书名：Ramona蕾蒙娜

难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数870L
作者：Helen Hunt Jackson
出版社名称：Signet Classics
出版时间：2002
语种：英文
ISBN：9780451528421
商品尺寸：10.6 x 2.9x 17.3 cm
包装：简装
页数：400 （以实物为准）

Ramona《蕾蒙娜》是首部正面描写印第安人的作品，作者怀着对印第安人的极大同情，塑造了具有印第安人血统的混血儿蕾蒙娜和勤劳勇敢、英俊豪放的印第安剪毛手亚历山德罗的形象。由于故事真实可信，情节生动曲折，引人入胜，催人泪下，所以一出版即引起轰动，作者也因此成名。本书自1884年问世以来，已重印一百多次，三次搬上银幕，舞台上也久演不衰，成为美国文学中的“经典作品”，“颇具魅力的现代小说”。
本书为Signet Classics推出的英文原版，由Michael Dorris作序，Valerie Sherer Mathes后记，内容完整无删减，书本小巧便携。

Ramona is a tale of true love triumphant, of exotic, passionate characters beset by tragedy, of pure-hearted nobility at odds with greed.Set in Old California, this powerfuland romanticnarrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, thedecline of tribal communities…and inevitably, the brutal intrusion ofwhite settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up asthe docile, beautifulward of the overbearing Senora Moreno. But her desire fortheNative AmericanAlessandro makes her an outcast and fugitive.
This moving story with grand melodramatic touches was linked withUncle Tom’s Cabinas one of the great ethical novels of the nineteenth century. A bestseller in 1884,Ramonawasboth a political and literary success, and it will move modern readerswithits sympathetic characters and its depiction of the Native Americans’struggle in the early West.
With anIntroduction byMichael Dorrisand aNewAfterword byValerie Sherer Mathes

蕾蒙娜是个美丽的混血姑娘，从小由莫雷诺夫人收养，与夫人的儿子费利佩少爷青梅竹马，两小无猜，但夫人并不爱她。一个剪羊毛的季节，英俊的印第安剪毛手亚历山德罗来夫人的牧场干活，蕾蒙娜的天生丽质深深打动了他。在一个偶然的机会里，蕾蒙娜知道了自己的身世，原来她的生母也是个印第安人。她毅然投入了亚历山德罗的怀抱。正当他们沉浸在爱河里时，夫人发现了，恼羞成怒，扬言要把蕾蒙娜送进修女院。蕾蒙娜踉着亚历山德罗出逃，过起了流浪生活。当时正值美国白人大肆驱赶印第安人之际，他俩也未能幸免。美丽的小女儿重病得不到白人医生的医治，夭折在流浪途中，亚历山德罗被诬为盗马贼，屈死在白人的枪下。蕾蒙娜倍受打击，昏死在病床上。等她醒来时，发现费利佩先生正站在她身边。这对幼年时的伙伴，终于结合了。但是蕾蒙娜有一个秘密，始终没有告诉费利佩：她曾经有过一个动听的印第安名宇——麦吉拉。
Ramonahas often been compared toUncle Tom’s Cabinfor its influence on American social policy, and this is the only edition available that presents this important novel in its full historical context. A huge popular and critical success when it was first published in 1884,Ramonais set among the California Spanish missions and tells the story of the young mixed-blood heroine, Ramona, and her Native American lover Alessandro, as they flee from the brutal violence of white settlers.

海伦·亨特·杰克逊（Helen Hunt Jackson，1830~1885）是位多产的女作家，主要以同情印第安人、维护印第安人利益的作品为人们喜爱。1881年她发表《世纪的耻辱》一文，揭露美国政府虐待印第安人，引起较大反响，后被委任为美国政府特派员，专门调查加利福尼亚印第安人的生活状况，为她创作《蕾蒙娜》积累了丰富的素材。并因此书而成名。杰克逊才思敏捷，文笔流畅，作品还有长篇小说《黔西·菲尔伯利克的选择》，《海蒂的奇怪历史》，诗歌《十四行诗和抒情诗》，以及一些游记和儿童读物。
Denise Chávez, a prolific playwright, poet, and novelist, is the author ofLoving Pedro Infante,Face of an Angel, andThe Last of the Menu Girls. She lives in New Mexico.

I. It was sheep-shearing time in Southern California; but sheep-shearing was late at the Señora Moreno’s. The Fates had seemed to combine to put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the Señora’s eldest son, and since his father’s death had been at the head of his mother’s house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch, the Señora thought. It had been always, “Ask Señor Felipe,” “Go to Señor Felipe,” “Señor Felipe will attend to it,” ever since Felipe had had the dawning of a beard on his handsome face.
In truth, it was not Felipe, but the Señora, who really decided all questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place, from the sheep-pastures to the artichoke-patch; but nobody except the Señora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and generation was Señora Gonzaga Moreno,—as for that matter, exceedingly clever for any day and generation; but exceptionally clever for the day and generation to which she belonged. Her life, the mere surface of it, if it had been written, would have made a romance, to grow hot and cold over: sixty years of the best of old Spain and the wildest of New Spain, Bay of Biscay, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean,—the waves of them all had tossed destinies for the Señora.1
The Holy Catholic Church had had its arms round her from first to last; and that was what had brought her safe through, she would have said, if she had ever said anything about herself, which she never did,—one of her many wisdoms. So quiet, so reserved, so gentle an exterior never was known to veil such an imperious and passionate nature, brimful of storm, always passing through stress; never thwarted, except at peril of those who did it; adored and hated by turns, and each at the hottest. A tremendous force, wherever she appeared, was Señora Moreno; but no stranger would suspect it, to see her gliding about, in her scanty black gown, with her rosary hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast. There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if she did not know her own mind: at which people sometimes took heart; when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the speech hesitated solely because the Señora knew her mind so exactly that she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or in a way to best attain her ends.
About this very sheep-shearing there had been, between her and the head shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, and to distinguish him from Juan José, the upper herdsman of the cattle, some discussions which would have been hot and angry ones in any other hands than the Señora’s.
Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Señor Felipe were ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigo had not yet got back with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture. “There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with,” he said one morning,—“at least a thousand;” and by the time they were done, Luigo would surely be back with the rest; and as for Señor Felipe’s being in bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the wool, when Señor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again? The Señora did not realize how time was going; there would be no shearers to be hired presently, since the Señora was determined to have none but Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other ranches in the valley did, it would be different; but she was resolved upon having Indians,—“God knows why,” he interpolated surlily, under his breath.
“I do not quite understand you, Juan,” interrupted Señora Moreno at the precise instant the last syllable of this disrespectful ejaculation had escaped Juan’s lips; “speak a little louder. I fear I am growing deaf in my old age.”
What gentle, suave, courteous tones! and the calm dark eyes rested on Juan Canito with a look to the fathoming of which he was as unequal as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he instantly and involuntarily said, “Beg your pardon, Señora.”
“Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan,” the Señora replied with exquisite gentleness; “it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did. But about the Indians, Juan; did not Señor Felipe tell you that he had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn, Alessandro’s band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for them. Señor Felipe will send a messenger for them. He thinks them the best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two, he thinks, and the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer. Are they looking well, do you think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one? General Moreno used to say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a pound, while it was on the sheep’s backs.”
“Yes, Señora,” answered the mollified Juan; “the poor beasts look wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter. We’ll not come many pounds short of our last year’s crop, if any. Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that—Luigo will bring his flock back.”
The Señora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with which Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a contemptuous epithet before Luigo’s name.
This was another of the instances where the Señora’s will and Juan Canito’s had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all down as usual to the score of young Señor Felipe.
Encouraged by the Señora’s smile, Juan proceeded: “Señor Felipe can see no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I can tell him, he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep worse than dead on his hands, and no thanks to anybody but Luigo. While I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well; but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock, than one of the very lambs themselves. He’ll drive them off their feet one day, and starve them the next; and I’ve known him to forget to give them water. When he’s in his dreams, the Virgin only knows what he won’t do.”