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. | Cuando se mudó con él, a su diminuta casa en Stroud y se hizo cargo de sus cuatro hijos pequeños, Madre tenía 30 años y aún era muy guapa. Supongo que no había conocido a alguien así en toda su vida. Este joven, algo pedante, con su devota gentileza, sus aires y modales, su música y sus ambiciones, su encanto, su brillante conversación y su indiscutible belleza, la impactó desde el primer día. Y así fue como se enamoró de él inmediatamente y siguió enamorada para siempre. Y ella, tan bella, sensible y adorable, conquistó a mi padre también. Y entonces, se casó con ella. Y, al cabo de un tiempo, la abandonó…con sus hijos más los hijos que habían tenido juntos.
Cuando se fue, ella nos llevó al pueblo y esperó. Esperó durante treinta años. Creo que nunca llegó a saber por qué la había abandonado, aunque los motivos eran bastante obvios. Era demasiado honesta, demasiado natural para este hombre asustadizo; demasiado ajena a sus reglas esquemáticas. Ella era, después de todo, una simple campesina; desordenada, histérica, amorosa. Era traviesa y pícara como una corneja sobre la chimenea, su nido era una mezcla de harapos y joyas, era feliz bajo el sol, chillaba ante el peligro, le gustaba espiar y era insaciablemente curiosa, se olvidaba de comer o comía todo el día, y cantaba cuando los atardeceres se tornaban bermejos. Vivía según las simples leyes del seto vivo, amaba el mundo y no hacía planes, tenía el don de captar rápidamente las maravillas de la naturaleza y no podría haber tenido una casa ordenada en su vida. Lo que mi padre deseaba era algo totalmente diferente, algo que ella jamás podría darle: el orden protector de un barrio intachable en los suburbios, que fue lo que finalmente consiguió.
Los tres o cuatro años que Madre pasó con mi padre la nutrieron para el resto de su vida. Su felicidad en aquella época era algo a lo que se aferraba como si le garantizara su eventual retorno. Solía hablar de ello casi embelesada, no como si hubieran terminado sino más bien como si nada hubiera sucedido.
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This translation received 2 votes and the following comment:
Natural and beautiful.
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