Miss Emily Greersheng passed away, and the whole town went to mourn: the men were out of admiration because a monument had fallen. The women, on the other hand, were mostly curious and wanted to see the inside of her house. Except for an old servant who was a gardener and cook, no one had gone in to see the house for at least ten years.
It was a large, white-painted, square wooden house, perched on one of the most elaborate streets of the year, with a balcony decorated with a 1870s-style circular roof, minarets and swirling patterns, with a strong lightness. But things like car rooms and cotton gins infringed on the solemn names of the zone and smeared them all. Only Miss Emily's house was alone, surrounded by cotton carts and gasoline pumps. Although the house is dilapidated, it is still untamed and pretending, which is really ugly. Now Miss Emily has joined the ranks of the solemnly named representatives, sleeping in the cedar-fringed cemetery, lined with the tombs of the unknown soldiers of the South and the North who died in the Battle of Jefferson during the Civil War.
When Miss Emily was alive, she was always an embodiment of tradition, a symbol of obligation, and an object of attention. On a certain day in 1894, Colonel Doris of the town of Changsha — that is, he issued an order that black women should not wear aprons and not go to the streets — exempted her from all taxes due, starting from the date of her father's death until her death, a duty that the whole town had inherited from her. This is not to say that Emily was willing to accept alms, but it turned out that Colonel Sartorius had made up a large set of nonsense words, saying that Emily's father had once lent money to the town government, so the town government, as a kind of transaction, preferred to repay it in this way. This set of words can only be made up by people of the Sartorius generation and people with minds like Sartorius, and only women and Taoists can believe it.
By the time the more open-minded second generation became mayors and senators, the arrangement caused minor discontent. On New Year's Day that year, they sent her a tax notice. February is here, and there is still no news. They sent an official letter asking her to visit the Office of the Attorney General at her convenience. A week later, the mayor personally wrote to Emily, offering to visit her or send a car to greet her, but the reply was a note, written on antique letterhead, fluent in calligraphy and small handwriting, but the ink was no longer bright, to the effect that she was no longer out of the house. The tax notice was attached and no opinion was expressed.
The senators held a special meeting and sent a delegation to visit her. They knocked on the door, and no one had ever been in or out of the door since she had stopped teaching porcelain painting classes eight or ten years earlier. The elderly black male servant led them into the dark foyer, from where they went up the stairs, and the light was even dimmer. A dusty smell came over the nose, the air was wet and dull, and the house had not been inhabited for a long time. The Negro led them into the living room, where the bulky furniture was all wrapped in leather cases. The Negro opened a shutter, and it was then possible to see that the holster had cracked; and when they sat down, there was a cloud of dust rising on either side of their thighs, and the dust particles swirled slowly in the sunlight. On the easel in front of the fireplace, which had lost its golden luster, was a charcoal portrait of Emily's father.
As soon as she entered the house, they all stood up. A small, round-waisted woman, wearing a black dress, a thin gold bracelet dragged to the waist and fell into the belt, an ebony crutch supporting her body, the gold setting of the crutches head had lost its luster. Her body is short, and perhaps for this reason, what appears plump in other women gives people a feeling of fatness. She looked like a dead body soaked in stagnant water for a long time, swollen and white. When the guest explained her intentions, her eyes were sunken in the bulging fat flesh of a face, and her eyes moved like two small coal balls kneaded in a ball of raw noodles, sometimes looking at the face, sometimes looking at the face.
She didn't ask them to sit down. She just stood in the doorway and listened quietly until the representatives who spoke stuttered, and then they heard the ticking of the hanging watch hidden at the end of the gold chain.
Her tone was cold and unforgiving.
"I have no taxes to pay at Jefferson. Colonel Sartorius had already confessed to me. Maybe any of you can check the town government files and get things straight. ”
"We've looked up the files, Miss Emily, and we're the authorities. Haven't you received a notice signed by the Attorney General himself? ”
"Yes, I have received a notice," said Miss Emily, "that perhaps he has proclaimed himself magistrate... But I had no taxes to pay at Jefferson. ”
"But the tax book doesn't say that, you see. We shall base ourselves on the basis of..."
"Go find Colonel Sartorius. I have no taxes to pay at Jefferson. ”
"But, Miss Emily—"
"Go find Colonel Sartorius." (Colonel Sartorius died for nearly a decade.) "I have no taxes to pay at Jefferson. Toby 1 black man came in response. "Get these gentlemen out."
Two
In this way she defeated them "with horses", just as she had defeated their fathers thirty years earlier for the sake of that smell. That was two years after her father's death, shortly after her sweetheart, the one we all believed would marry her. After her father's death, she rarely went out; after her sweetheart left, people simply couldn't see her. A few women had taken the liberty of visiting her, but they all ate behind closed doors. The only sign of life around her was that of the black man who came in and out of carrying a basket, when he was a young man.
"It seems that as long as it is a man, any kind of man can clean up the kitchen." Women say so. Therefore, when the smell is getting stronger, they are not surprised. It was another connection between the world of all sentient beings and the noble and powerful Family of Greer.
A woman in the neighboring family complained to the eighty-year-old judge, Mayor Stephens.
"But ma'am, what do you want me to do about this?" He said.
"Well, tell her to get rid of the smell," said the woman, "isn't there something explicit about the law?" ”
I don't think it's necessary, said Judge Stephens, that the she used killed a snake or a rat in the yard. I went to talk to him about it. ”
The next day, he received two more complaints, one from a man, who gave his opinion in a gentle tone. "Judge, we really can't ask about this matter. I am the least willing to disturb Miss Emily, but we always have to find a way. "That night all the senators—three old men and a younger member of the new generation—had a meeting.
"It's a simple matter," said the young man, "to inform her to clean up the house and get it done within the time limit, otherwise..."
"Sir, how does this work?" Judge Stephens said, "Can you tell a lady in front of a lady that she has a bad smell there?" ”
So, after midnight the next day, four men crossed the lawn of Miss Emily's house, sneaking around the house like night thieves, sniffing desperately along the corners of the walls and in the ventilation of the cellar, while one of them took something from the bag on his shoulder with his hand and kept doing the seeding motion. They opened the cellar door, where and all the outhouses were sprinkled with lime. When they turned back and crossed the lawn again, a dark window lit up: Miss Emily sat there, the lamp behind her, her straight body motionless like an idol. They crept across the lawn and into the shade of the acacia trees lining the streets. After a week or two, the smell is no longer smellable.
And that's when people started to really feel sorry for her. The townspeople remembered that Miss Emily's aunt, Mrs. Veyat, had finally become a complete lunatic, and believed that greer's family had overestimated themselves and did not understand their position. Miss Emily and women like her looked no further than a young man. For a long time, we have referred to the family as the figures in a painting: Miss Emily, who is slender and dressed in white, stands behind her, and the silhouette of her father with his feet crossed in front, with his back to Emily, holding a horse whip, and a backward-opening front door just happens to be embedded in the figure of both of them. Therefore, when she is nearly thirty years old and has not yet been married, we really have no lucky psychology, but we feel that our previous views have been confirmed. Even if her family had crazy blood, if there were really any opportunities in front of her, she would not let go
After her father's death, the legend says that the whole property left to her was the house; people were a little happy. At the end of the day, they can show mercy to Emily. Single and alone, poor and unsuspecting, she became humane. Now she also experienced the feeling of excitement and joy for one more penny, and pain and disappointment for one penny less.
The day after her father's death, all the women were ready to visit her house to express their condolences and willingness to help, which was our custom. Miss Emily received them at the door, dressed as usual on a normal day, without a trace of sorrow on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did this for three days in a row, whether it was a church pastor visiting her or a doctor trying to persuade her to dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to justice and force, she collapsed, and they quickly buried her father.
We hadn't said she was crazy. We believe that she is not in control of herself by doing so. We remember her father driving away all the young men, and we know that she now has nothing but to drag the man who stole everything from her, as people often do.
Three
She was sick for a long time. When I saw her again, her hair had been cut short, and she looked like a girl, not without a resemblance to the angels on the stained glass windows of the church—a little sad and solemn.
The administration had contracted to pave the sidewalk, and construction began in the summer of the year of her father's death. The construction company came with a group of negroes, mules, and machines, and the foreman was a Yankee named Homer Burlon, tall, dark-skinned, shrewd and strong, with a loud voice and eyes paler than his face. Groups of children followed him as he scolded the Negro in unpleasant words, while the Negro rhythmically hummed the labor trumpet as the pickaxe rose and fell. Not many times, he knew the whole town. Whenever people heard laughter somewhere in the square, Homer Burlon was definitely in the center of the crowd. Soon after, on Sunday afternoon we saw him and Miss Emily traveling in a light carriage. The yellow-wheeled cart was matched with a maroon horse picked out of the stable, which was very commensurate.
At first we were all pleased to see that Miss Emily had a little sustenance, for the women all said, "The people of Greer's family would never really have a crush on a Yankee, a man on a daily wage." But there are others, some older people who say that even sadness will not cause a truly noble woman to forget "noble manners", although they do not verbally call it "noble manners". They simply said, "Poor Emily, her relatives should come to her side." "She has relatives in Alabama; but many years ago, her father fell out with them over the property rights of the mad old lady Veyat, and the two families have not been in contact since. They didn't even send anyone to attend the funeral.
As soon as the old people said "poor Emily," they turned their heads and ears. They said to each other, "Do you really think that's the case?" "Of course it is. What else could it be? And they said it softly with their hands over their mouths; as the brisk horseshoe rattled away, they closed the shutters that shielded the Sunday afternoon sun, and a satin whisper could be heard: "Poor Emily." ”
She held her head high—even when we were physically and mentally depraved, as if she were demanding, more than ever, the recognition of her dignity as the last of the Gelleson family, as if her dignity required contact with the world to reaffirm her unaffected character. For example, the time she bought rat poison and arsenic. It was more than a year after people had begun to say "poor Emily," and her two cousins were visiting her.
"I'm going to buy some poison." She told the pharmacist. She was in her early thirties, still a woman with shaved shoulders and a thin waist, but she was thinner than usual, a pair of dark eyes were cold and arrogant, the flesh of her face was tight at the temples and eye sockets on both sides, and the facial expression was what you imagined a lighthouse watchman should have. "I'm going to buy some poison." She said.
"Got it, Miss Emily. Which one to buy? Is it poisonous rats or something? Then I introduce..."
"I want the most effective poison in your shop, I don't care about the type."
The pharmacist said several in one bite. "They poison everything, even elephants. But what you want is..."
"Arsenic," said Miss Emily, "does arsenic work?" ”
"Yes... arsenic? Got it, Miss. But what you want is..."
"I want arsenic."
The pharmacist glanced down at her. She glanced back at him, her body straight, her face like a tightened flag. "Oh, of course there is," said the pharmacist, "if you want this poison." However, the law requires you to state what you are doing. ”
Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back so that her eyes could look into his eyes, until she saw him take his eyes off and go inside to wrap the arsenic. The black delivery man delivered the packet of medicine to her; the pharmacist did not show up again. She went home and opened the medicine bag, which was marked with a skull mark on the box: "Poisonous rat medicine." ”
Four
So the next day we all said, "She's going to kill herself." "We also said it was no better thing. The first time we saw Homer Burlon together as a child, we both said, "She's going to marry him." Later, he said, "She still has to convince her." "Because Homer himself said he liked to hang out with men, he was known to drink with young people in a club, and he himself said he was someone with no intention of starting a family. Every Sunday afternoon, they rode by in a beautiful light carriage: Miss Emily with her head held high, Homer wearing a crooked hat and a cigar in her mouth, and her yellow gloved hands holding the bridles and whip. We all had to say behind the shutters, "Poor Emily." ”
Later some women began to say that it was a humiliation for the whole town and a bad example for the youth. The man did not want to interfere, but the women finally forced the Baptist priest—Miss Emily's family belonged to the Anglican Church—to visit her. The visit was never revealed, but he was never willing to make a second trip. The next Sunday they appeared in the street in a carriage, and the next day the pastor's wife wrote to inform Emily's relatives living in Alabama.
It turned out that she still had close relatives in her family, so we sat and waited for the situation to develop. At first there was no movement, and then we got confirmation that they were getting married. We also heard that Miss Emily went to the jewelry store and ordered a set of silver men's toiletries, each with the words "Ho Bo" engraved on it. Two days later she bought a full set of men's clothes, including pajamas, so we said, "They're married." "We are really happy. We are pleased that the two cousins have more grace than Miss Emily.
So when Homer Burlon left the city—the paving of the streets had been completed for a while—we were not at all surprised. We are disappointed because we lack the hilarity of sending off and saying goodbye. However, we all believe that he had gone to prepare for Miss Emily, or to give her a chance to send away the two cousins (a secret group had been formed, and we were all on Miss Emily's side and helped her kick the cousins away). Not bad at all, and a week later they were gone. And, as we had been expecting, Homer Burlon was back in town. A neighbor saw the black man open the kitchen door at dusk one day and let him in.
That was the last time we saw Homer Burlon. As for Miss Emily, we hadn't seen her in a while. The Negro came in and out with the basket, but the front door was always closed. Occasionally her figure could be seen dangling through the window, as had been seen the night of the lime sprinkling, but for six months she had not appeared on the street. We understand that this is not unexpected; her father's personality has repeatedly added to the twists and turns of her life as a woman, and this character seems to be too vicious, too violent, and will not disappear.
By the time we saw Miss Emily again, she was already fat and gray. In the years that followed, the hair became grayer and grayer, becoming iron gray like pepper and salt, and the color did not change. Until the day of her death at the age of seventy-four, she maintained the exuberant iron gray, like the hair of an active man.
Since then, her front door had been closed, except for the period of about six or seven years when she was in her forties. During that time, she taught porcelain painting classes. In a room downstairs, she made up a makeshift studio, and Colonel Sartorius' contemporaries sent all their daughters and granddaughters to her to learn to paint, with the same time and conscientious spirit as when they were taken to church on Sunday and given two and a half cent coins to be placed in the donation basin. By this time, her taxes had been waived.
Later, the new generation became the backbone and spirit of the town, and the students who studied painting grew up and gradually left, and they did not let their own girls go to Miss Emily with color boxes, annoying brushes, and pictures cut from women's magazines. After the last student left, the front door closed, and forever. After the introduction of a free mail system in the town, Miss Emily alone refused to nail a metal house number to her door and attached an e-mail box. She didn't manage them at all.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, we watched as the negro's hair turned white, his back hunched, and he carried the basket in and out as usual. Every December we sent her a tax notice, but a week later it was returned by the post office and no one received it. From time to time we saw her at a window at the bottom of the stairs—she had apparently sealed the upper floor—and saw her figure, like the sculptural torso of an idol in the shrine, and we could not tell if she was looking at us. She lived through generations of them—noble, serene, inescapable, inaccessible, eccentric.
That's how she passed away. She fell ill in a dusty, ghostly house, and the only person who served her was an old black man. We didn't even know she was sick; we didn't want to inquire about anything from the Negro. He didn't talk to anyone, I'm afraid it was the same for her, and his voice seemed to have become hoarse for a long time.
She died in a room downstairs, her bulky walnut bed still hanging from the bed, her head pillow covered with iron gray hair, which had been yellow and moldy because it had been used for years without sunlight.
Five
The Negro greeted the first women at the front door and invited them in, their voices muffled, sizzling, and scanning everything quickly with curious eyes. The Negro disappeared, and he walked through the house, out the back door, and was never seen again.
The two cousins arrived, and they held a funeral the next day, and the whole town ran to see the body of Miss Emily, covered with flowers. Above the morgue hung a charcoal portrait of her father, with a deeply contemplative expression, and the women chirped about death, while the older men—some of whom wore cleanly brushed Confederate uniforms—talked about Miss Emily's life in the hallways and on the lawn, as if she were their contemporaries, and believed in dancing with her, and even courted her, and they mixed up the time it took to advance by mathematical progression. This is a common situation in the elderly. In their view, the past years were not a narrower and narrower road, but a vast meadow that even winter had no effect on it, and it was only in the past decade that it was like a narrow bottle mouth that cut them off from the past.
We already know that there was a room in that part of the upper floor, which no one had seen in forty years, and that to get in it had to be pried open. They waited until Miss Emily was buried before trying to open the door.
The door slammed open, shaking the room into the dust. The room, furnished like a new house, seemed to be shrouded in a faint gloomy atmosphere like a burial chamber: the rosy curtains of the defeated color, the rose-colored lampshades, the dresser, a row of delicate crystal products and men's wash utensils made of silver, but the silver had lost its luster, and even the engraved name letter pattern was unrecognizable. Among the clutter was a hard collar and tie, as if it had just been taken off the body, and when they were picked up, they left faint crescent marks in the dust that had accumulated on the countertop. On the chair was a set of clothes, folded well; under the chair were two lonely and silent shoes and a pair of discarded socks.
The man was lying on the bed.
We stood there for a long time, looking down at the unpredictable grin of the fleshless face. The corpse lay there, once in a gesture of embrace, but the eternal sleep that lasted more than love, the eternal sleep that had overcome the torment of love, had tamed him. The flesh he had left behind had rotted under his tattered pajamas, and it was inextricable that it was stuck to the wooden bed he was lying on. The pillows on his body and beside him were evenly covered with a layer of dust that had accumulated over the years.
Only later did we notice the traces of a head pressed on the pillow next to us. One of us picked something up from there, and we all took a closer look—when a faint, dry, stinking smell burrowed into our nostrils—and it turned out to be a long strand of iron-gray hair.