2012年3月16日星期五

money as you liked and not count

“You eat as though each meal were your last,” said Rhett. “Don’t scrape the plate, Scarlett. I’m sure there’s more in the kitchen. You have only to ask the waiter. If you don’t stop being such a glutton, you’ll be as fat as the Cuban ladies and then I shall divorce you.”  But she only put out her tongue at him and ordered another pastry, thick with chocolate and stuffed with meringue.  What fun it was to be able to spend as much money as you liked and not count pennies and feel that you should save them to pay taxes or buy mules. What fun to be with people who were gay and rich and not genteelly poor like Atlanta people. What fun to wear rustling brocade dresses that showed your waist and all your neck and arms and more than a little of your breast and know that men were admiring you. And what fun to eat all you wanted without having censorious people say you weren’t ladylike. And what fun to drink all the champagne you pleased. The first time she drank too much, she was embarrassed when she awoke the next-morning with a splitting headache and an awful memory of singing “Bonnie Blue Flag” all the way back to the hotel, through the streets of New Orleans, in an open carriage. She had never seen a lady even tipsy, and the only drunken woman she had ever seen had been that Watling creature on the day when Atlanta fell. She hardly knew how to face Rhett, so great was her humiliation, but the affair seemed only to amuse him. Everything she did seemed to amuse him, as though she were a gamboling kitten.  It was exciting to go out with him for he was so handsome. Somehow she had never given his looks a thought before, and in Atlanta everyone had been too preoccupied with his shortcomings ever to talk about his appearance. But here in New Orleans she could see how the eyes of other women followed him and how they fluttered when he bent over their hands. The realization that other women were attracted by her husband, and perhaps envied her, made her suddenly proud to be seen by his side.

没有评论:

发表评论