When she moved into his tiny house in Stroud, and took charge of his four small children, Mother was thirty and still quite handsome. She had not, I suppose, met anyone like him before. This rather priggish young man, with his devout gentility, his airs and manners, his music and ambitions, his charm, bright talk, and undeniable good looks, overwhelmed her as soon as she saw him. So she fell in love with him immediately, and remained in love for ever. And herself being comely, sensitive, and adoring, she attracted my father also. And so he married her. And so later he left her - with his children and some more of her own.
When he'd gone, she brought us to the village and waited. She waited for thirty years. I don't think she ever knew what had made him desert her, though the reasons seemed clear enough. She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red. She lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow, loved the world, and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn't have kept a neat house for her life. What my father wished for was something quite different, something she could never give him - the protective order of an unimpeachable suburbia, which was what he got in the end.
The three or four years Mother spent with my father she fed on for the rest of her life. Her happiness at that time was something she guarded as though it must ensure his eventual return. She would talk about it almost in awe, not that it had ceased but that it had happened at all. | Quando ela se mudou para a pequena casa dele, em Stroud e tomou conta dos seus quatro filhos, a minha Mãe tinha os seus trinta anos e era ainda uma mulher muito atraente. Julgo que nunca tinha conhecido ninguém como ele. Este homem bastante altivo, com a sua cortesia devota, os seus ares e os seus modos, a sua música e as suas ambições, o seu charme, a sua conversa inteligente e a indiscutível beleza, fascinou-a desde o primeiro momento em que o viu. Perdeu-se de amores por ele e assim permaneceu para sempre. E o facto dela ser graciosa, sensível e adorável, também atraiu o meu pai. E não tardou muito até que se casassem. Mais tarde, ele deixou-a – com os seus filhos e mais alguns do casal.
Quando ele partiu, ela trouxe-nos para a aldeia e esperou. Esperou trinta anos. Acho que ela nunca soube o porquê de ele a ter deixado, apesar dos motivos parecerem bastante óbvios. Ela era demasiado honesta, demasiado espontânea para este homem temeroso; demasiado distante das suas leis metódicas. Afinal, ela era uma rapariga do campo; desordenada, efusiva, adorável. Era confusa e traiçoeira como uma gralha, fez o seu ninho de trapos e jóias, era feliz ao Sol, soltava trinados perante o perigo, mexericava e era insaciavelmente curiosa, esquecia-se de comer ou comia todo o dia e cantava ao pôr-do-sol. Regeu a sua vida pelas leis fáceis da natureza, amou o mundo e não fez planos, gostava de admirar as maravilhas da natureza e não teria conseguido manter por muito tempo aquele estilo de vida. O que o meu pai tinha desejado era algo muito diferente, algo que ela nunca lhe poderia dar – a ordem protectora dos subúrbios, o que ele acabou por ter, afinal de contas.
As recordações daqueles três ou quatro anos que passou com o meu pai alimentaram-na para o resto da vida. Nessa época, a sua felicidade era algo que ela guardava, como se acreditasse ser uma garantia do seu eventual regresso. Ela falava sobre isso quase com reverência, não que tinha terminado, mas que não tinha sequer acontecido.
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This translation received 3 votes and the following comment:
Despite a misplaced comma, I liked this one, although all have their good and bad points...
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