Chapter 6 six

People react differently to snowfall.Looking out of the window, Miss Amelia wiggled her bare toes thoughtfully, and pulled the collar of her nightgown closer to her neck.She stood there a moment, and then began to close the shutters and close all the windows.She locked the room tightly, lit the lamp, and sat solemnly before her bowl of polenta.She did this not because she was afraid of snow, but simply because she could not yet come to a definite view of this new event.If she doesn't have a concrete conclusion about a matter (and she usually does), she prefers to ignore it.It hadn't snowed in the county in all her life, and she hadn't thought one way or another about it.If she admitted the snow, she would have to make some sort of decision, and she had enough to worry about in those days.So she paced up and down the gloomy, lighted room, pretending nothing had happened.Cousin Lymon, on the contrary, ran about in a frenzy of excitement... and when Miss Amelia turned to serve him breakfast, he slipped out of the house.

Marvin Macy said that no one knew better about snow than he did.He said he knew what snow was like, he'd seen it in Atlanta, and from the way he walked around town that day, it seemed like every flake belonged to his family.The little child timidly crawled out of the house, picked up a handful of snow to taste what it was like, and laughed when he saw it.Reverend Welling hurried down the road with a scowling face, for he was struggling to figure out how he could weave the subject of snow into his Sunday sermon.Most of the people were humbled and delighted at the spectacle; they lowered their voices and used polite words like "excuse me" and "excuse me" needlessly.Of course, there were a few weak-willed fellows who lost their minds and drank their sorrows away--but there weren't many drunks.For ordinary people, this is a momentous moment. Many people count their own money and plan to go to the cafe for entertainment at night.

Cousin Lymon followed Marvin Macy all day, and he also said that Marvin Macy was Snow's authority.He was amazed that the snow didn't fall down like rain. He raised his neck and stared blankly at the dreamlike snowflakes falling slowly, and finally fell to the ground because of dizziness.Marvin Macy was full of air, and he followed suit——when people saw this scene, they couldn't help but want to insult him: "'Oh ho,' said the fly on the axle of the wagon. 'Look how high we raise the dust.'" Miss Amelia was not going to open for business.But at six o'clock, footsteps were heard on the front porch.She opened the front door cautiously.It was Henry "Curly" Ford, and though there was nothing to eat, she sat him down at the table and offered him a glass of wine.Others came too.The evening of this day was very bleak and bitterly cold. Although the snow had stopped, a gust of wind blew from the pine forest, blowing the fine snow powder flying all over the sky.Cousin Lymon didn't come back till dark, and Marvin Macy came with him, with his tin trunk and guitar.

"Are you going out?" asked Miss Amelia anxiously. Marvin Macy leaned against the stove to warm himself up first.Then, sitting down in his old seat, he carefully sharpened a small stick.He picked his teeth, and often took the stick out of his mouth to look at the tip, and wiped it on the cuff of his coat.He didn't even bother to answer. The hunchback looked at Miss Amelia standing behind the counter.There was nothing pleading in his face; he seemed confident.He folded his hands behind his back and pricked up his ears conceitedly.His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were shining, and his clothes were completely soaked. "Marvin Macy's coming to our house for a while," he said.

Miss Amelia made no objection.She simply came out from behind the counter and crouched over the stove, as if the news had suddenly sent a chill through her.When she was grilling her back, she was not as polite as other women in front of outsiders. They only lifted their skirts by an inch.Miss Amelia didn't know what it meant to be shy, and often she seemed to have completely forgotten that there was a man in the room.Now, standing by the fire, she held the back of her red dress up so high that anyone interested could look at her strong, hairy thighs.She turned her face to one side and began to talk to herself, nodding and frowning, her tone of voice contained blame and reprimand, although no one could hear what she was saying.Meanwhile the hunchback and Marvin Macy went upstairs--through the drawing-room with the pampas grass and the two sewing machines, and into the boudoir where Miss Amelia had lived all her life.

Downstairs in the cafe you could hear them banging around, Marvin Macy unpacking boxes, taking things out, settling himself. That was how Marvin Macy squeezed his way into Miss Amelia's house.At first Cousin Lymon slept on the sofa in the living room, because he had given up his room to Marvin Macy.But the snow took a toll on him physically; he caught a cold, which turned into a winter tonsillitis.So Miss Amelia gave him her bed.The sofa in the living room was too short for her, and her legs stuck out of the armrests, and she often rolled off the ground.Perhaps it was this lack of sleep that clouded her wits; all her attempts to frame Marvin Macy bounced back on herself.Falling into a trap of her own making, she finds herself repeatedly in dire situations.But she still didn't send Marvin Macy out because she was afraid that she would become a lonely person.After you've lived with other people, it becomes a torture to live alone.It is the silence of a lit room when the clock suddenly stops its ticking, the unnerving shadows of an empty house—so rather than face the horrors of living alone, let you His nemesis lived in.

Snow did not last long.As soon as the sun came out, the town was exactly the same as before in less than two days.Miss Amelia waited until every pile of snow had melted before opening the gate.Then she did a big cleaning, moving things out so they could see the sun.But before doing so, the first thing she did when she re-entered her yard was to tie a rope to the thickest branch of the neem tree.At the end of the rope she tied an orange sack stuffed tightly with sand.This is a punching bag she made for herself.From this day on, she went to the yard to practice boxing every morning.She wasn't a bad wrestler by any means—sluggish in gait, but more than made up for that in a mastery of all manner of unseemly grappling and shoving.

As already mentioned, Miss Amelia was six feet two tall.Marvin Macy was an inch shorter than she was.They were about the same weight--almost one hundred and sixty pounds each.Marvin Macy took advantage of his agility and chest muscles.In fact, outwardly, he had the overwhelming advantage.But almost everyone in town bet on Miss Amelia; hardly anyone wanted to bet money on Marvin Macy.The whole town remembers that fight between Miss Amelia and the lawyer who tried to trick her in Fork Falls.The lawyer was a tall, burly man, but by the time she had settled him, he was half dead.It wasn't just her boxing skills that impressed people—her grimaces and strange noises to confuse opponents and sometimes startle onlookers.She is very brave and seriously practices against the sandbag every day, and she obviously has a reason for doing so.So people trusted her and they waited.Of course, no date was fixed for the duel.But the signs of things are so obvious that anyone can see it.

During this period of time, the little hunchback walked up and down triumphantly, smiling on that little face with crowded features.He engaged in many cunning little maneuvers to drive discord between the two of them.He often pulled Marvin Macy's pant leg to draw the big man's attention to him.Sometimes he followed Miss Amelia's heels--but during this time his purpose was merely to imitate her big awkward stride;There was such a terrible signal in his movements that even the stupidest customer in the café, Merry Ryan, did not smile.Only Marvin Macy twisted the left corner of his mouth and giggled a few times.When this happened, two emotions were mingled in Miss Amelia's mind.She glanced at the hunchback with bewildered, frustrated reproach, then turned to Marvin Macy with clenched teeth.

"Make your belly laugh!" she said viciously. But Marvin Macy would pick the guitar up from the floor next to the chair most of the time.His voice was wet and sticky from the constant excess of spittle in his mouth.Singing slowly slipped out of his throat like an eel.His strong fingers deftly plucked the strings, and whatever he sang, the tone was both seductive and irritating.This was often more than Miss Amelia could tolerate. "I made you laugh out loud!" she cursed again, this time shouting. But Marvin Macy always returned her with a ready answer.He put his hands on the strings, stopped the trembling lingering sound, and replied word by word with a very clear insult:

"However you curse me, what will happen to you, hum, hum!" Miss Amelia stood helpless, for no one could think of anything good to do with such insults.She cannot speak of a curse that bounces back on herself.Marvin Macy had the upper hand on her, and she didn't know what to do. Things drag on like this.As to what happened between the three of them that night in the upstairs room, no one knows.However the cafe got more crowded every night and a new table had to be added.Even a lunatic named Renner Smith, who lived in the swamp years ago, got wind of it, and went to the window one night to look in, and brooded over the crowd in the bright café. .The climax of every evening was the moment when Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy clenched their fists, squared off, and stared at each other.This kind of confrontation did not necessarily appear after a specific quarrel, but it seemed that due to some instinct in the two of them, it mysteriously happened suddenly at a certain time.At such times the cafe was so silent that even the rustling of the paper flowers in the breeze could be clearly heard.Every night, the time of this stalemate is always longer than the previous night. The duel took place on Candlemas, which was the second of February.The weather was ideal, neither rain nor sun, and the temperature was moderate.There were certain indications that something was going to happen today, and by ten o'clock word had spread throughout the county.Early in the morning Miss Amelia went out into the yard and cut the sandbags down.Marvin Macy sat on the back steps with a jar of lard between his knees, carefully anointing his arms and legs.A vulture with a bloody breast flew over the town and circled twice over Miss Amelia's house.The tables in the café had been moved to the back porch to free up the entire Great Room for dueling.In addition, there are various other signs.Both Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy ate four pots of undercooked barbecue for lunch, and then lay down for an afternoon rest in order to recharge their batteries.Marvin Macy rested in the great room upstairs, and Miss Amelia sprawled out on a bench in her office.It was clear from her pale, frozen face how much she must suffer for lying still and doing nothing, but she lay still like a zombie with her eyes closed. , arms folded on chest. Cousin Li Meng had a very restless day, his little face was elongated and tense with excitement.He took a lunch and went out to find the groundhog. Every year, February 2nd is Candlemas, also known as "Groundhog Day".According to legend, groundhogs will leave their burrows after hibernation on that day. If the sky clears and sees their own shadows, they will retreat into their burrows and continue hibernating. —— came back in less than an hour, and ate the lunch he brought. He said that the groundhog saw his shadow, and there would be bad weather in the future.Then, with Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy both gone to rest for strength and leaving him alone, it occurred to him that he might as well paint the front porch.The house hadn't been painted in years - really only God knows if it had been painted before.Cousin Lymon climbed up and down and quickly painted half of the front porch a bright light green.This was the work of two knives, and he was covered in paint all over his body.He had an old problem, and the floor hadn't been painted yet, so he went to paint the walls instead.He painted as far as he could reach, then stood on top of a crate and painted an extra foot.The paint is used up, the floor on the right is pale green, and the saw-toothed line on the wall has been painted.Once it was painted like this, Cousin Li Meng left it alone. Paint can make him have fun, and there is a childish element in it.Having said that, one oddity should be mentioned.No one in town, including Miss Amelia, had any idea how old the hunchback was.Some say he was about twelve years old when he came to town, as a boy... others are sure he was well past forty.His eyes were pure blue, as clear as a child's, but beneath them there were lavender crepe shadows that belied his age.It is impossible to guess his age from his deformed body.Not even his teeth give any clues - he has none missing (only two broke off from eating pecans), but he eats too many sweets and his teeth are all yellow, so you can't tell Are they the teeth of the old man or the teeth of the young?When asked bluntly how old he was, the hunchback confessed frankly that he couldn't tell--he didn't know how long he had been here, whether it was ten years or a hundred!Therefore, his age is always a mystery. Cousin Lymon finished his painting job at five thirty in the afternoon.It was getting colder, and there was a faint smell of dampness in the air.A wind came from the pine forest and rattled the windows.An old newspaper was blown and rolled in the road until it got caught on a thorny tree.People began to come from the country; cars came jammed, and children's heads poked out of the windows like hedgehog fur; old mules came pulling wagons, smiling wearily and bitterly, Walking at a slow pace, with half-closed eyes and no energy.Here are three boys from Society City.All three of them wore yellow rayon shirts and caps pushed back—they looked alike in every way, as if they were triplets, and you could see them wherever there was cockfighting or camping.At six o'clock, the factory whistle sounded, and the day shift was over, so everyone gathered.Naturally, some of the newcomers were bums, some of unknown origin, and so on... But even so, the crowd was very quiet.The whole town was shrouded in silence, and people's faces gave people a strange feeling under the gradually dimming light.Darkness crept in, and for a moment the sky was a bright yellowish color, the gables of the church stood dark and sharp against it, and then the light died away and the thick twilight melted into night. Seven is an auspicious number, and Miss Amelia likes seven very much.She made him swallow seven sips of water for anyone who hiccups, ran around the reservoir seven times for a twisted neck, and took seven doses of "Emilia's Panacea" for stomach bugs—her treatment was almost equal to this amount. not open.This number will change in an ever-changing way, and all kinds of possibilities will emerge, but anyone who believes in gods and monsters attaches great importance to this number.Therefore, the duel will take place at seven o'clock.Everyone knows this point, not that anyone has declared it clearly, but everyone understands it, just as no one will ask why the rain and the stench from the swamp.So, before seven o'clock, every one gathered solemnly round the Amelia estate.The smartest entered the cafe and stood close together along the wall.The rest either crowded on the front porch or took a spot in the yard. Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy himself have not yet been seen.Miss Amelia went upstairs after resting on the office bench all afternoon.On the other hand, Cousin Li Meng appears under your nose at any time, he walks through the crowd, nervously beats the torreya with his fingers, and keeps blinking.At one minute to seven, he writhed and burrowed into the cafe and climbed up the counter.Everything was very quiet. This seems to have been arranged in some way in advance.For as soon as seven o'clock struck Miss Amelia appeared on the landing.At the same instant Marvin Macy appeared in front of the café, and the crowd made way for him without a sound.They approached each other unhurriedly, their fists clenched, their eyes like those of a sleepwalker.Miss Amelia took off her red dress and put on her old overalls, rolled up to her knees.She is barefoot and wears an iron band on her right wrist for added strength.Marvin Macy had his trouser legs rolled up too—he was bare to the waist and heavily oiled; he was wearing the big leather boots he had been issued when he left the prison.Stumpy McPhail stepped forward from the crowd and patted the rear pockets of the two with his right palm to make sure that neither had concealed a knife.Then, in the middle of the vacant room of the bright cafe, there were only the two of them left. No one gave any signal, but both of them shot at the same time.Both punches struck each other in the cheek, so that Miss Amelia's and Marvin Macy's heads were thrown back, and both were a little dizzy.For a few seconds after the first encounter, they simply moved their feet on the bare floor, experimented with various positions, and feinted a few punches.Then, Marvin Macy also touched his shoulder, and his body spun like a spinning top.The fight was going on with ferocity, and neither side showed signs of weakness. In a fight as sensitive and ferocious as these two, it's also interesting to look away from the melee to see the expressions on the faces of the spectators.People are sticking to the wall, lest they stand out too much.In a corner, the stout McPhail hunched over, clenched his fists in cheers, and made all kinds of weird noises.Silly Merrien opened his mouth so wide that a fly rushed in and swallowed it before he knew what was happening.And Cousin Lymon—he's even better.The hunchback was still standing on the counter, so he was taller than anyone else in the café.His hands were on his hips, his big head stuck out, his thin legs were bent, and his knees bulged out.He cried out with excitement, his pale lips trembling. After fighting for about half an hour, the situation began to change.The two sides have thrown hundreds of punches, but the situation is still deadlocked.Then suddenly Marvin Macy managed to grab Miss Amelia's left arm and twist it behind her back.She struggled and grabbed Marvin Macy by the waist; and that was when the real fight began.The most popular style of play in the county is still wrestling—boxing is too violent, too brain-intensive, and requires too much concentration.Now that Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy were writhing together, the crowd came out of their bewilderment and pushed forward.For a moment, two wrestlers muscle against muscle, hipbone against hipbone.Going forward for a while, backing for a while, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, they just pulled back and forth like this.Marvin Macy was still sweating, and Miss Amelia was soaking through her overalls, dripping down her legs profusely, leaving wet spots on the floor wherever she went. footprints.Now comes the time of trial, and in this critical moment, the stronger is Miss Amelia.Marvin Macy was oily and slippery and hard to hold on to, but Miss Amelia was stronger.Gradually she pushed Marvin Macy back, inch by inch forcing him to the ground.It was frightening to watch, and their deep, hoarse breathing was the only sound in the cafe.At last she made him lie flat with his legs spread; her strong hands were around his neck. But at that very moment, at the very moment when victory was about to be won, there was a shrill cry in the café, sending a violent shudder down the spine.What happened at this time has remained a mystery ever since.Everyone in the town was there, witnessing, but some people just couldn't believe their eyes.Cousin Lymon's counter was at least twelve feet away from where the fight was in the center of the café.But the moment Miss Amelia had Marvin Macy by the throat, the hunchback jumped up and glided through the air as if he had sprouted a pair of hawk wings.He landed on Miss Amelia's broad shoulders and clawed at her neck with his bird-thin fingers. It was chaos after that.Miss Amelia was defeated before anyone could wake up.With the help of hunchback, Marvin Macy won, leaving Miss Amelia lying on her back, her arms stretched out, motionless.Marvin Macy was leaning over her, his eyes a little cross-eyed, but still wearing his usual half-open smile.And that hunchback, he suddenly disappeared.Maybe he was terrified of what he had done, maybe he was too happy to avoid the celebration—anyway he had slipped out of the café and slipped under the back steps.Someone splashed water in Miss Amelia's face, and after a while she stood up slowly and staggered into her office.Through the open door she could be seen sitting at the desk, with her head in her arms, sobbing, almost out of breath.Once she clenched her right fist with all her strength and pounded it on the desk three times, then loosened her hand feebly, with her palms stretched upwards, motionless.Stumpy MacPhail stepped forward and closed the door. The crowd was very quiet and people left the cafe one by one.The mule was roused from sleep and the reins were untied; the crank of the car was cranked, and the three boys from Society City wandered off down the road.It's not a fight to linger on and talk about; people go home and pull the covers over their heads.The whole town was dark except for Miss Amelia's house.All the rooms in her house are lit, and they stay on all night. Marvin Macy and hunchback must have left town an hour or so before daylight.They did these things before they left: They fetched the key, opened the treasure chest of curios, and took all the items inside. They smashed the mechanical piano. They carved a lot of nasty expletives on cafe tables. They found the watch with the waterfall on the back that could be opened, and took it too. They dumped a gallon of syrup all over the kitchen and smashed all the candied jars. They went to the swamp and smashed the distillery to pieces, destroyed the big new condenser and cooler, and set fire to the shed. They made a pot of polenta, a favorite of Miss Amelia's, with sausages, mixed with enough poison to kill the whole county, and they set it temptingly on the cafe counter. They did all the sabotage they could think of, but they didn't break into the office where Miss Amelia was spending the night.After that, they both left. This is how Miss Amelia was left alone in the town.The people of the town were willing to help her, and the people of this town were willing to do good deeds as often as they got the chance, if they knew how.A few housewives came with brooms, sniffed, and offered to help her clean up the mess.But Miss Amelia just looked at them with a blank sideways glance, and shook her head.Stumpy MacPhail came in on the third day and asked for a small Zacquine leaf, which Miss Amelia said was a dollar.Everything in the cafe suddenly costs a dollar a unit.What kind of coffee shop was this? Besides, her medical practice had also undergone a strange change.She had had a lot more authority than Cheehaw's doctor over the years.She never tortured the minds of patients, and she would not let them avoid drinking, smoking and other things that cannot be lived without for a day.Only very rarely, she took care of the patients carefully, never to eat fried watermelon or such strange dishes that people would not think to eat.Now this set of clever doctors do not know where to go.For some of her patients, she declared bluntly that they were going to die sooner or later; for others, she suggested medical treatments so far-fetched and so torturous that no one in their right mind would even consider them. Miss Amelia let her hair go wild and it was starting to turn gray.Her face grew longer, and her well-developed muscles atrophied until she was as thin as a mad spinster.And her gray eyes--they were more cock-fighting every day, as if they wanted to be near each other, to have a look at each other, to let out some bitterness, to share some sympathy.Her mouth was also unpleasant, and her voice was harsh. If anyone mentioned the hunchback, she always simply said: "O! If I catch him, I'll take out his insides and throw them to the cat!" It wasn't these words that were terrible, but The tone of her voice.Her voice had lost some of its earlier vibrancy; the vindictive energy with which she used to refer to "the mechanic who married me" and other enemies was long gone.Her voice was staccato, weak, and mournful, like a leaky church organ. For three years she sat alone on the front step every night in silence, looking out the road and waiting.But the hunchback never came back, and there were rumors that Marvin Macy let him climb through windows and steal things, and others that Marvin Macy sold him to a sideshow.But after tracing back to the root, these rumors were all spread by Merrienne.No real information at all.In the fourth year, Miss Amelia had a carpenter from Chehoe, and had him board up the windows and doors, and she had been in the closed room ever since. Yes, small towns are dreary.The road was empty on an August afternoon, the dust was blindingly white, and overhead the sky was as bright as glass.Nothing moved - not even a child's voice could be heard.Some are just the sound of camping from the factory.The peach trees seemed to get more twisted each summer, their leaves dark gray and sickly limp.Miss Amelia's house slumped even further to the right, and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed completely, and people were now cautiously avoiding the yard.There's no good wine to buy in town these days, the nearest distillery is eight miles away, and the sort of wine that gives tumors in the liver the size of peanuts and all sorts of amazing nightmares.There really isn't much to do in town.You can only walk around the cistern a few times, pausing to kick the rotting tree stumps and wondering what else to do with that old cart wheel on the side of the road near the church.You might as well go to the Fork Falls Highway and hear the convicts sing. The Fork Falls Highway was three miles from town, and it was here that the convicts worked.The road is gravel, and the county government decided to level the potholes and widen several dangerous places.There were a total of twelve people in the hard labor team, all wearing black and white striped prison uniforms, with shackles tied around their ankles.Here was a guard with a gun, his eyes turned into two red slits from staring.The hard labor team worked from morning to night, and at dawn a prison cart brought them here, and twelve people were packed full in the cart.At dusk, I took a cart back again.All day long there was the sound of shovels digging, the strong sunlight and the smell of sweat.But the singing is there every day.A sullen voice began, singing only half a sentence, as if asking a question.After a while, another voice joined in, and then the whole convict team sang.In the golden blinding sun, the singing was very dark, and they sang all kinds of songs, some melancholy and some lighthearted.The music swelled until it seemed that the sound did not come from the mouths of the twelve men of the penal team, but from the earth itself, or the vast sky.This kind of music can open the heart, and the listener will be chilled with ecstasy and fear.The music gradually died down, until at last there was only one solitary sound, and then a hoarse gasp, and the sun was seen again, and the sound of the shovel was heard in the silence. What kind of penitentiary team could make such music? Just twelve living men, seven black boys and five white youths from the county.Just twelve living people staying together.