Chapter 5 Fives

The hunchback was getting impatient.He couldn't tolerate anything happening behind his back, even if it was a catastrophe.The name Marvin Macy had never been heard of him, but it appealed to him.Whenever other people mentioned things that everyone knew but he didn't, he felt itchy and wanted to know--for example, the sawmill that he demolished before he came, or Maurice Feinstein, the poor man, or Anything that happened when he wasn't here.In addition to this natural curiosity, the hunchback also has a great interest in robberies and crimes of all kinds.He walked around the table repeating the words "parole" and "prison" over and over again.But, in spite of his pressing inquiries, he found nothing, and no one dared tell anything about Marvin Macy in the presence of Miss Amelia in the café.

"The letters don't say much," said Henry Macy. "He didn't say where he was going." "Hmph!" said Miss Amelia, her face still very stern, very gloomy. "His stinky hoof is not going to step on my territory." She pushed back her chair to close the shop.Perhaps it was the thought of Marvin Macy that worried her a little, and she moved the cash register into the kitchen and put it in a safe place.Henry Macy walked down the dark road.But Curly Henry Ford and Merry Ryan lingered on the front porch for a while.Later, Merrien insisted that she had a hallucination that night, and foresaw what would happen in the future.But no one in the town paid any attention to him, because the man kept saying the same thing.Miss Amelia and Cousin Lymon talked for some time in the drawing room.Finally, the hunchback felt sleepy, so she put down the mosquito net for him, and waited for him to finish his prayers.

After that, she put on her nightgown, smoked two packs of cigarettes, and finally fell asleep after a long time. It was a happy time that fall.The surrounding countryside has a good harvest.In the Fork Falls market, the price of tobacco had been firm that year.After a long, hot summer, the cool first few days were even more refreshing. On that dusty road, golden chrysanthemums grew on the side of the road, and the sugarcane was ripe, revealing purple red.Every day the bus from Chehoe brought several children to the public schools for education.Boys were hunting foxes in the pine forest, winter quilts were hanging on the laundry line, sweet potatoes were spread on the ground, and hay was covered to protect against the severe cold in the future.At dusk, smoke rises from the chimneys, and the moon appears round and orange in the autumn sky.During the first cold nights of autumn, everything was as silent as it could ever be.Sometimes, late at night, as long as there was no wind, the town could hear the squeaky whistle of the train going north through Society City.

It was a busy season for Miss Amelia.She worked from daybreak to sundown.She had built a new and larger condenser for her distillery, which in a week could get the whole county drunk.Her old mule was dizzy from grinding so much sorghum.She scalds the jars and stores the peach jam.She waited with gusto for the first frost, for she had bought three large hogs and was going to make a large batch of roasts and sausages big and small. During these weeks a new feature had been noticed in Miss Amelia.She often laughed, and it was a deep, sonorous laugh. She also whistled more lively and melodiously, which was a bit tricky.She is often testing how strong she is, lifting heavy objects and poking her hard biceps with her fingers.She sat down at her typewriter one day and wrote a story—with foreigners in it, and traps in it, and millions of dollars involved.Cousin Lymon was with her all the time, always lounging after her.Miss Amelia looked at him with a bright, tender look on her face, and there was a tinge of love in her voice when she called his name.

The first cold snap finally came.Miss Amelia awoke one morning to find frost on the window-panes, and the frost made the clumps of dead grass in the yard glisten with silver.Miss Amelia lit a blazing fire in the kitchen stove, and went to the door to check the weather.The air was cold and chilling, and the pale blue sky was cloudless.Soon people were coming into town from the country to ask what Miss Amelia thought of the weather.She decided to kill the biggest pig, and the news spread to the country.The pig was slaughtered, and a simmering oak fire was lit in the barbecue pit.There was a warm smell of pig's blood and smoke in the backyard.Footsteps and human voices vibrated in the winter air.Miss Amelia was walking up and down, giving orders, and soon the work was almost done.

She had some special business to do in Chehoe that day, so when she was confident that everything was going well, she cranked the car, started the car, and got ready to go.She asked Cousin Li Meng to go with her. In fact, she had told him seven times, but he was reluctant to leave this chaotic and lively scene, and did not want to leave.This made Miss Amelia a little bit at a loss, because she always liked to have the hunchback with her, and she would definitely miss home very much when she went out alone, no matter how far or near.But after asking him seven times, she stopped pressing him.Before leaving, she found a stick and drew a heavy line around the fire pit, fully two feet away from the edge of the pit, and told him not to cross this line.

She left after lunch, intending to be back before dark. It's not uncommon these days for a truck or a car to come down the road from Chehoe, go through town and go somewhere else.Every year, the tax collectors come to mess with rich people like Miss Amelia.If anyone else in town, like Merry Ryan, thought he could afford to buy a car on credit, or bring home a nice refrigerator like the one in the Cheehaw window for three dollars down the road, then, A townsman would come down and ask a lot of embarrassing questions, investigate all the flaws in his finances, and ruin his plan to buy things on credit by installments.Sometimes, especially when the convicts were working on the Fork Falls Road, cars would pull them through town.People who drive cars often get lost and stop to ask how to go.It was not uncommon, therefore, for a truck to pass the mill late that day and stop in the middle of the road not far from Miss Amelia's Cafe.A man jumped out of the back of the truck and the truck drove off again.

The man stood in the middle of the road and looked around.He was tall, with brown curly hair, and dark blue eyes that moved slowly.His lips were very red, and his smile was that lazy, half-lipped smile of a braggart.The man wore a red shirt and a wide machine belt; he carried a tin trunk and a guitar.The first person in the town to see him was Cousin Limon. Cousin Limon heard the sound of a car shifting gears and ran over to see what was going on.The hunchback stuck its head out from the corner of the porch, but did not show its whole body.He and the stranger stared at each other for a while, not the kind of quick glances that two strangers get when they meet for the first time.They stared at each other strangely, like two criminals who knew each other.Then the man in the red shirt shrugged his left shoulder, turned and walked away.The hunchback saw him walking down the road, and his face became pale. After a while, the hunchback began to follow cautiously, with several steps between them.

Soon, the whole town knew that Marvin Macy was back.He went to the textile factory first, rested his elbows lazily on the window sill, and looked in.Like all natural slackers, he loves watching people toil at work.The textile factory suddenly became disorganized as if paralyzed.The dyers left the hot vats, the spinners and weavers forgot to tend their machines, and even Stumpy Macphail, the foreman, didn't know what to do with himself.Marvin Macy was still grinning with his wet mouth half-open, and the blowhard's expression hadn't changed a bit even when he saw his brother.When he had seen enough of the factory, Marvin Macy walked down the road to the house where he had grown up and left his suitcase and guitar on the porch.Then he walked round the cistern, looking at the church, the three shops, and other parts of the town.The hunchback shuffled along behind him at a distance, with his hands in his pockets, his little face still pale.

It was getting late.The blood-red winter sun was sinking, and the western sky was a dusky gold and crimson.The shaggy swift returned to its nest on the chimney.Lights were lit in every house.Here and there there was a whiff of smoke and the warm, rich aroma of meat slowly roasting in the fire pit at the back of the café.After exploring the town, Marvin Macy stopped in front of Miss Amelia's shop and read the sign on the porch.Then, not at all concerned about trespassing, he crossed the side yard to one side of the house.The factory whistle blew weakly and sadly for a while, and the day shift was over.Soon, besides Marvin Macy, many people came to Miss Amelia's backyard—"Curly Haired" Henry Ford, Merry Ryan, Stump MacPhail, and many children and adults, they stood Outside the owner's territory, look inward.People rarely speak.Marvin Macy stood alone on one side of the fire pit, and the rest of the group clustered on the other side.Cousin Lymon kept a certain distance from everyone, and he never took his eyes off Marvin Macy's face for a moment.

"You've had a good time in prison, haven't you?" Merry Ryan asked, laughing stupidly. Marvin Macy did not answer.He fished a large knife from his rear hip pocket, opened it slowly, and scraped at the rear of his pants.Merrienne suddenly became very quiet, and he moved to hide safely behind Stump MacPhail's very broad back. Miss Amelia didn't come back until almost dark.She was still far away, and people heard the rattle rattle of her car, and then the slamming of the door and the banging, as if she were dragging something heavy up the steps.The sun had gone down, and the sky was filled with that blue misty gleam of early winter evenings.Miss Amelia walked slowly down the back steps, and the group in the backyard waited in great silence.Few people in this world can compete with Miss Amelia, and she has such a special hatred for Marvin Macy.Everyone was waiting to see how she would throw a tantrum, seize a dangerous item, and drive him out of town, body and soul.She did not see Marvin Macy at first, and she still had that peaceful, dreamy look on her face which comes naturally when she comes home after a long walk. Miss Amelia must have seen Marvin Macy and Cousin Lymon at the same instant.Her eyes flicked from one person to the other.But it wasn't the rogue out of prison who caught her unnatural, bewildered look.She, and everyone else, was watching Cousin Lymon, and he was indeed worth watching. The hunchback stood at one end of the fire pit, his pale face lit by the gleam of the simmering fire of smoking oak.Cousin Lymon has a very special skill, which he always uses when he wants to curry favor with someone.All he had to do was stand still and concentrate, and he could wiggle his large pale ears quickly and naturally.He had always done this when he wanted to ask for something special from Miss Amelia, and he had tried it time and time again, and it always got what he wanted.Now there stood the hunchback, his ears writhing delightfully on his head.But this time it was not Miss Amelia he was looking at.The hunchback was smiling at Marvin Macy, almost beggingly begging.At first Marvin Macy paid no attention to the hunchback, and when he finally glanced at the hunchback there was nothing appreciative in his eyes. "What's wrong with the broken-back?" He pointed contemptuously at the hunchback with his thumb. No one answered.Cousin Li Meng saw that his move didn't work, so he resorted to a new trick.He moved his eyelids as if two caught white moths were fluttering in their eye sockets.He rubbed his feet on the ground around him, waved his hands, and finally danced a simple chip dance.In the dim, darkening twilight of a winter evening, he was like the ghost of a child in a haunted scene in the swamp. Of all the people in the yard, only Marvin Macy was completely unmoved. "Is the little old man epileptic?" he asked.Still no one answered him.He took a step forward and slapped Cousin Li Meng on the temple.The hunchback staggered two steps and fell to the ground.He sat on the ground, his eyes still up at Marvin Macy, and with such an effort that his ears fluttered pitifully one last time. Then all turned to see what Amelia was going to do.Over the years, no one dared to touch Cousin Li Meng, although many people had such a temptation in their hearts.As long as someone said something harsh to Cousin Lymon, Miss Amelia would no longer let this reckless guy pay for it, and after a long time, she would find trouble for him to wear shoes.No one would be surprised, therefore, if Miss Amelia then took the ax that lay on the back porch and split Marvin Macy's head in two.But she didn't do that. Miss Amelia was lost in thought sometimes.Everyone knows and understands the reason for the ecstasy.Miss Amelia is a good doctor, and if she had ground up some swamp root, or concocted any new medicine, she would never have tried it on the visiting patients; she had developed a new medicine , always test on yourself first.She took a big dose and spent the next day pacing thoughtfully between the café and the brick toilet.Often, with a sudden cramping pain in her stomach, she would stand still, her strange eyes fixed on the ground, her fists clenched; she wondered which organ in her body was being affected, what ailments the new drug might cure. Now, when she looked at Hunchback and Marvin Macy, she had the same expression on her face, as if she was trying to identify which part of her body was having trouble, although she hadn't tried a new drug that day. "That can teach you a lesson, something that breaks your spine," Marvin Macy said. Marvin Macy brushed his limp gray hair back from his forehead and coughed nervously.Stumpy MacPhail and Merry Ryan wiped their feet, and the children and blacks outside the yard were silent.Marvin Macy folded the knife he was scratching, and after looking around unscrupulously, he walked out of the yard swaggeringly.The embers in the fire pit turned to gray feathery ash, and it was completely dark. This is what happened when Marvin Macy returned from prison.No living person in town liked to see him, not even Mrs. Maryhal.She was a kind woman, and she had brought up Marvin Macy with great affection—when she saw him for the first time, the frying pan she was holding fell to the floor, and tears welled up in her eyes.But nothing disturbed that Marvin Macy.He sat on the back steps of Hal's house, lazily strumming his guitar, and when supper was done, he pushed the children around the house and filled himself with a big bowl, though the tortillas and white meat weren't enough for everyone. Quite a bit.When he was full, he found the most comfortable and warmest corner in the front room, and slept until dawn without even having a dream. Miss Amelia's Cafe was closed that evening.She took great care to lock all the doors and windows.People didn't see any movement between her and Cousin Li Meng, but the light in her bedroom remained on until dawn. Marvin Macy brings bad luck to the town, and that's to be expected from the start.The next day the weather suddenly changed, and it was very hot and muggy.Even early in the morning, the air is damp and the air pressure is low.The wind brought the smell of decay from the swamp, and the squeaky little mosquitoes swarmed over the green reservoir like cobwebs.This is extremely abnormal, worse than August, causing a lot of damage to people.Almost every household in the county that had pigs followed Miss Amelia's example and slaughtered the pigs the day before.How could the bratwurst last long in this weather? After a few days, there was a smell of decaying pork everywhere, and an air of depressing waste.To make matters worse, a family near the Fork Falls Highway was celebrating a reunion, and all of them were poisoned after eating barbecue. Not even one remained.Obviously, their pork has gone bad - who knows if other meats are safe or not? People want to satisfy their gluttons but are afraid of death. It's a dilemma.It was a time of waste and chaos. Marvin Macy was at the root of it all, and yet he had no shame.People see him everywhere.At work he wandered around the mill, looking in the windows.On Sundays he put on his red shirt and slid up and down the road with his guitar in his arms.He was still handsome--brown-haired, red-lipped, broad-shouldered; but his wickedness was so well-known that, in spite of his good looks, no one wanted to approach him.He was considered evil not just because of the specific crimes he committed.Indeed, he robbed gas stations several times.Before that, he spoiled the prettiest girl in the county and took pride in it.The number of evils that could be put to his name is almost too great to list, but apart from them there was in him an indescribable meanness which clung to him like a stink.There was another odd thing—he never sweated, not even in August, and that was indeed a thought-provoking thing. He was more dangerous to the town now than ever, for he must have learned the art of demagogy in the Atlanta jail.How else could he explain his influence on Cousin Lymon? The hunchback had been possessed by a wild ghost from the first moment he saw Marvin Macy.He couldn't leave the prisoner for a minute, always following him, and always thinking of silly tricks to attract his attention.And Marvin Macy was still either very cruel to him, or ignored him at all.Sometimes the hunchback loses heart and leans against the front porch railing like a sick bird perched on a telephone wire, and makes no secret of his sadness. "Why do you?" Miss Amelia would ask sometimes, looking at him with her gray squinting eyes and clenching her fists. "Oh, Marvin Macy," lamented the hunchback, and the mention of the name broke his sobs and made him hiccup. "He's been to Atlanta." Miss Amelia always shook her head, and her face became dark and stern.To begin with, she had no tolerance for travel; she always had a deep contempt for people who went out to Atlanta or walked fifty miles to see the sea, people who couldn't sit still. "What a show he's had in Atlanta!" "He's been in prison," said the hunchback, envious and envious. What have you to say about such jealousy? Amelia was at a loss, and was not sure what to say to herself. "Ever been to a prison? A trip like that is nothing to brag about." During these weeks Miss Amelia was closely observed by everyone.She walked around in a trance, with an indifferent expression on her face, as if she had fallen into the trance state of abdominal pain after taking medicine.For some reason, since Marvin Macy's arrival, she had put away her overalls and kept wearing the red dress she used to wear on Sundays, funerals, and court appearances.Weeks passed before she began to take steps to clarify the situation.But her efforts are hard to comprehend.If she didn't want to see Cousin Limon follow Marvin Macy around the city, why didn't she make it clear and show her cards to the hunchback: If she and Marvin Macy get stuck again, ask him to get out of her house? It was very easy to do that, and Cousin Lymon would either give in to her or be homeless like a stray dog.But Miss Amelia seemed to have lost her will; for the first time in her life she hesitated, and could not make up her mind which way to go.And, like many people in this situation, she did the worst thing—several conflicting things at once. The café is open as usual every evening.Oddly enough, when Marvin Macy swaggered in—with a hunchback behind him—she didn't throw him out.She even gave him drinks for nothing, and smiled at him foolishly and unnaturally.At the same time, she planted a very powerful trap for him in the swamp, and if he fell into it, his death would be no problem.She got Cousin Lymon to invite him to dinner on Sunday, and then tried to trip him up as he came down the steps.She waged a big campaign to keep Cousin Lymon entertained--exhausting trips to faraway places to see all sorts of excitement, driving thirty miles to a lecture-concert, Take him to Fork Falls to see the costume parade.On the whole, it was a disconcerting time for Miss Amelia.In the eyes of many people, she is literally climbing the Fool's Mountain, and everyone is waiting to see what the result will be. The weather is turning cold again and winter has come to town.Before the last shift of the textile factory was off work, night had already fallen.The children did not take off their coats when they slept, and the girls with their skirts pulled up from behind were roasting mesmerizingly in front of the fire.After the rain, the wet mud on the road froze into hard icy ruts, the lights flickered in the windows of the houses, and the peach trees were thin and bare.On dark, silent winter nights, the café is the warm heart of the town, so brightly lit that it can be seen half a mile away.The big iron stove at the end of the room roared, burst, and burned red.Miss Amelia put red curtains on the windows, and she bought a bunch of paper roses from a passing salesman, which looked very real. However, the reason why a coffee shop has a status in people's minds is not only because it is warm as spring, beautifully decorated and brightly lit.There's a deeper reason why the town prizes the café so much.It has something to do with a sense of pride that this part of the world has not experienced before.In order to understand this new pride, you have to remember how humble people's lives are.There are always many people clustered around every factory - but far from every family has enough food, clothing and greasy and spicy delicacies.Life can also be a long process of finding ways to keep one's life going.But there is one thing that confuses people, that is: all useful things have a price, and you can't buy them without spending money. This is the current world.There's a price for a bale of cotton, a quart of molasses, you know, but you don't have to worry about how that price comes about.But no one has set a price on how much a human life is worth; when it is given to you, it is given for nothing, and when it is taken back, it is also free.How much is it worth? If you look around carefully, you will find that sometimes it is worth little or even nothing.Sometimes when you're sweating profusely and trying hard and things aren't going anywhere, you get a feeling in the back of your mind that your life isn't worth much. But the new sense of pride that the café brought to the town affected almost everyone, even the children.You don't have to have dinner or buy wine if you want to sit in a café.For a nickel, you can have a bottle of cold drink! If you can't afford even that, Miss Amelia has a drink called Cherry Dew, a penny a cup, pink and very sweet.Almost all of them, except Reverend TM Welling, come to the café at least once a week.Children always love to sleep in other people's houses and eat at the neighbor's table; they always do well and take great pride in such occasions.The townspeople are equally proud when they sit at cafe tables.They always washed themselves clean before they went to Miss Amelia's shop, and they always scraped their feet on the threshold of the café with great courtesy.Here, at least for a few hours, the excruciatingly painful thought of being worthless in the world can be temporarily suppressed. For bachelors, freaks, and tuberculosis patients, coffee houses are a good place to go.It may be mentioned here that there are reasons to suspect that Cousin Li Meng suffers from tuberculosis.His gray eyes were too bright, his temper was too stubborn, he talked too much, and he coughed a lot—these were the symptoms.Besides, it is generally believed that the curvature of the spine has a certain relationship with tuberculosis.Whenever the matter was mentioned to Miss Amelia, she flew into a fit of rage; she vehemently denied the symptoms, but in private she gave Cousin Lymon hot compresses on her chest and made her feel angry. He drank Wanjin wine, and so on.This winter, the hunchback coughed worse, and sometimes he would sweat profusely when the weather was cold.But that didn't stop him from following Marvin Macy. Every morning he left the house and went to Mrs. Hale's back door, and waited and waited--for Marvin Macy was a sleeper?He always stands there, calling softly.His voice is like those children squatting patiently at the opening of a small hole on the ground. They think that there are ants in the hole, and they always poke the hole with the grass picked up from the broom, and at the same time call out sadly: "Ant flies Hurry home. Antling mother, come out quickly. Your house is on fire. The little antling has become a mess." It was in this kind of tone—pitiful, seductive, and helpless—the hunchback every morning Call Marvin Macy's name.When Marvin Macy came out to fool around, he followed him around town, and sometimes they went into the swamp together for hours. And Miss Amelia was doing what couldn't be worse: trying different things at the same time.When Cousin Li Meng left home, she didn't call him back, but just stood in the middle of the road, watching him lonely until his figure disappeared.Almost every day, at supper time, Marvin Macy appeared with Cousin Lymon to dine at her table.Miss Amelia opened her jar of preserves, and on the table lay ham or chicken, big bowls of polenta, and winter peas.Indeed, Miss Amelia once tried to poison Marvin Macy--but somehow went wrong, got the dishes mixed up, and it was herself who ate the poisoned dish.As soon as she ate it, she felt a bit bitter, and immediately understood that she didn't eat dinner at all that day.She sat in the reclining chair, felt her muscles, and looked at Marvin Macy. Every evening Marvin Macy came to the café and sat down at the best and largest table in the center of the room.Cousin Li Meng brought him wine, but he didn't pay for it.Marvin Macy pushed the hunchback aside as if it were a little gnat flying out of the swamp, and not only did he not appreciate the hospitality, but if he thought the hunchback was in the way, he would give him a piece of his hand, asking for it. Or just say, "Go away, you broken-back--look I'll rip your hair out." When that happened, Miss Amelia came out from behind the counter, very slowly Approaching Marvin Macy, fists clenched, the outlandish red dress wrapped awkwardly in front of her big bony knees.Marvin Macy clenched his fists too, and the two of them circled slowly and menacingly at each other.But although everyone watched with bated breath, nothing happened.The time for a duel has not yet come. The reason why this winter is remembered by people, and it is still mentioned today, is also due to a special reason.It turned out that something big happened this winter.On January 2nd, people woke up to find that the whole world around them was completely changed.The innocent little child looked out the window, not knowing what was going on, and even started crying.The old man searched his brains and could not think of anything comparable to this that had happened in the area.It turned out that it snowed that night.In the darkest hours of the night after midnight, dark snowflakes began to fall softly upon the town.By dawn the ground was covered, and strange snow drifted against the ruby-coloured windows of the church and covered the roof with a white blanket.The snow made the town look ugly and deserted. The houses next to the factory looked dirty and crooked, as if they were about to collapse.For some reason, everything has become very dark and listless.But the snowflake itself—it has a beauty in it that few people around here have ever experienced.Snowflakes are not white as northerners describe them.The snowflakes contain soft hues of blue and silver, while the sky is a bright gray.When the snowflakes fell, the surroundings were as quiet as a dream—had the town ever been so quiet?