的国家，他需要这些东西干什么呢？
Nor did James and Andrew, who took him into their store in Savannah, regret his lack of education. His clear hand, his accurate figures and his shrewd ability in bargaining won their respect, where a knowledge of literature and a fine appreciation of music, had young Gerald possessed them, would have moved them to snorts of contempt. America, in the early years of the century, had been kind to the Irish. James and Andrew, who had begun by hauling goods in covered wagons from Savannah to Georgia’s inland towns, had prospered into a store of their own, and Gerald prospered with them.
詹姆斯和安德鲁并不认为自己很少受教育是一桩憾事。他们收留杰拉尔德进了他们的萨凡纳的商店。他的字迹清楚，算数算得准确，与顾客谈起生意来也很精明，因此赢得了两位哥哥的期重；至于文学知识和欣赏音乐的修养，年轻的杰拉尔德即使具有，也只会引其他们的嗤笑。在本世纪初，美国对爱尔兰人还很和气，詹姆斯和安德鲁开始时用帆布篷车从萨凡纳往佐治亚的内地城镇运送货物，后来赚了钱便自己开店，杰拉尔德也就跟着他们发迹了。
He liked the South, and he soon became, in his own opinion, a Southerner. There was much about the South—and Southerners—that he would never comprehend; but, with the wholeheartedness that was his nature, he adopted its ideas and customs, as he understood them, for his own—poker and horse racing, red-hot politics and the code duello, States’ Rights and damnation to all Yankees, slavery and King Cotton, contempt for white trash and exaggerated courtesy to women. He even learned to chew tobacco. There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had been born with one.
他喜欢南方，并且自己以为很快就成了南方人。的确，关于南方和南方人，有许多东西是他永远也不会理解的，不过，南方人的有些思想习惯，如玩扑克，赛马，争论政治和举行决斗，争取州权和咒骂北方佬，维护奴隶制和棉花至上主义，轻视下流白人和过分讨好妇女，等等，他一旦理解便全心全意地接受，并成为他自己的了。他甚至学会了咀嚼烟叶。至于喝威士忌的本领，他生来就已经具备，那是不用学的。
