小說：紀念愛米麗的一朵玫瑰花 附英文

A Rose for Emily

by William Faulkner

I

WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.

When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.

They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.

They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain.

Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves."

"But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?"

"I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the--"

"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But, Miss Emily--"

"See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out."

---

II

So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.

That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market basket.

"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.

A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.

"But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said.

"Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law? "

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it."

The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met--three graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation.

"It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .."

"Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?"

So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away.

That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.

When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.

The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.

We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

---

III

SHE WAS SICK for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragic and serene.

The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.

At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all said, "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer." But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige- -

without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said, "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her." She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral.

And as soon as the old people said, "Poor Emily," the whispering began. "Do you suppose it's really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is. What else could . . ." This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: "Poor Emily."

She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female cousins were visiting her.

"I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look. "I want some poison," she said.

"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--"

"I want the best you have. I don't care what kind."

The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is--"

"Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"

"Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--"

"I want arsenic."

The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. "Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for."

Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: "For rats."

---

IV

So THE NEXT day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, "She will marry him." Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove.

Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister--Miss Emily's people were Episcopal-- to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister's wife wrote to Miss Emily's relations in Alabama.

So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing, including a nightshirt, and we said, "They are married." We were really glad. We were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.

So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished some time since--was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.

And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die.

When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.

From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been remitted.

Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.

Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.

And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro

He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.

She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.

---

V

THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.

The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.

Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.

The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks.

The man himself lay in the bed.

For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.

Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.

-END-

紀念愛米麗的一朵玫瑰花

[美]福克納

一

愛米麗·格裏爾生小姐過世了，全鎮的人都去送喪：男子們是出於敬慕之情，因為一個紀念碑倒下了：婦女們呢，則大多數出於好奇心，想看看她屋子的內部。除了一個花匠兼廚師的老仆人之外，至少已有十年光景誰也沒進去看看這幢房子了。

那是一幢過去漆成白色的四方形大木屋，坐落在當年一條最考究的街道上，還裝點著有十九世紀七十年代風味的圓形屋頂、尖塔和渦形花紋的陽台，帶有濃厚的輕盈氣息。可是汽車間和軋棉機之類的東西侵犯了這一帶莊嚴的名字，把它們塗抹得一幹二淨。隻有愛米麗小姐的屋子巋然獨存，四周簇擁著棉花車和汽油泵。房子雖已破敗，卻還是執拗不馴，裝模作樣，真是醜中之醜。現在愛米麗小姐已經加入了那些名字莊嚴的代表人物的行列，他們沉睡在雪鬆環繞的墓園之中，那裏盡是一排排在南北戰爭時期傑斐遜戰役中陣亡的南方和北方的無名軍人墓。

愛米麗小姐在世時，始終是一個傳統的化身，是義務的象征，也是人們關注的對象。打一八九四年某日鎮長沙多裏斯上校——也就是他下了一道黑人婦女不係圍裙不得上街的命令——豁免了她一切應納的稅款起，期限從她父親去世之日開始，一直到她去世為止，這是全鎮沿襲下來對她的一種義務。這也並非說愛米麗甘願接受施舍，原來是沙多裏斯上校編造了一大套無中生有的話，說是愛米麗的父親曾經貸款給鎮政府，因此，鎮政府作為一種交易，寧願以這種方式償還。這一套話，隻有沙多裏斯一代的人以及像沙多裏斯一樣頭腦的人才能編得出來，也隻有婦道人家才會相信。

等到思想更為開明的第二代人當了鎮長和參議員時，這項安排引起了一些小小的不滿。那年元旦，他們便給她寄去了一張納稅通知單。二月份到了，還是杳無音信。他們發去一封公函，要她便中到司法長官辦公處去一趟。一周之後，鎮長親自寫信給愛米麗，表示願意登門訪問，或派車迎接她，而所得回信卻是一張便條，寫在古色古香的信箋上，書法流利，字跡細小，但墨水已不鮮豔，信的大意是說她已根本不外出。納稅通知附還，沒有表示意見。

參議員們開了個特別會議，派出一個代表團對她進行了訪問。他們敲敲門，自從八年或者十年前她停止開授瓷器彩繪課以來，誰也沒有從這大門出入過。那個上了年紀的黑人男仆把他們接待進陰暗的門廳，從那裏再由樓梯上去，光線就更暗了。一股塵封的氣味撲鼻而來，空氣陰濕而又不透氣，這屋子長久沒有人住了。黑人領他們到客廳裏，裏麵擺設的笨重家具全都包著皮套子。黑人打開了一扇百葉窗，這時，便更可看出皮套子已經坼裂；等他們坐了下來，大腿兩邊就有一陣灰塵冉冉上升，塵粒在那一縷陽光中緩緩旋轉。壁爐前已經失去金色光澤的畫架上麵放著愛米麗父親的炭筆畫像。

她一進屋，他們全都站了起來。一個小模小樣，腰圓體胖的女人，穿了一身黑服，一條細細的金表鏈拖到腰部，落到腰帶裏去了，一根烏木拐杖支撐著她的身體，拐杖頭的鑲金已經失去光澤。她的身架矮小，也許正因為這個緣故，在別的女人身上顯得不過是豐滿，而她卻給人以肥大的感覺。她看上去像長久泡在死水中的一具死屍，腫脹發白。當客人說明來意時，她那雙凹陷在一臉隆起的肥肉之中，活像揉在一團生麵中的兩個小煤球似的眼睛不住地移動著，時而瞧瞧這張麵孔，時而打量那張麵孔。

她沒有請他們坐下來。她隻是站在門口，靜靜地聽著，直到發言的代表結結巴巴地說完，他們這時才聽到那塊隱在金鏈子那一端的掛表嘀嗒作響。

她的聲調冷酷無情。“我在傑斐遜無稅可納。沙多裏斯上校早就向我交代過了。或許你們有誰可以去查一查鎮政府檔案，就可以把事情弄清楚。”

“我們已經查過檔案，愛米麗小姐，我們就是政府當局。難道你沒有收到過司法長官親手簽署的通知嗎？”

“個錯，我收到過一份通知，”愛米麗小姐說道，“也許他自封為司法長官……可是我在傑斐遜無稅可交。”
“可是納稅冊上並沒有如此說明，你明白吧。我們應根據……”

“你們去找沙多裏斯上校。我在傑斐遜無稅可交。”

“可是，愛米麗小姐——”

“你們去找沙多裏斯上校，（沙多裏斯上校死了將近十年了）我在傑斐遜無稅可納。托比！”黑人應聲而來。“把這些先生們請出去。”

二

她就這樣把他們“連人帶馬”地打敗了，正如三十年前為了那股氣味的事戰勝了他們的父輩一樣。那是她父親死後兩年，也就是在她的心上人——我們都相信一定會和她結婚的那個人——拋棄她不久的時候。父親死後，她很少外出；心上人離去之後，人們簡直就看不到她了。有少數幾位婦女竟冒冒失失地去訪問過她，但都吃了閉門羹。她居處周圍唯一的生命跡象就是那個黑人男子拎著一個籃子出出進進，當年他還是個青年。

“好象隻要是一個男子，隨便什麽樣的男子，都可以把廚房收拾得井井有條似的。”婦女們都這樣說。因此，那種氣味越來越厲害時，她們也不感到驚異，那是芸芸眾生的世界與高貴有勢的格裏爾生家之間的另一聯係。

鄰家一位婦女向年已八十的法官斯蒂芬斯鎮長抱怨。

“可是太太，你叫我對這件事又有什麽辦法呢？”他說。

“哼，通知她把氣味弄掉，”那位婦女說。“法律不是有明文規定嗎？”

“我認為這倒不必要，”法官斯蒂芬斯說。“可能是她用的那個黑鬼在院子裏打死了一條蛇或一隻老鼠。我去跟他說說這件事。”

第二天，他又接到兩起申訴，一起來自一個男的，用溫和的語氣提出意見。“法官，我們對這件事實在不能不過問了。我是最不願意打擾愛米麗小姐的人，可是我們總得想個辦法。”那天晚上全體參議員——三位老人和一位年紀較輕的新一代成員在一起開了個會。

“這件事很簡單，”年輕人說。“通知她把屋子打掃幹淨，限期搞好，不然的話……”

“先生，這怎麽行？”法官斯蒂芬斯說，“你能當著一位貴婦人的麵說她那裏有難聞的氣味嗎？”

於是，第二天午夜之後，有四個人穿過了愛米麗小姐家的草坪，像夜盜一樣繞著屋子潛行，沿著牆角一帶以及在地窖通風處拚命聞嗅，而其中一個人則用手從挎在肩上的袋子中掏出什麽東西，不斷做著播種的動作。他們打開了地窖門，在那裏和所有的外屋裏都撒上了石灰。等到他們回頭又穿過草坪時，原來暗黑的一扇窗戶亮起了燈：愛米麗小姐坐在那裏，燈在她身後，她那挺直的身軀一動不動像是一尊偶像一樣。他們躡手躡腳地走過草坪，進入街道兩旁洋槐樹樹蔭之中。一兩個星期之後，氣味就聞不到了。

而這時人們才開始真正為她感到難過。鎮上的人想起愛米麗小姐的姑奶奶韋亞特老太太終於變成了十足瘋子的事，都相信格裏爾生一家人自視過高，不了解自己所處的地位。愛米麗小姐和像她一類的女子對什麽年輕男子都看不上眼。長久以來，我們把這家人一直看做一幅畫中的人物：身段苗條、穿著白衣的愛米麗小姐立在背後，她父親叉開雙腳的側影在前麵，背對愛米麗，手執一根馬鞭，一扇向後開的前門恰好嵌住了他們倆的身影。因此當她年近三十，尚未婚配時，我們實在沒有喜幸的心理，隻是覺得先前的看法得到了證實。即令她家有著瘋癲的血液吧，如果真有一切機會擺在她麵前，她也不至於斷然放過。

父親死後，傳說留給她的全部財產就是那座房子；人們倒也有點感到高興。到頭來，他們可以對愛米麗表示憐憫之情了。單身獨處，貧苦無告，她變得懂人情了。如今她也體會到多一便士就激動喜悅、少一便士便痛苦失望的那種人皆有之的心情了。

她父親死後的第二天，所有的婦女們都準備到她家拜望，表示哀悼和願意接濟的心意，這是我們的習俗。愛米麗小姐在家門口接待她們，衣著和平日一樣，臉上沒有一絲哀愁。她告訴她們，她的父親並未死。一連三天她都是這樣，不論是教會牧師訪問她也好，還是醫生想勸她讓他們把屍體處理掉也好。正當他們要訴諸法律和武力時，她垮下來了，於是他們很快地埋葬了她的父親。
當時我們還沒有說她發瘋。我們相信她這樣做是控製不了自己。我們還記得她父親趕走了所有的青年男子，我們也知道她現在已經一無所有，隻好象人們常常所做的一樣，死死拖住搶走了她一切的那個人。

三

她病了好長一個時期。再見到她時，她的頭發已經剪短，看上去像個姑娘，和教堂裏彩色玻璃窗上的天使像不無相似之處——有幾分悲愴肅穆。

行政當局已訂好合同，要鋪設人行道，就在她父親去世的那年夏天開始動工，建築公司帶著一批黑人、騾子和機器來了，工頭是個北方佬，名叫荷默·伯隆，個子高大，皮膚黝黑，精明強幹，聲音宏亮，雙眼比臉色淺淡。一群群孩子跟在他身後聽他用不堪入耳的話責罵黑人，而黑人則隨著鐵鎬的上下起落有節奏地哼著勞動號子。沒有多少時候，全鎮的人他都認識了。隨便什麽時候人們要是在廣場上的什麽地方聽見嗬嗬大笑的聲音，荷默·伯隆肯定是在人群的中心。過了不久，逢到禮拜天的下午我們就看到他和愛米麗小姐一齊駕著輕便馬車出遊了。那輛黃輪車配上從馬房中挑出的栗色轅馬，十分相稱。

起初我們都高興地看到愛米麗小姐多少有了一點寄托，因為婦女們都說：“格裏爾生家的人絕對不會真的看中一個北方佬，一個拿日工資的人。”不過也有別人，一些年紀大的人說就是悲傷也不會叫一個真正高貴的婦女忘記“貴人舉止”，盡管口頭上不把它叫作“貴人舉止”。他們隻是說：“可憐的愛米麗，她的親屬應該來到她的身邊。”她有親屬在亞拉巴馬；但多年以前，她的父親為了瘋婆子韋亞特老太太的產權問題跟他們鬧翻了，以後兩家就沒有來往。他們連喪禮也沒派人參加。

老人們一說到“可伶的愛米麗”，就交頭接耳開了。他們彼此說：“你當真認為是那麽回事嗎？”“當然是囉。還能是別的什麽事？……”而這句話他們是用手捂住嘴輕輕地說的；輕快的馬蹄得得駛去的時候，關上了遮擋星期日午後驕陽的百葉窗，還可聽出綢緞的窸窣聲：“可憐的愛米麗。”

她把頭抬得高高——甚至當我們深信她已經墮落了的時候也是如此，仿佛她比曆來都更要求人們承認她作為格裏爾生家族末代人物的尊嚴；仿佛她的尊嚴就需要同世俗的接觸來重新肯定她那不受任何影響的性格。比如說，她那次買老鼠藥、砒霜的情況。那是在人們已開始說“可憐的愛米麗”之後一年多，她的兩個堂姐妹也正在那時來看望她。

“我要買點毒藥。”她跟藥劑師說。她當時已三十出頭，依然是個削肩細腰的女人，隻是比往常更加清瘦了，一雙黑眼冷酷高傲，臉上的肉在兩邊的太陽穴和眼窩處繃得很緊，那副麵部表情是你想象中的燈塔守望人所應有的。“我要買點毒藥。”她說道。

“知道了，愛米麗小姐。要買哪一種？是毒老鼠之類的嗎？那麽我介——”

“我要你們店裏最有效的毒藥，種類我不管。”

藥劑師一口說出好幾種。“它們什麽都毒得死，哪怕是大象。可足你要的是——”

“砒霜，”愛米麗小姐說。“砒霜靈不靈？”

“是……砒霜？知道了，小姐。可是你要的是……”

“我要的是砒霜。”

藥和師朝下望了她一眼。她回看他一眼，身子挺直，麵孔像一麵拉緊了的旗子。“噢噢，當然有，”藥劑師說。“如果你要的是這種毒藥。不過，法律規定你得說明作什麽用途。”

愛米麗小姐隻是瞪著他，頭向後仰了仰，以便雙眼好正視他的雙眼，一直看到他把目光移開了，走進去拿砒霜包好。黑人送貨員把那包藥送出來給她；藥劑師卻沒有再露麵。她回家打開藥包，盒子上骷髏骨標記下注明：“毒鼠用藥”。

四

於是，第二天我們大家都說：“她要自殺了”；我們也都說這是再好沒有的事。我們第一次看到她和荷默·伯隆在一塊兒時，我們都說：“她要嫁給他了。”後來又說：“她還得說服他呢。”因為前默自己說他喜歡和男人來往，大家知道他和年輕人在糜鹿俱樂部一道喝酒，他本人說過，他是無意於成家的人。以後每逢禮拜天下午他們乘著漂亮的輕便馬車馳過：愛米麗小姐昂著頭，荷默歪戴著帽子，嘴裏叼著雪茄煙，戴著黃手套的手握著馬韁和馬鞭。我們在百葉窗背後都不禁要說一聲：“可憐的愛米剛。”
後來有些婦女開始說，這是全鎮的羞辱，也是青年的壞榜樣。男子漢不想幹涉，但婦女們終於迫使浸禮會牧師——愛米麗小姐一家人都是屬於聖公會的——去拜訪她。訪問經過他從未透露，但他再也不願去第二趟了。下個禮拜天他們又駕著馬車出現在街上，於是第二天牧師夫人就寫信告知愛米麗住在亞拉巴馬的親廈。

原來她家裏還有近親，於是我們坐待事態的發展。起先沒有動靜，隨後我們得到確訊，他們即將結婚。我們還聽說愛米麗小姐去過首飾店，訂購了一套銀質男人盥洗用具，每件上麵刻著“荷·伯”。兩天之後人家又告訴我們她買了全套男人服裝，包括睡衣在內，因此我們說：“他們已經結婚了。”我們著實高興。我們高興的是兩位堂姐妹比起愛米麗小姐來，更有格裏爾生家族的風度。

因此當荷默·伯隆離開本城——街道鋪路工程已經竣工好一陣子了——時，我們一點也不感到驚異。我們倒因為缺少一番送行告別的熱鬧，不無失望之感。不過我們都相信他此去是為了迎接愛米麗小姐作一番準備，或者是讓她有個機會打發走兩個堂姐妹。（這時已經形成了一個秘密小集團，我們都站愛米麗小姐一邊，幫她踢開這一對堂姐妹。）一點也不差，一星期後她們就走了。而且，正如我們一直所期待的那樣，荷默·伯隆又回到鎮上來了。一位鄰居親眼看見那個黑人在一天黃昏時分打開廚房門讓他進去了。

這就是我們最後一次看到荷默·伯隆。至於愛米麗小姐呢，我們則有一段時間沒有見到過她。黑人拿著購貨籃進進出出，可是前門卻總是關著。偶爾可以看到她的身影在窗口晃過，就像人們在撒石灰那天夜晚曾經見到過的那樣，但卻有整整六個月的時間，她沒有出現在大街上。我們明白這也並非出乎意料；“她父親的性格三番五次地使她那作為女性的一生平添波折，而這種性格仿佛大惡毒，太狂暴，還不肯消失似的。

等到我們再見到愛米麗小姐時，她已經發胖了，頭發也已灰白了。以後數年中，頭發越變越灰，變得像胡椒鹽似的鐵灰色，顏色就不再變了。直到她七十四歲去世之日為止，還是保持著那旺盛的鐵灰色，像是一個活躍的男子的頭發。

打那時起，她的前門就一直關閉著，除了她四十左右的那段約有六七年的時間之外。在那段時期，她開授瓷器彩繪課。在樓下的一間房裏，她臨時布置了一個畫室，沙多裏斯上校的同時代人全都把女兒、孫女兒送到她那裏學畫，那樣的按時按刻，那樣的認真精神，簡直同禮拜天把她們送到教堂去，還給她們二角伍分錢的硬幣準備放在捐獻盆子裏的情況一模一樣。這時，她的捐稅已經被豁免了。

後來，新的一代成了全鎮的骨幹和精神，學畫的學生們也長大成人，漸次離開了，她們沒有讓她們自己的女孩子帶著顏色盒、令人生厭的畫筆和從婦女雜誌上剪下來的畫片到愛米麗小姐那裏去學畫。最後一個學生離開後，前門關上了，而且永遠關上了。全鎮實行免費郵遞製度之後，隻有愛米麗小姐一人拒絕在她門口釘上金屬門牌號，附設一個郵件箱。她怎樣也不理睬他們。

日複一日，月複一月，年複一年，我們眼看著那黑人的頭發變白了，背也駝了，還照舊提著購貨籃進進出出。每年十二月我們都寄給她一張納稅通知單，但一星期後又由郵局退還了，無人收信。不時我們在樓底下的一個窗口——她顯然是把樓上封閉起來了——見到她的身影，像神龕中的一個偶像的雕塑軀幹，我們說不上她是不是在看著我們。她就這樣度過了一代又一代——高貴，寧靜，無法逃避，無法接近，怪僻乖張。

她就這樣與世長辭了。在一棟塵埃遍地、鬼影憧憧的屋子裏得了病，侍候她的隻有一個老態龍鍾的黑人。我們甚至連她病了也不知道；也早已不想從黑人那裏去打聽什麽消息。他跟誰也不說話，恐怕對她也是如此，他的嗓子似乎由於長久不用變得嘶啞了。

她死在樓下一間屋子裏，笨重的胡桃木床上還掛著床帷，她那長滿鐵灰頭發的頭枕著的枕頭由於用了多年而又不見陽光，已經黃得發黴了。

五

黑人在前門口迎接第一批婦女，把她們請進來，她們話音低沉，發出噝噝聲響，以好奇的目光迅速掃視著一切。黑人隨即不見了，他穿過屋子，走出後門，從此就不見蹤影了。

兩位堂姐妹也隨即趕到，他們第二天就舉行了喪禮，全鎮的人都跑來看看覆蓋著鮮花的愛米麗小姐的屍體。停屍架上方懸掛著她父親的炭筆畫像，一臉深刻沉思的表情，婦女們唧唧喳喳地談論著死亡，而老年男子呢——有些人還穿上了刷得很幹淨的南方同盟軍製服——則在走廊上，草坪上紛紛談論著愛米麗小姐的一生，仿佛她是他們的同時代人，而且還相信和她跳過舞，甚至向她求過愛，他們把按數學級數向前推進的時間給攪亂了。這是老年人常有的情形。在他們看來，過去的歲月不是一條越來越窄的路，而是一片廣袤的連冬天也對它無所影響的大草地，隻是近十年來才像窄小的瓶口一樣，把他們同過去隔斷了。

我們已經知道，樓上那塊地方有一個房間，四十年來從沒有人見到過，要進去得把門撬開。他們等到愛米麗小姐安葬之後，才設法去開門。

門猛烈地打開，震得屋裏灰塵彌漫。這間布置得像新房的屋子，仿佛到處都籠罩著墓室一般的淡淡的陰慘慘的氛圍：敗了色的玫瑰色窗簾，玫瑰色的燈罩，梳妝台，一排精細的水晶製品和白銀作底的男人盥洗用具，但白銀已毫無光澤，連刻製的姓名字母圖案都已無法辨認了。雜物中有一條硬領和領帶，仿佛剛從身上取下來似的，把它們拿起來時，在台麵上堆積的塵埃中留下淡淡的月牙痕。椅子上放著一套衣服，折疊得好好的；椅子底下有兩隻寂寞無聲的鞋和一雙扔了不要的襪子。

那男人躺在床上。

我們在那裏立了好久，俯視著那沒有肉的臉上令人莫測的齜牙咧嘴的樣子。那屍體躺在那裏，顯出一度是擁抱的姿勢，但那比愛情更能持久、那戰勝了愛情的熬煎的永恒的長眠已經使他馴服了。他所遺留下來的肉體已在破爛的睡衣下腐爛，跟他躺著的木床粘在一起，難分難解了。在他身上和他身旁的枕上，均勻地覆蓋著一層長年累月積下來的灰塵。

後來我們才注意到旁邊那隻枕頭上有人頭壓過的痕跡。我們當中有一個人從那上麵拿起了什麽東西，大家湊近一看——這時一股淡淡的幹燥發臭的氣味鑽進了鼻孔——原來是一綹長長的鐵灰色頭發。