Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen

At this time, a deep voice sounded again: "Majella Violet Ewell—" A young girl goes up to the witness stand and throws up her hands and swears that everything she has said is absolutely true and unreserved, nothing but the truth, so God help her.She appeared to be a frail woman, but as soon as she sat facing us on the witness stand, she was revealed to us for what she really was: a stocky girl used to hard work. In Maycomb County, it's easy to spot who bathes regularly and who washes only once a year: Mr. Ewell looks as if he's just been scalded in boiling water and soaked overnight to get rid of his layers. With the dirt removed from the protective skin, his skin seemed to be very sensitive to the external environment.Mayella looked like she was doing her best to keep clean, which reminded me of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell's yard.

Mr. Gilmore asked Mayella to tell the jury in her own words what had happened on the night of November 21st, and, again, insisted that she do so entirely in her own words. Mayella sat silent. "Where were you that evening?" began Mr. Gilmore patiently. "On the porch." "Which corridor?" "There's only one porch, the front porch." "What were you doing on the porch?" "Nothing." Judge Taylor said: "Just tell us what happened. You can do that, can't you?" Mayella looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes.She covered her mouth with her hands, weeping uncontrollably.Judge Taylor let her cry for a while before saying: "Well now? Here, if you tell the truth, there's nothing to be afraid of. I know it's all foreign to you, but you have nothing to be ashamed of." Yes, there is nothing to be afraid of. What are you afraid of?"

Mayella covered her mouth and said something. "What did you say?" the judge asked. "He," she sobbed, pointing at Atticus. "Mr. Finch?" She nodded vigorously and said, "I don't want him to treat me like that, just like he did to Dad just now, and let him reveal that he is left-handed..." Judge Taylor scratched his bushy white hair.Apparently this was the first time he had encountered such a problem. "How old are you?" he asked. "Nineteen and a half," Mayella said. Judge Taylor cleared his throat and tried to adopt a tone of relief, but the results were not satisfactory. "Mr. Finch didn't mean to frighten you," he said in a gruff voice, "and if he does, I'll tell him to stop. It's one of my duties as I sit here. Well, you're a big girl Now sit up straight and tell--tell us what happened to you. You can do it, can't you?"

I whispered to Jem, "Is she out of her head?" Jem squinted and squinted down at the witness stand. "It's hard to say now," he said. "She has enough brains to win the sympathy of the judge, but she may just... well, I can't say." After Mayella's temper had subsided, she gave Atticus a final, trembling look, and said to Mr. Gilmore: "Well, sir, I was on the porch when he came, you know, in the yard. There's an old cabinet that Papa brought back to split open for firewood. Papa entrusted me with the job before he went into the woods, but I couldn't work it out, and he happened to pass by..."

"'Who is he?" Mayella pointed to Tom Robinson. "I must ask you to make it clear," said Mr. Gilmore, "that the scribe cannot record gestures with precision." "That's the one over there," she said, "Tom Robinson." "What happened next?" "I said, come here, nigger, I'll give you five cents for you to break open this closet. It's easy enough for him, it's nothing. So he went into the yard, and I Go in and get him a nickel. I turn to come out, and before I know what's going on, he's on top of me. He's coming up on me from behind, that's all. He grabs me by the neck , cursing and swearing... I struggled and shouted, but he grabbed my neck. He kept hitting me, many times..."

Mr. Gilmore waited for Mayella to calm down: she twisted her handkerchief into a sweaty cord; A crumpled ball.She waited for Mr. Gilmore to ask the next question, but Mr. Gilmore said nothing, so she went on: I." "Did you yell?" asked Mr. Gilmore. "Did you yell and resist?" "I think so, I was screaming like hell, kicking and kicking, screaming at the top of my lungs." "Then what happened?" "I can't remember exactly, but then dad came in the house and he was standing next to me looking down at me and yelling at me asking who did it and who the hell was it. I kind of passed out and when I woke up When it came, all I knew was Mr Tate pulled me off the ground and led me to the bucket."

Mayella clearly found some confidence in her own narrative, but instead of her father's flippant brashness, she was furtive, like a cat with its eyes fixed on a target, its tail twitching rapidly. "You say you resisted with all your might, trying to break free from him? Desperately resisted?" asked Mr. Gilmore. "Of course I resisted like hell," Mayella said, imitating her father. "Are you sure he has you completely?" Mayella's face contorted all of a sudden, and I worried she was going to cry again, but she wasn't out of control."He did what he wanted to do," she said.

Mr Gilmore wiped sweat from his brow as a reminder of the heat. "That's all I'll ask for the time being," he said, in a light-hearted tone, "but you'll have to stay here. I reckon Mr. Finch, the great villain, has more questions for you." "The prosecution must not inculcate prejudice against the defense counsel in the witnesses," muttered Justice Tate solemnly, "at least not now." Atticus stood up grinning, and instead of walking toward the witness stand, he opened the flaps of his coat, put his thumbs in his vest pocket, and walked slowly across the room to the window.He looked out the window for a moment, seemed uninterested in what he saw, turned again, and walked slowly to the witness stand.From years of experience, I knew he had a decision brewing.

"Miss Mayella," he said, smiling, "I don't want to frighten you just yet. It's not time yet. Let's get acquainted first. How old are you?" "I said I was nineteen. I just told the judge over there." Mayella shook her head angrily at the bench. "Ma'am, you've said it, you've said it. You'll have to bear with me, Miss Mayella, I'm getting older and my memory isn't as good as it used to be. I might ask some of you Questions that have already been answered, but you still have to give me an answer, don't you? That's good."

Atticus thought Mayella would cooperate with him wholeheartedly, but I couldn't see the slightest sign of cooperation in Mayella's expression.She just looked at him furiously. "If you keep laughing at me like that, I won't answer you a word," she said. "What did you say, ma'am?" Atticus looked at her in surprise. "If you still make fun of me." Judge Taylor said: "Mr. Finch didn't make fun of you. What's the matter with you?" Mayella looked down at Atticus, but said to the judge: "If he still calls me 'ma'am' 'Miss Mayella' or whatever, I refuse to answer questions. I don't have to listen to him." I'm not called here to take these insults."

Atticus wandered over to the window again, leaving the judge to deal with the episode.Judge Taylor is definitely not the kind of character that elicits sympathy, but I do feel for him when he tries to explain. "That's just Mr. Finch's habit," he said to Mayella. "We've been in this court for years and Mr. Finch has always been polite to everyone. He didn't mean to mock you, he just wanted to be polite." Treat people. That's his habit." The judge leaned back and leaned back in his chair. "Atticus, let's go ahead, the court records are going to say that the witness was not insulted, she thought the opposite was true." I thought to myself, has anyone ever called her "Ma'am" or "Miss Mayella" when she's grown up?Probably never, because she took everyday etiquette as an offense.What kind of life did she lead?This question will soon have an answer. "You said you were nineteen," Atticus resumed, "how many brothers and sisters do you have?" He strolled from the window back to the witness stand. "Seven," she said.I suspect that each of them is what I saw on the first day of school. "Are you the eldest? The oldest child in the family?" "yes." "How long has it been since your mother died?" "Don't know—a long time." "Have you ever been to school?" "Like my dad, I can read and write." Mayella talked like Mr. Ginger in a book I read. "How many years have you been in school?" "Two years—three years—I can't say." Slowly it became clearer and clearer that Atticus was asking these questions: by asking questions that would not cause Mr. Gilmore to object as irrelevant or trivial Conscientiously painted a picture of family life in the Ewell family before the jury.The jury heard the following: The relief checks they received were far from enough to feed the family, and there was a strong suspicion that the father had traded the money for drinks—he sometimes blew up when he entered the swamp. The weather is rarely cold enough to wear shoes, but if necessary, a few old tires can be used to make a few fashionable shoes to wear on the feet; as for the water at home, it is from a bucket. The call came from a spring near the garbage dump—they took care to keep the area around the spring clean and did not pile up rubbish; The young children were always suffering from constant colds and hookworm disease for many years; a woman who often visited their house asked Mayella why she did not go to school, and Mayella wrote down the reason on a piece of paper: With two people in the family already able to read and write, there was no need for the others to go to school—Dad needed them to stay home. "Miss Mayella," Atticus could not help asking, "a girl of nineteen like you must have some friends. Which friends do you have?" The witness frowned, looking confused. "friend?" "Yeah, don't you know people who are about your age, or a few years older or younger? Girls or boys? Even just ordinary friends?" Mayella's hostility, which had subsided a lot into silent resentment, flared up again. "Mr. Finch, are you making fun of me again?" Atticus had to take her question as his own answer. "Do you love your father, Miss Mayella?" He moved on to the next question. "Love him? What does that mean?" "I want to ask, is he nice to you? Is he easy to get along with?" "He's okay, except..." "Except when?" Mayella looked at her father.The man had been sitting there with his chair leaning against the railing, but after hearing this, he sat up straight and waited for her to answer. "No time," she said. "As I said, he's all right." Mr. Ewell leaned back again. "Except when he's drinking?" Atticus' tone was so mild that Mayella nodded involuntarily. "Has he ever laid hands on you?" "what do you mean?" "Did he hit you when he... was angry?" Mayella glanced around, from the court reporter sitting below, to the judge above. "Answer the question, Miss Mayella," said Judge Taylor. "My dad never touched a hair of my head," she declared firmly. "He never touched me." Atticus' glasses slid down a little and he pushed them up. "We had a good talk, Miss Mayella, and now I think we'd better get back to the case. You said you sent Tom Robinson into the yard to hack one... what's that?" "A large chest of drawers, an old one with drawers on one side." "Are you familiar with Tom Robinson?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, do you know who he is and where he lives?" Mayella nodded. "I know who he is, he walks past my house every day." "Is this the first time you called him into the yard?" Hearing this question, Mayella couldn't help jumping slightly.Atticus walked slowly to the window as before--he always asked a question and then looked out of the window, waiting for the witness to answer.He didn't see Mayella's involuntary start, but I think he seemed to know that Mayella moved.He turned around, raising his eyebrows. "This is..." He was about to ask again. "Yes, for the first time." "Have you never called him into the yard before?" This time she was mentally prepared. "No, indeed not." "Just 'no,' said Atticus quietly. "Did you never ask him to do odd jobs for you before that?" "Maybe there was," Mayella admitted. "There's a lot of niggers living around my house." "Do you remember a similar situation before?" "do not remember." "Well, now let's talk about that day. You said, when you turned around, Tom Robinson had come in and stood behind you—is that so?" "yes." "You said he 'choked me and cursed and said nasty things' - is that true?" Atticus' memory suddenly became uncannily accurate. "You said 'he pinned me to the ground, choked me out of breath, took me' - is that right?" "That's what I said." "Do you remember when he hit you in the face?" The witness hesitated. "You seemed pretty sure he had you in the neck. The whole time you were fighting, remember? You were 'kicking and kicking and yelling at the top of your head'. Do you remember him hitting you in the face ?” Mayella was silent.She seemed to be trying to figure things out.For a moment I thought she was playing the same trick Mr. Tate and I had done, of pretending to be standing in front of her.At this moment she glanced at Mr. Gilmore. "It's a simple question, Miss Mayella, and I repeat. Do you remember him hitting you in the face?" Atticus's voice lost the gentleness of earlier and gave way to the dry, detached lawyer's voice." Do you remember when he hit you in the face?" "No, I can't remember if he hit me. I mean, yes, I remember, he hit me." "Is that last sentence your answer?" "Huh? Yeah, he hit me—I just don't remember it, I just don't remember it...it all happened so fast." Judge Taylor looked at Mayella sternly. "Don't cry, girl..." he had started when Atticus cut him off: "Let her cry, Judge, if she wants to. We've got plenty of time." Mayella sniffed angrily and looked at Atticus. "I'll answer all your questions—you put me here to mock me, don't you? I'll answer all your questions..." "Well," said Atticus, "just the last few questions, Miss Mayella, which won't take you too long to tire you out. You just testified that the defendant hit you, grabbed you Your neck, choking you, and possessing you. I want you to confirm that this is the person you are talking about. Can you testify who raped you?" "Okay, that's the guy over there." Atticus turned to the defendant and said: "Stand up, Tom, and show Miss Mayella a good look at you. Miss Mayella, is this the man?" Tom Robinson's strong, muscular arms undulate slightly under the thin shirt, looming.He stood up with his right hand leaning on the back of the chair. The whole person looked weird and not very stable, but it was not because of his standing posture—his left arm was twelve inches shorter than his right arm, weak Drooping feebly on the side of the body.The left arm ends in a shrunken hand, surprisingly small.Even from such a distance from the stands, I can see that it is a useless hand. "Scout!" exclaimed Jem. "Look, Scout! Reverend, he's got a handicap!" Reverend Sykes leaned over me and whispered to Jem, "His hand was wrung out by the cotton gin at Mr. Dolphus Raymond's, when He was still a child... bled so much that he nearly died... the flesh was torn from the bones..." Atticus asked, "Did this man rape you?" "Of course it's him." Atticus' next question was very short: "How?" Mayella was outraged. "I don't know how he did it, but he did—I said, it all happened so fast, I..." "Now, let's all calm down and think about this..." Mr. Gilmore interrupted Atticus before he could finish.He objected, this time not on grounds that were irrelevant or trivial to the case, but on witness intimidation. Judge Taylor immediately laughed. "Oh, sit down, Hollus, it's nothing. If anything, the witnesses were threatening Atticus." Judge Taylor was the only one heard in the courtroom, and even the babies were silent, and a thought suddenly occurred to me: whether they were smothered in their mother's arms. "Now we go on, Miss Mayella," said Atticus, "you said in your testimony that the accused grabbed you by the neck and hit you—you didn't say he followed you into the house and knocked you unconscious. , but you turn around and he's standing right in front of you..." Atticus went back behind the desk and tapped his knuckles on it to emphasize every word that came out of his mouth. "...do you wish to reconsider your testimony?" "You want me to tell you something that didn't happen?" "No ma'am, I want you to tell what really happened. Please tell us again, what happened?" "I've told you what happened." "You said in your affidavit that as soon as you turned around, he was standing in front of you, and then he grabbed you by the neck?" "yes." "Then he let go of your throat again and started hitting you?" "As I said, he hit me." "He blacked out your left eye with his right fist?" "I ducked and he—he missed it, that's all. I ducked and he missed." Mayella finally got the hang of it. "You suddenly figured out this detail. You didn't quite remember it just now, did you?" "I said he hit me." "Well, he chokes you so you can't breathe, he hits you, and he rapes you, right?" "That's it." "You're a strong girl, and the whole time, what were you doing? Just standing there?" "As I said, I yelled, kicked and kicked, resisted desperately..." Atticus raised his hand to take off his glasses and turned his good right eye to the witness, and his questions rained down on her.Judge Taylor said: "Atticus, would you please ask one question at a time and give the witness a chance to answer." "Okay. Why don't you run?" "I tried……" "Try? Then why didn't you run away?" "I — he threw me on the floor. That's what he did, he threw me on the floor, on top of me." "You screamed the whole time?" "of course." "Why didn't the other kids in the house hear? Where were they? At the dump?" no answer. "Where are they?" no answer. "Why didn't they come back when they heard your screams? The junkyard is closer to you than the woods, isn't it?" no answer. "Or did you wait until you saw your father at the window before you started screaming? You didn't remember to scream until then, did you?" no answer. "You screamed at your father first, not Tom Robinson? Is that so?" no answer. "Who the hell hit you? Tom Robinson or your father?" no answer. "What did your father see in the window? Was it the rape scene or were you fighting like hell? Why didn't you tell the truth, son? Did Bob Ewell hit you?" Atticus turned away from Mayella with the look of a stomachache, and Mayella had a mixture of fear and anger on her face.Atticus sat down wearily, wiping his glasses with a handkerchief. Mayella suddenly became articulate. "I have something to say," she said. Atticus looked up. "Are you trying to tell us the truth of the matter?" But Mayella did not catch the sympathy in his maneuvering. "I've got something to say, and when I'm done I don't say it again. That nigga sitting over there has me, and if you gentlemen just talk and don't ask, you're a bunch of cowards , you're all cowards. None of your pretense, calling me a 'ma'am' 'Miss Mayella', none of it, Mr. Finch..." Then, she actually started crying.Her sobs were resentful, and her shoulders shook.She kept her word and never answered any more questions, and not even Mr. Gilmore could win her back.I guess Judge Taylor would have sent her to jail for contempt of court if she hadn't been pathetic and ignorant, and because of her public disregard for anyone.I don't understand how Atticus hit her hard, but he didn't get any pleasure out of it either.He sat there with his head bowed, and Mayella, as she left the witness box and walked past his desk, gave him a look of hatred I'd never seen anyone look at. Mr Gilmour informed Judge Taylor that the prosecution had automatically stopped giving evidence to the court.Judge Taylor said: "It's time for everyone to take a break. Ten minutes adjourn." Atticus and Mr. Gilmore murmured before the bench, and together they left the courtroom through the door behind the witness box.This is a signal, and everyone will know at the first sight that they can move their legs and feet and stretch their waists.Only then did I realize that I had been sitting on the edge of the bench, and my body was a little stiff.Jem stood up and yawned, Dill did the same, and Reverend Sykes just wiped his face with his hat and said, it must be thirty-two degrees this day. Mr. Underwood has been sitting quietly in the seat reserved for the media just now, using his brain to collect testimony like a sponge.At this moment, his hostile eyes began to sweep around the black stands, and they happened to meet mine.He snorted and averted his gaze. "Jem," I said, "Mr. Underwood saw us." "Never mind. He won't tell Atticus. He'll put it straight in the social section of the Maycomb Tribune," Jem said, looking back, presumably explaining the lawsuit to Dill. wonderful, but I really don't know anything worth mentioning.Atticus and Mr. Gilmore were not engaged in a bitter war of words on any subject.Mr. Gilmore seemed somewhat reluctant to take on the prosecution; the witnesses were led like donkeys, raising few objections.However, Atticus once told us that in Judge Taylor's court, lawyers who applied rote rules to witnesses and testimony often ended up being snapped by the judge.He singled out this incident to tell me that he wanted me to understand that Judge Taylor seemed sluggish, as if he was taking a nap while trying cases, and that his verdicts were rarely overturned, which is a testament to his powers.Atticus said he was a good judge. A moment later, Judge Taylor was back in court and climbed into his swivel chair.He took a cigar from his vest pocket and studied it thoughtfully.I poked Dill.It appears the cigar passed the judge's scrutiny, and it was followed by a hard bite. "We come here sometimes just to see him," I said, "and he'll chew on it all afternoon. You'll see." Judge Taylor, unaware that he was being overtly watched upstairs, puffed on his cigarette butt. At the time, the cigar was first pushed to the lips very deftly, and then spit out with a "poof".The cigarette butt fell into the spittoon accurately, and we could all hear the sound of splashing water. "I bet he's pretty good at 'spit paper balls,'" Dill murmured. During the adjournment, people usually crowd out of the courtroom in droves, but today no one moved.Even the members of the "Idle People's Club" stood by the wall and did not move about. The group of old men tried at first to arouse the shame of the young people and gave up their seats, but failed.I guess Mr. Heck Tate has reserved all the county toilets for court personnel. Atticus and Mr. Gilmore returned, and Judge Taylor looked at his watch. "It's almost four o'clock," he said.It really made me wonder, the county hall clock must have struck at least twice, but I didn't hear a sound or feel a tremor. "Let's close the case this afternoon," Judge Taylor asked. "How about it, Atticus?" "I think it can be done." "How many witnesses do you have?" "One." "Okay, pass him up."