Sally got married like we knew she would, young and not ready but married just the same. She met a marshmallow salesman at a school bazaar, and she married him in another state where it's legal to get married before eighth grade. She has her husband and her house now, her pillowcases and her plates. She says she is in love, but I think she did it to escape.
      Sally says she likes being married because now she gets to buy her own things when her husband gives her money. She is happy, except sometimes her husband gets angry and once he broke the door where his foot went through, though most days he is okay. Except he won't let her talk on the telephone. And he doesn't let her look out the window. And he doesn't like her friends, so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working.
      She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission. She looks at all the things they own: the towels and the toaster, the alarm clock and the drapes. She likes looking at the walls, at how neatly their corners meet, the linoleum roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as wedding cake.

　  They came with the wind that blows in August, thin as a spider web and barely noticed. Three who did not seem to be related to anything but the moon. One with laughter like tin and one with eyes of a cat and one with hands like porcelain. The aunts, the three sisters, las comadres, they said.
      The baby died. Lucy and Rachel's sister. One night a dog cried, and the next day a yellow bird flew in through an open window. Before the week was over, the baby's fever was worse. Then Jesus came and took the baby with him far away. That's what their mother said.
      Then the visitors came ... in and out of the little house. It was hard to keep the floors clean. Anybody who had ever wondered what color the walls were came and came to look at that little thumb of a human in a box like candy.
      I had never seen the dead before, not for real, not in somebody's living room for people to kiss and bless themselves and light a candle for. Not in a house. It seemed strange.
      They must've known, the sisters. They had the power and could sense what was what. They said, Come here, and gave me a stick of gum. They smelled like Kleenex or the inside of a satin handbag, and then I didn't feel afraid.
      What's your name, the cat-eyed one asked.
      Esperanza, I said.
      Esperanza, the old blue-veined one repeated in a high thin voice. Esperanza ... a good good name.
      My knees hurt, the one with the funny laugh complained.
      Tomorrow it will rain.
      Yes, tomorrow, they said.
      How do you know? I asked.
      We know.
      Look at her hands, cat-eyed said.
      And they turned them over and over as if they were looking for something.
      She's special.
      Yes, she'll go very far.
      Yes, yes, hmmm.
      Make a wish.
      A wish?
      Yes, make a wish. What do you want?
      Anything? I said.
      Well, why not?
      I closed my eyes.
      Did you wish already?
      Yes, I said.
      Well, that's all there is to it. It'll come true.
      How do you know? I asked.
      We know, we know.
      Esperanza. The one with marble hands called me aside. Esperanza. She held my face with her blue-veined hands and looked and looked at me. A long silence. When you leave you must remember always to come back, she said.
      What?
      When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.
      Then I didn't know what to say. It was as if she could read my mind, as if she knew what I had wished for, and I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish.
      You must remember to come back. For the ones who cannot leave as easily as you. You will remember? She asked as if she was telling me. Yes, yes, I said a little confused.
      Good, she said, rubbing my hands. Good. That's all. You can go.
      I got up to join Lucy and Rachel who were already outside waiting by the door, wondering what I was doing talking to three old ladies who smelled like cinnamon. I didn't understand everything they had told me. I turned around. They smiled and waved in their smoky way.
      Then I didn't see them. Not once, or twice, or ever again.

　  I like Alicia because once she gave me a little leather purse with the word GUADALAJARA stitched on it, which is home for Alicia, and one day she will go back there. But today she is listening to my sadness because I don't have a house.
      You live right here, 4006 Mango, Alicia says and points to the house I am ashamed of.
      No, this isn't my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I've lived here. I don't belong. I don't ever want to come from here. You have a home, Alicia, and one day you'll go there, to a town you remember, but me I never had a house, not even a photograph ... only one I dream of.
      No, Alicia says. Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you'll come back too.
      Not me. Not until somebody makes it better.
      Who's going to do it? The mayor?
      And the thought of the mayor coming to Mango Street makes me laugh out loud.
      Who's going to do it? Not the mayor.

　 Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after.　　
    Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.

　　不是小公寓.也不是阴面的大公寓.也不是哪个男人的房子.也不是爸爸的房子.是完完全全属于我自己的.那里有我的前廊我的枕头,我漂亮的紫色矮牵牛.我的书和我的故事.我的两只等在床边的鞋.不用和谁去作对.没有别人扔下的垃圾要拾起.　　只是一所寂静如雪的房子,一个自己归去的空间,洁净如同诗笔未落的纸.

　　有时候,在非常牵强的情况下flat是指一整套公寓,然后将这些公寓分成一间间或者一套套的,分租出去的那种.apartment是指一整套公寓。

　  I like to tell stories. I tell them inside my head. I tell them after the mailman says, Here's your mail. Here's your mail he said.

　　I make a story for my life, for each step my brown shoe takes. I say, "And so she trudged up the wooden stairs, her sad brown shoes taking her to the house she never

　　liked."

　　I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn't want to belong.

　　We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, but what I remember most is Mango Street, sad red house, the house I belong but do not belong to.

　　I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. I write it down and Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free.

　　One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away.

　　Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all those books and paper? Why did she march so far away?

　　They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.




芒果有时说再见

　　我喜欢讲故事。我在心里讲述。在邮递员说过这是你的邮件之后。这是你的邮件。他说。然后我开始讲述。

　　我编了一个故事，为我的生活，为我棕色鞋子走过的每一步。我说，“她步履沉重地登上木楼梯，她悲哀的棕色鞋子带着她走进了她从来不喜欢的房子。”

　　我喜欢讲故事。我将向你们讲述一个不想归属的女孩的故事。

　　我们先前不住芒果街。先前我们住鲁米斯的三楼，再先前我们住吉勒。吉勒前面是波琳娜。可我记得最清楚的是芒果街，悲哀的红色小屋。我住在那里却不属于那里的房子。

　　我把它写在纸上，然后心里的幽灵就不那么疼了。我把它写下来，芒果有时说再见。她不再用双臂抱住我。她放开了我。

　　有一天我会把一袋袋的书和纸打进包里。有一天我会对芒果说再见。我强大得她没法永远留住我。有一天我会离开。

　　朋友和邻居们会说，埃斯佩朗莎怎么了？她带着这么多书和纸去哪里？为什么她要走得那么远？

　　他们不会知道，我离开是为了回来。为了那些我留在身后的人。为了那些无法出去的人。

　　Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago on December 20, 1954, the third child in a family of seven children. The only daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother, she was educated in the Midwest before moving to the Southwest in 1984. She has worked as a teacher to high-school dropouts, a poet-in-the-schools, a college recruiter, an arts administrator, and as a visiting writer at a number of universities around the country. The recipient of numerous awards for her poetry and fiction, Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street (Arte Público Press, 1984/Vintage, 1991), My Wicked Wicked Ways (Third Woman 1987/Turtle Bay, 2992), Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Random House, 1991/Vintage 1992), Loose Woman (Knopf, 1994), Hairs/Pelitos (Knopf, 1994), and Caramelo (Knopf, 2002). Sandra Cisneros's books have been translated into ten languages. In 1995 Cisneros was the recipient of a grant from the MacArthur Foundation. She lives in a purple house in San Antonio, Texas.